DEPRESSION

I LOVE ALL YOU FBAGS AND WILL MISS YOU SOO SMURFIN MUCH IT HURTS MY HEART!!!!!!

A chart will follow at some point!
xo

As fast as I can...

FIRST, I'd like to thank Jaxson and COMPLIMENT HER for single handedly keeping this blog and the morale UP, UP, UP... THANK YOU

Without your (slightly threatening) encouragement, and depressing expressions of your waivering mental health status, I would not have (literally) DROPPED EVERYTHING i WAS WORKING ON to post some graphs...

CHART ONE: EXPLANATION
OF MY TIME SPENT AT WORK TODAY



As you can see, I didn't have time CREATE the CHART the proper way, with data, and spreadsheets, and whatnot...
but I wanted to respond quickly, so I just drew them on the back of a napkin and uploaded them as fast as I could!!!

The next bar graph is meant to show the things in my life that get a "quick response" when they/he/she call out in need:



I hope this proves my level of devotion and commitment to my IMPORTANT commitments!

Wait...

For fear that the previous post might be too 'negative' for some more 'sensitive' types, I just wanted to reinforce that, in all actuality, I am very much looking forward to the game tonight, as well as the pooler caddy, and will not be spending that time in bed. See...

Where is the enthusiasm?

I'm disappointed in the activity of the blog this past week. Because there has been none. Activity that is. If that is in any way unclear, I have created a chart to express the exact amount of activity that there's been on "Charts, Graphs, and T-Shirt Ideas". See below.


















I know that I, myself, am as much to blame as anyone else. However, having been previously disappointed by the reaction and comments to the past couple of posts, I've been feeling that enthusiasm for the blog has dipped. This is really affecting my emotions, as you can see in the graph below.

















It really doesn't take much to keep me 'happy'. Even an activity rating of 2, on a scale of 0-10 keeps me from slight disappointment. But with the recent '0' activity, my only hope is that Katy can write me a prescription for something to help me with my blog-post-deprivation-depression, else I might not be able to get out of bed to play tonight.

No Reward! Or is there?

Ok so I went for a run yesterday at the trail and when I got back to the parking lot I saw this sign and had to take a picture of it. Albeit I feel bad for the cat, I couldn't help but think about missing missy...

The Importance of Planned vs Actual

As a financial professional (insert your laugh here) - I am constantly reminded of the importance of planned versus actuals. In work mode that tends to be financially driven numbers. If the actual spend is less than we planned, I'm doing my job right. Since they've kept me around this long and I tend to save my company money - I must be good at comparing planned vs. actuals. Now some may think that this knowledge and experience would shadow over into my personal life. And to those folks I'd say - boy are you wrong.

I tried to reason this into my life with my planning to break up with someone I had been seeing. As I spoke to some of you at cooler caddy - you were aware - others were apparently "Shocked" (see Jackie's post below) - which let me tell you - you are NOT the only one.....

However don't feel bad for Boy X just yet. I gave him plenty of warning signs, he just chose to over look them.

Now as far as how the actual event went let me start by providing the best advice I think I've ever received to date, courtesy of Teri:

• "You need to arrive early....order a dirty martini....slam it down....order another dirty martini....now this next step Sarah is so important - PAY YOUR TAB. You do NOT want to break up with him and THEN have to wait for the Tab to arrive. Trust me!!"
  

When I went home that night I thought about what I was going to say....which obviously lead me to think about how he would react...

Compared to how it ACTUALLY went down.....

For those that are chart illiterate (Tara) - I was left at the bar. To which my immediate response was relief and of course uncontrollable laughter. When I got back into my car George Michael's "Freedom" was playing on my radio (no joke) - and I felt as though that was all the closure I needed...

This Just In...Shocking News!!

In your life, there are people you don't tell your important personal information to...strange co-workers, your friends' in-laws, DCF employees, the chef at Sushi Palace, your parents...but your softball team is never on that list. Your team is your most valuable and dependable source of confidantes. So you can imagine my shock when I learned, just recently, about my teammate and (I thought) close friend, Sarah Moisao's, ever-present and exhilarating love life. I have attached a chart to express my feelings on this recent headline.
















