Thank Goodness For Gmail!
Gah!
Lil Q has
another "Star of the Week" thing due for her other school! (Yay!
More homework for me.) You know, there's such a thing as taking a good idea too far....
Considering I remembered this all of five minutes ago, I have to say I love how Gmail lets me search for the pix I sent out of the kids instead of having to sort through the files on my computer. Which I transferred to Mr. Q's computer. Which is slow as mud.
If I emailed them out in the first place, chances are good they're the better pix anyway.
Lil Q Is A Red Sox Fan
Mr. Q is a devoted baseball fan. He really likes the A's and the Mariners. Sometimes the Cubs (though that might be for my sake.) Other than that though, I sometimes have a hard time figuring out which team he wants to win. Take this year's World Series for example. I've seen him cheer for Boston in the past, so naturally I assumed he'd be rooting for them to win it this year.
Nope. I asked him for a reason, but couldn't really follow the response. I think it had something to do with the team's division, whether the Yankees were playing, and who was the underdog. It might have also involved chicken entrails and tea leaves, but I can't be sure.
Lil Q decided early on that she was cheering for the Red Sox, and despite the fact that she pasted a picture of a baseball onto her "dislikes" box when she was the "Star of the Week," she's insisted on watching all of the games. More accurately - she's insisted on watching the start of all the games. She'll watch for about an inning, cheer for the Sox, and then roll over and fall asleep after murmuring "Red Sox." Now there's a real fan, who can confidently declare that her team will be victorious and immediately fall into an untroubled sleep.
She's a funny kid. But apparently also better at predicting the
outcome of games than her dad.
The Stories Nobody Told Me
Several weeks ago, Mr. Q and I were cleaning out the laundry room of my grandmother's house when we came across a file of newspaper clippings. It contained stories about various family members, most of them like the one about my grandmother taking college courses in her 70s or the picture of my uncle when he was appointed to his position with the city government.
But there was another clipping from 1962 that was different. It still mentioned a couple of family members, but it wasn't one of those human interest stories. Instead, it detailed how my great-aunt and great-uncle were held hostage at gunpoint.
My great-uncle Walt was a manager in the big local (and now defunct) department store. Apparently a disgruntled former employee felt that my uncle had been directly responsible for getting him fired, so he put on a Halloween mask and camped out in the bushes next to the garage to wait for Uncle Walt to come home. His thinking was that he could intimidate Uncle Walt into giving him some money. Unfortunately, Aunt Bea noticed someone in the bushes when she was taking out the trash and, thinking it might be my uncle, called out to him. The gunman came out of the bushes, and forced Aunt Bea first into the car, and later into the house. I guess he wasn't planning on her being there because he kept apologizing that "she wasn't part of his plan."
Eventually Uncle Walt came home and the gunman made both Walt and Bea get into the car and drive downtown to the store. He made Bea lay on the floor of the car, but let her go once they arrived at the store. Luckily a janitor saw what was going on and notified the police. When the police got there, the gunman was sitting next to the open safe with a pistol pressed against Walt's head. It took about an hour for one of the cops to finally talk the gunman into letting Walt go.
Uncle Walt died about 15 years ago. I attended Aunt Bea's funeral earlier this week. Although this all happened years before I was born, I'm just amazed that I'd known these people all my life, but didn't know this story. This was probably the most exciting thing that EVER happened to anyone in my family, and I had to find out about it by cleaning the laundry room.
Grrrr...
I hate when cities mess with Halloween.
Halloween is
October 31st. Unless there's a snow storm or something, it should be celebrated October 31st. That means trick-or-treating should occur...you guessed it...October 31st. I *might* be willing to consider shifting it if it meant the kids could trick-or-treat on Friday or Saturday night, but moving it to a different random weeknight is just crazy.
Oh...and another thing...the name for the day is
Halloween. (Hallowe'en or All Hallow's Eve *might* be ok. I said MIGHT.) For the record, I don't subscribe to this whole "Beggar's Night" aberration.
Part of me is tempted to take MY kids trick-or-treating on the CORRECT night. Just out of spite.
Nice To Know
That I'm not completely off-track...though I'm pretty sure politics is not my calling. Is it possible to change the world one cupcake (or cookie) at a time?
| You Should Be a Politician |
Confident, assertive, and dedicated - you know what you want in life and how to get it.
Stubborn and opinionated, you can stand your ground... even if it's unpopular.
And while you have strong views, you never overwhelm people with your opinions.
A true charmer, you subtly influence people into seeing things your way.
You do best when you:
- Work according to your own rules
- Can change the world with what you do
You would also be a good lawyer or talk show host. |
Congrats!
Yesterday while I was getting ready for work, I was starting to feel a little bummed out about the fact that I seem to have reached an age where I go to more funerals than weddings.
