Guilty Pleasure

I love Saturday mornings. I love waking up and not having to run out the door. Iona and I get up early and drink our coffee and watch America's Next Top Model. Michael can't sit through 10 minutes of the show, so it belongs only to me and the dog. It is the guilty pleasure that just lets me numb out after the week. I also catch up on the ends of all the shows that I fall asleep watching. I literally nap on the couch at least four nights a week, so I have snippets of The Office, House, or Bones to see. I think I managed to stay awake through CSI this week, even though Sara Sidle's hair was so atrocious. Michael's awake now, so it is back to HGTV. My time starts again tomorrow morning.

Living in a small town

I grew up in a small town...a REALLY small town. Although I had a great childhood and a fabulous family, it just didn't work for me. My mom says she knew by 5th grade that it was inevitable that I would some day be moving on. By the time I hit junior high, it was hard; high school was painful. I graduated with the same people I went to kindergarten with. Sure a few people moved in and few moved out, but we stayed the same for the most part. That made it really difficult to rebrand yourself, to start over, to make new friends, or try and carve a different path for yourself. Some managed to that, and do it well. I wasn't quite sure of myself by that point yet, so I just came across as indifferent or confused. Who did I want to be? Who should I emulate? Instead of dealing better with those around me, I made friends with people from other schools. It was easier for me to separate my social life from my school life...and that did work. It also alienated me from people I wanted to be friends with, and should have. Therein lies the beauty of Facebook and other social media, but that is another story entirely.

So...we moved, and moved, and moved again. That antsy spirit inside me just couldn't stay quiet or still. We ended up in a large city (LA) and I traveled extensively and worked from another major city (Manila). Tall buildings, and gridlock traffic, and millions of faceless people milling around you everyday. So imagine my shock to wake up in a small town again. Ok, so it didn't quite happen overnight and it certainly wasn't a surprise...but some days it still feels surreal!

In passing last night, Michael says, "Did I tell you that I saw so-and-so yesterday"? He saw this person while driving down the highway. Seriously? You saw someone you knew by driving down the road. That so doesn't happen in LA. A couple months back we were checking out at Macy's and struck up a conversation with the salesgirl, whose mother was a realtor who worked in the same office as ours. "Peter Rumsey? You are working with Peter? I LOVE him! I've known him my whole life..." And then there was the time that we were at a company event and someone walked up to me with..."Stealey? Are you the people buying the house on Hinsdale?" Turns out he was the seller. Come on!

I see people all the time "running" into acquaintances at the market or the mall. While that hasn't happened yet, I know it is around the corner. I am living in a small town again, and I think I like it.

Google goodness

At 7.52p my husband and I were standing in the Condo kitchen eating pretzels and wearing pajamas. This is weird for a number of reasons, least of which that we rarely seem to be home together before 8p these days. I acknowledge that it was a rough day, so the wine joined the pretzels as necessary sustenance quite quickly. It's also raining so Iona's walk was very short. Hence the pjs.

We've been taking the Pig to the baseball field behind the Condo to run off-lease at night, so that is the only bummer of the evening. Other than that, I am perfectly content to sit in my pjs a tad tipsy and blog away. I read about Gmail Googles today, and fortunately it didn't say anything about blogging. That's a good thing, because I am not sure I could do math at the moment.

"Gmail Labs has introduced a new feature today that helps you to not to send emails when you are drunk or tired. The feature is called Goggles which is active on weekend late nights by default. Once activated it shows random math questions when you try to send a mail in weekend late nights. "

Although this may potentially impact me, it does crack me up. Google needs to add this to all cell phones and political conventions, and instant messaging applications, and well...they should just embed it into my brain. If I had to do math before saying anything flippant and sarcastic, I would be damn quiet. I know a few people (husband) that would be willing to fund this. Have I mentioned that Google scares me a little?