trip to the Cape
Come see me at Monday Musings
15 years ago
Friday, November 28, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
.org versus .com
I know it's not Monday. But I'll be on a plane coming home on Monday, and don't know if I'll get a chance to post.
I've been spending a wee tad too much time online. I'm sure the addiction will pass. Soon I hope (although I just found Animoto - thanks to Louise - so I fear I will have a new addiction soon. When I figure out how to post the videos to blogspot, then I'll share them here.)
I'm off to Cape Cod tomorrow morning at an ungodly hour. It's one thing to get up mega-early to exercise. At that time... it really doesn't matter what you look like. You put your hair in a pony, slap some deodorant on and you're good to go. Unless you are jump-rope girl. Then, well, I guess it takes a bit more effort. She's at the gym. Jumping rope. All. the. time. And she's very perky.
So not only will I have to get up early, I have to *get ready.* To get on a plane. Get ready to be treated like cattle. Potentially criminal cattle, at that. I will go against my upbringing and will wear the ultra-comfy velour sweatsuit on the plane.
You see, I was raised to dress up for plane trips. And for church too. And out to dinner. Pretty much anywhere, actually. Outings required outfits. But especially plane rides. I guess it was a hold-over from my grandparents. They still dress up to travel - perhaps because they do so on passes... but still, I think it's a generational thing. The only time my grandfather *isn't* dressed up is when he's working around the house: fixing the wiring, cutting and laying tile, etc. Since he's 90 now, most of that kind of work has ceased: hastened by his fall off the ladder last year when he tried to trim the hedges and wound up in the hospital. So now he's either in pajamas (both tops and bottoms, thank you) or dressed up. Nicely. (How I wish my husband would take a look at a page from this man's book...) And tomorrow I will get up and put on my "clothes:'" which I'm sure my grandparents will consider pajama-like.
I will feel a tinge of guilt at this. But after the almost 8 hours of travel, I will be one happy, comfortable camper.
And now...
.COM VERSUS .ORG
In this corner: .org.
We received a girl scout update from Julia's leader last night. She suggested the girls look at several websites to help choose the "cookie patch" for the event they (as junior girl scouts now) are hosting in January. As the girls get older, the activities get more girl-driven: or at least that's what is supposed to happen. One of the sights listed was www.girlfirst.org. I tried clicking on the link and got nowhere. Thinking maybe a letter was missing, I added an "s" and re-typed in the url.
Aaaannnddd...In this corner: .com
What I didn't do was double check to see if it was supposed to be .org or .com. It's supposed to be .org people. DOT. ORG. *NOT* DOT. COM Because .com will take you to the adult poster site of "girlsfirst:" a site that doesn't offer the right kind of cookie patch... seriously people. Thank goodness Julia was not with me when I found this. Brian was. {edited here to protect Brian...} He already knew of the pitfalls of .org vs. .com. I guess that until VERY recently, FDA.com was a site of colorful nature also...
So we cleared that right up. And now we know where to look for the correct cookie patch. (yes, I'm acutely aware of how that sounds.)
I've been spending a wee tad too much time online. I'm sure the addiction will pass. Soon I hope (although I just found Animoto - thanks to Louise - so I fear I will have a new addiction soon. When I figure out how to post the videos to blogspot, then I'll share them here.)
I'm off to Cape Cod tomorrow morning at an ungodly hour. It's one thing to get up mega-early to exercise. At that time... it really doesn't matter what you look like. You put your hair in a pony, slap some deodorant on and you're good to go. Unless you are jump-rope girl. Then, well, I guess it takes a bit more effort. She's at the gym. Jumping rope. All. the. time. And she's very perky.
So not only will I have to get up early, I have to *get ready.* To get on a plane. Get ready to be treated like cattle. Potentially criminal cattle, at that. I will go against my upbringing and will wear the ultra-comfy velour sweatsuit on the plane.
