Google-icious

It's official. Dan got an offer from Google. He's planning on accepting this week. We're so grateful for the prayers of our friends and family.

Good Buy(ers)

Well, much to the astonishment of our friends, realtor and probably attorneys, we met our buyers last night. We wanted to show them around the place and ask them a few questions about settlement, etc. It was GREAT.

A few highlights of the evening were when the wife said she had a room exactly the color of the laundry room growing up and loved it. They also joked that they have some friends who are rehabbing a bungalow and they'll be very jealous when they see that this one is done already.

They're a lovely young couple from the city and they're tired of the traffic. The husband works in Warrenville/Winfield and the wife is planning on working out here, so it makes sense for them to be here. We gave them an hour long tour of the house to show them the radon system, etc. Then we took them to Tate's Ice Cream to show them the downtown area.

Morgan was a pretty good host, save for the mini-tantrum she threw when a little kid dared to sit in a seat she deemed to be hers at Tate's. Not sure if he finished his ice cream or was annoyed by her loud wails, but he left pretty soon after and our daughter was happy. Funny little kid.

At the end of the evening, we had a few laughs about the negotiations, about how our realtors were hesitant for us to meet in case the deal fell through. We actually thought it would be fun to be neighbors with each other, it was that fun.

Dan and I climbed into bed that night with light hearts. "You know, Em," he said, "the timing of selling this house was not ideal for us, but it probably answered their prayer."

Pineapple Hands

Morgan had just finished eating her pineapple for lunch and enjoyed it thoroughly. Showing us her dripping wet juicy hands, she announces comically, "Who wants this in their hair?"

Morganisms

Morgan: "Hey, Mom, do you love me more than mustard?"

Emily: "Mustard?"

Morgan: "Yes, do you love me more than mustard?"

Emily: "Yes."

Morgan: "How about mirrors? Do you love me more than mirrors?"

___________________________________

I was reading a Bible story book to Morgan. The book asked, "Do you love God?" Forgetting that I forbid Morgan to not say the name of God (you'll recall her various uses of God's name) I read exactly what the book said, "Do you love God?"

Without missing a beat, Morgan said, "Well, I'm not allowed to say that word, but I love Jesus."

Tattoo

(Click on the photo to see the detail better.)


It has become apparent to me that Morgan loves symmetry. This past week she received a sticker set which she was supposed to apply to a paper doll. She put them EXACTLY symmetrically across from each other. If one hand got a sticker, the other hand did as well. It was scary- mostly because I tend to design assymetrically and Dan prefers symmetry. I'm outnumbered.

But this photo of Morgan is a good illustration of how she enjoys symmetry. My mother gave her some temporary tattoos for Easter. They were Easter themed. Morgan wanted a rose applied to her skin. She insisted on having it placed exactly between her nipples on her chest. She was very proud of it. She didn't want to wear a shirt, but since it was still chilly out, I compromised and let her wear a hoodie without an undershirt. As you can see, she still managed to let us see her tattoo all day.

This is not... I repeat... this is NOT a preview of her teenage years. My daughter will be more modestly clad.

Mommy's Little Helper

Why is it that I have to remind Morgan every time she uses the bathroom to "flush the toilet and wash your pee-pee hands"? And why is it that the ONE time I didn't want her to flush the toilet that she did?

Without getting too graphic, yesterday Morgan produced a doozie. I left the underwear on the side of the toilet while I went to find a bucket. There was a flush and an ear piercing shreak followed by wails. I immediately knew the entire story. The little underpants didn't have a chance with the toilet's mighty current. My daughter garbled cry was hard to understand but I got the gist: "Make them come back! I flushed my pull-ups in the potty!"

Like most selfish parents, my main concern was not with the distress of my daughter, but the plumber's inevitable bill. My gut wrenched. Fortunately, the toilet seemed to work really well (and still does) and still will, God willing. It was only after considering the health of the potty that I calmed down my wailing daughter. I gave her a nice bath, a small chide and a big smile. "It's okay, Morgan. We'll get you new underpants."

Jack Daniels

My husband is so busy that he doesn't have time to blog. What's more, he probably shouldn't blog about work related issues. But since I'm his wife, no one at work would suspect my blog for good BP fodder.

