Paper

To everyone who has emailed me or tried to post a comment about it, yes, I do know I was quoted in a paper about something I wrote on this blog. Thanks for shooting me a message about it. I appreciate you wanting to give me a heads up in case I didn't know about my new notoriety.

The reporter contacted me and we chatted on the phone. My grand summation after the conversation was that I didn't think I said anything incriminating, but then I didn't think I said anything very interesting either, so I would be surprised if she wound up quoting me. Well, she did, but she just quoted something I posted on the blog, which basically confirms what I have been telling everyone for a long time: I'm a much better writer than a talker. This is why I am not the kind of lawyer who goes to court on a regular basis.

The reason why I'm not posting your comments about it, or linking to the article, or saying the paper's name is because the reporter didn't link to the blog, but she did use my last name. I think all 48 of you who read now (wow, site meter really takes a dive over the holidays) probably know my last name, but I'm trying to be as inconspicuous as possible on a blog where I post pictures of me and my boyfriend and our friends and I've mentioned my law school, particularly to future potential employers.

On that note, I've been thinking seriously about taking this blog down because I know it is possible to find it when you do a search for me. Plus, I just don't think I've been that interesting lately. Plus, there are just some things you don't blog about - or at least I don't - and I find myself writing more regular journals entries than blog entries lately. So mulling that over...

Merry Christmas!

Me and my Christmas Eve jammies say Merry Christmas to you and yours!

'Tis the Season

First things first. New haircut.
I had to get a picture fresh from the hairdresser before I washed it and tried to do it on my own. The whole round brush technique continues to elude me. Or maybe I would rather sleep for 20 more minutes than do my hair properly. It's probably that second option.

I'm enjoying Christmastime. My tree:
It should have pearl garland on it, but I didn't have enough for the whole tree so I left it off. We went to IKEA a week and a half ago and I discovered that pearl garland is apparently pretty big in Scandinavian superstores. I stocked up and I should have plenty for next year.

I've been collecting Christmas ornaments for years and have accumulated quite a collection, which I get mocked for every time I move. However, the mocking stops when people see my pretty and classy tree.

Jason and I made a gingerbread house:
I'm particularly proud of my snowy and icicled windows. I think that was a burst of creative genius on my part.

I also like the demon gingerbread army guarding the place.
Well, when they only give you small little round candies in red, you wind up with demon eyes on everything.

The kit came with two gingerbread men to decorate and eat.

I gave mine gloves and shoes.

And then I ate his head.

Internet Radio is Letting Me Down

Did you know that everyone and his or her brother has done a version of "Santa Baby", "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" and "Baby, It's Cold Outside"? It's true. The internet radio churns through at least 10 versions of each of those 3 songs every couple of hours. At first I was marking that I liked some of them, like Macy Gray's "Santa Baby" or The Asylum Street Spankers' "Baby, It's Cold Outside," but I'm now officially sick of those 3 songs and am making it known to Pandora that at this point I like none of them.

Despite my previous glowing review of Pandora, I have to say that I've noticed after a few hours it starts deteriorating and playing random songs that sort of vaguely stick to the original song, but not really at all. This is despite my system of saying that I only like the songs that strictly adhere to my original selection. For instance, how does a station based on "Ding Dong! Merrily on High" by The Cambridge Singers justify playing ANYTHING by Boyz II Men? Usually if I restart the station Pandora gets its act together.

And, yes, I am at my boring job today (versus the interesting one), thus giving me time to obsess about the nuances of internet radio and the ins and outs of the Pandora Music Genome Project. Why do you ask?

Real Work

I have recently tacked on 20 more hours to my work week, give or take. The good thing is, I actually feel like I'm doing real work. It's in health care and hopefully will lessen the effect of the giant document review black hole that is currently the most recent thing on my resume. Two of the people involved with me getting the gig may actually read this at some point, so, um, hi there!

I'm just thrilled to be doing something that feels like real legitimate work. The days go more quickly and I feel like I'm getting my legislative analysis chops back. I know, I'm a sexy beast with my passion for legislative analysis. I just hope that after this ends, I'll be able to find a real job soon because the idea of going back to just document review kind of sucks. This is good motivation to get my bum in gear with the job search.

El Diablo + 66,000

Bunny reached an important milestone on the way to IKEA on Saturday:

Freezery Cold

It's cold outside. I actually like it because I get to wear my cute furry earmuffs and my sassy red scarf and my pretty wool coat. Not to mention the sweaters underneath all of that. I love winter clothes and walking through the snow, and I love feeling all toasty warm inside while the weather is blustery and cold outside.

However, at work I sit right near one of the doors leading to a hallway that goes outside and it is COLD. Every day no matter how many layers I put on, my fingers turn purple and I have goosebumps everywhere. Yesterday I wore my coat all day. I asked today if I could bring in a space heater and was told that would be fine. Hooray! There's only so much tea and sugar-free hot chocolate a girl can drink in a day.

In the course of making my hot beverages more interesting, I discovered this little concoction:

Herbal Orange Spice Vanilla Tea
1 Bigelow Orange Spice teabag (or Celestial Seasonings Manadarin Orange. Both are good.)
1/2 packet Vanilla Splenda (with the creamers in the coffee aisle)
1/4 cup milk (I use skim or 1%)

Combine with 12-16 ounces hot water and let the teabag steep according to taste. Yummy and warm. I only use half of the Splenda packet because the whole packet is really, really sweet.

Christmas Pudding

I want to try to make this Christmas Pudding someday, if only to have a little bit of Dickensian England in my Christmas. However, I'm thinking the alcohol content won't be ok with the whole Mormon thing. I know you light it on fire and many Mormons I know cook with alcohol with the theory that the alcohol goes away if heated enough. But this pudding requires a LOT of alcohol, over the course of weeks while it's setting. Any thoughts from the Mormons in the room?

I'd Rather He Didn't

I'm already wishing that Mitt Romney just wouldn't run for the presidency. Not like I'd vote for him, since I'm a Democrat and I didn't like the things he did while governor of Massachusetts so I would hate to see what he'd do with the whole country. But I don't want him to run for really selfish reasons: it's going to make it very uncomfortable for the rest of us.

The bloggernacle has been all abuzz with commentaries on Andrew Sullivan and the showing of the g's on his website. Ever since there started being inklings that Mitt might run for president, I could see this coming. Not only would we see the things that we consider sacred paraded out in front of the world, but old and often uncomfortable histories would be dragged out into the light and the scrutiny of the media and the blogworld.

Today at work there was a conversation going on behind me that I elected not to be involved in, but that was spoken loudly enough for me to overhear. Some people here know that I'm Mormon, but I doubt those people do, or else they would have spoken more quietly. They were all people who I have chatted with before and have been friendly with, they just don't happen to know I'm Mormon.

The topic of the conversation: Mormons are so crazy! Basically, one guy started talking about everything he had ever heard about the crazy Mormon theology (true and untrue), the shady history of Joseph Smith, and current tales of what we can and can't do. Of note:

- We don't drink coffee, but we can drink Coke because the church owns part of Coke
- Joseph Smith was arrested for swindling people prior to The First Vision
- The Virgin Mary was Eve

One girl regaled the group with stories of playing tennis on courts shared with a couple of Mormon girls and how they were 17 and already married. Plus, they used these crazy words rather than swearing (probably stuff like "oh my heck" and "fetch," I'm betting). Another talked about this guy he knew at another job who had 10 kids. Their tones and their words emphasized how odd they believe Mormons are in general, and the stories just served to emphasize that supposition.

I don't know how the conversation got started, but I would bet Mitt Romney was a jumping-off point.

As someone who has a hard enough time dealing with some of the more strange and contradictory elements of our church history, I'm really not up to defending the religion to all who read the latest article on "Weird Moments in Mormon Theology" and come to me, their local neighborhood Mormon, to confirm or deny the latest tale.

So for the sake of us all, please, stop the campaign now, Mitt.

Plus, you know, I don't really want you to be my president anyway.

I Am A Swimmer

I went swimming last night. I haven't swum laps in over a year and I can't even express how fantastic I felt afterward. There is just something about water that does it for me. From the second I ducked under the water and pushed off the wall, I felt like I was completely in my comfort zone. I wound up swimming 50 laps.

I also had a little ego boost to go along with the endorphins. Except for a couple of totally in shape swimmers, I was lapping everyone else in the pool. Just think what I could do if I was actually in shape. I was totally bragging to Jason last night, but I let myself do it because swimming is the one thing I do really well. I know I have said this many times before, but I would love to compete again. The pool I go to has a Masters Swimming group that I want to join once I lose a little weight and get my endurance up more.

