Feng Shui Consultant

Husband and I whisked ourselves out of town (30 whole minutes from the house!) for our anniversary this year. We talk about it every year, this is one of only two years we've done it. Another thing we often talk about is building our dream home. I've sketched floor plans, he's tried to talk me into purchasing expensive software so he can show me his ideas - in 3D! I have a basic idea of what I want at this point. I'm not sure houses don't already exist with all the features I want, so I've kept my mind open to pre-owned houses as well. Not to mention my love for quirky old homes in our city's oldest district. We even owned one when we first got married, but the repairs outgrew our budget, and we had to sell it. So when I saw that the B&B where we stayed was an 1892 Victorian with a turret, I was in love. When I discovered that part of our room was in the turret, I squealed like a tween with delight. It wasn't just part of our room, it was behind a wall, the low-roofed hall access like a secret passage. And within the turret: a reading niche, with chairs and lamps. Utopia.
Naturally, I concluded that my quirky house MUST have a turret. The turret must be in my bedroom and contain a reader's recluse, just like this one. So I began sketching. And abandoning, and sketching anew. Repeat. I couldn't seem to grasp how the design would work in real life. I even found myself abandoning the house sketch I've had in mind for months to get the turret to work. This will be where I read my novels, read my magazines, play sudoku, write poetry, update my blog, hide from the kids! I tried to sleep. I couldn't. It had to work!
Eventually I concluded that the turret would have to be only upstairs; I couldn't find a use for it downstairs. Is that possible? I have no idea. But that's what I want. I don't care if it's unreasonable or even unfeasible. I want a round room sanctuary. Why round? For the awesomeness. I have no doubt a feng shui consultant would say the same thing.

Scriptwriter

So...Lost. Right? Sigh. I really enjoyed the first season. After that it was more of an obligation; I was too invested not to watch the mysteries unravel. Then they didn't unravel. They just rolled away, out of view and (the writers hoped) out of mind. A coworker, Beer, and I discuss this show almost daily. I said a few weeks ago that there was no way the show could be concluded to my satisfaction.
"At this point, everyone could die and I'd be okay with it," I said.
"Really? You'd be okay if everyone just died? Interesting," Beer replies. Beer is an incubator, not at all reactionary. A typical response from him on Lost theory is "Oh...I hadn't thought of that." followed by silence, as he thinks of that. If there is a downside to Beer's introspection, it is that he lets me talk waaay too much. I digress.
I was right, though - everyone did die. Not the way I thought they might, but they did. I wasn't okay with it, though. Let me just point out that I would have been okay with it, if more plot lines had been solved. It might also have helped if Sayid had ended up with the actual love of his life, Nadia. But that's just the smallest fly in this very contaminated ointment.
See, I didn't want the island to be this mystical, unexplained gold light. Just write in a geologist character to tell Jack and Hurley that it's because of the very high level of minerals Y and Z that the island has this crazy electromagnetism. Tell Locke and Desmond that pressing the button every 108 minutes released a synthetic compound created by Darma to counteract this effect so it would be contained to the island itself and not, you know, cause airplanes to crash and shit.
I conclude that the island was indeed real - and I have read on multiple websites that the majority of Lost finale watchers do, too - because as dear old dad said, "the most important time of your life was spent with these people." I guess surviving a plane crash would have quite a profound effect on shaping the rest of my life as well, and if there were other people with me I wouldn't be likely to forget their names if I ran into them at Target. "Sun! Right. Didn't we work together at the mall? Duh! The Oceanic crash, how silly of me. How's your husband Jim?"
Since the first flashback I have believed that without the mythology, without Others and Jacob and mysticism, Lost would be an interesting show. Get the survivors off the damn island and back to real life to resolve the frayed ends of existence they left dangling before the crash. They could do that with or without each other, but it would be great to see Locke show up at his dad's front door, sans wheelchair. Sayid torn between mourning for Shannon and searching for Nadia. Jin and Sun on the run from her father. Hurley, swept up in his newfound fame, cheats on Libby. Claire and Jack discover their relationship, Claire decides to stay in the States, and we watch as she struggles to make ends meet. Sawyer keeps being intense and brooding. I don't care, really, just put him in a scene now and then for me to ogle.* Jack and Kate - Fuck Kate, Jack,she is seriously too messed up. You are a leader! Get over her conflicted ass already! *Ahem* Sorry.
All this isn't to say that I wasn't entertained by the Others. I loved Juliet and her back story. I'm just saying the show never had to go that far and it would still ave been a good show. But, since you had to get all mystical...
Just tell us what the light is. Show us the first guardian of the island. Show us the 4-toed inhabitants. Let us see the kids that the Others whisked back home discovering their new found abilities to hear dead people, like Miles. Show us Hurley bringing people to the island once he's in charge, or stopping people from reaching the light - by kicking some ass.
Another thing - I wanted to see Claire reunited with Aaron, though I suppose I understand that the writers needed the shot of the plane flying over just before Jack closed his eyes. It seemed to me, though, that they were building up to it and we never saw the payoff.
Everyone could have ended up the same in the end (dead), but I found it...lazy to go out this way. And don't try to tell me I'm the lazy one for not using my imagination to conclude for myself what these remaining mysteries are. I don't want to use my imagination when I watch TV. I reserve my imagination for unillustrated books and conjuring a world where my son no longer pees in his pants. Of course, I'm not a professional scriptwriter, so tell me: how hard was it to come up with this ending really, on a scale of petting your cat to petting your ego? Be honest.

