It’s spumoni not spumante

This week, I attended a 3-day conference, visited 4 theme parks, AND the Kennedy Space Center, wrote a paper, and read 3 books.

We bought annual passes to Universal, so there’s at least one more trip to MCO in my future…

The Simpsons ride? It has overtaken Spiderman as the very coolest, very coolest, very coolest ride EVER. In a nutshell, sentiment aside, Universal has it WAY over Disney, hands down.

My biggest disappointment? The “hobbit bar” — as we’ve called it since February; this great little cave in the hole, middle-earth looking bar — at Islands of Adventure appears to have been cannibalized for the new Harry Potter world. I imagine that it will reappear as The Three Broomsticks when the Harry Potter Experience is debuted in 2010.

The world is a vampire.

Oh, yeah. One of those books I read was Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight because I’ve heard all the hype. While, if I remember, I may read the follow-ups, because I like a series, I don’t understand, really, all the gushing. I mean, it was a good, fast read and all, but it had so little actual substance (and I’m used to reading books without much substance). I’m not even a book snob. Like Clara Whatshername, though, I kept crying “Where’s the beef?”

A better read was Sara Paretsky’s Bleeding Kansas. She’s known for writing the V.I. Warshawski detective books, but I stopped reading those years ago. This book, though? Not V.I. Warshawski. Not even a detective procedural. Instead, it’s Prairie Gothic. For those of you who have read Twilight…ignore the Moon book or whatever, and pick this one up instead. There’s the beef. (No pun intended).

I have some spanish song in my head but I don’t understand the words

Tomorrow I leave for Orlando.  I have 3 days of conference activities (actually, more like 2 1/2, since I generally get “conferenced-out” by the 3rd day.)  My work peeps are going to spend a couple of afternoons at Disney and Epcot, and then Tom joins me on Tuesday and Thursday and/or Friday we’re going to Universal.  We return on Saturday.

I would be rarin’ to go, especially since it’s getting cold now, and Florida always feels better when it’s cold here, except for one thing:

I still haven’t finished the drafts of my case studies.  In fact, I haven’t even started the third of these.  I planned to knock out a bunch of words yesterday, only we had a minor fire in the building yesterday.  Normally, the fire alarm goes off at work, and my response is to close my office door.  Unless it’s nice outside.  Yesterday, it went off while I was in the bookstore in the basement.  We all blithely ignored it, discussed what would happen if there ever really was a fire, and I walked back up to my office.  My office mates had abandoned ship, all, but I walked back to my office anyway.  After all, my criterion for leaving the building when the alarm goes off is nice weather, and it was decidedly UN-nice yesterday.  But even Steve, the animal care committee guy had left, so I grabbed my jacket and my purse (like the day I had the foresight not to pull into the parking garage when my car acted funny, I actually had the foresight to grab my jacket and my purse.)  I also grabbed the cheetos I’d just purchased.  I did not, incidentally, grab an umbrella.

The security guards caught up with me at the door to our suite.  “Ma’am,” they said ominously, “We need you to –”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” I said, holding up my gear.  As I walked out, the desk guard told me that there was an actual fire on the 5th floor (What?  I didn’t even know there WAS a 5th floor).  I found my peeps just outside the door, where at this point, we could smell the odor of something (what?) burning.  The firetrucks arrived, and we were all told to Move Away From the Building.

Those of us sans umbrellas moved to the shelter of the cloister walk.  And then, as the rain slowed, we networked.  First, we hung out by the fire trucks and watched as traffic was diverted.  Then, we went and stood by the Dean (although we were not bold enough to talk to him).  Finally, S had a question about the research animals housed in CompMed, presumably located on same floor as the inferno.  (S, obviously knew we had a 5th floor.  I only just recently learned that we have plants in our office).  We found a comp med guy who in the course of answering questions popped off a few gems like “Dead or better by Friday.”  The conversation quickly disintegrated from comparing the human research committee (ours) to the animal research committee (his) and discussing animal advocay to R, our resident funny woman, wondering if people were going to advocate for research animals shouldn’t they dress up like giant mice?  I led her away, quickly, and just in time to hear the announcement that no one would be let back into the building for several hours.

