joy and jubilee

cornfields and harry potter

2009-09-28T07:37:00.000-07:00

another odd dream:

i was on vacation with my family, and we were renting some house at the beach. i woke up in the middle of the night and i was really hungry, so i got up to get a snack. i went outside and walked down the road to a bunch of huge cornfields, of course, and started eating field corn off the stalks. i heard someone coming through the field, and i got really scared so i crouched down to hide... and it was one of my sister's high school friends - amber beathard! it turns out i had wandered onto their farm. she sat there while i ate corn, then we started to see headlights in the field. then a car drove through the field RIGHT beside us! the engine was completely quiet, so it was a miracle it didn't run us over. a bunch of people were drive around the fields searching for me. so i dodged them and got out of the field. then i remembered that i had stashed my quidditch broom in the beathard's barn, so i hightailed it over there and found it. then flew back to the beach house. and i think i might have actually been harry potter at some point in the dream.

wackadoo dreams

2009-09-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

okay, i dream a lot. and usually my dreams are a little strange. so since a) i have been neglecting this blog and need content, and 2) i can't think of anything to say... i think i'll just list a few of my recent dreams. i'd like to remember them in the future. i might just make this a regular feature.

last week - friday night, maybe? i dreamt that i was neda ulaby (whose voice, let it be documented here, drives me up a wall), or maybe i wasn't her but i could see through her eyeballs as if i was her. in any case, her father was a terrorist, and she killed him as he slept - by dropping BBs into his ear, one by one, until his ear canal collapsed and the BBs flooded his brain.

there were some screwy dreams the other night, but i JUST NOW forgot them as i tried to type.

last night i dreamt that i busted scott for taking peni$ enlargement pills that he bought on the internet. the way i found out was that i saw a text message on his phone that he sent to someone, saying "the pills work! just waiting for the last couple of inches!" ??

i think i like this new feature. you? feel free to share in the comments.

austin, TX, here i come!

2009-08-06T09:54:00.000-07:00

i'm heading to austin next week, for the annual meeting of the society of american archivists. i am jazzed because i've always heard such great things about austin... but not so jazzed because it is supposed to be several ticks above ONE HUNDRED DEGREES all next week.

just kill me now.

it was hot enough when it was in DC a few years back. but this. this.... i just can't imagine slogging around in that.

i've also been advised to bring my bathing suit because there is a pool at the hotel, and because of the always-62-degree water at barton springs. but what about running into my boss whilst wearing a bathing suit? what about averting my eyes from speedo-sporting colleagues? that makes my stomach hurt, just thinking about it. archivists, including me, are not generally known for their ripped and trim physiques.

in other news, the garden is thriving! photographic evidence here. and my parents were here for a nice visit last weekend - we hit the mid-city dog days of summer sidewalk sale (we stumbled upon it by accident last summer and made a point to go again this year) and the national aboretum, out on new york ave/US50. i got an early-early birthday present! a chiminea! i can't WAIT to have cozy fires in the backyard this fall. and winter. and next spring! and always.

due to my travel craziness, i've had to cancel my appearance at the MPHS class of '94 reunion this weekend. i was actually looking forward to it, but alas. not this time. i'll have to hook up with my homies when i am home in october instead....

and that's all i've got. now i'm off to wish it wasn't too late to mail-order a full-body victorian swim dress in time for next week...

hot or not

2009-07-22T12:15:00.001-07:00

we've been awfully spoiled this summer. well, at least all of us in the DC area. we've hardly had any re-e-e-e-a-lly hot days at all. at all! as in, i can't even remember the last time it was in the 90s. and i sincerely doubt we've broken 100. for the most part, we've drifted around in the upper 70s and lower 80s. lows in the 60s at night. it was even TOO CHILLY to go swimming the other day. in july!

which sounds nice.

sounds awful nice.

sounds like a cool lake in canada, without the black flies in your nose.

but instead, it has made me a HUGE WIMP. i just went on a walk outside with a co-worker. not long, maybe 20 minutes tops. and i have sweat through my shirt, my ass is damp and my hair is dripping sweat into my eyes. it's only 88 out there, people! i should be ashamed of myself.

fun weekend, and other stuff to report

2009-07-20T09:39:00.000-07:00

i had a pretty fun weekend, how about you?

Friday was spent by myself at home - which might sound boring, unless you are a homebody like me who likes some extended periods of alone time. sometime during the course of the evening, i also snacked on some pine nuts left over from making pesto, and had some of that pesto for dinner. somewhere in that mix lurked a rancid nut that had been sitting around too long - because i now have pine mouth! i had just bought the nuts from the bulk section of Yes! organic market, only days prior. i should have known better, because as much as i like Yes! - you really have to watch them on expired food and the bulk bins can often be kind of dodgy (i found what appeared to be rodent turds in the bulk popcorn bin once, and all their chicken was DAYS past due and still in the meat case, and their beets often sit in the produce section until they turn to liquid blobs. and god knows there aren't enough pine-nut-eaters in brookland to make sure the bulk bin has a good rate of turnover. i'm sure those nuts had bin in that bin for months... but i digress. i have PINE MOUTH, dammit! it was the worst on saturday. everything tasted like gasoline/crushed aspirin/bug spray - especially coffee or anything bready, and my mouth would occasionally suffer a pine-nut aftertaste at random times. sunday was still bad, but getting better. today is much better, but still not all gone. lessons learned - if pine nuts are cheap, it's probably for a good reason; only buy pine nuts from italy, as the ones from other countries (especially china, for some reason) sometimes contain cheaper quality, they are more lax about refrigerating in the warehouses, and are riskier for pine mouth. great. that is, unless you like teh taste of gasoline or sharpie markers - then by all means, go to the brookland Yes! and gorge yourself.

Saturday, we went to Bengie's Drive In, up near Baltimore - which boasts the largest screen in the U.S! As usual, it was a fun time. but insanely late, so i didn't shamble into bed until after 3:30 am. AM! that is basically unforgiveable. before the show, we went to toys-r-us and i got the re-released Mastermind game. which SUXX for many reasons that i won't go into, and i will now be stalking old versions on ebay.

Therefore, i slept late on Sunday before heading over to Courtney's to paint trim in her bedroom.... which killed my back, and i knew it was killing my back even as i did it... but i am obsessive when it comes to trim work and couldn't stop myself. sick, i know. but then i went swimming! in a pool! for the first time this summer! and it was so so good. i wish i could have a pool in my yard. but alas, that would be a terrible idea. too small, and would be filled with urine and syringes and dead squirrels within the hour of installation. *sigh*

i have a busy several weeks approaching. i hate busy.

makes me wanna hoop

2009-05-06T12:17:00.001-07:00

So I made a hula hoop.

For myself.

Scott asked me what in the heck I was going to do with the PVC tubing I bought from the home despot – when I said I was going to make myself a hula hoop, he laughed. I told him I was serious, and he laughed some more. So I said, “no really, I’m making a hula hoop.” And then he chuckled merrily and shook his head.

He came home from work yesterday and there was a hula hoop in the living room. He said, “oh! So you were serious about that hula hoop thing!” and he wonders why I say he doesn’t listen to me...

I hooped my ass off yesterday afternoon (well, not really, I’m more aiming to hoop my gut off) while I was home early from work. I hooped through Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and part of an episode of Clean House. Which, looking back, might have been too much for my first time of hooping since elementary school. My back was k-i-l-l-i-n-g me last night and I have little bruises all over my waist. But it was worth it! It is supposed to be a good workout for gut and lower back. Lord knows my flabby gut and weak back could use some work. and it's really pretty fun.

You can buy exercise hoops online for $20-$30+tax+shipping, but I got the supplies at the store for less than $10. And that is good enough for me. it was put together and ready to go in under 10 minutes flat.

The first couple of tries at the hoop resulted in the hoop crashing dramatically and immediately to the floor. I knocked a candle off of the coffee table a few times. Scared the hell out of the cats more than once. The first, oh, say, 300 times it fell to the floor it smashed into the pointy part of my ankle bone on the way down. God, you know how that hurts. I said curses (motherFUCKERohgoddamnSHITballspleasegodhelpmeohfuck) so loud and convincingly that i’m certain my pleas were heard at the gates of heaven. i was afraid to look, because it hurt so sharply that i thought the skin over the pointy bone had been cleaved open and that my ankle guts would be exposed. And just like when you bite your lip once, and proceed to chomp down on the same place over and over and over…. Well, it’s the same with pointy ankle bones, apparently. I smashed the bejeezums out of my ankles, then with tears in my eyes I tied dishtowels around my ankles like bulky, super-short leg warmers resumed hoopin’ the night away.

to make a hula hoop of your very own, all you need is some PVC tubing (not the pipes - it has to be flexible enough to bend into a stiff circle), a connector (from the same aisle at lowes depot), and some jazzy colored electrical tape to cover it. and that's it! i think there are calculations for how big around your hoop should be, based on your height. but i wasn't that technical. the tubing came precut in lengths of 10 feet, so that's what i got. i am just under 5'8" and the finished hoop comes just to my belly button when i stand it in front of me. that seems about right to me. go make one. you won't regret it.

Spring!

2009-04-09T08:48:00.000-07:00

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

[Today, Billy Collins]

Wow, so spring is here. Finally. (i've been away for quite some time, but we won't talk about that. let's just pretend otherwise for now.) here in DC, the weather has been skipping back and forth between spring and crap for a while now - mostly springy, though. daffodils have come and are almost gone, packing their little hatboxes and heading up north where spring is still sleeping. forsythia was a flash in the pan and the flame is gone. cherry blossoms have peaked and their confetti is sprinkling all down the river. next up will be azaelas and lilacs and other bloomy sisters. i was in ohio last weekend and spring was just arriving there. it was nice! i got to see spring twice.

wedding stuff is chugging right along. right now the pace is pleasant, if not a little skippy. soon it will be a freight train, bordering on derailment, so i'd better enjoy the semi-relaxation while i've got it.

this would be a good time to make a list of things i still need to do. but i'm afraid i would throw up once i saw it all written down. so let's think of other things!

like the vegetarian meatloaf i made the other day! it was DANG good. i didn't do the vegan route - i used the egg that the original recipe called for. and i didn't have hazelnuts so i used a mix of walnuts and cashews. also i used less nuts and more lentils, because the thought of 2 cups of nuts scared me badly. and i slathered it with ketchup for the last 15 minutes of baking. it was so. good. i just had leftovers for lunch. my only thought was that it was a little crumbly - i might add a second egg next time. and i might add a little minced green pepper, since i like that in my regular meatloaf. try it! i'm serious. it is very delicious. i think scott ate 3 slices.

in other news:

- i've been watching american idol. it's a little embarrassing, but hey. we have a DVR now, so it's a lot less painful when you can fast-forward through the crap. and i hope adam wins.

- my seedlings are doing....well, they're doing okay. they were great a few days ago, but a few have mysteriously died or disappeared. i believe the cats are to blame. nilsson must have developed a taste for seedlings last year.

- i'm going to be an aunt AGAIN! well, an aunt still, anyway. or is it again? i'm not sure. but either way, jessie and david are having another baby!

- i think the Death March is out this year. we didn't register in time, and all the spots are filled. refresh your memory on last years' walk here.

- and that's it for now.

ta ta.

just like my dreams

2009-02-24T05:53:00.001-08:00

to find me gone

2008-12-29T12:27:00.000-08:00

Oh it's been so long, been so long
The sound of my heart stopping, a surprising sound

wow! people, i've been away from here so long. i suppose no one even reads me anymore. anyone? anyone? i didn't think so.

i won't bother recapping what's been going on here to keep me away. that would be boring, even to me who lived it. but i will say this: i worship a new idol now.

well, maybe two idols.

they compete for my time and space in my heart. they are Wii Fit, and Harvest Moon Tree of Tranquility. I curse the mueller clan for bringing this foolishness into my life. i haven't been so obsessed with a video game since the days of laying with my brother and sister, three in a row, on a soiled old mattress on the bare concrete floor of the basement rec room, taking turns at the paddle wheel of Atari Kaboom! until our eyes bled from the sockets, the primitive buckets a blurry whir on the screen, napping a little between turns. or, i suppose in college it would count when my roommate carrie and i would crouch behind our friend kiwi as she played Legend of Kyrandia on her PC. we wouldn't even play! we would sit for hours (hours!) after dinner in the dining hall, watching as the little elf Brandon (odd name for an elf) would try and save the kingdom.

scott go Wii Fit for me as a birthday present. i didn't ask for it, and i didn't necessarily think it would be much fun. but MAN! was i ever wrong. in the weeks following my birthday, i played it every day. and when i wasn't playing, i looking forward to the next time. but it wasn't a total obsession. not really. i couldn't play it endlessly, hours at a time. it is a very finite game - there are set amounts of yoga poses, excercises, and goofy games. once you unlock them all, that's it. and once you play them all, there's really a limit to how many times you can play "super hula hoop" or "hey, i'm a penguin, watch me catch fish!" before you either collapse from exhaustion or just get bored for the moment.

but not Tree of Tranquility. oh no. not that.

scott's sisters got it for me for my birthday. i thought, gee, that's nice, sounds neat. and tara said it was awesome. so hey, nice present! i waited a while to try it out, mostly because i didn't know a thing about the game and honestly, the cover of the game looked a little childish and dull. even the first time i played was only so-so - lots of weird legend that i only half payed attention to... lots of talking... preferences... set up. and even when i got to the game itself, i was annoyed by the long loading-up time as the game paused between scenes. but i stuck it out. AND NOW I CAN'T STOP, so help me. we got home from ohio on saturday. i started playing it sometime around 6:00pm. with a break for dinner, and a short break for a shower, i played NONSTOP until 2:00 in the morning. then i got up at 9:30 and played until 11:00. if scott hadn't been around, i would have surely played all day, eventually rotting into the cushions of the couch. even now, at work, i wish i were home playing that DAMN GAME.

but it is so fun.

it sounds reeeeaaaally dumb. here's how it goes: you are this anime-type character (see? i can't even speak the lingo) who gets sent to this island for some reason (again, i didn't really pay attention), presumably to set up a ranch/farm and also to possibly solve a mystery about a goddess and a rainbow, and save the island. you mess about fixing up your little house and exploring the towns, and buying seeds and planting gardens and harvesting and.... man, this sounds lame. but it's friggin addictive. maybe it is because i love to garden, but i am very impatient? in the game, plants take only a few days to start producing. maybe it's because i like having chores to do? on the island, i have to water my fields every day and harvest produce every morning, before i can do anything fun.

i'm going to stop talking about the damn game because by now you likely think i am crazy. plus, it is making me want to go home and play more. instead of making dinner. doing laundry. playing with my other christmas presents. i am an addict. i said it, OKAY??! are you HAPPY??!

geesh.

i hope you all had a lovely holiday. someday soon i'll remember to post some pictures of what i've been up to.

Fall is here!

2008-10-20T12:01:00.001-07:00

blue sky, chilly breeze, golden-y leaves. this is my favorite time of year! the end of sweating! the end of upper-arm-baring tops! the beginning of blazers and cozy sweaters. pumpkins and craft projects.

but this time of year also brings 'round the dreaded Switching Out Seasonal Clothes. admittedly, it's an easier chore now than in years past. i used to have to stack a small dresser on top of my larger dresser, then drag over a rickety desk chair to stand on... then climb onto dresser number one, then way, way up onto dresser number 2... then sling one leg and part of my torso up into the loft of the bedroom... drag over a hugeass tupperware under-the-bed-storage bin with a cracked side and an ill-fitting lid, full of heavy jeans and sweaters.... then somehow crawl back down the whole mess, feeling for direction with my feet, while carrying the heavy wobbly half-broken bin. and i have TWO bins, so even though my nerves would be thoroughly shot after the first trip - i'd have to get right back on the saddle and do it all again. it's not much better now, but at least i have a real ladder instead of stacked-up furniture.

it is safer (marginally) but still a monumental pain in the rear. usually half my clothes are either missing or too small or eaten my moths, so a temper tantrum/crying jag ensues. i can't have scott witnessing any of this, because i am usually attempting these feats of acrobatic balance and emotional distress while wearing only torn-up granny panties and half a too-small bathing suit (or some similarly awful getup). it's not something i look forward too. but it's gonna happen soon, because i can't keep wearing the same 3 long-sleeved shirts to work over and over and over.

in other news, joe and dana are starting a blog! i'll add a link when they send it.

i had a great weekend of fall fun. on saturday scott and i, and cliff, courtney, ian and angel went to the "life and death on the C&O canal" - a spooky, fun, awesome, kind of hokey, great program run by the national park service at the great falls park in maryland. the canal runs parallel to the potomac at that section, and the tour reinacts various grim and gruesome acts along the canal and river over the last hundred or so years. civil war field hospitals, mine collapses, booleggers getting shot in the night, drunken canal workers robbing folks on the path, rival irish gangs who dug the canal brawling and killing each other, kids drowning in the canal... i can't even explain how fun it was.

on sunday, the october meeting of Sew Watts Cookin' was a spectacular hit! we focused on fabric printing (paper printing was also on the docket, but we didn't get to it). we had two methods - freezer paper stencils and making a cheater silk-screen with mod-podge painted right onto the silk. i embellished a canvas pea coat with the paper stencils - it looks SO good. i want to paint on everthing in the house now! someone else used the other method and made a set of six fabric coasters, and they look terrific. i can't wait to do it all again. pictures on the Sew Watts blog will appear in a day or two. here is a link to the freezer paper method, in case you want to give it a try: http://www.neitherhipnorfunky.com/?p=106

what did you guys do over the weekend?

oh, but it's friday

2008-09-19T09:35:00.001-07:00

i used the word "awesome" in a conversation with my boss the other day.

i am still mortified.

hurricanes in ohio? and other news.

2008-09-16T06:52:00.000-07:00

so i've been out of touch with the news that past few days. i was in NC for my brother's MBA graduation, then had a crap-busy day at work on Monday. i didn't hear about the "hurricane" in ohio until late last night! yikes! i called mom and dad this morning, and they are fine. they have a generator, which they are using to power the fridge and freezers... and they are living in the camper, since it uses much less power than the whole house. fun! still no power, but they are thinking of it as extended camping. wow. i still can't get over it. hurricane in ohio.

anyway!

so today is day three of a self-imposed "no refined sugar, no refined flour" diet. i did it a few years ago, in the month leading up to halloween. i lost about 7 pounds, then went on a tootsie-roll-dorito-pizza extravaganza for a week and never looked back. the fridge and cupboards were bare, and i needed to stock up on essentials - what better time to clean the slate and try again? i can't do no-carbs, because i like a little starch. and i can't do it forever, because i love bread. but for a short while, it's a good challenge.

monday:
breakfast - oatmeal with skim milk, coffee
lunch - seaweed salad, miso soup, futo maki roll
dinner - turkey sausage and potato pancake with cabbage, peas

tuesday:
breakfast - puffed rice cereal with skim, apple, coffee
lunch - green salad with feta, green beans, 1/2 grilled chicken breast, fresh fruit (catered at work!)
dinner - zucchini cut into long strands like pasta, steamed; sauce of fresh tomatoes and red peppers, with ground turkey, olives

for snacks and guilty-pleasures, i can have popcorn (whole grain)... potato chips (hey, they're just potatoes, right?)... cheese... apples... and other assorted, more boring stuff.

last time i did this, i cut out all artificial sweeteners. and coffee and all caffeine. i think that was a swell idea, but sometimes i just want something sweet and that became a deal-breaker. so this time i am allowing sugar-free hot chocolate and sugar free pudding, if i reeeeeaaally need it. and coffee. last night i had sugar free cook-n-serve tapioca pudding, with a cinnamon stick boiled in. it was worth the chemicals, let me tell you. i can only find sugar-free cook-n-serve in two kinds - chocolate and tapioca. the cook-n-serve taste (i.e. slightly toasty) hides most of the sugar-free taste. try it. you'll like it.

we are going to a Nationals game tonight. let's see if i can find anything to eat there.... yikes! i suppose a hotdog, sans bun? some chili? this could prove to be interesting.

it's too bad all i can think about are pancakes like these - jess, i think these look right up your alley. sort of like those nifty breakfast muffin thingies you make and then freeze. make some, then mail them to me in approximately one month. :)

oh yeah.

2008-09-10T09:03:00.000-07:00

and a friend of mine, ellen, just got a new tattoo while we were all in san francisco. it has awakened my desire to get another tattoo. maybe a post-wedding celebration? my first tattoo was chosen to be added on to at a later date. i think the time has come!

back from the dead.

2008-09-10T07:58:00.000-07:00

whew! i've been gone a long time! i blame work. and traveling for work. and general laziness.

i warn you now - this is going to be a reeeeal boring post. no pictures.

in recent past:

- i went to san francisco for work! a whole week on the company dime! i was in a workshop on a new-fangled archives tool for a few days, followed by several days of a big archives conference - the society of american archivists big annual meeting - so it's not like i was lounging around having fancy cocktails. i was sitting in meeting rooms most of the daylight hours, but i still saw some sights around town. i haven't dealt with my pictures yet, but i did manage to take a few before my camera battery conked out. i'll just say for now that san francisco was a strange place, and not as pretty as i thought it was going to be. i'll go more into that when i put up some pictures. oh wait! here is a picture i stole from one of my co-worker's flickr - from the closing party of saa, and the sign from the bar we ended up at later:

i look like a dullard with bad posture and schlumpy hair. where did my good posture go? and my hair needs help. help!

- scott and i are ramping up the wedding planning business, and have chosen a caterer (awesome!) and are narrowing down our location choices - which will allow us to announce a date REAL REAL SOON. i promise. likely in the next week or so. then i can start thinking about even more fun stuff like decorations! cakes! invitations! oh yeah, and getting back to the gym. :)

- the kitties are getting along great! they chase each other all over the house all day. and all night long they hold Extreme Wrestling matches under our bed. how two cats can be so clumsy and loud, i have no idea. although i think nilsson's one-eyeball-ness factors quite a bit into the random clunks and crashes that we hear through the night. he ran smack into the bedframe so hard the other night that i was afraid to look. i thought for sure i'd see his little grey body, lifeless on the floor with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. vashti was shy with him for a day or two, them scared and combative for a day or two. now they take turns being the bully and i think they are doing just fine.

that's all for now.

new style of compliment - use it on your friends!

2008-08-20T08:40:00.000-07:00

i almost forgot about this - it happened on saturday evening, as i was on my way home from dinner with scott and his brother, kevin. it was kevin's birthday, so i was making a secret stop at the safeway up near Piney Branch road to pick up a Carvel ice cream cake for desert...

there was a drunk/high older woman serenading everyone in the checkout area with her homemade song - which went something like “oh, my beeeeeaaauuutiful blue balloon, my shiny blue balloon….” she was twirling around, looking up at the ceiling, so i suppose the song was inspired by the mylar birthday balloons hanging around the florist/plant section. Everyone was cracking up, but giving her a wide berth. I got my ice cream cake and started to leave, but as I headed for the doors, I passed by the aisle where she was now buying some stuff. I overheard her tell this odd compliment to the poor little teenaged kid who was ringing her up:

“you are cute, yes you are. i could just crawl up inside your BEHIND. right up in there. yes i could.”

i almost peed my pants laughing all the way home. that poor kid will probably never recover from that.

cozy places.

2008-08-19T07:32:00.000-07:00

why can't i have one of these? to escape to for weekend and vacations?

http://www.simondale.net/house/gallery.htm

lumberjacking, crafting and kitties

2008-08-18T12:53:00.000-07:00

i chopped down a tree on saturday! all by myself! my back is punishing me now, of course, but it was very satisfying work. we had a mulberry tree growing in the front yard, pretty close to the house. i've been meaning to do something about it for years, but mostly i just hack the top of it off a few times during the summer and ignore it. i like to eat the berries in the spring, but the thing was getting dangerous... i ignored it too much this year, and with all the cool weather and the rain the silly tree was getting really top-heavy and huge. and threatening to topple over into the neighbor's front window. and probably ripping out our foundation at the same time. so! i chopped it down. well, i SAWED it down using a little hand-held saw from el Depot. then i had a huge pile of brushy stuff in the middle of the yard. and i wanted to run away or sell the house and move. instead i dragged a chair outside, along with a can of coke and an array of saws and clippers, and set to work. i now have 4 big logs, about 93 smaller logs/sticks, and a bajillion skinny branches - all drying behind the front bushes. once they are dry, we'll be set for camping firewood for a weekend or two. i'm pretty sure the neighbor's think i'm crazy. in fact, i know they do. and dad? if you're reading this, i'm pretty sure you would have had a thing or two to say about Safety With Saws. (standing on the tippy-top "this is not a step" step of a ladder while wielding a hand saw above my head; sitting down, sawing through a branch that is braced against my fleshy bare leg; sawing towards my own hand; scratching mosquito bites with the sharp edge of the serrated saw; doing all this while wearing flip-flops instead of real shoes; you get the picture. i'm very sorry.)

second meeting of Sew Watts Cookin' on sunday - 4 new people showed up! yay for that. i embroidered a cute little dogger onto a boring thrift store handkerchief. some folks knitted and some cut fabric. all was well in the world. next month we are meeting in rock creek park to do camp skillz (fire making, cooking, whittling maybe) and knitting scarves.

and..... we got another cat! a kitty sister for nilsson! a co-worker of mine knew of an abandoned kitty that needed a home, so i said i would take her. i picked her up on sunday morning. she is peachy-pale-orange tiger stripey, very very lovey and kissy, probably a little younger than nilsson - maybe 7 or 9 months? right now she has an efficiency apartment set up in our bathroom and bedroom. she'll meet her anxious grey brother tomorrow... yikes! i hope he doesn't stay mad forever. and that they have fun playing together.

pictures to come.

fondling the collections

2008-08-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

as an archivist in the united states, i deal with collections of materials. i use the word "collection" all the time. about a billion times a day. if i worked in canada, say, or the UK or France, or pretty much any other place... i would use the word fonds instead.

