Number Three

Another shot of the daisy at the lake.

The earlier post - asking you to guess which story was the dream? It was number three. The only story that didn't involve me personally. All the others I lived for real that week. The worst was the gas smell and driving up that hill when I could not see.

Speaking of dreams, I dreamed about a computer monitor flaking out on me and my car windshield shattering. Weird.

Photos and Movies

Found a new free photo program. I took the above picture.


I created this with it, by playing around/messing around with the program.

PhotoScape.

Watched City Island. I liked it. Also watched Death At a Funeral. It was okay - I was a little bit disappointed. My video store rents movies on Mondays for .79 cents. City Island I rented off the digital box from my cable company. Both made me laugh so that was good.

The Murky Lake

The lake on Friday. I even touched it up a bit.

No sunshine will do that to a photo. I don't get the chance often when driving between schools to stop and take pictures. I take no longer than a co-worker who takes a cigarette break would. And I've know co-workers to take six to eight cigarette breaks a day for anywhere from ten to twenty minutes per cigarette while they stand outside talking to other smokers. Even if they only take 4 breaks (not counting lunch) at 10 minutes, that is 40 minutes, so I figure I am quite justified to stop along the road and snap some photos for a measly 15 or 20 minutes.

My headaches have been out of control this week-end. I'll just leave it at that. I did manage an old movie. "The Sting". For some reason or another, I've never watched this one. I think when I caught it in the middle at one time, it bored me (not knowing the beginning and all).

I went through the Pay-per-view selection and saw many that I would like to watch, but my head hurt so bad, I didn't want to purchase them and then fall asleep during the showing.

I want to watch:

Killers
Just Wright
The Runaways
Chloe
City Island
Death at a Funeral
The Oxford Murders
Cole
The Last Station
Accidents Happen

Maybes:

She's Out of My League
Furry Vengeance (because of Brendan Fraser)
Date Night
Babies
Hot Tub Time Machines (because of John Cusak)

You couldn't pay me to watch:

I'm Still Here

A murky day

I stopped at one of the lakes in my region, but the day was so murky - my best photos turned out to be of the above daisy.

Here are five stories. Each one is true (and all happened this week) except for one was a dream. Can you guess which one?

1. I grabbed a load of dirty towels and began the walk downstairs to the basement. I smell gas. Well, I smelled that odor they add to natural gas. Ack! I stopped and went back up the stairs, dumped the towels on a chair and wondered what to do. I checked the carbon monoxide detector. Zero. Nothing. Big sigh. I waited a while and slowly descended the stairs. Nothing. Was it my imagination? I returned upstairs, grabbed the towels. I made it almost to the bottom step and the smell hit me - hard. Oh, no! I returned back up stairs, dropped the towels again and just stewed for about an hour. I did not want to embarrass myself again with the fire department. After a long time, I swallowed hard and back down the steps I went. Nothing. WTF? Oh! I figured it out! It was some odor coming from the towels. Idiot! Stupid animals that cause the smell!

2. I was driving to work and I turned to go up the hill by my house. I had my window down on the drivers side because I am ALWAYS hot. The sun burst over the hill and my windshield filled with instant fog. Between that and the bright sunshine, I could not see a thing! I was blind! There were like 20 cars coming in the other direction and one right on my rear end. I kept stopping. It is not a long hill. I kept sticking my head out my window to try to see where I was. I kept seeing that double yellow line and thinking to myself "I have to get over, I have to get over!"

3. My niece recently split with her husband of 8 years. Her husband was coming to pick some stuff up from the house one day and she called her brothers to be there with her. She has two very protective brothers. They stood talking outside the house. My nephews stayed on the other side of the street for most of the conversation. Some words were said and it got kind of ugly in front of her house. One of my nephew's busted out the window to her husband's vehicle with a ball bat. There was glass all over the road. Fortunately my niece's husband drove away without any more incident.

