Compaq Recall

I got an e-mail message today. The message read something like this -

It has come to our attention that a percentage of batteries sent out with our Compaq Presario portable PCs may severely overheat, possibly causing fire, or, in rare cases, explosions. We are cooperating with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission to proactively recall laptops which may contain said exploding batteries. This list has been expanded from the last three recalls, dating April 20, January 30, and October 14. If the serial number on your laptop begins with any of the following letters
...
(a list of at least 26 letters follows)
...
and you are currently using the laptop, calmly step away from the machine. Try to remain calm as you remove the plug from the outlet. If you are lucky, the battery will die before it explodes. If you are positive your settings have been changed to power off when the laptop is closed and you are feeling especially brave, you may lower the lid with a broom stick. We highly recommend giving the machine a minimum 10' berth until it has returned to room temperature. If you are using a different machine, please visit our website now for information on how to deactivate the ticking time bomb your child is playing with in the other room.

Thank you and we hope you purchase Compaq again!

(okay, it might be slightly paraphrased...)

Ready for the Races!

So, I'm the first to admit that I'm not a great bicyclist. Running, that's my thing. Biking, it's a way to get from place to place without using gas, all the while getting a little exercise.

So I started up again a couple months ago, one or two days a week, and I was pretty rusty. Labored breathing and straining muscles up a tiny hill; sore butt after a short ride, all that. But I've felt like my muscles having been responding recently, getting into bike-riding form for me.

I was pumping along up a hill, a gear or two higher than normal, going pretty quick, barely breathing hard, thinking to myself, "Man, I'm getting good at this."

At precisely this instant, a 106lb sorority girl on a pink banana seat bike, tramp stamp showing between her ultra-low rise jeans and x-small belly shirt (which also managed to barely conceal her size D breasts), idly combing her hands through her thick mass of perfect blonde hair, flew past me (hands free), without even a flush to her cheeks. In the street. Without a helmet.

Well fuck me. Whatever, her Daddy bought her an expensive bike, I'm sure. Sorority girl and all, you know how they are. I've got my 6 year old $50 Target bike. It's the inefficiency of the bike. I'm sure of it.

A ridiculously large man, butt crack and love handles proudly exposed, sped past me next. I'm sure it's easier to pedal when you've got the weight behind your thrusts...right?

Fuck-me Eyes

I was a sorority girl in college. (I can actually hear my mother chiding me right now - I should say I'm in a sorority now, once a sorority girl always a sorority girl...but working on a college campus I reguarly get mistaken for a college student - and therefore assumed to be immature, disrespectful and worthless for anything but tuition by all non-undergrad students in Ann Arbor, and saying you're a sorority girl does not help this image.) Having been a sorority girl, I know what "the eye" looks like. After all, I gave it hourly at the very least. In fact, one of my many sorority knick-names was "Fuck me Eyes." Uhh...for the eyes part only, of course.

Riding in to work on my bike this morning I a wildly unusual amount of the previously stated "eye." I was a bit later than usual and debated for awhile whether there were just more people out in general? Maybe it was the beginning of new term and there were different people out? Maybe it was all in my head? But no, no, it was most decidedly not in my head. Tons of guys, HOT guys, hot college-aged guys no less, were looking me up and down. Fake-tanned, bottle-blonde girls were checking me out. I was wearing sneakers, jeans, a sweatshirt and a really sexy bike helmet; I'm not sure why anyone would give me a second glance while I'm racing towards them yelling "On your left!" and rolling my eyes continuously, and though occasionally it does happen, this was abnormal. Extremely.

I realized when I got to work that I was wearing my sorority sweatshirt. Go Sigma Kappa! =)

Sidewalk Biker

I've started riding my bike to work again in the nice Spring weather, and have discovered several interesting little factoids that I may have known before but just repressed from last fall. I'm GREAT at repressing memories if you didn't know.

Despite many of Ann Arbor's main streets having bike lanes, I ride my bike on the sidewalk. This is mostly because people driving cars go fast and don't pay attention to the world around them, while people walking go slow and don't pay attention to the world around them. There is always a constant stream of cars flowing past while I seldom see more than one or two people on the sidewalk (and even then they're almost always undergrads, who barely count anyay.) And I've had the good luck of having this decision reiterated multiple times in the past few weeks.

First, I actually watched a biker, in the bike lane, get hit by a car right here in good ol' Ann Arbor. (The car was making a right turn, I'm guessing this is the most common way for bikers to get hit.) Bike knocked over, bloody road-burned legs, all the goods. I didn't stay around to check for broken bones, my EMT license being expired by 8 months and all...okay, maybe this makes me a terrible person, but she stood up, and there were other people with cell phones out there to help her. What was I going to do? Put her on the back of my bike and take her to the hospital? Anyway, I'd really prefer not to have this experience from her point of view.

