Old Friends and New Places

Wow...a whirlwind of a couple of days. And I'm pooped. I need to go back to work for a vacation.

Let's start with Saturday.

Up late and off to the Metro to get to "the Mall". It didn't take me long to realize "the Mall" isn't a mall at all. But the general area where all the "cool" DC stuff is. I still can't get over how sterile it all looks. Uber clean and almost fake feeling.

The Mother Unit and SLSIL wanted to walk through a *yawn* art museum. Okay it was the National Gallery of Art which houses some amazing masterpieces, but still. Not my style. Not when I can walk around outside and take photos of some very sterile looking buildings that have been here for a long long time. Besides, my pal JC and his wife were in town and I wanted to spend some quality time with them.


I met up with them and we proceeded to walk our way up to the White House. According to the theory that I was told about in London with regards to the flag flying means the Queen is in residence, the US flag was flying so Mr. President must have been in residence. That and the two Marine One's flew over a couple of times maybe bringing or taking the President away.

From there we walked and walked and walked through George Washington University. JC and his wife are both alums and so they had fun taking a walk down memory lane.


We left from there and walked the Mall from the Lincoln Memorial at one end of the Mall, to the WWII memorial and the Washington Monument at the other end. Then back to George Washington University to get to the car. Phew! What a day. I was exhausted, and I still had to summon enough energy to be perky and happy and successful like at the class reunion that night.


The reunion turned out to be a lot fun then I thought it would be. A few classmates don't seem to have changed much. Some changed so much I didn't even recognize them. One gal in particular, I didn't really like in high school, nor did she like me (I wasn't in the "IN" crowd). She came up to me and greeted meas if I was a life time friend. I had no clue who she was. I asked JC, and he had no idea. It wasn't until later someone told us and we were both stunned. Completely different looking. Probably the most physically, and in a good way, changed.

My LEAST favorite boy was there - a young man who in high school I literally hated. He was a jack*ss with a capital J. I didn't know he was going to be at the reunion and I took great pleasure in finding out he's really not amounted to much in life. (insert evil laugh here). Evil XBF was there of course, oh goody. And my three roommates from my Junior year in school - Susie, Vicky and Patricia. It was great to see them again and to get caught up on most things. Interestingly enough, I don't feel I have anything in common with these folks outside of being in the same graduation class. I came to see JC and get caught up with him, and I did. So check mark in the 20 Year Reunion Over box.

All in all I'm glad I went. People do seemed to have grown up. Every single person asked me if I was still working for Geeksoft. I tried to explain my company and my job, but I got mostly blank stares. We have people who are doing almost nothing and loving every minute of it, to a anchor woman for the NBC channel in Miami (my former roommate Patricia). We had several guys who were VPs now and several women who are stay home moms. Two classmates have died since graduation, one in a car accident and one in Iraq. So we had a toast for them. Below is a photo of everyone who came.




Today the MomUnit, SLSIL and I took off to Alexandria. Alexandria is an old, very old, colonial town. We took a water cruise up the Potomac river to Georgetown and back down to Alexandria. It was nice, but not overly exciting. I got sunburned, so at least I look like I've been somewhere tropical.


We walked up and down Alexandria streets, pointing and exclaiming at the beauty and the "oldness" of it all. Charming little town that has definitely embraced it's heritage. We started the walking tour that took us past all sorts of old historic houses and buildings including George Washington's town house ( see photo of the hose to the left) and his pub. We tried to have a drink in the pub, but the current pub owner was an ass and snapped at us that they weren't open yet. I'm sure George would not approve of such behavior.


Back on the walking tour trail, we realized we were thirsty and a bit hungry, so we ended our tour early at a Tapas bar. What? Surely the colonial folks had tapas too.

Now full of tapas, beer and some water to rehydrate, we walked, barely, back to the King Street Metro station. We got back to the hotel and crashed...oh well, not before SLSIL and I walked past Starbucks on our way from the metro station, we needed a pick me up.


