Shh. It's a secret.

For the past couple of days, I've been dying to blog about some probable big changes in my life, but I've been sworn to secrecy for at least a little while longer.

Before you get your panties in a wad, it's in no way related to Lauren's announcement last April 1 (you'll have to scroll all the way down to see it).

I guess I'm excited — or I'll work myself up to excitement — but it's very difficult to avoid blogging about it. Maybe I'll just start alluding to it. Ambiguity's like a secret key ... always frustrating. And I realize — basically — almost nobody's keeping score. So I'm going to start planting obtuse little clues in my posts until somebody figures it out and IMs me to confirm.

Got it?

Factoid: It's 42% humid outside. Really.

Well, we made it to the zoo yesterday, where my intrepid photographer husband managed to take three blurry and 119 unblurry photos. My favorite is of the brother/sister black bear cubs. Guess the animal kingdom isn't immune to sibling spats. :)

Hands down, the zoo trip was the highlight of our weekend. Jeremy spent the night Friday, the storms rolled in on Saturday, Paul worked in the lab Sunday morning, and I did some take-home editing Sunday night. It wasn't a very relaxing weekend, but it was exceedingly boring.

Boring enough that I hooked up an outdoor thermometer to measure the relative humidity.

Me. Measuring relative humidity.

As if I care.

And today didn't exactly fire me up, either. I'm fairly certain that my favorite gray shirt was ruined at the office by somebody else's carelessness. My coworkers, who realized what happened before I did, found it highly amusing. They sympathize, but only in a "I'm glad it's Kate and not me" kind of way.

Guess I'll just go home, change shirts, and watch the relative humidity rise and fall.

Yippee.

Annoying moment #428

The forecast said it was going to rain. But it wasn't raining, so Paul and I decided to go to the zoo.

Our plans: renew our membership and visit the members-only preview of Northwest Passage, the new home to three black bear cubs, three polar bear cubs, etc.

We stopped at Boscos: The Restaurant for Beer Lovers for lunch. We ate, we paid, we were getting ready to depart for the zoo.

Ooh — gotta pee! So we headed for the restrooms, which are right next to the patio dining door. Quick glance. No rain. Yay!

But at some point within the three minutes it took me to pee and wash my hands, the bottom fell out of the sky. Monsoon in Memphis.

Maybe we'll go to the zoo tomorrow.

30 seconds and two cups of coffee later ...

Last week, my very own Senseo coffee machine showed up on my doorstep. And the price was right: free. The steps leading up to that point went something like this:

1. Received e-mail from Philips offering a free Senseo if I shared a cup of coffee with my friends.
2. Carefully scrutinized e-mail for signs of scam.
3. Carefully scrutinized promotion rules for signs of scam.
4. Signed up, still unsure if it was a scam, but figuring I could always claim ignorance later.
5. Received e-mail declaring I was one of 10 chosen to receive a Senseo and asking me to fill out a survey after I'd tried it.
   
6. Received Senseo in mail, accompanied by a few brochures in case friends also wanted to fill out survey.

That's it. An $107 coffee maker for free. And besides Paul's comments that it looks like "the vampire coffee maker," it makes a good, strong, frothy cuppa in 30 seconds. Amazing.

Which kind of sucks, because I really don't need to pick up the coffee habit once again. I've switched to tea — a more healthful (and less caffeinated) option — and reserve coffee for when Carrie's in town. Oh well, balance in everything, I suppose.

[Edit: After much whining from dear hubby, I've added the target="_blank" tag to my links. If you like it, I'll jscript in it permanently. Thumbs up/down?]

Pick one (but not your nose)

Whose Cuisine Reigns Supreme?
(The game edition)

Uno
(a.) Monopoly (luck, strategy, business sense, staying out of jail)
(b.) Trivial Pursuit (general knowledge, strategy, filling in those darn pies)

Dos
(a.) Pictionary (art skills, creative thinking, deciphering an elephant from a circle with some lines sticking out)
(b.) Boggle (vocabulary skills, pattern-searching, pretending things like "reghi" are real words)

Tres
(a.) Dr. Mario (quick thinking, color matching, beating viruses before they kill you)
(b.) Tetris (quick thinking, jigsaw puzzle-type skills, beating the clock before your thumbs fall off)

Quatro
(a.) Rock, Paper, Scissors (strategy, probability, psychological warfare against your opponent)
(b.) Thumb wrestling (excellent timing, brute force, sneaking in the use of your index finger [Paul...])

