So Yeah, We Went To NYC

About two months ago.  It was an awesome trip.  We had a great time.

Today I came across a picture of a place in Central Park on someone's flickr stream and I was reminded about our brief foray to the Upper West Side and Central Park.  And I am struck by how I remember feeling. 

Growing up just steps away from the park, I owned the place.  I really did.  I ran around there all the time.  I played there.  I walked through it to get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art almost every weekend.  It was an extension of my home. 

But when we were there it didn't seem like home any more.  Perhaps the thirty years I've spent on the opposite coast have something to do with that.  Honestly, I've always identified myself as a New Yorker, but the last few times I've been there, I realize that I am not a New Yorker.  I guess I was, but I'm not anymore.  I don't like being a left-coaster.  There's not much to it.  I don't feel like it offers much substance.

I keep thinking I would like to move.  My first two choices are Seattle or Vermont.  Well, actually, I want to live in Vancouver, BC, but that would be more complicated to pull off, as I would need to organize citizenship...  Zeus keeps talking about Austin, but I think it would be too hot for me there...

I guess I am a woman without a place.  That's ok.

I can think of worse things to leave me feeling unsettled.  And, overall, life is still fabulous.

Thank you.

Pumpkin Awful

How could I forget?!?!?  E had her annual pumpkin carving party last Saturday.  We got together at least three different times and pored over a magazine she had that was full of ideas.  I chose to make a Pumpkin Tiramisu.  I thought it sounded great.

The short story...  It wasn't great.

It was, in fact, Pumpkin Awful.

The long story...  The recipe was so poorly written that there weren't enough ingredients...  or too much...  Too much pumpkin pie-type innerds, not enough whipped cream,  too much coffee with pumpkin spice...  not enough lady fingers...  And the recipe called for 4 layers, divided stuff into 4ths, and then there was only room for three layers, and the picture was only three layers.  I ended up with left-over stuff.  And that stuff was just garbage because it was awful anyway...

Everyone was really nice about it. They said the liked it. And I wasn't putting on a show...  It was awful and I thought so and I said so...  Repeatedly.

Pumpkin Tiramisu... Don't try it.  You won't like it.  Its Awful.

But life is still good.  Thank you.

On a Lighter Note

I got my 4S yesterday evening.

My life is transformed.

Zeus likes his, too.  He's got a steeper learning curve, but he'll get it.  After all, he is a unix kernel developer, he can master an iPhone :-)

Life is blessed.  Thank you.

I Ask Again - Where Were the Hawks

So its in...  Amy Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning.  I wrote a bit at the time of her death asking, "Where were the hawks?"  I wanted to know where the people in her life were, that they didn't A) see this coming and B) do something about it.

Okay - Addiction of any kind is not something with which I have any first-hand experience.  Not me, not the people around me.  So, okay, maybe I don't get it.

But, yeah, I don't get it. 

Second, I didn't know Amy.  Perhaps her self-destructiveness was even more epic than her talent.  To describe her as extreme, most likely, doesn't well explain her at all.  And not knowing her, I guess I can't really imagine how difficult and troubled she must have been.  Again, epic beyond my imagination.

But seriously.  She had enough money for a full-time babysitter, if that's what she needed. And I think that's what she needed.  A full time nanny.  Someone in the room with her watching her like a toddler - taking stuff out of her hands, literally, when it wasn't appropriate for her to have it.  Someone shepherding her every move. 

Arguably, she was an adult, but clearly she never developed certain skills. 

I like to think I would have fought harder than her mother did to save her from herself. 

Yes meddling and over-stepping can be problems, but truly, this girl needed over-stepping - whether she acknowledged it or not.  Someone should have been there.

Such a wasteful loss... 

Today's Word is Balance

So things are going ok.  Pretty well, in fact.  But balance is the key. 

In other news...  My iphone4s has arrived at the store.  I get to pick it up this evening!!!  Yippy, Yippy, YIPPY!!!!  I can hardly wait. 

I am a geek. 

Thank you, Universe. 

The Most Beautiful Weekend

This past weekend was gorgeous.  Yesterday it was 84 degrees.  And I cleaned out my coat closet, and two-thirds of my kitchen cabinets, and both of my refrigerators.  I was sad to waste my weekend cleaning, but I have just about reached a point in my grand de-cluttering scheme where I can say, things are where I want them to be and the spare stuff is in the garage.

I have been de-cluttering for about 5 years.  We had huge amounts of junk.  Now we don't.  I love that feeling.  With little or no effort my home is tidy.  I like that.  Someone knocks on the door and the first thing I think of is not that my house is a mess.