“Okay, gang,” I said, “Let us off to the Bank!” (“The Bank” is work code for the place known on this site as the Pig and Whistle, otherwise known as the CasaChristy annex)  After all, R had not had the foresight of me, and had not brought her purse, her keys or anything else of importance with her.

And, so, we spent the final hours of the Great Fire of ‘08, at the Bank.

Unfortunately, all my materials for my case studies were In My Office.  All of my confirmation numbers for tomorrow’s trip were In My Office.  Before I left, I needed to tie up some loose ends In My Office.  So, here I am today, Saturday,  In My Office avoiding all of the tasks I need to do before I leave.

My own personal procrastination motto, the words not the meaning borrowed very heavily from T.S. Eliot:  “There will be time, and there will be time, to prepare…”

Election Oh-Eight

At 6:15 the line was already all the way down the block.  Berkeley, who has campaigned at this poll for many, many years had no words for the turnout.  (My suggestion to the election commission after voting several elections in the City of St. Louis — break up the rolls some other way than A-K and L-Z.  Every single year, the A-K line is non-existent, while those of use with names in the latter half of the alphabet wait and wait and wait.  It’s the Smiths, I know it.)

I am so excited.  I don’t think I’m going to get any work done today.  I have not one, but THREE, Obama signs in my yard.  After work, I’m going to change into my Obama/Biden t-shirt and head to the Pig and Whistle to watch the returns come in.  This year will not yield the disappointment that ‘04 brought.

Life, Liberty and the Man in the Moon

Friday on the way to a work-related meeting, my car crapped out.  I crossed Forest Park on Euclid, heading toward the parking garage and realized my car no longer was responding to the gas pedal, at least not enough to go faster than 10 mph.  I had a sudden fit of good judgment and aborted my mission to enter the parking garage, thinking that might be difficult for the tow truck.  So, I parked on Euclid at the Forest Park approach, made the appropriate phone calls and then realized that I had to tinkle.  I’d had to tinkle all day really, but I kept putting it off.

So, I did what any girl in my situation would do.  I called Mommy.  “I need a really big favor,” I told her.

“If it’s in my power to do it, I will.”

“Oh, it definitely is in your power.”  I explained the situation and then said, “What I really need?  Is for you to come down here and watch my car so that I can go to the bathroom.”  (I was across from the Center for Advanced Medicine, where my mother – fortunately – works).  I think she was relieved as my “big favors” generally involve money or some  kind of time-sucking task.

As of 4:14, we still don’t know what’s wrong with my car since the diagnostics are clean and Rich can’t get the car to re-exhibit its symptoms.

I need a House for cars, I think.

If You Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now

I have more unpublished posts here than I do published ones.  In fact, one of these posts is a fairly long diatribe on the difference between a clique and a community, but then became as convoluted (and probably as inaccurate) as a popular local blogger’s recent political post on a community site.  And since I used what happened on the community site (a majority of dissenting comments) vs. what happens on this person’s personal site (nearly 100% supportive comments) as the hallmark example, I gave up.

I understand my limitations.

My limitations apparently do not include the ability to write 3 case studies, either; they are due very soon and I’ve barely made a dent.  Take that to mean, I still have 3 case studies to write from scratch, minus some notes scribbled regarding the first one.

I considered pursuing a Ph.D.  Now, I think, I’ll just wave at that Ph.D. as it runs by.

Work is good.  I rock at work.  Seriously.  People actually tell me “You rock.”  These people have not yet caught up to my limitations.  I hope I don’t crack my skull falling from the pedestal.

I got all caught up in a Joyce Carol Oates frenzy.  Some of Oates I really, really like; some of it I walk away from and say “huh.”  And when I do that, I’m not sure if “huh” is a question or a statement, if that tells you anything.  I’m not sure if this has more to do with Oates’ limitations as a writer, or mine as a reader.

