Utils in Bat Country

2011 in review

From the always fabulous Sundry

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before? I have no idea actually. OH WAIT. How could I forget the cluster that EH ended up being?

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?  Lets see - For 2011: lose another 15-20 (yes, now no, ugh), get savings account back above 10k (nope), cut Discover bill in half (ha, no), go on a date (yep), travel somewhere by myself for a weekend (not really - I traveled long distances by myself but always met someone there). For 2012: get.the.weight.off.  Jesus, self. Savings account over $15k, pay off all non student loan debt, move, feel confident about my work accomplishments, be in a relationship, stick to a shopping budget, poach an egg.

3. Did anyone close to you have a child?  Yep, my nephew was born 1/2/11

4. Did anyone close to you die?  Great Aunt Suzy.

5. Where did you travel?  Jersey Shore (again!), Traverse City (again!), Petoskey, Houston (three times), Harrisburg, back to NJ and Aunt J's house, Centerburg, Pleasant Hill, Bmore to visit Tass and go to a wedding, Florida...I think that's everything.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?  Focus and contentment

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory? The FNL finale. Clear eyes!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Trying, sometimes?

9. What was your biggest failure?  Technically, EH wasn't so much of a failure so much of a fizzle with a spectacularly bad date story thrown in but blah.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?  Wisdom teeth drama but overall been trucking along

11. What was the best thing you bought?  Orange sparkle shoes

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?  Neighbors D&K. Super fun, always willing to help out, very happy I met them (and deserving of a repeat this year. Am going to miss them when they move.)

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?  Ugh, it took me a minute to think but now am all enraged again. What an idiot.

14. Where did most of your money go?  Shoes.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?  The Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert. I'd see them every week if I could.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?  All of Adele's 21 CD.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:  a) happier or sadder?  b) thinner or fatter?  c) richer or poorer? Sameish, fatter (stabby stabby hate), sameish

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?  Stretched. Don't fail me now, flexibility

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?  Snack

20. How will you be spending Christmas/NYE?  [I was at my parents, it was fantastic] NYE will probably be on the couch with TS cracking up at Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin (same!). Maybe helping the neighbors paint

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?  HAAAAAAA.

22. What was your favorite TV program?  Once Upon a Time

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?  Nah, not hate. 

24. What was the best book you read?  Black Hawk. Oh, Adrian.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?  Slow Your Breath Down by Future of Forestry

26. What did you want and get?  A not as stupid leg

28. What did you want and not get?  Financial forward motion

29. What was your favorite film of this year?  HP 7.2

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?  I turned 30.  Went of vacation with one of my bff's, J to northern MI.  Was delightful.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?  world peace

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?  Waiting for sale.

33. What kept you sane?  [Losing myself in books and tv and just being able to focus my brain on something not-my-life.] [Same! And taking long walks with TS were good for mood settling too.] It's a hat trick!

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?  Wilson Bethel

35. What political issue stirred you the most?  The train wreck that is the current Republican field

36. Who did you miss? the fam

37. Who was the best new person you met?  I must have made a new friend this year, right? Erm... I was actually rather more social this year, just with people I already knew.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.  Browned butter is good. Caramel sauce is bad.

Reverb 11 - Ordinary Time

Prompt for December 14: Ordinary Time: Tell us about an ordinary week in your 2011 life; describe your routine.  Do you hope that your day-to-day, week-to-week life remains much the same in the coming year, or are you trying to shake things up?  How will you do that?

One of the... I guess you wouldn't say benefit but one of the effects of living on auto pilot is that your weekly routine becomes, well, routine. And when you love control and try to plan and plot out more than is humanely possible, being able to relatively anticipate life is pleasant.

Weekdays: Alarm sounds, I turn it off.  Back up alarm sounds, I turn it off. Drag out of bed, feed cats, perform ablutions (namely scrubbing at eyes with heel of hand wondering when I began to look so haggard).

Get dressed - since I started doing an outfit of the day album on fbook (I know, is the height of narcissism but am really doing it to be practical, truly. On my own morning devices, I'll manage to put on clothes but that's about it.  If I'm laying outfits out five at a time on the weekends, then I actually use more items in my closet and combine them in different ways.)