That's a great satisfaction.  I highly recommend it.

I feel like I am just about to enter a new phase in my life where I can run around and do stuff because I don't always have a mess to clean up first.  Now, some people don't worry about messes, but I just can't stand them.  I guess its a type-A sort of thing, but if there's a mess, I need to clean it up before I can move on to other stuff.

I've lost 15lbs, too.  I am wearing my new, $10 Old Navy Zebra dress.  Zeus said I look fabulous today.

And I feel fabulous.

Broke it Good

I sure did.

In my zeal to clean out part of my lab, I un-cabled a bunch of machines last week.  I started by completely disconnecting all the network connections to the switch at the end of the row.  I forgot about the connection from the switch to the rest of the world...

Its times like this when I am really thankful to work in a lab environment and not an online data center :-)

Anyway, I have quietly chased patch cables in my spare time all week.  At this point I lift it up to the Almighty.  I power cycled the switch.  I can talk to the machine through the serial port, but the network appears to be hosed.  But not completely because I am talking to the serial port concentrator through the network.  Hummm...

In other news - Iron Man want to be a goalie.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.  Cold, hard rubber pucks hurling at un-Godly speeds towards Iron Man's beautiful little face...  Nope, not sure I am down with that. 

Tinker Bell practiced her cross-overs for the full half hour yesterday.  After just two lesson at the country's busiest Ice Center she looks fabulous.  I like that place.  They have a lot of work to do to undo some of the stuff she does as the result of lazy teaching, but I think she's doing really well.  She learns very quickly.

Busy weekend ahead - pumpkin carving party tomorrow, folks coming over Monday night for dinner.  Lunch with Theresa on Wednesday...

Yippy its Friday!

The Band-Aid is Giving Me a Heart Attack

Wailed Iron Man.

It was an epic morning.

This declaration occurred while Zeus was on an early morning conference call and I was in the shower - a head full of shampoo...  I asked Iron Man to calm down and wait until I got out of the shower for me to fix the band aid situation.  See, yesterday afternoon he skid elbow-first and really did give himself a rather painful looking boo-boo.

As I rinsed away the shampoo I wondered what I had in my medical supply box in the hall that would appease my beloved 5 year old.  The Almighty must have heard and had a moment because by the time I dried off, robed-up and arrived  in the hall, there was a box of elbow and knee band aids just waiting for me.  I have no recollection of buying them or ever using them before, but the box was open, so...

I put the band aid on Iron Man and he said it felt great - like he could use his elbow again.  For what he will use that elbow, I have no idea, but hey...  The tears are gone and we got to school on time.

Band-Aids - a gift from the Almighty himself.  Thank you.

And then I arrived at work.  There were donuts.

SCORE!

Getting Past My Monkey

Years and years ago I was in Atlanta.  At a conference.  A professional trade show.  Networld+Interop.  After all, I was a networking (as in cables and switches and routers) professional.  I was there with my manager.  It was a blast.  I love Atlanta, and I love Networld+Interop.  I am no longer in the technological field of networking, though, so no more trade show for me.

Anyhow, it must have been 1995.  One of the trade booths had a fortune teller, who was dressed up like a belly dancer - this was back in the days of "booth bunnies."  She barely so much as touched my hand when she declared that I was a writer.  And she told me to get Natalie Goldberg's book.  I can't remember now if it was Writing Down the Bones, or Wild Mind.  I think it was Wild Mind.  Shortly upon returning home I purchased and read the book.  And I am reminded today that I have strayed long and far from her fabulous suggestions. 

I know in my heart, or rather, I feel it in my being that I am meant to write.  And that people will read and resonate with what I have to offer.  I have a tribe out there somewhere waiting for me.  And I need them and they need me.

But if I don't write more, we won't connect.  And that will be, on a cosmic level, a disappointment - or worse, for all of us involved.

So, as I was doing earlier, writing here almost daily - with nary a care for proofreading and what-not, I must again write.  I keep thinking that.  I occasionally write about that.  But today, a random Wednesday in October, must be the day I get past my monkey-mind, and write faster than my inner-editor can keep up with.

I love October.  I love the light.  And the feeling.  Its the hardest month for me, because in October, more than any other month of the year I long to throw away the bondage of my life and retreat to Vermont.  Just  pay cash for a little house, purchase a huge SUV and live happily ever after at the end of a country road lined with maple trees.  Just me and the family and the moose.  There are two moose per square mile in Vermont.  How can you not love the idea of a moose family living next door? 

I assure you, there are no moose in the general vicinity of my current, left leaning, lefty coastal domain.