Yeah! I Am A Winner

As I was composing my posts yesterday, Mr. Sweetie was in the next room. A small room, with an adjacent wall. I was writing on the desktop computer, and the desk is pushed up against that adjoining wall. I had just published my post when Mr. Sweetie cam over to me.

And declared me the winner of the noisiest keyboarding contest. I didn't even know there was such a contest! And I'm the winner!

The Award Ceremony went something like this:

Oh my God are you loud! You make the desk shake! It's rat at tat tat tat tatatatatat ttaat. Pause. Pause. Pause. rattle-rattle rattle rattle rattle. Backspace. Backspace. Backspace. Pause. Rat a rat a rat a tat tat tat tat tat. It's like being in the middle of an AK-47 firing range. There is only one person I know who is even nearly as loud as you are, and we made him move into a different office to keep the noise level down!

Yes, it's hard to be a winner, sometimes, but it's a grueling training routine that guarantees success!

Weather Report

If you go to the grocery store first thing:

On a rainy;

Cold;

Sunday morning;

Without eating anything beforehand;

You will come home with donuts.

Some things just happen.

Was It In The Last Place You Looked?

The keys. They have haunted me. Pony suggested doing what a friend of ours did when she lost a ring that was important to her--she went to a hypnotist who told her where it was.

I had stopped looking. I was waiting for. . .something, I don't know what. Lightning to strike, or something. And it happened!

No. Not lightning.

I found the keys. Apparently, I had hung them on the hook on the door to the front hall closet, where I always store my keys. Somehow, they had come off the hook.

Before you point out this was a logical place to look, I have to say I DID look! I took all the coats and boots and everything out of that closet to see if they had fallen in there--I looked all the way down to the floor!

But they weren't on the floor. No. They had caught on the dog's leash, on the hook part that fastens to his collar. When I picked up the leash to take him for a walk this evening, it was so heavy that it felt like his whole collection of canine bling was on it.

So. If ANYONE other than ME EVER walked the dog, they would have found my keys before I had to pay the locksmith all that money to get me into my own studio.

Hey. At least the dog loves me best.

Disaster Averted!

Well, the keys are still missing, but I was able to get a locksmith down to the studio, and it didn't take him very long to open the lock. He was also able to make me two new keys, which should mean that I don't lock myself out again.

I will have to talk to the building managers about getting a new key to the building, and one to my mailbox. By the time I get all those replaced, don't you think it will be likely that I will find the original set?

Plus, thanks to some really cool and lovely friends, I sold enough stuff to almost pay for the locksmith! Which totally makes it worth it!

I'm still a dork, but at least I don't have to refresh the Sharpie sign on my forehead.

Oops!. . .I Did It Again

It is currently 8:27 p.m. And I am looking for my keys. Again. "Oops" doesn't even begin to cover it.

I have my house keys. I have my car keys. What I don't have are the keys to my studio (which are on a separate key ring). Where I am supposed to have an Open House tomorrow.

I mean. . .where can they be? I was just there yesterday. I know they aren't in the studio, because I have to lock the door from the outside. I have a tactile memory of walking along, running my fingers along the key fob. I have recently taken extra care to put those keys in my purse, so I don't end up standing in the hallway looking for the keys. Again.

You know, maybe I had just better put an RFID implant or something into EVERYTHING I OWN, because this is getting ridiculous.

Why I Am A Danger To Myself

So I've been having these weird bruises showing up on my arms, but I don't remember hitting anything, and they don't even hurt. On the other hand (or arm--ha ha) I have this pain in my left shoulder and on the inside joint of my left wrist, and I don't know why.

The wrist has been particularly painful this week. It hurts when I pull the seatbelt across myself, and it's made wearing a watch nearly impossible. In fact, I thought maybe it was my watch--the one I've been wearing recently is a cute enameled one from Chicos, but it has been leaving behind green marks on my skin.

So, I took the watch off, and have been hoping that this pain would heal. It hasn't, particularly. Could it be carpel tunnel? Well, that seems unlikely, since it's not the hand I mouse with, and my other hand is just fine.

It is a puzzlement. But I think I may have solved it.

I went to the kidlets' volleyball games last night, and we parent cheer everything. We cheer for good serves, we cheer for good volleys, we cheer for good hustles. We do a lot of cheering. And at some point during the evening, I realized my wrist hurt more than it had earlier.

Turns out, when I clap my hands (which I do a lot of during these games--it goes with the cheering) I slam the thumb of my right hand onto the wrist bone of my left hand. If I can just learn a different way to clap, I might actually cure this.

Let's check. Yup. "Dork" is still there on my forehead from yesterday. Except I think it's "kroD" because I wrote it while looking in the mirror.

