Pi Girl

The brother is in town this week visiting. We went to see Lewis Black at Elmira College, who was hilarious. I also highly recommend his opening act, Stephen Lynch.

It’s been way cool to have the bro in town, but I’m pretty sure my cat is the happiest that Jim is here. The cat is just nuts to begin with, but something about Jim takes her to a whole new level. She does somersaults, meows constantly and let’s not forget all the biting.

But I’ve seen that before. Cats love Jim. That’s not new.

But last night, I watched the cat stick her head in Jim’s martini and start drinking. We were all so surprised, it took us a minute before Jim took the glass away from her. So what did she do? She found Jason’s glass!

Just what I need: a cat high on Jim-ness and drunk on vodka.

I will never learn that trying to plan anything around Holy Week is just impossible. There is so much going on at church, and so many obligations to attend to, I don’t know why I think I can just add another thing. Vocare International Conference starts on Thursday, and plans don’t stop just because of the biggest church holiday of the year. I thought I learned my lesson when we held a Vocare weekend on Palm Sunday….but I think the weekend this year was picked more for it being the only weekend available at the cheapest place possible than anything else.

But I never learn. I doubt I ever will. But I did try what I could to take the time I needed to take in the Easter experience this year though and I’m glad I did.

For Maundy Thursday, I did the vigil in the “garden” with the Grace youth group. I stayed up as late as I could (1:30 am) and I was only the 3rd person to crash. Jason and my shift in the garden (ok, chapel since it was pretty darn cold outside) was the 4-5 am shift. Kind of an anti-climactic experience, but now I feel the kids’ pain when they tell me stories.
Lesson learned: There is some ultra-catholic rule somewhere that states you can’t be intimate with your significant other during Holy Week.

On a sad note, there was a death in the St. Matthew’s community that rattled everyone and has been hard to deal with. The St. Matt’s youth barely got through the Good Friday service and their strength made the service that much more powerful. They also wrote a moving memorial that was very beautiful and I hope it was of some comfort to the family.
Lesson learned: Some people can be so inspirational in their strength when their world is crashing in on them.

Holy Saturday - probably should have gone to church, but I don’t get to the vigil every year, so I don’t feel like I missed anything. I’m just so glad I finally got to spend some quality time with Amber, even if it was only a few short hours.
Lesson learned: Smokey Bones is very yummy. But you need to go on an empty stomach.

Easter was a lot of fun and Mumsy’s dinner was soooo good. And I scored leftover lamb and hollandaise sauce, which I will no doubt manage to ruin when I try to heat that back up. Church was interesting, or least very amusing. I love Fr. Tim to pieces, but he gets the award for “best moment ever” for his announcement to the church that the violin solo was very appropriate because the violin is such a wonderful symbol of Easter. “Since the violin is made of cat gut, the violin makes beautiful music and brings life to something that was dead.” Noone will forget that service for a long time to come. At least, not for any of us in the choir loft who then had to sing after that comment. I still get tears in my eyes laughing about it. I only wish I could have enjoyed the violin solo more instead of thinking “cat gut” the whole time.
Lesson learned: Don’t let your husband eat a burrito the night before church when he has to mingle with people he doesn’t know very well.

Jason and I went to Maryland this weekend to visit the ‘rents, catch up with Jason’s friends, and see Mumsy, who was attending the Texas Instruments (as in calculators) conference. I was also there to see my Indigo Girls, but alas, the concert was sold out.

Anyway, Jason and I had several opportunities to enjoy the weather and the fabulous city of Washington, D.C. We saw some of the Smithsonian, the Zoo, went to the World War II memorial, saw some cherry blossoms almost blossom. All good stuff. We dared to take out my mom and Jason’s parents to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. And we were crazy enough to invite the math teachers along as well.

After a weekend of watching Jason get lost several times in the town he grew up in, listening to Jason in awe of how much bigger everything in Washington is compared to Elmira, then trying to hide from the math posse following their ring leader (aka, my mother), I realized that a handy guide is in order for Upstate New Yorkers visiting big cities. There probably is one out there, but it would be most helpful if the tourists who stick out like sore thumbs actually read it before visiting their desired destination. Here are some tips the guide should really include:

- Elmira, while defined as a city, is not really a city. Syracuse is a city, with a recognized name even, especially during basketball season. But it is not a big city. Please do not assume your tiny city could even compare to anything size-wise in the bigger city. That includes newspapers, transportation, traffic and roadways.

- When driving around, check a map before taking any short cuts. Better yet, don’t attempt the short cut and take the way you know.

- iPods are quite popular these days. People in big cities are not the only ones that use them everywhere and go jogging with them. In fact, you may want to remember that you own your 2nd iPod and your wife also owns one and you both use them all the time before giggling when you see someone jogging with their iPod.

