You got a hubcap diamond star halo

Posted on December 17, 2009 by Frog

Last night driving home from babysitting the nieces, Get It On by T. Rex came on (it’s also called Bang a Gong). I have no idea what that jumble of lyrics mean but I love that song. Actually, the lyrics are pretty simple–he’s hot for someone but the whole being built like a car? Does she have fins? A nice grille? What?

The kids were super awesome and I really like how our Lil Elvis has seemed to come out of her shell with us. We’ve always known she’s liked us, but it seems like she’s decided we really are OK. And, maybe a little bit cool. Of course, by the time they are in their teens we won’t be cool anymore. But, I can dig being cool to a seven and a three year old.

We got to see some pretty hilarious zombie/Frankenstein attacks which sort of devolved into a giggling fit of wrestling in the middle of the kitchen floor. I couldn’t stop laughing.

Then I was nearly crushed by the cute when the better-half and the girls went into the other room to get ready for movie night. When I came back with popcorn, all three of them were lumped together in one corner of the couch. I could only just make out the better-half’s face. He was covered in kids. When I sat down, Lil Elvis’s toes crept over to touch my leg. We were all connected while watching holiday movies.

Posted in Listening, Watching | 1 Comment

Might as well be walking on the sun

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Frog

I just saved $22 at the grocery store. I would have saved an additional $.70 if I hadn’t stood there like an idiot with a coupon in my hand instead of handing it over. I didn’t even buy anything that wasn’t on my list so that’s a savings of $22 on regular stuff we always buy.

Our work holiday party was today and I ate some awesome Little Smokies, meatballs and BBQ with some vegetables thrown on the plate so it wasn’t all Meat, Meat, Meat. There was also some sort of jello salad that I can only describe as red with a cream cheese/cool whip top. I have no idea what fruit was supposed to be in that thing but it rocked the casbah. I guess its sweetness helped lighten up the meat, meat, meat. I also managed to escape before the “singin’ and clappin’ man what the hell happened” started and I missed getting yet another ugly logo-ed lunch bag.

The better-half and I went to a Christmas party on Saturday night at a grad school classmate’s house. The gathering was small but the folks were friendly. At one point we were holed up in my friend’s office watching digital stories and I think an hour passed while we were in there. Excellent conversation, skulls on bookshelves and good company will make the time fly.

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I am an old fart

Posted on December 12, 2009 by Frog

I pulled either the right pectineus or adductor brevis Tuesday night horsing around with the nieces. Apparently picking both of them up and walking about is a bad idea.

I’ve never paid any attention to that muscle group but now, whoa mama, they have my attention.

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Fa-La-La-La

Posted on December 8, 2009 by Frog

I finally broke and I’m listening to Christmas music this afternoon on WOXY. Where else can you hear “Elizabeth & The Catapult – Christmas With The Jews”? I’m sure there’s not a radio station in my area that’s playing that little ditty.

I’ve been amusing myself today by attempting to build a Hollywood Squares game in PowerPoint. I don’t know that we need it, but it keeps me out of trouble and if it turns out I know someone will eventually use it in a class.

We’re due for some more rain tonight and I just can’t tell you how thrilled I am to hear that news. It wouldn’t be so bad if we just got some sprinkles, but the forecast is for a 1/2 – 1 inch of rain. We’ve had too many days of inches of rain and so we don’t really need this set of showers tonight.

There is a bright spot in the evening in spite of the rain. I’ll be going to The Niece’s holiday play. The better-half is working so he’ll have to miss it. He didn’t get home until after 10pm last night and it will probably be like that this evening too. He’s really been hustling lately with work, but when you are a one-man band you play a lot of instruments. I think that metaphor could have come out a little better, but I was going to say something about when it rains, it pours but that would have reminded me about the weather.

Which would lead me to the insanity that is Virginia weather–we’re already worried about what might happen in the Roanoke Valley Thursday night/Friday morning. One of my courses is piloting there on Friday and I’d be sick if we have to cancel because of the weather. Cancellation of the pilot would mean it won’t happen until January which means the course won’t be published until late Jan/early Feb and that’s way off schedule. I’m going to be optimistic because typically the weather folks can’t predict what’s going to happen this afternoon much less what might happen in a few days.

Update:
The holiday play was very cute and the kids did a good job. The second best part of the day was having ice cream at McDonald’s afterward. Now the nieces know about fries in a chocolate shake. Not as super-awesome as a Frosty, but I have to ease them into magnificent snacking.

Posted in Generic Thoughts, Listening | 1 Comment

I’m pretty sure I’m 500 months old

Posted on December 7, 2009 by Frog

When do parents stop referring to their kids in months and just switch over to years? If a kid is over 2 and nearly 3 shouldn’t the parents have the balls to just start saying the kid is nearly 3? And not 33 months old?

If I have to get out an abacus to keep up with the conversation, it’s not worth it to me.

Posted in Generic Thoughts | 2 Comments

This Portland area hospital rocks

Posted on December 5, 2009 by Frog

Posted in Generic Thoughts | 1 Comment

New Stairs

Posted on December 4, 2009 by Frog

When we bought our house there was commercial grade (I guess that’s the proper term) carpet in the upstairs and on our back stairway. We had the same carpet at an office way back when.

We had flooring work done prior to moving in and the carpet we chose for a couple of rooms upstairs ended at the top of the back stairs. So for awhile there was the nice new carpet hanging over the top step and then the ugly blue crap continuing to horrible vinyl.

