Oscar Prediction: A Real Yawner

For those of you who've been reading my blog for a while, you may recall how much I look forward to Oscar night -- watching it as an 'event' every year at my house. My husband and I pile up on the sofa with a bottle of chardonnay and some fresh stone crabs and proceed to critique any and every one who waltzes across the red carpet. A seriously trivial and unimportant activity, but fun for us, nevertheless.


You may also recall that for the past 2-3 years, I've been livid about a notorious brother-in-law who somehow happens to traipse across 15 states and pop into our home for five hours a year, ALWAYS on Oscar Sunday and ALWAYS in time to ruin our Oscar watching plans. And I have to smile and hold my tongue and miss everything. AARGHHH!!!!


And this year? (Drum roll, please.....)


Finally, finally, finally....no visit from the brother-in-law to deal with. No ruined Oscar evening. Friends are coming over, stone crabs are on ice, chardonnay is in the wine cooler. Woo hoo!!


But oddly, I'm not that excited, about the show anyway. I've grown so jaded about Hollywood, its political views, its out-of-touch state with the rest of us, the attitudes, the excesses, the skewed moral compass, the void of real talent....it's getting difficult to even want to watch the over-indulged brats do anything, especially hand each other awards.


Sooooo.....I think I'm going to crack open the chardonnay early, enjoy the company, ogle the dresses and not watch it all that closely. I've actually made it to ZERO of the movies that are nominated....and I'm reading that it's likely to be one of the most boring Oscars ever. Looks like the highlight of my evening will be the stone crabs. Yum!

Love at First Sighting

I'm originally from Texas (still have a townhouse in downtown Dallas), but I've lived in or had a second home in South Florida for years now. In Florida, I live about a half a mile from the Intracoastal waterway, with another half mile to the oceanfront.

I walk or jog this trek for exercise a few days a week when I'm here. Beautiful, refreshing route past the marina and down to the ocean. And after all these years of going to and from, back and forth over that Intracoastal Waterway bridge, today I finally saw them for the very first time -- manatees!

I looked down from the bridge today, and there were 3 manatees surfacing. Breathtaking! They were like giant ghosts in the water, quiet behemoths as gentle as they were large. One was considerably smaller than the other two, so perhaps it was a family, out for a Sunday swim and up to the surface of the water, because it was such a warm, beautiful, sunny day out today.

What a sudden, breathtaking view of nature, there and gone in a flash. Fabulous.

Dog Doo and LIKES you, too...

Opening scene: children's playground

Little boy finds little girl playing by herself and proceeds to push her to the ground and tell her she's made of dog doo. Little girl goes crying to her mother, who explains that the reason this little boy did this to her is because he LIKES her.

Enough said.

That's the opening scene of "He's Just Not That Into You", and it could not set the tone better for why relationships with men can be so confusing, from the very outset.

Good flick, chick flick...and my husband always enjoys those with me. I think he thinks he's getting some sort of double secret female insight by attending a chick flick, and so be it. He's secure enough to go, and I like that.

Film was cute. Let me just say I'm glad I'm not in the dating world anymore. What a nightmare.

That Tickles!

I Googled myself...and here's what came back. People with my name are:

• On Linked In (me)
• On Facebook (not me)
• On Classmates (not me)
• A Greenhouse Grower (not me)
• A campaign contributor (me)
• Manager of Veterinary Services (not me)
• A Trivia winner (not me)
• A violator on the West Virginia Board of Physical Therapy (not me)
• A CRM specialist (not me)

Clearly, other people with my name lead a more interesting life than I do.

25 Things About Me

1. I'm 5'10 and have been this tall since I was 15. Needless to say, I wasn't asked to dance much (or ever) in high school. I don't think you ever forget those things.

2. I don't necessarily think I'm smarter than other people, but I am probably mentally quicker. I've come to believe this based on several experiences, one of which is that I consistently laugh well before the rest of the audience at a movie. Or maybe I'm just consistenly hanging out in 'slow' crowds.

3. In my mind's eye, I see myself as a bit of a loner. I always have been. It's been my tendency (good or bad) to have one best friend and lots of 'acquaintances'. For the last 15 years, my best friend has been my husband, and I like it that way.

4. I'm a bit of a worry wart, and I don't know why. I wish I could be more happy-go-lucky, but it's not really me.

5. I am a spiritual person. I don't agree that one can't be highly intelligent and also believe in God. The fact is that I'm smart enough to realize that all of this couldn't possibly be here by accident, and I don't understand people who don't get that.

