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June 30, 2006
so sleeeeeeepy
every afternoon i want to take a nap.
6pm is still afternoon, right?
i'll take this opportunity to blame the cat. he's a bad influence. the peer pressure is astounding. he's laying next to me with a look of profound contentment on his face. he's sending me telepathic messages that say, "sleeeeep. you know you want to sleeeeeep."
i should really think about doing something... you know, kind of productive... like a load of laundry, or with that new drill i got... or something... not just go lay down for a minute...
MORE...Posted by lisa at 05:50 PM
Mr. Healthypants
I got the results of Moses' thyroid test this morning-- his thyroid levels are normal!
He seems totally normal now-- sleeps as much as he ever did, wants to play around the time i want to go to bed, yammers for his breakfast in the morning and dinner in the evening. Yesterday he went outside to eat grass for a while, even.
Sometime in the month of July-- if i'm remembering the month correctly-- he will turn 16. I might have to start calling him Mr. Elderlypants, instead!
Posted by lisa at 10:36 AM
June 27, 2006
lisa's little mail order shoppe
i have made a strange discovery, which is that i get an odd satisfaction out of processing orders (in this case, for BPAL). it will surprise no one who knows me that i set up a little system, and a little work-station, and with oodles of free time on my hands, i've got astounding turnaround time on orders.
i'm taking them to the big, old post office in downtown. it's much more pleasant and stylish than a suburban post office-- cavernous, cool, dark, and a little gothic.
i also visited the scrap exchange today-- my, have they changed. they've put a lot of already-made items out, they've got a lot more stuff, and they've opened a lot more space to the public. there's a whole new room i'd never seen before called "the mongo room". it's filled with less organized, less child-friendly things (although in the main area i did find a bin labelled "giant rusty tacks - 75 cents").
they had clearly received a donation from a lab-- beakers, pipettes, test tubes, and less obvious, nameless items. i bought a few glass pipettes for BPAL decanting.
i measured out the space needed for the pool and spoke with my neighbor-- a tree limb came down early saturday morning and put a hole in their roof. the limb was removed and a tarp put over the roof, but no further action has been taken by their landlord. the tarp is leaking (of course) and one of the gutters (filled with small trees, so probably not functional anyway) was torn off the back of the house.
the rains have been continuous and often torrential; it's monsoon season here in north carolina. i really do not think we'll need to worry about drought this year. my basement resembles a swamp. i will feel no guilt in filling the pool.
Posted by lisa at 06:14 PM
June 26, 2006
BPAL madness!
I've finally dipped my toes into the scary waters of BPAL sales. That is to say, I'm selling off the BPAL I know I don't want or need, to other BPAL fans, on the BPAL forum.
I have many limited editions, many things I thought would be desirable. I have two samples of a recently discontinued oil. I thought that would cause a stir.
But what happened was that within just seconds of my post, I had three requests for a sample that I had paid no real mind to-- a scent called Baba Yaga. I knew somewhere in the back of my head that it was unreleased, but didn't think much of it.
Ah well. Here's hoping I can move some of this stuff. My prices are LOW LOW LOW! But I've heard people complain that the market is saturated.
This week I get to find out what it feels like to be one of those people who don't have a "real job" and just sell stuff online :)
Posted by lisa at 12:46 PM
June 25, 2006
my little vampire
so one of the ongoing problems that j and i have to solve is the dog and the cat.
the dog is a 2 year old black lab mix with great manners but absolutely no experience with cats.
the cat is my 16 year old overweight, arthritic tabby who has spent his entire life being terrified of dogs.
so we keep them separated a lot, but that's not a long term solution. last time, j brought both his baby gates and we restricted reese the dog to kitchen/dining area for some periods of time. this was okay, but moses mostly wanted to hang back in the back bedroom and didn't come hang out with us as we'd hoped.
so this weekend we reversed it. while we were cooking, we kept moses the cat in the kitchen with us, and shut reese out. moses was terrified at first, and spent a lot of time yesterday hiding in back corners but sometime today he seemed to turn a corner and started interacting with us normally while we were making breakfast and stretched out and acted happy and comfortable after a while.
and then something interesting happened.
i was in the kitchen with moses, and j and reese were outside. when they came back in, reese went right up to moses, who was near one of the gates, and stuck his nose over the gate. moses, who wasn't trapped at all, and could have easily slunk under the table, didn't budge.
