New Kitty Picture

Things in my house are pretty quiet right now. All the doors are open and I have one kitty on my hassock and one kitty in the bedroom. Everyone seems to have survived the first few days with the new kitty (Deke) here. There is some hissing and spitting, to be expected as they work out their pecking order (and everyone has to listen to me - especially about not eating the bird).

As quiet is good, I'm taking a moment to post a new picture of my new kitty. His grandma told me that he has a heart on his side, can you see it in the picture?

Kitty's Coming!

I'm adding a new baby boy to my household, one of the four-footed furry kind. I have some pictures from August, but I'm excited and posting this away from my home computer. I'll post pictures soon!

Deke should already be on the ground in Denver now and I get to go pick him up after work. I wish I could have taken time off today to go get him but I took tomorrow off entirely so I could spend it (barring the quick trip for kitty food and toys) with him and his new brother, my big fat sassy cat, Alec.

I am a little nervous, but I'm sure everything will work out fine. I am so excited to get him to my little home.

More soon!

Following the Yellow Brick Road

As I have so many other things to do today, I have been sitting with my laptop and bouncing around Blogland. Here are a few of the gems I picked up along the way:

Heimlich Maneuvers
Stories from Rick's Cafe
the study of an honest contradiction

And some really strange wild things that I couldn't understand due to a language barrier.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

You Should Get a PhD in Liberal Arts (like political science, literature, or philosophy)

You're a great thinker and a true philosopher. You'd make a talented professor or writer.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

Guess I should go back to school... I'd be talented at it :)

What Serenity Character are you?

Which Serenity character are you?

Kaylee Frye 94%

created with QuizFarm.com

Birthday Blues

I am a big fan of birthdays, and I always try to have a good time on mine. Last year I went to San Diego and stayed on the coast so I could see the ocean. We walked on the beach every night, and ate lots of seafood and got sand in our shoes.

This year I just took the day off, as this week was packed with bright and shiny meetings and necessary work things (such is the life of a corporate accounting specialist). It was not the most stellar day, as when I got to my mom's house she informed me that her dog, Charlie, which was also my dog from high school, had died that morning. So the rest of the afternoon dealt with the great loss of a very dear friend and part of the family.

I'm kind of at loose ends this weekend, I've got nothing to do and a whole lot of time to do it in. And all I can think about is the fact that everything in my life from that time in my life is slowly slipping away. And there is nothing I can do to stop the sands running through my fingers, no matter how hard I cry.

Fun Game

Reply with your name and
1. I'll respond with something random about you.
2. I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I'll pick a flavor of jello to wrestle with you in.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5. I'll tell you my first memory of you.
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on your journal. You MUST. It is written

I'm very late in posting this. Girlzoot, Shaych, and Valium, please accept my apologies.

You are Scooter.
You are a loyal, hardworking person, better known
as a doormat.

SPECIAL TALENTS:
Going for stuff.
LEAST FAVORITE MOVIE:
"Go For Broke!"

QUOTE:
"15 seconds to showtime."

LAST BOOK READ:
"300 New Ways to Get Your Uncle to Get You a
Better Job "

NEVER LEAVES HOME WITHOUT:
Coffee, clipboard, and Very Special Guest Stars.


What Muppet are you?
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Study conversations

Things overheard at Paris on the Platte by the very patient guy at the end of our table:

G: Mar-duck.

A: I think it’s Mar-duke.

G: Marmaduke?

A: Yah, the big orange dog.

G: I think he’s red, in fact I think it’s Marmaduke, the Big Red Dog.

A: That’s Clifford, the big red dog

G: I don’t know, they’re all big and red and they all created god.

Relativity of intelligence

You are smart; you can make it go.

I got this phrase from STtNG, from the episode where Geordi was kidnapped by a space-faring race that stole technology from other races, and wanted to steal Geordi for his talents.

It has now become a stock phrase in my vocabulary. And girlzoot just flung it back at me. I told her how smart she was after she learned me something new on the internet thingy. She said, "Yeah, I can make it go." Made me laugh, and practically snort hot cocoa out my nose.

Maybe you had to be there...

Don’t ask me what to wear

Don’t ask me what to wear

I have no embroidered
headband from Sardis to
give you, Cleis, such as
I wore
and my mother
always said that in her
day a purple ribbon
looped in the hair was thought
to be high style indeed

but we were dark:
a girl
whose hair is yellower than
torchlight should wear no
headdress but fresh flowers

Sappho
Translated by Mary Barnard

Four Years Ago Today

Four years ago tonight, I was soaking in a brand new hot tub in Aurora, CO, drinking wine coolers, smoking Marlboro Lights, listening to Lee Greenwood, and watching the footage of the World Trade Center destruction play over and over and over again on CNN or any channel we turned to. Later, when we were outside in the steaming water, the window open so we could hear the TV, we looked up in wonder and a little terror, the primeval terror of the unknown, as we heard the sonic booms of fighter aircraft take off from a nearby Air Force base. Our voices burbled over one another as we began to explain to each other the fact that military aircraft were flying overhead, it was ok, nothing to be alarmed by. But everything alarmed us that night. We were together and we were safe, but what did that mean anymore, what did anything mean?

It was a month ago yesterday that I spoke to her last. Only a month. The last time. How can that be?

Geekish Nerd?

Pure Nerd 78 % Nerd, 43% Geek, 34% Dork

For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd. The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the "dork." No-longer. Being smart isn't as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful. Congratulations! THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

Katrina

It seems everywhere you go, Katrina and the aftermath finds its way into conversation. Last night when we were out seeing The Wizard of Oz at the Boulder Dinner Theatre it came up. How people could be in such dire straits and we be out enjoying ourselves?