Oops, that chart was supposed to be just about Sarah...sorry about that little slip up in there where I brought up Erin's immaturity.

Anyway, since Sarah has been going through some changing emotions for the past 3 months and we have been completely in the dark, I can't help asking myself....

















I just hope that Sarah realizes that what she considers teasing and bullying is really just a sign of our utmost respect and appreciation for her sparkling personality. As you can see from the data, I don't truly think we're at too great a risk of Sarah genuinely not liking us, but I certainly wouldn't want to be placed in a category with DCF workers and strange co-workers...people with whom she cannot confide. Sarah, I love you AND your love and I want you to know that I will listen any time you want to talk about your boring boyfriend with no sense of humor.

FAIL...

Yesterday...while sanding my A$$ off at the house...I found myself just like TRACE--looking at the blog on my phone every half hour or so because I was SURE that someone was going to post something about the silly and SERIOUS events that took place the night before...however then I realized that a majority of the people in the blog did not attend the game...so then I tried to post something from my phone but it was an epic FAIL....my graph was going to either be about: % of people injured by HELL's-mentally and obviously emotionally...the lack of blogging and graphs on the website...the fabulous spread that Sar provided for us...the hilarious mess that almost occurred when Jess's son had to "poop" and she was up to bat...the intense-ness of Teri behind the plate (Thriller Dance, MF-er, and talking in a high pitch voice like Michael Jackson (I loved it all) or it was just going to be a plain old T-shirt and could express the LOVE I have for this softball team and how much fun I have every time! Anywho---my stupid phone couldn't make the graph and anyway the sawdust was getting in my eye and it was HOTTER than Africa-I'm talking HOT times 5. Stay cool bitches! :)

Also-I still can't stop thinking about the catch that Tara had it was amazing-WEB GEM!

KT and Trace and Britt-you were missed :) but obviously not forgotten seeya nexttttttttttt time!

That's what friends are for....

Hello "Friends" -

This week has really opened my eyes. I have recently come to terms with who my real friends are. These people will support you no matter what decision you make…..that is …..unless that decision is to attend a different softball game than the one they're playing in. After an in depth texting "conversation" with Jackie I realized there are very few acceptable reasons to miss a Cheshire Softball game. Although we'd all assume a Lil Wayne Concert is one of those items - we are in fact wrong. I'm simply embarrassed for anyone that would think otherwise.















As most of you know I did in fact miss a game this week for one of the above "unacceptable" items. This resulted in complete destruction of my reputation as a reliable player as well as the destruction of my self esteem. Should I have gone to Cheshire and skipped my co-ed game??? Should I have risked my co-ed team forfeit due to not enough girls to play?? Should I have never signed up for that team?? These were all thoughts in my head as I was laying in bed last night receiving ridiculous amounts of sh*t for missing one game. Which leads me to this….
























Now for those that chose to respond to my lack of attendance with Option D - Cyber Bullying - well shame on you...



















As I recover from the copious amounts of cyber-bullying I have been receiving I have to ask myself - is this abuse worth the joy of being on this team? Simple answer - yes.

Sunday night after a good weekend

I Checked the blog about 12 times since I left work on Friday. [But I think I normally check it 12-20 times a day during the week.]

At this point, I got sad that there was nothing new added. So I whipped out my new apps on the iPhone and worked up these charts. It mean to say, I think there is a correlation between having "outdoor fun" and ignoring the f-bag blog. Unless that outdoor fun happens during softball games, and then the next day enjoys a proportional bump in blog attention

PS- the apps I downloaded, pretty much suck in terms of not being able to handle more complex graphs. As you can imagine, these graphs should have been combined with an overlay of the 2 data sets. I do have an app that overlays data sets and makes more complex line and area graphs, but it won't let you export them

PPS- when are we going to sushi palace again?

Complete and Utter Confusion...

