And a good time was had by all...

This is what it looks like after the "Orlops" get together. (don't ask about the name - it only proves what kind of dorks we are) We had a great weekend with our dear friends - two of my friends from Smith and their husbands. It's now an annual get-together made easier by our friends at Southwest Airlines.

KFH: you're awesome. You never cease to amaze me, from being a great NICU NP to running a half marathon, you are a kick-ass woman!

AH: thanks for all the help in the kitchen and with the computer this weekend, couldn't have done it without you!

MRL: I'm so impressed with all you know just from one year of nursing school - I think you are going to be a great RN and NP. Thanks, too, for the leadership to get us into the bathrooms at the Smith Art Museum sans entry fee.

DL: Our relationship with sTiVo is in a whole new era thanks to you. I do love google and all the programs it provides us, however, I have to say they would mean nothing to me without you!

Can't wait for the next meeting, hopefully the third time will be the charm with no snow, and no Ernesto. MRL and DL are up next! 

Credit

I love credit card commercials.

I don't love them in the way that I love cotton commercials, or nike commercials (you know, the ones that promote girls in sport, or the virtue of kids sports, or just shoes with sappy music). Those make me tear up pretty much everytime.

Credit card commercials on the other hand are just entertaining. Whoever came up with the mastercard masterpiece should be living a life on a beach with hot men and women with impeccable tans bringing them drinks every half hour, massages every day, etc. I'm almost as impressed with American Express "this is my card" campaign. First they included a gay woman in their ranks (Ellen), then they came up with the Andy Roddick vs. Pong commercial. Since Pong is the hallmark game of an entire generation, I can only sit back, shake my head, and mutter, "Genius".

(as a side note, you know that commercial encouraging people to use debit cards instead of checks? the one where the person has to wait for hours because their writing a check instead of using debit? nearly that exact thing happened to me in the post office the other day - first the woman needed help understanding that her mail wasn't at this p.o., it was at the OTHER one, then she wanted to look at her options for stamps (blankets or vegetables???), then she wanted to know how much delivery confirmation was, and then... she pulled out her check book. *sigh* being able to meditate in public is an important skill.)

The good ol' days

I visited my old haunts this morning - specifically the School of Nursing - to get acquainted with my new classroom. I'm going to be teaching a class this fall at Tracy and I's alma mater (do you still call it that when it's grad school?) and it was more than a little weird to walk the halls 4 years after graduation. It still smells the same, and it still gives me the identical barely perceptiple nausea associated with being enrolled in a school with people far smarter than you.

Moreover, I got relive the city driving that is New Haven. New Haven thinks it's New York. It's not, but the drivers still pretend that it is. It was kind of fun to pass all the old drinking holes, restaurants, etc that I never get to see anymore, all while attempting to get my car out of there without any scratches.

Ah, grad school. *sigh* those were the days....

The white coats are coming!

There is a time-honored ritual during which new medical students receive their first white coat. My brother got his this week. I'm simaltaneously exceedingly proud, and exceedingly hopeful his career will lead him to a place where he won't need a white coat to be a doctor.

You are amazing JZ! (not to be confused with JC, whom he resembled at one point in his young life)

humming along

As some of you may remember, I spent a post earlier this summer encouraging everyone to hang a hummingbird feeder immediately. I had done so, and couldn't wait to spend hours watching the hummingbirds in their infinite beauty. I didn't get any humming birds all summer.

Until Friday, when I looked outside and simaltaneously noticed that the water level was down in the feeder, and there was a hummingbird!! It's hard to express the sheer joy that I experienced when I saw it there on the feeder. Presumably now the webster hill hummingbird posse knows where there's free food and many more will come!

Pearl

I guess it's better to turn 29 than 30, or at least how it seems from the 29 side. My mom and Anna very generously got me a piano for my birthday. And she is simply beautiful.

I've nicknamed her Pearl. (The name is totally unoriginal - the manufacturer is Pearl River)

Part meditation-assistant, part computer game stand-in, part musical addiction, I am so excited to have a piano! Needless to say I haven't played in a long time and lessons will be needed to achieve previously attained skill.

