Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stop and stare?

-- William Henry Davies

Today's earrings: coffee cups, teapots

Bedtime reading: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark

Taxing

The worst part about taxes isn't writing the check. It's the paperwork.


Today's earrings: amethysts

Bedtime reading: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark

Root canal delayed

The endodontologist did a little poking and prodding with icy bits of gauze, then told me that he wasn't so sure I needed a root canal right this minute. The tooth would seem to be improving on its own, though at a glacial pace, so maybe we should wait? We discussed it a bit, and settled on making another appointment for a month out, and we'll see how it goes.

In other news, I found out this morning that Newbie has resigned. You will be happy to hear that I did not jump around the office yelling, "YEEE HAH!" Instead I just smiled too much while saying how glad I was for her and hoping that she'd do well in her new job.


Today's earrings: mushrooms, trees

Bedtime reading: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark

Musical Interlude

Tonight in Mongomery Station was a guy with a voice eerily like Johnny Cash, playing an accoustic guitar and singing "Blitzkrieg Bop."

I gave him money.


Today's earrings: penguins, fish

Bedtime reading: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark

Survivor disappoints again

I'm thinking about not watching the rest of this season. It's not because the Bad Person didn't get voted off; there's sound strategy reasons why the players keep voting other people out. The problem is the editors have decided that this guy (who's a misogynist, a narcissist, a liar, and a shitty player) is the funnest thing since bouncy castles and give him ridiculous amounts of screen time. It's one thing to back up his morning routine of made-up pseudo-tai chi with "O Fortuna." That was funny. It's another to spend 35 minutes of each episode watching him bully and smarm his way around camp. That has me alternately swearing at and flipping off the tv for most of an hour. I'm not seeing a good reason to keep watching a show that pisses me off like this.

Maybe b2 and I can talk about Lost over drinks instead.


Today's earrings: sapphires, aquamarines

Bedtime reading: The Abbess of Crewe, Muriel Spark

Today's vocabulary words

Ad valorem
In practical usage, a percentage.

Provisions
In practical usage, pretzels.


Today's earrings: moose, theobromine molecules

Bedtime reading: The Abbess of Crewe, Muriel Spark

Back to business

I called the nice realtor lady, and she put K's power source in US mail to the NYC address.

Now I just need to know where we're meeting for dinner.


Today's earrings: spiders, webs

Bedtime reading: The Abbess of Crewe, Muriel Spark

Swiss Cheese

Today's earrings: frogs, shells

Bedtime reading: The Girls of Slender Means, Muriel Spark

No news

Tenterhooks. OK, so it's not as bad as all that. But still.


Today's earrings: ants, swirly blue beads

Bedtime reading: The Girls of Slender Means, Muriel Spark

The saga continues...

Talked to the mortgage broker guy - the prospective lender can't possibly make a decision by today, they need to hold a committee meeting; can I get more time? I asked him, do you think it'll be a yes? because if so, I'll go to the realtor and stall my little heart out. He can't tell, he says. Factors on both sides and no way to guess how they'll decide under current conditions. In that case... we said ok, he'll send the lender my file, see what they say - but I'll call the realtor and tell him to move on to the next guy in line, who already has financing.

Called the realtor, said, I can't get an answer today. Move on to the next person. And he's all, oh. ok. When will I know for sure with the lender? I should keep him updated, because there's two units available.
Uh-huh. I get the feeling that he's worried that the next guy in line might flake on him like the first eight people in line, and he's hoping that I'll be there as backup. I also get the feeling that between the difficulties he's having trying to sell expensive units to rich people and the difficulties he's having trying to sell cheap units to poor people, he's getting near the end of his rope.

I thought today would be the end of this chapter, but there will be more! Watch this space for the next thrilling installment of IIII Buys an Apartment!


Today's earrings: owls, citrine drops

Bedtime reading: The Girls of Slender Means, Muriel Spark

wanna know what I didn't do today?

Talk like a pirate.


Today's earrings: monkeys, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: The Girls of Slender Means, Muriel Spark

Jimson Weed Gazette

This dude is giving out prizes for making donations to Obama:
http://jimsonweed.blogspot.com/2008/09/ill-send-you-free-photo.html

Personally I prefer House (West L.A.) from last October, but the one he's giving away is nice, too.


