PM -- That's project manager to you, peon!

So now I'm an MS Project expert! Okay, not really.

If being a project manager means thinking in percentages and messing with a really ugly application (MS Project), then I'm not so sure project management is meant for me. Yes, I know how to use MS Project. Yes, I can plan a project from beginning to end. But everything else that goes with project management? I'm not so sure. It's just not my brain.

Since some guy stole my seat, I sat all the way in the back. Me and the guy next to me did a lot of internet surfing yesterday vs. paying attention. The difference between him and me was that he actually understood everything so when Oliver asked him a question, he quickly brought up his tiny project and answered the question. When Oliver would ask me, I would just pathetically say, "I'm so lost." I do have to give myself kudos for having a really complicated project scheduled, which I think was my downfall when it came right down to it, because I couldn't adjust my project for all the crazy scenarios Oliver came up with:

Move 1/4 of your buffers down, one resource is 2 weeks late, the budget gets cut by 25%, What would you do?

Uh, quit? Is crying allowed?

Odd

I was just thinking about how pantyhose used to be sold in plastic eggs.

Just think about the amount of plastic thrown away because of them.

If we all die, and aliens come to research our past lives, they'll find them all and think we were egg worshippers. At least some parts of planet earth -- the more "well-off" kind who could afford such a fantastic thing.

Tall Big Men

Why is it that really large men (tall, big -- both in bones and weight) want to squeeze themselves into the smallest seat available on the BART train, even when there are better places for them to rest their large bodies?

I was so lucky today while going home. I need to thank my lucky stars. (Thank you, thank you.) There were more people than normal on the train, and the only easily accessible window seat was the last bench in the car. Normally I don't sit on the last bench unless I really have to, because 9 times out of 10, when I do, a VERY large person will choose the aisle seat, next to me, to sit down on. Tonight I took my chances because the only other available window seat was next to some girl who was trying to hog up the whole bench while her perfectly handicapable friend tried to hog up the handicap bench. I just didn't want to deal with it. So I resigned myself to my fate and hoped for the best, and sat in the back.

No one else getting on wanted to sit next to me (oh, yes, I'm terribly broken up about it), so I had to wait until Embarcadero to see who would make way for the back of the car. I don't even know why weirdos, creepies, homeless people and really LARGE people want to sit back there. If the bench isn't totally scummed up with food, gum, garbage and greasy hair splotches, then it usually just plain stinks of b.o. and other unidentifiable smells.

We hit Embarcadero, and the girl in front of me who was trying to hog up the whole bench tilted towards the aisle to let someone sit next to her. I looked up. I thought, there is no way that man is going to get into that space without crushing her. He visibly sucked himself in, tucked his arms in as much as possible and slowly slid downward to land his large butt onto the seat.

Phew! I thought. Normally, that man would be next to me. That's just how it usually goes. And he was really big. I could just imagine how that girl was feeling. But at the same time I figured it was her payback for trying to hog up the whole bench.

A bit into our commute, she and her friend had moved away to sit next to each other. Now, if they had done that from the beginning....

So who sat next to me? Some guy who smelled too much of starch with a hint of b.o., and who was very tired and kept falling asleep, waking up, falling asleep, and swaying all over the place. And even though he wasn't really gross and definitely not large, he did decide that sitting next to me the whole way to Union City was far better an idea than sitting by himself on one of the completely vacant benches that surrounded us.

And yes, I still don't understand why people don't want to move to a bench by themselves. It is truly baffling.

Looking good.

While going up the "up" escalator at BART to get to the street level, a man was going down the stairs.

He said, "I make people like you look good."

This got most people's attention.

"But only temporarily," he finished.

Isn't that always the case, though?

Me vs. my hubby vs. the mirror

I've mentioned the mirror before. This is the mirror I bought around the beginning of February at Pier One to hang in our dining area so that there's something to look at while eating instead of a blank wall. I thought it was a good idea at the time.

Here is the history of the mirror:

1. Husband declares we need a stud finder before he can put said mirror up.

• Stud finder purchased a few days later.
• Stud finder squirrelled away.

