Thursday, April 29, 2010

Wicked Awesome Poem (NOT) Wednesday


The Song of the Jellicle

Jellicle Cats come out tonight,
Jellicle Cats come one come all:
The Jellicle Moon is shining bright--
Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball.

Jellicle Cats are black and white,
Jellicle Cats are rather small;
Jellicle Cats are merry and bright,
And pleasant to hear when they caterwaul.
Jellicle Cats have cheerful faces,
Jellicle Cats have bright black eyes;
They like to practise their airs and graces
And wait for the Jellicle Moon to rise.

Jellicle Cats develop slowly,
Jellicle Cats are not too big;
Jellicle Cats are roly-poly,
They know how to dance a gavotte and a jig.
Until the Jellicle Moon appears
They make their toilette and take their repose:
Jellicles wash behind their ears,
Jellicles dry between their toes.

Jellicle Cats are white and black,
Jellicle Cats are of moderate size;
Jellicles jump like a jumping-jack,
Jellicle Cats have moonlit eyes.
They're quiet enough in the morning hours,
They're quiet enough in the afternoon,
Reserving their terpsichorean powers
To dance by the light of the Jellicle Moon.

Jellicle Cats are black and white,
Jellicle Cats (as I said) are small;
If it happens to be a stormy night
They will practise a caper or two in the hall.
If it happens the sun is shining bright
You would say they had nothing to do at all:
They are resting and saving themselves to be right
For the Jellicle Moon and the Jellicle Ball.

-T. S. Eliot

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Weekly Idol: Top 6 – Shania Twain



Ugh … sigh. If season 9 is any indication, yours truly will not be Idoling it for season 10. Which I guess makes a certain sense.  I mean, I never even watched until season 7 (David Cook, people!!! David COOK!), and that was because he was a local boy. Then I watched again season 8 because there were a number of interesting and unique contestants.

But this year? Meh. Shrug.

Of those remaining I like Lee, Crystal, and Casey pretty much equally, and Siobhan almost as much … but my two favorites were removed from competition long ago (Alex and Lilly, anyone?), so I’m not much invested anymore, especially since Michael and Aaron have managed to hang on so long (insert sad tuba sound effect here).

I know, lots of you think they’re both terrif … phbbt! Lots of you have no taste in music, too. BWAH HAH HAH HAH! Just my opinion, people!

So tonight? Mediocre:

  • Casey James, Don’t … wow, beautifully done, lovely.
  • Crystal Bowersox, No One Needs to Know … so good; so very, very good!
  • Lee Dewyze, Still the One … I feel like his version would have benefitted by a listen to the entire song, as opposed to the Idol Snippet, but I still loved it (I figure at this point you can pretty much tell Lee will have to fall down in an on-stage coma for me to give him a less-than-swell review … so sue me, Lisa knows what Lisa likes).
  • Siobhan Magnus, Any Man of Mine … there’s this weird thing where Siobhan’s vocals drop out of existence between the low notes and the BIG BADS, and that’s a little not-cool, but grrl, you so BAM! VOTED OFF
  • Aaron Kelly, You Got a Way … sweetly done; too little, too late.
  • Michael Lynch, It Only Hurts When I’m Breathing … actually better than usual for Michael, but still not my cup o’ tea; but yes, one of his best (which is not saying much … I’m SORRY, but I’m just not a fan).


Had to force myself to post on this tonight … ended up powering through the tedium not so much for your benefit, as for my slightly OCDish have-to-finish-what-I-started-ism.

Monday, April 26, 2010

And Then There's Mads, Who Couldn't Care Less


Stratton the monkeycat, perched on my shoulders, advising me of his worldview.  If only I spoke Mrow, no?  He’s up there now, purring fit to bust, thrilled with something he surveys in this shoulder-height kingdom of his.  It’s just the mood he’s in tonight … every time I put him down (often) he finds a way to get back up.


