Happy 4th!

Have a good 4th, everyone! And remember, beer and fireworks DO NOT mix.

Have a margarita instead. :)

And have one for me!

Giggling Like Fifth Graders

Jason sent this email yesterday, and it had us laughing for hours...

"When running the Norton disks for your computer monthly maintenance, before running Dick Doctor or Speed Dick in OS9, you should go under the special menu on your desktop and empty the trash..."

(Just so you know, it's supposed to be Disk doctor and Speed Disk.)

Yeah, dirty typos will never get old, especially when they sound like something starring Jenna Jameson.

A Big Fat NO From the Senate

"Before you ask me to go get a job today
Can I at least get a raise on the minimum wage?"
—Kanye West

The Republican-controlled Senate refused to raise the minimum wage, rejecting an election-year proposal from Democrats for the first increase in nearly a decade.

Gas=$3+ dollars.
Minimum wage=$5.15.
Not being able to buy food for your kids: Priceless.

Parking Spot OCD

There's another more annoying person at work lately than the Sandal Lady: the person who took my parking spot, aka Spot Stealer.

I took an online test once to see if I suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder. Basically, my results said that I'm just a little nutty when it comes to fringes and washing my hands, but I'm not OCD.

But I believe I do suffer from a condition I like to call Parking Spot OCD.

I have parked in the same parking spot here at work for nearly two years. Every morning, hopefully by 8:00 am, I pull into the parking lot while listening to some delightful music and expertly back my car into the furthest space, aka MY SPOT. There was always a parking space between me and the nearest car and since I was on the end, no one on my other side. It was beautiful and I specifically picked that space for that reason.

For two years, I have parked there. Then last week Spot Stealer parked in MY spot.

Okay, so there's no assigned parking spaces, but we all know by now who parks where and it's an unwritten rule that you park in your own spot and don't steal someone else's. I assumed it had to be a visitor to the building because, really, who would take my precious spot? Who would do such a thing?

The next day the freaking car was there again. I couldn't believe it. Now I knew it wasn't a visitor and that my spot had been claimed by another. I felt like a bird who had its nest stolen. I had nurtured and loved that spot and then it was ripped from my grasp. As I mentioned before, my as-yet-recognized Parking Spot OCD kicked in and I got really annoyed. Now I had to back into the spot that usually cushioned my car. Between two cars. Not in the right spot. Five feet away from MY spot. I was angry.

So I mentioned it to a woman at work who told me that the Spot Stealer just got her driver's license (even though she's probably, like, 30) and wanted a spot away from everyone else. (How nice! ME TOO!) So, of course, she thought she'd take MY spot. Oh, and Spot Stealer's husband is in intensive care. I'm not sure why that last piece of information was added, except maybe to diffuse my anger. It didn't work.

I still don't have my spot, although I did manage to steal it back yesterday when I got to work before Spot Stealer. So it seems that I either have to get to work 15 minutes early or deal with my Parking Spot OCD.

I guess I'll have to deal. But I won't like it.

cloppity-clop, cloppity clop...

I never understood why they wouldn't want us to wear sandals at work. It's a "rule" in the handbook (I'm wearing them right now, so it's obviously not a "rule" per se) that sandals are not allowed. I refrained for quite some time, until I noticed most of the other women wearing them.

But lately I have come to see the dangers of allowing sandals...

cloppity-clop, cloppity-clop...

The newest woman at work wears sandals that flop when she walks. It's kind of like the Tic-tac guy on Seinfeld...you know when she's coming, or leaving, or just walking three feet from one desk to another. It's highly annoying and now that I've given in to my stupid brain and paid attention to it, it bothers me even more. (Damn you, brain function!)

cloppity-clop, cloppity-clop...

That's not even the worst part. She KNOWS they make noise. She KNOWS they must annoy people, but she continues to wear them. AND when she wears them, I occasionally look up at her and then she does this REALLY annoying Oops-my-sandals-make-noise-so-I'll-clumsily-try-to-tip-toe walk that drives me nuts. She can't tip toe. She shouldn't even try.

So it's either cloppity-clop, cloppity-clop... or a large woman waddling on her tip toes.

Jason mentioned to me yesterday that I can't leave in September...I just laughed.

Sanctity of Marriage

Okay, can someone give me a good reason why gays should not be allowed to marry?

The catch: Your answer cannot contain the phrase "the sanctity of marriage."

What does the sanctity of marriage mean, anyway? It sounds to me like an easy excuse and I don't want to hear it because I don't know what that actually means. If people wanted to conserve the so-called sanctity of marriage, wouldn't they try to ban divorce? Wouldn't they make it harder for EVERYONE to get married instead of filling out paperwork? Wouldn't they close down those little quickie marriage places in Vegas?

Yeah, He's Dead Alright

Does CNN.com really have to show a huge picture of dead terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi? Has the Bush administration lied so much that we need his big dead face to prove to us that he's dead? Sheesh.


I still don't understand why men beep their car/truck horns at women, but I was flattered this morning when a trucker beeped at me as I was dropping off my mail at a mailbox. Not too bad for an almost six-month pregnant woman, huh? Unless he's a freak and into that sort of thing.


I thought of my friend the other day when I remembered that June 7th was his birthday. I manged to stalk...er, um, I mean find...his webpage on myspace.com, but in order to contact him I have to become a myspace member. Now although I love all the "INCREASE YOUR PENIS SIZE" email I currently get in my bulk folder, I decided I didn't need to put my email out there. I wonder if Ron Jeremy gets those kind of emails. That would be hilarious.

Three Months

I was talking to my co-worker yesterday and she told me that she has three months to go until her wedding. I got to thinking that...in three months...I will be very close to having my baby. She mentioned all she still has to do to prepare for her wedding...in three months...and I chuckled, thinking of how unprepared I am for a baby and all I will have to do, too.

But on my way home I thought about my dad's good friend, Tom. Tom called my dad last week with the news that he just found out that he has a brain tumor and was just told by the doctors that he will die...in three months. Three months to live, even though he's a healthy guy in his early fifties. Now he has to suddenly deal with his own mortality.

So, of course, that made me think of whether I would like to know if I was going to die at a specific time. I always thought I'd like to know, that way I could really "live it up" and tie up loose ends, but past health experiences involving the important men in my life—my dad, my husband, my brother—have made me reconsider.

And now hearing that my dad's childhood friend is dying...in three months...has convinced me. What must his day be like? What must his wife and son think every single day? Are they counting down? My heart aches for them.

So while I prepare for a life, his life will be ending...in three months.

Musing #452,999

Okay, so how could there be so many student of the month bumperstickers? On my way to work, I saw three of them. There's only 9 months in the school year and 12 grades, but yet I have probably seen hundreds of those stupid stickers. Do they sell them at Walmart or something?