I was thinking about it as I walked to work this morning and for once losing weight doesn't feel like my ultimate goal. Losing weight is now a means to an end: I need to lose weight in order to swim at my desired level. I came home last night and didn't really want to eat the crap that I've been craving almost every day for, oh, at least a year. I just had some turkey soup and a few crackers for dinner.

There are a couple of things I need to keep this up: new goggles and good warm-up pants. My goggles are kind of old and the lenses aren't exactly clear, per se. As for the pants, I realized I would need some good layered ones as I walked home last night in what amounted to pretty mild temperatures, particularly for late November, and my wet bum got progressively colder and colder until I didn't want the fabric to touch my skin anymore because it felt like ice. Yeah, my normal knit work out pants are not going to cut it once it gets really cold.

The Documents. They Just Keep Coming.

There is a fine art to not losing your mind while doing document review. I have a couple of tactics for getting through my days. The first thing I do is manipulate my document database. First I do the documents in numerical order, which is the order they were loaded into the database. I do about 100 this way, and then I organize them by title, thus showing all the duplicates of the ones I've already done and allowing me to copy/paste and rapidly code away.

I know, thrill a minute.

What really gets me through my days is 1) emails (keep 'em coming!), and 2) internet radio. During the first phase of my day when I have to pay attention to what I'm reading because they want some actual analysis of the documents, I listen to music, because silence just makes me sleepy and depressed. My music provider of choice is Pandora.

I think Pandora wins the award for the internet radio station that takes itself the most seriously. They have worked up this system they call The Music Genome Project where you type in an artist or the title of a song that you like and they proceed to build you a station based on that particular preference. And they have really specific reasons for their selections. For example, I am currently listening to my Pixies radio station. They just played a song by The Raveonettes that they picked "because it features a subtle use of vocal harmony, extensive vamping, major key tonality and many other similarities [to The Pixies]." You can create multiple stations and so far I have the Pixies station, the Nickel Creek station, the Enya station, the Imogen Heap station, and the "It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas" (Frank Sinatra version) station.

While I am doing duplicates and can actually use my brain for something else, I like to listen to NPR podcasts and the archives of This American Life. On NPR I've been bouncing back and forth between the archived shows of Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me and the Holiday stories from this and past years.

And that's how I spend 8-10 hours of my days. I need a real job.

Pumpkin Pecan Pie & Sweet Potatoes

I made this pie last night for a pie party I'm going to. A couple of things to keep in mind:

- The pumpkin part of the recipe will expand more than your average pecan pie so when they say you need a deep pie crust, they mean it. Me and my now-ruined cookie sheet learned this the hard way. It's really hard to get caramelized Caro syrup off a cookie sheet, but it does give your home a nice creme brulee scent.

- Make sure your surface is level. The cookie sheet I placed the pie on was kind of warped and that aided in the whole corn syrup all over the cookie sheet affair.

Despite these slight mishaps, the pie still turned out well and had a sufficient amount of corn syrup/butter/egg goodness. Seriously, pecan pie is just the result of someone asking, "How can I speed up that heart attack?"

Pumpkin Pecan Pie
3 eggs
1 cup canned solid pack pumpkin
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1 frozen deep 9 inch pie crust, thawed
2/3 cup dark corn syrup
2 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup pecans or walnuts, coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 350° F. Combine 1 egg, pumpkin, 1/3 cup sugar and spices in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Spread evenly in bottom of pie crust. Lightly beat remaining eggs in another bowl. Add in corn syrup, remaining 2/3 cup sugar, butter and vanilla and mix until blended. Stir in pecans and pour over pumpkin mixture. Bake 50-60 minutes or until filling is set around edge. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Sweet Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes:
2 large cans sweet potatoes
1/4 C. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. grated orange peel
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 C. apple cider or 1 tsp. apple juice concentrate
1/4 C. water

Blend everything together and spread into glass baking pan.

Topping:
1/3 C. flour
1/3 C. turbinado sugar
1/2 C. chopped pecans
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 C. butter

Mix topping ingredients together and sprinkle evenly over sweet potatoes. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes. Sweet potatoes should be bubbling around the edges when you take it out of the oven.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Advice

So apparently November has decided to actually, you know, be November. I walked out into the frosty morning air this morning and noticed how pretty much all the trees are completely barren now. Winter is coming. It's in the air.

For the first time this year I woke up and stayed in bed for 10 extra minutes solely because when I poked my face out from beneath the covers, my nose registered my room as really cold. My bedroom is the coldest room in the house because it is located over the downstairs neighbor's balcony. I don't really mind since I prefer it to be a little chilly when I sleep in the winter so I have an excuse to wear flannel PJ's and burrow down under flannel sheets and my down comforter. And maybe another blanket for good measure. It just makes it awfully hard to get out of bed early in the morning.

We're having Thanksgiving at Jason's with a few friends. It should be nice and low-key, unless the 80's trivia game we're planning to play gets completely out of hand. I'm making the turkey, stuffing, gravy and sweet potatoes. I called my mom a couple of days ago and got her excellent stuffing recipe and am making her sweet potatoes as well. The sweet potatoes have taken on a life of their own, at least among certain people who have tasted them. See, one of Jason's good friends wound up marrying a woman who was at the same Thanksgiving dinner as me the first year I was in Boston. I made the sweet potatoes for that dinner. For the next couple of years every time I saw her she raved about the sweet potatoes. Then when she found out Jason was dating me apparently she told him all about the sweet potatoes. Yes, they're that good.

Currently I have a 14.5 pound turkey thawing in my fridge. I've been looking up good ways to prep the turkey for the big day since I want it to be savory and wonderful. I bought a turkey bag to bake the turkey in, but don't know for sure if I'll use it. So I'm asking for tips. How do you prepare and cook your Thanksgiving turkey?

Fire! Fire!

I don't know if you've noticed, but local newscasts always have a pet catastrophe. I think in Chicago it was shootings on the South Side. In DC it was traffic - Terror on the Beltway or something like that. When I lived in Boston before I noticed that house fires were the pet stories of the local news. Every day something like 5 houses just went up in flames and the local cameras were always right there, on the spot. Maybe it's because Boston has so many old, old houses with old, old wiring. But Chicago had old houses too. I just think it's what the Boston focus groups deemed interesting.

Even though every day multiple homes burst into flames apparently right in my backyard, I am amazed that house fires actually happen. I mean, I guess it makes sense if a water heater or space heater explodes and catches the carpet or some insulation. But if I were to, say, knock over a candle (of which I have many so that is a possibility), I would be shocked if it caught any piece of wood in the vicinity on fire.

I say this because, as I've mentioned before, Jason has a fireplace in his apartment in Providence. It rocks. I highly recommend fireplaces for all. However, there is a definite art to starting a fire. As we have discovered you can't just throw some flames at some wood and expect the wood to light and burn all cozy-like. Wood is very picky about lighting and might taunt you with a quick burst of flame, only to peter out into ash a moment later. Then it will laugh at you.

Luckily for Jason, I am a fire-starting savant. This is a previously unknown talent and I'm trying of some way to can market it. I can analyze a pile of smoldering wood, move some bits around, stick some kindling underneath, throw on some pinecones for extra explosive good measure and voila! We have fire! I have done this a couple of times now - the first time after Jason had spent the entire evening poking and rearranging and finally I got my chance when he drove another guest home. He came back and I pulled him excitedly into the room to show him my handiwork. I just hope that I'm not too much of a threat to his manhood.

Dreamy

I'm having the Spanish final dream again. It pops up every few months or so. I feel like I should start keeping track and try to figure out what happens in my life that triggers the dream. All I have to say is, I am so relieved today that I'm not about to fail Spanish.

Just Feeling Kind of Tired of It All

So this is going to be a little bit of a rant. A railing against my metabolism. I am tired of being fat.

I have good taste, but I don’t fit into the clothes. It would be a dream of mine to walk into any retail store and be able to pluck any cute thing off the rack, try it on, and then be able to really choose what I want to buy versus buying what actually fits or what doesn’t make my bum look TOO huge.

It’s virtually impossible for me to buy a suit. As an attorney, that’s a little bit of a problem. I own one suit right now and thankfully am working in a place where casual is A-OK. I like suits, though. I think they’re cute and I wish I owned several. I have been trying for about 6 months to find a suit that fits me right, trying on nearly everything that looks slightly feasible in a myriad of stores. First of all, my hips/thighs/bum are significantly larger than my waist and pencil skirts are very difficult for me to fit into. Second, I am two different sizes on the top and the bottom, so that limits me to separates. Third, I’m in this weird limbo at my weight where the Misses jackets fit great, while the skirts do not, while the Womens skirts fit OK and I’m swimming in the jackets. Heaven forbid the Womens clothes are just bigger versions of the Misses stuff so I could buy the Misses jacket and the Womens skirt. They could never make it that easy.

