It is absolutely gorgeous in the Twin Cities today. It's currently sixty-two degrees, and the breeze that is blowing is, for the first time since spring, a wee bit on the crisp side. The sun is shining and the sky is that gorgeous shade of deep blue you only see when the smog clears out. The trees are beginning to turn every so slowly and little hints of red and yellow stand out amidst all the green. The squirrels that (over)populate my yard are scampering around said yard, gorging themselves on acorns from the six oak trees we have, in between battles with each other. Earlier this morning, on the branches of the tree right next to my office window, I was privileged to watch yet another squirrel reenactment of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as they chased each other, jumping from branch to branch. What this death match was about one can only guess, but I believe it has something to do with a female, following the rules laid down long ago by Mother Nature. The only difference between the squirrels and Chow Yun-Fat and Ziyi Zhang was that humans were much quieter. Squirrles are very noisy when they fight, filling the air with the quick crunching of claws meeting bark, as they scamper up the tree at lightning speed and then across the branches to meet their destiny.

I returned from Lake Harriet earlier and I was reminded of all the joys of a fall Friday when I walked past the local high school's football field. Apparently there is a game there tonight. I don't know who they're playing or what the team's chances for a victory are, but it's the first home game and I couldn't help but be a little excited for the people that were there: it's the first time they get to partake in the tradition. The cheerleaders were dressed in their school colors---purple and white---and were decorating all the entrances to the field with balloons and streamers. The marching band was on the field and it seems, after listening to them march around the neighborhood for the past two months, that they've finally got their stuff together. They were playing I Believe I Can Fly but they'd not only upped the tempo, they'd funked it up a bit as well. The tuba section was having fun on the field, and the drum line finally sounded as if they were one humongous drum, instead of fifteen poorly arranged snares and bass drums. It was a nice thing to watch. It reminded me of all the promise that beautiful autumn Fridays possessed in high school.

The day would start off slowly, but it would hold promise. A blue sky, a hint of warmth would soon be found when the sun worked its way toward its zenith. The grass was still green, but it had been cool enough to kill off some of the more annoying varieties of insects that buzzed about, bothering you. You'd drag yourself through whatever class you were dreading that day. Was it a test in Chemistry? Or was a paper due in Sociology? Or was Sr. Rosaria on the war path once again because you flubbed the translation of the one sentence of Caesar's Gallic Wars she'd given you. It didn't matter. There was the hope of the evening hours to get you through the rest of the school day, which always seemed like such a waste. Surely being stuck in school on such a gorgeous day was an affront to God. But since that creative excuse wasn't going to fly with the principal, Itsy Bitsy Betsy, also known as Miss Kish---the world's shortest school prinicpal, EVER---you instead focused on other things. You chatted with your friends about your plans for the evening. There was, as always, a football game to go to. You had to go to the game if it was a home game. There was simply no choice about it. After the game there was a dance at a rotating selection of schools. You worked on sorting out the day's truly important business: whose parents were going to drive you where so you wouldn't miss anything. And it was important you shouldn't miss anything...because Friday nights were when you got to go and ogle the boys.

As I've mentioned before, I went to a Catholic all-girls high school. Obviously, we didn't have a football team; but we had the boys' school down the road---and they had a football team. This school is conveniently called Prep, which is short for Creighton Prepatory School. At that point in time, Prep didn't have its own football field, so their games were held at UNO's field. For a few Friday nights every fall, we'd work our way over to UNO to watch Prep pummel whichever opponent they were up against that week. We'd find seats in the large stadium and then we'd sit there and watch the boys, while pretending we were really watching the game. When you're a freshman, you actually believe that some cutie is going to come on over and talk to you and you wait with bated breath for it to happen. By the time you're a sophomore, however, you've been disabused of that notion. Junior year is when it finally happens and it doesn't seem as interesting as you'd thought it would be. By senior year, well, you're a bit beyond it, or so you'd like to think.

