Lady Steele, modern superhero

Dear readers, it's me, Stephanie

2011-11-27T20:50:00.000-06:00

Hi there. I know you're wondering where I've been. I have missed our time together, to a degree, and I feel like I owe it to the four or five of you who keep showing up to at least say something about where I've been and what I've been up to.....

I trained again this year for the Susan G Komen 3-Day for the Cure. I walked two to four miles, nearly every day this summer, in temperatures pushing 86 degrees at 5:30 am each day. I put one foot in front of the other, again and again, for more than 600,000 steps on my pedometer.

I found, to my surprise, that the emotional and physical toll that I paid each day in perhaps the hottest summer Texas has logged in decades, has taken the edge off my need to write. In the past, I have used this little forum to air grievances, provide comfort, or numb the pain that comes with the day to day grind of being a grownup. The miles I logged this summer, however, have taken away my need to vent through writing. And for that, I'm sorry.

I have lots of things I'd like to say about my job and some of the people I work with. But since I like my job (even when I don't always like the people), I think it's best I keep my mouth shut. I have plenty to say about politics right now, but I also have a deep-seated need not to piss off those close to me, so keeping my mouth shut is probably the lesser of two evils. Things at home are good more often than not, so I don't have some huge compulsion to air the family dirty laundry online.

I still find things funny and totally share-able, but I'm doing all that sharing through twitter, 140 characters being not so much a challenge, and all... I still find my daughter to be the most amazing human being on the face of the earth. Part of me regrets that I'm not recording her history here, but part of me rejoices that the times she and I share together are ours alone, not meant to be chronicled for the unwashed masses.

Will I be back again, writing soon? It's hard to know. All is good within my soul right now, friends, and I feel like I need to honor that and spend some time away.

I hope you'll keep me on your RSS feeds or check back every now andthem.

My friend is leaving me

2011-07-15T09:57:00.001-05:00

Today is a sad, sad day for me, as I'm bidding farewell to my very best BFF at work. She's not leaving mad, she's leaving to go home, near her mother and her college age daughter. She's found a great job with a great company, and I know that this will be a terrific move for her, both financially and mentally.

But that doesn't make it any easier for those of us she's leaving behind.

She's been my lunch buddy for years, and although we didn't start out as besties, we have formed a wonderful friendship. She has been to me like a beloved sister, a confidant and friend. I've been, depending on the circumstances, her harshest critic and her most staunch supporter, and she has done the same for me. She's beeen my sounding board, and I trust her judgement and her insight.

Life is going to bring exciting changes for her, and I am genuinely excited to see her off on her new adventure.

But I know my heart will tug when I pull into our parking garage on Monday and her parking space is empty. Her desk will sit empty, her parking space lonely and unfilled until it gets a new owner. Meetings won't be the same, nor will lunch time.

No more trips to Target, to Ulta, a quick run to pick up sandwiches at the place I always call Roly Poly, even though it has another name. Even now, I can't conjure it, but she'll know exactly what I'm talking about when she reads this.

My heart will be very empty and I know I will miss her immensely. I'm hoping that through the magic of Skype and email, we'll be able to stay in touch. She's a friend for life, and although we won't have our daily time together, I will always know she is there for me, no matter what. And I hope she knows the same about me,

I am surrounded by reminders of her, from birthday wishes, sticky notes, and the kind of artwork friends share amongst themselves. Happy memories of inside jokes and time spent together will always be with me, even after she's packed up her Acadia and headed west.

So it's with more than a tiny lump in my throat that I say farewell to my friend.

I love you, KVC, and I'll miss you more than words could ever express.

Hugs,
S

Yeah, I know a rocket scientist

2011-05-02T22:36:00.000-05:00

As most of you know, I lead a simple life. I'm a wife, mom, laundress, chauffeur, chef, nurse, head cook and bottle washer. And during my free time, I work 40 hours a week selling things for "the man."

I am plugged into social networking of all sorts. Well, except MySpace, but I think we can all agree that one doesn't really serve my demographic effectively. As a 43-year old female, white, heterosexual, college graduate, full time employee outside of the home, I do have a Facebook account, a LinkedIn account, and *two* Twitter accounts. I am often recommended by various of these social networking sites to connect with folks just like me.

I get lots of people I went to high school with, and lots of former and current co-workers. Most of them are reasonable suggestions, except for the one co-worker that I really can't stand who keeps showing up on everything. But until today, I had NEVER had a recommendation to connect with a real live rocket scientist.

Imagine my surprise when I popped open LinkedIn and found that *I* had been recommended to connect with the Lead Systems Engineer for Payload Integration on the International Space Station.

Huh?

Yeah. You read that right. Lead. Systems. Engineer. HAH! I fancy myself to be a smart one. But International Space Station smart? Not so much...

Turns out my rocket scientist turned out to be the brother of my college roommate, who already has an exponentially more interesting life than me. And, a rocket scientist brother to boot.

I've enjoyed some quick little email chats back and forth, and he recently sent this photo to me. It's taken from the international space station, looking down on the earth far below.

Kind of makes my life feel a lot more simple....

It's not about the baby

2011-04-03T11:35:00.001-05:00

It was eight years ago last week that MrG and I found out we were expecting. For more than two years, I had craved the soft warmth of a baby in my arms, the coos and kitten mews, the little smiles that just happen sometimes. I wanted more than anything else to bring a life into the world so I could have just that.

We tried and we tried, then the doctors got involved. Then came calendars on the fridge and medication. And finally, I felt a little different than I had ever felt before. The next morning, I found a faint line on the home pregnancy test. It was the first time I had ever seen that line, although I had hoped for it for many years. A blood test confirmed it later that day. We finally had our baby.

Nine months later, our sweet little baby joined us. Looking at her, I could see a reflection of my own face, and that of the man I love. She was soft and warm and cooed and mewed. Sometimes she just smiled. And she smelled SO good. She filled our lives with a joy we never thought we would know.

Eight years ago, it was all about "having a baby" for us. "I want a baby. Everyone else has babies. Why can't I have a baby?" It was gut-wrenching to wait and wait every month to see if we were going to get our "baby."

But that was eight years ago. Those baby days? So fleeting and fast. I look back now and hardly remember the midnight feedings, the little onesies and the tiny little socks. Diapers and bottles are just a distant memory.

Funny thing. Our little baby turned out to be so much more than just a baby.

She is now a beautiful, precocious almost 8-year old. She has a new best friend every day, plays Slugbug, and knows all the lyrics to all the songs. She has spelling tests at school. Good gosh she's got the Beiber Fever, and she's infected me with it! We talk about bullies and college and boys, because talking about things now will make talking about things later so much easier.

In there somewhere is a glimmer of that tiny baby we brought home, but I only catch it when she is very very tired or not feeling well.

My mom reminded me yesterday of just how far we've come from those early baby days when she asked about Mr. Duck, the security animal LittleG counted on as a toddler. She rarely asks for him anymore, but when she was very very tired and not feeling well last week, it was Mr. Duck who helped calm her and get her to sleep.

It makes my breath catch in a way when I realize now that it wasn't about having a baby. We did that, finally, and she was a perfect little baby. Seven and a half years later, she is a perfect little 7-year old, even if she's the tallest in her class and wearing a size six ladies shoe.

I wish that I had known then what I know now. It's not about the Baby. It's about the Life you create...a tiny little child who grows into a petulant toddler, then into a precocious first grader.

I cannot predict for her what the future holds for us beyond this time and place, but I finally understand after all this time why my own mother has seemed so amazed by my own seemingly normal progression into adulthood, marriage, and eventually parenthood.

For you new moms out there cradling your soft, warm little bundles of joy, breathe in deeply the powdery clean scent of a new life, and open your minds to the Life that is to come. It's going to happen. And you're going to love it.

A Quiet Winters Eve at Casa Garcia

2011-03-18T21:57:00.000-05:00

As winter comes to a gentle end (or more accurately, a screaming stop), MrG begins his springtime preparation routine....put away the fire pit, bring out the patio furniture, fluff up the patio umbrella.

On this fine Friday night, we had some wood left to burn before he could feel good about turning winter into spring, so he lit a fire for the three of us. "Me Man. Me Make Fire. Ug!"

So, we sat on our patio, roasting our marshmallows and making smores. The birdies were singing, and the crickets were chirping.

Oh yeah, and the air conditioner units were humming all around us. Because today, the last Friday of winter? It was 85 steamy degrees in Irving, Texas.

So we sat around our fire, enjoying each others company and the last smores of the season. Then we went inside to freaking cool off.

Makes me wonder what July is going to hold.....

Some times copying others' work is fun

2011-03-17T09:41:00.001-05:00

Yeah, I can't write my own work, but I can dang sure point you (ha!) to someone else's post...enjoy!

Click here: Suri eats a penis.

Funniest Craig's List ad EVER

2011-02-07T13:30:00.000-06:00

I didn't write this, or even find it on my own, but it is really, really funny:

Originally Posted: Tue, 19 Aug 21:03 EDT

Live in Nanny Needed for 4 kids (Pls don't call them "Precious Ones")

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Date: 2008-08-19, 9:03PM EDT

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My kids are a pain in the ass. Just in the past hour, i have had to tell each one to do something more than once. oldest: can i have soda? it's just a sprite? please? can i? no, no and no.

the next one...don't even get me started. seriously.

the twin six year olds: one wanted dessert before her dinner was over, one kept wanting to know why I wouldn't let nine year olds swing her around by her limbs. (the fear of a dislocated shoulder did nothing.)

Please help me.

I can be a tad difficult to work for. I'm loud, pushy and while I used to think we paid well, i am no longer sure. i work from home, so you get the pleasure of being hounded by me all day long. and, you get to pretend to like me, because i am deeply sensative. (but well dressed and a know it all, a winning combination I assure you.)

If you cannot multi task, or communicate without being passive aggressive, don't even bother replying.

If you are the type who doesn't notice crumbs on the table, skip to the next post, because crumbs are a deal breaker. they put me over the edge.

i have all sorts of theories on how to stack my dishwasher, and if you are judgemental about ritalin for adhd, or think such things are caused by too much sugar, again, deal break city.

You do get a separate entrance excellent studio on the ues. you do get air conditioner and internet connection and cable. even hbo. and showtime. you can bring your spouse, roommate or partner, but sorry no kids. If you ask, can i bring my kid, the answer will be...anyone? anyone? No.

If you can cook, all the better. otherwise, i'll teach you all sorts of things about pasta. (Here's a freebie, butter and parmesean, mmmmmm)

If you know anything about chess and violin i will be impressed.

We are not snobs, which is good. but then again, my kid sometimes swears to make a point. (We're working on it, but halfheartedly, because, well the apple doesn't fall far from the fucking tree.)Although I am told they are all very bright, they have not mastered the use of the oh so complicated napkin. This is a napkin Junior, say it after me...Nap Kin. Good boy.

i am not looking for Super nanny, or anyone who wants this job because they will love my kids as if they are their own. you won't. really. they are infinitely lovable, but trust me, they're mine and you will move on when your journey with us is over, and save for some funny stories and a delightful email every now and again, you won't grieve. Nor will we. (okay, we did all grieve a few of our past sitters, oddly they were all named Sarah or Kate, or Nikki. And Leah. Leah was delightful, even if she did drop my twin babies off our couch during a family gathering. Good times.

I don't want someone who has a lot of theories on the right way to raise kids, because in the end, I'm just a woman doing my best. I'm willing to learn from you, or anyone, but not so much about how i should parent my spawn. teach me to knit. introduce me to yoga, the white stripes, russian literature or the best place to get a burger in the village at 2Am, but do not tell me to put star stickers on a good boy chart. stickers irritate me.

If you are fundamentally unhappy with your life, you will be more unhappy if you take this job, so do us all a favor and get some treatment or move to the Rockies, but do not apply for employment with us. Also, if you suspect all wealthy women are frivilous, we are not for you. I do not want to hide my occasional bergdorf shopping bag.

If you smoke, please quit. don't apply either, but please quit. i have known too many people diagnosed with cancer this year. Even if you are a judgemental nanny 911 wannabe, no one should have to endure some of the things I have wittnessed.

You gotta be able to drive with a valid license, but if you've ever hit a human,move to the next post. You won't have to drive in the city, but if we go to our weekend place together, or if you make it to the summer and still work for us, we need you to run into town to get some pink milk, so be able to drive a mini van.

Can you swim? Swimming is good.

If you do drugs or drink enough so that you are grumpy in the morning and grumpier at night prior to that next cocktail, call AA, and peruse craigslist childcare positions when you have a year sober. I'll probably be looking again, and now is the time for you to focus on yourself anyway.

I need a team player. I need someone to back me up when it comes to remembering when the library books are due, and whether i have rsvped to that birthday party yet.

Help me dear G-d keep track of our skim milk supply and also, also, also, what should I make for dinner tomorrow night?

the hours are 7 in the morning to 8:30 in the morning. We'd be in it together, getting the kids out with clean faces, brushed teeth and some food in their bellies. Doesn't that sound easy? Doesn't that sound doable?

Then come on back for a fun filled afternoon 2:15-8:15 of activities and playdates and snacks and dinners and homework and riveting conversations about global warming, hannah montana and guitar hero.

When you do get to go home (to that swanky studio and possibly a significant other or buddy) your time off will be respected. If I would like you to give extra hours, i'll ask. if you say yes, you get paid 15/ hour. if you say no, I will not fire you or hate you. Except if it is a school holiday or if i have a sick kid, then i might ask, and unless you have a final exam worth 2/3 of your grade or tix The Lion King, you may need to help out.

Okay, if you're still reading this ad, it means:

a) i am a halfway decent writer and maybe i really will get that book deal i'm yearning for

b) you need a job desparately

c) you think this just might be destiny, and that you could be one of the few, the proud, the potential babysitter of our dreams.

D) you want all the information about job requirements, so that you can write me emails about how I should stay home with my kids otherwise they are going to grow up to be sociopaths. (If my pen pal is out there, wassup? Found love yet? No? How 'bout that.)

best of luck to all of you in your search for a job. Seriously. Job searching sucks. No two ways about it.

RLS

•it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 804253499

Snowmaggedon 2011

2011-02-07T06:09:00.000-06:00

LittleG likes to type on the computer. Yesterday, this is what I found:

"I had the best time ever. I got hit in the face by my dad. It froze my face. I hit my mom and dad. It was funny. We hit the window and each other to."

I'm pretty sure she was talking about playing in the snow on Friday. Just in case, let's all try to keep CPS away from our house for awhile....

New Year Wish

2011-01-13T09:20:00.002-06:00

I wish I could take credit for this, but it came from my dear friend, MK....

Dear God,
All I ask for in 2011 is a big, fat bank account and a slim body…
Please don’t mix these up like you did last year.
Amen.

You know you've been married for nearly twelve years when.....

2011-01-09T16:21:00.000-06:00

It's cold and snowy here today, so I treated myself to a lazy afternoon nap. When I got up, it was cold in the house, so I bundled up in my favorite polka dotted bathrobe and nice warm slippers.

I shuffled down the hall and headed into the garage to get the chicken for dinner tonight out of the beer fridge.

My beloved, upon seeing that I was about to get a healthy dinner started for us, called out to me and said there was something else he wanted for dinner instead of the beer can chicken I had in mind.

I went to him in the den, and he took me in his arms, which I knew after 12 years of married bliss meant that he was about to ask for something I was likely to nix.

He looked at me in my icky fleece pants, big polka dot bathrobe, and nap head, and I could tell from the look on his face that I had looked a bit more put together than I did just in that moment.

Thinking I could diffuse the situation with a funny quip, I said to him, totally tongue-in-cheek, "you wanna hit this, don't you?"

To which my brilliantly funny husband replied, "with a hairbrush!"

Tweet, tweet

2011-01-08T17:06:00.000-06:00

Seems like a whole blog has been a bit beyond my reach lately. But 140 characters? I can pull that off. Follow me at Twitter ... sdfgarcia

Yeah, I know it's not very inventive. But I was techno before techno was cool, so I didn't know I needed some cool hip hop twitter (or blog) name.

I've been thinking about blogging, but it just hasn't happened.

Keep checking in, eventually my words will find their way out of my mind and onto the screen.

Happy New Year!
Lady Steele, aka sdfgarcia

The Sky Is Falling!!

2010-12-08T06:41:00.003-06:00

Yep, I'm a Texan. It's 40 degrees here right now, and our local ABC Affiliate has already started with the Winter Weather Closings page. LOVE it!!

New Beginnings

2010-11-29T20:40:00.002-06:00

I find myself oddly at peace right now. If you knew, dear reader, what kind of day I have just endured, you would find that sentence wildly out of place. Usually, my life is a whirling dervish of do this and wash that and pay this and be there and don't forget that. Today was my first day back after a very long holiday away from work - thank you HW for that - and it played out just about as I expected it to.

I came back to a stack of emails too complicated to answer from my iPhone on the road and voice mails that I am ashamed to admit I didn't even check. Many of the questions required brain time and research and tactful language, all of which I find difficult to muster when my instinct is to go go go go go, do do do do do. And yet, I found time to think things through, investigate, and respond diplomatically. Well, to most of them, barring that one guy I told to take a long walk off a short pier using really, really nice words.

Anyway, by all accounts, things should be crazy for me. But here I sit, with the television off, with LittleG and MrG parked in front of their respective electronic babysitters, while I tap on my keyboard and try to pull all of those words I have floating around in my brain into some sort of coherent little ditty.

And what do these words in my head want to talk about tonight? The implosion of the married world around me.

Everywhere I look, I see women whose marriages have fallen apart. One fell apart years ago, but for whatever reason, this couple stayed together. Together in a home filled not with love, but apathy, for more years than anyone should have to bear. My friend finally called Time of Death and pulled the sheet up over the carcass of her unhappy union.

Another friend, whose life is so much like my own that I keep checking with MrG to be sure he's happy, saw her marriage self destruct some months ago when her husband abruptly announced he was no longer in love with her, then promptly moved out.

A blogger that I read and for some reason feel like I know, even though our paths have never crossed, had the rug pulled out from under her when her husband revealed one infidelity, which ultimately led to more stories of infidelity and some deep deep betrayal from someone very close to her.

Another friend who has lived apart from her husband for nearly as long as I have known her finally had him served with divorce papers. The final chapter in a long sad story.

These women have all had the "till death do us part" taken out of the equation. Suddenly, they are no longer defined as Mrs. Anyone. They are free to come home from work as late as they wish, cook whatever they want for dinner, or make absolutely nothing. They can clean the house, or not. Or watch whatever they want on television. Or go to the gym, or work in the yard, or see movies with their girlfriends. Their lives, once dependent upon the whim of another human, have become their own again.

Of course there is the other side....there's no one there to cut the grass, no one to change the light bulbs, to share life's dreams and goals, to be a partner. I've got news for you. If you're stepping out on him or he's stepping out on you, that shipped sailed a long time ago.

What's remarkable to me about all of these stories is that these women seem remarkably resilient. Life has handed them warm shit pie, and they've just squirted whipped cream on it and gone about their business.

My first friend filed for divorce and escaped a loveless marriage. She has found someone new and is happier than I have ever seen her.

My sister from another mister has flourished, no, reveled, in her new life. She's traveling now and totally unencumbered by He Who Shall Not Be Named. Her children are adjusting, and thankfully, she and HWSNBM are civil enough to co-parent two really great kids.

My blogger friend (can I call her that if I've never technically met her?) is happier than I have ever seen her, and I have been reading her work for years. Many of you know her, because you link in from her blog. I think you would agree that life is much, much happier for her now, and she is almost oozing a sense of optimism, during what should be the darkest time of her life.

My friend with the on-again off-again spouse? Well, I think she's finally moving on, too.

All of these women have put one foot in front of the other and slogged through the muck. And while it's not all bluebirds and butterflies, they are happy more often than not. It is resolve? Have they just been beaten down so badly by life that they have hung their heads and given up? I think not. They have found whatever it takes to get through a really, really tough time. And I think beyond a doubt, that once they come through it, they will be stronger, and surer, and happier than ever.

So why would I call this post New Beginnings when all I've really talked about is the end of these marriages? Because my friends aren't looking at this right now as the end. They all see this as the beginning of their new normal, how life is going to be from here on out. The world is theirs now, from the color of the paint on their walls, to vacations they choose, or new loves if life so deems.

And while I have been terribly torn over the demise of these relationships (it's never easy to watch a marriage dissolve), I am truly optimistic for each of my friends that, as Max Ehrmann once wrote, "the universe is no doubt unfolding as it should."

So I am going to be happy today with what I've got. A really hard job and a marriage that, while not always a bouquet of roses, is at least intact. And I will celebrate (if that's even the appropriate thing to do) as my friends jump off and begin their new lives as Ms. Someone.

Go hug your spouse tonight, or your divorce attorney, whatever the case may be. Oh yeah, MrG? I love you!

60 Miles. 3 Days. The Experience of a Lifetime

2010-11-19T23:38:00.004-06:00

I have not put pen to paper, or in this instance, keyboard to screen, just yet, because I just don't know that I have the words to describe my 3-Day Walk two weeks ago. But I have to get it out there, even if I don't do it justice.

Remarkable. Inspiring. Gut wrenching. Amazing. All of these words, and many more. These words aren't just for the three days I spent on the walk, but for the nearly 10 months I spent getting ready.

I walked this year, truly, because my friend Shelly walked for me last year, and I knew she wanted me to go with her. I didn't think I could do it. I honestly didn't know when I signed up that I would even see it through. She was so right to ask me to come along, because it was life changing for me.

My sister, after some degree of cajoling (I believe I stopped just short of begging) came down from Chicago to walk with me. Having her here with me, encouraging me, walking beside me, sharing a tent for those twelve minutes I was actually awake, was a huge factor in me getting through the experience.

My friend Vicki walked with me most mornings this summer, at the butt-crack of dawn, in unbearable heat and humidity. She never complained, and she never once backed out on me.

Friends, family, clients, and businesses I frequent made donations. Some more than I ever would have expected or imagined. My precious baby girl brought me a fist full of one dollar bills one evening, saying, "Mom, this is for your walk." Sometimes total strangers took me by surprise by donating, some of them very, very generously. I asked everyone I came in contact with for a donation. And then I asked some more. At the end, I had raised over $6,000.

My dear sweet friends at work supported me and encouraged me and put up with me talking about the walk again and again and again.

MrG was tireless in his efforts to be sure I was properly outfitted...sleeping bag, camp pad, blow up pillow, a funny little flashlight to wear on my head. Heaven knows he has no idea what I spent on shoes, shirts, socks....and since I do sales and not math, not even I will ever know.

After all the training and fundraising and worry, the first day of the walk dawned clear and cold. Bundled in layers, adrenaline flowing, we finally began our walk. We encountered shortly an elementary school with students cheering, flags waving, and pink balloons floating in the air. It was here the lump formed in my throat and I swallowed back tears. That lump stayed with me all three days.

All along the walk, cars passed us, honking, waving, sending encouragement from inside their warm little cocoons. Homeowners came out, offering candy, water, encouragement. Cheering stations were set up along the walk path, and sometimes I think they just randomly formed, like a flash mob of love. You cannot imagine how much the cheers of strangers can mean when you're trying to put one foot in front of the other, over and over again.

I will never forget what happened shortly after lunch on Friday. We had a chance to sit down, take off our shoes, wiggle our toes and rest for awhile. We ate a healthy lunch, rehydrated and headed back out. It is so much harder to start once you've stopped. About a mile or so in, I honestly thought I was not going to be able to make it. We came around a corner, and I saw on the right two signs. One said "Go Stephanie," and the other said "You Can Do It." Jokingly, I said to my teammates, "I am going to pretend that is for me - it will keep me going." Right about that time, Vicki, my summer walking partner, jumped out and hugged me. It kept me going all right, just as it's making me tear up as I relive it right now.

We finally made it to our campsite that evening where some lovely college students pitched our tents for us. It's good they were there, because my legs were so sore that if I had knelt down, it might have taken 911 to get me back up. We had a hot meal, a hot shower, and slept very, very soundly as temperatures hit a low of 39 degrees.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Day 2 was cold. We got an early start after a hot breakfast and walked hard. We had enjoyed light chatter and laughter for most of the walk, but after lunch, we all sort of pulled inside ourselves, willing one foot in front of the other again and again. Saturday was very hard as the physical and the emotional effort weighed heavily on all of us. The high points on Saturday were the cheering stations, and of course our Walker Stalkers, my BFF and my mom.

