There's one coming, I promise

My mom said she was gonna stop reading my and my sister's blogs because she thought she was an inhibiting influence. We had to tell her no, go ahead and read them, it was fine. And then I had to 'splain that I get creative spurts. Cited May through July as proof that sometimes I just don't write much.

I am working on a post at the moment. I hope to publish it tonight.

I found a down-side the the Windows Live software -- while it will pull a draft post down from the blog and let me work on it, when I save the draft after some editing, it doesn't then replace the old draft with the new draft in Blogger. That means I can't work on it over my lunch break, save it, download it onto my laptop, save it, and then work on it some more at lunch...unless I bring my laptop to work. I don't want to start doing that. After the incident last October where $60 walked out of my purse while it was here in my cubicle, I don't bring anything valuable to work. Definitely don't want the laptop growing legs.

Sartorial complaint

To the young man walking down the sidewalk in front of me this morning on my way to work: Son, I'm prepared to take on faith that you're wearing underwear. I don't need to see it. Pull your damn pants up.

Thank you.

Aigh! The dentist!

This an email I just sent to my team:

Hi gang,

I have to go back to the dentist this afternoon to check on last week's boo-boo tooth. I'm leaving at 2:30, and I think I'll be back by 3:30, but I don't know what other adventures he has planned for me besides this follow-up visit. Here's hoping I don't leave there with a numb mouth. Again.
--V

Please send happy thoughts towards Central Pennsylvania, would you? I'm hoping he'll just look at the Tooth in Question and let me go, but there's always a possibility that he has car payment coming up sees something else that needs attention.

Everybody try to act natural

I called my mother this evening to thank her for my birthday present, which got here today. Rosewater perfume from Crabtree & Evelyn. Yum.

During the course of conversation she let it slip that since my sister and I started all this BlogHer talk, she's been reading our blogs.

My reaction:

• Uh-oh. My mom reads my blog?
• Quick! Is there was anything on here I'd be embarrassed to have her see?
• You know what? I'm fine with it.
  

Hi Mom! (waving) Look, everyone, it's my mother!

Better living through chemistry

Scene: The library where I work. It's my morning break, and I'm using it to return a book that's due today. No more renewals allowed, so I managed to do what I normally can't and finished the book the night before (I have trouble reading books I don't own. But that's a story of another time). I come up to the lending desk, smiling and humming.

Woman behind Desk Who I Know Slightly: Good morning.
Me (singing out): Morning!
WbDWIKS: You are entirely too cheerful for 10 AM on a Monday.
Me: Oh, that's caffeine. Nothing natural about this. All caffeine. (pausing for a second to think) And sugar.
WbDWIKS (laughs): Well, that's all right then.

We(e) little fish

There was a session at BlogHer ’10 on Saturday that I am kicking myself for not going to.  It was called “Little Fish in a Big Pond – Understanding and Loving Your Small Blog.”  I wound up not going partly because of time mismanagement (again. That plagued me all weekend.  Not like I have clock on my cell phone or anything), and partly because I felt  I didn’t need help understanding or loving my small blog. 

But now after reading this post about the session I’m really wishing I attended, and not only because one of the people running it was Celeste, whose blog I read and comment on and who comments here once in a while.  Found her blog through NaBloPoMo a couple years back, met her in person for the first time at the People’s Party on Thursday night. 

Luckily BlogHer has transcripts of the sessions, and after a quick search I found the one for “Little Fish…”.  I started skimming through it and berated myself for not keeping better track of time, and for deciding not to show up late to the session even though lateness appears to have been totally acceptable.  There was a lot of stuff in here that I guess I needed to hear.  I’m having a lot of “me too” reactions for things like:

• Why I don’t have a counter. Numbers don’t interest me. If I go by the people who’ve commented on a regular basis, I think I have an audience of about ten, give or take.  And I’m happy with that.  If I somehow managed to attract a readership as large as Maggie Mason’s or Jenny Lawson’s or Eden Kennedy’s, I think I’d be paralyzed by stage fright.
• Why I don’t want to “monetize” this.  Turning this into a paying gig would suck all the joy out of it.  Sponsors would have expectations.  The only reason I’d ever contemplate allowing advertisements is if the site that serves my blog started to charge me for the space I use.  Even then I might not.  There are worse things to spend my money on.
• Why I’m ambivalent about the whole “giveaway” thing.  I occasionally toy with the idea of giveaways, but not to generate traffic.  I just wanna be able to give my friends free stuff.  I realize there’s probably a trade-off, there.  One can’t give away things like KitchenAid appliances or Nooks or whatever else people hand out without there being some sort of business arrangement in the background.  It would depend upon the arrangement, I guess.
• Who I write for.  I write for me.  If other people like it, great!  So far no one’s left me a comment that reads, “You suck!” (oop!  Tempting fate there) so I assume I’m entertaining.  But really?  I’m happy just talking to myself.  Sometimes I write posts just to jot down things I need to remember—like the one on fixing my faucet.  When I finally need to do that again, I’ll find the post that says I need key grease and which direction the cartridge has to go, ‘cause I’m sure I’ll forget by then.

Well, now I’m going to go back and read the transcript in-depth.  I guess things I need to add to the “do” and “don’t” list for next year’s conference are: “Do keep track of time. Don’t worry about walking into a session late.”

Because it's never too early to stress out about Thanksgiving

I just spent part of my lunch break writing a preliminary to-do list of things I need to get done before Thanksgiving, complete with parenthesized notes and commentary:

• Fix downstairs commode (parts already purchased).
  
• Fix kitchen chair that you broke with your toe, for pity's sake (need wood glue, twine, brown paper).
• Refinish craft room chairs (supplies hiding in craft room).
  
• Compose and distribute Thanksgiving menu (consult your shiny new copy of The Joy of Cooking).
• Test some recipes for Thanksgiving (use up that frozen turkey breast that's been hanging around for a year; try the apricot whosit you want to make for Dad because he can't eat cranberries. Need cumin).
• Shampoo sofa and "freecycled" recliner (rent upholstery cleaner).
• Either shampoo or replace living room rug (Resolve and a long-handled scrub brush might do for this year. But really, it should be replaced with something that looks more like an area rug and less like the jagged-edged remnant it is. Something that isn't packing-taped down in the doorways by the previous owners might spruce the room up a bit, you know?).
• Rearrange furniture in living room (because now you have some, and it's all huddled together in one corner like a group of people sharing an umbrella. In other words, get rid of the boxes!).
• Is there time to sort out and arrange the craft room? (Probably, but what does this have to do with Thanksgiving?)
  
• Fix cracked, spackled bit under window (need spackling tape).
• Buy a new roasting pan & rack (preferably one where the finish from the rack doesn't rub off on the food. Gross. And possibly dangerous).

Yes, I really do write myself notes like I'm writing to someone else. It helps. And it amuses me when I look at them later.

BlogHer ‘10, continued (sort of)

You know what?  I just read a post by ThreeSeven that makes anything I have to say about BlogHer ‘10 seem trite and a bit frivolous.  Please do go read it.

I would like to say, though, that the Keynote for the International Activist Blogger Scholarship Recipients was particularly moving and thought-provoking.  I tend to take my own freedom for granted, and these women’s stories put my little piques into sharp relief.  These women?  They have difficult lives, they live in difficult situations, and they are doing something to change it.  And because what they’re doing is so dangerous, there was an embargo on taking their photos during the keynote.

Attend a BlogHer Conference. Check.

I came, I saw, I wanna go again next year.

Things I’m going to do next time:

• Make and bring business cards. Everyone had them. I wound up using my phone to email myself a list of people’s Twitter handles and/or blog names.
• Wear more comfortable shoes to the dress-up events. The ones I bought were killing me. While walking back to the hotel from happies at the Volstead (a few blocks away) I was tempted to kick them off and walk stocking-foot down the sidewalks of Manhattan.
• Take more pictures. I took some with my phone, but I could have (should have) taken more.

Things I’m not going to do next time:

• Be so shy. Oy. I could write a book on this one bullet point alone. I need to remember that everyone is there for similar reasons—to get away from the keyboard, get out from behind the screen, to meet fellow bloggers face-to-face. We all want to talk to each other.
• Leave my camera in the hotel room. It does me absolutely no good when it’s sitting in its case. Though I did get some good shots from the window of room, like the one below. I don’t think I could handle a terrace 20-30 stories above street level, could you? I think I’d be clinging to the walls.

