So... remember the Flaming Pizza Box story? Apparently, I didn't learn the lesson. Don't get me wrong- I love Ikea as much as the next starving college kid-- but I will never buy a tea light candle holder there again. I always figured with a TEA LIGHT that is already in it's little cup, putting it in a container MADE FOR TEA LIGHTS was a pretty safe way to burn a candle. I was wrong. Those "do not leave unattended" warning stickers are there for a REASON, people!
The particular candles I buy come from Z Gallerie, a store I love. They are supposed to be smokeless, dripless, and the wicks don't have any lead in them. A good thing, I think. The 50-tea-lights-in-a-bag that I bought previously were turning my wall and my tea light holder black. Yuck! I've used a good 20-30 of these little dubers already, and have had no problem with them in the past-- in my nice little glass cup, on top of a ceramic plate, on a fairly flame-safe surface in my living room. It's a very happy thing.
So I thought nothing of leaving one of them burning in a (supposedly ceramic) tea light HOLDER, sitting on top of the TV (which is on loan to me from a good friend) while I was doing things in the other room. Fast forward to two days later. I decide to watch a movie. I notice that the tea light holder on the TV seems shorter than I remember it being. OH. That's because it has melted down INTO THE PLASTIC of the TV. Grand.
(Okay. I'd just like to note that this sort of strangeness could only happen to me. Or to my co-star, Shana. So... WHERE ARE THE CAMERAS HIDING THIS TIME???!!!)
Closer examination reveals that the heat of the tealight heated the candle holder to such a degree that it MELTED THE TEA LIGHT CUP (these cups are plastic, not the traditional metal, under the mistaken assumption that they'll conduct the heat less well or they look fancier or something) to a charred black soup in the base of the tea light holder-- now a cold, hardened black soup that has become one with the holder itself. And the whole thing has sunken down into the plastic top of the TV-- about 1/2 inch. The borrowed TV. And the smoke alarm was blessedly silent while the plastics melted, burned, and reformed themselves there on the TV. The borrowed TV. (This is starting to feel strangely like poetry...)
On the bright side, the TV now has a unique and very handy cup holder on it's top-- and the picture and function were not affected in the slightest. On the down side, I'm throwing out all the tea light holders that I bought at IKEA last year. Sigh... Also on the bright side, the sudden personalization of the TV has been seen with humor by the person I borrowed it from, too. And, I will never forget about leaving candles unattended again-- the warning sticker from the bottom of the candle holder is permanently fused to the TV.
Tuesday, May 22
Saturday, May 12
So Totally... I Don't Know.
Have I mentioned lately how much I love Netflix? Love it. Recently, I received Noises Off in my mailbox. I haven't gotten my hands on this particular DVD-o-CornyHumor in many years... like since high school some time. And I probably inflicted it on all my poor high school friends (hi, H!) then, too.
Anyway, one of the characters doesn't use nouns. Ever. His use of adjectives is also fairly spotty. The title of this blog is a direct quote from one of his speeches in the movie. He's telling the director of the play that he's worked with a lot of directors, but never one "who is so totally... I don't know." It's a profound sentiment. Really.
I have the same reaction to my recent afternoon playing hooky (from my own list of to-do chores on my day off, no less) in a very specific neighborhood of the local big city. It was an afternoon that left me laughing, and at a complete loss for how to explain its profundity. Good lord! Profundity is a WORD! that my spellchecker KNOWS! Will wonders never cease.
I started the afternoon having a great little mutual vent with a girlfriend while standing in front of my hair salon. I really think beauty parlours are the unofficial counseling center of the world, you know. I've gotten the best haircuts from women who became close personal friends and confidants. And some of the worst wax jobs from women who didn't.
Anyway, had my hairs cut-- all but this one she always misses because it tucks itself behind my ear until she's sent me on my way-- at which point it hangs down and starts tickling my neck relentlessly. Feels exactly like a mosquito in heat. ARGH!!!! Then I decided to swing by this one little cool strip in East downtown-- and maybe drop into the bead store there or something. Came at the strip from a direction I've never come from before, and as a result I parked about four blocks further down the street than I intended-- and found not one but THREE shops I'd never even seen before but was quite interested to visit.
