I've never really seen HW in W, visually, until today's speech. When he looks slightly to his right, it's like his father's face is slapped onto the front of his head. Weird!
On Friday night/Saturday morning, some friends of a neighbor (someone in an adjacent building, not one of the tenants here) apparently decided to come wake her up. Roughly 1:30 am, they were honking, swear to god, some kind of clown horn ... you know, those bulb operated squeaky ones? For some reason, i thought it was her birthday, thus the early visit, but in retrospect, I have no compelling reason to think that, which is weird. Anyway, I was awake, and laying there & a little too warm to back to sleep. So I got up and trimmed my toenails. In the dark. Yeah, I don't know.
I'm at that super-frustrating point where I'm about 2/3 unpacked, and, say, 80% of that's put away, but when I'm looking for something specific it hasn't been unpacked yet and I don't know what box -- partially unpacked, open or closed & untouched -- it might be in, which means opening more boxes and ... stirring.
On the other hand, score one for the packrats among us: I couldn't (and still haven't) find the power cord for my stereo but finally remembered that, when I got the changer, it came with another cord so I had an extra, which has been tucked in my toolbox for the past 5 years. Huzzah! When it turns up, it'll just go in the toolbox instead.
I spent the morning unpacking and arranging my bedroom, filling drawers, etc. With the exception of putting things on the wall, that room is mostly done. After a several-hours-long break to surf the net, I started in on arranging furniture. Three hours later, I gave it up as not happening today and hooked up all the entertainment center components ... until I couldn't find the stupid power strip and rerturned to the search/dig pattern.
Eh. It'll all come to an end. Still. I never even made it back to the old place, but now I can at least go with empty boxes to grab the remaining stuff.
At this point, my bedroom is mostly done, as is the sunroom. The kitchen is a disaster area, but should be easy to rectify. The hallyway is totally done, including shelving books (which isn't true for the sun- or bed rooms), there's a very few items from yesterday to put in the bathrooms ... but the dining room is pretty much completely not started and the living room furniture is pissing me off. Maybe if I take the door stop off the hinge .... Hm. It reminds me of nothing so much as those mosaic puzzles you play with, as a kid, where you move the squares around to eventually get them all in the right spot so the picture will form.
Anyway, I can't recall ever bein this tired after a day of staying exclusively inside!
I'm sitting on my couch in my new apartment, crowded into a corner by the furniture which is now strewn all over the place, post movers. I've spent most of the past two days packing and moving, so I'm taking the past 90 minutes off.
I went to Home Depot today, to get hex bits for my keyless chuck DeWalt. I was really hoping someone would offer to help me, so I could say that. Sadly, I was left alone to wander around the powertool area in confusion for a good 20 minutes.
I went to La-Z-Boy today, to order a new slip cover for my chair, from them, that features, yes, you guessed it, slip covers in my choice of (a limited offering of) fabrics. Unfortunately for me, the line has been discontinued and all they had left was this nasty, ugly denim ... thing. I said no. So, basically, I can now either do store bought covers for the rest of forever, or I can find an upholsterer to make a new one using the current (estremely faded and very clawed) one as a pattern. Awesome. I bought one at Target. We'll see how it goes.
When I took the cover off, to bring it to the cleaners, there were insect casings all over it. Gross. I have now vacuumed the non-removable part extremely thoroughly.
I'm not completely moved yet, but I'd put it at around 92%. Yes, 92. More than 90, less than 95. Please stop laughing at me. Anyway. I will try to get the rest of the way out this weekend, with the exception of the items I'm putting on Craigslist. Looking around the new place ... I'm thinking I should have said good-bye to a few more pieces of furniture, some of which I've had now for 15 years. Yikes. That's a really long time.
I was quite proud of my eyeball skills today -- the chest did fit through the closet doors and into its spot in the closet, and the armoire fits quite nicely along the angled wall in my bedroom. Nice! Also exciting: I finally have a dining room large enough that, when I put the leaf in, there is still room to walk around the table and sit and such. I think I may have underestimated the square footage of the place.e
How did I think it was a good idea to come in early today?!
Here's the stuff that's broken in the last 10 days or so:
Laptop
Cell phone battery
Cell phone handset
Electrics in my car controlling the directions & daytime running lights
iPod
Passenger side window of my car -- from when someone went into the garage & broke it, then stole my GPS
Can I be done, yet? Have I worked off my accumulated bad karma? Please?
That said, it could be much, much wose. And the iPod did recover after it ran down the battery (which took a surprisingly long time).
Even so, after 30 minutes attempting to clean up broken (safety) glass (it got EVERYWHERE) in 90+ degree heat after less than 6 hours of sleep following a long, long day before, and getting attacked by mosquitos for my trouble, my mood seriously soured and I decided it would be wise to stay far away from people for the day, and proceded to mostly stay in.
I did make a short trip to a do-it-yourself car place, to vacuum up the worst of the glass inside the car. There was a guy there who wanted to proselytize to me. I managed to be very civil while declining, and he was fine with it. I suspect I was obviously struggling not to lose it. The vacuum cleaner was really impressive, but I spent the balance of the day yesterday, continuing into this morning, really not liking people. Actively loathing them, in fact. I'm working on it.