God bless them. They were there for us at every stop, bringing coffee, cookies, mom kisses, and allowing us to offload layers of clothing as the day warmed up. I will say this without hesitation. I could not have done this without them. Just knowing they were 2 or 3 or 4 miles down the road was enough to keep me going, and they cheered us and fed us and encouraged us all along the way. I will never find the words to tell them what their support meant during those three days. LittleG and MrG were honorary Walker Stalkers on Saturday and Sunday, and seeing my sweet baby girl and her Daddy really lifted me up when my spirits were down.

Somehow we made it back to camp at the end of Day 2, fed ourselves, showered, and fell again unconscious in the cold night air. We woke on Day 3 where some nice Boy Scouts helped us take down our tents and get our gear to the gear trucks, and after breakfast, off we went again.

The trip on Sunday was shorter, and when we finally arrived at the finish line, we walked across it together, hand in hand with our team, and went through a group of crew and other walkers who cheered us in. I can't tell you what it's like to have a thousand or so people cheering you on at the end.

We cheered the last walkers in, and they got us lined up to move into the closing ceremony. Because I'm a survivor, I separated from my team and moved into a holding area with the other survivors. The sea of white shirts parted as those of us in pink walked through, and thousands of women celebrated our success. I will never forget what it felt like to walk through the applause and tears, through the sea of white.

I could write for hours and still never describe what I saw or do justice to what it felt like to walk those 60 miles. Men in bras and pink skirts, women still bald from chemo, crying as we passed them on the street. Men holding signs thanking us for walking for their wives. Thousands and thousands who cheered for us. Popsicles, candy, even hot french fries and ketchup, shared in love with total strangers.

I have thought for some time that I do not want my life to be defined by breast cancer. I got it, we caught it, I beat it. My life was never in danger. I had some extremely frightening times, some painful ones. But this thing was never going to kill me. And yet, I get to wear the badge of Survivor, to walk proudly in my pink shirt, surrounded by people celebrating my success.

I raised over $6,000, and I did it without cheating, or without backing from national corporate sponsors of the event. I got up on summer mornings, when I much would have rather slept in, and walked in the heat. I stuck my hand out and asked for money again and again. From friends and family and strangers. When that wasn't enough, I asked more people. I bought a sleeping bag, for the love of all that's holy!

I walked more in one day than most people walk in a week. Then, I slept in a tent. On the ground. In the cold. And I got up the next day and did it again. Twice.

My blisters and sore muscles have healed. Physically, I've recovered. But I don't know that emotionally I am there yet. And I'm not really sure I want to be.

I don't want my life defined by my breast cancer. But my breast cancer walk? That's a different story. I am proud to say I challenged myself physically and emotionally and I did something I never truly thought I could do. Besides becoming a wife and a mom, it's the biggest thing I've ever done. And it was life changing.

So thank you Shelly, Rhonda, Leigh Ann, Vicki, Mom, Jimz, MrG, LittleG, and countless donors, supporters, and cheer squads, for the experience of a lifetime.

Editors and grammar snobs, rejoice!

2010-09-24T09:21:00.001-05:00

Today, friends, is a big day. Many of you won't know this, and most of you won't care; I will share my excitement nonetheless.

It's a big day for those of us who deem ourselves "grammar geeks." Celebrate with me, if you will, the 7th Annual Punctuation Day®. The Official National Punctuation Day website says today is "A celebration of the lowly comma, correctly used quotation marks, and other proper uses of periods, semicolons, and the ever-mysterious ellipsis."

Can I get an Amen?

I don't make my living writing, thank God! And I don't make my living editing. But I do appreciate a finely written piece, properly punctuated and spelled correctly. I have no tolerance for newspaper articles, web news, blog posts, and user comments that are just grammatically wrong. How can these people publish this with their names attached?

I'd like to think I don't make punctuation mistakes, ever. I know, though, that I'm totally guilty of misusing and overusing the ellipsis. Maybe I'll make that my plan for next year: to learn to use the ellipsis correctly.

Or maybe, I'll just keep doing what I've been doing all along, standing in judgement (privately of course) of the horrid writing I see so often.

I'm seriously hoping there is a "National Your/You're Day," followed quickly by a "National I/Me/Myself Day." That would SO rock!

Do all of us grammar geeks a favor if you will - if just for this one day - and try to use those little punctuation marks correctly. We'll work on spelling and proper pronoun usage when the time comes.

Love,
Lady Steele
English minor and grammar snob (EMAG)

I'm a pink warrior!

2010-09-05T11:07:00.004-05:00

I haven't written much about my upcoming 3-Day walk, because frankly, training for it has sucked up all of my time, energy, and words. I am training every morning with my neighbor, Vicki, who gets up way earlier than she has to because she knows I need the help. We walk 2-3 miles, beginning at 5:30 am, or as my best friend says, "the butt crack of dawn." Amen, sister.

I've thrown in a handful of 5 or 6 mile treks at the gym on the treadmill, and I almost always do hill intervals when I'm there. So it's not just five miles of flat boredom. I've also done some random 3-5 mile trips on my own around our neighborhood.

Yesterday, I took it to a new level. One of the local teams held a training walk - 14 miles. The group meets in a city north of me and the walk started at 5:45 am. Butt crack of dawn indeed, since I had to get up, get myself fed and dressed, and across town in time to walk with very perky people for much longer than I've ever walked at one time on purpose. One of them sang a team song. Egad. Another one brought an MP3 player speaker thingie, so everyone around her got to listen to her music. Cat rocks while she walks!

The first seven miles went extremely well, with the exception of a very steep hill at about mile 6.5. Once we crested the hill and my heart stopped feeling like it was going to burst out of my chest, my body calmed down, and I felt pretty good by the time we got to the halfway mark.

We rested for awhile, rehydrated, and carb loaded for the trip back. On the return leg, that nice steep hill was a lot better going down than it was coming up, but my body was challenged in other ways by trying to slow down the forward momentum.

I did just fine until about mile 10, and at that point, I was pretty sure someone was going to have to come pick me up and take me back to my car. My bag, which previously felt so light, began to weigh me down, and I could not find a comfortable way to carry it. The sun, all 82 degrees of it, felt white hot on my exposed skin, and I felt like it was laughing at my feeble attempt to shield myself with only SPF 85. I was sweating - honest to God sweating - my clothes soaked through, and sweat running into my eyes. I was decidedly feeling not so fresh.

And that's when I started to feel the dreaded "hot spot" which indicates a blister is forming. On the top edge of my right heel, an excruciating little burn grew bigger with every few steps.

In the dark of the morning, I had failed to notice that we were walking downhill for about the first mile.You guessed it; that means the last mile was uphill. And a damn long last mile it was. I fell further and further behind the front of the pack and had to stop more than once to cool off.

But I made it.... 5 hours and 45 minutes later... hot and sweaty, sunburned and pale, somehow both at the same time. My heart was racing, I had sweat running into places I didn't know I owned. But I made it. And I wasn't the last person to make it to the finish line.

I was a rickety mess for the rest of the day as the lactic acid moved in and out of various muscles. Physically, I was exhausted, but mentally, I was doing jumping jacks and push ups. I took only a brief nap, about an hour, while LittleG enjoyed some time with a friend. After that, I felt like I ought to at least be awake and in the same room with her, even if I was being still and quiet.

I dreaded how I would feel this morning, but as morning dawned and I began to stretch into my day, nothing really hurt. I've been up about three hours now, and my shoulders are sore, but my legs and back feel pretty good. My blister still hurts like a mo-fo, but I think I'll live.

So while that last four miles felt like torture and I was so sure I would never recover, today I don't feel so bad. I'm so glad I took the time and made the effort to make this walk, and hung in there even when I thought I couldn't make it. It showed me that not only can I do it, but the morning after is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

But Lady Steele, you might say, you only walked 14 miles, and just two months from now, you'll be walking 20 miles a day, three days in a row. Well, dear reader, some things will be different on the actual walk.

I will not have a heavy pack to deal with. That one thing, more than any other, affected how well I walked and how I feel this morning. I learned my lesson about what I need to carry, and what I don't. I do not need an entire day's worth of calories in various varieties. Power bars, carb bites, electrolyte jelly beans and gooey packs on their own don't weigh much, but an entire side bag filled with them is total overkill. We stop every three miles, so carrying an additional 24 ounces of water is a waste of energy. My BFF will be at all the stops, and if I need to jettison jackets or pants, she'll be there to take them from me so I don't have to wag them around with me.

I will prepare better for blisters - I will be moleskinned, band-aided, padded, and protected. A blister will not be the reason I don't finish.

I know that whatever pain I'm feeling while I'm feeling it is short term and will pass.

Finally, my sister will be there with me. And while she is in much better physical shape than I am, she has said she will walk beside me at my pace for as long as it takes. So even if we are the last ones to make it in, by God, we are going to make it together.

I have four requests, dear reader. First, please donate to my cause if you can. It's easy...just click the "Donate" button on the 3-day widget to the right. You can pay online with a credit card, or print a donation form to mail in with a check.

Second, if you have been touched by breast cancer, whether you've fought it yourself, or loved someone who has, I will walk for you or your loved one. Even if you don't donate! Put the name of the person in the comments below, and let me know if this person is a survivor or not. I'll have these names on ribbons, hanging from my pack, so others will see them as I walk, and so they are a constant source of encouragement to me.

Third, any time you're driving and you see a group of people walking together, such as might happen when they are training for a walk, please please please honk your horn, wave like crazy and shout words of encouragement. You cannot believe how much the simple acts, like these, of total strangers, makes a difference to those who might be thinking that they just won't be able to make it. And if you're the couple in the silver Honda CRV who passed me yesterday when I was just about to throw in the towel, thank you. You might be the reason I made it.

Fourth, if you've not done so this year, please go get a mammogram. Yeah, it sucks. It is embarrassing, uncomfortable, and can be expensive without good insurance. It was a regular screening mammogram that caught my cancer. Mine was caught early, and consequently, my life was never in danger. Had I waited or skipped the mammogram altogether, the outcome might have been very, very different.

I have just two months to go until the event begins. I need $1,400 to get to my fundraising goal, and at least three more good training walks. For more information, go to www.the3day.org/goto/StephanieGarcia. Keep those cards and letters coming, friends..

Pink out,
Lady Steele

Ahhhhhhhh!

2010-08-25T09:16:00.000-05:00

A picture is, indeed, worth a thousand words!

Whoopeeeee!!

2010-08-24T06:19:00.000-05:00

You can't see me, and it's a good thing, because I have been skipping around my kitchen in a sweaty sports bra and shorts.....this is what the weather guy has in store for us, and I am absolutely GIDDY with excitement!!

I might need a hobby.

Drop it like it's hot

2010-08-22T21:08:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year in Texas again. The ground is parched and cracked, and if you listen closely, you can almost hear it begging to be watered. The long grass along the highway, formerly regal and tall, is now brown and leaning plaintively, having surrendered its last drop of moisture to the hot summer sun. Trees are drooping, long fields of grass have gone brown in the heat. Even the swimming pools, which usually provide some cooling relief, are superheated. For more than 20 days this summer, we've been over 100⁰. We had a streak of 100⁰+ days that ran for 18 days in a row, and it's beginning to wear on all of us.

My favorite euphemism for the heat is "hotter than the hinges of hell." Apparently, I've used that phrase a time too often, because my officemate recently sent me an email with these phrases. Nothing else, just these. She made her point.

Hotter than a hen in a wool blanket
Hotter than a two-dollar pistol
Hotter'n love in hayin' time
Hotter than a nanny goat in a pepper patch
Hotter than a nun's bug
Hotter than a half-made fox in a forest fire

Anyway, it has been hotter than the hinges of hell, and all of the above. At this time of year, electric bills soar, tempers flare, and we all just wait for good news about cooler days ahead. And I think that's what we got this week....

That's right, folks, I am excited about highs in the high 90s. How damn hot does it have to be to take a screen shot of your weather forecast, especially when temperatures that high would have the majority of the country calling uncle? The answer is...very.

A couple of weeks ago, I was out picking up dinner when a summer storm popped up unexpectedly. Big fat raindrops fell from the sky, and I kid you not, everyone in the lobby went to the window to watch the few drops that made it to the earth. I stepped outside and drank in the smell of fresh rain, if just for a moment. While I was out there, a little girl in a white car rolled her window down about two inches, stuck a tiny hand out and caught raindrops. I envied her because she touched the rain, when I just got to smell it.

I heard on Friday, I think, that summer only lasts for 35 more days. It's a shame I can't just huddle in the dark, curtains drawn and ceiling fans swirling, until the final days of heat pass. But I will get up every day and head into the heat and wait for cooler days ahead.

Soon, the hot days will pass and we'll be looking at a nice mild winter while the rest of you dig out of snow for three months. But for now, my life sucks more than yours.

I'm off to find a slurpee and a hand fan.

California Gurls, indeed

2010-08-05T11:33:00.001-05:00

2 backpacks...........................................................$40
School supplies.......................................................$56
School uniforms.......................................................$143
New shoes, three times............................................$174.89
Lunches...................................................................$372.50
Watching your mom humiliate you at graduation........priceless

2 women charged in kindergarten graduation brawl
Associated Press
Posted on August 5, 2010 at 9:05 AM

VICTORVILLE, Calif. (AP) – Two women have been charged with misdemeanors for a fight that led to a brawl during a Southern California kindergarten graduation ceremony.

San Bernardino County investigators say the women were arguing and it got physical in a field near the June ceremony at Puesta del Sol Elementary in Victorville.

Several men got involved and the incident turned into a brawl, forcing school officials to place the school on lockdown until deputies sorted things out. No one was hurt.

Court records show misdemeanor charges have been filed against 31-year-old Queiona Burt and 29-year-old Marina Ruth Vargas.

Prosecutors say they face up to six months in jail if convicted for interference with peaceful conduct at a school and 90 days in jail for unlawful acts committed on school grounds.

I'm from Texas, and we usually reserve our humiliating bar fights for places like bars.

Maybe those Daisy Dukes and bikinis on top are a bit much. Or is it the sand in their stilettos? Way to represent, California!

Happy Birthday, Baby Sister

2010-07-22T09:30:00.000-05:00

I can't ever remember a time without her. 41 years ago, my parents brought a tiny baby home and introduced me, still a baby myself, to my little sister. I don't remember life without her, so as far as I'm concerned, she has been here my entire life.

Her job, although I was two years older than she, was to protect me. She protected me at night, kept my piggies safe from the big bad wolf, and everything else that goes bump in the night. As family lore tells it, she kept me safe from most things that go bump in the day, too. She was always the brave one. She kept our room clean, let me sleep with her when I was scared, and took care of me when I got sick in the night.

Although she's younger, it seems like I've always lived in her shadow. She did everything better than me. She cleaned house better (I regret I never got the urge). She made better grades. The teachers liked her better. She had more friends. She was better with the boys. She managed her money better.

She definitely snuck out better, as our mother discovered late one summer evening when she came in and found me tucked safely in my bed, with my sister nowhere to be seen. It was some hours later when my sister snuck back in and tried to slide between her covers, only to find Mom laying there, mad as a wet hen, and I'm certain just as disappointed. I don't think I made it any easier for my sister when I tried to console my mom by telling her, "don't worry, she does this all the time." Oopsie.

My sister saved me from some terrible decision making when she drug me off to college with her before what should have been my junior year. We lived together for years after, laughing hysterically as only sisters can do. I will never forget one morning as we were reading the paper, when she asked me with a quizzical look on her face what in the world a "toe-aster" pastry was. "Toaster pastry?" I replied. I will never look at a pop-tart without thinking of us, sitting at our kitchen table, laughing until tears rolled down our faces.

The Toe-Aster pastry is just as funny as the time we came home together in her car. She drove a stick shift, and for some reason, I was driving that night. We'd just driven three hours with a squirmy puppy in the car and were rounding third base headed for home when I exited the freeway and inconveniently forgot to downshift. The car lurched wildly, my sister frantically held on to the puppy, trying to tell me what to do, while, I, confused as hell, hysterically yelled, "This is not my car!" as I tried to avoid killing either us or the car. Good times indeed.

For some reason, despite the fact she seemed better at most things than I, she often turned to me for advice growing up. I always gave it. Some of it good, some of it not so much. When she had a big decision to make about her career a few years ago, she called me and we talked for a long time about it. It struck me as odd that she, stuck between the offer of a partnership at her CPA firm and an offer to be a CFO, called me to discuss her options. After all, she's the one who did my taxes, and she knew damn well what tax bracket I fell in. It seemed ironic to me at the time that she was asking me for advice when either of the two jobs she had in front of her paid many, many, many times what I brought in.

My sister has made the decision to come walk the 3-day Komen walk with me in November. Under duress, I might add, as I spent an entire day convincing her that she can, indeed, raise the minimum necessary to walk. It took me two months to raise my money; it took her just about a day. And she is now the #1 fundraiser in the Dallas-Fort Worth walk. Not by much, but by God, she's at the top of the list.

When I congratulated her yesterday, she said she was proud, too, but knowing that I was proud of her meant even more. It dawned on me then that I've never said I'm proud of her. I think sisters are like an old married couple. So many things are left unsaid because you just know the other person knows what you're thinking.

So, here you go, Adnohr.

I am so proud of the child you were and the grown up you've become. I am proud you left a miserable relationship that was eating you up to marry a really, really terrific guy who loves you and supports you. I am proud of the ridiculous amount of money that you make and the stunning home you own. I'm proud of your expensive toys, although most of them frighten me to some degree. I am proud of the support you give the people you love and the sacrifice you're making to walk with me in November. I am ridiculously proud that you've raised over $10,000 to eradicate breast cancer forever, when you were worried you couldn't raise two grand.

I'm proud that you're well read and interesting and fun to be around. I'm proud to be the sister of the life of the party. I'm proud you take care of yourself and those around you, even when the ones around you make it hard sometimes. Your sense of family and purpose are astounding at times, and that makes me proud.

I think all sisters love each other, by default, because that's what we're supposed to do. But it's another thing entirely to hold your sister in high esteem, to love her and honor her. They say pride is a sin, but I'm not buying it.

So, Little Sister, today is for you. I love you and I am so so proud of you!
Einahpets

ps - I didn't buy a card. Again.

Unequally yoked

2010-07-15T10:13:00.002-05:00

Oh, the joys of targeted marketing. NOT!

Here's what I had in my inbox this morning:

It's not that I'm opposed to the person of color. In fact there are several "Black" men (it's ok to refer to them that way if the ad does, right?) that I find wildly attractive. Sterling Sharp, Blair Underwood, Taye Diggs. All very, very yummy. But I digress...

I think we all know that my tastes run more to the Brown than the Black.

As a reminder, here's what I look like:

Yes, those are freckles. And blue eyes. Oh yeah, and I've been married for 11 years. To a Mexican.

You'll see if you look closely enough, that there is an "opt out" option at the bottom of the email, and I've tried to exercise that option several times.

So, I tried a different approach today. Since the email at least appears to come from a human's email address, I emailed him back a picture of me. And one of my Mexican husband. And asked him nicely to include us both in his database of singles if he thought we would be a fit for his service. Otherwise, would he kindly remove my address from his system? I'm really, truly, not interested. Unless of course, Taye Diggs is on there and wouldn't mind a dalliance with a 40-something married white chick

I'm now taking bets on whether or not I'll get another email from our friends at BlackPeopleMeet.com.

You want in?

Peace out,
LadySteele

If it's not Sex, it's Lesbians. Good gosh, y'all.

2010-07-13T13:39:00.000-05:00

First it was The idiots at ABC, now it's our Holy Grail of Radio, KERA.

LittleG and I were on the way to the "lye-bary" on Saturday, and the good folks at National Public Radio were interviewing people who make movies. Safe enough topic, I think to myself.

Turns out I was wrong.

The subject of the interview during that timeslot was the woman who wrote the book or the screenplay upon which The Kids are All Right is based. This is not going to end well, I think to myself, remembering the storyline of the movie, and my inquisitive little sponge in her booster seat right behind me.

I act quickly to change the station to some far more kid-friendly selection, maybe Lady Gaga, Ke$ha or 50 Cent. Unfortunately, I don't hit that button fast enough.

"Mom," says LittleG, "what is a lesbian?" And there it is.

EGAD.

If you've read me at all, you know I just don't swing that way. I do tend to be pretty liberal in my views on "others," be they a different religion, skin color, or sexual persuasion. I don't always understand the other guy, but I do my best to accept them.

For the benefit of one of my extremely conservative readers, I should throw in here that we've all sinned and fallen short and I don't think I or any other human has the right to judge another. Those aren't my words, and I've paraphrased just a bit, but I think you get the gist of it.

Anyway, just because I am reasonably comfortable with the concept of a lesbian doesn't mean I'm ready to explain it to my six year old.

I know, based on six years of dealing with this child, that I had better answer her question, or she'll just keep asking it. And the more she asks, the more interesting the concept will become.

So I walked a fine line and said that sometimes moms love moms instead of moms loving dads, and in our family, we don't judge people like that. Everyone is different, and that's ok.

And my beautiful, precious, perceptive little girl says, "I get it Mom. They are just different than us, just like if their skin was another color. Can we get another Mudge book when we get inside?"

Sometimes the simplest answer is the right one. I'm a little hacked off at NPR that I had to have that conversation with her at this point in her life, but perhaps by having a simple conversation now, the harder conversations yet to come will be a little easier.

Gotta go - I need to go burn a "safe for LittleG" mix tape for the car. Wonder where I put that personalized Veggie Tales CD?

All comments welcome....well, almost all!

2010-07-12T10:00:00.000-05:00

Dear 峻帆峻帆峻帆, 玉苓玉苓, and 雅芳:

I've received several comments on my blogs from you, and while I'm sure you're all lovely people, your comments are written entirely in an Asian language that this particular ugly American cain't quite git the gist of.

Plus, you've got those annoying html codes in your message, and I'm not willing to approve your comments. Who knows what kind of whacky site those links take you. I'm not about to find out, nor am I going to expose my ever-dwindling reader base to the links.

Please do us both a favor and quit trying. I'm not going to approve your comments, and I'm frankly, a bit tired of refusing them. Please stop.

Thanks a bunch.
Lady Steele

¿Qué?

2010-05-18T15:54:00.003-05:00

Dear Dominos Pizza,

You've gone a little far in your attempt to personalize your marketing message to my family. Back in the day when you were keeping us hopped up on free chocolate lava crunch cakes, I was all about it. An occasional free coupon for bread sticks keeps MrG feeling happy. We love that.

What we don't love is receiving emails like this:

I realize it's cool right now to personalize marketing efforts to your prospects. Heck, I do it all day myself.

But I resent like hell that you assume, based on my last name, and perhaps my zip code, that you should be marketing to me in Spanish. Isn't anyone out there paying attention, for the love of Pedro? Check out the photo at the right. You darn near can't get any more non-Hispanic than I am.

How are you deciding which customers get which version of the email? Do you have some brain trust in a little room having conversations like this? "Oh, his name is Dominelli - send him the Italian one." "And her name is Silja - she should get the Indian one." "And his name is Kalniņš - send him the Latvian one."

I don't know how the decisions are made, but I sure recommend someone pay attention to what's being sent out, and think about the effect your message is having on the people receiving it. I don't want pizza now. Instead, a big plate of steaming enchiladas seems more in order. Don't you think?

While researching this piece, I found that Garcia is actually the 15th most popular last name in France. If you're going to send me marketing pieces I can't read, can I at least get them in French? I love the little squiggly things over the letters.

Hasta la vista,
SenoraSteele

p.s. My next door neighbor to the west whose last name is Flores doesn't speak a lick of Spanish either. But the guy named Brown on the east side does. So can you be sure they get the correct email? That ought to send the brain trust into a tizzy.

A day "home" with LittleG

2010-05-17T13:51:00.001-05:00

LittleG has strep throat. Or, rather, she's recovering from it. As I have missed some time from work lately and am already planning to take Friday off, I felt it in the best interest of my illustrious career that I not be the parent to stay at home today. In other words, MrG drew the short stick.

I called them around 11:00 this morning to check in on them, and here's how the conversation went:

MrG: Hello?
Me: Hi. What are you guys doing?
MrG: We are out shopping. (use your suspicious voice when you read this to yourself.)
Me: How is my baby?
MrG: She is feeling much better.
Me: Can I talk to her?
LittleG: Hi, Mommy. (use your sad pathetic voice here)
Me: Hi, Baby! How are you feeling?
LittleG: My throat hurts.
Me: Where are you?
LittleG: At Best Buy.
MrG: (in the background) Don't tell her we're at Best Buy! Tell her we're at Petsmart.
LittleG: Mom, if Dad tells you we're at Petsmart, he's a LIAR!

