Well, I made it this year. That’s something accomplished, yes? Last year, I missed a couple of days and was out of the running for any prizes.

Truth be told, I’m a little relieved that I don’t have to post anything tomorrow if I don’t have time. There’s much that I wanted to do this weekend, and unfortunately, I had an extremely late start today courtesy of some late night drama regarding The Boyfriend. It’s all good and definitely not worth blogging about. At least not yet. Maybe later on down the line. We’ll see.

Thanks to Eden Kennedy for her fantastic job of organizing this whole thing. It’s such a great idea and I’ve enjoyed the challenge. I’ve also enjoyed reading the other participating blogs. I’ll be checking out the Randomizer for months to come. I hope others will as well, and if you happen to venture in here, please say hello. Because even though we don’t all admit it, we all appreciate the comment love.

I feel like I should have something profound to say, to close off this month of continuous posting. But it’s Friday evening, the holiday season is just kicking into gear and quite frankly, I’m a little drained.

Besides, having been inspired by Kaleigh and Melissa in the Blogosphere and by my friend M in real life, I suddenly have the desire to go make things of the food variety. Baby, it’s cold outside, and some soup definitely sounds yummy. With some pumpkin muffins.

Maybe this time next year, I’ll be a food blogger….

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Even though she lied to both me and The One Who Knows Everything about how old she was turning today (because truly, doesn’t that make The One Who Knows Everything look bad?), and even though I’m tempted to continue to spread that lie just to punish her, I won’t.

But I’m also not dedicating the heartfelt missive I’d composed on the benefits of turning 40. Because Super K? You’re not in the club yet. And I might have to delay your membership to the club for a year, as a penalty for trying to join early.

Having said that, I’ll still have cookies for you at work tonight. Because you still rock, even at the ripe old age of *gasp* 36.

(Thanks for having your birthday fall in November and giving me a post on this, the penultimate day of NaBloPoMo. Also, thanks for giving me a reason to use the word “penultimate,” which would make my former English professor proud, if he actually read my blog.)

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I first heard about this New York Times article over on Suzanne’s site and it was later covered by Sarah over on BlogHer. I’ve held off on commenting, partly because I haven’t had the time to give the attention I think it deserves, and partly because I wanted to get an idea about what the people around me thought.

The gist of the article is this: When the New York Jets play a home game, halftime finds the male fans lining up at Gate D, yelling obscenities at and encouraging women passing by to flash their breasts. If the women don’t comply, they’re taunted, spit upon or even have plastic bottles thrown at them.

On Sarah’s BlogHer post, a commenter referred to the case in Saudi Arabia where a young woman who was sexually assaulted is herself facing punishment. The commenter was making the point that there are bigger atrocities in the world than what’s taking place at Jets games. She wasn’t dismissing it, just pointing out the difference in severity. At least that’s the way I read it. And I can’t disagree. When I read about the case in Saudi Arabia for the first time, my jaw dropped in disbelief. When I read about the Jets’ fans, I didn’t like what I saw but it didn’t surprise me.

And it’s that point that’s really bothering me. At one point, in discussing this with The Boyfriend and our friend M, I realized that of the many men I know, several of them could probably be caught up in the moment of yelling for a woman to flash them. I can’t see any of my male friends spitting on or throwing things at someone for not doing it, but they would definitely enjoy the outcome if one did.

There’s the heart of the problem. They wouldn’t see the woman as a person they knew: their sisters, their daughters, their wives or girlfriends. They would a see her as a whore. And whores deserve what they get, don’t they? How many times have we heard that argument in a rape case? “Why was she at that club?” “Did you see how she was dressed?”

Sometime last year, there was a report in one of our weekly papers about a female attorney who was out having a drink after work with friends, and someone drugged her drink. She woke up in a strange house in a strange neighborhood, fortunately before anything had occurred. I never heard any more about the story and it concerned me because there was apparently suspicion that the bartender had been paid to put the drug in her drink. But what bothered me even more was one of the first comments made when the link was posted on a local forum. A female asked (and I’m paraphrasing), “What’s a 32-year old mother of two doing out clubbing in the first place?”

Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one who took offense. It shouldn’t make a difference who and where she was. All that matters is that someone decided they had the right to take advantage of someone else. It’s a crime to do that in almost every case you can come up with. Scamming the elderly? That’s a crime. Breaking into someone’s house when they’re not home? Crime. Beating a child? Crime. Killing someone? Crime.

Raping someone? Oh, she must have asked for it. Yes, rape is a crime, and some might make the argument that we’ve made progress in treating it as such. And yet, you can always find examples on far we’ve yet to go.

I hate sounding negative on this topic, but when I see examples here such as the Jets’ fans, I wonder how we can even being to hope for change in countries such as Saudi Arabia anytime soon.

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Not everything about the weekend was lovely and perfect. The Boyfriend did something really stupid that made me angry, but not nearly as angry as I was at a mutual friend of ours. And honestly, it’s getting to the point where I can tolerate this person less and less every time we’re in the same place.

Someone asked me about Toys for Tots. I told them that we weren’t having it this year; that The Boyfriend had wanted to host it somewhere else but that we’d figured out that our schedules didn’t mesh and it wasn’t going to happen.  One of the girls sitting at our table said, “I just heard him asking that tall guy if he could do it at his house,” pointing to one of the guys in The Boyfriend’s band.

Did it surprise me that The Boyfriend asked? No. But I turned to the guy he asked and said, “Toys for Tots isn’t happening this year. It’s not a location issue. It’s a scheduling issue.”

I was met with a cold stare. “Whatever,” he said. “It’s [The Boyfriend's] party, though.”

Instinctively, my claws came out. “[The Boyfriend] didn’t do a fucking thing to prepare for the party last year. He was too busy working on promoting the two gigs you had lined up.”

For the record, The Boyfriend came up with this concept back in 2000. It’s a great concept. He invited everyone he knew to stop over throughout the day and have chili, bring a toy to donate to Toys for Tots, and sing and/or play some music and hang out. He even records the singing.

The following year was my first time attending. I brought brownies. They were a hit with the women he worked with who came. The next year, I did the brownies again and I think I also brought my queso dip, which also was a success with those who showed up.

In 2003, I bought my house and the decision was made to move the party there. The Boyfriend was living at his parents’ house then, and the party was outgrowing his living space. I decorated the house for Christmas and made appetizers. He made chili and we utilized all three floors of my house. It was a great time and the amount of toys we collected that year surpassed all previous years. I heard numerous compliments (mostly from our female friends) about “the spread” we’d provided.

The next year, I’d changed jobs and I started inviting people I knew from work, increasing our attendance even more. Since the party starts late afternoon, people bring their kids earlier in the day, when the crazy partying hasn’t really started yet. That’s The Boyfriend’s forte. He’ll sit on the floor and hang out with the kids. Last year, he spent considerable time helping one boy play the guitar.

I’m not taking anything away from The Boyfriend’s concept. It’s all his. It was a fantastic idea and the fact that he thought of it demonstrates one of the many reasons I love him. The man has a heart of gold.

But the ambiance? That’s all mine, baby. There is no way we’d have the same size crowd showing up without it. And for D to look me in the eye and completely dismiss any contribution I’ve made? He can kiss my ass.

It is not The Boyfriend’s party. It is our party. Had it not been for me last year, there would have been no party. I made up my mind that I wouldn’t do it all again this year, but I was certainly willing to work with The Boyfriend on it for the 15th. He has to work. I’m working the other two weekends. Like I said, it’s a scheduling issue. Shit happens.

The thing is, in The Boyfriend’s head, it’s not even about the party. It’s about the donations. It bothers him that we won’t be collecting those toys to donate. There’s an easy way to solve this: tell everyone to donate anyway, and next year… we’ll back, bigger and better than ever.

I wish it were that simple, but I have a feeling this isn’t over yet…

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NaBloPoMo is winding down. I can’t help feeling that I could have done so much better in quality of posts, if I’d just given it a bit more effort, been a little less distracted, had fewer things on my plate, etc.