Second, the end of my ride after work has a huge hill and the sidewalk has extra waves in the hill to accomodate the constant driveways so I decided one day to try riding on the street. I regretted my decision immensely when I was weaving from exertion at the top of the hill in the bike lane the size of my front tire when a gi-normous semi-truck flew past at 45 miles per hour, swerving with it's own exertion in the lane not originally intended for anything but horse carriages. You know when you're driving on the freeway on a really windy day and when a truck passes it blocks the wind momentarily, but then you practically lose control when the wind hits you again? Imagine your little car being a bike instead. And now imagine the next vehicle to come flying up the hill being a bus. I will stand by my decision to ride on the sidewalk, extra hills and all.

While riding on the sidewalk, I have the fabulous opportunity of interacting with many exciting individuals. Let me point out here that's it not at all unusual to see a biker on the sidewalk anywhere in Ann Arbor, and is certainly expected in the general campus area. The common courtesy phrase as a biker passes a person walking is "on your right/left."

So the other day I say my polite but loud "On your left!" as I get close to a blonde girl (most likely an undergrad unfortunate enough to be stuck taking classes over the summer, at 8 in the morning no less!) She is pleasantly to the right side of the sidewalk (an unusual occurance) so I don't slow down as I approach her. Upon hearing my declaration, she literally pivots on her left foot, turns 180 degrees to face me and stops cold. "Excuse me?" she oh so politely asks my front tire as is barrels towards her. Turning TO your left when I say ON your left is one thing. But then NOT figuring out that I'm riding into you after you're staring at the tire tracks running up your shirt? Really?

Frozen in Place

I walked out the door at 6:30 one morning last week in running shorts and a tank top, a far stretch from my deep winter outfit of tights, leggings, sweats, sports bra, turtle neck, jacket, gloves, hat. I bounded down my steps, the screams of weather men in my ears, “highs of 78 degrees, 82 degrees, 83!” Spring has arrived! At the end of the porch steps, my leg muscles began to harden; halfway down the path, my fingers stopped moving altogether, the blood leaving them significantly colder than the rest of my body…my brain decided to reject this information. By the end of the path, I had completely frozen in place. As my brain struggled for comprehension, slowly freezing itself, I recalled the full weather report, “low of 28 overnight, rising to a high of 78 in the late afternoon, 82 on Friday and up to 83 on Saturday.”

The sun hadn’t yet broken the horizon. I was outside in 28 degree weather in shorts and a tank top. I cracked the ice forming on my lips and tongue enough to yell “Ben, help!” It came out as only a squeak. I stayed frozen to that spot until 7:45 when the temperature finally broke 32. Stiffly entering the bedroom, dripping melted ice from my hands, legs, forehead, my husband cracked an eyelid at me, “You took a long run this morning, huh? You’re all sweaty too,” rolled over and went back to sleep. I gave him my worst fire-y glare but even that seemed to have frozen. Bastard. This is clearly his fault.

Winter HAS to be Over!

I’ve been packing up winter clothing, since Spring has seemingly settled in to stay, and began collecting my gloves from jacket pockets, purses and backpacks, under the shoe rack, inside beanies and fluffy winter hats. While compiling, I began to believe I had perhaps lost a few… I made a massive pile of the winter accessories and tried to pair them all off.

It seems that this winter was indeed a tough one on gloves. It’s the first year I’ve had a person in the house who was more interested in my gloves than his own gloves, or his toys, or his breakfast, or his boots, or…well, no, certainly not basketball, that would just be crazy! Nonetheless, I would like to blame the small child for the resulting list.

I ended up with:
four completely mismatching black knit gloves (I’m fairly certain I’ve never bought four pairs of black knit gloves, which makes me wonder where exactly all of these came from…), AND three of them have holes in the tip of the pointer finger (apparently I need to cut the nail on my pointer fingers more often?), and one of those even has another hole in the middle finger;

one red knit glove, and one pink knit glove that I’ve decided could really have been red at one time and just faded in the…oh, say three hundred wash cycles it must have gone through to become this…well, bright is the only real word for it…pink. Perhaps it was stuck in one of the twirly-thingies in the washer all winter long?

