Saturday, December 23, 2006
Friday, December 22, 2006
This is either late, or almost late...
but happy winter solstice! :) Brett and Brian both think it was the 21st, but *I* thought it was the 22nd this year, and when I look online I keep seeing both dates come up, so who the hell knows. But according to timeanddate.com the 21st was apparently the shorter of the two days, at least in the Seattle area: we had 08:25:14 hours of daylight on 12/21, and 08:25:15 hours of daylight on 12/22.
Anyway, Brian sent our whole brood this poem yesterday, and I thought it was nice:
The Shortest Day
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!
So yeah...welcome, yule! He also mentioned that he thought it was kind of depressing, since it's the shortest day and all, and it's so dark and dreary. But what I said was that I'm always happy about winter solstice; it's summer solstice that I find depressing.
Winter solstice means that you've gotten through the worst of it! Sure we still have a few months of stormy darkness and drab gray skies ahead of us, but the days will just get longer and longer from hear on out, until we're finally stuck baking in the summer sun for almost 16 hours a day. :)
The summer solstice falls right around Brett's birthday, so we usually have a pretty big party around that time, and usually it's a BBQ that goes late into the night. It doesn't get dark until after 9pm on those nights, and I love that we can stay outside for so long without getting cold or feeling like it's too late. But that feeling of happiness always makes me remember that the REASON the day is so long is that summer solstice has either just happened, or is about to happen. Which means the long days are going away again. I dig the ups and downs of seasonal changes though, so it's all good.
Besides, the winter holidays rock my socks off. Making/buying presents is hard work, and I'm definitely feeling frazzled after spending the last three weeks doing almost nothing with my waking hours but shopping and making gifts, but it's almost OVER. And I'll finish up my remaining gifts tomorrow, and then I can start catching up on emails, working on art projects for ME, working out again, and (ugh) taking down all the decorations I spent hours putting up. Before we take down our X-mahweenukah decorations though (which I'll post pics of once I'm less busy), we still have one more holiday party to host (for Brett's family), and then we go to Seaside! :D
If there's one thing I like better than (or maybe equal to) giving gifts, it's RECEIVING them. We've already gotten a few (one of which was this bad ass motherfucker of a grill from my ♥Dad♥), but I expect that we'll get more gifts tomorrow, and then on Christmas day, and then when we meet up with some friends next week, and then we'll celebrate our SIXTH ANNIVERSARY (!!!) on Friday and give each other MORE gifts. Sweeet.
If you're stressed out like I've been and you're looking for a fun breather, or even if you're not stressed out and you just like awesome shit, you should check out one of my favorite Christmas specials of all time. It's super cute. Oh yeah, and...HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!! :D
Anyway, Brian sent our whole brood this poem yesterday, and I thought it was nice:
The Shortest Day
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!
So yeah...welcome, yule! He also mentioned that he thought it was kind of depressing, since it's the shortest day and all, and it's so dark and dreary. But what I said was that I'm always happy about winter solstice; it's summer solstice that I find depressing.
Winter solstice means that you've gotten through the worst of it! Sure we still have a few months of stormy darkness and drab gray skies ahead of us, but the days will just get longer and longer from hear on out, until we're finally stuck baking in the summer sun for almost 16 hours a day. :)
The summer solstice falls right around Brett's birthday, so we usually have a pretty big party around that time, and usually it's a BBQ that goes late into the night. It doesn't get dark until after 9pm on those nights, and I love that we can stay outside for so long without getting cold or feeling like it's too late. But that feeling of happiness always makes me remember that the REASON the day is so long is that summer solstice has either just happened, or is about to happen. Which means the long days are going away again. I dig the ups and downs of seasonal changes though, so it's all good.
Besides, the winter holidays rock my socks off. Making/buying presents is hard work, and I'm definitely feeling frazzled after spending the last three weeks doing almost nothing with my waking hours but shopping and making gifts, but it's almost OVER. And I'll finish up my remaining gifts tomorrow, and then I can start catching up on emails, working on art projects for ME, working out again, and (ugh) taking down all the decorations I spent hours putting up. Before we take down our X-mahweenukah decorations though (which I'll post pics of once I'm less busy), we still have one more holiday party to host (for Brett's family), and then we go to Seaside! :D
If there's one thing I like better than (or maybe equal to) giving gifts, it's RECEIVING them. We've already gotten a few (one of which was this bad ass motherfucker of a grill from my ♥Dad♥), but I expect that we'll get more gifts tomorrow, and then on Christmas day, and then when we meet up with some friends next week, and then we'll celebrate our SIXTH ANNIVERSARY (!!!) on Friday and give each other MORE gifts. Sweeet.
If you're stressed out like I've been and you're looking for a fun breather, or even if you're not stressed out and you just like awesome shit, you should check out one of my favorite Christmas specials of all time. It's super cute. Oh yeah, and...HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!! :D
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Free Music, Updates, and More!
1) iTunes has Sarah McLachlan singing "Silent Night" as one of their free downloads this week; you should check it out if you like that song and/or Sarah, because it's nice. If you don't like that, they also have The Knife doing "Christmas Reindeer," which is also entertaining. I like both songs better than the James Talor "Jingle Bells" song they had last week. That was crap.
2) Because SOMEONE complained about my lack of a "comments" link, I updated my blogger code and added the "(^o^)" link to the bottom of each post. It doesn't publish your comment on my site, but it opens my "contact me" page in a new window/tab, which will email me your comment just like the "contact me" link at the side of the page will.
I don't have an actual comments section posted on my site because I don't want to have to deal with deleting comments from stupid and/or drunk people. Especially if they're from my stupid and/or drunk friends and/or family (then I'd have some 'splaining to do). I've also known a couple of other people who've had comments posted to their blogs that they wished they could delete, but left up anyway, and I don't want to be in that position. I like that when people respond with lame, judgmental, or even (only a couple of times) offensive comments they only go to my email, and then I can delete them in secret. :)
3) I updated my blogger account to blogger beta through google, and I like it a lot better.
4) I updated my flickr account to be synched up with my yahoo account (because they made me), and it's stupid. I don't understand why that was necessary, yahoo. You're lame.
5) I updated my Firefox to 2.0, and it's rad. I had like, 1.07 or something before (sans add ons) and it was weak, so I always used Safari. But I updated my Firefox on friday and added a bunch of add ons and stuff and it's sooo much better; even better than Safari, so I changed it to my default browser and haven't looked back since.
Also, in the descriptions of one of the add ons (many of which were created by people who speak english as a second language), the creator says that it "automagically create search engines for you." That made me happy, and I think it's a brilliant word - I wish more things in life were automagic.
6) And here we are, at the meat of the post: we updated our phone service to comcast digital voice, and I got a nice reminder of how dumb most people are, and how impersonal large companies can be.
They had a telephone sales person call us back in mid NOVEMBER, and I wanted to switch over anyway (to try and save money, since we have tv and internet through them too), so I set up an appointment for 11/28 (to bypass all the thanksgiving hustle & bustle).
11/28 appointment: time slot is 12-4, guy impresses me by showing up reasonably on time (around 1pm), and wiping his boots at the door. Sees that our current modem is set up in a room w/out a phone jack. Asks no more questions about the state of phone jacks/cable jacks in the rest of our house (they're supposed to give you an extra phone-friendly modem free of charge if your current modem isn't close enough to a phone jack to be replaced). Tosses out a line about how their cables are "really frail in the cold" and how he can't dig in all this snow, and leaves about 2 minutes later.
12/08 appointment: time slot is again 12-4, guy frustrates me by showing up at almost 3pm for a job that I've been told will take about 2hrs. Does not wipe his filthy boots at the door, does not close front door (leaves it WIDE OPEN), repeats this activity about a dozen times (seriously) even after watching me get up and close the door behind him a few times.
Guy pokes around in our house for awhile and decides that the best room to hook the new modem up in is the master bedroom. Then finds out our cable line is too weak, so he installs a new cable line (by creating a new hole in the wall, rather than using the hole created by the previous jack, which he leaves untouched, complete with *dangling* cable line, just above the new one). He runs the new line outside and around the side of our house, where it meets up with a new splitter thingy. He's also attached all of our OLD cable lines to this new ugly thing, even though they used to be under a protective little box (painted the same color as our house). So now all these ugly black/silver/copper bits are exposed on the side of our house waiting to rust in the winter rain.
After he's done all of this, he finds that the PHONE line in our master bedroom is too weak, and proceeds to call comcast in a panic (on speaker phone, in front of me) to try to get another technician out to our house because he doesn't know what he's doing. It's after 4pm on a friday; no one will come help him. Someone does give him instructions for how to fix the problem (it went something like, "oh, that's easy! you just twist the wires together until the [blah blah] shorts, and then [blah blah blah]"). My guy's response to this (again, in front of me) was to whine, "But that'll take forever...I'll be here till 8!"
So he stays until almost 5pm, rips out the phone jack in our kitchen for some unknown reason, switches off our cable tv & internet, *partially* switches our phones over from verizon to comcast, and then tells me he has to have someone more experienced come out to finish the job, because he can't do it on his own. I make him turn the f'ing tv/internet back on (when I ask, he's all like (pause through blank stare...then flash of comprehension), "oh yeah! I can do THAT!"), so he gets the cable back on and he sets up an appointment for the next morning from 8-12. Saturday morning. 8am. And though it was pretty small, we had a party lined up Saturday night that we had to clean/run errands for, so the 8-12 window was pretty frustrating. But I took it because (according to him) the phone in our bedroom would work fine, but all other phone jacks in our house were dead.
12/09 appointment: I stayed up until 3am finishing xmas presents for the people coming over the next night, but since the THIRD comcast technician could show up as early as 8am and needed our bedroom, the alarm went off at 7:50, Brett got up for the morning to wait for him, and I crawled into the guest room to sleep for a couple more hours.
11:45am, 12/09: still no technician. Brett picks up the phone to call comcast on our one working phone to ask what the deal is, and discovers that we have messages on our new comcast vm from people who've tried to get ahold of us and not had our phone ring through. After that discovery, he calls comcast and they say we don't even have an appointment scheduled. Brett is told that they'll call our technician from the day before to see what's up, and call us back in a minute.
12:15pm, 12/09: I'm cleaning the bathroom, and Brett's in the shower. I ask him what comcast said, and he says they still haven't called back. I pick up the phone to call them, and find that we have a new message. I instinctively dial our verizon vm but that's okay, because that's where the message is.
It turns out that calls are being routed to either our comcast vm OR verizon vm, depending on where they're calling from. So the message on our verizon vm is from comcast, and the guy says that we DO have an appointment but our technician is running late (thanks for calling us, technician), so he'll be there at 2pm. Which doesn't work, because our party starts at 4pm, and I was going to shower AFTER I was done cleaning - at 2pm. And our master suite is kind of funky: the bedroom & bathroom just kind of meld together; there's no actual door to the bathroom.
So I call comcast back, schedule ANOTHER appointment for Sunday afternoon, and also let them know that we can make outgoing calls on our one, sad little phone jack, but apparently incoming calls go straight to one of two different vms. I'm told that they'll let our technician for Sunday know what's up.
1:30pm, 12/09: Our Saturday technician calls my cellphone (I left my number on our home vm so people could get ahold of us) to say that it looks like he's not going to be able to make it out to our house. Um...good, because I'll be in the shower in about 20 minutes. So I let him know that we already CANCELED our appointment with him, and set up a new one for the next day. He then questions me about our inability to receive incoming calls, and actually SEEMS SKEPTICAL that I might not know what I'm talking about. I'm like, "hello...you just called & got my vm message - it never rang here once!" So he's like, "well, maybe the ringer's off, 'cause if it's plugged into the modem, it should work..." and I'm like, "duh...the ringer's on high, it's plugged into the modem, and the caller id says we haven't had a call since 12/09. OUR CALLS ARE NOT GETTING THROUGH." Then I even suggested to HIM that maybe the fact that some of our calls were still going to our verizon vm meant that our service hadn't been completely switched over, and his response to that was, "well...I don't know...if the phone's plugged into the modem it should work."
Anyway. Moving on...
12/10 appointment: the window is from 12-4 again, and I think technician #4 showed up around 2pm. Wiped his feet. Was friendly and non-accusatory. Saw the mess of wires and cables in our bedroom and acknowledged that it was a mess. Didn't do much to CLEAN UP the mess, but still acknowledged it, and fixed the technical problems in about 20 minutes time. Fixed the phone line so that ALL our jacks worked, and not just one. Discovered that we weren't receiving incoming calls because our service had only partially been transferred over from verizon (!!!), and completed the transfer so we could receive calls. Saw the busted up jack in the kitchen, and fixed that too. Even pointed out that on friday, technician #2 had plugged the modem into a power outlet that goes on/off with our lightswitch (it's usually left on, and was on at the time, but he STILL noticed and STILL let us know), and he plugged it into a different outlet.
As of this morning, things seemed perfect; the phones work great, tv, internet...it looked like guy #4 had finally straightened everything out. And then I got a call from [anonymous media research company], saying that one of our boxes hadn't reported any data for the last few days. She suggested that maybe the power outages we've been having lately (because of all our stormy weather) had caused a problem, but I went into our bedroom to check on it and the power light was on. They receive reports on our television data over the phone, so I mentioned that transferred to digital voice over the weekend and asked if that could've caused a problem.
She said that for some reason their equipment sometimes has trouble communicating over digital lines, and said they'd arrange to have a separate, standard phone line installed (at their expense) for the boxes to use. It was at this point that I happened to look over at the phone jack in our bedroom, and I noticed that the separate wires that usually come out the side of the jack and go to the [anonymous media research company] box were MISSING. I found the end of the wires that attach to the data box itself, and pulled on them until I found the end. Which had been tucked behind my bedside table after having been ripped from the wall (probably by technician #2).
