I.D. #18294039-2
I often poke fun at my husband for doing or saying something nerdy, such as geeking out on an episode of Star Trek: Next Gen or telling me about a dream he had in which he calculated the angles of an isosceles triangle. I tell him that he is showing his Nerd I.D. card.

But I have a deep, dark secret that I have been trying to hide for a long, long time.

I, too, am a nerd.

My Nerd I.D. card was scanned and read during my presentation, thus outing me to the people from whom I most want to protect my nerd-dom.

During the show, I was linked, via headsets, to all of my co-workers who were involved in the show, my boss, and the techie guys from our staging company who were working the lights, audio, cameras, etc.

One of the awards that was given out for the show is for offices that meet their objectives during the year. Usually our offices go all out if they know they are getting the award by wearing hats or buttons or costumes of some sort. This year was no exception. One office, upon receiving the award, brandished glow-in-the-dark lightsabers and formed a sort of lightsaber gauntlet that their office manager had to walk through.

Once she got through the gauntlet, one of the lightsaber-bearing people, who happened to be an African-American male, escorted her to the stage.

Over the headsets, one techie asked, "Who's that guy?"
And another techie responded, "I think it's Mace Windu."
And I let out a hearty, "HA!"

Mace Windu, pictured below, is a Jedi played by Samuel L. Jackson in the new Star Wars movies. Did YOU know that? No, why would you? You may have known that Sam Jackson was in the Star Wars movies, but probably didn't know his character's name. Yeah. Well, I did.



It probably went over my co-workers' heads, because no one said anything to me about it. But the techies now know that I, a chick, not only understood their obscure Star Wars reference, but that I laughed at it. I can barely live down the shame. So the next time I rip on my spouse for his nerdiness, I'll have to remember my moment of nerd glory.

Sign of the cross
So, how 'bout my mom?
I'm just talking to her, and I tell her that I'm going to the Cavs game tonight.
She asks, "Are you going to do the Usher hand signal thing?"
She refers to this:



Usher, who is one of the new part-owners of LeBron and the boys, was featured above the fold on the front page of today's Plain Dealer, demonstrating the new "Go Cavs" hand signal.

I told my mom that I'd wait and see if the urge struck me.

Idiot proof
During lunch today I noticed a warning on my bag of Cheddar Cheese Quakes, which are Quaker brand mini rice cakes that if you pretend really, really hard, kind of taste like Cheetos. The warning was this: "Do not put in toaster or microwave."

Now you KNOW some idiot had to have done this for them to have to put a warning on it. My question is... what happened? Now I'm kind of curious. Did the rice cake explode into smithereens? Did it inflate to giant size as a Peep (ah, 'tis almost that time, you know) would?

Puzzling. I almost want to try it. But then, if I destroy my microwave, I'll have no one to blame but myself. I was warned, after all.

The nose knows
Last Thursday, as I am getting ready to leave for the hotel, Incompetent but Likeable comes over to my desk and says, "Good news, Kath! I got a nosebleed today."
"How is that good news?" I ask.
"Well, I only get nosebleeds when the seasons change. I get one when the season changes from fall to winter, and I get another one when it changes from winter to spring. So spring must be coming!"
"Oh, OK," I say.

On Friday, at the reception after the meeting, the crowd parts like the Red Sea and IBL comes charging through, his hand clutching his nose. "I got another one, Kath," he says as he passes by.

I can almost hear the birds chirping and see the flowers blooming now.

Bad Lady Quote of the Week
At our presentation on Friday, BL was sitting with New Girl #1. One of our office managers came up and was talking to our boss. NG1 asked BL what the person's name was. BL responded, "Oh, that's _____. She's a real bitch." NG1 said, "Really? Well, who of the managers do you like working with?"

BL's response: "None of them. They're all bitches."

And hence she continues to live up to her name.

Hunka hunka burnin love


Here's me (right), a coworker, and Elvis. This was the aftermath of my presentation on Friday, which, by the way, went swimmingly!

But it also has provided me with about a week's worth of blog fodder. So I'll go slow rather than vomit out a rapid succession of posts. I want you to savor each one.

In any case, we have much more important matters to attend to. Mario dropped out of American Idol? What the &#$#*(!@!!?

Days until major presentation #2: 2 (but I'm leaving tomorrow to go to the hotel to wait and wait and wait for the torture to finally end)
Current blood sugar: oh, was I supposed to check that today?
Stress level: surprisingly, not too bad
Odds that BL will screw something up at aforementioned presentation: I'd bet my years' salary on it
Odds that I will have to quash the urge to deal physical damage to BL sometime over the next 48 hours: come on, do I even need to answer this?
Purchases made on I-Tunes today: one. Josh Rouse's new CD, Nashville.
Predictions for tonight's AI boots: Janay, Linsday, Scott (sorry homedawg), and Travis.

Stuff
First of all, it's my kitty, Dom's, birthday today. He is three. In cat years I'm not sure how old that makes him, but he's still my baby. For his birthday, I gave him the plastic milk jug ring off a new gallon of milk this morning, and that will about do it. I'm sure a few treats might come his way later on this evening.

Progress was made in the baby Doodle's nursery this weekend. I was in my new favorite store, which is a place I never thought I would set foot in -- Burlington Coat Factory. Who knew they had all kinds of other shit in there? I needed a new dress coat for work, and wanted a cheap one, and then I saw the huge baby section and made a beeline. I scored some really cute decorative stuff, as well as some onesies and some washclothes and some other things that were on sale.

I got curtains at Tarjay, on clearance no less, and put those up in the room. So it's starting to come together! Now we just need all the furniture and Doodle will be arriving in style.

I'll take a picture of the progress once I locate and learn to operate our new digital camera. I promise.