• Leave the badge on the kitchen table! Granted, they did have a kiosk called “Reprints” just for people like me. And I did meet nice people in the line. We had 45 minutes or so to get to know each other. Still. They went to the trouble to print the thing ahead of time so we wouldn’t have a 45-minute wait in line.
• Bring something to do during "down time." I brought an embroidery project I started last month. Didn't touch it once, except to move it out of the way to get at other stuff in my suitcase. Down time? That's when you sleep.
  

The sessions were great. I’ve already started putting into practice some of the things I learned – like that picture above. The original picture was a little cock-eyed, because the building in question was down the street and the terraces were a few floors below me. Here, let me show you:

Unsettling, isn’t it? Like all the furniture’s about to tumble over the edge of the railings and into the street below. And everything looks kind of faded, too. Not quite the way I remember it. I know how to fix the color, but I thought I was stuck with that tilt. Until someone mentioned Windows Live at one of the Geek Lab sessions on photography, that is. Then they demonstrated it. It does cool stuff. One of its features? It straightens pictures. I clicked one button and went from the picture immediately above to one that had the building straight up and down!

Better still? I don’t even have to download this. It’s been hanging out on my laptop for over a year, waiting to be noticed.

I’m going to introduce an Ideas Jar in my house--an idea from another one of the sessions. I will put words and phrases into it—cut-outs from magazines, quotations from books I’ve read, stray thoughts I have that I manage to write down before they leave, things like that—and when I get stuck for material I’m going to take something from the jar and work with it. I may grab the camera and work it out that way. I may write. Dunno.

I also had an idea for a joint blog I’d like to do with my sister. I don’t know if it’ll pan out. More on that later when (if) it develops.

I met lots of great people. You might notice some new blogs in the blogroll to the right of this post. Arts and Dafts is an art blog by Ry, an artist from Brooklyn. She takes great photographs, among other things. And then there’s Feast After Famine, by Dana in Washington D.C. She used to be a journalist, struggled with infertility for a while and beat it into submission. She has four children now. And then there’s Amiee of mamieknits. She lives in Los Angeles, is a knitter, a mother of twins, and an absolute maniac on the dance floor—I’ve seen that last part with my own eyes. She reminds me an awful lot of one of my best friends from high school (who is now an Air Force wife living in New Jersey. Are you out there, lurking?).

I met these three at a BlogHer meet-up at the Volstead. I’ll write about that tomorrow, because it’s quarter after ten now and I really should go to bed.

In an unrelated note, I put eggs on to boil before I started this post and forgot about them until I heard something go “click” in the next room about 20 minutes ago. All the water had boiled away. I’m lucky I didn’t set the house on fire. Can you burn hard-boiled eggs? I guess I’ll find out when I can touch them without losing my fingerprints.

Home again

My mind is reeling from this past weekend. What an amazing time! I am going to blog about it, but not today. I'm still processing the whole thing.

I know this much, though. If I can swing it, I'm going next year! San Diego next time.

Better start saving my pennies now.

Day 2 starting soon

In the morning, after a breakfast for people new to the conference, my sister and I went to a really good session on how to stoke your creativity. There I sat at a social media conference with my laptop in my tote, taking notes with pen and paper. I am hopelessly old-school in some respects.

After lunch I wandered around the exhibits halls for a bit. Favorite booths so far: the Honey Board and Playskool. Playskool gave me Weebles. Remember Weebles? I begged for them for Christmas and got some weird wooden toy people instead--not Fisher-Price people, something else. All I remember is that they were a family, the mother was red, and they had some sort of van they all fit in. I thought Santa misunderstood, or didn't watch TV (Sing it with me, folks, "Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down!"), and that's why I got these. Being a fairly easy child to please most of the time, I shrugged and played with those things instead.

They also gave me a canister of black Play-Doh, and -- one of the weirdest giveaway items yet -- Play-Doh scented perfume. And you know what? It smells great.