Since this is a public-ish site, I should probably use some different names. My husband, let's call him "Dan", was at work when he got an email from HR asking BP employees to nominate a favorite person from BP. Some kind of rewards/recognition deal. My quick witted husband immediately thought of an individual to thank: Jack Daniels. He began to construct some imaginary essay about how Mr. Daniels helped him in the off hours after a hard day of work.

Being his wife, however, I know that Dan prefers beer (mostly imported) to hard whiskey. Besides, whiskey conjures thoughts of good old boys, dirt roads, barefoot & pregnant women, southern accents and rotund older gentlement with those funny Mr. Colonel neckties. You know the ones. My husband is NOT whiskey. He is Heineken, Sam Adams or Grolsch. (Side note: Am I the only one who feels like I am dry heaving when I say the name "Grolsch"?) Point is: he is a beer guy.

In any case, this husband of mine keeps me in stitches. He has to use humor to keep up the remaining shreds of gainful-employment he feels as BP. If you find some funny Dilbert-esque encouragement, send it his way. I'd hate for Mr. Daniels to start making a visit.

Rat-tastic

Yesterday I was toodling around town. ("Toodling" is Pennsylvanian for "riding around with no particularly hurry"- my Grandma's phrase.) So, toodling I was in downtown Wheaton when I saw a festive looking blow up figurine up ahead. You know the kind that used car salesman put in their lots to attract buyers- large gorillas and such? Well, that's what I saw.

I'm not known for great eyesight, so you can imagine my surprise when I saw what the figure actually was- a rat. And not just any rat, either- they made it with scary yellow teeth and, if memory serves, red eyes. It was meant to be ugly and downright scary. It was about 10-15 feet tall. My daughter might cry at the sight of it if she was a year younger.

These twin rat figurines (did I mention there were two?) sat in front of a rather nice looking apartment complex. Using my spidey sense, I determined that rats would probably deter future renters from taking up residence there. I used my noggin and figured out that the purveyors of these rats must be trying to say something. (Come on, Emily, get to the point.) It was a strike, folks. A strike.

Why do I bring this up? Because up until a week ago, I hadn't thought about rats but once a decade when NY city rat levels spike and it makes national news. I simply don't think about them. But then we got this PACK-RAT pod in our yard (which I affectionately call the "rat".) And NOW these two rat goblins are in my mind.

There is no moral to this story, but there is a point, friends. You see, up until a week ago, you probably weren't thinking about rats either. ;)

Late Ride

Late Ride is a Chicago tradition in which a bunch of bike lunatics ride around downtown Chicago from midnight to sunrise. It's for all ages, but it attracts a lot of middle-aged men who desperately want to remember their manliness and forget their crying children.

This year I submitted a design for the contest. I have no idea whether or not I will win, but I had a blast designing it. And I'll probably make Dan wear it if he attends this year's function. Tell me, gentle readers, which color combo you like best. Click on the images to see them larger. They look better that way.

Fiber, anyone?

I'm on a fiber kick lately. I eat as much fiber as I can tolerate so that I can:

1. Be a good example to my daughter

2. Be regular

3. Counteract the vast amounts of sugar intake I eat every hour.

In order to achieve this fill of fiber, I take Fiber One cereal. It boasts 8 grams of fiber per serving which is more than cattle eat on a diet of dried grass, let me tell you. Good stuff. Well, yesterday my Fiber One cereal was on sale at Dominicks and *bonus* it had an offer for FREE Fiber One snack bars. I greedily bought 4 boxes to take advantage of the offer. The peanut butter bars are fantastic. The chocolate ones are also pretty good. I know because I tried both. But that amount of fiber in an American diet is bound to thrust the individual into a whole new lifestyle, let me tell you. *whew* Brutal.

My husband is naturally regular. If this is too much info for you, then you can stop reading now because it's only going to get worse. He's so regular that they set the Colorado atomic clock by his bowel schedule. Seriously. Well, I decided to add a little fun to his day. I threw a Fiber One snack bar in his lunch. By afternoon, he'll be riding the porcelein ring like a cowboy and bronco. hehe. Ah, marriage.

Well, I best be going. I need to go to Starbucks to counteract all my good fiber-ific efforts of yesterday.

Packing

Oh my land. My forearms are numb. Who knew that putting 30 boxes in the PACK RAT would send me to the old folks home? I am SO out of shape. At least that's what every sinew of every muscle is telling me.

I'm getting a lot of good stuff in our yard sale pile, though. I'm pretty psyched about that. I'm not telling anyone when it is in case you gave me something that I'm putting in the sale pile. :) Such a cleansing feeling to let it go.

