There's this guy I know with a habit I found annoying as heck and now am merely amused by it.


He says he'll call and then doesn't.

See, I tend to expect if you tell me "I'll call you tomorrow" to hear from you "tomorrow." The first time or two that you don't follow through I'll be mildly perturbed, then it's downright annoying. I mean, if you're not gonna call why even say you will? After the umpteenth time though, it's just laughable. Got a text saying "I'll call you tomorrow" and I giggled. I almost wrote back "Malarky" just to see the response, but I decided against it. I suspect soon I will follow through on such a response though. I mean, it IS malarky, and downright laughable.

I cleaned out my car!

*trust me- do the wild muppet happy dance here*

We also got a decent amount of housework done this weekend.

I skipped everything. Ok, we made one soccer game, but Lee is sick as a dog and I'm sick of being overbooked so I just quit showing up for shit this weekend. I'll return to the normal frenetic pace, wait...

maybe I will avoid that. It is the dark time.

I'll try. *grin*

anyway,

I'm a fall cleaner, not a spring cleaner. The idea of Santa Clause jamming his fat ass down my chimney and leaving new crap all over the place just puts the fear of something fearful into me and I start madly cleaning.

***

Sidda is off this evening fishing with the Bees. The texts from the excursion have been as follows:

Amy: So far she prefers bucket fishing for minnows. *picture of Sidda standing over a bucket with her Barbie fishing pole jammed in it*

me: rofl

Amy: *picture of Sidda and Bradley with a greeting card size fish on the end of Bradley's pole* "It was an accomplishment to get her this close to the fish. She's such a girl. They're having fun together though."

me: Yeah I'm the same way about the whole thing. Good to know she inherited something from me! Were it up to me to kill what we eat, we'd eat a lot of salad.

Amy: If the prey is in a bucket, she'll be a great hunter for you.

me: I'll make a note.

...

This really makes me wonder wtf she was doing to the minnows in the bucket.

I cannot describe to the uninitiated just how weird and unpredictable my child is.
Srsly.

Lee,

I adore you. Thanks for being who you are.

-S

A few observations:

1) Either the economy is fixed, or everyone in the world is window shopping. Under no circumstances should you attempt to navigate Gunbarrel Road at present or I'd guess any time before January. It's hell.

2) Everything at chick fillet tastes like black pepper.

3) I don't really like black pepper.

4) Lee is incapable of getting a cold. He either doesn't get sick at all or he gets THE ZOMBIE FLU MADNESS OF DOOM. No middle ground- completely well or trying to die.

5) Soccer is annoying. I know, I've mentioned this.

6) My head hurts.

7) Putting glass outside and waiting for the recycle fairies, does not appear to work.

(I'm Gonna Eat) On Thanksgiving Day    Laurie Berkner      
Kind & Generous    Natalie Merchant       
Please And Thank You    The Backyardigans   
Linus And Lucy    Vince Guaraldi Trio  
Thank You    Dido   
Albuquerque the Turkey    Rita Mizrahi Shamie    
Grandmother Song    Vienna Teng       
Thank You    Alanis Morissette      
E Eats Everything    They Might Be Giants   
Hanuman    Rodrigo y Gabriela  
This Land Is Your Land    Peter, Paul & Mary    Woody Guthrie  
Love Shines (A Song for My Daughters About God)    Live   
The Wiggles / The Turkey In The Straw    The Wiggles       
What Falls In The Fall?    Laurie Berkner        Whaddaya Think Of That?       
I Am The Truth    Lunar Afternoon   
Over the River and Through the Wood    Rita Mizrahi Shamie Presents   

I hope she likes it

I knew Strega couldn't be trusted with cats, but I kinda hoped that it was more a desire to chase, that a cat that stood it's ground and went on the offense might be ok.

Well, today he chased after a kitty that seemed kinda friendly. It hissed and arched at him, he stopped a moment and then went after it. It ran... ducked under some juniper, then made for trees. I thought it would be ok, it got into the tree. Strega kept leaping to get to it though, so it tried to move from tree to tree and wound up on some limbs that couldn't quite hold it. It sagged down too low. I was trying to get there to get him and I saw him knock it out of the tree, then he was on it. It almost got away again, but it couldn't get up the tree trunk nearest it and he grabbed it and was just starting to do the "I'm'a kill you" dog shake when I grabbed him. I pulled him back and he relaxed his jaw just enough that kitty got loose and ran off. He started trying despite my grabbing him to go after it. I had to grab him, pull him back and flipped him on his back, growling and yelling at him and holding his throat and ear...

He still, when I finally got up and pulled him up, tried to break away and go back after it. I had a good hold of his collar though and pulled him away. His nose was dripping blood.

