Things I love about my job

I love my job. Have I told you that lately? This week was rough because I spent more than my fair share driving all over North America to drop the boy at camp and get to work and go back and get him and oh, yeah. Take Jessica all the way over there and then get Geoff to camp and then get to work... I think I put over 400 miles on my car alone in the past 3 days. It's not normal for me to do so. But. Even though I wasn't AT work a ton of time this week, I love work. We have Beverage Friday, sometimes it is simply Beer Friday. Sometimes it is Margaritas. MC and Captain and Coke today, and felt really weird putting the bottle of booze into his desk like he's the closet alkie. Beer is kept in the fridge, so there isn't any sitting in your desk drawer drawing aspersions towards the nature of your character.

I had Guinness tonight. It was "brilliant!" Mikey, you shoulda been there. It was a thing of beauty.

Anyway -- one of the features of Beverage Friday is blabbing. We chat. We talk. We get to know one another. Sometimes it is all business. How was your week? Did this go well? What is our plan for next week? Other times, like today, it's just jibber jabber about life, the universe and everything. C, MC, and JTF and I had a lot of fun talking about engagement rings and the philosophies of 2 months salary as a good price for a freaking ring. My ring cost less than 300 bucks, and it is lovely and perfect and wonderful, and you'll note that I'm too fat to wear it anymore (since having kids and getting extra squishy). Unless I get it resized, of course.

And while we were chatting, I continued to work. Scheduling the content. Gotta schedule the content. DL discovered that if you only programmed 1/3 of a week's content across one of the chains, it would break everything. So... I set to making sure 2 weeks from now's content was fully 100% scheduled across the board.

While chatting.

And you know what happened? I messed up. I put the wrong content on the wrong screens. And I'm glad I caught it. But it is official. I can no longer work during Beverage Friday. Unless everyone else is far, far away from me. I did okay until people came a'talkin'. And then I mussed the bed.

I stayed until about 6:15 fixing things, and kicking myself.

Duh.

What's on the agenda this weekend? Well, there was initial discussion of going to Vermont tomorrow and camping overnight. Not sure if we're going to do it or not. Jessica DESPERATELY wants to go to some bookstore at midnight tonight for the stupid Harry Potter book. I told her we'll wait five days when it will be on sale at Sam's Club for 70% off the cover price. And I so don't want to be in a bookstore at midnight with elevendy million squeeling pre- and post-pubescent kids.

I'd rather stick forks in my eyes.

So if we don't go to Vermont, I'm not sure what we'll do but I bet stalking Tupperware containers in the forest will come up as an option. Next weekend we go on vacation. I don't think I'll be sticking around for Beverage Friday next week. But we'll see how things go.

On that note. Jessica -- shut up. Go away. Stop reading over my shoulder.

Observations on the Roads of the Eastern Seaboard

I spend a lot of time in traffic. Way more than I'd like to. My commute is relatively painless. I know the routes, I know the back roads. I know if I want to get trapped like a drowning rat in a box in the hull of a sinking ship I can always go to rte 114 in Peabody and sit and await the Apocalypse. It'll come first before I make it to I-95.

Lately, I'm not sure if it is the nice weather, but people are driving extra turdy and it is really getting to me. I thought I would share some of my latest observations on the commute, and see if you all have had similar experiences. I already shared about the woman who drove like she needed help, and how when I tried to assist her she gave me "'tude." So we can add this in the similar theme, vein, motif, category, if you will.

First, the other day I was cut off by someone driving a Roach Coach. For those of you unfamiliar with the term "Roach Coach," it is a truck laden with equipment and accessories which makes it a rolling restaurant. A "Canteen" truck is another term used in polite society. Usually the back is all silvery and patterned with diamond shapes, and the drivers are fucking retards to begin with, in a huge hurry to get to their next dollar. Not really realizing that they're spending ten times as much on gas as they would be if they just parked it and stood still and allowed customers to approach them. So he's in the left turn lane, I'm going straight. He cuts me off and I beep. Yes, I beeped. And then he slows down to negative two miles per hour to irritate me (and the 8 million other commuters behind us) and flips me the bird when he finally turns right.

