No veto, no veto, no veto--Stop!

Veto power is a funny thing. It’s weird to think that you can have the power to say no, but not the power to say yes. And especially weird when it’s 5 people with veto power trying to make a decision. You can always say no, but you have to leave it up to everyone else when you want to say yes.

We’ve been working through the house buying process for a few weeks now (Really? That’s it? It feels like months!), but I’m happy to report we’re making progress. Maybe. We made our first offer this week, although it’s pretty outrageous so I’m not holding my breath. This is the first property no one has vetoed, or at least doubted, so we're moving forward. Here’s our potential (and I use that word loosely) new home:

16681 W 48^th Ln.

Don’t bother google-mapping it…it’s too new to be on there. Here’s what it looks like on the exterior:

Snazzy, eh?

It’s got 2,608 finished square feet. ..and another 2,608 unfinished square feet. So yeah, that’s a 5216 square foot house. To continue the spoiling-to-rottenness, we would get to pick all our: carpet, granite countertops, wood stain colors, paint colors, tile floors, fixtures, and other customizations.

Here are a couple interior shots:

Basically, we (and by we, I mean my parents…you do know I work for a nonprofit and will never, ever be able to afford a house like this when I buy one someday, right?) told the builder, who is off-loading these houses in a fire sale to reduce their inventory and satisfy their lender, that we will generously take it off their hands if they want to give us a nice Christmas present. We’ve told them sternly that they need to finish it for us, pay off the back taxes, and promise to never over-extend themselves again—all in the next three days—and then we will give them a fraction of its value. If they go for it, I throwing the biggest President’s Day party in the history of President’s Day parties. Come on, no veto by the builder!

My Fellow Prisoners

In honor of this exciting moment in politics, I thought I’d share my favorite quotes about the election that became my favorites after I just googled them. I had every intention of collecting jokes on both sides of the fence, but the McCain ones are just so darn much funnier. C’est la vie. Before we get started though, these kiddos stopped me in Five Points today and asked if I wanted to take their picture (as I stood there photographing one of our buildings). Well, duh. It gave my heart a happy little flutter knowing these boys finally had a hero who wasn’t in a gang, or undereducated, or jail-bound...and wasn’t even a pro sports player. They finally have someone to speak for them, to inspire them, to show them that they too have a right and a duty to do more and be more. Anyway, that’s enough mushy stuff. I miss my sarcasm and cynicism already…

"John McCain looks like a guy who's backed over his own mailbox. He looks like a guy at a restaurant that says I'm leaving 10%, that's good enough. He looks like the guy that goes to the curb for the paper and locks himself outside of the house.” –David Letterman

"A woman at a John McCain rally said that Barack Obama is an Arab. And McCain quickly corrected her. It was really awkward, because McCain had to tell her, 'Look, Governor Palin, you are wrong.'" --Jay Leno

"And the only really new proposal last night came from John McCain. McCain proposed buying up bad homeowner mortgages. Not to save the middle class. You know McCain, he just likes buying houses." --Jay Leno

"How are you going to be the vice president of the United States with five kids to take care of? She's got a four-month-old of her own, she's about to become a grandmother, and she's partnered with John McCain. How many diapers can one woman possibly change?" --Jimmy Kimmel

"[Sarah Palin] knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America.” –-John McCain

John McCain released 1,200 pages of his medical records. Or, as his doctor calls it, Chapter One." --Conan O'Brien

"People are now talking about the ticket, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Would that be a good ticket? And I think this would be the first, if you think about it, first combination of an African American man and a white woman since, well, Michael Jackson." --David Letterman

"38 million people watched Obama at the stadium in Denver. There were 84,000 full-throated supporters who turned out there at the field. The Republicans fired back today. They say, 'We can also fill a stadium with thousands of screaming people. For example, the Superdome during Hurricane Katrina.'" –Bill Maher

"This isn't a presidential ticket, this is a sitcom. The maverick and the MILF." –Bill Maher

Blogging for a Cause

Today is Blog Action Day. Bloggers are supposed to unite to discuss a single issue (in this case, poverty), to raise awareness, initiate action, and to "shake" the web.

Because I have an interview tomorrow at 8am, followed immediately by picking my parents up from the airport, I do not have time to exhilarate you all with my extensive and exhaustively-researched thesis on ending poverty. Thus, here is a summary, with the full text available in hard copy from the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.:

Poverty sucks--don't be poor. If you are poor, first, blame your parents, then, get an education and/or marry rich. Don't get too much education though, or you'll know so much about poor people that you'll feel compelled to give up all you own and move to some Somaliopia country and live in poverty with the natives, eating bugs and composting your own feces. Also, don't marry too rich or poor people will start harrassing you for money. In conclusion, don't be poor.

Thank you for listening. This has been a public service announcement.

