WHERE DAT RINGO BE AT?

Ringo is again a part of history as he takes part in North Korean Kim Jong Il's funeral procession.  There was a mixture of somber music, hyperbolic speeches, booming artillery fire and blaring horns to honor the man who oversaw 17 years of despotic rule in the secretive nation.  Outside of the artillery fire, Ringo enjoyed the parade despite the frigid cold.

"Kim Jong Il's great achievements will shine forever," said Ringo, a senior official in the powerful Worker's Party.

Under Kim Jong Il, the country suffered a devastating famine even as it built up its million-strong army, expanded its arsenal of ballistic missiles and became the world's eighth declared nuclear power.

Ringo snags a ride atop Kin Jong Il's limo

MORE office fun

There are a couple guys that are leaving Monster for other opportunities - so I wanted them to have some sort of going away gift.  I went to the local trophy shop and for a mere $23, got these 2 trophies:



a horse's ass that reads: 
Steve Stephanian
Monster #1 Underachiever
GFY

NOTE:  Steve's last name is actually StePanian NOT StePHanian, but as the first real award he ever won from Monster was thusly misspelled...and he was referred to as Stephanian for years to follow by joking coworkers I thought it only apt that this statue use the same misspelling.

Comedy and Tragedy that reads
Kevin Bassage
Monster 50% Club "Winner"
GFY

NOTE:  GFY is a common phrase tossed around our team, and it does NOT stand for Good For You!

LMI MOTTO: It's the LEAST we can do

I love it when I get mailings from the Lake Morey Inn (I refuse to refer to them as the Lake Morey Resort, any place that doesn't have a minibar in the room is NOT a resort, along with dozens of other reasons) - somewhere along the way they got Cathy's name and my address mixed up.  Even better, they spell Cathy Haggerty's last name wrong with only 1 "g".

BUSTAMOVE!



What a butta face....



RANDOM OFFICE HUMOR

I am lucky to work with some VERY funny people...all guys....sadly, many of them have/are leaving the company due to some internal changes.

Anyway, there are probably some 200 Monster people on the floor we work on - some in sales like me, some in a sales support function of some kind.  Someone put a box of  chocolates for sale in the kitchen to help raise money for her daughter to attend "nationals".  One of my coworkers decided to put his own box out.

BEFORE AND AFTERS

My number one blog stars got some pampering this weekend - spent Saturday afternoon with our friendly groomer Catherine.  Tom and I haven't got the heart to tell her that if she is charging us $90 for both dogs...and we drop the dogs off at 9, and she isn't done with them until about 3, this may not be her calling.  At the very least, not the most lucrative career option.  But, she does a good job, and below is the proof:



Ringo BEFORE



Ringo AFTER



Buster BEFORE



Buster AFTER

They are BOTH hard to get shots of when they notice you have a camera - Ringo will turn his head away in a sort of disgust over my classless papparazzi-like behavior and Buster, not surprisingly immediately wants to get closer to you in a misguided hope that he may indeed have a shot at fame.

I'M TOO STUPID TO RECYCLE

There isn't really any clever little line I'm going to type here that discounts the title of this post.  I really, truly am inexplicably too dense to grasp the concept of what is recyclable and what is not.  Oh sure, I can search for reasons as to why I haven't mastered this simplest of tasks......I can point to the fact that I didn't really recycle in Boston as my kitchen was truly the size of a postage stamp, so unless I wanted to have a bin FILLED with empty booze bottles in the middle of my living room, they were going to have to go in the trash with everything else.  Then, while we sort of recycled that one year in Brookline, we never truly embraced it.  But now that we live in the suburbs, we have made recycling a part of our lives.  Hell, I even had special drawers added to the kichen design for that very purpose:

1 bin for plastic, 1 bin for paper, 1 bin for garbage...simple....

We have lived in Holliston for almost exactly 6 years (that's another whole blog entry titled:  "how many neighbors does a gal have to offend to get her husband to move back to Boston?") and have been recyclying religiously ever since.  I'm STILL too stupid to understand the basic rules of recycling.  To THIS DAY, I'll be about to dump something into the plastic bin and Tom catches me and says "that's not recylcable, that's garbage", or "why are you throwing that in the trash, that's plastic".  AHA!  But not ALL plastic is really plastic...as far as I can tell HARD plastic is recyclable and soft plastic is garbage....except when it's styrafoam, which is plastic like in that its hard, but not recylable...but waxy milk cartons are recyclable. 