two light tan felt gloves, one with a hole in the side where I ripped out a very annoying tag;

one dark brown Isotoner glove (this is my first year having Isotoners, having inherited them from my great-Aunt, who apparently felt the need to stockpile fully packaged expensive gloves, and I must say, I was rather disappointed in them. I expected to have the warmth and elegance. Instead, I had the elegance, but I swear the second I put them on they immediately detracted ten degrees from my fingers. I’m not entirely sure how this is possible, but it happened every time! And they never seemed to warm up either. Sure, my fingers were probably warmer than if I’d had no gloves at all, but they certainly weren’t toasty.);

one hideously ugly, gold, insulated Isotoner glove (or, I suppose I should say THINsulatedTM, very warm and indeed, very thin! But now there’s only one…);

two knit green gloves that I wore once all winter long, (because what do you wear green gloves with? And they’re not very warm anyway…plus they’re more a little itchy);

one fully insulted ski glove, (I’m not sure where the other one of these went – they were in my car to use while scraping ice and snow off the car, and were there the last time I needed them, but now, one’s missing. I looked under the seats, in the seat-back-pocket, in the trunk…it’s just not there. Perhaps it’s gone into hibernation for the summer);

two very white felt gloves that I wore all of twice…because…well, they’re white. And I only braved wearing my fancy white coat twice, with which I felt it allowable and practically necessary to wear the white gloves. One has black spots on the fingertips, but I like to think they’re still pristine. Chances are, however, I won’t be wearing them every day next year either.
I have remnants of twelve, count them, TWELVE pairs of gloves, yet not a single working pair to save for next year. Awesome.

Basketball on TV!

My child is obsessed with basketball.

I know all you parents are now saying, “MY child is obsessed with balls too!” or “MY child is obsessed with dolls” or “when MY child was two, he was obsessed with cars.” I don’t disagree with you. I think obsession and toddlers come hand in hand. And it’s not uncommon to see one of these little people permanently attached to one particular item.

But, I insist, my child is OBSESSED.

And now you parents are rolling your eyes, “oh, one of those. Those parents whose child walked earlier, talked sooner, ate more, even is more obsessed.”

But no, I do insist! He truly is. His grandparents have seen nothing of the sort. None of his aunts or uncles or cousins in our very extended families have seen anything of the sort. His daycare provider has never seen anything of the sort (she’s been in business 23 years). His pediatrician has never seen anything of the sort (he’s been in business 39 years), or the nurse practitioner (42 years). Believe me when I tell you, my child is obsessed.

Every day he demands to go to the “basketball hoop.” It must be a full size hoop, with the full court, and big kids (and by big kids, I mean grown-ups, or at very least, teenagers…he seems to know anyone younger isn’t worth their salt). He thinks, however, he should be allowed to join in the big kids’ games. Because clearly, he is good enough. So far we have convinced kept him from jumping in, but only just barely.

If it’s raining outside and we tell him he can’t go to the park (he adamantly insists anyway, and would honestly, really, truly have no problem playing in the park in the rain for hours) if we are actually able to convince him that the park isn’t a possibility, he then demands “basketball on TV.” I would like to take this moment to say I am not a parent who lets her child watch TV, I just don’t do it. In fact, we don’t even have cable, it’s not like TV is something he does on a regular basis. But we did watch March Madness games at a friend’s house and on our computer…you can guess what he asks once he’s told there is no basketball on TV. He actually pulled my laptop out of the bag and dragged it over to me while I was cooking dinner, “Momma, basketball.” (You’ll be happy to know the laptop does in fact still work.)

If by chance we have something else on TV (such as a movie Mommy and Daddy were hoping to watch since it’s almost his bedtime and he seemed to be playing SOO nicely by himself, or maybe the documentary Daddy has been wanting to watch and Mommy allows during the day because it’s educational, or even, somehow or other, cartoons…) he will turn it off and steal the remote, threatening us. “It’s basketball or nothing, people. You comply or I’ll hit the TV. Really hard. And then cry. But it won’t make me forget about basketball on TV, so don’t even think about it.” What kid doesn’t want to watch cartoons? What kid would rather have NO tv if not basketball?

Or if there’s something on the computer screen (such as, say, my work) he will commandeer the mouse and begin clicking ad nauseam, sure that eventually, he WILL find basketball. It is in there somewhere, he KNOWS it is. You cannot fool him, he is smarter than you think! And sadly…he’s probably right.

Nostalgia and Facebook Forever...

I'm not sure that everyone feels the same way as I do, but generally I believe that Nostalgia and Facebook go together quite well. You can step back into the past, dig out the last names of people you haven't thought of for years from somewhere deep in your brain and actually find them! You can see their new lives, new families, new locations, pretend you're a part of it all again. And then you can add them to your list of 183 (and counting) and forget all about them once again if you so please.

