well darn…

We officially have our first…

you got it…. monkey wrench in our Denver plans.

We’re moving forward with our plans to move to Denver and Will turned in his PCS worksheet which will determine everything that we will be entitled to in our move.

Well, it turns out that even though it’s included on the form, we found out that one of the things that we’d been really been counting on getting – having one of our cars shipped – isn’t even going to be considered.

With 2 cars, the 2 of us and a 3 month old, we were expecting to just be able to ship Will’s Mazda 6 and drive out in whatever SUV-type vehicle we buy between now and then (we’ve decided what we want but haven’t actually made it official).

Not so much.

It’s not going to be an insurmountable problem – we’ve actually come up with a myriad of solutions – we just have to figure out all the specifics to our various solutions in order to decide what the best course of action is.

69 down 76 to go…

These suckers have been the bane of my existence since right before Thanksgiving when they were prescribed to me:

And technically, I’m not even taking these ones anymore.  I’m now on a dose that’s half again higher.

Without going into all the details, they are shots that contain blood thinners that I have been instructed by several knowledgeable doctors to take.  I have to take them in some form until I give birth (I’ll change to different meds at 36 weeks).  And I may have to do this every time I decide to be pregnant – that is yet to be determined.

I’m not afraid of needles but that doesn’t mean that I like them.  I still get the joy of sticking myself with one of these suckers every night between 8 and 10 pm (I’m supposed to do it at 8 because that’s what I decided on but sometimes i forget and it’s closer to 10 or 11 when I remember).  It’s a tiny half inch needle that I have to stick in my “love handles” as the instructional video said.

Everyday. 

For approximately 145 days.

It’s not terribly pleasant. 

It burns.  Even more at the higher dosage.

It leaves little tiny bruises on my belly.

It’s my first lesson in sacrificing my own comfort and dealing with my own fears for my children.

nearly 7 months…

I'm discovering that there are a few distinct disadvantages of being pregnant in winter.  I've been really happy to know that I won't have to worry about being hugely pregnant in the dead heat of summer but a winter pregnancy is turning out to have its own problems.

Namely – I don’t look pregnant when I have my coat on.

I know that I specifically went looking for a non-maternity coat that I would be able to wear while pregnant without having to be that girl who can’t button her coat over her belly. For some reason the idea of just not buttoning my coat bothered me but I didn’t really want to buy a maternity coat either because that seemed like a waste of money.

My mom and I found the perfect coat in Lord & Taylor – dark loden green, empire waisted, only 3 buttons, stand-up collar and nice deep pockets.

 

Only problem was that the coat was popular and ran a bit small. I couldn’t find the right size in L&T in two states! But I did manage to find it in Macy’s in Tyson’s in a nice light grey. I like grey. I actually had to hold myself back from buying a mid-length grey coat last winter since I convinced myself that I had plenty of coats. So I was sold.

But I don’t look pregnant with it on. My plan worked too well.

There inherent problems with not looking pregnant while commuting on public transportation.

Here are a few things that I would like to tell people:

• “No, I am not going to run for that train. There will be another in under 10 min. No need to run the pregnant lady over.” This doesn’t apply to the bus since those only come every half hour but I DON’T like doing it.
• “No, I am not going to walk any faster than this. Any faster and I get out of breath and a cramp in my side.”
• “Yes, I am going to very carefully pick my path through the snow and ice. I prefer to protect myself and my baby by not landing on the ground.”
• “Yes, I want your seat when you get up and no, I’m not likely to look up again once I have it to see if anyone else is more deserving.” I still try to avoid sitting in the handicapped/old people seats though.

I had a friend ask recently if I was dreading my commute yet. Not quite yet but I can see where I may over the next few months. See, transitioning from sitting to standing pretty much always makes me feel like I have to pee. Unfortunately, I have to walk to the bus, sit on the bus, walk to the metro, sit on a yellow train, transfer to a green train, and then walk a half mile to my office to get to work. That’s – what four transitions from sitting to standing? I can handle it all the way to my office for now but I’m foreseeing a day when I have to stop at the Sbux by the DoT after I get off the train before heading to my office.

thank god for A/C.

this is our current forecast as brought to you by NOAA:

Look at all those balls of fire.  I’m not happy with this at all.  Last week was superb.