I started a weight loss blog that I haven’t updated in awhile out of frustration and laziness both. It’s hard to feel consistently fired up, although maybe I’ll get back to it eventually.

I’m mad at my metabolism because I have been hovering around this 190-200 mark for a couple of years now. During the summer of 2005 after being very strict with my food intake and working out every day AND stressing about the Bar exam, I managed to get down to 185.

I’m mad at my metabolism because I don’t consider myself to be a huge eater. Maybe I’m deluding myself, but I don’t think I am (although if I am deluding myself, how would I know really...?) I have this strange fascination with shows about fat people losing weight and the methods they use, whether it be normal diet and exercise or some sort of surgical intervention. I listen to the interviews and realize I don’t eat like these people. I don’t have 3 Big Macs for a meal, I don’t eat huge piles of pasta at an Italian restaurant, I don’t Super Size it all, I don’t hide food around my house, I don’t eat a dozen donuts at a sitting. I have never eaten like that, except for maybe a few years ago when I was neck-deep in depression and ballooned up to 235. I haven’t been there in a long time, though. The idea of eating those huge amounts of greasy, fatty, sugary foods makes me feel a little ill.

If I allow myself to have dessert now and then or to have birthday cake to celebrate with friends or to have a couple of pieces of Halloween candy that someone brings into work (and I do mean a couple of pieces only), I will gain weight.

I know exactly what I need to do to lose weight. I need to carefully monitor every single thing I put in my mouth and the caloric content of each morsel. I need to write it all down in the ediets Nutrition tracker, which is my food counter of choice at the moment. I then need to exercise every day and factor in the calories burned so that I have a significant calorie deficit every day to lose 1-2 pounds a week, which is the average amount lost when you’re losing weight the healthy way. I cannot indulge ever because it appears on the scale and on my thighs. Even if I were to ever lose all the weight I want to, I will never really be able to indulge without it showing up. It's all lots of fun.

I need to make sure that I am exercising enough. It appears that “not enough” at this point equals walking a mile to and from work and 40-45 minutes on the elliptical 4-5 times a week, followed by a smattering of weight exercises. The scale continues to inch up and my clothes continue to feel tight.

I emailed Jason this morning about my frustration with this weight thing. I concluded that my caveman ancestors were really top notch at the whole fat storage thing. My people survived many famines.

Good News, Bad News

No, let’s reverse that. Bad news first. Save the best for last is my motto.

Bad News:
- I didn’t get the job. I emailed my HR contact and asked what the deciding factors were. She said they wound up hiring someone with a lot of experience working as outside counsel to health care entities. That’s fair. It helps to know it wasn’t really because I’m a freakshow and they couldn’t stomach the idea of working 40 hours a week with the likes of me. But it’s the same Catch 22 I’m faced with repeatedly: I have no real experience, so I don’t get hired because they want someone with experience, meaning I never get any experience.

Good News:
- If I doubted it before, it turns out moving to Boston was the right decision. Remember how I left that project in DC where I was making insane amounts of money believing that the project had probably at least 5 more months left on it and I was debating if moving to Boston and not taking advantage of the money was really the smartest thing to do? Well, I heard from a friend from that project today that they closed down shop with no warning on Monday and the client moved all the business to co-counsel’s city. Wow. I would have been so incredibly ticked if I had stayed, let me tell you.

- I’m going to dust off my mad networking skillz and get back in the game tonight. I have been referred several times to a non-profit in the area that might allow me to get some more health care experience. I think one of my next steps will be contacting the person whose name I’ve been given and see if they can use any volunteer help. My job now has incredibly flexible hours so if the opportunity to volunteer is there I could actually take advantage of it.

- I have a gym racket going with a friend from work. We are putting off actually joining a gym for as long as possible and instead are working our way through two-week gym trial memberships. The one we’re on right now is 2 weeks for $20 (how they then justify $70 a month for membership plus a $149 initiation fee PLUS a $49 processing fee is beyond me) and after that we have two more gyms that have free 2 week trials. We figure we’ll do 2 weeks now, then indulge for Thanksgiving, then 2 weeks in December, allowing us to enjoy Christmas, and then 2 weeks after Christmas. Nice, huh? So if any of you know of any free/cheapo trials for gyms in the Downtown Crossing/Government Center/South Station areas, send them our way.

- I had some rockin’ French onion soup for lunch and just discovered that D’Anjou pears may just be my favorite ever.

As you can see, the good outweighs the bad. I’m trying to stay positive and hope that something else is just around the corner.

Happy To Be Back

At church on Sunday a couple of people asked me how it felt to be back in Boston. I have had the chance to reflect on this a lot over the last few weeks since it seems to be a common question. I am kind of surprised that my standard answer is, it’s really great to be back.

By the end of Summer 2005 I was so ready to be gone from Boston and to be in DC. After a little more than a year in DC I'm glad I'm back in Boston. Not that I didn’t like DC, but I never really got settled in there. The whole time I was there I felt a tug to come back here so I never immersed myself in all that DC had to offer. As I was getting ready to leave I felt sad thinking about leaving the monuments, the museums, the parks, and all of the beauty surrounding me in Virginia. I realized that I hadn’t really experienced everything about the city; I hadn’t even whole-heartedly looked for the health care policy job that inspired me to move down there. I think I would possibly like to go back to DC again someday.

However, since I moved to Boston I haven’t felt any tugs back to DC. I miss the few good friends I made there, but they’re not really all that far away. We just can’t hang out on some random night, but, frankly, with my work schedule in DC, I always had to plan hanging out in advance anyway.

I know that I moved back to Boston at the best possible time. October in New England is lovely and sepia-tinted. Growing up in Arizona, I used to wish longingly for real seasons, real trees and flowers, real snow, real Autumn leaves. The Sonoran Desert, where Tucson is located, is beautiful in its own way, but it is not a way that speaks to my soul like the smell of fresh fertile earth and woodsiness after a rain.

My parents and I used to have a Christmas in July movie marathon in our highly air-conditioned family room when we just couldn’t stand the idea that it was 115 degrees outside anymore. We tried to make at least one excursion each summer up to Summerhaven on Mount Lemmon for chili at the ski lodge and temperatures that were 30 degrees cooler.

My first year of college I went to school in Vermont and while I didn’t end up staying at the school because the school and I did not mesh, I loved Vermont. I took rolls and rolls of pictures, documenting every little seasonal change. I found the smallest things absolutely remarkable. Did you know that when a leaf falls on the sidewalk and then it rains, the leaf leaves an imprint on the sidewalk? I had no idea until I was walking to one of my classes and saw a whole row of leaf prints on the sidewalk in front of me. In the Spring I drove everyone crazy asking what every single tree and flower was called. They looked at me as if I was insane, not realizing that while I can identify a cholla or a saguaro or a prickly pear with no problem, tulips and daffodils were strange and exotic to me. Lilacs were my greatest discovery that Spring.

So I suppose part of my contentment here is that I moved back at my favorite time of year and got to revel in the Autumn.

Then there are the people. One of my biggest complaints with Boston before I moved was the surly attitude of many of its inhabitants and this sort of air of entitlement that seemed to flow throughout the city. I’m just not noticing it so much this time around. I think there are a couple of reasons for this. For one, I’m not driving much anymore. I take the T to work and other than the 20 minutes or so it takes me to get out of Cambridge, the drive down to Providence is a breeze. I used to drive a lot to get to school and while a Boston pedestrian may not be necessarily surly, a Boston driver ALWAYS is. Particularly on this fun rotary that was on the way to my law school, which we referred to as The Circle of Death.

Two, I don’t know if I’ve proven myself by virtue of the fact that I moved away from Boston and then moved back, but I find myself running into a lot of native Bostonians who are jovial and happy to chat about most anything. With their thick accents they tell me where to go to eat and who will give me the best deals on various things. New Englanders have this reputation of being aloof until they really get to know you. Maybe they’ve decided I’m ok since I voluntarily moved back to Boston.

Then of course there’s Jason. It’s fun to be able to be a semi-normal couple – I say “semi” since we are still living an hour drive away from each other. But that’s much easier than an hour flight. I’m enjoying having an activity partner and our weekends have been jam-packed. We’re having a lot of fun.

