The weekend approaches
Saturday my brother will be ordained and officially become a member of the Frs of Mercy. But wait! There's More! Friday my Mother-in-Law is confirmed into the Catholic Church, much to the shock of everyone who has known her over the years. And Sunday one of the kids we've been sending books to for her homeschooling has her graduation Mass. In July, she's off to the convent. (Her choice, not some gothic parental thing to keep her from EVER.DATING. I know how some of you non-Catholics think.)
It's sort of an overabundance of good things, because unfortunately all of these events are taking place 1 hour south of where we're staying. Throw in the requisite follow-up receptions, assorted family in town, catching up with my MIL, catching up with the extended family on my side, extended family on Chris's side....Oi. I'm sort of torn. I'm obviously super excited about all of the good things happening. And just dreading the exhaustion I'm expecting to feel. I'm finding this whole pregnancy thing means that recovery takes twice as long as it it does non-pregnancy.
Oh the heck with all of that, we'll sleep when we're dead. For this weekend, we'll party.
Labels: pregnancy
Fred's Dirty Little Secret
We went to the local coffee shop's employee picnic yesterday. Yes, we spend so much time there that we've made friends with the owners and the entire staff. So when they were deciding on two of the customers that they would invite, our names came up, along with another guy. And given the coffee shop is named after the owners' dog, Aldo, Fred and Ginger were invited along as well. So there were four dogs - Aldo, Ginger, Fred, and Boomer - bounding around the place. Well actually Aldo, Ginger, and Boomer were bounding while Fred pretty much chilled out, taking the occasional time out to work the room. And as usual, he charmed the heck out of everyone. He can't help it, he's handsome, mellow and has those eyes.
As we left the party, Chris heard one little girl say "I loved Fred, but he didn't love me." Ahh, Fred's dirty little secret. And to a certain extent, that's true. Fredly is the very definition of a one family dog. Not that he isn't friendly, but Chris and I are his pack, and at the end of the day, he wants to be with us.
There are a few people that earn special love from him. We were at a cross race about a year and a half ago, and Fredly saw
Megan walking across a field. Before my eyes even had focused on her, his tail started wagging, and he was pulling at the leash. The "grandparents" (soon to be grandparents without the quotation marks) and my brother are all accepted members of the extended pack. And Fred's been known to crawl up scary, open gratework steps to hang with our friend Belle. Rick, the bike shop mechanic, is a trusted friend. And Erin who watched him for us when he was still a young 'un is another love of his life. There are certainly a few more people that he seems genuinely happy to see. But at the end of the day, he's only happy when he goes home with us. With us, he is the most loyal friend a person could want, and the bestest doggy in the world.
Labels: Dogs
Holiday Weekend
Random thoughts for the weekend. I seem to be the queen of random thoughts these days. I blame it on the pregnancy. Then again, I blame EVERYTHING on pregnancy.
- The weather here has been phenomenal. Sunshine, bright blue skies, temps in the 70s and low 80s. Just perfect for Chris to take off to State College for a 40 mile mountain bike ride with some friends. He was sweating it a bit that he was going to be "that guy". The only one on the ride who just can't seem to keep up. But it turns out that he was useful mechanically, and able to hang with two of the riders while the other two were definitely much better. So he came home happy and tired.
- We got the Volvo! Sweet! It took us 3 1/2 hours to do paperwork though. Alas it's been so long since we've had to go through that whole maneuver that we came a little underprepared. So that meant two trips - one home, one to the bank. Then add to that a few minor things that we were settling with the dealership, some computer problems, and we'll just say that I was quite ready for lunch by the time we left.
- Do any other Catholic women have problems with bellies so big during their pregnancy that they can't kneel? My belly hits the pew in front of me, and I can barely get on the kneeler. I guess I'm sitting for the next 3 months.
