 I am an East Coast expatriate hiding out in the Midwest... I am an urban gal living in the suburbs and occasionally hiding in the country I am a yoga practitioner, fitness enthusiast, believer in the mind-body-spirit connection... I am a mid-life "revert" to the Roman Catholic faith in which I was raised and which has become an enormous source of support, encouragement, inspiration, and joy in my life... I am a mom, sister, daughter, and wife... I am an explorer; adventurous and curious about the world and people around me... I am educated in the formal sense but I gain insight through everyday living... I created this blog at a time of great fear and apprehension in my life. I chose to sustain it because of the discoveries about myself and the world around me that it has revealed. What you can expect to find here: the documentation of a love-hate relationship with the greater Philadelphia area
reminiscing about the good-ole-days (the 80's!)
complaints about my various ailments and injuries, both real and imagined
pictures and stories of gardening, decorating, shopping, sewing
my love of irony
links to kooky news stories
way too much scatological musing for sane people
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Monday, October 11, 2004
my post-debate pet-peeve:
Uhhh, will someone PLEASE inform W that the word is NUCLEAR: New-clee-ar. If Herman Munster can get it right why can't you?!?!?!
Sheesh!!!!!
Posted at 12:03 am by brandy101
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Friday, October 08, 2004
Success at the Feeding Station
A few weeks ago, I decided to setup a feeding station for my backyard birds that would be visible from my daughter's bedroom window. I located a 4-hook shepherd's crook and hung up a "tradtional" house-style 2-sided birdfeeder with seed and sunflower, a suet feeder and a finch "sock" with nyjer and millet.
At first, the only visitor was a lone chickadee who would steal a few sunflower seeds and flit away. Then the sparrows took note, leading the grackles, blue jays, and cardinals to the seed feeder with all of their activity. The goldfinches have been very regular and somewhat "tenacious" visitors to the finch sock, and are the least afraid when I go outside to the car or out into the yard, passing the station on the way. Then on Wednesday I was thrilled to note that male and female downy woodpeckers "discovered" the suet and have been making multiple trips to it each day.
Yesterday I looked out the window and it was a virtual "Old Country Buffet" for birds: 6 sparrows, mourning doves on the ground, a grackle, two goldfinches and a male woodpecker - all on the various feeding devices at once!
Of course I defeated the 8 or so squirrels that visit by installing a highly effective squrrel baffle on the post, but there is enough "litter" from all of the avian activity that there is plenty for the furry critters to munch on the ground.
My husband noted that yesterday when he went out to his car on the way to work, about 6 squirrels a few rabbits, and likely 50 birds of various species dashed away when they heard him approach. He was a *little bit* freaked out - probably more than they were!
Update: right after I posted this I went outside and hid behind my car in the rain hoping to just get a shot of a "common" bird on the feeder; sure enough a downy woodpecker(female) flew right over my head and landed on the finch feeder (see pic). She leaned over and picked at the suet from that spot. She has now become a very regular (and noisy!) visitor.
Posted at 03:49 pm by brandy101
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Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Chili, fermenting
Rattling throughout my gut
A warm bed tonight
yeah it was delicious but oooh! "I can't believe I ate the whole thing!"
Posted at 11:35 pm by brandy101
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I was just at the supermarket picking up some ingredients for dinner tonight ( white chili - yum!)
My inspiration for some silly haiku:
Vociferous, me
Screaming with pungent odor
I am an onion
I suppose the same could be said AFTER eating the chili...but I won't go down THAT road!
Posted at 02:46 pm by brandy101
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Monday, October 04, 2004
Last night I had a very vivid dream with a familiar voice and face...and I awoke and realized that I was influenced by the movie I watched before bed. I watched "Confidence" - and I'd recommend it - great crime/con game movie with Dustin Hoffman and starring Edward Burns. If you are not familiar with him (EB), he is a New Yorker with typical Hollywood pretty-boy features (doesn't do much for me) but he DOES have the most wonderful raspy quailty to his voice. It has always seemed eerily familiar to me and I could never put my finger on just why.
After dreaming about that voice on the face/body of a bizzarre merging of Jason Bateman and Michael J. Fox...I knew who it was.
Years ago in my "Android" years, I worked with a guy in the IT department who, although a Chicago native, had that EXACT raspy Irish-wise-guy vocal quality. Plus, he was short and was actually nicknamed "Michael J. Fox" by a number of folks. He was about my age and used to flirt shamelessly with me - which didn't go unnoticed by my female boss who actually encouaged me point-blank to "work it". He (I'll call him "S.") supervised a team of network techs and we frequently needed their asssitance in managing our projects, but sometimes getting their cooperation in a timely manner was like pulling teeth. I think the conversation in her office went something like this:
BossLady (paraphased): "You know, I think S. likes you. You should play on that so that we can get what we need out of his team."
Me: (somewhat taken aback but also laughing internally) "Ok. I'll try." (or some similarly dumbfounded response).
I had experience in the past of being sexually harassed by a male supervisor - not that he came on to me per se, but rather used his gender to make me uncomfortable in my job and thus assert his position. It was inane and he was reprimanded for it when it creeped me out and I complained to the manager.
But this time, I thought it was genuinely COOL that my boss encouraged me to sort of turn the tables on the flirty-bordering-on-harasssment guy and use it to my advantage. In other words, to empower myself. It worked! I led a team, with him and his staff included on it, and we put toghether a few well-received research reports.