Even though I still haven’t heard on the job and I don’t know where my career is going and I’m doing the same type of boring work I was in DC, I’m happy to be here. I love stepping out into the crisp air and feeling the bustle of the city around me. It’s good to be here.

Consumer Alert: Ford Focus Ignition

To: Ford Management
From: A Disgruntled Focus Owner

My family has been loyal Ford owners for some time, despite all those clever little sayings like "Found On the Road Dead." My early years were spent riding around in a big red LTD, which was then traded in for a Taurus wagon. The next year a teensy little Festiva was added to our family and I drove it all through high school and college and finally sold it when I graduated. My mom traded in the Taurus for an Escort and when my parents had to buy a car after my dad got a job in the Chicago suburbs they headed right to the Ford dealership.

Several years ago I noticed the Focus on the road and thought it was cute. Overall it seemed to get ok ratings and when it came time for me to buy a car I found I could get a relatively lightly used Focus for a lot less than a Corolla or Jetta. I knew those were better made cars, of course, but I could afford the Focus, the Focus was cute, and my family had always gone with the Fords.

Yesterday morning I got in my car, stuck the key in the ignition, and turned. Only the key didn't turn. It was stuck fast. I jiggled the steering wheel, took the key out and put it in again, tapped the key, turned the key over, rapped on the steering column a bit. Nothing. The key just would not turn in the ignition. So after putting a lot of money into my car a couple of months ago, I now have to shell out $200-$300 more to fix this ignition thing.

And you know, I could handle it if it was just one of those things that sometimes goes wrong with cars in general. Like a couple of months ago when a casing on my radiator sprung a leak. Yeah, it happens. It's annoying, and I wish it wouldn't happen, but it does.

However, after looking around on the internet here, here, here, here, oh, and here, I discovered that this isn't just some random little oopsie needing to be repaired. Hundreds of people have had these problems with Focuses (or Foci, if you will) since they started being sold. This is a problem endemic to the Focus, and for those poor people who have had the dealer replace the part, or who have had a mechanic order the part from the manufacturer, it continues to be a problem. I read about one person who between 2000 and 2004 had the same part replaced 3 times. It's sort of a big problem when your customers physically cannot start their cars.

Thank goodness I have the internet as a resource and can see that not only is this a common problem, but a locksmith can fix it for substantially less than a dealership or a mechanic. So last night the locksmith came and took a look at my car, and we got to talking.* He confirmed what I had already read: they see a lot of Focuses with this exact problem. After hearing that for myself, I know that I will be filling out this complaint form, signing this petition, and I'm really bummed out that I can't get involved with the class action in California.

So, Mr. Ford, if you're wondering why your company is failing and why you're not selling many cars and having to let people go, I think I may have a couple of clues for you. First and foremost, you need to make more gas-efficient vehicles that appeal to the modern American consumer. But second, and equally important, you need to not tick off your loyal consumer base. My car, Bunny, has been a good friend for these past 2 1/2 years, but I now feel a teensy bit of betrayal, knowing that this problem was there all along, lurking, waiting to pounce. And you knew, Ford, you knew. You should have issued a recall years ago, but instead you decided it wasn't worth it for you. Well, your company is still failing despite (or maybe because of) your cheap tactics, and I will think very seriously in the future about whether or not I want to even consider buying a Ford again. That's a 30-year rider and driver of Fords talking. Take note.



* Unfortunately the guy who came last night couldn't fix it because the cylinder has to be replaced completely, but I will be making an appointment for the guy who can fix it to come by tonight and then hopefully it will be all fixed.

Enjoying Autumn

Happy Halloween!

Today is actually warm here in Boston, which should be good news for the kids who won't have to ruin their costumes by putting coats on over them. I never had to worry about that growing up in Tucson. Never even thought about it really until I moved to Chicago.

Tonight I think my roommate Angie and I are going to watch a scary movie and eat popcorn. However, "scary" is relative and we have yet to decide whether scary equals Psycho or a Harry Potter movie. We will hopefully be joined by our other roommate Chrissy whenever she gets home from her job where they work her hard with no time and a half. That should be illegal. Then Jason and I may be going to a midnight Halloween organ concert, where I've been promised Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, which is really the Halloween song.

Here are some Halloweeny links for you all.

Witchy card sent to me by my mom

Ghost Research

13 Real Haunted Places

Worst Costumes Ever

Weird thing I realized this morning: You can sing/speak "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" to the tune of "Monster Mash." Do with that what you will.

Me and Chrissy
Angie
Jason

So I Don't Know If You Heard, But It's Been Windy Up Here

You know it's windy when:

• There are whitecaps on the Charles River.
• You open your car door to get out and the wind closes the door back on you.
• Shopping carts take on lives of their own.
• All of the pretty Autumn leaves have fallen in the space of just a couple of hours.
• The whole concept of "umbrella" takes on an air of laughable futility and you resign yourself to getting soaked while you run all of your errands.
• You wake up angry that your neighbor is thumping his bass at 6:30 on a Saturday morning, until you realize it's actually the sound of the huge gales of wind thumping into the side of the house.

Things I Am Enjoying

• The optometrist down the street from my office who has put Halloween masks on all 20 or so model heads in the front window and then put glasses on them all. My favorite is the Queen Amidala mask with the sassy red frames.
  
• The crazy bells in Downtown Crossing. If you happen to arrive at Downtown Crossing at 8 AM, or are still there at 7 PM, you get serenaded by pealing bells, like those from a large church or cathedral. However, upon close listening, you discover that the bells aren't playing your standard hymns. No, instead they seem partial to TV and movie soundtracks. Wednesday night was the theme from Hill Street Blues and Thursday morning they played the theme to The Godfather. This morning it was a rousing rendition of Hello, Dolly.
  
• Cosi's new whole wheat bread. Makes me feel a little less guilty for indulging in the Wasabi Roast Beef sandwich that I love SO MUCH.
  
• H&M generally. Despite their sizes running small, I still manage to find a couple of cute things every time I go. The entire store is inspiration for losing weight because I want to buy it all. I stand agog, surrounded by cuteness at fabulous prices. The purchase I could not justify today was the $80 mod navy-colored coat with the big buttons. I already have a winter coat, but I looked adorable in it. Trust me.

Apple Picking and Waterfire

We went apple picking a couple of weekends ago because, you know, it's Fall and that's what you do.

After trekking through the sadly overpicked orchard for awhile, we finally found the apples. Hurrah!

Last Saturday night we went to the last Waterfire of the season down in Providence. I had been hearing about how cool Waterfire was and how we needed to go. Frankly, I didn't expect a whole lot. I mean, it is something put on a by a city, how artsy and cool could it be? I sort of expected gas lines to come out of the river and light up and we were supposed to ooo and aah and that was it.

It was so much better than that. The fires were actually wood-burning fires in big bowls arranged in a long trail snaking down the river. It smelled heavenly, like a hundred campfires, and the heat coming off of the fires felt lovely since the night was nice and chilly. The played kind of ethereal music, with an Eastern European/Middle Eastern flavor that gave such a nice mood to everything.* Boats filled with wood** moved back and forth along the river, refilling the fires when they got low. A Pagliacci look-alike coasted along on a boat, handing out roses to people down by the water. Down at the end of the path were two people performing tricks with fire. Gondolas and water taxis coasted down the river among the fires, but we just walked along the path down near the water, soaking in the warmth of the fires. Under one bridge they had placed gas chandeliers to light the way.

Plus, the sponsor of the whole affair handed out free kettle corn, and several carnival food stands were set up on one of the bridges. We got some fried dough. It didn't infringe on the whole mood, since the food was on a bridge above the main path, but it did teach us that eating ahead of time isn't really necessary.

If you are ever in Providence on a night when Waterfire is on, I highly recommend it.

***

* Happily, the program I picked up at the end of the evening detailed all the music they played.

** Next year I totally want to volunteer to work on a wood boat.

*** Jason doesn't like to smile in pictures, because he's all anti-establishment like that. Usually I have to take two pictures of us. One where he looks all bored and blase, and one where I say, "OK now smile this time." I'm posting this one to point out how cute Brandon, Sarah and I look, while he looks really bored, even though I know he was having a fantastic time too. I'm just saying.

The Joys of the Season

My dilemma today is whether to wax poetic on soup, or give you another ghost story. How about both?

First off, the soup. I heart soup in a big, big way. One thing I do not like about summer (in addition to the sweatiness) is that I can't justify eating soup. I'm already hot and sweaty and don't really want to move all that much. I know, I'll pour some hot liquid into my stomach! Um, no.

