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WED 4.28.04 @ 7:55pm
Well, don't I feel obsolete.
Work is getting frustrated. Too much work to do, not enough time to do it. Not if I keep to my current schedule. Over the past month or two, I've put in some extra hours here and there just to get things done and to hopefully get the new website up. However, I am consistently behind and the website seems to be a bigger project than anticipated. I'm not ready to change my hours yet, and my boss hasn't authorized me to add enough hours to really count.
But the new skeleton of the most crucial part of the website was handed over to someone else to apply it to the old website. As a band-aid. Well, tonight I took home a company laptop to try to get some pages made, in hopes we'll soon have enough to at least get the new version up and running. I spent an hour with this piece of crap trying to build pages. Finally, I had one more thing I knew I could get content for if I could go online.
I fussed with Airport for 20 minutes, finally went online on my computer, figuring I could hand-type a few paragraphs instead of cut-and-paste. Not only did I find my content, but I found out someone else had built all the pages I just spent an hour building. Granted, it probably took him a total of 15 minutes because of his better computer and use of an ACTUAL keyboard + mouse, not to mention direct access to our Calendar program and current website.
The best part is, if my boss had told me of this development, we could probably have had the new website online by now.
Lesson: we still don't know how to communicate properly at work. Imagine that.
WED 4.28.04 @ 6:32pm
It's strange how you can listen to one mp3 and suddenly your good day, good week, good weeks, are hanging on a precipice. Because you're at work debating curling up in a corner to cry. Because the song reminds you of your brother, whom you pity. And that reminds you of your father, who you've been having weird & terrifying dreams about. And your mother, who you really miss but can't bring yourself to call.
But I don't talk about these things here. Because I don't have anonymity. And sometimes, that sucks. Because sometimes I want to crawl into a ball and cry. And sometimes I want to moan about it to the entire world. Because I crave sympathy.
So just forget all that. My family is perfect. I love Hawaii, and all my memories there. Yah.
Lesson: don't listen to Hawaiian music at work.
THU 4.22.04 @ 11:17pm
I am this close to scrapping my hotmail account and switching back to yahoo. Eric pointed out this weekend yahoo has bigger storage alotments. And lately hotmail does NOT like me. Or Safari. The last few emails I've sent have crashed Safari. Click & POOF! Today, all my emails that were replies would grab the previous email's contents, but put weird shit in them. What gives???
Eric keeps promising mail on mysie.com. He brought it up again about a week ago, said he'd like to get his own email system going here too, but then said he should buy his own domain for it. I ribbed him hard for that. Because he doesn't want his email to be eric@mysie.com. I told him I had no complaints when I was mysie@madhouse.org. So why should he be afraid to have a "female" domain attached to his email? My husband's secret machismo rears its ugly head.
I have spent too much time this week download desktop backgrounds. It's just that when I get interested in something, I do it for hours until I can't stand it anymore. Like HTML or The Sims or clicking from one Blinkie site to another. Hours of my life, gone. So Tuesday I spent a majority of my time online downloading desktop patterns. I now have over 650 of them. Um, yikes.
Then Wednesday, when I realized I had deleted all my Suicide Girls backgrounds in a desperate bid for more disk space many moons past, I went back to SG to download some more. Wow, do they have a lot of pages of Desktop images. I only downloaded maybe 20. But I looked at over 50 pages of images to grab them all. Um, yikes.
Joy, I found another "secret" image of my favorite SG who left long ago. Sasha no longer has a page of pics or bio info, but she is still there in some of the group sets. And in this desktop image. Yay!
MON 4.19.04 @ 7:58pm
A female Saudi Arabian TV host goes public with abuse.
I've read before that the US's involvement with Saudi Arabia is hugely hypocritical, but this article puts it in amazing perspective: a woman with high visibility in Saudi Arabia was beaten severely by her husband, and has allowed the public to see pictures of the result. To point out the horrible state of violence against women in her country. You can read about the details for yourself, read about how the country is taking note, how beating women is actually against Islamic and Saudi law. But won't you please skip down to the last full paragraph of the story.
