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July 30, 2007

condo time

so the other day the roof leaked right into the living room, and i haven't yet paid the roofer for the last job. add that to all the usual house stuff and there are days when i think maybe i should just live in a condo in Cary. of course, then i'd have to live in Cary, which would make for a short commute and the total and complete loss of my soul.

so what about condos in durham? wow, do you know how nice of a condo i could buy in durham? really nice. like, big kitchen with an island and pretty new appliances.

eh, i know i wouldn't really want to, but sometimes home ownership doesn't seem worth it.

Posted by lisa at 07:44 PM

ole iron jaws

i can tell you that there's one part of the cat's body that isn't affected by arthritis.

the legs may be weak, the claws may be slack. but if you play with him around dawn, during prime hunting time, after he tires of batting at your hand with his all but useless forepaw, he'll go after you with the jaw.

ow.

Posted by lisa at 07:08 AM

July 29, 2007

just plain lazy

i tried to think of today as a day of rest, but i have now come to the conclusion that i'm just plain being lazy.

i don't feel guilty, but i do feel cognizant that the things that are weighing on me to be done will weigh on me even more heavily next week because i'm not making progress on any of them today.

i've also worked myself into a very strange sleep schedule that i think is going to be problematic next week, when i have two very early mornings, tuesday and wednesday.

but at the end of the week, J is coming to town and we'll be attending the festivities surrounding the marriage of two old friends of mine. which is going to be a fun time.

Posted by lisa at 10:01 PM

July 25, 2007

Tonali, now with beer!

I took mom and Dan to Tonali for dinner tonight, and the food was extra tasty, perhaps in part because they now have their ABC license! dan and i both got Negra which was on draft and so delish.

during the planning of this evening, i had been informed that a trip to Loco Pops would be required, this was decided even before we decided on where to have dinner.

funniest story of the night was the story of mom telling stu about our forthcoming trip to atlanta to visit him and help him set up his new pad. she mailed him and said, "we can't come the weekend of -- because lisa has a wedding, and the next weekend dan is dog sitting, so we'll come the weekend of --." stu then called dan and asked, "is lisa getting married or something? am i THAT far out of the loop?"

uh, no, stuart. you'll PROBABLY hear about it if i get married-- hell, play your cards right and you might even get an invitation on paper and everything. after all, you are my brother.

and i thought i was out of the family loop! someone needs to start a newsletter or something.

Posted by lisa at 10:21 PM

clutter war: the chronically disorganized

A rich set of links i found today. Almost every one I know has at one time or another expressed distress over their clutter, lack of organization, and inability to overcome problems in organizing, cleaning and running their household. I also feel an almost constant sense of disquiet about my house. Via the web site of a local professional organizer, I found the web site of the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization.

If you feel like you're at the mercy of your house or your stuff, you should read this stuff.

Clutter hoarding scale. A tool for assessing the degree to which a person is suffering from chronic disorganization. From your typical messy house to the full-blown trash house.

Fact sheets about chronic disorganization

I'll quote from the one called "Common characteristics of the Chronically Disorganized"...

Interestingly, I can relate to a lot of the home-specific traits (such as no household calendar in use, cluttered living areas, multiple project begun but not finished) this document goes on to list, but few of the work-specific traits.

Addictive tendencies that can cause chronic disorganization:

Affluenza

Collection addiction (I can't find a specific link but I think this one is fairly self-explanatory)

Infomania

Urgency addiction

I have seen aspects of all of these addictions in my co-workers, in myself, and in friends; it's disturbing to find it all laid out in black and white even though i've suspected for years that there are identifiable things going on that drive people to collect gadgets, toys, information, and other things.

it's not that we don't all lead functional lives, but i am completely sick of the constant state of ack that i live in. i have some situational problems (half my weekends cannot be devoted to surmounting my household problems or doing maintenance chores; i have renovation work to do to my house, such as in the basement) but although i have largely curbed my tendency to accumulate junk, i still accumulate things and remain adept at rationalizing everything i purchase or obtain. at the same time, the items i identify that need to leave the house often remain in a "staging area" for months at a time while i fail to get them to goodwill or on the company bulletin board for re-sale.

in somewhat related news, i met today with a basement waterproofer recommended by a neighbor who has been down a path similar to mine. it looks like i also need to get quotes on gutter repair/upgrade/replacement.

