The bits and the bytes

I got a head-hunting-ish email last night for a job that does actually sound right up my alley - except for two thing... 1) it would have me working in Bellevue (doing that already, thank) and 2) the very last item under requirements "Diplomacy and grace under pressure". I couldn't get to grace even with medication. Count me the fuck out. Thanks.

Joy of joy... Turns out the Twins suck worse than the Mariners!! I love these guys. We were down by 4 and then kind of legitimately tied up the game for a few innings until finally in the 8th, I guess we wore 'em down and they walked our winning run in for us. I hope slinkr and Kelly had fun at the game.

I got an invitation to a birthday party last night. Rick will be 50 in November and his husband, Jack, is throwing him a giant birthday bash at their home in San Jose. Rick and I went to work at the IBM plant in Charlotte on the same day in 1982. He and Jack had been together then for about 6 months. They were here for a really fun visit in 2001. Jack memorialized it nicely.

I sent Jack a note last night to kind of catch up and I got a reply this morning. Jack has always been my other word for drama. This was in his note this morning "My father contracted leukemia last summer (not a trauma as we weren't that close), but his 4th wife showed up at his death bed trying to become his 6th wife at the last minute."

Mom is going through a bit of a whiney phase. A little passive aggressive whining about everything from the woman who does her nails to the seating in the dining room. My many years of psychology study (Ok, the one course that I barely squeaked out of) leads me to think that it's kind of an unconscious reaction to her most nearby child moving to way past nearby. He and his wife were very good about making the 4 hour drive from Jacksonville, FL to Charleston, SC a lot and particularly whenever Mom needed them. On Friday they are moving to Austin, Texas and I think Mom is a bit lonely and a bit bored.

She and Daddy studied long and hard before picking Charleston as their retirement destination. At the time, I lived in California and my sister lived in a remote part of Washington state and my brother lived in... heck he might have still been in the Navy and on a boat. I can't remember. Anyway, they were told by their friends that they would regret not moving somewhere near their children or at least their grandchildren (my brother's kids lived in Boston with his first wife and my sister's kids live in remote Washington). Oh, no, they said. We have always lived our lives for ourselves and not the kids and we are not going to start that now...

Mom would never in a million years move from where she is now. And she's always been a staunch 'I've made my bed and now I will lie in it regardless' person so passive aggressive whining is about all that's left for her. "I can't get anyone's attention to answer a simple question. But, no, I don't need you to call someone, yet." or "Polly hasn't been around for days so I haven't been able to find out..." (I'm pretty sure Polly was there yesterday morning because I have an email where Mom was complaining that Polly always comes "while I'm trying to get ready to go somewhere.") She'll get over it and I need to make sure it does not grind me down. I also need to remember that she really does not have anyone to complain to except me. I'm lucky enough to have the whole LJ world and beyond as audience for my whining!

Now I need to get to work I have approximately 300+web pages with heavy graphics that have to be cut and pasted into Word doc tables for PDFing - don't even ask. It's continued employment.

The bits and the bytes

I got a head-hunting-ish email last night for a job that does actually sound right up my alley - except for two thing... 1) it would have me working in Bellevue (doing that already, thank) and 2) the very last item under requirements "Diplomacy and grace under pressure". I couldn't get to grace even with medication. Count me the fuck out. Thanks.

Joy of joy... Turns out the Twins suck worse than the Mariners!! I love these guys. We were down by 4 and then kind of legitimately tied up the game for a few innings until finally in the 8th, I guess we wore 'em down and they walked our winning run in for us. I hope slinkr and Kelly had fun at the game.

I got an invitation to a birthday party last night. Rick will be 50 in November and his husband, Jack, is throwing him a giant birthday bash at their home in San Jose. Rick and I went to work at the IBM plant in Charlotte on the same day in 1982. He and Jack had been together then for about 6 months. They were here for a really fun visit in 2001. Jack memorialized it nicely.

I sent Jack a note last night to kind of catch up and I got a reply this morning. Jack has always been my other word for drama. This was in his note this morning "My father contracted leukemia last summer (not a trauma as we weren't that close), but his 4th wife showed up at his death bed trying to become his 6th wife at the last minute."

