Decking the Halls

When I was apartment hunting in June, I had three requirements for my new abode: there had to be a discreet, yet accessible, place for the kitty's litter box; there had to be ample closet space, preferably of the walk-in variety; and, most important, there had to be a suitable place for a Christmas tree.

I managed to find all three, complete with high ceilings to accommodate said Christmas tree, which now holds a place of honor in my front window.

As anyone who has ever spent a weekend unpacking six boxes of assorted holiday decor can attest, Christmas trees can be a lot of work. But they create such fond memories, especially when you have a live tree, which leaves so many reminders for you to enjoy all year long. Last year, my boyfriend carried out the post-Christmas tree while I was doing laundry, so I'm I still finding dried needles in the bottom of my hamper. Nothing like finding a pine needle stuck through your sock -- in March -- to put you in the Christmas spirit all over again.

When I first moved out after college, I decided that I would have a sophisticated, grown-up Christmas tree. My family's tree had always been a hodgepodge of things-the-kids-made-in- school, cute character ornaments depicting our favorite fads and hobbies, and a glorious assortment of mis-matched other stuff. I, as a mature single woman, envisioned a tree straight out of a department store display, with a perfectly coordinated color scheme. Even if nothing else in my apartment matched, unless you counted the fact that all the furniture was plastic.

My vision began to take shape at a "Christmas in July" sale, where I carefully matched a maroon, gold, and green velvet tree skirt to a tree-topper angel in a maroon and gold gown. Next stop: the annual flea market in my old hometown, where I would craft my masterpiece by starting with the "extra" Christmas stuff that my mother planned to sell. As we began to sort through her boxes, I reminded my mother that I was firmly committed to my chosen, and appropriately traditional, colors of maroon, green, and gold. And then I found the rocking horse ornament that I had painted for her in third grade.

"You can't sell this! I made this for you!"

My mother assured me that there was absolutely no more room in the attic for Christmas ornaments, and she simply had to part with this particular treasure. I decided that if I replaced the frayed ribbon hanger with a tasteful new gold one, it would be a "whimsical" addition to my still designer-esque tree. And then I unwrapped the Sesame Street ornaments.

"You can't sell these! We've had these since I was a baby! These have to be on the tree!"

"If they mean that much to you, you should take them for your tree," my wise and oh-so-sneaky mother replied.

"But they don't match! They're not my colors! My tree won't be perfect if I use them." And then I realized that my tree could never be perfect without them, either. I heaved a deep sigh and watched my dreams of sophistication and style float away like Big Bird's feather on a breeze.

So my tree's Sesame Street neighborhood is right around the corner from where the Tasmanian Devil chases the Coca-Cola polar bears and Pooh and Piglet walk hand in hand. Santa Claus strikes poses, not only in his red suits, but in Hawaiian shirts and cowboy boots. My favorite fads and hobbies are all depicted, from the dozen or so cross-stitch ornaments I've made, to assorted ballerinas and toe shoes (including Clara and her Nutcracker that I bought in Williamsburg when I was 13), to cats of all shapes and sizes, including the one that was a Christmas present from my mom to her favorite four-legged grandson last year.

My trees, I am proud to say, are never completely without touches of sophistication, provided by a beautiful brass butterfly from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a couple of Waterford ornaments that the cat hasn't broken yet (knock on tree trunk wood), and the delicate bone china snowflakes that my grandmother bought 15 or 20 years ago at a day-after-Christmas sale at our favorite department store. Being a lighting designer, I'm a big fan of "crystal" ornaments that catch all of the colors of seven strings of carefully-placed lights (including those with the chili-pepper covers). The tree-topper angel still matches the velvet tree skirt, but at the moment the latter is mostly hidden by Goofy in a Santa suit, the Velveteen Rabbit in a stocking, and the frog that used to croak "Jingle Bells." If I ever get around to actually wrapping the Christmas presents I bought, I'll have to put those down there, too.

My ornaments were all carefully selected, not to evoke comparisons to Martha Stewart, but to bring back memories of who and where they came from. Like the handmade Eagles helmet from my best friend, the painted seashell from Gulf Shores, and the French Quarter-style house with glowing windows that was part of my economic redevelopment mission in New Orleans. There's a delicate brass rendering of the FitzRandolph gates that my mom bought me just after I finally walked through them after four years of college and a by-the-skin-of-my-teeth graduation. The rocking horse ornament I painted in third grade is joined by one that my grandmother gave me a couple years later and a cowboy boot from a friend. And my very favorite '70's relic: a fuzzy pink ball covered in spangles.

This year is the first time that I've ever had the 360-degree tree experience. My trees have always had their "backs" to a wall, which comes in handy when you have to tie one off to keep it from falling over (more on that in another post). But this year, the "back" of the tree is facing the window and looking out over the street in front of my apartment building. And all of the passers-by will see colorful lights reflecting in elegant gold, silver, and crystal clear ornaments, and they will, I am sure, think "what a sophisticated and stylish tree." But the real fun is on the other side.

Back into the wake of the storm...

Started this while I was away and never quite finished. Had better things to do,

like watch the sun rise...	...and set...
...and take long walks on the beach.

It had been over a year since I'd been on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Last time, a year ago September, I went through Gulfport and Biloxi on my way to a Labor Day weekend in Fort Walton Beach. The bridge between Biloxi and Ocean Springs wasn't rebuilt then, so I had to make a u-turn in front of the not-yet-open Hard Rock Casino and go back to I-10. This time, both the Hard Rock and the bridge were open for business.

The first time I came back to the coast after Katrina was in March of 2006. I spent a week in New Orleans volunteering and doing my part to stimulate the local economy (I ate and shopped a LOT). On my way back home, I decided to drive through Mississippi to Highway 49, to see what was left of the small beach towns I had come to love.

I'd never been to the Mississippi Gulf Coast before my boyfriend suggested a "getaway weekend" for our first New Year's Eve together. We made the long drive down to the coast on New Year's Eve, and ate a late dinner at the Fire Dog Saloon in Bay St. Louis. By the time we got to our motel, we were so tired that I set the alarm clock for midnight so that we wouldn't miss it. We wandered all over the coast for the next few days, to a beach in Pass Christian, a casino bar in Biloxi, Cafe du Monde and the French Quarter in New Orleans. I made my boyfriend jog off his hangover from the motel to the coffee shop, and he made me go to the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library (where not a peep came from my Yankee lips for fear of being discovered). I fell in love that weekend, with the old town charm of Bay St. Louis, the beautiful beachfront houses in Pass Christian, and even with Beauvoir, home of the Jefferson Davis Library. We even managed to sunbathe on a beach that was protected from the winter breeze. Most of all, I loved driving along Beach Boulevard and staring out the window at the white sand beach and the beautiful blue waters of the Mississippi Sound.