First up: Moonlight Sonata, my favorite piece of all time.

Wimpy, disloyal, whiny, punk-a$$

Sometimes when I hear Joe Lieberman talk, all I can picture is a kid with asthma on the grammar school playground. He goes out to recess everyday but doesn’t play with his classmates because he is afraid he might have an attack. Instead of going out to the see-saw, or reading quietly up against the brick building, he wants to sit and ponder his Highlights Magazine right near the kickball field. Then he cries and whines to the “authorities” every time a kickball is in play because, “They are kicking and throwing it too close to me!!!”

The teachers monitoring recess spend 12-20 minutes every day cajoling and bribing him to “Come read near me,” to try and get Joe out of the way. Sometimes he pitches a fit and refuses to leave his reading perch on the first base line. Other times he finally agrees to come away when one of the staff produces a peanut-free granola treat. He has no diagnosed allergy to nuts, but it doesn’t stop him from barking at the authorities, “ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?!?” when their first offer is a fun-size package of Peanut M&Ms.

There are several shaded areas on the school side of the playground and Joe approaches the only occupied one, where an epileptic kid in Coke-bottle thick glasses is quietly playing with 12-sided dice. “This is my spot,” Joe is overheard whimpering, “I like to sit here when I am not over there.” He points to the kickball field. The recess monitors are about to intervene on behalf of the skinny kid that the other kids call, Spaz. But before they have the chance, to stop Joe’s bullying, the other boy rolls his eyes, grabs his dice, and heads for a quieter space.

Once he’s settled into his protected spot near the building, Joe removes a clean tissue from the Ziploc in his right pocket, dries his tears, and blows his nose with an air of indignant self-righteousness. The bell rings, and as kids crowd around the door attempting to get back to class, Joe stalls the line because he is in the middle of stashing his used snot rag in the ½ full Ziploc out of his left pocket labeled “dirty tissues.” Joe won’t move out of the way, won’t hold a soiled tissue in his bare hand, and he can’t walk and zip simultaneously. As he gets nervous, the bag-sealing process is further delayed. He blames the trouble he is having on the fact that there are “too many people- too close” to him and “They are not paying attention to what they are doing!” Finally, when a little girl in dreads reaches over in empathy and quickly seals the bag, Joe- lacking any gratitude or humility- loudly proclaims, “I could have done that all by myself!”

End of an Era...

Holy Cow...
Now I can go to bed...

Could the pendulum be swinging?

This is pretty remarkable... the Democratic Senate primary race in Connecticut has been (surprisingly) hotly contested and (recently) highly touted as the earliest indicator of how far from the status quo SNAFU that the voters of our great nation are leaning/fleeing.

It looks (dare I say it) that Ned Lamont might actually be about to pull this off... With 83% of votes reported, Lamont leads the incumbent 52% to 48%. I have to admit, that I was undecided in this race until last evening. I am not a Democratic party loyalist... I have several complaints about "politics as usual" within and among the DNC. But last night, I decided that I wanted to be sure above all else that i cast a vote FOR someone and not AGAINST someone. So I picked up the phone when a representative from Lamont's headquarters called and started asking questions... NL is against the sacrifice of civil liberties in the name of the war on terror. He believes that health care is a right not a privilege. He is committed to education:

What our country spends in one year in Iraq could provide a year's free tuition at the University of Connecticut for every college freshman-aged American and Head Start for every four-year-old. We need to refocus our resources and our attention on the children and young people here.

Lamont is for full marriage equality:

I am proud that Connecticut was one of the first states to legalize civil unions and remain hopeful that we will be one of the first to enact full marriage equality. Unlike Senator Lieberman, I would have opposed the Federal Defense of Marriage Act.

And perhaps most importantly, Lamont opposes allowing George Bush to continue to go unchecked in waging a war started under false pretenses. This war has not made us safer and done little to positively impact anyone except for the few Americans who have significant financial stakes in the low or no-bid contracts offered by the current executive branch of the US government.