For All Those Who Comment

I have a present for you. You better appreciate it, because it took a lot of time and effort. Ctrl+c, Ctrl+v, "Go"...phew! Man I work hard for you. Anyway, you can thank me later. Here, in visually-stunning form, are 'your' words as 'art' (compliments of wordle.net).

First we've got RiCap, which apparently is all about drinking. What a lush!
Then we have The Love Mussell. These aren't really his words, but the words of his employer, convincing young mappers to get a job with them. It's a tremendous opportunity, I hear.

The Minton Messenger is Wordle gold, and think it even re-taught me some insults that I hadn't used in awhile. Take that, Hobag McQueer.

Just for good measure, here's typeSaRAH, which is really lame by comparison. I need to improve my blogging vocabulary.
Think this is awesome? Try it with the transcripts of the pres and vp debates! Fun for the whole family!!

I Want My Name Back

So, it looks like 2-3 posts a month is about as much as I’m capable of. Meh. My excuse this time, and for the next couple months, is that counting calories takes a long time. Granted, I get to play with spreadsheets so I don’t mind, but it does make me less likely to write anything after I finish.

Adrienne, you never told me this blog stuff was so much work.

So instead of writing anything, I’m going to steal someone else’s material. This Thursday is the Vice Presidential Debate. Grab yourself a 30-pack of PBR (PBR Light if you're counting calories like me) and settle in for the:

SARAH PALIN VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE DRINKING GAME

Take a chug whenever Sarah Palin says any of the following:

· Maverick

· Reformer

· Any sentence including the words "neighbor" and "Russia"

· Small-Town Values

· Gwen or Joe

· Off-Shore Oil Drilling

· Alaska

· "Thanks but no thanks!"

· Witchcraft (you never know…)

Take two chugs whenever Sarah Palin does any of the following:

· Utters a complete and coherent sentence

· Talks about her new friend Henry Kissinger or Hamid Karzai

· Explains how being the part-time mayor of Wasilla, Alaska counts as executive experience

Chug a whole beer (and buy your plane ticket to Canada) if Sarah Palin mentions the following:

· Palin Presidency

Clique-ity Clack

If you’ve had the enormous pleasure of listening me talk about my job, you may have noticed that our cast of characters is particularly um…special. Seriously. And as I listened to three of them talk today about how much they hate our residents, I decided the absurdity of it all was worth a few paragraphs of story-time, even if mere words are not enough to capture it. So today, we’re going to talk about relationships.

Zenzal, the oldest employee on staff, likes to say that everything in life is about relationships. Relationship-building is her job essentially, and she let’s everyone know about it. And yet, I feel like the relationships we have built with each other and with our residents are so complicated and love-hate.

To start with, we have more cliques than your average middle school, and we’ve only got 21 employees. Everyone belongs to multiple cliques, and sometimes you don’t even know which ones you’re in and which ones you aren’t. For example, Jessie and I are the young-people clique. We do stuff outside of the office together, vent about our co-workers, and always check in after a weekend to see how each other is doing. And we tell secrets. But I’m also a part of the admin clique. Not because I’m supposed to be a part of the admin operations, but because I always end up taking part whether I want to or not. Also the IT clique. We’re the group that laughs at the rest of the employees for their complete and utter lack of computer/office machine literacy. There’s only two of us, sadly.

Then there’s the smoker’s club. They all sit in the corner adjacent to my desk and cackle in their raspy voices about how much they hate our residents. This clique is particularly interesting to me, because of their relationship to our residents. Employees typically are one, two, or three degrees of separation from the low-income folks that live on our properties. Property managers and maintenance are the ones that deal with residents directly, all the time. The smoker’s club consists of the employees that are two degrees of separation away. They deal with residents often, maybe even every day, but it’s not their primary job. Three degrees would be me and the rest of us cubical prairie dogs. But the smoker’s club hates our employees with a passion. They get that they’re poor and hurting and they are deeply compassionate and caring for them…in theory. But they sit in their corner of the office and mock them and complain about them. Those who are only one degree away deal with the frustrations more often than the smoker’s club, but they are all just as poor as our residents. We have two black property managers who are raising children and grandchildren on single-parent salaries, two maintenance workers who are Hispanic, working for peanuts, and barely speak English, and one maintenance worker who has to push-start his car and who most would consider to be white trash. But these five employees don’t hate our residents. They might complain here or there, but for the most part they are in the same boat and would do the same thing themselves if the roles were reversed.

