1,000 words

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

I'm back!

Well, remember my post saying I was getting over being sick? Nope. Actually after that I developed a light case of bronkitis, or however you spell that. So I haven't beem doing anything but working and sleeping.

My sweet hubby has been loading the dishwasher without complaint and I haven't done it once for a couple of weeks. He also cooked for me when I was too sick to care. What a guy.

Well, I'm busy ghetto cooking, got to check on the progress. Later!

Saturday, June 18, 2005

take your toilet and flush it

I ain't sitting there no more.

Which brings us to today's classroom lecture: automatic bathrooms.
I've always hated automatic bathrooms.

First, we have the automatic toilet. You sit down, your concentrating ... all of a sudden, whoosh, the toilet arbitrarily decides you are done and flushes. If you're like me, it startles you, you get splashed, you feel hurried. None of which I appreciate in the least. Say you do decide to stick it out and finish what you came for, said automatic toilet may arbitrarily decide to flush for you twice, as if she/he wanted to take it in small, manageable loads. Now, I take that as an insult.

Or, if that doesn't happen, the toilet refuses to flush automatically at all. So you're standing there, searching for the tiny little, use-in-case-of-emergency manual flush button. And since it's an automatic toilet they feel no need to make that button easy to find. Heaven forbid we go with what works and make the flush handle look like the flush handle on the lowly regular toilet seen in your home and mine. We've got to make it this tiny little button in a weird spot on the exposed pipes of an automatic toilet. Typically covered in condensation.

And another thing, what does this say about our society? Are we just so lazy that we can't be bothered to expend the mental power and physical ability needed to push a stupid button to banish our own excrement? Or is it germaphobia? If so, see the end of the above paragraph. If the thing doesn't flush automatically, the whole point is moo. (or moot, for those of you that don't watch and memorize Friends.)

Now we're moving on to the automatic sink. Say you escape the infuriatingly small toilet stall unscathed in the misadventures of automatic toilet antisocial behavior. By the time you reach the sink the odds are you'll cash in there. Maybe it's just me, but I have a 'ell of a time even finding the damned sensor to make the water run. One time I was waving my hands all over like a maniac, trying to get the water to run (at least you know I wash my hands) and finally discovered I had been duped, the toilet was automatic, but the sink was not. Actually had to use a lever on that one.

Then there's the automatic paper towel dispenser. Here's another example of talking with your hands in an infuriating hope that the tiny slip of paper will come forth. It's times like these I wish I knew sign language, perhaps threats would produce results. And don't even get me started with the air thingies. No, air is not a sufficient substitute for a paper towel. I don't care what the automatic bathroom salesmen say.

And now I will get down off my toilet bowl.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

lyrics

I had this song in my head but couldn't remember all the lyrics. So I decided to search for the words and play the song. And, now I join those that have posted song lyrics on their blog.

"Your House" by Alanis Morissette

I went to your house
Walked up the stairs
I opened your door without ringing the bell
I walked down the hall
Into your room
Where I could smell you
And I shouldn't be here, without permission
Shouldn't be here

Would you forgive me love
If I danced in your shower
Would you forgive me love
If I laid in your bed
Would you forgive me love
If I stay all afternoon

I took off my clothes
Put on your robe
I went through your drawers
And found your cologne
I went down to the den
I found your cd's
And I played your Joni

And I shouldn't stay long, you might be home soon
I shouldn't stay long

Would you forgive me love
If I danced in your shower
Would you forgive me love
If I laid in your bed
Would you forgive me love
If I stay all afternoon

I burned your incense
I ran a bath
And I noticed a letter that sat on your desk
It said "Hello love, I love you so love, meet me at midnight"
And no, it wasn't my writing
I'd better go soon
It wasn't my writing

So forgive me love
If I cry in your shower
So forgive me love
For the salt in your bed
So forgive me love
If I cry all afternoon

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Sicko

Well, I'm just getting over being sick. Not the sickest I’ve ever been, but sick enough to whine about being miserable.

Yesterday I went to the grocery store and got the classic sick supplies:
Dayquil
Grape juice
Grapefruit juice
Grapes
Oranges
bananas
Two cans of soup
Four things of yogurt
Three boxes of Puffs Plus (one for home, one for work and one to replace my co-workers box, which I had been shamelessly stealing.)

I did go to work for about 3 hours to do a couple of things that I really felt I needed to do rather than dump on someone else, especially since I’d done that Monday so I could go to the funeral. (my hubby’s great grandma) But then I came home and spent the rest of the day sleeping, blowing my nose and watching TV. Chad even made us supper so I hardly had to get off the couch. He’s such a catch.

