Our Peg Leg, The TV Star

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Our Belle is a resilient girl. Since her accident, she seems to have grown accustomed to her cast, and we affectionately refer to her as ?peg leg.? Argh! She is all set for Halloween.

So Dan brought her to the vet yesterday afternoon for a re-wrap, and a Channel 7 crew was there interviewing the staff and dog owners about the canine flu vaccine. And our little peg leg and my handsome husband were featured on the segment. They are towards the end ? Dan is explaining how Belle does not need the vaccine because we are not boarding her, and the extent of her movements are between the Macys couch, her food dish, and our front yard due to the leg injury.

Now Dan and Belle think they are super special because they were on TV. Belle especially enjoyed her few minutes of fame and wants all media inquiries directed to her agent ;-)

Some Thoughts On Thursday

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Last night I had a dream I went back to high school. At age 25. I ended up in some bogus math class I am pretty sure I could never pass now or at age 16, and I tried to tell the teacher I graduated some time ago and was not longer in need of her services. I had a husband, a full time job, a house, a dog, tax payments, and pretty much everything else associated with having left high school. Talk about a nightmare.

I have been pining for powdered donuts this entire week. Yes, those mini white dusty donuts you get at the grocery in cardboard boxes that look like they have been sitting on the shelf since 1998. Those powdered donuts. Oh, and also Swiss Rolls. I have not had a powdered donut in over a decade yet I have had to resist the urge to attack the Little Debbie and Entenmanns?s displays at the grocery with all my willpower.

Every so often I try to convince Dan I should retire. I tried again this week to no avail. For some reason, he thinks 25 is too young for me to head to retirement. I, on the other hand, know I will be a great retiree. I love to wake up early, I am totally cool with eating dinner at 5:00 p.m. (or even 4:30 p.m.!), and I am pretty awesome at BINGO. Dan says he does not dispute these qualities of mine but he cannot get over how I would no longer be earning an income. Hmm?maybe I need to get serious about those BINGO games with cash prizes?

I am obsessed with the Barefoot Contessa, and I think I have a great idea for her show. She could run an extended series where she teaches her new friend, that would be me, how to cook. These segments would provide endless entertainment for the audience. Plus, I could finally meet Barefoot Contessa and become her best friend. I know I would be awesome as her sidekick. Sadly, her Web site says she is not currently accepting new friends :-(

I think work would be better if I only had to work four days a week and always had a three-day weekend. This would increase my moral 1000 fold. Even more than when I got that other monitor. I think other people would agree. I bet we would all be so happy that we only had to drag ourselves through four days instead of five that productivity and office happiness would increase by at least 30 percent. You know, if this came to be, I might even push back my retirement plans ;-)

Sarah 2.0, Now With 100 Percent More Happiness

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This morning I received another monitor at work, so now I have DUAL monitors. DUAL MONITORS!

This probably seems lame to all of you who have been working off of two monitors for months or even years. But this is a big deal to me because here in Public Sector Central, we only get ?new? things after they have become obsolete. It?s just how we roll.

My monitors are far from the same size and quality. One is newer and slicker and the other, while at least a flat screen, sort of looks like circa 2000. But, whatever, I am not complaining. Around here we use whatever it is we have, and we seemed to have a crop of these extra monitors from people who vacated or what not.

So now I have a second monitor, and it is loads of fun to drag applications to the other screen rather than hunting and pecking around for whatever it is I need. It is pretty sweet, and supposedly, a study found it helps people work about 18 percent faster. While 18 percent is pretty huge, I found it also makes me 100 happier. It is like Sarah, Version 2.0.

If Sarah Rosemary Had A Farm…

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The extent of my farm experiences included occasional petting zoos and the one time my third grade class watched the milk production process on a farm field trip. I am pretty sure none of us drank milk for the remainder of third grade.

So, no, I suppose I am not much of a farm girl, but I am up for a challenge, so my two other girlfriends and I headed up to Larriland Farm in Maryland this weekend for apple picking.

Talk about nature. It is amazing how just an hour away changes the landscape. The farm had that earth smell and huge brightly colored trees lining the property. First we hunted for several varieties of apples ? Granny Smith, Enterprise, Sun Crisps. It was quite a treat to pluck your own apple straight from the vine instead of hunting through the bruised and battered apple displays at the grocery. And these apple were mega apples, not those little tiny things from the grocery but bigger than the palm of your hand variety. We all filled up two bags worth of meaty apples and headed on over to the pumpkin patch.