2. Weeks later I say I want to put the mirror up (and before anyone says to me: If you wanted it up, why didn't you just do it yourself? I simply can't. The mirror weighs a ton and is too long for me to easily handle by my lonesome. I need muscles.)

• Stud finder comes out of hiding.
• I use stud finder to figure out where mirror should go.
• This annoys husband because he didn't get to use his new toy.
• I don't like messing around, hence, I took over the stud finding portion of the mirror hanging.
• Husband declares we don't have the correct type of screws due to suggested length of screws on box.

3. Weeks later we go to Lowes and buy a good supply of screws.

4. Weeks and weeks pass by, and last Sunday I declare I want to hang up the mirror.

• This will be the first time we've taken the mirror out of the box.
• We see that the screws have to go in holes, not on a wire or ledge as we both assumed.
• I have to remeasure the wall to get the mirror centered, which also includes using the stud finder to ensure new holes will be drilled into studs.
• Tempers begin to flare on the other end of this relationship for reasons I'm still unsure of.
• I ask a simple question about how high the mirror should go and get my head bitten off.
• I walk away.
• Fight ensues.
• He walks away.
• I follow.
• Fight continues.
• I give up and lay down.
• Eventually we make up.

5. The mirror is still not up on the wall, and I will be blaming it for the cause of our divorce.

School

Why is it whenever I take a class, I get the one person who comes in late and doesn't get what's going on sitting next to me? Whhyyyyy?

I took my first of two MS Project 2003 classes yesterday. I got there early (as always -- thanks mom for making me an early person and not a late person), so I got my pick of computer station. I somehow managed to sit next to a station that didn't work, which was fine with me because I don't like sharing small spaces. I told everyone who tried to sit at that station that it wasn't working. One lady thanked me profusely for telling her before she sat down, and then she sat down on the other side of me.

Of course, this is the late/doesn't know what's going on lady.

In her defense, she seemed like a really nice lady, but no one wants to sit next to someone who expects you to reteach them while the teacher goes on to the next subject. At some point that's a lose-lose situation for both of you. And when you can no longer help this person because you're just as behind as this person is, this person will drop you like a hot potato and move on to someone else for help.

Luckily for me, the lady decided to bother the guy sitting next to her more than me. So I got a break every so often.

However, there was one tense moment for all of us. Our teacher Oliver was moving on to the next segment after a fun-filled round of trying to do some manual mapping of a project that everyone was pretty much lost on except me (I only did a 6-step project while everyone else made theirs as complicated as possible --- show-offs). Oliver is a very soft-spoken man, and being a project manager from the beginning of such a thing (so says he), he was sticking to his class timeline, a project, if you will. Which meant that while half of the class was still confused, including said late/don't know what's going on lady, he was going to move on regardless.

Oliver was the type of teacher who could care less if half the class was missing after a break, that cell phones rang while class was in session, or if the confused lady was talking in a normal voice to the man next to her because she was lost and confused and didn't know what to do. Since her voice was louder than soft-spoken Oliver's, and since Oliver didn't care if his class was being interrupted on any level, he was still going to stick to his timeline, darnit, the remainder of the class couldn't hear what Oliver had to say.

The people in front of us turned around and stared at the lady, but she was oblivious to what was going on. Luckily she wasn't asking me because my blood would have boiled right out of my nose. Finally a lady sitting in the row in front of us turned around and said, "Excuse me! Can you please be quiet!!!!"

The lady said, "Oh! Sorry."

The guy next to her was probably very relieved to be rid of her for the moment. Oliver still didn't seem to care about what was going on.

Again, Oliver didn't help the situation because of his precious timeline (and I figured out why he had to follow his precious timeline at the end of the class). First, let me say that Oliver shouldn't be teaching. Just because you've been a project manager for 50 bazillion years and used MS Project since its version 4 (soon it will version 12 with the 2007 release -- I simply cannot wait! The excitement is too much for me!), and you somehow convinced San Jose State University that you are an expert on this application, does not mean that you can teach. If what comes out of your mouth vs. what's in your teaching materials (a pathetic PowerPoint presentation printed out and bound while also being shown on a screen) vs. the classroom exercises that do not match, then you really need to sit back, get some sort of teaching degree, and then come back and try to teach a bunch of confused adults. Second, Oliver's teaching materials are horrendous. If you're giving a class on an application, don't you think you should at least do "live" examples instead of showing screen shot after screen shot that does not help students when they're trying to do exercises? At least give us something we can go back to! Third, Oliver just didn't care about us. He only cared about his precious timeline. He would talk, show a screen, move on, and then force us to do what he sorta just talked about, but not really. When someone finally told him that he was going too fast and most people were lost on what to do, Oliver responded, "Okay. I hear you," and DID NOTHING ABOUT IT. At least he acknowledged that he heard it. He never promised to do anything about it.