Back to another session in the afternoon about taking better pictures. Most of the women in there had DSLR cameras. Mine's a point-and-shoot, but they said you can do most of this with a point-and-shoot camera as well. It was mainly about the "rules" of photography -- composition, ISO, aperture, shutter speed, Dutch angles, lines. Someone had told me some of these things before, but since I hadn't been taking notes then everything except the Rule of Thirds fell out of my head. The Rule of Thirds, incidentally, is that the most interesting thing in the picture should take up 1/3 of the picture. Centering things makes them less interesting.

The Voices of the Year keynote was great. They do this every year. People nominate bloggers for a particular post they've written over the past year, a committee chooses the best, and then those people get up on stage and read their posts aloud. I mismanaged my time a little, so I only caught about 2/3 of the program. They were all very good. There was one about a woman meeting Holocaust survivors in an airport, and introducing them to her friend's grandmother, who had been in the same camp at the same time. That one made me reach over and hug my sister.

That night there was a gala in the ballroom, an art display (for an auction that's going to start online on Sept. 15), all sorts of stuff to make and do. We got to the make/do part after everything was over, but that gave us as much time as we wanted to look at all the art. All the proceeds of this auction are going to benefit Gulf coast clean-up.

This morning we have a presentation by/for the International Activist Blogger Scholarship recipients, and then I'm going to a session on how to improve my photos through editing. After lunch I'm going to troll through the expo hall I didn't get to yesterday, and maybe visit the sponsor suites. Someone came up to me and invited me to one of them. Said something about giveaways for readers (all four of you), so I'm gonna look into it.

One thing that really surprised me was how friendly everyone is. Strangers walk right up to you, say hi, want to know what you write about, where you're from. They hand out cards with their blog info on them (I keep kicking myself for not doing that. I'll have them next year). There's a very egalitarian atmosphere.

And then I wonder why I'm surprised. This is what we're here for, to connect, to talk to each other, to find like-minded folks, to grow and learn.

Yesterday after breakfast they announced where next year's conference is. San Diego. Time to start saving my pennies. I want to do this again.

We're here!

Ditter and I checked into the hotel around 3, into the conference by about 5:30. Ditter's conference check-in took about 2 minutes. Mine took for-freaking-ever, but that's my own fault. BlogHer mailed out the badges months ago. I have a manila envelope with all my conference stuff in it. As I was packing I'd say things like, "Need to remember to put that badge in here," every time I saw the envelope. And every time I saw the badge I'd say, "Need to get that in the envelope." I never managed to do that. Badge is still sitting on the kitchen table. Luckily there was a line for doofuses (doofi? Spellcheck doesn't like either word) like me, but since it was the "badge problem" line it took forever to get to the front.

While in line, I met an interesting woman from Germany named Nicole. She's trying to put together a blogroll of everyone who's here. Which reminds me, I need to email her my blog's URL just as soon as I'm done here.

We went to the People's Party last night, which was fun. Met some nice people that I'll probably see again this morning: Abi, who's running a session today, Heather, who's one of the organizers, Casey, a grad student and fellow blogger, a couple more people whose names have fallen out of my head. The Bloggess was holding court in the ladies' room outside the party, so we stopped in to say hello. She surprised my sister when she read her nametag and said, "Oh! I know you!" and gave her a hug. Then she turned to me, read my tag, and said, "Oh! I know you too!" and hugged me as well. Perhaps it's silly, but I feel like I spoke with a celebrity. She looms large in my mind as part of The Blogosphere.

Average Jane was there as well. She started out at another party, and we started tweeting back and forth about where this party was. When she got here, I tried to find her on my own but wasn't having much luck--I only had a vague idea of what she looks like, and since I don't put pictures of myself on my blog, she wouldn't recognize me if I was standing right in front of her. And it turns out I was. I broke down and tweeted her, and turns out she was sitting about 10 feet away. Nice to see someone in person that I've been reading for almost 2 years now.

This morning is the newbie breakfast, speed-dating blogher-style, and a morning session. This afternoon, lunch, more sessions, and a keynote. Tonight? Voices of the Year reception, gala, and art auction.

Oh, and all the people who talk about how much "swag" you get at BlogHer conferences? They are not kidding. I think right before I leave I'm going to have to take a picture of all the stuff I got. Some guy came around last night around 11 and left us presents. One of them is a Mr. Potato Head, Toy Story 3 edition.

