Once in love with Amy.....:)

The summer before high school, Dianne and I met in the school hall between typing and math. We were introduced by a mutual friend with whom neither of us is mutually friends with any more.

While we chatted on and off through our freshman year, it wasn't until the following spring that we became best friends. I'd been cast in "Charley's Aunt" and Uncle Woody asked me to bring him a girl for one of the other female roles (the play was put on by the all-boy school across the street. The same all-boy school that couldn't find enough females to put on "Anne Frank"). I immediately thought of Dianne and brought her to the next practice. And so began our stage careers, she as "Amy" and me as "Kitty." To this day, we still write to each other with lines from the play: "My dear Kitty...." "My dear Amy...." :)

Of all my high school memories, being in this play is tops. I got my first boy-girl kiss because of it -- and from a senior boy, no less! Quite the accomplishment for a freshman! Bwahahahaha! But kissing aside, the laughter, the fun and excitement and the joy of the experience are what memories should be all about. I never think back on Charley's Aunt without grinning. One of the crew members wrote a parody of the play, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre -- A Musical" that the cast from the play actually presented in the drama room one day before school let out (the 'musical' contained the immortal lines, "Donna Lucia -- you've changed your mind!" "Yes; brain surgery can be such fun!" Obviously I liked it a lot because I remember parts of it distinctly!).

We were best buddies the rest of high school, sharing crushes and make up and jokes. Then we graduated and I was a butthead and we stopped talking for about five or ten years. :/ And then we reconnected, worked on our high school reunion committee, and have been in touch ever since. Something precious that I'd taken for granted was given back to me and I'm forever grateful to have a second chance.

I still haven't sent her my phone number, though :D I've got to do that right now before I forget again.

Accounting makes me fretful. The instructor is rather odd and favors saying in front of the class, "SO! Tracy, what did you get when you wrote down the INCORRECT answer to question 5???" Some days that makes me want to smack him.

Yesterday was a rather surreal sort of a day. It's blazingly hot (for Seattle), with weather in the 90s and scheduled to be as hot again today. A wonderful mirage appeared on my horizon and tickled my desires. :)

John Ratcliff has a rather lively commentary about music and Kazaa and the like. I agree with him. Sometimes the innocent downloader will be helpless against an onslaught of things that shouldn't be seen, which is one issue. The other issue is that it's just wrong to take what's not your with no intention of paying for it.

Of course, there are those two extra copies of Worms Armageddon I made so that Rob, the cherubs and I might be able to play together over the home network. :/ So I guess I fail on point number two there. To quote the worms, "You had that comin'!"

I also agree with Lynn, who notes that some of the behavior has to do with unsupervised cherubs whose folks have no idea about some things that go on over the internet. I keep half an eye on my cherubs, look through their PC occasionally and hope that they've learned enough skill to make good judgment calls. Only time will tell.

It'll be another roasting hot day today and I am running out of feathery light summer clothing. I'm going to drive up to the office today, simply to get air conditioning on the way back to school.

Broos, have I told you today that you're awesome? :)

We took the cherubs to see The Black Pearl and it was very good fun! Of course, I wanted to go because it features Orlando Bloom. :) Once an elf-lover, always an elf-lover. I was only flirting with Pippin-fatuation! I've always been a LegolasChick at heart! Honest!

I really did enjoy the movie, too, aside from spending time sighing and drooling over Orlando. As we drove away from the theater I asked Rob wistfully, "Would you chase after pirates to rescue me, too?" from which dream-filled reverie he awoke me tenderly: "No; are you kidding?" The cherubs laughed and once again, my hopelessly romantic soul was crushed. Oh well :)

In a law firm, it's all about the partners. And I've learned that some partners are more equal than others :)

The good news I suppose is that partner Number One likes me. His support counts for a lot because, while he's a rather colorful character, he's also Number One. The attorney supervising me is, well, Number Two. He said it's okay to call him that, but I just can't. Hehehehe. Anyhow, Number Two likes me, too. Number Three probably does and likewise Number Four. If all of them like me, they will likely hire me. But even if Numbers Two - Four all liked me, if Number One didn't, I'd be toast.

