I've spent the better part of the day today working on homework - several hours this morning for my Oracle db class, and at least an hour this afternoon on Spanish. I'm going to be busted in Spanish class tonight because we're supposed to have completed homework and an oral presentation - I have about 90% of the oral done and maybe 15% of the homework. Oh well. I'll catch up sometime.

I went shopping this weekend for my home office. I've finally begun moving all of my files and assorted knick-knacks down to the basement and started getting organized. I bought a flat-screen monitor, because my old one was both too big and too heavy for my smaller desk. The new monitor wasn't very expensive (about $430), and it's wall-mountable, which will work really well for me. Now I just have to drag the computers down there, set up the switch box and the router for the wireless, and I'm set. I was hoping that A could help me with all of that, but he's swamped with consulting work - work that I'm supposed to be helping with, but I have no working office/computer right now. Quite the dilemma. I hope to get everything sorted by this weekend, when I'll have some free time to finish up the odds and ends.

It's amazing how quickly you can fall behind on things. It's only my first week of school, and I've got a pile of homework for two different classes to get through before tomorrow night - oh, and let's not forget the part where I have to bring 5 things into class and describe IN SPANISH why they're important to me or representative of me. Sure - I'm lucky if I remember how to say "My name is..." in Spanish.

It's also budget season at work, which means half of the senior staff is in full-blown panic mode all of the time, making sure they meet all of their ridiculous timelines for deliverables ("timelines for deliverables" - I'm sounding way too corporate). My life in budget hell is complicated by the absence of my boss - a man who travels 2 or 3 days out of each week is not the best person to manage a budget.

Sleeping in on a Sunday, followed by lots of coffee and the newspaper, is a luxury that I sometimes take for granted. Today was the exception - I reveled in every moment. I'm heading out to the track to make it in time for A's first race of the day (he was top ten in his endurance race yesterday - woo hoo!).

Go watch Move On's ad, "Everybody". There are other ads there as well, especially the one directed by John Sayles, called "American Opinions".

Following the trend this week, I am "working from home" while HR sorts out the mess with my coworker. I know that they met yesterday to tell him that I had made a formal complaint, but I haven't heard from anyone (other than a strange hang up on my cell at 10pm last night - where the heck is area code 713??). It's a little spooky, and I expected my boss to call yesterday and let me know how it went, which he didn't. Today they're supposed to give him a formal written warning that goes in his file, which he has to acknowledge and sign. They all thought it best that I not be in the office when these conversations took place.

I'm already feeling overwhelmed in Spanish class, and it's only been two nights. There are people in there who are much further along than me, and so there's much more done entirely in Spanish, so I only pick up bits and pieces. I came home from school last night and told A that we needed to go to "all Spanish, all the time" - we'll see if that happens.

I bought a new desk from Target Online, it's a pine architects desk/drafting table. It's tall, so I can stand to work, or I can sit on one of the many bar stools I somehow acquired. It was a great deal, and I really didn't have a good desk. I'm going to Best Buy this afternoon to look at a flat screen monitor (just a small one!), and a switch box so I can have my three machines all hooked up to it. Once we figure out the connectivity issue in the basement, I'll be set.

Blogger is chugging along pretty slowly this morning, I think I had better get the FTP set up sooner rather than later. I will post more info before moving the site.

This is the last week that my grandparents and my niece & nephew are in town. It's been wonderful having them all here, many dinners together and movies and puttering around my mother's house. I'll miss them all terribly. Today they're taking a road trip up to Cheyenne, WY to have lunch. Tomorrow will be either the Denver Zoo or the Natural History Museum. Friday evening will be our last group dinner, and then everyone flies home on Saturday morning. *sniff, sniff*

Spanish class started last night and went pretty well - other than the fact that I feel like it's been 3 years (rather than 3 months) since I last had a class. I have the same teacher that I had in the spring, and sit next to the same woman as last spring, so that's nice. There's also someone from my office in the class, which came as a complete surprise to me last night when she walked in. We're talking about carpooling (she also lives in Boulder) a couple of days a week, it'll be nice to get to know her a little bit better.

Almost forgot - I have a couple of gmail invites left, if anyone wants one. Send me a message at magaliblue at gmail dot com.

Continuing drama at work these days. I had a confrontation last week with the hated and feared brown-noser, and it really creeped me out. He stood in the doorway of my cube and just yelled at me, as mad as I've ever seen him. It was over something completely inconsequential, so I know that it wasn't really about me or that issue - but this time I went to HR and made a formal complaint. I have no idea what will happen now, but I knew when I went to work yesterday and just being in the same room with him made me feel sick, I had to do something.

My mother's housewarming party this past weekend was a lovely time - tons of friends and new neighbors came by, leaving enough food in their wake to feed the family for a couple of weeks. The house shone like a new penny, the dogs were well behaved, the weather was perfect - best possible afternoon.

