Very belated JammiesFest Photo Album

But first, a quick thanks to anyone or anything who may be watching over my friends, as Zayrina came through her surgery just fine today and called to talk to me while under the influence of good drugs.

On to the pictures!


Cantina de Jammies:



Bikini Chicken:





Mariachi Coco, home of the white chili con queso Imp dreams of:





Final group picture on the last day of JammiesFest:

Project Walk

is going well. Tonight, Mom & I walked part of a trail at Sand Run Metro Park. Dampy, that's the park we went through on the way to lunch during JammiesFest. We walked for almost an hour, and wore both dogs out. Bigfoot was extra tired, but bless his little heart, he did his best to keep up. Littlefoot will be wearing his Gentle Leader on the next walk, as he about pulled my arm out of the socket trying to play with every dog he saw, and the one he did start to play with, he was going to play rough the way he does with Bigfoot.

I always enjoy talking with Mom, and tonight was no different. She told me about her weekend up at the lake with her group of female attorneys, asked how work was going, and we chatted as we walked. She did say one heretical thing to me--she said (appropos a purchase made by middle little brother) that nobody needs four new books.

Ahem. Everyone needs new books!

When we were done walking, Mom was disappointed that I wouldn't let her hand out puppymonster treats, but as Littlefoot had a soft stool while we were walking and Bigfoot hadn't finished his dinner, I was firm with her. We are definitely going back to Sand Run for our next walk on Monday.

For Z

To cheer you up: Cake Wrecks.

Vehicular Snobservations

To the idiot in the grey car with the Starfleet Academy bumper sticker: Yes, when you drive a grey car in the morning rain and fog with no lights on, it's like your own personal cloaking device. I-77 is a lot smaller than space, however, and on this planet, the Klingons drive great big semi-trucks which will squish you if you invisibly enter their space. Turn your lights on, numbnuts.

To the guy in the Outback wagon: It's just precious that your car is the same color as your little waiter's polo shirt. You're so cute we can't stand you. It was bad enough when you slowed down traffic onto the interstate because you were looking in the rearview mirror and patting your cute little hair. It's inexcusable when you did that in the left lane. Get a damn alarm clock, set it, and get up five minutes earlier so you can groom before you get in the car.

To the elderly couple in the white land yacht with Florida plates: I don't know if you were visiting or moving back to Ohio or what, but if you can afford that car, there are a few other things you should think about buying or renting. First, a U-Haul or your own trailer so you don't overstuff said land yacht with your personal possessions to the point where the rear window is completely blocked. Second, a GPS. It's more than a bit irritating to be stuck behind you as you creep along at 10 MPH, constantly changing your mind about which side street you need to turn left on. Finally, buy a clue. You're too damn old to be trucking a carfull of crap around. Give it all to Starfleet geek or waiter dude, go back to Florida, and stay there!

Finally, to the guy riding shotgun in the pickup truck. This is Akron, not New Orleans or Indianapolis, so there's really no situation where yelling "Show us your tits!" is appropriate. If you were serious, you're a little scary, and if that was meant as humor, you're lame. Oh, and btw--yes, I was wearing a camisole under a half-buttoned shirt, but that one inch of cleavage you could see was really all the good bits. Trust me, if I take off the clothes and the architecturally-structured undergarments, you wouldn't like the result. Go browse the interwebbinetz for boobs to look at, mmkay?

Dayumm, Jammies!

I may not have gotten promoted, but I certainly made my co-workers happy today. Maresche's work baby shower was today, and even though she's on another team, I was invited. I made Jan Hegel cookies as my contribution to the potluck lunch.

Mom's recipe makes a huge cookie sheet full of cookies, so I brought the leftovers upstairs and let my team know to come have some. Everyone liked them, several people had seconds, and three people said, "Dayummm, these are GOOD!" in tones of reverence.

I may have to take some to ImpFest 2008.

ETA: The admin assistant who took a cookie up to her third floor desk yesterday stopped down to see me today and said, "It's too bad you can't bake at all, and may I have the recipe?" *grin*

*insert bad language here*

The co-worker who started two weeks after I did and is 18 years younger than I am got promoted.

