Merry Christmas!

And as proof that non-geek people have no business being married to geeks, please take a look at the second coolest Christmas present I have ever been given besides like my Commodore 64, when I was 13.

http://www.randomgemini.com

I love my hubby, he’s a wonderful man, and he really knows how to make a geek gal squeal.

Ever since he told me he’d registered it and I’d finished knocking the wind out of him with hugs, I’ve had this song stuck in my brain and I share it with you now, merely because I can and it seems appropriate, though I have absolutely no idea why.

Merry Christmas folks, and welcome to my new haunt.

A Rain to Wash the World Clean.

The title of this article is probably my favorite line from Cowboy Bebop. It comes at the end of Cowboy Bebop the movie, when Jet is talking about the aftermath of all of the exploits of Spike, Fay, Ed and himself where they use the rain to give the world a vaccine to protect them from a deadly engineered virus. That scene is probably one of the more poignant moments in the whole of anime. And after the year I have had this year, I have been praying for that rain.

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Reconciling Social Networking and Parenting.

As you folks can see on the sidebar, I use twitter. I never got into using myspace or facebook, those things didn’t really interest me, but I love the language challenge inherent in twitter. You have 140 characters to sum up what you are doing right now. Make your point quickly, get in, get out and have fun.

I love it. I use twitter a lot, and my twitter page is updated more frequently than this blog ever has been. But today I started thinking about social networking seriously for the first time because it occurred to me that social networking has become an integral part of our society and that hit me when a kid who was the same age as my youngest child started following me on twitter and revealed their age.

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Giving Thanks

The holidays have always been hard. My husband and I live on the opposite end of the country from my family, so I can’t go to my aunt’s house for Thanksgiving dinner and tell my grandmother how great her turkey and noodles were, or how much I liked the pumpkin pie. I haven’t had thanksgiving dinner with my family since my daughter was born.

She was still on a liquid diet then. Now she has braces and a flat iron. Yeah, it’s been a while and normally it’s no big deal. I call my parents, tell them I love them, wish them a happy turkey day and have a good time talking on the phone with them. After the phone calls, hubby and the kids and I start cooking, mostly hubby cooks and the rest of us watch while we watch some movie or show on TV. Then we’ll play video games until we get tired and we’ll all pass out in a puddle in the family room.

At some point, someone will call or text message someone else and we’ll wake up and then we’ll pack up the remains of our feast and go to bed.

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NaNoWriMo

I am participating in National Novel Writing Month.

If you are interested in details on NaNo, visit their website.

So far, it’s been going well. I am working with my web programmer husband to get a graphic on my sidebar that will show my loyal readers what word count I’m at, but for now, when I hit a benchmark, I post it on twitter, and any readers of my blog can see my tweets on the sidebar, also a new feature added by my husband.

I don’t have a lot to share about this, other than to apologize for my lack of posting lately. Life has been fairly hectic and as a way to sort of blow off some steam about it all, I decided to participate in NaNo. This has put me in touch with a rather close knit group of local writers that participate in the event every year and these gals are out of this world. Super supportive, nicer than you would believe.

As soon as the novel is finished, I’ll post a note and a brief synopsis on my blog.

Until then!

Mementos of My Grandmother

First of all, I would like to thank all of my friends. When the news came to them that my grandmother passed away last week, my friends from all corners of the globe rushed to my side via the text message, twitter, IM, cell phones and e-mail to be there for me. There are also those that waited until they were able to tell me of their sorrow for my loss face to face. Thank you. I am so blessed to have all of you in my life, I truly am.

My grandmother passed away a week ago today. I was with her when she died. Earlier in the day I had talked to the doctor. He told me quite matter-of-factly that it was just a matter of time. To be honest with you, I was grateful for his direct nature. I don’t like it when people beat around the bush when it comes to things that are just going to break my heart. I’d rather hear it straight, feel the pain, deal with it and get on with my life. He told me that she was in a state of delirium, but he said that he was sure that she knew we were there, and that she understood us and that we could talk to her. I decided to take him at his word. I had the chance to be alone with her before she passed, so I talked to her for a bit. I told her that my cousins and I were all grown up now, I had figured out how to make her wonderful apple pie and that my children were doing well in school and that I was happy. Then I told her the thing that broke my heart to say, but I knew needed to be said, because I knew right down to my soul that she was waiting to hear it. I told her that if she needed to go, she could. I told her that I was a big girl now and could take care of myself.

