is it just me?

I enjoy the Sports Guy on espn.com, but they are also currently featuring the NCAA picks of the sports gal, who had this to say:

Marquette (6) over Cornell (14): Maybe I could talk myself into the Bucks GM thing if we lived somewhere near Marquette; I always thought it seemed like a nice school. Also, I'd be considered a twig if we lived in Wisconsin. Everyone would tell me how skinny I was all the time and ask me where I worked out and what I did. I could introduce the women there to pilates and explain to them the dangers of brats and cheese curds. I like the thought of being regarded as an exercise pioneer even if it wasn't true.

HA! She is so right. It is easy to feel kind of thin in Wisconsin, but then you have to go to a wedding in LA and you are faced with the impending doom of feeling like the giant pasty cow that you are. Anyway, I also had Marquette winning a couple of times, but that didn't end so well. That is a theme for my bracket this year, which has completely gone to shit. Alas. Two years ago I came in second in my work pool, and it all came down to the final game. Last year I actually WON the pool at my husband's work, but that wasn't very exciting because I didn't get to go to work and gloat about it. But this year, well, this year all that comes to an end. Unless, say, they let Georgetown play a re-match. Even then, though, I still probably lose. Sigh. The good news is that Wisconsin is doing great and will maybe even make it to the Elite Eight. So, there's that.

no CSI needed
You know how in crime shows they have that stuff that they spray and then they shine a light and if it is blood it glows purple? (I assume this is a real product, but maybe it's made up like all the rest of that stuff.) Anyway, I was thinking today that if they had such a thing for milk, and if you sprayed it all over my clothes, carpets and (especially) the inside of my car, they would light up like a Christmas tree. Seriously. Twice last week as I was dropping of baby Liz someone pointed out to me that she had poured milk down my back. This is why I do not expend excessive amounts of energy getting ready for work.

taxes
I was doing some tax research today and came across something that said "If you are married filing separately and have been living apart for the whole tax year, then you can each contribute x dollars." And I thought, if you are married filing separately and have been living apart the whole tax year then you probably want to think about getting divorced.

okay, I just watched the end of the Drake - Western Kentucky game and my love of march madness is back. I feel so relieved. This is how it is supposed to be - you really care about teams you have never heard of in your life. Phew. I was starting to think I might need to go to the doctor.

well, normally this is my favorite time of the (sports) year. I love the NCAA tournament. I think it is the best competition in college sports. However, for some reason, my heart is not in it. This is making me very sad. I don't know what's happened. Maybe the eight weeks of bracketology have taken the shine off the big show? Maybe it is that I know that the 'One Shining Moment' montage will be horrendously disappointing? In any case, I spent about 30 seconds filling in my bracket, made a lot of rash decisions that are sure to put me in the bottom 10, and I really don't care. The only unfortunate side effect is that there are several people here at work who only have any idea who I am because I usually do well in the pool. Though, I guess now they can come talk to me about how I am really sucking it up this year. I dutifully trooped over to a bar with a seizure-inducing number of televisions yesterday during lunch, only to realize that I 1) didn't have the energy to pay attention to any of the 987 tv's and 2) really didn't care who won. Alas.

On a bright note - the boss button on cbssportsline.com, where you can watch all the games. When you click on the button the game turns into an excel spreadsheet. haha. And this year instead of just random shit they actually have data (fake I'm sure) on beverages consumed during the tournament. At least someone out there has a good sense of humor.

I arrived at work this morning to my boss saying "I cheered really hard against your team last night, but they still won." Um...thanks asshole. Good morning to you too.

