There are two fishing poles out in the shed that weren't there yesterday. I get a little kick in the gut when I think about them, one of those happy-sad feelings that is both a hug and a pinch.

Yesterday after work, Lee and I took tacos over to my grandparents house. My grandmother has always had a thing for Taco Bell tacos. We had dinner and a little catch-uppy chitchat. Afterwards the sun had gone down enough that we could venture outside to sit in the shade and enjoy their yard.

With my grandfather wheelchair bound for 7-years now, and my grandmother recently recovered from surgery and not able to get around like she used to, they've had to let go of a lot of hobbies and passtimes. But one thing that amazes me is that they STILL have the best veggie garden in our little corner of suburbia. We left with a bag of cucumbers big enough to hold us over for the rest of the summer, if they wouldn't go bad first.

Anyway, after we marveled over the veggies and chatted with the neighbors, my grandfather started gesturing for my grandmother to go into their garage. After a while, he made it clear through their quiet and intricate way of non-verbal communication that he wanted her to get out his fishing poles. He wanted Lee to look at them and see if he wanted them, since he isn't using them anymore.

Lee was incredibly touched. And so was I. My grandfather loved fishing. His favorite thing to do was get up well before sunrise on a Saturday and head off to plant himself and his fishing gear by a riverbank. Now and then, he took me or went with my father. But mostly, he went alone, because he loved his solitary time with nature even more than he loved the act of fishing itself. That he's unable to enjoy that passion in his retirement years, when he could go every day if he wanted to, makes me want to cry. Him wanting to give up those poles is his way of saying "this part of my life is done, and I want someone who will enjoy it as much as I did to have them." It breaks my heart.

But it also makes me feel all warm and grateful inside that the person he wants to have them is Lee. He recognizes in my sweetheart that side of himself, that early-to-riser who is both healed and inspired by being alone with the woods and a body of water.

My grandfather can't say the words. But I recognized something in the way he held the poles reverently after my grandmom handed them to him, and then how he gently handed them to Lee. I saw it in the way they examined the poles together - Lee talking with words and Grandad with his hands and his eyes and his nods, about how too much time languishing in the garage has battered the poles a little but a fixin' here and there will make them good as new. 

He can't say the words. But in every action and in his smile there was mourning for his own past and a warm and loving approval of the future I have chosen - the simple and age-old happiness of a man who sees a bit himself in the guy one of his own little girls has brought into the family fold.

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One thing the swamp-ass season does is seriously revamp how we think about dinner. During the fall and winter, I love our football Sundays, with chili or spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove and the whole house smelling warm, cozy and thick with the spicy smells of dinnertime.

But when summer rolls around, the stove gets a vacation. The grill gets fired up and most everything not cooked there is eaten cold. For the last few humid, muggy days, we haven't even wanted to mess with the grill. Instead, we bought every kind of veggie under the sun and several salad dressings we haven't tried, and I've been making up kickass "everything but the kitchen sink" chef salads for dinner.

Sunday night's was a big hit. Monday night, though, Lee tried one of the new salad dressings we'd bought - a Southwest flavor. I love most Southwest dressings, and expected to like this one. But it had a kind of thick, overly spiced but yet somehow sticky sweet taste to it. I was seriously disappointed.

Lee was more than that. He took a bite, crinkled up his face, and said "this stuff takes like the bottom of my flip-flop."

I could have been a smartass and asked him how he knew what the bottom of his flip-flop tastes like. But I didn't, because after all, I'm the one who did this for a Me and My Monday Post not too long ago:

Tastes Like Butt!

And I can assure you, I've never tasted one of those!

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I give you all Vin Vicious:

AttackWeasel

Actually, that's just a mid-weasel-war-dance moment of perfect timing. Anyone who has ferrets knows how hard it is to get candid photos of their speedy little selves.

After I took this shot, Lee played around with it a little in photo editing so the sign could be seen better:

Beware of Weasel!

