Jami Hands Out Treats of Wisdom

Here's what I have to say after what seems like days of Trick-or-Treating:

1. A three-year-old who takes twenty minutes to get from the living room floor to the front door when you're in a hurry can cover a truly astounding amount of territory in just under two hours, when candy is at stake.
2. If you are going to be home on Halloween, get some candy, you cheap SOB, even if it's one Hershey's kiss per kid. If you're too much of a Halloween Scrooge to even do that, turn off your dang lights and sit in the basement so that little kids who are all excited don't waste their time going to your door and knocking, waiting, telling their Mommies "I hear talking in there, Mommy." Just get the dang candy. Jerks.
3. If you're not going to be home on Halloween and you are going to leave your front porch lights on, with all the decorations up so it LOOKS like someone is home, then I'm not going to stop my toddler from peeing in your shrubs after doing the pee-pee dance on your porch for 3 minutes.
4. When all you want is a Clark bar, your kid will never pick that one out of a bowl, even if it's the only non-Clark bar in the bowl.
5. Apples and raisins are not candy and you're not fooling even a three-year-old. And, the Husband wouldn't let Eddie eat the apple, even though I know which house it came from.
6. There are so many places now to wear your costume/get candy that next year we might not trick or treat at all (if we could get away with it).
7. If you accidentally put the glowstick necklace inside the Spider-man costume, it glows is just the wrong place, making it look like Spidey has a large glowing, uh, webslinger. Like you're about to see a comic-book porn gone wrong. It's disturbing.

Halfway through the evening, Eddie started telling candy-givers "Thank you, have a nice trip!" I don't know why. The parents would look out at me, standing on the sidewalk in my black cat ears and I'd shrug and wave and say "Happy Halloween. Have a nice trip!" This is probably why our neighbors don't talk to us much.

Happy Halloween! Have a nice trip!

Jami Thinks It's Just Too Cute Not to Share

As Eddie was getting ready for bed, we realized that his Sunday School lessons are starting to sink in. A little. Moving his dinosaur around the room he was singing "Jesus loves me, this dino!"

Jami Loves Clark

It's ONE day to Halloween and I can't wait. No, I don't have any cool plans. I don't even have a costume. I have a serious need for a Clark Bar. I have been thinking about Clark bars for about a week now. I visualize it. I can almost taste it. I told the Husband yesterday, "I have dibs on the first Clark bar" which confused him because we hadn't been talking about candy or trick-or-treating or anything. Today, in the grocery store, I considered buying the 8 pack of snack sized (only $1!!). Summoning all my strength, I managed to put the pack back down. Eddie already has a bucket of candy, from Zoo Boo, the borough parade, the library story time, the grocery store scavenger hunt, but of course no Clark bars. All I can say is that one of the neighbors better be packing the Clarks or we'll be making a trip to the store tomorrow night.

Jami Worries about White and Wrong

Have you seen the commercials where they show you the two socks, one washed with "detergent only" and one with bleach added? If you haven't, I'm sorry to spoil the ending, but the bleached one is white. Blindingly, shockingly WHITE. (I tried to make that text white with a black highlight, but the code I know didn't work in blogger. Anyway .. .) Yes, the other sock, by comparison, looks a bit dingy. It looks, well, like a sock that has actually been worn. Oh dear! Am I cursing my family to wear less-than-white socks? Yes. I surely am. Don't get me wrong, as a nearly germ-a-phobe, I'm a huge fan of bleach. I bleach the sinks, the toilet, the tub, all sorts of things. But I don't add it to my whites. Why? Because it's not needed there. That sock in the commercial? Pause your TiVo or DVR and put your hand over the shiny white bleached sock and take a look at the other one. Looks fine. See, without the immediate comparison, it's totally clean and white enough. So why would I pour a good germ-killing cleaner into the washing machine when no one will be looking that closely at my family's socks? Bleach costs money (this is why they want you to use it, in case you didn't understand their motivation), and I have never, in my life, noticed that someone's socks are clean, but not-quite-as-white as they should be. This also reminds me of the old "ring-around-the-collar" commercials. I found them slightly disturbing: 1. What IS that ring?? Are these business men wearing make-up or something? 2. How close to my husband do you have to be to discover the ring on the inside of his shirt and if you're that close, I think we're going to have a bigger problem than some phantom ring. 3. Has anyone EVER noticed anyone else's ring around the collar? If so, did you immediately think "Gee, his wife must be a sucky laundress?" Or did you think "Dang, that guy needs to shower more?" which is what I personally would think. That's all.

