five thousand shades of blue
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
weekend
Was pretty good, though tiring. We'd leave site too late and then a half hour drive and shower and bed and be up again by 7 to get back out there for late breakfast. I hear Friday was unbearably hot, and it rained some on Saturday night and Sunday morning. Aside from this, the weather was fairly pleasant.
I was a little bored though, and as always the setup (which we weren't as involved in) and tear down (which we were, ugh) makes me have to chant
We do this for fun repeatedly until I start to believe it. See, the event part I like. The camping / roughing it part, I do not.
Life with the new cat continues to be interesting. If he pees on something one more time — and always while standing in front of us. I'm sure it's insecurity issues but if he's still doing this a month from now, I'll be looking to liquidate my investment, if you catch my drift. (I already have a possibility lined up, just in case.)
I'm glad it's a short week. I'm not sure how much more week I could take.
Friday, May 23, 2003
I'm outta here!
This weekend is
Egil's, so even though I'm not staying on site (i.e. camping*), I'll likely be out of touch until Monday or Tuesday.
If you're going? Look for the Mongol with the coral beaded headdress and then say hi. :)
(* = even though I did buy new a camping bed which is raised up off of the ground…)
Monday, May 19, 2003
So, uh, yeah…
We adopted
a new cat.
I should say he adopted us. We got home from work on Friday, shut the door, only to hear a plaintive wailing from the front porch. We open the door and this kitty tries to come in! We stand outside and pet him — he was practically crawling our legs. We theorized that he was an indoor kitty that had gotten out, and thought he belonged to the house down the street, so we walk down there, and were greeted by two very large barking dogs.
Probably not here.
We went to the house past that. Not theirs either; she suggested they belonged to a family down the other way, as she'd seen it following a 'family' that way.
Se we headed down to the other end of the street, and the two houses we asked said he came from the end of the street we'd begun on. Coming back to our own house, we brought out a bowl of dry food, which he fell face first into.
Based on what my roommate said, we now think that when the family across the street moved out two weekends ago, they left him behind (whether accidentally or intentionally).
We brought him in the house and kept him in the downstairs bathroom, away from the girls, in case he was FIV or feline leukemia positive. We had a lead for someone who might be interested in taking him in, but as it turned out they wanted a shorthair.
Meanwhile, aside from the occasional caterwauling in the small downstairs bathroom (usually when he heard people voices in the office) and wanting to get out every time we went in to check on him, he was relatively well behaved and very friendly. (Judging from the deposits in the litterbox, he'd been living on garbage.)
We decided then that we would take him to the vet and get him checked out. Aside from being a little underweight for his ~1 year of age, flea-ridden, and intact, he was fine ("Brain surgery", as the vet put, will be happening
very soon tomorrow). He had his shots, blood drawn for the FIV/feline leukemia test (negative!), an Advantage treatment, ointment in his irritated eyes… a very hard day. So as soon as he got home, we gave him a bath with kitty bath wipes (think baby wipes; didn't want to wash off the flea stuff). The first thing he did was walk off of the table and sit on my roommate's bike seat (what a sight). Then he slept. A lot.
When he wasn't sleeping, he investigated the house a bit, got into hissing matches with the girls (and touched noses — there's hope yet). We had an incident with inappropriate peeing, but I think that had more to do with feeling ganged-up upon and insecure, or not associating needing to pee with going to the catbox (if he was an outside cat before, he isn't going to be now).
He's pretty vocal. Doesn't like to go upstairs. Loves sitting in the big front window.
Anyway.
Friday, May 16, 2003
busy weekend ahead
I'll probably be more quiet than usual… if that's possible.
I mentioned earlier that the yearly
big event is next weekend, and have I started getting crap together? No. I have not. And I have seemingly lost my master packing list, yet again. Argh!
I have yet to put up the loaner yurt from S&T just to get a feel for how it goes up, and with the wacky weather we've been having, I'm hoping to hell that it is waterproof. Have plans to go to the store and buy a new air mattress bed, as in, raised up off of the floor. It is on sale this week — it was meant to be.
I am almost done with that new Mongolian tunic I've been working on. What I like best about it? Much less fabric. :D (I like being smaller, I really do.)
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
*fingers crossed*
We had a meeting this morning with DC, a loan officer whom Lawyer Lady recommended to us to help us get a refinance. It was a good meeting. Because of the pending (and IMO unjust) foreclosure, no one will simply refinance us, even with our much improved income situation. At this point all that would be available would be "foreclosure bailout" and that'd only cover 60-65% (there's no way we could cover the rest). However, it is possible to get a parent, relative or friend to 'buy' the house as an investment property, which we would then 'rent' from them. In a few years' time we could 'buy' it back. We even have a volunteer to do it, and we actually have some money saved to get it going.
Oh happy day — I could soon be forever rid of the EMC™. Fingers crossed.
BTW — I hereby give standing permission to anyone out there to play the lottery in my name. :D
Monday, May 12, 2003
…yawn…
Even after losing a day to working, it was a good weekend. It really rocks to have the sewing room all set up to go. I put together a pair of pants all by myself — except for the bottom cuffs (flipped and hemmed so a drawstring can be inserted), because the sewing machine decided to flip apeshit just as I was finishing. (We just had it serviced too. It's a piece of shit. Also? Am calling the repair shop about this.)