The first shop... well, I went in under the mistaken assumption that it was a kitchen boutique. The storefront said something about cutlery and gifts. Yeah. The bald mannequin holding an offering plate with red lipstick and a samurai sword on his back should have alerted me... but you know... that sort of thing is NORMAL on the strip, so I didn't even stop to consider. Yeah. I should have been checking the area for cameras. It was at this point that my afternoon went from "unscripted" to "I just know somebody has got to be filming this!"
The store was a samurai's dream. There was actually a little bit of cutlery on the back wall, by the way. A very little bit. The smallest paring knife was priced at $43.-- Most of the stuff in the cases and on the walls had nothing to do with the kitchen, however. Samurai swords, throwing swords, jungle-hackers, pocket knives, belt knives, throwing stars... Plus racks of robes, traditional leather body armor, symbols of protection, and a young man behind the counter with one of those shaved heads and a long flowing ponytail at the crown of his head-- showing an older gentleman in a nice button-up shirt and slacks how to play a bamboo flute.
I left the store about 45 minutes later having received a dinner invitation (or just tea if I'm not ready to date yet after my divorce-- do I like tea??), a phone number, a short reiki-style healing, a conversation about car accidents and military tactics (and the resulting emotional trauma of each), and a CD of personally recorded gospel music. WTF?? All I can say is that it was par for course on the strip, and it was actually quite a fun conversation with the nice Christian Grandfather (with over 57 years of experience with blades of all sorts, and a wife who played piano on the CD) and the nice Samurai Man (with a weird ponytail, and several recent car accidents under his belt, who wants to take me out for tea). I left feeling loved.
I sat down on the next set of steps I passed and called a friend. Someone who could appreciate how FUNNY the last hour had been. Umm... I just had an experience that was just so totally... I don't know. Help? Then we both started laughing at the absurdity of it all. Only on the strip, she said.
There's a bumper sticker I see very occasionally on cars out here, and I totally want one. It's a great shade of purple, and all it says is "COEXIST." However, each of the letters in the word has been turned (quite obviously, and with no loss of readability, if you can believe it) into a religious symbol, ranging from the Star of David to the Christian Cross to the Pagan five-point Star, to a bunch of other stuff. The reason I bring up this bumper sticker is that I've lived here for over a year now, and I still haven't found one store that actually CARRIES this bumper sticker.
Until Thursday. When I found the second store I'd never been in before. To get to it, you have to walk through a side entrance to a little diner (which said diner was closed, adding to the oddity of the entrance program), up some stairs, and into this little reformed attic of an old house which is full of a mix of eclectic new age books, candle holders, sketchy essential oil home-mixes, and slightly pogrnographigc plastic statues of witches wearing little black dresses and bent way over their cauldrons, Betty-Boop style.
HOWEVER, the ceiling rafters were lined with cool bumper stickers. Including the elusive COEXIST. Which the proprietor has to reorder before I can go back and buy one. And the store itself was definitely a trip. I'm not sure what the destination was, but hey-- it's all about the journey, right? I left there with an inexpensive and scholarly book about the role of Women in ancient Celtic life (a side interest of mine-- I designed an independent study course in college about Celtic and Irish folklore, and had the damnedest time finding anything about women that wasn't how they were virgins or shape-shifting faeries or really vengeful deities, so this was something of interest), and a total feeling of... I don't know.
Walk on down the strip, enter the third store. This is a store on the part of the strip I've visited in the past. I've often thought it looked like a neat place for unusual jewelry and random stuff. I just never knew for sure because every time I go past it, it's CLOSED. Except Thursday. It was open. Actually open. I've walked past on a Thursday before, you know. I tell you, it was closed. I went in. And immediately got sucked into a political rant about the current state of the world, and our little corner of it by the store owner. Luckily, we were on the same side. I don't even think the poor man stopped to breathe.
All I did was comment on the cool pendants in his display case, and he went off about the rising price of silver on the open market, to be followed quickly by a series of quiz questions about the earnings of our city cops vs a cop in New York City, and a living wage being about $20,000 a year if you want to be able to compete with workers in China, and he went from there to ... well, anyway, he gave me a price break on the one little trinket I did pick up, because I listened to him rant for about 30 minutes, and because he found out that I plan to be a public librarian some day. He feels I'll be "right there in the trenches!" And he has a lot of respect for that. And I know what he means. (But I still like breathing better than complaining in most circumstances. And a lot of my sentences may be run-ons, but MY GOD! this man would have given an English teacher a heart attack!)