I would like to lodge a protest against non-basketball brackets however. Since everyone loves the tourney so much, it seems everyone is doing a bracket for something. The girls at gofugyourself (who I heart very much) have one for the worst dressed celebrity. My radio station has one for best album cover of all time. I think I am going to do a bracket for cutest kid at Baby Lizard's daycare. I might have to start with just 32. Do you think the weird kid's mom will be upset if he gets an 8 seed? Or deep down does she know he deserves it? That's me, just going around and making friends left and right. Haha.

the other sad thing about march

I had been hearing about a new Mexican restaurant in town. It is a taqueria and I was told it was authentic. Being a beaner at heart, on Friday evening I decided it would be a fun adventure to go somewhere new and check it out. So we packed baby Liz into the car, and headed over there. If 'authentic' means 'suspicious health practices' then this place is straight out of Guadalajara. It was totally empty when we arrived, and I will admit we actually walked right by and tried to decide if we were up for sitting in this weird empty restaurant. But I really, really love tacos so we decided to give it a shot. In the front you can sit at a counter, which looked nice but counters and babies don't really mix, so they pointed to some tables in the back where we could put a highchair. To get there you have to kind of walk through the kitchen, which I would rather avoid at any establishment, but particularly this one. And then we get into the back which is a teeny space filled with two tables, two giant refrigerators, and a suspicious room with swinging doors. The floor was covered in cardboard, and you could see...um...food products on the ground. So now I was in a dilemma. Was I willing to risk food poisoning for some (clearly extremely) authentic tacos? Or would I grab the baby and run? I decided to look at the menu, and immediately filled with nostalgia I felt like I was back in Mexico. And I was hungry.

So, we ordered. I spent the entire meal watching this guy haul giant metal tubs full of raw meat around, presumably to be cut up into taco sized pieces. And I'll admit, when they first set my plate of sopes in front of me, I was not the least bit sure I wanted to eat them. I had made sure that nothing I owned even touched the floor, and here I was about to eat? But I reminded myself that cooking gets most of the bad stuff out, right? I am sure everything would be fine. (Famous last words.) And the food was delicious. Really. Very Mexican, though much larger and therefore harder to fit in my mouth. Baby Lizard snacked on her quesadilla, though it was not my proudest moment when the waitress walked out to the table and baby Liz yelled "CHIPS!" which of course she was carrying but proved that we probably eat too much Mexican food. Anyway, no one got sick and everyone got full and I got a ridiculous amount of food and drink for my $17. So, I recommend it. However, I also recommend sitting in the front at the counter. Trust me. It's better for everyone.

While sitting there I was reminded of when I got sick when I was living in Mexico. I had been staying with a host family, and we went on a trip down to the coast. The first day there I started feeling ill. By day two I hadn't eaten in a while and was running a hellacious fever. I could not keep anything in my stomach. I got progressively sicker, and then we had to be evacuated from Hurricane Mitch. This ended up being no easy feat and we left the coast stuffed in to the back of a truck that belonged to some lobster fisherman and smelled strongly of gas. At this point, I was so ill that I slept through the trip despite the fact that people were smoking around gas cans and a really drunk guy kept grabbing my leg and saying "Somebody fell on me!". After the truck we had to get on a freezing cold bus and ride back to the city. When I went to the doctor it turned out I had a serious case of salmoneleosis (? I think glorified food poisoning, but the kind that lives on inside of you and makes you feel like death). When I returned to my host family several lbs lighter and much worse for wear, my host mother insisted that I had gotten sick from (no kidding) 'fear of the hurricane' but I personally am sticking with my chicken prepared on dirty wooden board theory.

Unfortunately, I remembered this whole incident while watching the worker squirrel meat into his tiny cubby, which definitely impinged upon my ability to enjoy the food at the new taqueria. But next time I will go and sit in the front and try to pretend the rest of it never happened. Because I really, really love a good taco.

I haven't been sleeping well and last night my mind was filled with all kinds of crazy things and I was feeling like kind of a mess. But just when you think you are kind of a mess you read something like this and you realize: in the grand scheme of things, I am doing okay. If you are too lazy to click, it is a story about a woman who sat on a toilet for two years because she was scared to come out (she blames a bad childhood?) and so the toilet stuck to her and it had to be surgically removed. The enabler in all this is her boyfriend, who brought her food and clothes and such. The article (which, seriously, you should read) purports that they had a "normal relationship, except it took place in the bathroom". Um....that's not normal. There is not one normal thing about that. He said time went by so quick he didn't know how long she had been in there. But he finally got worried (!) when she started acting groggy. Not when she stayed in bathroom. For two years. No, that didn't really worry him. Only when she started acting groggy. I can't even think about the details of why she needed to not only be in the bathroom but sitting on the toiled. Oi.