Work - thankfully, this year has been relatively even keeled as far as projects coming in and my knowing how to do them. Huzzah!

Home - walk Tilly. Chat on phone. Scrounge up dinner, TV, bed.

Weekends: Wake up before the time of the weekday alarm, every. single. weekend. Feed cats, pull on yoga pants, walk Tilly. Head out to delicious cafe for a bagel sandwich or perhaps meet a friend for brunch.  Plan outfits, TV, cook, shopping, half-hearted cleaning.

I've arrived at a point where I feel like I would achieve a greater measure of happiness if I diverted some of the shoe budget to a cleaning service. It's a sad day.

Obviously, some shaking up would serve me well.  I'm hopeful that work remains even keeled or that if I'm at a new job that I pick things up quickly and can get settled. Not knowing and having to come up with answers makes me a panicked girl.  And while I do recognize my limits and adopting a shake, rattle, and roll routine is not going to behoove me, injecting a bit of a jig would be a good thing.

I can't just dance in the living room, right?

Why teeth, whyyyy

Oh, for the love of GOD.

At my regularly scheduled cleaning, the hygienist was asking how the wisdom tooth procedure went (apparently I was 'looked forward to' when they presented at yesterday's staff meeting.  My teeth are soooo exciting) and they were all a bit surprised when they saw that #4 was still there.  [and there it will stay, forever, you hear me tooth?]  I told her about the random tingling feeling I get and she was all oh yes, that's completely normal, there's this big nerve and with such a procedure it's not uncommon to have a bit of nerve damage and it should go away in time but if it doesn't will just be annoying but no big deal.  Ok, good.  She does some bite wing x-rays (more things I bet effing insurance won't cover) and clucks her tongue at a few trouble spots.  What?  No. NO. I was in six months ago and everything looked good (beautiful as Dr. K said!) and the only thing left to get my mouth in shape was wisdom teeth.  I did that, suffered through the pain and the expense and now I am just hear for the polishing and the fancy floss.

Apparently, no. There are a few trouble spots that they are watching and THREE places they need to fill.  Dr. G came in and was explaining that cavities in adults aren't like when you're a kid, they can not show up for years but be slowly growing and then one cleaning you come in and oh, hello, we have eaten through your enamel and are going to make all your teeth fall out.  They prescribed $7 toothpaste that has fluoride to use at night that should help the spots being watched from getting worse and as long as they stay as they are, I never have to get them filled.  And the three I have to have filled should be 'straight forward'.  Then they were talking about how snacking on sugary things exacerbates any issues because it takes your mouth two hours to balance out after eating and if you keep snacking then your mouth never recovers.  Makes sense.  Farewell 3pm tootsie rolls!  I'll miss you!

But Fine. finefinefine.  I will go in on the 26th and remind them how last time the novacaine started to wear off so could they please load me up this time and at least appreciate that it won't be as bad as my wisdom teeth.

My gums are sparkling though, so there's that.

Snippets of Wisdom

On our Target outing on Saturday, I went to grab a bag of cat food. It was up on the top shelf and so my 5'3 self reached up and tipped it over into my up-stretched arms same as I do every week.  Except this time, not only was there a razor slit in the top of the bag but the glue sealing it shut was non existent so I succeeded in pouring an entire bag of cat food over my head.  There was a lone off duty Target employee further down the aisle and she looked at me, still holding the now empty bag above my head, and at the floor and said even though I'm off duty this needs to be attended to.  I secured a new, sealed bag and slunk off to find dishwasher soap.

I arrived home from work yesterday to find this in my mailbox.

Cracks me up.  Not only is my name spelled wrong (though it must be in their records because I had issues at the pharmacy picking up my prescriptions) but it just seems an odd occasion to send a thank you card for.  Thanks for letting us pry around in your mouth for an hour!

(Or, likely, thanks for letting us overcharge you by $700!)

One Degree of Separation from Spike!

Since I work in Baltimore, and not LA or NYC, my sightings of famous people are not frequent. There was the brush with Gabriel Byrne over a year ago in Union Station in DC, and a couple of other random sightings. Yesterday afternoon, one of the guys at work was all atwitter because Woody Harrelson was at the restaurant next door to ours. He’s a vegan (Woody, not my coworker) and it’s an all veggie/vegan place, one of the few in the city.

