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May 30, 2007
seriously?
netflix has a new feature: "watch instantly". sounds cool, i thought i'd try it.
not so much:
Your computer's operating system is not compatible with instant viewing.
Try again from a computer running Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista.
ok, so where's the big button that lets me complain? because I HAVE A MAC.
Posted by lisa at 06:12 PM
May 28, 2007
best boyfriend evar
at j's insistence, this weekend we started attacking the nightmare that is my basement.
i explained the literary meaning of "albatross" in the process, because i needed to use the word to describe my relationship to the basement.
so, we made a dent, one corner is cleaner, much was thrown away, and the dryer finally has a new exhaust duct.
Posted by lisa at 11:18 PM
May 23, 2007
coffee pot shenanigans
stephanie, this one is for you.
Posted by lisa at 08:15 PM
May 22, 2007
The Graduate
I woke up at 5am (an hour earlier than I intended).
We arrived on campus at 8am, too late to get good seats.
We left at 1:30pm after hearing the names of over a thousand people read out loud, plus two prayers, an amusing speech by New York Times columnist David Brooks, and assorted other information.
"Well, mom," I said, "You've finally produced a college graduate."
Click the thumbs up photo to see more pictures.
Posted by lisa at 05:53 PM
May 20, 2007
a good moses day
earlier this week my vet changed moses' insulin dosage, bumping it up quite a bit based on some blood glucose testing.
well, it was too much, too fast. the change in moses was immediately obvious the next day-- he was listless, slept probably 22-23 hours (i watch him on a webcam during the day), and would eat for only a few moments at a time.
so we bumped it back down, and then yesterday i completely fouled up his dosing schedule, resulting in skipping his night time dose so i could give him an on-schedule dose this morning so my cat sitters tonight and tomorrow aren't having to come over at 2am to take care of him.
i felt horrible guilt about skipping a dose even though i knew it was the logical thing to do-- but much to my surprise it did him a world of good! he's completely back to himself today, even came and woke me up this morning.
i can tell he feels good today and he seems happy. yay! i like it when my kitty has a good day, and this makes me feel a lot better about going out of town tonight.
Posted by lisa at 01:29 PM
let the record show
i went to a rock show tonight (the rosebuds, my first time ever seeing them) and stayed to the very end and everything.
my first rock show in a year and a half or two years or something like that.
it was fun.
Posted by lisa at 01:38 AM
May 17, 2007
flower pretty.
a few more photos from the parts of the yard that don't suck.
we're just not going to look at the whole rest of the yard, which mostly does suck.
Posted by lisa at 10:24 PM
May 16, 2007
the best of all possible beds
i must take a moment to exclaim upon the new bed that J has installed in the now-liveable but not yet complete master suite.
his house has a walk-up attic space which had a bathroom, finished walls and ceiling, and plywood subfloor when he moved in. the previous owner had been using this as her master suite, complete with nails and dirt and splinters on the plywood subfloor. a sort of janky sound system had been installed-- two bookshelf speakers shoved into unfinished holes in the ceiling and a big plastic volume knob on the wall. and there are "i don't want to know" drips down one wall.
well, the big project up there was the floor. and it is beautiful. J installed (himself!) a gorgeous hardwood floor. i helped a little during the finishing stage. after the floor was ready he was ready to start using it as his bedroom.
the last time i was up there, we went to a furniture store and he showed me the bed he'd chosen (padded leather headboard, nice), and i helped him decide on a new mattress.
the bed and mattress have since been delivered and he has outfitted it with all new linens, pillows, and etc.
oh my.
you know those nice hotels that have the really, really, really comfortable beds? the kind of bed you sort of sink into, but still it supports you perfectly?
that's what this bed is like. it's the most comfortable piece of furniture in the house. with the light wood floor, pale walls, and sun coming in through the dormer windows, the upstairs is a most pleasant space. i worked there on friday, and it just became Command Central. we had both kitteh and puppeh up there while we surfed the web on wireless laptops and read and stuff.
my bed seems all small and hard and mean now :(
Posted by lisa at 10:27 PM
yeahokenough
MORE...Posted by lisa at 07:29 PM
May 12, 2007
my favorite ride at busch gardens was..
the log flume.
i also really liked the haunted house.
