Breezy is off the Wheezy

*courtesy of Cute Overload

Dog: "Oh, my little Snuggledums, I will lof you forevar! You'll always be..."













Dog: "MY CHICK!!!!"
Chick: "GAAAK!"

Yesterday I had an acute case of post-birthday blahs. For some reason, I decided that instead of a birthday cake, I wanted to get four little cakes and then everyone could get what they wanted, and they would be dainty and I could have champagne with them. I thought that would be classy.

**Note to self: DO NOT stray from tradition.

As it turns out, that's not what I really wanted. So yesterday I was lamenting the lack of a real birthday cake. Brett sprung into action to make me happy. Awwwww... So we went to Hen House for cake mix so he could bake me a real cake. As you all well know, this requires birthday candles. This is the moment where my new age really hit me and made me feel old: we had to get two boxes of candles. One box contains only 24 candles....just one shy of what we required. I remember when one box would last me several birthdays. Now I need two?! Holy cow...

This little fact did not go unnoticed by the cashier even.

Huh.

Well anyway, we went back home and Brett made me a scrumptious birthday cake. That was the sweetest thing ever. I was really touched.

One gift I received over the weekend was a book from my mom entitled, The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke by Suze Orman, money guru extraordinaire. I finally cracked it open today and was shocked at how well this lady knows her stuff! I haven't made it past page 27 and already I am lauding its informative and truly helpful qualities.

This prompted me to check out my credit report (God I'm old...) because I never had and was curious about it. All are, thankfully, sterling. Although I found a few credit cards on there that I thought I'd cancelled. Apparently not. Good to know, though. Not only that, but a credit card was listed that I have never had before in my life. What the heck? I mean at least it's reporting that I pay my phantom bill on time but that's still a bit odd.

In work news, I was informed of something the other day that really lit a fire under my ass to start looking for a new job. Apparently, a couple guys in the office were told on Monday that their positions no longer exist, but if they were so inclined, they could stay on and work for 100% commission (for new business). The guy I talked to said that he refused the offer and his last day is Friday. I assume the other guy will follow suit, seeing as he has two kids, and that would be hard as hell to support them on commission. And where does that leave the future of the company?? I'm not saying I know what I'm talking about but if they both leave, that leaves our staff at the two partners, me and Phil...a graphic designer. And what are they going to do with just us??? So because of this turn of events, not to mention the fact that I am perpetually bored out of my mind because I get no work AND because it's been well over a year and I haven't even gotten a cost-of-living raise which I so desperately need, I started looking for new jobs immediately. I've sent off a couple of resumes so far and intend to keep looking. Fervently.

Wish me luck. It took me a year to find this job last time around...

I'm 25 as of 8:43 a.m. yesterday. The weekend was a flurry of celebration. My parents came up and we went out to dinner twice. Friday night, we went to Bristol. I had never been there before, and it was wonderful! We all split a bottle of wine and indulged ourselves in: (me) Hawaiian sea bass, (Brett) diver scallops, (mom)king crab legs and (dad) salmon. Then I partook of their scrumptious creme brulee.

Saturday, Brett and I spent the better part of the day wandering around the Renaissance Festival. That evening, the four of us, as well as my grandma, met up with Brett's mum for dinner at Garozzo's. I finally got to fulfill my craving for the stuffed artichoke appetizer and a cafe Garozzo. mmm

Brett and I rarely go out to eat, so this weekend was a treat. And then he took me out for dinner once again at Outback last night! So that was fun. :) But now the birthday is over and I'm kind of sad about that.

Today, I've been curing the ever-present boredom with classic TV Land clips. This one from I Love Lucy was particularly hilarious: Vitameatavegamin

Today is national Talk Like A Pirate Day! Savvy? So don an eyepatch and shiver somebody's timbers.

We pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho!
We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho!

Yo ho, yo ho! A pirate's life for me.

We extort, we pilfer, we filch and sack.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho!
Maraud and embezzle and even hijack.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho!

Yo ho, yo ho! A pirate's life for me.
Yo ho, yo ho! A pirate's life for me.

We kindle and char, inflame and ignite.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho!
We burn up the city, we're really a fright.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho!

Yo ho, yo ho! A pirate's life for me.

We're rascals, scoundrels, villains and knaves.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho!
We're devils and black sheep, really bad eggs.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho!

Yo ho, yo ho! A pirate's life for me.

We're beggars and blighters and ne'er-do-well cads.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho!
Aye! But we're loved by our mommies and dads!
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho!

Yo ho, yo ho! A pirate's life for me!

Ahhh that reminds me of riding the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World. I did not like that ride. It was too loud. Too many cannons. And I think it might have scared me a bit, too. :) Those '80s quality animatronics were damn lifelike to a 5-year-old.

I think I'll kick up my boots tonight and have a spot of rum. ;) Aye....

Marketing motto: If live gives you lemons, lie.
--Dave Barry

I was getting out of a history class at WSU, walking through the student center when I realized that it was too quiet. The silence caused me to look around to see every single person staring up at various TV screens and thick, black smoke billowing around one of the twin towers. I had no idea what it was. At the time, I didn't even know what the World Trade Center was. My first assumption was that it was a building in a far-off land. Then they showed the Pentagon, billowing with smoke as well. That's when I first realized that something terrible had happened here.

But I knew I had to make it to class anyway, so off I went, confused. The lit instructor told us that class was cancelled and we could go home if we wanted, or we could stay and watch what was happening in New York and D.C. I chose to stay. This seemed incredibly important and I wanted to know what was going on. Surely there couldn't have been a terrorist attack here...like everyone was talking about. That stuff doesn't happen here.