Jami Has to Rant

I hate to get down on my coworkers, especially when I haven't met an estimated 99% of them, but this was one of those things that makes me want to cry. The long-story-short version is that our division was sold to another company, so everything's the same except the name on our paychecks. Of course, they want to slowly change everything, but they're not going to tell you that. We got a survey from the new company last week, about our connectivity (you know, like "do you have a high-speed connection, if so what kind? What operating system do you run?" etc.) Every single day since that survey went out, I've had at least 2 survey results form some ding-dong who "Reply All"-ed. Sigh. the first one I got, because it had the survey in it at the top, (yeah, he cut and pasted his responses BELOW the survey) I thought I was getting a resend because I hadn't responded fast enough. Nope. I get to the end, see Peter's results - he has FIOS, if you were wondering, but doesn't know his operating system - and realize he's whoopsied. Then I see that there are three more. Then more the next day and the next. Look, we've all done this once, but for this sheer mass of numbers, clearly these folk make a habit of hitting that good ol' "reply all" button. Maybe that button should required a code. "Are you really authorized to respond to all these people?? I don't think so, what's your code?" Sigh. Now I have to weed out all the "Here's my answers, everyone!!" mails from the actual important work crap.

Jami Doesn't Recommend It

I have to admit, I'm a big fan of home remedies. I'm sort of a "fight with all you got" kinda girl, so when I have a problem, I like to attack it on all fronts, with the traditional "western" medicine and whatever home remedies make some sense to me. Example, the rubbing Vicks on your feet - no, that doesn't make sense. I can't smell it from there and all it's going to do is relax my feet. When I have a cold, I hit with the Zi-Cam, then whatever cold medicine I have around; steam, Vicks, rest, hydrogen peroxide, heat pads, and as I mentioned here - McDonalds double cheeseburger and Mike's Hard Lemonade. Therefore, I'm always listening for new home remedies to try. In a store yesterday, I am busily scanning things and minding my own business when a nearby woman has a coughing fit, that cold that's going around now. Her friend says "Oh, you gotta try this, my sister-in-law just told me about and swears by it." I perk up my ears (figuratively), prepared to commit it to memory. Brace yourself, because this one is a doozy. "Okay, so you get three Halls, just the regular ones. You put them in a mug and pour a can of Dr. Pepper over them so that it starts to melt them. Then you put it in the microwave until the Halls are all melted and the pop is hot and you drink it as fast as you can. She swears it totally cures any cold." And your appetite, I'm guessing. Cured mine just hearing it. That can NOT be good. While I am sure that the Halls already melted is good and warm liquids always help a cold, but I'm going to take a pass on that one. Did my McDonald's cure last week - works every time. I'll stick with that.

