What made you smile today?

Just finalized a one-year contract with a new client today for additional transcription and captioning work on educational videos for a technical college in Silicon Valley.

Yipee!!!

The transcription jobs were getting a bit scarce so now my finances might improve just a wee bit.

:::does a Snoopy dance:::

Awesome! Congratulations!

My daughter bought her wedding dress.

Good news, Butrflynet. I too am smiling--for a lesser but psychologically real achievement--since yesterday two of my paintings were accepted for a juried art show. It happened yesterday, but I'm still smiling today. According to Buddhism ego is the source of most suffering, but I must confess that it is also the source of some small pleasures.

SEE, you Buddhists need validation too!! CONGRATS JL. Thats a nice pat on the back when your fellow artists choose your work for inclusion .

When your famous Ill say I knew you back when you used to be on ABUZZ.

FABS!! I have some friends who do video production for Real Estate and this has been a tight time for them.

Im smiling cause We got some rain today!! I just planted several small fields of corn so this will make a good start for the little cotyledons. They can send out a tap root that can chase after a receding water lwvel but its damn difficult to sprout when the top 4" of soil is bone dry.

Yesterday, my adoptive English parents, Val and Derek returned from the annual four month stay in the US (two of Val's daughters who are both around my age, live there and I live here - so here, I'm like their daughter and they become my parents).
I love them dearly, so had missed them and was so happy to see them again. That's what made me smile first.
Then we started talking about people and stuff that had happened and I told them about meeting this married couple who ran a pub up in Oxford and how we'd become friends and Paul - who is Irish- and I were talking to this guy one night and he told Paul, when Paul told him he was from Dublin, that he'd played professionally with the Chieftains.
Than he asked me where I was from originally and I said I was born in Texas, but had grown up in NJ and he said that coincidentally enough he'd also played with Asleep at the Wheel (a Texas band) and Bon Jovi (NJ based band).
At that point, I told Val and Derek, Paul and I exchanged a knowing glance and decided this guy was a fantasist. Derek asked me if his name was Henry.
I said, 'No, his name was Bill, why?'
And Derek said, 'Because I grew up with a guy just like that right around Oxford - only his name was Henry',
And adopting this very posh British accent he said that Henry had approached him one day and said, 'Derek old chap - I haven't seen you in ages...how've you been keeping?'
And Derek said he answered that he'd been fine and asked what Henry'd been up to. And Henry answered - 'Well, I don't know if you've heard but actually I've become recognized as the first person to breed dog-faced baboons in captivity!

I told Derek that his fantasist beat my fantasist.

breeding dog-faced baboons in captivity- I'm still laughing...

What is a fantasist?

I saw some wedding pictures on FB of someone I knew 20 years ago. Was nice to see her and her brother again, even if it was a little impersonal.

The Lovely Bride, who sometimes records soap opera episodes, was
deleting some from the dvr. "I'm getting pretty tired of All My
Children," she said.

I turned to Rhys. "Hear that? You better watch out."

The Bride paused for a moment, then cracked up.

Sometimes life just throws you one right down the middle.

Which reminds me, George, of a New Yorker cartoon.
An older lady is standing next to her husband sitting in a chair.
She has a gun.
"Sorry, Harold, but I am reducing our carbon footprint."

Oh wow! Wedding coming up soon?


My smile today:

Sozlet likes soccer and has occasional flashes of wowness but has been struggling this year, with a new set of rules, a much larger field, and a coach who's more into yelling than teaching. So she's been kind of frustrated, doing OK but not making any goals (which she used to do fairly regularly) or playing that well in general. Last game, she was put in as goalie simply because she was one of the only people who hadn't done it yet, but in practices they hadn't really gone over what goalies should do (they mostly had goalie-less scrimmages), and she gave up two goals in pretty quick succession in a loss.

Today, something finally clicked. It was fun to watch. She scored a goal -- and it turned out to be the only goal of the game! (Final score 1-0.) She was doing all this footwork stuff I've never seen before (scrum of kids, she gets the ball somehow). She made nice passes. She did some huge walloping defensive kicks. And in a coup de grace, the coach told a friend of hers to be goalie, the friend didn't want to, and sozlet volunteered to do it (which made me go "ack why??"), and then she made a couple of nice saves to preserve the shut-out!

Whee!

Season's almost over and glad she got at least one good game in to motivate her to go back next year -- I really think she has potential but before today she was getting pretty discouraged.

I must admit to smiling at the CEO of British Airways going to bed tonight knowing that tomorrow he faces the ash cloud from the volcano, which some are saying will go on for years, the recession and a strike of cabin crew.

Awright, Sozlet! I hope she gets a coach next year who's more of a teacher.

Got a Christmas present for an order from FreshDirect. Finally got around to placing the order today (I wasn't all that hungry for a while.)

At first I was put off by not being able to see what I was buying. I missed the touching, looking part of food buying. But I got over it.

Click a button. Food's coming. I ordered stuff I usually don't buy for myself. Can't wait. Also ordered some stuff I'm out of. Some guy is gonna bring me my food.

I could get used to this.

September. Mom and daughter are in a tempest of planning.
I flee to my workbench.

I really really miss being able to order my groceries online and have them delivered. Grocery shopping is such a waste of time...and shopping online kept my spending way under budget because I could easily add and delete items from the basket as needed to keep it that way.

I hope you have a good time spoiling yourself with the splurge!

I worked for a title company for almost 20 years and rode the economic roller coaster with them several times.

You learn to say "this too shall pass" and hope you'll survive the stress until it does.

I do all the grocery shopping for my household--because I enjoy it. Very relaxing. Shopping for clothing, however, is stressful, and I can't buy clothes without touching them and trying them on. No way will I buy clothese by email.

JL, Glad you find grocery shopping relaxing. Shopping in a NYC supermarket is more of a challenge than anything else. Small, narrow aisles, mobs of people, unattended shopping carts, and high prices. I've been to a few outer-area supermarkets. Lots of space. I can see where that might be relaxing.

I used to occasionally buy clothing via catalog. Can't do it anymore. I have no idea what size I am, and I have no money for clothes. But the results weren't entirely unsatisfactory.

The other day I had an eight year old in (not for existential angst reasons)...but his school had told me that sometimes he holds his head and rocks, and says he has questions in his mind "that make my head feel like it's going to explode."

I asked him to give me an example of a head exploding question.


"Why are we here?"

Upon discussion, this turned out to be a "Why is there a universe?" question, plus "What's the meaning of life for humans?" question.

Two utterly trusting little brown eyes look up at me, waiting for the answer.

I weigh, and resist "42".

I speak the truth: "I don't know."

Child grasps his head and rocks: "You DON'T KNOW!!!!????"

He is devastated.

We discuss the issue at length.

But never again will I be seen to be a person who obviously knows the meaning of life.


I love kids. Especially the ones who have existential angst and can VERBALIZE it!