The Delicate Art of Life

I received a post on this blog early this morning that made me take pause. It was from a woman that used to date my late uncle. Apparently, she was searching for him and came across my grandfather's obituary that I had posted last year. She said she had been looking for him for a while, and this was the closest she had come to finding him. I responded to her explaining that my uncle passed away in a car accident 17 years ago, and also explained that he was able to save several lives by being an organ donor. I was glad that I was able to help her get some closure.

Writing her tonight made me think about how short life is and how delicate relationships can be. I have often wondered if I have told everything I need to everyone that I care about... that if I were to die today, if I have said it all. But what never occurred to me, is has everyone else told me everything they need to? Or are there even people out there at all that would care enough about me to search me out 17 years after my death?

I hope that my life will make a difference. It's my job to find out how.

The Art of Friendship

Best friends require one-on-one contact to survive. Telephone calls and getting together are musts for best friends to continue.

In fact, probably the quickest way to end a friendship is to neglect it and sever contact.

Yet it is hard to make time in a busy day and busy life to maintain our friends. But you don't have to have hours to spare to maintain a friendship.

Instead try the following to keep from neglecting your friends:

• Send frequent email. Email is a boon for a quick note.
• Call once a week. Telephone calls do not take long.
• Keep in touch through brief messages left on answering machines.
• Send an occasional card. Funny and/or appropriate cards take minutes to choose and address.
• Exercise together. We all have to exercise. It is more fun with a friend, plus, there is no better place for talking than a walk in the park.
• Clean house together. This is another must do and two makes cleaning fun instead of boring.
• Send pictures. A picture is still worth a thousand words.
• Go to lunch at least once a month. More often would be better.

Follow the advice of Victoria Rayner, author of The Survival Guide for Today's Career Woman:

• Be a good listener; refrain from offering advice or moralizing.
• Respect your friend's point of view. Different personalities can complement each other; it isn't always necessary to see eye to eye.
• Never betray a trust. Trust, when violated, can ruin even the best friendship.
• Support and praise your friends; ignore their failures and imperfections.
• Never resent a friend's success. Instead, strive to admire her achievements.

Flexibility is always important for maintaining friendships. Be understanding when your friend has a last minute change in plans. Learn to accept "I'm sorry to cancel, but we will have another time together Sunday."

When paths begin to separate (you are married; he isn't or you have a baby; she is still childless) at forks in the road of life, that is the most important time of all to stay in touch with friends.

When there is conflict, it must be resolved for friendship to continue. Confrontation is one way to resolve conflict. Talking it out is another.

A cooling-off period is sometimes necessary when conflict has occurred. Once you reinitiate conflict, it may not even be necessary to discuss the conflict.

By Joy Stevens

Poems

I wrote this February 9, 1998. I believe this was for a creative writing exercise in college. At the time, I was happily in a relationship so I don't think I had a muse for this, but was trying to do some play on words and see if I could pull it off. Although a bit cheesy, I kind of like the 4th stanza:

The Four Elements of Love

How I dream to be the mighty wind,
To carry the wings of your love,
To whisk you away to far off places,
And anywhere else I dare dream of.

And Oh, to be the placid water,
That from your cup you sip,
To be brought to your glorious mouth,
Feeling the sticky sweet touch of your lips.

Oh, to be the trembling earth,
That lay beneath your feet,
To be the stable ground you rely on,
To have your trust be mine to keep.

But oh! I beg the Lord above,
To let me be a ravishing fire,
For there is nothing that I’d rather be,
Than your very own burning desire.

This one was written in 1997 for an English project:

A is for Apple

Apples fall
briskly from the
careless tree
drizzling an
enormous amount of
fruit in one
gigantic
heap of
indecision.
Just then, a zestful
kite flies
lightly across the sky into the
mass of branches
now no longer bearing apples. The
odious tree, that
plummeted red gems,
quietly imprisons the kite in
revenge and
secures it in a
teasing,
ultra apathetic and
violent
way. Then-- the anti-
xenial plant releases the
young aerodynamic
zestless aircraft to join the heap of victims below.