See, Public Librarians don't get paid as much as Academic Librarians (college/university types), don't have the same job security, and don't get to be snobs about who they serve. Public Librarians have the goal of bringing library services to under served populations, and this includes the homeless, the homebound, the illiterate, the ill, the recent immigrant and don't forget the incarcerated and incompetent! I think that's part of what draws me to the field. You get to help people who really need help, or at least will make good use of what help is offered in many instances-- to make their lives better and happier-- and to help them become a bit more self-sufficient as they do it. Our goal is to help as many people as possible help themselves. And it's hard, dirty, smelly, difficult work at times.
I did eventually make it to the bead store, by the way. I learned that they only carry rainbow obsidian, which I don't want, and a lot of onxy, which appears to be easier to find, but I also don't want. Odd, really, considering all the active volcanoes along the West Coast.
Not sure this post has a point... but I would say that I loved meeting so many strangers who were educated, eloquent, and so obviously comfortable with expressing exactly who they are and what they believe. People who took me at face value, and gave what they have to give-- to all comers, regardless. I could learn a lesson from that. I definitely learned a lesson in judgment from the Gospel Grandfather and the Reiki Samurai Youth-- who were obviously old friends, regardless of differences in belief and background.
I find that in today's world, it's a challenge to be who you are, and to not worry about being liked or accepted or approved-- by anyone. To find a place in the world where you can make a living in line with your belief system, without compromise. That's the beauty of the strip, and I think, the secret to its success. You find elegant conservative business men, little old grandmothers, out witches, spaced-out Rastafarians, rainbow couples, and everyone in between enjoying the strip and its offerings. They know who they are, and they know they'll find something they like on the strip, because each store has something specific to offer, even if it's just a good bagel and shmear.
Self, thy name is... I don't know. With a lot of individuality and good humor thrown in. And as a side note, can I just tell you that I found a dead yellow jacket in my salad at lunch today?! People, WASH YOUR PRODUCE before you eat it. This is an important tip from the trenches.
Anyway, one of the characters doesn't use nouns. Ever. His use of adjectives is also fairly spotty. The title of this blog is a direct quote from one of his speeches in the movie. He's telling the director of the play that he's worked with a lot of directors, but never one "who is so totally... I don't know." It's a profound sentiment. Really.
I have the same reaction to my recent afternoon playing hooky (from my own list of to-do chores on my day off, no less) in a very specific neighborhood of the local big city. It was an afternoon that left me laughing, and at a complete loss for how to explain its profundity. Good lord! Profundity is a WORD! that my spellchecker KNOWS! Will wonders never cease.
I started the afternoon having a great little mutual vent with a girlfriend while standing in front of my hair salon. I really think beauty parlours are the unofficial counseling center of the world, you know. I've gotten the best haircuts from women who became close personal friends and confidants. And some of the worst wax jobs from women who didn't.
Anyway, had my hairs cut-- all but this one she always misses because it tucks itself behind my ear until she's sent me on my way-- at which point it hangs down and starts tickling my neck relentlessly. Feels exactly like a mosquito in heat. ARGH!!!! Then I decided to swing by this one little cool strip in East downtown-- and maybe drop into the bead store there or something. Came at the strip from a direction I've never come from before, and as a result I parked about four blocks further down the street than I intended-- and found not one but THREE shops I'd never even seen before but was quite interested to visit.
The first shop... well, I went in under the mistaken assumption that it was a kitchen boutique. The storefront said something about cutlery and gifts. Yeah. The bald mannequin holding an offering plate with red lipstick and a samurai sword on his back should have alerted me... but you know... that sort of thing is NORMAL on the strip, so I didn't even stop to consider. Yeah. I should have been checking the area for cameras. It was at this point that my afternoon went from "unscripted" to "I just know somebody has got to be filming this!"
The store was a samurai's dream. There was actually a little bit of cutlery on the back wall, by the way. A very little bit. The smallest paring knife was priced at $43.-- Most of the stuff in the cases and on the walls had nothing to do with the kitchen, however. Samurai swords, throwing swords, jungle-hackers, pocket knives, belt knives, throwing stars... Plus racks of robes, traditional leather body armor, symbols of protection, and a young man behind the counter with one of those shaved heads and a long flowing ponytail at the crown of his head-- showing an older gentleman in a nice button-up shirt and slacks how to play a bamboo flute.
