A Treasure Found at Home

Halloween Dogs 4

Originally uploaded by seeA.

found this photo on flickr today. how funny! everyone who has a small black or brown dog should do this.

i hope i remember this in case i ever have a small, tollerant, dog.

when i was in college, my fraternity (alpha phi omega) had a party each autumn called deadman’s. it was started by my great grand big, i think. anyhow, each year we would all dress up like someone or something dead. it wasn’t generally held on halloween, but it was always a celebration of the dead.

i haven’t thought of this party in years.

this weekend, though, i went to what deadman’s should always have been, if only gamma kappa had a little more freedom and a few more examples.

we were outside by the bay for the sunrise sunday morning with great people and great music. some people wore their halloween costumes, some just dressed to be warm (that would be me). but the day turned out to be beautiful and all the extra layers of cozy weren’t needed as much. i came away with a little sunburn on my face and a lot of happiness. even though there were costumed revelers all around, i would frequently forget it was halloween, too. it just felt like fun.

as we were all packing up to leave, the dj started playing fun halloween songs. as oingo boingo filled the air, i was reminded of my tribe within a tribe. <u>the</u> tribe. i would have loved to have shared that morning with them; my big city version of deadman’s.

y’all have a special place in my heart, always.

i got a second monitor at work so i don’t have to keep clicking back and forth between what people are asking me to do and the window where i actually do those things. a couple days ago i encountered a problem. i’d used my laptop away from the office and when i reconnected to the docking station my right monitor looked fine, but the left one had all the picture mushed up onto the left half of the screen.

so i called the help desk.

the woman i talked to told me to push a couple menu options on the monitor itself:

nope. not helping.

she determined i needed a new monitor alltogether! i was sure this wasn’t actually the problem, so i wrote back to the guy who’d installed it in the first place even though the ticket was already closed. he was kind enough to come up when he got time (i’m in a building on the other side of campus) and got it all working properly for me again. even going so far as to show me where the original error was made and how to fix it if it happened again.

friday went so much more smoothly when i was back to two normally functioning monitors!

from badger:

If you woke up and I was in bed with you, what would be your first thought?

Reply here, then post the above line in your own journal.

my ankles are soaked. it’s the first rainy day of winter today and walking to the bus an to the train station from the bus has completely soaked the bottom six inches or so of my jeans. as we pass ponds and inlets, though, i can see that the ducks and cranes are having a grand ol’ time enjoying the rain.

this morning i woke up to the sound of brad, from somewhere on the sidestreet, yelling, “get the fuck out!” and something being thrown against the side of the building. at first i thought it might be a domestic dispute, but i didn’t hear any stomping or other indoor fight noises.

then i heard a car door slam and i started to wonder if there had been a homeless person sleeping in brad’s vehicle. i thought back to last week when someone broke into the amb, too. at the time i told concubine he was lucky he hadn’t had to wake anyone up. i wonder how i would deal with the situation.

brad’s … concubine? … called down into the street after a couple more door slams, “brad, are you ok?”

“yeah,” he said still sounding really angry, “there was some guy sleeping in the van.”

so, what would i do if i found someone sleeping in the amb? (since i don’t have my own vehicle, i’ll use the amb as an example.)

what i would like to happen is for me to be able to say, “hey, time to wake up. this is my ambulance and i need to use it.” then the person would get up and go on their way.

but, i’m smart enough to know this probably wouldn’t happen. a lot of the homeless are dual diagnosis for a start. they have mental illness and they’re addicted to drugs and/or alcohol.  i have a friend who was homeless for a month as a social experiment. he planned on the whole summer, but he was so mean to people after the first month (grumpy and unwilling to answer when new people at the shelter asked him where to get food) that he quit early. so, possibly mentally ill, high or drunk, and pissy from being on the street… whomever i found in the amb probably wouldn’t be cheerily willing to wake up and move so i could drive off on my merry way all dry and warm, too, when they were going to be booted out into the rain.

as much as i don’t like my ankles being wet, they don’t like their ankles being wet either.

brad’s angry voice this morning inspired me to try some tonglen. man, is that hard to do first thing in the morning! after just a couple breaths i felt horribly alone. clearly, i wasn’t doing this right. instead, i asked concubine for a cuddle and focused on the good things i have.

i guess that’s what the ducks and cranes were doing, too.

another from boingboing. the border film project gave disposable cameras to us minutemen and to mexicans crossing the boarder. the cameras are being mailed back, developed, and the results posted here.

it’s an interesting idea, but i wonder if any of these will be used to incriminate the mexicans.

found this on boingboing today…

hey, that’s more than i figured i’d be worth!! i wonder if my credit card company will take my blog as payment.

