leap this

It’s Leap Day.

Supposedly, on Leap Day an unmarried woman can propose marriage.

While I would love to propose and marry each and every one of you, I am not Morman nor am I gay, so the best I can do is to propose that you have a lovely leap day.

REMINDER: Starting tomorrow, I’m going to be doing a list a day for the entire month of March and I welcome any and all suggestions for a list.

Wish me luck!

Petit Juror

Today my husband is doing his civic responsibility.

That’s right folks, he has jury duty.

I suggested that he make a list of movies with a courtroom scene to pass the time.

These are some of my favorites:

1) A Few Good Men
2) To Kill a Mockingbird
3) Kramer vs. Kramer
4) Liar, Liar
5) Runaway Jury
6) The Verdict
7) My Cousin Vinny
8) 12 Angry Men
9) Adam's Rib
10)The Accused

Give me some more.

Just Fine

I finally saw Knocked Up this weekend and it is official…I have a girl crush on Katherine Heigl.

Also, I have THIS to look forward to. Words fail me. But my imagination is working overtime.

Over the weekend, for the first time ever, I watched Poltergeist in its entirety. I sat on the couch and tightly gripped my sleeping husband’s hand the whole time. In an aside, I have a mini-crush on JoBeth Williams and in an aside to the aside, I don’t like scary movies or science fiction movies or time-travel movies but sat through this one because it is in my book of “1001 movies I must see before I die”

To celebrate Black History month, I picked up “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston. I barely finished the book. This is not by any means a review. I will just say that it is a book I read once and put in the donation bin. . My main gripe was that the majority of the book was written in the southern black vernacular. It made reading the book a bit of a chore. And quite frankly, if the book I’m reading is not entertaining me from the get go, it is a lost cause. I’m a philistine.

My current favorite song? So glad you asked. It is “Just Fine” by Mary J. Blige. I’m only a dumpy white girl but I feel like she is talking to me when she says:

Feels so good, when you’re doing all the things that you want to do

Get the best out of life, treat yourself to something new

Keep your head up high

In yourself, believe in you, believe in me

Having a really good time, I’m not complaining

And I’m a still wear a smile if it's raining

I got to enjoy myself regardless

I appreciate life,

I’m so glad that it's fine

news of note

Today is Tuesday.

I have to keep reminding myself that it is Tuesday.

Our office was closed yesterday in observance of President’s Day. Three day weekend baby!! So today feels like a Monday.

News items:

Time for a Zach Attack –

Please join me in wishing Zach’s Mom a good day today. This is her first day back to work after maternity leave and I’m sure she is missing her baby right about now. Trot on over and give her some love and support today!

I got an email on Thursday. NaBloPoMo is going monthly. This means that we’ll have twelve opportunities a year to jump-start our blogging by posting thirty or thirty-one days in a row. Starting March 1, we will have a different theme to blog on every month. It’s totally optional but I think I’m going to do it. I barely got started on NaBloPoMo in November before I felldownthestairsandbroemyleginthreeplaces. The topic for March is “Lists”. Thirty-one days of lists. I’m going to need some good ideas, so hit me!

Yesterday I walked right by a huge endcap of spring time Double stuff Oreos - 2 for $5.00 and didn’t pick up a single pack. I don’t know what is wrong with me!?!? I did however, pick up a box of Valentine’s Day candy at 75% off.

And finally, everyday I see a few more gray hairs and all I can do is sigh.

Jen, May I.......

Remember when I wrote about my orange mug?

And how possessive I was about it?

I suppose you all thought that was just an isolated incident?

But I’m here to tell you that it’s more than just the mug. It’s all things.

I just flat-out don’t like people to use my things, especially without asking permission first.

When I was in college and sharing an apartment with 5 other girls, this was a huge issue. I had a mug that had my name on it. Jennifer. One of my roommates insisted on using that mug even though her name was Rebecca. We must have had 20 other mugs but she preferred MY mug. This used to burn me up every time I saw her sipping her Nescafe coffee out of MY mug.

Or my boss, who thinks it is his sovereign right to rifle my desk drawers looking for wite-out or post-its. MY wite-out and MY post-its.

Or my sister-in-law (not Jenny, the other one) who comes to my house, makes herself at home by using MY computer without so much as a by-your-leave.

I fully realize that this is a failing.

But I have no interest in changing and if I am willing to live with it, then so should you.

So, internets, what have we learned today?

coming out of the dark

Hey you beautiful internet peoples!!

I’m back.

Back to work and back to blogging.

I’m a little cranky though.

So we are not going to discuss why I went dark.

Maybe someday when I’m in a better humor we can talk about it.