And now I must get a shower. Ditter's already up, showered, dressed, and outside at the Smoker's Oasis by the front door. Hotel is completely smoke-free, so any time she needs a cig break she has to go all the way down to this bench by the entrance. We're on the 36th floor. Later today I'll post pictures I took from my window. Gawd, I'm such a tourist.

Birthweek vacay

I'm on vacation. Again. This one is a combination birthday week/going to BlogHer vacation. I turn 42 tomorrow. I think. Hang on, I need to do math...2010 minus 1968....yes. 42. I can never remember how old I am. Well, why bother committing the number to memory? It's only going to change again in a year.

So anyway. Tomorrow's my birthday. I'll be on a bus for part of it, then at my sister's. We're probably going to do a little clothes-shopping because we both need some party clothes for BlogHer -- me because I gave away or threw out a lot of my fancy stuff when I moved because I didn't think I'd be using it any time soon, and my sister because she's lost 35 pounds (!) and none of her party clothes fit.

Since I'm going to be on the road tomorrow, I took myself out for my birthday breakfast today at The Waffle Shop downtown. I usually go to the movies after that. Instead, I watched Julie & Julia, which I'd DVR'd yesterday.

I have a friend stopping in a couple of times this weekend to check on Sophie. Friday she's going to give the cat the 2nd dose of worm medicine and then she's coming Sunday to make sure she's still OK. I bought a feeder so that Sophie'll have plenty to eat, and after I hit "publish" I'm going to take apart Delilah's fountain, clean it thoroughly, put in a new filter, fill it, and start it running. Here's hoping she'll drink from it.

After I do that I'm going to try to sort out what among all the stuff I just laundered I'm going to take with me to BlogHer. Then I need to tidy this place up a bit, so I'm not embarrassed to have someone come in while I'm not here. Nothing major, just a lot of put-this-away, throw-this-out stuff.

Next post will probably be from my sister's house. Or maybe from the train, if it has wifi.

Summer vacay

I took this video with my phone when I was on vacation, and have been trying to find the cable that lets me put it onto my laptop (and then on to Flick'r) ever since. Just found it this evening. I went to my parents' house in the mountains for the first week of July.



Not sure it came through on the phone, but there was birdsong constantly.

Ready or not

I've had people ask me various times over the past 7 months when I'm going to get another cat. The first inquiry was only about a month after Lolly died, and I'm really glad it was asked through email so that I had a chance to temper my response. I keep telling people I'm not ready yet. I was thinking I'd start looking into it in about a year, maybe more.

The universe had other plans.

A week ago Thursday evening I was sitting in my living room goofing around on my laptop when I heard the cries of a cat in distress. I got up, looked out my window, and found a little gray cat in my flower bed. She was staring up at the window, and when she saw me started meowing directly to me. I went outside to get a better look, and when I started talking to her ("Well who are you? Where did you come from?") my neighbor came out too. She said this little cat showed up that morning and no one knew where she came from. As we were talking, a neighborhood cat came stalking up -- he lives farther down the road, but I guess he considers this place part of his territory -- and the little stranger ran right up to him like she was expecting to be greeted. She was very surprised at the hissing, spitting response she got.

"That's it," I said, "you don't know danger when you see it. In you go." And I picked her up and put her in my house. I still have Lolly's old litter box (I meant to throw it out, but never got around to it) and some catbox filler (ditto), but I had no food. My neighbor has a cat, and she gave me some food. She said not to worry about replacing the food. Her cat is FIV positive, so not only she can not ever touch another cat, she has problems finding food he's not allergic to. This was perfectly good food that he couldn't eat, and she was happy someone could use it.

I started looking in the papers and online (Craig's list) to see if anyone was looking for a little gray declawed female. Yes. Declawed. Out there for who knows how long with no weapons up front. She has her back claws, though, so she's not completely unarmed. One of the reasons I thought someone might be missing her is because she's declawed. I also looked around the neighborhood for flyers about her. Nothing.

Saturday morning I took her to the vet's to see if she was microchipped. No luck there. I asked the tech I talked to if he could give me an idea as to her age. He said she was an adult, but very young--probably 1 year, maybe 2. He based that on her teeth. He also said that if she's declawed she's probably been spayed as well. Those two things are generally done together, if they're both going to be done. She's not a purebred, so I was pretty sure they hadn't declawed her and left her intact.

