So, pardon the poor photo—it was taken 4 years ago before my handy dandy Nikon made the scene. Even iphoto can’t help this, but you get the point… right? It’s chocolate. Lots of chocolate.

Chocolate is good. You with me? I’ll tell you what’s not good though: waiting. Waiting is bad. Not fun. Not enjoyable. NERVE WRACKING. And, because I’m an impatient sort, down right frustrating. Waiting makes Wende annoyed!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware of my diva tendencies to want it yesterday. Whatever that “it” might be. But in this particular case, I’m thinking I’m well within my rights to be frustrated. What’s got me in a dither? I’ve been waiting 10 months for my grad school diploma to arrive. 10 long months. Every day, I check the mail with baited breath. Nothing. Oh sure, there are bills. Like, bills for my school loans that are now due. But that 8.5 x 11″ dart board diploma has yet to show up. It’s not worrisome. It’s annoying. And because I’m annoyed and narcissistic write a blog, I see lots of chocolate in your future.

Chocolate? Chocolate? Did someone say chocolate?? Yep, I did! So, this is what I’m thinking—I’m going to award chocolate, lots of chocolate to the person who comes closest to predicting the day I actually receive my diploma in my hot grubby hands. All you need to do is leave your guess in the comments to participate. Once my diploma arrives, I’ll announce a winner and send off a care-package of chocolate to the clairvoyant among us. What kind of chocolate you ask?? Well, you’ll just have to wait and see.

UPDATE:

No, I’ve not received my diploma yet (and for you skeptics in the crowd, I had contacted my school before I posted this. I’m still waiting for them to respond! They’re like this… hence the guessing game.) but I’m not nearly as hopeful as the rest of you lot! Most of you guessed really early dates and that’s so very nice of you, if misdirected! It shouldn’t surprise me that most of you are optimists… but it does make me happy for some reason. Because if I were guessing, my answer would have been “never!” Just call me “ms. glass half-empty”.

So, a big thank you to all of you who decided to play along and actually guess a date. Despite the tongue-in-cheek nature of this post, I’m kinda giddy to put together a box of chocolate for the winner. Being an inherent curmudgeon, I usually steer clear of anything that smacks of “joining”. Thus, I’m always impressed when people are willing to belly up to the bar and be social. It’s so unlike me to do this, it’s fun to realize the most of the world is actually nice and decent and not spitting in people’s coffee when they aren’t looking. (Now, hold the phone, I didn’t say I spit in people’s coffee. Much.) But I am taking notes of those who didn’t play along… and never sitting close enough for any of you to spit in my coffee.

Anyhow, I’m not going to answer individual comments on this post. Mostly, because I’m not sure how to respond to “October 7″ or “September 29″. All I know is that the thought of answering stirs up this compulsion to shout back more numbers (”December 2, January 15!”) in a very odd game of numerical Marco Polo. I think we’ve established that wouldn’t be a very good idea.

I’m not closing this little contest either… feel free to add your guess if you haven’t yet. If my diploma arrives more than a month after the latest guess made, then I’ll put all your guesses in a hat and pick a winner. (contest closed!) Somebody is getting chocolate. See, my degree is good for something after all. Blessings… wen.

Today, IZ installed instant messaging on Boy Wonder’s computer. This has revolutionized our communication. Now, at bed time, instead of hollering up the stairs and the boy ignoring me, my little reminders pop up on his computer screen. This solution is so simple I don’t know why we didn’t think of it sooner. Oh wait, we did… someone I know drug his feet on the whole deal. Anyhow, witness the ease:(I especially like how after just one afternoon of this, he’s already mastered the fine art of sarcasm through the use of emoticons.)

Me: lights out at 9 pm.

Boy Wonder: OK

Me: lol

Me: 9 pm is a perfectly fine bedtime. It could be 8:30!

Boy Wonder: OK

Now, if we could just get the dog to instant message us when she wants to go outside, we’d be set.

This, from IZ, made me laugh for 4 minutes straight!

Ok, so I can’t embed YouTube on this site because my template is ancient and I’m in no mood to update… and honestly… I wouldn’t even if I could. Why? Because I’m not a sheep! If that’s unintelligible, well, it’s inside joke for Kathleen, who is turning fabulous plus one year today! Love you girl, happy happy birthday!

Anyhow, I will link like mad and you can’t stop me. Seriously, THIS FREAKIN SONG makes me happy. Very happy. I’ve listened to it 15 times this evening. . . make that 16 and let me check. Yep, still happy! The only down side of this whole deal is that I can’t pump my speakers any louder than they already are!

Go listen. I bet you can’t NOT dance! Everybody sing with me, “Big Girls, you are beautiful!”

Have you ever noticed that those least in possession of Common Sense, are in fact those most in need of it?

Take my 10 year old, who decided to Febreze soak his bed an hour before bedtime with half a bottle of Febreze. You know, because if one or two squirts make your room smell good, why not dump half a bottle on the bedding your mother just washed? When asked “Why on earth would you do that??” he replied, “Because I don’t have any Common Sense.”

We’re not even going to discuss the dog.

It’s time for another round of “Ask the Internets.” What? You don’t know that game? It’s where I ask y’all (You all, for you Yankee types) a question and y’all holler back. Ok? Easy, right?

The last time I tried this, I opted for a back-door thesis. I figured, I’d write some little thing about how I was completely out of touch with what’s worth reading in fiction due to my stint in Seminary. However, I ended up writing a completely different piece and never got around to the ask.

Oh, temptation! See, now that I’ve used the term “back-door thesis” I want to tell you the story of how that nasty habit got me into so much trouble in school; how my mentor tirelessly attempted to rid me of my penchant for leaving the point to the end. But I won’t. I’ll be good. See, I can be good.