Posted by lisa at 01:21 AM

July 23, 2007

surfing fearlessly, or how i read harry potter book seven in eleven hours and learned to love the web again

had to make two stops to track down a copy; first stop was our local indie bookstore, the regulator, since i'd had no trouble getting the last book there without a reserved copy.

but oh! they had no unreserved copies and told frightening tales of the book being unavailable. "try somewhere obscure, like Sam's Club" they told me, without irony. okay, i'm paraphrasing a little, but that's basically what the woman said to me.

next stop: Costco, where there was a huge table of them. I noted the price briefly: $19. not bad, i guess. as i stood in line a woman tapped me on the shoulder and informed me that "you can get that book for $18 at wal-mart!" i explained that it was out at many stores in the area and i was just glad to get a copy. as she left, the woman ahead of me in line asked me how much it was here. I told her, and realized that of course driving across town to save a dollar was hardly worth it.

i was interrupted in my reading exactly three times: once by a call on my land-line from a woman claiming to be from a human rights organization. i told her "sorry" and hung up. once by a well-known scammer in the neighborhood who rang the doorbell and claimed to be collecting money for a children's charity. i grabbed my mace and my cell phone after that and kept them close by, although i don't think he's one of the ones with a history of crime, just door-to-door scamming. finally, a cell phone call i didn't answer from a tradesman who was quite confused and apparently thought he was supposed to meet with me today, but wasn't going to be able to. i'll return his call tomorrow.

oh, the book itself? what did i think? it was good.

Posted by lisa at 10:29 PM

safe surfing

just home from J's. i've avoided my livejournal friends list since friday afternoon, as well as all news outlets, and most other web sites. J isn't into reading harry potter, and i wasn't going to go up there to visit then spend many hours in a potter reading coma, so spoiler-avoidage was extremely important (and difficult). he said the spoilers were splashed all over slashdot by saturday.

i finally decided that it was so important to me to be able to read the book in one long sitting, without being exposed to any conversation about it at all, that i'm taking monday off to read it. which is kind of embarrassing, but i'll enjoy it immensely, so who cares?

the moses had a fine time at J's house this weekend, i think he's starting to adjust to being there. he's allowed on the bed some which he really loves. J is very tolerant and understanding of the elderly cat logistics, which i really appreciate.

today we took the puppy for a walk on the seawall at Ft. Monroe, and saw an unmarked submarine coming in to port. a very unusual sight; the massive container ships that we always see are impressive enough, but a matte charcoal gray turret gliding along the sea is even more so when you know what is lurking underneath, and what the thing can do.

i asked J if he'd be interested in going to London via sea, rather than air, one day, and he said he'd be all over that. so who knows? maybe there's a journey on the QE2 in our future.

we also visited the blue star diner, and i'll post photos shortly. this is an old diner of the aluminum-clad, neon-googie-sign variety that was owned an operated continuously by one woman for decades. J went there one time while it was under her ownership and told me that every surface inside was caked with grease and dirt. he also witnessed the owner stirring a pot and coughing over it. disguisting; how the health department never shut her down is a mystery.

well, it did catch up with her eventually. not long after J and i started dating, the blue star caught fire and was shut down.

several months ago we noticed some work going on at the blue star (which, i should mention, is quite close to J's house). it re-opened under new ownership about two months ago. we decided to give it a try today and were happily surprised with the result.

all of the original surfaces were intact and cleaned thoroughly. as much as possible the original parts of the building have been retained. apparently the coating of grease provided some kind of protective barrier against age because it all looked pretty good.

business was slow when we went, but it was an odd time on a sunday. the food was okay, not terrific, but not so bad as to prevent us from going back for breakfast some time. we agreed that it is best to stick with things that are made on the grill because those turned out better-- my grilled cheese with ham was much better than J's open face turkey sandwich.

the thing that surprised me was the lack of desserts! the meals all come with dessert, but all they were offering today was rice pudding and cherry jello. i asked if they ever have pie, and she said they did in the beginning but could never sell any because the meals all come with dessert.

the solution to that seems obvious to me but... you know. anyway, we talked with our waitress for a good while. she worked there thirty years ago and just recently came back. she said that she cleans every surface twice a day because she remembers what it was like before and doesn't want it to backslide. she said the new owners seem to be pretty fastidious people as well.

anyways. a tasty weekend.

