so here it is, 2008

whoopee. For me, New Year's is just so anti exciting. i dunno, it's just not too thrilling to me. it's freezing cold here, there is snow everywhere, and i still have the same remarkably boring job. This is the time of year when i start daydreaming and planning my next travel adventure. my friend sofia is hoping for us to come visit her in Lisbon. Perhaps i'll start planning that.

it would be so nice to be able to really plan the trip- my dad would like to run in a race, and there is a

half marathon

but it's in march, and i haven't even paid the bills for the trip to ireland yet. i was planning to use my tax return to put hard wood floors in my apartment, but now i sort of wonder if i would rather use it to pay for air fare. Lisbon is beautiful, and at the risk of letting too many in on a secret i would like to keep for myself, it's one of the nicest places i've been to. it really quite magical- it's very modern, in an antique sort of wardrobe. the roads are well maintained, the retail therapy is outstanding, the food is so delicious, and the weather is just perfect.



the real draw for me though is the population. It was very easy to be a tourist in lisbon, but I've learned a bit of portuguese just so i can be a bit more useful in conversations, and people don't have to keep translating for me. I don't think i'd insult anyone by saying something like sua mae desgasta botas do combate. i could fumble through a coffee order- duas sandes mixtas com bicas se faz favor, e dois pasteis de nata, tambem! muito bem!

it sounds hokey, but the residents of portugal are fantastic. there are no pretenses, they are welcoming and pleasant, and polite, and genuine. the waiter at the cafe in mertola was funny- we had a snack of bread, and coffee, and sofia's family had some caracois; those are snails boiled in salty water. i'm afraid i was just too timid to try them. they said as much to the waiter, and he said, perhaps it's because she hasn't been able to try ours yet. It was really nice. perhaps this time i'll give them a try. perhaps.


maybe today i'll start working out a financial plan and start saving up for it.

argh!

The 2007 NFL post season is upon us, and what to my wondering eyes do appear? A whole new crop of anti-patriots. There is just nothing worse than bandwagon jumpers- god how i hate those fans who only watch because the QB is so cute- or only watch because a team is suddenly good. How infuriatingly agonizing is it to watch a game with those kinds of fans.

Conversely, it is equally infuriating it is to watch a game with anti-fans. God, just listen and to read all the reports from newspapers around the country- the patriots have no respect, the patriots are arrogant, the patriots haven't actually done anything noteworthy yet when compared with the 72 dolphins. This is all because the season has been boring for the fans in other markets. Andy peloff is having this manufactured apoplexy with his idea that the patriots operate under the guide of humility, while the whole season they have actually been arrogant on the field when they play. Of course they have! No one has beaten them this season!

It is only reasonable to find a degree of confidence from the patriots they have beaten everyone! it becomes arrogant and insulting when trash talk and superiority comes from schmoes like anthony smith. Who?

The thing is, no one ever calls peyton manning arrogant, but y'know what? It's not very often that manning said something like- he's a good player; i hope they take the day off, it will make my game easier. Manning very seldom concedes that someone other than himself is a good player. He doesn't even go out of his way to say his own teammates are good players! God if that is isn't arrogant, I dunno what is!

This nfl post season is going to be both nauseating and riveting. I don't think i can take one more minute of the patriots (and they are my team!), manning, or tony romo and terrell owens.

Ugh. God, if i have to hear one more time how good tony romo is in his first full year, I might barf. If i hear just one more word about how good peyton manning is at calling the offence, I’ll commit harey carrey. God, but if one more announcer speaks about upsetting the perfect season or knocking the patriots back a notch; how in once game we can finally prove that the patriots aren’t that good after all, i can't be responsible for my actions.

Argh! Anti-fans are the worst! They are just the worst. They are a detriment to their own team's fan base. God if you hate the patriots, fine. But hate them on the basis of football, not on sportsmanship smoke and mirrors. At least admit that you hate them because you are jealous of them. Or admit that you're pissed because they beat your team. i suspect that no fan in the world would keep their 7 and 9 record instead of a 16-0 playoff bound record.

Please don't use contrasting thread!

please, seamstresses and seamsters- i implore you! don't use contrasting thread to sew your projects together. no mater how you hard you try convince yourself that it's a design element, it's not. For instance- using red thread on a black fabric just doesn't look good.

use a contrasting embroidery floss as an embellishment after you've completed the bulk sewing? Sure. that's a good idea. but doing the main sewing in a color that is not the same as the fabric itself does nothing more than show where you sewed too fast, and where your feed dogs were taxed. Using contrasting thread shows exactly where you strayed from the correct seam allowance, and it shows when your starting point and ending point don't quite match up. it is, of course most obvious where topstitching is required.

no matter what level you are, beginner to intermediate to an advanced clothier- please please please; resist the urge to use thread that isn't the same shade as your finished piece!

it's not the patriots' job to run plays the defense will stop

so all you bellyachers who are pissed off because the patriots went 30 points on you- get stuffed. it is not the patriots fault they compiled such a good arsenal- to the contrary- it's their intention. no team in the league compiles a team to be mediocre. no team does that! no team happily collects scrap heap quarterbacks and gimpy running backs; or shrinking violet inside linebackers- no team goes on the hunt for a free safety with poor peripheral vision. come on. if a team's front office did that they would be run out of town.

so the fact that anyone outside of New England is moaning and wringing their hands or feeling insulted is crap. Teams exist to put the best possible team on the field. Real sportsmanship is not about making sure the other team on the field gets positive reinforcement. Sportsmanship is about respecting the game, your teammates, and the other players. but just because you respect a team or player doesn't mean you shouldn't take advantage of their flaws. do you think for one minute that the teams i play against don't take advantage of the fact that i'm a girl and probably slower than them? of course they do. I can take advantage of that just as well, i can play give and go against them. At the end of the game, they know that i played them hard; and i know that they played me hard.

i have to admit- i don't think i want my opposition to go easy. sure it's embarrassing, no one wants to get schooled, but if you're a sport-o, ask yourself (and answer truthfully now), would you really pull back if there was an open net? honestly, would you intentionally kick it wide if you were on a breakaway? that is simply a foreign concept, even to the most beginner of athletes. the point is to score points and goals.

it's going to snow on sunday, so i don't think the score will be very high, but i'm afraid to tell you that i don't think the jets have a chance.

Ellsbury should be untouchable

Dear Theo, A move to acquire Johan Santana by using Jacoby Ellsbury is foolish. 80% of the armchair GM's think this too. sure we aren't as smart as you, and sure we don't know all the facts, but what i do know is that Ellsbury is a better player than crisp. he's faster which is saying a lot, because crisp is fast. he plays the outfield as well, and he's as good a hitter as crisp. I don't believe Crisp in centerfield is the best team possible, I'm sorry, i just don't.

we already have a powerful rotation. acquiring santana would make it dizzying, for sure, but that leaves us with an outfield that is less powerful. (remember crisp has to play every day, and he doesn't always contribute every day. besides that- letting ellsbury go is 100% foolish in terms of batting order- who's going to lead off for us this year? julio Lugo? come on. Youkillis? along with his piano, sure. Crisp? a .330 On base % is not too shabby, but he's so remarkably streaky.

for me, ellsbury is too complete a player- he is too good and too young to trade him.

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/polls/11_28_07_jacoby/

That is what good teams do- they win.

Even when they play somewhat poorly, even when the temperature is freezing, even when the ravens give them a game.

No question, the Ravens played well, had the Patriots lost, it would have been ok to have lost to a them. Last night was a good football game. Gosh- back and forth, scoring on almost every possession for both teams. At half time, I said to myself- this game is going to come down to the last team with the ball. And sure enough it did. It just so happens that Bowler's hail mary was two yards short. That is heartbreaking, any way you slice it.

But to act like this is anything other than a well played game is preposterous. The Ravens played very well, that's true, why can't people concede that the Patriots did as well? Is it so hard for people to admit that the Patriots have cultivated a culture of winning? Come on, four weeks ago, the Patriots were vilified because they ran the score up. Now, in the close games they're vilified simply because they won. Sorry, but all this appears to be is sour grapes. Mike Sando from espn was in Baltimore last night-

here are some tidbits.

Ravens linebacker Bart Scott on the timeout: "I didn't hear a timeout. That was very convenient." Sorry Bart. There was film of it on espn, some coach on your sideline was calling for time out, he made the big T with his hands and walked right over to the ref.

