WALKERONI

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?

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.

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

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!

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

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

new pictures!

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

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.