Fear Of Landing

Adventures in Dating 5

2011-11-10T11:05:00.000-06:00

I'm really kind of new to all of this, because I usually would just not answer anything from people like this. I decide to go with conversation and see what happens next.

[Redacted],

I hear that Greece is lovely, have you ever been? I was born in Turkey but I don't remember it because we moved away before I was two. I am having a good day, I actually took a few days off and am enjoying the break. I don't have anything scheduled or planned, just a few days of nothing. So you import/export cars? To sell them? Where do you import them from? Any particular type of cars? That sounds interesting. Do you travel to see the cars or do the work online? I hope you aren't working too hard. I look forward to hearing from you

[Redacted]

And then I get this jewel, in Comic Sans font no less.

Hi [Redacted].....its so great to hear from you, Yes i do import cars, sometimes when my customer's need American cars i import from the states, and when they need like Japanese cars i import from Japan and yes to sell them and make profit. I travel to see them sometimes and sometimes we do the talking on the phone.I hope you are having a wonderful day at work.[I just said that I am on vacation, way to pay attention!] I just want you to know i would like someone that will love and respect me for who I am, that likes to hold my hand and surprise me with a little kiss when I least expect it,or give me a wink from across the room to let me know she's thinking about me or give me a call just to let me know she's thinking about me... Because I will be doing the same..

I would love someone who is fun to be around, likes to laugh, joke around, enjoy being outdoors going for long romantic walks, enjoys looking at the stars at night, and watching the sun set and rise over the ocean. I am looking for someone that enjoys the simple things in life, just as I do. I would like to meet someone special that I can grow old with, and that we can always look into each others eyes and know that the love between us is just as wonderful and exciting as the day we met...

I want to love a woman for who she is, to spoil her, and love her, and let her know just how much she means to me, by the little things I do or say to make her feel special. While at the same time she treats me in the same way....with love and respect I'm really looking for Someone Honest,Caring,Romantic,Kind,Posses Great Sense of Humor,Understanding,Intelligent,Respectful and Trust Worthy... I hope you are having a great day at work? take care bye for now.
[Redacted]

Okay seriously, do women fall for this bullshit? What guy talks like this? I am imagining some romance novel addict swooning at these bullshit emails. Parts of it almost sound like the Boy Scout pledge or something or perhaps a PetFinder description for a Golden Retriever.

Adventures in Dating 4

2011-11-10T10:13:00.000-06:00

Here was the next email complete with a little snark:

Wow [Redacted],

Thanks for sharing so much about yourself. Again, where are you from originally? Your profile says that you live in Houston currently. What kind of work do you do there? I am impressed by your commitment to honesty and truthfulness. It is certainly refreshing. So many people don't respect that these days. What is it that makes you prefer full-sized women? How did you come to find this dating site? Have you met very many people on this site? Looking forward to hearing more from you

The reply made me wonder if they have more than one person answering these emails. Sentence structure is much more casual. This one has taken his American studies a little more seriously

Hi [Redacted],

How are you ? hope you are having a great day filled with joy? I am partly Greek because, Dad's Greek but Mom is from Texas. I am a Car dealer i am into import and export of cars in large scale.I have just been on the site for just 4 days now i have not really met anyone, about the full sized issue i really do not want any preference, i just want someone who i ll love and appreciate with all my heart and someone who would love me too with all her heart, someone who is romantic, kind and caring. someone told me about the site so i just said i should give it a go. i hope you are having a great day at work.

[Redacted]

Not a single mention of truthfulness and honesty. He is, however, a dirty car salesman.

.

Adventures in dating 3

2011-11-07T11:29:00.000-06:00

I sent the email below, still not sure what this guys deal was. Seemed a little wordy but I'm bored and wanted to know more. I enjoy figuring people out.

I appreciate your informative email. You sound very intriguing. Are you from Texas originally? I have lived several other places, but have lived in Texas the longest so I call it home. I am a single parent of two adult children and two teenage children. I work two jobs and spend my free time with family and friends. As I said in my profile, I have a rich full life but am just missing that person to share things with. You mention that you are a Christian, are you an active church goer? I have attended many different types of churches thru my life. I read that you are an idealist, I am more of a realist myself - I guess that comes from working in the social work field. It's like you have hope for things that are better but accept the realities of humanity. I have a very rich sense of humor and I appreciate others with the same. I guess that is all for now... will wait until I hear more from you.

I got the following response which sealed the deal that this guy was a scam. Completely different sentence structure, and if you'll notice above I asked him the following questions: "Are you from Texas originally?" and "Are you an active church goer?" Both are simple and direct questions and neither are answered in his response.

Hi [redacted], Thanks for your email. after reading your message and your profile i knew we shared a lot in common so i decided to officially introduce myself to you as i want to get to know you too. Am [name redacted] 47years old, Am single Divorced, I have just had a life on my own....doing what i know how to do best is honesty and living my life to the fullest. and i grew up to understand the principles of life and the truth that follows it and i have made a vow to my self and God that i will forever remain honest and truthful to the things i say and do...cause truth and honesty is the only key to success. but its very hard to go about, But i still try not to brake my vow. and i do seek all i want with all my heart and the truth of it.

Well, i am a very sincere and honest person, caring, kind, social, smart, intelligent, passionate, friendly, romantic, and i believe in the truth and honest of love. I am really a very sincere person when it comes to sharing feelings and emotions with that special person and i really am down to heart honest about the things i say and do cause i don't like hurting peoples feelings, cause everyone has a chance to laugh, so why do i make them sad. I am really very easy to get along with, fun to be with and am very adaptive and communicative when it comes to conversant conversation. a and my life is based on the truth and honest of self personality , I’m reliable, cheerful, communicative, friendly, very optimistic and romantic, balanced, not conflict, and I often smile (and I like it). I am easy to deal with and very responsible. I appreciate highly faithfulness, honesty, open hearted cordiality, considerateness, tenderness, intelligence and a good sense of humor in people around me.
I love children , and i am ready to accept any woman who is coming into my life with kid's i will love and treat them as my own kid's, pets, nature and all living creature as well as poetry, music and to travel. I like to read a lot, gladly attend a theater, opera, concerts, cinema and exhibitions. I have a very active life. I dream to meet my soul mate to have happy family, home which is full of harmony, agreement and happiness....I would really like to get to know a lot about you and learn something’s with you cause you seems to be kind of ready in getting to know my kind of person and hopefully we can meet in person soon..With time we will get to know each others feelings, motives and intention towards each other and it will help us grow knowing each other and trusting each other....
The woman I would like to meet must be reliable, kind, interesting, well manner, decent person with sense of humor and serious intentions. she will be able to accept and understand me as I am in reality and oriented into the long-time relationships which will start with nice friendship and, possibly, lead to lead to true love and creation of the family.

