Ever Have One of Those Days ...

When you keep falling asleep with the television on, and feel like you're either watching the most confusing movie on the planet, or the most awesome?

That's today and yesterday for me. Still fighting off this cold, and since I feel so all-around craptastic, I've decided it just may be H1N1. Or not. But still: I feel like poo.

Only Two

Only two good things have come out of this cold:

My (new)sultry-sounding growly voice.

The fact that only the right side of my head is stuffed, so I can still breathe a little out the left side of my nose.

Happy happy joy joy joooooooy!!

Bones Love Going On Here

My desktop has decided to peter out slooooowly, so no computer playing tonight (trying to use it as little as possible to extend it's life until I get an external drive tomorrow to back up all my pictures).

So I'm using my work laptop tonight, which has a very limited battery life, being four years old (wicked elderly in laptop liftime). Also, I'm on an unsecured wifi here, so that may be tons-o-fun on the long run.

So, I'm watching my Bones marathon ... three weeks worth of new episodes! WOO HOO!! I started watching it for David Boreanaz, who was robbed of a final season of Angel. Love this guy. Stuck around because it's a great show. Falls right into line with my love of ensemble casts who solve crimes. They all work together so well!

Sure, the crazy has come out and played ... often ... and never more so than when Eric Millegan's Zack fair dove into the deep end of the dark side ... but it's still a ton of fun to watch.

In any case, it's a Bones marathon for me tonight. Aaaand it's snowing again, going to get all the way up to 8 degrees tomorrow, so I'll have plenty opportunity to watch the 97 (what?!?) hours of recorded programs in my DVR (how did I miss the entire season of the Cleaner? I love Ben Bratt!).

And of course today is the day that cold I've been fighting off all week was able to take root: my nose has been running like a leaky faucet since about 3pm this afternoon, and the sneezes are a laugh riot (not ... they keep reminding me that I have to pee right now).

So I'll no doubt spend tomorrow in bed, gulping down the airborne and vegging out completely. Sounds good to me!

They Call Me the Dog … Negotiator

My satellite package doesn’t include NatGeo, so I only ever actually get to watch the Dog Whisperer when I’m back home on vacation, although the week or so before I arrive Mom and Dad tend to tape extra episodes so I can get a mini-schooling under my belt for when I get back to misery and plan to get all whispery on the girls.

Yeah, likely story.

I’m loving Cesar Milan, period. That man is the shit when it comes to dogs. Me, on the other hand, am more like the twit when it comes to dogs.

My girls walk all over me. They have trained me well. Witness my current kitchen situation, wherein I have no oven mitts, although Boogie has three (three!) suspiciously oven-mitt shaped binkies.

Sigh.

But I did learn something this last time I was back home, and that is the principal of energy, in that I want my energy to be calm, and my girls to pick up on my calm energy and give it back to me. And I know there’s something to this, because Cesar can set up a whole relationship with a (seemingly) unruly canine individual within the first few minutes of meeting doggie.

So I’ve been trying to apply my learning; this way I can get a handle on really the only two issues I have with the lugnutz: 1) they don’t come when I want them to (unless they want to); and 2) Boogie continues to bark even after I tell her to “shut it”, which, apparently, she thinks means LOUDER!

Score to date: girls 68 / me 2. Hey, that’s two more than I usually get!

Wicked Awesome Poem Wednesday

Being Late

From where do simplicity and ease
In the movement of heavenly bodies derive?
It is precision.
Sun is never late to rise upon the Earth
Moon is never late to cause the tides
Earth is never late to greet the Sun and the Moon
Thus accidents are not accidents
But precise arrivals at the wrong right time
Love is almost never simple
Too often, feelings arrive too soon
Waiting for thoughts that often come too late
I wanted too, to be simple and precise
Like the Sun
Like the Moon
Like the Earth
But the Earth was booked
Billions of years in advance.
Designed to meet all desires,
All arrivals, all sunrises, all sunsets
All departures
So I will have to be a little bit late.

-Dejan Stojanovic

Oh, I’m Feeling Something Alright

I’m fighting off a cold, but it appears to be somewhat of a standoff so far. On my flight home I had selected seat 3B for both legs of the trip … for these planes that was the bulkhead row directly aft of 1st class, aisle seat. Plenty of leg room for RA-riddled me.

