The Characters and the Scene:
14 year old cat with a terrible attitude
Owner standing at kitchen sink preparing asparagus for dinner
Gazillion year old cat face-planted on kitchen floor (perchance to dream)
The Action:
14 year old cat racing across den floor
Owner catching the cat running out of the corner of her eye
Gazillion year old cat face-planted on kitchen floor (blissfully unaware)
Frog and Goat is a year old today. The entries have gotten better don’t you think?
On Saturday we started the work on replacing the door between the garage and basement. We worked diligently for most of the afternoon and got the frame installed. Around 6pm, my sister called and said they had just finished dinner and wanted some ice cream. She said they’d bring some over and we could have some with them. I told her we hadn’t had dinner yet but to come on over because everyone knows dessert before dinner is not at all a bad thing.
It seems the owl I saw about a month ago while staining the porch stairs has decided to make our woods its home. We haven’t actually seen the owl prey on anything yet, but the same birds that whine when a fox is nearby let us know that the owl is around.
The owl moves through the under story so quietly and gracefully that if it weren’t for the whiny birds, we’d probably never know the owl was there. The whiny birds whine and the owl just sits on a tree branch until it feels like moving. I find it interesting that the owl typically picks the branches of the smaller trees in our woods. Even though it is the under story, some of our larger trees have lower branches but the owl doesn’t seem to care for those.
Having the owl around makes me think of a short story I read many years ago about a cat-eating owl. The owl perched on a window sill and plucked out kittens from inside a house. I have no memory of what else this story was about or who wrote it. I suspect it was from the now defunct Story magazine.
We met at the local lumberyard to order a new basement window and a new door to go between the garage and basement. Apparently the window is a weird funky custom size and we’re going to re-think what needs to happen with that. I don’t much care since although it is as rotten as the state of the world, it isn’t a big gaping hole like we have between the garage and basement.
We have to do a little work with the saw to get the door to fit into the opening, but I’m not worried about that. Because I’m one mean muther when it comes to home improvement. And, that’s the reason for this posting. The guy working the counter at the lumberyard looked at us and asked how handy we are. Well, I understand he didn’t want to sell a complex job to people with zero skillz. But, I got the feeling that my having curves is what prompted that question. Let me tell you what mister lumbering lumber salesman, I can freaking wield a hammer like you’ve never seen. I’m the freaking yoda of hammer swinging.
I went by Kohl’s yesterday in search of some shoes that I could wear with capris, jeans and khakis this summer. I have a pair of birkenstock sandals but those aren’t exactly office-ready. Say what you will about those of us who wear birkenstocks and I’ll point to my feet and say “look how happy they are”. And, as someone who has suffered through plantar fasciitis, I’ll wear whatever shoe I need to so that my feet don’t hurt. Because there is nothing worse on this planet then waking up and hoping that the three seconds you spend stretching your foot muscles out will be enough because you really have to go to the bathroom and stepping out of bed and into the bathroom should not be akin to walking on red-hot molten lava.
Kohl’s had nothing but open-toed shoes and since I’m not one for pedicures, I don’t take to wearing open-toed shoes at work.
I decided to go to Payless and see what they had. I ended up with two pairs of shoes and I don’t really expect them to last for longer than the summer but at a ridiculously low price I don’t mind. The shoes I’m wearing today are technically mules but they have little cut-outs on the sides so it sort of looks summery. And, I can take my shoes off under my desk and no one is the wiser.
In the most recent Smithsonian there is a photograph of a field in Bath, England. The unique subject of the photograph is a field of fluorescent tubes sunk into the ground underneath a large power line. There is enough energy in the air to light the tubes. The photograph is stunning. Unfortunately, I can’t find it on their online edition.
I did find the site of the guy who created the field of tubes. He really should get a copy of that photograph and post it on his site.
Don’t you just HATE it when someone uses the Reply All feature of email? Seriously, people. There is rarely a need to use Reply All especially when the original message went to more than 20 people. If the projector at work is missing, I don’t need to hear how 20 of you don’t know where it is. If you are bringing in egg rolls for a party, I don’t give a fig. Tell the 1 person who is organizing the event. I will only care when I show up for the party and say “look, egg rolls-yum”.
Give yourself 5 points if you recognize the title of this post.
My mission is to create a new baseline for our training database. This means lots and lots of data entry. The same data over and over and over again. Some of it I can paste, but most of it can’t be pasted.
At about 4pm today, I started singing aloud to “I Am Woman”. I sang through several songs and then started to do the seated jitterbug. I imagine my legs mimicked how Elvis would have worked at a desk–all movement, all the time.
I completed a third of the total amount of data entry and finally had to stop. I was out of control…babbling to myself, singing and the incessant jittering of both feet. I think it is probably a very good thing that I don’t have to do repetitive work very often.
I’ve often wondered about the why of asparagus pee. Now I know.
My sister’s graduation was yesterday. Even though she’s officially been a doctor for months, she finally got to walk across the stage and have family and friends cheer her on. It was pretty cool.
