I just got the nicest compliment from one of our clients. She called and asked for our old paralegal, and I said she didn't work here anymore. So she identified herself and asked if I could help her. I did my best but her question required a call from the lawyer to answer. So after I took the message she asked who she was speaking to and I said, "this is Judy" and she said "oh, I know who you are. You're the pretty blonde who sits in front, I knew I recognized your voice". Awwww. That's gonna have me smiling for the rest of the day, because it was a compliment that came out of nowhere and those are the best kind.

About 6 weeks or so ago, there were cops all over my house, because of T. About 2:30 am that same night, there was a loud explosion that seemed like it came from the side of our house. Turned out someone had thrown a cherry bomb into our driveway, and the explosion caused a good bit of paint to come off of out garage door. Now, the paint is peeling BADLY at my house to begin with. I've been saying since I moved in that it'd be a nice house if the exterior was maintained better.

Well, two nights ago, I heard a boom just like the one six weeks ago, but it sounded farther from our house. Last night, I pulled into the driveway at about 10 pm, to paint chips all over the driveway, planters pulled away from the house, and more paint chips on the ground along the side of the driveway, and the barbeque on the side patio smoking. I was slightly freaked out. I went inside, and Dau was in the kitchen. I asked what the heck had happened to the house and he said there had been more cherry bombs. I just stared at him, and he was like, "I'm just kidding!"

Turns out our landlord is going to have our house painted, and they power washed it yesterday. When I left for work this morning the painters were just starting to arrive. I'm curious as to what color my house will be when I get home tonight. After four years of living in a brown condo with teal trim, its nice to think that I now live in a house that is a different color than the ones next door and across the street.

I had a great weekend. I flew to Austin to finally get to meet Caryn, and despite my nightmare, she did not in fact go to Oklahoma without me. Kat and Rasee were just as wonderful in person as they are online, and Chet, Derek and Chris were cool people too. We had such a fun time Saturday night. And when we got home on Sunday her sister had us over to dinner, and she is a great cook- she even made a green bean casserole that I actually liked (my sister Anne's is inedible). There will be more details about the weekend (the Saturday night blogger party especially) when I have the pictures back to go with them.

I just wish my trip hadn't been so rush-rush-rush-go-go-go the whole time. It would have been nice to have some downtime, since my real life seems to be running at about 200 miles per hour lately. All in all it was a great trip that I'd do again. When Caryn comes to visit me I'll have to make sure there is a lot more leisure time.

Holy Crap. According to my body, it's 6:20 in the morning. According to the clock here, it's 8:20. I'm sitting at Caryn's computer, she and James are still asleep. Our first meeting was great, HUGE hug in baggage claim, and she brought me flowers and these adorable snail ballons- they're really funny. We chattered away on the drive to her house, with a quick stop at James' so he could pick up some socks (Socks! Socks? It's waaaay too hot here to wear socks!). It rained, and there was lightning and thunder. It rained like it does in the movies, where you're soaked in the time it takes to get from the front door to the car. It doesn't rain like that in the Bay Area.

I think my subconcious is trying to get the better of me. I just had the most horrible dream. It was one of those dreams where you dream you've woken up, and so your brain convinces you that what is happenng in your dream is really happening. I dreamed that all these people kept showing up at Caryn's house, aunts and uncles and cousins and exboyfriends, and Caryn decided we should go to England instead of Oklahoma.

Then she and James left for Oklahoma without me. (this right here should have tipped me off that it was a dream, that I was suddenly in the field by my parents' house, which is very definitely not in Texas) When I finally got them to answer a cell phone, Caryn was very cold. They came back, grudgingly, to the house where they had left me with her family, and she called Kat to say "We're not coming. Well, James and I might still come, but Judy is going home." And then she called the airline to change my flight, and I was crying and her uncle was saying "I knew this was a bad idea, but I was willing to handle you going to Oklahoma. But you start talking about going to England, that's another story entirely". I couldn't get her to look at me, I couldn't get her to tell me why she was doing this.