And, just to teach me not to remove him from his chosen throne, he keeps digging those daggers most call claws into my back on his way up. He’s declawed up front (oh, shut up … until you’ve had furniture absolutely destroyed by a cat, I don’t want to hear it … besides, he’s an indoor monkeycat, so hind claws are plenty for any escape just-in-case scenario), but those hind daggers are lethal as all get-out.

Harrumph; he must know I’m posting about him, as he’s just left the vicinity with a head snapping leap to the coffee table. The new (to us) coffee table that spent a year plus in the garage. Along with the sofa table, which is now the across-the-front-windows table, seeing as the sofa is of the reclining nature and putting a table behind it would be pure idiocy.

So, where was I? Oh, yeah … aaaand, not to be outdone, Briggsy the monkeycat has just climbed aboard. Blerf. I’ll talk at you later, this typing with monkeycat in lap is even more difficult than with monkeycat around neck.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Wicked Awesome Poem Wednesday



The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright 
In the forests of the night, 
What immortal hand or eye 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 


In what distant deeps or skies 
Burnt the fire of thine eyes? 
On what wings dare he aspire? 
What the hand dare sieze the fire? 


And what shoulder, and what art. 
Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 
And when thy heart began to beat, 
What dread hand? and what dread feet? 


What the hammer? what the chain? 
In what furnace was thy brain? 
What the anvil? what dread grasp 
Dare its deadly terrors clasp? 


When the stars threw down their spears, 
And watered heaven with their tears, 
Did he smile his work to see? 
Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 


Tyger! Tyger! burning bright 
In the forests of the night, 
What immortal hand or eye 
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? 


-William Blake

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Weekly Idol: Top 7 – Inspire Me!! Go on, MAKE MY DAY!



I definitely notice a better Idol listening experience with the audio through the stereo system (thank you, Dad!!), but I have to say this week was a step down from the previous two … maybe it’s just because the Beatles and the King were such great singers/songwriters, no?

Anyway, here’s what lil’ ole me thought:

Two performances were unbelievably fantastic and, dare I say it, inspiring …
  • Crystal Bowersox, People Get Ready … I love when she sings softly, which is often in the ‘group’ performances yet rare in her individual performances, so this was incredible, and I love, love, love that she got swept up in it (prolly ‘cuz I do, too!). Lovely.
  • Lee Dewyze, the Boxer … perfectly awesome all the way ‘round; brought a tear to my eye, he put so much emotion into it. Beautiful.


Two other performances were pretty dang good …
  • Casey James, Don’t Stop  … great live show, put me in mind of Bob Seger, but may suffer in the not-live arena.
  • Siobhan Magnus, When You Believe … not a tune I’m familiar with (I don’t think I’ve ever actually hear it before), but I liked it, and I love that she’s got her own style each week; sweet performance.


The rest of the performances did absolutely nothing for me …
  • Tim Urban, Better Days … meh. VOTED OFF
  • Aaron Kelly, I Believe I Can Fly … boring.
  • Michael Lynch, Hero … cringe, not a very good performance, seemed flat. A lot.


All in all NOT a great episode … not even a good one … but I’m so happy with Lee’s and Crystal’s performances that I’m all good. I will admit, though, that tonight is the first time ever I fast-forwarded through to the end of some of these ‘gems’. Then went back and watched the whole thing because otherwise, my opinion ain’t based in reality. But it was a chore, especially with my bottom three. And I had a very funny (to me) but uncharitable thought about one which I will not share here (it’s unkind, and what has that person ever done to me? Nothing. So no sharing of the funny-but-mean thought) … but it made me laugh out loud, so now I’m checking the interweb to see if anyone else noticed and decided to write it (but I really hope not … did I mention it’s unkind?).

I think the final two will be Lee and Crystal (actually, I hope it will be!).

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Crazy Days of Activity and Crankypants




Wow. Been a minute. Haven’t even subjected all y’all to my weekly poetry blogslam in a couple weeks. I have an excuse … a most awesome excuse: some of you were here!!!  Visiting me!!! And I LOVED IT!!!