the nose was not withdrawn. moses went on the attack. he swatted the nose, then attempted to jump the gate while batting at reese's face! reese started barking, j yanked reese back away from the gate and moses slunk off after a while.
i put moses in the back bedroom and he was still pretty ramped up-- hissing, crowding the door every time we came in to visit him. i think he wanted to go out there and finish the unfinished business with the dog.
j was pretty good-natured about it; i think he considers moses to be a lesson the puppy needs to learn. the cat can and will defend himself.
later in the day, j said, "he's like a little vampire," and imitated moses' hissing noises. i laughed. "he is! he's like a little furry brown fat vampire! awww."
anyway. j and reese are gone now and my little vampire is reclining happily on the ottoman, his eyes closed and a small smile on his face.
Posted by lisa at 09:42 PM
June 23, 2006
BPAL: Kunstkammer
MORE...Posted by lisa at 01:47 AM
June 22, 2006
BPAL: Shattered, The Premature Burial
MORE...Posted by lisa at 02:21 PM
I went to Vegas...
...to watch (and officially witness) these two crazy kids getting married:
See all 90 bagillion picures here.
Posted by lisa at 12:57 AM
June 17, 2006
dear bathing suit gnomes
dear bathing suit gnomes,
it was very funny how you hid my bathing suit right before i went on vacation. ha ha.
we all had a good laugh. now put it back. ok, i know it's not the greatest suit and i should get a new one, but would it kill you to let me have it back for this trip? no, it would not.
love, clovepod
Posted by lisa at 11:16 PM
June 16, 2006
BPAL: Lightning
MORE...Posted by lisa at 08:28 PM
June 15, 2006
internet moron finds marriedtothesea
i am sure that i am the last internet moron to discover this. still.
looks like a war, on marriedtothesea.
there is more where that came from.
yours stupidly,
clovespacegrrlpod
Posted by lisa at 10:52 PM
groooooooovey
so this morning i drove to work and did not almost die hydroplaning across the interstate, did not get to work an hour late due to a five mile traffic jam, did not break down in tears of stress and did totally get a full hour for lunch.
the thing is that after a hurricane or tropical depression or whatever crazy act of nature tears through the place, the days after are just stunning, the whole Carolina blue sky thing going on, a crisp feel to the air that makes a high of 85 feel really nice and not at all like you're living at the gates of hell itself.
and right about the time that the weather will start to get muggy again, i'll trade it all for the most arid of dry heats, the 103 degree, 3 percent humidity of las vegas.
and then when i get back from vegas, i'm on vacation until july 5th. and i'm not going any damn where.
anyone who wants to come over for mojitoes, come on. i'm not growing that mint just to stare at it.
:|:
BPAL content: totally scored an imp of Lump of Coal!!! for the non-initiates, this is a hard to find scent that smells just like a RICH GOOEY CHOCOLATE BROWNIE. screw cake. i want brownies.
it just occured to me that it would be very amusing to track down some hemp essential oil to accompany this.
speaking of such things, i was at the grocery store sunday night after j left and there were these two people ahead of me in line. they didn't have a basket or cart or anything, and they both had their arms full of EVERY possible kind of junk food. chips, sodas, salsa, and a dozen krispy kremes. i told xta and il rossi about this the other night at federal, and i was like, they were totally high, right? and they both were like, OH YEAH. totally high.
i think if one worked the late shift at an all night grocery store, one would see many amusing things.
:|:
and speaking of j's visit, we went on a walk downtown saturday, ostensibly to check out the progress on the central park pavilion (which is starting to look amazing) but it wound up being a tour of all these lonely warehouse places that are so cool looking. i should have brought my camera. j asked me if i'd ever want to live in a warehouse/loft space and i think he was pretty startled that my response was HELL YEAH!
i am a wussy about walking downtown alone, but with j and the big dog i'm much braver, which is a lot of fun. i love my cool little city, and it's always better and more intimate to see a place on foot.
on sunday j said, "i like durham". given durham's shitty rep, it's nice to get that validation, that someone can see it through my eyes and see it as a nice place.
Posted by lisa at 09:53 PM
we caught up
In the last day, we went from being 5.4 inches below the average rainfall levels for the year to exceeding (ever so slightly) the average rainfall for the year.
nothing like a good tropical storm remnant to clear up a drought!
