You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Random Post’ category.
I can’t think of anything super creative to write, so I will do this book report style tonight; at least it is writing! Have you read the Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency books? If not, I highly recommend them. I am an admitted book snob, and the series looks, feels, and the public likes them at a level that makes me want to turn my nose up at them. But you know what? They are actually very, very good.
I don’t necessarily know how to describe the why behind this, but the books generally leave me with this peaceful feeling, they make me see that everything is going to be okay. How does the author do this? I am really not sure, but I love to read these books immediately before falling to sleep. They put a smile on my face and generally make for an awesome night’s rest.
So what’s the premise? Well, I’m glad you asked. The series is about a detective agency (duh.) in Botswana. At first I thought the series took place in the past, but it is set in current Africa. The detective agency is managed and operated by Precious Ramotswe (who is traditionally built, i.e., heavy; I love that phrasing!) and Grace Makutsi. Not a whole lot really goes on at the detective agency (not that that is a bad thing, and yes, they do solve some fairly big cases now and again); this probably adds to the peaceful feeling I get from the book. Also, the ladies drink a lot of tea, and drinking tea is always thought of as the best way to think.
Bad things happen in the book. Deaths, AIDs, poverty and hunger to name a few, yet the positive, respectful attitude of all of the characters definitely gives the reader hope. No matter what, things will be okay. Simply beautiful.
Okay. I feel like I have done enough of a book report for now. More later; maybe.
I am having a very hard time finding motivation to do, well, just about anything. I am halfway moved into my new place, and by halfway, I mean, I have moved half of my things, and they are currently still sitting in boxes and bags strewn about the new place. The other half are still at the old place in various stages of being packed up. I have half a mind to just leave them, but my landlord is the type of person that would sue me if I left anything behind; he is that nice of a guy.
Anyway, I am just wanting to lay in bed and sleep. This isn’t good. I haven’t even gotten my cable transfered, so am pretty much isolated in my bedroom with the laptop. Why do I do this to myself?
Does anyone else feel like the world, this life, isn’t meant to be lived alone? Things don’t seem to have as much meaning when I do them by myself, with no one else to wittness, or experience them with me. But how do I find him? I talked to a really nice, cute guy yesterday at a St. Paddy’s Day party, but it didn’t go anywhere, probably because of my doing; don’t know though. He was only about 23, so that would have been weird too. I am so bad at the dating scene!
People say that I should be enjoying being single. I’m not, and can anyone really, truly say that they enjoy being single? I don’t buy it. Or maybe it is me. Maybe I am just wired so that I want/need to have another half in my existence. I don’t know though.
That’s all I’ve got for now. Nothing Earth-shattering there, but had to get at least a bit of writing in, even if it is only pointless, rambling nothing. 
So now that I have uncovered a used to be passion, what do I do? Well, I have done a couple of things, but it doesn’t seem like nearly enough. As always, I am impatient. Here is what I have done so far:
I have applied for a job with the RNC. I just used the form on the website, but I wrote an excellent cover letter and polished my resume until it glowed prior to submission. So that is good. I also looked around the Web quite a bit just to solidify the notion in my head a bit. I emailed the Canyon County Republicans and the Idaho Republican Party to let them know that I am available for volunteering. (All my liberal friends, don’t hate me!) So I have at least put out an initial effort, but like I said, I am impatient. I want the recruiters to come banging on my motorhome door at 5 in the morning asking me if I can relocate to Iowa or New Hampshire that very morning. I want to be in the think of it. I want to be where the excitement is.
What about the Peace Corps you ask? Well, that is still the main plan. The RNC plan is backup, and something to do in the meantime, because I know that it is something I want to be involved with long after the Peace Corps experience is over (or so I think anyway). Speaking of the Peace Corps, I had my final required recommendation submitted today. So that means that my application is officially off for the approval process! Hooray! I know, I know; it will take forever. But at least I have done all that I can to see it off.
I didn’t go to work today; the roads were too slick this morning so I turned around home. I don’t know if they were actually that slick, or that my two years in Louisiana has done some damage to my winter driving skills. Either way, it was too slick. Sure, it cleared by noon, but I chose to stay home and work on freelance projects instead of sitting in my gray cubicle staring idly into the nappiness of the cubicle wall. (I love my job! I love my job!) Positive thinking is the only way to accomplish anything!