Our residents don’t make it easy though; they are racist and mean, and generally very demanding. With 95% of the population at one of our properties being black, they refer to Jessie and Nicola as “that white woman” (yes, they are one and the same, even though one is a 26 year old, 5’10” and 120lb with long blond hair and one is a late 30s, 5’7” and uh, much larger woman with short black hair), and when they’re not berating us for the ‘expensive’ rent and the police presence (they prefer privacy to safety), they also treat us as couple’s counseling. They will come in hollering about how their wife dumped out their Folgers and replaced it with “cheap-ass” Maxwell House and she will respond with a “Why you gotta be tellin’ these white folks about our personal biznis!?”
Our staff is very diverse, and that race issue pops up, even amongst ourselves. The other day Jessie elbowed me in a meeting and showed me what she had written in the margin of her notepad: “We self-segregated!” I looked up, and saw 5 black faces on the side of the table across from me, and then looked up and down my side of the table and saw white after white after white. It certainly wasn’t intentional, but I doubt it was purely coincidence either. Jessie was telling me the other day about Property Manager meetings, and how they’ve gone from productive work events to drinking gossip fests, and how she is the white macadamia chip in their chocolate-chocolate chip cookie. Five black women and Jessie all get together and gab, and make fun of her for not understanding their ‘black’ jokes…yet, they don’t invite Letitia, who is actually black. Because although her skin might be black, Letitia is perhaps whiter than I am (yes, I know that’s hard to imagine).

We’ve got an extreme-faith clique (Oh, you thought they were all extreme? Well consider them extreme and extremer), a Spanish-speaker’s clique, a mother’s clique, an accounting clique (for some reason accounting laughs more than any other department…I think all the numbers made them crazy), and on and on and on. I understand some of it, and past jobs have certainly had that grouping mentality, but I’ve never been in a group that has formed so many smaller groups. Forget an org chart—I want a clique chart. AKA, I’m going to spend the next 45 minutes here at work creating a color-coded Venn Diagram of our cliques. Awesome.

Digital Dating for Dummies

You might think that I should write a post about politics. I was in the stadium for Obama’s latest speech, after all. And I come from Sarah Palin’s state and could throw my two cents about her qualifications into the oozing, bloated mass of commentary already flooding the internet. But that would be too predictable.

Instead, there is a much more important matter that requires my attention: dating advice. It’s come to my attention that some of my more silent readers are having dating issues that need addressing, and I would be remiss to not tackle them here and now. And so I give you: Digital Dating for Dummies.

Way back in the 20th century, after a first date, you spent the next several days gnawing your fingernails and dialing six numbers before hanging up as you tried to decide how long was the right amount of long to wait before calling to ask for a second date. Oh, the good ol’ days. Now you have the option of dialing six numbers before flipping your phone closed, halfway typing “How R U?” before hitting Clear repeatedly, partially writing an email before selecting Save to Drafts, or double-clicking on her ‘fLiRteeKitTeN1989’ screenname to bring up a window, but not typing anything before closing it again. Is a phone call too eager? A text too informal? What if she doesn’t check her email regularly? What if she forgot to sign off and her mom is on the computer now? OH GOD IT’S ALL SO STRESSFUL.

Never fear, dear readers, for the Dating Advice Columnist is here to teach you what the correct response to every situation is using the many tools available to you in this digital world.

Situation One: You get an email from your potential amour and her girl logic has you confused about what she’s saying. So you email it to your best girlfriend for advice. Or did you hit reply? Shit.

Do you:

a) Call her immediately, explain, apologize, and then humbly accept her decision to block your number and never speak to you again

b) Email her 50 more times with funny forwards so that that first damning email gets pushed out of her inbox and on to the next page and hope that she just deletes all the emails from you after realizing the first couple were all just stupid forwards

c) Send her a series of texts that lead her on a scavenger hunt, keeping her away from her house long enough to sneak in, hack into her computer, and delete the file

d) Do nothing, and when she asks, claim that the neighbor’s cat was walking on your keyboard and must’ve accidentally sent the email.

Obviously A is not a good option, as honesty rarely is. And as awesome as it might be to get away with B or C, getting caught would definitely be awkward, so better not to risk it. Go D, and then if she does ask, and you pull out the cat excuse, you can then immediately segway into your I-Hate-Cats speech and if she doesn’t sympathize it wasn’t mean to be anyway. Stupid cats.
Situation Two: You and your potential amour exchange phone numbers. Soon you’re happily having 5-hour-long text message conversations and are so enamored that you’re ready to take it to the next level…the phone call. Unfortunately, she does not answer your calls, nor does she return your voicemails.

Do you:

a) Think that maybe she’s right, you’re moving too fast, and settle into a happy text-only relationship

b) Email her a gift certificate for prepaid cell phone minutes in case her plan is unlimited texts but no phone calls unless your Circle and her Fave Five overlap…and they don’t

c) Start responding to her text messages with voicemails, staying within the 160 character limit so they’re short and choppy

d) Change your phone number and then call, and if she answers, you know it’s intentional that she’s not answering your calls…what a bitch.

