Diary of a SubUrban Housewife

I come from a long line of puzzle people. In my dad’s house in the country there was always a folding table set up with a Par puzzle in progress. Each puzzle piece in itself was a work of art.

Then there are crosswords. My Grandma Anne did the Sunday New York Times puzzle in ink every week. My mom is a puzzler. I’m a puzzler. So is my sister. I look forward to the Sunday paper each week when I get to enjoy two large puzzles. Plus I have several Sunday Times crossword puzzle books in case I need a mid-week fix.

And let’s not forget Scrabble, the second cousin to crosswords. Because I solve crosswords I have a long list of arcane words at my disposal ready to throw down on the board…when all I have to choose from are perhaps a Q, D, T, I, A, I, and I. This is a source of great annoyance to my husband who has renamed the game Squabble.

But while I’m not ready to completely forsake my love of word and picture puzzles, I’ve added a new addiction to my puzzling repertoire: Sudoku. For those of you who’ve been sleeping under a rock for the last, say, year, Sudoku is a puzzle made of nine large grids comprised of 3×3 boxes. Each box will contain the numbers 1-9, with each number only appearing one time per box. Furthermore, each row across and each row up and down can only contain the number 1-9 one time.

I discovered Sudoku about a week ago and now own three books and just ordered an electronic hand-held game that should be here by Monday.

I can’t get enough.

Chuck is a techno-slut. Anytime anything new and fabulous is on the market he must have it. Immediately.

I’m a little slower on the techno-uptake. And frankly, I’m a bit lazy. I wait for him to have it and then by extension I have it.

Then there’s the computer issue around here. He is (as has been oft-reported by both here and on his pages), the God Of All Things Computer Related. And I’ll freely admit that having a God in my presence (and his being obligated to do my bidding as part of our marriage vows), I’m a bit lazy when it comes to my own personal technology needs. I do not need to clutter my brain with USB, serial ports, and the like. But, you know, sometimes the Gods get a little cranky and you’re better off just doing things your own damned self.

Early last week, in fact mere hours before Chuck was leaving to go somewhere work-related, I downloaded a file that someone had sent me from the office. I used my desktop (read my own personal computer) versus my laptop because I needed to print whatever it was I was sent. Well, don’t you know, this file (which silly me, I assumed was safe because a) it was a pdf, and b) was from a reliable work source) infected my desktop with some horrible virus that deleted some kind of WIN(SOMETHING).DLL from my operating system thus rendering my desktop virtually useless (or as I liked to refer to it, as a huge paperweight).

I had to wait until Chuck’s return from the hinterlands this past weekend to deal with it. I still have my work laptop to use, but it was altogether a pain in the neck.

Saturday morning, before getting on my knees and grovelling for Chuck to a) find the Windows XP install disk so that he could then b) reinstall Windows AGAIN on my machine, I decided to buy a new CPU.

The thing is, technology is so damned cheap anymore (and I’m absolutely convinced that computer in genreal and CPU’s specifically have about a five year self-life, and my CPU was about five years old) that I decided I would just get a new CPU. I dragged Chuck out on an aborted shopping mission, came home, looked some stuff up online, asked Chuck’s opinion, and went to Circuit City and bought a CPU. In case you care it’s a Compaq Presario 1900 NX.

Frankly, my techno-needs are limited–Microsoft Office Suite, CD burning capabilities, and let me surf the internet and I’m a happy camper. $359 I was a happy camper.

I schlep the box home, unpack it, and decide that instead of grovelling to the local God I’m going to do this myself. I unplug all my old stuff. I plug it all into the new machine. But boo hoo, my keyboard wasn’t working. The CPU came with a new keyboard. I tried that one. Still no worky.

I box it all back up, take it to Circuit City, and exchange it for another new one.

I plug in all my stuff again. Still keyboard no worky. Now I start having fits of the Chuck variety. My God finally came to my rescue and somehow got the keyboard to work. He did admit that at first it wasn’t working for him, so I don’t feel so bad about things.

So, groovy new puter. Loving the keyboard that came with it. Beth’s a happy girl.

But here’s the thing. . .

I have a printer. But it’s a crappy Deskjet color jobby that takes an hour to print each page because I swear it sends the document through the printer cable one stinkin letter at a time. So then my whole system freezes up while the printer labors over a four line e-mail.

And let’s remember that I work from home a lot. And working generally means you have to print things out.

So what I’ve been doing for the last few months is this: do my work on my laptop. E-mail it to my desktop across the room from the laptop. Go to the desktop and download whatever it is that I’m working on. Then I send it to Chuck’s laser printer. Then I have to go down the hall into Chuck’s office and retrieve whatever I’ve just printed, and come back to my office to fax it to someone (or put it in a folder, or whatever else I’m going to do with it).