Cinco
(a.) Wheel of Fortune (luck, speed, puzzle-solving skills, pondering the uselessness of Vanna White)
(b.) Jeopardy (speed, general knowledge, wishing the rounds incorporated childish elements of Double Dare)

Personally, my preferences are Trivial Pursuit, Boggle, Tetris, thumb wrestling, and Wheel of Fortune. After you choose (sensibly, as the graphic suggests), come up with a few "this-or-that" questions about a topic you dig. ^_^

I'll pretend to care what you say

Choose the New KI Tagline!
	Kate's Ink: Is this thing on? (Current)
	Kate's Ink: Ha ha! I'm using the Internet!
	Kate's Ink: More commiseration
	Kate's Ink: Veni Vidi :V:
	Kate's Ink: Weapon of mass correction
	Kate's Ink: Did you get the memo?
	OTHER (Leave it in the comments)

Or don't vote at all. That's an option too, you fence-sitter, you.

Come talkin' that trash and we'll pull ya card

This afternoon, somebody busted the window of a coworker's car and tried to steal the radio. The window is broken, the passenger seat is down as far as it will go ... but the radio is intact.

Apparently, he forgot a screwdriver. He also forgot to bust the security camera. Dumbass.

It's not so bad working downtown. I mean, I used to live about a mile from the office in a nice little gated community. And while Matt was here, schlepping around with the downtown bums, he taught me how to identify situations in which I'd be safe versus those in which I'd be in trouble.

For example, panhandlers generally avoid the suits who've walked to the park with their lunch and a laptop to take advantage of the park's free wi-fi. I think the panhandlers know that they won't get any money out of the suits, so they focus their efforts elsewhere. And apparently, they tend to fight and steal from each other more than others.

Still, I'm often one of the last people out the door. I walk out to my car alone in the dark. I pan across the parking lot with the security camera, but it doesn't look around the shadowy corners ... you know, the obvious place somebody might hide.

I've been threatened on my way into work, but never on the way back to my car. (By the way, being threatened in an alley is a pretty scary experience. I don't recommend it.) I don't put a lot of trust in the security camera — it does a good job of providing evidence after the fact, but it's kind of a lousy method of prevention and protection.

I'd invest in pepper spray, but it's illegal here. I know how to SING in one fell swoop (ooh ooh, who knows what SING stands for?), but there's got to be a better way to get from car to office to car without putting myself in danger.

[Edit: Wow. This post is evidence of what happens when I write fast and don't proof. Clear as mud.]

Brain exercise, 9 letters

I've become accustomed to my office Secret Santa hooking me up with the annual Get Fuzzy page-a-day calendar. This year, I didn't get one ... so after three weeks of page-a-daylessness, I figured I'd hit up Barnes & Noble for a calendar fix.

In general, I avoid B&N. Once upon a time, I piddled my days away working at B&N, where I was paid meager wages to force smiles at customers. At some point after I left to pursue editing (best decision I've ever made), the corporate B&N offices swooped in and fired my boss, a stern but approachable woman who'd been there since the store opened. I heard about it later from one of my former B&N coworkers, who said he — along with most of the other employees — felt the firing was out of line and had quit in protest.

Now, I greatly respect my former coworkers ... and I trust their judgment. If they were willing to quit their mid-management jobs on the spot and thrust themselves back into a crappy job market, then something really had gone wrong.

So to make a long story slightly longer, I don't shop at Barnes & Noble. Ever.

...Except I really really needed a calendar, and theirs were 75 percent off. Catch: They were out of Get Fuzzy calendars. Boo, hiss. So I ended up with a passable 2nd choice: The New York Times Crossword Puzzles 2006 Calendar.

I'm a big fan of crossword puzzles. I work them before bedtime unless I'm busy playing Animal Crossing. And I consider myself quite good at crosswords, probably because my grandmother had me working them when I was 7 years old. I've had plenty of time to learn the double entendres and those 3- and 4-letter "filler" clues that seem to pop up on every single puzzle that has ever been created. (Example: To the ___ degree," 3 letters.)

