I flew to Washington to baby sit my niece, because my little sister had surgery yesterday.

She had a tumor on her ovary. They thought it was a cyst at first because it grew so fast, probably spurred by her recent pregnancy. But it was a tumor, and for a while there they thought there were tumors on her uterus and other ovary too. They mentioned the possibility of a partial hysterectomy. She is only 29.

She didn’t want to tell us at first, and I think we all understood why. There are some legacies that are passed from generation to generation that are happy – like grandma’s favorite china. But this is one legacy that hangs over all the women in my family like a gray cloud. My grandmother died of ovarian cancer. My mother had a hysterectomy as a result of similar problems, and both of her sisters had a lot of complications. My sisters and I hold our breath each time we go for that yearly exam. Other women may dread mammograms. The women in my family fear pap smears because of what they might tell us – that what lurks in our family history will come back to haunt us.

She could have asked a friend to help out that day, but she didn’t. She told no one but her family, and she asked my mom and I if we could come up to help with her daughter while she was in the hospital. Fiona is about three and a half months now. Plenty old enough to wrap mature adults around her chubby little fingers. She coos and giggles and has this wide, open-mouthed grin that shows off all her dimples to best advantage. It’s been too many years since I’ve changed a diaper. They used to have sticky tape. The ones Fiona sports have a velcro sort of fastener which is, of course, much more convenient but it took a while to figure it out, especially when huddled over a squirmy, giggly baby at the time. My mom and I worked out a system. She did the bottle-feeding, and when Fiona got fussy, I plopped her on my hip in this really weird sack-of-potatoes position that she adored, and walked her around until the giggles returned. We eyed the phone and didn’t talk about what could or couldn’t be happening in the surgery. We discussed where to order pizza, job stress, whether Fiona looks more like her mom or her dad, the new man in my life. But we didn’t talk about our worries about the surgery. We whispered them to each other on the plane to Washington the night before. But it was as if speaking aloud in her house might make them come true.

She’s just fine. Everything turned out well and we’re all breathing huge sighs of relief. She’s in pain from the surgery but that will pass. Now that everything is fine, she and her husband could joke about their worries – about it being more serious; about her not being able to see Fiona grow up. They were more animated, even as their exhaustion finally showed. They can focus on happier things now, like the house they just put a bid on, and on their beautiful daughter. My mom and I left them alone to rest and recover and flew home, back to life as normal. We didn’t really talk about it on the way home. We didn’t need to.

ow to spend a rainy Sunday:

• When one of your best friends asks if you would be willing to help another friend move and you don’t know this other friend at all, don’t even stop to ponder the fact that you are volunteering to help a perfect stranger lug boxes around. Just say ‘sure!’
• Realize that when you drive up to the new place and see that it has a steep and narrow staircase and you have a very large truck full of stuff that has to go up that staircase, it is then too late to reconsider one’s offer to act as movers.
• Discover that having lots of books is really cool except when you face the reality of having to carry 26 boxes of them up the aforementioned steep and narrow stairs.
• Learn that if we ever start to wonder where Ivymoon’s newest SO ran off to, all we need to do is check the closets because apparently he is very good at locking himself into them.
• Discover that there are at least three different versions of the song ‘The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out’.
• Find out that apparently when one is trying to lug a box of dolls on a dolly, this can unbalance the load, and the whole thing will tip over. Be unable to do anything to help because you and the other two women are collapsed on the floor of the moving truck laughing while the dolly-pusher makes snide and grinning comments that at least he is actually *moving* something.
• Sing camp songs at the top of your lungs, badly off-key, while driving through the rain on the freeway. When you run out of camp songs, go through your limited repertoire of Muppet tunes.
• Learn that some men know the words to far more Monty Python songs than you might expect.
• Discover first-hand that heavy furniture makes extremely awkward fashion accessories.
• Realize that it is extremely hard to carry big boxes up steep stairs when you are laughing.
• Determine that when you wonder where the men are and you go find them sitting near the foot of the stairs with a heavy wooden couch frame in their laps, laughing, that you should just shake your head and leave them alone.
• Discover that if you were to form a band from the musical talents (or distinct lack thereof) of our little moving crowd, and throw in the widow of a former Beatle, you would have the Yoko Ono Double Oboe, Bongo, Bone and Whistle Band.
• Say the name of that band over and over until you end up doubled-over laughing and unable to walk.
• Determine that your first release will be the ‘Prig’ song, just because it’s Ivymoon’s favorite.
• Go out for dinner afterwards because after moving heavy boxes in the rain, you know that you all are just so incredibly hot and sexy looking that everyone will be unable to keep their eyes off of you.
• Come to the conclusion that even though you weren’t looking forward to helping perfect strangers (who are now friends) move into their new home, that it turned out better than expected, and an incredibly fun day.

