Whoosh!

Things are moving very quickly right now.

Tuesday I got a Good Faith Estimate.

Wednesday I bought a pretty little 50¢ notebook from Michael's art supply store, walked up the parking lot to the other branch of my credit union, and met with the mortgage originator. She went through the GFE line by line, stopping while I took copious notes (she gets a lot of that, I'm sure). The number that stunned me so much turned out to be a worst-case scenario sort of estimate (highest taxes, highest insurance, 25 days' worth of interest to pay up front...), and included the down payment in it. That made it much more manageable.

After a few moments' hesitation, I flung myself into the gap and said, "All right, let's see if I can get approved."

I did, for exactly the amount she had projected. It seems like an awful lot of money to me, and I'm amazed that someone is willing to trust me with it. Apparently I have excellent credit. I'd assumed it was pretty good. After I finally paid off my student loans, I noticed a steady increase in the number of "You're Pre-Approved!" credit card applications in my mail.

I told my sister to go ahead and refer a realtor for me. I later found out that this means she'll get a piece of the commission. Might as well keep the money in the family, right?

Thursday I got contacted by J., and I told her what I want: a little townhouse on a bus route.

Friday she sent me 18 listings either on or near a bus route, all in my price range. A couple of 'em are more towards the top end...but there you are.

Saturday I did something totally unrelated with the Chief Loon over in Bellefonte. Research and picture-taking for an event the Loons are putting together for this spring or summer.

I've spent this afternoon using mapquest and the area transit authority's web site to see a) where these houses are; b) what routes are nearby; and c) how nearby is "nearby?"

All right, I admit it. I'm a question mark.

Occasionally I catch myself saying things like, "Oooooh, it has a basement!" I don't need a basement. I've looked around my apartment and I realize that once I get myself into a 2- or possibly 3-bedroom townhouse with all my stuff, I'm going to rattle around the place like a seed in a gourd.

To answer some of the comments to the previous post: G., sorry, but I think I'm going to do exactly what your daughter did. I've been in the area for approximately 20 years. I think it's safe to say I'm staying. If I want to move, I'll sell the house. I know there's a lot of maintenance involved with owning a home (been watching my parents for years), but I think I can handle it. I figured it out yesterday and my conservative estimate is that over the past 15 1/2 years I've spent a little over $75,000 on rent, and I have nothing to show for it but a dingy little apartment and a growing sense of irritation at the way the place is managed. I've hit the point in my life where I want to have something after I've paid for it.

JustMe, Sunny is a blast. It's not her real name (no one mentioned on this blog has their real name used) but it should be. I'm pretty sure that little blue place has been snapped up. It's not in my list from the realtor. There are a bunch of places over on that end of town though, so we could still be doing the YMCA/bingo thing. Most of these places look like I'll still be right smack up against my neighbors, but that doesn't bother me. Hearing people overhead bothers me. Place I'm in now, the floorboards squeak something awful. You can hear every step, all the time. Ugh. I didn't care about that when I moved in. I just wanted somewhere to live.

Hey Ditter! Does the hubby know you just enlisted him as mover/painter? 'Cause I may just take you up on that.

This coming Thursday I have the day off from work. I'm using that time to meet with J., talk about these listings she sent me, and probably go see some of 'em.

I'm beginning to feel like I should start packing...time to hoard boxes from work.

I've officially stuck a toe into the water

Eeeeee!

I just called my credit union and left a message with one of their mortgage originators (must be her lunch hour) about what I want to do. I left my cubicle's phone number instead of my cell, 'cause reception is bad in here. Well, what do I expect? Middle of the room under four floors' worth of books, do I think I'm gonna be able to call out? The Verizon "can-you-hear-me-now" dude needs to come scout around in here.

Reactions to what I'm trying to do have been mixed: my mother is so excited I can hear her bouncing up and down in her seat right now. I had to let a teensy bit of the air out her balloon by reminding her that sometimes I can be all talk.

"Look how long it took me to learn how to drive," I pointed out, via email.

"Drive?" She wrote back. "When did you learn how to drive? Have you been holding out on me?"

"No, Mom. That was my point."

Bess (at work) thinks it's great. Nothing like owning your own place, she says.

Jane (another friend of mine, making her first appearance in my blog. Under an assumed name, of course) on the other hand was a total wet blanket. Went to dinner with her last week and the very first words out of her mouth when I mentioned my plans were negative. She was all about how expensive housing is around here, and how much money home ownership costs in general. Didn't have one word of encouragement. I had to bite back my initial response (I tend to do that a lot with her. Maybe someday I should just let her have it), which was something along the lines of "You're just jealous because I'm taking steps to change my situation, and you're scared that I might succeed." She seems happiest when someone nearby fails. I don't know why that is. I don't know why I continue to hang out with her, actually.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have Sunny. I bumped into her in the grocery store yesterday evening. We used to work in the same department, but her tolerance for BS is much, much, much lower than mine, so Sunny found work elsewhere years ago. I haven't seen her in ages.

I told her what was up with me lately and she got all excited.

"There is the cutest little townhouse for sale near me. It looks out over a cornfield. It's near a bus route...and the YMCA...you have to see it!"

She started to describe where it was, and then said,

"Are you busy right now? I'll take you over!"

-We interrupt this blog entry for an important (to me) bulletin-

Just heard back from the woman I called. She took some info over the phone (I thought we'd have to meet or something), is going to run some numbers and email me a "good faith" estimate later on today. Oooohhh! My little heart is going pitty-pat.

-We now return you to your regularly scheduled entry-

So we get into Sunny's car, which she's apologizing for and making excuses about:

"It's filthy. I'm sorry." (Looked fine to me) "That mark on the inside of the door is from where my son spilled hot chocolate yesterday." (Hadn't noticed it 'til she pointed it out). "The smell of death in here is from my stinky feet." (Oh, Sunny, honestly. What are you talking about?). All the way over she's telling me about the horrible job she just left, one that made her look back fondly to the one in my old department. Good lord, she must be joking.

"No, seriously, Vee. These women were Evil." Then she goes into detail and by the time she's done, I have to say that I agree with her. Now she's working for another organization that she likes much better, where they actually praise her for doing good work and don't hold past mistakes against her.

Then suddenly we're in her neighborhood. She drives around a bit. I see a lot of townhouses for sale in the area, but none of them are the one she means. Sunny's pointing out all sorts of things to me:

"See, there's a bus stop...okay, it's not right on the route, but it's close. And there's the YMCA, within walking distance...we could go work out together! And down there..." she points. I can't see anything. "...is the Knights of Columbus, where they have bingo every Friday night."

Then we find it. It is cute. Little. Blue. It's on the end of the row, which means there's a really nice window and no neighbors on the left. Perfect little starter home. And yep, there's a corn field across the street. Or at least, there is right now. Give it a few years and some developer will probably turn it into student housing or single-family dwellings packed in so tightly that when the resident of one house sneezes someone from next door will be able to hand in a tissue from the open window without leaving his own living room.

She decides we need to stop and take a look--and confesses (but I knew this) that she's doing a little living vicariously through me, because she doesn't think she'll ever be able to live in anything but a rental. We pull up in the parking lot outside, and she gets out of the car -- I don't 'cause I'm bit more shy. What if the owner's home? What do we say? "Hi, we saw your for sale sign, thought we'd peek through your windows"?

She comes skipping happily back to the car.

"I think I know your neighbors. That is, unless those two pug dogs in the window aren't who I think they are."

"Sunny! Sweetie, you've got me all moved in and I don't even have a mortgage approved yet."

"Ah, psh!" She waves this way. "Details!"

Then she drives me home. On the way I tell her about Jane's discouragement, and she says one word: "Frenemy."

"Pardon?"

"Frenemy. Acts like she's your friend but is really an enemy. All she does is chip away at your joy. Happy when you fail, though she does her best not to show it. Happier still when she can keep you from trying to succeed. Frenemy."

Frenemy.

I have a new word.

--Added later: Got the Good Faith Estimate. Need to talk to the mortgage originator about it, as I have no idea whatsoever what any of it means. Right now it looks like closing costs are twice as much as what I'd need for a down payment. In a fret, I emailed my sister asking her to talk sense to me and bring me in off the ledge. She has done that, but I need to speak to this woman. In the meantime I'm playing around online looking at houses. Can't find a listing for the one I saw yesterday, though I am pretty sure I was on the website of the right agency.

More on the "Punctuation Mark" assessment test from yesterday

I suppose the quibble I have with the way they described me is that while I do research the heck out of stuff, it isn't usually for myself. If someone else has a question, I go after the answer like a terrier after a rat. But me? I don't have many questions these days.

I love learning but I can't stand School. The thing I disliked most about college was that most of the professors in my major weren't trying to help me find my own way. They were looking for immortality. The way to do this is by creating a bunch of people who think just like you. By my senior year I was so tired of my professors in fiction-writing trying to replace my perspective with theirs that I actually snarled at one man, "If that's the sort of story you want to see, then write your own and leave mine alone!"

He gave me an A. I've often wondered if it was because of that comment or in spite of it.

He did give me an excellent piece of advice once, though he did it by accident. He said that "actors would love to get their teeth into this dialogue, but it just doesn't work for fiction." What he meant was, "Be more descriptive." What I heard was, "Try writing a play." I took playwriting the next semester and had a blast.

I'm a question mark?