News of the weird
Lobster, anyone?

Here, kitty kitty

Tanqueray and Tonic is my personal fave

That's gotta be some stank!

What's wrong with this picture?

I found this photo on MSN in their Survivor article. See anything, um, odd about it?
Hint: there is more where there was once less.

Curse you, Blogger
Another fine post eaten by the Blogger monster. It contained the word "whilst" and everything. Its main purpose was to tell you some interesting things that I gleaned from People magazine last night while sitting in the hair salon with tinfoil on my head (this is the point in the eaten post where I told anyone who was thinking that a pregnant woman shouldn't have her hair colored could go pound salt).

Here is what I learned from People, re: the American Idol contestants:

-Bo Bice's real name is Harold.
-Nikko Smith's dad is baseball Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith.
-Amanda Avila once sang backup for Smokey Robinson, and also went to high school with Josh Groban.

There, aren't you glad that you know these little nuggets?

I'm not too sad that we said so long to Celena, and aloha to, well, Aloha. I thought Janay "Hit Em Up Style" Castine was a goner, but, what the hell do I know. The guys who left were my picks to leave, as well.

Got to hear baby Doodle's hearbeat this morning, the poor little fella had the hiccups. I thought it was cute though.

In like a lion
The snow came, and has decided to stay for a while. But still, no one can tell us how much accumulation to expect. I had a shit ton of snow on the car (that's a technical term) this morning, but the roads were fine. I was expecting a slip 'n' slide ride to work. But I got here only nine minutes late, which is pretty good for me. I was surprised to see BL here, because her new policy is that if one flake of snow falls, she either shows up at 11:30 (or thereabouts) or doesn't come in at all.

Well, I was firmly in the Constantine camp until last night, and now I'm a believer in Bo Bice. But my favorite, I would have to say, is Anwar. I am predicting that Joe and that other dreadlock guy will probably go home, or perhaps my Cleveland boy Scott. As a whole I dislike the girls, particularly that annoying Brooklyn girl.

Last night I had a dream that I was in a candy store asking for sugar-free candy, and there was only one little bag of candy in the store and myself and another girl almost got into fisticuffs over it. I think this dream is representative of my much larger, real-life issue, which is, god dammit, I want some freaking sugar and carbs, and I want it NOW!

Hence, I have decided that after I have this baby, and I get the "all-clear" from my doctor, I'm going on a huge sugar binge which will include at least a quart of chocolate ice cream, an entire package of Oreos, a bag of Skittles, and then onto the carbs -- a medley of chips, Doritoes, Fritos, or anything else that gets in my path.

Yeah, I'll probably keel over dead afterward, but it will be, like, sooooooo worth it.

Days until major presentation #2: 12
Current blood sugar level: 107
Times visited Pottery Barn Kids online today: 2
Number of items ordered: 1

Due to the impending snowstorm du jour, I have decided to boycott working today. Well, at least for the moment. There are much more exciting things to do, such as reading blogs and looking for baby stuff online.

Plus, I'm not in such a panic state for this presentation as I was for the last one. So even though the clock is ticking, I'm not sweatin' it. The work will get done. Just probably not today.

Alert
Snow, it's a-comin'. Nobody knows when, or how much, but it's on its way. Probably by the evening rush.

Nothing aggrivates me more than the weather forecasters when they don't exactly know what's going on, but still have to say something, so they make shit up, and make the storm seem like it's going to be ten million times worse than what it actually turns out to be.

So I could either be driving home through a blizzard or a flurry. Good to know.

In other news, I saw Anchorman last night and was hugely disappointed. I expected it to be stupid and funny. It was just stupid.

The results are in...
And I am happy to report that I, and three other people... were right! It's a boy.
Everything appears to be normal, and he had all of his limbs, which was my main concern. Not only that but he was showing off for us, bouncing around like a crazy person the whole time.

New poll
There's a new poll up. This time you're picking your favorite American Idol rocker dude. As with AI, you can stuff the ballot box this time and unfairly skew the results... so rock on.

Big day ahead

So... most of you think it's a girl. Myself and three others think it's a boy. We will find out today during the 4:00 hour! And then, after the flurry of phone calls and mass e-mails, I'll post the answer here.

I'm starting to spaz out.

A completely hypothetical thing that could have occurred today in my office
Boss: K, have you posted those documents to our web site yet?
K: No, I haven't had a chance to, I have about ten million other things to do [I'm not nice to him anymore, and am blaming it on hormones]
K: *goes to lunch*
Boss: *sends out all-company e-mail saying that the documents have been posted*
Random people in the company: *call boss to ask where the documents are because they can't find them*
K: *returns from lunch*
Boss: (as K is putting her coat away) K, I thought you sent those already.
K: [RAGE RAGE RAGE] No, not yet, I told you that before I left for lunch.
Boss: Oh. I thought maybe you had done them by now.
K: [RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE] I was at lunch!
Boss: Oh. OK. Not a big deal. So when do you think you can do that?
K: *resists urge to go batshit crazy*

The eagle has landed
Well, don't let me ever say my job is boring. Today's journey brought me to a costume store, where myself and a co-worker both tried on an eagle head. Not the body, just the head. Apparently the body was nowhere to be found. My coworker gets to be the eagle for our meeting in March. Let's just leave it at that. It's too bizarre and too long to explain. But I did want everyone to know that I tried on an eagle head. Had I brought along the digital camera, I would have taken pictures.

I see London, I see France
So I'm in the doctor's office yesterday and I'm on the table, and they've got one of those baby heartbeat monitor things over my stomach. I am supposed to be listening to the "whoosh whoosh whoosh" sound that my baby's heartbeat is making but all I can think about is the fact that I'm wearing hot pink flowered cotton underwear and everyone in the room can see them.