Phantom calls? Are you for real? Come on. I sort of remember when the pass interference was also called the Ty Law rule. Get stuffed. Sour grapes.

Hard to play against Brady and all the extra people. Sure it is, the thing is, you're only playing against Brady and ten other guys at a time. Sour grapes.

I suppose the Ravens are just searching for some sort of moral victory in all this- searching for a way to win a game they clearly could have. But the fact of the matter remains, they didn't win. They called that time out. They assessed 35 penalty yards on their last possession.

Sure the Ravens brought it, but don't you think that Patriots brought it too? That was a hell of a game last night. And it clearly prepared the patriots for the post season- which is infinitely more important than the season record.

We'll see you in February.

i love my new walmart pjs!

I confess, i have a love hate relationship with Walmart. on tho one hand i really don't like it- the store always looks like a yard sale- merchandise is picked over, shopworn and often times not even there. the employees can be real crabby- they are so busy- who wouldn't be? working in retail i know that it is sometimes hard to keep a genuine pleasant demeanor through an entire shift.

but on the other hand- it really is a good place for me to get lots of stuff i need and cheap. i hate to say it, but i can't afford to get everything at the grocery or at the gap. so i go to walmart and get cheap cereal, soap, cleaning supplies and the like. this is a PRO on the list, which leads directly into a CON on the list of walmart things. these cheap prices are clearly predatory. they are clearly putting other places out of business. the problem is that i am not very affluent, so i need to take advantage of savings when i can. it's all very tricky for me.

another walmart PRO is that you can get a true feel for the demographic off your neighborhood. there are lots of languages at walmart- i like that. i admit, i like to go to walmart and eavesdrop on conversations to see if i can understand what they are saying. that's very rude, yes, but i need to get more practice with spanish and portuguese, and i'm too shy to actually say something polite- Bom dia, Fala Portuguese? but i listen in on their conversation! This also leads to a definite CON about walmart- the customers can sometimes be as crabby as the employees. i once saw a real fight at the checkout- some guy had 20 items in the fast lane, and the guy behind called him on it. well, 20 items was all pissed off, and he gets into it with the man behind. Actual Fisticuffs took place. i didn't even need to eavesdrop, this was all in english.

so what was supposed to be a quick post about the walmart pj's i got the other day has turned into a quasi commentary about social anthropology. but you should see the pj's! they are pink, and they have christmas scottie dogs on them! they are so cute! they also had little jingle bells on them, but i took those off, because they made a racket.

today i have to go there again to get buttons, because i'm so flaky. i only got two buttons, the sweater i made has three holes.

Destructo Cat

So Debra and Ben looked after Shermy while we were away. I heard that the cat was oh so well behaved while i was gone. So sweet and lovable that Ben is smitten, and wants to keep him. This is all fine, since at least i know there's a family who would consider taking him in if i kick the bucket. Well, when i returned home, there's was one day of "i was so lonely, you abandoned me!" from the cat, and then it was back to business as usual.

I got home from work and there was this to greet me:

Yep, that's the trash knocked over, and the water dish broken into pieces by something heavy that must have been hidden. Criminals hide their weapons, why shouldn't the cat too?

It had to be the water dish that broke, right? So all the water went all over the place, and i had to clean that mess up too. I sent this photo to Ben asking if he still wants the cat. Silly guy he still said yes. well, he'll have to wait till i kick the bucket.

that voting is fixed!

bah! that cy young vote is fixed! i admit it, i'm greedy, i want beckett to have that cy young, on top of the WS Ring!

boston.com article

CRUMB! i simply cannot believe it!

iwanted all those extras- rookie of the year, cy young, gold glove, silver slugger! i wanted all of them. i'm a hoarder!

the Sally Gap

there's a road in the eastern part of ireland called the R759 road. it goes through the Wicklow Mountains, along the Sally Gap. it is here where I saw the most spectacular shade of blue ever. For the rest of my life, the mere word "blue" will evoke memories of this icy cold, crystal clear lough.



it really is fantastic!

so here are some photos

so here we all are, with proof that we were here. In appropriately touristic photos.

This is Mom and Dad and me at the upper lake at Glendalough.




This is ma and dad with marianne, outside St. Mary's Pro Cathedral

these photos are a jumble of the hundreds that we took the chronology on this post isn't tight. i should have tried to check in at the cybercafes while i was there, but i just didn't.

this is the GAA Museum at Croke Park- there was a good tour, and you can give it a try playing both hurling and gaelic football in the cages in the museum. Did you know that none of the athletes in the GAA are paid for playing? they play simply because they love it! so on all ireland day, some of the players might never have had to do that sort of thing before. imagine playing in front of 70 thousand people on one day and then going back to being an accountant the next!

here is mom doing her best to blend in with the locals on the Dart.

I have a whole bunch of really good photos, but i can't post them right now, this blogspot is giving me fits because of the size of the photos, so i'm a but aggravated right now. you can go see them here:

kms Ireland 07

i'll work more on this post later.

A-Rod; is he really worth all that?

I was away in ireland when my sox won the series again. i'm on the fence over whether i am happy to have been in ireland or whether i'm bereft for having missed the series. it is a very different feeling than when they won in 2004, when i was glued to the tv.

but i digress. the point of this post is to wonder wheter or not alex rodriguez really is worth those giant dollar signs being thrown about like warmup toss. $350 million dollars? for real? first of all the guy is no spring chicken in terms of baseball age. he's 32, sure he's just a baby- he's my age in fact; but for playing ball professionally, that's middle age at best. he's a bit of a malcontent- anyway you slice it, he's not the clubhouse guy that teams need. i don't ever remember him being called a team leader by the NY press- jeter, possada, pettite, sure- even clemens every so often. but never ever a-rod. He gets into dustups with the press- even manny is more eloquent when he's mad than a-rod is. if i were a major league GM, these would be concerns.

i suppose if i were said GM, i could overlook both those things if A-Rod had proven himself to be valuable in the postseason. i'm afraid he hasn't; and not just with the yankees- the mariners and rangers didn't win post season series very often with him on the roster. it's tough for a team to build themselves around a stud like a-rod. he's so costly that it leaves very little payroll cash available for other signings. so the signings have to be cheap. either on the downhill slide, or rookies and youngsters. both of these present problems- rookies can be unpredicatable. they could be great like pedroia and ellsbury, or they could struggle, and often times they don't hit well enough to be a matching threat to a-rod, essentially making his bat less of worry- pitchers can just walk him. old hats can be worrisome too; older, slower, can't hit as well as before, so it's hard to even make the playoffs, let alone be successful.

so i have to wonder- will teams be willing to take on such an ineffective postseason player at the risk of the rest of their roster? sure he's great- i can agree that he's a baseball talent; a rediculously impressive talent, but are teams willing to pay a guy to improve his own resume, yet not contribute to the ultimate goal of the team- win the trophy with many flags? sure baseball is a team sport played by individuals- but make no mistake- dave roberts stolen base off the bench in 2004, and coco crisp sitting out the end of the ALCS and the beginning of the World Series- those were individuals playing for the team. they helped the team win.

I just don't think A-rod has that kind of selflessness in him i just don;t think he has the integrity. if i were a general manager, i wouldn't pay a player who is an individual to be a part of my team. there is no I in team.

so here we are home from ireland

booo! we had a tremendous trip, and soon i'll post photos and stuff, but for now i have to pick up the pieces from being away from work without posting and auto-reply to my email. what a pain.

this is the funny dancing frosting

A Foodies Opera is a funny little you tube animation. it's quite nice, and it's a great "it takes all sorts of people to make a world" sort of short film. it's very well done and quite clever. go check it out!

heidi had a girl!

so my sister heidi had a girl yesterday. a tiny little baby, 6 pounds 1 oz. though i confess, i don't really know if that's tiny or not. but i think the otehrs were bigger than that. her name is kristen marie- after thirty two years of grating my teeth at people who call me kristen, (no no, my name is Kristine) this will take some getting used to.

blessedly it's all done- if either of my sisters have any more kids, i don't know if i'll be able to stand it.
hee hee hee.

yay!

hoo hoo hoo! If i could do a cartwheel!

so i was playing on sunday- an early morning match- not my favorite. but i am a sport-o at my core- a windpants wearing, sandals with socks, ponytail hairstyled, smelly old cleats kind of girl. and 9.00 kickoffs are part of the drill. Soccer is my true love. there is something about playing soccer for me that is just absolute euphoria. at bell hill park, for 90 minutes every sunday, there is no mortgage, no crummy job, no patriots game or sox lead just 1 and a half. there is no trip to ireland, no knitting project, no truck that needs an oil change, none of that.

there is just me and 21 other people kicking around. i simply love it. as it happens, i'm on a great team that calls you out when you suck; but props you up if you need it. we tell each other when we play well, we tell each other when to shut up. then we leave it there and actually are friends. it's so great. i haven't played such satisfying soccer since college- actually i think it was even highschool. and it's no big deal- it's a rec league, it's not world cup, but it's not skirts and sallys either.

it's tricky for me to explain it- i'm a bit old-ish these days- not nearly as fit or motivated as i was in college and shortly after graduating, i should probably retire soon but i find that I just can't give it up. I find that playing ball on sundays is a tiny little bit of complete me-time, shared with those 21 other people. it's a bit selfish really, but i simply love it.