I left the store about 45 minutes later having received a dinner invitation (or just tea if I'm not ready to date yet after my divorce-- do I like tea??), a phone number, a short reiki-style healing, a conversation about car accidents and military tactics (and the resulting emotional trauma of each), and a CD of personally recorded gospel music. WTF?? All I can say is that it was par for course on the strip, and it was actually quite a fun conversation with the nice Christian Grandfather (with over 57 years of experience with blades of all sorts, and a wife who played piano on the CD) and the nice Samurai Man (with a weird ponytail, and several recent car accidents under his belt, who wants to take me out for tea). I left feeling loved.
I sat down on the next set of steps I passed and called a friend. Someone who could appreciate how FUNNY the last hour had been. Umm... I just had an experience that was just so totally... I don't know. Help? Then we both started laughing at the absurdity of it all. Only on the strip, she said.
There's a bumper sticker I see very occasionally on cars out here, and I totally want one. It's a great shade of purple, and all it says is "COEXIST." However, each of the letters in the word has been turned (quite obviously, and with no loss of readability, if you can believe it) into a religious symbol, ranging from the Star of David to the Christian Cross to the Pagan five-point Star, to a bunch of other stuff. The reason I bring up this bumper sticker is that I've lived here for over a year now, and I still haven't found one store that actually CARRIES this bumper sticker.
Until Thursday. When I found the second store I'd never been in before. To get to it, you have to walk through a side entrance to a little diner (which said diner was closed, adding to the oddity of the entrance program), up some stairs, and into this little reformed attic of an old house which is full of a mix of eclectic new age books, candle holders, sketchy essential oil home-mixes, and slightly pogrnographigc plastic statues of witches wearing little black dresses and bent way over their cauldrons, Betty-Boop style.
HOWEVER, the ceiling rafters were lined with cool bumper stickers. Including the elusive COEXIST. Which the proprietor has to reorder before I can go back and buy one. And the store itself was definitely a trip. I'm not sure what the destination was, but hey-- it's all about the journey, right? I left there with an inexpensive and scholarly book about the role of Women in ancient Celtic life (a side interest of mine-- I designed an independent study course in college about Celtic and Irish folklore, and had the damnedest time finding anything about women that wasn't how they were virgins or shape-shifting faeries or really vengeful deities, so this was something of interest), and a total feeling of... I don't know.
Walk on down the strip, enter the third store. This is a store on the part of the strip I've visited in the past. I've often thought it looked like a neat place for unusual jewelry and random stuff. I just never knew for sure because every time I go past it, it's CLOSED. Except Thursday. It was open. Actually open. I've walked past on a Thursday before, you know. I tell you, it was closed. I went in. And immediately got sucked into a political rant about the current state of the world, and our little corner of it by the store owner. Luckily, we were on the same side. I don't even think the poor man stopped to breathe.
All I did was comment on the cool pendants in his display case, and he went off about the rising price of silver on the open market, to be followed quickly by a series of quiz questions about the earnings of our city cops vs a cop in New York City, and a living wage being about $20,000 a year if you want to be able to compete with workers in China, and he went from there to ... well, anyway, he gave me a price break on the one little trinket I did pick up, because I listened to him rant for about 30 minutes, and because he found out that I plan to be a public librarian some day. He feels I'll be "right there in the trenches!" And he has a lot of respect for that. And I know what he means. (But I still like breathing better than complaining in most circumstances. And a lot of my sentences may be run-ons, but MY GOD! this man would have given an English teacher a heart attack!)
See, Public Librarians don't get paid as much as Academic Librarians (college/university types), don't have the same job security, and don't get to be snobs about who they serve. Public Librarians have the goal of bringing library services to under served populations, and this includes the homeless, the homebound, the illiterate, the ill, the recent immigrant and don't forget the incarcerated and incompetent! I think that's part of what draws me to the field. You get to help people who really need help, or at least will make good use of what help is offered in many instances-- to make their lives better and happier-- and to help them become a bit more self-sufficient as they do it. Our goal is to help as many people as possible help themselves. And it's hard, dirty, smelly, difficult work at times.
I did eventually make it to the bead store, by the way. I learned that they only carry rainbow obsidian, which I don't want, and a lot of onxy, which appears to be easier to find, but I also don't want. Odd, really, considering all the active volcanoes along the West Coast.
