refusing to give it up

so... here's the deal. logical arguments aside, if lolcat can be a word, why can't deconsider?

the gut of our country

like most of us, our country has a problematic midsection.

after two days of chaotic travel, through horrible weather in the midwest, I finally made it into Pittsburgh around 8:00 last night. Boy and I left Colorado around 2:00 pm on Friday, beating out the blizzard conditions that plagued eastern colorado and western nebraska by only a few hours.

that night, we stopped at a motel 6 in some small, Iowa town. abby must have eaten some dirty snow in the parking lot because the minute we got in the room, she tossed her doggie cookies. oh my. it was after midnight. I was exhausted. but I cleaned it up and got ready for bed. so... we were in a non-smoking room so imagine my surprise when I pulled down the sheets and discovered a cigarette lighter in the bed. so very many questions that I don't even want to think about.

the next day, Boy and I drove to his parents' house in Wisconsin. it was so nice to be in a clean, homey place where people fed us. abby was happy too. Boy, prankster that he is, took the lighter from the motel 6 and put it under the comforter at his parents' place. I was so tried an exhausted (yes, I know that's redundant) that when I discovered the lighter, I was a little freaked out - speechless even - for about ten seconds. seriously, is that thing following me?

it was windy as heck though for the ENTIRE trip. poor abby. every time we stopped to let her stretch her legs, it was all she could do to keep herself upright in the crazy conditions.

in addition to the wind, after dropping Boy off in Wisconsin (lots of cheese there, btw), I dealt with a five mile stretch of black-iced highway in Ohio, frozen windshield washer fluid (at some point outside of Milwaukee, I literally couldn't see a thing and I really, honestly, thought I was going to die), and crazy (CRAZY) traffic in Chicago, just to name a few things. abby was a trooper through it all. what a good dog.it was funny though - she hasn't been in PA for two years. when she got out of the car, she definitely knew where she was but she was just so confused by it. she kept looking at me like "how the heck did we get here?"

the trip wasn't all bad though. I had a super yummy egg nog latte in Ohio. but by far, my favorite thing about the trip was the guy in the car in front of me at the toll booth in Chicago. he was driving a powder blue jaguar with creamy leather interior. he had a red, plush hat with a pompom on top and some kind of red fur coat. at first, I thought he might be a little old lady but when he opened the door to pay his toll (he was that kinda guy - door, not window), I saw the numerous gold rings on his fingers and I knew he was a pimp daddy!

god, I miss diversity.

let's at least consider it

can anybody (Cara or Marisa) please tell me why is deconsider not considered a word?

I work with a woman from Brazil. she's very fluent in English but she has an occasional "slip-up," I guess you could say, and these are always interesting and fun for me to over think.

yesterday she sent me an email telling me to "deconsider" something she had written in a previous email. while deconsider is not a word, I knew exactly what she was meant. when I met with this woman, I mentioned that decosider wasn't a real word (although it should be) and so she asked me 1) how I knew what it meant if it wasn't a real word and 2) what she should use. I understood what she meant because deconsider follows grammatical rules I was taught in second grade (which is probably how she put it together in the first place and I told her to go with "disregard" or "ignore" instead.

but honestly, I think we should be allowed to say "deconsider." think about it - disregard and ignore are present tense things. you can ignore or disregard something in the present moment but what if you want to erase the memory of something, not just let it sit off in the corner? if you've already told someone to consider something and then you want them to forget about it, shouldn't they then deconsider it?

really, honestly, they should. and anyone who's picky about rules and whatnot, please tell me what rules deconsider might violate? none that reconsider doesn't as well.

so you know how I've been in search of a new hobby? I'm thinking my new hobby should be to use deconsider so much that it eventually makes its way into the dictionary as an accepted word. who's with me?!

it's been about a month since my last post and to sum up - I've been up to a lot of things, none of which are quilting. however, I'll be home in PGH for a week (next week) and that may just be the perfect time to start, especially because my mom has a sewing machine and I don't.

but who am I kidding? we all know I'm going to spend next week luxuriating in all the oxygen and tax-free shopping.

I'm actually driving back to PA (please pray for good weather). I've decided to drive and not fly because I can bring Abby with me. at 12.5, she's past the age expectancy for a dog her size and I just couldn't bear to leave her at a kennel. and... although she's basically a piece of furniture that ocassionally moves around my apartment, she's a little high maintenance; there are lots of medicines. she has to be carried up stairs. and she wears tinkle trousers when I'm gone because, now that she's old, she gets mad pissed off when I leave her alone and, well, pisses. so she's really too much to have anyone else watch.

20+ hours of driving (each way) is a lot so I hope those of you in Pittsburgh will understand when I'm not excited to drive to your far away homes. don't get me wrong, I'm excited to see all of you! I just hope we can meet... hmm... well... we'll work it out somehow.