Yay! Blog!
Category: What's Going On?

• The other evening, a neighbor came by and asked if I needed a garage door opener installed. I did. I've wanted one since mine died just a few weeks after I bought my house last year. He said his son installs them and offered to have him come do it the next morning. I said that I wouldn't be home, so he said, "How about right now?" Heck yeah! The reason I hadn't done it before was not about money... it was about scheduling a time for someone to come do it. This was perfect! So now I have a garage door opener that works again. It's one of my favorite luxuries.
• The son who installed the garage door opener said he was getting a divorce after 7 years. Then he showed me the tattoo of his wife on his upper arm. Whooops. He had a good attitude, though. He said she was able to tame him for 7 years and gave him three wonderful children, so she deserved a place on his arm.
• If I got a tattoo, I'd get a colored sun in yellow, orange and blue. I don't know where, though. Most of my body parts change shape pretty regularly.
• The Olympics start this week. So do our office Olympics. I'm looking forward to it. My section is Brazil, and we're hosting Balloon Soccer.
• I'll be running the internal Office Olympic Web site again this year. That probably means overtime, but it's totally worth it. Thank goodness I'm not a supervisor anymore. This is one of the reasons I wanted to step down from that position... so I would have plenty of time for Olympic press coverage.

I worked at home today. Someone wasn't thinking straight when they dubbed it telecommuting. It's noncommuting. Some call it teleworking. That makes more sense.

Some parts of my job are great to do at home, but the parts where I have to connect to the office network over the internet are grueling. Something that would normally take me 10-15 minutes took about an hour. I'm not doing that again if I can help it.

The nicest part about working at home is that at quittin' time, I'm already home. You'd think I could sleep later, too, but I like my Starbucks chocolatey coffee, so I still have to get up early enough to go get some. I also get to go for a chicken biscuit at Chik-Fil-A. It's close by home, but it's not on the way to work, so I don't normally go.

I'm also not one who can get up and work in her pajamas (which for me would be my t-shirt and granny panties). I like to be dressed to the shoes (as FlyLady would say) before I start working. It just doesn't feel right, otherwise.

• Ripley's doing much better since his stay in the hospital. I still need to find out the best kind of food to feed him so his bladder doesn't get blocked again.
• This coming weekend is "X-Files" weekend. I'm going to Texarkana to see it with my bgf Shann. I watched 5 of the 6 episodes that Chris Carter recommended watching before going to see the movie. Right now, Post-Modern Prometheus is my favorite episode.
• Speaking of my bgf Shann, she pointed out that Janeane Garofalo graduated from my high school the same year I did. My only confirmation of that so far (besides Wikipedia and IMDb) is a program from my 5 year high school reunion that has her name in it. It's possible that she witnessed my first and only solo vocal performance in a football stadium. I sang "The Greatest Love of All." I even have a low fidelity recording of it.
• Now that I have a new fence on one side of the yard, another part of the fence is falling down. I need some kind of strong cord to tie it up. I guess a trip to Home Depot is in order. Think I'll see Tony Stewart there?
• In the 16 years I lived at my prior residence, my fence only broke twice. Now that I own a house, my fence barely gets fixed before it's broken again.

• Ripley cat is in the hospital. He had a blockage in his bladder. Poor thing.
• On my way to work yesterday, I had to take a detour because a train was blocking several intersections. There were police at each of the train crossings. Turns out there was a dead body on top of the train.
• Saturday Night, my friend Ke hosted Elton John Hoot Night at her house. We played Elton John songs most of the night. I sang "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." I know that "Lucy" is a Beatles song, but good ol' Elton had his own version. There's talk of more Hoot Nights: Rolling Stones, Police, Beatles, Billy Joel, Aerosmith. Who would you hoot?

• Happy 4th of July, y'all!
• This morning in the shower, I looked out the window and saw a cloud shaped like Africa. There was even another cloud attached to the top right of it that could have been Asia. Europe was missing, though.

