"Life's Just a Cocktail Party on the Street.."

Had a lovely dinner at Rick & Kim's house (Mike's brother and sister-and-law). We were joined by another of his brother's, Brendan, and Brendan's girlfriend Melissa.

The menu was SERIOUS (potato and chive soup, prime rib, spinache souffle, twice baked potatoes, and yorkshire pudding!). And for dessert, a cranberry strudel (with yummy orange zest). My palate was in HEAVEN!

I cinched the win on our game of Cranium by managing to spell the word "catastrophe" backwards the first try without writing anything down. That's right! Who's yer Momma?! haha! Considering all the granny smith green apple cider I'd had and the after-dinner amaretto... I was pretty impressed with myself. ;)

So this time I dreamed I was camping and saw a Komodo Dragon. LOL. I ran to the car to get my camera (which was inside the car charging through a cigarette lighter adapter), shut the door closed, and the thing saw me so I started skipping back to the back of the trailer at a good pace, got all poised about 6 feet behind it, trained my camera right on the back edge of the trailer, zoomed in some, and waited for it to present itself because I just KNEW I was going to get at LEAST a couple of kickass shots.

When the giant truck of the people camping next to us came charging into view on my finder, it about scared me half to death. That was supposed to be the Komodo! Where had it gone? Was it still coming?!

I waited a minute, crouched there and ready, then finally pulled the camera down and looked toward the neighbors' campsite. I said "Did you guys see the monitor lizard?" and they go "Ayup. Tossed it back into the river."

I was pissed.

hahaha

No idea why, however, since the things are meat-eaters and this was no small Komodo and I had no business trying to get the thing to follow me in hopes of getting a good picture of it. But it *was* a dream after all! Guess I thought I was Shazzam the Komodo Huntress or something!


To see a lizard (just a lizard, generally) in your dream, signifies your primal instincts and reactions toward sex, food, etc. and your anxieties toward these feelings. The lizard can also be representative of a person who you view as cold-blooded, fearful, or thick-skinned. On a more positive note, the lizard also symbolizes emerging creativity, renewal, and revitalization. It may also suggest that you are well-grounded.

*shrug!*

Specific info that I could find on the Komodo dragon itself (which seems as if it would be much more prudent since the type of lizard in my dream was very specific), basically stated that the Komodo has spiritual and psychic symbolism and could represent a fight, a battle, as in a real one going on, or it could represent a change of circumstances, new direction in life.

All in all I'm not really sure what to make of the dream. But it was interesting! And I acted completely out of character in it (luring it toward me for the perfect shot)! haha!

Last night I dreamt I was in the middle of chatting with online and alla sudden my computer started doing some VERY wonky stuff. Weird windows were popping up all over, the entire look of my desktop changed and I couldn't control any of it. I kept thinking to myself... "I JUST ran a virus scan not an hour ago!" and I had.

But it was very obviously a virus or worm of some sort.

I kept trying to close down windows and more kept frantically popping back open (you know... the typical porn surfing nightmare.. i know you people know what I mean... haha!).

All I wanted to do was to be able to get icq to work long enough for me to send a msg to so that he'd know what was going on and why i was suddenly about to disappear, but the stupid computer wouldn't let me click on icq. I don't really remember anything more than that... just that all attempts to make further contact with him were futile. *snicker*

It was an interesting dream. And a frustrating one.

You see the stars are moving so slowly
But still the earth is moving so fast
Can't you see the moon is so lonely
She's still trapped in the pain of the past

. . .

There's no religion but sex and music
There's no religion but sound and dancing
There's no religion but line and color
There's no religion but sacred trance

There's no religion but the endless ocean
There's no religion but the moon and stars
There's no religion but time and motion
There's no religion, just tribal scars

Throw a pebble and watch the ocean
See the ripples vanish in the distance
It's just the same with all the emotions
It's just the same in every instance

There's no religion but the joys of rhythm
There's no religion but the rites of Spring
There's no religion in the path of hate
No prayer but the one I sing

There's no religion but sex and music
There's no religion that's right or winning
There's no religion in the path of hatred
Ain't no prayer but the one I'm singing

Snagged this from the 100 Things About Me webring which I happened to stumble upon in my websurfing a couple of days ago. I thought it was neat... Many of you have probably already seen/read/and even DONE this yourself as it's been around for years, but .

100 Things About Me

1. I moved and changed schools eight times between grades 2 and 7.

2. I began dying my hair at age 11 (and haven’t stopped since!).

3. I have a brother whom I have neither seen nor spoken too since 1995 (not by my choice).

4. The first three cd’s I ever owned were: Led Zeppelin IV, The Firm, and INXS – Listen Like Thieves. (My brother bought them for me, along with my first cd player.)

5. Our 3A marching band won second in State during my sophomore year in high school.

6. I have seen Aerosmith and ZZ Top 3x each in concert.

7. I type 112 cwpm.

8. I played the lead in the One-Act Play three of the four years I was in high school.

9. I have been “the first” for three virgins.

10. My favorite arcade game is Pinball!

11. I play the saxophone, the flute, and am a fledgling at guitar.

12. I have a miniature Dachshund named Weenie.

13. My dog is the best birthday present I have ever received.

14. My birthday is on 9/11.

15. I have only ever met one of my four grandparents.

16. I have been to 28 different states in the U.S.

17. When I first entered college I was in pursuit of a Pharmacy degree.

18. I graduated from college with an Associate of Science in Radiography.

19. The first computer I ever owned was an Apple IIe.

20. Before I learned how to ride it, I would sit atop my bike at the head of my driveway and will myself to have the balls to try to ride the driveway slope to where it met the street.

21. Sometimes I would sit there for over half an hour finding every reason NOT to go for it, then finally get off my bike and go pack it away in the garage again.

22. When I was 6 years old I had a pair of goldfish (won at the County Fair) named Pinkie and Fonzie.

23. I pride myself on my wide range of musical knowledge across a variety of genres. I can usually “name that tune” in VERY few notes…

24. My earliest memory of what I wanted to be when I grew up was a singer.

25. When I was around age 6 and belting out the words to a song currently playing on the car radio, my step-father told me to stfu because my singing sucked. I was devastated.

26. I never tried out for the school choir, but played in the band from 6th grade onward (both saxophone and flute).

27. Autumn is my favorite season of the year.

28. I do not believe in ‘god’ in the Christian sense.

29. My first pet was a puppy my parents got a couple of months before I was born. He was a sheepdog named Yogi.

30. I was five years old and away visiting my Grandma when Yogi died. When I returned, my parents told me that he had run away.

31. I walked up and down my street every day for weeks after Yogi “disappeared” calling for him and wondering why he would have run away from us.

32. A sentimental TV commercial can have me in tears in less than 30-seconds.

33. Fantasy is my favorite genre of book.

34. I love anything/everything to do with faeries, fairytales, folklore and mythology.

35. I used to collect unicorns.

36. After I gave up unicorns I started a shot glass collection. I have 100’s of the things.

37. I don’t collect anything at all now, except good memories and I do my damnedest to collect lots of those as often as possible!

38. I love music. All kinds. (Almost.)

39. While in high school I competed in spelling bees, typing contests, extemporaneous speaking, debate, duet acting, poetry and prose reading competitions and was on our school’s “mock court” team. I also competed with our One-Act Play cast each year, as well as the Concert Band, the Marching Band, and the Jazz Band.

40. One week after graduating high school in 1989, I moved out of the state and have only been back one time since then (for my ten-year class reunion).

41. I believe that everyone should attend at least ONE of their high school reunions, regardless of their “status” or popularity back when they were actually IN high school.

42. I love to go camping and do so frequently.

43. I am bisexual and not afraid to say so.

44. I have only visited two countries outside the United States: Mexico and Costa Rica.

45. My parents divorced when I was 6 yrs old. Both remarried other people, eventually divorced them, then later remarried EACH OTHER when I was 16 yrs old.

46. I’ve been married three times.

47. I am a HUGE Neil Gaiman fan.

48. I am a Virgo and act just like one. :P

49. I’ve never broken a bone (and hope I didn’t just jinx myself by typing that!)

50. My son Jory is my life’s greatest achievement.

51. My grandmother taught me how to quilt and crochet when I was 8 years old.

52. I was voted “Most Beautiful” by my classmates my senior year in high school.

53. I was voted “Person Who’s Changed the Most” at my 10-year class reunion and I’m still not quite sure how to take that or what they meant by it exactly. (me in 1999)

54. I would love to own my own business (just have to figure out WHAT!)

55. I gave birth to my son via Caesarian Section.

56. Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Tori Amos are some of the most “artistic” musicians I have ever encountered.

57. I love taking pictures, but am not all that good at it.

58. I lied on #36. I happen to have a completely insane fetish for cover songs and have hundreds of them stored on my harddrive.