Actually, he did do something. He waited a few minutes and told us all to go to lunch.

It became increasingly clear why Oliver wouldn't stray from his fabulous timeline as we got closer to 4pm. See, our class was supposed to end at 5pm. So when we got to 4pm exactly, Oliver announced, "Well, we've kept great time today, which means we've finished an hour early! For all of those who feel they understand everything, you can leave. For those who have questions, stay and I'll answer them."

If I learned one thing that day, it was always allow for a buffer. That's the key to any project. And don't tell anyone you have a buffer - just allow for it. And if you're early, then that's great! You look great, you've saved your company money, and you'll get a raise. (Yes, he really said that.) So being an hour early was Oliver's buffer -- much to our dismay. Now it all made sense why he wouldn't slow down or repeat things or show us "live" examples. He had it perfectly timed with an hour buffer.

Only a few people left at 4pm. Me being one of them because my brain hurt to much to try to sit there and comprehend anything anymore. Darn that Oliver and his crafty project management stylings!

It took almost a year, but...

I finally went back to our condo gym and actually used the treadmill (part of my new year's resolution was to lose weight, so I decided I've spent a good 3.5 months gaining even more weight just to challenge myself more, and it's time to do something about it).

I asked my hubby to go with me to the condo gym to help me figure out how to use the equipment. The first and last time I went, I couldn't figure out how to get the treadmill to work. Then the elliptical next to the treadmill. I finally found one elliptical that did work without having to do some hoodoo voodoo to it. My hubby went the next day to check out the equipment for me, and he couldn't figure it out either. So I've never gone back. Call me a defeatist, I don't care.

I waited for him to get ready to go to his "real" gym. So, as usual, when we we left, he was telling me to "hurry it up," even though I was the one ready for the past 20 minutes.

We walked up to the condo gym door, and I swiped our pass over the electrolock thingy, and opened the door.

"Okay, bye," my husband said to me. He had already taken a few steps away from me.

"Hey! What?!" I said.

"You opened the door. You now know how to do it," he said.

"I know how to open the door. Jeeezz....I wanted you to help me with the equipment!"

"Oh," he said.

We went inside, and a young guy just got off the treadmill and was walking to the weight machine. I stepped on the treadmill and started pushing on buttons.

"See!" I said. "I can't get this thing to work! I push on the start button and nothing happens."

My husband tried the button and nothing happened. But see, I knew it worked because I just saw the guy on it and I see people on it all the time. It's like you had to say a secret word to get the thing to work.

That's when the guy said, "You have to turn it on first."

Turn it on? What a novel idea! I had searched and searched the last time I tried to use it, and I couldn't find any off/on switch. If there was an off/on switch, then someone hide it just as well as the person who designed the copy machines at work.

My husband got a look on his face like, "Ah, yes....turn it on! I can do that." I just stood on the treadmill waiting for something to happen.

"It's in the front," the guy told my husband.

My husband looked and looked and he couldn't find the stupid off/on switch.

The guy got annoyed with us, the two dummies who couldn't figure out how to turn on a treadmill, and walked over and turned it on.

"See! I told you I couldn't figure out how to get it to work!" I said.

My husband rolled his eyes and left me to walk on the treadmill while this guy was working out like a little mad man on the weight machine. I planned to stay on for 20 minutes, but when after 20 minutes the guy wasn't done and I thought if I left before him, I would look pathetic, I decided to go another 5 minutes. Which turned into 10. Then 15. And finally 18 minutes. He still wasn't finished, but I was. And so here I sit.