Kudos to Dan for getting rid of some college textbooks *gasp* and his old fingernail collection. Very proud.

Whew! Well, I hope to see a few good friends for our May 12 move date. Ouch. That hint dropped on my big toe.

Rat

There's a rat on my lawn.

haha. 1-800-PACK-RAT that is. For those of you unfamiliar with this unit, it's essentially a POD for moving... but better. Don't ask me how it's better. It just is.

I've been taking frames off the walls and slowly this house is starting to look less like us.

Deacon Dan

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's Deacon Dan!

My husband had his first council meeting last night. He will be installed as a deacon in a few weeks. I LOVE to call him "Deacon Dan" at home. It has the same flavor as calling some "Reverend". It's just fun to say.

He grimaces when I say this, but deep inside, I know he likes it. Now I can add this to the other names I call him:

1. Brain
2. Moo moo (don't ask-- no idea)
3. D.J. (for Daniel John)
4. J.J. (It's easier to say that D.J.- I just got lazy)
5. Plotkin (When he makes me upset, I call him a "plock". We're not sure how this came about, but I think it came from my childhood. We used to call each other "plops" when we were mad and it turned into "plotkin" somehow.)
6. Deacon Dan

On very rare and special occasions I call him Dan.

Goodbye Dinner

I had dinner last night with Erin (Jenkins) Baker and Andrea Rip. Boy was it good to catch up. I used to have weekly dinners with these ladies when Dan was in school. I was lonely and bribed them with food to come over to my house in exchange for good adult conversation. I have very fond memories of those days.

We spent a good deal of time talking about guys, esp. trying to convince Andrea that the guys who claimed to be "just friends" around her really wanted something more. And she had a LOT of guy friends. At one point, we asked her to write up a list so we could use it as a resource during conversation to freshen our memory. As a joke, she actually did write down their names and a little summary about each. I also remember the time that Erin first talked about Ryan. Erin had hung out with a lot of other guys, but when she spoke about Ryan, she had this giddy peace. Both Andrea and I had a feeling he was the "one".

When I met with these ladies last night, however, it was a little bittersweet. Andrea is moving to Seattle. Erin is moving to Kentucky. And we are moving to Aurora, which some people kid is like Kentucky. Touché. In any case, we haven't seen each other in months and it's hard to summarize months of life. Erin and Ryan have been in school and sold their house. Andrea took an amazing trip to Antarctica and chased that with trips to Austrailia, New Zealand and a bunch of other place I didn't even know existed. And while I'm pretty open about what happened to us these past months (our miscarriages), I didn't want to resurrect the full details of each one laboriously. It's like a class reunion... (which I have never been to, but I imagine it's like this)... in which you come up to a former classmate and say at your ten year, "So, what have you been up to?" The brain races to summarizes YEARS of life in mere minutes.

But once we got started talking, it was like old times again. I'm so grateful for the wonderful women God has brought into my life. My prayer for these two ladies is that God would give them the desires of their hearts and the contentment to wait for it in the meantime.

Home Inspection

Yesterday Dan and I (and Morgan, too) got to see our new abode. We had a home inspection to attend to see if our home is what it claims it is.

The inspector gave it very good reviews. On the whole, nothing needed to be done to it. Oh, wait... except for the fact that there were two birdies in the attic that will need to be evicted. The inspector said a 50 cent piece of metal to cover the opening would solve that problem.

We heard some cool things about our house:
- It was a model home, so it has a few upgrades.
- It has a sprinkler system apparently.
- It has an all-house humidifier. Yes!
- It has a super duper filter on the furnace to keep pollen from flying around.
- I think it has a security system as well.

It's not a perfect house. But it's perfect for us. The carpet needs to be restretched in places. Heck, even I need to be restretched in places. (That was a pregnancy joke, folks.) It doesn't have a stunner kitchen, but a good one with some great counterspace. We won't have to repaint right away. Everything is pretty neutral. That will give me time to live with it a while to see what I want to do.

I'm really, really looking forward to a soak in my new garden tub. Ahhhhh.

And though it probably won't be for a few years yet, I'm already thinking about backyard landscaping.

Calling All Friends

We're hoping to settle into the Aurora home on Friday, May 11. We may leave the majority of unpacking for Saturday, May 12. Any takers? Then we can all be nice and sore for Mother's Day.