You Are a Question Mark

You seek knowledge and insight in every form possible. You love learning. And while you know a lot, you don't act like a know it all. You're open to learning you're wrong. You ask a lot of questions, collect a lot of data, and always dig deep to find out more. You're naturally curious and inquisitive. You jump to ask a question when the opportunity arises. Your friends see you as interesting, insightful, and thought provoking. (But they're not always up for the intense inquisitions that you love!) You excel in: Higher education You get along best with: The Comma

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

I don't know that I quite agree with this. I don't know that I give intense inquisitions (Do I? Do I? Huh? Do I?), and if by excelling in higher education they mean formal education they are way, way off. I have a bachelor's degree, and that's all I want.

Bumper stickers, family, and politics

My aunt's a charismatic Christian and a very, very conservative Republican. Lately I've been seeing bumper stickers around that make me think of her, but not 'cause she'd agree with the sentiments. The one that would really make her twitch?

"The Rapture is not an exit strategy!"

I try not to talk politics or religion with her. I don't know whether it occurs to her that I don't agree with her about much because I never argue. I just let her talk and talk, and keep my own counsel. The closest she's ever come to realizing I'm not on her team was a conversation we had almost sixteen years ago, right after Bill Clinton won his first term in office. The Virginia Contingent of the family came up for Thanksgiving vacation that year. We were seated at the supper table, and she was all doom and gloom about how horrible the next four years were going to be. Then she pounced on me with:

"Who did you vote for?"

"Clinton."

"Vee!" Shocked, appalled. My cousin D actually made a move as if to smack me (he was ten, if that's any excuse) but stopped when he saw my "go on, try it" expression.

"And I'm going to do it again. Then I'm voting for Gore. Please pass the turnips."

I refused to be drawn into an argument with her, though she did try. I told her I was not interested in a political debate. My voting choices were none of her business ("secret ballot," and all that), my reasons were my own, and I didn't care whether she agreed with me or not.

Silence. And then my sister changed the subject to something less likely to cause a food fight.

We've never had a political discussion since. She has a son in the Air Force (Cousin D, as a matter of fact) who's about to be deployed to Iraq for the second time, and though she's frightened, worried, and generally upset she still stubbornly backs the Guy in Charge. Shrug. Oh well. I guess someone has to, though I just don't get it.

I don't know why I'm talking politics today. I never do. Maybe it's because Bill Clinton was here last Friday, Obama was here Sunday, Ann Coulter is in town this evening, and the primary elections are a little under three weeks away. I wish Edwards had stayed in the race. That's the one I really wanted to vote for.

Icing on the cake

I get paid on the last business day of the month. I give myself a monthly allowance in my checking account, and on payday I log into my account online to move over anything that might be leftover in checking from last month's budget into the savings account. While I'm there, I take a look at whether/when the checks I've written so far have cleared. The one from the Embroiderer's Guild for my yearly dues hasn't cleared yet, but I'm not surprised. The treasurer must only go to the bank once a month or something. But another check cleared awfully late. I am surprised by it and a little bit angry.

My rent check is due to the office by the fifth business day of the month. Normally it clears by the seventh or eighth, right after it gets deposited. Both banks are local, and all this stuff is done by computer now, so it goes much quicker than it did when I was in high school--it's almost instantaneous, particularly if the check was deposited in the morning.

This month my rent check didn't clear until March 28. That's last Friday.

Good grief! Twenty-three days after I gave it to them they finally decide to do something with it? I click on the link from my bank to see a scanned-in PDF file of the check. Date stamp from the landlord's bank was indeed dated 3/28/2008, so it wasn't some computer screw up. Our guy never made it to the bank until the end of the month. Either that, or he misplaced my check for three weeks. He must have listed it in his records as received, because I didn't get any letters about late rent.

I guess this just emphasizes that the current management is slowly slipping downhill, and I really, really need to get out of here.

How to lose a long-time tentant

1. Hire an incompetent who, even though he lives in the complex, can't make it to the office by the time it's supposed to open. Make sure he can't keep driveways and sidewalks ice-free, even though that means cars will have to take a headlong run all the way from the bottom of the sloping driveway in order to make it to the top and out onto the street. Stopping for anything (like pedestrians, say, or oncoming traffic) should result in the driver having to slither back to the bottom of the hill and try again.

2. Let said incompetent miss the deadline for writing lease addenda (they're usually on our doors by mid-February. It's now almost April).

3. This manager will then write addenda, back-dating them in such a way as to imply lessees were given a week to decide whether they were renewing or not. The addenda will be distributed the Friday morning of a holiday weekend in March, with a deadline of 12 PM the following Monday (not even two full business days). The manager will not be in the office that day to answer questions or field complaints, of course.

4. Then have the manager write threatening, frightening follow-up letters like this:

Dear Resident:

As per your lease renewal, I have not received it as of today 12:00 pm Monday 3/24/08.

If you want to renew but have questions please e-mail or call and leave your name, apt number, and phone number. [No phone number or email address included in the letter]

I will return your call ASAP.

We are receiving 200 to 300 calls and or e-mails a day on people that want an apt at [complex name].

Please contact me no later than 9:00 AM tomorrow 3/25/08.

If I do not hear back from you I will have to assume that you are not renewing and will need to start showing your apt and leasing it for the date your lease ends.

Please note that it could be rented as early as the end of the day tomorrow.

I have closed the office tomorrow at 12:00 noon only waiting in case you for got to turn your renewal in.

I am in the office today and tomorrow but working on preparing to start showing apts. All calls are being screened but if you call or e-mail I will get back to you.

Thank You
[name deleted]
Manager.

I just spoke to my upstairs neighbor. I was right. The [bleep] [bleep] [bleep]ing manager put the addenda, dated 3/17/08, on doors Friday morning (3/21/08). I was already gone for the weekend, and just got back at 9 this evening. My neighbor said she wondered why I'd left the thing on my door all weekend. I've been looking for the blasted thing to show up since the beginning of February, and the one week I go out of town it finally gets here.

I've called the office and left a message, signed and returned the addendum, emailed him (he left an email address on a sign at the office door), and will call again tomorrow morning to make sure he got the stupid thing. And then I am going to be shopping in earnest for an apartment or a little bitty house to rent starting August 2009. I have officially Had It With This Place.

Snarl. Now I'm going to fuss over a cat who's been trying to get my attention since I walked through the front door.

Internal clocks and Easter weekend

I heard on the radio recently that the next time Easter will be this early will be in the year 2285. I wonder if humanity will still be around then.

Going to my parents' place for Easter. Will be returning Monday night. I might try to post while I'm home, I'll have to see. I don't think I'm taking the laptop, but who knows, I might change my mind in the next couple of hours. Depends on how unwieldy my other bag is, I guess.

It's quarter to three, and I'm amazed I'm awake. The time change has been wreaking havoc with my sleep cycle. I've turned off my alarm clock in my sleep at least three times in the past two weeks, and I was really worried I wasn't going to wake up in time for my bus. I think that worry is what got me up so blasted early today. I even did a back-up alarm--the TV has a timer feature, and I set that to turn on about 3:30. Don't need it. Didn't need the alarm, either. I just lay there in the dark waiting for it to go off. I'm gonna be a real live wire come two this afternoon.

Lolly is sitting right next to me with her back to me, tail twitching. She's been shouting at me for fifteen minutes, trying to get me to go back to bed I think. That didn't work, so now she's giving me the Cold Shoulder to show her displeasure. Wait until I start to pack, little girl. Then you'll really get miffed.

Happy Easter/Happy Passover/Have a good weekend.

Baggy britches

How's this for a reason to go clothes-shopping: my too-big-around-the-waist jeans are throwing off the count on my pedometer. I used to be able to hang it on the little coin pocket on the right-hand side of my jeans and get an accurate reading. Then I had to suspend it from the waist band somewhere between my hip and the button on the fly. As the weeks progressed, the counter has gotten closer to the button. Now I can't get an accurate reading anywhere. I take twenty steps, it counts maybe fourteen. It's telling me that today I've only taken 713 steps so far, and I know that's not true. It about 380 from my front door to the bus stop, and another 250 both to and from the place where I bought my lunch. That's 880, and it doesn't even take into account the walking around I've been doing today (from the bus to the coffee place, from the coffee place to my desk, back and forth around the office, to and from a meeting, rummaging around in the stacks the next floor up, etc.). I should be closing in on around 2000 by now.

Grrr.

Miss me?

My friend over at Peanut Butter and Bacon Sandwiches just gave me an e-mail style poke with a stick to see if I was still alive. I am. I haven't had much to write about lately, that's all. Just trudging along, doin' ma thang.

I've lost eleven pounds (broke into double digits. Woo-hoo!), am progressing nicely on the 10,000 steps program--I have to find some way to get in 9,000 steps a day this week. That's a lot easier during the work week than it is on the weekends, especially on the snowy weekends like this one. It usually involves a lot of walking in place in front of the TV. I'm not really one for taking long walks outside in the muck or during snow squalls like we had yesterday. Crossing a parking lot to get to the bus stop with snow blowing directly in my face is not how I like spending my Saturdays. The hood on my coat was no help. I can't figure out those elastic thingies with the metal clips on them. How exactly are they supposed to keep your hood up? What happened to good old-fashioned cord you could tie under your chin?

I've gotten a bit done on my cross-stitch project, but then I got tired of making small X's and went back to knitting for a while. First project I did was using a pattern from knitty.com for a head scarf. It uses entrelac and variegated yarn to make it look like you've knitted all kinds of squares with different yarns. Pretty pleased with the way it turned out. Will post pictures when my camera battery finishes charging.