*Husband, you did not read this sentence.

Doctor

"You're both in trouble," I tell my husband and son. Husband asks why, while Bug just keeps trying to get me to ignore him so he can go back to sleep. "Because I think I'm coming down with something." "'Bout time," Husband says. "Hey! That's not nice!" "Well, the rest of us have all been sick." It's true: Husband and both kids, congested, coughy, achy, and whiny (which NyQuil cures that?) for the past few weeks. Bug has had three ear infections - four if you count that this round both ears got their fair share of bacteria. And Husband? Sick on Mother's Day. Hmmph! Like any competent mom, I waited until everyone else got better before I let myself get sick. My guess is that the germs can't get you while you're running downstairs to dose some Mucinex, running upstairs with the Tylenol, or back to the store for more tissues - with lotion, because the noses are sore enough already. Once you get the kids back to school and sit down to watch last week's Bones, BOOM! That's when germs getcha. Of course, all the popsicles and lotiony tissues are gone, along with the only other member of the household with a driver's license to pick you up some decongestant.
I immediately reach for the zinc lozenges and boil some water for the echinacea tea. I also take a good dose of good, old-fashioned denial that I'm actually sick. "It's not so bad," I think, "I'll take my vitamin C and be better overnight."
Two days, multiple lozenges and mugs of tea later, my throat is just a hint of sore. At least I lucked out and bypassed the persistent cough and whininess** that plagued the rest of my family. I'm no doctor, but apparently it's sound science, talking yourself out of an illness.*

*I'm pretty sure. It could possibly - maybe - have been the vitamins and extra rest, though.
**Husband is not allowed to offer his opinion of my suffering from this symptom.

Cobbler

To any Southerners that may be reading: No, I don't intend to write 3 paragraphs on blackberry or peach filled pastries.
I usually don't fix things. If I didn't pay at least 3 figures for it, I can probably afford a new one. This includes shoes (which I have never and probably will never pay 3 figures for). When the soles wear down, I buy a new pair. When the zipper or buckle breaks on one, I buy a new pair. When the toes get scuffed ...er, well, I usually still wear the shoes, hoping no one notices. I don't always throw out my old pair, sometimes out of sentimentality, usually out of laziness, occasionally because although the old shoes may be uncomfortable, I still think they're cute and will wear them once in a while.
Most of my shoes are neutral-colored slip-ons, to get me out of the house faster. It's never failed me. Except...<insert flashback chimes here>
Recently, my daughter and I were making a quick trip to the library. I threw on a pair of black flats on my way out the door. I drove the few miles to the library, walked across the parking lot and into the library, then walked around browsing the shelves for a few minutes before I realized that something was off. My feet felt uneven; one foot was higher than the other. I looked down and realized I was wearing two different shoes, and I don't mean that one was a left shoe and one was a right shoe. One was a black flat, and the other ...was also a black flat, but with a bow on it. Luckily, most likely because they were the same color, no one seemed to notice. I doubt any stranger in the library would have said anything about it to me, but I didn't catch anyone looking at my feet, then quickly turning away to hide a smile. Even my fashionista daughter didn't notice, and if anyone was going to ridicule me about wearing a pair of shoes that didn't match, it'd be her.
I had replaced the black flats with the bow on them because the soles were too thin and were becoming uncomfortable to wear for long periods. I kept them around because they're so cute, and dress up my casual outfits just a touch, and I don't mind wearing them at work or the movies or somewhere where I am seated for most of the time. I don't even know if a professional cobbler - are they even still called that? can fix the bow shoes. I do know that I am reluctant to even get pants hemmed, so I'm not likely to find out. I'm more likely to wear two different shoes again.