Ha. Short stick indeed. I left him at home with her so I didn't have to call the $10 per hour sitter-in-a-box. And my Dearly Beloved is at Best Buy spending the family fortune.

Praise the Lord and pass the Augmentin! And the checkbook......
Lady Steele

Happy 70th Birthday, Dad

2010-05-04T09:05:00.000-05:00

Dear Dad,

You would have been 70 years old today, if cancer hadn't taken you from us. Instead, we took you on that sunny beautiful day to the Veterans Cemetary, where men and women in full uniform saluted as we brought you in for our final goodbye. It seems almost fitting that I will be sitting today with another family who has lost someone they love.

Things are going pretty well for us. MrG and I still like each other more often than not, and after eleven years of marriage, I think we've finally got the swing of things. We're one payment away from paying off the van. I know you were so proud when we brought over the first car I ever bought without your help.

Your precocious little granddaughter continues to grow and amaze pretty much everyone around her. She stands physically head and shoulders above most of her classmates, and seemingly has the self confidence to pull it off with grace and finesse. We have had her in soccer the past two seasons, and it has been so good for her, both physically and socially. She has emerged as a real team leader and it has been so good for her self confidence. It's too bad her playing skills aren't quite as refined as her leadership skills, because she would certainly be a force to be reckoned with if that were the case.

She is blowing it out of the water at school. You're probably rolling over in your grave at the thought of her learning Spanish, but she's doing it, and she's doing it well. She placed in the Gifted & Talented program at school in all four subjects, and her work is so good that they will be using it as examples for the teachers in a G&T workshop this summer. She is so sassy and has the vocabulary of a fourth grader. This is not always a good combination, as you might imagine!

Your other daughter and her husband have continued to collect very expensive toys, as is their right for their station in life. They brought home the most beautiful boat last month, which would both delight and terrify you, I think. She has had a very trying two years, and I know you would tell her, if you could, that it's the challenges that make us stronger. She has certainly had the chance to become stronger, and I know she misses having you here to help her.

Your son, believe it or not, has finally gotten a real job. After 20 something years of doing his own thing pretty successfully, he's decided that being his own boss is not all it's cracked up to be. He's doing the 9 to 5 thing, day in, day out, just like the rest of the world. He now spends his evenings and weekends with his son playing baseball or riding motorbikes and with that lovely daughter of his just radiating in her pure beauty. She is so much like you at times that it's heartbreaking. She was born on Mom's birthday six months after you died, and there is not a one among us who doubts that she brought parts of you back to us.

Mom is as busy as ever. Church and bunco and bridge and who knows what else all keep her social calendar booked. She went home last weekend for a class reunion and when I fussed at her for not checking in with me after a 200 mile trip on her own, she reminded me tersely that she is a grownup and she has a job. Not much has changed in that regard. She is going this summer to Mongolia, and this holiday season to Bethlehem to sing with the choir. Although you found your faith late in life, I know that her commitment to the Lord would bring you a sense of pride and contentment.

As for me, I am still doing the sales gig. It's been a decade now, and I truly love what I do. I work with nice people. I make decent money. And what I do makes me happy. That's a lot more than a lot of people can say. Jimz is still my very best friend in the world, and we see each other as often as we can. I am on the PTA board at LittleG's school, and at least three times a week, I turn into a total soccer mom.

We miss you here, Dad, and we hope you are happy where you are. I'll try to write again soon.

Lots of love,
Stephanie

Everyone deserves a lifetime

2010-05-03T19:49:00.000-05:00

Pretend, if you will, that I'm your local Public Radio affiliate and that it's pledge time again. I'm going to ask you, every so often, if you can help me reach my goal. As soon as I get there, I'll quit asking. In the meantime, I need your financial support. If you come here and are entertained, please take a moment and donate what you can. And tell your friends. And ask them to tell their friends!

I am walking in the Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure in Dallas in November, and I would like to ask for your help. I have to raise a minimum of $2,300 for the privilege of sleeping in a tent and walking 60 miles in just three days.

Why in the world would anyone want to lace up her tennis shoes and subject herself to that? I’ll tell you why….

I’m walking for the 40,000 women who will die this year alone from breast cancer, and for the 200,00 women who will be diagnosed with the disease in the next twelve months. I’m walking for the 400 men who will die this year, and for the 1,500 who will be diagnosed.

I’m walking because my grandmother died from breast cancer, and because my mom and I both had it and beat it. I’m walking because I don’t want my six-year old daughter to have to fight this disease someday, or to ever feel the terror that comes with a breast cancer diagnosis.

I’m walking for my grandmother, and my mother, and myself, and my daughter, and my sister, and my aunts, and my nieces and my friends. And I’m walking for yours.

Can you make a donation to help me reach my goal?

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure® is the largest source of nonprofit funds in the world dedicated to the fight against breast cancer. Money raised by Susan G. Komen programs funds research, screening, and treatment for breast cancer. Virtually every major advance in the fight against breast cancer in the last 27 years has been impacted by a Susan G. Komen grant.

Please click the fancy widget on the right hand of the page, and donate if you can. Easy payment plans are available if you pay by credit card, or you can print a donation form if you prefer to pay by check.

If you or someone you love has had breast cancer, it would be my honor to walk in your loved one’s honor or memory. Please email me the name, and I will walk every one of those sixty miles for you or the one you love.

Thank you in advance for your consideration. Help me help the women and men who will come after me, because everyone deserves a lifetime!

Lady Steele

I love Sam!

2010-04-27T11:01:00.000-05:00

Here is the only thing that made four hours of back-to-back birthday parties worthwhile on Saturday....

Sam, by the way, is the artist that drew us. I think he nailed it.

Take your sense of entitlement and stick it!

2010-04-26T19:58:00.000-05:00

I am pouting like a petulant child.

There's something in my life I feel like I have earned, and yet, I've been denied it.

There is really nothing worse than being a grown up and feeling like you've really earned something, be it an increase in a credit limit, a coveted position on the PTA board, a promotion at work, or finally landing the ever popular position of Team Mom for the soccer team, and being denied it based purely on what someone else thinks about what you think.

I won't go into this here, for reasons of personal privacy. But there is something out there I think I deserve. I found out today I didn't get it. And I am not one bit happy about it. Suffice it to say that I do not agree with the powers that be AT ALL about the reason they gave me for not giving me my golden ring.

In fact, I cried myself home today (and in case you've not been paying attention, I am not a crier). I am giving myself one red snotty faced, crappy assed night to cry over spilled milk, or whatever label you want to give it, and then I'm done with it.

Truth be told, my feelings are hurt. I felt like I deserved what I thought I had coming. And when it didn't come to me, I felt like my legs had been kicked out from underneath me.

You might want to remind me that superheroes don't cry. Oh yeah, tell that to my pile of snotty tissues. You might want to remind me that good things come to those who wait. And to that I would say, how damn long does one have to wait? A month? A school year? A decade?

So, tonight, I'm pouting like the spoiled entitled little brat that I am. Tomorrow, I will put on my big girl panties and head back into my day.

Screw 'em all I say. You want a big fat happy face? That's what you'll get. In the meantime, I am gonna have a good cry and most of a bottle of merlot.

Tomorrow is a new day, and I'm sure it will dawn fresh and bright.

Ever forward, friends.

I'm a dirty, dirty superhero!

2010-04-23T08:49:00.002-05:00

From a CNN report...

"As the country was sinking into its worst financial crisis in more than 70 years, Security and Exchange Commission employees and contractors cruised porn sites and viewed sexually explicit pictures using government computers, according to an agency report obtained by CNN...More than half of the workers made between $99,000 and $223,000."

I'm not a particular fan of porn, but I'm not opposed to cruising porn sites all day if I'm bringing home a salary in the low 200s.

Call me!

Smack on the playground used to mean something else entirely

2010-04-14T19:29:00.001-05:00

Thank God I'm from Texas! Here, we just worry about handguns....

Third-grader had heroin at Pennsylvania school

by Associated Press

Posted on April 14, 2010 at 3:49 PM

Updated today at 4:12 PM

WILKINSBURG, Pa. — Police near Pittsburgh say they have confirmed that more than 60 small bags a third-grader was handing out to classmates were full of heroin.

The 8-year-old boy brought the bags to Turner Elementary School on Tuesday before a teacher discovered them. Wilkinsburg police said at a news conference Wednesday that some of the bags were found empty in a trash can but there was no evidence any of the kids ingested the drugs.

School officials sent a letter home to parents about the incident.

Police say the bags had the words "trust me" stamped on them and would have a street value of about $1,000.

Police have contacted the boy's parents. The investigation into where the boy got the drugs is continuing.

Ya think??

Left, Left, Left, Right, Left!

2010-04-14T09:12:00.000-05:00

Have you been missing me? If so, it's because my left brain buried me.

As my last post said, I've signed up for the 3-day walk, and I have expended a huge amount of mental energy planning and preparing for the task ahead. As a sales person, I'm already pretty focused on chasing the Almighty Dollar. But this is different, and I've had to approach it differently. So I've done all kinds of thinking about what will work, what won't work, and how to raise an inordinate amount of money so I don't have to pay it out of my own pocket. (Click the link to the right if you'd like to help me reach my goal! I'm just saying.)

I also got tapped at work about three weeks ago to assist on another sales team temporarily. While I know my product inside out, upside down, front and back, I know only a teeny tiny bit about the other product they've asked me to sell. I've been selling for a decade, and I'm pretty good at what I do, but being asked to change horses mid-stream has had me absolutely bumfuzzled. I work the other team in the morning, then return to my team in the afternoon. So I spend a big chunk of each day having to re-orient myself to the appropriate product.

At home, the balancing act of time and energy management continues. MrG made me fire the maids, so now, we have to do our own housework. (I don't like him much right now, for the record.) Luckily, he's been much more willing (and able, I should add) to assist in the housekeeping chores, and LittleG is a whiz with a Swiffer. After six and a half years of having someone else worry about the dusting and scrubbing the bathrooms, I now have to work that into our schedule. The laundry never seems to stop, and for some reason, those people that I live with insist that I feed them at least daily, which means grocery shopping and kitchen chores.

Anyway, my point here is that I have been compartmentalizing all the "stuff" I have on my mind. At work, I'm focusing on just where in the building I'm sitting at the moment, and what that particular product requires of me. At home, I'm balancing the chores I've been used to, as well as working in the ones someone else has been handling for me. I assign myself the title of Soccer Mom for practices and games, and PTA Board Member when that time comes. With all of my free time, I'm thinking about how in the world I'm going to rasie the money for Komen.

So my left brain has been working overtime. Planning, scheduling, putting continengcy plans in place in case my original plans fail. I haven't had the smallest itch to be the tiniest bit creative.

But a beautiful thing happened yesterday. I found my right brain! I wrote. I baked. I decorated. And I created a cake that I may be as proud of as any other I've ever decorated. See?

I should note for the record that I'm an Aggie, and this is an Arkansas Razorback cake. It pained me to make it, but my friend who asked for it has promised a nice donation to my Komen pot, so I struggled through it.

I don't have any grand delusions that my right brain will ever trump my left. I think all that we can hope for is tiny glimpses into my emotional, creative side. Hopefully my right brain will have its moments of brilliance and greatness through interesting blog posts and beautiful cakes (even if they are cakes with red and black pigs).

At least that's what I'm planning for!

The sound of silence

2010-04-13T09:22:00.005-05:00

"Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence." ~ from The Desiderata by Max Ehrmann

This poem has hung in my mother's sewing room my entire life, although since my dad died and she got the house repainted, there's really no way to know where it is has been relocated. Regardless, during my years at home, it hung there, and I saw it, maybe a million times, and still take its words to heart.

I heard yesterday that women spend something like three years of their lives shopping. As a working mom, I'm not surprised by that at all. My stolen minutes of shopping time - be they at the grocery store or the mall - are often my only quiet times of the day. I work in an office surrounded by people who make noise, a lot of it. I leave my office and drive five minutes away, where I pick up LittleG, who makes noise, and a lot of it. Once I get her to bed, MrG and I have our grown up discussions, or time in front of the TV, neither of which is quiet time. So I spend my days surrounded by noise.

When times get tough, as they often do, I will slip away to pick up an item or two at the grocery or drug store. I often find myself uncharacteristically dawdling during these trips. After all, a trip to the store for band-aids should be just that - in, out, done. But I tend to wander the aisles, looking at the pretty shiny things. During this time, my mind is my own, with no intrusions from coworkers, clients,or needy family members. In these days of horrible customer service, I rarely have to worry that my quiet time will be intruded upon my a store employee. But that's another blog.

I had some time alone after work yesterday. LittleG had soccer practice, and I somehow convinced her father to take her so I wouldn't have to go. They left the house, and I started dinner and pulled out a work project that still needed some attention. I worked quietly by myself until they got home about an hour and a half later, bringing with them a a swirling dervish of noise and mayhem.

I didn't realize until they came in just how quiet it had been. I had not turned on the TV, radio, or iPod. I was in the kitchen, where the only sounds came from the flipping of my paperwork, and the bubbling of food on the stove. Even the dogs were quiet.

My dad used to ask for "peace and quiet" for his birthday every year, and now I understand why. As a textbook extrovert, I tend to thrive on the noises from people around me - laughter, chatter, quiet conversation. But as a mom who is stretched pretty thin, silence has become therapy for me.

I haven't shared this news with many people yet, and now is as good a time as any, I guess. I've made the decision to walk the Komen 3-day walk in Dallas this November.

Beyond the obvious benefits that come from participating in a walk like this - comraderie, friendship, exercise - I will be giving myself the gift of silence. I will have to train for hours and hours, and most of that time, I will be alone. Even when I'm walking the days of the event and I'm surrounded by others, I have to think that some of my time will be spent in silence. The sheer determination that it will take to push my body to walk 60 miles in 3 days will dictate quiet time.

So I will push forward during this next seven months, remembering the peace there is in silence.

Hugs,
LadySteele

P.S. My sweet aunt pointed out I should make it easy for my dear readers to donate to the cause. If you're so inclined, click the widget on the right of your screen to make a donation online!

My brilliant, brilliant child

2010-03-24T16:46:00.002-05:00

LittleG: Hey, Mom?
Me: Yes, LittleG
LittleG: Does the Crimson Steed have a name?
Me: No, LittleG
LittleG: I have the perfect name for her, then
Me: What should her name be?
LittleG: Vanessa, cause she's a van.

I don't name my cars, and I always kind of felt like the Crimson Steed was a big old boy horse. But really, how do you argue with logic like that?

Buy that kid a pony!

2010-03-18T13:22:00.005-05:00

As if being a working mom who travels every now and then is not hard enough, I found this in LittleG's room while deep cleaning during my "day off" this week:

For those of you who are not fluent in the Language of the Six Year Old, please let me translate:

"Dad,
Where is my mommy? At Las Vegas."

The picture shows either a really sad child with pigtails and big fat tears in her eyes, or a praying mantis in a dress. I'm not sure. Either way, this creature is very unhappy.

Orson Wells once said that there were only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror. I'd like to add a third to that....guilt!

Leave the light on for me, LittleG - I won't be gone long!

Love,
Mom of the Year

A family in need

2010-03-08T11:04:00.002-06:00

A coworker of mine delivered twin babies last week at only 24 weeks. Both children are in the fights of their lives, and the medical bills are mounting for Mom and Dad.

One of our exhibitors has graciously donated a Barcelona 6-person spa (a $6,500 value) and an Infra-Red Deep Heat Sauna (a $3,000 value) for us to raffle off. The tickets for the spa are $20 each, and for the sauna are $10 each.

If you are interested in helping a family who is in dire straights, please click the link below for more information.

Kosa Babies

If you would like to purchase raffle tickets or place a direct donation, please contact me at sdfgarcia67 at gmail dot com. I will work something out with you through Paypal. If you are local in the DFW area, I can give you directions to our office where you can purchase the tickets yourself.

The raffle will be held on Wednesday, March 17, and ALL proceeds from the raffle will go directly to the family. The spa and sauna will be shipped direct from the manufacturer to the winner of each of the raffle drawings.

Please link back to this post as many times as you can. This family needs our help, and you or someone you know could be a big winner!

Those of us who can help should help.

Peace and health,
Lady Steele

A record shattered.....almost

2010-03-02T15:36:00.006-06:00

I should have known what I was about to be up against when I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror late Sunday night. It was gray and ashen, the color of a corpse. Sweat glistened on my cold clammy skin as waves of nausea rolled across my body, and a toxic cold fluid filled my veins and squished through my intestines. It was clearly going to be a really long night.

It turns out, it was a really long 36 hours. A. REALLY. LONG. 36 HOURS.

I'm not one who throws up. I have horrible memories of vomiting as a child, and as a grownup, I will go to nearly any length to avoid ever doing it again. So many lengths, in fact, that I've not paid homage to the porcelain god Ralph since August 19, 1987. It's a strange thing to keep track of, I know, but there is some degree of significance attached to the date.

I've been sick twice on alcohol in my life. The first time was in July of 1987, and the second was August 19, 1987. I remember the second time the best because my sister and I had just moved away to college together and I got stinkin' drunk with a boy I had liked for a handful of years. I matched him beer for beer through a 12-pack, then we made the rather questionable decision to go out after more beer, and for some reason, barbecue. I remember throwing up and passing out. The next morning, I vowed never to do it again. The throwing up part, of course, not the drinking part!.....

And so, I haven't. Through my years of bar crawling as a college co-ed, a pregnancy, and six years of living with a little petri dish who drags home every gastrointestinal germ known to man, I have been vomit free. I cleaned up kid poop and kid puke and dog poop and dog puke, I've picked up the remnants of the former living, now rendered lifeless by one dog or another, without a single gag or retch.

But on Sunday night, my internal fortitude was sorely tested. I sat, naked, sweating, and shivering (how is that even possible?) on the side of the tub and prayed to just let it all go. Barf out whatever horrid germ was tormenting my insides and rid myself of the misery. And yet? Nothing.

I am almost jealous of the people who can feel sick and just puke it all out. I have a girlfriend who throws up every time she has a headache or gets stressed out. This is a trait she has passed along to her daughters, lucky devils. In hindsight, it seems rather perverse that I was sitting naked on my bathtub thinking about my girlfriend and her daughters. Until you've been there, don't judge me people!

Regretfully, according to Murphy's Law of Stomach Flu, what does not go up must certainly go down. Most of my readers are pretty smart folks, so I will leave some degree of mystery and let you wonder exactly how I spent most of the next 36 hours. Not a fun day and a half, I assure you.

At any rate, it's now Wednesday evening, and I felt for the first time today a gnawing hunger. I've fed myself like a fussy toddler for the past two days....a juice box here, a handful of dry cereal there, maybe a piece of toast or some watered down sprite. But this evening, hunger came to call. And I've never been so happy to want food in my life.

And so I indulged.

So far, so good.

Like a clear fresh morning dawns after a dark summer night's storm, I feel like I might just live to see another day, maybe even to stretch the limits of a long held record. Praise the Lord and pass the Taco Bell!

Wait! Not so fast!! LittleG just called out from the hall bathroom, "Mom, will you come look at my poop?"

Yes, Shelly, even modern superheroes fall victim to earthly illness. Just hopefully not more often than every two decades or so.

Hugs and Lysol to you all,
Lady Steele

Update

2010-02-17T13:25:00.002-06:00

Oh. My. Goodness. And Ouch. And Wow. That's all I'm going to say on the subject.

Oh Holy Day, Indeed

2010-02-16T20:26:00.002-06:00

I will apologize in advance, dear readers, because I know some of you will read this on Ash Wednesday. It's inappropriate and will be offensive to some of you. Sorry. I mean it.

I am in the show business. Not the "there's no business like show business" kind of business. I am in the Trade Show business. And my show is next week. There's no way to describe how frazzled and full my brain is, but let me take a shot anyway. This is the equivalent of April 13 for a CPA. It's December 23 for anyone in retail. It's the last day of the month for someone who sells cars. It's the weekend before school starts for anyone with kids. Are you getting the picture?

I have a bunch of last minute stuff to coordinate. I have to time perfectly the haircut, the manicure, buying enough milk to get the family through my time away, without overstocking the fridge. There's laundry to do, bills to pay, outfits to coordinate, and a whole host of personal care items that must be addressed. And even though I've known for a year this day is coming, it seems to slip up out of nowhere and run me down like a bus driven by an angry man.

I realized at the PTA board meeting two weeks ago that Ash Wednesday falls two days before I get on a plane to leave for a week, right in the middle of Pre-Show Hysteria Week. My days are carefully scheduled to be sure nothing falls through the cracks, and I realized that night that I have no time to celebrate Ash Wednesday service as I have in the past.

I am a really terrible Catholic, but I have always attended mass on Ash Wednesday, and I wear my ashes proudly and keep in my mind what they symbolize.

Last year, I committed myself to living consciously during the days of Lent, and rather than give something up, I pledged to write something every day. Some of it I published online, some of it not so much. I kicked off the days of Lent by celebrating with dear friends at Ash Wednesday service over lunch. The church was beautiful, the message right on target, and the company could not be beat. And I did pretty darn well with my pledge.

This year, my dear sweet friends will meet again to go to church over lunch and to reflect on the days past and more importantly, the days to come. They will kneel together and sing and walk down the aisle for communion.

And you know what I'll be doing? I'll be getting a Brazilian wax job.

That's right, folks. As my friends kneel together in prayer and reflection, I will be getting my lady parts sugar-waxed by a lady aptly named Kim Lower, who owns Pretty Kitties salon. Really, girls, you can't make this stuff up. Google her.

Anyway, I'm hoping God will forgive me this year for over-scheduling and overlooking the uber-holiday that is Ash Wednesday. I'm pretty sure I'll be serving my own type of penance while my friends go to church.

One of my coworkers (yes, this has been a subject of great interest to my friends at the office) suggested that rather than going with the standard full monty or landing strip, perhaps I should consider leaving only a cross. That would sure keep the Lord on my mind for the next 46 days.

Peace be with you.
Lady Steele

This conversation brought to you by the idiots at ABC

2010-01-24T19:34:00.002-06:00

Last week, ABC dunked me and LittleG face first into a conversation I was hoping not to have for awhile. Some genius at ABC decided it would be ok to run a promo for the Grey's Anatomy/Private Practice crossover where McSteamy drops trou and ends up with Addison on top of him on the floor in her office. All of this at 7:30 pm. And so it went like this.....

LittleG: Mom, is that sex?
Me: Yes, LittleG, that is sex.
LittleG: Mom, do you and Dad have sex?
Me: Yes, LittleG, all married people have sex.

This would have been a whole lot easier on both of us if MrG had not been in the room about to either burst an artery or hyperventilate. Thankfully, we only skimmed the surface of the subject. We still have all those fun things to cover, like how sex works, and how sometimes unmarried people have sex, or people married to other people have sex. I think I'll go burst an artery now.

C'mon ABC, she's 6, and I'm having this conversation with my Kindergartener?? I hate to sound like a fuddy duddy old mom, but for the love of all that's holy, can we keep the naked guys off t.v. at that hour of the night?

Prudishly yours,
MrsG

The old switcheroo

2010-01-13T09:10:00.001-06:00

Some substitutions are easy ones to make, and they work beautifully.

Are you out of buttermilk and need some for a recipe? Substitute plain white milk with a bit of lemon juice or white vinegar. Sour cream and plain yogurt are interchangeable just about all the time. Rum works as well in eggnog as bourbon does. Shower gel makes a nice replacement for bubble bath if you can squirt it in the tub when your kid isn't looking. Plain water in a squirt bottle works exceedingly well when you are out of Monster Spray.

All of these are good. Some, I've found, are not. My dad suggested one time that instead of baby wipes, I use the Clorox wipes in his bathroom to clean up LittleG. God bless his soul, he meant it.

Here are some other examples, from my real life, in the past two months. I have been either really distracted, or I am a total loser. You really can't make this stuff up, folks.

