Haiku anyone?

They are so tasty
I could eat them all day long
Thin Mint cookies, yum!

Love the lovely GS cookies...mmmmm...I only ordered one box so I have to make them last a while...

Be nice to me today...

I gave blood. Which I have been doing every 10 weeks. This time, however, I did it as part of the blood drive at my office instead of doing it at one of the blood centers like I normally would. There is something about that bus that makes me nearly faint every time I give blood in there. I can go to the center by my house and do the whole thing within 25 mintues. I get on that bus to give blood and I'm in there for 45-50 minutes. I'm thinking I may have to stop participating in the blood drive at work....only 3 more donations and I'll be a member of the Gallon Club. :>

In other news, I'm very excited about my upcoming trip to Phila. with Michael. I'm so excited to see my friends and do a Lanky-town drive thru....hell, I'm even looking forward to seeing my dad. Oh man, if I actually believed in Hell, I would be going to hell for saying that about my dad. Of course, since we are going to see my dad, now a trip to see my mom has to be arranged at some point. Life is a lot easier when your parents live in the same state. Anyway, can't wait to see those of you who can make it, and for the rest of you, we'll be in D.C. for the last weekend in April. See you soon!

And now for the weather report...

It's going to be a balmy 53 degrees with partly cloudy skies on Thursday. Well, it's about time it started warming up around here. I am so ready for spring...the warm sunshine, light breezes, daffodils....I want to put away my winter coat and sweaters in favor of jackets and t-shirts. I want to read the Sunday paper on my back porch while sipping coffee and feeliing the sun warm on my skin. I want to take Shana to the park and not worry about muddy paws when it's time to get back in the car. I'm even ready for our not-so-stellar softball team to start practicing for this year's season. All I know is that I'm tired of big piles of dirty snow, scraping frost off of my windshield, and chilly winds that make it feel like it's 10 degrees outside instead of 30...sigh....how much longer until spring is finally here?

Sign up now

"The March for Women's Lives on April 25, 2004, promises to be one of the largest public demonstrations in support of reproductive freedom in history." I'll be there and hope many of you will be, too. PPFA hopes to get one million supporters on the mall that day, and I promise it will be very exciting. So, break out your "This is what a feminist looks like" t-shirt and make arrangements with your pet sitter to watch your dog.

http://www.ppaction.org/PPMarch04/join.html

Ewwwwwww...

So, I go to the ladies room and what happens? I sit down in someone else's pee. That is just unbelievable disgusting. We're all adults here, we have a cleaning crew to clean the bathrooms EVERY DAY, and yet, women are peeing on the freakin' seat. If everyone just sat down on the seat like they're supposed to, we would not have this problem. Now, I expect to find this in a public restroom, but really, to do that at the office? Wrong, wrong, wrong. What are people thinking? $10 says the same woman that pees on the seat is also the one who doesn't wash her hands before leaving the bathroom.

The GBC

So....what happened to The Great Blogging Challenge? Here we are, mostly discussing the weather (what are we, retired people with nothing else to talk about?) when there is a plethora of topics to discuss. Since Scott complained about the topics from last time, I vote that he gets to pick the first one. Who's with me?

Not much to say.....

Like Ang noted on her blog, I don't seem to have much to say at the moment. I could write about the problems I'm having with my old health insurance company and the fact that they owe me $90 for a dentist visit from Nov. 5th. Or that property mgmt. at my apt. complex made a ridiculous mess in my bathroom yesterday when they fixed the leak in the ceiling over the bathtub. Or that my job has become more stressful lately. Or that there is nothing like the affection of a man who knows how to act like an adult. But I think, perhaps, I'll just leave it at that.

My best friends have furry legs.....

Well, my baby girl is getting old. The vet took some x-rays of her today and discovered that she has hip displaysia and arthritis in her hind legs. My poor baby....but she'll be okay. She has to start eating senior dog food and taking a daily supplement to help with the arthritis and sometime down the road we will probably have to consider pain medication. In the meantime, she's on restiricted activity for 2 weeks and should be fine....sigh.....I'm such a crazy dog lady......

Whew.....

Well, I'm glad that's over.....all the crap that makes up X-mas stresses me out. Why can't it be more like Thanksgiving? You still get the insane travel part and family dysfunction BUT, you get a yummy meal and time spent with friends with no giving of gifts to get in the way. Admittedly, it is fun to buy gifts for the people you really love but that's what birthdays are for, right? Nevertheless, I had a nice holiday with just my mom and my brother and Shana and found a lovely new set of luggage and some kitchen utensils with my name on them under the tree. Very nice, very nice, but still, I wish X-mas more about spending time with loved ones than worrying that they hate the scalp tingler (a very fun gift, btw) you got them.

