It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before. If there has neither been ill-health nor anxiety, it is a time of life at which scarcely any charm is lost. ~ Jane Austen

Happy Birthday to my little sister!!

Squee...

Bought a dress today.

My birthday's Monday, and we're going out tomorrow. Plus, I've dropped a ton of weight in the last few weeks thanks to dub-dub and my half-mara training. I thought a cute dress would be a great way to celebrate the day. Plus, Ann Taylor is having her end-of-summer sale. How could I go wrong?

Well, for starters, how about walking into the dressing room carrying dresses of two different sizes, all of which were way too big???

I've been working hard, and I'm thrilled. Yes, I'm wearing it tomorrow night. It makes me look like Donna Reed. No pearls though, don't worry!!

Check it out

My friend Matt's in this commercial. He's the cowboy who gets bowled over by the folks coming through the door as well as the cowboy in the middle when the group jumps over the chair and starts typing.



Matt, I'm totally digging the 'stache, bud!

Falling in Love

Just a random thought, but I figured I'd ask. After all, if I don't, then I'll never know. Either email me or leave 'em in the comments please.

"If you were to fall in love in the movies, what movie would it be?"

And that's all she wrote

Possible Spoiler alert. PLEASE don't read this until you've finished the book for yourself. I've tried not to give too much away, but I fear that I may slip.

At 1:57 this morning, I closed the book I had been reading steadily since 7:50 last night and sent a text message to my sister:

All done. Admittedly, I should have said "Mischief Managed." I thought about it, but my brain wasn't doing the whole internal spell-checker thing at that late hour. Would have been cool though...

It was my signal that, for me, the saga of Harry Potter had come to an end. There would be no more anxious evenings of waiting for the next installment along with 700 of my closest friends. There would be no more wild speculations and theories regarding the true nature of Severus Snape, when Ron would finally man up and make his true feelings known, the true identity of Ginny Weasly (thanks for shutting down that theory about an hour after I left the house, Jules), or what exactly "Remember My Last" meant to Petunia Dursley.

Now, it's all done. Jem Blythe has come home, Beth March has died of scarlet fever, Laura Ingalls has accepted Alonzo Wilder, and Harry Potter has faced Lord Voldemort. All for the last first time.

I will say that, knowing that it was the last time that this was ever going to be new to me, I tried to savor it. I tried to read each word cautiously and carefully so that it washed over me like something dear should. Of course, that lasted about 10 minutes. Then, I found myself swept up in the story, and with every turn of the page, I was scanning, looking for names and the dreaded words: dead, dying, avada...Once the words were safely tucked away for yet another page, I read more carefully; soaking in the story, and trying to decide what each new development would mean.

I'm afraid to say that most of the time, I didn't see it coming. In fact, I usually got it so horribly wrong that I was crying for no good reason. Like JKR, I was pulling from all sorts of mythology and when Ron did what he did, said what he said, and then grabbed the thing the way he did, I was convinced that she had pulled that entire sequence straight from The Tales of King Arthur. We all know how that ended up and so a new fear was born. For the rest of the book, I was waiting for the death that I knew would come because it had to. The death that would devastate me most of all. The death that would complete this Lancelot, Guinevere, Arthur triangle that JKR had laid out from the very beginning. I thought I had the whole thing pegged, and my affinity for Ron was making this wait for death torturous. I thought about skipping to the end to make sure that he appeared on the last page in a healthy and happy form. I was in the process of flipping, when I remembered that that this was the last time I was going to read this book completely unencumbered by previous knowledge. I stopped, but not fast enough to see the illustration of a woman who could only be Ginny standing beside Harry with an ethereal glow. I slammed the book shut willing the image out of my head. It wasn't Hermione, I reasoned, the hair was too straight. It could only have been Ginny. This was another punch in the gut.

Now, there were two deaths coming. What would this mean to Harry and Hermione? Would they remain friends, possibly something more bound together by grief and the realization that their true loves, the red-heads they had spent all their time denying their true feelings for, were gone beyond the veil? Or, would they drift away from each other, unable to speak or make eye-contact because of the guilt that haunts so many survivors? Would Hermione end up with Viktor Krum or with someone kind and gentle like Dean, Seamus, or Neville? Would Harry drift away from everyone (if he survived at all) or would he accept Luna in his life? I had no illusions of him with Cho (she always annoyed me), and I figured that Fleur's little sister wouldn't have been a wise choice for anyone who was desperate to avoid the Weasley family. Therefore, it would have had to have been Luna.