Then, when the football team was done with their pummelling, you'd go and find the car of whomever the lucky parent was who'd pulled the mid-shift chauffeuring stint, and you'd be off to some high school gym to gyrate madly for hours on end. Omaha's a pretty Catholic town: there are---counting on fingers---seven high schools (that I can think of---there are more now) and each of them would rotate hosting a dance or two. So, you'd go and you'd pay five bucks to get into some high school gym where either a garage-band-done-good or a DJ awaited you. My generation apparently didn't have any problems with dancing. This was not a situation where the boys lined the walls and the girls were the ones on the floor. Nosireebob. Everyone got out there and danced and the only time you saw anyone on the sidelines was when they were winded and needed to take a break. You might have snuck outside to get some air with your friends and some boys may have followed, hoping to chat you up. Or you might have met someone while you were waiting for a coke in the cafeteria. You may have even gotten friendly enough with one of them to find a place for a quick make-out session, or you might have been wholly annoyed with one of them because they wouldn't leave you the hell alone. You might have found a new crush, or you might have been crushed by the one you fancied. It was an adolescent soap opera and I have to think it was just as amusing as hell for the chaperones to watch. But, no matter, because as always, time is fleeting. These things were always over with by midnight, so you'd round up your friends, you'd walk into the now quite chilly, pitch black parking lot to find the unlucky parent who'd pulled the chauffeuring late shift and you'd work your way home.

Sometimes you'd be highly satisfied with the evening. Everything would have gone right and you would have actually worked up the courage to talk to the boy you liked---or they'd finally gotten the clue that you liked them. But those were far and few between. The night would, most likely, be unsatisfying. Someone would start a rumor about you and when you finally heard it, it would make your face flush with embarrassment and shame. Some boy might break your heart by ignoring you. You might get into a fight with one of your friends. It didn't really matter what happened, but the posters for the dance should have had the warning "potential adolescent hell" pasted all over them. Yet, surprisingly enough, the potential for it to be an awful night didn't really hit you until it was all over with. Somehow, you always hoped for the best when you started off the evening.

I have to wonder what Friday nights are like for today's teenagers. Are they similar to the ones I endured, even though fifteen years has passed? Or is the entire process different? What do they do after football games nowadays? Do they go to parties? Do high schools even host dances anymore? Or have they canned that activity because it's just a lawsuit waiting to happen? It's all very curious. I'm sure, however, the overall emotional experience is the same. They're probably looking forward to the evening, and they have their hopes and expectations as I did. Some of them will wind up on the positive side of the evening, and some will wind up on the negative, because that's just the way the world works. Ah, anyway...I wonder.

But they'll at least have a football game. Thankfully that much hasn't changed.

Posted by: Kathy at 03:24 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Steve's here.

In the Twin Cities. At the Cake Eater Pad. They cancelled his flight to Billings last night, all the hotels were sold out and he crashed over here.

I'll be expecting the phone to ring shortly.

You see, I really can make a post out of just about anything. All I need is the inspriation to do so.

UPDATE: And now he's gone!

Posted by: Kathy at 08:38 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Just in case you were wondering, the shipment of patches I was expecting did show up in the mail on Saturday.

I would just like to tell the people at Quit Plan that they should be glad the postal service saved their collective fat ass on this one. If they hadn't arrived, I would have hounded them to death with phone calls. Oh sure, they're all about taking calls and being cheery and supportive, but I'm pretty damn sure they wouldn't have wanted to listen to me open up a can of bitchcraft. I'm sure it's not a surprise for everyone to learn that I am quite handy with a can opener when it comes to getting the can of bitchcraft open. I don't mean to brag or anything, but I've got it down to 2.5 seconds or less in some instances.

I'm sure they're happy that the US Postal Service spared them.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:57 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 167 words, total size 1 kb.