Detective

Husband can't find his keys. This is unusual, because unlike many, many of his other things, he always keeps his keys in the same place. Although, occasionally he'll put his keys next to something he doesn't want to forget, like his gym bag or a letter that needs to be mailed. Seems like a handy little memory trick. He stands next to the key holder our daughter made in shop class (yes, I am bragging), "Have you seen my keys?"
"No."
He remains standing next to the key holder, drumming his fingers on the wall. I can't tell if he's sincerely thinking about where the keys may actually be, or just waiting for me or one of the kids to say, "Here they are!" However, after eight years of marriage, I have ascertained with reasonable certainty that each time he comes to me and says, "I can't find the thingamajig," he hasn't actually searched for it, but gone to wherever the thingamajig should be, and upon not seeing it, just waited for it to materialize there. Case in point:
"I can't find the small suitcase. I looked in the closet." Into said closet I go, emerging with the small suitcase.
"Where was it?" 
"In the closet."
"Oh. I didn't see it."
I know he didn't see it, because from the time the suitcase was last utilized to now, we have put more stuff into the closet on top of the suitcase. You can be judgmental about my organization skills all you want, but my point - that we own a lot of stuff, and that we've lived together long enough that he really ought to know that that stuff ends up in the first convenient place I can find for it so he probably should move stuff around if he really wants to find the thing he needs - remains valid.
If I were to give him the benefit of the doubt, my other guess would be that these objects are simply kickin' it in an alternate dimension whenever he wants them. That would certainly explain why I can't find things sometimes. In fact, I think that's what happened to a tube of moisturizer I had on my nightstand a while back. It simply disappeared, and I haven't been able to find it for months. I may have briefly believed that my son threw it away for no other reason than he loves to throw things in the trash, but now that I've come up with the alternate dimension theory, I realize I'm treating him as guilty until proven innocent.
So since Husband is still standing there next to the door, I begin offering suggestions.
"Are they upstairs?" He goes to look. Not upstairs.
"On your desk?" No dice.
"In the pocket of the pants you wore yesterday?" Knowing those pants are in the wash, I am hoping that isn't the case. It isn't; he'd checked those pockets before washing them, like anyone who has ever done laundry should.
At this point, I get up to help look, which consists of looking in all the places he just looked. Even I can't find these *&$% keys.
"Okay, I'll just take your car," he resigns, picking up my keys.
Then a thought that I foreshadowed in the first paragraph of this blog entry crosses my mind: "Did you put your keys with something you needed to take with you?"
"Yes," Husband starts chuckling. Now Husband is full on laughing as he strolls to his man cave and picks up a shopping bag, his keys clipped to the handles. As I said earlier, it sure seems like a handy memory trick. How he didn't see that bag when he went into that room earlier to look on his desk...well, I think I've abused Husband enough for one post.
Since Husband (mostly) doesn't mind the abuse, especially this close to our anniversary, this is for him: Sweetie, although I may not be a professional detective, know that whenever your glasses straighten their legs and walk right off of your bedside table, I will be there to pick them up. When you can't find your left sock, I am on the job. When you know you put your wallet right there and now it's gone, I'm your woman. Yeah. I'm your woman.

