Quick hits

Howdy folks! Sorry for the long gap between postings but I’m “back in the saddle again.” While I’m half watching the Super Bowl, here are a few “quick hits” of things from the last week.

My secret shame
I need to confess a deep dark secret. I love games - board games, card games – all fairly innocent but I also love computer games. I know – 35 year old mothers should not love computer games.

I don’t play them very often – until this week, I hadn’t played one for about a year. The reason for the long gaps is because when I do play I tend to binge. The obsession only lasts for a few days and then I won’t play again for months. It’s not like I go on a 24-hour bender – I just spend what free time I do have doing nothing but.

The object of my obsession this week is a new computer game I bought with some birthday money. It’s called Pirates! There’s nothing like a little pillaging to make you forget the stresses of the week. But like most of my game obsessions the fever is already beginning to pass so I guess it’s back to reality. Darling husband will be happy – he’s tired of having conversations with me where I’m only half participating.

Big mouth
Here’s another confession. I have a big mouth. I talk too much and too loudly. I’ve had this affliction all my life. I come from a family of talkers. Too make matters worse, I get overly animated when talking about things I feel strongly about – talking with my hands is a must.

Some of my most embarrassing moments have been when someone has criticized me for being too loud or too talkative. Or worse, when I said something and immediately regretted it - the joke that fell flat, the occasional Freudian slip, or the unintentional insensitive remark. There’s a little filter between my brain and my mouth that catches all the stupid or bad things my brain tells me to say; most of the time it works but “filter failure” does occur more often than I would like.

I was reminded of all this again this week when a co-worker came and told me I was too loud on a conference call. She was really nice about it so it’s not like she was mean or anything but it made me feel really bad. I thanked her for letting me know and told her I’d try to keep it down.

We have a cube environment at work so we all have to be aware of our decibel levels as well as exercising a lot of tolerance. But now when I go to work I’m paranoid. Who else is annoyed with me for being too loud but hasn’t said anything? Darling husband thinks I’m obsessing and I should forget about it. He’s right of course but I always over analyze these things…sigh…

Odds and ends

Just a couple quick observations …

1. Isn’t Cindy Sheehan’s 15 minutes of fame up yet?

2. To the Muslims rioting over the Muhammad political cartoon – If you don’t like your beloved prophet being portrayed as a terrorist, than maybe you should stop being terrorists. Just a thought...

3. To the Canadian government – please give your border guards guns. All of us down here would really appreciate it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20060126/ca_pr_on_na/us_cda_border

4. To Michael Moore – if you hate it here so much, then why don’t you move to Canada? Whoops! They just elected a conservative government. Well, I guess there’s always Venezuela. I hear Cuba’s nice this time of year.

5. To Coretta Scott King – rest in peace.

6. To the Flying Mango restaurant in Des Moines – you guys are great! We’ll be back!