Distraction has been my middle name lately, and I think I’ve figured out part of the problem. While looking for a long-lost sample of True Lemon yesterday afternoon (I was making glaze for ham and needed lemon juice), I inadvertently found my hardback journal, which I hadn’t written in since the week before BlogHer. Because it was missing, you see. I think I took it with me to BlogHer, but as overwhelmed as I was with the whole experience, it never came out of the suitcase.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: why would a journal be in a place where I might have stashed a free sample of True Lemon? And that’s a perfectly legitimate question. I wish I had an answer, other than to say that the sample came in the mail and last time I saw it, it was in a box of papers that I needed to sort through and file. The journal ended up in that box. I never did find the sample, so I suspect I put it in a more logical place that I can’t recall at the moment. Or I pitched it in a fit of getting rid of stuff. That’s actually more likely and I seem to have a vague recollection of doing so.

Anyway, back to the journal. This isn’t necessarily a book where I write about my hopes and dreams. Most days I’m too jaded about life to put those down on paper. What my journal does for me is keep me focused. Generally, I write about what I want to get accomplished the following day. I find that when I do this, I’m more likely to follow through with the things I’ve described. For example, last night I wrote that my top priorities for this morning were throwing the towels into the dryer and completing my homework assignment.

You can go ahead and laugh if you want, but it’s very likely that I would have completely forgotten the towels in the washer had I not written it down. Given that we’re out of clean ones, that would have presented a problem once it was time to get ready for work. But it was fresh in my mind when I woke up, and it’s done.  As is the homework.

Making lists is great and I’ve definitely made my share. But lists are another means of linear thinking, in my mind, and they don’t always help me feel less overwhelmed. I still feel I need a starting point in a list and sometimes that’s the hardest thing for me to determine. And if I can’t find the starting point, I’m kind of screwed. I feel committed to the list, even if the order of things doesn’t feel right.

You know those Franklin planners where you’re supposed to prioritize tasks with an A, B, or C? I’m HORRIBLE at that. In my brain, the most important things are at the top of the list. So, in a sense, writing about it in my journal helps me prioritize what I need to do. I write about what I need to do and a natural order of things develops in my mind.

My journal is the one closed source of information that I will pick up and open on a regular basis. No doubt you’ve heard discussions about paper vs. electronic planners? Yeah, neither of them work for me. If I have to open it up or turn it on, it’ll sit there collecting dust or hang out in my bag, getting battered by the stuff I do actually use. But give me a wall calendar and my bills will be paid on time and I’ll know where I have to be at what time. My journal gets looked at, though. Every day.

When I can find it.

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Yesterday, The Boyfriend called up our friend M to see if he wanted to get in a round of disc golf. When MDFW realized that M was coming over here to meet up with The Boyfriend, she called me to see if I minded her coming over to hang out while they golfed. A visit from MDFW is ALWAYS a welcome thing, so of course I said yes. MDFW is one of the few people who I will let my house see in any condition. She’s very non-judgmental.

While the guys golfed, we caught up with each other and waited for the West Virginia/UConn game to start. When they came back, The Boyfriend had another gallon of apple cider (I’d made mulled cider the night before) and a bottle of brandy. M left to start dinner and MDFW hopped online on my computer to do some holiday shopping. And I baked pumpkin bread.

When it was done, the three of us headed over to MDFW’s house where M had prepared a scrumptious feast of grilled pork chops with peppers, onions and mushrooms, Betty salad and mashed sweet potatoes (and a loaf of my pumpkin bread). I so wanted to take a picture of the table, because it was gorgeous. I remembered the camera! But the memory card was still in my laptop from the last batch of photos I transferred to my computer. M had never made mashed sweet potatoes before and I had never had them. Oh. My. God. They were phenomenal!

This guy is a fantastic cook. I think I’ll ask him to give me lessons. I lost my desire for trying new recipes after my husband died. When the only people you cook for are rather fussy 10-year old boys, it’s depressing to always hear “I don’t like that,” whenever you try something new. It gets easier to stick with the tried and true.

After dinner, we settled down for some mulled cider with brandy, and then The Boyfriend and I came home for a bit, changed clothes and met his brother, sister-in-law and some friends up at Six Pack. M and MDFW eventually met us there and we ended up at Daddy-Ohs to close out the evening. There was much frivolity:

Not the most flattering photo, but we were having fun. And incidentally, it needs to be said that Daddy-Oh’s has some most excellent popcorn.

