I don't quite know what this ranking is about, but I love it anyhow because it has the Red Sox in first place! Yeah Red Sox!

The other thing I have been up to for the last few days is getting ready for my parents to come for the long weekend. Despite having been to Boston quite a few times since Kevin, and then I, moved here, there are still things I want to show them...the biggest thing being my house! And in true Kim fashion, I have been spending a lot of time planning meals, my favorite thing to do, especially when people come to visit. I don't know how I became such a restaurant lover, but it is soooo much fun! I am not going to post my plans now, because I want to surprise them with a few of the things, but I promise to fill "you" in after the weekend.

Another slightly boring day in Kim-land. Emily and I are meeting to go to Curves tonight and then to Wang's, a great Chinese place that is about a block from my house. They are famous for their traditional (and apparently authentic) dumplings. Emily hasn't been to Wang's before, despite having lived within 1.5 miles of it for the last 12 years. After relying on her sooooo many times since moving to Boston, I can finally share something with HER.

Softball Update: So if you are one of those people who determines win/lose based on runs, I guess you would say we lost last night. However, if you are like me and determine it according to who had more fun, who had 5 people come to watch and cheer, who had the best dances in the outfield, and who laughed to hardest, we are certainly the winners. Yeah Whybunts!

Adult Content Warning: I found out about a website that lets people write in their confessions, guilty pleasures, and other personal thoughts on a website. Some are quite racy, others very violent or disturbing. But fascinating!

Although I am all in favor of kids, and all that stuff, I have to say this headline disturbed me to no end "Arkansas family celebrates birth of 15th child". Sometimes you just gotta wonder. A particularly interesting fact, "Their children include two sets of twins, and the parents have stuck to the letter "J" for their names. There is Joshua, 16; Jana and John-David, 14; Jill, 13; Jessa, 11; Jinger, 10; Joseph, 9; Josiah, 7; Joy-Anna, 6; Jeremiah and Jedidiah, 5; Jason, 4; James, 2; and Justin, 1"

Let's Play Ball: Tonight is the first night of softball (weather permitting)! Our MIT Alumni Association team (plus spouses, past employees and misc friends) plays in the Kentucky Fried League...the league for the worst teams at MIT. Last year we lost the division! BUT we had soooooo much fun! I had a wonderful (crazy) first base dance...and I might need to premier a second base dance this year if things go well. Beer, giggle, fun people...oh yeah, and a bat and ball. Let the fun begin!

Reproductive Health News: Woman gets pregnant with 21-year old sperm! See, I always told kids that you could get pregnant even after the coppulation!

Talk About A Powerful (but kind) Green Monster: "A retail trade group is blaming the hit movie "Shrek 2" for eating into retail sales last week." It seems that so many people flocked to the movie, there was noone left to buy things! Crazy!

Weekend Recap: Friday night I went to Diva with Marshall, where I gourged myself on the "vegetarian for one"...which includes soup, veggie samosa, 2 mini-entrees, rice, puffy bread (don't know what its called...not naan), desert and coffee. Marshall was a very good sport as I dragged him to Kmart, Building 19, Home Depot, Target and several parking lots of places that ended up being closed. I was mainly looking for wicker furniture for my sunroom. I think I am going to end up getting chairs I saw at Pier 1 but I am still scoping out the best deal.

Saturday began with tag/garage sales with my upstairs neighbor Caroline. Although I didn't find wicker furniture (well, I found one but it was $150 and more expensive than the new stuff at Pier 1) but I did find a fun candle holder for $2...the candles to put on it cost a lot more than that! I then rested for a bit and went to staff an event at work for young alumni who supported our "Young Alumni Campaign". The food was good, alumni were friendly, and I got to take home a very pretty centerpiece, with the cool vase. As I went home, I stopped of at Pier 1 and Home Depot (where I bought spray paint for my Sunday project) By the time I got home it was about 8:00 so I finished my leftovers from Indian, watched In America on DVD (A-), and went to bed.

On Sunday, I got up to find no Sunday paper (PANIC) I watched some of the Sunday news programs and set out to spray paint the radiator cover in my bedroom. I ran out so I had to get in my car and drive all the way back to Home Depot (because the hardware stores close by are all closed on Sundays) to get more. Although it was rainy almost all day, the sun popped out at about 1:00 so I ran outside to go on a walk. I then went home to watch the Red Sox complete their sweep of the Blue Jays (yeah!)as I read the paper which had finally been delivered. Then, at about 6:30, I met Hilary and Steve at Christopher's for dinner. They were staying with me because Steve had a 6:30 a.m. flight back to MN this morning. Their exciting news is that they bought a house this week! After dinner we went back to my house to watch the season finale of Alias (which I don't watch but they are *really* into) and then went to bed. I barely even heard them when they got up at 4:30 this morning to leave. Ah, and now I'm here at work.