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Getting back to my Ten on Tuesday "10 Best Vacation Moments" post. I only got through six in my first post, because I'm long-winded and can't shut up once I get started. So here are the last four.

Girl Cruises

A girlfriend of mine, Zen, had been going on cruises with her family pretty much her whole adult life, and although I loved hearing about her adventures I never really thought cruising was something I'd do. But she talked me and another friend of hers into going in 2001. It was 11 days and nights of pure awesomeness.

I visited the hangouts of my heroes (Ernest Hemingway and Jimmy Buffett) in Key West. We went cave tubing in Belize and sting ray snorkeling in Nassau. Every port was an adventure. We had so much fun we did it again in 2004. This time, two additional friends came along for the fun, and I added "sea turtle snorkeling in St. Thomas" and "seeing weaners flopping around on a naked beach in St. Marten" to the "things I've done that I never thought I'd do" list.

The Bermuda Cruise

This one gets its own entry, because it was my first post-separation vacation.

I had been separated for about 3 months when my friend who had first opened my eyes to the amazing world of cruises and I joined my sister and 4 of her friends for a 5-day Bermuda cruise ship jaunt. While the trip itself, the island and the scenery were no more or less amazing than those of the previous two cruises, there was something about this trip that kind of woke me up from a long sleep. I was in what I call my "mental furball" stage, all wide-eyed and wondering at the world seen through the eyes of a single-again woman when I had lived pretty much my whole adult life as part of a couple. On any given day, I bounced between fear, joy, lonliness, exhilaration, a certainty that NOW I was about to begin living and an equal certainty that I was going to fall flat on my face and end up the poor lonely old lady with 50 cats (or weasels), no money, and no chance of ever loving or being loved again. Being away from home and surrounded by new people and scenery just seemed to intensify those emotions.

One of my favorite memories is of the girls and I sitting around enjoying some wine after dinner and being approached by a bunch of older, swarmy dudes. My sister's friend, who is a master storyteller, concocted this whole tale about how we were all on the cruise to celebrate my divorce and it was being totally paid for by my alimony checks because we were a bunch of ruthless gold-digging wenches. This was as far from the truth as you could get - my ex and I had about the friendliest divorce possible, didn't sue each other or ask each other for a dime, and even worked out custody of the pets all without lawyers. But if you want to get a bunch of swarmy, probably wealthy cruise lounge lizards to leave you alone to enjoy your girls-with-wine time, a story like this is a heck of a way to do it!

Mine and Lee's First Mini-Vacation

After we'd been together about a year, Lee and I took a long weekend and went to Ocean City (it seems I ALWAYS go back to Ocean City, doesn't it?). We went in the middle of fall, smack dab in the off-season, and just had a wonderful three days strolling the beach, pub hopping wherever our feet took us, hanging out on our balcony curled up in the same blanket, and enjoying the feeling that we pretty much had the ocean to ourselves.

On our last day there, we were walking the boardwalk. Lee was decked out in his Ravens jacket and hat. I had on a Steelers sweatshirt, but you couldn't see it under my coat. Ironically, our hotel was right across the street from a bar that housed a Steelers fan club (just like the bar across the street from my dad's was at home). As we wandered along hand-in-hand, a guy walking his dog saw Lee's getup, recognized a fellow Ravens fan, and stopped him to commiserate.

"Funny, ain't it?" he said. "We're in MARYLAND, and most of the time all you see runnin' around here is those gosh-darn Steeler people."

I grinned and couldn't resist unzipping my jacket to show my gosh-darn Steelers gear.

"Holy crap!" the guy exclaimed. "A Ravens man holding hands with a Steelers girl! What are you two, the second coming of Jesus?"

We get lots of comments about our football rivalry, but that was the only time it gave someone a religious experience!

 Mountain Weekends

There are far too many wonderful moments spread over years and years of long weekends at my father's cabin to pick just one trip.

There are many, many game nights with aunts and uncles and cabin-neighbors and friends, and just as many campfires where funny stories and true confessions were shared.