Tomorrow we're off to Arlington Cemetery. I've been having camera issues and have been quite disappointed with how some things have turned out, or not turned out is better stated. I'm hoping those issues are now past and I can get some excellent shots in Arlington. Of course, now I have to go back to the Mall and retake a few photos which I'll likely do Tuesday morning before my flight.

Sterile in the Nation's Capital

Hello from the Nation's Capital. Whoa...what a place. The Mother Unit and SLSIL got in yesterday way before me and scoped out .. well.. nothing. I got in about midnight last night after sitting in Denver for an hour on the plane while we waited for our crew to get there.

You may remember I mentioned that the one person I really didn't want to see, and could care less about ever seeing again is Evil Xboyfriend. I knew I'd have to see him and thought I'd have JC as a buffer so I wouldn't kill him when talking to him. He's an arrogant git and has earned the right to never be in my company ever again. While sitting on the plane 37,000 feet in the air...who should walk by me on the way to the bathroom? EXBF. Couldn't believe it. He didn't see me, and I ducked under my book so he wouldn't see me. When we landed and everyone got up to leave, his eyes met mine. I knew I was sunk. Ugh!

Today the Mother Unit, SLSIL and I took the site seeing bus tour. It was a beautiful day here somewhere in the high 70's to low 80's and low in the humid. Gorgeous. As we drove through the capital I couldn't help but feel that everything seemed so sterile. Too perfect. Like they are trying to hide the secrets that go on behind the marble walls. While a lot of the buildings harbor years of history, I just wasn't as wow'd as I thought I'd be.

We saw 90% of DC on the bus. Hopping off in Georgetown to have lunch. What a charming little gem that is. The bus tour amused the hell out of me in that every 15 minutes it warned us to watch for low hanging branches. And they aren't lying. We were almost taken out a couple of times. I got whipped in the forehead when I wasn't paying attention. Who planted these cherry trees anyhow? (The Japanese apparently gave us the trees some many years ago).

Tomorrow I'm meeting up with JC and his wife to wander through the "mall" area and hopefully take a full load of photos. I only took 111 today. I have thousands more to take.

Comment of the day brought to you by SLSIL: me, The Mother Unit and SLSIL were walking by this fantastic looking building. I asked "What building is that?" SLSIL respondes with , "It's something."

And....she's off

Whew. After a sprint to get all my work done enough so I can leave on vacation and not worry/think about work, I'm finally ready to think about my vacation. Which is a good thing since I leave tomorrow.

Now normally I would have been packed a week ago. Prepared by reading tourism sites and have planned my entire visit to DC. And yet here I sit posting to the blog instead. What gives with me? This makes TWICE this year that I've not had a plan when I've gone on vacation. (The first being the weekend with the XXXCrush - whom - thanks for asking - I've not heard from since I sent my lovely email expressing my crush on him. Cad!)

So tomorrow I'm off to our nations capital. I'm excited to go. I've never been as an adult (I have photos of me of when I was like 3 there, but that certainly doesn't count.) Mom and SLSIL will be getting in way before me tomorrow and the games will begin.

I promise I will try to post from DC - mostly because PMDude is back at work "monitoring" my projects and it'll make him feel all jealous. But also because you, my dear fan base, will be dying to read my traipsing about our capital. I have sent a memo to "Dubya's" people requesting lunch with him, but haven't heard back yet. So I may have to just drop by. As if.

Jesus is my pizza place's boss

If you don't believe me...just look.

You don't bring me flowers...

....any more!

That likely doesn't have anything to do with this post, other than I'm listening to Dudley's Diamond Medley and that's the part of the song that was playing.

Ah-hem.

20 years ago I graduated from high school. Check us 80's girls out. We were all that.

It seems like a lifetime ago and I don't feel like I've aged one bit. Funny that. Next week I'm off to celebrate my 20 yr reunion with people I've spent more time away than with. Most of the people coming I know nothing about anymore, and haven't thought of since graduation listing to their names being called off. Save, Mike Greene. Mr. JC himself. (He was Jesus Christ, I was Mary Magdalen, Dean was God, and I can't remember the others).

