All Or Nothing

Life Lessons

This morning, while driving to work, I spotted a homeless man waving his arms wildly on the side of the road. Coincidently and at that very same instant, I suddenly found a pressing need to understand the mechanism of my eyeliner. As I studiously examined my makeup and paid as little attention as possible to side of the road, I noticed that Waving-Arms Man was dressed rather nicely for a crazy. He was even wearing a tie. And, as it happened, a shirt of the same color as the one Cody was wearing this morning! Hey! Waving-Arms Craziness Crazy is my husband!

I quickly pulled my car over and let the not-so-homeless-after-all-man-who-turned-out-to-be-my-spouse into the passenger seat. "What happened??" I asked. "Are you ok???"

"Those motherless-f*&%ing #$*^ers! What the #%*& do they think it means to $%*ing fix a $%&*#%^* car??!!??" responded Cody.

"Whoa," I commented, nicely, and in a very understanding tone. Cody contiuned to explain the situation by saying, "I'm going to %&@* go over there and $%&# $%&^#* $%^#&*@*!"

"Well, yeah," I said, exuding sympathetic wifelyness and love.

"Arrggghhh!" he concluded.

You see, Cody's car has been broken for quite some time. We finally were able to get the thing towed to a mechanic who then finally fixed* it. It was quite the celebration when the red Jetta was returned to us. However, it seems that whenever Cody left this morning for work, the little tube or pipe or whatever it is in there that sends the oil to the engine decided to just go on and take another break. Or sabbatical. Or maybe it got fed up with the labor unions in the engine and is planning on walking out on us forever. I guess affirmative action is the key to solving this mystery, but the last time I checked, everything inside an engine looks blackish. The only possible solution is that the oil-sender is probably a female who has had it with the male dominated world in there and has a job offer as the chief oil manager in a cute little 4-Runner across town.

But I digress. The real moral to this story runs far deeper than a mere lesson on fairness and equality. What we all need to remember is this: The next time you are sitting in your car at a stoplight, and you see a man (or woman!) selling roses, or holding a sign explaining their plight to the masses, don't just look away, or pick that time to search for the valuable item you just remembered is probably on your floorboard, or pretend to be asleep, or lock the door, turn down your rap music, and slide down in your seat, Office Space style. Because that man or woman might just be your husband.

The end.

*Obviously an example of not fluently speaking Mechanic. FIXED, in Mechanic, always means MAYBE IT MIGHT POSSIBLY MAYBE WORK SOMETIME FOR JUST A MINUTE. Conversely, and unfortunately, FIXED in English means YES IT WORKS NOW. Failure was certain.

This will be your first test....

*(please see below)

If you were a girl, and you had just started dating a guy, and you had only been doing this dating of said guy for about two weeks, how would you feel about going home with him over Thanksgiving break and meeting all *these people? Plus about 15 more? My brother (in-law, but I just call them all brothers) has somehow decided that it is in the best interest of this poor girl to meet not only a large majority of his whole family (as pictured above) but also my whole family (I'll picture them later), my sister (in-law)'s whole family, and some other random guests. This is like the ultimate test of girlfriendom. This is the Ironman of all Thanksgivings :)

P.S. This was also a great opportunity to shamelessly post a wedding picture - Beck, this is for you! :)

Dr. Vegetable

This cat is killing me. I go upstairs this morning to the bedroom and the animal is dead asleep in one of Elise's drawers, which is a popular sleeping place for her. "What is wrong with that?", you may want to ask. Well it isn't the fact the she is sleeping in a drawer. I have no allergenic or hygenic protest for her chosen spot. It doesn't even bother me that it is the naughty drawer. To each his/her own, I say. The real problem is that this morning's viewing is one of only a couple of times I have seen Dr. Jillian Vegetable sleep since her arrival several weeks ago. We are certainly dancing to a different circadian beat these days. Let me break down a typical night for our little family (Times are made up to protect those involved....we don't want anyone thinking that we aren't cool or happening):

11:00 - Elise is asleep within about 3.5 minutes of closing her eyes.

11:05 - Jill hits the manic phase, this phase will most certainly continue until E&C are out the door in approx. 9 hours.

11:15 - Jill, who I can only assume is training for some future olympic competiton, starts with a few (10-15) warm-up laps from the bed, to the chair, to the chest of drawers, around the desk, behind the dresser, underneath and back up on the bed. Each lap has a 3 second cool down period at the end where she looks up and around wildly. We recently discovered that this is due to the presence of the ceiling fan, which she either loves or hates....there is no way to tell.

11:30 - a period of stretching..................................her claws on our legs.

