Assembled towel rack

It was marvelously simple.

Today's earrings: leaves, other leaves

Bedtime reading: Breakup, Dana Stabenow

Only six more book boxes in the basement

Today's boxes: Art; Hardcover Fiction, A-H.


Today's earrings: leaves, typewriter keys

Bedtime reading: Island of the Sequined Love Nun, Christopher Moore

Who's on first?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sShMA85pv8M


Today's earrings: leaves, other leaves

Bedtime reading: Does Anyone Else Have Something Further to Add?, R.A. Lafferty

Lunch w/ T&S tomorrow

we meet at 11:30 at my Happy Place.

Today was clean-up day at the office. I pruned a whole bunch of superannuated reference material, and then found that the recycling bins were overflowing. I ended up hiding it all in a closet.


Today's earrings: leaves, brooms

Bedtime reading: The Ruins of Earth, Thomas M. Disch, ed.

cloud trees

Flame trees look like this:

and cloud trees look like this:

It's a standard topiary design.

Today's earrings: leaves, trees

Bedtime reading: Clouds of Witness, Dorothy L. Sayers

Yes, we should brunch this weekend

Thanks for the commiseration, guys. :) We should pick a day & time. I've got a street fair to attend Saturday, so Sunday/Monday?

I was Not Pleased with how the Qristyl vs Epperson problem was made to be all about Qristyl's leadership skills. That little clip where he's telling her how to pin fabric together so that the right sides end up out? was Epperson doing a bullshit dominance display. It was all about conveying to the onlookers that she's just so incompetent that he's simply compelled to waste time reciting basic concepts in dressmaking to her - and doing it very patiently so that when she (rightly) takes offense, he gets to pretend that he's been perfectly reasonable, and he has no idea why she's overreacting like that. The problem wasn't Qristyl's leadership skills; it was Epperson's lack of following (women) skills.

Model recap:
Everyone was really happy to see Valerie back. Seems she was the one keeping the kitchen clean, and without her they'd had to draw up a task rota. Erica and Matar are BFF. Fatma is still in lurve with Logan. Gossip among the other models is that he doesn't want to work with her because her heavy-handed flirting was creeping him out. Fatma is still not talking to Vanessa, who was the one who suggested Fatma put a sock in it about being chosen by Mitchell last week.

Kojii and Fatma take their day off to go to a casting for something-or-other, and in the car, Fatma starts bitching about Vanessa. In a bored, dispassionate tone, Kojii tells her that she's behaved badly and is a total hypocrite, to boot. When they get back to the Model Home, Fatma wakes up Vanessa to apologize. Vanessa's not having it. She questions the timing, and points out that while Fatma says she's apologizing, she keeps walking it back with rationalizations. The next morning, Vanessa's roommates are all, "Jerry Springer in my room at 2am last night; sucked." 2am? Ouch. Makes Vanessa's total ungraciousness about Fatma's apology more explicable.

Model picking: Ra'mon sticks with Vanessa. Carol Hannah decides to change models, starting a cascade. Epperson ditches Erika for Matar. Louise chooses Fatma next-to-last. Between Valerie and Erika, Qristyl chooses Valerie. Erika makes a very gracious parting speech, but Matar is bereft without her.

Next week: Heidi inspects the refrigerator in the Model Home.


Today's earrings: leaves, koi

Bedtiem reading: Dead Heat, Felix Francis

Farewell, IT Dude

One of our IT dudes left today. The receptionist and I were lamenting this in the ladies' room, because the guy who left is good at his job, and a nice guy, too. This is in contrast to some of his predecessors.
Not like A, I said. I think he was hired for his looks.
And C, she replied, he was also more decorative than useful.
Yes, I said, I remember when I started here, thinking 'that's the best-looking IT department I've ever seen,' and wondering why we had a bunch of male models tending to our programming needs.
She laughed, because it's true.


Today's earrings: leaves, other leaves

Bedtime reading: Sabre-Tooth, Peter O'Donnell

:)

Tonight the 200th episode of SG-1 was on.


Today's earrings: leaves, flowers

Bedtime reading: Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman

On the current Doctors

At first, I thought it was Billie Piper. And I do find her fairly annoying as Rose Tyler. Then I saw her as Fanny Price in Mansfield Park, and I realized that Billie Piper qua Billie Piper wasn't the problem.

Then I wondered if it was Eccleston. Things improved so much when David Tennant took over. But no, Eccleston's done plenty of good work. He's not the source of the trouble either.

Then I caught the episode about the scribbling alien who was possessing the little girl, and I realized it's the writing, mostly, and the direction. That's where the trouble lies. I mean, who were they trying to kid with the "torch of love" crap? Nonsense scribbled on a anvil and thrown at my head, that's what that was. Much like the episode that made me bail mid-episode on Nine, with the idiotic philosophical conversations with the last condemned Slitheen - they wrote a silly bit of self-importance, and asked the actors to deliver it pontifically.