Kim's Friday Five:
What five words would your mom/dad/parental figure use to describe you?
energetic, outspoken, talkative, smart, sassy
What five words would your boss use to describe you?
industrious, organized, opinionated,hard-worker, smart
What five words would your sibling use to describe you?
babbling, conscientious, liberal, insightful, anal
What five words would your kindergarten teacher use to describe you?
silly, talkative, young, precocious, social
What five words would you use to describe yourself?
fun, intelligent, high-energy, giving, self-aware

Stolen from Emily's blog, bi-racial fruits and veggies. (Well, bi-racial is the wrong word but you'll get the idea when you look.)

Yeah New Friends: I hung out with my upstairs neighbor and her son Ian last night. (her husband is out of town until tonight) We walked to Davis for pizza at Mike's and then grabbed ice cream at JP Licks. We then walked home with sad/tired/sniffley Ian and got him ready for bed. We then sat on the porch and sipped wine. Caroline and I might even go to a few garage sales tomorrow (is it only in Massachusetts they call them "tag sales"? I never heard that until I moved here.)

Mr. Coca, if you are reading this blog, please email me. Can't find your email address!

A fun quiz I found to test where you should go on vacation this summer. It said that I should go on a foodie vacation...if only my checkbook permitted!

I definitely want to see Super Size Me. "It's one thing to rail against Fast Food America and the burgeoning obesity epidemic. It's another to eat nothing but Mickey D's for a solid month and record what happens. As the 30-day diet wends onward and the director balloons into a dazed McNugget junkie, the film throws out dozens of greasy factoids: The number of people McDonald's feeds daily is greater than the population of Spain; 60 percent of Americans are overweight; 40 percent eat out each day.... My favorite: French fries are this country's most consumed vegetable." Who wants to come?

Distrurbing news from my 'hood. I have never felt unsafe on the bike path in the daytime and its a wonderful walk. (Note, the incidents all occured late at night...a time I would never walk on the bike path alone...some things are just common sense...not that anyone was "asking for it")

In today's Boston Globe I found a quite insightful, helpful and enlightened discussion of how to talk to kids about gay marriage, gay parenting and other such timely issues. Yea Globe.

In today's "News of the Ridiclous" we have Gwyneth Palrow naming her baby Apple! I expected so much more of this cultured woman! Argh!

In today's "News of the Weird" we have Pringles with trivia questions printed on the individual chips!

Going to the Theater: Emily and I are going to the second play in our mini-subscription to SpeakEasy Theater tonight, to see Elegies. Paul's friend Dana is the stage manager, which always makes it even more fun to see a show. As the description says, "Elegies: A Song Cycle is by William Finn in which the famed composer celebrates the lives of some departed family and friends. Far from being a somber celebration, this emotionally rich collection of story-songs is at times achingly tender, buoyantly optimistic and joyously funny." The best part of plays at SpeakEasy is that they are usually "Appropriate for audiences 14 and above." I have seen some wonderfully risque plays there. Bring it on!

Nothing very exciting to report today. Don't want to waste your time with filler. More later.

A good friend of the Tufts crew, Eve, and her partner Brenda, are lesbian stars! Yeah! Here comes the brideS!

Congrat! Best wishes and congrat to Judi, who just completed her Masters in Social Work at UCS on Saturday, and my brother, who completed his MBA at Duke the week prior.

Later this summer, my cousin Daniel (who lives in Cleveland), will be leaving for Israel to join the Israeli Army (his dream for the last 4 years. He graduates high school next month and has decided to make allia). My other cousin, Arik, grew up in Israel and is 19, left earlier this spring for the elite special forces unit. As my Aunt Judy says about her son Daniel, "Although we are proud of his passion for Zionism and happy that he will be fulfilling his dream after all these years, the distance and his 3-year army obligation are our main concerns. He is very certain and committed about his decision and more excited than nervous. He asks us often, 'Don't you want to live an extraordinary life? Is this all there is for you?' " After a three month intensive Hebrew course, he will go through his army assessment and become a soldier! "We certainly were never prepared for this and it's a whole new existence for us now. Just seeing pictures of Arik in his uniform holding an M-16 is so surreal and hearing the details about his training course -- crawling in mud, eating out of cans of food, 18 hour days with little sleep, running up hills with heavy sandbags, practicing throwing grenades and using teargas -- that's not the half of it." I echo Judy's words when she says "Please pray for him, Arik and soon Adam and Karin."