There is the time my aunt, mother, ex-husband and I decided to take a "short stroll" in the woods that ended up being a literal hike around the whole mountain, and the time my aunt and I walked outside on a snowy evening and saw shooting stars. There is the time a blizzard was coming, and my dad convinced us all to stay an extra night even though we knew we should go, and we all paid hell getting down the mountain in the morning, my friend Zen cursing dad all the way. There is the time we brought Sully with us, and he drank so much he slept on the kitchen floor instead of in the bedroom or living room couch he had to choose from, and in the morning told us all (dead seriously) that he had gone and slept in the basement. The cabin has no basement. There is Lee and I stretched out on a blanket, looking up at a velvet sky and counting stars.

Writing this, my friends, has made me want another vacation!

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You would think I'd had enough adventure for the whole weekend by the time I posted yesterday, given that a new computer and a crusty-toed chatty lady had already entered my life all before early afternoon. But no, the day was just getting started.

After doing my first Vox post on the new PC, I started putzing around with the new computer, exploring all the features and getting acquainted with WIndows VIsta. Lee went outside to work on his shed. Normally, when he's out there I remember to go out and bring him a fresh glass of ice water or something now and then. He gets thirsty working in the Swamp-Ass season, and doesn't like to trek dirt, sawdust or grass (depending on what he's playing with) into the house. So when I heard a knock at the door, I just assumed he was thirsty and didn't want to come in.

But then something just stopped me cold. There was an urgency in the knock ... something that made my heart jump up in my chest. So I ran outside instead. Lee was standing there, holding one hand in the other. Both hands were covered with blood, and the red stuff had dripped down his arm and all over the deck.

Without thinking, I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his hands, and when we got all the blood off we realized the culprit, while a deep and nasty-looking cut on his thumb, wasn't quite as bad as all the blood would make it seem. We were able to stop the bleeding in a few minutes, and try as I might I couldn't get him to go for stitches so I bandaged up his wounded thumb, did my damndest to convince him to call it a day and stop working in the yard (an attempt which failed, I might add ... he's SUCH a boy that way).

When it was all over, I realized I was shaking like a leaf and ready to burst into tears. The aftershock was so bad I had to sit down until my legs quit shaking, and the whole thing ended with him asking ME if I was okay, even though I wasn't the formerly bloody and now bandaged one. I started bawling and he hugged me and asked what was wrong and I explained the best I could. There had just been SO much blood, his hands had been covered in it, that when I couldn't see what was wrong I was pretty damn close to sure he'd cut off a finger or something. I can't remember being that scared in a long, long time. It had looked like scene from a horror movie or a Stephen King novel for a few minutes, and when it was over I completely freaked out.

So after that misadventure, we decided to go check out a new wings and beer restaurant that just opened nearby with my parents and niece. We had LOTS of family bonding time. The place was pure chaos. It wasn't that busy, just a few tables, but the waitresses were all kinds of confused. They were bringing everyone the wrong food. We got a chicken sandwich we hadn't ordered, and didn't get mine and Lee's wings until everyone else's food was gone. Luckily, the servings were big enough that we all ate Mom and Dad's wings and got full, so we just had ours boxed up for us all to snack on later.

And while we were waiting, my Dad pulled out his horseshoe. I've said before that everyone who knows him says he's got one up his butt, and he proved it yet again. He played Keno to occupy himself while we were waiting around, and won $1,800.

 I inherited a lot from my Dad. I got his freak magnitude and his love of listening to people tell tales. I got his intolerance of heat and his love of fall and winter. I got his laugh and his sense of humor.

But I didn't get the horseshoe. Sometimes I think if I did, I'd never have to work again!

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From my new computer. We bought an Emachine - no major bells and whistles or serious upgrading. Just enough to let us have the basics at home. Life without a computer bites. I would suck as a LIttle House on The Prairie character ... reading by candlelight just wouldn't cut it for me, even if sleeping up in the loft would be kind of cool.