However, Fall sets in and I revel in the soups and stews and chilis and chowders. It's all wonderful. I try to temper the cream-based, fatty nature of it a little by buying the Healthy Choice varieties or by going to Souper Salad, which has surprisingly low calorie soups. But sometimes I've got to indulge. I just have to say that Au Bon Pain's Harvest Pumpkin soup is Heaven in a little paper bowl.

Now it's story time.

My second year of college my friend Jenn and I moved into Our First Apartment(TM). It was a tiny complex of four apartments behind the Happiness is Submission to God house. If you're familiar with the University of Arizona area at all, you know exactly what I'm talking about, and you know how thrilled we were to be living at this landmark, parking in its parking lot. I'm not being sarcastic here. Thrilled!

On our first night there, the neighbors and all of their friends came over to welcome us. Turns out they were a group of people from Nogales who had all at one time or another lived in our particular apartment, which they informed us was "the haunted one."

They told us a sad story of how someone had been murdered in the parking lot for religious reasons and that since then, our apartment was haunted. They had stories of seeing dark mists in the bedrooms, and of the sliding glass door being broken during a thunderstorm and the glass arranging itself oddly in the house.

We thought that they were just trying to scare the new kids and didn't really take them seriously, although it was kind of fun to have a ghost story associated with our place. Every time something went missing or something strange happened we blamed the ghost.

One day I was putting my contacts in and dropped one. I looked all over the bathroom and got down on my hands and knees with a flashlight. It was nowhere. So I ordered another one from my eye doctor.

About a week later I got a call saying the contact was in. I mentioned it to Jenn who said, "You never found it?" I told her no and she suggested maybe the ghost took it. I said that must be in and then said, "OK, Ghost, can I please have my contact back?"

A couple of minutes later I walked into the bathroom and there on the countertop was my contact. I called Jenn in and pointed to it. She said, "Is that your contact?" I said yes. Then I said, "I guess we shouldn't make fun of the ghost anymore, huh?"

We didn't really have any more experiences (although, Jenn, if I'm forgetting something, please let me know), but that one was enough to make me think maybe those Nogales kids weren't just kidding around.

Spoooooky

This story isn't actually mine, but some co-workers and I were discussing the whole ghost thing a few days ago and his story came out. Basically, there is a little girl who keeps showing up in his apartment. He admits that he has seen her generally when he's tired and about ready to go to bed, but he's still awake. There was also one instance in the middle of the day when he caught her out of the corner of his eye. He usually sees her out of the corner of his eye, but he says she is definitely there. She looks to be about 10 years old, and he says he feels like she watches him until he notices her and then she disappears.

Ghosties and Ghoulies and Long-Legged Creepies and Things That Go Bump in the Night

In honor of the spooky season, and the rainy, dreary day today, I'm going to post some of my ghost stories for your enjoyment. Please feel free to join in. If you'd rather not post in the comments, email me your stories at frazzled.kelly@gmail.com, and I'll post them (anonymously, if you like).

I am a big fan of ghost stories. The kind of stories that make your flesh crawl and wonder if anyone is looking over your shoulder. I love movies like The Sixth Sense, The Others, and Poltergeist. In my youth I devoured tales of ghosts from the library. Between the ghost books and my interest in Greek mythology, my reputation as that weird, geeky girl was obviously well-deserved.

Throughout my life I have had various experiences of ghostliness. I suppose you could argue that my penchant for ghost stories affected my dreams and produced these "ghosts." Or, maybe my experiences inspired my desire to learn more about ghostly tales. Some of my experiences can be explained away by the fact that they were in the middle of the night, right after I woke up, but some of them I have no explanation for.

So here we go.

**********************************

I had several unexplained occurrences in the house I grew up in. After telling my mom about a couple of them, she told me about her own experience.

Right after we bought the house, my mom went over to clean before we moved in. She knew from the realtor that an elderly woman named Ella McGuire had bought the house when it was built and had lived there with her husband. The husband passed away, and a few years later, Ella followed. Then my parents bought the house.

While she cleaned, my mom kept feeling like someone was watching her, following her as she went through the house. Finally she stopped and said out loud, "Ella, don't worry. We'll take care of your house." She said the feeling went away and she never again felt a presence in the house.

I, however, used to hear things. Mostly footsteps. One time when I was alone in the house, practicing the piano downstairs, I heard footsteps above me. I stopped playing and a couple of seconds later, the footsteps stopped. I sat there for a moment, wondering what to do, listening for noise upstairs, and when I didn't hear anything else, I started playing again. The footsteps started up again. I stopped playing and a few seconds later the footsteps stopped. I stared up the staircase, wondering if someone was going to come down.

I thought someone had gotten into the house so I went to the back door, thinking if someone came down the stairs I could run to the neighbor's house. I probably stood there for about 15 minutes and didn't hear anything else upstairs. Eventually, I did the exact wrong thing and actually went upstairs to check things out. I opened all the closets and looked behind shower curtains. Nothing. The windows were all closed and I was still the only one in the house.

My most vivid experience in that house occurred on a bright sunny day while I lay on my bed reading a book, my cat lying next to me. Suddenly I heard footsteps charging up the stairs. I thought maybe it was one of my friends who had come over, but when the steps reached the top of the stairs, they ran down the hall to my doorway. My door was open and there was no one there. My cat had jumped from her sleeping position and was now staring fixedly at the doorway. I sat, frozen. Just as suddenly as they had come up the stairs, the footsteps retreated, running down the stairs and slamming the front door.

I sat on my bed for a few minutes, not really knowing what had just happened. Eventually, I went downstairs where my parents were sitting in the family room watching TV, on the opposite side of the house from the staircase. I asked them, feeling ridiculous, if maybe one of them had just run up the stairs and then run down the stairs and slammed the door. They looked at me like I was crazy and shook their heads. So I told them what I had heard. They believed me, but of course had no explanation either.

Copping Out

I'm going to a Halloween party next week and I have NO IDEA what to dress up as. I think I prefer theme parties, since then you have parameters - even if I tend to be really unimaginative within those parameters. The thing that bugs me is that I have thought of at least 3 Halloween costumes during the course of this year and each time I told myself to remember them because I knew once Halloween rolled around and I possibly had a party to go to and was put on the spot I'd be unable to think of anything. Do I remember those ideas? Did I write any of them down? Of course not.

So anyone have any costume ideas? I need something kind of simple since shopping time and money are limited.

I suppose I could always go as a beatnik like I did a couple of years ago. I have a beret and funky blue-purple glasses with black frames. But I kind of want something original. Oh yeah, I would also like to be pretty if that's possible at all. My favorite costume ever was the Southern belle get-up freshman year of high school. I may have been all snaggletoothed (pre-braces, after all), but I sure looked elegant.

Clumsiness Personified

There's a rumor going around that I am a klutz. Actually this kind of surprised me since I never really thought of myself that way. I mean, it's not like I thought I was the Queen of Grace or something, but I didn't think "clumsy" described me. Then several years ago my parents made some comment in front of me and the guy I was dating about me being clumsy. I was going to object vehemently when I noticed the guy nodding in agreement.

"Really? You think I'm clumsy?" I asked him, aghast.

He looked a little sheepish then. "Well, yeah, kind of."

As if to emphasize his point, a couple of nights later I missed a step coming out of my apartment building and almost fell right on my face. This was my building, mind you, and I had been up and down those steps at least 572 times by that point.

When telling tales of scars and broken bones with friends, I somehow seem to have racked up an inordinate amount of injuries. Historically, I have a high tolerance for pain so I often can't really tell how badly I've hurt myself. Over the years I've learned that if I feel like I'm going to throw up, I've probably broken something. The pain really isn't an indicator to me.

I have broken my collarbone twice. Fractured my right arm ice skating. Sprained my ankle jumping on a trampoline. Ripped off my big toenail by kicking a stone step. Bent my tailbone. Fractured my right sacrum (bone in the lower back). Broke a bone in my wrist that I didn't realize I had broken until a couple of years ago when I noticed that the bones in my two wrists were positioned differently (After comparing my wrists with those of my friends, I realized my left one is messed up and I think I know when I did it, but I can't be sure). Except for the time I broke my collarbone when I was 4 and ripping off my toenail, I never had any idea how badly I'd hurt myself until several days, or even years, later. This includes when I broke my collarbone as a baby. My mom said I was fussy for a few days, but it wasn't until she picked me up and heard something click that she realized something was wrong.

My latest injury is a sprained ankle. It's not a bad sprain, but it is sore and it swelled up nicely. I did it walking down the street. A co-worker told me I need to come up with a better story. In my defense, I would just like to state that the sidewalks in Boston are a menace. There are cracks and fissures all over.