I've got bupkiss for you. It's been a very busy week around here, and it's not over with yet. Perhaps I'll get around to posting something tomorrow. You, my devoted Cake Eater Readers, will just have to tune in tomorrow to see. Anyway, until then, I'm going to dish out the linky love to keep everyone happy.

• You know how the Germans are crazy about David Hasselhoff? Well, the Belgians apparently feel the same way about Doug.
• Ever considered digging a hole to China? Take a looksee at this and see if you'll actually end up in China. I ended up somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean---so I won't be digging anywhere, thank you ever so much.
• In case you weren't aware, Goldstein is on a roll lately. Just keep scrolling, and then when you can scroll no more, go into the archives and keep scrolling.
• Our Maximum Leader had a, uh, religious experience on his commute in to Dee Cee the other day.
• Random Pensees has a question for the ladies
• Sadie's waxing rhapsodic over Steff. Yes, that man was fine. I actually wanted Molly Ringwald's Andie to reform him in Pretty in Pink rather than dealing with the mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy Lane.

  But that's just me.

Ok, that's enough from me. I've been so busy the past couple of days that it's obvious I'm behind on things. And since I've got more to do today---laundry, cocktail parties, dealing with a whopper head cold that one of my sister's offspring gave me as a parting gift---I need your help, my devoted Cake Eater Readers, to keep things interesting around here.

If you've got a link you'd like to promote, throw it into the comments. If you've read something interesting over the past few days and believe it could use a wee bit more publicity, go and throw it into the comments. I would only ask that you keep it clean and to please use hyperlinks. If you behave yourselves perhaps we can do this again sometime in the future.

God and head cold willing, I'll be back tomorrow.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:24 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 358 words, total size 2 kb.

Yeah. I'm still off the devil weed.

A few observations.

• The Quit Plan people are a bunch of freakin' idiots. You're gonna love this one. I'm using their program to get help for quitting, right? I'm dependent upon them for my patches. So, I talk to them a couple of weeks ago to get my last shipment of patches. It's an eight week program, but they only send you the first five weeks worth---working under the assumption that most people start smoking again well before then and they don't want to waste postage/patches if they don't have to. They'd called me a few times during my first few weeks to see how I was doing, etc., but I'd missed their calls. So, when I finally got around to calling them, it was because they'd sent me a letter saying I needed to talk to them or they wouldn't send out the last batch of patches. I called, I chatted with this chick for a half hour, I told her I was fine with everything, that I haven't slipped because the patches had been so effective so send out the last batch, please. She agreed that they would and all was hunky dory.

  Problem is, I haven't received the patches and if they don't arrive before Monday, Kathy's going cold turkey. So, I called them today, wondering why I hadn't received the shipment of nicotine-y goodness. Turns out the chick I chatted with forgot to do one simple little thing. After this half-hour "we really want to help you quit!" phone call, she forgot to click on the "send patches" button on her screen. To my mind that's the equivalent of a doctor working at freakin' methadone clinic forgetting to give someone their methadone. Talk about being surrounded by the obvious, yet somehow managing to forget the goddamn basics.

  Pretty funny, eh? But wait, it gets better...

  During today's phone call, the person who answered the phone had a thick Spanish accent, which I suppose is multicuturally wonderful and all that, but for someone who has trouble with accents because her ears aren't top notch, and who consistently forgets how much she uses lip reading to make up for her shoddy ears, well, it's not all that great a situation over the phone, eh? Yet she just answers the phone; she's not a counselor, so I'm not going to get too worked up over it. She tries to transfer me over to one, but apparently none are available. Is it all right if she sends them an email telling them they need to call me? No, it's not all right, I say, put me on hold. She apparently has some trouble with this, but manages it after about four minutes of goofing around and pressing buttons. After a ten minute wait, I am transferred to a counselor who makes me give her all my information again because it didn't pop up on her screen. Then, when I inquired as to where my patches were, she told me the information above: that the chickie-babe I talked to before never hit the "send patches" button on her screen. She apologized, clicked the "send patches" button and after apologizing briefly, told me that she hoped they'd make it to me before I ran out on this coming Monday. But if they didn't, well, she hated to advocate this, but I wasn't supposed to smoke more than ten cigarettes per day. She was really adamant about this one. Absolutely no more than ten cigarettes because that was the equivalent of the patch I'm currently on.