I think Mother Nature does this so that we will appreciate snow.

“buy a new shirt or stop eating cheese”

Our friend Adrienne posted this link, “25 and Over,” on Facebook the other day and I really like it. I realize that I’m both over 25 and follow these rules but I think they bear repeating and a few caveats as to which ones should be mastered before the ripe old age of 25.

And it appeals to my much-professed love of lists, of course.

1. Remember to write thank-you notes. I wrote about this awhile ago.  I think this should begin at a young age. One of Will’s cousins actually does something really cute – she has her young kids draw a picture, makes it into a card, and then writes the note for them. By 2^nd grade, a kid should be able to write his/her own with help from Mom or Dad.

2. Do not invite yourself to stay with friends when you travel anymore. As it’s been pointed out on FB, the key here is to not invite yourself. If your friends like you enough, they will offer and you can happily stay.

3. Do not expect friends to help you move anymore. I had help the last time I moved (when I was 26) but I didn’t expect it. I have since purchased a sofabed and with that came the decision to pay movers for all future moves.

4. Develop a physical awareness of your surroundings. This should probably start in high school or college so you don’t look like a huge dork and should include a caveat about not being so engrossed in your iPod/iPhone/Blackberry/cell phone/etc that you lose awareness of your surroundings.

5. Be on time. If you are old enough to travel under your own power (16 or 17 depending on where you live) and have your own means of transport, be on time.

6. Have enough money. I think this should apply once you have a full time job and a bank account.

7. Know how to calculate the tip. If you’re old enough to go out to dinner by yourself, you’re old enough to calculate a tip.

8. Do not share the crazy dream you had last night with anyone but your mental wellness professional. This one – eh, I like hearing about crazy dreams.

9. Learn to walk in heels. With your first pair, you should learn to walk in them.

10. Have at least one good dress-up outfit. I think this should apply to all ages. As in, parents should make sure that their kids can be presentable in a reasonable amount of time for an event.

11. Do as invitations ask you. If you’re old enough that someone thinks you deserve your own invitation to an event (and not just be tacked on with your parents), then you’re old enough to RSVP for yourself. Even my nephews figured this out for my wedding and they were 15.

12. Know how. There are a lot of things you should know how to do by 25. I’d add “know how to make a least one decent meal” to the article’s list.

13. Don't use your friends.

14. Have something to talk about besides college or your job.

15. Give and receive favors graciously.

16. Drinking until you throw up is no longer properly a point of pride.

17. Have a real trash receptacle, real Kleenex, and, if you smoke, a real ashtray. This can begin in college but should definitely occur when you have your own place to live. I would add that by 25, you should have begun amassing “real” furniture – furniture not made out of milk crates and cinder blocks. It can be hand me downs but it should be decent furniture that was purchased from a furniture store at some point in its life.

18. Universal quiet hours do in fact apply to you.

19. Take care of yourself.

20. Rudeness is not a signifier of your importance. This should be universal.

pixar & a dinner saga

Sarah (Ruben’s wife) is a Technical Director at Pixar.  She has worked on Ratatouille, WALL•E, and soon-to-be-released Toy Story 3.  As a result, we were able to get a tour.  Super cool since there are no public tours.

There is a limited area inside the headquarters that anyone from the “outside” is allowed to see and even less where you can take pictures.  Here’s a few shots:
 

There are characters all over the place.

Luigi and Guido from Cars which oddly enough we didn’t watch until after we got back.
 
The Incredibles – Mr. Incredible, Violet, Elastigirl (aka Mrs. Incredible), Jack-Jack, and Dash.

Mr. Incredible has it in for my husband. Buzz Lightyear and Woody (Toy Story) in Legos.

Sulley and Mike from Monsters, Inc.