Anyway, tomorrow I return to Cinti (there's no place like home) and my carpet that needs to be vacuumed and dry cleaning that needs to be picked up. As nice as my holidays were this year, I am ready for everything to return to normal. This time of year will be upon us again before we know it.

The power of language......

I'm not usually one to find fault with PPFA and the choices they must make to continue the wonderful work they do every day. But. I think they have made a huge mistake in renaming *The March for Choice* to *The March for Women's Lives* as a "reflect[ion] [of] the urgency of the issue and the huge diversity of thoe groups co-sponsoring the march. The new name better represents the broad agenda of those who support women's reproductive health, justice, and freedom, as well as access to family planning and abortion." Frankly, I just don't see how "March for Choice" is NOT inclusive of these issues. To me, "Choice" is more inclusive of the co-sponsoring groups but apparently PPFA does not share this opinion. I just feel like this is a means of de-radicalizing and neutralizing the purpose of this march. Further, why didn't they do this a few months ago? Here we are, almost 4 months away from the event and we are changing our message strategy. Not smart. And if affiliates decide to stick with the "choice" title, then we lose out on consistency....sigh.....

And now that I'm finished with my little rant, I would like to make a plug for the march and encourage you to register at www.marchforwomen.org. April 25, 2004. I hope I will see you there:>

Most of you know....

that I have quite the sniffer. I can smell someone in the room before I see him/her. And Angie's recent posting about not being able to preserve smells got me to thinking that while you can't actively preserve smells, you can be walking along and suddenly a smell takes you back to some moment in time that you weren't actively thinking about 3 seconds before. For example, I was in the stairwell at work and I smelled something that I couldn't immediately place but then realized that it was the smell of the building where I had pre-school. That and the smell of tempera paint. Or, one of the admins at my office wears W!ld Musk by C@ty and that's the smell of my mom from 1984-2000. You know, you walk into the copy room and suddenly you smell your mom and you remember sitting on your parents' bed watching her get dressed and put on make up and thinking that someday you will have a big girl job and will have to wear make up and high heels to work.

I wish we could preserve smells in an album of sorts. Like scratch and sniff photographs or something. Like the smell of your prom date (before he gots sweaty from dancing around like an idiot), the smell in the Gaul house family room on a Saturday night (a mix of taco dip, chlorine and ashes from the fireplace), and the smell of my dog after she's been bathed and fully dry (otherwise she just smells like wet dog). I bet there's a lot of money to be made in scratch and sniff technology. Maybe that's what I'll do after I retire to the spinster lodge in VT.......in between working on the maple tree farm and quilting.......

Family Ties......

Hmph. I'm adopted, I swear. Ah, I needed to get that out of my system before the holidays. My grandma gets upset when I ask if I'm adopted. If that's not quality dysfunctional family fun, I don't know what is......So. The X-mas season is upon us and a.) it doesn't feel like X-mas and b.) I haven't done any stressful shopping or card writing and c.) I have to deal with my mother's family. Oh god. The holiday is 2 weeks away and we are already having issues that I will not go into here although most of you are aware of them by now anyway. All of this is a result of having one's parent live with you and your family and then dealing with the stress by exposing other family members to the insanity. I'm seriously starting to think I might boycott X-mas this year and stay in Cincinnati. Except then my mom would be mad and I haven't seen my brother since Labor Day.......please just tell me I'm adopted.

This is for Scott.....

Go visit this website. I guarantee it will make you feel better:>

http://www.patheticpersonals.com/homeslice.shtml

I need a vacation to recover from my vacation......

Well, as most of you know b/c you were there, Thanksgiving in Lanky-town was by far one of the best holidays I have had in a very long time. There was Roots and whoopie pies, taco dip (without onions on one half), potato casserole and cheese to cut. Yum, yum, yum! I hung out in the hot tub with Angie and Alissa and later Tom stopped by to dip a foot in, I didn't make it to the craftshow b/c I forgot to bring my earrings to be fixed and that was my only reason for going, saw old friends and co-workers and had dinner at Isaac's twice. We had pictures taken with *Santa* and purchased funny (irreverent) Amish Country knick knacks. And there was lots of hair brushing:> Unfortunately there wasn't much sleeping but I can do that at home. Even dinner at my dad's was less dysfunctional this year. I didn't have fun, but I didn't spend the entire drive back to the Gaul house trying not to cry, so that was good. All in all, a truly fabulous time spent with my best girlfriends and family of the heart. I could not have had a better time. Love you all!