Fonds.

i hate that word. it looks like it should mean another word for someone's private parts. it gives me the heebie-jeebies to see it on paper. and even worse, most American archivists pronounce it just like it looks - "fon(d)z." it just sounds like a dirty, leering word.

it's a french word, so it should be pronounced something like "fahn" or "fawn." archivists in canada/france/UK/etc. use it to mean a body of work created by someone and kept in its natural, meaningful order. or something along those lines. (this is where i should do some fact-checking, but i am too lazy and will therefore rely on knowledge gained in grad school... but that was 3 years ago.) even in the US, if i recall my SAA glossary of terminology correctly, archivists claim that "fonds" is the correct word, and that "collection" implies something false or not genuine. a collection meaning a bunch of stuff not naturally accumulated but instead "collected" on purpose and with a false/unnatural order. but we all say "collection" anyway. maybe i'm not the only one skeeved out by the word after all.

i won't even go into the phrase "respect des fonds."

sounds like something a mangy-looking prostitute would yell at someone on the street: "Respect des fonds, bitch!"

olympic death.

2008-08-14T10:24:00.000-07:00

for FOUR nights in a row i have stayed up WELL PAST MIDNIGHT, watching the f-ing olympics. it's got to stop. now.

i haven't been this consistently tired since high school when i would regularly stay up reading until 3:00, only to get back up at 6:45... there were times i can remember starting to fall asleep standing up in the shower, as i closed my eyes to shampoo my hair. not even in college was i ever that tired. if i stayed up late, then i would just sleep late in the morning to make up for it! it never even crossed my do-gooder's mind to skip school in high school. i just drank lots and lots of Mt. Dew.

that's how i felt this morning. but without the tangy promise of Mt. Dew to get me going. but tonight! oh ho ho. tonight is going to be different. i plan to watch to sun set from my bed and hit the sack before it even gets dark. (maybe not that early, but close...)

in other news, scott and i tore out our old garbage disposal and installed a new one - all by ourselves! it was a fun teamwork project - scott spent most of the time crouched under the sink in awkward, hunching positions, his saggy pants stereotypically showing some crack, while i read the badly written instruction manual and scurried about fetching tools. i stood w-a-y back when we reconnected the power and flipped the switch - i have paranoid visions about the chopping mechanism levitating out of the hole, then flying around the kitchen before chopping my face off. i was also worried that the metal sink would electrocute me when i touched it, due to improper grounding. it's true! and that worry is actually founded in experience: in my old apartment in raleigh, there was something amiss with the kitchen wiring - if you touched the shiny chrome toaster at the same time as you touched the water heater and the sink, you would get a thrilling little shock. it sounds like an impossible combination, but due to a ridiculously small kitchen, a water heater located under the counter, and a shortage of outlets... it happened often enough. (rest gut against the counter/water heater... lean way over to the corner to put the toast in... grab the sink for leverage... ZZZZZT!)

i miss that apartment sometimes. it had a nice little yard, and a really great deck. big enough for a hammock. and a cool swinging door in the kitchen. then i remember that i now have central air conditioning. and more than one heat vent in my whole house. and no black mold growing under my bed and behind the couch. and no cold, wet sheets in my drafty winter bedroom. and that i live in a really neat city, near my old friends. in a really neat house. with a really neat person who i love very much.

avoidance.

2008-08-05T09:02:00.000-07:00

okay, so i am supposed to be making lots of plans. but each time i start looking stuff up online, i get confused and i stop. i can't keep doing this! i have decisions to make, darn it!

in college, i had a friend who showed us her notebook of "ideas" that she kept as a teenager - wedding ideas and baby names, and house ideas. !!!! of course, we all mercilessly made fun of her, but now i wish i had been that girl. cutting out pictures in magazines, dreaming of the wedding i would have one day, making lists and pasting things into a notebook. because then i could have pulled that dusty old notebook out last week, clapped my hands together and declared it "Done!"

now i have to get busy - a lot of dreaming and imagining to be done in the next few months.

in any stressful situation, i normally adopt the attitude of "oh, it'll all work itself out in the end - for good or for bad." but i hesitate to do that with a wedding. i'd hate to show up to my own wedding, crying, and think "hey, this isn't what i wanted at all!"

or have a bunch of people fly in and wonder "um, where are the flowers? and wasn't there supposed to be some kind of dinner? and you know what, where's the bride?"

and i'll be the one hiding under the bed because i forgot something Major.

King Tramadol

2008-07-31T10:15:00.000-07:00

For those of you out there who get horrifying cramps during your "lady time," you might want to look into a wonderful, glorious drug called Tramadol. It'll change your life. I swear it.

Mom gave me some last year, when I strained my back during a visit home. I wasn't looking forward to a 7-hour car ride with a painful back, and mom offered me one of her painkillers. Now, I refused at first. Even just looking at most prescription pain killers usually makes me woozy, sleepy, dizzy, you name it. I didn't think taking a random pain pill from my mom was a good idea, especially if i had to drive back to DC. plus, i always have nightmarish and paranoid misgivings about taking prescription painkillers. i picture myself as the next oxycontin addict, creeping around alleyways... stealing from my childrens' piggy banks, slavering for my next hit...

But! she assured me that there were basically NO side effects and it's not addictive - plus i took it in the morning, and i wasn't planning on leaving until dinner time. there was plenty of time to wait out a sleepy reaction. i took one, and all my pain magically disappeared and i was fine! no dizziness, sleepiness. nothing. just as if i took an aspirin, only much much much more effective.

it's so great. without it, i would have had to leave work this morning to go home and thrash and moan on the couch for several hours. instead, i got to go about my business as if nothing was wrong.

when my little "sample" bottle from my mom runs out, i am sooo getting some more from el doctor. and you should too.

Pictures. It's about damn time, I'd say.

2008-07-30T11:09:00.000-07:00

okay, so i finally dumped a bunch of pictures off the camera today:

beach vacation

caribbean parade

camping trip/love fest, 2008!

a fun new hike: Old Rag Mountain

2008-07-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

i hate the name (bess: "this smells like sour rag!"), but i am intrigued. i love the Billy Goat Trail (photo at right) at Great Falls - it's one of my all-time favorite hikes, especially the rock-scramble part up the cliff. a friend of mine recommended Old Rag, because there is a whole mile of rock-scramble-cliff-area! a whole mile! i can't do straight up rock/cliff climbing because i don't have the upper body strength, but the less-sloped areas like the cliff on the Billy Goat trail are nothing but fun.

Now that i read the description of Old Rag a leetle more closely, it sounds like something that i might want to hold off on - at least until i've been working out a little more. i'd hate to get my flubbery buns stuck in a crack somewhere and have some ranger air-lift me out. yeeesh. what a thought.

search statistics

2008-07-24T06:58:00.000-07:00

every once in a while, i check to see how people end up at this site. it never fails to amuse me. the top Google search that results in a hasty visit in the middle of the night is "Norwegian porn stars"! i'd love to see the disappointment on the sweaty, leering face of the person who that typed those search terms.

just this morning, a new strange search was born:

"we've been so damn obsessed with the times, picking the scabs that grow from our minds..."

oddly enough, my website is the second-ranked result from that bizarro search. oh, the teeth-gnashing that must have ensued after visiting my little ole self-absorption.

old posts from myspace

2008-07-24T06:52:00.000-07:00

I copied these old posts from my myspace profile. i never use that thing, and i expect i will delete it eventually. but i wanted to keep the few "blog" posts i had there, because those days don't exist anywhere but in my head - and we all know that is a dangerous place. no backup memory there, people. so these are old. take a trip down memory lane with me.

Friday, December 01, 2006

birthday hatchlings!
Current mood: excited

well my birthday has come and gone, and i'd say it was a good one. in addition to other wonderful and generous gifts (grand bookcase, my morning jacket show, kitchen gadgets galore, etc.), i acquired some wildlife for the house: last night, scott and i went on a hunt for the elusive and wiley gerbil. yes, gerbil!

scott got me two gerbils for my birthday, and all the toys and habitats that come along... once they hold still long enough, I'll take some pictures and post them. for now, it will suffice to say that they are darn cute and cuddly. one is stripey-ish brown with a white belly and the other is black with white hands and a white stripe on her neck. the brown and white one is very bossy and feisty with big black eyes; and the black one bites a little, and is shy with chubby cheeks and a overbite. I haven't named them yet. i think i need to get to know them a bit more first.

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Wednesday, November 29, 2006

new shelves!

those of you who haven't been to the house lately, we have some new additions. that weird, crappy fence-like railing is gone - replaced with new LP shelves, built by my dad!

here's a link to some pictures: shelves!

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Tuesday, November 21, 2006

boys, i've got to work on my strut...
Current mood: drained

well, I don't have to work on my strut.... more like the guy at College Park Metro Auto has to work on my strut. Both front struts, to be specific. once again, i've been avoiding car repairs. once again, nearly tossing myself into the willing embrace of Vehicular Manslaughter before taking my car to the shop. it all started a few months ago, with the occassional squeal of brakes. not too worrisome, as it didn't happen consistently or often... and my dad just fixed my brakes not long ago.

then the "crazy wheel" started to appear. if you've never had your car diagnosed with "crazy wheel", it feels sort of like you are driving down a steep incline in a shopping cart with one trick-wheel. the steering wheel feels all skittery and the driving isn't very safe. sudden jerks side-to-side and all. this also didn't happen all the time, so i just put it out of my mind.

a few weeks ago my dad came to visit and, like always, he proceeded to give my car the visual inspection shortly after saying hello. his eyes nearly googled out of his head when he saw how bald my tires were. the metal mesh parts of the tire were visible. the tread was not. then scott cleverly remarked, "jesus christ! those are like telly savalas bald!!" who knew?

then i had the pleasure of driving several days in the rain on shiny bald tires. if i thought "crazy wheel" was unsafe, i had no idea how bad it could get. so i took my car to the shop yesterday, and today i am $600 lighter in the region of my pocket.

as it turns out, i needed new struts - that's why my tires went bald in a matter of months. here's a little lesson on struts (i've highlighted my favorite passage):

"Another common dampening structure is the strut; basically a shock absorber mounted inside a coil spring. Because struts have so much to do with the handling of a car, they can be considered critical safety features. Worn shocks and struts can allow excessive weight shift from side to side and front to back (read: crazy wheel!!). This reduces the tire's ability to grip the road, as well as handling and braking performance." -- Howstuffworks.com

so i guess it needed to be done. but my god! do these things a) need to be so goddamn expensive and b) happen right before i need to go christmas shopping?

i'll try to send out evites to my pity-party soon. real soon.

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Monday, November 13, 2006

salt lake city
Current mood: nervous

Well I'm back from my trip to the great salt flats of the old west. I was weary and missing home by Saturday, but scott fixed all that when he picked me up at BWI early Sunday morning. The mountains were beautiful, and especially touching as they were laid out behind the bleak stretches of neon and cinderblock that make up SLC's sprawl. So I'm home, but my thoughts are still turned to utah. Maybe because everyone keeps asking me about my trip… but maybe because I can't seem to describe the missing-ness there.

Good part #1: so through some magical intervention, I listened to my gut and I skipped the ramada inn that was recommended by the workshop organizers. Instead, for a mere $20 more per night, I languished in the lush and dimpled arms of the peery hotel. For a marble bathroom, well-informed concierge, free long-distance calls, fluffy white robes, canopy bed, and endless supplies of tazo tea and extra-smelly bath-and-body-works goo…I'd say that was money well spent. Even if it was company money.

Good part #2: sam weller's zion bookstore. I walked past this place on the first day, as it was on my path from the UTA light-rail station to my hotel (stay tuned for more about "TRAX"). I was drawn by the "zion," which from my rural ohio childhood conjures up back-country religion with names like "temple zions of the howling dog"… you know, the kind of church that is a pizza shop and video store Monday thru Friday, and church on the weekends. a drum set, moaning in the aisles. I thought I might at least find some weird religious tracts or an unsettling bumper sticker to bring home to scott. But instead, I walked through the shining doors of a really really great bookstore. Started just before the depression as a mormon bookstore, it is now nearly a block long – a hodge-podge building of winding paths, crooked doors and ups and downs – but faultlessly organized. With an even mix of brand-new and old books. Plus a great café in front! Great find. I managed to get a first edition gene Stratton-porter that I'd never read – "the harvester"

Bad part, er, strange part… well, damn I guess they're all good parts! So good part #3: the sconecutter! Okay, close your eyes… picture a scone… dense, crumbly, maybe a few currants and a buttery/milky taste. Okay, now erase that picture! In utah, evidently, a scone is more like a rectangular unfrosted doughnut (or maybe an elephant ear?) about the size of your shoe. So, doughy, deep fried… and that's about it. The folks at stonecutter then cut them (hence the name) and stuff them with all sorts of things: turkey, hot dogs, burgers, apple pie filling, sloppy joes, taco filling… all sorts of stuff. I walked past this place for a couple of days, saving it for breakfast on Friday. I ordered a wheat scone, with 'honey butter.' I got a large brown shoe, filled with about an inch of foamy margarine and slathered in honey. I choked down a few bites, but the sweetness made my jaw lock up and I could go no further. Although, if I had known what these things were, I would have gone there for a lunch of the "sloppy scone." A doughnut filled with sloppy joes??? Mama, I'm comin' home. i'm sure that's like heaven around 3:00am after a long night at squatters. Oh yeah, and the best part is their slogan: let's go get sconed!

#4: "TRAX" : utah's answer to the public transportation needs of the winter Olympics (or so I was told on Wednesday, by a friendly little elf with crippling acne and flaming red hair). Fitting with the do-gooder, no-nonsense mormon approach, the fare system is run on the honor system. You buy a ticket good for 2 hours, and get on the train. Or, you just get on the train. There's an announcement informing you that you may be required to provide proof of fare purchase, but out of the 10 times I rode the train I was only asked once. Therefore, the trains are filled to capacity with hobos and shifty-eyed cowboy types with chewing-tobacco-teeth (read: none).

There were many other good things and weird things and bad things about the city, but I am tired of typing and I can't think of anything else. I'll post picture of the mormon temple soon.So in all, salt lake city was interesting. Stores closed early, and the people and cars deserted the streets by 6 or 7:00. It felt like a ghost-town, or a modern version of the streets of the old west gold towns in movies. Wide, wide streets with a few clusters of hard-skinned pioneers trudging along, minding their own business. Big mountains covered in snow, towering over people scrabbling out a life in the town.

Currently listening :
The Covers Record
By Cat Power
Release date: 21 March, 2000

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Tuesday, October 31, 2006

ladylike
Current mood: jubilant

a ladybug lives in my office! me so lucky.

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melly feel sicky.
Current mood: uncomfortable

so my month-long deprivation of flour, sugar and caffeinne ended today with a sickening extravaganza of candy, cookies, cake and nacho cheesier doritos. in other words, today was the halloween party here at work.

i knew i wouldn't be able to resist halloween treats, so i purposely ended my "fast" a day early. but i am now regretting every move i've made today. oh you sweet strawberry laffy taffy, lumpy chewy baby ruth. my wonky friends the bottle caps. you've all turned against me. or maybe it was the lunch catered by chik-fil-a. in any case, i am riding a high queasy wave of sugary bready goodness that can only end in grumpiness and disaster.

oh help me.

one good thing has come of this day - my friend laffy taffy taught me a new joke:

Q: what green and sings?
A: elvis parsley

Currently listening :
Coles Corner
By Richard Hawley
Release date: 06 September, 2005

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Thursday, October 26, 2006

crime map
Current mood: have to pee

so i am off to check the crime map of my neighborhood. ?? i heard someone talking about this on npr this morning: there's a new feature to the DC police department website, where you can see a google-style map of the neighborhoods of DC that shows what kinds of crimes are being committed and where. hey! that's neat! so i should bait my car with some new release DVDs and some prescription meds and see what happens. maybe i could listen to my car getting broken into, while simultaneously watching the "car burglary" icon pop up on the map.

well, maybe it's not that interactive yet. but a girl can dream, can't she?

Currently listening :
I See a Darkness
By Bonnie Prince Billy
Release date: 09 July, 2002

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Wednesday, October 25, 2006

why am i so lazy?
Current mood: lazy

okay, so i am already losing this battle of the blog. i just can't keep up. the very last thing i want to do when i get home from work is get on the computer... to make things worse, i am too paranoid to stay on myspace at work for very long. i imagine these panic-sirens going off down in some basement control room of my building. calls being made to my boss... pink slips... irrational and kind of vain, i realize. (am i really that important that there would be a team of IT professionals monitoring my every online move?) but still, the fear is real.

aside from being afraid of myspace, i am also just too damn fixated on my current "detox" diet. for those of you who aren't aware, i gave up the following vices for the month of october: caffeine, sugar, flour. it was way fun at first. i felt very smug and superior over all those sugar-laden treats lining my path. it was a fun challenge, and not too hard once i got over the candy-bowl at the reference desk here at work. i mean, i can still eat tons of things. i jsut can't have pasta, or bread or candy? i can still have honey, if i want it. and potatoes, rice. all good things, and i've only cheated a few times! before the renaissance festival on sunday, i accidentally had a ginormous cup of coffee. not a good idea when you've abstained for 3 weeks. or maybe it was the chocolate-mousse-in-waffle-cup? either way, i turned into a crazy person for a while. i think i blacked out.

but now my thoughts keep circling around to the devil. i call him Sandwich. thick chewy slices of bread. chomp chomp. this devil haunts my dreams.

only a few days to go until the end of my initial challenge - but i think i might try to extend until the end of the year. ..

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Friday, October 20, 2006

I'm falling for autumn
Current mood: chipper and skippy

so we have an action-packed weekend of autumnal celebration coming up - starting tonight!

friday night: scott and i (and probably other last-minute attenders) are heading to georgetown to see one of my favorite movies - the nightmare before christmas - in 3D, no less!! yee-haw. i can't wait.

saturday night: several of us revelers are going to the corn maze out in frederick, MD... give me winding paths in a spooky dark cornfield, give me pumpkin cannons and corn rockets, give me cold mud to my knees and flirty country teenagers, but above all give me..... PIT BEEF! actually the beef last year was kind of chewy and mysterious. but the best part was sitting around a giant campfire eating handfuls of greasy meat. this year the maze is a civil war theme, which doesn't quite top last year's NASCAR theme. i wonder how they decide? next year, let's all cross our fingers for "these colors don't run - pride of america." i'd like to picture myself wandering around inside an eagle holding a flag in his beak and a dead soldier in his talons, with a tear running down his little birdie cheek.

sunday: the maryland renaissance festival! i can't even talk about that part yet. i am too excited. well okay, i will say a little about our visit there last year. the steak-on-a-stick is a gristly rip-off. and by the end of the day, i was starting to think that ankle-length velvet capes were lovely and that dream-catcher earrings were tasteful. i'll report this year's findings on monday.

weekend summary

2008-07-21T12:23:00.000-07:00

this is likely to be boring, so prepare yourself:

Friday night: did nothing! and it was great.

Saturday: brunch at hank's oyster bar (usually very good, but this time my eggs were hard and the coffee was kind of weak. poo on that...), followed by a bike ride in and around georgetown with ashby (saw the new-ish DC trader joe's for the first time), followed by near heat stroke from riding in the blazing hot city; used some store-bought hair dye to get rid of uneven sun-bleaching and related roots; BATMAN at the IMAX theatre in dulles, VA - part of the new air and space museum annex (man, it was good...).

Sunday: made some bread in the bread machine; finished the knitting of maddie's sweater; lazed about the house; went to the UMd gym to renew my membership and swam at the pool; had first "summit meeting" with scott, regarding beginning stages of wedding planning - yay!

so that was my action packed weekend. since i finally RE-joined the university gym, i am going tonight. my first visit back after a long long hiatus. i always dread the first time back after a long absence. i feel like everyone can tell at first glance: ill-fitting, too-tight gym clothes; clumsy movements in unfamiliar tennis shoes; shifty, suspicious eyes. these are all telling signs of a guilty return to the gym. oh well. it's gotta happen sometime. time to get it over with. *sigh*

it shouldn't be so hard. but all afternoon i've been having a dialog in my head about it: "nah, i could just leave my gym bag here at work, and go tomorr... NO! GAH! well... i really do have some things to do after work, i should.... NO! FORGET IT! MUST GO TO GYM! i will have to forcibly drag myself to my car, and fight with the steering wheel to make it over to the gym. sadly, once i get there it will be fine, i'll have a great time, and i'll look back and wonder what the heck is wrong with myself. but until then, i'll be gut-punching my conscience for the rest of the day.

really, the only motivators at this point are these two visions: 1) trying on wedding dresses in a cavernous changing salon, which involves standing in my underpants on a raised stage, holding up my boobs, in front of a tri-fold mirror while an old skinny lady puts dresses on my body (it happens! i've seen it done!), and b) fidgeting down the sunlit aisle in a too-tight white dress that shows my too-tight underwear line, with slumps of fat lounging over each side of the strapless dress.

because as i am noticing, almost ALL new wedding dresses are strapless. why? i have a minimal chest and can't be expected to hold up a heavy dress. plus i don't want to have to worry about yanking on it in public. i've got some plans to get around this dress design flaw, but i figure it can't hurt to tone up a smidge while i'm at it.

in which i return from camping, and think of life and love

2008-07-18T07:40:00.000-07:00

well, first things first: i think we've told the big news to everyone in immediate family and friends... scott and i are engaged! yippee! he proposed on our beach camping trip over the weekend, on one knee in the sandy dunes at sunset. it was very sweet and romantic, as is my new sparkly ring. which, i'll tell you, is distracting! i haven't worn rings in years, so i find myself staring at it. a lot. especially when i am sitting at traffic lights. i've become that lady that people honk at.

i have pictures to upload, but i am being lazy. so bear with me, people. i've got a lot on my mind. :)

the camping trip was GREAT, engagement and all other happiness aside. the weather was terrific, the ponies left our shit alone, we even saw the cutest baby pony you've ever seen:

Thursday, prep for trip:

actually, prep began much earlier in the week. but thursday night we packed most everything into the backpacks. mine is so heavy that i can hardly get it off the ground if i lift it with my arms. worrisome, indeed. especially since my job requires that i am able to dead-lift 45 pounds of archival materials. however, if i sit next to the pack and put on the shoulder straps and waist belt... i am somehow able to carry it without too much trouble.

Friday, Day1:

we got up at 4:15am - AM! - to get on the road by 5:00. and we actually made it pretty close to on-time. i think we pulled away from the house at 5:05. a minor miracle. that put us out to assateague island just before 8:30? and by the time we filled out the paperwork at the ranger station, fooled around a bit and shouldered our packs for the hike... we departed by 9:13 sharp. the sun was beginning to get hot, and we were glad for the early start. over the fluffy dunes we went, past the (shockingly numerous) sunbathers out so early on a weekday, making our way to the hard-packed sand by the water. shuffling through the fluffy dry sand was H-A-R-D and i was briefly concerned about the whole venture. then we made to the water's edge and all was fine. relatively. it was hard at first, and all i could think was "god, this sucks, i can't wait until this is over." but then my brain figured out that it was going to be a while, and i kind of forgot/got used to the pack. the last mile was hard, though, as my waist belt was slipping and the pack was feeling heavier and heavier with each step. then we made it! less than 2 hours, i think.

[pony portrait, from last year - on my flickr]

dumping those packs on the ground never felt so good. relieved of the oppressive weight, i felt like i could skip over the moon. fly through the air like wonder woman. it was great. even though we could hear the pounding surf over the dunes and could practically feel the cold sea spray... we decided it would be all the sweeter later if we put up the tent first. and so we did. then had a quick lunch of tuna on crackers (this stuff is awesome!) and tomatoes. and THEN hit the water. where we stayed for the rest of the day, pretty much. i had brought a small sun shelter, so we had some shade and a cool breeze... we read, and slept a little and just enjoyed the novelty of not walking around with 50 pounds on our backs.

as a last chance to eat non-freeze dried food, we had bought some hot dogs for dinner. we waited until almost dark to make the fire - BAD BAD MOVE. about 30 seconds after the sun dipped below the horizon, huge swarms of mosquitoes came tumbling over the dunes to suck us dry of blood. we stood cowering in the smoke of the fire, scarfing down our dinner in a few hasty bites before diving into the tent. luckily, we were so tired from the long day that we passed out in a few minutes.

Saturday, Day 2:

woke early, it was a dry night with not much dew. meals were an adventure in freeze-dried goodness/weirdness. we played on the beach pretty much all day, with a scrabble break here and there, and a nap or two. we brought a trap and a bucket for crabbing, and had plans to walk over the island to the bay side for some crabbing. we found the path about 2K from our site and began the leisurely hike through the march. wrong! we got about 10 feet into the grassy area before the mosquitoes were so bad that they were flying into my mouth and nose. !!! i looked over at scott and his entire back was covered with bugs, to the point where his back looked furry. we screamed like babies and ran back to the sand, where the bugs promptly vanished and we scurried back to the beach.

it was a bit hotter on saturday, and i tried to rig up some shade at the campsite with a fallen signpost - to no avail. next time, i'll invest in a super lightweight shelter to bring along. i did discover that by lashing a metallic tarp to our tiny sun shelter on the beach, i could make a larger shade area - almost like a miniature covered wagon. great for reading the thornbirds, and for napping. scott wanted to take an evening walk, so we scheduled dinner for earlier to leave time for walking prior to mosquito invasion. we followed some wildlife trails around the dunes, and then scott asked me the big question! it was perfect. after strolling back to the site, we had just enough time to brush teeth, gather supplies for the night (because neither of us wanted to leave the tent after dark) and head for the tent. we played some scrabble and some UNO and hit the sack. i don't think my hair has ever been greasier. ever in my life. it actually felt wet and stiff at the same time.