Labels: Car, pregnancy, Seasons
Waitress
While my husband was out riding a 40 mile mountain bike ride, I went to see the movie Waitress with a friend of ours. Thank heavens I didn't take him. If I would have set out to write a movie most likely to irritate him, I would have generated this movie. To cut to the chase, a pregnant woman having an affair with her doctor. Hmmmm.
Anyway,
Waitress was ok, but I have to say it just didn't touch me the way I know it was supposed to. It got screaming good reviews, which means that I OBVIOUSLY don't know what I'm talking about. But my recommendation is to leave it for the netflix queue. I did really like the ending though.
Through the whole movie it was killing me that I couldn't remember who the lead actor was. And I knew I liked him! I figured it out this AM - it was Captain Mal from Firefly.
Labels: Movies
Random thoughts
Pictures must follow eventually, but... With Fred having had most of the fur removed from his butt, and what little fur is left is white, from the back he looks like he's wearing long johns. He does seem to be handling the heat a bit better. At least that's what we keep telling ourselves.
Fingers crossed but as of tomorrow we should be the proud owners of a new (to us) car. It looks roughly like the one pictured. We're replacing the Race Taxy, Chris's '89 Volvo Station Wagon with a 2004 pimped out model. Now to hit
Ear Xtacy on our way through Louisville next weekend for a bumper sticker. The "thing" in Louisville was to cut up the bumper sticker, re-arrange the letters and give your car a name. We'll see what name applies itself to the new car. We just have some paperwork to get through in the AM, and then....we'll have two reliable cars for roadtrips. Perfect.
I worked from home yesterday when it was 80 degrees. I'm not working from home again this summer, I can already tell the heat is going to hurt me this year.
Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend everyone!
Labels: Car, Dogs
Why Fred has gotten his last professional haircut
So we've had the great debate every summer about cutting Fred's hair. Without AC to cool off in, he really suffers in the summer. But Chris has heard the story about a billion times, that I know dogs who've been shaved and ended up with sunburn. Not good. A trim I'm ok with, but no shaving.
So last August I took him to Petco to get trimmed. They did a good job, but the people were rude and Fred was FREAKED OUT by the time I picked him up. I told Chris that if he wanted to get Fred trimmed for this summer, he was going to have to take him. As it turns out, there's a groomers around the corner from where Chris works. So he took Fred today. He told them the sunburn story and how his wife would kill him if Fred came back with as short a haircut as Chris has.
Fred now looks like this:
Fingers are crossed that after the June shedding season, he'll grow his coat back to a reasonable length. At least there won't be as many furballs this summer.
Labels: Dogs
Overcoming
We watched the movie "Overcoming" a couple of days ago (Thanks, Susan & JH, we're sending it back!). It's really a quite well done documentary of the CSC team during the 2004 Tour de France. We laughed, we cried, but we gave it a 45 because we couldn't dance to it. I keeeed. My favorite teensy little piece was the part where Michele Bartoli retires at the end because he can't stand being away from his wife and baby. (Gee, I wonder why). But good music, good photography, and an interesting insight into what it takes to do well in the TdF. Unfortunately given the festivities of the past week, and the two years of lapsed time since the movie was filmed, we spent a lot of time pointing guys out and going "Doper...doper...doper..."
Definitely worth a watch if you have any interesting in watching cycling. Although these days I'm so disgusted, I'm not sure I care any more.
Update 5/25: Egads, my head hurts. Doper....doper....doper....
Labels: cycling, Movies
DOGS!
This was going to be my header photos until I figured out it was going to take a lot of editing to get there. So phhhht on that, one of my favorite dog photos so far:
Labels: Dogs
25 Weeks
Taken May 12, 2007 with my friend Anna. I'm the belly on the left. You missed the belly bucking contest that followed.
Labels: pregnancy
At last....