Vegetarian

A coworker is trying to switch to a vegetarian lifestyle, and since I am the only vegetarian most of my coworkers know, they referred her to me for advice. This wasn't a bad idea, if you base it on the principle that sometimes one's purpose in life is to serve as a warning for others. I'm happy to pass on what I've learned through my mistakes.
When I made the decision to stop eating meat, it was not done cold turkey (ha ha). I was fed up with bad experiences attempting to eat chicken (underdone, mostly, but the last straw was when I bit into what should have been a morsel of sweet and sour chicken that was instead fried bone), so chicken was the first meat cut from my diet. This triggered a domino effect that led me to eliminating red meat, later pork, and finally fish. As the years passed, I became less tolerant of any animal products, and stopped eating meat broths and gelatin as well. However, being of the lazy persuasion, I didn't exactly do a lot of research. I didn't read labels like any meat-avoider worth her salt should.
The eye-opening moment for me was lurking in my bag of McDonald's french fries.
"Honey," Husband began, "I almost didn't tell you this, but I knew you'd want to know..." pregnant pause, "McDonald's fries have beef tallow in them."
"What?! Why??" Not that I cared why. He had let the cow fat out of the bag. It was in the fries, and I couldn't change that. I had been eating them for years, blissfully ignorant of their evil ways. And because my love of french fries is somewhere between my love of bubble baths and my love for my first born child, I was shaken to my very core. Would I never be able to eat the most delicious of all potato preparations again? That's when the ingredient checking began. Fortunately for me, McDonald's is pretty much the only fast food restaurant that hates me; there is no beef tallow in other franchises' fries. Unfortunately, plenty of meat is sneaked into plenty of other food products:
Yogurt  - gelatin (discovered, devastatingly, after I fell in love with Dannon Whips and had already eaten several containers, and almost all brands have it)
Broccoli-cheese soup - chicken broth base
Chip dip - gelatin
Queso dip - beef broth
Spinach-artichoke dip - chicken broth
Wendy's Caesar salad - bacon
biscuits - lard
Cracker Barrel corn muffins - fried in bacon grease, and there is some form of meat product or another in damn near every other menu offering at this place
Zio's tomato and alfredo sauces - beef broth
95% of the time, your wait staff will not have a clue which menu items are vegetarian, and you can double that figure* if you're trying to ask the kid behind the fast food counter.
If by asking my advice my coworker is hoping to glean advice from a professional vegetarian, she should consult someone else. However, at the very least I can pass on the most priceless gem of wisdom in the sea of attempted meatlessness: Always, always check the ingredients.

*I'm pretty sure this figure of double 95% is accurate.

Book Reviewer

I love to read; always have. I don't have much time to read these days, with TV and the web and not making reading a priority getting in the way. Still, if a book grabs my attention, I will make time to actually read it. My interest level is purely based on the first few pages. If I haven't holed myself up in my room, blanket wrapped around me, blocking out the cries for Mommy's attention (my spoiled kids expect to eat every few hours, can you imagine?) by the second chapter, the cause is hopeless.
This is the case no matter what genre, which author, whose recommendation led me to, the glowing reviews of, or accolades awarded to the book. I love horror novels, but I had to claw my way through to finish reading The Shining, the Stanley Kubrick movie version of which terrifies me. I have tried to read books from Oprah's book club that I just couldn't be invested in enough to finish (We Were the Mulvaneys, The Poisonwood Bible). I have tried to read books with wonderful reviews that I just knew I'd love if I stuck with it (Wicked; which I did finish, but most decidedly did not love). My husband bought me Lord of the Rings years ago, and even being the geek I am, I haven't finished it, though I've tried several times. I never finished Gone With the Wind, a Pulitzer Prize winner. And normally, I devour books by Toni Morrison (my favorite), but could not finish Paradise.
As much as I wish I could say I only read novels that whisk me on an emotional journey to challenge my understanding of the world around me, I am a sucker for the shallow, gimmicky page-turner. The DaVinci Code: So predictable, so cliched, so adhered to my hands once I opened the cover. Red Dragon/Silence of the Lambs/Hannibal Rising: Graphic, horrific violence, as seen from the mind of the killer himself, and the worse it gets, the more you are compelled to get through the book so you can witness the good guy win.  The Sookie Stackhouse novels: Purely a guilty pleasure, but a pleasure indeed. Even when all that's happened on the page is the description of Sookie's outfit, I have never been tempted to put these books down.
I can't even list criteria here that makes a book entertaining for me, because I haven't found a pattern. I'm not able to say, "I like blank type of books that have blank happening and make me feel blank." I don't know what made me anxious to read every word of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister yet had to trudge through Wicked.  I don't know why I have so much fun delving into the alternate universe of the Sookie Stackhouse series but couldn't make it past the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It's not a subject, genre, or author that keeps me turning pages. A book reviewer would probably at least be able to tell you that the book wasn't worthy because "the material was ill researched and the writing was amateur," or that "the book comes alive with its vivid characters and gripping details." My entire book review, on the other hand, would either read "Finished it," or "Couldn't finish it," however unprofessional that writeup may be.