Lanky-town

I'm dreaming of a Lanky Thanksgiving....Hee! Can't wait to go to Roots and get a whoopie pie, have lunch at I's, hang out in the hot tub, have taco dip, go to the craftshow, see old friends and co-workers, and spend quality time with my very favorite people in the world. (Scott, sorry I'm going to miss you:<) Safe travels and see you all soon! Mwah!

I'm waiting......

for the other shoe to fall. It's inevitable, really. Now it's just a question of how much longer it will be. And I had really hoped that for once, that would not be the case.

This is for Carl.....

Here it is--my something worth publishing (well, not really, but something a little more substantive than say spam re: topical creams;>). So, last month J. and I went to see a photo exhibit featuring images taken during the war in Iraq. We went in support of the son of someone I work with who had recently returned from a TOD in Iraq. Dr. D is an M.D. in the Army and he put together this exhibit as the result of a promise he made to many soldiers to show these snapshots of what they were seeing everyday. Apparently, the Army now issues small cameras along with BDUs and supplies and the photos we saw were taken almost exclusively by soldiers in the Army, with the exception of a few taken by Marines.

Now, what we saw really does defy description, at least in my opinion, but I am going to try and explain as best I can some of what we saw. We saw images of children burned by phosphorus whose faces were horribly disfigured; soldiers playing soccer and football in the sand; patients being operated on on top of a dirty floor; soldiers sharing bottles of water with women and children; crying soldiers standing at a memorial of a fallen friend; a bloody leg that lay smoking in the middle of a road; bombed vehicles with burned bodies scattered about; Iraqi's kissing the hands of American soldiers; and more children with phosphorus burns. I cannot do justice to the images we saw, but I can tell you how very difficult it was to see and I was glad that I didn't see it alone. It's taken me a month to even put this on my blog because it has been hard to share what we've seen, albeit from the safety of an art gallery in Cincinnati.

And despite the few images of Iraqis who were obviously grateful for the presence of the American soldiers, there is nothing that I saw that ever made me feel that this war was justified. Not that I ever felt that it was justified, but here we are *trying* to rebuild Iraq, more soldiers are dying, and our government is too chicken to admit that we screwed up. And to me, the good that may result in the long run (new goverment, improved quality of life for women, etc.) will never be enough to justify the death of the innocent. So, there's my something worth publishing even if it did take me a month to get it up here.

The Offer......

Well, I got *the offer* on Friday. It's a great offer and, more than likely, the only one at this point. It's just not a good time to look for jobs in the UW system. I plan to accept in about 2 weeks once a few remaining details are hashed out, but now I'm struck by the realization that I will be living in Cincinnati (where 3-way means chili) for at least the next 2-3 years. Not that this is a bad thing, I really like it here, but it feels sort of strange. I had been hoping to return to the East Coast so that I could be closer to my favorite people and places but I guess that will have to wait a couple more years. I really do like it here. I like my job and my friends and the town (conservative though it may be) and the new boy (everyone, say hello to Jeff) and it's really nice not having to move. Well, I might move, but just to a bigger apartment. So, the offer......it's a good thing, as Martha would say. Time to get back to work.....

Greetings from Slacker-town.....

Well, it's been busy around here, that's for sure. If only I had a computer and internet access, I wouldn't be such a crappy blogger-type person. Anyway, my subject of choice for today is fall. I love fall. LOVE IT! It is absolutely my favorite time of year. I love the crisp feel of a light breeze that makes leaves do that cool swirly thing in the street. I love the indian corn and the pumpkin that I bought over the weekend. I was so excited to carve my pumpkin that I couldn't wait until until Halloween! I love that it's time to break out all my sweaters and end their summer exile in the closet I love fleece pants and sweatshirts on the weekends. I love, love, LOVE burning my Spankee Candle (Harvest is the best scent ever) while I lounge on the couch in my fleece pants with a good book in hand and a nice view of the falling leaves outside my patio door. Oh, and a cup of orange spice tea/hot apple cider too. I wish it could be fall almost all year round.......

Yes, yes, I am a slacker. I still intend to post something worth publishing but it will have to wait until next week. I would do it now but I am having a less than ideal day at work and desperately wish to order a large swirly alcoholic beverage....sigh.....