More tales from the dinner table...

Katarina: (burp!)

Katarina: (burp! again)

Me: "Katita!!"

Katarina: "What...? It's necessary!"

...

Katarina: "What does necessary mean?"

Katarina at it again

Here's Katarina's latest, so that I have a record of it and thus can remind myself of my now 4 year-old's wit. An apology to those who already saw it on Facebook. Here it goes again.

Imagine our breakfast table: Katarina, Jim, Larissa and I. We all sit together every morning, since it's the only meal for which we can guarantee we'll all be there.

Katarina stopped to look at me and tell me: "mommy, when I brush my teeth, it chokes me."
Me: "Does it choke you when I brush your teeth?"
Katarina, nodding: "Yes. It just chokes me all the time. I don't know why... (pause) we have a mystery here..."

Soap material

Ever wonder where soap operas get inspiration for their material? I mean, life isn't really that complicated, right? And relationships aren't really that fleeting... or are they?

I think I may have found the answer. Where, you wonder? The most logical place, of course: preschool.

Katarina came home one day to let me know that Hunter, her pal she hangs around with all over the place, was now Allison's boyfriend. "OK...", I said - I mean, what else am I supposed to say?

The next day, Hunter and Allison weren't girlfriend and boyfriend anymore. Hunter was now Katarina's boyfriend. "OK...", again I replied. She seemed to be taking Hunter's apparent indecision and potential commitment issues with relative obliviousness.

The day after, Katarina informed me that Hunter wasn't her boyfriend anymore. "What happened?", I inquired. "He broke up with me." "Oh..." I said - again, what else could I say? Her heart seemed intact enough, so no worries on my part. Hunter may have commitment issues, but they weren't affecting her. She also proceeded to tell me she didn't want to marry him, because she didn't want to have babies. In my book, right now, that sound just fine...

One more day went by. Yes, there's more.

Katarina let me know that now Hunter wanted to marry Allison - so much for commitment issues, I thought. "OK... so now Allison and Hunter are back together?" I asked. "No. Allison is with Eddie now. Hunter wants to marry Allison, but Allison is now Eddie's girlfriend." All this was said as if telling me they all shared crackers for snack before going to the playground. "Ah..." I replied, not sure what else to say. "After Hunter left, Allison and I were friends again, and we played together."

So, in summary, here's the Days of Our Lives (insert your favorite soap here) script: love triangle, commitment issues, boy wants girl, boy doesn't want girl and now wants other girl, boy wants first girl back, but only when she's found someone else.

And in the end, they can all go back to playing in the same sandbox. Literally. Can't beat 4-year-old logic.

Top reasons why you should love life...

So, we're all in this cycle: the economy sucks, the Dow Jones is now the Down Jones (although I hear it's up lately), jobs are less safe than before, some of us are getting pay cuts, the swine flu looms in the horizon, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Life can be hard, brutal, unexpected in its cruelty. But then, life is, at all times, just beautiful, if you know where to look. So here's my partial list of why I love life, despite all the downs, the uncertainty, the lack of a crystal ball, and the plain hardship that it can present.

1. Light. When I wake up in the morning, I can see the hue of dawn cast on the sky through my windows. My heart just stops at the sight of it, and then I remember to breathe. And then I wish I could capture not just the color, but the feeling of a new day.

2. Spring - need more reason than the purity of rebirth? Colors are intense in their green, flowers start to pop in unexpected places - like the center of the 241 toll road on my way to work. It's purple, lush and full of life, and a constant reminder of the consistency of nature in the inconsistency of life.

3. Rain. I love the rain almost as much as I love Spring. It washes it all, and as I inhale, I can smell the richness of the earth. Colors intensify under it, even as the gray mantle of the sky takes over in the horizon.

4. My heart. When it rejoices, there's no bounds. When it breaks, there's no bottom. And through it all, I'm just grateful that I can feel.

5. Sound - of birds outside my window in this neighborhood of houses and streets and traffic. Birds still nest in my trees and chirp their eager, happy song every morning. They remind me that there's more than meets the eye when I can be sure of their presence just by the sound of their song.

6. Friendship. It takes you up, it takes you down, and it just gets you through it all. I don't think I have an abundance of true friends, but those true friendships I do have are more than any one person could ask for. Each is a treasure, and each gives me a reason to have hope that, no matter what the future holds, life is worth experiencing and sharing with others.

7. Laughter. That of my children, which is a mixture of baby gurgles and little girl giggles. There is no sweeter sound. The laughter that my husband can bring me on any given day, because he can be a funny guy. Laughter shared among friends, because it takes away everything else. There are no worries where laughter lives.

8. Love - yeah... the sappy kind that makes you almost blind to everything else, fills your heart to the brink, and makes you vulnerable beyond your comfort level.

9. Adversity. Life isn't perfect, and happiness is never complete. There are only perfect moments, and in the balance we can only hope that those moments are greater than the non-perfect ones. Still, adversity largely makes us who we are, and gives us the contrast we need to appreciate what we do have. And who would have thought that, in those moments when we have to prioritize, the things we hold most dear are the simple joys and the truest gifts?

10. Art. Be it music, dance, paint... you name your type, and you'll understand why.

Filing dos and don'ts...

For those of you who ever wonder, those of you who never were exposed to the complicated world of filing, those of you who have never come across a filing cabinet or a filing system, and those of you who, like me, find yourselves in the midst of a filing disaster that threatens to intrude in your thoughts when you wake up at 3 a.m. for until the disaster is under control. Please note, this is just a guide. Your can create your own system. And, as you'll see, just having everything in alpha order is not enough.

DO file things by functional area (advisory board, events, programs, reports, whatever).
DO order your functional areas in alpha order.
DO file things in alpha order within each area.
DO group separate larger areas to compartmentalize (administrative v. programs v. personal)

DON'T just create a jumbled mess by putting everything under the moon in alpha order. And here's the why of this blog. The following list is a random, very small sample of files found under alphabetical order in a drawer that shall not be disclosed. Individual and company names have been changed to protect the unsuspecting victims. Asterisks denote actual file names (not making it up).

C -
Carnegie Mellon
Cornwell, Sam
Credit Reports
...
F -
Fantastic Sam's
Foundstone
Financial Investment Ideas
Fitzgerald, Ella
Fortune 500
Fun Stuff *
...
G -
Gandolfini, John
General Electric
Good Ideas *
Green, James
Green Peace

Also found was a file for Jokes, two files for the same program under different letters, and several duplicate files for companies for which files already exist - which, by the way, were just sitting in the same office.

Eek!!!