However, that site is not the point here.  What the point is here is karma, and I seem to have far less in real life than I do in the ethers of computer land.  I’ve even taken steps to improve my karma.  For example, I was at the check out counter at the health food store, and the cashier accidentally rang me up for one deli item, when in reality there were four. So I, trying to live my good karma life, I pointed the error out to her, that she had accidentally UNDERCHARGED me.  I left the store fifteen bucks poorer than I could have been, but I was smug in the knowledge of the good person I was and how most people would have kept silent on such an oversight. 

After that, I had to see a foot doctor.  He was really nice.  Unfortunately though, I have either fractured some bone in my foot or I have doinked the tendon that connects to it.  So I get thrown into a cast and sent on my way until they get my bone scan results next week.  Here’s how I got this injury:  I got this problem because unlike many millions of minions who consider lunch hour as ‘that time when you move from your sitting at your desk to sitting in the kitchen,’ I actually go OUTSIDE and walk 3.5 miles while reading.  Yes, I can read while walking, and I do it quite well in fact.  Don’t worry about me Honolulu, even though you have a high pedestrian fatality rate, I’ll keep on walking, with my book open, I’ll even promise that you won’t hit me (that last sentence should be read in a ‘don’t cry for me, Argentina’ melody in the background).  I can’t justify sitting ALL DAY.  In fact, I have to do far more sitting than I would prefer in the first place.  So one day tra la la, there I was, going on my route, and then this pain started.  That wasn’t unusual, this bit of discomfort had been going on for over a month.  But then it got bad.  REALLY bad.  And believe it or not, I even ‘cowboy’d up’ and finished the whole route. Then I came upstairs, got on the phone and yelled at my dr. to fix this problem.

And then yesterday, my coworker who sits next to me, she was about to send a friend a birthday present.  Her original view was to include a Starbucks gift card, but she decided not to at the last minute.  However, it just so happened that I HAD a Starbucks gift card in my wallet that I received for one of my freelance jobs.  Now if THAT wasn’t karma or a sign from the universe of good karma for her, then I know not what is.

So here I am, I’m walking at lunch, getting in a workout, I’m telling the checkout girl I should be paying her MORE money, I give my coworker the exact gift card she’d been thinking about, I should be having supergreat things happening all around me, right?  Rather, I’m sitting here in a hot (and increasingly smelly) walking cast that’s created a painful blister on my shin, and I’ve lost all trust from my boss for being on Facebook too much.

If you subscribe to Louise Hay’s notion of ‘what you put in to the universe comes back multiplied,’ ultra super great things should be happening all around me, right?  Is karma like a point system, where when you gather enough you get a free DVD or something?  I don’t know. 

O we Americans are so impatient; perhaps we would have been better served if we were kept oblivious about such notions like karma.  You know we’ll just mess it up.  We’ll do something good today with the expectation that something great will happen tomorrow, when in reality, that good karma you created is perhaps making up for a bunch of bad karma you kept dragging along with you from several lifetimes ago.  Or maybe your good deeds today will put you in good standing in your next life in some way.  However, we’ve adopted the belief that these things/experiences will have a quick turnaround,  a sort of shelf life of a few days rather than a few lifetimes.  We’ve become a silly, overweight, shallow, lazy, ungrounded and lost nation that can’t even take care of itself.  We’ve been around the world, and we’ve exploited and/or taken advantage of  every resource, every labor force, low pollution standard, and have cherry picked just about everything else we think could be useful.  And lately, our scenery is one of extremes:  stock market volatility and panic,mortgages lenders tumbling, banks free-falling, insurance companies going bankrupt, and we’re fighting a war we know will never end.   In light of all this, from an objective light, perhaps karma has come back to kick our asses for all of our prior (and current) transgressions. 

So I guess I’ll just be satisfied that I’ve done a couple good deeds and know that good things will come back…someday.  I think it’s when you STOP expecting something, when you’ve essentially forgotten the great deeds you did a ways back,  when you’re least expecting it that some ramification from the good karma you created will decide to shine on you.  Until then, I’ll try to be a good person and not be so peeved over the fact that I’m stuck in a baking hot walking cast while it’s just as hot outside-like wearing a pair of Uggs over wool socks in the middle of summer…

Two years ago today was the day that my life changed forever when I had say goodbye to my beloved, Rufus Palmer.  And true to The Pet Psychic’s words:  “We never get over the loss of a pet.  We just get used to living without them,” that’s what’s happened to me.

