FO: A New Hat for Andy

So on one of our many walks into (or maybe out of, memory is such an iffy thing with me lately) Fremont, Andy mentioned that the hat I'd made him a couple years ago (here's a picture, I warn you it is scary-big and up close) this one, maybe needed some re-blocking or some-such magic as it didn't want to fit over his ears anymore. I didn't take a pre-re-blocked picture, but yeah, his lobes were poking out.

He said he didn't mind it much as he was tending to wear the brim folded up anyway, mostly to annoy Tim. Especially if they were out drinking. He kinda liked that "above the ear" style so much he wanted a new hat. Thus:

The I'm Not a Yarmulke, Really! Hat

I thought blue would set off his eyes some.
And the other random colors cuz one color would bore me so. I really like the way the colors pooled, or flashed or whatever you want to call it. It's like he has a wave or flames on the side of his head, tee hee.
The Pattern: Handmaiden Modified Half-Dome from Fey's blog.
Yes, of course I messed with it, can't leave well enough alone...as well as maybe followed the bits he crossed out...like having Andy try it on and realize it wasn't gonna fit so I had to rip back and make it deeper. Fun times, there, oh yeah, party, party, party. It was also a wee different gauge, and maybe the needles were not the same as called for, but it worked out. And of course I'm stalling here...ummmm...urg, can't find it so....

The Yarn: Right, that pesky ball-band thing...it is officially hiding from me. I think it's Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Lupine. Yes, I used sock yarn. It's super warm though, what with the mohair and all.

Needles: US 2s. It didn't take nearly as long as you think it would. I'm thinking mostly because US2s seem so much bigger than the US1s and 0s I use for socks. There's that pesky perspective again.

I'll verify the yarn if I ever find that ball-band. I don't know if I can happily knit with mohair though, even as little as this one has (15%), it does tend to find it's way up my nose and down my throat. I'm just glad I'm not allergic, I guess. That would have sucked so very much.

Hats are a nice break from socks as they don't require partners either. Yes, I have tons of yarn left over from this half-dome, but my friend Lev has solved that little dilemma. No, he does not want a matching hat. But he'd love a mis-matched pair of socks! He never matches his socks, it's a pet peeve of his to wear matching socks, actually. So I'm digging through my left-overs and am currently making him his first sock from the yarn left-over from Andy's first hat! If that works, and enough time and mohair has gotten out of my system, I'll cast on to complete his non-pair with this one!

Human Nature?

Sometimes I think I should have taken more sociology courses in college.  Maybe a few psychology classes might have helped me in my day to day observations of people.  I know what I see and hear from my awesome seating arrangement at work (in a closet across from the kitchenette) has given me a window into human nature that I really wish I could close sometimes.

 

Did you know most people will speak at full volume while washing dishes or hands, thinking their voice doesn't carry over the water?  And even though there has been someone in this closet for YEARS now, they seem shocked when you slide your door closed so you can conduct your telephone conversation/testing/one of the millions of things you have to do before 3:00 p.m. on a Friday.  Yet if you speak too loudly by their desks, these same voices make rather impatient noises giving you not-so-subtle hints that maybe you shouldn't be speaking so loud ABOUT WORK, near them.

 

If some small thing changes, I get to hear 50 different exclamations of the same shock and surprise, to no one!  Hello?  The room is empty!  Who is it you are talking to?  Yourself?  Cuz me?  If I am sitting across the way, with my door half closed and haven't even seen you, and maybe have my ear buds in?  I'm so not paying attention to your exclamation of shock, awe and surprise about the treats someone has left for our floor, the mess someone has left for us all to find, the new fridge, or (and especially so) the disappearance of the water cooler!

 

And speaking about that water cooler? The sign is on the fridge.  ON. THE. FRIDGE. PEOPLE!  Opening the fridge to look for the water cooler is not even a sensible option if the SIGN?  Did I already mention it is ON! THE! FRIDGE!  Practice literacy!  It's amazing what wonderful things you will learn!  Like maybe the location of the water cooler?

 

But, really, can someone tell me why everyone keeps opening the fridge door to look for the missing water cooler?  I need to understood that little action.  I once had a housemate that would open the freezer every once in a while hoping to find that the ice cream fairy had left him a half-gallon of his favorite ice cream.  He was also the one who let me into the secret that guys will channel-surf with the hopes that they will see skin, girl skin preferably in his case, naked people even better.

 

Humans are weird.

It's Not Just Me...

When the receptionist wants to know exactly how I'm supposed to be three people at once next week?  I can finally justify my worry.  I am about to sound like a cocky SOB, but really now, this is where I would like to be less competent.  Where I want to be a flake of the utmost proportions.  Where people think my name and then shake their heads wondering why oh why did the temp agency send "her."

 

Cuz I am fearing losing my shit next week.  I keep telling myself it's just a temp gig, what do I care?  Except these same people just interviewed me yesterday for a position NOT in this department.  I maybe was too honest when I said I'd love to move into their department because numbers don't have this tendency to yell at me for them not having passed their tests, or call me to tell me they can't make such and such day and can I reschedule, while other numbers are dropping more and more into my inbox so that I can barely make it to the door of my closet.  But maybe I didn't use those words specifically.  But maybe close.  Cuz by yesterday afternoon as I waded through two peoples' worth of work, I was wondering how exactly I'd gotten into this mess?

 

Aaaauuuum.

 

Something Random, or LA LA LA Gonna Ignore it and Think of Something Else:

When I took my afternoon break I had some odd-ball thoughts in my head.  The one I could not shake is the artwork theme of this building.  The focus really is shown in the art.  It's very beautiful and very striking and yet I started to wonder if some of the pieces were made by the artisan to fool the tourists.  Cuz if someone came into my village and was looking for aboriginal-style/old-world/full-of-culture art pieces?  I could totally see me making up something to make fun of the tourists.  Isn't that just awful?

 

I'm also the kind of person to go and ask someone who knows Kanji and will not lie to me, exactly what the characters on this or that piece of crockery mean?  Cuz the store owner might have said, "Oh, this one is 'prosperity' and this one 'happiness'" but in reality it means "FOOLED YOU!" or "Got yer money, biatch!"

 

Yes, I did indeed make a knitting bag with Asian symbols all over it.  I have not a doubt in my mind that somewhere in all the characters something in the style of, "I am a big poo head" is spelled out.  I have reached "jadedness" in epic proportions here. 

Scheduling Breaks

I get it now...maybe...that whole "recess" and "lunchtime" and if you were unlucky enough to have a school day extend through 3 p.m., an "afternoon break."

 

Those bells and super scheduled days are exactly what I need to keep myself from working through such magically restful things as breaks.

 

Is that why my mom loved working at a school?  They took their daily break at 11:10 a.m.  That was the time 3rd period began....I think...but no matter what part of the school they were in, they could hear the bells.  Maybe that's why I was so enamored of the striking ship's clock?  You could figure out what time it was then as well and whether or not your watch-shift had begun or was about to end.  And my long-ago lost Casio digital watch with all the different timers, alarms, and stopwatches (possibly 2 or 3 of each).  I knew exactly how late I'd be to classes and how long I had until my work day was over...I'm not at all motivated to schedule in breaks via Outlook or any thing so goofy, get...but I may be getting there.

 

I have a number of posts I meant to put up a while ago...there's a hat to show off, an award I've been given, I just found out I won a contest!  But neither the time nor the motivation has been with me since my last entry/rant.  If I were not on a break right now, I'd add that I need to get back to those folks, but that would be talking about work, and we're on a break right now.  Did I mention break?

 

I am two people this week.  Maybe more like 1.75.  Next week, I'll be 2.5.  I will need to highly schedule myself so I don't go insane with work, cuz yesterday?  I put in 10 hours, and it still wasn't quite enough.  Yup, those bells seem like such a good idea right now.

If You Really Feel the Need to Anger Me...

...Just call me a liar.

I had no idea, either.

 

So part of my job is all about putting up online advertising of the open positions.  HTML and I are good buddies by this point.  So are online credit card transactions.  Having played on the Accounting team, I know all about turning in my receipts promptly and not making anyone have to wait for back-up information, that is just plain rude and frustrating for the A/P person.

 

Low and behold I get a copy of the statement and on it is a charge no one can reconcile.  It's for an ad.  One I never placed, costing over $1,000 for a position we'd already advertised with a certain company.  Hoo boy.

 

So I call the company and speak with their support personnel, I'll call him D, and I wanted to wring his neck.  He never raised his voice, go D!  But I too can easily use a perfectly cordial tone to tell you what a piece-of-crap, poor excuse for a human being I think you are.  I'm rather good at it, so is D.

