That's a whole decade!

Ten years ago this month, I was a busy woman.

Greg and I were in the final stages of planning our wedding, which took place on October 19.

My dad had selected the polka music he wanted played at the reception, Greg and I had practiced polkaing together, we'd found the cartoon videotape we wanted playing for the kids (and adults) at the reception until the bridal party got there, we'd arranged the rental of the popcorn machine, Greg's sisters were getting fitted for their tuxes (they were our ushers), Greg had arranged for the school bus to take us and the wedding party from the church to the hall, and other assorted sundry details were being handled.

We had a lot of traditional elements to our wedding, but we tried to put in fun touches too. One of the things we weren't able to do was to have a snowcone machine. The reception hall was too freaked out about possible carpet stains. As it was, we had to guarantee extra money for the popcorn cleanup.

Did I mention that my Uncle Jim had many, many drinks at the reception and forgot a batch of popcorn in the cooker? Just a little smoke, no big deal. (Though it was a no smoking hall, which was marvelous.)

We had an amazing, wonderful day with our families and friends. As soon as it was over, we both said that we'd like to do the entire day over again from start to finish, as long as we didn't have to pay for it again.

Did I mention the Chinese Fire Drills around the school bus in the middle of traffic?

It was the happiest day of my life and it still is. It's been a wonderful ten years. I love you, Gregory!

Money down the hose

I don't wear slacks to work. I don't like the way I look dressed in "slacks." What a stupid name for a piece of clothing, really.

I wear a skirt to work every day, normally with "tan" colored hose (which is so ironic since I've never even begun to have a tan on my legs in my entire life and I never intend to).

I've been working in the professional world for (gasp!) 19 years now. Ladies, are you with me here--I don't think I even want to begin to think how much money I have spent over the years on hose.

Literally thousands of pairs of hose. Run and holey eventually, every one of them, until I couldn't wear them any longer and pretend that I didn't know I had a run.

I buy No Nonsense hose, or Hanes, so I've spent much less money over the years on hose than other women I know. I've bought regular hose and control top hose and even thigh high hose (way back when) by the dozens and dozens.

Right now, I'm typing this in our bedroom, wearing a cozy wool sweater with a hole in the elbow, that I originally bought for my trousseau (that's what your honeymoon wardrobe is called, FYI). Since our 10th wedding anniversary is coming up in three weeks, you can do the math.

If I could buy a pair of hose that would last a fraction as long----heck, if I could invent a pair of hose that would last a fraction as long, I'd be rich.

Rich, rich, I tell you, beyond my wildest dreams. My wildest dream about hose, that is.

Performance anxiety

Last night, Greg was in the basement on the computer. The girls and I went upstairs at their bedtime and did the normal routine, then I read a very long version of Sleeping Beauty and they got into their beds about 15 minutes later than usual.

I went back down to the living room and started watching "Miami Ink," the show on the Discovery Channel about a tattoo shop, which I mostly watch (intermittently) because I can't believe what things people choose to have permanently imprinted on their bodies.

About five minutes later, Allie called me. I trucked upstairs and asked, from the doorway, what she wanted. She said, Mommy, we forgot to do my homework.

Now that she's in first grade, she has some homework almost every night. It usually takes 10-20 minutes to complete and she was right, we'd forgotten to do that night's worksheet.

I reassured her that we would start on her homework as soon as she got up in the morning and that we'd have plenty of time to get it done. The punishment, apparently, for coming to school without your homework done is that you have to miss first recess to complete it.

I said I'd go downstairs, get out the worksheet, read it, and be ready to help her get it done as soon as she woke up. She said OK and laid down again.

True to my word, I went downstairs and got out the worksheet to review what she had to do. I was still holding it on the couch when I heard her crying upstairs.

I went back up there and she was sobbing like her first boyfriend had just broken her heart. Crying her eyes out. She said she couldn't sleep because she was worried about not getting her homework done and missing recess.

I turned on her light and we spent the next 10 minutes completing her worksheet. As soon as we were finished, the poor girl relaxed onto the pillows, turned onto her side, and said goodnight.

She told me today she fell asleep in two minutes, since she knew she wasn't going to have to miss recess.

Allie is 6 1/2. Isn't this sad? What happened to a carefree childhood, people!

Seasonal allergies

There are things about almost every season of the year that I very much dislike.

I don't like being cold in the winter and I don't like snow very much (except to look at and only if I have sunglasses) and I don't like ice and I don't like my car being filthy because of slushchunks and fizzback (ask my sister Pam).