School starts today - Spanish Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and a SQL class on Wednesday nights. With rescue squad on Monday evenings and Saturday mornings, I'm going to be a busy girl this fall.

Grrr. I hate the new Blogger nav bar (top of this page) - it looks so hokey. They won't take it down or allow me to upgrade to a service where I don't have to have that banner, so I'm going to switch to hosting myself. Look for a change in the next day or so.

Work crawls along at a snail's pace. It's budget season, so I already have a ton of work to do, but I'm also trying to get moved into a new job (same company), so I have to write the job description and get all the relevant managers to sign off on the move. I also have to get it into the 2005 budget, so the deadline for getting it all done is this Friday, when our first round of staffing forecasts are due.

I have a night off tonight! I can't remember the last free night I had. I think I'll go to a movie - maybe Joni will join me.

We had a great time at the track in Pueblo this weekend - no injuries to our team (yahoo!), and Alex took third place in one of his races! There was a little wooden plaque and everything! He also did well in the two other races he ran, but nothing higher than 4th place. Pueblo was really pleasant this weekend - not too hot, nice breeze, etc. If every race weekend were that mild, I wouldn't mind going to them all.

School starts next week for me. I'm taking Spanish Language II and a SQL course, all at night (Tues, Wed and Thurs). I'm going to rescue squad meetings & training on Mondays and some Saturdays, so I'll be pretty booked. I think I'm going to postpone working at the shelter until after the first of the year, when I've finished my courses. Much as I love going there, I just don't see how I can commit to more than I already have on my plate.

I'm back at work today, after spending the first part of the week up in the mountains at Keystone, where my company has a conference each summer. It's beautiful up there, and so quiet! I slept well with the windows wide open, the air is cool and smells good. My entire department was up there, and we celebrated a birthday (my boss) on Tuesday night with beers, pool and shots of tequila all around...Wednesday morning came too soon after that.

Maggie the Cat (for whom this site is named) was diagnosed with diabetes this week - an outcome that I suspected for quite a while. She's now getting insulin shots twice a day (every 12 hours), and the vet tells me that it should get her back to normal. My poor little fat cat, who isn't quite so fat anymore - one of the ways I knew she was ill was that she went from 16lbs last fall to 12lbs this spring. She's being a good sport about getting the shots, particularly given her history of hissing, spitting, and viciously biting me when unhappy. Still, it makes me sad each time I have to jab her, and I watch her to see if the insulin is bothering her, or if she hurts at all.

Bush Guffaw of the Day:

I just had to post this, it made me laugh so hard...

And this, via Squoogy.

Boulder is doing something cool today - each year, they dig up and give away all the tulip bulbs that had been planted & bloomed at our outdoor mall that season (which they imported from Holland and spent $4,000 on). They say that the bulbs don't bloom reliably after the first year, and so they purchase new ones each winter to be planted. Starting at 10am this morning, you can go down to the Pearl Street Mall and get your free bag of 100 used bulbs, out of the 10,000 total that will be given away. I'm sending my mom down there, she has at least a few hundred feet of border area along her back yard that would be perfect for some tulips. While part of me is annoyed with the city for being wasteful and spending so much each year on something that they have to replace again 12 months later, I'm glad that they have a program in place to let everyone enjoy the flowers, including in their own yards.

We had dinner last night with my mom, Mare and my grandparents at The Cork, considered by many to be the best steakhouse in Boulder. They have a formal, pricey dining room, and then they have "the bistro" - in their bar area, there are some small, cozy tables, and a different menu, much more reasonably priced. They've been running coupons in the paper lately - buy one entree, get another free. I saved 3 coupons, so all six of us were able to have a great meal for about $70. I knew that coupon clipping would come in handy one day!

We just returned from Kansas, where we had a two-day TrackAddix weekend. The event was a big success, with Saturday sold out and a bbq/beer bash that evening. Sunday was a little more calm, which is good because we were able to pack up a little bit early and get on the road. I'm still pretty tired - it's tough to get home at 1:30am and head to work by 7.

I had a training meeting last night with the rescue squad - I'm so excited at the prospect of joining them. I hope there won't be any hurdles with my being voted in as a member. They have a very structured program for training and advancement through their levels of accreditation - it would take me a year at the first level in order to advance to the next, with assorted training and scene requirements built in. It's a great group, they've been so welcoming to me. One of them is a lover of books and hits all the local recycling centers, looking for unusual stuff - he and I were talking at the first meeting I attended, and he asked me about the origin of the name Collofine. I explained that I had read it in a book I loved by Herman Hesse. Last night, he showed up for training with a copy of Wanderings for me, that he'd found on his recycling haunts.

