Movin' In

Welp, all my stuff is officially in my house now. Back in November, I went to Stinky Garbage Trailer to get the last load of things out of the house. The Doctor and I packed my Dad's van full and headed back home. Just as we were about 3 exits North of Stinky Garbage Trailer, the van died. Seeing...

I began this post on Monday but it bored me too much to finish it. I was going to write about how Daddy and I finally unloaded the van after 3 months. Then Daddy decided that he wanted to build show shelves in my garage. I was going to tell you how nervous I was about these shelves. Would they look trashy?

But by the time I got home on Monday evening, Daddy was putting the finishing touches on them. They don't look store bought, but they don't look horendous either. They are very solid. Nothing funny to report here. Keep moving.

A Night Out with Trendy Singles and Good Soup

Blog reader and true-blue friend, Julie, sent me an email last week that lifted my spirits. The message? GOOD SOUP LIVES! The original owners of Zabelees in College Park have opened a new place. The best news is that it is very close to where I live!

I made arrangements with Julie to try this new restaurant last night. I originally thought that I'd try to get a group of people from this area together to try it out. That fell through. But good ole Julie came through. She's such a social butterfly. She gathered all her cool friends together and they came to meet me. I invited Roomie, but he declined since he didn't know anyone that was planning to go. I asked him to help me get the house straightened up since I was hoping to bring people back by the house after dinner.

Last week was nightmarishly busy for me, as you may have noticed from the lack of posting. Wednesday night, I didn't get home from work until after 1:00 in the morning. Then I still did some more work from home and didn't get in bed until around 2:30. Thursday I was so wiped out that I crashed and didn't do much of anything after getting home. So Friday came and the kitchen still needed to be cleaned.

The good thing about having someone live with me is that I do try to keep on top of the mess so that it doesn't get huge. At any given time, my cleaning shouldn't take longer than 30 minutes. That is certainly not the case when I live by myself. So even though Roomie didn't really help clean the main floor of the house, it didn't take me long to make it presentable. (I later found out that he had cleaned his room and bathroom. Even if I were going to show off my bedroom, I would never think to show his room. That's not what I meant by helping clean up.)

Julie called after I'd left for the restaurant to say that everyone was going to be about 20 minutes late. All of a sudden it hit me that I didn't have anything to serve them if they came back to my house. I didn't want to invite them back for ... water. I took advantage of the extra time to stop at the grocery store. I decided to get sodas and ice cream. Oops, all the bowls are in the dishwasher - dirty. Call Roomie and ask him to start the dishwasher before he goes out. No stupid, you can't put ice cream in your trunk through dinner. Get cake. What goes with cake? Coffee. Do I have a coffee maker? Call Roomie and ask him if I have a coffee maker. He is pretty sure that I don't - so am I. Buy a coffee maker. Buy coffee. Buy creamer. I think Roomie has sugar and he won't notice if we use a little bit. Done and done.

Dinner was fabulous! I couldn't help but do my happy wiggle while eating the toureen of Good Soup they brought me. These friends have never seen me eat Good Soup before so they don't recognize the happy wiggle. My fear is that they think I do that every time I eat. (Did you ever see the Flamingo Kid? Do you remember the way Matt Dillon moaned/mumbled while he ate? My happy wiggle is kinda like that, but without sound. I can't help myself. When I eat Good Soup, I gotta express my joy.) Anyway, THAT is the way Good Soup is supposed to taste! I didn't have to add any spices to it. It was perfectly prepared. I even tried to take a photo of it. The only problem is that none of my trendy friends know how to send photos from their camera phones.

After dinner, we came back to my place for coffee. I had to get some schooling in how to make coffee since I am so not an expert. It smelled wonderful, but I didn't have any. While we were sitting around talking and drinking coffee, Roomie came home. He stopped and met everyone, then went on to bed. No surprise there.

This morning Roomie commented that he didn't recognize any of my friends, but that they all looked very "trendy." I thought about it for a minute and decided he was right. They are very trendy people. Every one of them would look perfectly at home in Greenwich Village or London or Berlin or Hong Kong or ... any other hip big city. They're all cool. And for some odd reason, they were hanging out with me on a Friday night. Good Soup is a powerful thing. Use it wisely.