So let us do what Jen does best and just pretend it never happened.

Let us instead talk about important issues like:

1) The Dr. pronounced me fit to go back to work, so back to work I’ve gone. Everything has changed yet everything has remained the same. Does that make sense?

2) I spent the last week of downtime watching the final season of “The Gilmore Girls”. The DVD’s were a Christmas gift from SIL Jenny. I freely admit that I’m a HUGE Gilmore Girls fan and I was so sorry when they decided to end the show. I would totally move to Stars Hollow.

3) The Giants won the Super Bowl. We are NOT calling it an upset. They won fair and square. They simply outplayed the Patriots. Might I remind you that that nearly beat the Patriots during a regular season game?!

4) My Aunt Benita got married. Again. For the third time. No she’s not a black widow or anything. She’s just been unlucky in love. Here’s hoping third time is the charm!!

5) I got another box of orange. This time from my lovely blog friend Dana. Among other things she included Reese’s Peanutbutter Cup malted milk balls. They weren’t orange but the container they were in was a shade of orange. I had to hide the box from my husband who can sniff out any sweet at 30 paces.

So now I’m off to read and comment on your blogs.

going dark

I’ve got to go.

Just for a couple of days.

It’s nothing YOU'VE done or said, it’s me.

There are some things weighing heavily on my mind and until I can resolve them I’m going dark.
But I’ll be back, I promise (and will be checking emails all the while)

Until then, gaze in wonder and admiration upon the cuteness that is the Zach Attack.

guess what

Guess what??

G’head

Guess

Give up?

BIG news….

On Friday I went to the Dr. and he pronounced me “superb”. No really, he wrote it in the chart and everything. The result of being “superb”?? In two weeks I can go back to work!!! Woo-hoo. I miss work. So now I need to concentrate on negotiating the front steps. PLUS, I can start driving again. Which means that, because Tom has been driving my car these past weeks, I’ll have to adjust the seat, the mirrors and the radio station.

Guess what else?

This is not such big news (except for Tom who, if he plays his cards right, might just get lucky tonight) but…..I shaved my legs and trimmed my toenails today.

Oh, there’s one more thing….today is nephew Zach’s 3-months in the world mark. I got to meet Zach over Christmas. He was very well behaved. Didn’t spit up on me at all. You should have seen the nice gift haul the child made. Too bad he slept through the unwrapping.

The three months mark also means that Zach’s mother is gearing up to go back to work. We both had some nice time off, although hers was scheduled and mine was not.

the britney, she is everywhere

On Monday night, we went over to Tom’s grandparents to help celebrate Grandpa Bergman’s 88th birthday.

Dinner was a traditional spaghetti supper, followed by the obligatory ice cream cake.

Let me explain about the ice cream cake…..the beauty of an ice cream cake is that it combines ice cream and cake in one which pleases grandma as she is nothing if not an efficient woman. She generally purchases an ice cream cake from the local ice cream shop. It is usually chocolate with that dreadful frozen whipped cream frosting with neon red, yellow and blue icing decorations. This is the first of several ice cream cakes that will be served at Bergman functions this year.

I am not a fan of ice cream cake. I prefer a nice chunk of moist, homemade chocolate cake that is cheek- by -jowl with a slowly melting scoop of vanilla ice cream.

After dinner, while we waited for Aunt Jane and Gma to tidy up, the rest of us retired to the living room in anticipation of the gift opening.

Grandpa had control of the remote and in the customary Bergman fashion, was idly flipping through the channels looking for either a classic John Wayne western or a sports program.

Inexplicably, Grandpa stopped on “Inside Edition” where, naturally, the news was all about Britney.

This sparked a level of interest I have only witnessed heretofore (at least in this living room) for Yankee games.

The conversation soon devolved into a round robin on Britney’s hair and how it could have grown so long, so quickly since she shaved her head. You know, really important questions. At this point, the Bergman men were given a very brief tutorial on the world of hair extensions.

Shortly thereafter Gma came in and the TV was turned off. Which was good, because I was truly anticipating Gma to start talking about how Britney was caught on camera with her hoo-ha showing. And I imagined further how this observation would inevitably lead to the question hotly debated at so many 88th birthday celebrations.

Does Brit-Brit shave or wax for her bare down there look?

i resolve

I could take all day to reflect on things that happened in 2007 but it basically boils down to this: In addition to dealing with the MS (which obviously is here to stay), I endured my house being overrun with various varmints, both dead and alive, I survived several reptile/amphibian invasions, and I fell down and broke my leg. And that my friends, sums up the year that was.