I knew coming back after Katrina would be hard. I didn't realize that I wouldn't recognize anything at all, that I'd be completely lost as I drove through Waveland to Bay St. Louis, that there wouldn't be a single landmark until I reached St. Stanislaus. Past that point, Beach Boulevard was gone, so I made my way up and down unmarked streets until suddenly I was stopped beside the Fire Dog Saloon. Through the empty doors and windows you could still see the dalmatian spots painted on walls inside. And then all the memories that I'll never get back came crashing down around me.

Back in town a year-and-a-half later, some things have changed. Beach Boulevard is reassembled but vacant, and the bridge between Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian is new and stronger and taller. There are still many empty lots, but there are some houses, too, even though they're standing on streets with no signs. I recognized an old favorite restaurant in a new location, but the Fire Dog, still minus its windows, is for sale now, despite its website's promise to return stronger than ever.

It was close to sunset by the time I drove back over the new bridge into Pass Christian, and I started looking for a place to park near the beach. The road I was on just sort of stopped, so I left my car at the end. The path I followed led to a sort of a ridge; it probably led out to a pier before Katrina. To my left, the sand was black-streaked and dirty, and some kind of construction equipment was parked on the beach. But to my right, the white sand reflected every color of the sky and the water glittered. I walked down onto the sand to watch the sun sink into the Gulf. As I headed back to my car, I noticed that the beach was perfectly protected -- by the little ridge and a small hill that had once led to a very large house -- for sunbathing. Even in January. And suddenly I realized that I'd managed to find my way back into a memory after all.

Make Art, Not War

Last Thursday I broke my rule about getting out of bed before the sun comes up in order to put in some early-morning work on the high school production of Carousel that I just finished. It was more of a roller coaster than a merry-go-round ride, which is why I'm just now getting around to writing this post, but all's well that ends well, as Shakespeare put it.

I stopped into the high school office that morning to identify myself as a "visitor" (solidifying my claim on the Visitor's parking spot that I had snagged) and discovered that someone else had plans for the auditorium that morning: the U.S. Army was there to administer the ASVAB test. Not only would my plans to fine-tune the stage lighting be distracting, my very presence in the room -- even in the ceiling two stories up -- would be "a violation of federal law."

The school receptionist seemed sympathetic to my cause (the show opened that night, and I was running short on time), but the rather self-important-seeming Army recruiter wasn't interested in compromise. I told her that I'd be glad to turn the lights back on when she was ready to start her test, and headed out of the office before she could finish protesting.

The gym teacher eyed me suspiciously as I made my way to the auditorium. "You're not a student here, are you?" she asked uncertainly, dispelling once and for all my illusions that I look distinguished and professional in a pantsuit. "No," I replied, "they're all out of visitors' badges." She didn't look entirely convinced, but at least she didn't insist that I report to my homeroom teacher for a hall pass.

A few minutes later I had ascended to my perch in the auditorium ceiling and was in the process of hanging a disco ball when someone called my name from the stage below. "They said to tell the 'little girl' who's doing the lights that the Army is going to give their test somewhere else."

"Little girl," one. U. S. Army, zero. Not a bad way to start the day.

My Matchmaker Moment

I went to one of my favorite bars last Friday night, which is significant because said bar is over an hour away from my humble abode, so it's not one that I frequent. Not that I frequent bars, of course.

At said bar, I was talking off and on throughout the evening to an older gentleman. We started out laughing about a guy who tried to pick me up with a line older than I am, and gradually progressed to talking about relationships, our respective failed marriages, and the sad state of courtship today.

During our last conversation, the music turned to a slow song. I watched out of the corner of my eye as a woman seated near us at the bar cast a few quick, sidelong glances at my oblivious new acquaintance. After a few moments, I couldn't resist leaning over to whisper in his ear that his lady friend wanted him to ask her to dance. He immediately looked doubtful and replied that she would never dance with him. At the same moment, the lady in question glanced furtively in our direction once again, and I almost laughed out loud as I assured him that, oh, yes, she most definitely would. He looked quickly and not quite furtively at her, and then back at me, and confided that he was "not much for dancing." I reminded him that he had two perfectly good feet, and not much more than that was required. Then I excused myself to step away, sit back, and watch.

For a minute, I didn't think it would happen. Then he turned around in his seat to shoot me a look that was somewhere between dumbfounded and terrified, and I responded with my best "what are you waiting for?" glare. Another long moment, a "what-the-hell" shrug, and my new friend FINALLY asked his probably-long-suffering lady friend to dance.

I watched them make their way to the dance floor, and flashed my friend a final thumbs-up before I headed for the door. I'll probably never know how it turned out, but I like to think that maybe I started something good.

So what's it all about?

I mentioned to a co-worker recently that I have a blog, albeit a much-neglected one. Her immediate question was "What do you write about?" Hmm... a very good question, considering that I barely write at all. I think if I had to limit my musings and ramblings to any one topic, I probably would never write at all.

So what do I blog about? Maybe the better question is, what did I think I was going to blog about? I guess I thought I was a much more interesting person when I started this. And maybe I was, since at that point I was a suburban Yankee refugee living in the sticks in almost-nowhere Mississippi, which was at least marginally humorous, if not all that interesting.

I didn't think I would write about my personal struggles, except to poke fun at them, because I didn't want to have a whiny blog. I was mindlessly browsing blogs one night, and I found one written by a woman who did nothing but complain about her job and her supervisor. Every post -- and she wrote a lot more than I probably ever will -- was a tirade about her boss. I guess it's cheaper than therapy. Which, come to think of it, would be a really good name for a blog. Or that tell-all book I'm going to write one of these days. Except I really imagined that my memoir and each of its chapters would all have the titles of country songs, and each one would start with a few lines from the song. They could even use actual clips of the song when they publish it as an audiobook. Or a podcast, or whatever they're doing to books by that time.

The chapter about this week would have to be called "Songs About Rain," because that's all it's done for three whole days. Last Sunday I was sitting on my back deck enjoying my last naive glimmer of hope that the Eagles might have a decent season after all. It was about 80 degrees and I was loving life in the South. Now it's 52 and it'll be 46 by morning. My apologies to the people in California who would probably really like the seven inches of rain (OK, I'm exaggerating) we've gotten this week. I'd gladly send it to you if I could. But for now I'm going to go home and try to find some sweaters. And see if I can figure out what it's really all about.

There are just some things...

... you shouldn't put into a bathtub. Hairdryers, radios, toasters, cats -- and ladders. Ladders do not work well in bathtubs, regardless of whether or not there's a bath in the tub. How do I know this? Because I tried it, of course.

Anyone who's talked to me recently has been subconsciously waiting for the wallpaper post. They knew it would be coming sooner or later. And I would never disappoint...