On the 1st flight the ticket agent (another Lisa) asked if I’d move back to 5B so a couple could sit together … I readily agreed. I recalled my very first flight, and how I wanted to sit next to Dad, but the 'kindly' soul who had the seat next to me refused (smidgen of sarcasm), so that sucked for me. But its okay, because I made sure the entire flight sucked for him as well. Me: woman. That sound? My rawr! Or, you know: revenge.

So anyway, I sat in 5B, and the poor guy next to me had left-of-death. Not just a cold. Nope: left-of-death. He was so sick, but so careful not to so much as breath in my direction. I felt horrible for him, and hope he’s doing better now, although I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up with lung rot (aka pee-new-moan-knee-uh).

I just knew I was going to catch it. I was way careful not to rub my face at all … and of course, as soon as he presented with disease my nose ran, my eyes itched, my ears clogged up. I must have washed my hands eleven times in various Dulles rest rooms during the layover. Gah!

So a little grumbling from me … if only I’d said no to Lisa, then I’d have been a 1st class asshat but would have been less exposed to the black plague, yada, yada, yada and so on and so forth.

Then I get on flight number two, in seat 3B. Yeah … it’s a fixed-arm single: arm doesn’t go up, strictly 8 inches (or so it seemed) wide. I had to work to wedge my ass in there. If it had been a regular chair when I stood up it would have gone right up with me and remained stuck to my backside until some enterprising soul introduced a crowbar. Flight wasn’t crowded, so I was able to move to the row behind it, which I had all to myself.

But. If I’d have been a poop and not switched seats on the previous flight, which was full, I’d have been mighty uncomfortable for the entire flight. So trading seats was a good thing … even though I was exposed to H1N1.

ASIDE: keyboard has been going haywire; finally noticed Maddie isn’t sitting on the mouse pad next to the keyboard … nope, she’s sitting on the number pad. Der. Just finished erasing all the plus signs and assorted numbers she interspersed throughout this edition.

So now I’m fighting off this cold. If I can make it to Saturday without it going full-blown, I’ll be able to defeat it with sleep. I love defeating illness with sleep. I love sleep, period. Mmmm, pillow.

Too Tired to Post ...

Sunrise yesterday morning.

At Sandy Point.

Waiting for the water taxi.

So calm ... no breeze. Lovely.

Wait … Eight? Dang!

Yesterday I asked Dad something along the line of "Isn’t it funny how you know almost everything there is to know about where you live during your formative years, but not so much places you live after that? Case in point; I’ve been in misery almost a decade and still know next-to-nothing about it, except that its bordered by Nebraska to the North, Kansas to the West, and Oklahoma to the South."

Dad looked quizzical.

Yeah, turns out I was way confused, seeing as although both Nebraska and Oklahoma do border Missouri, I was mistaking Kansas for the bordered state. We pulled out the atlas, and it turns out misery is bordered by no less than eight (eight!) states: Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Sheesh!

These are all places I’d only ever heard of while growing up in RI; I may have met the occasional schoolmate from these areas, but only because one (or both) of his/her parents would have been in the Navy and they’d have been stationed at the Base.

Anyway, I’m back here in misery, feeling almost human again after a looooong day of travel (up at 5am for a 7am water taxi ride to the mainland for a 10am flight to DC and a 4 hour layover with my final flight getting into MCI at 5:15pm. Quick trip to Walmart for supplies, home to a loooong shower and football game (anyone else notice my superbowl prediction turned out to be a who-did-NOT-make-it-to-the-superbowl prediction?).

Now I’m off to bed, expecting a horrifically busy week at the plant, seeing as all kinds of work came in while I was out-of-pocket. But hey, that’s what makes the day fly by, which is a heck of a lot better than hanging around with nothing to do.

Toodles!

Grumpy Me, Traveler Extraordinaire

Tomorrow is an all day travel-fest back to the daily grind, where I slog through reality until a brief respite in June followed by my next ‘real’ vacation in July.

I just checked-in and printed out my boarding passes, and I’ll pack later tonight, get up early tomorrow for the trip to the airport (although nowhere near as early as the trip to the airport on my way here, seeing as that required a 3am wake-up), and fly down the East Coast, layover half the day, then fly across to the Midwest, to be home by this time tomorrow night. Doesn’t matter … I’m miserable.

