Please stand by

Modern Friends, I've run into some technical difficulties in trying to leave Memphis. Nothing too much to worry about, it's all work-related. It's also keeping me away from most technology for 12 hours a day and beyond, which makes it sorta impossible to post.

I hope to return to the blogosphere by Friday, Saturday at the latest. In the mean time, I shall suggest the following three activities:

1. Leave me some love below! While I can't post, I can at least check my e-mail during the day. Your comments will make me smile at a time when I really, really need something to smile about.

2. Check out any or all of the amazing blogs on my not-recently-updated blogroll! (When I get some time, updating the blogroll will be at the top of my list!)

3. Try to pat your head and rub your belly while singing 'John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt' all at the same time. No? Then anyone up for a guest post?

Where the people smile, smile on you all the while

I've been in the ol' hometown for the past week on a work assignment. It's kind of weird staying in a hotel in Memphis when my family lives here, but it's given me a chance to enjoy downtown in a way that I haven't in a while.

I haven't had a lot of free time, but I did get to go for a run Friday morning which took me down Beale Street (on a Friday morning --scandalous!), past the Gibson guitar factory, by the Civil Rights Museum and up the Mississippi River bluffs. I was so struck by all the sights that I've often taken for granted that I ended up retracing my steps with my camera trying to capture it all. I thought I'd share a few ...

Main Street mall and trolley

Who knew?

I think we'd all agree that is a REAL river.

This isn't actually Beale Street -- my camera ran out of battery power before I was able to shoot Beale Street, which runs between B.B. King's and the Blues City Cafe.

Memphis: it has standards, despite what you've heard.

He lives.

How many of you can say you graduated high school IN A PYRAMID?

You might think Elvis is the only king in Memphis, but you'd be wrong. Cotton is king.

I've loved, loved, loved being here, even if I've been working most of the time. You never know who you'll run into. The Southern hospitality really is second to none. I've conversed with more random strangers in a week than I probably had in several months. Sure, Memphis has it's dark side of crime and controversy, but every city has it's share. I might feel differently if I lived here again, but for now I'm proud to say it's my hometown.

Losing my allegiance

I know a few Modern Friends whose teams got unceremoniously booted from the tournament last night. I also know a few whose teams are still in. I was sorta pulling for my hometown team after the two teams I follow lost in the first round, but that was for naught as they lost last night too.

This begs the question, how do you decide who to root for after your team is out of the tournament? 

Of course the easy answer is, "Whatever is best for my bracket." But that would require you to still have a bracket that's mostly in tact, and mine is not. There's always the "root for the conference" rule, but my conference of choice did a great job of proving to the nation this basketball season that it is, indeed, a football conference. My dad has decided as a rule of thumb he's rooting against any team in blue and white, in which case he did pretty well last night. One of my work colleagues is summarily rooting against the Big East, which doesn't leave him with many options.

I think I may start rooting for the team with the best mascots. Or perhaps the green team, based solely on the fact that it's my favorite color (I know that would make at least one Modern Friend happy).

Taxing times

I like to think I'm pretty good with my money, but when it comes to doing my taxes I'm somewhat scared of the responsibility, because you know, IRS and all that scary crap. I've been especially scared to do my 2008 taxes because of the financial mess created by selling my house and transferring jobs and having my company pay for part of the relocation, so I put them off longer than usual so I could get help from my parents.

The Modern Mom and I sat down with Turbo Tax last night and started thumbing through all the W-2s and 1040s and B-52s and all that crap. I was already stressed out because I couldn't find a bunch of Goodwill receipts that I know I had at one point.

Turns out that was only the beginning.

I never received receipts from either of the churches I attended last year because I'm not sure either has my current address. So, we went through all my cancelled checks online and looked up each donation one by one.

Then we discovered that I never received documentation from the mortgage company on how much tax money I paid on the old house before I sold it, and boy oh boy that's a lot of deduction that I'm missing out on without that. By the way, did you know that you can't deduct anything from your taxes when you take a loss on selling your home to relocate? Yeah, F-U federal government for that one. That's a knife in the back that keeps on twisting.

Both of these mishaps are probably a result of me not actually living in my own home for six months and having four -- FOUR! -- different mailing addresses (two of which won't reach me anymore) in calendar year '08. I know I haven't been getting all my mail, despite putting in mail forwarding requests every step of the way. Lord knows what else is sitting in a dead mail pile somewhere with my name on it. And there's no telling whether any of the missing receipts got somehow caught up in the Modern Ex's papers or tossed while I was crashing at his place.

The taxes didn't get done, and now all I want to do is cry. I'm reliving the worst year of my life in the form of missing paperwork and relocation documents. I feel just like I felt then when everything was overly complicated and everything I needed was wherever I wasn't. I felt like I was finally done cleaning up last year's mess a few months ago, but now there's so much backtracking left to be done.

The lone comfort I'm taking from all of this is the simplicity I've achieved with my life this year. I know when this time rolls around next year, it won't be this difficult. One home, one job, one much, much happier Modern Gal.

