Carleen and Mike

Ok, so I know I said I was going to refrain from commenting on the situation concerning the recent arrest of our County Treasurer for drug possession but somebody wrote into Off the Cuff (which is sort of an anonymous opinion column dedicated to the thoughts and concerns of our citizens) the other day with a real humdinger that I just have to share. Don’t bother looking for it on their website, they’re always behind a few days. As it turns out, two more county employees have been arrested in connection with the drug case. See full story here.

An additional piece of background story is needed to fully appreciate this particular comment. For the past year, the community has been divided on issues concerning the raising of taxes (something about a bond issue…I don’t know…I don’t keep up) in order to build a new county jail. Apparently the one we have now is in pretty bad shape. I don’t think the issue was so much the money as it was what the money was going to be used for. We have a “vibrant” young professional movement growing in town who would like to see more money used for community development, ie. soccer fields, water parks and such. A lot of opinions were expressed in Off the Cuff during the time, most of which was of the “you’re too old and don’t like change vs. your too young and want to change too much” type of discussion.

So, back to the wisecrack who wrote in the other day concerning the new arrests in Stevens drug case, which at this point, after all this explanation doesn’t even seem that funny anymore but I’ve bothered to write this much so just read and at least giggle a little for me:

“All I want to say is they better hurry up and get that new jail built because of our officials all being busted.”

Yeah, so. I don’t know. I guess you kind of have to live here and know this place to really get it.

Despite all, Bartlesville is a nice place. There’s a great little pond we take Liam to all the time to feed the ducks, and hey, there was a yoga class advert in the paper the same day this article ran so it’s not so bad. Just don’t read the paper on a regular basis, or get involved in city politics, or express too much of your slightly more to the left opinion out loud and you’ll do fine. Just kidding. Really. It’s not so bad. Do I sound convinced yet?

I guess you could say Bartlesville simply represents a smaller version of any place in America. Although, I’m not sure how many cities have a drug ring operating in their county commissioners office. That might be considered kind of a unique thing.

Remember vacation when you were in college? I mean, the days of undergrad when your responsibilities were really minimal. Maybe my experience was different from others but I used to get sick of vacation by the end of vacation. I couldn’t wait to get back to the grinding routine of work, school, study. Those days are sadly over for me. I’ve been on vacation since Friday. Today’s my last day. As a working adult I’ve never taken more than five days off and five days just isn’t enough to get sick of vacation. It’s still only 6am in the morning, I have a full free day ahead of me yet I still feel devastated about going back to work tomorrow.

Oh well. It has been a nice few days. I had all kinds of projects planned but decided to put them off for some other weekend when I’m feeling particularly energetic (sporadic bursts…hopefully I’ll have one soon because the craft room is looking pretty ugly). On Saturday Mike and I left Liam at home with his grandparents so we could go to Tulsa and have delicious lunch with some friends, Diama and Matt. Diama is someone I met while attending library school and with each visit we find we have more and more in common. I’m just sad that we have to live an hour away from each other, which makes setting dates to get together more complicated. We were going to spend the rest of the day in Tulsa but the mere thought of driving in Tulsa traffic on a Saturday for the next four hours brought on a terrible heavy headache so we just went home and fell into bed and took a three hour long afternoon nap. Haven’t had one of those in a long time.

Sunday I spent at my moms watching Upstairs Downstairs and doing crafts. This is pretty much a set Sunday thing for us now, were turning it into a tradition. I’m currently working on knitting a pair of socks and trying my darndest to finish off my sister-in-law’s granny square baby blanket. Last night we had a relatively quiet day at home which ended with me going to the movies with my dad. We went to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets which was decently entertaining and would probably make a really fun ride at Walt Disney World, especially if it includes all that water (shhhh…don’t tell anyone but the Aztec Temple of Gold is actually located in South Dakota).