I've probably talked about Mike in previous blogs. But tonight's blog will be different, and I'll probably get a nasty gram from him once he reads this. (Hi Mike)

Mike and I met in history class. We were immediate friends. He was a smart ass and I approved wholeheartedly of his humor. Almost right away he harassed me about being from the "wrong" Washington (see he was from DC) and that the only things that Washington has is slugs and apples. We wrote notes almost daily. Tonight I found those notes.

I've been sitting here laughing my ass off at just how much drama we created. But most importantly I marveled at the friends we were. I didn't recognize it then, but he's definitely one of my lifelong compadres. And though many months may go by without a note or anything, I know that he would be there in a crunch.

Did I mention he was one of the Mike's I had a crush on? Yah. He was. I was over the moon for him. And he, was over the moon for my best friend. Prom was especially tricky. I wanted to go with Mike, but he asked Claudia and somehow we ended the night in tears. Isn't that always the case at high school dances? Someone ends up in the bathroom crying. Oh the pain. The agony. I cursed his name on many occasions and did everything I could to NOT let him see it hurt. I knew Mike cared for me and trusted me as one of his dearest friends, so I wouldn't dare let him see me hurt. It made me stronger. Don't ask what we're doing in this picture because I'm not sure why we'd think that was cool. Other than we were 18. 'nough said.

Now, those notes. OMG. The memories they conjured up. There were a few things that were present in just about every note. See, somehow (maybe Mike remembers because I don't) we were trying to decide what we were going to be when we grew up. The options on the table was for me to be a cabbie and he would be the guy who drew the maps in the history books. Then I was going to be a bag lady or nun. The bag lady and nun options took. Almost every note has "Dear Bag Lady" at the beginning (at least the notes from JR. year) and almost always ended with "Don't be a nun."

Almost every note was Mike trying to decide what to do for the weekend. Always broke - because we were students for heavens sake - but always wanting to run with the crowd that was leaving town. And 90% of the time the travel wasn't legal. (Have I mentioned ever that I went to school in a boarding school in Switzerland? thus the travel). Anyhow, Mike's notes constantly showed his love for travel and his insanity the school was causing.

But what was most amazing about EVERY SINGLE NOTE...and I get all choked up thinking about it... He told me he was my friend forever.

Quotes from the notes:

"I'm in room detention." - A constant

"Nuns can't even talk about sex, much less do it, so don't be a nun."

"This note is radioactive."

"What do you think about me becoming a priest?"

"Will you ever leave the other side of the spectrum?" See when I started at the boarding school, I was pure and wholesome. A good Christian girl who even listened to Christan rock. Then I met Mike. He corrupted me. Admit it Mike! You did it.

I've been fortunate, I know this, to have had such a dear friend in my life. And even though I've now shared with the world (yes the world reads my blog. Shut up!) some very personal information about a certain person on the east coast, I'm sure he'll forgive me. He has to, or as a nun I'll be sure he rots in hell. This last photo was Mike and I at our 10 year reunion. Wow...the hair. Why didn't anyone tell me. Sheesh.

I'll be seeing Mike at the reunion and I'm sure I'll pay heavily for this blog (if he reads it before then). But maybe he'll be so happy to see his long lost nun that he'll have forgotten that I aired his/our dirty high school secrets on a blog that's read internationally.

Mo' Spiders = Mo' Snow

During a very animated discussion with PMDude about his love/hate relationship with spiders, I mentioned that I had been told that the massive amounts of spiders that seem to be coveting my apartment as their new home, I was told, means there's a hard winter ahead. (Whew...that's one long run on sentence.) And I should preface the "animated" discussion with the fact that both PMDude and I agree, spiders are not natural. (doing the shivering dance).



So, being that I like to use google, I decided I would "google" - as in the action of googling - spiders and hard winters. Farmer's Almanac, I knew, would not let me down. And so, without any more ado...here are the Top 20 Signs of a Hard Winter.