Now I'm working on a pair of pedicure socks with another knitty.com pattern. I wanted to make a pair for my sister 'cause she gets her nails done year round -- hands and feet -- and I've often wondered about how she gets from the shop to the car in cold weather while keeping her toenails from getting ruined. This is my first attempt at socks of any sort, so I'm making a test pair. I have one done and am in the middle of doing the heel on the other one. First one looks all right and fits my foot. Let's see if I can get the second one to look just like it. I will have to remember when I do the actual socks that Ditter's feet are a little smaller than mine and adjust accordingly.

I had an impromptu private lesson with my bellydance instructor last Sunday. I was the only person to show up to class. That might happen again this week, I think, because it's Spring Break right now. It was a little unnerving to have her full attention, but I liked it. Learned a lot, and increased my confidence a tad.

Speaking of bellydance, I need to go finish sewing the elastic on my zills. I finally got tired of holding them together with safety pins (after almost two years) and sewed the thumb zills on Monday. Got to get the ones done for the middle fingers before class today.

And that's it from over here. How are you?

Attack of the killer pastries

It's Mardi Gras. Someone brought in New Orleans style king cakes and scattered them about the room. There's one on the counter top about 6 feet away. It's been calling my name all morning.

Then there was the meeting my department had this morning with the Dean. The head of the department brought pastry and doughnut holes. They joined in with the king cake, making it a chorus.

Dear oh dear. What's a Weight Watcher to do? Drink my water, eat my little 90-calorie-per-packet rice cake treats (which are surprisingly good. Chocolate mint), and pretend I can't hear the Pastry Chorus:

"Vee! Vee? We love you! We miss you! Veeeeeeee?!?"

Gum! A piece of gum will help. I'll chew that, and while that's in my mouth I won't want anything else. I hope.

Added later:

Well, I had a teeny tiny piece of the cake, thinking that it was better to indulge a little then sit here and be resentful all day. It worked -- for a while. Then it started talking to me again.

What worked better was somebody coming by and wrapping the thing in aluminum foil, bless 'em. I'm not gonna break into that, making all kinds of noise.

About half an hour ago, someone spotted the baby in the cake. She pointed it out to me--you could see his feet. I started encouraging to the cake: "Push! Puuuuuush! Almost there. One more big one!" Cracked my co-worker up.

Today's little snicker

I'm working on reclassifying some of the microfilm from arbitrarily made-up call numbers to Library of Congress call numbers. Apparently when we first started to collect these titles they just numbered them sequentially as they arrived. Microfilm F1, F2, F3, and so on. Nothing is grouped by subject, at least not on purpose. That's why they're getting reclassed.

It makes for some pretty funny shelf-reading. Here's what I ran across today:

Microfilm F1760-F1760b -- National Underwriter (Property and Casualty Insurance Edition), and its two title changes (numbered F1760a and F1760b, so they'd sit together).

Microfilm F1761 -- Skiing.

Teehee.

So much for "if time permits"

It's been a busy week. Been a busy month, come to think of it. So far this month I have:

1) Gone back on the wagon. I saw a picture taken of myself with baby Austin and I swear, it looked like I was the one who'd just been pregnant. Back to Weight Watchers I go. I'm doing it online this time around, because the leader of the meeting I used to go to stopped leading a while back -- her life got far too difficult, and she decided she needed to step down and pay more attention to her own weight loss issues. I applaud that, it was a lesson in itself: know your limits. I usually recognize mine only when I whiz past them. I didn't really get much out of the meeting after she left, so I started going to the storefront downtown (the sessions I attended were through the university's wellness program). The woman running the only session that fit my schedule was irritatingly perky ("Tee-hee!" Squeak. Hairflip). I'm thinking that wanting to slap her is probably not a good reaction, and will do horrible things to my attitude. So I've decided to join up online. So far I've lost two pounds (only started in earnest about a week and a half ago).

2) Joined another program (again, through the university wellness thingie) called "10,000 Steps." Apparently the average person is supposed to take about 10,000 steps a day. This is a program that challenges you to do that. You get a pedometer, a log book, and directions for their use. You spend three days counting your steps and logging the numbers, then you take the average step count. Using this as a baseline, you go to a chart which tells you how many steps to take each day that week. My number right now is 4500. You aim for slightly higher step counts every week until eventually you wind up at 10,000. I'm doing this partly in conjunction with #1 on my list, and partly for training. Training for what, you ask? See #3.

3) I have decided to be part of the team my sister wants to form for the Breast Cancer Walk next October. 60 miles in three days. This is a nation-wide event,with walks happening in major cities like San Francisco, Boston, Minneapolis/St. Paul...the one we're walking in is the one in Philadelphia. I figure if I start training now, I'll be ready by October. My Ditter has been busy selling houses (yay!) so she hasn't gotten the team registered yet. But I keep prodding her, sure in the knowledge that she'll do it eventually. Either that or she'll bite my head off.

4) I've finished two embroidery projects that I started a very long time ago and felt ambitious enough to start a new one. I had the time to do this because the laptop was at the shop and I found myself with l-o-o-o-o-n-g stretches of time and nothing to do. Hey, what did I do before the laptop? Oh, that's right. I made stuff!

5) And speaking of the laptop, it's home. I'm typing on it right now. The nice man at Firedog managed to make a recovery disc (though from the sound of things, Laptop threw fits before it settled down and did what he wanted), and then he ran some diagnostic tests. Problem was most definitely the hard drive. He called me Sunday afternoon to tell me that, and said that there was one thing he'd like to try before he gave up and ordered me a new hard drive. He wanted to use his shiny new recovery disc to restore the system and see if maybe that fixed the hard drive problem. He said he thought that maybe Windows "was just getting confused about where it had stored things." Kind of like someone who's put his glasses on top of his head and is looking all over his desk for them. I'd love to take credit for that simile but I can't. That's the Chief Loon's. She also called The Walk for the Cure "Save the Tahtahs."

So anyway, I told Firedog Man (hey, why did they name their group of techies after fireplace equipment? I don't get that) to go ahead and try it. He called me an hour later, triumphant. I fetched Laptop home Monday evening after work, and have been trying to get it back to the way I had it before it left. It's been a slow process. It came back to me only knowing my name. Other than that, it was the same laptop I bought two years ago--completely devoid of any personality. I've taken the opportunity to evaluate all the crap--er, um, software I had on it before its little nervous break-down. There are a number of things I'm just not going to reinstall. Mostly games, really. If I want games, I'll go to Pogo.

6) Oh! One more thing. I went back to dance class after about a six month absence. My hip flexors really hated me the following Monday, but I was back to normal by Tuesday. Remembering back to my very first class, my rear end and thigh muscles were killing me for days afterward. I guess I'm not as out of shape as I thought.

Two!

Juggling Scarves is two years old. Does this mean it's going to have temper tantrums and start telling me "no" all the time?

I hope not.

More later, if time permits

Ain't that the truth

I've just spent two and a half hours struggling to find some way to catalog a particularly obscure title from the International Society for Education through Art. I dragged one of my teammates into this mess with me, and when she gave up after about 45 minutes I went to the cataloging librarian. After finally figuring out what to do, he introduced me to Charbonneau's Law of Cataloging: the difficulty of cataloging an item will be inversely proportional to either the size or the intrinsic worth of said item. In other words, it's the unimportant or tiny buggers that give you the most grief.

Drive-by thinking...

...that's what I call it when a random thought pops in from nowhere. Here's today's:

I just thought of a really good name for an organic dairy--Wholly Cow.

[Sound cue: Rim shot]

Laptopless

Backing up the hard drive is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I assume that I can just back the system up on a series of DVDs, but that turns out to be wrong. It won't write to the DVD-ROM drive. I don't know why. I don't get an explanation. It just folds its little arms and says, "Nope."

Allrightythen. So I try backing the C: drive up onto the D: drive (my hard drive is partitioned), and that seems to work until we are about halfway through. Then my computer says, "Uh-oh! File's too big. I won't write anything more than 4 gigs." Fanfreakingtastic. You could have told me that 4 hours ago. And why not, anyway? There's plenty of room!

Saturday, I go out to Circuit City and buy myself an external hard drive (let's hear it for credit cards!) with 200 gigs of space on it (anybody else remember when one gigabyte seemed like a ridiculous amount of memory?). Included in the package is a program designed to backup your hard drive. Yay!

Once I'm back home I install that, get about 75% through the back-up procedure when the program experiences some unexplained error and can't continue.

Aaaargh!

In frustration, I open up the C: drive and the F: drive (the extension for the external hard drive), and do a file-by-file comparison of what is in them. I move over everything I can. Some things won't go because the machine is using them right now, and one file has a name that is too long -- the system wants me to rename it. What? I didn't name it in the first place, I don't know what it does or what's attached to it. I'm not renaming anything. I wonder if that was what made the back-up software choke. I decide to skip that and hope it isn't important. I am not done the compare/copy process (which I also apply to the D: drive) until 2:30 Sunday morning.

Around noon, I take my poor sick laptop to the Firedog people, reintroduce myself to the guy at the desk (it is the same fellow who was there last week. He vaguely remembers me but not my problem), give him my laptop, the cables and adaptor, my name, address, phone numbers, password for the laptop. He says he'll run some diagnostic tests on it, but he is pretty sure it's the hard drive. He wants to know whether I have some system restore discs (I don't) -- sometimes they give you that with your laptop, sometimes they put the files right on the computer in a partitioned drive. Which is fine, unless the hard drive goes kaflooey, then you have nothing. He says not to worry, he can probably make them, and I tell him that in case he can't I authorize him to buy some for me from the company that made my laptop.