I meant to stop then. I had driven for 14 hours and I was tired. I could save the heartbreak for the morning; after I had been allowed some sleep and would have been in a better position to look at the situation rationally. Instead, I turned one more page. Then another. Then....

It was 1:52 in the morning. The battle was over. The body count was high and devastating. So many mentors, friends, admirers, loves, and enemies were gone, it was impossible to know what else Rowling had planned for us. I turned the last page and began the epilogue. Emotions were running high. I read the line, and then realizing what it meant, I read it again. Harry had succeeded where Gilbert Blythe had nearly failed and Charlie Brown had never really tried. He alone had won the heart of the little red-headed girl, and had a little red-headed girl of his very own.

It was 1:57. I had finished the book. The Hogwarts Express was pulling out of King's Cross Station, and the next generation of Hogwartians were headed for their place in the sorting line and Herbology lessons with Professor Longbottom. I was wrong about so many things and right about so many others. I was laughing and sobbing at the same time. I grabbed my phone, texted my own red-headed twin, and turned off the lights eager for the sleep I so richly deserved. Whispering into the darkness, "Thank you JK Rowling."

One quick prediction

We're a week away from the event that will not be named, and I'm not going to be home to discuss this in detail until after the books have hit our collective hot little hands (I'm getting it a day late, so please don't spoil it for me), but I have to throw this out there. I have nothing but a few randomly collected hints and a gut feeling to back this up, but I think....


Ginny Weasley is the reincarnation of Lily Potter

This is why (as I said, randomly collected hints):

1. She's the first girl to have been born in the Weasley family for generations and happened to have been born right about the same time James and Lily were blown to green bits.


2. She's a truly talented witch - wise beyond her years according to several professors - in a household full of boys who, well, don't exactly apply themselves. Part of that could have been the simple fact that she's a girl (and we tend to do better in school), but Ginny's prowess and its notice by the professors suggests it's not just a question of gender.


3. She loves Harry, unconditionally, and is accepting of the decisions he makes. Even when he broke up with her, she didn't really argue the point. She may be slightly upset, she may question that he's doing the right thing, but she trusts him like a mother would.One note: I'm not saying that she knows that she's the reincarnated version of his mother. Because that, you will agree, would be just plain icky. Just that she's got feelings towards him that are motherly.


4. Even though she's a pureblood wizard, she was attacked by Tom Riddle and taken into the Chamber of Secrets. The threat was clearly made towards "mudbloods" and muggles, so it would have made more sense that one of them would have been taken. Yes, I realize that the primary reason she was attacked was because of the diary; however, Voldemort's MO has always been to eliminate those closest to Harry first. Ginny wouldn't have been the logical choice at that point. When Ginny was writing in the diary, Harry was important to her but she was no more than his best mate's little sister. Though one of the hands-down funniest, most light-hearted moments in the entire septology is Harry's internal argument on pages 515-6 of Half Blood Prince. I'm just saying.

Anyway, I think that we're going to see something big, something very big out of Ginny next week. I shudder to think that there's even a possibility that Ginny may die, but like Lily before her, it may be a necessity for her to make that sacrifice in order to save Harry and allow him to vanquish Voldemort altogether.

Thoughts? Leave 'em in the comments, please!

Something fun for a Friday

Sirius-ly...

The best of the bunch.

Don't want to give anything away and ruin everyone elses' fun, but YES. HP5 was bloody good and totally worth escaping from work early for. I laughed, I cried, I hurl, sorry, wrong flick.

I have some concerns with what the omissions mean for the rest of the septology, but since the seventh book will be out by the time I get back from vacation, and it won't really matter by then, I guess I'll keep them to myself. If you want to know, email me.

Fast Food Funerals

This morning, a friend sent me a warning about flashing lights and Bloods "membership drives" on I-70 this weekend. Luckily, that turned out to be an urban legend.

Sadly, this isn't one. If you're as upset and disgusted as I am about the turn of events, please take a few moments and contact your Congressmen.

These young men and women gave their lives for a cause that was not their own. Let's not make this their final insult just because Dick Cheney is looking to save a few bucks.