Unfortunately, this all happened on September 11th, which has become to Americans “The day everything changed.”  For many, it’s a day of much grief and sorrow over loved ones who died.  That’s where I start feeling weird.  I actually say this to almost no one, because I feel trivialized when I do.  To me, this day sucks because I lost the one being most dear to me that I’ve ever had-he just wasn’t a human.  And I feel that for some reason, the fact that he wasn’t human makes my grief not as worthy or justified as those who lost human people in 2001.  As in ‘it was ONLY a dog…’   If people only knew…

There’s a growing number of people these days who are taking a look at the world around them and deciding that they don’t want to be a part of repopulating it.  There are some who are averse to children; there are some who simply value the time they have to themselves just too much to sacrifice it to raising a young version of themselves.  Perhaps there are even those, and I’m probably one of them, who are trying to skip karma by not having children, knowing what hellions they themselves were while growing up.  Whatever the reason, the American Dream has expanded to include those for whom the 2.4 kids just ain’t gonna happen. 

That doesn’t say there’s no parental instinct there.  For many, it just comes in a different form.  Many articles have been written about the new ‘trend’ some people are moving to, and that is to essentially act as thought their pets were their children.  And it’s true.  We even refer to them as ‘our children,’ and in a lot of ways, we mean every word of that.

I’m really sorry for everyone who was affected by 9/11/01.  I remember seeing it on CNN; the first airplane had hit, and the second was about to.  It was one of the most surreal things I’ve ever seen.  The only thought in my head was ‘our world is never going to be the same.’ And it hasn’t.  But for me, it’s a hard day because I had to say goodbye forever to the one being who gave meaning to my life when I found none.  And believe me, it hurts just as much.

I watched the line and its meaning dissolve in 1990 in Boulder, CO.  Prior to that date, people would start ‘lining up’ for just about anything,  usually concert tickets (OK, Grateful Dead concert tickets).  They had such devoted followers that being in line for a few days became a party unto itself.  Coming out of the 70’s, some bands were HUGE, and stadiums filled with people would sell out in minutes.  You had better be in that line.

However, in an attempt to curb people camping out, and to keep order for those days leading up to the on sale date, the main record store in Boulder first tried this:  If you were in line the night before the ticket went on sale, you’d be given a number based on their allotment, and if you got a number, you were guaranteed a ticket.  Perhaps it wasn’t the best ticket, but at the very least, you were IN.  Then, if there were people who didn’t get numbers from the day before or just decided to wait, if any tickets were left, they’d swoop in on like vultures once all the ‘guaranteed’ ones were sold.

The day the line died (funny that-the music died with Don McLean’s song in 1972, but the line seemed to survive) we can thank our friends at Ticketmaster.  Not only could you NOT wait the night before and have bestowed upon you a ticket guaranteeing you will get what you want the next day, you couldn’t even try to make a nice new line right then and there-on the day of the show-so if you got there at 4 a.m., you’d at least be rewarded for getting up so damn early.

It was the RANDOM numbering system.  This was done, of course, to discourage people from loitering around the ticket place and taking up space.  NOW, it didn’t matter if you got there at 4:36 am or 9:52 am (most Ticketmaster ticket sales begin exactly at 10:00 am), the numbers were distributed randomly.  Once the numbers were handed out, everyone had to change their positions in line based on whatever number they got.  You could have waited there for four hours and get pushed all the way to the end of the line, or you could have traipsed in at the last moment and be standing with ticket #1 (and everyone else hating you).  With no advantage to coming sooner, the line died….almost.

Oddly enough, the people who are now pining in lines are those who are waiting for the release of some GADGET.  And for some reason, since this seems to be outside the auspices of TicketMaster…so far.  Here you CAN wait all day, and you will be given a number corresponding to when you got there to hold what’s promised for you.  You can’t camp, you have to leave when the mall closes, but you can sit in one place for days on end…waiting in line

People are waiting in line so they can BUY something?  Eh? What happens three months down the road when everyone you know has the same thing?  Ooooh, is the dude’s phone, for example,  sooo much better because he waited in a line for hours and hours to purchase it on the first day, and this other girl spent five minutes and got the same thing three days ago?  Did they add some ’secret’ extra features for the ones who demonstrated their devotion so openly?  I doubt it.