Apparently, however, Facebook and Nostalgia may not be such good chums when they involve an ex. I was nostalgia-ing over my summer internship at a National Park about 83 years ago and decided to look up the other summer interns and temps, including the guy I had dated that summer... Here's how the conversation went (definitely paraphrased and possibly more than slightly exaggerated)-

Marc! (name has been changed to protect privacy) It's been a billion years! How are you? You look exactly the same!

Penney! So good to hear from you. I'm SUCH a private person, I HATE Facebook. (clearly we're off to a good start) I've often thought about you over the years and always wondered if you'd found someone and if you were happy...unfortunately you have and you are! You look really happy! You even have a kid!! (he always really wanted kids...) That's great! I'm still single. (hmmm...)

I desperately wanted to be hired full time at Our National Park (name has been changed to protect privacy) but instead I jumped from job to job, moving all over because I couldn't find anything steady. (this man was IN LOVE with Our National Park, his life's dream was working at Our National Park, I'm starting to feel sorry for him...)

My mom died a few years ago. I was so depressed I couldn't talk about it. Until yesterday. When I got your message. (oh God, what have I gotten myself into? and wait a sec, what happened to being a private person??)
I've really missed you, please keep in touch!


Marc- I'm sorry life has been tough on you. Don't worry, even though I'm happy now, I haven't been this happy all the way through the last dozen years, I've had my share of misery too! (it's a possibility you will all think this comment was just as unfounded as Marc seemed to think it was, but come on, you KNOW you all hope your exes are miserable without you, especially if THEY'RE the ones who broke up with YOU, and even if they're happy now and you actually really are happy for them, you still have this little itch somewhere wishing, hoping, praying that they were just as miserable as they made you once. Oh come on, you know you do. Even if you don't, you have to agree with me that it seems Marc needs to know this, right??)

You've been miserable? Whyever would you tell me that? My philosophy is that you can't be happy in life until you're happy with yourself. I decided to be happy with myself several years ago and haven't looked back since. Life is grand. You should really try it. It sounds like you're miserable for no good reason. (this just gets under my skin. Really, I was throwing you a fricking bone dude, a bone, that's it. Your philosophies can kiss my butt!)

No, no, you misunderstood me, I'm very happy now, ridiculously happy, perfect Leave It To Beaver life happy. I just meant I was miserable at some point along the road, there were craters in my journey to paradise, that's all.

Craters? Are you into meteorology? You have to accept your life as it is, accept yourself as you are. If you accept your flaws, and learn to love yourself, you can be happy through anything. Advice...blah, blah, blah...advice, blah blah. (God I'd forgotten how patronizing he was)

Dude, I couldn't have been happy through this. It was a crater, okay? Your advice is not helping me here, I'm happy now. I don't need your advice. I'm not your daughter. I was just trying to open up to you, just opening the old lines of communication; you told me your mother died! I'm just telling you I've kinda sorta maybe been there too...but not really...is all.

You've been where but not really? I'm confused Penny (oh no, he TOTALLY just spelled my name wrong!!), is everything okay? Is this your call for help? What could you have possibly gone through that you were so miserable through that you now feel the need to hide it from me? I can't help you if you don't tell me. (what? what???)

I GOT DIVORCED!! OKAY? Are you happy now? I told you! I got divorced. I haven't always been this happy. My life has not always been this perfect. I just wanted you to know I'd been miserable at some point to make you feel better because you're clearly miserable now. I just wanted to give you a little bit of happiness, a little bit of unspoken revenge. It all would have been fine if you'd just accepted your revenge and not turned it all around on me like you always do. Just because you're a few years older than me (seven) doesn't mean you know everything and I know nothing. I'm not 19 anymore, I've had more life experiences now, I know people are shallow just like me, you can't make me think you're better than me and never hope for that kind of sweet revenge, I just don't believe it...and by the way, this kind of thing is the whole reason we broke up to begin with!! (did I just have this argument...on Facebook...two thousand miles away...with an ex-boyfriend from TWELVE years ago?)

So you got divorced, so what? My new girlfriend is divorced and I don't care. (WTF?? Since when do you have a new girlfriend? In the last 4 days??) Just be happy with yourself and you will be happy with your life. (okay, apparently I did not actually have that argument, apparently it was all in my head...I scroll down in the message box...no, it's really there...apparently he just ignored it...another reason why we broke up to begin with! And I would like to say - new girlfriend or no - of COURSE he doesn't care - the guy was already divorced while we were dating, whose he to suddenly care? That wasn't the stupid point!!)

Ugh. Facebook and Nostalgia are no longer BFF. Facebook and Nostalgia just broke up.