the Adams family’s Friends

QotD: I'm Not Telling

nobody@vox.com(beba) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:49:43 -0400

What question do you hate being asked?

What's for dinner?!

Man, I HATE that question.
Here's one way we've tried to resolve it.

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Celebration weekend

nobody@vox.com(beba) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 13:28:03 -0400

I love July 4! Not only is it a long weekend this year, but it's also my 40th birthday and today, the 6th, is our third wedding anniversary (and Jake's 11 month birthday!).

I've been having a wonderful weekend. I miss my girlies, but I had a nice long talk with each of them when they called to wish me happy birthday and they were just SO sweet. I'm enjoying the quiet time, but I also can't WAIT until they are home! They are having a blast with their grandma and that part of their family (which is HUGE and close knit) and I'm glad about that, though.

Scott is totally indulging me - he helped me get a pedicure on Friday after we had dinner at my favorite little Italian restaurant. Yummy! Then we came home and relaxed, watched Nova (about how fireworks are made and displayed - we're such GEEKS!). Then we watched the Tempe Town Lake fireworks on TV heh. Which was nice because the weather was very iffy at fireworks time - lots of wind, dust and lightening. Eventually the storm blew north of the city, but it was touch and go for a couple hours. I'm just as happy we weren't out in that.

Yesterday, we had our anniversary luncheon (our anniversary is today, but we wanted to spend Sunday being lazy around the house). We found a little wine bistro called D'Vine that isn't too far from our house. We went around 1 pm and it was perfect. We were the only ones there and Jake was a dream baby. we started him off with some Cheerios, but as soon as our tapas arrived, he was having NONE of that. He wanted to eat our yummy food. He basically ate one third of it, too! We even ordered him his own entree he is getting to be such a hearty self-feeder! Besides eating a substantial portion of what we ordered him, he also shared a bit of OUR entrees, plus dessert. We couldn't believe how much that boy put away! Here was the menu:

stuffed mushroom
marinated grilled portabella stuffed with a blend of cheeses, roasted garlic, red onions and bacon

fried artichoke
beer battered artichoke hearts lightly fried and drizzled with a chipotle aioli

Jake had the

grilled cheese “samich” (with gruyere)
your choice of gruyere, cheddar or havarti with a basil butter; served with french fries)

Scott and I had the

pork tenderloin
chipotle marinated pork tenderloin, grilled and sliced then served with green chili mashed potatoes, sautéed vegetables then finished with a red chimichuri sauce

Peach cobbler a la mode for dessert

After that, we went to the jewelry store to get my wedding set cleaned up, Scott's ring re-sized and re-engraved (it's too big) and look at mama rings. We decided not to get a mama ring yet, but this ring instead:

The rubies represent July - my birthstone, as well as the month we were married. Three stones represent our three years of marriage. So it's a combo 40th birthday/3 year anniversary ring. Scotty has the mama ring in reserve for some other holiday someday lol. It's at the jewelers being re-sized right now. I'll get it on Friday.

Today we're hanging out at home, doing our own cookin' and probably taking Jake for a swim.

Looking at pix on camera:

Jake LOVES Dr. Who (especially the theme song and credits)

Jake is 11 months old:

Pat-a-cake with mama:

Sillies:

Teef!

Attack of the hat is a fun game! (This is the split second before he ripped it off lol)

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It's all in the cards

nobody@vox.com(Patty) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 04:10:48 -0400

At a two day management off-site. My favorite parts are the personality tests.

Color me yellow, mostly. Except for the jelly beans. With those, I like the black licorice ones best.

what color am I today?

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Regeneration

nobody@vox.com(electric firefly) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:13:33 -0400

When I was a kid (this was conveniently during the time I lived in Hawaii), I became obsessed with starfish. What stunned me most was their ability to, rather quickly, shed and regenerate a limb. I wondered if it hurt to do this, or if it was some sort of everyday occurrence. I noticed the same thing about geckos and their tails and sea cucumbers that would vomit out their own internal organs. All of these biological feats are meant to be life-saving, so I imagine shedding a limb or spilling out one's guts isn't taken too lightly in the animal kingdom, but I cannot tell you how many quivering gecko tails wound up in my hands sans rightful owner.

Fast forward to a couple of months ago. I lost someone who I deeply admired and respected. A month ago, I went to her memorial service and sat through nearly three hours of people saying why loved this woman and how much they would miss her. During the entire service, I watched two of her best friends, with whom I was much closer, hold each other and try to make it through the entire thing without completely melting away (3 hours equates to buckets and buckets of tears for anyone not familiar with such services).

It occurred to me that a couple of years ago, they used to be a gang of 4. For reasons that are unimportant here, one of them was marginalized due to work events that, unfortunately, I was privy to and slightly involved in (no malfeasance on my part). Now, these two women were mourning the very real and physical loss of a second, with just the two of them to anchor themselves. It seemed to me that it must be the equivalent of losing a limb. How do you stay afloat when you are missing a limb you have relied on all this time and always expected to be there?

I watched all of my departed friends and family members cling to each other for support and strength, never realizing that we have our own form of regeneration. Since then, I have watched her family go about their daily business (5 days a week I pass her house and see her husband buckling the kids in the car), her friends out and about with other friends, and her workplace move on in her absence. Most days, I even see smiles on the faces of those she left behind.