I wrote the below poem in 10th grade when my best friend and boyfriend started dating. That was a traumatic year for a 15 year old. Although the poetry is dreadful, I really like the clever use of shapes to describe what happened that year:

Shapes

There were four of us,
Two happy couples,
We were thrilled to see,
Our love in doubles.

It was her and him,
And me and you,
Our square was wonderful,
As it was brand new.

Then her and him split,
Yet we still remained,
The three of us were friends,
In happiness uncontained.

Soon we had a triangle,
I had yet to perceive,
Because you and her,
Began to deceive--me.

The triangle formed a nasty circle,
With fighting, and yelling,
What would happen next,
There was no telling.

So now the circle,
Became a single line,
Connecting two points,
And neither point was mine.

You and her connected,
Ignoring the square,
You acted so happy,
Without so much as a care.

Then she cut the line,
You two had to part,
And all of us involved,
Were back at the start.

Now we're all points,
Just floating around,
None are connected,
No shape can be found.

All I ask,
As if you even care,
Is for me, you, her, and him,
To again just be square.

New Look

I thought I'd change things around a bit and gave my blog a new look, with the help of google's new interfaces. I also like the green theme -- a little more serene than my old blog.

Enjoy!

Don't Have Room For a Compost Heap?

Compost in your kitchen!

Whateva

I was walking Bailey tonight in my 'hood when I found a CD on the ground labeled "Whateva - February 23, 2007". I popped it into my computer and the following tracks were found:

• Wouldn't Get Far -- Kanye West
• That's That Dirty -- Snoop Dogg
• Go Getta -- Young Jeezy
• I Luv It Dirty -- Young Jeezy
• Soul Surv -- Young Jeezy & Akon
• Locked Up Remix Dirty -- Akon
• Don't Matter -- Akon
• This is Why I'm Hot -- MIMS
• Throw Some Ds -- Rich Boy
• Oh Yeah -- Lil' Scrappy
• Money In the Bank -- Lil' Scrappy
• Want You -- Young Lloyd & Lil Wayne
• What Goes Around Comes Around -- Justin Timberlake
• Runaway Love -- Ludacris
• Affirmative Action -- Nas
• You Never Know -- Immortal Technique
• Dance With the Devil -- Immortal Technique

I don't really have anything to say about it, but I may submit the CD to FOUND.

From Dictionary.com...

tic·ky-tack·y
–adjective

1.	shoddy and unimaginatively designed; flimsy and dull: a row of new, ticky-tacky bungalows.

Little Boxes

There's a fairly new show on Showtime called Weeds. The premise of the show is pretty interesting -- it's about a suburban housewife whose husband dies and she's left with no money. In order to keep the lifestyle that her and her children are accustomed to, she decides to become a drug dealer.

The theme song of the show is called "Little Boxes" which describes South Riding and all the other neighborhoods like it perfectly:

Little Boxes

by Malvina Reynolds

Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of tickytacky
Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same
There's a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses all went to the university
Where they were put in boxes and they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and there's lawyers, and business executives
And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course and drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children and the children go to school
And the children go to summer camp and then to the university
Where they are put in boxes and they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business and marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

I often wonder how much longer I am going to be able to continue to live in my "box made of ticky tacky" and still be a unique, functioning member of society.

Religious Persecution A-OK, Gay Bashing? Not so Much...

From the front page of msn.com today:

When a few classmates razzed Rebekah Rice about her Mormon upbringing with questions such as, "Do you have 10 moms?" she shot back: "That's so gay."

After Rice got a warning and a notation in her file, her parents sued, claiming officials at Santa Rosa's Maria Carillo High violated their daughter's First Amendment rights when they disciplined her for uttering a phrase "which enjoys widespread currency in youth culture," according to court documents.

But school officials say they took a strict stand against the put down after two boys were paid to beat up a gay student the year before.

"The district has a statutory duty to protect gay students from harassment," the district's lawyers argued in a legal brief. "In furtherance of this goal, prohibition of the phrase 'That's so gay' ... was a reasonable regulation."

Rice's parents, Elden and Katherine Rice, also claim the public high school employed a double-standard because, they say, administrators never sought to shield Rebekah from teasing based on Mormon stereotypes.

