In the dark

I have a bachelorette party coming up. I know that much. But that is really about all...I don't know what we are doing, where we are going, when it is going to be or specifically who is coming. Obviously, I have a pretty good idea, but I won't know until I show up...

The suspense is killing me! Smoking Hot Roommate is in charge, and I know that she has been working on it, but she has been really good about keeping the details from me. Not even little snippets here and there...and everyone else has been good about it, too.

I have my suspicions...I am guessing that we will have something either in Boston or at the beach first, and then travel somewhere for a couple days. I think it would be hard to bring Munchkin with us anywhere, but she definitely has to go to at least some of it, hence the part that will be around here.

Beyond that, though, I have no idea. Knowing SHR, it could be almost anywhere in the Western Hemisphere...of I guess even some parts of the Eastern...

Anyone care to venture a guess? Or offer a suggestion? I am bubbling over with curiosity...

Ahh...the rain is back. Great.

Anybody else a little weirded out by the outpouring of love for Michael Jackson? Like...you know...Congress taking time to read a resolution saluting him (which is actually OK, since it represents five minutes that Congress is not wrecking something else).

Have we forgotten what a creep he was? Since when do we gloss over pedophilia because he made some excellent music 30 years ago? And yes, I do think he was a pedophile, and yes, I am aware that he was acquitted of those charges.

Anyway, it is too early in the morning for a lengthy rant, so I will get off of this subject and move on...

Fantastic weekend! I ended up leaving work early on Friday and heading to the beach by myself so I would get there in the afternoon. Weather was beautiful when I got there, and Munchkin, Big Sis and I had some spectacular sunset cocktails (and then, of course, it started raining again). Saturday was foggy but really nice, and I got a TON of color because I didn't put on enough sunscreen. The fog always gets me...it is way too easy to underestimate the sun's strength through the fog. So, I am looking like a little bit of a tomato right now:-) Excuse for The Boy to rub lotion on all the parts I can't reach? Yea, I agree...

Yesterday was kinda cloudy, but a really good lazy day. Munchkin and Smoking Hot Roommate had something to do in Chatham, and The Boy, The Rocket Scientist, The Brain Surgeon, Papa Bear and two of his friends were out fishing for most of the day. Big Sis was actually feeling really under the weather and was in bed most of the day (poor thing:-(), which meant that I had a whole lot of peace and quiet!

Then, headed home and finally got back at maybe 8:30 or so...got a head start on that lotion-ing;-) and was sound asleep by 10:00. Pretty darn good couple of days...

Tag Team Parenting

Yes, based on your encouragement, Smoking Hot Roommate, The Boy, The Rocket Scientist and I had chicken fingers for dinner. Well, she and I had chicken fingers, and the boys had cheeseburgers...they don't apparently see the same humor in eating fried pieces of chicken to spite a girl who gets to spend her whole summer at the beach...

I should take an extra moment to give a huge shout out to Big Sis, who has spent nearly two weeks now "working" from the beach so she can watch Munchkin. While that sounds kinda fun, it is actually sort of a pain...she still has to get everything done, but doesn't have the advantage of coming to the office. So, while she does get to spend the time at her palatial beach house gazing at the ocean while she works, it is still a pretty big commitment for her to do it. I have thanked her, and Munchkin most definitely has as well...but I want to take another minute here to point out how completely awesome she is:-). And thanks to the Brain Surgeon, too, who had to go without his lovely bride for about half of that time (unfortunately, neurology can not be performed remotely...)

Papa Bear is on vacation with some friends next week, so he takes over parenting duties, and then I will be there for a bit after July 4th. We have begun joking about going to stay at "Munchkin's House"...let's hope she isn't secretly angling to take it by squatting...

Weekend plans are much the same as usual. Blowing out of work as early as possible and heading to the beach. Normally I have to wait for The Boy to get out of work, but he has the day off for a golf tournament and is gonna meet me there, so I may be able to take half a day and leave at lunchtime. That would be ideal....otherwise I could wait and ride down with SHR and the Rocket Scientist or Papa Bear. Haven't decided on that just yet.

And that, folks, is about all she wrote for this week. Somewhere around six more weeks of work for me...

