Aggie and Kim would be proud

I would never admit this to them, but there are some perks to having two guys as room mates. I've always got someone to open a tricky jar, they always know where the tools in the house are and they insist on us having Dish Network.

Before I moved into this house, I had no idea what I was missing.

One of the best stations of many we have at our disposal is BBC America. Lately Room mate #1 and I have gotten hooked on "How clean is your house?" Let me tell you, there is no show on HGTV, TLC or Discovery that even comes close to how great HCIYH is. The basic premis is that Aggie and Kim travel all over England helping people clean up their mess of a house. And when I say mess, I don't mean a few piles of stuff here and there and the dishwasher is still full from the night before. The places they clean are serious candidates for EPA Superfund status.

This house has nothing on them.

Gaining inspiration from the exploits of Aggie and Kim, we've started a top to bottom clean up effort at the homestead. Repairs are being done, bags of trash are being filled and taken out and boxes that haven't been emptied in the four years since we moved in are finally getting organized.

A big part of the fun is that as I've been cleaning I've been finding some pictures that, well, let's just say let them speak for themselves:

This I think, was taken on my first day of kindergarten (I'm 4 in this pic, turning 5 in November), in the backyard of our old house. I'm pretty sure if I remember correctly my mother had to wrangle me into the dress. The hair was freshly cut because my mom got tire of fighting me when it was longer.

I don't remember this picture very well but I had a major jones for Mickey and the crew when I was little. Right down to my Mickey Mouse tennis set, bath buddy and stuffed Minnie.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'm pretty sure I was getting in trouble in the picture, hence the smile to disarm any potential punishment. That little shelf thing behind me was at the top of the steps at the old house (a nice semi-detached with a freaking cool backyard). Because of my daredevil ways, I liked to climb up on the shelf and jump as far as I could down the steps...which is how I ended up giving myself a concussion at the age of 3 and a dent in my forehead which is still there. No really...right here...you can feel it...

All's quiet on the South Central Pennsyltucky front

It's appropriate that this last Friday of 2007 is a nice quiet one, considering what the end of my year last year was like. Unlike 2006, December of 2007 has been slightly calmer and dare I say (hopefully not jinxing anything) drama free.

No TBD drama.

No parents drama...o.k., well, minimal parental drama.

I feel like I may just escape the end of this year with a smile and even more shockingly, hope for once that my life is on the upswing.

What a difference a year makes.

The guys are both at work tonight so I'm firmly entrenched on the couch, catching up on some blog reading, doing laundry and catching bits and pieces of movies (The Mummy, Grease, etc. Yeah, I'm a flipper). It's nice to have the house to myself but I must say it's a little lonely here in the homestead without the furry room mate, this being the first Friday night alone without him and all. While I do enjoy my alone time, it was always reassuring to have at least Oscar hanging around.

I went back today and reread some of my posts from the end of last year, beginning of this year. Wow. How quickly things can change. TBD and I are finally, after much drama, bickering and nasty comments traded back an forth at a good point in our friendship. He's realized he doesn't necessarily need to share everything he does with me and I've stopped mocking his manhood in retaliation when he makes me angry. It's a truce I guess. And I'm glad for it, he's better as a friend anyway because as a boyfriend or even friend with benefits, he wasn't so much.

The only thing I'm disappointed about is the one goal I didn't meet that I wanted to the most...moving out on my own. Financially 2007 was quite a roller coaster. With my car finally paid off though and some extra money saved up from the guard directing gigs, I'm ahead for once. I'm hoping this year, well, this year will be the year I get the heck back out there on my own. It may not seem like a big deal but to me, the original overly independent one (ask my mom about the time I tried to run away when I was 5 or 6), it's a HUGE deal.

Thinking about the ups and downs, gains and losses of this last year has made me realize that I'm actually heading into 2008 in a better place than where I was heading into 2007...new friends, new opportunities and dare I say, thinking that the L word isn't such a bad word after all.

The old red fish, he ain't what he used to be

Most mornings, I'm the the first person in the office to arrive. At 7 a.m., not many people are at their desks yet with the exception of one or two news side people. Really, what sane person arrives at work at 7 a.m. on purpose anyway? That's why I qualify, I don't consider myself sane.

But anway, after I make my rounds of light turning on, computer booting and phone call returning, I usually have time to cruise around the internet. This morning after I returned a few emails and caught up on some blog reading (heaven forbid the boss catch me doing that while I am doing not much of anything else during my day) I came across this article on MSNBC.com.

Then it occured to me, my first tatoo turned 11 years old in September.

