Thursday, August 8, 2002

So. I went to town, got Lord of the Rings, went to the grocery store, and came home. All before 10:00 Tuesday morning. I have watched the movie 3 times since then, and I love it even more now. But it's not the obsessive kind of love anymore, just the "this is a really good movie" kind of love. Yes. That is where I have been.

Today was Sharon's last day at work. Some drug reps brought us lunch from the fancy restaurant. We had people in the office waiting on us in the kitchen. We were happy. They even washed the dishes for us. And while we were eating, some people came and installed a new sliding-glass-window-thing at the front desk. It's frosted glass now, so all we can see are shadows in the lobby. It's creepy, but we like it. It is not a good time for Sharon to be leaving. Sure, she stayed while Dr. Loeffler had surgery, but she's leaving when it's time for chemotherapy. Therefore, Dr. Loeffler will be out a lot for the next six weeks. On the days she's not in the office, we won't be seeing patients, so I can't work. If Sharon was here, she could see patients and I would have a job. Hmph. But it will all be okay! Dr. Loeffler's in a good mood about the whole thing. She's getting a combination of Ciproxin and something else, and I know Ciproxin is really strong, so it'll be instant hair loss. She said today, "Hey! I won't have to shave for a while! And I'm getting a red wig, with long hair, because I always wanted that!" Donna and Ray, the drug reps said that the whole office is being very supportive and they could tell we were all helping. We try to.



Monday, August 5, 2002

Dr. Loeffler came back to work today. And she only yelled at me once. Very impressive. And I downloaded Princess Maker 2. It's very addicting. I now understand Katherine, Ann, and Umar's obsession completely. My child was made Prime Minister.

I may or may not be online tomorrow. I have to get up early and go to the dreaded grocery store. Sigh. Then I have to bring the groceries home and go all the way back to town to work. But after that....I'm watching Lord of the Rings! I joined the online thing, and I got a free trial membership to the "exclusive" store or whatever. I can get a life-size Frodo cardboard thing!! *shriek!* But I have to have a credit card to buy him. I do not have one. This is sad. *Looks at John, who does not have a credit card either, but knows exactly what she's talking about when she looks at him.* ;)



Saturday, August 3, 2002

Three more days until Lord of the Rings! And speaking of movies, my Mama, Matt, Marc, and me went out for dinner tonight and then we went to her house and watched Road Trip. I expected Matt and Marc to like it, but I wasn't quite sure about me and Mama. I think we ended up liking it more than they did. It was so much better than I thought it was going to be. Not the greatest movie I've ever seen, but not that bad, either. I'd watch it again.

While we were out, I got a new shirt. I have some that say: "G.R.I.T.S. Girls Raised In The South" already, but this one says that and "southern phrases." It says things like "a-going-to, tend to it, honey, might could, used to could, fixin-to, y'all, over heah, goodness gracious, Mama, Daddy, bless your heart, gracious plenty, precious, and on-account-of" all of which I am definitely guilty of saying. And proud of it.



Thursday, August 1, 2002

Five more days until Lord of the Rings comes out on DVD! Guess who's going to have it! That's right! Me! Ahem.

So yesterday I didn't do anything. I got the first Catholic Direct magazine in the mail so that I can order fun stuff for my class. Pencils and such. It has gifts and collectibles and books and things. It also has priest robes that I can order from Italy for 2,000 dollars. Then I can dress up like Father John for Halloween! Or um...no. The scary thing is that they sell hosts. Unblessed ones, of course, they come in bags like potato chips. Isn't that a great snack food? ;) There's holy water, too. But really, the scariest thing in there....Kwanzaa cards. I have no problem with Kwanzaa, but why are you going to advertise it in the Catholic magazine? Sigh.

Today I went to work. It was boring. I didn't go to the gym with my Mommy because she has a sinus infection. Tomorrow we're supposed to go out for dinner with my long-lost brother. He will return from band camp. He supposedly returns every night at 10, but I haven't seen him in two weeks. Um...that is all.



Tuesday, July 30, 2002

This is going to be longer than usual. But it's good. You are warned.

I went to class, got a 100 on my final exam, got an A as my final grade, and brought all of my things home. The turtle is in his spot, on his leaf. John's castle bookends (that I got a 96 on!) are holding up the books and my collectibles. And the paper thing is hanging from the ceiling as it was meant to. We took a class picture and had fun cleaning up stuff.

At work, we found out that Robin is pregnant. (Her third child). We're all very excited, because it was not planned in any way. So she had to tell our boss that she was going to need six weeks off in March. This is a scary thing to do, because Dr. Loeffler is not a very nice person about days off, especially a week after she's had surgery. When she came in to sign paperwork, we sent Robin to tell her. Everyone else hung out in the hallway next to the door to eavesdrop. They talked for a while until Robin couldn't put it off any longer. She told her and Dr. Loeffler said it was wonderful and for all of us to get in her office, she knew we were listening. We had a general office chat for a while, then we went home.