11:45 - time for sprints (too many too count). She varies her path and her distances and I have thus far been unable to determine rhyme or reason. The real sleeping detriment associated with the sprints is the digging and ripping noise of her claws on the carpet, chair, comforter, etc. Of course, all resting occurs at the foot of the bed with her attempting to understand that damn spinning thing up there.

12:17 - strength and coordination training. At this point, Jill begans her "circuit". I should also mention that Jill is not a jumping cat. If she goes anywhere above ground level, she is most definately going to climb........never that nice, quiet, stealthy cat jump.

STATION 1 - Chair climb. 3 sets, 15 reps, focus on clawing and tearing noise to achieve maximum volume

STATION 2 - no technical name here.....she just basically grabs a RCA adapter cord that is hanging down and slaps it up against the side of the dresser for 5 minutes or so. This is followed by intermittent periods of dodging a stream of water that comes from a squirt bottle located directly next to our bed.

12:34 - Cody manages to fall asleep. Knowledge of rest of the circuit has been obtained from a night of staying up late reading.

STATION 3 - lots of noise behind the desk as the good Doctor tugs and pulls at any and all electric cords behind the desk and the night stand.

1:00 - staring and talking to the cat in the mirror with lots of confusion and side to side movements of the head.

STATION 4- this is where she does a little more heavy lifting. She ups the level of difficulty in her climbing regimen in my closet. Using only her front legs she scales the front of the first shirt hanging in the closet, which concidentally happened to be new. She glories in her triumph by walking across the tops of the hanging clothes. I can't decide if I should rotate the first shirt in an effort to save it, or just let it be the martyr.

STATION 5 - this is where she is brought down a level or two. At this point, she seems to think that there is nothing she can't climb. She moves on to her two most dreaded foes, the painted wall and the closet doors. Despite several attempts, they evade her every time. It is a painful defeat for all three of us since it is accompanied by that horrible "nails on a chalkboard" sound. She is immediately on the look-out for more of that squirting water.

1:14 - shake it off and repeat cycle.......repeat, repeat, repeat.

3:45 - 5:00- combat training. Jillian attacks anything that moves, except for that freaking ceiling fan, which still seems to be out of her reach. Like a dog chasing a squirrel, she's going to catch it, whatever it is, one day. For now, the moving things within range are restricted to our hands, feet, fingers, toes, or any body part that moves under those covers.

5-6:00 - she goes covert, almost certainly under the bed......her movements cannot be tracked. I think she works in a power nap to sufficiently prepare her for...................................

6:00 - 8:30- a healthy dose of laps, sprints, and crap-load of chair climbing. LOTS of water dodging and running from a disgruntled Cody.

8:35 - ahhhhhh, they're gone. Time for a good days sleep in the naughty drawer and lots of pooping in the litter box, which is right out in the open, next to the stinky kitten chow and that nasty water with chunks of bloated cat food in it (the joys of completely living in only one room........4 more weeks!). Gotta get some recovery time in, because there is a big night of annoying the shit out of her cat-hating daddy ahead. I figure that George Bush is somehow to blame for her behavior, but I have not been able to find a reliable link just yet.
I'll keep you posted,

Code

Like, seriously...

Ahhh. I can finally breathe again. My hair is back to a semi-normal color. And it only took three days, two boxes of hair dye, one failed trip to the hair salon, one angry phone call to said hair salon, one successful trip to same hair salon, 2.5 hours at hair salon, 5 different professional hair processes, and a grand total of right around $200. Yeah, I said it. $200.00. Let the shock sink in.

"She spent $200 on her HAIR. Like, OMG,"

"Yeah, who does she think she IS, anyway? Britney f-ing SPEARS?"

Well, I can assure you that not only do I not harbor any notions of being Britney, I also believe she might dish out just a tad bit more for her hair. Especially since the last thing netscape.com popped up for my reading pleasure was about Britney's poor little puppy, who was apparently so distraught in his new puppiness that his mommy felt he needed a whole new doggy room, doggy bed, and doggy room accessories from Shabby Chic to cheer him up. I mean, my very own Dr. Vegetable only has her one Juicy Couture Rabbit Fur Capelet that she uses for a bed, and a Minata collar. Come on.

In other news, I have added some new links. You should all check them out, and soon. I'll probably be back later for more, but for now, it's time for a long stint in the copy room with a tub of old bank statements. And who says law isn't exciting??

Orangey-Orange

This isn't me, and this isn't my hair length, but it's pretty freaking close to the color. Just imagine some longer, blonder layers emerging from that incredible carrot-inspired hue.

For you, Kim :)

Beginnings and Endings, officially

You may have noticed the new format. I wanted to officially welcome Cody to the blog and when I saw this template, I just knew it would be perfect.

