Eat your Wheaties!

Jared - as a box of Wheaties :)

Halloween

I love where I work. People really go all out at Halloween and they are so creative! Here are the pics... The Bee-Attitudes (Me, Amanda, Rese)

Jake, Nate, Allison

Tom - as a Tom Tom

Phillip & Gayle - college co-eds

Niki & Adam

Sock Monkey (Bill)

Tom Brady & Blind Ref (Seb & Steve)

C-Dev

Bread Winner (Alisa)

Palin (drill baby drill) & Duuuuude (Candice & Kevin)

Jimmy Crack Corn (Kroll)

Partly Cloudy w/ a Chance of Rain (Jess)

Spiderman (Shane)

Exercising my right and taking out militant traffic cones

Rese and I voted today. Did I make the right choice? For me yes I think I did - I sure hope so!

While backing out of the parking spot I forgot about the traffic cone that was right beside the car. I ran over it and proceeded to get it stuck under my tire. I tried several times to free it but it was wedged, stuck, not gonna budge, jammed.

Two guys in the parking lot passed by and one of them told me to pull up on a curb to get some distance between the cone and the ground. I don't like curbs so I asked him to drive my car. I held his coke and keys and he got in - Rese asked him if it was OK if she stayed in the passenger seat :) Anyway - he drove the car up on the curb and the other guy yanked it free - yea! What a great day for America!

Fall Break

Some pictures and video of Fall Break with the boys and Lily...

Obama on Primetime

Chris Matthews had it right this morning and pretty much summed up what I've been thinking - McCain is crying about Obama's 'infomercial' and Matthews basically said McCain wouldn't say no to 30 min of prime time if someone gave it to him or if he had the money to buy it.

Sounds like sour grapes to me. And I'd say the same thing if the table were turned.

Unleash the Beast

PureSafety took us to a Predators Game last night as part of a team building outing for one of our big initiatives. It was a lot of fun and I even watched a bit of the game; saw a few fights, girls in tight Lycra outfits 'shoveling' ice and the FANG action during a power play (done to the tune of Psycho).

Happy Day

Thanks to a tip from Michelle I am listening to new GnR songs from Chinese Democracy all day at work at http://www.waaf.com/ WAAF in Boston is playing songs from the new album at the top of every hour.

I just heard Chinese Democracy (the song). Why do I feel sick? It's the excitement! They and by they I mean Him/Axl sound... well like GnR. And it makes me happy. And I don't care if I'm almost 36 still holding on to a 20 year obsession.

A ** H O L E

Dennis Leary has this great song called A**hole and one of the lines in the song is:

"I park my car in handicap spaces..." and yep that kinda makes you an a**hole if you do that and aren't really handicap I have to agree with him.

I mention this b/c yesterday The M-WIT did exactly that - parked in a handicap space without having any physical handicap. When questioned as to why this was done the M-WIT replied, "Well I have a sticker" When further pressed M-WIT said "Well I have to take my elderly grandparents around and they need the sticker". When pressed still further with the fact that said grandparents weren't in the car and the handicap space being occupied by the non-handicap M-WIT was at a CHILDREN'S hospital the response was something close to "Well you're a jerk". As if that makes it OK.

This should really come as no surprise considering this comes from someone who writes hate mail from Santa to children. But still the utter disregard of rules and lack of shame was shocking.

Clearly no physical handicap but certainly a moral and mental handicap.

What He said

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efv3Vr8T9MA

Fall Weekend

Steve and the boys had a great camping trip - although I think it got kinda chilly at night...Brrr The parents and I hit the outlet mall and way too many sweet/bad for you treats on Saturday. Back on the oatmeal bandwagon tomorrow! We had a baseball themed dinner tonight - hot dogs, STL Cards plates, napkins, cups the whole nine yards, including baseball cupcakes the boys helped decorate. Tomorrow it'll be Halloween dinner with spaghetti brains, eyeball candies, and ghoulish cupcakes. We played wiffle ball after Mom, Rese and I caught the Secret Life of Bees matinée. Wonderful book and wonderful movie. Makes you sometimes ashamed of being white b/c of the things that happened in the past and continue to happen today. But it is a two way - well actually a multi-way - street that we are all on together and sometimes you should be ashamed of being any race. As the cliche saying goes "Why can't we all just get along?" Anyway - like I said excellent movie and excellent book - check it out if you haven't. On a side note I was having lunch with my parents on Saturday at a high class establishment (Olive Garden - jealous? You would be if you knew how good the pumpkin cheesecake was that I devoured - shamelessly and with just a tad of regret later). Anyway...a woman walked in to join a large party of people at the table next to us. All there to celebrate several friends birthdays. As soon as she walked in I told my parents 'she looks like "God" in the book The Shack'. She had this warm glow about her and I immediately wanted to hug her. Despite my parents half hearted attempts to stop me I went over to her and bent down and asked her if she had read The Shack. She hadn't but knew a friend who had and loved it and I told her that in the book God shows up as a loving black woman and that she is what I pictured when I reading the book.