Mom is going through a bit of a whiney phase. A little passive aggressive whining about everything from the woman who does her nails to the seating in the dining room. My many years of psychology study (Ok, the one course that I barely squeaked out of) leads me to think that it's kind of an unconscious reaction to her most nearby child moving to way past nearby. He and his wife were very good about making the 4 hour drive from Jacksonville, FL to Charleston, SC a lot and particularly whenever Mom needed them. On Friday they are moving to Austin, Texas and I think Mom is a bit lonely and a bit bored.

She and Daddy studied long and hard before picking Charleston as their retirement destination. At the time, I lived in California and my sister lived in a remote part of Washington state and my brother lived in... heck he might have still been in the Navy and on a boat. I can't remember. Anyway, they were told by their friends that they would regret not moving somewhere near their children or at least their grandchildren (my brother's kids lived in Boston with his first wife and my sister's kids live in remote Washington). Oh, no, they said. We have always lived our lives for ourselves and not the kids and we are not going to start that now...

Mom would never in a million years move from where she is now. And she's always been a staunch 'I've made my bed and now I will lie in it regardless' person so passive aggressive whining is about all that's left for her. "I can't get anyone's attention to answer a simple question. But, no, I don't need you to call someone, yet." or "Polly hasn't been around for days so I haven't been able to find out..." (I'm pretty sure Polly was there yesterday morning because I have an email where Mom was complaining that Polly always comes "while I'm trying to get ready to go somewhere.") She'll get over it and I need to make sure it does not grind me down. I also need to remember that she really does not have anyone to complain to except me. I'm lucky enough to have the whole LJ world and beyond as audience for my whining!

Now I need to get to work I have approximately 300+web pages with heavy graphics that have to be cut and pasted into Word doc tables for PDFing - don't even ask. It's continued employment.

Why do people adopt Peeves as pets anyway?

danlmarmot raises such a good point in an entry today. Our local-ish farm where they do it with animals is just too delicious a topic for anyone to leave alone. His entry points to a column in today's paper about a state legislator who is getting all lathered about it. The column has one of my now favorite quotes of all times... "Roach says a bestiality law could save horses, cows and sheep that suffer in silence behind closed barn doors."

I need to log on to my wish list and add an entry so you can GIVE ME A BREAK.

Dan raises the question of motivation behind those who feel compelled to 'speak for the innocent'... I would add the corollary - tragedy prevention. Night after night on the TV news I hear pathetic people who's only justification for being on TV is to 'prevent this tragedy from happening to anyone else.' Yeah right. Like anyone is going to be as stupid as your are OR like that one in 68 billion odds of the freak whatever happening again is going to... I'm not buying it. Sorry.

Let's all get back to watching every old news guy on the planet talk about how there was no better human to ever walk the planet than Peter Jennings. (Thanks, grammardog... Your entry was yet another bright spot in my day.)

This entry has been brought to you by

Why do people adopt Peeves as pets anyway?

danlmarmot raises such a good point in an entry today. Our local-ish farm where they do it with animals is just too delicious a topic for anyone to leave alone. His entry points to a column in today's paper about a state legislator who is getting all lathered about it. The column has one of my now favorite quotes of all times... "Roach says a bestiality law could save horses, cows and sheep that suffer in silence behind closed barn doors."

I need to log on to my wish list and add an entry so you can GIVE ME A BREAK.

Dan raises the question of motivation behind those who feel compelled to 'speak for the innocent'... I would add the corollary - tragedy prevention. Night after night on the TV news I hear pathetic people who's only justification for being on TV is to 'prevent this tragedy from happening to anyone else.' Yeah right. Like anyone is going to be as stupid as your are OR like that one in 68 billion odds of the freak whatever happening again is going to... I'm not buying it. Sorry.

Let's all get back to watching every old news guy on the planet talk about how there was no better human to ever walk the planet than Peter Jennings. (Thanks, grammardog... Your entry was yet another bright spot in my day.)

This entry has been brought to you by

Tokyo, anyone?

If anyone gets even semi-near Akihabara, PLEASE get me one of these not only adorable but also practical - webcam on its own stand. My desk would love it!

Tokyo, anyone?

If anyone gets even semi-near Akihabara, PLEASE get me one of these not only adorable but also practical - webcam on its own stand. My desk would love it!