Two days after the bottom dropped out of the mortgage market, my boyfriend decided that he wanted to sell his house. For the first time in recorded history, every economist in America is in agreement on a single point: now is THE WORST possible time since the Great Depression to even dream about selling a house. But my boyfriend has never before let common sense get in the way of his enthusiasm. Why start now?

Fresh from many nights of HGTV research, I compiled a five-page pre-sale to-do list. I figure that by the time we get it done, the housing market will be well on its way to a rebound. Or the house will have fallen down.

First on my list: the wallpaper has to go. I convinced my boyfriend on this point with my large, and still growing, collection of quotes on how much homebuyers hate wallpaper. I had no idea how much I would come to hate wallpaper. Someone else who had lived in the house before had liked wallpaper, but apparently another someone did not, because he or she had painted over the old wallpaper. My boyfriend subsequently made a paint-and-wallpaper sandwich. And now it was up to me to clean the plate.

The kitchen wasn't that bad, mostly because I got to leave large piles of soggy, shredded, sticky paper all over every inch of countertop and most of the floor. My boyfriend is, by his own admission, obsessive-compulsive about cleaning his kitchen. So obsessive, in fact, that he's never actually cooked in the kitchen, because he doesn't like to mess it up. Not to worry, I had no such qualms. After all, I got to go home and cook in my own kitchen without being afraid that I'd end up picking wallpaper out of my dinner.

My boyfriend, being obsessive-compulsive, rarely cares to engage in projects that may upset his well-ordered world. I learned very quickly that the best way to cajole him into action was to start the upsetting process in as dramatic and disruptive a way as I could manage. That way, he'd have to finish the project as soon as possible to restore his order to my chaos. Hence, I started the de-flowering (as in magnolia-print) of the bathroom by tugging at a large piece of wallpaper that had already started to come loose above the shower. I left it hanging as obtrusively as possible, and waited for nature to take its course. Two days later, the vast majority of the magnolias had vanished, leaving behind a sticky residue of wallpaper glue that became my next home improvement project.

I came armed with iPod, scrapers, sponges, and a ladder. Six hours later, all of the above -- and every inch of me -- were covered in a sticky residue of wallpaper glue. Not that it stopped the ladder from sliding around in the bathtub, of course. There are just some things...

In Remembrance

Today I'm wearing my little American flag pin (and a matching belly button ring, but I digress...). Not because I'm particularly patriotic, but because a friend gave it to me not long after 9/11 and I've worn it every year since.

It's not that I need a reminder, because I still remember that day, and those that followed it, very vividly. I remember getting into my truck on my way to a class that I was taking and punching the radio station presets looking for music. I changed stations as I drove, quickly at first, then more slowly, going from being annoyed to puzzled to horrified to blocking traffic. And then the second tower fell, and I pulled onto a side street and called my then-husband. "Is this real?" I asked, changing stations quickly once again in the hopes that someone might say it wasn't.

I remember parking in the mud and walking to class, certain that it would be canceled. Surely the whole world must be stopping... But not here, and I sat through class making a list of all of the people that I wanted to track down from wherever I had lost touch with them. At the end of class one of the other students was talking about a relative that he'd managed to contact, and the horror of what he'd been told. The girl sitting behind me had no idea what he was talking about, and I had to explain to her that the world had changed forever while she was putting on her makeup.

I remember sending emails and making calls, then waiting to see if they'd let me give blood (still didn't weigh enough). A man kept persistently asking if his blood would go to New York, as if the people here who might need it weren't deserving enough. The nurse patiently explained, repeatedly, that she could not personally put his blood on a plane and send it to New York because there were no planes flying at the moment, but she would put it to good use somewhere.

In the days that followed, I spent a lot of time online, talked to my high school boyfriend, and helped pack trucks of supplies that went to New York. I remember thinking how quiet it was in Memphis (home of FedEx) when planes didn't fly, and how inexplicably emotional it was, standing in line to get into my favorite bar, to watch a plane fly low overhead with a deafening roar. And I remember the punch-to-the-gut-like-feeling when I found out that I had lost a college classmate.

Bob wasn't someone that I knew very well, but I had met him at summer-before-freshman -year "getting-to-know-you" events because we both lived in the Philly 'burbs. He was someone I remembered instantly by both name and face (and I'm notoriously bad at not being able to put faces with names), someone I remembered as being quiet and friendly and maybe just as slightly overwhelmed as I was.

I went to New York with a firefighter friend that December, the first time for both of us. We stayed away from downtown by unspoken agreement. It was over a year later before I went to Ground Zero, walked along the fences, looked for Bob's name and others that I remembered hearing or reading. I tried to figure out where I had once bought tickets at TKTS or emerged from the PATH train trying to look like I knew where I was going. I wished that I'd given in to the temptation to stop and stare upward and be awestruck instead of worrying so much that someone might think that I was lost.

Back in Philly last November, I decided to do just that: to stop and stare and openly read my tourist map to find things I'd never seen in the city that I claim as home (though after yesterday I'm fixin' to disown the football team). I found my way to the new Constitution Center and, after a long afternoon touring the permanent exhibits, to 9/11: A Nation Remembers. A hundred photographs by Jonathan Hyman depicted memorials of every shape, size, and material: from honorary street signs to custom Harleys. In his photos, colorful murals covered walls and elaborate tattoos covered bodies of friends and relatives. And in one photo, Bob's name and face surprised me with that punch-in-the-gut-feeling once again.

If I had read the caption before looking at the photo, had known that the mural it showed came from a wall in Philly, I would have been prepared, would have known what I was looking for, as I did that day at Ground Zero. Even walking through the exhibit that day, I'd hoped to see a name that I recognized, to make a connection. But somehow I wasn't at all prepared when it happened.

I was thinking about writing this post yesterday afternoon (if I did as much actual writing as I do thinking about writing, this blog wouldn't look nearly as neglected) when I got a text message from a friend. The gist of the message was "At some point in your life you see who really matters. Send this message to those people. I just did." And now I am, too.

The Un-Civil War

My mother sent me this humorous gem this morning, which promises to
"clearly explain" the difference between the North and the South.
Since I've become such an expert on the topic in the last seven years,
I figured I should add my two cents.

The North has Bloomingdale's, the South has Dollar General. Yes, but
smart people everywhere shop at Target.

The North has coffee houses, the South has Waffle Houses. And don't let
their bragging fool you, the only "best" thing about Waffle House coffee
is that it's hot and relatively fresh at 3 a.m.

The North has dating services, the South has family reunions. Couldn't
comment; I don't have any relatives in the South to date.

The North has switchblade knives; the South has Lee Press-on Nails. 
Which only goes to prove that Southern females are far more deadly that
than their male counterparts.

The North has double last names; the South has double first names. And
unfortunate hybrid offspring need extra space at the top of the page to
write their names.

The North has Indy car races; The South has stock car races. Not so sure
that this is true any more, given that NASCAR races in New Hampshire and
Michigan and you can't go too much further north than that.