So, now I am actually feeling pretty good about myself. I mean, not only am I not in the bathroom, I am dressed, at work, functioning normally. And all of a sudden things are looking up.

If nothing else, let this be a lesson to you to never, ever get a one bathroom apartment. You know, just in case someone wants to move in to one of them.

maybe I should just call myself in to the IRS right now
We have some funky financial stuff going on this year, so I decided it would be wise to use the services of a tax professional. So, we called a firm we have used before. Since we are calling at the highly irresponsible date of mid-March, we get assigned to the new girl. Uh oh. I decided it would be fine, all the other people can help her, right? But still, somethings are okay for the new guy, others, not so much. My fears were not allayed when I walked into the room where she was talking to Mr. Lizard, and she called me by his first name. This wasn't that big of a deal, as he does have a gender neutral name, but then I find out that she called HIM by MY first name. Which is not gender neutral. She was generally confused, and flustered. And when we handed her the paperwork for the transactions that made us think we needed a professional, she got ever more confused. We sat there and tried to get it all straight and she said "I'm sure I can figure it out." Very confidence inspiring. Turns out she knows my sister in law, and we spent more time talking about that than, you know, how to get our taxes right. So let's just hope that everything pans out in the end. But you don't really want surgeons or tax people or the guys fixing your brakes to say "well, I'm not exactly sure I did it right, but I am sure it will be fine". eek.

why I work Volume I
Deciding whether or not to go back to work after you have kids is a tough decision. Well, kind of. I was sure I wanted to go back to work, because I really don't think I would be very good at staying home. Of course I have my misgivings about leaving my kid, and I feel guilty sometimes and I get angry when people tell me they have 'sacrificed' to stay home with their kids because for me it isn't about money it is about personal happiness. However, here is a conversation between me and Baby Lizard yesterday.

BL: car?
mama: yep, that's a car.
BL: car
*guy gets out of the car*
BL: walk?
mama: yep, he's walking to the house.
BL: walk.
mama: mmmhmmm
BL: knock?
mama: yep, he's knocking at the door.
BL: knock?
mama: yeah, he's knocking.
BL: KNOCK?
mama: yeah, he's knocking on William's door. He's waiting for him to open it.
*William our neighbor mercifully opens said door, and the guy disappears inside.*
BL: Go? (this means 'where did x go, a question which is asked approximately one million times a day. often I don't know what x is, and even if I do I almost never know where it went.)
mama: he went inside the house.
BL: go?
mama: inside the house
BL: go?
mama: inside. to see william.
BL: go?
mama: he went inside. I think he and William are watching movies. want to play with puzzles?
BL: go?
mama: want some banana?
BL: go?
mama: *bangs head on table and tries to decide if it is too early to start drinking*
BL: car.
mama:
BL: go?
mama:
BL: knock?

So pretty much, if I stayed home all day I would spend 30% of my time lying about where people/cars/busses/etc went, 30% banging my head on the table, 20% counting minutes until nap time, and 20% enjoying my totally fabulous kid. So, I have decided to skip the first 80%, and focus on the last 20% from the hours of 4-8pm. More power to anyone who has the patience to do it all. You are better women than I am. Or you have a serious drinking problem.

apparently all the spammers realized that the whole 'I have $50m I need to transfer and I need your help' gig was getting old, so here is something new:

"I am very sorry for you, is a pity that this is how your life is going to end as soon as you don't comply. As you can see there is no need of introducing myself to you because I don't have any business with you, my duty as I am mailing you now is just to KILL you and I have to do it as I have already been paid for that."