I also love scoring goals! hoo hoo hoo! i never knew scoring goals could be so fabulous! it came on a corner kick, dan tried to redirect it on a header, but it didn't go in. then i dunno, it bounced somewhere, and came right to me, voila! i knocked it right in to back of the net! what a strange feeling, scoring goals. i'm a modified midfielder these days, i used to be a sweeper- not a whole lot of goalscoring chances for me. but now i'm more offensively minded, so i get in the mix a bit more, and take more shots- especially this season. it's mostly the men who get the chances, but every so often jess and sarah and myself get in on the action too. it's nice when they go in.

so here is my advice that i like to give when i post so infrequently to this blog. Do what you love- you will only love it more!

fancy a cuppa?

i've got one right here in my wallet. My Tea Wallet!


so i was at my favorite beach town, and there's a new tea shop there. in amongst the gifts and knick knaks i found a basket of tea wallets. not very expensive, they were only $4.95. normally right up my alley. but i'm a seamster, so i decided to make my own instead. folded they're about 3 x 4, flat it's roughly 6 x 4 it's got four pockets you can put teabags, or sugar packets or even little coffee sachets in there.

I'm going to make a whole bunch for my coworkers at the pharmacy for holiday gifts. and you really can make them with scraps.

I've been able to work up some directions to the tea wallet.

1. start with two rectangles of fabric of two different prints; 6.75 x 4.75 each, plus one rectangle of muslin for the interface.


2. take one of each print and iron it in half, print side out, the long way. They should end up 6.75 x 2.375. this is also when you make what ever closure you want, for this one i'm using a strip of bias tape.


3. top stitch the crease to make it look nice and professional


4. take the fold that is the same as your outside fabric and lay it on the lining fabric so the raw edge running parallel to the lining edge (with the muslin beneath) and sew together. this is the contrast pocket. the yellow highlight shows where you want to sew.


5. take the fold that is the same as the lining and place it over the contrast pocket (hiding the stitching from the contrast pocket) and pin everything together.

(Now is also the time to sandwich your closure in. put it between the ouside fabric and the pockets, don't sandwich it between the pockets themselves.)

6. place your outside fabric over all (RSF!), and pin the whole sandwich together.


7. sew a U starting at one corner of the top, down the side, along the bottom, and then up the other side.


8. Trim your bulk and clip the corners. turn right side out. press and match the top edges together, and then topstitch around the entire thing.


9. fold in half and press to give a bit of crease. then sew along the spine crease. this will help define the fold and it also creates the pockets inside.


10. add a button, and viola!


They are really easy, and methinks the possibilities are endless!

Hey Roger! Get Stuffed!

NOW HERE THIS! under no circumstances have i ever wanted Roger Clemens back as a red sox pitcher. you will never, ever, ever be able to find a place in time where i have said, boy it's too bad... Not once, not ever.

he is a jerk. he's arrogant, he's over paid, he's full of himself and i do not want him to play for my team. i have never once wanted him to play for my team since he left. not once ever did i cheer for him when he pitched at fenway as a yankee, a blue jay or an astro. not once. not even begrudgingly. I was at that game a few seasons ago, I think it was when pedro pitched against clemens in july of 2004. and the whole park was yelling Roger!.... roger!..... roger!.... YOU SUCK! i liked that. then we smoked him that game. that was nice.

In 2004 he couldn't even say, boy it's nice they finally won a World Series. he couldn't even conceed that it might have been nice to be a part of the team that finally won. because being a big person is a foreign concept to him. he has no loyalty- not even to the astros- supposedly a team that had an emotional draw for him because he's from texas, and his family is there. whoops, gotta go- more money elsewhere, more fame in the bronx. better press coverage on the YES network.

Sure, roger clemens is a very skilled and rediculously talented pitcher. but he's an asshole, any way you slice it. I for one, am so pleased he's not back in boston, because i would not be able to deal with all the media and fans tripping over themselves to gush and kowtow and shower him with platitudes. He's a guy who wrote the book on me-me-me-me-ism. And I can't wait to see him get smoked again, by the sox, by tampa bay, baltimore, toronto or whomever.

If I could do a Cartwheel...

I surely would! I just completed the booking for our trip to Ireland!

Mom and I are going along with Dad and Marianne so they can run the marathon. Personally, I think running a marathon is a bit daft, but 'tis ok! After all, it is the Dublin Marathon.

So now I just have to endure another six months of waiting. But between now and then I'll have to find a place to stay, and book the coach trip to the Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim.

(http://www.northantrim.com/giantscauseway.htm)

Besides that, I'll have to start Practice Packing, agonizing over knitting needles and DVD players on board the aircraft, and printing maps and itineraries.

Plus, Dad and Marianne will have to start really training, now that we all have our tickets there's no backing out! Mom will have to start reviewing her journal and organizing the one for this trip. There's a lot to do in six months!

Hoo hoo hoo! I can hardly wait. This time it's a long trip; ten days! But it works out to only be six days of vacation from work, because there are two weekends worked in.

Yippee!
Gosh, I wish I could do a cartwheel!

so, i'm beginning to be worried about hitting

it seems that even with JD Drew in the line up- the sox are somewhat anemic in the hitting department. - i suppose i'm more interested in consistency. It's no good when we can open with 13 runs and then have only one hit the following night. that is not cool.

i'm also concerned about this julio lugo guy. Alex Gonzales is a tremendous shortstop, easily as good on the field as Lugo- so the only thing lugo might be able to bring to the table is a bat- but if he's going to only hit around .250 or .265, then what's the point of swaping gonzales out? and for that matter- i'm beginning to be a bit tired of the revolving door at short and second. Especially shortstop- that is too key a position to have four different players in three years.

I hope that the sox bats will start up soon- i heard once that the early part of the season is always better for the pitchers- then the middle of the season it's pretty even, then the end of the season is better for hitters. makes sense, sure. but the sox need to start hitting more regularly- and all of them need to. Gone are the days of playing the long ball. so far the only REAL threat for the long ball in our line up is ortiz/ramirez. i suppose Drew will be good for a 20 or 25. I don't think Youk will be too dependable for home runs, and clearly neither will jason varitek and mike lowell- a few here and there, maybe, but not the machines thay might have once been. so we get back to what the sox have never done well since the dawn of time- small ball and run manufacturing. coco crisp needs to get on base, as does lugo. get on base.

it's only the first week or so, but it's awfully early to start leaving our starting pitchers out to dry- they are too good- dice k kept us in yesterday's game. but you can't win if only one man gets a hit.

O Museu da lingua Portuguesa

so there is a museum for the portuguese language in São Paulo, Brazil. it is the only museum desicated to a language in the entire world! Though i've never been to Brazil, I've been to portugal, and i have many portuguese friends. so i'm planning on attending a keynote lecture given by the one of the directors of the museum, and you should too!

it's talking place at Boston University in Room B12, in the college of arts and sciences building on Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 5.00pm. the address for it is 725 Commonwealth Ave, Boston. you take the green line out past kenmore square. it's one of hte stops along there- if you take the train to mass art or the paradise, you've gone too far.