The Inevitable Post About Idol

Most of you readers know that I am a huge fan of American Idol, but only as a TV show. I never quite make it to the point of buying any resulting CDs, not even from my boy Clay. So I've been watching the show this year and have to say that there's not much funny stuff going on. In the 5th year, we're finally used to people thinking they can sing and then copping 'tude when the judges tell them that they can't. There hasn't been much to talk about up to this point.

Now we're at the point of the 24 finalists. I think it's finally time for me to weigh in on who I like and who I don't. We'll see on Friday how no one in America agrees with me. So basically I'm dooming the people I like. In the cases of Clay and Bo, my backing lead them to a comfortable spot at No.2. I don't have that strong of a feeling on anyone yet.

As usual, I'm partial to the guys. With the exception of one, the girls just don't stand out to me. (But those are about the same odds as you'll find in my CD collection.) Here are my impressions:

Ace Young. An obvious choice. He's the most attractive and he can actually sing. He will definitely make it to the top 10 and I'll probably switch my loyalty over to him at some point. But for now he is not my favorite.

Jose "Sway" Penala. Until this morning, he was my choice to go all the way. Incredible voice. Likeable personality. Mixed heritage to bring in fans of all races. Sadly, I heard on the radio that I cursed him with my interest. Evidently, he already sings with a group that tours and has a record deal. I think he will be disqualified tomorrow night, leaving Ace as the clear favorite.

Elliott Yamin. The dark horse. Doesn't have the looks, but most definitely has the voice. I'm most impressed with his control. He is totally not the kind of person who would normally capture my attention, but the dude can sing.

David Radford and Will Makar. Unfortunately for them, I think these guys are going to cancel each other out. They are about the same age. They are both adorable (and able to get my support at any time). They both have really nice voices. Teenage girls are going to like both of them and will split their votes between the two (while also voting for Ace). The interesting thing is that I believe the judges think Will is still young while David is old enough. Does a year make that much difference?

Taylor Hicks. Well, here he is, My Favorite. You know I had to pick the oddest one. Not only does he have the most original voice we've heard from American Idol ever, he's also highly entertaining. I don't really expect him to make it past Thursday night (and I'll pick a new favorite after he's gone). But until he's voted off, Taylor Hicks is my American Idol, Joe Cocker gyrations and all.

Paris Bennett. The lone girl who stands out to me. She seems to almost have an unfair advantage since her grandmother was in the business. If she doesn't make it on Idol, she will be snatched up by someone. But I don't think there's any way the producers will let her not make it. She's in for the long haul. Thankfully, she can sing and seems to have a cute personality.

So there ya go. These are officially the contestants most likely to get cut now that I've singled them out.

CSI College Park

Through a little opportunistic detective work, I figured out who left us the chocolate roses. And by opportunistic I mean that a consultant I'm working with asked me, "So who gave me the chocolate rose?" Since she is only working with two men in our company, her question kinda narrowed down the field. We were able to single out the culprit by directly asking one of the men if he was responsible. You could see the epiphany on his face as he immediately understood that it must be the other guy.

Evidently this has been going on for a few years and the guy has been able to protect his anonymity. Well he blew that by including the two consultants! I got finally confirmation from a woman in his department who I knew would know. She verified. Evidently he handed out a chocolate rose to each lady in his department. Since I'm working with him on a project right now it makes a little bit of sense that he included me. We're not terribly certain why he included the do-gooder (beyond that obvious fact that she's adorable).

On a completely different note, did you know that the term ghetto comes from Italian? It was an area of a city walled off to separate Jews from the rest of the Christian population.

Sitting Pretty

Two enormous boxes greeted me in my foyer when I got home from work last night. YAY!! I ordered two leather chairs from overstock.com and they were delivered yesterday. Aren't they adorable? I've been searching high and low for a set of chairs to go in my living room. I wanted leather, but wasn't opposed to fabric covered chairs. I just couldn't seem to find a style that I really liked. I think these will fit in nicely with my futon and my beautimus sofa. I don't think I can find an image of the futon, but here's a photo of the sofa taken in Stinky Garbage Trailer. I also got my coffee and end tables from overstock.com. I looked for photos but they don't seem to have any in stock right now. I'm happy with my chair purchases. And the best thing, okay two best things were no shipping cost (some Valentine's Day special, so I saved the regular $2 shippping charge) and these chairs didn't require any assembly.