The preceding paragraphs would indicate that it has more to do with my limitations.  So, now I’m reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski.  I still have two other Oateses on the shelf to be read, but I thought I’d “jig things up” a little.

It appears after all that our house needs tuckpointing.  Fortunately, I have discovered, tuckpointing isn’t really all that expensive, and we can probably tuck point the sections we need pointed for less than it cost to replace my clutch.  For the car that’s probably on its last legs anyhow.  I keep thinking that if only the vision room were finished, then I could study there, write papers there.  See?  There’s this part of me that refuses to accept my limitations and continues to make excuses for what is nothing more than a bad case of lazy.

In fact, and I know this will sound counterintuitive, but it is in fact my laziness that led me to be a workplace rockstar.  Seriously.  I have a reputation for being an efficiency machine.  People are awed by my ability to minimize a task to the lowest common denominator.  Like how necessity is the mother of invention?  Laziness is the mother of efficiency.  I don’t like to work; ergo, all tasks need to be completed in the least amount of time so that I can get to the stage of “not working” as quickly as possible.  There are too many books to read, to waste my time on work.  There are too many websites, for that matter.

What else?  I’m looking forward to next Tuesday; more to the point, I’m looking forward to next Wednesday because I took a vacation day in order to celebrate, or commiserate.  Either way, an entire day to myself, to do whatever I want, sounds scrumptious.  I love my husband, and all, but some days I need to do whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want, without having to consider anyone else.

Anything else?  Hmm.  Just a few weeks and I’ll be in Florida.  AGAIN.  Obviously, my travel karma has limitations, too, or this year’s conference would be in some other warm climate like San Diego or Maui.

On the horizon:  Christy goes shopping.  Wardrobe shopping.  Christy has finally come to terms with the limitations of her wardrobe.  Here’s hoping that the necessary expansion of the limitations of her wardrobe do not have to compete too heavily with her shopping limitations.

Also on the horizon:  This year, since we have fixed (most of) our space limitations, a Christmas tree will be erected at CasaChristy.  We will be buying a pre-lit artificial tree, because I watched my dad for years and years  struggle with, and curse the lights in a most un-Christmaslike manner, which caused much family acrimony.  I don’t want my first Christmas in our new house to be the last Christmas we spend together.  And, I know my limitations.

It really ties the room together

While Friday night came and went with a whole bunch of marital strife and people getting all up in my marriage and Saturday managed to be about as productive as a dog without an asshole, Sunday redeemed the entire weekend with a single trip to Home Depot.

I have been searching half-heartedly and without any luck for area rugs. Our entire house (except the kitchen proper and the bathrooms) is laid in hardwood and I have three cats. Three cats and a litter box. Hardwood is incredibly unforgiving with this mixture, and as pretty as it all is, I really need something to absorb hair and cat litter. Still, I haven’t found anything that really said, “Buymebuymebuyme.” I had the same problem when we were looking for furniture, and then one day, Boom! we found a living room set and then nearly a month went by and we still hadn’t found bedroom furniture or living room tables. And then one day, Boom! Tables and Bedroom furniture.

Apparently, all the stars have to be aligned correctly or my inner tides have to be moving in the right direction for inspiration to hit.

First, my father offered up the area rug that sat on top of their wall-to-wall carpet for the last couple of years (my mother’s vision has changed apparently). I sat in the bathtub on the phone with my father raising my hand ala Horschak and chanting, “Ooh, ooh, memememememe, I’ll take it.” I didn’t know which room it would ultimately lay, but damn, I wanted that rug.

And so, inspired by the idea of one more room area rugged, I tagged along with Tom when he went to Home Depot to look for a replacement window blind for our kitchen (which will be replaced with alabaster, rather than blinding white — that was inspiration #2). Inspiration #3 came when I discovered faux wood blinds in Golden Oak. These will replace the blinding white blinds in the living room. Finally, back to the first inspiration: within minutes — seconds, really — I had found the area rug of my dreams.