Of course the best parts were the parts we weren’t allowed to capture on “film.”  The exhibit at the time was for UP which happens to be our current favorite Pixar movie.  It was so cool to see the art that was created during the development of the movie.  It included the resin models for all the characters, sketches and paintings from character and set development, and lots of other really cool stuff.  And we were lucky because the exhibit was going to be changed over to Toy Story 3 soon after we were there.

Afterward there was nothing we were capable of besides a snack and a nap so we finished our trek to Ruben and Sarah’s in Pleasant Hill to crash until it was time to meet up with Sarah for dinner.

Now dinner… dinner was a story in and of itself.  Because the original restaurant that DeLunas had in mind turned out to be closed, we ended up at Havana in Alameda.  It’s essentially Cuban tapas.  The food was pretty darn fantastic so no problems there – those came with the bill.  Food pics first.

To begin with, the waitress got one of the plates wrong in the first round of plates from the kitchen.  Then it took forever to get the rest of the dishes we’d ordered to the point where the general manager brought us the rest of our order.  He didn’t acknowledge that anything was wrong but as a customer you know something is up when the boss is bringing out the plates.  Alright fine.

But then…we get the bill and it’s just the first round of dishes so we’re like “ok, they comped the dishes that had clearly been forgotten” and paid the bill.

Then we got up from the table to leave when the waitress came back to tell us that she’d forgotten a few dishes and needed to correct the charges and could we wait a few minutes.  So we sat back down to wait.

And wait we did as she came back to rerun the credit cards and then finally came back and said “ok, I fixed it and took care of the pitcher…. oh wait, you didn’t have a pitcher” at which point I think she kind of lost it.

So we waited another 10 or 15 minutes until the general manager came over to tell us what they had done to “fix” things.  He had decided to charge us for everything, take a whole $10 of the total, and gave us 4 coupons for $10 off our next visit (that couldn’t be combined and you had to spend up to a certain amount to use them). And then they had to run the cards for a third time which took so long that we finally got up to sign them at the door leaving zero tip, of course.

Clearly, the only reason to go here is for the food and not one bit for the service.  I don’t think Sarah will ever set foot in the place ever again since she believed, and I agree, that some if not the entire bill should have been comped after all the trouble they put us through if he really wanted us to come back.

thanks sus!

Dear Susan,

I’ve always been grateful for the work you put in as coach of our alumni softball team but until I joined you as a “co-coach” of sorts, I didn’t realize just how grateful we all should be.

I’ve been around since the beginning and have always lent a hand when I could (as one of the original seven of us – Armstrongs, Rohlings, Braddock, Diego and myself – I’ve been around a while) but I never knew just how much work goes into getting the season ready and then keeping it rolling. I don’t even want to think about the fun that is in store in the run up to tournament.

Shirts, waivers, alumni verification, and just getting people to respond to e-mails and evites starts the year. I know that I’ve been lax in responding to things in the past but, wow, there are just people who don’t like to respond to anything in a timely fashion.

As for the rosters which I have taken over for you, if the current roster file format is an improvement over previous years, you have my apologies for having to deal with it (and its 24 hour post-game requirement) all this time. It’s a pain in the butt!

Scheduling is a major hurdle that you have down to a science. I didn’t get involved in it except to be copied on what seemed like a million e-mails. I was so glad then that you were able to handle everything. And then we had to rain out our game last week and you had to go on vacation and leave me to deal with rescheduling.
 
Now, I am eternally grateful that you took care of the scheduling back in March/April. Because I have hardly been more frustrated. The coach of the opposing team began the discussion to reschedule promptly on Thursday, the day after the originally scheduled game, only to fall of the face of the Earth and not finally confirm again until Sunday evening (less than 48 hours to the seemingly agreed upon game time of Tuesday) complete with a more than ambiguous typo (Tursday – is that Tuesday or Thursday?) which he didn’t address until even later. Getting a team together with the proper number of girls in a day and a half – well, that’s difficult. You might think that with a shorter lead time people would respond but not so much. Even after at least 3 e-mails begging. I’m also not sure if we are even following the CAN rules for rescheduling since I know that I didn’t contact the commissioner and I don’t know if the other coach did (I’m so hoping to not get in trouble!).

