In My Copious Free Time

blogging the old-fashioned way

Hello everyone, it's me again.

Lest you all think I've forgotten how to type, I figured I'd blog the old-fashioned way for a change. Just  a quick update on what's going on as that's about all I have mental bandwidth for at this moment.

I had a terrific work experience in Trinidad and I'm almost done with a piece about being in the minority and how that impacted me. I did post some pictures from the trip on my Flickr account, though.

After four days away, I came home Sunday before last and Joe and Alex left the next day to go to Pennsylvania. Joe's father is very ill and since Joe is in the down period before starting his new job, there's really no sense in him not spending as much time with his parents as possible. He was planning to drive home today, but those plans needed to change, so now I'm planning on going to get Alex either this afternoon or tomorrow. I miss them both, but Alex is really ready to be home and needs to start getting settled in to a school-like routine. I'd just give anything if Joe weren't having to go through this, though.

On Sunday my friend Chris came over and made brunch (among his many talents, he's an excellent cook and went to culinary school) and we just chilled on the couch and watched Katt Williams.

It's hard to believe that Alex is starting school next week. I said something about being on maternity leave 7 years ago and still being mad that someone took my inbox while I was out. A co-worker chastised me saying it hadn't been 7 years and was floored to realize that Alex is in fact turning 7 in 6 weeks. SEVEN!!! In the SECOND GRADE!!!

This weekend I broke out the TED 2008 DVD set and watched a few of the talks. It's such a shame that many of them are so edited for online posting. Ben Zander's talk is fully twice as long on the DVD as it is on the TED site. I understand why they do it, but the editing means web viewers miss the "beyond the fuck it" story.

If you can't tell, I am really enjoying video blogging and I can't say enough about how wonderful everyone's feedback and support has been. I'm pretty floored by the response, to be honest. I never expected to be getting comments from mostly strangers, or to have people SUBSCRIBING to my channel! But then again, I never expected to vlog in the first place. My videos can be found on my channel at YouTube. Do drop by and say hello and join in the fun by giving vlogging a whirl!

And rather than telling you what I thought about Hillary Clinton's speech last night at the Democratic National Convention, I'll just embed last night's vlog. Which is a little about the speech and a little about the poem it made me think of. (If you read enough poetry, everything reminds you of a poem. That is a good thing.)

A thing of beauty...

...this ain't. I suppose I ought to pull myself out of my assgroove and do some genuine template creation to get this blog looking the way I want it to look. But there are a lot of things that I ought to do. I did at least update my lists a teeny bit and move some stuff over here in an attempt to get this thing going again. But on to more important things.

Joe and Alex are off to MA tomorrow. One of his housemates from his days at UMass (Amherst) is visiting the US from England, so all the housemates are getting together for lunch tomorrow. I originally wasn't going to go because I'm pretty swamped at work and didn't want to take the day off. But thanks to my new broken tooth, I'll be spending tomorrow morning in the dentist's chair. Lucky me.

On a more serious note, I'm really worried about the health of a coworker and it is just a sucky situation. I hope she's going to be okay.

What else...week after next I'll be in Atlanta for a conference for 4 days. The upside? Swank hotel right smack dab between Phipps Plaza and Lenox Square. The downside? I have to talk to people about what we do. It isn't that I don't know; it's just that I'm an introvert and so it requires a whole lot of energy, something I have a short supply of these days. And the Braves are out of town those days. :-\  But it'll be fine. Really.

Headachy thoughts

28 March 2005 (another relocated post)
Ever the nomad, I pulled up roots today and moved to a new office space. Previously I was in a very large open space where as many as 5 other people worked, all positioned along the perimeter. But my role shift away from managing all those people means I don't need to be in that space, so I have the option of a little more privacy and quiet for the first time in a while. So I moved into a smallish space with a real door that I'll be sharing with F, the president's assistant and general go-to guy. I relocated my 2 BABBs (that would be Big Ass Bulletin Boards, of course), plugged in my lamp with the green mulberry paper shade, lit my pomegranate candle, busted out the new mousepad and notepad...and it felt like home.

Nice little dinner tonight. Tilapia filets baked in foil packets, asparagus and mashed potatoes. I feel like having a milkshake, though. Hrm.

I took a long bath to try to kick this headache and managed to knock out some magazine reading. The last month or so has been a combination of Joe working miserable hours or being miserably sick, so I haven't had much me time and the magazines have been piling up. Lucky, Allure, 1 Newsweek, and Marie Claire. So many more to go. I see a lot of baths in my future now that Joe is moderately healthy and working normal hours.

Oh, Joe was sick? Affirmative. It started while he was "away" (in Saratoga) for NEGSA. Fever, congestion, aches. He left the conference early and came home Tuesday night. The fever was gone in a little over a day, but lots of congestion remained. We weighed the option of not going to visit friends that weekend, but figured that with the fever out of the way that he was on the road to recovery. Well. Arrived at friends' home, hung out, went to bed way late. Joe woke up at some undogly hour in excruciating ear pain, fumbled around for a big ol' dose of Advil and went back to bed. We got up the next morning and left Alex with friends and went to a walk-in urgent care place. Yep, ear infection. And make it a double. A fun morning like that can only be topped by a little perforated eardrum in the afternoon, complete with gacky ooze. We could have gone home, but figured he wasn't contagious anymore, and if we were home, he'd just lie in bed and feel miserable. At least at our friends' house he could be entertained while he felt miserable. ;)

Some nice things about the weekend:

*I learned sock knitting (this would also rank right under Joe's ear woes were I to list the worst parts of the weekend -- don't ask me what has possessed me to knit socks). First, it's like knitting with toothpicks. Second, the toe of my sock is quite funky. I'm trying to accept the fact that this is okay it will be inside my shoes. Or at least 5 feet away from my eyes. (I'd say my hypercritcal eyes, but the damn thing really does look funky. This is a fact.)
*I had some really, really excellent Mexican food, delicious sweet potato fries, and tasted a yummy pom margarita.
*I visited 3 yarn stores and only bought 4 skeins of yarn. And a pair of size 1 circulars.)

Anyhow, we got home late Sunday night and Joe proceeded to stay home sick all week. Go figure.

We hired 3 people last week. One is a former employee, and I'm glad he's coming back -- it's like a return to normalcy. Plus he gets to manage all the people that I'm not managing anymore. Poor guy. But it'll be nice to have someone around that can appreciate things like Seinfeld, orange Mr. Sketch markers, fonts and evilness. (I'm always coveting J's Evil Four.)

Oh, on Friday morning I got up and ran. :) I powerwalked to the track at Foofy Private Girls' School only to find it covered in snow, so I ran around the surrounding neighborhood. This is very different for me as it's hilly terrain and not easily measured, and I'm used to running on the flat, quarter-mile track. But it felt great to run again -- I felt great all day. Hell, I even had a great hair day and I'm chalking it up to the run as well. :)