Although I got a lot of work done that needed to be done, I didn’t exactly accomplish anything on the me front. I wanted to use today to further explore all of the things that I have been exploring for awhile now; the house was actually quiet, and the fireplace was warm, an afternoon absolutely ripe for doing such a thing. But I didn’t. Should have, but I didn’t.
It is very cold tonight. I am still in the motorhome. I like it out here, but it is cold. I am sleeping in sweats and socks under several blankets, one of which is of the electric variety, on top of a feather bed. My little cocoon is quite warm, but anywhere outside is frigid. I do have a heater, but it is not strong; my mom things I will perish in a fire with anything stronger. The motorhome is old, and the cold air simply seeps in. I love it. I love that it is freezing cold yet I am warm. I have always liked sleeping in the cold so much, and now I get to do it every night!
That was a big post full of nothing; no realizations, no news, nothing. But that’s okay. Sometimes that’s what life is. Take joy in the small things!
I will write about the books I am reading, or have just finished. I am always reading something. Right now, I am reading The House of Spirits. Lately, I have been on a Latin American/magical realism kind of kick; I just ploughed through One Hundred Years of Solitude for the third time. I love Marquez’s works. I think I have read them all, my favorite being Memories of My Melancholy Whores; fantastic. I like Allende because she reminds me so much of Marquez, in a lesser sort of way. There are so many instances in her books that I am struck by how similar the writing is; some of the plot lines are even the same, especially the grandmother making her granddaughter prostitute herself until she pays back all that the grandmother is owed theme. I don’t know if it is intentional or not, but the writing is SO similar.
The thing that I like the best about both Allende and Marquez is the way that their writing makes me feel. It is hard for me to remember distinct details from either of their writings, but this is due to the soothing, melodic way of their writing. Both writers use magic and an alternate reality. When I read their books, I feel that I am there. I am lulled into the worlds of Allende and Marquez, and everything is wonderful. I love nothing better than to read one of their books, even only a few lines, while taking a bath and then fall into bed for a lovely night’s rest. Both of these authors allow me to do something I can do with no other; I can pick up any writing by either of them, and read only a few lines, words even, and be transported into that world, relaxing my real world’s troubles away, calming me, pacifying me. They are the only two (well for the most part) that I can read again and again.
On a completely different note, I have just finished The Eyre Affair and Into the Wild. I was so excited to read The Eyre Affair and have been since the novel came out a few years ago. The novel started out fabulously; plenty of literary allusions, as the name promised, and great characters, but in the end, I found the female lead’s character a bit lacking, but I think this was due to the author being a man; sorry, men often can’t get women right. And, by the middle of the book the novelty wore off and I was a bit bored. It was a story like so many others in the end; although quite cleverly done.
I picked up Into the Wild at the Seattle airport, bored with the above book. I have to say, I don’t generally buy popular books like this, but (alas!) I was sucked in by Eddie Vedder’s fantastic rendition of Hard Sun (here comes the junior high crush again!) and the fact that Sean Penn had everything to do with the movie version of the book. I read the book in a day or two, and couldn’t put it down. The writing wasn’t necessarily fantastic, but the story was so good. Alex/Chris is so real (I know he was real). I saw so much of myself and someone I love in him. He was a passionate young man who took his extreme feelings to the ultimate end. This is what can happen if we don’t lead a balanced life.
For a very long time, I tried to stay away from books that Oprah had as part of her book club. In the beginning, she would only do works by living writers, and this pissed me off to no end. Recently though, she has been including some of my favorite books. I remember the first (I think) work by a dead author that she covered, Anna Karenina. How can anyone not love this book? It is definitely one of my favorites. And now, she is doing a second book by Marquez; bravo! East of Eden (a book that actually made me contemplate moving to Salinas) is another good book she picked. Just thought I would throw that in there. I love John Steinbeck too! And Cather, and Hemingway, and Abbey, and almost every other author except Shakespeare. (Would you believe I actually made it through school, as an English major no less, without taking a single course about him? Hooray for me!)