I was home sick today for the third day in a row. Since I didn't do much, I'll make a list of the things I didn't do:

Fly in a plane
Go to work
Star in a movie
See a human face to face (yet... I might order a pizza later)
Write a song
Drink champagne
Photograph an elephant
Wrestle an alligator
Take a nap in the afternoon

This list is not all inclusive.

I have a penguin calendar on my wall by my computer desk. Each week starts with Monday, and that always screws me up because I'm used to weeks starting with Sunday. Yesterday, I thought it was the 6th all day long.

Lily got me up about 4:30 this morning to go outside. That used to be an ordeal at my old house because I would have to take her for a walk down the street. Now, all I have to do is open the sliding glass door and let her out.

I did that and stood at the door looking up at the sky. It was so clear. I saw Mars. I questioned whether it was Mars because it was as bright as Jupiter, but it was clearly red. I checked online later, and it was right where Mars was supposed to be at that time. I saw Orion, my favorite constellation. I looked back at Mars, and just as I did, I saw a shooting star.

I thought about making a wish, but I also thought I need to be careful what I wish for. I might still have made a wish, but it was so early in the morning, I forgot. Can a wish come true if you forget you made it?

I love where I live now.

I saved a grasshopper. I don't know that he was really in danger, but he was in my garage, and being stuck in my garage can't be much fun. So I picked him up with a fish net (not stockings... the kind of net you use to scoop dead fish out of an aquarium), and put him outside.

I also bought a camera. I've been carrying around a little keyring camera that takes fairly lousy pictures, but still handy when the need arises. The lens is cracked. I don't think the pictures are any more lousy, but I feel weird taking pictures with a cracks-lens camera. So....

I bought a Nikon Coolpix L11. It was $99 at Office Max. It's small enough to carry in my purse. Yay! I bought a 2GB memory card and some lithium batteries that the sales guy recommended. The lithium batteries don't fit, so I'll make another trip to Office Max tomorrow to return them.

I'm not doing any music tonight. I'll wait until after Thanksgiving. I need a break.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I have a different e-mail address for almost every Web site I register with, so I can track the ones that result in spam. Just recently, two of my accounts started getting spam e-mails: Movabletype and eHarmony. I'm surprised about Movabletype. I wonder how spammers got that one. It wouldn't surprise me if eHarmony sold my address. I was only a member of that site for about 24 hours. I didn't like the "shopping for a human" vibe. Maybe they sell the addresses of closed accounts.

I'm mentally ready to settle down into my new house and create a nice routine for living my life. Over the last several weeks, I've been busy getting into the new house and getting out of the old one. Today I went over the clean the old place. Tomorrow I hand over the keys. I'm ready for a weekend where I don't have to worry about either house, a weekend where I can just enjoy my new life. I still have things to unpack and lots of arranging to do at the new house, though.

Last night, I took a break from that stuff and participated in a table reading of a screenplay that my friends Keely and Spike wrote. That's the most fun I've had in ages (not including the weekly music jams). I read five small parts. The most fun was a JT, a "Federline-esque bad hip-hop lingo spouting boy band member." He kept saying "Word!" heh

Tonight's our Saturday Night Music Jam. I need to go take a shower, grab a bite to eat, and then go sing and maybe play some bass guitar. Tomorrow, I hope I have some time to rest.

Last night, about 2:00 a.m., I woke up with a start. I was disoriented, and I thought I'd heard someone pound on my front door. Lily wasn't barking, though, and she always barks. I got up, and peeked out the window, but didn't see anything.

The pounding was gunfire. This morning, the Crime Scene Forensics truck was next door removing bullets from the inside of my next door neighbor's garage. No one got shot that they're aware. Apparently, the people across the street who have gatherings until all hours of the morning these days got out of hand and started shooting.

A lady in my neighborhood was complaining that it was "2 a.m. in the frickin' morning." I guess there are proper times and improper times for people to be shooting in our neighborhood.

This weekend, I need to go to the Quickie Lube. I know because my windshield washer fluid is out. I guess I might as well get my oil changed while I'm there, too. heh

but when next I write, I will be 43. I'm off to H-town to celebrate my birthday. I googled Houston and Birthday, and it came up with this cake. I think that means the trip is going to be out of this world!

