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.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
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
Friday, January 18, 2008
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.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
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]
I just thought of a really good name for an organic dairy--Wholly Cow.
[Sound cue: Rim shot]
Monday, January 14, 2008
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."
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."
Thursday, January 10, 2008
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).
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).
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
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.
"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.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
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.
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.
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.
Friday, December 28, 2007
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
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!
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!
Sunday, December 23, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Sunday, December 16, 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)