In more sewing news, I also hemmed the black
del and then threw it in the wash before putting the red cuffs on, because before starting this thing, I forgot the cardinal rule of sewing: wash the fabric
before doing anything with it! It was turning my fingers black just to work with it, and I didn't want it to bleed black all over the red. It fits beautifully, BTW.
The funniest thing happened yesterday. Had the window cracked open with the sliding screen because it was getting stuffy in the sewing room. Arwen (my black kitty) decided to perch in the window. I guess this was not acceptable to a bird that has apparently made a nest in the eaves — it just kept flying back and forth (and hovering) in front of the window screeching its little head off. Arwen just kept looking to us as if to say, "What'd I do?"
Did I mention the squirrels? We have squirrels who use our gutters as a freeway and they routinely stampede across the roof, just over where my head is when I'm sleeping. I do not appreciate squirrel stampedes at 6:30 am on Saturday and Sunday.
And, I slept terribly last night as well. Kept waking up to much snoring (cat snores can be very disruptive!). Dreamt weird things about a Star Trek convention that was also an SCA event, and how my mom ruined the whole thing by smoking. Odd.
Saturday, May 10, 2003
yes, sadly, I am working
John, the usual Saturday guy, hurt his back, so I am in today. I'm not crazy about being here but the poor guy couldn't get to the phone without unbearable agony. There's no way he could have worked today.
Two weekends and counting until
Egil's, and I'm not ready, but unlike years past, I am not panicked, exactly. I'm going to go with the flow and not flip out too badly if there are things I didn't do that I wanted to do. (One thing that will get done? Purchase of air mattress. I am too old to be sleeping on the ground.) Sort of a peaceful calm about the whole thing. Oooooohm.
*Wavewave* to Gabrielle, who was a net.buddy of mine back in the early 1990s. I'll reply soon, I promise! (I'm so glad it was you. :) )
Thursday, May 08, 2003
mercury retrograde
(extremely amateur astrology to follow!)
We're in Mercury retrograde until May 20th. It's usually a time of groaning dread because when the planet Mercury, planet that rules over communication, appears to move backwards through the sky, that tends to mean that computers will crash, meanings will be garbled, letters will get lost … miscommunications will happen.
It is, however, an exceptional time to clutter-clear and get rid of the old
(you shoulda seen the haul I took to St. Vinnie's on Monday!), and also? To take care of unfinished business.
You know what comes to mind. Uh-huh, you got it. A certain EMC™.
We've been speaking to two different companies, looking into refinancing. So, let's hope Mercury retrograde works its special kinda magic, yes?
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
feelin' wheezy
Something must be in the air today, and yesterday too, something microscopically small, something that causes flowers and trees to reproduce. Something that is my archenemy in the spring.
Pollen something.
I feel like I can't breathe, really. I have taken antihistamines but that hasn't helped as much as I'd hoped it would. I hope to get a chance to sit in the steam room at the health club.
Ugh.
Tuesday, May 06, 2003
let's try this again
Stupidly, I hit the wrong button before, and erased my entry before posting it.
I did not get any driving lessons this weekend, because it was raining intermittently, and the windshield wipers decided to just stop working. (I can still hear the motor, so I don't know what is up with that.) Also, the hem I thought was backwards was in fact not, so... yay for not having to do that mindless crap all over again.
Having an irritable sort of day. Grrr.
Someone who is likely having a better day: warm wishes and greetings to
Faz, who is getting married today! Congrats, sweetie!
Friday, May 02, 2003
update
* I have almost hit that 30-pound-loss mark on my diet. I can wear size 12 jeans again, but only certain kinds (Eddie Bauers fit; Levi's do not). "L" t-shirts fit well again instead of too snugly. Yay!
* I am still sick of salad for lunch. I should prep something ahead of time but when I get home I'm usually to brain dead to think.
* No progress on EMC™ front. Argh. Everything else though is okay, except for a bout of the blues earlier this week.
* Clippathing thing in on hold. The disk they sent to me? They unexpectedly needed it back before I could finish it. I told them I was definitely interested in future projects though. Cool.
* Still can't drive stick shift. Hoping to get lessons this weekend.
* I hand-sewed the hem on the neckline of my new piece of garb inside out. So now I have to rip it out and do the whole tedious thing over again. Lucky me! :P
Daria M. V. K.
My strongest memories of her involve drama and music.
I can't remember where they were going that morning, but the destination wasn't crucial in any way, only that it wasn't local. She forgot to 'spring forward' the clock that morning and when they arrived to pick her up, she was still in hot rollers, thinking she had plenty of time in the world. (They broke the land-speed record, I think, in order to get there on time.) She starred as Leisl in our high school's "The Sound of Music", and oh, the snickering during her main song ("Sixteen Going on Seventeen"), because anyone who knew her knew she was not at all the innocent that Liesl was. Nor was she a floozy, as she was in "Funny Girl" where she and I played a pair in our vintage '20s dresses, sidling up to Dave S.
She was diagnosed with cancer while early in a pregnancy. I learned late yesterday that she died on Wednesday... the first and only Daria that I ever knew. I did not know her terribly well, but well enough to know she was a good person.
Today she would have been 33. I'm not even 33 yet.
As I read the obituary my dad scanned in from the local paper, it seems that she had not changed at all from the kind, well-liked girl I'd known in school. I can only imagine the hole her death has left in their lives: her family, her close friends, and her music students.
Rest in peace.
is
this just not enough…?
