Update... Dec 3, 2007

I am feeling very “Sound of Music” this morning… like I should be spinning around like a crazy person on a mountain top with my Julie Andrew’s chili bowl hair cut, smile carved deep into my face and singing wildly with my arms flailing in every direction.

Bon Jour… Good day… Buenos dias… and Hello-oh! I’m sure…. You want… to hear my update, let’s go-oh! Dee-ta-ta-leet-da-da-leet-dee-dee… Dee-ta-leet-dee-dee…

Without further singing or ado... let’s get on with it, shall we? There has been tons of stuff going on.

Now, for those of you who can remember that far back, about a week and a half ago was Thanksgiving. Many people have asked me the obligatory question “How was your Thanksgiving?”. Generally speaking I always answer this question the same with some mock enthusiasm. “Good”… but that was not the case this year. My Thanksgiving was phenomenal, it was one of the books baby! I left work Wednesday afternoon, and things were looking good… and they were only gonna get better. I actually shut my laptop down and a paused as I looked at it, and in my head I told myself “Wow, not going to power you up until Monday”. I was looking at four days of complete and total freedom! The thought was serene, it was actually calming, and most importantly it brought a Cheshire cat grin to my face that didn’t leave for four days. I almost felt like I was cheating… like I was beating the system. It was like I was getting four days off and no one else was, like I had won the lottery and instead of millions of dollars… I got four days off! I bolted out of work, like I was escaping from a mental institution, which to be quite honest that is what my office resembles more often than not, and I had already packed my bags! I had everything I need to camp out at my sister’s house for the next few days. My sister Mary Pat had flown in for the holiday and Mary Pat is a TON of fun… she is a walking Mardi Gras and everyone loves to be around her, so I knew my holiday was going to be great! She was staying at my sister’s as well, so let the party begin!

I am racing over to Grapevine Mills mall to get to the movie theater to go see “Enchanted”. I am so excited to see this movie, I had been dying to see it since I first saw the trailer for it. It is about fairytale animated princess who gets propelled off the animation drawing board and right smack dab into New York City!!! I love the whole fairytale princess thing, I love New York City, and I am a huge sap when it comes to movies where it simply HAS to end with the boy getting the girl and “they lived happily ever after” endings! So, I simply knew this was the movie for me. Luckily for me, I have three nieces so that gives me a great excuse for going to see these types of movies… you go up to the ticket box office and ask for “1 adult ticket please” and that does generate some looks, I cant even imagine what those looks would be if I was a guy!! But you go up to the box office and say, “1 adult, 3 kids”… you can even through in a typical “Can’t believe I have to see THIS movie”, and there are no looks, other than to those of complete understanding. So, I go and grab tickets for my two sisters, my mother and my three nieces… I am ready for the show! I am waiting patiently until they get there, and then my nieces bank the corner. They see me and they go from fast walking into an all out sprint… the eleven year old is in the lead!!! It is like they are racing for the roses and I am the roses!!! Woohoo! You will never feel more loved and adored and idolized as you do when three little girls are racing toward you with utter exhilaration painted across their smiles and them screaming “Martha!” at the top of their lungs. I think it would be great if I could get a recording of them all screaming my name that way, I could keep it in my cube at work and when I solve and issue or deploy new code, I could hit play… and hear it… “Martha!” We all greet each other and hit the concession stand for our movie-going fare. The typical popcorn and sodas… at the rock bottom price of $58. You could go to Taco Bell and feed a hungry family of ten, and I mean hungry, for that kind of money. Crazy. We get into the theater and there is NO one there! Yahtzee!!! I love going to the movies when no one is in the theater with you… it is like your own private screening, I feel so Howard Hughes. The movie was good, not great, but good and sometimes that is good enough.

We leave the theater and head into the mall to shop for just a little bit, and my niece Rebecca looks at me and says “I wish you didn’t have to leave.” I was a little shocked and then quickly realized this kid had no idea I was staying the weekend! I said, “yeah, I know.” And began snickering to myself. Her lamenting persisted, and I kept poking her about it until finally I told her that I was stay, not only that but I was going to be sleeping in her room!! She was thrilled, yet again… I felt like a star! She was so excited that not only was Aunt Martha not going home, but by God she was gonna be staying in her room! My other two nieces quickly flew into action, “why cant you sleep in my room?” was said in unison by the other two kids. You have to understand that Rebecca is the oldest, and the only one that is a good sleeper. The other two are not only not good sleepers, but will keep you awake the entire night… trust me I know, this has happened to me… More. Than. Once. The kids were thrilled that I was staying and I have to admit so was I.

