Look at me, look at your man, now back to me

Earlier tonight, M was working on a presentation, and L was snacking on a baked potato. I got the clippers to work on trimming Chloe's last rear dewclaw. As soon as she saw me enter the room with clippers in my hand, she ran over to the couch, launched herself up, skittered up the back, and attempted to hide behind M & L. After we finally got her down and back on to the floor, she quickly lay down, making her back feet inaccesible. Eventually, we came to an agreement, and she very reluctantly allowed me to pull her feet out. It took quite a while, and I'm glad it's done.

As soon as the dogs finished swimming on Friday, the three of us (the humans) left for DeKalb, IL, where M was speaking Saturday. We stayed at a hotel, and L & I just hung out and swam while he was speaking.

Here's my adorable Tica making use of the ottoman that I don't need and purchased anyway. It's been sitting in the middle of my living room, since I got it a couple of weeks ago. I love it. It's toile. It has birds on it. The top comes off, allowing lots of storage space. How could I not love it. I successfully walked past it, admiring it, in Target many times before. This day, it was on clearance. It was a really, really good clearance, making it ridiculously cheap. It was the last one. How could I pass on that?

Here's the problem. It doesn't really match the living room. It matches the dining room that I want to create but don't yet have. It would look cute in our family room, but the dogs hang out down there unsupervised, and tend to chew/eat furniture. It's still sitting in the middle of the living room, where I put it when I brought it home. L has been using it to have Daisy jump over when she is working on her version of agility training. Petey keeps trying to sharpen his claws on it, and I plan on winning that battle. Tica loves to lie on top of it, and she looks very cute and queenly on it.

The Lighthouse

The lighthouse was a pretty cool reveal! Another good LOST episode this week. I can't call it great, because it was Jack-centric, and he's my least favorite character. I can't say any more about it, though, because my parents haven't seen it yet.

Today was a better day than yesterday. I've reached my wit's end with this sinus headache. It has been bad--very painful--for over three weeks now. I'm so sick of the pain in my head and face and waking up feeling like I was hit by a car from the neck up. I called to schedule an appointment with my ENT doc, but I don't feel very hopeful at this point. I'm just tired and sick of feeling crappy. I keep telling myself I only have to make it for six more days. It's making me very crabby.

I ordered a yoga DVD recommended by a friend, and it came a few days ago. It's by Shiva Rae and looks really good. I'm really excited to try it out, but was waiting for my sinus pain to resolve itself, so I can participate without my head feeling like it's going to explode.

So yesterday I woke up after very little, low quality sleep. My head misery combined with all three of our dogs barking like maniacs over absolutely nothing, throughout the entire night, left me feeling worse than usual yesterday. I took enough drugs to melt large holes in my stomach and left for work. I wore my gray boots, which I totally am in love with. Sometimes they cheer me up.

I realized by the time I finished my walk to the building that it was going to be a very unpleasant day. Not because of my headache or the gradual sizzling away of my stomach lining. It was because of my damn socks. Black knee socks that were determined to fall down and bunch up all under my sole. It doesn't feel good at all to walk with an entire knee sock bunched up in the bottom of my knee-high boot, and I had to do a fair amount of walking. The problem was that after about five steps, the damn socks were back in the bottom of my boot. I would try to ignore it as long as I could, but then I would have to stop, unzip the boots, yank the socks up, enjoy another five bunch-free steps, and enjoyed this repeated pattern from 7:30 am when I left my house until 9:30 pm, when I returned home from my meeting and finally removed the socks from hell. Of course it had to be the day I had to walk to the capital and back, too--not fun at all!

Common sense says that I should just toss the socks, but I can't stand the idea of wasting a pair of hole-free socks that way! I don't seem to be able to determine before buying and wearing socks, if they will be bunchers from hell or not. Who knows how many pairs of socks I would have to buy to replace all of my current bunchers, because some of the new ones would bunch too, and it's just too wasteful to contemplate. In the meantime, I will try to at least remember not to wear any of my known bunchers with knee-high boots, as that's just too nasty to have to go through again.