The Mystery Continues

My workday is almost over so I decided to ask the do-gooder who gave us the roses. She doesn't know! She called her boyfriend thinking he did it (not realizing that I'd also gotten one). Not only did he not do it, he was annoyed that someone gave her one. So far, I've only seen the two roses. No one at lunch talked about having received one. It is especially odd since the other lady in our department didn't get one.

The cleaning people? I'm all confuzzled.

I'm Nonplussed

Don't read this post before you've read the long one further down.

You all know that I don't celebrate Valentine's Day... Christmans, birthdays ... yadda yadda yadda. But when someone leaves me chocolate, I don't make a big deal about it. There's always some girl at work who's so in love with love that she wants to spread her infernal cheer to all within striking distance. So I wasn't totally shocked to see a chocolately treat standing outside my locked office door this morning. I figured it was our department do-gooder/cheerleader/reality show contestant/beauty pageant veteran.

But I got in at 7:00 and she wasn't here yet. There was no Dove hollow chocolate rose outside the door of her boss' office. Huh. So probably not her. I brought the rose into my office thinking it would be a nice after lunch treat. I assumed whoever left it would send me an email or stop by to see how I liked it.

So it's now a couple of hours into the work day and no one has owned up to leaving it. No one else in my department got one. Maybe I should look at do-gooder's desk (surely she got one). Be right back...

Yep, she got one. Whew. I was beginning to worry that I had a secret admirer with a penchant for ham cleavage.

Hump Day Photo

Here's another photo from my trip to SeaWorld. I recently visited the Georgia Aquarium and forgot to take my camera (you'd think I'd learn). I would love to have posted all kinds of cool photos from that trip, but will have to post this one instead. I call it "Singing Penguins" because they look like the Three Tenors to me.

These are Emperor penguins, the largest of all penguins. Interestingly, the male penguins incubate fertilized eggs by holding them on their feet. According to a website I found, "The males manage to survive by standing huddled in groups for up to 9 weeks." Can you fathom huddling in a group for 9 weeks in Antarctica? No wonder living in Orlando makes them want to sing ...

It's long but read it anyway...

So here's a post I've had swimming around in my head for almost two weeks. I just never seemed to have the time to do it justice. I've given up on the "gotta do it right" attitude and am aiming for "gotta do it at all."

About two weeks ago I took a little more care than usual with my appearance at work. Since moving 45 miles away from the office, I often don't have make the time to "gussy" myself up. I try to do it twice a week. That usually means early in the week since I build up a sleep deficit as the week progresses. So I think this happened on a Tuesday.

Let me describe my levels of makeup. There's full makeup which consists of foundation, eyeshadow, liner, mascara, powder and blush. I only wear this to work when I have a special meeting or really got enough sleep. There's half makeup which consists of concealer to cover up the dry pink spots on my cheeks and some form of eye shadow (sometimes just a dusting of blush), liner and mascara. Then there's got-no-time-for-nuttin' which consists of hairspray in the eyebrows to try to trick people into thinking they arch. (Hairspray in the eyebrows happens every day right after deoderant and facial moisturizer.)

This was a half makeup Tuesday augmented by the addition of lipstick which I often forget even on full makeup days. Only this particular day, one of my two shades of lipstick matched my blouse precisely. So not only was I wearing lipstick, it was perfectly coordinated with my outfit. A rare feat indeed.

Now a little edumacation about the way I dress. I love turtle necks. Mock turtle necks, real turtle necks, short sleeve mock turtle necks, turtle neck sweaters...you name it, I love it. Why, you ask? I have a ... cough ... generous bosom. Not only do I feel like turtle necks hide or minimize the sheer enormity of my breasts, I also don't have to worry about how I sit or move in a turtle neck. Bend over, lean over, lay on the floor under a desk, walk under an open stairway, whatever - I don't have to worry about people getting more than an eyeful.

So ask me what possessed me to buy a v-neck blouse a few weeks ago? Well, even I recognize that sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. When I looked in my closet and literally all I saw was turtle necks, I thought I'd try something new. And this blouse is seriously new because it's the only thing in my closet even close to the color orange. But I've gotten complements on it, so I'll keep wearing it.