Then, I opened my eyes and realized I was still in bed, in Caryn's very lovely guest bedroom, and that I had been dreaming. I think I was so convinced it was real becasue I never remember my dreams, so of course it didn't even occur to me that it was a dream while I was having it (and I have managed to make that distinction while dreaming before, "oh, this is a dream, okay" kind of thing. But this one was truly horrifying, and one I was glad to wake from.

In slightly less than 24 hours, my plane will be landing in Texas. I've never been to Texas. And I'm a bundle of nerves. I'm going to be meeting Caryn. Finally. We've been bloggy friends for about two and a half years now. I'm excited to finally be getting to meet her. Over the last couple of years we've discovered that we are so much alike its almost scary.

We're going to drive to Oklahoma to meet Kat, Chet and Rasee too.

If I wasn't so tired right now I'd be bouncing off the walls with excitement. Instead, I'm gonna finish packing and go to sleep.

Okay, an update... I ended up messaging CC (which is what I have decided to call him) and we chatted on AIM for a bit. This is gonna sound weird, but when I meet guys online, there are four basic "filters" they have to get through. With the very first message, he slammed *smack* into one. His response to my IM was "Hi, how are u doing?" I decided to overlook it momentarily, but had my eye on him. He didn't use that abbreviation again, so we kept talking. Eventually we got around to exchanging pictures, and I sent him the really cute one of me from the Tiny Tiki Party last month. Somehow he heard, during my on air description, that I weighed 138, not 330. And that was a problem for him. So I've decided I get to make fun of him now.

Here is the email I got from him, about 40 minutes after being on the radio:

How are you doing Judi? It was great talking to you this morning on the radio! It's quite brave of you to contact the radio about your personal life and I truly admire that. I would love to get to talk more with you and go on a date.

It would be my pleasure to get to know a sexy, single and BEAUTIFUL female, go on dinner or casual dates/or something similar and take things from there.

I am also looking for good friends to hang out sometimes. I am sure you have some great qualities that I would like to know about.

Honestly, FINDING A SWEET LOVING PRINCESS IS WHAT MY HEART TRULY DESIRES

Just a little bit about me, I'm about 5'8, brown eyes, in good shape (fit) clean cut, classy, educated (BA), very healthy and fairly successful...:) I have PICS to send. I am looking for a single and sweet female (I am 31, I look younger and I am flexible on age)

As for my hobbies I enjoy dancing, walks by the beach, bowling, fishing, music, singing, getaway, movies, dining, meeting new people, the rest in my profile. Kindly tell me more about yourself.

FYI
I believe a woman's eyes capture the beauty of her body and soul...someday, my heart will find those of my dream girl...not for long...our wandering hearts will find each other and we will establish the most romantic union ever!

Looking forward to your reply.

Gag. Retch. And that was my reaction before talking to him. Other than putting it in italics for this post, I have changed nothing.

So, I was on the radio again this morning. NoName was giving really bad advice to this woman who said she was 25 and still a virgin, because while she had had opportunities, she wasn't ready. Frankly, I don't remember anymore what her questions was, but his answer was basically that she should just go out there and get it over with. I, of course, thought that was the worst advice ever, but was getting ready for work so I wasn't going to call in. But then some other chick called in and said "you give the worst advice to virgins" and No Name was saying that guys want girls that age to have experience with intimacy, and that this girl was gonna freak guys out.

Well with that, I had to call. So I called in, saying that I was 28 and still a virgin (I'm not sure if I've mentioned that here before or not, but I don't think I have, so, there you go.) and that it was by choice not circumstance (and not because I have shovelface- kiss my ass NoName). I also said that the fact that I was still a virgin hadn't freaked out any of the guys I've dated, they ask what my reasons are and in general they're fine with it. Maybe it's because I'm up front about it, I don't know. So anyway, the call turned into them wanting to set me up with someone, because clearly, i needed to go out and "just do it" as well. They had me describe myself, which I did, including the fact that I weigh 330 pounds. They tried to get Hooman to go out with me, but Hooman is so not my type and I said no way. Matty on the other hand....

Then, they put some other caller on the line with me, some guy who wanted to take me out. So they had the two of us chat on the air for a minute, and Sarah was like "Give them tickets to the karaoke party" but that's this Friday and I'll be landing in Austin right about the time that party kicks off. So they put us on hold, and I got his email address and phone number. I gave him my email address, there was no way I was going to give some random guy my phone number. He's emailed me already, and it was super cheesy...