59. I have 40+ different covers of the Jimi Hendrix song “Little Wing”.

60. I no longer have a gall bladder.

61. My favorite color is Forest Green.

62. My favorite movie of all-time is Pulp Fiction.

63. I know all the words to every song from the Grease soundtrack and after Pulp Fiction, Grease is the movie I have watched the greatest number of times.

64. I have the coolest sister in the entire world!

65. I wish the workweek was Sat/Sun and the “weekend” was Mon-Fri.

66. I have a gap between my front teeth and HATE it, but remind myself that Lauren Bacall, Madonna, and Sandra Bernhard have the money to change their ‘gaps’ if they want to… but haven’t.

67. I spend very little time talking on the telephone recreationally.

68. I spend a HELLUVA lot of time on my computer.

69. I’d rather “take turns” than 69 and I prefer a one-on-one encounter over a 3-some.

70. I’ve been writing prose, poetry and short stories since I was 6 years old and actually still have the very first story I ever wrote.

71. All my friends and family are freaks (and I use the term ‘freak’ affectionately.)

72. I have far more friends via the Internet that I have never met face to face than those I call friend in “real” life.

73. I have been chatting and making (and sometimes also meeting!) friends over the Internet since 1993.

74. I could roll over the Atari 2400 “Asteroids” game repeatedly for hours on end.

75. I took tap dancing lessons when I was a little girl.

76. I am afraid of heights.

77. My left breast is slightly larger than my right one.

78. I have a birthmark on the back of my head hidden beneath all of my hair.

79. I have a more-than-passing interest in many aspects of BDSM.

80. I have attended more than 10 private fetish play parties.

81. At one of those parties I was asked by the host to produce ID because he was afraid I was underage and didn’t want my daddy banging at his door with a shotgun. (I happened to be 22 at the time.)

82. I got carded at an Outback restaurant two weeks ago when ordering a Dirty Martini. (I’m 32.)

83. I lied on the application for my first job (Eckerd Drug) and said I was 16 (and legal to work) when I was still only 15. They never figured it out.

84. My first car was a brown 1979 MG Midget convertible. I LOVED that car!

85. I really enjoy rain, particularly thunderstorms.

86. I don’t much care for cats; never have.

87. I wish I lived somewhere in the Northwestern United States, but refuse to move my child away from his extended family (whom all live in Florida).

88. I’ve lived through severe addictions to more than one online game. (Sojourn MUD and EverQuest, specifically).

89. I enjoy meeting new people and getting to know them.

90. I have never had a pedicure and the entire idea of paying someone to slough dead skin off my feet completely disgusts me.

91. I think society and the world in general is PURE HELL on gay men.

92. I was present at the candlelight vigil held at Haight-Ashbury the day after Jerry Garcia’s death.

93. I have visited Jimi Hendrix’s original gravesite (before they built the huge memorial monument that is there now) and signed the guest book registry that gets mailed periodically to Jimi’s remaining family.

94. I totally dig old cemeteries. Not just ANY cemetery. OLD cemeteries. I find them fascinating in every way.

95. I could do my boss’s job better than she does and we both know it.

96. The last three years have been the happiest of my adult life.

97. I’m a perfectionist, a worrier, and a procrastinator.

98. I despise being late for ANYthing.

99. I am an aspiring alcoholic.

100. I want my friend Paul out of Afghanistan and back home in Canada ASAP!


It sure took up a good portion of my afternoon here at work and for that... I am HAPPY! 45 minutes to go!

For those who don't already know... one tiny fraction of the job I do here at UF is work with and register all of the high school dual enrollment students each semester. The following is an email I received from one of them over the weekend. It brought a tear to my eye. I'm such a sentimental little beeyotch! ;)

From: ...@aol.com
Date sent: Sun, 14 Dec 2003 12:53:52 EST
Subject: UF Acceptance
To: rho@...

Rhonda,

Thank you so much for everything that you've done for me. I enjoyed my
experience at UF this summer so much and I also learned a lot about
college life. Getting 2 A's in the classes that I took I'm sure helped me
immensely, but if it wasn't for you, I never would have gotten it done.
You were a tremendous help, and I just wanted to thank you, for I am now a Florida Gator.

Thanks Again,
Michael S.

My poor little LJ is in dire need of an update! So here it is:

My weekend
It was great! The traffic and the weather were very good to us on the four-hour drive down and back from Punta Gorda, FL, where my parents live. Jory was with us and my sister and her husband were also there. We had a really great visit, some really good eats, a lot of fun gabbing and playing games, and OF COURSE... one cannot forget the whole gift exchange thing! I might be 32 years old, but I still like opening my Christmas presents, dammit! ;)

I got lots of great new books that I cannot wait to read... A super cool Led Zeppelin "song remains the same" shirt... A very, very neat hand-beaded (orange, blue and silver beads) keychain with a little silver gator dangling from the end of it (GO GATORS!)... A gift card to bath & bodyworks (woot!)... Some clothes and a new "office sweater" (it's always so damned COLD in here!)... some other miscellaneous stuff.... and my favorite prezzie of all which was a portable mp3 player and a wireless audio adapter so I can beam the stuff onto the home/car stereo, etc. Wheeeee! It's so teeny tiny and I LOVE it! (Sometimes good things really DO come in small packages!).

Jory got some cool things like a remote control airplane, a digital camera of his own (he's always been REALLY into picture taking and is already creating some really hilarious photos and movie shorts with it. I'll have to post some of them here.), an electronic battleship game (remember those?! haha! I LOVED mine as a kid), some of the fancy schmancy spandex cycling shorts and shirt, and other assorted things. Basically, he made out like a bandit. As usual. That's what happens when you're the only grandchild for BOTH sets of your grandparents. *snicker*

This Week
Just finalizing things at work and then TWO WEEKS vacation! w00t! I am REALLY looking forward to it. Things are wrapping up pretty nicely here at work and I should have things pretty well in order and organized to leave in wait for my sorrowful return on January 5th. *snicker*

Vacation
I'll be on vacation as soon as I can leave this coming Friday, until 8am on Monday, January 5th. Jory will be with his father (and that side of the family) the entire time as Nolan and I trade off every other year on who gets him for the holidays (hence, why MY family celebrated our xmas so damned early this time). Most of my first week off will be spent simply RELAXING and very likely doing the daily "wake and bake" accompanied by Bloody Mary. hahaha!

Then we'll be heading off into the wild blue yonder to go camping for the next 8 days. Two nights on the beach in Destin, FL followed by five nights in New Orleans, followed by another stop-over night in Chipley, FL on our drive back to Gainesville. I can't wait! New Years in New Orleans. I have sooooooooo many things I want to see and do and have been hitting all my N.O. friends up for suggestions on specific restaurants and points of interest. As long as I've lived in Gville (only 10hrs from N.O.), I've never done more than drive through the city and that's it. This is going to be a real treat for me and something I've been wanting to do for a very long time. YAY!

a THOUSAND DOLLAR CHRISTMAS BONUS!!

"Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know..."

-Mitch Albom, the five people you meet in heaven

AND!!!

I had THE worst fucking nightmare last night. OMG! It was just horrible, horrible, horrible. I would even wake up during it and make a big production of rolling to my other side, fluffing my pillow and adjusting my blankets and then would fall back asleep and the damned thing would pick right up where it left off! VILE, VILE, EVIL THING!

I dreamed that Mike and I had taken Jory and a friend camping and there was a pond nearby that had alligators in it (not uncommon at all here in Florida) and we'd had a very stern talk with the boys not to go anywhere near it. (Can you see where this is going? sigh.)

We began unloading everything and setting up our camp.. the boys take off on their bikes... the next thing I know I'm looking down this hill from our campsite and there's Jory swimming IN THE POND completely oblivious to the five or six 6-7ft long alligators swarming around him in the water. Apparently there was a tree down across the pond at the far end and Jory had seen something on it or near it that he wanted to check out and he was swimming over to it to have a look. I'm standing there a good 40 yards away looking down on the whole thing and I have never felt so absolutely horrified in my entire life.

I scream Jory's name at the top of my lungs and he turns to look, sees the alligators and then starts to swim back to the near side of the pond and one clamps its mouth down on his lower leg and I am absolutely hysterical at this point screaming at Mike to DO SOMETHING and fumbling in my purse for my cell phone to call 911 (of course grabbing everything out of my purse BUT my damned phone...)

omg.. the whole thing was just horrible. I'd wake... try to shake it off.. and then just fall asleep to move on to the next chapter of it. UGH

Needless to say, I didn't have any problem getting outta bed this morning when my alarm went off. In fact, right now, I don't care if I *ever* sleep again.

(This is something they had on the tables at the departmental holiday luncheon I went to today and I thought it was cute. Yes... I got them all right! *teehee* Can you?)