Nice.

Fuck him. I hope that his customers get botulism or salmonella poisoning and die, and the surviving families sue him into destitution.

Next are the people who pull out in front of me by jack rabbit starting, and then they slow down to negative eleven once they are in front of me. "Whew! So glad I didn't get hit by that lady! I think I'll just slow it down some now... how about to negative eleven? That's a good speed when the posted speed limit is 40 mph. Yeah." These people suck long and hard. The thing that irritates me the MOST from these folks is the fact that 9 out of 10 times no one is behind me. They simply have to wait a few millisecond until I pass, and then they have the entire vacant roadway to pull out into at their leisure. But no. They cannot wait. They are entitled to be in front of me. They are usually "Yummy Mommy" types, size 2 after four kids, in the Lexus or Acura MDX or Beemer Mobiles and they are entitled BECAUSE. They insist on cutting my ass off. Why? So they can get there before me. Wherever there is. Usually in Marblehead, it is to getting their nails done at a posh salon.

Nice.

Fuck them.

I hope their Vietnamese illegal alien nail doer lady jabs the cuticle too hard and they get some sort of horrible infection which renders their hands useless and handicapped forever. Maybe then they can hire a driver who knows the rules of the road while they sit in the back seat lamenting their poor choices in life and why the judge ruled against them in the lawsuit.

Next is the landscaping truck. The other day I was cut off by one of these trucks in Swampscott. None of the tail lights on the gianormous humongous obscenely big trailer were functioning, so I had to keep my distance and use my keen sense of depth perception to know when they were coming to a stop, or slowing down. I was behind these guys almost all the way to my office. And I decided, as with the lady who couldn't drive for shit, that I would follow them, and inform them that they suck the wool off passing sheep, and suggest that they get a clue and fix their trailer connections.

So I follow them, and they are working on a little side street near my office. They're all like Mexican or Guatemalan or something. Only ONE of them speaks any semblance of what I might call English. They get out of their big assed Ford Pickup truck, all eight of them, and I stop my car and tell them what the problem is.

I let the driver know, that I'm only letting him know this so that he doesn't KILL someone on the way to the next job or back to the shop. I let him know that I almost DIED because they don't know the blue plug goes into the blue thingie. He barks at the orders to some of the guys, and they set to fixing the connections.

Yeah, the Marblehead police would pull you over and what. Ticket you? Deport all of your illegal asses back to wherever it is you came from? Neither. No one would care. Except for me. The driver thanks me in broken English, and I feel I've done something somewhat nice, but deep down inside I know tomorrow some yahoo is going to hook up the trailer incorrectly again, and it will be same shit, different day.

Whatever.

No Fuck them for these guys... they're just trying to exist. I just wish they'd plug the right color cable into the right connector. My eight year old can figure this shit out. Why can't they?

Today there was a contractor in front of me with Marblehead business address and phone number painted on his truck, but New Hampshire plates secured to his vehicle.

I won't even get started on what kind of insanity this boils up inside my brain. I hate that shit. Oh. My. God. You cheap bastard. Register your goddamn vehicle in the state where your business is. You suck. And yeah -- a hearty Fuck You for ripping off my state. It isn't even like you live in a BORDER town like Haverhill or Salisbury or Douglas or Webster... you are in Marble freaking HEAD you bastard.

Oh, I need a drink...

My commute will be the undoing of me. I'm sure.

Doug is napping, and Geoff is trying to wake him up. He wants to go canoeing so badly that it isn't even funny. We stopped at WalMart and bought PFD vests for all of us. Geoff is wearing his. He's particularly excited. He really wants to go. Perhaps we will. Perhaps we'll wait. Either way, we'll probably have our asses run over as we're crossing the street.

Gah.