Do not squirt Shout onto your counter top in place of 409. It definitely does NOT Shout the stains out, and it does make one big greasy mess.
Just because your carton of Eggnog looks just like your carton of Heavy Cream, you cannot make mashed potatoes with Eggnog. Well, you can, but they are truly awful.
You should not attempt to wash your hair with conditioner. The bottles look the same. The result? Not the same.
You cannot substitute a brown shoe for a black shoe, even if they shoe styles are exactly the same. Someone at Starbucks will notice, and that's just embarrassing.
It's a bad idea to buy a big tub of Eucerin creme to use on all your dry scaly places when your big tub of hair goo looks just like it. Turns out hair goo is no better on scaly places than Eucerin is in your hair. Yes, I've done that switcheroo both ways, with equally catastrophic results. Sometimes a girl just gets busy and doesn't pay attention.
Don't wash your face using the moisturizer in the EXACT same packaging as your cleanser. Write your own joke here.
Part 2, don't put your facial cleanser on your face in place of your moisturizer, then get halfway through your makeup routine before you diagnose why things just don't feel "right." Laugh out loud at your own joke here.
Don't use baby powder in place of carpet freshener. You will be cleaning a fine mist of baby powder off of your baseboards and flat surfaces for as long as you live in your home. Don't judge me people, I had a musty room and a linen closet full of powder I was NEVER going to need for my now school age child.
A plain old tissue works well for cleaning up a smudge on reading glasses. A Puffs Tissue with Lotion, not so much.
Skittles may look like M&Ms, but they are clearly not candy coated chocolates. Therefore, you should not make cookies with them.
You can add a splash of boxed mashed potato flakes to thicken up mashed potatoes with too much liquid. You should not add Bisquick instead.
Hair Spray and Air Spray sound alike. But boy do they have a different effect on your hair. I'm just saying.

And one more I don't have experience with, but I find it hysterical to consider. Don't ever take your little blue Ambien pill in place of your little blue Viagra pill, or vice versa. Seems like no good could come from either switch.

Ever forward friends, until we meet again!
Lady Steele

I'm a MEXICAN?!

2010-01-12T18:44:00.008-06:00

I've struggled for a long time with this post - it is a sensitive topic, but it's been on my mind for a long time now. I hope I do it justice.

First, a little background. I am White. Lily White. Pasty White. I have blue eyes and freckles. Oh So White. My maternal grandmother traced our genealogy, and I'm pretty sure we are Scotch/Irish all the way back to Adam and Eve. MrG is Mexican Hispanic. His mother was born in Mexico, and his father was born in Texas to Mexican immigrants. Legal, I will add, not that it's any of your damn business.

LittleG is a perfect mix of me and her dad. She has beautiful brown eyes and long flowing dark hair like his side of the family. She gets her freckles and her temper from mine. She is quite possibly the most amazing White Caucasian Mexican Hispanic ever born. She also just recently found out she's part Mexican, and the news did not go over well.

We had never addressed the issue of her heritage with her, because for us, it's not an issue. My parents did not teach me to see skin color. Race was never discussed in our home when I was growing up, and clearly it wasn't an issue for MrG's family either, since they took me in to their very family with nary a bump in the road. And thank heavens for that.

And therein lies the problem. Skin color doesn't matter to us, so I guess we just assumed it wouldn't matter to her. Oopsie.

The face that little adorable Juanita makes in the clip above? EXACTLY the one we got when LittleG found out SHE is part Mexican. She is also part Lily White, but that doesn't seem to bother her much.

The only time skin color or race has mattered to me personally is when I've been asked to categorize the race of my daughter. I don't know how to answer that question. She is as White/Caucasian as she is Hispanic/Latino. And yet, there's no box for "Both" when it comes time to assign a race to your child. You're forced to pick one, thereby arbitrarily assigning her to a demographic category that will follow her for the rest of her life.

We saw this last winter when the headlines screamed "Black Man Elected President." Really? The guy is every bit as White as he is African American, but nobody was saying anything about "Half Black Half White Guy" getting elected to anything. I guess Mrs. Obama was forced to choose a box for her kid 48 years ago, and she selected African American over White/Caucasian.

Please don't misunderstand - I TOTALLY get it that we as a nation celebrate the fact that an African American was elected, even if he is part white. African Americans were, for far too long in our country, held as second class citizens, and Barak Obama's rise to the most powerful office in the land has historical significance that we are probably only beginning to understand.

But I don't celebrate his election because he's black. I celebrate because he was the right guy for the job. I voted for him, and in spite of current popular opinion, I would do it again. His skin color didn't have a damn thing to do with why I voted for him. And it shouldn't have mattered to anyone else as far as I'm concerned.

And there's the rub. We just can't look at him as a man. We have to see him as a black man. But as I said, he is as white as he is black. So WTF?

Minority groups have for decades asked for equal treatment - fighting for it, losing their lives in some cases. The civil unrest brought about by folks like Rosa Parks and nine brave students from Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas certainly shook things up back in the 1950s. Cesar Chavez and his band of farm workers took a stand in the 1960s and forever changed the face of migrant farming in our country.

And yet these same groups fight now for recognition and celebration of their races that would never be tolerated for Whites/Caucasians. We have Black Heritage Month, Asian Heritage Month, Hispanic Heritage Month. Hispanics have their own scholarship programs, 100% race based. We have Essence Magazine, "the black woman's guide to what's hot now."

History months and scholarships, and magazines, oh my!

But what's good for the goose isn't necessarily good for the gander, at least where skin color is concerned.

Can you imagine what would happen if my white brothers and sisters suddenly created their own White History Month? What about their own White Scholarship program? I can hear the motto now, "money for college, but only for the white kids!" And what about Lily White Mag, what every white skinned beyotch needs to know?

The outrage that would follow our celebration of our skin color to the exclusion of others is almost unimaginable. And yet, it's ok for minorities to celebrate their heritage and race, and we are not supposed to complain? Again - WTF?

As our racial groups become more blurred, I think the question of race becomes even harder to answer, and perhaps less important. What happens, for example, if LittleG ends up married to a man who is the son of a Pakistani man and a Korean woman? What little racial box will her kid fit in? Furthermore, why the hell should we care?

I think the answer is that we should just all go blissfully, stupidly colorblind. You want to celebrate your skin color? Do it, whether you're black or brown or white or red. But don't deny me the opportunity to do the same. You want to marry someone who is a different color than you are? Do it. I did, and it worked out pretty damn well.

Until we do go coast-to-coast colorblind, we'll still be forced to fill in our little race box when it comes time to apply for a job (for demographic purposes only, of course!!), get a drivers license, or fill out a a census. We'll still be able to read our racially biased magazines (or not, for us white folks). We'll still check a box on a birth certificate to indicate the racial make up of our child, even if it's only half right.

I think it's just a crying damn shame that my little Mexican kid might have opportunities available to her, or denied to her, that my little white kid might not have. It's too bad colorblind couldn't get here a generation ago.

Why am I in a crimson steed, with my boltcutters, anyway?

2009-12-10T07:18:00.001-06:00

I've had a request from one of my most frequent readers (no, not you, Mom) to explain the origin of my blog name and by-line.

And so, I shall tell you the story, dear readers.

Once upon a time, way back in 2006, I began writing this little blog. Truth be told, I was trying to comment on someone else's blog, and it seems like the blog required me to have a blogger login. So I fell back on my old faithful, sdfgarcia.

I think it's awfully nice that my parents named me with the initials "SDF" and super nice that I married MrG, so now my initials are SDFG. Type it out. Go ahead and see how nice it feels to have your left hand just tap in rhythm across the keys. It feels good, huh? But I digress.

sdfgarcia has kind of been my go-to name for "stuff" like websites, emails, etc. It just followed that I would use that to create a blogger login.

So I created my login, and then I figured since I had it, I may as well use it. I wrote and wrote and sometimes people found me, but more often than not, they didn't. Was it my totally lame ass boring blog name? Probably, but I'll never know.

Because, dear readers, everything changed late in the night on September 1, 2008. I got a call from my BFF, who lives only a mile or so away. Here is how the call went, more or less:

BFF: Hi.
Lady Steele: Hello. You're calling late.
BFF: Yes. I know. Do you have any bolt cutters?
Lady Steele: Why yes, I believe we do. I think they are in the room where we keep the car.
BFF: Can you get them and come over right away?
Lady Steele: Why yes, of course. Whatever has happened?
BFF: You know the metal baby gate between the living room and the foyer?
Lady Steele: Yes, I believe I do.
BFF: Well, Toby has managed to get his head wedged between two bars, and we can't get him out!
Lady Steele: Holy mother of pearl! I will be there forthwith!!

And away I galloped.

Actually, I went into the room where we keep the car, found the bolt cutters, and hauled ass in my dorky red minivan to my best friend's house, where we proceeded to pry the metal baby gate open enough to release one very scared little weinee dog. (I should note for the record that no animals were harmed in the naming of this blog).

My BFF is a notorious night owl, and I suspect after her scare that she was up for hours just working off adrenaline. Nevertheless, when I awoke the next morning, I had an email thanking me for my late night trip over to save her (she would have done the same for me, and more!). In the email, she said I reminded her of a superhero, charging forth on my crimson steed, boltcutters ever at the ready.

And a superhero was born! Well, not born, but definitely named.

I do consider myself a modern superhero. I parent full time. I work full time. I do laundry ALL the damn time. I manage a house full time. Ok, so maybe the manage a house part is only part time, but I pay the damn maids to fill in the parts I can't or won't handle. I'm on the PTA. I'm a soccer mom.

Maybe I don't make the most money or keep the cleanest house or feed my family the best meals ever, but I do a pretty good job at covering the bases most of the time. And for that, I consider myself a modern superhero. As I consider every other working schmuck mom out there who holds down a full time job, then comes home every evening to start her second job.

I went to a terrific Thanksgiving potluck at a dear friend's house last month, and I was so thrilled when one of her guests hopped up, hugged me and said "you're Lady Steele!" As great as my initials are, nobody ever called me by them at a potluck. So I figure, I've got a winner.

Also, I think it's a nice tribute to my BFF, who is there for me always, asking nothing in return, except maybe a late night trip to her house with a tool of one sort or another.

And there you have it friends, a tale of the birth of a modern superhero. I hope it was worth the wait.

Hugs,
Lady Steele

It's hard to keep up with them Joneses

2009-12-10T06:01:00.003-06:00

This whole Christmas decoration thing is becoming quite a burden. First I have to nag MrG to go into the room above the garage, which I think he refers to as "the attic." Then I have to listen to him yell in a muffled voice about how much crap we have up there and how much of it we really need to keep. Once he gets it all down the stairs, then I have to nag him and LittleG to help me get it all placed appropriately in the house and the yard.

For what? So we can try to one-up the neighbors in our quest for the perfectly decorated Christmas wonderland, deep in the heart o' Texas?

By the time we're finished, we're all three mad at each other and exhausted. And we never freakin' one-up anyone. So this year, we're taking another approach. Instead of trying to out-Christmas our neighbors, we're going to bow out politely and let them win. Here's my basic plan....

Don't hate me because I'm clever. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! And by the way, Miss Betty, you've got a light out on your eave.....

It's a Festivus Miracle!

2009-12-09T19:54:00.003-06:00

Well, dear readers, I cleared a hurdle today. A big one.

This was my first post-op mammogram since finishing up my radiation, and I'm glad to say I passed with flying colors! Both of my girls are free and clear, at least for the next six months.

I won't go into many details, except to say that after my first diagnostic mammogram after two surgeries and 33 zaps of radiation, I will NEVER again complain about the old run of the mill screening mammo, which heretofore, I thought was the most painful thing ever. I know better now.

Get 'em checked girls. It's better to know than not know!

Hugs,
Lady Steele

Baby announcements from Mars and Venus

2009-12-04T09:59:00.005-06:00

Reminders of how different men and women are can strike at the strangest times! We've had two babies born at work in the past couple of months. One's birth was announced by a woman, and one was announced by a man. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

You think you can guess which came from the man?

Subject: Baby Smith is here

John Alexander Smith was born 8 lbs 12oz and 21 inches long. Mom and baby are resting and doing great. Chris said something about the baby being cute…That’s the 48th time we’ve heard him use that word in the last 2 weeks.

Subject: He is here!!!!

I am happy to pass along that

Jackson “Trey” Young Brown III

Arrived at 4:02 am this morning – 9 lbs 3 oz and 20.75”

Mom went into labor on her own yesterday, they checked into the hospital yesterday afternoon at 4, she pushed for two hours, and Trey arrived via c-section this morning.

Mom is fine and dad is ecstatic!

I have attached a picture and will send more later.

Congrats to the Brown Family!!

The Brown family baby was born first and the announcement was made by...yes, you guessed, a woman. The woman was kind enough to use lots of happy punctuation and gave us both the time and date of the blessed arrival. The man, on the other hand, gave us straight up information. No silly talk about dates or how the baby got here. No fancy schmancy punctuation or special spacing. Baby is here, all is fine.

I was excited to get the news in both cases, and both of them pretty much got the job done. But it was striking how different the messages were, both in tone and content.

I guess there might actually be something to this Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus theory. Maybe I'll spend some time thinking about that this weekend during the celebration of the six anniversary of the birth of the most spectacular child ever born. Or as MrG says, that "damn party."

Mother of The Year, indeed

2009-11-23T09:31:00.002-06:00

Can any of you more experienced moms please weigh in on this?

LittleG: Mom, these shoes are too tight (use your whiney voice for best effect).
Me: I will fix them when we get to Nana's .
LittleG: Mom, these shoes are too loose!
Me: How can your shoes be both too tight and too loose at the same time?
LittleG: Because you won't fix my shoes.
Me: LittleG, do you realize that tight and loose are opposites? It is not physically possible for something to be both too tight and too loose at the same time.
LittleG: Nuh huh. Because YOU. ARE. THE. WORST. MOM. EVER!

All of this at the tender age of 6. Before, by the way, 8 o'clock in the morning. On a Monday.

Thanks, Mom, for taking one for the team this week. I'm sure you are having a delightful day already. Thank heavens you quit being the worst mom ever about a decade ago. I guess it's my turn to take the reins.

Happy Birthday, Little Duck

2009-11-20T10:13:00.003-06:00

Lots of cool people have birthdays today. A guy named Peregrine White was the first child born in the New World to Pilgrims after a journey aboard the Mayflower as it sailed towards a new land and a new promise. Two Nobel peace prize winners (Selma Lagerlof and Karl von Frisch). An astronomer, Edwin Hubble, who discovered galaxies and is the namesake of the Hubble telescope. Several important political figures, Oliver Wolcott (governor of Connecticut who signed the Declaration of Independence), Robert Byrd, (D-Sen-WV, majority leader), Robert Kennedy, (D-Sen-NY assassinated), and Joseph R. Biden Jr., our very own VPOTUS. There are authors and humorists and prima ballerinas, and even Bo Derek, sex symbol extrodinaire.

But by far, the birthday that deserves the most attention is my LittleG, who turns 6 today. At 8:09 am on November 20, 2003, LittleG came in to this world at a healthy 6 lbs. 13 oz, surely the most beautiful child ever to grace the nursery in Irving, Texas.

She arrived to the joy and relief of family and friends who had prayed for her arrival for years (shout out to you and the Sunday School Girls, Mom) and went from the nurses' capable hands into the arms of her father, who knew at that moment in time that his only job in life was to keep that baby safe and happy.

To say that the first six years has flown by would be the understatement of the year. It seems like just yesterday we ushered her into her new bedroom and stared at her wondering "what now?"

Together we have watched her navigate her early years, the first tedious steps that turned into full blown running within a few days. The first words we thought would never come that now fill our home and hearts constantly. The cataclysmic growth spurt that has thrown her head and shoulders above her peers. The transition, seemingly overnight, from the Dragon Tales and Dora of her babyhood to Hannah Montana and Wizards of Waverly Place that so define her now.

I sit here, in shock and awe, of what we have created and grown together. A beautiful little girl with the sweetest smile and the warmest heart, an undescribable fashion sense, and a stubborn streak a mile wide.

I don't know what her future holds, whether she will become a famous astronomer or writer or God forbid, a politician. But I do know this - her father and I, along with her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and a swarm of family friends will be there for her no matter what. With the exception of the sex symbol. She's on her own if she goes that way....

Happy Birthday, Angel, we love you BIG MUCH!

Where exactly did this child come from?

2009-11-18T09:11:00.002-06:00

My adorable little cherub is growing like a weed. She stands fully a head taller than most of her classmates, and she's already in a size 2 1/2 shoe. I am blaming this on her father, by the way, as I am a nice normal 5'7" tall and he towers over 6''3". But I digress.

Fact of the matter is, fall is upon us here in Texas, and I have nary a garment to keep my little darling warm during the cool fall months. Since she's been wearing uniforms to school, regular clothes have not even been on my radar. Yep, Mom of the Year, here I come!

So last weekend, we set out to solve the problem.

Me: Ok, LittleG, we have a problem.
LittleG: What's the problem, Mom?
Me: We don't have any cool weather clothes for you to wear, and we are going to see Abuela over Thanksgiving.
LittleG: So?
Me: So it's going to be cool there, and you don't have any clothes to wear.
LittleG: Can't I just wear my shorts?
Me: No, shorts won't be warm enough.
LittleG: Can't I just wear my pink dress?
Me: No, you pretty much outgrew that this spring but I didn't fight you on it.
LittleG: What are we going to do? (Read this using your best whiney voice for full effect).
Me: We have three options.
LittleG: Hit me with them, Mom.
Me: You can wear your uniforms at Abuela's house
LitteG: No way.
Me: You can go shopping with me and pick out some new clothes.
LittleG: Shopping is SO BORING, Mom.
Me: Or, you can just let me go shopping and pick out some new clothes for you. But if you do that, you have to wear what I buy for you.
LittleG: Girrrrrllll, THAT ain' gon' happen!

WTF? That ain' gon' happen? She just figured out she's half Mexican, and now she be tryin' to go all ghetto on me? Straight up, gangsta bitch!

Clearly, I am going to need therapy and some really good drugs to get me through the pre-teen years. I don't know what it's going to take to get me through the teenage years, but I'm certain there will be vodka involved. If you'd like to contribute to my mental health therapy, feel free to donate through paypal.

Peace out, peeps.

Going Stupid

2009-11-17T09:23:00.003-06:00

I’ve not commented, on purpose, about Our Lady Sarah Palin and her antics of late for a lot of reasons. Probably the number one reason is I don’t want to be that “bitchy sick girl who doesn’t have anything better to do with her time than gripe.” But today, I’m commenting. So if you’re on Team Sarah, go ahead and step away from today’s blog. I recommend clicking here: www.sarah-palin.com. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

For those of you who hung around, this won’t be a total bitch session. But I will be bashing Lady Palin today on the rollout of her new book, Going Rogue.

It troubles me that She Who Would Have Been Queen VP chose Going Rogue as the title of her book, based on the actual meaning of the word “rogue.”

Webster’s Dictionary defines “rogue” as follows:
1. Vagrant, tramp
2. A dishonest or worthless person: scoundrel
3. A mischievous person: scamp
4. A horse inclined to shirk or misbehave
5. An individual exhibiting a chance and usually inferior biological variation

Check it here: www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rogue. Really. You can’t make this stuff up, folks!!

Anyway, does she have an editor? Is there anyone in her camp who can point out to her that she’s now labeled herself as a tramp, scoundrel, or scamp? Or at least that she’s headed that direction, given that the word “going” implies she’s moving towards something?

I’m assuming based on previous media interviews that she has a ghost writer, since she has been unable to compose a coherent sentence on her own. Maybe the ghost writer could have pointed out politely that she might have spent a few more minutes thinking up a better title.

I watched the Oprah interview on TV yesterday in its entirety, and I have to say it was certainly more sympathetic that I had thought it would be. And I do have to admit that I hate Lady Sarah a tiny bit less today than I did yesterday. Still TOTALLY NOT a fan, but my hard little heart might have warmed up towards her just a tiny smidgen. A smidgen, mind you. JUST a smidgen.

She was either uberprepared for the Queen of Talkshows, or she might just have a lick of sense after all. She was well-spoken and kept her composure. She answered hard questions pretty credibly. She did not wink at the camera or play the “you betcha” card one time! There was none of the good old girl, pitbull with lipstick crap we saw in the campaign.

For the most part, she sounded like she had a brain and actually knew how to use it. Things might have been a whole lot different if that’s the Sarah Palin we had seen last fall. Good thing she was coached so effectively by the good old boys in the McCain camp.

Now for those of you (mostly Mom and Robin) who might be holding out hope that I’ll jump on the Palin for 2012 bandwagon, stop it right now! I think she’s totally unqualified to be the leader of the most powerful country in the world. I disagree with her on most issues, and I think it’s a crying damn shame that she played the good old girl card last fall when she’s clearly perfectly capable of portraying women as smart and credible.

She could have used last fall’s campaign to show that women can be credible politicians and play alongside the men. But her campaign, like this stupid book title, fell far short. And with that, she failed us all.

Lookin' for love in all the wrong places

2009-11-16T14:38:00.002-06:00

From the Dumbass Criminal Files....

Please write your own joke. Thanks for tuning in.

Bouncy Bouncy Bouncy Bing!

2009-11-11T20:41:00.004-06:00

I'm finding this bouncing back from cancer thing a lot harder than I thought it would be. Remember back in July, I was all optimistic and bright eyed about how this was just another inconvenience along life's journey? This was just going to be unpleasant and expensive and then I would bounce right back, no worse for the wear? My glass was half full, and by gosh, I was going to enjoy every last drop of it!

Now? Not so much.

Welcome to the stage tonight, if you will, Dark & Twisty Lady Steele.

Some strange phenomenon happens when you are diagnosed with cancer, even the "not bad" kind. Suddenly, all you think about is cancer. Is it going to kill me? Will I lose my hair and throw up for the first time in 22 years? (I'm really not making that up, but that's another blog). Will I leave my poor sweet child an orphan and her father a widower at 36? Will he remarry a woman that's able to keep up with the laundry? Will my mother and my sister and my brother lose someone else they love to this dreaded disease? Will I get fired? How will we pay for this? Will I lose my boobs and have to wear a part of my butt in my bra for the rest of my life?

What sucked most for me was the time between the "hey you've got cancer" talk and the "ok, now we at least know it's not likely to kill you" talk. I don't know why it is ok to think that waiting a couple weeks to get an answer about how bad this really might be is acceptable. But for some reason, it is. And so, you wait.

I've survived the lumpectomies, both of them. I have a scar and some soreness still, which seems odd to me since my last surgery was four months ago. I made it through radiation, all six and a half weeks of it. I have a fistful of vicodin from the surgeries that I'm saving for a special occasion.

On the surface, I ought to be good to go. But now every little mole, every headache, muscle twitch, or tummy ache sends me to the computer in search of what might be slowly killing me now.

I had the strangest thing happen about a month ago. I won't burden you with the details, but if you'd like to read more about a REALLY fun affliction, click here: Trigeminal Neuralgia. The short version is that I was knocked upside the head with this horrid pain that stung quickly, struck hard, and stuck around anywhere from seconds to hours. Was I optimistic and bright eyed when this thing struck? Hellll no. I was convinced that my non-metatastic (a fancy word that means "doesn't spread") breast cancer had spread to my brain, where a giant tumor was slowly taking my life. Turns out, not so much. A trip to a couple of new docs, some really great medicine, and bing, bang, boom. I'm cured. But it was scary.

MrG and I have been battling some type of upper respiratory thing. Coughing. Snot. Lots of both. He's been sick for more than a month, and I've had it for a couple of weeks. Is it the swine flu, I wonder? Bubonic Plague? Pleurisy? Tuberculosis? Not so much. Turns out it's simply seasonal allergies and a compromised immune system.

My friends look at me differently now. The previously casual "hi, how are you" has now turned into "how are you, really? Are you ok? Do you need anything?" I have a friend (shout out to you, Shelly) who walked for 3 days with my name emblazoned on her pack. My dear sweet friends at work wrote checks to the Komen during a month when no one should have been asking them for anything. Well earned praise at work due to a decidely kick-ass sales year is now tempered with, "and you've done it with all of the challenges you've faced."

The old me has been replaced by the Me 2.0, Cancer Upgrade Pack.

The point is, Cancer has defined my life since June of this year, and I'm having a terribly tough time shaking it.

Some really good things have come of it - our company will now be making screening mammograms available EVERY YEAR for our women, not just every other year. And that is due in part to my story. I have friends who are getting their first mammograms because of me, and they are sharing my story with their friends. I know to the center of my soul that my fight will help another woman win a fight. Somewhere, somehow, I know this. I've raised money, my friends have raised money, and together we have raised awareness. So it's not all bad.