Anyway, Lee and I went out "just to look" and came home with our new baby. I was surprised at how reasonable the deal was, and also at how easy it was to get everything hooked up. I guess between us, we know more about this computer stuff than we think we do!

So before we went computer shopping, we had to take the van in for some work this morning. We stopped at Dunkin Donuts on the way and got two large coffees and a bagel with veggie cream cheese to share. We figured we'd be sitting at the shop for a while, and we were right.

So we're sitting in this comfy little waiting area. There's a big screen TV playing all sorts of man-sports stuff (I'm not into it unless its football) for Lee's entertainment, and I've got a book. We're happy as two little clams (where does that saying come from, anyhow? Why do we think clams are so happy, when they're stuck in shells their whole lives and get eaten by seagulls?). Then in walks a lady who is having new tires put on. She's bored out of her skull. And because I had just taken out my toasty, cheesy half of the bagel and was munching, I didn't have my nose stuck in my book.

I am one those people who is both blessed and cursed with a "talk to me!" face that causes total strangers to share all sorts of stuff, with no context at all and in the weirdest settings. My friends always remark on it when we're out, and my ex used to call me "freak magnet." My mother always says "it doesn't matter where they are - her and her father both always end up with an asshole in their ear."

So, this woman gives me her life story. How she never got married or had kids. How she's missing her ritual Saturday outing with her sister to do this car maintenance crap, but is glad she didn't have to take an extra day off work, since she was already out twice this week for doctor's appointments. And then she launches into her medical history and the not-so-pleasant details of the doctors appointments. I nod and smile politely and look at Lee for help, but he's staring studiously at the TV. One thing you learn when you are a "magnet" is that even the people who love you the most will leave you hanging when you reel in a winner.

I take a nice, warm bite of bagel slathered with melty cream cheese. And as I begin to chew, she tells me "Yeah, I have to get my feet checked next. The spaces between my toes have gotten all hard and crusty."

One thing you DO NOT want to hear in the middle of a bite of cream cheese is anything ... anything at all ... about crusty toes.

I'm just saying ...

And wouldn't it just figure that my first post from my new computer is about some strange lady's crusty toes?

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I haven't done a Ten on Tuesday in a while (not having a computer at home means you tend to sneak in a few blog quickies rather than actually think through a post), but I saw this one in Florinda's blog and it struck me as a must-do. Plus,  I brought home my work laptop and I'm all giddy about having a working computer here for the weekend, so I simply must write something!

10 Best Vacation Moments

West Virginia Summers
As a kid, I spent several weeks every summer with my relatives (my father's side of our family) in West Virginia. There was the great-grandma who let me bang out godawful noises on her living room piano (I never was very musically inclined), made me brush my teeth five or six times a day, and made sure she put me in a dress and dragged my butt to church on Sundays even though I tried my best to explain to her that dress-up was surely NOT what summer vacation was about. There was my great uncle who was a Ronald Reagan lookalike, had a fish pond in his backyard and a pet raccoon who hung out with me in the living room. There were my great-aunt and uncle who had never had children of their own but loved having a campfire and almost making me wet myself, first out of laughter over their fart stories and then in terror over some old mountain region ghost legend. And there was my other great-aunt and uncle who had children my age and let me join their family in the daily rituals of running their farm - milking cows, working in cornfields, and mucking stalls.

Ocean City Summers
Each summer when I was growing up, my parents also made sure we took a family beach vacation to Ocean City, MD each year. Thrasher's french fries doused in vinegar, playing endless games of Pac-Man and Skee-ball in the arcade, laughing with Mom on the beach over men in "bird suits" (I never was much on Speedos), swimming way too far out into the ocean and scaring the heck out of mom, buying cheesy tee-shirts and getting up early to sit out on our balcony with our binoculars for the occasional glimpse of dolphins swimming out at sea.