Sunday, Day 3:

up at 7:00ish, breakfast, break camp. i think we departed around 10:00 - later than we had planned. and GOLLY the packs were a lot lighter on the way back. we packed just under 3 gallons a person - that's almost 30 pounds of just water. we drank almost every drop, so our packs were about 30 pounds lights on the trek back. wheeee! and it was f-ing hot. and one of our tent poles got so much sand jammed into the joints that it wouldn't collapse. poor scott had to walk the whole way with a 10 ft pole coming out of the top of his pack - which forced him to walk in the difficult, tiring fluffy sand for the first 2+ miles in order to keep from snagging on the multitude of fishing poles set up along the waterside. ask him about it someday. he'd love to tell you about it.

but man, once we got back to the car and dumped our crap everywhere, we hauled our butts to the icy cold water once again. an hour or two of swimming and resting and we were ready for cold showers in the campground area, followed by a seafood lunch at the assateague crab shack. after a weekend of drinking nothing but warm-ish water, icy cold pop never tasted so good. we were home before dark. and not a moment too soon.

Lessons learned: freeze-dried huevos rancheros aren't the best idea; we need a sun shelter; backpacking where there is no potable or fresh water at all is hard; pack at least one whole spray can of 30% deet bug spray PER DAY when camping out there (we almost ran out); we need a wind screen for the camp stove; if you bury hotdogs in the sand in the shade of a dune, they will stay nice and cool and the ponies won't find them; baby ponies sure are cute.

Will we do this again? certainly! just not right away.

BIG THANKS TO JESSIE AND DAVID: for the campstove and all the other donated goodies. we couldn't have done it otherwise.

until i have my country home:

2008-07-18T07:37:00.000-07:00

I'll remember this instead:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

[William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle Of Innisfree]

kid's eye view

2008-07-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

i saw this art project featured on design sponge today, and it's kind of fascinating. taking the often flattened and surreal artwork done by children and bringing it to life. is the artwork really a product of the imagination of children? is this truly how little kids see the world, or is it the result of limited artistic talent and motor skills of youngsters?

i think it's mostly pure imagination. except for the flattened picasso-style tables and blue-line-at-the-top skies. i'm assuming that is just artistic license, and that kids under the age of six don't see everything in 2-D. that part just adds to the charm.

http://www.yeondoojung.com/artworks_view_wonderland.php?no=88

엄마의 풀밭
Mother's Garden
2004

oh a campin' we will go...

2008-07-10T07:36:00.000-07:00

a campin' we will go,
hi-ho the derry-o
a campin' we will go.

tomorrow we leave. at approximately 5:00am. i say approximately, because i know that something will go haywire at the last minute and we will likely leave about 45 minutes past due... but that's life! and i am down with life.

scott found these great external frame backpacks on craigslist yesterday - $75 for the pair! that's darn cheap. they are hardly used - especially the green one - and he threw in all sorts of random stuff like emergency heat blankets (which we will hardly need at the beach), straps to tie our junk to the outside of the bags, first aid kit, and a random baggie containing 2 rolls of Tums, a pack of shoelaces and some odds and some blister pads for hiking. god love craigslist.

[blurry picture, taken from craigslist ad]

i went to REI last night after work and picked up a boatload of platypus water bottles, since there is no fresh water (potable or otherwise) at the campsite. i also got a bunch of fancy-pants dehydrated meals and some little tiny bottles to decant stuff into. it was a painful amount of money, but it's stuff we'll use again and again. and still cheaper than one night in a hotel room at the beach.

a second trip was to Target, to get a few essentials - a new t-shirt, and a cheapie inflatable raft to use in lieu of the big-ass heavy air mattress that we normally camp with. i have a bad back and i can't sleep directly on the ground without suffering major consequences the next day. scott mocked me for being a giant wuss, but now he has requested that he get one too. ha! i figure, why not have a little comfort? the stupid thing can't weigh more that half a pound, and it squishes down as flat as a thick piece of paper.

so now i just need to run BACK to REI because i forgot to get fuel for the stove... and back to target for scott's raft, and to the grocery for a few crackers and stuff like that. geez. it's never simple, is it? :) i figure, once we've been camping a few years we'll finally have accumulated most of the gear we'll ever need. i hope? please tell me that is the case.

in other news, my car started making a disturbingly loud G-R-O-N-K sound if i make sharp turns. or sometimes for no reason. we should probably take scott's car down to the beach, just in case.

75 things about me? that's a lot.

2008-07-09T06:29:00.001-07:00

in honor of my 75th post on here, i've decided to share 75 things you may or may not know about me. some you might find disturbing (mom, dad, i'm talking to you) and most you probably already know. but this seemed hard, and i like a challenge. therefore, you have to suffer through it.

- i am good at finding lost things.
- i read a lot, and i don't mind re-reading books - sometimes many, many times.
- i like the color green (wow, this is boring already).
- i didn't have a first "real" kiss until i was probably... 16 or maybe 17? i'm a late bloomer, i suppose.
- i chewed my toenails when i was a little kid. ew.
- now i just bite my fingernails.
- i enjoy going to the dentist.
- i gave myself haircuts all through grad school, to save money. when i screwed up, i'd lie and tell people i went to the haircuttery.
- when i was in college, i could do ice skating tricks. now i'm too chicken.
- i fantasize about living in the country.

- i still look for signs of smurfs (or any kind of elf-y creatures) when i see big mushrooms, or little woodsy places. i can't help it.
- i also thought my cabbage patch preemie had feelings. in fact, i still get a guilty twist in my heart when i see her in the basement at my parents' house.
- i haven't balanced a checkbook since 1995. i'm not even sure what that even means anymore.
- the first alcoholic beverage i recall sampling was old, congealed dandelion wine that we found under leslie's kitchen sink then mixed with orange juice.
- i savor the smell of skunks, especially in autumn.
- however, the smell of gasoline (and some black markers) makes me want to gag.
- my family nickname is bucky.
- i can cook/bake just about anything, but i fail regularly at pie crust and rice.
- i misspell these words all the time: gray, weird, deposit.
- however, i was in the spelling bee in middle school and did pretty well at it.

- i am a good driver.
- i have really, really crooked fingers.
- i have artistic talent, but am shamefully lazy about doing anything.
- i love to clean house - and yet my half of the bedroom consistently looks like the nest of a wild animal, instead of a grown woman. (sound familiar, bessie?)
- i am a pretty good cook and confident in the kitchen. (thanks, mom!)
- if i had my way, i'd go to bed at 9:30 every night.
- i prefer to drink pop from tiny glasses, and eat pudding with tiny spoons. ?
- i was a full-time nanny when i first moved to washington, DC.
- i've not been to mexico or canada.
- i cry when i get really mad. or if i am sick and people are nice to me.

- i wish that i could poop on command. that would make my worklife a bit less complicated.
- i hate touching my own belly button. it gives me the heebie-jeebies.
- i was crowned the chopstick champion of my civics class in high school - 2 years running!
- i was voted "most musical" in my senior class of high school.
- i love to eat banana baby food. it's like pudding!
- and peanut butter and pickle sandwiches.
- i like to hide, then jump out and scare people. a lot.
- i often have to fight a very strong urge to trip people as they walk by me.
- i have toes like a monkey.
- i can write backwards almost as well as i write forwards. but only in cursive.

- i once worked in a bakery for one day. then i quit.
- i hold running conversations with myself (silently) almost all day long.
- when i was a kid, i wanted to live in australia.
- i am not very good at most sports - especially those involving sticks and small objects whizzing through the air.
- i am no longer ashamed that i love to watch America's Funniest Home Videos.
- it bugs me when people say "on line" instead of "in line."
- i don't understand how car engines work. at all.
- nor do i understand electricity. it's like voodoo magic to me, and i fear it.
- as a kid, sometimes i'd sit at the end of the driveway and rub dirt all over my face, in hopes that the neighbors would feel sorry for me. instead, i'm sure they just thought i was a wierd little kid.
- i've dated people from teh internets.

- i will eat most things - but i draw the line at internal organs. and eyeballs. and other balls.
- i am scared of spiders. and those freakish camel crickets.
- i've lived in DC for 6 years, which is the longest i've lived in one place since 1994.
- i once gave my phone number to a guy at a bar who must have been at least 70 years old. his name was ben. and i didn't pick up when he called me. and i hid from him in a grocery store once. :( i still feel bad about it.
- my first real boyfriend used to play songs from Cats for me over the phone - on his trombone. he's gay now.
- sometimes i grind my teeth to the beat/tune of song. especially while on a long, stressful car ride.
- i would choose pie over cake any damn day of the week. especially sour cherry.
- sometimes i fantasize about being a figure skater in the olympics.
- i will clean just about anything with bleach. i love the smell of bleachy pillowcases just out of the dryer.
- colgate toothpaste gives me little white sores on the end of my tongue. as do raw almonds and walnuts.

- i worked at a TJ maxx in high school and college. one summer i worked full time there and i would sometimes take a nap behind a huge pile of luggage in the back room.
- i once shared a joint with the TJ maxx security guard during a lunchbreak.
- i was often tempted to shoplift smelly lotions when i worked there, but i was too chicken and paranoid to do it.
- i took ballet lessons as a kid. it's much harder than it looks.
- the thought of having lasik surgery makes me want to throw up.
- i enjoy picking at scabs and popping other people's back zits.
- if left to their own devices, my eyebrows would take over the top half of my face.
- i once wore a pair of cut off jeans for 2 weeks straight without washing them. then my roommate wore them for a while. then i wore them again for an indeterminate period of time. *barf*
- my calves are smaller in circumference than my upper arms. that can't be right.
- i look like an overweight grandma or a chubby lesbian in shorts. therefore, i usually wear skirts instead.

- i have a very good sense of direction, and i don't easily get lost.
- i hate it when people say, "i know, right??!" all the goddamn time. as in statement: "hey, i really like those shoes!" reply: "i know, right??! i got them at target." grrr. i just hate it. especially when paired with "it's like" - "it's like, i know, right??!" double grrr.
- i sold my plasma twice a week for a whole summer in college. i still have the holey scar in my arm.
- i don't like goat cheese. i get mad about that, and try to force myself to like it, but i haven't succeeded yet.
- i used to cry in church when i was a kid. a really embarrassing involuntary response of some kind.

and that's seventy five! which is, coincidentally, the year that i was born. ta da! after reading through these, i realize that i am kind of gross. oh well. too late to change now!

my newest obsession

2008-07-08T10:27:00.000-07:00

this lovely place, in the mountains of west virginia:

i want one just like it. a comfy little shack for weekend getaways. it doesn't even need to be this fancy! not at all! i mean, heck, i am willing to sleep in a tent for days on end. this would be a major upgrade. now, who wants to build it for me?

read more about the project here, and about the designer and architect here.

in which i stalk the weather channel

2008-07-08T06:48:00.000-07:00

i always do this right before a vacation. ESPECIALLY a camping trip. jeezums, pretty much nothing is worse than a miserable camping trip. and while a rainy weekend doesn't necessarily ruin a camping trip, and while a f-ing hot weekend doesn't necessarily ruin a camping trip... both of these are factors of misery at assateague.

hot-hot weekend:

cons = no shade, therefore blazing hot no matter what. even at 6:30am. imagine yourself slightly nauseous from drinking too much coffee all morning while sitting in the blazing sun... then crawling into a sweat-den of a tent to change into your one-piece bathing suit. crouching on a wobbly air-mattress, sweat pouring from every pore, falling over onto the clingy sheets, sand sticking everywhere, shoving your sweaty gross body into a suddenly uncooperative bathing suit. you unzip the door and come tumbling out, gasping the (comparatively) cool air, bathing suit indecently crooked and sand all over your face.

pros = the dribbly cold water showers never felt so damn good.

OR

rainy weekend:

cons: the drizzle woke you up at 6:00, so you decide the go make a fire and have coffee. the wood is kind of wet and the ocean wind keeps blowing the goddamn flame around so the water won't boil. after fudging around with it, cursing the day you decided not to bring the propane stove and getting sticky black soot and sand all over your hands, the best you've got is hot-ish water. you dump the grounds into the water and stir, declaring it cowboy coffee and scurry back to the tent. you pass the day crouched in the tent playing scrabble and cards on the air-mattress, hot and sticky, listening to the dribbling rain and getting sand all over the bed and loosing half the good scrabble letters.

pros: at least our nice tent doesn't leak! yet.

scott and i have been pretty lucky in camping. we've had some hot weather, but not for the whole weekend. and now we have a sun shelter to put up at the camp site. and we've had rain, but not for the whole weekend. once the sun comes out, it's pretty easy to forget the misery of just moments before. that's why it's pretty key to go for more than one night. that way, if the first night is horrifying then you have another day to have fun and redeem yourself. or if the first day/night is just perfect, then who cares if the second day was rot. at least you had one good day.

the worst trip we've had was also the very first time we went camping together. (pictures here) it was a last minute trip for scott's birthday in late july, and we couldn't get reservations for assateague. i saw good reviews online for first landing state park in virginia, so we gave it a whirl. we couldn't leave until friday afternoon, so we didn't get there until early evening. i picked a site from the map at the check-in station, and we drove off to get settled in before hitting the beach. the "site" turned out to be about 10' square, no shade, with an electrical pole and transformer of some kind taking up about half of it. it was located right along the sandy access road on a hair-pin curve, and had suspiciously recent tire tracks running through the middle of the only area big enough for a tent. we dashed back to the check-in station because we had been told the park was sold out for the night. luckily the ranger saw that i was on the verge of a blow-out and gave us a different site. the site was actually very beautiful and covered in scrubby beach trees, but seemed awfully close to the neighboring sites. we set up the tent, dumped our junk and headed for the beach.

the park is at the mouth of the chesapeake bay, almost where it dumps into the ocean. which means that it is a pretty busy shipping area. which also means that all the junk from upstream has drifted many miles to jam up and linger there at the mouth of the bay. we were both wearing our glasses, and had to remove them to get in the water, so we had a pleasant evening bobbing in the lake-like bay. we watched the sunset over the dunes and relaxed after the stressful 4 hour drive. we had fun cooking over the fire that night and prepared for bed.

it quickly became apparent just how close to the highway the park is located. just through the nice scrubby trees we could see the headlights and cars and trucks flashing by on the side of our tent. we could HEAR the rumbling traffic all night long. then our obnoxious neighbors started drinking heavily while playing some kind of cranium game - you know, the kind with the really loud buzzer/timer that gets louder and LOUDER and more frantic? each time you take a turn? yeah, it was pretty terrible and hot and neither of us got much sleep. breakfast was fast and we ran back to the beach in the morning. this time i had my contacts in, and we saw tons of dolphins! yay! leaping along the shoreline - and i truly mean hundreds. however, shortly after taking a stroll along the waters edge i also noticed some stuff floating in the water. TONS and HUNDREDS of jellyfish. as far as the eye could see, there were huge-ass jellyfish. which, apparently, dolphins love to eat. then i looked closer and saw all sorts of dirty garbage floating in the bay - dirty underwear, tampon applicators, rubber gloves, diapers, plastic bags. then i noticed the rainbow sheen of boat fuel skimming on the surface. blearg. then we left. i'll never swim in the bay again.

BUT! we've had many lovely trips to assateague! which is why i am excited for this weekend. weather permitting, we are going to try the backcountry camping at assateague - which involves walking a few miles along the beach to a large campsite. no potable water, but they do have outhouses. and it's miles from the next campsite. my concern: there are only TWO oceanside backcountry sites. two. and they are first come, first served. the website says that each can hold up to 25 people, so even if someone is already there i am hoping we can share a spot and still have some privacy. here's hoping! so far, the weather channel says sun and mid-80s for the weekend. i'm off to check it again...

SAA, 2008 - coming soon!

2008-07-02T07:30:00.000-07:00

so i am heading to San Francisco in august, for "ARCHIVES 2008: Archival R/Evolution & Identities" - the 72nd annual meeting of the society of american archivists. san francisco! yahoo!

this is my 3rd time going to SAA - my first was shortly after graduating from library school. it was held here in DC which, as i am starting to learn, really sucked. the weather is always terribly hot and humid, as the meeting is held the last week of august. since the meeting was held locally, i didn't get the luxury of a hotel room. doesn't sound so bad, huh? until you've been schlepping around dupont circle all day in the blazing sun and need a nap between sessions... and you have no place to crash except the couches in the lobby. or the floor, behind a potted plant. it's no way to live. plus, since i was near home, i felt the need to run some quick errands here and htere - just to crowd my day a bit more. it was my first meeting, and no one told me that the session abstracts in the programs were ALL LIES so i attended some real dudders.

last year was in chicago - oh, how i love chicago. i think it is the most beautiful city. and in late august, the weather there is just starting to get that crispy edge of fall - cool evenings, clear blue skies. i had a grand time. i was slightly more clever at picking sessions to attend, and i learned some new things and met some interesting folks. i attended my first roundtable and section meetings. i felt good about it all, but mostly i was just happy to be in chicago for a few days.

this year, i am excited almost equally about both the meeting events AND the great host city. i am going for the entire week - 3 days of a workshop on archivists' toolkit (a free all-in-one tool that is the work of the devil, as far as i am concerned. i hope to be enlightened.), followed be 3 days of information sessions and talks. i am not presenting this year (thank god) but i might try and edge my way into some minimal involvement. to test the waters a bit. plus it's always fun to see some of my old grad school mates. AND. i get to stay in a fancy-pants hotel - the Mark Hopkins Intercontinental.

(photo from flickr)

i love staying in hotels. i also love traveling alone. i especially love having my whole trip dictated by some kind of omnipotent schedule - airline departures and arrivals, meeting times, happy hours and mixers. i enjoy surrendering to routine sometimes, mostly because my real life flows along without much routine our schedule. i like that moment of arriving at the airport, knowing that it's too late for me to change anything - too late to stress about what clothes to bring; too late to throw one more book into my carry-on; too late to worry. i like just showing up at the airport early, drifting around in a haze of buying coffee, buying overpriced books at the shop, waiting like a patient lamb in lines and on planes. taking silent cab rides along unfamiliar freeways to anonymous hotels, where i have white sheets, white towels, miniature soaps and snacks, where the phone never rings and the TV is silent. i can wander around in the evenings if i want to, but if i want to stay in the hotel and read - there is no one there to make me feel guilty about wasting a precious moment as a tourist. it is so relaxing.

now comes the hard part - waiting another 2 months before i can go!

in the meantime, i've got lots to look forward to:

- 4th of july barbeque at the house on friday! i love summer parties - great food, we can hang out outside on the deck and in the yard, the smell of charcoal and bug spray and burning fireworks. yay!

- camping trip next weekend! oh, i can't wait. we've had to bump back this trip countless times because of scheduling problems at scott's work - but we are ON for next weekend. either beach or mountains - we'll decide next week, based on weather forecasts. options are assateague national seashore (backcountry) or george washington and jefferson national forest (backcountry). stay tuned for updates.

- swimming at the university of maryland pool! we rediscovered the outdoor pool at the UMd rec center last weekend, in a fit of inspiration following the hot and humid caribbean parade. man, that water was so cool and chlorine-y, and the deep end is huge and not crowded. plus we are "old," and thus rendered invisible to all the svelte and obnoxious college kids. we have made a solemn vow to go every saturday afternoon.

- i can't think of anything else at the moment, but i'm sure there's more.

dinner last night

2008-07-01T06:30:00.001-07:00

summer version of grilled cheese and tomato soup:

BLETs

that's turkey bacon, lettuce, hard fried EGG, and tomato. on toasted bread. with mayo, of course. duh.

gazpacho

perfect for summer, and abundances of tomatoes and other fresh veggies

chard salad

super-thinly sliced fresh swiss chard and red onions, tossed with some homemade vinaigrette (olive oil, cider vinegar, splurt of spicy mustard, sprinkle of salt and sugar)

disturbing gym-bag revelations

2008-07-01T05:55:00.000-07:00

i rode my bike to work today. that means i took a shower here at work, in the locker room downstairs. i didn't have time to dry my hair, but i saw my brush in the bottom of my bag so i decided to do a little hair brushin' at the very least.

i have only ONE hair brush. one. no combs, picks, nothing else in the house. people, this lonely ole brush has been in the bottom of my gym bag since FRIDAY MORNING. as in, LAST WEEK. since then, i have had people over to the house, i've gone swimming, ran countless errands, seen a movie, and gone to work.

so i haven't brushed my hair since last friday. what exactly does that say about me? i'm not sure if i want to know.

in which i bike to work, and consider what it means to be "green."

2008-06-27T10:42:00.000-07:00

well, i am back on the bike this week. i kicked off the bike to work revival about 2 weeks ago, but due to many interferences (illness, laziness, stupidity) i only rode in once each week. but this week! oh this week was different. i rode my bike in THREE TIMES - count 'em, three times! monday, wednesday and today. i hope that soon i will be in good enough shape to ride in everyday! i know, i know, that sounds awfully ambitious. and maybe it is. but it feels nice to say it.

already i can tell that my legs are on their way to getting rock hard and toned again. a welcome change after a long winter of sudden flabbiness. but, then again, my legs are always the first to show any reaction to exercise. one lap around the track and they start to wither away. which bugs the hell out of me, because my legs can often border on chicken-y looking and bony. they don't need to shrink much, let me tell you. just firm up. i mean, i can hardly keep knee socks up at my knees and those sexy knee-high boots? they either slump down and bag at the ankles or my bony shins bang around inside them like bell-clappers. but my doughy gut? i could jog all day, everyday, on a treadmill and i would still have a squidgy belly. even when i ran 4 days a week, training for races, i still had a mild gut. oh well. a body is a body is a body, i suppose. you can only do so much with the one you are dealt. but dang! it gets me mad.

i feel pretty good about biking in. i feel "green" about it. i bought the bike used, which kept a bike out of the landfill. i save on gas, too. driving to work, i went through a full tank about every 2 weeks. that's about $25 a week. i betcha i can double that by commuting 3 days a week.

but i can't lie to you. that's not why i bought the bike. two motivators fuel most of my actions in life:

1) first and foremost, i am CHEAP. some might say frugal, but i think sometime i am just mostly cheap. i might have some money in my pocket, but i get a sick feeling in my stomach at the thought of shelling out for something expensive. sure, i fritter away money all. the. time. but i like to get a big bang for my buck. if i am going to drop $200 on clothes, i'd rather do it at marshalls or value village and get 17 groaning sacks of things instead of a few well-chosen pieces to last a lifetime. i am too fickle for lifetime fashion. so when it came to getting a bike, i could have spent $400 at the bike shop and got a really nice new bike. or! i could spend $170 and get a neat, unique bike that i absolutely adore. i've always been a bargain-hunter. i live for the challenge. for a time after college, with my first paychecks burning in my greedy paws, i started to drift away from the hunt. but grad school quickly slapped me awake and rekindled the cheapskate within. and it's back to stay, i'm afraid.

2) in conjunction with being cheap, i enjoy having unique things. sure i buy clothes at target and furniture at ikea, but i try to hide them with other things that look more interesting. not like everyone else's. unless you have a lot of money to buy designer items, i find the best way is to patiently dig through thrift stores, junk shops, and stores that sell out of season or overstock.

so yeah! just pretend you didn't hear that, and you can think that i am just making some very good environmental choices by buying used items instead of new.

other "green" practices that we are doing at our house:

- recycling (we've always recycled the obvious stuff, like newspapers and bottles and such, but i am trying to get better. like the plastic thingies that grape tomatoes come in. cracker boxes. smelly cat food cans. things like that.)

- compact fluorescent bulbs (when i replace a burned out old bulb, i buy compact fluorescents to replace them)

- vegetable garden (i like to garden, but i think some of the cheapskate is very excited about not spending so much on tomatoes and gol-durned red peppers this summer.)

- judicious use of air-conditioning

upcoming projects:

- rain barrel to collect all this freaking rain, to water the garden

- compost bins for kitchen waste, to feed the garden

- insulation under the house to save energy (ahem, cheapskate wins again...)

harvest at the Rat Farm

2008-06-24T12:03:00.000-07:00

Already been picked, consumed, and ripped from the ground: lincoln garden peas; mammoth melting sugar peas; purple plum radishes (although I planted more radishes to replace them...)

Currently being eaten on a near-daily basis: mint, basil, cilantro, parsley, various lettuces, jalapeño peppers, chard, green onions

Growing, but not quite ready to pick yet: bloody butcher tomatoes, st. pierre tomatoes, egg tomatoes, hungarian hot wax peppers

Just forming signs of fruit: zucchini, cucumbers, red peppers, yellow peppers, black hungarian peppers

Verdict so far:

i don't think i will bother with the sweet sugar peas next year. this is the second year that i've grown them from seed, and while they grow really fast and the vines look pretty - you really have to plant a lot of them in order to get more than a handful at a time, and they start to die when the hot-hot sun comes out. they mostly just served as a snack while i water the other plants. i think i will do green beans next year instead.

the tomatoes and peppers are doing well. i am a bit obsessed with them, and i can't wait for them to ripen. the herbs have been a wonderful idea - i've saved scads of money already, without having to buy them at the store. i am hoping for similar savings with multicolored peppers and tomatoes. we eat a lot of those in the summer...

the lettuce is always great, and quick to grow. you just sprinkle some seeds around and watch it go crazy. i've had really good luck keeping the plants through the hot months - just buy varieties that do well in hot months, and plant them in long window box type pots. then, when it gets really hot in june/july you can just slide the trays into the shade under a chair or table and it keeps the lettuce from getting bitter.

radishes were great! it was fun to pull food out of the ground instead of just picking it. i forgot, however, to replant seeds after picking the first ones - so now i have to wait for more to grow. oops. maybe i'll try potatoes next year?

post-solstice summer already?