I blame the writers.


Today's earrings: leaves, crows

Bedtime reading: Smoke and Mirrors, Neil Gaiman

Veterans' Day

Which I ought to have spent considering the meaning of patriotism, but actually spent scrambling for financing. And sorting out which provincial taxes are collected by CA customs on non-commercial packages. I feel I've got a better grip on the provincial taxes...


Today's earrings: leaves, crows

Bedtime reading: Comeback, Dick Francis

Woke up this morning...

at about 4. Then I couldn't get back to sleep. It was just too darn hot.

I hope I get some sleep tonight...


Today's earrings: leaves, flowers

Bedtime reading: To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis

Someone on the internet is wrong

But I'm going to bed anyway.


Today's earrings: leaves, other leaves

Bedtime reading: Death's Half Acre, Margaret Maron

It wasn't a truck

It was a remote-controlled hovercraft.

Full of eels.


Today's earrings: leaves, stones

Bedtime reading: The Franchise Affair, Josephine Tey

Leaf

Leaf Fertility; growth; renewal. Green leaves depict hope; revival; renewal. Dead leaves are sadness; Autumn; decay. Crowns of leaves symbolize divinity or triumph and victory. In Chinese symbolism the leaves of the Cosmic Tree represent all beings in the universe -- the Ten Thousand Things.

- - An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols, J.C. Cooper


Today's earrings: leaves, other leaves

Bedtime reading: L. Frank Baum, Katharine M. Rogers

I'm a walking folio

Met the Landed Gentry for bookshopping & dinner. We had triple chocolate for dessert, so I sang on the way home. Sugar makes me sing. And recite poetry. I guess that's not so different than without the sugar...

Today's acquisitions:
Dictionary of Symbols, Carl G. Liungman; W.W. Norton & Co., 1994
The Herder Dictionary of Symbols, Boris Matthews, trans; Chiron Publications, 2008
Eadward Muybridge, Paul Hill; Phaidon, 2001
Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Charlotte & Peter Fiell; Taschen, 2004
L. Frank Baum, Creator of Oz, Katharine M. Rogers; Da Capo Press, 2003
Games Magazine, May 2008
The Playground, Tony Bennett; Sony Music, 1998
West Side Story, Original Broadway cast; Sony BMG Music Entertainment, 2007
Forever Blue, Chris Isaak; Reprise Records, 1995
One brass clock
One tote bag.

Today's earrings: leaves, typewriter keys

Bedtime reading: The Three-Martini Playdate, Christie Mellor

Pretty lights up all over downtown

City sidewalk, busy sidewalks
Dressed in holiday style.
In the air there's
A feeling of Christmas.

Children laughing, people passing,
Meeting smile after smile,
And on every street corner you'll hear:

Silver bells, silver bells,
It's Christmas time in the city.
Ring-a-ling, hear them ring,
Soon it will be Christmas day.

City street lights,
Even stop lights,
Blink a bright red and green,
As the shoppers rush home
With their treasures.

Hear the snow crunch,
See the kids bunch,
This is Santa's big scene,
And above all this bustle you'll hear:

Silver bells, silver bells,
It's Christmas time in the city.
Ring-a-ling, hear them ring,
Soon it will be Christmas day.

- - Ray Evans


Today's earrings: leaves, amber teardrops

Bedtime reading: Through Elegant Eyes, R.A. Lafferty

Well, that was eventful

Got back to work & found that my stuff had been moved from the conference room to my new desk. Which is my old desk, except not next to the window any more. Instead, I'm right outside my boss's office with a view all the way down the hall. Much hustle & bustle & discovering a lot of the jacks don't work & shifting stuff around.

Go through my email and find out cousin C has cancer. Well, that sucks.

The rest of the day was filled more hustle, more bustle, and a lot more well, damn, that sucks.


Today's earrings: leaves, other leaves

Bedtime reading: Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman

Here, lizard, lizard, lizard

Today's earrings: lizards, green eggs

Bedtime reading: The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, Christopher Moore

So Many Books, So Little Time

This was the last of my long weekends, and it was double-long for good measure. Four days off... there was much slacking... and it was good.

In world news, Green Apple has taken a third storefront, a block down from the first two, in which they are selling their overstock at rock-bottom prices. The organization is a bit rudimentary, though. I'll have to stop in sometime when I'm in the mood to read every single title on the shelves.


Most recent book purchase:
Aesop's Fables; Townsend & James, trans.; J.B. Lippincott Company
a bunch of kid stuff


Today's earrings: leaves, typewriter keys

Bedtime reading: Aesop's Fables; Townsend & James, trans.

Too darn hot

Awfully warm out these past few days. I think I should try to talk someone into riding a rollercoaster with me this weekend.


Today's earrings: leaves, other leaves

Bedtime reading: King Solomon's Mines, H. Rider Haggard