 

He did not believe me when I said I had not placed that ad.  He did not believe that someone else at this company had not placed that ad.  Someone here had to have done it, and his finger kept pointing in my direction.  He said it was highly unlikely that the ad generated itself.  One big problem, D.  At the time this ad went up?  I was at my Periodontist's office.  If we're talking east coast time?  I was in the middle of setting someone up in the testing room, where they would have been at my computer testing, not maliciously posting ads for a job they weren't even testing for!  And hi, I have been the ONLY PERSON placing ads for the last three months.  But I said I'd look into it.

 

It would have been fine if he'd left it at that.  All I'd have to do is go track down everyone's whereabouts at the day and time the ad was posted.  No biggie, we're not that big.  What made me lose it was the fact that he said I had to have done it.  Who else would have the credit card information?  Who else would have a vested interest in posting the job?  How many different ways could I say I did not do it for you to believe me?  I understand that it seems highly unlikely that an ad would spontaneously generate on their site.  I mean, how would it get paid for?  Oh, I come to find out, actually the credit card information is already saved in our account?  So someone simply had to log in? Hmm, interesting, ass wipe, give me to your bloody manager!  I mean, that's nice, D.  Can I speak with someone who can help me?

 

All he had to do was pass me on.  Really.  But before he did, he had to open his mouth again, saying, "you know this looks bad for you.  You guys asked for this job to be updated and didn't do anything with this other job that is the exact same posting, but really short."  Short, you see, because they charge us by the word.  So ALL of our ads are short.  THIS ONE?  $1,000+ worth of words.  And as I'd posted the short one?  And as it was the only active ad, so I thought?  When I was told something had to be updated, yup, I updated the last job posted on my job list...the one I didn't put up.  So I definitely could have caught it then, but I didn't.  The wonder of their site is that you can update all sorts of information without ever looking at the text of the ad.  Which is what happened.  For a reason I couldn't fathom at the time, the candidates were sending things to an incorrect email address.

 

But I digress.  Basically D said it looked rather suspicious that we were only concerned about the $1,000 posting.  I agreed, but as it was supposed to be the ONLY ad that was up on their site, why would I be concerned about any of the other ones?  Maybe he was just thinking out loud?  I dunno, but I blew up at him.  What?  Me lose my cool?  You're kidding!

 

I told him that if he kept accusing me of lying and saying I didn't have a chance in the world with his manager, we'd have a bigger problem here than he realized.  I never swore, and for that I was oh so happy.  But if I wasn't yelling, I wouldn't be me.  I pulled out some 50 cent words...and that's when he got all ghetto on me.  Really.  He totally pulled the race card on my messican ass.  But I kept the rabid latina in check.  Like I said, he never raised his voice, and I never swore, but if there wasn't a whole slew of hate going back and forth on that phone line, I dunno what I'd call it.

 

---

 

I've since spoken to the manager.  And M?  He's the manager for a reason.  He may not cancel the charge, but people, never once did he say he did not believe it possible for an ad to be placed without my permission or knowledge. (Callin' me dumb there, D?)  Never once did he say that it had to be me.  Never once did he say, "how would it look that you are calling us now, after the post has expired." (Hi, we just got the bill, D.)  Never once did he say we were playing them.  Sure, he could be thinking it all, but thinking and saying are two very different things. 

 

Nothing's been settled, but aaaauuuuummmm, the way to placate me after you've called me a liar?  Tell me you at least can see my side of the story, and mean it.  Benefit of the doubt, it's a magical thing.

It's Nice Feeling Wanted

So I was feeling rather poor on about Tuesday.
No, not poorly, just poor.
As in: not enough money for groceries, poor.
See, I finally tallied up the financial catastrophe that is my mouth.

urgh.

Simply put, I could no longer afford to temp at my current gig. See, I have an emergency medical fund. I have always kept one, but never really needed it as I was either still the responsibility of my parents, or actually insured. The first time I dipped into it I was living in Mexico, and well, $10 doctor visits, $80 cavity fillings...not a big dent.

Hello the United States of America.

I'm pretty much cleaning out the account after today, my second to last (finally) visit to the dentist. This would be stage 1 of the "Crown Fitting." I'm going in all calm and collected though. Which was not me on Tuesday.

On Tuesday I went into the office of my "boss" (technically boss, she signs my time-sheet, but my agency pays me) and asked how long they really needed me. It's not that I want to leave, but I really really need something that will help me fill up my medical coffer once again. With or without insurance, this is a necessity for me. This gig? Not doing it for me. Every cent is pretty well accounted for at the end of the month.

Well, they need me. She wants me there at least until the end of the year. So she asked what the bottom dollar amount that I needed so I would stay, and I told her. Just a couple of dollars more an hour and I could start not living paycheck to paycheck (or mortgage payment to mortgage payment on my doctors' vacation condos...), and start actually saving again. She said she'd get back to me by the end of the day.

An hour later she had word, and the word was good. Actually the word was awesome! My raise is much more than expected. I'm still the least paid person in the place, but now there is hope!

Then yesterday....and now I'll jinx it, so please good thoughts my way...then yesterday I got some awesome news from one of the recruiters...who was actually not too happy to give it to me. I've scored an interview. But the recruiter doesn't want me to leave my current department. I really don't want to leave either, but the position I've been asked to interview in, is not in their department. A real job prospect.

We spent most of the time with him telling me why I should stay in my current spot. I swear it almost got down to, "They won't love you as much as we do!" So very sweet.

And so, on this Thursday morning of an overwhelming week, I share this with you.

Wish me luck that there are no more unpleasant surprises at ye olde' tooth pullers, cuz I can't afford them anymore.

A Testament to My Accuracy

So, I just found out that there is a "POWER" button on my keyboard here at work.

To clarify, no, my keyboard does not have a power switch, this is an actual "kill power" to the computer.  You know, you press it and BAM, no juice.  "Monitor will power down in 5 seconds."  It does not ask if you want to shut down the system or anything, it just makes everything go dark.  It's right next to the SLEEP and WAKE buttons.

 

I've been here almost three months and my fingers never found their way to that part of the keyboard, until today.  Today when I was in the middle of a rather long email.  A work related email!  Even better, a work related email that was being written on Outlook which, I come to fine, has NO AUTO SAVE function.

 

As I stated above, it must be a testament to my accuracy that it took almost three months for me to accidentally find that button, just above the silly "Print Screen" button that I'd been aiming for. 

 

URGH.

 

 

 

URGH! - or - Don't You Hate It When?

I've been working with peoples in the east coast all day; racing against their time to get everything in on time/before "closing."

 

So I didn't take a lunch break until just a little bit ago, safe in the knowledge I'd finally gotten to a good stopping point, happy I'd gotten everything done before closing...ahhhh.  Completely swallowed up in the thought that the day is just about over...Then I look at the clock...Is it really only just after 3 p.m.?!?  Do I really have another hour+ to go?!? (Thanks to my busting ass earlier in the week I get to leave early today, woo to the hoo!)

 

URGH!  Or maybe Meep.  I am so very tired.  I've expended all the energy I can!  It's nap time, damnit!