The Perils Of Autumn

It's cold here. Straight into late autumn after a long weekend of humid June weather. It's most confusing--I had some of the right clothes for this new climate available, but only summer shoes. You know--the kind that don't go with socks. I actually borrowed a pair from Pony, since I don't have time today to replace the summer wardrobe and find the fall shoes.

Because today was going to be Big Day At The Studio. Mr. Sweetie was off on a business trip (wheels up at 6:30--gruesome, isn't it?) so I had to take the girls to school. Which meant that I had to be up and dressed and mobile by 7:30. What a great opportunity to get down to the studio and get a full day in! This was going to be great!

Except.

Isn't there always an "except?"

Except that when I got there, I didn't have my office keys. I keep them on a separate keyring from my car and house keys, so I don't look like the janitor all the time. And they weren't in the place I keep them in my purse. So there I am, standing outside my studio door, rooting around in my purse, pulling everything out, rooting around in my bag, my pockets. . .they aren't here! They aren't anywhere!

Uh oh. Because I also don't know where my iPod is. I usually bring it inside the house with me, ever since my cute mini got stolen. Usually. Did I manage to leave the iPod and my keys in the car and have them stolen? Surely I'd have some sign of someone going through my stuff. Right?

So, I had to walk the three blocks back to where I parked my car and came home. No windows were broken. . .nothing seemed to be missing from my glove compartments. . .the car was locked, so it would have been forced, and no sign of that. . .

I get inside and scan all the surfaces where things like keys and iPods get set. Not in the entryway, not on the dining room table, not on the counters in the kitchen, or by the computer. Oh dear. This is going to require some looking. So, since it's warm enough, I take off my zippered sweatshirt and hang it on the back of a chair. It swings awkwardly, as the keys in the pocket have their own momentum.

Oh.

The office keys AND the iPod were in the pocket of the jacket I wore yesterday.

That's the trouble with these rapid weather changes--all those skills you need (e.g., emptying your coat pockets every day) just don't come back fast enough.

Yup. I'm writing "I'm a dork" on my forehead right now.

Leading A Double Life

I happened to catch Letterman last night--extended guest, George Clooney.

Let's just take a moment, okay?


mmmmmmmmmmmmmGeorgeClooneymmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm


Boyfriend is lookin' fine, I must say. He remains clever, charming, funny, self-effacing, handsome. . .


mmmmmmmmmmmmmGeorgeClooneymmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Anyway--Letterman managed to find some old footage of Clooney pre-ER, back from 1989--a seven episode run of an ABC series called Sunset Beat. Clooney characterized it as "undercover agent by day, rock star by night. That series just sells itself, doesn't it?"

And I must say, I was fascinated. Just how do you have a double life like that anyway? Undercover agent by day, sure, I can buy it, but rock star by night? Doesn't that just give you away in your day job?

I mean, can you imagine, say Mick Jagger being able to go incognito anywhere? David Bowie? Bruce Springsteen? It just doesn't work! To say nothing about the overtime you'd have to pull to do both jobs at once.

(In the interest of not totally being an old rock geezer, I'll mention. . .Pete Wentz? Pete Doherty? Kid Rock?)

There is probably only one man who could truly combine those kind of professions:

That's right. Buckaroo Bonzai.

Something At The Bottom Of The Garden

Something is going on that I can't explain. There are dozens and dozens of LBJ (Little Brown Jobber) birds picking through the grass in my back yard. If I had spread grass seed, I'd guess that's what it was--but no. No such winterizing/gardening responsibility by me this year!

I just looked up, and where there had been a blue jay--a blue jay! Sharing?!? When does THAT ever happen--there is something with a bright flash of red on its neck. I'm peering through the screen, trying to decide what it is. A mourning dove? Is it that big? No, not really that big, and the beak seems a bit long, but it is bigger than the blue jay had been. . .

Suddenly, it lifts its wings and sails off to cling to the side of a tree. Ahh! That explains it--a woodpecker.

I don't understand what is so tasty in my yard that even the woodpecker in on the ground, though. Ornithologist I am not!

Mr. Sweetie Reports

After rigorous testing, Mr. Sweetie reports that chocolate brownies and Scotch go very well together.

Corrections Page--Me, Me, Meme

After sleeping on it, I felt I needed to correct my previous answer.

3. My favorite quote from a book (mention the title) is. . .

From Terry Pratchett's The Truth (I think, plus I'm paraphrasing, so this probably doesn't even count!)

They say there are two kinds of people in the world: those who see the glass as half empty, and those who see the glass as half full. But there is another kind of person: the kind who says "Excuse me. Excuse me! Is this my glass? I don't think so. My glass was larger. And it had more in it!"


Anyone reading this? Consider yourself tagged.