Posted by lisa at 09:12 AM
June 14, 2006
A watery fate
I don't know who took this-- someone at work. The black building in the background is the building where I work. This was taken around lunch time today; when I stepped out on to our balcony at 3pm, the water was gone.
For those who don't live in NC, we have red clay soil, which is why the water is stained a reddish-orange.
Posted by lisa at 11:32 PM
Not for the squeamish: basement drain
I photographed the large drain in my basement floor. The flash reveals more about its structure than I could tell from the basement lighting. If you know something about old houses, and aren't too squeamish, please take a look and let me know what you think.
the diameter of the drain pipe inside this drain is about the same as the drain pipes outside the house that lead to the storm sewer. note that both of the pipes that go to the street gutter are clogged with tree roots, so the fact that water doesn't back up in this drain (as far as i can tell) is a little mysterious, maybe it goes to the sanitary sewer. The other two basement drains have also always drained pretty fast, some of the fastest drains in the whole house.
Posted by lisa at 11:17 PM
moist and delicious.
well, i've come across more than one tale of flooded houses today and i suddenly have reason to be glad my basement is designed to be wet. there are quite a few streams down there tonight, but it's all draining right out through the drains in the floor, just like it's supposed to.
it dawned on me today-- and i can't believe i never thought of this before-- that the large square drain grate might house a long-dead sump pump. i lifted the grate just now and sure enough, there's a well filled with water and an odd metal protruberance inside the well. i've never seen a sump pump before, so i'm just guessing, but i think that could well be what that is. which leads to interesting questions, like what might happen if i got it working again?
it feels a little like that part in little, big when Smoky figures out that the orrery actually powers the whole house, including a whole house vaccuum system.
Posted by lisa at 06:37 PM
frickin' end times
d. came to me in the hall and said, "do you have a weather icon for raining frogs and blood?"
for those not local to my area, it's raining. a lot. it's raining, it's pouring, my co-worker a. is at home with a flooded basement, roads are closed due to flooding, and the old man is trying to take a nap* but really, the water is rising so he can't sleep very well.
*you know, "it's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring..."
Posted by lisa at 12:26 PM
June 12, 2006
Panamericana 2006 - across the Americas on Biodiesel
Almost certainly I picked this up from treehugger.com
Long before I knew what biodiesel was, I wanted to do this, except that I wanted to drive from the southernmost tip of South America to the Arctic Circle, then seek some means of crossing to Siberia, and then drive as far south as possible. In other words, I wanted to drive around the world.
Posted by lisa at 11:13 PM
The Sierra Club on Gas Prices and conservation
BY THE NUMBERS: GAS PRICES AND CUTTING AMERICA’S OIL ADDICTION
i believe that d_willrobinson assisted in the compilation of these stats.
Posted by lisa at 11:07 PM
Freakalicious
Freakalicious spooky photos by Stephen Berkman
probably via B2
Posted by lisa at 10:59 PM
Whee!
Now, there's a kite!
Posted by lisa at 10:56 PM
June 07, 2006
BPAL: Enraged Bunny Musk
MORE...Posted by lisa at 08:58 PM
June 06, 2006
BPAL: Samhain '05
MORE...Posted by lisa at 11:43 PM
meat meet
i spent four hours in meetings today.
what i have learned is that on days when i have that many meetings, i am too fried when it's all over to do anything meaningful, or even read blogs on UI techniques and technical stuff like that and get anything out of it. i dimly remember turning to the Yahoo! UI blog at around 5:15 today and pulling up an article called intriguingly "world dominiation", and i have no memory of what that article was about. however, i do remember that the other two people still on the hall were talking about clothes, a conversation which i could hear clearly since it was happening mere feet from my desk.
so i gave up and went home.
yesterday our department head announced he's leaving the company to go do relief work in southeast asia full time for 2-3 years. so in addition to a) normal workload b) sudden attention to the intranet which has been ignored for several years we've got c) the probable total re-organization of our department.
this might sound like a complaint post, but it's really not. i mean, this is taxing, but my job feels secure and i feel like there is great promise.
tomorrow i have 3 1/2 hours of meetings. i should try to get in early.
:|:
i did not recieve any BPAL in the mail today. i was bummed. there is a whole buncha stuff supposedly winging its way to me. bet it all comes in one big rush like BAM! BPAL!
