Busted

Carlos has my number.

Of Cats and Peas

So, knowing that I feel like this:



And that I saw this on my bed this morning:

You'll understand that I would like some congratulations for getting in the shower instead of curling up with the lovebug.

(He, by the way, generally feels like this:

And who's to say he's wrong? Not I.)

Continuing in the LOL-theme for the post, we learned today at work that the office park will have an ice cream truck visiting one day a week this summer.


So! Want to place your bets now on how many chocolate eclairs I go through?

Mind you, if only fresh peas were in season all summer, I'd go through even more of those. The local crop is out now, oh bliss, meaning I went to Wilson's after work today, I will go again tomorrow, and probably Friday as well. Nor am I the only one who feels this way; while I was filling my bag, a woman and her teenage daughter came in, and had the following exchange:

Mother: Oh look, their peas are here!
Daughter: I'm on it.

A minute later, as daughter delivers the bag to their cart:

M: Wow, you cleaned them out!
D: I made myself stop when I realized I wouldn't be able to close the bag.

Amen. If you bugged my car, in addition to being treated to the regular sound of me singing along to the radio just as if I have a singing voice, you would have heard me declaring passionately, "They're just so damn GOOD!" more than once on the way home. I also didn't mind stoplights, not one little bit.

I had the brainstorm to offer the pods to friends who compost, so they won't even go to waste. Considering that I bought three and a half pounds just today, there'll be a pile by the weekend. It may as well do some good.

In summary: still tired, but happily full of peas, and ready to go to bed soon and snuggle with the kitty. I'm kind of hoping that NJ wins tonight's game, so that I can watch the Cup hoisted. No way am I making it to the end tonight.

It's Friday Night

Friday night. Weekend. Friday night.

The Totally Tired, What Night Is It? Post

You know it's post-vacation when working two days in a row feels more like ten. I'm so out of it tonight, I keep having to remind myself, it isn't the weekend yet.

Today wasn't a bad day for me personally at work, but there was non-me-centric work weirdness that left me rather unsettled. Let's just say, I may not mind so much that this is a temp job, not permanent. Anyway. Basically, I feel like this:



All every-which-way. So perhaps an early bedtime would be a good idea. I think so.

Almost Friday ... Almost!

Almost there!

The Bruins are up 1-0 after the first period, yay. The national anthem was performed tonight by a Boston rock legend, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, and it was ... ah, well. See for yourself. In an I-love-technology moment, it's already up on YouTube:



I was kind of relieved to find that I wasn't the only one who thought that he didn't do the greatest job ("He sounds like that drunk guy who stands in front of the garden."). I mean, the anthem's a tough one, particularly a capella, but whoa, dude.

Pretty surreal to see him in a Bruins shirt in any case.

For some reason I'm freezing tonight. The thermometer tells me it's no colder in here than it was last night, but I am super-layered and still shivering. Weird. It's not a headache night (praise the gods), which can mess up my body temp, so what is it? Don't know, but I'm wearing a sweatshirt over the turtleneck and sweater, hat, cowl, fingerless gloves, long johns, sweatpants, wool socks, slippers ... and brr. Probably in ten minutes I'll be shedding layers again.

Off to the second period!

I Should Be Packing

No, I haven't finished packing yet.

Started? Does making a list, and having some of the things on it piled on the table, count as starting?

Yeah. I have "work" to do. Here, look at the funny. I'll be back in a few days. Have a nice weekend!

A Little Laugh

Well, I went to stitch and bitch and now I'm reading, so I got nuthin' for you tonight. Here, have a little laugh:

Fun for Friday

Miri does this!



Oh, look at my lovely undercarriage, she says. Don't you want to pet it?

Sun! Only literally, but still.

Work sucks, but:



Really. Sunshine helped me get through the day.

FriDay! Night!

Well, you can, as long as it follows this pattern: survive cruddy day at work, relax with cat on bed for serious fuzz therapy, read some blogs, then curl up on the couch with pretzels and Coke to watch a movie.

Does that work for you? Okay, good, I'll go do it! I'm so glad we could agree on that.

