Another Fun Date

The Mayans should have picked this date...or maybe they did, and they were just dyslexic. At any rate, I haven't really started my xmas shopping yet, just in case.  I still have that feeling that Facebook and life in general has sapped my blogging muse, but I guess I'll keep this around in case it ever comes back.

10-11-12 Pics

 Turns out I can link to Facebook photos instead of posting them all one by one. Sweet! So I think this link might work for party photo viewing: 10-11-12 

Clicking on the first photo in the set will take you to a slide show.

Also, I feel the need to post this photo, just because I am getting new glasses (again), and these are not them. I will be happy if I can see better out of them than these Mr. Magoo glasses...though in the past, I haven't been so lucky. Fingers (eyes?) crossed for success.

 

Halloween '12!

 We went all out at work again...sort of. This was the most effort everyone was willing to expend. Still, it was fun.

In other news, I got a free massage at work, and we had a party.

I'm sad that biking season is pretty much over with. I had really been enjoying longer rides (something new for me) and being comfortable on my new bike. Hopefully next spring, it'll all come back to me quickly...like riding a bike.

Noting the Date

And happy birthday to me. I am so very much out of the blogging mode as of late...lost my muse and still looking for it, but I couldn't let this date go by without a commemoration. So far, it's been a great birthday despite the underlying funk born of of disappointment and heartbreak. Not to be overly dramatic or anything.

Instead of taking the day off, I came to work and have tomorrow off. So my co workers took me to Noodles for lunch, which was fun, I've been fielding calls and Facebook wishes (really nice!) and my new BFF Mary Kay sent me the most gorgeous BRIGHT ORANGE flowers (behold the photo). Tonight is not so exciting, but there's nothing wrong with routine: PT and karate class, which I realize is probably counterproductive, but I need to get some practice in before I forget all that makes me a brown belt.

Plans for Friday include a massage and dinner at my favorite Italian joint with parental units, R&A and Lenore...followed by...wait for it...CARROT CAKE. Yeah. Then Saturday is the 10-11-12 party...on the 13th...which I think will be a hoot. Maybe photos to follow, maybe not. Just depends on where the muse pops up. She's a fickle bitch, after all.

I'm hoping the universe offers up some decent weather for a bike ride. The Surly is getting surly and so is its rider for lack of action. I probably need to update on that too...but there's too much baggage that goes with it right now.

Had I been on the ball, I could have posted this at 13:14:15 o'clock and it would have been 10-11-12 13:14:15. Oh well.

Other random photos that actually jog my memory a little and will maybe comment on later...

Here's mom and dad on their anniversary, and, below (because I can't figure out how to get text between the photos) is me with a giant puffball mushroom that a co worker found in her garden; an attempt at a headstand at Rock Cut State Park on a standup paddleboard (unsuccessful, for the record); one of the warrior yoga poses on a SUP (relatively successful); my stint at judging a debate at work (yes, I was cheating by looking at another judge's notes); my favorite Chinese co worker and her birthday eggplant (she doesn't like cake); and the last two harvests from my garden.

Seasonal Firsts

Nosegays! The early warm weather teaser we'll call spring resulted in earlier-than-normal emergence of flowers, so I clipped a few before they got frozen. It's starting to be difficult to tell various nosegays apart, but I still can't help but get a little lift from their presence. So documentation may continue.

In other news, the fucking varmints are trying to set up house under my shed again. Last year's skunk odor is still there, and I think there was a family of raccoons under there at some point too. So this is a quick attempt at fortification, which was thwarted and then re fortified with my three watchers (who also, conveniently, are quite heavy and holding down the discarded refrigerator shelf that is acting as a digging deterrent). So far so good.

Now on to yard matters. Crap. I think the neighbors are a little fed up. But lawn care? Meh...who needs it.
 

Whenever I have time to mow, the conditions aren't right (i.e., it's raining, dark or cold), and now I have a cold, so it's just not happening this weekend. Sorry neighbors. Dandelions are good for the soil. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Even though I feel like a complete slug, I baked some soda bread, chocolate bran muffins and a loaf of whole wheat raisin bread. In between rising and baking, I dozed, so it all worked out.