New House

Wow. Buying a home is craziness. I forgot how crazy it is... mortgages, inspections, etc.

I think the hardest part is that I'm hearing a lot of comments from friends about the house. I think they're trying to feel me out to see if I'm really going through with this... buying a larger house, further from the church, etc. And though the house is pretty and neutral, it doesn't have our "life" in it yet, so the photos make it look a little bland, I'll be honest.

I'm getting a little gun shy of showing friends photos of it. There's a hesitancy in their voices. Maybe it's b/c they're used to us having a little bunaglow. I don't know.

I imagine this is how women feel who adopt a child from another country but haven't yet seen their baby yet. All they have is a photo from some third world country in which the baby looks unkempt. They're trying to convince others that the baby is wonderful; in truth they know very little about the baby. They need to hold the infant, dress him and put their special family touches on him.

So, now that I've said my peace, here's what I like about our new buy:

1. It's neutral decor inside. No screaming floral wallpaper to make me grow crazy.

2. Great floors- some hardwoods, some carpet

3. Clean, clean, clean

4. No half finished projects- "We WERE going to build the deck, but we stopped."

5. Four bedrooms, 2.5 baths- Master bath has a garden tub and shower

6. There is a den which you have to walk down a little private hallway to get to... very intimate- love it.

7. The living room has vaulted ceilings, but the windows remain on the lower floor (not floor to ceiling). It has an airy but intimate feeling at the same time. Plus, it has two skylights

8. It's bright and airy. Get me through these Chicago winters

9. The kitchen has a good amount of counter space. It's not granite, but they're clean and liveable. I like that.

10. A great basement. It's not finished, but that's okay.

Holy Cuteness, Batman

Here's some photos:

1. My brother and his girlfriend, Rebecca

2. Photos of Morgan and her cousins

3-4. Photos of Baby Chet being fed

5. Happy Chet

Home?

Well, it's hard to wrap our brain around it, but it appears that as of yesterday, we bought a home. It's in Oakhurst North subdivision in Aurora and I'm excited to call it home sweet home.

Three Year Olds

Morgan had a fantastic time with her cousins in Charlotte. She surprised me. I thought she would not be too keen on Britt (the almost-3-year-old) and dig Chet (the 5-monther). It was the opposite.

Morgan and Britt played together a lot. They did fairly well. But, selfishly, I thought their fighting was more entertaining. Whenever Morgan had a toy that Britt wanted, he simply went up and took it from her. Morgan threw her head back and wailed. Britt would immediately go to another toy and pretend that nothing happened. He gives an excellent "Who? Me?" look when adults are around.

But Morgan would set Britt up. She would deliberately take his favorite toy and kind of parade it in front of him. He had a red play truck that he especially liked. As soon as he woke up in the morning, Morgan would DASH over to the toy and pretend to ADORE it.

Sometimes, when Britt was very upset, he would "bulldoze" her out of the way. He's built a bit like a fireplug and has the mass to outweigh her. A simple, slow, pushing seemed to work. Sometimes, but rarely, he would hit her and then dash away, quickly finding another toy. It was hilarious. *ahem* I mean terrible. Truly terrible.

Morgan would tattle on him quite a bit. That was a riot, too, because she kept calling him "that boy" or "Drew" for some reason. Could be the cause for his lack of listening to her... wrong name.

In any case, there was no doubt that everyone had their proper amount of testosterone and estrogen. A good time was had by both, generally speaking.

Children- Nature's Little Humility Pill

It's no surprise to anyone with children that these squirts will quickly find your Achilles heal, work it to the fullest and don a pouty lip as if they didn't know. They're smarter than we think.

Recently I was in a public setting (can't for the LIFE of me remember where) when Morgan said she had to use the bathroom. My potty-training attenae responded to the call and I swooped up my daughter to go to the restroom. Somewhere between the time I picked her up and the time I took 5 steps, Morgan determined that she no longer had to go and wanted to resume playing with the toys. I told her "No, Morgan, you should at least try to go potty." I picked up my rather disagreeable daugther who is no match for my motherly strength when she suddenly burst out loudly: "Please, Mommy! Please don't take down my pants!" Now I don't know about you, but I found this statement downright embarassing. First of all, I have NEVER heard her say that, even in the privacy of our own home. And then, using her new command of the English language, my daughter proved that the tongue is indeed mightier than the sword. I countered something lame like, "Well, if you don't have to go..." but inside I was afeared. Truly afeared.