I'm really ready, though, to shake out from under this black cloud that has hovered around me. My inner writer is with me again - she's talking to me in the car and at night as I try to unwind for a night of restless sleep. I'm finding myself amused by every day stuff and making little notes that I promise myself I will act upon. Days later when I find the note, it seems beyond my scope of comprehension that at any one time those little scribbles made enough sense to me to convince me that I could indeed write about them.

I must admit I feel a certain amount of pressure to be witty and interesting here, and I suspect that my blog niggling at me is just one more thing that my overtaxed brain has to work through. But we're getting there. Like I tell LittleG, "we're not there yet angel, but we're getting closer."

Hang in there, dear reader, because I am on the upswing. I'm headed into Holiday Hysteria, which commences next week with LittleG's sixth birthday. I've already considered my holiday baking, which is good, but I don't think there is a way in the world I can pull off the 12 Days of Christmas this year.

I might surprise us all, though, so keep those cards and letters coming. And cross your fingers that I bounce up more often than down. I'll get there, friends. Ever forward.

You're sitting in a chair....in the sky!

2009-10-23T20:34:00.001-05:00

This is Louis CK from an appearance on Conan. He is one funny dude.

My friend MK sent this to me months ago, and it's just been waiting patiently for me to share it with you.

I flew to Tampa, FL, two weeks ago for a trade show. If you want a true appreciation of how much we expect, the sense of entitlement we've bestowed upon ourselves, simply fly by yourself to a city you've never been before. Here's how myfirst day played out.....

I loaded my car and drove to a parking area near the airport where a man I've never met before picked up my luggage and transported me and my luggage to the American Airlines check in counter.
At the check in counter, two guys I've never met before looked at a paper print-out I brought from my office. They picked up my bag, put some magic numbers on it and put it on a conveyor belt. I didn't see the bag again until Tampa.
Inside the airport, a lady I've never met before scanned a barcode on my piece of paper and let me get on a plane, where a man I've never met before flew me...in the air... from Dallas, TX, to Tampa, FL. And while we flew, a nice lady I had never met before served me ice cold Diet Cokes.
At the Tampa airport, my luggage miraculously appeared before my eyes on a conveyor belt.
After collecting my luggage, I took it outside, where a guy I've never met before loaded me and my luggage into a yellow car, and took us both to the Intercontinental Hotel. By the way, I had no idea whatsoever of the address of the hotel.
When I got there, I handed my drivers license and a piece of plastic to a woman I've never met before. And she gave me a nice safe place to sleep and a place to hang my clothes.

Are you getting this? I went, by myself, all the way across the country and slept in a room with nice fluffy pillows, armed only with my drivers license, a print-out from Orbitz, a credit card, and a handful of dollar bills for tips and taxi.

I didn't know a single soul who helped me that day, but I expected nonetheless that each of those strangers would perform his or her function and my trip would go off without a hitch, which it did.

What a remarkable world we live in!!

Clorox Wipes and Lysol and Potty Covers....oh my!

2009-10-22T15:23:00.004-05:00

We have this woman in our office who never fails to amaze me when she sneezes. She lets loose a full blown, snot flying ACHOO-echoing kind of sneeze. I've seen her stifle them in meetings, so I know she's physically capable of doing so. In general, when this woman sneezes, everyone hears it. And many in adjacent areas feel it.

There is no attempt to cover the sneeze or to come out with some little delicate "ah-choo" (or the "study hall sneeze" as my little sister used to call it). It's a big ugly nasty, loud, snotty affair.

I've been quite put out by this for the entire time we've worked together, but I can't really figure out a way to bring it to her attention that it's totally offensive to those of us who office near her to hear her shout ACHOO and see her blow spittle across the office without sounding snarky.

So I was a little shocked today when I walked into the ladies room in front of her. I headed in to my designated stall (yes, I have a favorite) and heard her file into a stall just down the row. At that point, the Toilet Cover Rustle began. You know the one - I've got to fish this potty cover out of its tissue box home and spread it on the potty so I can sit down on it. Rustle, tug, tug, rustle, spread, rustle.

REALLY?!?!

Let me make sure I understand this. The SNEEZER is worried about germs?

Trust me lady - my booty cooties ain't got nothing on your lung butter.

If you're so worried about germs, try sneezing into the crook of your arm. Or perhaps a tissue. Make an effort to protect us from your germs. Or for the love of all that's holy, don't attempt to protect yourself from ours.

It seems a bit out of line for me to point out to her that she's spreading a lot more germs when she sneezes than she's protecting herself from when she uses a potty cover. Maybe I just need to work on my delivery a little. Subtletly has never been my strong suit.

SNEEZER, if you somehow got ahold of this post and it hurt your feelings - so sorry. My bad. Someone should have pointed out to you gently a long time ago how bad it is to sneeze uncovered, especially in the land of Swine Flu and The Hygenically Correct. It's nasty. It's unsanitary. It's offensive. And it hurts your credibility as a professional.

In the meantime, I'm really glad to know you won't be picking up any nasty germs on your on your lady parts. We, on the other hand, will be walking around with your snot in our hair. Thanks a bunch for that.

Hello.....is anyone there??

2009-10-21T08:14:00.002-05:00

Dear Right Brain,

Hey. I know you've had a rough summer, and I've tried to cut you some slack. Quite frankly, I feel like I've filled in the blanks pretty well. After all, I've kept up with all the scheduling tasks for the past three months. The bills have been paid on time. You and your family have gotten where they are supposed to be at the time they were supposed to be there - that's including soccer practice, soccer games, radiation treatments, doctors appointments, PTA meetings, boys day out, work, school, travel. Prescription medications were taken on time by the appropriate family member. Pets have received heartworm medication. The grocery list has magically appeared each week. And you know what? I'm freakin' done for awhile.

You have been curled up under your desk in your mental fetal position for long enough. You've not published a blog in weeks. You're not decorating cakes. You've not made a necklace in heaven only knows how long. It's time you just get over yourself. Put your big girl panties on and get back here and blog, for the love of all that is holy.

Some of your friends have been understated in their desire to see an update; some have been more outspoken. Regardless, this is your gig, not mine, so pull yourself together, sister.

Love,

Left Brain

Hello, all.....

2009-09-09T19:57:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to pop in and say hello. I have lots to share with you, but not enough energy to sound witty or interesting. Snarky, mean, or just plain old unpleasant? I can pull that off. But witty or interesting? Not so much.

Here's the Cliff's Note version.... LittleG has started Kindergarten, Big Girl School, with BOYS in it. I am in the midst of PTA Board Member Boot Camp. LittleG has ventured in to the world of organized sports in the form of 5-year old soccer, which is about as close to herding cats as you can get without actual four-legged beasts.

I am just over halfway through with my radiation treatments. I am exhausted. And itchy. And blistered. And bitchy. And braless as often as possible. And still, I have 14 more treatments to go. Heaven only knows how bad I will be three weeks from now.

My big challenge this week is to figure out how I can go to LittleG's soccer tournament this weekend without a bra and not look like total white trash. Given that it's September in Texas, I'm thinking that the layered sweater approach is not going to work.

I've got a stack of books to read but not enough energy to follow a simple story line, or in some cases, a sentence. I am working my way slowly through one about lessons learned (and not learned) about breast cancer. It's struck a chord with me, and it's a shame I can't just sit down and knock it out in one sitting.

I am having a challenge at work that makes me very unhappy and I don't know what to do to fix it, or even if it can be fixed.

We have sort of adopted this crazy little dog and we are working him into our family. He's fitting fairly well, but adjusting to another living being is just another interesting turn of events for us.

My life sounds kind of like it sucks right now, but truly, it doesn't.

Did I mention my kid started school? And soccer? And that I've been entrusted to make school a better place for 900 kids? And that I have health insurance and a job to pay for it all?

School has been eye opening, and at turns, hysterical. Seems our LittleG is a tiny bit boy crazy. I don't for the life of me get where she gets THAT. But that's another blog.

My home life, new canine notwithstanding, has been pretty darn good. MrG has really stepped up and helped me when I've been too tired to function, letting me nap on weekends, and running taxi duty to and from school. He might just turn into a pretty good soccer dad, too. He doesn't coddle me, but he has been supportive, and dare I say it, nurturing. My sweet baby girl is at turns empathetic and caring, and totally self-absorbed, just as a five-year old should be. My mom, ever present, would do whatever I asked of her at the drop of a dime. My sister, from across the miles, channels energy to me and I feel it from afar, even when I'm too exhausted to let her know.

My friends continue to amaze me with their support and love. From random niceness at the office to an unexpected afternoon with my BFF last week, it's clear to me in every way that I'm not bearing the burden of this summer by myself. I have no way of telling them, without sounding patronizing, how much it means to me when they check on me, or when they leave me the hell alone when they get the vibe that what I need most is solitude. Somehow, they just know what I need, and they give it to me, again and again, asking nothing in return from me.

I have found the most ridiculous way to divert my mind....I'm playing Farmville and Farmtown on Facebook. It is absolutely inane to me that I am harvesting pretend crops and collecting pretend eggs from pretend chickens on a pretend farm with pretend money that I only pretended to earn. And yet, I am almost foolishly proud when I click in and see that I have a row of pretend squash to harvest. I guess it makes me feel like I am at least accomplishing something, when I feel like in real life, I'm missing the boat a lot of the time.

Soon, I hope, I will return from the land of pretend back into the land of reality. In the meantime, I am going to keep pretend farming my pretend crops, and do the best I can to keep my head above water.

It's probably good for all of you that I am as quiet as I am right now, because ohmygosh if I could form coherent thoughts, I would be ALL OVER the scandal that is POTUS speaking to the school children. Hopefully, when I do make it back to the land of the living, the subject will still be timely enough to debate. That will be worth waiting for!

Keep those cards and letters coming in. I'll be back next week. Or not.

Important Parenting Advice

2009-08-11T09:09:00.005-05:00

LittleG is starting Kindergarten in two weeks, and I've been dunked head first into the What Not To Say in The Principal's Office pool....

Certain schools in our school district offer a Dual Language program for children, but the elementary school to which we are assigned is not one of them. Since our last name is Garcia, I feel like it might be a benefit for LittleG to learn a little Espanol. Since you can't get no Spanish teachin' in our 'hood, I do a little internet research and figure out which 'hood can teach my chula the mother tongue.

I trudge across town, notebook and checkbook in hand, to visit one of the campuses that does offer the program. I march my Caucasian (Irish/Scottish descent), blue eyed, freckle faced self into the principal's office, fully ready to write whatever size check it takes to get the office staff to approve our transfer to the predominatly Hispanic school. I figure between my lilly white skin tone and checkbook, I've got a pretty good shot at improving the English to Spanish ratio in Mrs K's Kindergarten class.

And that's when it goes downhill.

Lady Steele: Hello, nice offfice ladies.

Office Ladies: Hola, guera. {Hello white lady}

Lady Steele: I understand that your school pioneered this cutting edge dual language program and that the original dual language teacher is still on staff and teaching Kindergarteners.

Office Ladies: You are absolutely right! Clearly, you are one highly informed parent and you've thoroughly researched the program.

Lady Steele: Yes I am, and yes I have. And I AM. DESPERATE. TO. GET. MY. CHILD. INTO. YOUR. PROGRAM. I will do WHATEVER it takes to enroll her here.

Office Ladies: Lady Steele, how do you feel about the PTA? Drop your checkbook and step away! That's not going to work here.

And that's how I ended up serving on the Board of the PTA before my child even crossed the threshold of the school.

Truth be told, I am pretty excited about it. My real life gig has prepared me well for the challenges of whatever being the Chair of Donations and Special Projects will bring. I certainly am not afraid to ask for things, and good gawd y'all, the public schools in our 'burb have a long list of needs and wants.

So any of you out there whose children have NOT yet started school, please write the following phrase in BIG TALL LETTERS using the scented marker of your choice, then post it on every flat surface you come in contact with:

I will not, under any circumstances EVER utter the phrase,

"I will do whatever it takes" in the principal's office at school.

I can assure you that if you offer, they will take you up on it, and you will find yourself with an irrevocable seat on the elementary school PTA for the next five years. My mom (a teacher herself) is already predicting a meteoric rise to the top of the PTA food chain.

Peace out, friends. I gotta go buy some new pencils and scented markers.....

Four Women, 1 Man, 1 Tube of Krazy Glue

2009-08-04T14:58:00.004-05:00

From the Krazy Glue® website:

Whatever you're making or repairing, there's an Instant Krazy Glue® formula or applicator to help you do the job - in an instant.

Meanwhile, from our friends at the Associated Press

WAUSAU, Wis. — A married man who planned to rendezvous with one of his handful of lovers at an eastern Wisconsin motel instead found himself bound, blindfolded and assaulted by a group of women out for revenge, according to court documents.

Four women, including his wife, eventually showed up to humiliate the man, who ended up with his penis glued to his stomach in a bizarre plot to punish him for a lover's quadrangle gone bad, according to the documents filed in Calumet County.

Now it's the women who face punishment, perhaps six years in prison, and at least one said Monday the story has gotten twisted and she's embarrassed.

"I am disturbed. I am upset. I am having a hard time handling life; an emotional wreck," Wendy Sewell, 43, of Kaukauna, said in a telephone interview from her home. "I am ashamed."

Sewell, Therese Ziemann, 48, of Menasha, Michelle Belliveau, 43, of Neenah, and the man's wife are charged with being party to false imprisonment, a felony. Ziemann also is charged with fourth-degree sexual assault.

The women are free on $200 cash bails. Investigators say all the women but Belliveau were romantically involved with the man. Online court records didn't list defense attorneys for any of the women Monday.

The Associated Press is not naming the man's wife to protect his identity as an alleged victim of sexual assault.

The women's plot for revenge unfolded last Thursday at the Lakeview Motel about 30 miles southwest of Green Bay in the tiny village of Stockbridge near the scenic shores of Lake Winnebago.

Criminal complaints filed Friday allege the man agreed to be bound with "sheer sheets" and blindfolded with a pillowcase for a "rub down" by Ziemann. She instead cut off his underwear with a scissors and summoned the others to the room with a text message.

Ziemann struck the man in the face, and used Krazy Glue to attach his penis to his stomach when the other women arrived, according to the complaints. The man told investigators he also was threatened with a gun. Ziemann told investigators she didn't have a gun but may have told the victim, "Do you know how much I want to shoot you?"

He started screaming and the women rushed off fearful that he could get loose and hurt them but allegedly took his wallet, vehicle and cell phone.

Ziemann told investigators she met the man online through Craigslist, fell in love and paid for his use of a room at the motel for the past two months. She said she gave him about $3,000. Then last Wednesday, she learned from the man's wife that he was married, had other girlfriends and was "using them for money." She expected the money to be repaid, according to the documents.

During Thursday's confrontation with the man, Ziemann told investigators Sewell asked him, "Which one do you love more?" and the man's wife made a derisive remark about him being scared.

The man got free from the bed by chewing through one of his bindings, went outside and borrowed a telephone from the motel owner to call police.

~ You no-good cheatin' bastards outta watch out fer yerselves. That's all I'm sayin'.

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. Peace out, friends, and be faithful.

Things that make you go 'hmmmmm

2009-07-30T20:17:00.002-05:00

Turns out that my inner writer must be something of a lush. After I fed her a little white zin last night, she kept me awake, for a long long time, working on a series of posts I've been thinking about since March.....

With that in mind, I'm pretty sure we're back. Thanks for checking in. See you soon.

You've got mail!

2009-07-29T19:36:00.003-05:00

I have an embarrassing fact to share with you. You've Got Mail is one of my very favorite movies of all times. I love that cheesy, sappy, predictable chick flick film. Don't hate me because I'm shallow!

Anyway, tonight, I feel a little like Kathleen Kelly (the Meg Ryan character) from the movie, because this keeps running through my head, "Dear friend, I like to start my notes to you as if we're already in the middle of a conversation."

You've been on my mind. I know you're out there, because I can see you're clicking in. Some of you click often. Others wait to see me on your RSS feed. Point is, I know you're there, and I've been thinking about you. Unfortunately, I've been thinking about a whole bunch of other stuff, too.

I've been all wrapped up in this beast that is breast cancer. And concerned about where I'm going to find the money to pay for all of it. And worried, truly, about what "all of it" actually entails, because as I'm learning, "all of it" seems to mean one damn thing after another.

I've continued to struggle with my job situation and have celebrated unexpected and perhaps unearned successes. I've been delighted to be sharing a super secret surprise for my baby sister on her 40th birthday! We've been planning it since the end of March, and I feared desperately that I would say something here in passing that would spoil the surprise. I learned the hard way that sometimes when you can't filter the words coming out of your mouth (or your fingers, in this case), it's just best to say nothing at all. Lucky for me, the surprise was last weekend, so Free at Last! Free at Last! Thank God Almighty, I'm Free at Last! (with apologies to MLK).

So why have you not heard from me, during this emotional and tumultuous time? I tend to write the most meaningful stuff when my soul is stirred. And surely, my soul has been stirred, not shaken, over the past two months. You would think the words would be pouring out of me, just begging to be read.

As it turns out, not so much.

I truly believe that the words I put out for you to read are ultimately a picture of me, Lady Steele, modern superhero. Mom of LittleG, wife of MrG. Goddess of Booth Sales, and Excel Genius. The Wizard of Oz to my friend Dorothy, and a bright yellow box for my favorite purple crayon.

I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and physically what will remain of me are photographs and notes in a contact management system. Canceled checks and medical bills. A beloved husband and daughter, a lovely family of origin and their families. A box of fantastic jewelry that I hope someone would love as much someday as I do now. Some really, really terrific friends.

And these words.

I need these words to count, to mean something. I don't want to put words out here, simply for the sake of putting words. I want the spirit to move me - to impart something to you or the future that I feel is worth hearing, something that would define me to my daughter, or to hers. A funny little anecdote (although clearly, short prose is not my strength), a thought-provoking quandary, or a sappy little story that makes you want to hug the ones you love.

So I have been pretty damn quiet over the past eight or so weeks. What strikes me most about this self-imposed quiet time is that I have not only been quiet on the screen, but my inner writer has been silenced.

In the "normal days" my inner writer speaks to me, suggesting funny phrases, or the subject of a blog. She inspires me to think creatively, be funny, tap into emotions. Sometimes all I get is a phrase, a simple snapshot or a funny outline. Other times, I get full blown themes that I have to explore with myself (can I do that without going blind??) before I commit them to cyberspace.

But somehow dampened down by the stress and the fatigue and the fear, the voices in my head have gone silent. I logged nearly 16 hours behind the wheel of the crimson steed last weekend, and I have to admit that my inner writer and I wrote nary a sentence the entire time.

Tonight, though, after a super sized glass of white zinfandel, my inner writer tapped me on the shoulder and reminded me to write, to reach out to you, and just to say, "hello dear friend."

And so I did. I probably owe it to you to bring you up to speed on what I'm willing to share online. I have been through two surgeries now, and my surgeon assures me he's gotten it all. Just to be sure, I'll go through six and a half weeks of radiation therapy, which I'll begin in about 10 days. I have an incision about 3 inches long, shaped like an eyebrow, slightly below and to the left of my heart.

I have a little pain, especially when I move my left arm in certain directions. Sleeping is a bit uncomfortable, but I've been so exhausted each night that I have fallen into a deep, noisy sleep, much to the chagrin of MrG. I'm sleeping reliably day after day until my alarm clock goes off, which usually pisses me off royally.

I'm eating well and drinking little (last weekend and tonight notwithstanding). I'm taking pleasure in my family and friends and my job that I love so much. I am excited at the prospect of having this all behind me in a few weeks and eagerly anticipating wearing a pink shirt in the Susan G. Komen in October.

I was glad to hear from my inner writer this evening, as I hope you were, as well. I don't know when the two of us will make an appearance again, but I do suspect we'll be back. And when we do, it will be meaningful, and it will personal. Because, as Kathleen Kelly said in one of the greatest movies ever made, "Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal."

Ever forward, friends.

Finally, some good news

2009-06-28T21:14:00.003-05:00

I've been away contemplating wellness and my destiny, and traveling for some much needed family time.

Here's what we know. My BRCA came back negative, meaning I do not have the two genetic markers that put me at a 40% higher risk of getting invasive cancer in my breasts or ovaries. That's the good news. And it's really good news. This news is the difference between a simple lumpectomy and a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery.

So Wednesday, I'm headed in for my lumpectomy. It's day surgery, so I should be home safe and sound by early afternoon. Two thirds of the time, the surgeon is able to remove the entire cancerous area the first time around, so odds are good it will only be one surgery.

After that, I will see a radiation oncologist, and begin a 7-week course of radiation therapy. I expect to be tired and have some bad skin effects, especially since I'm pasty-white and as I've mentioned before, a big-busted gal.

I'm a little frightened at the prospect of the surgery. More accurately, I'm frightened that I will fall, once again, into that foolish minority, and have to go back in a second time. I am not looking forward to the radiation therapy, although truth be told, it's 15 minutes out of my day that I will be addressing my own needs instead of someone else's. For almost 9 full hours over the next two months, it will be my needs that take center stage, something most moms never allow.

My friends and my coworkers have been extremely supportive, and for that I am so thankful! We have had offers for meals and babysitting, and one of my dear friends has offered to sit with me during my treatment every single day for seven weeks. I will never hesitate to offer my sincere help to a friend in need, because I know now what it feels like to be on the receiving end of things!

I had a terrific sales week last week and a much needed visit with family from far and wide, so I would have to say that the past week, overall, has been pretty damn good.

Keep your fingers crossed for me on Wednesday. Light a candle, say a prayer, hug that tree. Whatever works for you. I need all the karma, good wishes, blessings, and divine protection I can get.

And the same goes for the doctor in charge of my care on Wednesday. Poor schmuck has no idea how bitchy I am going to be without my morning Diet Dr. Pepper!

I will check in as I'm able, and as my addled mind allows. Ever forward, friends.

Just checking in

2009-06-15T05:53:00.001-05:00

I will be on the road for a few days. I'm ok. Still stunned, a little frightened about what the future holds. But all told, I'm doing pretty well.

I'm going to go do what I love - sell some stuff and rub elbows with my clients, in a ritzy resort in Reno.

It's not ALL bad in the Land of Lady Steele.

Have a nice week!

The best kind of bad news

2009-06-11T12:24:00.002-05:00

I know I'm a day late. Sorry.

I needed a few hours to wrap my mind around the news I got yesterday. The news was not good, but on the scale of catastrophic news, it was the best kind of bad news.

I have early stage, non-invasive breast cancer. My life is not in danger. This will not kill me.

Still, though, when the radiologist dropped the bomb on me yesterday, I was stunned. I have thought all along that this is "the sky is falling" kind of medical hysteria. So big deal, there are some calcifications. 80% of calcifications turn out to be nothing.

Wouldn't you know, I'd fall into the 20%? I do love to distinguish myself among my peers, but trust me when I say, this is NOT the time to be in the minority!

Anyway, my mom beat this two years ago, and I will beat it, too. I am definitely facing surgery, probably just a lumpectomy, but we will know more after an MRI and some genetic testing. At the very least, I will have a lumpectomy and seven weeks of radiation therapy. At the most, a double mastectomy.

It is scary to know that this puts me at a higher risk for invasive cancer down the line. And it is almost more than I can bear to consider a mastectomy at 41. You don't realize how attached you are to these things until you think about waking up one day without them. Although the prospect of a fresh perky pair is not too depressing, now that I consider it.

Mentally, I am in a decent place right now. I'm looking at this like a really bad broken arm. It is a hassle. It's going to take some time and money to heal. I'll have to take some time off work and more importantly, some time away from family, that I had not planned to take. My quality of life will be gently compromised.

But very few people die from a broken arm.

I also believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that this has happened for a reason. There's a plan out there for me that I didn't get to write, and I don't get to approve. I don't understand it, it's not clear to me, but I still believe there's a plan, and this happened for a reason.

What's the reason? Who knows! Maybe my scare will encourage one of you to have a mammogram, and that mammogram will save your life. Maybe a group of us will walk together in the Komen someday, (I will be the one in the pink survivor's shirt), and the money we raise will be the money that goes to the doctor that finally figures out the cure for breast cancer. Maybe it will strenghten my relationship with my husband, a friend, my daughter, my mother, my sister. Maybe I will meet a lifelong friend during my seven weeks of radiation. Maybe I will learn I am stronger than I think, or maybe I will finally learn to let others help when I need it.

It's not my plan, so I don't get to understand the reason. I get to live it and hope I learn the lessons that are set forth for me.

Regardless, we have a rough plan in place, and the important thing is that this thing won't kill me.

