My necklace! Part 2

Blogger cut off the secon part of the post which I will try to
recreate here (I can't edit entries too well from my phone):

Thank you Nona and Lala. And Boppy I think, for originally picking it
out. It is in very good hands; with someone who loves and appreciates
it. And who will think of her family every chance she gets to wear it.

My necklace!

It was my grandmother's and my great grandmother's before that.

Once when visiting my grandmother she was in the mood to start pulling
out her jewelery and showing it to me and one of my aunts. When she
pulled out this necklace my jaw dropped and I instantly fell in love
with it.

I'm lucky that none of my cousins wanted it, because I think I would
have been upset had I not been able to get it. The sad thing is, it's
valuable. Too valuable for every day wear so I'm going to have to put
it in a safety deposit box at the bank. I'm going to wear it to the
wedding I'm going to this weekend first though.

And you better believe that every fancy dress I have to buy for the
rest of my life will be purchased with this in mind.

Less than 7 days

Fewer than 168 hours

Until we know, for better or for worse, who our next president will be.

Please please please let it be Obama.

One of my friends was a staunch Hillary supporter and switched to
McCain after she lost the democratic nomination (stupid- I know.)
Today he admitted that Sarah Palin has made it impossible for him to
vote for McCain and he will be voting for Obama. Praise Palin for the
role she's playing if a lot of people end up thinking the way he does.

I do feel bad for Obama. Say he wins, he has a very tough road ahead
of him. A
lot to clean up, fix, and undo. And if he doesn't turn everything
around immediately he'll be seen as a failure by those who don't see
big picture.

I have absolute faith that when I cast my vote on Tuesday I'm making
the right choice for my country. I hope the rest of the country agrees
with me.

Update on the Hillside Strangler

I had one of my friends do research on where the victims were found.

Yup, two victims were found on my street. Right down in the scary cul
de sac.

Stupid Ben

I am able to freak myself out really easily. So a few months ago when I was reading a book called The Monster of Florence about about a dozen murders in the hillsides surrounding Florence 20 years ago, I would get up to double check that the front door was locked. I would also be too scared to get up to go to the bathroom because I knew that the murderer was waiting by the refrigerator to kill me.

This isn't the first time this has happened to me. Throughout my life things I've read or heard about have freaked me out to the point where I couldn't sleep or get out of bed for fear of being murdered. In high school I read Jurassic Park, and couldn't go downstairs to put clothes in the dryer because I knew there was a velociraptor in the laundry room waiting to get me. I think this would be called having an over-active imagination.

But the thing is, I can't stop myself from reading "scary" stuff. Most people probably don't get freaked out by what I find scary, or they don't find it scary to the extent that I do. I don't know what it is about the human psyche that leads us to want to be scared. Maybe not enough real threats in our lives? Who knows. You'd think sleepless nights over 20 year old Italian murders wouldn't be high on someone's list of "things they enjoy in life." At least as I've gotten older I've been able to handle it a little better. Seeing a scary movie only leads to a night or two of being scared. Not a month.

Last night Ben says, "well yeah, they found at least one of the Hillside Strangler victims down the street" and I got freaked out. I don't even know what we were talking about that started it. Maybe the fact that Leslie is reading the Florence murder book? Tonight I started thinking about it again, so I have of course double checked that the door is locked (it is.) And then I HAD to start researching on line. What if Ben was wrong? Maybe its not my street. So far all I can find is that victims were found in Elysian Park (basically my backyard) and a remote hillside in Echo Park (a description that absolutely fits my street.)

I used to think my street was safe because it was so out of the way no one would come up here unless they needed to. I won't be thinking that any more.

Jinx

I jinxed myself. I just got called in to a courtroom.

Two hours and 45 minutes

Until I'm safe from jury duty. They've called jurors for 4 trials
today. Two for 20 days, one for 17 days and one for 11 days. The
people who have left the room have never come back. Those poor, poor
souls. I cannot even comprehend trying to put my work life together
enough to be gone for that long.

Lots of people are asleep. The man next to me is snoring loudly. Most
people are reading or on laptops. It's freezing cold but the only
thing hot to drink is hot chocolate and it's disgusting.

I've finished "The Wordy Shipmates" and now am going to start on
"Issac's Storm.".

If I was at work I would be at a party for the move in for a space
I've spent the past 6 months on. I hope I get a chance to see it
finished since I'm missing it today. I hear it looks fantastic.

And now as I send this to post I have two hours and 33 minutes to go.
Cross your fingers for me!

Jury duty

I have Jury Duty tomorrow.

My summons was changed to the criminal courthouse and I'm scared to
death I will get on a trial. We don't get paid for jury duty and I
really REALLY can't afford to be away from work unpaid. And with my
illness earlier this year, my PTO is gone.

I spent an extra 2 hours at work tonight getting a couple things done
that I had promised out tomorrow. God forbid I have to cancel my stuff
for Monday.