I wasn't feeling much happier after I returned from the capital either. Though, I don't think I've ever left that building feeling anything other than frustration, rage, or disgust. I went to attend a public hearing on "the windchill bill" (AB 747), which I mistakenly thought would not be opposed. I was wrong, and should have known better. The hunters/NRA objected to the bill, which attempts to make animal abuse in front of children a felony. What the hell the hunters and NRA violence mongers have vested in fighting this bill stumped me initially. Then the whole pathetic issue was brought to light. People convicted of felonies cannot hunt or own guns. They objected to the crime being classified as a felony, rather than a misdemeanor, because it would make it impossible for those felons to hunt and kill. Aren't they just a lovely group. I left the hearing and returned to work feeling despondent over the state of the human race and depressed over the hopeless uselessness of our legal system. I was so angry and filled with rage (with no outlet!), that the bunchy socks just seemed like adding insult to injury.

I made it though the work day, got home, fed the animals, and left again for a meeting. M had a speaking engagement, so I took L with me. She sat by me and read. She was well behaved. But, she had gas. When I say she had gas, it is the equivalent of calling the Grand Canyon a valley. Her insides are pure 'D' (my husband's last name). I don't understand how the three of us can eat the exact same things, but what comes out of those two smells so much worse than anything you could possibly imagine. It's just not normal to smell that way. I am not kidding and not exaggerating when I say that I smelled a stench worse than death for the entire two-hour-plus meeting. I was furious! It was just more than anyone should have to endure. I was disgusted and felt guilty and bad motherish for being so disgusted. I'm disgusted now even thinking back to it. It was sheer torture.

As I was venting to M later, in all seriousness, and almost in tears. He laughed. He didn't just laugh, but he doubled over and laughed his ass off for a really long time. I'm pretty sure I saw him wiping moisture from his eyes, too! Thanks for understanding, dude. My stomach was upset from the long-term stench exposure! It may be funny in a few days or when I recover from the olfactory anguish, but it sure as hell wasn't funny last night! There has to be a cure for this. I realize that it does sound funny, but it is so not! I've suffered and would like a little sympathy for it.

L continues to take lots of interesting pictures and videos with her camera. She especially loves to take pictures of Botswana. I've developed a little bit of concern about the flash going off near his tiny little eyes so often. I don't know if it can damage his little eyes or cause him headaches or something, but it just doesn't seem like that much bright light would be a good thing for him. She really likes to take close-up photos of the animals' faces. I'm trying to encourage her to take as many as she can with natural light, so they don't have to deal with so many flashes.

along for the ride

Friday night we (M, L, and I) went to BIFF (Beloit International Film Festival) to see, “At the Edge of the World.” It was a documentary on the Sea Shepherd Society, who I love, so I was excited about seeing it. It was a good documentary, and the filmmaker spoke about the creation process. They edited 330 hours of footage down to a 90 minute doc. He also offered a free blue ray DVD of the documentary to anyone who requested it. I would have liked one, but we don’t have a blue-ray player and I don’t see getting one anytime soon (unless our current player dies).

Hunter was with his grandma this weekend, so it was a rare event to get L’s attention for a whole weekend! Though we all missed Hunter, it worked out well, because L had just returned from her visit with the grandparents, so I had to make up for the time I lost with her!

We’ve been plugging away at our mystery puzzles, and finally got them finished up Friday night. We covered the puzzles up and went to bed, intending to work on trying to solve the mystery now that we had all of our clues and our crime scene assembled. Almost all assembled, that is. I came downstairs one morning earlier in the week to find Chloe chewing on a puzzle piece. It was a soggy ball of cardboard by the time I got to it—totally irreparable. We were hoping that was the only piece she had eaten. As it turned out, it was indeed the only piece she had eaten, so our puzzles were still workable.