So I open it up to you, my public- what should I do?

(Oh, and his email is at AOL, I checked, he's on AIM- should I message him?)

Apparently things got busy around here on Friday. This morning when I got in, I sort of half noticed the lid to the coffee cup I use here at the office sitting on the counter next to the sink. Briefly my mind wondered where the cup part was, but it's been a semi busy morning and I forgot about it. I just went to put my lunch in the microwave, and there was my coffee cup, still full of the coffee i had warmed up on Friday. Say it with me- Ewwwww.

*UPDATE* My friends are doing well. Mama is still in the hospital and baby is still inside. Things look good.

Have you ever said something, and then it happens? I know its not my fault, but the other day I was musing that I hoped a friend's baby either came "a tiny bit early, or a tiny bit late" because said baby was due the day of another friend's wedding. I said "a tiny bit". I didn't say 9 weeks early. Mom is in the hospital trying to keep the baby in, dad and the four year old are at home. So, please pray, or think good thoughts, or send warm fuzzies, or light a candle for the family.

When I was in high school, once or twice a year we'd have this thing called Kids Day. It was a whole school day devoted to team building and unity. It went from 8 to 4, so we were at school a little longer, but no one cared. One time they actually extended it and it went from 8 to 8. It was limited to 100 students, sign ups were first come first serve, and you couldn't sign up your friends. But of the 100 slots, about 10 of them were reserved for kids like me- kids who had a hard time making friends, or whose self esteem could seriously benefit from a day like that.

There were so many amazing components to those days, but one of the coolest things was that for one day we were just a bunch of kids. No in-crowd, no popular/not popular kids, no nerds no one liked, just a bunch of kids. And all day, everyone who was there had a big piece of paper on the wall with their name on it, and people could write stuff to you. It was all positive stuff, because for that one day we all got along and we were all the same. And you got to take it home at the end of the day. I had three of them still on my wall when I started college. My mom may even still have them somewhere, I don't know.

But once, during either my junior or my senior year, they changed it a bit. They called it Challenge Day.

We split into small groups and talked about things like peer pressure and fitting in and the like. We learned that the "popular kids" had the same struggles the "not popular" kids had. We played ice breaker games, had snacks, and had a lot of fun along with all of the serious stuff. But over the course of the day the topics got more and more intense. By lunchtime people were all squirming a little because things were getting personal- a lot more personal than a lot of high school kids ever got with their closest friends, let alone a room full of teachers and kids they barely knew.

By about 2:00 the topics were firmly shifted from unity and peer pressure and fitting in to things like drugs and sex and family issues, and some of the kids had actually started to cry. (I should mention that one of the rules of the day was that nothing said in the room left the room, except the life lesson stuff the leaders taught us- that we were encouraged to share with our friends. But no "did you know that [popular girl] hates her step dad because [reason]") It was at about that point in the day where I learned two of the things I have carried with me since high school-

Firstly, what people refer to as "bottling your feelings". It shouldn't be called a "bottle". Bottles have finite amounts of space, and when they get full they just overflow a little. Everyone knows when bottled feelings surface, all of it seems to come out at once. The place we stuff our feelings is really more like a balloon, it stretches until it can't stretch anymore, and then it pops. Most people turn into a big mess when that happens, and there were a lot of "balloons" bursting that day.

The other I learned was that "when the tears are on the outside, the inside is healing". They said that a lot that day, as more and more kids started crying. And it's something I still firmly believe, and something I say to people I care about, and I'll say it again now: "when the tears are on the outside, the inside is healing"