And it looks like we will very likely get rained out again which might be preferable at this point since I have realized my mistakes in trying to reschedule. Chief among them was to not warn the team of the possibility of a Tuesday game back on Thursday when the make up was proposed.

So… Susan, thank you for the six years of work that you’ve put in to begin, sustain, and run this team. And come back from Europe before I lose my mind!

M

edited to add: the game did get canceled.

snow specific peeves

I love winter. I love snow. But the combination of people and snow annoys me. People just do reeeeally dumb, inconsiderate and even dangerous things in the snow. Like driving in a blizzard. But here's a few things that specifically drive me nuts....

• People who don't completely clear the snow off their cars. That's just dangerous, people. If it's just the roof snow, there's a good chance that it will just fly off car onto the windshield of other cars. But I've even witnessed people who didn't clear the snow off the hoods of their cars. That's dangerous for the driver - that snow can fly up in the windshield and there's a good chance that these same people haven't dug out their windshield wipers - so how can they see to drive?!
  
• If they're going to plow the roads and shovel the sidewalks, why can't there be a path from one to the other? I get that the roads are cleared by the city/county/state and the sidewalks are the property owner's responsibility but it's hard to navigate when there's no transition from sidewalk to road and back again. I've seen so many nicely cleared sidewalks that just end in a huge pile of snow. WHY??
  
• People who walk in the road with traffic. Is it not still the rule that when walking - no matter the conditions - you're supposed to walk against traffic so that you can see the cars coming and they can see you (and know that you've seen them)? This is especially true when people are having to walk in the road because there are no sidewalks. I swear someone is going to get killed.
  
• People who decide that traffic rules no longer apply because there's snow. Last I checked it didn't matter if there was snow or not; if an intersection says no U-turns, they mean no U-turns. We definitely saw people pulling that maneuver in the middle of Washington Street in Old Town in the slushy snow on my birthday.
  
• and last but certainly not least, if someone has gone to the trouble to dig out a parking spot and mark it with something - do not steal it! Seriously, digging cars and parking spots out from 3 feet of snow was a pain in the butt so we tried to move our cars as little as possible and left a cooler in our spot when we did move (a lot of people are using chairs but we were afraid of it blowing away in the wind). We were nice and didn't even try to save our spot when we went out of town for 3 days. But when we finally moved my car for the first time in nearly a week, we came home at 11:30pm only to find that someone had nicely put our cooler off to the side and took my spot! It can be hard enough to find a parking spot around us at 11:30 at night regardless of weather conditions but this was probably the most annoying thing I've experienced in a LONG time.

morning rituals and rude people

I work on a navy base. Every morning at 8 there's a bugle call, they play the National Anthem, and then they play an all clear over the PA system outside while they raise the flag. They sent out many e-mails as to proper protocol when this occurs - everyone must stop including cars, stand at attention (hand on heart for civilians and attention for current and former military) and wait until the all clear sounds - as they were installing the system.

Normally, I come in after 8am in part to avoid it particularly when it's cold. It might be unpatriotic of me but I'd rather just get to work than stand in the heat/cold/rain/what have you.

This morning I couldn't avoid it because I came in early. But the weird thing was the one lone woman who proceeded down the sidewalk even though she was the only person in motion. You would have thought that at least the peer pressure of being the only person moving would have stopped her.

Apparently not.

death of "thank you"

So I know that I'm going to come off as lame and old but I really want to know what happened to writing thank you notes or simply acknowledging that you received a gift. Particularly, when said gift or package was sent and not given in person.

I'm not saying that I'm the best at doing this myself. I usually send notes but they tend to be on the late side. Sometimes the reeeeeally late side.