Now I know you’re asking yourself, why doesn’t she just work from the desktop computer, thus eliminating the need to e-mail stuff to herself? Well, because I have all my work files on the work server that I can only access through my laptop. I’m not a complete ninny.

So Sunday night, in a fit of techno-improvements and otherwise cash-draining activities I ordered a new laser printer for myself. And one of the fabulous things about this printer is that it uses a USB cable. And one of the fabulous things about my new desktop computer is that it has three extra USB ports right on the front of it (so no messy monkeying around to get to the back of the CPU). And one of the fabulous things about my laptop are the two extra USB ports on the back (which doesn’t require near the monkeying around because it’s a laptop).

And because Circuit City online is mostly fabulous, I ordered my new printer (and the requisite cables) at 11:30 Sunday night, and at about 10:30 this morning, a new printer was delivered to my front door. But because Circuit City is only mostly fabulous, the USB cable that I needed to hook up the printer will not arrive for a day or two.

But I toddled down to Circuit City and bought the cable this morning. I can return the one they’re shipping to me, and since I didn’t pay for shipping and it was on sale at the store, I’ll actually end up $3.00 ahead of the game.

Long story short, I hooked up my new printer to my laptop today. I was able to print and send a fax without ever having to remove my butt from my chair. Then an hour later when I wanted to print something critical from my desktop, I switched the cable over to one of the fabulous ports on the front of the CPU. The computer recognized the new hardware immediately and I didn’t even have to fuss with installing printer drivers.

Maybe his Godness is rubbing off on me? I don’t know. But I can assure you I’ve heard a hell of a lot of angel music around here. Technology: Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

I had lunch today with a former business associate. This former associate happens to actually manage building I used to work in, so after lunch, finding myself with all day validated parking (a $35 value, thankyouverymuch), and looking cute (no accident there I can assure you), I decided to pay a visit to my former co-workers.

When I decided to do visit–which I wasn’t sure I was going to do until I actually approached the elevator bank, the first thing I thought, naturally, was if I could possibly lose 30 pounds before I made it from the lobby to the 8th floor. After pretty much ruling that out, I reapplied my lipstick, checked my hair, and stepped forth into my past.

Within less than a minute of my arrival, who showed up at the reception area but my old boss, the asshat. Naturally he was rushing to do some really important corporate bidding, but our greeting was cordial. I then spent the next hour or so visiting former friends and co-workers.

Everyone asked how I was, commented on how great I looked, and asked how the new job was going. I will tell you that I positively gushed about the fabulousness that is my life, post-corporate-drone.

Yes, I love my job. Yes, my boss is great. My clients? I rattled off the names of my most prestigious ones, naturally. But the best part…yes, I go in the office, about two half days a week. Yes, I work from home. Yes, it’s great. Yes, I’m enormously happy. Yes, Zoe gets bigger every day. Yes, Chuck is doing well. Yes, he still travels, but not as much as he used to. Yes, we’re just back from 10 days in Curacao.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

And while I have been very mindful of appreciating all the great things this last year has brought, in the way of personal and professional satisfaction, happiness, and growth on a near-daily basis, it really brought it all home to me today.

I have a lot to be thankful for.

So thank you.

I am a big old American Idol geek. There, I said it. You can now either write me off as a total loser or share in the joy that is idolonfox.com (as we call it here).

So, imagine my utter delight when, sitting in the line for drive-thru (yes, I know that’s not how you spell through, but when you’re in line at Popeyes it’s thru, so shut up), and scrolling through the many features of my Razr (except in black), I discovered that I could download the Wednesday night adios song, Bad Day, as my ring tone. Yes, I have achieved full geek-osity I know. But what was more pathetic was the fact that I was ever so thankful that Zoe was in the car, because while I managed to find the song, I had to have my 10 year old download it for me and set it as my new ring tone.

To take this to new levels of geekiness, I had my work phone in the car with me as well, so we spent the drive home calling my Razr just to hear the ring. I was thrilled.

But then a few days passed. I was missing call after call after call…all from Chuck who hates when he can’t reach me, and in his most recent message (from last week that I just managed to listen to today), he threatened to confiscate my phone because I’m too irresponsible to own one since I can’t ever manage to answer it.

You see, I’ve always selected a ring tone that sounds like an actual phone ringing for my cell phone. Because it’s a phone. It should ring, not play some song, or some weird Lazarium sound effect sounding thing. So my phone would ring and a song would play and for whatever reason (maybe because it’s a phone????!!!!) I would never actually associate the new noise I heard as being my phone. OK, there were a couple of times when I heard the music and realized it was my phone and actually answered it and was thrilled with myself for realizing it was my phone ringing, but on the whole, calls would be missed, tempers were tried, and all together it was not a good thing.