I'd love for somebody to buy me the Hammacher Schlemmer crossword puzzle: 7 feet by 7 feet, 28,000 clues, 91,000 spaces. But I believe these NYT puzzles are going to keep me tied up for a while. I'd forgotten that they get harder day by day — Mondays are quite easy and Saturdays are damn near impossible.

... No, I don't know off the top of my head who the 1995 NFL Man of the Year was. Nor do I know the year Helsinki was founded. Bah.

The calendar is edited by Will Shortz, as is the 750-puzzle crossword book I'm currently tackling. The difference is that I'm comfortable working the book in red pen. The one page in the calendar I've managed to finish is answered completely in pencil, with eraser marks sprinkled liberally throughout.

Mom says working crosswords will ward off dementia. That's great, assuming I make it through the calendar without losing my mind. :-)

P.S. Hi, Em! Hi, phone-dude Garrett! Pull up a chair and stay a while!

A 6 a.m. post after a 24+ hour day - or a day in the life of a grad student (LOL long title, sorry kate)

Hay guys whats going on, i would just like to point out that life as an analytical chemist sucks sometimes. I have been at school since 8am yesterday morning, trying to get data good enough for publishing (note: i dont think this will be good enough, but its a start).

It has been a day full of "fun". It started with about an two hours worth of work getting the instrument up and running verifiably good. Then, two hours after that a quick lunch before i had to read the chemical hygiene saftey plan. Basically, this tells me what protocols i am supposed to follow so that the university isn't liable for accidents that happen in lab, nevermind the fact that students taking a night class are screwed in case of emergency. Instead of having a health center open while there are still labs, they close it at like 5pm, when labs go to roughly 9ish, 10ish (something like that).

So, 1pm rolls around, and we start the lab meeting about this (which wasnt bad), then at 3 the departmental saftey thing rolls around, where confusion abounds and piddly fucking pasteur pipettes (hurray for CYA). Then i have some security crap i have to take care of at 430, and after thats done, i get to have dinner with kate (hurray, this was happy break time from crappy day).

After dinner, from 11pm on 1-20-06, i spend the next SEVEN hours surfing the awful forums and listening to coast to coast streamlink because i am way too braindead to write coherently on my prospectus (need rough draft by thursday) or even attempt to play my DS. Oh, can't sleep because i am way to paranoid about the lab getting broken into, and me being the only person here, getting screwed in the process. Oh yeah, apparently, im not supposed to be here by myself without notifying the chair, i guess i better email him or something.

Have a good saturday, im going home to sleep for like five hours, and get up by noon, so my weekend isn't totally screwed.

P.S. - kate doesnt normally post on saturday or sunday, so view this as like a "special" edition, i guess at some point i should do something with snottypaws.

Written in stone

Last night, Paul and I went to dinner with his family to celebrate my brother-in-law's birthday. Over calamari, Paul Sr. complained about the newest house going up in their neighborhood.

"It's three feet from our property line!"

Apparently, serious measure have been taken to keep the contractors from trampling my in-laws' yard. The family has put up a fence, posted signs ... and not-so-gently reminded the contractors to stay off private property.

Last week, the construction workers accidentally cut the gas main, and when Paul's family got home, the gas had been leaking for over three hours. People a mile away could smell it.

It was the last straw. The concrete had just been poured for the back patio, so my father-in-law snuck over ...

... and, in an inconspicuous corner, carved EAT ME.

I love my family. :)

Work is dangerous!

