Tennis Anyone

I had a great tennis weekend--it's the French Open. Now that Safin is out, I'm rooting for Nadal. All the Americans on the men's side are out anyway. On the Women's side, Lindsey is still in, but Sarapova (finetically spelled) is looking pretty good, so either one will be fine with me. Tennis started at 3 a.m., but I did not get up that early. There was a rain delay on Sunday, but I did catch the end of Nadal's match on Monday at 7:20 a.m.. I know it's a coincidence that it rained in Paris on the same day that it rained in Glendale, but I like that kind of global kismit.

I re-read the Emily of New Moon series, Shop on Blossom Street (I think that's one that Gretchen read a while back) and an old Nora Roberts that somehow I missed and now I have nothing to read but stinky old Moby Dick. Boy this is going to be a long summer. Maybe I'll start feeling Jane Austinie and I'll re-read all of those books. I wish I could feel Michnerie, because I have about six of those that I haven't read, but they're so big and so Michner. Right after Moby Dick.

Pink Kitties

What on earth, you are saying to yourself, unless you happen to know that the girl scout cookie incentives this year are all pink kitties. We have pink kitty braclets, pink kitty cargo pants, pink kitty tee shirts, pink kitty plush toys with a recorder inside and pink kitty beach towels that are shrunk to the size of a hockey puck that you then put in water and it comes out to a regular size (they are heavy too!). One girl who sold over 1,200 boxes gets a digital camera which made Marisa pine for the good old girl scout cookie sales days. There is a patch for troops that sold 2005 boxes in 2005 that is just a square with 2005 in it. Pretty tame, but then there's a theme patch shaped like a cat's head. I only had 12, so I called to find out what it was--it's the 2005 in 2005 patch for adults, because the adults will want to remember that this was the year of the kitty no doubt. I didn't sell 2005 boxes of cookies, so I don't get one (of course, I can probably talk one of the other leaders out of theirs).

I went to a funeral today for one of my clients. He passed away yesterday, so I was thinking the funeral would be Friday or Saturday, but he's jewish and the funeral was the very next day (today). The first thing that struck me was that the prayer book was backwards. Is it backwards because parts are in Hebrew and that's supposed to be read backwards? Is it backwards because the printer made a mistake and the funeral home doesn't want to go to the expense to have it printed correctly? I don't know. The next thing that struck me was that there are no head stones--they are all flat. Finally, the rabbi invited all of us to throw three shovels full of dirt on the casket to be truly part of the funeral. Is that to save the poor workers a little work? Do they get paid less? Some people took little tiny shovels full as a mere token, but others really filled the shovel up with dirt and flung it over the casket. It was very curious and reminded me a little of reality tv, since I really didn't know any of these people, but I was viewing a rather significant event in their lives.

Tonight is a rare night off of meetings, but I have nine boxes of girl scout incentives to count out by troop, so it's not really a night off. This weekend I have no plans other than to celebrate Adam's birthday whenever Adrienne says it's time, and to get an oil change, and maybe wash the car, and change the water filters, and clean my closets to get rid of the clothes I don't wear, and I'd like to wash the silverware--it's all filmy, and my desk really needs to be straighted out, and all the troops have to come over and pick up their incentives, and I'll need to go grocery shopping (on a shoestring) and make spagetti sauce, and go to curves (they are open on Memorial day, yeah!), and start getting the supplies together for girl scout swaps training that I'm doing next month, and put together packets for 2006 corporate sponsorship--I need to find really neat purple folders--I've got a great picture in my head, but I'm not so confident that the stores have had my vision, and that's about it--a nice relaxing weekend. Maybe I'll go to the library and get a book to read.

Bingo-not

I didn't win at the YWCA silent auction (thank goodness, because I'm broke), of course it is rather impossible to win when you don't sign up for anything, but still I didn't win. I didn't win at the Kiwanis major fundraisor--I only bought a tenth of a ticket, but still I didn't win. I didn't win the raffle at ABWA, of course I donated some of that crap, so it's just as well. I secretly suspect that my tickets were lost and never made it to the bowl because we drew about 50 tickets and still I didn't win a thing. And finally, I didn't win at Bingo--I waited three times and Gloria won (but split with five people) and Gloria waited once where the crying number was a winner for her, but I didn't even come that close. What an unlucky weekend for me.

So all my fundraisors are over. People have gotten over telling me they are sorry that I didn't win the election, but now they go on and on about how much weight I've lost. Over here living it, so anyway. I'm within four pounds of my goal, but the last few took over a month, so I'm not holding my breath. I am getting a french apple pie for a pot luck near my birthday, but I just looked it up and the regular apple pie is 865 calories for one slice. I guess I'll have a bite.

We're Havin a Heat Wave

Last night I went to the grocery store at 8:30 p.m. and across the street was one of those digital clock and thermometers at the bank. The temperature said 90 degrees and I thought, you would think that the bank would take just a little effort to fix their stuff--that just reflects badly on the bank. Yes the time was correct, but the temperature was so off--the lack of care in society today boggles the mind.

