WHAT!?!?!?!?

people of securian, hear my words and heed my knowledge: noise-cancelling ear buds are also PEOPLE-cancelling ear buds.  

if you see ear buds delicately snuggled in my ears, please don't talk to me until you have first received my fullest of attention.  if this does not occur first, i WILL turn around and very slowly remove said ear buds and patronizingly ask you to repeat yourself in order to teach you a valuable-but-most-likely-not-to-be-retained lesson.

yes, i know i can be a real ass sometimes.

finally catching up...

last night john and i started to finally catch up with the rest of the world as we started watching glee.  getting sick of everyone telling us how wonderful it was and not being able to carry on conversations with friends and co-workers, we asked for it for xmas and lo, jesus claus tipped his soft white bunny ear our way and blessed us with the first season on DVD.

last night signalled the beginning of a new era and aptly so, we entered it in fits of giggles over sue, gushed with junior high lust over will and puck, and gleamed through every single musical number.  

i may never be on facebook, but i'll at least be full of glee  = )

conflicting messages and burned-in memories

my father told me once that he believed that all people should have the right to live their lives as they see fit, regardless of whether it conflicts with his conservative beliefs.

less than a minute later in the conversation he said that given his previous statement, if he was given the ability to vote on certain hot-button issues he wouldn't skip a beat to vote against same-sex couples being able to marry or to make abortion illegal.

i [believe it or not, respectfully] questioned him, saying that his messages conflicted; if he truly believed that people should have the right to live their lives as they see fit then he wouldn't vote in favor of forcing those same people to conform to his beliefs.

i remember this next part very clearly - it is burned in my mind forever.

my father's response was completely opposite of the tone of the conversation up to that point.  in the middle of this for-the-most-part-civil conversation, my father shot back a response with vehement anger and defense as he said, "don't you DARE you ask me to do something [vote] against what i know to be right!" 

it wasn't much later in the conversation that my father blew up again and stomped away from the table we were sitting at in the middle of a restaurant in omaha.

i'll never forget that night.  as angry as i was at the end of the evening, i cant help but feel sorry for my father - it mustn't be a terribly happy life if one is constantly living with conflicting beliefs that divide one between their invisible best friend with a 2,000 year old user's guide and your flesh-and-blood who is, for all intents and purposes, sitting in front of you living a successful, happy, fulfilling, and ethical life, void of any visible divine retribution from his supposed "sin."

rant #2

i'm tired of people saying that people who drink decaf coffee aren't drinking "real" coffee or that they aren't "real" coffee drinkers.

 

i beg to differ.  as a matter of fact, i think decaf drinkers are the most sincere and wholly-dedicated of all coffee drinkers!  think about it for a sec: how many people do you know refere to coffee as their "caffeine fix" or their "pick me up?"  NOW... how many decaf drinkers say that... uh, NONE.  why?  because they drink coffee for something other than the caffeine or the rush, they drink it because they enjoy the flavor.

 

now, can you say that about every single "regular" coffee drinker?

 

yeah... gotcha thinking, huh?

 

thus ends the second rant.  you may be seated.

thursday rant #1

food days at work are meant to be times of celebration for a person's achievements and/or ability to push through life/work yet one more year.  BUT, if the intended celebrant isn't able to be around to celebrate (e.g., they're teaching) or if 1/2 the team isn't going to eat because they're "going to be good and not eat snacks" then what's the point???

thus ends today's first rant.

quote of the day

the quote of the day comes from the comments section in a startribune editorial on reducing the deficit:

"I have finally (after 67 years) come to the realization that the only difference between the Republicans and Democrats is that the Democrats "tax and spend" while the Republicans "just spend"."

the adventures of baron nechodomu

whew, i'm finally back to semi-normalcy after being away from work (i.e., reality) for over two weeks.  the first week was spent on our xmas cruise (costa maya, mexico; belize city, belize; cozumel, mexico; georgetown, grand cayman) and the second week in the everglades, key largo, and at home veggin' and cleanin' (the cleaning was john's idea, not mine).

what a wonderful time, though, to be far FAR away from family on one of the most family-oriented of holidays!  no offense to my family, but they're CRAZY and nothing was more of a welcome paradigm shift than to wake up on xmas eve morning on a ship in the middle of the caribbean with breakfast in bed w/ bloodies & mimosas, scrambled eggs w/ smoked salmon and caviar, and cinnamon french toast.  later in the day we shopped on grand cayman and then had a beautiful formal dinner in the main dining room of the ship (see pics).  xmas day we gorged for breakfast and then laid on the top deck of the ship in full-sun 80 degree weather.  it was our first time, ever, that either john or i had spent xmas away from the midwest... a bit of an adjustment but one i think we could probably handle again in the future  = )  (btw, i DID bring along a string of lights with which to decorate our room = ).

and now back at work being a productive member of society.  lol, like i'll ever be that...

here are our PICS!!!