It’s kind of sad, really, that THAT’S what kids are waiting for these days.  The days of nervously hoping that you’ll get in before tickets sell out, or before the GOOD seats sell out are gone; now it’s just another line to wait in…

 Having run into a brick wall of unanswered voicemails, I asked her in passing a single question for further clarification.  I was told “Let me tell you about managers.  When they give someone a project to work on, they expect to not have to think about it until it is completed.  I don’t have any time (she was socializing when  I asked her) to give you further information.  You’re just going to figure it out yourself.  Or if you can’t, then you can’t.”  O…K… that was helpful.  I just made myself feel even MORE like a chump.  Fortunately, I was ultimately able to get a hold of someone who had the information I was seeking.

I give this information to the manager, and from it, I was given a new assignment.  It was similar in nature, and I lucked out to find the information I needed plus more on one of my first calls.  I complete this task and give it to her.  It was odd because there was this element of simple busywork to these ‘projects.’ 

Then the truth comes out.  “We’re giving you these projects to see what you can handle.”  She asked me of my other responsibilities in this job, which generally aren’t of much importance, but they do count as work.  “We are seeing whether it’s even necessary to have this position at all, or whether it could be replaced by the phone.  You need to show us that your position is justified in keeping.”

Eh?  I always thought that even if it got down to 10 people in the office, they’d ALWAYS need a receptionist.  Alas, how wrong I was.

I get stuck with all the work no one else wants to do.  I am REQUIRED  to possess a friendly demeanor-on the phone and to people coming in.  I have to get permission to go to the BATHROOM for God’s sake in case the phone rings, I do all the low work no one else will, and in these hard times of recession, I’m the one you want to eliminate?  What about all of your project workers who’ve been sitting at their cubicles doing nothing?  If you’re going to save some money, why axe the lowest paid person?  Doesn’t make sense to me. 

So who knows?  My days here may be limited.  That’s all right; collecting unemployment for a while sounds kind of fun too.

But then that led me down an interesting lane…

Really, there’s little objectivity in anyone’s life.  Every day we are alive, every thing we do in that day-from the most mundane of tasks to important decisions-has an effect, perhaps one ever so slight, on us-who we are, what our beliefs are, how we see and respond to the world around us.  The only way another person could even come close to understanding your view for that particular day would be if s/he were around you for that entire time, and even then, your interpretations would be likely to differ. 

I think that this is why the number of friends a person has tends to dwindle over time.  The people you thought would be with you forever turn out not to be because you (or they) have taken a different trajectory, and when your paths again cross, all you share are those moments from the past.  Of course, it’s fun to reminisce about the ‘good ole’ days,’ but realistically, how long is that going to last?  A few minutes?  An hour?

That’s when I thought about the possibility of being able to test whether or not a friendship is a real and lasting one, or just a passing whim.  I have two childhood friends with whom I grew up.  One lives in Seattle, and one lives in Hawaii, but in Maui.  Last year, we visited my friend in Seattle.  I had not seen her in 3 years.  Our lives now are completely different, and they have been for about the last 20 years.  The experiences that we do we share are only about things that happened when we were little.  However, when meeting with this person, it is if 20 years were only 20 minutes ago.  Only a little attention is paid to the goofy things we used to do when we were growing up.  The rest starts where it does and takes off.  It’s always been that way.  I know that years may pass before our paths cross again, but when they do, it will seem like nothing.  It’s like that with my friend on Maui as well.  Our friendship stands time’s testing.

I think about all of the people I’ve met and all the people who I really thought I would be friends with forever and ever, and how much it hurt when they went away and I felt abandoned.  Yet in this light, I can understand that was meant to be that way.  Though there was a group with whom I spent years of traveling and new them all extremely well, those days are long gone.  It would be cool to see them in a reunion type gathering for a day, but really, all we share is a specified amount of time in our past. For a friendship to survive, there has to be more; it can’t be described, it’s a sort of substance of timelessness.  Ive realized that though my handfuls of friends have whittled down to one hand (with room), these are the people who will always be there for me.  No, though they probably probably don’t understand me, and it’s likely we have very different tastes in everything from food to books, I know that these are the ones who are there for me, and I for them, until the very end.  It’s like we share a spiritual bond rather than a superficial one, something  that is greater than can be understood, and to know and feel that brings great comfort to me.