You mice can party while I'm away. Have a great weekend!

Yesterday, I went through the Starbucks drive through like most mornings. I ordered a mocha and a slice of marble pound cake at the speaker. When I got up to the window, the tall blond barista with the great smile started to confirm my order. "You had an iced decaf grande no whip mocha and ...." The barista looks at me, looks back at the register, and looks back at me. "It says here you had a [starts to chuckle] pound of marble?"

I started giggling and couldn't speak. That made him smile and laugh some more, which in turn made me smile and laugh more. He says, "I'm going to quit Starbucks if they start asking me to slog a pound of marble through this little window." That made us both laugh even more. We were caught in a continuous loop of contagious laughter. Then he handed me the little bag holding the marble pound cake and said, "Here's your pound of marble." heh I giggled all the way to work.

I joined Curves this week. Some of my co-workers go there at lunch three times a week. I figure they can keep me motivated to go. Right now I'm motivated without their help. As a result of working out, I have extra energy, and the downer I've been on lately has subsided somewhat.

I've also been working on my attitude. I'm trying to be more patient with people and think less negatively about so many things. It's going to take a lot of work. I've been the way I am for almost 43 years, and it hasn't served me well. I remember being impatient even as a child. I want to learn not to think so much about things. I want to not have so many expectations of people and events that I end up disappointed. I want to live, and I want to be happy.

I got a haircut. I feel much lighter. The morning routine should be a little quicker.

I thought a lot today about what it means to shine. I think it’s about being positive and confident. It’s all that “love yourself” stuff.

I always think if I can lose weight, I’ll love myself more. I’ve been eating better, and I walked up eight flights of stairs at lunch today. I got up to the fourth floor and started to take the elevator the rest of the way. Then a very strong thought came to my mind. If I didn’t push myself to go up the other four flights, that I could never expect any good to come my way in life. I’m not sure what that was about, but I headed on up the stairs.

I don’t think losing weight is the key to loving myself, though. I think it’s more about attitude. I’ve got a long way to go with that.

Someone (NOT me) wrote a hot check for $1400 about a year ago. The check was not from my bank. The check did not have my address printed on it. Yet my driver's license number was written on the check.

Now a collection agency is after me, the hot check is on my credit report, and I got a message on my answering machine yesterday that an attorney will be sending the information to a local county court or something, and they will issue a subpoena. The guy who left the message told me his name (last name unintelligible), the attorney's name (last name unintelligible), directed me to call his office, yet didn't leave the telephone number. I called the number that showed up on my caller ID, and the recording said "[Unintelligible] Asset Management." Sheesh.

I've filed a police report. I've done an online dispute form for my credit report (that was a pain in the arse, and I'm not sure if it even went through--I'm going to call a human there sometime this week). I put a fraud alert on my credit reports. I've talked to the collection agency, and they were going to send me a formal letter, but it's been a couple weeks, and I still don't have a letter. I feel so helpless.

How can I be in trouble for a check I didn't write from a bank I don't have an account with? And who the hell wrote MY driver's license on the check?

On a lighter note, I found the DSW shoe store today that I couldn't find last weekend and bought 3 pairs of shoes.

I drove 20 miles today to shop for shoes at DSW Shoes. When I got there, the store was closed down and empty. I drove around a bit to see if it might have moved nearby. While I was waiting at a light, a guy in a tow truck on the passenger side of my car got my attention. I rolled down the window, and he asked me directions. I HATE IT when people ask me directions. No one likes to hear "I don't know." That's what I should have said, though, because I ended up giving him the wrong directions. Now I feel like an idiot.

I didn't see another shoe store, so I came home. I looked DSW up on the internets, and found that they had moved just across the highway. I wasn't up to driving the 20 miles to go back there.

I'm pretty tired of life right now. I know a lot of people have it worse than me, so that's all I'll say about that.

• I shouldn't talk about work here.
• I would think I can link to things that talk about work, though.
• My new boss mentioned in the same article as Arnold Schwarzenegger
• It's been a rough week. I think I'll spend some time this weekend catching up on sleep, buying shoes, and decluttering bulky items. It's bulky trash day on Monday!!