 

The coworker went over and bought himself a smoothie, just to see if it really was Woody Harrelson (it was) and I thought it would be cool to see him. But whatever, you know? Although, I did meet Juliette Lewis a couple of years ago, and meeting Woody would fulfill my Natural Born Killers quotient, right? I hadn’t thought of that…

 

ANYWAY.

 

We were starting to get busy, and I had tables all over the place, when a new group of four came in and sat down. Three guys, one woman. Whatever.  I drop off menus, and immediately think, “OMG, that guy was on Buffy!” I ran over to the other server, told her, and she asked if I wanted the table.

 

CAN YOU SAY FAN GIRL?

 

So I wait on the table, hoping against hope that I don’t make a complete ass out of myself. Because, while I was unsure at first if it was really who I thought it was, as soon as he spoke, I knew it.

 

Now. Before you get too excited, it wasn’t Spike. Because that would just be too amazing. It was the guy who played Jonathan, one of the kind-of evil guys. One of the really small evil guys, it turns out, since he’s shorter than me and I’m only 5’4” first thing in the morning.

 

So yeah, it was Danny Strong. Turns out he wrote the screen play for a film (incidentally starring Woody Harrelson) that’s being filmed in Bmore right now.

 

I made it through until the end of their dinner. And then I had to ask for a picture. He looked at me and said, “Buffy, right?” I suppose my green hair gives it away? I didn’t think to ask how he knew which show I was a fan of, as he was also on Gilmore Girls and Mad Men.

 

Oh. Wait. Maybe it WAS the green hair.

 

So we did a picture (awesome!) And Danny (who was So Very Sweet about me making an ass out of  myself) introduced himself to me, and then told me that the guy who took the picture for me was a ‘famous Hollywood director”. To which I replied, “yes, but I recognized you!” For I am and always will be, A Dork.

 

I really am surprised at just how nice the whole table was about it. I know it’s kind of city mouse/country mouse and some people just don’t give a shit about the rich and famous. And, as neat as it would be to meet Woody, I’m much more ‘eh’ about it. However, meeting anyone who had a significant role on Buffy?! THAT’S the coolness.

 

 

Oh. And the “famous Hollywood director”? Was Jay Roach. Who yeah, has perhaps directed Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers, as well as all three Austin Powers movies and Mystery, Alaska. So he might just be a little bit of a big thing.

 

But whatever. He’s no Jonathan. LONG LIVE BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER!

I'm a little teapot

In the sense that I'm both short and somewhat stout and also that when I get all filled up, it pours out.  I can handle dramas and stresses of various degrees until I'm full up and then all it takes is one thing no matter how big or little to set me off into an anxiety spiral of sickness and doom.

Christmas 2009 was not one for the record books.  I had starting experiencing all my anxiety symptoms last Thanksgiving but didn't know that's what they were.  Was still with D, not yet in therapy, thinking it was some sort of adult onset food allergy.  I was stressed, upset, tired, and then had to fly home for Christmas.  And even though the flight was fine (and please dear God let the same be true this year) and I got my bags and my first meal of Chick fil A with not a frown in sight, I woke up Christmas Eve morning with a super sore throat and feeling downright yucky.  Rallied a bit for shopping, pushed the food around my plate at one of my favorite restaurants, thought I was going to pass out at Midnight Mass, made it halfway through Christmas presents and then spend the rest of the night dry heaving and in bed.

My facebook pictures of Holidays 2009 goes through the end of Thanksgiving. The couple of pictures I have on my camera have me looking somewhat green.  I'm oh so sad that I missed Christmas lasagna (the one time a year when I make homemade pasta) but equally not looking forward to it because I could smell the sauce cooking last year during the sick and just thinking about it makes me queasy.

I really really really do not want a repeat of any of that this year.  It should be better.  I know what the anxiety/panic symptoms are when I feel it for one.  Last year, I was so miserable and scared about not knowing what was going on that I made it so much worse.  Then I felt terrible about not being with the family and knowing Mom was worrying about me when she should be enjoying the day and all of us being home and then I felt worse.