Where had my 3-1/2 year old offspring learned to embarrass her mother so? Surely not on Sesame Street. Even SpongeBob wouldn't go that far. *sigh* No matter, my pride was altered the moment she became mine. Surly little girl, I love you.

Drama Queen

It's feast or famine with news in the Dykstra house. Good news at least. It's been monnnnnnnttths of interviewing for Google. (No, thank you for asking. No offer yet.) Not to mention house hunting and trying for baby #2. And then, out of nowhere, here has what has transpired in the last two weeks:

- Dan will have a third interview with Microsoft

- Google has suddenly been communicating with Dan- even calling at home during the evening- to "consider him"

- Dan was voted in to become a deacon at our church as of Monday night

- We got back from Charlotte last night around 7pm, went directly to see a house in Aurora, liked the house and went directly to the realtor's office to prepare an offer on it. (Only Emily went to the realtor's office- Dan and Morgan were wiped.)

I should be freaking out about the fact that our house is closing in 4 weeks, but when there has been so much drama in our life in the past 8 months that this kind of news pales in comparison. I'm still type "A", but a little more subdued. I'm "A-okay". Alright, that was bad, but I'm one tuckered out Emily. A little grace, please.

Charlotte

Morgan is getting used to her two cousins who she rarely sees. It's kind of cute to see them fight, then play, fight, then play.

The funny thing is that she keeps calling her cousin Britt another name. For some reason she keeps calling him "Drew". Naturally he doesn't answer and she gets a little frustrated at "that little boy who I play with". It's hilarious.

We're having a grand time and are trying to forget that we have to leave tomorrow.

Baby Chet is a hoot. He's adorable, of course, and likes to "attack" people with his slobber kisses. He is very smiley and drooley and if I get him too excited, he laughs and thrusts his slobbery face onto mine to suck on it. That baby sucking reflex is amazing. He thinks the whole world is a bottle.

Well, I gotta go. Morgan is resisting a nap b/c I am in her room typing. *sigh*

Background Music

My mother and father made sure they documented our childhood in video. They did a decent job of keeping up with birthdays and holidays. A few years ago, Mom and Dad decided to send these videos in to a professional company to have them put on VHS (okay, maybe it was more than a FEW years ago). The company also added music to the background of the video.

This sounds like a marvelous idea: send in your video bits, have a company stitch them together and plop some Enya in the background. When we got the videos back, we enjoyed them alright. But for all the wrong reasons.

When I say that the video company added background music, I should clarify: They did not consider the scene on the video to which the music was synched. Consequently, when we watch footage of my baby brother bouncing in his baby seat, there is a crescendoing jingle playing in the background which makes the viewer think that the infant is about to do something fantastic. If you consider drool fantastic, then you're not disapointed. It's hilarious to watch. It's a little bit like watching foreign films with English subtitles. A little.

If you think on it, I'm sure everyone has had this kind of out-of-sync experience before. That's why elevator music is so bland... to appeal to the masses. If you just got laid off and you're in the elevator on your way out the door, they want to make sure that YOU enjoy the music as much as the intern next to you who just got your job. Whatever tunes they're piping through need to get a thumbs up from both Johnny J. Rocker and Susan B. Perfect. In reality, of course, elevator music is only appreciated by the elderly.

A step up from elevator music is grocery store music. Have you ever heard Madonna's "Like A Virgin" played on a flute while shopping for produce? (Shiver.) I have.

I bring this up because someone has set my background music to "groovy" when it should be put on "easy listening" or "it's time to panic, stupid, you haven't bought a house yet". There's a lot of waiting going on in the Dykstra household. If I were on a game show, the prize behind Curtain #2 would be: more waiting.

So, if the music is wrong, I'm going to have to change the scene. I'm going out of town for a few days to see my sibs and there will definitely be some grooving going on there. Set tuner for "Dixie Chicks". Happy times, here I come.

Eggs

Today Morgan and I were invited to join Beth Tukker and Ann Vandermeer in the Easter tradition of egg dyeing. We had a blast.

These two women are a bit more seasoned than I am at things like, oh I don't know, allowing youngsters to handle highly fragile objects and drop them in dye. I was a bit on the skittish side but I put on a brave front. There were 6 children and, as fortune would have it, 6 available dyes. Initially the idea of letting each child dye whatever color they wanted to dye their 6 eggs was put forth, but when the demand for purple and blue was high, we decided to ditch that effort. Each kiddo got 6 eggs and had to dye one of each in the 6 colors. It was extremely fair. Their little worlds were happy.