I know. Not New Orleans. One day, I want to go through and clean out all of the posts like this, leaving behind those strictly related to Louisiana. But for now, since only non-New Orleans things are about all that I can write, they will stay.
Seattle is lovely. Yesterday I did lots of touristy things; went to Pike Place Market (awesome), went to the flagship Bon Marche (now Macys), and hiked all over downtown. In the interest of fashion rather than comfort, I chose to wear some cute Kenzie heels instead of my Nikes that I should have been wearing. The results were not pretty; I had to sit down several times just to let my feet recover enough to truck on. And, when I got back to Bellvue (where my hotel is) I had to (yes had to) get a pedicure so that my feet could soak and recover a bit from the damage. The man doing my pedicure was very gentle; he could see the damage, including a nice bloody spot beneath one of my toe nails.
After returning to the hotel and letting my feet rest a bit, I headed out for an evening on the town; first I had super cute red heels, but then, once I realized I couldn’t walk, I went back to my room and put on sneakers (and had to change my outfit to suit them). Didn’t feel too sexy out in a bout in my tennis shoes, but still I had a good time.
Happy Veterans Day to all of those who have served (you know who you are), and thank you for all that you do for our country!
I have come down with a nasty cold, so the creative juices are a bit congested today. So, Ithought I would post some before and after pictures of the awesome chair that I redid last weekend. This is a picture of the chair as it was when purchased from Savers (I Love Savers! Another thing I missed in Louisiana; no thrift stores, understandable, but still…). If you look closely, you can see the $9.99 price tag. But I got it on a half off day. It is a sort of Danish Modern knock-off, dining room-doctor’s office waiting room, kind of chair, and it is sweet!
(Apparently there are issues with Blogger’s photo upload capabilities right now, so I will post the photos later; I know, I know; everyone wants to see the chair photos. Who doesn’t like pictures of furniture?) Issue fixed! Take a gander now! I like the blog as is, so I am not going to update the will bes etc..
Anyway, this is what I did to the chair in the above picture (well, it will be in the above picture):
1. Took off the nasty orange cushions; I thought the color was kind of cool, but the fabric was literally disintegrating under my fingers, and well, you can only imagine what diress my voluptuous behind would cause.
2. Took the horrible fabric off of the cushions using scissors, pliers, and a screwdriver. I found the screwdriver to be the best tool; it pried the staples out with the least effort.
3. Rather than cutting new foam (I was lazy and cheap), I hung the old pieces of foam (nasty yellow, with a few “water” spots) on the clothes line, and sprayed a good half bottle of Fabreze on them. Then, I let the country wind have its way with them.
4. Cleaned the wood with Murphy’s Oil Soap. Hmmm. Not so pretty when the grime is scrubbed away.
5. Sanded off the original finish with a palm sander I found in the garage. I used approximately ten sheets of sandpaper, which is a good indicator (to me anyway) that I was using the wrong grit. Oh well.
6. Scrubbed the bare wood with Murphy’s Oil Soap. Why? It just seemed like the right thing to do.
7. Applied some stain that I found in the garage. My parents just finished a major kitchen overhaul. My mom refinished all of the cabinets by herself. I am assuming this is the stain she used, because the chair is camouflaged (when naked, minus
cushions anyway) in the kitchen. Where’s the chair?
8. Reupholstered the cushions in an awesome retro-ish fabric. I used an ingenious (I thought so anyway) technique of hot glue gunning the final piece of fabric to the back of the top cushion so that staples were not seen on the finished chair.
9. Screwed the seat back in place.
10. Swore at the chair a few dozen times as I tried, with the dogs and cats as an audience, to screw the back in place.
11. Waited for my sister to get home to hold the chairback so that I could screw it in place, sending her more than one anticipatory (that’s a nice word for it) text messages.
12. Accosted my sister as she walked in the front door, grocery bags in hand, explaining the chair situation.
13. Screwed the chairback in place.
14. Viola! (Did I spell that right?) Fabulous chair, as you can of course (or at least will be able to soon) see in the picture below (actually to the left; hadn’t decided on a layout when I originally wrote this).