Work has been hectic…but then again, what else is new. Too much to do, and not enough time to do it. A coworker looked at me Thursday before he left and said ‘you need to delegate or you’re going to burn out’. I didn’t answer, just rolled my eyes, but I wanted to reply. Delegate to whom? All the others on my team are just as busy. I already handed over – quite reluctantly because I was so looking forward to coding it – the internal tracking tool we’re using, to the testing team. They’re doing all the work on that. I draft the other analysts into doing pieces of the project plan because I know I can’t get it all done by myself. I pushed for an additional resource because I realized that we needed it. But there’s only so much I can give away, and it’s not like any of the rest of them have time to do it either. This has been one of those weeks where I question myself constantly. What ever made me think I do manager-type stuff?

It’s the little things that make it better though. The business team lead that fully understands why I wanted to step back and take a second look at what they were designing, even though the others snarl at me. The head of the development team who remembers to tell us that we’re doing a great job, even though he’s even more overwhelmed than we are. The little comments from other members of the team that make me realize that despite the overall chaos of this project, I’m doing all right.

I’ve also been in land-limbo all week. The seller was supposed to get back to me regarding my offer by Monday. No word. Tuesday night the realtor paged me to let me know he’d *finally* gotten back to her with a counter offer. My immediate response – yes. Oh yes. I just want that land! More limbo. I went in the next morning before work to sign the paperwork. He was supposed to sign that night. No signing. Arrgh!

But the realtor just paged me. Congratulations. I’m a land owner!! Wow! Finally!

I’m so excited! I’ve never owned property before. This is new and different. Granted right now, all I have is my very own plot of weeds (albeit fine, high quality weeds, to be sure), but sometime soon it will have a house on it and trees and a deck and…well…it will be perfect. I suddenly feel like an adult. But this is one time when feeling old is just fine.

It’s been a crazy week as a result. Overworked, stressed over the land question – will he sign or won’t he? Yet through it all there has been this incredible euphoria. There are some things that make caffeine addiction worthwhile; when the unexpected but hoped for becomes real and tangible; when conversations linger, and laughter become seductive. I am overwhelmed. Ah, bliss.

Sunday was a wonderful day. I slept in, as much as the cats would let me. Which wasn’t much, but still, I wasn’t ruled by the alarm, so that has to count for something. The sun was shining and it just warm enough for shorts. I spent the entire day with good friends and we had a blast. IHOP for breakfast, a stroll through the Scottish Games followed by a mid-afternoon beer/coke break, and sushi to finish it off. And through it all we laughed and talked.

It was the kind of day that spills over into others. Even though today I realized that we’re short three people for the technical evaluation that we need to do at work because the ones we have don’t have the knowledge to do the job, that they are letting users design a system for which they have no experience, and that part of being in this position I’m in is having to be the wall that stops things from changing irrepairably, and being prepared to face the consequences. It should have been a bad day. Add to that my extreme lack of sleep and subsequent over-caffeination to make up for it, and I should have been a zombie today. But it wasn’t….and I wasn’t.

And the reason that today wasn’t as bad as it could have been was because Sunday was also a day of unexpected surprises. Like finding the perfect carved stone dragon for my front hall at the Scottish Games in Woodland. Discovering that laughing your head off while driving can make steering a challenge. Learning that sometimes what is pondered can become reality, that laughter with a good friend is more important than sleep, and that some things can linger long after the laughter has faded away.