North has Cream of Wheat, the South has grits. And neither one of them is
the least bit appetizing.

The North has green salads, the South has collard greens. One comes with
bacon bits, the other comes with bacon grease.

The North has lobsters, the South has crawfish. McDonald's has yet to offer
a Southern counterpart to the McLobster Roll I had in Massachusetts, but they
do sell sweet tea.

The North has the rust belt; the South has the Bible Belt. The South IS the
Bible Belt. And it gets tighter all the time.

The forwarded email also offered this advice "for northerners moving south":

In the South: If you run your car into a ditch, don't panic. Four men in a four-
wheel drive pickup truck with a tow chain will be along shortly. Don't try to help
them, just stay out of their way. This is what they live for. Unless, of course,
you run off the road in a snowstorm. You're out of luck then, because
everyone is at the grocery store.

Don't be surprised to find movie rentals and bait in the same store. Do not buy
food at this store. In general, it's a bad idea to buy food -- especially sushi --
at any store that sells bait.

Remember, "Y'all" is singular, "all y'all" is plural, and "all y'all's" is plural
possessive. Once you've mastered this, the rest is a piece of cake.

Get used to hearing "You ain't from round here, are ya?" And get used to the idea
that someday you'll be hearing yourself say it to someone, too.

Save all manner of bacon grease. You will be instructed later on how to use it.
See the explanation of green salads vs. collard greens.

Don't be worried at not understanding what people are saying. They can't
understand you either. The first Southern statement to creep into a transplanted
Northerner's vocabulary is the adjective "big'ol," truck or "big'ol" boy. Most
Northerners begin their Southern-influenced dialect this way. All of them are in
denial about it. I actually started with "y'all," followed by "fixin' to." And I
denied heartily until I went back up North and they couldn't understand me,
either.

The proper pronunciation you learned in school no longer applies. Especially if
you learned your proper pronunciation with a non-Southern accent. Re-
exposing yourself to your native tongue can be hazardous. Visiting my mom
and listening to Eagles games on 'YSP tends to bring out my Philly accent
loud and clear, but it's a temporary, and ultimately confusing, effect.

Be advised that "He needed killin'." is a valid defense here. No Twinkies or PMS
required. Although I personally will not need any of the above, because a jury
of my peers -- twelve girls who've dated my boyfriend -- would never convict.

If you hear a Southerner exclaim, "Hey, y'all watch this," you should stay out of
the way. These are likely to be the last words he'll ever say. Just duck and run.
Don't even look back.

If there is the prediction of the slightest chance of even the smallest accumulation
of snow, your presence is required at the local grocery store. It doesn't matter
whether you need anything or not. You just have to go there. And when you get
there, you will find that the shelves are completely barren of toilet paper,
white bread, and bottled water.

Do not be surprised to find that 10-year olds own their own shotguns, they are
proficient marksmen, and their mammas taught them how to aim. They also
have a complete wardrobe of camouflage and fluorescent orange. Camouflage
for girls comes in shades of pink, in case they need to disappear into a vat
of cotton candy.

In the South, we have found that the best way to grow a lush green lawn is to
pour gravel on it and call it a driveway. Maybe that's what my boyfriend
should do with his front yard. Planting grass seed in the dead of summer and
standing out in the 110-degree heat with a garden hose didn't seem to do it.

And remember, if you do settle in the South and bear children, don't think we will
accept them as Southerners. After all, if the cat had kittens in the oven, we
wouldn't call 'em biscuits. Even if their names are Joe-Bob and Lila-Sue.

Like all emails destined to become burdens on the bandwidth of our servers,
this message concluded with instructions: 

Send this to four people that ain't related to you, and I reckon your life will turn
into a country music song 'fore you know it.

My life already is a country music song. It's called T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

Troubled Bridge Over Water

CNN reports that the I-40 bridge -- a/k/a the "New Bridge" -- over the Mississippi River has been closed because part of it sunk three inches. Traffic is, of course, being diverted to the "Old Bridge." Makes you feel really safe, especially since they built the "New Bridge" because there was too much traffic on the "Old Bridge."

My boyfriend has a paranoid phobia of bridges, which pre-dates, but has been greatly magnified by, the Minnesota bridge collapse. He didn't mention the Minnesota bridge to me until about two days after it happened, so I thought at first that he'd somehow managed not to hear about it. I thought maybe his co-workers, out of sympathy for his fears, had decided to carefully shield him from this disturbing news. Not so much. When we finally did talk about it, he said that his boss had yelled "Hey, come in here, you gotta see this!" as soon as he came into the office the morning after the disaster. My boyfriend was, of course, greatly traumatized.

So I am now actively in the market for a raft, suitable for carrying one traumatized boyfriend, one incredibly patient girlfriend, and a pick-up truck across the Mississippi River when necessary. Post replies here.

I really should be better at this

Especially since I very, very jokingly nominated myself for "Best Memphis Blog" in the Flyer's poll. Guess I've been pouring too much creative energy into HGTV-inspired decorating binges and not enough into here. Cable and a new apartment are a bad combination. Not that my cable works all that well, which is why the cable man cometh BACK to my apartment this Friday. Just in time for football season.

So life back in the big bad city hasn't been nearly as exciting as I should be making it, but I'm using the ridiculously hot weather as an excuse, at least for now. At least I know I have at least until October to come up with a better one. And a better excuse for why I haven't joined a gym, started going to church, found some new places to hang out. Well, some place other than the finally-painted furniture on my porch where it's too hot to sit outside. Tonight's exciting plans? Laundry, and lots of it. Sigh. No wonder I'm so bad at this.

Single in the City

Life's good in the big city. My apartment is still full of boxes, and my refrigerator is still empty save for a beer and leftover hot wings. But I now have a microwave, and a broom, and a brand-new bed with a brand-new comforter and a bunch of those matching throw pillows that I've always wanted to have but never bothered to buy.

I'm also digging through a mountain of boxes rescued from my storage unit, many of which I haven't seen or touched in about three years. It's a little bit like Christmas, especially when I found my favorite coffee mug with Santa's sleigh crashed into an outhouse and Santa yelling, "Dammit, Rudolph, I said the SCHMITT house!" Life's little pleasures...

I have to put in a plug for my friend's first novel, Into the Wild, which was released today. Sarah Beth Durst (I knew her way back when she was Sarah Angelini and writing plays for college theater) is incredibly talented and really just one of the best people you could ever hope to meet. Especially when you're a timid college freshman working on your first production (I was a stagehand, and I got to play a maid in one scene). Sarah and her book deserve their own post, devoid of off-color humor about flying reindeer, and I will do my best to write them one soon. The cable guy cometh to my apartment this Saturday, and I'll be back online for real then. In the meantime, check out www.sarahbethdurst.com.

VacationBlog, Interrupted

Someday I promise I will finish the tale of my vacation adventures. But, as I said, so much for plans.