 

~~~

 

In other news?  Andy and I watched The Fifth Element last night.  It made me smile so very often, pointing out too many "borrowed" things from other sci-fi/fantasy movies: Obi-wan's robe, Princess Leia's hair, Devo hats, Stargate-esque uniforms, a replicant..."Leon" was one of the main army guys, fan-tastic!  And Baron Muchausen was the general guy that tries to blow up the "pure concentrated evil!"

 

I told Andy that this is what the future would have looked like if the 80s had won.  After reading the "wiki" entry it seems I should amend that to say it's what the future WILL look like if the French win.  I totally thought it was an American "shoot em up" film, but it's not!  Just like those saucy frenchies to cast a guy 20 years older than his leading lady!  Big ba-da-boom!

 

Okay, this whole stay awake by typing and trying to keep working isn't working...must go try something else...

Happy Friday!

A Case of Video Killing the Radio Star?

Do you all remember when PBS first came out with that Civil War program where like it was all letters from soldiers and stuff?Remember the first time we were given a peak at the handwriting? The length, breath, and depth of the content? Did you think, my god, why don't people write that way anymore?

Well, I do,

and did,

and by gum, it really made me feel like we'd lost something.

I mean, I guess we were still writing letters, though, not really Corresponding anymore. That, as my high school history teacher once said, really was an art form. There were topics you could and should write about, and those that were to be avoided like the plague. Kinda like writing school papers, or having work conversations, maybe? How is the weather and all that noise?

Besides, we had "evolved," we were TELEPHONE people.

Who needed to sit at a writing desk and write and rewrite and edit and begin again and maybe one more time, with feeling! That's what the phone was for. Hours and hours blabbing to friends and confidants, or crank calling our enemies. No "Dear John" letters, instead, you could break up with your beau "live" if not in person. No more "angry" letters to your folks or complaint letters to companies, just get on the phone and torment them during business hours! Or something.

It was like having them right next door! And best of all, they could tell how you were feeling just by the sound of your voice.

Then came the internet. Why call when you can shoot off an email? Who needs grammar? Just write how you talk! What a concept! "Chat" live if you want to relay a message right now. Only, and therein lays a sleeping dragon that's been waking up recently, words on paper, written stylistically, grammatically correct or incorrect, if not done perfectly, or at least the way the "professionals" do it and geared toward a very specific audience? They will leave the reader lacking.

Just like you never know just how you look through other peoples' eyes, you really won't know just how you "sound" or "read" to others until after the reactions come in.


The thing about a written work is that it's a two way street. The writer really really really wants to convey particular information, a specific message, and maybe a certain feeling. It's the reader's job to take in the symbols on the page (written or electronic) and transform them into meaning. What that meaning ends up being depends a whole bloody lot on how your reader is doing that day: hungry? depressed? elated? tired? caffeinated? angry? You name it, it alters what you, the writer, have written.


So, say when reading a blog or an email or anything, if you are not the intended victim---I mean reader? You are going to take it in a way very different from the original intention. At the same time, if you, the writer, are so in your "moment" in your "groove" in your "in it" that you are not taking the uninitiated reader into consideration? It will be like gobbledy-gook.


Why or why is this all swirling in my brain?

Couple reasons.


There is the personal one that keeps scratching at me deep down. The one that says it's all my fault that I can't keep in touch with the people who I thought were close to me because we just can't/don't/won't communicate well anymore. Because something that was written in a card, an email, a letter, a text message, etc., was taken so far in the "wrong" way that ties were severed. How many people have come and gone from others' lives because of a mis-written word? The mind boggles.


And then there is the funnier work-related stuff that makes me want to bang my head against the wall until it makes more sense. This one I can go on about a little more as the previous reason still kinda smarts. I think I'm running into brick walls about the written word with certain folks because they honestly aren't used to using this "email" technology stuff and only have an email address because it's expected to be on their resume...or something.

I've completely given up using electronic means to communicate with many people to save both the head and heartache involved with the complexity of simply turning on a computer. Others I don't even pick up the telephone for, they need to be face to face, or still things will go terribly. Horrifically funny, yes, but terribly.


Then of course there is that aspect that, having been an English teacher makes me cringe...some people can't string more than a couple letters together to begin with. Let us not torture them or ourselves with anything written, because god almighty made people to be accountants and scientists and techies and NOT English teachers for a reason! These people are wonderful at what they do! It just might not have anything at all to do with the English Language. And if they read your email and are boggled because you use such things as humor or sarcasm, lord help us all.

Questions? Comments? I'd love to read them.

Hit With the Stupid Stick

How is it that water falling out of the sky causes people to do the most asinine things?

Call me silly, but, the rules of the universe do not cease when drops of water fall on your head, or your car, or, by golly, the pavement.

So sweatshirt man, crossing AGAINST the lights at morning rush hour? Not the most Einsteinian of manuevers there, genius boy. That would be why everyone, including the HUGE bus bearing down on your ass, was honking at you.

It is not the time for you either, raincoat man, with hood up and all, to run blindly across the street because you cannot walk to the crosswalk like everyone else!

I used to love to ride the wooden roller-coaster at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk in weather like this. The tracks would be super wet and the coaster would go much faster. Sometimes the momentum was so much that we would slam into the cars in front of us as the braking mechanism would be sopping and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

I keep that in mind as I'm driving on the sloppy wet roads and find myself in the live version of a frogger-esque video game where the frogs have all gone deaf and blind and pretty suicidal to get out of the eeek, rain.

"But I'm getting wet!"

Right, sugar melts and all.

I'm an equal opportunity disser, so I'm including the dumb ass in the blue pickup truck that decided I was going too slow and tailgating me wasn't enough; slamming his hand on the horn as he passed me made it so much better. Cuz, you know huge non-draining puddles on the road are not cause for him or anyone to drive more carefully, or even slowly (we've already discussed my gramma driving abilities). His zigging and zagging, and ultimately sliding into a car as I crept by at my snail's pace, that made me feel sooooo much better, really.

And I'd have honked, but well, I own a Toyota, and hearing the little meep meep from me wasn't going to alleviate anything.

I really really really miss riding the bus on days like this.

There Be Knitting!

ETA: Of Course, as soon as I put up some knitting content "Bloglines" considers me invisible...hmmm coincidence? Technology is so fun...What do you all use to keep track of posted blogs?

Remember when I said I was working on a gift for mom's day? Like back before I went to Italy and stuff? Wow, four months ago?!?

Then I came back from Italy and I mentioned I'd worked steadfastly on at least one of the two pairs of socks I'd cast on (one for bus work, one for "just before bed") and had even finished ONE sock of the pair?

Then life happened, I guess. And I got a temp gig where I don't commute on good ol' #304 and actually have to drive there as it takes five times as long if did walk/bus/walk/bus it. Add to that the fact that I don't take hour-long lunches so I can come home at a reasonable hour...and my knitting time has all but disappeared. So it shocked me when I actually finished these:
Horcrux Socks
Whose link I am trying to find, but #1 I found the original "sport weight" pattern eons ago and #2 the fingering weight version, which I used, is protected behind a yahoo sock group that I actually joined JUST to get THIS ONE pattern. Okay, here (left hand side, last one under her "Free Patterns") is the one for the bigger weight yarn, at least.

My mom tells me she got her package, yes I finally got her gift together: socks, holy water from the Vatican, a rosary, chocolates (for the grandkids more than for her...I just know it), body lotion, and...the hardest part of the whole gift conglomeration, really, some "box" bras. Really.

I don't know how we got into this conversation, I'm still a bit mesmerized by the whole thing...but one thing led to the other and she mentioned that now that she doesn't get out at much as she used to, certain "non-essential"/not available at costco items have gone by the wayside. Including her favorite "come-in-a-box" bras. So silly me, I said, "I'll get you some."

Did you all know most department stores in the Seattle area no longer carry such "boxed" items? They have gone the way of the Dodo bird, apparently. After walking for miles and miles from one department store to another, I finally found them at good old reliable "Ya Si Pennies" as my mom calls it. 1/2 off, as they were culling their store supply as well. I bought them out of her size. Best not to take chances, I've learned.

See, they've already "retired" my favorite body lotion at Bath & Body Works, they keep changing the ingredients to my favorite shampoos, let's not even talk about what all they've done to my favorite toilet paper...TMI, I know, but it all boils down to the fact that sometimes it is a good thing to horde, cuz the next time you go to find the product of your dreams it will be NEW! and IMPROVED! Now with Flavor! Or, more likely, just plain NO LONGER AVAILABLE.

Have I really lived so long that I'm noticing such things...there I go channeling again, "Back in my day..."