Feel free to ask me any questions what you are interesting in - I'll be happy to answer all of them. And, of course you can tell me everything that you are ready to share with me – I'm a good listener, too ... Looking forward to hearing from you soon,

First off... what the fuck?!?! This email makes no sense at all. Also, let me point out that using truth, honesty, and other similar adjectives 17 times in one email is just plain odd. It's as if by saying it many many times I will, of course, trust him and send him my bank account info and routing numbers. I will be emailing him back but I don't even know where to start. Obviously there will be a lot of chain yanking.

Adventures in dating 2

2011-11-07T10:51:00.000-06:00

I made the first move and send Mr. Comeflywithme47 the following message:

Your profile showed up on my smart match and you sound like a very fun person. Would love to learn more about you.

I wasn't sure if I would get a response or not, at this point he still seemed like a normal guy. Then, I got this reply: (my edits/commentary in bold)

Hi ... Thanks for you(R) email, it was really nice hearing from you. I would like to get to know you so i(I) figured telling you a little about me first would be fine.so i ll (I'll) start by telling you first i ll like (I'll like??) to meet someone who shares some of the same goals and life values as I do. On one hand I could be the man of your dreams; handsome, a good friend, hard worker,good listener,funny,excellent cook, domestic and capable (Your people (my people?) would love me). On the other hand I am an idealist with a solution for the world. Truly I work hard to limit my character defects so I try to cling to Christ teachings. I’m a fairly easy-going guy, but I am no pushover. Most of all, I am honest, compassionate, positive, funny and authentic; what you see is the real thing down deep. I would be happy if nothing else in making a really good friend. Of course you can’t count out chemistry, chemistry lets you have a friend to spend time with and a love who understands the joy of pushing past the personal boundaries to enter a place of intimacy from sharing a first kiss, to sharing and making memories together.At this point in my life I enjoy meeting people simply to chat and do random fun things but I want more. Friends are great and if it develops into more, that's even better I want friendship and I need love. A down to earth positive Christian woman with honesty, integrity, ambition, and good looks is what I’m after. If your interested in starting something and you want to see where it leads let’s take a bold step by starting a conversation, and feel free to email me to my private email...(to my private email?) [redacted] at yahoo dot com if you like lets get to know each other more and figure out this more real.
Remain blessed,

Only a few oddities but I thought.. hey, if he's typing from his smart phone as I often do then perhaps that explains some of the errors. There sure are long clusters of adjectives, I would have a difficult time coming up with a string of that many. Honestly, my first impression was that he has put great thought into this initial email and he re-uses it for everyone that communicates with him. I replied to the personal email that he provided.

Adventures in dating...sites

2011-11-07T10:25:00.000-06:00

So, I signed up a while back for a specialty dating website. It is meant to be a site for people attracted to plus sized people. I signed up for two reasons.
1. I'm a plus sized person
2. Since I self-sabotage ALL the time, I figured if I started seeing someone that liked me heavy I would end up dropping weight. Either way it seemed win/win.
I am sure there are people on there that are legitimately interested in more womanly shaped women, but there are also a lot of predators on there. I don't mean of the sexual variety, but the kind that seek out someone vulnerable and build them up, draw them in, and then start scamming them. I am an intelligent, professional woman and it only takes a moment to spot these people. In the past, I have just stopped speaking to them but then I thought... How fun would it be to share the ridiculousness online.

Here we have our first candidate - The profile is actually very well written so when I sent the message I wasn't certain what I'd get.

comeflywithme47

Some would say this is the hard part…I say it is an opportunity!

I am an upbeat and fun person. I do love to joke around and have fun, would be nice to find someone drama free and fun. I try to separate work and play as best as I can. I believe in the theory of working smart and playing hard!

I am probably one of the most open-minded individuals you will ever meet and love to try new and exciting things. I can be a total goofball and then serious if the situation calls for it.

P. S. - I THINK DRINKS / COFFEE IS THE BEST MEET AND GREET TO BREAK THE ICE :-)

A fun first date- First few dates are still the "learning stage" of each other right??...Why not make it fun? Why do the boring dinner or movie...I wanna see how you handle some laughs at a comedy club (front row !!) or maybe down @ game works while we play some games and sip on some drinks, loosen up and have fun right? Maybe a walk around the city if the weather permits. Or my fav to find a hole in the wall bar that plays live music and has good food

So, what we have here is good casual sentence structure. He tosses in slang words "goofball" and tosses in the @ sign instead of typing "at". Perhaps a tadbit narcissistic, but that can be fun. Mr. "comeflywithme47" showed up in my match list so I thought... what the hell, I'll drop him a line. I got a response that triggered my B.S. meter and that is what triggered my thought to at least make this fun. In each post I'll be starting with my email and then posting their response complete with some snark or corrections. I hope whoever comes across this enjoys it.

Wound a little too tight

2007-11-29T21:28:00.000-06:00

(My apologies to those of you who may have read this from me already...feel free to skip it)

The other day I picked up a little free weekly paper that is available all over my community. This woman writes an article about children once a month and her article this month was about creating family traditions. I nearly had an aneurism. (Well, not literally, but almost) Her advice was:

               “The best way to start a tradition is to sit down with your spouse
                 and children and decide on a family tradition that works for everyone.
                 Make sure that everyone participates in the decision and remember
                 that the tradition doesn’t have to be elaborate, but it should be
                 something that everyone is excited about participating in.”

I can’t imagine a better way to beat the fun out of something than to have a scheduled family meeting where you debate and determine what the family tradition will be. I envision that the decision will be made to form a family workgroup and they will come back with charts listing the pro’s and con’s and a timeline for implementation of said tradition.