This Week's Top 10 Reasons to Call in Sick:

1. Meetings are slowly killing you. (The Guardian, Jan. 17)
2. Your office keyboard has 254 times more germs than your office toilet seat. (PC För alla, Jan. 19)
3. You've got a 50/50 chance of a workplace beatdown. (PhysOrg.com, Jan. 18)
4. Your job may drive you to drink. (New York Times, Jan. 17)

5. Workplace stress will make you catch a virus. (Health24.com, Jan. 14)
6. Jan. 24 has been voted the most depressing working day of the year. (Online Recruitment, Jan. 18)
7. Your steamy office romance is ruining the company. (Arizona Business Gazette, Jan. 19)
8. Office sports pools make you lazy and unproductive. (The Globe and Mail, Jan. 18)
9. Your coworkers are probably on drugs. (KPUA, Jan. 14)
10. And if you complain about any of it, you could be fired. (BBC, Jan. 19)

But look on the bright side. Your job could always be worse —a maggot-farm carrion turner, a nightclub toilet unclogger, a telemarketer of defective Bic pens, etc. (MetroActive, Jan. 18)

P.S. Happy 22nd birthday to my little bro-in-law, FluffyBear: King of the Nubs. Since I met you when you were 13 years old, you have taught me the Zen of gaming, the power of the banhammer, and that it's okay to puke in Disneyland. Love ya, kiddo. ^___^

Mine Mine Mine Mine Mine!

Dear woman who hit on Paul while he was picking up dinner last night,

No, he does not want to hold you for a little while. He doesn't care that you're drunk. And he meant it when he said he doesn't like being touched, so quit pressing your ugly old woman body against him.

He didn't even know you were flirting until he called to tell me the "crazy thing that just happened." So if you're going to lay it on thick, find somebody who's not an aloof intellectual.

Paul doesn't care that your son's a missionary, doing God's work while mom gets smashed and hits on married guys half her age. Nor does Paul care that he's named after the most beloved of the apostles. (Actually, he's named after his dad.) Clarified for Smacky: (Actually, my Paul [not the apostle] is Paul Jr., named after my Paul's [not the apostle's] father, who is Paul Sr.)

Let me tell you something, bitch. You can be as spiritual as you like. But if you get drunk and hit on my husband, I'll give you a firsthand taste of fire and brimstone. I'm a real hellcat to those who mess with my family. I will get in your face, and I fight dirty.

Also, I'll post about you in my blog. So there.

No Snow For You!

It's snowing! Big, fluffy, stick-to-your-tongue flakes! I went outside, spun around a couple of times when the security camera was facing the other direction, and took a couple of photos.

Then at 5 p.m., 54 legals landed on my desk. And, per my "clean desk" philosophy, I won't leave until the work is finished ...

... which makes me feel like Cinderella, toiling away in my closet while my coworkers have spirited away to a masquerade ball. (Okay, they probably just went home, but that's not nearly as dramatic.)

P.S. A quote for a certain someone: "If you want to be somebody, if you want to go somewhere, you better wake up and pay attention." Silly movie, good advice. Follow it and it won't lead you astray — promise.

1 p.m.: Liar, liar, theater on fire

After a whirlwind two days, we're home. And it was absolutely amazing ... just what the doctor ordered.

Sunday, we took an early morning stroll down Michigan Avenue from our hotel to buy our bus passes and grab a few brochures about places to visit.

Passes in hand, we made a couple of detours on the way to the bus stop. We stopped at Argo Tea for Tea Sangria (strong hibiscus tea with fresh fruit floating in it ... and a spoon with which to fish out the fruit). We also made an unexpected pitstop at Hershey's Chicago, where we each bought a cookie but managed to pass up tons of candy and candy-themed wares (Twizzlers pillows or Reese's hats, anyone?).

Buzzing from the sugar high and not wanting to miss our 1 p.m. Blue Man Group show, we grabbed a seat on the 146 bus, which became increasingly crowded at each stop. Why? Because our bus was going in the wrong direction and we were now headed directly for the Bears/Panthers playoff game.

Oops.

Paul and I got to the hub of the tailgate parties, and the bus driver said he had a scheduled 8-minute break. We asked if there was any way we'd make the 1 p.m. show via bus ... and he said probably not. So we hailed a cab and booked it to the theater (with cabbies, "book it" seems to be a very understated term). We were pumped! This was the highlight of our trip! But we were cut short because ...

There was a fire in the theater, and the smoke was still thick inside ... and the Blue Men didn't want to put the crowd in danger. Oh, um, okay. We'll just, um, hike back to the main street, hail another cab and just go back to the hotel.