I didn't.

*looks for something to kick*

"Some women bond over martinis"

said Flannel Jammies to me as we stood in the rain in my driveway. "Not us!"

We spent most of the day together, from 8:30 this morning until 3:00 this afternoon, cleaning out a Ward's house. We made three trips to Goodwill, donating about $600 worth of clothing and household items, filled two trash cans, and filled my car up with things that might sell (costume jewelry, fur-collared wool coats, handbags and scarves and such). We talked while we worked, got the giggles a lot, and got grossed out once or twice--why do old ladies keep partials in with their jewelry? ICK! In the bathroom, I found a one-liter bottle of old liniment, which was pure isopropyl alcohol mixed with wintergreen oil. Mom poured it down the drain and put the bottle in the recycling bag, and when we left, the house still smelled like a breath mint explosion in a distillery.

It poured all day and gas is back up to $4/gallon, both of which seem to be the effects of Gustav and Ike on Ohio. Since I don't have the Weather Channel (or any cable, for that matter), I am relying on info I pick up on the Internet and from friends. My heart goes out to the people who've had to evacuate, and to the people who should have but didn't.

It's entirely possible that I am too tired for a bath tonight.

Okay, the troll thing

Yes, I have referred to myself as "photographing like a troll."

Yes, I sometimes would like to be a troll and hide under my bridge and let the world go by (an occasional tribute of gold would be nice, but no goats, please).

No, this does not mean I go around thinking of myself as ugly and made of stone. It means that I know that I am not photogenic. I can look in the mirror and think I look nice, or good, or some days, even pretty, and then that's not what the camera sees. To me, it is a fact of life. It's also genetic. My paternal grandmother was a bubbly, giggly, loving person who was a flapper in her youth and in her sixties liked to sprawl on the sofa and watch football while keeping her granddaughter from tickling her feet. In all but one picture we have of her, she looks cold and forgiving, and the two trenches on either side of her mouth don't seem to come from smiling as much as she did.

So to some extent, when I use the words "troll" or "trollish" about how I come across on film (or digital media, whichever), I am identifying myself with a woman I'd have loved to get to know as an adult and who left a marvelous legacy.

And I'm also acknowledging my own tendency to retreat from time to time.

That said, apparently the words offend or upset some of my friends, so I shall make a conscious effort not to use them.

Ahhhhhhhh, now I feel like fall is here!

Okay, so it's still in the 80s every day and I still have to water my tomatoes. Nonetheless, when I went to the grocery store this weekend, they had my beloved girly Harmony Bay Autumn Spice coffee. I know most people think flavored coffee is rubbish, but I love the maple-cinnamon flavor of this coffee, and I spend most of the fall buying 3 times as much as I need so that I can drink it all year.

Tonight, I was thinking about Becs' touching entry about her kitty Dylan. Bigfoot was crying for something, and when letting him out for twenty minutes and refilling the water bowl didn't quiet him, I tried petting him and then giving him a second dinner. It was food that he wanted, and he snarfed it all down, and then came up to lean on me. I ruffled his ears and laid my cheek on the top of his head, then said, "Are you happy? Happy puppies make me happy."

He burped at me. *chortle* Damn, I love that dog.

Late Lunch with Lioness

Very much on the spur of the moment, Fiery Lioness arranged a mini meet & sniff as she was returning to Michigan from Columbus. We met at the Rte. 18 exit from 71N, and headed for Miss Molly's Tearoom in Medina. We got lost on the square with its silly one-way streets and had to call Kogi, who got us the actual address, directions and the phone number.

We made it to the tearoom just as they were closing down the kitchen, so we quickly ordered lunch. Then we could open presents. FL got me an adorable otter and made me a very professional-looking book of otter pictures from her recent zoo visit (Imp, she reminded me of you--she went to a zoo on her honeymoon).



I got her assorted bath products and a very creepy BPAL version of Neil Gaiman's short story "Snow, Glass, Apples." As a side note, that's got to be the perviest version of Snow White I've run across, and not the good kind of pervy, either.