What was I saying? Knitheimers, I swear.

So the sock details:
Needles: US2 to begin, 4 US1s and 1 US 0. Yes, you did not read that incorrectly. Somewhere in Sicily I noticed one of the needles seemed awfully skinny...I was way past the gusset by that point and it was a "What the hell" moment, so I soldiered on and made #2 the same way.

My ADD was appeased when I found the exact matching spot to have identical socks. The sock yarn...Sockotta, color 618 lot 901. The biggest laugh? The yarn is made in Italy, but bought on clearance in the US...such is life.

I still actually need to find out if they fit my mom. What with the special needle configuration and the cottony aspect (45%) I wasn't all that sure. The colors did not bleed much and for that I was so very thankful.

Okay, bedtime.

“Safe” Roads - Or - Why I am Such a Paranoid Driver

Or

Another post sans pictures and also not about knitting

 

I am probably one of the few people that are not 250 years old in their profile.  Why lie?   I was six years old at the start of the 80s.  As with the ten thousand other innovations that came about in that decade, the onslaught of syndication and "re-run hell" changed my world.   How else could we see every single episode of the Love Boat?  How about Gilligan's Island, anyone?   Well, one that I just loved to watch, more for the opening credits than anything else?  CHiPs No really.

 

No, I did not have a crush on Ponch, (hee hee, paunch?) or John.  I thought one was too sleazy and the other?   Well, too white, actually (hi, I am a Mexican-American born and raised in East Los Angeles and blond-blue-eyed John was such the anomaly before I hit high school that he kinda looked, well, alien.)   Where was I? Right, the opening credits.  They actually showed a stretch of freeway that every single member of my nuclear family had come to know far too well.   It was mostly THE 10 (SoCal upbringing) as it meets up with yet not quite touches THE110 and maybe THE 101…it's been a while since I've driven those roads.

 

So in my "World According to CHiPs" eyes: THERE IS DANGER EVERYWHERE!  I learned many things as I'm sure many of us did:

• Do not distract the driver by having kids climbing back and forth among the front and back bench seats.
• Do not carry jugs of gasoline in station wagons as the fumes will escape and make you sleepy.
• Wheels will fall off your car at the drop of a hat! (Which did happen to a friend of mine.)
• The people around you do not know how to drive! (Hi, look around you.)
• Or are "manipulating heavy machinery" under prescription medication that is keeping them from driving safely.
• Or are high.
• Or have stolen the car and are trying to get away, FAST.
• Or are angry and ready to lash out at you (which actually did become reality, now didn't it???!!!???)
• Airplanes/helicopters will land on the freeway at least once a season.
• Brakes fail, ALL THE TIME (this actually did happen to me in a parking lot while in college…eep.)
• If you drop something as you are driving it will inevitably end up propped underneath the break pedal and you will not be able to slow down or stop, thus causing a huge accident.

 

Does all this explain why I drive like a grandma?  I am pretty much the first to admit it.   Let's face it, the premise of that show had me seeing everything that could possibly go wrong with your vehicle/other people's vehicles and how horrible it could all become.  So does it shock you to know that I don't exactly like being behind the wheel?

 

Right.  Well, this morning I was thinking about "Smart" ROADS as opposed to smart cars (oxymoron waiting to happen) and how they would do wonders for keeping all those aforementioned "scary things" from mostly happening.

 

Since I was about 8 or so I had this, "wouldn't it be great" thought of having cars fit into "slots" in the "roads" or main highways that would be moving instead of the cars.   People wouldn't be weaving into and out of your lane like the fellow who tried to "become one" with my car this morning.  No accident, remember, I'm already thinking everyone around me is on drugs, suffering from fumes, or simply cannot drive while watching for planes and their need to land on my street, so I was able to slow down to let him practice his um, stunt driving or whatnot.

 

It had been my thought, um 25 years ago, that the little roads leading up to the main arteries could be your usual "free for all" and let the drivers actually, well, drive.   The older I get though, the more I think that maybe roads should be more like a Disney/roller-coaster/tracked things that don't let the drivers do anything but only kinda steer.  

 

I've gone from becoming my mom to channeling my grandfather, I think.  "Those dang auto-mobiles!   What's wrong with your own two feet!  Or a horse!  Back in my day…"

 

Knitting soon, promise.

Filed Under: Reasons I Should Own a Working Camera

This morning's commute:

• The older guy dressed in a three-piece suit, leading his wee little doggie with a VERY LARGE bag of dog poo.
• The well-dressed young woman carrying a caulking gun, caulk in place and ready to go.
• "Fanatic for exercise" gal that looks like she was hit with the "logo" gun who jogged around and around and around the light post while waiting for the light to change--she was making me dizzy.
• TOO MANY PEOPLE trying their hardest to break the World Record for how many people can fit on a # 26 bus.
• The fellow so intent on dialing a number on his cell phone that he walked right into the bus stop.

Did I mention my commute is only 2.5 miles long?

 

Happy Tuesday

Alergic to a Cat I've Never Even Met

So Tim has a new cat. Well, actually Tim has 2 new cats. I have met one of them and he and I actually seem to be okay in the same room. Nary a sniffle nor an itch, nor a break-out of anything hive-like on my hand where he batted at it while we were playing with a car key in the wee bit of time we've spent together. I have yet to actually pet him, though, so he really still is mostly an unknown quantity, really.

Tim's newest cat though, the one I have not met yet? He (or she, I don't even know) and I might have some issues.

Andy was hanging out over at Tim's yesterday, and came home with the new cat's "proteins" on him (or so one of the recruiters tells me) and said "proteins," which I'd like to call "essence of new cat," got on my right arm and I started braking out in hives! Evil, nasty, hives! Hives that ended up on my left hand that was examining the arm, then my chin when I was contemplating the arm, and pretty much anywhere that I touched before the "essence of new cat" dissolved into the ether and/or I went, "OH SHIT you were playing with the cats!" And realized the horror of it all.

What's truly terrible in this instance is that Andy actually washed his hands and showered before he got near me. Really! It was his picking up his "essence" covered clothes to throw them in the hamper that must have done it. That's all I can deduce at any rate, and the repercussions are frightening, to say the least.

This Getting Older Stuff, Sucks

I've never been the most graceful, just ask my mom. I think I may have gotten my first bump or bruise in the crib at the hospital. I know I got my first scar-maker at 3 months.

It never phased me, really. You live, you live with the bumps, right?

I know many of you are shaking your heads wondering how I've survived this long without accidentally beheading myself or something. Shear luck, I guess. Speed in healing as well. In these, um, middle years (or if it were cave-man times we could say "gramma years" people only lived until like 35 right?), I am losing both the luck and the speed...and that is just sucking so very hard.

When push comes to shove, I fall down, hard. I tripped over my own two feet, and maybe one of those concrete parking space dividers, just the other day. I guess the throbbing in my legs and hand were to distract me from my silly backache, or something. (Something like, say, my body trying to kill itself and missed, again, or something.)

And that backache! Hello! I am 33 years old. Why is my back spasming out? I think it's all connected to my hip. Thanks, Andy, for putting the silly Them Bones song in my head after I mentioned it to you...grrr. Seriously though, I feel like my luck ran out hard when I was run off the road that day so long ago when I was on my bicycle heading to my lawyer's office to sign some silly papers. I fell HARD and damaged my hip and wrist. It's been two and a half years. The wrist is weak but doing fine, the hip? She doesn't work all that great, especially lately.

Lately the Hip has made herself known. I am not the most svelte of heavenly creatures, but the um "junk" in my "trunk" never really bothered me. Thanks to my lack of mobility immediately after the accident, I quickly gained too much weight...at least 20 lbs.--scary thought/post for another day. Along with the weight, I have gained an extra "hand-hold" around that damaged hip area. It looks and feels just wrong. It always has. Lately, my theory at any rate, is that it's messing with my muscles in every which way possible. It affects the way I walk, climb stairs, sleep...what a bitch. I want to believe it's still healing, but at a geriatric snail's pace.

I can't but think of how it would have been different if I were in my early 20s and such a thing had ALMOST happened--that luck thing. See, I rode my bike all over Santa Cruz and left many dents in car doors with my Dock Martins when they tried to force me off the road. It was, as scary as it seems now, second nature to jump onto and off of sidewalks and bounce off cars as I made my way to Capitola, CA to get home from UCSC or home from the bookstore in years following. There were a couple of tumbles, but I was invincible! Clumsy, yes, always, but invincible!

I really miss those days. Especially when I'm sitting here on what seems like the "Group W" bench wondering how many Advil I can take and not kill my liver so I can still function at work today...urgh.

These Dreams....

So I've dreamt of loose teeth, stray dogs, and having to put together a sailboat.

I think they are stemming from my tweaked back. Oh yes, I am an old woman. I tweaked my back on Saturday while sorting laundry, I think. I'm not really sure when or how it happened, only that damn, it hurts! It's like having cramps just up above my right kidney. Not a happy camper.

And it's Monday and I need to get going and I just have so little motivation. I think I need a vacation.

Ah well.

Feliz Cumplea~nos, Mami!

Present? Right. Nope, not as such...but I did call and let her know there was one and it will arrive shortly. Just have to get on the ball about it. Why is that so very hard to do?

