>Was I crabby yesterday? Why, yes I was. Was it obvious? I suppose. I got put in a room by myself at work today. Some might call it an office. I’m pretty sure it’s temporary so I am not getting to comfortable, but I am enjoying it because it’s a huge upgrade from my cube. And I did leave my mug there at the end of the day, so I suppose I’ll be going back tomorrow.

>I was a deviled egg for Halloween. Dave was a capitalist pig. It was well into the evening before we realized we were bacon and eggs. Well into an evening during which I threatened to egg my neighbor’s house via txt message. That is to say, I threatened him via txt, not that I tried to egg him via txt. Is anyone starting to think they’d prefer the Halloween picture instead of the 1,000 words? Too bad, I broke my camera. Sob.

I do have some pictures from before the incident, but I am way too lazy to cross the room and get the camera and the wire thingy. But don’t worry, it’s November! And I plan to blog at least once a day this month. And that often means many days with just a picture and a quick note.

>
Halloween is a week from today and the costume situation is making me nervous.

Luke plans to be a ninja, so I bought him a black hoodie today. Yup, that is as far as we have gotten. Fortunately we all do our best work under pressure. Well, I did also buy a pattern for sort of a generic boy superhero series, and I figured that would help us with the mask. (For which I have not purchased fabric.) And I am a little worried about dressing Luke in head to toe black and sending him out in the dark to run around the neighborhood. So I also bought glow sticks. Hopefully Luke can be talked into disco ninja or something.

As for Jack, I bought a fireman costume a month or so ago, because it was cute, and fleece, so I thought it would come in handy if it was cold. But it just got absorbed into the costume bin(s) and it isn’t a front runner. Jack dresses in costume almost daily, so I guess getting candy for it will be what makes Halloween special for him. In fact, part of Jack’s layered ensemble for biking to the homecoming parade in a torrential downpour on Friday night was a pirate costume. Today he was wearing a power ranger mask with his PJs and slaying bad guys, Boba Fett, the Emperor, and monsters in the basement. In fact, this post was originally going to be just his play monologue, but after I started typing it out, the post skewed more “mom lets her 2 year old watch too much violence on tv” than “hilarious mom has adorable and creative 2 year old.”

As for Lucy, I was intrigued by the costumes at Target. Specifically the squirrel costume, but it was pointed out to me that it looks like, well, let’s say it looks like a squirrel is riding on the dogs back. Also, I thought I should see how she like’s being in costume before I spent too much money. So I got her a very modestly priced cape and she really wanted to eat it.

As for Dave and I, we don’t have costumes yet. I was originally thinking of changing my hair and being Joan, but now I am thinking Liz Lemon is a little more realistic. I guess I just need to know if Dave is planning to be Roger Sterling, or Kenneth.

>MetaMegan is having an existential work/life crisis, which makes for extremely boring blog posts. When I am at the computer, which is all the time, I feel the need to work. When I am not at the computer, I am not at the computer and therefore cannot blog.

Let me know if you want to be added to my newsletter, that I will be handwriting and running through the mimeograph, and then snail mailing. Or maybe I could blog from my phone… But the 1/R key doesn’t work. And the keys are so tiny. Example: “On bus to Denve. New commute is going to suck. ” Not exactly my best work.

Jack goes to a hippie daycare in Boulder, where they are very in touch with their feelings. That causes me to be extremely aware about how I feel about work because whenever I start talking about it at the dinner table, Jack says, “Are you mad, Momma? Sad? Angry? Frustrated? You gonna cry?” It’s very insightful.

In other Jack news, he woke me up on Saturday by screaming, “MOMMA! GET OUT HERE AND MAKE ME BREFFAST!” That was at 7:00 am. Today, when my alarm was (not) set for 5:00 am, I woke up at 7:15 to giggles from the living room. Sigh.

Luke’s school conference was today, and he’s a perfect little gentleman and scholar. We ran into the art teacher in the hallway and she also said she loved him, and did we have any more at home? We said, “Yes, but…”

I thought about doing the thing where you write a novel during the month of November, but I think I’ll put that off and do the thing where I blog every day in the month of November. My novel planning was going like this: Go to the farmers market with cute single friend. Notice farmers checking her out. Tell her, “In my novel, you’d fall in love with the gorgeous, brooding photographer/documentarian, but he’d be all wrong for you. All along you should have been with the smiling, friendly guy from the mushroom stand.” And she said, “But I like the photographer.” And I said, “Exactly. But he’s wrong for you. You’ll see in my novel.” Then I realized my novel had already been written a thousand times, so I turned it into an anecdote on my blog. Then I showed some amazing restraint in not linking to the photographer and the mushroom guy. Then I remembered I was supposed to be working and at this rate I would never get to sleep.

>Yup. Oh darn, I just blew the whole punchline in the title. I remembered all the stuff my coach was always telling me (thanks Dad!) but it was still extremely hard not to close my eyes as I was swinging the bat. Two strike outs and two ground outs. But at least I made contact with the ball. And it was sort of fun! Luke said, “Mom, you were good, it’s just that you don’t play that often.” He is very supportive.