It hurt so bad to say it, but I meant every single word and less than an hour later, she was gone.

My aunt asked me to speak at the funeral, and I told her that I would, but when I sat down to write a few things, I couldn’t even think. My grandmother was so many things to me. I was her only grand-daughter and because of this I was spoiled, but I was also so loved by her. She drove me absolutely crazy. Every phone call was heavily laden with worry for the health of my children, “Are you feeding them babies enough? They’re not sick are they?”. Her worrying and obsessing over their well-being was so bad that my husband jumped at the first chance he had to move us out of the state when it showed up because he couldn’t watch me cope with it anymore. But in spite of all of that, when she was gone all I could think about was all of her love.

When I was little, Grandma and I would watch musicals together. The first time I saw “The King and I”, my grandma and I sat on the couch in her living room and cried over a box of kleenex as the king died. It is still my favorite musical of all time. We would also sit on the couch and watch game shows, and figure out all the answers on Jeopardy, and Wheel of Fortune long before the contestants ever got their shot. She was a sharp gal, my grandma. She also made these amazing apple pies that will always fill my soul when I think about eating them, because there was love in every bite and no one will ever make apple pie like she did. No one.

All of these memories flooded into my mind at once, and even more because I spent so much time with her. Compared to my cousins, who grew up across the country from our grandparents, I was so lucky but at the same time I still feel as though I didn’t spend enough time with them. I feel like I missed out on way too much, but I know it’s not true. I was there when it mattered. I was able to give her the key that set her free from this mortal life that was filled with hard work, pain, suffering and loneliness. My love for her allowed her to go and be with my grandpa and my uncle. My love sent her home and it is this, more than anything else, that gives me peace.

I have managed to get my hands on a couple of things from my grandparents house. They didn’t have much, they were poor and they worked their fingers to the bone every day of their lives, but what they did have, they were so very proud of. My grandmother’s depression glass collection is on its way, and I have a box that I shipped to myself before I left my parents’ house that contains some of the most precious items of all.

When the box showed up on the kitchen counter, my son looked at me and said, “So what’s with the box?”
I said, “This is my grandmother’s life.”
My daughter looked disgusted and said, “No way! Great-grandma’s ashes are in there?” At this, my husband gave me a dubious look, and then smiled because he already knew what was inside.
I shook my head and said, “No. These are pictures, mementos of every moment of my grandmother’s life. There are pictures from when she was in kindergarten, until the day that her youngest great-grandchild was born.”
My daughter said, “Oh.” and went on about her business. My son nodded and went on about his business too. My husband hugged me and I struggled not to cry.

You see, it’s my job to catalog her life. I am going to scan the photos and send some of them back to my aunt, while others will go into a photo album to chronicle this small piece of my family’s history. Once they are assembled in the book, I’ll sit down with my kids and go over every photo in detail and pass it down to them when I am gone along with the mementos of my life.. and I hope that they remember me with all the love that I feel from my grandmother right now.

Test Drives: 2004 MINI Cooper, 2008 Honda Civic EX, 2008 Subaru Impreza

So I’m in the process of buying a car. I joked with my husband that I wanted a MINI Cooper and we thought it was funny. The closest dealership is nearly 300 miles away. Warranty service seemed like it would be impossible to get and it just didn’t make sense, then he found a listing for a used one at a local dealership and took me out for a test drive just because it was fun.

Well, that was exactly the problem. It was FUN! I have never had so much fun driving a car. I loved the car so much that my husband was in shock. He figured this car shopping thing was going to be like pulling teeth. I’ve driven the same car for ten years, and I like my car. I’ve never been in love with it, but it’s reliable and gets me from A to B, so I have no complaints. I’ve told him for years that I didn’t need a new car, or want one. But, when I got behind the wheel of the MINI, my eyes lit up. It was like I had been in a driving coma and suddenly, I was alive again.

Ever since then, I’ve been car shopping with gusto. So here are some results from the cars I’ve testhy driven so far.