So now the girl from [anonymous media research company] has to come out tomorrow to hook their wires back up, and then we'll have another phone line installed, and then they'll probably have to come back out and hook their boxes up to the NEW phone line, and by then we may even have a new (or new to us) tv, so they'll have to come out AGAIN to bug the new tv.
Rarg. I love being part of the [anonymous media research company] pool, and I love their service people AND their phone support, but I'm *so tired* of having service people at the house. For reals. Wow...this suddenly makes me feel really badly for my sister, who's been having her house remodeled for like, the last year and a half or something. Sheesh.
2) Because SOMEONE complained about my lack of a "comments" link, I updated my blogger code and added the "(^o^)" link to the bottom of each post. It doesn't publish your comment on my site, but it opens my "contact me" page in a new window/tab, which will email me your comment just like the "contact me" link at the side of the page will.
I don't have an actual comments section posted on my site because I don't want to have to deal with deleting comments from stupid and/or drunk people. Especially if they're from my stupid and/or drunk friends and/or family (then I'd have some 'splaining to do). I've also known a couple of other people who've had comments posted to their blogs that they wished they could delete, but left up anyway, and I don't want to be in that position. I like that when people respond with lame, judgmental, or even (only a couple of times) offensive comments they only go to my email, and then I can delete them in secret. :)
3) I updated my blogger account to blogger beta through google, and I like it a lot better.
4) I updated my flickr account to be synched up with my yahoo account (because they made me), and it's stupid. I don't understand why that was necessary, yahoo. You're lame.
5) I updated my Firefox to 2.0, and it's rad. I had like, 1.07 or something before (sans add ons) and it was weak, so I always used Safari. But I updated my Firefox on friday and added a bunch of add ons and stuff and it's sooo much better; even better than Safari, so I changed it to my default browser and haven't looked back since.
Also, in the descriptions of one of the add ons (many of which were created by people who speak english as a second language), the creator says that it "automagically create search engines for you." That made me happy, and I think it's a brilliant word - I wish more things in life were automagic.
6) And here we are, at the meat of the post: we updated our phone service to comcast digital voice, and I got a nice reminder of how dumb most people are, and how impersonal large companies can be.
They had a telephone sales person call us back in mid NOVEMBER, and I wanted to switch over anyway (to try and save money, since we have tv and internet through them too), so I set up an appointment for 11/28 (to bypass all the thanksgiving hustle & bustle).
11/28 appointment: time slot is 12-4, guy impresses me by showing up reasonably on time (around 1pm), and wiping his boots at the door. Sees that our current modem is set up in a room w/out a phone jack. Asks no more questions about the state of phone jacks/cable jacks in the rest of our house (they're supposed to give you an extra phone-friendly modem free of charge if your current modem isn't close enough to a phone jack to be replaced). Tosses out a line about how their cables are "really frail in the cold" and how he can't dig in all this snow, and leaves about 2 minutes later.
12/08 appointment: time slot is again 12-4, guy frustrates me by showing up at almost 3pm for a job that I've been told will take about 2hrs. Does not wipe his filthy boots at the door, does not close front door (leaves it WIDE OPEN), repeats this activity about a dozen times (seriously) even after watching me get up and close the door behind him a few times.
Guy pokes around in our house for awhile and decides that the best room to hook the new modem up in is the master bedroom. Then finds out our cable line is too weak, so he installs a new cable line (by creating a new hole in the wall, rather than using the hole created by the previous jack, which he leaves untouched, complete with *dangling* cable line, just above the new one). He runs the new line outside and around the side of our house, where it meets up with a new splitter thingy. He's also attached all of our OLD cable lines to this new ugly thing, even though they used to be under a protective little box (painted the same color as our house). So now all these ugly black/silver/copper bits are exposed on the side of our house waiting to rust in the winter rain.
After he's done all of this, he finds that the PHONE line in our master bedroom is too weak, and proceeds to call comcast in a panic (on speaker phone, in front of me) to try to get another technician out to our house because he doesn't know what he's doing. It's after 4pm on a friday; no one will come help him. Someone does give him instructions for how to fix the problem (it went something like, "oh, that's easy! you just twist the wires together until the [blah blah] shorts, and then [blah blah blah]"). My guy's response to this (again, in front of me) was to whine, "But that'll take forever...I'll be here till 8!"
So he stays until almost 5pm, rips out the phone jack in our kitchen for some unknown reason, switches off our cable tv & internet, *partially* switches our phones over from verizon to comcast, and then tells me he has to have someone more experienced come out to finish the job, because he can't do it on his own. I make him turn the f'ing tv/internet back on (when I ask, he's all like (pause through blank stare...then flash of comprehension), "oh yeah! I can do THAT!"), so he gets the cable back on and he sets up an appointment for the next morning from 8-12. Saturday morning. 8am. And though it was pretty small, we had a party lined up Saturday night that we had to clean/run errands for, so the 8-12 window was pretty frustrating. But I took it because (according to him) the phone in our bedroom would work fine, but all other phone jacks in our house were dead.
12/09 appointment: I stayed up until 3am finishing xmas presents for the people coming over the next night, but since the THIRD comcast technician could show up as early as 8am and needed our bedroom, the alarm went off at 7:50, Brett got up for the morning to wait for him, and I crawled into the guest room to sleep for a couple more hours.
11:45am, 12/09: still no technician. Brett picks up the phone to call comcast on our one working phone to ask what the deal is, and discovers that we have messages on our new comcast vm from people who've tried to get ahold of us and not had our phone ring through. After that discovery, he calls comcast and they say we don't even have an appointment scheduled. Brett is told that they'll call our technician from the day before to see what's up, and call us back in a minute.
12:15pm, 12/09: I'm cleaning the bathroom, and Brett's in the shower. I ask him what comcast said, and he says they still haven't called back. I pick up the phone to call them, and find that we have a new message. I instinctively dial our verizon vm but that's okay, because that's where the message is.
It turns out that calls are being routed to either our comcast vm OR verizon vm, depending on where they're calling from. So the message on our verizon vm is from comcast, and the guy says that we DO have an appointment but our technician is running late (thanks for calling us, technician), so he'll be there at 2pm. Which doesn't work, because our party starts at 4pm, and I was going to shower AFTER I was done cleaning - at 2pm. And our master suite is kind of funky: the bedroom & bathroom just kind of meld together; there's no actual door to the bathroom.
So I call comcast back, schedule ANOTHER appointment for Sunday afternoon, and also let them know that we can make outgoing calls on our one, sad little phone jack, but apparently incoming calls go straight to one of two different vms. I'm told that they'll let our technician for Sunday know what's up.
1:30pm, 12/09: Our Saturday technician calls my cellphone (I left my number on our home vm so people could get ahold of us) to say that it looks like he's not going to be able to make it out to our house. Um...good, because I'll be in the shower in about 20 minutes. So I let him know that we already CANCELED our appointment with him, and set up a new one for the next day. He then questions me about our inability to receive incoming calls, and actually SEEMS SKEPTICAL that I might not know what I'm talking about. I'm like, "hello...you just called & got my vm message - it never rang here once!" So he's like, "well, maybe the ringer's off, 'cause if it's plugged into the modem, it should work..." and I'm like, "duh...the ringer's on high, it's plugged into the modem, and the caller id says we haven't had a call since 12/09. OUR CALLS ARE NOT GETTING THROUGH." Then I even suggested to HIM that maybe the fact that some of our calls were still going to our verizon vm meant that our service hadn't been completely switched over, and his response to that was, "well...I don't know...if the phone's plugged into the modem it should work."
Anyway. Moving on...
12/10 appointment: the window is from 12-4 again, and I think technician #4 showed up around 2pm. Wiped his feet. Was friendly and non-accusatory. Saw the mess of wires and cables in our bedroom and acknowledged that it was a mess. Didn't do much to CLEAN UP the mess, but still acknowledged it, and fixed the technical problems in about 20 minutes time. Fixed the phone line so that ALL our jacks worked, and not just one. Discovered that we weren't receiving incoming calls because our service had only partially been transferred over from verizon (!!!), and completed the transfer so we could receive calls. Saw the busted up jack in the kitchen, and fixed that too. Even pointed out that on friday, technician #2 had plugged the modem into a power outlet that goes on/off with our lightswitch (it's usually left on, and was on at the time, but he STILL noticed and STILL let us know), and he plugged it into a different outlet.
As of this morning, things seemed perfect; the phones work great, tv, internet...it looked like guy #4 had finally straightened everything out. And then I got a call from [anonymous media research company], saying that one of our boxes hadn't reported any data for the last few days. She suggested that maybe the power outages we've been having lately (because of all our stormy weather) had caused a problem, but I went into our bedroom to check on it and the power light was on. They receive reports on our television data over the phone, so I mentioned that transferred to digital voice over the weekend and asked if that could've caused a problem.
She said that for some reason their equipment sometimes has trouble communicating over digital lines, and said they'd arrange to have a separate, standard phone line installed (at their expense) for the boxes to use. It was at this point that I happened to look over at the phone jack in our bedroom, and I noticed that the separate wires that usually come out the side of the jack and go to the [anonymous media research company] box were MISSING. I found the end of the wires that attach to the data box itself, and pulled on them until I found the end. Which had been tucked behind my bedside table after having been ripped from the wall (probably by technician #2).
So now the girl from [anonymous media research company] has to come out tomorrow to hook their wires back up, and then we'll have another phone line installed, and then they'll probably have to come back out and hook their boxes up to the NEW phone line, and by then we may even have a new (or new to us) tv, so they'll have to come out AGAIN to bug the new tv.
Rarg. I love being part of the [anonymous media research company] pool, and I love their service people AND their phone support, but I'm *so tired* of having service people at the house. For reals. Wow...this suddenly makes me feel really badly for my sister, who's been having her house remodeled for like, the last year and a half or something. Sheesh.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Oh, yeah! One more thing...
I added a little "email post" link to my blogger code, so that if you ever feel compelled to share one of my many BRILLIANTLY written (and profound) posts with your friends, you can send them a link. So get to it, because I'm too friggin awesome to keep to yourself.
B to the H to the K...
We haven't really talked about him much since we still aren't sure how we're going to handle things, but BHK (short for Big Head Kitty; Brett's idea) is what we've named the stray cat we've been taking care of lately.
He's been wandering around the neighborhood for years - even when it's over 100 degrees out or when there's snow on the ground, and about six months ago I noticed him sleeping in a cardboard box we left out on our back porch. We started feeding him off and on about three months ago - reluctantly, but he was so hungry! He's always dirty and he has bug bites, etc, and I can see inside the little box he sleeps in through the sliding glass door in our kitchen, and when I glance over, he's there about 25% of the time.
A couple of weeks ago, when it was 19 degrees out and we had a foot of snow on the ground, I was in the kitchen making lunch and I heard this kind of hoooo hoooo sound coming from the backyard. I've seen plenty of eagles and hawks around here, but I've yet to come face to face with an owl, so I dropped what I was doing and snuck out the back door to take a look.
When I got out there I was horrified to see that it wasn't an owl making that noise, but it was little BHK! He was so cold and wet that he was curled up in a tight little ball, wheezing and whimpering in his box. :( I could see the track marks in the snow where he'd trekked over (leg ruts, instead of footprints because there was so much snow), and I was so sad for him!
Since he probably has cooties and our cats are clean, live only indoors, and don't have experience with strange kitties, I decided to set him up in the garage instead of just blindly taking him into the house. We have a couple of old foam mattress pads (the cheap kind) that we were going to take to the dump anyway, so I folded those into a nice cushy square (they're smashed really thin), put down a cheap heating pat, an old towel, and a cardboard box top (to hold in his body heat), made a cardboard box litter box (with litter and a liner), and set out food and water too.
When I tried to pick him up out of his porch box the first time, he panicked and ran away, which I was actually *kind of* relieved about, because I thought he'd maybe run home (assuming he has a home, however crappy it may be). I didn't see him again all afternoon, but around dinnertime he was back in his box AGAIN. The sun had been down since 4pm, and I don't know how cold it was outside by then, but I'm sure it wasn't exactly toasty.
Since Brett was home this time, he helped me kind of trick BHK into coming out of his box on his own, and then I kind of pounced on him with a towel and wrapped him up in it in case he decided to get scratchy. As soon as I was holding him though he was very good - not scratchy at all; not even squirmy (he probably felt my body heat and calmed down - he was so cold!).
So we put him in the garage and he lived there for about a week and a half, only coming out of his little heated box to eat, get pets, and poop. He actually didn't poop at ALL for the first two days and based on our cats' never-ending crap supply I found this lack of poop a little worrisome, but after about 48hrs he started pooping a couple times a day both in, and AROUND the litter box, so I'm really glad we put him in the garage. I kind of wonder if he wasn't pooping at first because he didn't have any food in him to poop. :(
After most of the snow had melted on the ground, and the night time temps were back in the 40's we decided to open the garage door and see if he was interested in leaving, and he just walked right out. I kind of hoped that if he had an owner, not seeing him for so long would scare them into taking him back inside, but within 24hrs he was back on our porch again.
I've been feeding him once a day ever since (half the amount that our cats get), and we've decided that next weekend we're going to call our local no-kill animal shelter to talk to them about whether or not we should bring him in.
I feel bad for not wanting to keep him, but our two cats are a bonded pair (they were litter mates), they have always been indoor cats, they never have "accidents," they're very healthy, fairly young (I think this guy is probably a senior), they're very needy, and I think Mordechai would be VERY jealous of another boy in the house.
