October 10, 2008

Paper Tiger

Last night, being slightly ahead in class and apparently ready for some self-flagellation, I dove into our personal finances, which have been piling up for a couple months. We always pay our bills on time, that’s not what I’m saying. Everything even got paid right after my wrist surgery, although it looked like a drunk wrote out the checks. It’s just that all the paid bills piled up instead of being filed all nice and neat-like in my Anal-Retentive Bill Binder (ARBB). (I should patent the ARBB…it’s that effective. You know, when you actually use it.) In an attempt to stave off the chaos about a month ago I created a folder for Things That Just Need To Be Filed. A plain blue folder into which everything that needed filing was crammed, so at least it wasn’t sitting on the buffet in the dining room. I could do that one-armed, so it worked for a bit. Until the Things That Just Need To Be Filed folder started rivaling the ARBB in sheer bulk. Sigh. Time to do something about it.

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October 9, 2008

Correction: Fletcher…isn’t

Okay, so I have to correct myself. Or rather, my daughter. In talking to her teacher after school today, I learned that Zoe likes to call Drew “Fletcher.” So, the little boy in the photograph below isn’t Fletcher, as I’ve been told. By Zoe. It’s Drew. And he didn’t break his knee falling off his grandma’s couch, as I’ve been told. By Zoe. Are you sensing a pattern here?

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October 5, 2008

Crasher

Yesterday was one of those amazing days that, after it’s all over you sit back and think, “How the hell did that happen?” It wasn’t the day actually, but rather late afternoon into the evening.

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October 3, 2008

I’m for ______.

You know, I wrote a whole giant rant about the debate last night, and the two contenders for VP, and I decided not to post it. Why, you ask? Because I am a giant weenie. It’s the same reason I won’t put campaign signs in my yard (don’t wanna get egged) or campaign magnets on my car (don’t wanna get keyed).

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September 29, 2008

Everything’s coming up roses

When I was growing up, my mom and dad would throw me and my sister in the ol’ minivan and we’d set out on a grand adventure. (Gas was cheap and for some reason my sister and I didn’t kill each other in our second-row captain’s seats, although I admit there was a fair amount of poking and glaring.) Granted, these trips weren’t always so grand, such as the time that we decided somewhere in south-central Illinois around 3 p.m. that we’d like to visit Hannibal and see all the Mark Twain exhibits. We arrived at 5:05. The exhibits all closed at 5. Pretty sure Mom still hasn’t let Dad forget that one.

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September 26, 2008

The good new days

M and I attended the wedding of one of his colleagues last weekend. Lovely affair. Beautiful bride, handsome groom, blah blah blah. I did my usual inspection of the hired photog (he was shooting Canon with a Quantaray external battery pack, and couldn’t bounce flash off the ceiling because it was too high, just FYI. Most girls look at the dresses. I look at the gear, then the dresses.) The family sitting in front of us pulled out an SLR to take pictures, as is common. Two things struck me, though. First, they have never turned off the auto-focus confirmation beep. Which is a ridiculous thing to ever install on a camera, especially an SLR. So, during the aisle walks and the ceremony, this was heard in the relatively small church: beep beep! click. beep beep beep! click. beep! click. Not exactly what one wants as audio background to your wedding vows. The official photographer was loaded with gear and moved all over the place, but stealthy as a black cat on Halloween. He blended and was unobtrusive. As opposed to cousin Bernie with his fancy schmancy SLR that beeped every 20 seconds.

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September 24, 2008

Making a difference

Went to a “Women and Science” luncheon sponsored by Siteman Cancer Center this afternoon. They have these about once a quarter and they always bring in some fancypants doctor who tells us things we should know about living healthy and all the great things that Siteman and Washington University are doing because they know, for the most part, that we’re gonna ignore all their advice and they’ll have to help our disease-ridden asses out sometime in the future.

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