I have good health insurance, a very understanding group of bosses, and the best support group a modern superhero could ever ask for.

Thank you all again for you thoughts and support. The waiting and the worrying is crazy scary, and just knowing I have an army of friends, real and cyber, makes me feel like I'm almost invincible.

If you've not had your mammogram this year, go get one. And do it now.

Ever forward friends, and as my friend Stu says, F Cancer.

A note to my friends

2009-06-10T08:42:00.004-05:00

"Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light."~ Helen Keller

I have the dearest friends, perhaps on the planet.

Many of you have been in my orbit for years, some just a few months. Some of you I've never even met, and yet I feel a connection to you beyond what I ever thought possible in this world of cyberfriends and cyberfriendships.

I want to thank you all for your generous support - your calls, texts, emails, flowers, cards, good thoughts - all have meant so much to me! I feel like you've been sharing my burden with me, and it makes my heavy load so much easier to bear. Thank you.

Whatever the outcome today, my life is better because of your presence in it.

Here's to good health friends!

Hugs,
Lady Steele

And so we wait

2009-06-09T20:21:00.001-05:00

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Yesterday was frightening and the waiting is interminable. As soon as results are ready, I'll get a call on my cellphone tomorrow. Good news or bad, I will either speak to the doctor or get a voice mail with the news.

I am tender and uncomfortable, but I am not really in pain. I am delighted to say I did not leave the Imaging Center in my $4 WallyBra, but instead, wrapped in a giant Ace bandage. I sported the bandage again today, and now the girls are cradled tightly in a heavy duty sports bra.

And so we wait.

My body is a wonderland

2009-06-08T06:17:00.000-05:00

“Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.” ~ Bill Cosby

I alluded awhile ago to a health situation I am currently facing, and I've thought long and hard about how much I want to share here with you. Those of you in the Inner Inner Circle know what's up. The rest of you probably know that something is going on but don't know details. So here you go.

After a string of absolutely fine, run-of-the-mill mammograms, I had one come back with some suspicious spots. I've gone in for additional diagnostic mammograms, and what we know now is that something is going on, but we don't really know what.

Today, at 1:00 pm Central time, I'm having a breast biopsy. And I'm facing it with as much courage and humor as I can muster.

Breast cancer killed my maternal grandmother. The spring after cancer killed my father, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She beat it. Take that, you smug bastard disease!

It's even odds right now that what is showing on my mammogram will turn out to be nothing - a benign group of little cells. Or, it could be malignant. We don't know until the biopsy, so that's what we're doing.

I on purpose didn't put this out there for general consumption. The ones who need to know - my mom, my sister, my best friend, my dear posse - all know the gory details. For the rest of you, I've not made mention. I don't want your pity, I don't want your fear. I don't want to talk about it, because if you bring it up, I have to think about it. And then I just get scared.

Besides that, I am pretty sure that HIPPA laws prevent me from even acknowledging that I have breasts, much less that there might be anything wrong with them. Please sign the attached form to indicate your acknowledgment before proceeding. Blah blah blah.

Anyway, as I said, chances are even that this turns out to be absolutely nothing. My rational mind has held on to that for dear life over the past three weeks. My irrational, oh-my-god-who-is-going-to-take-care-of-my-family-while-I-am-puking-my-guts-out-from-the-chemo mind already has a Lady Steele In Waiting for MrG and a new Work Posse member all lined up.

I will know more on Wednesday. Until then, I will breathe in and breathe out. You can feel free to join me if you'd like. There's really not a whole lot else we can do. Pray if you want. Light a candle. Hug a tree. Whisper a spell. Whatever floats your boat. I kind of feel like the universe is no doubt unfolding as it should and there's not much I can do about it, but if you find comfort in one thing or another, and you think it will help, please knock yourself out.

I'm sure you're saying to yourself right now, Lady Steele, you promised me humor. Nothing about this is funny thus far. And you're right, dear reader, so here we go.

I am going in for what's called a stereotactic biopsy. My mother the former RN would tell you it's really cool technology, and she would use a bunch of fancy words and the correct medical terminology to describe the affected body parts. I'm in sales, not medicine, dear friends, so let me dumb this down for you.

I will be crawling on a table in a few hours that has a big hole in the center of it. I will proceed to hang the offending body part down through the hole. The nice doctor will raise me up on the table, kind of a like a 1987 Ford Taurus at the Jiffy Lube, so she can get a good angle on the offending body part. She will then use a fancy mammogram machine to "locate the area of concern" which as far as I can tell involves two plexiglass plates smooshing me in my altogether into one nice flat plane, which is funny when you take my size into account, but more about that later. I really can't tell you any more about the process, because when the doctor was describing the procedure to me, I pretty much blanked out after the smooshing part. I'm sure there are needles involved and some type of tissue removal, but I can't say what at this point. I do know I don't get Valium, which makes me a bit grumpy.

Anyway, when we're done, they will lower me from the hydraulic lift, apply a "pressure bandage" to my "surgical site" and send me home. But wait! There's more.

As one final parting shot, the salt in my wound so to speak, the insult to my injury, my post-op instructions tell me that I am not to wear an underwire bra until my "surgical site" has healed.

Say what?

I'm a 41-year old, rubenesque kind of gal. I'm more in the "Needs Weight Watchers as a Lifestyle" category, rather than the "Quick, Get the Gastric Band Surgery" category. However, I do have, as they said back in the good old days, nice ample bosoms. And I am going to be required to flop out of the Womens Imaging Center, and through the next several days, WITHOUT. THE. BENEFIT. OF. UNDERWIRE.

I am not really a girly girl, but I do admit I lean towards pretty lingerie. My favorite bras are from Nordstrom, and I'm embarrassed to say that I spent more on my last bra than I did on my last tank of gas. They don't call me "Lady" Steele for nothing.

But I digress.

I'm being forced, by the threat of this smug bastard disease, to purchase a bra without underwire. And I will NOT for all the tea in China, spend good money on a garment I am going to wear a few times and then hate forever. My goal is to wear it only as long as I have to, then burn it in effigy on my back porch while I drink scotch and watch the grass grow. (And with that sentence, my dearly departed scotch-loving conservative father is officially rolling over in his grave).

Going braless is clearly NOT an option, at least when I'm alone or with other people. I have to have a plain old vanilla bra, so I treated myself this weekend to a nice standard non-underwire support undergarment. Yep, bought it at the Walmart. For $4.00. Because I'm a Lady, and I'm worth it.

And there we have it. The threat of maybe having cancer is terrifying to me. The thought of Jiffy-Lube-Mechanic-Does-Biopsy is a little funny, if you scrunch your face up and forget the part about the needle. But the vision I have in my head of me, in all my $4 underwireless bra glory, jiggling and wiggling all over the office for the few days is downright, knee-slapping, guffaw-inducing funny as hell.

Don't be afraid for me. Instead, think of me and giggle inside as I slide off the Jiffy Lube rack and work those babies into a $4 bra.

Ever forward, friends. You'll hear from me when I know more on Wednesday. Or sooner if I put someone's eyes out with one of these things. Cheers.

Humor is just another defense against the universe. ~ Mel Brooks

To each his own, I guess

2009-05-29T21:14:00.003-05:00

I know I said last night I would be on hiatus for awhile, but a girl can change her mind, right? I was reminded this evening of a funny story, and I thought I'd share it with you.

I am married to a big strapping guy. He does manly stuff like take out the trash and change the propane on the gas grill. He fancies himself quite the outdoorsman and enjoys hunting, fishing, and golf. He loves football, hates the Cowboys. He is a good provider and protector, here in the Land of Estrogen.

His shoulders are broad, he carries a few extra pounds. He is hairy and he has big feet. He snores and his goal in the morning is to get clothes on that match...he doesn't begin to pretend to understand the concept of an "outfit." He is unabashedly a big smelly boy.

For a guy who is perfectly happy wearing a golf shirt and Dockers every day of the week, he cleans up pretty nicely. He prefers his clothing freshly pressed (too bad he chose me for a wife), and he never fails to spritz himself with some masculine foo foo juice of some sort, so he always smells good. His beard is cleanly trimmed, and he wears his hair quite short and always nicely groomed. Most days he leaves the house looking pretty well put together.

But as all you married girls know, a husband is sort of a work in progress. As much as he gets right, there is always room for improvement. And given my man's propensity towards the manly version of "getting ready" I've had some hurdles to clear during the past 15 years.

I worked on him for years, YEARS! I tell you, to get his eyebrows waxed. Lots of guys can pull off the no-maintenance brow, but my man is just a lot better looking when an aesthetician works her magic on him. I begged. I pleaded. I nagged. And finally, he gave in. Now, he's hooked. And, by the way, all the more handsome for it.

My latest ongoing Metrosexualization Project has been The Pedicure. I tell him to just suck it up and go do it. Your feel will feel great in the warm bubbly water. You get to sit in the fancy chair and the Magic Massage Motion will take away the troubles of your day. Kind of like Calgon, only in a nail salon surrounded by girls who don't speak English. Lena the Nail Goddess will clean up those calluses and trim up those toenails (I try not to use the word "nasty" here because I think it's a bit offensive). I sense that I am ever so close to selling him on the idea.

One Friday evening last fall, we found ourselves with a child-free Friday night on our hands. I needed a pedicure badly, and I pitched the idea to my beloved. We'll go have dinner, get side-by-side pedicures, and then find a way to while away the child free hours. He didn't bite, so I sent him home alone to ponder what he could have been doing with me while LittleG was away. And I went for a mani-pedi.

When I got to the nail salon, Lena the Nail Goddess swept me to my appointed nail station so she could give me the child-free Friday night pampering I so deserved. As we walked to her station, I noticed a nice grandfatherly looking man in the waiting area. I figured he was waiting for his wife or maybe a granddaughter, so I have to admit I didn't pay much attention to him. At first.

As Lena got started on my nails, something in the waiting area caught my eye. A quick flash of red kind of crossed my peripheral vision, so I turned to see what it was. There, in the waiting room, right on the bench by the nail polish, sat the nice grandfather guy. He was sixty-ish or so, wearing a polo type shirt and khaki pants.

And four-inch patent leather peep toe pumps.

Yeah, you read that right. Four inch patent leather peep toe pumps - red ones.

Before I could laugh out loud or stare inappropriately, Lena took me back for my pedicure. After a few minutes, you guessed it, here comes Gramps, headed for the spa chair next to mine. He slipped off his pumps - and trust me, they were fabulous - and one of the other girls got started on his pedicure.

At this point, I am too stunned to speak. While the other clients around us began to visit with him about his fabulous shoes, I did the only thing I knew to do. I turned up my iPod, shut my eyes, and prayed for it all to end. Lena finished me up and sent me off to the fancy toe dryer, and I missed the end of the conversation about where in the world a man who is over six feet tall can go to find a decent pair of stilettos.

I leave the shop with all the composure I can muster and go home and tell MrG what I've just seen. I let some time elapse before I call Lena to get the scoop, and I try not to giggle when I ask her for the low down on Gramps. Is he in the theater, I wonder? No. Is he a drag queen? No. What's the story then? Lena tells me, "he's just some normal guy." Huh? Say what?

Hate to tell you, Lena, but normal guys watch football. They wear clothes that usually almost match. They brush their hair and trim their beards. Sometimes they get their brows waxed. But a "normal" dude does NOT frequent the salon-in-a-box for semi-monthly spa pedicures, complete with French tip nail polish.

I've thought about Gramps often since our first encounter, but I have not been back to the shop on Friday night since then. Until tonight. I waltz in, and lo and behold, there sits Gramps, feet happily submerged in a tub of fragrant bubbly water.

Turns out, pedicures and high heel shoes are his thing. He's a regular in the shop, every other Friday night, 6 pm. Always French Tip polish, and always high heeled shoes.

Tonight he was pretty conservative in his white golf shirt, khaki capris, and cork wedge heel sandals, complete with woven straps and shiny rhinestones. If I had to guess, I'd say they were about 3 inches high. I suppose a boy's gotta go casual when he's sporting his summer capris.

A rather large, and dare I say scary-looking, man of color came in with his wife for side-by-side pedicures this evening, and they sat down in their respective spa chairs just as the Nail Goddess In Waiting was finishing up with Gramps. I guess since the guy had already forfeited his Man Card at the door, he lost all rights to judge another man at the pedicure station. But that didn't stop him from guffawing out loud as Gramps teetered out to his truck once his polish dried.

After what we're calling the Patent Leather Peep Toe Pump incident, I've given up trying to drag MrG in for a pedicure. And I'm pretty sure that the lovely lady who was in with her man tonight won't be enjoying side-by-side pedicures with her guy any time soon, either.

I guess now I need a new project for MrG, because the pedi' ain't ever gonna happen for my man. Thanks, Gramps.

Hi!

2009-05-28T21:47:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to pop in and say hi. I've been traveling, and there's nothing like 12 hours in the car with nothing but flat land ahead of you and lots of time alone with your thoughts to fuel the creative word machine that is the blog.

But, alas, I have some health things going on right now that are taking up a lot of my brain power. I'm hoping they turn out to be nothing, and when the time comes, maybe I'll share more with you.

But for now, I've sort of curled myself into the fetal position, hugging my duck, and rocking myself in time with my night night music. And so, no blog for you! For that to be funny, you have to say it like Seinfeld's Soup Nazi. For those of you who aren't Seinfeld junkies, sorry about that.

Be back soon....in the meantime, if you're due for one, please go get your annual gyno exam and mammogram. Go see the dentist and get your teeth checked. Have a colonoscopy if you're over 50. Eat enough fiber. Lay off the booze. Get some rest.

Yeah, I know. None of that sounds like a bit of fun, but no one should have to be frightened about something they can help control.

Lady Steele, by MrG

2009-05-19T21:49:00.005-05:00

Tonight, while watching the Dancing with the Stars Finale with my highly metrosexual husband, I was so enjoying the spectacle that is Lady Gaga. I commented on her unusual outfit and persona, and my Dearly Beloved pointed out that she may be Lady Gaga, but I am Lady Steele. And, he pointed out, I am TWICE the woman she is.

In case you are wondering, I will NOT be riding his Disco Stick. Not for a long damn time.

My spam filter, my friend, Monday Morning Edition

2009-05-18T08:49:00.002-05:00

Sorry. I just couldn't let these go without a little Monday morning commentary.

We know the method to quit the aging process. Yeah, me too! It’s called death.

Sick of instant headaches? With us you can forget about them. They’ll still hurt like hell, but you just won’t remember them.

Prove to your wife that there still can be a lot of flame in your bed. That’s right kids, fire!!

A complete man consists of virility, stamina, endurance, and strength. Not a sense of humor, good job, intelligence of any kind. Sounds pretty damn incomplete to me.

Know the exact time at any part of the world. Oh, look! It’s 8:37 pm in Sri Lanka! My life is complete now.

Forget about depression and be in a perfect mood all the time. I know, I shouldn’t be tempted, but somehow I want this.

Have a look at medicine of unbelievable quality but funny prices. I don’t even know what this means.

You can look great without any special efforts. That’s right, ladies. Don’t primp, preen, or pluck. No effort whatsoever. Somehow I think this ties in to the pharmaceuticals referenced above.

We got medicine to cure any illness you suffer from. Oh yeah? Seems to me like all you got is bad grammar. A preposition is a horrible thing to end a sentence with. Ha!

When you feel that your virility is already dead, call us us. Because we we are offering special members only virility death ceremonies.

We offer the best alarm-clocks for your little friend down there. Goodness. Every little friend I’ve ever known has been able to get up without the aid of an alarm.

Our common secret! How secret can it be if it’s common?

Lose that fat without exercise. And while you’re at it, bank a million bucks without a job, and solve world hunger without feeding anyone.

A complete male in bed is always ready. In bed, yes! In the garage? In the back yard? In the kitchen? Not so much.

Make her sweaty and exhausted. Yeah, baby! Nothin’ says “I feel pretty” like sweaty and exhausted.

An open letter to KFC

2009-05-13T06:19:00.007-05:00

Dear KFC Grilled Chicken Product Manager and Marketing Team,

I'd like to congratulate you all on the greatness that is Grilled KFC! I couldn't believe it when I heard a few weeks ago that you had finally come up with the perfect combination of the Colonel's secret spices AND healthy grilled chicken. Could it actually be true?

Oh, yeah, baby....KFC without the fat! A whole chicken breast for just four grams of fat? And a yummy one at that? Hold me while I cry!

It's now possible for me to feed my family grilled chicken, corn on the cob, and mashed potatoes, without turning on the stove! Toss in a bagged salad, and bingo, instant bordering-on-healthy dinner that we can all agree on!

I would like to ask you to rethink your new website, though. I know you marketing guys get your eyes on the prize and forget to really THINK about the message you're sending. In this case, you're telling us about thinking thin, about the unfried, the healthy, blah blah blah.

But seriously, guys! Your new website? You know the one: www.unthinkfc.com.

Some of your predecessors spent their entire careers branding KFC in the minds of consumers. So I hate to be the one to break it to you, but when we see "unthinkfc, "we don't read "Unthink FC." We see "Unthin KFC."

Hello? This the message you're trying to send?

Silly me! I was totally sold on grilled chicken throughout your commercial. See the pretty chicken? Ooh, pretty chicken! Low fat! No grease! Feed your family fast food, minus the guilt!

Then you go and eff it up by splashing your web address across the screen, and you replace the message of decent healthy meal by telling me "unthin KFC!"

Now I'm just confused! Can someone tell me - is it healthy or is it unthin? I'm a pretty smart girl, but this is just too much to figure out.

Reminds me of the Nissan commercials a couple years ago that said G O F A R T H E R. We all know they meant "go farther" but the way the letters appeared on the screen the first time I saw the commercial, I read "go fart her." And the next five hundred times I saw the commercial, I wondered only what "go fart her" really meant.

Maybe you and the Nissan guys all work for the same ad agency and no one checks your work? Hard to know.

In all fairness, I am in sales and not marketing, and I really don't understand what it takes to put together a marketing campaign for a new product. I've gotta believe, though, based on my own experience with marketing managers, that at least SOMEONE out there ought to be paying better attention!

Gotta go fart her. Unthin KFC. Peace out!

Anna Quindlen on motherhood

2009-05-12T09:19:00.004-05:00

As is so often the case, my friend MK has sent me once again the perfect message. Funny and sweet and touching and true. The message, and my friend who sent it.

By Anna Quindlen, Newsweek Columnist and Author:

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach, T. Berry Brazelton, Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, have all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations --what they taught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2.

When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there some thing wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the, 'Remember-When- Mom-Did Hall of Fame.' The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, 'What did you get wrong?' (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.

My spam filter, my friend

2009-05-12T09:01:00.003-05:00

We have a spam filter at work to help cut down on the total crap we get through our email system. I always take the time to go through what gets caught there, because inevitably, one of my clients emails me and their note gets stuck in cyberspace.

I am alternately enraged and entertained by what I get via email from the scumbag spam masters who clearly don't speak English. Here are just a few real live subject lines, verbatim from my spam filter this morning, along with my thoughts.

Lost your libido and strength? We will help you look for it! Really? Wouldn’t it be more effective if you help me find it instead of just helping me look for it?

Aid your darling sexual times. Darling kittens I get. Darling puppies I get. Darling sexual times? Not so much!

We know the method to get rid of even the most destroying ache. Yeah, me, too. I’m thinking it’s a better spam filter!

We have inexpensive medicine from every illness. From, not for. Morons.

Uplift your belove night adventures. What is a belove night adventure and how do I know if I have one?

You feel like your little friend is a real dengerate? No, not my little one, but maybe my big one.

Barak caught nude. Good gawd, y’all! You think POTUS actually takes a shower in the buff?

Ascent your sweet sexuality. Not accent, mind you. Ascent.

You will like the quality of our soft, but moreover you will like the prices. Well, of course, if you’re going for soft, you'd better get your money's worth.

Revew your masculinity for yourself, for her and for your love. Is “her” also your love or do you have two “hers?” Or maybe a “her” and a “him?” Hard to tell from this. Really.

Enlarging your male instrument means winning a war. Hmm. Hadn’t really considered that a man’s sexual organ has anything at all to do with men and women fighting and dying.

The lack of confidence in men is a real turn-off for every woman. Oh yeah, baby. I like my men to be total arrogant jerks. Forget those sensitive, understanding, caring, loving guys. Wussies.

Hoist your sweet sexual times. Hoist, like using a pulley? Is there heavy machinery involved?

Could go foreverv. Write your own joke.

Never half-staying in bed. Far better to be half-falling out??

Wanna be a big sized guy? No, I’m much happier being a girl, but thanks.

You might not have gold in your wallet buy you will have gold on your wrist. Gold? Who needs it? I have plastic!

When you wish to feel like a man, nothing will stand on your way. Poor way! You think it hurts bad when you stand on it?

Be cool and be trendy, be a man that looks like candy. Nothing says big handsome stud like a peppermint patty.

This crysis never ends. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

This is how we do it!

2009-05-07T08:42:00.002-05:00

This is why we do what we do, folks....

I've wished all my life to be a mom, and now that I am, I totally get it! It doesn't really matter how different your child is from you - different eye color, different skin color, different gender, different beliefs - you love that kid anyway, because that's what we do.

We love and we provide and we nurture when we can, and we help our little ones learn to stand on their own. And hopefully, we do the same with the children around us who aren't our own.

There may not be a more noble job imaginable.

Happy Mothers Day!

I have achieved Nerd Nirvana

2009-05-05T14:40:00.002-05:00

I got an email at the office today as follows:

Subject: Oh goddess of the spreadsheet

Will you help a lame mortal with Excel?

Now how, exactly, do you turn down a request for help from anyone (much less a beloved co-worker) who refers to you as a goddess (of anything) AND thinks you have it going on well enough to solve a problem??

I did, by the way, have the answer.

I SERIOUSLY need a dose of coolness in my life. Now where did I put that damn pocket protector?

Happy Birthday, Dad

2009-05-04T21:12:00.002-05:00

I missed you today. It's been a long time, and sometimes I just wish the phone would ring and it would be you. I didn't appreciate our time together like I should have, and I'm sorry.

For your birthday, I'm assuming you got what you always asked for....a little peace and quiet. I thought I'd give you a quick update on my world.

Life is good for me. My job right now is what you would have called "a learning experience" and I'm happy to say that my mind, like a parachute, works best when open. You were right about that, but I don't know that I ever told you. It might surprise you, or not, I guess, to find out that I turned out to be a pretty respectable sales person. Funny where life leads you, I guess.

You were also right when you told me, sometimes repeatedly and not very nicely that I am just like my mother. I would like to think that's true, and I believe it is to some extent. You loved her for more than 40 years, so I'm thinking her track record isn't half bad.

LittleG is beautiful and sassy and so much like me that it would make your heart ache to see her. I call her Sugar sometimes, like you used to call me. It makes us both happy, and I think it's a quiet tribute to you. I told her the other day that you used to call me by that name. She asks about you sometimes and wonders if you and Daisy are ok together in heaven. I don't know how much she will remember about you, but I'm doing my best to remind her that you always had a sucker for her, especially when we visited you in the hospital.

MrG is such a good man and I am convinced at alternating times that he is a total blithering idiot, and the most brilliant man on the earth.

I am so lucky to have such a nice family.

We've been in our house now for nearly a decade, and we've never been a day late on the payment. Who would have thought all those years ago when all I could manage was overdue student loans that I would ever turn into a real live grownup?

Just because I know you'd want to know, yes, my car is running well. I have just over 53,000 miles on it, and it will soon be time to rotate the tires and change the oil like a good little car owner should. Thanks for the valuable lesson in car maintenance and responsibility. By the way, I still have my dorky Excel spreadsheet that calculates the mileage. Some habits die hard, I guess.

I'm putting some money away every month, just like you taught me, and someday, perhaps, I will be able to afford to send LittleG to school for a semester and buy a book or two. Those lessons about financial planning make a lot more sense to me now.

I have some really terrific friends - friends who surround me and hold me up, who laugh with me and cry with me, and see my faults and love me anyway. Jennifer sent me a message today on Facebook, and I know she misses you, too. I learned a lot about the value of a friend from you.

I look back with respect and admiration at your friendships....the 12 men who stood with you as we celebrated your life then marched down the aisles of the church to the strains of the triumphant Aggie War Hymn, the hundreds of people from all over the world who played an online memorial backgammon tournament in your name, the church friends you found late in life, and the folks from the irrigation community who respected and loved you. I will probably never have the type of friendships you had, because I think few people do. But you know what? My posse is mine, and they love me, and I love them in return.