On Monday morning on the way to work my left foot hit an uneven spot in the sidewalk, my ankle turned, and I did this marvelous move of stumbling, dropping to my right knee, and then popping right back up. The lady walking behind me asked if I was okay and I said yes, and explained that my ankle had turned. She tsked and said, "That sidewalk is bad!" See! Validation!

Since I just sit at work, I didn't really know how bad it was until I walked the mile home and then drove my manual transmission car down to Providence that night. By the time I got to Jason's, I had a nice knot on my ankle. Over the past few days I have iced and heated my ankle and wrapped it in an ace bandage to hold it still.

Despite my attempts to be graceful and aware of my surroundings, I am still the pinnacle of clumsiness. Pity me.

Needing Some Good Karma Coming My Way

I interviewed this morning and I think it went really well, but, as they themselves told me, they got a HUGE response from their posting. I should find out within the next couple of weeks if I got a second interview or not. After meeting with them, I do still really, really, really want the job so I've got my fingers and my toes crossed.

Both of the people I met with were personable and the office sounds like a good environment. Small, collaborative.

Good signs:
- There were several instances of casual jokes and laughter.
- When I answered their questions there was a lot of smiling and nodding in agreement. For instance, they asked why I want to work in health care. I gave my touchy-feely answer, which also happens to be the true answer, and it seemed to be what they wanted to hear. I see it as a good sign when my answer seems to directly correlate to what their own answers would probably be based on their follow-up comments.

So to sum up, stiff competition, but I think it went well.

Needing Some Good Karma Coming My Way

I interviewed this morning and I think it went really well, but, as they themselves told me, they got a HUGE response from their posting. I should find out within the next couple of weeks if I got a second interview or not. After meeting with them, I do still really, really, really want the job so I've got my fingers and my toes crossed.

Both of the people I met with were personable and the office sounds like a good environment. Small, collaborative.

Good signs:
- There were several instances of casual jokes and laughter.
- When I answered their questions there was a lot of smiling and nodding in agreement. For instance, they asked why I want to work in health care. I gave my touchy-feely answer, which also happens to be the true answer, and it seemed to be what they wanted to hear. I see it as a good sign when my answer seems to directly correlate to what their own answers would probably be based on their follow-up comments.

So to sum up, stiff competition, but I think it went well.

True Love

While putting together my "Party Party" mix Saturday night, Jason started playing a song for me. Upon hearing the first couple of notes I recognized it as Richard Marx's Right Here Waiting.
Me: I loved this song in 7th grade.*

Jason: I could play this on the piano back then.**

Me: Oh my gosh, I would have SO been your girlfriend.

Jason: I might still be able to play it, actually...


* Because I was super cool like that.
** Jason was super cool too.

Can't Think of A Catchy Subject Line

For the 15 or so of you who still read my blog, Hi there.

I know I am sporadic and unreliable, and when I actually do write, I'm kind of boring. But here's the scoop. First, for the past 2 weeks I've been reading background materials on the case for my temp job in a place where the only computers we had access to were located in a workroom with paralegals buzzing around. Now we're at the work site and I am one of the fortunate ones who actually has a computer, but, alas, no login to the system yet. So we're still reading the case materials. One thing I don't like is my computer faces out to the room at large so everyone and their brother can see what I'm doing. So now I have to have a work ethic and junk.

Second, I am STILL not completely moved in and I'm finding this frustrating. I have 3 boxes to deal with, a load of stuff to take to Salvation Army, and a stack of papers to sift through, ideally before one of the bills in the stack becomes due.

Third, one of the reasons I am still not moved in is because I've been having birthday festivities and occasional drives down to Providence to see my man. It's really not that big a deal, and way easier than the whole Boston to DC and DC to Boston thing was, but it still takes an hour each way for us to hang out.

Fourth, I have an interview and am all a-flutter and calling in all my contacts to get advice. I really, really, really want this job. I made it through the HR screening and have an in-person interview tomorrow morning. Then there's a second round. Did I mention I really want this job? I was kind of reticent to post about the interview here because if I don't get the job then I have to announce that too and I'm tired of doing that, but I figure I can use all the good vibes and good wishes I can get. So please send some good feelings in my direction tomorrow around 9:30 AM.

And that's that. My birthday party was Saturday night and it was fun. Low key, but fun. Or maybe it's low key and fun. Or low key, thus fun. I guess it depends on your perspective.

I have also decided that I'm going to start leaving progressively more hateful notes on the cars of my neighbors who can't seem to figure out A) how to parallel park, and B) that they are not the only people who live in this neighborhood and park on the street. I came home last night at about 12:30 and drove around and around becoming more and more irritated as I counted at least 20 cars taking up 2 parking spaces. I think my favorite was the van parked in an area that has been known to accomodate 3 cars.

Pictures (ie Jason Has A Memory Card Reader)

We ate lunch here.

Seafood pizza with scallops, shrimp and crab, conch fritters and sweet potato fries. Yum!

Jason got a gumball.

Big house at the beginning of the cliff walk. Or the end of the cliff walk, depending on where you start.

View from the path.

Big house.

The Breakers. Some people had too much money.

Mossy rocks

Fisherman


Happy Birthday to me!

Missing Stuff

So I had a really excellent birthday (and it's not over yet), and I have pictures to show you all, but I can't get at them because some things seem to have disappeared in my move. Of note are my packing tape dispenser, my memory card reader, and the cord that connects my camera to my computer. The packing tape isn't really important to this post, but both the reader and the cord are integral to the whole transferring pictures to my computer process. Darn it!

Well, to sum up, the past couple of days have been wonderful! Jason has been so sweet to me. On Monday afternoon we drove down to Newport, Rhode Island where he took me out to dunch (it was 3 PM or so) and then for a walk on the cliff path. It was an amazingly beautiful day and we saw some awesome houses.

I took yesterday off of work and spent a couple of hours roaming around Target, buying presents for my 3 friends who are having babies soon. You know what? Despite my cooing over the adorable clothes and accessories, I actually felt really glad that I myself am not having a baby. Mostly because, well, do you have any idea how much paraphenalia babies need? A lot. And they keep growing and eating and pooping so you have to replace a lot of the paraphenalia on a regular basis. It's kind of exhausting just thinking about it. But I'll be a happy pretend Auntie to my friends' babies any day.

Jason came over in the early evening, having left work early to come hang out with me. He brought me a few little presents: a mum plant, an oregano plant (mmm, herbs!), a pretty candle holder with leaves and a little bird. Then he took me out to dinner at Oleana, which you need to go to if you're near Cambridge. I had lamb steak and fava bean moussaka, and Jason had salmon with an autumn vegetable tabbouleh. It was all divine.

Even though it was chilly, they had heaters set up outside which kept the lovely garden area nice and toasty. There were dahlias blooming in the garden and a little bit after we arrived two musicians came and started playing Mediterranean music on an instrument that looked like a big lute (I don't know what it's called) and a drum. Then a couple showed up with their little girl who announced that they were playing music so that she could dance. Well, of course.

After dinner Jason and I went to go see Little Miss Sunshine, which was great. Funny, sad, heartwarming. Excellent. We capped off the evening with ice cream cake back at my apartment with my roommates.

I also got some great cards and presents from family and friends. I think my favorite was the Jane Austen action figure from my Aunt Vickie. Complete with writing desk and quill pen! Rock. On.

This Saturday night is my birthday party, and then next Saturday my friend Liz and I are going out for lunch or dinner since her birthday was on the 7th. I love stretching out the celebration.

30

That's right. I'm all grown up now.

This and That

My ipod is broken. Friday at work it suddenly quit in the middle of a song. I tried resetting it and it just showed me a little picture of a folder with an exclamation point. So I plugged it in today and itunes attempted to restore it, then told me it couldn't be restored. Crap. I guess it's off to the Apple store I go on Tuesday to see if they have any advice. I'd hate to think that it's dead after only a little less than 2 years. Hopefully I can get it fixed quickly since reading the background materials on the case at work is unbearable in absolute silence.

So I've been a working girl again since Tuesday. Not that I really had a break, but this is a new job in a new city. I am so glad that I got work right away, as it makes life more comfortable and I don't fee guilty for buying frivolous things like food. For the first two weeks at my new job we're just reading the background materials of the case. Some of it is mildly interesting, some of it is just really, really not. The good thing is, since we're only reading we were allowed to bring home materials to make up some hours at home for Columbus Day.