Early this morning, The Boyfriend’s snoring chased me out to the couch. I dozed off for a little while longer until JL left for work at about 9:30. And then I noticed what was around me:

Usually, they pretend to sleep when they do this, but they’re really just lying in wait. For breakfast. It’s a little disconcerting at times. One has to wonder what they’ll do if I opt to sleep in a few more hours. But they definitely make sure that I can’t make a move without them knowing.

Evil beings, both of them. And yet, I love them so. Most of the time. That’s Mickey on the left, incidentally, and Alex above my head. Actually, he was the one who frightened me most. I knew Mickey was there; she showed up shortly after I moved out to the living room. But I had no idea that Alex was also stalking me until I stretched my arms above my head and bumped him. Bad move on my part, letting him know I was awake.

Truth be told, I needed to get up anyway. While last night was fun, today I need to do laundry and finish up my homework assignment that I started days ago, but then abandoned in favor of something shiny. It’s back to the grind for me…

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It happened! The Boyfriend finally gave up his “New York apartment” and brought over his 27-inch TV which has just been sitting in the basement of his parents’ house.

We haven’t been having the best of luck with TVs in this house. Before my mom moved to SC, I was using a 20-inch Sony that had been my grandmother’s. It worked fine, except for the fact that there was no sound (or so I thought at the time). We got around that by hooking it up to our stereo. Problem solved.

When Mom moved, she gave me back my old 27-inch Magnavox that she’d been using for a few years since I’d initially moved to Cleveland. Mike and I bought it not long after we were married, so it had a few years on it, but still worked fine. We hooked it up and quickly got used to a bigger picture. And then one day, it just shut off. And wouldn’t turn back on.

I debated about having it repaired, but it’d already been in the shop once and I figured its time had come. So, I set it out on the curb to let someone else try their luck with it. Back onto the TV stand went the Sony, only this time, it had sound! Dummy me realized that there was an on/off switch in back that controlled the speakers, and one of the boys must have bumped it when they were plugging or unplugging the PlayStation. So, YAY! A TV with sound! Smaller picture, yes, but nothing we couldn’t live with.

I don’t think a week went by before the color went wacky and the picture started shrinking. It got to the point where I was afraid to turn it on, because I was waiting for the whole thing to go POOF! Considering the Sony was even older than the Magnavox, I didn’t even consider repair. Out to the curb it went, and it too was snapped up quickly.

Now we were reduced (literally) to a 13-inch portable that JM had. People would visit and ask what happened to our TV. I told them I put it in the dryer and it shrunk. We used it the whole summer and survived. It was annoying, though. Trying to see the score on baseball games, or even the inning, was difficult. A couple weeks ago, I made The Boyfriend take me out to a bar to watch the Steelers play because I couldn’t see the ball being handed off during play. Making matters worse was that it wasn’t even compatible with the DVD player, which meant that any movies watched were played on my computer.

All the while, I kept nagging him to bring his TV over here. It became a joke among all of our friends. He played along. “But what if it doesn’t work out?” he’d ask.

As of last night, it’s here. He hooked it up to cable. We basked in the glorious glow of a large picture. We watched LSU go down in defeat to Arkansas, all the while being able to focus on the ball. (Our excitement wasn’t only because of the TV - LSU’s loss is good news for the Buckeyes in regards to the national championship.)

And then, it happened. As he was flipping through the channels, a large black box, almost encompassing the bottom half of the screen popped up. The rest of the screen sort of washes out when it’s there. WTF??? Is there some kind of evil television spirit lurking in that corner? Someday, I’ll have to tell you about the Evil Dishwasher. I’m starting to think it’s come back.

Fortunately, it appears that this issue is somehow related to the on screen menu and it’s easy enough to clear. This one is probably still worth a repair cost, so if it comes to that, we’ll do it. Because while all of those flat screens and plasma TVs are very pretty, I’m not taking the bait and buying one. That’s way down on my list of priorities right now.