The bad part of all of this is that I wouldn't mind being on a jury. I
think you do your duty. It could end up being interesting. My last
jury duty service was boring while I was there, but memorable in the
long run.

Sooo... Tomorrow you may get some long blogs of observations about the
people around me.

The right kind of patriot

I'm in the airport this morning and I just teared up while reading
Sarah Vowell's "The Wordy Shipmates." She was talking about the
September 11th attacks as being the catalyst for her writing this book
and the story she related made me cry.

I'm not a New Yorker. I've never spent any real amount of time in the
city. I don't know anyone hurt by the attacks, and yet stories of the
day do affect me. I feel like I have no right to cry at stories of
September 11th, and yet here I am tearing up over Sarah Vowell writing
about New Yorkers lined up to give blood and cleaning out drug stores
of toothpaste to donate to relief organizations.

I consider Sarah Vowell the right kind of patriot. She's fully willing
to own up to all of the faults of our country, and yet still loves it.
People annoy me when they think that saying there's anything wrong
means you don't love your country. (Although one doesn't really have
to love one's country.)

My favorite Vowell essay is about the Rodney King riots. She was
living in Europe and watching them on TV and actually got homesick
while watching them. It hit her how much she missed her country,
despite all it's flaws. That essay perfectly summed up how I feel
about the US.

So, tomorrow night when I have the choice between watching the debate
between two men who want to be our president and fighting the crowds
at barnes and noble to go see Sarah Vowell read from her new book, I'm
not sure which I'll pick.

Migraine from hell

Ive had a migraine since at least last Friday. It's grown and faded in
intensity, but it's been there. I've been downing migraine meds and
advil trying to keep it at bay until it would go away, but it just
wasn't going anywhere.

So today I just had the brilliant plan of not taking anything, letting
it get as bad as it can get and THEN taking the medincine in the hopes
that would cure it. (kind of like letting a fever break. If you at all
knew my mother you'd understand where we get these weird medical
theories.)

So by three today I was in tears at work and called it quits and came
home. Decided on a 3 prong attack: imitrex, painkiller and sleep. Only
problem- couldn't sleep. I've taken the backup imitrex, still can't
sleep, I don't want to take another painkiller, and I still have the
same low level migraine that I've had for days- and it periodically
spikes to full blown.

This year as I listen to them announce the nobel prize winners I
think, "what brilliant, amazing minds." I hope that whenever someone
finally cures migraines that person gets the Nobel prize. They will
deserve it just as much as the guys who thought to make protiens glow
on the dark, connected HPV with cervical cancer, or discovered the
aids virus.

I have a niece!

Okay, so I have three nieces. But this one is new.

Elizabeth Anne*. She's early, and in the NICU until she can breathe on her own, but she'll be fine.

The good thing about her being a girl, I won't have to start saying, "my nieces and nephews." "My nieces and nephew" will still work. Poor Campbell. If only he'd gotten a partner in crime. Now he's just got one more girl. At least this one won't be able to dress him up in girl's clothing and put bows in his hair like his older ones have done.

*I'm going to try to ignore that my sister took my name.

My scarf!!!

Last year my mom made my sister a scarf that I really liked, and I
said so.

Well, as much as I laugh at my mom's knitting projects, I'm not
laughing at this one. She made me a scarf like my sister's, except
with different colors. At first when I opened it I will admit (sorry
mom) that I was a little upset that it wasn't the same as my sister's.
Now I know mine's better. A) brighter colors. B) longer.

I love this scarf now. The picture doesn't do it justice. It got a
little chillier here the past few days, so I've been wearing it (with
t-shirts- I admit I'm a white person) and I've already been
complimented on it twice. Plus, no one else will have my scarf.

Stupid Infomercials

I can't sleep tonight so I'm watching TV. Leslie and I don't have
cable, so the channels we do get are slim pickings. Lots of Asian
languages programming. Lots of Spanish language programming.

The only stuff in English is Christian programming, regular broadcast,
and infomercials.

You might think this would make me turn off the TV and do something
else, but I LOVE infomercials. Tonight I've been introduced to a
fantastic new straightener that will infuse your hair with negative
ions, a pet brush which cleans itself, a steam cleaning vacuum, and
"meaningful beauty" cindy Crawford's anti-aging skin care line. It's
been developed using a "rare fruit" from France. They never actually
name this fruit. They only ever refer to it as the "rare fruit."

I admit- I want to order this. They usually almost get me with the
acne lines (Murad and Proactive.) I'm so sick of having zit/pimples
(or zimples as we decided they should be called.) but I always stop
myself from actually ordering.

Now I've decided that I have zits and wrinkles (zinkles.) if the
infomercial had been for an anti-wrinkle/anti-acne treatment, they
would have gotten my credit card number tonight.

Marketers take note.