Okay. So I'm going to totally embarrass myself and recap what I have accomplished on my resolutions list:

1. Lose all the weight I've gained and then some. (Okay - so I'm trying again, and this week I have had a feeling I'll get through it without eating a whole box of cheez-its or convincing my hubby to buy me donuts. And yes, I have gained about 10 more lbs since I wrote this, but what the hey, I've have health issues!)
2. Start going back to the gym on a regular basis and do yoga at home. (I went tonight! Whoohoo! Looky me! And I do plan to do yoga so that my tightly wound up muscles can get some release (this is in lieu of seeing my nutty acupuncturist who thinks I'm infertile)).
3. Learn to make more things by sewing and become a better sewer. (Okay. this hasn't happened, but I do have the cutest old school tattoo material and cute retro/swing material that I want to make clutches with -- actually doing that is another story.)
4. Do as much as I can to our tiny kitchen to make it look more up-to-date, including buying a new range and microwave, refinishing cupboard doors, replacing faucet, tiling floor. (Um...my dad did install a new faucet in our kitchen. And while our plans haven't turned out the way I saw them way back when, we are still saving up money to replace an appliance. AAAnnnddd...our dishwasher is leaking water....so I do see us buying an appliance soon. Everything else? Not so much).
5. Paint our bedroom, bathrooms, kitchen (see 4). (We bought paint! For the bathroom! Like a month ago! Ya!!! Actually, we have a ton of things for the guest bathroom, but we've yet to do anything about it. So I don't see painting the kitchen or bedroom happening any time soon. One room at a time, and I'll start with the smallest, thank you very much.)
6. Go on a well-deserved vacation as our funds permit (tax refund! I hope...). (This has come true. We are going to London and Dublin this summer. Funny how the least demanding thing AND the most expensive thing ends up happening. Anyone want to buy some jewelry to help support our vacation plans??? )
7. Support my hubby in finding a new job. (Done!!! Although it wasn't quite what he expected. But life is always like that, don't you think?)
8. Become pain-free for a few months, somehow, anyhow, doesn't matter how. (I'm working on that. Got some new meds, most days I feel pretty good unless unexpected things slam me upside the head and I get stressed out about it. I hope exercising helps me. And I've been sleeping way better with my new meds, and I know that helps.)
9. Learn Adobe Flash and become proficient with Adobe Illustrator. (I won't be learning Flash anytime soon, but I have learned a ton of new things with Illustrator. I'm also embarking on my Certification in Project Management plan, which includes learning MS Project -- not that I'll really use it right now, but it's good to slap these things on your resume when you can.)
10. Continue to have fun whenever I want. (Still doing this.)

So who knows where next week will find me. Maybe we'll work on our bathroom. Maybe I'll fall into a donut coma. Maybe I'll lose 1 lb. Maybe that box of cheez-its in the cupboard right now would make a nice pre-dinner snack?

Always the copy cat...never the innovator!

(Ms. S. -- that title was for you.)

I have to share this lovely new web site that a friend told my husband about, who then passed it on to me. It's my new at-work toy. I have hardly listened to my iPOD today, which is very unusual. It's called Pandora and it basically opens up the world of music to anyone who has a favorite band or song. (Get it -- Pandora's box? So very clever. Genius!)

The best part about it is that it's free if you don't mind ads. I don't mind ads, so it's free for me.

I often steal these neat things from the same friend. He finds really cool stuff all the time.

I just find English-to-pirate translation web sites.

Passport - check!

Last Saturday we got our passports taken care of - now we just wait for their arrival. Included with the passport fun was the passport photo fun.

As I've already said many times to people, I am not the most photogenic person out there. I usually look mad or like I'm drunk or on drugs. You can already tell where this is going, can't you?

I didn't bring checks with me, and you have to pay in check, cash or money order for part of the fees. So my hubby went back out into the madness known as the post office (it was very busy because of taxes) to buy money orders. While he was gone, the passport lady decided I should get my picture taken.

Now I know I should always have someone who knows me in the room with me while I'm getting my photo taken. Because having someone who doesn't know you does no good at all. NONE!!