Finally, on Saturday night, sitting at dinner with Chuck and some friends, after Chuck had called me three separate times to coordinate meeting us at the restaurant and getting no answer (see note above regarding the fact that there was no ring) Chuck changed my ring tone back to an actual ring for me.

You can call me now honey and there’s a better than 50% chance I’ll actually answer it.

Here in LALA Land, it’s season number two, spring (as opposed to seasons one and three: fire season or earthquake season). And spring means grilling.

So last night I put a lovely marinated tri tip roast out on the trusty grill, over indirect heat, for dinner. The menu was simplicity and deliciousness personified: grilled tri tip (as previously mentioned), baked potatoes, and roasted asparagus.

But here’s the thing about meat: there are varying opinions in this house as to what constitutes “done”. For me it’s medium rare. For Chuck and Zoe, it’s more along the lines of well. Which I think is just a crime, but always second-guessing myself, it typically turns out ummmm…a little rarer than rare, and no one is happy. So lately I’ve been using my trusty digital meat thermometer. It’s truly brilliant. You insert the cabled probe into the meat. The trusty cable comes out of the oven (or grill in this case), you plug that into the thermometer. You set the desired temp. And poof, voila, when the meat reaches that temp it beeps and tells you it’s done. And you no longer end up with a roast that is still blue on the inside.

So the probe goes in the meat. In the oven (or grill). And roasts, right along with your roast.

And unless your me, or you too have lost your mind, you realize that it’s likely that the probe is going to be extremely hot when your meat comes to the desired temperature.

Because last night when removing my perfectly cooked roast from the grill, I thought it would be easier to carry if that silly probe wasn’t in the roast anymore. And while the meat was still on the grill decided to use my bare hand to remove it.

OUCH!

Well, we’re back. Well, most of us are back. We all came back, but then Chuck left again. Chuck went back to work yesterday, because he is apparently unfamiliar with one of the golden rules of vacation: never return to work on Monday. I am not that foolish. In fact, I didn’t even return to work today. I knew I’d need another day to fully recuperate from my gold medal performance in the lounge chair Olympics. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this event, it involves maximizing your lounge chair time, while indulging in excessive amounts of reading, judicious application of a variety of sun screens depending on the weather and part of the body involved, and sipping lovely tropical cocktails. Yes, you are reading the words of a woman who has medaled in this event!

Curacao was lovely. I will tell you that if there was ever a place on this planet with absolutely the perfect climate, it might have to be April in the Curacao. It was a consistent 88 degrees every day with no humidity, light cloud cover, and trade winds that cool the air to the quintessential temperature during the day, with the mercury dipping a scant two degrees or so once night falls.

One night we dined at a local favorite, Hooks Hut. We had dinner on the beach. Literally, our table was on the sand, about six feet from the edge of the shore. While waiting (and waiting and waiting) for our food we all agreed that it was absolutely the perfect temperature.

Here’s the thing though about the food in Curacao: like everything else there, it happens on “island time” so be prepared for a wait. And be prepared for whatever your ordered to always come with fries (served with mayonnaise), be deep fried, and also more than likely have a fried egg on top of it. Unless of course you’ve ordered the conch, which unless it’s been turned into a fritter (and deep fried) will resemble in, both looks and texture, tongue-shaped erasers.

So yeah, 10 days of deep fried foods, with a side of mayo.

Well, as I always say: tan fat looks better than pale fat.

But there comes a time when enough is enough, and in as much as vacation is over and I’m back to the real world, I’ve about had enough. Particularly after I saw photos of myself from our vacation–which if I have anything to say, Chuck will never post.

So today, after a one year hiatus, I went to the gym! Yes, that cool breeze you feel is hell freezing over. But enough is, as I said, enough. Of course, when I spoke with Chuck this afternoon and told him I’d been to the gym I was very smug and self-righteous about it all. And no, I did not reward myself with a donut. I even topped it off with a very healthy dinner, which included nothing deep fried.

And there was not a drop of mayo to be seen.

My close personal friend GraceDavis has charged me with single handedly getting the economy off to a roaring start for the new year. I have taken this responsibility to heart:

I could bore you with the long drawn-out details of the cut-throat negotiations, and the waiting for the car to arrive, and whatnot. But I won’t. Suffice it to say I picked up car up today. It has all the bells and whistles, including voice activated navigation and a backup camera (which makes me carsick so I will never be going in reverse). It’s a beautiful thing. And it’s all MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE!