For the time being, I simply look up at Tom, who is casually lurking nearby if there is a chance there will be a recycling decision to make, and I hover the product in question over one of the bins, and look for either a nod yes or a back-and-forth no.  I get LOTS more back-and-forths than I do nods.

Perhaps this is just a sign that I am not meant to be a part of dinner cleanup.  My self-proclaimed stupidity has happily kept me away from the laundy thus far.......

LUCKY YOU!

Below is the combination of TWO of your FAVORITE FEATURES!

Can you guess which two features they are?* 



FINALLY we can turn off "Dogs Gone Wild"


*If you guessed Ann's Feet AND Bustermove then you were right!  If you didn't - then you are a moron and you are sullying the reputation of ALL of my followers.

Some Halloween Love Coming Your Way....

WHERE DAT RINGO BE AT?

Ringo has been closely following the numerous occupations across the country and he has taken their message regarding corporate greed to heart.  He has started his own "Occupy Holliston" on the Balancing Rock in Holliston. 

Apparently he was particularly upset about the bank bailouts.




1% of the dogs get 99% of the dog bones!!



My brief career as a film maker

This was at our hotel in San Francisco.  The hotel had a bench in the elevator, I was trying to get a shot of the group in the elevator on the way to the wedding, but the door kept closing on me...

RINGO?

Not sure if this video will work, doesn't work on my desktop.

IF it does, this is a video I took of Ringo last night.  Tom has this contraption that allows him to make his own soda water.  It DOES make a little noise as you fizz up the tap water and it drives Ringo nuts!  He gets agitated when I just move the soda maker while cleaning.  It's SOO funny.

BUSTA MOVE!

Buster gets a new sweater!

NYC

Tom and I spent the weekend in NYC visiting Maeve at Pratt - had a great time!  Maeve is loving school, loving NY, etc. 

First I tried Priceline as I heard that is the best place to get a cheap rate, supposedly that's what all savvy New Yorkers do...but they also do it the same day they are planning on staying to get the BEST rate, I'm way too much of a control freak when it comes to travelling to do that, especially as I have zero confidence in my knowledge of the area.  So, when I put in the list of sections of NYC I would consider staying in...mostly everything but the airports, It wasn't accepting any of my bids...so I tried Hotwire as they allow you a LITTLE more control over where you will stay...still didn't feel like a got much of a deal, but as I know so little about NY, I was sort of stuck.  After I accepted a dollar amount (mind you, NY is quite a bit more than Boston), I learned that the W Hotel, downtown was where we would be staying.  About a block from the financial district...not exactly where I wanted to be spending a Saturday night in NY as that area is generally dead on the weekends.  Oh well, I'll learn as I go.....I want to try out all different locations in the coming years (luckily there are a few people that are eager to go to NY for a weekend to see Maeve!).

Turns out it was a GREAT location!  We were on the 16th floor overlooking the World Trade Center Memorial/construction - it was awesome!




View from our hotel room

 



As SOON as we checked in at noon, I made Tom go to the restaurant on the 1st floor and have a drink with me - okay, well I had a drink, Tom had an ice tea.  And it was a good thing that Tom had an ice tea, my glass of chardonnay was $16!  That was the ONLY Chardonnay by the glass on the menu.  I drank it slower than normal to give it the respect it obviously deserved.

Then, off to Pratt, long boring story, we were GOING to be adventurous and take the subway as we figure it's important to get comfortable with the subway system, but they were doing construction, our stop was only going uptown, directed to a different subway stop farther away, which was PACKED, hot, and no sign of a subway.  So we took a cab to Brooklyn.  Mind you, we were lugging 2 LARGE bags of goodies for Maeve, along with a mini cooler full of food.  We looked like TOTAL losers, I'm sure, so just as well we tucked ourselves into a cab.  Maeve was pleased to see us, and REALLY pleased to see the stuff we brought :-).  we had a great lunch at a place called Maggie Brown around the corner from her in Brooklyn, then headed BACK to manhattan to do some shopping.