>Have you ever had a year and a half or so where things did not go quite right, and sometimes went terribly wrong, and even things were OK for you, your friends had a bunch of awful stuff happen? Then you start wondering if bad things come in threes or is it nines? Or looking for signs that mean that bad summer, year, 15 months are over and now everything will be perfect and wonderful all the time?

So yeah, (quick back story) lately I have really been wanting to have puppy play dates with our neighbor across the street. It’s something I have been thinking about a lot, suggesting, and planning puppy play date happy hours, and yet, it hasn’t been happening. Seems like putting two naughty puppies together in the backyard for an hour a day would be a quick way to tire them into not being so naughty. So you can imagine how it was sort of like a dream come true today when our neighbors came over with their puppy and the puppies starting running around like crazy. Something I have been wanting to happen for MONTHS finally happened today. AND when I said, hey, we’d come get your dog every day at lunch time or something and let them run around together, and they said, Oh, and we could let your dog out in the winter when you were skiing, I practically heard angels singing in the heavens that there is a God and s/he wants me to be happy. AND THEN, they said, oh by the way, here’s a case of beer we haven’t gotten around to drinking, please take it.

And I thought: This. Is. The. Sign.

And I started composing my blog post about how awesome my life is now. My wishes have been granted, with a side of beer. It’s the best, it could not be better. Puppy play dates and free beer. That’s all I have been needing.

And then the neighbors left, and I grabbed some beer to put in the fridge and I noticed, hey, what? Is that…? Old Milwaukee Light? Whenever the nieghbors have brought over extra beer that they haven’t been able to drink in the past, it’s been obscure/weird/interesting microbrews. I had assumed that was the case this time too. But no, not this time.

I’ve been waiting for the universe to tell me that the bad stuff is over with and everything is going to be perfect, but I’m not sure that’s the message in the bottle (of Old Milwaukee Light.) I think the message is, things are fine, have a beer and get over it. Bottoms up!

>I often need to take a screen shot of something I am working on, so I can show someone a problem, or a solution to a problem. And when I do, I close any other internet sessions I may have open. Why would I want the recipient to think I am wasting time reading The New York Times or The Economist while I am working? (OK, let’s be realistic – Ann Taylor Loft Sales and Facebook.) I send a distraction-free screen print because I am a professional.

The screen shot I recently received, um, not so much.
(click to enlarge, if you must)

Yeah, this person was on dictionary.com looking at the definition of Asses. I can’t decide which is worse – that this screen shot (define:asses) was sent to my entire team, and our boss, or that maybe this person was looking for a definition of assess?

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I’m off shopping for a kitschy prize for the lucky winner, but don’t stop commenting now! I mean, you won’t win anything, but it’s fun to comment, right?

I’ll post the winner sometime mid August.

>So, Spring baseball was sometimes a bit much. With Dave coaching, and Luke playing, and Jack needing someone to watch him closely, and a new puppy, well, we didn’t eat a lot of well planned, nutritious meals at the dinner table. Let’s just say, books were flying off the top of the car more often than not.

Summer ball though… I heard a lot about how it was so much more low key. Oh! They only place once a week? No, twice. Oh, there are no practices before the games? Well, actually, there are. I couldn’t figure out how it could be more low key. But I suppose being out of school, and long days, warm weather, and general baseballness in the air has made it pretty fun. In fact, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” has replaced “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” as Jack’s lullaby of choice.

I heard Aunt Suzy was requesting a baseball video, and I took one, but Luke didn’t hit the ball until his fifth or so pitch, so I wanted a better one. I walked over to find a good spot to video tape and I wondered… Start and stop between every pitch? Do 3 pitches at a time? Zoom in or stay zoomed out? So many things to think about, that before I knew it, Luke had hit the first pitch and was running to first base and I missed it. I was more prepared for his second at bat.

>

From Dodd

We leave today for Dodd’s funeral in Ohio. He was a college friend, roommate, and the best man at our wedding.

Dave and I have been sharing Dodd stories for days, and it always goes the same way, laughter at the memory and tears when the realization hits that there won’t be anymore Dodd stories. I shared this one with some friends a few days ago:

One time we went to see The Allman Brothers at Red Rocks, and when I woke up the next morning I walked past our futon and Dodd was asleep face down, still holding the glow stick that had brought us so much joy the night before. He reminded me of a child who had just had the best day of his life and fallen into the kind of nap you can only have after your first trip to the zoo, still holding a balloon. In fact, when my own kids have fallen asleep holding balloons, I remember that morning.

And that reminds me of his wedding toast which I think, and I am going to use quotes here because I am pretty sure I’ll get it right, “mumble, mumble, Just remember, Have fun. That’s what it’s all about.”

I anticipate that the journey may have some challenges, and I could go into why, but I’ll just say this: plane ride + possible 22 hour drive home + Jack= challenging. I am going to experiment with twitter at least for the drive home, so feel free to follow our progress here: http://twitter.com/metamegan.