To win it all

On the way out of the neighborhood the other day, I passed a car sporting Pittsburgh Steelers flags and magnets. For a half a second, I had the thought 'Why are you still flying those? The season ended two months ago!' I was instantly ashamed of myself for thinking that. Their team won the Super Bowl! As loyal, honest, hardworking sports fans, they have ever right to fly those flags through the end of next season or until their Super Bowl championdom ends.

It's been a while since we've discussed the rules of being a fan, and now is as good a time as ever to talk fandom rules as we are in the middle of an ever-maddening March.

My friend Lauren now takes her Philadelphia Phillies koozie out every time she goes drinking. When the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series in 2006, I immediately popped a bottle of Asti Spumani and danced around the living room. And I didn't shut up about it until the Cardinals fired their general manager the next season for sucking it up big time.

And I'm still talkin' about it now! So much so that it's all gone to my head and made it huge.

So I ask you, Modern Friends: what are the appropriate ways of rejoicing your team's superiority over the rest of their league when they win the ultimate title? How much is too much? How would you celebrate if your team won it all?

Anatomy of an Obama sentence

To say that the Modern Gal is a grammar nerd would be an understatement. I love proper grammar. I adore it.

I squealed out loud when I saw a diagram of one of President Obama's sentences on the Grammar Vandal's website. I seriously dug diagramming sentences in school, though I'm not sure I could do it anymore if I tried.

The sentence:

“My view is also that nobody’s above the law, and, if there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen, but that, generally speaking, I’m more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards.”

The diagram:


That's one of the most intense diagrams I think I've ever seen.

(Cheers to Kate @ the Grammar Vandal)

UPDATE: Just reiterating what I said in a comment below: Welcome Instapundit readers. Glad you're here, but please know that The Modern Gal is a politically neutral and friendly place. This post is about grammar, not politics. Please treat it as such and save your political discussion for Instapundit or another blog. Thanks, and welcome again.

Date night, now with a side of weird

I thought it was kind of funny that several of you suggested withholding my blogging background to anyone I might find myself dating. Modern Friends, I have a confession: I've been out on a couple of dates, but he knows about the blogging. In fact, he knew about the Modern Gal's blogging before he knew the Modern Gal herself -- and he was still interested in a date. A good sign? Or is he just seeking the inevitable fame that comes from associating with the MG? Either way, I'll play along.

Anyway, I'm mentioning it now because I do have a funny dating story -- or at least a weird one. The tacky '80s prom that just happened -- that was him. And yet, I think our rendezvous on Tuesday night took the cake on random nights.

Because of work (we don't work together, but our jobs are somewhat related), we both found ourselves in Gatlinburg, a little mountain hamlet about an hour away from Knoxville for work on Tuesday. Here's what you need to know about Gatlinburg: it's the wedding capital of the South, and they have drive-through wedding chapels there; there's both a Ripley's Believe it or Not AND a Ripley's Aquarium; there's an airbrush T-shirt shop every 50 feet or so, and I think taffy is the top-selling food item there.

After a long day of work, we were both hungry. It was a nice night, so we decided to stick around and grab a little St. Patrick's Day dinner and beer at a restaurant with a second-story patio that offered a good view of the street below. And what a view we had. We had a great look at what almost turned out to be a nasty situation when a couple of preteens decided to run out in the middle of traffic. Apparently they missed the whole "look both ways before you cross" lesson in kindergarten.

About halfway through dinner -- one featuring burgers oozing with grease, barbecue sauce and cheese -- I noticed a gal on the balcony of the seafood restaurant across the street. In a wedding dress. Doing the whole "I'm the king of the world!" bit. I immediately had so many questions I wanted to ask her: Why the wedding dress on a Tuesday night? Did you get married at the seafood restaurant or is it just the reception site? If it's the reception site, where's your husband? I know if I'd just gotten married, I'd want my hubby to be doing the whole "king of the world" bit with me.

Maybe all of that is just funny to him and I in a you-had-to-be-there kind of way, but I'm willing to bet you might find this weird: we saw Santas. Yes, plural. There was a Santa convention going on in Gatlinburg that day and not only were there hundreds upon hundreds of bearded men dressed in red milling about the town, they'd also had a parade that afternoon. A St. Patrick's Day-themed Santa Parade. A few of the Santas were having some beers at the very restaurant where we were dining.

I'm pretty sure the only thing we were missing that night was Elvis, but if we had looked hard enough I'm willing to bet we would have found him.

Oh, and the beauty of a dinner date while on a work assignment? Expensing the check to our respective companies. Except that our waitress didn't quite understand what we were asking her to do when we asked her to split it, and his credit card came back charged with the two burgers and mine with the two beers. Whoops.