However, there is another reason for the change. I wanted to say goodbye, also officially, to my haircolor. I have, officially, ruined it. There is a small chance of saving it if the people at Toni and Guy can perform a major pigment miracle, but the likelyhood of it ever resembling a color found in God's creation is slim to none.

I wish I knew how to post pictures so that everyone could know the incredible catastrophe that is my hair, but perhaps it is a good thing that I don't.

Here's my best attempt to explain: Imagine this color, fading to this color, then chunking into this color. It's a huge mess. Ugh. It's kind of like when that nacho cheese truck overturned in the road and all the cars coming through slid all over the road, colliding into one another and causing a giant, cheesy disaster. The similarities are striking not only in the "How disgusting!" department, but also in the "I can't believe that just happened," department, not to mention the "I can't look away bcause it's too awful!" department.

I eventually drove myself so insane looking at it that I had to tie a scarf around my head and go to bed. Cody made the observation that he never would have imagined going to bed with hair product scattered around the room, a cat refusing to move from his pillow, and a wife who insists on sleeping with a hair scarf. I tearfully replied: "Oh yeah?? WELL JUST WAIT!" I think it was sound advice, officially.

You know when you're feeling

You know when you're feeling super emotional (I may have just limited my audience) and the littlest things seem to matter a lot?

Well, as most of you probably know, I am currently working as a legal assistant in a "family" (read: divorce) law firm. It's really easy to just get lost in the details of work, especially when I am usually occupied with typing and filing and such things. I used to get really interested in all of our cases, and try to read through all the depositions, becoming more and more appalled by the awful situations these families were going through. Now, only 6 months later, I just check for the name, and file appropriately.

Today, though, I got a nice little dose of reality when I heard my insightful co-worker, while sorting through piles of bank statements and credit cards and business plans and wills and testaments and decrees, make this observance:

"I never want to get to a point where my entire life can fit into a manilla folder."

I don't know what it was about that statement, but it just seemed especially poignant to me. How do people get reduced to that? I'm sure that no one starts out with such a goal in mind, but believe me, there are more people than not who end up that way. How can we avoid such a fate? What happens to people between point A and point B? I know the on-paper answer(s) but I think it goes a lot deeper than that.

In other news, while walking to Starbucks on my lunch break (the neighborhood I work in is very pedestrian-friendly and reminds me of NYC most of the time) I stepped in a crack and broke the little stiletto heel-cover off of my right shoe. It seems like a relatively small problem in the shoe-mishap department, but every time I take a step, my shoe makes this little clanking noise, followed by a scrape caused by the screw that is now sticking out of the bottom of my shoe.

I've always had visions of my future self as an old college professor lady, spilling coffee on all my students papers and remaining completely oblivious to my quirkiness while all my students make fun of me. I think I may have accomplished Step One of that goal on my walk back this afternoon, as I clanked/scraped/dragged my right foot all the way back to work while reading a book and paying little to no attention to my direction. Unfortunately, I never considered what a spectacle I was probably making of myself until I was already back at work and it was all too late.

Today was my favorite weather. 65 degrees, cloudy, and jazz music playing outside Starbucks. And yes, I do think that should all fall under the category of weather. Weather means conditions, and those are all legitimate conditions. So there. What's your weather like today? It's the new cool way to ask :)

Dennis Prager: Why Democrats are

Dennis Prager: Why Democrats are tagged as the party without values

According to The New York Times, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, reflecting on her party's recent losses in the presidential, Senate and House elections, asked: "How did a party that is filled with people with values -- and I am a person with values -- get tagged as the party without values?"

As one who was raised a Democrat and became a Republican only 10 years ago, I would like to answer Gov. Napolitano's question as honestly as she posed it.

Gov. Napolitano, your party does indeed have very many people with values in it. But the Democratic Party is no more representative of the average Democrat's values than the National Council of Churches is of the average Protestant's values. Both are far to the left of their membership.

Here is the Democratic Party as most Americans, including this John F. Kennedy liberal -- a New York City born and raised, Jewish, Ivy League-educated intellectual who lives in Los Angeles -- see it.

To most Americans, Michael Moore is a Marxist who has utter contempt for most of his fellow Americans, who goes abroad and tells huge audiences how stupid and venal his country is, and in his dishonest propaganda film, portrays the American military as callous buffoons. Yet, this radical was given the most honored seat at the Democratic Party convention in Boston, next to former President Jimmy Carter.

To most Americans, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are race-baiting demagogues. Yet they are heroes to the Democratic Party. Most Americans do not see their country as the bigoted and racist nation regularly depicted by both black and white Democratic leaders.

To most Americans, a man who wears women's clothing to work is a pathetic person in need of psychotherapy. To the Democratic Party, he is a man whose cross-dressing is merely another expression of multiculturalism. The California legislature, which is entirely controlled by Democrats, passed a law prohibiting any employer from firing a man who shows up to work wearing women's clothing.