And he likes me cause I give him grief. He commented that I keep rotten "pink" candy up at the desk in the candy dish just to annoy him. Every time he walks by, he pokes through the bowl and fishes through the bowl grumbling. I told him I have a jar of only pink candies that I put out especially for him when I hear him coming down the hall; everyone else gets 'the good stuff.' He laughed.

Except there's no place for me to sit. Except at the reception desk. Which means answering the phone and being all warm and welcoming. Which I am. The most stressful part of my day is when someone needs their parking validated and I must total up how many hours they've been there in order to give them the right number of stickers. I can't sit there and count on my fingers so I try to look cheerful and happy and chat with the visitors while frantically trying to calculate, "Ok, they clocked into the garage at 9:49AM and now it's 1:15, how many hours is that?" I have probably over- or under-validated every person who's walked into the office thus far.

Thinking of you today, Cosmic Twin. Happy birthday, to one of the only people whose birthday I seem to always remember.

Have you tried Googlism on yourself? My real name didn't come up, but I learned that....

owl chick is thriving at the new forest owl sanctuary
owl chick is nearly ready to fledge
owl chick is fed water through a syringe by a zoo
owl chick is being held over the winter of 2002/03
owl chick is growing well and making it's presence known
owl chick is exposed to black flies and that most become infected with leucocytozoon spp
owl chick is suffering from a cataract
owl chick is part of our barn owl release program
owl chick is a cites species; controlled trade is allowed provided there is a permit
owl chick is being fed by a glove puppet; and how the keepers make sure they don't become the big cat's
owl chick is compared to the duckling

And that about sums up my life to date ;)

I admire the good taste of this person, though I am not quite sure who it is. I suspect ChrisWho. In the library. With a broadsword.

Poor Broos. :(

Although you know, if you don't leave your email in the comments you leave, no one can dig it up and send you spam :) At least, that's my theory and I'm sticking to it! I tend to just leave behind my website address.

Of course at some point, I need to finish working on this page so that the archives show up again somewhere. Right now I have no idea where they are going, probably no where, and all my fine discussions about stuff will be gone forever. Aieee!

We had a lovely little farewell in the little game for two of its heroines. Got a bit misty-eyed, especially after a couple of players commented that they were beginning to tear up, too. Even if we didn't use these particular characters every week, there was something nice about being able to use them if ever we wanted to. On the bright side, not having to worry about particular characters and how they should be portrayed will give us a bit more freedom in the long run. We can advertise now :) And we will have spiffy neato keen artwork that will be unveiled sometime this week.

At least, that's how I understand the time frame. In any case, I'm very excited about the change! It's been a long time in thinking and doing so it'll be wonderful to see it in place at last.

The doctor said the medical term for what happened to me is vasovagal syncope. It sounds horrible, doesn't it?

She said, "The Victorians called it 'the vapors.'"

Well. Guess I had my corset on too tight. :P

So, like yesterday, our paralegal group had two events. During the day, I helped our instructor with his pre-internship seminar. In the afternoon, Heather and I met at Costco to buy items for our big "ice cream social" and orientation for new students. We bought a some stuff at Costco, then headed to the grocery store near the campus to pick up the ice cream. I'd gotten one of the guys in the group to pick up dry ice for us, so we were going to pack the ice cream into the coolers until the party started at 6PM.

As Heather and I approached the dairy case, I felt my insides starting to twinge and thought, "Oh great, my period's about to start and we have all this stuff to finish. I'd better go to the bathroom." I mentioned that I was looking for the restroom, while Heather noticed that they were out of plain Reddi-Whip, having only the chocolate flavored type in the case. Horrors! While chocolate whipped topping may be fine for most applications, we didn't think it would go well with our spread. I looked at Heather and said, "You know...I really need to get to the bathroom." I felt more twinging and Heather said, "It's right over there...are you okay?" She held my hand and next thing I knew, I was running through a building with a young blond boy, racing and racing to get through the dark corridors where concrete blocks were jumbled together and jutted into the hallway. We kept running and I thought, "How'd I get here? I was shopping with Heather." I opened my eyes to find myself lying on the floor while Heather and a couple of store clerks attempted to sit me up.