I suppose I knew that pumpkins grew on a vine, but actually seeing the rows of pumpkins was another thing entirely. Some were speckled with green, there were a bunch of white varieties, and, of course, traditional orange.

The farm also had broccoli, and, to be honest, I had no idea how that stuff grew. It is sort of like a plant and the broccoli stems are in the middle, sort of like the flower part. And you use a knife to cut the broccoli out of the plant. Who knew? Not me. Clearly, this trip taught me much about how food grows, which is probably something I should have learned back on that third grade farm field trip.

After feeling like farmers and scouring for our own goods, we waited in a 70-person deep line for apple fritters. I had to confess I never had an apple fritter before, but it was worth the wait. It was hot a flaky and definitely not stingy on the powdered sugar.

So now I have 16 pounds of apples, a lopsided pumpkin, and three funky gourds. Since now I have seen how things grow, perhaps I should think about a career change. I could be a farmer. Seems like fun. I am already good at the getting up early part. I just need a tutorial in the how-things-grow department ;-)

I Probably Should Be Over This By Now

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When I was a kid, Halloween really freaked me out.

Leading up to Halloween, I would get excited about wearing one of my many princess-themed costumes to school. You know, back when school was fun and you had parties for actually holidays and you could dress up, before administrators freaked and decided students might have too much fun and canceled the whole thing in favor of non-descript, no festive attire, generic for one hour in the afternoon party? Oh, and do not even think about bringing in anything containing peanut butter. Or milk products. So we feasted on pretzels.

Anyway, I thought that was all well and good, pretending to be a princess during the day with the lights on.

But, on the actual Halloween day, forget it. When I was about six, I remember refusing to put on my super cute angel costume, complete with wand, that my mother made for me, and instead hiding under the table whenever one of those groups of dressed up kids rang the doorbell.

My parents would say, Oh, Sarah, come look, it is not scary, this kid is dressed up as a lamb, and oh, how cute, a toddler wearing a pumpkin suit. A toddler, Sarah! A little baby!?

Nope, no way, cannot fool me. That toddler could have turned into one scary devil pumpkin or who knows what. There are all sorts of scary movies featuring babies and little kids. I was no fool, and I was not coming out for anything.

As I got older, I got slightly less scared. But pretty much only slightly. Not even the draw of King Sized Reece?s Peanut Butter Cups could get me to go anywhere close to a spooky looking house.

So now I am 25 and I am totally unafraid of a whole lost of ?scary stuff,? like spiders and other assorted bugs and noises at night when I am home alone and taxes and driving on I66. But trick or treating? No thanks. You go on ahead. Eat all the candy for me. And beware of those toddlers dressed up as pumpkins.

Attention, Stealer at the Self Check Out

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Where I live, there just seems to be no good time to go to the grocery. I suppose maybe the middle of the night would be pretty good, but I am just not willing to go that far.

So pretty much any other normal time of day, one goes to the grocery at one?s own risk. Even before you get inside, you put your life in danger just trying to park the car. No one looks when backing out, no one cares that you had your blinker on, parking almost sideways so no one can park next to you is common.

If you manage to make it through the parking lot, it just gets worse inside. People drive their carts like they do their cars, abandoning them in the middle of the aisle. Knocking into other people and sneering instead of apologizing for smashing my feet while careening their carts around corners.

So, I try to avoid going to the grocery too many times in one week and at any sort of peak time, like Saturday morning. But, I decided I really really really wanted a certain brand of oatmeal, and I wanted it so badly I was willing to drive myself in the rain to the local menace of a grocery to get this oatmeal.

And it was bad, and I am pretty sure I almost died at least five times before making it to the check out. Since I had three items, I figured I would do self check out. I got behind a girl who had one thing ? a box of Epsom salt. I thought I hit the grocery jackpot. I thought it would be the fastest check out experience of my life.

And I thought wrong.

The girl in front of me was waiting for the bumbling man in front of her to finish packing up his groceries. So we watched him finish up his bumbling bagging approach and totter away. And, to our horror, the check out screen was flashing and asking for payment. Payment? What payment? Neither the girl nor I had scanned anything yet.

And then that?s when we realized bumbling man did not pay. And he just walked out.