This is a papaya.  It’s a tropical fruit that makes life worth living here.  We have two papaya trees at the house, but they aren’t ripe yet. You cut them in half, scoop out the seeds, and fill it with lime or lemon juice. It’s wonderful, and apparantely very healthy too.

This is a papaya tree.  They bear a decent amount of fruit, but not an amount so excessive like mangos where they’re falling on the ground and rotting and attracting all sorts of insects, rodents, and the like.  In about two weeks, this will become my morning breakfast fare. 

For as much whining as I do about being stuck on this rock, there are benefits.  There may not be a New England-esque autumn here, but we have the tropical fruits section nailed.  Oh, and don’t be afraid to eat the seeds, intentionally or accidentally.  They have a sort of horseradish taste.

And what do you know, it’s been over a year and I’M STILL HERE!!!

Granted, I’ve not been exactly prolific in my writing, but given that there is so much mindless drivel online, on television, coming out of people’s mouths, I felt it best to write when I actually had something to say. 

Compared with years gone by, 2007 probably wasn’t that exciting.  The highest point had to be when, on the first day she was available, we found this really little sprout of a kitten who had four long white legs and little else, and on that day she became Miss Daisy Peanut, our daughter/kitten.  She was one ‘experience’ as a kitten, smart beyond belief, able to climb ANYTHING, so shy that Dale and I were the only humans she wouldn’t hide from, always ready to go at 4 am, and the goofiest and most hilarious thing we’d ever seen.  Sure, there were times when I’d wish ‘when will she grow up and be a cat and CALM DOWN,’ but it was a wonderful wild ride while it lasted.  She IS a cat now, her belly has largely outgrown her legs, she’s a lot more mellow, and we occasionally yearn for the time when she was such a huge source of entertainment.

The lowest part was probably when I got really sick in July and had to have emergency surgery to have my gallbladder removed.  There were complications because the stone was so large, my surgeon didn’t speak English well, I couldn’t eat, I got stuck in the hospital for 5 days, it was awful.  They made it sound like the procedure was routine and no big deal; I think they inaccurately underplay the organ’s importance, and I don’t agree with that.

We did manage to get ‘off the rock,’ ie leave the islands for a bit.  Unfortunately, my hometown was on fire (literally), but the rest of it went well and was all too short.  The time when we are able to move to the Pacific NW permanently cannot come soon enough.

On my parents ’Let’s Get Sarah Back On Track’ project, I have held down a job consistently for a year and a half.  Sitting at a desk 8 hours a day answering phones…well…it gives me time to do pursue other things that have NOTHING to  do with actual work.  It could be worse.   

So that’s what happened, and I’m still here.  And the next time I think of something worth sharing, I’ll post it here…

 First, in Kailua, a woman’s boyfriend beats her to death in broad daylight with people watching.  The people watching are excused because the guy had a gun and so there was really nothing they could do.  I can imagine this scene if I were in it and being all heroic like and running up and kicking the guy in the balls or something, but with gun in his hand, that’s a serious increase of the likelihood of dying in the process.  And this is a total stranger.  I think if it were a relative or close friend, my confidence wouldn’t wane so quickly at the sight of the gun and the prospect of being killed, and I bet the same for the people who saw this.  But the fact that the guy did it in the day?  Outside?  In public?  It’s not as though everyone had their eyes closed so they wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a lineup.  By committing this heinous act, he’s sealing his own fate. 

And he’s REALLY sealing it.  It turns out that the girl he just took the life from is from a big family here.  A REALLY big, well known family here.  A family who isn’t just going to take the killing of their sister/cousin/aunt lightly.  And the boyfriend KNOWS this, hence further sealing his fate.  Was this in his head (if I kill this girl, what is the relative likelihood of receiving repercussions from the family?)?  Obviously not.  I don’t understand how someone can get so mad that they’d be inclined to go kick,hit.strangle, the living hell out of someone to the point of killing them. 

Now here’s the second story:  A family lives in an apartment.  In the apartment, there is an 18 month old boy.  The boy’s father is there, and so is the mother’s current boyfriend.  Needless to say, people were around.  In this complex another guy occupies an apartment.  The family has never had trouble with him; in fact, he has even babysat the 18 month old before.

The guy from the other apartment takes the kid (who was playing outside or something), holds on to him, and then throws him from the pedestrian overpass into the freeway traffic below. 

