At the Movies, Finally

As I get older, it becomes harder to be the youngest person in the room.  Patti and I managed this last Sunday, however.  How?  We went to see “Julie and Julia”.  There’s nothing like Meryl Streep to bring out the senior citizens, I guess.  The movie I really wanted to see was the Harry Potter one, but unfortunately, it was no longer playing in any theaters.  (What happened to discount theaters?)  I’ve been wanting to see the Harry Potter movie since the day it came out, but every weekend, something came up.  Sometimes I had to work, sometimes Patti had to work.  Other times Colin had a birthday party to attend.  And I’ll admit, on some Sundays I

Gloomy Day

Living in California, one gets quite used to days full of sunshine.  Heck, when I was in Los Angeles, after I had moved away from the coast in Santa Monica, it seemed like it was sunny year-round.  Every day was a t-shirts and shorts day, especially when I was working from home.  So when a gloomy day like today comes along, after consecutive months of summer sunshine, it feels quite jarring.  The gloomy weather really does make me feel a bit gloomy myself.  The feeling won’t be permanent.  I get used to the gloominess after awhile.  After all, I lived in South San Francisco for many years.  But a sudden change from sunshine to cloudiness is

Enough Garlic Fries

It’s like a punch in the gut.  It’s Thursday, nearing the end of another work week.  Everybody is thinking, it’s almost Friday!  Then it’s the weekend!  And then I get the email.  This Saturday is another “normal work day”, as the email put it, for my team.  There’s nothing normal about it, losing 50% of my rest and relaxation period.  This makes three working weekends out of four, and I don’t see the end of these in sight.  I already feel like I get to spend so little time with the kids during the week.  When I lose a weekend day with them, it really hurts.  Of course, as always, I like to remind myself it’s better to have too much work to do than none at all.  At least Colin has two birthday parties to attend this weekend, so I’ll only be missing one of them.  And hopefully, I’ll still make it to the evening plans I had with Colin on Saturday –

No Potter

I wouldn’t say I had huge plans.  Modest ones, but still plans that I was looking forward to.  Tomorrow (Friday) is another one of those forced shutdown days at work, where all the employees take an extra day off to help the company’s bottom line.  With both kids in school, I was planning on finally going to see the latest Harry Potter movie with Patti.  Now I’m afraid I may not be able to catch the movie before it leaves theaters, because I have been excused from the shutdown.  Or in other words, I’ve been told

Town Hall Craziness

What’s happening to people these days?  I mean, I know politicians aren’t all that respected, but still, there are that many people who think it’s okay to yell and scream at their senator?  Certainly, people are welcome to their own opinions, and if you like the state of your health care, I suppose it can make sense to be against reform.  But is yelling and screaming and rudeness the only way to get heard these days?  I’m no expert on the current health care debate, but I think ensuring that everyone in this country has health insurance ought to be a goal of ours.  Do I believe for a minute that covering all these extra people will cost nothing?  No, but maybe the extra costs are worth the overall benefit to society.  Maybe you disagree, and that’s fine.  What really bugs me is