Talking on the phone can be stressful, so I don’t blame her. With a text, you can always think about what you’re going to write before you LOL back, even if it was only sort of funny and you only really chuckled a little bit; on the phone, you’d have to actually laugh, God forbid. I don’t think you need to actually change your number to try out D…just call from a friend’s phone, and then hang up and text-dump her if she answers. And I wouldn’t spend any money on her, like option B yet…she’s obviously shady. So that leaves A and C. If you’re the wussy, accommodating type, go route A; if you’re the manly, sarcastic type, option C it is.

Situation Three: As you browse dating profiles on your e-match site of choice, an email pops into your inbox of love. Moderately attractive, somewhat intelligent, warm, breathing, and you’re reasonably sure she’s female? That requires a reply! So you jot a few witty lines in reply and send them off into cyberspace. Lo and behold, she wrote back! You breathlessly open the email and begin to read… “I’m so glad Jesus finally brought me my perfect other half and cannot wait to learn everything there is to know about you. I just cancelled my account, so I’m free forever! When do you want to meet?”

Do you:

a) Clap excitedly and call the phone number she included after taking a moment to genuflect and murmur a little heavenly “Thank You”

b) LOL, then call her bluff with a little reply email… “Sweetheart, I’ve had this ring and no finger to put it on for so long. What God has brought together, let no man tear apart…”

c) Shrug, and tell yourself she can’t possibly be crazier than the narcoleptic Tourette’s she-male who set your couch on fire, and send her a little smiley face IM

d) This is no time for jokes. Run. Change your email, phone number, address, and legal name. Say goodbye to your loved ones, because you can never see them again. Hurry!

Alright drama queen, take a deep breath and stop shouting the letter ‘D’. She still only has your e-match email, remember? And if she cancelled her account, then you’re definitely safe. So I guess that makes this a trick question. I can’t in good conscience recommend A, but although B and C will likely produce awesome stories, you may end up rigor mortised in a dumpster with her name carved in your chest. I’d go with option ‘E’ and set her up with that guy at your office that so desperately needs to get laid that he starts sweating uncontrollably if a female walks within 10 feet of him.

Well, all this advice-ing has me plum tuckered out! Hopefully you all can handle your dating issues for a few weeks without me. I need a vacation.

Exhaustedly yours,
Dating Advice Columnist Lady

Ode to a Crossword Puzzle

First, read this article. Or, at least the first page. The second and third pages are a lot more of the same.

http://www.slate.com/id/2198171

Dear Mr. Rosenbaum,

As you clearly state in your rant, because I am a puzzle-enthusiast I must not enjoy literary pursuits, and thus would have no idea who Livy is; so here is a quote I probably made up by someone named ‘Livy’ who maybe is my great Aunt or maybe the homeless lady that stands outside my office or maybe a Roman historian whose work I used to translate when I studied Latin:

“We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.”

Since you also clearly state that the complex rules of Sudoku are beyond your ability to master, I can understand your fear of puzzle-people. Obviously I fear all North Koreans, homosexuals, Wiccans, non-English speakers, people in wheelchairs, senior citizens, and men, because I don’t understand any of them. Heck, my own grandmother argued for half an hour with my sister about her identity, and calls me by her daughter-in-law’s name—that logic makes no sense to me and so I am totally afraid of all 5 feet and white hair of her. And Wiccans…man—they can cast spells!

I’d also like to apologize for using my lunch break to do puzzles when I could work on solving the world’s problems like you do by writing such thought-provoking articles. The work that I do the other 8 hours that I’m in downtown Denver—finding homes for low-income families and helping them break the cycle of poverty through education and access to resources—well, that’s just downright selfish compared to the good I could be doing by using those hours for reading. Maybe if I read the Kite Runner the many social ills plaguing Afghanistan (I’ve heard rumors, but obviously my Kakuro puzzles don’t keep me up-to-date on the specifics) would just dry up. And maybe if I started reading the hard-hitting news articles about the rapists and the murderers I would suddenly have the power to make those things stop. Here I was thinking that action might solve these problems, but now I know that I just need to start reading more about the problems. I’m so glad you’ve cleared up my misconceptions.

I forget sometimes that I’m supposed to be as sad and frustrated and depressed as the rest of the world. I forget that my doing a crossword puzzle in the Starbucks of Tears, as you call it, is insulting to those in grief while your reading a book is comforting and proactive. You truly are an American hero, Mr. Rosenbaum, and I applaud your dedication to the eradication of disease and heartache. I am confident that when you finish War and Peace, it will lead to a cure for AIDS, and if you could please just make it through Gulliver’s Travels I know we’ll be on our way to lowered obesity rates and the end of civil unrest.