I'm also not saying that you need to handwrite and send a note in the mail either (though that is the preferred method) unless, of course, it's in response to a wedding present or any type of shower gift. In those cases, handwritten notes are a must.

In some cases, a simple e-mail or phone call is just fine. If just that it lets the person sending the gift know that it arrived. Clearly, if you're with family and the person opens the gift in your presence and says thanks then, eh, you can get away without a more formal thank you if it's a close relative (siblings, nieces and nephews, parents). In-laws, of course, require thank yous.

The death of the thank you is making me consider adopting my Uncle Jimmy's gift giving policy - if he doesn't see you, you don't get anything (man, I'm going to miss my Barnes giftcard this year). But I don't like the idea of that either because I like buying and giving well-thought out presents or truly random care packages.

Oh well. I guess I'm getting old.

2 weeks? not so much.

ok... so I hate politics and I hate discussing politics but this whole Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize thing annoys me. I may not know much about how one wins a Nobel Prize but as a lay person, I would have to assume that one has to acutally do something, not just talk about doing things.

As was pointed out to me by a friend, Obama said he would bring the troops home from Iraq, close Guantanamo, win the war in Afganistan, stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and save the world from global warming. I'm pretty sure we're still at war in Afganistan and Iraq, Guantanamo is still up and running, talks are not going well with Iran, Pakistan or North Korea and we're still killing the planet.

But the real kicker for me and what my logic-loving brain (it's a hazard when you work for the government, let me tell you) can't fathom is that he was in office for TWELVE days. According to CNN, the application deadline was February 1st and he was inaugurated on January 20th - TWELVE days, people. And before that he was just a freshman senator who didn't even complete his term.

If you read the CNN article here, you can learn a few interesting things, particularly if you are as bad at remembering your history as me (assuming you even learned it in the first place since I never did seem to get much past the Civil War in school). You learn that we haven't had a sitting president win the Peace Prize since Wilson in 1919 (during his second term for his role in shaping the Treaty of Versailles which ended WWI) and before him Teddy Roosevelt in 1909 (his last year in office for his efforts to end the Russo-Japanese War). You also learn that they gave Gorbachev the Prize early on "in 1990 in his efforts to open up the Soviet Union." He was only in office for 21 months starting in March of 1990 but had been actively involved in reform in the Soviet Union and its dissolution for many years prior to being President of the Soviet Union. Clearly all of these men had been working toward their goals for many years or had orchestrated peace by literally ending wars.

So Nobel Peace Prize committee, you may stand by your decision but what has Obama accomplished to deserve this honor? In my opinion, not a thing.

edited to add: For all those people who speculate that the Prize Committee gave it to him for "not being George W. Bush," as much as I don't think he deserves it, I sure hope not. That is not an acceptable or respectable reason for giving out the Nobel Peace Prize. In fact, it's just childish. It shouldn't be about thumbing your nose at anyone no matter how you feel. It's a hard worked-for honor and he hasn't yet done the work to deserve it. Let him win when he's put forth the effort to earn it.

being an adult :-P

Being an adult is dumb. I mean, it's nice to be independent and have a paycheck and all of that but really there's a lot about being an adult that's annoying...

• mortgages, car loans, student loans (I don't even have any and I think they're annoying for my friends)... ok, how about debt of all kinds?
• credit cards - face it, even if you regularly pay it off, you still think about whether you have the money at the end of the month
• having to work for a living. even if you love your job, there will always be something annoying about it
• needing more recovery time after nights out, hard workouts (or any workouts in some cases), or vacations to far away places
• the fact that we now discuss things like house buying, interest rates, mortgages, insurance, and the state of the economy and planet at parties - though thankfully not all the time
• the focus on health and working out is different
• having to make major decisions yourself - no one will do it for you
• home repair
• the toys are way more expensive ;)

Baggage saga...

As mentioned, we arrived in Podgorica on Monday with only one of our two bags. It was the bag that I had checked, of course, but it was full of our toiletries, extra shoes, my bathing suit, "presents" for T&L, and some clothes. We had some toiletries with us from the plane ride so it really wasn't a terrible hardship though I would have really enjoyed having shoes in Kolašin and I narrowly escaped having to buy a bathing suit when we went to Budva.