L uncovered the puzzles this weekend to take some pictures of the completed versions and left them out on the mat, so we could work on solving them later. Before we got back to them, Lila got to them. I heard Luciana scream, “Lila, NO”! Lila trotted past the 40 or so cat toys in the room and just started grabbing and shaking the puzzle. She was dislodging and disassembling huge chunks from the puzzle and tossing pieces everywhere. She was having so much fun. L was close to having a meltdown of epic proportions. I left my kitchen chores immediately and sat down with my girl to get the puzzles back together. It took us about a half hour, but we got them back together. We decided that we’d better just work on the solution immediately, because the puzzle just wasn’t safe. We disagreed on who the criminal was. I thought it was the victim’s nephew, and she thought it was the victim’s nephew’s fiancé. As it turned out, we were both right. They were in on it together.

Saturday night was date night, and we decided to keep that low key and inexpensive. We finally got out to see Avatar. I liked the movie somewhat. If they removed the hour-long fricken battle scene, I would have enjoyed it much more. I was bored enough to have taken a little snooze during the fighting, but it was so loud it was impossible. I really wanted to see Shutter Island (as does M), but we wanted to be sure to catch Avatar 3D before it leaves town. Next time we have time and money, though, I want to see Shutter Island.

Sunday was a nice ‘stay at home day’ for us. We didn’t have to trek to Madison/Middleton for her dance this week, as her teacher had a performance. It seems strange to have a whole Sunday and not have to spend hours in the car! L picked Scrabble for our Sunday night family activity. We made it through a whole game and M only tried to cheat once! He tries to make up strange words and argue when we call him on it. We need an official Scrabble dictionary. That would help keep the game moving by eliminating arguments over what is or isn’t allowed.

L has 20 spelling/vocabulary words per week. Spelling is fairly easy for her, and she traditionally looks at her words for the week and points out how easy they are. During the week, she has to write dictionary definitions for half of the words and sentences for the other half. When I look over her work and check her sentences, her disposition is immediately obvious from the sentences she writes. Some of her sentences make me laugh, while some of them make me really happy that I homeschool and don’t have to try to explain them to a teacher! Here are a few of this week’s sentences:

I have a lot of relatives in Texas. (She has1 family--six people)

We have mice in our stove. (No, sometimes the cats stare under the stove for hours. I assume they hear mice there, so I throw food under our stove to keep them from coming out and becoming cat food. This is one of those sentences that I would not be thrilled to have to explain to a teacher!)

I'm a critic for world issues. (I'm not sure what to make of this one.)

Global warming is your fault, so now it's your problem not mine. (Ummmm, okay.)

I declare that you are my servant. (That sounds very 'capitalist'. I'm trying to raise a socialist.)

You're under arrest punk. (In addition to missing her direct address comma, I am a little concerned by the imperialistic sound of this sentence).

I consent you to use my toilet. (This sentence has some grammatical issues that we need to address, but again, the tone. WTF?)

She does a lot of memorization (brain training that will pay off massively in the future!), and I usually have her work on classical poetry (British and American, at this point). I have been excited to get her into some of the more modern poetry, and by modern, I mean poetry written in the 20th century. I like Gwendolyn Brooks and Lucille Clifton, though much of their poetry has more adult themes that are inappropriate for L at this age. I tried to sneak in Clifton's, "Poem in praise of menstruation", last week. She did not love it. She bitched and whined, so I gave in and switched it to a poem by the insipid William Blake. It's about a tiger, so she's happy now.

The Substitute

Mark is gone again, and this time he took my girl with him. He’s speaking in the Chicago area, so they are staying with his parents. L was excited about going to spend some time with her grandparents. I wonder how Tica will do without her bunkmate tonight.

Dej came over this afternoon, after I returned from work, to watch Tuesday night’s LOST with me. I saw it last night, and it was so juicy, I was up half the night contemplating the new information. M will want to watch it again when he gets back, so I’ll be watching this episode three times. That doesn’t bother me at all. I’m sure I will notice things I missed each time I watch. This episode was a treat—def. one of my favorites.