Posted by lisa at 06:16 PM
June 05, 2006
BPAL: Strawberry Moon
MORE...Posted by lisa at 09:23 PM
June 04, 2006
movies to watch before going to vegas for the first time
Sarah and Georg and I were discussing this last night. We came up with:
- Ocean's Eleven (both new and old)
- the episode of Angel that's in Vegas (because Sarah and I are BtVS fans)
Any other suggestions? I especially like heist movies, myself.
Posted by lisa at 09:15 PM
perfectly lazy
yesterday and today i have felt deeply, deeply lazy. sit on the porch? sure (it feels perfect out here). nap? sure. go shopping? ehhh... well, only if i don't have to walk too much.
:|:
dan is coming over later to take the old sofa, that his dad bought in 1969, and which i nabbed in my early 20's. rich would have been in his 20's when he bought it, and dan is 21, so i guess it is the sofa of one's 20's. when mom and i moved into the house it was covered in black leather. i think her very first re-decorating project was to have it re-upholstered in beige fabric.
moseman loves that old thing so he may be unhappy at its departure, but i won't be.
to get the room ready for sofa extraction, i had to consolidate much of teh crap that came from mom's attic and that has been sitting in there getting in the way for several months now. it's quite difficult not to get sucked into reading everything, however i forced myself to stop after: four or five of my best poems from high school (they are appalling); letters mom wrote me while i was at young writers camp; the beginnings of a short story told from the point of view of a hobo (i was mildly obsessed with hobos at one point); and a highly amusing letter from my grandmother (amusing because of it's utter borningness, written the way people use to write letters: "well grandpa and i got back from a long weekend in bundick today and the cat ate a mouse and we mowed the grass and..." except my grandmother was a better writer than that, generally. enclosed was a photo of their new minivan. she called it a wagon.)
:|:
there was a moderate amount of flooding in the basement yesterday, enough that it wasn't yet dry this morning. (and at this moment, i realize that blogs are often boring and newsy in the way old fashioned letters between sisters once were.)
:|:
i did work up the energy to mow my lawn yesterday, but quickly discovered that my lawnmower has finally given up the ghost. it's some insane number of years old-- 25 or 30-- so it deserves the rest. i'm allergic to something in my back yard and my nose was dripping as i was discovering this. hot, tired, dripping nose, but by gum i was going to mow that grass anyway!
Posted by lisa at 12:21 PM
June 02, 2006
the 'feh' post
work was an exercise in suppressing crankiness, today. my manager told me i did a very good job of it in a fairly important meeting. but the effort took it's toll; by the time i got home, i was ravenous, in that "special" kind of ravenous way that women experience from time to time. i walk in the house distracted by a large, oddly shaped package from kalamazoo in my mailbox, and it takes a while for me to realize the power is OUT, baby. out. nada.
so i feed the cat, and inhale a container of basically still cold cottage cheese (i know, ew, but i like it). then i tackle the problem of calling the power company: i throw away all my bills, so that number isn't handy.
fortunately i have all the equipment needed to get on the internets without conventional power and connection sources. though of course, two of my three cell phone batteries are dead. i finally get on, get the number, call. my usually robust cell signal sux, and while i do successfully report the outage, the estimated time when they'll have it back on-- delivered by an automated system-- is hopelessly garbled.
i consider crying, briefly, and panicking, but realize i'm just hungry, and tired, and give it up.
i consider grilling the probably still ok chicken on the gas grill (which i just got working yesterday) but realize i'm in no state for primitive cooking.
so i go to d&s house to feed their cats, and although i can't use their internets, because naturally d has it locked up tighter than... well, i could be offensive, but i won't, let's just say i won't be cracking that password tonight. so i use the cell connection, which is nice anyway, and feed the cats and chill out.
i dunno. cook out? q shack? sigh.
Posted by lisa at 07:34 PM
June 01, 2006
Mr. Crankypants is home!
He's home. His mood improved the minute we put him in the car. I left the windows down and he sniffed things the whole way home.
The tech who had been taking care of him asked me how old he is and was genuinely surprised when i said he is 15. "I would have guessed 8 or 9 by looking at him. He really doesn't look that old." That was certainly a nice thing to hear, given that this whole thing has made me think too much about how he's getting old and it will probably only be a couple of years before he's gone.
But who knows, maybe he'll be one of those crazy wonder kitties who lives to be 20 or something.
Anyway. Yay! My kitty is home!
Posted by lisa at 12:09 PM