Back to his old self

I got home from work last night to find The Boy in a wonderfully good mood (and no, I don't mean the kind where he can't keep his hands off of me and I end up bare-assed on the kitchen counter...although those are also very good moods:-)). He has had some things weighing on him for a while, and finally received very good news on the biggest of them yesterday. The weather may have still sucked (they are promising sun today), but he was clearly unburdened.

So we decided to go out for a little bit of a celebratory dinner, despite the shitty weather. And it was really nice...I am not sure I had really realized how stressed he was, but he just seemed so much more himself (not that he wasn't himself before, just maybe a little run down). He also has tomorrow off to play in a golf tournament, and hopefully the three-day weekend will help even more. Come to think of it, next week is a four day week and then we are going to be at the beach all the following week, so he should have plenty of vacation time to unwind.

I guess that is about it...not a whole lot to say today. I guess I can leave you with this philosophical questions: Is it cheating for us to have chicken fingers without Munchkin?

Conversations

As I am very tired and have a bit of a headache today (self-inflicted), I am taking a short cut to blogging, and will recount a couple of conversations I have had in the last few days:

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Munchkin: Can I go to New York later this year to see The Kills?
Me: No
Munchkin: Not even with [two girls that are her supervisors/friends at work]?
Me: No

I may be the coolest Mom in the seventh grade, but even I have some common sense. I will acknowledge that the two girls are both lovely and very mature and trustworthy...but yea, not quite.

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The Boy: You wanna come running with me?
Me: Like, on foot?
The Boy: We can go slow
Me [pointing at legs]: How would that even work? Look how short these are!

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Big Sis: I see no problem with you being overweight commodity and ag-related sectors
Me: I bought some POT in my IRA last week
Smoking Hot Roommate (laughing): If I told you five years ago that you would ever say that, would you have believed me?
Me: Yea, but I would have assumed that it meant something else entirely

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(With a good friend who is a total sweetheart, but sometimes gets so excited that she talks without thinking. Here, she was talking about the wife of a friend of her much-older husband)

Friend: Oh my God, she is gorgeous and I am so jealous of her
Me: She is pretty hot for someone over 40
Friend: And she has a baby and a Cayenne. Her life is, like, perfect
Me: Ahh, so that is the formula

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In other news...BFFg and her boyfriend are weighing the idea of her moving in with him. Yes, this is the same boyfriend that I set her up with after meeting him in Las Vegas last year. Not sure she is ready to actually make that jump right now, but it definitely appears that they are thinking very long term. Squeal!

Iran

Who has been following what is happening in Iran? I can't pretend to have any great grasp on the facts, so I don't have any insight or even opinion more than what you have probably read...but it is pretty easy to recognize a monumental event when you see one. I have also found the role of technology in this to be really interesting...the government is trying its darnedest to limit the flow of voice and data out of the country, which is no small feat in this day and age.

It is hard to see how this resolves itself, too. Riots and demonstrations have been going on for nearly two weeks now...they aren't gonna stop demonstrating, and the leadership doesn't seem to either know how or be willing to quell the unrest. The demonstrators want a fair election, and they don't think they got one, and the Supreme Council has basically told them that they did.

Everyone (The US, Europe, Iran's neighbors, The Opposition and the Government) seems to agree that they want a resolution and order, and that the chaos of a governmental overthrow would be a disaster. But, when it really gets down to it, who is willing to do what it takes to avoid that kind of chaos? If the government would rather have chaos than change, and the opposition would rather have chaos than the status quo, what stops it? Unless the Ayatollah is concerned so much with preserving his own power that he is willing to give up some of his ideology to keep it, this seems destined for a very messy end.

It is also hard to tell exactly where the fault lines are. This is popularly discusses as a middle class uprising against the repression of the Islamic leadership (supported by the poor and uneducated). But it seems also to be the young, urban progressives against the older, rural conservatives. But there is a lot more to it than that. The guy that the protesters most want elected is basically a Communist, and seems to be riding a wave of outrage over high unemployment...as I read from one analyst "How can this be a middle class uprising if the protesters are 20 year old unemployed people?"

So, to further complicate matters...there is a very good chance that the protesters are all protesting the same thing for very, very different reasons.