I’d offer to teach you the rules of Sudoku, but I wouldn’t want such a creative literary mind to get lost in the wan sterility of puzzles and get drained of its imagination. In fact, you should probably start wearing a tinfoil hat—you wouldn’t want any of our brain leaches to get to you. Fear us—fear the threatening plague of puzzle-doers. It’s too late for me, but you can still save yourself…

With a complete lack of sarcasm,
Dating Advice Columnist & Puzzle Fan

List-en Up

Is three weeks too long in between posts? Too bad. I’ve been busy! So here, in happy list form, is what I’ve been up to:

1. Festivals. Colorado apparently celebrates the arrival of every weekend with beer and music. Not a bad combo, really! In the last month or two I’ve been to Brewgrass and the New West Fest, was invited to Brewfest and the Irish Festival (although I couldn’t make it to either), and coming up is Taste of Colorado and the Great American Beer Festival Plus Telluride’s Jazz/Blues/Bluegrass festivals, Keystone’s Bluegrass and Beer, and other mountain-area festivals that I’ll save for another year. Beer + Music = Yes.
2. Bikes. Corey likes bikes. A lot. He likes me a lot too, but it’s probably a toss-up between us, and bikes were in his life long before I was. So spending all this time with him is helping me learn a whole new vocabulary in which to speak about this activity. For example, we went to Crankworx, which is a biking competition, and we watched the slopestyle portion. I saw competitors do supermans onto the step-up and can talk about travel and pressure suits.
3. Web Design. Our new Hope Communities website is well underway and scheduled to launch September 15^th. I’ve also been working on a new website for Alaska Premier Health, which you can see at www.alaskapremierhealth.com/aphindex1.html. It’s not quite done, and it doesn’t look as good in firefox for some reason, but we’ll probably launch soon and work out bugs as we go because apparently momma’s employees are being impatient.
4. Olympics. Duh.
5. Eating. I pretty much am addicted to food I think. Can’t live without it, oddly enough. Last night Corey took me to the Briarwood Inn and spoiled me rotten with a sumptuous dinner capped off by a ridiculous spread of desserts that carried over into breakfast this morning. Three tiers of dipped fruit, cookies, and chocolate everything. Deeeelish. In fact, I think it’s about dessert time now…

Who's Your Daddy?

My dad gave notice at work today. I am SO proud of him I could burst!

Where Everybody Knows Your Name, Interrupted

I have a favorite restaurant now. The food is passable, but there's plenty of it and I even have "my" waitress. Her name is Alex (which I learned today after asking to sit in "that girl's" section), she's a dead ringer for Anne Hathaway, and she likes black ink tattoos. She also brings me a diet coke on her way over to my table, before asking if I want the special (which I do), and rattling off my pizza topping, salad special order, and dressing selection. For $5 I get a slice of pizza with whatever topping I want, a big salad (minus the mushrooms, olives, onions, and other yucky additions), a bottomless drink, and a whole plate of buttery, cheesy breadsticks with marinara. It's far more than I can eat in one sitting, so usually I leave feeling bloated, but it's worth it. Especially because Alex doesn't think I'm lame for always coming in by myself and doing Kakuro puzzles while I eat (she even said she's bored of Sudoku and looking for something new). Of course, it helps that they donated to my silent auction, too. It takes me back to my IHOP passion/obsession when the boys and I were regulars for the late night shift, doing crosswords (or rather, they did the first half, gave up, and I finished them) and eating almost strictly appetizers.

Well, this post was going along nicely, but Fox News just ruined my evening, and I don’t remember my point, nor do I feel like writing anymore, but now that I've started I have to post something. In 40 minutes, here (in no particular order) are the stories they reported on:

--A 7-year-old was locked in a closet and starved to death by his foster parents

--A 4-year-old strangled herself in a car window when her grandma left her alone

--A college student was murdered and then her house set on fire

--A transgendered teen was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher when the man she met online found out she was born male

--A father-son team who raped a female pizza delivery driver was turned loose from jail on a technicality

--A man killed his girlfriend’s kitten to intimidate her, and when that didn’t work, decided to strangle his girlfriend instead

--A doctoral student was killed by lightning while practicing karate

--Oh, and John McCain promises to catch Osama bin Laden

I think I need to go back to my happy-place-restaurant where I can remain blissfully sheltered from the world’s evils. Like Fox News. Maybe they're all just depressed that they don't know how to mail merge...I guess it's time to get back on my soap box.

Office Evangelism

If I were to travel the world trying to convert people to something, religion is the last thing I’d choose to preach about. Believe or don’t believe in whatever deity you want—I have bigger fish to fry. You see, dear readers (don’t you just love that phrase?), there are people walking the world right now that don’t know the bliss that is mail merge. There are people perambulating the planet that have never experienced the ecstasy of conditional formatting. There are people tottering through their time on this terra firma that wouldn’t know how to set a transparent color, add a toolbar or toggle between their master page and their publication page if their life depended on it. Doesn’t this disturb you?? It should.

Forget the Office Linebacker—I’d be the Office Evangelist (and not in the sense that I’ll be preaching Godbuddhallahyahweh in the office…I already live that dream). Embrace the organization! Embrace the saving grace of to-do lists and color-coding! I will show you the way. Yes, I have suffered persecution for my beliefs, but I ignore the harassment, because they all come back seeking organizational guidance eventually.