"THAT" Ocean City Summer
When I was fifteen, I brought my friend Joyce along for our weeklong family vacation. The morning we were supposed to leave, Joyce and I were packing up our bedroom and watching my little sister while my mother and father started loading up the truck. Mom knew we were all bummed that it was time to go home, and decided to cheer us up. She stood outside the bedroom window, flattened her face up against it, bugged out her eyes, made a fish-face and said "I seeeeeeee you."

The only problem was, all the hotel bedroom windows looked alike, and she had miscalculated by one. A little old lady lounging about in her PJ's got the surprise of her life. Mom's mission was still accomplished though - Dad told us what had happened and we all laughed all the way home.

Deep Creek
Another favorite childhood vacation was the year we rented a cabin at Deep Creek Lake. My mother swore that Jason Voorhees was alive and well and hanging out at our resort (and took the fact that someone had carved "Jason' into the dock by the lake as evidence of this) and was going to come kill us all. My father drove into West Virginia and brought my cousins up to spend the day with us. They had never seen anyone eating steamed crabs before and were so traumatized by our gleeful abandon as we chowed down on what to them must have looked like big red spiders that one cousin burst into tears and wouldn't come out of the cabin again until it was time for Dad to take her home.

Spring Break
I was too poor to do the whole spring break trip to Florida in college. No "Girls Gone Wild" for me. But one year, three girlfriends and I did trek to Ocean City for a few days, where rates were cheap in the chill of March and we could still see the ocean. There was a group of guys from another college in the room next to ours, and other than that our hotel was pretty empty. Of course, we all became party buds - especially since one of the girls in my group was the only one old enough to buy beer. One night I had a bad reaction to having way too much alcohol in my system and having my room filled with loud, belching, beer guzzling college boys when all I wanted to do was pass out. In a fit of annoyance I huffed out of our room wearing nothing but shorts and a tee-shirt. I got down to the boardwalk and realized it was actually SNOWING. But I was too drunk, stubborn and fascinated by the sight of snow on the beach to go back to my room, so I sat on the edge of the boards until my butt was completely numb. At some point, two guys came walking up the boards talking in bad Irish accents. They saw me and plopped down beside me, telling me they were theater students on spring break. One of them gave me his trenchcoat. We sat and watched the snow fall and talked forever, and I explained in my college-girl-drunk way that I had a bunch of morons partying up in my room and that's why I wasn't warm and toasty in my bed.

They walked me back upstairs and told the next-door gang to "get their dooomb arses out of the lassie's room." My friends were sick of the beer-bongers by that point too, and relieved. The next morning, we all realized how dumb we were - my friends for letting complete strangers in our room and me for bringing up even more complete strangers to help me get rid of them. But since it all ended well, it became a funny tale instead of a stupid-college-girls-get-drunk-and-get-hurt story.

I did one other college spring break in OC - this one with my friends Sully, Stevie and Moose and my roommate Krista. My favorite memory from that one is Krista and I getting ready to go out in our room one night (the guys were already out) and getting a knock on our door. The guy half of the couple staying next door was standing there looking quite uncomfortable.

"Ummm....your Moose is in the parking lot," he said awkwardly.

"He is?"

"Yeah ...he's kinda passed out under my truck."

I may not have had an "Animal House" college experience exactly, but it came pretty close sometimes.

Florida
Another favorite memory is when my ex-husband I took my niece to Orlando by train. We stayed with a couple I had inadvertently hooked up - one of my closest girlfriends from high school and a guy buddy from college who met when they both happened to visit me and my ex to go pub crawling when we lived in the heart of downtown Baltimore. They both worked for Disney and got us passes to the parks, yet we had a hard time dragging my niece out of their home. She was amazed by the fact that she could go swimming in March, and found their pool even more enticing than The Big Mouse. 

But the funniest part of the trip was the train ride. I was snoozing uncomfortably in my seat with my niece beside me in hers, her legs sprawled over me. An attendant came by and asked my niece how she was doing.