Now, can we talk about hair? Mine is finally almost all grown out (I’m going for that block-wedge look). After having for the most part very (very) short hair almost my entire life, I find this quite different. Let me just say that the bed head of longer hair is ever so much better than that of short hair, and requires far less work to make presentable.

Longer hair also, I’ve discovered, needs regular conditioning … something I’ve never been too keen on with the shorter hair, but that is perfectly acceptable (even downright necessary) with the longer hair.  Okay, done with the hair talk now.  You gasp with heartfelt joy, I know.

So, multitasking by watching DVR of new Doctor Who (Rah! Rah!) and writing this little postarooni.  Poor little tyke, he told her he’d be back in five minutes, but I bet it’ll be more like five years, seeing as his next companion is currently a child and that will never work. Aaaaand … I am so right. Bet that young officer is Amelia. Bet I’m right. Okay, I’ll stop ‘betting’ and just watch.

Whoa! Fourteen years … didn’t see that long a time coming.

Mom and Dad were here, and can I just say they had me running from sunup to sundown? Those two are energy personified! Human dynamos. Most freaking awesome. Before they ever got here I was commissioned with creating a list of things I needed Dad to fix, and darned if he didn’t blow through said list in about a day and a half. What to do with the rest of the week? I was just making stuff up by the end of their stay. We did so much that I’ve actually forgotten much of it (and by ‘we’ I pretty much mean ‘Dad’) including, but certainly not limited to:
  • Figured out the proper size filter for my furnace, and installed it (can I just say that thing is a bitch and leave it at that?).
  • Installed wire grid and put new screen on the sliding glass door (I’ve had to install a new screen every year because at some point in the summer one, or both, the dogs generally walk right through it … but the grid is white metal, which they can see, so walking through the screen door is now a thing of the past).
  • Hung oak wall cabinet in main bath (bathrooms out here do not have medicine cabinets, but rather giant wall mirrors, making storage a premium).
  • Cleaned out the garage. Cleaned! The garage! Including the hanging of multiple shelves and hooks.
  • Brought furniture up from storage (where it had languished well over a year) into the living room (it. is. beautiful!).
  • Noticed the 50 year old cedar chest had no knobs and used knobs on new furniture to get matching replacements for the chest (why I never thought to replace them I have no idea) … the new ones look lovely!
  • Replaced fluorescent lightbulbs in the kitchen.
  • Fixed the light/fan in the main bath (turns out it never worked because it was installed wrong).
  • Replaced the water valve in the leaking ice-maker.
  • Fielded multiple service calls for estimates on other home repairs.
Plus, that last full day they were here Mom was in the laundry room downstairs while I was showering upstairs, and actually found the elusive leak from said shower, which Dad figured out, then Mom and I spent five hours or so driving 122 miles or so to eight or so hardware/pool/home stores searching in vain for the busted part, which Dad eventually found on the internet.

It came in day before yesterday, and I installed it today and ran the shower while I stood down in the laundry room checking for runoff/waterfall. None!! Hoorah! Yet another problem fixed. Home feels like a house again, as opposed to a broken-down shack.

While they were here Mom and Dad got to meet Duders and Vonnie (e.g., Briggs and Stratton) for the first time, and fell in love. I know this because EVERYBODY loves the boys. They are the least feline cats you’ll ever meet … more like monkeys. Little monkeys that like to climb on people and give hugs. You heard it here first: I have monkeycats. Very friendly monkeycats, who like freaking everybody. Fo’ shizz.

And wonder of wonders, Mom and Dad took my desktop tower home with them, to bring up to Mike’s this week so he can see if there’s anything he can do to with it. I had explained that it was taking 23 minutes to log in, then what seemed like hours to do anything once I was logged in … but those kinds of time delays really need to be experienced to be fully understood.  And believe me, they were indeed experienced! Stupid computer slowing down stupidly. Even Mom, one of the most patient people I know, admitted to a desire to fling it out the office window in frustration. Good thing I’ve got this spare work laptop for the nonce.