4. I was outside in the dark with the boxer. For some bizarre reason I did not have his harness and leash on him. We walked around the house. Nothing. I turned to tell him "Let's go back in" when a car zipped up the alley. I thought it might be my daughter, but it was my neighbor returning home. The boxer ran over to greet the car. My neighbor was backing into his yard and fast. I couldn't believe what was happening. I yelled "WAIT! WAIT!" I didn't know if I was yelling at the dog or my neighbor - I guess both. I don't remember hearing the words come out of my mouth. The boxer kept jumping all around the car as he backed in. It was so scary! And dark! I could not see. It was very frustrating.

5. While out walking the dogs one windy night, I saw something strange on the side of a building. The alley is very, very dark and I could see a strange movement. Almost like shadow puppets. This building was at the far end of the alley and I was not certain where the light was coming from. The shadow puppets kept dancing and bowing. What IS that?! I'd never seen anything like it. If there were anything strange and suspect, the dogs would growl or bark, right? RIGHT!?

Hello? Hello!

Maybe when the telephone with this type of handset came out, some folks didn't know you had to pick this hand set up to answer the telephone. Maybe they just leaned over the ringing device and barked "Hello? Hello!"

That is what I felt like trying to answer my Fascinate. Come to find out I have to slide (or swipe) the "Answer" button to actually make the connection - not PUSH the button.

My daughter had to tell me. The student has started to become the teacher. Nuts!

Wild Cherry

Car in sister 56's family. From '67.

Just trying to recover after a socking migraine that hit late this afternoon. About the same time as a severe thunderstorm went through the area. Didn't help any that I awoke at 4:00 a.m. and could not get back to sleep. I was in hyper mode all day. I had some demonstrating to do and I was really in motor mouth mode. (The headache hit much later). Many of my migraines are preceded by a huge energy rush and burst of mental explosion. I did a lot of cleaning Tuesday evening and I blabbed up a storm today.

I can remember trying to tell some ladies while leaving work that my head was splitting and I could not come up with the word "splitting". All I could think of was "cracking" and I said "My head is cracking!"

The extreme pain in the side of the left temple is gone, but it still hurts. Any sudden movements, or sounds send me over the edge. I am trying to stay up late enough to get the dogs out for their evening business so I have no accidents in the morning. At this time I hurt so bad, I really don't care about anything that might happen in the morning. I do feel bad for them, though.

Between lack of sleep, lousy weather and more personal issues - I don't have a chance against the migraine monkey.

Push

There are some things I need to get used to about this "Fascinate". I am not totally "fascinated". My first and biggest complaint is I have no way of knowing if there is a message waiting for me until I pull the phone out of sleep mode and check my screen. My daughter (Droid 2) said that she has a small tiny green light that lets her know if she has a message.

Because (contrary to most folks these days) I do not take my phone with me everywhere (like the bathroom!). I will leave it sit on my desk at work and when I return I am left wondering "Did I get a message? How will I know?" My old Razr would beep at me every 5 minutes if somebody left a message.

This "Fascinate" remains silent.

My sister called me Thursday evening. I was sitting right by the phone. It did not ring. I heard a beep and I looked to find that I had a voicemail. In fact, it said I had "missed a call". How could that be? I was sitting right here. The volume was turned up. Hmmm.

The next day at work, my brother called. The phone was ringing it's head off, I pulled it out of sleep mode and pushed the button. Nothing. It just kept ringing. And ringing. I pushed and pushed. Ack! Another "missed" call. This phone is toying with me.

I tried to call him back. I pushed and pushed - no use. It was as if an invisible shield had come over the face of the phone and was not going to respond to anything I did to it.

It beeped (or hiccuped) with a message that I had a voicemail. Then (and only then) was I able to get a response from the touchpad keyboard. I called my brother back.

I set the phone down and stared at it. It had the audacity to go to sleep.