Posted by lisa at 08:55 PM
May 11, 2007
moses in virginia
kind of like nixon in china, except without all that fussy diplomacy stuff.
so moses is still a great little car traveler.
i put him on the front seat and he just stayed there for the entire trip. i even gave him his insulin shot at a rest area and he didn't bat an eyelash.
by the time we pulled into j's driveway, he was spread across the front seat and looked pretty happy.
i carried him upstairs where he can be sequestered from the puppy. he was pretty pissy at first, but that gave way to curiosity. he slept all night on a blanket next to my side of the bed. i'm hanging out upstairs with him now. he's been scooting around periodically, checking everything out... the most voluntary activity i've seen him have in weeks. maybe bringing him up here was a good thing.
Posted by lisa at 09:39 AM
May 09, 2007
going back
I drive this car:
view the original reverse engineered ad
i made all my hotel reservations and it looks like spacepod and i are going back to roswell this summer for the big ole new beetle convention.
and it looks like J is coming with; m & b will be going along in their beetle and the stephanies are planning on joining us as well.
we'll be going with the route 66 caravan. which was the promt to get us all on the road.
now, everyone wants to know-- will i do the webcams again? well, tentatively-- yes, at least during the caravan. i certainly have the right co-pilot to help out.
Posted by lisa at 10:19 PM
i'm still allowed to buy shoes
well, the rest of the world is experiencing wildfires, tornadoes, nor'easters, car bombings, health concerns and employment worries, but here at the charming english cottage o'shoes, we're still focused on... well... shoes.
i'm not allowed to buy clothes now, because i'm losing weight. but i'm still allowed to buy shoes.
Posted by lisa at 07:55 PM
May 07, 2007
breakfast
i cannot over-emphasize my love of breakfast. as i've stated before, this is a complete turnaround as compared to my past. there's no need to dwell on my breakfast habits of the past, however. suffice to say they were horrifying.
the point of all of this is that i had a near-perfect breakfast this morning and i wish to blog about it. do you care? of course you do. not because you care about what i had for breakfast, but because you love breakfast too, and you want to vicariously experience...
crisp center-cut bacon
toasted whole-wheat farm bread
strong coffee with cream and chocolate syrup
fresh strawberries, lightly sweetened
that is all.
Posted by lisa at 11:30 PM
May 06, 2007
house, house, house
saturday morning began with a visit from roto-rooter to do a video inspection of my basement drains. i don't feel like re-writing what i wrote to J yesterday about it, so i am repurposing it here:
we ran water into the basement floor drains to determine that they connect to the larger central drain which has access to the drains. (i'll show you). he ran the camera through that drain out as far as he could get it. it went about 18 feet, i think, and then he couldn't get it farther, although we couldn't really see an obstruction. he got out an echolocation (?) device and ran it over the front yard in the location where he thought he'd gotten the camera. it appears that drain heads down to street level to the terra cotta drain opening in the curb, which i may not have shown you-- it's near the driveway of the rental house. that opening has been blocked for years. we theorized that there's a point at about the brick retaining wall where that water is just going out into the soil of the front yard but we could not see for sure. he said he could have someone with a bigger/longer camera come out and try to go farther with it and make a better determination of where the blockage or whatever is.
he charged me $85 for his time, nothing extra for the camera. he said to get roots out of a drain would be $220 plus another $85 or something to treat the roots (which i believe discourages them from growing back in too quickly).
he said the reason the cast iron drain started working again is because when i stopped running water through it, the roots dried out and died off.
i believe i am going to have him come out and root out the cast iron drain. my aboveground solution isn't working and it should be possible to get the drain working again.
as for the drains in the basement and the remaining mystery of where that water is going... that seems less important. the drains don't back up and the water is being carried at least down to the brick wall. that's not the side of the house with the real water problem. and rooting out terra cotta is problematic. digging in there to replace the terra cotta would also be problematic because of the retaining wall and the fact that the water main is there, and who knows what other services.
later in the afternoon, i went on the preservation tour in trinity park. i toured eleven houses and a church (with pipe organ recital) in four hours and it's all kind of a blur. the highlight of the tour, for me, was the first house i saw, a large traditional style house on Watts street where some really stunning design and restoration work had been done.
