Our Friend Maile

When I was in undergrad I met a wonderful friend, Maile. We were both anthropology majors, I was a Classics major and she was a Classics minor. We both have a love for inappropriate rap music (like DMX). We both went to grad school together for Museum Studies. We both were Membership managers for museums. She is awesome!

Currently, she lives in Orlando and I do not get to see her nearly enough. This past Saturday she came up to the Ville to hang out with us. Here are a few photos to commemorate the day.

Maile and Elsa

Maile feeding Elsa

Jess and Jamie (7weeks) & Leslie and Elsa (50 weeks)

Elsa very curious about Jamie

Knife to a gun fight

I've been pretty silent on the gun debate. I know what I think, and I kind of thought that was enough. But a passionate friend of mine posted a comment on his facebook this morning that got me thinking. He referenced an article where a man went into a Target and stabbed some people, and asked will anti-knife people start a campaign to keep people from carrying knives, or will they limit the length of a blade in jest?
I really do not see the similarities to that and a gun. All I could think was that no gun was used, and people are hurt but still ALIVE! Sure it could have been worse and people could have died. But they didn't. Had the man used a gun instead, it's pretty certain there would have been at least one death if not more.

Now, my issues aren't that I want to keep guns out of American's hands. I do think we have a right to defend ourselves. However, I have some problems with two things. 1. The mental health system in the US is deplorable. The mentally ill shouldn't have access to guns. It won't always be prevented, but something needs to be done to help these people, to try to get them better. And 2. Why on earth do you need a semi-automatic or high capacity weapon? Seriously, what on earth could you possibly need that for? For target shooting? For hunting? For protection? This is what I would call overkill. Forgive the pun. It just isn't necessary. But, Leslie, what if I had to overthrow the government because of a dictator? Well, we live in a democracy where the president can be voted out every 4 to 8 years. So no one person can be in control longer than 8 years. Soooooo where is that dictator?

Those are my general thoughts. I could go into more detail about individual incidents, but that would take all day.

Little things

I just spent a good 10-15 minutes letting Elsa feed me Cheerios. She thought it was hilarious.

How about a little common courtesy?

I don't know if I am getting old and crotchety or if people are just getting to be lazier and rude, but recently I have been getting annoyed all the time by the lack of common courtesy.

For example, if I am trying to park my car, turn at an intersection or I stop to let you walk by then DOUBLE TIME IT! Don't causally saunter, daydream, or chat on your phone. MOVE IT! Be kind and don't hold up other people. Your day and time is not more important than any other person's.

I've already lamented on my neighbors and their all hours of the day and especially night weight lifting that shakes my house.  You now know it shakes my house, so why don't you stop doing it at 3am. You know I have a baby.

And you can add my other neighbor to this list and his inability to be a responsible dog owner and keep her on a leash while she is out in the front yard. Instead he lets her run around into other people's yards causing a commotion with my dogs at the window, pulling items out of our other neighbor's recycle bin, and wanting to greet all of the passerby's. The people out walking their kids and dogs do not know her. They do not know that she really is a sweet dog. All they know is a stranger dog is running at them and they are worried, scared, concerned, pick your adjective.

Well last night I had an event, and some of the guests did not RSVP until the very last minute. Even though there was a clear RSVP date on the invitation. Some did not RSVP at all and thought it would be ok to come anyways. Then at the end of the night when the event was over (at 8pm) they WOULD NOT LEAVE! We were literally cleaning up underneath them and around them, and they still stayed and chatted and drank. We put the food and bar up, still here. We shut the music off, still here. We put all the tables up, still here. We cleaned the carpet, still here. We vacuumed, still here. We finally started turning the lights off, believe it or not all but 4 left at that time. Finally the last four wandered out. JERKS! The people working the event would like to go home and spend some time with their families, tv, bed, whatever. Be kind and get the H*** out!

Mondays

This is how my Monday went. Got up, got Elsa ready, got me ready, dropped her off at the sitter, then off to work. I get to work and the Pepsi machine is out of Diet Pepsi (my coffee). As I am walking back to my desk I realize my shoes sound different. This is why:

When I realized I had been walking around with my zipper down, I knew the day was done. And I went home.

Verified by who?

I just about had a heart attack last night. I went online to purchase some more ram for my MacBook on crucial.com and at checkout this "verified by visa" thing popped up and asked me to verify my purchase. It looked legit at first. Even had Campus USA’s logo and everything. But after the transaction was over it sent me to another website to enter in my card number to log in to my newly created account. I panicked. I called the number on the back of my card, I called visa, I called the number of the verify service. I could not get any real answers as to whether or not it was legit. Then I remembered, duh! my friend Josh is the head of IT at Campus USA. He will know for sure, and he did. It was legit! Whew! Heart attack avoided. The small arrhythmia kept me up all night though.

The demise of the bike rack

When I was younger I rode my bike to school. I rode it to Elementary school starting in 2nd grade. I was pretty little then, and my friend Jennifer and I would ride a pretty good distance through a pretty major intersection. When we would get to school we would lock our bikes in the bike compound. It was a large area of fencing that all the kids would use, and it would be packed with bikes! We all used the chain combo locks covered in plastic like this:

Mine was blue with glittery sparkles in it. I would wrap it around my banana seat schwinn bike, securing it to the fence each day.

This morning I was driving by a middle school and an elementary school and noticed that both their bike compounds had been removed. And what racks were there had no bikes locked to them. I felt sad. We live in a media enforced fear of the boogie man, which prevents us from letting our kids ride their bikes to school anymore. I don't doubt that there are real dangers, but statistically speaking I don't think our reaction may be in tune to reality. Better safe than sorry I suppose.

What would it be like to be a stay at home mom?

I got a little taste of what it would be like to be a stay at home mom yesterday. And I'm not going to lie, I enjoyed it. We were supposed to get our family photos done yesterday but the photographer canceled. I decided to say "What the heck!" and take the day off anyways. It then hit me that I could go play with the other stay at home mom's I am friends with. So I logged onto my FB group and went to the events to see what was happening. Lap Time at the Alachua County Library. Excellent! I bundled up Elsa (it was a little chilly) and headed off. I had a great time, and so did Elsa. After that we went home for a nap. Then I went and met a friend to do some physical activity. We walked around campus pushing my stroller which included my kid.

All in all a very nice day. I could get used to that! C'mon lottery!!

Hall and Oates, the no 'staches tour.

This is a 2-fer for all my tons of readers.

Hall and Oates Part 1:
In January I got an email from the museum purchasing folks saying I owed them some paperwork for a $1.99 charge to my work visa card from Dec 24th to Amazon Digital. Since it was charged on Christmas eve, I knew it wasn't me and figured I had gotten my card hacked. That night I told Steve about what happened. He then told me that on the 24th he purchased Hall and Oates the Ultimate Collection for $1.99 on Amazon. A ha! So I had to call the office and tell them I owed them $1.99.

Hall and Oates Part 2:
We got word that Hall and Oates was going on tour. So we decided to go with a group of my friends. We had a blast, and they played all the great songs. However, they now lack their signature mustaches. Very disappointing.

Back to the Future

February 22, 2013 finally came and went. I work towards the Museum's annual gala all year long. Lots of meetings, phone calls, emails that culminate in one spectacular evening of dining, drinking, and dancing. All to support the Florida Museum. This year the theme was "Back to the Future." I have to say of the 7 years I have been doing this event, this one was my favorite. We encourage costumes that fit the theme and so many people dressed up this year. We even had a Delorean! Here are some photos of the evening.

Director's wife's "Dinosaur Skirt" 

The Development team.

Check out the lightening rod! Sweet!