There are 6 of us sittng in a conference room reading all day. After the first day, we all pretty much determined that frequent chatting breaks were both useful and necessary to preserve our sanity as much as possible. It's amazing what you can find out about people after 4 days together in a small room. I'm working with some interesting folks, who all seem to be doing other things on the side. One guy is a musician/lawyer/former pastry chef. One guy is searching for a job in health care just like me. Rather than focus on our inherent competition, we've decided to swap emails and keep each other abreast on leads. The other woman in the room is doing a pro bono divorce for a family friend that has escalated way beyond what she ever imagined and has her rethinking that whole "pro bono" idea.

I did bring some work home this weekend, and planned on doing about 4 hours today, but instead I got caught up in unpacking. I thought I would unpack some and then read, but I just couldn't stop with the unpacking and the tidying and the hanging things on walls. I still have some piles around my room, but the majority of the boxes are gone and I actually have a floor. Plus I have 3 boxes of stuff for Salvation Army and 5 full trash bags downstairs in the trash cans. I also have a new clothing policy: if I buy something new, I have to get rid of something. I bought 4 sweaters at Macy's on Tuesday and I managed to find 4 shirts to get rid of today.

Tomorrow I'm cooking chicken and dumplings because it's Fall and chilly. Or at least it has been for the last couple of days, I have loved wearing socks and snuggling down in my bed, which is The Most Comfortable Bed in the World thanks to 400 thread count sheets, a microsuede duvet and a lovely memory foam on top of the mattress. Plus, the bed has risers so every time I get in it, I kind of have to hop up because it's so high. I'd like a little set of steps to walk up to my bed, which would greatly appeal to my Victorian sensibilities.

I still have time to finish my homework since I am actually taking a four-day weekend. Monday is Columbus Day and the firm is closed, but Tuesday is my birthday and I took the day off just because I could. I will work a little, but I intend to laze about a bit too. I wanted a chocolate raspberry ice cream cake, but no one has chocolate raspberry ice cream right now. Sadness. So I settled for cookies and cream, which I honestly like a lot, but it's not quite chocolate raspberry, is it? And I'm having a party on Saturday. If you know me in real life, and didn't get the evite, email me. I want everyone to come and adore me. Well, and enjoy the tasty treats. I think I may mull some cider for the occasion.

Things I'm Learning

In case you were wondering, I made it to Boston. I just have to say that driving my little car up in wonderful, beautiful sunshine and skipping New York City altogether because I can take the Garden State Parkway in a car is much preferable to driving up in a moving truck underneath a neverending storm cloud. Other than the entire state of Delaware being under construction and the resulting traffic jams, the drive up was great. Now I'm trying to get all of my stuff unpacked. Tomorrow I'll be hitting IKEA for a new dresser and bookshelf.

It does feel kind of weird to be back. Almost like I never left. Like that year in DC was just a little blip in my Boston existence. Friday night I hung out with Jason and then he went home and I stayed at my apartment and it reminded me what it's like to live in the same city as your boyfriend. It also reminded me that it kind of sucks to have to say good night.

Last night I went to a Finnish sauna with some friends (because I now have a life again). Very low-tech and utilitarian, but nice. You sit in the hot, HOT (216 degrees) room and bake and sweat and then you go jump in the cold lake. A Massachusetts lake in late September is obviously not as extreme as a hole cut in the ice somewhere in Finland, but it was cold enough for me.

The only bad part was when our friend Christy tripped in this big hole behind the parking space and sprained her ankle. As an attorney, I suppose I could advise her to sue, but, I don't know, it's just not very neighborly. Everyone there was so nice and helpful and there seemed to be a real community around the sauna experience. One woman brought tubs of scrubs and cocoa butter and loofahs to share, as well as some eucalyptus oil, which we mixed in the water that we threw over the rocks.

I need to get used to the idea that I can see Jason on a regular basis. Today I came down to Providence and he had forgotten that he had to be somewhere in Boston at 3:30. So we only had a couple of hours together, during part of which he was working on a fellowship application. I felt kind of ticked when he told me he'd have to come back up to Boston so soon because I thought we'd have the whole day together, but then I realized that this isn't just my weekend visit time like before. I can actually see him probably tomorrow and Tuesday if I want. Sometimes our time won't be planned perfectly, but that's alright because now there's always more around the corner. It's a nice realization

Pins & Needles, or Why I Want A Real Job

So you know how I was supposed to find out from the staffing agency on Monday if I was on this job starting next Monday or not? Well, they didn't find out Monday. Nor did they find out yesterday. This morning I got an email from the agency saying they would definitely find out today. Well it's after 2 and I'd really like to know if I'm driving to Boston tomorrow or not. I'd really like to know if today is my last day at this job (as would my current staffing agency and the firm).

This unsureness and last minute nature is what I hate about the contract attorney industry. Sure if you happen to get on a project that lasts for a long time, and if you happen to be the team leader which basically means you're the last one to go, then you feel like you have a smidge of job security. I have experienced some of that nice security (although I also had a lot of stress at times with the whole team leader thing). The job I'm on now was supposed to end June 1. Since even before that date and up until relatively recently there was always a worry every week or two that the job would just end and we'd all be out on the street. Now it looks like they'll probably be here until 2007, while at the same time I'm throwing myself into the insecure temp world again up in Boston. So I find myself playing the waiting game again, really hoping that I find out today.

If I don't get this job, I'll be in DC until next week, meaning I don't need to pack up all of my stuff at work today, but that I do need to pack up my stuff at my sublet and move back into Ryann's house in Alexandria again since the person I'm subletting from comes home Friday. I would love to just finish my 60 hours for this week and cruise up to Boston, but if I am going to no job, I'd like to have one more paycheck as a cushion.

Argh! I just want to find out. I have let go of a lot of planning tendencies over this year, but I don't think it's too much to ask to be able to plan, you know, tomorrow.


UPDATE: I kind of had a feeling that once I whined about it, I'd hear something. Gee, I should have whined yesterday. The good news is: I got the contract job! I'm heading up to Boston tomorrow, baby!

My co-worker Robin had a psychic moment for me yesterday. I was talking to her about it and she said she had just had this feeling go through her that I would find out on Wednesday afternoon. Yay for psychic co-workers!

Opportunity to Help

My friend Katie just wrote a post asking for help for a couple of her friends who have taken in two girls right here in DC. They have received help from their church congregation, but are dealing with legal issues that the church can't help pay for. You can donate money to help them out as they try to help these girls wind up in the best places for them.

I've just spent some time reading through their blog and the posts are both heartwarming and saddening. It is amazing to me that there are people out there who are so generous. Hopefully both girls will be able to find homes where they are loved and supported the way every child should be.

Art and Autumn

This weekend my friend Julie and I made our way down to the Mall to go to the National Gallery of Art gift shop. Just the gift shop. When I went to the National Gallery before, I wandered through the galleries for a few hours and eventually made it down to the gift shop. I had just begun flipping through the poster racks, intent on getting a new print or two, when there was a dinging over the loudspeaker and an announcement that the shop was closing, please bring your purchases to the nearest cashier. Oh.

So we went to the gift shop and spent some time going through all of the art-based paraphenalia. My only qualm with the gift shop is that it seems to me that if I've just spent hours wandering through galleries, then I want to see a fair representation of that particular museum's works in the gift shop. I would say that probably 50% of the stuff in the gift shop at the National Gallery is not actually at the National Gallery. Instead there seemed to be an overrepresentation of the popular artists - Monet, Renoir, Degas, the Impressionists in general, Warhol. Not that I don't like the popular artists. I myself have a Monet poster from a show at the Art Institute of Chicago (the painting is actually housed at the National Gallery. Small world), and I bought a Pisarro print this weekend. But I saw a lot of really interesting art at the National Gallery that I would have liked to have seen represented in the gift shop. I suppose it wouldn't sell as well, though.

They had these real leaf ornaments gilded with Autumnal colors that, while not really indicative of any sort of art at the National Gallery, were just pretty in their own right. They were also $35 for 3. So I didn't buy those. But I covet them.

Another highlight were the Arts and Crafts tiles in vibrant blues and greens. Perfect to go with the Arts and Crafts house on the corner of my street that I've fallen in love with!

I bought a calendar, a couple of prints, and a present for a friend. All in all, a success!

Then Julie and I went out to the Mall and walked around a bit, finally resting on one of the benches and watching people go by. We also watched a big nasty gray cloud blow in and eventually got pelted with rain as we rushed to the Metro.

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I am in lame duck mode at work. Kind of like, la la la, I don't care anymore. I'm supposed to find out this afternoon if I will be starting a temp job in Boston next Monday. If so, then I'll be driving up on Thursday. And hopefully getting a massage on Friday. Lovely. I've been aching (har de har har) for a massage since I thought I would get one in Vegas in June, but didn't because it was really, really expensive.

