I See What You Meme

Dear Zach, Almost three weeks ago, you surprised us with such scary and unsettling news.  We were shocked to learn you had suffered a massive seizure and (possible) blood clot that sent you to the hospital. Despite your medical team's best efforts, you were unable to recover from your injuries. On Friday night, your family made the very difficult decision to remove the machines helping you breathe and keeping your heart pumping.  You passed to the other side at about 5:30 Sunday morning.  I miss you already. Me and Zach sharing a funny moment on stage Zach, I first met you when Roger and I were introduced to ComedySportz in November 2012 as part of a Richmond Mom  and CJSTUF fundraiser.  I immediately knew that you were more than a talented improviser. You were a genuinely nice person, a good friend, and a great  teacher. I learned so much about the world of improv from you.  I enjoyed reading your perspectives on comedy  on your...

This week marks 20 years since I graduated from Spruce Creek High School.  Yes. You read Class of '93. I haven't changed a bit, right? that correctly. Two decades.  I know. I can't believe it either. While you are recovering from that shock, I thought I would share some of the thoughts that have been floating around in my brain as I knew this anniversary approached.   First, a few surprises: I'm not exactly where I thought I might be career-wise.  I thought I would be a music teacher.  I left high school and entered college as a music therapy/music education double major.  Somehow the music ed degree was left behind.  That being said, I still work in education. I guess it's not that much of a stretch. I did, however, think I would do more with math.  I loved math. I still love math. Yeah, I'm that kind of weirdo .  I ended up minoring in math in college, thinking that with the aforementioned music education degree, I would always ...

Me playing with Thomas in one of his last shows. Today I awoke to unimaginable news.  Thomas George, one of my fellow ComedySportz players and friends, died in his sleep last night.  Thomas was just a little bit younger than me.  I played in his last ComedySportz show on Friday night.  We were supposed to play together last night as well.  He never showed up at the theater.  I am shocked and sad.  Although I have mentioned ComedySportz (CSZ) a few times on my blog , I have never really talked about the impact it has had on my life in just one short year.  Roger and I stumbled upon CSZ through a Richmond Mom fundraiser.  We were invited by Kate Hall to participate as "guest performers" in November 2011.  We had such a good time with the two-day event, we decided to audition for the major league troupe last January.   I had no idea that we would make it into the troupe.  We really went to the auditions on a lark. ...

The vacation is officially over. Roger and I had a wonderful and relaxing time.  A few lessons learned: Lesson #1: Air Tran provides excellent customer service. The weather in Richmond delayed our departure and we missed our connection in Atlanta.  Fortunately, Air Tran put us up in a local hotel with a meal voucher and a flight out the very next morning. Unfortunately, we didn't get to the hotel until almost midnight and needed to leave  the hotel at 6 AM to make our shuttle. We didn't get a lot of sleep and the hotel had some bizarre issues with the room: the remote control for the television just advanced the channel regardless of which button was pressed (including volume).  Plus, the telephones were disconnected from the wall jack. When we connected them, the dial tone didn't seem to work. Good thing we had our phones and didn't need a wake-up call.  It was clean, though, and it was better than sleeping in an airport terminal.   Lesson #2: Social ...

This week's Follow Friday is dedicated to one of my oldest friends. I am blessed with many dear people in my life so I hope that nobody feels offended or slighted by this post. Jamie has been my friend for as long as I can remember. In fact, I don't remember not knowing her. I think we met sometime around Kindergarten. We lived only a few blocks from each other and even though we were a year apart in school and only attended the same school for 2 years, we were constant companions in childhood.   This is not a childhood picture of me and Jamie...but it could be. This is actually a birthday card she sent to me years ago. It hangs on my bedroom mirror and constantly reminds me of our friendship. Summers were spent riding bikes, swimming together, pining over boys (both those in our school as well as impossible celebrities) , playing games, creating crafts (oh, the friendship bracelet obsession!) and making mischief (ask her about the Pepto Bismol story!) . ...

So a few weeks ago I was so excited to get my new CJSTUF license tags in the mail! As a responsible citizen, I put the new tags on my car and went about my life. Today, between work and errands, I was driving around town. I made a few stops here and there. It was only when I got home that I noticed the back tag on my car was MISSING. Gone. Vanished. I can guarantee that the tag did not fall off. These tags were screwed on TIGHT (plus the back tag had a vanity frame around it). I retraced my steps and seem to remember that I saw the tag on my car when I came out from giving platelets today. My next (and final) stop was downtown near MCV. I was parked in the lot at the Valentine Museum for about 30 minutes. Then I headed home.  I called the Ashland PD to file a report and they sent an officer over to the house. On a funny note, when my mom commented on the fact that he pulled up in an unmarked car, the officer remarked, "Well, I'm here for the bachelorette party. Are...

I heard an interesting story on NPR during my evening commute.  The reporter posits: "Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are helping people keep in touch with friends and family. But just how social are those networks? Are Internet communities simply "real-world" cliques moved online?" Quite honestly, I never pondered that Facebook was anything more than a digital clique.  Looking at my own cadre of friends on Facebook, I saw some interesting patterns.  I have 653 friends.  [Yes.  I know.  Those of you with more friends are thinking, "Oh how sad." and those of you with fewer friends are just jealous. It's all relative.]   For point of information, the average Facebook user has about 125 friends.  I appear to be ahead of the curve.  After my dear husband (453 mutual friends), the person with whom I share the most mutual friends  is a girl that went to my high school. We have 53 mutual friends. In...