Saudi Arabian women MUST be accompanied by their male guardian to go to the police station (and most anywhere else in public) AND they are not allowed to drive. Even to get away from their abusive husbands. Even when their guardian IS their abusive husband. Or father. Or brother.
How is that not slavery? Or at the very least being held against your will.
And these people are our "allies".
SUN 4.18.04 @ 1:07pm
Eric and his amazing family are such a blessing. When I think life is crap, they do amazing things to my happiness level. Actually, last week was pretty good. Especially when I found out Wednesday that my probable fuck-up on Tuesday was not a fuck up at all. Xerox just has a crappy rebate site that hates me, so all was well.
It wasn't that difficult to get out of bed any day last week. And once again, there was a bounce in my step on Friday. I've missed that. Eric's always tired on Friday nights, but Friday nights are when I'm the most energized. So we went out to eat and watch The Punisher, after some quality alone time at home. Quality is not doing it any justice, but I try not to post anything here that would make my husband blush.
Anyway, The Punisher was ok. Mostly saved because Thomas Jane spent the majority of the movie with his shirt off. Yummie yumm yumm! I've been miffed ever since I heard they were making another Punisher, since I really liked the first one with Dolph Lundgren. I can't really remember the first one though. Was it this campy?
The movie was not quite as campy as it could have been, mostly because John Travolta didn't do his completely over-the-top psychotic speciality. He was actually quite reserved for most of the film, which was refreshing.
Anyway, it was campy, but not too campy. It was interesting, but not too interesting. Eh.
But yesterday we read in the paper that the Puyallup Spring Fair was going on, so we scrapped our Science Center plans for Ashley's last day in town and drove down there. It was a hell of a drive because of an accident and those morons in Puyallup decided to hold a parade the same day as the opening of the Fair.
But we all had lots of fun. Mostly just walking around looking at crafts and art and kid's science projects and 4H animals. We took Ashley on some rides. I bowed out after my first one. Last summer I discovered that I have a much lower threshold for spinning than I used to. I now get nauseaus pretty quickly on spinning rides. So Eric took her on the rest of the rides.
Then Eric won me a Care Bear. I stood in the LONG line for scones while the others had some dinner. It was frustrating that some of our favorite things were closed: like my beloved Belgian Waffle stand. But I had a hot scone and that made up for things.
Then there was the long car ride home and listening to Ashley be silly as she talked to her family back in Reno on the cell phone. And then all too quickly it was time to kiss her goodbye and tell her (and ourselves) that her visit this summer would come soon.
It doesn't sound all that exciting written down, but we all had fun and got sore feet. It was a nice way to spend a Saturday. Very nice.
SUN 4.18.04 @ 12:44pm
I need to get some new music. Completely new, as in artists I've never heard before, or at least don't own any albums of.
I'm sick of being excited when my favorite bands put something new out and I buy it and it's crap. ie: everything Hooverphonic has put out since Blue Wonder Power Milk and most everything AIR has done since Moon Safari.
I've been ripping more of my CD's this weekend, up to 13GB, and when I tried to make a mix for my portable MP3 player, I couldn't find 30 fucking songs I really wanted to listen to. I've bought 18 songs from the iTunes store now, and it took much willpower not to put all of them on the mp3 player so I wouldn't play them to death and get bored too quickly.
I think I'm going to need to buy some old CDs from Stereolab. I don't know why I've never listened to them before, but iTunes suggested them and I had to refrain from downloading every song off their current album because I knew I was going to have to go out and buy it. I like having the CD & cover art and band info, y'know? So I bought Margerine Eclipse the same day I bought Walkie Talkie from AIR and Presenting Jackie Cane from Hooverphonic. I've forced myself to listen to AIR a second time just to make sure it's boring. I had to force myself to finish Jackie Cane because it was grating and boring.
Meanwhile, I have to force myself to take Stereolab out of the CD player so I don't burn the CD into nothing. Yes, I need more Stereolab music.