There was much perfoom on the table, and much sniffing was done as we talked.





I found out that Sea of Tranquility, a discontinued scent, is FL's Holy Grail and she doesn't have a bottle. Happily, I remembered that Tangoing Owls has a bottle for sale at a very reasonable price. I felt like a BPAL matchmaker, and was sorry I hadn't worn black with a head scarf. *grin*

As we were finishing our sandwiches, a group of women filed past us to line up for picture-taking in front of the fireplace. We offered to take pictures so that they could all be in them, and it was easy to see that FL has recently experienced a wedding photographer, as she herded the ladies into just the right position for me to take 2 pictures with each camera.

After that, all that remained was for us to pack up the precious and have our picture taken. As usual, I photograph like a troll, but we were having so much fun I'm thrilled to have the picture as a reminder.

Thanks, I needed that.

Work was just peachy until about 2 p.m. when Manufacturing exploded at me and got my boss involved. When everything was fixed up and done, I was just thrilled to get the heck outta Dodge and go walk with my mom and my dogs.

We went to the same park, but tried some different routes on the trail and got in a good forty or forty-five minutes of walking and climbing. I fell once, but thankfully I landed on my fat ass, so no damage was done. Bigfoot lost his footing once and sat down hard, but after Tuesday evening's walk, he was the only one not limping, so I think he's in better shape than I am.

Now that I'm home, I'm debating whether or not tonight calls for one of my hoarded Lush Marathon bubble bars. They're a little stinky, but a lot effective for sore muscles, and stupid Lush is discontinuing them. I have six left, which is twelve baths, and I'm campaigning like mad to get Lush to put them on the Retro menu. That's where they offer small amounts of discontinued items and I definitely will always need my Marathon!

"Chuckery" ≠ "Oxbow"

It has now been over a year since I started at Hyphenated Corp, and while I've settled in well, I do miss my pretty much daily interaction with my mom and friend, Flannel Jammies. About ten days ago, she called with a suggestion that she expected me to dismiss out of hand--we should get together twice a week and exercise. I surprised her by responding to "Don't say anything, just think about it," with "Well, I was going to say yes, but if you want me to wait a week before I do..."

*grin*

We agreed that we would start with walking before we lose the warm weather and the late-day sunlight, and that we would start the day after Labor Day. After several phone calls on Saturday and Monday, I was certain that we were meeting at the Oxbow area of the Summit County Metro Parks promptly at 5:15.

I came home from work, changed into shorts and a t-shirt, loaded the dogs into the car and was in the parking lot by 5:14. At 5:23, I did a quick drive through the other two parking lots in the Oxbow section and didn't see Mom. I returned to the parking lot nearest the trail and the 'Foots and I got out of the car. I walked them around a bit, trying to stay within sight of the parking lot. At ten minutes to six, I stuffed the dogs back in the car and told myself I would do one more circuit of the other two parking lots and then give up and go home.

As I was coming out of the second parking lot, Mom pulled in. She'd been sitting at the Chuckery Area since 5:15, because it was the first branch of the park she saw as she was coming from work. She admitted she hadn't even looked at the sign, just pulled in and waited. It took her 2 phone calls to my house and half an hour before she wondered if she was in the wrong place, and she was actually heading for my house when she saw the Oxbow sign and pulled in.

So we were a little late, but we had a great walk. The trail is 1.2 miles long, edges the Cuyahoga River in a couple of places and is pretty much always within earshot. It did have one stretch that was essentially "Climb this here big hill and we'll put in some railroad ties you can't really pretend are steps," but hey, that's good for the calf muscles!

Mom and I talked as we walked, and laughed a lot, and she kept apologizing until I wanted to smack her (she stopped when I told her that!) and generally had a great time. I'm looking forward to doing it again Thursday night, but without the bit where I drive around parking lots in a car full of panting, smelly 'Foots.

Oh, and both of them drank a bowlful of water each and then crashed out for the rest of the night. I still had to water the plants, bathe, set up the coffeepot and make my lunch for today. Rough life those dogs have...