Gone On Walkabout

Gone on a walkabout. Not sure when we'll be back, could be a month, or 6, or maybe even a year or two. Life, working, playing and living seem to be of key lately...

Until we meet again, we wish you all the best in life and love.
Many a happy wonderful adventure.

See you on the flip side,
Hugs and squishes
xoxxoxoxox
Hugin and Munin.

the site should be around for a while... or maybe we will re-appear under a new incarnation. who knows, hard to tell. if you are looking for us, you might just be able to spot us on flickr...

Cheers for now.
m.

Thirty something....

Happy birthday beloved! Wishing you all the most wonderful things on your birthday love and through out the next year. May this day, and the rest of your birthday year, see you happy, loved, and surrounded by those you hold dear.

All my happiest wishes.
xoxoxo

[oh and happy 3 months too!]

World aids day

"5 people die of AIDS every minute." Think about it.

a month

Happy one month anniversary beloved of my heart.
Though it truly does not feel as if a month has gone by. Maybe a few days, but not a month ;o)

AWOL

We're still missing in action, but the deed is done, and the wedding was wonderful. It was a day spent with loved ones, that we will cherish for a long, long time.

I am not going to promise that we will be back soon, but hopefully we won't be gone for much longer.

Until we meet again.
lots of hugs and squishes

H & M

Proud & Pink

Giving a big shout out to my Mom whose walking in the "Weekend to End Breast Cancer" this weekend. Way to go!!!

A big thank you to every one who is participating, whether they are walking, sponsoring or volunteering. Words can only convey so much, but the thanks is heartfelt!

Real Science

via Steve

"'Ere, he says he's not dead. "*

We are still alive, and mostly kicking. ;o)

The wedding plans progress, minus a few misdemeanours and snags, and the weather has warmed up to a lovely dripping hotness. Not sure when we will be back, but I am hoping it will be soon.

Till then. Lots of hugs and squishes
m & h

In the meantime, to entertain you, a little Monty Python.

[battle sounds]
[Black Knight defeats a worthless-piece-of-crap-knight]
ARTHUR: You fight with the strength of many men, Sir knight.
[pause]
I am Arthur, King of the Britons.
[pause]
I seek the finest and the bravest knights in the land to
join me in my Court of Camelot.
[pause]
You have proved yourself worthy; will you join me?
[pause]
You make me sad. So be it. Come, Patsy.
BLACK KNIGHT: None shall pass.
ARTHUR: What?
BLACK KNIGHT: None shall pass.
ARTHUR: I have no quarrel with you, good Sir knight, but I must
cross this bridge.
BLACK KNIGHT: Then you shall die.
ARTHUR: I command you as King of the Britons to stand aside!
BLACK KNIGHT: I move for no man.
ARTHUR: So be it!
[hah]
[parry thrust]
[ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's left arm off]
ARTHUR: Now stand aside, worthy adversary.
BLACK KNIGHT: 'Tis but a scratch.
ARTHUR: A scratch? Your arm's off!
BLACK KNIGHT: No, it isn't.
ARTHUR: Well, what's that then?
BLACK KNIGHT: I've had worse.
ARTHUR: You liar!
BLACK KNIGHT: Come on you pansy!
[hah]
[parry thrust]
[ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's right arm off]
ARTHUR: Victory is mine!
[kneeling]
We thank thee Lord, that in thy merc-
[Black Knight kicks Arthur in the head while he is praying]
BLACK KNIGHT: Come on then.
ARTHUR: What?
BLACK KNIGHT: Have at you!
ARTHUR: You are indeed brave, Sir knight, but the fight is mine.
BLACK KNIGHT: Oh, had enough, eh?
ARTHUR: Look, you stupid bastard, you've got no arms left.
BLACK KNIGHT: Yes I have.
ARTHUR: Look!
BLACK KNIGHT: Just a flesh wound.
[Headbutts Arthur in the chest]
ARTHUR: Look, stop that.
BLACK KNIGHT: Chicken! Chicken!
ARTHUR: Look, I'll have your leg. Right!
[whop]
[ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's leg off]
BLACK KNIGHT: Right, I'll do you for that!
ARTHUR: You'll what?
BLACK KNIGHT: Come 'ere!
ARTHUR: What are you going to do, bleed on me?
BLACK KNIGHT: I'm invincible!
ARTHUR: You're a loony.
BLACK KNIGHT: The Black Knight always triumphs! Have at you!
Come on then.
[whop]
[ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's other leg off]
BLACK KNIGHT: All right; we'll call it a draw.
ARTHUR: Come, Patsy.
BLACK KNIGHT: Oh, oh, I see, running away then. You yellow
bastards! Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite
your legs off!

Unofficial/ Official Hiatus

As probably noted by the dearth of posts, we have not been updating the site with much news as of late. Due to an ever increasing demand on the part of friends for wedding information and plans, [Did you know we needed a colour theme? A colour theme! Who knew you needed a colour theme for a wedding?!? And don't get me started on the actual theme. When did one actually need a theme for a wedding?!?] and due to the fact that I am currently swamped with work. We are taking an unofficial/official hiatus from the weblog.

But! I promise, that as soon as things settle down a bit. We will be back to share our wedding plan adventures. Which should be in about a month or so...

So until then. Much hugs and squishes.
See you all soon.

M & H. or H & M. or M of H, or H of M if you please... ;o)

Of men and maps.

This is probably one of those gross generalizations that come with being a female instructor. But. Men just don't seem to want to follow simple intructions, never mind follow step by step instruction listed in a manual. No. Instead the blazestraight through, skipping lines and words, and then find themselves confounded and lost.

At which point they wail:"Why! Why is this not working?!?"

To wish I generally respond: "Did you read the instructions?"

And can you guess what they answer?

Bonne Année

Wishing you all the best of 2005.
all our love, hugs & squishes
hugin & munin

hope.

Our hope, prayers and our sincere condolences go out the those affected by the earthquakes in South East Asia.

If you can, please give.
For more links of how you can help, please go read Michele's post.

Update: Some more links for information
The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami
Tsunami mising person

Mery Kissmass!

Wishing you all the merriest of holidays, may this seasons festivities be filled with much happiness, laughter, love and joy.

Our warmest wishes to you all.
squishes, hugs and kisses
Hugin and Munin

light at the end of a long tunnel

Seven more hours till this very long work year ends. Seven more hours to holiday vacation and 10 days spent relaxing and recharging worn brain cells till the next year of work madness begins. Seven more hours till a wee bit of freedom. Wait make that 6 hrs and 58 minutes. Wahoo!

Thank you.

Thank you all so much for your felicitations and warm wishes.
*squishy hugs* and love
m.

...and it's true. I was rather grumpy. Work grumpy. And, I was whinging and moaning about head people who shall not be named, but who shall be thought of with a lot of fist shaking. And bemoaning the lack of proper direction and consideration when Hugin popped the question.

Beloved. Words alone can not begin to describe how much I love you, and how much happiness you bring into my life. You are my everything, as cheesy as that may sound. It's true.

Meatloaf

Oh good dear cheesy blast from the past. Now I got to find me CD.*tries to pretend that didn't just come out of mouth* No. No Meatloaf CDs here...

Remembering.

'Helene Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Maryse Leclair and Annie St-Arneault, all 23; Genevieve Bergeron, Anne-Marie Edward, Michelle Richard and Annie Turcotte, all 21; Barbara Daigneault and Anne-Marie Lemay, both 22; Maryse Laganiere, 25; Sonia Pelletier, 28; Maud Haviernick, 29; and Barbara Maria Klucznik, 31.'

Their courage to pursue their dreams, to enter a field that was considered the dominance of man. An inspiration for me to pursue an engineering degree.

Don't Worry

You know it's the end of the year when the entire consulting group breaks out in a cappella* of "Don't Worry be Happy."

World Aids Day*

De-mystify sex. Promote safe sex. Protection is the only solution! " - Raje, Canada. [BBC]

In short: Play Safe. Protect yourselves, and those you love.

...and i shall be the circus clown.

Overwhelmed, underpaid and in desperate need of the holiday season. So that I may take time off and regroup, and spend many an hour in the company of loved ones, snuggled up with my love, watching cheesy movies. And if I don't get said time off I have decided that I am running away to join the circus, where I can frolic, play and clown around.

In other news, you can find me here.

We have no comments today!

Comments are broken. I can not fix them without the help of an admin. The CHMOD has gone and changed itself again, much to my chagrin and vexation. If anyone knows why this is happening, or knows of a way to fix the niggling problem from re-occurring, please, and I say please with all the hope in my heart that someone has a solution drop us a line!

Update: all fixed! but... if anyone knows why...

The great closet exodus

The Great Winter Closet Exodus has begun. The bed's piled high with sweaters, turtlenecks, stockings, woollen socks, woollen pants and long underwear. The summer clothes are snugly stacked in piles at the back of the dresser, awaiting their spring release, and I. Well I think I am about ready to pack our bags and move to warmer climes, even though winter has only just begun to tickle us with her long cold fingers.

grumbley

Why?!? Why do people have a need to fix things that are not broken? Can someone tell me, please!

fuzzy navels & birthdays too.

The wonderful, astonishing, gregarious, and very dear to our hearts, Ed celebrated her birthday yesterday. Her age shall not be disclosed at this time, suffice it to say, that she doesn't look it. Ed, wishing you the best of everything. Hoping that you had a marvellously amazing fantabulous day, filled with all your hearts desires, yumminess, laughter, love and every tickly sensation in-between; fuzzy navels included. May all your wishes be granted. Many, many happy returns. Wishing you, once again, a brilliant and exuberant HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Go give her some belated birthday loving!

All our love
Hugs, squishes and smooches
h & m.

file under extreme geekiness.

Wahoo Firefox 1.0 was released today!
[Please note, however, that the site takes a while to load, seems a few people are happy about the new release ;o) ]

Googley addness.

It's mildly amusing and a little scary that an email thread about being on msn messenger brings up links for chat spyware, pc spyware, and instant messenger monitoring for companies...

Morning Frost

Soft morning light, dapples over the glittering breath of Autumn.

lunch: in a nutshell.

Ate Tonkinese soup, got rained on.
Dark skies. Reflections in puddles.
Clouds and pensive thoughts.

Trick or Treat

On a cold autumn eve, the goblins they stir. the witches on broomsticks climb high through the air. skeletons, and braggarts. zombies, and imps. all gather round, to have a good scare. stories are told and treats are exchanged. wishes of safety, and jolly good times. to all you lil' monsters, goblins and imps. a happy Halloween.

Silly coding question

I feel rather silly asking this question. But. Could someone please explain the difference between using an 'ID' and 'Class' in the DIV tag.

I've been trying to figure it out for a few months, and I know that it's simple, and I know that one allows the classification of multiples, whilst the other classifies a block, but I just can't grasp or visualize the difference.

Help.

Roped in

One of our larger projects is almost ready to go, and unlike the others it involves a lot of coding, touching up and reviewing. Somehow I have been roped in as web resource person. Don't ask how, or why, I really have no idea as to what possessed them to decree that I would be it. But here I sit, reading over long strings of code, tweaking, prodding, barely holding on as I try to get the look and feel of the product to gel.

My web skills are somewhat rusty, and my CSS skills can be described at best as 'fly by the seat of my pants'.

What I need are references; books, sites, webpages, people whose brains' [sp?. why does that not look right at all...] I can pick. Anyone have any suggestions on a good web development book, or pages?

Let's get it on...

Voting for whoopie.
It's an intresting idea, I wonder what effect it will have.

Signs

It has started: The little signs of malaise. The mild scratching of a throat. The tingling sensations of the ears. The tickling of the nose. The gathering of storm clouds in the front of my brain. All the signs that I am in for a bumpy ride, that the dreaded cold/flu imps, which ever get here first, are about to take up residence. That I will be called upon to entertain them, with moans, shivers and sneezes, until they are fat, satiated, and limp with exhaustion. The only problem is, I don’t have time to fight them off or entertain them right now!

Blarg! Autumn colds and flues, the devil take ‘em!

Feed me

Two, cheeky, impertinent, brazen little fledglings: Imperious in their demand for grub. Beaks poised upright, pursed and awaiting, as if to say, ‘What are you waiting for? Bring me my food, you lowly scullion!’

*click for full view

Ironically it was the rain drop that initially caught my attention.

bespectacled

Took some pictures this weekend, so that you may see what we see, with our new spectacles. Hugin's and mine.

afternoon musing

Jolly Rancher lollipos have an uncanny ability to stick to ones fillings, making it hard to remove said lolly from mouth and answer questions quickly. Must remember not to suck on lollipops whilst in training.

Words.

Things to say. Thoughts to scribble. But, alas, it's one of those days when I don't have enough time to find the right words to put thoughts down on paper.

Life motto...

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, Scotch in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming ~ WOO HOO what a ride!"

From a friend; source unknown.
Now there's a motto I can live by. ;o)

Public service annoucement

Wooga wooga. That is all. Thanks you.

Please go support this years Boobie-Thon. Give. Participate. Link. There are less then 48 hours left, and we are so close to exceeding last years contribution to the Komen Foundation.

Seeking: Photographic Inspiration

Been in a bit of a photo rut lately. Haven't been inspired to take any new pictures in the past few months. Need something to rouse my sleepy imagination, and rouse the sleeping artist from her slumber. So am asking you dear readers and muses to:

Think of 3 pictures you’d like to see. Things around my house, or whatever… something I can take a picture of easily. Once I have enough requests, I’ll start posting them. If I can’t, or won’t, take a picture of something you’ve requested, I’ll let you know.

Meme blatantly stolen, many moons ago, from the fantabulous Snazzykat.

world in decline.

Scary, sad and everything in between. Our world in decline.

Makes you wonder if there is any hope for us at all...

Soylent Green

coffee!

Gawds but do I need coffee this morning. And when I say need, what I really mean to say is need on the sense of a diver needing oxygen, or as a fish needs water.

The boobies are here!

The Third Annual Boobie-Thon has officially started! Go. See*. But most of all give!

Note: * is not work safe.

The Boobies are coming!

The boobies are coming! October the first marks the beginning of Breast Cancer awareness month and the Annual Boobie-Thon, the initiative and brain child of the wonderful Robyn, where a whole bunch of us get together and raise money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. If you want to get involved, participate, find out what it's all about or donate please follow this link or click below.

This year the donations are being given in the name of two bloggers who are battling the disease Sandee and Dori. Every little bit counts.

Backed by the buck.

Is it just me, or are there more important laws that need to be passed? And isn't 3 to 6 years a little excessive? Considering that there are "sexually violent predators" who get out in less time.

Une belle automne

Someone remarked the other day that up to this point, we were having a rather nice Fall. I stood there mouth gaping, mind reeling, 'Fall?' 'Surely you jest, aren't we still in the midst of Summer's warm embrace?'

A week into Fall, evidence of its beauty scattered about the streets in the majestic tones of reds, oranges and browns and I am still in denial. The summer can't be over. Can it? It must be a cruel joke that we have already hit the end of September. That the warm days of July and August are but fuzzy warm memories of moments spent by fountains, our bodies heated by the sun as it dances and plays across the soft ripples of the calming breeze.

200 things

In lieu of original content 200 things, snagged from the delectable Big Pink Cookie. For those that are curious, the things that I have done are highlighted in bold.

01. Bought everyone in the pub a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula.
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said ‘I love you’ and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Done a striptease
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Stayed up all night long, and watch the sun rise
15. Seen the Northern Lights
16. Gone to a huge sports game
17. Walked the stairs to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa
18. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
19. Touched an iceberg
20. Slept under the stars

21. Changed a baby’s diaper
22. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
23. Watched a meteor shower
24. Gotten drunk on champagne
25. Given more than you can afford to charity
26. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
27. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
28. Had a food fight
29. Bet on a winning horse
30. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
31. Asked out a stranger
32. Had a snowball fight
33. Photocopied your bottom on the office photocopier
34. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
35. Held a lamb
36. Enacted a favourite fantasy
37. Taken a midnight skinny dip
38. Taken an ice cold bath
39. Had a meaningful conversation with a beggar
40. Seen a total eclipse

41. Ridden a roller coaster
42. Hit a home run
43. Fit three weeks miraculously into three days
44. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
45. Adopted an accent for an entire day
46. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
47. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
48. Had two hard drives for your computer.
49. Visited all 50 states
50. Loved your job for all accounts - long time ago, when work meant play and fun.
51. Taken care of someone who was shit faced
52. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
53. Had amazing friends
54. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
55. Watched wild whales
56. Stolen a sign
57. Backpacked in Europe
58. Taken a road-trip
59. Rock climbing
60. Lied to foreign government’s official in that country to avoid notice

61. Midnight walk on the beach
62. Sky diving
63. Visited Ireland
64. Been heartbroken longer then you were actually in love
65. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
66. Visited Japan
67. Benchpressed your own weight
68. Milked a cow
69. Alphabetized your records
70. Pretended to be a superhero
71. Sung karaoke
72. Lounged around in bed all day
73. Posed nude in front of strangers
74. Scuba diving
75. Got it on to “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye
76. Kissed in the rain
77. Played in the mud
78. Played in the rain
79. Gone to a drive-in theatre
80. Done something you should regret, but don’t regret it.

81. Visited the Great Wall of China
82. Discovered that someone who’s not supposed to have known about your blog has discovered your blog
83. Dropped Windows in favour of something better
84. Started a business
85. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
86. Toured ancient sites
87. Taken a martial arts class
88. Swordfought for the honour of a woman
89. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
90. Gotten married
91. Been in a movie
92. Crashed a party
93. Loved someone you shouldn’t have
94. Kissed someone so passionately it made them dizzy
95. Gotten divorced
96. Had sex at the office
97. Gone without food for 5 days
98. Made cookies from scratch
99. Won first prize in a costume contest
100. Ridden a gondola in Venice
101. Gotten a tattoo
102. Found that the texture of some materials can turn you on
103. Rafted the Snake River
104. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
105. Got flowers for no reason
106. Masturbated in a public place
107. Got so drunk you don’t remember anything
108. Been addicted to some form of illegal drug
109. Performed on stage - in school plays
110. Been to Las Vegas
111. Recorded music
112. Eaten shark
113. Had a one-night stand
114. Gone to Thailand
115. Seen Siouxsie live
116. Bought a house
117. Been in a combat zone
118. Buried one/both of your parents
119. Shaved or waxed your pubic hair off
120. Been on a cruise ship

121. Spoken more than one language fluently
122. Gotten into a fight while attempting to defend someone
123. Bounced a check
124. Performed in Rocky Horror
125. Read - and understood - your credit report
126. Raised children
127. Recently bought and played with a favourite childhood toy
128. Followed your favourite band/singer on tour
129. Created and named your own constellation of stars
130. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
131. Found out something significant that your ancestors did
132. Called or written your Congress person
133. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
134. …more than once? - More than thrice?
135. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
136. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
137. Had an abortion or your female partner did
138. Had plastic surgery
139. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived.
140. Wrote articles for a large publication

141. Lost over 100 pounds
142. Held someone while they were having a flashback
143. Piloted an airplane
144. Petted a stingray
145. Broken someone’s heart
146. Helped an animal give birth
147. Been fired or laid off from a job
148. Won money on a T.V. game show
149. Broken a bone
150. Killed a human being
151. Gone on an African photo safari
152. Ridden a motorcycle
153. Driven any land vehicle at a speed of greater than 100 mph
154. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced
155. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
156. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
157. Ridden a horse
158. Had major surgery
159. Had sex on a moving train
160. Had a snake as a pet

161. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
162. Slept through an entire flight: takeoff, flight, and landing
163. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
164. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states - close, pretty close.
165. Visited all 7 continents
166. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
167. Eaten kangaroo meat
168. Fallen in love at an ancient Mayan burial ground
169. Been a sperm or egg donor
170. Eaten sushi
171. Had your picture in the newspaper
172. Had 2 (or more) healthy romantic relationships for over a year in your lifetime
173. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
174. Gotten someone fired for their actions
175. Gone back to school
176. Parasailed
177. Changed your name
178. Petted a cockroach
179. Eaten fried green tomatoes
180. Read The Iliad

181. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
182. Dined in a restaurant and stolen silverware, plates, cups because your apartment needed them. a Guinness glass...
183. …and gotten 86′ed from the restaurant because you did it so many times, they figured out it was you
184. Taught yourself an art from scratch
185. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
186. Apologized to someone years after inflicting the hurt
187. Skipped all your school reunions.
188. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
189. Been elected to public office
190. Written your own computer language
191. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
192. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
193. Built your own PC from parts
194. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
195. Had a booth at a street fair
196: Dyed your hair
197: Been a DJ
198: Found out someone was going to dump you via LiveJournal
199: Written your own role playing game
200: Been arrested

The weather part II.

Ironically enough I still can....
It feels like we have completely skipped fall and dove right into winter. Here's hoping that it warms up soon, otherwise, I think I may just pack our bags and move us down to the Bahamas.

quandry

Why is that I have a much easier time editing and writing past 3:00 pm? Why is it that before the clock strikes three my brain is but a mass of mushy peas that cannot discern the difference between a comma and a semicolon? I ask you why is it that I can sit and type, and type past said hour but beforehand nothing.

dog days.

Sitting on the subway watching the faces of people before me. Grim, wrought tired, rarely a smile. Wondering what they are doing with their lives.

September 11.

On this day, we send our thoughts and payers to all whose lives were touched on this day. We share: Our sorrow. Our memories. Our hope for a better tomorrow.

Photograph by: Thomes E. Franklin, Ground Zero Spirit.

Remember. Always.

And they are back!

We have 4 Gmail accounts to give away! If anyone's interested just leave us a comment and we'll set you up right nicely. Yes indeedily!

Just of the press: Gmail accounts to give away.

Gmail. Get your fresh hot Gmail account!We have 2 Gmails accounts to give away, so if you are interested and really, really want one, leave a comment and we'll set you up as soon as we can. Sadly it is first come first serve, until we can getses us some more.

Update: All gone!

wabbits. gone hunting.

Have been quiet and introspective, almost hermit like in my dealings with the world, a lot on my mind, much to think about. Currently, am content to sit and ponder, or veg, if the urge grabs me as it so often does in grey cloudy afternoons, and stare of into space, not really thinking of much, just letting it all coalesce in the background.

Until the answers are forthcoming I shall be off hunting wabbits. Which at the current rate means that if all gels well, regular musing should commence after the vacation. Hopefully. Much squishiness to you all. A biente.

brains, brains...brains. humdidum. brains

Egawds, someone just ate my brain....

