They are leaving early tomorrow morning. I was lucky to get an extra day to spend w/ them today, they were supposed to leave early this morning since my brother has to work tomorrow at home in Michigan but after this weekend's wedding festivities, that's why they came home in the first place, my brother and sister-in-law weren't up for a long drive today.

Got lots of good photos and videos and each time they get more and more comfortable w/ me, mainly JJ, he's the shy, younger one who still is afraid to come to me. Ella not shy at all so she's fine w/ me but I rarely see them so though they both can say Auntie Heather, I'm not sure how much it means to them.

Spent lots of time w/ Ella. She likes my laptop. I had to rent 2 movies from iTunes for her, Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, which I remember buying the VHS when it came out in 1998, and Scooby Doo and the Goblin King which came out this year. I also had to buy Shrek because she wanted to watch it and it wasn't available to rent on iTunes and I couldn't find it for free online. That cost me $9.99, the rentals are $3.99 each and then buy two songs for $0.99 each, Ring of Fire and U Can't Touch This. At least you get it all instantly w/out having to move.

We also played some games online including stuff on PBSkids.com. I could just leave her in my room on the bed and she'd be happy clicking the mouse all alone until her mom made her stop because she was doing it for too long. We did some dancing and pretending to be bears and crocodiles, zombies that ate brains, we pretended to film a cooking show, watch out Rachel Ray!, and all kinds of fun stuff.

I've been feeling crappy for the last week or so w/ bad PMS. Finally went for a tough run today for 6 hilly miles out and back on the road my mom lives off of. I didn't want the hills but they're unavoidable around here. I'll probably feel it tomorrow but I definitely needed some running. Hope to keep it up now, plus I'm on vacation so I should easily have the time.

Had another abstract accepted to a meeting in Feb. in Cali. I want to go since it's way more fun than Indianapolis where I just presented at a conference last week but I don't think my PI will send me, saying the budget is tight. I think it's just an excuse not to send me but I did the work and I think I should get to present it, not just my collaborator. He gets to go because his PI wants him to, not fair. So he'll be presenting the work even though I'm first author. Oh well, I only have about a year left in my postdoc anyway so I should just be happy about that and start counting down the days, and the work. I think I have a good plan set for the next year, now I just need to execute and get everything done and wrapped up so I can leave on time. No clue where I'll look for a job but I gotta start thinking about it.

Yesterday I spent lots of time updating my sidebars just to somehow delete the whole file and then have no sidebars! rr was able to restore the file but then I lost all my changes. I'll have to work on it again. For now I'm going to play w/ Ella and JJ.

First woke up at 4am to go pee. Then woke up at 8am and stayed up for a little while. Then fell back to sleep until 12:30. Got up and didn't do much. Had some sugar free pudding for breakfast. Messed on my laptop, looked for something good on TV but only found Kitchen Nightmares and People's Court. Eventually took a shower and waited for my mom to get home from work and my brother and family to get here from Michigan. First they stopped at my dad's house so they made it here around 6:30 for dinner. Mom made meatloaf, baked potatoes, squash, green beans, biscuits and it was real good. Played around w/ the kids. After dinner Ella came in my room and we watched Scooby Doo on Zombie Island until her dad came and made her go to bed. There's 15 min. left we'll have to watch tomorrow plus I have another Scooby Doo movie for tomorrow too.

Gotta go to bed. Arrived about 45 minutes ago back in Eaton, NY at my Mom's house. Drove from Indianapolis today. Started the drive at 10:30am so took about 12 hrs. in total, including stopping time, though we only stopped 2 times and I tried to drive 80 mph most of the time. My talk was this morning at the conference. Went well but even though I wasn't that nervous it kept me from sleeping last night so that didn't help w/ the drive today. So right now I'm soooo tired and my eyes hurt. I'm officially on vacation now though until Dec 1st so I'll have some time to update my blog.

See ya!

Had a pretty easy day today. Slept in until 8:30 then got an egg white omelet then hit Starbucks then the conference for the career center and some exhibits. Had to go to this luncheon thing but was too soon after breakfast so didn't eat. Probably not the best since the boss paid $26 for each of us. Sorry but that lunch of sandwich meat was not worth $26. After that went to make sure my talk was on the server for tomorrow and had to correct some formatting issues. Hope everything is in place for tomorrow. Went back to The Gap and bought a bunch of stuff this time, got stuff to wear to the department reunion dinner tonight and for my talk tomorrow. Nothing fancy just new. Came back to the hotel to hang out before dinner. Got to catch the end of Oprah and all of Tyra, ugh! what a mistake! Went to dinner at that RAM restaurant w/ all people past and present from my program. I'm the anti-social one. Got upset when people made silly comments at me like when the Fox told me start talking, even though I was looking at the menu for what to eat, and someone else said she needs to wake up first. Kinda ruined the rest of the night for me. After dinner came back to the room where I am now. My lovely roomie said I'm depressed and maybe I need meds. Ha, hilarious! Anyway I need to get ready for bed. Have to present in the morning. Once it's over I'm outta town, drivin' back to NY right after we're done w/ our talks. Can't wait to relax on vacation at home w/ my mommy.