Morgan was given two eggs to take home, a green and a blue one. I told her to put them in the fridge. She them in the fridge alright. Her play fridge, the one I bought her for her two year old birthday. Grrr. Semantics.

Not long after promising to "keep them safe" in her fridge, my daughter called for me, crying hysterically. "Mom! My egg hatched! My egg hatched!" Yikes. Didn't see THAT coming. Isn't there some kind of process to keep those things from becoming chicks?

Further investigation showed that one of the eggs CRACKED; it didn't HATCH, thank goodness.

My daughter was still crying so I showed her how to peel the egg and eat it. Apparently she was unfamiliar with "hard boiled" because when I showed her the inside, she was astounded. I let her eat some while watching her tears fade to joy. It was vaguely like watching the moment Sam-I-Am in Dr. Seuss decide that he DID like green eggs and ham.

I asked her how she liked hard boiled eggs. "They're good. But they're not hard, Mom. They're soft."

Broken

When Dan and I first transferred to Chicago five years ago (has it been THAT long?) we had been married a little over a year. Our Naperville apartment had virtually all new furniture, dishes and linens. Everything was new and fresh.

Now we are reaching that "everything is breaking" part of life- the "maintenance" period.

A few weeks ago, I tried to mow a small section of our lawn but the lawnmower had a missing piece which made it not work.

Last week my friend Ann came over to use my sewing machine. It's not a glamorous machine, but it's a Bernina and it's supposedly built like a work horse. Well, it wouldn't work either.

But the freakiest, and strangely enough least expensive, of maintenance issues has been our basement flood lights. We have 19 can lights in our basement which we installed at the same time, roughly two years ago. The past two days one light has burnt out each day. The reason it's freaky to me is that the light burns out suddenly, almost flash-like. Sometimes I jolt when I hear the *poof* sound of the light's weary filament. I tend to scare easily, but it doesn't help to know that 17 other lights are bound to go any day. They're like 17 mini ticking time bombs. What's more, now that we've sold our house, I'm not particularly motivated to replace them with flood lights. Nope-ordinary bulbs will have to do. Can't let the new buyers think their house is perfect. *ahem* Even though it is.

Baby

Last night Morgan wanted to see video of herself as a baby. She has an infatuation with acting like a baby lately. In fact, as she was watching the video she made mention of wanting to be a baby again. I'm unsure why.

Watching the video of her as a newborn causes floods of memories of how I felt as a woman (fat, worried, tired, happy). It was neat watching video of her because, quite honestly, it's a blur to me. I was too tired to remember. As a new mother, my neck tightened whenever Morgan cried. I didn't know how to make her happy. But watching this memory appear on the screen, I don't feel the tightness anymore.

I had another surprise as I watched this video. Though I'd like another child one day, I didn't ache for one while I watched these baby memories flicker on the screen. I felt a peace. And joy too--I laughed at how round faced my daughter became as she reached the 6 month mark. She was almost completely spherical. I had a sharp chin even as a newborn, so these were definitely Dykstra traits. What a cutie.

Speaking of babies, I have yet to meet my 5 month old nephew, Chet. His family lives in Charlotte. This weekend Dan and I are flying there to see my sister and her family. Her first son will be 3 in June. His name is Britt. The last time I saw him was last May. I understand that he has changed a lot. I talked to him on the phone a while ago. He doesn't talk to me much, but if you get him to talk construction equipment, he'll excitedly talk about backhoes and cranes and trucks. He's so boy.

His brother Chet is a very happy baby, I'm told. I'll try not to smother him with kisses.

Wind Sock

I saw the strangest marketing technique the other day. Outside a Verizon retail store was a large wind sock blowing in the breeze with the Verizon logo on it. It was a black and on the top of it was the shape of an upper torso of a body. It had two arms, a head and stringy hair blowing wildly in the wind, all black. Think voodoo doll. When the wind caught the arms and hair sharply, it would dip up and down in the wind like a boogey monster.

I'm unsure what the message was behind this wind sock, so I came up with possibilities:

- We're airheads!

- Death to all who enter

- The Verizon "V" stands for "Voodoo"

*sigh* At least it made me smile.