Have I told you how much I really dislike flying? Because I do. Oh, I’m totally aware it’s the safest mode of transportation, bar walking (blah, blah, blah), but I just don’t like it. At all.

It’s not that I’m afraid, it’s that I’m not in control: someone else is driving, and I can’t see out the windshield. What form of torture is this?!?! Horrible!

And the smell! Gross! Why not just stick my nose in my row-mates lap, because chances are s/he’ll be farting up a storm the entire time (happens more often than not), or be wearing too much perfume, or too little deodorant. And forget about the special airplane lavoratory smell that permeates every inch of that aluminum tube. Blecht!

And the person in the row behind me? Invariably advises his/her seatmate, in his/her outdoor voice, of every boring-ass aspect of his/her life that lead to the decision to be on that plane at that time. Lovely.

I’ll no doubt be elbowed in the head repeatedly by some stiff getting into and out of the overhead compartment, and someone will fall in my lap while on the way to or from the lavoratory. Precious.

About the only passengers that don’t make me crazy are the babies, because at least it’s understandable when they behave badly … they’re little tyrants by nature, so what do you expect?

If it weren’t a two-day drip, I’d drive. Tru dat.

Thanks, Mom!!!

I love my most awesome new hat!!!!

Well Thank You Barney Frank

First the banks are allowed to write a bunch of iffy mortgages (balloon and otherwise), then bundle and sell said mortgages (many overseas), and finally to insure said mortgages via derivatives – which were not, by the way, created for the purpose of covering bad mortgages.

Let’s say insuring a billion dollars in mortgages cost the banks 25 million dollars. Everyone’s happy: the insurance company just made an easy 25 million dollars, while both the bank and the insurance company are counting on all those thousands of homeowners being able to afford the mortgage payments (balloon and otherwise) until the mortgage is paid. Or, if the homeowners can’t afford to pay, the housing market will enable the banks to recoup their losses in the subsequent eviction, foreclosure, and resale.

Many of these homeowners bought “up”, meaning the plan was to be able to afford the home in their earning future … “I really can’t afford this home now, but I can swing it for the time being and in X number of years all will be well and I’ll be living within my means.”

Then you have the current “economic downturn” (e.g., recession … look it up, people!), which pretty much ensures quite a few of those homeowners can't afford their mortgage payments after all … and the banks can’t re-write the mortgages, because they don’t own them … because they bundled said mortgages and sold them away.

Now, remember way back when, during the Bush administration? When President Bush tried to transfer oversight of biggies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from Congress and over to some other agency? Remember? And member of the House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank said, “These two entities – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Really?

Do over!!

Wicked Awesome Poem Wednesday

Still Dieting After All These Years

So perhaps when I am eighty,
I won’t care about my weight. E-
Ternal verities will occupy my mind.
Is truth beauty? Or vice versa?
Will my health plan reimburse? A-
Gendas broader than the breadth of my behind
Will replace concerns with calories.
Global warming, teachers’ salaries,
Kurds, and other urgent matters will prevent
Whining, wailing, and oi-veying
Over what, each day, I’m weighing.
Bodywise, I will be done with discontent.

In the meantime I feel pudgy
And the arrow will not budge, de-
Spite how lightly I try standing on my scale.
I had hoped to not begin this
Brand-new decade hooked on thinness
But it seems my weight obsession will prevail
‘Til I’ve finally banked my fires,
‘Til my vanity retires,
‘Til I’ve given up aspiring to size eight,
‘Til I scorn a foolproof diet.
Could I actually not try it?
Maybe ninety I won’t care about my weight.

-Judith Viorst

VICTORY!!!!

Now go here and join the seat-Senator-Brown-post-haste-and-pronto club.

I Don't See Any Super Majority as Bi-Partisan

Rock the vote and whatnot.

I'm going to take a chapter out of Scott Brown's book and not speak negatively about Martha Coakley.

That said, vote Brown!!

So You’re Stuck on an Island …

The plan was that Dad was ‘going off’ (e.g., leaving the island) this morning, and Mom and I would just hang out … Dad wouldn’t be able to return until the 3:30pm ferry, arriving home at 4pm.

Imagine my surprise when I heard him return around 8:30am ... because it’s too windy! Captain Shawn was afraid he’d lose a car overboard. Apparently the chop was so severe the waves were crashing over the bow of the ferry and reaching vehicles five rows back. FIVE! It’s not a very big ferry, you know.