OK, so on half makeup, orange v-neck blouse, lipstick Tuesday I went into the office cafe to eat. I saw a couple of people that I haven't sat with in a while so I plopped down with them. They are a guy and a girl from the same department (though not my dept). They hang out together enough that you'd think they were dating...if he liked girls, that is. She just happens to have the same first name as me, though she spells it wrong. So this makes three of us in the same building...it is unprecedented in my life to have so many Merediths in the same place at the same time. And if you can believe it, she (Evil Meredyth) is even more sarcastic than I. The third Meredith (Chatty Meredith) is very sweet. So I fall somewhere in between the two - "Meredith in the Middle."

Well, Evil Meredith noticed the half makeup, lipstick and orange blouse and immediately began to tease me about being all gussied up. I just rolled my eyes and ignored her comment. We continued our conversation about whatever we were talking about. All of a sudden, I felt a piece of ham fall off my sandwich and land on my ginormous chest. This is not an unusual event. If food falls off my spoon or fork, it really has no where else to go. I often have a pile of turtle necks on my closet floor that can't go into the regular dirty clothes hamper because they have a food stain somewhere in the mammary region.

Only this time, I felt the piece of ham against my skin - that's an unusual sensation. I could tell without looking down that it had landed right in my cleavage. Several things went through my mind...like this:

1. Crap! Can they see it? Well, I doubt he's looking at my cleavage. And if Evil Meredyth saw it, she would already be busting on me. So they probably haven't noticed it...yet.

2. I'd better look to see if it's at all visible. [quick glance down and back up]

3. Nope, not visible to them. Or maybe...if my shirt is shifted down even just a little bit, he'll have a nice view of the ham.

4. Should I remove it? If so, how am I gonna fish it out? Can I get it without them realizing what I'm doing? Maybe if I use a napkin...

5. [Holds napkin up and makes flimsy attempt to fish dime sized piece of ham out from between mountainous breasts.] Yeah, that ain't gonna work.

6. Hmm. I guess I have to just leave it there. Thank goodness there was no mayonnaise on the sandwich. I don't think I could leave slimy smelly ham sitting between my womanly assets.

7. I'd better try to pick up the conversation or they're going to know something's wrong. ... Did the neckline on my blouse just slip down? I think it did. I better pull it back up. [Tugs on back of shirt and rejoins conversation.]

I don't think any of that took more than 45 seconds to process but it seemed like an eternity. However, I was quite proud of the way I kept my cool and sat there with them through the whole lunch hour ... with a piece of ham between my boobs. I only tugged on my shirt a couple more times. As soon as we were done with lunch I went to the trash can, faced the wall and fished the offending piece of ham out to throw it away. My lunchmates were none the wiser.

You smaller breasted ladies and flat chested menfolk, be glad that you never have to experience ham in the cleavage. It is not something I hope to sit through again... at least not for a while.

Should I Have Said Something?

I was sitting in a meeting this morning with a couple of outside consultants and coworkers. One of the coworkers is relatively new and has been made the boss of the other two in the meeting. (One of those has been here for years, so he may not be happy about it though he hasn't expressed that to me.) Anyway, this new guy presents himself very professionally. This particular department has made a big effort to improve their image and be seen as a "firm" within the company (Joe, this is your pre-IT department). All the men wear ties and nice shirts now. It's a little creepy.

So I look over at this ultra professional guy during the meeting and can't figure out what's going on with his shirt. It's all weird. I eventually figured out that he had only buttoned down his collar on one side. But instead of using the collar button, he had managed to button it to the second button of the shirt (which was already through the second shirt buttonhole). So his tie was thrown over to one side and his shirt looked like someone was pulling on it with an invisible thread.

There was never a time for me to get over to tell him privately. I just saw him in the cafeteria and his shirt is still like that. Oh well. I can't help everyone.

Good Soup = Good Times

There's a Thai restaurant near my office. It used to be legendary. It got all kinds of write-ups in the paper for its excellent Thai cuisine. We went every Wednesday for the "good soup." We had to get there between 11:30 - 11:40 or be doomed to wait 30 minutes for a table. Business was booming and all was right with the world.

Then the airport started taking over land. Businesses folded or moved out of the area in handfuls. The Thai restaurant didn't close down, but the owners sold out. And the high quality food left with them. We went back not long after it was under new management and I had fried rice that I SWEAR was cooked in a pan with an old shoe! I was not impressed with the new "shoe fried rice."