You see, I was raised to dress up for plane trips. And for church too. And out to dinner. Pretty much anywhere, actually. Outings required outfits. But especially plane rides. I guess it was a hold-over from my grandparents. They still dress up to travel - perhaps because they do so on passes... but still, I think it's a generational thing. The only time my grandfather *isn't* dressed up is when he's working around the house: fixing the wiring, cutting and laying tile, etc. Since he's 90 now, most of that kind of work has ceased: hastened by his fall off the ladder last year when he tried to trim the hedges and wound up in the hospital. So now he's either in pajamas (both tops and bottoms, thank you) or dressed up. Nicely. (How I wish my husband would take a look at a page from this man's book...) And tomorrow I will get up and put on my "clothes:'" which I'm sure my grandparents will consider pajama-like.
I will feel a tinge of guilt at this. But after the almost 8 hours of travel, I will be one happy, comfortable camper.
And now...
.COM VERSUS .ORG
In this corner: .org.
We received a girl scout update from Julia's leader last night. She suggested the girls look at several websites to help choose the "cookie patch" for the event they (as junior girl scouts now) are hosting in January. As the girls get older, the activities get more girl-driven: or at least that's what is supposed to happen. One of the sights listed was www.girlfirst.org. I tried clicking on the link and got nowhere. Thinking maybe a letter was missing, I added an "s" and re-typed in the url.
Aaaannnddd...In this corner: .com
What I didn't do was double check to see if it was supposed to be .org or .com. It's supposed to be .org people. DOT. ORG. *NOT* DOT. COM Because .com will take you to the adult poster site of "girlsfirst:" a site that doesn't offer the right kind of cookie patch... seriously people. Thank goodness Julia was not with me when I found this. Brian was. {edited here to protect Brian...} He already knew of the pitfalls of .org vs. .com. I guess that until VERY recently, FDA.com was a site of colorful nature also...
So we cleared that right up. And now we know where to look for the correct cookie patch. (yes, I'm acutely aware of how that sounds.)
Monday, November 17, 2008
I had lunch last week with a dear friend whom I had not seen in a long time. It was fantastic to reconnect with her and catch up with the craziness that our lives endure these days. She's one of those technology people: designing websites long before it was easy to do so. Has all the techie toys - and knows how to use them. And while she's younger than I, she's not a teenager (the generation who apparently is DNA wired for all new technology learning) which makes her grasp of it even that much more impressive. She told me to get on Facebook. Facebook. I laughed at her. She said, no really - you need to get on. So I did.
Holy Smokes. Wow. How cool is that world.
For those people (like me) who mock it: just stop now. It's cool to see people you haven't seen in forever (says the woman who flew half-way around the world for her high school reunion... and yes, I still haven't forgotten those people who DIDN'T come, and who still owe me. Big.)
I was able to find people I've been looking for for a *long* time. Old roommates and friends.
Technology is truly amazing. I don't think that "kids these days" will appreciate the connections they have to the people in their lives. They are always connected, and perhaps *will* always be connected in ways those of us not tied to the internet in high school and college ever were. For them, it's not a question of losing addresses and changing phone numbers and losing touch. They just assume that they will always be accessible. Don't know if that is a good thing or not...
But for me, seeing old friends has been great. Seeing my sister on there... the one who refused to even check email until VERY recently... well, that just made me feel even more behind the times (but not like the loser I felt in step class. No, I haven't gotten over it yet.)
Ultimately, like it or not, those people and those connections in my past have helped shaped my life and the way I live it. Some were fleeting acquaintances (part-time coworkers.) Some friends by lottery (roommates) and chance (childhood neighbors.) Some friends by association (boyfriends of roommates, friends of my sister.) Some by birth, some by choice. Others who were going through similar lifetime experiences (new motherhood, elementary school friends.)
I have all of these people (and more to find...) to thank for the person I am today. And those friends who I share my life with now - I will thank for the person I strive to be tomorrow. And I don't care what it looks like to be on Facebook.