Fort Lewis to consolidate memorials for dead
Michael Gilbert The News Tribune

Fort Lewis, which this month has suffered its worst losses of the war, will no longer conduct individual memorial ceremonies for soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Instead, the post will hold one ceremony for all soldiers killed each month, the Fort Lewis acting commanding general, Brig. Gen. William Troy, wrote in a memo to commanders and staff last week.

“As much as we would like to think otherwise, I am afraid that with the number of soldiers we now have in harm’s way, our losses will preclude us from continuing to do individual memorial ceremonies,” Troy wrote in the memo, according to a copy obtained by United for Peace Pierce County and posted on the group’s Web site. A post spokesman confirmed the policy change Tuesday. It will start in June.

There are 10,000 Fort Lewis troops in Iraq, more than at any other time since the March 2003 invasion. The post has reported 16 soldiers killed there so far in May, by far the most in any month of the war. The previous worst month was December 2004, when nine soldiers were killed, including six in the Mosul chow hall bombing. In all overseas deployments since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, 124 Fort Lewis soldiers have died.

In his memo dated May 22, Troy said he asked the post’s senior chaplain, Col. Jack Van Dyken, to work out the details of the new policy.

“I see this as a way of sharing the heavy burdens our spouses and rear detachments bear, while giving our fallen warriors the respect they deserve,” Troy wrote. “It will also give the families of the fallen the opportunity to bond with one another, as they see others who share their grief.”
Other Army posts already consolidate soldier memorials into one or two ceremonies per month.

At Fort Carson, Colo., they are held every other Thursday afternoon in a post chapel, a spokeswoman said.

At Fort Hood, Texas, the 4th Infantry Division has been holding a monthly ceremony since at least 2004. The division has lost more than 130 soldiers in two deployments to Iraq.

“We do schedule them, and unfortunately we do have them every month,” said Sgt. 1st Class Damian Steptore, a division spokesman.

Van Dyken on Tuesday said the change reflects the reality that Fort Lewis, for the next several months at least, will likely be called upon to memorialize soldiers killed in action. Two Stryker brigades of about 4,000 soldiers each will be fighting in Iraq until October, when one of them is scheduled to return from a 15-month tour.

“This is not an intent to streamline the process or in any way detract from honoring the soldiers,” Van Dyken said. “It’s just being cognizant of the fact that when you have this many, the time involved in doing each one individually is just prohibitive.”

Until now Fort Lewis has held memorial ceremonies for those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan on a case-by-case basis, usually one or two soldiers at a time.

Post spokesman Joseph Piek said each ceremony requires significant planning and coordination by the rear detachments of the deployed units, particularly if a soldier’s family comes to the post for the event.

Under the new policy the Fort Lewis headquarters staff will take on much of that work.

Army life is replete with ceremonies that mark promotions, changes of command, awards, homecomings and so on. Van Dyken pledged Thursday that saying farewell to fallen soldiers won’t become part of the routine.

“My commitment would be that we never allow it to become just another ceremony,” he said.

Officials at Fort Lewis said the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division is scheduling a consolidated memorial on June 5 for the last four soldiers it lost in its first month in Iraq: Staff Sgts. David Kuehl and Kristopher Higdon, Pfc. Robert Worthington, and Spc. Mathew LaForest. A single memorial service for Sgt. Iosiwo Uruo, a member of 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, will go on as planned this Thursday.

Things that are awkward #1,213

Having your boss walk up behind you while the only sex-scene in an entire audiobook is playing and asking what you're listening to.

Prom is totally gonna be awkward in two years

Mary Kay and her little pink car have struck again, this time in North Carolina. Important parts of the article included.

School: No Evidence Of Romance Before Teacher Married Student
POSTED: 9:09 am EDT July 5, 2007 WILMINGTON, N.C. --

There was no credible evidence of a romantic relationship between a 40-year-old high school science teacher and a 16-year-old student until the couple married, Brunswick County school officials say.

Brenton Wuchae was a cross country coach who mentored Windy Hager at South Brunswick High School. He resigned in mid-June, the same day he married Hager.

In November, South Brunswick High School Principal Vann Pennell directed Wuchae to cease all contact with Hager, noting that a lengthy list of phone calls and text messages with the student "did raise questions of poor judgment."