BTW - I've already notified the pointy haired boss that I don't travel during snow. The stang stays parked.

1. Thicker than normal corn husks
2. Woodpeckers sharing a tree
3. Early arrival of the Snowy Owl
4. Early departure of geese and ducks
5. Early migration of the Monarch butterfly
6. See how high the hornet’s nest, will tell how high the snow will rest
7. Unusual abundance of acorns
8. Thick hair on the nape of a cow’s neck.
9. Early arrival of crickets on the hearth
10. Raccoons with thick tails and bright bands
11. Pigs gathering sticks - have to live on a farm for that one.
12. Insects marching a bee-line rather than meandering.
13. Early seclusion of bees within the hive.
14. Muskrats burrowing holes high on the riverbank.
15. The squirrel gathers nuts earl to fortify for winter.
16. Frequent halos or rings around the sun or moon forecasts numerous snows.
17. Mice eating ravenously into a home.
18. Heavy and numerous fogs in August.
19. Spiders spinning larger than normal webs and entering the house in great numbers.
20. The wollybear caterpillar - A narrow orange band in the middle of the caterpillar warns of heavy snow; fat and fuzzy caterpillars warns of bitter cold. Also… a rough winter if you see lots of them crawling around, their movement is slow (thought they were always slow?), you saw them crawling before the first frost.

I gotta say, being a city girl 99% of these I'll never actually see to say, "Gee, that means we'll have a hard winter."

Oooo now I have the heebygeebies...

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

Remember WAY back in February when I got hit by StupidBoy. Remember WAY back when I decided to be the “nicer” person and offered to not submit an insurance claim because StupidBoy SWORE he’d pay me the cost to fix the car, plus the cost for the rental car, plus take me to drop the car off, etc.

Fast forward to today. Yes 7 months since the promises were made.

I decided a couple of months ago to file a claim against him. It cost me $$ to get the paper work in order. Cost me $$ to get the letter certified and sent to him. Cost me $$ in taking time off work to do all these things. Then yesterday I get a letter in the mail from the court indicating there will be a $125 processing fee and that my court date, should I choose, will be in late October between 12pm and 4pm. So let me get the math right here. I fork out money to sue a guy who “promised” to pay me, not one but like 14 times, and the chance he’ll show up to court? Yah.

After looking at this very closely I’ve decided to drop the lawsuit. I have already gone so far beyond what I should have done. I've been nice for way too long and it's cost me. Time to put nice to bed and stop thinking this jack*ss will ever pay for the damage he's done. AND I trusted someone to do what they said they would. My naiveté. My bad.

I’m mad at myself for many reasons that I could spend hundreds of therapy dollars on, but suffice it to say, I’m mostly mad that I allowed myself to be suckered into believing a stranger. At the moment I decided that perhaps what the world needs is more trust. Why should I not trust this person I’ve never met before? He very well could be a man of his word. So I dropped the cynic cloak and donned a hope cloak and out of it I get no cloak. Stupid people!

Lesson Learned: If I am in the unfortunate situation in which I have been struck by another vehicle, dial 9-1-1 immediately. Do not pass go. Because you certainly won’t collect.

Say Good Bye to Hollywood, Say good bye my ba-AY-be

So this weekend was a weekend of goodbyes. Nothing tragic, oh no…just farewells to a few of my favorite things.

Pretty Pink Razr goes POOF
One of my long time GalPal’s BaltimoreHeidi who now lives here, decided it would be a great idea to set me up with her husbands best friend. A man they’ve known for some time. She was sure we’d hit it off. He is, after all, from the great state of New Jersey. Which by my count of the map is about a dozen states away (as the crow flies). In fact if you’ve ever seen the movie Sleepless in Seattle there’s a scene where Tom is explaining to the little tike that there are a number of states between Seattle and NY. And his comment is something like, “I don’t even want to think what they aren’t teaching you in school.”