Just Can't Focus

My mom's birthday is about to sneak up on me. Yes, even though I know exactly what day it is and have known for months!

I have to get my act together and send off the gift I've been fixing up since April. Will it happen? Quien sabe.

I'm having a horrible morning. It's nothing anyone is doing to me, I think it's all inside. A combination "too many things in my head" + friends visiting + working all day + not enough sleep, is giving me a pounding headache and an upset stomach. That last bit I just noticed a couple minutes ago as I sat down at my desk for the first time this morning. I feel all woozy/bad coffee stomach. Sour stomach? I'm not all that good at describing it.

The only positive thing I've found out thus far is that if I can find someone else to monitor them, I won't have to work a 10-hour day today! See, I scheduled candidate for an early testing appointment, so I was in far too early this morning. Well, sometime yesterday after I'd left, someone (not me) scheduled a late late late-almost-early-evening candidate for me today! Happily, somebody, though I don' t know who, else can monitor the LAST test of the day.

I swear, I saw it on my calendar and I just about cried. I'm sinking down a hole today. It's a slippery slope. I'm tired, cranky, and just want to go home and go to bed. I don't get this way very often at all and it's bothering me. The worst part is that unless everyone is out of the house doing whatever touristy thing they've planned today, I still wouldn't get any peace and quiet even if I was home.

I'm dwelling very deeply and darkly in the negative right now...

I Saw'r It!

Finally. (Sound off button in top right-hand corner.)
IN IMAX 3-D!!
Which was a joke. They might as well have said, "in SMELL-O-VISION!"

The opening scenes and about 20 minutes near the end does not, in my opinion, justify calling it 3-D. Not when you are part of the generation that got to watch JAWS 3-D!

Right, yes, fancier glasses (with RFID chips so you don't snag them) than when I was 8, but I'd happily go cross-eyed with the red/blue cardboard shades---that you got to keep as souvenirs, mind--if the ENTIRE MOVIE was the as-promised-but-not-delivered 3-D. Seeing as I was probably one of the only people there old enough to "remember when" 3-D movies were full-length, we went to a Friday night 10 PM showing, I kept my mouth quiet.

So the movie...(If you're waiting for the video, I'll let you know when to stop reading.)

Really, it is about what anyone can expect an 800+page book to be rendered into without having a Part I & II. It was far less disjointed than say, the second movie. I think it's a bad plan to read the book before you see the movie though because, like the annoying girl that sat next to me, you will be tempted to tell your friend with the broken feet EVERY SINGLE DEVIATION FROM THE NOVEL until the older lady sitting next to you elbows you accidentally, and when you drop your 3-d glasses in her lap, lets them fall to the floor and maybe steps on them before "accidentally" kicking them somewhere far away from her, ahem.

I come away from these last 3 films now with the same disappointment, though. I miss Richard Harris. Andy put it best--yes, he doesn't "get" the whole HP phenomena/cult, yet he will procure me a needed book, and go with me to the movies...kinda like a crack dealer or something:
Dumbledore looks like a young man playing an old man, and failing.
Kinda like in the movie version of Return of the King at the near end when EVERYONE (including the audience) is crying their eyes out and Bilbo is seen walking next to Gandalf as they are about to board the Elf boat off to the Grey Havens? The fellow is a bit overenthusiastic for a 130 year-old hobbit, or however old he was. It was a freaky transition from the old hobbling Bilbo of just seconds before. Maybe I'm the only one who noticed because everyone else was crying so hard?

Michael Gambon's entrances where he's plowing into a scene these last two movies...and he does PLOW, not strut, not amble, makes him seem like he's too young to be Albus. After all, the fact that Dummbly-dore was already a teacher when Tom Riddle went to Hogwarts 55 years prior, puts him at about a good 80 years young! I know a few 80 year olds, and as spritely as they can be? They have never PLOWED into a room like they're going so fast they will crash against the opposite wall. Well, maybe if they were wearing those new roller-sneakers. There were times when I thought he was skidding to a stop, so fast was his need to jump into a scene. Again, maybe it was the fact that I was watching Gambon on a screen 6 stories high, that his portrayal jumped out at me all wrong?

Though I can't blame anyone else of the same weird mannerisms. I mean, Alan Rickman's Snape has been funky/twitchy/melodramatic from the get go: Remember HP1 when he just about RUNS into his classroom--for the billowing robe effect--to introduce himself to his students for the very first time? (I was so tempted to do that back in my school-marmy days...Never did find the right cloak to pull it off in, though. I mean, you try that effect with muggle clothes and you just look plain silly.)

(Okay, from this point on there might be some spoilage about bits and pieces that differ from book to movie.)

It is rather odd to have the "wrong" people saying the "wrong" lines, at the oddest times...and a few of those "shortcuts" have now, actually, changed the story line ENTIRELY, for me at least. Hello? Can we say MIRROR, or um lack there of.

Did anyone catch the goat in the Boar's Head? OMG ROTFL! Or, rather, I would have been if I hadn't been at the last showing of the night with the dirt of the ages at our feet. But that was some great foreshadowing there.

Then there was Imelda Staunton's portrayal of Dolores Umbridge, wow. Pure concentrated evil brought to life. Someone has to mention it, and it might as well be me...okay, that scene where she's sitting on her throne while the kids are in detention? I mean I was almost squirming with the IMAX sound of all those kids getting hurt/hurting themselves, but um, was that an orgasm she was having? That was so very wrong on so many levels, and EVIL!

Paralleling that evil--Beatrix LeStrange. I didn't have "insane" in my descriptors of her, but I really should have. My only disappointment is that we didn't get to see more of her. I mean, within the first 3 minutes of her appearance in the books, you simply want to rip her throat out. You don't get that feeling in the film. She comes across as weak, though, and again, that bugs and makes me feel like the whole HP storyline has been altered. Cuz really, how will it look in times to come when the final (#7) showdown happens? A crazy, weak, stupid, though sexy looking Bea is not who I pictured AT ALL.

Okay, I'll stop now, lest I say too much.

Overall, yeah, the movie is "meh" compared to the one in my head...but nonetheless, entertaining on a number of sadomasochistic levels.

So, um, how many Umbridge pink cardigans with the plastic bow buttons will we be seeing this fall, hmmm? Have you all picked out your yarn yet?

No Really, Italy

I ran across this picture tonight and I had to try to figure out when I ended up in England... I love the fact that when you travel any and all thoughts you had in your head of what a place is "supposed" to be like get blown off into the um fog.

I'm at a loss for the name of the place...on the Island of Sicily...where the dracula castle was...starts with a "C" maybe?

Anyhow... this picture best describes how I felt this morning going in to work. I could have sworn I was back on the Big Island. It is so very humid and balmy and kinda that muggy feeling when the trade winds have stopped blowing before they took all the clouds away...

Maybe that's why I sneezed the other morning? Just the one time? Cuz my body thought there must be VOG around somewhere?

I dunno...

These are my 10:30 PM thoughts after my first almost full day back at work. I ducked out 1/2 hour early...72 hour recovery period? HA...Well, I am almost better...but it's that "almost" that changes everything when you are on the "having sneezed" side of the recovery window.

I'm not making sense. I am exhausted and to bed go I afore I make much more fun of myself.

Update: Sunday...

On Not Being Dead Yet:

My mouth HURTS!

I wrote to the wonderful people I've been working with and described my status as feeling like a half chipmunk who's gathering nuts in one cheek and has just fallen out of her tree. (Under the wonderful influence of Vicodine, my savior.)

That was a few days ago and I had hoped to feel better by now.

Then...

This morning?...

I sneezed.

THE PAIN!

I did not cry, can you believe? Even after that tell-tale iron taste was in my mouth. By mid morning I was back to square one...yes, including the swelling. Urgh. At least there's no infection! Small recompense, but there's that.

I can't really afford to take more time off, so tomorrow I'm packing my ice packs and heading in to work, just call me chipmunk face!


On The Book That Shall Not be Named?
Andy traveled through the mugginess that has infected Seattle to bring it back to my sickbed. I tried to tell him the fog and muck was a by-product from Dementoid-breeding, but he just looked at me funny...I did say he never read the books.

Almost as soon as I opened the book, the skies opened up for a torrential shower, in July! I know, I know, I live in the land of rain and moss, but July? It's like God was crying his eyes out about the last book, I swear :). Anything to mess with the people who feel this book was written by Satan's sex slave, or whatever.

So here's the thing...no, no spoilers here, just a comment about the whole experience: It is just so odd to me... It's like I had to read it NOW NOW NOW! Finish it, finish it quickly! Like pulling off a band aid or something. Andy didn't believe me when I told him I'd finished it this morning (I didn't get it until yesterday after noon). Almost 800 pages, whoosh!

I'm going to re-read it now, slowly, like a normal person. Laugh at the little things, finding the grammatical nuances, think about how I'd have written a particular paragraph, or sentence, or word...you know, the usual thing I do with books. Doesn't everyone? I did share with you the fact that I was a literature major of the "deconstruction" era?

Lemme tell ya that it makes for absolutely poor training to go out and teach middle/high school literature. Possibly why if I ever teach again it will be English as a Second Language - period! Cuz you are never tempted to get into a philosophical debate about Mary Shelly's use of a particular word on a particular page when it's all about learning the language in the first place.

