Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Busy day
July 28th, 2007
Boy, I’ve got a lot going on today. Well, a lot for me. Fortunately the two events that took me out of the house are done.
Many years ago, I signed up for a safety deposit box with my best friend and her husband. Shortly thereafter, they bought a fireproof safe, leaving to pay the box fee by myself. I wanted to close out the account, but was told all three of us needed to be present. Finally, I got them to come with me to the bank. (It only took 2 months to get a them to put it on their schedule!) Then, turns out I was the only one who had to sign anything. Go figure.
Then, I had to get my hair cut (& colored). I always manage to lose my little appointment cards, so I never know exactly when my appointment is. But usually, some day during the week I notice my gray hairs are showing at the roots. And sure enough, that Friday I get the notice that my appointment is that Saturday. Man, I’m good. 
And now, I’m off to participate in this year’s Blogathon by commenting and encouraging those who are blogging for 24 hours straight. It was one of my blogging goals for 2007. Then I got all excited and kind of wanted to blog in the blogathon. I even came up with a couple of themes to blog about. (I thought I’d written a post about it, but can’t seem to find it. Maybe it’s still up there in draft status. Well, kinda late to publish it now.) But I know I can’t stay up for 24 hours. I sort of wish they had an 18-hour option. Now that I could do. Maybe I’ll suggest it to the organizers next year.
Anyway, now I’m off to see what brave souls are out there, raising money for worthwhile charities.
Posted in Blogging, General | Comments (0)
So many topics, so little blogging
April 18th, 2007
I have numerous things to write about, and yet have done no blogging for awhile. The silence has more to do with laziness and distraction than with lack of subject matter. I certainly need to relook at my blogging goals for 2007 and renew my committment to blog more regularly.
And while I’m not going to write about anything specific tonight (I’m much too distracted to try out some graphic ideas), I do want to mention the things that I do want to discuss, otherwise I’ll probably forget them. Let’s see, there’s the incident with my car key breaking in the ignition & the ridiculous cost of replacing it. There’s the beautiful trees outside my doorway that I’ve discussed before, and that are now in full bloom. There’s the two pidgeons who managed to find a cubby hole near the door of the building I work at. And of course there’s the lousy, cold weather we’ve been having. Oh, and the other entertaining television show you’re not watching.
But don’t look for me tomorrow. I doubt I’ll even be able to get on the computer. Our condo association is having its annual meeting tomorrow (ick!); and Supernatural is back with a new episode (yay!).
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Presents from cats
March 4th, 2007
This morning about 4:30 a.m., my male cat woke me up. He’s a very vocal feline so this wasn’t particularly unusual. However, he was fairly insistent; and when I got up to go to the bathroom, I recognized a particular type of play where he takes his toy in his mouth & throws it up in the air. So I turned on the light, and sure enough, there it was. A dead mouse. I disposed of it in the garbage (which goes out tonight, thank goodness!), but apparently he didn’t see me. He continued sniffing around the area where he’d been playing with it, wondering where his prize had gone
When he was little, I guess I praised him a little too much for bringing his toys to me. I thought I was teaching him to play fetch, but all I did was create an attention monster. Now if he wants my attention, he’ll bring me one of his toys. When he was younger, he’d wake me up in the middle of the night playing with his toys on the bed. I tried putting them in the drawer of my night stand, but the little bugger learned to open the drawer. So now I have to put them under my pillow if I want him to settle down.
One night I woke to the bed shaking. Sure enough, he was playing around with his toy. I groped around for it & found it, but it didn’t like one of his felt or furry mice. The fur felt smoother, even “silkier” than his toys; and I knew what it was before I turned on the light. He’d brought me a real mouse.
At least this one was dead. Several years ago, I was in bed reading before turning out the lights. Neiter one of my cats was in bed with me, which was highly unusual. Then I heard some small, odd noises coming from the bathroom. Sure enough, both cats were had a mouse that wasn’t quite dead yet. It was awful! I knew that the humane thing to do was kill the poor little thing, but I didn’t have to nerve. I ended up throwing out on the balconey, to die a slow, agonizing death. (Yes, I am just that big of a wuss.)
I’ve thought about brining in an exterminator, but it wouldn’t do any good. I live in a condo, and even if I got rid of the mice in my place, they’d just migrate in again from downstairs or next door. One of my neighbor’s says the condo company needs to exterminate not just all the buildings, but also all the land around the buildings. Since I doubt that will ever happen, I guess I’ll just have to live with getting a present once every couple years.
Posted in General, Musings | Comments (0)
I just got my hair done & I want to pull it out!
February 25th, 2007
Yeah, yeah. I’m not keeping up with my goal of posting 5 times a week. To be fair, I have posted a little at my Benjamin Bratt website and at my Supernatural blog, but certainly not with the frequency I’d planned. I’d also fallen off the wagon with the Treasure Hunt. (I spent much of the last couple weeks making user pics for my LiveJournal site. I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for pictures of pretty boys.) But I did a quick calculation this week & found that if I find 2 treasures per day (including weekends), I’ll finish on time. Yay.
