Newlyweds No More

Tomorrow, December 5th, will mark my second wedding anniversary with my husband Eddie. Beginning from the four day affair which united us in Raipur, India, it seems to have been one crazy event to the next leading us to this milestone. This year, 2009, was particularly beset with obstacles and tests.

We began the year with Eddie's layoff and spent most of the rest of it separated by the constant travel required to keep him employed. Then there was the parental invasion from India over the summer, a giant strain if overall a positive bonding experience. Jesika passed. I had the swine flu. We experienced a crisis of loyalty over the summer, and now, the recent illness and hospitalization of my father.

Though some of these issues are still in the process of resolution, it seemed fitting and necessary to take a "day off" from regular life and appreciate the fact that we have made it. We are still here. For right now, that is more than enough to celebrate.

COUNTDOWN TO 2010

Its been a trying year, to say the least, for many of us. The laundry list of mine and Boop's trials and tribulations is to lengthy and ....just...ugh...to even bother with at this point. So I decided to start a new list. Instead of "Woe is Me", I am calling it "Cheers to Me". I hope you all will join me and post your list in the comments section. Because, frankly, who else knows better just how great you really are.

• Cheers to me for endlessly advocating for my kids and getting the results that have lead to improving their lives.
• Cheers to me for having the BEST job in the world (still don't know how I got that lucky)
• Cheers to me for being a good daughter
• Cheers to me for being the better person
• Cheers to me for finding a husband who finds me worthy of worship :)
• Cheers to me for having a sister who understands all of it. ALL OF IT! She's the only one who could.
• Cheers to me for being able to make people laugh even when the situation is not at all funny
• Cheers to me for at least attempting to work my "curves" aka: 10 Rosebud pounds I can't seem to shake
• Cheers to me for convincing my hubby to be proactive about his health
• Cheers to me for taking time to say "CHEERS!" to myself. I rock.

Now its up to you. Go forth and toast to your own awesomeness!!!

Some Obvious Advice for Tiger Woods: If You Are Weary of "Rumors" and "Speculation", Tell the Cops What Happened Already

I was over this story the moment I first heard about it Friday morning. Yes, I am aware that I am nonethless blogging about it. It is not my fault. My hand has been forced by the nonstop chatter of media personalities, including one hyperbolic CNN correspondent who referred to the golfing great as "the most recognizable face in the world...maybe ever." I have a feeling Elvis, the Beatles, Michael Jackson and Madonna (not to mention Gandhi, Churchill and Hitler) would beg to differ. The man has a minor fender bender and the world stops. Blame it on a slow news cycle I guess. Last year at this time, we were on the edge of our seats watching the outcome of the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Now that was news.

So fine, Tiger is rich, famous and talented, so any story about him is bound to get some play. But what never ceases to amaze me about celebrities is that they whine about unwanted media attention, whilst fanning the flames of curious fury themselves.

Case in point: Woods postponed the requisite police interview for the third day in a row. Whatcha hiding Tiger? A DUI? A domestic dispute gone horribly awry? If so, you wouldn't be the first, so out with it already. If any of us plebians refused to speak to the Federales after wrecking our vehicles, we'd have some time in lock up to think about it.

http://www.examiner.com/x-17547-Financial-Fraud-Examiner~y2009m11d29-Tiger-Woods-car-accident-update-Could-Woods-face-criminal-charges-for-not-speaking-to-police

Call me cynical, but if ever there was a blood alcohol level issue, it is far too late to determine it now. Meanwhile Mr. and Mrs. Woods have had leisurely days to get their respective stories straight. Conventional wisdom tells me Tiger Boy had one too many, got lippy with his wife, and tried to peel out of his driveway on Thanksgiving night, muttering something about, "showing them all." Fine, it happens to the best of us.

If you want the story to die, own up, tell the 5-0 the truth. Take a page out of the book of President Barack Obama, who when asked on the campaign trail if he had ever smoked dope and inhaled, famously replied, "I thought that was the point." Have you heard a thing about it since?

Right.

Jen's Black Friday

When Jen announced her plan to take KK (who wanted the "experience" - la dee da) and head out to Old Navy at 3 AM today, my jaw hit the floor. Jen has a hectic life, but yet and still, the woman likes her sleep when she can get it. We're talking about a lady who could hibernate for 10-12 hours anytime, even while lying down for a nap, in high school. Work, household, KK and Rosebud leave little time for such indulgences now, but surely I belived Jen would have a bit of a lie in the day after Thanksgiving.

As it turns out, in a year of spiraling medical bills, a declining economy and little retail therapy for my baby sis, the pull of low cost schwag was a siren's call too loud to ignore. She ran down the great list of items, in perfectly plotted coordinates, that she planned to score from Old Navy and Traget for less than $120, while we munched our Thanksgiving turkey. The variety was too much for my poor memory to handle, but I know a slow cooker, pajamas and an air mattress were in there. Door busters make stange bedfellows.

I will grant Jen that she did actually need all of these items, and I certainly admire her pluck, as well as KK's in venturing out, to save some money. It was a witch's tit of a windy morning too, the first bonafide winter day we've had this month.

Jen was kind enough to provide me fodder for this post by adding FaceBook status updates from her iPhone whilst wrestling with the chilly masses:

• Yesterday at 10:39am: Mapped out my black Friday plan. Old Navy at 3 am, Target by 4am, then Kohls and maybe Wal Mart if I don't receive any injuries before that.
  