Imagine if you will that poor little Timmy would like to have the family join him outside for a snowball fight. So he asks dear father to come play. Dad grabs his coat and gloves and is on the way out the door when Mom asks where they are going. She hears of this snowball fight and decides that this is just the sort of family tradition that she might like her family to enjoy as an annual event. But wait, they can’t go outside yet. They must all sit down at the table and go over how this annual snowball fight tradition will play out. Will there be matching outfits? Will there be a temperature limit? Will there be rules about the size of the snowball? What if it goes a whole winter without snowing? Will there be a substitute activity? Should they schedule a photographer to come capture the moment for the annual Christmas card mailout? What if there are guests at the house? If there are children should a permission slip of some sort be signed? Medical releases? Timmy looks out the window and sees the neighbors outside pelting eachother with snowballs while his dad calls an attorney friend to check on liability issues with snowball related injuries to guests and his mom checks their favorite photographer’s website to see when they can schedule this fun family tradition.

There are times that I see these perfect families and I am so envious and wish my
family had it all together like theirs. But then I get a glimpse into their existence like in this article and I am proud of every disheveled moment in our lives.

Now, if you will excuse me I need to see what my kids have destroyed
while I wrote this.

(they are being WAY too quiet)

Career?

2007-11-20T11:02:00.000-06:00

I am looking for a new one. Any suggestions?

(Bring the humor people)

Feeling Like a Kid Again

2007-11-03T16:18:00.000-05:00

Thursday night I spent the night at my parents house. We were leaving my mom's house at 6AM Friday morning and I live about 15-20 minutes from my parents. Staying at mom's meant 15-20 more minutes of sleep for me and I lurve me some sleep! You have to be careful staying with your parents. There is a dangerous transformation that occurs. Let me illustrate for you:
FIRST- Mom was whippin' up some dinner (note-food that I don't have to prepare or pay for) while I just sat at the table and tried to read the little weekly paper. My new "sibling" (their damn dog...okay, yes I gave them the dog shut up!) would not leave me alone. She was jumping and pawing all over me and if I tried to pet her she would bite my fingers. I was super excited when mom finally put the little stinker in her crate. I think I have a glimpse of how my big brother must have felt.

SECOND: After dinner Dad was heading off for a quick run to the store.
DAD-Do you want anything from the store?
ME- Umm, let me think (cue me being excited running thru my mental rolodex of favorite snack items or mayhaps a magazine?!?! Followed by a snap back to reality and the realization that I don't "need" anything)
ME- No thanks, I'm good
DAD- You sure honey?
ME- Yeah, I'm sure thanks

THIRD- Bedtime is approaching and Mom asks what time I need to get up. I let her know that I have already set my alarm but she asks again. Never mind the fact that I get myself and my kids up every morning, make breakfasts, pack lunches, and get everyone off in time. Nope, I am still their kid and need to be awakened or I will be late. When I did wake up, I was in the bathroom getting ready and I heard my mom open the bedroom door to make sure I was up.

FOURTH- B-R-E-A-K-F-A-S-T
My dad cooked me some breakfast while I was getting ready. It was great and I found myself wanting him to sign a permission slip and pack me a lunch for school.

That's when I realized I really needed to get out of there before I lost my grip on the remaining threads of my maturity.

Note to my readers- Please foorgive any ridiculously obvious typos. I typed the whole post on my phone

Under the Wire

2007-11-02T23:40:00.000-05:00

So it is 11:45 at night and I am trying to type quickly to make the deadline for a post today. I have been in a car or a coliseum all day today and just got settled in my hotel room. Topics I hope to cover in the next few days:
1. Feeling like a kid again
2. My mom is a saint/amazing
3. People that piss me off
4. Death and taxes...my love affair with the IRS

Lots to look forward to in the next few days. I am going to get some sleep now.

Night

(and yeah me for not missing day 2)

I might be back

2007-11-01T16:51:00.000-05:00

Okay, I have been a big slacker and I will confess my sins in another post later. But for now, I will let you know that I have signed up for NaBloPoMo so if I am not a total loser you will be hearing a lot from me this month.

Quantity is better than quality right? (Or is it the other way around? I always get that confused)

Anyway, check back in cause I'll be here.

Shhh Don't say it

2007-10-21T22:17:00.000-05:00

Okay folks, on August 21st I ran out of cigarettes. I haven't bought any at the store yet and it has been two months now. Do not congratulate me for "quitting smoking" because if I were to decide to quit smoking than I would be overwhelmed by the urge to smoke. I know this is true about myself. If I decide to go on a diet, I become obsessed with food. If I announce that I am going to start exercising or, heaven forbid, actually start exercising I end up with a chest cold that is dangerously close to pneumonia. Am I the only one whose body is unreasonably cruel? How do you overcome self-sabotage?

Parenting Challenges

2007-09-09T23:46:00.000-05:00

Sure, I could talk about discipline, boundaries, conflict, or any number of serious parenting issues. But, this isn't really so much of a mommy blog. (see previous post if you need to clarify that)

Last Friday I encountered one of my most common challenges as a parent: Not laughing out loud at my children. Let me clarify, I just said AT my children, not with.

See, on Friday my 13 year old daughter had her first mall adventure with her peers. Meaning, I let her go to the local mall with a few other girls for about two hours after school. I made her call me as soon as she got to the mall. I lectured her about the proper protocol for distancing herself from her friends in case one of them was a shoplifting juvenile delinquent. About an hour later, I get this call and my daughter is in mid-conversation with an adult saying, "I don't know ma'am do you want to ask my mom, she probably knows"

At this point my phone goes dead. I am imagining all the hijinks that may have occured. I can hear panic in my child's voice as I picture her sitting in the security office at the mall being quizzed by a mall nazi. I immediately call her back. Apparently, my daughter had an accident on the escalator and was filling out a report for the store. She assured me that she was okay, just a little shaken up. Now, here is where the parenting challenge begins.

If I have an accident on the escalator, I will attempt to minimize any possible attention that may be paid to me. I would even deny needed medical attention to try to get the attention off of myself.

STORE EMPLOYEE: "What do you mean you don't need an ambulance?
Your arm has been severed!"