Not sure this post has a point... but I would say that I loved meeting so many strangers who were educated, eloquent, and so obviously comfortable with expressing exactly who they are and what they believe. People who took me at face value, and gave what they have to give-- to all comers, regardless. I could learn a lesson from that. I definitely learned a lesson in judgment from the Gospel Grandfather and the Reiki Samurai Youth-- who were obviously old friends, regardless of differences in belief and background.
I find that in today's world, it's a challenge to be who you are, and to not worry about being liked or accepted or approved-- by anyone. To find a place in the world where you can make a living in line with your belief system, without compromise. That's the beauty of the strip, and I think, the secret to its success. You find elegant conservative business men, little old grandmothers, out witches, spaced-out Rastafarians, rainbow couples, and everyone in between enjoying the strip and its offerings. They know who they are, and they know they'll find something they like on the strip, because each store has something specific to offer, even if it's just a good bagel and shmear.
Self, thy name is... I don't know. With a lot of individuality and good humor thrown in. And as a side note, can I just tell you that I found a dead yellow jacket in my salad at lunch today?! People, WASH YOUR PRODUCE before you eat it. This is an important tip from the trenches.
Thursday, May 3
Only in Oregon
My Macintosh Computer is faster, easier to use, more intuitive, better-organized, has fewer bugs, is harder to screw up by mistake, never had a blue screen of death, has cleaner graphics, windows is based off the operating system of a mac, and on and on. I love my mac. Wouldn't trade it for the world, and I am very familiar with IBM computers. Currently, it's also my sound system, my education system, my social system (via the internet), and a piece of art.
And yet, for my schooling, I have had to switch between three THREE browsers in order to be able to access the buttons on the blackboard program over the last three semesters... because I use a Mac. And now? The only browser that currently works can't find its server. At all.
Folks, this is FINALS WEEK. In fact, I have today to write a major final paper, and tomorrow to write the last one of the semester. And I have an all-day class through my local community college on Saturday, visit my folks Sunday, and have my first day at my new internship for library world on Monday. This is a BAD TIME for my browser connection not to work.
(Update: It's not the browser-- it's the TWU server. No server. No TWU access. No library link. No paper. NOOOOOooooo....)
Not only that, but the LJ blog I'm contributing to just went live today-- YAY-- and I can't type in my own blog entries... because I have a Mac. Not the fault of LJ at all-- in fact, they've been working tirelessly to get a patch to this problem because I'm not their only mac-using contributor. And today? I can't even login to the blog tool for LJ. Great. I was going to use that money to finally get new contacts and maybe a long-overdue dental cleaning. I need my teeth.
I'm just getting fed up.
Beyond that-- this week I nannied Tuesday AND Wednesday-- two 10-hour days in a row, with a total of 4 hours of driving between work and home. And know what? Little 6 month old E. is sick with the same head cold that 2-year-old N. gave me last week. I'm not quite over it yet, and starting to wonder about things like "how expensive is ear infection medicine if you don't have health care?"
And N.? He's two. And the tantrums have started. Oh, yes. Let me tell you, he has LUNGS. On Tuesday the one that sticks out in my mind (over all the other ones) is the one where I gave him a special treat of 3 craisins (forbidden after breakfast)-- which he happily mixed into his yogurt (also a special treat-- because he finished his veggies at lunch). Then he ate the three bites of yogurt with craisins in it, and demanded more craisins. No dice. Sorry. Lucky you to get yogurt, though! ...
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH (with a little whining at the start and end, and a lot of big tears). "Yogurt is a special treat, N. So you can stop whining and enjoy the rest of your yogurt, or you can go have a time out to calm down." He picked time out. PICKED IT OVER YOGURT. So he got to sit in his "time out chair" until he calmed down. Which was a loud process, and took a while. I spent the time cleaning up lunch. With a six-month old, that can take a while, too. N. came back to the table. Where was the yogurt?? Oh- well, you didn't want it anymore, so I put the rest of it in the garbage. That's what happens when you don't want something-- it goes away.
.... AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH..... It was a long day. That was Tuesday.
Wednesday? Yeah. Wednesday, he was really REALLY jealous of "all the attention" his little sister was getting-- the sick 6-month-old. Who just crawled for the first time, getting a black eye in the process, and has really not complained much at all about the nasty head cold she has and only gets held when we feed her a bottle now because of N.'s jealousy issues. And she just deals with it, with a smile for any attention she does get. He spent most of the day trying to act like a baby and taking toys away from E. and taking great joy in telling her NO WHINING, E.! over and over again. She was very confused. She hadn't been whining.