See you there!

tomato juice wishes and security dreams

when i travel on a plane, i get tomato juice. I'm not sure why, but i always get tomato juice on a plane. there is something inherently special about a plastic cup with think red juice and a single ice cube. i think it's because i travel so infrequently that i associate the drink with it. When i travel, i try to consider the security check as part of the package. sure it's a pain, and it's a total free-for-all at the security gate; true the TSA workers can sometimes be right prats, but who cares? suffer through that part of the package, and before long, you'll have your tomato juice!

then you can land in some far away destination and do your best to fit in with the locals. try new things, try old things again- you know you love tehm after all. Go to the public library, take a bus and then the grocery store.

so yesterday i was entering purchase orders at my NEW job, (yay new job!) and whilst doing so i couldn't get the memory of the last trip to dublin out of my head, strange isn't it- memory. mom and i went last February, 2006. we were only there for a few days, but we jam lots of stuff into those short days. while we were there we went shopping. there is a road that goes away from trinity college, it's not grafton street, but it runs roughly parrallel to grafton. i'm not sure the name. but there is a fantastic book shop- Hodges and Figgis, i think, and there's an oxfam shop, and across the street there is a gourmet food shoppe.

It's funny to me, how i remember the most inane things about trips. not really funny i guess; i like it.
that's how i know the trip was a success!

I think i might start getting newsweek

i think that would be a good way to get some information. sort of like vitamins, but for my brain. I'm not sure i can float along in life without real facts. though it seems that the big cheese in washington gets along fine without real facts.

to get my mental vitamins, i've recently started to watch 60 minutes. it started with condoleeza rice at the beginning of the season- but now i have begun to watch it with regularity. i watched it yesterday. did anyone else watch 60 minutes yesterday? I wonder if the president ever watches 60 minutes.

what i wonder about the president is how can he blithely ignore all the ugly bits of his pet war in iraq. I really wonder if he truly is not aware of them.

lets start a list:
1. well, there's the stagering cost in dollars. it's hard for me to keep track of how much money we've sepent on the war- bloomberg has an article

here,

but even with the concise, well written article, i still can't get my head around how much we've actually shelled out.

2. lets see, there's the absolute complete crumbling of any sort of diplomatic relationship, rapport and integrity in that neighborhood of the world.

3. I suppose this could be 2a. there's the absolute complete crumbling of any sort of diplomatic relationship, rapport and integrity with many other nations the world. (note the reception to the current Latin American tour)

4. there's the heart-stopping amount of collateral damage. between the civilians who are stuck there, the refugees who now are having difficulty finding a different place to be safe, and the iraqis who worked with the US troops who are now targeted as collaborators, I find it hard to believe that there is anyone still alive in iraq.

5 and the coup de ta! the cost in US Soldiers. the price the army and the armed forces is paying is criminal. it really is. Though i understand that to leave now would leave things unfinished, but this is a civil war now. there are civil wars all over the globe that the US has kept at arms legnth, why is this one so important? the fact of the matter is that Iraq is an unstable place. yes saddam hussein was a dictator and he was cruel and he needed to be removed, but i'm not sure the subsequent civil war is ours to fight.

then you add to it that soldiers who come home go to walter reed hospital, if they go at all, and it's posititively criminal. American construction companies would be in big trouble if they cared for injured men as poorly as they do at walter reed. the federal government would fine them!



the other day there was a

scrub drive in Natick.

The organizers have said that it was compassion that was the root of it, and not politics. but come on, how can it not become political? how can the nurses not have enough scrubs?

Could it be because this was an ill-conceived and ill-planned war, and that the ring leader behind it is short sighted, and didn't allow for that sort of thing? Could it be that this war is spiraling out of control with no end in sight? the fact of the matter is that the american people have been hoodwinked into this morass of suffering and ill-will, and it will take many years for us to recover.

perhaps we are the ultimate dumb dumbs, but in the end we lose. the current administration is going to ride out their 35% approval rating, and go screw you other 65%. just because you are the majority, even though in a democracy majority rules. the current administration will contine on it's power trip of power trips, fuled my our very own zealots how gave it an approval. leaving the rest of us with little; no not little, NO recourse of the matter.

Americans need more vitamins, for their body, and for their brains. We'll need to be strong for the upcoming weeks.

boy is he handsome!

I don't usually go in for gushing about famous men and how i would love to be their wife, but i have to confess, that george clooney does cause some weak in the knees.

he sure is handsome. i suppose it's because he's sort of just regular, especially since if he's not on a movie he doesn't bother with hair dye. he just seems so approachable. I suppose girls and women must throw themselves at him, i imagine that if i ran into him at the ballgame i would probably have diminished motor functions, and i bet i would stutter and giggle in a high pitch too. but come on, he's got tremendous fashion sense, he's rediculously funny, and he's got that voice. and that smile.

this all came about because i watched that dopey movie One Fine Day yesterday. you know, with michelle phiffer- (another beautiful person, but we concentrating on the men right now) it's not a terribly creative movie- two people can't stand each other then they fall in love! so it's not too original, but it's cute and it's sweet and it's got some funny bits in it.

but at the end they are in her amazingly outfitted kitchen, which she could only afford if she were totally rich, or inherited the rent control from her parents, and he is trying to kiss her and it's just so preposterously sweet! then they fall asleep on the couch in the equally amazing living room and it's just so agonizingly romantic it's absurd. the reason i think the whole thing is a little believeable is because clooney is so believeable in that situation.

i do like that george clooney. he's dreamy.

sewing shermy.

hee hee hee. My shermy, he's a seamster, and he didn't even know it. Actually, he was trying to catch a ladybug. I've only had him for a short while, three months or so. So he's still totally cute and kittenish. He's got some bad habits, he chews on the plugs at the outlets, and he's terrible about knocking things off the coffee table- he also thinks the pin cushion is a toy. But all in all, he's a totally good investment. he comes running to say hello when i get home from work and he doesn't eat any sort of people food. He's stopped peeing on the floor, and he's not a scratcher or a biter. I love my shermy the cat.

if you haven't got anything nice to say...

don't say anthing at all.

this is a lesson i learned when i was a child- literally. i was perhaps five or six when my dad first said this to me. FIVE OR SIX. so naturally i am surprised when people say rotten things to one another. I'm even more surprised when i'm the recipient of rotten sentiment.

picture it- workplace, october 31, 06. three of us embark on what seems to be an inoccuous enough conversation about a particular hair product we've all tried. it's billed as a leave-in conditioner, but as it turns out a person has to apply heat to attain it's full benefit. Upon learning this, i mention that this is not a route i'll go, so it really wasn't too appealing to me. upon speaking these words, VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES quips, "Yes, and everyone knows that we can't get Ms. Kris to expend more than three steps for her hair".

sorry, but back the bus up. that just isn't ok. Firstly i do not leave the house looking like a bag lady, nor do i leave the house with uncombed hair. secondly, with those two salient points established, telling someone their hair is wrong is on the same level as telling them they are too fat!

What boggles the mind and hacks me off the most are three thoughts: one, this person thinks i'm too stupid to pick up what they're laying down; two, this person thinks it's ok to pick on other people (essentially being a bully); and three, this person thinks that since i'm lower on the work totem pole, i have no recourse (essentially i'm an easy target).

At what point are people going to be responsible for their own actions? I wonder why lots of other people in the world expect that they can say whatever comes to their lips with no consideration for its result and repercussions? Aside from the idea that insulting people, no matter how playfully is delivered is RUDE; Self preservation at least should cause a person to think before they speak- note that now i'm even less inclined to work with this person than i might have been before, because now i realize that they are kind of a jerk. who wants to work wih a jerk?

my personality is to be pissed off and hold a grudge. this is not something i will forget easily. but i will not pass it on. i will not stoop to the lowliness that got me into this snit in the first place. my dad's life lesson is one that i live by, and continue to strive to achive. If i haven't got anything nice to say i won't say anything at all; because no one likes a punch in the nose.

it is voting day in massachusetts,

get out there and vote dammit!

