Tuesday, April 29, 2008
I think I found the fountain of relaxation
We relaxed the rest of the 24 hours away at the St. George Inn (which we highly recommend). You can see the photo set here.
Thus spoke Lorena on 04/29/08 at 01:55 PM in Personal, Road Trippin'
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Monday, April 28, 2008
The closest we get to castles over here
The Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine. You can see the whole set here.
Believe it or not, even with all this walking around, we really did relax! Relaxing photos to come tomorrow.
Thus spoke Lorena on 04/28/08 at 06:02 PM in Personal, Road Trippin'
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I can’t believe we climbed the whole thing
My legs, they are still noodles. You can see the photo set here.
Thus spoke Lorena on 04/28/08 at 01:45 PM in Personal, Road Trippin'
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Sunday, April 27, 2008
Plan for the day…
Out the door in about 15 minutes; St. Augustine bound. When we get there? Lighthouse. Browsing. Lunch. B&B. Photos. 2nd story porch balcony with a great view for people-watching. Knitting. Rocking chair. Quality time with my sweetie. A good dinner. A good night’s sleep.
No laptop. No checking work email. All twitters set to web-only for the day. Marginally reachable on my cell phone, if someone is on fire or has free tickets to Eddie Izzard for me.
Love you all, have a wonderful Sunday!
Thus spoke Lorena on 04/27/08 at 08:48 AM in Personal, Road Trippin'
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Saturday, April 26, 2008
Tomorrow, this will be my view
A couple of weeks ago, I sent Sharon away on a Sunday (she’d gotten the schedule wrong and had booked a class for that Saturday) so that she could go to an annual event that is important to her and her sweetie. She came back and said that she felt so rejuvenated after even just one day away that I should try it too. Since she’s going away for a couple of weeks starting next week, I chose this Sunday so that I would be well-rested and recharged for being Charles In Charge for ten days. Tim and I talked it over and first thing tomorrow morning we’re driving to St. Augustine where we will be staying in this lovely-looking B&B overnight on Sunday, returning Monday morning. Our plans are to do a few touristy things in the early part of the day tomorrow (lighthouse, etc.) and after that my ass will be in the above rocking chair, people-watching, and knitting. Unfortunately with the massive amounts of Benadryl I’m taking, it’s probably not too safe for me to drink the two bottles of wine I’d planed on (har!) but even just sitting and relaxing is going to be heavenly. Tomorrow is going to be all about… well, me and my sweetie. Computer will be left at home, and while I will have my cell phone it will be set to silent, and I’ll be ignoring Twitters for a day. I’m sure the Interwebs will survive without me. You kids behave, okay?!
Thus spoke Lorena on 04/26/08 at 08:32 AM in Personal, My random life
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My dark sense of humor: let me show you it
Scene: Emergency Room Bed. I have just finished binding off two socks and ask Tim to pass me another one out of my bag so that I can keep knitting, as we may be there forever.
Tim: I can’t believe you’re knitting… more.
Me: Hey, I don’t seem to be dying. So if I’m not dying, I’m knitting.
Tim: I think even if you were dying, you’d still be knitting.
Me (looking at sock): Yeah, even if I was dying, I’d still be knitting this. There’s no way Sharon would want to finish this sock for me, these totally aren’t her colors.
HAW!
Scene: Work, talking with two of our fabulous regulars (who incidentally make the best Snickerdoodle cookies EVER). I am explaining my new regimen of Prednisone once a day and Benadryl every six hours.
Her: I can’t believe you’re awake! After all that Benadryl I would be asleep.
Me: I think it’s the Prednisone keeping me tanked up. You know, steroids. I totally want to kick someone’s ass… after I take a nap.
He: [laughs out loud]
DOUBLE HAW!
Thank you, thank you! I’ll be here all week!
Thus spoke Lorena on 04/26/08 at 07:36 AM in Personal, My random life
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Thursday, April 24, 2008
Last night was full of excitement (not so full of win)
First off, I’m fine now! I’m tired as crap (thank you, birds outside my window, for waking me up after a measly five hours of sleep) but I’m fine.