Canoe? Canoe!

File this under "As If I Don't Have Enough Crap In My Life." My husband took the dog for a walk tonight. He came home while I was writing tech documentation for work and said "You've gotta come help me get the canoe in the truck. Kiss my what?

No seriously.

Yeah -- he had me hop into the truck and drive around the corner where a 17' Fiberglass Old Town LLBean Style canoe has been for sale for the past several weeks. He's been pondering the purchase, and on his walk this evening with old Jack there, he stopped to look. The seller restores sailboats and canoes, and has had several different models for sale out in the yard for the past several years. So they got to talking. He was asking $250, but Jack charmed him and he let her go for $200 WITH two wood paddles.

A brand new Old Town goes for over 1,000. I didn't want a huge Fiberglass canoe. I wanted something that Doug and Geoff could handle by themselves if they wanted to go out... but this one was there, and it is ship shape, and yeah.

We own a canoe.

Seeing as it is 17' long, and the interior of our truckbed is only like 6' long, the drive home was slightly precarious. I grabbed a safety orange vest and tied it to the end (it being pitch dark out, I figured it was my best option). Doug rode in back and had tied the ropes inside the canoe to the frame of the truckbed and cap. Luckily we live less than a quarter of a mile away... the ride home could have been devilishly difficult otherwise, what with the way jerkasses drive around here. Seriously -- even with my hazards and safety orange flying off the back, I had a tailgater.

Meh!

So it's in our yard. It's ready to go. It's got a little rust, nothing too too bad, and I've already spent about 800 bucks in my mind's eye on canoe accessories like this and this.

First we started with the fishing. Now we're up to canoes... the outdoor addiction spreads. At least I know I'll get some tan lines this summer. Nothing like the tanlines one gets from a personal floatation device.

I'm outta here, to quote Nance.

Cub Scout Camp

My most gianormous tactical error this summer is that I signed Geoff up for three weeks of Cub Scout camp in southern New Hampshire. The fact he is going to camp isn't the gianormous error -- the fact that this week they don't provide transportation IS the error. I have to drive him.

Which isn't bad, if I didn't need to drive to work and back daily. The camp is about 20 minutes north of our house. Which means I drive 20 minutes north, then drive right past my house, and continue to work in a trip that takes about an hour and ten minutes with no traffic. I get to the office. I leave pretty much ten minutes after I get there. Okay. Slight hyperbole. More like 45 minutes.

And it is one of those major "what the hell was I thinking" moments that finds me here at 7:30am instead of getting ready for work. Geoff is eating breakfast. We can't really leave until 8:30 because camp starts at 9. I guess my mistake affords me the minor convenience of taking it easy in the morning for a whole week, and I should look at that as a gift instead of grumble about how it makes me late for work. But I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around a 5 hour work day with nearly 2 and a half hours of driving on either end. It isn't so much the 5 hour workday, it's the drive that is bearing down on me. Meh!

Yesterday morning when I dropped Geoff off at camp the entire situation was a fustercluck. I had mailed in all of his health forms, but I still had to stand in the line for "drop your health forms off and get them checked over." They didn't have a "drop off your health forms and get them checked over" line and "check in because you were smart enough to plan ahead" line. The line was taking forever, filled with 9 billion boys and their parents patiently waiting (except for one woman who jumped the line in her business suit... another "I'm entitled" kind of bitch and I wanted to trip her into the poison ivy). The mom behind me and I couldn't figure out what the hell could possibly take this long. She said last year it was totally different. You went to find your den assignment, and if you needed to turn in your health forms you went and did that, and if you were all set you went to your den. Ba-da-bing.

We finally got to the table after nearly a half hour in line... and the person doing check in shook Geoff's hand, asked him what rank he was now (Bear) and asked what he was looking forward to doing at camp this year, and welcomed him because this is his first year there and...

