Livin' the dream.

I'm stranded in the Milwaukee airport.

Me and my posse from Corporate Behemoth.

This after a 9-to-5 meeting that left us all tired and a bit cranky.

Now? We are cranky and tired and wondering if we're going to get home tonight. I have already pulled the trigger and texted Puppy Love Lisa, asking her to spend the night with Foxie Doxie and Lil' Frankfurter. Because she is the greatest human ever.

And now? My posse is splayed about the Milwaukee airport, feet propped up on suitcases, laptops out, none of us using them for work-related purposes.

I will share other highlights of this quick trip to Boston:

1. The Doubletree gave the same hotel room to two people. This meant that at midnight last night, some poor dude spent 10 minutes trying to key into my hotel room while I watched through the peephole.

2. The Doubletree also screwed me by calling me at 12:15 a.m. ... to ask when I wanted my wake-up call. Seriously? Fuck you, Doubletree.

3. In the midst of today's meeting, I realized that one of my coworkers looks just like Sam the Eagle. You know, from the Muppets.
This made me look around the conference room, trying to decide what other members of the Muppet menagerie were represented at Corporate Behemoth.

I think we've got a Scooter.
And a few Bunsen Honeydews. I do work for a software company, after all.

4. In the restroom at the Milwaukee airport, on the sign-in sheet where workers note when they cleaned the facilities? One of the employees signs his name "Bill The Thrill."

Right on, business trip. You rock.

No, I don't work at a hospital. Obviously.

It’s November at Corporate Behemoth, and you know what that means.

Yes. It’s time to re-enroll in health benefits.

Corporate Behemoth changed a bunch of stuff around this year, so even the folks who are willing to shell out big bucks for big coverage are sort of screwed. None of us know which anorexic little plan to choose.

One of the number crunchers in my department actually created a comparison Excel spreadsheet to help us all decide. It’s the clearest bit of info we have in our oh-Jeeeezus-please-may-we-not-actually-need-insurance-because-I’m-not-sure-I’m-picking-the-right-thing arsenal.

Today, I overheard a 45-minute conversation between three dads on my team, all trying to decide how best to protect their families. I wonder if Corporate Behemoth realizes what their attempts at saving money actually do to staff morale and productivity.

I'm worried that no one at Corporate Behemoth has the expertise to make these decisions. This concern is based on two things:

1. All of the colorful "Hey! Let's talk about health care!" info HR provided is actually written in a combination of Sanskrit and Serbo-Croatian.

2. One of my coworkers recently posed this question about our product's online content: "So, does all of the content reside in one big suppository?"

How to be a half-assed homeowner.

Brought to you by your guide in half-assery, Cha Cha!

1. Revel in the glorious weather this weekend. Realize, too, that this is most likely the last nice weekend in several months.

2. Make big and somewhat overzealous plans for yard work. Yard work in the yard that you have basically ignored all year.

3. Saturday morning, realize that you must watch the 11:00 Iowa game in lieu of getting an early-ish start on the yard work.

4. Become despondent and depressed when your beloved Hawkeyes fall.

5. Take your heartache out on the leaves that coat every surface in your yard. Also exert your dominance over the volunteer trees along the fence line that were once volunteer trees, but since you've ignored them for a year have settled in, grown hearty, and are now receiving mail at your address.

6. Wonder who, exactly, Lil' Frankfurter thinks is going to open the door when he cries for someone to let him back in the house, despite the fact you're at the other end of the backyard.

7. Realize you've been working for hours and hours and hours because it has gotten dark.

8. Go inside and see that it's only 5:00. Be sort of depressed, but promise to hit the yard hard on Sunday.

9. Check voicemail. Receive an invite to brunch. Realize that only losers skip brunch to work in the yard.

10. Do some stuff, go to bed, wake up barely in time to make it to brunch. Enjoy brunch.

11. Come home from brunch with barely enough time to get ready for yoga class. Decide that the yard will still be there after yoga and that yoga will make you so happy.

12. Go to yoga. Be so happy.

13. Come home. Fight the urge to take a nap. Eat some yogurt instead. Then go outside to hit that bitch hard. Plan to dig all the grass out of the landscaping, artfully organize that black sheet stuff around the landscaping so grass can't grow through, and then cover the whole shebang with mulch.

14. Remember that digging grass up out of landscaping is a giant pain.

15. Be sort of delighted when you realize that the ugly-ass evergreens in front of your house are not only ugly, but also sort of dying. Decide they will all need to be replaced in the spring. Decide that this means you can totally pull a little grass from around the landscaping, then just cover the rest of the mess up with some mulch, because you have seven bags of mulch in your garage and as long as they are in your garage, you can't park your actual car in the garage and this is unacceptable.

16. Be happy with your half-assed plan until you look up and realize that in your three years of homeownership, you've never once cleaned your gutters. Realize that it's obvious. Decide that having an entire ecosystem popping its ugly head out of your gutters does not bode well for your overall curb appeal.

17. Pull some grass. Be surprised when it gets dark at 5:00. Realize, too, that you've been bending down, ass-to-street, in yoga pants, for a couple of hours. Decide that the darkness is not a bad thing. Throw down some mulch.

18. Give up. Decide homeowners are losers. Go inside, take a shower, and eat Rice-A-Roni.

Things that are funny.

1. Today, that nice woman who gets paid to listen to me run my mouth - some would call her my therapist - asked me a funny question.

We were talking about boobs. Mine are ... ample. And she said, "Does anyone ever ask you if they're real?"

No. It never really occurred to me that they might be too ample to be real. But once, when I was walking through a crowded bar and some dude was staring, I said, "Yeah, they're real" as I walked by. Because I'm sassy like that.

