Have you ever been on the news or in the newspaper? I actually have been quoted about five or six times, a few when interviewed about the Delaware Shakespeare Festival back in the day, but a couple times about really odd stories that I know nothing about.

Take the other morning, walking to the Metro there was a camera crew set up on my path. They stopped Selena and I and asked if we had any trouble with the wind and rain last night. I told them we didn’t encounter and rain but I did notice it was windy when I walked the dog first thing this morning.

They asked me to describe the wind, and I was at a loss. I just told them I was surprised that there was a lot of wind out there. Selena mocked me as we left them for calling the wind “surprising”, I insisted, that I gave them nothing of value, there is no way they would use my soundbite.

Eight hours later, I received this Google Alert:

The story is no longer on their site, and that’s a relief, because I sound like a buffoon, but I guess I can’t blame the ABC News. I did that myself by calling the wind surprising, and they just ran with it.

My brother Jeff and his fiance' Katie

This blog is typically all about Selena and I, but I wanted to take a minute to express how excited I am for my brother Jeff, who over the holidays finally popped the question to his long-time girlfriend, Katie.

Now making it about me again.

I don’t know that Jeff and Katie know how often I get asked “When are they going to get married?”, and for the longest time I’ve been able to point out an event or goal in the future that they are focusing on first, such as:

• They want to wait until Katie graduates from school / finds a job / finds a different job
• They didn’t want to pull focus from Selena and my engagement / wedding / announcing of the baby
• They want to get settled into their new careers/ new house
• They want to wait until after Ben comes back form NZ / Katie comes back from LA / hell freezes over.

And then right when I was starting to run out of milestones to prioritize on their behalf first, Jeff goes ahead and asks Katie to marry him.

We couldn’t be happier for their engagement and to have Katie officially become a member of the family.

I’ve had a long history with The Time Traveler’s Wife. I first saw it for a ridiculously cheap price in a used book store at the peak of it’s popularity, but didn’t pick it up and I regretted it. Shortly thereafter, my mother-in-law let me have the copy she was going to donate. After sitting on my shelf for a few months, someone asked to borrow it, and it was never seen again. Following that, a good friend told me it was one of her favorite books of all time, and that I had to read it, peaking my interest again. I started perusing used bookstores for it again and added it to my amazon wishlist. At this point, I refused to buy it, believing that if karma brought it to me on this many occasions, it was bound to cycle back. And I was determined to read it not so much out of actual interest, but because it was so elusive to me.

And karma pulled through. I was thrilled when my future sister-in-law, Katie, lent me her copy. I started reading it as soon as I got it since I didn’t know when I would get the chance to again. Then one day, the book went missing again. Unbeknownst to me, Katie had contacted Greg and told him that she had forgotten there was a scene in the book that I might be sensitive to during my pregnancy. Instead of warning me, Greg took the book and hid it. Little did he know, this actually caused me more distress. I was almost positive of where I had left it last, and when it wasn’t there, I was frustrated with my forgetfulness. On my way to work one day, I asked Greg if he would mind going back to grab it from where I was convinced I left it. He grabbed a different book and said, “You must mean this one. The Time Traveler’s Wife wasn’t there.” A few days later, I said to Greg, “I just don’t understand, the last time I had it, I was going to read it in the bathtub. Did I take it to the doctor’s office with me after that? Maybe I’ll call them next week and see if they found it.” He merely said, “Well, I don’t know, hon.” Yet another time I brought it up in passing, Greg said, “Oh, but were you actually reading that though?” There were even a few instances when the movie preview came on TV, and Greg said, “Didn’t you want to see that?”

On Friday, I had spent a sleepless night thinking about all sorts of things and unable to get comfortable. When Greg found me on the couch the next morning, I brought the book up as one of the silly things I thought about when I couldn’t sleep. He said, “Oh yeah. It’s in the basement,” as if I should have known it had been there the whole time. After a little more questioning, the rest of the story was revealed, and Greg felt worse that instead of shielding me from sensitive subject matter, he had turned me into a crazy lady for about a week.