2004 MINI Cooper

The handling on this car is amazing. When you turn the steering wheel, it turns the car as far as you turn the wheel. Steering is not guess work. This is the first thing I noticed about the car after putting it in drive. Sure, there are lots of other features, the cockpit in the MINI is this thing that is both complex and wondrous at the same time (I never did find the button for the power windows and the salesman had no idea where to start looking), but in spite of that the drive was fun. The acceleration is punchy, yet smooth. The car doesn’t jerk or stutter when accelerating, it just goes. Stepping on the gas does something in this car, unlike in my current vehicle, where stepping on the gas is followed by a 2 second delay and then a blank stare followed by the phrase “Oh! You meant NOW!” The drive of this car was everything I wanted it to be, but I passed on this one because it was close in mileage to my current car. Still, MINIs are way fun to drive.

2008 Honda Civic EX

I’m going to talk about the interior on this one for a second. The interior on the Honda Civic is pretty much one of those sorts of things where you get into the car, look at the dash and go “What the f***?” I’m not sure what Honda was thinking. Maybe they thought that Space Aliens were going to invade and their cars needed to be ready for the transition. That said, the layout for the dash, though strange and off-putting, turns out to be amazingly awesome when you’re behind the wheel of the car. The speedo is exactly where you want it to be, just below your field of vision, so you scarcely have to take your eyes off the road to keep an eye on how fast you’re going, and the drive in this car is so fun! The Honda doesn’t handle quite as tightly as the MINI, but acceleration is nice and smooth and sometimes gets away from you. Braking on the Honda is also smooth, but the brakes in the Honda are some of the touchiest brakes I’ve used so far. It would take some getting used to, but not an all together bad thing. Steering in the civic is also nice and tight.

2008 Subaru Impreza

I drove this car because I promised my father that I would test drive one of the cars he builds. The Impreza didn’t really impress me. It handles and feels nearly identical to a Corolla, but the seats were more comfortable than in my current vehicle. This is the biggest problem with Subarus though. You buy them for their reputation of being reliable cars, you buy them because they handle great on snow. You don’t necessarily buy them because they are fun to drive. I don’t have anything bad to say about it, but I don’t really have anything great to say about it either. It was just sort of… meh…

Tonight’s test drive will be the 2008 Scion tC. Wish me luck on finding a salesman though. Last night, I stood on the lot for twenty minutes and no one ever showed up. I’m thinking these guys may not want my business.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

So, my dear friends Karl and Angel decided that it was a crying shame that I’d never read Hunter S. Thompson. When this was discovered, Angel handed me her copies of “The Great Shark Hunt” and “The Rum Diaries”, then Karl slid me copies of “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72″ and “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”.

I read the campaign trail book first, because I’d started reading it during one of the writer’s meetings that Karl and I now do every Saturday, but now that I’ve started Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I really wish I’d read it first. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign trail was kind of… well… dull. But when a book starts with the line “We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” You know you’re at least in for some entertainment. So far, this book has been nothing if not a wild ride.

This explains a lot about Hunter S. Thompson’s funeral. I mean, I always knew the guy was a character, but until I read his books, I didn’t understand that whole having your ashes shot out of a cannon thing. Now I get it, and I’m endlessly amused by it.

I Love my AT&T Store.

So this morning, after 3 weeks… I received yet another anonymous text message from some person looking for some guy named Dave. It started a while back. My husband and I were watching House, and I was getting phone calls from this dude who sounded like he was stoned saying, “Eh… is Dave there?”

The problem is, I know several guys named Dave, and in an emergency situation, I could see one of them giving a stoner my phone number if he had no one else to turn to, so I always asked, “Which Dave, I know two and none of them live with me.” Stoner Dude (not his real name), hung up after saying, “Well it was his number this morning. Aww man!” After three days of this, I finally managed to convince Stoner Dude that this was not his phone number, and that he was going to have to come up with another way to get in touch with his friend. I figured… the guy was a stoner. It’s entirely possible he just mis-dialed a lot, or wrote down the wrong number for his friend. Fine. I let this incident go.

All was quiet for like a week. Then I got a phone call from this gentlemanly gentleman who asked me very nicely if “Dave” was there. I told him that he had the wrong number, and that I had already talked to Dave’s friend Stoner Dude, and apparently Dave is giving out my number for some reason. I asked him if he would mind asking Dave to stop giving out my number, and he said that he would as soon as he tracked him down, and apologized for bothering me. I never received a phone call from this gentleman again.