Yeah. That was what took so long. I was rather angry when I was in line that it was taking a stinking dog's age to check in, but my ire dissipated as this woman very kindly asked my son (and every other son coming through this line) personal questions to make him all at ease.

It's hard to argue with kindness. For a change.

We got checked in, and got his den assigned. He made friends immediately with an 11 year old named Chris who has a mohawk. Nice. Chris wants to be in the Navy when he grows up. Geoff talked about how he wants to be in the air force like his grandpa was, but I didn't have the heart to let him know his vision would forever preclude his participation in the skies for the military, if that truly is his wish. He changes his mind weekly as to what he wants to be...

I left him at camp with all new boys and a huge \m/ from him to me. Which rocked my heart and made me smile the entire way to the office. He had a super day and can't wait to go back.

Next week and the third week he is at camp there is a bus that picks up and drops off. So that will make my life easier. I won't have to drive past my house on the way to work. Actually, this morning I'm going to take the GPS with me and figure out an alternate route to 95. Perhaps I can get over there quickly without driving through Haverhill to go south.

My sister is on vacation this week, and I never truly realized how occupied she kept me while I was at work. The constant flurry of emails back and forth each day with innanities and funnies and "meh, meh, mehs" is truly missed. Gah. I never realized how BORING my job was.

Anyway. That's my update. More later.

Fisher Cats and Bunny Rabbits

This was a geocaching filled weekend. Saturday we went out somewhat late and intended on clearing a few caches in the Lynn Woods, which we hadn't managed to clear. It is a HUGE reservation, one of which we've only scratched the surface of in the past 15 or so years of living in this area.

We got the first cache, one which we attempted over a year ago but we didn't approach it correctly and bushwhacked up from the main trail to some precarious and dangerous spots. This time, I found the right trail which kicked our asses but provided us with some tremendous views from the top boulder. It was pretty awesome. We meandered down from the "summit" of Mt. Hermon (I believe is the name of the top of the boulder) and got to the main, flat, nice trail which everyone who walks or mountain bikes the area is familiar with.

We took another skinny trail up over rocks and crazy vistas, wandering like Moses and the Israelites through the wilderness hoping that some bottled water or manna would appear from heaven. Looking at the map we thought we'd have a half mile walk to the second cache. Ha! not so, when Doug leads the way. None of us were properly prepared for this walk, it was hot, we had no water and very little bug spray with us. We were beat by the time we got there. But.

There are two nice things about screwing up which are sometimes very true. The first is that you get to see unexpected stuff, which you wouldn't have seen if you took the right path in. For instance, we ended up at a spot called Overlook Crag, which provided some breeze-laden, tremendous views of Walden Lake, all the way to Rte 1. It was something we would have totally missed out on if we'd gone the "right" way. Second, is once you make a mistake while out in the woods, especially a big but still small and manageable reservation like this one, you can find the quicker route out, which we did.

We got back to the car right before a gianormous thunderstorm dropped on the area, and drank a lot of water and came home and crashed.

On Sunday, we got another late start. Jessica went to K's house (she's fresh out of the hospital after having her major brain surgery, and so Jess went to spend time with her). Doug planned out 8 caches, most of which were tiny little micro caches, of which we couldn't find two. Micros can be tricky... or they get stolen because they are in heavily trafficked areas. We found four, missed two, and gave up on finding parking for two others because it was already 7pm and we were all getting cranky.

We did, however, see fisher cats on the first cache. Doug startled them from about 10 feet away and they treed themselves, hanging out up there checking us out. There were two of them, and if I didn't know how ferocious they're known for being, I would think these were some cute and cuddly little guys... they have sweet little faces and inquisitive eyes. I tried to take pictures of them, but the sun was behind the tree and I don't think I can even photoshop the image enough to make them look like anything other than brown lumps.

And all I gotta say right here is thank Jebus for Wikipedia. I wanted a webpage about Fisher Cats, and Google returned a couple of light-in-content pages about the animal, and five gagillion pages about the baseball team in Manchester NH. Pfth. Yay for Wikipedia, which immediately returned a very detailed page, just what I wanted.