"Not good at all," she replied. "My breath stinks because I've been eating Fritos." As if that wasn't bad enough, she hoisted herself up, added a "see?" and breathed right in his face. By the way his nose crinkled, she was right.

OK ... that's only six,  but I've been going on forever and its time to curl up and watch a movie or with Lee. I'll write out the last four later, or maybe just cheat and make it a Six on Tuesday. I've already mucked it up by doing it on Friday, so what's a bit more cheating?

Oh, and Sylvester's feelings are hurt because I do NOT trust him near the work laptop. I'm such a meanie, not wanting to have to explain to the powers-that-be that I need a new one because the cat somehow managed to destructo-kitty it. I mean, how could you not trust THIS face?

I Swear I Won't Break It ...

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I meant to blog yesterday, because blogging is good for the soul and all that. But I never did. In fact, I didn't do much of anything at all. That's because:

- I began my monthly five days of It-Ain't-So-Great-To-Be-A-Chick time. You know, cramps, backaches and general blah-itude.
- I had what seems to have turned out to be either allergies or the most short-lived head cold ever. Stuffy nose, runny eyes, heavy head, sneeziness, and major case of the "duhs."
- It was TRUE swamp-ass outside.

In case you were wondering, the combination of having your period, a head-cold thing and swamp-ass weather is sort of like a reminder to be good or you'll go to hell - and by the way, THIS is what hell feels like.

I was glad when bedtime rolled around so I could write yesterday off.

I did manage to drag my butt out to buy coffee and coffee creamer, because coffee and coffee creamer are not luxuries or wants, but must-haves in my house. And I swear, someone was trying to tell me to cut back on the caffeine or something. I went into the nearby convenience store. This store always sold the International Delight creamers, which Lee and I both love. They stopped about a year ago, and we were quite pouty about it, because that meant we had to go to a real grocery store and stand in a real grocery store line just to get creamer. But they recently started selling them again, so I went there yesterday for my White Chocolate fix.

I grabbed the creamer and went in search of coffee. None. Well, there was decaf, but decaf doesn't count. I decided to get the creamer anyway, and got in line. When I got up to the register, the clerk takes my creamer and starts trying to scan it, and it won't go through. "Why won't this work," she yells over to the other clerk after the third or fourth try.

The other clerk comes over, stares at my creamer like it is some sort of illegal substance, and says "Hey! We don't sell that!"

It takes me a minute of stunned disbelief to realize what's going on. Even when they stopped selling the creamer, they kept bottles of it in their takeout coffee station for customers to use when they made their cups o' java. The clerks apparently don't know they're carrying the stuff for sale again, and think I just grabbed one from their coffee station and tried to buy it. Like I would pay top dollar for used creamer.

While all this is going through my head, the clerk is looking at me like I'm a creamer-grabbing piece of bug shit. I'm hot. I'm crampy. I'm stuffy and sneezy. I'm achy. And I want my creamer. So I smile and say "if you don't sell it, then why is it in your fridge, Einstein?"

Really, I'm not usually that mean. But I did get my damn creamer.

Today I am working at a frenzied pace to get caught up enough to have my long weekend. I'm in serious need of these four days off, for sure. I plan to spend them working on the spare room, swimming, computer shopping, reading, and avoiding the swamp-ass weather at all costs unless I'm floating on a raft in a pool.

Happy Thursday! Being computerless at home has me woefully behind, but I'm reading as I can and thinking of all of you! Unless I'm fortunate enough to actually fix my computer situation at home this weekend, I probably won't be updating again until Tuesday, so happy weekends to all too!

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Things That Suck:

- My schedule today:
Meeting: 8:15-9 am
Meeting 9 am - 10 am
Session 10 am - 3:30 pm (with short lunch break tossed in as an afterthought)
Meeting 3:30 -4:30 pm
Meeting 5-6 pm
And they wonder why we're always behind on tasks?