Except I didn't go home, I met my mom for dinner at Taco Bell. Then we went to Books-a-Million, just because I had time to kill. To my great surprise and delight, they had Harry Potter collectibles for 50% off! It was kind of just their left-over stuff they found in the back or whatever, but I was thrilled. They had one Snape story scope, one Slytherin magnet, a few boxes of collector's stones, and three other story scopes. I got all of them. One of the collector stones boxes even had a Snape in it! Can you imagine my excitement? Then I went to actually look at some books, and another surprise was waiting! They had Terry Pratchett's Witches Abroad, Reaper Man, and Jingo!! Ann, you will be very proud. I'm reading Witches Abroad as soon as possible.

After the wonderful shopping trip, I had a meeting at church. It was the first meeting of the year for CCD teachers. With our new director. We all showed up, on time even. Her name is Susan, and she decided that our first order of business would be to pray the rosary. This was okay; we all pulled our rosaries out of our purses or whatever, and got ready. She asked that if we didn't mind, would it be okay to pray *all* of the Sorrowful Mysteries. Hmmm. Ann and John understand this concept. We didn't want to say no to her, so we did all five. It took forever. Not really, but it seemed like it. More like half an hour. If I counted right, it's a total of 74 prayers, I think. After that, she told us all about her plans for the year and we asked questions. She chose the books that are not lectionary-based. We wanted lectionary-based, which means that the stories in class go along with the ones at church for the week. It is not to be....however! Of course, the program she chose does not have a book for the four-year-olds, so I will be using a lectionary-based program. Different from everyone else. Sigh. But she seems very nice, and willing to do most of what we asked her.

I came home and read some of the Last Continent. I haven't laughed that much in a while. I was at the part where the wizards are trying to explain the concept of sex to a god, who is trying to create elephants. Poor Stibbons got stuck trying to explain, and the Dean wouldn't quit laughing. Then Mrs. Whitlow shows up and explains everything. They left after they revived the Senior Wrangler.

And finally, in other news: The amusement park by my house, the one with the giant flag, is having a concert next weekend. Performances are by the A-Teens, the Baha Men, Jump 5 (*winks at TAS*) and LMNT (pronounced Element, it's those guys who didn't make O-Town, in case you didn't know). I can get in free, but I'm not because I want to avoid the screaming teenagers as much as possible. I don't have to work tomorrow and I don't have school! I don't know what I'm going to do, I'll be bored!



Monday, July 29, 2002

My stepmother is back in the hospital again. Same problem, whatever it is that I can't pronounce, some kind of infection. I was thinking. Some people, me for example, can't stand just to lay around in bed and be sick. Unless I really can't get out of bed, I'd have to be up and doing something, to take my mind off of being sick. Other people prefer to lay in bed and have others feel sorry for them. For example, my stepmother. I think I saw her out of the bedroom twice since she's been back from the hospital the first time. With my dad waiting on her hand and foot. And you know, lots of people say that if you stay in bed and think about how sick you are, you really will make yourself sick or make yourself get worse. I'm thinking that's true.

Anyway, last day of class tomorrow! I get to bring home all of my things! I'm very excited, they have places all ready for them in my room. When I get pictures, I'll let you know. I don't think I've ever worked this much for a class. Sure, I've worked a lot to write papers and stuff, but this was actual physical work like carving and cutting out wood. I'm very proud. And I'm very proud of TAS for competing in the national piano competition! Welcome back and Happy Birthday!



Sunday, July 28, 2002

Yesterday I visited my dad's house next door for dinner. It's sad when you can't find the forks in the house you grew up in because your stepmother arranged the kitchen. They were not supposed to be in that drawer, they belonged in the one I always put them in. Sigh. Then Daddy asked me to play the piano for him, so I did. It was dusty, I haven't played in over a month. But I am proud to say that I didn't forget anything, The Phantom of the Opera was as good as it's always been. Modest, right? ;) Then Daddy and I watched Mallrats, but it was the edited TV version. I told him we'd have to watch the real thing and he said okay, one day.

Today Daddy and I went to the grocery store and to the outlet mall. I bought a shirt with a puppy on it that says "Bad Grrrrl" in sparkly pink letters. Then we came home and made a storage box for all of my artwork. It was the one I was going to make in art class, and I was right, it would have been very boring. It looks good now, though, and I put it next to my desk. My printer goes on it and I have room on top of my desk for those Harry Potter bookends. I get to bring them home Tuesday. I had to slightly re-arrange my furniture to get around, but I actually like it better the way it is now. Maybe I'll take a picture.

Anyway, after all of that, I had some fried chicken for dinner and I made some lemon cake with powdered sugar on top. Yay for me! And I get to stay up late because I don't have class in the morning!