6. When I was five years old, I found almost all the eggs at my kindergarten Easter egg hunt. My teacher then put me in the middle of the circle of children and proceeded to hand out my eggs to the other kids who didn't have any because they were too shy or unfocused to look for them. While I didn't mind the sharing aspect, it was at this point in my life that I knew I could never believe in Socialism. I had worked hard for those eggs, and now they were being taken from me and given to kids who had not. It was an early lesson in unfairness that I never forgot.

7. I believe that people get taller but they don't necessarily grow up. Especially men.

8. As a child, I played non-stop with dolls...baby dolls, Barbie dolls, dolls of every kind. But as an adult, I've never really had any interest in children. Never really wanted any, never felt I was missing something by not having them. I suppose I will regret that decision someday, or at least that's what they tell me. I'm still waiting for it to hit. Right now, the angst for children remains limited to major holidays, where it seems like it might be fun to be surrounded by a large family. Having that angst limited to 1 or 2 days a year hardly seems justification for the lifelong commitment of being a parent.

9. I've always been healthy, but for some reason, I don't think I will live a long life. Actually, I'm not sure I want to. Rather than overstay my visit here, I'd rather go early and leave 'em wanting more.

10. I don't value 'things'. I thought I did earlier in life; now I just see it all as clutter.

11. The best thing that ever happened to me is being born to my parents. The worst thing that ever happened to me is something I won't talk about here because I am still dealing with it and trying to get through it.

12. I found my first grey hair when I was 25. I promptly plucked it out and put it in an envelope and filed it away. I wanted to remember it. I don't know why; there have been plenty since then.

13. I probably look okay for my age. I've not put on weight (even since high school), and since I can keep the greys at bay with hair color, probably my worst aging issues so far are the lines gathering steam around my eyes. I'm not a big fan of plastic surgery, but I may have to break down and have that addressed someday (if that's possible). I'm really trying to hold out for someone to invent the miracle cream of creams to take care of that, instead. On the other hand, I may just blow it all off and grow old gracefully. After all, does it really matter?

14. I am often probably too polite. Some people just need to be brought down a notch, but I am rarely one to do that.

15. I'm not a jewelry girl. I never have been. Growing up, I had a best friend who collected charms for a charm bracelet. She would get a new charm for each birthday, at Christmas, at other giftings. She was always so excited about that, and I never understood why. I still don't. Jewelry is just expensive clutter. It's pretty to look at, but I don't really want it. Unless it's a canary diamond, and then I get chillbumps all over.

16. Growing up, I had an older sister who was fairly busty by the time she was 16. Following on, I couldn't wait for my boobs to come in. And I'm still waiting. They never showed up. :)

17. I don't have a good relationship with my sister or her daughter, but I have a good relationship with my brother and always have.

18. I hate my thighs.

19. I love traditional values in life and culture, but I prefer that other people maintain them and carry them out. That way, I don't have to and society is none the worse for it. It gives me all the freedom without the guilt. An example of this is having children -- I love it when someone has 3 or 4 -- that way, my not having any doesn't have an impact on society. It all evened out.

20. As a child, I always drew pictures of people with a single flower growing out of their head. I don't know why.

21. I can't sing at all. At church, I only mouth along to the words.

22. I used to constantly be late. One day, I turned that all around and am now never late. I don't know how that happened.

23. I love french fries, but I avoid them as often as possible. (see #18 above)

24. My religious upbringing does not teach reincarnation, but I can't help but think that might be a possibility. Would only seem fair to get more than one shot at it all. I also tend to think that there is only one God; some of us call him God, others Allah, still others Buddha. As a Christian, that's not really consistent with standard beliefs, but I wonder if God simply presented himself to different peoples in different ways because He knew we would all relate to him differently. A distinct possibility, I think.

25. I'm thankful for having lived a pretty good life so far.

No Dirty Laundry

Things have been wall-to-wall lately across my small piece of Earth, and while all I can say is I've been terribly busy, I don't even think I could say doing what. Just life stuff, I guess. It's just been a blurr. But nothing terribly interesting in it, so I'm having a hard time finding something to write about.

I have indeed been busy, some days so busy I don't make it out of my sweat pants. I generally work from home office (thankfully) and the progression of wardrobe throughout the day is usually PJs, sweats, and then finally something I can actually leave the house in if I want. But lately, I've been stuck in the sweats all day long. So it's been PJs to sweats, and sweats to PJs, mostly.

I usually get started at the computer around 8am, and before I know it, I'm sitting here in my sweats at 6pm wondering what happened to the day. The upside is that there's very little laundry to do these days. Indeed, I guess I've been busy with everything but laundry. So yes, there is a silver lining in all this blurrrrr.