Right, where was I? Oh yeah, I'm off to go take some pain pills and dwell on page 92 or something.

Kismet? or a Random Thursday...

• Ever since I was lucky enough to score a super cheap little journal at the Pottery Barn (no link, it was on clearance) in which to scribble my wildly vivid dreams in, I've had the same dream over and over and over again:
  
  
  Me, lying in bed, writing out the dream I just had, and as I write, the dream vanishes.
  
  
  So when I wake up for real? I can't remember anything except my dreaming of me writing down my dreams. I know, I know, it's been established just how close to insanity I tread.
  
  
• It's a couple hours, little less, before I go under the knife. Nervous is a word that pops into my head, "totally freaked out" is the going phrase. I guess that's what the Valium is for. Better living through Chemistry!
  
  
• It's MJs Birthday today!
  

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MJ!

• I am a sucker for nostalgia it seems. I'm part of an email list for a band I can never see live, seeing as they stick to venues in LA la land...but here, for the first time UTuBE wins my heart like no other. My favorite song by Windows to Sky (shall I pull a "hollyweird" and say I "knew them when"? I did say nostalgia, Ladies, gentlemen, "The Wall King":

I Got Nothin'

No, I have not seen the new Harry Potter flick, yet. So please please please don't spoil it for me :). Cuz it's not like I'm not rereading book #6 or anything right now...not like I haven't read #5 a couple/three times by now...I'm waiting patiently for it not to be sold out at my local iMax theatre. 3-D baybee, tha's what I'm talkin' 'bout. --Who said that? Sybil?

Nope, I don't have plans on any midnight unveiling of the latest book either...I hope to be deep in the throes of Vicodine at the time, actually, as on Thursday at my-god-too-early I will be having the much anticipated "lengthening" of my #18 molar. Yes, that's the nice way of saying they are going to take lots of evil looking sharp implements of destruction and cut away at my jaw! EEP!

I DO, however, have my name down at a tee-tiny local bookshop for the book that shall not be named. He'll have it on Saturday, and unless a miracle of modern capitalism occurs, I'll not get it at the whatever % discount all the big chains are offering, and I don't actually mind. See, I kinda want this guy to make as much money as he can so that he can continue to be the tee-tiny local bookstore in the area. Call me silly... Andy has said that if I am still too traumatized by the surgery, he'll pop on down and get the book for me.

Worry not, dear friends, he won't even be tempted to read it before me, he hateses the books. Nobody's perfect :).

I have a toe to graft, which takes far longer than knitting an actual sock, doesn't it? So soon I'll have another knitted item to brag about like the good little-old lady I'm becoming. Until then, I leave you with to watch some Onion. (My favorite bit is when he talks about Nigeria and their lost economy...and if you haven't been blessed by an email from Nigeria and monies that need an American bank account, I can send you one from my collection.

You See One Pantheon, You've Seen Them All

So the problem with working all day long at a computer...and mean really working, not taking breaks and foraying into the BBC, Digg, GoogleReader, etc, and et al, is that fulfilling your promise to your XMIL that you will gather together all the pictures from your trip and make it into something nice for her? Is difficult to say the least.

One picture at a time, right? Eventually it will happen. I have to keep telling this to myself.

This picture was me getting all artsy at the Pantheon. I love that hole up there...

One of the tour guides, I'm gonna guess Donato, told us that when it snowed in Rome a few years back, people nearly trampled over one another to get to the Pantheon just so they could see the snow come in through the "eye of god" ... um, or is it the column of light... I am far too unmotivated to do the research myself, so I leave that for you. You know, something to do instead of the work you're supposed to be doing :).

Happy Friday!

Checking In to Hermitlandia

It's started again.

 

You know, I hope, that feeling of just wanting to hang out by myself and do nothing/read/maybe, gasp, knit?  The prevalent words being, by, my, and self?

 

A sure-fire way of getting Andy to laugh at me is to bust out, "All By Myself" by Eric Carmen in my best Eric CARTMAN voice whenever he's leaving me home alone for the evening.  Not that I really want to go out carousing with the guys at 9 PM on a weeknight, but you know, just to remind someone I'm there to hang out with too!  Just not as cool, and maybe not enough testosterone, nor do I drink as much as everyone else.  Right, that would be why he goes out.

 

Anyhow, I've really just wanted to chill by myself both at work and at home.  You know, eat lunch at my desk so I don't have to talk to anyone, actually say no to Andy when he asks if I want to go out and hang with people. 

 

I usually get this way in the middle of winter, though.  Maybe I'm having "climate changes" in my head to match what all is going on in the world?  I'm not what you'd call a big people person, but I'm not a hermit by any means.  I kinda need to talk to people to stay on the sane side of the spectrum.  Yet, if I talk to too many my brain feels too full and I want to go hide.

 

I think that's what's happening right now.  And maybe I'm not too far off the calendar either, if I consider the fact that in mid-July, if I was still doing the teaching thing, I'd have very little contact with anyone of any age in the middle of summer!  I'm justifying my feelings right now, I guess.

 

But see, even when I'd rather be all alone, I still post to keep my peeps in touch, homey, err, sorry, my inner gangsta' possessed my fingers just then.  Okay, going to go find a quiet place to take a break now.

 

Don't Say I Didn't Warn You

IN NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM IS THIS IS SAFE FOR WORK!
Read a Book
DO NOT PLAY THIS AT WORK! THERE ARE (as my students in Hilo would say)
PLENTY SWEAR WORDS!
And maybe really awful animated girls dancing in ways your bosses would not appreciate.

I actually first ran across this "song" while looking for that song Andy has been playing over and over and over and over...Then it was "dugg" the other day and well, I could not get it out of my head.

It's one of those times where I have to shake my head at the ridiculousness of it all, and then, having had 160 bright and shining "in the throws of puberty" faces in my classes...I shake my head even more and say, "Yeah boy!"

If all of my students had been told straight out by someone that they admired to read, drink water, take care of their kids, wear deodorant :), and BUY LAND, my job would have been done, or at least 1,000 times easier.

I've gone off about role models in the past...and am actually too lazy to link to it...but really, can't those wrestlers/rappers/sports people/movie stars/et al just stop and look at their fan base and drop a couple pearls of wisdom for their teaming masses? Or maybe just get caught by the paparazzi reading Dante, Cervantes, Bronte? Hell, I'll take Robert Ludlum even. "Not the sports page, not a magazine..."

Sigh...every day I get one step closer to being a full blown fuddy duddy adult, huh? eep.

It Could Be Worse...

The pageantry, the spectacle, the noise, et. al., went on until after 1 AM. (Andy and Lev took some great fotos of the event and I will share them with you as soon as I can...)

I need to be at work right now...but am waiting for the signal from my brain saying it's safe for me to handle a vehicle this morning.

I didn't sleep well, and I need to be at work now...did I mention this already?

But it could be worse. I could be the candidate that agreed to come in and interview this morning...

Expiration Date-Nazi

Who knew I was so anal?

 

Wait!  Don't answer that!  RHETORICAL QUESTION, peoples.

 

So one of my coworkers needed some sugar, NOW, and found an old box of those 1000% sugar meringue-thingies in the little kitchen.  It was in the cabinet for food that's pretty much up for grabs.  She offered some to me but the cookies LOOKED stale so I read the "Best Before" date.  October, 2006. 

 

Her response?  "Twinkies have a 7 year lifespan."

 

Right.  Well.  When you gotta have it, you gotta have it, I guess.

 

Did I mention I don't eat Twinkies either?

I Love the Internet

How did we get by before having access to all this information at our fingertips?

I'm so glad I grew up in this age...although I'll bet it's what would have steered me to be a reference Librarian in days of old. Or Maybe I'd have thrown my back out when last I moved, as I'd have to drag a library with me instead of my mini mac...(it sounds so much less McDonald-zy that way).

Ladies and Gents, the heretofore unnamed "etude" that Andy has been practicing vigilantly every day now is:

Beethoven - Ode An Die Freude / Ode to Joy #1

Let me just say that the fellow singing? He doesn't sound all that happy to me...kinda angry actually...but then, it is German. It's bound to sound at least a little odd to me.

Besides, to me, Hawaiian music? It all sounds really melancholy. Beautiful, but very melancholy. I mean, they could be singing about how happy they are to be hanging out at the beach with their family and friends and the beautiful flowers (cuz there's always something about beautiful flowers in those tunes), and to me it sounds as if they are lamenting something big.

Yeah I know, I'm weird that way.

daaaa da daaa da daaa daaaa daaa daa...

So Andy's taking a beginning acoustic guitar class at the not so local community college and they have assigned them this song...an "etude" that I know I know! He does not do the "classical"music scene and so seemed almost astounded when I started "da da-ing" to it, and then beyond the one page he was given and into the next stage of the song...but for the life of me I can not remember what it is called.

Da da dit do dum da da dum da
Da da da daaa da dum de doo....

It is going to bug me to no end until I dig out my CD's and try to figure it out. I think it's Bach or Beethoven...I can hear drums and cannons in my head...But it's usually strings that play it. So very frustrating. Especially as they've used it so often in commercials and movie previews...urgh...oh! Movie previews!

I think I know where I'm navigating to next...much easier than trying to figure out which box my CD's have gone to.

Happy weekend before the explosions!

Days Sneak Up on You If You're Not Careful

How did it get to be Thursday already?