Now, I’m not saying BaltimoreHeidi isn’t smart. She is. And I’m sure her heart was in the right place. So, she, her husband, the NJBoy and I all met for dinner. We went to one of my all time favorite restaurants in Seattle called the Pink Door (which funny enough their once pink door is now more salmon, but whatever). They have, by far, the best lasagna this side of the Mississippi. Before dinner we ordered an appetizer, Olive Tapenade. One of my faves, and theirs is quite tasty without a lot of garlic overhang (if you know what I mean). NJBoy apparently isn’t a fan of olives, nor is BaltimoreHeidi’s husband so they ordered their own appetizer, which left this MASSIVE amount of tapenade for BaltimoreHeidi and I to share. Try as we might, we couldn’t eat it all. We asked for a doggy bag and we were all settled.

I had my massive NY bag – courtesy of SLSIL – that had my new camera, my wallet, my phone, misc lip glosses and tums at the bottom. The tapenade, while originally was upright, somehow got tussled and ended up upside down. All the fabulous olive juice and olive oil filtered through the paperback and laid a nice quarter inch worth of gunk at the bottom of my purse.

The wallet – not a problem.
The camera – surprisingly only a little gunk on a corner and it was all good.
The misc lip glosses – saveable
The tums – mush
But the phone, it was covered in it. I cleaned it off, all the while it’s chirping at me as if it say, “Help Help I’m drowning in olive oil.” Let it sit overnight to “dry out”. Got up Sunday and decided to plug it in to charge it. A small puff of smoke and a small crackling sound and the phone was dead. D-E-D Dead!

The best part of this tale is that 1) my plan isn’t up until March so I had to buy a phone out right…no discounts. Bastards. And 2) the blind date wasn’t even all that fun.

Best Guy Friend Gets Married
Yes, my best guy friend, Mike married his lovely Nancy this weekend. Both adorable and the wedding was absolutely beautiful. Blueberry and I managed to not cry during the ceremony even though when Nancy started up we almost did. Blasted emotions. The wedding was held at one of our local swanky country clubs. As I drove through the streets of this county club with the Stang I was sure I was going to get pulled over for having such an undervalued car. My god those people know how to live. Anyhow, it was a ton of fun to see many of my long time friends that I’ve not seen in months or years in some cases. Funny how when people get married and have kids, suddenly their single friends get the boot.

Me, Mike & Nancy, and Blueberry

The Gang: Baily Fuehr, Kris Fuehr, Me, Blueberry, Cyan Fuehr, Darby Fuehr, Curt Fuehr, Debbie Opstad, Mark Levine, Lars Opstad and Vanessa Levine.

OJ’s Freedom
Is it me, or is this guy the biggest dumbass ever to walk the earth? I mean really OJ. Just because you got away with one crime, doesn’t mean your invincible. Gotta teach this boy about security cameras.

Now for the opposite of Goodbye, we say Hello. I went out on date #2 with FrogBoy1 – he was the lateboy who “stood” me up. He redeemed himself by meeting me for beers and football yesterday, which led into dinner and football. Nice combo really. He’s nice. He might have made the cut to be invited to the next Dudley show. And you know once you’ve made that cut, you’re in like Flynn. (where on earth did that saying come from anyhow?)

It's official.

I'm crazy.

Just in case there was ever any concern. I thought I would end all the rumors right now. It's true.

C-R-A-Z-Y

Just purchased - in preparation for the FANTASTIC costume Mom is making...(You are working on that right mom?)

God I hope the pink's don't clash. That will be so tacky.

Good food, Good drink, Good God, Let's Eat

And eat and eat and eat.

My GalPal Anandi (aka BeagleBabe - because she has a Beagle - Spike - and because she loves them) and I have this new tradition that I, for one, hope we continue. We eat. And not just eat, but we eat new things.

BeagleBabe and I met when I was working at Geeksoft in the SpeechServer team. She left that group and I "took over" her job. Parts of it anyhow. And really, looking back, I did nothing for 3 months and got paid for it. Ah-hem, anyhow. She went part-time in her new gig, which meant we could meet for lunch. We met at a couple different places, then settled on this Sushi place just down from where I work. I hate Sushi, but they had great chicken katsu. We met almost weekly there. Then BeagleBabe went and got a new kickass job in downtown Seattle.