Hopefully, all that won't be an issue.  If I freak out, I can try and talk myself down.  And I really need to not let me inner teapot get full.  Which would be fine except for lingering Thanksgiving throat issues, mystery bruise of doom, wariness over please SIL do NOT go into labor while I'm there and the ever present I have to get on a plane omg noooo are already filling me up.

So, I keep telling myself why everything will be fine.  Flying is very safe, people do it all the time, every day.  I have Xanax.  Which I can take even if I'm on the ground and lose it.  Correlation does not equal causation and just because the last few times I've felt ill have been the last few times I've flown does not mean I'm going to feel sick all next week.  Even if SIL goes into labor, it will be fine.  That's what hospitals and doctors and rooms far far away from me are for.  Homemade lasagna is delicious.

Take that sensory memories.

 

Shore 2010: The Competition(s)

My families a wee bit competitive.  And when we're all together, it amps up from regular haha I won happydance to I TOTALLY SCHOOLED YOU GRANDMA.

In some respects, it was helpful.  P, Uncle J and I formed a morning exercise group to walk in the mornings.  The first morning we assembled in the kitchen at 730 right as my cousins 22yr old girlfriend was getting back from her run.  J said she ran 70 blocks, we went 71.  The next day, she went 80, we went 82.  She thought she was being clever on day 3 and went 100, P and I did 90 and called it good but Uncle J went 110.  By the end of the trip, we were walking to the next town just to one up each other. There's something very satisfying about kicking the bridge that connects all the shore towns. Am aware that since she was running vs our walking, her exercise might technically have been more healthful.  Whatever. *hand flap of dismissal*  Nothing like starting every morning of vacation out with a nice 4 to 6 mile trek :)

In other respects, it was typical family shenanigans. Dad and Uncle J decided that they could be champion boogey boarders and spent well over an hour searching for the perfect waves.

 

And in family games of wave football, superhuman feats of athleticism must be undertaken because winning is worth any cost

   

(For the record, after I put the camera away and got involved in the game, I did a diving catch, got knocked under by a wave and held onto the ball.  It was JUST like in Remember the Titans.)

And at other times, the competitiveness becomes downright insane.  Gma is a champion scrabble player.  She beats the computer.  My romance novel vocabulary allows me to dominate at Balderdash (demesne remains my all time triumph) but at Scrabble am generally the person whose words are 'of' 'the' 'and'.  But since Gma loves scrabble, many games take place while at the shore.  She was playing with my other Uncle J and my cousins and used the word 'ye'.  Uncle J called foul, Gma protested that it was in the scrabble dictionary and the computer accepted it and he said that since the computer was likely around in the Middle Ages when ye was used as a word the computer probably did accept it but now the only acceptable scrabble words are ones that we use in 2010.  Not to be cowed, Gma then followed him around the kitchen singing Oh Come All Ye Faithful for a good four versus.  He caved and let it stand (of course the y was on a triple letter score box) but afterwards did a little doctoring of the board.

 

 

 
 
 

Mission: Accomp...sputter

Towards the end of last week, I was getting tantalizingly close to my goal of where I wanted to be for the shore, a new 1x...1y it can be named.  Would be 1(x)1, 1(x)0.5 and woke up Friday at 1(Y)9.0.  Yippee!  Confetti! Now I just had to maintain it till this Friday when I depart for the shore known as Jersey. 

(Maintenance while at the shore is sure to be a harrowing and sad tale)

Even though we're busy and moving at the air show the food choices aren't exactly healthful so I woke up Sunday at 1(x)2.5.  Gaaaaaah.  Curse you Saturday bagels from Panera!  oooh, I still have one in my freezer....

Noticed Sunday afternoon that my throat was feeling raspy but chalked it up to three days out on the ramp.  Had Monday of fun in the dentist's chair and was still droopy.  Managed to walk the dog for an hour Tuesday albeit at a slower pace but was becoming ever more suspicious that my irritated not sick throat was actually some sort of flu harbinger.  Is it possible for one to be so freaked out and anxious over flying that they give themselves the flu?  Last time I was sick = last time I had to fly.