At another cache, there was a lavish garden and bunny rabbits living in the bushes. The one we saw was very brave and didn't run when I approached to take pictures. He must be used to people.

Well, I'm going to slap this entry up even though I'm not quite done with it. I've gotta jet to take Geoff to camp in NH. Why I signed up for this week when they don't provide transportation is beyond me. What was I thinking!!! Luckily I got up hella early, did about an hour's worth of work for the office, and managed to crank out this entry. I'm hyper productive. All on just 2 cups of coffee! Woot!

More later.

"You drive like you're lost and you drive like an asshole."

Today as I was driving to work, I got stuck behind a woman driving an SUV talking on her cell phone. Her green vehicle was covered with hippie stickers like "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance" and "USA out of the world NOW" and the like.

She was going exactly half of what the posted speed limit was (for those of you keeping score at home, half of 30 is 15). She slowed down as she came to each and every side street off the main road we were on. I figured she was talking to someone and getting directions, and was looking at the street signs to see whether she had hit the right road... and in my heart of hearts I was begging for her to be merciful to the masses and just pull the hell over. I looked in my rear view mirror to see traffic backed up to Cambridge behind me. Mind you, we were in Marblehead, so for those of you unfamiliar with Eastern Massachusetts geography, that's a stinking huge back up. Cambridge, I say!

She went to make a left hand turn, put her blinker on and everything. Hallelujah, says I. I went to go pass her, the way people do, and she changed her mind, sped up, got in front of me again and slowed down to the woeful speed of 15 mph.

Yes, I beeped.

At this point, I could have ditched and bailed and gone down some random side street to get around her. Chances were, though, that I would get stuck behind a landscaping truck, or a tourist from Indiana, or another woman driving 15 mph talking on her cell phone.

We got to the VFW, and she pulled into the parking lot. I decided that she must be lost, and I thought I'd be a good neighbor and ask her if she needed help. I was honestly concerned for her. I know the town well enough that I could help her get to some major landmark, maybe not one of the tiny sidestreets but I could at least offer to help. I try, ya know?

The passenger side window of her vehicle was down, so I pulled into the lot and parked beside her. She gave me a sideways glance as I rolled down my window.

"Are you lost?" I asked in my most concerned voice.

"What?" She asked me, giving me this lip-curly surly look.

"Are you lost or something? Do you need some help?" I asked a bit louder, now believing this aging hippie, this woman about 10 years older than I am but the guess of it, was just plain fucking daft.

She gave me this look of absolute incredulity, and sneered at me hissing "NO!" Like I was a fucktard for even asking her. Like I had some sort of damn NERVE or something. Well, excuse me for caring, beeotch.

"You drive like you're freakin' lost!" I yelled.

I got ready to unleash a can of verbal whoopass on her, I was going to say things like:

"Hey, why don't you "Imagine" driving the speed limit!!"
and/or
"'Give the drivers behind you a chance' instead of just giving peace a chance, jerkass!"
and/or
"You! Assy! Out of the world of drivers NOW!"

Her cell phone rang and she picked it up, giving me the "hold on a second" finger motion with her other hand. Oh, no she didn't. She did NOT just gesture to me to "hol'on a sec" as I'm about to kick her crappy driving ability ass. She started babbling into the phone and I just blurted out:

"You drive like you're lost and you drive like an asshole."

Nowhere NEAR as clever as my wordplays on her bumperstickers. I yelled that, and I drove away. If I see her again... I may have to get out and kick her. Hard. I got to my office and was furious. I needed to kick something. Shove someone. I wanted to go back to the VFW and see if she was still there just so I could yell "Yeah? What. You want some of this? Bring it on..."

But work got busy and I quickly forgot about the incident until I was just now sitting here pondering what I would share. I will say, I'll keep my eyes out for this one. She looked quintessentially Marbleheadian... not a "yummy mommy" in an SUV, but a limousine liberal of sorts, with her hippie stickers and her greasy assed hair and way more expensive than the GNP of most African Nations vehicle. I'll kick her ass. I will.