I've been lazy lately and have let my bangs grow a bit longer than they should. When they get long, they tend to stick together in what looks like greasy strands, although they are not greasy (gosh darn forbid I would let that happen to my fabulous long locks). And when I'm outside and the wind is blowing a bit, my long hair goes wacky and gets all knotty. I'm not one of them girls that has long, straight hair that stays put. Mine is too thin for that.

I should have taken out the old hair brush and given my hair a once over, or, at the very least, looked at myself in my tiny little compact mirror. But no, I didn't not.

When the passport lady told me to go stand against the white pull-down shade for my picture. I did. And that was when I really realized how much taller I was to her. She was pretty short. So, in order to compensate for me being taller than her (and believe me, this is quite the feat when I am taller than anyone), she had to hold the camera up higher than normal. Which then caused me to look up a bit more than I would have if she was my height.

Oh yes, I blame this all on her, you see.

Snap, there goes the picture. I had my usual stoic face on, the one where my husband says I look mad, but I think I look normal. She didn't tell me to smile. I didn't think I should smile. Traveling is serious business, don't you know? You don't want your passport picture looking like you're not taking your duties as a US citizen seriously.

She told me to sit down.

While I was doing that, I had this feeling that my picture was going to look really lame. Somehow -- either the hair, or my double chin, or the fact that I didn't smile would make me look like a dork.

Since it was taking a long time for my hubby to come back with the money orders, the passport lady had time to flutter around the room, leave, come back, drink some coffee, all the while the photo was being developed (instant camera, oh ye of little kindness).

When it was finish, she thought it would be a grand idea to show it to me.

"Here's your picture," she said.

My heart dropped. How the heck am I going to live this one down? As soon as my hubby sees this, I'm in trouble. And I HAVE to show this to people in order to get anywhere! So not fair. If I had thought about it, I would have tried to take my own picture instead of having the post office do it, where one only gets one shot, unless one's eyes are closed, I guess.

And my eyes were definitely open. Open so much that I looked like someone had just stuck a pencil up my butt or something. I looked scared. Freaked out. A little...crazy. My bangs were stuck together and looking nice and greasy, and my head was tilted up like I was seeing something no one else could see.

What could I say?

Well, I said this: "That is one terrible picture!!"

And you know what the passport lady did? She laughed. Laughed, I tell you. You know they love it when someone takes a really awful picture. It's their way of sticking it to all the evil customers they get (and I am not one of them -- I would be if I was at the SF post office where I still get talked to like am an idiot for some reason they just come up with out of the blue).

My hubby finally came back in, and I immediately told him that my picture didn't turn out so well.

"Oh really?" he said.

Oh yes, really.

The passport lady took his picture, and as soon as he started smiling, I got mad. Why didn't I do that?! Well, when I do, 9 times of out 10, that's when I look like a schmoo. That's why I didn't.

While his photo was developing, she decided it would be a grand idea to show my husband my photo. I won't go into details about the conversation that ensued, but let's just say I was made fun of. Repeatedly. Enough so that the passport lady started laughing her head off because of my picture.

Luckily I don't get embarrassed that easily, especially when it comes to my photos because as I've said a million times and once already in this post, I am not photogenic.

"Well, everyone who has to look at my passport while I'm traveling can have a good laugh!" I said. That just made the passport lady laugh even more.

The crazy/ugly stick really wapped me on the head that day.

Too bad I don't want to share my identity on my blog. Everyone could get a good laugh too.

Pirates are the best things in the world

I got a new antenna ball (in Disney-speak it's a "topper") today:


I can't wait t' get him on me antenna although I fear someone will steal him because he's t' coolest antenna ball ever! I almost don't want t' put him on me antenna for that reason, but alas, I shall take me chances.

I also found a great web site that translates english-to-pirate. So now I can let me inner pirate shine through!

Ahoy! Avast! Ye scurvy dogs!

Easter Day Massacre

My husband was going to make us brunch for Easter, but I decided to take over the brunch duties and make a chile egg puff, breakfast potatoes and bacon (yum!).

Easter day started off innocent enough -- my husband went to the gym, I made myself some coffee, watched a 2-week old episode of Starting Over, went through really old mail, and gave our kitties their Easter toys until it was time for me to start the egg puff.