Over the course of the next two weeks, I would randomly get phone calls from catty girls, looking for Dave. I told every single one of them that Dave wasn’t at this number, one of them even called me a b-word before she hung up on me.

By this morning, I had had enough of Dave and Dave’s friends, so when I got a text message from a phone number I didn’t know, I snapped. What you see below is a recaptured conversation from my iPhone, with names and numbers changed.

From Weird Number: “Hey”
Me: “Some guy named Dave has been giving out my number for 3 weeks. Looking 4 him right? Would you mind telling him 2 stop? I’ve had this # a long time and don’t want to change it. Thnx!”
Weird Number: “Who is this?”
Me: “The person who’s tired of Dave’s friends calling her at 3 am. Who also doesn’t know who you are or why you txt msg’d her. Just assuming u are a friend of Dave’s.”
Weird Number: “I didn’t text anyone!”
Me: “Weird. I got a txt from this # Sorry to bother you. No caffeine, little sleep due to phone calls all night.”
Weird Number: “And you got a text from this number? When? Who is this?”
Me: “9:10 am. I’m (random gemini, of course!), you are?”
Weird Number: “Wilson. I am sorry you are getting calls but I have never texted this number before, nor do I know who you are.”
Me (at this point, seething and ready to call my provider and scream… ): “No prob. I’ll call my provider about it.”

Wilson could have let it go there, but this bothered him for some reason, so he kept asking me questions. While he was trying to trouble shoot, it came out that he worked at an AT&T store. So we made arrangements for me to head down there so that we could figure this whole thing out, and then I found out that Wilson’s phone is security locked… no one else could have texted me from his phone. He was confused by all of this, then he asked me to just call the store instead, because he was concerned someone had doubled up my phone number with another customer’s number. I agreed to do this, made my coffee and got ready to call him when I received the following text from Wilson.

Wilson: “Oh wait! LOL! You are not gonna believe this! I did text you! This customer who was in here just now has almost the same phone number as you! He said his texts were not working, his number is 555-1213 (mine is 555-1212) and he gave me the wrong number! I apologize!”
Me: “Thank you so much! Glad it was something simple. You’re awesome! What days do you work? I want to bring you cookies.”

It turns out, Dave had been mistakenly giving out my phone number since getting his brand new cell phone, and didn’t understand why his friends never called, and his phone never rang and why he wasn’t getting his text messages. Wilson straightened the guy out and after giving me his work schedule, he offered to help me any time I had problems with my account.

Now that ladies and gentlemen, is what I call customer service. I was rude to this guy. He didn’t have to help me, and he did anyway. I will be taking him some home made Oatmeal Scotchies tomorrow because he deserves them for putting up with the way I treated him. The customer service hotline for AT&T sucks, but I love talking to the people in the stores where I live. They really care about making sure that I’m happy, even if I’m a bitch.

Sweeney Todd

I went to see Sweeney Todd with some friends on Friday night and I just have to say that if you loved the story of Sweeney Todd and have seen the musical, I think that you’d be very happy with Tim Burton’s treatment of the story. It really translated well to film and the performances in this film were absolutely fantastic. Most films that Tim Burton has lent his creative eye to that I’ve enjoyed are stories that are well designed for his artistic tendency toward the macabre. Batman wasn’t a good choice for Burton, but Sweeney Todd is the perfect story for Tim Burton and his view of the world.

One thing that I really appreciated in this film was the use of red paint for blood, as opposed to the realistic blood that we’ve become used to in films these days. I was relieved to see that because it gave the film a sense that you could have been watching this show on a stage on Broadway, with these vast sets and brilliant acting and stage direction. It took me back to the days when Hollywood productions were these absolutely immense undertakings. It took me back to the days when musicals were often translated to film, and translated very well.

If you plan to go see Sweeney Todd, keep in mind that this is a gruesome story and the gore has nothing to do with Tim Burton. Everything that he includes that’s gory and disgusting has been in every version of the play that I have ever seen.

Brilliant job Mr. Burton. Just brilliant.