Ok...So I realize that I have been out of the loop for some time educating myself and....as Aretha Franklin puts it: "And Now (I'm) back from outer space!" But I have come to the conclusion that I have no idea what the frig is going on...I find the emails and blogs enjoyable and I laugh equally as hard but there are some questions and confusion that are going on inside my head! Can we help a sister out..I think that I am like the chart referring to Tracy's confusion when she was left out of the emails at the beginning.... lol

My Guardian Angel

So today when I arrived home from work I went through my usual routine of throwing my stuff down, greeting my pups and checking the mail. I assumed that today was going to be just like every other day, bills and useless credit card offers, but to my great surprise I had something special in the mail today, an actual letter! (Apparently some people still do that?) This letter was not a typical letter either. There was no return address! In a flurry of excitement and anticipation to find out who the mysterious sender of this letter was, I vigorously tore the envelope open and when I saw what was inside I knew I had a guardian angel watching over me. Right there was a shopping list made just for me listing off the fish that contain the LEAST mercury!! It even had a list of fish that contain moderate mercury and a note saying that I should only have 6 servings of those fish a month! Like I said, I clearly have a guardian angel watching over me because now I know what fish I can eat endless amounts of at Sushi Palace without getting mercury poisoning!

Using my impeccable deductive reasoning skills I noted that at the bottom of the shopping list it says that the source of information is the NRDC, so perhaps I have someone there watching out for me. I don't know if I will ever find out the sender of this saving grace, but I can only hope that when our blog goes public and we all make millions, that person might read it and know just how grateful I am. For now I feel that the best way for me to show my gratitude is by paying it forward and passing this shopping list onto all of you, so below I have inserted an image of the list. Normally I would have just rewritten the list, but I feel that seeing the actual list will have a greater impact on everyone.



Also, I updated my chart from earlier since some new stresses have come into my life and thought it was necessary to share it (not as necessary as posting the epic shopping list, but definitely more necessary than it is for our economy to turn around before I graduate)

Teri Time

Ladies, Ladies, Ladies –

I have been trying to enjoy the blog from a-far, but alas I have some important information to contribute. For starters I hope everyone is enjoying the season. I hope the beer caliber in the cooler has improved as the age of the team has decreased and I hope we continue to be supporting each other during through hits, and runs, and hits and runs and hits and runs and hits, and runs.

There has been a lot of progress this season:
- We got the CRAZY team to overlook a potential “WIN” (nice Jacks)
- Sarah was able to get an award by locating a friend’s missing cat
- We learned, I can get Jess’ bod by just taking steroids – wait till you see me at the next game. I will have lost 50 lbs
- In my spare time I started a relationship with a state trooper a few houses down. His wife was a total loser and my girls could not resist his kids or dog
- Ms. Lovelace and her clan has been injury free for at least 2 weeks which is progress compared to this winter
- Court is making her mother proud by playing her first softball game this season (thank goodness b/c she will need some brownie points as her future sister-in-law starts sucking up and winning over Nancy and Mark’s attention and affection)

The graphic below depicts the variance between my current participation on softball compared to my desire to participate in the 2011 Season:




Anyway assuming we have games next week. I hope to be there on…hold your breath…Wednesday.
Monday I am at The Hartford (I was hoping to see Sarah but alas she is too busy!) but Wednesday I hope to be with you lovely ladies.

In case you haven’t been keeping up with my hear fatal experiences via “The Facebook”, below is a summary of how I have spend the last few days:




XOXOXO Girls!

MVP Standings...

And the MVP Leaders are...










As I'm sure many of you know I have been collecting data since the beginning of the season. This data has directly lead to our current MVP Standings. Since this data goes as far back as our pre-season get-together at Deb and Sue's I was forced to include Teri - who since that event has been....well....absent....

There is a complex weighted data set behind this chart. I have broken down at a high level how the standings were calulated.....

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Highlights:

Katy: at all the games, organized Sushi Palace night, catches every game, loves beets unconditionally - is the Dwight K. Schrute of our team

Teri: Teri has been MIA since our pre-season party - is the Creed Bratton of our team.

Tracy: at all the games, laughs while making plays, Sushi Palace night was for her b-day, takes pictures of kids urinating in parking lots, created this blog - is the Michael Scott of our team.