Also, we really can't afford to take as good of care of him as we do Mordechai and Star (with food and anti-parasite meds, they're about $30 each per month, plus toys, treats, grooming supplies, and vet bills once or twice a year), and I'm sure he'll need lots of expensive special care at first too - he needs to be neutered, I bet he'll need his teeth cleaned (and possibly need dental surgery if no one's been taking care of his teeth all these years), he probably needs to be de-wormed, and if he hasn't had proper vaccinations he may even have leukemia or some other horrible disease. :(
I think he deserves a nice warm home, but I also don't want him in our house, and I think it's wrong of us to keep him caged up in the garage - when he was out there we had to *make* ourselves go out to pet him (our garage is on the other side of the house, and it's not a very cozy place to hang out), and even then we only went out there about four or five times a day.
At NOAH, which is where we adopted Mordechai and Star, he would be warm, fed, taken care of medically, AND given love and attention. It's a really great place. And he's a pretty friendly guy - maybe someone kind (who doesn't already have two indoor-only cats) would even adopt him! I feel bad stealing him away from the neighborhood where he's probably always roamed, and dumping him off at a kitty orphanage, but HE DESERVES A HOME, DAMMIT!!! A good one. Even if it is a shelter. That being said, we are going to *call* them first, so maybe they'll say to just leave him where he is because he might belong to someone...who knows. I just want him to have what he needs. :(
He's been wandering around the neighborhood for years - even when it's over 100 degrees out or when there's snow on the ground, and about six months ago I noticed him sleeping in a cardboard box we left out on our back porch. We started feeding him off and on about three months ago - reluctantly, but he was so hungry! He's always dirty and he has bug bites, etc, and I can see inside the little box he sleeps in through the sliding glass door in our kitchen, and when I glance over, he's there about 25% of the time.
A couple of weeks ago, when it was 19 degrees out and we had a foot of snow on the ground, I was in the kitchen making lunch and I heard this kind of hoooo hoooo sound coming from the backyard. I've seen plenty of eagles and hawks around here, but I've yet to come face to face with an owl, so I dropped what I was doing and snuck out the back door to take a look.
When I got out there I was horrified to see that it wasn't an owl making that noise, but it was little BHK! He was so cold and wet that he was curled up in a tight little ball, wheezing and whimpering in his box. :( I could see the track marks in the snow where he'd trekked over (leg ruts, instead of footprints because there was so much snow), and I was so sad for him!
Since he probably has cooties and our cats are clean, live only indoors, and don't have experience with strange kitties, I decided to set him up in the garage instead of just blindly taking him into the house. We have a couple of old foam mattress pads (the cheap kind) that we were going to take to the dump anyway, so I folded those into a nice cushy square (they're smashed really thin), put down a cheap heating pat, an old towel, and a cardboard box top (to hold in his body heat), made a cardboard box litter box (with litter and a liner), and set out food and water too.
When I tried to pick him up out of his porch box the first time, he panicked and ran away, which I was actually *kind of* relieved about, because I thought he'd maybe run home (assuming he has a home, however crappy it may be). I didn't see him again all afternoon, but around dinnertime he was back in his box AGAIN. The sun had been down since 4pm, and I don't know how cold it was outside by then, but I'm sure it wasn't exactly toasty.
Since Brett was home this time, he helped me kind of trick BHK into coming out of his box on his own, and then I kind of pounced on him with a towel and wrapped him up in it in case he decided to get scratchy. As soon as I was holding him though he was very good - not scratchy at all; not even squirmy (he probably felt my body heat and calmed down - he was so cold!).
So we put him in the garage and he lived there for about a week and a half, only coming out of his little heated box to eat, get pets, and poop. He actually didn't poop at ALL for the first two days and based on our cats' never-ending crap supply I found this lack of poop a little worrisome, but after about 48hrs he started pooping a couple times a day both in, and AROUND the litter box, so I'm really glad we put him in the garage. I kind of wonder if he wasn't pooping at first because he didn't have any food in him to poop. :(
After most of the snow had melted on the ground, and the night time temps were back in the 40's we decided to open the garage door and see if he was interested in leaving, and he just walked right out. I kind of hoped that if he had an owner, not seeing him for so long would scare them into taking him back inside, but within 24hrs he was back on our porch again.
I've been feeding him once a day ever since (half the amount that our cats get), and we've decided that next weekend we're going to call our local no-kill animal shelter to talk to them about whether or not we should bring him in.
I feel bad for not wanting to keep him, but our two cats are a bonded pair (they were litter mates), they have always been indoor cats, they never have "accidents," they're very healthy, fairly young (I think this guy is probably a senior), they're very needy, and I think Mordechai would be VERY jealous of another boy in the house.
Also, we really can't afford to take as good of care of him as we do Mordechai and Star (with food and anti-parasite meds, they're about $30 each per month, plus toys, treats, grooming supplies, and vet bills once or twice a year), and I'm sure he'll need lots of expensive special care at first too - he needs to be neutered, I bet he'll need his teeth cleaned (and possibly need dental surgery if no one's been taking care of his teeth all these years), he probably needs to be de-wormed, and if he hasn't had proper vaccinations he may even have leukemia or some other horrible disease. :(
I think he deserves a nice warm home, but I also don't want him in our house, and I think it's wrong of us to keep him caged up in the garage - when he was out there we had to *make* ourselves go out to pet him (our garage is on the other side of the house, and it's not a very cozy place to hang out), and even then we only went out there about four or five times a day.
At NOAH, which is where we adopted Mordechai and Star, he would be warm, fed, taken care of medically, AND given love and attention. It's a really great place. And he's a pretty friendly guy - maybe someone kind (who doesn't already have two indoor-only cats) would even adopt him! I feel bad stealing him away from the neighborhood where he's probably always roamed, and dumping him off at a kitty orphanage, but HE DESERVES A HOME, DAMMIT!!! A good one. Even if it is a shelter. That being said, we are going to *call* them first, so maybe they'll say to just leave him where he is because he might belong to someone...who knows. I just want him to have what he needs. :(
Thursday, December 07, 2006
OMG!!!
I was poking around in google images for pictures of chinchillas because of a picture of a bunny that Corey posted in my flickr picture comments through Alison's profile, and I stumbled upon THIS!!!:
I've censored their contact info, but EW! What jerks.
I've censored their contact info, but EW! What jerks.
My dad sent me this...
and it's pretty cute: http://badaboo.free.fr/merryxmas.swf
I guess when stuff like this starts showing up, it's a sign that I should really wrap up my christmas shopping. In more ways than one. Ha.
♥,
Cat
I guess when stuff like this starts showing up, it's a sign that I should really wrap up my christmas shopping. In more ways than one. Ha.
♥,
Cat
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Huh.
Apparently I don't give a rat's ass about the midwest. Also, any state that *I* visit should turn BLUE, biotch!
create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide
create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide
What's YOUR favorite tanning method?
Mine is to not tan at all. Not in a bed, not in the sun, not with a spray, or a lotion. Not in a box, not with a fox...you get the picture. Do I have a problem with dark skin? No! Of course not - it's beautiful. Do I think that MINE needs to be baked and painted until I'm no longer blindingly white? No. But apparently MSN disagrees. In their article about "looking beautiful all winter," listed right alongside helpful tips like "don't linger in the bath or shower" and "protect those tresses" is "self-tan."
WHY?!?
Dry skin and damaged hair I can understand avoiding, but I do NOT understand why the color of my skin is something I should try to change in order to be more "beautiful." Do YOU like pale skin? Yes? No? I mean, sure, there's washed-out pale, there's sickly pale, there's anemic pale, etc. But I have rosy cheeks. Rosy cheeks, dammit! I'm healthy!
I'll admit, I've tanned before. And I've self-tanned. And though I look pretty good with an actual tan, I also burn if I'm not careful, and because of my complexion and family history I have a high risk for skin cancer. Tan...cancer...tan...cancer...not worth it. The self-tanners I've tried in the past were all super high-end, but I never really felt like they looked close enough to the real thing, and they made my skin feel gross. So over time I grew to accept my skin for what it is: pale. Sometimes referred to as "marshmallow white," sometimes "fish belly white," "peaches and cream," "milky," "ivory," or even "damn girl! you are WHITE!" The list goes on. But I'm okay with it. I even LIKE my pale skin.
WHY?!?
Dry skin and damaged hair I can understand avoiding, but I do NOT understand why the color of my skin is something I should try to change in order to be more "beautiful." Do YOU like pale skin? Yes? No? I mean, sure, there's washed-out pale, there's sickly pale, there's anemic pale, etc. But I have rosy cheeks. Rosy cheeks, dammit! I'm healthy!
I'll admit, I've tanned before. And I've self-tanned. And though I look pretty good with an actual tan, I also burn if I'm not careful, and because of my complexion and family history I have a high risk for skin cancer. Tan...cancer...tan...cancer...not worth it. The self-tanners I've tried in the past were all super high-end, but I never really felt like they looked close enough to the real thing, and they made my skin feel gross. So over time I grew to accept my skin for what it is: pale. Sometimes referred to as "marshmallow white," sometimes "fish belly white," "peaches and cream," "milky," "ivory," or even "damn girl! you are WHITE!" The list goes on. But I'm okay with it. I even LIKE my pale skin.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Emotionally, my site is doing okay.
Chromatically, it's feeling pretty blue.
Please feel free to hate me just a little bit more after reading that; god knows I hate myself more after *writing* it.
GOOD NIGHT! :)
Please feel free to hate me just a little bit more after reading that; god knows I hate myself more after *writing* it.
GOOD NIGHT! :)
Saturday, December 02, 2006
LEE-chee, or LIE-chee? And some other stuff.
So a few months ago I got Fresh's A Spoonful of Sugar from Sephora, and I fell in love with Lychee Sugar - their newest addition to the Sugar line. I actually love it so much that I want a bigger bottle; it doesn't have a lot of staying power which is kind of too bad, but it has such a gentle, subtle smell that I kind of like spraying it all over (unlike Fracas which I usually only spray once). It's because of this new, spray-crazy tendency that it inspires in me that I think I'm going to run out before I get sick of it, which is why I want a full-sized bottle. So anyway, I talked to those fabulous folks over at Fresh and found out that it should be available in 100ml bottles by January. Woo! Which brings me to my current question:
Is it pronounced lee-chee, or lie-chee? I think I've always said lie-chee (and I've said it a lot), but every dictionary pronunciation I've found (well, I only tried a couple) have said lee-chee. But that sounds wrong to me! Ly looks like "lie" to my eyes, not like "lee," and Brett even says that the Chinese characters for the fruit (and China grows most of them) are pronounced lie-chee. What do YOU think, dear friends and readers? Please let me know so I don't sound like an ass when pronouncing the name of my own perfume.
On a completely unrelated note, I finished my Christmas Wish List, so...BUY ME STUFF! Just kidding. But seriously, you know...feel free. If you want to. And you already know my addy. If you're a stranger I love ya, but I'm not telling you where I live.
I think I want to change the colors of this site to blue, you know...for winter. We'll see if that happens.
And lastly...I've added some more wintry-type photos to flickr if you want to see them. Some of them are actually not that bad.
Is it pronounced lee-chee, or lie-chee? I think I've always said lie-chee (and I've said it a lot), but every dictionary pronunciation I've found (well, I only tried a couple) have said lee-chee. But that sounds wrong to me! Ly looks like "lie" to my eyes, not like "lee," and Brett even says that the Chinese characters for the fruit (and China grows most of them) are pronounced lie-chee. What do YOU think, dear friends and readers? Please let me know so I don't sound like an ass when pronouncing the name of my own perfume.
On a completely unrelated note, I finished my Christmas Wish List, so...BUY ME STUFF! Just kidding. But seriously, you know...feel free. If you want to. And you already know my addy. If you're a stranger I love ya, but I'm not telling you where I live.
I think I want to change the colors of this site to blue, you know...for winter. We'll see if that happens.
And lastly...I've added some more wintry-type photos to flickr if you want to see them. Some of them are actually not that bad.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
The Silent Killer
I think that's supposed to be carbon monoxide or something, but whenever big snowstorms hit I always think of it as snow. Maybe I SHOULD get drunk sometimes - I really need to chillax.
Anyhoo, so yeah; we've had a ton of snow. Well, not compared to like, Mt Rainier I guess, but a lot for us.
Shannon came over late Sunday night and ended up getting stuck here - at that point I was a *little* worried about what things would be like the next morning, but the snowfall was lightening up and it didn't seem THAT bad, so I figured things would be okay. There was enough snow on the ground to scrape up a quick snowball to toss at Brett in the kitchen (I enjoy thowing snowballs indoors, because that's where people least expect them), but not enough to cover the car. Yet.
The next morning things were much worse (about 8+ inches worse), but despite the news stations showing accidents and talking about downed trees, etc, Brett decided he should still try to go to work. Understandable - he's been gone for two weeks. Something to know however: he works 30 miles from here. Needless to say I was a bit concerned, but Shannon and I agreed to help him dig the car out, and even though my whomping cough is now even more whompinger (yes, I said that), it was so much fun that I think it was worth it.
We couldn't find any of our pairs of gloves, but B and I both have awesome matching blue parkas that are HUGE and keep you warm pretty much no matter what (thanks, dad). So Shannon threw on her gear, B tossed his giant parka on over his suit, and I threw mine on over my nightgown and a pair of knee-high leather boots with 3" heels (whatevs - it was 6am) and we went out with a broom, dustpan, and non-snow shovel to try and dig the Corolla out of the snow.