‘ve been in an offsite meeting all week going through this monstrously huge functional design document. We’ve been breaking it down into workable components, mapping out dependencies, determining capacity, scope, numbers of people needed to develop this project. Add this into my regular duties of meetings, etc., and it’s made for some incredibly long days. Friday we were finally done and I was tasked to map out a project plan for at least the first two weeks. It’s not something I could just put off til Monday. So I had to go back to the office to do this.But try to go through a huge project plan – a tedious task – when you’re antsy to be gone!

I’ve had a real estate agent looking for places for me. Not that I’ve had a whole heck of a lot of time to go looking, but I figured it was at least worth getting the ball rolling. I also asked her to look for plots of land, just on the off-chance that she could find one, so I could maybe build that house I’m in love with.

At lunch, I got a call from a real estate agent in the town I’m currently searching. She was pretty excited because when I told her what I wanted, she said there was one lot that fit my specs exactly. I tried to calm myself down by telling myself that there had to be *something* wrong with it. It couldn’t be as nice as it sounded. The agent had the size wrong. It was in a crappy neighborhood. It was going to be way out of my price range.

I left as soon as I possibly could. Luckily the manager was very sympathetic. Phew. I dragged a friend with me. We went to go see this plot of land. Oh wow. I mean, really. Wow! It’s next to a park. It’s in the middle of a whole bunch of custom homes. The house I want to build would be one of the smallest. The field next to it, I found out, is slated for more homes and a golf course. It’s exactly the right size. It’s perfect. I’m dreaming. No, I’m not. It’s there.

I made an offer. I had tons of errands to do today so I went to the office in my jeans and tee-shirt to sign contracts and make an offer on a piece of land. Afterwards I felt like for this momentous occasion I should have dressed up a little. The owner is contemplating it and will get back to the agent on Monday. He bought it two months ago and apparently his house wouldn’t fit on it (big house, I guess!). This means that a lot of the paperwork like the title and the geographical survey (I had no idea they had to do one of these!) will still be current, so it would go quicker. If he accepts my offer. The big If.

I’m not sure when I’ve ever been so excited and nervous at the same time. I’m checking my pager every hour, it seems. I know she said he’d get back to her on Monday, but maybe he’d decide earlier…..oh, I know I’m being silly, but how can I help it? Of course this is only the first step – if I get this land I’d still have to find a builder and go through that hassle. But at least I’d have my dirt. Finally.

I don’t often think of myself as old. Okay, so as my mother gleefully pointed out at my last birthday, I’ve now entered medical middle age. And it’s not like I’ve ever been one of those women who is afraid to admit her age – heck, ask me how old I am, I’ll tell ya. No big deal.

But I just usually don’t think of myself as old. It’s helped by the fact that I know I don’t look as old as I am, nor do I probably act it (I have no kids, hence no need to set an example of maturity. Well, it’s a good excuse at any rate). And in my little office, I’ve been the ‘baby’ as long as I’ve worked there. Sure, we have a college intern, but among the consultants, I’ve been the youngest. It’s just something I’ve gotten used to.

So it’s a bit disconcerting to suddenly feel old in conversations. I’m working on this project with a large crowd of consultants from a number of different companies and backgrounds, and most of them are fresh-faced young men, full of energy, still extoling their days of college, still willing and ready to go out and party late on a weeknight, still relying on mom and dad to take care of things for them.

And I find myself feeling suddenly old. I find myself thinking things like ‘they’re so young!’ Which is a bit of an eyeopener if I actually ponder the fact that they’re only a few years younger than me. 18 is young – of course it is. But when did 25 join that category? It wasn’t that long ago I was their age. Why does it sometimes feel like a lifetime? I remember a time when 30 seemed ancient and now that I’m there, it doesn’t seem that old at all. Heck, even 40 doesn’t really worry me…mostly.