Back on the track, beatin' the flack

Oh my goodness, Modern Friends. Going nonstop for several weeks in a row finally caught up with me last night. After catching a screening of The Big Lebowski at one of the local theaters with Courtney and Mickey (there were lots of people dressed in bathrobes and we even saw the Jesus! In a purple jumpsuit and hairnet!), I went home and collapsed physically and mentally. I felt so completely brain dead and physically exhausted that I was this close to swearing off blogging, Facebook, Twitter and all of technology to become a Buddhist monk. Fortunately, I decided to sleep on it, and one Tylenol PM and nine hours later I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER! So, I'll keep technology for a little bit longer and put my monk aspirations on hold for a while.

I'm now staring down the front end of a minivacation from work. Because of a shifting work schedule, my weekends from this week and next are consecutive. Four days off, baby! How am I celebrating? I'm sitting on the couch with a dog who knows nothing about personal space, munching on pretzels -- the only thing left in my otherwise bare pantry -- watching '80s music videos on You Tube and once again tackling my blogreader. I promise, I'm getting caught up on all of y'all's blogs at some point this weekend.

Monday I'ma gonna be heading to the motherland for a little bit of work and pleasure. Memphis friends, you're on notice. The Modern Mom always sends me an e-mail before I make a trip to Memphis to remind me of all the things I'm apt to forget to bring with me. What was on the list she sent me today? Lucydog. Thanks, Mom.

Before I take today by the horns and start working on putting my life back together after weeks of neglect, I wanted to pose the following question to you. The below photo? According to Apartment Therapy it's a bathroom painted to resemble a ski jump. My question to you is does the decor enhance the the process by scaring the shit out of you or does it cause performance issues by scaring you shitless?



Happy Saturday, all.

Live texting the game

For my love of sports I can blame my parents. Both of them are die-hard baseball, football and basketball fans and without the blessing of any other children, all their fandom got concentrated within me.

This afternoon a team that my family loves and I hold a vested interest in played in its first-round NCAA tournament. My dad was at work so my mom watched it at home with cell phone in hand. For much of the season, we've watched games together in this very capacity ... she in Memphis, I in Knoxville, with a string of text messages covering the 400 miles in between.

Today got a little hairy thanks to a nailbiter of a game.

Modern Mom: "Are you getting any work done?"
Modern Gal: "I contend this IS work."
MM: "Keep telling yourself that."
MG: "Free throws? What a concept!"
MM: "Really!"
MG: "It's the team we know and love. Or at least know."
MM: "I need to quit yelling at the TV."
MG: "It's OK. No one's listening."
MM: "What the sh__" (yes, she abbreviated that because the MM is a lady)
MG: "Well that blew."
MM: "Yep."

A love story

One of the reasons I've struggled to fully return to the blogging scene this week is because I took a little weekend trip down to Atlanta to see my dear friend, Currer Bell, who was to be getting engaged to her man Hot Pants. Of course, she didn't know she was about to get engaged.

Modern Friends, if you ever have a chance to somehow participate in a good friend's engagement (in a not weird way, of course), DO IT.

I've never enjoyed watching something unfold as I enjoyed watching the build up to CB finding out the news. Of course, it nearly killed me having to keep such a humongous secret from someone whom I'd normally tell anything to. It didn't help that at dinner the night before it happened, all Currer Bell could talk about was weddings. Her best friend's wedding and, oh yeah there was this wedding, and oh we're going to that wedding soon. I couldn't barely keep a straight face and I could NOT look at Hot Pants. I was dying, DYING, I tell you. Nor did it help when she and I started chatting in the morning just minutes before it happened about what we would be doing later that day -- she had no idea her plans were already made.

I had to physically stop myself several times from Twittering and Facebooking the news in the 12 hours prior to her engagement because I was having such a hard time holding it in. Of course that would have been awful as CB would have seen.

I can honestly say I've experienced very few things in life that I would say are more joyful than watching someone you love bound down the stairs one morning, squealing "I'm engaged!" with a smile that would light up all of Atlanta. Or dialing everyone in her phonebook to share. Or looking shocked when she arrived at brunch to find not the five people she expected but about 25 people she didn't. Or being all googly eyed and cute with her man.

It really drove home the realization that I don't want to settle in my own life for anything less than what the two of them share.

If you're still with me, you should read her account of how he proposed. It's really adorable.

And to Currer Bell and Hot Pants: I love you two so much, and I love you two together so much. I'll wish you happiness and a fulfilling life together, but I know I don't need to.

And in case you didn't find anything in this post to love for yourself, try this on for size:

The psychology of being happy

I've been a bit surprised at myself from time to time lately at how happy I really and truly feel. I've had plenty of things that have come up that I feel should have made me unhappy, but other than just being a bump or two in the road, they really haven't affected me.

A collection of studies on the psychology of happiness as reported by USA Today is starting to find out just how people become happy or sustain happiness. Part of it, like our parents or teachers once told us, is about attitude, but that's not all.

Some of it has to do with our genetics, some of it is how we measure our success and some of it is the activities we choose for ourselves.

One of my favorite points about the article is the role gratitude plays. People who count their blessings are happier. I know a number of you have been participating in Grace in Small Things, an effort to remind ourselves that we are all blessed by even the smallest things in life. If you haven't heard of it, do check it out.

