Done

I am done with school...not done in the sense that I have finished (I still have one more semester, done for good in May), but done in the sense that I have had enough. I don't feel like I learned nearly as much this semester as I did during the first year, and in fact found a lot of the stuff to be kind of repetitive (or overly theoretical).

And to be really honest, there are a lot of my classmates that are kind of annoying. There are also some that I like dearly, but there are entirely too many who have always been the smartest person in their class, and need to be constantly validated. And that gets old...the whole point of doing group projects is to get used to sharing workloads and sharing credit. If you can't trust someone else to do something, and you need to be patted on the back for every good thing you do, then you make for a pain-in-the-ass group member.

I am also a little sick of people asking me for a job. I was sort of warned that this would be a problem, but it is still annoying. I work in an industry and for a firm that a large portion of my classmates would like to work in/for, and that can be very hard to break into. Ergo, once work sort of got around, I found that I was an extremely popular girl with people who want some sort of an in. And I don't blame anyone...they are completely right to aggressively try and make as many contacts as they can.

But it has gotten old: I have had probably 50 people ask me if I could set up a breakfast or lunch meeting with one of the partners at the firm for them. There have been exactly 3 people that I have done that for (and no, they are not my friends, they are the people that I think the partners would want to meet). In fact, only two of them were with partners in the firm I work for...the other was actually with another firm that fit that guy's background better (more high-tech industries than what we do most of our work in). I also feel bad making those people swear up and down to not tell anyone that I did that for them, lest people get irritated when I tell them there are no openings.

Honestly, the job situation is beginning to wear on people. Most of my classmates assumed that there would be a healthy array of really attractive options for them when we all graduated. The actual situation is obviously bleaker than that. I am extremely fortunate to not be looking for a job, and I am not one bit envious of those that are. As graduation approaches, the pressure is not going to ease up at all.

Which isn't to say that any of us need much sympathy...no one that I go to school with is going to have any trouble landing on his or her feet. However, a whole lot of them came here expecting to go to Wall Street and earn $200,000 their first year back to work, and many of them will be sorely disappointed. We at least take solace in knowing that it is probably even worse for the people in the law school, who have twice as much debt and even bleaker job prospects (but really, no one has any sympathy for lawyers).

So, I think all of that...the overall stress, some annoying personalities, some disappointment in the curriculum...is sort of combining to make it a bit tedious these days. Really, I am just ready to be through with it and back at work full time. I dunno...maybe some new classes after the New Year will make me feel better about it. We shall see;-)

Torn

I am feeling a little bit parentally neglectful this week...not in my genetic parenting duties, but in my assumed parenting duties. Tomorrow, duh, is Thanksgiving...a time to be spent presumably with family. The Boy and I are taking the girls to his parents house, where all of his brothers and sisters will be, and then hopefully stopping by Big Sis's house, where the pretend family will be.

That leaves Munchkin in kind of a weird spot, though. She could come with us to The Boy's parents house, which she has done in the past and is obviously more than welcome...but I am getting the sense that she sorta doesn't want to. I am not sure if she feels a little bit weird about it, and feels like she is sort of tagging along, or if she just gets sorta bored because there is no one else her age. I don't really know...it's not like she doesn't know his family (she and Twin Sister and Twin Sister's Wife are totally buddies). Maybe she is fifteen and her moods can't be explained;-)

She could also go to Big Sis's and spend the day with the pretend family. And in fact, I think that is what she would rather do (it is also a lot closer, so she doesn't have to be there all day if she doesn't want to). But that, I think, makes her feel kinda weird because I won't be there, and because she is sort of an extra at the family gathering.

Mostly, I just kinda feel like, for maybe the first time in a long time, she is kinda feeling family-less. I am not saying that it is rational, but it does make me awfully sad:-( She is a remarkably balanced and positive young woman, given the loss she has suffered in her life, but I guess that maybe she is capable of thinking about it a little bit more as she gets older, and is becoming more aware of what most people have that she doesn't (you know...parents).

So, grumpy faces all around:-(

Practice Thanksgiving

Last Saturday night was Practice Thanksgiving with The Boy's softball team. This is an annual tradition where the entire team and spouses/girlfriends/boyfriends get together and everyone brings some part of the Thanksgiving meal, and we have a giant feast in anticipation of the holiday.

Honestly, it has become one of my very favorite traditions...none of these people are really my close friends, but I know them all pretty well at this point, and it is a super fun bunch of people. It is just nice to see everyone all dressed up, and to have a really fantastic giant meal full of awesomeness.

I feel like this is a growing social trend, as well...the idea of a "friend" Thanksgiving before the actual holiday. I have heard from a whole bunch of people that they do similar things in the week or two before Thanksgiving. And, sticking with my basic belief that Thanksgiving is America's Best Invention Ever, I am all for it!!! It is just such a nice Holiday about nothing more than gathering with the people you love and appreciating each others' company.