The following words are alternate titles for several well-known Christmas Carols:

Quadruped with crimson proboscis
5PM to 6AM without noise
Miniscule hamlet in the far east
Ancient benevolent despot
Adorn the vestibule
Exuberance directed to the planet
Listen, aerial spirits harmonizing
Monarchial trio
Yonder in the haystack
Assemble, everyone who believes
Hallowed post meridian
Fantasies of a colorless December 25th
Tin tintinnabulums
A dozen 24-hour yule periods
Befell during the transparent witching hour
Homo sapien of crystallized vapor
I merely desire a pair of incisors
I spied my maternal parent osculating a fat man in red
Perambulating through December solistice fantasy
Aloft on the acme of the abode

Children...
go run and jump and play

You'll be...
men and women someday

Then you'll have to leave
your world of make-believe
now children

Children...
who call each other names

Children...
playing grown-up games

We cheer you when you're sad
and spank you when you're bad
now children

Pride goes before destruction
A haughty spirit goes before a fall
Don't you know that we're all children
And it's all for one and one for all? Hmm?

Children...
who think that they are grown

Children...
with children of their own

From the cradle to the grave
why must we all behave

Like children?

--Joe South

rofl jory just said "i don't say bad words because i know my momma wouldn't want me to say 'em... and besides... i never feel like saying them... and besides... i wouldn't even know what kinda sentence to put them in."

I mentioned it before, but Mystic River is easily the best film I've seen all year. There are one or maybe two things I would have done differently or left out altogether had I been the director, but other than that... (and usually I completely pick everything apart thanks to the motion pictures class I took my freshman year of college), everything about this film is superb. The storyline is good... the editing and directorialship is good... and the acting (all the way through several of the supporting roles) is SUPERB. Hands down, this is one of the best films I've seen in a really long time.

Mystic River

Rotten Tomatoes Review Site (if you're into reviews... Sometimes I like reading the reviews on the really bad movies most of all because they can be so brutally hilarious.

Either way... if you plan to see this movie at some point... I recommend not reading *too* much of the synopsis at the actual movie site if it goes on for more than a couple of sentences or it may serve as too much a spoiler.

What a great weekend!

I not only got everything done that I'd promised myself I would do (a feat in itself!), but I actually had time to just "hang out" some with friends and also watch a couple of movies with Mike.

Saturday I truly busted my ass and did almost all of my shopping and now only have two more stops to make with very specific purchases in mind, which should make the experience a piece of cake (*crossing fingers*).

Sunday I made some kickass breakfast burritos and drank half a pot of coffee with whipped cream dolloped on top. YUM! I watched "I Am Sam" (Sean Penn/Dakota Fanning) and "Drumline" (both were okay... nothing to really write home about. S. Penn did a decent bit of acting in "I Am Sam" but he blew me away in Mystic River (which if you have not yet seen, you are *really* doing yourself an injustice!), then took a little nap and ran out to do another couple hours of shopping.

I got home in time to have dinner and sit down to watch HBO's film "Angels in America", which is an adaptation of a Pulitzer and two-time Tony Prize winning play, starring Al Pacino and Meryl Streep (two of my favorite actors!). What a weird show that was! The second half of it comes on this Sunday night... but the first half alone was pretty funky. I can certainly see the home it must've made for itself on the stage, but I'm not so sure about the movie adaptation. It's just... different. It also has that chick from West Wing that I really like (Mary-Louise Parker).

Anyways... I'll definitely tune in for its conclusion but wow... what bleak subject matter to be showing just a couple of weeks before Christmas! Don't they say depression/suicide rates already do something like quadringle during these couple of months of the year? LOL Anyone else out there watch this?

The only blah thing from my weekend is that I'd hoped to make it out to the BFE party in Orlando and just couldn't make it. Wah! I hear it was a really great time and man how I *hate* missing a good party!!! *stomps feet*

So.... I'm back at work. Another day, another dollar, eh? Have a million and twelve things to do this week and still going to try to leave at least a couple hours early (if possible!) on Friday to make the 4-hour trek down to my parents for our weekend holiday celebration. I know the visit will be enjoyable, and making the trip this weekend instead of the weekend of the actual xmas holiday ought to be helpful as well, but I still despise that drive!!

I'll check in again later... Right now I need to get some shit done here. Blah! ;)

Well... here I am at work again. and 'tis Friday.

And I seem to have some sort of unspoken rule that I do as little work as possible on Fridays (particularly when 3/4 of the rest of my co-workers are not in the office today for various reasons).

When the cat is away... the mice will play!

But the funny thing about that is that I have a desk full of work to do and by 10AM I'm already bored of surfing the net and figuring most of my net friends won't wake up and be online to chat with for at least a couple more hours. Wake up already people! You KNOW who you are! Don't be the one responsible for *forcing* me to work for lack of anything better to pass the time! The HORROR!

Too bad I can't be out getting my Christmas shopping done right now instead...

I want to strangle my boss.

Actually something slower and more painful might be preferable.

...

I feel completely disorganized, unmotivated, and up to my EARS with things to get done. I'm not sure wtf is up with that, but I vow to get it all together by this weekend. I just cannot go another week with so many loose ends. It's so... UN-Virgo! (And besides all that, my family is celebrating their holiday the weekend after this one, so this weekend is my very last chance to get everything done. Way to procrastinate, Rhonda! Woohoo!)

Things to get done:

-- finish my christmas shopping for main family gathering
-- wrap all that stuff
-- help mom plan the menu/figure out what i'm going to make/get the stuff to make it
-- finish christmas shopping for everyone *else* on my list
-- deliver nolan's bday/xmas prezzies to him
-- get from nolan (and deliver) the tapes he converted for John's friend
-- shop around on cell phone plans and upgrade mine, along with phone
-- get Jory some new jeans and a new heavy jacket (he's outgrown almost everything "winter")
-- bring Jory's old clothes/toys in to work to give away to the women here with grandchildren
-- make a decision on my vacation and New Year's plans and do reservations, etc.

Less urgent:
-- put closet door back on in J's bedroom
-- mail J's 2nd grade school pics out to family
-- finish scanning my stash of rave flyers
-- finish updating my RPG's webpage (narrative and October thread of the month)
-- install calendar on the RPG webpage
-- find pics/drawings to use for 3 of my characters in the RPG and tweak the bios that I wanted to rewrite
-- get marc started with an intro thread in the game

This be SOUP weather! Can I get a witness?

Formal Dining Must Dos (Eating Soup)

Soup, usually the first course, shows you off as a savvy diner or someone whose
manners could do with polishing! Soup is served either in a wide, shallow dish,
or a smaller bowl, resting on an under-plate.

• Spoon the soup away from you, towards the center of the bowl.

• Sip from the side of the spoon. Never put the whole spoon in your mouth or slurp.
Noisy eating is better placed in the farmyard, rather than the dining table!

• Tip the bowl away from you and spoon the soup across the bowl to get at the last bits.

• After finishing the soup, place the spoon in the under-plate, or in the soup plate at
a 10:20 position.

...

From what I read, slurping one's soup is quite acceptable in China, however. ;)

...

John Belush -- R.I.P.
Deathbed Soup Tales

...

I'm off to eat some soup!

I am not your rolling wheels
I am the highway
I am not your carpet ride
I am the sky
I am not your blowing wind
I am the lightning
I am not your autumn moon
I am the night

I *still* haven't quite recovered from my weekend out of town. The visit on Wed night and Thurs with my parents was great, but visits home anymore always seem to end up with me spending most of my time in my mom's bedroom trying to fix her computer or install something new on it or explain to her over and over how to to do something on it. Ugh. I love my mom and I really and truly don't mind helping her with that stuff, but when I only make it down to see them 3 or 4 times a year... I'd rather be able to spend my time there actually visiting with them, ya know?

Left mom and dad's on Thursday afternoon after Tgiving dinner. **Note to self for future: Don't plan stuff that requires one to be really motivated shortly after eating a huge Thanksgiving dinner.** haha! It was REALLY hard to get my butt up off the couch and load up to head out to my sister's Peace River property for the weekend campout. But... I managed.

The campout was a lot of fun. There were about 30 people actually camping and then during the day on Friday and Saturday another 15-20 would show up for the day and leave later on, but not stay overnight. The weather was great! Almost rained, but didn't. Almost got a touch too cold on Saturday night, but not quite (course all the substances in my system likely changed my own personal perception of exactly how cold it felt! haha!) I didn't take NEAR as many pictures as I'd planned to, but did get a few good ones though I haven't yet had a chance to even nab them off of my camera yet. I also didn't make it to the bone orchard nearby that I ALWAYS say I'm going to go roam every time I go camp there (and then forget until we leave and drive past it again on the way out). Figures. :P

The ride home on Sunday was definitely the suck and I was *so* glad I wasn't the one behind the wheel. I'd had about 6.5 hours sleep since Wed and the going-home-on-Sunday-of-Thanksgiving-weekend traffic was NASTAY. That came as no surprise really... but still... having to be in it anyways was no fun at all. What is normally a 4-hour drive home took 6 hours and we were damned lucky we were heading north instead of south. At least northbound I-75 kept a pretty steady (but REALLY thick) 50mph cruise. The southbound side was barely rolling starting at the turnpike exit at Wildwood and was completely backed up all the way until we exited in Gainesville and beyond. NOT PRETTY!!