Britt: ate her weight in sushi at Sushi Palace, allows the team to call her various nicknames, Mercury Poisoning threatened her life, sends sassy emails when there are unfunny charts being sent - is the Stanley of our team.

Tara: Tara is lucky to be included in this chart, let alone our team. She is obviously the Meredith of our team

Jackie: at all the games, mocks 2 yr old children, nicknamed the DBs, teaches children the importance of a rape whistle, encourages children to seek weapons from sarah, feels bad that casey anthony spent all that time in prison when she was in fact innocent. one major negative for Jax was her scolding of Britt as Sushi Palace claiming she would in fact "waste food" - is the Angela of our team

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Looking forward to our Dundies....

This is a test.... I repeat...this is a test....

TESTINGGGGGGGGGGG


One....


Two....


Three....

Are we talking in 'chart' now?

Today was a beautiful day...from 5am til 5:59pm. Then, at 6:00pm, we had exactly 30 minutes of rain. In that tiny window of time, our game was canceled.

Below is a chart that I came up with to best summarize today's weather. It sounds crazy, but I even verbalized this chart while sitting in my car, admitting that when major events occur, the first thought that crosses my mind is 'What chart would best depict that?'.

Tara's Job Security

Today Tara expressed concern over losing her job as a DCF-like employee. Governor Malloy is laying off upwards of 6500 state workers. But Tara is employed by Yale. Which begs the question...

Time is on our side

A few things...
FIRST- I would like to praise the tiny baby jesus for sending me many blessings, including friends that were able to figure out the simplest blogging formatting system ever invented.

I'm proud of you JAX! And SARAH! (And you too, WEB- don't think I didn't see that you are working on a post!!!) For trying something new and giving us some great stuff on the f-bags blog. You are all MVPs in my book!!!

(Remember, the F stands for FUN you dirty minds out there!!!)

SECOND - Here is a slide I made tonight. I think you'll find that the headings and labels are self-explanatory and it requires no further introduction:



(Please NOTE: As with all these charts and photos on the blog, clicking on them will make them larger and easier to read.)

Before you get all, "OMG, Tracy... How did you have time to do this?!?" Take a look at the screen shot of the stopwatch on my iPhone which documents EXACTLY how long it took:

And allow me to add this pie chart to "break it down for you":

Mind you, this only took me a little over 18 minutes because, I was thoughtful about it, cared about the aesthetics, gave some consideration to not only how the chart would look, but also took the time to make the jokes funny. Please See Sarah M's post below... she is putting more time into her chart and I'm sure it will send all of us into fits of hysteria (when it is finally completed and posted) because she is taking additional time to "craft" the jokes to perfection, etc

THIRD:
Do you have any idea how many free apps there are out there for chart making?!?
These are just the first 3 I found

FOURTH- I would like to leave you with a little softball love... This is what summer is all about folks...

(click to embiggen)

(click to embiggen)

I included the second one even though the pics are pretty much the same b/c I like how the trooper with the head wound is kind of glancing over- the only parent in sight (not counting the one taking the photo) and also how the boys are sort of checking out each others' tiny little junk.

Colin, do you have a safe place to stay tonight?

Just a reminder of this exchange at tonights game - a chart on this topic is still pending.

Sarah: "Colin, do you have a safe place to stay tonight?"
Colin: "no....I wish you would stay with us"
Tara (mortified): "oh....you're so cute"
Colin: "then give me a beer!"

30 minutes later...

Colin: "Sarah I need a weapon!"


Does anyone have the number for child protective services??

Sarah, I need a weapon!

This is my first attempt at a blog post, but being not that I'm not a moron and I have been using a computer for about 15 years now, I should think it wouldn't be that difficult to figure it out. I would say the same about my teammates but they have already admitted to being simply too lazy to put forth the effort.

So - knowing that I will be in Haddam again all day tomorrow, I have made use of what limited relaxation time I have with my husband (who is engrossed, equally, in Jake Gyllenthal being on Man vs. Wild and Kill Bill vol. 1 - depending on which program is in commercials, but probably more into Jake Gyllenthal) to create a chart that summarizes tonight's events. I may have missed a few things, but to me, these were the main highlights.