Spiced, pickled and munched by the lovely Kymberlie.

bear news

"Great taste, less filling" and that's all we have to say about that. ;o)

Variety, they say, is the spice of life.

Been on a biography and “chic” book kick the past few weeks. As much as I enjoy reading sci-fi/fantasy, and the occasional “war book” it’s good to be able to pick up a paperback that is different from my regular pile of reads.

Am currently enjoying “She’s Not There A Life in Two Genders.” a poignant, well-written look at the life of Jenny [James] Finney Boylan.

Previously devoured in the “girly section”
The Devil Wears Prada
Confessions of a Shopaholic
The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants.

So does anyone have any biographies/”chic” reads they could suggest?

Boggled

We boggle, she boggles, he boggles, they boggle, you boggle, we're all nuts for boggle.
Caution. May contain trace of nuts. Highly addictive substance.

addiction found and nabbed from A Small Victory

Olympics.

The Olympics start tonight/today. whee!

It's Friday I'm in love*

It’s a Friday, it’s the thirteenth and it’s raining. Minus the deluge, the rest I consider to be good things. Friday, cause you know it’s Friday dude. The weekend just started and we get to kick back and relax for two days. Furthermore, considering the fact that I was convinced that today was undeniably a Wednesday, the fact that it is indeed a Friday makes it an even sweeter one. The number 13 is an all-around good number. Well, for me. Yes, I know, it’s odd. But I’m one of those strange ones who actually like the number thirteen. A good bakers dozen, how can you resist it, especially when they are fresh out of the oven and the butter melts filling the soft crevasses with yummy goodness.

So, happy Friday the thirteenth to y’all! Hope it’s a good one.

Old school: a new management system.

Caution mild rant ahead.

The “company”* has restructured, opting for the structure of yore; no more flex time, breaks to be taken when needed with no congregating, lunch will be 45 minutes, no longer or shorter and is mandatory, and vacation will be taken along with the floor, which is to say that construction holiday is in effect for all. Needless to say that the “companies” employees are none too pleased. After having gone through layoffs, to then be told that there will be much restructuring, to waiting nervously as the weeks to pass for said restructuring to occur, they are a little bewildered and shell shocked. Though I do not work directly for said company*, I am just a small little cog in their monstrous machine, I still feel perplexed by this return to company management ala old school.

In my mind it’s a structure that has never really worked. It is one that removes all liberties from the employees and strips their ability to manoeuvre their work schedules around their lives; instead they are forced to ensure that their life schedule doesn’t interfere with work. It also does not make for an environment that is conducive to concept and engineering design. Most designers and engineers that I know usually will take vacation time just before burnout.

When pressed as to why they had to chosen to go the pre-teamster route, their manger had only this to offer.” It is easier for me to manage everyone’s schedules this way”. This is of course regardless of the fact that half the employees have three weeks or more vacation time per annum. As to when they can take that extra week, well anytime they please. So much for easy management…

Hippy

Have been feeling decidedly hippy the past few weeks and even though my hips have not spread from their oval’ish size, I can’t help but feel as if they are huge round things that demand attention as I walk down the street, up the stairs and weave down the hallway. They swish, they sashay, they flounce and when paired with a skirt or dress, well, they just get out of hand. Looking down at them they glare back up, and defiantly puff themselves to appear bigger then they are as if to say ‘Yeah babe, we be your hips, we are round, we’re happy and we love to prance about. What you going to about it? Eh?’

It’s weird when this happens. When a body part becomes the focal point of your attention and for some bizarre reason they take a on a personality of their own, appearing larger the life. It’s strange how when this happens you can’t help but stare at others people hips, or butts, or breasts, or hands, or feet: noting how theirs move; comparing; cataloguing; and debating if yours are ‘normal’ or if they are anomalous creatures that crept through the window one night and attached themselves to your body.

Belated Aussie b-day

On Sunday, it came to pass that the buoyant, cheerful, vibrant Oz Boy said goodbye to his twenties and joined the kvetchy 30 & something group. Gone are the sun dappled days of chasing young lithe 20 years olds [cough 19 year olds cough], the long hard nights of partying till dawn and the ability to bounce out of bed, awake, jubilant, wide eyed and bushy tailed after having partaken in such an event. As they say it’s all down hill from here. ;o) Welcome to the achy joints, stiff muscles , general malaise and “The Hangovers”. Of the things to look forward to, the inability to remember where they heck you put the house keys, definitely tops my list, especially when you finally realize that you are holding them in your hands…

Wishing you the happiest of birthdays dearest friend. Hoping that that the day was filled with all that your heart desired, that it was spent in the company of good friends, and those you loved were with you, even if only in thought. Many, many happy returns. May this year bring you much laughter, love and happiness, with the promise of many more to come.

Our biggest squishes, and love
belated birthday wishes once again
us.
[you remember the people who your forgot to stuff in your bags and schlep with you to Oz land!]

Home sweet home

Back. After 10 days and three courses. Back home to my love, happiness and snuggliness and I ain't going anywhere for a while. No way, no how. [please let these not be famous last words] Tonight. Snuggles, and luxuriating in the yummy feeling of being at home. Details on the trip, its ups and downs later in this week. Right now am just happy to be home, in my own office sitting on my own chair next to my love!

sleepy good

Five hours on a train, three hours waiting at a bus terminal followed by four hours on a bus makes for a very sleepy Munin. Going to bed at 1:00 only to wake up at 6:45 makes for a very groggy woozy Munin. So tonight, it's room service, a hot shower, a soft bathrobe, a quick review, some mindless TV and an early nights sleep.

Nini. Sweet dreams to you all.
[squishes]
m.

Garlic

Piquant. Spicy. Savoury. A little zing. Adding hint of flavour to what would be a dull meal. Alas, if taken in large quantity leaves you sitting in a corner, hand over mouth as you try not to breathe in anyones direction. Unless of course it is shared.

Strawberries, Asian pears and a lazy saturday afternoon

We spent the late afternoon lazy about house, reading, listening/watching movies and playing with fruit. Oldish nearly fuzzy strawberries and firm Asian pears to be exact. After snapping twenty shots of strawberries in black and white I can say, with authority, that they look better in colour. Here are a few snaps from this afternoon endeavour:

Strawberries...

... & Asian Pears

And, can I say for the record, thank the gods for digital. I don't think I would be willing to shoot 104 pictures of fruit if I was playing with film.

Mood music.

Sad music makes for a very melancholy workday. I should really find more upbeat stuff to listen to at work. Anyone got any suggestions?

Querry: Yo! Oz boy, do you know where my Hacker CD disappeared to? Do you have it? Or am I completely senile, and it is in fact sitting right under my nose.

Update: Listening to the Top Gun soundtrack. It makes for very silly work music and leaves one with the irrational desire to watch the movie over and over again.

Disillusioned.

Not sure if it is due to the fact that I need a vacation, that I am just a little bone tired or if the rose tinted glasses have finally fallen off, but work no longer holds it’s allure. In short, I am fed up with the lack of communication, the last minute notice, the miscommunication, the last minute layoffs and the lack of common courtesy or basic recognition that employees are human too from those who call themselves upper, upper management*.

A friend told me months ago, when the whinging began, that I should find a better job. Close to 11 months later I am at the point where I see the wisdom of his words. So anyone out there looking for an engineer/trainer/designer, who’s afraid to fly and thus won’t travel for the company unless it’s by train, but who’s willing to work hard, and will occasionally give up a Saturday to make sure that projects are delivered on time?

Sodium Free

How can a drink claim to be sodium free, when they list sodium at 2.3mg/200ml in their ingredients list? It boggles the mind it does.

Photo Friday: Clouds

Fluffy white. Dark Grey. Golden. Sunset red. Wispy fairies in the sky. Streaks across a canvas, painted in water vapour. Whatever their consistency, shape or colour, clouds are one of my favourite things to photograph.

Happy Canada Day!

To all ye Kunucks, whether ye be in Canada or in other remote/not so remote regions of the world. Happy Canada day! Hope you all have a wonderful one!

Cheers!

Stolen from Steve, 'cause we love it so much. "I am a Canadian, eh!"

muggles welcome.

JK Rowling's finally announced the title of her new book, and I am hoping that it will be out by next year...

On a side note, has anyone checked out her site lately?

Contrition

I have been a little remiss the past few days, not posting, not responding to emails or to the comments here and not adding comments elsewhere. Truly there is not much of an excuse that I can give for this, have fallen into a rut and have found myself in a retrospective, contemplative unvocal mood. [This will hopefully change soon]

So, to all you wonderful people to whom I owe emails, little love notes and inane blatherings [which I am very good at] thank you for your patience, kindness and understanding. I apologize for the delay and I promise that I’ll email you all by the end of this week. Ok? If I don’t you have full permission to nag, pester and tickle me.

As for the left comments and responses, I should be back to my quirky self soon and when I am I promise to leave little notes and oddities once in a while, which will hopefully make you smile and feel squishable.

Barrels o’ squishes,
A rather apologetic munin.

Courage.

I met a man today, while waiting at the passport office: Soft spoken, polite, and one whom I would have no problem calling honourable and courageous. A naturalized Canadian citizen he was born in Iraq and fled the country for a better life 25 years ago. In a couple of weeks he is going back to see family that he left behind, to rekindle old ties with childhood friends, to pay respect to those he left, morn those he lost and to work as a translator for the Canadian Government. My first question was, why? Followed closely by, aren’t you afraid? And how is your family coping with this?

He replied, that for him it is a matter of honour. That he does not want sit back as others who have no vested interest in his homeland, who have no ties to the land, fight for a better life for his people. That he wants to give back to his family, so that they may one day live in a world as free as he has known here. As for being afraid, the answer is yes. But that you never know what life will bring, that you can as easily be killed while crossing the street. That his family was terrified, but that this is something he has to do.

Sir. May the gods keep you out of harms way, may they always keep your feet firmly planted on the path that is sound and secure. May they guard you in times of danger. May they bring you back home to your family, safe and sound.

Little Life lessons: Courtesy of a walkabout taken a few weeks back.

If someone tells you that your destinations is only 20 minutes away, nod, smile and multiply that number by a factor of 3. Cause no matter how small that little hill looks from a distance it will grow exponentially as you trudge your weary way up it.

Knee braces are good. Knee braces are your friends. Knee braces are especially good for long, long walks. So why the heck did you leave it in your drawer. Hmmm?

Stay out of the way of mallards, especially if there are four of them who are chasing after the sole female in the park.

Botanical gardens can be fun, and are renown for serving up huge honking sundaes.

If you are going to walk for long extended period of times, make sure that your youngest sister is not wearing her 3-inch heeled boots, no matter how much she protests that she is way to short and that this way she can feel tall.

It is always good to charge camera batteries the night before you are going on a walkabout. ‘Cause you never know when that amazing shot of someone sticking a spoonful of ice-cream up their nose is going to happen, and really you want to make sure you get that shot.

Labyrinths are fun, especially when there are slides and crawl spaces and people spraying water. Next time though, make sure to tell your beloved that the adventure is going to take more than 15 minutes so that they won’t sit outside for and hour and a bit wondering if you have gotten seriously lost. Also, wear long sleeved shirt when sliding down slides that take a huge dip, failing that make sure you have lots of Band-Aids for scarped elbows, wrists and knees.

Time spent in the company of loved ones, meandering about, laughing and giggling is priceless.

Snazzykat

The wonderful Eka is celebrating her birthday today. Wishing you a wonderful and happy birthday sweetpea! Hope you have an incredible day, filled with much love, laughter and happiness. May all your hearts desires be granted. May all your dreams come true. Wishing you many, many happy returns! Sending you all our big squishy birthday hugs and love.
SQUISH!
us.

Go give her lots of birthday loving.

Fathers.

You taught us how to ride bikes. You tended scrapes knees when we fell. You were there when we needed a hug, a word of advice and provided a ear to listen to our qualms. You kept the monsters away and our fears at bay. You are a best friend, when you don't embarrass us and our greatest advocate. You have provided advice, and have been the calm voice of reason. Thank you for all you have given us. Thank you for the love, the laughter and for not wearing your socks pulled all the way up to your knees, or wearing sandals with black socks. But most of all thank you for being you. All our love goes out to those we have been fortunate enough to call dad.

Wishing all the fathers out there a happy and wonderful father's day.

flower parts

It's good to have a lazy morning after a long day of moving family. Hugin's still snuggled up in bed, nursing sore and tired muscles. I am up and about, puttering about the flat, drinking coffee and snapping pictures of almost everything in site. Here are a few of some Casa Blanca lilies that we picked up last week, and that the cat managed to knock over this morning.

moi, me, mi!

Seen a while, erm make that a long while ago at the delectable Dagoddess: Me and You~ A Meme.

1. Who are you?
2. Are we friends?
3. When and how did we meet?
4. Do you have a crush on me?
5. Would you kiss me?
6. Describe me in one word.
7. What was your first impression?
8. Do you still think that way about me now?
9. What reminds you of me?
10. If you could give me anything what would it be?
11. How well do you know me?
12. When's the last time you saw me?
13. Ever wanted to tell me something but couldn't?
14. Are you going to put this on your [blog] and see what I say about you?

Anxiety.

I learnt today that I may have to travel to the States for business and that I may have to either fly or drive to get there. At first when asked my immediate response was yes. The idea of training abroad was an alluring one. I thought yeah, it would be good to do that again. Two hours later, and I am in full blown anxiety attack. I can’t do this; I just can’t drive down to the states, on my own, let alone fly. I don’t want to travel for work anymore and I don’t know how to tell my bosses this. I am sitting here dry-mouthed, a lump in my throat, on the verge of tears, praying that the course will be cancelled and trying to figure out how to tell them that the traveling is something I no longer want to do. Not for work. Not on my own. And I worry that if I make it clear that I no longer want to travel, that I will no longer be a valuable employee and thus may lose my job. But, I just can’t do this anymore. The anxiety and fears are just too much.

Heading Out West

My sister and her best friend left this morning for greener pastures, heading out to West Canada to frolic amongst the Rockies. They have been gone all of 6 hours and already I miss them. Five days is really not enough time to catch up with siblings. Sigh. Hopefully we’ll see them again soon. And hopefully it won’t take us another 4 years to see them.

Wishing you both a safe and amazing trip. Enjoy every moment of it. Lots of squishy hugs. Miss ya much ‘lil Sis. And don’t go growing up on me so fast; I don’t think my aging heart can handle the shock. ;o)

Note to self # 1273

When scuffling in the dark to find bathrobe in the middle of the night so that your bladder can finally find relief and not explode on you as you lay in bed dreaming of weird and odd imaginings, do not shuffle head on into the clothes hanger dryer thingy and graze your index toe removing a layer of skin from its side. This is very painful and rather nasty thing to do to your poor toes your carry your weight about all day long.

Furthermore, once you have finally made it to the bathroom, after having performed the one foot hop of pain, so that you may tend to said injured toe; do not drop the tube of Polysporin on your other foot.

Something tells me that today's going to be a very long day.

Be vewy, vewy quite. We’re hunting wabbits.

My sister and her best friend popped in at the end of the week for a short visit and as such we have been dragging them about town, showing them the sights and haven’t been at home much to post. It’s been a good few years since I have seen her last, and it’s incredible how much she has grown in that time. I just can’t get over it. It's amazing how time passes so quickly and how when you are busy going about your own day to day life, siblings just shoot up around you. And when you finally get a breather from the day to day drudgery of work you realize just how much has happened and how much they have grown... Speaking of time, we got to run. We are showing her the other side of the city today. Will be back soon with some more stories and maybe some pictures. Until then lots of squishes to you all.

Mine!

I caved in today and bought the sandals today. They are soft, amazing light, deliciously comfortable and I can’t wait to prance about in them. Here’s hoping that the warm weather we’ve been having holds up so I can do just that!

shoes

Saw a yummy pair of comfortable sandals the other day, in a colour that was not black*. I should say they looked comfy; the leather was soft, subtle and silky. The sun is out, the weather is warm and I am sitting in a state of tortured contemplation, wondering if I should splurge and buy said comfy looking shoes, or if I should save my pesos for a rainy day.

[Though I really, really want them… silliness it is, I know, but I just can’t resist the temptation of a good shoe. Especially a soft strappy one.]

Hic a choo

One has to question which gods they have offended when they are caught in a bout of hiccups and sneezes that has thus far lasted an hour. Anyone got any good tricks for getting rid of hiccoughs? Hugin‘s been trying to scare me for the last half hour; sneaking up behind me and poking me, tickling me, yelling boo, rubbing my tummy and back, to no avail.

Rock meet Munin

Finding myself in a non-verbal mood these past few days. The effect of not having much to say due to the fact that I find myself caught between a rock and a hard spot at work. A hard spot that involves the trudging on of feet, the unwillingness to do so and the loss of any coherent thought on how to handle the matter, which in turn just makes me want to find a dark shadowy corner to hide in. If they can’t see me, the rock and the hard spot will go away. Right?

Blech. I really hate being in these situations.

Photo Friday: Black & White.

Late for the ball again. This is getting to be a habit, and not a very good one, the tardiness that is. Ah well, will see if we can break the habit before the next week is up... The following picture was taken last year on a warm, happy sunny day.

Black & White

Superhero extraordinaire.

There are days when I wish I were a superhero, fighting for the good of the world; amazing powers, secret identity, sexy dark form fitting outfits at my disposal and a smidgen of angst thrown in to make things interesting. There are the days when I wish I could hide behind a mask and cape, venture out into the dark and kick some villains’ butts’ vigilante style. And then there are days when I yen for the grace of some styling martial artist, those ever elusive masters who walk on walls and paralyse you with just a touch. Grace, power and discipline their garments of choice.

When it comes down to choosing what my mutant powers would be, I am never quite sure what would suite my alter ego. None of my current special abilities seem to do. Not the clumsy walking into walls, or the oafish way I swagger, or the butterfingered methods I use to grasp delicate breakable objects.

Telepathy, supernatural healing, superhuman strength, the ability to fly, to form ice from the barest hint of humidity, to crawl up walls, to control the weather or peoples minds, to disappear into thin air, to become invisible. My mind toys with each of these options, weighing, measuring, and pondering the pros and cons.

Would telepathy drive me to the brink of insanity, all the thoughts clambering at the walls of my subconscious, trying to make themselves heard. Would supernatural healing suffice or should it really be coupled with superhuman strength? Do I really want to be able to play with moisture, forming great spires/ towers of ice by thought alone or would fire be more suited to my character? Would I feel comfortable with the ability to control the thoughts of those around me, bending their will to my needs, hiding truths, blurring reality ever so slightly to protect them, or would my conscious be constantly wracked with guilt. In retrospect, perhaps it would be much easier to control the weather, less guilt involved. Do I want to soar high above the clouds, or would I much prefer to crawl up wall, a spider in the dark. And do I really have to stick to one superpower, or can I just select a multitude of them.

So, given the choice, which superpowers would you opt for

rain and laundry

Why is it that on cold, rainy days all you really feel like doing is staying in and doing laundry? Is it some sort of deep seeded response, or is it just me?

Photo Friday: Macro

I love taking macro shots. There is something about delving into the minute details of flowers and other objects that appeals to my very geeky nature. So one would think that last weeks Photo Friday Challenge would be right up my ally, and that I would have no troubles what so ever finding a shot that would fill the requirements. Alas, after countless hours of up close and personal photography, after many more hours of looking through old photographs to see which one I liked best, I finally settled on the first macro shot that I took with our new [now one year old] toy.

Choices.

Given the choice between training people who try hard, but who take a long, really long, did I say really long, time to grasp concepts, and sitting in front of a computer for two hours, twiddling thumbs waiting for a drawing to load up; I’ll take the students, any day, anytime, no matter how many times I have to explain how they can use the middle mouse button (no! not the left button, the middle one. M.I.D.D.L.E. one!!!) to spin the model.

[Sheesh. Can we say run on sentence. Must really learn to break thoughts up into snack-sized bites.]

Addlebrained

Not only did I manage to set off the alarm this morning as I entered the office, but in the process of trying to shut the bloody thing off, I managed to lock myself out of the office. All I can say is thank the gods for people who are early, who have cell phones so one may call the alarm company to tell them that truly it’s only a false alarm; “No, we really don’t need the police, honestly sir. No. This is not a robbery. Would I bother to call you if it was? Erm. Yes sir. Yes, I’m sure I belong here. Yes, that’s right, I’m the one you spoke to last week, when this happened, umm…” and who have keys to let you back into the office where all your worldly possession of note, your keys and identification are sitting, happily, on the desk where you left as you made a mad dash for the door. Mostly, thanks to those people, who after having witnessed you complete and utter stupidity, do not rub in the fact that you are quite addlebrained.

my white legs...

..or why we should move to a warmer country.

*Click for supersize. Though please be warned, sunshades may be required

We spent a good part of the afternoon outside yesterday. The sun, despite the weather man's prediction of rain, and more rain, decided to grace us with its glorious presence and who are we, being but mere mortals, to argue with the sun. So out we went to relax and enjoy the soft caresses of the warm spring rays.

And, before you ask: Yes, the picture is real, yes it's unaltered, and yes my skin is that white. One may almost say, I glow in the dark…

Why?!?

Why is it that when you finally get a nice long weekend, after months and months of waiting for those happy summery weekends, that the weather suddenly decides that after a week of glorious sunshine, rain should be in the forecast? Why?!? [petulant pout]

MT Usage

The lovely people at Six Apart have asked movable type users to expound on how they use MT. So with out further ado…

We currently run the following blogs using Movable type:

1. Our main site: Hugin and Munin and our Photoblog: We also have a Blog that is used for archival purposes, in such it does not count towards the active blog clause, and a private unpublished blog that is used that we use for our own thoughts. Each of these has Hugin and myself listed as the authors.

2.We are currently also hosting 4 other blogs, with a total of 5 authors, for friends and family. Two of these are low traffic blogs, which appear on the public domain, and are open to all. The other two are private blogs for friends who are abroad, and are used as a way to keep in touch with their family and friends. These is a password protect, and do not appear on the public domain.

3. Occasionally I will set up a test blog, which I use to test out various schemes and plugins before implementing those changes into existing blogs.

4. Finally we are hoping to add a group blog with about 6-8 users for a bunch of friends in the near future.

Adding all of the above brings us up to a grand total of 8 blogs and 7 authors (9 blogs if you count the test blogs and a hell of a lot more authors if you count the number of times I add myself to a blog for config. purposes] with a possibility of 9 blogs and 15 users in the near future. All the sites listed above are personal sites and all are non-commercial, non-profit sites that do not make any money.