I sat there, listening to reporters just as baffled as I was. Then I saw a plane hit the second tower. Shortly after, I, along with many of my classmates, watched the towers - steel towers - crumble to the ground and people running for their lives on the streets below.

None of this had really sunk in yet. I was overcome by shock. I left, and as I walked to my car I called my mom to tell her what I'd just seen. She didn't believe me at first. It wasn't until I got home, had watched more coverage to get more information, and then gotten online later that day. Already there were stories. The loved ones of the passengers on the planes relating the last phone calls of sons, daughters, mothers, brothers, calling to say goodbye. That's when I broke down.

All of this - the memories, the emotions - came crashing back last night. I reflected on that day five years ago yesterday for a little bit. But I tried to push it away and focus on the good things in life now. I went to the gym after work, where every TV was turned to 9/11 coverage. I have my arm radio programmed to a couple of these stations so I listened to it for a while. They played the footage of five years ago, as it happened. And all of a sudden, it was five years ago, and I was sitting in that classroom watching it happen all over again. I had blocked out the sound, in my mind. I had forgotten the cries of terror, the people in the background saying, "I don't want to die, I don't want to die," I had forgotten that they showed someone leaping from one of the towers. I had forgotten the images of the people on the streets, watching it. It was too much. I nearly started crying right there in the gym. I had to fight back the tears. I decided it was a good time to switch my radio to some music. Once I was safe in my car, then I let it out.

Remember hearing about how WWII veterans who saw the first part of Saving Private Ryan had terrible reactions to it? How it vividly brought everything back to them? I thought I was ready to see United 93, or World Trade Center... but it's too soon. I have a feeling I would react in much the same way. It's too soon.

If you get the chance to pick up a book, I suggest "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safron Foer. September 11th is a significant, underlying theme and very articulately laced in. Foer candidly writes about some aspects in a way I had never pictured it. It's worth checking out. It's a way to think about that terrible day in a less harsh way.

Reduced me to tears.

Published: Thursday, September 13, 2001

JUST FOR BEING AMERICANS . . .

By DAVE BARRY, Herald Columnist

No humor column today. I don't want to write it, and you don't want to read
it.

No words of wisdom, either. I wish I were wise enough to say something that
would help make sense of this horror, something that would help ease the
unimaginable pain of the victims' loved ones, but I'm not that wise. I'm
barely capable of thinking. Like many others, I've spent the hours since
Tuesday morning staring at the television screen, sometimes crying,
sometimes furious, but mostly just stunned.

What I can't get out of my mind is the fact that they used our own planes. I
grew up in the Cold War, when we always pictured the threat as coming in the
form of missiles - sleek, efficient death machines, unmanned, hurtling over
the North Pole from far away. But what came, instead, were our own
commercial airliners, big friendly flying buses coming from Newark and
Boston with innocent people on board. Red, white and blue planes, with
``United'' and ``American'' written on the side. The planes you've flown in
and I've flown in. That's what they used to attack us. They were able to do
it in part because our airport security is pathetic. But mainly they were
able to do it because we are an open and trusting society that simply is not
set up to cope with evil men, right here among us, who want to kill as many
Americans as they can.

That's what's so hard to comprehend: They want us to die just for being
Americans. They don't care which Americans die: military Americans, civilian
Americans, young Americans, old Americans. Baby Americans. They don't care.
To them, we're all mortal enemies. The truth is that most Americans, until
Tuesday, were only dimly aware of their existence, and posed no threat to
them. But that doesn't matter to them; all that matters is that we're
Americans. And so they used our own planes to kill us.

And then their supporters celebrated in the streets.

I'm not naive about my country. My country is definitely not always right;
my country has at times been terribly wrong. But I know this about
Americans: We don't set out to kill innocent people. We don't cheer when
innocent people die.

A DECENT PEOPLE

The people who did this to us are monsters; the people who cheered them have
hate-sickened minds. One reason they can cheer is that they know we would
never do to them what their heroes did to us, even though we could, a
thousand times worse. They know that when we hunt down the monsters, we will
try hard not to harm the innocent. Those are the handcuffs we willingly
wear, because for all our flaws, we are a decent people.

And now we are a traumatized people. The TV commentators keep saying that
the attacks have awakened a ``sleeping giant.'' And I guess we do look like
a giant, to the rest of the world. But when I look around, I don't see a
giant: I see millions of individuals - the resilient and caring citizens of
New York and Washington; the incredibly brave firefighters, police officers
and rescue workers risking their lives in the dust and flames; the
politicians standing on the steps of the Capitol and singing an off-key
rendition of God Bless America that, corny as it was, had me weeping; the
reporters and photographers who have not slept, and will not sleep, as long
as there is news to report; the people in my community, and communities
across America, lining up to give blood, wishing they could do more.

A GOOD COUNTRY

No, I don't see a giant. What I see is Americans. We may have the power of a
giant, but we also have the heart of a good and generous people, and we will
get through this. We will grieve for our dead, and tend to our wounded, and
repair the damage, and tighten our security, and put our planes back in the
air. Eventually most of us, the ones lucky enough not to have lost somebody,
will resume our lives. Some day, our country will track down the rest of the
monsters behind this, and make them pay, and I suppose that will make most
of us feel a little better. But revenge and hatred won't be why we'll go on.
We'll go on because we know this is a good country, a country worth keeping.

Those who would destroy it only make us see more clearly how precious it is.

© 2001