Now I realize this is a tad crazy and she could have probably been offended or scared or just otherwise indifferent and rude but she was not. Instead she handed me a postcard that had her business information on it. She was in fact a holistic healer type person who helped people deal with stress and grief in a calm loving way. Interesting I think - that I was so drawn to her. I'm glad she didn't have me arrested :)

Friday Nonsense

1. Red Sox pull off the biggest postseason comeback since 1929. (I wish I had stayed up to watch the game!)



2. I woke up this morning singing "Desert Moon" by Dennis DeYoung for some unknown reason and it's slightly disturbing. I can see the video in my head as I sing the opening verse. Make it stop.



3. It's chilly this morning and it brings up a few things - a) I really like fall and winter as far as seasons go - love the leaves changing and snow (which I know doesn't happen here in Nashvegas much), love the chance to wear warm sweaters and make a fire - all that typical stuff but - b) during the colder and even cooler weather my fingers and toes are perpetual ice cubes. I spend most of winter not feeling my toes and wondering if my fingers will fall off.



4. Bugg will be off camping with the boys/boy scouts this weekend. What a freakin' ordeal to pack for a camping trip!?!? It looks sort of fun and watching him get all the stuff together kinda makes me want to go but I have never had much luck with camping. One too many girl scout camping adventures that involved heavy downpours of rain, tornado warnings, and just generally having to sleep on the hard ground kind of put a kibosh on my love of camping. Plus you never know what crazy person is lurking in the woods ready to kill you.



5. Parents are coming in tonight for the weekend. The house is clean (mostly) and I'm ready to do some hostessing.



6. I'm OCD about making tiny squares out of Aaron's Thinking Putty (see picture). I think I might be getting carpal tunnel from it. www.puttyworld.com

Feel faint, can't breathe, am I dreaming??

HS sent this link to me http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27106927/from/ET/

I'm stunned. I feel anxious and sick and hopeful.

On paper we're awesome

Had a nice relaxing weekend. Snooky came in on Friday night. Saturday morning we all got up early got some Dunkin' and headed to Centennial Park for the ALS Walk. My company reached their goal and I did too - thanks to everyone who helped make that possible and thanks to Snooky and Bugg for walking with me!

Saturday night Rese and Darren came over for dinner; Snooky made homemade humus, taziki, an radish dip - so good! And we grilled and ate too many M&M's and pumpkin spice cookies!

Sunday Snooky and I went to the Sigma family picnic. Snooky took Rufus home with her - I am a little sad but I know he's going to LOVE living with Snook and I'll get to see him in a couple of weeks :)

The Zen of Leaf Blowing

I sit outside everyday after work and hang out with the dog. I love being outside on the patio after work - I especially like it when the weather starts to turn fallish.

What I don't like are all the leaves that continually fall from all the trees in our yard. They cover the driveway and the patio and the flower beds and it looks so dirty and disorganized. I have on occasion taken a broom to them but it's a pretty big driveway, there's a pile of leaves when I'm done sweeping that I have no idea what to do with and 5 minutes later everything is covered again.

For the last several days I've been sitting outside looking at all the dead wet brown nasty leaves laying around and it started to annoy me more and more; it was making me antsy in that way that a dirty house makes you antsy when you've let it go for too long and you just can't stand it anymore.

So yesterday afternoon I took action - I pulled the leaf blower out of the garage (thanks Dad!) plugged it in and with slight trepidation turned that bad boy on!

Holy sh*t! It was loud (I really should have been wearing earplugs and safety glasses), slightly heavy and awkward to hold/move, and it took a bit to get the hang of. At first I had leaves going everywhere (swirling around my head and feet) but after a few minutes I was rockin' it quite honestly.