Because I'm almost 40 ("...someday!") and it's becoming less and less important to me what others think. I'm the opposite of junior high school Aidan - who burdens himself too much of what other people think. As he edges to the extreme of those feelings, I'm backing away from them. And to those of you Facebook naysayers, well, I guess you won't be on my friends' list - which I can tell you is a pretty great group that I'm blessed to have known.
ps: dyed my hair bright, vivid, dark red last week. It's my goth look - so I've been told. Part of it was for kicks, and part (as was pointed out by a very shrewd woman) was to *not* blend in. Life's too short people. Go and have some fun and be the person you want to be.
Holy Smokes. Wow. How cool is that world.
For those people (like me) who mock it: just stop now. It's cool to see people you haven't seen in forever (says the woman who flew half-way around the world for her high school reunion... and yes, I still haven't forgotten those people who DIDN'T come, and who still owe me. Big.)
I was able to find people I've been looking for for a *long* time. Old roommates and friends.
Technology is truly amazing. I don't think that "kids these days" will appreciate the connections they have to the people in their lives. They are always connected, and perhaps *will* always be connected in ways those of us not tied to the internet in high school and college ever were. For them, it's not a question of losing addresses and changing phone numbers and losing touch. They just assume that they will always be accessible. Don't know if that is a good thing or not...
But for me, seeing old friends has been great. Seeing my sister on there... the one who refused to even check email until VERY recently... well, that just made me feel even more behind the times (but not like the loser I felt in step class. No, I haven't gotten over it yet.)
Ultimately, like it or not, those people and those connections in my past have helped shaped my life and the way I live it. Some were fleeting acquaintances (part-time coworkers.) Some friends by lottery (roommates) and chance (childhood neighbors.) Some friends by association (boyfriends of roommates, friends of my sister.) Some by birth, some by choice. Others who were going through similar lifetime experiences (new motherhood, elementary school friends.)
I have all of these people (and more to find...) to thank for the person I am today. And those friends who I share my life with now - I will thank for the person I strive to be tomorrow. And I don't care what it looks like to be on Facebook.
Because I'm almost 40 ("...someday!") and it's becoming less and less important to me what others think. I'm the opposite of junior high school Aidan - who burdens himself too much of what other people think. As he edges to the extreme of those feelings, I'm backing away from them. And to those of you Facebook naysayers, well, I guess you won't be on my friends' list - which I can tell you is a pretty great group that I'm blessed to have known.
ps: dyed my hair bright, vivid, dark red last week. It's my goth look - so I've been told. Part of it was for kicks, and part (as was pointed out by a very shrewd woman) was to *not* blend in. Life's too short people. Go and have some fun and be the person you want to be.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Perfect: 23 years later
I joined a gym on Saturday.
Yeah, it's still sinking in for me too. A big, shiny box of a place. I never thought that I'd be the type to join such an establishment. It's full of highly sculpted machines and people. That's so not me. But I'm determined - sort of - to at least give it a shot. The impetus of the change was the dissolution of the bootcamp I've been attending for a year and a half.
I didn't think that I'd be as distressed as I'm finding myself at the closure of this chapter of my life. I wasn't an original "bootie" but feel I've earned equal member status with the rest of the remarkable women who have dedicated themselves to arising at an inhuman hour to work out. We exercised and bitched and moaned (sometimes all at once) together. We became a family - in ways that are understandable, really, only if you have a uterus.
So this group is picking up and moving to the gym. We took a tour on Saturday - given by the lovely and self-depricatingly skinny, young sales manager - and the five of us all signed on the dotted line. Some with more reservations than others.
We are trying out the early (5:15... that's AM, people!) classes this week as a trial run. Yesterday, we did our own improvised workout in the yoga room that no one was using. (Well, the one gal did come in to jump rope and watch herself in the mirror. We just ran around her...) Today was the horrendous torture of step class. A fad I missed in the 80's and 90's: I was not at all prepared for the combinations of steps.