i am biased, but i really think my neighborhood had a more satisfying array of houses on the tour last year! trinity park is known for having some of the most astounding old houses in durham, in a variety of styles, and really relatively few were on the tour.
in the evening i met up with d&s and georg at federal which is much improved now that students are gone. no trouble getting a table on a saturday night, and no smoke.
this morning i went back to bed after breakfast and wound up sleeping another four hours! guess i needed it. then s called and we walked up to the bull durham house which was open today. ok, so i'm still a bungalow kind of girl, but wow. that house is totally amazing. i wrote to j and told him that if he and i were in the market for a house together in durham right now, i'd be making a pitch for that house. it's at a stage where so much work has been done that it's really move-in ready, but there's obvious things that could be done to take it to the next level. plus the fenced back yard is vast, with a dog pen inside it, a three car garage, and big back deck in addition to the wraparound sittin' porch.
Posted by lisa at 07:25 PM
May 04, 2007
bull durham house is on the market
there was certainly a time when an elegant and completely overblown Victorian would have been my total fantasy house, but i'm more of a bungalow girl these days.
but if fantasy victorians are your thing, the house they used as susan sarandon's house in bull durham is on the market and it can be yours for about $123/sq ft. you'll also get to live mere blocks from the charming english cottage o' death which is, arguably, depending on the circles in which you move, the more famous of the two houses.
Posted by lisa at 11:39 PM
shooting up
i administered four insulin shots today.
i'm glad i never did become a veterinarian.
:|:
moses, by the way, is doing well. his transformation to sick kitty was so subtle that i hardly noticed it and chalked a lot of it up to age. but i can see now that he wasn't feeling so great for a while, i'm not sure how long. but now his appetite is rebounding, he's moving around a little more and i think his coat is even a bit better.
:|:
tomorrow is the home tour. after talking with a realtor about my own house (which has spurred me to spend new energies on the house), and picking up my HGTV habit again, and talking with people about houses quite a bit lately, it's all like house house house right now.
also tomorrow the roto-rooter guys are coming out and if the price is not too shocking, i'm going to have them put a video camera through my mysterious storm drain system.
Posted by lisa at 10:27 PM
May 01, 2007
hot pink new beetle in durham
for those of you who don't read another pink world and who might be interested in this (cough*hella-shoes*cough)...
Posted by lisa at 07:16 PM
you can really taste the angels
so there was this whole thing where for the last couple of weeks, i though i was going to sell my house so i could buy a bigger house with a garage. and then after meeting with a realtor and understanding the realities of the timing, what i need to do to make the house ready for sale, etc, i decided against it. also, having someone sit there for three hours and exclaim about how fucking charming my house is, i realized that, you know, it is pretty charming and maybe i want to stay here a little while longer. and i'm not finished with the house. there's more here for me to do.
so there was that.
and then last weekend moses started peeing about three times as much as usual. bloodwork came back yesterday and he has diabetes. fortunately i take care of a diabetic cat quite frequently so giving insulin injections is no big deal and i understand the reality of it, or at least i think i do.
so there's that.
j and the puppy came this weekend and stayed extra long. sunday evening rolled around and we'd spent the day going to lowes (always a major outing when j is around, it's his favorite store) and then doing handyperson things around the house. we installed GFI outlets in the kitchen (and i was introduced to the J Method of Dealing With Old Wiring ™), and he installed new lighting fixtures in a closet and on the side stoop. which sounds like about fifteen minutes worth of work but was more like two hours because it's an old house and for the GFI's he was teaching me some stuff.
so anyway, after all of that it was an hour before he was supposed to leave, and we hadn't walked the puppy or had dinner, and i said, you should just stay.
so he did. i think this was our first four-day weekend, and it was really nice.
for dessert we had fresh strawberries, angel food cake and cool whip. i hadn't had angel food cake in years. there's a unique taste that it has that i can't identify, so i just said, "you can really taste the angels". it makes me want to make one from scratch (this one was store-bought) so I can find out what that taste is.
right now i'm waiting for a foundation guy and then a painter to come give me estimates and whatnot. moses and i got up early today so we could go to the vet and start the insulin. he's sleeping it off on the ottoman and i'm dying for some coffee.
Posted by lisa at 09:45 AM