When I got home, I notice that Adrienne had the front door open and I thought it was a little odd. Then I went into my sitting room, or should I say oven. OMG it was so hot last night. It didn't cool down until much later in the evening, like 10:30. It really was 90 degrees outside and much hotter inside. It's freakin May.

Tomorrow is the ABWA Fashion show. The theme is daisys and I found a daisy cake mold, so I'm making a cake to sell at the bake sale. I will not lick the bowl or the knife that I ice the cake with, but I fear my subconscious is plotting to eat the sliver of cake you are supposed to cut off so that it will lay flat on the platter. The pressure... of cake.

Can I Get a Witness

I just heard on the radio that 8 million people blog. The commentator went on to point out that it's not the politest society either and that some comments are downright nasty and unsavory. Which led me to the thought--someone other than my family might be reading my blog--perish the thought. My feeling is that my family barely cares about my musings, what other person out in space can possibly want to waste the few key strokes that it takes to open it. And yet, I'm careful about key words without even breaking a sweat and since I know Dad will probably be reading, I'm try to be scrupulous about spelling. If only I had that grammar thing down.

I do like to toy with the idea of writing a book. It seems like a great adventure out there on the horizon. What better way to gear myself up for that adventure, then to write as much as possible, like exercise. Yesterday, Cliff Cate, my good buddy in Kiwanis was our speaker to tell us about his adventure in becoming a published author. We already have one pulished author in our club and both of them are Lawyers, so you know the old brain sat up to hear this talk. He started writing a long time ago and then had just hit a wall of writer's block and stopped. About two years ago, a friend in the club asked to read the manuscript that he had so far and after he read it apparently said, this needs a lot of work and so Cliffy got over his writer's block and got to work. He showed it to a bunch more of his friends who all made suggestions and changes and cleaned up the grammar and spelling and language. When he was finally ready, he bought a big book called how to get your book published or something to that effect and started sending the manuscript out to every publisher in the country. He described it as a lot of big thick envelopes going out and all but one big thick envelopes coming back. One publisher offered to let him pay to have it published, but he declined. Then he said to himself, I must need a literary agent--someone to fight for my book and really sell it. So he got another really big book that told would be authors how to find a literary agent. He sent out 130 really big envelopes to literary agents and got 130 back. Self publishing was begining to sound more savory. So he looked into self publishing houses--he wanted one on the West coast, but they can't compete pricewise with the East Coast and Midwest, so he finally settled on a Midwest house. He had a terrific call with their rep and started to feel really good about the decision. Two days later, that rep no longer worked there and he was talking to someone new. He went through five reps at that House. When you self publish, there's no editor--it's just you and your book. He wrote the thing in Word Perfect, the publisher house pulled it up in Microsoft Word and his draft was a mess. He hired an artist to do the book cover illustration for a lot of money and hated the end product. He ended up illustrating it himself (and he hinted that he gave away the story with the picture on the front, but I haven't read the book yet to tell how much). So he's put up all the money, did all the editing, the illustrating and now is hawking the book to the world. The publishing house is supposed to sell the book to bookstores which are selling it for more than Cliff was selling it for to us at our great Kiwanis Club discount.

Somehow that almost sounds worse than running for political office--I don't think I'm cut out for adventure, but I'll keep practicing just in case.

Hurry Up and Wait

I had to work on Saturday and Sunday this week to get a big project out that's due Tuesday. I cleared my schedule all day today and tomorrow and now the project was pulled. There's such a gapping hole now. I know I have stuff to do, but I also know that it can wait because I was planning on letting it wait until Wednesday already. Oh well.

Is it just me or is it impossible to find a sweater in the stores. Mervyns actually told me that they don't stock sweaters in the summer--it's freezing at night, what are they thinking? I work next to a mall--you'd think with that much selection, I'd have no problem. You'd be wrong. There is not a single ordinary sweater in the entire mall. I finally found an ok yellow sweater (not ordinary yellow either--kind of a muted, grayish yellow). I did find one black sweater, but it was $70 and it had frills all over it. The only white sweater that I could find was on the floor and didn't have a tag. When I asked for a manager they wanted way too much for the thing that should have been marked down a lot for the stains on it. I hate shopping.

I'm reading Moby Dick and now I remember why I've never read it before. Although it is very interesting writing, Melville is a lot long on philosophy and metaphysics. I'd rather go back to diet books.

TTFN

Whew

I was looking at the wrong fast food restaurant--it was the Great Potato Company that had the 1,125 calorie small fry. My Steak Escape is only 535--what a relief. (not so much actually).

Last night I won an award at my first official meeting as a member of Toastmasters. Of course they probably do that for new members--give them encouragement right off the bat, but it was still kind of cool. There is a section called Table Topics, where the Table Topic Master askes each person a question about the topic of the day. The topic was Mother and my question was to describe my favorite memory of my Mother and I. We had two minutes, so I embellished the memory with a few backstories and it came off rather well, but when I sat down I realized that I hadn't said either of the words of the day that we are supposed to work into our speeches. Oh well I thought, it's my first time. So I was pleasantly surprized to win the prize for best table topic. Must be my heartwarming Mom.