ME: "I'm fine, really. It's my left arm and I am right
handed. I"ll just put some ice on it when I get home"

STORE EMPLOYEE: "It is spurting out blood!"

ME: "I'll just grab some papertowels from the ladies room" (said while frantically dashing away from the scene)

Now I give you my daughter's response as soon as she falls:

"OH HELP ME, OH GOD, SOMEONE SAVE ME"
(notice how it is in all caps? That is because she did yell it, at the top of her lungs no less)

She was just fine, of course, except for a wicked escalator rash on her back. So, I hang up the phone and am repeating the story in my office and we are all dying laughing. I mean tears streaming, imagining her screaming like someone was holding a gun to her head and I am trying to get it out of my system before I have to see her and attend to her like a mom is supposed to. Which I did, effectively and with a compassion that would have made June Cleaver envious. But then my older daughter calls. (okay, I sent her a picture of her sister's back) I assure her that her baby sister is fine and then relay the incident with tact and caring. (the victim is only a few feet away from me on the computer at the time) Big sis is the picture of compassion until she asks, "Oh my, what did she do?"

I whisper, "she screamed, OH HELP ME, OH GOD, SOMEONE SAVE ME" and suddenly on the other end of the phone is the same hysterical laughter I experienced earlier. Only this time, I. must. not. laugh! All I can do is casually say, "I know, that is exactly what I thought and other conversationally appropriate remarks so that the victim doesn't know.

Parenting is so hard y'all!

The Bad Choices of My Youth

2007-08-29T16:41:00.000-05:00

So, I am signed up over at classmates.com. Funny thing is I won't attend any of my reunions, but I am still signed up. Mostly because there are other people, older or younger than me, that I enjoy finding out how they are doing. So they have this guestbook feature. I have had a few people sign my guessbook and I get an alert. I log in and see who it is and then I enjoy a little reminiscing and laughing, read their profile and I am done with it or maybe I will shoot them a quick little email sharing a funny memory or something.

So first, I should tell you that I dated a LOT in high school. I was pretty immature and didn't exactly comprehend relationships also I had a short attention span as did most high school boys so between me and them, my average boyfriend/girlfriend thing lasted a week or two.

So, today I get a notice that some new people have signed my guestbook. I logged in and checked to see who it was. One was a lady that I had been good friends with, and she is already on my myspace friends list. The other was a guy. I looked at his name then scanned down the list of other people that had signed my guestbook in the past. I laughed outloud, right at my desk. Today I got my very first guestbook signature from a guy that I did NOT go out with! So, after I shared that with everyone in my office, (remember, I have no filter) I went back to the computer and read his profile to see what he had been up to since high school.

Now, before I say more about Mr. No Date With Me, let me give you an example of the profiles of Mr. Date With Me: unemployed/underemployed; substance abuse issues; gay; deceased; and the very best one is a gentleman that I dated for about 1 week total in high school. You should also know that I am now a social worker and deal with many community agencies. Well, this particular gentleman gets off his meds from time to time and has announced to sheriff's departments, local police, coworkers and bosses from my previous job, and an entire treatment team at the State Hospital, that we used to date. If he is way off his meds, it expands to us having been engaged and me breaking his heart. But he asks for me all the time. Oh yeah, and sometimes he thinks he is the Messiah. So I missed out on being married to Jesus.

So, as you can see, I dated well back in the day! So, back to Mr. No Date With Me. Well, NDWM went straight to college after high school at the local university. He then worked for a few years, moved a bit, and received his MBA at Duke University.

Let's break this down shall we:
A future of multiple state hospitalizations- let me at em!
A future successful hard working guy- I'll pass!

Pro's and Con's

2007-08-29T16:25:00.000-05:00

"There was a little girl who had a little curl Right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good. But when she was bad........ She got a fur coat, jewels, a waterfront condo, and a sports car. "

If I gave birth to you, do not read this post!

Okay, so the other day at work we were talking about different jobs. We joked around about being a mistress and then we talked about some of the pro's and con's of being a mistress. I thought it would make a good post, and being all obsessive like I can be, I started to do a whole parody page of the department of labor's job outlook information page. You know, they put a lot of stuff on there, and when it comes right down to it... well, I'm a bit lazy. So, you will have to stick with my pro's and con's.

Pro's
SEX- (the sneaky dirty kind)
The boob job you always wanted... PAID FOR
unlimited funding for pampering (hello manicures, pedicures, massages, facials)
am amazing lingerie collection
no pesky in-laws
rent free living
lots of gifts

Con's
no medical/dental plan
no 401K plan
no sick days
no business card (seriously, what do you tell people you do for a living)
and on that note....
take your daughter to work day, ummm, not gonna happen

I'd love to hear other people's input on this. Funny, as I read it over it doesn't come off as silly as it was when we were saying stuff about it. But, I promised it, so here it is. I may delete it soon unless it gets jazzed up with some funny comments.

In sickness and in health

2007-08-27T09:39:00.000-05:00

I was sick all weekend. One thing that becomes very obvious to me, when I am sick, is that my husband and I have different sick styles.

Me: At the first sign of sickness, my preference is to climb into bed and sleep. When I wake up, I get a drink, assess how I am feeling, and if I still feel sick it is right back to bed. If allowed, I repeat this pattern until I wake up and say, "wow, I feel good again" See, that is it. Continuous sleep and fluids.

Hubby: At the first sign of sickness, he announces that he is not feeling well. He proceeds to take different medications, complain about different medications, and go about his day as usual only quite a bit crankier. At bedtime, he wakes me up off and on all night, getting up and down, trying different stuff, getting the heating pad, etc... But his schedule does not change.

I used to think that my method was the best. That I would get better faster, but honestly it takes about the same time either way. The only difference is that I get to enjoy sweet sweet sleep, AND I am (theoretically) not an annoyance to anyone around me. Seriously, how can sleeping be annoying? Well, I think that I drive my husband insane. He is super sweet for about 24 hours. After that, his patience gives out. He typically picks day two of sickness to take on some big cleaning project around the house. I try to ignore him and not participate, but there he is, bustling around and getting the kids involved and I feel guilty. If there is nothing to do around the house, then it is the yard, or errands, busy work. Doesn't he know that I just want to sleep? Honestly though, I do have to admit here that I am sick more often than he is. I catch EVERYTHING.