Indianapolis, IN

Man oh man have I been ignoring the blog. Right now I lay in my hotel bed in Indianapolis at Embassy Suites w/ my co-worker lying in the bed next to mine. We're watching Dancing w/ the Stars as nothing else is on, waiting for One Tree Hill, something she watches. I don't have TV so am not at all up on the shows anymore.

Actually drove all the way here from Boston because co-worker wouldn't fly and I didn't want her to drive alone. Turns out we're both from Upstate NY so we left on Saturday morning driving 5 hrs where she dropped me off on the NY State Thruway near Turning Stone Casino where my mom picked me up to take me to her house in Eaton, NY and my co-worker went down to Ithaca to stay w/ her mom.

Saturday night went to my stepsister's 26th b'day party at some bar in Syracuse. It was 80s themed but my mom never told me because she said I was already stressed out enough so all I could muster was a side ponytail. Lots of people there, tried to ignore as many as I could and get thru the night. I didn't drink anything but Diet Coke because they had a keg and it was Labatt Blue, something I would never drink. My stepdad was having a good old time and told my mom she had to drive home, Syracuse is an hour drive from Eaton at least, because he was drinking too much beer. We finally got him to leave the party around 11pm and then he asked if we wanted to go to another bar but we turned him down. I had to get a good night's sleep because I had a ~12 hr drive the next day. Went to bed just after 12am to be woken up by the bf calling me at 1:15am. Went back to sleep until the bf texted me at 8:15am and couldn't get back to sleep then. Wish I got a better sleep but oh well.

Got up Sunday morning to get ready for the long drive. Mom made me a huge banana pancake and then we were off to meet Jackie on 81. We got there before her and waited in the McD's parking lot, of course I got a Diet Coke while waiting, then we were off in our rental car. Jackie started driving and made it all the way to Cracker Barrel in Ohio where we ate dinner. My mom told me it wasn't going to rain at all but it basically did the whole trip, w/ a little sleet thrown in. Had an okay meal at Cracker Barrel and then bought a stock of candy in their country store to get us the rest of the way. Then I started driving and made it to Indiana. Jackie drove the last couple hrs. to bring us into Indianapolis just around 11pm.

We made it into the hotel where Jackie had to get online to upload her presentation for Monday morning. Would have been nice to get here earlier but that didn't happen. Finally got to bed after spending time online but slept kinda okay. Woke up once in the night and finally got up at 7:20am after JF was done getting ready. Got ready to go to the conference, got lost walking around outside in the freezing cold trying to find the conference center. Finally found it and made it to the talks where my co-workers were. Had to put up the posters for a co-worker that didn't come because she got in a car accident recently and was real sore in the neck.

Went to lunch w/ JF and former postdoc at Johnny Rocket's. Need to stop eating the crap, grilled cheese and fries. Made it back for the Pathology Quiz Bowl and on the way ran into 2 classmates from vet school that are now married and have a newborn. They met first year in vet school, we were all in the same class. They told me Krista, another classmate was here too, ran into her later. She said she missed Boston. She did her MPH at Harvard after vet school so we got to see each other a little bit when she lived in Boston. Also saw a couple other residents that I spent summers w/ as externs. I hate running into people I know and now that I'm here w/ people I know...One of these residents had a b'day yesterday and also invited me to her wedding in a couple weeks which I'm not going to but don't want to have to talk about it w/ her. She's called me 2 times tonight, probably to hang out but I'm not answering it. I'm too tired to go out tonight.

JF and I went to the mall after the last talks of the day. I got a pair of slippers at the Gap which'll come in handy while I'm at my mom's the next couple of weeks. Her house is cold! especially the bare floors. Tried on some clothes but didn't get anything. Was looking for something to wear at the conference. I was pretty dressed down today and one of my senior co-workers said to me upon first running into me "Feel free to dress down." Whatever! I wasn't presenting today. Got some money to pitch in to my wardrobe fund? At the mall fell for a Chick-Fil-A. I think db mentioned it yesterday and I saw it today and hadn't had one in years and remembered it was good, but I was so wrong!!! Why do I eat this shit? At least my work is paying for my food. I was going to go workout in the hotel but now I'm in bed and don't want to go. Maybe go to bed early tonight. Don't plan on going back to work until Dec 1 so if you're lucky I'll be updating the blog more often, maybe going back in time to catch everyone up.