- Learn how to use the metro before actually going there. There are plenty of signs to guide you before you get to the machines that take your farecard. Also remember to watch for the correct station, M does not stand for Mall, stand right, walk left, and do not lean on the doors of the metro car.

- The ticking seconds on the Walk sign do not mean “let’s race” or “let’s count the seconds down at the top of our lungs so as to annoy those native types also sharing the walkway.”

- Do not point at someone and announce “he wants to kill you” in front of the nice police man to a major tourist attraction such as, for example, the White House.

That’s all I can think of for now. Feel free to add your own suggestions. Maybe we can print this guide off and make some money while we’re at it.

I don’t know much about Tequila Mockingbird, but I do enjoy her blog very much. She was recently nominated for several Bloggies.

Anyway, she conducted a very scientific survey for us. Because Easter is just around the corner, you may be asking yourself, “what kinds of candy should I buy this year?”

Thank you, Tequila Mockingbird, we applaud the sacrifices you made in the name of science.

I’ve had Kelsey now for over 4 years. He’s old, 10 years, so I try to keep an eye on him and his creaky knees. But I failed him miserably when I discovered why he can be so freakin’ moody.

Last week I found out that my poor dog has dewclaws. And worse than that, they have grown so long, they started growing into his skin!

I thought his licking was a bad habit. No, he was trying to relieve the pain from his infected paw.

Anyway, I took him to the vet where they kept him overnight. They fixed his claws and then found more problems - he now needs dental therapy for his periodontal disease; I have a month to get it done. He came home this morning with a cone on his head. I felt so guilty after he scraped mud in the cone while sniffing around, couldn’t get in the car, then stumbled up the 2 steps to the front door that I took the cone off so he could drink his water.

He seems to be feeling better, though a little groggy from being sedated and having surgery. Hopefully, he’ll forgive me for being so neglectful of his well-being.

I’m so never having kids.

To celebrate this very special holiday, I now present to you the first 28 digits of our favorite number:

3.141592653589793238462643383

So Jason went away this weekend to play paintball. I was supposed to go home to B’ville and get away for a bit, but instead, I was stuck in Elmira, working. I didn’t have the time or energy to make the trip, so I decided to make the most of my time all by my lonesome at home.

So, I went shopping. I bought way too many clothes at my favorite store, Lane Bryant. I splurged and bought a Diet Coke (because my birthday is always the exception to the Lent rule - yeah, I’m special). Oh, and I bought a car. Yup, I got me a 2003 red Subaru Forester.

I’ve only owned the car for about 24 hours now, but it rocks. I haven’t had this much fun driving since Jason and I rented a Jetta for the honeymoon. I feel so tall on the road but I don’t feel like I’m driving some bulky machine. I hit a pothole on the road today, and I swear, the car said “yee ha!”

I thought the process would take longer than it did. After all, I had only been oggling cars on cars.com for over a year. I thought I’d be driving to Rochester or elsewhere and it would take a week to get the car I wanted.

But after realizing that driving away this weekend just wasn’t possible, I took one more look at the inventory and that’s when I found my car. And it was in Horseheads. And it was $5K less than I expected to pay. Yea!

Hmm … all this talk about my new car is making me want to drive it again. I think I need to go … run an errand or something … yeah, that’s it. Later!

Oh, my beloved Daewoo! You will always be remembered for being my first car. We had so many fun times together.

It was love at first sight, when I built you on the Daewoo website. An exterior of azurite blue and an interior of a crazy party pattern; I knew I had to have you. You were so cute and you screamed of personality. Nobody had ever heard of the Daewoo so they oohed and ahhed when you drove by. And everyone agreed we were the perfect match.

So many trips to Baldwinsville. So many trips to drive kids to diocesan events. You even went to the DC area several times.

The kids loved you. Well, except for Carrie, who was there both times the back window opened and wouldn’t close. We had to stop for packaging tape to “close” the window so we wouldn’t freeze on that winter trip. You still have marks from the tape on your window.

How unfortunate that Daewoo went bankrupt and was sold to GM. It became harder to get you serviced. Do you remember sitting at Van Brunt’s for 3 weeks (!) while they waited for a new head gasket to arrive from Korea? Or the time when your cylinders stopped running and I had to drive from Cortland home wondering what would happen everytime I put my foot to the gas.

Your behavior became very erratic. Your ABS light would turn on for no reason - I never knew if I could trust my anti-lock breaks when the roads got icy. Your back door creaked and disconnected from the main circuit so the light never turned on when I opened it. The emergency brake started to stick to the wheel so I could not drive when I released the brake.

Now, it appears your timing belt has busted, and I believe it is time for us to part ways after 6 long years. I will fix you up and sell you off to someone who can deal with your crazy ways better than I.

I thank you for lasting me one more weeked to drive around the kids participating in the 30 Hour Famine so they could complete their community service projects. You chose to die in the driveway, and not on the road where I could have been hurt.

Farewell, my Daewoo Lanos. And I promise I will remember you fondly.