It was rather amusing to one extent; the first thing one of the clerks said to me was, "Did you slip on something?" which Heather and I, being paralegals, knew she was asking only out of concern for the store's liability, not for my well-being. She escorted me to the employee break room where not long after, two firefighters came in to take my blood pressure and administer oxygen. This would probably have been more gratifying had they at least been cute firefighters. Oh, well. Poor Heather had to pay for the ice cream herself because I didn't have any cash, and the firefighters didn't want me going downstairs to pay for things till they were done asking me what day of the week it was. Plus they wanted to make sure they wouldn't need the ambulance they'd sent for.

"An ambulance!?" I cried in terror. "That's not covered by my insurance!"

Fortunately, I didn't need any whisking away, although Heather said it did give her quite the scare when the paramedics rushed in with a gurney.

"Do you have any idea why this happened?" asked one firefighter.

"Yes," I replied, glancing at the store clerk who hovered nearby. "They are completely out of plain Reddi-Whip."

Finally, Rob expressed his thoughts about the symphony. What's funny is that as we were walking down the street after the concert, I asked him whether he too thought the conductor looked like Niles Crane. We laughed all the way down the hill, even when Rob didn't quite manage to push me into the oncoming traffic.

Tomorrow we're going to walk through our intended new residence with one of the rental agents. We tried to get in before the concert but all the agents were busy at the time. At this rate, they'll be full up before we sell our condo and can move up there.

We're going to have a romantic dinner and watch the movie that came free with our pizza last week. Should be fun; I believe that the chapel we got married in is in here someplace. :)

Did I mention that Lynn is blogging now? :) She's one heck of a creative, talented lady.

I chased her down shamelessly to get her to come consult with us in the little game. She'd played from its earliest incarnations and I admired her roleplaying and the sharp methods of her mind. When she left us to play other games, I'd often wish she'd come back. And last year, after being pursued across the ice by a pack of rabid sheepettes, she did. One of the major things she helped me with is an expansion area near Delphi. I'd started some work and couldn't finish it, so I handed it off to her feeling that her writing style would be close enough to mine that the different writers wouldn't be jarring. It's not; in fact, now when I look at it, I can't tell where I left off and Lynn began :)

Did I further mention that I miss having her around? She's bright, funny, supportive and all-around spiffy. I'm very grateful to know her.

This has been a pretty accounting intensive week. The future's not looking much brighter, either. There's a lot of work in accounting, especially when you mess up.

Today was Stacy's last day. The 'legal secretary' turns out to be another paralegal. She was surprised when I introduced her to one of our attorneys as a secretary, and I was surprised to find she wasn't, so we were even. She's a nice woman, a little older than I am, and just as interested in organizing the files. She, the departing paralegal, and I had lunch together in the conference room, chatting and getting to know one another. Then one of the partners came in and told Stacy how she's like a light saber whose light just keeps on going, with all her energy. He went on and on, and I thought, "How much have you had to drink today?" But it was all very nice and exactly the sort of thing Stacy needed to hear. She is a sweetie, even if she can't type or file.

The sun's been out this week and it's gorgeous! When I drive home from school (I just got home), I cruise along the waterfront near where Liz lives. The boardwalk is still packed with people, watching the sun set and smoochering at the overlooks. Makes me wish I didn't have class at night so that Rob and I can walk along there smoochering, too.

Tomorrow night we're going to see Nadja at the symphony hall. It'll be Rob's first symphony. It shouldn't be too difficult for him to sit through, as this is violin and guitar work so it's not sleep-inducing classical. Plus she's so vibrant that no one can hear her and sleep through it. I foresee my husband pretending to snore though, just to get me riled up. He's so good at that. :)

I'm doing my accounting homework, it's taking a long while because I'm doing it in Excel. While the final product is fairly quick, it's the setting up the spreadsheets that takes a while. Not only do I want them to calculate correctly, but I like them to look good. I can't stand when someone sends me a spreadsheet and it's not set up to print properly, so I spend time fussing over it.