2. This photo. Is funny. Because Foxie strikes this pose on the back of the couch all the damn time.
3. And also this photo. Because Foxie is ... foxy.

Key to my post office box heart.

Sunday was daylight savings time - and you know what that means.

That's right. My sleep patterns are ... how do you say? Oh, yes. All fucked up.

But in addition to being tired at 9 p.m., it's also the time of year when I actually take the dogs for walks in the morning. This is fairly easy since I wake up way before my alarm. Because it is light outside. Which is dumb.

There's one house on our route that I try not to stare at. When the garage door is open, you can see a very nice organization system made entirely of cheap metal shelves ... and those white plastic bins that proclaim "Property of the U.S. Postal Service" on all sides.

Yes. My neighbors have built their entire garage organization system around stolen property.

I'm trying to get a count of the actual bins involved, but it's hard to do this while also walking two dachshunds, trying to avoid the homeowner's beagle, and managing the Herculean task of not looking like a nosy freak.

Today, though, I discovered the icing on the cake.

It was trash day. And Stolen Organization System Neighbor had their grey plastic trashcan on the curb. Their grey plastic trashcan that had "Mail Room" written in Sharpie on all sides.

Disgruntled mail clerk? Postal fetishist? Or shifty office worker who has taken lifting Post-Its and paperclips to a whole new level?

I wonder what the rest of the house looks like.

Conversations with my family.

The set-up: My parents, My Guy, and I are sitting around the kitchen table. My mom has just returned from visiting her aunt and uncle.

Mom: So, I learned some new things about Grandma today.

The Rest of Us: Oh, yeah?

Mom: Yeah. Like, she kept a gun in a handbag on the top shelf of her hall closet. Even when she was living at Crescent Ridge. You know, just in case.

Dad: Really?

Mom: Yeah. I guess during the 30s, when they lived on the farm, there were hobos and such, and, well, some of them weren't very nice. Grandpa had a .45. So he bought her a .32.

Dad: A ladies' pistol.

My Guy: How feminine.

Mom: Yeah. And I also learned that Grandma had a boyfriend - that's how she broke her rib.

The Rest of Us: Huh?

Mom: Yeah. When she was living with us, she broke a rib. The only reason we knew about it was because she got out of a chair wrong and about passed out from the pain.

My Guy: I've heard that broken ribs are super painful.

Mom: Well, she went to the doctor and got it all taped up and such. But it turns out that it was from her boyfriend! He squeezed her too hard and broke her rib.

The Rest of Us: *silence*

Mom: Grandma was living with us - I was in grade school or junior high - but we didn't know she had a boyfriend! And he just squeezed her too tight and broke her rib.

Me: How big was Grandma?

Mom: Oh, maybe 98 pounds.

Dad: And how tall?

Mom: Probably about 5'2".

*raised eyebrows, dirty minds, and conspiratorial, knowing glances between The Rest of Us*

Me: Umm?

Dad: You can't break a rib by squeezing someone.

My Guy: Yeah.

Dad: It would take a little more than a hug ...

Mom: SHE WAS MY GRANDMA!

And ... scene.

Sometimes? This blog just writes itself.

Nine and ohhh!

I have been playing hookie. Huzzah!

My Guy and I traveled to Iowa to surprise my brother for his birthday. Poochie? He was surprised.

And then? We went to the Iowa game.

Now, I have been a Hawkeye fan for my entire life. My parents had season tickets. I have probably seen a dozen games in person. I had not, however, ever seen Iowa actually win.

I have witnessed ties. I saw our star running back Ronnie Harmon break his leg in 1984. I've seen heavily favored Hawkeye teams fall to lesser ball clubs. But I figured that an 8-0 Iowa team could readily take care of Indiana. So, My Guy and I bought tickets and made the trek to Iowa City.

In the third quarter, our quarterback threw for four interceptions. And yet? Iowa scored 28 unanswered points in the fourth quarter and won. I can't describe the game in a way that does it justice, so I won't try. However, I did have three major takeaways:

1. Until about five minutes left in the game, I thought that my family would disown me. If the Hawks lost because I was at the game and refused to leave? Well, my lovely family would be thankful for the good times we'd shared ... and kick me to the curb. I don't blame them. However, I was thankful that this didn't come to fruition. Thank God the Cha Cha Football Curse was lifted.

2. It was a chilly, windy day in Iowa City. I was glad to be sporting both my long underwear and SPF 85. Because that's how I roll. But it was quite obvious looking around the crowd that these are people who are accustomed to cold. While I joke about being a hearty northerner, it's true. My folk are a hearty people. They were simultaneously very prepared for the 40-degree temps and also completely unfazed by it. Twenty below wind chill? Bring it. They'll still come to the game.

3. If you've ever wondered exactly who is the stupidest human on Earth, I have found her. She and her husband sat behind us at the game. My first hint that something was very, very wrong came when she asked why the game had stopped.

Husband: It's a TV timeout.
Dumb Lady: So, they can't play then?

Seriously?

These sorts of questions went on and on. But with 1:37 left in the first half, my stadium neighbor really outdid herself.

Dumb Lady: So, who are we playing again?

At this point, I reached a new low in my life. I began actively hoping that another human being had Alzheimer's. Because if she has some sort of cognitive issue, my empathy will kick in and I'll just be glad that she's out and enjoying the day and taking in the sights and sort of following the festivities. But if not? If she's just really that dumb?

I have a hard time being gracious around that. Luckily, I was too focused on my beloved Hawkeyes being 9-0 to take the time to thin the herd, if you know what I'm sayin'.