Resolutions for the New Year:

I resolve to drink more water

I resolve to take my vitamins

I resolve to stop checking Perezhilton.com every hour

I resolve to read more books and watch less TV

I resolve to write more letters

I resolve to eat my vegetables

I resolve to wear earrings every day

I resolve to not fall down and break any more bones

I resolve to be more loving to my long-suffering husband

I resolve to cut my Oreo consumption by at least half

I resolve to not to be such a snarky, sarcastic bitch (which could be detrimental to the overall tone of my blog)

Now I’m off to see what the rest of the world has resolved.

Merry Christmas

It's Christmas Eve.



And how do we know it is Christmas Eve?



Because TBS is running "A Christmas Story" for 24 hours.

Mr. Parker: He looks like a deranged Easter Bunny.

Mother: He does not!

Mr. Parker: He does too, he looks like a pink nightmare!

Merry Christmas!!

boxes of love

It’s Friday and time for an update.

Last Friday I went back to the Dr. and he gave me the go-ahead to start putting weight on my leg. I’m walking on the leg now and let me just tell you….it is PAINFUL. It’s the most pain I’ve felt since I broke the leg. But every day it’s getting better. I’m still using the walker. Mostly for balance. I’m becoming resigned to the fact that there is a distinct possibility that the walker will figure more prominently in my life from now on.

The commercial that I don’t mind watching over and over again? Charlize Theron selling me J’Adore by Dior.

Also, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I’ve been watching the FaLaLaLaLifetime Christmas movies. They are like Harlequin romances condensed into 2 hours.

There is nothing like receiving a box in the mail. Last week I received a record number of boxes. On Tuesday alone I got 4 boxes. I thought they were deliveries of Christmas gifts that I ordered online, but they were ALL for me.

1) Amazon.com – the movie Stardust from my friend Jess – who is seriously spoiling me!!

2) A Wolfermans gift box from one of my fellow co-workers – crumpets and scones and English muffins

3) A selection of Partylite candles from my friend Danita – who I’ve known since we were 4. Danita is my hero because not only does she have MS but she’s also a new mother. I don’t know how she does it all.

4) All the way from Kentucky I got two ornaments and a bag of circus peanuts from Melody. Melody has officially become one of my best good friends simply because of the circus peanuts!!

Melody says the girl looks like me and the ballet shoes are because I’m so “graceful” and the peanuts because my house must be a circus right now. It’s like she has known me for years!!

The next day I got a box from another blog friend Ami, who sent me a little gift bag of passion fruit shower gel, soap and lip gloss.

These boxes joined the box of wrapped Christmas gifts from Sanna.

But the box that wins the prize for inventiveness and color is from Aunt Benita. She sent me a box of orange. Please see below photo.

In this box I found an orange towel and washcloth, an orange scrubbie, an orange razor (Aunt Benita knows I'll need to shave my legs soon), orange pencil, pen and highlighter, orange cups with Santa on them, Tahitian vanilla and orchid body wash, orange fingernail polish (for my toes), Tang mix to go in the orange cups, and other small orange things that all fit nicely into a rubbermaid tote with an orange lid.

I think this officially makes Aunt Benita my favorite aunt of all time.

I thank all of you, dear friends and family. You make me feel truly blessed.

And now, before I get all mushy, here’s a Zach Attack.

The next Zach Attack photo will be taken personally by Aunt Jen. Zach and his family will be coming to NJ after Christmas and we are so looking forward to meeting him.

Bullet Friday

1) Because I'm housebound I don't have a whole lot of interesting news to report, other than I'm watching too much TV. I'm thoroughly sick of Christmas commericials, especially the Macy's commerical with Martha Stewart saying "Jessica.....darling" and a petulant Donald Trump.


2) I did find this new game and I've been playing for days. I know I should be doing it for all the poor, starving children in the world, but mostly I'm doing it because I'm trying to get to 50.



I'm at 45 right now. What's your score? I should warn you that it's all vocab words.
3) In other news, I'm doing Christmas cards. If you would like me to send you a card, email me your address at nejyerf@hotmail.com and I'll shoot one out to you. I've got nothing better to do.

4) I'm going to the Dr. today and hopefully he'll tell me that I can start putting weight on myleg. And then hopefully he'll take the cast thingy off and I can take a proper shower and shave my legs. I'm also thinking that once I'm more mobile I'm going to treat myself to a pedicure.

5) Here's the next installment of Zach Attack with Zachary showing some skin....his mother tells me that when she says "Hi" to him he mimics her. We agree that he is a gifted child.

dribs and drabs

I’ve been home for a week now and quite frankly, I’m getting tired of the invalid lifestyle.