We shoveled and scraped and Brett kept "accidentally" brushing snow off the car straight into my boots, but we got the car cleaned off, and then worked on digging space in the snow behind the tires for easier backing-out. All the while, so much snow was still falling that it was even building up on top of our hoods, and on the newly cleaned off Corolla. Branches from several trees in our yard were literally TOUCHING THE GROUND they were so heavy with snow, and the big red bush by the driveway that usually stands taller than me had been flattened down to modest height of about four feet.
Shannon and I pointed all of these things out to Brett, but he still insisted on trying to make it to the office. Such a worker bee! So he gets in the car (it had been warming up while we shoveled) and I'm all stressed out and like, "I have my cellphone with me; call me if you need anything! Stay away from other cars on the freeway! I LOVE YOU!!!" Etc. Shannon and I back away from the car, Brett rolls up the window, throws it in reverse, backs down the driveway, and...
Fishtails right into the bushes by the mailbox. He's lucky he didn't commit a Federal offense. He tried for several tire-spinning minutes to move the car again, but to no avail. It was at that point he happened to receive a call from a co-worker who said that she'd been without power all night and was STILL snowed in and STILL without power, and that she wasn't coming in. I took this as an opportunity to peer pressure Brett back into the warm house with the justification that if he seriously can't even get out of the DRIVEWAY, how's he supposed to get all the way to work? And BACK?
Dispite his frustration, he came back inside and worked from home for a few hours. It stopped snowing around 8am and the sun came out, so Shannon decided to brave her way back across town to her parents' house, so she and I dug her car out while our neighbor took pictures (seriously, this is a LOT of snow for our town). Even with all of her Pullman snow-driving expertise, Shannon still had some difficulty getting her car onto the street, but once she was in the grooves most likely left behind by someone's beloved SUV, she was cool.
After that, Brett dialed into a meeting while I made a small bare-hand-crafted (where the fuck are all my gloves and mittens?) snow person out back. Brett decided to take another go at driving to work around 10am so we dug the car out again, and after he spent a few minutes ripping the shit out of my tires and filling the neighborhood with the smell of burning rubber, he too made it into the SUV grooves on the road, and ended up getting to work just fine.
Fortunately, he was able to leave work around 4pm and therefore also made it back HOME just fine; he probably beat the snow traffic by about 5 minutes, and according to the news "thousands" of people either didn't make it home at all last night, or spent about 5-6 hours getting there. Blech. So many cars were abandoned that apparently it was a 5-hour wait just for a tow truck.
Because of this, Premera decided to close this morning & B's boss was thoughtful enough to call at 5:30 to let him know (otherwise, he probably would've left a few minutes later). They opened up again at 8am though, so that's when he left, and he got there just fine not too long after.
Now it's afternoon-time, and even though none of our snow or ice has melted, cars are starting to get around just fine, as the grooves in the road get wider and wider. Our road still makes squeaky, crunchy noises when people drive by the house, but nobody seems to have trouble with it if they drive slow. Never the less, neither our garbage OR recycling have been picked up yet (they're supposed to go out Monday), and the guy who came this afternoon to change our phones to digital voice was here for about 5 minutes, said something about the phone wire they use being really fragile in the cold and about the ground being frozen, blah blah blah, and said he'd have to come back another time. Weak.
On a more disturbing note, have you seen Britney Spears' vagina lately? I didn't think there was a young hot celebrity crotch out there more cringe inducing than Paris Hilton's public restroom of a coochie. I guess I was wrong.
Anyhoo, so yeah; we've had a ton of snow. Well, not compared to like, Mt Rainier I guess, but a lot for us.
Shannon came over late Sunday night and ended up getting stuck here - at that point I was a *little* worried about what things would be like the next morning, but the snowfall was lightening up and it didn't seem THAT bad, so I figured things would be okay. There was enough snow on the ground to scrape up a quick snowball to toss at Brett in the kitchen (I enjoy thowing snowballs indoors, because that's where people least expect them), but not enough to cover the car. Yet.
The next morning things were much worse (about 8+ inches worse), but despite the news stations showing accidents and talking about downed trees, etc, Brett decided he should still try to go to work. Understandable - he's been gone for two weeks. Something to know however: he works 30 miles from here. Needless to say I was a bit concerned, but Shannon and I agreed to help him dig the car out, and even though my whomping cough is now even more whompinger (yes, I said that), it was so much fun that I think it was worth it.
We couldn't find any of our pairs of gloves, but B and I both have awesome matching blue parkas that are HUGE and keep you warm pretty much no matter what (thanks, dad). So Shannon threw on her gear, B tossed his giant parka on over his suit, and I threw mine on over my nightgown and a pair of knee-high leather boots with 3" heels (whatevs - it was 6am) and we went out with a broom, dustpan, and non-snow shovel to try and dig the Corolla out of the snow.
We shoveled and scraped and Brett kept "accidentally" brushing snow off the car straight into my boots, but we got the car cleaned off, and then worked on digging space in the snow behind the tires for easier backing-out. All the while, so much snow was still falling that it was even building up on top of our hoods, and on the newly cleaned off Corolla. Branches from several trees in our yard were literally TOUCHING THE GROUND they were so heavy with snow, and the big red bush by the driveway that usually stands taller than me had been flattened down to modest height of about four feet.
Shannon and I pointed all of these things out to Brett, but he still insisted on trying to make it to the office. Such a worker bee! So he gets in the car (it had been warming up while we shoveled) and I'm all stressed out and like, "I have my cellphone with me; call me if you need anything! Stay away from other cars on the freeway! I LOVE YOU!!!" Etc. Shannon and I back away from the car, Brett rolls up the window, throws it in reverse, backs down the driveway, and...
Fishtails right into the bushes by the mailbox. He's lucky he didn't commit a Federal offense. He tried for several tire-spinning minutes to move the car again, but to no avail. It was at that point he happened to receive a call from a co-worker who said that she'd been without power all night and was STILL snowed in and STILL without power, and that she wasn't coming in. I took this as an opportunity to peer pressure Brett back into the warm house with the justification that if he seriously can't even get out of the DRIVEWAY, how's he supposed to get all the way to work? And BACK?
Dispite his frustration, he came back inside and worked from home for a few hours. It stopped snowing around 8am and the sun came out, so Shannon decided to brave her way back across town to her parents' house, so she and I dug her car out while our neighbor took pictures (seriously, this is a LOT of snow for our town). Even with all of her Pullman snow-driving expertise, Shannon still had some difficulty getting her car onto the street, but once she was in the grooves most likely left behind by someone's beloved SUV, she was cool.
After that, Brett dialed into a meeting while I made a small bare-hand-crafted (where the fuck are all my gloves and mittens?) snow person out back. Brett decided to take another go at driving to work around 10am so we dug the car out again, and after he spent a few minutes ripping the shit out of my tires and filling the neighborhood with the smell of burning rubber, he too made it into the SUV grooves on the road, and ended up getting to work just fine.
Fortunately, he was able to leave work around 4pm and therefore also made it back HOME just fine; he probably beat the snow traffic by about 5 minutes, and according to the news "thousands" of people either didn't make it home at all last night, or spent about 5-6 hours getting there. Blech. So many cars were abandoned that apparently it was a 5-hour wait just for a tow truck.
Because of this, Premera decided to close this morning & B's boss was thoughtful enough to call at 5:30 to let him know (otherwise, he probably would've left a few minutes later). They opened up again at 8am though, so that's when he left, and he got there just fine not too long after.
Now it's afternoon-time, and even though none of our snow or ice has melted, cars are starting to get around just fine, as the grooves in the road get wider and wider. Our road still makes squeaky, crunchy noises when people drive by the house, but nobody seems to have trouble with it if they drive slow. Never the less, neither our garbage OR recycling have been picked up yet (they're supposed to go out Monday), and the guy who came this afternoon to change our phones to digital voice was here for about 5 minutes, said something about the phone wire they use being really fragile in the cold and about the ground being frozen, blah blah blah, and said he'd have to come back another time. Weak.
On a more disturbing note, have you seen Britney Spears' vagina lately? I didn't think there was a young hot celebrity crotch out there more cringe inducing than Paris Hilton's public restroom of a coochie. I guess I was wrong.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Tiny Hair!
So okay, *I* haven't taken any pictures of my tiny new haircut, but Alison has! Since I'm all scrunched up holding Shirley-kitty up to the camera with my giant, fat arm, you can't really see the whole haircut, but at least you can see that it's short:
And if you haven't seen him recently, please also note that Brett has (finally) shaved his faux-terrorist beard:
And if you haven't seen him recently, please also note that Brett has (finally) shaved his faux-terrorist beard:
Oh the weather outside is frightful...
And we should really get our chimney swept
And Brett totally needs to go to work tomorrow
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
So...yeah. I'd say we have a good two inches so far, and it's only falling thicker and faster as the evening has progressed. It's supposed to get warmer before dawn tomorrow though, so maybe it'll all be slush by the time Brett leaves. I hate it when Brett has to commute on icy roads, and I've heard that the power is already out in parts of Everett from tree branches falling, so now I'm worried about both falling branches AND the power going out here, but so far things have been fine. I'm just sitting here with the last of our thanksgiving left overs, some cranberry Sierra Mist, and a bunch of open Safari tabs adding things to my "giftsforme" tagged Wists. Nice and cozy. :)
I wish Brett could stay home with me and be snowed in tomorrow, but I know he'll try to get into work no matter how bad the weather is, because he's been out for two weeks, and before this he was only there for two weeks after being gone for a previous two week stint.
Don't think he's been on vaca this whole time, either; in October one of the two weeks was to do work offsite for Virginia Mason, and the other was bereavement for my grandpa in Oklahoma, and this month the first of the two weeks was to train people in Spokane, and the second (which is just now ending) was vaca. Even the vacation time wasn't super relaxing - he flew back from Spokane Friday night, and then bright and early Saturday morning we drove to Portland for appointments (hair for me, nutritionist for me, life coach for both), marathon Christmas shopping, and visiting with my fam.
Brett came down with a cold Sunday night but pushed through the whole visit like a champ. I drove us home Tuesday afternoon while Brett slept (still feeling crappy), and when we finally got home we pretty much just crashed and slept through the night. Wednesday was spent with me looking up Thanksgiving recipes for "mashed potato alternatives" (since Brett's allergic to potatoes) and tidying up at home, while Brett searched our local grocery stores for yucca and/or Jerusalem artichokes. I started to feel sort of worn down on Wednesday night but hoped it would just go away. Thursday (Thanksgiving!) morning I made like, seriously, six quarts of mashed potatoes (using three different kinds of potatoes, boiled separately, mashed by hand, and mixed with homemade roasted garlic) while Brett (not having found a store that carries Jerusalem artichokes in November) peeled, boiled, & mashed his yucca. Not an easy process - yucca are NOT as soft as potatoes.
Thanksgiving dinner was perfect and happy and great, and after dinner we hung out with Brett's family and had pie and cheesecake and other goodies and watched Slither, which I've seen three times since I got it from Netflix last week, and which I bought on Friday because IT'S FRIGGING AWESOME. By the time Slither was over though, I was feeling pretty sick, so we went home soon after that and I went to sleep. Friday morning we were out the door at 6am for Thanksgiving sales (Fred Meyer & Best Buy), then drove downtown to meet up with my mom, Brian, Joe, Chris, Sarah, Maria, and Joe's friend Morgan to see Bodies.
After the Exhibition I was feeling pretty sick, which had less to do with spending two hours staring down skin-stripped cadavers and more to do with my rapidly increasing temperature. Bodies was amazing btw; if you're near one of the hosting locations you should totally go. At our exhibition they even had a teratoma, complete with hair AND teeth! But freakshow-esque medical anomalies aside, it was really quite awe-inspiring. I'd even go so far as to say it was beautiful. And everyone there seemed very respectful of the men, women and children whose bodies were on display, which was nice too.
But I digress. The POINT was that after the exhibition I felt like shit. We were supposed to go see "The Pick of Destiny" right after Bodies, but by the time we got up north I already had a pretty bad fever, so Brett thought we should just stay home. I actually cried. Which should've been a clue to myself that I was too sick to do anything, but no. I told him that if we weren't going to see a movie, we at least had to do SOMETHING, so we went shopping for awhile (and ran into Alison and pals at Pier 1) until I was so sick I was almost falling over, and then we went home, and I pretty much slept and coughed and whined and snotted and slept and drank water and slept and whined and slept and ate crackers and slept until this morning.
Which sucked, because last night we were supposed to see "Anything Goes", featuring our one of our bestest friends: Jon. So Brett went sans-Cat and got to see Jon's play, hang out with Megan, Aaron, Dan, and Jon after the play, and got to go to ♥Applebees♥ until 2am while I coughed and snotted and slept and ate crackers and slept. When we finally woke up (late) this morning, I felt well enough to at least sit upright (which is something, trust me), so I've been slothing around in the living room all day.
Which pretty much brings me up to date. I still haven't taken any pictures of my new hair, but since I'm sure no one wanted to see it all pillow-smashed and fever-sweaty, I don't feel badly about putting it off till later. :)
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Does Anyone Remember Popples?
I LOVED popples when I was a kid, and I was looking for a comment graphic for a friend of ours who's having a baby and I came across this:
and almost peed my pants. THEY'RE SO CUTE!!!
In other, less important news, I cut off my hair! Well, half of it anyway. It's now shoulder length, and it's soooo much lighter and easier to take care of. I keep referring to it as my "tiny hair" because it just feels so much smaller than before - my ponytail right now doesn't even hit the back of my neck! I'm getting used to it pretty quickly though; it's a pretty good haircut. :)
HAPPY THANKSGIVING! :D
and almost peed my pants. THEY'RE SO CUTE!!!