When we redid the bathroom downstairs we went ahead and had the flooring in that part of the house replaced so out went the vinyl. One night after a few drinks, the oppression of the ugly blue carpet on the stairs became too much to bear so beginning around 10pm we tore out all the carpeting.

Then we lived with builder-grade, soft pine stairs for over a year–they still had wallboard compound on them, splotches of stain and splinters. The carpet from our bedroom hung over the top step and I hated that look. In fact, it weighed upon my soul. Late last year we created a contract with each other of things we were going to get done this year. Those stairs were on the list.

Here they are before:

Here they are after:

As you know, I can’t take a picture to save my life and the lighting in this stairwell is unflattering to say the least. It also doesn’t help that today has been gloomy so I couldn’t even rely on sun coming in the back door (it’s going to rain again tomorrow–grrrr). I hope you can tell there’s a 1000% improvement. And, best of all no carpeting hanging over the stair…there’s actually a transition now.

Posted in House Proud | 2 Comments

Not at work, again

Posted on December 3, 2009 by Frog

Last week I was off the entire week. We were supposed to have work done at the house during that time. For whatever lame excuse, we did not. It’s happening today and tomorrow. We’re both home this morning but I’ll be “supervising” on my own later today and tomorrow.

I told my supervisor on Monday that I needed to be home on Friday and that I’d work like usual, but that Thursday afternoon I needed to cover being at home. I told her I felt really bad about being off one week and then coming in on Monday and telling her I needed more time later in the week. Damn that work ethic. She responded with the question of whether I’d taken my community leave yet (we get 16 hours a year for community service).

I have not taken that time because, honestly, I’m not a huge doer of community service and usually if I am doing something like that I do it outside of work. She told me to take that leave for both days and not worry about it and if I wanted to take another day in between now and winter break to hurry up and decide which day. She said she has no worries about where I am with my work unlike others in my unit. It was actually worse than that. She named names and rolled her eyes at how late this other person is with her courses.

I let off a really quick laugh and said I probably wouldn’t take any more between now and winter break because I have a pilot out of town next week and the week after will be cleaning up the text after the pilot. Also, that’s the week we have our holiday luncheon and as much as I hate going to it, there’s always something freaky to experience.

So, with my free time this morning I ran some errands. I went by the Studley post office instead of the one that officially services my house because there is never, ever a line at the Studley post office and the postmistress is quite nice. And, I get to write Studley several times and snort like an eight year old.

Then I picked up a prescription and I dropped a bag of clothes at Goodwill (I’m counting that as community service for today). I grabbed a couple of things from the grocery store and headed home.

There are saw and hammering noises coming from downstairs. The cat has evidently gotten used to work being done this fall and he’s wandering about.

I think I mentioned that we replaced our heating and air conditioning system at the end of September. Yesterday we got our first electric bill since the system was installed and running on a consistent basis. Last year we used 2025 kWH in November. This year we used 1447 kWH. That’s pretty awesome.

Posted in House Proud, Thinking | Comments Off

Soup and Sandwich Night

Posted on November 30, 2009 by Frog

It is not only raining (again) but the wind is blowing and it is cold. I just had to tromp out to the garden to cover up the cold frames because the automatic mechanism is still in the garage. This is not, despite what it looks like, a nag on the better-half. It’s just that we have had other stuff going on so slapping the plexiglass sheets down at night is what we do and ordinarily it isn’t a big deal but it was very dark when I got home because I actually worked late today (the horrors!) and cold and rainy and because of the 9 inches of rain we’ve already had this month, there’s serious mud in the garden. And. Just because I didn’t use enough ands in that sentence, I’m going to speckle some more around. And.

I worked late because I observed a pilot training today and we always debrief afterward. This is a good part of the pilot because the writer, trainer and observers of the course get to talk about what worked or didn’t and if a trainee misbehaves we get to talk about that too. We had an energy suck in the room today and the trainer handled her pretty well.

Anyway, I had to sit next to a co-worker that I’m not fond of mainly because she’s a lazy sack of shit (look it up in the dictionary AND there she is). She and I took a MEd class together. My first one and her last one. I worked in a group with her and she lied to the professors and lied to us and didn’t do her work. AND! The bonus is that I also have to be nice to her since I work with her, but still lazy sack o’shit. And! She brings up that class all the time like we bonded. Um no.

So, tonight I will be whipping up a batch of soup that uses two honeycrisp apples that I bought for The Niece when she spent the night recently but she didn’t eat. It also has butternut squash and some sour cream or yogurt whichever I happen to have. Soup and sandwiches will make up for having to sit next to that person today and for the icky wet I just had to endure in the garden.

The sandwiches may or may not include a slice of the country pate we made over the recent holiday. We used the Bourdain recipe from the Les Halles cookbook. The butcher was happy to see us because we bought all kinds of nasty bits.

Posted in Eating, Gardening | 2 Comments

I like vanilla, cuz it’s the finest of the flavors

Posted on November 28, 2009 by Frog

Our tape measure is missing. Actually, it’s the tape measure my roommate and I bought for the Historic Preservation class that’s missing. It’s been missing for weeks. She and I bought it more than 20 years ago. There’s some attachment on my part. I’m getting ticked off about it.

I also have to go back to work on Monday. Then 3 weeks until break. Thank the maker. I have a plan, like the Cylons. I have to admit to watching the BSG, The Plan DVD lately. Lame. My plan is better.

I’m out of Southern Tier beer. Sad. It’s really awesome beer. It rivals the Stone brew. Have I talked about beer enough on Saturday night for you to know what I’m doing?

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