In the end I had cleaned off the driveway, the front walk, the patio, and the flower beds. After it was done I sat down on the patio in my plastic Adirondack chair and surveyed my handy work.

It looked so clean and neat and the patio even looked bigger. But best of all it was so peaceful and calming to look at how orderly and clean it all looked. It was very satisfying and I think I've found a new after work hobby - so fall leaves, fall ~ I'm ready for you.

Sound familiar?

I'm doing some research for a course we are developing on conflict management and I came across a quote in the book Leading Through Conflict by Mark Gerzon. The quote was from Hermann Goering, Hitler's 2nd in command. He was explaining his strategy to a psychiatrist in prison:

"Naturally the common people don't want war..." But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leader. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

Indeed that seems to be true.

Quote of the week

Someone at work microwaved fish today for lunch and literally stunk up the ENTIRE office. The smell was so overwhelming that it made me sick and the admin sent out an email that said

"Please refrain from cooking food in the microwave that will stink up the office; i.e. fish."

After figuring out who the offender was I sent him an email with the above picture and called him and harassed him. Another employee was in his office and she said

"It smells like you cooked a hooker".

Brilliant!

Day-O

Come Mr. Tah-li-bahn tally me bananas

That's pretty much what I got out of the debate last night...making fun of the way both of them said Taliban - which led to me singing the DAY-O song.

I'm so mature.

In the news...

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Most-Emailed-Photos/ss/1756/im:/081003/480/7eb2ddf1278042b2badeaa1232f1a382

Shriner Circus

Me trying to get on the elephant...The other Bugg's were silently watching from the sidelines willing me to 'use the other leg, use the other leg'. I finally figured it out.

High up on the elephant

From left to right: Stranger, Stranger, Skylar, Me, Spencer, Stranger, stranger, stranger, stranger

Bugg thought it would be funny to take a picture of my ass and the elephant's ass. I was so not amused. Can you tell which is which? Ha, you betta answer right suckas!

More Violet in her Halloween Finery

I'm sure these are only amusing to me ...

The Debate

I watched the debate. My first one actually. I couldn't turn it off to be honest with you.

S.P. didn't fall on her face (sadly) but she didn't answer the questions really, she sounded a tad rehearsed as if she got a crash course in politics and she had three or four areas she seemed to keep bringing the debate around to:

1. Energy/wall street corruption


2. Maverick McCain


3. Hockey mom, middle class American - you betcha!

Granted I know lots of politico types do just that - don't answer the question and bring it around to what they want to talk about...but I think it needs to be pointed out b/c I'm afraid the media is going to focus on the fact that she didn't totally suck and forget that Biden did a pretty good job of answering questions and did a good job overall. Now back to my commentary.

First time I've heard either one of them speak and I have to say I like Joe. I like him a lot. He seemed comfortable, knowledgeable, and I like that he finally said "John M is no Maverick and I have just as much in common with the middle class America as you do S.P. " so shut it up. ( I added the shut up). I don't know how much either one of them really have in common with middle class America me but I do know I can't in good conscience vote for her.

And I'm sick of all the America is the best/greatest bullshit too (and S.P. peppered her talk with that). I love being an American - it rocks really - and I'm all for patriotism and pride in your country but really I just get sick of all the rah rah BS. America is in the shitter right now folks - in case you didn't realize it.

I like the way that Joe B said yep there are issues I've changed my mind on - through experience he realized 'the error of his ways'. But S.P. - nope (she didn't get some budget cuts put through that she would have liked a time or two or something like that - while she was mayor/governor of AK) but no nothing has happened in her life/work that has made her rethink where she stands on an issue.

Sad really. How willing are you to see another's perspective? It would be hard to reach across those party lines S.P. without the willingness and insight to want see the other side. Does she not make mistakes? Does she never learn from experience?

And finally I really just don't want to listen to her talk for the next 4-8 years. Really I don't.

Trivial Wed night

El Conquistadors (me and Steve) conquered the trivial trivia buffs tonight and came in 1st place!

Thank you for the free dinner La Siesta and for letting us show off our superior intelligence.

Ephilides: freckles for the 20 point final question and the win. (that was all Steve)

All dressed up and no treats for tricks

As snooky said - at least she won't remember this and hate me later on in life....