2008-06-23T06:58:00.000-07:00

i'm back! well, you might not have noticed i was gone. but i was. believe me. i was laid low, so low, last week by some sort of mysterious illness. i came to work on Thursday morning, but by around 9:00 i was having severe "lady problems" and had to leave. that knocked me out of commission for most of the day, but i started to feel better around 6:00 or 7:00 that night. we had dinner, played some wii, and i thought things were better... but i was so wrong. Friday morning rolled around, and i had planned on biking in to work. i felt kind of crappy when i woke up, so i decided to skip the bike trip. later, i was very thankful for this choice. very. soon you'll understand why. i got to work on Friday morning, still feeling bad and getting worse by the minute. i ate a bite of a banana for breakfast... and things went downhill quickly after that. i wandered down to the sick room in human resources to take advantage of the sick bed for a few minutes. but due to an unfortunate building design choice, the sick room is located right next to the kitchen. i caught a wiff of someone heating up his gamey-smelling breakfast and it was all over after that. i literally ran to my office, grabbed my purse and ran from the building. i couldn't even stop to tell anyone i was leaving. i just ran, fearing that i would barf all over the place any minute. i jumped into my hot, humid car and drove home, willing myself not to barf in my car. "please, god, don't let me barf in my car." i had the air conditioning blasting right in my face. i had to turn the radio off because the sound of diane rhem's voice just wasn't helping matters.

i made it all the way to my neighborhood before remembering that there was construction happening on my street and parking was prohibited on my block all morning. the fates are not kind, sometimes. not kind at all. so i was forced to drive around like a crazed maniac, looking for legal parking, all while smelling the hot tar fumes and being assaulted by the pounding of the paving equipment. i finally found parking and walk/ran to my house. i held my shit together, mostly, until i got in the house. i did, however, barf a little bit on my shirt while parking. can you imagine if i had to bike home? or take the metro? there would have been copious amounts of public barfing, to be sure.

i will keep the rest of the details to myself. just let it be known that Friday was not a good day. i even crawled to the computer to google the symptoms of salmonella poisoning. negative. and toxic shock syndrom. negatory. so lord knows what i had. but i didn't feel completely normal until Sunday.

i feel great today, though! i biked into work today and all went well. the only things i forgot this time are: hair products (so i am left with limp, limp hair); breakfast (so i am left with a ravenous hunger); and my lunch. but lunch is not a tragedy, because today is the AIP summer picnic! at 2:00! so i have a short-short work day, followed by a catered BBQ lunch and bingo and prizes and all sorts of fun. yahoo. not too bad for a Monday.

in other events this weekend, i saw a few silverdocs movies with scott, and went for a bike ride with courtney yesterday evening.

v49!TYs1x

2008-06-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

that is one of the passwords that i recently had to use to administer a downloaded program at work. it puts my passwords to shame. and knowing that certain-folks-i-know (you know who you are) have a history of really-easy-to-figure-out passwords - we are all doomed to be mass victims of internet hackers. just so's you know. i am fully prepared for the day i wake up to find my bank accounts drained and my email taken over by terrorists.

i rode my bike to work yesterday! just as planned. of course, i tried mightily to talk myself out of it when my alarm rang at 6:15 in the morning. the birds weren't even up yet, for pete's sake. then again, as i stumbled around the dark bedroom trying to remember to pack all my vitals (underwear, blowdrier, deodorant) for showering at work. then again, as i wrestled my bike out the door, fiddled with my shorts and felt embarrassed about my flabby belly and ugly helmet. but once i got rolling it was all worth it. whizzing through the cool morning air is a fine way to start the day. since i shower at work, i don't even need to worry about not sweating, not splashing merrily through huge puddles, and not getting bike grease all over my hands when my chain falls off - all of which i did on the way to work.

the way home is a different story altogether. i am usually a bit sleepy. i hate sneaking around the locker room and lobby, hoping that no one sees me in my flab-revealing shorts and t-shirt until i can jump on the bike and get-a-way fast. and once on the road, the trail is almost flat - but just enough incline almost the whole way home that it wears me down after a while. then again i am pretty out of shape, so i trust that will get easier. just in case all of that wasn't enough, yesterday i volunteered to stop at the store on the ride home to pick a few things up for scott. i didn't have to do it. he could have easily gone on his way home. but i was high on the adventure and it sounded like fun. in my mind, i was riding a pink bike with a woven basket filled with bottles of milk, fresh strawberries and a puppy - not covered in sweat, toting a backpack already half full of toiletries and clothes. so to the store i went! once there, i realized that i still haven't done any research on the legalities of locking up bikes in the city. if there aren't any racks - what can i do? i found a likely-looking spot in the parking lot and chained up ole Shiny. scott wanted beer, chips and salsa for his script writing meeting that night. "simple enough," you might be thinking. but you're not remembering that i like to make my own easy life hard. so i saw that canned crab meat was on sale. the crab was right next to the chicken andouille sausage - "say, that would make a good soup!" i said to myself, and tossed both items in the basket. "gee, olives are on sale too!" and in goes a big jar. on and on it goes, until my hand basket is too heavy to carry without using both hands. i try to stuff it all in the backpack while the checkout lady looks at me like i am crazy. everything fits, except for the can of crabmeat, the jumbo jar of tomato sauce and the bag of chips. those items i put in a plastic bag (oh, the horror!), then shouldered my heavy backpack and stumbled back out to the street. i slung the plastic bag on the handlebars, then admired how urban that looked. then i squatted down to unlock the u-lock. then i almost couldn't get back up, because my pack was so heavy. that's when the foreboding began. i hauled myself up and stood, looking at the road ahead. uphill, as far as mine eye could see. with that cement-heavy pack on my back, and lacking any sort of forward momentum, i decided to walk until i got to the top of the biggest hill - about 7 or 8 blocks. at the top of the big hill, i stood next to my bike and looked downhill. there is a traffic light at the foot of this hill. i knew that once i got rolling, my combined weight would be like that of a freight train out of control - unstoppable. i got on the seat, and with my foot on the curb, i waited until the light at the bottom turned green. shoving off, i coasted downhill, gaining speed until i was almost invisible - all the while praying that no cars or buses decide to pull out in front of me.

success! i made it down that hill alive, and my momentum carried me most of the way up the next one. after that, i just had about 2 miles of slow and steady incline until i was home. oh goody. to sweeten the pot, the wind started gusting - and not at my back. i was riding right into the wind. luckily i understand my gears now, so put 'er in 2nd gear and pedaled for home. in 2nd gear, the pedal resistance is eased and you pedal and pedal and pedal... and slowly move forward. it takes a while, but if you are hauling a heavy load uphill it takes some of the stress off the ole knees. my leg muscles were so quivery at this point, i can't see how else i would have made it home. i'm sure that, to passing cars, i looked like i was riding a stationary bike - but screw them. i just want to live, man.

google search terms

2008-06-16T09:48:00.000-07:00

i love to see what kind of google search terms bring folks to my blog. then, i like to imagine how disappointed some of these people are when they get here.

#1 google search that brings in random visitors: anything related to building your own cold frame - in fact, if you type (in quotes) "build your own cold frame" - i am the 4 link down! neat. so my tutorial has helped a few people, i hope.

#2 google search, and possibly the most disappointing: anything related to norwegian pornstars. which brings them here, which is surprising devoid of dirty pictures or 1-900 numbers to call. gosh-darn it. folks have also found their way to this post my googling, specifically, "gardening porn"! who knew there was such a thing?

oh, a silver dream i had...

2008-06-16T09:27:00.000-07:00

my new bike! is great! and speedy! and so shiny!

i took the bike out for a few rides this weekend - a 2 and a half hour ride on saturday and a short spin on sunday - and she rides like a dream! honestly, i wonder if anyone saw me and thought "gee, what's wrong with that girl?" because there were a few times where i was downright laughing out loud and smiling like a fool. that's just how fun this bike is. the handlebars are just upright and swoopy enough, and the seat is comfortable and bouncy, and the fenders are so shiny. i even understand the simple gear system - a first for me. my old bike had a ridiculous amount of gears and i never quite understood how to use them. i just turned the handlebar grips at random until the clicking and grinding stopped... then if the gear was too hard or too loosey-goosey, well then i just started turning the gears at random again. which resulted in me using about 2 settings total - something scientific like "use 4 on the left side and 12 on the right for big hills" and "use 16 on the right and 7 on the left for flat spots" - something along those lines. this one in a six speed - the right handlebar grip has 6 gears, marked 1 through 6. very clear for idiots like me.

it's just great. i can't even find the words right now. the bike wasn't the kind of bike i thought i needed, but i am so glad i went with my gut on this one. although, maybe i'll have less of a gut after riding it for a while? har har. i went to citybikes in adams morgan on sunday - got a bike lock thingie and a contraption to hold my waterbottle. all set! weather permitting, i am riding to work tomorrow - something i haven't done since last fall. i can't wait!

in other news, we went to the drive in over the weekend - first trip of the year! "kung fu panda" was better than i thought it would be - i usually hate dreamwords animated stuff. and "incredible hulk" kind of sucked. i slept through the last 40 minutes or so. we didn't stay for the third movie, since it was after 1:00 and the place is all the way up past baltimore. i went to bed around 3:30, and MAN did i ever sleep in on sunday.

tomato watch, 2008: 5 "bloody butcher" tomatoes growing nicely; 7 smaller tomatoes - possible egg or st. pierre - on the way as well. yay! i suppose in a week or two we will start eating tomatoes!

friday the 13th

2008-06-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

pretty uneventful (knock on wood) so far.

i DID manage to spill a cup of scalding hot coffee on my foot this morning. but that was entirely my fault. i was being selfish and lazy: here at work, we have one of those new-fangled coffee pod machine things. those of you who are familiar with these machines know that each time you make a cup, the used little pod of coffee gets dumped into a container inside the machine. so, you blissfully make cup after cup of coffee, laughing as your coworkers are forced to dump out the bin of empty pods... then your luck runs out. this morning, for instance, i trundled into the break room to get some coffee. i had some coffee at home, so i opted for 2 little pods of decaf. i put the first pod in, pushed the green button, and whooosh! a few ounces of coffee. i pulled the little tray out to put in the second pod... when something inside the machine caught my eye. peering inside the machine, behind the tray... i saw a mountain of used-up pods in the little tub inside. grrrrr! that meant that the instant i put in my next pod, the red light would pop on and i would have to stop what i was doing, disassemble the whole front of the machine, dump out the dang pods, put it all back together and THEN make the rest of my coffee. no way, jose. not this time! plus, every time i have had to empty the tub i've noticed that one end of the tub is all stacked up with used pods, while the other end of the tub is empty. wasteful! stupid design! so there i stood, paper cup half full, tray out, peeking in on the stack of pods... and a brilliant idea struck. i could reach in, flick some of the pods over to the empty side of the poorly-designed tub and go on my merry way, crisis averted. c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y i snuck one finger into the opening behind the tray... almost there... just a bit more... *YOWCH!* in my intense concentration on the stack of used pods, i forgot what was right in front of my eyes - a half-filled paper cup of scalding hot coffee. which i had knocked over, nearly right down my whole front. luckily, my cat-like reflexes (seriously!) saved me. i did some sort of insane cheerleader jump over the splashing coffee and managed to avoid the burn - except for my right foot. and a double bonus, no one walked into the kitchen while i was cleaning it up - so no one made fun of me at all. yay, me. so all in all, a pretty clean friday the 13th.

for those poor fools riding the red line to work today, there was a different story to be had. (wash post article) some sort of power outage (possibly combined with an electrical fire? i can't be bothered to actually read the article) downtown wreaked all sorts of havoc with the red line. scott takes the red line to work and had to trudge up the steep, seemingly endless escalator out of the station at dupont circle. people who gripe about DCers being lazy, and how no other big city has escalators in the undergrounds... well, people, i mostly agree with you there. most of the stations don't need escalators at all. waste of power, lazy, etc. EXCEPT for the dupont circle station. that one is an unholy bitch to walk up, especially in the summer heat.

tonight is the kick-off of the summer movies on the roof of ian's apartment building - with a showing of Friday the 13th, part 4; and some other horror movie that scott is picking out. we use our DVD projector and screen, and ian provides the great outdoor location - pretty swell, all around. i have a busy night, as i am going out for drinks and dinner with julie and jennifer from work - at dr. granville moore's, on h street. can't wait!

so happy friday the 13th! i am going to take garden pictures this weekend - tomatoes abound, and the hollyhocks are threatening the neighbors. stay tuned.

my new ride

2008-06-06T10:51:00.000-07:00

in case that other link gets disabled, and in case you are too lazy to click on it in the first place - here is a picture of my sweet new ride. i haven't named her yet, and i am waiting to do so until after my first bike ride - which was going to be this weekend. but. it is supposed to be ungodly hot this weekend and i don't feel like having a heat stroke.

ain't she purty?

in the hours after

2008-06-05T11:30:00.000-07:00

or, in this case, the days after.

a week away from the office is good for the soul, but bad for el paperworko. i've been busy busy since my re-entry on monday, and it has taken me until now - thursday afternoon - to find a moment to pause and post.

vacation was a wild success this year. family, am i right? i think we all had fun, and nearly everyone got to stay for almost the whole week. highlights include:

1) bonfire! we've talked about having bonfires before, but we just never get around to it. this year, we came through. scott and i thought we could buy some bundled firewood over at the baitshop - but no. foodlion, lowes foods, farmer's market - no, no, no. lowes hardware? no again. so we just drove around aimlessly until i spied a vacant lot filled with giant piles of brushy stuff and made scott pull over. we filled his hatchback and backseat with sandy branches and small logs torn from the piles, and headed home with the loot. oh! and we did succeed in scoring a large pile of sap-laden pinecones at the farmer's market. good kindling. after dinner, the whole family kicked in and we combed the immediate area around the house for firewood. joe flexed his engineering muscles and somehow he and scott broke down a 40'+ tree into usable chunks, using only their hands and the support posts of the deck for leverage. impressive! we made s'mores and roasted hotdogs and basked in the smokey warmth.

2) crabbing! our housemate, michele, clued scott and i into crabbing just before we left. catching crabs? why not! so we got string traps and frozen chicken necks at the baitshop on the corner - and in a fit of inspiration, a slim jim - and headed to the little bridge and tidal canal on 40th street. i had read a little online about catching crabs, and sources say that crabs get bored with the same old bait and are intrigued by different smells and oily patches in the water... hence the slim jim. sources also say that the best times for crabbing is when the tide is rolling in, just before high tide. we got to the spot about an hour before high tide, so conditions were perfect. also, this perfect time was about 11:30 in the morning so we didn't even have to get up early or anything torturous like that. screw you, early-bird-gets-the-worm! i ended up catching 7 crabs!! to keep a crab, it must be at least 5" across - and these were all keepers, and one or two were downright huge! it was really thrilling, actually. the water was shallow, so i could kind of make out the hoop as it lay on the canal floor... then i would sometimes be able to see if a crab was in it or not - but most times, i would just jerk the trap to the surface out of sheer boredom or impatience and nearly fall over from surprise to see one or two big ole blue crabs scrambling around in the trap. yikes! there was shrieking. and yes there was wimpish prancing and gnashing of teeth. and my mom had to help me with getting those pesky snappy crabs into the bucket. and i can't wait to do it all again next time we go camping! crabbing is also satisfying in it's democracy. there doesn't seem to be much skill involved - you just toss the trap out there and wait, then jerk it to the surface with a little finesse. catching 7 was out of no skill of my own - just sheer luck! which is sometimes even more satisfying. scott ended up not catching any crabs big enough to keep, and for a while he was chasing the trail of a wily ole grandaddy crab... but that crab proved to be to smart and elusive for the likes of our slim jim. ahhh. maybe next year.

2) Hand and foot! a card game that our family plays obsessively when we get together as a group. it is some sort of mixed-breed canasta-style game that involves a lot of luck and screwing of thy neighbor. david and i were partners for the first game, and trounced everyone so badly that we almost lost appetite for the game entirely. but we persevered and played many more hateful games through the week.

the rest of the time was spent lounging in our village of sun shelters set up on the dunes behind the house, or playing with maddie (cutest baby in the universe, as shown by the slideshow on jessie and david's blog). i started a new knitting project, of which i will hopefully post pictures soon...

in other news, my garden is taking over the yard. eeek! we've kept up the spring schedule of a few sunny days followed by a day or two of torrential downpour.

i bought a new bike last night!! it is a jamis earth cruiser 6-speed and it is S-W-E-E-T. entirely chrome plated, and so shiny that it would take your eyes out on a sunny day. you can see a picture here, but i can't guarantee how long the picture will be there (right now, it's the second picture down - the shiny chrome one): http://bulldogbikerestoration.com/Currentbikes.html

this is a long post. i think i'll quite now.

it's almost lunchtime, can't you tell?

2008-05-19T09:09:00.000-07:00

is it wrong that i think sloppy joe pizza sounds like a good idea?

because it feels wrong.

but sounds sooooo good. i might come up with a recipe and try it out. i'll let you know how it turns out.

the final countdown

2008-05-19T07:24:00.000-07:00

man i loved that song. i got the europe tape for christmas one year, and played that song endlessly. now it will be stuck in my head for most of the morning, i imagine. regrettably, i hardly remember any of the lyrics/tune except for the nasally and dramatic chorus.

but in this instance, the final countdown that i am referring to is the countdown to BROWN FAMILY BEACH EXTRAVAGANZA, 2008 - launchtime estimated at 6:00 (or, likely 7:00) a.m., saturday. 5 days(ish) from now! in preparation, i have a billion and one chores for every evening this week - laundry, hosue cleaning, rustlin' up supplies, packing. the usual stuff. i don't know about you, but i hate HATE coming home from a long trip to a dirty/cluttered house. i hate it. with a passion. scott can vouch for that. i am usually a wee bit testy after a car ride of any length and just about anything will set me off into a tizzy of a tantrum, but i am especially sensitive to piles of dirty crap all over the place. that gets me every durn time. i hate walking in the door, exhausted from a 7 hour ride in a hot car, to be greeted by the stench of cat litter and rotten garbage cans whilst tripping over a pile of bags by the door then slipping in a stack of old newspapers. while carrying piles of wet towels covered in sand from the beach. call me crazy, but the experience leaves me annoyed to say the least. SO. i have some work to do before we leave. :)

i also have to obsessively go to the weather channel website to check the forecast for next week. so far so good! although anyone who has spent any length of time on any coast will agree that the weather channels tells dirty dirty lies. the weather on the ACTUAL beach - you know, where sand meets surf and turns into fun and kites and drippy castles? - can be completely different from the weather inland. even a few miles can make a huge difference. so while weather.com currently says the week looks gorgeous and sunny and not too hot... it's anybody's guess, really.

and actually, the weather doesn't really matter that much. we've had plenty of fun during crappy weather in the past. and i can just go to the beach some other time for fun in the sun (assateague camping!), but the ohioan inside me - the one who used to drive 12+ hours to get to the nearest beach, and only saw the ocean once a year - just won't be truly satisfied without sunny weather.

in other news, i am wearing a new skirt today. and it is remarkable how wearing a new skirt can make me so happy.

weather watch, 2008

2008-05-15T09:49:00.000-07:00

Beach Vacation Countdown - 9 days. NINE DAYS, PEOPLE. that means nine days to lose 25 pounds; nine days to fit into shorts; nine days to daydream about doing nothing for a whole darned week... and, nine days to stalk the weather channel nonstop to fret about the weather for the week.

and you know what? my family has been luck (knock, knock on wood) for most of our vacationing years. sure there was that one year that we got evacuated from wrightsville beach and my entire family had to crash at my tiny 2 bedroom apartment in greenville. then there was that other year where it was freakishly cold and windy, and the only way to get some sun was to huddle on one of the upper decks in a wind-shelter fashioned from towels and sheets. no matter! the other years were lovely. and we always have fun anyway.

today was the first day that the week creeps into the 10-day forcast on weather.com. saturday is partly cloudy, high of 81. perfecto!

correspondence - then and now

2008-05-13T06:11:00.001-07:00

as an archivist, part of my job involves bringing new collections into the archives. often these new additions, or accessions as we call them, arrive in odd containers - old cardboard boxes, paper sacks, laundry bins. this time, the donor was attending a history symposium at our center and arrived with a rolling suitcase in tow - full of old letters. over the years, i've gotten good at just whizzing through stacks of correspondence - picking up the general date ranges, maybe a overall theme or subject to add to the catalog record - without getting too bogged down in reading the actual contents of the letters.

this time, i've gotten reeled in.

i know the donor - she's an older lady, and an astronomer. we have other collections of her letters and papers already in the archives, so i knew that this addition would contain mostly letters to and from her parents. this bunch is from the 40s and 50s, and begins while the donor is in college and sort of follows her as she starts fellowships, and research projects, and moves around the country - still writing her folks 2 or 3 times a week. sometimes the letters are signed from "Daddy" or from "Mother," but often they written by both parents. They are all typed on an old typewriter with crooked and skippy letters, and often - especially when Daddy is writing the letter - full of cross-outs by the other parent, correcting facts and adding details to the letter.

the correspondence is useful in a couple of different ways - the donor's father was a scientist as well, and he often asks questions about his daughter's work or mentions well-known people that they both know. the donor often talks about lectures or classes taught by well-known people, or speaks of research and schedules of study. but the BEST part is the everyday story telling by her parents. at first i wondered if the daughter was bored out of her skull reading these letters, but maybe not. her parents wrote extremely detailed accounts of their days: where they went shopping for food, how much a cantaloupe costs at the market, who stopped by for bridge (and what kind of ice cream they brought with them, and what kind of cookies Mother served with the ice cream, and when they went to bed), what Daddy accomplished in the yard, how many times the dog threw up in the flower bed. crabapple jelly and how many pans of applesauce from the neighbor's trees. "desert bridge" and "supper bridge." it just goes on and on. i thought it was kind of ridiculous at first. but you know what? they were writing these letters instead of calling each other on the phone - nowadays, letters are reserved for more serious topics or for special occasions. if i compare these letters to phone conversations that I have today - with parents, siblings, friends - the content is pretty much spot on. i tell my mom what i am making for dinner, she tells me what she and dad watched on TV the other night, or how much it rained that morning. dad might say how he fixed something on the car, or his latest project at my sister's house. so these letters aren't ridiculous at all! they could almost be transcripts of any conversation that we have with our own parents, especially those of us kids who live far away. conversations like these keep us from forgetting what home is like, and they show our parents bits of our lives.

aside from all that, these letters are completely inspiring me to sew more. the daughter was going to college in a town without much shopping, and later working too many hours at secluded observatories (most are far from cities, to get away from the city lights) to shop for clothes. she would describe what kind of design she wanted in a blouse, or a skirt or a winter coat - and Mother and Daddy would comb the Baltimore shops for candidates. there are many debates on the color "plum" versus the color "aubergine" and "copper" versus "golden brown." discussion of plackets, and gussets and facings and linings. placement of zippers. aqua fabric with the red sailboat "motif" and the dove gray trim. recycling old clothes into new clothes - aprons made from dresses, belts made from the trimmed-off hems of skirts. this kind of seems modern again.

okay, i am off to go read more letters!

the power of rain

2008-05-12T11:37:00.000-07:00

i am almost afraid to go home and look and my garden and yard. we've had nonstop rain since yesterday afternoon. and before that, it rained for part of each day for almost a week. the plants are threatening to overthrow the human regime. i didn't know that hollyhocks could get so big. mine (planted from seeds last year) have morphed into giant bushes taller than my knee right now - and it's only may! early may! i fear that i've planted them too close to the sidewalk. i might have to move them, so that visitors don't get lost or eaten on the way to the front door.

our power went off this morning. as the Gods of Monday would have it, the power went off just as i started my shower. the rest of my shower was a memory test, to see if i could locate my shampoo, conditioner, soap, etc in complete pitch-blackness. you see, i don't have a window in my bathroom. when the lights are out, it is D-A-R-K in there. and you know, when you stare at a darkdark room for a while... your eyes start to play tricks. you start to see weird blobs and become convinced that monsters or killers are creeping around you. or, at least, you do if you're like me.

lesson learned: you really CAN tell the different between shampoo and conditioner, just by feeling it. try it! you'll see.

one thing i am thankful for, living in a city: when the power goes off, you still have water! and you can still use the stove, if you have a gas range! okay, so that's two things. growing up on the edge of the boonies, we had a well for water and an electric pump. that meant at the threat of a storm, we would fill up pitchers of water - just in case. and the bathtub, so you could use buckets of water to flush the toilet. and if the power went off for a long time, and there was enough rain... then the basement would start to flood, since the sump pump was electric as well. that meant a 3 or 4-person bucket brigade from the sump hole in the basement, through the laundry room, up the goddam-slippery basement stairs, across the goddam-slippery wet kitchen floor, out the back door, across the porch... then you had the toss the water from the bucket into the yard and head back in for more. all without falling down in the goddam-slippery dark. plus, the yard would be all scary and stormy and dark, and full of werewolves and/or killers. once all of us kids left the house for college, my parents got a generator. go figure.

i hope the power is back on when i get home. but if it's not, at least i can still cook dinner. and i can take a bath if i want to. and that's fine by me.

cutest baby in the whole world:

2008-05-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

maddie!

pictures, pictures, get yer pictures here!!!