Dinner with the dog park group was fun and the nice thing about the hibachi is there's a distraction while eating so could eat slower and less.  Was still feeling like ugh so I tried to not overwhelm my system by shoveling in delicious rice.  Played with the dogs for awhile outside and thanks to the miracle of Nyquil, didn't wake up at 4am hacking. 

This morning - 1(y)8!  Yay! Confetti! Balloons!  

Am bringing a pair of pants to the shore that I haven't fit in since 2004? 2003?  While nicely loose and big at the waist, they're still a bit snug around the hips/thighs but I'm not too worried about them splitting if I sit down so in the suitcase they go.  One surefire way to keep me from eating my weight in crab legs - split pants at the restaurant.  

Seriously though, what is up.  Dropped more than 40 pounds and I'm not wearing smaller pants?  How according to the laws of shopping and physics is that even possible? Boo. Hiss.

At this point am down 40/45 depending on what I use as my base.  Would like to go down another 30 more, if I can do another 20/25, I'll call it good. 

So now the challenge is to not sputter out at the shore.  Am going to have a brief pickup delay tomorrow after I land and since I will be returning to the glorious east coast that means Dunkin' Donuts.  Hooray!  Is the best way to start a beach vacation a ginormous coffee with cream and a bagel sandwich?  Uh, no.  I will persevere!  And not get eaten by a shark!  And have safe, smooth flights!!!(please dear God)

Angels we have heard at Anthropologie

This weekend saw the return of the eat/shoot/shop extravaganza.  And our group grew!  The lovely A&D joined us for the adventure. 

I told Tassie to prepare them for how very insane I become at the prospect of Chick-fil-A and Anthropologie and Tiffany in the same afternoon but I sadly suspect whatever warning she gave was not adequate.  Apologies A&D! 

(I do feel a bit bad about it, once you know and love me than afternoons like this get an eyeroll and a check in the annoying yet endearing things about Steph column, first time out of the gate though... )

Since chicken nuggets are my life and I haven't been in the same state as a Chick-Fil-A since January, the outing started there where I ordered the #5, 8 pack, value size the fries, with Coke.  I skipped the brownie since I brought cookies to Tassie's parents for dessert that night and figured it would be the smart decision.  Am not smart. I miss you brownie!  Though I was happily 1(x)2.0 this morning so even though my body is still catching up from the weekend and will be 1(x)6 tomorrow, for now, happy dance.  Two to go by 8/13!

I took a few seconds to let the joy sink in.

And then devoured every single crumb in 4 minutes.  Tassie did eat a fry so that counts as portion control.

Then it was off to Brigadoon and Anthropologie.  I was shopping with some purpose this trip.  One, to try on and pet some of the 38 things sitting in my shopping cart to determine fit and keepability.  Two, I'm going to a wedding this weekend, another 10/12 and a third 11/13 so a search for wedding attire was involved as well.  Out of everything I tried on, only one top got the thumbs down from everyone but everything else was deemed a winner by at least half our group.  (And all of the tops I tried on were in size small!)

Then I got to the shoes.  Tassie maintains that they are the most hideous things she's ever seen.  The woman who was not part of our shopping group but got roped into our discussions was rather meh. D was diplomatic at first then gave me a oh, honey, no once she heard they were $158.  A was a lukewarm thumbs up and I love them.

Left them at the store because of this damn shopping ban and am hoping for a sale (or a visit from the birthday fairy!) even though they're backordered online till 8/20.  What say you Internet?  Purchase worthy?

Even though I haven't purchased a dress since 2007 and a skirt since 2005, I bought the Perilla dress (navy horizontal stripes across my hind parts....) and the Acting Out skirt (pencil skirt on my hips....)  Ordinarily I'd say I was deranged but both pieces got two thumbs up from everyone involved so that's 10 thumbs.  Now my only issue is figuring out how to style the skirt and if the dress is upcoming wedding appropriate.  The logic of the dress according to the group was that it'll be lovely on dates even though the likelihood of my having a date by mid-September is about 2% so we'll see how long it lasts in my life.  Maybe it'll go on sale in the next two weeks and I can get a price adjustment?  

Because I forget how to think and make decisions in Anthropologie and spent a year hemming and hawing over whether I was actually just going to buy dresses and skirts we ran out of time to go anyplace else.  Oops.  In my defense, I heard that they had to be back at 630 and we were about a half hour away and we left Anthro at 5 so I had been planning on having another hour to wander.