The evening was saved by a trip to the top of the John Hancock Center. That's a lot of fun! Paul took some amazing(ly blurry) photos, we enjoyed the view, then we grabbed some fish 'n' chips from The Elephant & Castle and went back to the hotel.

I'm glad to be home. Nobody should try to fit that much into one weekend! ::grins:: But it was great. And there's plenty we missed (Navy Pier, The Field Museum, etc.) so we have a good reason to go back later this year.

So, what did you guys do while I was gone??

6:15 a.m.: Pat down by airport security

My God! The weather is perfect in Chicago -- 31 degrees. Finally, I am in a place where I can see my breath ... which means I have found a location with an ambient temperature to my liking.

The flight was short and sweet, and punctuated only by my disappointment that the snacks handed out labeled "Plane Cookies" were not actually in the shape of planes. ::grins::

I am, however, $5 richer because Paul lost a bet to me at the Memphis airport. I said we'd be targeted for a patdown and extensive search, and we were. The patter-downer woman (there's an eloquent title) was friendly, so it wasn't too embarrassing: "I do this all day, every day -- there's never a dull moment!"

I always always always get targeted for searches. I think it's the dark hair/dark eyes/olive complexion. If they say the searches are random, I call foul. Five flights since Sept. 11 ... and five searches.

Other than the way I look, I can't think of a single reason one might think I'm a threat to national security -- I'm not particularly shifty-eyed or anything, I don't think. Oh my god! What if I am shifty-eyed and don't know it?!

We spent the day shopping -- I bought two things; Paul promised he'd pick something out tomorrow. Afterwards, we caught the bus to Shedd Aquarium to act out our own version of "Finding Nemo." But we were cut short, because...

Oh look at that! It happens to be Sara Lee Foods' free admission day, which means the place is overrun with snotty, cold, complaining children! Needless to say, we didn't stick around at the aquarium long. But it was a wash because Paul was able to grab some great pics of Downtown from the museum campus.

Most exciting part of Day 1 was the cab ride to the hotel from O'Hare. Our cabbie -- whose speedometer was broken -- spent three-quarters of the trip on his cell phone while drifting across lanes and swerving to avoid other drivers. Did I mention his speedometer was broken? How do people like that keep their cabbie licenses?

Second most exciting part of the trip (and perhaps the creepiest) was finding out that FF followed me to Chicago and is staying four blocks from our hotel. She says she's here to see some stupid exhibit on Pompeii, but I suspect more sinister plans. Tomorrow, we are meeting for lunch and shopping, so if I mysteriously disappear, point the police in her direction.

Hare today, goon tomorrow

Surprise! Paul's taking me to Chicago. We're staying on the Magnificent Mile at the Allerton Crowne Plaza. When he travels, he likes to do so in style. We're even flying direct on United. Flight leaves at 7:29 a.m., and I haven't caught a wink of sleep yet. ::cringes::

Plans are to cram the entire city into two days, which won't be terribly hard since we're staying right where we want to be. Paul wants to hit up Garrett's for popcorn; I want to hit up Vosges for chocolate. Then there's the Lego store.

Entertainment Saturday includes ice carving and fireworks (in the sky, if your mind's in the gutter). Sunday, we've got tickets to see Blue Man Group. And there's an off-chance we'll meet up with some friends we haven't seen since Jesus Respawned in Cincy in '04. All the other shopping, dining, and entertainment will be decided on the fly, which completely goes against the Kate method of travel.

Matt will be taking care of the house, even though we'll only be gone a couple of days. We don't own a watchdog, but he fits the bill in a pinch. I'll be posting from the road, and will surely have photos when I return. Take care of yourselves until I get back. <3

Only you can prevent...

Caught this shot on the highway during the ride home today. Would've
been a better pic, but Paul made me roll up the window!
--katesink

Back in the good ol' days...

Sunday, in the critical care waiting room, Paul picked up a Popular Science — a rare find among legions of Reader's Digests and National Geographics piled on empty chairs.

He read it for a few minutes with a funny look on his face before checking the cover and realizing it was the December 1990 issue. So, in the interest of historical preservation, he stole it from the waiting room. (Don't worry — we left plenty of new ones to make up for it.)

It was the 3rd annual "Best of What's New" issue featuring "the year's 100 greatest achievements in science and technology."