Weekend Report: I am pleased to say that I had a really nice weekend. For those of you that care, here is the re-cap. On Friday night, I went to Curves with Em and then went home for a quiet night of watching several of the TV shows I had taped while I was in California. These included Survivor (although I already knew that Rupert won the second $1M because it was a headline on CNN.com), CSI: Miami, and NYPD Blue.

On Saturday, I had a very impromptu lunch with Hilary at Tamarind House (Thai) She was in town for a haircut and to pick up Steve at the airport and so we got to have a spontaneous girl's lunch. It was sooooo hot on Saturday though...I had intended to go on a walk but I only went as far as walking to the grocery store to buy some produce for my fruit salad (more on that in a minute.) Late afternoon, I went to a beer party that Marshall and his friend Brian were hosting. Marshall has gotten really into brewing his own beer and he had 4 beers on tap and one in bottles. I especially liked the Maiboch, the featured beer of the evening. I left around 8:30 to go home to prep for Sunday.

On Sunday, I had four wonderful women over for a Sunday Ladies Brunch. Very informal and a wonderful time. I made a great fruit salad, a spinach and cheese strata, bagels (thanks Em), Boston Cream Pie (thanks Jill), and mimosas. Nothing like champagne before noon.

Around 6:00, after watching the Red Sox lose to the Blue Jays and a quick nap, I met Marshall at The Burne for a good ole traditional jam, care of xxx Americana. (can't remember the first word) I finished watching the DVD of Phonebooth (C-) and went to bed. (Well I WENT to bed...sleep didn't come until 1:00 a.m.!)

Isn't It Ironic: The day that gay marriages can legally begin in Massachusetts is the 50th Anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education. Finally, separate but equal reaches the next population.

As if it is possible, I have just lost even more respect for our President! He has decided that he will not attend his daughters' college graduation "so as to not cause a disruption"...HOWEVER, he does find it appropriate to cause a disruption when he speaks as the keynote at another institution. It makes me sick...this from a "family man"!

A New (to me) Folkie: I never heard of her until this morning when I read the Globe, but the article intrigued me, and the sound-bites reeled me in. I definitely want to try to check her out some time soon. (Marshall, am I supposed to know who she is??)

"It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious" and "Murphy's Law of Thermodynamics: Things get worse under pressure" are just two of the pessimistic gems that you can find at Murphy's Laws.

Chip and Abby report:

We already know many important things about the upcoming addition to our family:
-The baby will be a Libra (barring a very late or early arrival).
-The baby will be a Monkey (Chinese Zodiac year).
-The baby will have several hand-knit sweaters.
-The baby will be much loved and adored.
-And the baby will be a GIRL!!!!!!! (barring a big confusion by the ultrasound technician).

I am already so exicted!

Good afternoon ma'am. Would you like beef or beef? For the third time in four flights, they ran out of the non-red meat option on my flight. Although I know that I can always ask for a veggie meal ahead of time, I usually find them bland and unsubstantial. Since flights always have two options (at least when they start out) I am safe 99% of the time. Well, I used to! Blah on American Airlines!

Oooh baby! One of the most spontaneous highlights of my trip was an impromptu massage at The Massage Company. Judi had dropped me off to wander around Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade and I passed a cute place that was called "The Massage Company"...I thought, "my kind of store!" I meekishly peeked in, thinking "they will never have a walk-in appointment" and they said they could take me in 5 minutes! It was an amazing massage! Maybe not the most ambient or utterly soothing, but technically wonderful and Debra made all of my sore muscles feel fantastic. She seemed to really know how to find the sore spots.

Thanks to Paul for showing me this absolutely funny, and scarily accurate, comic. (If they have published the next installment, check out number 34...the others may be funny too but the one I saw at Paul's was number 34)

Power Up! On Saturday night, Judi, Alicia, Paul and I went to a fundraiser for Power Up, a nonprofit "to promote the visibility and integration of gay women in entertainment, the arts, and all forms of media." The organization is run by one of Alicia's good friends and seems to work with some pretty cool people. The event was at a beautiful home of one of their donors in Hidden Hills, a posh gated community in the Valley. In attendance was none other than Jamie Babbit, who went to Shaker and is now a big film-maker, and soon-to-be mom. I didn't get to say hi, as if she would even remember me. (I was in a play with her freshman year-- when she was a senior-- and her brother was in my class.)