I thought i was undecided, until I started to consider Joe Lieberman. Joe has 1) left my people high and dry and 2) snuggled up nice and close to King George whenever the Snickerer in Chief needed to point across the aisle and say, "We all stand together."

But seriously, in my final evaluation of the situation, I realized that the deal-breaker for me was the emotional blackmail offered up by the Big Man on Campus. Back in July, the man who ran as the Democratic candidate for Vice President of the United States a mere 6 years ago announced he would NOT honor the collective voice of the democratic voters of CT. If he lost the primary, he would run as an independent... Because I guess Joe Loserman feels that it is not the Democratic party or voters that he owes anything to... It must be his winning personality that has kept him in the Senate since I was a high school softball star!

Lieberman is so committed (to HIMSELF) that at the first opportunity, he will become an independent and leave open the chance for the party that created him to lose the seat entirely. Rather than wait to see the outcome of the primary, Lieberman started crying foul the minute it looked like someone might have a shot at his job. Upon (potentially) losing, he could have conceded that he made mistakes, that he played this last set poorly, and then regroup for the next challenge. Instead, his first instinct was to make a play to split the party to save his own A$$. Why allow the Dems of CT to make the call of who represents them just because it happens to be the very purpose of a primary??? I really am all for a multi-party system, but this guy is a piece of work...

May the best man win!!!

I never cared much for Sponge Bob...

Until I saw this...





Ring-ring, Ring-ring...





Heel-o *



I'd like to make a toe-call...



Wrong number:


Who's this dude, now?





We've been set up... on a baby date (YUCK!)

Presidential Humor

I have to say, I'm pretty depressed about the state of things in the US and internationally. Making fun of the president is not something that I think is helpful, and it is just kind of sad that there are so many clips that make this guy seems so dangerous and unintelligent. That having been said, I stumbled upon this and laughed for about 10 minutes.

I love YouTube.

"Time Bandits"

I'm sure many friends and family members are tired of hearing me start a sentence with "I read this article in the New Yorker..." or "I heard this really interesting piece on NPR..." but I really did just read a very interesting article in the New Yorker. Granted, it was published in February 2005 and I just got around to reading it, but.... I digress.

I'm always interested in physics even though I can't understand it. I had the most perfect notes in physics class in college, but I could not pass the exams to save my life. This article, called "Time Bandits" by Jim Holt, was mostly about the relationship that Einstein had with Gödel (who proved two incompleteness theorems, neither of which I can comprehend). But the real genius of the article is that it simplifies what Einstein did when he came up with the theory of relativity (E=mc2 was nearly an afterthought of 3 other papers published in the months before September 1905).

He decided that absolute time didn't exist:

"Einstein, however, realized that our idea of time is something we abstract from out experience with rhythmic phenomena: heartbeats, planetary rotations, the ticking of clocks. Time judgments always come down to judgments of simultaneity... Working from his two basic principles, Einstein proved that whether an observer deems two events to be happening 'at the same time' depends on his state of motion. In other words, there is no universal now."

Sometimes I think I forget that there isn't a universal now.
Everything really is relative. And to try to live as if there is absolute
time is just begging for more hardship than is really necessary for one
person.

As a side bar, this is the part of the article that reminds me why I couldn't handle philosophy or mathematics:

"But Gödel's self-referential formula comments on its provability, not on its
truthfulness. Could it by lying? No, because if it were, that would
mean it could be proved, which would make it true. So, in asserting that
it cannot be proved, it has to be telling the truth."

Wait, what? What time is it? Right, it's absolutely past my bedtime....

What can Brown do for you?

Today, as I left work (my gym bag packed for the cardio workout my body has been craving) I noticed the ominous sky and decided to race home to mow the lawn instead. Thursday night should (if at all possible) be “lawn-mowing night.” This is a way to ensure you can look out onto your well-manicured property on Saturday and Sunday and sigh in proud, satisfied relief that you do not have to spend 2 hours on the weekend sweating the grass down to a height the neighbors won’t scoff at.