Oh! And one night we watched the new(ish) Sam Rockwell flick called ‘Moon’ … I highly recommend it. Some plot points were clearly telegraphed, but some absolutely were not, and the similarities to/differences from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ just made it that much more fun.

And Dad routed my television audio through my stereo, so now that is aaaah-may-zing! For real … I can actually hear the voices over the soundtrack now. No more having to run the closed captioning and read all the lines for practically everything (excluding the news) that I watch. Pure, unadulterated bliss.

Although its cooled off a bit (I actually ran the heat this morning), we had warm enough weather that it reached 80 degrees F inside the house all last week … I even had some windows open overnight. Right now it is windy as all get-out, and is supposed to remain the same most of the week; so Mom and Dad were here during the nice stuff, yay!

Mom and Dad left Tuesday morning, and I, who am trying to get a promotion into a position over at headquarters, had one interview Wednesday, and a second … almost three hour … interview Friday. I’ll find out this Tuesday or Wednesday if I’ve made the cut, in which case it will be stakeholder interviews. Yeah, not worried, me … the stakeholders are only the VP and a couple Directors. Gulp! But I want the job. As I told my boss, there’s no upward mobility for me at the plant level, so if I want to get anywhere with my career I’ve got to move over to HQ (or another company, but I didn’t tell him that, although I’m sure he’s figured it out). I need money, people; I’ve got all the same bills as everyone else, but only the one income to cover them. Sucks. Much.

This job would be perfect for me, and I perfect for it … so I’m kind of using it as a litmus test. If I get it, then I’ll stick around. If I don’t get it, then I need to look elsewhere, because not getting it is what I’ll perceive as an indication I’m going nowhere with this company. It’ll be good to know … ever so much less stressful finding a job when you’re employed.

So, although it’s been a most awesome couple weeks, it has also been a most stressful couple weeks due to immense lack of sleep. You know how I make up for lost sleep on weekends? Yeah, NOT WHEN THE ‘RENTS ARE HERE!! Can’t sleep in with company! Especially company as important as they are! Add to that the work I had to catch up on due to taking a four day weekend, plus having to get up at 5am Friday morning for the (almost three hour) interview and, well, you know … me so tired.

And cranky. Can’t forget cranky. Lisa very cranky when tired. Much like a toddler. Crankypants.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Weekly Idol: Top 9 (Again) - Elvis


I’m kind of laughing at myself because I’m all “Wow … two weeks in a row and AI has finally gotten some punch”. Then I realized it may be because Dad routed the television audio through the stereo. Der.

But I still think the Beatle’s and Elvis weeks have just plain rocked. If they keep this up, I just may care again:

Four performances were absolute top-notch …
  • Crystal Bowersox, Saved … as if I could say anything at all, other than whoa!
  • Lee Dewyze, A Little Less Conversation … just plain fun!
  • Casey James, Lawdy Miss Claudie … whew! Pure excellence.
  • Tim Urban, Can’t Help Falling in Love … two weeks in a row and Tim’s stepping it up with the song choices; put me in mind of Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah, in an iconic sort of way.
Three performances were very, very good …
  • Katie Stevens, Baby, What Do You Want Me to Do … still dig that powerhouse voice! VOTED OFF
  • Aaron Kelly, Blue Suede Shoes … really benefitted from Adam’s tutelage, and he is a cutie patootie, no?
  • Andrew Garcia, Hound Dog … he is a throwback to an earlier entertainment era, isn’t he? Cool. VOTED OFF
One performance was good …
  • Siobhan Magnus, Suspicious Minds … good, but nowhere near her best, and not up to par with most of the rest of the crew this week; not a rendition of this song that I particularly cared for.
One performance was … oh, why do I even bother?
  • Michael Lynch, In the Ghetto … read this in a sing-songy voice, “Manipulative!”  So tired of this guy; there’s no denying he can sing (can he ever!), but there is something so very off-putting that I just can’t get behind him (at least not at this time).

