FOBTY and What a Week!!

First, the FOBTY of the week. Vampires - yes, vampires. Really. Nice to know that I could be a vampire if I had to.

You Could Be a Vampire... If You Had To

Like most people, the thought of being a vampire has crossed your mind. But you're not sure if you'd do it, even if you could. Living forever doesn't sound half bad, if you could live forever with the people you love the most. But do vampires even love? And would the vampire version of you even be you? It's all too much to contemplate. Luckily, the chances of you ever becoming a vampire are astronomically low. What you would like best about being a vampire: Living forever What you would like least about being a vampire: Blood stained teeth

Could You Be a Vampire?

So, what a week this has been. Friday and Saturday and Sunday morning was spent in front of the TV (when I wasn't out running errands) watching the coverage of Hurricane Ike hitting Galveston and Houston. As of today we have not heard from Jon's mom who lived over near the Greens Bayou section of Houston (on the East side). He did see there was a report on the Houston website that there was extensive damage to that section. His best friend April (who lived near the NASA area) evacuated before the storm and so was fine, his other friend waited it out in the Woodlands (and they should be fine), and my boss (up in the Northwest just outside Houston) made it out fine with only a day and a half of power outage.
So all the way up here in Ohio we were hearing about Ike and the damage it was causing, all the time unaware how we were going to get hit with Ike's fury. Sunday afternoon Ike hit with winds between 50-84 mph. We lost parts of several of our trees and had they fallen any differently we would have had some major damage to our house. But we didn't; instead, we were without power from 2pm Sunday afternoon to close to 10pm Tuesday night. Mom never lost power so we were able to put our frozen goods at her place but our refirgerator was warm by the time Monday morning hit and so we had to toss everything out. Thank goodness I didn't do the grocery shopping on Sunday morning like I had originally planned. But there was still a lot of food wasted. Ugh. We ended up getting a hotel for Tuesday night before the power had gone on again. We had a good meal Monday night (at my mom's place for my birthday) and Tuesday night (ate out at a restaurant thanks to being reimbursed by insurance), but the rest of the meals were crap - cheese & crackers for Sunday night dinner, a bagel for lunch, etc.
Yeah. So a happy birthday to me - spent dumping stinky food in the garbage, helping with tree & debris disposal. And I wasn't able to play with my presents. I got my Adobe PSE 6 and a companion book, but couldn't load the software because besides having no electric, there's something wrong with my USB ports on my computer. I couldn't wear the clothes mom got me because I wasn't going in to work. I couldn't log the stamps I got because we had no power and the stamp books were in the dark basement. And mom got me a salad chopper, which of course we have no food in the house to chop. At least it didn't top my worst birthday ever (my 27th birthday). And at least I got to play with my early birthday present - my new Zune player- which I am loving! And I did finish knitting my felted bag, though I couldn't wash it to do the felting yet. That'll be this coming weekend....

Will the Real Me Stand Up?

I am pretty much who I show to the world. Most of my co-workers know that I am a heavy-metal-loving, scrapbooking-and-knitting, messy (but not gross), smart but slightly ditzy girl. I am very open about myself, though I do hold back only on things that I know that they really don't want to hear - I wouldn't hold back though if they cared to hear. And most people are open with me because they know that I am open-minded and willing to accept and understand differences of lifestyles or opinions. That's why my staunchly republican co-worker is comfortable talking politics with me (but I don't hear him debating with anyone else) even though I'm primarily Democrat. He doesn't mind talking to me about his classes he's taking to become a Catholic advisor, even though I'm not in the least Catholic. And he knows I'll be open about my opinions but will also listen, truly listen, to his. And I'm that way with anyone. I do hold back with my husband sometimes, but it is only because a lot of times he gets bent out of shape about things and I just don't like to deal with the aftermath. And I am comfortable with who I am - there are a couple things I want to change, but they are things I want to change for me - not for anyone else.
So the FOBTY quiz results were no surprise:

You Are 85% Real

There's hardly a person on this earth more real than you are. You have no problem showing people who you are, flaws and all. For you, there couldn't be any other way. Because it's way too stressful to live an inauthentic life. You're very comfortable with yourself. And because of this, you're able to live an exciting, interesting, and challenging life.

How Real Are You?

Well, it's also the 7th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The more time passes, the more it seems like a distant nightmare, but I do still remember where I was and who was lost. I say a little prayer for my Mom & Dad's close friend who lost his brother in the attacks. I'll never forget it, but it isn't constantly in the forefront of my mind like it used to be. I can never forget all those who were lost from all walks of life, including the brave ones who knew what was going on and fought back only to lose their lives in Pennsylvania. Or those who went in trying to save others in the WTC and lost their own lives. People who knowingly put themselves in harm's way to save others, not just those who never knew what was happening. And I always shudder thinking of the moments that each of the towers fell, the iconic buildings symbolizing the end of a type of innocence for this country.
I have to admit it kind of bothered me this morning when I heard that there are some groups that believe that Al Quaeda did not execute the attacks on the US on that day, but rather the US did it to themseves to create an excuse to invade Iraq. I can understand why the sentiment exists though. Bush was just so eager to jump into Iraq even though most of the planners were (and still are) in Afghanistan because as Jon says "the Iraqis tried to kill his Daddy". But I think a more plausible conspiracy theory would be that yes Al Quaeda did plan and execute the attacks but the Prez did nothing to prevent it and they would give him the excuse to attack. Not that I really believe that's what really happened, but it is more plausible than the other. Honestly I think they did plan and attack us, we knew about it but that the hubris our government has (that we are invincible and all-powerful) stopped any action we might have taken to prevent it. And I think we attacked Iraq in part because of the attempt on GH Bush's life, part because of the proximity to oil, and part because of the embarrasment of being caught with our pants down (so to speak) with being attacked by people to whom we provided supplies and training. Our goverment (at least the current administration) refuses to admit that it makes mistakes now and then in their policies towards other countries and cultures. That is one of the things that makes other countries' people hate us (or just dislike us) so much. Why can't we say yes, we make mistakes but let's just fix it the right way? I love my country, but there are a lot of flaws to it. Oh well. I've spouted off too much, but isn't that what a blog is for?

FOBTY - Crayola Crayon Colors

So I took the quiz and according the quiz I am a coloring genius - even though I had 26 wrong guesses for the 4 colors (but doing the math each of them had 4 potential answers which means I had 10% wrong answers). The ones I mostly got wrong were those Kid's Colors - yikes! There were even a couple of regular colors that threw me for a loop - you know, like macaroni and cheese - I would have remembered that color if they had had it when I was a kid. Or one of the purple colors - I saw eggplant and remembered the Olive Garden (or was it Romano's Macaroni Grill?) had that color on their tables, so I guessed - and oops, wrong answer. I have to admit it was nice to see that some of the old color names have stuck instead of trying to make all of them "funky" or au courant.