So today was the big trial day. Trust but Verify has been transcribing some (most) of the Landis hearing. And today, our champ took the stand and was recorded
here and
here.So if you read this carefully, it turns out our buddy has been taking epo, hgh, cortisone, insulin, thyroid hormone, anabolic steroid, amphetamine over the past year or two. From 2001 on, he was taking EPO. To win...the Tour of Strongland. It's something that passes for racing around here. This end of the state doesn't have much racing. Oh and he won the Erie TT championship. I'm pretty sure that's not a USCF sanctioned race, and has people on hybrids racing it. Oh and I know he won the local racing association's picnic crit sometime between 2003 and 2005. So yeah, that juicing really paid off.
I know there's a lot of sympathy out there for him right now because USADA threw him under the bus. I wish I could work up more sympathy, it would be the sign of a better person. But...dude...he doped to win the picnic crit. He doped and beat kids on bikes at the Erie TT. This is not a guy prone to taking the high road. I think a little public confession is good for the soul. He and USADA deserve each other. And who knows, maybe this will give him a little perspective. I hope that something positive comes out of this mess.
Labels: cycling
Imagination runs Riot
So I was in this meeting all AM in which we were trying to suss out all of the information we were missing for a project, when I got an IM from a co-worker asking me if I knew about the sex-abuse. Being Catholic, I immediately assumed I was in for another round of priest stories. Deep sigh, I was going to be spending the next 6 months kicking people’s butts. When a family member’s a priest, well that shit ain’t funny any more. Then she told me that it was about the TdF and on the front page of CNN. So I popped it open. Now the problem was that by this point, the meeting had whittled down to me, my boss and one co-worker. Which means that I couldn’t do the mid meeting “I’m just looking at that power point we’re reviewing”. Because when my lips moved while I was reading the article, well that was going to be obvious. So I spent 20 minutes staring at a photo of Landis, a photo of LeMonde and the headline “Sex Abuse bombshell, phone threat claim at doping hearing”, and trying to hold conversations while puzzling out what it could mean. Landis abused LeMonde? No, that couldn’t be right, LeMonde is older, but not decrepit. LeMonde abused Landis? Hmm, maybe back when LeMonde was a Tour winner himself? Hmmm, not likely, I don’t think Landis got out of PA much at that time in his life. One or the other abused a podium girl? A daughter or sister? Farm animals?
Ya know, the reality was just a lot less interesting. Shameful, but certainly not what I had blown it up to be in the time I had to invent scenarios.
But I did call my love once my meeting ended to make sure he’d heard.
“Sweetie, did you hear about the trial today with LeMonde?”
“Yesterday”
“Whatever”
“It’s all over the internerd, of course I know.”
That's my sweetie. If it's hit the wires, he's in the know.
Labels: cycling
Strange, Green World
It’s funny to me to watch the current rounds of environmental excitement. Funny not because there isn’t a legitimate concern we should have for the environment, but because a lot of this is a throw back to the way my parents and grandparents have lived for decades.
Eat Local? Ha. I grew up in the Midwest, EVERYONE either had a garden or had squash and tomatoes pawned off on them by gardeners all summer. Dad is a champ gardener. One year we weighed the tomatoes, and his garden kicked out 440lbs of tomatoes. For a family of four. That doesn't count all of the other things he grew (lettuce, spinach, peas, cucumbers, beans, okra, broccoli, cherries, plums, rhubarb, herbs...), which were probably highly helped by his composting of kitchen scraps. (Important Note: Do not compost meat/bones. My aunt did this and found herself with lots of friendly neighborhood rats).
Forget Recycle, Mom and grandma topped the Reduce/Reuse list. Mom canned tomatoes in all forms in July in St Louis, with a little help from her sweaty children. And she was a piker, my grandparents had a peach tree, and there were canned peaches and peach preserves year round in addition to the items from the garden. I remember my grandmother washing out plastic bread wrappers for food storage. And because they canned, there were plenty less aluminum/tin cans in the trash and a lot more glass jars in the dish washing.
Oh and don’t think my brother and I escaped the reduce/reuse thing either. I had 33 cousins, a good portion of whom were older than I was. Some were 20 years older. And I got the hand me downs. Not every kid was blessed with plaid bell-bottoms in the 80s, but me? I was stylin’. Now I would just be called Vintage.
