What an awesome week… NOT!

So…

I’m having some issues with putting myself too much out there, expecting things to be different and getting crushed when I get screwed.  I know I didn’t do a lot of things right and I know I’m so far from perfect it’s not funny, but I don’t think I truly deserve what’s been going on around me.  I made my bed, I’m lying it in, but I want things to be different.  I’m working hard for things to be different.  But I’m getting the shaft.  And quite frankly, I’m a little tired of it.  If I knew how to fix this, maybe things wouldn’t have gotten so far out of hand… but they did and I still don’t know how to reconcile past, present and future.  Just thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach.  I’m not that strong.  Yet.

Then, there’s a new health scare among the extended family.  Is it cancer? Is it a blood clot? Why is it there? What caused it? Shouldn’t we have been given a larger reprieve since V1 of this ended in May?  Why won’t anyone take ownership and talk about this?  Why are things being left AGAIN to the person that so beautifully f’ed things up during V1?  Ugh.  I don’t have it in me to deal with this on top of everything else. But I have to… in sickness and in health and all that crap.  If I had thought about it referring to more than my husband and I, I might have left him in the gondola in Vegas.

Tonight, we headed to Boston to watch BU lose to UVM.  It was a terrible game on so many levels (even though it finally got better a little too late)... and I think it was jinxed since moment one.  I’m pretty stupidstitious and I should have known something was wrong when I chose to listen to “Hey Baby” on the radio instead of changing the radio station. ( That’s what the students sing after a win.)  Then, something happened with J’s car which resulted in ME driving into Boston.  I hate driving into the city.  I’d much rather take the train, but things are a little different now and it was easier for me to meet him at his office and leave my car there.

For the record, Rollheiser’s a sieve and the fine folks working the Agganis Kiss Cam, should have left the camera on the girl on girl action.  (It was just as classic as the NESN guy’s face when he learned the real lyrics to “The Song” as he was filming us at the Beanpot.)  Colby Cohen didn’t deserve the stupid 5 min penalty and game DQ he got at like 15 seconds left.  It was a terrible call and caused the guy behind us to tell Benedetto to go home to his loveless marriage.  Ouch!  At the same time, there’s a reason we chant, “I suck! I blow! I’m Benedetto!” and he certainly didn’t disappoint tonight. Since I can’t obsess over D-men from Winchester, MA any more (since there aren’t any left), I have decided to obsess over Chris Connolly.  This kid, he’s like the perfect blend of that AMAZING line a few years ago of Baby Bourque, Petey Mac and Boomah!..  I wouldn’t mind making sweet, sweet love to that child.  (OK, yeah, I would. He’s a little young and not my type.) He better stay in school all 4 years, but I have a feeling scouts are going to be all over him soon.

After we left Boston, we decided to meet the AAA tow driver at J’s office since both that and the VW dealership are on the way home.  When we left the car in the “capable” hands of the tow truck driver, it had 4 tires.  When we stopped at the dealership, it had 3.  Nobody knows how it happened.  Not even the tow truck driver.  Which is kind of interesting when you think about it. Anyhoo, the tow truck driver dumped the car and left us sitting there.  Trying to figure out our next move.  I moved my car so that it pointed at the ruined tire and turned on the high beams. J took photos for the insurance / AAA / tow company, whoever would need it.  As we’re leaving the dealership, I got pulled over by a cop.  Imagine cracking up - because there’s nothing else you can do - and trying to tell the cop all you’re doing is saying goodbye to the Jetta with the blown-out tire.  I’m surprised he didn’t ask me to get out of the car…

Hey, world? I’m done being a grown-up now, K? Thanks.  Buh-bye.

In remembrance

IN FLANDERS FIELDS

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
?Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky

Scarce heard amid the guns below.?
We are the Dead. Short days ago
?We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
?Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
?Take up our quarrel with the foe:?
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
?We shall not sleep, though poppies grow?
In Flanders fields

for Dad, for Pelkey, for all the others…

Here piggy, piggy

This is one of my favorite pictures from our London trip.  Not because I’m particularly enamored with pigs or the Roman Baths but because of how this picture came to be.  I’m in the ladies’ room, washing my hands when I see him (her? it?).  The window is open a crack.  Just wide enough for the zoom lens on my camera.  Let’s just say whipping out a camera in the middle of a crowded loo is pretty much frowned upon.