This is John Henry. He's the one who is bigger than the soccer ball. His brother, Scooter, is the one whose butt was the same height as the dining chairs. My hands did eventually get washed, by the way. (I have time to tell you all this and download these great photos because the TWU server is still down. I checked.)
So now I need to get online-- into the TWU online library databases and find myself 15-20 citations of recent Library Literature-- scholarly articles about library stuff, usually written by librarians, and published in library magazines-- that support my project proposal for my local public library-- which proposal was unknowingly dictated by a series of weekly projects about different facets of a professional project proposal over the course of the semester. We couldn't rewrite one of the facets for the proposal we've now decided on-- no. We had to pick five of the existing short papers we already wrote (out of about twelve), and explain why each was relevant to the project we were doing. So I'm not doing the project I'd like to do today-- one that would be easy to find Library Lit about. No. I'm doing the only topic I actually wrote a full five short papers about (or almost about).
And I can't access the online TWU library databases because the only internet access thingy that currently works with TWU's system (yeah- they don't tell you when they switch which program they are supporting, either-- that was a fun two weeks earlier this semester!-- HELP MY BUTTONS ARE DISAPPEARING... what? Use Safari? Last semester you told me to throw Safari out because you only supported Firefox for mac-users. The semester before that, all I could use was IE. You're sure? And you say it's ALWAYS been Safari?...right...) CAN'T FIND ITS SERVER.
...sigh...
Well, I feel better. There is something about just COMPLAINING without having someone try to tell you how to fix your problem that really helps it be a problem you can go back and deal with for a bit longer. I mean, really. Just getting acknowledgment that the situation sux-- it DOES suck. But that doesn't mean I don't know how to make it work anyway. And with that in mind, I'm going back online (safari doesn't support google, so I can't enter my blogs in that program...) to see if Safari is back on line yet. So I can finish my paper. So I can pass the class. And start writing the next paper.
Did I tell you about driving home from work last night? (a much happier topic than my final papers, so let's ruminate here for a bit) It was classic Oregon weather. I mean-- yeah, the Northwest is known for it's Rain etc... but each State (I've lived in them all, including some quality time in the State of Insanity) has its own flavor. And you dress a little differently for each one. In California, you bring a sweater just in case it gets cold, or if you are in a really air conditioned building. In Washington, you have an umbrella, and you bring your close-toed shoes to cross the parking lot to your car after work.
But in Oregon... so there I was, driving home from 10 hours of screaming high maintenance with about five different colors of body fluid and baby food on my shirt... The sun was out, but the wind was up. I got blown around on the road a bit. Then it started to rain. Then I had to switch the wipers to DOUBLE-HEAVY-DUTY so I could sorta see the tail lights of the car in front of me through the groundswell and the rain. Then the sun came out, and there was a gorgeous double rainbow. Which I took pictures of through my windshield. As I drove, the end of the rainbow came to rest on the hood of my car. It was magickal. Then it started hailing. Not quite the size of marbles. The sound inside my car was deafening. There in rush-hour traffic on a main highway... and the rain mixed in with the hail, and some of it hit the windshield more like snow... and then it was the HEAVY RAIN again, and then the sun came out for a while longer. After that, it was mostly wind and drizzle. Wow. I felt like I'd gone through a thorough cleansing and rebirth. The whole thing was beautiful. Happy May! And really... what good would an umbrella have done in THAT?
So, yeah. In Oregon, you layer. This is what we do every day, because who KNOWS what the weather will bring. A t-shirt in case it warms up or your car sits in the sun all day and gets HOT. A sweatshirt because it's going to be cold in the morning and cold once the sun goes back down, and cold if some fool has switched on the A/C already this year in some of the buildings. You bring a change of socks because it doesn't matter what kind of shoes you are wearing, your feet will get soaked. You bring an umbrella if you are trying to preserve makeup and a delicate hair-do. You bring a gortex raincoat if you're a real Oregonian, and you forget to put the hood up unless it's REALLY RAINING. Those zip-off pants were made for Oregonians. They save us having to find a bush to change our pants behind when it gets HOT, or COLD-- as it does frequently throughout the day here, most of the time. Of course, if you go that way, you might have to shave off that warm winter layer of leg hair... at least below the knee...