You know, things like DAT. And Lynx. And Super Famicom. And 64-mb RAM chips. Plus, Windows 3.0 for you Microsofties out there, and Apple Classics and LCs for you Macheads.

I scanned the best of the What's New feature — plus several ads — and stuck them in this file. The scanner seems to be dying slowly, but I'll be adding a few more over the next couple of days: graphing calculators ($250+), the Galileo spacecraft, and brand-new laser guns used by police to foil radar detectors.

I will not, however, scan the 22 ads for cable TV descramblers (yes, I counted). Not even the one that requires a signed affidavit declaring the buyer will only use the box "on cable TV systems with proper authorization from local officials or cable company officials in accordance with all applicable federal and state laws." Cable descramblers are illegal, and illegal things are bad, mmkay?

RAWWRR, im so incredibly grumpy

[NOTE: As is probably obvious, I was AFK last night, so Paul & Grumpy had a bit of fun with the blog...]

So i come home after a long day at work, and i am immediately thrown into big's arms. GAH, he HOLDS ME, what am i supposed to do, he probably thinks i'm a bunny baby or something.

anyway, i get some boogies in me, and i'm a pretty happy bunny, mind you, i am still grumpy, but not as grumpy.

THEN I GET VOLUNTEERED TO MAKE A POST, ARRRRGH, WHAT THE...

I am going to kick ms. kate repeatedly, because she made me post.

Oh, the whole reason i was supposed to post is that Big REALLY likes patches, but he also REALLY likes stitches (but as a friend, because he is a boy; but patches is obviously a girl, and so dreamy according to Big).

anyway, here is a picture of a dancing cow, because apparently, big likes that too.

Two hospitals, one Kate

Grandmother died this afternoon. ::sighs:: I knew it was coming. ... I didn't know I'd be spending the day in a different hospital room at a different hospital.

While Grandmother was fighting for her life at St. Francis, my cousin (and closest buddy when I was knee-high to a grasshoppa') was in surgery at The Med. Unexpected and scary.

I left the office early to be with my family at St. Francis, but Mom rerouted me to The Med to be with my cousin, A. I tried my best to be strong, I really did. When I mentioned Grandmother had passed, A. reminded me the grandmother we knew had faded a long time ago.

A.'s mom — Dad's older sister — was out of town, so I spent several hours in the hospital room with A.'s best friend and Dad's younger sister until A.'s parents made the drive back from Atlanta. It was actually a relief, being in a hospital room that didn't feel so ... final. We talked a lot, joked around, made the best of a bad situation.

By the time I left the hospital, I was drained. My whole body aches. My head is killing me, and my stomach hurts. I think it's all due to stress. I made the drive home, and Paul popped outside to help me carry in my bags. I didn't even make it to the door before I broke down and cried until it felt like my lungs were going to burst.

The stress of shuttling between two hospitals, losing a grandmother and lot of sleep, and helping train a new boss has been overwhelming. It doesn't help that a friend who is planning her vacation to Memphis is upset because I won't be able to take off work the dates she wants to visit. I've done what I can do in that arena, and for now, I'm washing my hands of it.

I guess it all sucks because I feel helpless to do anything about anything. (Hey, there's an eloquent sentence.) I'm not even comfortable taking bereavement time off — although I sure could use it — because I've got so much to do. Where's my white flag?

Tomorrow, barring another stress-inducing tragedy, I've got a blast from the past to share. So bear with me and soon I'll be back to my regular self (certainly a relative term).

Remembering better days

I've left the ICU. It's almost over now.

I knew time wasn't on our side when the critical care staffer asked Dad and his sister to step into the ICU family conference room. Then she shut the door ... and outside, we waited. It's funny how time seems to stand still and simultaneously slip away when one is waiting.

When the rest of the family was called into the conference room, Dad and Cathy were fighting back tears. Why had I never noticed how closely they resemble each other when they tighten their lips and try not to cry? They told us the doctors had resuscitated her once, but per her living will, they wouldn't try to resuscitate again.

So that was that. We were together in a hot cramped room, sniffling as Mom led us through prayer. My cousins left the room to find Kleenex; I left for the restroom and fought the urge to be sick. Then we all came back — where else could we go? — and we sat. Quietly. Lost in thought.

