Miscellany

I've posted so many entries to Bubbles & Baubles that it feels weird to start this one without a disclaimer at the top!  It was a good week at work.  I met a couple of nice women from my city who were serving as jurors on an ugly case, my boss came to talk to me about some suggestions I'd made to our notices, citations and call day (and she left with my good pen!) and I didn't even think about killing or maiming anyone. :-)

I did think some nasty thoughts about someone else who works in the courthouse.  I don't know who she is, but she drives a black Cherokee with some distinctive window art.  A couple of weeks ago she pulled that "zoom up the far right line at top speed and then jump into the far left lane just before you need to turn" move.  Okay, I really, really dislike that move, but I didn't want her to die in a car fire until I got caught in a lane I didn't realize was closed ahead and she wouldn't let me in the other lane.  Selfish cow.  DIACF.

Next week is going to be a really good week for books--a new Cherie Priest book (squee!), a new Seanan McGuire book (squee!) and a new Terry Pratchett book (squee!) which is sadly the last Discworld novel ever (sniffle) will all be mine by the end of the week.

This morning was interesting--I had to go to the grocery store and get frozen food, then come home and stuff it in the freezer so I could go work out.  I put my bathing suit on under a dress and shopped and unloaded successfully and did the unthinkable in terms of the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I forgot my towel.

Now, if you've been to Casa de Jammies, you know that the Natatorium is only about 2 miles from my house, but when I got there and realized I'd forgotten my towel, I didn't go back for it.  The reason was in part because I didn't want to waste gas, but also in part because we had a storm forecast, and I didn't want to miss my window before it started and the pool got closed because of lightning.  It turns out I didn't need to worry about that, but I worked out anyway and then drip-dried in the car on the way home.

We hates the quad stretcheses, Precious, yes we do.  Nassssty, nasssty horrid little stretcheses.

Yesterday, one of the local radio stations played a live version of Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon" complete with horrible feedback squeal, and this morning, the album version was the last song I heard played as I finished my workout.  So here's a little Stevie & co. so you can share my earworm:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_aYibUx1B8

Ahh, a nice big thunderstorm!

Nothing like one of those for scouring all the allergens out of my life!

Random factoids

Yes, another list, because I lack the brainpower for narrative structure.

1.  I have my first chest cold in quite a number of years, and it's as horrible as I remember.  I left work early on Thursday, called off on Friday, and had a holiday today, so a long rough weekend.

2.  Little Miss Piggie Pie had her annual pincushion appointment this morning, and had to be muzzled for snapping at Dr. Bob despite a handful of Bil-Jac treats.  The good news is she's finally gained some weight, and he thinks she's perfect at 54 pounds.  She got more treats when we stopped at Pet Supplies Plus to get dog food--I hope she doesn't think that kind of treatment is going to last! ;-)

3.  On the way home today, I passed by the repair shop owned by the guy who bought my Saturn.  Norm is a 17 year-old Saturn SW1, with no luxury options and 118,000 miles, and the guy who paid me $600 is asking $3195.  Good luck, Mr. Lotsaballs!

4.  My taxes are done and I am getting a teensy refund, which will go straight to the Cleveland Clinic to pay my portion of the bill for my MRI.

5.  There is a blizzard going on outside right now, and even with a racking cough and lizard-rough dry skin from taking a zillion hot showers, it's nice to look at it.  I do like snow, and I'm trying to store up some cold for when I'm miserable in August.

I ATEN'T DED!

However, both the desktop and the laptop are, so I'm using Dad's spare computer and without any photo-processing software, which means all of the garden pictures that were meant to go on this blog have to stay on the camera, along with all of the nail polish pics for the beauty blog.

I feel cheated that the BIG STORMS the weather guy promised us for last night never showed. When I got up this morning, the sidewalk was barely damp. Even if we didn't get the storm(s), at least the temperature dropped. It was in the upper 80s/lower 90s from Saturday through yesterday, and I damn near killed myself getting one flowerbed weeded and mulched. I need to rig up a chain so Little Miss Piggie Pie can join me in the front yard while I work out there, because she took advantage of my absence to eat a large portion of the potting soil out of the planter holding my Norfolk pine.

Otherwise, work is normal, online life is semi-restricted but normal, and my offline life is just as boring as it ever was.

Oh, and if you don't recognize the title of this post, do yourself a favor and read some Terry Pratchett. :)

The National Weather Service synthesized voice

simply cannot manage to say 'Cuyahoga Falls' in a manner that comes close to sounding human. Nonetheless, I have managed to accustom myself to the sounds that mean the name of my city when tornados are involved, and at about 7:40 tonight, I put my bra and work clothes back on, grabbed my cell phone, the charger, my charm bracelet, Gramma's charm bracelet, the BPAL and the dog and headed for the basement.

On top of a day when I'd been in pain from a ripped-off toenail, balanced three accountings and found out that one of our clients has metastized lung cancer, a tornado warning was almost the last thing I needed. The very last thing I needed was to be in the basement during a tornado warning with a dog having diarrhea from stress or eating who knows what while she was outside earlier. Aargh.