But things change and the place is under new new management or ownership yet again. And while these people aren't as good as the original owners, they at least don't flavor their food with footwear. So about once a month, a few of us old-timers (and a couple of newer ones) head over to the Thai place on "Good Soup Wednesday."

Why is the soup so good on Wednesday? Because it's Tom Ka soup, of course. (I know I've blogged about Tom Ka soup before.) What makes me ecstatic about Tom Ka soup? Adding red chile sauce to it. (I couldn't find a link. This is an oil based hot sauce, not sweet and not vinegar based.) I put so much hot sauce in the soup that I cough after each bite. Yum. Yum. My coworkers think I'm crazy, but it's great.

So today we went to Thai for good soup. I added hot sauce. I coughed. I had a blast. I even talked an unadventerous coworker into trying a little bit of hot sauce. He didn't like it, but at least he tried it. Then it was time to order the meal. I always get the same meal - broccoli beef (hold the shoe fried rice, thanks). My problem with their meals is that almost every one has bell peppers. While my sister The Doctor doesn't know how to cook without bell peppers, I can't abide them. And there's no picking out bell peppers. Once they've cooked in a dish, their flavor is all through it (much like old shoe).

Two of my coworkers pointed out a dish that does not have bell peppers. It is what they always order. I decided to try it. If the one guy could try Thai, I could try Curry Chicken, right? My meal arrived. I took a sip of the juice. I didn't like it. I added hot sauce thinking that nothing could overpower that flavor (it makes your lips burn for crying out loud). Nope, I could still taste the curry. I finally had to admit to the table, "Well, it turns out that I don't like curry." They found that funny. At least I still had my non-shoe fried rice...

Except, the white rice tasted funny, too. I was like it had a curry flavor, but I could clearly see that it was just w-h-i-t-e rice. I started to think there was a metallic taste to the rice. Come to think of it, my fork was really dark and ... old looking. Maybe the metal finish was coming off in my mouth. Good thing there was another silverware set next to me. I picked up the new fork and smelled it before I used it. That's right, I smelled it. And yes, everyone at the table saw me do it. My boss asked, "What are you doing?" I replied, "Smell this fork? Does it smell funny, metallic, to you?" He refused to smell it. Well, that didn't help me. The new fork didn't look as old as the other so I just used it anyway. The rice still tasted metallic.

My coworkers had a blast teasing me about me smelling my fork and about me not liking curry chicken. I can't help what flavors I don't like. At least I tried something new. As for smelling the fork, I'm glad they got a good laugh out of it. I'm secure enough to let them laugh at my expense. (Obviously, or I wouldn't be retelling the story to you.)

So let's recap what we know about the Thai place:

• Fried rice tastes like old shoes
• White rice tastes like metal OR
• They seriously need new flatware
• Good soup is still good soup
• Good soup leads to good times

Hump Day Photo

This is the first photo that convinced me to use slide film. I had heard that it captured colors better than print film, but didn't understand what that meant. After seeing the results of this roll of film, I was HOOKED. I switched to slide film and only use print film for very special occasions.

As with most of my river/marsh shots, this was taken from Roomie's parents' dock. Before you get the wrong impression, they use a neighborhood dock. That sailboat does not belong to them. It used to belong to their neighbor. He has since sold the boat. I love that the name of the boat is "Saltshaker."

That's Funny, We Hated It

While my mother was pregnant with me, my family moved from the South to upstate New York. I was born a couple of months later ... in New York. Other than one cousin who was born at a US military base in Germany, I'm the only member of my extended family born outside of the South. We left New York when I was 1.5 years old, so I have absolutely no memory of it. I have never been back.

So it was weird to hear an NPR story about my birth city this morning. It turns out that the city is "The Town That Loves Refugees." (Put that slogan on your bumper sticker!) The population dropped has dropped from 100,000 to 60,000. 40% of that population is over 50 years old. But the population is growing by the influx of foreign refugees. There's evidently a considerable community of Bosnians and Russians. (From what I've heard, it's cold enough for them to feel right at home.) The UN is all excited about how welcoming the community has been. The refugees are bringing a much-needed work force to the city. Many of the refugees have even done well enough to start their own businesses. It sounds like a great place for people who need a new home.

But all I could think about was how much my family hated living there. They couldn't wait to get back to the South. Naturally, I don't remember hating it, but I've been told that I screamed my head off when they stood me in the snow. I'm more than happy to deed my birth city over to the foreigners.