And just in case I don't say it enough, I'm very, very, very grateful to have all of you in my life. Whether or not I've met you personally, you've still played a role in my happiness!

(Cheers to GIST)

Spending to save

Newsweek has a thought-provoking cover article this week urging consumers to start spending a little bit more money in hopes of reviving the economy.

A passage from the article by Daniel Gross:

Nobody is advocating a return to the debt-fueled days of 4,000-square-foot second homes, $1,000 handbags and $6 specialty coffees. But in our economy, in which 70 percent of activity is derived from consumers, we do need our neighbors to spend. Otherwise we fall into what economist John Maynard Keynes called the "paradox of thrift." If everyone saves during a slack period, economic activity will decrease, thus making everyone poorer.

It's hard to swallow in this economy, considering either we all know someone (or are the ones) who have lost their jobs or are struggling to make ends meet. But for people who have the money, it seems like a valid point.

What do you think?

Your daily March Madness harassment

I promise I'll do a real post or two today, but just as one last reminder ....

Please e-mail me at themoderngal@gmail.com if you want to participate in the The Modern Gal's Blogtastic March Madness pool so I can send you an invite to our CBS bracket manager account. Just because I can't tell you yet what the REALLY AWESOME PRIZE is, I can assure you it will be REALLY AWESOME.

Seriously. There's only four of us signed up right now. That makes your odds of winning really, really good. And it's free! (How many bracket pools can say that?)

On dating

The Dutchess asked the recently if y'all would start seeing funny (for y'all) dating stories now that I'm in much better shape emotionally. The short answer is: probably not for the foreseeable future. If you want the long answer, read on.

The thing is, the kind of dating that results in those funny stories freaks me out. Maybe it's because I'm so incredibly out of practice or maybe it's just because I don't like going on awkward dates with guys I hardly know. I've done those and they never, ever result in a second date, so why waste my time and my sanity? All of my significant relationships have developed out of friendship first, and I see no reason at the moment to change course. I shall let you know if I change my mind.

But because this is the first time in my life I've found myself both dating and proprietor of a blog, I figure I need to set a few dating+blogging ground rules. So here we go.

1. Thou shalt not blog about a date unless said date is a one-and-done situation.
2. Rule No. 1 may be broken in the event the gentleman companion gives prior permission for blogging.
3. Rules No. 1 and 2 may be broken in the event of a situation that's so funny, crazy or otherwise significant you would be doing the world a great disservice by not sharing it.

I ask those of you with experience with dating+blogging to suggest any other necessary rules.

Let's Dance

So I think my unintentional blogcation is finally over, although I think I'm going to be slowly tiptoeing back into the waters of the blogworld rather than diving head first. My blogreader's unread posts lists has reached epic proportions. It's going to take weeks to recover, I fear. The good news, at least for The Modern Gal, is have plenty of stuff to write about. I have a wonderfully happy story to share too! We'll get to that soon.

But first, you have to watch some of these videos that my boss of all people shared. The BBC hosted a dance competition for British celebrities to raise money for charity. The celebs performed iconic dances from Hollywood movies. See for yourself:

This was the one that won ...



This one is my favorite ...



You can find more on the sidebar of the YouTube pages.

Eating your way through St. Paddy's Day (and March Madness news)

I'd meant to post this earlier, and it may be a little late to be useful, but you can file it away for next year.

MyRecipes.com has a whole guide to St. Patrick's Day food and drink: corned beef recipes, how to make green beer and how to incorporate whiskey into your cooking.

On a completely unrelated note, I want to go ahead and let everyone know that I've had enough interest in the Blogtastic March Madness pool for me to move forward with the plans. For those of you who've said you will participate, thank you! I have set up an account on CBSsports.com to make this thing much, much easier. If you will, please e-mail me at themoderngal@gmail.com so I can send you an invite.

For everyone else: it's not too late to join the Blogtastic March Madness pool. Just e-mail me so I can send an invite your way too! Also, if anyone has an idea for the REALLY AWESOME PRIZE, I'm all ears.

A blogtastic March Madness

For the second year running, I've been elected ... nay, blackmailed into being my office's March Madness Bracket Commissioner. I don't know how I get so lucky.

Anyway, while out last night with Mickey and Courtney catching a show, or rather waiting on the opening act that was over an hour late because the axle on their van had broken, the three of us chatted a bit about sports and the upcoming madness that is this part of March when Mickey had what I think to be a very excellent idea: a blog-based March Madness pool.

I told Mickey I'd throw it out there and see if anyone bit. My thoughts are this: no money will exchange hands, you just enter for fun and I'll offer some sort of REALLY AWESOME PRIZE to the winner once i figure out what that REALLY AWESOME PRIZE is. I'd prefer to take submissions by e-mail only, so you'd have to figure out how to fill out your bracket and get it to me in electric form, all before Thursday. Unless your Mickey or Courtney or any other Knoxville person reading this, in which you get to deliver in person if you want. Or I know you well enough I don't mind giving you one of my addresses (yes, I have more than one. I like to keep people guessing.)