I tried to make you proud, Dad. Good job, good family, good friends. A girl could do a whole lot worse.

I hope wherever you are tonight that this message finds you and you feel the love across the miles. I miss you, Dad. Happy birthday.

No more Dark & Twisty

2009-04-19T19:40:00.002-05:00

I've been looking for a way to extricate myself from my self imposed pity party, and Thursday night, it finally happened. Although this wasn't really the way I would have wanted it to go.

A little background, first. LittleG has had a long and colorful history of respiratory issues - lots of snot, lots of coughing, tubes in her ears at 16 months, and a tonsillectomy a year ago. We do preventive antihistamines every night, and I have a respiratory medication plan that we follow when she gets wheezy. I've become more relaxed over the past five years, and have learned that a sniffle is not necessarily indicative of a trip to the doctor. Most times, they tell me she has a virus and there is nothing they can do, so I have adopted a "no doctor till fever" policy that has served us pretty well.

She's been suffering from Texas springtime allergies lately, and I knew she was getting pretty close to the infected stage. I picked her up at school on Thursday, and she was burning hot with fever and very weepy. Mine doesn't just cry for no reason, so when she turned on the waterworks, I knew something was up.

We went to doc-in-the-box in our suburb and I was disappointed to see 11 names on the list in front of ours. When I asked how long our wait was likely to be, the receptionist told me at least an hour. This is the old fashioned wait-in-the-waiting-room-with-everyone-else-in-town-who-is-sick-as-a-dog kind of clinic. If you're not certifiably ill when you walk in, you will be when you walk out, because there is surely someone in that waiting room carrying every contagious disease known to man, and most of them are sneezing in your direction. We high-tailed it out of there and headed home for Plan B - Care Now.

We don't have a Care Now in our city, but there is one about 20 minutes away. I LOVE Care Now because you sign in online and you get a call when you're on deck. You wait at home instead of surrounded by sick people, then drive across town, they whisk you into your own little relatively germ free room, and bang, you see the doctor. Yeah, it's hard to explain to a sick little one why we aren't at the doctor, but if she's eating popsicles, she really doesn't care anyway.

We waited our time at home, drove across town and got right in, gave the nurse the rundown of her symptoms, and I, certified Mom of the Year, say, "I know it's just a sinus infection, but her fever is high and she's out of sorts."

The doctor comes in, checks ears and nose and throat, then listens to LittleG breathe. It's then that it gets a little scary.

The doctor wrinkles up her forehead and raises an eyebrow as she asks LittleG to take another deep breath. Her brow furrows further as she repositions the stethoscope and listens some more, and I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"Has she been tested for pneumonia," the doctor asked. "Well, no. She hasn't acted sick, hasn't had a fever," I say. "Well, we're doing a chest x-ray," she says.

Off we go to position a squirmy, feverish, overwrought 5-year old in front of the x-ray screen. Lady Luck smiled down upon us and we got two good shots right away, so we only had to go through one round of pictures. The x-ray tech ferried us back to room #3 and we waited for the doctor to come back in.

She came back in with a grim look on her face, and a quick nod confirmed my fears. My sweet baby girl had pneumonia!

Pneumonia these days doesn't mean what it used to mean. It's serious, but it's not "pack your overnight bag, you're staying in the hospital" serious. LittleG had to get a shot of something magic called Rocephin, and we left with four prescriptions and instructions for managing the fever and cough throughout the night. Despite my pleading, those cold hearted bastards would not give me a valium, which I had certainly earned by holding down my thrashing child so they could give her a shot.

After a 30-minute stop at the all night pharmacy (with an accompanying 3 digit bill for medicine), we were off to the house for a super quick dinner and a round of medication. I slept on the blow up mattress on the floor in her room that night, and she was so wiped out that she was asleep before I could get my teeth brushed. She slept very well; I slept fitfully, at best.

We were back there early Friday for a check-up, and while she wasn't 100%, she was a whole lot closer to it than she had been. Saturday, she had bounced almost all the way back, and today, you'd hardly know she had been sick at all.

So I had been desperately seeking a diversion from the drama at the office - something to help clear my mind. I have to say after this weekend, that there are probably not very many things more effective at helping you remember what matters - and what doesn't - than a sick child.

I am so grateful that I was plugged in enough to realize that something was amiss, although my mom diagnosis was totally off base. Thank heavens we have the option of the after hours clinics, and thank the good Lord above that we have health insurance that allows this type of care. I'm looking at a $600 bill, for which I've only paid a $20 co-pay so far. How in the world do families without health insurance ever manage situations like this?

I shudder to think what would have happened if we hadn't had that option available to us, or the financial wherewithal to pull it off. Or, God forbid, if I had still been all wrapped up in whatever has been eating at me the past month.

So my little duck is tucked in her bed right now, breathing fresh oxygen deep into clear lungs, dreaming of happy fairies and princes. And that, my friends, is the silver lining in this cloud......

Help a sister out

2009-04-16T06:42:00.003-05:00

One of my loyal readers is participating in the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3-Day, which raises money to fight the battle against breast cancer.

Each participant in the walk is required to raise a pretty big chunk of money. If you can help - anything at all - click here to donate: Shelly's Team,

I donated this morning in memory of my grandmother and in celebration of my mother, because my life has been inexorably altered by breast cancer.

She didn't ask me to do this, by the way. I just think it's the right thing to do.

Please help if you can. Oh yeah, and tell her Lady Steele sent you.

I know, I know

2009-04-14T20:19:00.003-05:00

I've been thinking about you. I promise. I said in my last post I was going to try to ditch Dark & Twisty Lady Steele. She's still hanging around, so I'm not blogging right now.

Well, I'm blogging in my mind. I have lots of things swirling, some I've been thinking about for a long long time. If I ever string the right words together, I'm going to have some fabulous new posts for you.

Until the good witch returns, I am going to brew a little longer. I'll leave you with this, which I think is hysterical....

The neighborhood accountant-in-a-box joint has been paying temps to dress up like the Statue of Liberty and dance on a street corner in an effort to attract clients this tax season. LittleG and I have been debating for three months now why a tax office wants people to dance on the corner, and why for the love of Pete do they think it works?

At any rate, yesterday when we drove by, one of them was holding up a big sign that said "The End is Near."

I don't know why, but it tickled my funny bone, and it is bringing me some measure of lightness even now.

Ever forward, friends.....

Yes, please

2009-04-08T08:20:00.003-05:00

I had an email from my BFF late last night and part of it said, "I loved the blog today, but do you need a vacation?"

Well, yes, I do, thank you for asking.

I guess I've seemed a bit dark and twisty lately. Tell you what - I will do the best I can to find the amusing and sassy Lady Steele and see if I can get her back here for you.

Best Regards,
Lady Steele's Dark & Twisty Evil Twin

How to self soothe with ony 4,327 calories

2009-04-08T05:54:00.001-05:00

Mentally, the past two months have been a disaster for me. I've worried about the economy. And my job. And MrG's job. And my sister's job. And my mother's health. And my friend's mother's health.

Two of my friends lost their mothers, so then I had to worry about them. (The friends, not the moms).

I had a really tough discussion one day this week with a coworker. It was a lot harder for the other person than it was for me. It was not a pleasant conversation, but I'm glad it happened because I think it needed to. Some things were said that needed to be said, and now we can move on.

I have another co-worker who is on my VERY. LAST. NERVE. My filters are worn totally thin with this person. I am finished. In fact, I fear I may push this particular offender down the stairs at the first opportunity.

As you can imagine, these situations are not improving my outlook on life.

The Desiderata says "do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness." I've tried to use that as a motivator, but it is amazingly hard to play mind games with yourself.

So the mental aspects notwithstanding, physically I've been in some discomfort. My foot still hurts - since January! I've had an annual gyno exam and some dental work done. I am quite certain I've been violated in damn near every orifice in the past two weeks.

The nice dentist gave me pain medication, but the gyno didn't even buy me dinner. I'm feeling a little cheap right now.

Mother Nature cannot seem to decide what season it is. One day in February, it was 88 degrees. When I got up this morning, my outside thermometer showed 36 degrees. WTF?

It's allergy season, and I'm pretty much sniffling, sneezing, dripping and draining. Not adding to my feeling of well being, or improving my mood. Not one little bit.

MrG's response to my mental and physical state of being? "Boo-effen-hoo!" Someone please tell me again why I married him?!

Since Mr. Sensitivity isn't being much help, I'm kind of on my own, so I've been running through my self-soothing options. Exercise? Hah! Even if I wanted to, I couldn't do it - the foot hurts too much. Fresh air and sunshine? Yeah, right. Only on alternating days when it's not freezing or raining. Drugs? Too illegal. Wine? Too hang-overish.

So, what's left?? I've turned to my kitchen. The center of home and hearth. Solace and peace in this topsy turvy world.

Despite my near mental and physical breakdown, my family is in pretty good shape. Why? Because I've turned out some terrific homemade pita bread, a decent atttempt at naan, a most excellent pot of white beans, some really yummy oven-fried fish, and some respectable banana bread. Did I mention that banana bread makes the BEST french toast EVER?

Nothin' says home cookin' like Mommy losing her mind.

I've also bought and consumed Girl Scout Cookies, and Easter candy of all shapes and sizes. On the upside the Girl Scout cookies are long gone. And the Easter candy is, for the most part, the least worst kind - jelly beans, Peeps, marshmallow eggs. Not an m&m or Snickers in sight! And in all fairness, I bought the candy because I needed it for LittleG's Easter Egg hunt (or the more politically correctly named Spring Holiday Egg Hunt).

In my defense, I've also made some healthy food discoveries. I found Brothers All Natural Fruit Snacks, lovely freeze dried bags of fruit that run about 40 to 60 calories. They have lots of varieties (banana, pear, and apple are my favorites) and are sweet, crunchy, and packed with the same nutrients as fresh fruit. Yummy!

Thank heavens summer is on its way because at least every third day or so, we are able to go out and grill dinner. It's fast, it's healthy, and I don't have to wash a dish!

I'm looking forward to getting this whole worry thing behind me and feeling good again. Fresh air, sunshine, healthy food. All bodes well for my mental health. Which is good, because soon it will be hotter than the hinges of hell and I'll have something else to gripe about. Ever forward, friends.

I gotta go. There are some pink Peeps calling my name.

Real Life

2009-04-07T20:27:00.002-05:00

So I am surrounded in my day to day life by these people I think are crazy. Certifiably. At the very least, part of them lives constantly in an alternative world, a lot like the bizarro Seinfeld episode.

LittleG spends much of our time together debating "which one" she wants to be. Doesn't matter what we are looking at - flowers, cartoons, characters in a book, oranges - she wants to identify with one of them, and she wants me to identify with one of them. Doesn't matter to her that five minutes ago she wanted to be the cute pudgy cartoon character with the yellow face. Now she wants to be the white daisy with the yellow center. And what's scary is, it doesn't seem to faze her. A. BIT. I, on the other hand, feel perpetually like the stupid kid at school - I never seem to keep up with her as she changes subjects and characters.

She tells these long colorful detailed stories about her and her sisters (she's an only child, mind you), where there are fairies and balloons and secret castles. My BFF told me once that children who have fertile imaginations tend to be intellectually gifted. If that's true, watch out Ivy League, here we come!

She makes up rules to games I've never heard of, uses words that have absolutely no connection whatsoever to the only language we speak in our family, and constantly barrages me with questions about life and nuggets of information that only she understands the significance of.

Then there is MrG. He spends a lot of time on his Xbox or his computer playing one game or another. Sometimes he's a big scary looking monster who has magic powers. Sometimes he's an army guy shooting good guys. Or Zombies. I can't keep it straight. There is nearly always some type of violence involved, no matter the medium.

The only violence I participated in today was some really horrible arm waving at this idiot in front of me who apparently didn't understand my sense of urgency for getting to work TODAY. Oh, and I squished a bug in the grass.

The point is, sometimes I feel like I'm the only one connected in any way whatsoever to reality. While LittleG is curled up in bed with Mr Duck, her dad is down the hall shooting guys on the TV screen and speaking entirely too loudly to his buddies who are somehow magically now connected into our game room through his headset. Many nights, I creep in quietly and kiss him on the forehead silently, because I'm afraid a big wet goodnight kiss will be broadcast all over cyberspace or Xboxland, or where ever the hell he happens to be that night.

Don't get me wrong. My husband could be out drinking and carousing. He doesn't beat me, doesn't cheat on me, doesn't gamble away the family fortune. And my kid? She could just totally ignore me, as I know she will eventually. But instead, she includes me in her fantasy world and engages me constantly with that little mind that is expanding so quickly.

While my family escapes into whatever it is that drives them, I am faced with the stark reality of real life. My laundry is piled in its basket - a basket that never seems to be empty. The clothes get dirty, the clothes get washed, the clothes go in to the basket, and the whole cycle starts all over. I cannot imagine a moment in my life when that basket will ever truly be empty.

(Note to those of you not getting it - the clothes basket is a metaphor for the skutwork in my life - laundry, dishes, groceries, bills. Keep up here, folks).

At least my escapes are sane ones - some crappy reality TV, Castle (I heart Richard Castle!!), the 30 or so of you who click in to read my words of wisdom every day. (Please invite your friends, I'd really like to be at about 50).

I spend a lot of time in my own brain trying out phrases, thinking of words that paint a picture. And that's been really good for me. Gives me a tiny escape from reality. So I guess I do get a little respite from Real Life. But my stays in Bizarro Life are short and sweet, and I always come back down to earth.

I've had some comments that I've not blogged every day during Lent. Trust me. I have. I just haven't published it all yet. And some of it you may never see. Because once it's out there, it becomes reality. And a girl's gotta have a little escape sometime.

Way to go, Iowa

2009-04-04T21:32:00.005-05:00

I am celebrating tonight, for my friends who are not like me.

I've laid it out for you before. I'm married. Never strayed, not even once, even though I work in an industry once dubbed "spring break for grown ups." I will cop to the occasional impure thought, but those don't really count, since 9 times out of 10, I tell MrG about them.

I like boys, always have. And I was lucky enough to marry one nine years and nine months ago. Most of the time I like him pretty well, and sometimes, I like him a whole damn lot. Never tried the girl thing. And although I love some women dearly, they are friends to me, not sexual objects over which I obsess.....

But I have friends who fall in a different demographic. None of them are in what I consider the Lady Steele Inner Circle, although there are a few pretty damn close. In other words, I do not have a vested emotional interest in this - my best friend, my brother, my uncle, my aunt - none of these are affected by the current marriage laws in our country. I have no axe to grind here, I promise.

But I do have friends who are affected, and for them, I am happy tonight.

Iowa has become either the third or fourth state to recognize gay marriage. I say it that way, because it depends on how you view California - they were in, but now they are out. Either way, folks of the other sexual persuasion can now make their unions legal in the fine state of Iowa.

So why does this matter to me, Lady Steele, whitebread heterosexual that I am?

I happen to believe, with every cell in my being, that folks don't just choose to be gay. I don't think that anyone suddenly decides one day to rock the boat and that the best way to do it is to crave the love and attention of someone of the same gender. Who wants that for themselves, really?

Thank God I ended up straight, because I remember being in first grade or Kindergarten and having it B.A.D. for a cute red headed boy named Billy. Really hasn't changed much in 35 or so years, and I am thankful every day that I am wired the "right" way and that society doesn't judge me for my taste in mates and sexual partners, (The Boy) notwithstanding.

I have a friend who lost her daughter after she and her partner split up. Because of adoption laws in Texas, my friend and her partner had to choose one parent as the legal delegate when they adopted their daughter. And despite the fact that my friend went through the exact trials and tribulations that her partner went through - diaper changes, teething, first steps, rotavirus - my friend lost all legal ties to her daughter when she and her partner split up.

Common decency dictates that my friend's ex keeps her in her daughter's life, but Texas law does nothing. So my friend, who has the distinct disadvantage of having chosen a total raving bitch as a partner, now has no legal ties to the daughter she raised as her own for 4 years. She is as much of a parent as the other woman, but because the other woman's name was the only one recognized by the law, my friend finds herself alone without any rights. And her daughter? She finds herself without one of the the women she called Mommy.

I have other friends who are same sex couples whose lives are inexorably challenged by their sexual orientation. One male friend has a partner who is having some health challenges. They have been together for years - ten or more. And yet, my friend, who is closer to his partner than anyone else on this planet, has absolutely no say whatsoever in his significant other's care. He doesn't have the right, according to Texas law, to make decisions about his partner's health care. And if things go south, he doesn't have any right at all to be in the room with is partner in the event of a critical health situation.

Did my friend wake up one day and decide he'd mess with his mom by liking boys? No, he knew very young - elementary school - that girls were not his cup of tea. Did he think he'd just piss off the cool kids at school by ignoring the girls and hitting on the boys? Nope, my friend is who is he is. He likes boys. And he was lucky enough to find one. And they've been together for the entire time that I've known them - more than a decade. They've bought a home together (more than one, actually), built a life together, they've attended church together. They are a family, as much as me and MrG and LittleG.

And yet, we heterosexuals, climb up on our high horses and call these guys sinners and condemn their "lifestyle" like it was some type of choice they made just to lash out at society.

What the heck difference does it make to me, as a heterosexual female, if two men choose to be together? Does it somehow affect my marriage, my relationship? I think not.

You can stand on your scripture, if you so choose, for your proof that homosexuality is wrong. I'll give you that. If you're going to go that route, I encourage you take a good long look at the other things that the bible says are wrong - who among us hasn't coveted a neighbor's lawn/new car/new TV/fabulous wardrobe/perfect children?

Who hasn't lied, stolen, cheated? In the eyes of biblical law, we are all sinners. So it's not just the gay folks who are rocking the boat. It's any red blooded heterosexual who cheats on his wife, or the woman who desperately wants her best friend's Dooney & Bourke bag, or the couple who lies to their family about how happy they are. It's your neighbors, and your friends, and the folks you're related to. If you say a homosexual couple has an effect on my marriage, it's got to count for the heterosexual sinners, too.

Keith Olbermann said it very well last fall here: Thank you, Keith

I can assure you that no other couple straight or gay, has any effect whatsoever on my relationship with MrG.

And they shouldn't on yours, either, whether you are gay or straight. What goes on in someone else's mind or bedroom has no bearing on your life or the sanctity of your union.

So I'm so excited tonight, to see that Iowa has jumped into the fray by recognizing gay marriage. It is going to be terribly unpopular here in my heterosexual Texas life, to put a big fat check mark on the work of the Iowa legislature, but I'm going to do it anyway.

So, I'm sorry Mom, for putting this out there. I know this is likely to cause you some psychic pain.

But for you, Nora, Mauri, Jeff, Kim, Bill, Bill, Paul, Mike, and others, I am so damn glad for you. Our families matter. All of them. And it's about damn time that the government recognizes it.

Math, Lady Steele Style

2009-04-03T20:06:00.002-05:00

Fresh air + sunshine + ten bags of mulch + family = good

Five year old + actual, honest to God worms + fresh dirt = bad

Water hose + dirty siding = good

Five year old + water hose + fresh dirt = bad

White beans + Zatarains white bean seasoning + Crock pot + 10 hours = good

Laundry in washer + 48 hours = bad

Bottle of white wine + exhausted grown ups + sleeping late in the morning = good

MrG + Lady Steele + LittleG + Home Depot + American Express Card = we'll see in the morning

I cannot tell you what a blessing it is to come home after a week like this and spend some in the yard with fresh bags of mulch and the people I love the most!

We had a great time in the yard and it looks fabulous. And yes, we used 10 bags of mulch in the FRONT yard. Came in to a terrific meal - I heart my crock pot!! And now, we will relax with some tivo'd shows and a nice bottle of wine. Take your happiness where you get it folks, and be thankful.

Happy Weekend.

My brave new world

2009-04-02T20:06:00.003-05:00

I wrote a few months ago about a friend who had changed jobs after 25 years and what I leap of faith I thought it was. A brave new world. My situation pales in comparison, but as my friend so eloquently put it this week, "change is change."

I have on purpose not addressed the changes that took place at my office last week. That's because some people I really like were affected deeply by the changes, and I would hate to say something in an attempt to be amusing or funny that could be misconstrued in any way. The worst thing for me would be to alienate someone I care about by using a poor choice of words. So, I've left it alone until now.

Anyway, one of the changes is that I got a new boss. I don't purport to understand the hows and whys of our new arrangement, but I have to think that the folks I work for are really smart, and they wouldn't make a decision like this unless it was the right one.

But, I digress. So I got a new boss, and she's a woman. Actually, I got two new bosses, and both of them are women. One was more or less a contemporary of mine, but now I'm reporting to her, and together we are reporting to the new head honcho boss.

I had a female boss when I first got into the industry in 2000, and she was a Beeyotch with a capital B. Since then, it's been just men, and only two of them. I think having a female boss again will be an odd thing. For example, she sent an email this week to her new team, asking each of us to tell her about our favorite drink, our favorite dessert, our favorite color, our pet peeves.

Are you kidding me?

I doubt that the men I used to work for even recognized that I might have a favorite anything. And even if they did, they certainly didn't care enough to ask me about it.

Don't get me wrong - I love it that she recognizes that we are all individuals and have our own likes and dislikes. She met with each of us and visited with us about what we need from her and the best way to manage us. Again. Are you kidding me?

I am optimistic about things for now, although I do not expect this to be all rainbows and sunshine. She's got more backbone than a lot of men, and she's been with the company since college, on a meteoric rise to the top. So, while she's all huggy and kissy with her management style, I expect she will be a total ballbreaker at the same time.

It has been a tumultuous few weeks, and I am actually looking forward to settling in and doing my thing under the new regime. Charles Darwin said, "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

So, ever forward friends, as I find find my place in this brave new world.

My exciting Wednesday

2009-04-01T18:32:00.002-05:00

I thought of all sorts of fun things to tell you today, since I had plenty of time to think while I waited at one medical office or another.

My day started at the foot doctor for some hocus pocus foot therapy. During therapy, no one turns the lights down low and speaks in a soothing voice, encouraging my foot to just let go. Nope, there is a fancy contraption with magic suction cups attached to my foot. For 30 minutes, the machine zaps me while I sit there feeling silly. After my appointment, I have two big hickies on my foot where the suction cups were attached. That's about it. On the upside, one of the techs told me today that most patients feel better after therapy at least three times a week for three weeks.

My next stop was the annual gyno appointment. I won't trouble you with the details of that one, except to say that when you're over 40, they begin to screen for indicators of colon cancer. Oh, joy. Use your imagination, folks, and write your own joke here.

LittleG was the guest of honor at our next stop. Dr. Bob the pediatric dentist filled cavities for her for the first time. We were told not to tell her about the appointment since the dentist has his own words for things like shots and x-rays, so I basically did a drop-and-run, then spent the next 45 minutes feeling like Questionable Parent of the Year.

Back to school for LittleG after a stop for ice cream, because she couldn't eat, and her appointment was scheduled....wait for it.....at lunchtime. So not only did I leave my five year old unattended for a procedure she was unprepared for, but then I fed her ice cream for lunch. Get your ballots ready, friends.

And the last appointment today was the best. Just the best. I got a root canal. And a new crown. Regretfully, on two different teeth, in places far enough away that I had to get a whole round of numbing shots for each location! It's two times the fun!

This is not the first time at the rodeo for Dr. W, and he knew he'd have to get me all liquored up. Bring on the nitrous, folks. What should have taken an hour and a half actually took almost three full hours. I have a teeny tiny mouth, and the only thing holding it open at the end was a little rubber block thingy that Dr. W shoved in my mouth. My jaws both hurt, and the anesthesia is wearing off, so the crown site is now throbbing. On the upside, the front tooth is still numb, so I'm happy to say I can not feel the drool dripping down my face.

So during my extended stay at Casa Nitrous Oxide, I came up with lots and lots of interesting things. Think about it - nitrous flowing so fast that your brain cells begin to float, three hours lying back quietly in a chair, and so much junk in your mouth that you could not possibly speak to another human being. All of those words, and no way to share them! It's like a timeout on steroids. I came up with a slew of funny phrases, the perfect words to paint the picture of my day. Sadly, I cannot remember one of them. And Dr. W, as much as I tried, would not give me nitrous to go. The man has no soul.

I have had my tylenol with codeine, and as soon as I get LittleG in the bed, I am going to have myself another one, perhaps with a merlot chaser, and I'm off to bed myself.