Although, there is something to be said about older music. I've been putting off ripping my Cranberries CDs because I thought I didn't care for them too much. The first song on their first album started playing, and I instantly remembered how I had run this CD into the ground the summer I bought it. If I remember right, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We is one of the first CDs I ever bought. Along with The Sundays' and Belly's first CD's, me and my first CD player jammed all summer together. Summer of '93 I think. My last stint in my mother's house, as Eric and I were saving up to move in together that Fall.
The music doesn't really remind me of that time, but the album art and the scratches on the back of the CDs as evidence of mishandling and overplay sure do tell a tale.
WED 4.14.04 @ 11:30pm
There's kind of a ho-hum rain outside. It's interesting to watch the clouds blow by though. Last night, just after sunset so there was still enough light in the sky to see the cloud variations, I watched a large, ominously dark cloud approach. When it arrived, it brought nifty gusts of wind that pitched the trees around. And then it was gone. No rain. Weird Spring weather.
I'm really sad that we're not going to be able to afford Las Vegas this year. I think my problem is that I'm less interested in Las Vegas, and more interested in the trip to the airport, the flight, the comfy hotel room, the air conditioning, and the buffets. What is my deal with expensive travel? I really want to go back to Hawaii, but I have my heart set on going to the ridiculously expensive hotel again when we do?
Maybe I don't suffer from wanderlust so much as I do a desire for air conditioning and sinful dining. It's official, I'm a crazy person.
I really need to get off my butt and make reservations for Lake Tahoe. Eric said this weekend we could afford to fly, so I should lock in our trip now before he changes his mind. I can't wait to see Heather again, even if she'll be too busy getting married to really spend much time with me. And at least the plane ride, air conditioned hotel, and casinos will make it seem like Las Vegas. I wonder if they have strip clubs there? *sigh*
TUE 4.13.04 @ 11:06pm
Bush is an idiot. I was willing to listen to the man one more time, to see if he could for once not sound like a moron. I swear I heard him make up a word within the first minute of his speech. The rest of the speech went more smoothly, except for the fact that like all presidential speeches, there tends to be lots of run-on sentences and twists as you try and figure out exactly what the hell the man at the podium is really saying.
Then was the Q&A. Good Lord. Who the hell lets this man take questions on live television? I haven't heard so many "um"s since I tutored 4th graders. But what really got on my nerve was the fact that I heard him directly answer exactly ONE of the many questions aimed at him. I couldn't believe it. Even when he was given a very direct question, did threats of plane hijackings directly lead to anything, anything different being done at all, Bush went on to repeat himself about how "if there'd been any inkling" of planes crashing into buildings. The man didn't asking about planes crashing into buildings. He asked if steps were taken after hearing about possible hijackings.
The man was amazingly evasive, sounded stupid, and was too jovial at points.
Don't even get me started on his non-answer about the Vietnam analogy. He just called it false and sends the wrong message. HOW is it false? WHAT wrong message?
They should never let that man take live questions. It just proves that when the puppet-masters aren't standing behind him feeding him lines, he's an empty shell with the IQ of a squirrel. Or maybe a parrot. Because he was certainly repeating a whole lot of nonsense over and over again.
Wait a minute. I just figured out the answer to one of the reporter's questions: why, after the committee specifically asked for separate meetings with Bush and Cheney, are they appearing together instead? Because the meeting is so important, Cheney has to be there to move Bush's mouth as he pitches his voice to make it sound like W's talking. I wonder if W. will sit on Dickie's lap to make the string-pulling easier?
TUE 4.13.04 @ 9:56pm
I haven't had a chance until now, but I just wanted to put it out there that I am officially sick of network politics and the ratings systems: FOX cancelled Wonderfalls. I didn't know what to make of the first episode. I missed the first 10 minutes or so, but switched it on just in time to hear the father of the family ask his daughter when the last time she had an orgasm was. I laughed out loud.
All the episodes they showed (what, 4 of them??) just had the most bizarre conversations. And the main character, Jaye Tyler, was the bitchiest heroine I've seen since... well, since Faith on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Jaye had the most horrible attitude. But I found her adorable anyway. The way she made the UPS guy cry, and as he walked away called him "Poor Bitch" - that just choked me up. I was hooked. I tried to explain to Eric how hilarious it was when the plastic lion singing "Sharon and Poor Bitch, sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G" over and over again. It didn't work. But he found it amusing when I forced him to sit down and watch it when it repeated.