Since she's now downtown, we've turned our lunches into dinners and trying some of the amazing restaurants Seattle has to offer. So far, we've ate our way through a good portion of Bell Town, and have a lot left to taste.

Past outings has seen us at Casualita's, which is a rum bar. And Oh. My. God. did they have good food. We still talk about that place. We only ordered appetizers and were plenty satisfied. It seems like there has been others, but I certainly can't remember. It's because I'm in a food coma.

Tonight we ate at Cascadia. It was featured on Rachael Ray's $40 a Day show, which painted this little haven of a place. They have two things that are considered their "speciality". One are these mini burgers and the other this Alpine Martini. The Alpine Martini has Douglas Fur Snow in it and a Douglas Fur twig sticking out of it. I didn't dare attempt to try this drink because I'm not a big fan of tree tasting.

On Rachael's show she said the mini burgers were a buck a piece and so quite a bargain. She was lying. Maybe the special Rachael Ray promote our restaurant price is a buck a piece, but it sure wasn't for us. While they are cheap, the toppings for them add up. And while BeagleBabe and I thought we were getting a bargain, when we got a tab at $63 we knew we had been had.

Mini Burger = $2 (Happy Hour). The gourmet toppings were an additional fee. They come with lettuce, tomato and ketchup. If you wanted handmade Mayo it was extra.

Anyhow, we both ordered 2 each. They were *maybe* 2 oz of burger on a 4oz bun. I had crispy pancetta (add $2 more) and cheddar cheese (add $1) on one (totaling $5 for a 2oz burger!). My second burger I had just grilled walla walla sweet onions(add $1). Then we *had* to order the "bucket O' fries" to go with our mini burgers. Oh and I had ordered a white bean hummus to start us off on - which was, sadly, not very flavorful. I had a Pomo-tini and Sangria for my drinks. The Sangria tasted like hand lotion. Even BeagleBabe said it was gross. Blech!

After gorging ourselves on our mini burgers, we were discussing other iconic types of food in that neighborhood. When what should come up but these kick ass shaken donuts that a near by restaurant does for dessert. A 5 block walk found us at Lola for dessert.

BeagleBabe has also started making her own jewelery. It's gorgeous stuff and she's quite talented. As it turns out, she now is selling it online too. Check it out. And no, if you buy something I don't get a commission. Though she may buy my next drink.

And of course since I was going to Seattle, I brought my camera with me. It seems to go almost everywhere with me now, so going to Seattle doesn't necessarily mean it was a fluke it was with me. Anyhow, my picture of the day, and by far one of my favorite photos of all time. It almost looks like a stock photo, but I swear...It's really mine.

Well kids, FrogBoy1 did eventually get back to me and provided a relatively understandable excuse/reason. I've decided that I will give him one more chance. I did, however, explain to him that lateness isn't one of my favorite things. In fact, I'm notoriously early every where and I have yet to understand how people can be late ( side bar: "people" I mean those of us without children - kids tend to bend time). That aside, tardiness is one of those things that makes no sense...I mean you know when you have to be somewhere, it's not usually a shock. (Second sidebar: I do understand that sometimes you can't help it, but only sometimes). So all that aside, FrogBoy1 and I will try second date again. But its up to him.

In other fantastic news, my bro finished the 3-Day Cancer walk. I'm so very proud of him. He kicked ass. Here are a few photos of the event. Blueberry and I went down to cheer Bro past the finish line. We were there for about an hour before he got there and I gotta tell ya, my crying for the year is done. It was so amazingly emotionally. All these women, men and kids finishing 60 miles of walking. A lot of them were crying, which of course made us cry. Ugh. There were 2300 walkers total and each walker HAD to, at the minimum, raise $2200. Using my superhero math skills, that's um, 0, um, carry the one... $5,060,000. That's a buttload of cash that will help with research and potentially find a cure.