I mean, I've still got last week's paycheck in my bag...my laundry has yet to be put away...the one-box-a-day of unpacking has come to a standstill...I have yet to go grocery shopping for the week!

 

Wasn't I just wondering what I could fake for lunch for Monday?  And now we're almost halfway done with Thursday?

 

It boggles the mind.

 

On the positive side of the spectrum, the weekend is only hours away...well, about 30 hours away, but that's nothin' compared to it being a whole week away, right?

Also, HELLO, I have a whole paycheck in my bag!  I must be doing better if I'm not living paycheck-to-paycheck anymore/just yet/for now.  Come ask me how I feel after I fork over the money for the gum surgery 3 weeks or so from now...or for the crown a month after that???  Eeep.  I will never look at even shoddy dental coverage offers with anything but the respect they deserve.

 

A coworker of mine is also having vast amounts of work done on her teeth.  The comment she made that has stayed with me as I think about the upcoming bills is: I don't know how my parents prioritized all this with FIVE KIDS! 

 

Cuz we are both running into the same nice big realization...we are single with no dependants (not counting the friends I've adopted as family) and yet the idea of spending gobs of money on ourselves is just, eep!  What do you cut to keep making things go?  And if you did have to do it for 5 other people on the same salary?!?  INSANE!

 

Now of course for the reality...our dollars are not buying the same amount that our parents' dollars were just 20 years ago.  That is becoming so painfully obvious with every stop at the gas pump and every quarter gallon of milk I buy. (Which is STILL more $$ than my mom spent on gallons for us.)  The canary in the mine shaft for me was always milk and bread prices.  That little bird has been dead for years now.  I used to be a vegetarian in college cuz I just couldn't afford to buy meat.  Tofu they sold by the ton for pennies...if it came down to that again, I'm not all that sure if I could even afford tofu.

 

There was a blip I heard on NPR about some Senator/Governor/person in politics going on the "Food Stamp Diet" to prove a point or 20.  It used to be that food stamps guaranteed you the minimum daily allowances as placed forth by the government.  So you had that pyramid we all grew up with covered.  (Which, I remember being told, is what a pregnant woman should be eating to ensure the health of her fetus and all that jazz.)  Well, such is not the case anymore, apparently.  To cut back, the gov'ment's been subbing carbs for veggies.  This is appalling.  Why on earth would the government want to keep a section of their people hungry and dumb?  Look, if you aren't eating right, you're not thinking right.  Send a hungry kid to school and they are not going to learn jack, trust an ex-teacher on that one.

 

I think I'm thinking too much.  And Andy thinks I should pay attention to politics and what's going on in the world?  I'd go bonkers.  My blood pressure is happy where it is at this point, thankyouverymuch.

 

Now, what next to tackle on that never-ending to-do list?

Quantity vs Quality

Reader, emailingisaformoflurking*, writes:
"Are you cheating on blogger? Why haven't you been posting?"

It's called, "Just shy of being over my head at work."

Right now, this is not quite a bad thing. I'm enjoying the challenge. I am learning to say, "NO." I am learning to successfully NOT say, "Why don't you go and do it your own damned self." But only rarely find the need to even think it. That's when I just smile that half-smile and nod as I jot your task on my "things to do" list. No, it will not be the next thing I do. I may not even get to it until tomorrow. I am very much still a 7th grader at times. I wouldn't mind doing everything for everyone if it wasn't for the one person in the office that does it all for herself. What this tells me is that either she doesn't have enough work, or (more likely) the others? They could also maybe do it all themselves, but choose, instead, to send it my way.

The other day some of my logic slipped out before I curtailed it, so I'll share it with the world now. Andy boiled it down to my not minding/hating/wanting to kill "stupid" people. They're okay in my book. (Really it's more like "people who make stupid mistakes.") It's the competent ones that are assholes that I have a problem with.

I mean:

• If you're speeding in a residential area cuz you didn't realize the arterial speed had changed from 40 to 25 or something, that's one thing. If you are speeding cuz you can? Screw you.
• Oops, you got on the freeway using the carpool lane cuz you've only lived here a few days? That's fine. You use the lane because you're so special, and besides, you think your penis is big enough to be considered a second passenger? Kill you.
• You cut in front of me at the grocery store because you didn't see that the line split to make room for people to pass by? No problem, bonus if you look all "deer in the headlights" and apologize. However, if you feel like it's my tough luck for not pushing grandma out of the way so I could cross the "passage" aisle and now I'm stuck behind you? Don't be surprised when my grocery cart wheels have savaged your ankles.

Better picture of it all, nes pa?

With that in mind, is it any wonder just how I prioritize stuff at work?

Speaking of which...

Happy Tuesday.

I promise, more than once a week postings from now on. I'm not dead in a ditch. Just buried under paper.

*No, not their real name/persona/email.
Even I am not sooooo mean as to call someone out when they are so shy they email instead of commenting directly on my blog.

Choosing Your Music Carefully

Some advice that I really should remember to follow in the future:

The next time you are on the fine line between depression and just plain exhausted uncertainty, feeling like the world is crumbling all around you, or just not quite right in the head due to life, hormones, the alignment of the planets, etc., DO NOT LISTEN TO PETER GABRIEL.

I don't care if the album is called "UP." This is not short for "up-beat." This is not how you will feel as you sit in traffic wanting to pull your hair out as you wait for the traffic, lights or weave out of an almost accident. You will scream at the top of your lungs, and really, even in Seattle where everyone is busy talking on their cell phones as they drive? They'll be able to tell that you, actually, are not on the phone. They will turn and look at you at the stop light; there will be fear in their eyes. You will scare people. You will scare yourself.

Aaauuummm.

What to listen to instead? I'm not all that sure. There is so much to consider.

Music and memories are very much tied together for me.

For Example, I was telling Andy today, as we drove up to the Alderwood Mall, music blaring on the stereo, that I have the most inappropriate songs tied to guys I've dated. I don't think I've ever really been "into" the same kind of music as the fellows in my life. So when one of them, (who loved Erasure and certain other bands that I was kinda "eh" about) and I happened to "discover" we both really liked Closer by Nine Inch Nails? Yep, it kinda became "our song." (I can't believe I'm admitting that one to the world.)

It's not like it gets any better with age. The X? Well, we were driving around Stanford-town/Redwood City. Possibly to go to Beltramos for some lambic. The Butthole Surfers happened to be playing on the stereo. He hears Pepper for the first time. Right. Our song. "They were all in love with dying and they were doing it Texas," baybeee. I know, I know, how romantical and all.

I will always associate Duran Duran with the X. That kinda sucks. I liked them way before him. Alfred can back me up with that one...we had cassette tapes of those boys long before X really got into them. He was all about the Queensriche, Iron Maiden, Styx, and Rush. On the flip side, I will also associate the Go-Go's with him. Yep, he loved the Go-Go's. I wonder if he's admitted that one to the new "I only listen to angry punk rock music" girlfriend? My absolute favorite memory associated with "Our Lips are Sealed" would be him speaking to Richard over the telephone and asking him if his liking of the Go-Go's (which included dancing and singing along to them) meant he was maybe gay? Richard assured him that no, this was not the case. Then immediately sent him an email with just one word:

FAG!!!!

I love you, Richard.

I can't listen to Tori Amos' "Little Earthquakes" without remembering countless miles between the Renaissance Faire, Lake Arrowhead, and LA in my best friend from high school's little Corolla. As PG above sings, "Life carries on, and on and on, and on..." And it scares me to see just how much time and distance and everything has gone on since those days.

I bring this up as I recently "lost touch" with my best friend from HS. Kyra posted a while back about relationships and that Seinfeld episode (which I never saw) where they discuss "dumping" friends? Yep. That's exactly how it feels, like I've been dumped. And then what? All these memories that are a part of you...and that's all they can be now. All part of the past.

So do you sink into that past and surround yourself with the things that remind you of the good times: They Might Be Giants' Ana Ng? The Bobs' My Shoes Are (on top of the world)? A slew of Ren Faire ditties? ("Johnny Be Fine" to be precise)? Or shake it all off and look to a future with one less person in your life? And maybe listen to too much Peter Gabriel in the process?

Quien sabe. But I think I might have to open my ears up to new music, to maybe create new associations so I can take a break from the past.

Blank

My brain is so full of "stuff for work" that I am totally blank in the creativity department.

 

Isn't that just bizarre how work can do that to people?  Suck their brains of all but that which must happen for work for we are Borg and must work for the collective...or whatnot?

 

Is it really only Tuesday?

 

Random.

 

Okay, I need to take a creativity break...or something.  I'm a little weirded out by how I feel right now.  Mind-numbing isn't the word.  It really is more like a "Workmentor" coming by and sucking all non-work thoughts from my head...like I'll never be able to think about anything non-human resources related again...

 

Andy and I went to the IMAX theater last night.  We live dangerously close to it and had no idea.  Spiderman3 is there until mid July or whatever the exact date is when the next Harry Potter flick shows up...in 3-D!!!  I gotta say though, if you're gonna go out to se a movie, IMAX is the way to go.  Andy thought it was way too loud.  Back when I had full use of my hearing I probably would have felt the same.  Instead I thought it was just right.  That makes me so very sad.

 