Jami Weighs In

Howdy folks, my apologies for being gone a week. The next couple are going to be busy ones indeed, so we might be missing each other more often than I'd like. Anyway . . . EDW's post here about her weight reminded me that I've often thought about posting about my own. The truth is, I don't know what I weigh. I have a general idea, but when I did weigh myself, I got obsessed with the number, not the health. I soared or crashed over tenths of a pound, sometimes getting on the scale several times a day. Not a good thing. I get on the scale once a year, at the doctor's office. I have not had a lifelong struggle with weight that others have, or at least not the same way. See, until I was 18, I was the skinny girl. Really skinny. Even, I have to say looking at some of the pictures, unhealthy looking, though I wasn't doing anything to keep the weight off - just fast metabolism. I ate, and ate and ate and ate, mostly the bad stuff. Almost no veggies, especially none of the green ones. Carbs like crazy and soda until I fizzed. And still, when I graduated high school, I weighed 108 pounds, and stood 5'7". And I hated the way I looked. Yes, I know that every teen is insecure about their bodies, and maybe I'd have felt that way even with the body of any current teen popstar, but I've never forgotten how I felt looking at all the other girls, filling out and looking more feminine, even the heavy ones, while I retained the same figure I'd had at 8. I couldn't feel beautiful in any dress, with no cleavage and no curves. Fat girls might be fat,but at least you can tell they're girls. I'd put on a bathing suit and think, "this might as well be wrapped around a stick." I am sure that if you were the fat girl in school, you find it hard to believe that it was painful to be the skinny girl. That while you were eating that Twinky to feel better, so was I. I got teased, too, and it hurt as much. I tried on clothes and cried, too. I looked at the cheerleaders and hated them, too. About halfway between 18 and 19, my metabolism, probably tired after 18 years of going double-speed, all but ground to a halt. I filled out, then got fat. Several things combined to make this happen: 1. At first, I loved that I was gaining weight and I definitely wasn't going to stop the process that was finally making me feel hot. 2. I love to eat. 3. I hate to exercise. 4. I was in college and the cafeteria offered a variety of tasty starch/grease/fat filled foods. And I saw one of the special ed kids put his licked finger back into every contain in the salad bar, so that was out, forever. 5. I am a comfort-eater and it was my first year of school. So, before I knew it, I'd passed up "hot", gone to "jiggly", then "chunky" then Moo. But here's the thing, while I had the odd moment of "oh man, I'm fat", mostly I felt pretty good. I am certain that a good part if that can be attributed to my maturing and growing into myself. There were times I tried to drop some weight, but always for the wrong reasons and often the wrong way. It never "took" because my heart wasn't in it. I didn't want to be that skinny girl again. I hated her body and I love this one. Now I've dropped two pants sizes and feel pretty good about it. I have done it not because I want to be skinny, but because I want to be in good health for my family. I have been eating a little smarter and exercising more. I'm never going to be that skinny girl again, but I'm getting back to super-smoking hot. I mean, I'm already adorable, a few more pounds off and I'll be unstoppable. Interestingly, the Husband met me when I looked like the stick and proposed when I jiggled all over - he claims to think I'm hot no matter what. And that's what's important to me.

Jami Wonders About the Price of Food

Sure, the price of food is increasing. If you haven't noticed, you're oblivious or so rich you don't care. I'm a big fan of the store-brand/off brand/generic type stuff, usually good and much cheaper. There are things I am willing to pay a little more for. Example: I buy Diet Coke. I bought the Aldi's brand Diet Fizzy Medicine Flavored Metal Water, but I didn't care for it. Caffeine addicted as I am, I couldn't even finish the case of it, even when I was totally out of other pop. I don't mind paying a little more for companies I can get behind. I've been hearing commercials for Food From the Hood, a company started in a garden of a city school which now helps kids afford higher education, through the magic of capitalism. Anyway, their commercials are disturbing to me, just a bit. One line is "Buying our salad dressing sends a kid to college." I haven't seen the cost of their salad dressing, but either these kids go to incredibly cheap schools, of their dressing is well out of my price range. I'd like to suggest to them adding the word "helps", as in "buying our salad dressing HELPS send a kid to college." See, a little clearer. To sum up, food is expensive, some food is worth it, but no one condiment should profit enough for an entire college education.

