My thoughts exactly

Today, the US Treasury released a new $1 bill.

Here's what it looks like:

Thanks to a co-worker for the laugh.

And I thought our water bill was bad...

From the don't-worry-your-life-could-be-worse department, read this article about the poor guy who got stuck with a $9700 water bill.

AND they made him pay it!

Top dog

Our friends Linda and Brian have the "top dog" in Kansas City, at least according to people who read the Kansas City Star.

Hundreds of dogs were nominated, but Truman won!

I think his name alone got him some votes. I mean, how can you not vote for a dog named after the only President ever to come from your state? It's practically treason!

Home on the range

As a part of the decision to stay in our house another 3-5 years, we're buying new kitchen appliances. Chad wanted to go stainless steel. I was just excited about the idea of having a fridge whose doors actually shut, a dishwasher with all of its pieces and a range where all four burners worked evenly.

It's not as easy as I thought to just "pick out" appliances, especially for those of us with Type-A personalities. On top of trying to find the best prices, factoring in things like delivery charges, and wanting to make sure we got a product with good reviews--both from the experts and from people who have purchased them--we have spent a ridiculous amount of time at Sears, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's, and Best Buy. I might even be missing a few places.

Chad finally threatened that if we hadn't made a decision by Columbus Day weekend that he was going to go out and buy them without me. (My first reaction to this was total relief.)

The process was incredibly overwhelming, made more disheartening by the fact that we were working within a really small space for the fridge. (It took me hours to settle on a french door model, which I loved, that ended up being too deep. So it was back to square one.) My disappointment over having to settle with a top-level freezer was offset a little bit when we found one with a built-in water dispenser and filter.

If you ever wondered who on earth those people are who spend tons of money online on items they haven't even seen, look no further. We ended up ordering a fridge and a dishwasher over the internet tonight for about half the price we were planning to spend in the store. (As a bonus, shipping was free and there was no tax!) If this works out, it could be the deal of the century.

We do still need to make a decision on a range, but that's a decision for another day. Tonight, I'm just happy we've settled on two out of three.

Sudsy Saturday

They say you're not supposed to bathe a Lab more than twice a year (something about the natural oils in their coat), but after an hour at the dog park with Chad, Lucy was covered in sand and smelled like river water. It had been a few months, and it was time.

For as much as she loves water, Lucy hates being sprayed with it. So here's a glimpse of Lucy's afternoon bath:

Sudsing

SprayingShaking Drying (whew!)

After Lucy gets a bath, she doesn't look much like a Lab. (She gets super puffy for awhile.) But now she's back to her regular self. Just better smelling.

My new favorite words

I've gotten tired of using the same old words when I say things, so I decided it was time to branch out.

Here is a list of the top five words I have been using most often, just because they're more fun to say than their standard, more common synonyms. Try them on for size in conversation:

• provocative: This is the #1 word I have been using, usually in a good way. "I really liked the ending of that book because it was so provocative."
  
• spry: How better to describe Cloris Leachman on Dancing With the Stars?
  
• irritated: Because it's much more meaningful than saying you're angry or upset
  
• perplexed: "Confused" means I'm not sure, but "perplexed" means I just can't decide...
  
• orchestrate: The verb, ie: "That was quite a surprise party you orchestrated last week."

'Tis the season to be...jolly?

We announced our forecast today, so it's officially the holiday season for me. I'm not going to lie, it looks pretty rough from a spending standpoint.

My life has been so consumed by this for the last 48 hours that I literally cannot think of anything else to talk about. All I keep thinking about, as I sit here eating my favorite meal, is that in three months, this chaos will be behind us and we'll be home for Christmas. Feliz Navidad, folks.

The parent lottery

I've not made it a secret that I'm getting into audiobooks. Every Thursday night, on my weekly four-mile walk to Chad's men's softball game with Lucy, I've been listening to a book called "The Last Lecture" by Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch.

As quick background, Pausch, who was a computer science professor at the esteemed university, gave a "last lecture" in September 2007 shortly after finding out that he had pancreatic cancer and about three months to live. (To make matters even more depressing, he was in his 40s and had three small children.)

I had heard about this "last lecture" last fall (see it here) but never got around to watching it. After the speech was given, Pausch was interviewed by Oprah, Diane Sawyer, and was named ABC's Person of the Week. A few months ago, when I heard that Randy Pausch had died, I felt compelled to read his book--or, should I say, listen to it.