I thought my oven was out of whack, because my past two attempts at soda bread were kind of underdone in the middle, and that's after cooking way past the recipe's recommended bake time. So I bought an oven thermometer. The oven is fine, so it must just be me. This time I split the dough into two smaller loaves and it worked out better.

Earlier in the month we also took our first kayak trip down the river. In March! Unheard of. Check it out -- shorts, despite the fact that there are no leaves on the trees yet and there's still snow on the snowboarding hill in Algonquin.

The day after we floated under this trestle, it collapsed! Yikes.

I was also in the annual St. Patty's Day parade, and this year part of it assembled on my street. It's always an interesting day when the cavalry is in front of your house, no?

I may have mentioned (or maybe I didn't) that Facebook seems to be sapping my blogging muse. Not sure what to do about that. Live with it I guess. My other writing outlet (book reviews) is commencing, but of course much more slowly. And that's OK, because if I were prolific, I might have to identify a point to it all. And, like this picture of "wind art" in a spider web, I don't think there really is one.

Movin' On Up!

This is the cheap tract housing my red wiggler worms are currently having to tolerate.



But soon, they will move on up...to a deluxe apartment in the sky. Well, not really the sky, probably the basement. Still...it's nicer than a take-out carton.


I did not notice the teeny baby worm when I was taking this picture! This is a good sign... The teenage unwed mothers of the projects are doing what they do best.



I'm in the process of "aging" their habitat, which consists of ripped up egg cartons and newspaper, fruit and vegetable food scraps (cabbage, carrots, apples, a hunk of cut up ginger root, onion peels, green pepper guts, and banana peel), and coffee grounds and filters, to be exact, with a light sprinkling of water (snow melt, not tap water!). Soon, maybe sooner, they will find their way into their new paradise. I hope. Right now, I'm just letting them transition on their own...by the weekend, though, Ima have to evict them from the take-out container for good.

Here's the situation right now:



Then...in good time, with any luck, the worms, which I have yet to name, will begin earning their keep by composting all this stuff to their little gizzards' content (yes, they have gizzards!), the by product of which (poop), will be used in my garden this spring.

Roland bought himself a little starter kit too (he got the deluxe model with a bin). This all took place last weekend at the 20th annual natural landscaping seminar and expo. I know -- do I know how to live or WHAT?

Happily, we also managed to get in a little cross country ski session, which was AWESOME, not only because I didn't think I'd get to ski again this season, but because the place and conditions were fine (I don't remember where it was though...Roland, what was it?), and I got to try the newly traded for boots (thank you L.L. Bean), which I do believe I will love. No blisters, no pain across the top, nice and warm, very comfy. Sweet.

Literal Thots: A New Blog

Just for shits and giggles, I decided to archive some of my Goodreads book reviews. They are not highly intellectual or even literary in nature (despite the title), rather they are just some thoughts about books I've read. Goodreads is kind of a Facebook for book nerds. I joined because I was invited by one of the hip young English instructors I admire at work. For the most part, I just have fun writing them and exercising my brain a little bit. (Emphasis on little.)

Light DIY And Other Mundane Documentation

Literally and figuratively. How pathetic is my life when I get such a thrill out of fixing my porch light, which has been bugging me for years. A lot of years. And no, I didn't actually install the light or touch wires, I just replaced the stupid glass part that goes over the bulb. But in my defense, it involved a ladder, a measuring tape and the need to drill holes into the actual metal so that I could put screws through the holder thingee in order to hold the glass up.


I'm not sure what was there before, maybe nothing? I just know the bare bulb had finally gotten on my last nerve. And it only took one trip to the hardware store. That's a success.

Look, here are my newly exchanged cross country ski boots, which I have yet to be able to actually wear on real skis in the snow, because THERE IS NO SNOW.


The meager snowfall we had did afford opportunity to snowshoe and try my new skis (which I love) and boots (which I didn't love). I discovered these new boots, purchased last season from L.L. Bean, were not going to work. They did allow for blister-free skiing, which meant a substantial savings in band-aids, but they hurt across the top of my foot...and that sucked. Thankfully L.L. Bean has the most consumer-friendly return policy ever, even if their politics blow. So back they went for these. Which still have the tags on and are gathering dust.