It’s those odd little things that make vacations special.

So, while I’ve been away, I finally figured what I want to be when I grow up and found a job doing exactly that.  Amazingly, it does not involve public or private accounting.  But that doesn’t mean my not-yet-conferred diploma is useless. Well, that’s not quite true, it does involve accounting, I’m just not an accountant. I’m a bookkeeper. It doesn’t feel like a step backwards. In many ways it’s a huge step forward.  The position is a better fit for my personality, my work ethic, my need for background noise and my love of wearing jeans to work. (Some of the best perks aren’t monetary.)  I need to send out huge props to my career counselor and my baby brother, Bry.  Between ripping my resume to shreds, starting it over from scratch and spending too much time in the car heading to CT the following weekend, I really considered all my options and my skills and settled on the description of the perfect job.  Amazingly enough, that exact job description appeared in the Boston Globe.  And now I’ll be working there.  I start on the 17th and I’m pretty excited.

I also found out my eldest cousin on my mom’s side is engaged.  Our relationship is still pretty broken, for want of a better term, so I’m not really surprised I found out via Facebook.  That doesn’t mean I’m not hurt or disappointed, but I’m willing to try to get over it.  I am thrilled for her - this is a huge milestone and something she’s wanted for a very long time.  Plus, he seems like a sweet guy.

The BU hockey team is off to an amazing start.  This senior class - especially the two captains - did something magical during the off-season.  This is what last year’s team should have looked like.  I still miss last year’s senior class dearly, but these seniors, and the incoming freshmen, have taken the existing team to a whole new level. We followed the team to Lowell on Friday and after a disappointing start, the third period turned into a nailbiter.  We came away with the W, but I don’t want to ever see a game like that again.  My poor heart can’t handle it.  Also, we sat in front of some kid who is working part time for a junior hockey league. Let’s just say he shouldn’t have been so cocky.  I mean, seriously, a junior league? I worked in the minors and the NHL and some of the guys I’d met during my time in the pros would eat him alive.  I know it’s a starting point and I know he’ll get whatever job he wants because it’s easier to move up if you have the experience, but he should have really gotten off his high horse.

Also - Obama got elected.  Not a huge surprise, although it did look like it might be a bit of a close contest in the days leading up to the election.  I couldn’t get behind him.  I’m not sure why - but I wasn’t impressed with his DNC speech in 2004, like most of America, and no matter what her faults, I loved Hillary.  But now he’s president-elect (can’t forget that one word… it’s not official ‘til Jan. 20) and after his acceptance speech and his immediate actions since, I’m starting to see what everybody else saw.  So I was slow to jump on the Obama bandwagon.  I’m still not 100% sure that he can get it done - he’s inheriting a really large, really ugly mess and I’m not sure this is something he could handle even in two terms successfully - but he’s given me hope. I haven’t felt that way for a long time.  Not just because he broke through the racial barrier, although that’s important, but because he immobilized the people in this country in a way I haven’t seen since the rampant wave of patriotism, of pulling together, in those dark days following Sept. 11.  I still get all verklempt thinking about it.  I saw in the news that Jesse Jackson had been there when Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed and seeing him in tears in Chicago, watching the realization of King’s dream, was powerful.  More powerful than a lot of things we were exposed to that night.

“And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream…

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day…”

See the full text of King’s speech here.

I’m here—just distracted

I know, I know.  I vanished off the face of the earth. Again.

Living my life offline has suddenly become a job that requires time and a half. It’s strange.

The only good news is I’m done with school and I’m graduating with a 3.85.  That’s summa cum laude—the highest honor you can get at my school.  I get the diploma in January and will walk in May.  The only reason I’m walking is those three little latin words. I want to show off, and by damn, I deserve it.

I just had business cards made up and they have this domain on them, so I guess that means that I need to start blogging here again. The back end over here is due for a severe upgrade and I want to redesign the site so that it fits “the brand” as it were.

Now that life is calming down, I plan to be over here a lot more. Honest and for true. 

SAVE THE BOOBIES!!!

It’s that time of the year.

Pay to see ‘em, show ‘em off, donate, donate, donate!

However you choose to help, it’s important to SAVE THE BOOBIES!