Looking at the current licensing scheme, this would mean that we would have to shell out $119.00 ($164.00 Canadian) minus the donation we have made in the past right now or $149.95 with a possibility of paying $169.95 ($232.98 Canadian) in the future if we set up the group blog.

I love using movable type, and would be happy to pay for MT. But I find the current prices to be a little steep and, to put it frankly; I will not be able to afford them if we ever make the switch from 2.661 to 3.0.

[If asked what we would be willing to pay, we would be more then happy to shell out 50 to 60 USD, for unfettered use of movable type, or a licensing scheme that wasn't so restrictive or costly.[Something along the lines of 5$ for a blog and author]]

Irony...*

Life's full of little ironies... subtle and inconspicuous they pounce when least expected. Some days, they lightly nudge you as you walk down the sidewalk, a featherweight touch upon your shoulder; other days they slam into you, a Mac truck throttling full speed ahead, headlights blaring, tires screeching as they knock you onto your back.

just call me phlemy.

I have been babbling on, at top speed, for the past three days. Explaining concepts, software utility and methods of use to a group of eager students. My throat is raw, my voice is nasally, and I have the most uncomfortable stuffed sinus feeling that sits at the back of my throat and makes talking a chore. Is it just me or does everyone get the phlegmy, stuffed, nasally, frog stuck in the back of their throat feeling when they jabber consistently for days at a time?

Goddess

Da Goddess is celebrating her Birthday today. Wishing you an absolutely fabulous Birthday Sweetheart! Hoping that the day is filled with lots of love, laughter and delectable giggly moments. Wishing you many, many happy returns dear, and all the most wonderful things for the upcoming year.

Big squishes, hugs and kisses!
Lots o' love
us.

Now get over there y'all and give her lots of yummy birthday loving.

tea for two.

Some people have the strangest priorities: "I'd rather have a cup of tea than go to bed with someone - any day " - Boy George.

So how do you make the perfect cuppa?

piXar

Want to see this movie. I wanna see it. Wanna. Wanna. Wanna! Now please.

summer afternoon

Sun's finally out, the weather’s warm and smacks of summer. Fighting the urge to take the rest of the day off, to sit near a fountain, face upturned, quietly enjoying the sun soft rays as they dance of the water and caress my skin. [Contented sigh] Think I am going to succumb to the urge, too beautiful a day to be cooped up inside… In two more hours, if you need me, I’ll be the one near the fountain.

Photo Friday: Play

There is something very special about a father's relationship with their son. A connection unspoken, that mere words cannot describe and a picture can barely capture.

GiddyUp!

Perils of an unblocked bathtub.

The concierge, who is our bathtub plunging knight in shining armour; sorry love, you’re good, but he…my god, he managed to unclog our drain in forty-five minutes! A drain, I must add, that was clogged for a month. A month! Yes that would be 31 days and if you really want to be a stickler 31 days and some odd hours. A drain that stayed clogged no matter how much Draino we poured down its unwilling pipes. A drain that stayed blocked no matter how much you or I spent in attendance, on hands and knees, bent over groaning as we diligently pumped and pushed a rather frazzled plunger. But, last night, after only forty-five minutes, our bunged up duct was freed allowing the water to slosh in its carefree way down a drain that had for a month titillated it with evil impish glee.

This morning however, after having gotten used to water that rose with every drip of the showerhead, I waited for the water to rise to my ankles. My sign that it is time to vacant the porcelain white enclosure and face the rest of the world. Ten minutes past, that water stayed low. Fifteen minutes my toes are still in the air. Twenty minutes when I realized that that the drain, finally clear, was sucking down with great gusto my signal to leave. Late and late to work, the only explanation I could give was that my water signal had gone all decoct and that I had dallied a little too long getting ready in the morning.

The moral, my friends, is to never depend on a system that might one day be set free.

doughnut history.

It dawned on me yesterday, after a decade and a half, yes that’s 10 and 5 years, of munching on Tim Horton’s doughnuts and guzzling their coffee, that the hockey legend and the founder are the same. You’d think that I would have figured this out eons ago, being Canadian and all that jazz. But no. Blissfully unaware and unconcerned I would munch on my doughnuts, never curious as to why the name was so familiar. [Hangs head in shame] Well now I know, so if you’ll excuse me there’s an old fashioned plain calling my name.

toys!

I have this strong inexplicable desire to spend money on toys. My inner child is in full tantrum mode, beating its little fits upon the floor of illogical desire, and screaming impetuously for toys! Toys damn it. It wants toys, and it wants them now!

It’s odd, but the need for toys always seems to come when I have the least amount of cash available for frivolous expenditure. It is almost as if my psyche can’t cope with the notion that there is no money in the bank for toys, and thus, petulantly it pouts and demands the very thing it can’t get. So toys it wants, and toys I have been looking at. First through a link provided by the delectable delicious Da Goddess, and then because, well I am a geek at heart who loves her cubicle goodies, I ventured over to Thinkgeek.com, and salivated sulkily at the yummy toys in their repertoire.

So if anyone is feeling generous... cough there are 79 days left till my birthday cough ...these little gems will do me quite fine: a b c d e

Mothers.

I grew up with a mother who bunked convention at every turn. She never adhered to the traditional role of what a mother should be. The old age view that a mother should only be the caretaker of the family, the person who raises the children, a docile wife and the iron fisted ruler of the kitchen [not quite traditional that last one, but I couldn’t resist]. A mother, she would say, has more potential in the world then this. Instead, my mother was[and is to this day] an adventurer, a career woman, a world traveler, a photographer and architect, an artist, a friend and confident, a soother of ills, a protector, a nightmare banisher, the person who would comfort me when my world was falling apart, a single mother, a wife and iron fisted ruler of the kitchen ;o) She gave me a view of the world that is bigger then the walls of our home, and taught me that there is nothing that I could not accomplish.

Wishing our mothers and all the mothers out there a wonderful day. Thank you for all that you have given us. Thank you for the love. The laughter and the joy you have brought into our lives.

adventures in income tax.

Canadian Income taxes were due last week. April the 30th to be exact, and for the past week and a half, I have tried without success to mail in the required income tax returns. Everyday, upon leaving the house, a little thought bubble appears, hovering right above my left hemisphere, whispering urgently in my ear. ‘Mail in your tax returns, woman! Remember you must mail ‘em in!’ Everyday, I nod and say, ‘Yes. Must get that done today. Must remember to mail them in.’ And everyday, without fail, I forget my little promise to the thought bubble as soon as my foot touches the pavement outside our flat. In a puff it is gone and I go about my day oblivious to the promise I made to get the task done. Today seems to be no exception.

Ventured outside for an early morning stroll. The little thought bubble whispering imperatively in my ear, excited by the prospect of meeting the shiny red mailbox that inhabits the corner of a street a few blocks down. Nodding to it, I gathered my stuff and headed off in the direction of the mailbox. Five minutes later, the thought bubble and I, high on the euphoria of finally remembering to find a mailbox, approached it with glee. Yanking its lid open, I riffled through my bag to find that the returns were not there. Frantic I searched, only to remember that I had not placed them in my bag, but had left them on the front entry hall table. Having failed in our quest to finally mail those dagnabitbastardly income tax returns, the thought bubble and I, slunk home feeling quite dejected.

Hopefully we’ll have better luck next time.

Photo Friday: Natural

Last week's Photo Friday challenge, was the word “natural”. For the past week I have spent hours perusing old photos and wrecking little particles of brain matter to find an appropriate subject that is representative of the word natural. Alas, the French in me keeps going back to the phrase “au naturel”. So without further ado, here is our submission for last weeks challenge.

Au Naturel

cold weather and the leaky eye syndrom

Whenever the weather is cold and the winds kicks up, whipping frigid gusts of artic humidity into my face, without fail my eyes begin to leak. And by leak I do not mean a few dainty drops of moisture that cling alluringly to my eyelashes. No. When I say leak, I mean great big gobs of water seeping through squinted lids, dripping past lashes, running down the edge of my nose, tickling my cheeks as they rush towards my chin, where they finally plunge to the ground, splattering little children who carelessly skip by. Strangers in the street stop and stare. While other brave souls will venture close to offer some comfort, only to be told, ‘It’s the cold wind, kind sir/madame. It’s the cold wind.’

un cheveu sur la langue

Giving training in French this week. And though I am somewhat proficient in French, I always find that when I try and translate concepts from one language to the next I automatically lose the ability to convey what I mean in either language. My brain becomes tongue-tied, and my tongue trips all over itself. Gah!

Vices

It has been my experience that those with no vices have very few virtues. - Abraham Lincoln.

I am a woman of few vices. I don't smoke, rarely binge, but what I lack in quantity I hope I make up for in quality:

Dark chocolate fondues. Spicy toddies on a cold winter's day. Hot chocolate laced with baileys. Black leather boots, pulled up to the knee. Strappy leather sandals. Books, magazine and doodles on paper. Late night movies and sappy romance stories. Bubble baths. Long hot showers. Water sluicing down bodies, caught up in humid steamy moments.

Sex. Or for the romantics out there, making love. Almost made the list. But, frankly I don’t see it as being a vice, sinful as some may consider that to be.

And you, what are your vices?

more books.

Fuzziness of spirit, the weariness of mind, leaves the tongue bewitched. Silent. Slumbering in the dark cave known as the mouth. The fingers left to their own devices, dance along the keyboards, searching. Vacant eyes staring, flash occasionally with mild amusement. The quest for actual content continues… Until found, books.

Top 100 Sci-Fi Books
Rank Author/Editor Title Year
1 Herbert, Frank Dune 1965
2 Card, Orson Scott Ender's Game [S1] 1985
3 Asimov, Isaac Foundation [S1-3] 1951
4 Adams, Douglas The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy [S1] 1979
5 Orwell, George Nineteen Eighty-Four 1949
6 Heinlein, Robert A The Moon is a Harsh Mistress 1966
7 Simmons, Dan Hyperion 1989
8 Heinlein, Robert A Stranger in a Strange Land 1961
9 Gibson, William Neuromancer 1984
10 Le Guin, Ursula K The Left Hand of Darkness 1969
11 Card, Orson Scott Speaker for the Dead [S2] 1986
12 Niven, Larry Ringworld 1970
13 Asimov, Isaac [C] I, Robot 1950
14 Zelazny, Roger Lord of Light 1967
15 Brin, David Startide Rising [S2] 1983
16 Miller, Walter M A Canticle for Leibowitz 1959
17 Clarke, Arthur C Rendezvous With Rama 1973
18 Haldeman, Joe The Forever War 1974
19 Bradbury, Ray [C] The Martian Chronicles 1950
20 Clarke, Arthur C Childhood's End 1954
21 Niven & Pournelle The Mote in God's Eye 1975
22 Pohl, Frederik Gateway 1977
23 Heinlein, Robert A Starship Troopers 1959
24 Stephenson, Neal Snow Crash 1992
25 Le Guin, Ursula K The Dispossessed 1974
26 Bradbury, Ray Fahrenheit 451 1954
27 Bester, Alfred The Stars My Destination 1956
28 Clarke, Arthur C 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968
29 Vinge, Vernor A Fire Upon the Deep 1991
30 Bester, Alfred The Demolished Man 1953
31 Brunner, John Stand on Zanzibar 1969
32 Brin, David The Uplift War [S3] 1987
33 Wolfe, Gene The Shadow of the Torturer [S1] 1980
34 Keyes, Daniel Flowers for Algernon 1966
35 Sturgeon, Theodore More Than Human 1953
36 Wells, H G The Time Machine 1895
37 Huxley, Aldous Brave New World 1932
38 Simak, Clifford Way Station 1963
39 Asimov, Isaac The Caves of Steel 1954
40 Dick, Philip K Ubik 1969
41 Dick, Philip K Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 1968
42 Robinson, Kim Stanley Red Mars 1992
43 Dick, Philip K The Man in the High Castle 1962
44 Wells, H G The War of the Worlds 1898
45 Asimov, Isaac The Gods Themselves 1972
46 Cherryh, C J Downbelow Station 1981
47 Banks, Iain M Player Of Games 1988
48 Stephenson, Neal The Diamond Age 1995
49 Niven & Pournelle Lucifer's Hammer 1977
50 Bujold, Lois McMaster Barrayar 1991
51 Simak, Clifford [C] City 1952
52 Farmer, Philip Jose To Your Scattered Bodies Go 1971
53 Willis, Connie Doomsday Book 1992
54 Heinlein, Robert A Time Enough For Love 1973
55 Forward, Robert L Dragon's Egg 1980
56 Wyndham, John The Day of the Triffids 1951
57 Dick, Philip K The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch 1964
58 Heinlein, Robert A Have Space-Suit - Will Travel 1958
59 Burroughs, Edgar Rice A Princess of Mars [S1] 1912
60 Clarke, Arthur C The City and the Stars 1956
61 Clarke, Arthur C The Fountains of Paradise 1979
62 Anderson, Poul Tau Zero 1970
63 Silverberg, Robert Dying Inside 1972
64 Powers, Tim The Anubis Gates 1983
65 Smith, E E 'Doc' Grey Lensman [S4] 1951
66 Vonnegut, Kurt Slaughterhouse Five 1969
67 Heinlein, Robert A The Puppet Masters 1951
68 Heinlein, Robert A Citizen Of the Galaxy 1957
69 Verne, Jules 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 1870
70 Lem, Stanislaw Solaris 1961
71 Bear, Greg Blood Music 1985
72 Harrison, Harry The Stainless Steel Rat [S1] 1961
73 Varley, John Titan 1979
74 Heinlein, Robert A The Door Into Summer 1956
75 Cherryh, C J Cyteen: The Betrayal [S1] 1988
76 Pohl & Kornbluth The Space Merchants 1953
77 Asimov, Isaac The End Of Eternity 1955
78 Benford, Gregory Timescape 1980
79 Cherryh, C J Cuckoo's Egg 1985
80 Wyndham, John The Chrysalids 1955
81 Burgess, Anthony A Clockwork Orange 1962
82 Verne, Jules Journey to the Center of the Earth 1864
83 Delany, Samuel R Dhalgren 1975
84 Schmitz, James H The Witches Of Karres 1966
85 Blish, James [C] Earthman, Come Home 1955
86 Vonnegut, Kurt Cat's Cradle 1963
87 Bear, Greg Eon 1985
88 Ellison, Harlan [ed] [A] Dangerous Visions 1967
89 Ellison, Harlan [C] Deathbird Stories 1975
90 Gibson, William [C] Burning Chrome 1986
91 Brunner, John The Sheep Look Up 1972
92 Banks, Iain M Use of Weapons 1990
93 Dickson, Gordon Dorsai (vt The Genetic General) 1960
94 Wells, H G The Invisible Man 1897
95 Niven, Larry [C] Neutron Star 1968
96 Blish, James A Case of Conscience 1958
97 Strugatsky, Arkady & Boris Roadside Picnic 1972
98 Shelley, Mary Frankenstein 1818
99 Delany, Samuel R Babel-17 1966
100 van Vogt, A E The World of Null-A 1948

books and more books.

Plucked from the web of Steve.
Copy this list, highlight the texts you've read, and pat yourself on the back.

Author - Title
-- Beowulf
Achebe, Chinua - Things Fall Apart
Agee, James - A Death in the Family
Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice I have read Sense and Sensibility, but alas not Pride and Prejudice
Baldwin, James - Go Tell It on the Mountain
Beckett, Samuel - Waiting for Godot
Bellow, Saul - The Adventures of Augie March
Bronte, Charlotte - Jane Eyre Skimmed through the book, will have to sit down one day and actually read it.
Bronte, Emily - Wuthering Heights
Camus, Albert - The Stranger
Cather, Willa - Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chaucer, Geoffrey - The Canterbury Tales
Chekhov, Anton - The Cherry Orchard
Chopin, Kate - The Awakening
Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness
Cooper, James Fenimore - The Last of the Mohicans
Crane, Stephen - The Red Badge of Courage
Dante - Inferno
de Cervantes, Miguel - Don Quixote Started and stopped.
Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment
Douglass, Frederick - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Dreiser, Theodore - An American Tragedy
Dumas, Alexandre - The Three Musketeers
Eliot, George - The Mill on the Floss
Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man
Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Selected Essays
Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury
Fielding, Henry - Tom Jones
Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary
Ford, Ford Madox - The Good Soldier
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von - Faust
Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
Hardy, Thomas - Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Scarlet Letter
Heller, Joseph - Catch 22
Hemingway, Ernest - A Farewell to Arms
Homer - The Iliad
Homer - The Odyssey
Hugo, Victor - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hurston, Zora Neale - Their Eyes Were Watching God
Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World
Ibsen, Henrik - A Doll's House
James, Henry - The Portrait of a Lady
James, Henry - The Turn of the Screw
Joyce, James - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz - The Metamorphosis
Kingston, Maxine Hong - The Woman Warrior
Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird
Lewis, Sinclair - Babbitt
London, Jack - The Call of the Wild
Mann, Thomas - The Magic Mountain
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia - One Hundred Years of Solitude
Melville, Herman - Bartleby the Scrivener
Melville, Herman - Moby Dick
Miller, Arthur - The Crucible
Morrison, Toni - Beloved
O'Connor, Flannery - A Good Man is Hard to Find
O'Neill, Eugene - Long Day's Journey into Night
Orwell, George - Animal Farm
Pasternak, Boris - Doctor Zhivago
Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar
Poe, Edgar Allan - Selected Tales
Proust, Marcel - Swann's Way
Pynchon, Thomas - The Crying of Lot 49
Remarque, Erich Maria - All Quiet on the Western Front
Rostand, Edmond - Cyrano de Bergerac
Roth, Henry - Call It Sleep
Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher in the Rye
Shakespeare, William - Hamlet
Shakespeare, William - Macbeth
Shakespeare, William - A Midsummer Night's Dream
Shakespeare, William - Romeo and Juliet
Shaw, George Bernard - Pygmalion
Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
Silko, Leslie Marmon - Ceremony
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sophocles - Antigone
Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath
Stevenson, Robert Louis - Treasure Island
Stowe, Harriet Beecher - Uncle Tom's Cabin
Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver's Travels
Thackeray, William - Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David - Walden
Tolstoy, Leo - War and Peace
Turgenev, Ivan - Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Voltaire – Candide
Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. - Slaughterhouse-Five
Walker, Alice - The Color Purple
Wharton, Edith - The House of Mirth
Welty, Eudora - Collected Stories
Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass
Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray
Williams, Tennessee - The Glass Menagerie. Started reading, and then somehow it got misplaced. Will have to finish it one day.
Woolf, Virginia - To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard - Native Son

Granted the list is somewhat arbitrary, and probably does not contain all the books that some would consider to be absolute must-reads. However, if I had to choose a list of books to read as many books as possible from I think I’d choose the following list.

1. Harry Potter (series) by J. K. Rowling
2. Goosebumps (series) by R. L. Stine
3. Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
4. The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
5. Arthur (series) by Marc Brown
6. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
7. Shiloh (trilogy) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
8. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
9. Holes by Louis Sachar
10. The Giver by Lois Lowry
11. The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
12. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (series) by Judy Blume
13. Sideways Stories from Wayside School (series) by Louis Sachar
14. The BFG by Roald Dahl
15. The Boxcar Children (series) by Gertrude Chandler Warner
16. One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
17. Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (series) by Beverly Cleary
18. Pokemon (series) by Tracey West, Maria S. Barbo
19. The Babysitters Club (series) by Ann M. Martin
20. Ralph S. Mouse (series) by Beverly Cleary
21. Little House on the Prairie (series) by Laura Ingalls Wilder
22. Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
23. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
24. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
25. Clifford the Big Red Dog (series) by Norman Bridwell
26. Stuart Little by E. B. White
27. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
28. The Adventures of Captain Underpants (series) by Dav Pilkey
29. The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
30. The Berenstain Bears (series) by Jan and Stan Berenstain
*31. Animorphs (series) by K. A. Applegate
32. The Witches by Roald Dahl
33. Nancy Drew Mystery Stories by Carolyn Keene
34. The Hobbit (series) by J. R. R. Tolkien
35. American Girls (series) by Susan Adler, Valerie Tripp, Connie Porter, Janet Shaw, et al
36. Matilda by Roald Dahl
37. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
38. The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss
39. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
40. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
41. Junie B. Jones (series) by Barbara Park
42. Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner
43. Falling Up by Shel Silverstein
44. A Wrinkle in Time (series) by Madeleine L'Engle
45. Brian's Winter by Gary Paulsen
46. Amber Brown (series) by Paula Danziger
47. The North Star by Peter H. Reynolds
48. Have a Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks by Mick Foley (Mankind)
49. Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
50. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Chicken Soup for the Soul (series) by various authors
53. Curious George (series) by Margret and Hans Augusto Rey
54. The Teacher from the Black Lagoon (series) by Mike Thaler
55. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff
56. The Bailey School Kids (series) by Debbie Dadey, et al
57. The Hardy Boys (series) by Franklin W. Dixon
58. The Mitten by Jan Brett
59. Amelia Bedelia (series) by Peggy Parish
60. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien
61. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
62. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
63. Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater
64. The River by Gary Paulsen
65. Magic Tree House (series) by Mary Pope Osborne
66. The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by John Scieszka
67. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
68. Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss
69. The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
70. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
71. Redwall by Brian Jacques
72. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
73. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
74. Wringer by Jerry Spinelli
75. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
76. Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary
77. Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls
*78. Sweet Valley High (series) by Francine Pascal
*79. The Adventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley (series) by Judy Katschke, Cathy Dobowski, Lisa Eisenberg, Nancy E. Krulik, Nina Alexander, Frances Lin Lantz, et al
80. Garfield (series) by Jim Davis
81. Magic School Bus (series) by Joanna Cole
82. Math Curse by John Scieszka
83. White Fang by Jack London
84. I Spy (series) by Walter Wick, Jean Marzollo, Diana Noonan, et al
85. Love You Forever by Robert N. Munsch
86. My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
87. The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White
88. Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
89. Draw 50 Airplanes, Aircraft and Spacecraft (series) by Lee J. Ames
90. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
91. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
92. The Rock Says by Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)
93. Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel
94. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
95. All About Sam by Lois Lowry
96. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
97. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
98. Hank the Cow Dog (series) by John R. Erickson
99. Piggie Pie by Margie Palatini
100. Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

Note: This list was tabulated from an online survey that ran at this web site from November 1, 1999 through February 1, 2000. The results leave no doubt that America's kids LOVE to read. You might want to compare this with Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children.

*These books. No these books you'll never catch me reading.

Cell block cuisine

"I Cook for Myself Alone" contains 100 recipes selected by Marc Haeberlin, who runs the Michelin three-starred l'Auberge de l'Il at Illhauserm near the German border... prisoners have created imaginative meals on a shoestring - BBC

Sounds like it could be an interesting cookbook to peruse, sadly though, he has not been able to a publisher for the book.

photography.