Fail

Not an epic fail, but...that writing experiment last night wasn't what I'd call a success. But I'll leave it.

Two Dreams

Under the shadow of this blog fatigue, I had a shimmer of...something (inspiration isn't accurate) pass behind my eyes (was it visible, like a flutter?), possibly from wine (medicinal of course), physical fatigue, or the fragment of some dreams. It could also be the recent effect of the artsy indy film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which is both horrific and beautiful (and I do recommend it).

At any rate, I decided to force myself to write something, just to see if I still had the attention span to do so. So I'll document two dreams I just had, neither of which I can remember completely (I never can), but are the type that haunt the recesses of your mind all day 'til they eventually fade.

The first, to which I attach no meaning, took place in a school bus that was on some sort of tour through a remote fishing-boating community with dirt roads and tiny cabins. Very scenic and rustic, it was a place I wanted more time to explore. Like other reoccurring dreams I have of a school or a huge house that I'm lost in, it was familiar, though I had never been there before. I felt like I was on an adventure, but also nervous, because my mom's 90-something-year-old friend was driving, and not very well. We bumped all over the road, at times off the road, and at one point, we were careening sideways toward some sort of obstruction (A tree? A building?), which reminded me of an accident my friends and I had in high school -- a textbook rain-slicked disaster that ended with a van full of kids wrapped around a large tree on a country road. Coincidence? Who knows. As in the real-life situation, I felt a moment of calm acceptance before the deafening crash and chaos, though in the dream it never came. Instead my mom turned around in the seat in front of me and wondered if maybe she should take over the driving. I woke up thinking, "I'm not sure that's going to be much of an improvement…" (Sorry mom.)

The second dream (it's a bonus that I remembered more than one) was somewhat of a reoccurring theme. Throughout the years, I will occasionally dream of a childhood friend who died when I was around 12 years old. He's always as I remember him – still a boy with bangs, still smiling crookedly, and I'm always so happy to see him. It's frustrating, because something always prevents us from really talking before I wake up, but I always wake up happy and then a little disappointed when I realize it was a dream.

I don't know what drew me and Gary together. Probably because we were both on the fringe of the neighborhood gang. I was the only girl, Gary was the only kid with what people these days call "special needs." I think he was more special than needy though. He was uncoordinated, and his social skills were a little stunted, but he was clever and good at math. He loved to sing, and I think he liked to read the dictionary. He goofed around a lot. He was overly sensitive, but also affectionate and sweet when most boys that age were crude and uncomfortable around girls, even a tomboy like me. I don't remember ever having deep conversations, though he could chit chat for hours. We were just buddies who played cards, bumper pool and Monopoly and, when we were allowed, touch football and baseball with our brothers and the other boys on our street. I was overly protective, he was dependable. Together I think we buffered each other a little bit from being different.

Anyway, these dreams seem to be more infrequent, and now when I dream of Gary, sometimes, I see him as he might be had he grown up. I don't know how I know it's him, but I do, and I'm fascinated. The joy of seeing him is there, but also the frustration, because I need to tell him things. I don't even know what, but it's urgent. Maybe it's just "Hi, I still think of you." Or that I'm sorry for those times I probably took his friendship for granted – like kids do, for ever being impatient or forgetting his physical limitations because I was too busy proving myself to a bunch of boys who, it turns out, I was about a year away from losing as comfortable friends anyway thanks to hormones and middle school. Or for allowing myself to wonder, even as I mourned his death, if it wasn't for the best considering how often he'd be hurt or disappointed the older we got and the more fragile the protective bubble of childhood became. Certainly I would have rather he lived. And I know now he'd probably be OK. So maybe it's just guilt. But whenever I dream of someone I loved who's now gone, it makes me wonder if there's more to it than subconscious memories. Probably not though.

Two One Two One Two

Even though I don't have much to blog about, I wanted to commemorate the date.
That's all.

I think Facebook has caused any ruminations to manifest themselves as status updates, which, it turns out, is a real muse killer.

That, and any photo documentation I have to talk about is just so damn cumbersome to download, I find myself avoiding the whole blogging thing altogether. I suppose I could just write without illustration, but where's the fun in that?

Mundane has lost its thrill. Go figure.