Madness begins in March

Not exactly the March Madness we all are familiar with in the U.S., aka basketball.

This madness I refer to is my anticipated manic obsession of an aunt-to-be to my only sibling's first child -- my niece!

I purchased the 1st 2 gifts for my July-bound niece.
At the top is a pyjama set that says I love Grandma. It's festooned with lots of cartoon heads. Center, is another outfit for her 1st Christmas. And let's not forget these first-time parents.

Why a girl!?! I'm not going to be able to resist all the cute clothes. Girls are expensive! hahaha. Payback!!!!

Now I have every excuse to shop, if not for myself, then it's for my niece. Ooh, I don't even want to think about the shipping costs. That's gonna hurt. :p

Odd weather

The last 24 hours has to be the oddest weather pattern I've ever experienced.

I awoke in the middle of the night (Saturday early morning) to heavy rainstorm. No thunder was involved, but it was apparent several rain clouds passed by the region with sporadic heavy downpours.

This morning, after sleeping in till 10:30 a.m., I woke to warm weather, around 40 degrees Fahrenheit (T-shirt weather in Chicago winter), with practically all of the weeks' accumulation of snow melted from last night's storm.

But the rain clouds came and went throughout the day. Reports of flash floods were rampant, so much so I endured cabin fever and watched TV, cooked, read, and baked.

Then around 11 p.m., a series of power outages came and went.

Now at "press time", snow is starting to fall.

What is going on?!

Greed

This word goes against the grain of this time of the year, when Grace, Charity and Goodwill are usually consciously thought of. Particularly in the state of the newspaper industry that is hurting so, the act of greed is not tolerated.

Yet, here's an act of one that sends anger to my blood, and makes me ill. Shocked, unfortunately, I'm not. Money makes the rich want to have more (think politicians, and that brings to mine, Gov -- urgh, I cringe to say that -- Blago. Bloody Blago is what I will call him).

http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/
Read the post on Dec. 12

Roadside Illinois 1

Every state, particularly Kansas IMHO, has a lot of superlatives to claim for quirky roadside attractions -- think biggest ball of twine, biggest hole, biggest farm machinery, biggest barb wire museum etc.

Illinois, and my nearby Chicagoland suburbs, has its own to brag about, too.

The husband first alerted me to the Leaning of Tower of Pisa copy, and he drove me to it yesterday en route to the Museum of Science and Industry. And was I bowled over by it.

It is in the city/village of Niles. And it is a beautiful replica of the real thing. Along the driveway, there is also a telephone booth (sans phone) with the Italian "Telefono" sign. Hilarious.

I present to you, the Leaning Tower of Niles, essentially a water tower. And it stands in the grounds of the Niles YMCA, aptly named Leaning Tower YMCA.

The worst of times has not even hit yet

and I'm sick, sick to the depths of my stomach that I will have these horrific stories to tell future generations of my generation's bad economic times, layoffs.

Today, I found out via facebook.com that a friend, an ex-colleague got her pink slip in Augusta, Ga., and it makes me sad for her. Her mother passed away years ago, her father is ill and couldn't contribute much to the family (as far as I could tell, I never dared pry). She has a brother but he has his own family to care for. She learned the newspaper trade by chance, it's not something she chose. And while she's not the star copy editor, she has held her own very well. I won't know the reason why she's one of the 15 picked this time to be deemed not valuable. I know very well though that she must be questioning her self worth compared to so and so.

My husband did not survive the 2nd round of layoffs in Knight Ridder many years ago, and I was dismissed early about 2 years ago by a Morris company. And those were not pleasant. While crying is generally more acceptable for girls, for men, it's still taboo.

I never want to relive those moments again, but in these bad economic times, when downsizing is so rampant, one can never tell when the bad news were to come from the top.

I was hired into this job with a 5% reduction in salary at the time of offer. Then another cut came 6 months later when we were all offer a furlough day in exchange for 8 fewer hours pay a month.

When is this madness going to end?

Back to the fundamentals of reading

I finally joined a book club.

It's been a while since I opened a good book and finished it. I would say it would be 2-3 years ago that I was reading consistently.

Even though we are avid book buyers, we hardly finish some of the many book from beginning to end. It's always the impulse buy where we were drawn to the cleverly crafted titles and we thought we could easily finish it. But it just didn't turn out that way.

Another reason I stopped reading for a while is that when I was finished with all that particular author's collections, who would I read next?

Sure, there are the classics that I need to tackle. But ...... no good excuses.

So, I figured like exercise (which is something else I need to tackle), I would join a club that makes me accountable and also introduce me to other authors I wouldn't otherwise read.

The next meeting is on Nov 4, Tuesday. We are reading John Grisham's take on a nonfiction, The Innocent Man. I've seen his movies, they are good, but never felt compelled to read his book. This should be interesting.

Always wary ... that's my game

I've always been untrusting of people.

A girl friend of mine, C, can tell you that. We first met a job fair. I was waiting for the prep talk to begin when C came up and sat right next to me, in spite of all the empty chairs around. I was right to assume that she chose me because I'm Asian like her, and we share that common bond.

We got to talking, and she was giving me pointers on who to see. We also found out we went to the same college in Michigan. Of course, at that moment, I was highly skeptical, but she pronounced the city perfectly (not easy for someone who's not familiar with it at all), and I knew she was legit. Later, we went for lunch. And from there on, it's the start of a beautiful friendship.

Yesterday, another incident brought to mind my untrusting, always careful, approach to strangers.

Maybe some of you have encountered walk-in ATMs where you need to swipe your card to enter the lobby. That step is generally required when the bank is closed during business hours.
It was my 3rd time doing that, and for the first time, when I was doing my transaction (which involved checks and withdrawal) that someone came up and stood outside.

At first thought, I thought he's not a bank customer, which is why he was standing outside, and not come into this big lobby. He looked suspicious to me, too -- big RayBan-esque shades, wild and crazy hair, and not too kempt. I thought he was hoping that I would let him in. But I didn't. I positioned myself to hide the ATM when my cash was spitting out. By then, there were 2 more people waiting, both women. Only then, I felt I was safe. If the guys tried to do anything, like wrangle my purse from me, I have witnesses.

It turns out he is a customer of the bank. As he saw me walking towards the door to leave, he proceeded to swipe his card and get in.

I learned later that the protocol in such situation is that regardless of how big the lobby is, if someone is performing a transaction inside, everybody should wait their turn outside.

Can you imagine if the situation were reversed? I would be the asshole who intruded on his space.

Boy, do I feel like a moron, and worse yet, an ass.