Anyone else have similar traditions? I really do feel like this is becoming pretty common...

Only Because Demi Lovato Was Unavailable

I'm sorry for being all over the place lately...and to having very little consistency to this blog. Between school and work and the girls, I just don't seem to have that much time to write...who knew? Also, I feel like I have less to write about, unless you all want the minutiae of who is eating what and sitting up on her own when, etc... I will try and spare you.

However, I do have a funny anecdote for you today...

As I have mentioned a bunch of times, Munchkin and The Brain Surgeon are big on music swapping. It started with him periodically loading her iPod with stuff, but now she shares stuff with him, too...you know, so he can keep up with what the kids are listening to these days;-). Occasionally, they will just swap iPods for a little while, which they did at some point last week.

While he is, in fact, not an actual brain surgeon, he is indeed a neurologist...and one of some repute. He works in the neurology department at one very fancy-shmancy hospital in Boston, and handles a lot of cases of great complexity referred to him from other parts of the country (like this one, if you feel like crying. Kind of a lot). In other words, he is a serious person who does very serious work.

Also, when he is in his office all day, he listens to music while he works. And yesterday, he was listening to an iPod borrowed from his very favorite 15 year-old not-quite-but-almost sister-in-law. A 15 year-old with a somewhat whimsical sense of humor. At one point in the afternoon, a mother and father came in with their 12 year old daughter for a discussion of treatment for some affliction (I don't know the exact details, but the girl is the patient, which is never happy).

As he was straightening up some things on a bookshelf or something, he didn't get the chance to turn the music off right away, so they came in and sat down before he switched it off. Which allowed the girl to ask this very serious doctor doing very serious work in his very serious office...

"Are you listening to Justin Bieber?"

On being a Mom

So, I see that you all hate seeing eye dogs. Noted;-)

I have been thinking a lot lately (wonder why?) about what it means to "be a Mom". Really, I think about how to answer the question "How do you like being a Mom?" which I understandably get a lot these days. And beyond that, how virtually every new mother feels the need to incessantly talk about how much they love it and how fantastic it is.

Here is the dirty little secret...I don't like being a Mom. Now, before you call DSS...I love my children. But that is not quite the same thing. I love seeing them every day, I love when they smile at me when I pick them up at day care, I love sleeping with them if they are being a little fussy, and basically I just love being around them (most of the time.)

But "being a Mom"? Spending every free moment (and a lot of not free ones) cleaning, changing, burping, pumping, feeding and repeating. Struggling to find moments to do such enormously fun stuff as doing the laundry...that is not really all that enjoyable. And that is what "being a Mom" is, really.

Anyone will play with them and tickle them to make them giggle...but being the parent means doing all of the stuff that is a huge pain, and provides no reward. Running to the grocery store to buy formula, or diapers, or to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription after they have gone to sleep? Not fun. Cleaning up their throw up at 3am after you discover the hard way that the acetaminophen that you give them for their teething makes one of them throw up on command? Yea...you get the picture.

So...um...I am not really sure what my point is. I guess what I am saying is that I am not gonna give bullshit answers anymore. "How am I enjoying being a Mom?" Well...it is a good thing I like the two of them, because, to be honest, they are a complete pain in the ass;-)

Related to nothing

Is there anything better than seeing-eye-dogs?

I love them. Like, seriously get warm feelings in my heart every time I see one. I think that I would carry Milk Bones and hand them out every time I saw one if it wouldn't distract them from working.

And when you really think about it, it is a pretty remarkable thing...for a person to be able to gain that kind of freedom, independence, assistance and companionship (and, frankly, protection) without having to rely on other people constantly.

It also reminds me a a beautiful picture that was hanging on the wall in the studio of our wedding photographer of a bride and groom and her beautiful black lab emerging from a church. His coat was so shiny that it looked like he had gotten dressed formally for the occasion:-)

I think I may make this one of my favorite charities: www.guidedogsofamerica.org

Pet peeve

I have a little pet peeve today...and I am gonna go ahead and vent it. Actually, it is from yesterday, but whatevs.

Here is the issue. Yesterday it rained (actually it has been raining off and on for a week or so, neither here nor there). When it rains, obviously, people carry umbrellas to keep them dry. And while umbrellas have some drawbacks...bad vision, decreased maneuverability, carrying water inside, etc...they are generally pretty wonderful things. More to the point, even though an umbrella causes some inconvenience for other people beyond the carrier, no one really begrudges its use.

However...that doesn't mean that it is OK to carry a giant golf umbrella that is roughly six feet in diameter!!! Yes, I am talking to you, Guy Who Was Carrying the Biggest Umbrella I Have Ever Seen yesterday afternoon...

