Word Association

Word: Birthday

Association: Mine

Another day older and deeper in debt. Not really, but that's how the song goes, eh?

I've realized why I'm so melodramatic about my birthday. You know how when you're single, you always get a little depressed around Christmas and New Years'? It's the whole thought of having to spend another holiday season all by your lonesome. And you know how on your birthday, you get a little depressed realizing that another year has ticked off and you're still still single and getting closer to __ (insert whatever age is your dreaded upcoming age). Well, I get to be a little bit holiday depressed and a little bit birthday depressed at the same time which makes for a lot depressed all at once. If we could just squeeze Valentine's Day in on January 3, I could get it all out of the way at the same time.

Really, though. This birthday isn't so bad just yet. (Granted it's 8:50 a.m. and I'm breaking my no blogging from work motto). But then I'm too focused on having to be at work on my birthday to care that I hit 28. I'm starting a petition that we all should get our birthdays off as holidays. Who's signing with me.

A day in the life of a dog. (aka: How I spent my Christmas Eve vacation)

The sis and BIL were headed off to the inlaws this morning. Usually they try to board their dog, Reece, so that she doesn't have to spend all day alone. However, Reece injured her leg the other day and was snapping at everyone so they feared she would bite another animal. So they cashed in a favor and requested that the bro and I pull walking duties.

However, this morning when they arrived to open gifts at our house, our services were no longer needed. Reece escaped this morning when BIL opened the door. Since it was still dark out and she headed for the woods, he wasn't able to catch her.

So my duties changed from dog walker to dog catcher. After they went home, they were still unable to find her and so they left for the inlaws not knowing where she was or if she would come back. Later in the day, the Dad and I decided to swing by to see if we could locate her. Now, as we know, the Jesus Town is a rural town. Which means the sis and BIL live in the country. The Dad and I drove up the road looking in everyones' backyards, and even doubled back the time he thought he may have seen her. Once we reached their house, we were pulling in the driveway, and lo and behold, there she was. She was lying in the backyard behind the house.

I got out and called to her, and she slowly walked to me, hanging her head the entire way. For a sec I thought maybe she was injured further, but once she got to me I realized she was sulking. With the Dad's help, we got her inside and all was well.

I went back this evening for her evening walk, and decided to hang around so that I could walk her again a little later. The bro has morning shift but won't be able to get there until 6:30 and I didn't want to make her hold it for 12 hours. I made myself comfy on the sis's floor and spent the evening with Reece's head in my lap watching cheesy holiday movies on Lifetime and admittedly getting a bit misty eyed in a few spots. Yes, I'm pathetic. And proud of it.

Your Christmas Card

Wishing you and yours the happiest of holiday seasons.

Hope you have a wonderful holiday season.
Heidi


[Ok, consider that your holiday card. I bought them, I swear I did. But I've been a snot fountain the whole week and don't want to be sending my holiday germs through the air. Not to mention, we were in an assembly line of signing the cards to all our clients yesterday, and 45 minutes later, they were finally signed. So the moral of it all is that you shouldn't hold your breath waiting for my holiday wishes. But I have a good feeling some lucky folks will be receiving a Christmas card in March. And I have faith it will be the only one they receive in March.]

Hopelessly Devoted

I went home last weekend for The Mom's Birthday/Family Christmas extravaganza. On Saturday morning, I met my sister, my BIL and the niece for breakfast. For those of you who haven't kept track, she's now 14 months.

I walked into the restaurant and they had already ordered and our food was on the table. And I hadn't seen my niece since Thanksgiving, which is a long time for me. But as soon as she saw me, she started trying to stand up in her chair and was making noises and reaching for me. If she could speak yet, I'm sure she'd be saying something brilliant.

But BIL got her out of the seat and handed her to me, and she gave me a big hug and laid her head against my chest for about 30 seconds. And then didn't want to let me eat because I couldn't hold her then.

Sometimes it feels good to be loved so unconditionally.

[Placeholder: I have a half dozen stories from this weekend I will have to remember to share.]

If you can read this, you're following too closely.

I was driving home on the interstate today, and as per usual, traffic started backing up near my exit. As I am proud to say, I am a very safe driver. I allow myself extra room and I don't tailgate. Other people are not quite as competent.

While driving, I had to do somewhat of a hard brake because traffic all of the sudden came to a halt. Since I had given myself enough room, no prob. I look in my rearview and the guy/gal behind me is approaching very quickly. I see him stop just as he was inches from my bumper. I don't know what happened after that except I heard lots of screeching and saw people swerving off to the shoulder. And after I started to pull away, I saw the car behind me, and the one behind him pull off to the shoulder.

Using my deductive reasoning skills, I surmised that at least 2, if not 3 cars behind me ended up colliding. Normally, I would feel obligated to pull over as well, but since I didn't actually see what happened, I'd likely be useless. Not to mention, the shoulder in that section of road is barely wide enough for 1 car, so had I pulled over, I might not have been involved in that accident but would certainly have been involved in a different one shortly.

And I can rest assured knowing I didn't cause the accident. Because I didn't screech my tires or have to swerve and stopped in plenty of time. It's the crazies behind me that have to deal with it.

