cindy's world

What am I doing up so late, you ask? I’m rel0ading all photos put on this blog before September, 2005 into my current image hosting site, because the image hosting site I’d used from the blog’s birth till then has apparently decided to die. So now I’m on my home desktop, looking for all the old photos, uploading them into my current hosting site, and changing the address on the blog of all these photos from the old site to the new site.

But no, no…don’t you worry about my lack of rest. Anything for my dear readers!

That and I’m anal about my work product. I hate that when you go to old photos now, it just gives you a text box with the caption next to a little box with an “X” in it.

It actually kinda scares me a little that this is how we’re raising today’s youth. It went from teachers not being allowed to corporally discipline students, to parents walking a fine line between punishment and abuse, to kids not being allowed to play tackle football at school, to not being allowed to run during flag football (you have to speed-walk to the person so it’s non-violent, per some schools), to Tag being outlawed at some elementary schools because a child psychologist said stress levels of kids had gone up when asked questions about playing Tag (of course stress levels go up, it’s adrenaline, it’s part of the game!) and they didn’t want kids to feel the pressure of being “forced” to be “it” when another kid runs up and tags him. THESE are the kids who are gonna be fighting our wars?

My friend Adam emails me today:
My third grader and some of his friends got sent to the principal’s office this week for reading a Pokemon book in the bathroom at recess.

Me:
DEVIANTS!!! What kind of MONSTER are you REARING?! I have never heard of such an atrocious violation of parental guidance!
Can I blog this?
And what’s wrong with reading a Pokemon book?!

Adam:
Dude. Where have you been?
Pokemon is forbidden because it leads to play fighting which can lead to real fighting.
Representations of superheros on clothing are forbidden for the same reason.
Playing tag is forbidden because kids run into other kids.

Blog it.

Are they KIDDING?! They’re IMAGINARY cutsie little cartoon creatures that roll out of a little ball to fight each other with magical abilities, and the two cartoon kids competing don’t even TOUCH each other! It’s not like as the pets throw lightning bolts and wind at each other, the two boys are kicking each others’ asses!

Adam also supplements:
At the last cub scout picnic we played kickball. I fielded the ball and drilled the kid with it as he ran to first base. “You can’t do that!” “Can’t do what?” “You can’t throw the ball at people!” “What’re you talking about? This is kickball. Of course you can throw the ball at people–that’s how you get them out.” Some mom comes to explain, “They don’t allow the kids to throw the ball at each other on the playground at school.” I tell the kids, “Listen, boys, are you in cub scouts or girl scouts? All right then, get ready to get drilled.”

I was at Mr. W’s kids’ homecoming football game on Saturday. Since I didn’t know the players and wasn’t interested in football to begin with, I mostly people-watched when I wasn’t watching Mr. W’s daughter cheerlead (she’s in varsity cheer, I write proudly, as if I had anything to do with it). A very attractive young guy (likely senior in HS) caught my attention in the lower part of the bleachers to my right. He was facing his girlfriend, who was sitting to his left, so I could see his face in full but couldn’t see his girlfriend’s. He presumably made eye contact with her because he winked adorably, then puckered his lips and sent a kiss into the air at her. It was a very intimate, private moment. She responded by raising her right hand up toward his left cheek, and I thought, “Aww, she’s gonna caress his cheek! That’s what I do a lot when Mr. W winks at me!” So her right hand approaches his face, but instead of cupping his cheek or playing with his hair, she reaches up and…digs out an eye booger from his left eye. Talk about a mood-killer! I’ve only ever done that to my cat.

Yesterday, I was in Mr. W’s bedroom reading an article in a current celebrity gossip magazine that talked about how Britney Spears is inspired by Mariah Carey’s recent weight loss and is determined to shed her 40 lbs of baby weight now that her 2nd boy is born. It had a photo of Britney’s pre-baby body during a concert, with the caption that this was back in her 500 daily crunches days. That in turn inspired me to go do 5oo crunches, so I set off into the living room, where there’s more room on the floor. 300 crunches in, I started getting sweaty so I came back into the bedroom, shed my t-shirt, chatted with Mr. W a bit while he was on his laptop, then did another 150 crunches. I came in the bedroom again, complained about being sweaty in my bra and shorts, then went back to the living room and finished off the crunches. Then I laid on my stomach and went back into the magazine. A scene flashed in my head about what would happen if Mr. W’s kids came home, but I knew that was unlikely since their mom had already picked them up an hour ago to go back to her place.