I don't like summer because I don't like very hot weather and I don't like the sun very much (I burn very easily) and I don't like BUGS (especially mosquitos, but I'm also freaked out about ticks and Lyme disease).

I don't like autumn because it's a depressing time of year, everything dying and you know it's only going to get colder and it starts getting dark so early in the evening and you have to start wearing socks and shoes again (I'm big on going barefoot or wearing sandals).

My favorite season is spring (you knew there had to be one season I liked, right?). The days are getting longer and the grass is getting green and there's spring flowers (my absolute favorite flowers) and it's getting warmer and the sunlight just seems better.

What's your favorite season?

Seasons changing

Autumn is almost here. How do I know?

I looked at a calendar!

Ha ha ha! I kill myself.

Dates well documented here

Do we really need to have seven calendars in the house, with six of them within ten feet of each other?

Umm, I didn't think so.

Nonetheless, when Allie had her very first homework assignment ever tonight, she was required to count the calendars in the house and use tally marks to record each one. Then she had to total the marks and sure enough, it came to seven.

Believe it or not, we have four calendars just on the bulletin board in the mudroom. There's the cute one Allie made last week, where she wrote all of the numbers herself and the 6 in 26 is backwards (hazard of being a lefty, or of being a first-grader).

There's the monthly one the school gave us, so we can look at the art that students produced that the school district felt was worthy of duplication. There's the consolidated one for the entire school year, so we can see the multitude of days that we're going to have to pay for full-day daycare instead of just after school care.

And there's the school daily lunch calendar, so we can see if it's a hot lunch day or a turkey sandwich day with pink chips (those are Sun Chips, which were in a pink bag because of a breast cancer benefit once and now they're forever known as pink chips), carrots that she won't eat, and raisins or mandarin oranges or chunk pears.

Plus the calendar in the checkbook in my purse, and the Onion newspaper page-a-day calendar (which often has profanity on it, so if Allie ever decides to start reading it, it's going far, far away).

The only other calendar in the house is the Hello Kitty calendar on the wall upstairs in Allie's room.

I think we're more than covered. Anyone wanna schedule an appointment or something?

Me and bugs

If you know me, you might look at the time this post was entered and think, "wow, that's unusual, for Deb to be putting up a new post at 12:30 at night." Yeah, I think so too.

The reason I'm awake is that I feel like I want to claw my skin off.

Friday night, the girls and I went to play outside at about 6:30 p.m. Now we live in Wisconsin, where after about 7:30 or so, you can expect to be attacked by mosquitos if you're in the grass or shade or near water.

It wasn't after 7:30 and we were in the driveway, but that didn't seem to make a difference. We were making chalk drawings and we were all being ATTACKED by little swarming mosquitos.

It got so bad that I made the girls stop playing so we could go in. Despite vocal protests from them, I might add.

We went into the house and later, I was reading a couple of books to the girls when suddenly, I also felt like I wanted to claw my skin off.

I can't ever remember feeling that way with mosquito bites. I felt like my ankles (where I have most of my 14 or so bites) were on fire. I rushed maniacally through the rest of the book so I could rush upstairs and get my itch gel. Julia has about 3 bites and Allie has about 5.

I've been exceeding the recommended dosage of itch gel since. Tonight, I went to bed (about 2 hours ago) after putting on a fresh coat, but I guess the movement of my ankles in the sheets prematurely wore off the medicine.

Thus my wanting to claw my skin off again. Oh my god.

I hate mosquitos so bad right now. If I had a mosquito in front of me and I had access to tools of torture, I'd be getting so medieval on it's ass . . . I am feeling very violent right now.

Violent, and wide awake. Goddammit.

A Testimonial

Who is my husband, Greg Lee, who turns 40 years of age tomorrow? He is all of these and a whole bunch more. He is truly a Renaissance man.