Tell me if you're interested with a comment below, and when I say tell me if you're interested, I mean a comment below is a commitment to ACTUALLY PARTICIPATING. If I get 15 comments and only two brackets submitted, then I reserve the right to cancel this little blogtastic March Madness experiment.

Reflecting on a four-year-old career

If you ask me, age is just a number and the coming and going of another birthday doesn't usually make me feel older. I felt a little weird when I got to 25, but I countered it with a kiddie-style bowling party.

No, it's not my birthday, but it is one of those times that DOES manage to remind me that I'm getting older, and that's the anniversary of the day I started working for the company I'm with now, the fourth anniversary to be exact. Ok, so why is that a big deal? As Shazzie pointed out to me yesterday, it's like I've been working for the company as long as I was in school. And because I worked for another company for about eight months before that, it just means that college is becoming even more of a distant memory.

Not that I'm complaining. Maybe two years ago I would have been super-depressed to think that college was getting further in my past, but I'm at a place now where I feel happier with my life than I know I did five years ago. I've gotten used to not having summers or holidays. Plus I feel like I've accomplished a few things in the time since graduation, and I wouldn't trade those accomplishments for the world.

I know I sometimes complain here about how crazy my job makes me, and it very much does make me crazy. It's the kind of job that you either absolutely love or absolutely hate. It's hard, it's emotional, it's high-pressure and there are plenty of days that I think I can't handle that for another second. But I appreciate what those days have made me become. It can also be tremendously rewarding.

Still, I can't help but wonder what's next. My profession is one that is seriously suffering thanks to the current climate of the economy. Many friends have lost their jobs. A few more can't find one to begin with. Every day I hear something about the profession that depresses me, and I don't know how much more of that I can take. I'm grateful to have a job and especially grateful to have one in my chosen profession, but wonder if I can shoulder the burdens as my industry changes and shrinks. And will my job be here six months from now.

The thing about me and my career (and really my life) is, I've never been a super-ambitious person when it comes to furthering it. I like to let things happen and see where they take me. I'd say I'm nowhere near where I thought I'd be four years ago, except I never thought four years ago much about where I'd be now. I don't have my eye on some sort of dream job within the profession that I'm gunning for -- I just want to be doing something that makes me happy.

I'm happy at the moment, but I don't foresee myself doing this job for the rest of my life. I just don't think our generation is going to be able to (or want to) stick with jobs for the long run like our grandparents may have. Not to mention, there's a high burnout rate when it comes to doing what I do, and I have little doubt I'm going to succumb to it eventually. I've sort of stumbled backwards into my last two job changes and am grateful that I did. For the past year, I figured my next step would be to follow the Modern Ex if he decided to go somewhere else, but with him out of the picture I feel like the story of my career is sort of open-ended for the first time in a while.

And I can't wait to see where that takes me.

Paul Rudd's sexy dance

We've discussed Paul Rudd here at The Modern Gal before, so you know how I feel about him. We've also discussed dancing here, so you know how I feel about that.

Now, how about putting the two together?



Holy crap, Paul Rudd, tell me how I can have your babies. (Kidding, I know he's married, but still.) He's got the awkward white dude dance down to perfection, manages to take a slug from his mug and even throws in a brief white man's overbite. Yes, please.

I think I'm still here

I feel like I haven't done any personal posting around these parts lately, which is a shame because I have plenty of things I'd like to share. There's just been no dang time.

When I haven't been working 11-hour shifts at work, I've been painting the town red. It's been fun, for sure, but I could use a mental health day to catch up on laundry and cleaning and blog reading (at last count my blogreader was nearing the 600 range and that was after I cleaned it out a bit). I was on the verge of having all my crazy spill out after back-to-back excruciatingly busy days of work coupled with an overloaded inbox and lack of sleep, but I've unwound quite a bit after a lovely Tuesday night and an easier day at work today.

Still, my busy schedule isn't quite ready to let up. I'm spending Friday night and Saturday in Atlanta to see Currer Bell (woo hoo!) and it's right back to work on Sunday. I think things will be a bit calmer next week, and I'm looking forward to getting back into the running and working out routine that I've so missed through these recent busy weeks. And cooking for myself. And continuing to paint the town red.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say with this oh-so riveting post is that I'm sorry I've been a bit MIA around the intertubes lately. I'm hoping with a good night's sleep tonight and slightly less demanding days at work that will change soon.

My parting gift is Ray LaMontagne's performance on SNL this weekend. The song has been sorta stuck in my head since seeing it. It's very sweet, and I adore his voice.

The teeny, tiny, talking iPod

Does anyone remember the SNL commercial spoof of the teeny tiny cell phone back in the pre-smartphone day when the cell phone trend was to go smaller and smaller? I can neither find it online nor remember who was in it, but the phone was so tiny it was impossible to use?

This makes me think of that.