In other, less important news, I cut off my hair! Well, half of it anyway. It's now shoulder length, and it's soooo much lighter and easier to take care of. I keep referring to it as my "tiny hair" because it just feels so much smaller than before - my ponytail right now doesn't even hit the back of my neck! I'm getting used to it pretty quickly though; it's a pretty good haircut. :)
HAPPY THANKSGIVING! :D
Monday, November 06, 2006
Can I just say...
Thank god we have a brand new sump pump. Click HERE for more info. And check out this craptacular extended forcast for our zipcode:
If I were Christian, I'd probably be building an ark right now. Or you know...I'd like, already have built it. Since I think that's how the story went.
If I were Christian, I'd probably be building an ark right now. Or you know...I'd like, already have built it. Since I think that's how the story went.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Cractober
I'm not feeling well, but I promised myself I'd write a post today, so here goes. Anyone who has emailed me recently and not gotten a reply, fear not! I've been out of town, and will respond to you as soon as I...well...feel like it.
My paternal grandfather passed away the week before last, and Brett and I were in Oklahoma last week visiting with family and attending his services. I'm sad he had to go, but he's suffered with Parkinson's for awhile now (and I guess at the end it was pretty bad), so at least he's at peace. And even though we were in mourning, it was still nice to see my dad, step-mom, and little brothers Joe, Sam, and Jacob, and to reconnect with extended family members I haven't seen in a long time.
We got back late Saturday night, had an impromptu brunch with my mom, step-dad, and step-brother Mike on Sunday morning to celebrate Mike's birthday, ran some errands and then, faced with my first afternoon at home with nothing to do in quite some time, I decided to get sick. :D Well, *I* didn't decide, but I think my body did. I've felt crappy for the past week or so, but for the last 24 hrs I've pretty much had a full blown cold; sneezing, runny nose, stuffy head, headache, achy muscles/joints, cough, sore throat, ear aches, heavy chest, dizziness, nausea...the works.
So...yeah. I feel like poo, and Brett has a ton of catching up to do at work so he can't really help take care of me, so I'm just here throwing an itty bitty pity party for myself. It's cool, though. At least I'm not on sick time, since I don't have a job! :) And the weather today was stunning; I love sunny cold fall days.
Blah. Anyway, I'm done sitting up at this computer, so I'm going to go curl up with my blanket and crackers again and watch Charmed. Later, skaters.
My paternal grandfather passed away the week before last, and Brett and I were in Oklahoma last week visiting with family and attending his services. I'm sad he had to go, but he's suffered with Parkinson's for awhile now (and I guess at the end it was pretty bad), so at least he's at peace. And even though we were in mourning, it was still nice to see my dad, step-mom, and little brothers Joe, Sam, and Jacob, and to reconnect with extended family members I haven't seen in a long time.
We got back late Saturday night, had an impromptu brunch with my mom, step-dad, and step-brother Mike on Sunday morning to celebrate Mike's birthday, ran some errands and then, faced with my first afternoon at home with nothing to do in quite some time, I decided to get sick. :D Well, *I* didn't decide, but I think my body did. I've felt crappy for the past week or so, but for the last 24 hrs I've pretty much had a full blown cold; sneezing, runny nose, stuffy head, headache, achy muscles/joints, cough, sore throat, ear aches, heavy chest, dizziness, nausea...the works.
So...yeah. I feel like poo, and Brett has a ton of catching up to do at work so he can't really help take care of me, so I'm just here throwing an itty bitty pity party for myself. It's cool, though. At least I'm not on sick time, since I don't have a job! :) And the weather today was stunning; I love sunny cold fall days.
Blah. Anyway, I'm done sitting up at this computer, so I'm going to go curl up with my blanket and crackers again and watch Charmed. Later, skaters.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
It's Oh So Quiet
Brett and I are in Seaside right now, having a quiet afternoon at my parents place before we caravan out to Portland to have dinner at their house with my brother Joe. Brett's downstairs talking to my mom, and I just imported a bunch of photos I took on the beach - lots of carrion, some garbage, a few surfers and some gulls...the usual. Maybe I'll upload them next week. Anyhoo, speaking of which, I uploaded a bunch of stuff to Flickr before we left on this trip, and I finally put up an "about me" page, so feel free to check everything out and give me feedback!
We're leaving soon so I should go pack our stuff, but tomorrow we're doing something pretty interesting before we head back to M'ville, so maybe I'll write about that once we're back in town. Or...you know. Like, two weeks after that. I'm not making any promises. :)
We're leaving soon so I should go pack our stuff, but tomorrow we're doing something pretty interesting before we head back to M'ville, so maybe I'll write about that once we're back in town. Or...you know. Like, two weeks after that. I'm not making any promises. :)
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Woohoo!
ALL FOUR designers are going to fashion week! If you don't know what I'm talking about, you should. Well, some of you should, at least. And if you do know what I'm talking about...OMG!!! I totally squealed when I found out nobody was going home. My favorite designer left is Laura (and oddly enough, I actually DO like mothballs and chicken soup), and after that I'm torn, simply because all of them are so unique, and all of them are so talented. I can't wait to see all of their shows. Yay!!! :D
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
It's Raining, It's Pouring
Well, it's been raining for like...what...four days? Since Sunday. and it's supposed to rain tomorrow, too. I really like the contrast to all the sunny, blue-skied weather we had over the summer, but I'm sort of tired of being cold, and both Brett and I have been having dry skin lately, because our bodies have had to get used to having the heat on again. And I don't think our sump pump is doing that great, which is no good. The water level is about as low as it usually is during the rainy seasons, but every time it turns on it sounds weird. Like, usually it sounds kind of like a garbage disposal...like a low, gurgley whirring sound, but for the last two days it's sounded higher and more chirpy, like whirring, metallic cicadas. If that makes any sense. I hope it doesn't break down completely before it stops raining enough for us to clean/repair/replace it. Depending on what the problem ends up being. I'm crossing my fingers for easily removable debris.
Monday, September 04, 2006
I don't feel like talking about myself right now (that's odd)...
But I feel like posting anyway, so here's a recap of some things I saw while online today:
Steve Irwin Died
No More Bush
Cat Box
Cat Nap
A New Use for Chairs
Completely Uncalled For
Steve Irwin Died
No More Bush
Cat Box
Cat Nap
A New Use for Chairs
Completely Uncalled For
Friday, August 25, 2006
God DAMN this pirate movie sucks.
Sci Fi is playing "Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove" right now, and I tried to sit and watch it, then I tried to fidget with an exercise band and watch it, and now I'm sitting at my computer and only turning to the tv when people scream or sound like they have something important to say. Just before the last commercial break, the pirate was cutting a drunk's head off, and I swear the head actually fell off a split second before the sword actually "cut through" the neck. Then it hit the floor, and THEN the blood spatter hit the wall. It was awesome.
I'm sleepy though, so fuck it...I should just go to bed. Brett and Tony and Brian did a bunch more work in the yard today, so it'll look less like a jungle and more like a work-in-progress when people come over on Saturday. At least we're only having like 15 people, so it's not like we NEED the yard to be in great shape; everyone can just fit on the decks. And Brett (aka The King of the Castle) fixed the hot tub, so at least there's that.
My first crock pot dinner went well; I guess what I made is called a pot roast, according to Brett. It was a giant hunk of cow carcass that I covered in a marinade and cooked on low for 6 hrs. Then I pulled the meat apart with forks and we made it into shredded bbq beef sammies. They were delish.
"You're not takin' my head without a fight! Aaaaaaarrrrggghhh!!!" *swing, sploosh, clunk.* That really wasn't much of a fight. I wonder if their budget ran out half-way through filming...it's like they're not even trying.
So anyway, I'm making beef stroganoff in the crock tomorrow. It should be good...I should totally take the meat out of the freezer before I go to bed though. The only things I hate about crock pot cooking are 1) that I have to smell dinner for so long during the day that by the time it's time to eat it, I don't want it anymore; and 2) at least after the beef sammies, that thing was naaasty with baked on, caked on grease. Well, not really grease, more like dried up bbq sauce. But still. Naaasty. And there was like congealed fat floating on top of the sauce after I took the beef out and the pot cooled off...it was sick.
Speaking of sick...is it wrong that I bought Fergie's London Bridge on iTunes yesterday? I think she's such a skeaze, but it kept getting stuck in my head, and I listened to it like four times today, and every time it played I couldn't help but shake my ass. "I'm a lady but I'm dancin' like a ho..." Indeed.
Oh Jebus, thank god that movie is over. Horror movies that end with a surprise bad guy comeback and then a scream that fades to shitty thrown-together, made-for-tv music over sped up credits are so lame. I'm going to go to bed now, and while I'm falling asleep I'm going to watch "Lethal Swarms: Killer Bees" to try to clear that pirate shit out of my head so I don't have nightmares. I definitely think "Lethal Swarms: Killer Bees" is the best choice. Yep. That's a wise decision.
Wait...wtf?!? This episode of Who Wants to be a Superhero is NEW?!? I'm totally watching this. I really wish Feedback would stop being such a pussy, though. I hope he doesn't win.
Good night, true believers. <3
I'm sleepy though, so fuck it...I should just go to bed. Brett and Tony and Brian did a bunch more work in the yard today, so it'll look less like a jungle and more like a work-in-progress when people come over on Saturday. At least we're only having like 15 people, so it's not like we NEED the yard to be in great shape; everyone can just fit on the decks. And Brett (aka The King of the Castle) fixed the hot tub, so at least there's that.
My first crock pot dinner went well; I guess what I made is called a pot roast, according to Brett. It was a giant hunk of cow carcass that I covered in a marinade and cooked on low for 6 hrs. Then I pulled the meat apart with forks and we made it into shredded bbq beef sammies. They were delish.
"You're not takin' my head without a fight! Aaaaaaarrrrggghhh!!!" *swing, sploosh, clunk.* That really wasn't much of a fight. I wonder if their budget ran out half-way through filming...it's like they're not even trying.
So anyway, I'm making beef stroganoff in the crock tomorrow. It should be good...I should totally take the meat out of the freezer before I go to bed though. The only things I hate about crock pot cooking are 1) that I have to smell dinner for so long during the day that by the time it's time to eat it, I don't want it anymore; and 2) at least after the beef sammies, that thing was naaasty with baked on, caked on grease. Well, not really grease, more like dried up bbq sauce. But still. Naaasty. And there was like congealed fat floating on top of the sauce after I took the beef out and the pot cooled off...it was sick.
Speaking of sick...is it wrong that I bought Fergie's London Bridge on iTunes yesterday? I think she's such a skeaze, but it kept getting stuck in my head, and I listened to it like four times today, and every time it played I couldn't help but shake my ass. "I'm a lady but I'm dancin' like a ho..." Indeed.
Oh Jebus, thank god that movie is over. Horror movies that end with a surprise bad guy comeback and then a scream that fades to shitty thrown-together, made-for-tv music over sped up credits are so lame. I'm going to go to bed now, and while I'm falling asleep I'm going to watch "Lethal Swarms: Killer Bees" to try to clear that pirate shit out of my head so I don't have nightmares. I definitely think "Lethal Swarms: Killer Bees" is the best choice. Yep. That's a wise decision.
Wait...wtf?!? This episode of Who Wants to be a Superhero is NEW?!? I'm totally watching this. I really wish Feedback would stop being such a pussy, though. I hope he doesn't win.
Good night, true believers. <3
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Well, crap.
I guess I should write something, otherwise August will go by without a single post.
Here's some stuff that's been happening:
"I am no longer with Washington Mutual."
They laid me off (because I didn't want to move to Tex-ass), but I have to say: it feels really good not to work for WaMu anymore. I loved, LOVED most of the people I had the privilege of working with in Canyon Park, and once I was working as a business analyst I even loved the actual work part of my job too. :) That being said, I've never liked big business much, and WaMu is no exception. As the t-shirt says, "the feeling is mutual." I feel renewed after spending a few weeks away from that place; like my spirit's been washed clean after spending almost four years of my life giving my all for a cause I didn't really believe in. Not that I didn't love the problem solving opportunities - I just wish my fabulous skills had been helping out like, orphans, or people with special needs or something. Puppies with three legs...you know, that sort of thing.
Das Hausfrau
Now my brilliant mind and all the skills WaMu paid for me to learn are being used to run our household, which has been great. On a spiritual level it's probably not as satisfying as say, reading to blind parapledgic battered seniors in a cancer hospice or something, but overall, it's still been extremely satisfying. I've felt more grounded, more organized, more at peace, and less stressed out than I can ever remember feeling. Almost every day I wake up relaxed and clear-headed, like I've just come off vacation or something. Don't get me wrong; it's not like a VACATION; it's just not as hectic as it was when I was working AND we were trying to take care of ourselves and our house. Every day I wake up and I have a full day of work to do, but the house is mostly clean, I don't feel overwhelmed, I know what I have to do that day, I have a good idea of what I'm making for dinner and I know we have everything I'll need to make it, my commute is non-existent, I can give my cats the attention/grooming/playtime they deserve, and Brett can focus on his career without using up his freetime doing chores or picking up takeout food. Or cooking, though by the time I left WaMu we mostly just ate takeout.
Sometimes it's exhausting to sort of ALWAYS be working; there's no one here to stop me from working too much overtime, and nights and weekends are sort of a requirement, but I've learned that part of time management is saying, "Okay, I was cooking and cleaning until 9pm yesterday, so today I'm taking it easy." I did that yesterday, and when Brett got home he was like, "Wow, the kitchen is messy..." but I just said I wasn't doing dishes that day, and he didn't say anything else about it. :) Now I have about an hour's worth of kitchen work to do TODAY because of it, but that time off yesterday was well worth it. Working with a tighter budget has also been a difficult learning experience - I almost cried after looking through the latest Sephora catalog, because though I don't NEED ANY more makeup or perfume, I still WANT it, and I might have to get a part time job before the year is through just so we can buy some basic extra things (not to mention xmas presents), but so far we're doing okay.