Jami Expects Caped Crusaders

So first off - in Florida, it's illegal to be Batman. Sad, but true. However, this leads to a subject I've discussed with the Husband several times, the lack of actual costumed vigilantes. I am, frankly, shocked that we haven't yet seen a "superhero". Not super in the sense of mystical superpowers, but more along the lines of Batman (excellent physical shape and neat gadgets) or even just Punisher. In this day of comic book geeks moving beyond the scrawny nerd and electronics development dashing ahead in leaps and bounds, I can't believe that there isn't some guy out there with some good fighting training, some cool non-lethal weapons, a secret persona and a score to settle (or something to prove). The downside to having a superhero about is that they always attract nemesis, and this leads to collateral damage, as illustrated in Hancock. However, even if your superhero is cautious in his actions, take a look at any of the Spiderman, Superman or Batman movies and note the destruction of the locale. Not good. I often wonder if Metropolis insurance agencies offer SuperBattle Insurance to cover the damage to your building should a supervillian throw a bus into it. So, in summary, I'm surprised we haven't seen a costumed hero yet, but I don't want ot live in a city where a superhero lives, because while they do seem to be pretty helpful overall, they attract baddies who want to test their evilness against the legendary hero, often in messy ways. UPDATE: How wrong I was! See here.

Jami Says, You Gotta Work

A knock at the door yesterday turned out to be our teenage neighbor, with a clipboard. Ah, we all know what that means, right? Time to order hoagies or purchase ornaments or chocolates or something along those lines. Sigh. But I was there and my son will be there, so let's see it . . . "Hi, we have a teacher at school who has two kids who have cystic fibrosis and so the basketball team is raising money for the cystic fibrosis foundation." "Okay," I reply, waiting for the pitch. "So, uh, any donation you would like to give ..." Donation? I couldn't believe it. I queried further, "Just donate? You don't have to run laps or shoot baskets or anything?" "No," he tells me, looking vaguely confused, "We're just collecting money." Well, folks, you can call me crazy, but this is exactly what's wrong with society today. People just want you to give them stuff. Don't get me wrong, between band, choir, swim team, youth group and girl scouts (up until 8th grade for the scouts), I did my fair share of fundraising. But we had to do something for the money. Wash cars, make hoagies, some sort of "a-thon" which required us to attempt to do something for a longish period of time - swim, walk, etc. I even did a radio-a-thon in college during which I stayed live on-air with my radio partner Marcus for 26 hours. (NOTE: this is a BAD idea). The point I'm making is that yes, we did something that may not have been of actual value to the person giving the money (walk-a-thons don't help the giver much) but we put forth effort. We exerted ourselves in the spirit of "earning" the money. I gave the kid $3. It would've been a fiver if he'd had to do something to get it. I should have made him dance on my porch or something. Am I wrong?

Jami and the Husband Celebrate a Dozen Good Ones

It's our twelve-year anniversary! Happy Anniversary, the Husband! Whew, 12 years. I can't even begin to list all that we've been through. Marriage is great, and hard. It's fun and easy and ridiculously challenging. Instead of a post about marriage, or how great the Husband is (which is "very") let me just tell you about the beginning of our wedding ceremony, 11am, 12 years ago . . . In my giant princess dress, with my hair and make-up done, I waited at the bottom of the stairs to THE AISLE with my daddy and M. The bridesmaids were starting up the stairs, the mothers and grandmothers had been seated. Music trickled down the stairs and I fought the bizarre feeling that I was in some sort of musical. We had costumes, music, lines, blocking - it's a play . . .right? Not the most important day of my life to that point. As usual, when I'm just past nervous, I had my normal thought "I'm going to pass out. No, puke. No, puke and then pass out." I thought of all the people who'd be staring at me (yes, I like to be the center of attention, but I'd never done this before), of all the things that could go wrong in the service or the reception. I thought of what "until death do us part" means when you're 22 years old. And I followed M up the stairs. I held onto my daddy, who managed to keep it together way better than I will at my kid's wedding. At the top of the stairs, my friend Evvie saw me and waved. I smiled back, wondering if I looked like someone about to faint. M started down the aisle. The music changed, the congregation stood, and we walked up the last step and around the corner . . . And I saw the Husband. And I swear to you, everything I'd been thinking feel away. No fears, no worries, no fainting. I forgot about the reception. I can't even tell you what anything at the front of the church looked like because all I saw was him, and that's all I needed. I can still summon that feeling when I close my eyes and see that moment in my head. Imagine 10 radios in your head, yammering on about fears and concerns and just noise and then, they all go off at once. That's what it was - absolute clarity. Absolute right. Followed by 12 years of proof of that. And more to come.