No, this is no joke.  The highway was closed for 5 hours.  This is the one I don’t understand.  Even if the guy didn’t particularly like the kid, can’t you see that ’if I throw this toddler over this overpass, he will die?’  I heard in places in CA they had to wire over the pedestrian overpasses because of the number of people who were jumping and opting to end their life that way, and the likelihood is that all of our overpasses will be caged over now too.  I can understand people committing suicide this way.  I can understand people wanting to throw things over overpasses.  I can understand the desire to do some tagging on an overpass.  But nonchalantly throwing another human being over?  A short time later, the guy even came back to see the effect of what he had done. 

This one is entirely beyond my realm of understanding.  And even worse, what about the two cars that he landed upon?  In a single instant, one person changed the course of many lives.  Even though it had nothing to do with those two cars, that ‘what if?’ is going to linger with them for a long time. 

But what about the guy?  There was talk of his mental instability and whatnot.  Regardless, sane or not, what kind of answer can a person expect to receive when asked “Why?”  This was cold blooded, but it was also spur of the moment.    Reports didn’t indicate he was a serious drug user, perhaps hallucinating that the toddler was Satan and he had to throw him for the sake of all mankind.  What’s impossible to understand is also it’s simplicity.  Guy gets up, guy gets a hold of a child that’s not his, guy throws child to his ultimate death.  What makes this scary is that it seems to lack a motive.

Caroline Myss said that in this new age, many people deny the presence of evil.  That there is no duality of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ anymore.  She says she disagrees with it.  These two occurences put me on her side.  While most of the 6 billion or so people inhabiting this planet fall somewhere along the continuum of this duality, there are some, not many, barely half of a  drop in the bucket when you think about the overall masses, but yes, there are people who are evil, and yes, they do exist. 

Just wanted to let y’all know that everything isn’t always perfect here in ‘paradise.’

 The Christmas Cards

Ok, I get the idea of sending out christmas cards on a personal level to let people know you’re thinking about them and let them know you hope they’re doing well and all that.  However, when dealing with these folded pieces of paper in an office setting, it’s just a mess.

First, the number.  We send out 550 Christmas cards to people.  That’s $225.50.  A drop in the bucket for large corporations.  However, the number of process required to get these things from receiving to sending, you’d think we’re making a John Deer combine there are so many steps.

The Christmas card list is the most important thing and must not be lost.  It contains all of the names of the people to whom we’re going to send these items of joy.  Labels must be made, and they must be neat, because if one of the managers doesn’t like how the label looks, you’re making another one.  All of the cards then have to be stuffed into their envelopes, but half of the card must remain open and out of the envelope so they can be signed by specific people who worked with that company this year.  We were really fortunate this year because two relatively important people had nothing to do one day, and rather than cruise their favorite websites, they asked if there was anything they could do.  So with cards inside envelopes, the labels must be affixed upon them.  THEY MUST REMAIN IN ORDER or the whole thing will fall apart and it’ll be anarchy out there. 

Now we have the card in the envelope, the envelope addressed and they’re sorted.  All that remains is signing them.  This is the part about which I am not entirely thrilled because here at my lowly reception desk, I’ve learned that when these cards are received by the place they’re supposed to go to,  the  person who reads exactly WHO signed each card is one person-someone like me.  And I don’t care.  However, the managers have a VERY different opinion of this; this is an important task because some of these recipients are IMPORTANT and help keep us in business.  The overall feeling is that this person is going to open this card him/herself and is going to scrutinize everyone who signed it, and if someone didn’t sign it, well such a blatant show of disrespect would prevent that recipient from EVER wanting conduct business with our company again. 

The other element to this is that the people who are the most reticent about signing these silly cards are the managers, and they’re the ones who believe this whole ‘thing’ is so important.  It seems to me like a sign to the office “I am so important, and what I do is so crucial to the existence of this office that no one’s going to tell me when I’m going to sign them.  I’m faaaaaaarrrr too busy right now.

 The deadline has passed, and all through the office, all that remains is to take the cards BACK OUT and put the WHOLE thing in, sealing them, and posting them.  Fortunately our mail machine seals them while it takes $.41 out of our balance.  I put a big box on the floor, ran them through, and when they started falling down, into the box they went, unordered, in chaos and anarchy so there would be no going back had a name suddenly come up.  I finished, found the cost of our cards from out of the country, posted them, took the box downstairs, and AT THAT EXACT MOMENT, the mail guy was there with a PERFECT amount of space to hold my box of cards.  They were on their way.

