Time to Look Back....

Another year is almost gone. What happened? Where did it go? As far as years go, this one wasn't too awful. It had it ups and downs, goods and bads, and plenty of surprises. We got "civilly unioned," we remodeled the kitchen and dining room, we hosted a party for more than 100 of our friends to help us celebrate 10 years together, Robin lost a job, Robin got a job, I got a car, and I'm now less than 150 days away from graduation and the eventual regaining of my life. Is it any wonder, then, that since class ended three days ago, it's all I can do to get up and go to work? I am exhausted, in every sense of the word.

Today was good -we got up when we felt like it, relaxed over breakfast, then headed over to Westfield to pick up one Christmas gift, then we wandered the shops, had lunch, and did a little grocery shopping at Trader Joe's before coming home and taking a nap. Now that's what I call a good day.

Oh my.

Did I really not post anything in November? Whoops.

iWant

OS X Leopard. Released yesterday. Of course, I'll need a new computer to run it, since my 3 1/2 year old PowerBook can't handle it :-(

Weekend Trauma. Really.

So, I'm standing in line at J&R Music World in Manhattan the other day, making a purchase, and my phone rings. It's Robin.



Robin: "Hi. I'vebeenhitandI'mokandthecopsarehereand (breath...) ....theambulanceishereandIgottagobye." Click.

Me: "???" Calls back, gets no answer.

Long story short, Robin went to see a friend who was "gallery-sitting" to bring him lunch. As she was crossing the street to go back to the car, she was hit by a Jeep Cherokee. She makes it a point of correcting me every time I say she was hit by a car. "It was an SUV. Not a car." Ok. Point is, she was hit and ended up on the pavement. We are blessed she is not hurt badly. Nonetheless, I rushed out of Manhattan, hopping the PATH to Newark, where I grabbed a cab to UMDNJ, where the ambulance had taken her. I get to the hospital, where I discover they don't know where she is. After some prodding of the staff and a few more minutes, I am told "she is in the trauma unit."

Once I pick myself back up and gather my wits, I go find her, with the help of a wonderful Patient Advocate. There she is, lying in a bed in the trauma unit, neck brace and all. After hours and hours of waiting and x-rays and CT scans, she is finally released and we are home that same night.

I don't believe I've fully processed the whole ordeal, but I do know that with much clarity, I realize how fleeting life is, and that we need to take time each day to appreciate it, and the ones we love. Every single day.

Silica overload...

So, we're finally getting around to putting away all the dishes and glasses we'd packed before the kitchen project of '07. Will someone please tell me why we have so many glasses? Even after we've gotten rid of a ton? Anyone?

I have a plan!

I have been doing a lot of thinking the last 6 months or so about what I'll do once I graduate. Oh sure, there's still the full-time career I have (and really like, by the way), but I'm talking about that which will occupy my heart and soul. As I was driving to or from work (it's often all a blur), it hit me. I want to write. I want to write about the eight year experience of seminary. I want to write what it did to me, how it changed me, where I started, where I ended. I want to write about it all. As I start my (hopefully) last year, it's as if I'm coming out of a cave into the light. I am afraid to count the number of hours I spent in class, or the library, yet I am mindful of the lifelong relationships I have formed during those many hours. While it's still relatively fresh in my mind, and while I have the time, I want to commit it to paper because I believe it is important.

Errr.....

So, ok, like it's been forever since I even so much as looked at this blog. Since my last post, we've been to Little Cayman, bought an iPhone, redone the whole kitchen and dining room, had a 10th anniversary celebration for 100 of our friends and family, been to Bimini, bought a new vehicle, welcomed a new 1st cousin once removed to the family, and I've started back at school. All in that span of something like 10 weeks. So there.

WTF were we thinking???

So, we've lived in this small townhouse 8 1/2 years so far. We've come to the realization that we'll probably live here 8 1/2 more. And if we're going to live here 8 1/2 more years, then we'd better damn well do something about the fact that we can't open our refrigerator without smacking its door against the stove, which is, like, 6 inches away. So we're remodeling. Actually, it's more like major construction. Like the kind that disrupts your life. A lot. Did I mention that we discovered yesterday that there are no shutoff valves under our kitchen sink? And once they removed the sink and tried to cap the pipes, they split because they're so corroded? Did we mention that the water is STILL shut off? Did we mention that the plumber is coming to fix this problem TOMORROW? Did we mention that we leave for a dive trip in 2 weeks? And then come home to throw a party for 100 of our closest friends? All while the house has exploded? Did we mention we're probably not the best planners?

iLust

Happy iPhone Day!