Weekly Idol: Top 9 - Beatles



It’s got to be some kind of plot, because just when I get to the point that I’ve given up on Idol (as you can tell by the fact that I’m a week behind on this post … because I didn’t watch last weeks show until about 30 minutes ago), they go and do the Beatles. Well.

And I’d never have known, if Mom and Dad hadn’t said so.  So while I taped tonight’s episode, I watched last weeks. And I’m not going through the whole scoring thing, because they haven’t made up the deficit of suckage enough for me to go to that much effort yet, here’s what I thought:

Three performances were equally terrific for different reasons …
  • Crystal Bowersox, Come Together … kicked it’s ass, picked it up, gave it a lollipop, and sent it on its merry way. 
  • Lee Dewyze, Hey Jude … once again, loved it (even though he did mess up a couple times)!
  • Casey James, Jealous Guy … just gets better every week; very Allman Brothers-esque.

Four performances were very, very good …
  • Katie Stevens, Let it Be … dig that powerhouse voice!
  • Aaron Kelly, Long and Winding Road … gave me an insight into the buzz around this kid.
  • Siobhan Magnus, Across the Universe … did not like it at first, but quickly changed my tune (gigglesnort!) because of that way cool tome of hers.
  • Tim Urban, All My Loving … he’s got a great voice, and I love this song, and the way he Beatle’d up his hair was too funny; excellent retro vibe.

One performance was good …

  • Andrew Garcia, Can’t Buy me Love … there’s something about his vocals, a missing resonance or something, that I think will keep him from having a solo career, but I also think he’d be great with a band … he just doesn’t have the chops to carry it solo … that said, he’d be great in a band.

One performance was so the melodrama …
  • Michael Lynch, Eleanor Rigby … blecht; I am completely off the Lynch Train; he’s so constant with the stupid grimaces and overwrought performances.  VOTED OFF SAVED

Saturday, April 3, 2010

I Cannot WAIT 'Til Wednesday



MOM AND DAD ARE COMING!!!

Friday, April 2, 2010

Got Rain?

Looks like even Prudence Island has started to notice the abundance of rain lately:


The Ferry Landing parking lot now has a new channel to the Bay.


New waterfall attraction at Mill Creek!


What you can't see is the house directly out of frame to the left, on the brink of sliding onto Sand Point Hill. 


So now do we need to build a Schoolhouse Bridge? 


Lighthouse Soup.


PIA driveway, closed to traffic ... looks like salmon should be trying to get upstream, no?


Another view of future sight of Schoolhouse Bridge.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Blogger, You Are Getting on My LAST NERVE Today

Wicked Awesome Poem (Not) Wednesday



Birthdays 


Let us have birthdays every day,
(I had the thought while I was shaving)
Because a birthday should be gay,
And full of grace and good behaving.
We can't have cakes and candles bright,
And presents are beyond our giving,
But let lt us cherish with delight
The birthday way of lovely living.

For I have passed three-score and ten
And I can count upon my fingers
The years I hope to bide with men,
(Though by God's grace one often lingers.)
So in the summers left to me,
Because I'm blest beyond my merit,
I hope with gratitude and glee
To sparkle with the birthday spirit.

Let me inform myself each day
Who's proudmost on the natal roster;
If Washington or Henry Clay,
Or Eugene Field or Stephen Foster.
oh lots of famous folks I'll find
Who more than measure to my rating,
And so thanksgivingly inclined
Their birthdays I'll be celebrating.

For Oh I know the cheery glow|
Of Anniversary rejoicing;
Let me reflect its radiance so
My daily gladness I'll be voicing.
And though I'm stooped and silver-haired,
Let me with laughter make the hearth gay,
So by the gods I may be spared
Each year to hear: "Pop, Happy Birthday."


-Robert William Service
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