I feel awful. Off to a bath and book, and then out to my house for bed. Can you say excitement?
Today was the roughest day I have had in quite awhile. But, thinking about it, most of the stuff was actually pretty funny. Here is what happened:
At six this morning, I headed out to my jeep with my hands full of work-related necessities. I had with me, my laptop, One Hundred Years of Solitude, purse, keys, bottle of water, cup of hot tea and a piece of toast with peanut butter and honey on top of a paper towel. Anyway, to my surprise I made it into the vehicle without incident. When I was no more than a half mile down the road, I managed to drop my piece of toast upside down on the center console. No worries; I saved it. But, in the process, I drug my paper towel through my cup of tea, and knocked it over. By this time the honey was dripping all over my hands and steering wheel, but I wasn’t about to give up; I was hungry! So I shoved the rest of the toast in my mouth, and cleaned off my face with a wet wipe from the glove box. Disaster averted. I wiped down the steering wheel, console and I was good to go. Down the road aways, I felt something sticky; turns out I had honey on both of my shirts, and my jeans. Super! I wiped myself off the best I could while going 35 on the freeway, and made it to work without further incident.
Once I was at work, I worked away pretty intensely until noon or so; I am a technical writer/editor at a research firm, and all of the documents must pass by my eye before leaving our hands. That said, I had finished drafts for five different documents, and headed out onto the network to work on a Draft 4 of my sixth document for the day when I opened the folder I needed and only found versions 1 and 2. Hmmm. that was weird. And my logic models folder was gone tool. That was weird. I did a search of the entire network and didn’t find the later drafts or my logic models. Okay, so maybe I was crazy. Maybe Draft 2 was the latest draft. I opened it up, and it was blank; someone went in and deleted all of the text from the document. Okay; let me go to version 1. Version one was rough, and someone had altered the logic model.
Luckily I had hard copies of all 4 of my drafts, and had saved the latest to my Mac and my My Documents folder. But, I wasn’t able to find the logic model folder; all logic models are created in Visio and are just a pain in the ass. So I had to recreate the incredibly complex logic model I had already done once, and incorporate the new information in the Draft 1, and cover my ass. I went to the CEO of the company and told him what had happened. He told me to make a local copy of everything I do in a day and save it all out to the network at the end of the day; this way we can monitor what is going on via backup tapes, etc. Screw that! I know exactly who deleted my files; the problem is, she won’t ever be fired; she is one of the head researchers, who couldn’t cut keeping up with the document workload; that is why they hired me.
After I didn’t have a total meltdown at work, I left at the completely reasonable hour of 4:30 (I arrived at 7:30, worked through lunch). It was drizzly, freezing, just ugly outside. And of course when it rains people loose all ability to drive with any more skill than a four year old. Traffic was horrible! I didn’t make it to the county line until after five (should have taken 10 minutes).
I finally exited the freeway at 5:30, and still had to go to the bank. The bank is open until 6 so I still had plenty of time. There are many Mexican farmworkers living in the area that I do. Like most of the country, the Treasure Valley is experiencing an increase in our Mexican population. The bank that I use caters to the ever increasing clientele,and many of the migrant workers are paid on Fridays and go to my bank, specifically, to cash their checks. I walked up to the door and there was a large group of Spanish speaking men standing around. One of them opened the door for me and said “Habra la puerta (not senorita, not senora, not any other word remotely resembling woman in Spanish, but) ABUELA.” (Or it was something like that; I am certain of the abuela part, the rest, well my Spanish is not so good.)The crowd of Spanish speakers burst out at the man’s joke. It was funny to call the white girl a grandmother. “Fuck you!” I wanted to yell in the man’s face, and add a kick in the crotch for good measure. But I didn’t; I said thank you and walked on by. I have no idea why it made me so mad; must have been that I was cranky from earlier events.
I lined up in the appropriate path, directed of course by the ropes, and waited a good half hour. While I waited one of the male tellers was looking at me admiringly, which was nice; maybe things weren’t that bad. Of course he was the teller that opened up, and I headed up to his station to withdraw forty dollars; I was waiting for a new debit card to come in the mail, and I was out of checks. For some reason, actually I know exactly why, there was a block on my account, making it impossible for me to pull out any money, despite a positive, high balance. The teller didn’t know why the code was on my account or how to remove it. After going through three other tellers, supervisors, maybe even the janitor, someone cleared my account. They didn’t say anything to me except that they were sorry, etc. They hadn’t experienced anything like this before. They did their best.