I am lucky, I suppose. I have not lost any family or friends, no one I know personally was in the path of the storm. A friend's new boyfriend evacuated to Colorado, leaving behind his ex and their children against his will. There are so many other stories, so many faces of people, our people, my people, so many that have been devastated, have lost everything except their lives, that it is mind-numbing.

The single worst disaster that has ever hit us, and we seemed unable to move, unable to snap out of the spin. Pictures of the storm, pictures of the people, stranded, angry, calling for help; cameras capturing the images, able only to report not provide the water, food, and medical supplies so desprately needed.

Relief has begun to arrive, and is arriving, at least one of my friends is going down as I write this to provide relief services to the refugees, and another might be called upon at any moment. I feel so helpless, that my thoughts keep spinning, my private grief mixed with a national grief, one we all share. A grief with no end in sight.

Random Thought

And as he drove on, the rain clouds dragged down the sky after him for, though he did not know it, Rob McKenna was a Rain God. All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him, to cherish him and to water him.

--So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish, Douglas Adams

Stargazing

Last night I sat on the sidewalk while Charlie lay in the grass, enjoying the cool night air. I looked across the way and saw Cassiopeia hanging over the end unit of the row houses, the one where Kerri lived when we were in high school. I’ve always liked Cassiopeia, the great big W in the sky; it’s one of the constellations I can almost instantly recognize.

I remember soft twilit evenings on the roof at Kerri’s house, watching the stars come out in the summer. Her friends tried to show her the different constellations, and she could see the Big Dipper, but she could never see Cassiopeia, no matter who tried to show her. Sitting on the sidewalk next to my dog I thought of those distant evenings with her, and murmured the little song we made up sitting up on the roof.

When the wind blows
On the roof-top
We are cold
Under the cat blanket

The view of the sky became blurry, my eyes glistening. I felt this hole in my heart big enough to hold the sky, knowing she had gone beyond my pale. In my mind, forevermore, she will reside in the soft grey twilight among the scattered stars as they begin to shine.

Sweet dreams, my dear friend. You will be forever missed.

Festival Banner

Festival Banner
Originally uploaded by Arcadiajoy.

Last Sunday, we went to the Renaissance Festival in Larkspur. Friends of mine are on the Royal Court of the Faire, and we visited and stayed for the fashion show and the final joust. It was a cool day, with the temperatures down in the 80s and a nice breeze practically everywhere.

Triumph for the Pack Rat

I keep stuff. More stuff than I need, but less than some of those poor souls who do not remember what color the carpet is under all the stuff (and can't tell from the pathway, because it has turned grey with wear).

I have about 4 boxes of papers in various places in my house (mostly in my garage) from different times in my life that I refuse to part with. During my last move, we moved them, and I promised I would look through them and toss what I could and file what I needed to keep. Well, it's coming up on my second lease renewal and I just haven't had a chance to get through all of them. I did get through part of one of them *yay* about a year and a half ago, and I occasionally go out to the garage and dip into one of the boxes, bringing out a treasure of incomparable worth, that sits on my dining room table for a while, then moves to my desk, where it collects dust in the open, instead of in its box.

I also keep things at work. I hoard my letters, with all their precious attachments, on the off chance I might need them again. This has worked for me in the past; I have found emails or letters that helped me resolve an issue. But at my office, I have one little drawer and one hanging file corral on my desk for all my files. We share a tall 4 drawer for all our customers' invoices, and that's it. I have had a pile, wrapped lovingly with rubberbands up in my cabinet for over a year now. I just put some of it with the 4 boxes of stuff I pulled out of our 4 drawer and shipped off to outside storage. But if I ever need it back, it is in a box, safe and sound. Just like I like it.

My files and emails are about in the same state of pack-rattedness as the rest of my desk. I don't ever delete emails, but I'm sure I should be, but I might need it three years down the line. You never know. And I store all my attachments, named with helpful names, on my personal network drive (which has not reached as gigantic proportions as you might imagine; it's still fairly reasonable). And every month, squish all the files down into a nice, helpfully named zip file. Which go back to, you guessed it, when I started at this company.

Well, today was exciting for this pack rat. I had an invoice for a 2003 charge that I could show we paid in our system, but the 2003 files are in storage (and I have never even requested one, isn't that amazing!). So I decided to go through my old email attachments and lo, there was my beautiful proof, including all the bells and whistles attached, laying quietly in the dusty old zip file. I was so excited I showed my co-worker, a wonderful woman with a daughter my age and a good sense of humor, and she laughed. She never keeps anything past its useful life: email, paperwork, paper clips... But she appreciated my triumph, and agreed that yes, today was a good day to be a pack rat.

Now, if I could just find my keys and my cell phone I could get on with my weekend.

Laughing Lord & Lady

Laughing Lord & Lady
Originally uploaded by Arcadiajoy.

I spent the fourth of July in the company of this noble couple, recent additions to the Royal Court. After a lavish repast, we explored the extensive grounds of their lovely estate, enjoying the pleasant summer evening air. After the sun went down, we enjoyed a fireworks display. Many thanks to the laughing lord and lady for a very enjoyable evening.

Alanis

Ok, so after the margaritas I shared with my co-workers this afternoon on a lovely shaded patio in Boulder, I get in my car to go run an errand. My radio is on and I hear Alanis Morrisette's Ironic. Which is only marginally ironic (I suppose there's irony in that...) but not the version from Jagged Little Pill. It's acoustic, and done very nicely. And when she gets to the part about the 10,000 spoons and only needing a knife she sings:

It's meeting the man of my dreams, and then meeting his beautiful husband.

I love Alanis.

I'm going to get the re-issue of JLP the acoustic version... the two songs I heard sounded really good.

UPDATE: Jagged Little Pill Acoustic is quite good.