In the late 70s/early 80s, we started recycling aluminum. In part that was because it was $.29/lb. The summer my Dad got laid off of work, we went down to the drive-in theater that was a few blocks away and in the morning went through and snagged aluminum cans. Fortunately our days as aluminum can trash people were short lived as he was only out of a job for a month. We didn’t stop recycling our own aluminum cans, and to this day my parents assiduously clean out aluminum cans, crush them, and haul them off to the recycling center.
Until the late 80s, my dad would walk 2 miles each morning and evening to catch the van pool to work. At one point we had 3 people working and one car. We walked a lot in an area that wasn’t precisely rife with sidewalks.
I’m not suggesting I’m some sort of goddess of environmentalism. Quite the opposite. The minute I got a few bucks to rub together, I was as decadently tossing aluminum cans and driving 3 blocks to the grocery as the next person. (I’m trying to clean up my act again, I swear!) But I’m amused to see that all of these things aren’t just for the lower middle class any more. I knew where I was in the pecking order as a kid, so it’s funny to me to see the shee-shee people lining up to live that kind of life. We did it because we couldn’t afford not to. Now they’re doing it because it’s cool. Life is strange and wonderful.
This crazy doping thing...
Alright, one last post on the subject until there's something real to post about. Bear with me, it's way overkill, I know. It's just that every time I hear a story about our local racer, I have this incredible urge to go "WHAT are you DOING?" But this Landis trial? It takes the cake.
Over the years, I've avoided reading his cyclingnews diary, his website, and his race results. But this...this engenders equal parts schadenfreude, fascination, puzzlement, and repulsion. It's truly a train wreck, and therefore infinitely fascinating to me at the moment.
As hubby and I discussed last night, it's a weird place for a person to find themselves. And presumably he volunteered for the role of witness for the prosecution since I don't think he was ever busted for doping. (See previous paragraph if I'm wrong. I haven't precisely been following his career.) But anyone who thinks Landis is innocent is going to dislike this guy. Anyone who is opposed to doping is going to dislike this guy. Anyone who dislikes WADA or USADA is going to dislike this guy. Is there anyone I missed in the cycling world and possibly other sports? Now I know his intent is not to stay in cycling, but talk about burning bridges. Yikes.
The other question which I touched on in my previous post on this subject is.... he doped to get to Div 3 pro. Yet he's supposed to prove how useful testosterone is, how helpful it was in his career. First of all, the before and after stats will be interesting. Presumably there's something more substantive than this guy's magnetic presence and authoritative voice. And I understand my husband's point in that the actual margin between Div 1 and Div 3 is slimmer than you would think. But. In some ways, the difference is light years. It sounds like Landis's lawyers are tough, I'll be fascinated to read the recap of that particular cross.
So until this guy takes the stand, I'll post no more. This is one of those blogorrhea moments when spelling it out is therapeutic. But if anyone wants to know why I'm sitting here and giggling on occasion, you will certainly be in the know.
Labels: cycling
What?!
I apparently am not living in the same cities as where the
road rage survey took place. According to a survey of 25 cities, Pittsburgh was 24th on the list. I disagree, I have seen more incidences of road rage since I've moved here, than I ever have in my life. And I moved from the number 11 city on the list. I've also lived in the number 22 city, and driven in cities 6, 7, 9, 10, and 12. AND I'd like to point out that those incidences of road rage have rarely involved me, so it's not just that I'm a crummy driver, or that there's a terrible dislike of cyclists around here, although I'll cop to both of those.
Interesting. Very interesting.
In case you were wondering:
1. Miami
2. New York
3. Boston
4. Los Angeles
5. Washington, D.C.
6. Phoenix
7. Chicago
8. Sacramento, Calif.
9. Philadelphia
10. San Francisco
11. Houston
12. Atlanta
13. Detroit
14. Minneapolis-St. Paul
15. Baltimore
16. Tampa, Fla.
17. San Diego
18. Cincinnati
19. Cleveland
20. Denver
21. Dallas-Ft. Worth
22. St. Louis
23. Seattle-Tacoma
24. Pittsburgh
25. Portland, Ore
Class
A friend of mine sent me
this article about a fight that broke out at the Boston Pops.