Got home just in time to speed-unload the car and jump in the shower before the season finale of Carnivale started at 9. Watched that (juicy cliffhanger for certain!... now I'll probably only have to wait a year or so for Season 2 to start *rolls eyes*). Then... I COLLAPSED!

It's been busy back at work and I went to bed early again trying to catch up on lost sleep last night. Now I've just got to get my shit together to finish up my shopping for my family's xmas celebration which is the weekend after this one. Yes... ANOTHER 4-hour drive out-of-towner. I know I must be getting old because I just don't wanna do the every-weekend-out-of-town thing anymore! No BFE this Saturday for me... *pouts* Guess I'll make it down there one of these days. Just turning out to be bad timing for me this year (and I was really wanting to go too!) If anyone is reading this who plans to be there... have double the fun so you can make up for my missing out on it! ;)

Now... I return you to your regularly scheduled activity. I have a ton of work to get done.

I dreamed very vividly last night of a large, beautiful, bright red bird with a striking yellow beak and yellow talons landing on Nolan's right shoulder (no idea where he and I were or what we were doing... but that didn't seem important as I actually "said" to myself inside my mind as I was dreaming this that I needed to remember to look up the meaning of birds in dreams --and particularly red ones-- once I woke up). In the dream I had my camera with me and the bird was spreading its wings somewhat in a very beautiful and amazing pose right there on Nolan's shoulder, but by the time I dropped everything I was carrying and lifted the camera to take the photo, it had closed its wings and refused to reopen them. LOL (figures!)

Right then, the girl next door left for school and her squeaky front gate woke me up. :/

Unfortunately, I'm not a "bird" person, so have no idea what KIND of bird was in my dream or even if it *was* a species of actual bird or something my subconscious simply concocted. But this is what I found on the net:

To dream of a chirping and/or flying birds, represents joy, harmony, ecstasy, balance, and love. It denotes a sunny outlook in life. You will experience spiritual freedom and psychological liberation. It is almost as if a weight has been lifted off your shoulders.

Red is an indication of raw energy, force, vigor, intense passion, aggression, power, courage and passion. The color red has deep emotional and spiritual connotations.

Red is also the color of danger, shame, sexual impulses and urges. Perhaps you need to stop and think about your actions.

The color yellow has both positive and negative connotations. If the dream is a pleasant one, then the color yellow is symbolic of intellect, energy, agility, happiness, harmony, and wisdom.

Don't have time to delve further right now.... Heading outta town for the rest of the weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving to those who may happen upon this entry... and the same to those who don't. :)

Rhonda

Stolen from . Thank you for giving me something OTHER than work to do for the last half hour of this work day. Bless you woman!

Name Four Bad Habits You Have:
1. talking too much
2. biting my fingernails
3. procrastinating
4. taking silly quizzes

Name Four Things That You Wish You Had:
1. a houseboy
2. a waspish waistline
3. copious amounts of spare cash
4. a work-at-home job

Name Four Scents You Love:
1. fresh pine
2. my weenie dog
3. nag champa
4. rain

Name Four Things You'd Never Wear:
1. suspenders
2. leopard-print ANYthing
3. a banana clip
4. panties

Name Four Things You Are Thinking About Now:
1. that coming up with answers for this quiz is turning out to be way harder than it should be for something meant as an idle passing of my time :p
2. all the things I have to get done in the next couple days/weeks and trying to keep it all straight in my head
3. that i'd rather be home finishing the new Sandman book
4. that needing to run 2 hrs+ of errands before going home after a 9-hour workday really fucking sucks

Name Four Things That You Have Done Today:
1. listened to Android Lust's "The Dividing" album.. again.
2. started writing out umpteen lists to keep all my shit straight :p (now I need a master list to keep track of all my lists)
3. met with some high schoolers who will be dual enrolling at UF in the Spring
4. a LOT of friggin' typing :p

Name the Last Four Things You Have Bought:
1. cold medicine
2. The Ultimate Book of Kids Concoctions
3. The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Melancholy Stories by Tim Burton
4. a paper airplane making kit with colored paper, stickers and a book of different kinds of planes to make

Name Four Drinks You Regularly Drink:
1. coffee (with cinnamon/vanilla OR hazlenut creamer)
2. water
3. Ciclon (rum/vodka mixed liquor)
4. Cherry Coke

Last Song You Sang?
"The Hardest Button to Button" - White Stripes

Last Person You Hugged?
my little boy

Last Thing You Laughed At?
Jory last night when he made a whip sound effect when I glared at Mike and told him NOT to be telling Jory it was okay to feed food he didn't want from his dinner to the dog :p

Last Time You Said 'I Love You' And Meant It?
Half an hour ago.

Last Time You Cried?
August
(actually... got a bit teary eyed during Sean Penn's performance in Mystic River at the movie theater a couple of weeks ago too, if that counts)

What's In Your CD Player?
at home: Tori Amos "Tales of a Librarian"; at work: Godsmack "Faceless"

What Color Socks Are You Wearing?
none

What's Under Your Bed?
no clue

What Time Did You Wake Up Today?
too early (7am)

Current Taste?
taste? wtf kinda question is that?! I always have good taste... currently and... otherwise. :p

Current Hair?
blonde, dark blonde, dark brown and red. rather streakish. much <3 for my hairdresser!

Current Clothes?
blue jeans, long-sleeved, cotton, navy blue shirt, loafers

Current Annoyance?
too many things going on all at once for me to feel like i'm keeping up with ANY of it

Current Longing?
to be relaxing in the sun on a floaty in warm shallow water next to a grass hut in Bora Bora while gripping some fruity alcoholic concoction with umbrella adornment in EACH of my hands -- a lazy, content smile playing upon my lips -- the waves lapping idlely in the background -- my favorite person lounging contentedly right beside me

Current Desktop Picture?
at home: a photo I took of a field of wildflowers on some friends' property
at work: a photo Nolan took at Westminster Abbey in London a couple of weeks ago

Current Worry?
Why does Bobby McFerrin immediately come to mind?

Current Hate?
As much as I seem to be bitching about shit lately, I really hate to focus on the negative

Favorite Physical Feature Of The Opposite Sex?
eyes

Last CD You Bought?
Tori Amos - Tales of a Librarian

Favorite Place To Be?
whereever I am at the time!

Least Favorite Place?
work

If You Could Play An Instrument?
well I *do* play the sax and the flute, but if I could play anything else, it would definitely be guitar.

Favorite Color?
dark green

Current Favorite Word/Saying?
fah from this op-er-uh forevuh mo!
LEM!
buttafuoco

Favorite Season?
Autumn

One Person From Your Past You Wish You Could Go Back And Talk To:
best friend from high school

Favorite Day?
i dunno. i take them as they come, on an individual basis. trying to lump all wednesdays or all fridays together in general doesn't work for me.

Where Would You Like To Go?
to Wichita?
off the rail on a crazy train?
to hell in a hand basket?
(maybe just refer to the "current longing" response above)

What Is Your Career Going To Be Like?
you make it sound as if I don't yet have one.
hmm... I guess I am a 30-something who is somehow hooked on taking little teeny-bopper quizzes. go figure.

How Many Kids Do You Want?
1 is incredible, but 2 would be groovy. 3? Overkill.

Favorite Car?
Jag-yoo-ahr

A Random Lyric:
What kind of cartwheels do I have to pull?
What kind of joke should I lay on her now?
Im inclined to go finish high school
Just to make her notice that Im around
-- "I Want to Be The Boy to Warm Your Mother's Heart" - the White Stripes

Work's been a bitch the past few days. Busy as hell. Mind-numbing.

Trying to finish xmas shopping for our family xmas on Dec 12th. I'm *not* finished and other than tonight/tomorrow night, I won't get another chance to do anything further until next WEEK sometime and then that's only one week away from the actual gathering. Jeezus, I *really* need to hire a houseboy to take care of all these little errands for me.

Trying to input all this damned data for this project at work by its deadline. Oh wait. That deadline was Friday, wasn't it? Yeah. It was. And to that I say, "DEATH TO ALL PEOPLE WHO HAVE EVER SUBMITTED SOMETHING ON THE LAST POSSIBLE DATE OF THE DEADLINE WHEN THEY'VE KNOWN FOR MONTHS IN FUCKING ADVANCE THAT IT WAS DUE ON THAT DAY!!! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!" Okay... hrm. I wonder why I don't feel better now? :P

Trying to keep track of what I'm helping my mom with as far as our Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday and what I need to get at the store to get ready for the campout which follows the Tgiving dinner.