My favorite part of that day was the line game. I don't really think it had a name, I just call it the line game, but really by this point, they weren't games anymore. It wasn't "fun" anymore. It wasn't fun, but it was my favorite part nonetheless, because it was designed to show you that you're not alone. They put a big masking tape line down the center of the room, and everyone stood on one side of it. Then the leaders would make a statement, and if the statement applied to you, you stepped over the line. Like everything that day, it was designed to push you, but started off harmless, with statements like "I'm wearing socks" or "My birthday is in January", but progressed to things like "I've been drunk before" and "I feel like my friends don't know the real me". And the tears flowed freely from just about everyone with statements like "I've been pushed farther sexually than I really wanted to go". I stepped over the line on that one, and marveled at not only how many others were over that line with me, but at *who* some of those people were. I remember getting involved in a very tearful group hug over that one- me, a good friend of mine, and three kids who always acted like they were better than me and wouldn't normally give me the time of day. And the other cool thing was that not only were the kids on my side of the line crying, but most of the kids on the other side were too, because they saw that it had happened to their friend, or maybe just that it had happened a lot more than they thought it did. "When the tears are on the outside, the inside is healing."

I spent a lot of my adolescence thinking I was alone, because only a few people liked me. I didn't know that a lot of kids felt the things I felt and experienced a lot of the things I experienced. But this day and this game changed that. We were hardly the breakfast club, trying in the following days to maintain the unity. As soon as the day was over all those walls went right back up. But we knew. We remembered. We knew that that popular girl sitting with the rest of the cheerleaders had the beginning stages of a drinking problem. We knew that the really cute boy sitting on the deck needed to pull his grades way up or he couldn't be on the baseball team. We knew the mousy nerd girl who spent every lunch period in the library had lost her virginity at 12 to a guy on the basketball team that she had been friends with her entire life. And while we didn't suddenly hang out together and become best friends, that knowledge linked us together. Amazingly enough, I *never* heard a single rumor bourne of the things we learned in that room. And I went to a really small high school (about 850 students) in a really small town (that has sadly gotten a lot bigger since my high school days) where rumors spread like wildfire and everyone thought they knew everyone else's "dirt".

Anyway, something compelled me to write about that day. I'm not usually a comment whore, but I'd love to know what thoughts this brought up for you.

Sometimes I go to Starbucks in the morning. Not all that often, since I'm rarely ready for work early enough for that. But sometimes, when I am there, they have blueberry scones. Blueberry scones are a weakness of mine... I love them. So yesterday, Keegan and I went to Mollie Stone's to get salads for lunch, and in the way to the checkout is the bakery. I wasn't tempted by the cookies or the doughnuts, but then I saw them... Packages of scones. By a company called "Sconehenge". Now, if you know anything about me you know that I'm into medieval recreation and all its associations. Score one for the scone company. I'm also a total marketing whore. I will buy a product if the company has an interesting name or if the packaging intrigues me. Score two. They had blueberry. Score three, picked up the package and bought scones.

But the best part was this:

Ingredients: unbleached flour, buttermilk, butter, eggs, sugar, baking powder and salt. May also contain fresh or dried fruits or nuts.

Fresh! No preservatives! No ingredients that I can't pronounce or don't know what they are!

Mmmmmmm.

Thought I'd share a couple of fun tidbits from the weekend... Saturday night Keegan and I went out for a late dinner and movie- He really wanted to see Dodgeball (which was SO FUNNY by the way), and we could only find it at 12:20 am if we didn't want to drive 40 minutes to another theater. So we went to Bennigans to eat, which is one of my favorite places, but it's changed a lot. The menu is different, and they were doing karaoke. Ugh. We laughed our butts off, but really, karaoke is only fun if you're drunk. Anyway, keegan ordered this sandwich- it was like the weirdest thing I've ever seen. It was like a club sandwich- ham, turkey and cheese, but no lettuce or tomato. And it was deep fried, sprinkled with powdered sugar and served with jelly. It was really odd.

Then last night I went to church for the first time in forever and I got to see my friend's baby, Andrew, who is 8 weeks old. The first time I had seen him he was asleep and had a cold, so I couldn't hold him. But last night my friend said to find her after church because she wanted me to be able to hold him. So I found her out on the lawn afterwards, and Andrew was asleep again but she was going to let me hold him anyway. Just as she pulled back the shade on the infant seat and stroller, we both heard this loud PPTHBBBBHTTTTT! and Andrew's eyes flew open and he looked startled. He had farted so loud he woke himself up! (and it was just a fart, we made sure) So I got to hold him for a little while- getting one's baby fix is a very important thing.