[Erika is saying, what was the memory? My first cruise, how Mom loves them and me not so much and entering the talent contest and practicing for three days with Mom doing great harmony and then performing in front of seven people on a ship of over a 1,000 and winning best Mother Daughter act. That was fun.]

I also went to Adam's baseball game yesterday. He is getting so big, but there's still a bunch of kids who are giants compared to him. They have a very good JV team and I got to see Adam play 2nd base (and make a very pretty zig zag play that caught the runner and got an out and covered 1st in a rather exciting play also), pitch and retire the batters one, two and three (though not by strike outs) and play right field (but I don't remember the ball going that way). I only saw him bat once, and he got on base, but he was out at second in the next play. His team won six or seven to three. There was a Dad filling out stat forms in the stands and I thought that's what I need to do, cause when Adam wasn't up it was hard for me to care. One of his friends from second grade is on the team so that was incredibly weird to have an image of a little seven year old and apply it to this giant kid.

I also (I had a very busy day yesterday) interviewed about the teaching job. It was more of me interviewing them to see if I wanted the job (a very nice position to be in). They have really cool ideas for the class and I offered a few more that were well received. This can be a lot of fun. Mike said that the teacher now is not very good and that kids see it as an easy way to get units, so that the first class I get might have discipline problems in it. But I said, I have my girl scout leader voice and I'll keep them too busy to have problems. Famous last words, but I'm not scared.

TTFN

Whaaaaaat?

I love getting into the car and having room left over on the seat. I was looking up calories in a new little book that I got (for free at the PTA convention) that tells you the calorie count for things at fast food restaurants. There are 1,125 calories in an order of small fries at the Steak Escape. That's without ketchup. That would be my whole freakin day's worth. I hope they are working on that pill that you take that magically removes the unwanted pounds and leaves muscle behind.

This morning was girl scouts--twenty very charming Brownies (third graders) all looking to me to teach them about being a patrol leader. They loved Fruit Salad (a variation of musical chairs), but my explanation that the game was more fun because of the enthusiasm that I added was lost on them. Oh well, sometimes fun can just be fun. They had never heard the bear song, so it was pretty cool to introduce a new group to it. My throat is raw, but it was totally worth it.

Today I am breaking down and I'm going to buy weekenders clothes. I was totally off buying weekenders clothes because they are not dressy enough and I got tired of them, but gosh darn it they are so easy to care for and easy to wear and pack and everything that the couple of outfits I have in medium are already my most worn clothes. I just can't bring myself to comfortably shop for clothes that fit. But this month we're collecting suits at ABWA for the Dress for Success project to help battered women, so my closet is getting cleaned out.

All of my groups and activities are coming to a hilt all at once. My list of things to do is three pages long and I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Oh well, I'm off--that three pages of stuff is not going to do itself.

Two Speech Day

I missed Toastmasters last night to go to the School Board to give out awards to middle school students on behalf of Kiwanis. All the school board members wanted to shake my hand and tell me they were sorry that I didn't win. The awards were for a National Current Events contest and I told the kids they were positioning themselves well for Jeopardy.

So I guess to cosmically make up for missing Toastmasters last night, today I have two speeches to give and they are not even the same speech. I spoke at Kiwanis about the campaign (with everyone saying afterwards that I shouldn't give up and that I should run again and I thought what do they think that Ardy's going to retire in 4 years--he's only 27.) Tonight I'm giving a speech about estate planning to an ABWA group. It's my Roseann and Dan Connors speech--I think it's funny, but we'll see. This is supposed to be a speech to get people to want to hire me to do their estate planning, but it's in Anaheim and I don't think too many of them will want to come all the way to Glendale, so it's really just for the free dinner--oh that's right I won't eat the dinner. Ok, I have no idea why I'm giving a speech in Anaheim--I must secretly want to sit on the freeway for an hour each way, oh and maybe they'll clap. That's always nice.

On the chance (100% probability) that I won't eat the dinner, I'm having a bag of popcorn--260 calories--damn metabolism. You have to feed it all the time.

Great Convention

One million members in California--PTA. I drove up to Sacramento this weekend to a PTA convention. I've been to lots of conventions and this was the best ever. The classes were really informative, well presented and attended by folks with really good questions. The actual business meetings were just like Girl Scouts with resolutions and points of order, questions from the floor, etc., but here there were a group of students that were very active in the resolution process and the arguments were well thought out and informative. On Sunday morning there was an amendment from the floor that inserted a word and the word "and" after it. That made the sentence gramatically incorrect and I was so into the process that I was personally offended when it passed. They later said that all resolutions would be edited for grammar, so I felt better. The drive was very pretty, green hills because we've had so much rain. A great trip.

Back home on the range, I received a packet to apply for a job as a part time high school teacher in law. It's a very complicated application, but no worse than all that campaign junk, so it'll be fine. The job could start this summer or next fall a couple afternoons a week. I don't know how Susan thought of me for the job, but I'm really glad she did.

Finally under the catagory of strange happenings, last night I had a heck of a time taking off my knee highs--they wouldn't come down off my calf without a lot of tugging. Seems the muscles in my calves are getting quite tough.