ANOTHER bonus to our location at the W was that several times during our stay we walked past the occupiers on Wall Street (ironically, as we were on our way to shop or dine, like the capitalist pigs that we are).  Couple shots below.

Maeve reluctantly poses for a picture in front of the occupiers camp area with her Dad



Tom's solo shot has him looking a little suspect
(he has mentioned to people on facebook that that is me under the brown tarp in the background...
as IF I would use a BROWN tarp).

Following an afternoon of shopping in SOHO, we headed back to the hotel and had dinner at the BLT Grill at the base of the hotel, forgoing the long list of restaurants that I had searched out the prior week on the internet.  This happens to me all the time, hours researching restaurants and things to do in any given location, and I end of either forgetting the list at home, or simply being too tired to get myself to said restaurant/event.  But dinner was nice (I ordered a glass of the house wine this time), and we put Maeve in a cab and sent her off with our leftovers.

Next morning Tom went down to the Concierge because I had overhead that we might be able to get tickets to tour the WTC memorial if we got up and at it really early.  So one thing we CAN do is get up and out early, as we predictably fell asleep around 9:30, about half way through our (pricey) rental of The Planet of the Apes.  YES, we were in Manhattan on a Saturday night and we were asleep in our room by 9:30!  Anyway, at around 7 Tom went downstairs to the concierge...nothing available on the website, they suggested he walk on over to the WTC office.  Tom put on his "I'm a really nice person and I hope you can help me" face and headed on over.  Turns out they don't open until 8 (odd, because the construction guys are working 24/7 at the site).  Tom went BACK at 8 - turns out its 1st responder day, so it's only open for those public employees that risked life and limb and were witnesses to what could arguably be considered one of the most horrific acts of terrorism every wrought upon the United States.  Of course when Tom was told of this restriction he rightfully was like: 'are you kidding me?  I come all the way from Holliston and you're telling me that just because they ran into some burning buildings and watched as friend and fellow citizens perished they get preference over me? That's BULLSHIT!'.  Anyway, we didn't get to do a tour, I'm just glad that Tom had the temerity to speak his mind.

Walked over to Tribeca, came across this sign on the way - looks like we can't get away from Holliston no matter where we go.  For those that may not know, we live in the Mudville section of Holliston, the location of the acclaimed 1888 Ernest Lawrence Thayer poem "Casey at the Bat".

Maeve put her foot down on this one - she will not pose under the sign. 
As Tom lives with me, he was not so fortunate.

We ended up eating at a place called The Kitchenette that was highly reccomended by our Concierge.  It was fantastic, just what we were looking for; convenient and casual (read:  cheap!, well, by NY standards, it was still $80 for 3 of us).  We were able to send Maeve home with some baked goods that they have for sale to share with her roomies.  It was sort of funny though, I checked out their website, and this is what it says:  "located on bustling Manhattan streets but one step inside instantly transports you to a quaint country diner in the heart of the New England country side". So again, clearly we have some inner fear of venturing too far from our home in MA!

Sunday brunch at the Kitchenette

By the by, it if wasn't for me asking the waitress to take our picture, you wouldn't know that I was even ON this trip!





Ann's Feet!

Ann's feet helped her close up camp this last weekend along with the 2 Toms (husband and brother).  Had to get my final shop of Daisy!

BUSTA MOVE!

CHAIR WARRIOR

ANN'S FEET

Spring House lawn on Block Island with an appletini!

SUCK

WHERE DAT RINGO BE AT?

Ringo was thrilled to be a part of the team that helped Maeve move into her new dorm at Pratt!  Of course Tom and I were there, as was Jessie and her boyfriend Will, all which made the move-in a breeze.    Ringo was a little put out to learn that there are resident felines on campus, Pratt Cats, and no special status for dogs.  We gave him a bacon treat and he was cool.

DAILY DISAPPOINTMENT

Saturday morning Tom, Maeve and I got up at 5 a.m. to drive to Brooklyn to get Maeve setup for her 1st year at Pratt (ala my Mom, I wanted to make sure we got there first to get the best bed, dresser, closet, etc, suffice to say we got there hours before local Long Island residents).  As both Tom and I own sedans, we rented a minivan for 3 days.   We hit the road at 6 a.m. on the dot.  About 5 mins into the trip, Maeve announces that her seat is "the most uncomfortable seat she has even been in".