I wish i had a dime for evry person who said, i don't vote, nothing changes. my vote doesn't actually mean anything. or i'm too busy to vote. i don't believe in voting. i don't vote, i don't own my home, i just rent.

pardon me, but if you don't vote, then you have NO SAY whatsoever! you have left the decision to others- and if some texan with ideological plans for the middle east, impossible plans for education, and absolutely no grasp of the actual economy and job market ends up as president because he's hoodwinked thousands of others who DO vote, your non vote means more!

too busy to vote, come on- the polls are open from 7.00 to 8.00 even in my small town. stop in on your way to or from work. it takes longer to park at the mall than id does to mark a few boxes.

i don't believe in voting. why not? if you belive in your freedom of the press, your freedom of speech, or your right to bear arms you shold believe in voting. you can't have freedoms like those and not have a certain amount of responsibility.

you don't vote because you rent your apartment? that is absolutely ridiculous and preposterous and all of those words that mean dopey.

to be an american means you live in a democracy. the reason everyone wishes to live in a democracy is because you get a say. Exersise your right to vote. For that matter, exersise your responsibility to vote. if you don't vote, you forfeit your right to complain about inadequate government.

so today is an anniversary

do you call it an anniversary, though? i always thought an anniversary was a cause for celebration. not one of inherent heartbreak. it seems so preposterous, for me to be so upset, i didn't know anyone personally, who died, nor even through six degrees. but i simply cannot help but feel heartache just the same. I teeter back and forth- trying to forget, and hoping to never forget. if i am not careful, i will work myself into such a state that i'll really need medical attention. then i wish and wash back and forth between guilt over my complete fear of remembering and fear of forgetting.

Then i wonder how here at work we can be so blasé about the whole day- today we have a sales meeting. can you belive it? a meeting dedicated to figuring out way in which we can sell people more product which they truly do not need. But what else can we do? we have to live, we cannot buckle. people have birthdays today. people have wedding anniversaries today. those are real celebrations.

I just cannot get my head around that anyone would want to do something like that to any one. Aside of the fact that it was America who was attacked; September 11 was horrible. the subsequent bombings in madrid were horrible, the bombings in london were horrible, and the recent foiled plan in london were horrible. the situation in lebanon and israel is horrible, and the war in iraq is horrible. the bottom line is that hate breeds hate, and if allowed to continue, human kind will cause its own destruction.

if september 11 taught us anything, it is that we are never ever going to share the world's ideals. nor is the world interested in sharing ours. so what of that? how do we move on from the mutual exclusivities? Can we move on from them? All i can do is make my best effort to do so. i can learn about people, and i can learn to appreciate and celebrate such differences. surely that is possible? if i cannot celebrate a difference, then i can work to understand it and accept it.

i suppose my efforts are just one drop in a bucket, but i am going to make them anyway. and you can't stop me! You can join me if you like though. i wish you would in fact.

the little girl on 60 minutes last night said it best- you cannot kill love.

now hear this!

dunkin donuts drive thrus are for COFFEE ONLY!

when i'm behind you, and you are ordering your effin' bacon egg and cheese on a lightly-toasted poppy-seed bagel and your copilot's steak and egg sandwich on a croisant; plus three coffees: two medium with splenda and skim milk, and one large extra cream and four sugars; oh, yes, and three jelly sticks too please...

bear in mind that i'm behind you and i haven't had coffee yet! for the love of god and all that is holy! DON'T BRING THAT ORDER TO THE DRIVE THRU! sweet jesus, would you just go into the effin store!

the poor kid behind the mic is going to screw it up, and the rest of us have to wait while the dam thing is made, and then for it to be corrected when you aren't satisfied.

you know when you see that big long line at the drive thru? that's because some jerk brought a stupid food order to the drive thru!

coffee only!

Butch Walker....

and the lets go out tonights!

so i've had this question in my head lately, since i'm a singleton; worse, i'm a thirty-person. which is less cool? going to a rock and roll show alone, or skipping it altogether? my research indicates that it is WAY worse to skip something you dig than to go alone. if you dig it, go to it. if you enjoy going to a ball game, then go to a ball game. anyway, you might have a better chance of getting a single seat at fenway than if you have to get one for a sidekick.

so i went to see Butch Walker at axis the other night. i timed it perfectly, i arrived just in time for the last set change, so i didn't have to see the openers or sit through the awful set changes, which i swear bands intentionally make long. and then out come seven people. seven! and they've all got the ridiculous 80's get ups on. it was very funny. i was a bit nervous at the beginning, there was a lot of sort of dorky things; like tossing the pick into the air and all that hokey stuff. but i realized it was part of a little schtick. and it was a short lived schtick, and we soon got down to business of rockin.

the thing i love about this guy butch walker is that his stuff is really like these little stories and anecdotes and a little bit of poetry. it's sound really queer, but his stuff is this really emotionally charged material. even when he was with marvelous 3, the material was full of this sort of truth. i told my friend eric that i would swear his guy writes his stuff whilst spying on everyone's life, though it's probably about his own life mostly. on the album Letters, there are three songs in particular, Mixtape, Best thing you never had, and Maybe it's just me; that every person in the whole world can apply to their own life. everyone! and on a marvelous 3 album there's a song called Beautiful that every girl dreams about some guy dedicating to her.

so this show was full of all this ridiculous emotion, and energy, and tangible, palpable truth and realism. at one point walker sat at a piano all by himself and sang three of the most heart wrenching songs i've heard in a long time. complete with sorrowful back stories. that really is a ballsy move for a musician- who knows if the crowd is going to tune in on the sorrow behind it? and you know, and that certainly does reduce the pace of a show to a crawl. who knows if they'll be able to recover from it? it might be hard to get the rockin energy back. but it was perfectly seamless. such a good part of the show.

i have no idea if it was the end of the tour or the middle, but it hardly matters, because it could have been on my living room with 5000 close friends. it was such a good show, and i would have been so mad at myself if i talked myself out of going simply cause i had no companions.

now i can accept paypal!

I'll probably get smoked with some sort of horrible per use fee, but who cares! I just want other people to be able to buy some of my products! and I want it to be easy for them. It really is a pain in the neck to have to jump through hoops to make a purchase from an online up and comer. so I don't want to be one of those artists.



if you have a bit of time, go have a visit to my on-line shop! i Think you'll find something you like!

www.violetgarden.etsy.com

so, I've got an esty shop!

here is my newly opened esty shop.

Violet Garden Gifts

I'm planning on selling the things i make, bags and accessories. i'm planning on offering coin purses, messenger bags, mini and regular size, belts, key chains, and travel pouches.

I've only just opened the doors, so there's a tiny bit of construction still going on. Paypal will be up and running on Monday; and a more extensive product range witll be available. If you need a gift for someone, or you want to give yourself a well deserved present, stop on by.

see you there!

oh how i hate aol!

aol is the most ridiculous thing on the planet! and shame on them for tricking people into thinking that aol for broadband is some kind of great thing. here's a newsflash everyone! your online experience is no safer by using aol! rememebr that aol is time warner, and time warner is the most giant company in the world right now, with their shjitty little fingers in every pie imaginable. from entertainment to banking to communication and probably to cars and energy too. make no mistake, they share your info, because privacy laws allow for sharing info between divisions of companies. so where's your safety, really?

and then i could go on and on about the horrilbe interface they have. they make everything so effin cutesy, that you can't find the effin send button! and downloading a file? who knows where it goes, when you really just want it on your desktop so you can move it to the proper folder yourself.

i am on vacation this week, but i need ed to check on thestatus of a proof for work. so i'm using my sister's computer. a computer geek like myself can't fault her, she dosen't make her living electronically. so she hasn't realised yet how aol is a complete disservice to her and to her family too. none of her kids have any internet smarts, and they can't even get to the effion bbc news site, because phrases like "raised fears" send the aol safety flares off. on top of that, aol has shitty attachment features, so sending and receiveing attachments, (if they are permitted)is clunky, and cumbersome. if you want to go to a yahoo mialbox, and you type www.mail.yahoo.com in the aol search engine bar you get a new window! irritating! and then if you decide you're done in yahoo mail, you go back to the url bar, and put www.boston.com, another window! and it's not even the same one as when you were in yahoo mail! DUMB! and all that extra shit that aol offers- buddies, and instant messenging, and favorites, some sort of search list- all these things are are little more than desktop clutter!

Clutter on you pc desktop is no better than on your desktop desktop! it's littele wonder that america's children are geting less and less cerebral as the days go on. so when they go to college and find that www.yourcollege.edu doesn;t run like aol. they'll be in trouble. that is why those IT guys will always be in jobs, they'll always have to pick up the pieces of aol.

my ten month plan....

...to get out of credit card debt is going along quite nicely, thank you very much. Provided i don't need to use it for anything i should have those bums at Chase paid off in January. Though I am remarkably fortunate that i didn't fall into the the horrible cc debt that some college kids do, i did crank up my share of debt. the highest my balance ever was was $4500. but i have never ever, since graduation in '97, had a true $0 balance. I came close about two years ago, but my foolish brother needed to charge his car insurance, and it was all downhill from there.

here are my tips for soon to be grads or recent grads. i'm no suze orman, but i have learned a thing or two since college.