As T&L explained it, missing baggage is an extremely common occurrence. The problem occurs because they only land 6-7 flights a day and the majority of them are small propjets without a ton of cargo space. Bags marked priority - as Will's was because he's United Premier - will always make it but others are hit or miss.

As they further explained, enterprising Montenegrins make the problem worse by travelling to the US, buying vast amounts of goods, paying anywhere up to $6,000 in extra baggage fees to bring dozens of extra bags home, and then selling the goods when they get back. Clearly, if you're (a) going home and (b) selling what you've brought, you aren't going to be terribly concerned about when the bags get there. All of this leads to an incredible backlog of baggage headed for Podgo. The airlines will generally resort to flying extra flights in which the whole plane is full with baggage. Lexi said that there was one summer that every Sunday was just a constant stream of planes arriving full of baggage and it took several weeks to make a dent in the backlog.

While we were at dinner at the Hotel Podgorica after being in Kolašin for the day, Tim and Lexi saw a plane land which they knew was a special baggage plane given the hour but they didn't want to get our hopes up that our bag was on it. Shortly after, Tim got a call from the airport that they wanted to deliver the bag (apparently not a normal practice) to the apartment. Tim was able to convince them to deliver it to the hotel while we finished dinner.

We were very happy to have our bag back but... the "nice" folks at Tyrolean Airlines in Vienna went through our bag and pilfered a few things....

• one pair white Arnette sunglasses
• 2 cans shaving cream - 1 full size and 1 travel size
• 1 package nail files
• 1 Apple iPod wall charger and cable

Pet Peeves

So for a bit of a mental break from the h*ll that is called "wrapping up grad school during the most beautiful summer we've had in DC in the 7 years I've lived in the area" - my pet peeves.

By now people may have realized that while I don't hold a grudge (most of the time - there's 1 or 2 exceptions), I am easily annoyed and irritated particularly when stressed. So I have a few pet peeves.

DC specific:

• people who wait for the gates to close after the person in front of them when entering/leaving Metro even while holding a SmarTrip in hand -- they should know better!
• people who either don't wait for passengers to get off a train before trying to get on or who wait patiently but only leave space enough for people to exit single-file.
• people talking on their cell phones at loud volume -- actually make that anyone talking loudly -- in the morning on the train.
• standing on the left on escalators -- there are few escalators that I don't walk up: Rosslyn, Dupont Circle... the tall ones cuz I'm lazy.
• tourists who will one day get themselves or someone else hurt doing any number of dumb things on Metro -- don't get me wrong, I actually enjoy chatting with the tourists on occasion but, man, they can be dumb.

Work:

• when my coworker has his computer speakers up loud, making me think that I've got mail when really it's his mail.
• people who send e-mails from the next room -- get up and talk to me! only acceptable if I'm not in the office.

Weddings:

• INCONSISTENCY! there are ways to pick a theme - be it a theme (western, medieval, Disney) or a color scheme or just a concept (simple, elegant) - and keep it going. It really doesn't take much thought.
• just because you can register for it doesn't mean that you should - hello, toiletries.
• poorly sized bouquets whether too big (think head-sized) or too small (they get lost).

General:

• people (particularly women) who manage to look crisp and put together in the heat of the summer -- seriously, I want to know how they manage to keep their shirts crisp and tucked in, their skirts from twisting around, and their hair and makeup flawless.
• people who can't park properly so you have to park weird and then they leave and you look like a jerk.
• the way fun events always seem to pile up on the same weekends.
• the word "obvi" -- Sorry, Liz! Not that you didn't know that.
• professors who think they are the end all, be all and you have nothing else going on in life - like life, a full-time job, etc. -- thankfully, this won't be a problem too much longer!
• people who don't apologize (no matter how briefly) for stepping on or running into you

Oops... school kind of riles me up and makes me angry so this got a little long.