To which my only thought is....do you lose street cred if your fight is accompanied by the music from
Gigi? Please tell me that they were playing "Thank heavens for little girls" or "It's a Bore".
Send caffeine
We had a great weekend visiting Susan, JH, Ethan & Henry in Richmond. We also got to see Anna & John who are expecting their baby a week before we’re expecting ours. Unfortunately we got home at 9 last night, and to borrow from the Car Talk guys, you can go ahead and change my name to Erasmus B Dragon. So today is just a bullet points post.
- I hate Hate HATE DC traffic. When we go to Philly, we keep shaving time off of the trip. I’m not sure, but I think Chris has the trip down from 5 hours to about 37 minutes. Unfortunately the trip to Richmond keeps increasing because of DC traffic. A couple of years ago it took us 6 hours. Last year: 7 hours. This past Friday: 8 hours. They’re going to have to sedate me like BA Baracus to get me through that town in the future.
- Susan & JH have to be the most gracious, welcoming hosts on the planet. They feed us every time we drag ourselves in after everyone has eaten, and let us invite random strangers over for dinner, and do a thousand other things to make us feel welcome. And we? Well we show up. I know very well who’s got the best of the deal.
- Hanging with the boys is the best therapy in the world for Chris right now. He has so much fun rough-housing with them! I have photos JH & Susan if you need to get in touch with CPS.
- Anna looks awesome, and she’s so much tougher than I am. She totally puts me to shame. She’s still jogging (or back to jogging now that her stomach doesn’t turn inside out). Saturday she was up at 3:15 AM, spent the day doing yard work at her mom’s house, and then came over for dinner. I am wuss, hear me whimper and hide under the desk.
- JH, Chris, Ethan & Henry made a killer Mother’s Day breakfast for Susan and I. I like the part where I get to piggy back off of the whole Mother’s Day thing without having the baby yet. Sweet! Thank you, guys, that was awesome!
- Watching Ginger try to bark a deaf dog (Lucy)into submission was worth the price of admission. And I'm sure Lucy knew darn good and well what Ginger was trying to do, and thought "Kid, you're going to have to do better than that to intimidate me in my own house."
- Fred remembers Anna. As well he should, she remembers him from when he was a barky little brat. When he saw her, he was so excited, he sat there and gazed up at her with the goofy "You are the love of my life" look that he gets for his favorite people. It was sweet!
- Ginger always makes us look bad in a good way. We're constantly trying to describe how insane her puppyness is. But then she gets so tired from the constant excitement of travel and new people, places, and dogs that she's totally sedate when everyone meets her. I'm not sure whether to be proud of her or throttle her.
- My husband knows me well…Eyes closed, face screwed up = migraine. I’m not loving &%(*# hormones.
- There is not enough caffeine in the world to get me through today. The one saving grace is that two of my four scheduled meetings, I got stood up. Normally this would tick me off, but today I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am.
Labels: Travel
Things you just can't make up
So there's a local div 3 pro cyclist that is widely rumored to be a big time doper. Given he's one of my least fav people, it's really tempting to say he IS a doper, but I haven't seen him in action or heard him admit. So for once I'll be good.
Anyway, he ran into someone I know, and was trying to make some connections. He's getting to the end of his racing career and wants to become....a drug rep. We were imagining the interview:
"No! No! I know your stuff! I know dosages, and not to store any under your dog's name..."
Update 5/13: Well now I don't have to pretend like this guy may not be a doper. He's
testifying in the Landis case about how useful testosterone was in the course of his career. Because it got him all the way to the level of Div 3 pro! I'm sure the fame, fortune, women and status are totally worth the future health problems. I can at least understand doping to win the Tour de France - that's watched by 2 billion people a year. But the Tour de Cuba? That's just dumb.
