A world of congratulations to our friends Duane and Elise on the birth of their second child, Ruth Anna, who arrived this morning at 7:57 am. Ruth Anna weighed 9 lbs., 4 oz., and is 21.5 inches long. She joins adorable older brother Jonah, and is Dave's new goddaughter. Huzzah!

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Third Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Low
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Moderate

Take the Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno Test

"Hmmm. I'm really pissed off that I'm on this stupid cruise with my family. I wonder how I could get home more quickly to see my boyfriend. I KNOW! I'll write notes threatening to kill all Americans on the ship!"

We had our first appointment with my new OB practice today, and I am very, very happy with our choice. Although the office isn't as cushy as the practice I saw before, I really liked the doctor we saw, who is the head of the practice, and he spent a great deal of time with us, chatting and making me feel good about what's been going on so far. We also got to hear the munchkin's heartbeat again (150 BPM), and we scheduled our Level II ultrasound with the maternal-fetal specialist at the hospital where we'll be delivering (no, there's nothing wrong -- my OB just likes to do these to get a comprehensive picture of the baby's health) on May 28. Hopefully, the tot will cooperate, and we'll also be able to find out whether we're having a girl or a boy.

I'm going back in for a quick visit in two weeks to have blood drawn for the alpha-fetoprotein test; results from that should be back about a week later.

Whew. I always feel better after getting to hear that tiny heartbeat.

The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by the state of Kentucky of a ruling that barred the display of a large granite monument with the Ten Commandments on the state Capitol grounds in Frankfort.

The justices, without comment, let stand a federal appeals court ruling that the display would violate the separation of church and state under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

I don't know whether I've mentioned here that our wonderful tenants are leaving in about three weeks to return to Florida. Hence, we've been doing the real estate dance again in order to secure new tenants starting around June 1.

We're using the same agent whom we found last year when we were trying to rent the unit, and she visited earlier in the week to sign the paperwork and put the MLS listings together.

Since the tenants are still here, we had asked that any showings before their departure be cleared through us first, so that we could try to minimize the amount of intrusion on the tenants.

Yesterday, we had two calls for showings, which we thought was terrific, since the place wasn't even officially in any of the listing services yet. We just got a call from our agent that one of those people wants to rent the place! Woohoo!

Now, I'm not going to relax yet -- we had a couple of potential tenants fall through last year for a variety of reasons, including horrendous credit, so I'm waiting to see what happens. However, this person is from halfway across the country and is heading back there today, so it seems unlikely that he'd be back in the interim to find another place that he likes better.

Yay!

*shudder* Perhaps the distributor should have just recycled those materials, don't you think?

Someone please settle a little disagreement between the husband and me, please: Is it, in fact, Michael Ironside appearing in the new IBM Consulting Services ad? I would swear that it is.

I had heard a rumor earlier in the week that NJ Devils goalie Martin Brodeur had separated from his wife after he was allegedly caught, as they say, minding his sister-in-law's net. This article seems to confirm that story.

An aspiring actress who had recently filmed an episode of "Law and Order: Criminal Intent" died yesterday of a gunshot wound to the head, one day after her ex-boyfriend shot her and then killed himself.

Lyric Benson, 21, graduated from Yale last year, and was working as a hostess at the trendy SoHo restaurant Balthazar.

This item is only interesting to me because the school involved is my father's alma mater. St. Joseph's University trustees have affirmed an offer to Senator Rick Santorum to speak at commencement ceremonies in May, despite the flap over his comments regarding homosexuality which I noted earlier this week.

I found it amusing that the article notes that "top administrators at St. Joseph's generated a list of possible graduation speakers earlier this year, and a director of student life then polled some students about the list. An Irish tenor outpolled Santorum, but when the singer was unavailable for the May 18 graduation, the invitation was offered to the senator."

About 125 students protested the decision yesterday.

The Michigan Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of a statute that limits lawsuits against drugmakers for defective drugs when the drugs have been approved by the FDA and comply with the agency's labeling requirements.

Passed as part of "tort reform" legislation in 1995, the statute says that "a drug is not defective or unreasonably dangerous, and the manufacturer or seller is not liable, if the drug was approved for safety and efficacy" by the FDA, and that the drug complied with FDA labeling standards "at the time the drug left the control of the manufacturer or seller."

I'm adding Blogrolling to the site. Please stand by while any hinkiness is resolved.

Now, my hockey loyalties definitely lie with the Devils, but man, that Dallas-Anaheim game last night was just amazing. I had to go to sleep at the end of the first overtime, but I was overjoyed this morning to see that former Devil (and the guy whose jersey and number I still wear to all Devils games) Petr Sykora scored the game winning goal in the FIFTH OVERTIME last night. Go Ducks!

Last weekend when we were in the hotel in Connecticut, we caught J. Lo's new video. I quickly realized that she was, in fact, recreating Flashdance scene by scene. Why, for the love of all that is good and holy, would anyone want to do that?

Oh, and the other good thing about yesterday:

We're seeing Peter Gabriel again.

To whomever got here by googling "laci+peterson+coroner+photos:"

Please go crawl back into whatever fucking hole you slithered out of. You disgust me.