And before you get me wrong, I love hippies. I love young hippies and aging hippies. I love that people want to give peace a chance and stuff like that. Whatever. Just whatever you do, hippie, commie, ultra-right wing mental case, whatever you are -- do not get in front of me and talk on your cellphone and drive like an asshole. And do NOT give me that air of disbelief when I lovingly take my time to ask if you need a hand. I will rip you a new one, so help me Jebus.

If my kids had been with me, they would have both quoted Ed in the BNL Rock Spectacle CD where he yells 'Lady, you're an IDIOT!' Because they're that way.

Anyway. That's about it. I can't believe it is freaking raining again... but it is what it is and I'm gonna go hang out with the fandamily. Talk at you later.

London

The alarm goes off here in our house at 6:45am. From a quarter of the way around the world, the news announcer informs me that chaos reigns in the subways and roads of London England. Subways, busses, many injuries and deaths. Casualties as a result of simultaneously executed explosions, immediate statements of knowledge that that this is a terrorist attack, but no one knows the source: I ponder jokingly if it is IRA, Al-Qaeda, Pissed Off Parisians Furious Over Losing Olympics (POPFOLO, the new terror nightmare network in Europe).

I hit snooze.

Drifting between awake and asleep, I slowly begin to surface, wondering if what I heard was right. The alarm goes off again, nine minutes later (like clockwork, imagine that) and this time they're talking to a legislator about the crappy sex offender laws here in the Commonwealth.

I get out of bed. I start the coffee.

The TV is turned on. The local news shows Michael Chilkis being interviewed by the guy who is usually in the helicopter telling me that traffic sucks (duh) through Boston. He is talking about being The Thing in the new Fantastic Four movie, which looks to me as if it might suck beyond belief. But they are not mentioning London or bombings or anything. Another station has weather. Another is talking about how London was just granted the 2012 Olympics, but no mention of the bombings.

But at the bottom of the screen I see a statement that Tony Blair will be doing a press conference. No one does a press conference for no particular reason. I feel the fog begin to clear from my mind as I do what I normally don't -- I turn to FoxNews. And there are the pictures, and reporters with beautiful thick accents. There is London, and it is true.

Just yesterday I made a comment to a coworker that I was glad London had been granted the Olympics instead of Paris, because they have better security there. And I believed it would be a safer venue for visitors and travelers.

I spoke too soon.

I feel awful this morning. I feel like crying. I hope the Londoners I read are okay, that they are safe and their loved ones are safe. I hope that the answers can be found quickly as to what the source is here. Not that it matters. The fact of the matter is safety is once again taken for granted. And it is a sad, grey day.

More interesting than initially expected

Our July 4th Monday took a decidedly surprising turn after I posted my entry. The phone rang. And you know when the phone rings, once in a while the call is from someone other than a friend of Jessica's.

On the phone was Christopher J. Kelly, cash cow of the Scranton Times stating he and the Missus were on I-95 heading back to home from Maine. They were literally at our exit. They were wondering if they could stop by. I handed the phone to Doug and told him who it was, and he had this "Pfth. It is so not Chris Kelly and he is so not on I-95 near our house so shut up!" expression, but he was quickly proven wrong. He gave the directions to the doorstep and we awaited their arrival.

We had a nice, albeit short, visit with CJK and the Missus CAK and I even allowed CJK to touch and actually play the Steven Page guitar (oh yes I did). We sat in the shade of the apple tree and chatted about hiking and newspapers, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, BNL, my constant efforts to analyze CJK's bizarre antisocial behavior, Beaver Valley and old times. And in about 2 hours, as quickly as they were here, they were gone. Hopefully we'll see them again in less than five years, and we can sit on the front step and spit watermelon seeds at the moon (thank you to the late Joe Tronzo for the newspaperman's image of idyllic childhood musings).