As for today? No idea what I’m going to do. I have to make it last somehow. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

While Mitch was here for xmas he teased me endlessly about having far too many blogs and social networking sites for him to keep up with. He asked specifically if there was way I could collect them altogether so he could access them easier. Well, there is. I just signed up for claimID, a “free, easy way to manage your online identity”. I’ll add to it as my “online identity” grows, which it likely will, given how addictive the internet can be.

Although it would be fun to blog about how our county treasurer was recently arrested for drug charges last weekend, especially after I just sent him a check for thirteen hundred dollars to pay off my land/property tax, I’m going to refrain and simply say that the whole thing is a very sad situation.

Instead, I’m going to tell you about Alison Jay, who illustrates children’s books. I just discovered her. Her illustrations are simply a delight. We have two of her books checked out for Liam right now. It took me forever to realize that each page has an image subtly placed that is then exhibited in a larger form on the next page. It’s kind of like a Where’s Waldo book, but far more intriguing and finer artwork. You can buy her illustration in poster format on an online “boutique” called Oopsy Daisy. Her books are definitely going on my wishlist.

I recently watched The Namesake, a movie based on the book by Jhumpa Lahiri. It was really good, highly recommend it. But at the end I started wondering whether I should have read the book first, which is what I had always intended to do but I just don’t have as much time to read nowadays. I tried to do this with the Golden Compass but was too excited about the movie release that I watched it after only completing half the book. As it turns out, the movie didn’t ruin a great deal when it came to reading the book. They left a lot of things out of the movie and it was easy enough to enjoy both for what they were. I’m not so sure about The Namesake, though. I’m afraid now that I know the plot and story, I won’t enjoy the book so much, despite the fact that one of the main reasons I’ve always enjoyed Lahiri’s work is for her writing style.

Another movie I really want to see is Atonement. My brother just watched this and said it was an excellent movie. When I told him that I was waiting to read the book first he suggested that I not because it might ruin the movie experience. Jeeze. It’s so hard to choose.

Other book/movies I want to see:

Persepolis (already read that one so)
Love in the time of Cholera
Kite Runner
Silk
Lust, Caution

I’m sure there are more, I just can’t think of right now. But seriously. What’s the better bet? Book first or movie?

I sort of feel like the holidays just sort of grazed by me. All of a sudden it’s 2008 and I’m due to turn thirty this summer.

This past year has seen a lot of changes for me. I’ve encountered some difficulties, some disappointments. I’ve gotten to know myself a little better, I’ve discovered some weaknesses, some strengths. But I have this strange feeling that 2008 is going to be good year.

There’s a bunch of xmas photos we still haven’t uploaded to our flickr yet but we’ll get them done…plenty of cute ones of Liam. I should probably mention something about resolutions for the year. Besides the joint one Mike and I agreed on I’ll simply want to find more time for crafting, spend more time with friends, less time stressing, more time napping, less time searching for misplaced car keys, more time reading and writing letters to people instead of email (really like that one Chrissy :-). Oh, and yoga, which I’ve been doing pretty good with during the past months so I just want to keep it up. Every day, forty minutes. And speaking more Norwegian with Liam. And getting out of Oklahoma by my birthday. I guess I should have put all that in list form for ya but oh well.

Anyway, happy belated New Year everyone!

You didn’t ask for it, but you’re getting it anyway. I don’t usually do New Year resolutions, but me and Carleen got talking about what we wanted out of this year, and resolutions just kind of popped in there. So here goes:

1. The first is a sort of joint resolution: We want to be more honest and open with each other. Not that we’re dishonest to each other, it’s just that sometimes we keep things to ourselves that really need to get out in the open.
2. Become a trans fat free household. I’ve weeded out most of the stuff but occasionally some things sneak in (like some bagels and an apple pie, most recently).
3. Eat more vegetables.
4. Find more ways to live “green”.

That’s it for me (so far) Meh. No big goals really, just some nit-picky things. I hope that’s a good thing. I’d like to think that that means I’m happy with who I am and don’t need to change much. Or it could mean I’m just not digging deep enough.

LATER: I missed one very important one: By July of this year, we will have moved or be in the process of moving to NY.