We laid the rug under the coffee table and it looks awesome. It really ties the room together, to paraphrase Jeff Lebowski. I love this rug so much, in fact, that I wish we’d bought the really big one. Later we drove out to C-field and scored the other rug. For the time being this is the music room, but when my vision is realized, we’ll move it upstairs to what will then be the den, because as I looked at this rug realized that it will fit in with the vision. If I’m wrong, why then it will stay where it is and fit into the vision of a dining room (which I’m currently using as the music room).

AND, we finally hung pictures, which means that they aren’t all leaning against the fire place in the living room.

My mother has been bugging me to get my wedding crap out of her garage, so I did that yesterday, too. We have a few centerpieces left, and one of them was a bowl that my mother painted. It still had the glass beads and the flower heads. I placed it on the living room table, and even perhaps more than the rug, pulls the room together.

I don’t know what my next steps are, but I’m happy that my living room finally looks like a living room. I think I’m also going to inherit my parent’s artificial ficus tree, which will look very nice there in the corner behind the sofa.

Solid Citizen vs. Naked Guy

Picture this: I’m tooling down Sidney on my way to the Pig, and stop behind a school bus presumably letting off passengers, although, I never saw any myself. The bus turned the corner, and as it passed the house on the corner, the front door of this house opened and in the doorway stood a naked man. All the way naked. I drove off with my jaw on the steering wheel, doing that head shaking thing where you aren’t really sure you saw what you saw even though you know you saw what you saw.

When I arrived at the Pig, I shared the story with L and S, when one of them connected the school bus with the naked man. “Oh, geez, I hadn’t even thought about that.” Probably because I didn’t see any actual children, but realized that the bus probably stops there everyday, and whether this guy is an intentional pervert or just lacking in common sense, it could be traumatizing to young children to see this guy naked. And I mean, really traumatized.

So, I called the police and reported it. “Was he black or white?” the dispatcher wanted to know.

“Oh, most definitely white,” I told her. “He could bring new definition to the term white. Yeah, and he was about 50, and had white hair and a little beard and um, he had um, some chest hair? And it was white, too? Yeah, he was a white guy, for sure. And, did I mention he was naked?”

“Yes, ma’am. The very white guy was naked. I’ll send officers out right away.”

“The children of the world thank you, lady.”

Tanned and Ready for Fall

For all of my whining and whinging about going to Florida, I really had a good time.  Inexplicably, we didn’t fight or even argue once.  This is inexplicable because we always, always have one dark moment when we travel.  I think we both had a little more patience this trip.  I also think it helped that Tom, too, had his nose in a book at nearly every opportunity, and so didn’t seize every turn of my page as an opportunity to regale me with discourse about whatever minutiae crossed his mind at the moment I lifted my eyes.

We sat in an emergency exit row on the way out where we had the best or 2nd best seats on the plane depending on what you value.  In our row, there were only 2 seats, with a gap where the seat by the window would be.  In the emergency row behind us, they were 3 to the row, but had more leg room.  I took my responsibility very seriously and paid attention during the safety review.  I also paid close attention because prior to the spiel the flight attendant dropped a parcel of equipment into my lap and said “Hold this for me.”  Woo!  Look at me!  I’m Prop Girl!  It was like being the magician’s assistant, that, handing him the seatbelt, handing him the inflatable vest in the case of a water landing, handing him the oxygen mask which will drop from above in case of a loss of cabin pressure.  I waited for the sawing in half of a terrorist or something, but it never happened.

Immediately after arriving, I programmed the radio stations into the rental car’s stereo.  Tampa must have the most commercials per minute than in any other market.  In three days, I maybe heard 3 songs, but know by heart the phone number of that chiropractor over on that one street over there.