Have I ever told you about the two weeks my senior year of high school-- and all the things that kept us going home early and getting days off? Two weeks-- I kid you not-- we got out of school for high winds, flooding, snow, someone set fire to the school- twice- AND there were a couple of days where temperatures hit 80* in those weeks, too. Only in Oregon.
Okay. Time to stop procrastinating and go write papers and things. Maybe my new Legally Blonde CD will help... Nothing like a little Girl Power to get your mojo going. Especially when what I really want is a nice nap to the sound of the rain... or in the warm sun from my window... or most probably- both. Photos of said double rainbow through windshield will be forthcoming. Not sure how the ones I tried to take of the hail turned out, though...
By the way, my mystery plant-- the one from this winter that Abbigale didn't manage to eat before I transplanted it outside (in the middle of winter)-- it is definitely a sweet pea vine. The evidence was delicious.
And yet, for my schooling, I have had to switch between three THREE browsers in order to be able to access the buttons on the blackboard program over the last three semesters... because I use a Mac. And now? The only browser that currently works can't find its server. At all.
Folks, this is FINALS WEEK. In fact, I have today to write a major final paper, and tomorrow to write the last one of the semester. And I have an all-day class through my local community college on Saturday, visit my folks Sunday, and have my first day at my new internship for library world on Monday. This is a BAD TIME for my browser connection not to work.
(Update: It's not the browser-- it's the TWU server. No server. No TWU access. No library link. No paper. NOOOOOooooo....)
Not only that, but the LJ blog I'm contributing to just went live today-- YAY-- and I can't type in my own blog entries... because I have a Mac. Not the fault of LJ at all-- in fact, they've been working tirelessly to get a patch to this problem because I'm not their only mac-using contributor. And today? I can't even login to the blog tool for LJ. Great. I was going to use that money to finally get new contacts and maybe a long-overdue dental cleaning. I need my teeth.
I'm just getting fed up.
Beyond that-- this week I nannied Tuesday AND Wednesday-- two 10-hour days in a row, with a total of 4 hours of driving between work and home. And know what? Little 6 month old E. is sick with the same head cold that 2-year-old N. gave me last week. I'm not quite over it yet, and starting to wonder about things like "how expensive is ear infection medicine if you don't have health care?"
And N.? He's two. And the tantrums have started. Oh, yes. Let me tell you, he has LUNGS. On Tuesday the one that sticks out in my mind (over all the other ones) is the one where I gave him a special treat of 3 craisins (forbidden after breakfast)-- which he happily mixed into his yogurt (also a special treat-- because he finished his veggies at lunch). Then he ate the three bites of yogurt with craisins in it, and demanded more craisins. No dice. Sorry. Lucky you to get yogurt, though! ...
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH (with a little whining at the start and end, and a lot of big tears). "Yogurt is a special treat, N. So you can stop whining and enjoy the rest of your yogurt, or you can go have a time out to calm down." He picked time out. PICKED IT OVER YOGURT. So he got to sit in his "time out chair" until he calmed down. Which was a loud process, and took a while. I spent the time cleaning up lunch. With a six-month old, that can take a while, too. N. came back to the table. Where was the yogurt?? Oh- well, you didn't want it anymore, so I put the rest of it in the garbage. That's what happens when you don't want something-- it goes away.
.... AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH..... It was a long day. That was Tuesday.
Wednesday? Yeah. Wednesday, he was really REALLY jealous of "all the attention" his little sister was getting-- the sick 6-month-old. Who just crawled for the first time, getting a black eye in the process, and has really not complained much at all about the nasty head cold she has and only gets held when we feed her a bottle now because of N.'s jealousy issues. And she just deals with it, with a smile for any attention she does get. He spent most of the day trying to act like a baby and taking toys away from E. and taking great joy in telling her NO WHINING, E.! over and over again. She was very confused. She hadn't been whining.
Luckily, this was also Wednesday. I love cats.
This is John Henry. He's the one who is bigger than the soccer ball. His brother, Scooter, is the one whose butt was the same height as the dining chairs. My hands did eventually get washed, by the way. (I have time to tell you all this and download these great photos because the TWU server is still down. I checked.)