Fleas?!? WORMS?!?
Because Sasha had such a bad reaction the one and only time we gave her Advantage, we chose NOT to give Mordechai and Star flea medication, because they're indoor cats, so they're less at risk. LESS at risk still means they're at risk though, and last May I noticed Star scratching her neck a little more aggressively than usual, and I was like, "Hmm...I bet they have fleas." But I couldn't actually SEE any fleas when I checked her fur, so Brett insisted that she was just itchy. Brett! It was all his fault. ;) Then at the end of JUNE I was sitting on the floor packing up our toiletries for our 4th of July vaca, and a flea jumped onto my leg. Then it jumped back into the carpet (aka flea metropolis) from which it came, and I knew we were sunk. By the time we got home from the coast, the house was FILLED with fleas. Seriously. I'd like, sit down at my desk, look at my feet, and see FIVE fleas on my toes and ankles. It was sick. I felt like our house should be on Cops or something. So, so ghetto. But because we're hippies, I couldn't bring myself to fill our house with toxic flea bomb chemicals (if I'm supposed to remove all the food from our house first, why would I want it to get on our counters, makeup, remote control, phone, or anything else that could get on our hands or face?), so we just groomed the kitties very well, vacuumed EVERYTHING, EVERYDAY, used bug repellents, put down a baking soda/salt mixture that supposedly desiccates them, washed our laundry obsessively, and waited. By the end of July things were pretty much under control, and in the entire month of August we've only seen three live fleas, so I think things are looking good.
We ended up taking the kitties to the vet though, just to make sure they were okay (plus it was almost time for their annuals anyway). They were weighed (they're both fat: Mordie is about 14.5lbs, and I think Star was 13.5lbs), their temps were taken (normal), they got their shots (feline leukemia and some upper respiratory thing), their teeth were inspected (they both need cleanings, but not too badly), their ears, eyes and everything else looked good, and then the doctor left to go look at the poop samples we'd brought in. When she came back? WORMS!!! Mordechai, that filthy, dirty, boy, had WORM eggs in his poop.
So the vet gave them each (Star too, to be on the safe side) some banana flavoured worm medication which they hated (but in a cute, pouty-but-cooperative way), and gave us extra vials to take home for later. Before the vet appointment I'd done some research on different flea meds, and decided that as long as the vet approved, I wanted the kitties' next dose of goo to be Revolution, rather than Advantage (which we don't like because of Sasha's reaction) or Frontline (which we'd given them a month before their appointment), because Revolution protects against a bunch of other parasites besides fleas. Including the type of worms that Mordechai had infected himself with while on Frontline. I don't think it protects against ticks, but I haven't seen any ticks in this area, so hopefully they're not too common on our side of the mountains. Anyway, so the vet not only approved of Revolution but actually RECOMMENDED it over everything else, so we bought a year's supply from her (for almost the same price as our Frontline had been while ON SALE at drugstore.com - about $11 a dose), and she gave them the first dose for us, and that was that. Now, a few weeks later, both kitties are snuggled up together napping happily on the recliner across the room from me - apparently worm and flea-free. :)
Samedi est la Bee Bee Queue
I've been trying to learn (relearn? I studied it for a couple of years as a kid, does that count?) French. So far I know how to SAY a handful of things, but I can't really spell anything. I knew Samedi, but I still had to look up the spelling. Anyway, so Saturday is the (not French) Bee Bee Queue. The BBQ. :) It was supposed to be a very large work-party to have people help us work on our much neglected yard (and then we'd pay them in food), but after much grumbling from some of the first invitees, we decided to scrap the "work" and just have the "party." Brett's parents spent a few hours here on Saturday and helped us cut down, rip out, and pile up a TREMENDOUS amount of shit (and some things that weren't shit, but that were just overgrown or in a bad place), and then Tony and his brother came over on Monday and helped make another giant pile, and now our yard looks naked and bare and exposed. Except for the spots where there are still weeds, and a few spots where we kept plants that were cool, like a few maple trees, some bamboo, random evergreens, a few rhodies, a cherry tree, a krabappel tree, etc. Brett made several trips to the dump in a much-appreciated borrowed truck, but there's still a lot of stuff piled up, and a lot of stuff that still needs to be cut down/piled up. But little by little we'll cram it all into our "greenie" (the giant yard waste bin the county empties each week), so eventually it'll look better. It already looks better than before, even though it does look pretty stark.
What a Crock of Shit
Grr! After every single little subtitle in this post, I've meant to type "</b>" and typed "</b?" instead. What the crap?!? Anyway, for dinner tonight I'm making bbq beef sammiches, and I'm using a crock pot for the VERY FIRST TIME EVER. Brett's used it lots, but I never have. I also don't recall ever cooking beef before. But I guess I just throw it into the crock pot and turn it on, and it does the cooking FOR me, which is awesome. Speaking of which, they take 6hrs, so fuck...I should really get started on that.
Here's some stuff that's been happening:
"I am no longer with Washington Mutual."
They laid me off (because I didn't want to move to Tex-ass), but I have to say: it feels really good not to work for WaMu anymore. I loved, LOVED most of the people I had the privilege of working with in Canyon Park, and once I was working as a business analyst I even loved the actual work part of my job too. :) That being said, I've never liked big business much, and WaMu is no exception. As the t-shirt says, "the feeling is mutual." I feel renewed after spending a few weeks away from that place; like my spirit's been washed clean after spending almost four years of my life giving my all for a cause I didn't really believe in. Not that I didn't love the problem solving opportunities - I just wish my fabulous skills had been helping out like, orphans, or people with special needs or something. Puppies with three legs...you know, that sort of thing.
Das Hausfrau
Now my brilliant mind and all the skills WaMu paid for me to learn are being used to run our household, which has been great. On a spiritual level it's probably not as satisfying as say, reading to blind parapledgic battered seniors in a cancer hospice or something, but overall, it's still been extremely satisfying. I've felt more grounded, more organized, more at peace, and less stressed out than I can ever remember feeling. Almost every day I wake up relaxed and clear-headed, like I've just come off vacation or something. Don't get me wrong; it's not like a VACATION; it's just not as hectic as it was when I was working AND we were trying to take care of ourselves and our house. Every day I wake up and I have a full day of work to do, but the house is mostly clean, I don't feel overwhelmed, I know what I have to do that day, I have a good idea of what I'm making for dinner and I know we have everything I'll need to make it, my commute is non-existent, I can give my cats the attention/grooming/playtime they deserve, and Brett can focus on his career without using up his freetime doing chores or picking up takeout food. Or cooking, though by the time I left WaMu we mostly just ate takeout.
Sometimes it's exhausting to sort of ALWAYS be working; there's no one here to stop me from working too much overtime, and nights and weekends are sort of a requirement, but I've learned that part of time management is saying, "Okay, I was cooking and cleaning until 9pm yesterday, so today I'm taking it easy." I did that yesterday, and when Brett got home he was like, "Wow, the kitchen is messy..." but I just said I wasn't doing dishes that day, and he didn't say anything else about it. :) Now I have about an hour's worth of kitchen work to do TODAY because of it, but that time off yesterday was well worth it. Working with a tighter budget has also been a difficult learning experience - I almost cried after looking through the latest Sephora catalog, because though I don't NEED ANY more makeup or perfume, I still WANT it, and I might have to get a part time job before the year is through just so we can buy some basic extra things (not to mention xmas presents), but so far we're doing okay.
Fleas?!? WORMS?!?
Because Sasha had such a bad reaction the one and only time we gave her Advantage, we chose NOT to give Mordechai and Star flea medication, because they're indoor cats, so they're less at risk. LESS at risk still means they're at risk though, and last May I noticed Star scratching her neck a little more aggressively than usual, and I was like, "Hmm...I bet they have fleas." But I couldn't actually SEE any fleas when I checked her fur, so Brett insisted that she was just itchy. Brett! It was all his fault. ;) Then at the end of JUNE I was sitting on the floor packing up our toiletries for our 4th of July vaca, and a flea jumped onto my leg. Then it jumped back into the carpet (aka flea metropolis) from which it came, and I knew we were sunk. By the time we got home from the coast, the house was FILLED with fleas. Seriously. I'd like, sit down at my desk, look at my feet, and see FIVE fleas on my toes and ankles. It was sick. I felt like our house should be on Cops or something. So, so ghetto. But because we're hippies, I couldn't bring myself to fill our house with toxic flea bomb chemicals (if I'm supposed to remove all the food from our house first, why would I want it to get on our counters, makeup, remote control, phone, or anything else that could get on our hands or face?), so we just groomed the kitties very well, vacuumed EVERYTHING, EVERYDAY, used bug repellents, put down a baking soda/salt mixture that supposedly desiccates them, washed our laundry obsessively, and waited. By the end of July things were pretty much under control, and in the entire month of August we've only seen three live fleas, so I think things are looking good.
We ended up taking the kitties to the vet though, just to make sure they were okay (plus it was almost time for their annuals anyway). They were weighed (they're both fat: Mordie is about 14.5lbs, and I think Star was 13.5lbs), their temps were taken (normal), they got their shots (feline leukemia and some upper respiratory thing), their teeth were inspected (they both need cleanings, but not too badly), their ears, eyes and everything else looked good, and then the doctor left to go look at the poop samples we'd brought in. When she came back? WORMS!!! Mordechai, that filthy, dirty, boy, had WORM eggs in his poop.
So the vet gave them each (Star too, to be on the safe side) some banana flavoured worm medication which they hated (but in a cute, pouty-but-cooperative way), and gave us extra vials to take home for later. Before the vet appointment I'd done some research on different flea meds, and decided that as long as the vet approved, I wanted the kitties' next dose of goo to be Revolution, rather than Advantage (which we don't like because of Sasha's reaction) or Frontline (which we'd given them a month before their appointment), because Revolution protects against a bunch of other parasites besides fleas. Including the type of worms that Mordechai had infected himself with while on Frontline. I don't think it protects against ticks, but I haven't seen any ticks in this area, so hopefully they're not too common on our side of the mountains. Anyway, so the vet not only approved of Revolution but actually RECOMMENDED it over everything else, so we bought a year's supply from her (for almost the same price as our Frontline had been while ON SALE at drugstore.com - about $11 a dose), and she gave them the first dose for us, and that was that. Now, a few weeks later, both kitties are snuggled up together napping happily on the recliner across the room from me - apparently worm and flea-free. :)
Samedi est la Bee Bee Queue
I've been trying to learn (relearn? I studied it for a couple of years as a kid, does that count?) French. So far I know how to SAY a handful of things, but I can't really spell anything. I knew Samedi, but I still had to look up the spelling. Anyway, so Saturday is the (not French) Bee Bee Queue. The BBQ. :) It was supposed to be a very large work-party to have people help us work on our much neglected yard (and then we'd pay them in food), but after much grumbling from some of the first invitees, we decided to scrap the "work" and just have the "party." Brett's parents spent a few hours here on Saturday and helped us cut down, rip out, and pile up a TREMENDOUS amount of shit (and some things that weren't shit, but that were just overgrown or in a bad place), and then Tony and his brother came over on Monday and helped make another giant pile, and now our yard looks naked and bare and exposed. Except for the spots where there are still weeds, and a few spots where we kept plants that were cool, like a few maple trees, some bamboo, random evergreens, a few rhodies, a cherry tree, a krabappel tree, etc. Brett made several trips to the dump in a much-appreciated borrowed truck, but there's still a lot of stuff piled up, and a lot of stuff that still needs to be cut down/piled up. But little by little we'll cram it all into our "greenie" (the giant yard waste bin the county empties each week), so eventually it'll look better. It already looks better than before, even though it does look pretty stark.
What a Crock of Shit
Grr! After every single little subtitle in this post, I've meant to type "</b>" and typed "</b?" instead. What the crap?!? Anyway, for dinner tonight I'm making bbq beef sammiches, and I'm using a crock pot for the VERY FIRST TIME EVER. Brett's used it lots, but I never have. I also don't recall ever cooking beef before. But I guess I just throw it into the crock pot and turn it on, and it does the cooking FOR me, which is awesome. Speaking of which, they take 6hrs, so fuck...I should really get started on that.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Yay!
HE came upstairs to meet US, and was very cool and laid back and bowed to US for being his target demo. I shook his hand, and met his wife, Dori. They just bought the place next door, so we'll probably see them again. And again and again. WOO!
Holy Shit.
Brett and I are staying at my parents' beach house for the week, and right now CHRIS CARTER (of x-files fame) is downstairs having wine with my parents. The sad thing is that though Sam, Joe, Brett and I are all total sci fi nerds, we're all too geeky to feel comfortable introducing ourselves. Maybe I'll go down there now though...I fucking love that show.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Worst Episode EVER.
Blogger has been down ALL DAY. I'm going home soon (I'm at work, der), but here are some things I think you should know:
1) I was eating a lolly and thought "I'll take a cool camera phone pic and post it to my blog, because it's purple, and it'll match!" After like, seven different shots of me trying to do it in that very commercial, 1996 Hard Candy ad campaign kind of way (and failing miserably), I took this one, and called it a day:
I made it small to try and hide its blurriness, but nothing can hide how hilariously bad it is. It's so terrible that it's AWESOME.
2) The FMA was shot down by the senate today, which is cool beans.
3) My cat's breath smells like cat food.
4) My throat hurts, and I've lost my voice. Probably from the THREE lollipops I've consumed today. Jebus.