Finally, Dad piped up. "I remember when we were in Africa," he began, referring to the period in which his dad — my Papa — was stationed in Morocco as a Navy pilot. "The first year we were there, the only way we could get fresh vegetables was to go to the open-air market. We'd taken our 1949 Chevrolet station wagon 'Woody' over there, and there was Mom — five-foot-one and 110 pounds — with a 6-month-old baby, a 7-year-old boy, and an 11-year old girl. And she'd drive off the base and into the city to the market to buy vegetables.

"I don't know how she did it, in that market with all those Arabs, trying to get them to understand what she wanted to buy and take care of us," he continued. "There was this place that sold French bread, and if she wanted to get home with two loaves of bread, she'd have to buy five, because we'd eat three on the way home."

We started to giggle. And then we all laughed as we shared our memories of Grandmother ... How she responded to Papa's insistence that every meal be served with bread ("Jane, where's the bread? Did you forget the bread?"). How she kept a secret drawer of Pringles and Snickers bars.

And how a few years ago, eyesight failing, she'd called Cathy to complain about the horrible crackers from the grocery store. "The box says they're cheese flavored," Grandmother said. Cathy thought hard, then a lightbulb went off. "Mom, is there a picture of a dog on the package?"

It was nice watching the mood of the room lighten. She's slipping away, but we all carry pieces of her with us. For me, it's crunchy peanut butter, a millefiori paperweight, jewelry boxes, bags of marbles, Oscar de la Renta, a piano that hadn't been tuned in years, and bread without the ruffles. :-)

Last week, from the ICU, I asked you guys to Google for Death Cab for Cutie's "What Sarah Said." It's been very comforting recently. If you didn't get around to reading it, here are the lyrics.

Oh, and the picture? It's from my 1990 yearbook ... a photo of my grandparents and me at a 4th grade party. Grandmother's the second from the left. She hated that every one of us had our mouths full.

Of course, at 10 years old, I got a kick out of that. I still do. :-)

PCIC, HAAs and BVDs

Congrats to Paul, who has had a paper on post-column ion chromatography accepted into Analytical Chimica Acta.

I'd like to say that behind every great man is an absolutely awesome wife, but this one is all him and he deserves all the credit.

Someday I'm going to get out of newspapers and work for ACA's publisher, Elsevier. Then the data that takes hours to crunch and collate will be appreciated instead of handled like it's dirty Kleenex. (Not that I'm bitter about my reporters' reactions after SQLing databases all week scouting for three years of bankruptcy and mortgage trends...)

Um, but enough about me. This is supposed to be about hubby. And water.

So everybody stand up and applaud for Paul. Because of him and his crazy little chembuddies, nasty things like haloacetic acids and trihalomethanes are less likely to rip your guts apart. Or something.

C-Booster rockets, ignite!

The other night, I picked up a bottle of Bolthouse Farms' C-Boost from a grocery store near the hospital. I'd been a fan since Matt was here — he couldn't eat much solid food and subsisted on their Perfectly Protein drink. (What do you think of that, Sol?)

I was quite impressed with C-Boost, so much that it prompted me to make an unscheduled stop at the grocery store to buy more — a totally uncharacteristic move on my part.

Since you can't taste it via your Web browser, here's what the bottle says:

Why you should feel good about what's in this bottle. C-Boost ingredients were thoughtfully selected to support your body's immune system and to delight your taste buds. Each bottle brings together hand-picked acerola cherries, and camu camu, two of the world's most vitamin C rich fruits. We then blend in delicious mango puree and apple juice to round out this unique tropical flavor. Finally, the added benefits of zinc, vitamins A and E, as well as the addition of echinacea and astragulus help to give your body's immune system the support it needs each day.

Sounds good, huh?

Yeah, I thought so too until I read the ingredients list. The juice description quietly omits the inclusion of maitake mushrooms. This is a big deal because I have a huge aversion to the gag-inducing fungi. It's all because of this picture book called Oliver's Picnic by Pierre Le Tan that Mom read to me when I was a kid. So strange that Oliver's little run-in with mushrooms has scarred me for life. :-)

I can't taste the mushrooms, so I guess it's okay ... but come on — where's the truth in advertising?! When I'm choking down spores, I want to know it! Fortunately for Bolthouse, it's so good that I'll probably keep their bottom line in the black in spite of the mushrooms. And they're gross-looking ones, too. Sigh.