I almost always mow my lawn in my dad’s old “UPS- Buster Brown Doubles” shirt. I have cut the sleeves off and widened the neck and I’m not going to lie to you, I look good in it… When I do yard work in this t-shirt while wearing my practically threadbare, men’s, cargo shorts…it’s hot! I look like the main attraction on Commercial Street. It’s enough to make the 11-year old tom-boy that lives 4 houses away fall off her skateboard and stand there staring while her skinned knee bleeds (for a few too many minutes) before she grows sheepish and sprints away… But I digress-

I wear the shirt (not to stir up the ladies in the neighborhood but) mostly because it is comfortable. Also I’ve realized, I wear it to share some sort of communion with my dad. So many nights, that guy was out there mowing the lawn as it grew dark and even guided by a flood light in the pitch blackness of a summer night. I don’t know what he used to think about when he was out there alone, but I imagine that I probably run through the same rotation of unexpressed thoughts: Random to-do lists, concerns about home ownership, and many things related to the desire to provide for and ensure the stability and/or future of my family. Yard work can be contemplative meditation if the mower is mechanically sound, if the beads of sweat aren’t stinging your eyes, and the mosquitoes are leaving you alone…

In our family, we mock the slogan, “What can brown do for you?” We utter it in a kind of sarcastic, ironic way that former Enron employees must reserve for the “Ask Why,” motto. (Yes! That really was Enron’s company slogan.) The truth of course is that “Brown” has done a lot for us- beautiful homes, solid educations… A lot of amazing food (and drink) has been purchased, shared, and consumed over the years. But for all that was earned, there were some things taken too. Dad sacrificed a lot of time and sweat, blood and cartilage (in his knees and hands and wrists) over the years. Less easy to lament: the houses he might have built, the degrees he might have earned, the patients he might have cared for, the students he might have taught. The union wages and benefits were too steady and too immediate to compare or trade for construction work or continued education. I never heard the dude complain- not even once… I mean he led a dissertation-worthy lecture series every other night of the week railing against big business; and he told countless stories that taught us how to stand toe-to-toe with supervisors that might be taking unfair advantage… but I never heard him complain about his “lot in life” or his un-realized dreams. It was pretty much implied if not explicitly stated that we- three ladies in his life- were his dream. He didn’t drink himself silly or spend much time yapping about whether or not his job was satisfying…

Tonight, as has happened several times since I moved into this home, it grew dark as I finished the lawn. I tried to push the Lawnboy a little faster, and I enjoyed the breeze while spending some time with my dad… Big B and I are so much alike: Both sensitive souls who can also play the role of "life of the party" if it is required. Both trying to be more organized, more efficient, more productive… but we can’t help but get completely sidetracked or distracted (for hours or days.) We might be waylaid by a conversation with friends or even strangers; or happen upon a book or magazine to read. Fixing something might turn into a marathon garage-cleaning mission (that we’re likely to abandon halfway though); or we might just be staring out the window, contemplating the rain, snuggling a baby, or playing our new favorite song over and over (and over) again. Both of us lean a little towards melancholy when everyone is gone except those who really know us. Both of us rarely talk of the deaths we have witnessed, and the grief we carry, but we try hard to live better because we are grateful even for that, sad part of life.

I am the spitting image of my father; a real chip off the old block. I have practically all his mannerisms- the shrug, wink, nod, eyebrow raise… the tight jaw and the stubborn, “It’s not me, it’s YOU,” expression when I get frustrated (or accused of acting surly by the people who really know me.) I’ve learned from him things that he learned from his father: How to be truthful and straightforward; how to be brave and do what you know is right, even when it’s hard or not popular; how to be generous; how to feel good about an honest day’s work… I’ve learned things from my dad that his father could never have taught either one of us: How to be sensitive; how to be sincere; how to be strong-hearted and not just strong-headed; how to use humor to put people at ease and not to make them uncomfortable; how to give great hugs.