Another thing I learned was that you should never take a medication that claims to work for 24 hours. Wanna know why? Cause you can't take anything else when the medication sucks. And believe me, this medication sucked. I finally gave in and took something else after about 15 hours and prayed that I wouldn't die from some fatal reaction. The good news is that I didn't die! The bad news is I still feel like crap even after a weekend of lazing around and doing not much of anything.

The Countdown has begun

2007-08-22T06:17:00.000-05:00

People that know me, know that I become more obnoxious than usual this time of year.
blog reader: why?
me: I am so glad you cared enough to ask.

Yesterday began the official Birthday Countdown. The countdown begins exactly one month prior to my birthday. This year, I plan to be even more obnoxious about it because it is the big 3-0. All right damnit, it is the big 4-0!

I have always felt the need to announce my birthday. I remember waking up on my third birthday, going outside, and interrupting my dad mowing the lawn to inform him that it was my birthday and I was three. Sure I could quietly wait for everyone to acknowledge the day on their own and test the one's that love me. But I am practical and I have learned over time that people screw up and forget and I have enough pity parties on my own without adding forgotten birthdays to my list. Also, I have learned that I can not stop the aging process, so I embrace it with the eager optimism of that little three year old girl. I am not normally accustomed to being spoiled or pampered but birthday time is all about me. I hound everyone for gifts and acknowledment of my big day. Fortunately, I have cheap tastes and prefer my gifts be in the following form:

1. homemade- Nothing says, "you mean a LOT to me" more than something that you made for me. (cards, posters, crafts, whatever)
2. companionship- birthday lunches, dinners, or drinks (the scheduling begins the weekend before my birthday and goes through the weekend following my birthday)
3. cards and e-cards- I personally have an allergy to the post office, so I also accept internet cards since I am personally incapable of mailing anyone else cards.
4. phone calls or text messages with the birthday song on the big day
5. store bought gifts- These must be cheap, like stuff from the dollar store.

The only exception is if I am married to you in which case you better bring your A game when it comes to the birthday gifting cause everyone else is giving me crap! (just kidding about the crap comment)

With that said, there are some barriers to this years birthday extravaganza:
1. I will be out of town the weekend before my birthday (my friend Kendra is throwing me a big party in Lubbock! Everyone will be all dressed up, there will be cake and music and all of her friends and family. Oh yeah, and she is getting married... but whatever, I know it is all about my birthday)
2. I will be out of town during the birthday week for a conference in Amarillo. That's right, I will be waking up on my birthday morning in Amarillo, Texas! So the kids making me breakfast in bed will have to be rescheduled. The up-side of me being out of town will be that it would make it SO much easier for someone to plan a surprise party for me cause 40... is kinda a big deal. (just sayin)

side note: If you attended my last surprise party several years ago and are thinking... what a selfish witch, I can't believe she wants another surprise party. That one didn't count cause the hubby kind of blew that one and then since he blew it, I got stuck helping clean and get everything set up for it. I just pretended to be surprised so that you guys wouldn't be disappointed. So see, I totally deserve a do-over. Just please don't put him in charge again, he can't keep a secret for shit!

Trip Recap

2007-08-22T05:27:00.000-05:00

Better late than never right? Yeah I suck, whatever.

So, first off, we are riding along the "back way" (ugh) when the driver announces that he would like to take a detour to show us this amazing property he spotted once on a trip through the area. I, of course, begin preparing for the impending seizure. I mean, what the hell is there to see, honestly? Well, we drove for a while and he pulls over so that we can spot this:

Take a minute and absorb this.......
You can look at it more here

Seriously, this place is in the middle of nowhwere. I know that people say that Texas has a little bit of everything but castles? Holy crap!

We get back on the road and stop for dinner at this little mexican place and this is the point that I cursed myself for not being one of those women that carries a huge purse. Why? I'll tell ya. I am waiting to use the restroom and there is a shelf of supplies right there, out of sight of everyone. The supply I was coveting was TEQUILA. Right there for the taking. Okay, I would have probably been too chicken to take it, but I could have easily slipped a whole bottle into my bag, finished my meal, and left free and clear. They seriously need to move their Tequila shelf. Anyway, while we are eating, I am looking (bored to tears) out the window of the restaurant upon a lake and I see a sign, by this large tree. I am kicking myself for not taking a picture, but it was acknowledging that this particular tree has the esteemed honor of being, "The Second Largest Elm Tree in Blanco County". Second largest? All I can say is WOW! I have tried to find some information on this location so that you can all plan your next vacation around this amazing tourist attraction, but sadly, the internet does not seem to find this sight as amazing as the locals do. But, if you are ever in Blanco County, Texas grab a bite (and a bottle of Tequila) at Oso's and then take a walk back and absorb the awesomeness that is The. Second. Largest. Tree. in. Blanco. County.

At 11:30 that night, we arrived here:

Now remember, that this is a 5 hour drive. We left at 1:30pm and it is now 11:30 at night. I was very happy to crash and the hotel was happy to provide me with an amazing place to crash.

(photos were completely lifted from the hotels website)

The conference started at 10am the next day so I am thinking I am going to catch up on some rest. I thought wrong. When I got to my room, my boss calls and says, breakfast in the lobby at 8am. SHIT

I will spare you the details of the conference even though I was not spared. But I do have to highlight my incredible stupidity. The next night, a large group of us all goes out to eat at a restaurant on the Riverwalk. A beautiful place, but a high crime area as well. We have a nice dinner, a few drinks, and we leave the place to go back to our hotel. Well, I am a smoker (shut it!) and I decide that an after dinner smoke would be wonderful. I am also an incredibly considerate smoker so I let everyone else file ahead of me and decide to walk way behind everyone else to have my cigarette. This way I won't disturb everyone with my poisonous fumes. Thats right, my dumb ass decides it is a wonderful idea to walk far behind a group of people all by myself in a high crime area. I may as well have held large sums of cash in my hands (as well as hiked up my skirt for a potential rape). I really should not be let out unsupervised. Luckily for me, a kindly IRS agent with the group looked back and saw me and drew me back into the group. I'm sure that he just wanted to make sure that my goverment was the only one that robbed me.

