Change is good.

Ya ever have something that's really not in the right place, and you're constantly knocking it over, tripping over it, etc. And yet you don't move it? You just keep putting it back in the same place?

And then one day, you notice that the item would fit really nicely in this other spot, maybe just inches from the previous one, where you won't have to keep picking it up or cursing from the bruises it keeps inflicting? So, you make this simple little adjustment in placement and then you wonder why it took you a year to notice that you could make that simple little change?

Well, did ya?

Free is always tasty

I probably shouldn't tell you this, since spreading the word will just mean longer lines for me when I go, but today is free cone day at Ben & Jerry's!

I haven't decided if I'll try to get my free cone at lunch or after work, but a free cone will be had. Have you ever had their strawberry ice cream? It's like strawberry heaven in a sugar cone.

I'm tired.

Wow. So, I've really been outta pocket. But in my defense, I was working. Really long days. Mostly on my feet. I'm still pretty tired. So, I just haven't had any blog time. But I'm back! Kinda.

As I said, I'm still pretty tired and not thinking too creatively, but I do have the following thoughts in light of my life the past week:

- At what point do tequila shots outgrow their appeal? For me, it was many, many years ago. Yet I saw grown adults, far older than me, make a big production out of them this weekend. And it was just...sad.

- Why do people think a work-related convention is the same thing as a vacation? I'm not talking about those of us working it. I mean the people attending. People, when you attend a convention with your WORK PEERS, at least attempt to present a professional front. You do or want to do business with the other people attending, right? So, maybe attending a party in clothes you'd wear to a beach party, or worse yet, your boyfriend's kitchen the morning after a big night out, isn't *exactly* appropriate. If I have to sit across from someone in a meeting, I'd prefer not to picture where all their hidden tattoos are.

- Sleep is a beautiful thing.

- Slacker co-workers should be forbidden from speaking in follow-up meetings where you talk about how everything went. If you didn't participate in planning it, and you didn't do any actual work during it, you don't get a critical voice after the fact.

- Sleep is a wonderous and beautful thing.

- That's it for now. I'm tired.

In my email...

Lilian says I should "Buy now, you won't regret!"

Aside from the run-on sentence, which is way wrong, could the sentiment be correct? Is it true that if I buy now, I won't regret? And does that mean that if I buy now, I won't regret ANYTHING? Or I just won't regret my purchase?

And what does "now" mean? Does that mean right now - like by the time I publish the post, it will already be too late? Or does she just mean that this is a time in my life when I should buy - like I should spend freely in my late 30s and early 40s, and all the regrets of a lifetime lived to the fullest, with all the mistakes and bad judgement that entails, will be wiped away?

I think these are clarifications I'm going to need in order to decide if I should, in fact, buy now.

I'm sure someone will be offended.

So, winning Super Bowl quarterback Eli Manning got married this weekend. That's nice. He married his college sweetheart. That's awesome. So much nicer than him getting famous, dumping the girl who has been with him as he rose to fame and hooking up with whatever supermodel or actress crosses his path on a given week.

But. Apparently, they had a wedding registry. Really, guys? A registry? You honestly thought it was cool to ask people to buy you stuff?

Let's visit the concept of the registry for a sec. The original intent of wedding gifts was to help a young couple setup house. Presumably, they were coming from either their parents' homes or spartan bachelor/bachelorette pads, and the young lovers would need things to set up a real house - dishes, a toaster, towels. The idea was that they were starting with nothing and didn't have the money to buy their own stuff. So, family and friends would help get them started.

Does Eli Manning really not have the resources to get started in his married life? Does he seriously need to hit up family and friends to buy his dishes for him?

I gotta tell ya. I think it's lame when grown-up people with grown-up bank accounts ask wedding guests to buy them presents. And if they're two grownups with their own houses that they'll be merging, presumably meaning they're going to be throwing away redundant stuff, and what they're really doing is asking you to buy them better stuff to replace the stuff they'll be throwing away...well...come on.

In this era when a lot of people are getting married later in life, after they're established and successful, and when people are frequently on second and third marriages, wouldn't it be a lot cooler to not ask for gifts? Buy your own stuff. After a certain age, it shouldn't be about how much loot you can get. It should be about people you love celebrating with you that you've found someone to share your life with - a life that's already filled with plenty of "stuff."

And if you just can't stand the idea that people don't pony up something to attend the celebration of your commitment, then how about you set up a few accounts that people can donate to good causes through? Not just one, mind you, but a few different ones so people can choose what cause they'd like to support. It'd kind of be like paying forward the good fortune you're celebrating. Your significant other has made your life better and in honor/celebration of that, you'd like to make someone else's life a little better - share the wealth.

I'm sure I'm pissing off someone who married later in life and had a registry, but it's just an idea.

I'm like the Matrix.