• 15 hours ago: NOT enjoying my first doorbuster shopping experience. I spearheaded a 20+ person fight to get in line.
  
• 13 hours ago: Done!

Now by my calculations, since it's 7:40pm now, Jen and KK briefed us on their initial doorbuster disaster at at 4:40am. Once I realized this, I felt a tremendous shudder of sympathy for my little lambs. Then I got angry.

My question is this: Why must retailers put people through this crap? If they can afford to introduce some loss leaders to bring foot traffic into the store, where they always offset the finacial hit, why can't they do so on a normal day? And for Christ's sakes, not at 4 AM. I have a funny feeling they enjoy the sight of us acting like desperate mice, saving the dollars that matter for our families and willing to do anything to get it. It's like the ultimate reality show for the fat cats.

People are on hard times this Christmas season of 2009, more so than most of us can recall in recent memory. If the retailers want our consumer confidence back, the one we lost with the collapse of the nation's financial institutions, job market and housing sector, throw us a bone. Let us get stuff we need at reasonable prices all year round. We will pay more for some luxuries than others granted, and that seems like a fair market practice. But let us get some rest too. Lord knows we all need it.

Tryptophan

The bloggers of Which End is Up?! wish you and yours a satisfying Thanksgiving, no matter what form that takes.

Eat up!

Foiled Again

Granted, my recent posts have been a little dark, but it's not always gloom and doom in Boop's World. For the last four years, I have been competitively involved in my friend Wayne's annual Pick a Winner football pool (better known as "PAW" by fanatics). For those of you who have never participated in this type of exercise, the premise is pretty simple. Pick one, and only one team to win their match each week. The catch is that you may use each franchise only once. So this year, when I used the New Orleans' Saints in Week 1, who have gone on to dominate their division, they were lost to me for the ensuing 16 weeks. The game is pretty easy the first few rounds, but about Week 8 or 9, when you have used a lot of the best teams and have to start dipping your toe into the chaff, things can get messy. All it takes is one bad pick and you're done. There are no second chances in PAW.

Here is a recap of my history in the pool. Needless to say, I have an aptitude for the game:

2006 - Made it to the final 5 competitors in Week 12.
2007 - Out in Week 2 (obviously, an unfortunate anomaly)
2008 - Final 3 in Week 17, only to be cruelly, painfully undone by that grey haired pig fu*&er better known as Brett Favre. There is still a lot of pain here.
2009 - ?

Yesterday was Week 11 of the NFL season, and I did something I normally do not: solicit advice. Up to now, my strategy has been to go with my gut, after a little bit of research. But lately my instincts appear to be on the fritz, so I thought I'd reach out. There is after all, $1800 at stake. My Yale-educated co-worker, a delightfully odd little man named Ned, provided me with his best calculations, based on my pick history and available teams. He not only selected the club I ought to have gone with this past weekend, Arizona, but suggested picks for the next two weeks as well. How lovely.

Only I went with my gut and picked Cinncinati. The rest, as they say, is now history.

http://www.realfootball365.com/articles/raiders/14609

Dammit! Wait 'til next year? What's the point of soliciting Ivy League advice Boop (I ask myself) if it is not to be followed?!

I am quite the competitive one. After the game ended, with a pick thrown by Bengals' QB Carson Palmer in the last seconds, my husband came and hugged me solemnly, whispering the words "I'm sorry" in my ear as though I'd just been laid off. I tend to distort loss/failures on my part under any circumstances, but when it comes to sports and money, my trauma can adopt epic proportions. Just ask Eddie about my Week 17 meltdown last year (Brett must die).

So I am hurt today. But will I ride again in 2010? You betcha! Come to think of it, PAW might just be the most appropriate metaphor for my life as a whole at the moment.

Holiday Chaos

Admittedly, I have always been a humbug about the holiday season, that blurry boundary between mid-November and the first week of January. Although if I am being fair to myself, I have good reasons for going Scrooge when the weather turns cold. An inordinate amount of bad juju, calamity and misery seems to creep it's way into Boop's World like clockwork every Christmas annum.

I foolishly lulled myself into the complacent assumption that I had already had enough this year: Eddie's unemployment to ring in 2009, Jesika's untimely and tragic death, the near implosion of my marriage over the summer and the ups and downs of youngest niece Rosebud's health. 2009, by any personal measure has been trauma personified. But the 4th quarter of this year started peacefully enough, personally and professionally, and I wanted to believe I had been tested my quota.

I guess not because even after confronting all those aforementioned crises, Jen and I sit in the middle of the biggest shit storm yet. Whenever I make a claim like that you, dear readers, can always be sure it has something to do with our parents, the larger than life, Gloria and Gregg. You may notice that though I tend to be quite open with my personal struggles, in large part because it is free therapy for myself, I tend to shy away from mentions of my progenitors. There is good reason for this. The truth of mine and Jen's upbringing is stranger than fiction, not to mention painful. Jen and I have both tried, as much as we are able, to leave the past where it belongs and move forward with our own reasonably successful lives.

But it seems one can never run from their past entirely. As long as the players are still living, the ghosts of afore will always rear their ugly heads. Jen and I are in the weird position of being simultaneously shocked and completely unsurprised by the fatherly mess we are trying to dig our way out of this month. Again, out of respect for loved one impacted, I am being purposely vague. Suffice it to say, I posted Shakespeare's "Seven Stages of Man" speech a couple days ago because it is highly reflective of where things stand.

Is it 2010 yet?