This was no doubt brought on by the death of one of my great-aunts over the weekend. (In all fairness, I guess when you consider the fact that many of my relatives are in their 80's and 90's, I should count myself lucky to hail from such hardy stock.)
At any rate, just when I was feeling sorry for myself, I received an email and a "Save the Date" card from 2 different friends announcing their upcoming nuptials. So that shows you what I know!
Anyway - congrats to both my friends! You know who you are!
Blogs (And Other Stuff) Explained
Video
Here.
Ever Feel Like
The only thing working out really does is fluff up your fat cells?
And unlike laundry, my fat cells and I don't even smell good afterward.
Long Time, No Post
So, it's been awhile. And when I say awhile, I mean almost 3 months!!! I was shocked when I saw that!
For the couple of folks still reading, here's what I've been up to. (Just for Mr. Q's benefit, no, I'm not whining - I fully deserve for my readership to drop into the negative numbers!)
- I was attending a long and somewhat boring class when I wrote my last post about tickets to the B-52's concert. The pre-concert reception thing featured weird food (some good, some not so much) and some weird drinks - but what did I expect? It was a B-52's concert! The only downside to the concert was that it was an outdoor concert, so the torrential downpour that started 5 minutes before the concert was supposed to start delayed things. The opening act was a Motown Tribute band. Nothing like a very white crowd singing along with a very white lead singer in a 'fro wig to "Play That Funky Music White Boy." The B-52's part was fun too, though the girls have both gotten a little chunky and Cindy's skirt was so short she was about to flash the crowd! EC was mortified that people (her mother included) actually got up, sang along, and
danced during the concert.
- I have a new boss at work. She's who I want to be when I grow up.
- We had a big inspection/visit. In JAGdom, there's a thing called an Article 6 visit - it gets its name, strangely enough, from Article 6 of the Uniform Code. Basically it says that every service's Judge Advocate General "shall" make frequent inspections of the legal offices. Anyway, we had our visit and it went extremely well and was very educational, but it was a lot of work.
- I went back to TVPNU city for a class. It was a short trip, but I managed to sneak in a visit with
E.Spat and "the boy." The boy cooked paella. I completely approve - of both the boy and the paella!
- I've descended into FOIA hell. I was surprised to find that not only did most of my colleagues not take Admin law, but of those who did, NONE of their profs covered the Freedom of Information Act. At any rate, our office reviews eleventy billion (give or take) FOIA requests a year, and I think I've done at least a quarter of those in the last week, being as I'm an "expert." OK, maybe it was only 4 or 5, but it FEELS like eleventy billion!
- I started swimming again a couple of weeks ago. EC made the swim team this year and her coach suggested she could benefit from the additional practices offered three days a week - at 5 am! I've been tagging along and sitting through the practices, then jumping in for a solid 45 minutes while EC gets ready for school. I swam in high school and was pretty decent, but never great. By contrast, I am now old, fat, and slow.
- Mr. Q and I have been watching a lot of Alias. We've checked out Seasons 2 and 3 on disk from the library and have been slowly working our way through them. We've also managed to go to the movies TWICE without the kids in the last month. Once for Superbad, which was, in fact Super Bad, and once for the Kingdom.
- Mr. Q and I went to see David Sedaris. Mr. Q gave some money to the local public radio station to get the tickets, so we also got to go to another fancypants reception. The food was substantially less weird than the B-52's concert. I used to be a big NPR listener, but have sort of drifted away from it. My commute is only about 10 minutes, and lately I've found myself listening to the intellectual musings of the
Bob & Tom show. (Highbrow, I know.) At the reception, one of the public radio staff members came over and introduced herself, and then started introducing us as "BIG supporters of the station." I felt like such a fraud since before that moment I couldn't have told you a single one of their names.
- Lil Q was selected as the "Star of the Week" for her school. This means that she gets to bring in all kinds of stuff about her this week. On Monday, she had to bring in a poster with drawings of herself, her family, pictures of stuff she likes and hates, and a drawing of what she wants to be when she grows up. Today, she had to bring in a photo collage. Tomorrow, it's something for show & tell. I forget what Thursday is, but on Friday, she gets to bring in treats for the whole class. Though it's nice for each one of the kids to feel "special," I somehow resent that Lil Q's school is giving ME homework, because let's face it - those cupcakes or cookies are not going to bake themselves Thursday night.
- On the plus side, decorating baked goods gives me a chance to use my new "skillz." I went to a cake decorating class a couple of weeks ago and this could be my new love!! I made some beautiful cupcakes, included one with a mauve rose and little green leaves. I would have posted photos, but EC smushed it the following morning when she dropped a sieve on it.