Today at work I taught Maurice how to find his lost toolbars, introduced Twanisha to the joys of photo format conversion, solved Denise’s background color problem, berated Russell over IM for missing out on the magic of mail merge, and even taught myself the formula for inserting today’s date into an Excel cell. All in a day’s work for an Office Evangelist.

p.s. Beware, No-Longer-Phlummoxicated... 'Pierogi' sounds like code for drugs to me.

It's in the Stars

Dear Phlummoxed,

An interesting question you pose. You didn’t tell me your birth date, but from the sounds of your letter, I would guess you’re a late-ish March baby…March 23^rd perhaps. That places you on the cusp of Aries and Pisces, the first and last signs of the Zodiac. Arses, as I’ll call you and your honey, are very receptive to the needs of others and hate being alone (I guess it’s good you found each other!). You are all about fantasy, art, spirituality and impracticality; your heads are in the clouds and you’re very emotional. Arses are compassionate, sensitive and imaginative; you’re romantic and sentimental, and probably musically talented. Your favorite sports are aerobics and sailing, and you’re into holistic medicine.

Hopefully that all sounds familiar; I was an astrology major in college, so I’m pretty good at that stuff. So now to your question: “What does it mean if your date has the same birthday as you? And she didn't run off into the sunset at finding out such information...” Well, it means nothing that she has the same birthday as you. I have the same birthday as Prince, the Love Muscle/Mussell shares a birthday with Hannah Montana, and Uncle Cannonball Leg and My Trophy Boyfriend are birthday twins. There are a few more than 365 people on this planet, so chances are about 50/50 that there’s someone else out there with your birthday. However, because I can read between the lines, I’ll answer the question you were really trying to ask, which is, “Am I in love?”

Son, love is a many splendored thing; love lifts us up where we belong; all you need is love! And yet, you fear commitment and vulnerability—you think she’ll leave you because you share the same birthday? If she’s going to leave you, it’s more likely because she caught you mid-Jane Fonda aerobics routine with your leg stretched up to your ear while wearing her favorite thong over the threadbare leotard you bought at Goodwill. But what you need to realize is that if she can’t appreciate you exactly the way you are, aerobics and all, she’s not the one for you anyway. So stop worrying about why she hasn’t run away yet and enjoy the perks of being with someone you’re so astrologically-aligned with.

Sincerely,

Dating Advice Columnist

p.s. I may not be in the business of advice much longer; I’m submitting my application tomorrow for a new life and a new job!

p.p.s. This little girl is the cutest future-hippie ever.

Doppelgangers

Letitia brought her new baby, Daylen, into the office the other day, and a big discussion ensued over whether he looked more like mom or dad. I don’t see how you can possibly tell when he’s only 11 weeks old, but it seems like everyone is obsessed with making a definitive determination. Even now that I’m an adult, people are always comparing me to my mom, me to my sisters, my sisters to each other, etc. Personally, I don’t see any resemblance between any of us, but I think I’m biased because I lived with them for 18 years.

The more entertaining thing to me is what celebrities people think I look like. Myheritage.com has a fun little upload program that takes your picture and tells you who you most resemble. It always makes ridiculous suggestions and frequently gets your gender wrong, but it’s still fun. My mom gets told she looks like Jodie Foster a lot, and Lindy gets Jennifer Love Hewitt. Me, I get Johnny Depp. And the Bionic Woman. I guess that just means I’m versatile? Sometimes people are generous enough to say I look like Sandra Bullock or Natalie Portman, but even myheritage thinks I look like Eddie Murphy. Who do you look like?

Animal Crackers In My Soup

Because I can’t have any of my awesome, married, best friends trying to date Alaskans with ambiguous t-shirt messages, I’ll start this post with a public service announcement:

Don’t date a man who is either gay, shares his grooming preferences with the world, or likes trees.

This might sound harsh, but trust me; you don’t want any of those losers anyway. Perhaps I should back up, for those of you, dear readers, who were not a part of the reunion tour. In Talkeetna, that little town that launches many a climber on to Denali, we saw a transgendered person. That’s not really part of this story, but it was definitely my first sighting in The Great White North…our red state is turning purple! Anyway, back to Talkeetna. What we also saw was a guy in a green shirt that read “Less Bush, More Trees”, which spawned a conversation amongst the four of us as to what it meant. Joyanne & Valerie, as usual, had come to the same conclusion: he was announcing his below-the-belt grooming preferences to all the interested ladies. Adrienne went another direction entirely, and assumed he was flying the rainbow flag and taking the ‘homo’ in Homo Sapiens pretty seriously. Seeing as I estimate there are about three gay men (and one transgendered one now, apparently) in all of Alaska, it would be smart of him to advertise loudly. I decided he must be one of those unpatriotic, tree-hugging liberals that get lost on their way to Canada and end up in Alaska. Regardless, though, my conclusion as a dating expert is that he is undateable and should be shunned.

