Wednesday, January 23, 2008

OH! and the big girl learned how to ride a bike!


Due entirely to the ministrations/generosity of the QBGF and without training wheels! My Big Girl Boo is a rockstar!

Turned 40! Got Fired!



It's a mixed bag really.I mean the birthday part is nice. Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me! I'm REALLY happy to be 40 -- i love feeling like i finally get to play in the big leagues. Plus, my GF and CP and Big Girl all conspired to whisk me away to a birthday breakfast this morning which was beyond sweet and I got THE BEST B-Day card EVER from the Big Girl after which i pretty much lounged around all day so.... all really very nice and none of which would have been possible had i still been at THAT place but still. Sucks to get fired even if you know it's coming. Also sucks to have not quite as much of a "buffer" cash-wise as you'd like but c'est la vie. I got to leave when i wanted instead of waiting for those idiots to decide I was no longer of any use to them and I got to have the world's best birthday nap and I just got an e-mail from my dissertation committee wondering if I'm available to have my final proposal hearing "this week or next" so.... again, can't really argue with the timing. Or with how good it feels to not have to drive two hours both ways just to get picked on for dumb stuff. Or with how shocked/concerned/mad everyone seemed to be -- ending with me getting lots of references and recommendations and stuff. Upshot = I think this thing accomplished what it could (got me employed again/through the holidays/more contacts "in the biz"/a coupla fat bonuses) but I still have to say it feels really good to be done with that place.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

And when you think 40ieth B-Day presents for your ole pal Chick...



Think this.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

useless...


You know what? Sometimes i have NO idea why my GalPal puts up with me. Did she not leave early this morning in order to get some work done so that she might be more able to do me a HUGE favor vis a vis my truck not getting towed and did I not mentally ruminate upon that very fact at the exact same time I was locking the door behind me/realizing I'd left the keys to both the house and her car (which she was sweet enough to lend me) inside! And, yes, i did have to then call her and beg her to come all the way hoem from work to let me and the now freezing 4.5 year old which i am still (for some random reason) being allowed to parent inside to retrieve aforementioned keys. And yes she did come all the way home. And no, she didn't even look at me weird. {sigh} nice that i have the world's best GF -- sad that she cannot say the same.....

in other news, I turned in the little kid's school application to start Kindergarten this morning (yay!). on time and everything (Due entirely to the reminding/prompting of the Daddy Bee, I might add....) I actually turned it in at the #2 site (the #1 choice being the site where the Big Bee girl currently goes) and i just have to say, it seems like Oak-town gets a bad "schools" rap but i actually didn't have all that much trouble finding 5 public schools that I think i'd be more than happy with for a variety of reasons. #2 is like a smaller version of #1 but with a kid-generated and tended garden and the kick-assest principal I've met in awhile. #3 is Dual language Eng./Spanish with an extended before and aftercare program and a "doing instead of reading" about approach to community involvement for the kids. #4 is also a fantabulous school (which actually scored higher on the various school assessment websites that litter the internet) which also sports the added draw of hosting the BBQ's Miss Rose -- it is, however farther away than my other choices so it got some "prioritization points" knocked off, not only because of the added commute time but because of the reduced liklihood that the folks from the current graduating kidcare class would turn up in Spark's K class. (not impossible but still unlikely.) Last and certainly least I put some random school that is fine in most respects (not great or filled with people Spark already knows but good academically and reasonable in terms of class size and API scores) which is science intensive, and which was recommended by some chick who gets coffee at the same time i do at my local coffee place (she's the intake coordinator, I think) and which goes through 8th grade so if we liked it we'd be set through Middle School which is nice to think about.... so. basically, i'm thinking we'll be set no matter where we go. Assuming we get one of our choices. if not, I'll just head on down to the district office with the rest of the pissed-off/entitled parents and kick up the hugest stink this planet has ever seen! ;-)

Monday, January 07, 2008

Well there you go!


So, this just in: the lovely and venerated BBQ will be toasting her bunny-bun-buns down in the Mexico for the next several weeks! Reaction #1: Sah-weet! Reaction #2: um.... why wasn't I invited???

K. I will table the jealousy for the sake of the children and wish her the best. All the best BBQ/J-mo! Hope your vacay is Fantabulous!!!!!!

right. moving on. The mom came. She got hurt. She left. Why, (Why!) am i incapable of hosting the primary parental unit without sending her home in pieces????? Ah well. Prolly her bad for continuing to keep trying to come out here.

{sigh} the parts where she wasn't actually in the ER were nice though. Din-din with the QBGF and her mom, sloshing through the rain, opening late X-mas/early b-day gifts, trying not to react in horror as the puppy essentially forgot every single element of his "training" and proceeded to bury himself up to his wiggling hindquarters into my mom's lap as she smiled gamely/attempted to prevent his razor sharp claws from drawing blood.....

anyway. "the accident" didn't occur until the final day and was (in my opinion) handled quite dexterously by the folks at the San Leandro ER so -- one short knee brace and 5mgs of morphine later and she was good-to-go for her plane ride home! :-)

God. Have i mentioned lately how very extremely tired i am....?

Thursday, January 03, 2008

happy New year!


Thanks to everyone who stopped by to make the New Year's eve shindig at Chez Magnet/QBGF such a rousing success. I love you all and am delighted that (for whatever reason) I can still convince such quality people to hang around me and drink!

It's been a very long while since the last post so i feel like i should be doing some major updating... thing is -- i'm tired. So. instead i will follow the advice of my ernstwhile Freshman college prof and "utilize bullets more" (which, now that i've written it, doesn't exactly illustrate any outstanding grasp of the ways in which one might go about constructing a superior example of a grammatically correct sentence but whatever. At least he had cool hair.) Right, without further ado and in no particular order, the news:

1) I'm tired right now because i was having sex last night. really nice sex. with my GF. in the bed we're sharing. Every part of that is making me pretty sillily happy right about now.

2) My mom is coming to visit tonight. She'll be staying through Sunday. I think it'll be nice.

3) My little girl is getting a tour of Pixar right now. her kidsitter knows someone who knows someone so... she is proverbially "in like Flynn."

4) I'm completely (sort of) moved out of the old place and into the new. Feels good to be (sort of) done. like i can focus ont he new house/helping the QBGF move the rest of her stuff now.

5) Work still sucks but I've got two potentials I'm following up on so that's encouraging.

6) {blah} really, quite tired. i think i'm gonna wrap this up. more later when i've had some sleep. :-)