I however know exactly how the code ended up on my account. On Tuesday, I went to a bank branch near my office. I hadn’t been here in years, certainly not since I had returned from Louisiana. Shit. There was Amy. (Amy is an ex boyfriend’s sister; she never liked me, and has always been at a minimum, unpleasant to me. Things ended very badly between the ex-boyfriend and I.)I almost turned around and walked out the door, but didn’t; I really needed to deposit some money. Anyway, I went to an open teller, and Amy followed immediately behind the teller, and hovered there looking over my documents the entire transaction. She didn’t say anything to me, and I refused to make eye contact with her. I completed my transaction and left. BUT I knew she was up to no good; I am sure she is the one who put some mysterious code on my account, making it incredibly difficult to access my own funds.
Anyway, back to today. Once I was done at the bank, I headed out to my car. I searched and searched for my keys and couldn’t find them. So, I headed past the laughing Spanish speakers back into the bank and the cute teller who flirted with me was about to bring them to me (nice that he was flirty, crappy that I left my keys behind).
I started to head home, but was met with a train. I was trapped in town for a good half hour, while I waited for the train to move on; there are only a few ways out of the town where you don’t have to cross the railroad tracks, so I just waited.
As soon as I walked in the door, carrying all of the same things as I was this morning, save the honey peanut butter toast, Susan immediately handed me pile of towels, telling me to take them upstairs and put them away, and that we needed to leave right now. Not that there was anything urgent for us to do. She had simply come up with a whole list of errands for us to run once I got home. Here is what we did: took dresser, tv, (I managed to smash my thumb between the tv and truck so badly that I am sure it will be black tomorrow),and other horribly heavy goods to the storage place (oh, and it is still raining), dropped off the recycling, stopped for a horrible Mexican dinner (my stomach still hurts), and went on an epic Target shopping trip.
Now I finally am in bed, well my parents’ bed (they are in North Carolina for my cousin’s wedding), because my bed is wet from some leak in the motorhome’s super exterior; I will find the leak tomorrow, because my parents fly in tomorrow night; no more big house sleeping for me! Crazy day, but at least there was some humor in it; I thought so anyway!
Subscribe in a reader
I have officially moved into the 1973 Sport King motorhome parked in my parent’s driveway. I think it is nice and cozy. Tom is with me too. He likes being King again. Although, he will still have to go inside to play with the other kitties. We have electricity, Internet, but no cable or water as of yet. Not that we need it. The house is a scant thirty feet from our front door. I just wanted some private space. Not too private, but more so than sleeping in my nephew Jacob’s bed (plastic sheet included!) while he spends the night “camping” in his kid-sized tent next to the bed. Also, I am not too fond of the Cars sheets and Nascar Christmas lights strung across the room.
I am seriously thinking about making a motorhome version of Cribs for YouTube. I think it would be hilarious if someone else were to make it, I am just not certain that my comic abilities, or lack there of, could hack it on YouTube.
I am really hoping that the little hunk of Heaven out here in the mororhome will help me write more. I am really looking forward to writing, if I could just get started!
I am procrastinating. Just like I shouldn’t be. So hard to break the habbit. I have so much that I want to write about, but just can’t seem to do so. I want to write about the last two years. I would read a book written about such an adventure.
I just climbed into the bed on the “second floor” of the motorhome. Not too much headroom. I can lounge and kind of sit up to type, but that is about it. I think that the bed will be comfy. Tom seems to like it.
Back to the writing. I don’t know how I should start. I have an outline of all of my adventures, well the first part of them anyway, in a folder somewhere. Should I start with an outline, or just start typing? I don’t know which way would work the best. I will look at the outline tomorrow and see how that goes.
Today at work, I walked into the kitchen to get some more tea. This is what I overheard: “…well, maybe they will just charge him with inappropriate disposal of a human corpse…”
Subscribe in a reader