Speaking of Homo Sapiens though, we saw a lot of other animals on this trip, and I think it’s time for a quick biology lesson (aka, I want to post my animal pictures).

Haliaeetus Leucocephalus. Otherwise known as the Bald Eagle, these babies are a dime a dozen in Alaska. If you make me stop the car so you can take a picture, I will belittle you.

Oreamnos Americanus. Just because your camera can’t zoom far enough to turn the little white dots into Mountain Goats, doesn’t mean they’re only “alleged” wildlife. Time to graduate from film to digital.

Branta Canadensis. Yeah, Canadian Geese aren’t really Alaskan, and they aren’t exactly rare, but these ones had babies that were cute. So they make the cut.

Oncorhynchus Tshawytscha. Try saying that 5x fast! It’s King season in Alaska, and they’re no wussy fish. Watch for the red ones, because they’re the ones that just finished mating—they get flushed just like humans do…not that I would know.

Alces Alces. Everyone’s favorite moose moose got its scientific name from the Native American word “moz”, which means “he trims, shaves”. Seriously.

Canis Familiaris. These are my favorite critters! They cuddle with me, they lick my face, and they behave well on a leash. Just like a good boyfriend.

I hope you all took notes. The test will be closed-book and timed. Don’t forget your No.2 pencils.

Double Dating for Dummies

Dating can be awkward. There are those forced conversations and first kisses and finding out he likes Battlestar Galactica to deal with. And then there’s double dating, which is like playing Russian Roulette, except that when the date goes wrong, you’re praying for there to be a bullet in that chamber. Having been on both the good and bad kinds of double dates, I consider myself an expert. Thus, I have decided to impart all my wisdom to you, dear readers, using examples from my own experiences, so that you too will know not just what kind of double date you are on, but how to fix a bad one.

Good: Both guys compliment their dates on how cute they look.

Bad: Both guys compliment the other girl on how cute she looks. Hopefully your guy does damage control when he realizes you’ve been left out of the compliments. However, if they then start talking about how awesome it is that she weighs 96 pounds and that American girls are all fat, you have a bigger problem on your hands.

Solution: I recommend going the petty route: remind the boys that she is as flat as a concave washboard, she has no rear to speak of, and that if you tied a string to her belt buckle, you could use her as a kite. Then order the most expensive entrée, and a couple appetizers off the menu, plus the chocolate explosion dessert, and eat it all. Make sure you smear a little extra chocolate on your face to “save for later.”

Good: A few days before the date, your guy gives you a necklace to wear; on the day of the date, you wear it, and the other girl compliments you on it.

Bad: A few days before the date, your guy gives you a dress to wear; on the day of the date, you wear it, and the other girl comments, “Oh, I’m glad you found someone to give that old thing to. I was getting so sick of it gathering dust in the closet.”

Solution: Ugh. Well that’s embarrassing. Devise something good for his punishment for after the date. In the meanwhile though, a comment like, “I can see why you didn’t wear it! This thing would look awful on you!” should shut her up. Or, if it starts a catfight, you don’t have to worry about her tearing your dress, because you know you’ll never wear it again anyway.

Good: Everyone tosses back a few beers and the conversation stays light and engaging.

Bad: The other girl tosses back a few too many, including the rest of your drink, as her boyfriend drones on about the wrestling championship he won in high school, how much he could drink in college, and how much he makes now.

Solution: If you don’t feel like joining his girlfriend in her anesthetized state, it’s time to take action. Either bet her boyfriend something, like “I bet you can’t still do 50 push-ups in one minute” and then hope that the wait staff at the nice restaurant you’re at asks him to leave when he tries, or entertain yourself by making up lies about all the awesome things you’ve done to top his stories, getting him more and more frustrated and eager to out-do you until he leaves of his own accord, red-faced, and yelling obscenities while you sit there calmly and smile sweetly.

Good: The other couple grabs you a drink from the bar on their way back to the dance floor.

Bad: The other couple grabs your ass on the dance floor, as they make their way to the bar.

Solution: Well, if you’re into that sort of thing, this might not be bad. However, I could also see how some of you prudes might find that uncomfortable. If that’s you, I’d suggest either keeping their hands full of drinks so they can’t do that again, or sucker punching some big guy on the dance floor and blaming it on the other guy on your date. After he gets beaten up, he and his date will leave, and the danger of an orgy will be gone.

Good: The other girl on the date talks at length about how much she likes your shoes/earrings/clothes/etc.

Bad: The other girl on the date talks at length about how much she likes your boyfriend’s bed and misses sleeping in it.