Update Update 5/13: The more I think about it, the more this makes me laugh. If I were the defense lawyers, and this Div III guy gets up and says how fantastic testosterone is, I'd ask "So...what's the biggest race you've won? Really, Tour de Cuba? Apparently Testosterone DIDN'T work as well as you might have guessed. But thanks for playing...."
Labels: cycling
The Enforcer
I took the dogs to the park yesterday, thinking that because of the heat, the dogs would be pretty low key. So we wandered into the woods, and some critter went dashing by. Ginger took off to the right of the trail with a run I've never seen her do before. It sort of looked like Pepe Le Pew in hot pursuit of his lady love. All of my calling couldn't get her attention. Fredly wandered off the trail and up the hill to the left at the same time. But Ginger had me worried as she got closer and closer to the (busy) street on the other side of the trees. EEKS!
Finally she came back to the trail up ahead of me, and Fred charged down the hill and hit her full on with his chest. After that, she was a lot more responsive to my commands.
Now if I can just get Fred to discipline her when she's chewing on things she shouldn't. Like...my cell phone.
Labels: Dogs
It's one of THOSE days
So the fam came to visit enroute from my "little" brother's graduation. The original plan was that Bill was going to leave today while Mom & Dad were off tomorrow. Last night we got a look at the weather channel, and it appears that the weather on their trip will be turning rough tomorrow. So I got up this AM, and Mom told me that they had decided to leave early to try to avoid the mess. So I was up at 5:15AM to say goodbye to Bill. Then showered, walked the dog, hung with the parents until they left at 7:30. Then I changed, and jumped in the car for work. Except I leapt into the car, looked down, and realized the dogs had apparently gotten a hold of me. There was dirt all over the shirt I was going to wear.
Sigh.
I zipped back into the house, changed outfits lickety split, and headed off to work.
Around 10AM, I went to the restroom, looked into the mirror and realized...oh crap. I hadn't changed bras. And the shirt is super light. So the black bra is practically putting the batman sign in the sky under the light white shirt. "I'm here! Everyone look at me!"
And me without so much as a coat to put over myself.
If anyone needs me, I'll be hiding under my desk for the rest of the day. Crap.
Familia
This week my family is in to visit on their way from my brother's graduation back home. Bill graduated Cum Laude this weekend with a Masters of Divinity. I can't even begin to tell you how proud I am. Way back in the mists of time when we were both in grade school, I was the brainiac older sister (sigh, who knew you could outgrow being intelligent?) and he....struggled. He had dyslexia, and the school that we went to was really not set up to handle that. He spent long years getting picked on by other kids and hearing "Why aren't you more like your sister?" from the teachers. And yet somehow he managed to go on to graduate with a mechanical engineering degree, become a top-flight network administrator, and now get his Masters of Divinity with honors. As an adult he's become one of those strong, quiet, responsible people that draws adults, kids, and dogs equally to cry on his shoulder, or dangle off an arm. He's going to be a good priest. And when he's ordained, I'm going to be thrilled for him. He has worked so hard for this, and I know he's going to be really wonderful in his new role!
We have this!
We have
one of these, just a slightly different model. Very, very effective at shredding paper.
Friday we got our latest and greatest new toy - the Roomba. Holy mackerel, Chris has declared it the best purchase we've made since the espresso machine. Those of you who know Chris realize what a major statement it is. We have the model that you program, so I'm looking forward to programming it to vacuum every few days. Suh-weet! It has to be when the dogs are gone, Ginger is terrified of the shrieking monster from hell. But it's amazingly effective, at least on our hardwood floors and throw rugs. (I can't tell anyone who has wall to wall how good it is). This will be the cleanest we've ever been! Woohoo! The other nice thing is it gets under low furniture that we get a little lazy around - like the bed, the rocking chair, the dining room chairs, etc.