The book, and the lecture, is about achieving your childhood dreams. He talks about his goals to defy gravity in a spaceship, play in the NFL, work for Disney...and by the time Randy died earlier this year he had done all of those things.

While talking about his childhood in the book, he said something that I have been thinking about for weeks:

I won the parent lottery. I was born with the winning ticket--a major reason I was able to live out my childhood dreams...

I really do see myself as a guy who got a leg up in life because I had a mother and a father who did so many things right.

It's funny how sometimes you remember the precise details of the moment when you experience something profound. When I heard that last sentence, I remember exactly where we were standing (a stoplight at the corner of Valley and Glebe). It resonated with me more than anything I've heard in ages.

Though the odds were great, I, too, won the "parent lottery." What a perfect way to put it.

There have been many times I've wondered how on earth my parents offered encouragement while keeping us humble, fostered our creativity while maintaining a strict schedule, and prompted us to have our own opinions while teaching us what to believe in. In the last several years, I've hoped that someday I'll have an idea of how to do this parenting thing just as well as they did. (And, if not, well...our kids will spend a lot of summers back in Illinois!)

For the record, I think my husband won the parent lottery, too. While Randy Pausch undoubtedly had wonderful parents, Chad and I have also been surrounded by some of the best.

The worst job in Vegas

No question about it, I have found the worst job in Vegas. Perhaps in the whole country.

Here's a sign from my hotel, Mandalay Bay, explaining that you don't need to worry about separating your trash with your recycling because they will do it for you:


I am genuinely sorry for the person who has to sift through all of the trash from this gigantic hotel and pull out all of the plastic, paper, and glass bottles. I don't want to think about all of the nasty stuff this person must have to smell and touch within any given day.

This has to be even worse than when I lost my retainer at the mall in high school and had to go back and search through the day's trash to find it.

Emergency landing

I was sleeping quite nicely on a plane heading to Las Vegas this morning when I started to get hot. The sun was coming straight through my window and onto my sweatshirt. (Remember, I've said it's essential to bring a sweatshirt and pair of socks on a plane because they're always cold.) Now, if we're traveling straight west and the sun rises in the east, it should have been behind me. I was starting to wonder if I should have paid more attention in geography class.

This is about the time the pilot came over the intercom and told us that there was a "maintenance problem" for which we would be making an emergency landing (I believe he called it an "unscheduled diversion") in Denver. That explained the sudden right turn. There, we were going to switch planes and continue to Vegas. We were a half-hour from landing in Denver, so I had about 30 minutes to think.

I started to wonder if we were on one of those planes where the landing gear had malfunctioned. Perhaps Chad was even watching our flight on TV, checking to see if we'd land ok. I could imagine the Breaking News alert that might be waiting for me in my email: "Flight to Vegas makes unscheduled landing in Denver: Watch Live on Fox." I looked out the window for TV helicopters filming us but none were whirling around.

Someone in my row asked the question we'd all been mulling: What, exactly, was wrong with the plane? The flight attendant hesitated and told us that the plane was losing fuel--or that perhaps the gauge had just malfunctioned. For some reason, this calmed me down. Hey, I figured, I've come close enough to running out of gas in my lifetime that I could give them a bit of a break on this one. (If I would have considered at the time that leaking fuel combined with sparks from the tires hitting the ground while landing could set the whole plane on fire, I may have been a bit more panicked.)

In my moment of calm, I realized that I could not bring my purse or backpack with me if we had a crash landing, so I made sure to put a few bucks, my driver's license, and my car keys (we only have one key for the Jeep and I did not want to deal with getting a new one) in the pocket of my jeans. And I was quite glad I was wearing my tennis shoes in the unlikely event I had to run for my life. Oh, and in my head I told pretty much everybody I loved them juuuust in case.

But the landing was fine. The plane was abandoned by all 200 or so of us and we walked halfway through the Denver airport, got on another plane, and made it to Vegas about two hours late. I did appreciate the humor of one of the flight attendants, who told us that the real reason we stopped was because the Denver airport has great burritos. If I would have known this ahead of time, I might have grabbed lunch.

A kitchen mystery

This morning, Janice came upstairs and asked if I knew where the cinnamon rolls went (they were left over from yesterday's breakfast). No, I said, I hadn't seen them.

Chad followed behind her, separately. "Did you eat the cinnamon rolls?" No, I said, I hadn't. Well, he explained, there was a plate downstairs on the counter with frosting and two forks. Someone clearly had eaten them.