Trying to keep track of the shit I need to pack up from around the house and the chores (like laundry) that I need to get done before we go.

Trying to help my mom and my sister with ideas for Christmas presents for other people in our family when I don't even know what I'm getting them yet.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I usually love Christmas time and have always enjoyed buying gifts for friends/family, no matter the time of year, but this year is ON MY NERVES.

Okay.. I'm sounding pretty damned bitchy. I need to chill and relax and try to get some enjoyment out of all of this or else I might just blow a gasket. I think once I actually get OUT of the workplace and AWAY from this crapass environment and am actually kicking back at mom and dad's (wed/thurs) and then out camping with my sister and the oodles of friends who will be out there on the Peace River (thurs/fri/sat/sun), I've GOT to chill at least a LITTLE, right?! We'll be camping on the PEACE River for heaven's sake.

Deep breaths, Rhonda! Focus! <---- feeling like Eddy on Ab/Fab. I need Patsy to show up with a case of champagne and a jeweled make-up bag full of assorted pharmaceuticals.

Also thought this looked interesting... Stolen from , one of the most talented chiquitas I know, who stole it from someone else. Wheeee! Gotta love the LJ community of quiz addicts and pilferers! Course, I tend to babble on, so one-word answers from this girl are few and far between!

First real kiss: 11 yrs. old.

First job: Pharmacy Clerk at an Eckerd Drug store. I lied and said I was 16, even though my birthday wasn't for two more months. :p

First screen name: Draovne (Before "Rho", some called me "Ron" and at the time I was dating a guy named "Dave". You do the math. Yes, I realize now how incredibly DORKY that was!)

First self purchased album: I answered all the other questions and had to come back to this one and I STILL am unsure what to put here (as to accuracy). I remember the first CDs bought FOR me... My brother got me a stereo with a CD player when they'd just come out and were all the rage... rofl... (STFU!) and he bought me Led Zep IV, The Firm, and INXS - Listen Like Thieves. But the first thing I bought for mySELF? Dayum. That's a toughie. It woulda been on cassette... and something from the era of Def Leppard - Hysteria, ZZ Top - Eliminator, or John Cougar - Hurt So Good. I'm really not certain on this.

First funeral: Jenny Jackson. Girl in my 8th grade class who died in a car accident.

First pets: Sheepdog named "Yogi"

First piercing: both ears. Age 6.

First true love: Sean Robinson. Married him at 17. It got really ugly after that. :p

First big trip: Traveled a LOT by car as a young girl, but my first plane flight alone somewhere was to NYC at age 11 (to visit my Uncle)

Last big car ride: Nine hours (one way) up to Helen, GA to go camping in the mountains... just last week!

Last kiss: Last night when I kissed my little boy goodnight.

Last good cry: August. (My Uncle died of brain cancer about 6 months ago and my Aunt came to visit in August for my grandmother's 90th birthday. I saw her walking alone on the beach and realized it was the first time I could really remember *ever* seeing her without my Uncle by her side and .. imagined perhaps she was thinking some of that same thing herself...)

Last movie seen: "Master and Commander", just last night. Ehh.... it was -OKAY- Last *really* good movie seen? Mystic River, without a doubt!

Last beverage drunk: Ciclon (a rum/tequila liquor) with raspberry seltzer and a sprig of lime

Last food consumed: French Fries

Last phone call: Work related... someone calling in with a question about one of our programs. Outgoing: Nolan, last night.

Last TV show watched: Half-watched West Wing last night, long enough to hear Leo say "Desperate times call for desperate measures" which led to over 30 mins of internet searching to find the origin of that quote. 30 mins is a long time to look for something "so commonly heard" on the Internet. And that, apparently, was my problem. It's been around for so long and used by so many people that I came across multiple references where other frustrated searchers were ranting about their difficulties in locating its origin. Turns out it's been around from the 1500's... (found from law-lib on the UC-Davis website: This is a variant of the proverb "Desperate diseases must have desperate remedies." This goes back to the Latin _extremis malis extrema remedia_
'extreme remedies for extreme ills.' The earliest English version given by the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs is the following:

1539 R. Taverner tr. _Erasmus' Adages_ 4 A stronge disease requyreth a
stronge medicine.

Butt! it was Abraham Lincoln who probably made it the most famous in his speech to suspend the writ of habeus corpus during the Civil War (which I found earlier this morning :P... yes... the friggin thing PLAGUED me! Only goes to cement my feelings that TV is evil! EVIL, I say! haha)

Last shoes worn: Converse

Last CD played: The White Stripes, "White Blood Cells"

Last item bought: Groceries

Last disappointment: Being too late to really witness the 'changing of the leaves' during our camping trip up to north Georgia last week.

Last soda drunk: Cherry Coke

Last ice cream eaten: Uhmmm... I just realized it's been WAY too long since I last ate any ice cream! But if I could have any ice cream that I wanted RIGHT THIS SECOND... I'd have me some Ben & Jerry's "Chunky Monkey". Awwww yeah.

Last shirt worn: A t-shirt from one of my work's summer programs called "Science Quest"

I just got an email from a good friend who is in Afghanistan. sigh.

He played in my rpg for about 6 months before deploying back in June (he's Canadian). He and i talked EVERY night on icq and were very good friends. I have been writing him ever since June when he first left and only heard back from him once. It's been difficult to continue writing to him not knowing if he's okay... if he'd been getting my letters or not (since i hadn't heard back from him), etc. I'd been plugging along anyways, hoping that since everything was being routed through his parents' address that at least SOMEone would get in touch with me if something terribly bad happened.

Here's what he wrote to me today .... :(

Words cannot express how sorry I am I have not kept in touch with you. We're still here for awhile, things are not going well. I seem to have no time, and a list of excuses as long as my arm why I couldn't send you mail back.

I have read everything you have sent me, and each successive letter my guilt grows and grows, because I have not written you back. As you may or may not know, two of my good friends were killed by a landmine a short time ago. Things are very real here, I can't really explain it any better than that. I miss home, and idle cares like your RPG quite a bit.

I have no time, as usual. computer use is very restricted. Again, I apologize. I'm so sorry I haven't sent you letter back. I feel so guilty, I found it hard to sleep last night, to be honest. That's why I had to send you this e-mail. I hope I can get something off soon. Maybe Saturday when we come in agian.

I hope I get home. We're scheduled to deploy back soon.

Talk to you later,

Paul


sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.........

And here was my somewhat cathartic reply... though I still feel utterly lousy and sad regardless.:

I just wrote you a very long letter yesterday... hadn't posted it yet and it's long overdue... then got this note from you.

As fucked up as it seems, hearing your 'news' and the awfully somber tone of your note, at least I know you're there. You don't owe me anything, be it letters in return or apologies for having much more important and pressing matters at hand. I could never begin to understand what it is like for you there and I wouldn't dare belittle it by make a feeble attempt at assuming I could ever come close.

I miss you Paul. I miss you very, very much. It's been weird here... knowing things have to be so fucked up over there for you and trying to figure what the hell to write to you that doesn't sound absolutely stupid and trivial. I've wanted to keep writing to you, but my life is just the every day bullshit, you know? In the past month I've started several letters to you and threw them away because I felt dumb just prattling on about things going on in my life that are SO far removed from what is going on in yours. I didn't want to make you feel like what you are doing is unimportant or yesterday's news... or that I could truly think that you would find my tales of everyday life anything even remotely important. In the overall scope of things... I am (as we all are) just microscopic cogs in the catastrophic wheel that is... whatever the fuck it is we're doing in the world, as a whole, with ourselves, with each other, with the earth that we share.

Anyways... I'm zoning out and I don't want to do that... Sorry.

I did pound out a letter to you yesterday... just tales of everyday this and that. I can only hope that maybe it does you good to read about mundane triviality on occasion. A little escapism, if you will. I will post it tomorrow.

Much love and a million tiny kisses blown your way... shall you catch them and hold them close to you, stow them away in your pockets and satchels; hide them inside your kerchiefs and tuck them inside your boots so that when you most need one, you can easily retrieve it and hold it close to your heart before touching it softly to your lips and letting it loose again, feather-light and free to float away, to soar across the sand and sea retracing its original trajectory until it finds its way home to me.

I'll catch it when it gets here.

Miss you SO much. I truly do.

Rhonda

If anyone out there would like to write a note or contribute something (or ideas for somethings) I could mail to him while he's sticking it out over there, please forward to me and I will get it to him. I'm sure he'd appreciate as many ways as possible to think about something ELSE from time to time....

Dreams!! OMG! AGAIN.... total weirdness going on in my subconscious last night. This dream SEEMED like it musta lasted all night long, though in reality it was probably only 5 minutes of real time. haha! Funky how that is.

This time it was a HUGE party at my sister and her husband's for his 50th birthday (he *did* just turn 50, so that part was right, but they live in a tiny 500 sq. ft. condo on the beach and in this dream they had a huge-ass country home with a barn out back and the party took up the whole house, the yard, the barn... rofl.. there musta been 300 people there).