We then went out geocaching, as is our wont whenever we have a minute. There were no train tracks to be walked upon, and I didn't get cranky except when we had to go up a big mother hill in Danvers. I always get cranky if a hill is involved. We found three good caches and three travel bugs. That's never happened, where we score that many bugs. But we did. They came home with us and we grilled burgers. Our neighbors just did the big backyard light show, complete with stuff hitting things in our backyard. I didn't like that part, and I'm slightly paranoid that stuff is right now up on my roof smoldering away and will burst into flames when we are fast asleep, killing us. Our tenant's daughter sang "God Bless America" at the top of her lungs and we applauded under her window.

Our lives is a circus, I tell you what.

We didn't go see any fireworks this year. In fact, we usually don't because we're shooting stuff off on MDI that we bought in New Hampshire. So we watched the Boston display on TV. I was surprised to learn that when Doug was Geoff's age he wanted to go to Boston to hear the Pops and watch the display, a young lad living in Western PA. I thought "Jeesh. Didn't KDKA show Pittsburgh Fireworks on TV instead of Boston?" But I guess they show Boston's display all around the country. I can't remember what we used to watch. I think my parents took us out to watch them in town. I can't ever remember watching them on TV.

Last night's music choices were just downright bizarre, except for the opening U2 song. My favorite part was the smiley faces that were blowing up over and over. I thought those were the best. I don't know that we'd ever take the kids into the city to go see this. It's easier and less crowded at home.

Anyway. July Fifth. I've already done my muttering, I've got nothing super to add here. Kind of feels like a Monday, but I know it is a Tuesday. Go visit Chrissy when she gets her blog updated with pictures and stories from their Maine trip. They made it this close to Aaron's house (picture me holding up thumb and forefinger about a centimeter apart) and made me even more jealous and longing for the Acadian coast this time of year. Sigh.

Off to work. Meh.

We have our Jessie.

We went to meet auntie Lee Lee down in New London on Saturday afternoon. On the way we cranked a fair deal of The Refreshments, did some geocaching, saw a wedding party getting their portraits done at Connecticut College, saw a snake, saw coasties doing their marching thing all over the field at the Coast Guard Academy, and we went to Ft. Griswold and the monument in Groton, took a mess of pictures.

We had dinner at the Bank Street Roadhouse, and the hot wings were cooked to perfection. I'll be back there, I'm sure. The waitress tried to dissuade me from having the "hot" setting for the sauce, but with some beer and good dipping bleu cheese, it was just right. Very happy. It was a nice dinner, beautiful afternoon with the harbor and the sky and the sun... we met a K9 cop and his partner, General.

All told, even without the 10 geocaches we planned it was a red letter day.

Sunday dawned and we ended up heading out for some caches in Andover. Doug planned three in the Billerica area, but the one we did pissed me off and made me tired, so I threw in the towel when we got back to the truck. Top that off with Kinger giving up on the trail and refusing to walk any further, and I knew we'd had it as a team. He needed to go home... I just needed to get out of stupid confusing to drive around Billerica and Freaking Just as Confusing Tewksbury. Doug was not pleased with me for quitting, but I'd just had enough.

The thing that pissed me off about the cache we did was that we were required to walk about a quarter of a mile along the train tracks. There is a monument buried in the woods, where some six people who died as a result of smallpox are buried. It is a really cool historical spot, but damn -- the tracks and the gravel and the dust and the sheer knowledge that we were doing something illegal and dangerous by walking along the tracks really got me mad. There was only one good approach unless you wanted to wade through a bog or cross even MORE train tracks or walk through someone's yard. The cache itself was pimpy and crappy, and I was just pissed off by the time we'd finished. What a freaking waste of time, when we could be hiking in some nice woods somewhere.

I honestly don't know why anyone would actually make a cache out like this, or why my husband would choose it. He gets pissed that the kids don't keep up with him -- but he won't go out caching on his own when it comes to doing ones that really aren't good for the family as a whole.