Yesterday's lunchtime mishap was getting a parking ticket. Today's mishap was getting pooped on by a bird. I wonder what's on the lunchtime mishap agenda for tomorrow.

I parked at a parking meter at lunch. I put $1 in for an hour. Walking into the restaurant, I saw the meter guy checking meters. I thought, "I'm glad I put money in the meter." When I got back to my car, I had a ticket. That's when I realized I put the money in the wrong meter. Sheesh.

Turns out the bomb squad was called out where I ate lunch today because some guy went into a nearby school and was acting weird. The police questioned him, and he left, but he left his car there. There was a briefcase and a duffel bag in the car, and the bomb squad was there to investigate.

I mentioned the robot in my earlier post. It's cool!! I found a video from a newscast online where you can see the robot at work and a man in a funny suit. I'm not sure how long it'll be available. I think it's worth sitting through the short commercial at the beginning. Oh... and the reporter? She's standing right where my car was! heh

The bomb squad robot video

Lunch at the Galaxy Cafe was exciting today. The bomb squad and haz mat team were there.


They even had a robot on wheels.


I'll have to watch the news tonight to learn more about what was going on. I haven't heard an explosion, so hopefully all is well.

• Today would be my Mom's 75th birthday. She died 12 years ago.
• Shelly at work is going to have a baby.
• I took Lily to the vet for a dental cleaning. They found a tumor on her leg, removed it and sent it to pathology. I'll find out in about a week if it's malignant.
• Rob and Deborah at work got married.
• On the way home from the vet (with Lily in the car), I had a flat tire and had to change it.
• Donna at work has a new grandbaby.
• Lily also had a cracked tooth that had to be removed. The vet bill was 4 times more than I was expecting because of all the extra stuff they had to do.
• I only have a temporary spare tire, so I'll have to deal with that tomorrow. Luckily, I'd already scheduled off to watch over Lily.
• I'm so hungry. I put a frozen dinner in the microwave. It's beeping now.

I can't ever relax on the weekends because I need/want to do so much. When I force myself to relax and not do much of anything, I forget to do important things like car inspections and buying dog food and the stress gets worse. Here's a bunch of stuff I have on my mind to do this weekend:

• do the laundry
• play on the internet
• read Kurt Cobain's Journals
• clean the carpet
• write a song
• work on picture galleries from trips and outings
• finish a music meme I started
• go grocery shopping
• change my comment and trackback script filename to cut the d*** spam
• work on recording the song I'm recording
• Upgrade the software on the search engine at work
• declutter
• clean the living room
• change the sheets
• read "Exiles Challenge"
• balance my checkbook
• get the files ready to send off to get more Raspberry Silk CDs made
• blog (doing this now!)
• go to the library
• make the skins on my website change automatically according to date
• answer the emails that are backed up
• watch movies and TV shows I've recorded on TiVo
• sweep the front porch
• wash my car
• make steak and polenta
• dust
• start working on the Christmas part of my Website so it's ready before Thanksgiving
• stop making this list (done)

There's never a shortage of things to do. The laundry's calling...

Yesterday, I stopped by a post office to mail something, and when I came out, I walked up to my car and clicked the remote unlock thingy. Nothing happened. I clicked it again. Nothing happened. I started getting that panicky feeling because it wasn't working. Then I looked into the car. I saw some headphones that looked like mine on the passenger seat. But then I realized that I didn't have those headphones with me. It wasn't my car!

It looked just like my car, though.

It was almost an hour later when I realized if it really had been my car and my remote unlock thingy stopped working, I could have just used to key to get in.

I was at CVS yesterday and saw some cool beige tights. I thought they would go great with a long brown skirt I have, so I bought them. I'm wearing them today. I can't remember the last time I wore a skirt to work.

Three people have asked me if I had an important meeting today. A few others have told me I look nice. Some asked why I'm wearing a skirt. I just answered, "I felt like being weird today."

This outfit is very comfortable. That's the only way to go-- comfortable. I'll do it again soon.