I got home from the bioluminescent kayak tour sometime after 1am Sunday morning, showered and was in bed around 2pm. At 8am one of my neighbors pounded on my door to wake me up. That's how I found out about the window.
I called the police and then realized I desperately wanted coffee, but I'd already called so I couldn't go anywhere. Just one more annoyance. Could I have made some? Sure, but I didn't WANT to make some. I was tired and cranky.
Saturday was a much better day. I got up around 8am, did morning stuff, went to the farmer's market, went home & wrapped presents, drove out to Melbourne, did the b-day presents thing with my brother, we went and played the back 9 of his local frisbee golf place (SO HOT), back to his place to get our gear together, off for boba (bobba?) tea, then up to Titusville for dinner. Then the grocery store for beer, then the kayak meeting place pretty much at 7:30. The tour finally left around 8:15 and lasted about 2 hours total, round trip, including about 30 minutes in an inlet where the viewing was really great. Saw lots of fish, big & little, swimming & jumping. Didn't see the dolphin or the manatee, and no one saw any crabs, but still very cool -- and a lot better than last year, not least because the tide & wind wasn't against us for the return trip!
The combination eating ahead of time, taking ibuprofin before starting, using a sit-on-top kayak, and no wind or opposing tide made for a MUCH more pleasant experience, and the glowing everything was super cool. I'm not sure whether it would have been better with fewer clouds. Maybe. Or maybe it would have dimmed the glow ...
I was seriously considering going to the pound this past weekend to get a pet -- or two. I really want a dog, but I love cats for lap purposes. Anyway, I looked around my apartment at the clutter and decided I need to find places for everything before I bring in anything to start chewing on my shoes.
In a related note, the super friendly cat that hadn't been around for awhile is back -- my theory is that the owners went on vacation and she was in the kennel, though I could be completely wrong. Anyway, she's been coming around to be fed regularly.
Last night just after midnight there was cat growling coming from my patio of sufficient volume and duration to get me out of be to chase off whoever. The friendly cat was hanging around, waiting to be fed, wanting to be pet and generally ignoring the adolescent Siamese mix who was on the stairs to the upstairs apt, growling away and hissing when I approached. And I fed him last night! I ended up throwing water at him to run him off. The good side was that he was just laying thee, growling: he wasn't attacking or anything, and the other cat was completely ignoring him (generally she runs him off. She might be his mother. Maybe). THe bad was that he was really loud.
Eh. I won't get a pet this weekend, either, as I want to be home all weekend when I do and I'll be spending most of the weekend in Melbourne. Maybe the one after that.
I get my laptop back today, hurrah hurrah. Sadly it will be sans all my data from the past three years ... or any of the data from the four years before that that was archived on that machine. IT has had it since Thursday. Basically the encryption software crapped out, which had the added benefit of making the OS inaccessible. When I went to boot Wednesday night from home BIOS loaded and that was it.
Total loss. Including tax returns, some school work, my entire iTunes library, many personal pictures and lots and lots of work stuff. I don't mind the work stuff. The tax stuff should be fine, though I will be holding my breath, metaphorically, for the next seven years. The misic I purchased iTunes can be recovered from my iPod, according to some instructions i found, though I'll have to re-load my entire personal library. Bleh. And Some stuff I had copied from library CDs is gone forever, as may be the operas I purchased & downloaded from Amazon -- haven't checked that, yet
Anyway. They spent basically two full days trying various data recovery tricks and techniques to no avail, so the machine is being re-imaged and returned to me. On the positive side, I shouldn't have to worry about running out of space on the disk anytime soon!
And my phone. My phone battery has been dieing for a while -- I haven't been able to talk for more than about 5 minutes at a go for probably a couple months -- but this week it progressed to about 10 - 20 mnutes of email before shutting down. I'm still on an OLD blackberry, which in this case is nice because there are lots of spare parts over in IT from people upgrading. I took it over yesterday. My battery was puffy, which apparently is a known symptom for it going/being bad (what happens next? boom?), so he gave me another one. About 45 seconds down the hallway with my new battery my phone crapped out again.
Turns out the handset was also bad, so I got a new-to-me handset and another new battery (the first new battery was puffy after it had been in my handset. It's a battery killer!). I am pleased at the prospect of once again being able to use my phone as a phone.
This is my horoscope today:
You may not think it's fair, for you really don't want to choose between your personal and professional life. But your role at work may be impinging on your private world and there's nothing you can do about it now. It's healthy to be optimistic about your future as long as you don't slip into denial about your present
This is why it's true:
We laid off two people yesterday. As an outcome, we're talking about me taking back the job that ate my life and destroyed my soul. Not having that role enabled me to go back to school. The question is: Can I still do school and that job. The answer is: maybe. If I commit to doing the half days thing whenever school is in session, in lieu of taking vacations, that will consume roughly 36 half days, or 18 full days. I get 25 paid days off. That would be Christmas and maybe a couple four day weekends. I suppose I could also use sick time to that end, now that it doesn't endlessly accrue.
So. Yes. Theoretically doable. We shall se.
I'm watching Without A Trace, and as always I'm stuck on: why would the FBI be called in at hour 5? Doesn't the (presumed) kidnapper have to cross state lines for the FBI to get involved?
This bothers me every time I watch. What's that? I shouldn't take TV too literally? Whatever.