So, I flagged down a grocery worker to explain our problem. That the bill for $57.60 was not for this girl?s box of Epsom salt. That that bumbling man bagged up this stuff and WALKED OUT!

Well, the grocery man was pretty mad, but he unblocked the system, so the girl and I could proceed. And as I dogged cars in the parking lot, I realized that now not only is the grocery pretty much the worst place on earth, people blatantly use the self check out to steal. Now, I do not know if he meant to steal, but whatever the case, some people should not be aloud to use self check out. Or come to the grocery at all. Ugh, maybe I should give up and have my stuff delivered.

I Am Just Not Good At This Sort Of Thing

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I am not really a fan of too much office socializing. I find it particularly stressful.

We have lots of office party things ? monthly birthday celebrations, wedding showers, baby showers, holiday party complete with that mean gift-swapping game, picnics, retreats, and, of course, Thanksgiving lunch.

I admit, these things are not my favorite. I guess I am sort of a forced fun grouch. I like to get my work done, eat my own lunch, be quiet in my own cube.

So, I find it truly ironic that today I find myself a committee member of the Thanksgiving lunch.

The role sort of was?required? So, here I am, Miss Office Forced Fun Grouch, on this committee. It was then that I felt like my life was imitating art in the sense that one of my favorite shows is The Office, and today I felt like I was starring in my own version.

You see, this office holiday party planning is not just made up of pick a date, order food, have fun! Oh, no. Because there is angst about what day. These people have a meeting, these people are out of town, these people do not like parties on Tuesdays, yada, yada, yada. And do not even think about ordering food before considering very, very, very carefully or else be prepared for the verbal backlash of those who cannot stand the site of certain types of mashed potatoes or those who have temper tantrums about raisins in stuffing, or those who have to have a specific type of crumbly corn bread or else they will inflict you with their furry. And hell hath no furry like office people disgruntled with food.

As you can see, it is pretty scary to be the decider. I do not want to decide lunch everyone hates. That would just be the worst. I would have to hide out in my cube in fear.

And then there are all the traditional festivities. And I mean traditional in the most extreme sense. There has to be games, and everyone will play. There has to be a dessert contest. There has to be certain décor. And all this has to happen in a very traditionally-specific way.

Do you see the madness? The pressure? Ack, it is just too difficult to please the masses. So much so that it takes the fun right out of forced fun leaving only the forced part. It is enough to make a girl want to call Dominos and call it a day. Oh, and everyone should eat at their desk. Alone ;-)

Tailgates and Touchdowns

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On my list of 25 things to do before I turn 26 is to go back to the University of Virginia for a football game.

I am pleased to announce I accomplished that goal and knocked off an item on my list. And I think I even stepped it up a notch because I ended up choosing the Homecomings game, complete with various tailgates.

The game was Saturday, so Dan, Marie, and I headed down to Charlottesville and made our first stop at the Engineering School for the Engineering Pre-Game Tailgate. Please note, neither Marie or I are engineers. Or anything close to engineers. In fact, I am pretty sure that if we had to do any engineering, we would just cry instead. Spatial relations? Yeah, we are not so hot at that.

But we are good at eating pulled pork, and lucky for us, Dan the Engineer got us into the tailgate as his guests. I know what you are thinking, it is Dan who is lucky to escort two lovely ladies to this delightful tailgate. I could not agree more ;-)

So we enjoyed our free meal and then took a tour of our old dorms just for fun. At first I was worried I turned us into ?those people.? You know, when you are a first year and you see ?those old people? come back to the dorms and mill about. But, I decided I did not care because I wanted to see where I used to live, just to remind myself of the awful conditions ? no air conditioning, sharing a room with a random stranger, community bathrooms ? just so I would take to heart that I survived that, so I can pretty much survive anything.

After our reminiscent tour where I again thanked my lucky stars I will never have to share a bathroom with 40 girls again, we headed on over to the stadium for the game. And we ended up having really great seats in the end zone. Really close! It even sort of made me nervous because I could see Coach Al Groh close up, and he has a scary game face.

The did the usually fun pre-game stuff, and some new stuff, like shooting off fireworks, and the marching band seemed to have learned some new groovy marching moves. And the game was fun because it is fun to watch your team score touchdown after touchdown after touchdown?oh wait, yes, another touchdown? And so it went, until we beat Indiana 47 to 7. We actually sort of felt bad for them?but not too bad.