Tom, who was driving, immediately responds:  "Why don't you switch with Ann, she can move in back and you can sit up here in front".


??????????????????WTF???????????????????????


I'm all for putting our beloved children first, but are you kidding me?  Of the many, many trips our family of 7 took to VT in our country squire wagon, I don't ever recall Claire offering to sit in back because one of us kids was uncomfortable.  I shot Tom an aghast/FU look, he quickly recovered with - "or, Ann can drive, and I'll sit in back".  


STILL NOT WORKING FOR ME.


We settled on Maeve staying in the back seat and sleeping the entire way.


(editors note:  how apt that Tom would be wearing a Tull shirt)

WHERE DAT RINGO BE AT?

In honor of the King's death - Ringo took a quick trip to Graceland. 

BOOTS IS BEAT

BUSTAMOVE!

Sometimes, when it's REALLY hot, the couch just doesn't cut it!

VOTE FOR ANN!

My darling/miguided husband has cast his ballot for me as Citizen of the Year 2011 in Holliston.  I'm hoping by posting this on my widely read blog it will mobilize the troops in Holliston and across the land to get out and VOTE FOR ANN!

As you can see, Tom did not mince words as to WHY I have earned the Citizen of the Year title.

THE SITUATION ROOM

Our living room is the staging area for all things "off to college".  We haven't even BEGUN to work on the packing of the wardrobe.

Notice the cool new bike!

Of course this is NOTHING compared to Maeve's bedroom...I'm still considering whether I should post a pic of that or not.

ANN'S FEET!

Well, in this case, and legs, in the parking lot of a Home Depot.  Tom's going to use these tubes for something that is supposed to improve our quality of life.  I suppose anything that does not consist of me standing in the parking lot of Home Depot on a sunny weekend could be classified as an improvement in the quality of my life, so really, just by putting me in the car and driving out of the parking Tom's mission was accomplished.

WHERE DAT RINGO BE AT?

It's like he JUST got off the plane from DC after finally hammering out the debt/budget deal with the Pres and house/senate leaders, and he's already headed back to Washington!  This time he's working with the Federal Reserve to control the panic in the financial markets.  Let's hope they take his advice!

BUSTAMOVE!

Friday's Are Special At Our House

Known as "Waffle Friday", it's the day Tom has waffles for breakfast instead of his usual cereal.  He also makes Fridays special for the dogs by giving them a dog treat WITH PEANUT BUTTER ON IT.

This doesn't happen any other day of the week.  That's why it's so special.

DAILY DISAPPOINTMENT

Tom and I first saw this climber at the Whippi-Dip in Fairlee VT.  As you can see by the picture below, it has really, really cool blooms.

What I DID'T realize, is that once it blooms (which is generally between 9am and 5pm while we are at work), it closes up the same day and never opens again.  So far this summer we have had 2 brief sightings of this bloom.  For the most part, the climber looks like this all summer (sans the single bloom).

Thinking we're going to go with Morning Glory's next year.

NEW FEATURE!!!

Titled:  Ann's Feet!

As I am sure you are all aware, I lead an incredibly rich and satisfying life.  Knowing that my loyal readers generally live a pathetic life in comparison, I wanted to find a way of bringing a little ray of sunshine into your unrewarding existence.  I thought perhaps if I could somehow share with you just a fraction of the joy that is being me, then, well, maybe, just maybe, I have done my part to enhance the lives of those less fortunate than I.

Of course, while I want to help, I also covet my privacy, so instead of sharing all of myself with you, I am only willing to share a small part of myself - specifically, my feet.

In this picture my feet are enjoying a lovely view of Lake Morey.

WHERE DAT RINGO BE AT?

Ringo had just about had it with the posturing going on down in Washington over this budget/debt ceiling issue, so he sat down with Boehner personally and they were able to hash out agreeable terms.  Ringo is confident that it will pass in both the house and senate.

BUSTA MOVE!