5) I forgot to add Shannon's b-day gifts to my tally: Lost postcards from television w/out pity (I forget how many there were, and I'm at work so I can't count them), a pessimism mug from despair.com that has a half-way mark on the side and says "this glass is half empty," and a sticky note cube (I LOVE STICKY NOTES!) from despair.com that says:
PROCRASTINATION
Hard Work Often Pays Off After Time,
But Laziness Always Pays Off Now.
Word. Thanks Shannon! :)
1) I was eating a lolly and thought "I'll take a cool camera phone pic and post it to my blog, because it's purple, and it'll match!" After like, seven different shots of me trying to do it in that very commercial, 1996 Hard Candy ad campaign kind of way (and failing miserably), I took this one, and called it a day:
I made it small to try and hide its blurriness, but nothing can hide how hilariously bad it is. It's so terrible that it's AWESOME.
2) The FMA was shot down by the senate today, which is cool beans.
3) My cat's breath smells like cat food.
4) My throat hurts, and I've lost my voice. Probably from the THREE lollipops I've consumed today. Jebus.
5) I forgot to add Shannon's b-day gifts to my tally: Lost postcards from television w/out pity (I forget how many there were, and I'm at work so I can't count them), a pessimism mug from despair.com that has a half-way mark on the side and says "this glass is half empty," and a sticky note cube (I LOVE STICKY NOTES!) from despair.com that says:
PROCRASTINATION
Hard Work Often Pays Off After Time,
But Laziness Always Pays Off Now.
Word. Thanks Shannon! :)
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Holy crap, IT'S JUNE.
The last year has passed by so quickly...it'll be nice to be unemployed for a little while I think, just so I can take some time to stop and smell the roses. Speaking of roses, I smell delicious! I'm trying out Incanto Charms today, and I really like it. It reminds me of Origins' Spring Fever, but a little bit smoother and more refined. And less sticky-sweet. Anyway, back to work...
Monday, May 29, 2006
Updated Birthday Tally (again)
8 cards
1 bouquet of flowers
2 cakes
a $25 gift certificate to Target
a $40 check
a $325 gift certificate to C&B (Thanks, Mom!)
Sam's graduation announcement from Poo U (okay, not really a "birthday present," but woohoo!)
MS OFFICE FOR MAC!!! (Thanks, Dad!)
$100 cash (Thanks again, Dad!)
a backrub from Brett (that ended up being a footrub, really)
homemade chocolate chip cookies, mailed from Eugene (thanks, Megaron!)
a tart (the dessert, not the female companion)
a box of Philosophy goodies
a box of Murad goodies
UD's Blow Lip Plumper
Dior's DiorKiss in Lychee Rose (which was funny, because before I saw the color name I put it on and said, "this tastes like lychee, but kind of florally...")
Sephora's All Over Color Palette in Shades of Brown
dinner and a movie with Brett and Jon
dinner and a movie with the Jackson/Argentine family
a shopping spree in the COOLEST YARN STORE EVER
and lots of emailed and IMed "Happy Birthday!" greetings.
And holy crap, SUPER TROOPERS is on tv right now. Which is like, one of my top-ten all-time favorite movies. Woo! Off to couch potato. Yes, I did just use that as a verb. Yay! :)
1 bouquet of flowers
2 cakes
a $25 gift certificate to Target
a $40 check
a $325 gift certificate to C&B (Thanks, Mom!)
Sam's graduation announcement from Poo U (okay, not really a "birthday present," but woohoo!)
MS OFFICE FOR MAC!!! (Thanks, Dad!)
$100 cash (Thanks again, Dad!)
a backrub from Brett (that ended up being a footrub, really)
homemade chocolate chip cookies, mailed from Eugene (thanks, Megaron!)
a tart (the dessert, not the female companion)
a box of Philosophy goodies
a box of Murad goodies
UD's Blow Lip Plumper
Dior's DiorKiss in Lychee Rose (which was funny, because before I saw the color name I put it on and said, "this tastes like lychee, but kind of florally...")
Sephora's All Over Color Palette in Shades of Brown
dinner and a movie with Brett and Jon
dinner and a movie with the Jackson/Argentine family
a shopping spree in the COOLEST YARN STORE EVER
and lots of emailed and IMed "Happy Birthday!" greetings.
And holy crap, SUPER TROOPERS is on tv right now. Which is like, one of my top-ten all-time favorite movies. Woo! Off to couch potato. Yes, I did just use that as a verb. Yay! :)
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Updated Birthday Tally
YES! The best birthday EVER! Well, a pretty good one, anyway. This year's current b-day loot:
6 cards
1 bouquet of flowers
2 cakes
a $25 gift certificate to Target
a $40 check
a $325 gift certificate to C&B (Thanks, Mom!)
Sam's graduation announcement from Poo U (okay, not really a "birthday present," but woohoo!)
MS OFFICE FOR MAC!!! (Thanks, Dad!)
$100 cash (Thanks again, Dad!)
a backrub from Brett
and lots of emailed and IMed "Happy Birthday!" greetings.
I expect more gifts later tonight and this weekend, so I'll continue to update this list, even though Brett thinks it's rude. I'm just excited to get so much attention. And stuff. And money. Woo!
6 cards
1 bouquet of flowers
2 cakes
a $25 gift certificate to Target
a $40 check
a $325 gift certificate to C&B (Thanks, Mom!)
Sam's graduation announcement from Poo U (okay, not really a "birthday present," but woohoo!)
MS OFFICE FOR MAC!!! (Thanks, Dad!)
$100 cash (Thanks again, Dad!)
a backrub from Brett
and lots of emailed and IMed "Happy Birthday!" greetings.
I expect more gifts later tonight and this weekend, so I'll continue to update this list, even though Brett thinks it's rude. I'm just excited to get so much attention. And stuff. And money. Woo!
Birthday Lunch!
Despite our group pact to start bringing our lunches instead of going out so much (which was MY idea), I neglected to bring a lunch today. I asked if anyone else would go somewhere with me, but they'd all brought lunches. duh. So I said that was fine and I'd walk to the deli by myself (and I really meant that it was fine; I wasn't upset), but instead Joel, Allycia, Barb, and Adriene walked down with me. YAY! Tuna on white (no pickle), and Mug rootbeer. Thank you very much. Also! Please excuse the crappy cellphone pic, but check out this weather:
If I believed in Jebus, I would think that even HE was wishing me a happy birthday too. :D
If I believed in Jebus, I would think that even HE was wishing me a happy birthday too. :D
Happy Birthday to Me! :)
So far I've received:
1 card
1 bouquet of flowers
2 cakes
a $25 gift certificate to Target
and several emailed and IMed "Happy Birthday!" greetings.
And it's only 8:52am!
Despite the horrible traffic this morning, and what I'm going through at work with my own site and my poor little JX site, I'm having a pretty good day so far. :)
1 card
1 bouquet of flowers
2 cakes
a $25 gift certificate to Target
and several emailed and IMed "Happy Birthday!" greetings.
And it's only 8:52am!
Despite the horrible traffic this morning, and what I'm going through at work with my own site and my poor little JX site, I'm having a pretty good day so far. :)
Thursday, May 04, 2006
More narcissism, then sleep.
Shannon suggested I take the Armory's 500 Point Nerdity Purity Test, so I did. Shannon...it was totally boring. AND it made me insecure in my nerdiness. AND I realized like half way through it that I've taken it before. But here are my results:
Your 500 Point Nerdity Purity Test Results
You answered "yes" to 211 of 500 questions, making you 57.8% nerd pure; that is, you are 57.8% pure in the nerd domain (you have 42.2% nerd in you).
According to the scoring guide, your nerd experience level is: You refuse to live anywhere without pizza delivery
Your Weirdness Factor (AKA Uniqueness Factor) is 12%, based on a comparison of your test results with 52554 other submissions for this test.
Also, I filled out a 600 question survey last fall (also courtesy of Shannon) but I don't think I ever posted it, so I took it again last weekend and am posting a link to my answers here, since I still haven't done anything with my about me page. Hopefully I'll get to work on that soon, but you never know with me. Good night! :)
Your 500 Point Nerdity Purity Test Results
You answered "yes" to 211 of 500 questions, making you 57.8% nerd pure; that is, you are 57.8% pure in the nerd domain (you have 42.2% nerd in you).
According to the scoring guide, your nerd experience level is: You refuse to live anywhere without pizza delivery
Your Weirdness Factor (AKA Uniqueness Factor) is 12%, based on a comparison of your test results with 52554 other submissions for this test.
Also, I filled out a 600 question survey last fall (also courtesy of Shannon) but I don't think I ever posted it, so I took it again last weekend and am posting a link to my answers here, since I still haven't done anything with my about me page. Hopefully I'll get to work on that soon, but you never know with me. Good night! :)
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
101!!!
Oh my gosh...I hit 100 posts, and I was going to be all like, "yeah! I've had 100 posts!" and I totally let the opportunity pass, and I didn't even notice. But now I have 101 posts! Woo! 101 posts in almost 3 years' time is pretty pathetic though. But at least it's not as bad as my livejournal.
Okay, so the purpose of this post is to plug another awesome band. Their sound is completely different than Arctic Monkeys (more pop/electronica) but it's still very good, and their latest EP has some rapping bits that remind me of the Streets. OMG Ai, that's not the guy from The Streets, is it?!? It's probably not him, but still. It's really good!!! Anyway, they have (and have had, since January apparently) an EP available on iTunes, so if you want to have a listen, check it out here. Word. And good night. :)
Okay, so the purpose of this post is to plug another awesome band. Their sound is completely different than Arctic Monkeys (more pop/electronica) but it's still very good, and their latest EP has some rapping bits that remind me of the Streets. OMG Ai, that's not the guy from The Streets, is it?!? It's probably not him, but still. It's really good!!! Anyway, they have (and have had, since January apparently) an EP available on iTunes, so if you want to have a listen, check it out here. Word. And good night. :)
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Dad, this post is not for you (if you want to be able to sleep at night).
Okay, so I've been trying to figure out what to do with my "about me" page (obviously, because it's blank). I think I'm going to just put up like, random facts, links to surveys I've taken, quiz scores, maybe some pics, some other stuff, etc. so I took some quizes tonight, and I'll post them to my "about me" page later, but I'm posting them here for now so that I don't lose them if I accidentally close my browser window, because they took like, hours. I'll start with the dad-friendly scores, just incase you're still reading, dad. :)
This is the long one, I copied it from Tony's site, and stole his idea of posting all 5 results (in order of like, what I am the most, to what I am the least, according to this particular test):
Next is the "Quick and Dirty IQ Test," which I obviously took because of the name. It was quick, but not in any way dirty, except for the fact that it said my logical intelligence is "below average," which makes it a dirty whore. And a liar. Stupid quiz, that's such bullshit!
And now for the purity tests. I've taken the 500 question omnisexual purity test before, and I always scored between 32-37%, so either the 1,000 question one has a lot more stuff I haven't done, or I've just forgotten what a whore I used to be, because my score has somehow gotten MORE pure. All the tests below were taken through www.armory.com.
Your 1000 Point Purity Test Results
You answered "yes" to 555 of 1000 questions, making you 44.5% sexually pure (55.5% sexually corrupt); that is, you are 44.5% pure in the sex domain.
Your Weirdness Factor (AKA Uniqueness Factor) is 32%, based on a comparison of your test results with 62460 other submissions for this test.
Your Greedy Bisexual Test Purity Test Results*
You answered "yes" to 58 of 100 questions, making you 42.0% bisexual greediness pure (58.0% bisexual greediness corrupt); that is, you are 42.0% pure in the greedy bisexual domain.
Your Weirdness Factor (AKA Uniqueness Factor) is 29%, based on a comparison of your test results with 8538 other submissions for this test.
*I'm seriously not really bi. My guy:girl crush ratio is like 95:5. No, like 97:3.
Your Female Purity Test Results
You answered "yes" to 83 of 100 questions, making you 17.0% sexually pure (83.0% sexually corrupt); that is, you are 17.0% pure in the sex domain.
Your Weirdness Factor (AKA Uniqueness Factor) is 33%, based on a comparison of your test results with 477675 other submissions for this test.
Your [Mental] Purity Test Results
You answered "yes" to 183 of 260 questions, making you 29.6% [mental] pure (70.4% [mental] corrupt).
On that note, I'm going to bed. For non-dirty pre-work sleepytime. Good night! :)
This is the long one, I copied it from Tony's site, and stole his idea of posting all 5 results (in order of like, what I am the most, to what I am the least, according to this particular test):
Your #1 Match: INFJ |
The Protector You live your life with integrity, originality, vision, and creativity. Independent and stubborn, you rarely stray from your vision - no matter what it is. You are an excellent listener, with almost infinite patience. You have complex, deep feelings, and you take great care to express them. You would make a great photographer, alternative medicine guru, or teacher. |
Your #2 Match: INFP |
The Idealist You are creative with a great imagination, living in your own inner world. Open minded and accepting, you strive for harmony in your important relationships. It takes a long time for people to get to know you. You are hesitant to let people get close. But once you care for someone, you do everything you can to help them grow and develop. You would make an excellent writer, psychologist, or artist. |
Your #3 Match: INTJ |
The Scientist You have a head for ideas - and you are good at improving systems. Logical and strategic, you prefer for everything in your life to be organized. You tend to be a bit skeptical. You're both critical of yourself and of others. Independent and stubborn, you tend to only befriend those who are a lot like you. You would make an excellent scientist, engineer, or programmer. |
Your #4 Match: INTP |
The Thinker You are analytical and logical - and on a quest to learn everything you can. Smart and complex, you always love a new intellectual challenge. Your biggest pet peeve is people who slow you down with trivial chit chat. A quiet maverick, you tend to ignore rules and authority whenever you feel like it. You would make an excellent mathematician, programmer, or professor. |
Your #5 Match: ISFJ |
The Nurturer You have a strong need to belong, and you very loyal. A good listener, you excell at helping others in practical ways. In your spare time, you enjoy engaging your senses through art, cooking, and music. You find it easy to be devoted to one person, who you do special things for. You would make a good interior designer, chef, or child psychologist. |
Next is the "Quick and Dirty IQ Test," which I obviously took because of the name. It was quick, but not in any way dirty, except for the fact that it said my logical intelligence is "below average," which makes it a dirty whore. And a liar. Stupid quiz, that's such bullshit!
| Your IQ Is 140 |
 Your Logical Intelligence is Below Average Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius Your General Knowledge is Genius |
And now for the purity tests. I've taken the 500 question omnisexual purity test before, and I always scored between 32-37%, so either the 1,000 question one has a lot more stuff I haven't done, or I've just forgotten what a whore I used to be, because my score has somehow gotten MORE pure. All the tests below were taken through www.armory.com.