I'll spare you *all* the details (there are *lots* of them!), but one of the weirder points was the fact that I ran into "Sofie" (from the HBO series Carnivale) at this party. ROFL. She was drunk off her ass and NOT a very happy person. She was wigging over her mother because of the recent events in the show where **SPOILER ALERT** she thinks that her mother is going crazy and has only recently been unable to hide certain 'thoughts/images' from Sofie (the mother is catatonic but somehow speaks to Sofie telepathically... rofl.. yeah, i know.. weird!) and Sofie has just recently discovered that although her mother has 'told' her all along that her father up and left them years ago... what REALLY happened was he was just some fuckwad who raped Sofie's mother and that's how Sofie came to be. Sofie had a whole visual of the rape scene projected to her from her mother (unintentionally... she's been hiding the truth from Sofie all these years, after all) and it totally freaked her out... (understandably so!)

And... this party in my dream is basically a couple of days after that happened to her. ROFL! So Sofie's drunk off her ass and BEYOND distraught... and *I* bump into her, of course, and recognize her (though I only know her from the show... rofl... which obviously is fictitious, but there's a whole blend of fact/fiction going on) and start talking to her and it turns into this whole ordeal where I feel so much empathy and pain for her and what she's going through.

FUNKAY!

Okay... enough of that. I *have* to get some work done. haha.

Toodle-ooze!

was talking about some of his dreams in one of his recent LJ entries and that got me to thinking (again!) about the round of dreams I had last night. HOO BOY! I know everyone dreams, but I typically never seem to remember mine.. or only very rarely anyways.

Well, Mike's been homebrewing his own beer for about a year or so now (and even rootbeer with Jory! haha) and so he made this mesh bag full of hops to hang from the headboard of our bed. Hops are supposed to make dreams more vivid (and who knows what else they do to ya!) and since he hung it there a little over a week ago, I'm suddenly remembering my dreams at least 5 nights a week when I used to recall what I dreamt only like once every few months. Funkay!

So last night I remember a whole slew of things from my personal little dream world... Dreams are SO cool, too, and I always feel a little jealous when friends or coworkers recount these crazy dreams they've had and I hardly ever seem to remember mine. Now I'm starting to remember them! Yippee!

[A little aside here though... The rare dreams I do remember having from the past, were *often* lucid dreams. Dunno what bearing that may have on the recall or whatever... if any!... but... lucid dreams are the bomb! I totally find myself analyzing my dream and snickering about it or making mental comments to myself inside my head while I'm dreaming. Pretty cool. hehe. And yeah... weird. But \/\/! Just about everything *else* about me is weird... why not this too?]

So last night... I remember three dreams in particular and both of my parents were in every single one of them. In the first, we were going on a family road trip in my mom's van and she was driving. We're tooling along down some two-lane highway in the middle of nowhere just chatting away and apparently there had been signs saying "road ends ahead" or whatever, but neither my mom, nor myself (riding in the back), or anyone ELSE in the car noticed these signs... LOL... And the next thing I know, the road just kinda melds right into this huge body of water that is a very large LAKE! Mom's still chattering away... following the road driving *right* on into this lake and I start yelling at her "MOM! WAIT! STOP! LAKE!" hahahahaha.... Just far enough into the lake for her to realize wtf had happened she tries to turn the car around in the water and it starts to sink and the water is gurgling and bubbling up around us and stuff. haha. WEIRD!

THEN... I had this dream that I was on ANOTHER trip with my mom (wtf?) and we're driving along... Except in *this* dream I had two little sisters (around age 7 or 8) but they weren't my real sisters; they were foster children or something and they fought and picked at one another all of the time. Just the basic bickering siblings do, I guess. They were both pretty good kids underneath it all, but one was much sweeter than the other (who had a bit of a mean streak in her). Well one day (apparently this "road trip" was a multi-day trip.. rofl), the two got into a pretty nasty little spat and the less sweet of the two little girls said something about poisoning the other sister if she didn't start acting nicer to her. She was appropriately scolded for making such threats, of course... and the dream progressed onward.

Well on day ... who knows what.. of this neverending road trip (haha!), it was the day after the two had had another pretty vicious squabble for which the nastier of the two little girls had gotten into a good amount of trouble for. Well all of a sudden the sweeter of the two (they were riding side by side in the backseat while my mother was driving and i was in the passenger seat) doubles over in pain clutching her stomach. She turned a horrible shade of pale and looked sick as a dog, emitting these moans and clutching at her stomach. Immediately I remember the other girl threatening to poison her if she wasn't nicer to her and I look over at her (the meaner one) and she *seems* genuinely concerned for the one in pain and I feel horribly guilty for having even considered that the meaner one might have been responsible in any way for what was going on with the sweeter one. Weird! Somehow, inside though, I KNEW something was up but it wasn't the kind of thing you could actually voice aloud, because... what if you WERE wrong about it? That would just be horrible!!

Then we spent the next who knows how long driving around trying to find the hospital in this town we didn't know our way around (cuz we were on a roadtrip and not near home). I don't really remember anything after that. Hopefully we found the hospital and the little girl was okay and hopefully she wasn't actually poisoned by the other girl after all! ROFL

THEN! (good god my subconscious was busy last night!!) I had a dream that I was going camping with my family. Again.. my mom and dad, myself, and some boyfriend I had who was not someone I recognize having ever known. We had a boat and it was being pulled behind our car. We parked as we arrived at the entrance to the campground and my parents got out to go inside to check in. My bf and I also got out of the car and were just standing nearby chit-chatting, hanging out waiting, and out of the blue a car comes up behind the boat and doesn't stop and just rams right into it. LOL. My bf and I saw the whole thing and we were freaking out! And then the car just backed up and took off. We were shouting for them to stop and trying to get close enough to get a license tag #, but it didn't happen. And... I don't remember anything else after that.

How odd though. My parents were in all of the dreams and they all involved cars. hahaha! And we were traveling somewhere or out of town in all three of the dreams. Any dream analysis people out there ready to tackle this stuff?? ;)

*YAWN*

Well, the baby shower on Saturday was a huge success. Wheeeee! And the mother-to-be LOVED the time capsule idea. People brought some pretty fun stuff to stick in there. I was wishing someone had done something like that for me when I was a baby so I'd have something cool to open up and go through years later. Neat.

I made my first batch of home-made hummus over the weekend and MAN was it good!! It's SO MUCH CHEAPER to make it yourself than it is to buy it already prepared. Athenos makes some tasty hummus varieties, most certainly, but $2.99 for 8 oz of hummus? Funk dat chit! For the same amount of money I whipped up 6x that amount in less than ten minutes. Hell yeah! I'm making another batch tonight... this time I'm gonna add in some roasted red pepper along with the garlic I love so dearly. ;) Nummy!

Work is pretty busy today, but that's making time seem to go by faster so I'm all about that. We have some registration deadlines coming up (this Friday and again on Dec 5th) that will require a lot of data entry from me and payment processing and follow-up, etc., so things are really going to start picking up here. I have mixed feelings about that! LOL It's good to be busy enough that the days go by faster, but bad that I won't have as much time to be getting paid while i'm screwing around doing a bunch of personal shit online. haha!

Looking forward to meeting for the first time when she flies down this Wednesday. I've known her online for over a year now from playing EverQuest together and we have so much in common and have done so much talking over the past year that I feel like I've *already* met her! Should be both interesting and fun, I'm sure, and I'm really looking forward to getting to hang out in person. Wheeeeeeeee!

Because Nolan and I switch off years on who gets Jory at Christmas (and this year Jory will be with Nolan), my family will be having our "Christmas" together early. The weekend of Dec. 13-14th, to be exact. ACK! That means I have almost two weeks LESS to get my shopping done... but it also means that I'll be all done and kicking back when most of the rest of the Christmas-celebrating world are running around like chickens with their heads cut off, karate chopping people over that last spongebob doll on the shelf and all that.

I'm stuck, though, for gift ideas for some of the people on my shopping list. Ugh! And it's always the same people I get stuck on year after year! What's up with that?! I need some good "guy" gift suggestions... like for my brother-in-law and my dad. Anybody have any good gift and novelty-type websites bookmarked that you'd be willing to share with me? Good funny tshirt sites? Just... you know... COOL sites that sell... *stuff*? LOL Yes, I'm begging for ideas. hehe

Okay... enough dawdling on the ole LJ. Back to work! *mental crack of the whip*

Uhmmmm... I'm back! The trip was a lot of fun, though somehow more stressful than it should've been (or than I expected it to be). Hence... I think I could use a few more days' vacation time to recover from my vacation. But isn't that always how it goes? haha!