Eric didn't seem to get Wonderfalls the way I did. But when it was cancelled, he admitted it was "smart and funny and well written".
What's with cancelling smart, funny, well written shows, anyway?
I hope Caroline Dhavernas, who played Jaye, starts doing American movies soon. I don't want to stoop to renting French Canadian ones just to see her cute face.
With any luck, the fan base will be enough to get the completed 13 episodes onto a DVD. I can't believe Fox doesn't even have the balls to at least let it finish it's run so we can watch them all. Bastards.
TUE 4.13.04 @ 8:36pm
I don't do well when there's too much going on in my life, and there is so much going on that lately I haven't wanted to get out of bed.
Today was a pretty good day. I was feeling more confident, having put in some extra hours Monday to do more with the website makeover. The project is vaguely more manageable now that I put in those two hours yesterday. So today I didn't go in early, but I got a lot accomplished. Confident, that was me.
And then one email from my boss, and everything implodes. Once again something I did (um, didn't do) months ago is biting me in the ass. How do you defend yourself, or even just explain, when you can't even remember something that happened almost 2 months ago? I've changed a bunch of things about the way I work because of other problems that happened the same week this one thing didn't happen. But that doesn't help me go back in time and get that thing submitted by deadline. There's a chance that all is not lost - I'm waiting on an email to see - but I'm not holding my breath.
I was really, really happy Sunday. And then Tuesday had to happen. I can't even discuss the email I got today about yet another family explosion. I can only say that kids are tricky. You treat them like kids and they get upset that you're too strict. You treat them like adults, and they don't live up to the responsibility. It's some tough job being a parent, and at the moment, I think I'd rather have dental surgery than get pregnant.
MON 4.12.04 @ 10:34pm
I haven't been dealing too well with life lately, so this weekend was a wonderful respite. We stayed in Friday evening to be domestic: we did laundry and rented a movie, "Runaway Jury". The movie held my attention, but that's about all. John Cusack was wonderful as always, but everything else was... eh...
Saturday we got up early to primp for photos: we met Eric's siblings at the mall for family portraits to give to their mother for her birthday. Eric and I haven't had a professional picture taken of us since our wedding. And before that... I think it was 1992. Now we finally have another nice picture of us that doesn't look completely dated.
That afternoon we went back to Port Orchard to help entertain neices, since Sister-In-Law Heidi was off celebrating a friend's birthday. We all went to the Manchester Fuel Depot (a small Navy facility) to walk along the beach, ponder tide pools, poke crabs, and chow on some bbq burgers & brats.
Probably moreso than their record of oil disaster clean-ups, the base is most proud of their wildlife preservation measures. The place is a big sanctuary. We visited the salmon pen where the girls got to feed the fish: when you hurl the pellets in the water, a thousand silver things as big as your hand jump out of the water and it sounds like rain as they fall back in. We spotted an otter and a seal. After, there was the obligatory drive around the base looking for wildlife. We spotted 3 or 4 deer, but no foxes. :(
Saturday night we painted Easter Eggs, and my hands are still a mess from this wacky dye that completely stained our hands. I think the stains will have to be grown out to completely get rid of them.
Sunday we did an Easter Egg hunt for Ashley. That girl needs a lesson in attention to detail & patience: we had to give her lots of hints to find the last of the eggs. After that, there was a dinner of Prime Rib, fabulous caesar salad, and sourdough rolls. Then ice cream cake and Christmas 2.0: the gift exchange for Ian, Heidi, & Chris.
That seemed like a nice topper to the day, but the girls wanted to go poke crabs with sticks again, so back to the Fuel Depot we went for about 2 hours. This time, we were even lazier. I read my book for most of the time. Watched the water. Enjoyed the wind. Sat next to my Sweetie. Tried to figure out where the chipmunk we saw on the beach rocks could have hidden himself away to.
Both days were mid 70's, but on the drive back to the house from the beach, there was a nice breeze going through the minivan. I put my hands on my husbands skin, and reveled in the calm peacefulness of it all.
