So what is the appropriate answer to the following question:

"Mom, what are carrots made out of?"

Is it...carrots? Because that was the best I could come up with. Mom always has all the right answers...

I am excited. My kids are starting to settle in at their new school and their new neighborhood. They are starting to have "play dates". Now, I never had play dates as a child. I never had "sleep-overs" either. I did go and play at my friend's house and stay the night, but it seems like now we need special terms for everything. Anyway, I don't know about who is more excited that Max and Charlotte are coming over after school tomorrow, me or the kids...ok, I probably think they are a little more excited, but I am just happy to see them making friends that only live 5 blocks away. This is a perk of the neighborhood public school.

The Christ I'm Chuck situation is building up. Check out the latest: http://juniorrocker.blogspot.com/2005/10/gig.html. This is gonna be the best show...EVAAAHHH.

I am involved with temperamental musicians. Fickle diva-men. I have booked a band for my costume party next week. Not a REAL band, not Dave Matthews, or Aerosmith, or Journey. It's a middle-aged, wanna-be rockers, gotta schedule a practice in between work, kids, and soccer practice kind of band. What could possibly be so difficult about dealing with these guys? Christ I'm Chuck, they are called or should I say, "Christ, I'm a pain in the ass" (of course, if that were the band's actual name, my buddy Chuck would then be excluded and that would hardly be fair would it?).

Earlier this evening, I was informed that - Houston, there was a problem. The drummer wasn't going to play the gig because the bass player will not be in town. Apparently, drummers don't like to play without a bass player. It just doesn't sound good. Go figure. I had to get on the horn and stroke the drummer's gentle ego, entice him with promises, compliment him and reassure him that all would be well. Eventually, Chuck stepped up and found a replacement bassist. Crisis averted.

So now all we need to do is provide the drummer with a private dressing room, personalized robes for all of the band members, a vase of pink flowers on the drum stand, and a bowl of all orange M&Ms and we shouldn't have any problem.

The show must go on!!

I am terrified for the future of our society. I went into Papa Murphy's to get a pizza the other night and I was paying for the pizza. The total was $15.26 or something like that. I pulled out a $20 and handed it to the girl. "I have .26 cents" I said, reaching in my pocket. That way, I would get $5 back and not 4 ones and a bunch of change.

She looked at me in a panic, "I'm sorry, but I already put it in..." as she looked down at the cash register. I realized that what she meant was that she had already punched in the amount received as $20.00 and the cash register had already told her the amount of change to give me. She was unable to figure out the math to take my change and give me the $5.

"It's allright," I smiled, thinking - this chick's elevator doesn't go all the way to the top. My mind was racing... Could this possibly be happening? Have we gotten to the point that we can't figure things out without a machine telling us the exact change to dole out? Do they teach problem-solving skills anymore? Is this a sign of what is to come, or is she just slow? Am I over-reacting? And then the fatal... I must be getting old if these little interchanges bother me.

Sometimes, I need to be quiet and not think about things too much.

Unwittingly, Lily has become my new personal trainer. She has decided that she no longer will ride in an elevator. Thus, trips to the office, parking garage, etc are now trips that involve climbing multiple flights of stairs. She made the decision that she wants to avoid the possibility of getting stuck in an elevator. Good for her!!

I'm certified!! or certifiable...

Last weekend (well since I didn't post this entry until now, it's actually two weekends ago), I completed 4 open water dives in order to get my scuba diving certification. It was quite an experience. I have wanted to get certified in order to be able to dive while on vacation and plan vacations around diving, but I have just never done it. A couple of friends and I had started talking about taking the class and then finally, in May, Nell Anne and I signed up for the class. We took the class for three weeks, gearing up in a 5 ft swimming pool and studying and taking tests. We completed the classroom section in May and we were feeling pretty confident. For some scheduling reasons, we were unable to go on the open water dive that month. Jim, our instructor told us that we could go another time as he takes students once a month up to the Puget Sound to do the open water dives. Well, for some reason, we missed the June trip, the July trip, the August trip, and we were about to miss the September trip when Nell Anne put her foot down (hard to believe, I know) and said no more. We were going and that was that (my apologies to Chris for missing his wedding on the 24th).

I resigned myself to the fact that we were going to finally complete our certification...and then it hit me - I wasn't going to be in a swimming pool where I could stand up and pop my head up out of the water at any sign of trouble. I began to get nervous. What if I had a problem 40 ft under the water? Was I going to have a panic attack? My fears were intensified after we went to the scuba shop to get fitted for the wet suits. The wet suit that is needed to dive in cold water is thick. Much thicker than the ones we used in the swimming pool. To make matters worse, they obviously didn't have an off-the-rack wetsuit that was going to fit my body correctly. In order to find a suit that fit my circumference, it was at least 6 inches too long in the legs and the arms. It was extremely difficult to put on and it was even more difficult to move once I did have it on. I felt like Gumby or the Michelin man. I when I walked around, I looked like an extra in one of those old zombie movies unable to bend my limbs as I lumbered around trying to convince myself that this was still a good idea.