DAILY DISAPPOINTMENT

This installment of Daily Disappointment deals with a disappointment I am confronted with on a yearly basis.  It tends to start right around Memorial Day, when we open up camp in Vermont and generally lasts throughout the first part of the summer.  The only reason it doesn't last longer is because I have learned to "let go let God".

Every year I endeavor to find a cleaner who can come to our camp after one of my family members have spent some time there.  Generally speaking we are looking for someone to come about every 2 weeks for a 2-3 month period...at best.  I remember fondly the year we had an ex olympic skiier cleaning our place - she was awesome.  I think that was in the late 80's.  Let me tell you about this years attempts....understand that this is extremely typical of any occasion in which we have tried to hire any sort of help in VT.

Of course at first I foolheartedly called last year's cleaner thinking she would be the best bet for this year (as she indicated at the end of last year she would be eager to pick up some extra cash this summer as well).  I left a voicemail on her home phone and her cell phone.  Not so much as a return phone call.  And I know her Mother-in-law pretty well, so it's not like she can just drop off the face of the earth.  AND, might I note - she pretty much sucked....last year she cleaned all the windows in the house with witch hazel.  I AM NOT KIDDING.  This isn't a matter of a few smears, she USED WITCH HAZEL on every window.   You could not see through the grease. When I pointed this out to her upon entering the camp she couldn't agree more, it was horrible, she was at a loss as to what I was going to do about it.  I suspect she smoked a lot of pot.  Just so you understand, I was willing, eager even, to hire her back again this year.  that's how desperate I am.

Okay, so, on to plan B.  Ask everyone I come across if they know a cleaner.  Finally, our neighbors the Martells have a cleaner, she is awesome, very flexible, cleans their camp ABOUT 50 YARDS AWAY every week.  I call her on July 6th as soon as I get back to MA.  She calls me back, we review dates, she is quite confident that she can help us out, she'll call me back when she gets home and checks her schedule.   Don't hear from her.  I call her on Monday July 11th - did you check your schedule?  'Oh yeah, I did, I can totally do it' (no mention that she never called me back).  Great - did you want to stop by the camp sometime between tue 12th and sat 16th and meet with one of us Jackmans just to walk through, see where cleaning supplies are, expectations, etc.  Yes, she agrees that is a very good idea, I gave her my sister-in-law Donna's cell as they were at camp that week and the cleaner indicated that wed-fri would work out better.  Donna calls on Friday - 'no word, I'm going to clean today before we leave on Sun'.  Tom and I get up there with Maeve and friends on Sat...we leave on Tuesday, still no word from the cleaner, so we have to assume she isn't going to clean..so we clean.

As it is apparent to Tom and I that this cleaner is not reliable - we find someone that is advertising on the wall at the Whippi-Dip and we call her on Monday morning.  This is a NEW flyer mind you because I have been looking every time I have been up there and it wasn't there July 4th weekend.  As you probably have already guessed, it's been a couple weeks, she never calls. 

I call the Martell's cleaner again, one last time - what's going on, can you do it or not (I act like I have some leverage, which is funny, because as you my reader know, I have no leverage, nor do I have any dignity at this point).  She calls back on Tuesday the 19th - she is 'TERRIBLY sorry, her father went into the hospittal on Friday, it's been crazy, she really really feels bad - she can DEFINITELY clean on Friday before Al/Chris go up on the 23rd'.  We talk about where the key is, what I want done.  Did I mention that she feels TERRIBLE and this has been totally out of character for her and she is very reliable?

Okay....you know where I am going with this don't you?  Do I have to tell you what Christine told me when I asked her if the cleaner had been there?  Of cousrse I don't, you know, as well as I do, that she was a no show.  I just left her another voicemail.  At this point I'm just playing the game to the end.

I used to find humor in the tongue-in-cheek slogan the folks at our Camp gave to the Lake Morey Inn:

"It's The LEAST We Can Do".

Apparently, that slogan applies to the entire state of Vermont.

WHERE DAT RINGO BE AT?

I am sure you have all learned by now of the untimely death of  the British singer Amy Winehouse.  Most believe that Amy's long running battle/love affair with alcohol and drugs is to blame for her death at the age of 27.   Ironically, Amy rose to fame with the 2007 hit "Rehab".