Anyway, I am not sure how much value this added to your day...lol...but it is certainly an event that has grabbed my attention, and a situation very much worth watching. Maybe tomorrow, if I am still in the mood, I will go into Obama's (non)reaction...or maybe we can talk about North Korea firing missiles at Hawaii!

Rain, rain, rain

How ridiculous is this weather? It has been raining, on and off, for what seems like two months now. Saturday was actually a pretty nice day in the end...the sun peeked through for a lot of the afternoon...but then it rained all day yesterday, is raining again today and looks like it will keep doing so for much of this week. It has gotten to the point that I think it is wearing on people mentally. The constant gloom, rain and uncomfortable stickiness puts everyone in kind of a down mood after a while.

It was still a nice weekend, though. Friday night was a really neat, blood-red sunset...there was just enough sun and some lingering black rain clouds out over the ocean to make some really neat colors. There is very little in life that I enjoy more than my sunset cocktails in the summer:-) Saturday was OK...cloudy and some rain in the morning, but it cleared up a bit in the afternoon and it was plenty warm to sit out in the sun. Still grossly sticky and humid, but much more pleasant.

Sunday was awful, but since we were leaving kind or early anyway, it wasn't a huge deal that the weather sucked. We had to get back home for Father's Day dinner with The Boy's parents, so I guess maybe I was kinda glad that I didn't feel like I had to peel myself off of the beach early. Dinner was lovely:-)

So, let's see...I was out last week, so I was a terrible blogger. I should be better this week, though, since I think I will be in the office the whole time. I am also going to try and tone it down a bit this week, as well...I was a bit of a bad girl last week and paid for it for a couple of days afterwards! I need more sleep than that:-)

And I guess that is about it. Nothing terribly exciting;-)

Shirking my responsibilities as a blogger

I am a terrible blogger this week, I know, but I am gonna be out again tomorrow. I would write a lengthy recap of my mischievous behavior the last couple of nights...but two straight late nights and two straight early mornings (with one more tomorrow) are making me VERY sleepy. There was actually a part of me that thought I could go out again tonight, and I even ventured to meet some of my girls at a bar...but one beer in and it was clear that I was not gonna be able to answer the bell tonight. C'est la vie...

So, early morning again tomorrow, and out of the office all day...and then straight to the beach for the weekend. The weather is gonna suck (like it does basically everywhere in America this week) but it will still be fun. Big Sis and Munchkin seem to have survived their week without adult supervision just fine;-)

I guess that's all. I will try and be a little better blogger next week, and as far as I know I have no work commitments to worry about. In the meantime, have yourself a great weekend...rain and all!

And Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there (do I have any male readers with kids? I am not sure...Billy, are you still there?)

Whoa...let's hold on...

Sorry to be so late in the day for this...but I was unexpectedly out of the office all day and didn't get a change to blog this morning. Plus, I have been super hungover all day and I was a very bad girl last night, and I am going out again tonight. To make matters worse, I don't think I will be around tomorrow, either, at least not until late afternoon.

Maybe a little clarification on yesterday's post...I am not trying to get pregnant. I am not necesarily trying as hard to remain un-pregnant, but there are no plans to immediately get me all knocked up. The purpose of coming off of the pill is to be ready in case we decide, in a couple of months, that it is a good time to do it. But, it should be noted that we have not actually decided that just yet. I wouldn't call it "unlikely", but it also isn't probable just yet, either.

I did have an "oh shit!" moment, though. Vera (place unknown:-)) noted that I went on the pill at almost the same age that Munchkin is now. That is not entirely true...I was a little bit older than her (I said twelve years yesterday, but really it was a little over 11 if I really think about it. I started when I was 15...she just turned 14 in April) but still, it is a sobering thought.

We actually almost put her on the pill last winter, because she was getting horrible, horrible cramps and if they didn't get better, he doctor was going to put her on it to help. Fortunately, she seems to have grown out of that a bit, and they have been more manageable recently (I am sure she would love me broadcasting her menstrual issues across the Internet...hee hee). We are getting pretty close to TMI here.

Basic point...she is getting to an age where I did all sorts of things that I really hope she waits until she is older to do...

Now, I am going to go bang my head against a brick wall, since that is more comfortable than thinking about this...

Last week...

Remember last week when I told you that I had a couple of things I was holding back on that I kind of wanted to write? Well, here is one of them (which cuts by one the number of blog-secrets I am keeping from you all!)