Walking into the apartment with an empty computer bag, I feel rather like the I did when I had to leave my first cat with the vet overnight. That situation did not end well. I hope this one goes better.

On a completely unrelated note, I went back to bellydance class yesterday after a six-month absence. I have one word to describe how I feel today: "Ow."

Dad's eye

I called him Tuesday evening to see how he was. He sounded fine. He said it wasn't hurting him at all. It just felt like he had a piece of grit or something in there. He had a patch over the eye, but the doctor was going to take that off the next day. He thought he was going to have to put drops in, but the doctor said he'd put enough medication in the eye to last until his visit the next morning.

He was awake for all of the operation, and went on to describe it (with me on the other end of the phone squealing and squirming). They sedated him, strapped him down, did something to numb the eye, covered the other one (why? To keep from doing the wrong one?), took out the lens in the uncovered eye and replaced it with a new one. He thinks there are prongs holding it to the eye, but that's just an educated guess. He's not sure what's holding it in place. He said it looked like a light show.

All I have to say is if I ever need to have this done to me, they'd better do more than sedate me. Put. Me. Out. Seriously. I'd started screaming when I saw the knife coming at me, I'm sure.

He's going to have to wear sunglasses for a while, and he's put off the operation on the other eye until there's no chance of a snowstorm. Mom doesn't do well driving down the mountain in the snow -- which is to say that she refuses to do it. So he's going to wait until spring. I asked him when he could start driving again, and he said Thursday (today).

One in the eye

Called my Mom last night on a whim, just to say howdy.

"I can't stay on long," she said. "I have to get up at 4:30 tomorrow morning, you know."

Did I know? No I did not.

"How come?" I asked.

"Dad's eye surgery. You knew he was getting a cataract removed, didn't you?"

Not being a psychic, I did not know that either. I knew he had cataracts. He told me that in the truck when he came to pick me up for Thanksgiving vacation. Very casual about it too. Hope he didn't notice that I double-checked my seatbelt and clung to my door's Hail-Mary handle until we came to a stop outside the house.

So anyway. Dad was already in bed when I called (and probably already asleep), so I didn't get to wish him luck. Mom said she'd give him the message today. He had outpatient surgery this morning to get one cataract removed, and they're going to do the other eye next month. I've been wanting to call all day to see how he is, but my cell's battery just ran out of juice. Guess I'll wait 'til I get home.

Glad I decided to call.

iPod off-switch

The iPod didn't come with a manual. All there was a little folded piece of paper giving me the basics: how to charge it, where to get the iTunes software, how to download stuff to the iPod, and where to go online for the full manual. And since the dial-up modem is being tetchy, I never got to the manual until just now. There is a way to turn the blasted thing off. I have to press and hold the "Play/Pause" button.

Hey, Mr. Jobs? Steve? That'd be a nice piece of info to put on the little leaflet. Been losing battery charge for days 'cause I couldn't find an off-switch.

Technical difficulties

Happy 2008!

It's been an eventful week. On the second of January, I bought myself the present I really wanted but wouldn't ever have asked anyone to give me: an iPod. More specifically, I bought a black iPod Classic, with 80 gigs of memory. Rather amusing, really, since the laptop has 120 gigs, divided into two hard drives. This means I can hold more in my hand than I can on my C: drive.

I spent most of Wednesday downloading the iTunes software and then converting my music into the Apple format. Not all of my music would convert, though. The "protected" stuff wouldn't go, which means I had to dig out the CDs and have the program import them straight off of the discs. That's what I did the first half of Thursday. The second half of Thursday, as well as Friday, was spent trying to figure out what's the matter with the laptop. Things were going fine, then suddenly I lost my internet connection. It wouldn't reconnect. Nor would it stop redialing, even after I told it to. Wunderbar.

My first thought was to blame the software I downloaded, but upon reflection I don't think iTunes is to blame. This stuff was designed specifically to work with Windows, and it's from Apple, not some fly-by-night company. And if it was going to cause problems, it would have done it right away, right? It wouldn't have waited a day and a half to give me grief. Or it would have slowed things down incrementally, eventually grinding to a halt. That's not what happened. One moment things were fine, the next moment they weren't.

Next thing I thought was that I needed to defragment the hard drive. I'd been doing a lot of downloading, importing, and deleting, maybe the machine was starting to have trouble finding things quickly. So I defragged it.

Friday morning, when the defrag was finally done, booting up and logging in still took a lot longer than usual. The modem was still having trouble staying connected, and would stubbornly keep trying to reconnect after I'd hit the "cancel" button. Next up: scanning the C:drive for errors and bad sectors. I started that at approximately 11 in the morning. Fast forward to 11 pm (yes, twelve hours later) when scandisk was finally finished, and told me everything was fine. Liar. For one thing, scandisk has never taken that long to get through everything.

So I'm still trying to sort out what's wrong. Right now I'm in Wegman's grocery store, which also has an Internet café with WiFi. The laptop has passed the next test, which was to see whether my wireless modem still works. I've downloaded the most recent set of virus definitions from Symantec AntiVirus, and once I go home I'll run that. I'm hoping I didn't get a virus. I'm also hoping the antivirus program doesn't take another 12 hours to run.

I know that sooner or later I'm going to have to call the Protection Plan people. (I still get the mental image of computer techs in sharkskin suits and mirrored sunglasses. "Nice laptop. Be shame is something happened to it."). I wonder if I'll have to send this machine away, or whether someone is going to show up at my doorstep to work on it. It'd be nice if I had the option to take this over to Circuit City to get fixed, but I don't think I do. Even though I'm pretty sure it's going to be one of those guys who comes over to fix my poor sick machine.

The iPod works just fine, by the way. One little annoying thing, and I think it's something I'm just going to have to get used to: there is no "off" switch. You can stop the music, and eventually the readout fades to black, but the thing is always on. What's that all about? I can't be the first person who ever wanted to turn the thing off to save the batteries. Or can I?

You know, I always assumed that as I got older, I'd turn into my mother. It seems that I'm turning into my father, too. The battery-life thing is just one symptom. Here's another one, and it made me both laugh and shudder when I recognized what I was doing:

I spent about a week at my sister's house for Christmas. I spent a lot of time going around the place turning off lights, TVs, radios, etc. in rooms devoid of people. Muttering the whole time, of course. Things like, "trying to light the whole neighborhood," and "so much for shrinking one's carbon footprint." Good lord! Daddy? Was that you? How did you throw your voice like that?

I sure hope this little wrestling match with my gadgets isn't a sign about how the rest of the year is going to go.

Back home

Just spent the better part of an hour getting alternately howled at and loved up by the cat. Someone's very happy to see me.

Ditter wasn't feeling well yesterday (post-holiday crash, I think), so instead of going to see Sweeney Todd, we rented some movies and hung out in their basement rec. room. We saw Once, which I highly recommend if you like watching a song take shape, and Keeping Mum, an odd little comedy that has Kristin Scott Thomas married to Rowan Atkinson, with Maggie Smith as her mad murderous housekeeper/mother-that-she's-never-met. Cute and funny.

Now I'm about to tick the cat off by going out again. I need perishables. I used them up before I left so I wouldn't have sour milk and a penicillin farm in the fridge when I came back.

Holiday recap

Christmas Eve: The weather has been so horrible upstate that my parents have not been able to do any Christmas shopping. For the first time ever, I'm out in stores on Christmas Eve Day. It's really busy and crowded everywhere, but there isn't the short-tempered snappishness that I was expecting. There's more of a "we're all in this together" kind of vibe.

Christmas Day: First thing Christmas morning, the water heater decides to hand in its notice. Showers are ice-cold. Luckily the dishwasher has its own heating element, so we can wash the dishes without worrying that they won't be sanitary when they come out. Presents are distributed, and everyone likes what they got. My father spends the better part of the afternoon playing with his new TomTom (a GPS driving device). Dinner consists of prime rib, mashed potatoes, corn, and (uh-oh) Brussels sprouts. Later, there is a cloud of methane and sulfur over the house that could probably show up on a weather map.

Boxing Day: A plumber comes to replace the water heater. I babysit the dogs in the back room until he's gone. We spend most of the rest of day wandering around the house amusing ourselves with our presents or our laptops.

Tomorrow: My parents will be leaving in the morning. Ditter and I are going to go see Sweeney Todd in the afternoon. 'Cause nothing says "Christmas" like a murderous dude with a straight razor.

P.S.: I almost forgot! We've been watching the National Geographic channel all weekend (or NatGeo, as it now insists on calling itself (rolls eyes)). They're doing a marathon of episodes of "The Dog Whisperer." We've spent the whole week going "Ch-ch!" at the dogs any time they do something we don't like. I don't know why that noise works, but it does. Thank-you, Cesar Milan!

Just met the newest member of the family

Austin is three weeks old, and a sweetie. Ditter was holding him and rubbing his back, and he started grinning. Of course all the women said the same thing: "Gas."

In Lancaster now

Greetings from Amish country!

I wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for the Chief Loon. Friday evening I decided to call the taxi company to arrange for my ride to the bus terminal on Saturday morning. I figured 11 and a half hours was enough lead time with them. I'd never had any problem in the past.

Ha! And again I say, Ha!

There was not a cab to be had all morning. The only slot that was open was 4:00 a.m. Bus leaves at 8. Bus station opens ten minutes before that to sell tickets. That's about four hours alone outside in the dark in December. Yeah, thanks, I'll see if I can find a ride.