It’s not like I’m bemoaning a youth lost. In my life, I’ve learned that around every corner is something new to look forward to, and that getting older is actually a benefit at times, because it means more good things happen. But still, every once in a while age stares me in the face. It’s not a physical thing, I suppose it’s more mental. Despite best intentions I’m an adult and I’m more and more prone to think like one. And I guess that’s not always an easy thing to accept. It’s just something I wonder sometimes. Is there some magical age at which point we’re supposed to start feeling our age? At what age do you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and not be surprised at what stares back at you? I’d like to think that the adage ‘you’re only as young as you feel’ applies, but sometimes that’s easier said than done. Like when I listen to these kids (and I can’t believe I’m even referring to them as kids!) talking. And I feel old.

It’s Easter. And even though we’re all fully grown and no longer living at home, my mom still likes to put together Easter baskets for my sisters and I. And it is a requirement that we must sit on the couch in our Easter finery, baskets (or whatever counts for the basket that year) in our laps, peering inside with looks of wonder on our faces. We all know that we’re faking those amazed looks – we outgrew the Easter rabbit theory decades ago. But it’s tradition. So this afternoon, my dad and I sat on the couch while my mom took the requisite snapshot of us saying ‘Wow’.

The whole topic of tradition came up because my parents’ church is doing some sort of thing with family traditions, and they had this form they wanted people to fill out, listing what traditions each family had. And I’ll have to admit that at first it was hard to think of specific traditions that my family has. After all, what defines a tradition? Does it have to be associated with something, like a holiday? Or is it just something that your family does and has always done and you just don’t think anything of it anymore?

Some of my favorite traditions center around holidays. My family traveled a lot, since my dad was in the military, and both my parents learned early on what it was like to be away from their families during the holidays. So the tradition started back even before my sisters and I can remember, that after the Christmas Eve service we would all pile into the car and deliver plates of cookies to the gate guards stationed at the entrances to whatever military base my dad was stationed at, at the time. My mom still tells the story of one snowy Christmas Eve in Alaska when my little sister (who couldn’t have been older than seven or so) was given the cookies to deliver to the gate guard, who very obviously had never been away from her family on a holiday before. She broke down sobbing, and gave my little sister a bear hug. Those cookies made her night. When we moved off base, we included the fire station and police station in our yearly cookie delivery route. They don’t do this so much anymore – the fire station in my parents’ town is run by volunteers so there’s no one there on Christmas eve, and the police have a tendency to eye any free food with suspicion these days. But I’ve recently started to do it in my town anyway, just because it’s nice to see the look on their faces.

New Year’s Eve was another special tradition in my family. My parents don’t drink, so alcohol never enters their house. So instead of tossing back champagne on December 31, we would all head to the local ice cream shop, stock up on pints of our favorite flavors, and all the toppings, and then use that to toast in the New Year. Probably more fattening than champagne, but at least we all remembered what we did the next day. Fourth of July is another one. It’ was tradition that we watch the same two movies every year. The first one – “1776” – is appropriate to the season. It’s a musical about the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and one of my all-time favorite movies. I’m not exactly sure why it is that “The Great Race” is the other one that we have to watch each year, but for whatever reason, we did.

There’s other traditions that my family has had that are sometimes harder to remember because they aren’t associated with any particular time. They just happen. Like the fact that my dad used to play “Farewell to Thee” on his concertina at the front door as we headed off to school in the mornings at least once a week or so. Or the advice my mom would give us when we kids would head out on a date, or go on a trip. “Remember to put paper on the seat”, she’d call out. “And don’t put no beans up your nose.” I’m not sure any of us remember why it is that these started – they were always meant as a joke and had some relevance to something funny at some point….but it just became a standard farewell. Goodbye, and don’t put no beans up your nose.

When you think of traditions, it’s easy to get caught up in grand moments. But it’s the little things that become more enduring, and endearing. It’s somehow comforting to think that someday my nieces and nephews will be given the same advice about seats and beans. That they will learn all the words to “Where, where, are you tonight?” and how to sing it in the worst possible way, and why it makes us all crack up when one of us hollers “Push the button, Max!” That they will be the ones to initiate the Napkin Check routine at some random dinner, or join the clamor for grape Kool-Aid for Thanksgiving dinner, in that horrid old beat-up green pitcher that my mom threatens to throw away year after year and never will. That someday they will be bundled into a car after a Christmas Eve service or a Winter Solstice celebration to deliver homemade cookies to some poor kid in a police station or fire station or other public post somewhere, just to remind them that they weren’t forgotten. And that in their photo albums, each year, will be pictures of them staring into Easter baskets, pretending to look amazed.