"So THIS is how it's going to be, huh?" I gave it a stern look. I squared my shoulders and sat up in my chair.

"Bring it on bitch. I will slay this dragon."

Recipe: Potato Salad

These did not make it into my potato salad.

boiled potatoes
hard boiled eggs
green peppers sliced thin
celery sliced
grape/cherry tomatoes
sweet baby pickles sliced tiny


dressing:

salad dressing
ranch dressing
sweet pickle juice
mustard

salt & pepper


Decoration on the top:

sliced hard boiled egg
slices of tomatoes (no insides)
or sliced grape/cherry tomatoes
leafy ends of celery stalks (bright green end leaves)

I was reading a couple of recipe books at work yesterday (on my break don't ya' know) and thought that maybe I would start buying cucumber dressing to add into my potato salad. It sounded good. I usually don't purchase cucumbers, but I have added them on occasion to my potato salad. Sometimes it is hard for me to write down a recipe because I don't always use the same ingredients each time. I punch it up with whatever I have and hope for the best. LOL!

Note to self: Turn the temperature down in the refrigerator so the pickles don't freeze. Yikes!

The years fly by

It is all going by in a blur - in the end it's a wink of an eye.

Time. Hurry up and wait. It keeps on slipping... into the future. It goes by so slowly. It goes by too quickly. It goes. To be four years old, then fourteen, and then 24. There is a cavern of time between the early decades. After 34 or so, they just blur together. Mine do anyway. I lived entire lifetimes between four and 14, and then between 14 and 24. Between 24 and 34. After that I kind of stayed in one place, remained in one job, saw the same people every day. The years became a blur.

Am under the weather today. I dreamt (how about dreamed?) I was throwing up. Hmmm yes, spell checker likes dreamed much better. I awoke with a searing headache and not feeling well at all. I gag when I sneeze. I am stuffed up. My eyes hurt. I don't want to go back to bed because I will then focus on the nausea. If I stay up and do things I can keep it in the background.

I think there was more to my purchase on Monday than meets the eye. Yes, I have been looking at the various smart phones and there comes a time (like when I buy a car) when I just get tired of looking and just say "oh, just buy the damned thing! One of them, any one of them so I can get out of the misery of deciding!" Make a decision and "poof" it's over.

The fascinate has a few caveats that I am trying to learn to deal with. It kept shutting down on me (going to sleep) so I figured out how to keep it "on" for a couple more minutes. I'm sure this will be okay when I know how to use the phone, but it was kind of aggravating while I was trying to learn how to use it. At first it "pushed" my exchange e-mail and then it stopped. I re-created the setup for my work e-mail and it began "pushing" my work messages again.

Anyway, I think I was upset from Monday at work - and purchasing the new phone was supposed to make me feel better. I am guessing - but I really had been looking. A co-worker and I were given a new job to do. Our organization started a new avenue. I bulldozed through the mess and figured out how to set up the entire show. I was ready with a presentation. For about the sixth time in 15 years, we ran out of time at the meeting and my presentation was nixed - again. Barely a mention. As I mentioned above it has happened to me before. All that work and "poof" nothing. Not a word, not a mention about it. WTF?!

I also believe that is why I am throwing myself into the Ubuntu experience. I need to have something to learn to make me feel good about myself. I must stay resilient and not become recalcitrant.

Can't touch this

Without getting my fingerprints all over it. I just have to live with fingerprints. At least I got the screen protectors for it. And an extra battery. It is power-intensive.

I also have three (count them, three!) books from the library on how to configure and tweak Ubuntu. Good grief. My head just might explode with information overload this week.

The third book (Ubuntu Bible) is at work.

I am switching from a Razr (red) to the (black) Fascinate. Steep learning curve. Steep.

Celebration

I have been very busy this week-end. Lots of family came into town Friday night to celebrate sister 1956's birthday. The staff at the restaurant put these silly hats on my sister her husband and one of my brothers. I can only guess they were not entirely certain what guy she was with. Some family are still here and I have been very busy with them. No time to post. My cheeks hurt from laughing so much.