I called Chief Loon to beg a favor. And as far as I was concerned, it was a huge one. Chief is not an early riser. Her body just won't do it. She functions much better later in the day, and for that reason she works a 3-to-midnight shift. During the course of our phone conversation I come to find out that her boyfriend would be arriving from Indiana at approximately 2 that morning, so she'll be sleep-deprived. And she's been working on a hand-made present for her parents for the past week, so she's already sleep-deprived. So now here I come asking her to give up more sleep.

She agreed gracefully, chiding me for even worrying about asking. Bless 'er. And as she pulled into my parking lot to pick me up, we got passed by the taxi that hadn't been able to take me to the terminal. Harrumph. As the Chief said, "Their loss."

My mother is very grateful. So am I, for that matter.

Here's a fun fact I learned on the ride to the bus terminal: if you were to drive fast enough, all traffic lights would turn green. Of course, we're talking light-speed here (something from astrophysics called a blue shift -- the faster you go, the more colors shift to the blue end of the spectrum), so if we actually went that fast I'd probably be a few days early for my bus.

Christmas vacation

I'm on vacation. Christmas break doesn't officially start until Monday. We still have kids taking finals tomorrow. I took the day off, mainly to pack for a visit to my sister's. I won't be going back to work until Jan. 8.

I know I've said this a few times, but the difference between where I work now and where I used to work is striking. It's particularly noticeable at this time of year.

People decorate, for one thing. The Approval Plan/Gifts Team decorated their work space right after Thanksgiving by hanging Christmas ball ornaments from the ceiling tiles with ribbon. It slowly branched out from there. Little trees went up, garland got strung on cubicle walls, candy canes started to appear. People started handing out Christmas cards.

Then last week I came to work and found a gift basket on my desk from my team's librarian/faculty member. When the team went out to lunch later on that week, Deena handed gifts round the table to everyone. That's when I decided to go shopping for my co-workers. I'd been thinking about it before, but we hadn't exchanged gifts in the other department so I thought I'd hang back and see what other people did. I already knew what I was going to give people, it was just a matter of deciding to do it.

I bought everyone mercury-glass ornaments made by a company called Old World Christmas. They do beautiful work. Same day I brought them in, Lana gave out presents, and Bess just played Santa today. Yesterday the entire cataloging department (including staff, librarians, faculty, retired folks who still keep in touch, faculty on sabbatical, and our assistant dean) all trooped over to the fancy-schmancy on-campus hotel and restaurant for lunch. I sat with some people I don't know very well and also with my fellow refugee from the other department, and we had a great time.

It's hard not to make comparisons between this department and the other. We used to decorate, but then one year we kept talking about it without doing anything. Year after that, no one even mentioned it. Ever after, there were a couple of poinsettias at the reference desk, and that was it.

Then there's the whole getting together thing. Back in the day (I love the way that phrase sounds, but I don't really understand it. Which day? When?), our department used to get together for a holiday party at someone's home. Bella had a big house and she loved playing hostess, so we usually went there. After she and her hubby retired and moved south, we'd go to the department head's house. Then it became Lunch Out Somewhere. Then it turned into Potluck Lunch in the Office. Then it was Bagels by the Coffeepot at our ten a.m. break, then Impromptu Cookies Deposited by the Coffeepot (they were announced by email, and we were told, "Help yourself."), and last year I think it was just food passed round during a staff meeting. Bit of a blur, the past year. Bright spot around May 1, but I don't remember much before it.

Share and enjoy!

The Chief Loon sent this out in an email, and it's just too good not to share:

Wrap party of one

They've been threatening us since about Wednesday with all sorts of nasty weather for today. Apparently most of the forecasts have come true. Massachusetts it getting positively smacked with snow. Here in Pennsylvania we got snow under freezing rain. The storm seems to have stopped for the moment, but I don't think this is the last of it.

After hearing all these weather reports, I decided that Sunday would be a great day to stay in and wrap presents. I had them all bought by Wednesday (except the ones for the folks at work, which I added to my list on a whim Friday afternoon), but didn't have them all in my possession until Friday night. I'd bought my uncle something on ebay on Monday and was starting to panic when I hadn't heard anything from the post office by Thursday. It's part of the set that has to go to the relatives in Virginia, and I was beginning to think I'd have to send them off with out it. But I have it now, so they can all start winging their way southward as soon as I get 'em to a UPS store. I've stopped using the post office for packages after some jewelry I made for my cousin's wedding went missing for a couple of weeks before showing up back at my own doorstep, marked as "undeliverable." But that's a story for another post.

I've got Christmas music on the laptop and everything I need to get wrapping. I'm keeping this window open and will be coming back to it every once in a while, because I usually get fussed while I'm doing this and I want to share my frustration with someone besides the cat (who is, as always, on hand to supervise any project her human attempts).

11:40 am: The "Victorian era antique" shaving mug (the ebay seller bought it at an estate auction, says it's transferware. It may very well be. I'm not concerned about that. My uncle just likes old shaving mugs. He puts them on a shelf in the bathroom over the tub) needs a wash. There's "antique" soap scum in the bottom part of it. I almost get my fingers stuck in there trying to get at it.

11:50 am: Shaving mug's now drying upside-down on a towel. That shall be wrapped last.

12:02 pm: Haven't even started yet, and I'm already annoyed. I bought a pack of scissors because mine go missing the moment they're needed. The packaging material in which these scissors are wrapped is too tough to break into without...you guessed it: a pair of scissors. I just remembered the little Leatherman tool in my purse with the scissors in it. There's a jackknife, if the scissors don't work.

12:10 pm: All right, where's the tape?

12:11 pm: Found it. Under the cat. Where else?

12:20 pm: Am I the only person out there who gets an odd little surge of pride when they manage to make the wrapping paper pattern match up at the seam? Honestly, who's going to notice that? It's not like I'm hanging wallpaper.

12:29 pm: Somehow the tape got under the cat again.

12:36 pm: Just wrapped the present for my cousin's oldest kid. It came as a shock this year when I realized K was a teenager, and that I should stop thinking of her as an infant genius. She is pretty darn smart. I remember a phone conversation we had when she was six. My aunt had put her on to say hi, and she greeted me with: "Did you know that plants and people have a symbiotic relationship?"

You know how in sitcoms a character will pull the phone away from his ear and look at it for a second before continuing a conversation? Thought that was just for dramatic effect until I did it myself.

V: Yes, actually, I did.
K: I can't remember how exactly...don't tell me! Don't tell me!
V: Okay.
[pause]
K: Well, maybe you could give me a hint.
V: It has to do with breathing.
K: RIGHT!

And then she went on to explain the whole carbon dioxide/oxygen thing. She was six, mind. I got taught that in high school. When my aunt came back on the phone, I asked what that was all about. Turns out K's homeschooling group took a field trip to a local printers' establishment, and while they were waiting for the tour to start someone noticed the secretary's war-and-peace set-up on her desk: a Siamese fighting fish living in a glass vase that also housed a peace lily. One of the older kids started to explain to the younger ones about the symbiotic relationship involved there, and then they moved on to the one between people and plants.

My aunt homeschools K, by the way. And when my cousin's younger child is ready for it, she'll probably get homeschooled too. There are a lot of families in that section of Virginia who do that, and sometimes they get together and do things as a group. It's partly so the kids can socialize and partly so the adults can help each other out. Someone might be much better at teaching grammar than math, and vice versa. And the older children teach the younger ones--like that bit in the paragraph above. That was one of the teens who was doing a biology module at the time. I wish homeschooling had been en vogue when I was growing up. I think I would be a much better adjusted adult if I'd never experienced public school.

Not getting many presents wrapped, am I?

I think I'm going to listen to music on Napster. I've put my music on repeat, and I'm getting sick of it already.

1:18 pm: I finally decided to give the tape to the cat to sit on when I'm not using it. It'll be a little more hairy, but at least I'll know where it is. Now she wants nothing to do with it. Naturally.

1:36 pm.: Three things: 1) you've never heard anything 'til you've heard "White Christmas" on sitar and banjo; 2) how come I can fold an origami frog that will jump when you press down on his backside, and I'm good enough at origami swans that I can teach other people to do them, but I can't make a present look properly wrapped unless I've used at least a foot and a half of tape? 3) Virginia contingent's presents are done!

1:45 pm: As I put the presents into the canvas tote bag I'll be schlepping them to the UPS store in, I notice that you can tell which ones I did first by the name tags -- I got more confident with the calligraphy marker as I went along, and there is much more of a flourish in the "V" of my name by the time I get to my uncle's present than there was when I did my aunt's.

1:55 pm: Almost wrapped Dad's present without putting in the wheat's head penny I saved specially for this purpose. Custom is that if you give a wallet (or a purse) with money in it, then it will never, ever be empty. At least that's what my mom told me a long time ago. Also, my dad likes old coins. Apparently this is a family trait. All his brothers and sisters do, too, and they got it from his mother. He's passed it on to at least one of his daughters (ahem) who is at present trying to collect all 50 of the state quarters. This penny is from 1939. I got it back in change from a cup of coffee I bought at the café attached to the library where I work.

3:20 pm: Oh my goodness. Just suffered partway through a jazz quartet's version of "We Three Kings" that made me almost wish for deafness. The clarinet went off on a flight of fancy that sounded like someone strangling a duck. Slowly. Giving it time to recover a little before they attacked it again. I stubbed a toe in my hurry to get to the laptop and change songs, which momentarily distracted me from the pain in my ears.