Seriously, how much smaller can the iPods get? I've already lost my new Nano twice because it's thinness makes it prone to slipping into the deep, dark crevices of my car and couch. Also worth noting, the new Shuffle can talk. I can't decide if that's awesome or creepy.

Condolences to Aunt Martha

I hate to start off the morning with sad news, but remember how Aunt Martha was debating over which grandson of her beloved chow, Paw Paw, she was going to keep for her very own and she he ended up choosing one that she named Genghis Khan?

Well, there was an explosion at the kennel where Genghis Khan was staying this weekend, and he passed away in the subsequent fire. You can read more about what happened and how to help at her blog. There are also some adorable photos of the late pup.

I promise I'll write something happy later today to make up for being such a downer.

Better than a boob job

Barbie turns 50 and decides to get inked. Yes, that's right. There's a Totally Stylin' Tattoos Barbie. She comes with her own tattoo gun.

I haven't searched around the internets much, but I'm sure this is causing all kinds of outrage among the mommy bloggers. I say the woman's got to deal with her midlife crisis, so lay off her.

A story about good customer service

After encountering the sports fan's worst nightmare (needing to watch two sporting events simultaneously) on Thursday night, I decided Friday was the day I would finally break down and get Comcast's DVR service.

I had called the Comcast dude that services our apartment complex a week ago in anticipation of the multiple sporting event night. Dude said he was out of DVR boxes but that I could pick one up at the Comcast office across the town and easily hook it up myself. And because I am the Modern Gal and by definition handy when it comes to figuring out electronics and power tools I figured why not if it saved me time and from having to wait on the Comcast dude to show up at my house.

I did what I was told. I unscrewed the cables out of the old non-DVR box, making a mental note of which one went with which outlet. Then I screwed them into the new box and plugged it in. Of course it's never that easy, though.

What I got was a black screen with a message that read "this channel will be available shortly." I figured it just needed time to get itself situated. Thirty minutes later, still the same and on every channel. I tried what usually fixes my Comcast cable modem: unplug, rest, plug back in. Same, same, same.

Then I had an idea.

Knowing that Comcast has a customer service Twitter account, I tweeted about it. Granted, I would have tweeted about it anyway because I was pissed that once again a Comcast function was not working as advertised, but because I knew @comcastcares would be listening, I tried to be nice about it. Sure enough, within about two minutes @comcastcares had twittered back. He tried a few things on his end, and I ended up with the on-screen program info and guide but still no channels.

It was time for me to go out for the evening, so I sent him a message that I'd call customer service sometime the next day. Well, I didn't have to because the local customer service rep called me. I guess they got my number from my account. That dude tried a few things to little avail and asked me if he could call me back. I agreed, he called back and POOF!, everything was working.

Twitter and Comcast, I've said some ugly things about you both. I know I've called you both the devil several times over just in the past week. While I'm still not thrilled I had to seek out Comcast customer service to begin with, I still apologize for calling you both names.

Now this is just too much

First there was this.

Now this:


And this:

Quit playing games with my heart, spring.

It's good to be better

it's been two months and some change since the Modern Ex and I broke up, and I feel like I need to tell the world that I'm OK. Like, really OK.

It surprises the crap out of me how much better I feel because two months ago I would have suspected that in a year and two months I would still be tormented about the end of that relationship. Am I over it? I don't know, but I do know it's not tormenting me. And it's no longer the dominant event that my life is revolving around.

Hindsight really is 20/20, and in this case it may be even clearer. I've discovered a tremendous amount of clarity about my relationship with the Modern Ex in the past two months. I won't get into all the details here because I never got into the inner workings of our relationship here when we were together, and I'm not going to start now. I will boil it down to this, though: we weren't right for one another. I know why we got together. I know why we stayed together for so long. And now I know why we needed to break up.

In a way, the Modern Ex did me a huge favor by breaking up with me. He realized we weren't right for one another, and he gave me a second lease on love by letting me go. I now have tremendous respect for him for that. That's hard for me to admit, but it's true. I should probably thank him, but I'm not quite to that point yet.

I've got a bag of his things that he left at my house and his house key. I had been planning on handing it all off to some mutual friends but hadn't gotten around to it. Now I'm thinking about trying to give it to him in person as a sort of peace offering. I haven't seen him in two months, and I don't really want to see him for a significant amount of time quite yet, but I kind of want to make a gesture of peace. Kind of.

How did I get to this point so quickly? I don't know. It kind of scares me that I did get here so fast, but I guess I just forced myself to think hard about the past five years. Really, really hard. And I had a few epiphanies.

Certainly my wonderful friends have helped. It's been so refreshing to be around people who seem to understand me and share my interests and can make me laugh my head off. And I've got a manfriend (is that a technical term?) that always seems to appear when I need a smile and gives the kind of hugs that melt my heart.

I'm not going to say I'm healed. I still occasionally have moments when I freak out, though they're fewer and farther between. The freak outs are rarely about anything specific, I think it's just my soul still mourning the loss because any relationship that was old enough to be a kindergartner needs to be mourned when it's through.