- I feel like I gain and lose the same 10 pounds every day - in my HAIR. I leave the house in the morning and it is all soft and wavy and light. By the time I get home, it looks like several birds have come and nested in my hair - it turns into one big puffy, frizzy, heavy, human-hair sign that says "I hate humidity!" During the Swamp-Ass Season, I only have good hair when I don't have to go outside.

- Not having a computer at home. I miss being able to read and blog and post photos whenever I want. I miss being able to jump online and check the weather or the bank account.

- Dropping the van off to have some work done on Saturday only to find out they have to order a part and it will have to go back in NEXT Saturday too.

Things That Don't Suck:

- That because I don't have a computer at home I spent much more time working in my yard and reading real books (with pages and stuff) this weekend than I usually do.

- Fresh squash from my mother's garden - grilled and seasoned or fried up and dipped in just a bit of ranch dressing. Yum! We had it for dinner at my mother's house on Sunday, and Lee and I brought some home and cooked it up again last night.

- Taking a colleague who was stuck in town over the weekend to The Pub and having him feel right at home. I have to admit that I subconsciously gage my new friendships by how people react to The Pub ... if you mostly like it (it's OK to find it a little ... um ... different... but you gotta at least be entertained) there's a chance of us having a lasting friendship, but if you're totally turned off by the VERY "real folks," no-frills, lack-of-anything upscale, lots-of-idiocy feel of the place, we're probably not gonna have much in common.

- Watching The Vinster and  Sly interact - they are just so damn cute.  Sly is fascinated by Vin, and Vin's just all "whatever" about Sly. Sly pats him to try to get attention, and Vin just gives him "the look" and goes about his own business, which is usually curling into a weasel ball and snoozing. We don't let them hang out unsupervised, but they top evening TV in terms of our weeknight living room entertainment.

- Appreciating the absurdities of life. Like yesterday morning. I came into work REALLY early (as much to get some 'personal" computer time as to start the workweek off.) It was pouring down rain outside, and had been for most of the night. But yet, outside my office building, the auto-timed sprinklers came on and started watering the grass. It was like they were trying to outdo the storm. Also, someone planted two tomato plants just outside our building. Who would have thought cube farms came with real veggie-growing?

Things I'm Looking Forward To:

- A 4-day weekend, starting Friday

- Clearing out the "computer room" (not the work itself, but the end result).

- Getting a new computer

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What movies do you have memorized? Bonus points for sharing your favorite quote.
Submitted by Andymatic.

I don't know that I have any movie completely memorized. But there are a few that I've watched enough that seeing them again feels like hanging out in the living room with a crowd of old friends.

One of those is "Office Space," which is not only funny but pretty much defines how I feel about work. Oddly enough, the first time I saw it, I found it kind of slow-paced and boring. I didn't hate it, but it certainly wasn't a film I saw myself watching again and again for years to come.

I think that might have been because I was fresh out of college and not ingrained enough in or jaded enough by office life to appreciate the truths and humor in the movie. The first time I watched it again years later, when I was channel-surfing and it just happened to be on, I was like "holy crap - this is brilliant!"

I think my favorite part is the neighbor who is in construction work and always talks to the main character, Peter, by yelling through the thin walls in their apartment building. Peter has an annoying chipper woman in his office (don't we all), who responds to him being less-than-enthusiastic in returning her greeting by saying "oooh, someone's got a case of the Moondays!" (think of a squealy yet schmoopy and drippy voice that drags out 'Monday' forever).

Peter asks his neighbor whether anyone at his work site says that, and the neighbor goes "Hell, no. Where I work, you could get your ass kicked for that!" Classic, and a line that had office-drones everywhere wishing they worked in the great outdoors instead.

On a more embarrassing note, I also know quite a few of the lines from "South Park: The Movie." In fact, it was on TV the other night when my friend and Lee and I came home from The Pub. When Cartman broke into his song "Kyle's Mom's A Bitch" I found myself singing along with him, and not just because I'd had a few beers.

I might need a life.

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