So folks, that was San Antonio. Lame and boring, I know, but thats how I roll these days.

On a hopeful note, I am working on a post about the pro's and con's of the profession of being a Mistress. (Not for me, cause I am married, just a discussion we were having) It will be coming soon.

Highway to Hell

2007-08-08T15:07:00.000-05:00

No this post is not about the AC/DC song.

As I write this I am riding on my way to a conference in San Antonio. I am not driving so I had no input on the route. Here in Texas there are two schools of thought when it comes to taking a trip
1. Hit the interstate, hit the accelerator, and hit cruise control til you hit traffic. Muddle thru the traffic then go back to step 1. There are a few traffic spots, DFW, Austin, etc... but otherwise it is wide open spaces.

2. Taking the back way. This involves getting on a two lane road, no big traffic jams, and "scenic" landscape.

This is a great topic of debate among people who are travelling. People are very stubborn about their way being the quickest way to go. Of course option 1 is the correct way to go and guess which way we are going? I will give you a hint, it is not option 1. So we are cruising down the road, stopping at every speck on the map and driving for long periods of time behind farm trucks and the elderly. I am an impatient traveller and so I may very well suffer an aneurism on the way there. All I can say is God Bless the Internet for helping me to maintain my sanity.

I do have to admit that things are going more smoothly than I expected. Apparently, people seem to pull over and get out of your way when the plates on the vehicle you are riding in say JUDGE. It doesnt say which county so I think people are afraid it is a local judge.

Oh yeah and I am travelling with a judge so there is just "stiff" conversation. (inside joke to my readers who know the judges name)

Thanks for letting me rant you guys. I will reward you with photos from colorful San Antonio later this week. I don't know how well I will be able to do it on my Palm, but if I cant I will post pictures this weekend.

Show me some love in the comments cause I could really use the distraction. I know you've been reading so just speak up and say hi!

Wedding Karaoke

2007-08-04T16:54:00.000-05:00

Okay, so one of my friends has a wedding come up and she just found out that the sound system at her reception site is not going to be available. I came up with a solution for her, I offered to let her use my karaoke set up. I presented to her my:

TOP 5 REASONS I ENDORSE KARAOKE AT YOUR WEDDING RECEPTION

Let it marinate!
1. Instead of having to dance together, you guys could sing some love duet for the audience

2. What would be funnier than all the groomsmen singing the Waitresses hit "I know what boys like"

3. Your father singing "Superfreak" while looking right at your mom! (doesn't get much better than that)

4. You can sing "Wind Beneath My Wings" to me. (you know, as a thank you for the awesome wedding karaoke idea)

5. Excellent fun to rewatch on the video and some amazing blackmail footage

Her response: "I love that you're completely insane"

Thats a yes right?

I'm in the number 1 spot!

2007-08-04T14:38:00.000-05:00

First I must admit, I am a myspacer. I started because my oldest daughter encouraged me to do it and we leave eachother goofy and random messages on there. It is a fun way to stay in touch. Over time, two of my other children have created myspace pages and my husband joined on board. Nearly a year ago I deleted my profile and then a few days later I created a new one. My husband never put me on his top 8. There was a silly profile that I made up that was a fictional character and he had that in his number one. He claimed it counted, I claimed it didn't since noone else knew that it was me. Immediately after this character in the number two spot was his high school girlfriend. They have maintained a friendship over the years and we have had some discussions regarding this friendship. I have conceded but it has been a major sore spot for me that she is before the real me on his myspace page. (yes, I know that I have the emotional maturity of a young teenage girl... its part of my charm) I avoid his myspace page a lot because everytime I go there, there she is UGH! So last night, I was home from my night out, surfing the net on my crackberry and I went to his page. Guess who is in the number 1 spot? If you guessed me, you win. Guess who isn't number 2,3, or 4? The friend! We have, me, my youngest daughter, my oldest daughter, and my character page. Its only taken almost a year, but I finally got bumped up on the list. I went in and interrupted his video game and gave him a big hug.

I don't want to jinx anything y'all but, I think he is starting to like me a little bit. (Keep your fingers crossed)

Hitting the town

2007-08-04T14:19:00.000-05:00

Yeah, thats right, I went out. There was a girls night at one of the local bars and there were NO BOYS ALLOWED! Woo Hoo! (Of course there were a couple of guys cause you know some people just can't follow the rules)

There were about tweleve or thirteen of us tossing back some beer and laughing about our boobs, former co-workers, and bad 80's movies. A discussion of the kind of guys we would sleep with versus the kind of guys that would sleep with us. Which we all agreed keeps us firmly monogamous. I have high standards people. Shut up, I do!

One friend is solidly in her mommy stage currently. She pulled up a chair by me and talked about how she was here, but she really just wanted to be home making some brownies and going to the park. Here I had been dying for a girls night out forEVER and she was wanting to cut hers short.

The greatest part of the evening was calling my husband from the bar asking if the house was okay for us all to come over and sing karaoke and play pool. I am usually the recipient of these drunken calls and it was no less than glorious to be the one making the call.

The only downside of the evening was that I had to cut the night short because my husbands car had a flat tire and there wasn't anything in the house for dinner. But it was nice to have ended it on a slightly buzzed note instead of dragging the night out too long and being hung over today.

August and October both start with AW (shit)

2007-07-31T16:24:00.000-05:00

My name is "fearoflanding" and I have phonetic dyslexia

So, I was working away at my desk when I receive an email from my boss. She wants to meet for a few minutes to discuss the conference we are going to next week.

*cue my brain frantically scrambling to grasp some detail that will give me a clue as to what she is talking about*

I do a search of my outlook in-box for "conference" and there it is, I am going out of town in a week! Unfortunately, I was completely certain that this conference was in October. I haven't made hotel reservations, my family doesn't know I am going out of town for three days, and I'm not certain but I am probably going to have to shuffle some appointments next week as well.

This is not the first time that this has happened. Only it isn't usually such a big thing like this. You see, August and October both sound that same at first. I get them confused all the time. It is just the *aw* sound that throws me because I don't seem to mix up March and May or January and July. (But I do mix up June and July from time to time but come on, they are right next to eachother.)