Here’s the Readers Digest Condensed Version, for those of you skimming past:
Last night at work I had an allergic reaction (originally they thought it was food but then switched to the catch-all of idiopathic). Kristin helped me with the Epi-pen and then even though I’d just called Tim we decided not to wait for him and she drove me to the ER. Jen, who was teaching a class for us, stayed behind to (1) let Tim know where we’d gone, (2) finish teaching her class and (3) close up the shop. (What does this show you? That fiber people fucking rock, that’s what; and are the best, most responsible, caring, and least likely to panic in a crisis people that ever walked the earth.) Kristin left after Tim got there, and we spent the next four hours waiting around and being loaded up with drugs and being watched. FUN TIMES, YO!
Longer commentary, ruminations, and hopefully a healthy dose of humor in the extended.
But first I want to give a shout out to Kristin and Jen, who rock like big non-panicking rocking things that rock a lot. The fact that neither one of them blinked an eye (even though I looked like a bright red itchy swollen monkey) and they completely rocked taking care of me and taking care of my shop, well… clearly all those dropped stitches well prepare a knitter for crisis circumstances, because I was never nervous. Unwell, but not nervous. I am so making them some mid-season Chex Mix, and I totally want them both on my side when the revolution comes.
Thus spoke Lorena on 04/24/08 at 08:35 AM in Personal, My random life
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Breaking up is hard to do
Dear Dentist whom I’ve been seeing for going on 15 years now;
It’s not you, it’s me.
I just have this… deep, deep fear of dentists. At first in our relationship, you lulled me with Valium. And gave me the nicest, sweetest hygienist to work on my teeth. Her room was filled with statues of angels and pictures of Jesus and I have to say that at first that really scared me. But as I got to know her, as I watched her and her husband care for an unwed mother and adopt the resulting mixed-race child, as I watched her go through fourteen years of live, and most recently saw her grieve for the death of her father...well, I grew to love her as a person. After a few years I didn’t even need Valium any more (except for that horrible root canal incident, which we will no longer speak of). I recommended you to all my friends. We would often compare notes on you, dentist, and they were positive notes.
So it is with deep regret that I have to tell you… this isn’t working out for me any more. It’s not just that my beloved hygienist has moved on, but more that the lack of empathy (or even sympathy) from this new hygienist has played a big part in my re-evaluation of our relationship. My anxiety is coming back, and it’s something that she has not just downplayed, but scoffed at.
And sure; I could ask you for Valium. I could. That would change my anxiety level. But is that going to change her lack of personal connection? Is that going to change the fact that she doesn’t seem to [at least] acknowledge or [at best] respect my fear of being in that chair? Probably not. She seems like the type of person who would roll her eyes at my need for drugs to get my ass in that chair. And I deserve better. I deserve to be with someone who is going to respect my needs. I deserve to be with someone who is going to treat me like a person, not like another nameless mouth in the chair.
So it was really hard to just call you and cancel next my appointment. I was afraid you’d ask me why, but you didn’t. You did ask if I wanted to reschedule, but seemed fine with my “I’ll have to call you back about that” response.
I won’t be calling. Don’t wait up.
But I wish you all the best in the future.
Thus spoke Lorena on 04/23/08 at 11:14 AM in Personal, My random life
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Monday, April 21, 2008
Some of it’s magic; some of it’s tragic
There’s so much I want to say about today, but I just can’t seem to get started. So instead I’ll just post a video that I meant to post a year ago.
If you’re new around here, you may want to grab a cuppa and read this, this, this, and this first.
Things I dislike #358
I dislike waking up from a bad dream one hour before my alarm is supposed to go off. I dislike that it was a bad dream that woke me up. I dislike that it was a frustrating, “caught in a situation that just keeps getting worse no matter what I do” dream. I dislike that I can 100% attribute the dream to my brain processing someone getting snippy with me yesterday. I dislike the knowledge that I would pay good money on the fact that the snippy person is most likely still sleeping soundly.
I dislike that I was already planning on having a weepy day, thanks, and MONDAY YOU ARE OFF TO A GREAT START.
Dear friends; I get to work at 10. Please bring Baileys. Love, me.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
My daddy tells me I’m Queen of the Beaver Mags!
Now that I finally have time to sit down and right this up, it’s probably not as funny as it is in my head.
Sorry to Matt who’s been waiting for this story for like… two years?