I stopped taking birth control pills about a month ago. There are a couple of reasons for this, like, I have been on the pill, with a couple small exceptions, for basically 12 years, and would like to see how my body reacts to not being on it any more...that is a lot of hormones over a long time. More to the point, though, I might just be thinking that getting pregnant sometime soon is maybe not the worst idea in the world;-)

Actually, the timing could be very good...Boss Foxy spent a lot of energy convincing me of what a good time it could actually be. Having a baby at the end of my first year of grad school would actually work out pretty well...I would have the summer to be home full time, and then wouldn't be as busy during my second year and it could all work out well.

Not that I have actually decided to have one...just that I think I may want to, and since it usually takes some time when you come off of the pill to get pregnant, I sort of wanted to be ready in case we did decide to go ahead with it (probably sometime this fall). Very much up in the air right now.

So...let's skip to last week (warning, boys, this gets a little...um..."technical"). Monday should have been the day that I got my period, assuming things worked smoothly coming off of the pill. Obviously, there is a lot of adjusting that goes on, so I was not terribly concerned that I didn't get it. After all, it is virtually impossible to get pregnant immediately when you come off of the pill...right?

Tuesday and Wednesday, still no period, but some stomach pains unlike normal cramping, and some kinda light spotting. WebMD says..."Hmm...could be an egg implanting." It also said it could be a life-threatening condition where a fertilized egg gets stuck in your Fallopian tubes, but I felt like the stomach pains would have been a little more severe than that;-)

I don't wanna lead you on...I am not pregnant...but there were a couple of day there where I was not entirely sure that I wasn't. As any long-time readers know, I have some experience with pregnancy scares. And I definitely would not call this one a "scare"...first of all, I wasn't scared, and second of all, I think I was actually a little bit excited about it. Not totally, but the idea has its appeal...

Anyway, everything was back to normal by the end of the week;-). It was just a case of my body not reacting completely seamlessly to coming off of the pill...which is totally to be expected. But, it has certainly helped me get my head around a really big thought...that maybe, just maybe, I do want to have a baby sometime soon...

Yikes.

Please don't let the family courts in Illinois read this

You know what you are getting today? How about a Sunday post...now THAT is a throwback. I can't even tell you the last time I posted on a Sunday. But, we are back from the beach and from dropping Munchkin's brother and sister-in-law and the baby at the airport, and now The Boy is grilling dinner and I am preparing to enjoy that and maybe a cocktail or two on the deck on this beautiful (a touch chilly:-)) Sunday night.

And I am, for the moment, feeling a little bloggy. Result...blog! I am also not sure that I will be around tomorrow, so I am getting a jump on Monday's post...

Let's see...the weathermen promised a kinda of so-so weekend, and it turned out to be absolutely gorgeous. Well, Saturday was, today was a little iffy. Warmer than they said, and sunny and just downright delightful. Munchkin is totally settled in at the beach and enjoying herself thoroughly. She is working hard (she got her first ever paycheck on Friday and was pretty fired up about that), has made a lot of new friends already, and is just basically on top of the world these days. I am jealous;-).

Big Sis is on parenting duty this week, and I am a little worried about what kind of trouble the two of them may get into together...lol. They have never been together alone for that long before, and it could turn into some mischief:-D. Just to give you an idea, I actually had the following conversation with Big Sis this weekend (I think she was, mostly, kidding):

Big Sis: I am hoping that I can get a lot of work done with all of the peace and quiet.
Me: Imagine how productive you can be all week without SHR and I forcing drinks into your hand all the time.
Big Sis: Munchkin can drink, right?
Me: Ha ha, no.
Big Sis: Not at all?
Me: Um, no.
Big Sis: I don't mean like totally wasted...but we can have a sunset vodka tonic, right?
Me: Um, no, you most certainly can not.
Big Sis: Even if we are staying in all night?
Me: She is completely and totally banned from consuming any vodka under any circumstances.
Big Sis: Hmm. Good to know.
Me: And gin, rum and tequila, too.
Big Sis: Yea, that was my next question.

So, you can see what I am up against! (For the record, she was not seriously planning on slugging Ketel One all week with the 14-year-old. DSS can be assured that Munchkin is very mature, capable hands.)