I had forgotten but as Tassie so helpfully reminded me (sure she's loving that now) last year for some unknown reason we listened to Christmas music on the way back to camp.   Since this is now tradition, Christmas music was played and my car was very merry in the 100* heat.  Controversy erupted over old vs new styles but accord was reached on the fact that O Holy Night is a fabulous song.

Shoot weekends are always good times for me and Brigadoon: Year 2 added to the delight.  It was really put over the top by the dresses Tassie tried on but I think I should let her tell you about that hilarity.

Holiday Weekends Make Me Sad. Sometimes.

My Fourth of July weekend went something like this:

Drop dogs off at kennel

Drive to Ohio

Eat, drink, get in hot tub, sleep

Eat, drink, sleep

Eat, drink, sleep

Drive to Maryland

Pick dogs up

Eat, drink, sleep

There was much good in my weekend. I drove to Ohio Friday, to spend the weekend with people who do the Civil War thing with me. But we were NOT putting on wool pants at any point in the weekend. NO! Instead, we would eat, drink, and be merry. And lo! Merriment was had. Much revelry was partaken of, much alcohol was consumed, and damned if we didn't laugh. A lot.

Two moments, however, struck me. The first is a little glum, the second is just SO OHIO that I have to write about it.

Saturday afternoon was the party portion of the weekend. While I am a lusty 30-something, I seem to surround myself with people at least ten years my senior who are married, etc etc. Other than my host's two children (14 and 8, and the teen's boyfriend who is 17), I was the youngest person at this party by about eight years. And it only went up from there. Also, other than the 8 year old, I was the only unattached person at said party. While this is not unusual for me, and I'm getting used to it, it wasn't so long ago that I was either married or in that weird relationship that ended rather suddenly a couple of months ago.

So, the party people show up, there is much cooking and chopping and general kitchen stuff. And grilling and smoking and outside cooking. And then we got to eat. Oh dear, did we eat.

While sitting at the table eating, I was chatting with a fellow who shoots with us, whom I've known for nigh on 17 years now. (It is strange, I think, when it comes to the point in your life when you can talk about people you've known for a number of decades rather than years. I've known most of these people for TWO DECADES. Golly gee.) Anyhoo, somehow or another, wedding anniversaries are mentioned, and my friend tells me that next year will be his 50th wedding anniversary. And I'm all, who? what? wait a minute! This guy is my dad's age. He's 67. And in a year he'll be celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary? HOLY WOW. His wife was sitting at the other table, but he told me about their youthful wedding, at which they were 18, etc. So then, another couple sitting at my table (whom I've also known for DECADES now) said their 50th was also approaching. And so.

I finished my plate, and beer in hand, made my way out to the back porch. Alone, if you don't count the two boys playing quietly in the hot tub behind me and paying no attention to the lady sitting on the steps. And there, I had myself a nice little cry. In the Ohio heat and sun, with a beer in hand. Then Max, the scrubby Jack Russell terrier came up and demanded to be pet, which was just distracting enough to make me not fall into a complete funk. But I needed those few minutes, to contemplate, to feel sorry for myself, to be overwhelmingly pissed off with at least one guy, and perhaps a few more than that. To sit alone and not look at all those smiling people inside, coupled off and happy (even if it was only for that moment, that day, that whatever slice of time you want to take).

People have asked me if I'd ever get married again, and I honestly don't know. I certainly won't settle for having a significant other just for the sake of having one, because I do OK by myself (oh, but I wouldn't mind the extra income right now...). But I wouldn't mind having someone else, eventually. You know, to be around, to talk to, to help feed the dogs when I have the flu. Sex. Etc. I'm alright at this point, if you don't mind that every once in a while I disappear and get a little weepy. (And I really do mean every once in a while. The last time it happened was August of 2008, a mere month after the husband and I split, and that time it was in part because I had to tell my extended family, and still thought my ex was human.)

I went back in the house, after my little episode, and until I told my friends later, no one was the wiser. Mission: Cry Alone in the Backyard was accomplished.

There is another, much funnier, Ohio story to share. But that shall wait for later this week, methinks.