Locke/MIB (man in black) is really bringing it this season! Damn, Terry O’Quinn can act! I still love my Locke, whether he turns out to be good, bad, or otherwise! This week’s Locke-centric episode was such a treat for me, as I never get enough Locke. For some reason, his character affects me deeply and I feel his pain and humiliation acutely. When his character is happy, it makes me giddy. I have always enjoyed the dynamic between the two characters, Ben & Locke, and this was a particularly enjoyable encounter.

The numbers!! Did you all catch the numbers next to each name in that cave where Locke/MIB took Sawyer? That was exciting! I love the idea of the numbers and the Valenzetti equation, so it was a thrill to see the numbers again used in a completely different way. The journey down to the cave—I’m pretty sure I would never attempt. Now I am left wondering how they hell they will get back up the cliff, considering that the crappy little ladders broke on the way down. I have always enjoyed the interaction between Locke & Sawyer, so I'm glad they have paired up.

I like to see the calm, confident, perfectly sane and happy Hurley that we are seeing in the alternate timeline (off island).

Who is the little boy that Locke/MIB and Sawyer saw, and why didn’t Richard see him? I’m theorizing that the boy is a young Jacob, or perhaps an older Aaron. I’m also really curious to find out what they are referring to by ‘candidate’. A candidate for what?! My guess on the whole point of the show is that we are not seeing a showdown between good and evil, but something a little more ambiguous like maybe fate vs. free will and/or science vs. faith, and we are currently watching both sides try to recruit for their own preferred outcome. One side isn’t good and one isn’t bad, but they need to work together for balance. Since there are only a few short weeks left, I will have my answers soon enough.

L picked this chew toy up for Chloe back when we first got her. She had no prior experience with toys, and we were trying everything to get her interested in playing and chewing. She wasn’t interested in this particular toy and Daisy and Jezi weren’t interested, so it has been lying around, unused since then. I’m not even sure where it ended up. Somehow, Jezebel found the toy last week, and it has become her best friend. She carries it everywhere! Even when we let her outside to go potty, she drops it into Mark's or my hand and retrieves it from us as soon as she comes back in. She gets really excited when she makes it squeak. She's really cute with her new best friend.

Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play

Here's a small sample of the many, many photos Luciana has taken recently.

<--One of her own creations that hangs on her bedroom wall

<--Oliver

<--Jolsie

<--Fiona

<--Fergus

<--Tica

<--Jasper

<--one of her many 'domestic cat habitats'

<--Chloe (still tired from swimming)

Puzzling

We worked a little more on our mystery puzzle tonight. Lila 'helped'. We're making progress, but it is really challenging to work with no picture! The black fluff on the left of the pic to the left is Oliver's tail. In addition to Lila's help, Oliver and Ivan had to prance right across our puzzle mat every 3-5 minutes.

This afternoon was dog swimming, and it seems to tire me out almost as much as it tires them! Chloe's been passed out snoring for most of the evening. Daisy, who swims the most, is only slightly less spazzy than usual. Jezi didn't swim today at all. We're still struggling with what to do with her.

She has become increasingly frightened of swimming and we really don't know why. We've let her sit out several times, including today, hoping she would see her sisters having fun and getting praised and want to go in again, but it's not working. She's a good swimmer and she wears a life jacket. She's never had any bad experience with water. Yet she cowers and hides when we call her to get in the water. It's such good exercise, and I really think she would enjoy it. I don't like to let my human children spend their lives enchained by fear(s), and I kind of think I shouldn't let Jezebel lose that battle. I am at a loss as to what to do with her. :(

The critters in the herbivore room got fresh greens for their treat tonight. That seems to be all of the animals' favorite produce. It intrigues me that they all love it so much. I somehow thought the birds, at least, would prefer some kind of fruit. They all go for the greens first. The birds will even fly down and steal greens from the guinea pigs and rabbits, when they finish their own. Kealey, instead of going for the greens tonight, was really intent on that piece of timothy hay that was snatched from the guinea pigs. That's Darwin in the background watching. He and Kealey are best buds!

That's Darwin enjoying some greens. Botswana always grabs the leaf (which is larger than him) from me and runs into one of his little 'hideys' to eat it privately. It's pretty adorable!