I'm hoping tomorrow will bring a new blog, full of humor and emotion. But frankly, I'll be happy if I can get a day free of medical offices and co-pays.

Meet me at the Testicle Festival!

2009-03-31T14:40:00.000-05:00

Found on MSNBC.COM….You can’t make this stuff up, people!

Diners can 'have a ball' at testicle festival
Will pay $50 apiece for the privilege of eating private parts of bulls

OAKDALE, Calif. - The fundraising idea may seem a little nuts, but Oakdale's annual Testicle Festival is always a big hit.

On Monday, volunteers with the town's Rotary Club plan to fry up 400 pounds of the private parts of bulls and serve them to diners who pay $50 apiece for the sit-down meal.

The event, whose proceeds also benefit the Oakdale Cowboy Museum, has drawn an average of 450 people and last year raised $28,000.

It's common practice on cattle ranches for young male bovines to be castrated into steers, which after the initial loss, eventually makes them more docile and easier to handle. Fans of the delicacy, also referred to as "mountain oysters," come from around the state.

According to Rotarians, everyone who buys a ticket is guaranteed to "have a ball."

Really? When I was in Jaycees, we sold rubber clown noses for the SIDS awareness group, held carnivals and parades, raffled stuff off. And the Rotary Club feeds the good folks of Oakland the tallywhackers of unsuspecting calfs? I don't even know what to say to that!

Oh, Francisco....

2009-03-30T21:00:00.003-05:00

Katie bar the door. I've got it bad for a short hispanic guy named Francisco.

Perhaps a little background might be in order. MrG and I bought our little house in June ten years ago. It's an older home in a lovely established neighborhood where the neighbors all keep their yards and homes nice and neat. The little lady who owned our home first was a skilled gardener and clearly knew what she was doing and what looked good and thrived in the yard. So when we bought our home, it came ready made with a lovely backyard. It had beautiful azaleas, rose bushes, Indian Hawthorne, and nandina.

Please note that I said "had."

I putzed around for the first five years or so, keeping the flowerbeds weeded and mulched and trying not to kill too much. When I finally got pregnant, the combination of the summer heat and prenatal discomfort knocked me for a loop and I sort of threw in the towel. It's a lot of work and hard on the bod.

The final straw for me came when I was about seven months pregnant. I was in the back yard pulling up pansies when I unearthed a squiggly mound of grass snakes. I would like to note for the record that "mound" means about the same as "whole lotta."

Before you say it, no, the snakes are NOT more afraid of me than I am of them. Trust me on that one.

After I launched myself, seven months pregnant and big as a house up out of the flowerbed and across the back yard, I decided it was ok to give myself a pass on the yard work for awhile.

Turns out that gardening with a young baby/toddler/preschooler is no damn walk in the park, either. So that pass lasted about three years. Don't judge me, people.

During that time, Mother Nature, who we have already established is a real bitch, took over in our back yard. The azaleas kicked the bucket. Saplings began to spring up in my flower beds. A nandina ran wild in the northeast corner. And the more it grew, the more unmanageable it became. Vines crept and weeds grew and mulch turned into dust before our very eyes. And I didn't have a clue how to make it all go away.

A summer or two ago, I paid a yard guy to come out and clean out the dead stuff for us. Not so smart, as it turns out. Although it desperately needed to be done, and although it was all dead and NEVER. COMING. BACK, I did not consult my better half about the yard work beforehand. James the yard guy cleared it all out, and I thought it was beautiful. MrG came home, took one look at the carnage, and proceeded to have a wall-eyed hissy fit. He did not agree to it, it was not ok with him, and by gosh, he was not happy. At all.

It was at that point that I threw my hands in the air, walked inside and refused to negotiate further on the yard. Do what you want, I said. Tear out the flowerbeds and sod the whole damn yard. Pay some nubile young thing to weed the flower beds in her bikini. Better yet, till it up and put concrete on it. I'm done.

We changed yard guys after James and ended up with a very nice man named Francisco. He calls me Meeeeesus Garseeeeeya, which I just love (have a shot of tequila, then say my name in your best Taco Bell accent and roll that R, and you'll be close!). He also does nice work, shows up on time, and always locks the gate when he's finished. He's polite, he gives me what I need, and he never rolls his eyes or makes a face at me.

What more could a girl want in a man??

MrG came to me a couple weeks ago and said he was going to talk to Francisco about the flower beds. He had this grand ambition about pulling out the beds and sodding. He and Francisco had a chat in the back yard, away from us women folk, and MrG, who had been hell bent that the flower beds needed to come out, headed inside with the news that Francisco had deemed the beds nice enough to keep. He would come on Monday and begin to clear them out. Once they are clear, he says, we can go forward with a plan.

As LittleG and I turned the corner onto our street today in the crimson steed, we noticed a big stack of green stuff on someone's yard. It was an awfully big stack, and I thought, hmmmm, someone's had some work done.

Yikes.

It took me about 100 yards to realize that the big stack was actually a ginormous stack. And it wasn't someone who had the work done. It was us. Goodness gracious.

I'm pretty sure Francisco and his pals spent the whole day here. A dead tree is gone - the only sign of it is a stump in the back yard. Saplings? Gone. Overgrown nandina? Trimmed and tamed. Crepe myrtles? Pruned. MrG was even excited to know we had a fence back there. I knew we did, because I wrote the check for it. But it was still nice to see.

I walked into our back yard, and for the first time in about three years, did not have the weight of total disregard for our home and property. What this morning felt overpowering, ugly, and out of control, was now neat, clean, and shapely. For the first time in about five years, MrG and I had an open, honest, direct communication about our plans for our back yard. And no one even cursed.

Our yard is now a blank canvas. I can put my own flowers and plants there. They can be the story of our family. And I hope beyond hope that I pick sturdy, strong varieties, because God knows I kill everything else.

I am excited at the prospect of nice clean flower beds. Maybe some new rose bushes. LittleG has requested some daisies (my favorite flower), and I would love to put a little patch of vegetable garden out there somewhere. And now we can do it. And it won't push us to the brink of divorce.

So thank you, Francisco, for being my yard guy. You did in a day what I couldn't do in five years. And you did it so MrG wasn't grumpy about it. I have no idea what this is getting ready to cost me, but frankly, it will be a whole lot cheaper than a divorce or a new back yard.

Given my propensity for the hispanic fellow, you had better watch out pal, cause Meeessus Garseeeeeya love you long time.

The aftermath

2009-03-26T22:47:00.002-05:00

Well, thank you, dear readers, for your concern and well wishes today. I was frankly overwhelmed by emails and even discreet phone calls to my coworkers.

Truly, thank you.

I think the root canal analogy I used the other day is a perfect description of how it went today. Something was wrong and we knew there was a way to fix it. We knew something was coming, but we didn't really know what, and it was scary. It hurt a bit, but ultimately, we will feel better soon.

I work in sales, for some really smart people. Because of the economy, our business is not going as well as it was a year ago. (Wow! Go figure....we're the only ones in the US in this situation). And the bosses recognize this. Someone decided that perhaps they should take inventory, evaluate, if you will, the sales staff that they have working for them.

And so it began - a big list of metrics that I won't trouble you with, except to say that it gave the guys in charge a clear, unbiased opinion of where we all stand on the food chain.

I am happy to report that I actually scored a bit better than I thought I would. There were a few items that surprised me outright, but for the most part, I fell just north of where I thought I had performed or what I deserved.

But some people I really like were affected. Some folks were asked to leave, others invited to stay but in another capacity. Some folks got promoted, and I just moved over laterally to a new supervisor. And I'm ok with that.

In this economy, I don't think any of us have the right to feel safe. And I don't think any of us have the right to feel entitled to a job. Just because I've been there almost three years and have more than nine years of experience in my field, I shouldn't feel like I have a job for life.

I also don't think we have the right to complain when the people who pay us to show up for work every day put a system in place to monitor what exactly it is that we are bringing to the party. Go for it, I say, because it shakes out the ones who are pulling their weight and it clearly defines the ones who aren't.

It's not about who is in the inner circle now. It's about who is bringing it.

So today was long, and I am tired and drained. Tomorrow is a new day and with it comes its own set of expectations. So I am off to bed, and I hope a decent night's sleep for the first time in a week.

Thank you again for those of you who checked on me, thought about me, prayed for me. It's good to know you're out there, whoever and wherever you are.

March 25

2009-03-25T05:55:00.001-05:00

We interrupt this week of highly charged emotional angst to bring you a little happiness. That's right, kids, some bluebirds and butterflies, right here in the middle of Lady Steele's career and mental meltdown.

It was six years ago today that I saw something I had never seen before and frankly was beginning to wonder if I would EVER see. A faint little line. A mere glimmer of my future - a tiny purple dash across the screen of my 745th home pregnancy test.

Those of you who can get pregnant simply by skipping a pill and having impure thoughts can go away now, because this story won't have the same effect on you.

I was clearly NOT the kind of woman who could just multiply and bear fruit. We tried. And we tried. And then we tried again. In the beginning, it was fun. Terrific, in fact. The closeness, the intimacy, the stolen time together with the one true love of my life. The working together on a common goal, and by gosh getting warm and tingly in all the right places at the same time! Bow chicka wow wow.

But a few months go by, and suddenly what was fun once upon a time now seems like work. Now there are doctors involved. And medications. And calendars on the refrigerator, with yellow days and big red circles. And conversations that start with, "I don't care if I have a fever and snot all over my face, by gosh it's day 12, get in the bedroom NOW."

All of that came to a screeching halt about 5 am on March 25, 2003. It was a Tuesday. Nice things happen in our family on Tuesdays.

I had felt a little odd the day before. No, that's not fair to say. I was totally outta whack that day. I had made the most beautiful filet mignons on the grill. Perfectly seared on the outside, warm pink centers just like we like them. I cut into my steak that evening and my stomach flipped inside out. I told MrG that something didn't feel right, and that if things weren't better in the morning, I was taking a pregnancy test. I had only done this every four weeks for the past 20 months, so this was not a surprise to him.

I woke up early on Tuesday morning and took the test. My heart thudded as I watched the second hand tick away, just as it had countless times before. I know three minutes really isn't that long, but you try holding your breath and waiting - three minutes suddenly feels like three hours. As the second hand clicked to its designated stopping place, I gave the test a quick glance, with the same mixture of anxiety and dread I'd felt a hundred times before.

WTF? Is that a smudge? Did I get a defective test? Oh for the love of all that is holy, am I seeing what I think I'm seeing? Put it down. Walk away. Pick it up and stare. Holy crap. Pick it up and stare again. Holy crap.

It's 5 am and MrG has been at work all night, and compassionate adoring spouse that I am, do I let him come in and get some rest until we know for sure our life is about to be turned upside down? NO - I hit him with the news the second he walks in the door.

As the token practical, down to earth, sane member of our family, he suggests to me that we confirm it with a blood test. Fabulous. Can do! But it's 5:15 in the morning, and now I have to burn about 3 hours before I can get in to the doctor's office.

Somehow the minutes click away, and I am sitting in the parking lot waiting on the doctor's office staff as they arrive to open for business. I bully my way in and demand a blood draw to confirm my pregnancy with all the dignity I could muster between my teary little outbursts.

The lab tech puts the tourniquet on, jabs me with a bit more force than I think is necessary, draws some blood, and sends me out of her lab. On my way past the front desk, Robin the receptionist tells me they'll call when they know something, but I should plan on 48 hours. Are you freaking kidding me??

As it turns out, it was not 48 hours. It was more like 9 hours.

I was making dinner when I got the call from my former gynecologist, who was happy to announce that the rabbit had died and she was now my obstetrician. I was indeed with child. Preggers. Knocked up. In the family way.

Holy crap.

And the rest, they say, is history. 240 days later, I brought home a beautiful little girl with a shock of dark hair and the most perfect little fingers I have ever seen. I guess good things happen in our family on Thursdays, too.

So much of my pregnancy was frightening for me; I was so afraid that something was going to go wrong. But those first few days were pure bliss - having this miraculous secret that only MrG and I and the best OB/GYN in the world knew. When I think about the excitement and the joy of that day, I still get a lump in my throat, six long years later.

So today, I'm taking a few minutes out of the insanity that is my present life to celebrate the day six years ago, when one simple little dash changed the direction of my life forever.

Thank God for kids.

Make it go away, please!

2009-03-24T20:29:00.003-05:00

To quote LittleG, "Let me understand this to you."

My soul is stressed. I did not sleep well last night, and while I was very busy at work today, I just don't know how productive I was. My foot hurts and I have a toothache. My trendy new supershort do already needs a trim. My toes look terrific (thank you Lena!) but the rest of me is heading south rapidly.

What is a girl to do? I'm not wack-a-doodle enough to have my moods chemically adjusted, so I just have to wing it. Here are some things I've actually tried today in an effort to self-medicate:

Skinny Cinny (thank you, Daniel. You are DA MAN!)
Whoppers Robins Egg candies
Grocery shopping over lunch
Audiobook (well, 30 minutes worth, anyway)
Fruit crisps - apple and pear
Dinner with my family
Too many carbs at dinner with said family
Half a beer
A snuggle with my kid
Two loads of laundry
Some time on Facebook

None of it has worked thusfar. Here are the things I'm further contemplating:
The other half of the beer from dinner
Nice stiff shot of Crown Royal Reserve
Further research on my quest to learn to enjoy scotch
Five more loads of laundry
iPhone bingo
Some cheesy TIVO'd shows
A snuggle with my hubby
Wii boxing
Going to bed without doing the dishes
Crawling under a blanket and summoning a dog to sit on my lap and stare at the wall with me

I fear, though, that my efforts will be for naught. Truly what will settle me is having this mess at work behind me instead of looming large in the future. Whatever is coming up is big - I can feel it and I dread it.

The fact of the matter is that no matter what scenario I come up with in my mind, it won't be anything near the reality of the situation. Whatever shakes out probably won't be nearly as bad as the anticipation of it. Kind of like knowing you're gonna have a root canal - it's coming and you're afraid of it, but once it happens, things settle right back down. We can only hope.

I really truly need the next 42 hours or so behind me, and I'll own that. I've worked myself into a royal tizzy, and I expect to stay firmly planted there until about 5 pm on Thursday.

Cross your fingers that my head doesn't explode between now and then. And mark your calendars - I'm getting a root canal next week. This insanity will start all over again....

I love my Starbucks Guy

2009-03-23T22:10:00.001-05:00

Daniel is my man. More accurately, he's a barista at my local Starbucks. But for about five minutes every weekday morning, he is mine, all mine.

When everything else is going haywire - dogs, husband, morning routine, emotional 5-year old, traffic, whatever - I can always count on Daniel.

He recognizes the crimson steed as we stampede into the parking lot and he always starts my drink, sometimes before we get in the door. My drink is an easy one, and sometimes when the stars align and the other customers aren't paying close attention, he'll make my drink out of order, jumping me in line before others with their fancy schmancy frozen frappucinos or those silly drinks that take foam or steamed milk or sprinkles and such.

He's fast and he's accurate - my drink is always perfect, with sugar free syrup and skim milk, a little room at the top so I don't squirt coffee all over the place, just the way I like it. He's polite but not overly chatty, he acknowledges that I tip well, and he's nice to LittleG.

For that, I love him. I don't know much about him besides he is a 20-something blond haired kid. He is in school and goes to church. Beyond that, I've got nothing. And pretty much all he knows about me is my name, my kid's name, what I drink, and what I drive. And you know what, that is just fine with me.

I cannot tell you more about him, because I fear you will search him out, and suddenly, I will have to compete with other consumers for Daniel's attention. And I'm just not willing to do that.

So go get your own Starbucks Guy. Daniel is mine! At least for about 5 minutes around 7:30 in the morning.....

I'm up for Wife of the Year

2009-03-22T18:43:00.004-05:00

MrG is a happy camper this evening. Wanna know why? Two words....Home Cooking!

I got up earlier yesterday than I had planned and thought I would surprise LittleG and MrG with some hot fresh banana bread since LittleG didn't eat the bananas before they got brownish and mottled. It hacks me off when she insists that I buy her fruit that she doesn't eat. Oh, who am I kidding? I love banana bread, so I hid the bananas from her. Oops.

Before you chastise me for feeding my family what is essentially dessert for breakfast, you should know I made the bread using Hungry Girl's Banana Bread recipe. This recipe calls for Splenda instead of sugar, whole grain wheat flour, Egg Beaters® and applesauce instead of fat, so don't call me out, please.

By the way - if you are dieting, or just want to make your meals more healthy, you need to check out Hungry Girl. She's got some fabulous food finds and her recipes are easy and delicious!

Anyway, our errand day started yesterday with hot banana bread, right out of the oven. This morning, I used what was left of the banana bread to make french toast. A little light vanilla soy milk, a little whole wheat flour, a slug of Egg Beaters and some cinnamon....YUM! I also served real bacon, which is a rare treat since we are trying to make smart food choices in our family.

I knew MrG needed some time alone today, so I took one for the team. I sent LittleG to Sunday School with Nana, and I graciously vacated the premises for a couple hours. To keep myself entertained, I had my nails done and got a pedicure. Nothing gets in the way of my man's happiness, so you know, I did what I could.

Before I left, I took some tamales that his mom and I had made out of the freezer and put them on the stove. Two hours later, he had a quiet house, all the HD Outdoor Channel he could stand, and hot tamales, made for him by the two women who love him most. MrG is a lucky man indeed.

LittleG and I finally found our way home, and she and her dad spent some time together while I threw together some homemade pita bread. If you've never made your own, you should give it a try sometime. Here's the recipe I start with. I use a mixture of whole wheat pastry flour and bread flour, and I toss in a little gluten. Turns out perfect every time!

MrG LOVES hot fresh pita bread. Pita bread is like a big fat thick tortilla, only a whole lot easier, but don't tell him that!

Throw some pork chops on the grill, open a can of green beans, mash some potatoes, and bingo, you've hit one out of the park.

So he's down the hall now playing XBox, all loaded up on fresh baked carbohydrates and love. Good thing, since this week promises to be a stormy one. Spring weather in Texas is unpredictable at best, and Mother Nature can be a real bitch this time of year. The weather man says we'll have storms on Tuesday, and Thursday is the day of reckoning at work for all of us. None of us expects sunny and mild, we just don't know how stormy it will be at the office that day.

I expect to be pretty freaky freaky over the next three days, so I liquored him up pretty well. I hope the warm glow he starts the week with will overshadow what is likely to be a pretty ugly week.

On the upside, we will get to Thursday, then we'll get through it. I'm making a birthday cake for a friend of LittleG's this weekend, and buttercream is always therapeutic. So I have that to look forward to.

I'm not sure what you should expect over the next few days. I've done my best writing when I've been emotionally overwrought, so it's either going to be really good, or really clear to you that I'm just phoning it in.

For now, I've got some more work to do if I'm going to win that Wife of the Year award. Ever forward, friends!

Saturday in the car with my family

2009-03-21T21:39:00.004-05:00

We spent a lovely day together running errands and just hanging out. LittleG is all about the game playing, so in the car, she concocted the New Quiet Game. Apparently, it's a take off on my favorite game, "Let's see who can be the quietest the longest," but with a twist.

LittleG: I am BORED. This is BORING. How much longer?
Me: Quite awhile, LittleG. It's only 8:30 am, this is our VERY FIRST ERRAND and we have about 10 things to do before we are done.
LittleG: Can I watch a movie?
Me: You know we don't watch movies while we are running errands. Let's just enjoy our time together, just the three of us.
LittleG: That's BORING. Let's play a game. How about that one where I sing to you?
Me: I have a better idea. Let's play the quiet game!
LittleG: Ok, but not your quiet game. The New Quiet Game.
Me: Whatever, as long as there is quiet involved, because for the love of all that is holy, I've not had my Starbucks yet.
LittleG: Ok. Let's all be quiet.
Me: Yes, lets.
LittleG: Mooommmmeeeee!
Me: Total silence
LittleG: Daaaaddddeeeee!
MrG: Total silence
LittleG: Moommmmeeeee!
Me: Yes, LittleG?
LittleG: You two are not playing right!
Me: I thought we were playing the quiet game. I was being quiet. Daddy was being quiet.
LittleG: Mommy, I say your name, then you say the name of the person you want to be quiet.
Me: If I'm supposed to be quiet, then why are you asking me to say something?
Little G: Ok, you two. Let me understand this to you.

Remember when I was worried she would NEVER SPEAK? I am SO past that now. And, I am seriously going to revisit the "no movies in the car while we are running errands" rule.

In the meantime, let me understand this to you.

Shout out to UrbanDaily.BlackPlanet.com!

2009-03-20T05:59:00.003-05:00

It's with a mixture of pride, elation, and utter confusion that this morning I announce a link to my blog from a website I know absolutely NOTHING about. That's right, an honest to God link that someone put out there, back to my site.

I have a confession to make. I have, on occasion, rarely, once-in-awhile, posted a gratuitous comment or two on very popular blogs in an effort to bolster traffic to my own little slice of the internet. Ok. I've done it slightly more than occasionally. More like often. Don't judge me people.

But this is one site I've never even heard of. Clearly, I'm not urban, I'm rarely daily. I'm definitely not black. And although, I consider myself ruebenesque, I'm certainly not my own planet.

So when I started seeing hits from the UrbanDaily.BlackPlanet.com website, I began to wonder...who are these people and why in the world do they care about me when I'm really more SuburbanIntermittent.CaucasianPlusSize?

Turns out when you use the phrase "Sometimes a Girl's Gotta Work That Pole," the cosmic electronic joke is on you. Thanks to the magic that is the metacrawler, I now have a potential whole new reader base. And a whole bunch of confused folks who ended up here.

So, my apologies to you fine folks who clicked over from UrbanDaily. I'm sure I'm not quite what you were expecting to see.

Doubleclick the photo below and look for the arrow. That's me!!

Peace out.

Is Tim Hawkins the most amusing man in America?

2009-03-19T21:26:00.004-05:00

Please do NOT go to YouTube and search for this guy. If you do, you'll ruin all my back up material. Because I can promise you, you're going to see him here again.....

Funniest word choice of the morning

2009-03-19T06:34:00.002-05:00

From a story on WFAA.com.....

Associated Press

HURST, Texas - Police are looking for two men and a woman they said snatched $3,400 worth of panties from a Victoria's Secret in the Fort Worth suburb of Hurst.

Interesting verb choice. They "snatched" the panties? Really?

Tee hee hee!

Gone so young

2009-03-18T22:09:00.002-05:00

I can't believe the sad news about Natasha Richardson. She was 45 years old, on vacation with her kids, taking a ski lesson on a beginner slope.

Not drinking and driving. Not jumping from an airplane. Not speeding on the freeway. Not indulging herself in self-destructive behavior like a spoiled, rich movie star. She was just a mom on the slopes with her kids, and now she is gone.

A guy I worked with lost his mom this weekend. She was making dinner and passed out, dead from an aneurysm. Another friend lost her mom to cancer on Sunday.

It's hard to know which is worse - the sudden unexpected death that takes your loved one away from you so quickly that you do not get to say goodbye, or the long, painful death that leaves you anguishing mentally as your loved one wastes away physically. Gone is gone, either way.

It hardly seems fair that my friends are facing the loss of their mothers, or that Liam Neeson and his boys are facing life without Natasha.

I had started a quirky little post about how my day started today, but in light of this cloud that's hanging over me right now, I feel like that would be a little inappropriate and disrespectful.

I sat and stared at the wall for awhile tonight, and this is what bubbled to the top. Hopefully the flavor of the day tomorrow will be a little more cheery and optimistic.

Good night, all.

I heart Richard Castle

2009-03-17T22:18:00.004-05:00

I took a night off tonight. It's 10:18 pm, and the dinner dishes are still on the table, and the laundry sits unfolded in its sad little basket on the floor.

And I could care less!! I sat on my behind under a blanket and a dog and watched two hours of television in an hour and a half this evening.

I am in love with Richard Castle, the fictional crime writer character in ABC's Castle. He's gorgeous, funny, and he WRITES! Oh, be still my beating heart. I fully expect ABC to cancel this show in the next week, because that's what always happens when I love a show this much.

Thank heavens for the miracle that is TIVO, especially TIVO with CBS Monday night comedies on it! If you're not watching Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother, you ought to be. These are absolutely hysterical and SO worth burning an evening.

Best line of the night...WAIT. FOR. IT..."Little Barney says mahalo!"

Good night, all. Well, almost good night. I've gotta do the dang dishes first. I don't know whether to hope tomorrow night is more productive for me or not!