Little Miss Candy Bar

It's 10:30 and I'm crashing from my sugar high (yes, I did have leftover candy, why do you ask?) so here are scenes from Halloween 2007:


It was a good, old-fashioned night of trick-or-treating. Two pretty fairies, two bags full of candy, time spent with nice neighbors. And leftover Tootsie Rolls. Mmmmm, Tootsie Rolls . . .

They gave her $182 in cash

Six years ago today, Special arrived into this world two weeks early, screaming her fool head off. She hasn't stopped screaming since. But at least now, most of her screams are joyful ones.

They still hurt my ears. But I wouldn't trade them for anything.

Our family celebrates "birth week," a way of spreading out the birthday joy just a little bit, and Special's started yesterday with lunch at her favorite restaurant, Jason's Deli, with GrandBob & GrandMom:

(It wasn't really $182. But I imagine we'll be taking a trip to Build-a-Bear in the very near future.)

Then today she had cookie cake at school:

then soy cheese pizza, a visit from Aunt M and presents tonight at dinner:

(with her new Webkinz, a gift from Pop & Baba)

It's been a great birthday, although she said this morning she doesn't feel six.

I can't believe she's six, either. Happy birthday, Sweet Chicken!

See all the birthday photos here.

(Also, if you're looking for a Christmas gift for that special someone, may I recommend this book? It's guaranteed to be hilarious, and all proceeds go to Compassion.)

At least I didn't call him "Suze"

So there's this new guy at work. I'm not sure of his actual title; he's not in my department but I've had to work with him over the last two days in relation to our new software implementation. He reminds me a great deal of Edgar, a co-worker I once had. Edgar made me want to staple his head to his desk. New Guy should possibly keep an eye out for my Swingline.

Yesterday I was assigned to help New Guy and his counterpart, New Gal, in reconciling some reports in the new software. We'd been talking about their use of the software all morning. Near the end of our meeting, I was listing the types of reports they'd need to run out of the new software and New Guy asked, "So do we need to install New Software on our computer, then?"

Me: (*blink, blink*) "Yes, that would be helpful!"

Later that afternoon, New Guy asked someone else what they meant by saying, "It is what it is." I had a flashback to the Clinton years and said that depended on what his definition of "is" is.

Today I provided New Guy and New Gal with detailed instructions on how to run the reports. The first part of the instructions was to run a list of all open projects and note the project numbers, as that information would be needed for the reports.

New Gal had no trouble.

New Guy emailed me (and this is a direct quote): "Ugh. These directions are confusing. What did you mean by 'make a note?' I tried [long and complicated process of copying and pasting screen shots] but it didn't work."

Me: (*blink blink*, share email with co-worker, wipe away tears of laughter) "I meant literally make a note. You'll need that information later."

But here's the best part: for two days, I've been calling him Bob. I knew his first initial was B, and his name in the email contact list is shown as Robert.

He goes by Bill.

But I think I'll just call him New Edgar.

Those are ladies' frames

Poor thing . . . she never had a chance. All of her grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles except one wear glasses, and now she's joined our little club. She only has to wear them for reading, computer and tv time, but she thinks the world is a much clearer place:

In memoriam

I've just finished a novel, a brilliant book that should be required reading for history classes. Irene Nemirovsky, a Russian Jew living in France and famous for her writing, began in 1941 to write a novel about the war and the occupation of France. She never finished it, as she was taken to a concentration camp in 1942 and died there soon after.

Her daughters saved the manuscript, and Suite Francaise has been recently published complete with the author's notes and a heartbreaking collection of letters written by Irene herself and then by her husband who was frantically trying to find and save her. The book itself is a picture of the daily cost of war and enemy occupation.

It is not light reading, but I highly recommend it. It brings history to life from the perspective of an eyewitness, and forces the reader to consider the story of just one of the many innocents lost in that war, innocents whose stories are not recorded but who were nevertheless real, and loved, and mourned.

It's chocolate, it's bacon--it's delicious!

My affinity for chocolate is well-known; some would say it's more of an addiction or an obsession. Milk, dark, with caramel, coconut, nuts of all kinds, crispies, in cheap candy bars or expensive specialty truffles--I love it all. I've dipped apples in it, spread it on toast, mixed it in banana bread, and poured it over angel food cake.

But near to chocolate in terms of delicious goodness is bacon--lovely, crispy bacon. Oh, we've flirted with turkey bacon, trying to save our poor arteries, but we've always come back to the nice fatty real stuff. The first time I ever cooked applewood bacon I was so smitten I called my mother and told her that diet or no diet, she HAD to try this stuff--the smell alone had me singing. And the flavor--oh, the sweet, smoky flavor--was like manna from heaven.

Tonight, when Batman told me what he'd bought at Whole Foods, I was first shocked, then a little grossed out, and then somewhat intrigued. He'd found a premium chocolate bar, the Vosges brand, with bits of applewood smoked bacon in it. Chocolate and bacon? I've heard of chocolate and wasabi, chocolate and chilies, even chocolate-covered bugs, but this? I was hesitant.

We sat down, divided it up between the four of us, sniffed it, and then dove in. And lo, it was good. I'd expected it to taste like a chocolate-dipped piece of bacon, but it wasn't like that at all. I could just barely pick up the scent of bacon before biting into it. The smooth milk chocolate had a crunch and a salty flavor, not unlike eating a chocolate-covered pretzel. The bacon taste didn't really appear until after swallowing, and then it was just a hint.

It was a lovely treat. Just one more reason to love chocolate. And bacon. Mmmm, bacon.

Now we can check porn, and stock quotes*

So tonight I logged onto my online classroom to check out the ongoing discussions. In one thread, a classmate had posted regarding his coworkers and how they were somewhat resistant to change. He said he was one of the few employees around the age of 21, and everyone else was over 30. I know! So ancient!

Anyway, he said he'd recently showed them how they could use their software in a way that would cut the time for one process in half, and how some of them didn't even know all the things that Windows could do. I felt about 80 years old.

I gently reminded him that technology has changed very rapidly in the past few years, and for those fresh out of college web conferencing and instant messaging are old hat, but for many of us in the workforce, those are new and unused technologies. Then I started thinking: when I graduated from college, faxing was still relatively new, email was something only programming majors knew about, DOS was king, and the people who invented Facebook were only toddlers.

Okay, now I feel 90. It's dark out; I think I should go to bed.

*Note: I never check porn, and only rarely check stock quotes. But "porn quotes" is one of my favorite Seinfeld lines.