This is one of those family legends…
In June of 1975 my dad had a story published in Gallery Magazine.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Why so quiet…?
The last 36 hours in a nutshell: get up; go to work; work till 4; run to grocery; run home; scarf down dinner; go back to work for this; leave party a shade early to come home and be asleep by midnight; sleep until 7; get up; go to work; work till 5; brave Butler Plaza to get Sprint to tell my phone that it needs to do what I’m paying it to do; go home; make dinner; watch last night’s Dr. Who; type this up; go to bed.
Adjectives: tired. happy. Did I say tired? Also; tired.
Real blogging to return soon.
Thus spoke Lorena on 04/19/08 at 10:19 PM in Personal, My random life
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Saturday, April 12, 2008
Happy late birthday, Jeff!
Here’s a sign of how behind I am in things I want to blog about… in February, we took Jeff to Macaroni Grill for his big Four-Oh Birthday Celebration.
1. Pomartini, 2. Group shot, 3. Group shot, 4. cuties!, 5. Group shot, 6. Me
And now it’s been so long, it feels sort of pointless to write about it, other than to say that the food was good, the company was excellent, and Jeff had a wonderful time and was humbled that everyone would come out and wish him well.
Thus spoke Lorena on 04/12/08 at 04:03 PM in Birthdays, Personal, My cool friends
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Ouchtastic
This morning I am paying for the last three days of gardening; all of that leaning over, squatting, pulling, tugging, and most especially moving that nine-thousand-pound birdbath… oy, my aching legs! My tortured back!
Must start firming up my plan to get a jacuzzi somewhere in my back yard…
Thus spoke Lorena on 04/12/08 at 07:57 AM in Personal, My random life
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Friday, April 11, 2008
More than just a stupid man
I just emailed a couple of friends to say that as soon as I could stop sputtering, I was going to blog about something I just read over on Pesky Apostrophe.
But you know what?
I can’t stop sputtering. I keep trying to think of something intelligent to say, something that doesn’t come spitting out of my mouth sounding like “asshole” followed by hissing noises and clenched fists.
What the hell is wrong with people?!
What gave this man any sort of impression in any way that behaving like this is fine? Does he do it all the time? Or only once and a while? As if maybe only once and a while would be forgivable, NOTSOMUCH. What derailed his brain from its route to the Summer Home, and made him believe for a moment that it’s perfectly fine to drop the cloth of professionalism and show your ass? Did he think that she deserved to or even wanted to be spoken to like that? Deserved or wanted to be groped? Deserved or wanted to think about herself in a demeaning or embarrassed way? What gives him the right?
This is just… just so… ah, here I go, spitting again. I think I’m taking it worse than the author.
Go; go read it. And read the comments, also, because they are great, and make me feel better about mankind.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Monday is the new Friday
It’s Monday night for everyone else. For me, it’s Friday. I have tomorrow off (have a haircut, a lunch date, and a chiro appointment! And laundry! And cat boxes to clean! And a garden to weed!). I feel like I should be working on the new website for the yarn store, because it’s still early and Tim’s gone to exercise and I’m even still mildly awake. Or I could write the sixteen blog posts I’ve been meaning to write for the last I-don’t-know-how-long (there is a back-log, trust me). But I tell you… that couch, she is calling my name. I could take my knitting and go sit on it and watch a weeks worth of DVR’d Daily Shows, and get more knitting done before I fall asleep than I’ve gotten done all week.
< thinks >
< thinks >
Gotta go, y’all. The couch and TV, they are lonely. And my needles miss me.
Thus spoke Lorena on 04/07/08 at 06:13 PM in Personal, My random life
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Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Note to self
Perhaps when one is trying to leave the house to go do something important, that is not the time to also begin burning a disc to CD, which is going to take fifteen minutes. On the laptop that you want to take with you out the door. To go do something. Now.
Sigh.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Steal this blog post
In passing recently a friend mentioned that they’d had to take one of those quizzes that some corporations make you take in order to work there, one of those “if you found a wallet in the street would you return it” kind of tests. And it brought back memories of one time when I had to take one of those tests, and I failed it. Apparently I am an immoral, lying, thief. Go me!