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Error processing SSI fileWell, don't I feel obsolete.
Work is getting frustrated. Too much work to do, not enough time to do it. Not if I keep to my current schedule. Over the past month or two, I've put in some extra hours here and there just to get things done and to hopefully get the new website up. However, I am consistently behind and the website seems to be a bigger project than anticipated. I'm not ready to change my hours yet, and my boss hasn't authorized me to add enough hours to really count.
But the new skeleton of the most crucial part of the website was handed over to someone else to apply it to the old website. As a band-aid. Well, tonight I took home a company laptop to try to get some pages made, in hopes we'll soon have enough to at least get the new version up and running. I spent an hour with this piece of crap trying to build pages. Finally, I had one more thing I knew I could get content for if I could go online.
I fussed with Airport for 20 minutes, finally went online on my computer, figuring I could hand-type a few paragraphs instead of cut-and-paste. Not only did I find my content, but I found out someone else had built all the pages I just spent an hour building. Granted, it probably took him a total of 15 minutes because of his better computer and use of an ACTUAL keyboard + mouse, not to mention direct access to our Calendar program and current website.
The best part is, if my boss had told me of this development, we could probably have had the new website online by now.
Lesson: we still don't know how to communicate properly at work. Imagine that.
WED 4.28.04 @ 6:32pm
It's strange how you can listen to one mp3 and suddenly your good day, good week, good weeks, are hanging on a precipice. Because you're at work debating curling up in a corner to cry. Because the song reminds you of your brother, whom you pity. And that reminds you of your father, who you've been having weird & terrifying dreams about. And your mother, who you really miss but can't bring yourself to call.
But I don't talk about these things here. Because I don't have anonymity. And sometimes, that sucks. Because sometimes I want to crawl into a ball and cry. And sometimes I want to moan about it to the entire world. Because I crave sympathy.
So just forget all that. My family is perfect. I love Hawaii, and all my memories there. Yah.
Lesson: don't listen to Hawaiian music at work.
THU 4.22.04 @ 11:17pm
I am this close to scrapping my hotmail account and switching back to yahoo. Eric pointed out this weekend yahoo has bigger storage alotments. And lately hotmail does NOT like me. Or Safari. The last few emails I've sent have crashed Safari. Click & POOF! Today, all my emails that were replies would grab the previous email's contents, but put weird shit in them. What gives???
Eric keeps promising mail on mysie.com. He brought it up again about a week ago, said he'd like to get his own email system going here too, but then said he should buy his own domain for it. I ribbed him hard for that. Because he doesn't want his email to be eric@mysie.com. I told him I had no complaints when I was mysie@madhouse.org. So why should he be afraid to have a "female" domain attached to his email? My husband's secret machismo rears its ugly head.
I have spent too much time this week download desktop backgrounds. It's just that when I get interested in something, I do it for hours until I can't stand it anymore. Like HTML or The Sims or clicking from one Blinkie site to another. Hours of my life, gone. So Tuesday I spent a majority of my time online downloading desktop patterns. I now have over 650 of them. Um, yikes.
Then Wednesday, when I realized I had deleted all my Suicide Girls backgrounds in a desperate bid for more disk space many moons past, I went back to SG to download some more. Wow, do they have a lot of pages of Desktop images. I only downloaded maybe 20. But I looked at over 50 pages of images to grab them all. Um, yikes.
Joy, I found another "secret" image of my favorite SG who left long ago. Sasha no longer has a page of pics or bio info, but she is still there in some of the group sets. And in this desktop image. Yay!
MON 4.19.04 @ 7:58pm
A female Saudi Arabian TV host goes public with abuse.
I've read before that the US's involvement with Saudi Arabia is hugely hypocritical, but this article puts it in amazing perspective: a woman with high visibility in Saudi Arabia was beaten severely by her husband, and has allowed the public to see pictures of the result. To point out the horrible state of violence against women in her country. You can read about the details for yourself, read about how the country is taking note, how beating women is actually against Islamic and Saudi law. But won't you please skip down to the last full paragraph of the story.