  I had to laugh at that point, because I found that really funny. Because of the bureaucratic incompetence of a program designed to help people quit smoking, I'd be right back where I started---smoking.

  Furthermore, she informed me that if I'd managed to go cold turkey for three days, and then the patches arrived, well, I wasn't supposed to use the patches then, because all the nicotine would be out of my system and I'd make myself sick.

  For the love of God, etc. ad nauseam, ad infinitum.

  The only reason I contacted these people in the first place was to get free patches, because I knew I wasn't going to be able to quit by going cold turkey and I sure as hell wasn't going to pay for them, not when the taxpayer could fund my largesse. If I'd quit cold turkey, no one would be able to stand the bitchiness. I would have found myself on the street because the husband would have kicked my ass to the curb within twenty-four hours of quitting.

  But now it looks like, unless there's some miracle in the shipping world---it takes seven to ten days for the patches to arrive---I'll be doing precisely that.

  It'll be fun, no?

• I've been on the 21mg patch for twenty-eight days. I jumped down to the 14mg patch yesterday and I'm freakin' tired.

  Yesterday I spent the day with Christi and the kiddies, roaming around downtown, seeing what the skywalks are all about (kids love those things for whatever reason) and playing video games at this place (which was a lot of fun and earned me the eternal gratitude of my nephews and niece.), swimming in the pool at their hotel and, just in general, hanging out. I meandered my way home around four and I was freakin' exhausted when I actually got there. And I mean tired, like I'd been digging ditches for the entire day. Of course hanging out with kids is exhausting, particularly when you're not used to it, but this was above and beyond tired. It didn't occur to me until after dinner that it was probably the patch---and the lack of energy boosting nicotine---that was to blame.

  Since we're babysitting tonight, I decided to stay home today and take a nice long nap to fortify myself for the evening.

• Eating hard candy to deal with the oral fixation will result in zits if you overdo it. Even if you're thirty-four-years-old and well past puberty, you will have a pizza face. Trust me on this one.
• I have yet to see any benefit from quitting. My lung function has not increased. I don't feel any healthier. I never had a smoker's cough to begin with, so accordingly I haven't lost one. I can't suddenly run a marathon. My sense of taste hasn't improved. Neither has my sense of smell. My palate was pretty darn good while I smoked and in some cases it's turning out that the smoking made things more flavorful.

  Honestly, all I have to recommend quitting is a bunch of zits. Whoop-de-freakin'-doo.

• I have to say, I miss smoke breaks. Just taking a step away from everyone and everything and going and communing with the nicotine was a beautiful thing. I'm going to miss that.

And that's all there is folks. And no, still no comments allowed on these posts.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1174 words, total size 7 kb.

If you've got miniblinds in your house and you have no idea how to get them clean here's a tip for you: take them down, remove the plastic stick thingy, dump them in the bathtub, fill bathtub halfway with hot water and add a dose of Tide laundry detergent. Let soak for ten minutes, rinse and dry with a towel.

You don't have to scrub your blinds this way! It's FREAKIN' AMAZING!

And lest you think I'm exaggerating, know that as a former smoker my blinds were supposed to be a light beige color but were, in actuality, a sort of brownish-yellow. If you're a non-smoker you should know that smoke sticks to stuff. It leaves a sticky, yellow-ish film on EVERYTHING. Glass, walls, clothes---you name it, if you smoke in your home, it's got this film on it. Including your blinds. But, thanks to this handy tip, my blinds are now completely clean and I did not have to scrub them.

WOO-FREAKIN'-HOO!

Posted by: Kathy at 03:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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