I returned from vacation a day late, because I foolishly violated the fourth rule of travel:

• Never book yourself on the last flight out of town; it WILL be cancelled.

But I did get back, and now I'm off on a new adventure. After two years, two months, and two weeks of co-habitating in semi-bliss, I'm moving out.

I promised myself when I started this blog that I would never whine about my boyfriend unless I could find some humor in the situation to offset the whining. So let's just say that I'm still looking for something to laugh about here. Soon as I find it, I'll let y'all in on the joke.

We're not breaking up completely; we're just moving from committed cohabitation to semi-committed semi-cohabitation. As in I'll still make the trek down to the sticks sometimes, and he says that he'll come spend some nights in my new apartment. But that may just be because he knows I got cable...

I love my apartment. I answered the ad on Monday, saw the place on Tuesday, and signed the lease on Wednesday. When I decide to turn my life completely upside down, at least I'm quick and efficient about it. But I have a sunroom in front and a deck in back, and a walk-in closet somewhere in the middle. I don't think I paid much attention to anything after I saw the closet. My landlord probably thought I wasn't impressed; I was just mentally arranging my wardrobe and imagining a life where clothes come off the hangers without wrinkles from being shoved into a space the size of, well, a non-walk-in closet.

There are still great vacation stories to be told. Like how, after two skin-cancer-conscious days at the beach, I got a raging sunburn from sitting in traffic with the SUV's sunroof open, and about my great relief that most of the guys at my 10th college reunion still had most of their hair. But I must depart. After two years of cohabitation and several before that with well-supplied roommates, I am lacking in many basic necessities of the single life. Like a broom. And a microwave. And a pint of Ben & Jerry's.

VacationBlog, Part One

The plan (and there always is a plan, though it rarely ever works) was to make regular blog posts from vacation. So much for the plan.

I left town a week ago Friday, giddy with a sense of accomplishment at having packed nine days worth of vacation necessities (including my one-quart plastic Ziploc bag of 3-ounce containers of liquids and gels) into two carry-on-able bags. I had managed to achieve three of the primary goals of stress-free travel:

1. Never check luggage.
2. Never fly a bankrupt airline.
3. Never travel with a person who hates to travel.

I arrived in Richmond safe and sound and more or less on time, and very nearly succeeded at conning my way into a rental convertible. But I couldn't have it for a one-way rental, so I settled for an SUV with a sunroof, and headed for the home of my former roommate.

Saturday dawned hot and sunny, so we headed for the beach after making an appearance at the annual church picnic. Virginia Beach was much like I remembered it: crowded with tourists and noisy kids, but still a beach. Which is good enough for me. Bring on the sunblock.

Post-beach, we headed out for the next item on my vacation must-do list: seafood. A pound of shellfish and a margarita later, I was trying to remember exactly why I had moved to an all-but-landlocked state. Then we were ready to really party.

We headed out to for a night of dancing and drinking, bringing along my old roommate's newly-divorced friend. We promised her a crash course in 21st-century dating, and did our best to deliver. Unfortunately, we couldn't convince her to have a "Tie Me to the Bedpost" (tastes kind of like fruit punch -- very dangerous), but she did try the ones we were drinking. We also sent her out to two-step over her protests that she didn't know how, and were pleased to see that she almost seemed to be enjoying herself by the end of the song. By that point, I was enjoying my second large fruity drink and the occasional attentions of a sailor who made it his personal mission to see if he could dip me low enough to make my hair touch the floor (he did). Note to those who were at my bachelorette party lo those many years ago: this was not the same bar. Unfortunately, there was no bull in this one. At least not the mechanical kind.

More on my coastal adventures in a later post.

Live from Ringside on Saturday Night

Well, not quite live. Courtesy of connections that I'm not supposed to name, my college friend and I scored ringside seats for last Saturday's "Border Battle" at the FedEx Forum. While the Forum, being in downtown Memphis, is in fact near two borders (between Tennessee and Arkansas and, a few miles further, the Tennessee-Mississippi border), the border in question was actually the one between Missouri and Arkansas. The two boxers in the main event happened to be from neighboring states.

Unfortunately, being so neighborly, they seemed to not want to hit each other, which I kind of thought was the point of a boxing match? But I am new to the sport, so I just stifled a yawn and concentrated on things that I understand better. Like criticizing the fashion choices of people who attend boxing matches, including the ring girls.

I did learn enough about boxing to know that the final undercard fight, between Edison Miranda and Kelly Pavlick, was damned good. Unlike the main event, which prompted one spectator to yell, "Just kiss him already if you ain't gonna hit him!", by the end of the Miranda-Pavlick fight you really wanted them to stop hitting each other.

The whole day on Saturday started with a bizarre chain of events that was made even more bizarre by some stuff that I found out yesterday. A little Google can be a dangerous thing. Can't say too much, because I'm sure I'm supposed to be protecting the possibly not innocent. But the whole thing is highly amusing, at least to me, and if I ever write that tell-all book, it will be the best chapter, I promise.

Between the bizarre and the boxing, my college friend and I took an excursion to Graceland, armed with her mother's shopping list of desired Elvis souvenirs. We emerged a few hours later with a Corolla-trunkful of refrigerator magnets, keychains, t-shirts, a purple fleece blanket, and, my personal favorite: my friend's picture with Elvis. A little Photoshop can be a wonderful money-making scheme. If I can get my hands on a copy of the picture, I'll post it here later.

In other news, you can add a turtle and a giant grasshopper to the running wildlife tally. Still no lot.

Lions and tigers and bears ain't nothin'

So it's been a while... Not that I haven't been thinking about posting... Busy at work, and we're still looking for a lot. Although the one that fell through is now back on the market. So I may be putting the pictures back up here eventually.

In the meantime, we've been taking an excursion through Wild Kingdom. So far, we've seen cats, dogs, horses, cows, sheep, goats, a llama farm (but no llamas), chickens, ducks, geese, an ostrich (maybe it was an emu), various other birds, deer, squirrels, a lizard, two armadillos (dead), two possums (one alive, one dead), one very big, very live snake, and the trash can knocked over by our friendly neighborhood raccoon. As a side note, although armadillo roadkill is a common sight in these parts, I've never actually seen a live armadillo outside of the zoo. All of this, and we still haven't found a place to build a house.

So it's been a wild couple of weeks.

And back to square one

Our lot fell through, so it looks like we won't be building a cabin in the woods after all. Guess I'm just meant to be a city girl.

The Story of a Cabin in the Woods

So I didn't do very well with keeping a vicarious quitter's diary. The actual quitter, however, has been much more successful: only one lapse in over a month of quitting. Said lapse resulted in a cold and a week of wheezing, which, to be honest, was probably caused by the wacky weather rather than his one cigarette. But that didn't stop me from playing the "see, I told you so" card repeatedly.