I own a Palm Pilot and have for a few years now. Hey, I’m a nerd, and nerds love gadgets. It’s part of what makes us so unique, see. And I really did have a good reason for getting one – I was lugging around this huge and weighty appointment book and I had gotten to the point where I really wanted to downsize to a smaller purse and that meant the date book had to go, and, well……Palm Pilot. Ahem.

These little things are pretty handy for a number of reasons beyond the fact that they weigh lots less than that cumbersome datebook, and fit in a smaller purse. You can *beam* things at people! A few weeks ago at work, a few of us were comparing our various Palms and the discussion of beaming (using Infrared to transmit information) came up. Turned out none of us had tried it yet. So a small group of us stood around, beaming little test messages to each other (And you wondered how it is that nerds entertain themselves). Besides the amusement factor, that beaming thing has come in pretty handy to pass info back and forth, like business cards. I’m still working on learning how enter data using the ‘handwriting’ method, and there’s only so fast you can type using the hunt and peck mode with that teeny little stylus they give you. So beaming over a long list of contact numbers, for example, is a major plus.

Anyway, while I have adored synching this thing up to my computer so that all my email and snail mail addresses are current, and both my desktop and my handheld machines ding melodiously at me when I have something coming up, I really haven’t pursued adding any additional programming to the thing. Oh, I know there’s little expense tracking tools and a plethora of versions of solitaire out there but I really didn’t see the point in cluttering up my lovely little toy with all that sort of junk. I’ve already got four versions of solitaire on the darn thing and how many versions do you really need?

Ha ha. Silly clueless me. I made a dreadful mistake today. I went to the Palm Pilot website and checked out what they have to download.

Wow!!

There’s all sorts of cool stuff out there! Databases to track all kinds of things. Things to calculate expenses, divvy up a dinner check equally, list out collections, create shopping lists. Page after page of downloadable software to liven up my handheld organizer.

I found a few programs that I just had to upload. There’s one to track which of the state quarters I have, so I don’t have to go rummaging through the slowly growing pile in my purse pocket to see if I have whatever the latest quarter is that I happen to find. And if it can track that, I’m sure I can get a similar database to track things like book titles, CD’s, and other important lists like my Dad’s Pez collection so that next time I’m in front of a display of Pez dispensers I can see at a glance whether he already has the Blue Ninja Turtle before I fork over my 99 cents.

Then I got to the games. Like I said, I knew there would be card games. And there were – tons of ’em. But what I wasn’t expecting were the other games. Real games. Action and role-playing games. For a Palm Pilot! Wow!

I excitedly told my friend about this stuff as I was happily downloading executables.

“You’re lost,” he groaned. And after a pause, he added “It was nice knowing you.”

Aw, c’mon. It won’t be that bad. Really. My friends have no need to worry. I’m not going to be playing these games night and day…um….really. They ought to know when it is that they should start to worry.

See, these little handheld gadgets can be set up for wireless internet…..mainly for downloading email and surfing the web. Frankly, I really have no desire to do that on my Palm – I’ll stick to the desktop for that. But the minute these little suckers can handle a solid and fast telnet connection and I can mush on my Palm…..

Then I’m lost. Definitely.

On the very rare times that I actually get a chance to go to my office (not the place I’m currently assigned for this project, but my *real* office, where I have a desk and a door with a nameplate and pictures on the wall and everything), I drive through a series of back country roads to get there. It’s kind of fun to try to figure out what the farmers are growing, although I think they should be required to put signs on the side of the road with names or at least pictures so those of us clueless people driving by can figure out what the heck those green leafy things are going to produce someday without peering out the window and nearly ramming the big old faded yellow tractor that Joe Bob is tootling down the road at the high speed of oh……13 miles per hour. But other than that and yelling back at the roosters who continually do their best to prove that chickens really have *no* brains by running head-first into oncoming traffic, there’s usually not much exciting to see.

