The higher power is always Steve Jobs.
Mar. 18th, 2013 01:20 pmThe nine steps of learning new software:
- Must I? Must I really?
- Intimidated.
- Have one path through the forest and don't want to deviate from it.
- Confused.
- OMG magic vistas open up before me!
- OMG I love this program! Have you seen this program??
- Look at me! I'm a power user!
- Yeah, OK, now I can settle down and get some work done.
- Oh, that. Been there, done that.
Living like a kid
Feb. 22nd, 2013 11:35 amIf the new interim pastor (who doesn't have a nom de dreamwidth yet) was looking for a way to endear himself to me, he's found it: yesterday he looked at the weather forecast and declared today to be a paid snow day!
As it turns out, we could all easily have gone to work; we've got maybe four inches, which stopped falling at about midnight to give the snowplows time to work, and it's already 36 degrees. But I am certainly not complaining, especially since the kidlet had to go to school!
Apparently, when given an unexpected windfall of a day off, the first thing I do is sleep very late, and the second thing I do is go around the house treating all the drains with baking soda and boiling water, and the third thing I do is start some laundry, and the fourth thing I do is post to Dreamwidth. Hi, Dreamwidth.
As it turns out, we could all easily have gone to work; we've got maybe four inches, which stopped falling at about midnight to give the snowplows time to work, and it's already 36 degrees. But I am certainly not complaining, especially since the kidlet had to go to school!
Apparently, when given an unexpected windfall of a day off, the first thing I do is sleep very late, and the second thing I do is go around the house treating all the drains with baking soda and boiling water, and the third thing I do is start some laundry, and the fourth thing I do is post to Dreamwidth. Hi, Dreamwidth.
Windfall meme
Feb. 18th, 2013 09:28 pmWindfall Meme, spotted @ ![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gatewaygirl: what I would do if $N dropped into my lap in some legal non-taxable (or post-tax) way?
$10: It would just go into the cash already in my wallet. Unless that's against the rules? Let's say it's against the rules. In that case, some midday when I wasn't working I'd use it for pho and Vietnamese iced coffee.
( Read more... )
gatewaygirl: what I would do if $N dropped into my lap in some legal non-taxable (or post-tax) way?$10: It would just go into the cash already in my wallet. Unless that's against the rules? Let's say it's against the rules. In that case, some midday when I wasn't working I'd use it for pho and Vietnamese iced coffee.
( Read more... )
Out, damned junk
Jan. 2nd, 2013 08:54 pmI use January to clean the insides of things.
Or ... every January I intend to clean the insides of things. Some years I do a cabinet or two, some years I get around to the file box about March, some years I do nothing. One glorious golden year I did all the kitchen cabinets. It's been a while.
This year, though, I have an additional incentive because we'll be moving come summer, which was enough to get me going today on the two kitchen cabinets that cause me the most annoyance from day to day.
That's how I discovered that thinking, "Might I use this at some point in the future?" is one thing, and thinking, "Do I want to put this in a box and take it to Iowa?" is something quite different. An impending move makes me a much more ruthless discarder. (The Ruthless Discarder is now going to be my superhero identity.)
Two down, and how many to go? Difficult to be precise; how do I compare one kitchen cupboard with a closet? Or a garage? If I use a weighted scale based on the capacity of the space, there are 37 space units in the living area (not counting kidlet and spouse bedrooms), 13 in the basement, and 8 in the garage, which means that if I actually keep up the pace of two units a day, I will seriously finish this by the end of January!
Or ... every January I intend to clean the insides of things. Some years I do a cabinet or two, some years I get around to the file box about March, some years I do nothing. One glorious golden year I did all the kitchen cabinets. It's been a while.
This year, though, I have an additional incentive because we'll be moving come summer, which was enough to get me going today on the two kitchen cabinets that cause me the most annoyance from day to day.
That's how I discovered that thinking, "Might I use this at some point in the future?" is one thing, and thinking, "Do I want to put this in a box and take it to Iowa?" is something quite different. An impending move makes me a much more ruthless discarder. (The Ruthless Discarder is now going to be my superhero identity.)
Two down, and how many to go? Difficult to be precise; how do I compare one kitchen cupboard with a closet? Or a garage? If I use a weighted scale based on the capacity of the space, there are 37 space units in the living area (not counting kidlet and spouse bedrooms), 13 in the basement, and 8 in the garage, which means that if I actually keep up the pace of two units a day, I will seriously finish this by the end of January!
Today I was filling the pepper grinder, and a peppercorn fell on the floor, and I just left it where it fell -- and then I thought: There have been times in history when kings would wish they were rich enough to drop a peppercorn and not bother to pick it up.