I tried to plan it so that 10 minutes before the egg puff was done, I'd start cutting the potatoes. By the time I started on the potatoes, my husband was already home, with his nose stuck in the newspaper. Whiles I was cutting the potatoes into 1-inch cube pieces, I thought to myself, self, what would happen if I chopped off my finger? No, no...this was not something I wanted to do or planned to do, it was more of a wonder if I could do it with the knife I was using. I'm very accident prone as it is, so I've cut myself with this knife many times already. Never anything too serious, though.

So I continued to cut, my husband continued to read the newspaper (only 5 feet away from me), when I yelled, "F**K!, F**K!" and turned the kitchen water on. I had eyeballed my husband while screaming this expletive, and with the first one, he didn't turn around. With the second he finally did. He should know better, in my opinion, because I don't swear that much, and if I do, it either means I'm really mad or I've hurt myself.

I had managed through self-prophecy to almost cut off the tip of my pinky. I had cut right through half of the nail and part of the flesh next to the nail. While I had my finger under the running water, my husband ran around trying to get band-aids and that stuff one uses to clean wounds but it doesn't hurt when applied (can't remember the name of it at all, but it comes in a brown bottle).

That was when I looked over to the left, where I had been cutting potatoes. It looked like a miniature massacre had occurred. There was blood on the knife, blood on some of the potatoes, blood sprayed on the counter and wall, blood, blood and more blood. I told my husband to take a picture of it because it was too perfect of a scene to just clean up and forget about. It looked like a very small person got stabbed. He ignored me.

Right after that incident, I opened the cupboard door, right above the crime scene, and managed to jam the corner of the door into my neck. My husband asked what was wrong with me. I said I really didn't know. Luckily that didn't leave any lasting marks for I feared it would look like I had a big hickey on my neck.

So now I have to manage with a hurt pinky for a week or two. Which makes typing really fun. And that's pretty much what I do all day long.

Computer calamity

Last night going home on BART, a man sat down right in front of me. He immediately took his laptop out and put it on his lap. He fired her up. Then he started poking at the screen. Which made me, my husband and the guy sitting next to laptop guy look at what he was doing.

This is basically what we all saw minus the beautiful cat:

I'm assuming this man was something techie -- I admit, I stereotyped because he was Indian -- probably an engineer. So he's got to be smart, right? Well, what do you think he does? He continued to poke and wipe the screen, like that was going to fix it.

The guy next to him kept staring at him and the laptop screen, and it really seemed like he was going to burst because he probably knew poking and wiping the screen weren't going to do any good, and he really really really wanted to tell laptop man that. But he never said anything.

The man started shutting down his computer and restarting it. He did this about 3 times, poked the screen some more and then finally gave up. All this occurred between San Francisco and Oakland, so that's a good 7 minutes. He got off at the first stop out of the tunnel. I envisioned him getting off even though it wasn't his stop and calling his LAN person in a panic.

"Help! My computer screen is all swirls and whorls and I poke and I poke and nothing fixes it!"

Acupuncturist

So I finally succumbed to seeing an acupuncturist in hopes to cure my pain. Somehow, through translation from my English-speaking mouth to her Chinese-thinking mind, my issues with pain have turned into I'm possibly infertile and I should start trying to have kids immediately. I was even given some handy black, round Chinese herb pills to take in order to make my nether regions more satisfactory for child growing.

It's almost like she's humoring me when I say I have bad back pain (lower and upper) because when she pushes on my back, I don't feel anything except a little old Chinese lady pushing on my back. But my pain isn't muscle pain per se -- it's like deep tissue pain attached to bones. She seems to truly believe that I have neck, shoulder and collar bone pain because she really gets a kick out of sticking needles into my tightly wound-up neck/shoulder muscles, hooking up the electrodes and turning the juice on in order to release some bad chi. I'm starting to think that's all stress related anyway since I've always been one giant stress ball ready to burst.