And actually, I'm not even sure there was an accident with the car behind me, because he was so close to me, that had he been hit, he would have hit me. So maybe he was the car in front of the accident and stopped to help. Or maybe there was no accident at all.

But the moral of the story: keep your distance.

Film Noir

I keep hearing how this new remake of "King Kong" is supposed to be the best movie EVER and is predicted to be higher grossing that "Titanic." But if we learned anything from "Titanic" it was that highest grossing does not necessarily equal great movie.

Nonetheless, every where I turn or every time I click I hear about how great "King Kong" will be. Yet, I can honestly say I have absolutely zero desire to see the film. To the point that if someone offered to take me, buy my ticket and supply all the concessions I could ever desire, I'd probably turn them down. It's just one of those "event movies" [to paraphrase Chuck's 'event musical' classification] that I could care less about.

I'm actually excited to see "The Family Stone" which hasn't received as great of reviews, but is definitely more my type of movie.

And strangely enough, I'm probably going to go see the Johnny Knoxville flick, "The Ringer." Ordinarilly, the premise of the movie would make me uneasy. [For those that haven't heard of it, Johnny Knoxville fakes being mentally challenged so as to rig the Special Olympics.] But after hearing that the Special Olympics and even one of the Down's Syndrome associations is behind it, I feel like I should give it a shot.

I'm still on the fence about "Brokeback Mountain."

Shopping Jeer.

I'm a little late getting my Christmas shopping started done. I'm used to having a week of nothing to leading up to Christmas which affords me plenty of time for shopping. Not so much now.

I get off for 1/2 a day on the 23rd, by which point it's too late to buy The Mom her birthday gift and the parents their anniversary gift.

But late gifts from me is nothing new. Some people like to tease that I'm always late, but I prefer to think of it as being the only person who gives Christmas gifts in May. Seriously, what's wrong with making it last all year?

Tis the Season for Bad Commercials

Apparently the advertising industry missed a former post about how much I loathe jewelry commercials.

The newest is this series of, "What would you do for love?" commercials. Especially the one where a guy apparently hitches a ride on a municipal snow plow in the middle of a blizzard, putting his life and the snow plow driver's life in danger, not to mention the lives of the people who slide off the road because Mr. Snow Plow Driver was so busy driving Romeo home that he had to detour from his route all so Romeo can deliver a necklace to his sweetie. Because apparently the commerical is pointing out that she wouldn't have been happy had he just made it home safe and sound, he needed bring jewelry to make it worth her while. If they could work it into the commercial, they'd probably show the snow plow driver and Romeo doing some last minute blizzard shopping just so Romeo doesn't have to show up empty handed.

And don't even get me started on the musical slide show one with the cheesy, "moments that define our lives" duet playing in the background.

Things that do not work after being through the washing machine:

Television Remote Control

Studying is for Suckas

I just had the wonderful thought that if I were still in law school, I would have to be studying right now. Ok, I should have been studying right now, but as those who know me well would know, I'd be thinking about studying but not actually doing until a day before finals started.

But anyway, the point of the post: instead of studying I got to go bowling this evening at Redneck Bowl (not the actual name, but could have been)and hang out with fellow lawyers who don't have to study anymore either.

I do have to go into the office tomorrow morning to make up some billables. So life outside law school isn't all rosy.

A night at the Theatre.

Spent the lovely, 8 inches of snow covered evening with the lovely Kelly, Kelly's T, Amanda, and Chuck watching the touring production of Miss Saigon. Now, I know I'll take flak for this, but I sided more with Chuck's review of things than is with my better judgment. But I guess when you've seen something done so well, seeing an alternate version years later just doesn't do it for you. I guess I'm a Broadway snob.

The guy who played the Engineer was great, and most of the other leads were decent. But one of the psuedo leads was decidedly not as on the mark, and it was all I could do not to cringe. Perhaps he was having an off night. (And it's not defamation if it's a review, right?)

And I don't think they miked the ensemble. Their speaking parts were mostly unintelligible. And the ensemble songs were great.

So I'm glad I went. If nothing else that to shield T's eyes from the opening prostitution scene. (Which I didn't actually do.) And I hadn't heard that music in years. It's amazing how much you forget when you haven't heard it in a while. I was convinced that they left out the whole helicopter scene until it suddenlly appeared in the second act.

[Postscript: Chuck had asked me which tour I had previously seen, and I found a site that listed the casts for each of the shows. And sadly, the way I figured it out was by imdbing that 90s Saturday Morning teen show "California Dreams" to find the name of the girl. Because I remembered that the girl who played Kim was on that show, and when I was 14, I thought that was kinda cool. I'm such a dweeb that I didn't fixate on the fact that Jonathan Pryce, who is much more experienced, was actually starring as the engineer. But hey, she was on a TV show, and that was like, oh, like so cool. Heh.]
Anyhow, the drive home was terrible. The news keeps saying it's going to be better in the morning, but the sky will have to open up and rain down fire to make that happen. I couldn't even see the road on the highway and my SUV was sliding all over the place. The wind is drifting the snow so badly, I don't think 6 hours is going to help much.

Unfortunately, my firm doesn't close for the weather.