Today's post will begin the diary of yet another adventure, one that was born, in part, from the previous. The nasty bout of bronchitis that prompted my boyfriend to quit smoking kept him home from work for about a week. One day, he drove through a subdivision where we've thought about moving, and, lo and behold, he discovered a lot for sale. To make a very long and convoluted story very short and to the point: we'll be closing on the lot in a week or so. Along the way I've learned a lot about negotiating (mainly that we're really bad at it), neighborhood associations (a convenient excuse for everyone to know everything about everyone else, but an excellent resource for potential buyers), and more about septic systems than any self-respecting Yankee girl from the city should ever have to know.

So, as I said way back when, I probably won't ever be the Yankee on Confederate Ridge Road. But I'll stick with what I've got.

Diary of a vicarious quitter

My boyfriend is quitting everything. Well, actually, he's quitting smoking, again. But he -- and a nasty bout of bronchitis -- has finally scared himself into the realization that (drum roll, please): SMOKING IS BAD FOR HIM. Earlier this winter he decided that his smoking was bad for me, so he started smoking outside. His rationalization: second-hand smoke is worse than first-hand smoke, and it was all worse for me because I don't exercise. Smoking, he argued, obviously wasn't bothering him, since he could still jog five miles every night. But soon it got to be not quite every night, and then not quite five miles, and finally he came sweating and wheezing into the house and declared that he needed to quit smoking. Then he woke up the next morning sweating and wheezing from some hybrid of bronchitis, possible pneumonia, and the flu, and declared that he was quitting smoking immediately.

So he spent the past weekend wheezing and coughing and surfing the web for articles about various lung diseases. "Read this," he would say to me, pointing to a page of medical gibberish. "What does it mean?" When I replied that I had no earthly idea, he would ask, "Well, do you think I have it?" I tried, repeatedly, to gently explain that since I had no earthly idea what "it" was, I could not tell him whether or not he had "it." I managed to keep my patience intact and not resort to telling him that, yes, he had "it" and he'd be dead by morning.

The good thing for him is that he's too sick to realize that he's in nicotine withdrawal. The bad thing for me is that he is not too sick to be in nicotine withdrawal. Having a sick boyfriend in nicotine withdrawal is like having a two-year-old and a new puppy all at once. My co-worker had sent me a 60-page unedited draft to read "in my spare time," and I tried to work my way through it on Sunday night amidst a hailstorm of questions.
"What are you reading?"
"How long is it?"
"Are you going to read the whole thing?"
"Do you have to?"
"What page are you on now?"
"What page are you on now?"
"What page are you on NOW?"

I surrendered at page 40. Which is the only unvicarious quitting I did.

As I said, my boyfriend is quitting everything. In an Advil-and-antibiotic-induced moment of "feeling better" on Saturday, he went to the grocery store and came back with four different kinds of veggie burgers. And veggie lasagna. "I can't eat red meat anymore; I don't want to get colon cancer." OK, but have you ever heard of CHICKEN? Or fish? Pork or turkey, maybe? Nope. Veggie burgers. I ate leftover cheeseburger pizza and gloated about the fact that the pizza guy liked my Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker.

He's also quitting second-hand smoke, so no more trips to our favorite haze-filled Saturday night hangout. "We'll find a bar where people don't smoke," he promised me. What's all this "we"? Are "we" moving to New York City?

So I am heading home to another night of all things veggie and lung-cancer- preventing. My boyfriend felt well enough to go back to the store and get spinach egg noodles and three-cheese sauce. Such is the life of a vicarious quitter.

Fighting back

I've finally broken down and accepted the fact that I am never going to be an anal-retentive person whose car is so clean as to be completely barren of any attraction to would-be thieves. I've also realized that what little "luck" I have will run out, and I will someday be victimized by a car thief who actually knows how to steal a car. And since my car is now many miles past its factory warranty, I no longer have to worry about violating it by using an "after-market" product.

So I, like many cell-phone-toting, Blackberry-worshiping, Palm-piloting others, plan to compensate for my general carelessness and lack of organizational skills with an overpriced electronic gadget. I'm buying a car alarm. Did you hear that, scumbags? A car alarm. A big, loud, shrieking one that yells, "Get the f*** away from my car, @$hole!" Of course, I won't be able to set it at home, because I doubt that it would deter my overweight cat from sitting on top of my car to keep his feet dry when it rains. Or the giant raccoon from knocking the trashcans into my front bumper as he tips them over. But it would make me even more unpopular with the neighbors than my Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker does.

I'm sorely tempted to go for the whole enchilada: keyless entry, remote start. Not that I need it, but it makes it feel more like I'm getting revenge than caving in. "Look, scumbags, you think you've got me cowering in fear because you made me buy a car alarm, but ha-ha, I am living BETTER than I was before you smashed my window and stole my stuff!"

When I got done being panicked about being robbed (funny, the more times you go through it, the easier it gets), and finished the usual routine -- police report (clothed, this time, unlike in last post's adventures), freeze the bank account (though I realized afterwards that my checks actually hadn't been stolen), try to remember what I left where in the car and if any of it was worth anything, call the auto glass guy -- I tried to settle into my usual "could have been worse," glass-half-full mode. It didn't work as well this time, though.

Maybe I'm just tired and cranky, but a really stubborn part of me remains supremely pi$$ed off that I can't leave stuff in my car when it's convenient to do so. Why shouldn't I pull an all-nighter at work and swing by Starbucks on my way home instead of interrupting my flow to pack up a load of stuff, transfer a bunch of files, and fight traffic all the way to my safe, suburban home in the sticks to realize that I left something I need sitting on my desk 35 minutes and a gallon of gas away? And why do I, and apparently an ever-growing portion of the population, have to live in the sticks to feel safe, anyway?

The first time my car was vandalized, I was living in a quaint (read: run-down-but-not-yet- falling-down) apartment in the "historic district" of a city in Virginia. Which meant that most of my neighbors were paying a lot more than I was to live in not-quite-as-run-down apartments, and the only place to park was on the street. When I came home from work one day, there were two African-American kids on one bicycle riding down my street. I parked my car and started walking to my apartment, and the little voice in my head said, "you shouldn't leave your stuff in your car; go back and get it." I quickly dismissed it as the most racist thought I had ever had; I was embarrassed to let those two boys see me look at them, see that they were Black, and then think better of leaving stuff in my car. I walked on into my apartment, praising myself for being so liberal and enlightened.

The next morning, as I stood outside waiting for the tow truck to retrieve my undrivable car with the broken window and busted ignition, I had a fleeting thought that maybe I needed to be a little less liberal. I did also briefly think that my little voice might be psychic.