But I’m feeling better today, fortunately. Back to work and everything!

Saturday, June 11, 2005

Cat numero dos

Ok, this is my first try on my own. (Of course, I'm following notes I wrote down while Chad did the first post.) Anyway, here's a photo of Precious. (cross your paws!)

Sylvester

I was showing my wife how to post pics...more for everyone to look forward too... ;-)

Friday, June 10, 2005

the land of grog

Well, I can’t sleep. Again. It’s not that I’m not tired, my body is exhausted. It’s been a long week at work. But I can’t fall asleep. Not even when I wore the glamorous eye shade thingie my mom made me when I was in college. I had a night owl roommate and was not a night owl, so mom used a piece of black velvet and yellow satin and elastic to make me a thing to black out the light. I always felt very “movie star, darling” when I wore it, but now Chad laughs.

Anyway, can’t sleep. So here I am updating my blog.

Not much to say. (insert groggy pause here)

On Saturday night my best friend is coming to stay overnight. My niece and nephews, twin boys of 2, will be in tow. The boys have just learned to say Auntie Holly, and I’m proud to say they repeat it quite often. Justice, their big sister, was the miniature bride in our wedding. (Can ya’ll believe it’s coming up on a year July 11?) Anyway, I’m looking forward to that. I have some cleaning to do….. but you notice I didn’t do that when I couldn’t sleep?

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

How does your garden grow?

Well, we got our garden in right on time. It rained the next morning, Tuesday, and poured, poured down last night. The lights went out all over town, including at work. Fortunately, they came right back on again. I was sitting near a co-worker. We were copyediting the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper and all of a sudden it went black, very weird feeling. Not a person I’d want to be sitting next to in the dark….

But it should be good for the garden. Our garden at least, not everybody was able to get theirs in yet, including my boss. She was working Monday night when we put ours in. Oh well, she likes flowers better and got a lot of those in I think.

I’m thinking I’d like to have a harvest party this fall. You know, cook up some of the produce from the garden and invite people over. We could eat corn on the cob in the backyard. (we put in two rows, hopefully we get quite a few ears) Too bad Chad’s grill went up in smoke, we could do tinfoil packages of veggies and butter on the grill. Oh well, the oven works too. Well, we’ll see what actually grows.

Sunday, June 05, 2005

Homeless/sleepless ness

Well, GOOD MORNING everybody. I can’t believe this. It’s 6:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning and I’m wide awake. Blame it on Jamestown’s homeless, it’s the only thing I can think of. Not the actual homeless, just a bunch of teens that are doing a project “Homeless for 30 hours” and sleeping on the streets this weekend. It’s supposed to teach them compassion for the actual homeless. (something Jamestown, N.D., doesn’t have a lot of, some, not a lot. Homeless people, not the compassion, although they may not have either.) Anyway, I wrote a story about it for The Jamestown Sun, I’d post a link to the story, but they want you to log in and so forth, really annoying.

An E Way. I didn’t have too, but decided I’d get up at 8 a.m. this find Sunday and take photos of them in their cardboard homes before they pack it up and take showers. Those photos/story will be much better than the pre-story I did last week.

And here’s the sleeplessness part. For some retarded reason I didn’t wake up when my alarm went off at the horrible hour of 8 a.m. No. I woke up at 6 a.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep. Even after I discovered what time it was.

Now, I really am not newspaper geek enough to be so excited about this story that I can’t sleep. I can’t explain it. My body just decided it was time to be up. As for the kids sleeping on the street, I’m not sure it’s actually going to teach them compassion for homeless people. I mean, yeah, for 30 hours all they will have is $1.08 to eat. And they can’t accept food from anyone. So they will get the hungry part, at least for a short time. And later they are going to meet real homeless folk at a South Dakota mission, where they will prepare and serve them a meal.

But as for the camping on the street part, the kids I talked to are too excited about it to be actually learning what it feels like to be homeless. Maybe when I talk to them in a few hours they will have gotten it through the experience, but I don’t know… And having interviewed/met real homeless people at my previous job and seeing plenty on the street when I lived in Mineapolis, I get the idea that being homeless is less fun than the teenyboppers think it's going to be for them.

Well, that’s enough of that. I'm off to shower so I can be presentable to a bunch of stinky "homeless" kids so I can interview them for the paper. (Boy, that wouldn't sound so nice if it were read out of context.)