Immediately after programming the radio, we drove to Busch Gardens, where we intended to ride roller coasters.  We rode exactly one.  I told Tom I just didn’t have it in me.  All the bravery and exhilaration I exhibited at Islands of Adventure (Universal) didn’t make it to Busch Gardens.  I think the seeming ineptitude of the ride operators at Gwanzi undermined my confidence that I would emerge from these experiences intact.  The picture of us coming down the big hill shows on my face such a look of abject terror that I agreed to buy the image on a couple of refrigerator magnets.

Somehow, even without riding anything, we managed to spend 4 hours in the park, and I did see the biggest alligator in the whole world (I’m certain of this).

We took it easy that night, eating and drinking at a couple of our favorite places.

Saturday, I woke Tom early, prodding him with, “Dude, you can sleep on the BEACH!  Getupgetupgetup.”  We spend nearly the whole of the day on the beach, reading, sleeping, playing in the water.  I found my new dream job (which has now surpassed Driving the Lunch Truck):  driving the drinks cart on the beach.  Even more than the lunch truck, no one ever, ever says, “Oh, God, it’s the Drinks Cart girl again…”  We ate dinner at Columbia which I had been looking forward to since we planned the trip.

Sunday we killed time, as usual, at John’s Pass in Madeira Beach and hit a car wash before heading to the airport.  The amazing part of the return trip is how all the planets aligned:  my wine was free because the credit card gadget wasn’t reading Tom’s cards, we arrived 15 minutes ahead of schedule, our bags were among the 1st four off the conveyor and we grabbed a shuttle to the parking lot immediately where our car was ready to go.

I wasted no time getting back in the swing of things, and had Tom drop me off at the Pig, where I lasted about two minutes before asking him to turn around to pick me up to drop me off at Llyw’s so I could play trivia with Eric.  We came in second.

Tabula Rasa

To be honest, I’m intimidated by the new site. It’s all new and shiny and whatnot and I hate to clutter it up with useless drivel. On the other hand, I really don’t have anything other than useless drivel.

Here’s what I’ve been up to during the hiatus:

I began my Clinical Health Care Ethics program. It’s mostly distance learning, with on-site seminars once a semester. I had a million pounds of reading to do for that, which was held on September 18-20. I’m watching House with a different eye now. That over, I now have to write 3 case studies, all between 1800 and 3000 words. I haven’t written a critical paper in nearly 20 years. I keep telling myself that analyzing a case study can’t be any harder than a critical comparison of the narrative thrust in Moby Dick and The Scarlet Letter. Or how about that paper on Gawaine and the Green Knight. That wasn’t even written in modern English. How hard can this be? Right? Write.

In addition, I’ve launched into a written account of my life with the Pissed-Off Bastard, which is essentially a memoir of my 30s with analysis of my 20s thrown in for comparison. Seriously, my life before age 36 should serve as a warning to others.

At work, I recently put together what I called “The Nearly Amazing Race” which was modeled after The Urban Challenge, only limited to campus (North and South for those of you familiar with Mario). I created 30 checkpoints, all based on University facts and history and campus location. I did throw in the 90210 Walsh’s for good measure. Anyway, the race was run on Friday. It seemed pretty successful and I think everyone had a good time, even if it wore them all out.

People keep asking me about the house; I realized that we virtually stopped doing anything related to moving in on or about June 19th. Whatever boxes remained upstairs and/or unpacked on that day, remain that way today. It’s beginning to depress me.

We’re going to Florida (again) on Friday for the weekend. I realize that it is horrible of me to complain, since we are able, in fact, to go to Florida for a weekend if we want, but this will be the 3rd of 4 trips to the Sunshine State this calendar year. I want to go to Portland. I want to go to Vermont. I want to spend a week at a dude ranch in Colorado. I scored some free passes to Busch Gardens thanks to an Anheuser Busch connection, so we plan to do that when we arrive on Friday; we’re staying at the Hilton (an experience I was robbed of in October ‘05, due to Hurricane Wilma (in doing research on which, hurricane, in fact, affected that trip, I discovered that Joan Didion’s daughter was named for a State of Mexico. Who knew?). Because we’re staying at the Hilton, and only because of this, I will spend some time at the beach.