Happy new year, everyone!
Happy new year, everyone!
Hedgehog and fox revisited
Oct. 2nd, 2012 08:06 pmThe hedgehog knows one great thing, but when he called from school to ask the fox to find his social security card and fax a copy of it to him so he could sign up for a job, the fox, in removing a metric shit-ton of useless paper from the top of his dresser, also located his father's post-WWII military discharge papers and a hundred-dollar bill.
The fox kindly left the hundred where she found it, but pocketed a Starbucks free-drink coupon as her reward.
The fox kindly left the hundred where she found it, but pocketed a Starbucks free-drink coupon as her reward.
Life's about to get weird
Aug. 20th, 2012 08:58 pmA week from tomorrow, the spouse is going back to school! Which is very exciting -- new career, new direction, getting the hell out of Greater Cornville, etc. -- except that in order to allow the kidlet to finish out her last year at The Perfect Middle School, we're going to spend a school year in a long-distance marriage.
The thing I'm most afraid of? Seriously, I'm really worried that I'm going to get into the habit of not consulting the convenience of any adult except myself, and I'm going to like it so much that I won't want to give it up!
I also find that I suddenly have worries about personal safety. The spouse doesn't really do anything to increase our personal safety -- well, I mean, he checks whether the doors are locked at night and stuff, but it's not as if he has ever had to scare off an intruder or anything. But apparently the unconscious part of my brain figured that having a male in the house meant it didn't have to worry about safety ever, and now it's all, "Cell phone in your room! Curtains closed at all times!"
If anybody has contacts in Dubuque, Iowa, please e-mail or message me; next summer I'm going to need to have a job there.
P.S. If you ever find yourself zombie-clicking late into the night and unable to pull yourself away from the keyboard and just go to bed already, this Google Images search for 'yawning kittens' may be useful.
The thing I'm most afraid of? Seriously, I'm really worried that I'm going to get into the habit of not consulting the convenience of any adult except myself, and I'm going to like it so much that I won't want to give it up!
I also find that I suddenly have worries about personal safety. The spouse doesn't really do anything to increase our personal safety -- well, I mean, he checks whether the doors are locked at night and stuff, but it's not as if he has ever had to scare off an intruder or anything. But apparently the unconscious part of my brain figured that having a male in the house meant it didn't have to worry about safety ever, and now it's all, "Cell phone in your room! Curtains closed at all times!"
If anybody has contacts in Dubuque, Iowa, please e-mail or message me; next summer I'm going to need to have a job there.
P.S. If you ever find yourself zombie-clicking late into the night and unable to pull yourself away from the keyboard and just go to bed already, this Google Images search for 'yawning kittens' may be useful.
Clearly I am not up on the latest trends
Aug. 11th, 2012 03:58 pmI'm trying to get rid of a bunch of stuff, so for the first time ever I'm listing things on eBay. One of the things I'm selling is a Life Is Good T-shirt that I bought at a rummage sale for fifty cents, which the kidlet decided she didn't want.
With three days left on the auction, there are eleven people watching it, it has seven bids, and the price is up to $13.36.
I sure know what I'm going to be watching for at rummage sales from now on!
With three days left on the auction, there are eleven people watching it, it has seven bids, and the price is up to $13.36.
I sure know what I'm going to be watching for at rummage sales from now on!
Confession
Jul. 11th, 2012 09:58 pmSometimes, when I'm right on the edge of falling asleep, I imagine that I'm driving a car.
That is by far more dangerous and forbidden than any of my fantasies about sex.
That is by far more dangerous and forbidden than any of my fantasies about sex.
Our family is perfectly normal
Jun. 27th, 2012 08:05 pmThe kidlet has discovered that it's relatively easy (for a kid who's out of school and has a lot of time on her hands) to use the tip of a pair of scissors to bore a hole in a peach pit, resulting in ... well, a peach pit, but one that you can use as a large and odd-looking bead.
Tonight I ate a peach and washed up the pit for her. So we're standing in the kitchen, and I hand her this clean peach pit and say, "This is for you," and she takes it and says, very pleased, "Thank you!" -- and then we both look at each other and burst out laughing, because her mother gave her a peach pit and she said thank you.
I told her: "When you're getting cranky with your kids, you'll have to tell them, 'In my day, we only had peach pits! And we were glad to get them, too!'"
Tonight I ate a peach and washed up the pit for her. So we're standing in the kitchen, and I hand her this clean peach pit and say, "This is for you," and she takes it and says, very pleased, "Thank you!" -- and then we both look at each other and burst out laughing, because her mother gave her a peach pit and she said thank you.
