Will work for nunchucks

The Dupont Circle area is home to a number of colorful characters. Perhaps none as interesting as the homeless who sit on the stoops, newspaper boxes, and park benches in the middle of the circle.

This afternoon, as I walked down across the circle, there seemed to be more folks than usual panhandling. (I always feel extremely conflicted about giving them money--since there are SO many of them, I feel bad singling out one or two people--but I do try to be polite and at least say I'm sorry when they ask me for change. Maybe that's even worse, I dunno, but it's all I've got.)

Anyway, the point is that there were a lot of them out today, probably since it is so beautiful out. And they usually have the same request, "Hey, can you spare some change?" "Can you help me get a sandwich?" or "I'm trying to feed my family, can you help?" But after lunch, as I headed back up to the office, we passed what might be the most creative approach I've seen in some time.

The sign said: "Ninjas killed my family. Need money for Kung-Fu lessons."

It was beautiful. I mean, I don't know if the guy was really crazy or just using crazy as his device, but damn! was it effective. I was tempted to go buy him some Ninja stars.

Dreams of a monkey and midget gone

I've always wanted one but now I'm out.

On the topic of squirrels...

I sent my father the website from YouTwo's post, along with the article Sarah reference about the black squirrels. His response*:

I went to that site... Creepy!!!... We're sticking to just providing Peanuts and the squirrels can get their own clothes and furniture.

AND

It's like "Squirrels in the News Week"... I was watching CNN and their White House reporter, Ed Henry, was on the lawn of the WH talking about Stem Cell Research. Three Muldoons were running around in the back ground and then they ran toward him. While he didn't flinch or skip a beat he did look down at his feet and smile at someone off camera like something funny had just happened. In the rest of his report he looked down a couple of times and appear amused.

Could it be the little rodents are trying to influence the news?

*The actual Muldoons are a famiy of squirrels who live in my parent's backyard - the ones at the White House are distant relatives. I'll explain more fully later.

Laverne and Squirley

Hi. I'm a squirrel who loves having my picture taken.

My master's looking away. For the love of God help me. Please!

Like I said, I love dressing up in different situations because I'm the Sugar Bush Squirrel.

Help!!!!

It's Her Party

Happy Birthday to Sarah! She's turning 21 - again. Start buying her shots immediately.

We'll be feteing her officially this weekend, but wanted to pass along my cyber wishes on true day of her birth!

And because it's always good to laugh at yourself...

...I'm sharing with you the presentation that one colleague of mine suggested I give at Career Day. Perhaps I should have taken his advice.

Hi I'm Sarah. I'm a non-profit professional. If you like working hard for little money and few benefits, then my career is right for you. Yesterday, I got to dress up and pass out coffee bags and invitations to members of Congress. It was fun until we were evacuated and all hell broke loose. Luckily, I'm a fast walker and was able to make all my visits much faster than my colleagues so I was not in the buildings when this all happened. Today I learned that we're all different since I was able to participate in Diversity Training. I learned that black people, white people, hispanics, asians, and others aren't all the same. It took 8 hours of my day and no lunch provided to figure this out. But thank goodness I learned this because I was going to see if my former officemate wanted to go to an Irish restaurant and eat corn beef and cabbage. I learned asians prefer rice and noodles so I decided not to ask him. Wheeew! Anyway, I hope that I've taught you about my career. By the way, we're hiring!

Chuckle. Chuckle. Chuckle.

Adventures in Junior High

You would think that after nearly two years of frustration of working closely with a 13-year-old boy, I would have gotten it through my head that dealing with pre-teen adolescents is nearly impossible. But no. When I got the invitation, I was so flattered. I thought, "wouldn't that be fun!" The idea of talking in front of a group of kids didn't seem to phase me, even though I probably have a borderline case of social anxiety.

Oh no, none of that mattered. I just HAD to go speak at career day.

Never mind that my job really isn't that glamorous, or even easy to explain. Forget that I don't really have good visuals or many exciting stories. And completely disregard the fact that I've never been particularly good at getting media to actually cover the stories I pitch. I thought I could be the hero.

And so, I arrived this morning at a middle school somewhere in the middle of Prince George's County ready to be an EXCITING SPEAKER.

What is it about school environments that immediately suck all the life and energy from you? As I walked up to the doors with my former colleague, who was sweet enough to invite me, and two of her other friends, I felt a familiar feeling of dread settle over my chest. Surrounded by boisterous seventh- and eighth-graders, the old shyness that I've worked so hard in the last few years to overcome began to surface.

This wasn't going to be good.