I was wakened, at precisely 4:30 this morning, by my left eye tearing uncontrollably and a searing pain in that very same eye. Like ground glass pain. And as I was nearly certain I hadn’t actually rubbed ground glass in my eye, I knew this was not good.

I proceeded to get out of my extremely toasty bed and brave the wilds of a very cold bedroom to make my way to the bathroom to see what was going on. So, in order to actually see, I turned on the bathroom light.

Ding!

Big mistake.

The light made my eye feel like the ground glass was being further ground into my eye with the help of some sandpaper. Turned off the light.

And though it was 4:30 in the morning and I was cold, in dire pain, tearing uncontrollably, and because this all wasn’t fabulous enough, had an extremely runny nose now (see above eye tearing thing–they’re all connected in your skull, which I’m sure is convenient sometimes but wasn’t this morning), I did make the giant brain leap that it would probably be a really good idea to take my contact lenses out.

I have extended wear lenses. I have for the last 23 years. I can sleep in my lenses. I nearly always do. By contact lenses and ground glass/sandpaper is not a good combination.

But when I turned on the light it made the pain worse. So I was going to have to get my contacts out of my eyes in the cold, dark bathroom. This process, which normally takes about 32 seconds took me about 15 minutes and it was not a pretty sight.

I got the lenses out finally and made my way back to bed. Unfortunately, the pain did not go away immediately, nor did the tearing or runny nose thing, so I laid in bed for about 30 minutes before I could fall back to sleep.

The thing is, despite the major eye pain I had to go to an installation at my biggest client’s office this morning.

Ding!

So I drove there tearing eye, runny nose, and all, with my left eye closed most of the way and got there, did the installation, and managed to get home without killing myself. And the pain and photo-sensitivity were getting a little better.

Chuck suggested that going to the eye doctor might not be a bad idea. And after much hemming and hawing I acquiesced. I had a 2:00 appointment.

To make a long story short, it turned out I have an ulcerated cornea and some kind of infection. But they don’t actually know what kind of infection, so they had to numb my eye and then repeatedly swab it with Q-tips and put the results of those swabs into petri dishes and hope that something grows and that whatever prescriptions he’s giving me will deal with that infection, or he’ll have to change my medication.

But apparently these infections need to be treated very aggressively. So aggressively, in fact, that I had to drive 45 minutes across town in rush hour to go to a very special “compounding pharmacy” where they would make up the three lovely cocktails that he wants me to use.

And not only is it three different kinds of antibiotics

Ding!,

but I have to alternate which one I put in my eye each time. And they have to be dropped in at five minute intervals until midnight. And one of them has to stay in the refrigerator. I finally had to make a little chart to know which drug as to go in when because five minutes will pass and I pretty much forget which one I did last (because on top of all of this, I am a rocket scientist!)

So I’m spending the night with the kitchen timer at my side, living life in five minute increments.

Yesterday Chuck and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. Gifts were exchanged. And due to a babysitting snafu, Zoe joined us on our date (but since she was there for the wedding–albeit microscopically–it seemed almost appropriate that she be there for the anniversary celebration).

It was a lovely, if low-key, day.

It seems each year, for as many years as I’ve had a web presence, I’ve written about it. (Yeah, I’m lazy, so feel free to scour archives if you really care to.)

But this year, in addition to material things exchanged, I made a change. A big one for me.

Yes, after ten years of marriage, I’ve decided to start using my husband’s last name. (I laughed out loud as I typed that because it seems vaguely comical.)

Why start now? Why at all? Why didn’t I 10 years ago?

Since we’ve been married I’ve typically used two last names, no hyphen. I’m here to tell you this has caused immesurable confusion. When in situations where you have to line up under the letter of your last name to register for something, for example, I never knew if I’d be under “R” for the first last name or “A” for the other last name. No one could grasp the lack of hyphen.

Think: Hillary Rodham Clinton–note two last names, no hyphen. But I’m guessing she doesn’t usually have to worry about which line to queue up in.

The only place I was always Mrs. Atkins was at the pediatrician. It just seemed easiest. But everywhere else I was Beth Reinstein or Beth Reinstein Atkins. At my old job, everyone knew me pre-marriage, so they stuck with Reinstein, or my personal favorite Beth RA (my superhero name).

The thing is Reinstein, my maiden name is ethnic sounding. Beth Reinstein, a nice Jewish girl. Beth Atkins–sounds vagule WASPy. I’m not that. I couldn’t embrace it.

Then there was the fact that I was 35 when Chuck and I got married. I’d been Beth Reinstein for a good long time and that’s who I was. I couldn’t quite get my head around taking someone else’s name.

So it’s been two last names no hyphen for 10 years.

But I figure after 10 years it’s time. So now I’m official Beth Atkins. Happy Anniversary honey. I love you.