I told her: "When you're getting cranky with your kids, you'll have to tell them, 'In my day, we only had peach pits! And we were glad to get them, too!'"
Thoughts from a mixed-brain marriage
Jun. 14th, 2012 04:55 pmThe fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. --Archilochus
The fox knows many things, and one of them is where the hedgehog lost his checkbook this time.
Swimsuit woes
May. 20th, 2012 07:40 pmJust finished ordering a couple of swimsuits for the kidlet, which was an exercise in frustration -- it's very difficult to find appropriate swimwear for someone who's already shaped like a woman at thirteen.
It seems to me that the available swimsuits make one of three statements:
Type 1: "I am a hoochie mama. I wasn't actually planning on swimming; I'm just going to recline here while you undress me with your eyes. If you bring me champagne, it's going to have to have a straw in it, because if I raise my arms, these straps are going to break."
Type 2: "I am a middle-aged matron. Would you like to see my swim cap with the little flowers on it?"
Type 3: "I can afford to spend seventy dollars for a swimsuit for someone who's still young enough to enjoy scooching around the bottom of the pool on her belly."
I no longer have a problem ordering for myself, because I actually am a middle-aged woman (though my swim cap doesn't have flowers on it) and have lowered my standards to "will stay on for actual swimming and won't disintegrate in the chlorine for at least a year."
I ended up at kmart.com (the online store, because the three-dimensional store only had Type 1 swimsuits, many of which had both fringe and sparkly studding) with a couple of suits that look athletic and practical in the itty bitty preview photos. I just hope they don't fall apart right away.
p.s. is there such a thing as a service on the internet that I can instruct, "Keep an eye on this product, and send me an e-mail if it goes on sale"?
It seems to me that the available swimsuits make one of three statements:
Type 1: "I am a hoochie mama. I wasn't actually planning on swimming; I'm just going to recline here while you undress me with your eyes. If you bring me champagne, it's going to have to have a straw in it, because if I raise my arms, these straps are going to break."
Type 2: "I am a middle-aged matron. Would you like to see my swim cap with the little flowers on it?"
Type 3: "I can afford to spend seventy dollars for a swimsuit for someone who's still young enough to enjoy scooching around the bottom of the pool on her belly."
I no longer have a problem ordering for myself, because I actually am a middle-aged woman (though my swim cap doesn't have flowers on it) and have lowered my standards to "will stay on for actual swimming and won't disintegrate in the chlorine for at least a year."
I ended up at kmart.com (the online store, because the three-dimensional store only had Type 1 swimsuits, many of which had both fringe and sparkly studding) with a couple of suits that look athletic and practical in the itty bitty preview photos. I just hope they don't fall apart right away.
p.s. is there such a thing as a service on the internet that I can instruct, "Keep an eye on this product, and send me an e-mail if it goes on sale"?
Including mopping the floors!
Feb. 14th, 2012 08:45 pmThe spouse and I spent a romantic evening: he held the boycat still while I injected the poor creature with saline solution. Then he did the dishes while I cleaned out the litterboxes.
A starry-eyed young co-worker once asked me what was the most romantic thing the spouse had ever done for me. I said, "He cleaned both bathrooms after the Night of the Rotovirus."
Happy Valentine's Day from the Domesticated State!
A starry-eyed young co-worker once asked me what was the most romantic thing the spouse had ever done for me. I said, "He cleaned both bathrooms after the Night of the Rotovirus."
Happy Valentine's Day from the Domesticated State!
Applied philosophical thought experiments
Feb. 9th, 2012 07:49 pmThe Boycat has spent the past week at the vet; he's still a very sick kitty, and one whose health and life expectancy are unknowns at this point, but he came home today, and ate a little bit, and is now sleeping under the kidlet's bed, purring whenever anyone speaks to him.
It's kidney failure, just like the Ladycat, except that he's young and was pretty healthy before. There's some hope that the failure might have been the result of some other problem (like a bladder infection) and that if the problem is taken care of, the kidneys will be functioning well enough for everyday life.
Or possibly not. At this point there's no way of knowing.
Bleakly funny, though: When the spouse took him in last Friday, the vet said, "I estimate this has a 50/50 chance of saving his life, and we're closed all weekend, so we'll call you Monday with an update." So we spent the entire weekend not knowing whether he was alive or dead -- we had a literal Schrodinger's cat.
It's kidney failure, just like the Ladycat, except that he's young and was pretty healthy before. There's some hope that the failure might have been the result of some other problem (like a bladder infection) and that if the problem is taken care of, the kidneys will be functioning well enough for everyday life.