Saudi Arabian women MUST be accompanied by their male guardian to go to the police station (and most anywhere else in public) AND they are not allowed to drive. Even to get away from their abusive husbands. Even when their guardian IS their abusive husband. Or father. Or brother.
How is that not slavery? Or at the very least being held against your will.
And these people are our "allies".
SUN 4.18.04 @ 1:07pm
Eric and his amazing family are such a blessing. When I think life is crap, they do amazing things to my happiness level. Actually, last week was pretty good. Especially when I found out Wednesday that my probable fuck-up on Tuesday was not a fuck up at all. Xerox just has a crappy rebate site that hates me, so all was well.
It wasn't that difficult to get out of bed any day last week. And once again, there was a bounce in my step on Friday. I've missed that. Eric's always tired on Friday nights, but Friday nights are when I'm the most energized. So we went out to eat and watch The Punisher, after some quality alone time at home. Quality is not doing it any justice, but I try not to post anything here that would make my husband blush.
Anyway, The Punisher was ok. Mostly saved because Thomas Jane spent the majority of the movie with his shirt off. Yummie yumm yumm! I've been miffed ever since I heard they were making another Punisher, since I really liked the first one with Dolph Lundgren. I can't really remember the first one though. Was it this campy?
The movie was not quite as campy as it could have been, mostly because John Travolta didn't do his completely over-the-top psychotic speciality. He was actually quite reserved for most of the film, which was refreshing.
Anyway, it was campy, but not too campy. It was interesting, but not too interesting. Eh.
But yesterday we read in the paper that the Puyallup Spring Fair was going on, so we scrapped our Science Center plans for Ashley's last day in town and drove down there. It was a hell of a drive because of an accident and those morons in Puyallup decided to hold a parade the same day as the opening of the Fair.
But we all had lots of fun. Mostly just walking around looking at crafts and art and kid's science projects and 4H animals. We took Ashley on some rides. I bowed out after my first one. Last summer I discovered that I have a much lower threshold for spinning than I used to. I now get nauseaus pretty quickly on spinning rides. So Eric took her on the rest of the rides.
Then Eric won me a Care Bear. I stood in the LONG line for scones while the others had some dinner. It was frustrating that some of our favorite things were closed: like my beloved Belgian Waffle stand. But I had a hot scone and that made up for things.
Then there was the long car ride home and listening to Ashley be silly as she talked to her family back in Reno on the cell phone. And then all too quickly it was time to kiss her goodbye and tell her (and ourselves) that her visit this summer would come soon.
It doesn't sound all that exciting written down, but we all had fun and got sore feet. It was a nice way to spend a Saturday. Very nice.
SUN 4.18.04 @ 12:44pm
I need to get some new music. Completely new, as in artists I've never heard before, or at least don't own any albums of.
I'm sick of being excited when my favorite bands put something new out and I buy it and it's crap. ie: everything Hooverphonic has put out since Blue Wonder Power Milk and most everything AIR has done since Moon Safari.
I've been ripping more of my CD's this weekend, up to 13GB, and when I tried to make a mix for my portable MP3 player, I couldn't find 30 fucking songs I really wanted to listen to. I've bought 18 songs from the iTunes store now, and it took much willpower not to put all of them on the mp3 player so I wouldn't play them to death and get bored too quickly.
I think I'm going to need to buy some old CDs from Stereolab. I don't know why I've never listened to them before, but iTunes suggested them and I had to refrain from downloading every song off their current album because I knew I was going to have to go out and buy it. I like having the CD & cover art and band info, y'know? So I bought Margerine Eclipse the same day I bought Walkie Talkie from AIR and Presenting Jackie Cane from Hooverphonic. I've forced myself to listen to AIR a second time just to make sure it's boring. I had to force myself to finish Jackie Cane because it was grating and boring.
Meanwhile, I have to force myself to take Stereolab out of the CD player so I don't burn the CD into nothing. Yes, I need more Stereolab music.
Although, there is something to be said about older music. I've been putting off ripping my Cranberries CDs because I thought I didn't care for them too much. The first song on their first album started playing, and I instantly remembered how I had run this CD into the ground the summer I bought it. If I remember right, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We is one of the first CDs I ever bought. Along with The Sundays' and Belly's first CD's, me and my first CD player jammed all summer together. Summer of '93 I think. My last stint in my mother's house, as Eric and I were saving up to move in together that Fall.