In the last week, about 30 have come back due to incorrect address.  We get a lot of cards here today now from other places, but 90% of them aren’t addressed to anyone in particular like ours were.  I’ve made a show of this by posting them all on this bulletin board in the kitchen, as if to say “SEE?  You guys are wasting a ton of your (and MY) time, when the reality is that people JUST DON’T CARE when it comes to these stupid cards.”  In fact, most of our cards come to people who don’t even work here anymore.  Also, breakthroughs in science have made it possible that the cards arrive PRE-SIGNED in that person’s handwriting!  It even looks pretty real.

What this all comes down to is this:  I know, I am FIRMLY aware, believe me, that I am the lowest person on the totem pole that is this office.  I know that half my job involves nothing more than appearing busy.  And I’m fine with that.  I’m fine with doing work with the higher people.  I’d love to help out in whatever capacity (even though I just took and passed my exam to become a certified project manager which has brought little success in getting me off this desk).  Because I know that trivial as it may seem, sitting here doing nothing IS contributing a SMALL (oh so tiny) part in the betterment of society.  I help give them the room to get their more important work done so they have one less thing to think about.  However, these stupid cards have NO purpose, they take up a TON of time, in the process you all treat me as if I’m useless, deaf, and mentally challenged, you’re rude, and a lot of times downright mean.  And it’s over a fucking CARD for God’s sake!  Even if most of what I do is pretty unimportant, I just can’t stand with doing something that’s downright USELESS.  And that’s what this was.

Fortunately, time has passed, the cards have been dealt with, and I only have 2 1/2 days before vacation.  Hells yeah.

 The ceremony took place on Saturday, and it is one of much pomp and circumstance (literally-that song was played continuously through the installation).  Overall, the event went well and it was a serious, well choreographed yet happy celebration.  I was extremely proud to see his hard work finally pay off.

That is, when I saw him.  He was quite busy shaking hands and being congratulated. 

I knew that when he became the fearless leader of this lodge that things would change.  However, I don’t think I was quite prepared for the ‘first lady’ position.  I have yet to perfect the ‘air kiss.’  I also have to work on my handshake because mine is quite strong which I’m sure lacks a requisite femininity.

What this event did do was give me a glimpse of what to expect in the next year.  In the world, there are introverts, and there are extroverts.  Introverts make up about 25% of the population, extroverts the remaining 75%.  (Whooo Hooo!  I’m unique!  I’m in the minority!  I’m the 1 in the ‘1 in 4′ equation!)  According to this great book called Introvert Advantage, this behavior goes all the way to a chemical response.  Extroverts are charged by the neurochemical of dopamine, which they acquire from being around other people and active situations.  However, introverts are charged by acetylcholine, which they get from calm surroundings, solitude, and one on one interactions.  This would be great if it just was what it was, but it’s not; there’s a corollary-when an introvert is placed in a big boisterous high energy situation, it drains them faster than Dracula did his victims.  Such was the case the day after this party-I was completely wiped out.

The nature of Dale’s new vocation requires a lot more attendance at social functions, whereas before, his presence was generally optional.  I feel like I hold my own pretty well at these functions these days; I used to bring a book or sudoku puzzles, and I haven’t been doing that anymore.  We walk in, there’s a lot of hand shaking and air kissing, and then he politely makes sure I’m comfortably seated (with a drink).  Unfortunately, in his now exalted position, many people now desire a private audience with him which requires that he leave me, and I’m left at the table.  Alone.  Without any reading material.  I’m not sure this counts, but sitting at a table alone with no reading material in the midst of a big social gathering must be some level of Dante’s inferno.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy for Dale.  No one is more proud of his achievements than I am, and I wholeheartedly support him in this leadership position.  He’s a born leader, and people LOVE him (I think my parents love him more than my brother OR me).  These events he takes to like a fish to water.  He is entirely in his element.  I think it’s just going to take me a couple more events for me to become more comfortable as his 1st lady. 

Until then, it’s fake it till I make it and enjoy having the house to myself on Tuesdays…

This is Daisy Peanut when we first got her in April.  She was such a tiny thing.  I always said “She’s as pretty as a daisy and growing like a little sprout.”  She’s grown a lot now.  She is extremely smart.  Dale and I are such dorks that we’ll be sitting there talking about how great Daisy Peanut is and how much we love her while she’s sitting there 3 feet away.  We don’t know how our lives would be without our fair little lady.