P.S. Yes, I snuck in a photo of Cranbeary. I couldn't resist. ^_^

Cute Fuzziness x3

Okay, I'm a lover of All Things Cute and Cuddly... so I'm ecstatic about the three new polar bears debuting at the Memphis Zoo in March.

Payton and Haley, which hail from Chicago's Brookfield Zoo, arrived in Memphis via FedEx this morning. Yes, FedEx is the preferred mode of transportation for the Memphis Zoo — partially because the company is based here, and partially because it's willing to fly caged wild animals from all over the world. Ya Ya and Le Le were FedExed here from China in 2003.

Anyway, Payton and Haley will be joined by Denver Zoo's Cranbeary (so named because she was born on Thanksgiving Eve). Isn't she a cutie?!

So these three polar bears are coming to Memphis — which hasn't had a polar bear exhibit in six years — under an AZAA reproduction plan. In other words, we're gonna have lots of fuzzy polar babies!!! It's just too much cuteness for me to handle. ::grins::

Cranbeary and crew will be on display in Northwest Passage with other animals of the Pacific Northwest: black bears, bald eagles, harbor seals and sea lions (including a sea lion Hurricane Katrina evacuee named Andre).

I'm just so proud of the strides MZS has made with the local zoo since I started volunteering there about 15 years ago. When I started, the cat house was just that — a smallish building with smallish cages for giant, unhappy cats. Now exhibits like Cat Country, Primate Canyon, Once Upon a Farm, and China attempt to get animals out of cages and into habitats that mimic home. A zoo is a zoo, but at least this is a forward-thinking one.

Oh, for more cute fuzziness, check out this picture of Cranbeary's brothers, twin cubs named Koda and Nuka, born in January '05.

Update, schmupdate

Well, there's no change in Grandmother's condition. Mom and Dad spent Monday night in the critical care waiting room, but tonight, they've headed home to get some rest. I'm tired too, although I don't have a good excuse other than some serious stress.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get back to a regular posting schedule tomorrow. I kind of miss my routine of reading others' blogs, and I hate going to bed without posting — it's as annoying as forgetting to brush your teeth, but without the plaque and gingivitis. ^_^

ICU

Grandmother may not pull through the night. I'm in the ICU waiting room
at St. Francis. It's an apropos time for Death Cab for Cutie's "What
Sarah Said." Google for the lyrics. And for god's sake, hug the ones you
love.
--katesink

New year, black eyed peas, and online art

Happy New Year! Hope everybody started the year off on the right foot.

Me? I had an awesome Japanese hibachi dinner with Mom, Dad and Paul on New Year's Eve. No sashimi, as I'm the only sushi eater in the family.

My party animal parents went to a dance with some friends, but Paul and I were home by 11 p.m., downing Nyquil to battle the sneezies. (Resolution #1: Boost my immune system in 2006.) We laid in bed playing Animal Crossing, and Paul was asleep by 11:30. I stayed up so my video game character, Grumpy, could watch pixelated fireworks with the other residents of Big Bed: Hugh (the pig), Victoria (horse), Aurora (penguin), Elvis (lion), Lily (frog), Caroline (chipmunk), Big Top (elephant), and Snake (rabbit). I was asleep by 12:10 a.m.

To celebrate New Year's Day, we visited with Mom and Dad last night and had a big ol' bowl of Hoppin' John with cornbread. Am I correct in assuming this is not a tradition in which our Northern brethren participate?

Oh, today's graphic is provided by Mr. Picassohead, an online do-it-yourself art project. Mine's called Prayer. I was bored. If you prefer a more wintery outlet for your creativity, try Make-a-Flake, which pays homage to the childhood tradition of cutting snowflakes out of folded paper. Also, it's much quicker to make a snowflake than a Picasso look-alike.

Post screencaps or links to your artwork. Most creative piece wins the pack of gum Smacky was supposed to send me in April. ::grins::