The music doesn't really remind me of that time, but the album art and the scratches on the back of the CDs as evidence of mishandling and overplay sure do tell a tale.
WED 4.14.04 @ 11:30pm
There's kind of a ho-hum rain outside. It's interesting to watch the clouds blow by though. Last night, just after sunset so there was still enough light in the sky to see the cloud variations, I watched a large, ominously dark cloud approach. When it arrived, it brought nifty gusts of wind that pitched the trees around. And then it was gone. No rain. Weird Spring weather.
I'm really sad that we're not going to be able to afford Las Vegas this year. I think my problem is that I'm less interested in Las Vegas, and more interested in the trip to the airport, the flight, the comfy hotel room, the air conditioning, and the buffets. What is my deal with expensive travel? I really want to go back to Hawaii, but I have my heart set on going to the ridiculously expensive hotel again when we do?
Maybe I don't suffer from wanderlust so much as I do a desire for air conditioning and sinful dining. It's official, I'm a crazy person.
I really need to get off my butt and make reservations for Lake Tahoe. Eric said this weekend we could afford to fly, so I should lock in our trip now before he changes his mind. I can't wait to see Heather again, even if she'll be too busy getting married to really spend much time with me. And at least the plane ride, air conditioned hotel, and casinos will make it seem like Las Vegas. I wonder if they have strip clubs there? *sigh*
TUE 4.13.04 @ 11:06pm
Bush is an idiot. I was willing to listen to the man one more time, to see if he could for once not sound like a moron. I swear I heard him make up a word within the first minute of his speech. The rest of the speech went more smoothly, except for the fact that like all presidential speeches, there tends to be lots of run-on sentences and twists as you try and figure out exactly what the hell the man at the podium is really saying.
Then was the Q&A. Good Lord. Who the hell lets this man take questions on live television? I haven't heard so many "um"s since I tutored 4th graders. But what really got on my nerve was the fact that I heard him directly answer exactly ONE of the many questions aimed at him. I couldn't believe it. Even when he was given a very direct question, did threats of plane hijackings directly lead to anything, anything different being done at all, Bush went on to repeat himself about how "if there'd been any inkling" of planes crashing into buildings. The man didn't asking about planes crashing into buildings. He asked if steps were taken after hearing about possible hijackings.
The man was amazingly evasive, sounded stupid, and was too jovial at points.
Don't even get me started on his non-answer about the Vietnam analogy. He just called it false and sends the wrong message. HOW is it false? WHAT wrong message?
They should never let that man take live questions. It just proves that when the puppet-masters aren't standing behind him feeding him lines, he's an empty shell with the IQ of a squirrel. Or maybe a parrot. Because he was certainly repeating a whole lot of nonsense over and over again.
Wait a minute. I just figured out the answer to one of the reporter's questions: why, after the committee specifically asked for separate meetings with Bush and Cheney, are they appearing together instead? Because the meeting is so important, Cheney has to be there to move Bush's mouth as he pitches his voice to make it sound like W's talking. I wonder if W. will sit on Dickie's lap to make the string-pulling easier?
TUE 4.13.04 @ 9:56pm
I haven't had a chance until now, but I just wanted to put it out there that I am officially sick of network politics and the ratings systems: FOX cancelled Wonderfalls. I didn't know what to make of the first episode. I missed the first 10 minutes or so, but switched it on just in time to hear the father of the family ask his daughter when the last time she had an orgasm was. I laughed out loud.
All the episodes they showed (what, 4 of them??) just had the most bizarre conversations. And the main character, Jaye Tyler, was the bitchiest heroine I've seen since... well, since Faith on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Jaye had the most horrible attitude. But I found her adorable anyway. The way she made the UPS guy cry, and as he walked away called him "Poor Bitch" - that just choked me up. I was hooked. I tried to explain to Eric how hilarious it was when the plastic lion singing "Sharon and Poor Bitch, sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G" over and over again. It didn't work. But he found it amusing when I forced him to sit down and watch it when it repeated.