Solution: There is no hope for a happy ending here, at least with your current date. If her boyfriend is cute, try starting a game of footsie, and maybe you can trade. If not, excuse yourself to the restroom, and make a run for it after telling the host or hostess that you overheard “those people” talking about dining and dashing.

Hopefully these few examples will help clear up any misconceptions about the quality of your double dates. If you still can't tell what kind of double date you are on, clearly you need to read my book, Double Dating Is Not For You.

Now that I’ve got Marci & Curtis living only 5 miles away, my number of "bad" examples will likely decrease. At least, so far so good. This weekend we grilled while Jackson & Sydney (doggie double date!) got acquainted, as well as toured the zoo. Marty & Laura, Corey’s friends, are more “good” double date examples, as demonstrated by tonight’s dinner and new-bike-admiring session. All in all, a good couples weekend!

Top Left: A bear in a tree; Top Right; My badass boytoy; Bottom Left: Marci feeds obnoxiously loud birds; Bottom Center: Curtis the man very reluctantly poses with Curtis the Gorilla; Bottom Right: I test out my new bike, wearing my helmet because driveways are dangerous.

Forgetting Sarah Mapes

This past weekend I learned something about myself. I am NOT a quitter. Come snow, rain, sleet, hail, or 1.75L of margarita, I will not quit until the job is done. Father Dearest was a big proponent of this Never Quit attitude, and that combined with my Irish roots made for an excellent weekend. And by excellent, I mean, I had to convince a blurry paramedic that I was completely in control of my faculties and I got up close and personal with a few bushes that got to enjoy my margarita too. Thousands of miles away though, I was not the only one enjoying my weekend. I received this voicemail (spoken in the tune of what a Sine wave might sound like):

“Hello Sarah Mapes, this is Lindy Mapes calling you to say ahwuuusabbptttthh [unintelligible, but sort of like a cross between a wassup and a howl]. Hey you we’re out playing, uh, bar golf muchas mucha da de martega es muy bien [that’s as close as I can get to figuring our her drunk Spanish] um anyhoo we’re driving somewhere in a taxi right now so I don’t--Owwww my head just hit on the ceiling now my head’s squished against thinggggggggggggs. Anyway I hope that you have a fun night and I’m happy to say you are coming home soon and I just definitely want to go thing with the paddles and the boats. Anyway I love you beeeeeeep.”

The next day, her comment on said message was, “What message?” which is how I felt about most of my Saturday too—if I don’t remember it, did it really happen? I may not believe it actually happened, but I do enjoy storytime the next day, something Anika and Eleanor were so kind to help out with. All in all, a successful trip.

Stay Tuned for my next Pulitzer-Worthy Post: Double Dating for Dummies

The Top Ten Things Google taught me about the Mapes family

10) I’m as American as apple pie. Probably more so. The Mapes family came over with the pilgrims, and no cold winters or Oregon Trail diseases could kill us off. Also, every Mapes in American history can be traced back to one dude named Thomas Mapes. Apparently, he was known as a ladies’ man throughout the pilgrim villages.

9) My immediate family is not very famous, compared to all the other Mapes’ out there. The first of us to appear in my search was Casey, on page 11. I went through the first 50 pages, and none of the rest of us were mentioned... That being said, Mary Mapes, the disgraced CBS journalist made up a good 40% of the hits.

8) Oddly enough though, in all those 50 pages there were ZERO Sarahs, Lindys, Melissas, or Lauries. The only Casey was actually our Casey. And there were a few Johns, but no Jons. Who knew SARAH was an unusual name??

7) I may not be famous in regular web searches, but I’ve got TWO photos in the top 20 image pages! Although, Lindy got me in the State Press, so I have to give her some credit for that one.

6) At one point in time, there was a lawsuit called Mapes v. The United States Government. I don’t know who won, but I didn’t get any money, sadly.

5) My great-great-uncle (the one who invented the Toe Loop in ice skating…still called the Mapes jump in roller skating) also co-starred in the 1938 movie Zero Girl. Sadly, Rotten Tomatoes didn’t have a review of it, to tell me if it’s worth renting.

4) Despite its historic status, the Mapes Hotel, in Reno, NV, was torn down several years ago. I knew that part already. What I didn’t know, was that their slogan was “Where the Action Is”…which I figure is more than appropriate for my family, and I’m going to lobby that we 86 the “Fortis in Arduis” (strength in adversity) on our family crest and replace it with the Mapes Hotel slogan.

3) The city of Mapes, ND is 1/3 as large as my high school in Anchorage was. Of their 1079 residents, there are 3 Asians, 0 African-Americans, and 1076 Caucasians. No wonder I’m so white…my relatives have been self-segregating for ages.

2) There is a punk band in Las Vegas called The Mapes. Their “hit” single is “I Gotta Get Drunk.”

1) Meet Roger Mapes. I think I see the resemblance.

0) The existence of this list is proof of my pathetic life.