My beloved Uncle passed away this morning.

The world is a little dim today, for he was a bright light. Survived by his amazing wife and daughter, family and friends who delighted in his humor and his gentle intelligence, and the thousands of students who considered him a blessing and who worked diligently to be among those he would lead into graduation each year.

He loved life. He loved people. And we loved him.

Farewell to thee! but not farewell
To all my fondest thoughts of thee:
Within my heart they still shall dwell;
And they shall cheer and comfort me.
-Anne Bronte

Posted by: Elizabeth at 04:24 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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I rarely do this *ahem*, but HUZZAH for my son Bear!

This morning was his second night without a Pull-up and no accident!!!!

*clapping*

CD and I knew from before he was born that we were, perhaps, maybe, a little enthusiastic as parents. Him having the sonogram tattooed to his stomach was a bit of a clue.

"And see here?" CD would say. "That's his foot! See how he's flexing it? Well, we've talked to the leading-most soccer players in the world. In fact, we called up Pele, you know? And they ALL AGREE that this flex here is indicative that Bear will be a championship central forward!"

No, really.

And we're still paying off that billboard from when Bear slept through the night at 6 weeks. And when he stood at 3 months. When he started talking, walking, and singing. When he potty-trained before his 3rd birthday after we explained the school needed him to be in big-boy underwear.

Sheesh. Like we're the first.

No, really.

We know, the 3 of us, that it is mostly a matter of chance. But if you know us, then you know that it is not just the milestones themselves - it is the sangfroid and humor with which our son seems to handle them.

A few days ago, Bear informed CD that he didn't want to wear Pull-ups to bed anymore. He's experimented with going without in the past, but his body didn't wake him up before he wet the bed - which was a yucky feeling to wake up to. So we'd go back to Pull-ups pretty quick.

But he's been waking up dry most of the time for weeks so this time was really it.

Yesterday morning, Day 1 of No Pull-Ups, I went in to talk with Bear as he was waking up.

Me: You're dry and no Pull-up!

Bear, smiling a little: Yeah.

Me: How does that feel?

Bear: It's good. I like it better with no Pull-up.

I nodded.

This morning:

Me: Another morning and no Pull-up!

Bear: Yeah.

Me: Wow, is that exciting?

Bear: No.

Me: No?

Bear (giving me a sigh and an indulged look): Mom, it's just underwear.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 03:26 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Let's take a moment to remember F:/, the little drive that could...

Steadfast for years as a sturdy companion to C:/, and D:/, it passed over this weekend to the Land Where Hard Drives Choke, Rattle, and Die.

In its last moments, chilled from a stay next to the Klondike Bars and Omaha Steak Tips in the family freezer, it gave up its most precious secrets. A flow of bits and dats and bytes and pauses through a ribbon attaching it to a new system. As it pulsed its last, the gigs of information spewed with haste to a new host, did it know? Did it know that it was moments away from the final sieze that would forever consign its future to that of a doorstop?

We can only hope that it was painless, and unaware.

We remember F:/ with that sort of antiseptic fondness for which all Microsoft-formatted systems incur. The handicap of not being a Mac never showed in any tangible way on F:/'s surface activtities but, of course, one wonders about what could have been.

F:/ was only briefly survived by its longtime mates C:/ and D:/. In the brutal reality that is the computer world, those drives were quickly tainted with F:/'s failure and emptied of their contents. Within days, they too were cast aside.

As a new system is built with the ghosts of what went before, we remember F:/. The drive that lasted, improbably, for the better half of a decade. The drive that is now at rest after nobly serving for so very long.

Good night, F:/. And thank you.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 07:06 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Well, that was a little political, even for me.

*exhale*

Can you tell? It's been a bad week. I've worked past 2AM 3 times in the last 6 days in order to pull together the detailed plan (MPP for you technogeeks) of my latest project. In case you're wondering, that is 1000 lines of plan including: predecessors, resources, task descriptions, costs, rates, assumptions, durations, hours, milestones and deliverables to roll up to a previous time & materials estimate within 10%.

Formatted to an ever-changing list of specifications. For example, "Please now use group names as attached"; "Rates for architects have been changed"; "An organizational edit is immediately requested that all milestones be 0 hour 0 duration and in red, italic, arial 9 pt."

In triplicate.

And then the hard drives, in a suicide pact that we've feared for months (despite copious counseling and pleas), all died.

And then? Working in my bedroom as my office rebuild goes on and on and on? Got just a wee bit confining. (Oh! Wait! *looks around* I'm still IN the bedroom!)

And we still haven;t decided whether to move or to stay or what.

And did I mention that it got really, really hot outside?

So, you know. All things in perspective - healthy, solvent family yada yada yada. But I'm a little zonked.

As of now, we're turning this emotional cruise ship around.

First, dinner: Omaha steak tips, marinated overnight in teryaki and then broiled. Light homemade potato salad (yes, my famous receipe). And a big glass of limeade.

Then: FoodTV in front of the air conditioner.

Finally: 8 hours of sleep.

Tomorrow is another day.

*pondering the fact that no one seems to be out there. are you ok out there? is your world zonked, too? I've got extra steak tips...*

Posted by: Elizabeth at 02:01 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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There's a part of me that would love to be invited to groups like the Cotillion, where women bloggers who are sharp, witty, and passionate swap their stories to expand their dialogue and audience.