Many break-ins later (read the post before this one), I think I'm not psychic, just resigned. Which, I want to think, is not the same as being prejudiced, or even pessimistic. I'm not saying that the two boys on the bicycle broke into my car all those years ago, or that I know anything about any of the thieves I've attracted in the years since (except that one of them was named Tony and had a jealous girlfriend). I just know that the way I choose to live my life (leaving my car parked in a public space at night with stuff in it) is apparently so much of a temptation for some people that they can't do the right thing and leave my $h!t alone. It's a good thing they've never seen me in a short skirt and high heels.

Life in the big city

I had planned to return to my long-neglected blog with a lighthearted post about my new striptease aerobics class (the best part so far has been the reaction I get when I tell former boyfriends about it). In fact, I planned to set aside some time this weekend to write, play Ms. Fix-it around the house, and check out Soup Sunday. I burned a good bit of midnight oil at work on Friday night; I had a project that I wanted to get done before Monday, and I didn't want to have to work on it over the weekend. Could have taken it home, but things were clicking along well at my desk and I just kept plugging away.

I wasn't altogether surprised that my car got broken into. In fact, I guess I expected it. Despite having been a victim a few times before, I haven't broken the bad habit of leaving stuff in my car. Especially stuff that I know I'm going to need to put back in my car in the near future. I guess I should look on the bright side: now there's less to take out.

As is usually my luck in victimhood, the thieves didn't get anything that will be of much use to them. In fact, my vehicles seem to attract dumb crooks. The first time my car got burglarized, my favorite backpack was taken. Since it was before the dawn of online banking, I had the remains of my monthly bill-paying (but no wallet and no checks) in the bag. The woman at the student loan company was quite amused when I called to get a new book of payment coupons. I told her to be sure to let me know if anyone actually mailed a payment in with one of the old ones.

Those first thieves of mine had apparently seen the episode of COPS, I think my friend said it was, where they talked about how you can start a car by jamming a screwdriver into the ignition and forcing it to turn. Obviously they didn't pay close enough attention, 'cause it didn't work for them. And I learned the peril of buying a new cheap imported car instead of a used one: spare parts are hard to come by in the first year or so. Mine had to come off an assembly line in Japan, or so the dealer said. But I think he was getting a kickback from the rental car place.

So I opted to lease American next time around. This time the thieves popped the lock out of the door and went straight (and unsuccessfully) for the standard issue factory radio, conveniently (for me) ignoring the $60 in cash I had stashed in the center console. A later go-round (when my car happened to be relatively empty) yielded the thief about $2 in change and my boyfriend's $9 watch from Wal-Mart. He left the $150 cowboy hat and a $1000 dent where his first attempt to throw a brick through the window went wide to the right.

Perhaps the most memorable episode was the one where I actually got some of my stuff back. Two of the city's finest showed up on my doorstep at an obscene hour of the morning, having found my address on an old parking ticket (of course I've paid it, Officer) that had been in my glove box. My dazed roommate let them in, and I stumbled into the living room in my underwear before she had a chance to warn me. Hard to say who was most embarrassed, 'cause I, unlike the cops, wasn't awake enough to care all that much. My things had been stuffed into my backpack (not my favorite one, which I've never been able to replace) and dumped in a parking lot.

That was also the first time I actually had any personal contact with my thief, or at least someone who knew him. After replacing my stolen cell phone, I got a call from a girl who sounded very indignant that I, a female, had answered my own phone. I asked her who had called her from that number, and she told me that Tony had called her the night before. I let her get good and jealous before I told her that her beloved Tony wasn't a playa, he was just a lousy thief.

Since most of my bad automotive luck has occurred in the parking lots of bars, for a while I thought that God was trying to tell me to quit drinking so much. So last night I skipped a planned trip to the bar and worked late instead. Wonder what God's trying to tell me now?

Back again...

Not much time to write in the past couple of weeks. I worked on the local middle/high school production of Les Miserables.

This is my second go-round with Les Miz on a high school stage, and I'm always amazed by kids who can sing, no matter what they're singing. Honestly, I'm amazed by anyone who can sing, 'cause I sure can't.

I still remember the first time I saw Les Miz, on a high school trip to the Broadway production. I spent the entire second act sobbing into a cocktail napkin torn in half. My friend Marie was sobbing into the other half. To this day, I still get a little choked up by "A Little Fall of Rain" and "Bring Him Home."

Not so much so for the kids who came to our two school performances on Monday. Maybe it was because the acting wasn't quite Broadway-caliber (though it wasn't half-bad for a bunch of teenagers), or maybe it was because they all knew they'd see Eponine, Gavroche, and the student-soldiers in their fifth period math class the next day. But I couldn't help but think that some of the actors and audience members might find themselves in a situation where the guns aren't plastic and the dead don't scamper offstage once the lights go down. One of my favorite actors from last year's production is at the Air Force Academy this year. I don't know if any of the other students have military service in their future, or if any of the ones graduating this year will. But it made me look at and listen to the show with a different perspective than I had in high school or even when I did the show three years ago.

The Single Majority

The New York Times (my favorite morning procastination device while I try to absorb enough caffeine to function like a normal human being) reports that 51% of women are now living without spouses. Well y'all, welcome to my world.

Not that all of us who are living without spouses are unmarried; some are temporarily separated by choice or by situation. But there's probably a lot like me, comfortably "shacked up" and enjoying the arrangement, thank you very much. Although I'd probably enjoy it more in a house with walk-in closets.

The New York Times is also the source of two of my favorite articles of late, one ("Saying Yes to Mess") that I shared with my boyfriend/housemate and one ("What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage") that I kept as my little secret. The boyfriend was not amused when I quoted the line in the former about really neat people being "humorless and inflexible prigs." But the truth hurts, ya know?

Both of the articles have been sources of comfort, inspiration, and outright laughter as I explore "living without a spouse" and the idea -- so incompatible with the mantra of "till death do us part" -- that living with another person is a choice that I get to make every day. If I really hated stubbing my toe on the boots he leaves right between the bedroom door and bedside lamp, arguing about how the extra light bulb in the bathroom fixture really is essential to keep me from slitting my ankles when I shave my legs and not just a waste of electricity, and (prepare to gasp in horror) living with a Republican, I wouldn't have to. But then I'd really have nothing to write about.

Writer's Block Already?

If you want a boring life, I think your best bet is to start a blog. As soon as you do, all the crazy things that happen to you and the people in your life -- the things that you thought you'd love to blog about -- will stop happening. Or maybe they -- and your life -- will suddenly seem less interesting, and two weeks into the blog you'll feel like you've got nothing to say.

But maybe I'm just not ready to expose all the crazy things that happen to people in my life yet, and nothing recently has provoked me to the point of spewing my political, social, religious, or sexual guts yet.

Or maybe it has. I didn't think I'd end up writing much about religion, because I'm about as un-religious as it gets. Especially here in the South, where everyone seems to have a "church home" and ministers approach you in the grocery store and invite you to theirs. Not the type of "home" that I'm used to having a man invite me to -- or the type of man I'm used to being invited by, but that's another story.