Weird Upon Weird, Squared

There are times when I wish that I could blog candidly and in detail about work, that it wasn't prudent to shut my mouth, still my fingers.



Today is one of those days. The story gets so weird, you probably wouldn't believe it anyway, but still. Pout. Well, as I told my mother, I'll hang in this job as long as I can laugh about how crazy-weird it is, and when I can no longer laugh, I'll leave.

So far, I'm still laughing. Ha, ha.

Really, Random

I've got a pot of soup going on the stove, and I want to get some knitting done tonight, so I bring you random things I've tagged to blog about. Enjoy!

May all your melt downs be ice cream related. --Graham Roumieu

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One:


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Two:


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Three:


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Four:


(See it for real here.)

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Five:


(found here)

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Remember to stop by on Friday (you would anyway, right?) for the review of Crazy Aunt Purl's book--with giveaway!

Throwing you a LOL

It's late, and I is tired. Take two LOLcats and call me in the morning ... or at least, sometime on Sunday. Have a nice night!






That one took some work!

Rain, Rain, Go the F*@! Away

Warning:



Guess what? It's raining! And about 65 degrees! In July!

Hmph.

Fortunately, there is knitting. And Torchwood. Is anyone else watching the Children of Earth miniseries this week? I'm loving it. I'm a night behind, since I'm watching the re-runs at 8 instead of "tonight's episode" at 9. That is, I watched the first one Tuesday*, the second last night**, and will watch the third tonight. Tomorrow, babysitting allowing, I'll watch 4 and then 5. If that doesn't work out, they're on again Sunday, so I won't have long to wait.

*With that cliffhanger, it took me ages to be ready for sleeping!

**And what about that view, toward the end, of, ahem, all of Captain Jack, eh? Whew, that's a handsome devil.

So that's what I'm doing tonight, after a big run to Target (now with more groceries). What are you doing?

The Thursday Box of Random

Blogging, Crochet, and ... so ... on?
Over two years ago, for no particular reason (no one asked for it or anything), I wrote a post about crocheting dish scrubbies, and it became by far the most popular entry ever made to this exercise in narcissism.

At the end of August last year, it was linked to by a crafty website, and my visitor numbers jumped. How well I remember. I was in Florida visiting my parents, checked my e-mail, and did a classic double-take. How many people?


This week, it seems to have happened again. I'm not sure if they're doing re-runs, but Thursday through Tuesday, I had roughly the average amount of visitors, and then Wednesday, well, look:

Hello, fans of crochet and/or dish scrubbies! Feel free to stay for the general mayhem.

Sudden Exhaustion Syndrome
Last night, I was piddling around, doing this and that, making dinner and eating dinner and talked to Mum*, then sat down with a book and some ice cream, was doing okay, and from one minute to the next, I was suddenly too tired to get ready for bed. I hate that! I need some sort of warning sign that pings half an hour before that point, and tells me to get my shit together because otherwise it will be ugly. When I get that tired, bumping my finger is enough to make me want to cry. I drop everything, repeatedly. Cats have been known to flee my ridiculous overreactions. It is not pretty, is what I'm saying. Usually, I don't get caught so by surprise, and it was only 9:30, but there you are. Perhaps I should start getting ready now.

*She's doing really well! One of the therapists called her a poster child for hip replacement. She's on her third room and finally without a (crazy, noisy, or otherwise disruptive) roommate, so she was anticipating a better night's sleep. She's supposed to go home tomorrow. And I will award some sort of prize to anyone who can tell me how decoupaging a picture frame is rehab for a hip replacement. Seriously. WTF?

As before, I am tempted to close with a LOL. Isn't this just so ... feline?

The LOL comes along at last

This was me two weeks ago!



I'm pretty sure that's just what I looked like that day.

Today wasn't fantastic and joyful ... but it was nothing like that day, and that is saying something.

Cats and Sunshine

The weather was much more satisfactory today, being about 80 and mostly sunny, and I was in heaven to have the windows open again. Amazing how stale the air got in just a few days of "too cold for open windows".