Today was a banner mail day. Not only did my new passport show up (in record time, I might add -- I paid for expedited service and they had it back to me within seven days), but I also got my order from Kiehl's. Let the lip balm dance begin!

Duane will love this story: Creed is being sued by a group of fans who contend that frontman Scott Stapp was "so intoxicated and/or medicated that he was unable to sing the lyrics of a single Creed song."

The four plaintiffs, who attended a show December 29 at the Allstate Arena near Chicago, are also seeking class-action status to win refunds for all their fellow concertgoers.

A man with a significant stutter has filed a complaint with a state human rights commission against a radio station that refused to let him on the air to dedicate a song because of his stutter.

"It's hard enough to go through life with a stutter, but wanting to get on a radio show takes some courage," the man said. "I talk slow, but they're keeping me off that show because of it."

I've actually managed to return all of the calls that I've received so far today. This is not as simple as it might seem.

Of course, the bulk of the return calls have consisted of my leaving voicemails for my callers, so the second round of messages should soon begin.

I have finally broken down and am starting to wear some of my maternity pants. While they're still a bit big, they are so much more comfortable than the clothes I've been trying to continue to squeeze into.

I'm fourteen weeks today! Hooray!

Today's tally:

One chewing out by the boss.

One crying jag with my paralegal.

One lame sandwich courtesy of the building management, since the new cafe was supposed to open today and didn't.

Two hours of trying to track down our director of Managed Care, in order to get him to sign a document that needed to be submitted today, only to find out that he's in DISNEY WORLD.

Umpteen phone calls from the person who was expecting the above referenced document submission.

Not nearly enough chocolate, or sleep.

Gay-rights groups are urging Republican Senate leaders to consider the removal of Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) from his GOP leadership position because of his recent remarks criticizing homosexuality. In an interview with the Associated Press about the recent Supreme Court sodomy case, Santorum said ""If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."

Santorum is chairman of the GOP conference in the Senate, third in his party's leadership, behind Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Go congratulate Erin, will ya? Are they not just the cutest couple ever?

I actually had to stop watching the coverage of the Scott Peterson arrest last night. Seeing all of those photos of the very pregnant, smiling Laci Peterson, juxtaposed with the coroner and police chief explaining how they identified the headless, legless remains that washed up on the beach of San Francisco Bay was just too much for me. I don't know whether it's just that I'm super hormonal, or that now that I'm pregnant it seems all the more horrific to me. I hope they fry the son of a bitch, honestly. What kind of a monster murders his wife and soon-to-be-born baby son on Christmas Eve, and then dumps them off of his fishing boat? Jesus.

Hypothetically speaking, how big of a sin is it to eat, say, chicken salad on Good Friday?

Here's a little tip from your friendly corporate attorney:

When a subpoena duces tecum comes across your desk, especially one with a due date, you should probably make sure that that document gets to your friendly corporate attorney ASAP, and also preferably BEFORE THE DUE DATE.

Thank you very much for your cooperation.

You've probably noticed that I've been posting rather sporadically over the past few weeks, and honestly, it's because I've been incredibly tired and a little bit sick.

Yes, you guessed it. I'm pregnant!

Dave and I are expecting our first child at the end of October. We are thrilled and terrified and excited, all at the same time.

Whew. Now that that's all out in the open, I feel like I can actually talk about all of the stuff that's been going on since we found out in mid-February!

Please forgive me for being mushy, but it's absolutely just amazingly disgusting how much I adore my husband.

That is all.

Evanescence -- no longer a Christian rock band. I don't really care -- I just love the CD!

A New York judge has ruled that the surviving gay spouse from a civil union can proceed with his wrongful death lawsuit. The men were joined in a Vermont civil union ceremony prior to the victim's death.

Melanie Griffith. Onstage in the musical Chicago. That is all sorts of wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

One of our VPs is, for lack of a better word, a Yeller. Don't get me wrong -- he's a brilliant guy, really knows his stuff, but he's easily frustrated, and so he Yells.

Today has been all about The Yelling.

People here are making me crazy. I hate feeling like I have to be a babysitter simply because other people, The Yeller's minions, don't feel like breaking bad news to The Yeller, because, as you might have surmised, he might Yell. This results in The Yeller calling me and Yelling. I don't like Yelling, and I especially don't like being Yelled at. Or being the Yellee. Or whatever.

In an ideal world, I would never have to hear the words "HIPAA-compliant waiver" ever again.

Is it sad that, as I'm getting ready to go out to dinner with Dave and a friend, that I'm listening to the playback of the Supreme Court oral arguments in the University of Michigan affirmative action case on CSPAN? I'm not sure.

The fact that Rehnquist keeps calling the attorney for the university, Maureen Mahoney, (who used to be his clerk) "Maureen" instead of "Ms. Mahoney" is making me giggle, though.

I hate it when I have a day set out to accomplish so many of the little tasks that have been piling up, and then I get into the office and have something come across my desk which is sure to ruin my entire day/week/month/lifetime. ARGH.

Why is it that there seems to be at least one person in every office where I've worked who will completely ignore you when you smile or say hello to them? The one in this office makes eye contact and then just stares. It's so irritiating.

Hooray! Corey Clark is gone!