We ended our night with the Young Alumni Tailgate dinner and a necessary trip to Arch?s ? the local favorite for frozen yogurt.

And on the way home, I wished I could have wrote a letter to my undergrad self, telling her that this time, while seemingly hard, is actually easier than what happens when you graduate and go on to ?real life.? I wish I could tell her to enjoy it more and take heed when learning life lessons because all that real life learning stuff comes back with a vengeance. But, also, every stage comes with its own challenging phases, so do not worry too much, and take solace in that you at least have your own bathroom ;-)

Down for the Count

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It was pretty much one of those weekends. Ones you wish you could do over.

Since I had Monday off, Dan and I were enjoying lunch together and let Miss Belle out to patrol the backyard, her favorite activity.

No sooner had we shut the sliding glass door we heard her give off a bloodcurdling bark. An unmistakable bark that sent shivers done my spine and me racing out the door without shoes on.

And there she was, sitting in the grass and holding her paw up at an abnormal angle. When she saw us race towards her, she stopped barking and put on her stoic brave face. So Dan hoisted her up and laid her down in the backseat of the car, and we rushed to the vet.

I called ahead to warn them we were coming in with an emergency, and her leg already swelled up to the size of a golf ball by the time we made it to the vet.

They saw us right away, and Dan carried her back to the lab area for her x-ray. And right when I stopped moving and sat down on the chair in the exam room, I lost it. I am not sure what happened. She loves to run and take leaps off the shallow stairs outside, so perhaps she jumped and landed wrong. Or she slipped. I did not know, but as my dog, my best girl, I felt absolutely pained with responsibility.

After was seemed like forever, the doctor came in with the bad news ? Miss Belle managed to dislocate the piece of bone in her foot sort of equivalent to a person?s wrist. Even I could see that on the x-rays, how the bone was shifted out of its socket. The doctor scheduled a consult with an orthopedist for the next day who would determine if she needs surgery or just R and R.

When she brought Belle back to us, hobbling along in her splint, I just about died. I am not a person?s mom, but I am that dog?s mom, and seeing my girl who loves to run totter awkwardly in her cast down the hall just about broke my heart to pieces.

We took her home, and we tried to give her positive encouragement to use that leg. Between tears, I kept trying to encourage her to use her splinted foot. And after a while she got the hang of it, using her little peg leg to move herself around instead of jumping around on her three other feet.

I told her she would not have to wear a cast forever, hopefully just about eight weeks until it heals. It will be okay. Until she can get full use of her leg, she will have to bark at her nemesis, the woodland creatures from inside. And when she can go back out to patrol the backyard, I cannot wait until I see her out there digging up my yard ;-)

Homecomings

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The week I knew the University of Virginia was sending out its acceptance letters ranked right up there as one of the Worst Weeks of My High School Career.

I acted comatose the entire week. I looked like a zombie going to an execution. I made my own life miserable thinking that my entire life was on the line. This was it. I would live and die by the size of the envelope in the mail.

And I got in. And I went. And nothing spectacular or dramatic occurred.

I finished in three years, left, went on to get my Masters, landed a job that actually resembles what I went to school to become.

And now I think it is so funny that I wasted so much time and energy agonizing over which college I would go to because I am pretty sure it ranks up there with Things That Just Do Not Matter.

Not that college is unimportant – I love higher education. I often wish I could forget this whole work thing and be a full-time career student. What I would argue is, I am sure I would have done great no matter where I went to school.

And that hindsight is so 20/20.

I try to remember this important lesson when I get my panties all in a knot about how I think things should be. I remember how I made my life and my family’s life miserable my senior year convinced I was going to have to enroll in some Fly By Night online college program because no Virginia school would take me.

All that worrying for nothing. Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Shameful waste of time.

I could have spent all that time I spent worrying with friends I might not see for a while or taking the time to enjoy my last year at home as a child. I could have relaxed, knowing that things just work themselves out. And the beautiful part is, for all these things like this, there is nothing I could do about it. Once you put in that application, one looses all control. Which, if you think about it, is kind of?freeing.

So, since I am headed back to good ole U.Va. this weekend for Homecomings, I just wanted to remind myself that everything happens for a reason. I am not in control of 97% of my life. And that is the fun and freeing part.