2008-05-07T08:08:00.001-07:00

i charged up the ole camera last night and took some pictures of the deck and patio garden, and the lovely new hedges! i didn't get any "before" pictures of the backyard. just picture in your mind's eye a dirty weed patch next to a shifty-looking alley. then make it a little uglier, just to be safe. then tip over all the garbage cans. and add a few empty beer cans. and that's probably pretty close to reality.

now it looks like this!

my garden is also getting bigger and better:

tomatoes gone wild

lovely peas starting to blossom

and little wild kitties getting bigger:

head over to my flickr to see the rest:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/melaniejeanbrown/sets/

shampoo-free, day 6

2008-05-06T11:19:00.000-07:00

on day 6, my hair has made a complete turn-around! it is clean and shiny, bouncy and swingy, smells great, feels squeaky and well-behaved. a miracle, you ask?

sadly, no.

i am weak. i caved and went back to shampoo last night. i couldn't take sleeping on a greasy head for one. more. night. i think the nocturnal grease-wallowing was not helping my flighty complexion, either. so i slathered on immodest handfuls of ooey, gooey, smelly, sodium-laureth-sulfate laden, organix nourishing coconut milk shampoo and conditioner. and i have never been happier.

ahhh, chemically cleanliness. how i love you.

don't tell the hippies, but i also clean with bleach. a lot. sometimes i dream about pouring undiluted bleach on all the surfaces (non-porous or otherwise...eek!) of my house, sniffing the burning scent of clean. but i also like vinegar! i do! but i like bleach more.

amen. over and out.

shampoo-free, day 5

2008-05-05T12:46:00.000-07:00

considerably less greasy, due to omission of vinegar rinse. i washed my hair last night with the baking soda and things were pretty okay. i am looking rough today, however, because i overslept and didn't wash my hair this morning.

i am *this close* to giving up on this hippie venture. i will give it one more day, because i feel that today is a poor representation since i overslept and skipped the shower. if tomorrow looks bad, i am jumping headfirst back into the den of sin that is scented, frothy, wonderful shampoo and evil, soothing, shine-making conditioner.

oh sin, how i miss you.

shampoo-free, days 3 and 4

2008-05-05T12:44:00.000-07:00

still greasy, but it's the weekend so who cares. i read that i should stop using the vinegar rinse altogether, and that should nix the hobo-esque greasiness and general malaise that my hair is projecting. i'll try that next...

weekend of action

2008-05-05T09:22:00.000-07:00

wow, did i ever accomplish a lot this weekend. please allow me to brag for a moment:

1.) i spent most of saturday cleaning out the hell-hole of my bedroom closet. it was an embarrassing mess, and i kept having these recurring nightmare-ish scenarios in my head where the house catches on fire and my messy closet is unveiled to the world/neighborhood in all its unholy glory. i mean, seriously. nearly all the hangers were hanging all snaggly and empty on the rod. all the shelves were either suspiciously empty or contained odd items like an empty tea mug or a wadded up beach towel from last summer. i had shoved my dresser into the closet last year to free up space in the bedroom, and somehow that action rendered the dresser useless - the top two drawers were filled with knotted up tights and hose, probably all riddled with holes and runs, and an assortment of seldom worn and ill-fitting bras. the other drawers were empty, and remained blocked by a drift of tangled clothes and shoes that reached mid-thigh. how does this happen? i am a grown woman and should be ashamed. it was also time to switch my winter clothes for my summer clothes, so i thought i would pull the ol' clean and switch all at once. and it worked! it was hellish, and involved 3 groaning bags of garbage on the curb - but it is done. i purged myself of all broken or worn out shoes (why did i have them in the first place?), all bags with rips or broken straps, and a ton of clothes to take to the thrift store. all in all, very cleansing.

i also found the camera charger buried in the rubble, so i will be posting pictures soon - very soon.

i also found that 90% of my summer clothes are either very, very ugly or too small. i will be the next contestant on "what not to wear" unless i go shopping very soon.

2.) scott and i planted our hedges in the backyard! most of sunday was spent hacking with a mattock, digging holes, hauling bags of dirt and mulch, planting bushes, pounding fence posts into the ground using a miniature sledgehammer, and wiring up bamboo fencing. scott did all the digging, so he's probably a lot more sore than i am! haha. serves him right, the manly man. i supervised the digging - which is a much harder task - by skipping around making helpful "suggestions" and trying not to be too bossy. he handled it very well and never once threatened me with the shovel. everything looks grand! and we only ended up making two unscheduled trips to home depot. i think all home improvement days involve at least two back-to-back unscheduled trips to either home depot or ikea. always. i can't really go to our neighborhood hardware store, as it is run by a mean, rude, old pervert who marks up the prices in his store. and he doesn't even carry flyswatters! fool.

3.) we saw a movie on friday night - part of the final showings of this year's Filmfest DC. it is called The Fall and it was just great. beautiful scenes and imagery, great story, cute little girl in the lead role. sort of like a fantastical Princess-Bride-meets-pan's-labyrinth. some gruesome parts, and some fairy tale parts, and everything good.

shampoo-free, day 2

2008-05-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

kind of disgusting. even though i took a shower this morning, i have that greasy, tired, unwashed feeling. and my head is a teensy bit itchy. in fact, just seeing those words typed makes my scalp feel even itchier. *scritch scratch* overall, rather unpleasant. not to be deterred, i am going to do a tad more research and see what i can rig up to get rid of the oiliness. it's almost the weekend, and who cares how grease my hair looks. i am not going anywhere but home depot... maybe the grocery store... that's about it.

exciting updates on monday!

no-poo

2008-05-01T12:08:00.000-07:00

as in, no shampoo.

one of the blogs i read has been discussing the use of baking soda and apple cider vinegar to clean(se) your hair and scalp, instead of shampoo and conditioner. hmmm. it sounds dodgy to me. i recall the paper-maché volcano projects of my youth. you know, the ones where you fill the innards of your homemade volcano with baking soda... pour in the vinegar and red food coloring... and stand back to watch the gurgle-y explosion... but i suppose that's not what will happen (surely not?) because in this shampoo-free regimen you don't mix the two parts - you apply them separately.

as someone with naturally greasy hair - no, i mean GREAZY hair - it still sounds dodgy to me.

but hey, i am always keen to subject myself to slightly hippie-ish beautifying treatments. why not give it a go? plus the benefits supposedly include shiny, bouncy, vibrant hair, the likes of which haven't been seen since the days of eden. because i am a brilliant researcher in my work-life, and a very lazy one in my own life - i only consulted the two resources that i accidentally stumbled upon:

1st one, very friendly and light on details (this is one of a couple of different mentions in her blog): http://angrychicken.typepad.com/angry_chicken/2008/04/melts.html

2nd one, militant and scary: http://babyslime.livejournal.com/174054.html

okay! so now i am armed with every bit of information out there, so i am ready to begin. i was really jazzed up about the idea last night. i wanted to start immediately, but i only had a sprinkling of baking soda left after a recent cleaning binge. and i was fresh out of apple cider vinegar. i suppose i could have used white vinegar, but it seemed extra stinky and harsh. then i remembered the militant lady saying that you should alternate the baking soda/vinegar thing with days of just washing your hair in plain ole water. so that's what i did today.

verdict, after day one - water wash, no soda/vinegar: my hair is just as limp as usual - no more, no less. slightly greasy - normally if i skipped a shower, my roots would be wet-looking and greeee-zay at the roots by mid-day. i think the water-wash simply distributed the oil and the result is mild, but uniform, greasiness.

tonight, i buy the supplies. updates to follow.

hedging our bets

2008-05-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

or hedging our yard. either way, we're hedging this weekend!

scott and i went to Behnke Nurseries last night (which apparently just got a freaky looking new website) to pick out plants. Behnke's is the greatest nursery in the area. or maybe the greatest in the world. they have the best staff and the best selection of old classics and exotic varieties, and lots of regional plants. so anyway, we went and after a whirlwind tour of the shrubs and bushes... and after a lengthy discussion with one of the shrubbery professionals... we chose the japanese yew. i would link to a picture, but the camera is dead once again and none of the google image search results really look like what we got. so maybe i have the name wrong. but the important things are: the bushes were reasonably inexpensive so we could afford a slightly more mature plant to start with; they can be pruned into a thin hedge; they cap out at 7 or 8 feet; and they grown pretty durn fast. and the best part was when the shrubbery lady was walking around with us, making recommendations. she said something like, "well, you might consider a yew? now the yews are over here... no, wait, they were just here, i swear... now where have those yews gone?" and i had slap back my inner must-make-a-stupid-joke-at-all-times-gland which wanted to say "are you sure they aren't WANDERING YEWS? har har har." because, although the lady knows her plants, i wasn't sure if she would think of the PLANT called wandering jew, and think i was making some crazy antisemitic remark. but golly i wanted to say it. i still want to say it.

scott is working on saturday, so i'll do a little prep work and we'll do the big stuff on sunday. !! in the meantime, i need to find a place to rent a roto-tiller. the digging that happened during the Patio Adventure was enough to teach me that our yard is full of random crap suspended in a mix of hard clay and dirt. and that mixture is highly resistant to shoveling.

i am still hoping to make it up to the maryland sheep and wool festival on saturday, but those plans might be scrapped at the last minute. we'll see.

if i can dig up the camera battery charger over the weekend, i'll take pictures to document the mess. stay tuned.

death march, 2008

2008-04-28T12:06:00.000-07:00

so the Big Walk is done. finito. and i kind of miss its presence in my mind and in my life. the dread/excitement/planning/training. i suppose i need to do some internettin' to see if i can find another tortuously long hike to rule my life for the next couple of months...

thoughts from the road (in no particular order):

1) it takes a long time to walk 31 miles. a really, reeeeally long time.

we kept about a 3.26 mile/hour pace, on average. and that includes the times we stopped to stretch, eat, go to the bathroom, etc. that means it took us NINE AND A HALF HOURS. you'd best be in good company on a walk like this, or you might really regret it. the walk itself is one big mental challenge to begin with, and if you toss is a high-maintenance, extra-annoying friend or two - you can forget it. if you find yourself saddled with a tag-a-long that you picked up along the trail, just fake a leg cramp and let him get ahead... or just suck it up and jog for a while to ditch her. it's worth it in the long run. but a walking partner is pretty key on a long trek. there were times on saturday of extreme boredom mixed with stabbing pain in my ass-cheek that, if i had been alone, might have led to a slowing pace or a short break or two. but just having someone else there really kept my pace up and helped to lessen that evil voice in my head saying "oh, don't be silly - just take a quick 5-minute break... who'll know the difference? who?"

2) the sierra club does a swell job with pit stops and porta-potties.

there was a breakfast break, a snack break, a lunch, and then a final snack break along the trail - all about 7 miles apart. usually, just when fearful boredom was setting in... or thirst... or shrinking tendons... or all of those things, a cheerful volunteer would come whizzing up on a bike saying "Just 2 more miles until the next stop, folks! anyone need some water?" really, it was great. we only stopped for a few minutes each time, but it was enough to stretch for a minute and break up the monotony.

3) late april is a perfect time for a walk in the woods.

except for the threat of torential rain or late freak snowstorm, late april is a beautiful time of year. the trees are a lush and damp, throbbing green. pale leaves and dark tree trunks, flowers masking the poison ivy. plump turtles in the canal. even the snakes looked friendly. it wasn't too hot for most of the walk, and we crossed the finish line just before the rain started. it really could not have been better. and no bugs!

4) harpers ferry is FAR too hilly.

just to keep things interesting, the sierra club plans the hike to end on a high note - and by high, i am referring to elevation. the last mile or so is basically straight up hill. ! whose bright idea was that? "gee, after 30 miles of slogging through the woods, nothing sounds finer than a fierce one mile uphill climb on uneven cobblestone streets... let's do it!" and the volunteers are so sly about it, too, as if they are embarrassed about such a sadistic plan. you come off the trail at the end of mile 30, then climb a steep staircase up to the rail bridge over the potomac river. hey, nice view, nice breeze, hey we're almost done! then at the end of the bridge you run into a volunteer who says "congratulations! great job, guys! just head over to that volunteer over there by the road! have an oreo!" okay, so then you get to the next volunteer who won't look you in the eye, and just mumbles something about "go to that intersection over there and it's just straight ahead for another mile..." hey, that doesn't sound bad, right? until you get to that intersection and turn the corner - and you see nothing but steep steep cobblestone street. FAIL. but then you buckle down and walk, because that's what you do. but there aren't any signs or volunteers anywhere to be seen. you walk and walk and walk. then you think, "surely i've gone a mile by now?" but all the volunteers are hiding. they are avoiding you because they know this is a bad idea. and you begin to wonder if you are walking in the right direction. then you see the top of the hill. yay! top of the hill! we must be at the end! right? wrong! you keep walking, downhill now, fighting the panic that you've passed the finish line and now are walking for no reason... you ask folks sitting on porches and get cryptic replies such as "how far have you walked so far? 30 miles? well, you've got a ways to go yet..." then you spy another hill approaching. still, a suspicious lack of volunteers. so you suppress the tears, scrunch your toes, feel a blister pop, and then keep on trudging. because that's what you do. then! lo and behold! at the top of hill #2 you see a white volunteer t-shirt in the distance! without any fanfare, the volunteer says "you made it! just follow this street to the community center!" then she quickly looks away. you follow where she pointed, and see that it is ANOTHER DAMN HILL. a short one, yes, but still a hill.

like i said before, harpers ferry is just far too hilly.

5) moleskin is good. but arch supports might be better.

so a few weeks ago, i got some terrible blisters in a training hike. right on the heel. deep suckers, too. the newly hatched skin that was revealed by the healing blisters was very tender and pink, and i was afraid of getting more blisters in the same spot. so! i bought some moleskin and taped up the outsides of both heels, as well as the edges of my outter toes. man o man, is that stuff great. it felt like i was walking on pillows for about 20 miles. then my arches started falling and that hurt pretty goshdarned bad.

6) the Harpers Ferry G.A.S.

so as i was getting ready for the hike, i stumbled into some blogs written by veterans of the hike. one guy mentioned the Harpers Ferry G.A.S. - the Grimace and Shuffle - as a trademark of the community center where the hike finishes. and i couldn't have said it better. that's what everyone was doing. baring their clenched teeth in a snarl, while shuffling along with bowed legs and a bent back. usually accompanies by bursts of sounds like "oooch! eeeech! urg." the 100K folks were rolling into the finish line as well, and those dudes were in rough shape. dead eyes, slack mouths. some of them were laying around on the linoleum tile wrapped in blankets muttering "i can't walk, i can't walk" or just pretending to sleep until their rides arrived. the community center also provided vegetarian chili, pizza, salad and all sorts of goodies for a post-hike feast. after eating a bowl of the veggie (with approx. 27 kinds of beans) chili, i can say that there is a whole 'nother meaning to the Harpers Ferry G.A.S.

all in all the walk/hike was a great experience, and it felt sooo good to finish. and i probably have much more to say, but i can't think of anything else right now. it is now the 2nd day after, and i feel almost back to normal!

things on my mind. i haz them.

2008-04-25T07:24:00.000-07:00

okay, so that lost post was a trickster. i wrote it a week or so ago, then got sidetracked and forgot to post it. it languished in my draft pile until today. y'all get a two-fer-one deal today! i was feeling bad for not posting lately - but not anymore, suckahs.

my boss has been out of town most of the week, and i have been riding the swinging pendulum between hyper-productive and eyes-glazed-over-lazy. i suspect it should average out to be a decent week once it is over, but man alive. there have been some highs and lows. on wednesday, i had a pile of suspicious looking papers to go through and some annoying work to do. but i couldn't make myself get started. i punked around in the internet for a bit, but that can only be entertaining for a limited amount of time. there came the point when i couldn't even think of anything diverting to look at online. so instead of getting down to brass tacks, i just kept refreshing my hotmail inbox until quittin' time. my brain hurt from the laziness of that afternoon. then yesterday, i worked my little fingers to the bone. i live to make my easy life hard. i can't win.

i think i am also learning a valuable lesson about makeup. i don't wear much. i cover up zits when i have them. i wear mascara most every day. and that's about it. but i happened to be at CVS the other day and decided to waste some money on some eyeshadow. because i wear eyeshadow so often. ? i liked the range of colors in the multipack, and most were pretty light. so what's the harm, eh? well, i wonder if there is a makeup manual out there that advises against shimmering eyeshadow over the age of 30. if there is not, then maybe there should be. or maybe i am just being too critical. but dang if the shimmery bits don't call attention to the elephant-hide-y texture of my aging eyelids and under eye area. i will probably continue to wear it, however, until i see a picture of myself on someone's flickr page looking like a aging country singer in las vegas. then i will stop wearing it. maybe.

so i am enjoying my last day of having pain-free movement in my legs. i tell you, it's a privilege that most people don't appreciate enough. i suppose it's not my last day forever, but it'll certainly be a while before i feel normal enough... because.... tomorrow is the Big Walk. the C&O Canal One Day Hike. there is a 50K option and a 100K option. scott and i (and julie and some others) are doing the 50K option. !! that's about 31 miles. and that's a lotta lotta walking. if you can't conceptualize how far that is, think about what is 30 miles from your house. maybe an airport? your grandma's house? a nearby city? now think about strapping on your shoes and walking there. it's pretty slow going and kind of painful towards the end.

i've been training for several weeks for the event. i started out walking 8 miles, then 13, then 17, then 20, then 21. that's as far as i got, and i am counting on being able to go those last 10 on the day of the event. i usually hit a wall around mile 20, which involves some pretty intense foot pain. but i have new shoes now and good blister protection so i am confident that i'll make it fine. scott has not been training, particularly. his longest walk has probably been 7 miles. and that involved stopping off at museums and strolling around the monuments. i am a bit worried about how tomorrow will unfold. i don't want him to get hurt. he assures me that he'll be fine, that it's no big deal. and i hope he is right, and that i have just been a big flabby wimp this whole time. i hope he can slam me with a big ole "i told you so!" but yikes. i'm sure we'll both finish all 31 miles, but it'll be a question of who ends up with blood squirting out of his or her shoes at the end and whose tendons atrophy so badly overnight that they can't get out of bed on sunday morning. only time will tell! :) so keep us in your thoughts on saturday. the 50K trail starts at Whites Ferry, MD and the walk ends in Harpers Ferry, WV. we bribed some friends to drive us out there in the morning, and another friend to come pick us up.

things i am worried about: getting rained on all day; being annoyed by my flappy, generic rain poncho; relapse of my horrifying blisters from a few weeks ago; the nerve in my right ass area that is prone to pinching and pain.

well that's all i can think of to write at the moment. i'm off to get a bunch of work done, then space out for a while, then work maniacally until 4:30. over and out.

the daily grind has taken me over.

2008-04-16T11:42:00.000-07:00

THIS POST WAS ACTUALLY WRITTEN ON 4/16, BUT DUE TO TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES (read: total laziness) THE ACTUAL POSTING WAS DELAYED. APOLOGIES ALL AROUND.

well, i had planned a multi-part posting about the work that went into re-doing eric's apartment - but now that it is over and done with, i am over it. :) one of these days i will get around to putting up pictures of the before and after - but until that fine day, you'll just have to imagine the wonderland in your own minds.

so i have a ton of work to do in my office, but i was just down in the archives ripping apart cardboard boxes and filling dumpsters. that means i am dirty and dusty and disheveled and need a break. i also ran into the IT Guy on my way to the archives, and he said hello. and laughed as he walked away. which normally would be puzzling, but i know what he was laughing about. and it ain't pretty. i had almost forgotten about it, but how could the Fates let that happen? how?

jennifer and i went for a walk around the building grounds yesterday afternoon, to celebrate the fact that a) it was a gorgeous, crisp sunny day, and b) that we were finally free from the excruciating and time-wasting all-day training workshop to "learn" how to use the new microsoft 2007 word and excel. it's word, people. who the f@$k needs all day training?? so anyway. we were finally free. our IT folks were installing MS2007 on all our computers and mine was frozen in some endless loop of updates... so off on a walk we went.

as we wrapped up the walk, we started talking about some (god only knows what - i can't even remember now...) topic that may or may not have involved fatness, awkward situations, and possibly doctors' offices? as we walked down the hall back to our offices, it seemed relevant that i attempt to convey the spirit of this by using body language, hand gestures, loud sound effects along the lines of "bee-yore, bee-yore, bee-yore," a bit of dance, all cobbled together with some intelligent narrative such as "like, that graphic they always show on, like, news to show swirling fatness? like?" this dramatic interpretation took place just as we were walking into my office. in fact, i was so caught up in performing the necessary gyrations and arm flailing that i didn't even catch on at first... but as my final words of "...to show swirling fatness?" still hung in the stale office air, i turned to see the poor IT Guy sitting at my desk staring at us. i'm sure he said something witty, or even just something like "your updates are done, just log on and you'll be ready to go," but all i could hear was the hot white-noise of the blood rushing to my head. and the cackling laughter.

Apartment fantabulizing - The Telling, Part 1: gory details

2008-04-07T13:17:00.001-07:00

okay. holey smokes. what a weekend. eric's apartment is done. done! well, almost. i have to go over tonight to hang a picture, mount a shelf, and deliver a cabinet. but...

jeezums. i worked my *ass* off, i'm sore, tired, smashed up a bit in places, melty-feeling in the head... but exhilarated too. it was a wonderful challenge, and require quick and creative thinking and wiley use of the wallet. but i got so much accomplished with a limited budget. it's odd to think $500 is a small budget. but it is! especially when applying that $500 to what amounts to 3 rooms/areas of someone's living space. especially when that someone has hardly any storage. but shelves cost money, especially when you are trying not to make the space look exactly like an IKEA catalog. it's easy to see something and say, "gee, that's only $79.99!" - but do that a couple of times and suddenly half your money is gone and you've only got a few things to show for it. it's shocking. but here's how the costs break down:

Terrapin Traders: $ 32.14
Home Depot: $ 29.38
IKEA: $ 406.57

Total: $ 468.09

I have to buy a few more anchors to hang stuff, and I'll ask eric if there is something that he wishes i would have gotten... then i'm done, man, done.

An itemized breakdown (i realize you probably don't care, but i am trying to preserve all this info in one place in case i want to come back to it future-wise):

Terrapin Traders: $32.14
One steel media cabinet on wheels
One solid wood bookshelf
One industrial magazine rack

Home Depot: $29.38
1 quart of black enamel
1 quart of Killz paint
3 foamy paintbrushes
sandpaper
carpet cleaner
1 small sheet of thin MDF, cut to specs

IKEA: $406.57
1 TV unit
1 tall skinny bookcase
1 tall wardrobe unit
2 kitchen shelves repurposed for closet racks
1 compact computer desk in a jazzy green/blue color
2 huge floating wall shelves
2 floating CD/DVD shelves in a froggy green
2 other CD/DVD shelves
2 metal rods for various reasons
3 magnetic strips
1 bathmat
2 packs of lightbulbs
1 metal shelving unit
2 roman shades
1 pack of screws
1 pack of hooks
1 pack of anchors
i think there is more, but i can't remember what...

Free from work:
Neat steel filing thingie that was being thrown out from the library. Perfect size for wii games, and other games, controllers, remotes
Plain cardboard magazine boxes that were being tossed by the Physics Today magazine peeps

Items from my own stash:
Fabric remnant from old curtains

no to shabby eh? now the tricky part. the time spent. I worked pretty much non-stop from 9:30am on Saturday until 9:30pm. that includes 2.5 hours spent buying stuff. and 9:00am until 9:00pm on sunday. and oddly enough, the time just whizzed by. courtney helped for a few hours on saturday (and i couldn't have done it without her. she and i carried 18 gazillion heavy-ass boxes to and from stores and cars and apartments. plus she has a big enough vehicle that i didn't need to rent a truck. and she helped me put together some of the trickier IKEA pieces) and ashby and courtney helped for a couple of hours on sunday. ashby was key in dealing with piles of clutter while i tackled big stuff. and she helped with artsy stuff like choosing things for walls and shelves. so about 20 hours of solid work. i did all the leg-work ahead of time - design plan, shopping plan, picked everything out from IKEA ahead of time, shopped at various stores for ideas.

it was the most fun. and hard work. but i can't wait to do it again! i've been taking notes, and keeping track of "holy shit! i didn't think of that!" moments. it should get easier.

Next up, Apartment fantabulizing - The Telling, Part 2: the fun stuff, explained.

i'm back!

2008-04-03T09:27:00.000-07:00

okay, so i've been busy! i swear i have. i'm not sure what i was doing, but i'm sure it was something. something rewarding and worthwhile...

so the Bad Cat ate the tops off of most of my pepper seedlings last night. grrrr. i will assess the damage tonight after work, but judging from what i saw this morning... it ain't pretty. in the words of the wise and patient Miss Hannigan, "Kill, Kill, Kill!"

in cheerier news, i am redecorating eric's apartment this weekend!! wheeeeeeeeee! i absolutely cannot wait to get started. i've been itchin' to get my hands on his place for years now, but i never wanted to offend him by offering. but through a strange twist of events, he asked me! and gave me a $500 budget!! eric is going to be in NYC from friday evening until sunday late night, so i have to get it done over the weekend. i don't want to just clean up and organize - i want him to walk in on sunday night and simply fall to his knees. well, maybe not that dramatic... but still. i want some visual impact to say "this is a new place!"

now, i haven't watched a lifetime of HGTV and TLC makeover shows for nothing. i'm taking hints from the "pros" and trying to stretch my money to get the biggest bang for my buck. i am also blessed with good luck and creativity in space-management (is there such a thing?). but even this project was posing some problems that i could get past. eric has (hoards?) a multitude of media - VHS tapes, DVDs, film reels, obsolete gaming systems and cartridges, odd stuff. you name it and he probably has a small pile of it on the floor of his SMALL EFFICIENCY APARTMENT. and for those non-city-dwellers, that means a livingroom/bedroom, bathroom, a large closet, a hallway, and a separate kitchen. so better than a one-room studio, but still. not much room at all. and limited ways to rearrange the furniture, since the couch has to turn into a bed at night.

but today. oh, people. today i made a sublime discovery.

well, i suppose i made the discovery three years ago when someone told me about this place. and i suppose it wasn't exactly a discovery since tons of people already knew about this place. but oh, this place. it blew my mind.