Plays ukulele
Plays guitar
Plays drums
Fixes lawnmowers
Fixes snowblowers
Fixes cars
Computer whiz
Excellent and adventuresome chef
Cleans house
Rides a motorcycle
Writes anything and writes it well
Creative in marketing and business
Does drywall
Does plumbing
Does artistic painting
Does wall/house painting/sanding/spackling
Irons clothes better than I do
Sews better than I do
Cuts our daughters' bangs
Changes diapers
Feeds and burps babies (sometimes at his cost-urp!)
Bathes babies
Cleans up cat and child puke
Plays tennis
Plays backgammon
Killer Monopoly player
Adventurous eater
Rides a bicycle
Drives a stick shift
Electronics savant
Plays keyboards
Fearless hedge trimmer
Connoisseur of pens
TIVO master
Grill master
Excellent fire starter/builder
Travel dreamer
HTML pro
Slip and slide pusher
Tent camper
Cat box cleaner
Cat washer
Cat anal glad expressor (don't ask)
Cat brusher
Goldfish bowl cleaner
Furniture assembler
Carpet spot cleaner
Adept business traveler
Hotel connoisseur
Airport master
U-Haul driver
Pool table mover
Birthday cake baker and decorator
Gift shopper extraordinaire
Nurse
Tile setter
Electrician
Deck builder
Swimmer and diver
Pool maintenance person
Movie maven
Romantic husband
Amazing father

I love him dearly. Happy 40th Birthday on September 14, honey!

Remembering

When the September 11th attacks started, Greg was on an airplane, on his way from Madison, Wisconsin to Denver, Colorado for a trade show.

I was sitting at my desk when a co-worker walked by and said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. She said they thought it was a small private plane, and beyond a thought of, oh, that's terrible, none of us thought much more about it.

Then someone else came to my department and said another plane had hit the other tower and we all knew.

I went into the conference room, where we have a TV, and tried to get a local channel without the benefit of an antenna or cable TV. We could see snowy footage of the towers burning on every channel.

I went to the internet and looked up Greg's flight information. I checked it repeatedly and it said, "in flight" each time, until finally it said he had landed in Denver.

My mom called, crying, and I told her with confidence that the website said he was on the ground in Denver and that I'd call her as soon as I heard from him.

About an endless hour later, Greg called. He said he was OK and in Lincoln, Nebraska. I said, no, you're not, you're in Denver! He said he was in the airport in Lincoln and that he'd been watching the footage on TVs in an airport bar.

He said the flight seemed normal until the pilot came on the intercom and said they were putting down immediately. The pilot said there wasn't a problem with the plane, but wouldn't say anything else until they were on the ground. Then he told them.

Greg ended up spending three days in Lincoln, taken care of by airline personnel and the Red Cross. He couldn't find a way home. Amtrak doesn't run near Lincoln, all of the rental cars were gone, and there were no flights, obviously.

On the morning of September 14, his birthday, I opened the morning paper and read a story about the airline passengers who were stranded in Madison. They were renting U-Haul trucks and driving them home. Of course, U-Haul does one-way rentals all the time!

I called Greg's hotel room and left a message. I didn't hear back from him until about 9:30, when he called to tell me he was just over the border into Iowa. He drove a 24-foot rental truck from Lincoln to our home, completely empty except for him and his one suitcase in the front.

But he was home. So many others weren't and wouldn't ever be again. We will never forget.

Things I Can't Believe I Didn't Eat as a Child That Are Really Good, And Wasn't I Stupid (But I Don't Need You Saying So)

We've been at my parents' this weekend, but we're home now, back to our own bed. Yes, I know that statement means that we're old.

Regardless, here's the list as promoted above, in no particular order:

grilled cheese sandwiches
scrambled eggs
french toast
banana bread
french onion soup
tomato sauce
oatmeal cookies
Italian dressing
stuffing
chicken salad sandwiches (still not crazy about those, but I've eaten them)
canteloupe
pumpkin pie
gravy
salsa
rice
fish in any form, other than fish sticks
spinach leaves in salad
taco meat
mushroom soup
cherries (I still really only like these in pie)
brocolli
alfalfa sprouts
crabmeat stuffed into anything
shrimp

Don't you all pity my poor mother now? What she went through, trying to get me to eat. My husband still puts up with a lot of frustration, trying to cook things that are somewhat interesting to him that I will eat, but I really have come a long way.

For a good number of the above foods, I can distinctly remember when I ate these foods for the first time and liked them. I can also distinctly remember when my mom tried to get me to eat rice for the first time. It was one of those, "you're staying at the table until you eat that spoonful" nights. Never ate the rice, nope, not until I was about 25.

Cleaning up

We have a cleaning lady. We've had three different cleaning ladies, actually, one who stopped showing up, one who wasn't very good so we dumped her, and our current one. I don't like spending money so someone does something we absolutely are capable of doing ourselves, but I love not having to clean.

Peggy is coming tomorrow. That means we've done our normal Tuesday night run around, picking up the entire house for the cleaning lady. I say we, but I really mean me. I run around picking up the entire house while Greg makes fun of me for cleaning before the cleaning lady comes.