Well I guess that opens up a few days for me in October now to do something fun. I just hope I don't forget.

It was a magical friday...until

2007-07-28T18:47:00.000-05:00

So, my friday at work was a good day. I got to work late, and we sat around and talked most of the day. Close to lunch time, we decided that we would all have lunch together so we had some of the most amazing mexican food known to man from a little local hole in the wall place here. It was the type of work day that just motivates you to go immediately after work and toss back a few drinks. I was primed and ready to hit the town!

Have I mentioned that I am cool friend impaired? NO? Well, I am. My work day was coming to an end and I had noone to go out with. Seriously, not a single soul. My husband shows up at the house ready to hand me some cash to waste on some crazy drinking fun and I just had to shrug and tell him I was staying home. He went thru the very short list of people that I could have called to go out with and I had to continue to say... nope, nope, and nope. (made it suck worse to have to tell someone else) He offered to go have a drink with me, but it had a pity feel to it and not a, "honey I would LOVE to spend some time with you" feel to it. Besides, every time we go out he wanders off with his beer to talk to his buddies. Seriously, the guy knows people EVERYWHERE. It is totally crazy.

But seriously, surely there are other women that want to toss back a few every now and then and make fun of people in the bar or just be completely goofy? I just have no idea how or where to find these people. At my old job, there was a large group of us that would get together regularly. We all just clicked and either went out or, once a month, had a big blow out at my house. We have all dispersed from that place and people's lives have changed and nobody wants to take the time to go out anymore.

You know, they have book clubs for women. I think they should have a drinking club for women. I could get all gussied up and say, "bye guys, it's club night" and my husband and the kids would wave adoringly as I backed out of the driveway only to be awakened in the wee hours so he could come pick my drunk ass up from the bar. Now THAT'S living!

Insomnia

2007-07-25T09:45:00.000-05:00

It happens from time to time. I lay in bed wide awake. The not sleeping isnt so bad it is the thinking that gets to me. See, I am an avoider.

I used to be quite a thinker. I would ponder all types of things all the time such as my goals, my relationships, dreams for the future, politics, and any number of other topics. I had a vivid imagination with an amazing fantasy life. It was a blessing and a curse. For me, it often set up expectations for events and relationships that did not occur as planned. The end result was that I found myself disappointed a lot when the results weren't even necessarily bad. I missed out on enjoying what was because I was busy being frustrated with what wasnt. So I just stopped doing it and became an avoider.

Not thinking requires a lot of work for a natural thinker. I immerse myself in mindless activities all day long. Any down moment is packed with nothingness until I am exhausted and I stumble off to bed and sleep til morning when it all starts over. But when I cant sleep, everything I avoid thinking about comes flooding into my mind's radar. Now, lets be practical, I can do absolutely nothing about invoices and marketing plans at midnight in my bed. I cant have in depth conversations with people. I just lay there thinking about these things while tossing and turning and fleeing further and further from any possibility of sleep.

So it was a late night of celebrity gossip shows and infomercials for me.

She who laughs last

2007-07-25T09:16:00.000-05:00

laughs all the way to the bank.
The following conversation occured in my office today.
Emp 1- Do either of you want to take my accounting test for me tomorrow?
Me- Sure whats it cover?
Emp 1- It is over the principals of (my mind wandered off at this point so all I heard was blah blah blah and gobbledy gook)
Me - Sure thing but you know the only business type class I ever took was economics and I dozed off all the time.
Emp 2- No kidding those classes are a real beating
(Emp 2 and I laugh at emp 1 and her horrible class)
Me - Of course you realize that once she finishes these classes she will be making twice as much as we do
Emp 1- hahahahahahahaha
(Our degrees in the helping profession were a very poor choice)

I am only a danger to myself

2007-07-19T12:06:00.000-05:00

Look at this:

Do you see it? And no, I was not attacked by a crazed raccoon on my way to work. See, I left the house wearing this shirt this morning. I went to a large meeting with some important community people, and I looked down mid-meeting to discover that my shirt has been ravaged. I am out, in public, looking like I have been molested by a ferral beast of some sort. What the hell happened to my shirt? Well, I solved the mystery quickly and here ya go:

See, sometimes I like to have a glass of wine to unwind. Just a little red to release the tensions of the day. Now first off, I am no wine expert and I actually prefer my wine cleverly packaged to fool me. See, if you buy a wine bottle, you might drink the whole bottle and then you say to yourself, "wow, I polished off that whole bottle by myself!" and internally high five yourself. (Or that is what I would do) Unfortunately others will say, "Wow, you polished off that WHOLE bottle by yourself!" Did you notice the all caps word? Well that is accompanied by a scathing condescending glance. (or at least that is what I imagine in my mind) Now, if you buy your wine in this form:

Noone will ever know how much you drank for sure, not even you. (Of course I am kidding, I buy the wine that comes in the boxes with the pour spout.)

Anyway, the other night the husband goes out for a night with his brother and I decide to whip up some gourmet dinner for the kids and have a sip of wine. (gourmet dinner = frozen pizzas) By the time the pizzas were finished, I am apparently a little tipsy.
This was apparent because I
1) pulled out the utensil drawer and spilled out all the utensils on the floor
2) dropped a whole pizza, topping side down of course, on to the oven door

It was not until this morning that I realized that I also melted part of my shirt on the oven door. Maybe they should come up with a line of fire-retardant clothing for the domestically challenged?