Recovering from my absence today at work was not so bad. Yesterday was a U.S. holiday and last Friday was UF's homecoming, so most UF offices were closed. That really only left me "missing" Monday...and apparently not too much went down at the workplace on Monday, so... I was happy when I arrived at my workstation this morning to find it uncluttered with "must be done immediately" notes and messages and memos. Yeefuckinghaw! Things will really be picking up there in about a week, though, and I'll be pining for these recent days of nothingness (that I bitch about now for lack of anything else to really do!) But.. then it will be Thanksgiving week and I'm taking the Wednesday before off... so that will be a nice little out-and-about to split up the oppressive blah-ness which work always seems to create in so short a time spent there. :P

This Saturday I'm throwing a baby shower for a girlfriend from work. Her baby is due December 8th and is a little girl she plans to name Hannah. I just adore that name. How preciousssssssssssssssss!!! I came up with the idea (by stealing it from some sites on baby showers that I read on the Internet! haha!) to have all of the guests bring items to contribute to a Time Capsule for the baby. I thought it might be fun to make a cd of Billboard's current Top 10 singles and maybe tape a few shows like an epi of "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central as well as an actual news broadcast and maybe something like "Friends" or "Survivor". Think the poor girl will be able to find a VHS player to play the thing on in 15 or 20 years when she opens up the capsule? LOL. If any of you out there have fun and interesting ideas on other possible items to include in the capsule (that are easy and feasible) let's hear 'em! I was going to toss in a current Publix sales flyer that will show current prices of food items and thought maybe I'd donate a "Time" and "Rolling Stone" magazine. Any other ideas?

Saturday the Gators play South Carolina... our last SEC game of the season. I'll be there (in my living room in front of the tube, at least) with bells on. I've got mixed feelings about the team this year, but they've surprised me these past few games. Go Gators! Beat those Cocks! Err... Gamecocks, that is. What the hell IS a gamecock anyway?! Let's consult Merriam-Web!

Main Entry: game·cock
Pronunciation: 'gAm-"käk
Function: noun
Date: 1677
: a rooster of the domestic chicken trained for fighting

Hrmmm! Seems like a Gator oughta be able to down a Gamecock in one swallow. What do YOU think? Tune in Saturday to find out.

I have a lot more to say but I'm outta the mood now so I suppose it will be forthcoming in future editions of this very same Live Journal.

Until then....

Peace Out!

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
-Oscar Wilde

Busy busy busy! Getting ready for our camping trip up to Northern Georgia. We leave EARLY Friday morning and are bound for..... HERE! Wheeeee! I can't wait! And I'll be taking tons of pics... Pretty leaves... and the Bavarian town of Helen, GA.

BTW people... Life is good. REAL good!

Dunno if I'll have time to write here tomorrow... my mom and dad, sister and her husband are due at my place by 8pm (yes, we are *all* going camping). Still have cleaning to do (nothing like having your MOM going through your house running her index finger over your bookshelves! haha!) and have laundry to finish, stuff to pack up, lists to check twice... all that. ;)

So... if I don't get a chance to post again before we take off on Friday morning... I'll be back late next week with pics to prove I really *wasn't* the hot, sexy blonde wrapped in saran down there at Club Kink in Ft. Lauderdale.

Toodles!

Mystic River.

Go see it!

I have one or two small gripes, but for a very critical Virgo eye like mine.... that movie is Friggin' SUPERB!

I got ripped on a couple of these by leaving off an "s" and spelling a name incorrectly... but...

FINAL SCORE = 140.5

WEWT!!

(( though I'm not really sure what that score says about me.... hahahaaha! ))

Some people seem so obsessed with the morning
Get up early just to watch the sun rise
Some people like it more when there's fire in the sky
Worship the sun when it's high
Some people go for those sultry evenings
Sipping cocktails in the blue, red and grey
But I like every minute of the day

I like every second, so long as you are on my mind
Every moment has its special charm
It's all right when you're around, rain or shine
I know a crowd who only live after midnight
Their faces always seem so pale
And then there's friends of mine who must have sunlight
They say a suntan never fails
I know a man who works the night shift
He's lucky to get a job and some pay
And I like every minute of the day

I dig every second
I can laugh in the snow and rain
I get a buzz from being cold and wet
The pleasure seems to balance out the pain

And so you see that I'm completely crazy
I even shun the south of France
The people on the hill, they say I'm lazy
But when they sleep, I sing and dance
Some people have to have the sultry evenings
Cocktails in the blue, red and grey
But I like every minute of the day

I like every minute of the day

-- Pete Townshend

Holy shit! I don't post in my journal for four days but all of YOU people surely did! It's gonna take me four more days just to catch up on all of your posts, do your little quizzes, go trick or treating... and THEN I'll be four MORE days behind!! But hey, doesn't sound like I'll be bored any time soon, does it?

Survived Jory's 8th birthday. :) Pics for those interested!

Finally saw Kill Bill last Wednesday. I need to see it again. I loved the Uma/Lucy fight scene in the snow. BEEYOOTIFUL! Big fat snowflakage! And Gogo! MmmmrrrrrOW! Gotta love Gogo's knee socks (and about a million other things about that hot little chickie)!

Flipped the page in an Entertainment Weekly magazine yesterday (I always read magazines during my lunch break at work) and happened on THIS and just HAD to scan it to share with the world. [It's Renee Zellweger for the hopelessly "babe-challenged"]

"I'll buy that for a dollar!" hehe

(a gold star to whomever can place that movie quote without cheating!)

Guess I better get my ass to reading the four days of happenings I missed out on from all of you.

Toodles!

http://www.japander.com

Japander:n.,& v.t. 1. a western star who uses his or her fame to make large sums of money in a short time by advertising products in Japan that they would probably never use. ~er (see synecure, prostitute) 2. to make an ass of oneself in Japanese media.

... I liked the Nicolas Cage ones myself. hehe

The Word of the Day for October 24 is:

brouhaha • \BROO-hah-hah\ • noun
: hubbub, uproar

Example sentence:
The unexpected arrival of the company president caused a huge brouhaha in the office, sending everyone scurrying to tidy their desks and try to look as busy and efficient as possible.

Did you know?
There is a bit of a brouhaha over the etymology of "brouhaha." Some etymologists think the word is onomatopoeic in origin, but others believe it comes from the Hebrew phrase "bārūkh habbā’," meaning "blessed be he who enters" (Ps 118:26). Although we borrowed our spelling and meaning of "brouhaha" directly from French in the late 19th century, etymologists have connected the French derivation to that frequently-recited Hebrew phrase, distorted to something like "brouhaha" by worshippers whose knowledge of Hebrew was limited. Thus, once out of the synagogue, the word first meant "a noisy confusion of sound"—a sense that was later extended to refer to any tumultuous and confused situation.

Morning smiles like a newborn child... innocent, unknowing.

Thank the goddess it's Friday!! WOOT!

*does the happy Friday dance* <--- reminds me of how Jory and I used to actually dance a happy Friday jig on Friday mornings when I would drop him off for preschool. hehe. Other parents would show up to drop their children off and here's me and Jory dancing around the play yard. haha! I love being a mom! And it's so ironic that my pregnancy, unexpected as it was at the time, was probably one of the most harrowing and uncertain times of my entire life, historically. Funny how things work out in the end, isn't it? I was pressed to make several major life decisions at that time (decisions that would affect not only my life but the lives of several others) and I tell ya... every time I hear my child's laughter, see him acting goofy, hear him singing his favorite song... have to ground him for lying to me (heh)... watch him riding his bike or reading a book or trying to figure out one of the answers on his math homework, I feel reinforced in every single decision I made back then and I know they were the right ones. Hallelujah!

If I do nothing else right for the rest of my life... at least I've got that!

Today is my dad's 65th birthday. I was thinking about it on the way in to work this morning. It sounds so weird to say that my dad is 65 years old!

I got a bit sentimental thinking about how he's not going to be around forever and that I really should make a bigger effort to try to see my parents more often than I do. It's that whole 'cats in the cradle syndrome' where you know you should do it... and you really *want* to... but other things always seem to get in the way and then in the end when it all comes down to it, you're left regretting that you hadn't made it a bigger priority.

I don't want that to happen.

==================================

My dad in three words: He fucking rocks!

==================================

I remember coming home from school or work or wherever in jr. high, high school and beyond, and finding guys I knew hanging out there. In the beginning I would get a flush of excitement thinking they were there to see me... waiting for me to get home. It didn't take long to realize that they'd come to hang out with my dad and shoot the shit. I'd come up the walk, smile brightly and say hello, and they'd hardly even look up from their conversations with my dad. They'd come there to see him! Pretty funky!

My girlfriends too, have always loved him. He's a very "people" person who never meets a stranger and with whom most people feel instantly at east. Growing up, he never bullshitted me and unless I was endangering myself or someone else, he always let me do whatever I wanted. Anytime I've ever gotten into trouble or really fucked up (and yes people... I have had some *real* fuck-ups along the way), he's *never* asked me questions or said "I told you so" or even lectured me. Somehow my dad has always understood that there's noone else in the world harder on me than MYSELF... anything extra from he or mom would be completely unnecessary and, in most cases, detrimental. Mom *still* hasn't figured that out... but Dad has somehow always known it all along.