I had half a mind to blame Lucy, except that she wouldn't have known enough to pull out the forks. I thought Chad might have eaten them, as he tends to get the munchies if we're still up late at night. But that still didn't explain the two forks. We did have friends over after dinner, though I didn't think they'd be so presumptuous as to munch on things from my fridge without asking. After a few minutes, I started wondering if maybe I did eat them after all.

Figuring that we had something to do with their disappearance--though we still had no idea how--Chad went to the store to get more cinnamon rolls. Not thirty seconds before he returned, Janice announced that she had found yesterday's leftover rolls in the back of the fridge.

The forks covered in frosting? They were the remnants of a cupcake Janice and Nick shared last night. Mystery solved.

If $$ were no object...

We had dinner with Janice and Nick tonight (thanks, Dad, for the yummy rib-eyes!) and got to talking about work, telling stories about the redundancies of each workday. Someone asked the question of what we'd be doing if money were no object.

Everyone else was easy to figure out. Chad said he'd be a coach. Janice would be an actress (on stage, not on screen). And Nick would be a firefighter...which he is training for. I, on the other hand, could not pinpoint a single thing I'd want to do if money were no object. A teacher, a full-time mom, a business owner, the job I have now...I really have no idea. None!

I settled on saying I'd be an author, writing books of some sort from the comfort of my own home. (I've been liking the comfort of my own home and the idea of working in my sweatpants lately. I get a lot done and it's not as stressful.) I think if I had to focus, I might be able to squeeze out a work of fiction or two in my lifetime. Maybe people would even read them. Or at least a great biography. I'm good at interpreting other people's lives.

Janice informed me that authors make too much money for that to be a consideration. But I'm pretty sure that the best Broadway actresses and coaches do alright too...

9/11 remembered

Today is the dedication of the Pentagon Memorial to remember the 184 people who were killed there on September 11, 2001. The dedication is this morning with the President, Defense Secretary, and I think both Presidential candidates planning to attend. Of course everyone wishes that we didn't need to have a memorial in the first place, but what they put together is both tranquil and creative, I think.

A side note: The dedication is one of those unbelieveable I-can't-believe-I-live-here things that happen in a city like DC that would be even more awe-inspiring if it didn't horribly affect traffic. A minor point to anyone else in the world, but most people in Alexandria who drive by the Pentagon every day spent last night trying to figure out how they were going to get to work with all of the road closures this morning. (I left at 6:30 a.m. and it took me 20 minutes to get here, but I don't want to know what the roads are looking like now!)

Puppy pills

Lucy has a ridiculous amount of medicines for a dog. She has two meds that she needs to take every eight hours (though not together, that would be too easy--and also not with food) and one she takes every twelve hours. Trying to remember what she's got to take and when has almost become a full-time job.

Fortunately, she loves taking her medicine. I dip each pill in peanut butter and she thinks they're treats. But as Chad reminded me, it's no surprise that she likes them. That's how we got into this situation to begin with.

She's baaack...

Sixteen hours after coming home, Lucy has not managed to get herself into any trouble (perhaps because I am watching her like a hawk).

It's always fun to play the game of which dog goes with which person. Last night at the vet, a cranky bulldog was paired up with a young, spiky-haired guy while a sweet little floppy-eared dog went home with the most quiet, lackadaisical man I've ever seen. (The technician told this guy that the floppy-eared dog was their "favorite patient"--funny, they did not say the same about our energetic Lucy.)

In fact, our technician told us one of the signs to watch out for and call immediately about was depression or not wanting to do anything. She paused and then said, "especially with Lucy"...as if to say, if she is not bouncing off the walls, be concerned. It seems that Lucy made her presence known.

Lucy had a great time last night reacquainting herself with the house, running from one room to another. Even though they said she hadn't been drinking at the hospital and probably wouldn't be thirsty, she downed two huge bowls of water when we got home. Things are back to normal, whatever that is.

I'm lucky enough to be able to work from home today on a few big projects to make sure she's not reacting weird to any of her medicines, but so far, all is well!

Jib-Jab 2008

For all of you as tired of politics as I am, here's a more light-hearted approach from the folks who brought you Jib-Jab in 2004 featuring Kerry and Bush.

The 2008 version has been released! If you don't mind having the song stuck in your head for the entire afternoon, you'll probably enjoy it...no matter who you're voting for.