Skiers on the ski trip (Jeff at center)

My brother Jeff went skiing this year on our annual pilgrimage to the Poconos. It may not sound blog-worthy, but this is the first time he’s strapped on a pair of skis since 1992 when on a high school class ski trip he was ridiculed by the jackass instructor. Jeff finished the lessons, returned the skis and (despite coordinating a ski trip to Shawnee annually for 10 years now), never returned to the slopes… until this year.

I

Sid Meier's Civilization

never got into Farmville, Mafia Wars or just about any Facebook games. The only two I’ve really taken to playing casually are Scramble or Scrabble, but I am expected that all to change this June when Civilization comes the Facebook.

Civ II is my favorite game ever ever.

I spent the better part of the summer of 1997 playing that game each night into the wee hours. One night I played so long I was exhausted when I rolled into my internship. Seeing me looking not so good, they told me I should go home and feel better. I did just that, sort of.: I went right home and hopped back on the computer and played an extra six hours of Civilization, and it did make me feel better.

On Friday, January 29th I was standing beside a big projection screen in front of the entire company of The Motley Fool. I took a deep breath and began:

“Hi everyone, I’m Greg, and if you don’t know me it may be because you started working here in January and I’ve been out most of the month on my Fool’s Errand.”

“I think the Fool’s Errand is a fantastic initiative. I had the most remarkable and rewarding time. But wait, this is The Motley Fool, we don’t evaluate success based just on word of mouth. No, we look at the numbers. So I submit to you, Fool’s Errand – The Report.”

“All right, let’s dive right in.”

“I spent the first half of the trip moving into my new home. You can see in the upper left a chart of which level of my home I spent time unpacking. It turned out most of the work needed was in the attic and basement. Notice here too the number of boxes left to unpack: one. I’m very proud of that.”

“Enough about moving in, lets go on to the road trip. I drove down to Florida with my wife and my puppy, 2969 miles in total. I am presuming that’s expendable, I’ll be submitting an reimbursement report later today.”

“You can see here a breakdown of where I slept each night of the Fool’s Errand, about half in my home, and then a little less with relatives and less still in hotels and B&Bs including SoBe You in South Beach which I highly recommend and La Quinta in Savannah which… well, not so much.”

“While in Florida we travelled down to the Florida Keys and then back to Orlando to spend some time with family. We did hit all four Disney parks in one day. You can see in the lower right here a breakdown of time spent in each park, pretty balanced Disney experience. Also, I want to call attention to this score right here, 39 or -14. Yes, I played a sick game of mini golf  and held the low score of the day at Fantasia Gardens.”

“The weather was surprisingly cold, you see here 19 degrees in Orlando. The locals found that novelty fun and interesting. Me… not so much, I knew cold, I left cold back in DC, I wanted some warmth, which did come towards the end of the trip, 78 degrees on the last days in Orlando.”

“Let’s talk about what I ate while I was away. I totally recommend Puerto Sagua in South Beach for excellent Cuban food, and hey, did you know that there is still a Bennigans in operation in Orlando?! I was so excited to get to have a Monte Cristo sandwich again.”

“You can see her a breakdown of what I drank. We all know it’s important that we have a nice variety of beverages, and I think I achieved that here.”

“Now, exercise… let’s not talk about exercise, wasn’t much to speak of.”

“Ah, entertainment, yes. I highly recommend the Finding Nemo Stage Show in Animal Kingdom, it is Broadway caliber, by far the best thing I watched while I was away. And the worst… that would be my Eagles losing to the Cowboys twice while I was away. Ugh, Cowboys.”

“Oh, there’s my dog. I am very happy about this number, zero accidents in the house or car, she finally became housebroken during this trip. I will also point out this number here, six attacks by poodles. I don’t know what the deal with ShihTzus and Poodles but there is some bad blood there.”

“Finally, if I may tell a quick story, two years ago my wife and I got married on a very warm day in the Florida Keys, and a staff member at the resort, trying to be helpful, put our cake, well actually cake topper, in the freezer to keep when it should have been out thawing. When it came time to cut the cake it was frozen solid, there was no penetrating it. So, my wife and I never got to eat our wedding cake.”