In a month, we’ll be headed back to Florida again, this time Orlando (again). I have a conference there and Tom will join me and we’ll hit one or more of the Parks again (at least Universal’s Island of Adventure).

I still need to post pictures of my and Ashley’s trip to Key West; specifically, I need to download the video of Ashley on the mechanical bull. It’s Classic. She and B were married a week ago; I tried to think of some way to clandestinely incorporate my video into the ceremony, but decided that might be a fireable offense since the church where they were married is connected to my employer. I met a fellow local blogger, Jason Wall, who photographed the wedding. I also heard Kim Massie sing “Redneck Woman” and while I really dislike that song, I’m a sucker for cross-genre covers and therefore loved it.

The last few weeks have been filled with many realizations, the biggest of which is that it seems everyone I know is either dying or getting married. A friend and former neighbor, the person to whom I gave the nickname “The Simpson” for the purposes of my website, died of an aneurysm, on 9.26. The last time I talked to him I think was to tell him about the death of our neighbor Margery (whose cat we then adopted). I can’t even keep track of how many neighborhood deaths have happened this year. Not long before the Simpson, Patty, the owner of the 55-Bar died of complications from her stroke. Both of these people always really liked me (for some reason). On Friday, while I played a few songs in Art’s memory (it was both his birthday and the 9th anniversary of his death), I contemplated calling Sister K or Mercer, and then realized how long it’s been since I talked to either of them. I then realized that I really need to take a day and call or write those people I don’t see daily. For that matter, I really need to be more connected to those friends I do see often. For instance, Laurie (with whom I have a budding friendship) text messaged me Friday night about getting coffee and a donut on Saturday morning, if I got up early. I did not. But, worse, I didn’t call or text message, either. I need to get out of my own head.

Things at work are much calmer, and the one issue that’s had my knickers in a knot, and causing me a certain amount of dread on a daily basis is about to end, as the person causing this issue is probably taking a new job elsewhere in Mario. I heard this this morning and that huge weight came off my shoulders immediately (that huge weight is likely the culprit of my stiff neck and the pulled back muscles of this weekend).

The staff retreat (The Nearly Amazing Race) though was otherwise very successful in taming some of the other workplace monsters; I think I felt my own attitude towards one of my employees shift for the better. Both she and I will be happier for that!

In news from the kitchen, I have two pecks of peppers to pickle before Friday. I don’t know that I have room for all those jars in the fridge (I will be making refrigerator pickles, since I don’t know how to can, and live in fear of poisoning someone and going to prison).

Other than that, some things I’ve been thinking about (and hope to write about when I have time to do it properly):

Community vs. Cliques in the Blogworld: You Think You Belong to One, but You Probably Belong to the Other.

The continuation of my Top 10 Favorite Songs of All Time

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead by Crystal Zevon and Rant by Chuck Palahniuk, which coincidentally both happen to be oral histories (one non-fiction, one fiction).

Reconciling my belief in re-incarnation with the lack of desire to be re-incarnated into any time after 1990. Can I just re-do 1985 again?

Why 3 cats is too many, but 4 wouldn’t be.

Things I’m thinking about, but won’t write about:

The election.

How I will learn to live with the election results in the event it doesn’t go my way.

How I have not encouraged my husband to register to vote because I’m certain he’ll vote the wrong way.

BBRS

New Digs

Consider this TLQ.  I’m hoping to eventually move back to casachristy.com or maybe even find a new identity.  In the meantime, here I am.

So, far, looking around, however superficially, I think I like WordPress.  I mean, who KNEW you could do all this stuff, so easily.  I can’t wait until I’m all ready to dig in and find all the cool shit.

The bigger question:  how is it that it is 9:36 pm on a Friday night and I’m both at home and awake?  This never, ever, never happens.  I’m not even watching Chiller.