4:16 pm: I don't think Napster radio was intended for anyone who stays as long as I have. They're starting to repeat themselves. They've done Joni Mitchell's "River" three times, and Holly Cole's version of "Baby It's Cold Outside" twice. But at least they haven't assaulted my ears with that quartet again.

I've just about finished wrapping, so I think I'm going to post this now. One final burst of irritation though: don't you hate when you cut a piece of wrapping paper and find that you're about 1/2 an inch too short, no matter which way you orient the package? I even tried doing it diagonally, but that was just too silly. Just cut another piece of paper, Vee. That's why you bought 100 square feet.

Thanks for spending the afternoon with me. Delilah gave up and went off to take a nap about an hour ago. In between songs I can hear her gently snoring in the rocking chair.

How did I miss this?

At a loose end and waiting for the snowstorm to start, I decide to surf around and check for new entries on the blogs I read regularly. I stop by Pandemian (which used to be The Green Fairy, back before the writer's blog went kaflooey when she was switching servers). Jack tends to put a bit of time between her entries, but boy is she worth it. I love her wordplay.

Anyway, no new post yet there, but I let my eyes wander down her blogroll and I see...what? What?!? Stephen Fry has a blog?!?!?!

Is this the real Stephen Fry and not just a Stephen Fry? It must be. Jack loves him past all reason, she wouldn't put an impostor on her blogroll. I click the link, and sure 'nough, that's him. I knew he had a web site, that's been up for years. It seems that this September he decided to start blogging, too.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go dive in and let the man's words wash over me. I love him almost as much as Jack does.

Bellefonte Victorian Christmas

Here are some photos from last weekend's Victorian Christmas celebration in Bellefonte. I spent most of the day at the Loons' table asking people to decorate ornaments for the tree in the gazebo at Tallyrand Park. I did manage to get away for a little while, mainly to grab lunch and look around a little. Got some shots of the horses giving buggy rides through town.

On Sunday, we met with the people who had made ornaments the day before (those who hadn't been scared away by the forecast of freezing rain, that is), and gave them their ornaments to put on the tree. The other ornaments we put on later, after we were sure no one else was coming.

It was a pretty good turn-out. We had about sixty paricipants, most of whom made more than one ornament. I'd say we had over 100 for the tree.

Find your daemon

Three posts in one day! Wow, I'm chatty.

Wandered over to Self-Winding and found a link to the Golden Compass website, where you can take a test to find out what your daemon is. Mine's named Myron.

Saw The Golden Compass last Saturday, after spending the whole day at Bellefonte's Victorian Christmas celebration. The Loons had a table in among the craft booths. We were asking people to decorate Christmas ornaments to put on the tree in the gazebo at Tallyrand Park. Got a fair number of 'em too. About sixty participants (mostly children), but a lot of them did more than one ornament. I'd estimate that we had around a hundred for the tree. I got a few pictures, which I will post on Flick'r (and probably here, as well) when I get home.

I really enjoyed the movie, by the way. Events got rearranged a bit from the way they happened in the book, but it worked out all right in the end. I hope they filmed all three parts of this trilogy at the same time, the way The Lord of the Rings was done. The events in these books are supposed to take place over the course of a few weeks, so it could look odd if Lyra's 12 in the first film and 15 by the last one.

My only complaint (and it's a fiddly little detail): the young lady playing Lyra is blonde with brown eyes. The people playing her parents are both blond(e) with blue eyes. Is it possible in nature for two blue-eyed parents to produce a brown-eyed child? I didn't think it was. Couldn't they make Nicole Kidman or Daniel Craig wear brown contacts?

"Heathcliff...."

I woke up briefly at four this morning to an unpleasant sound. Stumbled to the window, looked out, turned to the cat and asked, "Should snow hiss?"

Sleet. Yuck.

I'm now at work. The heat has kicked into overdrive to deal with the falling temperature. The great big air-intake vent on the far side of the room is making this whistling noise. It's constant, though there are variations in pitch and intensity. Imagine a cross between between an unattended whistling teapot and a howling windstorm. I feel sorry for the folks right in front of the vent.

Proof that peer pressure works

A friend of mine from high school has been commenting on my blog for the past few months, and I keep telling her, "You really should write a blog. Seriously. Now."

She always protests that she has no time. And she doesn't. She's working on getting certified to be a court reporter, she's raising two small children, working somewhere to get some experience for the above-mentioned job, she does transcript translation at home, and she has a house and hubby to look after. (I may have the lingo wrong for her job.)

But guess what! She just started a blog. It's called Peanut Butter and Bacon Sandwiches. Take a look, and please welcome her to the blogosphere.

Warpaint

One of my co-workers is forever telling me that I'd look great with make-up. I don't tend to wear it. I don't feel confident that I know how to apply it, for one thing -- I was never interested in learning that as a teen. When my sister (six and 1/2 years my junior) asked our mother when she could start wearing the stuff, Mom was momentarily flummoxed. This was a situation that hadn't come up before. She ended up choosing the age of fourteen, after consulting a teenager who worked in our restaurant about when her parents had allowed it.

"Fourteen?!?" Ditter wailed (she was thirteen and a half at the time), "I'll bet Vee didn't have to wait until she was fourteen!"

"Hey, Ditter? When's the last time you saw Vee in make-up? Outside of Halloween or high school musical productions, that is."

That's the thing. The only way I know how to apply make-up is the way they taught us to use it for the stage. I don't really need to look normal from a distance of 40 feet. I'd rather look normal up close. I always feel like a little kid who's been playing at her mother's dressing table any time I so much as wear lipstick.

Also, it just seems to be so much work. When I have worn it, sufficiently (I hope) toned down that I don't look like I've just come offstage, I find that when I get home it's all worn off. Lipstick almost immediately vanishes. Eyeshadow I think gets blinked off onto my glasses. Blusher? Where does that go? I must touch my face a lot.

I list these reasons every time this particular co-worker tells me I should wear make-up more often. She jokingly threatened to tie me down and apply some herself. I told her I hoped she had a tranquilizer gun handy, 'cause she might have a bit of a fight on her hands.

Today I came by her desk as I was distributing mail. She looked up at me, grinned, pointed at her mouth and then gave me a thumbs-up.

"Nice lip gloss, Vee."

"It's chapstick, Deena."

"Oh. Still. Looks good."

Sigh. Every little bit helps, I guess.

Gettin' all festive at work

O Christmas tree...
Originally uploaded by JugglingScarves

Keeping Mom company while she was cooking Thanksgiving dinner, I mentioned that I bought a Christmas tree for my cubicle at work. She stopped what she was doing and turned to look at me.

"You really do like that job, don't you?"

"Um. Yeah..."

"I don't think I've ever heard you talk about decorating the other place."

"Well, I didn't really see the point. We used to decorate the office, but then one year we just stopped."

Probably because it was like applying a coat of glittery gold spray paint to a pile of manure.

Open letter

Dear October,

You are my favorite month. The best things that ever happened to me happened in October. Back in my high-school days, I got my first kiss after an afternoon of walking through leaves, hand-in-hand with a beautiful blue-eyed tenor from choir. I once won $75 on a Halloween scratch ticket. I got hired for my first (read:only) full-time job in October 1992--the job didn't start 'til mid-November, but I knew it was coming.

You're also the best-looking month. The snappiest dresser, by far -- who else could get away with wearing brown, green, red, orange, yellow, cream, burgundy, and pink all at the same time? And what about that sky? It's never quite that same shade of blue any other time of the year. Seriously, no one else has your style. Okay, May is pretty too, but between you and me? She goes just a leetle heavy on the perfume.

And then there's all that harvest-type stuff you've got! Indian corn, pumpkins, corn stalks, apples, scarecrows (all right, I don't understand the scarecrows. What use is a scarecrow during harvest time? Who is there to scare away in an empty field? Not a criticism, October, just a request for clarification). Hayrides! Every hayride I've ever been on was in October, usually followed by a bonfire where we toasted marshmallows, made s'mores, and drank hot cider.

To top it all off, you have a fun holiday. No other month lets people get all dressed up like pirates and ghosts and vampires and demand candy from the neighbors. Friend of mine came to work dressed as a worker bee this year, complete with boots, tool belt, and yellow yarn pompoms tied to her calves (as pollen). But you know that, you were there.

Here's the thing that's bugging me, October. For the past seven or eight years now, I can't make it from the end of September to the beginning of November without getting a sinus infection and bronchitis. It comes on very suddenly: one day I'm out playing in the leaves, relishing the taste of the air, admiring the color of the sky; the next day I'm in bed coughing, hacking, sneezing, wheezing, and needing antibiotics.

My doctor says I'm allergic to leaf mold, and she gave me stuff to combat that. Last year, it kind of worked. I had some sort of creeping crud, but it didn't develop into anything dire. This year, however, on your last Friday I got a sore throat that rapidly morphed into a bunch of other things. By the 31st I was diagnosed with...yep. Sinus infection and bronchitis. Trick or treat! Ah, boo, I got a trick.

October, I'm starting to take this personally. It's really getting me down. Did I do something to piss you off? Can I fix it? Come on, call me. We'll go out for a mug of hot cider and some s'mores, and see if we can't work this out.

Sincerely,
Vee (The girl in the glasses, cavorting in the leaves she's probably allergic to.)

Alternate song lyrics, or, the curse of the creative mind.