There was, I'll admit, a brief discussion about me and HikerGirl potentially training and walking in this. It sounds good now, but we'll see if I can dedicate myself.

Frog Legs anyone?

It's been said that one must kiss a lot of frogs to find the prince. So in light of recent events tonight, I'm going to start referring to all future dates from the online site as FrogBoys.

I got stood up!

Stood up!

I'm furious. This was date #2 with FrogBoy 1 and surely would have expected him to show. I mean he did show for the first one and made plans for the second. The act of making plans in and of itself denotes an interest to actually follow through with the plan. But apparently FrogBoy 1 didn't get the memo that when you plan a date with a girl, you should show up.

I was embarrased, and annoyed after waiting in the restaurant for 30 minutes before deciding to get the flock out of dodge. I had let FrogBoy 1 know that I am notoriously early AND that I had made reservations for us under my name. I had a clear, very clear, view of the front door, front desk and the bar. I could not have missed him.

Naturally, all my good female friends have helped me cope with this blatant disregard of my time and emotions by helping me think of ways to cook frog legs. A few, well most, have all did the, "Well, maybe something happened." bit with me. And true, maybe something did happen. I hadn't given him my cell # yet. It was, after all, only the second date. A Frog must earn my cell number. Despite what you've heard I don't go handing it out to any Tom, Dick or Larry. Though maybe if I did, I wouldn't be sitting here fuming over being stood up.

God help Frogboy 1 if he actually emails me and actually attempts to come up with an excuse. I hope at least he's creative in his excuse.

You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold

I’ve long since have had my reservations about online dating. I’ve not had my heart in it and have approached it in a fairly cynical and amusing way. I’ve met a bunch of people whom have been successful with the online dating and have nothing but good stories to tell. To me, it seems so cold and so judgmental. Instead of the old fashion way where you meet someone through a friend, we have entered a generation where conversations start by an email instead of a sly look from across the room.

Despite my reservations, I’ve kept at it. I’ve not lowered my standards on the sites (as in I don’t just go out with anyone) but I admit I’ve cast a much wider net.

I had breakfast with HikerGirl today. She’s always a good dose of reality to me. She’s got it all together to me and I can trust all that she says. I ran my most recent theory on dating past her. She agreed with me and thought it a healthy approach to the dating scene.

See, we women were raised with the theory that you date one person. Or maybe it was just me who has gone through her life thinking: One guy at a time. Now in my later 30’s I’ve started to think that there’s no reason I can’t go out and have fun with several guys. Not all on the same night, or maybe. Hmmm…Oh sorry, I forgot where I was.

Anywhoo, date number 2 tonight and another date set up for tomorrow. The date tomorrow is the one that has me most interested. He and I have a lot in common already just by our profiles. And so I was tempted to cancel date number 2 tonight, thinking I can only go out with one guy. That’s when it hit me. No you don’t. It’s not like you’re sleeping with all these guys, you are just going out and having fun. Getting to know new, different, and exciting men. I’ve always had a good guy friend in my life and recently I’ve found myself lacking in that area.
I’m going to persevere. Watch this space…

You are the lucky folk that get to go along with me through this journey of online dating. I thought it only fitting to give you some of my favorite profile tidbits. I’ve laughed my ass off at some. And now I find myself reading a good portion of them to amuse myself more than anything. I’d share some of the photos I’ve found, but my god…I couldn’t do that to you, my dear readers.

“I feel I am a stable man. I have a nice house in which I live with my wife and my kids.”


“I enjoy simple things like quantum physics. I’m not joking. I like physics. If you don’t, then stop reading.”


“I was born and raised in NJ. And, no, not that part!”


“My Mother gave me this disease…”

“When I was little, I started to wonder if everyone else was just acting, putting on a show to fool me and maybe some other people that this was the real world, that the world was really like this, to see how we would react. I'd like to have a group of friends, but I haven't since I was in junior high school. I have one actual friend, a girlfriend who's a neighbor I spend evenings with. (We used to be intimate.) It's not that I lose friends, I just don't meet people. Not much social life leads to not going out much and not knowing where to go out to meet people and not having picked up recreational activities or habits from others that involve going out, leading to not much social life, a vicious circle.”