So I’m reading the magazine, and I heard the front door open. The front door is located between the living room and the hallway into the bedroom, so there was no way I could get up and run for it without having to pass the front room. I rolled over to my right and looked past the recliner toward the door. It was his teenage son. “Hey,” I said. “Hey,” he said back, without looking too far ahead, as he was taking off his shoes. It’s likely he may not have seen me, at least not enough of me to know I’m in a bra and shorts, so I rolled back on my stomach behind the recliner. I heard the boy go into his dad’s room and ask him some questions. I guess he’d forgotten something. There was nothing I could do but wait it out, hoping he didn’t decide to come into the living room to watch TV or play XBox or something. Then the the front door opened and closed again. I heard his daughter’s voice. That’s okay, she can see me half-naked, we’re both girls, and she’s not shy about body stuff. I can call her and ask her to bring me my shirt. But she walked straight into the bathroom. Son was still talking to Dad, so there was no way I was gonna get up and run past him into Dad’s bedroom. I just hoped Son would go into his bedroom to get whatever it is he left so I can sneak around him and go into Dad’s room. What’s wrong with Dad?! He knows I’m naked, and he’s taking no steps to bring me my shirt! The front door opened and closed again. I heard 10-year-old Half-Brother’s voice. CRAP. NOW this is going to be a problem. Son would be a bit embarrassed to see me in my bra, but he’d play it off. He’s a straight-shooter, isn’t interested in dating yet, so it wouldn’t be anything too gross or traumatic. Half-Brother, however, is already drowning in hormones. Mr. W had caught him on my computer upstairs once, which I didn’t really care about, but then I went thru the internet history and saw that he’d been looking up porn sites. Ew! (Now that computer’s password-protected.) If Half-Brother saw me like that, there’s no way that’d stay quiet. And I wouldn’t blame his mom for being unhappy.

With no signs of the kids leaving, I finally called out his daughter’s name. She answered, “What?” and started walking toward the living room. “Where are you?” she said, then walked up and saw me. “Can you bring me my shirt please? It’s in your dad’s room on the floor.” She said, “Oh, okay,” and walked off, returning a minute later holding up my shirt and said, reading the words in the front, “Crabby?” I said, “Yeah, it’s a Joe’s Crab Shack shirt,” thanked her and put it on. She just went back to doing her own thing like it was totally nothing. I’m sure it wasn’t anything to her.

But I let Mr. W have it when the kids left a few minutes later. His defense was that he didn’t know I was naked. I said, “YOU SAW ME IN JUST MY BRA AND SHORTS! WE HAD TWO CONVERSATIONS WITH ME JUST IN MY BRA AND SHORTS!” This just goes to prove, that when Mr. W is on his computer, I can dance around half naked in just a bra and he wouldn’t notice.

I fell asleep. During commercial break. I hang my head in shame.

Good thing Dwaine TiVo’ed it, and Andrae not only TiVo’ed it, but promised to put it on VHS tape for me! Yay for good friends!

You guys better be wrapping up your plans tonight and preparing to sit in front of your TV at 10pm to watch the series premiere of the show Shark on CBS. That’s in a little over an hour. Pop quiz tomorrow. Those of you who are in my phonebook, I’m calling you to remind you.

I’d always known that I’m surrounded by so-called coincidences, but I never really kept track of them until James made a big deal out of how odd it is that “coincidences” keep happening to me. Here are some more in the past 2 weeks:

At Dwaine and Andrae’s bday party on Saturday, we got there early so Andrae gave us a tour of Dwaine’s house, which I’d told Mr. W before that he’d love because Dwaine and Mr. W have similar tastes in decor. Rich mahogany wood and leather couches, interesting global artifacts, British-looking pieces with guilded gold accents. Mr. W remarked that he did indeed admire Dwaine’s decor, wall paint, etc. and I whispered, “Actually, his mom had a lot to do with the pieces. She picked most of them out.” Suddenly the front door opened behind me and said mom walked in, carrying flowers for her sons’ shindig. “Speaking of their mom, here she is!” I said as I gave her a big hug. Half an hour or so later, Mr. W and I sat on the couch and I told him that my ex Gary may be coming with his current girlfriend, but I wasn’t sure because Gary didn’t respond on the Evite and when I’d asked him about it, he’d said he may have to help his girlfriend move that weekend. Right then I heard Andrae greet someone at the front door and I looked up and there was Gary with his girlfriend. I did the Chandler (of Friends, pilot episode) thing then, saying, “And I just want a million dollars!” and swept my arm toward the door. Nothing. Later, as we got ready to leave, I gave their mom another hug and said my regrets at having to leave early due to my race the next morning, and said, “I guess we missed your husband,” a wonderful man who was known to arrive trendily late. “Yeah, it’s too bad,” she said, and then IN walked said husband! “Oh, there he is! I guess we’re not gonna miss him after all!” I said and walked up to give Dwaine and Andrae’s dad a hello/goodbye hug.