I hope to god that kitty is ok. I have no idea whose kitty it is, one of the neighbors didn't recognize it as belonging to anyone there. Still, it had a collar... it was someone's baby.

Now though, if it is ok, it'll know better than to ever trust a strange canine.

I feel old and broken tonight.

As tersa mentioned the benefits of posting in LJ (without enumerating them, admittedy), I figured possibly I should post my latest whinge to LJ.

First, a non-whinge: Halloween party was wonderful. It was great to see people. AE game prior to party was enjoyable, though the PCs were sometimes frustrated, and hit the combat portion of the entertainment only at the very end.

Sometime Saturday, I developed a bit of pain in my left foot; I noticed when leaving the party that I was definitely favoring it somewhat. This, in turn, meant that I spent most of Sunday sitting around the apartment weith my foot elevated and occasionally iced. Sunday night, it got worse. Monday, I came in to work with a cane and tried to get a doctor's appaointment; finally I got one for Tuesday morning. More pain overnight--I ended up sleeping on the couch, as it hurt less to sleep with my left foot on the back of the couch while I was lying down across the couch than to be completely horizontal on the bed.

This morning, the doctor thinks it's bursitis and gave me medicine for that. I have a followup on Friday morning--if it's not much better, it's time for a local block and a cortisone shot. I'm hoping not to have to go to those extremes, as is the doctor. He suspects it'll be somewhat better by tomorrow, and pretty well cleared by Friday. I should probably get new pads for both pairs of LARP boots, though. Luckily, we don't have many closings today, so the office manager has approved my walking around with one shoe off, for the little bit I need to walk around the office.

Also Saturday evening, my mother had extreme stomach pain and nausea, so my father ended up running her to the ER. She was diagnosed with pancreatitis, which was actually odd, since the most common causes of such are high intake of alcohol (bwah!) and gallstones (unlikely, as her gall bladder was removed a while back). Fortunately, when she was admitted, my new sister-in-law was on duty in the hospital (she's a nurse, working evening shift), so she had Mom put on her floor.

I just called Mom to see how she was doing. Her stomach is apparently feeling better, but she's having trouble breathing. Dad had told me she was on oxygen, but I didn't realize it was as bad as she sounded this afternoon. (According to her, it wasn't this bad under earlier this morning.) She was remarkably short of breath, panting the entire (incredibly brief) time we were on the phone. She mentioned that she'd had 8 doctors in to see her today, and some of them mentioned that it was somewhat serious. Then again, I'd wager that anytime someone is having problems breathing, that qualifies in and of itself for "somewhat serious." According to my father, who coincidentally just called, one of the new doctors was a pulmonary specialist, but the sister-in-law said that she got the feeling from the primary physician that was mostly a precaution. Still, they're trying to pinpoint the problem and fix it.

As my younger brother said, "we're all getting older and wearing down." Still, I'd rather be somewhat active and wearing down, even while being reminded to take precautions.

I can tell Strega got used to a lot of activity while I was in Memphis. He's even more shifty and excitable than before. Unfortunately, with my ankle freshly twisted I can't take him for the long walks he's craving. If he can hold out till Wednesday without making me want to kill him...

As it is, he's already had a good 30 min RUN. I biked. You'd think that would hold him for more than an hour, but no. No, within an hour he was up and begging for walkies or treats or dinner or just anything mom anything now I'm bored and I want entertainment NOW! Mind you, the back door is open and there's all kinds of stuff he could do back there, but that's not good enough. He wants the FRONT yard so there aren't any fences. Yes, the FRONT yard so he can harass everyone trying to walk their dog along the road.

I wish dogs were allowed on the Riverwalk. It's nice, flat and pretty. Flat with a twisted ankle is good. Flat with a twisted ankle means not making it worse. Hmm.... there's gotta be a way.

So we have a time change. It happens every time around this year so its not surprising. The thing I find surprising is the speed in which my internal clock handles it.

My body seems to flow into natural rhythms with astonishing ease. I first wake up at 6:30 or so when the alarm goes off for Mongasika has to go to school. (Why 2nd graders should go to school so early is beyond me). I then doze off until 7:20 when I roll over, look at my clock and sleep again until 7:40 when I repeat the process. At 7:50 my body is fully awake. I shower dress and fly out the door.

You'd think that my body would have started doing these things an hour later under normal circumstances, but no all of them happened the same as if there was no time change. I briefly remember at 7:20 being annoyed at how much light in the room there was, but saw that it was sunlight and not artificial and so just rolled over.

And I've always been able to do this regardless of when I go to sleep. If I lie down at 11 (my normal sleep time) I get up at htose hours. If I stay up til 2:AM I get up at those hours.