I rarely think of myself as “Daddy’s little girl.” Over the years, and presently, I have been “Daddy’s little side kick,” “Daddy’s little, can I barrow your truck/chainsaw/ladder this weekend…” “Daddy’s little sparring partner.” (Sometimes, it’s hard to be so much like someone and not feel as if he is trying earn some unnecessary redemption by cleaning up MY act…)

One time, a while back- when we didn’t seem to be getting along, and I worried we might not ever get along that well again, my dad sat down next to me and said, “You know, if I was a girl, I think I’d like girls too...” (eyebrow raise… shrug… wink) And I was reminded that there’s not much of anything in this world that makes as much sense to me as he does…

My poor Pa never got a “father’s day shout out” like Nance did on Ma’s day- I just wasn’t feeling it then… But tonight, I couldn’t wait to wash the sweat and grass off myself to come write him a love note. I love you, Daddio! Thank you for everything.

Summer in full swing

Last night, we turned our central air off after a week of having it on non-stop. The northeastern heat-wave seems to have been broken. Blogging has been kept to a minimum- not intentionally, but because we've been hot and lazy and also too busy for this kind of weather/season.

Some updates:
1) Softball is almost over- the last games will be this week and next week. This is a little sad, but getting home before 9 pm 2 nights a week will be a welcome change.

2) The refrigerator- Installed, humming and keeping all goods chill.

3) Kt's car- Brand new brakes and rotors -good to know what these are... (Game show voice: Tell them what they've won: $700 in un-anticipated expenses) Knowing that she can stop on a dime... priceless!

4) Our yard and the house... Except for the mass slaughter of beetles, and the weekly (okay- every OTHER week) mowing of the lawn, we have not been doing any projects or additional chores around the house. There is still wood to be chopped and stacked. There are piles of refuse (bagged, unbagged, and some that was bagged but is starting to unbag itself due to long term exporsure to the elements) to be hauled off. There is a HUGE stump that needs to be ground up (or ground down, depending how you look at it.) There is mildew that needs to be washed off of the siding of North-West face of the house. The garage and attic need to be cleaned out... oh, who am i kidding, the place needs to be vaccuumed and dusted too!!! The important thing to remember is to live each day to the fullest!!! right?!?

5) Weber grill- She's assembled and she's beautiful! (See above) We popped her cherry christened her last night by grilling chicken, swordfish, tuna, asparagus, and zucchini (that was picked our of our garden...) THE BOMB!

6) Golf- finally played yesterday afternoon with L and C. It was awesome and I hit a 49 (par 31) which is my best score ever. Tiger was 14 under yesterday and I was 18 over - that's gotta mean something, right?

7) Beach Vacations are finally on the horizon. (Thanks be to God.)

8) Last, but certainly not least (drum-roll) Mac rolled over for the first time, and she's getting quite good at it. Once she gets to her tummy though, she's always a little disappointed at how little there is to see there. (She's so advanced) that she bores easily... but worry not, I'll have her doing one-handed pushups by the summer's end.

:)

Deep Thaw Dos

As some of you may remember, we have a history of freezer breakage...
And we are pathetic in our ability to be distracted. This week, the freezer started to thaw again. Mrs. and Mrs. Smarty McBrianEinstein's that we are, we chucked the melty pops and ruined items, sopped up the wetness, threw the salvagables into the 'frige and went about our business for about 22 hours before we realized that the refrigerator part was also broken...

PEEEEE-EEEEUUUUWWWWWW!

We emptied the entire monster, unplugged it and mourned it for several days (eating out 2-3 meals per day) while we figured out what to do. The delay was mostly due to the original plan of waiting for the weekend, borrowing Dad's truck, and hauling a new (but slightly damaged) 'frige from the Sears outlet... The items from the outlet are cheaper, but cannot be delivered and/or installed. After several somber days of "gearing up" for this manual labor in the hottest part of the summer, we agreed to "check out" the REAL Sears and price shop. Twenty minutes later, we had a receipt and delivery time set (so easy- so painless) and we were off to eat our first meal of the day (in the air conditioning of a restaurant!)