TERRAPIN TRADERS. if you live anywhere near college park, MD, and if you are looking for filing cabinets, shelving, desks, couches, chairs, display cabinets, clocks, racks, TVs, old media and laboratory equipment... THIS IS THE PLACE FOR YOU. and e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y cheap. as in, "are you serious?" el-cheapo. and especially if you are partial to mid-century industrial and office furniture like i am. if you've ever contemplated stealing a chrome-and-teal chair combo from a waiting room in the bowels of a state university... or if you actually *liked* your dorm furniture... boy, are you in luck. i picked up a nicely shaped solid "wood" shelf mounted on jazzy triangular legs for $7.00. it's banged up, but i plan on painting it black so no matter. AND. this uber-cool short metal cabinet on casters, with two front doors that close over some shelves inside for only $25.00! the top is scratchy looking with one dent, but i plan to put an upholstered cushion on top for additional seating so that doesn't matter. and magically, the total rang up to be $27.60? there must be a sale on or something. so those are two less things that i have to buy at IKEA. i had been planning to buy two similar items at IKEA, white particle board with no visual interest, and for about $150. !!! so that frees up another $125 for buying other stuff. woot!

while walking home from the dentist yesterday, i decided to take a detour down U Street to check out this furniture store called millenium decorative arts, which sells mid-century/danish modern-ish furniture. old stuff, no repros, and most of it is gently used which means less money. i wanted to find something nice, to jazz up the rest of the IKEA stuff. well, i got there and the durn place was closed! they've changed their hours and are now only open from friday to sunday. so i stood there, kinda miffed, staring at the door... when a pile of scrumbly furniture caught my eye. looks like millenium was getting rid of stuff! most was a pile of broken shelves from some kind of larger unit, but right beside my foot was this cool wall-mounting desk with 2 drawers. solid maple! the bottom of one drawer was stained on the inside from what looks to be spilled fountain ink.... but that's the inside of one drawer. who gives a flip! not me. so i picked it right up and walked home with it. and it was heavy.

either i'll use it in eric's place, or i'll keep it and use it somewhere at home someday. it was too nice to just leave there.

and speaking of the dentist, have you ever had your top teeth filled? i had a small cavity yesterday in one of my top front/side teeth, and the novocaine numbed my entire lower face - including my entire nose! i nearly had a freakout/asthma attack because it felt like i couldn't breathe. then i walked around drooling for a few hours. and now my jaw hurts.

pity me, because i deserve it.

nothing to see here, move along...

2008-03-26T12:34:00.000-07:00

boy, i really went on a posting rampage the past couple of weeks. that wasn't too bright, because now i've really set myself up for certain failure. the posts will dwindle back off to nothing, and my vast readership (read: 1.5 people in the central ohio region) will not be terribly surprised.

but i haven't done much of note. the plantlings are moving along nicely, getting bigger. i still keep forgetting to call the vet (dammit, i need to do that!). same shit, different day.

although! i invented a new recipe last night, and i was quite pleased. i will share it with you, because that's the kind of friend i am. it all approximations, because i don't measure when i cook. i just cook. i was inspired at the grocery store because i saw fresh blackberries in kind of closer proximity to the fresh sage, and i recalled a lotion i had once called "blackberry sage." it was quite nice.

Roast Chicken with Spicy Blackberry Stuffing
(if spicy isn't your thing, i'm sure it would be fine w/o the peppers)

1 whole chicken, appropriate for roasting
red onion, cut into smallish chunks
whole wheat bread (hot dog buns, stale french bread, whatever), torn into big pieces
fresh jalapeño peppers, cut into small chunks
sage (i used dried, powdered because that's what i had; fresh would be good, just use less)
olive oil
water
salt and pepper, to taste
whole, frozen or fresh, blackberries
flour

preheat oven to 400. find a heavy, metal pan for roasting. don't use glass or ceramic, because gravy making will become a pain in the ass and won't turn out very good.

Stuffing:
- put bread, peppers and onions in a large bowl. i used about 2 cups of bread, 1 cup of onion, 1/4 cup chopped jalapeño for a pretty small chicken. keep a similar ratio based on the size of your chicken, or just do amounts to taste. rough-chop some extra jalapeño and keep off to the side.
- add salt, pepper and sage to taste.
- sprinkle with olive oil and a little water, until moist enough to clump together a little bit.
- mix in a handful of blackberries - don't go overboard, just enough to have one in every bite or so of stuffing...

Chicken:
- remove bag o' innards from the chicken. keep for making stock (yeah, right), feed to the cat, or throw it away.
- jam as much stuffing as you can into the cavity of the chicken. and i mean, JAM it in there good.
- put a little olive oil in the bottom of a heavy pan and place the chicken breast side down into the pan. drizzle with a teensy bit of oil, salt and pepper. i try to cut off as much of the extra skin and chunks of fat as possible, leaving just some skin on the top of the breast and on the tops of the legs.
- roast for a while at 400 degrees, until it starts to look brown.
- flip the chicken breast side up and add the reserved jalapeños to the bottom of the pan with the drippings.
- roast until it is nice and golden-ly dark on top, and when you poke a knife into the leg joint the juice runs clear.
- remove chicken from the pan and place on a cutting board to rest.

Gravy time:
- a healthy person would let the drippings cool, then remove the hardened fat. i usually am pressed for time, so i just buy a nice lean-looking chicken and cut off some skin and fat at the beginning...
- so! put the roasting pan right onto one of your burners, over medium heat. sprinkle in a few tablespoons of flour, and keep stirring while the drippings bubble and cook the flour. (the amount of flour you add will depend on how much drippings you end up with. start with 1 and move up from there.)
- once the flour/drippings mixture looks darker and bubbly, splash in a little water or maybe some white wine if you have it. start scraping all the sticky bits off the bottom of the pan.
- keep adding liquid a little splash at a time, until the gravy is the consistency that you like.
- add a handful of blackberries, and turn down to low heat and simmer for a while.
- taste, and add salt and pepper if it needs it.

Serve:

- slice the breast, carve off the legs and wings, and scrape out the stuffing. don't be alarmed a the sight of dark purple-y wet blackberry chunks in the stuffing. i temporarily forgot that i had put berries in the stuffing, and thought that those were pieces of bloody guts. then i remembered and felt silly. the gross part is (shhh, don't tell) that i actually considered eating it anyway. just for a minute.

- pour the gravy over it all or serve on the side in a fancy little pitcher. ta dum!

Food hangover and hatching plan(t)s.

2008-03-21T08:19:00.000-07:00

is it possible to have a food hangover? i believe so. and i think that i am suffering from one this morning. it can't possibly be a *real* hangover, as in from drinking to excess, because i didn't. !! i did have a drink before dinner - something called a "london sour" - but i think it was negated by the 2 tons of chinese food that i consumed shortly after.

melissa and alfredo are here from NM and we let them pick dinner. after being secluded in the wilds of new mexico, they were drooling at the prospect of all the different foods to be had. add to that the fact that they used to live here for years and years, and have been missing their old favorite restaurants... well, i'll just say there was no problem of them choosing a place. so we went for victuals and drinks at City Lights of China, in/around dupont circle. it's kind of an old-fashioned-fancy chinese place - good standards, nice booths. we each ordered something and all shared. i suppose i'm not used to all the salty oily goodness, because i feel bloated and ill this morning. and my innards have that wobbly, uncertain feeling that can only mean bad things to come this afternoon.

i am supposed to be writing a grant proposal today. i have an outline ready to go. i've run it by my boss, and got some good ideas to add. but i just can't start it yet. it's too sunny, and i was too busy yesterday to allow for starting it just yet. i need to fool around for a minute first.

i am writing out a list of questions to ask eric during his assessment tomorrow... i am going to take pictures, too. man o man, i can't wait! i love to rearrange furniture (shout out to jessie, in remembrance of our bedroom rearranging at home), and i have rearranged the hell out of my own furniture. i have nearly exhausted all possibilies. i think. so the thought of a blank - and by blank, i guess i mean cluttered and meaningless, canvass thrills me to no end. i hope eric doesn't freak out and give me a bunch of conditions. i want to have carte blanche. (note: i just looked up "carte blanche," to make sure i spelled it correctly - and affirmed its definition to be - "open-ended or vague, and therefore subject to abuse." which is perfect! i want his needs to be vague, so that i can abuse them and do whatever i want.) [insert evil villianess laughter here]

this world is perfect sometimes. blogger just underlined "villianess" to notify me that it doesn't believe that is a real word. blogger suggests that i use the following instead: vaudevillian or, brilliantness. both of which are perfect, too!! this is a perfect word day. i could cry.

in addition to plans, i am also hatching plants! my onions are still alive, which is surprising and good. i moved a tray of lettuce into the cold frame and they are just bustin' loose. the gale-force winds yesterday didn't kill my peas, which is also surprising and good. everything inside is still growing and alive - except for the rest of my gol-darned peppers. !!! they are really pissing me off. i think i am going to start another tray of them, if i don't see progress by sunday. i will try a few different methods of encouraging germination - soak, bleach rinse, shallow planting... all sorts of options. jerky seeds.

the windy plains

2008-03-20T13:00:00.000-07:00

holy jeebus, is it windy today or what? i thought the roof was going to blow off last night. then, this morning as i got into my car, the stinkin' wind slammed the door on my left leg. yowch. i am sitting here at the reference desk facing the big windows that overlook the circle, and the flags are crisp and fluttering at full attention. i have a feeling that it might be kinda cold as well, but i won't find out until i leave at 5:00.

we have houseguests again this weekend - some film friends of scott's, in from new mexico. scott is helping them with a weekend shoot for a Large Corporation in town - he's even getting paid! holy smokes. that absolutely never happens. these guys all work in trade, it seems. "you helped me on that last project i had, so i'll help you out on this one, buddy!" scott just had about 7 billion dollars of work done on his car today, so the extra ca$h won't go unnoticed.

my crafty plans for the weekend (why, oh why, am i acting like it is friday? planning my weekend? that's just asking for trouble.):

- finish secret knitting (not sure why it's secret - it's not like maddie uses the computer yet...)
- buy more yarn for sweater/jacket
- obsess over garden plans
- go to eric's place to give him an assessment for his Apartment Fantabulization(c).

re: that last bit: eric has been a'bitchin-and-a'moanin about the state of his apartment. it's kind of a mess, in the way that scott's house was kind of a mess. loads and stacks of crap everywhere, no apparent order to anything, piles and piles of movies, crooked half-broken shelving, pictures hung in weird places. you get the picture. he always says how much he loves our house, and keeps saying that i should come over and help him... but we're finally going to do it! i'm trying to get ashby to help, but i am willing to do it solo. i'm excited! i love rearranging furniture, and messing with other people's stuff - this will be dandy.

gah, it's only thursday.

TUTORIAL: Build your own cold frame - cheap, quick and easy

2008-03-18T07:41:00.000-07:00

condensed from an earlier post: http://joyandjubilee.blogspot.com/2008/03/im-wearing-green-thumb-for-st-patricks.html

Materials:
Bricks (I think I used about 100 bricks... give or take)
window frame with glass intact
weed cloth
gravel or rocks
fill dirt
topsoil

Hints:
- I got the window from freecycle, and it came with a matching screen which will come in handy to keep squirrels and other rodents away from the vulnerable plants once the top comes off.

- The fill dirt came from my own yard, as did the rocks/gravel

- This kind of installation is perfect for decks and patios, as it can be disassembled easily - or simply used as a planter later in the season.

How-to:
Step 1: Choose your location. You'll want a mostly-sunny spot, but try to find a place that gets at least some shade during the day - otherwise, you run the risk of cooking your plants. If you are constructing this on a deck or raised surface, pick a spot with adequate support and planon making a smaller cold frame. You don't want your deck to collapse!

Step 2: Measure your window, and lay out one layer of bricks in a shape that matches the size and shape of your window. After the first layer is down, place the window on top to check the layout. Make sure that all edges of the window are centered over a brick edge - you don't want the window to overhang the brick edges.

Step 3: Start layering up your bricks. I planned for a smaller cold frame - about 30" x 30", and only about 14" of dirt. Since my area was to be small and shallow, I did not bother mortaring the bricks or supporting the walls in any way. If you are planning a large cold frame, you might considering staggering the bricks for stability (this requires cutting some bricks in half) or using rods to shore things up.

Step 4: Install the liner. After you get to a good depth (at least 12", I'd say), stop laying bricks and get your weed cloth. Most cloth comes on rolls about 36" wide. Cut strips of cloth to cover the entire bottom and sides of the coldframe. If you have to use more than one strip, make sure the strips of cloth overlap a few inches. Let the extra material hang over the sides of your frame for now...

Step 5: Rocks or gravel. Add a layer of rocks or gravel to cover the bottom of the cloth-lined frame. You could also use busted up old flower pots, broken chunks of brick, seashells. Anything to provide a drainage layer at the bottom.

Step 6: Fill dirt. Get fill dirt from somewhere - many people give it away (check freecycle or craigslist) or just dig some out of your own yard. Fill about halfway up with plain fill dirt. If you are feeling fancy, you could skip this step and just fill the whole thing with potting soil.

Step 7 : Potting soil. Dump in a thin layer of potting soil, and work it into the top of the fill dirt. Dump in the rest of your potting soil, up to your desired depth. Tamp down lightly.

Step 8: Finish the bricks. Trim the overhanging weed cloth so that it only overlaps to the middle of the top brick. Place at least another 2 layers of bricks along the entire frame, so that your seedlings and plants will have enough headroom to grow.

Step 9: Place the window flat on top of the frame... and you're done! Simply tilt the window up or remove and place to the side when you need to get into the frame. On sunny days, slide the window so that a crack of fresh air can get in, or just remove one of the corner bricks to let in some air - otherwise you might overheat the interior. Just put the brick back in place at night.

You can see photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/melaniejeanbrown/sets/72157623934475859/

Have fun! You can take this basic idea and fancy it up a multitude of ways...

~Melanie

tumor? tuber?

2008-03-17T12:26:00.000-07:00

okay, so three posts in one day might be a bit excessive. but i just solved a disturbing mystery - all by myself! well, my friend google helped some too - but that hardly counts.

so when i was fussing around in the backyard on saturday, i starting poking around in the flower beds to see what survived the winter. i mostly planted annuals back there, so there wasn't much to see. i noted that i forgot to protect my hibiscus and it perished. oops. and the catnip is already coming back, as well as the cup plant. all good news. i started raking up some of the garbage flotsam and jetsam that accumulated over the winter - mostly carryout containers and malt liquor cans from the drug/prostitution shack across the alley. lar de lar dee lar... rake rake. *thump* the rake hit this skull-shaped lump protruding from the ground, right at the base of the neighbor's board fence. huh? i was almost afraid to see what it was. i jabbed at it with the rake... nothing. i scraped at it, and part of it ripped away to reveal a flesh-colored stringy insides. *yeechk* i scrape some more, and it started to wobble out of its hole, like a large boulder or bowling ball might. i turned the rake around and started jabbing with the handle... and the durned thing popped out of its hole and rolled in a wobbly fashion across the yard, into the alley, and came to rest in the middle of the alley road. it was the size and approximate shape and color of a human head - only with no face. thoroughly grossed out, i just left it there in the middle of the road and returned to fooling around with bricks. much later, i heard a tussle out in the alley and looked out the window to investigate. i saw two drunk old men shoving each other around, walking down the alley drinking beers in bags. they came across the lump/tumor in the road, and halted in their tracks. through the window, i could hear them muttering about it. one of the men tentatively kicked it, and it wobbled toward him. the drunk old guy actually squealed and pawed at his friend's arm - then they skirted around it and continued on their way.

odd.

today, i was thinking about it again. i recalled that i had planted sweet potato vines there last year - the decorative, wildly green and rapidly growing kind that you find in planters and such. "i wonder..." so i called upon google, and wouldn't you know? given enough sun, those decorative plants can occasionally produce large tubers with pale flesh! they are edible, technically, but those strains are cultivated for the decorative and drought-hardy foliage, not for delicious sweet innards. ha! so it wasn't a tumorous, faceless human head in my garden. just a mutant bitter tuber. tumor, tuber. potato, po-tah-to. whatevs.

Pi Party - the aftermath

2008-03-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

Well, i tried to take pictures. i really did try! i took a few at the beginning of the party, but then got sidetracked and distracted and forgot about the camera. oopsie. i guess a few pictures are better than none?

Pi Party!

we ended up with the following pies: frito pie, tybee island pie (sausage, egg, cheese, etc.), key lime pie, raspberry pecan crumble pie, blueberry pie, veggie quiche, chicken pot pie, sweet potato pie, jello shot pie, oreo pie, and i can't think what else. it was a lot of pie.

i'm wearing a green thumb for st. patrick's day

2008-03-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

i forgot to plan for st. patrick's day. i wore a really pretty green and white springy-looking shirt to jennifer's baby shower on saturday. a smarter gal would have saved it for today. oh well. i suppose most people don't care much about that. and besides, i can't be sure if i've got any irish in me (:insert dirty joke here)... but, of late, i do have a green thumb!

so i got a huge, full window set on saturday - through freecycle.dc, from a lady named arlene. the full window (top window, bottom window, and frame) was as tall as i am! and heavy heavy, to boot. i drove over there to pick it up, and it took both arlene and me several minutes to wrestle it into the back of my car. as it turns out, arlene is a fellow freecycle-addict. we compared stories of trying to fit huge heavy items into our small cars. i told her how i had to tie a bicycle to the lid of my trunk using shoelaces taken from my shoes, and how 3/4 of the bike hung out of the back as i drove all the way from upper wisconsin ave. she topped me with a story about how she used tubesocks to tie her passenger door shut, to hold in the oversized futon in her backseat. good times. i like to close freecycle transactions with a brisk handshake, and a heartfelt "long live freecycle!"

so i wrestled the window home (note: it had been sitting in her back yard for god-knows how long, and was covered in mud/dead bugs/leaves/cobwebs), through the house, and onto the back deck. "hmm. there has to be a way to dismantle this thing....," i thought. there was! i found about 18 kajillion little screws holding the frame together. once those were gone, the whole thing came apart. i threw the frame pieces into the wasteland under the deck, and i was left with 2 windows and one screen - each about 30"x30". perfect!

at this point, i thought briefly about stopping right there - maybe finish up on sunday... our pi party ran really late on friday night, and i had gotten up bright and early to make it to the baby shower... but i kept on going, knowing that if i stopped i would likely never finish the project. so i slapped on some sunscreen and some cruddy jeans and went to work. i had to duck-walk in a crouch, under the deck, to fish out the bricks leftover from the patio project. duck-walk in, grab a maximum load of 5 bricks, duck-walk out, stand up without smashing skull on overhanging deck, walk to deck stairs, walk up stairs... make tiny insignificant stack of 5 bricks. repeat. over and over again. not to mention the fact that the stack of bricks, in the creepy under-deck, were covered in unidentifiable schmutz - dead spiders, rotten paper from who-knows-where, hobo germs, a tuft of what i can only guess was rat hair, feral cat pee, and a layer of freshly hatched baby slugs. i had the heebie-jeebies like you wouldn't believe. at one point, i picked up a brick and a chunk of muddy rubble rolled down my bare arm. i promptly dropped all the bricks from my arms, and high speed duck-walked outta there making panicked gibberish sounds along the lines of "ghurr, ghurr, ghurr!" but i persevered, and moved a goodly number of the bricks up to the deck proper.

i measured (!) out the size of the window, and plotted out a space on the deck where i wanted to construct the cold frame. i chose a spot in a sort-of out of the way corner, closest to the strongest support beams. i then laid out the bricks to match the size of the window, and started stacking. due to the shape of the cold frame, and also my laziness, i didn't want to have to cut any bricks. thusly, i couldn't stagger the bricks. those of you who have played with legos or blocks, you know that this could be a problem. but i think that the walls are shallow enough that it shouldn't be an issue. so anyway. i stacked the walls up 4 bricks high, then lined the entire thing with weedproof cloth (also leftover from the brick patio experience), followed by a layer of gravel and smallish rocks from the "yard." now for the dirt. hmmm... dirt. i recalled that i had left a dirtpile by the deck stairs (product of often mentioned patio project), so i shoveled that into a series of buckets and empty flower pots and transported the lot up to the deck, and dumped it in. hmmm. this is going to take a lot of dirt. i was too tired to think of driving to home depot for potting soil, so i proceeded to empty all unoccupied planters and pots into the new cold frame bed. i made it! then trimmed the weed cloth to overhang the bricks a bit, and stacked up 2 more rows of bricks. just made it! i used up EXACTLY every brick that i had. how's that for perfect? the dirt ended up being about 14" deep, with about 8" of headroom to the top. capped off with one of the windows, it makes a handsome mini-greenhouse thingie for the deck. once the plants get hardy enough, i will just leave the window off and i'll have a nice raised vegetable bed right there on the deck. yay! i figure the screen will be handy for transitional times, when the plants will be vulnerable to the crazy-ass alley squirrels. anytime they see me messing around in the yard, they wait until nightfall to dig the crap out of everything looking for bulbs, edible seeds, hamburgers, DVDs, whatever it is they are after. a nice screen should keep them out for a night or two until they lose interest.

to test things out, i moved 24 little onion sproutlings out there. i hope i don't kill them. i have some really healthy tomato seedlings coming along, too! but they aren't going outside for a while. i did, however, move the sugar peas outside on saturday. they were threatening to climb all over the inside of my house, devouring us and the furniture a la the ruins. i think they'll be fine out there. it's been sunny and 50/60 during the day lately, and high 30s at night. just fine for peas and lettuce.

For more gardening adventures, go to my flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/melaniejeanbrown/sets/72157604129426864/

happy PI DAY!

2008-03-14T11:07:00.000-07:00

i've done lots of tedious, boring, probably pointless work today thus far. i've declared it is now time to take a break. i made a list of things that i need to do before par-tay-time tonight - mostly involving a little last-minute straightening up in the house, and stopping off at stores to pick up stuff. i need to get PRIZES for the party tonight. i generally feel a smidgen simple/retarded when i give prizes for stuff at parties, but it always turns out to be a huge hit. people like to win stuff, in general. we have an old TV that we need to get rid of - i only-halfway-jokingly told scott that i am going to make the tv the door prize. if anything, just to say: "and the winner is so-and-so! you've won a 30" screen color TV!!!" - much in the way of a game show announcer. but maybe some people don't want a TV. hmm. i guess there's a problem. julie and i are going to franklin's pub after work to pick out prizes. in addition to being a sit-down pub/restaurant, they have a general store which sells odd microbrews and weird imported beer, but also crazy hot sauces... and they have a whole room devoted to repro toys, weird games, retro candies, gag gifts, and just strange stuff. and cheap. perfect for random party prizes. i think i will make people vote and i'll give prizes for tastiest pie, most creative, and then a randomly drawn door prize. or maybe i'll just keep all the prizes for myself. we'll see just how dorky i am feeling when the time comes.

so that's that.

in other news, i am currently trolling freecycle to find some discarded windows. i'd like to make my cold-frame box on sunday, if i can. pretty soon it will be warm enough that i won't need one. i am also obsessively entering a contest to win a free composter. the contest is on the gardening blog - which i won't reveal the name of, because i selfishly don't want the competition taking away from my chances to win. !! i am not very nice that way. but i can enter once a day until march 31. then i'll tell you if i win. the composter is one of those barrel-kind that you crank to turn the goop inside. and it's rat-proof so any templetons in the neighborhood won't be able to gorge on the garbage:

"A fair is a veritable smorgasbord-orgasbord-orgasbord,
after the crowds have ceased.
Each night when the lights go out
it can be found on the ground all around...
Oh, what a ratly feast!"

i have always liked templeton. he's a rat who tells it like it is. a straight-shooter, if you will.

other plans for the weekend include: a baby shower on saturday, and a long training walk on sunday. in between times i want to fiddle around in the yard.

little babies, growing up!

2008-03-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

Maddie (a.k.a. Cutest Baby Ever)

Nilsson (a.k.a. Stinkerpants)

pass the peas, please

2008-03-12T09:10:00.000-07:00

so this is the time of year when i become obsessed with my garden. i've found that i can help ease the obsession by planting seeds that sprout almost faster than immediately. like peas. i planted the seeds on march 1st - and the seedlings already have real leaves and are climbing about 6 inches above the soil. 11 days, man! that's fast enough to keep me occupied. the rest are chugging along nicely. Other superfast sprouters are hollyhocks. i think i will put the peas outside this weekend - it's only been getting down to lows in the upper 40s around here, and a random frost or two shouldn't hurt anything. peas are toughies. these are mammoth melting sugar - i've also planted lincoln garden peas, but those haven't sprouted yet. i thought it would be good to stagger things a bit.

i've also been obsessing over knitting projects, but in a much more half-assed, scattered manner. i just finished part 1 of secret-baby-project (shhh!) - i'll cast on the second half tonight. i have stalled out on the grocery tote bag (1/2 done), the straps to keep the lid on the gerbil cage (1/3 done), and i ran out of yarn on my "sophisticated rustic sweater" (dammit!! i forgot AGAIN to bring the yarn info with me, so i can buy more. grrr...). i am also printing all sorts of interesting future projects. luckily everyone i know is growing babies, so i will be occupied for a while. baby things are fun - small = quick to knit, soft yarn, cute things that adults would be shamed for wearing (hats with ears, cardigans with frogs embroidered on them, stupid looking cardigans, etc.). my next challenge might involve more complicated shaping... knitting in the round, perchance? i have some leftover sock yarn laying around - maybe i'll try a sock?

and our PI PARTY is this friday!! yahooie! in honor of the date being Pi (or, the shortened approximated version of Pi) - 3.14 - i am hosting a pi party. the food, of course, will be pie. !! potluck style, so who knows what we're going to end up with. i am making frito pie, i think. i have leftover chili in the freezer, so that'll be easy... i'll post pictures of the aftermath.

sowing seeds: porn and gardening?