What you may not have known is that Ringo took the loss particularly hard.  Tom and I were aware of Ringo's increasing concern regarding Amy's downward spiraling behavior as it related to her drug and alcohol use  (Ringo was sometimes too distracted to poop while out on walks).   Ringo's concern seemed to heighten when he learned of her disasterous "performance" in Belgrade just a month ago in which she was booed off the stage.  So I reacted with minimal surprise when I saw this picture on the UK's Daily Mail website this morning.  That answers the question that Tom was asking this morning when he got up to take the dogs for a walk:  "Where Dat Ringo Be At"?

DAILY DISAPPOINTMENT

The theme for the 5th wedding anniversary is wood (I know, easy joke there).  In honor of that theme, I got my husband Tom a Quaking Aspen sapling.  This is the very same tree that hangs over our dock in Vermont, the very SAME dock that we got married on.  Sweet, right? 

This is what a Quacking Aspen is SUPPOSED to look like:

As Tom and I approach our SEVENTH anniversary, this is what our 2 year old

Quaking Aspen looks like:

I am chalking this up as another one of my life's many disappointments vs. an omen regarding the health of my marriage.

BUSTER MOVE!

Buster had to go to the vet last Friday.  It looks to me like he was hiding Friday night lest someone find him and take him to the vet again.

NEW FEATURE!

Okay, my multitude of fans have spoken - they want RINGO!  So, below is the first of a feature titled:

Where Dat Ringo Be At?

Most people think Ringo just lays around the house all day with Buster - but you would be wrong.  Ringo leads a rich and fulfilling life both intellectually and spiritually.  This series will allow me (and Ringo) to share with you, our devoted fans, Ringo's experiences as he travels near and far.

Case in point, there is a special art exhibition that Ringo wanted to see, so he hopped on the Red Line to visit the Peabody Museum in Cambridge .

Wiyohpiyata:  Lakota Images of the Contested West

Co-curators Castle McLaughlin and Lakota artist Butch Thunder Hawk use ambient sound, motion, scent, and historic and contemporary Plains art to animate nineteenth century Lakota drawings from a warrior’s ledger collected at the Little Bighorn battlefield. This exhibit presents Lakota perspectives on westward expansion while exploring culturally-shaped relationships between words, objects, and images.

NEW FEATURE!

TITLED:  THE DAILY DISAPPOINTMENT

They say that if you do what you love, then the money will follow.  So I thought I would practice that mantra right here on my blog.  I love to complain, and am disappointed on a regular basis, so the combination of being disappointed and sharing those disappointments with you, my large audience, was undeniable.  Plus, this gives me yet another opportunity to have a feature on my blog that doesn’t actually require me to write anything clever…I let the photos do most of the work for me.

As you are confronted with what I have to contend with on a daily basis, you will surely feel my pain, and in doing so, will want to help/support me in some way.  That is why I have setup a fund that you can contribute to; this is important for 2 reasons.  First, it will help alleviate your guilt over having a life that is not riddled with disappointments.  Second, it will help me bring full circle the 'do what you love and the money will follow' philosophy.

Send check or money order to:

WOW! YOUR LIFE DOES SUCK FUND

79 Union Street

Holliston, MA  01746

Today’s disappointment is in my cleaner.  This could actually be a biweekly disappointment as she comes every 2 weeks.  So yesterday I was excited to get home as it’s always nice to enter your house after the cleaner has been there, that pine fresh scent, etc.  Not so much with our cleaner, it smells the same as when I left.  Not bad, just not freshly cleaned.  Then, when I went to the sink and looked out the window to enjoy our gardens in the backyard, I was disgusted (or, should I say DISAPPOINTED) to see a number of dead flies/bugs in the window sills! GROSS!  I suppose I don’t expect the cleaner to clean ALL our window sills, but you would think that the brand new windows that are right above the kitchen counter/sink would be the 3 sills you DO clean.  I’m thinking I need to get a new cleaner.  (I should also mention that on her 2^nd visit she knocked over a brand new oil painting, smashing the frame, will cost us about $300 to replace….and another time she forgot to finish the bathroom….).

FINAL NOTE:  Even though this is called “Daily Disappointment”, don’t expect to see a daily submission.  I’m using what’s called creative license in the title.