Friday night I upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, and this morning I’m all befuddled. When I came on to post, everything was in HTML. Now, I know HTML pretty well, but I’ve really gotten used to the WYSIWYG editor. And since WYSIWYG helps with the flow of thought (and the blog is title “Stream of Conscience,” after all) , I really didn’t want to be hassled with having to stop, think, and put in HTML tags. (Besides, the tag editor wasn’t working all that great.) But I finally got the WYSIWYG back. And yet I was still having problems. For some goofy reason, I didn’t have all the editing options available to me. Things seem to be back to normal now, though. But, have the buttons in the Insert/edit link box been swapped? I keep wanting to hit “Cancel” instead of “Insert” (which is really annoying because my links & link titles in the Treasure Hunt are pretty darned long).
Oh, and I had this very annoying greeting in the upper right-hand corner, “Howdy, NICEUSERNAME” (or something like that). Fortunately, I found where to correct the name. I’d sure hate for this post to show up as “Posted by NICEUSERNAME.” And the really odd thing? I upgraded my Ben Bratt website blog, too, but everything over there is working just fine. Sheesh.
It’s snowing its brains out! We were supposed to have a “wintry mix” changing over to (freezing) rain this afternoon. But this is the whitest damn rain I’ve ever seen! Well, the good news is, maybe work will be cancelled tomorrow. Heee. That would be terrific. Oh wait. I just realized there’s something I’ve got to do first thing Monday morning. Rats.
Posted in Blogging, General, Work | Comments (0)
Day 2—in retrospect
February 19th, 2007
I thought about posting several times yesterday, but just never got to it. My right forearm was ridiculously sore from all my efforts to free my car from its ice & snow-encrusted prison. I got all the snow & ice off of the car, but there’s still icy snow up around the tires. Both Saturday & yesterday, the temperature was supposed to get above freezing. I figured once the snow got a little mushy, I be able to get underneath it or break it up so that I could shovel it. Well, if it got above freezing, it didn’t reach the ground. Of course, it didn’t help that my neighbor was out there pouring hot water to melt some of the snow. Now the ice in that spot is about 1 inch thick.
Nonetheless, I did get my car out. It took a bit of effort, and it’s not a pretty sight, but at least I’m mobile.
As usual, I didn’t get as much done on Sunday as I had on Saturday. Still, I cleaned out my frig & went to the grocery store. And got a few more loads of laundry done. And found a book I’d been looking for. And I have yet another day off to get more accomplished.
The pull of the computer games is immense. It’s such relaxing passtime for me. But it’s also an escape, and an enormous time-waster. (And solitaire doesn’t count, because I easily get bored with it and move on.)
Posted in General, Head Games | Comments (0)
That’ll teach me
February 3rd, 2007
I decided to hit the McDonald’s for breakfast on my way to the library this morning. As I was walking from my car I noticed, in the drive-thru’ lane (which was very busy), a patch of black ice. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice until the nano-second before I planted my foot on it. I knew even before my foot hit the ground that I was in trouble. My feet went waaay out from under me. I landed on my ass, then my back, then my head. Luckily I didn’t see stars, but I did have a the wind knocked out of me. As I sat back up, I looked at the car in the drive thru’ lane, who of course, just sat there waiting for me to get up. (Nice!) But it was so slick, I couldn’t get up. I had to wiggle myself off the ice, then get up. The people in the car just sat there watching me. Finally, as I managed to get up, the passenger opened the door to ask if I was alright. Well, I guess later is better than never. (Or maybe they just wanted to wait until I was upright again, so that they wouldn’t have to do too much work & wouldn’t miss their chance to order breakfast.)
Anyway, I am ok. Nothing’s broken. My butt is sore (& probably bruised), and I think my back may be bruised a bit too. I scraped one of my elbows (even tho it was generously padded by my heavy coat), and whacked one of my ankles (I know it’s not broken because I can still walk). And now I notice all the muscles that I tensed up as I went down are starting to tighten. I can’t wait to see what I feel like tomorrow.
Today is the birthday of my newest cyberfriend, Andie. She’s quite an amazing gal, with a most incredible sense of humor. If you watch Supernatural, you would enjoy her take on the Winchester brothers, called Plastic!Winchester!Theater (the exclamation points are necessary). Two Ken dolls, one very handsome & the other with goofy hair (just like their tv counterparts) take on all sorts of weird, paranormal activity. They’ve tackled ballet-performing zombies, troll dolls, Evil Care Bears, Barney, and a pink walrus, just to name a few. Their arch-nemesis, though, is not the “yellow-eyed demon” of the tv show; it’s Snuggles, the fabric softner teddy bear. If you’re looking to laugh your socks off, head on over there. And if you don’t know what Supernatural is about, check out her Supernatural Guide for Newbies.
