Mary and Bob’s Journal

This is an utter quickie - I’m breaking my promise not to post at work. But I’ve gotta share. Just moved into my new office yesterday. I used to sit in somewhat of a mini-bull-pen; even though I was the only bull.

So just now, the woman who assists me (not really my assistant, but the woman who assists in our department of two) brought a man to the door - my door -  who said, “I’m sorry to bother you with something so mundane, but . . . “

Wow! That was a first.

Back to work for me. If IT is recording this, I’ll be kicked out of this office in no time for blogging on the job.

 1.  For the first time in history, more Democrats voted in the South Carolina primary than Republicans.  (Nearly 100,000 more.)  

 2.   Obama got more than double (more! than! double!) the votes of McCain.

  And the red states shall be come blue . . .  

I have this vision of the post I would like to do right now, but I’m made apprehensive about pulling that off. Between the God Forsaken Safari “upgrade” and the faux simple Firefox browser that I downloaded earlier today, it took me nearly 3 hours to get my last post up. Not fun. But the experience did work my puzzle solving muscles.

I’m feeling the urge to tell you about all the wonderful people I got to interact with today. My morning was graced with Andy. Andy, my best friend. Andy, the strong maker of strong coffee. Andy, the thoughtful manager of our Netflix queue. Read the rest of this entry »

Oh, Faboo, Oh Trans, . . . . Here I go following through. I’m kind of like a sheep today, but I’m going to use this new handy strike through feature to rebel just a tad. How very 8th grade of me: Look at me rebelling with my Emily patch - so much more progressive than Hello Kitty!

Here is how it works:

1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird things about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. I don’t get why - when I chat with my neice & little sister - they prefer to type kk and mk instead of ok. I mean, k, would make sense to me, but mk? I think it comes from the fact that if you are texting with a traditional cell phone - “o” is three clicks in. . . . Ah ha! “m” is the first click on the “o” button. Technology driven etymology before our very eyes. Read the rest of this entry »

When I was 19, I had a drug related nervous breakdown and ended up in the hospital for 10 days. I wasn’t physically addicted to anything, but the drugs I had been taking caused 4 days of insomnia which in turn, drove me absolutely out of touch with reality. I was the crazy girl walking through the student union in her pjs & bare feet. Yep, that was me. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m such a sheep.   

1. Video Store clerk
2. Pizza Hut Waitress
3. TV/Film post production visual effects scheduler/coordinator/producer

Read the rest of this entry »

I joined TEAM IN TRAINING last night.

I’m going 26.2 in June

and more importantly,

I’m officially a part of the battle against blood cancers.

Stay tuned.

Once upon a time, before anyone even knew the world wasn’t flat, Joe Blow said to his neighbor, “Hey, why are you dragging that dead tree into your house?” 

I’m growing increasingly tired of racists who fail to recognize that, to put it bluntly: white people were helped by the civil rights movement also.

I wondered the other day, if it hadn’t been for the slave labor in America, and later the immigrants and children working in the factories, what kind of economic power would the United States have today?  If Africa had not been raped of its people for hundreds of years, would the countries there be closer to peace?   

I could go on with my kvetching and wondering, but instead I’ll meditate on the words of someone wiser than myself.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.   Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.   

 ¹re·treat   \ri-ˈtrēt\

Function:   noun

Etymology:   Middle English retret, from Anglo-French retrait, from past participle of retraireto withdraw, from Latin retrahere, from re- + trahere to draw

1 a (1): an act or process of withdrawing especially from what is difficult, dangerous, or disagreeable

2: a place of privacy or safety : refuge 

I have a very special weekend planned. Will be computerless and enjoying the time away from machines and agendas. More details to come next week after all the R&R will have too quickly become a memory.

“All of my other pop culture flames will flash and fade, but he will be there forever.”  

Spent all day with Andy being very happy.  Did not work.  Just watched a great scene from Jackie Chan’s “Drunken Master II” while listening to Van Halen’s “Dead or Alive” - the choreography matched the music with uncanny grace.  Oh.  And there’s Brazilian food.  

I just had the warmest interaction ever with an automated voice over the telephone. Domino’s has perfected the art of - I don’t even know what to call it - robots? The machine that took my order had an upbeat & cheerful male voice. Maybe you’ve heard it yourself? When I spoke my four-digit coupon code, he-it said, “Okay. Got it!” and read back the details of the coupon to me. He sounded exactly like the perfect employee except he didn’t need time to think. He just rattled off his end of the conversation with speedy precision, courtesy and the proper amount of casualness so as not to sound like an android. Even though, technically, he is an android - if “phone appearance” counts, and in my book it does. I was 80% astonished and 20% mortified. Torn between thinking: “What a nice guy,” and “Wow, this is a machine making me feel like I’m talking to a nice guy.”

When I set out to call, I’d been looking forward to talking to someone in India. For a while there (yes, we phone for pizza that often), the automated dude would start taking the order and then someone far away would take over. As a rule, I like to show extra kindness when I speak to the folks overseas. It’s challenging at times, because Read the rest of this entry »

Was up at 6:30a & instead of rising to blog, as had been my pattern in weeks past, I jumped in on responding to some work emails.

Now, I have about an hour before I need to have breakfast & shower & faced with the option of writing or updating a particular spreadsheet Read the rest of this entry »

I’m sitting here working at home. Yes, that word again, work. Blah.

Andy’s got CSPAN on. CSPAN: the best thing ever. Currently, he’s watching (I’m listening to) an inspiring broadcast taped yesterday of Bill Clinton speaking at Bow High School in New Hampshire. First, he gave an enlightening speech and is now having a thoughtful & leisurely Q & A. Have you ever heard Bill do Q & A? He’s brilliant.

Now, Mom, I know what you’re thinking. Without airing your feelings publicly, I’ll just summarize by saying Read the rest of this entry »

Have you seen this?

Sometimes I think to myself, I don’t need to have children when I can watch them on YouTube for hours at a time.

I miss posting! I miss having the time to post! I miss having the time to read my favorite blogs. Whine, Whine, Whine, Whine!

Made it back to WW this a.m.. Wow!! So good to be back. I had taken a couple weeks off over the holidays. It was fine - whatever. But having WW to come back to is absolutely a godsend. Not to be a drama queen, but the truth is, I can’t even imagine what my life would be like today if it weren’t for WW. Years & years ago, I listenened to part of a Tony Robbins tape series. If you don’t know him, he’s all about neurolinguistic programming . . . the idea that all human action stems from either moving away from what we’re afraid of or towards what we perceive will give us pleasure. One of the exercises on the tape was to imagine the extreme pleasure you could have if you make a certain change in your life, and then after that, to spend about 20 minutes imagining the worst case scenario of what would happen if you didn’t make the same change. In my case it was losing weight. It was years after hearing that tape that I finally stepped into WW, but man, I can tell you, WW is what has prevented me from going down the road of dread. Of course, I need to show you with details rather than tell you . . . but alas, there is no time. Must head to work.

Whine!

Happy New Year! Today is the last day of Holidailies. I’m kind of sad to see it end. But also relieved. Posting for the sake of posting (as I did so many days in the past month) is not what I set out to do when I started blogging.

So for for the last time, here’s an obligatory post - just to fulfill the quota. Feeling sort of in a List Mood, so when I came across this survey at another Holidailies blogger’s site, I decided to copy. Thanks, Margaret.

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before? Read the rest of this entry »