The school suspended Wuchae in May after finding that he had communicated with Hager at school. Both he and the teenager continued to deny a romantic relationship, the school board said.

Wuchae resigned and married Hager, who had recently finished her sophomore year as one of the school's top runners.

Hager's parents had approached both the school and authorities in hopes of ending the relationship. The Hagers have said they reluctantly signed a consent form allowing their daughter to marry her coach.

Yeah, I hardly know where to start on this one. Oh, wait, yes I do...

Those of us who work in education know the frustrations when a parent is completely and disgustingly uninvolved in their child's life. You know them as the people who bring the whole redneck family to graduation and then stand there dumbstruck, threatening to sue when the entire class has collected their diplomas and Alan's name was never called. They're also usually the people who don't figure out that Alan Allen was skipped until after Yerman Zimmerman has walked across the stage and the risk of eye injuries from flying caps increases significantly

Even worse are the parents who are aware, but are blissfully ignorant when the rules actually apply to their child. These are the people who demand that Junior's week-long absence be overlooked because, after all, it was only a little trip to Disney World, and his cousins who he wanted to go with couldn't go with weren't available during the first week of April, they were in school. Confidential to them: Next time dig up a dead aunt. We'll buy that one.

But in this case, these people were good parents. they recognized that there was a predator preying on their little girl, and they attempted to enlist the help of multiple authorities: the school, the board, and the local sheriffs' department among them. No one would help. The school saw enough cause to suspend Wuchae in May, but because both he and the girl "continued to deny a romantic relationship," no further action was taken. Honestly though, since this was the fourth case involving teachers and students at the school in the last year, don't you think that they may not have been the best people to investigate? I'm just saying.

The School Superintendent was doing a fine job of covering her (of-age) ass: "Prior to the surprise marriage, there was simply no credible evidence," said Katie McGee. Again, this is a woman who watched one teacher at the same school land himself on the sex offender registry earlier this year. Do you think she may have wanted to take a closer look?

In the end, the parents, the same parents who begged and pleaded with authorities to help them to no avail, weighed their options and reluctantly signed the consent form. while this may certainly seem shocking, it was actually a wise course of action. By allowing their daughter to marry her teacher (ew), they can probably keep her in school and in their lives. If they hadn't, she'd have disappeared in the middle of the night.

Eager to take a look at the "happy couple" (and admittedly see exactly what type of hottie on both sides it would take to encourage this type of marriage), I put Google to good use. When the photo was returned, I found myself even more disgusted than I already thought possible. It's not that he's a total dogface (which he is) and she looks like a little girl. It's the t-shirt...

HE'S A VMI "GENTLEMAN!"

Independence Day

It's that time of year again....


Time for the country to take a breather, a time out, and celebrate a major accomplishment by blowing each other up with the pyrotechnic amateur hour.


Call it: Thanksgiving for the dangerous, if you will.


This year, we have much to celebrate in the world of independence. Scooter Libby is one step away from a presidential pardon. Paris Hilton is finally out of jail. Nicole Ritchie is finally going to eat again (we hope!!).


But I know that the real reason that we're all celebrating this year is because of the six little words my boss said to me yesterday:

Everything looks good; let's open the system.

For those of you not in IT, that means: The project from hell is officially done!!!

Photo by Flickr User: Kyle Walton

Yes, kids, my life can finally get back to normal. I can go out on a weeknight. I can resume my half-marathon training with gusto. I can make it back to the gym. I can go to bed not having worked a 14 hour day (like last week when I worked 50 hours of overtime). I can wake up at a normal time. I can eat real food again (again, last week: the pizza guy and I were on first-names and I gained 5 pounds). I can breathe. I can sing (karaoke!). I can take people up on their social invitations.

I can go on vacation.

I've even written a short play about it (ok, really, it wasn't me, but if you want to have a role, you'll say it was me).

Supportive Friend: Linds, that's awesome that your project is done. What are you going to do next?

Me: I'M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!!!!

Photo by Flickr User: JiminDestin

See, how hard was that?

I do want to sincerely thank each and every one of you for all your support over the last month and a half. For putting up with my spaciness, last-minute plan cancelling, late night emails, early departures, and (most of all) total lack of posting.

Updates are coming. Now that I have my life back, I'll have some fun and interesting things to say, I'm sure.