I'm minding my own business in the supermarket, looking for dried apples and finding only dried berries and prunes -- or, as they're labeled now, "dried plums." Do they really think they're fooling anyone? The radio I've got my earphones plugged into starts to play "Wild Thing," by the Troggs (I think), and suddenly I'm giggling. Why? 'Cause in my head, to the tune of "Wild Thing, this little ditty just composed itself:

"Prune juice! You make my bowels loose! You send everything....through me. Oh, prune juice..." and then the bit that really cracks me up: "Prune juice, you move me."

Sigh. As Rosie O'Donnell once said of her own brain (back before she went all weird and political): "It's a high-powered machine, but all it does is doodle." Well it keeps me amused, anyway. So what if strangers look at me oddly as they pass?

Conversational flotsam and jetsam

Passing people on the sidewalk, one tends to overhear snippets of conversation that make one (well this one, at any rate) wonder. I sometimes build up elaborate (and probably erroneous) scenarios in my head.

Young lady on a cell phone, walking immediately in front of me:

"Melissa honey, you are outta control. It'll be all right. Trust me. It'll...you know what? Come up here next weekend. There are 20,000 boys on this campus, I'm sure we can find one for you." Melissa must've either just lost a boyfriend, or is having rotten luck on the dating scene "back home."

She turns towards the dorms and is lost in the crowd.

Approaching me from the left is another young woman on another phone, voicing her opinion of someone's apartment:

"It's such a bachelor pad. He doesn't even have spoons! That's why he's always over at our place...." and away she goes. I'm wondering how he eats cereal--one mouthful at a time, straight from the box? Interspersed with swigs of milk right out of the carton, of course.

A man and a woman, both dressed like office professionals, are standing on the corner of the street that divides campus and town.

"You're about to watch me perpetrate fraud on my parents," the woman says, reaching for her cell phone. " I'm not proud of this, but sometimes you just have to do it, you know?"

I didn't stay to hear what sort of fraud this was. I'd like to think that it was because it's none of my business, but really it's more that the pedestrian crossing sign had just changed to "walk," and I had no reason to stay.

Solstrom- Boleadoras

Well, I found one from Cirque du Soleil, but the embedding has been disabled on it. This looks like the same two cast members who are in that other video. If you want to see the other one, click here. The masked troupe members look similar to the ones I was describing. I read in the program I bought that the show we saw is one of the older ones, revived and revamped for a different sort of venue.

Visitation and Cirque du Soleil

I just realized I never told you how my parents' visit was. It went something like this:

Friday (after getting blood drawn at the hospital), I scurried about sorting, cleaning, throwing things out. Saturday, ditto. Sunday morning, ditto. My Mom had said they'd be arriving around noon, Dad later said around ten a.m. (!). This meant (to me) that they'd probably be here around eleven, and that's what I was aiming for.

Ten-thirty, there's a knock on my door. I fling it open, spilling belly-dance music out into the yard, without stopping to think about what I look like: the hand not holding the door has an almost-full trash bag in it. I'm wearing a dust mask, which means my glasses are a little fogged up. Hair is pulled back into what was a very neat ponytail about three hours ago. My mother is not fazed.

"Hiya!" She starts dancing in place. "Nice music."

"Thanks," I take the mask I just remembered I'm wearing and pull it down to my chin. "I figured the beat would make me work faster. Do you need the bathroom?"

"Nope. You ready to go?"

"Almost." I survey the living room. "You know, this looks a whole lot better than it did a few weeks ago."

"Honey, I didn't come here to inspect your apartment. I like the way you have the furniture set up now."

"Thanks. Oh, hey, look at this." I drop the trash bag and cross over to the bookcase. "You know those great big zippered bags? Space Bags, I think they're called. This is the biggest one, XXL."

I grab and lift it over my head. Mom's eyes light up.

"Oooooooh. YARN!"

"Yeh. I am not allowed to purchase or receive any more yarn. Seriously. I have at least three sheep's worth in here. And I keep finding more! Some of it I don't even remember buying."

She nods. "Happens to me too. Hey, I'm gonna go wait in the truck. We'd like to go somewhere where we can get salads. Is there a grocery store around here somewhere with a salad bar?"

--later--

Lunch is bought, consumed in the parking lot outside the arena. When we head indoors, the ticket-takers scan the barcodes on our tickets (beep!) with little hand-held devices instead of tearing them in half. I wonder how long that's been going on. It's been a while since I've been in here. Mom and I are directed to another staff member, who searches our purses (for cameras? recording devices? WMDs?) before letting us in.

Our seats are right on the floor (one of the things that had Mom jumping up and down when she got her tickets -- "Floor seating!?! Row eleven!!!?!!!"). We gawk and rubberneck, discussing set design. I point out the two lighting technicians above us. At least I think they're lighting techs. They're wearing headsets, and are in these seats that look like something out of a cockpit--and they're suspended from the ceiling, hanging right over the audience. Yikes. Not my kind of job at all.

The Cirque troupe comes out and warms up the crowd for about fifteen or twenty minutes before the show starts. They're pulling members from the audience to do things on stage, interacting with people in the aisles. There are two kinds of costumes for the troupe members -- one set is more elaborate, with wigs and heavy make-up. The other set is simpler: a unitard and with some simple clothes over it, white gloves, white shoes, and a hat of some sort. Instead of make-up, this costume comes with a mask--plain white, like it's made from papier-mâché. There are two little eye holes, one more for the mouth, and a great big hooked nose. The people in these costumes are silent, and somehow they can be both cute and creepy at the same time. They keep sneaking up on people in the audience and hanging over their shoulders. One of the masked ones in blue does that to the woman a row ahead of us.

A little while later, while I am watching a troupe member playing with a kid from the audience, I feel this presence over my left shoulder. I turn, look right into one of those hooked noses, and shriek. The clown runs off, mission accomplished.

The show itself is amazing. We each have favorite acts. Mom likes the bungee and trapeze acts. Dad is very taken with the acrobats working with the Chinese poles--at intermission he talks about their impressive arm strength. My favorites are the bicyclist (he did everything to that bike but ride it completely upside-down) and the boleadoras (no picture of them on the web site, but I found something on YouTube that I'll post later).

The boleadoras are like flamenco dancers with accessories. A man and woman come out onto a stage that is set up specially for them. They're dressed in red and black, and each carries a drum. First they dance together, drumming at the same time; then they take turns accompanying each other. Then they set down the drums and bring out these little metal balls on thin silver chains (bolos, I'm guessing), spin them around, strike the floor with them, and dance. Wow. At times the bolos are moving so fast, it looks like they're dancing in/with silver hoops.

All in all, it was a great time. Mom said this is something she's going to remember forever (aw!). And, as an added bonus, Dad enjoyed himself. He can't stand watching Cirque du Soleil when it comes on TV, so I was a little worried he was going to be bored for two hours. Nope. He says it's much different live.

It sure is.

My teacher's on YouTube!

This is the woman who teaches my dance class. I think I'm in pretty good hands, don't you?

A new experience

Well, that's it, I think to myself. I have no more gifts to catalog, no more surrogates, level changes, or call number requests to work through. I've gotten caught up on my end of a project I'm working on in conjunction with someone from Circulation, and am awaiting further instructions (we correspond via email). I've sorted out everything in my problem pile. The only thing I have left to do is my last-resort project (ugh), the never-ending search-and-correct list from the Government Printing Office's Administrative Notes Technical Supplement. I can do that for a while, but after about four hours of unadulterated hey-I-already-fixed-this-record crap (Admin. Notes has a habit of repeating announcements a few times, just in case you missed them the previous month. And they mix them in with new announcements in such a way that you can't just cull out the stuff you've seen before. 'Cause it all looks the same after a while, see.), I'm going to be found under my desk, rocking slowly back and forth, sucking my thumb. Time to bite the bullet and go see a team mate.

"Hey, Bess?" I poke my head into my coworker's cubicle. "Do you have anything for me to do?"

She swivels around and scans her desk.

"Um. No. Well...wait! You could see what's going on with this." She indicates the gray tub just inside her entrance. "Holly thinks there's something wrong with the records, and I haven't looked at 'em yet. It won't take very long, but it's something."

"Okay!" I swoop down on the bin and carry it back to my desk. It doesn't take long, really, because there's nothing wrong with the records. I prettify them a little, write a longish note to Holly, put everything back into the bin and schlep it over to the mail room to be delivered. Half an hour down. Four and a half more to go. Not counting lunch. When I get back, Bess is in muffled conversation with Lana. I hear the phrase "not really enough to train her with" waft over a wall. They're trying to find something for me to do.

Bess comes over to visit a little while later.

"I'm going to talk to Janice about you needing stuff to do. This is a brand new experience for us. We've never been caught up before, and we've never, ever had to scrounge around for work. The monograph team is in a similar situation. It's weird. It's like no one's ordering anything. I think we need to ask for projects. Janice's out today, but I'll talk to her first thing Monday."

"Okay." My eyes drift to the red folder full of Admin. Notes photocopies, and I sigh inwardly. I can probably handle it if I know I won't be doing it all day, everyday. And Tracy might email with the next part of our project (hope springs eternal).

--Monday--

Bess emails our supervisor because she can't seem to catch her in her office when she's not busy. Janice answers the email quickly, and Bess forwards it to me with the comment that I should probably expect a visit after lunch.