Yahoo Swami Speaks Up again

The Yahoo Swami has been, well, lame of late. But today's oracle excellence provided this advice:

Capricorn
Your romantic impulses are strong right now, so it's a great time to go out on a date, even with someone you've been living with for years. Make all the arrangements and see where things go from there.

Someone I've been living with for years? WTF? I've not been living with anyone for years. Well, except the Big Black Beast of Burden. But I'm not taking him out ever again.

I had to "take him out" on Tuesday night due to a significant and impressive thunder storms that rumbled through the hood. There were two claps of thunder simultaneously that rattled the windows, sent the cat under the bed, and set off the fire alarm in the building.

Attempting to figure out in my haze of sleep what was going on, I realized I didn't have a cat carrier and had to stuff the cat (now firmly stuck under the bed) in a pillow case in order to evacuate the building.

Me and the not so happy pillow case departed Chez Jenn's and promptly put ourselves in the Mustang for save keeping. It took the firemen 7 minutes to get there. The whole freaking place could have burned down by then. AND no hot firemen. What is this world coming to?

No Laboring on Labor Day

Holy cow, it's been almost a week since I last wrote to you my lovelies. I only have on excuse...there's been really nothing going on.

I spent a good part of Saturday morning wondering the city of Seattle. I went with a goal to take photos of the Pigs On Parade. Sadly I wasn't nearly as impressed with the pigs this year as I have been in the past years. But I found a few that were "okay" to waste my precious digital memory on. I was in Seattle for 3 hours and only took 75 pictures. Anyone who knows me and knows that I can take pictures in mass quantity, might recognize that 75 isn't that many.

I spent a good part of the day at Pike Place Market. It was where the Pig idea began. But that's not why I went. The original Starbuck's is there too. Also not why I went. I went for the atmosphere, and oh, did I mention they have flowers? Lots and lots of flowers.

I was testing the camera in different lighting settings. This particular photo was inside the market, with indirect light from outside. I didn't change up the settings at all and wanted to see what would happen. I think I could have allowed a bit more light in for this photo. Oh and I found out my camera records the metering for each photo. Yay. No more need to write it down.

Tiffany's, oh how I love thee. I can't afford a single thing in there, but I can photograph it.

More Pike Place Market photos. The market and coffee seems to go hand in hand with me. So this photo seemed appropriate to take for my personality. I need to figure out how to make the sky blue and keep the integrity of the other items.

Faces on a pig. One of the pigs was covered in these faces. It was perhaps my most favorite pig. It was certainly the most original. A lot of the other pigs were, what seemed to me, replicates of past pigs from past years.

Flowers. Flowers. Flowers. There's this fantastic waterfall sorta thing in Seattle. It's "art", but in an area that is hard to photograph. I tried to do the fancy marshmallow water thing, you know when you leave the shutter open and it gets all flowy. Well that didn't work because it was too bright outside. But I wanted to capture the water somehow. This was all I got. I'm not giving up yet. I will find a way to capture it.

In other news, I have a date today. I started on a new online dating site and have tried to put my heart in it. It's not there yet but may be. I've not heard from, not do I expect to, the XXXCrush. The email I sent him was strictly selfish on my part to close the door on that "relationship" for me. I've been told he'd be a total cad if he doesn't respond, and he may, but I'm moving on. Which brings up the date. A former Cougar as myself...AND lived in the same dorm as I did during the same years I was there. Fate? Coincidence? So we shall see.

Dad has been in the hospital for several days now. I didn't want to put anything on the blog at first because it was too hard to think about. He's roller coastered between feeling good, and taking a dive. He's doing better today, and is pestering the doctors to let him out. When he gets sick like this it reminds me just how much I need my parents in my life. I can't lose them ever, and yet I know that one day they both will be gone. I'm just not ready for either of them to leave this world. There's still so much of my life they need to be a part of. So, good thoughts!