In college, I could look at a clock, determine what time I needed to get up, and my body would wake up at that time (within 5-10 minutes). Its a neat trick.

In other news, my dog seems to have the same ability. One of the reasons I get up at 7:20 is that the dog wants to go pee. Apparently she has also adjusted to the time change because she was whining at the door at 7:20 and not 6:20.

I love this picture of them.

( Read more... )

Ouchouchouchouch...

Today was a trail run with Dreama, Trey, Sergio, Carl and Mark. We planned to run the trail segment from 111 to Hotwater, including two creek crossings. Well, with all the rain recently, those creeks were pretty dangerous.

Let me first state that I'm usually pretty good about creek crossings. I don't usually have a lot of trouble with fast water. Still, when we got to the first one I knew it would be dangerous. I was especially concerned for Sergio and Dreama, both of them being much smaller and more easily swept away. Fortunately, we'd brought a rope.

After going back and forth along the bank a bit trying to find the best place to ford the raging water (and it was RAGING as well as incredibly cold) Carl got a little over halfway and wound up on a rock. The rope wasn't long enough to go further, so we decided to send Dreama and Sergio over. We didn't know where Mark was at this point, he'd wandered upstream looking for another place to cross. Now it was Trey and I, and whoever went last had to untie the rope and make their way across. Well, I told Trey to go ahead, that I'd cross without. He started off and I went upstream a touch thinking that over by those big rocks up there might work if I could get to the big one and jump to the flat one past it.

Things did not go according to that plan. I managed to get to the big rock, but it was so treacherous getting there that I didn't want to turn around and go back in the freezing water as my legs got less able to respond. The narrow area between that rock and the flat one just beyond was too far for me to jump. It was about 6'. Just long enough not to jump when the rock I was on was already too slick to stand on, and the water between far too deep and fast to even touch a toe in without something to hold onto. The rest agreed to finish their crossing and come throw me the rope and brace it. I was going to get wet. Very wet. But, if the person on the other end tied the rope to a tree then pulled me as I headed across, I knew it would work, and here's where things got dicey.

I got the end of the rope fine. I tied a big loop in it, and held on with my left hand through the loop. Then I tossed my hat across and prepared to toss my water pack across so I'd have that much less on me to worry about (and yes, the other end of the rope was tied off to a tree and Carl had a loose hold of it at the rock's edge). Carl prepared to catch my water pack, and as I swung it to toss, my hold on my rock slipped and I fell feet first right into the torrent.

I held that pack up and held onto the rope as the water immediately swept me off my feet. I felt the rope tighten against Carl, turning me face up and I kicked for whatever I had in me towards the bank. It was only half a second and I was in calmer water, clutching that rope in one hand and my water pack in the other and hearing Trey yelling "you're ok?! You're OK!!" I kept hold, the current was still there after all, but turned over and got my legs under me and, with Carl's help, climbed back out of the water. Dreama informed me I'd scared her to death. She looked up from squeezing the water out of her shirt from her own dunking just in time to see me fall into the raging water, and she'd no idea if I had the rope or not.

To say the least, I'm glad I had gotten hold of that rope before trying to throw anything across to Carl!

We looked for Mark but he was out of sight and out of earshot, and we agreed the only thing we could do was to get out of there and if he didn't turn up at one end of the trail or the other, we'd have to call for the search teams. There was nothing we could do for him if he was washed down the creek.

Shivering and with feet like bricks, back out of the gorge and off to the second creek crossing we went. It was a rough climb, my feet of clay were hard to control. Still, I scrambled up the rocks and around and ran on those few sections that were nice, soft trail till we got to the next crossing. Here it was narrower, shallower, but still fast and with some spots none of us wanted to tangle with. We looked around and Carl started to trek across a slick rock in shallow water, but halfway across he saw a tree down that was low to the water so that if we slipped we'd not die. Trey followed Carl, Sergio, Dreama and I headed for the tree. I was NOT feeling adventurous anymore and had no traction to speak of. We didn't even pretend to walk across the tree, despite it's massive size. No, I got down and butt-scooted across to "victory."

Of course, now I was exhausted and had clay feet to go with even less traction than usual on a wet day in the woods. Every place I found rocks on the trail, I had to walk lest I slip. I slowed down. Even that wasn't enough though, I managed to step on a rock hidden by leaves and rolled my ankle. I screamed out, but the others were far ahead and couldn't have helped anyway. I limped on, gritting my teeth till I found them waiting for me to tell me where the trail was going. I called out that I'd twisted my ankle and sent them on to get the car. The trail was almost over, and it would cross the road before the end. We agreed I would wait at the road and let them get me. After all, we still had to get the other cars at the other side and see if Mark would appear.