Damage control

Lucy got into a bottle of Ibuprofen while we were at Costco yesterday. Chad saw she had destroyed it but thought it was empty and it wasn't until she had gotten sick a few times and I asked what she'd eaten that we put two and two together.

After a few minutes of internet research, we knew enough to get worried and took her to the emergency animal clinic. It had been six hours at least since she'd eaten it, so she had already digested most of the medicine. That one-hour period when they were trying to figure out how much her kidneys had been ruined was one of the biggest low-points I've had in a long time. Chad and I talked about what we'd do if we had to put her to sleep. I was actually sitting there trying to remember the last time I felt so horrible. It's been years.

She's been in the animal hospital since last night and they're pumping her full of fluids to make sure the stuff gets out of her system and doesn't cause kidney failure. They've been taking good care of her, though they do say things when they call like "she's a boisterous Lab..." that make me wonder what on earth she's getting herself into. They say it's common for Labs to get into things like this because they're so darned curious--but it still didn't make me feel any better that she got into something that I accidentally left out.

That said, things are looking good. We went to see her today and she's back to her old self: jumping around, full of energy, and, according to the vet, "eating like a champ." If I didn't know any better, I'd say she was fine, and I really wanted to just bring her home and put all of this behind us.

But if all goes well, she'll be coming back tomorrow night. To compensate for my [perhaps exaggerated] guilt, I made it a priority today to get a bunch of stuff done so that when I pick her up tomorrow I can take her to the dog park. She'll probably be feeling fine, but it will make me feel better anyway.

In the doghouse

A couple months ago, our friend Nick was helping someone move who was trying to get rid of a doghouse. It was old and dirty but otherwise in good shape. So he brought it here and we put it in the backyard.

We got around to mending and painting it last weekend (or shall I say, Chad did). He painted it white and then, in a stroke of creativity, wandered down to the basement where we had the leftovers from when we painted our shutters and front door. Let's just say that Lucy's doghouse matches our house--though fortunately we don't have a tin roof.

When I walked outside to see the finished product, I laughed out loud at the "2702 B" that he had painted next to the door. If you ever want to send mail to Lucy, now you know the address.

Today, thank a teacher

I was traveling with our CEO a few weeks ago and we got to talking about summer plans. Since then, I keep thinking of a conversation we had. Being back-to-school time and all, it's appropriate to recount this tonight, before I forget it. I'm sure this isn't 100% accurate and I made some interpretations, but I've got the main parts right:

My boss's boss's boss (a smart, powerful woman) was telling me about her husband's aunt, who is turning 99 this month. She sounds like a spunky lady who has done a lot of good in the world. A woman who had polio has a child, she never married and taught elementary school in Minnesota her whole life before retiring about 30 years ago.

Some time after retirement, she went out with a friend. Two quasi-eldery ladies out for lunch and an afternoon of window shopping. But when leaving the mall, they noticed two large African-American men standing in a corner looking at them, whispering. She thought it was strange, but they moved ahead. The men followed at a short distance.

This started to make the two women a bit nervous, so they ducked into a small shop and spent some time in there before leaving. But the men were still there. Though it made her uncomfortable, she stood her ground.

[This is the point in the story where I started to get nervous.]

One of the men walked up to them. She paused (and probably braced herself).

"Miss Moroney?" he asked, hesitatingly.

"Well, Davey," she said, inspecting then recognizing him instantly though she taught him decades beforehand. He seemed pleased that she remembered who he was. "What are you doing with yourself these days?"

"Oh," he said, dismissingly, "I play baseball." He told her how much she had meant to him and that he hoped she was well. They parted ways.

Days later, she was telling this story about the man who had initially frightened her to her nephew. She was admitting that she had become a bit too skittish and that she should have given him the benefit of the doubt.

Her nephew asked if she knew any more about the man who had taken the time to come up and thank an old teacher.

She said she didn't know what he was up to, but that Dave Winfield had always been a nice boy. He was a good student, and she hoped he was doing well.

Little did she know that, at the time, Dave Winfield was also the highest-paid player in major league baseball. A baseball player who took the time to wait...and wait...outside a store for an old teacher just to tell her how much she had meant to him.

Talk about making a difference.

Sainara to summer

Labor Day has come and gone, so summer is officially over. (Well, not officially. It's actually going through September 21, but when you can't wear white skirts or shorts or pants anymore, it's no longer summer in my book.)

The good news is that fall is upon us which means cooler nights and changing leaves. The only bad news in all of this is casual August at my office has ended.