I look at collections like these: a. b. c. And I am awe stuck. I wish I had their ability of capturing those moments both extraordinary & ordinary. I wish I had their talent and capacity of communicating emotion, thought and human sentiment in a format that transcends the barriers of language. I wish that I wasn’t so shy, so timid, and that I had more confidence of my own capabilities such that one day I could take photos like these.

Logistics

Have been sitting staring at the screen, pondering the logistics of fitting fourteen people into one tiny room, about one tiny table and two benches, for one large supper. What we really need are the Fab Five, just for one day, to get this party organized and maybe spruce up our flat a bit. Sadly though I have not yet found a way to convince them to venture north of the border. So. How do you fit fourteen people, about a tiny table for a night of decadent gastronomy?

Love, love, love...

They say love makes the world go round. They say love makes everything right. But what good is love if you don't express it. If you don't tell the ones you love how much you really care for them. This week is we are celebrating the second annual Blogger Love-In. So get out there and tell each of the blogs you read why you love them so much. Once you have done that go to Eka’s and let her know that you are part of the Love-In. Which is sort of like a sit-in but with a lot more touchy-feely action goin' on.

Right click and save the image and link back to Eka's.

To all of you who have graced our lives during the past few years, thank you. You make this a community and a place that we enjoy sharing with you all. We love you, and squish you and appreciate the time you have taken to read our words.

All together now!

Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy.
There's nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be in time
It's easy.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
There's nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
All you need is love (all together now)
All you need is love (everybody)
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

- Beatles

Brrr.

Would someone be so kind as to tell me what happened to spring. It's cold out there. Cloudy. Windy. And frigid. The kind of cold that nestles in your bones, and stiffens your joins. It's on days like this that I'd give almost anything for a fireplace.

With the Daisies. Part II

Cloudy. Fuzzy white poufs of condensed water streaked with grey grace the morning sky. Moist, cold clamminess caresses skin, promises of rain later in the day. A breeze whooshes past. The strong earthy smell of spring caught up in it whirl. Soft rays of the sun fight through the clouds. Breathing in. Awaking. Renewal. Spring.

For Steve:

Dead Parrot Sketch: Excerpt.

... Mr. Praline: Now that's what I call a dead parrot.

Owner: No, no.....No, 'e's stunned!

Mr. Praline: STUNNED?!?

Owner: Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Norwegian Blues stun easily, major.

Mr. Praline: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not 'alf an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it bein' tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk.

Owner: Well, he's...he's, ah...probably pining for the fjords.

Mr. Praline: PININ' for the FJORDS?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that?, look, why did he fall flat on his back the moment I got 'im home?

Owner: The Norwegian Blue prefers keepin' on it's back! Remarkable bird, id'nit, squire? Lovely plumage!

Mr. Praline: Look, I took the liberty of examining that parrot when I got it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been sitting on its perch in the
first place was that it had been NAILED there.

(pause)

Owner: Well, o'course it was nailed there! If I hadn't nailed that bird down, it would have nuzzled up to those bars, bent 'em apart with its beak, and
VOOM! Feeweeweewee!

Mr. Praline: "VOOM"?!? Mate, this bird wouldn't "voom" if you put four million volts through it! 'E's bleedin' demised!

Owner: No no! 'E's pining!

Mr. Praline: 'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e
rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the
bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!

(pause)

Owner: Well, I'd better replace it, then. (he takes a quick peek behind the counter) Sorry squire, I've had a look 'round the back of the shop, and uh,
we're right out of parrots.

Mr. Praline: I see. I see, I get the picture.

Owner: I got a slug.

(pause)

Mr. Praline: Pray, does it talk?

Owner: Nnnnot really.

Mr. Praline: WELL IT'S HARDLY A BLOODY REPLACEMENT, IS IT?!!???!!?

Owner: N-no, I guess not. (gets ashamed, looks at his feet)

Mr. Praline: Well.

(pause)

Owner: (quietly) D'you.... d'you want to come back to my place?

Mr. Praline: (looks around) Yeah, all right, sure.

[own one now. 'cause I really wasn't expecting this when I went looking for the skit.]

With the daisies

Brain has abandoned ship. It can be found outside frolicking in the sun, flitting from one flower to the next, playing with the butterflies.

… ooh pretty sparkly happy colours…

“Inches”

Pulled out one of my driving CDs this morning, Any Given Sunday (Vol. II). It had been sitting on our CD rack for quite a while; unloved, untouched and unplayed, as I’ve not gone driving in a long while. I had forgotten that I quite enjoy the CD. It has a bit of everything on it. Old style blues in the smooth tones of Ella Fitzgerald, a little bit of soul in the vocal stylings of Nina Simone, R&B, funk, and what I like to call, “wake up music” OR “pumped up music”. All in all a good long road ahead, travelling CD. [Another favourite road CD is the Hackers. Don't ask. It just is.]

There is a motivational, do or die speech from the movie that Al Pacino gives, entitled “Inches” [sample track]. I love Al Pacino voice in this piece, there is a rawness to it that gets you revved up, ready to go out into the world and fight for every inch that life has to offer.

It may well be trite, it may well be one giant cliché, but on some days the speech just fits.

Awkward requests.

Bras have an uncanny ability of twisting out of shape such that they become uncomfortable devices of torture at the most inopportune moments. [i.e. when there is no discreet place to go to, to fix the bloody thing] This results in weird and awkward requests to fellow female coworkers if they would be so kind as to circumspectly untwist the torture device. I always feel slightly odd requesting this of people I don’t really know. Good friends no problem, but asking acquaintances that I sort of know always leaves me feeling mildly embarrassed as I am never sure how they will take the request. So, what do you do when your brassier becomes the torture device from hell?

Insanely busy

Due to impending layoffs our contract with “the company” ends in a week and designs that were due at the end of the month are now due a day before we leave. Saying that we are busy is an understatement, and to be honest I am not sure that we are going to be able to finish up the designs before we leave. But c’est la vie not much we can do about that. As for what is going to happen after this contract, I don’t know, which leaves me feeling angsty, nervous and snappish. I don’t deal well with unknowns, especially when the unknown is going to affect my ability to pay rent. Lets just hope that our company has something already lined up and that things at "the company" will pick up soon so that we may grace them with our presence once again.

Until the madness stops, I give you pictures, some truly gorgeous pictures* and a promise to pop in sporadically to vent, kvetch and leave scribblings, mild ravings and off beat notes about life in general.

excerpts

From one of my favourite books, which was oddly enough, one of those in a pile close at hand.

Ishak had induced obedience to his treatments by the gravity of his manner and the weight of his sonorous, beautiful voice. ~ The Lions of Al-Rassan. Guy Gavriel Kay

via Ni Vu Ni Connu.
1. Pick up a book.
2. Turn to page 23.
3. Pick out the fifth sentence.
4. Post it to your blog with these instructions.

Note to self # 3562

When rifling through a stack of paper do not position your fingers such that the fine edge leaves a painful paper cut right at the spot where your skin meets your nail.

...and...
From a friend and because it made me smile. large coffee to go...* Enjoy.

*Warning: Explicit language. Maybe not be work safe.

Easter.

Breasts

A word of caution: those of you who feel that the topic of breasts will leave you feeling squeamish, affronted, uncomfortable or just plain old huffy, please do not click “continue reading Breasts”. Instead we suggest that you either read another entry, use the blogroll located on the right to escape the topic and find another site or simply close the browser. Still here? Well then on to the topic at hand: Breasts

Even though I possess a set of my own, breasts remain a mystery to me. Not their function, or their shape and size, but what leaves me in a state of constant perplexity is the difference between a healthy breast versus one that may be a little ill. I am constantly poking, prodding and feeling them to make sure that all is as it should be.

The haven’t changed much in the 15 odd years that I have had them, and yet the lumps and bumps that I encounter always leave me wondering if what I find is normal breast tissue or something that really shouldn’t be there. Anytime a ‘new’ anomaly is found they are further poked and prodded, by myself and then Hugin [What? Second opinions are important.] until they are left abused and bruised.* Sadly, I must confess that my breasts are not they only ones that are abused. Hugin’s, though anatomically not the same, have become some form of comparison study just so that I can ensure myself that the weird knotty masses that I meet are indeed those of bulging [cough]weak[cough] muscles tissue. Yes, I am a woman in need of much help

I have looked at diagrams, articles and tried almost every self breast examination chart out there, and I still am not sure if a: I am doing it right and b: if what I encounter on my weekly [read daily] forays is suppose to be there. I have held discussions with other woman to determine if they too have difficulty in determining what should or should not be, and if they go through the same monthly queries of is this right? The answers are yes, and not as often.

One can almost say that I am obsessed with the health and well being of my breasts. But in my defence I can only say, that I rather be one poke ahead then many behind as I’ve become rather attached to my chest, petite as it may be. I am hoping that they will stay with me for as long as I live even though as a teenager I fervently wished that would just go away.

What I truly need is for someone to take me aside and show me exactly how a proper boobie examination is done; explaining what is normal, what is not and what happens to breast during that time of month. ‘Cause I know mine sure as hell change and I am never positive if they are suppose to be doing that or not.

Insights, comments and techniques are welcome.
poke. prod. pokity poke. jab!

?!?

Gods what a week! Stress, too much work, not enough employees and more layoffs on the horizon. I think that this pretty much sums up my day! Tomorrow, we'll be expecting much of the same . Tonight, I am going to huddle up in the couch, with lots of blankets, a large strong drink, my love, and Babylon 5. I'm going to pretend that the world known as crazy technical contracting employment does not exist...

Chiquita. Sending you lots of hugs and snuggles. Chin up girl. It will all work out in the end!

Tartan Day 2004

We only have a little tinsey smidgen of Scottish in our heritage. So remote and tiny a speck that you need a magnifying glass to find it, but we sure do love our single malts. Happy Tartan Day to all.

Quote of the evening.

“…some days I close my eyes and pretend I’m a big fat juicy pork chop.”

The context of the quote wishes to remain anonymous such that the sources innocence may be protected. The source has pleaded the fifth and refuses to comment, citing that any retort, explanation or further justification of the above would only result in further criminalization of said individual.

Rubber Ducky...

...you're one one or me!

Via the yummy Da Goddess

if anyone's feeling generous... hint. hint. fluttes eyelashes at Hugin

Just call Miss oblivious

My boss passed by me desk, looked at me perplexedly and inquired if I truly enjoyed working with my screen at full brightness. I hadn’t noticed that when they moved my computer the brightness had changed, nor did I notice how washed out the colours were. All I can say in my defence is…umm… that…erm… sadly nothing valid comes to mind. Even the, ‘I was top caught up in my work to notice’ seems a feeble and sad excuse. However, I can honestly say is that changing the brightness sure does make a huge difference on the eyes. Now if y’all be so kind, I am going to go and hide in my little bright corner.

Ode to a Sweet tooth

As a child, you were my constant companion. We would spend hours together, two peas in a pod, satiating our cravings. Gummy bears, chocolate, sticky toffee apples, buttons, liquorice, lollipops, toffee, cotton candy, sour candy, caramels, fudge, rockets, pop rocks, dip & lick, maple buds and big league chewing gum were all ours for the taking. We’d frolic together under the sun, pounce among the autumn leaves and play in the deep winter snow.

But as I have aged you have slowly deserted me, one little step at a time.
First to go were the swedish berries, those yummy buttons of red gooeyness that I used to consume en mass, then the caramels, the toffee apples and the cotton candy. Followed closely by the rockets, pop rocks, dip & lick and sour candy. The fudge and maple buds left me on a warm summer’s eve, leaving no note or indication if and when they would be back. Next to go were the doughnuts and the cinnamon buns dappled in sweet gooey sugary confection. Finally all that was left were the plain old-fashioned doughnuts, butter croissants, chocolatines and the dark morsels of bittersweet chocolate, little pieces of heaven that I just cannot do without. And you have another thing coming if you think I’m going to give those up!

List O’Shame

It’s that time of year when most of us seem to go into a mad cleaning frenzy as the hint of spring colours the air with fresh tingly feeling of the warmer weather to come. In light of this “need to clean” I am posting a to do list in hopes that it will shame me into getting off my large procrastinating derriere and actually do some of the stuff that I have been meaning to do for the past season.

The list:

Sort out the two months worth of recycling that has made it’s home in a large corner of our kitchen. [No, there is really no valid excuse for the mass of stuff that has accumulated. Just an inability to get said lazy procrastinating butt in gear, and actually make the trip downstairs to the recycling bin]

Sort through pile of papers that has accumulated in the corners of our office, in the front hall and dresser. Empty out and sort through the boxes left from our move. Throw out/donate stuff that will never be used, and store the stuff the rest in locker.

Vacuum, dust, mop, clean and air out every nook and cranny in our flat.

Re-caulk bathtub and sink.

Take the large bag of clothing that we have not worn in a decade down to good will.

Finally put shelves and some artwork on walls. [We’ve been here for over a year and we still haven’t hung up artwork. Minus one piece that was put up in a “we need colour and culture on the wall sulk”]

Fill out income tax forms and mail to Gov’t.

Install Gallery and sort through pictures.

Finish the designs that were promised months ago to two very patient individuals. Yes this means you and you.

So who wants to bet that none of this will actually get done in the next month?

Water in my ear

Hugin, the imp, poured water I my ear while I was in the shower. I now I have this slightly off balance, slushy feeling in my right ear. It is as if an ocean resides in the cavities of my inner ear which is not a feeling I particularly enjoy. [shakes fist teasingly at Hugin]

In other news I have this urge to bake breakfast bread products. Anyone have any good recipes? Banana bread, lemon bread or any other yummy breakfast bread recipes will do.

Happy Friday!

Woke up this morning in bouncy anticipation of being able to sleep in tomorrow morning. This weekend will be my first full weekend in a while, there are just so many things that I want to do. Though first and foremost will be sleeping in. Tonight Hugin and I are going to see a movie [we haven’t done that in a long while, it has either been too cold to venture out or I have had to get up at the crack of dawn the following day]. Tomorrow, well I guess will see what happens, though I’m opting for much morning snuggliness amidst blankets, curled up in front of the TV watching Saturday morning cartoon, coffee and breakfast at hand. It’s all about the little things. Hope you all have a wonderful Friday!

Settlers

Played Settlers of Catan at lunch today with a few of a good friend’s coworkers. Though forty-five minutes is just not enough for a really good game, it was lots of fun. It has been ages since I have last played, the group that we use to play with has sadly dissolved over the years, with some of it’s members moving on to places far away. My brief re-acquaintance with the game as sparked a yen and now I am searching for a box of my own. If anyone knows where we can procure one in Canada, or if anyone is willing to donate one please drop us a line!

They seem to have an online version too. [drool]

Hope.

There are days when the world feels as if it is going to implode, break into a thousand tiny pieces till all that is left are minute specs of what once was. On these days that I wonder if the fanaticism, the hate, the fear and the insanity are going to get a lot worst before the world gets any better. A part of me hopes that we have hit the plateau and that things can only get better from here…

Your thoughts?

spam of comment

Enough with the comment spam. Enough I say! I’m not interested in what you have to sell, nor am I inclined to follow any link that you deem necessary to leave in our space, especially those advertising the shadier aspects of certain vices and I’m sure as hell not going to leave your links in our comments. As soon as I can get to it, MT-Blacklist will be installed and that‘s where it ends.

So if you are hell bent on using: Free-Sex for a Small Fee; Whips, Crops and Chains, The Intimate Party Emporium; French Maids To Order; Strapping Naked Young Lads; At Your Beck and Call; Viagra, the Drug that Keeps You Horny Whether You Want To or Not; Hot Sexy Lovers; Pooh and the Tantra; Mines Bigger than Yours*, as your tag URL, I’m sorry to say that you’re gonna have to find another one buddy boy. And if you feel that you just can’t live without it and have an undying yen to type it into the comment, well drop us a line and we’ll see what we can do, otherwise to bad, bob’s your uncle and all that schmaltz.

Party in the fishbowl

It's Kymberlie's 29th Birthday today. Go and give her lots of bithday loving.
Wishing you all the wonderful things, Babe. Hoping that your day was spent in the company of loved one, filled with much laughter, giggles, love and happiness. Wishing you all your hearts desires and may happy returns!
smooches.
us.

Kiss me I'm Irish*

Happy St-Paddy's Day to all!

Walls for the wind,
And a roof for the rain,
And drinks beside the fire -
Laughter to cheer you
And those you love near you,
And all that your heart may desire!
-Irish Blessing.

:o(

There were a string of layoffs at “the company” this week. Though we are not directly affected, it has left me feeling quiet and sad. People I have come to call friends, colleagues who were kind enough to accommodate us, people who smiled happily at us in the halls, will not be here tomorrow.

My multicoloured bubble of hope that things were finally picking up has burst. Popped by the final stroke of a pen, dismissing some who have worked here for decades. It has to get better soon. Doesn’t it?

Hooky and snuffles

Hugin and I both took the day off to sleep in, relax, watch movies and tend to each other snuffley schnozzles [I got them this morning and gave them to him this afternoon]. So far we have watched two movies, a slew of really cheesy TV, played a couple hours of Heroes and have emptied at least a box and a half of Kleenexes. Bed soon, after some tea and work tomorrow. Fnarg.
At least we got to snuggle today!.

"maybe i'm amazed "

This song has been in my head for the past couple of days. In the morning when I wake up. Standing under the shower as the water sluices down my body. Sitting at my desk. Staring at the computer screen. Bustling about work. Nibbling pensively on the end of pens. Nodding half coherently at coworkers as they explain something for the umpteenth time. Standing in the afternoon coffee line up. On the long bus ride home. Or just kicking about at home. But mostly when I think of you.

Maybe I'm amazed at the way you love me all the time
Maybe I'm afraid of the way I love you
Maybe I'm amazed at the way you pull me out of time
hung me on the line
Maybe I'm amazed at the way I really need you

Maybe I'm a man*,
Maybe I'm a lonely man who's in the middle of something
that he doesn't really understand

Maybe I'm a man
Maybe you're the only woman* who can ever help me
baby, won't you help me to understand

Maybe I'm a man
Maybe I'm a lonely man who's in the middle of something
that he doesn't really understand

Maybe I'm a man
and maybe you're the only woman who can ever help me
baby, won't you help me to understand

Maybe I'm amazed at the way you're with me all the time
Maybe I'm afraid of the way I'll leave you
Maybe I'm amazed at the way you help me sing my song
right me when I'm wrong
Maybe I'm amazed at the way I really need you
-Paul McCartney

pixels

We added some more pictures to the ever elusive photoblog. The month of January 2003 is up and awaiting your viewing pleasure. [Well we hope it's to your liking.]

Aside: Why is it when you can least afford to be sick, your body stages a coup, lowers the drawbridge and invites the sore throat, sniffly nose, achy feeling cold imps in for an all night party?

Brief Encounters

Sat next to a wrinkled aged dame on the way home. Eyes twinkling and ready to talk she began her discourse with a little introduction, I am 74 years old and I have been with my beau for 4 years. Nervously playing with the edges of her nails she went on to speak of her marriage to a man who as she put it controlled her, her sons of which there are five and her realisation after decades of marriage that there was more to life then her husband let her see. So at an age where other women would blanch at the idea of being alone, she divorced him. She then went on to explain that she loves public transportation, or any venue, which allows her to meet new people. However, she states, she is somewhat picky. Placing her bag on the seat next to her, she will only move it when someone of interest catches her knowing eyes. Curiosity and questions, people and their lives, astrology and the characterizations of people, that is what sparks her interest. She commits it all to memory with an eye trained to note the tiniest of details.

She went on to describe a woman who she saw getting of the bus earlier on in the morning. Un vrai mannequin. Elegant. Raffiné. Qui porter un pair de pantalon noir et étroit, comme j’aurai portée dans mon temps. Un veste longue. Coupe exacte et bien tourneé. Noir. D’un matériel fin, satiné. Des gant de cuir, noir et finne. Et si belle!*

A moment of silence as she reminisced about her own days and then she turned to me and the questions began in ernest. What do you do for a living? Engineering. Oh! Merveilleux! Impish glint in eyes. Married? Copain? Boyfriend. Yes Heureuse? Yes, very happy. Ah ça c’est bien! How old are you? 31 Mais c’est vieille! You don’t look over 23. blush Thank you…

The miles were eaten in gulps by the tires and the minutes flew by, lost in the sharing of the tidbits that make up our lives. All too soon, my brief encounter with the wonderful French lady was over. It was time for me to bid her adieu and step off the bus, my life a little more enriched for having met her.

morning interlude

A brief moment of escape from the hectic pace of dreary, over packed monday morning. Look. Listen. Kick Back & Enjoy

This morning's interlude has been brought to you by the letter L, the number 3 and the delectable Da Goddess.

meteorology

Somehow this doesn't quite indicate what would be the appropriate outdoor wear for venturing out of the house tomorrow morning.

Meteorology, one of the only areas of science that does not require you to be dead on.

Gallery vs Coppermine

Have been looking at Gallery and was about to install it when I noticed this software [Coppermine]. Has anyone used it? If so how does it compare to gallery?

Mind poo

Excerpt from a book loaned to us, for a brief moment in time, by Monsieur Metrosexual.

Have you ever heard that little voice in your head that says, “You’re just not good enough. You’re not good enough for that pretty boy or girl, for your family, you’re not good enough to have the things you want, you’re not good enough for marriage, you’re not good enough for to accomplish your dreams.”
Or maybe you’ve heard that little voice say, “This isn’t it. She’s not it, he’s not it, this town’s not it, this meal’s not it, this new shirt is not it” You can make yourself so angry trying to change things that have already happened.
That little voice is also saying, “Something’s wrong! Something’s with my hair, my face, my clothes, my dog, my spouse” How is it possible to be happy if there is always something wrong?
That little voice, it’s not you! It never was you, it never will be you. Let’s call the little voice “mind poo.”
I saw you come into this planet as a beautiful baby, full of love, awe and wonderment. As you grew older you learned to accept the mind poo as part of yourself. But you have a choice. You don’t have to listen to that voice… you can listen to your heart.
When you listen to your heart you meet the right people at the right time and you follow your hunches. Everything that happens to you is the best that you could have ever imagined. I am sure you have experienced moments like this throughout your life. Great grandma Schredd called this feeling the state of Spirit... Inside every human being is a secret knowledge that can guide you to wherever you want to go. You van deny it, or try it. Ted, if you trust that everything will be OK, people will take care of you.. Or you can listen to the mind poo!
All of our lives we were taught that the mind poo was a part of us, that everything just happens by chance, but inside every human being is a superstar: The secret to life is to control your destiny and let the superstar shine. So avoid the mind poo, trust that everything will be OK, listen to your heart, and EnviroRide will be everything you van imagine and more.