On being the boss

2007-06-19T07:03:00.000-05:00

So, in my previous post I mentioned employees so now you know that I am the boss at my job. Understand that I have never had any aspirations of being in charge of anyone. I am a dedicated slacker and have no need for power or responsibility. The job snuck up on me. I was quietly doing my job, and by doing my job I mean doing the least that was required of me while building up an internet favorites list of humor sites, emailing friends, spending time on youtube, myspace, etc. Next thing I knew, the person over me decided it was time to let go of the responsibility of my program so that she could focus on new programs. At that time, there were three of us working at this program. One lady, who was there when I started was committed to part-time work and had no interest in increasing her hours; a young college student working part-time; and me. Generally I like what I do and didn't want to find another job so the "promotion" landed, unwelcome, in my lap. Shortly after the promotion, Sprint PCS released this commercial:

I present, me, on the job

Well, minus the testicles.

unfiltrated

2007-06-19T06:51:00.000-05:00

me: "So I was removing the dead ivy vines from the huge tree in the front yard this weekend and my mind went off and I was imagining that I was in an enchanted forest. I was peeling away the vines and the tree was waking from its slumber beneath my hands."

employees: (silence)

me: "Yeah, so I know I am pretty much a humongous geek"

one employee: "Well, other people may think stuff like that, but noone would actually admit to it out loud"

me: "I have no filter... EVERYTHING is out loud"

Challenege 6 Origins

2007-06-16T16:57:00.000-05:00

Here's another Composition Challenge:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2113982/19232256

This one is about origins... what shaped me as a child:

I was a military brat, born in a hospital in Turkey. The base we were at didn't have a hospital so when my mom was within a few weeks of her due date she flew to another town and lived in an apartment with several other pregnant women. Can you imagine the hormones in that small Turkish aparment. Full of women missing their husbands and their other children, just hoping their babies would hurry and come so they could go home. My time to come came early, apparently there was about to be some kind of labor strike (the working kind of labor, cause women can't refuse to go into labor) and all the women in the apartment were taken to the hospital and induced to deliver. It was important that we came quickly because they were going to have to get us all out of the hospital and on a plane back home in a short period of time or they would be stranded there with no meal service, no food, and no laundry (cloth diapers). The timing worked out and I was on the last flight out, with my mom, in a cardboard carrying box. This would be the beginning of my life of cramped, cost-effective travelling.

My mom was born and raised in Indiana, working class and farming midwesterners. My dad was born and raised in southern Florida in a small, poor community. I was raised with a combination of Midwestern sensibility and directness and southern hospitality. I was exposed to plenty of both since my parents were both very big on family. We couldn't afford to fly so we would pack into the car and drive every year to Indiana and to Florida. We drove from as far away as Washington State packed into a small volkswagon sedan stopping at roadside rest areas for "picnics" of vienna sausages, underwood deviled ham, bread, homemade cookies and a thermos full of kool aid. Eventually we got a larger car, but my brother was 5 years older than I was and sucked up large amounts of space. We also strarted bringing along the family dog. We got transferred, on average, every 18 months so there were lots of moving trips as well. New schools, new friends, new places to see. For a time, we were able to live in the same town as my mom's family but then we went on a trip to South Dakota to visit my Grandpa's childhood home.

Its funny though, I grew to love road trips and as a parent thought nothing of piling up my four kids in a car and driving all over the country with them. I remembered all the things we got to see as children along the way, the experiences, the civil war battlefields, the museums, the state parks. There is still nothing I love more than heading out on a road trip. My brother, raised in the same household, refuses to take these kind of trips with his two children. They fly everywhere or will only drive a few hours to get places. He and his wife often refer to our childhood vagabonding across the countryside as abusive. So I guess that your outcome also has a great deal to do with your outlook?

family

2006-08-10T21:44:00.000-05:00

So, my son and his girlfriend are in town visiting for a few days AND my daughter is on her way here as we speak. So, I am going to have a house full of happiness for the next couple of days. It is so awesome having all my kids here right now. It's strange being the mother of an adult son. Today he got really sunburned and we got some lotion for the burn. As a parent my first instinct was to administer aid to my child. But, he is a grown man and his "lady friend" (his smarmy term not mine) is here with him. So, fortunately I thought about it before I started to do it and handed him the lotion and let her take care of it. I'm sure it would have seemed uber-ooky if I had started to do it! She would have thought I was some sort of freak. While they were here they have gotten my youngest son started on World of Warcraft.... we've been calling it internet crack and he is HOOKED! I took off a few days from work to enjoy their company and today, right when they got home from the water park the electricity went off. I have had a history of not being very responsible when it comes to remembering to pay stuff. So, after checking fuses... I was certain that I had forgotten to pay the bill. I was freaking out thinking how embarassed I was going to be to have my son's girlfriend here and the electricity got shut off. Thats the way to make a GREAT impression. Fortunately it was a full power outage for the whole block and not me being an idiot and we are home with full power and awesome air conditioning.

That moment

2006-08-04T07:02:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I encountered that moment. The one where you take a stand for what you deeply believe or you cave in to pressure. And I folded like oragami. Well, not like oragami because that would have yielded something beautiful and complex. I was more like a crumpled wad of paper that is about to become a spit ball for "the man". I remember being young and idealistic, arguing about what is "right" and looking up to those that stood for it and being disdainful of those who didn't. What's worse is that the surrender of my spirit caused me about 3 hours extra of work that I had to bring home to do, so it wasn't just a quick decision and I got to be done with it. No, I got to wallow in my choice for 3 solid hours clicking away on my laptop while my family enjoyed their evening and I get to go into work a few minutes early to save the changes on my work. Because, not only did I cave, but I am too much of a coward to let an employee know that I did it. I am sure she will figure it out eventually and I will have to own it but a part of me hopes she doesn't. This is why I have always avoided being the boss, I don't want to be the person where the buck stops but I was lured into the position with the idea of more money so here I am bought and paid for. At least now I know that the next time I have to fold it will be easier because the crease lines are already ingrained in me from this time. I am thinking, as this project is heading to the printer this morning, that I hope that "the man" uses some mouthwash before he launches me as a spitwad cause I don't want to be covered in foul breath stench on top of everything else.

Where have I been?

2005-06-03T15:20:00.000-05:00

Here's a little glimpse of where I've been. I saw this on another bloggers web site and had to have it for my own page. Looks like I have visited almost every fly-over state and have somehow completely missed New York and California!! Wow, I am going to have to work on my travels.
create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

My own worst critic

2005-04-26T21:56:00.000-05:00

Well, I have written three posts so far and deleted all of them. I guess I am my own worst critic. I enjoy other people's blogs and all of the comments that get posted. I am more of a banter kind of person so the solo writing is a bit intimidating! I will leave this one as my first official post and will attempt not to delete it and once the first one is over and done maybe I will get "inspired" to babble on incessantly on here on a regular basis. So I guess it can only get better from here right?