Or possibly not. At this point there's no way of knowing.
Bleakly funny, though: When the spouse took him in last Friday, the vet said, "I estimate this has a 50/50 chance of saving his life, and we're closed all weekend, so we'll call you Monday with an update." So we spent the entire weekend not knowing whether he was alive or dead -- we had a literal Schrodinger's cat.
Self-indulgent woes
Jan. 1st, 2012 01:28 pmGuys, I'm sick. I feel like I've been sick for a million years. I had the entire week from Christmas to New Year's off, and I spent the whole time sick. The lymph glands on the right side of my neck are so swollen I can see them in the mirror, which, just, gross, all right. (Obviously I'm better or I wouldn't be able to complain this much, but better is not the same as well.)
I've committed to give a Twelfth Night party in my house next Saturday, which strictly speaking is Thirteenth Night, but I rescheduled it because the spouse had a conflict on Friday, only now he has a conflict on Saturday as well.
The following weekend I have to do the annual luncheon. My former liaison to the governing board, who was so infirm that she confined her participation to calling volunteers for me, has rotated off the board. My new one is young and vital and actually uses e-mail (yay), but she's weirdly slippery, and it's hard to get a grip on her preferences, even in answer to a question like, "So do you just want to call volunteers, too, or did you want a different division of labor?" Which means that I don't know whether I'm getting any help at all, or what shape it's going to take, or whether she's going to be unhappy because I laid a bunch of work on her or on the other hand unhappy because I won't let her do anything or make any decisions. And it's generally not helpful to call people up and yell, "I am very cooperative, damn you! Just watch me cooperate!"
Also the annual report. Don't even ask.
Also the kitten (did I mention we got a kitten? I suppose that should have been in a good news post, if I ever made any of those) is the most expensive free cat we ever got, and I still haven't paid off the Christmas bills.
Plus I was going to spend this week writing like crazy, and obviously I didn't do that because the only part of me that was active this week was my white blood cells.
So, you know. Woe is me.
I've committed to give a Twelfth Night party in my house next Saturday, which strictly speaking is Thirteenth Night, but I rescheduled it because the spouse had a conflict on Friday, only now he has a conflict on Saturday as well.
The following weekend I have to do the annual luncheon. My former liaison to the governing board, who was so infirm that she confined her participation to calling volunteers for me, has rotated off the board. My new one is young and vital and actually uses e-mail (yay), but she's weirdly slippery, and it's hard to get a grip on her preferences, even in answer to a question like, "So do you just want to call volunteers, too, or did you want a different division of labor?" Which means that I don't know whether I'm getting any help at all, or what shape it's going to take, or whether she's going to be unhappy because I laid a bunch of work on her or on the other hand unhappy because I won't let her do anything or make any decisions. And it's generally not helpful to call people up and yell, "I am very cooperative, damn you! Just watch me cooperate!"
Also the annual report. Don't even ask.
Also the kitten (did I mention we got a kitten? I suppose that should have been in a good news post, if I ever made any of those) is the most expensive free cat we ever got, and I still haven't paid off the Christmas bills.
Plus I was going to spend this week writing like crazy, and obviously I didn't do that because the only part of me that was active this week was my white blood cells.
So, you know. Woe is me.
Felinities
Nov. 17th, 2011 04:36 pmThanks so much to all of you who sent condolences on the death of the ladycat. It means a lot to have people who understand.
The kidlet tells me that the ladycat came to her in a dream and told her what kind of cat to get for Christmas. No more purebreds, is the ladycat's advice in the kidlet's subconscious. The kidlet asked her friends at school whether it was disrespectful of the ladycat that she wanted to get another cat this soon, and her friends told her to think of it as "carrying on her legacy."
The spouse heard this and said to me in a resigned voice, "I guess we're going to be getting a kitten for the boycat to eat, aren't we?"
The kidlet tells me that the ladycat came to her in a dream and told her what kind of cat to get for Christmas. No more purebreds, is the ladycat's advice in the kidlet's subconscious. The kidlet asked her friends at school whether it was disrespectful of the ladycat that she wanted to get another cat this soon, and her friends told her to think of it as "carrying on her legacy."
The spouse heard this and said to me in a resigned voice, "I guess we're going to be getting a kitten for the boycat to eat, aren't we?"
Goodbye to the ladycat, at age twelve, of acute kidney failure.
You had a difficult life after your original human developed cancer, and I've always felt guilty that I couldn't love you as well as she did. I suppose guilt is what gives grief a lot of its power. But here's to a kitty afterlife where everything is just as you would wish it to be.