Today, so far, we're hanging around here. Doug has managed to not speak much to me over the past 12 hours, so I'm not sure what our plans are. We didn't go see any fireworks this weekend, mostly because they're always too damn crowded and just not worth the hassle in the end. My neighbors shot off fireworks in the backyard for about an hour last night, and at about 10:30 I was just shy of going out there and yelling at them, but that's when they either ran out or decided to quit.

I'm slightly bummed out this weekend, because for the past three years we've done July 4th up at Aaron and Michelle's, and it wasn't working out for any of us this year for our clan to go up there. And in my heart of hearts I'm sad that we're missing that kind of funness. I was looking at pigroast pictures from last year, and fun pictures from the year before when we threw the second greatest party ever... and I really wish we were there.

Such is life.

Well. I've posted a ton of pictures up in the flickr gallery. I have to catch up on my organization into sets... if we don't head out anywhere today, I think I'll end up doing that and weeding the garden.

kick at the darkness...

Today was the kind of day where you wake up, and you say "I pretty much have everything under control today!" Confidently you stride to work. You think there will be no worries, no problems, and you aim for the office and set to work getting things done.

You're cranking. You're making progress. And then. To quote Alanis in her song "Ironic" which isn't a series of ironic things at all but is actually just a series of unfortunate events:

Well life has a funny way
of sneaking up on you when you think everything’s okay
and everything’s going right.
And life has a funny way
of helping you out when you think everything’s gone wrong
and everything blows up in your face.

I'm talking about the "blows up in your face" part of things.

This week was slightly stressful, but no more stressful than most weeks when we don't have the content that we need for our programming delivered to me early in the week and we find ourselves sitting around waiting for it to arrive. By the time I left yesterday, things were in shipshape, tip-top, seaworthy status. I was convinced I'd had this week by the tail and it wasn't going to turn around and bite me hard.

I was confident too soon. At noon I found a mistake. Someone else's mistake. A spelling error that I'm sure NO one else would even notice (luscious has an "s" in it...) and we were all slated to leave to go to lunch and have a few drinks and hang out and enjoy an early start to the fun weekend.

Not to be.

So I had to rework the schedule, and that's more of a bear than it sounds like... right now it isn't as simple as clicking a cancel box that wipes the content away on all servers. I had to do it for eight sets of programming, and then replace the canceled piece with something that doesn't have a spelling error, and then repreview the content.

God bless my girl C for repreviewing for me. I'd still be sitting there watching the content if it wasn't for her.

We got to lunch late, and sadly the new guy didn't get to come with us... nor did the VP of technology who was fighting other fires of his own. I'm relieved to be home. I'm happy to be here. And it is the weekend and I am ready to just ... aaaaah.

Well -- this is a no fun entry. And it gets no more fun. Before I go and I hang out with the boy and do some laundry, I would like to ask you all for prayer.

I have a good friend who lost her job. She said things in her journal that were deemed... inappropriate by her employer. She was fired. And today, Unemployment denied her claim, for all the wrong reasons. She has 2 mortgages, because right before she got fired she moved into a new condo. She has the other condo on the market, but it probably isn't going to move fast enough to make a difference in her life.

She has a little boy.

She has a burden... and it is easy to say "be a lilly of the field" to someone in this situation, but these words will not bring solace. What will bring solace is resolution in a positive way. She will need us to pray for her if we live far abroad. She will need mojo to be sent her way to help her keep her chin up.

So please keep LD in your thoughts and prayers. Her journal is locked to all but those who are on her read list through journalspace, so you can't go read. Suffice to say -- take my word. She needs lifted.

It takes a village to raise a heart. And I think of the struggle she'll have and hear Bruce Cockburn singing in the back of my head, and the quote is on the sidebar.

I think that'd make an excellent name for a blog. "Kick at the Darkness"... if I were to start a new one...