I understand that it provides a huge, dry-area, and I get that it likely kept you dryer than anyone else on the street. But in order to keep your legs just a little bit less wet, you mandated that every person walking in the other direction had to line up and go by you single file because you took up more room than any other three people. And since neither you nor anyone else could pass by the slow-walking woman in front of you, you also managed to stack up traffic behind you as well.

I think that maybe you need to think about why certain things are manufactured in certain ways. The Golf Umbrella is intended to keep not only you, but also an entire bag of golf clubs dry. And it is intended to be used in a place where an average hole is 300 yards long, fifty yards wide and has no more than four people on it at a time. I have been on a few fairways in my life, and never has one been so narrow as to require limits on the personal space of the four people walking down the fairway at the same time.

An average city sidewalk, however, is somewhat more narrow, and quite a bit more crowded than the fourth hole at your local golf course. Maybe, just maybe, the space requirements on an umbrella are just a little bit stricter...

That is all.

Because Thanksgiving isn't early enough

Stopped at CVS on my way to work this morning to grab a few things...and...Christmas music...

For serious? We are gonna start with the Christmas music in the first week of November?

Match.FiremanStoppingTraffic

I am still up in the air on the tattoo(s), and I will let you know if and when I finally decide what to do. If I ended up getting this and then another when Munchkin is old enough (which I promised her, although I could easily go back on that if I want to) I could conceivably be a girl with eight tattoos. They would all be small, but o I really want to me a girl with eight tattoos? Of course, seeing as I am already a girl with five tattoos, maybe that isn't such a big deal. Anywho...

Kind of a cute story that I want to tell, just because I feel like it. My friend had a date yesterday...just a brief meeting for coffee because it was really short notice, but still a date. I tell you this because she met the guy she was out with in one of the strangest ways I have ever heard of.

Thursday morning (I think), she was driving to work, and got stuck at an intersection. It is kind of a weird corner, where traffic turning left can be stopped by traffic that is stopped at a stop light about 25 yards behind the street she was trying to turn down. To ease this problem, the street is clearly marked, and a "Don't block the box" sign warns traffic to not stop in the way of cars turning left. Several cars seemed to have ignored the sign, though, and she was stuck waiting, and was backing up traffic while she waiting. Meanwhile, there were two firemen in a fire department SUV that were stopped just in front of the intersection, and therefore right next to my friend.

I should probably mention that my friend is super cute, because I think that is a key part of what happened next:-)

Seeing her kinda trapped, the fireman who was driving turned on the red lights, got out of his car and yelled at the cars behind him to back up and let the car through. There was a good public safety reason for this (it alleviated the traffic congestion)...although there was probably not an actual public safety need to ask for her number...hee hee. But he did when she rolled down the window to say thank you.

Sort of taken aback, she declined and drove off. But then she realized that a) he was adorable, b) that was super nice of him, and c) like every other single girl in America she constantly laments the difficulty in meeting nice boys:-). So...later in the day she drove by the fire station and left her number for the guy who cleared out the traffic for her.

He called her right away, they met for coffee yesterday and she reports that he is quite charming, in addition to being adorable and apparently quite chivalrous.

So...um...that story is relevant to nothing at all, but it seemed like a cute Monday morning anecdote:-)

Another ridiculous thought...

I wanna get either one or two baby tattoos...their names, in some form or another, somewhere. The Boy is on board with doing the same thing.

Unfortunately, I am running out of real estate. I was thinking maybe my other shoulder, but that would make my back even busier than it is. I am not a fan of arm tattoos, really, so those are pretty much out. I am thinking either my other ankle, my hip or maybe the back of my neck where it would be covered by my hair if it is down.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Ridiculous Idea of The Day

I fully intended to post pictures of the girls in their Halloween outfits with their tiny pumpkins...and even have the pictures ready to upload...I just haven't gotten around to it yet. But I think I probably will, maybe. Hopefully sometime before Thanksgiving;-)

Let's see...Munchkin's last soccer game is tomorrow afternoon, so I am gonna try and take the girls to watch. Smoking Hot Roommate should come with, shouldn't she? Yea, see, everyone raised their hands, so it is unanimous...

Sometime within the last week, The Boy got it into his head that he really wants to build a house in the Virgin Islands. I have no idea where this came from, but I do know that it has evolved mightily within that week from "Hey, you can buy an oceanfront lot in St. Croix for like $125,000" into something substantially larger and more expensive. I suppose the good news is that the more expensive it gets, the more outrageous it gets, and therefore the less likely that I really legitimately have to talk him out of this.

Because, for real, it is a terrible idea, right? I can rattle off at least a dozen reasons why. But there is at least 2% of me that would have a hard time saying no to that;-)

Also...election day...anyone have any thoughts?