This Is Ridiculous--The Weather Report

So, a little over a week ago, Mr. Sweetie and I were cruising down the Mississippi in the fabulous Lady Cliff. And you could see autumn was stretching its muscles to really hit town. The trees along the banks of the river had started changing color slightly. The colors etched the evening shadows--above the shde from the opposite shore, the trees were starting to edge yellow, copper, red--not the true flaming colors of fall, but their harbingers. Below the shade line, the trees stayed resolutely green.

The promise of autumn was not filled the following week--we had rain, rain, and more rain. As though all the rain we didn't get during the summer was now being dumped at once. Then--

It was summer again.

Not Indian summer (do we still call it that?), not the gold-tinged last warmth of the departing season. No. We got full bore sticky, buggy, humid and hot summer. In Minnesota. In October.

We are not used to this. We are used to winter dropping in early, unannounced, not even calling ahead to say "I'm in the driveway! Can I come in?" Heavy wet snow, falling from the sky already slush, piling on garden plants and bowing trees--that's the kind of weather we expect from October.

Minnesota is not a place where we wear shorts and flip flops in October. But it was 86 degrees! It was too hot for October. And the humidity! What was up with that? We turned on the window air conditioners again for the last couple of nights just to be able to sleep.

This morning, Mr. Sweetie came up and turned off the a/c. "It's 55 degrees--you might not need this now."

Me, Me, Me, Meme + Books

I blog. I read blogs. I steal things from blogs because nobody tags me for anything. So, here I am, pretending that 50 Books has tagged me with this book related meme-thing. (Her answers are funnier than mine, so just go ahead and click on the link--you'll be glad you did.)

1. Hardcover or paperback, and why?

Paperback, because you can buy so many more of them for the same price.

2. If I were to own a book shop I would call it…

Bentley & Bermondsey's--two great dogs who would really have liked each other if they'd ever been alive at the same time.

3. My favorite quote from a book (mention the title) is…

Today, it's this from Terry Pratchett's Wintersmith: "I will take you back, but there will be, and I cannot emphasize this enough, no singing."


4. The author (alive or deceased) I would love to have lunch with would be…

I actually know some authors, and have had--well, maybe not lunch, exactly, but dessert, or drinks and hors d'oeuvres kind of things. I met F. Scott Fitzgerald's former secretary and his granddaughter. I've had to sneak Kurt Vonnegut out the back of a building to escape his fans (the man smoked worse than a chimney--I'm not certain he actually was able to metabolize oxygen!). I've interviewed, hired, introduced, and met socially several excellent writers. And the sad reality is that they are just people--and the ones that are the most fun to be with are the ones that are the most like my other friends. They are just people I like. So, I guess I'd pick someone who was charming and funny--P.G. Wodehouse, perhaps, or Jasper Fforde.

5. If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except for the SAS survival guide, it would be…

I never answer this question right. If I was stuck on a deserted island, I'd want to bring a Target. Maybe even a SuperTarget. Although, to be honest, their books section usually sucks. I've thought that the Bible might be decent, since the good stuff is in all those books that you never read. But given my current spiritual crisis, I'd have to pick something else. Maybe an anthology of Agatha Christie books, since by the time you've read a few of them, you've already forgotten what happened in the first ones. Plus, you can read them like eating potato chips--one is not enough.

6. I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that…

. . .combines audio with a regular book, so that when I have to stop reading to drive somewhere, or make dinner, or any of those things my unreasonable family seems to need, I could just switch over to audio and have the book read to me. But then when I can pick up the book again, it automatically goes to where the audio part left off. Either that, or just get full service household staff so I don't have to set the damn book down.

7. The smell of an old book reminds me of…

. . .going into my grandparents' basement and finding dozens of books from my dad's adolescence--dozens of books that nobody reads any more. Sad, dead books that even though I feel bad for those books, even I won't read them.

8. If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title), it would be…

. . .Oh, hell, since I'm addicted to Terry Pratchett, I guess I'd want to be Susan Sto Helit--Death's granddaughter, especially in Hogfather or Soul Music.

9. The most overestimated book of all time is…

. . .I'd have to say Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I love the first chapter, and simply cannot read any farther into the thing.

10. I hate it when a book…

. . .is a waste of the time it took to read it. Those are precious hours I won't get back to read other books!

NaBloPoMo--The Registration

So I've officially joined at NaBloPoMo--I'm member #912! It's harsh, though, as the first thing that came up once I'd registered was this daunting and damning phrase:

Cate Ross has no friends on this social network.

It's like being back in junior high and walking into the cafeteria. Where can I sit? Where should I sit? Why can't I just go back into the classroom and eat at my desk?

You Say I'm Spoiled As If It's A Bad Thing

Mr. Sweetie and I celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary this past weekend. Yes, I was 5 when we got married.