I had a surprise visit w/ my niece and nephew having not seen them since Dec 2007. They live in Michigan but happened to be in NY the same time I was.

Me being a candy whore at my friend's wedding.

Yes I'm dumb at work! By last night I couldn't keep them open. I was out w/ Jos at Lir and they got worse and worse so she had to take me to Walgreen's to get stuff for my eyes because I couldn't keep them open long enough to see anything, then db picked me up from there and I spent the night as a blind girl. Very scary! Who wants to be w/out their eyes, definitely you'd rather be deaf! I couldn't work today because the eyes were still a mess. Spent most of it sleeping luckily to rest the eyes. Could barely look at a computer screen w/out screaming in pain. Now they are much better though still hurt so I can write this post.

I'm taking db home tonight to meet the parents and to go to a fellow postdoc's wedding on Saturday at Cornell. We won't get to my mom's tonight until after midnight so will just go to bed and then tomorrow mom will leave work early to hang out w/ us. Then maybe to visit alzheimer's grandma, she just had a b'day, lucky for db aunt margaret is no longer w/ us, he'd have to meet her too. Instead he can only meet aunt margie's ashes. Then tomorrow night out w/ my dad and stepmom for dinner maybe dinosaur barbq, one of the finer establishment's in syracuse, haha! my cousin tammy had a baby recently so maybe somehow i can find time to visit her too.

then the big wedding on saturday. hope my eyes are fine then. don't want to have to explain the situation to a bunch of strangers at a wedding. then sunday is db's b'day!! wow! what a b'day weekend for him, meeting my family, going to my friend's wedding, who wouldn't want to spend it that way. hope it's not too awful for him. my mom will make him a nice dinner and cake for happy birthday singing :0)

i'll be off soon. just wanted to say goodbye, have a nice weekend!

So I haven't written much of anything lately and I'm not exactly sure why I don't feel the desire to do it like I used to. Guess I haven't been doing it for so long it becomes the norm. So I looked at my calendar to see where I stopped posting and if there was anything that could be posted about while I'm waiting to finish up some stuff at work. See, this is what happens, good intentions and then I have to go.

tbc...

who gave me the most annoyed look when I sat in the seat he was going for. I'm getting on the train at Park w/ a Timbuk2 bag and a suitcase, there's 3 seats between 2 people so I'm going for the middle one so there's a comfortable empty seat between us all and I do have plenty of stuff w/ me so I didn't want to sit right next to someone and have my stuff invade their space, though at the same time this douche enters from a different door and goes for the same seat. When I sit down he looks at me like I'm such a bitch for sitting there and goes and stands by the door and I say 'there are more seats' and the guy on my right makes a face like 'that guy is an asshole' and the 'asshole' doesn't say anything and stands there for 2 stops to get off at MIT just like me. To summarize, no one had claim to the seat, I got there first. I had plenty of stuff, let me sit down. Besides most guys are cool w/ letting the girl sit down, and again I had lots of stuff of you had nothing but your ugly face, bubble butt and bad attitude!, not that that is valid, I'm just saying, and he didn't need to add the dirty look, it's not the end of the world. I did nothing wrong so go be annoyed baby. You might as well give that big bubble ass of yours a tiny workout by standing for 2 stops instead of sitting on it! and besides there were other open seats, as I told you!!

and he responded. Yay! Ed Hochuli! I heart Ed Hochuli!! But I wish things weren't so bad for you right now :0(

Heather,
Thank you so much for writing. I really appreciate the kind words of support. It was very nice of you to have taken the time to write me. I will learn from this mistake and try to move on, but this one will forever haunt me.
Thank you,
Ed Hochuli

Sep 11 08: Hola Amigos!!!

I never update the site because I rarely have anything newsworthy to report.

I just wanted to let everyone know that Dear Leader is playing Two shows on September 26th and 27th at TT the Bear's. We haven't played in so long and it will be great to get back on stage after the Belgian debockle.

Oh right Belgium...So let's just say I'm not going to be going back there for a while. Sorry to my Belgian friends who have been nothing but awesome and kind. Belgium was a disaster for me and my family as we were taken through the ringer of Visa, Apartment, and other Cultural issues that made me realize that my home is in Boston. I am glad to have experienced delicious Butter, Bread, and wine..I am glad to be home and ready for the new beginning..Big news to follow in the coming weeks...

Your Friend,

Aaron