Jami Is Happy to See Him Go

OJ Simpson - finally, finally going to jail. I'm big on justice. Yes, he is going to jail for his robbery, his thug-like, stupid armed robbery. He did that and he deserves to serve time for that like any other person would. However, I can't even hear his name without hearing, in my head, Kim Goldman's heart-breaking sobs 13 years ago when he got away with the murder of her brother, Ron and Nicole Brown Simpson. I truly do not understand how people have wanted to be around him since then. Wanted his autograph, a photo with him, or just to shake his hand. He's a murderer who thought that he could do whatever he wanted to whomever he wanted and suffer no consequences. Don't believe me? Read his own book "If I Did It" where he confesses. Oh yeah, he says that ONE part of the book is made up, read it and ask yourself if you believe that he made up that one little section. So, I hope the judge sentences him to as many years as the laws allow. He can't be sentenced for those murders, and I do believe in following the rules, even when they aren't what I want. And I sincerely hope that he spends his time in jail seeing the faces of the people he murdered, and their loved ones who still suffer. That's all.

Jami Gets Better, In Her Dreams

I'm sure I've mentioned that I have lots of very vivid dreams. A small percentage of those are nightmares, though when I do have the bad ones, they are bad. Around the end of high school/beginning of college, I learned a different way to deal with those ones. For most of them, when I wake up, I calm myself down and try to think of a way I could have handled it better, and/or gotten out alive. For example, should I have stood and fought instead of run? Maybe I should have walked away when I got that first uneasy feeling instead of waiting around to see what would happen? At first, it was just a way to sort of get my head out of the scary place, but then something started to happen. Weeks, or even months after I'd had the nightmare, I'd have it again - but I'd use the solution I'd come up with. Usually it would work and I'd escape. Cool, hunh? I thought so. Just in the last year, though, I've started fighting back in the dreams themselves. Catching onto the danger faster and reacting smarter. Last night I had a disaster-movie, terrorist-attack style dream and early in the dream, before things got scary and before most viewers of the movie would have figured it out, I realized the danger and got myself and someone else out of harm's way, even rescuing someone else later. I don't know what that means, other than maybe all my contingency planning is finally paying off, if only in my dreams. I can't know how that will translate into a real emergency, except maybe I'll think it's a dream and take care of business. Hopefully, we'll never know.

Jami Likes Meat, but . . .

Saw this in a specialty store near our house. I know they carry a lot of hard-to-find meats, but really: Of course, you see if you look down a little that it is indeed a cheese. Now, I'm not sure if it's made from the milk of chihuahuas, like goat cheese is made from goats' milk, but I will definitely keep it in mind the next time I'm looking for white natural melting cheese, authentic mexican style.

Jami Wants to Know What's Up With the Braille

I get braille on the elevator buttons. You never know which floors are L and M or B or whatever or which number the floors start with. That's helpful to blind folk. They can find the right floor. Braille on menus is great and I even sort of get it on the restroom doors. It's nice to be able to be sure you're going into the right one, even if you can't see what might be inside. It's all these other signs, almost randomly placed in buildings, that have braille on them that I don't get. Like the No Smoking signs. First off, pretty much any building you're in that's not a private home is non-smoking, so you can follow the basic, "if I'm indoors, I shouldn't smoke" rule, and if you're a blind person and you don't know if you're in or out, you have bigger problems than needing a cigarette. Second, the signs are always in the middle of a wall, at eye height. Ever see a blind person strolling down the hall running his hand along the wall up at eye level? No. That's ridiculous. I've seen the same sort of thing with "Staircase" signs, floor number signs and more. At some trolley stops there are with the name of the stop on them, in all different places - several I've seen are well overhead. One, I kid you not, is in the median area of the driveway leading to the parking lot. So you'd have to be walking IN THE ROAD to stumble across this sign, which you would then stop to "read" (while hopefully not getting hit by a commuter rushing to get the T) to find out that you are near the station. Of course, this will do you little good since it doesn't tell you which direction the station is in. My personal favorite of all time, from long before I had a cell phone with a camera on it, was "No Parking". Nice big No Parking sign, with the appropriate (I'm guessing) braille beneath it. What would a blind person be parking?? Or, I guess, NOT parking?? I hold out hope, deep in my soul, that the braille actually said "It should be safe to stand here, but don't count on it - people never read these signs."

