In service to my country....

So, my place of employment is facing what may or may not turn out to be devastating budget cuts. This places a bit of a damper on the whole holiday spirit thing. Especially since I have plans to spend money. In light of the economic crisis, I was hoping to do my part to revive the economy through conspicuous consumption. I bought a 40in Sony Bravia television for the spouse for Christmas with the intention of reworking the entire dining room into an entertainment room in January. This will involve paint, new curtains, and masses of new furniture. Because of course, that is just the sort of patriot that I am! How am I supposed to complete my plan to save America if I may be facing an economic downturn myself? This is ridiculous.
I would expect that my employer strongly consider the damage my loss of spending power could bring to the local and national economy. Instead, this should be the opportunity to encourage the early retirement of some of the dross currently not earning their ridiculous paychecks. Please hear me oh gods of budget and planning!

Dream Drama

My spouse has been advocating that I enter psychotherapy for several years now. To be clear, not to study the field, but to be a patient in it. I admit I have some issues, but I am working them out through avoidance right now (and the occasional alcohol misuse). Maybe once I have some other things fixed in my life, I will again explore the benefits of therapy. Anyway, one of the triggers for me hearing about how I need psychotherapy is when I relay one of my dreams to him. I have some pretty out there dreams that a Jungian or Freudian therapist could have some real fun with. Case in point: last night's dream. I was death. In my dream, I was the official ender of life. I was hunting down two women (no one I actually knew). These were magical women by the way - think fairies or elvin people. I recall grabbing their souls, but not actually killing them. They were marked for death without being dead. I let them continue to live out of the goodness of my heart. Only not really. They had escaped me and I found them both in Australia working as maids at a resort. Their one joy was sunning themselves on the beach during their off time. I let them go to continue to enjoy the simple things in their menial lives. So, psychotherapy..... any recommendations out there?

Encouraging Retirement

As a feminist I understand the need to reclaim and celebrate the "crone" in terms of her wisdom and years of experience. However. Sometime the "crone" refers to a self-important, socially retarded animated corpse. This is such am instance. The crone needs to retire or die peacefully in her sleep tonight (so, how wrong is that, really, if the (read: my) world would be a better place free from her?).
This story involves the crone messing with the wrong gal (me). I told her I would not send her a copy of what I already to sent to someone else so that she could make sure it gets done. Gasp! Oh no, she didn't... hell yes, she did. The crone had the temerity to imply that I had not done something that I had a record of doing, because when she checked up on me (double gasp) the person in question did not recall receiving it. So, no crone, I will not allow you to tell me how to do my job, imply that I somehow am incompetent, and then assume I would defer to you. Who do you think you are and more importantly, don't you know who I think I am?!
Obviously since she has time to do a portion of my job, I will chat with her superior about giving her more work to do. We would not want the crone to feel that her vast knowledge is going underutilized. Oh, and bite me.

The Only Good Ant is a Dead One

One morning just prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, I came in that Monday to find that my entire workspace had been overrun by ants. They had made a new home in one of my plants. After squishing a couple hundred by hand (yum!) I called my dear friend in Facilities to save me from the invasion. (I watched Ants! as a child.... I know what they are capable of.)They decided not to spray, but to place two bait boxes strategically in my area. The next day, my desk looked like a mini Pompeii. The poison stopped many ants in their tracks. I felt like the gods in Clash of the Titans... looking down at the poor mortals from above. So I joyfully swept up the carnage. Since then I have seen signs of ant life, but it has been fairly minimal and is trumped by continued piles ant corpses. So far I am winning this battle... but only time will tell.