I'm of the opinion that it pays to pick up for the cleaning lady, because if she spends less time picking up and moving things, she'll spend more time actually scrubbing (and boy, does our house always need scrubbing).

So I have to go now, because the kitchen counter downstairs is covered with kid art projects, unpaid bills, tomatoes (my garden is going great right now!), pens and markers, snack bags full of cereal, and god only knows what else.

I have to go make yet another "bag of mysteries" and hide all our crap. Tomorrow night, my house will be clean and I will be a little poorer. It's worth every penny.

The Unbirthday List

Things I am not getting my husband for his 40th birthday in the middle of September, despite the fact that he has asked for most of them:

1. A new motorcycle (the one he bought last year is just fine, in my opinion)

2. A new BMW automobile (I don't have $40,000 lying around, which I think would buy the one he wants)

3. A hooker

4. Rock star status (if he really wants that one, he'll have to work on it himself)

5. Nicer children (he's stuck with the ones we have--I'm not having any more)

6. A convertible (see explanation for #2, above)

7. Cooking lessons with Julia Child (that would be cool, except that she's dead)

I'm probably going to keep adding to this list, up until the actual day. Happy unbirthday, Gregory!

Free for the taking

All I can think about is money.

For the last week and a half, I've been working on calculating annual pay changes for all of the employees of my company, 1300 people.

Manufacturing hourly, office hourly, and salaried are all done separately and with slightly different methods. I've helped a very small amount with this process in the past, but now it's my baby.

I'd love to take the time to automate some of the processes, but this is not going to be the year for that. So I've been crunching numbers and trying variations in the statistics for a week and a half now, with very few breaks to do something else.

I'm pretty close to being finished now, but the company president needs to make a couple of decisions that could cause me to have to start about half the project all over again.

I want this to be over. I want my life back. I want to take a day off work.

Who wants some money? Anyone? I'll just give it away and then I can be finished. Whatta ya say?

Haunting pasts

It's amazing what "hijinks" people have hiding in their pasts. I say hijinks, but what I really mean is that recently, someone told me about things they think of as pranks from their youth, and I was completely shocked to hear them.

I was asking this person's opinion about appropriate discipline for a guy in one of our plants who was hot and thirsty. He put money in the soda machine three times and it kept his money each time without dispensing product. He got so angry that he shook the machine and actually hit a timeclock that was on the wall adjacent to the soda machine. The timeclock fell off the wall and broke.

This person I work with, that I very much respect, initally made a joke about how angry the guy had been. We talked about how his actions were at least somewhat understandable, and both of us admitted that we've at least pounded on a vending machine when we could see, for example, that our bag of chips was just barely hanging there when it should have fallen.

I made the point that physically moving a soda machine was a higher level of property abuse. He then admitted that not only had he physically moved a soda machine lots of times in the past when trying to get product, but that he had once stolen a soda machine.

This is the same guy who told me recently that he and a buddy went down to the school bus parking lot one night when he was a kid. They used tape to attach sticks to all of the tire valve stems, so every bus had four or more flat tires by morning.

I already knew that this same guy got angry about 18 years ago with a co-worker at our company. He went over the co-worker and decked him--laid him out on the concrete floor at work.

Nowadays, that type of conduct would get you immediately fired. In fact, I've fired four people for fighting in the last month, including one who did a lesser degree of violence than that. What can I say--it's been hot and maybe everyone's been testy.

Nonetheless, I guess you just never know about people. I've known this person for 9 years and never would have guessed he'd have done any of those things. Well, maybe the bus tire thing, but not the others!

What did you do as a kid?

Old, old, old--really

I just typed a blog on July 13 about how I was feeling old, but now I really am another year older.

That's such a crock. Day before yesterday, I was 40 years and 364 days old and yesterday I became 41 years old. One whole day older, yet for that, I get another year tacked on. It sucks.

I'm not crazy about being 41. 40 was OK because it was still so close to 39. 41 is inescapably sliding down into the mid-40s.

I don't want to be mid-40s. I feel like about 31 most of the time. Can't I just be 31?

If anyone has an objection to me being 31, speak now or forever hold your peace. I can't imagine that anyone would care if I was 31 instead of 41, so I'm going to find my birthday cake candle, light it again, and make magic happen.

Wish me luck.