Posted by lisa at 12:36 AM

July 18, 2007

vinyl, part one

okay, since jason! asked, here's a lot of it. i realized there's a crate i need to go through, and i got tired of typing before i got the spoken word, classical, childrens and other miscellany on here.

some of these are quite pristine; others are in totally shitty condition. someone should grab the MC5 record before i change my mind.

most of them would be free. i might want a little money for some of them, i am not sure. if any interest you, let me know.

buddy miles, bicentennial gathering of the tribes
eric mercury, love is taking over
mc5, kick out the jams
foreigner, 4
sly and the family stone, greatest hits
the best of oingo boingo
oingo boingo, dead man's party
rod stewart, every picture tells a story
seefeel, plainsong/filter dub/industrious (dj promo)
snatches of pink, dead men
sparks, no. 1 in heaven
sparks, indiscreet
sparks, in outer space
sly stone, recorded in san francisco 64-67
the mermen, songs of the cows
mofungo, end of the world, part 2
romeo void, instincts (wxdu copy)
quicksilver messenger service, happy trails
prince, u got the look 12" single
til tuesday, voices carry
ike & tina turner, come together
ike & tina turner, ike & tina get it together!
frank zappa, hot rats
wire, a bell is a cup
world star festival compilation
swayzak vs. theorem, break in at apartment 205/bad hair day/unheurleirfuk 12" single
a-ha, hunting high and low
alger hiss, settings for nudes
woody allen, standup comic
th' cigaretz, crawl rite outta my skin
tortoise, millions now living will never die
the glove, blue sunshine
balandzan biton, du mali
tim curry, fearless
tim curry, read my lips
tim curry, simplicity
the moderns, serve and protect
aorta, aorta
ll cool j, pink cookies in a plastic bag.../funkadelic relic 12" single
john lennon, imagine
jefferson airplane, surrealistic pillow
joe jackson, will power
iron butterfly, in-a-godda-da-vida
human sexual response, figure 14
isaac hayes, the best of isaac hayes
isaac hayes, hot buttered soul
harlem bush music, taifa
grandmaster flash and the furious five, greatest messages
general public, all the rage
peter gabriel, in your eyes 12"
from beyond original motion picture soundtrack
exquisite corpses from the bunker complation (ikue more is the only name i recognize)
curve, cuckoo
chuck usa
sound forms for piano (john cage, others)
culture club, church of the poison mind 12"
david bowie, reissue of his davy jones stuff
kurtis blow, kingdom blow
blondie, eat to the beat
peter frampton, frampton comes alive!
dish, mabel sagittarius 10"
black dice, beaches and canyons
harry pussy, live fuck love songs
two uk garage records w/ various artists
pretenders, pretenders
african typic collection
trouble funk, saturday night live
go go crankin', paint the white house black

Posted by lisa at 10:31 PM

want vinyl?

i just culled my 12" collection and have about a yard of records that i need to get rid of.

if anyone who reads this is interested acquiring any more vinyl, let me know, and i'll compile a list of what i've culled. far fetched, i know, but you never know.

Posted by lisa at 08:25 PM

July 17, 2007

teh feh.

what do you say when one of your oldest friends up and moves to the west coast?

as it turns out, not much. i'm usually one to blab about every thing that passes through my mind, but i don't much want to talk about this.

it finally rained here, today, which seems fitting.

:|:

in a last ditch effort to sell my BPAL chaos theory bottle, i bumped the price down to $5, which is a tiny fraction of what i paid for it.

i got a message from someone, i don't understand. you're selling the whole bottle for $5?

um, yes. it's a powdery, heavy floral. no one wants it.

can you describe which floral you're smelling?

man, all i know is that it hits every bad note that i hate except maybe vetiver and civet. maybe gardenia? jeez, i dunno.

there's a stinky perfume lady on my hall at work. if i can't sell it, maybe i should just slip it into her mailbox. she might like it.

funny the things that are selling, though. Shill, which smells exactly like buttered popcorn. The Pumpkin Patch, which smells about like you'd expect. i guess people are ready for fall, now that summer has really started.