I felt like a moron. I don't like to feel like a moron. I like to think of myself as a fairly coordinated person with some sense of rythem. Not so today, friends. I left disgusted. The only saving grace was the friends I was with: at least I wasn't alone. We all had difficulties (and obviously all of them handled it much better than I...) and I was convinced (?) to give it a few more tries before giving up. Maybe. The next class of torture will be the spin class, which I'm already warned hurts your crotch.
Those are my choices: feel like a moron, or have a sore hoo-ha. Yeah, it'll be great!
So I'm taking out my unsettled feelings on Edward, Bella and Jacob and the greatness that is Twilight. Bought the soundtrack today. Fabulous stuff. It's helping with some of the difficulty I have with change.
NB: Found banned (by me) book number four in the Twilight series "hidden" on Aidan's desk. He went behind my back and checked it out from the junior high school (!) library so he could finish reading the series. I don't know whether to be angry or impressed that he was so resourceful... And really, all my credibility went out the door when I let him read The DaVinci Code instead of Breaking Dawn. So much for trying to shield him from mature (sex) themes. Says the woman who read Forever in the 6th grade...
Yeah, it's still sinking in for me too. A big, shiny box of a place. I never thought that I'd be the type to join such an establishment. It's full of highly sculpted machines and people. That's so not me. But I'm determined - sort of - to at least give it a shot. The impetus of the change was the dissolution of the bootcamp I've been attending for a year and a half.
I didn't think that I'd be as distressed as I'm finding myself at the closure of this chapter of my life. I wasn't an original "bootie" but feel I've earned equal member status with the rest of the remarkable women who have dedicated themselves to arising at an inhuman hour to work out. We exercised and bitched and moaned (sometimes all at once) together. We became a family - in ways that are understandable, really, only if you have a uterus.
So this group is picking up and moving to the gym. We took a tour on Saturday - given by the lovely and self-depricatingly skinny, young sales manager - and the five of us all signed on the dotted line. Some with more reservations than others.
We are trying out the early (5:15... that's AM, people!) classes this week as a trial run. Yesterday, we did our own improvised workout in the yoga room that no one was using. (Well, the one gal did come in to jump rope and watch herself in the mirror. We just ran around her...) Today was the horrendous torture of step class. A fad I missed in the 80's and 90's: I was not at all prepared for the combinations of steps.
I felt like a moron. I don't like to feel like a moron. I like to think of myself as a fairly coordinated person with some sense of rythem. Not so today, friends. I left disgusted. The only saving grace was the friends I was with: at least I wasn't alone. We all had difficulties (and obviously all of them handled it much better than I...) and I was convinced (?) to give it a few more tries before giving up. Maybe. The next class of torture will be the spin class, which I'm already warned hurts your crotch.
Those are my choices: feel like a moron, or have a sore hoo-ha. Yeah, it'll be great!
So I'm taking out my unsettled feelings on Edward, Bella and Jacob and the greatness that is Twilight. Bought the soundtrack today. Fabulous stuff. It's helping with some of the difficulty I have with change.
NB: Found banned (by me) book number four in the Twilight series "hidden" on Aidan's desk. He went behind my back and checked it out from the junior high school (!) library so he could finish reading the series. I don't know whether to be angry or impressed that he was so resourceful... And really, all my credibility went out the door when I let him read The DaVinci Code instead of Breaking Dawn. So much for trying to shield him from mature (sex) themes. Says the woman who read Forever in the 6th grade...
Monday, November 3, 2008
"Back...back...back to school again"
I went back to high school a few weeks ago. It was "Parent Shadow Day" at Colin's high school and I enthusiastically signed up to shadow him for the half day of school. It wasn't until we were on our way to school (after having arranged for the little two to be at a friend's house at 7:15 AM and after dropping the arguing junior high kids off at their school) that I asked Colin if he minded me coming with him. He said he didn't mind, but let me know that I would be on my own for brunch, as he had things to do and people to see. Lucky for me, there was a parent reception at brunch, and I was able to grab a quick cup of coffee.