To most Americans, Eminem is a vulgar nihilist who poisons young Americans' minds. To John Kerry he was a man whose anti-Bush hate video was worthy of endorsement.

To most Americans, obscenity-filled evenings should be restricted to R-rated films or a Las Vegas comedy act, not a major party's fund raiser attended by its candidates for president of the United States. To Democrats, those who object to such evenings are regarded as judgmental, hypocritical and narrow minded.

To most Americans, Hollywood stars are regarded as terrific to watch in films but also as narcissistic ingrates when, between private jet trips to Cuba and Cannes, they express their contempt for traditional America. That the Democrats have a veritable monopoly on support from folks like Sean Penn and Robert "Castro-is-a-great-leader" Redford may give Democrats a heady feeling, but for tens of millions of Americans it merely reinforces their belief that the Democratic Party shares Hollywood's values. Even The New York Times, in a post-election analysis, wrote of "the possibility that activist entertainers' fervent endorsements might have cost Mr. Kerry the election."

To most Americans, the American military is not only heroic; it is regarded as more important to safeguarding freedom than any other human institution, including the ACLU, the United Nations or the university, to cite three major Democratic Party affiliates. To virtually the entire Left, which includes the Democratic Party, the military is, at best, a necessary evil. Otherwise, the overriding doctrine is "Make love, not war." That is why Harvard still refuses to allow ROTC training -- and it is unlikely that either of the Massachusetts senators even finds that wrong, let alone as reprehensible as most Americans do.

To most Americans, gays are fellow Americans who happen to be homosexual and who should be accorded the same respect any fellow American is accorded. But most Americans also believe that America should retain the millennia-old definition of marriage as man-woman. They regard liberal judges who take it upon themselves to redefine marriage with contempt. And these judges are identified with the Democrats.

Whatever their views on abortion and abortion rights, the vast majority of Americans view the abortion of a viable fetus/baby (partial-birth abortion) as immoral. The Democratic candidate and his fellow Democrats repeatedly voted against a ban on this practice.

Gov. Napolitano, I hope that this short list answers your question about how it is that your party has gotten tagged as "the party without values." Indeed, the real question, as this observer sees it, is how has this party retained so many people who have traditional American values?

"We are only as strong

"We are only as strong as our weakest link"

That quote has absolutely nothing to do with the soon-to-follow post, but it's been running through my head all day for some reason, and so I thought I'd throw it out there for lots of though-provoking meditation. The other thing that's been running through my head all day is this silly little song about Vinny Testaverde. I never knew it, but thanks to my wonderful husband, it has been instilled in my brain and WILL NOT LEAVE. If only I could attach some kind of MIDI file or something so that I would not have to suffer alone. I can, however, post the words, and hope that some unlucky soul has heard this song and will soon be similarly afflicted:

Vinny Testa-ver-dee.....yeah.
Vinny Testa-ver-deee....yeah.
Heeeee's the greatest quarterback in the American Football Conference, Eastern Division!
Vinny Testa-ver-deee...yeah.
And so on.

Ok, now on to the real post. Well, maybe it'll have to wait until tomorrow. I just got stuck on a 3 hour copy job, and having to actually work sure does suck the life out of a good post.

See you then :)

I need a ruling.......

I need a ruling....... Ok, Elise and I had a verbal contract. Jack the cat was going to become a part of our family and allowed to go on biting and hissing until his final day when God sent him to hell to bite and harass and perhaps overthrow the mighty Lucipher. This was hard for me, but the deal was no more cats after Jack. Now Jack was a young cat, 2-3 years old, and could quite possibly live another 15 years. I myself have a cat that I grew up with who is rapidly approaching her 18th birthday. She will NEVER die. This cat, Kit (we really didn't even bother to give her a name) outlived 4 beloved family dogs. And this cat managed to do so with absolutely zero love and affection. So the risk that I accept is that the cat I truly hate will live until Elise is approaching 175 lbs and we have moved into our 3rd double-wide home. I mean, that's the good years. However, there is a chance that Jack bites the wrong guy or crawls down another sewer pipe (long story) and dies from the ammonia and his reign of terror is halted. That is the risk from her side. Sounded pretty fair to me when we AGREED to it. What determination would the law make in this case. Is that verbal contract defendable?

Because, at this point, I feel like Dr. Jillian Vegetable is an unauthorized resident in our home, and it caused me to feel somewhat defeated on what should have been a really happy and victorious day yesterday. It even contributed to some hostility towards others (punitive damages). Please, will somebody take this case?

By the way, her defense is "I didn't know Jack would die so soon and that's not fair. I want another Kitty"