One final note on my post from last Friday (which set a new record for comments for me, I think:-))...we decided to go ahead and have the invitations say "Ms. Tinkerbelle and Ms. Munchkin cordially invite you..." and I think it is super cute.

A couple of people asked how The Boy's parents would feel, and also how Papa Bear may feel. The Boy's parents would never worry about petty things like that, and his Mom will find it completely adorable. As for Papa Bear (who, for the record, is not actually paying for anything directly...The Boy and I are paying for the whole thing...but he is providing the venue, since it is his house), he would probably feel a little weird if the invitations came from him. I am, after all, not actually his daughter...

So, that decision has been made. As have most of the others, but I put more thought into this than the rest of them.

Invitations

I am out this morning, and maybe even this afternoon, but I had something I really wanted to write, so I am gonna churn it out in hopes for opinions.

The topic is wedding invitations, and more specifically the opening of said invitations. Traditionally, invitations say "Mr. and Mrs. Bride's Parents cordially invite you to celebrate the marriage of their daughter..."

Or, sometimes you will see "Mr. and Mrs. Bride's Parents and Mr. and Mrs. Groom's Parents cordially invite you..."

More often now you will see "Ms. Bride and Mr. Groom cordially invite you to celebrate their marriage," or "Together with their parents..."

We actually thought about this for a bit, and considered "Mr. and Mrs. The Boy's Parents, and in loving memory of AM's Mom," or "Together with his parents and in loving memory of her mother..." before eventually deciding on just "Ms. AM and Mr. The Boy invite you..."

But I had an idea the other day...it is kind of whimsical and a bit cheesy, but I think I like it...

"Ms. Munchkin and Ms. Tinkerbelle cordially invite you to celebrate the marriage of their sister, AM to The Boy..."

What do we think?

Inflation

Kari (from parts unknown:-)) left this story in a comment yesterday. If you don't feel like reading, someone paid $300,000 for a parking space...yes, you read that right, a rectangular piece of asphalt or brick or concrete upon which you can park your car;-). If you recall, this is awfully similar to a story I noted in December of 2006 about another parking space in roughly the same area selling for $250,000. So...my quick math says that is a 20% appreciation in 2 1/2 years...

Take that, Real Estate collapse!!! I should note that this is an unusually high price even for the area, meaning it must be in a particularly good spot...near a ton of super rich people with very little parking for a half-block or so. But, I think an average parking space in the Back Bay probably sells for like $100,000. Not sure I have any commentary on the absurdity of that beyond what you are probably all thinking. (Well, except for Laurwilk and anyone else who lives in Manhattan, London or Tokyo who probably finds it to be pretty darn reasonable!)

Anyway, since I live not too far from there (if you click through, you will see that I actually give you a hint where I live;-)) you can see where the difficult arises in my desire to buy the condo that we live in from Smoking Hot Roommate for a fair market price. The Boy and I actually sat down about a week ago to make a formal plan about doing that, as well as some other financial questions (seriously...the periodic "Make sure we are on the same page money-wise" meeting is probably a very good idea), and I think we are in good shape to do so sometime soon, but we will have to see.

I guess that is all you get today...lol. I was going to write about something else, but I got sidetracked and now I am out of time and have a meeting to run to.

Red Sox game tonight:-)

Just like old time. Almost

I sort of have a lengthy, serious post that I want to write, but I am not quite ready to do so just yet, so it will have to wait. Actually, there are two, but I am unlikely to write about the other one at all, so I won't even promise it.

Not gonna lie, I am a little bit hungover today. I went out with the boys from work last night for the first time in a VERY long time, and had maybe a beverage too many (or three). Nothing like the debaucherous nights of old (pre-Munchkin) times, but still more drinking than I generally do on a Tuesday.

[ What kind of debauchery? Well...like the night that we met a bunch of people in a bar and somehow ended up at Foxwoods until about 6:oo am on a Wednesday night. And one of my co-workers punched some random guy out because he made at least one too many inappropriate comment about me. And people say chivalry is dead:-)]

Since most of them have wives or girlfriends at this point, there was no need for me to revive my role as the World's Greatest Wingwoman. Actually, one of them met his wife on one of those wild nights four years ago...yes, I picked up his wife in a bar;-) (I think it was The Place). And, since none of them were really on the prowl, it was a little more mellow than it used to be. Which is fine, I am not in that kind of drinking shape anymore:-)

The Boy came to meet us at about 11:30, and we were home and asleep by 1:00 (after all, I can't get a little tipsy and not be expected to cause some mischief when we get home:-D)...which is reasonable enough. But, not early enough to avoid a pretty painful morning;-)

"Tune-up my car" is not a euphemism...