Oh! And, Happy Birthday, Andie! 
Posted in General, Musings | Comments (0)
New Season, New Theme
January 25th, 2007
Well, since it’s now officially winter (ok, it’s officially been winter for about a month, but it hasn’t felt like it), and it’s now cold, and we’ve had our first snow (and are anticipating our second snow this evening), I have changed my WP theme. Don’t get used to it. You know I’ll change it at some point.
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Happy New Year!
January 2nd, 2007
Ok, so I’m a day late. What do you expect from a world class procrastinator? As you can see, I didn’t come anywhere near to meeting my December blog goal (post every day). That’s partly because I spent much of my time working on my Benjamin Bratt site/blog. I did get the spam under control, but I’m still working on the site. I’m trying to redesign the site, but, hey, it’s a blog and my PHP skills are negligible. If you want to watch my progress, you can check out my sandbox. But I must warn you, it isn’t pretty!
Resolutions? Hah! Actually, I’d like to lose one pound per week this year, and I want to start by improving my eating habits. However, here I’m sitting at the computer rather than planning meals & shopping for groceries.
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The Sunday from Hell
December 11th, 2006
My Sunday from hell actually started on Friday. I knew a cold front was coming through and that it was windy. I wasn’t prepared for my heat to be all night. (I’d even lowered the thermostat.) I woke up Fri morning with a horrendous sinus headache (which lasted pretty much all day). So I finally fired up my two humidifiers and slept much better the rest of the weekend.
On Sunday, I ran out to get some laundry detergent since I was finally making some progress with my many piles of clothes. On the way back from the drug store, I decided to stop at Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast. However, I misjudged the curb & and banged the crap out of my tire.  And sure enough, the tire was flat by time I pulled into a parking spot. Fortunately, my cell phone was charged and AAA didn’t take too long getting there. (However, a couple of girls were working on the car next to me & the alarm kept going off while I was on the phone. Very annoying!)  If I’d just gone to McDonalds for hotcakes, none of this would have happened.
In the afternoon my electricity went out for about an hour. Why is it the only thing you can think of to do while the electricity is out involves electricity? I used the time to do a little much needed picking up. And when I’d had enough of doing something constructive, I pulled out last Sunday’s Washington Post crossword puzzle. I even had enough light to work it.
But I really, really, really got annoyed when my $100 iron didn’t seem to work any better than my old $40 iron.  I bought the damn thing because the old iron wasn’t getting the wrinkles out of synthetics. Now the new one isn’t either. (I even started a blog post about it, but it’s full of expletives, so I decided not to publish it.) Obviously, I am domestically challenged.
And just when I thought everything was ready for Monday, my downstairs neighbor comes banging on my door that water is dripping from her bedroom ceiling. Turns out my humidifier had a leak. So now I gotta figure out how to repair water damaged cement. I’m hoping it only involves repainting. But the worst part? I was in the middle of transferring a Supernatural episode from my DVR to the DVD when she knocked. By the time I got back, I was recording not just a commercial, but some really obnoxious ones. Since I don’t want commercials to interfere with the purity of the show ;), it looks like I’ll be re-recording that particular episode.
But, all in all, I guess things could have been worse. On Friday, one of the guys from work had a deer jump out in front of him on his way home.  Majorly smashed up his car. And it wasn’t too good for the deer either.
Oh, and my office buddy is in the hospital with severe bronchitis.
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December 7th
December 7th, 2006
I noticed today that the Post Office distribution center had their flag at half staff. I was trying to think of why, and I can only assume that it’s because today is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Immediately my thoughts went to my parents and wondered just what they had gone through.
My dad was in his first year of law school at the University of Iowa (then called the State University of Iowa, because Iowa State was just a college). My mom worked at a bank in Chicago. They had been dating for a couple years and it was serious enough for both of them to know this was the person they would eventually marry. Dad signed up for the Navy and went off to Officer Candidate School. I remember Mom telling me that they thought the war wouldn’t last very long, but it was something like two years before she got to see him again.
That’s also when she started smoking. She said it’d be months before she heard anything, and everyone else was doing it. It just seemed to be the thing to do. I guess it helped ease her anxiety. Sadly, she was never able to kick the habit, and eventually the cigarettes took her life.
I met with my cardiologist today. He’s such a good doctor and so easy for me to talk to. He has 2 young kids, who I imagined were getting excited for the holidays, so I wished him a Merry Christmas. He told me that this year was a little tough because his mother died about a month ago. He mentioned that the hole is really huge, which I can certainly relate to. I thought about telling him that I understood, because my mom died just a few weeks before Christmas. But this was his moment to grieve a little. There was no need for me to turn it around and make it about me, even if I’d have meant it in the kindest of ways.
Posted in Family, General | Comments (0)