And I do get a visit. I'm now going to be reclassifying of a bunch of serial microfilm from some obscure, arbitrary, in-house call number scheme over to Library of Congress call numbers. Not only that, but Janice told me to go ahead and contact the documents librarians about some cataloging projects they briefly mentioned they'd like done, but didn't go into detail about at the time. I tell Bess about this after Janice has left.

"Odd," I say. "Where I was before, things like this involved intense negotiation between my supervisor and the whoever wanted the work done, and I got brought in at the end. Now it's just me doing the talking."

"Uh-huh," Bess smiles.

"Is that normally how it works down here?"

"Well, sometimes. With some people, no it wouldn't. Some people around here you really have to watch closely, for a number of reasons. But sometimes...yes. With you, yes."

I look at her quizzically. "Because I know the documents collections so well, and I used to work with those folks?"

"She trusts you."

"Oh." Huh. So that's what that feels like.

[All names changed to protect the author]

Incoming!

Whoop! Whoop! Parent invasion imminent. Take cover!

Remember back in July when we gave my Mom tickets to see Cirque du Soleil? The show is this Sunday, here in my town. Sooooo. Yeah. I've been trying to make the apartment look a little less like Oscar the Grouch lives there, with limited (very limited) success. I keep getting distracted by things I find as I clean up -- "Oh! That's what happened to that Laurie King mystery I bought last month. I never finished reading that....Hey! There's that knitting project I started and put down. Why'd I put it down? Oh, look, here are those pictures I got printed. I should organize them..." and suddenly it's 11 pm, and the place doesn't look much better than when I started at 6.

I'm taking tomorrow off to clean (and for some blood work my doctor wants. I get to fast for 12 hours prior to being poked with something sharp. Doesn't that sound like fun?), and I swear on Delilah's fluffy little head that by Sunday morning this place will look like a responsible if slightly untidy thirty-(mumble) woman lives here, not some messy teenager with ADHD.

I hope.

Breathe

Wheeee-whaah. Wheeee-whaah.

There's a little boy running around my apartment with a harmonica in his mouth.

Wheeee-whaah. Wheeee-whaah.

I have no idea how he got here, who his parents are, or how to make him settle down.

Wheeee-whaah. Wheeee-whaah.

I'm chasing him around the place, trying to catch him and make him cut it out. He's a fast little monster, and I'm starting to get winded.

Wheeee-whaah. Wheeee-whaah.

Got him! I put one hand on each shoulder and shout, "Stop it!"

He takes the harmonica from his mouth, looks at me with great big innocent eyes, and says:

"Meow."

Wheeee-whaah. Wheeee-whaah.

His face transforms into that of my cat's. She's sitting on the pillow next to my head, looking concerned. And that horrible noise....

Wheeee-whaah. Wheeee-whaah.

Yeah, that one. It's coming from me. Not an asthma attack, not quite, but pretty darn close. Wonderful. It looks like my allergies are demanding some attention. I rummage around in the drawer of my bedside table for my inhaler, take a couple of puffs, and spend the rest of the night trying to sleep sitting up.

--Later--

On my morning break I step outside with my cell phone and call my doctor's office:

"Hi, I need my allergy prescriptions renewed. I know she probably won't do that without a visit..."

"How long as it been since Doctor's seen you?"

"A while. Over a year." Why do nurses and receptionists use the title Doctor like it's a first name? Does that get done in other professions?

"Let me go get your file." She puts me on hold for a moment. I wonder if she could hear the outside noises on my end of the phone when I was speaking. A bus vrooms by as she comes back on the line.

"Wow, you really haven't been here for a while! Your chart wasn't even out front any more."

"Yeah, well, I'm an if-it-ain't-broke kind of girl, and it hasn't been broken for a while."

"How's tomorrow at 2:15?"

I consult the little piece of paper where I wrote all my scheduling conflicts. 2:15 will work.

"That's fine. See you then."

--Later--

The doctor's given me Nasonex samples to see whether I have any success with the drug before I start buying it. She's also refilled my Allegra-D and inhaler prescription, and prescribed a week's worth of cortisone to calm my lungs down. She said the Nasonex takes a couple of weeks before it starts to work, and if I start taking it right away it should be at full strength by the time the steroids wear off.

I'm doing my imitation of a lost soul in the pharmacy waiting area at Wal-Mart. When I handed them everything at 6:45, the woman at the window said it'd take 45 minutes to an hour to fill them. That was an hour and ten minutes ago. I've had dinner, I've gone shopping, I've wandered around aimlessly looking at stuff. I've bumped into acquaintances and gotten caught up. I've spent a good five minutes trying to get a very, very serious-looking Asian baby to give me a smile. She wasn't having any of it. She just looked at me like I was nuts. Her parents seemed to enjoy the attention, and they were trying to get her to smile too. Just as I gave up she looked straight at her Daddy and gave him a big toothless grin. It was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

That was twenty minutes ago. I am now just really wanting to get my meds and go home, please. At ten after 8 they finally call my name. When I get outside, it is fully dark. The sun wasn't even beginning to set when I walked in. Note to self: try not to fill a prescription on Friday evening ever again.

--Later--

From the information sheet that came with my steroids:

"Psychic derangements may appear when corticosteroids are used, ranging from euphoria, insomnia, mood swings, personality changes, and severe depression, to frank psychotic manifestations. Also, existing emotional instability or psychotic tendencies may be aggravated by corticosteroids."

FanTAStic! Which do I want more, breathing or sanity? If I go nuts, will I notice? How will I be able to tell if I'm not sleeping because of the steroids or I'm not sleeping because I'm worried about the steroids?

The steroids themselves are in this little foil-backed bubble pack with dosing instructions printed on it. I take six the first day at various times during the day, five the next, and so on until the last day when I only take one. You have to wean yourself off 'em. So apparently this stuff is just as dangerous to stop using as it is to start.

--Later--

It's a week later now, just took my last steroid dose on Thursday. Never saw any signs of craziness. The Nasonex appears to have kicked in. I have clear, dry sinuses for the first time all summer.

And, just as I feared would happen, now that the doctor has her hooks in me she wants to do "routine tests" and a general physical. Sigh. I'm going for blood work at the hospital in a week or so, after I'm sure all the steroids have left my system.

But at least I can breathe without sounding like a musical instrument. There's that silver lining.

Operatic Orange

Here's another one that I remember very well. This was very cleverly done.

Mahna-mahna

I just went to check my AOL account. I've been using the university as my ISP for a few months instead of AOL and forgot to check my email at the other account. Whoops. I had 18 messages, most of them from my two old friends from high school.

One of the messages had a link to the above YouTube posting from Sesame Street.

I remember a while back watching some sort of "History of the Muppets" show on TV with my folks. They showed this clip and had the original air date listed at the bottom. I would have been about a year old when it aired. I said to Mom, "I think I remember that, but I can't be right. Look how early that is. And besides, I remember it in black-and-white."

She looked at me for a moment and then said, "That's because we didn't have a color TV until you were three or four."

Mom said she used to sit me in front of the tube in my little rocket seat when Sesame Street came on, hoping I'd absorb some knowledge. Educational children's TV was a pretty new idea when I was an infant. I must have liked it: I spend the whole time pumping my arms and legs.

Well, back to catching up on my email.

Photoshop

I bought myself a copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements as a birthday present. I've been trying to figure out how to use it. The whole "layers" thing has me completely mystified. I think I'm going to have to go out and get one of those "For Dummies" books. I know there's probably all sorts of help available on the web, but I'm kinda old-school. I want to have a book in front of me while I try out what it's telling me to do. I don't want to bounce from window to window on my laptop, and I don't want to work from a print-out if I don't have to. I tend to lose print-outs, anyway.

Through trial and error I have managed to learn a little bit. That band-aid tool is great (Adobe calls it a Spot Healing Brush)--takes out blemishes on people's faces, scratch marks from old scanned-in pictures, probably all sorts of other things I haven't figured out yet. I'm also really partial to the filters, especially the watercolor one. Look what it did to a washed-out, bluish picture of my parents' dog:



Here's the original:



Cool, no? I think I may have to get that printed out (on fancy-schmancy paper, as if it were an actual watercolor) and present it to my Mom and Dad, framed. I suppose there is somewhere that I could do that. Kinkos, maybe?

I realize all this stuff isn't news to anyone who already uses this product, but I'm a newbie and I'm all agog.

My ditter on vacation

IMG_1445
Originally uploaded by daisy04202004

My sister just opened a Flickr account. First thing she loaded onto it were photos from her recent trip to Key West.

I love this one.

Markers

A request for a call number label just came across my desk for the following journal:

Markers: the Annual Journal of the Association for Gravestone Studies

I kid you not. Gravestone studies. I had no idea these people existed. They have a website, a conference, a newsletter, scholarships, all sorts of stuff. They list their mission as: "to foster appreciation of the cultural significance of gravestones and burial grounds through their study and preservation."

Preservation? Are people going around tearing up cemeteries? I'm assuming they mean more than just mowing the lawn once in a while, but what exactly do you preserve in a graveyard? And study? Of what? Burial practices? Styles of stone carving? I know there are people who take rubbings of headstones, but I thought that was more for the family tree. Nope, never occurred to me that a burial ground would need study. I'm intrigued.

Now, this journal is at another campus so I can't flip through it and see what's there. All I have is a filled-out form and some photocopies of the cover and title page. Hmm. I wonder if this is something our local library carries. Apparently the only campus interested in the title is all the way over in York, PA, a longish distance from here.

Now, don't worry. I'm not about to go out and hang around in graveyards. That's my sister's idea of fun, not mine. She chases ghosts.