Munchkin's brother tuned my car up for me, so I take back some more of the bad things I have said about him:-). They took my car so they would have it while they were there, and he gave the whole thing a once-over for me. Not exactly sure what that means...cleaning some stuff, replacing some things and some fluids maybe? Whatever, it was nice of him.

I feel kinda bad that they have had shitty weather while there have been here. It is still a fun place to be, and last week was at least sunny...but I kind of wish that had at least a few days of legit beach weather. I think Saturday is supposed to be good, so hopefully they get at least the one day. The good news is that he ended up working pretty much all day Thursday-Sunday, and will be able to do so again in a few days, so it didn't turn out to be nearly as big a huge financial sacrifice for them as I was worried.

Anyway...the weather totally sucks today. Cold and rainy, and I think it is supposed to be like this all week. Plus, I showed up to work and found a whole pile of shit waiting to be done that took up my whole morning, which didn't help my mood. But, now I am done with it, so I am not quite so grumpy!

I am not sure that I have a whole lot else for you today...I have a feeling it is gonna be a long afternoon. Internet, here I come!!!

Semi-permanently off the leash

Gooooood morning everyone:-) Did you have a nice weekend? I suppose that, save for funerals or major catastrophes, most weekends are inherently nice. The whole "not working" thing...

So, let's see...hit some traffic heading to the beach on Friday, which is always a total bummer. There is little worse that really wanting to get somewhere (and having a ferry to catch;-)) and getting stuck in some mind-numbing traffic. The worst part of it is that the traffic was caused by someone who had been pulled over in the breakdown lane. That's right...there was no traffic actually stopped, just 4,000 cars backed up to look at a guy getting a speeding ticket. Yay!

That aside, we made it to the beach OK. It was kinda chilly on Saturday...definitely not bikini weather...but very sunny and pretty pleasant. Sunday was a little warmer, but still not quite sun-bathing weather. That's fine, though, it is still fun to just hang out with everyone. And, my new favorite pastime: harassing Munchkin at work:-D. I didn't actually harass her, but I did buy an ice cream cone from her:-)

She seems to have settled in very quickly, which is no surprise at all. She is going to be working at the ice cream store in the afternoons on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and babysitting Monday and Wednesday mornings and Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. So, she will be very busy:-). It is possible that this turns out to be too much, and she can cut back a bit if she wants. Or, she will probably have the option to kind of babysit as much as she wants if she likes it. My guess is that people will ask her to babysit all the time, and she will have to figure out how to say No;-).

I am kind of settled in, too. It is weird not having her around! For four years I have been used to having her around while I get ready for work in the morning, and while we are making dinner, and to walk to and from work with me, and just to sort of be around. Not that I don't fully appreciate having The Boy all to myself (:-D), it is just an adjustment to get used to not having her around. But seeing as I am 26 fucking years old, I should probably figure it out, eh?

I suppose by September, I will be so used to not being Mom all the time that it will be weird to have her back;-)

I bet the Apple folks would tell me that this doesn't happen to them

Since I went into a bit of a serious spiral of issues yesterday (and yes, my lack of suitable clothing is a serious issue), I will spare you my continued ranting today. No matter how badly our massive Federal spending will lead to a phony recovery and at least a decade of economic stagnation and inflation. So, you have that to look forward to;-)

But it is Friday, and I care not to burden you with any of that. Unfortunately, I just opened up a document that I have been working on all week, and it is totally and completely ruined...f'in computers irritate me sometimes. So, now I gotta see if I can figure that out...fun fun fun.

Then, the beach:-) Weather is not supposed to be great, but I will deal;-)

Happy weekend!

[Update: 3 hours later, I have mostly re-done all of what I had lost. All of the tables somehow got corrupted, so about half of the data in them was gone. Yay!!!]