So she'll treat the pain I've come to her with, but after one visit she's decided that taking birth control pills is the cause of all my pain, and that if I don't stop taking them, my ovaries will shrivel up and no longer produce eggs. For effect, she told me about all these 40 year old women who come to her for help, and even with all the money they've spent going to doctors, nothing works. Nothing. No babies for them. The same thing will happen to me, she tells me. I need to stop taking birth control pill NOW! Today! Just wait and see -- when I want to have a baby, I won't be able to. Nope. Not unless I want to have a raisin.

And what's really terrible about this whole scenario is that 1. this is not the first time I've been badgered about becoming pregnant (for different reasons), but 2. I still had needles in my skin while she was lecturing me about babies! I was being held hostage in the back room, while she tried to ply me with all these baby thoughts. I even tried to tell her that I have a lot of pain issues to first contend with (it's been what, 5 years of pain?), and I'd like to just feel better or as good as I can for a little while before I decide to carry around a baby for 9 months.

Somehow she turned that into I was worried about money. Ah, but see, when I'm 40 I'll have money, but no baby, and then I'll be sorry. It's like she was putting a curse on me or something.

But I realized that this is how our relationship will be until her Fremont location closes down (end of this month) -- I will come for pain, and she will treat it, but right after that she'll hold me hostage while lecturing me about babies.

What is it with people and babies? I think I was better off when I would say I definitely didn't want a kid. But now that I don't feel that way, and since I don't answer the "do you want kids" question with a lot of negative comments about babies and kids and so on and so forth, I get the lecture instead. Just because I would want one some day (if that day ever arrives), doesn't mean I have to get a talking to about how I'm going to be infertile for one reason or another.

It's almost enough to give me a complex, I tell you. I told my husband that instead of a baby, I would like another cat. Specifically the cute tuxedo cat that lives in our condo complex. And I would name him Penguin. If I named my baby Penguin, people would think I was weird, like Gwyenth Paltrow naming her new baby Moses.

So I'll stick to cats for the time being.

Hey-suess

So I thought it was a grand idea to attach my Mi Familia Zarate key chain featuring the man himself, wizard extraordinaire that turns one fish into many, Jesus, to my work bag. Hey. Why not. It was free, my last name is Zarate, and who can deny the pleasure of sporting such a fabulous item around?

All was working out okay for me. I even came across a 5-dollar bill while walking into Safeway. I figured I had the power of Jesus on my side, so I wasn't about to ask anyone outside if it was theirs. I'm not stupid.

When I got home, Jesus fell off my bag and hit the ground. It was then that all hell broke loose. I opened a cabinet door, and a bottle of something flew out and hit my open can of diet Dr. Skipper (the cheap Dr. Pepper), knocking it onto the ground, where a fountain of Dr. Skipper began to flow. Interestingly enough, the can landed on its bottom. So I picked it up, my lovely hubby cleaned up the mess, and I realized that once you go knocking around soda, it really looses its carbonation.

And then...I almost did it again. Yes, it's true. I opened the cabinet door, and a bottle of something fell out, knocked into my can, but it only moved it closer to the sink. Phew. That was when my husband asked me what was wrong with me. I told him Jesus left me. He removed himself from my bag. I was going to hell.

He said I was going to fall down the escalator at the BART station.

I said he was probably correct.

Luckily we were both wrong, and I didn't fall down the escalator. In fact, something good happened to me today instead.

We have this wonderful coke machine at work that eventually spits dollars out -- usually way after the person has left with their cold drink -- for anyone to take. My husband asked if I had any change because he wanted to buy something from the vending machine. I told him nope. I only had that five bucks I found, and I spent that in the morning at Starbucks. So he was a bit sad because he couldn't even buy a pack of Lifesavers with his change.

He left the lunchroom, I left the lunchroom in the other direction, and low and behold, there was a dollar sticking out of the coke machine.

So I took it.

And being the nice person I am, I put it on my husband's desk for him to find when he sat down.

And no, he didn't offer to give me half of whatever he bought. But he did bring home some gigantic cinnamon rolls for us to eat tonight.

Perhaps one doesn't need a Hey-suess key chain to be so lucky.

Sports

How come when my husband wants to watch sports, he turns whatever game on and then keeps leaving the bedroom and leaving me alone with sports on?

And he moves the remote as far away from me as possible?