I remember that the question I was really stuck on was the one about “would you steal medicine to save the life of a dying relative”… and really, yes. Yes, I would. I would steal anything to save the life of anyone I love, if that was the only other choice other than watching them die. I would probably steal food or clothing for myself if it was do that or starve and freeze. But I wouldn’t steal some random thing just to… steal. I can’t. Sweet Zombie Jesus, but my father would reach up from beyond the grave and snatch me bald-headed!
Once, when I was about eight or so, and we were living in New Port Richey, I stole some tomatoes from a neighbor’s garden. Hey, I was a kid. There wasn’t any logic to it, nor any forethought. But there wasn’t any maliciousness, either. I was a kid. I wanted a snack. There were a million tomatoes, and I didn’t think they’d miss a dozen or so. My dad found out before I had finished eating them, and he made me put them in a basket and take them back over to the neighbor’s house (the neighbor was quite gracious, and more than likely amused). I tell you what, nothing will put you off taking something that’s not yours like having to face the person you just took it from, and apologize.
So to this day, I don’t get people who steal. I mean, sure; I like a good bank-robber or grifter movie just as much as the next girl. But I don’t get people who, in real life, steal something just to steal it. I mean, I get that there’s some chemical reaction going on in their brain, something about getting a charge from stealing, feeling superior for “pulling one over on the man”. I know that. But I don’t grok it. (And I’m not really looking to deeply understand it, so please don’t offer hours of explanation and psycho-babble.)
I never did understand why I failed that test. Maybe because I answered honestly?
(PS. I hope my friend gets the job!)
Thus spoke Lorena on 03/28/08 at 09:33 AM in Personal, Navel Gazing
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Saturday, March 22, 2008
It’s silly, but it is what it is
For the last few Christmases before my dad died, he used to get me socks. Not just any socks; big, thick socks. Big, thick, Winnie-the-Pooh socks. Big, thick, Winnie-the-Pooh socks with puffy paint on the bottom so that I could wear them around the house, because he knew my feet were always cold.
Needless to say I have worn the crap out of those socks. Yes, almost 40 years old, and I pad around the house in thick Winnie-the-Pooh socks. Want to make something of it...?
But see, here’s the thing. I’m down to my last pair. I’ve worn out not just the heels and the toes but also pretty much 100% of the bottom of the socks. They’re really not good for wearing any more, but I just can’t bear to throw them out. My daddy got them for me! To keep my toes warm! How can I toss these socks?!
It’s like this every time I have to get rid of something, every time I have to do something new. I don’t like the car I drive because my dad never got to ride in it. I was devastated when we had to get Heidi put to sleep because my dad had kept her for me for a number of years. I can’t throw out my falling-apart headboard because it was my dad’s (and his mom’s before that). And I don’t want to throw out these last pair of socks… and yet how ridiculous is it to keep a pair of socks that can’t even be worn, just because?! Do I think that my dad would be mad at me for throwing out a pair of socks that have been so well-worn, well-loved, that they are rags now? Oh, no, he would be more likely to roll his eyes at me and give me that over-the-top-of-the-glasses don’t-be-an-asshole stare that he could do so well.
Clearly the answer is to knit myself a thick pair of socks, and decorate the bottoms with puffy paint.
And maybe take a picture of the Winnie-the-Pooh socks before I throw them out.
Thus spoke Lorena on 03/22/08 at 07:23 AM in Personal, Navel Gazing
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Friday, March 21, 2008
Allergy update
(Still allergic to chicken, just if you were wondering.)
I had a check-up appointment with the allergist yesterday to see how I’m doing (fine; still avoiding chicken, thanks) and it occurred to me that I never got around to listing everything else they told me I was allergic to.
On a scale of +1 through +4…
Food -
Chicken +3
Turkey +3
Egg white +3
Egg yolk +2
Whole egg +2
Tree pollen -
American Elm +1
Virginia Live Oak +1
Pecan +3
Grasses -
Bermuda grass +1
Johnson grass +2
Weeds -
Short Ragweed +2
Molds -
Helminthrop Solani +2
Animals/Mites -
D. Farinae +4
Feathers +2
By the way, she did say that if I’m allergic to chicken/turkey, that it may be I am also allergic to duck, quail, goose, ostrich, etc.; and that if I am interested in getting tested for those they could do that.
Thus spoke Lorena on 03/21/08 at 10:40 AM in Personal, My random life
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