The message goes on to explain that I have to send $7000, then they will give me a tape showing who wants to kill me, then I give $8000 more and they won't kill me. Interesting. So, instead of paying you to send me money, now I am paying you not to kill me. A slightly more compelling argument than the last, but...well...not really. Though I thought the email 'killerofsoul@gmail' was a nice touch. since sometimes I do feel like email kills my soul.

watch your mouth
Very, very carefully apparently if you work for one of the presidential campaigns. This morning I saw a news clip that someone in the Obama campaign had called Hillary a monster, then said it was off the record, and then tried to retract it which, clearly, did not work. And just now I read a news clip that she had resigned. Whoops. I think this proves that perhaps my notions of entering politics are not such a good idea, since I have a tendency to not watch what I say, like, at all. But anyway, she's gone now. Which just shows that pretty much all politicians are ready to throw anyone under the bus at anytime. Anyone. Just ask W. And not that this woman deserved anything else, since having that sound bite all over the internet is not really what Team Obama is hoping for, but still.

meat science
Did you know there was a science to meat? Well, there is. Do you find that a little frightening? There was a note about someone doing something in meat science (once I read those two words together I got totally distracted) in a campus paper. So I started looking around, and there is an American Meat Science Association. And a Wisconsin Meat Industry Hall of Fame (perhaps you get in if you figure out how to make bratwurst even tastier?). I was somewhat disappointed to learn that it is not its own major, but just a specialty within Animal Sciences. I think it could be, since we have a Turf Management major, and meat is as interesting as grass. But, I am glad to know that there are lots of people working hard on the science of meat, even though I prefer my meat science-free. Do they write dissertations on the evolution of bologna? Is that where canned meats came from? So many questions. Perhaps I will have to attend a seminar and find out what it's all about.

So, if you have heeded my advice and read gofugyourself then you know that I stole this subject line from them. However, I think they would happily lend it to me under the circumstances: yesterday I crossed the street on my way to work and found myself walking behind a young woman who was wearing pantyhose and nothing else on her legs. seriously. I know what you are thinking: that Lizard is very out of it and is not aware of the leggings trend. but, my friends, I am very aware (though very much not in favor) of this trend. These were not leggings. These were pantyhose, clearly identified by the color change for the top portion, a feature which hose do NOT share with leggings. Not only that, everything else she was wearing was so short that you could see her underwear through the pantyhose. Seriously? Not even a long t-shirt? If you DID decide that they were close enough to leggings, you are still supposed to wear something long on top. Now, I might have said it just rode up, but at one point she pulled down her shirt and it still did very little to cover her ass. And as if all THAT weren't enough, it was 13 degrees out, so even if you HAD decided that pantyhose were a suitable replacement for pants, they were not appropriate for the weather. Finally, you had better have a better figure than Heidi Klum if you are going to try to pull this off, and she, my friends, did not. I almost stopped her because I legitimately thought that she MUST have forgotten an article of clothing at home. But then I reasoned that if she had indeed forgotten her pants, the freezing cold draft should have reminded her as soon as she stepped outside her front door. Mercy. I told someone at work about her, and with luck she had seen her too! She said she thought she was seeing things. Ha. I am afraid not. I can only wonder how much of her day she got through before seeing the error of her ways and heading home to put some f'ing clothes on. And I also wonder how much enjoyment her classmates got out of her little spectacle.

number one in your hearts
I was watching CNN last night and saw part of McCain's victory speech and all of a sudden it hit me: he sounds a LOT like Casey Kasem. I pointed this out to Mr. Lizard, who had to agree even though he likes McCain more than I do, and he said maybe he would make a long distance dedication to Mike Huckabee. HAHA. Anyway, Mr. Lizard accused me of being ageist but I think he is too old to be president. Not to mention that I think he is quite full of bad ideas. Unfortunately now when I hear him I will only think of those days long ago laying on my futon listening to the Top 40 on the radio, ready to press record when the number one song came on. Seriously, listen carefully. See if you don't agree.