Nancy's Labyrinth

So, Robin and I went to the Met last weekend to see a temporary exhibit of artifacts and photographs from Papua New Guinea Coaxing the Spirits to Dance: Art of the Papuan Gulf. It was of particular interest since we spent a little time there last summer (Papua New Guinea, not the Met...). The exhibit was interesting and informative, if a bit small. But that's not why I'm writing this. You see, there is a gallery inside the Met that strikes fear in my heart. The European Paintings. Yes, those venerated canvases hanging elegantly in their galleries, bringing back memories of private school art musuem excursions, and long-winded lectures by past teachers. Actually, it's not the art that strikes fear, but rather the galleries themselves. For someone who is proud of the fact that she does not need to ask for directions, or has no desire for a thief-magnet GPS unit in her car, this exhibit has become my own private hell. There has not been a single visit to this gallery that has not resulted in my geting absolutely lost within its confines. Robin has dubbed it "Nancy's Labyrinth." There are no tiny signs within the exhibit to helpfully point a lost visitor toward, say, the Chinese Art or the Sumerian stone tablets. Each time I visit, in my head I outline a short story in which the protagonist finds herself trapped past the museums closing, only to escape years later into a post-Bush apocalypse in which the museum has been shuttered for good, art and culture being regarded as evil, corrupting societies, encouraging them to think and explore other cultures....oh wait, that's now.

Ummm....

What happened to May??? After a horrifically busy last half of the semester, I fell of the face of the earth. Or at least the internet. But I'm back now and should be popping in with a bit more regularity. You've been warned.

Bombs Away!

Weird NJ is one of my favorite magazines, and I just discovered they're also on YouTube - yay!

Time keeps on tickin'......

"Procrastination is a complex psychological behavior that affects everyone to some degree or another. With some it can be a minor problem; with others it is a source of considerable stress and anxiety. Procrastination is only remotely related to time management, (procrastinators often know exactly what they should be doing, even if they cannot do it), which is why very detailed schedules usually are no help." - courtesy CalPoly Student Academic Services

I have a 20-page paper due tomorrow night by 6:00. Between now and then, I also must travel to my sister's house and celebrate her birthday, oh, and finish writing a sermon. So what better time is there than now to blog?

Pure Class

Living as I do a few miles away from Rutgers, and being an alumnus, I am impressed beyond words with the young women of the Rutgers University basketball team as they have handled the Don Imus controversy these past days. Totally classy. I wish each of them, as well as all the coaches and support staff, the best.

Whips

We've decided that perhaps now might be a good time to start looking for a new car. Mine, at the ripe old age of 6, already has over 142,000 miles on it, and Robin's, while relatively low mileage, is OLD (14) and is randomly beginning to drop pieces in the middle of the road. So as I contemplate the next new car purchase, I was thinking back over what I've driven through the years. In order:

Red 1967 Ford F150 pickup truck, 3-speed manual shift on the column; I learned to drive in this baby....

Rust (the color, not the state of the car...) AMC Spirit, don't recall the year. Ugly, crappy car, but it was MINE and it got me from college to work and back, so that was cool.

Navy blue 1985 5-speed manual Nissan extended cab pickup. My first new car.

Light blue metallic 1990 5-speed manual Toyota 4WD extended cab pickup; I loved this truck.

Red 1993 Mazda MX-6 5-speed manual sports car with black leather interior. It was fun to drive, except when it snowed; this thing was terrible in rain and snow, so I got rid of it.

Black 1994 Mazda 4WD automatic extended cab pickup with matching cap; loved it until it developed an intermittent, undiagnosable electrical problem that would cause the truck to just STOP for no reason. Not a *feature* you want when you drive on the highways of NJ......

Current car is a blue 2001 Subaru Forester 5-speed.

For the next vehicle, it will definitely NOT be a manual transmission. I am over that. I drive a 25+ mile stretch of road each way to work, with enough traffic lights that on days my knees are bothering me, I come home with a swollen kneecap from all the shifting. My top three picks right now are another Forester, a Toyota RAV4 or a Honda CRV, all Consumers Report top picks. Hmmm, now if I could only decide on a color.....

And this is news??

I have to stop taking these quizzes. But they're so dead ON.

You are a super geek You are into everything that is geeky – which is hard because there are so many types of geeks. You are very smart and have a great imagination. People who call you a geek are just jealous, right? Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

What would my epitaph say?

Sorry, I'm really bored tonight. This had me laughing so hard I thought I would choke. But then I wouldn't have been able to post. They must know my nickname.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

We need more lessons like this one....

I would choose a word other than bullshit, but the rest works for me.