1. Do not get that perfect car right out of college. drive a few years in a banger. you will save on car payments and you will save on car insurance. Car loans are a sure way for you to get in over your head before you are ready.

2. Do not over spend! It seems so trite and obvious, but it is not an easy thing to do. Do your best to ask yourself, do i want or do i need that item? is it a good investment? will i get true value from it?

3. Set aside part of your paycheck every week to a SAVINGS ACCOUNT. for instance, if you take home $525 every week, then set aside $25 of that to a savings account. (it's very easy to do this if you can get two direct deposits. one to your working ckng acct and one to your svngs acct.) this is a key to saving! $25 clams is not that much! a person can live quite comfortably on $500 take home a week. (i know, i have been living on $472 weekly take home for the past six years) If you deposit just $25 a week from the moment you graduate, then in ten years time, you have $12,000! that is a down payment on a house! I cannot stress that you must start saving little by little right away!

4. pay your bills on time and faithfully. aside from what i see as something akin to a moral obligation to do so (you did sign whatever contract you did to get the account in the first place, and signing the contract is an agreement and promise to pay the money you are credited, or paying for the service rendered) Aside from this, if you pay things late, or go over your balance, you are punching yourself in the financial gut every time! every time! Credit card companies do a happy dance every time a peson pays late. A late fee is found money for them, then on top of it you have to still have to come current. if you don't come current by the next statement, another punch in the gut. you can see how shit might roll down hill on this.

5. Don't over draft your checking account, and don't skate the lines of postdating or paying with a check before the funds are actually in your account. A bounced check just ain't cool. (refer to tip #4. bouncing your payment or bouncing a check at a store results in late fees and usually bounced check fees from the payee, and from your own bank too). also, passing bad checks is fraud. and if the company thinks you've done it intentionally or too frequently, you can actually be arrested and prosecuted. Again, shit rolls downhill on this one

All i can do is tell people be smart. have a sense of balance in your finances. have a sense of your actual balance, have a sense of what you've already paid out, and have a sense of what your actual style of living calls for. Be sure to weigh purchases as investments- what value are you getting for what you are paying. as long as you feel you have gotten good value when you make a purchase- big or small, you are ok. remember carrie bradshaw from the surprisingly insightful hbo show sex and the city. she had 100 pairs of $400 shoes. lets all do the math-$40k.
That's a lot of money invested for squished toes.

well, at least it's also raining in dublin

i simply cannot believe the rain! it has rained here almost non-stop since wednesday. it's monday now, and the forecast shows that the ran isn't supposed to end until tomorrow afternoon. then wednesday it's not supposed to be nice, but cold and gray and not good weather for picking up the pieces after a terrible rain storm. nothing will dry properly.

ugh. we haven't played a softball game in weeks, and now we are running out of time. there's graduation coming up, abbots farm day, and class day too, plus the league requres that all the games are completed by the 31st of may, but you can only play four games a week. Though i think we still should be able to fit it properly, it will still be very tight.

plus, there hasn't been red sox baseball for days either. i had to find something to watch on tv over the weekend. but luckily i worked a long day on saturday, and i didn't need to find too much tv. i watched that movie wimbledon with handsome paul bettany on saturday afternoon, and again on sunday, because my mom came over for mother's day scones and tea, and we watched handsome paul bettany.

it was sort of nice to have a weekend burrowed in my apartment like a little raccoon, though I can only have that opinion because i didn't actually have any emergency associated with the rain. but i'm dreading the sun to come out, the world is going to look a mess.

Medical info

This is my medical info, should i fall and be knocked out cold. There's a silly bracelet on my wrist that has this link.

so here goes:
i use insulin, i use humalog(or novolog) on a sliding scale according to carb counting

Breakfast and Lunch: 1:10 (1 unit insulin for every 10 grams carbs)
Dinner: 1:8 (1 unit for every 8 grams)

I use Insulin glargine (lantus or Levemir) at bedtime
22 units at or around 10.30 pm.

I do not use other medicine. I do not have allergies to medicine, but i do wear contact lenses.

My doctor can be reached at the Joslin Clinic, in Boston, MA. 617-732-2400 You should speak with Liz Halprin, Liz Blair, or in a worst case scenario, Lori Laffel.

My mom's telephone is 978-568-1483, her cell is 978-790-7732. Heidi's home is 978-568-8551 and Colleen's Home is 978-952-0144 her cell is 978-790-8576

well, tomorrow is 30 days

tomorrow is exactly one month from when we landed home after our trip to ireland. when i go away, i like to go to the shops that people go to to get things they need- we went to eurosaver and to Dunnes Stores and we also went to Spar, and of course we went to marks and spenser. we also went to Boots. i got things a person needs in boots. Shampoo and conditioner, hand cream and things like that.

when i was in portugal last summer i went to Pingo Doce to get groceries and things like that. it was very funny on the check out, the cash girl offered me a laundry soap trial size. now you must understand that i went to portugal i selfishly went haardly knowing the language at all. i could say Olá! and Obrigada, and Boa Noite, Boa tarde, Bon Dia. oh and Bem Vinda, Mas o menos and Nao. so clearly you can tell that my two weeks in portugal would be an adventure indeed. so back to the girl with the free sample. she tells me al about the great things, the words wash over me like a tidal wave, and my friend sofia translates for me. i was so embarrassed. then to make matters worse, cash girl told sofia, i was trying to decide if i sould speak french or english to her. AH! how doubly embarrassing! imagine she could choose from three languages! i'm so inadequate!

but the greatest thing about going to portugal, and to scotland in '99 is that i got to stay with families of friends. i got to really be a regular person. In scotland i watched TV with Brian and his mom and dad. their dog would chew on the crushed stone from outside, then bring them in and leave them all over the kitchen floor. by the end of the trip even i knew the standard scolding: jezzie! stop bringing those in, you're making a mess!

When i visit Ireland with my mom, we try our best to look like natives. though i'm sure we don't we just think we do. but our skin tone and our hair and eye color and also our physical build makes us look like we might could be natives, clearly our silly oohs and Ahs give us away, but not like in portugal, where no matter how hard i tried it was like i had a sign on "tourist"

I like being a tourist. i just like to do it not so conspicuously. i love being american. i love the fact that i can actually belive that my government is inept. i love that we have baseball. i love that i have what i have here, my family, my friends, my health, my resources. i don't live on easy street, I'll be paying CardmemberServices until 2008 for those four days in dublin, But i am a lucky american girl, it's just that i would like to give it a go being an irish girl, or a portuguese girl, or even a canadian girl. just to try it on. you know, for adventure's sake. Today i used the shampoo from ireland. the smell brought me right back. Perhaps the idea of the adventure is better than the actual adventure is. maybe just daydreaming about it is a better plan.

time to go!

So today is the day my mother and i leave for Ireland. I'm leaving right from work. i hope i have everything i need. i'm catching up on junk and tying up loose ends here. i hope i remember to do everything, so when i get back next monday i won't have some shitstorm to sort out.

So this is our rough itinerary. we have lots of things to to. everyone says, boy that's a long flight for a short trip, but it's really not, the flight is only about 5 hours. the flight to orlando from logan is 3.5 hours. and i don't mind saying, if i'm gonna shell out $1500 for a vacation, it won't be orlando.

02/20/05 Depart from logan

02/21/06 Arrive in Dublin
Spend the day shopping. Go to Arnotts and Boots, Perhaps go to Dublin Public Library, see what has replaced Bewleys. Go to Christ Church Cathedral to look around. Go to the National Gallery or The National Museum. have pub supper or
perhaps get supper ready made at Marks and Sparks.

02/22/06 Spend the day in Dublin
Go to have coffee, and perhaps a curry. Go to Easons and the GPO.At 13.00 there is a guided tour of the Chester Beatty Library. in the afternoon, see about a matinee of the play with Ralph Fiennes, or see if there are any games being played at Croke Park this week. Wander around St Steven’s green. Go to Hickeys Fabric Shop and Marks and Spenser to do real shopping. Supper at a nice little place like that italian restraunt.

02/23/06 Take the Bus to Glendalough and Wicklow mountains.