Random Thursday Thoughts

Is it bad that I still want chicken fingers tonight? Is that cheating?

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I hate my closet. You know how sometimes you just look at a massive pile of clothes and see nothing worth wearing? I am at that stage. Help is needed.

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Does anyone see any conceivable chance that the government doesn't still own GM in 10 years? And that it doesn't lose money every year but continue employing a whole lot of important voters in swing states? I heard Obama say the other day that "There was no other choice" besides doing what they did. Um...yes there was, you could just let it die like it is going to anyway. Write it down...when it is all said and done, the total cost of this to the taxpayers will be more than the financial bailouts.

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I am (tentatively) supposed to get on an Air France flight in two months. I would be lying if that didn't cross my mind when I saw that a plane disappeared the other day.

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New Hampshire became the sixth state to legalize gay marriage yesterday, and it stands as a valuable lesson in what I am going to call "socially driven legislation". Is there any reason on earth why the citizens of New Hampshire and their lawmakers would make gay marriage legal, while those in California would go out of their way to reject it? By most measures, California is a much more socially liberal state that we would all expect to be further down the progressive curve than New Hampshire...so why did voters in California reject the idea last year?

I have no data on this...but my instinct says that people don't like the idea of Judicial Activism, and that the debate in California was poisoned by the State's Supreme Court overruling the original will of the people. I feel like that cemented the "anti-" crowd, and froze opinions where they were, rather than allow them to evolve as other states (including this one) experimented with same-sex marriage. The lesson? There is a pace of social change that can be encouraged, but can not be totally subverted by non-elected officials to whom voters have no recourse.

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Tienanmen Square was 20 years ago, and since then we have now had four different Presidential Administrations (Two Bush's, a Clinton and an Obama) that have vowed to "get tough on China's human rights practices". The first three consistently elected to preserve commerce instead of press for reform. This one is different...it has elected to preserve access to Chinese capital instead of pressing for reform. Does that count as progress? (At least the first three didn't get openly ridiculed by Chinese officials while traveling there.)

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If the government wants an industry to bail out, why not skip the automakers and take up newspapers instead? It would be cheaper, and they serve a completely irreplaceable role in a Democracy. As The Boston Globe dies a very public and severe death, they have run a whole series of stories about several different large (and amazingly brazen) frauds in the state's pension funds, in congressional aide compensation packages, at the Turnpike Authority, and in dishing out rigged state contracts. News aggregators are great, but there is no one else...not blogs, nor TV, nor radio...that is capable of the kind of reporting that newspapers are.

Just a thought...

Much soberer today

OK, ignore the girl who was blogging drunk at 12:30 on a Tuesday...she is not to be trusted;-) I did get some nice comments from people that I previously was unaware of, though, which is always nice. I love knowing who is reading:-). So please, keep in touch!

This is my 700th post, and I wish that I had something really exciting or interesting for you, but I really don't. That seems like an awful lot of writing, though...the archives are growing to be somewhat unmanageable...

Anyway, I got to work yesterday morning and was asked if I wanted to go to this annual meeting. There is a pretty well-known public company that is a purveyor of alcoholic beverages and is famously located in Boston...someone here has been advising them in a minor capacity for a while and felt like it was appropriate to go to the meeting even though he couldn't make it. So, he sent me:-).

Most annual meetings are incredibly boring, tedious and are intentionally held at awkward times and places to keep people from showing up...but this one is actually pretty fun. They do the formal stuff, then the founder takes some questions and talks about the industry, and then they start serving:-). They have the regular products, and some experimental things or rare things that they don't sell often. There is also food made from recipes that include the booze.

The problem with this is that it started at 9:00 AM and was over by noon...since alcohol is like three times more effective before lunch, my roughly three beers left me pretty well hammered by the time it was over...lol. Good thing I took a car instead of driving! I'd have been stuck in Jamaica Plain waiting to sober up all afternoon:-)

The afternoon was pretty obviously not very productive, and I convinced Big Sis to leave a little early to go and sit outside somewhere for dinner (we ended up meeting some people in the South End, in Jenny's favorite neck of the woods:-)). Before we did that, however, we had a little conference call with Munchkin to get her reaction to her first day of work...so far so good, she enjoyed it.