Progress

Another seven sessions will be behind me, and at least another seven are ahead. I have been going to see a personal trainer once a week at the rec center. This involves me and a just twenty-something young woman who exercises professionally on top of her just twenty-something metabolism in a room of mirrors. It is a form of hell. I exercise while watching sweat pour out of every wrinkle and roll of fat. Yes, I can watch my chins perspire. I both hate myself and feel great satisfaction with me simultaneously. I like that I can see progress not in terms of the actual reduction in said fat rolls, but in the incremental changes taking place. I can lunge across the room holding 8 lb weights in each hand twice then do squats without crying. I can balance on the bose and do push up after push up. One day I will see these incremental changes translate into fitting in my old clothes. In the meantime, I am taking my sessions seven at a time.... and moving to twice a week.

Oh you evil you....

So, somehow my computer magically moved within the Active Directory to an improper OU. As there are only a select few who have access to do such a thing, I am busy contemplating a painful revenge. "Why?" you ask. It is not that I particularly care where my PC is housed within AD. The problem is that we have a lovely policy geared toward enforcing compliance. This means I am looking at the worst color combination ever. I will get the codes so you can see for yourself.... R128-G55-B155 and R231-G230-B0. Yes, my background image on both screens is now this color combination and I cannot get rid of it. I had someone move me back then used the cmd prompt to update my group policy (I sound like a total geek, huh?), but apparently, the fix must actually be manually forced by someone that is not here right now. I am pretty sure he did it on purpose and must pay the consequences......

Jack Made Me Do It

I was reading through my beloved's blog posts from this month. He had included a really emotional piece about war and loss. As this is the month of Veteran's Day and the anniversary of my friend's death in Iraq, I am adding two poems:

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973)

©Copyright. The Estate of W. H. Auden, 1976, 1991.All Rights Reserved.
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THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER
ARMISTICE DAY AT ARLINGTON

THE wind to-day is full of ghosts with ghostly bugles blowing,
Where shadows steal across the world, as silent as the dew.
Where golden youth is yellow dust, by haunted rivers flowing
Through valleys where the crosses grow, as harvest wheat is growing,
And only dead men see the line that passes in review.

The gripping clay once more gives way before the Mighty Mother
Who waits with everlasting arms to guard her sleeping sons.
And lonely mates in silent fields call out to one another
The story of an empty grave, where each has lost a brother,
Who takes the long, long trail at last beyond the rusting guns.

Gently the east wind brought him home to meet the south wind sighing.
Softly the north wind breathes his name that none of us may know.
For only those who fell with him, out in the darkness lying,
Can tell his company or rank, and they are unreplying,
As each dreams on through summer dawns or winter's mantling snow.

Nameless--and yet how gallantly he faced the roaring thunder
Where names were less than star-dust as the crashing steel swept by
To take its endless toll of those the night squad spaded under,
Clod upon clod, beneath the sod that time alone may sunder,
Held where the wind--blown grasses stir beneath an alien sky.

He'll miss, perhaps, the poppy blooms that sway above the clover,
But rose-red wreaths of Arlington bend low above his dreams.
The reveille at dawn is done, the slogging hikes are over,
Where out the friendly lanes of home, a gay and careless rover,
His wild, free spirit seeks the hills and haunts the singing streams.

No more he moves by Meuse or Aisne, some shell-swept river wading,
No marching orders call him from his rough-hewn granite grave.
And when at dusk we hear far off the eerie drum-taps fading,
What hallowed spot holds more than this, with spectral lines parading
Blood of our blood, dust of our dust, "the ashes of our brave''?

There will be tears from watching eyes, where rain and mist are blended,
There will be heartache in the lines where gold-starred mothers wait.
But where the great shells fall no more, what vision is more splendid
Than peace along the once--scarred fields, the last red battle ended,
Peace that he helped to bring again above the twilight gate?

Let valor's minstrel voices sing his fame for future pages,
But when the starless darkness comes and the long silence creeps,
When blossom mists of spring return or winter torrent rages,
Write this above his nameless dust, to last beyond the ages,
"Safe in the Mighty Mother's arms an Unknown Soldier sleeps."

from Great Poems of the World War: Electronic Edition, W. D. Eaton

In loving memory of former CPT Sean Patrick Sims (August 27, 1972 – November 13, 2004