Today's earrings: moose, theobromine molecules

Bedtime reading: The Girls of Slender Means, Muriel Spark

The Girls of Slender Means

Long ago in 1945 all the nice people in England were poor, allowing for exceptions. The streets of the cities were lined with buildings in bad repair or in no repair at all, bomb-sites piled with stony rubble, houses like giant teeth in which decay had been drilled out, leaving only the cavity. Some bomb-ripped buildings looked like the ruins of ancient castles until, at a closer view, the wallpapers of various quite normal rooms would be visible, room above room, exposed, as on a stage, with one wall missing; sometimes a lavatory chain would dangle over nothing from a fourth- or fifth-floor ceiling; most of all the staircases survived, like a new art-form, leading up to an unspecified destination that made unusual demands on the mind's eye. All the nice people were poor; at least, that was a general axiom, the best of the rich being poor in spirit.

- - Muriel Spark

Today's earrings: scarabs

Bedtime reading: The Girls of Slender Means, Muriel Spark

Anticipation

Only three months until International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
About three weeks until the rug store next door closes. (Or maybe it's just three weeks until the owner goes on vacation. We only spoke in passing.)
And three days until solstice, and this awful Spring is over.

Summer makes me drowsy
Autumn makes me sing
Winter's pretty lousy
But I hate Spring.

- - Dorothy Parker

I forgot to put on earrings today. It was that kind of morning.

Bedtime reading: Robinson, Muriel Spark

Eventful weekend

Friday, my esteemed boss sent me a link to PirateFest. I was immediately enthused. Not to go to PirateFest, mind you, but to intend to go, to make no plan and take no action that would lead to me getting there, to say "arrrgh" at random intervals, and to be mildly disappointed when the weekend ended and I hadn't been to PirateFest. I felt this was an excellent plan and I was enthusiastic about it.

Saturday I washed my dishes. Huge mistake. I pulled the plug and the water did not go AWAY (as prophesied and promised by the Blue Man Group) but instead flooded the cabinet under the sink and flowed onto the kitchen floor. I scurried to remove my beautiful rug from harm's way, then mopped up the dishwater.

That spoiled my plan pretty thoroughly. Instead of spending the weekend intending to go to PirateFest, I spent the weekend anticipating the plumber. This was much less fun, as it involved tidying the front room, kitchen, and bathroom because someone would see them. The detritus of the tidying is now all in my room. I still have to re-scatter it all throughout the place.

Monday morning the plumber dude arrived. It was the same guy who installed my water heater; he was once again both pleasant and competent. He pulled the old pipe out from under the sink (giant rusted-out patch; I'm astonished the pipe lasted as long as it did) and had all new piping installed in less than an hour. Plumber dude, you rock.

I am, however, left wondering if the Universe is trying to tell me to move that rug out of the kitchen on a permanent basis.


Today's earrings: flowers, teaspoons

Bedtime reading: Robinson, Muriel Spark

Swinishness

A word sadly little-used, swinishness. Even spell check rejects it.

My morale was high. I needed a job, but that, which should have been a depressing factor when viewed in cold blood, in fact simply was not. Neither was the swinishness of my landlord, a Mr Alexander, short of stature. I was reluctant to go home lest he should waylay me. I owed him no rent but he kept insisting that I should take a larger and more expensive room in his house, seeing that I had overcrowded the small single room with my books, my papers, my boxes and bags, my food stores and the evidence of constant visitors who stayed to tea or came late.

So far I had stood up to the landlord’s claim that I was virtually living a double-room life for single-room pay. At the same time I was fascinated by his swinishness...

- - Muriel Spark, Loitering with Intent


Today's earrings: pigs, citrine teardrops

Bedtime reading: The Truth, Terry Pratchett

Sting

NOUN:
1. A cutting quality: bite, edge, incisiveness, keenness, sharpness. See SHARP. 2. Informal. A stimulating or intoxicating effect: Informal : punch, wallop. Slang : kick. See DRUGS. 3. A sensation of physical discomfort occurring as the result of disease or injury: ache, pain, pang, prick, prickle, smart, soreness, stab, stitch, throe, twinge. Informal : misery. See PAIN.
VERB:
1. Slang. To get money or something else from by deceitful trickery: bilk, cheat, cozen, defraud, gull, mulct, rook, swindle, victimize. Informal : chisel, flimflam, take, trim. Slang : diddle1, do, gyp, stick. See HONEST. 2. To cause to become sore or inflamed: burn, inflame, irritate. See HELP. 3. To feel or cause to feel a sensation of heat or discomfort: bite, burn, smart. See PAIN.

- - Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition. Copyright © 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company.


Today's earrings: Sapphires, turtles

Bedtime Reading: Reality and Dreams, Muriel Spark

Going places

I should treat my boss with more respect. She's a very good boss, and a very big reason I like my job.


Today's earrings: hands, basketweave-pattern spoons

Bedtime Reading: The Driver's Seat, Muriel Spark