The next day was Thanksgiving, and I had a lot to be thankful for… being off of work for four days topped the list this year, after that it 300-way tie for second… with the normal stuff thrown in, my house, my car that still amazes me, my job that I have four days away from, my friends, my vacation coming up in March, my family, my health, my big toe that is back to normal… you know, “stuff”. The next day was spent playing every game you can imagine. We played with dolls, we did “Dance Dance Revolution” on X-box, we did “Kareoke” on the X-box, we watched “National Treasure”, we ate, we snacked, we had more popcorn, and we finally fell into bed for a long winter’s nap around 9:30pm, something I haven’t probably done in a long time but man, I needed the rest! It was great. I slept until 8am the next morning, so did Rebecca, God love that kid, she can sleep! If you ever spend the night at my sister’s, word to the wise, sleep in Rebecca’s room. She will crowd you a little bit, because she really wants to lay next-to/on-top-of you, but other than that, she doesn’t stir, she doesn’t snore, she doesn’t drool, she doesn’t seem to ever have nightmares, she doesn’t wet the bed, and she will sleep until you wake her up!

The next day was a whirlwind… it whipped by so fast I can hardly remember it! I went down to College Station, yes my beloved Aggieland to see us play the University of Texas. I have to admit I had already steeled myself to accept a loss. I knew that we had won last year, and I knew that Fran was still coaching, so I knew the odds of us winning were not good. I got there and it was cold, that was going to add insult to injury. But the Aggies went ahead early in the first quarter… we were passing the ball!!! I almost didn’t recognize the strange gyration that was happening with our quarterbacks arm… I thought maybe his arm was broken or he was signaling to the sideline… but after thinking about it for a few minutes and conferring with those around me and even noticing that they moved the chains, we all decided it was a forward pass!!! It was like something from another planet, we were in awe of this. Then later… a faked field goal!!! We were actually playing in this game, our players were running all over the field and not just up the middle. Our quarterback was passing, instead of just running up the middle, our coaches were coaching instead of just running up the middle. It was a football symphony… I called it “Aggies in 1st Down Major” by “coaches other than Fran”. It was awesome… we got the lead and never let it go. We had over 500 yards in total offense, we looked lean and mean, and I was so happy it didn’t matter how cold I was! I felt like Christmas had come early, Santa had arrived in Aggieland and left a big fat win underneath the century tree for all to enjoy, but then later that night after leaving the game… it got better, we had all gotten our win and had played with it, we were all basking in our newest and latest toy, and then apparently the newscasters looked under the century tree and saw a new gift that Santa had left. It was coach Fran’s resignation letter, complete with speech and the keys to locker room! Could it get any better? Is there anything else that Santa could have left? I am wondering if he left a National Championship title under the tree, complete with a Waterford crystal football… but if he had I am sure someone would have found that by now!

I got back home Saturday and raced through the day, it all ended at my mother’s house with a holiday celebration for my sister Kathy being in town. There were leftovers galore and there was laughter in spades, the house was bursting at the seams and we were all there to fill ‘er up. It was great.

(A poetic interlude)
The weekend was a blast, as you can plainly see… don’t you wish you were an Aggie like me?

I went back to Toronto again last week. I am sure that Toronto has a city nickname, you know… like Dallas is “Big D” (although so is “divorce”… hmm, is that coincidence?) and New York is “The Big Apple” and Chicago is “The windy City” or “Chi-Town”… if I was gonna nickname Toronto, it would be “the land of parallel snow”. I am gonna wrap up this “update…” but hear me out. The snow was actually snowing parallel to the ground. That is how hard the wind was blowing. There wasn’t snow on the top of the cars, it was on the side of the cars. One of my co-workers went out to get the car one morning, he scraped the ice off the windshield, got in the car and then had to scrape the ice off the INSIDE of the windshield!!!! It was like being in an igloo! I have been around 33 years, and never once have I scraped ice off the inside of a windshield! These Canadians are made of some pretty strong stuff, they really endure a lot of “weather”. I now understand why they drink so heavily, I would too. Think about it, you cant really go outside and do anything… your lawn maintenance and outside yard work are only an issue for 2 months out of the entire year. You are constantly cooped up in your home with the people in your family! The divorce rate isn’t as high as it is in the US, but the murder rate… it is pretty up there!

That does it for me, hope you all had a wonderful turkey day!!!!

Peace, love, and “is there anything else under the century tree?”,
Martha