Jami,Fashion Victim

Now that Eddie's in preschool at our local high school, I often make use of the track while he's in class. It's so much easier than trying to find a reasonably flat route around my house and I love the springy-ness of the track. Anyway, because of that, when I dropped Eddie off the other day, I wore a jogging suit and a ponytail, no make-up. I pondered as I crossed the school campus how horrified I'd have been, looking 20 years into the future from the time I was starting 9th grade at that same school. I clearly remember the day I could not get over the fact that my mother planned to spend the whole day (in our own home) in a jogging suit. What if a BOY stopped by? What would he think when he saw her? (no, I never considered why a boy would be stopping by my very out of the way house on a Saturday morning, unannounced.) I remember moaning into the phone to a friend that even when I was old I wasn't going to dress like that. But there I strolled, dressed just like that. Of course, these days, even the cool kids dress like that. I'd've died a thousand deaths before leaving the house in my PJs, but now girls go to the store in the them, sometimes slippers, too. Track suits were for old people and the occasional mafia dude, now they are hip. Where's the effort? Sure, it's more comfortable and you can make a case that we looked a little ridiculous in the 80s, but we put work, thought, planning into looking that ridiculous. You didn't just throw your hair in a ponytail! You moussed it and teased it for 30 minutes, then coated it with a 1/4 inch shell of hairspray. You had to peg-roll your jeans, layer your socks and be sure all your collars were popped. You had to put on enough make-up to actually make your head heavier. You had to find earrings large enough for birds to perch on. It took time! It took effort! We looked totally awesome, and it showed. This goes double for rock stars. Take a look at Kanye West, Coldplay, the Jonas Brothers. These could be totally normal people you see walking down the street. Now, compare that to Poison, Motley Crue, and the Bangles. See the difference? There is no question these people are special. You can't always tell which are the men and which are the women,except when the men wear vests with no shirts underneath. And we're not even going to talk about Boy George or Flock of Seagulls. Conclusion? Fashion is silly, no matter what. But at least in the 80s, we worked at it.

Jami Makes Dinner Roulette

I've mentioned my grand gardening experiment this year (in that I actually attempted one). The first things in were the last to produce - the pepper seedlings thinned from my in-laws. What kind of peppers, you ask? I did, too. "Various" my father-in-law told me. Hmm. My favorite kind. I ended up with three types growing: your standard green bell, some small wrinkly hot looking ones, and very pale yellow ones. Sort of long and smooth, a bit pointy. My FIL suggested that they might be lemon peppers, which, according to sources online, are mild and somewhat citrus-y. Interesting. After picking one, dicing it and popping a chunk into my mouth (BAD PLAN!!!) I decided they were not lemon peppers. Apparently they are banana peppers which, despite the name, are not at all banana-flavored. The diced pieces got tossed into some ground meat I was browning for shepherd's pie. My theory here consisted of the following thoughts: 1. the dish is sort of plan to begin with, so a little kick will be nice 2. peppers lose some of their heat when you cook them 3. they are in small pieces, so they'll just sort of blend. At least two of these may have been wrong. I served dinner, and the Husband and I dug in. After a few bites, disappointed, I mention that I'd hoped adding some peppers would liven the pie up a bit. The Husband doesn't answer because he's gulping down his milk. I take another couple of bites and then BAM! hit a pepper. Whooo -hooo! That little kick felt more like whole soccer game. My turn to gulp the milk. At this point, dinner became a sort of game of chance. Will this bite be mild or knock me on my butt? Only one way to find out. It was an exciting meal.