02/24/06 Side adventure out of town
Early in the morning, take the Dart Train or Bus to Malahide Castle, then come back and go to the Winding Stair.Then later in the afternoon, take the Dart Train South to Bray to go to the fabric shops and yarn shops. Perhaps have supper or tea in Dun Laoghrie on the way back.

02/25/06 Fly Home (Booo!)

I'm going to try to post a web journal at cybercafes and what have you, but i might not be able to do so. one thing i like to do is send a post card to myself every day of the trip. you know, write it at the end of the evening, andthen post it the following morning, that makes a nice travel journal, and then you know you'll get at least one good photo a day.

more news later!

yippee! spring is here!

it's truck day! It's truck day! it's truck day! that is the sox equipment truck is leaving fenway today with all those bats and balls and uniforms and pitching machines and extra bases and bat donuts buckets of david seeds. for the treck down to fort myers.

how fitting that the truck leaves the day after a gigantic snow storm. there really is light at the end of the winter tunnel, and it's not a train, it's the red light on the top of the pitching machine!

hoo hoo hoo! five more days until pitchers and catchers, such as they are and then the rest show up a few days later. buy me some peanuts and cracker jack, i don't care if i never get back! PLAY BALL!

it's just that i think George W is inept.

i just don't get the impression that he's actually in touch with reality. i really wonder if he actually reads the reports or actually listens to msnbc or wbz 1030.

it's just that i really wonder how he plans to get things accomplished. Sure, medicare part d works, but it only works because dedicated staff at the pharmacies and insurance providers have spent long hours on the telephones figuring the shit out.

the dependency on oil has been exacerbated by politicians (republians especially) for decades. just now there is a project proposed for a wind farm off the coast of cape cod massachusetts

called the cape wind project,

that is languishing in beauracracy, red tape, the courts and all that crap that nobody understands. I realise that checks and balances prevent the president from interfering with the courts, but come on, it would be a sparkling reccomendation if the president gave his endorsement to the project.

no child left behind is a joke. this plan hasn't actually made students smarter or more qualified, it makes them able to pass dot tests. whoopee. did you know that in my niece's school system they no longer teach phonics? The tool they teach the children is the idea that "if i know how a word begins and ends then i just put those letters, and that will be ok." well, actually love, that is a spelling mistake, and it's not ok. c-a-t spells cat, not k-t.

on top of these, i really wonder if he is reading the same newspapers we are when he hears about the war in iraq. it really dosen't take a mental giant to realise that the war is not going as planned, and it's not going well. the soldiers are up shit's creek, for lack of a better term; and we can't keep shovelling good money after bad trying to dig ourselves out of the mess into which we were hoodwinked. At some point the well is going to be dry.

three or so years ago, my company was going inventory the day bush decided to move the war to iraq. i vividly remember my coworker Ed say to me, "kris, it's situations like this that you have to trust your president. That is why he's the president and we aren't. he's better equipped to deal with this sort of problem than we are." At the time Ed explained it, he made it sound so sensible and logical. and when i listened to him i decided he was right. and i figured that George W had more info than i, so of course he was making a well informed and well thought out decision.

I have to confess though, i'm just not so sure any more, and the more i think about it, the more i really have to come to the conclusion that Geoge W. Bush really has no blessed idea about much of anything. He's full of bluster and hot air, and piss & vinegar, but empty of diplomacy, foresight, or real skills.

In short, we are in for a long three more years, and buckle your seatbelt it's going to be a bumpy ride.

bah! i missed out!

can you believe it! i never went to the theater to see harry potter, walk the line or the constant gardener! and i'll probably not get to see munich while it's still in theatres. i'm so dumb! now i have to wait until they are on dvd before i see them, and i'll have to watch them on my tiny television!


bah! the movie i did go and see lately is dumb jarhead. it just wasn't very good. it wasn;t bad, but it kept teetering on really good action, but then it chickened out. the same thing with the emotionality of it. it kept teetering on the edge of mental breakdown, but never really going the distance. it was sort of like the movie got all the way to the three yardline and then went three and out. just kind of ot complete.

there are a few movies i need to get for my collection: Enigma, Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious, french kiss, the bourne Identity (not the supremacy) Strange Days, and ocean's eleven. also i think i will probably purchase HP 4 and perhaps even the constant gardener. i'll borrow WTL and Munuch from the library, but the other two i'll probably buy. I like to only buy dvd's that i know i'll watch over and over again. for instance, i have watched midnight in the garden of good an evil so often that now i just quote some of the lines. that jim williams done shot a man... Canape? i have to be able to get a good cost per view ratio for dvd's i purchase.

i wonder if i could bring my knitting to the movies. i knit on a loom. i wonder if there would be enough light to do so easily? i'll have to consider that.

I just have to share this with everyone!

You must read this book!

It's available at Amazon,

and probably at your library. It's such a good book. It's at times so embarrassing that people could be so cruel and judgmental, yet on the other hand it's so uplifting and empowering that other people could be so strong and inherently good.

Gosh it's fabulous. And on top of it, the plot follows three girls as they get a fledgling cafe off the ground, so it's full of scents and imagery and even imaginary pictures of delicious things to eat and remedies to make. The chapters are each preceded by recipes that figure in to the plot. One of them is for elephant ears! I hadn't realized that elephant ears were an Iranian specialty. John and Son's bakery used to sell them when I was a child.

It really is a tremendous book. It's not really very heavy, insofar as the author sort of glosses over the revolution and its causes and the implications of it, but I think that was the plan, sort of like the characters kind of glossed over it as a way to cope; but the events weren't so trivialized that the reader is left in the dark as to what the horror actually meant. The opposite in fact, the reader can get a very real sense of the emotional repercussions if not the historical ones.

This book is so very good, I have to share it with people. It's moving, empowering, chastening, educational, comical, and suspenseful all in one hard to put down quick-tempoed read. get a copy today!

well, that settles it.

i cannot have a cat. i'm simply not emotionally prepared. i was driving to work today and there was a big pile of road kill near the cumberland farms. and as i drove by, i just had to look to see what it was, and it was a black cat! can you believe it? a black cat. i haven't seen my black olive in quite some time, since it got cold and snowy really, so i was hoping that he went south for the winter. but seeing the dead cat in the road makes me wonder. And it really makes me unhappy too.

my last hope against hope is that it's somewhat far away from my apartment building, so maybe it's not him. but on the other hand, it's not really that far away, only 1/3 of a mile or so, so it's not too inconceiveable that he would go down there.

oh gosh, i hope it's not my black olive. but then on the other hand, that just means that it's someone else's, and that doesn't make me feel one bit better. so today i am going to be an unhappy person, and it might be for nothing.

So i can't have a cat. i don't want an indor cat, they stink up the house, and it really is clear that i can't have an outdoor cat on the road i live on. it's just too busy.

sigh.

i want this teapot!

i have been doing a lot of cruizing around online today, and i found some great things to add to my list of great things to get. when i get a bit more money

first, this super teapot!


isn't it so cool! the yellow is really appealing to me, even though it doesn't match my kitchen atall atall. i just love bright colors.

and then the next item is this super de duper wrist watch.


i had it once before, but it was stolen when some stupid kids broke into my car. can you believe it they took this great watch, and a few cds and baseball cards, and left the stereo and gas cards in the console. jerks.

anyway, when i go back to dublin next month i'm going to look for the watch. i'm also going to get a tea pot of some kind, i would like an every day teapot, like people use all the time in dublin, but i wonder where i would get it. in portugal i would go to the supermercado, and in england i would go to tesco, but i wonder where in ireland.

hmmm. a project for today.

hoo hoo hoo! ireland here we come!

so my dad gave my mother and i tickets to ireland for christmas again. I am so grateful, yet i also feel so sheepish. i just don't think i'm worth such a super gift, but on the other hand i'm certainly not going to refuse it or regift it!

so i just received word that there's room for us at the inn! We're staying at

the glen guest house;

it's a super b and b in Dublin 1, which is right around the corner from the busaras, and close to a dart stop also.

it's also a short easy walk to o'connell street, and you come out sort of near the GPO.

hoo hoo hoo! I just can't wait! i'm going to bring my resume so i can see if anyone wants to sponsor an american for employment!

this is a good site to visit to start yuor ireland holiday planning:

ireland online

and this is where the hotel is


it's just a few steps up gardiner street from where it intersects beresford place!