I wanted this info for the ad. I put an ad in the local paper, both print and online editions. The print one read:

FOUND CAT Small gray declawed female.

and then my cell number. They only give three free lines for Found ads, and they center-justify the type so that it's very hard to get much info into those 3 lines. Fourth line costs $7.77. What a racket. I had to keep rearranging the words to get them to fit into the free space, but I made it. The online ad was much more generous, space-wise. I added her approximate age, when and where she was found, and my email address. I held back the info on being spayed, thinking it might be something they could tell me to ID their cat, along with eye color, specific coat coloring, etc.

This cat is a funny shade of gray. Kind of a gunmetal gray. Her undercoat is white. In certain light, she looks like she has brown in her coat. In other light, I can see stripes.

I only got one response to the ad, and that was from someone looking for a cat who was 4-5 years old, with a white throat and white front paws. I decided that if I didn't hear anything by Monday (tomorrow) she's living with me. By last Monday I'd already named her Sophie. That woman called Wednesday morning, but I didn't get the voicemail until late that night. Accidentally left my cell phone on my nightstand. Freudian slip? Really upset me that I might not have her around, and I noticed after I talked to the woman Thursday that I hadn't been referring to the cat as "Sophie" when I spoke about her or even thought about her from the time I got the message to the time I found out she was still unclaimed. She went back to being The Cat for about 12 hours. I'm now fairly certain that no one's going to claim her by tomorrow.

I took her back to the vet on Friday afternoon for a "new pet" exam. Poor kitty. She got poked and prodded and shaved on her belly (to look for the spay scar. And it was there.) blood drawn (for FIV/Feline leukemia/heartworm tests, all negative), and her temperature taken 'cause the litterbox has been...well...abnormal. She's been prescribed wormer (they're not sure worms are causing this, but it can't hurt to be careful. Who knows what she picked up out there) and an antibiotic to combat all the bacteria in her gut (I brought in a stool sample. Thank goodness I went to scoopable litter there with Delilah towards the end and had one of those scoopy-strainy-rake things. Yuk). I also have prescribed food for her for now. It's supposed to be very easy to digest. The vet called it the cat food version of tea and toast. I'm supposed to get a call when they get lab results back, though I think I know now what happened. She got sick briefly yesterday morning. Coughed up a hairball and a large chunk of undigested cooked meat. I have not given her anything but cat food since she's been with me. I think someone "out there" took pity on her and gave her some of their leftover dinner, and she was so hungry she swallowed it whole. Her poor little belly was doing its best to take this apart, and ramped up on production of the bacteria needed to digest things. I guess Saturday, after 2 applications of the antibiotic, the stomach gave up and kicked it out the way it came in.

Whoa. Too much information there, huh?

I'll show you a picture of her once she settles down a bit. Right now she follows me around and is very interested in everything I do. She'll start doing something cute, I'll go get the camera or my cell phone, and when I turn around she's right behind me looking to see what I'm doing. When I point the camera at her she either puts her nose to it or rolls around on the floor. So I get either extreme close-ups or gray furry blurs.

She's a very affectionate, sweet-natured little girl. I don't know why no one's looking for her. Of course, it is the start of move-out season. One of the things I really, really hate about living in a college town is the number of people who adopt animals while they're here and then just leave them behind when they move away. I think that might be what happened. They couldn't find a place that would allow pets, no one could take her, or maybe they didn't try very hard to place her, the no-kill shelters are full, so she just got pushed out the door and wished good luck. Especially cruel, since she's young, doesn't know who not to trust, and is declawed, for pity's sake. I hope karma catches up with whoever did that and bites them in the butt. Hard.

Only thing that bugs me a little bit is that I feel I'm being disloyal to Delilah by adopting another cat so quickly, and liking her so much already. I hope that wherever she is, Lolly understands.

Prepping for vacation

I'm going on vacation tomorrow. Today I am dashing about like a crazy woman trying to clear my desk and my task list so that I don't leave the building at 5 feeling guilty for having left things undone. Also, being a supervisor going on vacation makes me feel a lot like a new mother about to hand her infant off to a babysitter.