She also already has two work BFF's, both of whom just completed their sophomore year of college...yea, we will have to see about that... Let's just say that I am not quite ready for 20 year old girls to be picking her up and dragging her all over the Island all night long;-). But I don't have to deal with that just yet...

I guess that is about all. Sorry for the veiled threats at not blogging yesterday...I can't really see completely stopping, even if my productivity slows down. I like it too much:-)

Drunk at work? Never!

I got sent off on a really fun morning project for work...attending an annual meeting that is much more fun than almost any other annual meeting you could imagine:-) There was really no compelling need for any of us to be there, but the bosses wanted someone to go just to be present, and picked me because I am just so fucking adorable.

So, kind of only a half day for me, and I am maybe a little bit drunk...hee hee. Ever been drunk at work? It's WEIRD!!! And I feel like I should just keep drinking slowly all afternoon to keep from getting hungover or falling asleep. That could be taken as a hint to bring me some booze, Big Sis...

Munchkin is now an hour and twelve minutes into her very first work shift ever...do you suppose she has realized yet that it is not nearly as fun as she imagined? Maybe it will take a few days. Or maybe she will need to see the tax withholding on her first paycheck;-). But she and her brother, sister-in-law and niece made it to the beach with no trouble and seem to be all settled in. In addition to being a huge help that he took the two weeks to be there with her, it will be a great chance for her to visit with them all and be Auntie Munchkin.

On that note, sort of, Tinkerbelle's Mom and I are trying to firm up plans for her to come out here for a bit this summer...hopefully at least a full week, more on that as I figure it out.

I am noticing a precipitous drop in the number of comments here lately. Have I become that boring that no one has anything to say to me any more? That saddens me:-( Well, actually, not really...boring can be good. But it does make me worry about the reasons I do this, and whether or not I still get as much out of it as I used to. With a massive life change coming up in September, I don't know whether or not I will still blog like I do now...we will have to see. I may find that I need it even more, are that I don't really need it at all. I guess only time will tell.

Seriously, ignore me, I am not sober...and don't tell the bosses. Other than Big Sis, of course:-)

Did you cry on your way to work this morning?

Weekend turned out really well. Saturday was a really nice day...warm enough to lay out and get some color. Yesterday was kinda icky, but that was OK since Munchkin and I had some shopping to do to get her settled and ready for the season. Some clothes, but mostly I had to make sure there was food and regular stuff like that. We usually don't eat real well while we are down there, so I needed to make sure there was some better food around if she will be there full time. Like...Cheerios instead of coffee cake and bacon for breakfast every morning;-)

At the moment she is at home, but she will be long gone by the time I get back tonight. I am very sad about that, and I cried a little bit on the way to work today...I'll miss her, and I am a little bit worried (although not really), and it is just one more thing that reminds me how fast she is growing up and how quickly our little adventure has moved through (gulp) nearly four years. And now I am crying again.

Change of subject...anyone else going to see The Killers in September? I think my unnatural love for them is pretty well documented around here, so you can be sure that I will be there. The new album is quite dancy:-), but it has all sorts of the ambition and random influence that the first two did as well. There are random spots where they seem to break into fits inspired by Rusted Root, and Some Girls-era Rolling Stones, and Brice Springsteen, and 80's synth-pop. Oh, and they still totally rock, just in case you were worried.

On another music note, Coldplay still rocks, too. I know that Gwyneth's husband is a total tool bag who needs to have his mouth smacked shut sometimes, but they have turned out a whole lot of consistently good music for like 10 years now. And I am not just saying that because they (maybe) wrote a song about my favorite pretend older sister!

OK, I am scattered today, but that is what you get on a Monday. Next subject...I don't write about The Boy enough. I am not really sure why this is, I guess maybe I just feel like that whole part of me is more my own than the rest of it, so I want to keep it to myself. Or, I just feel weird writing sappy love stories. I dunno.

Today, though, I want to tell you that he has a remarkable ability to read me. If I want to be left alone, or if I need attention, or if I would really benefit from a small, unexpected gift or whatever, he always seems to know the right note to play. He is funny when I need him to be, and serious when I need him to be and he listens when he has to and tells me that I am being crazy when he has to, and he always seems to be in exactly the right kind of mood.

That's why I love him:-). Well, one of the reasons.

I am a very lucky girl.