I realize how very blessed I am. I am taking full advantage and am enjoying it. I'm not wasting a precious minute.

Family

That is my maternal grandmother on the right. She died when my mom was ten. That would be 1930. So this photo was probably taken in the late 1920's.

She left my mom to be raised by her parents. She did not marry my mom's dad. She met this man many years later, married him and they had a son. She died ten days after childbirth.

I can only imagine what my mom felt since she is no longer around for me to ask. I didn't think to ask questions when I was younger.

My mom's half brother caught up with us in 1976. He came to meet his half sister and her large family. He was always talking about how lonely his childhood was and how he wished he were part of a huge family. His 80th birthday is tomorrow.

Way Back

Is that right? Way Back Wednesday? Here is one from the old family album. My sister said anytime you see a picture with my Dad's hand behind his back, he is hiding his beer. I am not born yet, so I don't suppose I am in this photo. Have a bit of a headache tonight and do not want to spend a lot of time at the computer. Ciao.

Your Labor Day

I hope your laboring is light and unencumbered today.

Burn baby, burn

Good grief it looks as if we are burning one of the chairs in this photo. Not at all. The chair was safe on the other side of the fire. This is the camp fire we build when I go to visit friends near the lake at the campsite.

It was a beautiful day (August 27th) and a lovely evening.

Barely there

I got a couple of blooms from my moonflower plant this year. One plant grew large enough. It is hiding underneath the hydrangea and protected by the huge lilac bush on the other side. It peeped through and bloomed a few times.

I have two more plants, but they don't look like they will produce any blooms this year. I am wondering when I should transplant them. I was going to try to get them back over to the western side of the house where they were when I first moved here.

I finally replaced the "coin" sized battery in my behemoth computer and the very next morning the electricity went off for about ten seconds. I was in the bathroom getting ready for work and I came out and said to myself "This is it. This is the test."

I turned the behemoth on and it started up, went straight to Windows. No "Press F2 to run setup" configuration error. It kept the date as 2010. I didn't have to change it from what it usually resorts back to - 2004. Hurray!

Not so lucky for the sub woofer. I have no sound. The sub woofer blew the new fuse I placed in it the second I turned it on. Wah! I figured a cat probably peed on the unit and short circuited it out.

I can't find anybody (locally) that works on speakers and stuff, so I may have to look north.

Running on

It is very difficult for me to get a motion picture of Slade. Canon's annoying "delay" makes me miss most of the shots I want.

In the vein of "Labor Day" I find this quite annoying, also. Fifteen years ago when my daughter was in grade school, my work day started at 8:00 a.m. It still starts at 8:00 a.m. She did not have to be at grade school until 8:30 to 8:45. I paid a sitter to watch her until it was time for her to walk the 3 blocks to the school.

I find it annoying that in my work place, the managers (who now have grade school age children) come in late every morning (after taking their child to school). And most of the time during the summer they will come in late after taking their child to football practice, or cross country training.

I won't say any more on the matter, but I needed to have my gripe time and here it is.

Oh, woe is me

Using my backup computer again. Here is a photo a month or so old with our cat Teton looking at some fish in a bowl. They are there, up near the top. The food cover we use so the fish can't jump out and so the cat can't stick it's paw in is kind of covering them.

I have my main computer down to change the battery. I got one at Radio Shack and (par for the course) got the incorrect one. I also changed the fuse in my sub woofer and promptly blew the new one out. So that means a more serious problem. I must find a place that repairs sub woofers. Oh, woe is me.

And, I have insomnia. I have been up for an hour. The dogs have been taken outside and fed. I still have some kitty litter duty but I kind of procrastinate in that area. Work has been busy in an interesting kind of way.

I hope to visit some family and an old friend this holiday week-end coming up. Labor day. Hah.