Y'know what? Making sure everybody who depends upon you for work

• has a week's worth of everything they need to do his/her job;
  
• knows who to contact to answer questions; and
  
• does what you ask them to prior to your departure

is a right royal pain in the tushie. Particularly the third item in the list.

Today is the day I have to OK everyone's time cards so that they get paid on time two weeks from now. It's all electronic. If they don't hit the "finalize" button on their accounts, I can't hit the "OK" button on mine, and then the bursar doesn't get the message that the university owes them money. There's a small grace period -- technically I have until Monday morning to get everyone OK'd. But I'm not going to be here Monday, and I can't access the program from off-campus (it's a security thing). I sent my folks an email at the beginning of the week telling them all this, and asking them to please, please, PLEASE finalize their time cards ASAP on Friday to ensure they get paid on time. One girl complied. She wasn't the one I was worried about. She's always the first one done. I just finished chasing after another one and getting her to do it, and as soon as I see the third employee I'm grabbing him by the shoulders and sitting him down at my computer to click. the. blasted. button. What, do they not want their money?

I am at the moment also trying to find my desk under all the junk. I told them if they didn't want to ask questions of strangers they could leave their problems on my desk with a note. Then I took a look at my desk and said, "Yeah. And where are they supposed to do that?"

Well, that's enough goofing off. Back to excavating my desk. Just wanted to stop in for a quick rant.

An experiment

There was a free, open-air concert today starting around 5 pm at the base of the steps of my workplace. Watched it for a while, then got the bright idea to try taking a video with my phone:



Looks like it worked. Even managed to figure out how to get it off the phone and onto Flickr.

Pruning

Something about listing all the things I want to do has made it easier to identify what I don't want to do. Case in point: at the beginning of May I realized that the embroiderer's guild I've been part of for years is not an organization I want to belong to any more.

I still like embroidering. I still do it sometimes, but my interests are so varied right now, it's hard to find time to do needlework. Still, that's not the reason I've decided to quit the group. There are two, really. First of all, this guild seems to be aimed at people who have an awful lot of free time and a larger disposable income than mine. Retirees, I'm thinking, or empty-nesters. The correspondence courses, the 3-day classes you have to travel to Kentucky (or, for one I just read about, New Mexico. It was supposed to be in Louisville, but they moved it. To another time zone! What if I'd signed up for that, booked my flight and hotel, and then they moved the class to the southwest? I do not have that kind of money), the yearly conferences in expensive venues all over the United States--I can't do it. I have a mortgage, see, and the only income in this household is mine.

I joined another needlework guild a few years ago and I find they're more in tune with my needs. They're smaller, which may be why correspondence courses are cheaper, most of them are conducted online (through emailed lessons and a listserv for students and teacher to communicate), and while I still don't have the money to go to a conference, I might be able to swing it one day. It's more like the BlogHer conference, price-wise. Chief among the reasons why I like this other group? Being a very small, spread-out guild means there are not enough members in the immediate vicinity for us to form a chapter. This means no meetings. Which means I don't have to deal with people problems--my second reason for wanting to leave.

There are a lot of people in this guild I just left that I like and will miss. There are a few, though, who I will be extremely happy to see the back of. I'm the same age as a lot of their children, see. Unmarried, unattached, no kids. I think I'm seen as some sort of project by these ladies, since their own chicks have fledged (most of them out of state. Probably so that they don't have to take so much unsolicited advice). They're a little too forceful with their opinions, though, and seem to think they can say whatever the hell they want to me. The membership chair, for example, has all the tact, grace, and subtlety of a MAC truck.

Back in September, after at least two years of paying dues and not going to meetings, I decided ah, what the hell, let's give it a go. So I went. I walked in and felt immediately defensive about not having been there for a while. I bit my tongue (a lot) when people made a fuss and asked me where I'd been. "Busy," was the only answer I'd give them. You know what? I'm on the members address list. If you missed me so much, why didn't you give me a call? Shoot me an email?

So I sat through the meeting, listened to all the news, got introduced to a new member (she was sitting next to me), ooohed and aaahed over other members' show-and-tell items -- I think that's the part I'm going to miss most. People will bring in their finished pieces, framed or stuffed or whatever, and pass them round the room. Always got me extra motivated to go work on something. Whatever else I have to say about these women, they are very skilled.