After calming myself in the school library with some frozen fruit and a bagel, I was feeling a bit more secure. OK, so maybe my job isn't the most exciting. But if I were young, I'd have lots of questions to ask, right? So I'm sure I'll spend most of the time answering questions.

As my student guide led me down to the first classroom door, I took a deep breath. Damn, they were loud. Were my classrooms always this loud?

It was actually two classrooms consolidated into one. The teacher introduced me, and I launched into the little speech I had planned in my head. Five minutes later, I had reached the end. Blank faces (at least the ones that weren't talking to each other) stared back at me. "Any questions?" I asked, meekly.

Fortunately for me, there were two or three students brave enough to ask questions. And even more lucky, I could use those questions to expand a little more and eat up time. But the exercise had quickly become a race with the clock. When my student guide reappeared at the door, I breathed a sigh of relief.

As the teacher thanked me and the students clapped, one boy who hadn't spoken through the whole class motioned to me to approach him. I walked over. "Do you have a boyfriend?" he asked. You've got to respect a seventh grader with those kinds of guts, I thought.

Heading up to my next class, I tried to plot in my head exactly what I would say. As I walked in the door, an older group of students, even more chaotic than the last group greeted me. The teacher, who seemed to be disgusted with the kids, told me to start and then plunked herself down behind her desk, where she remained silently through the entire presentation.

If the first go was bad, the second was worse. The group was unruly, and I found myself shushing them to be quiet when one of their classmates had a legitimate question. The teacher made no effort to control them; in fact, at one point, they insulted her and she only glared at them. Quality education at work.

Then my friend who had invited me showed up to listen in, but by this point, the presentation was go nowhere. For 10 minutes, I tried to babble on, sounding more and more ridiculous. The kids, picking up on my discomfort, exploited it, mocking some of the things I said and laughing.

So by the time I shuffled defeatedly to the last group, I was spent. Fortunately, the last group had a teacher who was clearly in control of the classroom. By this time, I had gotten my shit together and actually talked about my job coherently for more than five minutes. The kids had thoughtful, interesting questions and seemed to at least listen to what I said.

My one takeaway from the entire experience? In that last classroom, one shy little girl tentatively raised her hand. I walked over to her, and in a whisper, she said, "Your job sounds tight."

I think I blushed. "Thank you," I said, and the class giggled.

Ah, maybe they aren't so bad after all.

Candy grumblin

Ordinarily, it's my addiction to chocolate that gets me into trouble. Craving M&Ms, chocolate cake, you name it, I can never say no to something with chocolate in it. Which is party why for Lent this year, I officially took a much needed break from my favorite food.

Maybe that's the reason behind my lack of chocolate cravings these days. It seems lately, the only thing I'm craving is Starbursts. But I'm finding a terrible, terrible trend: I can't find them when I want them.

They used to be easy to get in candy machines. But our vendor at work apparently doesn't believe in them. Drug stores always have plenty, but not these days. When Rob and I stopped at the Rite Aid across the street from my house before a baseball game a few weeks ago, the "regular" Starbursts were noticeably absent. They had been replaced with the "Sour" Starbursts (which, I must add, were HORRIFYING).

Now that particular Rite Aid has supplemented the sour with "Creme" Starbursts. Though less offensive than the Sour version, they were still also highly unsatisfactory.

And today, the final straw: the pharmacy in my building at work doesn't carry ANY Starbursts at all.

What's with the revolt? The anti-Starburstism? Can't a fruity girl get a little love around here??

Whatever happened to wine in a bag?

I joined a book club, and though I have yet to make it to one of our discussions (or actually read one of our selections), I'm actually excited about our new title: Fast Food Nation. Of course, as we began planning the event in June, the topic of food came up. The party's hostess-to-be suggested McDonalds, which raised the inevitable question: What wine goes with Big Macs?

Why, Boone's Farm wines, of course!

Seriously, I hadn't thought about Boones in years. It's not that I'm a wine snob, because really, I'm not. I've only just begun learning about wine and how to drink it and what flavors go with what food dishes. But I'm not even sure that Boone's qualifies as wine. Is it a wine cooler? A real wine?

I consulted the Internets to see what they had to say about the subject, and *GASP* I could find no trace of Boone's online. Who makes it? How can I track it down? Can you even still buy Boone's in stores?

Maybe we should have a Boone's party, relive the glory days of underage drinking. I could use my own bottle of Fuzzy Navel.

The Jackson...

Today at 5:05:05 am & pm the time will be 05:05:05 05/05/005....

05.05.005 comes only once in 1000 years and coinciding with Thursday (5th Day of the week) comes only once in 7000 yrs...