But then I remember that I am a Leftist Pinko Abortion-loving Godless heathen. Even if I found a way to crash the party, I'd have no one to dance with.

Oh, yes. It turns out that I am the enemy.

I read it, so it must be true.

Now, I'm not like like the Queen Enemy. Heck, I'm not even cool enough to wear sweatshop-made bracelets around my fat wrist to announce that I am against poverty and hunger and bad stuff like that.

Well, maybe I AM cool enough, but only because I am sucking about eleventy billion gallons of oil right now to chill my house so that I can turn around and sleep under a comforter made by off-shoring good olÂ’ USA jobs to underage Malaysian children.

I'm just a tent pole in the enemy camp. I SIP the kool-aid. I FEEL for the people wearing those bracelets. I ALIGN with them. Because Brad Pitt is a hottie. So is Angelina. And I am like the swallows to Capistrano, yes. Where Brad and Angelina tell me to pray, that's where I pray.

You see, it's just like Pat Buchanan suspected all along. Yes! It is TRUE and I can no longer deny it! We Liberal anti-marriage morally corrupt traitors DO hang out together in a secret cave plotting ways to defame that paragon on honest leadership, George W. Bush ("Don't call me junior"!).

We have flow charts and PowerPoint slides and we carefully transcribe all our evil machinations into action items every night and publish them with a secret decoder ring. Then we hit Dunkin Donuts for a cup of Joe and a sprinkled donut.

Hell, yes. I hate America.

Also? Mom, Apple Pie, and all U.S. Soldiers.

Wait.

I'm lying.

*sigh*

She reads this and even to be a rocking Hollywood scum I could never deny her.

Mom, I love you. Sorry about what I said there.

Also?

The soldier I married. Yeah, I love you, too, you socialist-raised crazy man.

Shit.

The truth is that I love God. I mean, really love God. And Jesus, too.

I also love America, Apple Pie, and pretty much every drum-banging parade I've ever been to.

Crap, I'm a LOUSY liberal.

I'm losing my membership card over this, aren't I? And dagnabbit, wouldn't you know that I JUST had my "Radical Libber" t-shirt bedazzled and dry-cleaned.

OK, you got me. I just can't stand up to your amazing tactics of stereo-typing. I give, ok? I GIVE.

Turns out that even though I vote Democrat most of the time, I am not the Conservative's enemy. Sure, wouldn't this world be a better place if us pessimistic evildoing ACLU types just stuck to script so that those nice people who think the flag belongs just on their flagpoles would know who the bleeping bad guys are?

I guess in the meantime I'll just have to look like every other American at the local park playing with my kid. Maybe they'll just have to actually strike up a conversation with me to see what I believe.

Maybe they'll discover that in some ways, I may be the opposition.

But never the enemy.

Oh, never mind. Then what fun would bashing us be?

Posted by: Elizabeth at 12:05 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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My neighbor, Jonesie, came over today as we were saying goodbye to my mom. She told us that yesterday, while we were all out, she saw a group of kids sitting on our front steps.

These guys were familiar to us.

They are a white suburban pack of gansta hoodlum wannabes. They dress like the Unabomber or city punks. They are in my neighborhood the last couple of weeks because the kid up the street who used to mow our lawn has turned into a bored dropout who wants, desperately, to belong.

Artie was a sweet kid with emotional problems and learning disabilities. Eventually the school district started tutoring him at home to keep the mayhem at a minimum. Both his parents are spread too thin and he had a lot of unsupervised time, so he took up with these kids.

And now the police are a common visitor. Because this is Pleasantville and these are kids wander in an aimless mass on the sidewalks. The neighbors give them the hairy eyeball and have "911" on the speed dial.

But Artie likes us, so he still waves when he and his friends walk by in a slouched semi-mob seething with attitude. And Bear enthusiastically waves back, and I do, too.

Then, this posse decided to spend some of yesterday camped out on our front doorstep.

My neighbor, Jonesie, didn't like the look of it, so she marched across the street in her teeny skirt and strappy cami (it's what she always wears. Hey, she's like 26 years old and built like supermodel - why not?).

I guess the kids tried to act like they knew us. Tried to tell her they were invited to be on our steps waiting for us to get home. But Jonesie didn't buy it - she challenged them, and wouldn't leave until they got themselves off our property.

When she told us from the little she overheard that they might have intended to ask us for money by pretending they were raising funds for something. But she wasn't sure, she just didn't like the entitled attitude they had hanging out on our front steps while we weren't home.

(Yes, she IS wonderful.)

I don't know why these kids were on our doorstop. Did they think because we were nice enough to wave that somehow that was an invitation to scam us for money? I know I shouldn't jump to conclusions, maybe they had some legitimate reason. Because the alternative was that by acknowledging Artie's wave, we somehow made ourselves targets. And dagnabbit, I refuse to live in a way that makes me pull down my arm and pretend that guys who scare me a little (and they do) aren't somehow human.

But reasons aside, they got right up in our space and stayed there. CD and I knew with a look as the neighbor talked that we had to take what happened seriously.

Because what these boys didn't know, but what have found out if any one of them had reached up to the doorknob, is that we don't lock our house except when we're going on vacation and at night.

Never have.

Now CD and I have decided we must change our ways. And it has made us both inexplicably and deeply sad.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 07:25 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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