The wind is honking, though, as you can see above. I tried to get a picture when the bell bouy was almost lying flat, but my timing was waaaay off.

SUCH a Cool Name

So we’re watching the 2nd quarter of the Jets/Chargers game, Jets have the ball, and the graphic stated, “4th straight 3 and out”.

Which my Dad explained as, “One two three, kick. You know? It’s like a dance team.”

Guffaw!!

Are We Relaxing Yet?

Made it! And with only a 26 minute layover in Chicago. Here's a first: both my incoming and outgoing flights used the same terminal. P'awesome!

Another first (for me, you may have already experienced): flight attendant actually announced, once everyone was aboard, that folk with assigned seats aft of the wing emergency exits were not allowed to move forward into an empty seat from the emergency row forward, because "those seats cost extra."

As a result NO ONE was seated in the emergency row AT ALL.

And I did not like that one bit, for a number of reasons.

Can't Talk, Gotta Run

Busy busy busy packing. Busy busy packing.

Gotta Luv 'Em ...

So yesterday a certain someone (me) neglected to gate the girls (Boogie & Kaia) in the kitchen before said certain someone (again, me) left for work.

Yeah … not too very bright of someone (still me … yeah, this affectation is wearing thin). Since I’m on vacation starting tomorrow (WOO to the HOO, people! To the HOO!), I have a shit-ton of work to get done at the plant, and have been working late into the day all week because (method to my madness) I want to get it all done so I can leave early tomorrow to finish up some last minute personal errands before my flight out at so-early-its-yesterday o’clock Saturday morning.

Anywho, I get home at oh-late-hundred and the girls greet me at the garage door. In their we-misbehaved-and-know-it-but-are-far-too-cute-for-you-to-care eveningwear (works eh-hev-vary time), leaping to be let out into the dog run from the downstairs door. So I let them out. Then walked upstairs.

Only to discover there was not a single room they hadn’t par-tayed in during the course of the day. My kitchen floor was strewn with dishes from the sink, as well as the (now) empty box of frosted shredded mini wheats … and both potholders that usually hang from the oven front (this because you may recall FroggyBop has disappeared and Boogie is still in the process of finding and breaking in a replacement binky).

My living room floor has all the mail – that was in the IN basket – all over the place, shredded (the girls may have had help from Briggs & Stratton on that one). Some of this confetti has made it down the hall to the bedrooms. Which have more of the same, as well as half a bottle of berry flavored Pepcid, and a bunch of pink stains on the rug from the Pepcids they ate and drooled all over the place.

The poor bathroom also didn't escape unscathed, seeing as the cabinet door was opened and the trash can was pulled out and emptied … all because those magnificent retriever schnozzes detected (what I thought was an) empty vanilla softlips lip balm … which is now in a million pieces on the floor.

I’m telling you, it’s the canine version of every teen movie ever made where the parents are away and the high schoolers trash the place while the grups’re gone … but apparently the girls haven’t seen the ending of any of those flicks because I sure as HECK know they trashed the place.

And since I know, they see no reason to lift a finger to clean up after themselves. So now, in addition to the errands I already planned for tomorrow, I have to drag a Hefty trash bag through the joint and use a push broom to clear the trash.

Those dogs are clearly lucky that I adore them, or I’d not take the fact that I rank #3 in authoritae in my own home sitting down. Where’s the dog whisperer, and does he make house calls?

Because clearly I need to be schooled.

Wicked Awesome Poem Wednesday

All This Disaster

It isn't hard to
feel plastered,
this world seems to be
so disastered.
Terrible events here,
horrible events there,
humans getting plastered
everywhere.

Buried alive under cement,
natural disasters offer no relent.
Washed away by Katrina,
victims living in the arena.
Stupid terrorist out killing,
crooks on the street stealing.

I avoid the kill,
stay away from the steal.
Know that lifes unstable,
personally stay able.
Sit back and wait my turn,
live it up with concern,
knowing sooner of later
I might burn.

Can't live worrying about dying,
no use wiping tears and crying.
At times I cry,
there are many reasons why.
Many times I smile,
act like a playing child.
But don't get too wild.
I live in the second,
might survive another,
I reckon.

-G. E. Morrison