I’m ready to get back out into the real world.

Two more thank you’s….one to Jess, (who is fast becoming my oreo dealer) and to sanna who sent me this……

She picked up this lovely orange tray when she was in Italy this summer. I'm blessed with good friends.

In other news, I spend a lot of time sitting at my kitchen table looking out the big bay window. Yesterday, a huge blue jay flew smack into the window. He looked rather dazed but gamely picked himself up and flew away.

You see....this is what I'm reduced to..... a sad little story about a blue jay. I've got nothing exciting going on in my life. Unless you count the fact that I finally had the time to watch the second season of "Remington Steele" on DVD. I don't mind admitting that I am a HUGE fan of the show. And yesterday, I watched the Law & Order: SVU marathon. I thought of my sister-in-law who is home on maternity leave and watches L&O religiously.

And that reminds me....it's time for a Zach Attack. This week there were so many pictures to choose from that I'm going to post two for your viewing pleasure.

the return

Hello my lovely internet beauties, I’m back!!!

Did you miss me?

I surely missed you!!

Today I went to the Dr and had the staples and sutures removed. I’m to go back in two weeks for more x-rays. He says I should be able to start putting weight on the leg at that time.

The past two weeks I’ve spent in rehab learning how to negotiate with a walker. I was also issued my own personal wheelchair while I was there and once I mastered the art of driving the wheelchair I went zipping up and down the halls.

I was probably the youngest patient there. Most of the other patients were elderly people who broke their hips.

Things I was unable to do whilst in rehab:

1) Get a good nights sleep. They were always wanting to take my blood, take my blood pressure or wanting me to take pills. They pushed the pain medication. I quit the oxycontin after a couple of days because I’m a Bergman and Bergman’s are tough and pain is our middle name. Can I get an “Amen” from Sister Jenny?

2) Poop. All the meds I was on gave me a good case of constipation. Again they wanted to give me meds to make things easier. The words milk of magnesia was bandied about. I chose to take the natural route and just waited it out. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.

3) Shower. I went a very long time without a shower. I did the best I could doing what Sanna and I call a “whore’s bath”. You know….. pits and crotch. But after a few days I began to smell pretty ripe. So when the nurse’s aide came in my room and asked if I would like to take a shower I jumped at the chance, even though she would have to help me. I’ll draw a veil over the ensuing shower action but just know that I felt like the elephant at the zoo that gets the hose turned on him at bathtime!!

4) Check Perezhilton.com for updates. The computers worked sporadically. And oddly enough, I was able to live without knowing the latest celebrity news. Could I be over Perezhilton.com????

5) Check in on all of you to see what’s been going on in your life. My newsgator feeder is weighed down with all of the blogs I need to read. But be assured that I will get around to visit. Thank god for the “Hymnal”!!

Big thanks go out to my best, good, friend Sanna, who so ably updated “Calling Dr. Bombay” while I was away. She was a good guest host. Maybe we can talk her into becoming a regular on the show??? A roving reporter perhaps?


More to come, but I’m an invalid now and I have to go and do what invalids do, which is to lay on the couch with the cats and watch reruns of “The Golden Girls”

It’s good to be back.

And lest I forget… it’s Friday and time for a Zach Attack.

Ground Control to Major Tom ...Turkey

Hi all, this is Sanna again.

Update East Coast:

Jen is in rehab ("no, no, no"). She's doing well and learning all she needs from the physical therapists in order to go home next Tuesday (yeah!).

Her mum and dad are visiting her tomorrow for Thanksgiving.

Himself hasn't brought the mail for a few days so Jen may be missing out on something fantastic.

There is some internet connectivity at the rehab, but it's so piddly and poor that she hasn't been able to update the blog. They even block Perez Hilton for pete's sake.

So here is what I have been given to tell you all. If names are misspelled that is entirely my (Sanna's) fault since Jen would never be so careless.

Special thanks go out to...
Cory! who sent Jen a 'Tim Gunn for President - Make it Work' Tshirt that Jen wears during her PT sessions....
Melanie (MK99)! who sent Jen a musical invite that she got a kick out of....
Sanna! who sent Jen beautiful orange roses, mums, lillies etc in an orange ceramic pumpkin. Jen says she'll keep the pumpkin. Sanna's still p'o'd because she asked the florist to mix in some candy bars with the flowers and they did not!

Jen's sister Jodi was to have visited her house this past weekend to clean things up and generally whip folks into shape. I'm sure she did! Hopefully Jodi did make it down and put Jen's winter clothes away because she was impossibly worried about them being spread all over the guest bed.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Taking a Little Break

Hi there, this is Sanna.