That little voice speaks and we listen with gusto. We relish the jaded view of ourselves and the world, revelling in the fact that we are not good enough, never will be and nothing that we accomplish will ever make a dent in the steel plated Kevlar coated tapestry that makes up the world. It’s not easy wrapping your head about notion that most things in your life are good, let alone believing that you can accomplish almost anything. Harder still to imagine, no matter what you have been brought up to believe, that you, yes you, are a wonderful person and that the people whose lives you have graced are very lucky indeed. Ignoring that little voice is not easy. It’s hard. For me it is darn right impossible at times.

There are days when the mind poo works its magic and I will find myself gazing at the mirror wondering why I am blessed by the people who share my life, contemplating the quirks that draw them to me and me to them. There are days when the mind poo is so thick and murky that the world outside feels like it is about to crack open and all the ugliness will come spewing forth. It’s on these days that I have to consciously wrench the reigns away from the little voice that whispers in the shadows, mocking and cynical and tell it:

“Dah`ling that’s the mind poo talking, pay it no heed. Keep your chin up ‘cause there will be better days then this.”

now that's a cuppa.

A little something for all you coffee aficionados: Coffee Commandments.

Link via Jennifer @ Forty Something.

Oscar Night

We'd like one Angeline Jolie*, one Johnny Depp* to go please, and while you are at it a Jennifer Garner would be lovely too.

*Still looking for Oscar 2004 Pictures of them. Sadly no luck yet, but the dress Angelina is wearing is stunning.

another year added.

Happy Birthday Old Man.

Another year older, another year gone.
The body once subtle and graceful has turned on its own.
The toes they seem farther and so does the paper.
The noises are dimmer and the text it seems smaller.
You crack and you pop, when walking about,
like some form of giant rice crispy treat.
But they years have been good,
filled with much love and good cheer.
Here’s to many more such years,
may each one see you surrounded by those you love
and may they be filled with the sound of laughter.

Hoping your birthday was a wonderful one.
our squishes and kisses
and all our good cheer
us.

"taking the bridge"

I'm still trying to figure out how they got away with it.

Training Fu

In the past three days of training I have managed to sprain my right shoulder muscle [rhomboid major ?] while writing on the dry erase board [it’s a little too high for me and I have to strain my arms and stand on tip-toe to reach the middle top], aggravated an old elbow and wrist injury by mousing while standing [the only way I can demonstrate something at someone else’s computer] and talked my throat ragged. I fear that by the end of the week I’ll be carrying out the course through the use of queue cards.
My once mighty training has become weak, very, very weak.

Friends are like bras..."

The Diamond Edition of Carnival of the Vanities is up, hosted by the wonderful delecatable Goddess.

"...The good ones never lets you down."

It Lives…

The ‘puter is mostly up and running. There are just some files that need to be moved from one hard drive to the other, about 8 gigs worth of stuff, and then some software needs to be reinstalled. And, then it will be mine. All mine. My precious…

everyone's a cynic?

Aren't you a sweetie? You are barely capable of a cynical thought. In fact you need to develop your skeptical side- a healthy dose of cynicism is no bad thing.

Humph! Apparently I am not as cynical as I thought I was. How about you?

Afternoon Geekiness

My computer is getting a new hard drive, Hugin’s old motherboard* and case today. The afternoon hours will be spent fiddling with its innards, moving components, reinstalling software and copying over files. Wish me luck, ‘cause I haven’t had to do this in five years. See you all on the flip side ;oD

Extremely versetaile.

To this effect, the first section of the course will present extremely versatile methods to create sketches, even if the user will not necessarily use them on a regular basis.

Yes ladies and gents, not only will you learn how to use the sketching tool, but we will show you “extremely versatile” methods of creating sketches even if you, yes you, will not want to use them on a regular basis.

Our manual is peppered with these little gems. Though the sentence in itself is not a glaringly misuse of sentence structure, the fact that it and others grace the pages of a manual and are considered to be proper, leaves me shaking my head. Granted the original manual was a rush job. Granted they only had a week in which they had to write a 40-hour course. Yes there was no one there to proof it. But, it has since gone through 5 revision, you’d figure that they’d at least catch some of the misspelling and grammatical errors, clean up the sentences and make sure that the file names listed in the examples a: exist and b: match the material and example to which they are associated. Gah! Well back to the prep I go.

Now y’all come back and take the course you hear.

Back meet muscles. Muscles meet back.

I overdid it at the gym last night, and now my back muscles, which in the past have only had to support the rather light weight of my front and head, are threatening to go on strike if I ever deem it necessary to repeat last night activities. Muscle I never knew I had are screaming for relief, and the rest of them have taken to spasming at the slightest hint of movement.

Bath. Tiger Balm. And laying flat out on the couch are tonight’s scheduled activities followed by a good nine hours of rest. Hopefully they won’t pack up in the middle of the night and leave me stranded in the morn. Wishing you all a restful and relaxing evening. I would squish you, but fear that, that may just be the last straw on the proverbial camels back. Instead I blow kisses at you all. Smooches. m.

loopy. yes. i am.

Eight hours spent in front of the computer. Twenty minutes of each hour spent watching the screen update. The other forty minutes are spent in a frenzy of clicks, mouse movements and curses as you try to get the views placed in the detailed drawing. Pens are chewed, notes are scribbled, doodles are doodled and as each second passes you lose a little part of your sanity. Eight hours gone and you find yourself to be a drooling loopy mess. As you head home, the realization kicks in. You get to repeat the whole mind numbing process on the morrow. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

All together now “I am going slightly crazy. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Maybe."

Love is…

Those morning moments when I steal the blankets and you snuggle up to keep warm. The cold winter days when you let me put my ice cold feet on your tummy to warm them up. The soft kisses you place when you sneak up behind me. The moments we share, and the times when we sit together snuggled on the couch reading or watching a movie. But most of all “Love is…”

YOU!

Love you beloved.

Smooching Day...

Sending you all lots of squishes and smooches.
xox mwah! xox
hugin & munin.

Tickety Boo

Coversation between friends, to my great amusement:
D:Is everything tickety boo with you?
C:Ya mate, it's all tickety boo!

Tickety Boo
[Q] From Christopher Key: “Several of my Canadian friends use the term tickety-boo to describe an event that is proceeding quickly. Any idea where this one originates?”

[A] It’s certainly common in Canada, but is very probably British in origin. The usual meaning, by the way, is more that something is satisfactory, all in order, or OK.

We can’t be sure what its origin is. Eric Partridge always contended that the word was forces’ slang, most probably from the Royal Air Force, and that it dates from the early 1920s or thereabouts (though the Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t find a written example before 1939). Considering the number of Canadians who flew with the RAF during World War II, its move to Canada isn’t surprising.

The difficult bit is taking the word back any further than the 1920s. It could combine that’s the ticket—with much the same sense—with the childish phrase peek-a-boo. But some find a link with the British Army in India, suggesting it comes from the Hindi phrase tikai babu, which is translated as “it’s all right, sir”.

Source: World Wide Words

Shyness

I have been trying to figure out why I am somewhat reluctant to go to the Y today and then it hit me. On Saturday I was fine because Hugin came with me, and swimming is pretty much a solitary activity. One where your only interaction is with the medium in which you immerse yourself into. Enveloped in the soft caress of the water, the rest of the world fades to a blur and you become one with the tide. Today however is the fist time I will be attending a class. No backup from Hugin, just me, a classroom, a bunch of nice strangers who have been there from the beginning and a teacher. I don’t do well with strangers; I tend to curl up into myself as I look for ways to hide in plane sight. I know that this reaction/reasoning is all very silly, but no matter how many pep talks I give myself, no matter how many times I join a class/group/event where I am likely to meet new people, the shyness is always there.

Autopilot

Have you ever had one of those mornings where your brain goes into autopilot and you can’t quite remember the steps you took to get you to work,? It always worried me when this happens because I cannot recall if en route I had done something extremely silly or strange. I have been sitting here for the past few hours trying to recall what I did on the way to work, and nothing, it’s all a foggy blank. Knowing myself, it will probably come back to haunt me one day when I meet up with a friend who’s sitting with someone I don’t know and they’ll say. Yeah you’re that weird chick on the bus who hums, to herself and picks her teeth.

Give me a Y!

Hugin and I joined the Y yesterday. After a 40 minute workout for Hugin, and what I think was a 18 lap swim for myself, a sauna and shower we stumbled home to crash on the couch expecting today to be one of unmoving aching and moaning. Surprisingly we seem to be better off then expected, Hugin’s experiencing soreness in his biceps and shoulders, which has led to rather amusing shirt aerobatics and I am experiencing mild upper arm twinges.

The other side effect seems to be an uncontrollable need to be active and bouncy, much to Hugin’s chagrin. [shaking head] In short I am really happy we decided to join, it feels good to be active.

Not over the hill!

Warm, joyous and happy birthday wishes go out to Amber on her 30th birthday. Wishing you all the very best of everything, dear. Hoping that your day was filled with much merriment, lots of laughter, love, squishes, kisses and all things wonderful. Wishing you many, many happy returns.

Remember, thirty is not the beginning of the down slope. It’s just the beginning of a very enjoyable ride. As they say, it’s all up from here baby! ;o)

All our love and happy wishes,
bonne fête
us.

Ice-Box

My little corner of the office has been turned in to a veritable ice-box. Someone, [sarcasm] the lords bless their kindly soul [/sarcasm] has taken it upon themselves to turn up the AC, cause it just ain’t cold enough outside.

Am very much looking forward to home, blankets, portable heaters, hot toddies and hot showers.

Downright Pavlovian.

My alarm didn’t ring yesterday and I woke up at 6:59am, a minute after what was suppose to be the second snoozed blaring of the bell. I lay there for a minute pondering the virtues of either resetting the alarm and snoozing 10 extra minutes or getting up and facing the day.

After a few seconds of sleepy consideration I opted for the second alternative. Thirty seconds later I crawled out of bed, edged groggily to the office and began the morning ritual. Slump heavily into chair. Flick on the computer screen. Stretch. Crack, pop and snap. Yawn. Connect to net. Yawn some more. Check weather. Shiver. Moan. Shiver some more. Glance quickly at news. Yawn. Make way semi-coherently to bathroom. Turn on water. Stretch. Hop in. Yelp as the cold water hits toes. Scramble back out and readjust temperature. Step cautiously back in. Lather up and rinse off. Mumble disjointed inanities to self. Stare blankly at tiles for a few moments. Turn shower off. Grope blindly for towel and wrap about body. Grab toothbrush and paste. Squint at it. Realize that it’s green. Green?!? Wait for mind to make connection between green and Hugin’s toothbrush. Replace toothbrush and pick purple. Brush teeth. Knock knee on bottom of sink. Curse mildly. Trod off to room and spend a mad five minutes looking for articles of clothing that have mysteriously moved during the night. Find them under a pile of other clothes. Get dressed. Snag lunch. Make a mad scramble out the door.

By 10 am, after the large morning coffee I am awake, coherent and ready to get on with the day. This of course lasts just past lunch when the body shuts down to process food, bemoaning the lack of bed, pillows and a rather large horizontal surface on which it can rest itself. By 5:00, just as the fresh arctic wind hits my face I am bright eyed and bushytailed ready for the adventure back home. [read: ready to curl up into a ball on the couch, and while the away the hours till bed, reading, puttering about and playing on the computer.]

Yesterday however, 10 o’clock came and went without a dent in the mental fog. 11 rolled around, and the two coffees consumed did nothing to dissipate the murk. By 5:00 I was ready to crawl back into bed, where I truly belong and wonder off to la-la land. Yes, my daily ritual had been thrown all decoct by the failed ringing of a bell.

Despondent and disillusioned.

Lost: Vim. Joie de vie. Zest. Enthusiasm. Keenness. Eagerness. Verve. Passion. Gusto. Delight. Joy. And, childlike wide-eyed wonderment.
If found please return to a despondent apathetic indifferent and sadly disillusioned Munin.
Will trade cookies, chocolate and ice cream for said articles.

Yes. It’s another one of those Mondays. Fnarg!

Winter pixels

Added some more pictures up on the Photoblog, and ironically we are now a year and a bit behind instead of just being a year behind. [wry shaking of head] There has to be a quicker way of posting the pictures. Though I suspect that short of metal telepathy any innovative way of getting the pictures up on the site will always be deemed as too slow.

Most of the photographs taken at the end of December 2002 were shot in the old part of the city, one of my favourite locations for snapping pictures. I recall that the day was well below freezing [-20 to –30oC], with a cold strong wind blowing north-south off the water, the sky was the crisp blue of icy water and the clouds had just begun to roll in. Minus the frost bitten toes, frozen fingers* and the frequent hot chocolate stops it made for some of the better pictures that we have taken in that area. Hope you enjoy.

Additional shots taken in September, October and November 2002.

Query: Does anyone have any tips on installing gallery? Do’s and Don’ts?!?

Kiwi jubilation

A very berry Happy Birthday goes out to Chiquita, who is currently gallivanting about hobbitland with her beau. Happy birthday sweetheart, wishing you all the very best. Hoping that you had a stupendous birthday filled with much love, merriment, laughter and all things wonderful. Many,many happy returns.

Enjoy the rest of you trip.
Come back safe and sound.
All our love and squishes.
Us.

Second opinions.

I have recently had odd burning sensations that start near the armpit and proceed to gallivant up and down my arm in some form of mad ice-fire race. Considering that this is the second occurrence I though that it might be a good idea to go pay a visit to my family doctor.

I arrived there on time and was sent right on through to his office only to sit there for a full 20 minutes, after an off handed hello as he played with an electronic rolodex. Umm. Hello? Dr ______? Can I give you a hand? Is this an inopportune time? Would you like me to come back when it is more convenient for me to see you? Having finally finished what he needed to do, he looks up and inquires about my health, work, my home life, Hugin and all manner of other things. When he finally comes around to why I have decided to grace him with my presence, he looks perplexed, ponders a bit and then says with little conviction that it may just be this, this or that. Having delivered his prognosis. He then proceeds to continue fiddling with objects on his desk. Umm. Dr_____? If you would be so kind. Could you perhaps recommend a course of action. Maybe medication? Causes? Anything?!? He then looks up sheepishly and inquires if I would like him to examine the area? HELLO!!! Why no actually I just came here for your very pleasant company.

I have known my doctor, since I was a little tyke. He has been there for flues, pneumonia, bronchitis, strain wrists and all manner of other maladies, bumps and bruises. To give the man some credit I will honestly say that in the past he has always been an excellent physician. To this day, he also provides excellent health care to the rest of my family. Conversely, when I go to see him, he dismisses my symptoms and leaves me with the notion that he believes that I may be a hypochondriac, resulting in a lack of confidence in his ability to make a proper diagnosis. I am stuck wondering if I should continue trusting my doctor to give it to me straight, or if I should find someone else who could give me a second opinion. [something that I am not exactly sure how to go about. ]

Segue: I really wish that doctors would indicate what lumps, bumps, twitches are normal and which ones have no business being in your body. It would set a mind to rest.

Let it snow.

Oh the weather outside is frightful, and the indoors are quite delightful. Let it snow. let it snow. Let it snow… Anyone know how many days left till spring?

Shaping up

Have been pondering the benefits of getting back into shape. Years of sitting on my derriere staring at a computer screen for countless hours has left once flexible subtle muscles stiff and inflexible. However, every time I come closer to a getting off said derriere a little part of me becomes wary of this endeavour which inexplicitly results in said arse being glued firmly on chair, not really willing to budge from the comforts of home and hearth. Considering the benefits of finally getting back into shape, this is odd behaviour indeed. The question then arises, why I am so reluctant to go out there and find a good place to work out at?

Anyone have any good suggestions on how to get off one’s fanny?

Wine, Fondue and Chocolate.

Saturday night was spent in the company of wonderful friends, toasting glasses of wine in a late celebration of Hugin’s birthday. Fondue, and Chinese fondue were served followed by fruit drenched in warm dark chocolate spiked with Grand Marnier. The festivities lasted late into the night, with our last visitor departing the next day. All and all a superb way to spend a Saturday night.

Thank you all so much for coming, your company is ever enjoyable and we hope to see you all very soon.

Monkeying around.

As Hugin indicated in the above, today marks the Chinese New Year and the Year of the Monkey. Wishing all of you who celebrate the Chinese New Year, a happy new year and prosperity.

Have been a little sparse lately; zonked, overworked, with too many hours spent with nose glued to screen are my excuses. Going to take a little break and leave you all in the very capable hands of my better half for the next few days while I try and recharge. And maybe, just maybe when I get back I’ll actually post some more pictures. [self deprecating shake of head] If I don’t succumb to that little demon called procrastination.
Lots of squishes.
m.

t minus xhrs 18min &42sec

You know it’s going to be a rough day when you haven’t left the house and are already counting the minutes till you get to come back home.

Monkey Jobs

As seen at Steves, and as requested by Blork and Martine: 12 Monkeys, the list of the jobs/employments/freaky positions I have held over the years.

Lifeguard/Swim Instructor at the local “Y”: Perks pool time, anytime. Downside: waking up at the crack of dawn, donning a mildly wet suit that did not have time enough to dry from the night before.

Lifeguard/Camp Counsellor. The only downsides to this little gem of a job: Friday lunches which usually consisted of mush made of leftover from the week before and fire drills at 3:00 in the morning. Someone in the higher-ups had a rather warped sense of humour.

Retail Salesperson, Clothing store. My only stint in the schmattes business. Interesting experience, though I am not sure if it is one that I will want to repeat soon.

Retail Salesperson, Greeting Cards in a quaint little store located in a very dead mall. Lots of hours spent sorting out cards, ordering paper, and reading books behind the counter.

Science Demonstrator, two consecutive summers, two different places. One underpaid with a rather disgruntled manager. The other, well the other just rocked. Mad science, snakes, tarantulas and various other creep crawlies, microscopes, telescopes, Rube Goldberg devices, rockets, pyrotechnics, slime, liquid nitrogen and dry ice. A true geeks dream.

Assistant Facilities/Building Manager. Where are I learnt the value of a good floor plan, teamwork, and never getting involved in office politics, especially if HR found itself in the mix.

Bookstore/Stationary clerk. One of my favourite jobs; Hours spent in the company of delightfully eccentric people who are completely endearing. And. Books, books and more books, with handfuls of stationary thrown in to sweeten the deal, all for the yummy discounted price of 30% off.

Data Entry Clerk/Process Creation/Lost Package Tracker/Girl Friday.
Two summers spent sorting through data, entering data, fixing databases and tracking merchandise that mysteriously never made it into the buyers’ hands, answering phones, filing documents, wading through stacks of papers and coffee runs.

Data Entry Clerk/ Database designer/AutoCAD Draftsperson
An 8 months stint that lasted past its initial summer job status. Once again buried neck deep in data, inventory and databases with architectural drawings thrown in to add little bit of spice.

Technical Trainer: travelled to those mostly unknown places that you only hear about in urban legends to train clients on company software. Learnt a lot about my own abilities, people, and how to get through US customs.

Engineering consultant/Technical trainer/Tech writer/Your general replacement cog for the big cooperate machine.
“Need one, we got one, just stick her in and watch your company run. Needs no lunch hour or bathroom breaks. Will work 8 hours straight and then ask for more. Does not need any pertinent information, will sort things out through divination alone. All this for a cheap, cheap price that we the company will charge you an arm and a leg for.” Truth be told, I really do love my job, stress, underpay et al. The people are great. The work is challenging, the hours are mostly reasonable and I get to learn a heck of a lot

Hugin. V3.2

Today my beloved goes from being a yummy 3.1 to a delectable 3.2. Though he’d rather remain a younger, version of 2.4 or 2.5, like all fine things the man just gets more scrumptious with age. You may find yourself closer to the edge of the hill corazón, but jet-black or grey, smooth or wrinkled, youthful, craggy or aged you will always be the love of my heart. Happy Birthday Beloved!

click for actual size

Wishing you all things magnificent and delicious, on your birthday, my love. Hoping that your birthday is filled with much amusement, laughter, silliness and love. Hoping that all your birthday wishes come true and that all your hearts desires are fulfilled. Ti amo. Bonne fète!

Bonne Fête!

Happy Birthday Jennifer, wishing you a wonderfully happy birthday! Hope you have a superb day, filled with much love and happiness. May all your wishes come true. Go give her lots of Birthday loving!

White, Stark and Empty.

Ever have one of those days weeks months, where no matter how hard you try, your mind remains a blank canvass devoid of any real insight, thought or imagination?

Yes. It’s another weather post!

The adventure into to sub zero degree –40^oC/^oF*weather wouldn’t be so bad if the cold didn’t drain every once of energy that my body possesses. My little arse is taking a pummelling, and so far the weather has beaten me 5 days to 1. I feel like a depleted coppertop who has been plopped into a favourite toy one time too many and is now running on sheer willpower and fumes. How many more days till the big thaw?

sleep good.

Need more coffee. Must keep eyes upon. Must not fall asleep. Must… Not… Zzzzzzzzzz.
Who would have thought that the second Monday back at work would be tougher then the first. Six hours left on the clock, two coffees downed and I am no more coherent then when I stumbled out of bed this morning. Debating the merits of heading home early and making up the time later on this week, though if today is any indication of languorous fatigue, it is probably best to stick it out and save the extra hour for Friday morning sleeping in time.

A winter’s plea.

Please sir, please don’t send me out into the bitter wintry cold. Please sir, please don’t ask me to leave the warm confines of my happily heated home so that I may make my frigid dreary wind swept way into work. My nose will freeze off, my eyes will water and freeze shut, my toes will whittle away and blacken, and my fingers will freeze to icicles and break at the slightest banging. Please sir. Don’t. But if you insist. I ask you then, sir; how will I ever enjoy the smells of spring, the sights of summer or be able to prance about under the autumn sun, kicking up the leaves. But most importantly sir, how will I be able to type and use my mouse so that I may accomplish the tasks that you have set before me, allowing you to bill our clients and pay the rent if I do not have fingers? Please sir, don’t send me out into this unnatural winter weather, because in the end it will detrimental to us both.

Whimper. It's -38⁰C outside.

winter promise.

To you Lords and Ladies of Winter; when I find the prankster amongst you thought it would be a hoot to drop the temperature below what is natural I will wring your laughing head off!