:|:

the cat is sleeping an awful lot today. i wonder if i accidentally overdosed him yesterday? i thought i did a fur shot (when you squirt the insulin on the fur because you thought you had the needle in, but didn't), so i gave him a second dose.

Posted by lisa at 09:42 PM

July 11, 2007

the irritations shall continue until your attitude improves, missy!

i was honestly going to write this nice blog entry called "my summer vacation, by spaceCLOVEgrrlPOD". after all the complaining, it seemed like a good idea.

and i will, but that is not the blog entry i shall write tonight.

yes, i went shopping tonight (which was quite pleasant) for some new bedding, and full of happy anticipation i walked into the house planning to wash the new sheets and get them right on the bed.

i walked in the door and said to the cat, "it smells like dog in here."

i walked into the kitchen and realized that it did not smell like dog. it smelled like dishwasher waste water was covering the kitchen floor.

funny how the nose can be fooled.

it took two bathmats and about five towels to get all the water up.

of course, moses followed me into the kitchen and before i could begin my triage efforts, headed for his bowl-- which was where an electrical cord lay on the ground, near but not in water. i snatched him up and locked him into the back bedroom.

i had to pull the appliances out from the walls to get all the water (and wet crap under the appliances). and of course, the cherry on the icing on the cake was the massive coughing fit that gripped me when i went into the basement with the basket of wet towels.

gaak.

i mean, like the mp3 mishap, this is my own fault. i keep band-aid-ing the u-bend under the kitchen sink when i should get someone in to fix it properly.

i still like to complain.

:|:

on the up side, moses seems to be himself again, normal appetite, following me around the house, sleeping on the bed with me at night, and acting all happy and affectionate.

Posted by lisa at 11:16 PM

July 10, 2007

tell me about losing your entire music library

well, i thought i'd backed everything up. what i didn't remember was that i didn't back up the actual music files-- just the xml files.

so i did as the "genius" said, and erased the hard drive, re-installed the OS.

i do have my mail, photos, documents, favorites, other important things. but not the music.

so the music i lost falls into several categories.

it's that last one that gets me, i'm just not going to think about it too hard.

my now-dead 200gb backup drive has the last known backup of my music files, which dates back a couple of years. if that drive had been working when i'd done the backup before going on vacation, i would have backed up the music files and i'd be golden. the computers, they hates me!

:|:

in other news, i'm kind of worried about moses, not for anything really obvious, it just seems like he's sleeping too much. he had a lot of stress recently-- staying with the dog for an extended period, then traveling to Va last weekend-- i'm hoping he'll just sleep it off for a week and then be himself again.

:|:

after staying in clutter-free, daily-cleaned hotel rooms, i'm exasperated with my house. i want less clutter, i want to own less stuff, i want a place for everything, i want the house to feel finished. i know "finished" is usually unrealistic with an older house, but i want some feeling of completion. well, what i really want is to feel like i could put it on the market.

at least it looks like my laptop is back to being fully functional (if a little light in the music library), so i can hopefully wait to replace it more at a time of my own choosing.

Posted by lisa at 08:54 PM

July 07, 2007

sick. again.

in virginia. the cold that's been dogging me for over two weeks now has come on strong again and i've been varying degrees of miserable all day.

got a lot of research for nbeast done, though-- j and i met up with my old friend warren in yorktown and it looks like he's arranged a great location for the event this year.

j drove me all around the area looking at hotels to research, and then helped me work through some of the financial stuff which needs to be figured out in order to get registration up.

so in other words, he's been completely patient, totally helping me with my weird vw interest, and has been fairly un-grossed-out by my progressive illness. awesome boyfriend.

tomorrow i drive home, the drive up was horrific. well, the first three hours were great; the last 20 miles took an hour and a half and i NEVER WANT TO DRIVE AGAIN. happily moses was perfect the whole way and just slept on the front seat, perfectly content.