He's always let me make my own decisions, whatever they were, and then supported me in them, even if he didn't agree with them. I wish everyone else in my life was like that!

And he's always said, "It's only money...", no matter how big the expenditure or how unexpected. Dad's always been more about living life to the fullest and enjoying it than collecting a bunch of crap along the way.

Here's to you Dad! Happy Birthday! And... if only a tiny portion of the qualities that make you such a kickass individual have rubbed off onto who I am today, I consider myself extremely blessed. I don't think I'll ever come close to being for Jory what you have been for me, but I'm damned sure gonna try. At least I have a great person to model myself after.

I love you.

Rhonda

I know you want what's on my mind
I know you like what's on my mind
I know it eats you up inside
I know, you know, you know, you know

I'm awfully hyper for only getting four hours of sleep last night. I imagine when I finally do bottom out it's not gonna be pretty!

Stumbled on Find Your Spot today and took a quiz to find my own best place to live. Pretty neat. Here's the first page of recommendations for me:

Bellingham, Washington The Victorian Seaport
The annual Ski to Sea challenge held in this breathtaking port city includes snow skiing, running, biking, and kayaking
Population: 61,000 | Average Home Price: $169,000 | Precipitation: 36" | Snow: 7"

Olympia, Washington The Evergreen Capital
Set on a magnificent peninsula in the South Puget Sound, this spot was originally called "black bear place" before being renamed after nearby mountains
Population: 207,300 | Average Home Price: $169,000 | Precipitation: 51" | Snow: 10"

Provo-Orem, Utah Living and Learning at their Best
These twin cities in central Utah are home to some of the world's top collections of dinosaur bones
Population: 190,000 | Average Home Price: $175,000 | Precipitation: 12" | Snow: 30"

Ogden, Utah Where Utah Comes Together
This scenic "Crossroads of the West" is set between Utah's Great Salt Lake and the magnificent Wasatch Mountains
Population: 77,000 | Average Home Price: $127,500 | Precipitation: 17" | Snow: 63"

Cincinnati, Ohio The Queen City
This big Ohio city with the small-town feel is home to baseball's first professional team: the Reds started in 1869
Population: 1,650,000 | Average Home Price: $150,000 | Precipitation: 39" | Snow: 19"

Hickory, North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountain Home
This area in North Carolina is known as the nation's furniture manufacturing capital
Population: 342,000 | Average Home Price: $143,000 | Precipitation: 41" | Snow: 9"

Another Monday... already?! The world seriously needs to get the whole "work week" thing swapped around. We should work on Saturdays/Sundays and have Monday - Friday off. Works for me!

So... what's on my plate this week? Well my boss is on vacation so that's one good thing! Tomorrow afternoon I have a parent/teacher conference with Jory's 2nd grade teacher. Those are always interesting. He's being IQ tested to evaluate him for his school's gifted program. I should hear from them in a couple of weeks for an appointment to go in and go over the results from that. I imagine that will prove pretty interesting as well. There's nothing trippier than having offspring, that's for certain. :P

Thursday I'm taking the day off. Shopping... hair appointment... Basically all things girly. Wheeeeee!

Jory's 8th birthday (holy shit!) is this Sunday, but he's having a couple of friends over at his dad's house on Saturday in celebration. The whole pizza party/video game fest thing that truly geeky children covet... Hopefully he doesn't get in any shouting matches with his guests over the "right" way to play Halo. ;)

It's almost Halloween! I dont really have any plans this year. I wanted to go to the New Orleans Voodoofest, but we're taking off work to go up to Georgia for the changing of the leaves the week after that and I have Jory over Halloween weekend this year, so... I'll probably just go around with him on that Friday night and lay low most of the rest of the weekend. At least the weather here is finally cooling off. It's actually bearable! And puts me in SO much better of a mood.

I hate Florida humidity...

After jinxing myself with those feigned coughs on here on Thursday, I was totally sick all day yesterday. It SUCKED! I spent what seemed like the entire day blowing my damned nose, and to top it off, my Friday night was shot to hell! Blah!

But!

Now I'm back!

... From outer space.... I just walked in to find you here with that sad look upon your face... I shoulda changed my fucking lock... I shoulda made you leave your key... If I'd have known for just one second you'd be BACK to bother ME!! ...

*ahem*

Whoa. Okay... I think I'm all right now...

What's for breakfast?

"I'm not aware of too many things
I know what I know if you know what I mean..."

Oh

my

god!

What an amazingly beautiful day! Now... just trying to figure out how the hell to get out of spending it inside this office... *coughcough* Do I feel a bit feverish to you?

And hahaha! I saw one of Budweiser's "Real Men of Genius" commercials on TV last night during the baseball game. (...And I though the radio spots were hilarious!)

Grr... just went to try to find it at adcritic.com and it's now a PAY site?!?! WTF? Those limey bastards!

Ahhhhhhh! Where'd my weekend go? Seems like it was just Friday and then... I blinked... and I'm back at work again. WTF? ;)

First I must report that I'm a shitty Gator fan for totally writing them off against LSU. They actually (to my pleasant surprise) pulled off a win this weekend. They looked like a completely different team from the one that played last week. Talk about inconsistency!

Saturday night I stayed up so late playing Everquest with Carl, Nolan, Leanne and Danny that I was nodding off at the freakin' keyboard! Good god!

Sunday, Mike and I drove to meet my sister and her husband halfway between our towns so we could have a couple of drinks and shoot the shit. It was a nice visit. I <3 my sister and just don't get to see her often enough. Three hours is TOO FAR!

Carl and I have really been burning up the wires sending music back and forth to each other recently. I've been having a lot of fun with that. We cue up the same mix in winamp and listen to it together, making comments here and there as we are each doing other stuff on the computer. It all started with Nolan's last set broadcast on pulseradio.net (which, by the way... he's spinning again this coming Saturday on pulseradio. Sometime between 5 and 8pm. Not sure who else is spinning with him or who will go first.) I'm sure Carl, Leanne and I will be tuning in again! Maybe David too!

Speaking of David... He rocks!! I looooooooooooooooooooooove making new friends. Thank you Carl for introducing us!! :)

On a really concerned note... I'm worried about Keith. :/ He's going through some very difficult times right now with his family and he and I have hardly spoken at all this past week. I hate not being able to "be there". It really sucks. Hopefully now that Mark's back in Mississippi he's taking good care of him. Keith really needs a good friend and some serious distractions right about now. Keith... if you read this... *greatbigbearhugs!* I miss you so much.

As part of a teacher workshop my office hosted yesterday, I got a chance to visit Shands Hospital's Hyperbaric Chamber. Those things aren't just for treating scuba divers with "the bends"! I had no idea!

From the Shands website:

The painless therapy often is used to treat burns, carbon monoxide poisoning, slow-healing wounds or the diving-related decompression illness known as "the bends." Gas gangrene and other tissue-destroying infections also are among the conditions helped by hyperbaric treatment.

The nurse speaking to our group talked about "dives" they do to treat air/gas embolisms and how the "depth" they go to causes a nitrogen narcosis equal to the consumption of 6 martinis, so they call these "6 Martini Dives". LOL. The patient wears a mask with 50% oxygen, but the attended does not, so the attendant inside the chamber with them is actually more 'narc'd' than the patient! It's a good thing there's 3 nurses running the show and the attendant inside makes none of the decisions once the treatment begins!

Most importantly, however... where do I sign up? And can I forego the oxygen mask, please?

====================

Well, it's FRIDAY! Wheeeeeeee!

And thank god for that! If Carl and David keep me up any later on a weeknight before work the next morning, I'm going to perish fitfully. I NEED SLEEP!

The weekend: Watch the Gator game on Saturday (it's LSU... the Gators are gonna lose :(), go hang out with Nolan and Jory, meet my sister and her husband for dinner on Sunday. Lots of Evercrack!

RHO FACTOID: I love music and know the words to just about everything and I love to sing along and annoy everyone around me.

RELATED ANECDOTE: Today on the way home from work and from picking Jory up from school, he was belting out the lyrics to one of the songs off of Audioslave's new album. He named the band as soon as they came on the radio and back-seat danced to the music. The next song was Godsmack and he named that band right off too. Go Jory! He appears to be getting quite adept at distinguishing who is who! The best part for me is seeing him so totally enjoy music. He may not know all the words or all the RIGHT words (which is the most entertaining part of it all), but that doesn't slow him down any. He lets loose from the backseat of our car with a vocal freedom I don't think I've ever known... and from a Mom who made a point of playing all different kinds of music to her growing belly all through her pregnancy in hopes of inspiring her child to love music just as much as she does... well.. i'm pleased! I think it just might have worked!