Talk About Coincidence: On my last night in LA, we decided to order in food (yummy Indian) and rent a movie. Paul and I stopped off at the video store on our way to Judi's and picked up Big Fish. I slept through about 45 minutes of it, but liked what I saw. Then, upon boarding my flight back to Boston, they announced that the movie was, you guessed it, Big Fish. (By the way, the movie on the way out there was Cheaper By the Dozen...which I CERTAINLY would never have seen if I wasn't trapped on a plane.)

Hello there! Just got back from CA (Palo Alto and then LA) last night. I will give a kind of random debrief as I think of things to share. The main part is that I had a great time! My event in Palo Alto went really well, with over 155 people in attendance! The weather was beautiful for an outdoor reception and then we moved inside for an interesting and funny talk by two MIT alumni, one of whom is the Chief Technology Officer for Friendster, and the other is the CTO of LinkedIn. I got good feedback and the evening had a good "vibe". I also had an individual meeting with an alumnus, which I had sort of low expectations for, but it turned out to be a very productive meeting, and I felt good. Then I went to LA (more details follow) and had a great time with Judi and Paul. (and Judi's girlfriend Alicia) I got home last night and felt a little sad-- probably post-vacation blues. It was so nice to get away and have so much fun, but I guess it has to end eventually. Sigh....

Thanks to my assistant Elena who sent me this link to Queer Eye quotes. Gotta love it!

Although I did not have the most wonderful meal last time I went to Casablanca, I had a wonderful meal last night (and great company too) I had the Romaine Hearts with Soft Poached Farm Egg, Crostini, Creamy Parmesan as an app, and then the Seared Halibut with Pan Fried Zucchini, with Tomato, Ginger, Saffron Sauce as my entree. We also shared a bottle of red wine, but I don't remember the name of it. Yum all around!

I can't believe the Indians beat the Red Sox again. Tonight must be the night!

I am meeting my Aunt Kathy and relative Sue Goldsmith (the wife of my grandmother's first cousin) at Casablanca Restaurant tonight, while Kathy is in town for a seminar. I went to this place for lunch once for an informational interview and am looking forward to trying it again.

Yesterday I had a meeting scheduled with the Communications Director of the MIT Dept of Civil & Environmental Engineering to discuss ways that their website could better link to the Alumni Associations programs and services that are for their alumni. When the woman walked into my office I immediately thought "this woman seems really cool and about my age...maybe we could have lunch some time". As we were about to end the meeting, she said something about mailing her mom a package for Mothers Day. I asked where her mom lived and she said "Minneapolis". Ah, I went to Macalester I told her. At which point she had a huge grin and said "I knew you looked familiar! I was best friends with Naomi Dean (friend of mine from Mac) and went to high school with Naomi and Hilary!" Turns out, she was at a couple of the same parties as me in college, stayed with Hilary when she first moved here and met Emily, and on and on and on! As they, its a small world after all! Maybe now she can be MY friend too. Oh, and she and her partner are getting married soon after May 17 (when same sex marriage becomes legal in MA...even if but briefly) so an early congrats to Sara and her partner (Fran I think)

First of all, I concede that the Red Sox did indeed lose to the Indians last night. (Just wait till tonight) And secondly, I realized that I was wrong...they are playing in the Jake, not Fenway. So you have now witnessed the first two times I have ever been wrong. (not!)

Let the rivalry begin...the Cleveland Indians arrive tonight for a four game series at Fenway. Although it disappoints my dad, I am a 100% Red Sox fan and will be cheering for Manny, Pokey, Johnny, and Gabe with all my might. Go Sox!

Yeah! I go to California on Wednesday this week. I will be in Palo Alto for a graduate alumni event, which will take place on Thursday night, and then will go to LA to see Judi and Paul. My event sold out with 149 people registered!! That's a fantastic response! I got a $39 ticket from Oakland to LA, so I have very limited expenses in this trip. I am so looking forward to seeing Judi, who I haven't seen in 1.5 years. I don't think I've ever gone 4 months without seeing her before this. And Paul is excited to show me around town with his city planner eye, including the USC campus, where he and Judi are both in school. (Actually Judi graduates with her MSW in a couple weeks! Yeah Judi!)

I DID IT!! I walked the whole 20 miles for the Walk for Hunger yesterday! I actually don't have any blisters or anything, just a really sore body and a some strategic chaffing from my bra. (I know, too much information) I am really tired today, even though I slept pretty well last night (but not as well as one might have thought...Sunday night thinking sets in)