At this point, I wasn't turning back regardless of my growing fears and nervousness. How difficult could it be? Tons of people have done it and I consider myself fairly adventurous. One thing I did to prior to the trip, which probably wasn't the best idea, was that I went out with some friends to a concert the night before we were headed out to dive. After the concert, we had to go out and have some drinks of course. Needless to say, I wasn't in bed until at least 3 am and I had to be at Nell Anne's at 7 am to take off to Tacoma. So after minimal sleep, I was headed out the door, and I really hoped that I would be returning home after the weekend in tact.

We got to Sunnyside Beach in Steilacoom, WA at around 9:45 am and met our instructor and the others that were diving. We then began the laborious process of getting into our gear. This I found to be an uncomfortable and tedious task. We started out with a 6.5 mm wet suit that was long sleeved and full legs, which I already described above. We also had additional gear that we hadn't tried on at the scuba shop. There were some boots, which are like thick aqua socks that are ankle high. They were tight and extremely difficult to get on, especially since you had to have the wet suit on before putting them on. Once that small miracle was accomplished, we had to put on another wet suit on top of the one we had on. This one was 5mm thick and was sleeveless and went to the knees. The main difficulty I had was trying to figure out what to do with the extra 6 inches of length that I had of neoprene in the legs and arms. It was all bunched up. I was trying to pull it up so that the extra would be somewhere around my mid legs and arms and not at the ankles and wrists. That stuff is really difficult to move. I was feeling exhausted before I even had half of my gear on. Then we had to put on a hood that left only our eyes, nose and mouth exposed. This was tucked into the wet suit which then made it extremely difficult to turn my head either direction. Then we had to start adding the actual scuba gear. A weight belt (16 lbs.), gloves, the vest, which is called the BCD, which also held additional weight (in my case 32 lbs of lead), and then the tank (probably another 30 lbs) and a mask made the ensemble complete.

It was the most ludicrous thing I have ever done. Imagine pouring yourself into a body suit that makes you virtually immobile and then add 100 lbs or so of equipment and weights to that. Now go jump in the ocean. Sounds reasonable enough. Everyone should do it.

Jim, our instructor was then telling us what to expect and what we would be doing. I was completely stressed out. I was sure that I was going to have a panic attack any second. We followed him into the water and tried to follow his instructions. Pretty soon, we were under the water and what do you know, I could breathe. So far, so good. Then we started to go deeper. The problem that I was going to have became immediately obvious. BOUYANCY. Without getting into too much detail, I was having a difficult time keeping myself in one place. I would let air out of the BCD (too quickly apparently) and sink to the bottom like a rock. Let me just tell you that this is not what you are supposed to do. My ears couldn't adjust to the pressure change that quickly and I found myself practically screaming (yes, you can scream through the regulator - the breathing device) in pain from the sharp pain in my ear from the speedy descent. In order to correct this error, I filled up my BCD with air (again too quickly) and sky-rocketed up to the surface. This was not the correct solution either. I spent the majority of that first dive panicked, disoriented and alternating between sinking to the bottom and bobbing back up the surface. Let me just say that as far as I am concerned, Jim hit it on the head when he said that the first dive is the worst. I was convinced that I would never be able to control my bouyancy properly. My ears were killing me as well. We finished our first dive and got out to take a break and eat some lunch. I knew that this was just the beginning of an extremely long weekend. I had to start ripping equipment off, because I was feeling so constricted and immobile that I was starting to freak out. Everything but the wetsuits and boots came off. All of a sudden, I almost felt mobile in the wetsuit.

Then we did our second dive, which was mainly a huge test of the skills we had learned in class. We were in a cirlce at the surface while Jim explained what we would be doing under the water. We had to pretend to be out of air and share air with our buddy and go to the surface together, fill our masks with water and then clear them, we had to hover (stay near the bottom without touching and go higher and lower just with the air coming in and out of our lungs - very difficult for me) and a few other skills. This all seemed to make some sense until we got under the water. Again, I was disoriented, although not as much as the first time. I was a little panicky down there, not sure how we were going to complete these tasks without talking. But Nell Anne went first and I was able to watch Jim going through the whole thing with her and so I knew what was coming, thank goodness. Once we finished our skills, Jim asked us if we wanted to tour around or if we wanted to get out. Not surprisingly, we all chose getting out. This was a lot more work than I had expected.

