Genealogy

So, I was just burning a CD of genealogy info from my Mac to use on my PC, and opened some genealogy photos to test the burn. In the midst of my browsing and testing, I came across this image of my great-great-grandmother—my maternal grandfather’s maternal grandmother. (Did that make sense to you?)

Nora Marie Lemons, circa 1908OMG. Does anyone else think that, given a circa 1908 Katherine Janeway-style hairdo, I look like her? Can you see the resemblance? I can. It’s kind of weird. I looked at the whole picture, with her husband Harvey and child Lucille, and thought that Harvey looks a little like Grandpa Cook (or the other way around). Then it occured to me that Nora looks like Mom… and me! I mean, I know we’re related and all… duh… but it’s still kind of strange to look like someone who died almost a lifetime before I was born.

Beth, your family’s into genealogy—any input on genealogical photographic weirdness?

Good Intentions

I was so proud of myself. While I was at work, I scripted out the remainder of my day in half-hour increments. Half an hour for dinner, then cleaning the living and dining rooms, practicing mellophone, computer time, shower and personal grooming, all carefully plotted out.

When I got home, I saw Aaron off to work, ate dinner, and took a two-hour nap.

Gah!

Ah, well… I guess I needed the sleep. Strike the mello practice, and strike cleaning. *sigh*

This Weekend

Yesterday: Aaron and I went to BG to meet up with Timmay for lunch at Campus Pollyeyes. Their salads are friggin’ gigantic, so we weren’t too sad about watching Tim eat his yummy breadsticks. It occurred to us that they always kinda sit funny in your stomach, anyway—not in any sort of “sour grapes” sort of way, but in thinking of how Aaron and I would react to so much bread right now.

We spent two hours there at Pollyeyes, talking and catching up. Tim told the best drunk story ever, including him passing out on the train and being awakened at the end of the line and having to walk five miles home while calling his passed-out roommate who’s locked Tim out without his keys and then Tim eating breakfast at a local diner and finally breaking into his own apartment to find his roommate passed out in the bathroom. Classic story, and better than anything that ever happened at BGSU. I miss Tim. Heh.

After hanging out with Tim, we hit Goodwill and the Woodville Small, then went back up to Best Buy to purchase a scanner. Scanners these days are so cool. We got one that scans transparencies (most do now) and comes with this spiffy-assed scanning software that automatically detects where the pictures are on a strip of film and brings them up as thumbnails. Holy crap! Soooo cool. (Or maybe I’ve been away from cutting-edge technology for a while, having graduated college and all, and am just out of the loop.)

So, that was Saturday in a nutshell. Today involved me getting up and leaving the house around 9:20, getting ass-raped by the National City ATM (since the Sky ATM isn’t exactly close to home), getting half a tank of gas, and driving up to Clawson. There I met Barb and Russ, and they drove the rest of the way to the first official LakeShoremen full-corps rehearsal in Montrose, Michigan. Basically, a three-and-a-half hour trip one way for me. Rehearsal was from 1:00 to about 4:00, and was quite productive and very cool. We got to rehearse in an Ensemble setting with the percussion, then put the colorguard with the group as we figured out a parade formation. It’ll be interesting to see how the parade goes in two weeks—we didn’t get to actually move the parade block outside of the gym, as outdoor practicing was noise-prohibitive. (The drumline tried it and got called by the superintendent within five minutes.) In other related news, I started getting that old familiar twinge in my middle back, below my shoulder blades—the one I get when I stand at attention with my horn up for extended periods of time. It’s not an “ouch I hurt something” feeling; more of a “hmm I don’t use that muscle much and it’s really starting to feel hot and cold at the same time and it’ll be sore later” kind of feeling. And, yes, it’s sore right now.

Anyway, I finally got home around 7:15pm. Long day. Aaron had dinner just about done when I got home: barbecued chicken and grilled yellow squash. Mmm. He’s off doing food shopping now. He did my job of laundry earlier in the day. He’s so cool. I’m so lucky. *contented sigh*

My Butt

There were some of my friends in drumcorps who thought it would be great if a corps named themselves “Your Butt.” Not a name like the Cadets or the Vanguard or the Scouts or anything like that, but Your Butt. The one-liners would be great:

Ladies and Gentlemen, from Flint, Michigan: Your Butt!
Drum Major Dan Clouse, is Your Butt ready?
Your Butt may take the field in competition!