Ok, granted... the suing of the school may have been a little much, and the expression "that's so gay" is not the most PC term in the world, but seriously -- giving a child a warning for saying "that's so gay" but turning a blind eye to the kids that were making fun of her religion?

Digging for Graves

A week ago, I started delving into my genealogy projects some more. My newest discovery was that I was able to determine that Lord Calvert of Baltimore was my 10th- great grandfather... pretty cool stuff. At any rate, while digging up my past, I came across a website called findagrave.com. Apparently, there are people that go around to cemeteries all over the world and document graves. Findagrave has even listed its top posters -- some people submitting over 50,000 graves to this site!

There's also a neat feature on the site where if you really want a picture of a grave, and you are not able to travel there, you can request that a grave hunter go and photograph it for you. Cool!

I was able to find my grandmother on this site who passed away in 2005 and some of my ancestors as well. You can also do searches for famous people and leave "virtual flowers" at the graves.

My Makeover

For my birthday, my mother-in-law purchased an "Excitation" for me -- basically it was a gift certificate for an experience of my choice. I chose to have a one-on-one makeup consultation with celebrity makeup artist Erwin Gomez in Georgetown.

The whole experience lasted about an hour and a half, and was a lot of fun. I learned a lot of great makeup tips like dont use your fingers to put on foundation, never put concealer on your pimples (go figure) and dont use brown mascara on a fair complexion. After my "free" experience, he promptly asked me if I wanted to take home some of the "product" he used on me. "Sure," I replied.

Before I knew it, he loaded everything he used on me into a bag and handed it to the cashier. "That will be $400 dollars please." GULP!!!!!!!!! So much for my celebrity experience.

Erwin was great -- apparently he does the Bush twins' eyebrows and after some googling, I found out they attended his wedding in 2004. Wonder what W thought about that one?

First Honeybees, now Frogs?

I think humans are next...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251365,00.html?sPage=fnc.science/naturalscience

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,252215,00.html

Even Drug Smugglers Have Rights in America!

Not sure if any of you have heard about this one. Apparently, a while back, there were two border patrol agents that caught a Mexican citizen trying to smuggle 725 pounds of marijuana into the country. The guy decided to run, so the agents shot at him, hitting him in the butt. Not only are the two border patrol agents in jail serving 11 and 12 year terms, but the drug smuggler has been granted amnesty and is suing the US Government for 5 million dollars.

There's a million articles swirling about on this one, but here's one of them:
http://www.startribune.com/484/story/995662.html

Blast from the Past

I was reading a bunch of my saved documents from college, and happened across this letter that I posted on our school cafeteria's comment board. The board was designed for note card sized comments, but I took it a bit further by posting this...

Dear Wood Company:

I have just read the article in the student newspaper about your services. Although I am not fully satisfied with everything you have to offer, I believe that the letter was not fair to your company because it did a lot of complaining and didn’t list any solutions. Therefore, I would like to tell you a little about what I have observed my 3 semesters here at Mary Washington.

First of all, I am very pleased with your comment board. You always respond promptly to students ideas and if an idea is not feasible, you list the reasons why. This tells us that you actually do care about our concerns. Also, I understand that it is very difficult to provide for a large amount of students. You either please most the students some of the time or some of the students most of the time. It is a no win situation, and I congratulate you on putting forth your best efforts. With that said, I would like to list a variety of concerns that I have and possible solutions to remedy these problems.

The first thing I would like to point out, is your cakes. These cakes taste so good when they’re fresh! However, when you cut them up in individual slices, they quickly get stale because all four sides are exposed to the air. Why don’t you place the entire cake out uncut and let students cut the cake themselves? That way, you don’t have to worry about cutting the cakes, and we don’t have to worry about them getting stale!

The second thing, is the sodas. This seems like a very simple solution to a very frequent problem. A day doesn’t go by when all the syrup is gone from the soda machines leaving us with a glass of club soda. This past week, all the sodas but Dr. Pepper were out of syrup in the North Room. This leaves students with little options when the milk is frequently sour and the juices are just as watery as the sodas. If you could check the syrup on the machines more often, I do believe this could be solved.