Look, a desk!

Look, a desk!, originally uploaded by nukediver.

Well, I finally unearthed a corner of the basement this weekend. It felt good to wade through the paper that's accumulated over the last two years. I've really wanted to get my writing space back. There's something comforting about having a cozy nook in which to put pen to paper, or pixel to screen.

Woohoo!

It's official - I found out today that I passed all the ordination exams I took back in January! Four down, one to go. Looks like I'll be doing a little Biblical Hermeneutics during August. Bleah. In many ways, the significance of this hasn't hit me yet. I've watched many friends struggle through this process, not passing the exams the first time around, all the while dreading the time that I would have to sit there for three hours at a shot, answering three sets of questions for each exam with barely any time at all to review what I wrote, all the time wondering why we were being put through this exercise.

A girl can dream...

I am really determined this year to find my office. And when I do, it will look like this one. It's in the basement. In the corner. Right over there. Behind the mountain of boxes of books and graduate school papers. Which are under the bags of stuff to donate. Which are behind the stuff from last summer's vacation. My realistic goal? To find this office before I graduate. May 2008. I can do it. Yes I can.

Weak-Kneed Coward

For those of you that know me, you know that I am generally not afraid of many things. I am not afraid of spiders or snakes. I am not afraid of the ocean. I am not afraid of sharks. I am not afraid to be in the ocean with sharks. I am not afraid to travel to strange and scary places, either alone or with friends. I am not afraid to go back to school for something totally different. I am not afraid to speak in public. I am not afraid to laugh at myself. There is one thing, however, that strikes fear deep into my heart. Skywalk.

Flikr Flack

Whoa! Anybody been following the Flickr fiasco? I've been away the last four days and just got back this evening. Thought I'd upload some pics from my weekend. Boy was I surprised when I went to my Flickr page and found some *lovely* pr0n images! WTF?!? I was thiiis close to canceling my account when Yahoo took over 'cause I didn't have a good feeling about it. Guess I should have gone with my gut feeling on this one. Turns out that EVERYBODY'S images are screwed up. This has been happening for days, with no replies from Flickr staff. I've been posting some comments on the blog they set up for this, but it just went down ("Flickr is having a massage") about 5 minutes ago. I guess somebody finally listened when half the Flickr users said to take the site down until it's fixed. Duh. How stupid can they BE?

What gets me with this is that Flickr/Yahoo couldn't be bothered with honesty, saying that their servers/migration went kaflooey and that they'd have to take the site down for a bit. C'mon. The world would be a better place if we all 'fessed up when we messed up. Now, instead of a small group of grumpy folks you've got a rightfully angry mob, looking for someone to jab with their pitchforks. Can't say that I blame 'em....

11:00 PM EST update...they're up...they're down...no, wait a minute....sigh.....

5 reasons why I love snow

Blue, originally uploaded by nukediver.

5. When it snows, it means it's cold outside. I like it cold outside.

4. When it snows, it's quiet. I live near the confluence of several major highways (it IS New Jersey, after all) and when it snows, I can't hear any of them.

3. When it snows, it's purty.

2. When it snows, the air is crisp and clean.

1. And, when it snows on Valentine's Day, it's an extra added reason to stay inside and snuggle ;-)

Happy Valentine's Day!

The rest of the story behind my name

Full speed ahead!, originally uploaded by nukediver.

And I love to scuba dive. Any questions?

Half the story behind my name

We're with the government and we're here to help you..., originally uploaded by nukediver.

So, everyone asks "what is a nukediver?"

Well, I work in state government, making sure that people who used radioactive materials in the past clean them up. Oh, and I'm on the right. Not that you could really tell.

genesis

As if there weren't enough happening in my life already, I have set my sights on entering the blogosphere, quietly, without a thought as to where I'm headed. But that's the fun part, isn't it? The not-knowing of writing? Where will my subconscious take me today? I don't know. But I do know that my conscious and I just returned from Target. We decided to consolidate the 500+ CD's scattered about the house and put them into zip cases so we have more room. Every time we want to listen to something, the search for the CD begins. Invariably, we give up, disgusted with how disorganized we are when it comes to our music, and end up turning on the TV. So....I went to Target to get some cases. On a Saturday afternoon. In NJ where it seems EVERYONE goes shopping on a Saturday afternoon. Normally, that would bother me, but today I had been in the house all day, and it felt good to get out among humanity. I felt like an anthropologist amongst all the shoppers, watching what they were buying, who they were with. It felt good to get back home, as the sun set, knowing that dinner was cooking, and I could spend the evening curled up with a good book.