Anyway. Mr. Sweetie spirited me away to the historic river town of Red Wing. We spent the night in an 1877 bed & breakfast, and we spent Saturday driving down the river visiting studios and galleries in the artistic small towns on the Wisconsin side of the river.

We ate in very nice restaurants, we spend lovely time together, we went to a concert by the Boys of the Lough. We were gone for about 30 hours, went only about an hour away from home, and it felt like we'd been gone for a week.

See, even when I was 5, I knew the right man to marry!

Fun With Image Chef

Once again, thanks to Fussy, I have a new web widget to play with: Image Chef. With this, I can make my own signs, badges, greetings, etc.--like the fuzzy Bad Dog to the right. My current favorites are these blog-themed ones.



It works, don't you think? And if you stare at it long enough, you become hypnotized and fall completely into my control! Bwah ha ha ha ha ha!

Or this one:


Whaddaya think? Should either of these become permanent sidebar items?

NaBloPoMo 2007--The Return

Yup, bless her Carpel Tunnel Syndrome, Fussy is doing it again. Next month is (Inter)National Blog Posting Month, aka NaBloPoMo, where the challenge is to post every day of the month. I'm going to go for it again. The new link is here.

Hence, the extremely cute new image on the sidebar. Just there, over on the right.

I have a thing for small and fuzzy dogs.

More on Sleep

I promise I'll be brief.

I've now spent 3 nights with the new mask on the CRAP machine. And it might be working. I was even able to sleep on my stomach!

Sure, it doesn't sound like much, but remember? When you were pregnant? (All non-pregnant people are excused from this exercise.) And as the baby started getting bigger, and you still tried to sleep on your stomach, but there was the hard bump that you just couldn't get comfortable around? And as the third trimester hit, you could only sleep on your side, and mostly only the left side at that? And then remember after the baby was born, and you rolled over the first night onto your stomach?

Like that. Pure, decadent, heavenly bliss.

Asian Stuff

As per last post: new switchplate ordered!



Next up: wallpaper border and bedding. I have some cool ideas, and need to get Pony's input.

Check out this really cool wallpaper border!

1 Rm Gdn Vu

We all know that a teenager's room is a disaster area--it's a comic convention. Which doesn't mean it's funny.

Pony's room had gotten unmanageable. I couldn't get in to get the laundry hamper. I couldn't get in to deliver clean laundry. Pony couldn't find anything to wear on Sunday. I went in to help her and twisted my ankle! It was time for action.

So, while the rest of the Evils were at church, I took on the project.

Realize that we have a small (but charming!) house. It's a late 19th century farmhouse within the city limits--back then, this was countryside. Mr. Sweetie and I bought the house back when it was just the two of us and two little dogs. We had absolutely no plans to have children.

Then we had children.

Which was fine and wonderful and all the positive and negative things parenting is. But suddenly the guest bedroom was going to be for a permanent guest.

Back in the early 90s, my decorating style was all about Laura Ashley/Victorian. Lots of pink, frankly. The guest room was painted a pale yellow (Benjamin Moore "Pearly Gates" IIRC), with a floral wallpaper border from Laura Ashley. We put the family heirloom three-quarter bed (handmade cherry four-poster) in there, with a blue and white quilt. The dresser is also "antique"--possibly from the 1940s. It was terrifically charming. After the crib went into the Bunny's room, all the dark wood antiques went back in. And Pony, being little, had no say.

As time passed, things accumulated. I added some inexpensive white storage from Target--drawers, shelves, etc., to hold books, art projects, science presentations. The baby art remained on the walls as well--a lovely print of sheep and lambs in blues and greys; a Morrisot growth chart; a classic Pooh picture. Again, none of it Pony's choice.

So yesterday, I started moving things. Out. Out of her room. I thought I might just tidy up, get her started, but I quickly realized what you must realize by now: a kid almost in high school doesn't really want to keep all this stuff. But, she also probably doesn't want to be the one to decide to get rid of it. A sentimental dilemma. So I made part of the decision for her, and just took everything out.

Everything off the walls.

Everything on the shelves.

All the shelves.

All the stuff that was displayed, or stacked, or tucked into corners---all of it out.

I left the bed and the dresser. After all, she did need a place to sleep.

And when she came home and saw the newly naked room--she was really excited and happy! Because she had never even imagined her room being such a blank slate. A couple of times during the day she announced "I'm going up into my empty room."

It didn't take her long to decide--she wanted to make her room Asian. I think she may want to keep the bed and the dresser, but everything else is not going back in. She's not ready to part with it all yet--that's what a basement is for, I guess. It is, however, a major step for the kid who never wanted anything to change.

First item of business? I think maybe we will change the Peter Rabbit light switch.