Miri is a window cat, and so she too enjoyed the reopening. This week has been a turning point for her, in terms of her behavior to me. For over four months, she has been in love with Harold, but dubious as to the wisdom of allowing me to think I have any say in anything. Now, however, she is finally edging into the zone of accepting my attention as perhaps not being part of some vile plot to harm her.

In other words, she's letting me pet her a lot more, sometimes even when Harold isn't right there; she has come onto the bed at night, even when my eyes are open; and she has failed to run instantly for cover when I enter a room.

I even think perhaps she is naturally wide-eyed, and not just scared by me.

This is my natural expression. What do you mean, relax? What will you do if I don't?

As is so often the case, the short work-week did not feel short, so I have fully enjoyed kicking back today. I went for a nice long walk, but otherwise didn't "do" much. Very nice.

Must end with a few of these. Too cute, and too true!



I am helpless to resist the cute.



Helpless, I say.

And now for something completely different

After a serious (and semi-depressing) topic, what better to follow with than this? I lurves it!


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Two surprising things I did this weekend

Which is more surprising? I don't know for sure, but I joined Facebook and I did my taxes. And I wasn't planning to do either.

Well, of course I was going to do my taxes, but I wasn't exactly planning to do them this weekend. However, I got my last W-2 in the mail yesterday, and I looked it up to see if using TurboTax online was cheaper than buying it in the store, and it was, plus a discount through work, and, well, let's see just how bad the situation with the unemployment really is.

The situation with unemployment has to do with the fact that they don't automatically deduct taxes. As I understand it, they will if you ask them to, but hey, I was too busy frivolling my payments on the mortgage. My take on the situation last fall was, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

More recently, though, safely employed again, I couldn't help wondering just how much it was going to hurt come tax-time. The good news is, while it doubtless made a difference, it's not enough of a difference that I have to pay them (the feds, that is; I always seem to have to pay the state).

TurboTax shows the numbers at the top as you fill things in, green for refund and red for owe (so close to "ow", isn't it?). I put in the first W-2 and it was green, the second and it was even more green! When unemployment went in, it went very red. But the mortgage and related whatever (forgive the technical terms) popped me back into green, and more than the red I owe MA, so I'm content. Lowered expectations really are the key to success.

As for Facebook, well, I'm not quite sure why I signed up. A few friends have mentioned it before and I was all whatever about it, and to be honest I still don't know how much I'll use it, or if I want to chat with my high school "boyfriend", but we'll see. I must kind of want to be found, since I signed up as my real name, not ccr in MA. (Don't be hurt: we have the blogosphere!)

Now for the "shorts" portion of today's entry. First, I love this story, of an 8-year-old with cystic fibrosis whose Make-A-Wish wish was to be signed by the Pittsburgh Penguins. They signed him to a contract, gave him a press conference, brought him in to practice, gave him a stall in the locker room and a jersey ... fantastic.

When you go to read about Dave Barry in the Inaugural Parade with the Lawn Rangers (seriously), do not miss the video. I laughed out loud. I absolutely love that they were in the parade.

Plus, I feel sorry for whoever marched behind them. That is a tough act to follow.

Meanwhile, I enjoyed this short piece in Bostonist on which states are ranked the most religious, not because I'm religious and not because I'm not, but for this line regarding how low the New England states ranked:

"The results were somewhat surprising to us, but maybe they're not counting sports as a religion in this survey."

Nice! Also this, to which I say, yes.


more animals

Though it's also nice to be able to come home late without having to really explain.

If there are treats involved...

...then perhaps we can be friends.



Cat? A strange cat mere inches away from me? Well, I don't know, but there are treats!

That was last night. This morning I let Herself out of durance vile and here we still are, no blood shed and no fur flying. I even went out for a few hours and came back to a calm home, so things look good.

There have been several strategic retreats, as Harold is still not convinced of the wisdom of this endeavor, but he isn't fighting it, so I will give him time to embrace it. She is certainly willing to befriend him, so perhaps in time he will come to accept that.

In other news, this may be the best sign ever. I simply love it. Recombobulate me!

And then there's this:



Yes!