Oh, yes, and when I got upstairs, I discovered the garage had flooded, because yesterday's high winds had brought down a shedload of maple keys and the rain had washed them all on top of the driveway drain, blocking it. I'm sure I have some unspecified ick in my toenails from wading in the overflow to clear the drain.

Anyway, I'm fine, Mom and Dad are fine, the dog appears to be empty, and Yahoo describes the tornados as 'weak' so hopefully nobody I care about is hurt or homeless tonight.

Rain

It finally rained good and hard last night, and supposedly things will cool off now! At least in this house I have air conditioning to get me through the hot days. I've never been very heat-tolerant anyway, but the MS has kicked my heat intolerance up to 11. I was only recently diagnosed when I bought this house, and the whole-house air just seemed like a nice thing to have. Good thing it was here, because it has saved me from misery every summer since!

In my old house, my bedroom was a converted attic and I didn't have AC. My first summer in the house, I tried everything I could think of to be comfortable, including trying to sleep on the floor in front of a fan. All that got me after I'd wrestled the mattress off the bed and set up the fan was Bigfoot curling up on my pillow as if I'd done that just for him. Then when I reclaimed my bed, I got dry eyes and a headache from trying to sleep with the constant airflow. Almost every night in late July and August, I cried myself to sleep because I was so miserable. I do remember one day when it rained going outside and playing in the rain and splashing in puddles while Bigfoot watched me from the windows, convinced I had lost my mind! The next year, Dad gave me Grandpa Arnold's old window unit, and I could at least sleep in cool comfort.

I also remember visiting Disneyland when I was about twelve or so. It rained all day, just a soft drizzle, and it didn't really bother anyone in my family because a January rain in California is much warmer than a January snowfall in Ohio! I did think it was funny that the PA system was playing "It Never Rains" by Albert Hammond as we were leaving.

Thanks to last night's rain, I can harvest my basil and lemon balm without the leaves being all heat-shriveled. Time for pesto! :D

Brrrrrr!

And hooray for that. It's 63° F right now, and I am happy to have a leetle cold front visiting. Plus, it's raining, so I don't have to go water my plants. The less I have to do at home, the better, because I am swamped at work.

My very first looseleaf publication builds on Friday, and of course, the idiot lawyers who are authoring it didn't get their final pages to me until mid-day today. It's four volumes with a CD, and I have to get it all done tomorrow so I can put it together on Friday. I'm seriously tempted to go smack these guys!

*deep breath*

Instead of thinking about work, I'm going to think about fall, which has always been my favorite season. I've always loved the look of the Harvest Moon, so I ordered the 2008 version of that scent from BPAL. As my darling Kogi always says, "It could smell like accord of ass and I'd still buy it" just for the associations with autumn. I want to smell like a fat round gold thing on a cold night!

Speaking of BPAL and associations, I keep running into phoenixes. I love BPAL (Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab) perfumes, my current favorite bath & body product scent is Phoenix from Julphia, our proprietary software at work is called Phoenix, I pass an office or something for the University of Phoenix every day on my way to work, and a new second-hand car dealership just opened up down the street from me called Phoenix Auto Sales. I can hear my little brother saying it's just coincidence (Hi, Captain Crossword!), but I can't shake the feeling that maybe it's more than that...

I am so tired of the drama.

Not people, the weather. In the last week, four thunderstorms have come through my little city. There has been enough thunder to scare Littlefoot into trying to live inside my right pant leg, enough lightning to fry every piece of electronics on my street, and less than one inch of rain. It's frustrating when I think I'm going to get a night off of watering, but after all the sound and fury I still have to get outside with the hose.

Stupid global weirding.

On the other hand, my tomatoes are coming along nicely, and when they are ripe, it will be time to take the last pound of thick-cut peppered bacon out of the freezer and cook it up for sammiches.

I'll admit it--sometimes I am five

From 8:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m., I was a responsible adult. I paid my bills, did my job, drove safely, had yogurt for breakfast, etc.

But when I left work, I went and spent my "allowance" on retaining bricks, limestone gravel, marble chips and potting soil. Then I picked up a soft, slimmer, tangle-free, sweet-scented and very adorable Littlefoot at the groomer's (bless his dumb little heart, he tried to walk out through the picture window).

After dinner, I went out and spread the limestone gravel in the soggy spot in my back flowerbed, then covered it over with the last four bags of mulch. I got four tomatos planted and about 2/3 of the stones on top of the first layer of the round bed in the front yard.

Then the thunderstorm started.

Instead of going inside, I kept potting and playing out in the rain. I splashed around in puddles in the driveway, cleared the driveway drain about three times, sang to myself and had a great time. When I came in, I was utterly drenched and filthy, and while I did towel off most of the dirt and wash my arms, my bath is going to feel amazing tonight. And yes, my inner five year old will be happy with bubbles and glitter!