It amuses me, from time to time, to look back on my blog to see where I've been. For sheep and giggles, I thought I'd post a collection of my August 21 posts, starting back in 2001. Where there wasn't a post on the 21st, I went back to the day before.

It's interesting to see how much my life has changed through these posts. How much my voice has changed, and how much *actual, honest to gawd* progress I've made.

I'm putting the series here.

xposted from www.wyliekat.com

[Aug. 21st, 2001|09:35 am]
Have office, will travel

this is really friggen irritating. I have to pack up my office (for the third time in the ten months I've been here) and be relocated for a week, after which I have to unpack it again. I also have to get the quarterly newsletter out, the monthly newsletter, the bi-weekly advertorial and answer complaints from the folks out there. AND, I have to finish coordinating the next bloody meeting, complete with notices to all of the people in three apartment buildings (delivered by my hand to their doorstep). This on top of the pile of crap the boss left hanging for me.

ARGH!

Meanwhile, the boss is off sunning himself in Minneapolis.

I need a new job.

Now.

[Aug. 21st, 2002|03:22 pm]
Thinkin

There is a definite difference between thinking about something and having something get you ta thinkin.

A couple of conversations I had "got me ta thinkin" about death. Specifically, the slow death delivered unto the human race in the form of terminal cancer. So many people have suffered by proxy of it. As much as the physical pain of it must be wretched for the cancer victim, inasmuch as knowledge of certain death within a certain window must be horrific to cope with, it appears to me that the loved ones suffer worse tortures. Except, of course, that once the disease has taken it's final toll, they still go on.

Having said that, I've frequently wondered what I would do if faced with a prognosis of that nature. Would I deny it until it was too far advanced to ignore? Would I push for aggressive chemotherapy and drug therapies regardless of their usefullness? Would I go through the gamut from holistic to ethereal treatment alternatives? Or would I, like my aunt's boyfriend, simply refuse to give the disease any room in my mind or in my brain and thusly, go into a miraculous remission that is seven years and counting? Or would I use it as a way to leave this life, tired and sore and simply wrung out? Is railing against the fates somehow satisfying? Are you ever fully sure you've said everything you want to say?

Bah. As it turns out, I don't really have thoughts. I have questions.

[Aug. 21st, 2003|03:16 pm]
And so it continues
Gots me a call today about the second step in the long process to nowhereville re: job. This position, much like the one I was competing for last spring will demand a lot of time and energy and likely already has an inside person who's going to get it. I don't think I'm being negative about this, just realistic. The job that Hubby has was the selfsame process and he was the inside guy.

Anyway, I go the second step next wednesday, which will be followed by another month or two of delay, unless I miss my guess, followed by the actual interview, if I make it that far . . .

Ah well, it's an opportunity and I'll give it my best.

Lots of studying to do between now and then.

[Aug. 21st, 2004|10:11 pm]
VoicePost
103K 0:30
"How do you spell relief? Well, I guess most of you would do it the old fashioned commercial way, but the way I spell it is, ‘oh my god, the third floor suite is done!' I hadn't realized until after we'd finished it that uh, it'd been hanging over our heads for over five months. So Halle-frikin'-lujah, third floor suite is all done. Anybody else wishing to thank any other deity source is more than welcome. I hope you all are enjoying your weekends; I will enjoy mine much more now."

No post on the 21st.
[Aug. 20th, 2005|01:36 pm]
Dearest Cleetus,

Get out.

Love,

Mum

P.S. I'm not kidding. Get out.

(Cleetus the Fetus was Rosebud's in utero name. As it happens, she was born a mere seven days later. Seven days, to a very pregnant woman, might just be the most maddening length of time ever created.)

[Aug. 21st, 2006|02:27 pm]
Can't I just have my rye in liquid form like the other kids?
Well, I've got a quasi-tolerable draft of my first ever freelance agricultural piece. Hold me back.

Actually, I gotta say, it was unsurprisingly informative and surprisingly fun to do. Living where I do, ag is the lifeblood of the community in some ways. A large number of my friends and acquaintances sprung forth, dewy-eyed and lamb-like, from farming homes. They often speak casually of that lifestyle, like they're unaware of having absorbed a veritable (and sometimes literal) cornucopia of information about a whole way of life (not to mention industry).

For someone who grew up in the city and was delighted for years to know what a "volunteer" was in ag terms, this was a good and fun education. It's also nice to be praised by an interviewee for making a connection between things that might not be immediately obvious to the laywoman.

File it under "kinda cool, but in all probability highly useless in my future life", Alex.

Speaking of improbable, I attended my first ever live fantasy football draft on Sunday. I picked up a team that is respectable, though Hubby thinks I'm going to have major problems in the running back area. Hells, who isn't this year? It was fun, though, once the menfolk got used to my presence and realized that I can trash talk with the best of them.

No post on the 21st.
WTF!?!
[Aug. 20th, 2007|08:02 am]

I took Rosebud to get photos done on Saturday. The timing of it wasn't ideal. Closer to noon than anything, which means, of course, closer to the dreaded naptime. She started off the whole process totally uncooperative. After a judicious application of toddler social lubricant (aka puppetry and toys), she started to get a little bit happier. The combined efforts of one hand puppet, one photographer dressed in hot pants and high heels and one slightly sweaty mother seemed to pay off when we got our first successful picture.

*FLASH*

My darling daughter, not quite two years old, snapped her head up right after the flash went off, zeroed in on the be-hot panted photographer and said, clear as day:

"Whadda fuck?"

Cue screeching silence in the little studio. Picture, if you will, the horrified look on the photographer's face (who, after all, was wearing hot pants at a Sears photo studio and really had no room to judge, dig?) and the even more horrified look on Mama's face.

Me, all I could do was stammer "that can't possibly mean what it sounded like. I don't think that's what she said."

Lame, lame, lame. Transparent parent excuses. Somehow, I have a not quite two year old who can give ‘tude better than I can.

Now imagine how much worse it got every OTHER time she said it. Which was every time the flash went off.

The puddles of sweat pooling on my face. The shamefaced look boring a hole into the carpet. The photographer/tart's look of smug judgment.

And then, a beam of light came down from on high. Picture taking Lulu suddenly had a eureka moment.*

"Oh! Where's the frog!", she said, instantly producing the small and rather tattered hand puppet she'd used as a coaxing device in the early part of the activities.

I'm sure I could be forgiven for the chorus of hallelujahs and a few moments of motherly pride for my non-potty mouthed child that ensued. Sure, she may be cranky and whiny and generally uncooperative, but hey - her language is as pure as the driven snow.

Still, denizens of my f-list, I say verily unto you:

Where's the frog?!?

*This is good because she was clearly impartial, but bad because I wasn't able to produce the translating triumph. Bad Mama. Not quite as scum of the earth, white trash as before, but still . . . tsk, tsk, tsk.