We got out of our gear as quickly as we could (not very quickly) and then we each had to pack up our gear to take back to the hotel and clean (much more work than it sounds). We all went to the dive shop and filled up our tanks for the next day and then Nell Anne and I headed to the hotel. We took all our stuff in, and tried to figure out how we were going to get the task done of rinsing all of our gear in the bath tub. I decided it would be better to clean the gear from inside the tub. So I took a shower and then had Nell Anne hand me all the gear while I cleaned it. Poor Nell Anne had to deal with handing me the stuff while my ass was hanging out of the tub. Sorry for the horrifying visual. Anyway, that chore took forever and we were fully convinced that this sport involves too much equipment and cleaning of the equipment. Also, we were completely exhausted from the day. What we needed now was a meal. We headed out and after driving around, we found an Outback and had the most delicious and grubby meal ever!! I think that was the best tasting beer I ever had. It's funny how good things taste after a long hard day of activity and hard work.

Stay tuned for day 2 details, we're not certified yet....

Last night I went to the OAMP (Oregon Association of Mortgage Professionals) conference. This is an annual event held at the Jantzen Beach Red Lion that involves classes, workshops, and ultimately drunkenness and debauchery. I have heard legendary tales of this event, but in the eight years that I have been in the industry, I have never attended until this year. Lenders (that solicit our business) rent hospitality suites and offer drinks and entertainment, so the hotel is basically a raging party from one end to the other the entire evening. Cristie had a room and we were planning on crashing there for the night. Most of our Cosmopolitan crew was there early, but Michelle and I didn't head up until just before 7pm. For some reason traffic was awful and it took us an hour and a half to get from my house to Jantzen Beach. Ugg. Needless to say our cohorts had a bit of a head start on us. We walked in at 8:15pm stone cold sober and we were racing around as we didn't want to miss Michael's band, Ronster, that was playing in Hyperion's hospitality room. We walked in late, just as they were starting to break down their equipment. We ran into a rep (who will remain unnamed) who was wearing Cristie's panties on her face and making quite a show of sniffing them. Apparently we had missed quite a show...in addition to the band. We heard reports of people jumping up on stage and singing with the band, girls making out, etc. Not too mention (I didn't ponder until later), how in the hell did Cristie get those undies off while she was onstage in the first place? Let me tell you, the things that drunks do don't make as much sense when you are obeserving through sober eyes. This was the point when I was pretty sure that all of the stories that I had previously heard about this conference must be true and that I needed a drink immediately.

We had a great time gambling with the fake money we were given, playing blackjack, dancing, and having cocktails. After the conference festivities, we headed to the hotel bar to continue in the self-destruction process. We hung out and danced and had a great time. It's nice to spend a little down time with some of the people that we work with on a daily basis and not talk shop.

We were hanging out with some of our favorite lenders including Dan from Lime Financial, a great guy who many like to call "Clooney" for obvious reasons. The girls and I consider him the "holy grail" of men. He has been happily married forever, is a great dad, is drop-dead gorgeous, and is just an all-around great guy. We were just sitting around talking when we found out that Cristie had only one bed in her room and the plan was for Kruse and I to bunk with her. Dan in all his chivalry said, "I'm going home. I have a room that I'm not using if you guys want it." He gave me the key. Great! We were set. After we closed down the bar, we went up to Cristie's room and had a 2:30 am snack from Burger King (we were completely crushed that Taco Bell was closed - is that even right that Taco Bell should close before the bars??) and got in our jammies. Mine was kind of a strappy purple number (Deb knows what I'm talking about). I should have learned from her sexy nightie hotel blog entry, but no, I had to learn my own lesson on this one.

I decided that I would go down to Dan's room to sleep since it seemed silly for the three of us to crawl into one bed needlessly. I stealthily left the room and headed down 2 floors to his room. I got in and locked the door with the privacy latch and extra lock. There were 2 beds in the room. I started to crawl into one of the beds and then I noticed that there were some things in the room - a suitcase and some personal belongings. It was 3 am. No one was there. I called up to Cristie's room to discuss this development. Why I didn't leave at that moment shall forever remain a mystery. We decided that if someone showed up, they couldn't get in anyway and that if they did, I would just head back upstairs. I turned off the light and got comfortable. It couldn't have been 10 minutes later, when I heard the sound of the key in the door, but no door opening. Maybe it was for the room next door, I thought. Then a soft knock. Shit! I would have to get up and evacuate. I had never met this person, and I'm sure he wasn't expecting anyone would be in his room. Here I was in my strappy purple nightie, being forced to get up and answer the door.

"Hi," I said. "Ummmm, my friend Dan gave me his room key, cuz he said he wasn't using his room. I didn't realize that anyone else was staying here. I'm just going to head back upstairs to stay with my friends..." I'm sure this guy was shocked to find this scantily clad chick answering HIS hotel room door. "Are you sure?" he asked. "Now I feel bad." That was funny, he was feeling bad that I was getting kicked out of his hotel room. "No, I'm fine," I said. "My friends are upstairs, we'll be fine. Good night." I made a hasty exit. I bookfooted it upstairs and crawled into bed with Michelle and Cristie.

I guess the three of us sleeping in one bed wasn't such a bad idea after all.