2008-03-11T06:57:00.000-07:00

well, i was all fired up last night when i got home from work. i planted another tray of 72 seedlings, using the seeds i got yesterday. the trays that i use contain 72 little pods of soil/peat that i plump up by pouring warm water all through the tray. then, i gently squeeze each one at the base and use a pencil to poke a small hole in the center of each little pod. then, i drop 2 seeds into each little hole and pinch/tamp the pod back together. pour on a little more warm water (fortified with a smidgen of fertilizer), put on the greenhouse lid and secure with rubber bands to keep devil-kitty out. done! i usually do 6 pods of each kind of seed. in the past, usually one pod doesn't sprout... then i kill off one or two during the transplant process. so out of six, i get 3 or 4 healthy plants. not too shabby for a lazy/not-very-dedicated gardener. if i have too many healthy plants, i will give them to courtney or scott's dad.

so as i plugged away in the sunroom, sowing seeds and creating life... scott was in the living room watching norwegian pornstars sow their own kinds of seeds. !! seriously! well, there was a reason. i suppose i should tell you that. scott is volunteering as a "screener" for the SilverDocs documentary film festival held at the American Film Institute Silver Theatre. SilverDocs is one of the largest documentary film festivals in the worlds, and it gets thousands of submissions - which it weeds down to a hundred or so. as a screener, scott gets assigned stacks of DVDs each week. he watches them, makes notes, then writes a summary, assessment and recommendation for each one. some are okay, some are really compelling, and some are just horrible.

last night, he watched several - all from norwegian filmmakers. the first was just great - i was trying to build a new house for the gerbils, but i kept drifting over to the couch to see what was happening. it relayed the account of this norwegian skiier/climber/adventurer who, along with his best friend, decided to climb mt. everest - then SKI down the other side. !!! his friend never made it. it was beautifully shot, exciting, and touching. very good. then he put on the next one, about this off-the-cuff norwegian porn star who recruits high school seniors to act in his porn films. sort of like girls-gone-wild meets american idol meets some else really pornographic and depressing. most of the film follows the story of the pornstar/director's girlfriend, as she progresses from one of his high school recruits to pornstar to jealous girlfriend watching on the sidelines. it was quite good, but i can't see it playing at the festival. it had a few really graphic moments - not exciting, but just to show the sort of businesslike, no nonsense aspect of making a porno (bright lights, setting up the more splattery scenes, orchestrating scenes). illuminating, kind of depressing. but i can't see it playing the big screen at the AFI. :)

so that's that.

seeds, glorious seeds!

2008-03-10T11:20:00.000-07:00

okay, so i just got the BEST package in the mail! my seeds! i ordered them back on the 5th, and have been complaining and griping about how slow this company was to ship... but my patience (or lack of) has been rewarded - the seeds came today! here is an exhaustive list:

Lincoln (garden peas)
Peppermint
Black Hungarian (peppers)
Hungarian Hot Wax (sounds like a kinky, possibly illegal hygienic treatment, but it's a pepper)
Golden Treasure (again, sounds kinky but it's simply a pepper...)
Mini Red Bell (pepper)
Purple Plum (pepper)
Five Color Silverbeet (Chard)
Zuccino Rampicante (zuccinni)
St. Pierre (tomato)
Egg (tomato)
Bloody Butcher (tomato)

I ordered from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, based on a recommendation from a gardening blog that I read. I think I love this company. Cheaper than Behnke Nursery, by far, plus Baker Creek delivers. I had ordered, in addition to the list above, sugar peas and parsley - but apparently they ran out of stock before they filled my order. Instead of refunding my debit account, they sent back 4 dollar bills stapled to a little envelope containg a quarter! my change! $4.25! how sweet. plus a little note of apology AND two free packets of seeds!!! sunflowers and something called Lemon Cucumber. yahoo! definitely worth the wait.

Already in the starting trays I have:

hollyhocks (sprouting already)
marigolds
scallion
mammoth melting sugar (peas)
dill
poppies

I've already planted some spring mix and other various lettuces outside. Somehow, lettuce turned into a perennial without notifying me. I have several renegade patches that sprouted back up in late november. who knew? well, maybe you knew that lettuce could do that. but i didn't.

if you've seen my backyard, you might be questioning my sanity or my grasp on reality. where the fudge am i going to fit all these plants?? well, i have one billion (approx.) containers and several large planters that i will use. plus some creativity in the yard area. i have plans. oh yes. plans. in addition, i am factoring in the plant death-rate that i have established through the years. i do very well during the beginning. then in late may, when i leave for a week, about 1/2 of the populations perishes either in a freakish heat wave or drowns in a freakish deluge of precipitation. so there's that.

oh! and i managed, for the first year, to NOT kill my Giant Moonstone Goldenlorious Trumpet Vine (not really it's name - but it is something dramatic like that. i just can't remember offhand.) i buy a small one each year at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival - not cheaply, at $7 per little sprout. each year i am similarly inspired by the giant potted version that the vendor displays - it reaches easily 6 feet tall, covered in lovely golden-yellow trumpet flowers. each year it grows nicely through the summer... i bring it in when the cold fall begins... then i forget about it until sometime around christmas, when it is long-since dead. not this year! i've kept it alive (barely) through thick and thin - even through our poor baby kitty using it as a litter box for a week. i hope i didn't speak too soon and kill the durn thing before spring really arrives.

i also hope that the aforementioned kitty doesn't get curious and dig up all my seedling whilst i am away at work. well, i've always wanted a pair of kitten mittens. no time like the present!

WALKERONI

2008-03-07T12:23:00.000-08:00

Walkeroni? Sounds like pepperoni. Yumm, pizza.

Oh, rainy dreary afternoon. No snow for us wicked district residents. Just chilly drizzly rain that promises to turn to a deluge just in time for evening rush hour. Lucky for me, I don’t have to go on the freeway to get home. Although, I can’t say my commute is much safer. Just yesterday, this crazy bitch was trying to race me to a traffic light – someone in her lane was stopped, waiting to turn left, and this lady wanted to cut into my lane to get around the turning car. No way, jose. My general rule is this: if you are so short-sighted and distracted in driving that you wait until the very last minute to get around an obstacle… then you richly deserve your fate. Pay attention! Plan ahead, people! Look around you. This is how you defensively drive. But I digress.

So this crazy lady is zooming up on my left, and I say to myself, ‘ha, ha! Think again!” and I gently close the gap ahead of me as we both approach the stopped car ahead. She zooms forward, then drops quickly back, but the guy behind me closes his gap (good man!) and at the last minute she zooms ahead again to get in front of me. Too late! Way, way too late! She gently rams the front left corner of my bumper, swerves back into her lane, almost smashes right into the poor stopped car… before giving up the fight and sitting behind the left turner. I couldn’t pull over at that spot, then in my mirror I saw her yank out around some other person before zooming past me again. I couldn’t get her license number because of the sun glare, so all I could do was flip her off as she made a crazy turn off onto a side street. Thanks be to plastic bumpers, as I don’t even have a single scratch to show for the whole encounter. And it cheered me no end that she lost the race.

But all that is beside the point. Is there a point? I forget. It’s Friday and my boss is leaving early. I have had a busy busy stressful week, and my brain has been closed for new business since lunchtime. I plan to mentally design my vegetable garden… daydream about sewing projects… obsessively stalk the blogs on my google reader… I also have a plan to make a cold-frame for my garden in the back – I have a formidable stack of bricks left over from last year’s patio project and I’ve been wanting to build a cold-frame. I am going to scrounge up an old window on freecycle or craigs list, then use the bricks to wall in a small raised bed the same dimensions of the window… plus, oh, say about 1.5 feet deep. Then I’ll line the bed with weed cloth and fill with dirt, and top with the window! Instant cold-frame. Maybe I’ll build that this weekend. There’s been a lot of illicit action in the abandoned garage across the alley. I should have plenty of opportunity to call the coppers if I’m out putzing in the yard all day.

My only other mission is to plot out a long, winding 12-mile walk for tomorrow’s training session. I went with Julie and her friends last weekend, for a 12 miler. It was fine. Honestly! I had a few kinks for the first 100 yards or so (you know, wedgie, crooked-feeling-shoe, itchy tag in my shirt, something crinkly in the pocket, etc.) but those went away in pretty short order. Then it was fine for quite some time. A little boring, but not bad. Then around 7 miles my right hip area started to get sore – at our pace, this was just under 2 hours into the walk. The soreness soon turned into throbbing. Which turned into feeling like someone stabbed me right in the center of my butt cheek. I was really to turn in the towel at about 10 miles, but somehow made it through the last 2. I walked like a rusty robot for the whole next day, but was back to normal by Monday. So I am ready to go again this weekend! It can only get better, no?

2008-02-07T12:24:00.000-08:00

Well I haven’t done a very good job of sticking to my “resolution” of posting to this site more often. I use quotes because I hestitate to call it a resolution, really. There were no oaths taken, no witnesses to my proclamation (except maybe you), and I had no real desire to stick with the resolution…

Anyhoo. Here I sit, at the reference desk. I am taking a wee break from actual work – cataloging archival materials, snore – to do some virtual work.

I might be the last person on planet Earth to hear of google reader. Am I? please say that you haven’t heard of it either. Or just lie, and say you haven’t. we’ll be better friends for it. Anyway! Google reader. You sign in, and add a bunch of websites and blogs that you obsessively check all the livelong day. Then google reader does the obsessing for you, alerting you only when something new is posted. W-w-w-w-w-wow! This handy little tool has saved me many hours of sliding around on the interwebs. You know how it goes:

Hypothetical job morning situation:

- Lar-dee-lar-dee-lar… let’s see, I think I’ll get some coffee! Yes. (10 minutes later, due to line at machine and morning chattiness)

- Ahhh… much better. Now I can begin. No, well, maybe I’ll check a few things online first – get that business out of the way…

- Hotmail! Hmm, junk, 2 real messages, oh ha ha ha guys, very funny [reply, reply].

- Now LOLCATS, of course… then cuteoverload… nice, nice….

- Then several knitting and crafting blogs… oooh, a new link to making shoes out of old napkins… interesting (15 minutes lost in tunnel of links)

- Now, jessie’s blog (what??!! No new pictures??!!)…

- Oooh! Maybe someone replied to an email! Back to Hotmail… nope.

- Maybe someone added new pictures to their Flickr! Hmmm, no.

- Another blog…. Too newsy today. Skip.

- Oooh! Maybe I got an email! Back to hotmail. Nope. But what’s this about TomKat? And Britney?

- And down the rabbithole you go…. And suddenly 40 minutes are gone, your eyes are shiny and dry, and you feel a bit dazed.

- Oooh, but maybe someone sent me an email…

And I think we all know how it happens. But google reader has saved my guilty conscience! I just check it obsessively instead, and it does all the work for me! *whew* what a relief. Now I probably only waste about 30 minutes total during the day – instead of 30 minutes here and there all day long.

New subject begins here: so julie and I signed up for a big walk in april. 50 kilometers! That’s 30 miles (ish? Not sure if that’s exact… regardless, that’s a long walk!) I signed scott up too. Julie and I have started training – just taking walks after work. Problem is, it gets dark by 6:00 so we can’t get too far on the trails around here. and last time we discovered a nest of hobos under the river road overpass. it's not a trail that you want to go waltzing around in the dark by yourself. We’ll have to start taking loooong walks on the weekends, to log some miles. The longest I have ever walked was in high school – a fundraiser for my spanish club trip to spain. 20 miles? Or something in that range. I don’t recall my legs being that tired, but I did have blisters. And the WORST part was the swelling of the fingers. Man, I remember walking miles with my hands way up in the air, like I was being held at gunpoint, just to help the awful swelling and pain. I really felt like my fingers would split their skins like plump bratwurst on a grill. So we are getting all sorts of tips for avoiding the finger-swell. Eeesh.

Speaking of sports – we are going skiing this weekend!! Yahoo! I haven’t been skiing in years and years. It’s to celebrate cliff’s birthday (which he dubbed “cliffmas” several years ago). So me and scott, cliff and courtney, dan and his sister and brother-in-law – we are all piling into the Dun-groves new honda pilot to head up to carroll valley, PA, to liberty mountain! I hope I don’t hurt myself. I also hope that scott is more flexible and nimble on skis. I’ve seen him on ice skates, and it’s enough to chill the blood in my veins.

Next weekend I am heading up to ohio, to spend the nice long weekend with my folks and with jess, david and maddie! I can’t wait to see el baby-o again. After that, we enter into the spring calendar doldrums. No more long weekends until memorial day. L we don’t get columbus day off.

I don’t have any new finished crafts to speak of. I have an unfinished strap for the lid of the gerbil cage… and an unfinished gracery tote bag. And that’s it. The stinky cat is intent on shredding all my yarn. It’s a good thing he’s so cute and wiggly, or he might have ended up in my frying pan by now.

alright, back to work everyone! ooooh, unless someone sent me an email....

HATE.

2008-01-17T12:10:00.000-08:00

i am filled with rage. i realize that it's not fair for me to feel entitled to a early dismissal, just because the weather is dodgy. i mean, that means that i don't mind swindling my non-profit employer out of hard-earned cash. but i don't mind. and i do feel entitled. and NOW that it is 3:15 and there has been NO EMAIL FROM OFFICE SERVICES i am getting m-i-i-i-i-ghtily pissed off. the snow has been faltering for some time, but i've seen early dismissals here for a slight sneezing of dry snow - let alone inches of wet gloopy icy mush and sn0w. bastards. i blame it all on the fact that we have a new CEO and he is trying to play hardball with us. we'll see about THAT.

oh snowy day

2008-01-17T08:47:00.000-08:00

i am not going to get much work done today. i'll tell you that right now. the snow is just too pretty! and too long overdue. it doesn't help that one whole wall of my office is a giant window. it's just too easy to sit here and stare, wishing for sledding hills... snow ice cream... moon boots... forts. unfortunately i live in washington, DC and by nightfall the snow will be a mushy mess of half-melted sleety grey yuck. it doesn't often get cold enough here for snow to really last. every couple of years we get royally dumped on. but that generally only happens when my parents come to visit, and they aren't coming here any time soon.

currently i am praying that we get to go home early. it's pretty much guaranteed that we will leave *early* - it's just a question of when. i am guessing it will be 3:00, but i am not-so-secretly praying that it will be 1:00. fat chance.

in other news, maddie is 8 weeks old! i just can't believe it. she gets cuter every day, as evidenced by:

that little face just kills me. i need to plan my next visit home...

so scott left for park city, utah this morning, for the slamdance film festival. he and eric are showing "las historias mas sexy del mundo, II." man, he's pretty excited. i can't wait to hear about all his adventures when he returns... it is in the same city and at the same time as the sundance film festival, and there is some overlap. maybe there will be star sightings! shit! i forgot to remind him to take the camera.... grrrr.... maybe he remembered? not likely. he was pretty frazzled, getting stuff ready at the last minute.

oh yeah, and i finally got out aunt judy's old sewing machine over the weekend. i was deathly ill with a monster cold, but i managed to sew a DUVET COVER. what???! i couldn't manage to shower for two days, or put on real clothes... but i sewed a patchwork DUVET COVER? that's just messed up. i blame the fever. but it looks pretty nice. i should take a picture. i had a huge box of fabric that came from the mother of one of scott's friends. most of the fabric was gross old-lady stuff - but there was a nice selection of soft corduroy. i made 15"x15" squares of dark purple and dark blue, and alternated in a nice pattern. then i backed it with a white flannel sheet that i had laying around. the result is a heavier cover than i had before, and much much warmer and cozier all around. success! and without a pattern, no less. i should get an award.

at the moment i am reasonably obsessed with the clothes on this website: http://www.mina-perhonen.jp/

and my new 2008 work calendar, the "crackpot calendar, 2008"

lovely stuff! maybe i'll sew more this afternoon, during the snow day (the snow day that had BETTER arrive, that is...). scott is gone until next tuesday, and michele (new housemate) is leaving too - so i have the whole house to myself! for a long weekend! yaaaaaaaaa-hooooo!

hmm. lunchtime has arrived, and i packed some homemade curried split-pea/sweet potato soup. it's hungry-time.

New pictures of Maddie!

2008-01-08T07:12:00.000-08:00

okay, so i stole these from jessie and david's blog

i couldn't resist! she looks so absolutely sweet and silly.

new pictures!

2008-01-03T10:28:00.000-08:00

i uploaded a bunch of old pictures from the 'puter last night - and took some new ones of nilsson! here's the nilsson set: nilsson pictures!

2008

2008-01-02T11:37:00.000-08:00

okay, so maybe this will be a year where i actually do stuff that i say i will, like: post more regularly; start working out again; do shit on time, rather than late; be less redundant in speech and action; take more pictures; be creative. all sorts of things. maybe? here's to hoping!

if i had to sum up 2007 in an awkwardly worded sentence, it would be: the year in which i fucked up significantly less things in my life, learned to knit, and got a niece. ! of course, the year was much more than that, and in some ways less. but that first part about f-ing up less things - that covers a LOT of territory, and it is a change that i hope to repeat each year. and learning to knit - that falls under a yearly resolve to be more creative, and i hope to continue more this year. and my niece, madeline, well that's just a perfect way to end a year. :) bessie and david are just doing a great job already, and maddie is just as cute as can be. i'm just sad that i am so far away.

so i've been busy for the past month...

our previous renter moved out, and new one moved in. that involved a shit-ton of work to get her bedroom and bathroom looking good. the old renter was one dirty dirty slob at times. i borrowed julie's carpet steam-cleaner and used up hours of my life cleaning the carpet. i almost threw up the first time i emptied the water cannister. the waste water was blacker than wonder woman's hair. about 6 or 7 cannisters later, the water was the color of a nice grey wool sweater that i have and i declared it was clean enough. then the painting and cleaning. all in all, it took a week - a week in which i should have been doing christmas shopping and addressing holiday cards. you can probably guess which went by the wayside this year...

poor old duchess passed away the day after thanksgiving. rest in peace, duchess. we hadn't planned on getting another pet anytime soon... but some friends of ours found a little wild kitty in the storm sewer in front of their building, and we ended up adopting a very sweet grey and white chubby little one-eyed furball - now named nilsson. yes, one-eyed! the vet suspected that he had a massive infection at birth, which shriveled his right eye. there is still a lingering infection in the ear and nostril on that same side, and his widdle baby teefers on the right side are decayed. but the ear and nose are clearing up and once his big teeth come in he should be fine. poor little kitty! we finally got a new memory card for the camera, so i'll try and get some pictures tonight. he is extremely friendly and feisty and purrs almost non-stop. little stinker.

i had a terrific christmas visit at my folks in ohio. scott got to come for a few days this year, so after 3+ years dating - we spent our first christmas together! yay for that. there was much merry-making, card playing, baby kissing, and general holiday goodness. we spent new years eve at our friend ian's house. i stayed up way too late and drank a smidgen too much sparkling wine - but hey. what are new years eve's for, if not for that?

and now i am back at work for the first time in a week and a half. i am pretty much brain-dead and just farting around on the computer - but i am putting on a good show of getting stuff done. i've developed a system over the years: the day before i leave for vacation, i clean up all mysterious abandoned piles of crap, do some filing. then i put sticky-notes on absolutely EVERYTHING, stating what the next action is for each item. even if it may be obvious: "proof, then return to so-and-so" or "finish list and mail letters" or "catalog and put in archive." then i leave a pile of 7 or 8 easy tasks on my desk. that way if i get hit by a bus, then there aren't any mysteries - and - i have a totally scripted day for my first day or two back in the office. plus, just having a super-clean office makes me look more productive for that first day back. bonus! so today i've done 5 of my scripted tasks, and can prolly knock off one or two more. that, plus tooling around on the internet, makes for a reasonably busy first day back without having to use my brain at all. yay, me.

mid-november updates

2007-11-16T07:20:00.000-08:00

okay, so jessie STILL HASN'T HAD THAT BABY. grrrr. aunty melly is getting m-i-g-h-t-y impatient, let me tell you. but i suppose that kind of impatience pales in comparison to what jessie is going through. so i should probably keep my trap shut and wait.

my birthday is rapidly approaching, and i haven't quite decided on the tone of the evening yet. i want to have some friends over to hang out, drinks some drinks, play some games - it will either be on my birthday (a thursday this year) or the day after, friday. i need to make a decision...

i had the worst wendy's-related experience of my LIFE today at lunch. maybe even the worst fast food experience of anyone's life. i was busy down in the archives all morning, and totally forgot that i didn't pack my lunch today. i was planning on ordering sushi delivery, but i spazzed and forgot all about it. so at 1:00, when all my pals were gathering in the lunchrooom, i had to haul ass over to wendy's to buy some emergency lunch. before i left, jennifer asked that i buy her a junior cheeseburger - no tomato, no onion. so i cheerily speed off to the nearby wendy's, i waited in line at the drive-thru, and it came time for me to order:

lady: can i help you.
me: yes, um, can i get a ham and cheese sandwhich, no mayo... (pause)
lady: ham-n-cheese combo, what else?
me: no, actually, just the ham and cheese - no combo, and...
lady: [interrupts] that it?
me: i also need to get a small chili and a junior cheeseburger, no tomato, no onion
lady: so that's a ham and cheese, a small chili, and a junior cheeseburger no mayo no onion... that it?
me: well, um, no mayo on the ham and cheese, and the junior cheeseburger was no tomato, no onion...
lady: *big sigh* junior cheese, no mayo no onion. please pull around.
me: .... [thinking: this is going to be bad...]

so i pulled up to the window, and my total was $6.59. i had some random change, so i started picking a coin up and she slammed the window in my face and started taking drive-thru orders from her headset. grrr. i waited there with my change ready, and she finally opened back up and took my money - i gave her $20.09. she took a few more orders, griping into her headset "you gonna have to just wait - YOU JUST GONNA HAVE TO WAIT!" to the poor ordering people behind me... she then shoved a pile of money into my hand and slammed the window. i counted $15.00. huh? i was expecting $13.50 - i needed the quarters. so i waited, and eventually she opened the window to say, whilst looking at me like i'm retarded, "what are you waiting on?" i said, "well, you gave me the wrong money... see.." she interrupted with, "YOU gave ME $20.59! i keyed in $20.59!" hmmm. i replied, politely, "no, i gave you a $20 bill, and 9 cents. i didn't have that much change, so i gave you a nickel and 4 pennies." to which she replied, with death in her eyes, "so THAT'S what you're waiting on - 4 CENTS?!?" double-huh? "no, actually, i need 50 cents and you gave me 2 extra dollars..." she stared at me, slammed the window shut and yelled for someone to open her drawer. then she opened back up, shoved 50 cents in my hand and slammed the window, once again. i took the money, then sat there trying to figure out the math of what just happened. i counted, recounted in my head, drew invisible math problems on the steering wheel... i was interupted by the nasty lady slamming open the window again, to say "WHAT are you WAITING for lady?" me: "um.... my food?" (hahaha) so she grumbled a bit, turned around and grabbed my sack of food and shoved it at me. i drove away, head reeling with money math. wtf? i got back to the lunchroom, and expressed my rage and puzzlement at the whole encounter and told the whole dumb story while i doled out everyone's orders. i laughingly said that i was certain that i would end up with mayo on my sandwich. which i did , of course. hardee har har, we all had a laugh at that. then jennifer looked puzzled and held up 2 strips of bacon - "i have bacon and tomato on mine!" when she asked for a regular cheeseburger, no tomato, no onion. i looked at the receipt and it said: junior bacon cheeseburger, the works, no mayo. HAHAHA! moron! but at least i got an extra $2 out of the whole thing... geez.

the christmas cactus in my office is blooming! i don't know how the hell those things work - i heard you were supposed to put them in the dark for a few months, like a poinsettia. but i never do... and yet, sometime in mid-november, the silly thing starts sprouting elaborate pick and white flowers! i'm not complaining, just wondering.

scott started his new job and he is busy and loving it so far. his and eric's last music video was mentioned in the washington post today, in a feature on the band. cool! he was also approached by another local musician, carol bui, for a video... she just got a good review in pitchfork.

it's almost 4:00 on a friday. woot! and i only have to work 2 days next week, then it's a nice long holiday at home in ohio.

the memory card in our camera died and i have yet to buy a new one. thus, the lack of pictures in my posts. but! i think there are probably some new ones on my flickr page, in case you haven't see it in a while. actually, maybe not. i have some from chicago and other places on the computer, but i haven't uploaded them yet... oops. next time!

our housemate, eric, is moving out in a few weeks and we have a new prospect lined up - she is coming by on monday to take a look-see. i hope she can see past the gouged walls and stained carpet of the bedroom (which we *are* painting before she would move in), and the occassional (okay, everyday) hallway-tinkles of the elderly bladder of an even more elderly cat. i hope.

fall is officially here! the leaves are finally at their peak (mid november!!?? what they hey??!) and it is getting nice and chilly. still highs in the upper 40s, so not quite cold yet - but we're getting there!

my hair is shameful. i need a cut, but am too lazy/forgetful

i have learned to knit! and i am planning on doing some crafting/sewing with my friend ashby this weekend. don't worry everyone. you won't be getting popsicle picture frames and crocheted handbags with bobbles and tassles. but! i did make myself a pair of slippers the other day. and a scarf. amongst other secret things.

i can't think of anything else to say. so i'll leave you with that. goodbye.

it's a two-fer!