Yep. For the last 11 years I've had the fish on my shoulder.

I'll never forget that morning I had it done. September of my senior year of college. For some reason I can't recall, we didn't have band practice that morning (probably no home game that day). My room mates and I all rolled out of bed around the same time and decided to grab some breakfast in the dining hall across the street before it was too late and we were forced to eat lunch (breakfast was always a safer bet).

While we were sitting in the on campus apartment, one of my room mates looked at me and said "We've decided it's time."

"Time for what?" I had no idea what in the heck she was talking about.

"Time you got that tatoo you've been talking about. We don't have plans today so let's head out to C.C.'s and get you that tatoo."

Yeah right..." I looked around at all five of them and nope, they weren't kidding. They were going to take me whether I wanted to go or not.

"All right then, let's go."

They were right, I had been talking about getting my first tatoo for some time. I don't remember why I was on this sudden kick to get ink permanently etched into my
skin, but I was all about it. And I knew exactly what I wanted to. As we were walking out the door I grabbed the video with the picture on it (two of my room mates were education majors). I knew exactly what I wanted, there would be no looking through books or page after page of examples set out by the artist. No, I knew what I wanted.

It took us about an hour to get to the tatoo place. The entire way there my stomach was doing flips. More out of fear of my parents than anything else. At the age of 20 (almost 21) I still had a healthy fear of my mom and dad...the fall out from this whole adventure could be ugly.

When we walked in to the tatoo place I stepped up first. The guy who did the work looked over the video cover, looked at me, looked at the cover, looked at me then said "Sure, let me go see what I can do with this. I'll be right back."

He took the video to the back of the office to make a transfer and I'm sure, laugh his butt off at the silly girl out front who wanted Dr. Seuss tatooed on her shoulder. Eventually he came back with a medium size transfer, bigger than the picture on the video cover by far, but not so big that it was over the top. Perfect size. Once I nodded my head and agreed to it I was ushered back to the table and about another hour later, was the proud owner of a new tatoo.

None of my room mates questioned my choice. They new how quirky I was but had they asked, I would have told them the reason for the fish was not that simple. "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" was my favorite story when I was little. So much so my dad had it memorized and much to my mother's chagrin, often recited it out loud in his sleep. The fish reminded me of my dad. Of a time when all I needed in life was a good story, my mom, my dad and my dog. But mostly it reminded me of my dad, and at that point, I was still very much a daddy's girl.

That of course, was before all of the crap started going down six years ago.

The fish is still on my shoulder. It's faded a good bit and sould be touched up, but unfortunately I've got other more pressing money demands now. That tatoo has been joined by two others. One on my left inner ankle, it's a celtic knot, meaning eternal life. It is a nod to my Irish heritage and I like the meaning behind it. The other is a daisy that rests on my chest. Daisies are my favorite flower, and this one has only been seen by a few.

I'll agree with the author of the article, tatoos should mean something. They should not be done without some thought or meaning behind them. That is why my next one won't come for quite some time. I've decided when love finally finds me, I'll get the celtic knot meaning eternal love...because it's something that means so much to me.

Missing...

This day 11 years ago my very good friend, my "almost brother", Kevin lost his life in an automobile accident. To this day, October 5th is more than just a random day for me. His death effected me very much. I was 20 when he died. He was 21 just one month shy of 22. All of the what would have's rushed into my head once I was able to think straight (to this day I still don't remember much about the day after I was told, the service or the days after I went back to school). They still do. Where would he be in his life now? Would he be the successful politician he was on track to be? Would he have a family? Would we still be friends? Then again, the woulds and the would have's can just about kill you too.

I still miss him and often think of him when our families get together (I grew up calling his parents Uncle Chet and Aunt Kathy, even though they are not related), when I'm anywhere near the Delaware shores, or just randomly passing places around this town that remind me of him.

Tomorrow I'll go visit his grave, putting two roses on the plaque like I always do. It's been awhile since I've done that. Life, unfortunately, I've let get in the way of my regular ritual. I haven't visited in quite some time. We'll talk. I'll cry a little...and remember all of the good times we had.

Following is part of the text of a memorial I ran last year on the 10th anniversary of his passing. Kev was a HUGE Jimmy Buffet fan. So big in fact I remember we had to make a special trip to a certain record store to find the one cd he didn't have. These words more than any I've heard or found have helped me to make sense of the loss of such a caring, giving, funny, goofy person.

And it's bigger than the both of us
Deeper than the sea
Tossing on the water riding destiny
Bigger than the both of us
Farther than the eye can see
We're dancing, our souls are dancing,
Infinity