What Kate Does

L dragged me out to Michael’s last week, while M was gone. She was determined to get a new house for Botswana right THEN and couldn’t wait. She already has several houses for him that she switches, when she cleans his cage out, in an effort to keep him from getting bored. We’re always trying to come up with new ways to provide stimulation and enrichment for our critters. She saw some very cute wooden birdhouses that were pretty cheap. They are meant to be decorated, so they are just plain wood and quite inexpensive. She picked a very cute one—a good size with a cute little front porch and lots of windows. He loves his new house! He looks absolutely precious when we call his name and he peeks his little head out the front door.

She also forced me to buy her some vinyl wall stickers for her room. ;-) She knows I’m an easy target when her dad’s gone. I feel badly that she misses him, and I’m usually extra tired and stressed, which weakens my resistance to her. We put the stickers up on her wall. They do look cute, but I don’t really understand why she always wants cat posters, stickers, figurines, etc., when we have a house literally full of real cats. You can’t walk five feet in our house without tripping over a cat, but apparently that’s not enough for her.

She and M are already planning for their big St. Patrick’s day festivities. I also noticed when I was in her room taking pics of her new wall stickers, that she has decorated her room for St. Patrick’s day and maybe Easter? I’m not sure if the pink chicks in the hats are there because they are cute or because she’s trying to do some kind of holiday-fusion decorating.

I also noticed that she has decorated her bedroom door differently, but I didn't get pictures of that and I'm too lazy to get up and do it now. I have to have everything done and get prepared to watch LOST at 9:15, when Dej & Luke get here!

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you, tomorrow!!

L spends more and more time these days on making her fashion statements. She spends time in her room, trying on different outfits and different hairstyles. She has a very unique way of putting things together. Much of it is based on something she saw her sister wear. She sees Dej as the very epitome of coolness, and she notices every single detail about Dej’s appearance.

There is one exception, though. Dej lives in skinny jeans and L refuses to wear them. She doesn’t like the feel of them and said she needs room to move her legs around. I personally love to wear skinny jeans. That’s all I wore “back in the day”. The size of my current skinnies is about double what it was last time I wore them, but I still like them. I think they are cute and comfy and I think L would be really cute in them. Maybe she’ll come around.

Last week, she went through several outfits per day, each of which had accessory and hair changes as well. Friday’s final selection was extremely weather inappropriate, so we had words about that. She assured me that she would be fine in her spaghetti-strap tank and knee-length capris. The temp was in the 20’s and was snowy. She finally capitulated and put on a pair of jeans. She kept the tank. That was our compromise.

She has taken to wearing her keys hooked on her belt loop with a carabineer, because Dej always does that. What’s particularly cute is that at 10, she doesn’t actually have any keys on her ring. She has several little ‘keychains’, a tiny flashlight, and a little compass. No keys.

Thursday night, when Dej came over, she had just come from her exercise class. She worked out in black leggings, and then threw a pair of jeans over them and came over. They were ratty jeans and had a hole in the knee, through which the black leggings were visible. L’s Friday jeans were selected specifically because they had an unpatched hole in the knee. She wore black leggings under the jeans. Then, I guess to show she still has her very own sense of style, she decided to tie a blue belt around her leg, right above the hole. You can’t see the hole with leggings in this shot, but they are there.

The shirt is an old one of Dej's, and L is so excited that she can wear it. Her little dog tag is from Primate Freedom Project. It's a very cool fundraiser!

She has taken to wearing her keys hooked on her belt loop with a carabineer, because Dej always does that. What’s particularly cute is that at 10, she doesn’t actually have any keys on her ring. She has several little ‘keychains’, a tiny flashlight, and a little compass. No keys.

Vegantines

Mark was out of town much of last week, so I was doubly busy. L & I had some nice 'girl time' while he was gone. She slept in the bed with me, which upset Tica, L's usual bedmate. I was awakened by the horrible sound of a cat barking. It was an ugly sound at 3 am, and I tracked down the source of the horrible racket. Tiny little five pound Tica was standing in the middle of L's bedroom, with her mouth wide open, making this loud ugly barking noise. She was pissed. I carried her into my room and turned the light on so she could see L. She was fine after that, though she was super happy Friday night when M came home and L returned to her own bed for the night.