2007-09-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

as in, two-fer-the-price-o-one! two posts in one day! actually, that's cheating a bit. i wrote that last one a few weeks ago, and forgot to post it. it had been sitting in my "drafts" pile until i noticed it there this morning. oopsie.

well, i got back from chicago a few weeks ago. the SAA conference was a success - met some new folks, caught up with old pals, glad-handed and did some networking. drank too much at the swank closing party. all good times! i also did a lot of walking and sight-seeing - at least one of the days, my pedometer (which i didn't even have on me all the time) read 6.87 miles! for one day! that's a lot, for me. it stunk that scott couldn't go with me... but next year, the conference is being held in san fransicso - yahoo! i think he is going to make it a priority to come with me to CA. i mean, free hotel? comped meals? what more could you ask for...

in other news, i started bike commuting last week! i've been talkin'-big about doing it for a month or so, but i finally took the plunge last week. i'm going to try and bike in at least two days per week. last week i did two, this week so far i've done two. pretty good start! and it's getting a bit easier each time. the trip is about 9 miles each way - so that's 18 miles in one day! it sounds more staggering than it really is, but it's still more biking than i'd have the patience to do at the gym. the trip to work in the morning is mostly flat - several miles of gradual downhill (which is nice) and a few short steep hills. unfortunately, that means the trip home (when i am the most weary) ends with several miles of gradual incline. yuck. i am usually ready to kiss the ground by the time i get home. i really need a better bike though. mine (looks like this, but mint green) is so heavy and slow. i have mentally spent my tax return for next year - come spring 2008, melly is getting a new bike!

i had a really horribly day yesterday. i rode my bike to work, and i was about 3 miles from home when i realized i forgot my purse. :( and my lunch. too late to turn back, i just kept going. i was a few minutes late for work, then i got a call from the dentist reminding me that my cleaning appointment was that afternoon. my dentist is in downtown DC. !!! i couldn't just leave my bike at the office and take the metro downtown - since i left my purse at home, i had to go there first anyway. so i changed back into my sweaty clothes and rode home. halfway home, i ran through a huge length of fishing line that some jackass left laying around, and it wrapped all around my gears. without a pocketknife, i hacked away with pointy rocks for about 20 minutes in the blazing sun. i got my bike to pedal forward, but i couldn't coast or stop without my chain falling off. EVERY TIME. and i was stuck in the hardest gear. i almost got run over by two semi-trucks - at the same time. and it took me an hour and a half to get home. then i had to walk to the train, go downtown, walk about 6 blocks to the dentist... then repeat. i was BEAT last night, but had many chores to do and didn't get to bed until after midnight. :( good news being, i was able to remove the fishing line and my bike seems to be okay.

it's finally fall, here in the city... cool nights, warm sunny days. yay! everything is still green, but i imagine we'll start seeing some leaf-changes in a couple of weeks. september and october are already filling up with "events" - virginia state fair, renaissance festival, apple-picking, full moon hike at the arboretum... side trip to visit tammy in hershey, PA. and! jessie's baby shower is this coming weekend!!!!! i can't wait! i have some presents to wrap - i've been crafty lately... i hear there are cousins stay at mom and dad's, and a bonfire/wienie-roast on friday!

i'll post some pictures tomorrow or soon. i have chicago pictures and other assorted shots to put on my flickr page, and i need to empty the camera before i come home this weekend.

the blogs that i check daily

2007-08-20T13:26:00.000-07:00

okay, so i've been slow (s-l-o-o-o-o-w) about catching on to this whole "blogging" thing. I still don't really get it all the way, and as you can tell from my own "blog" that I just treat it as a place to update my family and friends and tell them where to find my vacation pictures. stuff like that. but there are a few blogs and websites out there that i check every so often, and i thought you might like to check them out too:

http://brooklyntweed.blogspot.com (this site is run by this guy in brooklyn - he knits the most beautiful things!)

http://lonecellotheory.livejournal.com/ (my friend ian's blog, who is an actual blogger about interesting things)

http://www.weheartprints.com/ (pretty things to look at, wish for, and possible buy - because mostly they are affordable!)

http://www.frymyerfamily.blogspot.com/ (bessie and david's blog...)

http://icanhascheezburger.com/ (i am a sucker for stupid cats)

http://princeofpetworth.blogspot.com/ (site run by the "prince of petworth" - just observations about my neighborhood...)

i'm sure there are more - i mean, how else to i waste the first half hour of every workday? c'mon. i just can't think of them right now.

been so long, been so long

2007-08-14T12:50:00.000-07:00

so, hey, i've been away for way too long. i realize that. please don't judge me! i am easily distracted sometimes. instead of writing a novella about what i've been up to, i am just going to string together some bullet-points. in no particular order - just whatever i think of first. that way, if you get bored by a section, or if you've heard it before... you can just skip over that one! perfect. so here goes:

jessie and david came to visit over the weekend! yahooie! i am sooo excited to be an aunt, and bess definitely has a firm, round baby-belly now. she looks very cute and excited. i know they are going to have to cutest baby in the universe. i have some projects planned for my future niece? nephew? nieph? but since bessie reads this occassionally, i can't get into details. :) we did some touristy stuff on saturday - went on a DC Ducks tour! which was fun, even for a DC resident. i learned all sorts of factoids - most of which i forget now. but it was still fun. and we had great weather. the rest of the time we just hung out and gabbed and relaxed. and took naps.

scott and eric are working on two music videos this summer/fall: first, one for the DC band Georgie James kind of pop-y music - great sound. they signed on with Saddle Creek earlier this year, and starting up a tour in england and canada right around the time their album comes out - in september. scott was busy with the video shoot all weekend, and i think they are hoping to finish up this coming weekend. i can't wait to see the footage! it's for their song "need your needs." the other video is for Dead Meadow - who are based out in L.A. now. scott and eric did a video for them back in 2005 (or maybe 2006), for "at her open door." they shot that one here in DC and Maryland, but this next one they are going out to Big Sur, CA to get most of the shots. that doesn't start up until later this month, so i'll keep you posted. they got a mention on Brightest Young Things today - check it out here.

i finally got a bike! i've gotten to ride it a few times, but i took a long ride and hurt my back and messed up my knee somehow. my back is nearly mended, but my knee is still twinging a bit. but i am planning to bike to work once a week, after the weather turns not-so-ovenly-hot.

i've re-started crocheting, and my friend jennifer has promised to teach me to knit - starting this thursday after work! i'm pretty pumped about that. there is a swell yarn store near my work, and it seems a pleasant place to hang out.

the big SAA annual meeting is being held in chicago this year - i'm pumped about that! i went to chicago last fall for jennifer's wedding, and it was such a lovely city that i can't wait to see it again - this time on AIPs dime, not mine! :) i mean, sure i'll have to sit through days of workshops and sessions that aren't nearly as fascinating as the descriptions promised... but i'll also get to see some old grad school buddies and hang out and visit cool places in the evening - right? you betcha. i missed the block of rooms held for the conference, but i snagged a room at the spartan "club quarters" - itchy towels, tiny rooms, but great location and great price. plus, i won't have to continually dodge folks at the conference hotel. those folks who has been to a large conference know what i mean there.

we went camping back in july - at assateague again. and we're going again in october! i think cliff and courtney are coming with us for the next trip, that that'll be particularly fun. i plan to dribble cheez-its all over their tent and watch the ponies come flocking. :)

i let my gym membership slide since springtime, but i am going over there TONIGHT to re-up. sheer laziness that i let it slide, since it's pretty cheap. they are raising the rates - again - but it still works out to be $26/month. which is a steal.

well, it's almost time to leave for the day, so i'll stop now. check out my flickr albums, to catch up on some pictures....

~mel

do not put your trash here...ever.

2007-06-08T05:24:00.000-07:00

BIG NEWS! there's a feature on scott and eric in the washington city paper this week:

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=1773

the lovely picture was taken in the alley behind our house, as some of you might recognize. (thanks for the location suggestion, dad - the photographer ended up picking your shot!) they are also having a screening of their last few projects - saturday night at the DC arts council in adams-morgan. come one, come all! they are showing both sexy stories, as well as the premiere of "the purgatory all-stars."

in other news:

we went to a nationals game on wednesday night - i'm going to miss RFK stadium when they tear it down. i have a feeling that the new stadium will be much fancier and probably a little bit awful.

i need to have a party! we had so many parties last year, and the year before. why not this year? i can't figure it out, except for maybe laziness and lack of money. i'll work on it.

i also need to take more pictures. one of my co-workers said that she was sick of looking at my flickr site and that i needed to get on the ball. i couldn't agree more. :)

i "won" a breadmaker on freecycle.com yesterday! yahooie! i pick it up tomorrow morning, and i can't wait to try it out.

i've been running again, for the first time in 5 or so years. yikes! has it really been that long? anyway. i've been doing just-okay. i've been going twice a week, but i'd like to up it to three times a week if i can. so far, i'm running a half mile then walking for a while, then repeating that two more times. so that's a mile and a half total? sounds lame, but i've only been at it for two weeks and i'm pretty proud of it.

i have lots of work to do today, so i'm not sure why i'm fooling around on my blog... and jennifer is having a BBQ tonight after work, so i can't stay late. off to do real job-like things!

Friday, King of days...

2007-05-11T09:34:00.000-07:00

various updates:

so a week or so ago, i "won" a huge stack of patio bricks from freecycle.com. i won!! i won!! i've been trying to snag some bricks for a long long time, and i guess patience and perseverance pay off because dammit if i didn't get them in the end. i ended up with about 220 bricks, which took two trips in my car, because i feared for the heath of my suspension (and tires) if i took them all in one load. i stashed the bricks under the deck to tempt the folks who wander the alley stealing my stuff... then i started digging. and digging. and digging. i knew that our yard was composed mostly of rocks, broken glass, chunks of brick, and trash - all held together by a little dirt. i knew all this, but i didn't realize how difficult the digging would be until i began. yowza. it was hard work, and took several tries before i got down 4" or so. i should have dug deeper, and i should have leveled it out more. but i declared that i wanted a more "natural" patio so i quit and moved on to the next steps: cloth, sand, then bricks. after the hard part (digging) was over, the weed-proofing cloth layer took... oh, say about 5 minutes. the sand took a few more minutes, because i did a little smoothing and tamping. then the bricks! aside from the hellish beginning (digging), the rest of the patio took about 2 hours to complete. yahoo! i am waiting for a few more bricks to make the path from the deck steps. but at least this is a start. once i locate the camera charger, i will put up some pictures.

i just bought two new swimsuits online! a blue retro two-piece and a brown ruffled one-piece. they should arrive next week. that give me plenty of time - 2 weeks - to make sure they actually fit before the brown family vacation at the beach. unfortunately, i have to ship them to the office. i'll have some 'splaining to do, and hopefully there will be no forced fashion shows.

scott's brother, kevin, is visiting from arizona this weekend... i have no idea what the plans for entertainment are, but i hope they aren't much. i am tired of running around.

speaking of running, this is going to be the Big Weekend for me to try my hand at running again. i used to do it so often, and so well. maybe not "well," as those who have witness my pitiful form can vouch for... but i want to try it again.

duchess had a check-up yesterday, and is doing much better. she has gained a half of a pound, and her thyroid levels (whatever that means) are getting closer to normal. she'll be 19 in july, and we will throw a big party for her if she makes it. that's pretty old for a tiny little tabby cat.

enough is enough. i need to go back to doing real work.

mayday - one day late...

2007-05-02T12:57:00.000-07:00

i think yesterday was may day? or did i just make that up... in any case, it was a pretty nice day. the weather was beautiful, i was wearing a cute outfit, we ate dinner outside on the deck, we watched spiderman 2 (in preparation for watching spiderman 3 on friday night...).

tonight i MUST clean my bedroom. there are massive shivery drifts of clothes all over the floor, and they are starting to make me mad. plus, i plan to haul out all my summer clothes tonight. this will probably entail a temper tantrum over winter-belly growth, and a crying jag of self-pity. i've been putting it off for far too long now, with the thought of "maybe i'll lose weight before i try that stuff on!" but it's getting hot out. and there's no way i am losing 20 pounds by friday. so there you have it. time to face the music... maybe i'll work out *before* trying on the clothes. then at least i might feel like it's not too late.

oh damn! i was going to make an eye appointment today. grrr... i guess it's only 4:00. there's still time. i thought i could sit here a while longer, leisurely writing some nonsense. hey! the phone just rang, and it was a lady from the library in ohio where my mom used to work! saved by the bell. she needs some advice on removing the moldy old smell from papers in a donation they just received! i have a mission to fill the last 20 minutes of my day...

the unveiling...

2007-05-01T06:03:00.000-07:00

follow the picture below to my flickr album! you can view them as a slideshow, or you can click through each one separately to read my descriptions...

Mr. MacGregor's garden

2007-04-27T07:51:00.000-07:00

we had a delicious fresh salad of baby garden leaves last night... pale green, purple-y green, speckled like robins' eggs, striped, tender, sweet and bitter... ALL PICKED FROM MY VERY OWN GARDEN. i felt like skipping over the clouds. finally! growing things from seeds *does* work.

now i am impatiently waiting for the peas to appear.

while i'm waiting, however, i am preparing the house for painting. scott and i picked out colors last night at home depot - and we didn't even fight about it! we picked "mood indigo" for the brick part of the house, "black suede" for the shutters, plain ole white for the trim, and "purple blanket" for the door. i am prittee excited to see what it looks like. hopefully not too too dark. or else people might confuse our house with Chez Munster.

my boss is away for the day. we celebrated by having egg-n-bagel sandwiches in the library. food in the library!! scandalous. now i am fooling around on the interwebs, entertaining myself. every once in a while I stare out my enormous office windows at the little sculpture garden outside. the grass is so green that i get butterflies in my stomach. the white azaleas are peeking out of their leaves, just barely blooming. tree trunks are dark with rain and bright with moss. i can't believe we finally have spring, after such a fucked up winter!

i just filed my taxes last week, but i have my DC return in my checking account already. huh??!! that was fast, alrighty. but even faster, i have it spent already. i ordered a pushy-clippy-old-fashioned lawn mower from amazon! on sale ($119) and free shipping; got pages of rave reviews from folks. it'll get here by may 15, and boy i can't wait. i've been using a weed wacker to mow the grass and it's a royal pain in the ass. i hope this works as well as promised.

maybe i'll wander around the building and kill some time until lunch. i mean, it's after 11:00? how can i start a new project now? :) it's nice to have a lazy day at work. they are so few and far between.

painterly things

2007-04-25T10:40:00.000-07:00

so! out of the clear blue sky, our neighbors (who occasionally say mildly racists things, and occasionally put their garbage in our yard...) approached us with a house-painting deal. ??? Odd, yes. But considering the cheapness of the offer, and the looseness of my morals, we shook hands with the devil and picked out some colors for the outside of the house. i am PSYCHED! let me just tell you. i hate the current boring color of the house, and now that the boring color is flaking off and turning all moldy (and not in a romantic grey gardens way) i hate it even more. we hardly have time to think of color, but right now we are settled on dusty-blue + black + eggplant. sounds gloomy, but looks pretty. at least in the mind's eye. my mind's eye, that is.

it also makes me feel sad and weird to get so excited over the color of my house. aren't there other, better things to get so excited over? i'm sure there are. like the paintings i keep intending to paint. the knitting i keep thinking of learning. the exercising i should be doing... ahhhh, me. the days, they do slip by.

it's so beautimous outside today - breezy blue air, skippy clouds, sunshine, and the leaves are all unfurling. these are the days that i wish i was back in school, babysitting during the day. swinging at the kalorama park playground. petting the cows at the zoo.

here is my current favorite picture. i have it on my desk at work, to remind myself that there was a time when i was not aware of my own image, when i was industrious and curious:

nonsense; twaddle.

2007-04-20T11:56:00.000-07:00

hey! look at me! twice in one week! you are the luckiest person in the world to be reading this drivel. speaking of "drivel," i wasn't sure if i spelled that correctly so i checking teh internets and this is what i got:

driv·el [driv-uhl] -eled, -el·ing or (especially British) -elled, -el·ling.
–noun

1.	saliva flowing from the mouth, or mucus from the nose; slaver.

2.	childish, silly, or meaningless talk or thinking; nonsense; twaddle.

–verb (used without object)

3.	to let saliva flow from the mouth or mucus from the nose; slaver.

4.	to talk childishly or idiotically.

5.	Archaic. to issue like spittle.

–verb (used with object)

6.	to utter childishly or idiotically.

7.	to waste foolishly.

so maybe i should change the name of this blog to something more drivel-y. because, honestly, i don't like talking about "issues" and current events. i listen to NPR every morning and every afternoon. i read US weekly at the grocery, and i read the funnies on sunday. that's about all the news i like to hear. i used to be more embarrassed about that, especially living in washington. but now... nyah, i don't care so much. people can suck my toe. i like to gossip about celebrities sometimes, and i will step up my news coverage during times of elections and big ticket items. but i can only stand discussing my views on partial-birth abortions for so long before i just want to give up.

so don't read on, thinking you will be expanding your world view. you'll be sorely disappointed if you do. instead, i prefer to pretend that no one is reading this (since, probably, no one is...) and that i am talking to myself! how pleasant. on the plus side, if i keep posting more regularly... think of how nice it will be, about ten years from now, for me to have a record of the minutiae of my days. my memory being what it is, i will have likely forgotten most of the details.

mi·nu·ti·a [mi-noo-shee-uh, -shuh, -nyoo-] plural -ti·ae [-shee-ee
–noun

1.	precise details; small or trifling matters: the minutiae of his craft.

so! that said, on to the drivel!

i am FINALLY moving my indoor wundergarten to the great outdoors, where it belongs. this creepy awful cold miserable weather is finally over, so it's safe for my little plantlings to go outside and stop dirtying up my house. my peas and lettuce are still doing fine outside, but soon (read: tonight and sunday) they will be joined by poppies, bells of scotland, hollyhocks, marigolds, cosmos, parsley, dill, basil, chives, spring onion! probably more, but i can't remember... i am pretty excited about it all. i also want to go pick out our hedge plants sometime soon.

the sugar-caffeine diet continues: i cheated twice - scott brought home cadbury creme eggs and i ate two. i am trying to not eat refined flour, but i haven't been good about advanced planning for that. today, for instance, i ate soup that contained noodles. it's only been 4 days, so i am going to wait a week or two before judging any results.

i am attempting to kill the last 40 minutes before i can safely leave. *technically* i shouldn't leave until 4:30... but my boss is gone for the afternoon... and it's friday, dammit. i am leaving at 4:00, and no one can stop me.

yesterday, two of my co-workers were leaving a little early to go to a wine-tasting festival thingie downtown. i was working on the reference desk, and julie was stopping by to talk before she left. we chatted for a bit, then she said quite loudly "well, i'm off to go drink some wine!", then stomped into her office - just as our boss walked by with a puzzled look on his face. the thought-bubble over his head said "julie? wine? in your office?" i am still laughing on the inside about that one.

well, i've managed to whittle my time down to a half hour. one last time-draining thought to share: play this game. it's so peaceful and addictive.

Success... then failure.

2007-04-16T13:16:00.000-07:00

The sisters have returned to their homeland (Florida) and Scott and I are left to pick up the bloated, hollow shreds of our bodies and wallets. Well, bloated bodies and hollow wallets anyway. As their farewell meal, the girls requested Meskerem. I love Ethiopian food. I had it for the first time back in August, when mom and Jess were visiting to paint... that's when I found out that Ethiopian food gives me the loudest braying-est burps known to man. I sound like Homer Simpson at his best. I thought it was an isolated incident, possibly unrelated to Ethiopian food. But after last night, I know better. But will I still eat the mushy good stuff with my hands? Yes, by golly, I will.

Today was also the first day of my self-imposed restriction on refined flour, caffeine and sugar. I had decaf coffee this morning (i know, i know it has trace amounts, but lets not split hairs or food particles over this...). Jennifer brought in celebratory danishes and left a platter of them on the reference desk to taunt me through the bleak pre-lunch hours of 11:00 to 1:00... but I resisted! Then I ate my lunch like a good girl, doin fine. Then the snacking/witching hour of 3:30 hit and I blithely ate a square of cherry and a square of apple. DUR. i am so weak. But I console myself with the face that the squares were very small (they were! i swear!) and that I only ate two. by this time last monday, under similar circumstances, i would have consume far far far (read: lots, perhaps 6) more. So the danish killed sugar and flour, but instead of feeling pissed and worthless, I feel like I still made a good start

It's ass-cold and extremely wind-ey out there today, and i'm not looking forward to the breathtaking dash to my car parked out in the paved tundra.

Speaking of the tundra, the gerbils are doing fine! I still haven't taken more pictures.... and on an unrelated note, I still haven't done my taxes. surprised? you shouldn't be.

oh yeah, and....

2007-04-13T11:23:00.000-07:00

i forgot to mention that STARTING MONDAY (i swear) i am starting the no-caffeine-no-sugar-no-refined-flour restriction again. i would like to say that i am starting now, but i can't set myself up to fail like that. scott's sisters are still visiting and we have lots of eating-in-restaurants to do this weekend so i know it won't work. but! starting monday, by god and by golly, the magic begins again.

seriously. i lost... like.... 5 or more pounds in a month just by avoiding those evil/delicious things for a mere 30 days! but that was last fall. and i tried to start it up again once, but my heart just wasn't in it. but this time! we'll see.

Friday the 13th?

2007-04-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

So the weather has really let me down this spring. I got excited, early, and bought a shit load of seeds and greenhousey trays... and I planted and I tended and I watered and I loved. And I almost moved the seedlings outside. Thanks be to Johhny Appleseed, or who(m?)ever was guiding my hand... because at the last minute I changed my mind and kept the baby plantlings inside the house. Then the bottom dropped out of the thermometer over the next day or so, and they all would have surely perished. And boy, would I have been p-i-s-s-e-d. So now i am stuck with a miniature greenhouse in our sun room. I just checked the weather, and it looks like it'll get warm enough by the middle of next week. NEXT WEEK. arg. I think it's warm enough for shrubbery, though, and i have this really scraggly hibiscus bush in my office... i think i'll throw caution to the blustery April wind, and stick in the ground this weekend. I am tired of seeing it's tired old leaves and pot-bound roots in my office.

on an unrelated note, some fool hit my car last night! i walked over to my car this morning, started to unlock the driver's door... then I noticed that my side-mirror was dangling by its gruesome stalk of an electrical cord. just slumped there, limply, on the side of my car. THEN i noticed the long grey stripe of either: a) schmutz from the culprit's own side mirror, as it scraped down the length of my car, or 2) the color of the body of my car shining through a hideous scratch running the length of my car. either way, it's unattractive. Scott brought up a good point, that maybe my insurance would cover it, but then I remembered that when I changed agents last spring I never had him take pictures of my car. I was scheduled to take the car over there for pictures... then I got that awful stomach virus and was too weak to get out of bed. then i forgot. i guess i will think about it later. it could be worse - the side of my car could've gotten all smashed up. i suppose i should be thankful for that.

speaking things avoided, then forgotten - it's my last chance to do my taxes! I told my co-worker this morning "yeah, i think i will do them tonight while scott is at a movie"... but i knew in my heart that was a huge lie. but even just now, as I typed the words "that was a huge lie" I thought, "no, really! I will! I swear!" but i probably won't. sigh.

mostly because it is sunny right now, and the workday is nearly over (well, okay, 2:00 is not that nearly over...) and i can't wait to go home for the day.

i need to recharge the digital camera and add some pictures.

and it begins anew...

2007-01-09T13:03:00.000-08:00

okay, so it's been a month. it's just a month! i was busy, okay?

busy stuffing my face with cheesy delicious goodies and guzzling beers in the name of santa and the baby jesus. but seriously. i need to get back on track. i am considering giving my anti-sugar/anti-flour diet another 30-day trial. it seemed to work last time, but with the quadruple-whammy of halloween, thanksgiving, christmas and new years... it's no wonder i lost all ground that i had gained. and then gained a few extra, just for kicks.

so i went back to the gym yesterday, and i am going back today. and i went to the grocery store and stocked up on things that i can pack for snacks and lunch at work. eating healthy requires a lot of advance thought and planning, gol-darnit.

speaking of planning, i am also doing a lot of considering. about 2007, and what i want to accomplish. not that i need goals, necessarily. i don't normally set goals. (which, some might argue, is the root of my personal brand of evil...) but i am caught up in yearly goal-setting for work, and i thought: what the hey! i might as well extend that frame of mind into my personal life and see what shakes loose. like further improving my credit score. like getting a credit card. like making a business plan for my pie-in-the-sky home business. like sewing clothes. saving some money. things i've been meaning to do for quite some time. comprende?

betty and virginia are growing like little wild weeds. they've probably doubled in size - they started off like little round walnuts with tails. i'd say they've moved on to the size of Pilsbury crescent roll each. still deliciously cute, no matter what. i think they are getting cramped in their house, so i might get them a second house - for a "playhouse" - and keep the first one just for sleeping and such.

i can't think of anything else to report. i should have some pictures up soon, from the holidays.

listening to right now: "wolf among wolves" bonnie prince billy

oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree...

2006-12-05T05:56:00.000-08:00

so here is a link to our pictures from the christmas tree expedition:

link!

instead of "viewing as a slideshow," you can click on the first picture and you can read my comments. then move through the whole set one by one, by clicking on the "thumbnails" at the right side of your screen.... enjoy!

gerbils pictures to come soon. i meant to upload them with the tree pics, but somehow didn't.

let the names begin...

2006-12-04T06:08:00.000-08:00

well, i've finally figured out named for the leetle gerblettes. i was leaning toward names that might imply 1950s spinster secretaries that share an apartment together... the chubby, bossy brown one is Betty! the sweeter, shy black one is Virginia! so there you have it. i have some pictures, so i'll try to put them up tonight after work. they are extra special cute. courtney met them on friday night, and heartily agreed that gerbils are much cuter than people think...