Resolutions

A dear close friend and I where discussing New Year resolutions. How there have been years of long hopeful, ‘this year these things will be done’ lists. How each one of those lists has landed up at the bottom of a pile of other lists, dusty and forgotten.

I have a penchant for list making. I love making them, scribbling items down to form neat precise lines of everything under the sun and then pinning them up on bulletin boards so that I may gaze upon my lists and check items off at whim. And yes, it would stand to reason that my love of list would come into full swing when it comes time to making that ever notoriously unkept resolution list.

However, knowing myself, and knowing where this list will land up, I resolve once again to continue on the path that I started last year. To: Live and enjoy life. Take as many opportunities as I can. Seek out new adventure. Learn. Look at the world through different eyes. Grow. Appreciate every little moment. Cherish. And Love. Love with everything I am.

Hugin's.

I guess I should add my resolutions.

I want to do more and fear less.
Act more, react less.
Love even more and endless.

Just another manic monday*

Not sure what is more disconcerting. The fact the Hugin has a few songs from The Bangles on an old playlist that I copied, or of the fact that I am bopping along to them.

But sir...

Can’t believe that the holidays are over, and I am not quite ready to head to work tomorrow. Looking forward to the challenges, but not really looking forward to the waking up at the crack of dawn. Maybe I could forget to turn on my alarm clock and just sleep in a little. That would be good. What? It’s a thought. All I would need is a tinsey winsey extra hour of sleep before schlepping off to work to face the daily grind again.

Is that the date?

A much belated happy birthday goes out to Gina. Hoping that you had a wonderful birthday filled with laughter and spent in the company of those you love. May all your all your hearts desires be granted.

Go give her some belated birthday loving.
Squishes and hugs
Us.

Housecleaning.

A mad little cleaning fairy zoomed through the site and removed all the musty old entries from 2001-2002.

When pressed as to why she thought this was a necessary endeavour she replied, in a tone that stated that she couldn't quite believe that someone would even question her motives, that she just couldn't help herself. That she was possessed by a mad cleaning frenzy. And barring that, she thought it might reduce the load up time.

Our old musty musings, inconsequential inanities and past blathering can now be found here.
:o)

Our warmest wishes for 2004

* Click for actual size

Wishing each and everyone of you the best of 2004.
Hoping you all have a wonderful, festive and safe New Years.
Our love, kisses and squishes
hugin & munin

Born. Eat. Shag...

The Mayfly Project: "Born. Eat. Shag. Die."
sum up your year in 20 words or less.

Stressed. Worked. Learnt. Taught.
Discovered. Created. Photographed. Explored.
Laughed. Cried. Forgave. Grew. Appreciated.
Was Inspired. Dreamed. Loved Throughout.

Words of the year. *

Some of my favourite, if somewhat off the wall, ones include:

desk-Yeti - similar to a desk monkey (someone who spends all day working) but rarer; in fact so rare they have never been seen.

Fauxmosexual/metrosexual - young, Beckham-like man, who in terms of grooming, style, sensitivity and culture appears to be gay, but actually sleeps with women
(Suggested by reader Justin, UK)

hammer time - start of war, as predicted by US Vice Admiral Timothy Keating. "Make no mistake, when the president says go - look out, it's hammer time

intexicated - drunken text messages will be sent by the inebriated.
(Suggested by reader George, UK)

poxy moron - a person wearing a "happy to help" badge but who actually isn't anything of the sort (typically a zit-covered shop assistant who has no idea where anything is)
(Suggested by reader A Greenwood, UK)

recreational assistant - politically correct term for drug dealer
(Suggested by reader Julian, UK)

self-dating - euphemism for masturbating, according to GB Trudeau's Doonesbury

unknown unknowns - things we don't know that we don't know, according to US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
(Suggested by reader Terry Jarvis, England)

Lazy days.

Only four lazy days left and then the weekend. Times seems to be racing on, tumbling helter-skelter back to the days of toil, elbow grease and long hour shifts. Looking back at the past few days I am not sure where they hours have disappeared to, but I know that they where well spent in the company of those I love. The holiday season was celebrated in our usual style, with much love and laughter, joyful gift giving and our annual Christmas brunch*. Movies were watched, games were played, books were read, snuggling occurred in massive happy quantities and we even managed to post a sprinkling of pictures.

To put it in a nutshell, Christmas/Chanukah rocked. Part of me just can't wait till next year, so that we could celebrate it again.

Twas the night before...

Wishing you all the merriest of holidays, may this seasons festivities be filled with much merriment, laughter, love and joy.

Our warmest wishes to you all.
squishes and kisses
Hugin and Munin

...and to all a Good Night!
'Twas the night before, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse*

Miss Poopey head.

After a long bout of laziness, procrastinations and general slothlike behaviour we have finally managed to get the cards written, scrawled in, stamped and posted. My sincerest apologies go out to all those who were expecting a card. With any luck you should be getting them mid-holidays, though I am still hoping for some snail mail miracle that will get them to you just in time for the holidays. So for now just call me, Miss Poopey head, and hopefully next year I won’t leave the holiday card sending spree to the last possible moment.

*Squishes*
A much abashed Munin.

Words from the wise.

When one is faced with the possibility of attending a rip roaring if subdued Christmas party, one should remember to take the following day off from work so that the fuzzy cottony brain feeling does not impede with any form of coherent thought. Especially if one has a project due, and lucid thought is a necessary and vital requirement needed to ensure that one does not write in long muddled run on sentences and that the final product is legible and does not contain the words. ‘My ode to Coffee.’ ‘Where did I put my bleeping Advil?’ and ‘Who stole my stole my brains?’

Honey bear

Should a girl worry when her very close, very male, dear friends start calling her beloved boy, schnookems? It makes a girl wonder...

quiet time.

Haven't felt much like talking these past few days. This state of non verbal’ness occurs often just before the holiday season, when free is short time, the work hours are long and hours are spent scuttling about trying to get everything up and ready for the holidays. Home becomes a haven of quite time; the couch becomes a place of refuge where one can regroup and words that once flowed between loved ones become succinct, short and muddled as one tries to convey what one means through a veil of bone tired brain numbing fog. In short, I have lost the art of speech, of finding the right words, of writing in long flowery, garish and at times coherent sentences. The holidays can’t come too soon. Wait, strike that, still too much left to do. Lets rephrase that. I look foreword to the holidays, when the haze of fatigue will no longer plague my mind and when the words I knew so well will grace me with their presence once again. I look forward to the time when thought, and stories will flow onto paper once again, a long tumbling river of evocative images.

In the meantime we've added some more pictures to our photolog. Hopefully we'll have some more up by the weekend.

"work from home" free card.

If there was ever a day to use the ”work from home” card, this would have been the day. My usual 45 minute morning trip to work landed up taking an hour and 45 minutes. Blarg. I am not looking forward to battling the masses, snow and slow transportation tonight.

An UnBirthday Birthday.

The wonderful, effervescent and deliciously eloquent Liz celebrated her birthday yesterday! Happy belated Birthday Liz!!! Hope you had a wonderful day, filled with much love, laughter, and all things wonderful. Wishing you all your hearts desires. Many, many happy returns.

Go give her some Birthday loving!

Tic Toc

If one more man tells me that my biological clock is ticking. And then goes on to state that they think it is time that I consider settling down, getting married and having kids I will not be held responsible for outright decking them. What is it with men and the ever-ticking women’s biological clock?

Furthermore, anyone who tells me that the man I love is abnormal because they have not settled down, purchased a house, expensive car or bought into societies decree that all men should have found exactly what they want to be by the time they reach the venerable age of 18*, can kindly shove their opinion where the sun don’t shine. Thank you.

*At 31 I'm still trying to figure out if Engineering is what I want to do with the rest of my life.[grumble]

Distraction

Things you do when you don't feel like working. [Though I should really buckle down and get my arse back in gear.] Where's Willy

Is the day over yet?

Fnarg. Not a good day for deadlines or any attempt at coherent thought. I just can't seem to focus on anything that requires more then five seconds of scant attention. Thoughts of running wild keep popping into me head, accompanied by the need to curl up under blankets and sleep, blissfully dreaming of high sea adventure.

Pirates and Buccaneers

I know we’ve had this conversation before. It is one that comes up occasionally, especially after an instalment of 'swash swash buckle buckle' pirate movie watching.

I have a weak spot for pirates, rogues, rangers and …erm …elves. [Hangs head in mock shame. Yes I know they technically don’t exist, but maybe, just maybe in the deepest forests of the Amazon there lives a community of elves.] Hugin is of the opinion that if he were given a choice he would rather be a buccaneer then a pirate. His reasoning for this is that essentially he feels that he is a good person, with a strong moral standing and cannot see himself being a black-hearted evil self-serving pirate. I on the other hand can very much see myself as a black-hearted evil pirate. The reason for thus is that the idea of being a buccaneer does not sit well with what I envision them. To me they are mercenaries, pure and simple. People who have sold out not for a cause but because they are seeking to gain riches, in other words they do it for cold hard cash.

Truly told, my romanticism of pirates has to do with the fact that they are living under their own rules, accountable to no one but their crews [if they are good swashbuckling pirate captains] but more so is the idea of freedom. The romantic rebel in me yearns to throw down societies yoke of hypocritical morality and head out onto the ocean, to sail amongst the continents, living by my own set of rules, exploring the worlds that I have not yet seen. I think I love what our beloved Captain Jack Sparrow said. “What a ship represents is freedom.”

Merry Airmail.

Having fallen into a slump of unending procrastination, we have not yet been able to get our holiday greetings posted much less written. So it is in this vain that I offer our sincerest apologies and hope that we shall have them out the door this weekend, which in turn would hopefully mean, that they will reach you by the 24th. [That is of course if the pigeons don't get lost ;o) ]

There are a few addresses that we are missing so if you, you, you, you, you, you and you too would be so kind as to email them to us, it would be greatly appreciated. I know that I am forgetting a few wonderful people, so if you would like a card from the great white north, just drop us a line. Hopefully we will get them to you all on time.

Tis the season of lists and blank stares.

It’s getting harder and harder to come up with ideas of what I want for Christmas. As Lively Lexis so aptly put it, “I'm at an age where present-exchanging has become virtually impossible. I don't really need anything in the price-range acceptable for gift-giving. If I need it, I buy it”.

Hugin and my dad have been hounding for weeks, trying to get me to provide them with a Christmas lists of items that they may procure, think about and muse over. The only thing that I can come up with when cornered into finally answering the question was, a steady paying job, with a decent salary, benefits and vacation time “and world peace…*” Which to be forthright is not any sort of reasonable request.

Other then that, the other items that I can think of are plane tickets to someplace exotic, interesting and warm, a 24 footer of the wooden floating kind with sails, another camera of the digital SLR variety or, erm, plane tickets to somewhere warm, sunny, with lots of things to see and experience. These frankly do not fall into the category of affordable gift request. So it’s back to the musing for me, and the pestering from loved ones as to what I would like and if all else fails this list still exists.

But love, even if you can't find anything on my list, and even if I can't think of something that falls into the reasonable list. What I want most for Christmas is to spend it with you.

Remember

In remembrance of the fourteen women who lives ended 14 years ago. In hopes that this will never happen again, and that one day soon women will no longer live in fear.

* National Day of Remembrance & Action on Violence Against Women

hibernation seems like a good plan

Waking up to a clogged bath tub drain, which requires a good 5 minutes of bailing cold frigid water is not what i consider to be the start of a good morning. Waking up to a clogged drain, which requires a good 5 minutes of bailing glacially frigid waters when you are already late and need to do the quick step-into-shower-turn-around-while-lathering-up-a-la-tasmanian-devil and then stubbing your toes on the clothes rack as you search for a clean dry shirt is definitely not a good way to start of the day. Fneh. I think I am going to call it a day and crawl back into our warm cave of a bed and pretends that it's the weekend. Could someone please wake me next spring!

simple math

Hugin's teasing me with regards to my math skills. He just doesn’t believe me when I say that 8 minus 8 equals 12.

Link and Think

There are 40 million people living with AIDS/HIV today. 14 million children have been orphaned by the disease. 3 million people have died. How many more orphans, how many more deaths before we start working together to help bring an end to this disease that ravages the lives of so many?

World aids day

De-mystify sex. Promote safe sex. Protection is the only solution! " - Raje, Canada. [BBC]

There are so many people living in the world today, coping with the knowledge that they may one day succumb to a disease that has taken their family, their friends and those that they hold dear. There are others who face a daily battle, who's only life line is a cocktail of drugs that keeps their worst fears at bay and there are others who die alone, in dark corners forgotten by those who they once called family, shunned and ostracized from the society that once held them dear.

Aids and HIV are not faceless diseases. They are not ones that live in regions unknown. They strike without prejudice, whether the person is a child, teen, adult or the venerabley aged. Aids touches the lives of daughter and sons, husband and wives. Mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, grandmothers and grandfathers. In your own home, the neighbour next door, the child who plays on your street or a person who lives a thousand miles away. There are so many stories, so many people, brave, strong, generous, and scared. Please read or listen their stories. Get to know them. Reach out.

People and their stories:
* Living with Aids.
*Positve lives
* The Aids Debate -BBC
* Teens living with Aids
* "Inspiring Stories"
* But think first
* World AIDS Day: The Last Sucker

Other links:
*International Community of Women
* Aids.org
*Aids online

Previous entries containing links and stories.
Dec 2002. Dec 2001

If you have any more links, comments are stories please feel free to leave them in the comment box.

groove'n

Who ever said that hippos can't get their groove on.

Graciously nabbed from eventually clever.

Voix de chatte.

There’s a craggily old janitor who works on the floor I inhabit. He’s a nice old gent, friendly in a grandfather sort of way. Tonight while picking up the piles of papers and trash that seem to accumulate/ miraculously multiply in my area he remarked as I was ending a conversation on the phone. “You have a voix de chatte*.”

Which had the unnerving effect of rendering me speechless, mousy and timid. I am never sure how to take compliments from people. Somehow, the fact that someone has taken the time to notice something, compliment me or say something flattering with regards to one of my idiosyncrasies always makes me extremely shy. In moments like these, a hole, or nice dark corner would be a welcome place to hide.

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving. Hoping that you all had a wonderful day, filled with warmth and happiness, in the company of those that are dear.

Narchies

Ever since childhood I've called clementines, narchies. I do not know why, nor do I know what language the word is derived from, but to me a clementine has always been and will always be a narchie. Which has led to some rather intense arguments with storeowners as to whether or not they carry these little round morsels of juicy goodness: “Excuse me, but when will you be getting in the next shipment of narchies?” What?!? “Narchies, you know, juicy, yummy, small orangey things, grow on trees, mainly in morocco and spain.” I’m sorry ma’am, but we don’t carry any of those here “But, but, you had some last week” Ma’am I’m sorry, but we don’t carry those. “Are you sure? I’m positive I got the last box here” No. “But!” No! “Are you absolutely positive” Yes. Now if you don’t mind. “But. But. I want my little packages of tart sweetness. Could you just please go check” Lady…. “But” … Out. “But. But. But”

Can any one tell me what the little white spots are? You know the ones that appear on the membrane of each segment. The neurotic part of my brain wonders if that mean that they are going off, or have some exotic disease that is transferable and that I am likely to catch due to the copious amounts of narchies that I eat.

Yumminess

Hugin, snuggles, blankies, fluffy pillows, candy cane lattés and The Lord of the Ring: The Two Towers, Extended version. All in all a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

signs

A mother and her children got onto the subway this morning a few stops after mine. Due to the transit dispute and problems on the line the mother was worried that they may have to get out at an earlier stop and walk of the rest of the way to school. The daughter who was holding onto the pole softly comments to herself, “ just in case” and moves back to where her mother is standing so that she may hold her mothers hand. As she grasped her mother’s hand her mom growled “get off of me.” The first of many shivers tickled down my spine and sadness infuses my heart. A few seconds before they approached their stop the daughter asked her sibling if she could have another sip of their drink. The mother instantly rounds on her daughter, her voice is angry and irate, shaking a finger directly in the child’s face, her words are harsh. The child steps back, cowers and raises her hand defensively in front of her head as if she is expecting her mother to strike her.

I felt so helpless watching as the events unfolded before me. I have no idea what to do in these situations. Do I confront the mother? Do I tell social services? Or do I sit meekly in my spot pretending that it isn’t happening?

I landed up sitting there meekly, pretending that it was just another argument. Hoping that that it was an isolated case. That it was just a bad day and that tomorrow everything would be ok. However, in my heart I recognized the signs. The upraised arms, protection from a blow that she knows is coming. The cowering, a sign to indicate that she is at their whim, that she is sorry and that they are right. The curling up on oneself, security from the harshness, from the pain, from the knowledge that she is not as loved as she should be.

Botanicals.

I love taking up close and personal pictures. Jamming the camera up close, zooming in and capturing the nitty gritty details. Yes I am a macro junkie. I also enjoy taking botanical stills. The problem is I never actually take the time to jot down the name of the flower that I am becoming intimate with, which leads to a mass of flower pictures to which I cannot tag a name. Here are some of the pictures that Hugin and I took last year while visiting the botanical gardens. *

Ironically after finally having managed to beat back the procrastinating beast with a rather large stick, we are now only a year and a half behind in the photo-uploading endeavour. Ok. So we’ve slipped a little further behind then I had intended. But, I promise that by next year we should only be a few months behind. Something about not making promises that one cannot keep comes to mind. Which reminds me. Has anyone used Gallery for their photo needs, and if so what do you think of it?

*If you recognize any of the flowers and know thier name please leave it in the comments. Thanks a bunch. M.

Retentively geeky.

Hugin claims that he never knew how organized anal retentive, I could be. I figured that based on the fact that we have been good friends for what seems like ages he would have stumbled on this quirk a long while back. But, no, he is still constantly amused at my need to organize gems, charms, potions and runes in neat little rows while playing Diablo thus prolonging the game as I shout, grumble and whinge for more time to get everything sorted just right.* This coming from the man who sat down on our kitchen floor, grocery bill in one hand, PDA in other calculating the percentage of each of our shares, including the cat.**

*Yes this little quirk transfer to other areas of our life. Books, music and DVDs lined up in specific rows. Lists. Lists of almost anything you could possibly imagine that would need to be listed, and a few list of things that really shouldn’t be listed at all.

** The cat accounts for 19%, Hugin account for 30% and I, well I account for the rest.

rough start

Morning started out a little rough. It took two engineers to open one can of coffee. After five minutes of helpless fiddling, one of them shouted out for a Swiss army knife*, cause that can opener had to be better then the one being employed. After two more minutes of fiddling a third engineer pointed out that the can opener would work if it were utilized in the manner that it was designed for. A little later on, once the coffee was brewing it took 7 engineers 3 minutes to figure out how to heat up 12 cinnamon buns in a microwave. **

*What?!? It’s not my fault. The can opener looked odd and I couldn’t figure it out.
**Why yes, we did spend four years in university. How can you tell. [wry wink]

Sleeping in

It’s a sad day when sleeping in consist of waking up at 7:30, five minutes before you usually head off to work. It’s sadder still when that extra 45 minutes of sleep leaves you feeling bright eyed and bushytailed. What ever happened to the days when sleeping in meant waking up at noon, and getting up meant dragging your sleepy sorry excuse of a functioning body out of bed at one’ish?

addendum: And of course as soon as I walked into the office the sleepiness begun to hit me in crashing titanic waves. By 9:30 I would have given almost anything for a pillow, a couch and a blankie.

declarations of weirdness

In the midst of a conversation concerning upcoming projects, technical glitches with current project and other office type stuff with my boss, he exclaimed out of the blue with great enthusiasm. “You’re weird.” Not knowing quite how to respond to that little gem of wisdom I quipped back “So are you”.

once more with feeling.

It would seem that the 'inability to leave house in one try’ is contagious. Three times. Three times to get out of flat and off to work. First try: stepping to the door remembered that the cat needed feeding and that her water needed changing. Second try: past door, key in lock. Forgot luncheon pesos. Need luncheon pesos else will be forced to gnaw on keyboard and mouse cord, which I am told are plasticy at best. Back in I go, nabbed bills, which were sitting innocently on front end table where I had left them and head back out remembering to holler down hallway at Hugin. “Catch you later alligator. Have a good day and all that other stuff. Love you.” Our usual morning banter. Third try: forgot gloves and scarf. Unlock door, find gloves and grey fuzzy scarf hidden under cat’s rump, don said garments and we are off. Yippee!

Young whipper schnapper.

The delightful, wonderful and very dear to our hearts, Ed celebrates her birthday today. She turns *CENSORED* years young today. Ed, wishing you the best of everything. Hoping that you have a superbly fabulous day, filled with all your hearts desires, yumminess, laughter, love and every tickly sensation in-between. May all your wishes be granted. Many happy returns. And with out further a do. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Big squishy hugs,
and much birthday loving
Us.

Give her some birthday loving over here.

Remembrance

Remembering those who fought, so that we may live:

In Flanders Fields
'In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below'

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

- John McCrae
lest we forget.

Kissing strictly forbodden.

"Moscovites caught kissing in public places could be fined if city authorities pass a new law currently under consideration..." -BBC Talk about being asinine. Who in their right mind would even consider passing this through as a law? Never mind don’t answer that. But seriously, why? Whom? And what the hell are they thinking?

This however, makes me quite happy. Bring on the cocoa.

"Mawidge, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam wiffin a dweam"

Our happiest congratulations go out to Dol & M on their wedding day. May your love grow with each passing year. May your years together turn into decades. May they be filled with joy, love, laughter, health and wonderful adventure. May the always be sweet and never bitter.

All our love
H & M

Endoftheworld.

End of the world. Found in an email. Completely not PC, disturbing according to Hugin, but funny none the less. Ok. Ok. It' completely warped. But I found it funny, though maybe that's just a knee-jerk reaction on my part to something that is quite eep!

Burning the midnight oil.

Twenty four hours are just not enough to get everything done in a day. Eleven hours clocked at work and I still haven't been able to finish off what needs to be done for tomorrow. Will be burning that midnight oil tonight.

Amusing aside: Completely missed my bus stop this morning. Zoomed by it while engrossed in a book. Looked up to discover that I was 5 minutes further along. The bus driver though, was kind enough to bring me back.

Crushed

Hugin just called me "sucketude" because I can't play* with him tonight. [sniffle] Am mortally crushed.

*clarification: that would be playing on the 'puter.

white stuff hath cometh.

Snow. Falling in soft wet fluffy clumps. Turning to ice as it hits the aged sidewalk making it sleek, slippy and treacherous. It's too early for this. What happened to autumn? What happen to afternoons spent prancing in the streets watching the leaves fall, spiralling down in lazy circles or zipping by at dizzying speed caught up in the wind.