It's also taking a long time because I'm fiddling with other things. Right now I'm watching Inspector Morse and updating my journal. :) So easily distracted, I am.

Maggie is so old now. She's having trouble seeing and hearing, although she can still pitch herself up onto the bed. Just now I wandered upstairs to change clothes (it's Sunday; I'm being leisurely) and she never stirred while I opened drawers and staggered around her. When someone comes near and she notices them, she starts and loudly mews at them as though surprised and needing to show her irritation. She snaps at people who pet her beyond her tolerance level. I worry about her aging. What does one do with an elderly cat? I love her dearly, but I'm not about to spend thousands on her elderly maintenance and upkeep; I haven't got that kind of money. I hope to never need worry about what to do with her body, but there you go. When I look at her sleeping so soundly on the bed and check to see if she's still breathing. I don't know exactly how old she is and don't know how much longer she'll be with us.

Spent the morning applying for jobs.

After looking over the tarot cards and going with my own gut feelings, I am really not sure I want to stay where I'm at once the internship is over. They might want me to, and I do like the people I've been working with...but I am just feeling something odd about the place.

Next week, a new legal secretary will start. The paralegal who lost her job will have to train her, which strikes me as a bit odd. If her attorney doesn't like how she does things, why would he want her to train the new person? Anyway, he told me he really wanted someone with experience and that's why he wasn't going to hire me. Rob and I talked it over (between Amish things) and we suspect that perhaps the attorney doesn't want to pay me. The current paralegal is making less than I am, and I'm the summer intern. When she told me that, I had to not stare at her in horror. I can't believe anyone with a college degree would work for so little money.

Of course, it's easy for me to think that, but it's a tough job market out there. I don't even read the articles that explain why it's so tough anymore because I'm living that tough market and reading about other folks going through it doesn't make me any easier in my mind.

On the brighter side, I did a tarot card reading for the paralegal who's leaving, and it turned out some encouraging prospects for her. I was a bit worried; what if it showed doom and gloom? So first I did the cards, then I told her that it was about her. She thought it was great fun to have someone do that for her :) Although I suspect if it hadn't turned out so optimistic, she might not have been so appreciative. And I do like her, even if she's rather spastic (she keeps running into things and has bumps on her shins and her forehead) and blonde (I had to show her how to use a typewriter).

At dinner tonight, Rob and I noticed a couple at another booth. They were an older couple, and she wore her hair in a bun covered by a white cloth cap. We discussed what religion they might be as it seemed obvious that her hair covering was something old-fashioned and traditional. As usual, we enjoyed some mild humor at the couple's expense.

Rob: Well, they can't be Amish; he hasn't got a beard.
Me: Maybe they're dating.
Rob (disdainfully): They're too old to be dating.
Me: Maybe she's Amish and he's not, and she's having a wild night out on the town!
Rob (gives me a "I don't think so" glance): Uh huh.
Me: Sure! What's more wild than for her to be out with a man who has no beard and having supper at Marie Calender's!

Later on as I nibbled on my dinner, Rob announced with a satisfied tone, "Ah, no. They're not Amish."

Me: Hmm?
Rob: They can't be Amish; they were using forks.
Me (looking perplexed and trying not to glance over at the couple again): What's that......?
Rob: Amish only eat with spoons and knives.
Me: Oh. How'd you know that?
Rob (gives me a sigh, a glance and a patient tone): Everyone knows that. They don't use forks because they look like pitchforks. (sees my further confused look) You know, the devil uses a pitchfork?
Me: Oh. Okay. That's so odd...they don't use pitchforks?
Rob: Of course not.
Me: Then how do they get the hay...pitched?
Rob: I don't know.

(pause)

Me: Oh you #$%#$%@!!!
Rob: Heh, gotcha.

Followed by both of us laughing so hard tears are flowing. We were very disruptive to the other diners. I don't think we can eat there again. :)