And so on. I’m only reminded of such things because I was thinking about my butt.

If you were too squeamish to read the LJ-cut from my last entry, you may not know that my butt is not exactly in shape yet. (Have you been looking?) Anyway, I located the post I was thinking of:

15 December 2003: Ladies—have you ever been walking behind someone, maybe someone at work, and finally taken a good look at their ass? And then you say to yourself, ‘My God… I hope my ass doesn’t look like that!’

While searching for this quotable, though, I did discover that I’ve been feeling uncomfortable about my ass for some time now. Almost exactly one year ago, in May of 2003, I said, “BTW, I never realized how dimply my big ass was until I cranked around and looked at it in the mirror at home, framed by the wondrous thong. I know, you didn’t want to think about that. Well, neither did I. Deal.”

Heh. Yeah. Except I wasn’t on Atkins then, and I was 41 pounds heavier than I am now. (!!!) Now I know I can do something about my butt if I give it a good try.

One other thing: You know when you’re sitting in the back seat of a car, and all you can see of yourself in the rearview mirror is your nose, chin, and neck? I used to hate that; I’d crane my neck to get my double-chin to finally almost disappear, and then just get depressed. Well, today I went to lunch with some folks from Lockbox, and sat in the back seat—and saw no double-chin! Holy crap, it’s gone! It’s really, totally gone.

And I don’t miss it.

Randomness to keep the boredom at bay

Dammit… I hate it when I’m bored. And tired.

My definition of being bored is when nothing you can think of sounds good. Usually this is when I would eat something. Good thing our fridge is out of instant food snacky items like hot dogs and lunchmeat and low-carb tortillas, and I’m tired of string cheese.

So… um… I guess I’ll go through my stack of scrap paper on which I have written things I should blog about, and write about them until I decide it’s time to go to bed or go read or something. (I really do have a stack of scrap paper on my desk, with stuff I need to do and to blog about. I write myself notes at work, since I’ll get canned for posting to my LJ on the job, or even on break.)

I made an unfortunate discovery last night. Remember back when I was blogging about “I hope my ass doesn’t look like that”? (I can’t find the entry, but I remember writing it.) Well, before I took my shower last night, I was contemplating myself in the full-length mirror. —Yeah, I know, just hold your upchuck till the end of my story, OK? Anyway, I was contemplating the fact that I recently downgraded (or would it be upgrading?) from “obese” to “slightly overweight,” according to my BMI of 30. Sooo… I took my hand mirror, turned around, and looked at my bare ass.

And let me tell you, it was not a pretty sight.

My ass does look like that.

I look much better from the side than from either the front or the back. Get myself a boob lift, lose some more paunch/gut/fat/belly/whathaveyou, and I’d be looking downright normal when viewed from the side. From the front… now that’s going to take a bit more work.

In other news, hearing 30- and 40-somethings in my office discuss how to spell “whoop-ass” (or, as they insist, “whup-ass”) is quite amusing.

Something else I heard from one nearly-50-year-old woman in my office, regarding her 401(k): “It’s my future—you’d think I’d pay more attention. But I don’t have the time to look into all these things! It’s like a crapshoot; you just hope for the best.” Wow… I’ve got thirty-some-odd years until retirement, and I check my 401(k) at least monthly, if not weekly. This woman is my Mom’s age, and she just doesn’t give a shit. That’s amazing. (Of course, my Mom’s going to be working until she dies, for lack of any savings whatsoever.)

Oh, and you’ve gotta take this quiz. The results will amaze you.

After you’ve done that, use some free long-distance minutes to call this recording: 248-262-6861. It’s a Detroit number, and it’s just the cost of the long-distance call. It’s not some weird 900-number thing. Just call it, OK? You’ll be glad you did.

OK, um… I think I’m done now.