7 marathons, 7 days, 7 continents.

Somewhere on that fine line between sanity and insanity stride the men who would dare to achieve the impossible. I don’t know if it is out of great respect for their dedication or admiration for their staunch desire to attempt what most would consider to be utter madness that I am in awe of these gentlemen. In my wildest dreams I would be happy to finish one marathon, or maybe if I ever gather the gumption, one iron man. But this, this is sheer chutzpah, especially when one is quoted to say that ‘the marathon had been "good fun" ‘ -BBC

Here’s to the possibilities, and to the knowledge that nothing truly is impossible.

Night Colours

Golden leaves spread, a crown upon a wrinkled brow. The wind twirls along her path, whispering as she goes. Quite moments broken by the soft rustling of leaves. Aged scents of fall waft, tantalizing memories of childhoods spent outdoors. Cheeks ruddy. Evidence of autumn’s cold caress. Breath, wispy clouds of smoke dancing in the twilight. The night alight with the twinkling of stars beckons. Promises of adventure hidden between their paths.

Fu Manchu

Who would of thunk?!? I guess it's all comes down to the way you twirl it...

*

To all ye ghost, goblins, ghouls, monsters, imps and witches, have a fun frightfully filled candy chomping, trick and treating safe All Hallows Eve!

tempus fugit

Moments of calm, lulls, bumps, yelps, frustrations, euphoria, jubilation, happiness, days of contentedness, those of sorrow, yearning, pensiveness and the quite in between. All ridden out in a whirlwind of time. Two years have passed since the day we first started this little adventure, almost two years since we purchased our first domain. How the months have flown...

space cowboy turns 31

Today one of my dearest friends joins our venerable group of the over 30 somethings. Mo welcome to the fold. Soon we’ll be buying you walking sticks, so that you can hobble about like the rest of us, and finding you young nurses to care for your every whim. [impish wink]

Wishing you a wonderful birthday. Hoping that it is filled with laughter, humour, happiness, friends/family, love and all your hearts desires. Wishing up many, many happy returns. May all your wishes come true.

Much love and raucous joyous celebration
Us.

*Sorry Mo, I just could help myself. [Squishy]

The Joker - The Steve Miller Band*

Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah
Some call me the gangster of love
Some people call me Maurice
'Cause I speak of the pompitous of love

People talk about me, baby
Say I'm doin' you wrong, doin' you wrong
Well, don't you worry, baby, don't worry
'Cause I'm right here, right here, right here, right here at home

'Cause I'm a picker, I'm a grinner
I'm a lover and I'm a sinner
I play my music in the sun
I'm a joker, I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight toker
I sure don't want to hurt no one

I'm a picker, I'm a grinner
I'm a lover and I'm a sinner
I play my music in the sun
I'm a joker, I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight toker
I get my lovin' on the run
Whooo Whooooo!

You're the cutest thing that I ever did see
I really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree
Lovey-dovey, lovey-dovey, lovey-dovey all the time
Ooo-eee baby, I'll sure show you a good time

'Cause I'm a picker, I'm a grinner
I'm a lover and I'm a sinner
I play my music in the sun
I'm a joker, I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight toker
I get my lovin' on the run

I'm a picker, I'm a grinner
I'm a lover and I'm a sinner
I play my music in the sun
I'm a joker, I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight toker
I sure don't want to hurt no one

[break]

People keep talking about me, baby
They say I'm doin' you wrong
Well don't you worry, don't worry, no don't worry, mama
'Cause I'm right here at home

You're the cutest thing I ever did see
Really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree
Lovey-dovey, lovey-dovey, lovey-dovey all the time

Candy.

Got to work to no computer, no desk and no actual ability for me to earn my keep. Instead of being mightily productive I spent the day shadowing my immediate boss, gleaning as much information from him as humanly possible under the circumstances of watching someone else work on their computer. Aye, a fine and productive day it was. <--insert mighty sarcasm here

As the day passed I also watched him devour one rocket candy pack after another like the crack candy* that they are. Trying not to be outdone and having nothing much else to do, I attempted to keep pace with his mad sugar popping skills. Coupled with the two 16oz cups of coffee downed in the late after noon in an attempt to stay mostly coherent, I can safely predict that the precarious sugar rush that I have ridden all afternoon shall come to a sudden anti-climatic downer in a minute or two. If you need me I’ll be the squidgy unmoving lump on the rug.

*I know I have read this somewhere else. The term stuck. If it is yours please leave a link.

Note to Self:

6:45 in the morning is not the time to be checking shirts to see if buttons are intact, especially when said buttons are not all intact. It is also not the time to realize that you have no stockings left that do not have runs in them forcing you to ditch the idea of wearing something that what have made the ultimate first impression. Finally. One should not be attempting to write all this down when they only have five minutes left to get their posterior ready and out the door.

Visually stumped

I tend to acquire knowledge visually. I need things to literally be drawn out so that I can grasp the gist of what a person is trying to explain, get across, or have me do*. However, when it comes to computer programs, I either need someone to show me what steps are necessary to obtain the desired output, or I need to sit down with said program, manual in hand and play.

This Friday my boss informed me that we would be starting a new contract next week utilizing a program which I have never played with before. Due to the fact that I was working from home, he sent me the manual and some examples. The small hitch is. I do not have said program installed on my computer, nor did he actually send me a copy so that I could install it. Over the past few days I have been trying to glean all that I can from the manual. But without the program I have no clue what the people who wrote the manual are trying to convey. I can’t visualize any of the menus, nor can I decipher how to actually manoeuvre through said menus. Needles** Needless to say I am freaking out.

I just hope that when I get there and finally see the program it will all coalesce, and maybe, just maybe, I can pull off pretending that I actually know what the hell is going.

*get yer minds out of the gutter. [wry shaking of head]
**graçias bella!

Grumpy Gus.

I will not be a grumpy Gus. I will not be a grumpy Gus. I will not be a grumpy Gus. I will not be a grumpy Gus. I will not be a grumpy Gus. I will not be a grumpy Gus. I will not be a grumpy Gus. I will not be a grumpy Gus. I will not be a grumpy Gus. I will not be a grumpy Gus. I will not be a grumpy Gus. I will not be a grumpy Gus. I will not be a grumpy Gus. I will not be a grumpy Gus. I will not be a grumpy Gus. I will not be a grumpy Gus...

Fneh. This isn’t working. Grump!

Update: However, a walk and a hot yummy vanilla latté seems to have done the trick!
[a much less grumpballish munin skips off, humming happily to herself, scaring the cat and all other manner of cuddly beast]

by way of the woolly mammoth

Concentration seems to be as elusive as the mountain yeti, or the fabled three-toed sloth. A sense of jittery anticipation is prevalent and all I really want to do is scream, yelp, shout or simply yell at the top of my lungs, anything to get rid of the bundle of tense lumps that seem to have taken up residence in my lower stomach. So much for the captivation of multitasking, that too has evaporated in a cloud if steam, its tendrils wafting up to the ceiling where it now clings. Its demeanour cheeky and mocking, as it gathers itself and congeals into great droplets of attentiveness, waiting to fall on someone else’s head and grace them with the ability to get work done today.

The taste of defeat, one which I do not swallow well, gathers like bile in the back of my throat and the whispers of muses who have skittered on taunt me, ‘better to pack everything up and head home, back to the warmth bed and hearth’ they say. ‘Much better to hide under the covers, then try and concentrate’ they add.

I have never been able to explain why this is so, why moments of jitteriness assault my moods allowing for no real work, thought or motivation to do said work. They are there, and as such maybe they are also an excuse when I no longer want to work or am bored with the topic at hand. But other days it seems that this feeling manifests itself when I am overwhelmed, when I do not have confidence or the belief that I can actually accomplish what I have undertaken. And no matter what I do it hangs overhead, a black cloud, feeding the sense of futility and inadequacy that bubbles from within. And with it the desire to be proactive slinks out the door, tail held firmly between its legs.

Geeky lore.

Mildly occupied, lots of multitasking to accomplish today. Will be back soonish, in the meantime some good old home grown geekiness.

"Science is not a collection of facts. It is an ongoing process that attempts to remain in step with the latest research. That is why scientists sometimes change their minds." – OSS

Link contributed by the bubbly and playful Ed.

more geekiness for your perusing pleasure:
*Only geeks
*Dark, warm with the light aroma of popcorn.
Geeky culture: [we've got culture, yes we do. we've got culture, how about you?blink. erm, we do?!?]
Geek. Pure and simple
Where we love to spend our hard earned greencoloured backs.
Geeked and coded.
And if the need ever arises you can always 'rent a geek'.

Stockings

Pantyhose are the Devils tool I tell you. Whoever thought to invent them should be strung up by their toes or made to wear them constantly. Especially the kind that are scratchy and have the inane ability to creep down your leg at the most inopportune moments*, forcing you to contort yourself into the oddest of positions just so you can hike them up discreetly.

*These moments have included, but are not exclusive to:
Being in an important meeting when first impressions could either make or break the deal. Talking to theDude, otherwise known as he who signs your pay checks, while you try to convince him that the money he pays you each week is just a titch below what you are truly worth. That time you walked by that utterly attractive charming heart palpitating cute boy/girl with whom you’d been flirting with for months...

An almost belated birthday.

The perky and adorable* Geekgirl is celebrating her birthday today!
Wishing you an incredible and enjoyable day. May your day be filled with all manner of wonderful things, love, laughter and yummy moments. Wishing you all your hearts desires. Many happy returns M. Great big squishy hugs.

*I fear she may just deck me for that one. Ducks and hides. Okay. Okay! I yield. Sexy and adorable. Is that better? ;o)

Wimples

Is it normal that at the age of thirty-one blemishes still grace my chin? I had thought that the 30’s were a guarantee of pimple free complexion. No more toners, astringents, creams or cover-ups, just clean, healthy lovely unblemished skin. But alas it would seem that this is a fallacy.

So anyone got any cover up?

Bittersweet reminisces.

Every once and again the memories of people who are no longer part of your life emerge. Triggered by a smell, a sound, a song or an image they come unbidden. Some are colourful, and vibrant. Flashes of days gone by. Of moments shared. Of laughter, pain and loss. Others are slow drawn out recollections. Moments that lasted seconds are prolonged into extended brooding minutes. Each evoke feelings of loss, tinged by bittersweet pangs of mild regret as you wonder how they fare. Of those that have moved on, some will remain, muses that flit into your life when the need arises. Others will disappear completely, their presence no longer a light in your life, but their memories dance on. Shadows in your heart.

‘Cowboys. Sceptics. Bullies. Villains. Heroes’

Any company that puts out a call out for: Cowboys. Sceptics. Bullies. Villains and Heroes, has my staunch vote as a company to be working for. Now if only I had me some mad coding skills and a smidgen, i.e. wackloads, of talent...

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Canucks out there, and a happy Columbus Day to all ye Yanks.
Hope you all have a good restful day off, filled with merriment and thanks.

amusement

Telemarketers are a funny breed and though they can on occasion be crass, tactless, exasperating, arrogant or just plain rude, yet it always amuses me when they ask me if my mom or dad are in. Especially when there is a long pondering mildly confused pause after I say hello. [evil little grin]

Addendum: Though I must admit, on most of these occasions I am sorely tempted to tell the person eviltelemarketer, that 'mommy and daddy are in the bedroom and that mommy is making very funny noises'. Hopefully this will not consequently cause any serious/dangerous/adverse effects to the person on the other end of the line.

Save the Boobies

The Boobiethon ends this weekend, so please take the time to go and donate. It honestly doesn't have to be much, any little bit helps. You never know who’s life you may be saving.

guilt: the great motivator

I am not sure if guilt is the greatest motivator in the world, but it seems to be the one that gets me into work on some days when I shouldn’t really be there.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy what I am doing. And it’s not that I wake up in the morning depressed and despondent wanting to do nothing more then dig deeper into the blankets and cover my head pretending that life truly doesn’t exist pass the confines of my illusionary walls. No, on most days, I look forward to work*, minus the stress and anxiety that seems to be a constant companion of late. I look foreward to the challenges that work may present, even though those are always accompanied by a tinge of mild fear and the thought that I may not be fully up to the task. I am funny that way. And yes, most days coffee is required before I am even remotely anywhere near what may be considered to be sociable, or at best approachable. No the guilt comes when I know that I should really be at home, in bed, with soup and tea, because a fever has been raging for the past day and the cold that started a week before has not let up even in the slightest. Or, when I have worked beyond what most would consider reasonable and still feel the need to come in on the weekend to make sure that the works gets finished on time.

I have never been able to explain the guilt that I feel it is just there. A heavy lump that settles in the pit of my stomach, a voice in the back of my head, constant and demanding that honour should be met.

*as much as anyone who works can, with the general wishing of a lifelong supply of aeroplane tickets and hotel vouchers, never having to worry where the next paycheck is coming from or how you are going to pay the bills.

*Hic!*

Hic. Oh bother. Silly Hiccups. Can’t stop. Hic. Anyone got any tips, tricks or make ‘em go away charms that can help with the hiccoughs? Hic. Owchie. Sillyness this is. Hic.

jello brain

There is something about rendering a large succession of images that turns the brain to a mass of squiggly gelatinous mush*. Eyes glaze over as the computer churns through the mathematics that are required to produce a visually captivating image. Sharp edges are rendered soft and muted as the mind wonders what all this will amount to. Colours blend and fade, and the harsh tones of artificial light become a subdued half light, complementing the images, causing it to reflect upon itself, as the lights dance about the floor. The brain now fuzzy doesn’t quite comprehend why it is doing this, but instead gets lost in the process: Click. Place. Twirl. Shift. Move. Click. Render. The minutes become hours that pass in a flash of mouse clicks. Fingers cramp, and the ever-present cold of the computer room settles into their joints. The brain, jiggles in it casing. Something else calls, a need of warmth and movement. The mind oblivious to the call continues upon its task.

*for some unfathomable reason the words ‘squiggly gelatinous mush’ evokes an images of bright green jello, lime flavoured bright green lime jello to be exact.

paving the way

“MIT to reach a steady - though never static - state by 2008. Between now and then, we will publish the materials from virtually all of MIT's undergraduate and graduate courses.” -MIT

For anyone who ever wanted to follow science/engineering/social studies but just couldn’t afford the time. This link is just amazing. I can’t but applaud MIT for putting this together.

I have an inkling as to what I’ll be doing during those long sleepiness nights when insomnia once again rears its ugly head. So much to learn and I have no idea what tickles my fancy most: History, Ocean Engineering, Anthropology…

One step over the hill.

The wonderful and effervescent Drama Queen is one year older today! Happy Birthday Meredith!

Hope your day is filled with many happy moments, lots of love, giggles, and joyous yelps of laughter. Wishing you a wonderfully delicious and enjoyable day. May all your hearts desires be granted. Many happy returns.
Big squishy birthday hugs.

Go give her some birthday loving!

grr.ump'y

I am grumpball! Hear me roar. [mewwl]
erm... [squeak]

sigh.

cloudy skies

Soft. Fluffy. Streaks in the sky. Capturing light at whim. Holding the rays close. And then releasing them in a great flash of light to dance amongst the waves. An inverted ocean in the sky. The storms of the past few days have brought some gorgeous cloud formations to the skies of our little hamlet...

*click to see full picture

For the Boobies

The second annual Blogger Boobie-Thon starts today! Go see, enjoy, and give a little. It doesn't have to be much, but every little bit helps.

The first $359 raised will be going towards a blogger charity ("Run For Their Lives - PAWS Chicago 8K"), and everything else beyond that will be going to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. -Robyn

Earmuffs

The cold air that has infused itself in the office is bordering on the ridiculous. I am sitting at my desk, snuggled up in my fleece with a scarf wrapped about my neck, my jacket on my legs acting as a pseudo-blanket and a small block heater warming my toes, bemoaning the lack if caffeine and heat. All that is missing are a pair of earmuffs and some gloves. If anyone has a pair to spare, please send them over, they would be greatly appreciated. [wink]

A Very Belated Birthday.

The delicious and very yummy Big Pink Cookie celebrated her Birthday this weekend, and somehow we managed to completely miss it.

Wishing you a very happy belated birthday Christine. Hoping that your day was filled with love, laughter and giggles. Wishing you all your hearts desires. May the next year bring you much love, laughter, happy adventure and all things wonderful. Many, many happy returns.
Big squishy hugs
Us.

Lies. All Lies.

… And they said the new environment would be more ‘user-friendly’. PAH! I can’t bloody well discern me elbow from me arse within their so called ‘new and improved’ menu picks. Liars. All of ‘em, selling me software with promises of stress free functionality and enhanced easygoing feature creation. And I, being the gullible fool I am, believed it all.

The white rabbit has run away with my time.

Busy. And late. Very late. Or grossly behind. Somehow my assessment of time needed to complete manual has gone all decoct and what I thought would only take a day or two is now bordering on three.

Back to the grind I go. See you all soon... I hope.
Until then I give you many beautiful pictures to look at.
Through other eyes

Psyching myself out

I feel like I did when writing my technical report paper.*

There is a knot in my throat and I am having the hardest time getting anything down on paper. Which is strange given the fact that if I were in a classroom I would be rattling off explanations and mouse clicks like there was no tomorrow. Making sure that everything was clear and concise. But. Now. Now I am a babbling fool, who is not quite sure how to properly expound on the ideas and explain the concepts, let alone list the steps. I keep stalling and when I actually do have something to write I doubt that good enough, which in turn makes me feel even more overwhelmed. It is enough to make a person want to scream and pull out their hair in frustration. Why. Why do I keep doing this to myself? Why do I distrust my abilities? Damnitalltohell.

Anyone feel like volunteering their mad typing skills? I know that if I could dictate the concepts to someone, pretending that I am in a classroom while they typed, things would go a lot better. Or not.

*Not sure what it is state side, but from where we hail from it’s the last technical paper that we write in order to graduate from engineering.

It took me one painful week to write and 4 months of prep. Once completed, I thought I would never have to go through that amount of writing angst again. And I swore that I would never let myself fall into the ‘psych yourself out/poorly prepared’ trap again. Yet here I sit, knots in stomach, mouth as dry as the Sahara desert, feeling exactly like I did all those years ago. [wry self deprecating smile] Goes to show you, some things change and some things will always sneak up on you unexpectedly.

Oatmeal

Over the past few days I have had the weirdest craving for oatmeal. I think it is due to the weather, something about cold rainy days inducing a need for hot steamy comfort foods, one of them being oatmeal. So here I sit, warm oatmeal in hand, happily munching away, enjoying the warmth that it brings. My question is am I the only one who mixes trail mix [or GORP if you please] into their oatmeal? *

*Yes. I am a strange egg.

Are you ready boots? Start walkin'!

Today is International Car Free day in Canada. Most people, well hopefully most, will be leaving their cars at home and will either be walking, cycling, or using public transportation to get around town. So how are you getting into work today?

These boots where made for walking…

irony

... and after all my talk of a deep inexplicable desire to cook, bake and make crepes, Hugin and I went out and got McNuggets and fries for supper. [wry shaking of head] We be odd that way...

Brunch at our place.

I have this inexplicable desire to make crepes. Hot, piping, yummy decadent crepes slathered with chocolate* and topped with strawberries and bananas. So who wants to come over for Sunday brunch? The crepes are on me and the coffee’s on Hugin, just bring yourselves and your favourite toppings. **

*Or Nutella if that is your preference. Though maple syrup shall also be at hand, along with blueberries.

**I should, however, give ye all fair warning. I have a deviant tendency of swearing wickedly when making crepes and have been known to put fishwives and construction workers to shame. [something about burning the tips of my fingers does not agree with me] So if you are in possession of more delicate sensibilities, I would suggest that you do not enter the kitchen or bring along a pair of earplugs. [wink] All are welcome.

Today be a Pirate's Day.

So pull up a chair maty and rest ye weary sea legs, there’s grog to be had and bawdy tunes * to be sung.

Official link.
*not safe for children
-->young eyes beware.

A-rovin'
In Portsmouth town there lived a maid
Bless you young women
In Portsmouth town there lived a maid
Do mind what I do say!
In Portsmouth town there lived a maid
The British Navy was her trade,
I'll go no more a-rovin' with you fair maid.
A-rovin', a-rovin', since rovin's been my ru-i-in
I'll go no more a-rovin' with you fair maid.

She swore to me that she was true
Bless you young women
She swore to me that she was true
Do mind what I do say!
She's true to me, she's true to you
She's true to the whole damn Navy, too
I'll go no more a-rovin' with you fair maid..

I put me hand upon her toe
Sez she,"Young man, you're rather low"

I put me hand upon her knee
Sez she,"Young man, you're makion' free"

I put me hand upon her thigh
Sez she,"Young man, you're drawin' nigh"

I put me hand upon her thatch
Sez she,"Young man, that's my main hatch"

I slipped me mainmast to her blocks
Sez she, "Young man, I've got the pox!"

smile. laugh. be merry.

'Cause some days, all you need is a little laugh.

Found at funny-pet-pictures.

This one is too cute, not to post.

Now if only I can get our cat to be this calm... though I fear that may just lead to an excess of posted cat pictures. Which reminds me, I should really update our photoblog. It's about time that we added some more pics. [wry smile] Ah the joys of procrastination.

Tooth achy goodness

Someone just brought in Krispy Kremes. They are hot, steamy and oh so fresh. However their saccharine syrupy smell is causing my teeth to ache. I can feel them rotting in my mouth as I type. [ow!]

Strong coffee shall be called for, and then we're going to gorge ourselves with sugary goodness.

Big Trouble, Missy.

Holly crap. I just found out that my little sister is travelling in South Africa! Girl, what exactly do you think you are doing there?!? Hmm? Following a boy, whose doing a stage just so you can gallivant about the world for a little longer? Hmm? I will be giving you a talking too, next time I see you. Oh yes I will! Just as soon as you decide to grace us with your presence and get your little butt over to the frigid white north.

Yes, she does have a knack for traveling to all sorts of place, none of them, which are a hundred percent safe. But then I don’t think many places in the world are 100 percent crime free, or safe anymore. Which is a heart wrenching shame as many of the less safe [? i know that there is a better term. though brain won't provide it. need coffee.] places have so much to offer to those who wish to learn.

Liz and J. Take care of each other. Be safe. Enjoy. And get back home safe and sound. Love you lots.
Us.

New beginnings.

Our warmest and happiest congratulations go out to D and M on their engagement this weekend. May your lives together always be filled with love, happiness, joy and laughter. Wishing you both many decades of wonderful adventure spent in each other’s company.