If I don't get on the temp job, then I'm here for 2 more weeks. All I have to say is, I'm ready to go. I'm ready for this job to be done. I'm ready to be in Boston again. One of my roommates went apple picking in Virginia this weekend and now I'm all excited about going apple picking in Massachusetts. Then as I'm sitting here thinking about the apple picking and the pumpkins and golden and red leaves and fireplaces and pumpkin bread and all the Autumn things I love, Jason emails me a link to a corn maze that he wants to go to. A corn maze shaped like Julia Child. Rock. On.

So I'm ready for another Autumn in New England and my work ethic is basically shot. The job has been doable while I've been here. The paychecks have been worth the crappy working conditions. We're in a basement that smells like cooking food half the time because we're under the restaurant next door. Thus, my clothes and hair smell like cooking food by the end of the day. At one point there were 65 of us crammed into this small space, working long hours, with everyone getting on everyone else's nerves. Now there are 11 of us left so the conditions as far as space goes have improved a lot. But it's still a food-smelling, windowless basement. Oh and we get a visit from the roaches on a semi-regular basis. Yeah, THIS is why I went to law school.

In the midst of the job I was able to say that's just the way it is, I can make do. Now that I see a light at the end of the tunnel, I am itching to get out of this basement where I've spent 40-70 hours a week for the last 6 months. I hope that light I'm seeing is Wednesday night.

Coffee Drinkers

Hey, Mormons? Question: what about decaf coffee?

I honestly don't think I'll find concensus on this, I'm just wondering what we've all heard. The Word of Wisdom doesn't specifically say coffee and non-herbal tea, but we've been taught that they are prohibited. Some people seem to think it's because of the caffeine. Taking that stance, a lot of Mormons cut out caffeinated soda too (don't forget the Sunkist along with your cola and Mountain Dew. I still find it weird that Sunkist has caffeine. So do a couple of brands of root beer).

I knew a couple of guys in the singles group in Chicago who swore up and down that decaf coffee is just fine because it has been purged of the evil caffeine. But I know many people who would disagree with that.

And what about coffee ice cream (which I personally love)?

Coming Up On A Road Trip

In anticipation of my drive up to Boston in either 1 or 2 weeks, I bought a road atlas of the US, Canada and Mexico today. I have an atlas somewhere, but I think it’s packed, and I also think it’s from 1999. There’s a map store right next to our office, which is very convenient, and very tempting. I have the atlas sitting on the edge of my desk and I keep wanting to pick it up and just peruse it for awhile. Part of that is because maps rock. The other part is because I’m so bored. I know I need to stick it out for just a little while longer here, but it is really starting to wear on me. The same thing in the same windowless place day in and day out. If I do start a new temp job up in Boston, I’ll be doing the same type of work, but it will be a new topic and I am hoping that maybe we’ll have windows. Windows would be so exciting at this point.

So this is weird. One of my contacts up in Boston emailed me a job she saw that she thought I would be perfect for. Well, she was kind of right. I read the ad and it is verbatim the same ad of the non-profit that I interviewed with in the Spring. I interviewed, I did their writing exercise, and then they called me and told me very nicely that they were going to bring back a couple of other people to continue the interview process. So I guess whoever they chose didn’t work out in the end.

The Move, She Is Done

Something important I learned this weekend: raging PMS, a sore wrist, insistent, constant, driving rain, and New York City rush hour traffic are not a good combination. Just in case you were wondering.

I moved all my stuff up to Boston. The only things left in DC that belong to me are my car, a couple of boxes, 2 suitcases, a duffle bag, and a philodendron. To sum up, I love everyone who helped me. There were 6 of us packing up the truck on Thursday night and 9 of us unpacking the truck on Saturday morning. Jason gets a special award for packing and driving with me, as well as for putting up with the aforementioned PMS and soothing me with episodes of Arrested Development on his Mac, angled precisely so that I could glance over and catch some of the sight gags without crashing the moving truck.

Thursday: picked up Jason at Dulles, drove to the Penske shop, where the guy who rented me the truck was a retired Boston cop with a voice like Louis Armstrong. Then off to my storage unit where Jason and I began filling the truck in steadily increasing rain. Miraculously, the rain stopped by 7, which was when we planned to meet others at my old apartment and load up the rest of my stuff.

My stellar home teachers and a guy who I didn't even know who was recruited by one of my home teachers showed up and loaded the truck. I fed them on Popeye's for dinner (I asked one of my home teachers if he thought I should get pizza or Popeye's or what. He said, "You should get whatever is cheapest. But I hope Popeye's is cheapest." It wasn't, but the boys deserved some fried chicken). I then took Jason out for Korean food at this great place that we are really going to miss.

Friday: since the drive is usually 8-10 hours, we figured we could sleep in a little. Having worked 50 hours in 3 1/2 days last week I was all for sleep. Yeah, we probably shouldn't have done that. First, the rain that had held off on Thursday night came back with a vengeance on Friday. It rained. And rained. And, oh yeah, rained some more. I felt like some cartoon character with my own personal rain cloud hovering just above me and my moving truck. The rain slowed us down such that we hit New York City JUST at rush hour. I drove us through the city and then the Connecticut suburbs and by the end felt like I was going to leap out of my skin. It took us 3 hours to go 50 miles.

INEEDEDTOGETOUTOFTHETRUCK!

So we pulled off at a Chili's and actually sat down for dinner. I think we both felt a bit better after that. Until we got back in the truck and realized there was no clear way to get back on the highway. Thus I learned the reasoning behind Jason's cardinal rule: never get off the highway in Connecticut. Connecticut apparently likes to lure you off the highway with promises of refreshment and relaxation, only to stress you out afterwards as you realize that there is no way to get back on the highway. Only after driving for 10 miles and pulling over to look at the map (because your girlfriend is not actually going to hand you the map while you're driving a big moving truck on a dark and rainy road and if you ask her to she will snap at you) to verify that you are going in the right direction, will Connecticut finally let you find an on-ramp.

Exhausted, we stumbled into Jason's apartment in Providence at about 11 PM. All told, our 8-10 hour drive wound up lasting 12 1/2 hours.

Oh yeah, I also woke up Friday morning with an insanely sore wrist, making driving a little difficult and also irritating since I couldn't really find a comfortable position for my left arm. Jason volunteered to spare me the driving, but I didn't think that was fair. I have no clue what I did to it. Just tweaked it while lifting some piece of furniture or a box I guess. Thankfully, it just twinged a bit on Saturday and I was able to at least man the truck and move my stuff to the edge for my helpers to pick up and lug upstairs.

Saturday: we woke up to sunshine and blue skies. Hooray! The storm missed us or passed by us really quickly. We drove up to Cambridge and met up with my friends who came to help. The truck was unloaded and all of my stuff was upstairs in under an hour. Getting the couch into the apartment was surprisingly easy compared to doing it in the past and I now have to keep dating Jason because he knows the secret of maneuvering the couch out of the apartment.

And that was it for the move. I had an appointment Monday morning and spent Monday afternoon unpacking a little and moving some furniture around. Do you have any idea how much storage space is under a queen-sized bed? I am giddy with the storage space.

Being up there, unpacking, settling in, and hanging out with Jason last night, it seemed very surreal that I would be coming back to DC today. But I'm back for a couple of more weeks at least. I may be starting a temp job in Boston at the beginning of October, so I may only be here for 2 more weeks, not 3. Crazy. I'm going to try to get off early on Saturday so I can make a last run to the Mall and hopefully hit another museum before I go. Suddenly I leave very soon. It is so strange since when I moved here, I was planning to be in DC indefinitely.

This year has taught me one important lesson: it is impossible to plan. I have always been a big planner and wanted to know what was going to happen next week, next month, next year. I know now that I really have no idea. All I can do is make sure I have work and a way to pay my bills and maybe I can plan to go to dinner with someone in a couple of weeks, but that is the extent of the plans that I am capable of making.

I do have one goal for the coming year. For years I have talked about how much I want to travel, but I just haven't had the opportunity. I am almost 30 and I haven't been anywhere. I mean, I've been all over the U.S. and into northern Mexico and to the Bahamas, but never to any of the far-flung locales that I've always dreamed about. So my goal is that next year, I am going somewhere. I don't know where. England or Ireland seems the most manageable since I don't really know what my economic situation will be. But then, you know, New Zealand would rock. The ultimate would be Greece or Italy, but those may have to wait. It's good to have a goal.