In today's "Things that make me laugh" - they just handed out our little blue recycling bins to all of us. They also handed out instructions printed on (non-recycled) paper. Apparently the reduce/reuse portion of this cycle is not yet in effect.
Rolling out the welcome mat
Since Class Factotum has gone fishing for a while, I've taken her off the blogroll until she comes back - Come back soon CF! - and added "
Confessions of a Pioneer Woman". I just found her a few months ago, and she cracks me up. Plus she takes some awesome snaps. So check her out.
Labels: Other Blogs
Love song
This is just a little love letter to…. Country music. Yes, yes, I know, that most of you just threw up a little in your mouth. There are a few exceptions – as the question at the bike shop used to be – what fag doesn’t like Johnny Cash? And I know Patsy Cline on occasion is allowed to pass as acceptable. But most of my friends would sooner have their fingernails gnawed off by rodents than attend a country music concert. But for me, country music is the sound track of my growing up. Certain songs come up on the radio and they remind me of hot summer days back when I was all skinny arms and legs, playing in the sprinkler, washing the car, and helping my Dad with yard work. And considering I’m totally a daddy’s girl, those are really precious memories for me.
When I hear this song I am instantly transported. Which is unfortunate when you come to and realize you’re still sitting in rush hour traffic.
Sometimes my soul gets weary and my mind begins to wonder
And like that old train “The Hummingbird” it goes to Alabam
They say home is where the heart is and mine is down in Dixie
And when you head for Dixie you're heading for higher ground
Growing up I changed my music to more pop and rock, so I have a big blank spot on my knowledge of country from about the mid 80s to 2000. But with XM, I now have radio stations that play some of those old favs from when I was 7.
These days I don’t listen to much contemporary country music, but I have to admit to have a big warm spot in my heart for Toby Keith. Toby and I would never be buds. But when I listen to him, I hear a lot of the guys I used to know, back in my so-non-liberal-elite growing up days. And I love the lyrics for his songs. C’mon “A High Maintenace Woman don’t want no maintenance man”? And of course there’s the ultimate classic… “I wanna talk about me”. Everyone’s been in that situation, right? Where occasionally…I wanna talk about me!
So yes, this is another confession to being uncool. I've decided that I better get used to it. In a few years if I haven’t outed myself, my kid surely will.
Wait...what?
I was reading
this article on CNN, and this made me laugh:
Lohan, who stars opposite Felicity Huffman and Jane Fonda in the upcoming Universal Pictures film "Georgia Rule," also showed off a white tattoo of the word "breathe" on the inside of her wrist.
"And it's 'breathe' because?" asked DeGeneres.
"I forget to breathe sometimes," Lohan replied.
Ummmm, this sounds frighteningly like the blond joke about TGIF being written on their shoes - Toes Go In First. It could always be worse, Lindsay could be piloting the plane you're on or drawing blood from you. Instead, she's just an actress.
SWEET!
Medscape's latest headline:
History of Migraine May Protect Memory, Cognition, in Older Individuals
And part of the article:
In the only long-term prospective study to assess cognitive and memory changes in aging individuals with and without migraine, investigators at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland, found that migraineurs scored lower on tests of immediate and delayed memory at baseline.
However, over time, their rate of cognitive decline was 17% less than those who did not have migraine, a finding that held particularly true for individuals who had migraine with aura.
First of all, who knew I had a cool grouping - migraineur. Sounds like an artiste, like auteur as opposed to the way I've always thought of myself - chick crying in corner with headache. And secondly, when all the rest of you can barely remember your names, I'll be able to find my car keys on a regular basis. Which is extra exciting because I can't find the darn things now. Who knew the auras and the pounding head would one day pay off for me.
I'm off to go stress myself out and drink lots of caffeine just to keep up the good work.
We're number 2!
Or number 10, or something.
So I leave Houston, and they drop from fighting for 1-2 in the most polluted areas category, to completely out of the top 10. But
Pittsburgh rockets to number 2 on the charts.
I wonder how that squares with this being the
10th most livable city in the world.