Your 1000 Point Purity Test Results
You answered "yes" to 555 of 1000 questions, making you 44.5% sexually pure (55.5% sexually corrupt); that is, you are 44.5% pure in the sex domain.
Your Weirdness Factor (AKA Uniqueness Factor) is 32%, based on a comparison of your test results with 62460 other submissions for this test.
Your Greedy Bisexual Test Purity Test Results*
You answered "yes" to 58 of 100 questions, making you 42.0% bisexual greediness pure (58.0% bisexual greediness corrupt); that is, you are 42.0% pure in the greedy bisexual domain.
Your Weirdness Factor (AKA Uniqueness Factor) is 29%, based on a comparison of your test results with 8538 other submissions for this test.
*I'm seriously not really bi. My guy:girl crush ratio is like 95:5. No, like 97:3.
Your Female Purity Test Results
You answered "yes" to 83 of 100 questions, making you 17.0% sexually pure (83.0% sexually corrupt); that is, you are 17.0% pure in the sex domain.
Your Weirdness Factor (AKA Uniqueness Factor) is 33%, based on a comparison of your test results with 477675 other submissions for this test.
Your [Mental] Purity Test Results
You answered "yes" to 183 of 260 questions, making you 29.6% [mental] pure (70.4% [mental] corrupt).
On that note, I'm going to bed. For non-dirty pre-work sleepytime. Good night! :)
Monday, April 24, 2006
Great Grapes!
So this place is purple now, instead of pink. And soon it will be hosted by our friend Tony, which will be cool and cheap. Since I'm getting laid off within the next few months, cheap is good. :)
And yay! Now I've posted. And! It's super nice outside. Woohoo!
Oh, and I made a new (and fairly facetious) myspace profile. It's probably not for viewing at work unless your work is pretty laid back, but I think it's pretty funny. Also, I think I want to give myself makeovers more often now, because it was really fun to do.
And yay! Now I've posted. And! It's super nice outside. Woohoo!
Oh, and I made a new (and fairly facetious) myspace profile. It's probably not for viewing at work unless your work is pretty laid back, but I think it's pretty funny. Also, I think I want to give myself makeovers more often now, because it was really fun to do.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
OMG
Okay, so those of you who've spent almost any amount of time around me since last fall have probably heard me cooing over the ARCTIC MONKEYS. "They're really, really great!" I'd say. "You should check them out!" I'd tell people. "God save the Queen!" I'd shout from street corners. Okay, so that last one isn't true. But yay! After months spent listening to demos, shitty bootlegged live recordings, and the FIVE songs they had available on iTunes, last month they finally came out with not only another EP, but a FULL LENGTH ALBUM! Finally. But that's not what the OMG is for, because really, it was about time for that to happen. What is OMG-worthy is the fact that this week I have 1) heard that they're playing at the Sasquatch! Music Festival, 2) heard them played on The End, 3) Seen an ad for their new album in the header row of the main page of iTunes' US store, and 4) heard that they're performing on SNL on March 11. Not that I watch SNL anymore, but I'll at least try to catch it that night. Maybe. Okay, this is coming off like a plug for the band now, so I'll stop. Wait, no, it IS a plug for the band. You should check them out! Even Brett likes them. :)
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Oh Woooouldn't It Be Adequate!
1) My current (soon to be former) webhosting service (Splice Host) has fucked up for the LAST TIME. Their servers are constantly going down, and this last week my site was down AGAIN because they neglected to renew my domain name with the registration service they use (they're a reseller). So I'm in the process of trying to switch to Yahoo, in the hopes that since they're a larger company they'll be more reliable (I have a sneaking feeling that Splice is like, five 20-somethings with two servers and a bong). Anyway...moving on.
2) I've been really, really sick. I had a bad cold that turned into a sinus infection that turned into strep, I went on antibiotics two weeks ago and the sinus infection cleared up, the strep felt better, and I *JUST* started to feel like I was over the cold and had just finished my 10 days of penicillin when my strep came back. It was awesome...I not only had those gross white strep spots all over my giant, scarred and swollen tonsils (and even on my uvula), but I even had PUSTULES on my soft palette. When my doctor cultured my throat again last Friday the swab was pink with blood when she pulled it out. So once she confirmed that I still had strep (duh) she bumped me up from 250mg of penicillin to 500mg, and hopefully it'll go away this time. I hope so, because I really can't miss any more work.
3) We saw Jon in My Fair Lady at 2nd Story Rep last weekend and it was a great show and now we're watching the Simpsons and they're doing their take on what? WHAT? MY FAIR LADY. How weird is that?!?
4) I'm taking a Communication Styles class for work tomorrow and I'm really nervous about it, because it's only my second management-level class, and I'm NOT a manager, so I'll probably be way less experienced than everyone else there. Plus I'm not good at meeting new people, AND I have to drive myself there and I've never driven in the city it's in before.
5) I watched the PJR (Project Runway) reunion show this weekend, and also saw PJJ (Project Jay) and I've always loved Heidi Klum, but I thought it was shitty that she changed her mind about wearing Jay's dress to the Emmys. That's so lame. It's also lame that I can't find his clothes anywhere. And though there are lots of things I have trouble finding around here simply because Seattle is a little behind-the-times when it comes to fashion, I don't think that's the case this time. Does anyone know when his line will finally debut?
6) I'm tired, and we have cookie dough for desert, so I'm going to go eat it.
2) I've been really, really sick. I had a bad cold that turned into a sinus infection that turned into strep, I went on antibiotics two weeks ago and the sinus infection cleared up, the strep felt better, and I *JUST* started to feel like I was over the cold and had just finished my 10 days of penicillin when my strep came back. It was awesome...I not only had those gross white strep spots all over my giant, scarred and swollen tonsils (and even on my uvula), but I even had PUSTULES on my soft palette. When my doctor cultured my throat again last Friday the swab was pink with blood when she pulled it out. So once she confirmed that I still had strep (duh) she bumped me up from 250mg of penicillin to 500mg, and hopefully it'll go away this time. I hope so, because I really can't miss any more work.
3) We saw Jon in My Fair Lady at 2nd Story Rep last weekend and it was a great show and now we're watching the Simpsons and they're doing their take on what? WHAT? MY FAIR LADY. How weird is that?!?
4) I'm taking a Communication Styles class for work tomorrow and I'm really nervous about it, because it's only my second management-level class, and I'm NOT a manager, so I'll probably be way less experienced than everyone else there. Plus I'm not good at meeting new people, AND I have to drive myself there and I've never driven in the city it's in before.
5) I watched the PJR (Project Runway) reunion show this weekend, and also saw PJJ (Project Jay) and I've always loved Heidi Klum, but I thought it was shitty that she changed her mind about wearing Jay's dress to the Emmys. That's so lame. It's also lame that I can't find his clothes anywhere. And though there are lots of things I have trouble finding around here simply because Seattle is a little behind-the-times when it comes to fashion, I don't think that's the case this time. Does anyone know when his line will finally debut?
6) I'm tired, and we have cookie dough for desert, so I'm going to go eat it.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
I'm finally catching up on shit around the house.
So my site is up, but it needs a lot of work, obviously. But I think this looks pretty good. I love pink. What do you think?
Dad - I keep thinking about you and I know I need to email you back, you are the coolest EVER, and we got new cellphones earlier this month and I need to give you our numbers.
Everyone else - check out my wists! My dad did, and he got me an ipod nano that I use constantly, every day. He and mom also got us a new dining room table and chairs from Crate and Barrel as both an xmas and FIFTH ANNIVERSARY gift. Congrats to Brett and me! Woohoo!
You don't really have to buy me stuff though, especially since we still haven't gotten around to sending out most of our xmas cards and some presents yet. So by the way, anyone who didn't get an xmas card from us, you're not alone, no one did. We're sending them out as "Chinese New Year" cards instead, even though they're like, blue and white.
We're so f'ing ghetto.
Dad - I keep thinking about you and I know I need to email you back, you are the coolest EVER, and we got new cellphones earlier this month and I need to give you our numbers.
Everyone else - check out my wists! My dad did, and he got me an ipod nano that I use constantly, every day. He and mom also got us a new dining room table and chairs from Crate and Barrel as both an xmas and FIFTH ANNIVERSARY gift. Congrats to Brett and me! Woohoo!
You don't really have to buy me stuff though, especially since we still haven't gotten around to sending out most of our xmas cards and some presents yet. So by the way, anyone who didn't get an xmas card from us, you're not alone, no one did. We're sending them out as "Chinese New Year" cards instead, even though they're like, blue and white.
We're so f'ing ghetto.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
OMFG.
Why did no one tell me there was a new, COLOR teen girl squad episode?!? It was soOOOo GOOD! TGS is my favorite thing on H*R! RPG! *RPG!* KMFDM!!! PDF! TTFN! XTRNG! X-T-R-N-G. I hope you're reading this, WAMU WFM, because no one else is going to get that last acronym but you. Well, probably other people will get it too, but whatevs, I'm hittin' the hay.
Creeping. Rusty. Meat.
Truly the heart and soul of all death metal.
Today was a big day of changes at work, but I can't really talk about it, because I'm not interested in getting Dooced. Completely unrelated to the changes, I ended up having to stay late, which I was bummed about. When I came home though, Brett had dinner almost ready, and I decided to not do anything at all except sit back and watch a movie and try to relax. Since George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" went back this morning, I have two things from Netflix right now: "American Bellydancer" and "Playing by Heart." Since I was going to give the film my full attention with the lofty expectation that it force me into happiness, I decided "Playing by Heart" would be best, because for some reason I thought it was supposed to be one of those goofy, Meg Ryan-esque comedies. Wow. I was so wrong. I would not, NOT, call this a "happy" movie, but it was really beautiful, in a way that something goofy could never have been. It was about all kinds of relationships, and I felt that it was really healthy and touching. Definitely sad though, so don't watch it to feel happy, because it will fail you miserably. But if you watch it to feel GOOD, but not exactly happy, it works. It kind of reminded me of Angels. Or at least, made me think of Angels a little. It was probably the AIDS. Because you know, anything involving complicated relationships and AIDS is automatically the same as Angels. :) Plus I thought the photography, design, and music were nice. I still had to watch the new Strong Bad email to relax enough to go to sleep though. And I'm still trying to relax, but I should just go to bed. GOOD NIGHT!
Today was a big day of changes at work, but I can't really talk about it, because I'm not interested in getting Dooced. Completely unrelated to the changes, I ended up having to stay late, which I was bummed about. When I came home though, Brett had dinner almost ready, and I decided to not do anything at all except sit back and watch a movie and try to relax. Since George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" went back this morning, I have two things from Netflix right now: "American Bellydancer" and "Playing by Heart." Since I was going to give the film my full attention with the lofty expectation that it force me into happiness, I decided "Playing by Heart" would be best, because for some reason I thought it was supposed to be one of those goofy, Meg Ryan-esque comedies. Wow. I was so wrong. I would not, NOT, call this a "happy" movie, but it was really beautiful, in a way that something goofy could never have been. It was about all kinds of relationships, and I felt that it was really healthy and touching. Definitely sad though, so don't watch it to feel happy, because it will fail you miserably. But if you watch it to feel GOOD, but not exactly happy, it works. It kind of reminded me of Angels. Or at least, made me think of Angels a little. It was probably the AIDS. Because you know, anything involving complicated relationships and AIDS is automatically the same as Angels. :) Plus I thought the photography, design, and music were nice. I still had to watch the new Strong Bad email to relax enough to go to sleep though. And I'm still trying to relax, but I should just go to bed. GOOD NIGHT!
Monday, January 16, 2006
Yay Me!
I spent my WHOLE three-day weekend working on my website, and I'm actually almost ready to upload my new design. I still have a long way to go until my content is sufficiently reorganized, but at least the design is done. Alison saw it on Sunday and she HATES it, so I think I'm on the right track. I'm going for something that truly expresses what a gemini I am, so the design itself is intended to reflect my cute and girly side in order to create an almost uncomfortable contrast to my sick and macabe side. Which means I'll have to post some more sick/macabe stuff. Hopefully it'll be up soon. In the meantime, I uploaded all of my old slideshows to flickr, which took me all afternoon and evening. Please view them through this link until I get my "photographs" page up. Eventually I'll probably just have "photographs" be a link to my flickr sets itself, but I really hate the way it looks over there, and since I can't customize the layout and colors of my flickr home yet, I want to (try to) have a gateway page from my own site. For now though, I'm off to bed. Happy (observed) birthday, MLK! :)
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Oy.
I'm trying to fix up my site. But I'm...so...tired. And I have a lot going on at work tomorrow. So for now...I quit. Good night. :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)