Until recently, that is. As I was driving to the office a few weeks ago I noted something rather peculiar going on. There was a large gathering of trucks and assorted big construction type gadgets assembled around a rather large pile of mud in the middle of a field. And on top of this pile they were assembling what looked to be some sort of tower.

The next time I drove by I had a friend in the car and so I slowed down to take a closer look.

“It’s like a rocket launcher,” she mentioned, and I had to agree. Granted the only time either of us has seen a rocket launcher was from watching old new clips of various spaceships taking off, but hey, this was the closest description we could come up with. There was this tall tower with steps and stuff and a whole handful of really long and skinny poles and lights and everything.

Of course this started the imagination going and we pondered why it was that someone would be building a rocket launcher in the middle of a farm field in the back of beyond that surrounds the town I live in. I mean, for all I know, this could be some secret experiment – someone finally figured out a use for all the road-kill tomatoes. Rocket fuel!

Those of you who do not live near a tomato processing plant are probably eying that last phrase in a bit of confusion, but trust me, anyone who has spent time in my part of California in the summer understands the concept of road-kill tomatoes. They hire college kids each year to drive the tomato trucks – big rickety trucks that sport two huge bins, which are piled high with tomatoes and then carted to the factories, where they leave their larval form and become what the Goddess intended them to be – sauce. In the process of taking the tomatoes to their final destination, however, sometimes these drivers are a bit too eager on the turns, and every so often a few dozen tomatoes grab their chance and leap from the truck to commit suicide on the side of the road. Their poor little bodies are then squashed to death by passing cars. Road-kill tomatoes. They are everywhere in the summer. You can trace the path from field to factory by following the trail of bleeding little red carcasses.

But anyway, back to the rocket launcher. It’s been there for the past few weeks and I’ve had fun trying to imagine just what it was that they were going to do with this odd tower. Sadly though, as I drove home today I realized I may never know. Whoever built it is now taking it down. The tower is lying on its side on the pile of mud, still surrounded by trucks and assorted construction equipment.

Sorry, NASA. Guess you need something stronger than ketchup.

Sunday I tried to finish my taxes. Yes, I know I put it off til the last minute, but every year I have done them myself and despite the swearing and grumbling and hair-pulling, I manage to get them done. This year was a bit trickier…so much so that I have sworn to never do them myself again. There are these wonderful people who are trained at it and I think I shall let one of *them* do it for me next year. Ugh.

But to cheer myself up after wrestling with tax forms and getting nowhere for hours on end, I decided to get my nails done. I had picked out a nice neutral color, suitable for a professional person, and then I saw this gorgeous deep purple and, well, it was a weak moment. What can I say?

On the plus side my nails have provided a source of amusement to my coworkers, most of whom managed to slip in some comment about the color over the course of the day. On the down side, going from very short, non-existent nails to longer ones has made things interesting. Like typing. If it weren’t for me tossing this text through spell-check before dumping it into HTML, this entry would be chock full o’ typos. Sheesh.

When I got to work today, there was a Nerf dart gun sitting on my chair. Turns out another coworker got a gun too, and a third got a Nerf football. Wow! Toys! Nerds looooove toys!

We were all good for most of the day. We eyeballed our new toys and very politely left them in their boxes, untouched. But hey, we’re only human – and nerds to boot. After lunch, the toys came out. This gun is COOL! It shoots little nerf darts that stick to things (well, if they were shot by someone with any semblance of an ability to aim, they would) with little suction cups. And the football is soft enough that even if you lob it across the room and bean one of the developers in the head (I was *not* the one who did this!), all it does is knock off his earphones. Otherwise, perfectly harmless. And then two of us had to go slunking around the room, lurking behind white boards and under desks, firing off darts at each other and laughing. (okay, I *was* one of those).

I’m pondering all the things I can do with this gun now. If I want to get someone’s attention across the room, *thwak*, there goes a dart to their computer screen. If we’re having a meeting and someone is being noisy, *thwak*. Suction cup to the forehead. Heck, the ramifications are endless. Hmm…..

Wonder if I can blame it on the purple nail polish?