And I can't access the online TWU library databases because the only internet access thingy that currently works with TWU's system (yeah- they don't tell you when they switch which program they are supporting, either-- that was a fun two weeks earlier this semester!-- HELP MY BUTTONS ARE DISAPPEARING... what? Use Safari? Last semester you told me to throw Safari out because you only supported Firefox for mac-users. The semester before that, all I could use was IE. You're sure? And you say it's ALWAYS been Safari?...right...) CAN'T FIND ITS SERVER.
...sigh...
Well, I feel better. There is something about just COMPLAINING without having someone try to tell you how to fix your problem that really helps it be a problem you can go back and deal with for a bit longer. I mean, really. Just getting acknowledgment that the situation sux-- it DOES suck. But that doesn't mean I don't know how to make it work anyway. And with that in mind, I'm going back online (safari doesn't support google, so I can't enter my blogs in that program...) to see if Safari is back on line yet. So I can finish my paper. So I can pass the class. And start writing the next paper.
Did I tell you about driving home from work last night? (a much happier topic than my final papers, so let's ruminate here for a bit) It was classic Oregon weather. I mean-- yeah, the Northwest is known for it's Rain etc... but each State (I've lived in them all, including some quality time in the State of Insanity) has its own flavor. And you dress a little differently for each one. In California, you bring a sweater just in case it gets cold, or if you are in a really air conditioned building. In Washington, you have an umbrella, and you bring your close-toed shoes to cross the parking lot to your car after work.
But in Oregon... so there I was, driving home from 10 hours of screaming high maintenance with about five different colors of body fluid and baby food on my shirt... The sun was out, but the wind was up. I got blown around on the road a bit. Then it started to rain. Then I had to switch the wipers to DOUBLE-HEAVY-DUTY so I could sorta see the tail lights of the car in front of me through the groundswell and the rain. Then the sun came out, and there was a gorgeous double rainbow. Which I took pictures of through my windshield. As I drove, the end of the rainbow came to rest on the hood of my car. It was magickal. Then it started hailing. Not quite the size of marbles. The sound inside my car was deafening. There in rush-hour traffic on a main highway... and the rain mixed in with the hail, and some of it hit the windshield more like snow... and then it was the HEAVY RAIN again, and then the sun came out for a while longer. After that, it was mostly wind and drizzle. Wow. I felt like I'd gone through a thorough cleansing and rebirth. The whole thing was beautiful. Happy May! And really... what good would an umbrella have done in THAT?
So, yeah. In Oregon, you layer. This is what we do every day, because who KNOWS what the weather will bring. A t-shirt in case it warms up or your car sits in the sun all day and gets HOT. A sweatshirt because it's going to be cold in the morning and cold once the sun goes back down, and cold if some fool has switched on the A/C already this year in some of the buildings. You bring a change of socks because it doesn't matter what kind of shoes you are wearing, your feet will get soaked. You bring an umbrella if you are trying to preserve makeup and a delicate hair-do. You bring a gortex raincoat if you're a real Oregonian, and you forget to put the hood up unless it's REALLY RAINING. Those zip-off pants were made for Oregonians. They save us having to find a bush to change our pants behind when it gets HOT, or COLD-- as it does frequently throughout the day here, most of the time. Of course, if you go that way, you might have to shave off that warm winter layer of leg hair... at least below the knee...
Have I ever told you about the two weeks my senior year of high school-- and all the things that kept us going home early and getting days off? Two weeks-- I kid you not-- we got out of school for high winds, flooding, snow, someone set fire to the school- twice- AND there were a couple of days where temperatures hit 80* in those weeks, too. Only in Oregon.
Okay. Time to stop procrastinating and go write papers and things. Maybe my new Legally Blonde CD will help... Nothing like a little Girl Power to get your mojo going. Especially when what I really want is a nice nap to the sound of the rain... or in the warm sun from my window... or most probably- both. Photos of said double rainbow through windshield will be forthcoming. Not sure how the ones I tried to take of the hail turned out, though...
Here's the double rainbow-- the "shadow" one is to the left of the primary. They are both amazing works of art. No, the TWU website is not up yet. So I'm playing with pictures. I might even get a shower in today if this keeps up! Wow.
The other half of the rainbow, on the way past.
Self-entertainment, thy name is "Librarian."
By the way, my mystery plant-- the one from this winter that Abbigale didn't manage to eat before I transplanted it outside (in the middle of winter)-- it is definitely a sweet pea vine. The evidence was delicious.
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