You never know how fast you can move until a full-size bat comes flying right at your face.

We had another flying mammal visitor in our office this afternoon, and this time he did more than just hang in the hallway. He actually flew around our office. And he was huge.

I'm part cat, so my curiosity made it impossible for me to just shut my office door and let things play out. I had to go look. And when I did, Mr. Bat divebombed me. Twice. I doubt it was intentional. If I had to guess, he was as freaked out as we were and just wanted out.

But I gotta tell you, you have no idea how flexible and fast you are until a bat is taking aim at you. They're quick. And wiley. This one came zooming out of one office (the one NEXT to the office where there's a door leading outside) right at me, and I hit the floor. Not forward, like I'm sliding into a base, but backwards, like Neo in the Matrix. Except Neo didn't actually hit the ground - he just leaned way back and held. I didn't hold.

But I have the admiration of my co-workers for both my gymnastic-like quality hitting the deck and the fact that I could get up afterward. I don't think I pulled any muscles, but my wrists are kind of sore.

I think the best part of the whole experience, though, was the way our one co-worker (the one who eventually caught the bat when he finally tuckered out and landed on an inbox, panting) kept saying to us all, "Just relax!" Ummm...no.

Ah, mothers.

My mom cracks me up. I noticed I had a missed call today on my cell phone. My mom. No message.

So, I call her back, and she says that she'd had some missed calls on her cell phone, and they didn't leave a message, and she was wondering if it was me (she said something about not having caller ID, which I know she has on that phone, so I don't know what she was talking about with that, but I'll take her word for it that she couldn't tell who had called). Nope, not me.

She then proceeds to complain about this person not leaving a message. It was all I could do to not say, "You mean like you didn't leave one when you called me?"

Changed my mind

Okay, Judy - I changed my post, so no need to comment about the fact that I changed my post. I hit "publish" then realized I wanted to link to a story in the post, couldn't find the story, then lost steam and decided to just post about something else. Something less inflammatory.

So, here is my new post. Yesterday, I stopped at one of my favorite coffee shops to do a little writing on my laptop. I ordered my coffee, and the barista (actually, the manager of the shop - someone new with too much enthusiasm) asked for my name to put it on my cup so they could bring it to me.

My name is not that complicated. Suzanne. Not Susan. Not Suanne. Not Betty. But for some reason, people have trouble with it, so if someone gets close, I respond. After the manager had someone else make my coffee, the someone else brought it to me. She said something that resembled my name, and I took my drink, only to realize with one look that it wasn't mine. It belonged to the girl next to me, who almost panicked when she realized I'd gotten her drink.

Calm. Down.

I handed it to the neighbor, who hastily grabbed it without a thank-you and turned her attention back to some notebook she was writing in. My drink came out shortly afterward, still with the wrong name attached, and I couldn't help but wonder if this whole process was really necessary. Does the barista need my name, and does everyone in the coffee shop need to know it when they call it out, trying to find the right customer for each cup of java? Wouldn't it be better to just have a pickup station, like Starbucks, and instead of calling out my name, call out the name of the drink you just made? If it's not my drink, I don't make the mistake of testing it to find that out, and everyone in the shop doesn't have to know my name, and I don't have to flag you down as you wander the shop looking for a home for the drink you made.

I guess it's some marketing thing - trying to give it the personal touch and make me think you know me and want a personal relationship with me so I'll always come to your shop and consider myself a "regular." Well, this isn't Cheers and I'm not Norm. I just want my coffee and my privacy. And you're not going to get my name right anyway, so all you really do is annoy me. Let's go back to our old, anti-social relationship, coffee shop. I order. I pay. You make it. You hand it to me. And that's it. We know nothing about one another and like it that way.

Hey, I've been very busy.

Good lord, I'm dropping the ball! It's been a week since my last post. I've been getting ready for a big work conference, and I've been neglecting the blog. I know - I need to get my priorities straight!

Let's see. What is there to report since the last blog? Well, I haven't attempted any baking, except for some tostadas, and I wasn't completely thrilled with the outcome on those - the cheese didn't melt the way I like. That might have been a cheese issue rather than an oven issue, though. Not sure.

Watched some movies. Downloaded some music. Sang. Danced. Took photos. Rode a bike. Worked. Shopped. Killed varmints and insects who THOUGHT they wanted to live in my house (Homey don't play dat). Didn't wear makeup yesterday. Drank less caffeine and suffered no ill effects, meaning...I don't have to drink less caffeine!! Took a nap (not at work). Bought some new stock.

All in all, an eventful week. And yet, here I am, a week older, and I feel no different.

Nobody wants baked "crappys" - they want baked "goods"

I don't know what's going on, but I've contracted some sort of disease that's fatal to baking efforts. By this I mean that I've suddenly become unable to bake. By this I mean that everytime I bake something lately, it goes horribly wrong. And I'm following the recipe on stuff I've made successfully before!