I know from my own experience that the grief one experiences after loss waxes and wanes. It becomes less biting over time, though on most days you can still feel it there if you look for it (or even if you don't). But recently, I have been struck by the idea that if you do things right in this world (by this I mean not alienating everyone around you), when you lose someone, especially someone who is like a limb, it seems that the universe has a way of helping you regenerate that support, love and community. You, of course, have to be open to it and have to accept it. And it obviously doesn't happen overnight. But the limb will return to you.

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Clarity and gratitude in the details

nobody@vox.com(Patty) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:18:15 -0400

I've been feeling a wee bit sorry for myself, for no particular reason other than a confluence of life's regular up and down stresses and a need to remind myself to focus on what I have to be grateful for.

When I get like that I tend to make myself feel better by buying things and so last week I opened my Amazon Wishlist and one-clicked ordered a couple of new lens for the camera; a telephoto * and a macro **. I haven't played around much with the telephoto, but yesterday I took a few shots with the macro just to start to learn the settings.

I'm feeling better already.

Raise a glass to a cold beer on a hot day!

Blowing in the wind

* Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 IS
** the Canon EF-S 60mm f 2.8 Macro USM

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Unintentionally funny headline of the day

nobody@vox.com(KerbDaddy) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:41:55 -0400

"Man dressed as penis disrupts graduation."

Do you really need to know anything else about this story? The headline tells you everything you need to know. No other details are necessary. That, my friends, is the hallmark of a truly brilliant headline.

This can also be filed under "Things I wish I would have done when I graduated from high school."

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Vox Hunt: SMS Show & Tell

nobody@vox.com(beba) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:24:35 -0400

Show us your last text message.

Sent from her dad's cell phone...

Hi mom it's Mira how are you doing today we are in ohio we just ate. We were in a big storme last night it was scary because we heard hospital cars.

My girls are visiting their Grandma in Ohio for the next few weeks. They had pretty hellish travel yesterday! Their dad works for an airline so he can fly them on standby for a very small fee. Thing is, what with airlines cutting flights and it being summer travel season, getting standby for a 3-4 person party is TOUGH. They missed out on two direct flights before they finally got on board a flight with a Chicago connection. Then it stormed en route to Columbus from Chicago. The girls were pretty frightened, they said - they were in the thunder and lightening as they made their descent. Ack! I don't think that's even happened to ME and I've flown lots.

The storm continued well after they landed all during their one hour drive to Grandma's house (apparently a tornado also touched down in the Columbus area). They left their dad's house in Phoenix around 9 am PST yesterday and arrived at their grandma's at 2 am EST.

Ughhhh.

Anyway, all is well, but it made quite an impression on them...

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The beauty of the forwarded, quasi-anonymous email

nobody@vox.com(KerbDaddy) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:22:35 -0400

Received a forward of a forward of a forward of a forward from a friend this morning juxtaposing the response to flooding in Iowa to the response following Hurricane Katrina. I'll copy and paste the original email text here. The subject line is "Iowa disaster":

Half the state is under water and I have yet to see any footage of people looting beer, TV’s or anything else for that matter. Nobody is shooting at the people that are trying to rescue them. Nobody is bitching about the food, the temporary shelters, or is hollering on TV that they need some crack. A levy broke in Cedar Rapids and nobody has accused the President of blowing it up. Rather than sitting on their backsides with their hands out people seem to be trying to take care of themselves and most of them are actually helping others. What a novel idea.
I mean seriously! What's wrong with those mid-westerners? Why would you spend all day piling up sandbags to keep the water out of your house when there is all kinds of stuff to be looted? I think that Governor Culver of Iowa needs to call upon New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin or former Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco for some advice on how to handle this situation.

Here, in full, is my response:

That just means there ain't shit worth looting in Iowa.
Thanks to you and your special ladyfriend for sharing that thinly veiled racist rant. How enlightened its author must be, especially because it makes perfect sense to compare your garden-variety flooding with Hurricane Katrina.
Oh, and when people in the Big Easy "were sitting on their backsides with their hands out," it's because they had been sitting at the Convention Center with no food or water for days, surrounded by feces and rotting corpses. Their hands were out because they were praying and pleading for anyone to come pick them up and get them the hell out of there.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think putting up sandbags was going to do much to help at that point. Nor would have putting up sandbags before Katrina made landfall done much to stop the surge off the Gulf, either. But who needs to ponder such an inconvenient truth when it's so much easier to point and say, "Look at the lawless, lazy black people? They're so silly! And we're so much better than them!"
Fuck off, Tim. Not surprised your from Virginia.

Oh, and the original email appears to be from some asshole named Tim Shelton, whose asshole email address is sweco2@aol.com.

Thanks for your erudite observations thousands of miles away from the scenes on the ground, Tim. Now seriously, go fuck off.

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Two questions arise from looking at this picture

nobody@vox.com(KerbDaddy) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:55:16 -0400

Guy on trunk

1) Does the person driving know this fellow is back there?

2) If so, what - or who - is in the interior of the car that he's been relegated to such a precarious perch?

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Will someone in power somewhere do something...

nobody@vox.com(KerbDaddy) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:24:47 -0400

About this fucking asshole already? I understand that it's down there in the scary dark continent that we don't really care about, but it cannot be ignored anymore.

Plus, Mugabe's bogus fucking soulpatch is really annoying to look at. As if it were possible to despise him even more, that asstastic piece of facial hair makes it possible.

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