Posted by lisa at 10:50 PM

July 05, 2007

...and the genius says...

that i should take my ailing laptop home, erase and format the drive, and re-install the OS (in this case, i'll be upgrading to 10.4 at long last). it could be on the verge of hard drive failure in which case that either won't solve my problems or won't solve them for long.

in the meantime, the icebook is actually working a lot better than i thought it would, and it occurs to me that i should erase and format its drive, too (although maybe i already have, i can't remember).

there's a hardware tech at work who has expressed interest in my 17" powerbook (the ailing one), so if it does need a new hard drive i will probably contact him and see if he wants to buy it and put a drive in it himself, and i will get a new laptop. it looks like i can get the same screen resolution in a 15" macbook pro, and i wouldn't mind having a faster computer, bigger hard drive, and smaller form factor. so if it goes that way i won't be too upset.

i also got to play with the iphone while i was in the store. there was a little cluster of people around them but i was still able to walk right up and pick one up and try it out. it's as sweet as the advertising promises, and i hope my current cell phone lasts until the price drops and a few of the cons are resolved (mainly, for me, that includes not being able to use it to connect a laptop to the internet, and being forced to get a 2 year contract with a particular carrier).

thanks to folks who have mailed me via gmail. i really like gmail. i really, really wish i could use it at work without violating a policy. that would solve some problems for me. oh well.

Posted by lisa at 06:57 PM

July 04, 2007

home

i'm home. the cold i had at the beginning of the trip flared up again yesterday and today. the humidity, i guess, and changes in altitude.

i'm not sure if i'll have any internet access for a while. i own four computers and all of them are now broken in one way or another. two won't boot at all; one of them will be going to the apple store tomorrow, i guess, and the fourth may or may not be reliable enough for me to run a web browser (but probably not a full-fledged mail client).

this is a long-winded way of saying that if you want to e-mail me, please use my little-known gmail account, spacepod. if i have to use a web client, it might as well be a good one. i can peep my earthlink account with a web client, but it's kind of heinous to use, and spam filtering is dicey at best. my united account has no spam filtering at all so it's not very enjoyable to use.

so yes. for the time being, please use my gmail account. or, you know, pick up the phone. i've got two of those, and they both actually work!

Posted by lisa at 08:20 PM

July 03, 2007

confession of a luxury hotel junkie

glass ceiling of union station hotel there's an actual aeron chair in the room. i'm in a hotel in nashville that's been build inside an old train station. the room looks as if it has been lifted straight from the pages of the restoration hardware catalog. except for the chair.

it's my last night on the road which is just as well.

yesterday i crossed the rest of the texas panhandle and all of oklahoma. it was a long driving day. i watched the sun set in the ozarks and pushed on to little rock.

today was easier, lunch in memphis and an early arrival in nashville.

tomorrow, a long drive and then i'm home.

Posted by lisa at 09:17 PM

July 01, 2007

list of apps i cannot now use on my computer

for those not following along on my other site, the day we left north carolina my computer partially died. i get the spinny beachball when trying to use certain apps. these include:

my first stop when i get home will be the apple store, i guess. hope i can get the webcam archive from saturday backed up or uploaded before then.

Posted by lisa at 10:51 PM

aaahhhhhhhh high speed wireless

first real internet access i've had since leaving home over a week ago. everything i've done in the last week has been over the cell phone. most things work great but working in flickr is a nightmare so i plan to do some major housekeeping there tonight.

i am on my way home now from roswell, having dropped J at the albq. airport this morning. i'm in amarillo now enjoying a particularly luxurious holiday inn express which is worth every damn penny. we've been staying in motel 6's along the way (except for a verrrry nice place in downtown indy) and while they do provide good cheap basic accomodation, they get kinda old after a while.

on the way into amarillo i spotted the cadillac ranch from the road and pulled over for a close up look. photos will go up on flickr tonight. it was very cool, but i have to say nowhere near as powerful and surreal as carhenge in nebraska.

just spoke to J on the phone, he survived the flight (his first since before 9/11) and it appears that the cat and the dog did not eat each other while we were gone, which is good.

well, i think i will take advantage of being in a real city and order in some chinese food. that'll be nice.

Posted by lisa at 09:08 PM