I will miss being on email with you all tomorrow but will be looking forward to some new emails, and maybe, just maybe, a new blog post!

ps. To those of you who say that you are "chart illiterate" (you know who you are...actually, we all do, because you've stated it in previous emails), I just wanted to say that, frankly, I'm embarrassed for you, as I have created this chart in 20 minutes, 15 of which were spent deciding which chart type best aesthetically depicted my data. However, in the event that you have really never created a chart and I am just 'taking for granted' that it comes so easily to me, I suppose we could have a short lesson, entitled, "making charts for dummies" or "making charts, for dummies". The title of the lesson would be fitting no matter where the punctuation goes.

The sippy cup incident

Tara: Ok - funny story to get you all to love each other again..............
Dinner time is a little hectic with a 2 YR OLD AND 3 YR OLD, a mini horse, a cat and a DB....
Soo tonight we were eating dinner and on my 2nd glass of wine, Maura wanted her sippy cup opened and water put in it from my cup - this particular sippy cup gets stuck (and should be in the garbage but that's another story). Big DB says throw it to me and I'll open it so I back hand it to him (with my left hand and I am a righty) and it goes flying a lot harder than I anticipated, hits him square in the forehead and slams into the glass sliding door (which thank goodness did not break)....soo as I am laughing uncontrollably I go over to apologize to DB and come to find out he is bleeding and within seconds has a huge lump on his forehead.....the kids are screaming why did you hurt Daddy??? The dog is barking, the cat is hissing and I just laugh and drink my wine..........................

No charts for this b/c I suck at charts but I hope you fun bags have a much better start to your weekends than the DB family did...............
SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tracy: This story had it all...
it made me laugh.
It made me cry.
It made me cringe.

It was lonely without a chart...
I hope you don't mind, I took the liberty of creating one...
I can't help myself.

t.web f-bag

Jax's super charts within charts

While I appreciate the charts formulated by the regular participants late last night and today, I would still like to express my disappointment about yesterday's non-responsiveness. There's nothing that makes a person feel less appreciated than when the chart that they put so much time and thought into, just to entertain their friends (and possibly be voted funniest chart at the softball dundees awards) is ignored, as though not received, for 24 hours. But while I might expect this from the super-busy 'regulars' on this email chain (you know who you are) nothing upset me more yesterday than Mia's lame excuse for not responding. And after she practically BEGGED to be included. I have attached a chart expressing her fate as a member of this exclusive email club.

Why is Sarah Sweating?

I agree with great britain. I canno work on charts via my gmail/blackberry... even though I was late this morning and am 90% sure I'll be late to my 9am meeting, I've completed the attached chart to summarize my morning...

Casey Anthony Verdict Chart

Not replying from work had NOTHING to do with the fact that my job sucks some serious ass right now... it wasn't that I didn't have time to do anything except put out fires and have panic attacks... it was just that I didn't feel like replying.

I did have a very emotional reaction to Jax's charts in particular, b/c if I had had to spend any time negotiating with hells kitchen, and then someone took credit for that, I would have run straight to my new coping strategy: chart-making.

btw, Tara- I think "f-bag" might be this year's MVP nickname for the playas on our team!

Attached please find a chart that illustrates my favorite conversation of the evening. I'm pretty sure this conversation took place during one of the innings that almost lost us the game, but it was worth it.

Responses to Jax's question

Mia: LOL... I am so sorry I was just so busy changing diapers;) I LOVED your chart! Mia

Linds: Lol I told my mom she laughed at your charts ahhhhhhhhh jack u smartass! Had so much fun last night girls!!! Can't wait till our next game!!!

Tara: Great work on the charts ladies!
Great Britain I love your work! I can't believe you didn't want to become a home health aide, after all the experience with your grandfather....
I just want you all to know that our team is #1 for the most fun people......I am so happy to be a part of you fun bags!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy weekend to all!!!!!!

Post from Jax

hey - how come you guys didn't reply to my charts all day???

Jax has to talk to negotiate game cancellation

Sarah's boredom chart