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Wouldn’t you think that big name stores such as Kohl’s would have their website act together for Black Friday, in hopes of making as many sales as possible?

I’ve just been booted out of their site, not once, but twice while trying to place an order for The Boyfriend and JM. Lovely.

And when I went to send an email regarding their technical issues? It kept taking me back to the same screen where I enter my email address and select the subject of my email from a drop-down list. I can’t even tell them there’s a problem.

HEY KOHL’S!!! Your website isn’t working right! FIX IT!!

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So, I work at a university. In Toledo. If you’re at all familiar with Toledo and its universities, you can probably figure out which one I work at. It’s the one that has a rivalry with that university down the road a ways on I-75 that has really ugly school colors, reminiscent of a certain Cleveland football team.

In addition to working at this university, I also earned my bachelor’s degree there. So, there’s some loyalty.

TOTO, aka The Art History Professor Formerly Known As L From Work (hehe, I like that), is an alumna from that other university. A while back, she threatened to wear a shirt on our last day of work before the game, which took place today. I believe I encouraged her, all the while plotting. Because I work nights, you see, and TOTO doesn’t.

And so it happened that on Tuesday night, armed with blue and gold streamers, posterboard, drawing paper and magic markers, I decorated TOTO’s office in my alma mater’s colors. And it was good.

Here is the before shot of TOTO’s office:

And here is the after shot:

Since the after shot doesn’t really do justice to the overall effect, let’s zoom in on some details, shall we? I took this shot standing on my toes:

And this one from the side, standing in my office:

And then there are the finer details:

(As an unfortunate aside, TOTO is also a Michigan fan. Sometimes I do wonder how it is we’re friends…)

Kudos to my colleague, Super K, for helping me finish up. Afterward, I went home and slept fitfully all night long. I was convinced that TOTO knew what I was planning and had something in store for me when I arrived at the office the following morning. To make matters worse, I overslept! I still managed to beat her into the office, though. And then… it was time to face the music.

TOTO arrived and she was momentarily confused. She thought someone was trying to give her a hard time (several days late) about Michigan’s loss to OSU. But she had a good laugh and even posed for this picture, which I hope she doesn’t mind me posting. (If you do, TOTO, I’ll take it down.)

Her eyes don’t really glare like that, I swear. This photo is also a great opportunity to explain TOTO’s new nickname, which stands for The Other Tall One. She is as tall as me and everyone else, other than our boss, is freakishly short. By comparison. (Now they can’t yell at me for using the word “freakishly” to describe them. Clever, eh?)

TOTO is a great sport and left everything up over the weekend. That means that Princess and e-Best will be able to see it when they come back from vacation on Monday. Good sport or not, however, I passed her a note that said, “Retribution is completely expected.”

It’s only a matter of time….

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You know, nothing kicks off the holiday season better than listening to your neighbors across the street have a screaming match in their front yard, complete with cursing and driving off in a rage, not once, not twice, but three times. Oh, and my favorite part was when T opened up the trunk of his car and tossed the following items onto the ground:

• 1 spare tire
• 1 set of jumper cables
• 1 computer monitor

Yes. He literally threw a computer monitor onto the ground and then, having located the item he needed (which I think was the set of jumper cables, but truly, it wouldn’t have had quite the same effect without tossing the monitor out anyway), he threw it back into the trunk and tossed the tire in on top of it. Guess he doesn’t really NEED the monitor.

Who needs the Macy’s parade when we have the T & S circus?

Witnessing that does make me realize what I’m thankful for. I’m thankful that my family isn’t even a fraction as dysfunctional and that even on our bad days, we have enough self-respect (and respect for others) not to share those screaming matches with the world. Because seriously? That’s so lame.

In other news, I read a book today, the first one I’ve read in months. Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult. I enjoyed it very much. I will be checking out more of her stuff. I’m thinking a nap might be in order now.

How I spent my Thanksgiving break: sleeping. (I truly like the sound of that.)

If you’re wondering about that Tuesday night mischief, you’ll have to wonder another day. No time to sort through the photos at the moment. Actually, I do have time. I just don’t want to.

Here’s wishing everyone a happy and safe Thanksgiving! Don’t scream at your family members in public!

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