Lately either the pressure of living under the buckle of the Bible belt or subconscious lingering doubt about the fate of my soul has started me on a half-hearted search for a "church home." I'm a recovering Catholic with a laundry list of complaints about the current state of that particular faith, so I turned my attention almost immediately to the numerous Protestant possibilities. A brief stint of being married to a Baptist convinced me that wasn't the direction to go. Not because I have anything against Baptists, even the one that I married, but because going to Baptist services made me miss the familiar Catholic Mass. Some people might argue that I want churchgoing to be a mindless ritual rather than a deep religious experience, but I find it hard to experience religion deeply when I'm worrying about saying the wrong prayer, standing when I should sit, or reading aloud during the parts that only the minister should read.

After attending a funeral at an Episcopal church, I thought I'd found the perfect solution: a service that was as comfortable as last century's jeans in a denomination that's living in this century (or at least some of it is). But there's no Episcopal church in my small town, and I realized that I needed to be practical above all else: I have a much better chance of getting to church on Sunday if I minimize the effort required. I decided that I would check out the local Catholic church, try to have an open mind and thick skin, and concentrate on deep religious experience rather than deep resentment of Catholic doctrine.

My decision hit a brick wall when I turned on NPR the next day to hear their series of stories on the scandals that have plagued the Catholic Church, and I realized that I'm not ready to forgive, forget, and support with my collection dollars all the practices, preachings, and ideas that drove me from the Catholic Church in the first place.

I don't believe the people who say that in order to embrace a faith you have to embrace all of its laws and teachings wholesale. I believe in coming as close as I can to doing right and having a long talk with God about the times I fall short. But I realized that there wasn't much about the Catholic Church that I could embrace anymore that wouldn't leave me feeling a little bit dirty and a lot bit disillusioned.

I do credit my thirteen years of Catholic education for teaching me how to have those long talks with God. And for helping me to become an intelligent person capable of questioning and drawing my own conclusions rather than swallowing what I'm fed. Maybe their success in that is part of what's led to the Catholic Church's decline.

So I'm still church-homeless, though I'm taking another look at an Episcopal church that's not too far from the couch where I spend my Sunday mornings now. In the meantime, I'm sticking to long talks with God and hoping for the best.

And so the countdown starts for next season

Saints 27, Eagles 24.

The Eagles fan in the seat beside me (we were in a surprisingly large pocket of green just below the rafters of the Superdome) brought his lucky flask of Jack Daniels. So I shared sips of whiskey with strangers for each touchdown that the Birds scored. Right about the time the flask ran dry, the Eagles ran out of gas. Coincidence?

Probably. The Saints and their fans deserved to win the game, and the sentimental "gotta-root-for-the-good-story" part of me is glad they did. I rooted for them all season except for the two weekends that they played -- and beat -- us. If we had to lose, I'm glad it was to give New Orleans the chance to keep going. Of course, I'd rather that we didn't have to lose. But that's just part of being an Eagles fan. Sigh.

But the football-oblivious boyfriend has decided to become a Saints fan. So hopefully we'll make more trips to the Superdome next season. Till then, we'll be rooting for the Saints from home.

Fly, Eagles, Fly

Philadelphia Eagles 23, New York Giants 20.
Playoff tickets for the game next Saturday night in New Orleans: a ridiculous amount of money.
Gas to and from New Orleans: about $100.
Hotel room in New Orleans: about the same.
Twelve hours in the car with the football-oblivious boyfriend: quality couple time.
Watching my team extend the season that many of us thought was finished a month ago: priceless.

Yes, this particular Yankee bleeds green, and now her wallet does too.

A hui hou

Last night I said goodbye to my borrowed parents. They're moving to Hawaii for good next week.

I borrowed them (from their kids, who live out of town) when I moved here about six years ago. I already had an adopted mom (who really belonged to my best friend from high school) and surrogate parents (when I lived in Virginia). I also have two perfectly good birth parents and a recently-added stepfather. But it's nice to be able to borrow a pair of parents when you're in a new town. Especially when they're as wonderful as mine have been.

As we were leaving the restaurant, they taught me the Hawaiian phrase "a hui hou," which means "until we meet again." Which I hope will be soon. The island life is a lot more tempting now that I know I can bring the $800 alleycat without having to quarantine him. And I wouldn't even need to find a new pair of parents to borrow.

So, to my borrowed parents, who have meant more to me than I could ever tell them and have loved me as unconditionally as those who brought me into this world, "a hui hou." And mahalo.

Well, not quite...

I don't actually live on Confederate Ridge Road -- yet. And I probably never will. My boyfriend and I were driving around aimlessly looking for a place to move to (not that he'll ever sell the house like he's been talking about for the last three years). This particular aimless drive took place at about the same time I started thinking about writing a blog (like I've been talking about for the past six months or so -- nobody's perfect).

We drove past Confederate Ridge Road and the house on the corner with the giant stars and bars flying high, and my boyfriend said, "wouldn't you just looove to live around here?"

"Of course, dear. I'd just never be able to open my mouth around the neighbors. I don't think they like Yankees much on Confederate Ridge Road." And in the back of my mind, the little voice said, "What a great name for a blog, if you ever get off your a$$ and start one like you've been saying you're going to."

So it's the time for New Year's resolutions, and I put "starting a blog" somewhere on the list with organizing my life, keeping my car clean, and working out more. OK, working out at all, ever. So far this year I've hiked about three miles (to and from the beach in high-heeled flip-flops -- not recommended), rearranged one pile on my endlessly cluttered desk at work, and made a list of things in the house that need for my boyfriend to organize them. Tonight when I get home I'll throw out the empty Oreo package in my car. Oh, yeah, and I started this blog.

That last item actually has a lot less to do with the whole New Year's resolution thing than with that other New Year's tradition: the bringing to mind of old forgotten acquaintances that people who actually know the words to "Auld Lang Syne" sing about at midnight. So last night after the boyfriend went to bed, I googled my high school sweetheart. As far as I can tell, he's making wine back in the 'burbs where we grew up. But maybe that's not him. Another high school boyfriend -- or someone with the same name who lives in the same city -- is designing video games.

Then I googled a summer romance from my college days. He apparently launched his website -- fourth on the list of Google results for his name -- long before I even started thinking about talking about writing a blog. Among his many posts that I sat reading until six this morning was an oblique reference to... me.

I was touched to think that he remembered me then (the post dated about eight years after we did), and might still remember me now (he does). And it resolved the last lingering doubt that I had about starting a blog of my own: how would my friends, family, co-workers, etc., feel if they ever realized they were reading about themselves? Hopefully they'll feel as I did, and then maybe they'll want to start their own blogs, too.

So that's roughly how I got here today and a taste of some the things you'll probably read about if I keep posting and you keep reading.