I've got the munchies now too

What food did we enjoy this past weekend at the Wisconsin State Fair? Well, as bizarre as this may seem, we didn't eat any cheese. How can this be, you may ask. In America's Dairyland? At the state fair? Well, it wasn't for lack of vendor opportunity.

There were numerous varieties of cheese around, including deep fried cheese, cheese on pizza, cheese curds, cheese on burgers, cheese blintzes, cheesecake, etc. And we didn't have any of it.

Instead, we ate corn on the cob, hot dogs, cream puffs, mini milk shakes (for the Got Milk? photo's mustaches), french fries, beignets, and popcorn. Oh my god, what an awful list!

We rushed home and gave our girls multivitamins immediately, I promise you. Oh, not really. But we have vitamins, I promise we do. We'll be stuffing them with at least seven a day for the next week to make up for the fair food.

Umm, what're we gonna do about next weekend? We're going to need more vitamins.

Rules for toast

1. If you are having more than one piece of toast to eat, each piece must be toasted separately, so as to be as hot as possible.

2. You will wait at the toaster for the toast to pop up. In no circumstances should you be further than 6 feet away from the toaster when it's toasting.

3. You will place the first piece toast on a new piece of paper towel for buttering, not on the counter. (This is how I knew Greg was the man for me--he did this even before I told him the rule.)

4. You will not use rock hard butter on the toast. You may use soft (tub) margarine, but the best topping for toast is butter that has been previously softened on the counter.

5. You will use a clean knife for buttering the first piece of toast. If someone has toasted before you and put jelly on their toast with a knife, get a new knife. This is technically in case they come back for another piece, but really, it's because you want a clean knife for your toast.

6. When you have finished evenly buttering your toast, there will not be big clumps of butter or margarine trying vainly to melt. All of the butter will be absorbed into the surface of the toast.

7. You will eat your toast starting with the bottom-most right corner (if you are right handed). I suppose if you are left handed, you may start with the bottom-most left corner, but that is an unusual option and the writer of the rules cannot guarantee satisfactory results.

8. Enjoy!

Musing on Q

Over the last couple of weeks, I rewatched the "Kill Bill" movies. We own the DVDs. They're strange and funny and gory beyond belief and amazing and weird and awesome.

They remind me of when I first saw "Pulp Fiction," which we also own but which I saw again on cable the other night. Greg and his friend, Dwayne, had gone to see the movie when it first came out and they told me I had to see it too.

We sat in the theater (me in the middle, of course) and I was doing fine with the story until the scene when Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames end up in the basement of the pawn shop.

If you haven't seen it, the store owner and his friend, the cop, are rapists and into S&M. They do einey-meeny-miney-moe to pick one of the guys, who are tied and gagged, then head into the back room and start to rape Ving Rhames.

I remember turning to Greg and whispering, "what the hell is this?"

I didn't do that with the "Kill Bill" movies. I had an idea what to expect and they didn't disappoint. Anyone for a sliced off arm spraying gallons of blood?

I didn't think so. Gotta be in the mood for it.

Update

Today marks the start of getting my life back.

I was promoted at the end of December, starting looking for someone to take over my old job at the end of February, interviewed five or six people, two of them twice, and finally made an offer at the end of June.

My new person started today and I am so looking forward to not doing these tasks again, maybe forever--- Seven months was way, way too long to be doing two jobs, especially considering I was doing a third job for a good part of that time.

The training is going to be a bear, but I don't care, I don't care (said in a singsong happy voice). I am a happy camper tonight.

If he quits, I'm going to go to his house and kill him.

Seminar sitting

I attended a benefits seminar today that was basically 7 hours of technical jargon, including immense numbers of acronyms.

I sat on my butt (or bum, if you're from England) and listened to the speakers more or less intently for seven long hours, interrupted only by lunch. I am so glad I don't have to do this every day.

When I got home, I commented to Greg that I absolutely don't understand how some people can attend an all-day seminar and never ask a single question or make a single comment. I am so not like that.

If I'm learning anything at all, I'm going to have a question or two. Was I (nearly) the only one who didn't already know everything they were talking about? Was I (nearly) the only one who didn't completely understand everything the speakers mentioned just by their PowerPoint slides and lecture?

A few years ago, I attended Berlitz language classes to try to learn Spanish in two and a half weeks. Now that was a lot of sitting! Eight hours a day of struggling to remember things from my one year of high school Spanish and build on them.

The only thing that saved me then was that there were only three of us students, so needless to say, it was pretty obvious when you were daydreaming.

I didn't daydream today, but I'm glad it's back to my normal work tomorrow.