Friday, July 26, 2002

So I turned in John's bookend castles. And they looked really good to me. Especially since I'd never made anything with wood and PVC pipe and power tools before. The way it works is that one at a time, we put our projects on the front table, Richard walks around and looks at them, then he says exactly what's wrong with them. In detail. It's never any fun. So I put mine up and he walked around, and took off the tops of the towers like they're designed to do (to store my pencils and pens). Then he looked at the class and said "I don't usually expect projects like this. I'm aware that I helped most of you put together a lot of your project. I didn't help Margie at all. Except to teach her how to use the lathe, which is something she chose to do on her own. But hers looks really good. I have nothing bad to say." And that was it. Everyone just stared. Richard didn't have anything bad to say? Meghan told us we needed to take his temperature. I was very excited. So I went up and grabbed them before he could find something bad. I'll get my grade and get to bring all three projects home on Tuesday. Then no more classes until the 19th!

Meghan's project was really funny. She made a tampon dispenser for the bathroom, in the shape of that universal woman symbol on bathroom doors. If you pull a tampon out from between her legs, another one drops down. We all thought it was a great idea. Richard was embarrassed, the poor guy. The project's name was "Hygeina."

Work was boring yesterday and today. But I went out for dinner with Mama, Patty, Nikki, and Dominique after work today. We went to this new Mexican restaurant. It was gross, but Dominique was fun. She's two years old and she's finally learned how to say my name. Except that she calls me "My Margie." She told the waiter "Bish" (fish). He was confused and ignored her. Nikki got her some of her favorite food, chicken fingers. She was fine until she thought the salsa dip was ketchup. Then she spit things out and yelled "yucky!" We laughed. People stared. She also started yelling "Roach!" which is her new favorite word. Saying roach in a restaurant is not a good thing. When we left, she turned around and announced to all of the other people "We're leaving! Bye-bye!" A lot of them said "Bye!" and waved to her. We weren't sure whether it was because she was cute, or they were just glad to see us go. Then we went to Walmart, didn't get anything, and came home.



Wednesday, July 24, 2002

I wasn't online yesterday because I was working on John's castle bookends until midnight. John, you didn't say that I'd be doing more work than anyone else in the class. But after much work, and several minor injuries, they're finished! I worked on them in class yesterday, after work until 7, at home until midnight, and today in class. They look really good, too. Richard even said I did a really good job with the lathe, that I caught on very fast. I think it's my favorite machine.

Work has been boring. Dr. Loeffler had surgery yesterday and she'll be out for two more weeks. We're not doing much. Our favorite drug rep, Jeff, brought us ice cream yesterday. The expensive kind. I had chocolate with pecans and caramel in it. Speaking of ice cream, I met my new personal trainer at the gym. She doesn't talk very much, but she's nice.

In other news, my stepmom is home and perfectly well. My dad managed to talk to me and mow the grass today. And I finished Carpe Jugulum. I think it's my favorite Terry Pratchett book so far. It was so much more serious than any of the other ones, but still just as funny. Tomorrow I'm started the Last Continent. Yay for the wizards!



Monday, July 22, 2002

I didn't do anything yesterday. It was great. Well, I did call Zach, but that was great, too. We stayed on the phone for an hour but we didn't talk about anything, really. We played "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on our touchtone phones and we found out that we were both picking up the same radio station. It wasn't playing any good music.

I had a little scare today. I was at work, and I was really bored. So I was playing around with all of my machines and things on myself. And when I took my own blood pressure, it was really high. Very high. Like "why are you still standing up?" high. But I didn't feel bad at all. It was very weird. And I took it a lot of times throughout the day, but it was always high. As soon as I got off, I went to my mom's house and told her, and she was worried about it. Then she asked me how I was taking it, so I told her I was using the child's cuff thing, but putting around my wrist, which is a valid way to do it sometimes. Then she basically said "Margie, you idiot. If you do it that way, it will always be higher. I know you do it for some kids, but don't ever do it to yourself again." I said "Oh." So we went to the YMCA and I asked my personal trainer to take it for me. It was perfectly normal. Um...yeah.

Today in class, Richard told us that he didn't have enough wood for everyone. Amanda and I left and took her SUV to Home Depot and got some more. When we came back, Richard was cutting out wood pieces for people. When it was my turn, he told me to do it by myself. It was fun. Our class, all five of us girls, have decided to call ourselves the Powertool Girls. Power tools are wonderful. Anyway, most of the wood for the castle bookends is cut out. Tomorrow I plan to finish cutting it and the PVC pipes. I might go back after work and make the tops of the towers. Wednesday, I should be ready to put it all together and turn it in on Thursday, right on time. Oh, if anyone is wondering how the whole turtlerose thing turned out, I got an A.