We had L's dance class today, and then home. M & I worked out chores, while L & Hunter played. After the work was done and I got dinner cleaned up, we started working on another family puzzle in front of a nice roaring fire. It's one of several my friend, Orinda, gave us. They are all 'mystery puzzles'. We are working on one called 'F for Feline'. It has two 500 piece puzzles, but all 1000 pieces are thrown together in the box. There is no picture. Both puzzles will contain clues that we have to find and use to solve the mystery. It came with a little book that gave the story of the crime. We read the story and got some chunks put together but we still have a long way to go. It drives me crazy to leave things unfinished like that, and I have to restrain myself from sneaking back up to work on it. We will keep plugging away at it this week as time allows.

We went to Vegantines last night (date night). We picked up our friend, Julie, who came as M's other date. :) I was not able to wear my dress, but it wasn't due to it not fitting. I found that with the heavy-duty minimizer & shapewear, I had plenty of room. The zipper got stuck on a little piece of the fabric, and I yanked it too hard and broke the zipper. I'm sending it out to have a new zipper put in and I will definitely wear it. I didn't actually break the zipper until 10 minutes before the time we were supposed to leave. I always get dressed last. I improvised with a very comfy summer dress (that I love and have worn many, many time) with a sheer black cardigan and lots of shiny jewelry.

Dinner was provided by the same caterer, Queene Anne's. They had recently lost their chef, which may explain why the food this year wasn't nearly as good. The event was packed--sold out again! It was fun. We had a great time chatting with our friends and enjoying Julie's company.

M has been on a cranberry juice and vodka kick lately and raves about how good it is. I joined him and tried a couple last night. They were really good. I dragged him out to the dance floor and got him to stay and dance for four songs. I was not at all ready to be done dancing. It gave us more time to visit with friends though, I guess. Rick & Lynn looked absolutely fabulous, as always, and her hair was beautiful (and she put it up herself!) I am bummed that we didn't get pics of them or Julie! Julie looked gorgeous as well. The place was full of beautiful people. That's how vegans are. ;D

M was camera boy for the night, as I didn't bring mine. We got kind of engrossed in the night itself and forgot about taking pics for most of the night. :( They had a photographer there again this year doing 'prom pictures', so at least we've got that!

Petey & Oliver

Sell the Vatican

The fabulous Sarah has a message for Ratzi the Nazi:

I love the raging grannies

Get LOST!

I slept decently last night but woke up feeling like I hadn’t slept at all AND with a crappy headache. I hate that! The snowy drive in to work wasn’t too bad, except that the last 10 miles of my journey took an hour. I hate that, too! I was stressed from so much car time and arriving 45 minutes late. At least I was early enough to still find parking. It’s not an issue from work’s perspective (I stay 10, 20, 30 minutes late quite frequently, so it balances out), but just personally I feel kind of ‘off’ for the whole day.

I’m having a hard time focusing today, too, because this is THE day. The day I have waited 8 long months for. Happy Groundhog Day. ;-D Ha, just kidding. Happy LOST Day!! We are taping (yes, taping, for we do not have fancy things like Tivo or DVR or even a flat screen tv--oh, the horror!) the show between 8-10, and will watch it at 10. It sucks to have to wait the extra two hours to watch it, but it’s the only way. We have to wait until our girl is in bed and at least a portion of the animals are sleeping/settled down, or we would be constantly interrupted by the chaos, and that just cannot happen while LOST is on. As excited as I am about this, and oh, I AM excited, it’s very bittersweet, because this is the last season. Thinking about life without LOST makes me sad, so I’ll stop now.