“Knowing I had this opportunity  of the Fool’s Errand, I convinced my wife to join me on the trip to Florida, and we contacted that same bakery and ordered that same cake, and we went to that same spot on the resort where we married. It was two years late, but we finally got to enjoy our wedding cake. And it was damn good too.”

“That alone made this whole Fool’s Errand worthwhile, so thank you The Motley Fool for providing me this opportunity, and thank you all for letting me share my experiences with you today.”

And with that I returned to my seat, smiling, knowing that I had made the most of my Fool’s Errand and the most of presenting it back to the people at The Motley Fool.

I received this notice forwarded in an email from my mom the weekend before the Snowpacalype and I still don’t know what to make of it:

Montgomery County Police Alert, URGENT

National Gang Week is starting soon (Washington, DC, Virginia &
Maryland) This is their new target method:

While driving on any roads in your city or community, if you happen to see a baby car seat sitting on the side of the road, DO NOT STOP!!! We have reason to believe this method is the Gang’s trap. They target people especially women, to stop their vehicle to help a baby.

They make this baby or doll look as if it has blood on itself or on its clothes. When you exit from your vehicle in attempt to help, the gangs jump out from fields or tall bushes, and last reported, from guardrails on the highway. There are 3 confirmed cases where women were beaten to near death, and in one case a woman was raped and beaten badly.

Their goal is to torture the victims to death in any way possible. If you do happen to see a car seat on any highway, DO NOT STOP, CALL POLICE IMMEDIATELY!!!. Please forward this message to everyone you know. This is not a joke. Please be aware.

Det. G. J. Lee ID 1352

Montgomery County Police Department
Investigative Services Bureau
Centralized Auto Theft Section
2350 Research Blvd.
Rockville, MD 20850
Main: 240-XXX-XXXX
Direct: 240-XXX-XXXX

Wow, I appreciate the heads up (thanks Mom) and I know to keep driving, and am happy to pass this along. That being done, (and I don’t mean to make light of what sounds like a very serious matter, but) I can’t help wondering a few pratical matters about National Gang Week:

• First and foremost, can this be true? Do gangs have a National Gang Week?
• Is it really nationwide?
• Who does the coordination of all gangs to put together and promote this event?
• Where do they get their funding? Is there an agreed upon profit-sharing arrangements between all gangs?
• What is the point of the baby carriage terrorizing? Is there actually some return on investment there or is it just an expense that’s part of the celebration of Gang Week?
• How did the blizzard conditions impact the festivities? Will Gang Week be postponed? Probably not if it’s a nationwide event.

So many questions, I really should call the MoCo Police for more details.

While we were using hydrogen peroxide on our couch, Selena mentioned that when she was sick as a kid her parents had her gargle a combination of hydrogen peroxide with salt.

What?!?!

I don’t know what to say about that. In the moment, my only response was, “I am very glad that you are still alive.”

When we found out that Sookie came into womanhood primarily based on evidence on the couch, I was pretty sure that that very pricey gift of living room furniture that we got after our wedding only a couple years ago was suddenly unrecoverable.

Selena and I researched online and tried multiple solutions but the only one that got out the stains was hydrogen peroxide, which came with a side effect we discovered later, it bleached the spots where applied.

We went a week or so trying to figure out how to fix the now bleach-spotted couch cushions before we remembered that cushions have cases that can be removed and washed.

Selena washed (with bleach) the cushion covers and we we’re delighted that it muted the white spots and only minorly ripped apart the cushion covers at the non-visible seams.

So, now while it is true that there are ruined, bleached, muted, and ripped cushion covers on our couch, if you didn’t read this, you wouldn’t know, and you probably won’t be able to really tell if you come by. That subtly is the difference between needing to spring for new couch now or a few years from now when the puppy plus new baby have really had a chance to beat the hell out of it.

A month or so ago we came home to find Sookie had left evidence all over the house including on the carpets and couch that she was now a woman.

In retrospect, I could have realized it was coming, if I had given more thought to why she was doing a lot more humping.

Since that costly incident, the plastic has been up and she’s been wearing makeshift doogie diapers of turned around boys tighty-whiteys (so the tail can go through the opening), and we have been back on the heightened alert we remember from when we first adopted her, where ever time she sits down we worry she’s about to cause a need to run for the cleaning supplies.