Okay, so missed a day...

But it was with good reason.

Friday, Day 3

You know petty problems like mine (and even in the throes, I realize they're petty) seem even more so when you watch the pictures of what's happening in Japan today.

I contacted (via Facebook) my cousin (whom I've never met in person) in Hawaii first thing, just to tell her to "stay safe." Like she needs to hear that from me, but it made me feel better. It looks as if things won't be too bad in Hawaii, but I'm keeping fingers crossed just in case.

The rain (and flooding) in our state continues today. But, having lived in a house where this would be a major catastrophe, I count my blessings that it is not affecting me in the least currently. To anyone who does have blasement/flooding issues - my heart goes out to you.

I have the Weather Channel on, in the background. It's a good source for news (obviously), but also a good place to pick up who to follow on Twitter. Ain't social media grand?

Day 2

To give proper credit, the person whose blog I mentioned yesterday (which is motivating me to write every day) got her idea from this person. Who has such an enormous Lenten To Do list, that I think she must be fibbing about being lazy. Or not. Maybe she just has high moral fiber.

Not like me who has already watched 1.5 hours of television already today. Okay, I was folding laundry part of that time, but still.

I feel better today after yesterday's brouhaha. (Is this a word?) But it just really knocked the snot out of me for the entire day. I was in a BAD mood, let me tell you.

I'm torn because the broken (as I see it) system won't fix itself, but I don't want to cross swords with "the man." (Or "the women" as the case may be.) I guess, to use one of my favorite phrases that I picked up from The West Wing, that I can't speak truth to power. Or at least not power in the form of the PTO at the school where my kids will be attending for the next xxxmumblexxx years.

(This will be last time this subject is written about here - unless, of course, it takes a new turn.)

40 Days (and some nights)

Someone whose blog I follow regularly is, I guess, using the framework of Lent to try to be a little more disciplined with her creativity. I'd like to do the same thing here. For the next 40 days (and probably some nights), I'm going to try (let's be realistic here) and write every day. Or at least post something. Kind of like the Catholic Church meets NaBloPoMo.

Today was kind of a crap day, coming to face to face with the bureaucracy that is PTO. Today's crisis actually started last night, with an URGENT email that required a phone call, that when I made it went unanswered. Today brought a flurry of emails and a round robin of phone calls that identified a problem, declared it "too late to do anything," and concluded with, "No, we don't even want to let anyone know there is a problem. But if someone asks you, this is where we stand..."

(Imagine much gnashing of teeth here.)

Being a foot soldier in this scenario, I really can't do much about the situation. And since my kids are going to be at this particular school for the next number of years, I really don't want to be in the position of rocking the boat. But let me just say, I can totally see why they have so much trouble finding volunteers, getting people to run fundraisers, and keeping PTO officers.

And in the words of the immortal Forrest Gump: That's all I have to say about that.

Veterans' Day

Thanks to all the veterans out there, and to all those still serving in the armed services...

West Wing quote today

Oh, and while folding laundry this morning, I was watching an old episode of the West Wing, and came across this, about the Constitution...

"The document is just the beginning. A constitutional democracy succeeds only if the constitution reflect the democratic values already alive in the citizenry."

Spoken by a fictional constitutional scholar, deep in the throes of helping an emerging democracy write its own constitution. Writing credits for "The Wake Up Call" go to Lauren Schmidt and Josh Singer.

We've made it this far.

All about the mouse...

No, not THAT mouse.

My new wireless mouse. Purchased this morning. Love it!!! Not only will it scroll anywhere on the screen I'd like it to (which my old mouse completely stopped doing last night), but at blistering speeds. I think my old mouse was suffering long before I noticed.

Anyway, my new mouse is wireless and looks like this (the second one from the left)...

As soon as I reached for it at Best Buy, the very helpful sales person said it was "me." Because I am very cool (despite my age) in a very black & white, paisley-ish, tatoo-y kind of way. (Not really, but work with me here.) But this is the mouse that our new 500-gig hard drive deserves.

Now I have to go and recreate some PowerPoint stuff that went toes up when my hard drive crashed and burned last month.