Still, I feel better, and that feels good. I feel like a tremendous weight has been lifted from me. And for the first time in quite some time I feel what it is to be happy.

Get fresh

I can't remember if I've posted this before, and if I have, I apologize. My brain's a bit fuzzy from a busy week at work.

Anywho, here's an interactive guide to seasonable vegetables and fruits by Real Simple. You pick the season, it shows you what's best to buy. Click on the picture of the fruit or veggie and you get tips on how to pick out the freshest selection, how to store it, how long it will last and preparation suggestions.

Just looking at the pictures, I vote for summer fruits and veggies. Yuuuum.

The Modern Dad's new girlfriend

This story may only be funny to two people who read this blog, so if those of you who don't know the Modern Dad don't think it's funny, please accept my apologies. I often lose perspective of how (un)weird or (un)funny my family is to the outside world.

The other night I was lounging on the couch taking in a Turner Classic Movie screening of one of my favorites, The Philadelphia Story, starring Modern Gal Hall of Famer Katharine Hepburn, when my phone rang. Caller ID said it was the Modern Dad calling. I'd been avoiding talking to him on the phone for a day or two because I knew he and some other family members had participated in a trivia contest over the weekend, and when the MD does a trivia contest (which is fairly often given my family's pursuit of trivial things), I usually have the pleasure of getting a blow-by-blow recap on the phone the next day. Also, there are no short phone conversations with the MD.

But, because it was 10:30 p.m. -- rather late for a chatty call from him -- and because I have an uncle in waning health, I figured I'd better answer.*

MD: Your mom told me you were avoiding me because you didn't want to hear all the trivia questions from the other night. I'd hate to burden you with the questions, so don't worry, you won't hear a single one.
Curses. Foiled by the Modern Mom.
MG: I wouldn't dare avoid you or your trivia questions, Dad.
MD: Well, I was just calling just to tell you we didn't do nearly as good in this contest because we we didn't have as many people as the other teams. Also, no sports category. Can you believe that?
MG: No sports? Bummer. I guess Uncle T pulled some dead weight. And not playing at full capacity? I'm sorry I missed out.
MD: So what are you doing?
MG: I'm watching The Philadelphia Story.
I thought that maybe because he was the one to introduce me to both classic films and my favorite queen of sass he'd take a hint and let me call him the next day.
MD: Oh yeah! There was a whole category on the Oscars. We got about seven or eight of those. We couldn't come up with the youngest Best Actor award winner. I knew it was the guy who ran up on stage and kissed Halle Berry.
MG: Adrien Brody. The Pianist.
MD: Right! I kept giving everyone hints, but no one got it. We got the oldest Best Actor. Do you know that one?
MG: I'm guessing Henry Fonda 'cause he was pretty dang old when he won for On Golden Pond.
MD: That's right. We also couldn't get the most recent musical to win Best Picture.
MG: Well let's ...
MD: It was Chicago.
MG: Well now you didn't even give me time to think.
MD: So do you know this gal Katharine McPhee?
MG: Um, well I don't know her know her, but I think she was on American Idol a few years back?
MD: Well she's my new love. I was watching the latest Boston Pops special. Chris Botti was playing, you know how much I love his stuff, and he just had all these people join him, like Yo-Yo Ma and Sting and Steven Tyler and then Katharine McPhee came out and sang "I've Got You Under My Skin," and you know how much I love that song. And she had this little short black dress on. She's my new girlfriend.
MG: I'll be sure to tell Mom.

*Conversation abridged to save time for us all

This apparently was the performance that captured the MD's heart:

A new way to subscribe

I'm mentioning the following service with the caveat that I've never tried it so can't really recommend it or discourage you from working. It intrigues me, though, and I am curious if anyone else has tried it.

Maghound is a magazine subscription service that allows you to get your favorite magazines for cheaper than the newsstand but without having to be as committed as you would with a subscription.

The way it works is you sign up to receive three, five, seven or more magazines a month for a monthly rate. Then you choose which magazines you'll take, but you can switch out magazines every single month if you'd like.

It sounds like it could be especially useful if you want to try out a new magazine for a few months without paying the newsstand price. Or, if you know a magazine will be having a particular cover story that you're interested in one month, you could always switch to that magazine for a month and then switch back to something else.

It appears they have 299 titles available. I did a cursory search based on my own current magazine subscriptions (see magazine pile on left sidebar), and they had all except Newsweek, which I'm probably about to drop anyway after learning that they're about to go all snotty on me. Screw you, Newsweek, I've been a loyal subscriber for years.

I guess the only thing that would keep me from trying this out is that I'd want to first let all my current subscriptions expire so as not to be paying twice, and that might take a while.

Anyway, what do you think? Does anyone use Maghound already?

For the Office fans

There's a musical:



Also, there's a dude tracking all the tweets on Twitter that prompt a 'That's what she said' comeback. Check them out. Click 'popular' for the best ones. Some of them are just too much.

Ahem ...