L & I are reading Stephen & Lucy Hawking’s second book in the series for kids: George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt. It’s as good as the last one. We’re about halfway through it, and I look forward to our nightly reading aloud time as much as she does. We’ve had some great conversations, and often can’t even finish our chapter, because we end up having such interesting discussions. It’s a great mix of educational science concepts and a fictional story, that engrosses the child (and the mother, in my case) in the story, allowing them to learn without ever being bored or cognizant of the fact that they are learning physics, astronomy, etc. We’ve had some great talks about how amazing it is that the light from the stars that may not even exist now; what was in this physical/spatial location before the big bang; if the universe is steadily expanding, what is it expanding into—the kind of questions that drove me nuts when I was her age. I had to wait until I got to college to get satisfactory answers for many of my questions. Some of those questions still drive me nuts, and it’s doubtful that I will ever find the answers I seek, but it’s still fun to try to figure it all out. L has some very imaginative and creative answers to such weighty questions. It’s a ton of fun to brainstorm with her about these topics!

This is another new-ish shirt I love wearing. All four of us (the nuclear family) got one and they are so soft and comfy. They were made by a friend of a friend. There are probably some left, so if you're interested, let me know.

M took L sledding tonight before her gymnastics (and while I was teaching my class). They reported that it was fun, but the hill was super icy and really hard to climb. He leaves tomorrow for the rest of the week, so it's nice that she got a little extra daddy time. She misses him a lot when he's gone. He will be traveling a TON this year, so we'll have lots of girl time!

In 10 minutes, I will be watching LOST. I must go prepare.

ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We didn’t have L’s dance class on Sunday, as her dance school was performing at the Celebrating Youth event at the Monona Terrace. We went to support her school and because we thought she and Hunter would really enjoy all of the activities and performances. It was quite a nice event, but the little ones were on the lethargic side and didn’t really want to do any of the activities. There were tons of them, and they would have been totally a blast. I was so annoyed that they passed by all the fun stuff and didn’t do any of it. That meant that I didn’t get to do any of it, and I wasn’t happy about it. They did feel the need to go into the gift shop before we could leave the building.

This was the first time that any of us were in that building. I drive by it every work day but had never gone in. The view is fantastic!

The group that performed after Kalaanjali was a group of unicyclers. I’m sure they had an official name, but I didn’t catch it. There was only one girl out there but about 15-20 boys. I found that interesting. It was very cool to watch the kids. I was impressed that they could ride them period, but then they did all kinds of tricks and stunts on them. It made me want to take up unicycling, though with my coordination problems, that would probably end really badly.

My work day (today) was dominated by a very long, contentious meeting. It is not unusual these days for meetings to go south. Everyone’s stressed. There’s not enough money, not enough staff, and a little too much ego. It can make for some unpleasant meetings. I hate it. I especially hate it when I like both of the warring parties and/or they are both from IT. I view these people as my team and really don’t like to see any of them hurt or embarrassed. Usually when this type of thing occurs, the people who are not engaged in battle all sit there looking down, trying to blend into the wall. It is awkward and embarrassing for everyone in the room.

Today’s meeting turned out a little differently. The aggressor started in on an analyst, and as usual, people started to look away, shuffle things nervously, etc. One woman, a user and key stakeholder took everyone by surprise when she sighed loudly, grabbed her things and walked to the door. She turned and said that she did not need to sit in a meeting where people are being unkind and unprofessional. The aggressor quickly said she agreed (not seeing the irony at all) and the keeper-of-the-heuvos gave her a very pointed look, like, “Really?” Everyone in the room agreed with her, and she sat back down and the meeting continued. I’ve never seen anyone react that way in all of the years I’ve spent in meetings that have degenerated at times, to cursing and name calling! I was so impressed with her polite but firm way of handling it. It completely shut down the ugly! She later passed me a note asking if she was too rude about it. I assured her that she was faaaar from rude and significantly improved the tone of the meeting. I like that woman!

Now that L has completely settled in her new bedroom, she has started her art wall. This is what it looked like as of yesterday. She's added more since then.

Oh, and fuck CBS. I will never watch anything on that hypocritical network again! Homophobic anti-choice bastards. Boycott CBS!!