Posted at 10:59 am by brandy101
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Friday, October 01, 2004
I credit this blog entry to my friend and former drinking buddy, Mary. Back in our early 20's, Mary and I moved from our cushy campus locations in the 'burbs to "the big city". As we were both music mavens, we tended to nurse our cheap beers at small smoky "hipster" bars - those off the beaten track, and usally in seedier neighborhoods, but graced by the likes of local musicians whose names I will not drop on this enty.
Our favorite haunt was, at the time, in a rather dangerous 'hood for two gals in miniskirts to be strutting around. We would park as close to the bar as possible and litterally dash down Damen Avenue and into the confines of our favorite hideaway.
Needless to say, that neighborhood is now uber-gentrified...and recently had a cheezy hollywood movie named for it.
But we will always remember feeling invincible in our knee-high thrift-store go-go boots as we dodged the gangbangers!
Apparently, this guy will have a soft spot in his heart for boots, as well!
http://msn.foxsports.com/story/3049124#
Posted at 10:58 am by brandy101
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Thursday, September 30, 2004
I have to share this tidbit on the presidential debate:
My 4 year old decided to watch with me. She pointed to "W." and asked, "Who is that?"
I explained, "He is the president. He is President Bush."
"Well who is that man?" she asked,referring to Kerry.
"He is Senator Kerry," I replied. "He wants to be the president."
She watched the debate for awhile and then noted, "So, that man is the president, and that man wants to be the president."
"Yes, that's right."
After a thoughtful pause she stated, "Well, I think Annie should be president!"
Annie is our 7-year old spayed beagle, who was snoozing on the floor at the time of her "nomination."
Sometimes kids' logic makes a heckuva lot of sense!
Posted at 10:23 pm by brandy101
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important note about retention of judges
Per my last entry, please check out this info (which, granted, is provided by the Retention Judges of Cook County website)
http://retentionjudges.com/FAQ/question7.htm
If you vote NO to a judge up for retention, his/her replacement will be APPOINTED not voted into office. Thus, be sure that if you do vote a judge out of office, that you really have good reason for doing so, not just to "shake things up" so to speak.
I also discovered that here judges are not permitted to "campaign" per se or offer opnions on issues - but you can usually find their biogrpahies/career histories, which is important to me - I think its good to see the resume of someone you are going to "hire" for a very important (and lucrative!) job in the community.
Posted at 04:38 pm by brandy101
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*sniff*...still got that sinus thing BUT the good news is that I feel SO cruddy today, that I think it means its "breaking up" and draining (eeewwwww!) so hopefully with lots of soup, juice, tea, and vitamins I'll be out of this sinus funk thang. Yuk!
Anyway...
Tonight is the Presidential Debate...I am really getting cynical and irritated about this election - and watching a show on PBS last night about third party candidates and how hard it is for them to get on the ballot - well, that kinda made me feel even worse. However, I am glad that in my area of the country we have two good candidates whom I actually LIKE and RESPECT, for congressional and senate seats, so I feel like my vote will have an impact, at least in my little part of the world.
Not sure if I'll watch the debates or not; I do already know that I am voting but I am honestly one of those "undecided" independent voters that Bush and Kerry are clamoring to "win over." Yech. All I can say is I know I WILL NOT vote for one of the guys, and not sure if the other guy will get my vote or not - I have to research some of the third party possibilites, and also look into a possible write-in. I mean, the anti-Bush folks would be worried that I was essentially "giving my vote to Bush" but in IL that won't be the case because our US senate race is looking very favorable for Barak Obama - a democrat. The enthusiasm for him statewide will cause alot of straigh ticket pulls, thus I suspect IL is one state Kerry will have in his pocket if he plays it right.
What that means for independent voters like me is that I do have something of an opportunity to "voice" my opnion about the lame "choices" we have had for the past few years in presidential races. The other thing I eally want to do is reseach judges who are on the ballot - no one ever knows anything about circuit court judicial canditates and for many folks they can make a HUGE impact on quality-of-life as well as more philosophical issues in your neck of the woods. So, watch the debates tonight if you want to ...but look into your local races for congress, senate, judge-ships and other positions - these make more of an impact on your life and community on a daily basis anyway.
Posted at 02:14 pm by brandy101
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Monday, September 27, 2004
rain, rain...please let it rain!
Its so darned dry here, my sinuses are going bananas (actually the whole family is miserable - I gotta run the humidifier...). It's been gorgeous 70-something degree days here for the past few weeks. But I just took a long walk at our local man-made lake with a nice walking train. One of my favorite things is crossing over these little wooden bridges that cross a small creek. There are usually birst and the occasional amphibian or reptile milling aound in the creek and I always enjoy that soothing "babbling" sound of the water over the smooth rocks. However, when I hit the forst bridge today, I was saddened to see that ...there was NO creek! Just a dry caked earth bed.
Talk about uneven distribution - the east coast has been drenched from NY to FL all month and we are arid here.
I am still trying to get hubby to get back into SOME kind of workout routine; its so nice he could still take a run around the aforementioned lake after work a few nights a week...of he can join a workout center in his office for a mere $10 a month (although he's wary of working out with coworkers, which I agree can be a bit ooky.)
But I was amazed that I was able to make that 2-mile walk today as this sinus/allergy thing has been sapping my interest in all activity. Ugh. I have to "up the ante" and get my energy level up - and in my case I think more vigorous and frequent workouts are the key. Its just kinda hard to run 5k when you have to blow yer nose ever 10 minutes!!!
Posted at 02:51 pm by brandy101
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