How does that happen?

I mean, I've made this stuff before - in the kitchen I currently use, with my current oven, etc. Yet, a batch of my favorite cookies, instead of baking into perfect little rounds of lemony citrus heaven melted all over the cookie sheet, burning on the edges and just barely cooking in the center. It was embarrassing, but I figured I'd just tried to make them too big or something. An anomaly! A one-time screw-up! But I was wrong.

This weeked, I tried to make a cake. Again, this is a cake I've made before. It's simple - just your basic vanilla cake. Nothing fancy or complicated. I followed the recipe, and when I looked at the batter, it was all soupy. Hmmmm. That ain't right. I double-checked the portions listed in the cookbook. I double-checked the utensils I'd used ("I did put in a CUP of that, right?"). All was as indicated. Okay. Well. Maybe it's...supposed to be...soupy.

It wasn't. What came out of the oven looked okay on the surface, but when you cut into it, it was a dense, vanilla cake-brick. With lemon icing. Because I iced it before cutting into it to make sure it was okay. It all went down the garbage disposal when even my starving-artist musician boyfriend said he couldn't eat it. I'm pretty sure hobos would've turned up their noses.

So, I ask you: what the hell? Someone asked me if the temperature could be screwed up on my oven, but if I'm cooking something like a main dish, it works just fine. It's just baking - cookies and cakes.

Do you think it's voodoo? And if so, who is doing it and why? If it's you, I'm sorry for whatever I did to offend you - really I am. The fact that I don't know what I did is in no way an indication that I'm not sorry for it. So will you please give me back my crazy pastry chef skillz?

Reviews

Got a couple of reviews to hand out for things I've tried or watched this week.

First is a movie review. I watched "Marie Antoinette" last night. Yeah, I know - I'm on the front line, watching only the latest releases. Let's just accept I don't watch everything first-run at the theater and move on to my review, kay?

This movie was released in 2006 with Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman and some other recognizable names. I wanted to like it. I liked the cast and I like the Marie Antoinette story. She reminds me of Princess Di - an innocent lamb led to the slaughter of a sophisticated royal system she didn't really understand and didn't navigate that well, ending in an untimely death. Obviously there are differences, but certainly there are similarities.

Anyway, I wanted to like it. I tried to like it. But sheeeeeeeeesh. They really drug the hell out of a lot of scenes. They spent 2-3 times longer than needed on just about every point, showing you that she was vulnerable, showing you she liked the gardens - HOW much time did we spend watching her climb stairs??? The one really hot scene, with her having a tryst with her Swedish soldier lover - that lasted about 2 seconds. But let's spend endless minutes showing people at a picnic engaged in banal chatter. Yeah, let's take the audience through that - repeatedly.

So, I gotta say, I can't really recommend it. It only lasted 2 hours but felt much longer. And that's usually not what you're after in a movie.

The second thing I have to review is pizza. Someone brought our office some free pizza today. It was from Gatti's, and it was some new flavor called Kicken Chicken. They should've called it Bacon Kicken Chicken's Ass, because all you could really taste was the bacon that was also on there. Oh, and onions - it had a lot of red onions. It had a lot of flavor, and I liked it at first, but it was really salty, and after two pretty small pieces, I had to eat some cherry yogurt to get the taste of something sweet. The salty and savory of the pizza was pretty overpowering.

I didn't hate it, but I wouldn't order it. Maybe if it were on their buffet, I'd get a small slice. Of course, if I'm ordering pizza, I'm not ordering Gatti's anyway. If I'm ordering it's Papa John's or Domino's. Papa John's is definitely my first choice for pizza, but Domino's is also good AND has the super-spectacular Cinnastix, so order either of those and you're a champ.

Maybe I should stay in town more

I've been on the road a lot lately, and when you spend a lot of time driving, you become aware of things...like how often you make trips to the wee-wee room.

I should've already been aware of this considering how often I have to get up in the night, but I can do that only half-conscious. When you're driving, you've got to be awake and aware. And sometimes, on certain stretches of highway, the thing you're most aware of is how long it is between rest stops.

It's a safety issue, really. There are few things more distracting than a full bladder pressing on your entire lower body. I tried to pump gas not too long ago while in the throes of desperate need-to-peeage, and I made a mess of the whole process. Some toothless women working at the convenience store where I'd stopped had to come out and tell me how to operate the pump. Because I was stupid with agony.

So, it was satisfaction that while running errands at lunch today, I realized how completely comfortable it is to tool around in your car when you don't have to go to the bathroom. I actually took a moment to be present with calm sensation of the absence of urge.

And then I thought perhaps I've been spending too much time on the highways and byways when I'm actually aware of the fact that I'm operating my car and don't have to pee.