So the question. Wait, not yet. You need to know the reason why I have a question. Isn’t that some post-modern thing, context and all? Pfft. Anyhow, I am trying desperately to shed some pounds this summer. Part of my plan has been to attack the hills mountains of Astoria, daily. Oh. My. Goodness. My entire body is aching. While I am out of shape and, uh, pudgy— that’s only part of the problem. Because what hurts most would be my feet! I realize that all my walking shoes are terribly worn out and I am in a quandary about buying a replacement pair.

So. Here’s my question. I need to buy a good pair of shoes to hoof my way to skinny me. It wouldn’t HURT if they looked good, because, uh… yeah. Vain. Anyhow, I’m looking for walking shoes/sandles, not hiking boots.

Dear Internets, what would you suggest?

Shoot, that’s a back-door thesis. At least I asked the question this time! Progress, not perfection, right?

It’s nearly summer and that means: time to read trashy novels on the beach. One of the down sides (was there an up???) to Grad school was that the amount of reading I had to do left me with little time or energy for reading anything else. By the time summer would roll around, the only things I felt like looking at were magazines. I mean this literally, looking. Because I don’t think I read a bit of print beyond pictures all the summers I was in school. I was just too tired to think! When each class was demanding hundreds of pages of text to be read each week, the very thought of reading for pleasure was unimaginable.

Of course, there was that one semester where I read nothing but advanced reader copies of novels in order to avoid reading the required subject matter for a certain class I was taking. I found the reading for that class as tedious as I found the professor—my theory was, the less time I spent actually doing the work the saner I’d become. It worked. Of course, it was my first B in Grad school.

Funny story that B—I was destined for it. The summer before, I was working in the campus bookstore when this professor paid us a call. Business was slow and my boss totally encouraged her staff to read when there was nothing else to do. So, there I was, propped behind the counter with an advanced reader copy of The Good Men by Charmaine Craig. Now, you should know this professor had a reputation. While I’d never met him in person, he was kinda hard to miss on campus. Students either loved him or, uh, didn’t. (Most other professors polled were less enthusiastic. They either found him insufferable or they proffered a “no comment”.) He was famous for having “favorites” and reducing his non-preferred students to tears.

So, in he walks, and without even saying hello he looks at the book I’m holding and says, “Huh, must be a chick-book about hating men.” Or some such nonsense suggesting that the book wasn’t “pro-man”. Uh… it’s a book about heresy. A work of historical fiction. Now, to his credit, he couldn’t have known what the book was about, because it was an advance reader copy—the book hadn’t been published yet! But, seriously, wouldn’t you take offense to such a presumption?

No, probably not. You, dear readers, are wise and patient and not prone to sticking your foot in your mouth. Me? Well, that was when, without missing a beat, I made the biggest mistake I could and said, “Uh, clearly you’re not a church historian.” Oops. My bad. How was I to know that he had a running feud with the Church History Department?

My boss, who had heard the whole exchange, had a good laugh at my expense and clued me into the departmental politicking. Oh, joy. At the time, I was a wee bit obsessive about “pointy” grades and she knew it. “There goes my ‘A’,” I thought. And I was right.

Much more went into my getting a B; he and I came from different theological camps. Needless to say, being different wasn’t rewarded at the particular seminary I attended. By the time the course came to an end, we’d pretty much squared off as enemies. He blatantly came after me in class and in my papers—so much so, I was often asked why I didn’t report him. Truth is, as appalling as it was, I expected it! Remember, I’d had advance warning the summer before when I discovered the true meaning of “Good Men”. When grades were issued he made a point of telling me how overjoyed he was to be giving me a B. Of course, it wasn’t the first B in my education, and it wouldn’t be my last! I can’t recall if I actually said this or just thought it, but I do remember the sentiment I had when he gloated about my grade, “I’ve been given B’s by better men!”

A few weeks (months??) ago this lovely blogger tagged me with a “Thinking Blogger Award.” While I adore Vicki, did I follow through? Uh, no. If you’re a long term reader of this blog then you know how I feel about Memes. I don’t believe in them. I fact, I really hope meme-ing is like the existence of fairies; if I stop believing in them they will die. Meanwhile, the blogosphere is running amok, clapping their hands together, saying, “We do believe in Memes, we do! We do!”

All I have to say to that is, “Stop it!” No, seriously, stop it with your infernal clapping racket! I know I said I didn’t care if you memed, but I lied. Yes, yes, it’s your blog and you truly are free to meme, but when you do, you keep those buggers alive and that won’t do. Just imagine me singing to you, “No, No, No!” a la Amy Winehouse singing “Rehab”. (They tried to make me write a meme, but I said, “no, no, no!”) Hand flicks and everything. Oh yes I did write this paragraph just to work in an Amy Winehouse reference.

I also didn’t do the meme because all the bloggers that really make me think had already been tagged several times and I was too lazy to scrounge up new thinking blogs to nominate. However, at that time, I wasn’t reading Happy Are We. If I had been, I’d still sing, “no, no, no”—but I would have at least tipped my hat in Stacey’s direction. Because, when she writes a post like this one, I can’t help but stop and think.

Now, the rest of you—seriously, you’re on my last nerve with the meme-ing. So, I’m declaring June the month of the non-meme. If I wasn’t so dang lazy, I’d craft a little button and cajole you all into joining the movement with some sweet little incentive like a prize. Yeah, like that’s going to happen. Instead, I just say… “no, no, no!”

(psst… and before you start sending me hate mail, go watch this in its entirety. Then come back and tell me how much you love me. Because you will. Oh yes you will. )

I have a theory: he’s waiting for every door in the house to fail before he fixes any of them.

. . . and you thought I was high maintenance, didn’t you?