Another thing I’m sure you have noticed is the ice cream. Have you noticed that after a while, the only thing that is left in the freezers are popsicles? This is because none of the students will eat them because of the thick coating of slime covering each one. If you could either order less popsicles and more ice cream, or find a way to regulate the freezers so the slime doesn’t appear, you’d have a lot more students eating the frozen treats.

Also, college students are scared of “gourmet” foods. I wanted to give you an example of a name of one of these foods but when I asked my friends, they all said, “I don’t remember… I don’t eat those.” And it’s true! The food in the South Room is unappealing mainly because of its “exotic” names. Instead of oranges and zucchini, serve things like mashed potatoes and gravy! Give us old fashioned foods that our mothers make like fried chicken and stuffing and corn instead of eggplant and rutabaga. I’m sure you’ll get a much larger response if the foods we are given are familiar to us.

Another concern we tend to have is that of “recycled food.” This means that one day, you’ll serve sweet potatoes and the next day, you’ll serve sweet potato soup. I understand your need to conserve, but it automatically triggers a red flag in our minds and we tend to steer clear of foods served the day before. A large concern of students is food poisoning and “recycled food” poses a huge threat to our weak tummies.

I hope that these suggestions were of a help to you and I thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Michelle Lambiasi

New Game

It's pretty easy, but fun for a few minutes.

Global Warming

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17042993/?GT1=9033

Dog DNA -- Email

Hello Michelle

Thank you for your interest in the MMI Genomics Canine Heritage™ test product. Canine Heritage™ test kits will be available at the end of February. We will send you information to request a sampling kit at that time. Please watch your mailbox for further Canine Heritage™ news over the next few weeks. The cost of the test will be $65 per dog.

Currently, these 38 breeds (listed below) are included in the Canine Heritage™ test.

If you have any more questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Paul

Afghan Hound
Akita
Basenji
Basset Hound
Beagle
Belgian Tervuren
Bernese Mountain Dog
Border Collie
Borzoi
Boxer
Bulldogs
Chihuahua
Chinese Shar-Pei
Chow chow
Cocker Spaniel
Collie
Dachshund
Doberman Pinscher
English Setter
German Shepherd Dog
German Shorthaired Pointer
Golden Retriever
Greyhounds
Italian Greyhound
Labrador Retriever
Mastiff
Miniature Schnauzer
Poodle
Pug
Rottweiler
Saluki
Samoyed
Shetland Sheepdog
Shih Tzu
Siberian Husky
St Bernard
Whippet
Yorkshire Terrier

Dog DNA

Ok, so I've tested myself, my next step is to test Bailey. Once the kit becomes available at the end of the month, poor ol' Bailey is gettin the cheek swab!

http://www.metamorphixinc.com/products3.html

In the News

I subscribe to Popular Science and in reading some of the recent issues today, I found some cool things going on in our technology world...

• Open Source Textbooks: At www.curriki.org, you can register to start reading free, online textbooks. Although it is in its infancy now, this tool may be just the key to saving our schools hundreds of millions of dollars.
• Growing Bladders from DNA: A scientist was able to build a bio-degradable scaffold of a bladder, spray a patient's bladder cells onto the scaffold and presto! A new bladder.
  
• Cure for Asthma: By sticking a tube down a patient's throat and into their lungs, radio frequency signals blast the walls of the lungs to get rid of asthma attacks.
• Katrina-Stopping Nails: By re-engineering the nail, inventors were able to create a nail so strong that the roofs of houses no longer will sheer off in hurricane winds.
• Periodic Table: One of the editors of PopSci spent four years assembling a collection of elements for a real-life periodic table and photographing them. It's kinda cool to look at -- you can even order a poster of the table for your home or office enjoyment!
  
• Censored Hammer: Although not necessary revolutionary, I also read an article about a new hammer called the "FUBAR" which was designed for demolition work. Now tell me, how in the world did Stanley get away with that? I can picture 5 years olds watching their Dads hard at work and asking if they can have a try at the FUBAR.