Eric didn't seem to get Wonderfalls the way I did. But when it was cancelled, he admitted it was "smart and funny and well written".
What's with cancelling smart, funny, well written shows, anyway?
I hope Caroline Dhavernas, who played Jaye, starts doing American movies soon. I don't want to stoop to renting French Canadian ones just to see her cute face.
With any luck, the fan base will be enough to get the completed 13 episodes onto a DVD. I can't believe Fox doesn't even have the balls to at least let it finish it's run so we can watch them all. Bastards.
TUE 4.13.04 @ 8:36pm
I don't do well when there's too much going on in my life, and there is so much going on that lately I haven't wanted to get out of bed.
Today was a pretty good day. I was feeling more confident, having put in some extra hours Monday to do more with the website makeover. The project is vaguely more manageable now that I put in those two hours yesterday. So today I didn't go in early, but I got a lot accomplished. Confident, that was me.
And then one email from my boss, and everything implodes. Once again something I did (um, didn't do) months ago is biting me in the ass. How do you defend yourself, or even just explain, when you can't even remember something that happened almost 2 months ago? I've changed a bunch of things about the way I work because of other problems that happened the same week this one thing didn't happen. But that doesn't help me go back in time and get that thing submitted by deadline. There's a chance that all is not lost - I'm waiting on an email to see - but I'm not holding my breath.
I was really, really happy Sunday. And then Tuesday had to happen. I can't even discuss the email I got today about yet another family explosion. I can only say that kids are tricky. You treat them like kids and they get upset that you're too strict. You treat them like adults, and they don't live up to the responsibility. It's some tough job being a parent, and at the moment, I think I'd rather have dental surgery than get pregnant.
MON 4.12.04 @ 10:34pm
I haven't been dealing too well with life lately, so this weekend was a wonderful respite. We stayed in Friday evening to be domestic: we did laundry and rented a movie, "Runaway Jury". The movie held my attention, but that's about all. John Cusack was wonderful as always, but everything else was... eh...
Saturday we got up early to primp for photos: we met Eric's siblings at the mall for family portraits to give to their mother for her birthday. Eric and I haven't had a professional picture taken of us since our wedding. And before that... I think it was 1992. Now we finally have another nice picture of us that doesn't look completely dated.
That afternoon we went back to Port Orchard to help entertain neices, since Sister-In-Law Heidi was off celebrating a friend's birthday. We all went to the Manchester Fuel Depot (a small Navy facility) to walk along the beach, ponder tide pools, poke crabs, and chow on some bbq burgers & brats.
Probably moreso than their record of oil disaster clean-ups, the base is most proud of their wildlife preservation measures. The place is a big sanctuary. We visited the salmon pen where the girls got to feed the fish: when you hurl the pellets in the water, a thousand silver things as big as your hand jump out of the water and it sounds like rain as they fall back in. We spotted an otter and a seal. After, there was the obligatory drive around the base looking for wildlife. We spotted 3 or 4 deer, but no foxes. :(
Saturday night we painted Easter Eggs, and my hands are still a mess from this wacky dye that completely stained our hands. I think the stains will have to be grown out to completely get rid of them.
Sunday we did an Easter Egg hunt for Ashley. That girl needs a lesson in attention to detail & patience: we had to give her lots of hints to find the last of the eggs. After that, there was a dinner of Prime Rib, fabulous caesar salad, and sourdough rolls. Then ice cream cake and Christmas 2.0: the gift exchange for Ian, Heidi, & Chris.
That seemed like a nice topper to the day, but the girls wanted to go poke crabs with sticks again, so back to the Fuel Depot we went for about 2 hours. This time, we were even lazier. I read my book for most of the time. Watched the water. Enjoyed the wind. Sat next to my Sweetie. Tried to figure out where the chipmunk we saw on the beach rocks could have hidden himself away to.
Both days were mid 70's, but on the drive back to the house from the beach, there was a nice breeze going through the minivan. I put my hands on my husbands skin, and reveled in the calm peacefulness of it all.
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