yay! yay! yay!

y'know, i really tried

i really tried to the best of my ability to keep this whole signing professional. i really did i was willing to say that we lost a baseball battle to the yankees and we lost an effective leadoff hitter. but i can't do it any more. Now i know, we surely didn't lose a spectacular centerfielder. and we surely have not lost an irreplaceable man in the clubhouse. and i can't keep it in any longer.

johnny damon is an arrogant prick and the reason he fits in so well as a yankee is because it takes one to know one. obviously keep snapping photos.

trimmed damon unveiled

pardon me, but fuck off johnny damon. you go take yourself and your rag arm and go fall down the steps at your new dugout. you better believe i'll keep snapping pictures of you then. Why should we continue to kowtow to you when you have walked into new york and essential slammed your former employers and your former fans? now we really see your true self, spineless.

have some fuckin stones and say you had a good experience here, you fucking sally. stand up for yourself and what is true, and tell everyone that it really was a magical year in 2004 and 2005 was magic too. that you are looking forward to life in new york is also true, and i would be ok with that if you weren't so dismissive of your work here in boston

All that you are now is another one in a long line of moronic zombies with glassy eyes and short hair. come on, tell the truth, it will take some adjustment to go from hands off management to an owner that wants to schedule your next shit. you fit in so well with the yankees, because you have no gumption. no stand up. you talk that talk about being your own person, and having a great idioc personality, but face it buddy, you buckled and you folded and you cracked under pressure. and now you look just like every other centerfielder who played at Yankee stadium. you have no originality whatsoever any more. there's a reason why nobody oustide of the 718 area code likes the yankees, because they are irritating, obnoxios, arrogant and dumb. and you are one of them now too.

so good on you man, sure. win your games with the yankees, you got more money and more of whatever you were looking for but make no mistake, you are nothing more than a yankee now. not a superstar, not a shitty player. you're simply a yankee. you're the same as all the other ones. whoopee.

So the gang of three

Really are like the three blind mice. Lets have a brief overview. We have no shortstop. We have one Major League catcher; we have no second baseman. We have no actual "this is my position" first baseman. Now we have no centerfielder. At this point I would take shitty players. Oh, and our rotation has question marks and our bullpen really isn't the shiny coin we all dream about. And that isn't even considering out batting order.

so it would seem that the sox management team (who knows how many there are or who calls the shots) really don't have a clue about negotiating a contract or running a team. For crimminy's sake, they couldn't even manage to come to an agreement with one of their own, how can they possibly think they are going to be able to deal with the hardball that scott boras plays. Clearly they had no idea what they were getting into.

We have made some spectacularly bad moves this off season, and personally (and this is complete speculation) I think that the next one out is going to be curt schilling. He isn't going to dig the idea of playing with half wits and guys culled from the scrap heap. And lets be real, nobody likes to work for dumb bosses either. On top of it, the gang of three really have mismanaged the media. As of today I've heard rumors that trot Nixon, bronson arroyo, kelly shoppach, and even tim wakefield have all been discussed for trades. Hello? Is there anyone home? Tim Wakefield? Trot Nixon? That's the sort of shit you keep secret!

it really is like an episode of the keystone cops. It just gets worse and worse. Here is a funny article by Dan shaughnassy, who generally is a prat, but today it's good.

for sox, a little off the top

besides the loss of Damon, he goes to the effin evil empire. So we really look like country bumpkins. Remember when Nomar found out they were shopping him from espn? Well, lucchino found out about Damon from them too. Exactly why wasn't that cell phone glued to his ear with boras on the other end? I'll tell you, because they are not good at being general managers.

the whole thing simply smacks of inaptitude! So now we see that it wasn't the number of years Damon wanted, it was the money. A skilled GM would already have realized that Johnny Damon is as shallow as a puddle of spit and conceited and greedy. For crying out loud, we all knew that, how did management miss it? How could they possibly have been ok with the idea that no news is good news?

we are in deep sneakers for next season. The only silver lining is that Johnny Damon is never going to have an assist on a put out at his home field for the rest of his career. It's roughly seven miles from center field to second base at Yankee stadium, and he can't throw out the trash.

it's really a good idea...

to stay sober at your company holiday party.

so i was at my work holiday party the other day. and there was beer and wine. some of my coworkers indulged a bit too much shall we say. here's the thing, it really puts your coworkers in a moral dilemma and conundrum. how do we react when a member of staff is dancing like julia stiles did in 10 things i hate about you? (please note, Julia Stiles is, after all Julia Stiles. when she dances to the Notorious BIG it's sexy. when coworker does the same, let's say it hasn't got the same charm)

how does one expect their coworkers to deal with the fact that they are clearly bombed. Do we try to cut the person off? Do we drive them home; miles out of our way(in this case two hours out and back)? do we stick our head in the sand and hope to hell they get home safe and don't kill anyone?

Asside from those quandries, let's move along to monday morning. Assuming they've recovered from the superstar hangover they must have had on sunday. Now the level of respect between coworkers has declined substantially, just for the nights foolishness alone. But to ice that cake, we all know they drove home drunk.

at the risk of being a wet blanket, just stay sober. at least then you'll be able to make fun of people, you won't be the butt of the fun. it's like that beer ad i saw in rolling stone a long time ago. when you are sober, you get in on 100% of the fun, and 0% of the bar tab.

If you can't handle your booze, or if you know you like it a lot, then skip it all together.
Stay sober. don't drive drunk.

think this will work?

ok, so i tried to like the pdf to my yahoo brief case, but i have to be a premeir member to make the briefcase public. i'm not a premeir member yet, and i haven't decided if i want to go that route, but in the mean time i'm going to see if blogger opens large photos in another window at full size.

let's see....

ok, so blogger will link to a larger picture, and that is a start, but when your download it and print it, you'll have to enlarge it somewhat. so print it to start on legal paper, then bring it to your local kinkos (or your local work copier) and monkey about with the settings til the measurements fit the actual size.

I'm still working on an actual pdf that's printable at 100%, but i need to figure out a way ot post it publicly. more on that later!

so i'm trying to figure out

how to post a pdf for download on this site. because i want to offer you a pattern on how to make these super bags i made.

they are tote bags that i made for my friend sofia and ana for their trip home for the holidays. thay have a 5.5 hour flight ahead of them, and that can be slightly boring. so i'm going to put fun entertaining things in there. spin magazine, tootsie pops, cheeze-it's, a bottle of water, word finds and things like that. i'm also going to put a nice zipper pouch like the ones i posted before in there with a wash cloth and face soap and lotion and a toothbrush and toothpaste.

there really is nothing nicer than getting up right before final approach or even after you've landed when the rest of the passengers are going mental; and washing your face and cleaning your teeth and putting your contacts back in. that is one of my favorite travel rituals. sometimes i do it in the airport sometimes on the plane.

where was your worst cup of coffee?

so over the past few days i have been drinking coffee away from home. and i have to tell you, i have a list of places that make terrible coffee. and i'm going to share them topping my list- starbucks. for all they think they are so smart, and are looking to take over the world; they make horrid coffee. not only do they use two tablespoons when one is sufficient, they burn it. i don't go in for the super cute status symbols, i just want a cup of coffee with cream. how hard is that? the starbucks on route 9 at the lyman streeet intersection gave me the most awful cup of burned, yet cold coffee i have ever drank. it was so bad.

fast forward to yesterday. i was at the alewife T station. the dunkin donuts got the coffee and cream balance correct, but the coffee was just old. it was burned. i wonder if the coffee palaces realize just how profund and distinct burned coffe taste is, and how easy it is to achieve. it really doesn;t take long for a pot to turn into 10w-40 motor oil.

I tried my luck at au bon pan on berkeley street yesterday afternoon. nothing doing. the coffee was so strong and acrid that it curled my hair. acrid is a good way to describe it. like when you get that beer you aren't expecting to be so bitter, and you make that funny face. so i shelled out a total of 7 clams these past few days and got swill in return.

on the flip side, the best cup of coffee i've had in a long time was at cumberland farms on central street. go figure that the gas station coffee would be the best. but you can add the correct amount of cream, and nuke it if it's too cold. and they don't even make it too weak anymore. weak coffee is as bad as super strong coffee. but lately they've not been so skimpy on the gounds. Honey Dew on washington street also makes a first class cup of coffee, always. very dependable.

what about you? where is your favorite java? and your horror stories?