Anyhow, if you haven't seen Spidey3...well, I'd wait for video...unless you really just want to see CGI after CGI scene.  Which is a valid reason to go in its own right.  It fell prey to the same thing the "I'm Batman" movies did.  Too many villains and too many lessons to be imparted all at once.  Give me one hero, one villain, one damned climax and following denouement in a shorter movie and I am a happy camper.  So many "you know maybe you should reconsider what you're thinking" scenes could have been cut...but the powers that be don't seem to think that the audience can figure things out for themselves anymore...urgh.  The dumbing down of America really pisses me off sometimes.

 

Okay...enough of this foolishness...a little more HR stuff and then I get to go home.  It's just sad when your afternoon break happens at the end of the day...must learn to monitor my breaks a wee bit better.

It's Official!

I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHERE ANYTHING IS ANYMORE.

Andy and our landlord will do that final "walk through" thing today and the house at the edge of town will go up for sale. Or something. By the way ladies, Andy is doing the last of the cleaning, as I gotta work. He's already there, been there since like 5AM cleaning BATHROOMS and mopping floors. (See Andy, don't say I don't advertise for you, free market economy and all...)

Back at the ranch:
In the same vein as the "you know you're a" redneck/knitter/geek lists, I share with you that which is set up and in use in the apartment:

• The coffee maker.
  
• Andy's computer.

(Obviously the bathrooms as well, but technically, as most of the bathroom stuff is in a box "somewhere," I don't consider that "set up" yet. Don't even ask about the bedrooms, I live in BOX HELL.)

Hmmmm....what does this say about the dwellers of this place? Archaeologists would have a field day if Mt St Helens pulled a Pompeii on us today.

But yes, there is once again connectivity "in da house," or what have you. Now I just have to figure out what box my computer is in...then some day I will set up the kitchen, maybe the living room. It's all about priorities, people. :)

Happy Friday!

(BTW, for those who watch my every move...and noticed my flagrant usage of style in this post...I'm practicing my HTML skillz. I've been in need of such at this latest assignment.)

Chubby "Afrodite"

It's all running together....I can't remember where I took this picture...I want to say Ostia Antica, at their mini museum. But it might have been Naples...Or was it on one of our self-guided museum tours?!? So unless anyone knows different? Let's call it umm, somewhere in Italy.
This was not the only "chubby" Aphrodite (Afrodite in Italiano) that I ran across. But I believe it was the first one I could take a picture of -- many museums have a no-picture no-movie rule.

I think I mentioned this when I posted "on the ground" in Italy, but I shall restate it with some visual today. Skinny was SO NOT IN during the height of the Roman empire. The beauty queens were chubby! I am so down with that.

Pale was also in fashion. Women, well WEALTHY women who could afford such a luxury, would bathe in donkey's milk and the like to try to bleach their skin. I was reminded of one of the "Dracula" stories I found when I was in school. I can't remember which crazy queen it was, but she used to bathe in the blood of virgins or somesuch nastiness to keep her skin young, and pretty, and porcelain-esque.

There's this one beautiful sculpture of Hades and Persephone in the Borghese gallery (no pictures allowed, scroll down a bit here and you can get a fuzzy picture) that depicts the moment where Hades is dragging Persephone with him to the Underworld. Once you are finished being simply in utter awe of the mastery needed to show Hades' strong god-fingers digging into Persephone's supple flesh? And it does look SOFT! You start noticing that Persephone is soft all over! She too has a couple places where maybe she had one pomegranate too many. I LOVE IT!

All of this makes me laugh and laugh as, wasn't it the Italians that recently put out that law that their super models can't be too thin or something? Aside from just being rational, I think it might come from the idea of what beautiful was to their ancestors. And that beauty included a little chub!

Okay, time to pack up the computer. See you all (my three loyal readers :)) sometime next week...or whenever the cable gets installed.

PS: I will be in the middle of moving but wherever I find myself with a spare moment, I will gladly pull out my mom's mom-day-gift and at least knit a few stitches. How did this day sneak up on me?!? Follow the link on my sidebar for more info!

I Was Going to Title This One Yellow

Because that was the color of my car this morning.

I understand that it is still 14 days until it's "officially" summer and all, but people! Or should I say TREES! Stop with the pollen producing already! My head is so ready to explode that I am strongly considering stopping at the "Discount Gun Store" on Lake City Way and seeing if I can help it out from the outside.

The stuff gets EVERYWHERE...and it is STICKY. My lungs hurt so badly right now. And yes, eeeeeuuuuuuwww I can feel it in my lungs! That is just so very wrong in so very many different ways.

I thought nothing could be worse. I really did.
Then I found something that is:

Writing a cover letter.

It is official. I am Cover Letter challenged.

I hateses them with every pollen-clogged-pore in my being. Seeing as I am surrounded, literally, by files that contain ten million applications, with said cover letters, (I did mention I'm temping at an HR department this time around?) you'd think I'd be able to just become instantly inspired to create a valid one of my own, right? RIGHT!? WRONG.

Has everyone but me read The Shipping News? I'm on the first part just as he's getting on the boat to Nova Scotia or wherever. But you know how he was a reporter for that guy Punch, or whoever, and no matter how many times the copy editor dude slashes and burns his stories and tells him to add moxy or whatnot (can you tell the sudafed has started to kick in?) and he nods like he knows what all that advice means and stuff? But really? REALLY? He has no clue?

Right. That would be me and the sea of cover letters.
HATESES them.
But I need one. Not necessarily today, but the job I'm applying for closes on Monday, and I'm taking my computer down today, so scratch that...NECESSARILY today it is. Urgh...HATE.

Okay, break's over, back to the grind...

Moving Sucks

I'm sure I'm doing the very human (as Douglas Adams would have said) thing of stating the obvious.

We get to go clean the bathrooms and kitchen tonight! Woo hoo! I know, exciting.

The hardest bit is the "smoothing out" of unforeseen folds/problems...like the P of the ad. There is parking! Sure! But I don't seem to be able to, without developing an ulcer, actually park my car in the space. It's just too narrow! If I actually achieve this feat, then there is the problem of not being able to OPEN the door so I can get out, seeing as my "neighbor's" car is a mere inches away from mine when properly parked.

Yes, obviously, phone calls are going to be made today.

Not a big surprise here, but I'll be taking a web break possibly as soon as tomorrow. Andy has to start switching utilities and all that FUN stuff. And I really should pack up my computer stuff. I'll see if I don't post my absolute favorite picture of "Afrodite" that I found this morning. Think: chubby. Tee hee.

Downsizing...

So when I first agreed to move up to Seattle, friends in tow, I had absolutely no clue where I wanted to live, save for one itty bitty caveat: NOT DOWNTOWN.

The fact is, up until I officially clear out of here, which is pretty soon now, actually, I was literally one block away from the city line (Seattle/Shoreline). Seriously, in my first year+ here in the Emerald City I have been living as far north as is possible while still being able to keep the "Seattle" in my return address.

Today, this has officially changed.

Andy and I have signed our lives away to an apartment complex down near Gas Works Park! Talk about a 142 block change of venue! The way we were going about looking for a new place to live, though, I honestly thought we'd be on 137th or even 100th! Things were going less than splendid in finding new digs. Finding housing with people can really be trying on a friendship, lemme tell ya.

At one point we thought it was us and that maybe it was time for us to look for 2 different places to live, you know, on our own and stuff.

I found a CUTE basement apartment with a black and white checkered floor that would be both cheap and awesome! Well, as long as you were about my height...which neither Andy nor Tim, nor Lev, James, well, pretty much anyone but the aforementioned girlfriends' really...the ceiling? Kinda low. The highest point was 6'4", according to the ad. According to one of the girls I work with who actually saw the place? Well, that was actually only in one spot in the entire place. I.e. a "not safe for Andy" to visit place as he's kinda on the 6'3.75" side of the vertical spectrum.

Then came June 1st. Did you all know about the mass exodus of people come summer in Seattle? I sure didn't. Well, all of a sudden all of these 2 bedroom/2 bath W/D, NP, NS, P(!) ads were all over! The best part? They were popping up in places where we actually wanted to live...or at least close enough for my NO DOWNTOWN self.

See, I have this awful feeling that if I am not very careful, I will become very much like the old man in "Monster House." I like it quiet. I like my space. I hate kids being loud and obnoxious...be they 3 or 33, I have found myself counting to 10 so as to not say things like, "you kids be quiet!" "Get off my lawn!" "Turn that horrible music off!" Etc. and so forth.

So while the place is just around the way from Fremont and all the fun places Andy likes to go hang out? It is still AT LEAST a 10 minute walk away. The downside? The bus stop? Yep, same 10 minute walk away...if not 15... An upside? I can bike to my latest temp assignment. Down...groceries are kinda far. Up: Gas Works Park! Down: ummm the crowds at Gas Works Park. Up: FIREWORKS at Gas Works Park for 4th of July!!! Down: We're going from a huge 2-story house to an average sized 2-bedroom apartment. Up: umm less to clean?

Obviously there are lots of pluses and minuses. The bottom line? We will have a roof over our heads and be moved out of "Wayne Manor" before the "FOR SALE" sign and all the garbage attached to such things starts up.

Speaking of which, I gotta go start packing now.

Happy Saturday!