I was quite concerned on the attire for the day: really, can there ever be a bigger concern than what to wear? My intent was to look like a mom. I can tell you that not everyone else there shared my intent. Check out "Real Housewives of Orange County" if you want to know what I mean. And for the record: just because you can pull off the skin tight rhinestone jeans doesn't mean you should.
The principal did a nice welcome (as Junie B. might say) and then we were off to math. Math. Colin, in his first year of high school, is in the last level of math that I took in high school. On this particular day in Honors Algebra II/ Trigonometry the class was learning how to use graphing calculators - and since it was new to them, the parents could participate as well! I left with such a brain-ache. The memories of being overwhelmed by a lesson came flooding back to me. It's probably good that I experienced this sensation again. It may, perhaps, make me more sympathetic to my kids when they whine "but I don't get it!"
The highlight of my day was in English class. Colin has quite a few cheerleaders in his Freshman English class. I have very fond memories of this class - but I won't share them here. It is the internet, after all. And these are other people's children - and after this past Saturday's girls U10 soccer game fiasco, I have re-learned that you just don't ever mess with anyone else's kid. Ever. Never.
Let me leave you with a mental picture of my English class experience: a purple inked smiley face at the end of sentence. Because, you really just can't have enough of those. Sadly, I had no other parent around me to share the fun.
So going "back... back... back to school again" was a trip. I learned a lot. Got to see the campus (and my kid) in action. It's a beautiful campus - it's a relatively new one. Last year had the first graduating class. They seem to be doing well for the 2600+ kids who call it home. Home of the Wildcats (And YES! I have seen High School Musical 3. In an auditorium full of 1000 screaming kids and tweens. The tweens squeed for Zac Effron every time he showed his face on screen. And THAT was after the 10 minute Karaoke SING ALONG.) For putting up with me, he got a nice lunch out of it. I'll be back next year.
I was quite concerned on the attire for the day: really, can there ever be a bigger concern than what to wear? My intent was to look like a mom. I can tell you that not everyone else there shared my intent. Check out "Real Housewives of Orange County" if you want to know what I mean. And for the record: just because you can pull off the skin tight rhinestone jeans doesn't mean you should.
The principal did a nice welcome (as Junie B. might say) and then we were off to math. Math. Colin, in his first year of high school, is in the last level of math that I took in high school. On this particular day in Honors Algebra II/ Trigonometry the class was learning how to use graphing calculators - and since it was new to them, the parents could participate as well! I left with such a brain-ache. The memories of being overwhelmed by a lesson came flooding back to me. It's probably good that I experienced this sensation again. It may, perhaps, make me more sympathetic to my kids when they whine "but I don't get it!"
The highlight of my day was in English class. Colin has quite a few cheerleaders in his Freshman English class. I have very fond memories of this class - but I won't share them here. It is the internet, after all. And these are other people's children - and after this past Saturday's girls U10 soccer game fiasco, I have re-learned that you just don't ever mess with anyone else's kid. Ever. Never.
Let me leave you with a mental picture of my English class experience: a purple inked smiley face at the end of sentence. Because, you really just can't have enough of those. Sadly, I had no other parent around me to share the fun.
So going "back... back... back to school again" was a trip. I learned a lot. Got to see the campus (and my kid) in action. It's a beautiful campus - it's a relatively new one. Last year had the first graduating class. They seem to be doing well for the 2600+ kids who call it home. Home of the Wildcats (And YES! I have seen High School Musical 3. In an auditorium full of 1000 screaming kids and tweens. The tweens squeed for Zac Effron every time he showed his face on screen. And THAT was after the 10 minute Karaoke SING ALONG.) For putting up with me, he got a nice lunch out of it. I'll be back next year.
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