Update from Jen; Friday after work as she was going up the front steps at her house she lost her balance and fell down the steps backwards and went boom. Luckily she had her hair in a ponytail and it cushioned the blow to her head.

However, she broke her lower left leg in 3 places (the tibia, fibula and one other crushed bone she can't remember the name of). She went into surgery Friday night and got 7 lucky pins in her leg.

She is recuperating at the hospital for a few days and will post again when she is home and has access. At which time she will be accepting all consolations, cards, calls and gifts. Reminder; red and green Oreo's are due on the shelves anyday.

Jen wants you all to know; the phone in the ER was orange, lunch Saturday included orange jello (she ate it), the betadine stained her foot a lovely shade of orange, breakfast today included an orange....it never stops, see?

Look out, it's Zach!!!

It’s time for a Zach attack - this is actually a twofer.

Look at how much he’s grown. According to his mother, he eats every 90 minutes and is a very gassy baby. He gets this from his mother's side of the family!! Also note the pleasing shape of his wee head. The only helmet this kid will ever have to wear is a football helmet!!!

In this photo, he seems to be smiling. His mother informs us that this smile is due NOT to his gaseous nature but rather to the fact that he's a genuinely happy baby.

Now, since all Zach does is eat, sleep and poop, I don’t think he’ll mind sharing Zach Attack Friday with Shallow Thursday, because I forgot a very important shallow item:

This was an IM conversation between Sanna and me earlier in the week:

Sanna: you are now 4 degrees of separation from kevin bacon. Lori Singer just walked into Johi’s (Sanna’s sister) office

Jen: Who’s Lori Singer?

Sanna: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001742/

Jen: We’re that much closer to John Lithgow too!!!

Sanna: and Dianne Wiest!@!!!!!

Sanna: and SJP

Sanna: Add THAT to your shallow Thursday blog

And that my friends, means YOU are 5 degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon!

Not so shallow Thursday

I know today was supposed to be Shallow Thursday. On Shallow Thursday we are supposed to discuss the craziness that is the celebrity life. And how much better we are than Britney Spears and the nonsense that is Rosie O’Donnell and Pete Doherty shooting up and Amy Winehouse and why she paints such heavy eyeliner (she’s like a female Groucho Marx only with eyeliner instead of a painted on mustache and eyebrows) and Jennifer Lopez finally admitting she’s preggers, and that crazy- ass Heather Mills and Brett Favre. Why Brett? Why not I say!!!!

But, instead of discussing these topics in great length and depth, I did the following shallow things (because my boss was out of the office today):

1) Online Christmas shopping – I think I’m going to buy the black towels at Bed Bath and Beyond. I have a number of the 20% off a single item coupons that are moldering away in my glove box. I got two more gifts. One for my father-in-law and one for his girlfriend.

2) Watched the last episode of The Office on my lunch hour. Emailed Klem to find out why Michael hates Toby so much. Does anybody know?

3) Renewed my library books online

4) Periodically checked in with perezhilton.com for celebrity updates

5) Downloaded some songs from Itunes

6) Updated my Netflix queue. Have a mentioned that I’m watching “A Touch of Frost” and I’m seriously in love with David Jason? He’s a short, middle-aged balding British man with a mustache and I can’t get enough of him.

7) And just so that I earned my wages, I did some filing while listening to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.

Perhaps we shall gossip tomorrow……

Lunch Challenge Wednesday

Today is Lunch Challenge Wednesday.

My packed lunch includes:

ham and cheese on whole wheat bread
smokin’ cheddar and BBQ doritos
two mini cowtails
pepsi

Challenge!!

In other news, I love you all, but I’m finding it increasingly hard to comment on all the other blogs that are out there especially since so many are participating in the NaBloPoMo thing. I can’t keep up with all of them.

So I’ve devised a plan.

I will read your blog and then leave this comment:

“Please refer to #4 in your Calling Dr. Bombay hymnal.

Then you go to MY blog and look up #4 and feel all kinds of warm and fuzzy.

Calling Dr. Bombay hymnal:
1) Ha!
2) Sheer genius
3) I wish I could write like you
4) You are a blog god/goddess. I must shield my eyes from your brilliance
5) This is drivel. My monkey could write better than this.
6) You rock!!
7) I’m laughing so hard I’m crying.
8) I don’t understand you but I love you anyway
9) Shut up!! (but in the good way)
10) Stop writing now before the blog police take away your right to blog

We will have effectively killed two birds with one stone.

You’ll get the blog love you crave and I’ll have lured you into my blogweb.

It’s a win-win situation, no?