Jello!

i’m not sure what i expected when i clicked on this link, but this wasn’t really it. think of all the time which must have gone into making this model of sf! she’d have to have made little models of all the buildings and then negatives and then make all those different colours of jello… and who has a fridge big enough for all of sf, anyhow?

i’m not a fan of jello, as a general rule, but this is impressive. just don’t ask me to eat any of it. ::shiver::

Technorati Tags: jello, models, sf

i’m using a new browser today. it’s called flock and it’s something to do with firefox.

it has built in blogging capacity, but i’m not quite sorting out how it works. you’re supposed to be able to drag and drop from flickr, but it’s not working for me.

or mabye it is!

all sorts of fun new stuff to learn on this. i’m digging on it pretty hard already. now i just need to remember to keep the camera cord with me so i can upload from the camera to the laptop while i’m on the train.

this rocks.

another trip to *$s. this was actually last week sometime, but i just got around to posting the little quotation from the cup. i’m still baffled by that person who was so angry about these little blurbs being too democratic. i wish i could find that link now, but i’m having trouble locating it.

maybe they don’t want us to have faith in ourselves? i did see a huge banner the other day which read, “have faith in jesus alone!” i wondered then about what message they were really sending. even when i wanted to be a priest i didn’t believe in a god who would swoop in and fix your life if you didn’t even have faith in yourself. he was more like a touchstone for me, but i had to do the living.

I have faith. Faith in our wonderous capacity for hope and good, love and trust, healing and forgiveness. Faith in the blessing of our infinite ability to wonder, question, pray, feel, think and learn. I have faith. Faith in the infinite possibilities of the human spirit.

–James Brown Emmy-winning sporscaster and co-host of FOX NFL Sunday

it’s my birthday!

i’m 20*!!!

for the first time ever i’m working on my birthday. just too much to do and too many people out for me to feel comfortable taking the day off. i’ll make it up to myself later.

concubine is taking me out to dinner. we’re going somewhere which is a surprise. all i know is we have reservations. it must be yummy. he treats me so well, ‘let me take care of the details.’ ::grin:: makes a girl feel like a girl.

i got a card which my father clearly bought and wrote and then signed ____ & Dad. then he gave it to my mom, who wrote a little note and signed her name on the line. so perfectly them.

happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear sparkle, happy birthday to me!

*in hexidecimal

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Columnist L.M. Boyd told the story of Mark Gubin, a photographer whose business was located near Milwaukee’s airport. A lover of pranks, Gubin decorated his roof with a giant sign that read “Welcome to Cleveland.” Countless passengers arriving in Milwaukee by plane were amused and confused by the greeting. I suspect that a similar event will occur in your life this week, Libra. As you arrive at your new destination, you’ll get signals that lead you to believe you’re not where you thought you were. Ignore the misdirection.

oh, i love it when my horoscope is so close to my real life. mr. brezsny is only about half a week off on this one, too. i was confused last week about where i’d ended up, but things have all been sorted out. i’m liking where i am, even if i felt like a bit of a fool having proclaimed a very different state of things.

doh!

sometimes, a girl can give too much space.

with as particular as my concubine is about word choice, i find it amusing to note that we’ve been using the wrong word! he’s clearly not my concubine according to this article. but, what to call him?

how funny. i suppose i always thought it would be a change in our relationship which would cause us to no longer be concubines. although, this way i don’t have a former concubine or an ex-concubine since he wasn’t a concubine to begin with.

maybe we’ll just keep using the word wrong. it’s not like we’re french.

as part of national customer service week, yeeha! brought in ice cream for our group. about an hour and a half ago. i have to say, this place is not like the bank–where even the slightest bit of food in the ‘disappearing room’ caused everyone to walk about saying, ‘bagels. bagels. bagels. …’.

oh, no. here it’s all hush hush. i went in thinking i was washing my cup to go get some chai, and there were the remnants. only i didn’t realize how remnantal they were at first. i got all jazzed for a cup of ice cream with cherries and caramel and whipped cream… only the ice cream was down to the melty dregs.

ok, fine, i can still have a treat here. i’ll put whipped cream and caramel in my coffee! so i squeezed in some caramel syrup, filled ‘er up with french roast, added some melty chocolate for ice cream for mocha effect, and picked up the whipped cream can only to find it was all out, too!

the tragedy!

now i’m in the mood for some serious ice cream. this caramel mocha ish coffee just isn’t cutting it.

(however, i’ll be warm–which was the original problem i was trying to fix.)

it’s a really lovely warm day outside. and i’m working from home.

however, i couldn’t get my wireless to work right so i’m inside connected to the cable for my internet connection.

i’m getting a lot done work wise and housework wise… well, not really *so* much housework wise, but i’m finally home when the wash n fold on the corner is open so i could drop my clothes off. i think it’s been a month. luckily, concubine let me use his w/d at one point to do a load of essentials, but i’m down to my rarely worn pants. i’m wearing cords today. i like the pants, they’re just a bit odd for the weather!

this weekend concubine has agreed to sit with me while i do some more culling. it’s been about a year since much was culled here. after that, it’s time for a re-org of the house. the furniture just isn’t quite in the right place.

… cause there hasn’t been enough change in my life as of late. honestly, i’m sure that cleaning out the junk and making the place more usable will really help me feel better in general. i come home now and i’m overwhelmed by the state of things in my house. i’ve got big plans for the place, but i don’t have much in the way of time at home these days. i sorta miss the place, and the meowers.

who was the reason i stayed home today. he’d been in another fight and concubine convinced me to take him to the vet to be checked out. his wounds are fine, but he’s lost some weight recently. something that isn’t smiled on when we’re talking older cats. i think it might have to do with me not being home much. i’m going to take him back in a few weeks to be weighed again and hopefully he’ll have stablized. it’s also possible that being outside so much lately has just been a source of more exercise and that’s why he’s lost a bit. that’s the direction i’m leaning.

so my wish for powertools this weekend came true in a big way.

i have one word for you:

chainsaw.

i’m in love.