After the meeting proper was over, the class started. There's always someone teaching something. Those who haven't signed up for the class can observe it, or sit and stitch and converse quietly, or leave. I decided to stay a little, even though I'd brought nothing to do. At this point, the membership chairwoman enters the room. She plops down next to me, asks where I've been. I told her I've been busy and haven't been stitching much. She then starts talking to the new member (probably why she aimed herself at our table anyway), and in the course of conversation introduces me, saying "We've been with her through thick and thin." She pats my hand. "Literally."

Bitch, I think. No wonder your kids moved so far away from you.

Lemme explain. When I joined the guild, I was very, very large. Then I joined Weight Watchers and lost a bunch of weight. Then, a few years ago now, my Grandma died. It hit me hard. I got depressed. And found an awful lot of the weight I'd lost. So. Thick...and thin...literally.

I left that meeting rather insulted. Didn't go back for a while. I'd mostly decided that after this crewel workshop I'd signed up for was over with, I was dropping out. I only hung in there for the workshop because a) I'd already paid for it; and b) withdrawing and taking my money out would mean it would be more expensive for everyone else. We were getting a nationally known, famous (in our little circle, anyway) crewel embroiderer/instructor/guild master craftswoman to come teach us, and it wasn't going to be cheap.

Between that September meeting and the workshop in the spring, I went to one other meeting. The quarterly newsletter was a little sketchy on the time and place of this workshop, and I went to ask questions. Managed to stay away from Mrs. ThickandThin, but was accosted instead by another woman who I hadn't seen in the autumn. First thing out of her mouth:

"Are you driving yet?"

"No."

"Vee! You said you were going to learn how to drive!"

"Well, apparently I lied."

She gave a burst of surprised laughter.

"Well you ought to drive, my goodness, I don't know how you get around otherwise..." and then I tuned her out. Kept on nodding and smiling, thinking to myself I am so out of here when that workshop's over!

And so, the workshop came and went. My resolve wobbled a little because I really did enjoy the weekend. I didn't leave feeling insulted or irritated either day. Heck, I had such a good time Saturday that I even went out to dinner with the teacher and most of the rest of the class. But that's because the people who drive me nuts don't really like crewel work and weren't there that weekend.

Dues are paid by the end of May. To forestall a phone call from Mrs. ThickandThin about where my dues were I sent her an email. One line: I'm not renewing my membership. I never got a response, though I'm sure she got it and passed the message on to the board. I bumped into the chapter president in the grocery store earlier this month. We passed each other a couple of times in various aisles. I smiled, said "Hi," and walked past. She looked like she wanted to talk to me, but I just kept moving. Not interested in explaining myself. Don't want a confrontation or an apology. I just want to be left alone.

And that's why I'm with the other guild now, and very happy with it too.

That lighthouse theme really didn't suit me anyway

Blogger just released a whole bunch of new templates and images ways to play around with your blog's layout. I think this one will suit me until someone teaches me how to make my own.

Thoughts? Does it hurt anybody's eyes? My very first blog theme (the one before the lighthouse) was done in shocking pink. It started to make me squint after looking at it for a year or so. The theme I left it for was chosen mainly because it didn't scream "I'm an eight-year-old in love with Barbie pink! Eeeee!"

This one looks a little more like me. But only a little.

I wish there was a way to get the blog's title bar to center. It's bugging me.

Forgetfulness, thy name is...um...

I spend a large chunk of time listening to music at my desk at work (iTunes, Blip, 365 radio, Pandora, things like that) using headphones. Later on, after I'm bored/tired of noise/can't find anything I wanna listen to, I turn off whatever-it-is and keep on working in silence, but with the headphones still on. Not on purpose, mind you. I forget they're still on. Until I try to retrieve a pen from the floor or a book from the other end of the table and the headphones fly off my head as I go past the cord's limit, that is. Always the same thought goes through my head:

"Why was I still wearing those things?"

Anyone else? Or is my mind going?

And yes, I'm writing about this 'cause it just happened. Again. Almost clothes-lined myself trying to get at something in one of my drawers. Idiot.