This is how we rolled

Man, The Modern Gal is looking a little pale lately. All words, no pictures or videos makes for a very boring-looking blog. Let's fix that, shall we?

(Don't watch if you're offended by potty-mouth language)


Why do I bring up the Dude? Well I am a huge fan of the Coen brothers' flicks, but that's not why. It's because I did something this weekend that I haven't done in years upon years: I bowled on a Saturday night.

To be clear: bowling on a Saturday night is far different than bowling any other night of the week or even bowling on a Saturday afternoon. I've rolled on a random Tuesday night with friends just to break up the monotony of the week. For my 25th birthday, my friends and I commenced an in-denial kiddie bowling party on a Saturday afternoon that came with pizza and coke served in teeny-tiny paper Dixie cups. There's not anything terribly weird about bowling in those situations though. Bowling on Saturday night, however, involves a whole different subculture.

Sure, there are plenty of normal people at the alley on a Saturday night. People who just want to have a good time. Families looking for some PG fun. Then there's also the bleach-blonde, orangey fake bake gal wearing an inappropriately tight sparkly pink halter top with a big bow on the front (when it's 30 degrees outside).

There's the classic jukebox lineup: Britney Spears' 'Crazy' followed by GNR's 'November Rain.' And Chris Brown followed by Conway Twitty. I only wish I were kidding.

And did you know that they still turn the lights out at 10 p.m. for cosmic bowling despite the fact that black lights and day-glo paint stopped being cool like 10 years ago? (or at least as best as I can tell -- I really don't know what it is the kids are into these days besides Hannah Montana.)

I was a regular at the bowling alley in my high school days. Many people have a mall phase or a movie theater phase when they're in their teens. My friends and I had a bowling alley phase. When you go as often as we did, you roll pretty decently.

But as an adult, unless you're in a bowling league (and I think it's very awesome if you are) you're probably lucky to break 100 -- hell, you may be lucky to even break 50. It may have been months or even years since you last bowled. You're not as agile as you once were. You can't see the markers on the lane to line up your roll as well as you once could. I tell you, it's a bitch to get old. I tell you, in our party most of us were celebrating simply knocking pins down and not rolling a gutter ball.

And then there's the whole deal of adding alcohol to the equation. We were at a family establishment that tried to make it as difficult as possible on the underage drinkers -- you had to go to the bar to get a drink and you could only get one drink at a time and there were no pitchers. Let me repeat: NO PITCHERS. What that all adds up to is more time spent in line at the bar than at your lane waiting your turn to bowl. It took us two hours to get through one game.

Still, it was a blast to be able to laugh at myself and my bowling skillz (hey, I rolled a 91!) and the characters around us. You know, sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes, well ...

Why I write: to be inspired

Ok, this post isn't really about my own writing but instead about one of the best byproducts of becoming a blogger, and that is discovering all the amazing writing that's out there in the blogosphere.

One of my favorite new single-gal routines is my Saturday morning date with myself. I cook up a yummy breakfast usually involving some version of eggs and then get cozy on the couch with my coffee, a chenille throw and Five Star Friday. Five Star Friday is a website run by Schmutzie, who accepts invites people to send her links of the best things they've read in the blogosphere each week.

Not all the submissions strike a chord with me -- there's plenty of mommy blogging that, while I'm sure it's well-written, it just doesn't interest me at this stage of my life. Still, I usually find myself rooted to the couch for the better part of two hours while I laugh and cry along with some of the writers.

This Saturday I found myself reading a woman's blow-by-blow description of giving birth. Now, I do very much want (a) child(ren) of my own some day, but the thought of giving birth or the mere mention of the word "labor" makes me want to lose my lunch. And yet, I found myself hanging on her every word. That, my friends, is some really amazing writing.

I check the Post Secret list religiously every Sunday, as I'm sure many of you do. I'm amazed at how beautifully submitters convey their love and pain through a few simple words or choice of art on a postcard. (I'm working on my very own submission right now.)

I probably never would have discovered these things had I not gotten involved in blogging. Now that I've found them, I find myself working harder with my own writing. On a serious post, I labor over every single word trying to make it convey the exact thought and emotion I want it to convey in hopes of inspiring someone the way these other writers have inspired me. I don't feel I've achieved that, but it's a good goal to have hanging over my head as I write.

I've bookmarked a few of the fantastic posts I've read in the past couple of weeks on First Star Friday. Please, please, please take some time to read them. Even if you don't have time right now, come back later when you find yourself rooted to your couch like I am on Saturday mornings. They're worth it.

• Sizzle Says reminds everyone it's not all about you
  
• Simply Nutmeg learned an important lesson in interacting with others 
• Not Perfect laughs at the hypocrisy of a perfect wedding
• Penelope Trunk just needed a drink, then decided everyone needed a hug
• Left Coast Cowboys finds how sports are more than just a game
• Rude Cactus' young daughter says some wacky shit
• And had I read Momo Fali's Catholic cliff notes before I wrote my own Ash Wednesday post, I would have just linked to her instead