I've stayed away from a computer for the better part of the last few days - it felt great, very liberating, but also very strange, like when I skip yoga or going to the gym - I know I should do it, but I can talk myself out of it and try to forget that I was ever meant to do it. That's how it felt to not check email for a couple of days.

I was roaming around blogs and sites the other day, and somewhere (I wish I could remember, so I could link to them) I read a list of things that made that person cry & things that made them happy. I liked the idea, so here's my list:

Things that make me cry

• anything patriotic, especially the national anthem
• any injuries to the innocent (especially kids & animals)
• cruelty in any form
• most movies on Lifetime
• onions

Things that make me happy

• when Ruby wakes up, sees me, and starts to wiggle
• the first long drink of water after a good yoga class
  
• my garden when it's just waking up from winter and starting to bloom
• getting snail mail from my friends
• how the boy smells when he's sleeping
• peanut butter & chocolate

Yesterday was a completely useless day, so I met my friend Michele for drinks after work, had two margaritas, went home and was asleep within an hour.

Today should be a bit better. I'm supposed to go to the Subaru dealership and fill out a survey, and in exchange for being nice about them, they give me a free tank of gas or an oil change or something. However, what I really want is the owner's manual for my car, which was mysteriously absent when I bought the car. I think I'll give them the survey and let them fill it out, in exchange for my manual and a set of all-season floor mats.

There was no volunteer training last night, I got my weeks mixed up. Oh well. I headed home, and found the boy in the driveway with a box. It turns out that he found an injured bird at work that was about to be swallowed by a cat, so he put it in a box and brought it home. Many phone calls later, we found a wildlife rescue place near Lyons that would take him - and they'll take him back to where he was found when he's ready to be released, so he can hook up again with his bird homies.

I've started watching "Six Feet Under" and I really like it, but the episode last night was almost more than I could bear. As a friend put it, it's the vicimization of someone that's so hard to watch. I almost turned it off, but it's a good show, and I wanted to see the character make it out of things okay. It was a very disturbing episode.

meme thing
lifting what I read here

Last Cigarette: Two years ago, as of 8/13/04
Last Alcoholic Drink: Last night, red wine from a box (don't laugh!)
Last Car Ride: Morning commute today
Last Kiss: The boy, this am
Last Good Cry: Last weekend
Last Library Book: The Godfather (on tape)
Last book bought: Feng Shui Chic, from my local used bookstore
Last Book Read: Red Poppies
Last Movie Seen in Theatres: "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban"
Last Movie Rented: "Stuck on You"
Last Cuss Word Uttered: F*ck
Last Beverage Drank: Orange juice
Last Food Consumed: Beets
Last Crush: Can't remember
Last Phone Call: From company's legal department, but I'm not in trouble
Last TV Show Watched: "South Park"
Last Time Showered: This morning at 7am
Last Shoes Worn: Danskos, on my feet as we speak
Last CD Played: Spanish guitar music
Last Item Bought: Steaks for dinner last night
Last Download: "Fallin'" by Alicia Keys (yes, I paid for it)
Last Annoyance: IMs from my brown-nosing coworker
Last Disappointment: Yoga class on Sunday AM, no balance
Last Soda Drank: Yesterday
Last Thing Written: Blog entry this am
Last Key Used: Front door key at 7:15am, when I realized I forgot my purse
Last Words Spoken: "I don't know where he is"
Last Sleep: During general staff meeting this am
Last Ice Cream Eaten: Glacier Pralines & Cream, couple of weeks ago
Last Chair Sat In: Scary office chair I'm currently occupying
Last Webpage Visited: Zucchinis in Bikinis, where I lifted this

We went back to the Elks Lodge on Friday for swimming & bbq, but it was kind of gray and rainy, so we skipped out after Mare ate her bbq beef sandwich. We ended up staying in and watching "Stuck on You" - too funny.

Joni and I finally made it out to a movie again yesterday - we saw "Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban." I love those stories. Just seeing the movie yesterday made me want to pick up books 4 & 5 again. I'm trying to convince Mare to get started on them, but she's happily reading "Treasure Island" out loud to my mother right now.

I made a deal with myself that I would really make the effort to get some kind of exercise each day - even if it's just riding the stationary bike while I watch TV. I've started going back to my local yoga studio (which feels wonderful), and walking in the morning before work. I have so much more energy when I do that - it's like a kick-start to my day. Now if I can just find another pilates class that's in the evenings....

Poor Martha. While five months doesn't seem like a long sentence after this long, drawn out trial, I feel for her. When I think about what she's done (or at least, is accused of having done), I'm kind of left with "what's the big deal?" - I mean, I know she broke the law, but it just doesn't seem like it's worth all the fuss. At least she didn't do this with her own stock, cheat her investors while sitting at the top of her corporate food chain. If we use Martha and her five months as the yardstick for corporate honcho no-nos, then we shouldn't be seeing Ken Lay again until the next millenium.