I’ve been playing random CD Roms of various MP3s in my new car. I didn’t recall what was on the CDs, but it turned out that I had clips of Margaret Cho’s stand-up comedy. I’m a big fan of hers. Last week I heard a snippet of Margaret saying, “I know I’m not fat, but I have a fat complex. I got it as a child because of this one old lady. When I was small, there was this old black lady that lived near us, really old and wise, like Alice Walker, The Color Purple. One day she said to me, ‘Baby…I used to be able to fly, but I cain’t fly no’more, baby. But baby, you…you too fat to fly.’ ” A day or two after I heard that in my car, I was at the gym on the elliptical trainer with my gym trainee and she said, “My [9-year-old] son and I watched The Color Purple last night. I had to convince him that that’s Oprah Winfrey. He did not believe me!” I laughed and said, “Yeah, she did good in that film! Her character was exactly how Alice Walker wrote her in the book. Oprah was fat back then.” My trainee said, “Yeah, he had to sit there and read through the end credits to believe me. He kept saying, ‘Oprah don’t look like that!’ I said, ‘She did back then!’ ” I heard that Margaret Cho clip again 2 days ago in my car driving to work, and I chuckled to myself. That evening, I visited Mr. W, who knew nothing of my Alice Walker experiences, at his work and he pulled out a DVD from his desk. “Look!” he said, “I have The Color Purple! My coworker loaned it to me!” I told him how I had heard the clips in my CD in the car and how my trainee had said her son didn’t believe it was Oprah Winfrey. He’d never seen the movie nor read the book. I guess we’re watching The Color Purple this weekend.

Can you tell I was a bit cranky in my last post? Almost as soon as I was done, something came in to cheer me up. My Zaino crap has arrived! Yay! UPS is awesome. Now if I can only squeeze out some time to wash and Zaino my car this weekend. Maybe after the run, after visiting my parents.

I found this site that shows you what the gasoline prices are in any area of your choice (in the US and Canada) as of the past 48 hours. Just click on your state, then click on your city. Or, enter your zip code. For your convenience, I’m also including this site on my sidebar, to your right.

http://www.gasbuddy.com/

Local prices for my area are $2.65/gallon thru Costco. I’ve been looking at what Costco has to offer with renewed interest since Mr. W added me to his Costco account. Boyfriend perk.

Something interesting:
map of gas prices across the US by color-coding
I appear to live at the wrong half of the state for a premium gas car.

Yesterday after work, I jetted over to Mercury Insurance Company and signed up for car and homeowner’s insurance with them. I then called State Farm to cancel both policies with them. The lady who answered the phone sounded surprised and maybe even a little hurt that I’m killing a 14 year relationship with State Farm. And call me lame, but I feel bad. However, my previous State Farm agent, whom I really, really liked and who had helped me out a lot in the past, had retired, I got transferred to a new agent who left State Farm within a matter of weeks with him, and my polices have been in limbo ever since. The State Farm girl I’d been talking to about transferring to their office was really nice and helpful, but it’s been a couple of weeks since I’d last spoken to her about transferring my policies to that office from its present limbo state, I haven’t heard back from her, and now I’m afraid my car’s uninsured since the new car was never recorded. I need to drop the old car off my insurance too, since it’s no longer in my possession.

I’d emailed the lady at Mercury who gave me the car quote ($400/yr less than State Farm’s quote!) to see if she’s available to meet with me after work yesterday, and she emailed back within minutes with directions to their office. When I walked into their very large offices, the lobby had a whiteboard on an easel before the front desk that said “Mercury Insurance Companies welcomes CINDY [my last name]”. Awww! I felt all special. And after my numbers were tightened and input in the computer, my car policy, which is as amped up as they can offer with the maximum coverage possible on everything, ended up being $600/year less than State Farm’s estimate on my new car! I’m pretty happy with my decision. The auto insurance was so great that I also amped up my homeowner’s insurance too, wrote a full check for both policies, and was off.

I hope to never have to use either policy. Insurance is such a waste of money. We pay hundreds and hundreds for something we hope to never need.