Fortunately, Mark did appear. He didn't find a way across the creek and by the time he returned to where we had been, we were gone. So, he headed back the way we came. I'd hoped he would do that, but worried that perhaps he'd found a spot that looked likely as I had done and found himself in trouble. I admit a bit of hypocrisy there.

Anyway, Dad and Larry before either of you fuss at me please know that I'd never have tried any of that if I'd been out there without the support of the others. If I'd been alone, I'd have turned around and headed back. Also, I doubt I'll be the one to go across sans rope again. Not if it means I'll get another bad twist to my ankle (which hurts ALOT now!) I just wish my dog understood that I'm in too much pain for long walks right now. Ouchouchouchouch!

I got Strega back this morning. He came to me in true submissive form, crouching and placatory. I loved on him and he very quickly became glued to my side. The two dogs he's been playing with quite well and happily for the past two weeks suddenly he was growling at and chasing from me. My protector, saving me from the slobber of a lab.

Tonight we made grilled cheese sandwiches and popcorn (ok and a veggie tray, I'm me) and hot cocoa with Halloween shaped marshmallows in it and watched, "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown." It's totally over the girls' heads and boring to them in the day and age of 3d cartoons, but darnit, it was a huge part of Halloween to me, I shall inflict it upon them!

Despite being in awful running shape right now, my definitions have obviously changed. Yesterday after the meeting I went to dinner with several of the folks I'm working with on this project. One is a runner, she did a relay last year and her team is planning another relay this year. I told her to let me know when and where, I might join them. Anyway, we were talking about where to get some trail time here and I mentioned some of the trails I've tried out. The wide eyed looks of horror over distances being traversed were a reminder of a time not so very long ago when I would have looked in awe at anyone even attempting the kinds of miles I try to seek out now.

Mind you, I still need to get back to regular training, but soon.... very soon.

For today though, it's time to follow the storm front home. Tomorrow morning, it's "get the dog" time. I might need Saturday to get past the joys of driving all day today in the rain. It's amazing how I once took drives of this sort of distance as a normal thing for a mere weekend trip and now....

Definitions. How they change.

I'm sitting in a Starbucks after driving around in circles to see if there are any better options than the one I already submitted for this location for this thing and thinking "this time next week, I'll be home."

Not that there isn't still a mess here, and there's a part of me that thinks I should be sticking around to clean it up but... that would take a few months that I don't have to spend in Memphis. No, better for me to do the work for this market that doesn't require me to be in the area and pitch in with that work. It's one of my better skills and will free up the local talent to handle the stuff THEY do best. One always does this job better in more familiar territory. I've never worked this market, and the rules change from place to place.

Starbucks clientelle are different from my usual coffee shop types. More khaki's, though the one that just came in has a dragon instead of an alligator on his polo shirt. At least, I think that's a little white dragon. He burst in with his neck stretched, glared around briefly and marched long-leggedly up to the counter for his simple coffee. For a second I thought I should check for concealed carry. He had the look about him. Then I realized I didn't care and instead noted the complete lack of ass to hold up the khaki's, a fact made more prominent by the overstuffed wallet falling out of his back pocket. It wasn't overstuffed with dollar bills mind you, looked like receipts.

In my usual coffee shop, he'd have sat down in a corner with a book. In here, he stalked with as much character as he came in with (and possibly less ass).

 Ladies, if you love vintage 70's clothing, you have to head to the Goodwill in Farragut ASAP.  All the clothes are size 7/8, too small for me, but I couldn't resist picking up one piece.  God bless the soul of whoever these belonged to because they are immaculate.  Happy shopping!

So a couple of weeks ago, I went to a pagan wedding. As many of you know, I am pretty solidly Christian, but I know my pagan-fu pretty strong. I've been the token Christian for several circles and my own interest in religion in general gives me a solid grounding.

I thought it was a little funny: I gasped when the bride was drawing the circle because it looked like she was about to ward herself OUTSIDE and her husband inside, but she stepped inside the circle before she closed it.

But one thing that seems strong to me is the sense of presence in a ceremony put on by devout practitioners of whatever religion. When they called to the spirits of the quarters I felt *something* there. Interesting it wasn't the sense that my God and the Pagan Goddess or the like were all the same and just different names for all the same thing.

Its more a sense that a 'power' has been called and that its there and present but not a power that I am familiar with. I don't get the 'oh god its evil kill it' feeling that one might expect I should feel if one was fundamentalist Christian. And as I said, I don't feel like its just my God in a different name.

Naturally the rationalists among my friends will insist that I'm just picking up on the feelings of the event and the participants and that there is no power spirit or god or whatever there. They may be right, but I am happy to believe otherwise. A magical world is probably better than the real one sometimes. And weddings are a good place for magical thinking.