Our love always
H & M

D, I still can’t believe that we have only met, and already you are heading out of the country. It is completely unfair. Your laughter, genorosity and warm heart, but most of all, you will sorely be missed. Hoping that we get to see each other soon.

Here we go again…

I am getting too old for this. Stability and a regular pay check. Is that too much to ask for? And. No. I’m not asking for full out stability. Life needs adventure and a touch of spice every now and again. But, to be quite frank, I can do without the worry and the not knowing if my position will be terminated within a day. My body just can’t handle the angst and all out gut wrenching, stomach turning anxiety. Blech. Wanting to go home now and curl up into a tight little ball.

Comforts

Soft, blue and fluffy, the pillow sits upon a couch, a place to rest a somnolent head. Though she knows there is much to do, she curls up on the couch seeking to cocoon herself in its overstuffed girth. Shirking her responsibilities, a heavy mantle that she rather not wear she flicks on a movie, white noise in the background. The clouds gather overhead, dark and grey. The soft patter of rain lulls her to sleep, natures lullaby for a weary soul.

No Wanna

Friday afternoon. The rough part. The weekend’s just hours away. Calling. Beckoning. A sweet siren voice promising hours of endless play. A twitch. A yearning. A need to break out and escape into the warm happy sunshine. Thoughts of ‘no wanna’ bounce in my brain as I gaze at the work pile before me.

Is it time to go home yet?

Bling Bling

Some days it's all about the bling bling.

munin
n. drugs, but also a secret code-word for cigarettes.
"You have the most happy munin, Billie."

Link found via Solonor

Two lights dim.

Johnny Cash 1932-2003
John Ritter 1948-2003

Rest ye well, oh weary gentlemen.

Childhood memories, consisted largely of country music, played in the background. A counterpoint to my mom’s need to travel upon the long open road. Filling the empty spaces between the rough transitions over cracks as we raced down the highway seeking out new sights. One of those was the rough baritone of Johnny Cash. His voice would fill the car, transporting us to a new place, diminishing the miles as we were caught up in the tale that he spun.

John Ritter, I shall remember most for his role in ‘Three’s Company’. It is a show I was drawn to as a teenager. I remember racing home at four o’clock, propping myself in front of the tele, losing myself in the slapstick comedy of the show. No, it may not have been his best work, but it is one that I remember the most.

Remembering.

Remembering the heroes, those who gave up their lives saving others and those who where lost.

flowers and bees

Flowers and bees, are sometimes hard to shoot as evident by the following snaps. These are two of my favourite though blurrier shots, modified in Photoshop, in an effort to salvage the pictures.

The first one was modified using the Watercolour filter, and the second one was given a Chalk stick effect. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the exact settings for either one.

You can also, if you wish, save them to your desktop. Simply right click , “save the picture as” and enjoy. [well at least I hope you'll enjoy them]

Flower: 1200x900 * Flower: 800x600 * Bee in flower: 1200x900 * Bee in flower: 800x600

Do you know the muffin girl?

Hugin has recently taken to calling me "The muffin girl"* As much as I love the man, I am not exactly sure how to respond to this new term of endearment. In my head all I can see it an overly rotund Munin waddling about, bedecked in crust and laden with blueberries. A rather outlandish and alarming image, not one that leaves me feeling frisky and/or snuggly. On the brighter side of things at least he hasn’t taken to calling me “Miss honking huge yuletide log” [wry teasing smile]

Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got some muffins baking that seem to need my attention.

Love you babe. Always. Yours. The muffin girl.

*Yes. That's a capital T to you sir. And NO you cannot take a bite out of my...

5 years old.

Google's five years old today.* Strange. I was under the impression that I had been using Google's search engine for much longer then five years. Even stranger still is the fact that I can't remember which search engines I was using before Google.

Aside: Can we say ‘unable to get into the work mindset’. I am blaming this on the now ever present access to the intranet. Must resist. Must pretend that the world past my cubicle walls does not exist. Help!**

*Unfortunately the banner only appears sporadically.

**Which invariably means that I will be popping through sites like some mad women. Almost stalker like in my attempt to escape the confines of my office space. It is in this vain that I beg forgiveness for my multiple pings, notes and off coloured mad ramblings that I may leave in your space. My heartfelt thanks go out to all of you.
A mildly unhinged Munin

Gerbil.

Today we head back to our old offices, away from the bustle of contract work. We shall stumble back into our usual routine of interim office work. We go back to the manuals and software. Back to writing. Back to editing. Back to the mild twiddling of thumbs, self-editing, pulling out of hair and more self-editing. Back to the semi-coherent mad ramblings of a mind that is slowly spiralling down into a form of self inflicted insanity. ‘How do you spell that again? Is this at all grammatically correct? Can some else please edit this? Please. Pretty please with cherries on top! What?!? No. We cannot write these manuals using both official languages!'

As the age old adage goes: Let the fun/games begin.

Iron Man Update.

Congratulations to all that made it through and those who gave it their best. I am in awe of your accomplishments. Of those we know who raced. One finished, and one made it through the swim, bike and part of the run. Way to go! [loud exuberant cheering] Maybe one day we will join you in this endeavor.

Two people amongst many, who I am in awe of:

1,534 official finishers ...
Frank Farrar and Jay Handy came across the line just after the midnight cut off, brining our total to 1,536 finishers so far!
Jay Handy is a diabetic competing on insulin -- what a great achievement! -Ironman Updates @ 16:57

We got that close finish!
As the clock went through the 17 hour point here, the crowd remained to welcome Frank Farrar, who was just over two minutes away from being an official finisher here today!
He fell down just yards away from the finish ... but got up and made his way through the finish!
What an amazing achievement, on a pretty amazing day! -Ironman Updates @16:53

Iron Wo/Man

Sending all our energy and go get ‘em vibes out to those of you who are running the Ironman in Wisconsin this weekend. Remember, “it’s just around the corner” “you’re looking good” and “one more hill, you can do it.”
Hope y’all get back safe and sound, with tons of pictures*.

* I have been told by those who run it, that running the Ironman is all about the pictures ;o)

On a personal note:
I am in awe of the incredible people I have met who train and compete in events like these. One day I hope to emulate them.

whimper

Could someone please refresh my memory as to why I volunteered to go into work on a Saturday?

Another Goodbye

Today’s the last day at the company for a while. Our contract is up again and with it comes the usual feeling of uncertainty and sadness. I really do not want to leave this place again; I am reluctant to leave my niche, the friends I have met over the past few months, the coffee machine and the feeling of belonging. I truly hope that we get to come back soon, and I hope that the time of uncertainty as to what we will be doing next will not last long.

some more please

Fourteen vacation hours left. Feh. It all goes by way too quickly. Anyone willing to write me a doctors note? All I need is another 48 hours off.

*Upadated photoblog. Still a wee bit behind. cough make.that.a.year.behind. cough

Flysui

This game is just a wee bit too stressful... so far I have only managed to catch 5 flies with me choptsticks. I think I need a drink.

Nations Capital.

We got back from Ottawa yesterday. The bus ride up was uneventful. Spent most of it jabbering on about inanities, going ons and falling asleep on each other’s shoulders. The bus pulled in to our National Capital about noon’ish, and I almost got us lost. It has been a little while since I have been back and I wasn’t sure which direction to head in to meet our friend. Capital Hill is that way. Erm. Is it? We spent Saturday roaming about the market place, taking in the sites and smells of downtown Ottawa. I finally managed to make it back to The Chili Store. The only place I know where you have to sign a waiver before you purchase the hot sauce.

Saturday night after a BBQ’d supper, followed by a delicious dessert potluck affair where we met some intresting and gregarious people. We made it down to The Heart and Crown. One of my favourite Irish pubs. I was surprised to see how much it has grown in the past few years. The last time I was there the pub consisted of two tiny rooms crammed together providing an atmosphere of warmth and familiarity. It has now sprawled its way into two more rooms and a courtyard. If you are ever in the neighbourhood, and would like to grab a pint of some good old Irish Ale, I strongly suggest giving the place a gander.

Sunday was a low-key day. Woke up, made breakfast. Meandered over to the Science Museum. Wandered about and furthered our education on all things related to Canadian invention. It’s surprising what Canadians have accomplished. After lunch we headed back to Capital Hill, walked about, snapped pictures and found the Photography Museum just as it was closing. I guess we shall have to put that on our list of ‘next time’ visits along with the National Gallery. After that we made our way down to the bus station. Stopping ever so often to take a picture or two. We spent the bus ride curled up next to each other drooling on each other’s shoulders and made it back home late sunday night.

M. Thanks so much for letting us crash at your place and schlepping us about town. It was truly wonderful seeing you again. We should do this more often, especially now that you have the hottub. [teasing smile]Squishy hugs.

Walkabout

Running away to our nations capital for a couple of days. To take in the sights, see what’s up with some old friends and have a few laughs.

Hope you all have a wonderful long weekend. We’ll be back soon, with pictures!

Querry:
Why is it that we always in variably leave the packing to the last possible minute. And, why is it no matter how hard I try I always seem to take a whole wackload of clothes with me. Case in point we shouldn’t be gone for more then two and yet I have set aside a weeks worth of clothing. Sigh.

...

Oh feh. I knew I bought the wrong bus tickets. The World Science Fiction Convention, is being held this year in, none other then, Toronto. Neil Gaiman will be attending. Sigh. Oh welll there’s always next year or better yet the year after.

That Tingly Sensation.

Our mildly neurotic if affectionate cat has fallen asleep on my lap and is currently purring away in blissful repose oblivious to the world around her. Unfortunately I can no longer feel my right leg below the knee. And, to make matters more interesting, my bladder, which has been steadily filling itself up over the day due to copious amounts of tea and coffee, is quietly if persistently calling the bathroom’s name. Getting there should prove to be challenging.

Did you say fries with that?

Trying out the virtues of online ordering. Now why I am worried that they’ll still manage to mess up the order. Though. I must say. The system’s rather nifty.

Update: Order successful. Everything was delivered. Nothing was misplaced. Yummy too.

Weird camera effects.

The picture looks like the negative was overexposed. Which is strange considering this was taken with the G3. Taken using the Art of Photo Fu.

*We've added some more pictures to the photoblog. Still a little behind though.

Cold.

The cold wind seeping through the cracks of our window heralds the changing of the season, and with it my spirits flounder. I am a summer child. Born to the warm sun kissed days laden with the scents of ripening fruit. The tempered heavy breezes carrying the soft echoes of spring flowers and freshly cut grass. The oceans with their soft sands, or weather warn rocks, playing amongst the crashing waves, frolicking in the shadows of the setting sun. I am a child who seeks the warmth. The one who you will find standing outside, head titled back, eyes closed enjoying the heat of the day as the sun dances about, flitting through the shadows, golden touches of light upon the leaves. I am not a child who does well in the grey muted tones of winter, surrounded by ice and frost. I need the warmth. The knowledge that the end of the summer is near has left me feeling melancholic and malcontent.

The art of Zen Photography.

In an attempt to improve our photographic skills Hugin and I have been meandering about town, snapping shots at anything that we found to be of interest. At one point during the day, we decided to try our hand at the Art of Zen Photography: [Briefly surmized below. For a more indepth study, please read above]

Hold camera in hand. About hip level*. Breathing deeply. Focus thoughts. Snap as you walk. See what transpires at the end. If ballsy enough do this without looking at the LCD screen, or looking through the view finder**.

*thigh level for those of you with longer limbs.

Hugin is amazing at this blind form of photography. He simply moves along his way, in an almost nonchalant cat like manner snapping shots of people, cars and anything else that comes along, never once glancing to see what the LCD holds. I on the other hand. Well let’s just say I have not mastered the art of letting go. Instead I keep worrying about everything. The focus. The framing. Whom, I am aiming the camera at. If I’ve got the right shutter speed, F-Stop, ISO or white balance. If the camera is pointed at anything at all let alone anything that may be considered to be interesting. Yes. I am the young grasshopper still searching for zen.
Below are two three of the pictures that we took, one is mine the other is two are Hugin’s. [though I shall not say which one is which.]

*** Zen Photography for your viewing pleasure.

Goodwife Guide

One can almost laugh looking back at this, but then the questions begin to surface. Who had the chutzpah to write this? Was it a man or was it a woman deeply seated in her beliefs that this was how one acted as a wife. How do you actually sell that load of tripe, sorry, those ideals to women. How did you get them to believe so hardheartedly that they were indeed the weaker sex, destined to a life of servitude. Destined to always being a second-class citizen?

*link found through Locus Desperatus

Pizza Dreams.

Happy Birthday Statia. Wishing you a wonderfully delicious and happy birthday! Hope you have an incredible day, filled with much love, laughter and happiness. May all your hearts desires be granted. May all your dreams come true. Wishing you many, many happy returns Girl! Sending you all our big squishy birthday thoughts.

Now scat y’all and go give the her some birthday love!

Time.

Time is a funny thing. Some days it zooms by never leaving you enough moments to actually finish off what you need to do and other days the seconds creep by. Molasses oozing down the neck of a long thin constricted bottle. It's on these days that staying at work staring at the screen feels like some form of deranged torture your boss has devised, for his general amusement.

Sunshine and Cheese

Spent the better part of the weekend in a state of relaxed bliss; either traipsing about the neighbourhood, snapping pictures of anything that looked interesting and enjoying the warm summer temperatures or curled up on the couch watching movies in the company of some wonderful people. I must, however, state for the record that “Showdown in Little Tokyo” is a painfully cheesy movie. I really do not remember it being that cheesy.

This is a rather nifty little tool for cataloguing DVD’s.

Blackout.

Yesterday parts of North America and Canada were hit by a blackout
At a loss for words and though I know that this is probably not the right reaction, all I can do is sit here and go “wow”. Just wow.

Hoping that all of you living in the affected areas are safe and sound.

Don’t wanna

Don’t wanna go to work today. Don’t wanna sit in the office and stare at a computer screen all day. I wanna take the day off, a mini vacation from the daily stresses. Find a hammock and lie in the shade. Find a body of water and sit by it enjoying the late summer rays. Find a terrace somewhere and sit on it sipping sangria, reading, snapping pictures and watching the scenery walk by. Anyone want to play hooky with me?

Pixels in lieu of content.

As our grand adventures of late have consisted of nothing more then playing with our new toy and aiming it haphazardly at toes, pouncy beasts, flowers and the occasional sunset, we offer y’all some of the better ones until we can find other subjects of interest.

*Why is it that toes are almost always the first thing you shoot when nothing else is available?

Straight fonts.

There are a millions fonts out there, yes I’m exaggerating, but there are thousand of ‘em just waiting to be downloaded, to be played with and tweaked, used in conjunction with each other, placed in neat arrays each font used as an emphasis for the written word or used pell-mell, haphazardly thrown together in a mish-mash of disarray. So why am I such a stickler when it comes to using them? Why is it that I can never let the words stray from the straight confined lines of Times New Roman font?

The oddest thing about all of this is that I am not even sure if I like the damned font, but even when I try to go another route and use something a little flashier, a little rounder, and find myself depressing the ”CRTL A” keys, scrolling through the list of fonts and invariably reselecting the dreaded Times New Roman, no 12.

What is your favourite font? Which ones do you find yourself using most often. Which ones do you abhor and which ones do you absolutely love? Niggling, curious minds want to know.

Yippee ka-ay!

Friday! It’s Friday, and in 9 more hours I can come home and pass out on the couch and snuggle with Hugin! Wahoo.
I tell you it’s all about the little things in life.

morning.

Walked into the shower this morning to see this. It seems she was waiting for a drink.

And this is just kind of neat.

sneak peak

Can't wait! Can't wait for this to come out! Though I must say that are great big teases, showing these pictures when the release date is so far off.

Handles.

My desk drawer handles are out to get me. In the past half an hour I have managed to nail my kneecaps with said handles a grand painful total of not 2, not 3, but 5 bleeping times. Owie! Wait until tomorrow you wascally rabbit* of a desk ‘cause I’m bringing in the kneepads!

Bizzare, but true:
Googling ‘wascally rabbit’ automatically brings you to this site**.

**Please note link unsuitable for children.

Communication.

Can someone please tell me what is so hard about communication? The rules are really simple. One person states what is on their mind and another person responds in kind. So how is it that the company I work for has the hardest time communicating their intent? How is it that ideas are never conveyed with clarity or efficiency and what one person responds to is some form of broken telephone decision that was never mentioned in the original conversation? And why? Why is it that the people who are weakest at laying out their thoughts and ensuring that the lines of communication remain open so that everyone knows what the bloody hell is going on, land up as managers? Hmm? I ask you, Why?

To those you who stand in positions of power, of decision making, human relations and any other position, within our corporation, where you are responsible for ensuring that people are kept up to date on what the bloody hell is going on:

The word is communication. Say it with me. Com·mu·ni·ca·tion. [k&-"myü-n&-'kA-sh&n ]

Easy? Non?!? Got it? Good.

Oh, and just in case you forget. Communication is defined as:

5 plural but singular or plural in construction a : a technique for expressing ideas effectively (as in speech) b : the technology of the transmission of information (as by print or telecommunication)

Other valid definitions that may also be useful are:
1 : an act or instance of transmitting
2 a : information communicated b : a verbal or written message…
3 a : a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior [the function of pheromones in insect communication]; also : exchange of information b : personal rapport [a lack of communication between old and young persons]
4 plural a : a system (as of telephones) for communicating b : a system of routes for moving troops, supplies, and vehicles c : personnel engaged in communicating.

Cobwebs and Dust bunnies.

Scene - Munin’s Brain: Petite women wonders about the dark recesses of her mind. Dust bunnies scattered across the plane of her subconscious as she steps over the large tomes of memories. In the corners sleepy spiders continue to spin their webs. Picking through thoughts, rifling through the stacks of half penned notions sitting on the shelves, covered in mouldy dust. She muses out loud. 'A little dusty in here ain’t it? Perhaps it’s time to clean out the cobwebs and start writing again? '

Another Year Older

Wishing a fabulously Happy Birthday to my dear friend. Hope you have an amazing one dear this year Oz Boy. Wishing you all your hearts desires, and hoping that the next year is filled with love, much happiness, happy adventure and all things wonderful.

Miss you very much.
Love, hugs, squishes and birthday kisses.

Photography & People

I have always been shy about photographing people, yet I find them to be very interesting subjects. Does anyone have any tips or tricks/advice to give on how you go about photographing strangers?

Thank you

Thank you all so very much for the wonderful birthday wishes. Many warm squishy hugs to you all. A deeply touched Munin. Thank you. [mwah]

G3

After work on Thursday, Hugin and I ambled over to the store and picked up our new toy/birthday prezzie. Gorgeous. Is the one of the words I can use to describe it. I love the feel of it, the weight, the fact that the zoom is so smooth and wow. The pictures. The clarity. The oodles of stuff left to learn so that we can operate the bloody thing properly. I am hoping that we will do the camera justice.

click for full picture

This also means that I should really get our photoblog up and running. It’s almost ready to go, but I have been procrastinating on the last bit of CCS and I am still trying to figure out how to best word the acknowledgements and thank you’s.

However, if you are willing to put of with unformatted text, mismatched colouring, missing acknowledgements* and the fact that we still have to jot down a disclaimer stating that we are backlogged on pictures and still have to load a year and a half worth of photos before we can even get to the new snaps that we have taken with the G3, follow this link.

*Many heartfelt thanks go out to Dawn for pointing us in the right direction, providing links to code, pluggins and Quixotic Pixels for providing the movable type code on which the photoblog is based on.

Blogging for a cause.

This weekend, Bloggers around the world will be participating in the annual Blogathon to raise money for many worthy causes. If you have a few moments during the day tomorrow,[or better yet in the wee hours of the night] pop over to their site and give them lots of loving and support, and if you can donate, even if it's a tiny little bit, please do so.

Squishy good thoughts to those of you who are participating.

*A quick list of some of the participants, and the causes they will be blogging for.
[AKA: people who will be staring at their screens and typing for 24 hours]

Christine - Pawsafe
Daphne and Jaun - Prince William Chapter: American Red Cross.
Michele, Meryl, Lair - Magen David Adom
Rannie - Aids Committee of Toronto
Snazzykat – Goddess
Melissa - ALS Association
Joni - adopt a cat
Mike - Interval house
Faith - Precious Pugs Rescue and Adoption
Dave - Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
Leigh - Sense of Security

*I know I am missing quite a few, so if you know someone, or see a name I have forgotten please put it in the comments and I will update the list.

Plop. Fizzle. Pop.

Blogging and musing will be sparse over the next few days. The thoughts are there, but the time is not. The minutes of the day seem to be rushing in a mad marathon of seconds leaving no spare moments to take a breather and jot down the random musings of my sometimes deluded mind onto paper. Soon. I hope. Soon. Just one more week of this rush and then hopefully next week this will be back to their usual pace. So until then I beg leave of this little place for the moment, and hope that Hugin will fill the void. [ahem. nudge, nudge. wink, wink] Big squishes and kisses. A much frazzled Munin.

Sugar rush an popping computers.

We wandered over to the MEC today, intent on a mild perusing of camping/hiking gear and to our surprise noted that there was a Krispy Kreme to be found not 5 minutes walk away. In short I managed to have my first ever Krispy Kreme. There is only one word that can be used to describe the experience: sugar rush. However, a rather light, melt in your mouth sugar rush it was. I don't think I could repeat the experience too often, but they are definitely worth devouring once in a blue moon.

Karma however, bit me in the derriere tonight, I believe in an attempt to balance the final devouring of said yumminess. My poor computer blew its power supply this evening when we got home. So hopefully we will be able to replace that soon. Need computer. Must have access to computer, Internet, music and games. Sniffle. Computer good. Also sharing computer with Hugin, though pleasurable does not allow much playing of games together.

Am now going to go pass put. Brain dead, Am coming off the sugar rush, and can no longer think clearly.

Ben!

Warmest and happiest congratulations to Steve and Dina on the birth of their son: Ben
Mazel Tov! We are gleefully tickled pink, on this wonderful occasion.
Wishing you all much health, joy and loving happiness.

Squishy happy hugs
All our love and well wishes
h & m.

mind game.

I am trying to psyche myself up so that I can meet the deadline that's been handed to me. I can do this. It’s not an impossible task to complete 5 detail drawings, 3 assembly drawings and all the related paper work in less then one week? Right? I can do this? Can’t I? Total. And. Utter. Panic. I need more hours then this! Anyone got some spare hours that they are willing to donate? Please!

Downside up.

As much as I tried to convince Hugin of the fact this morning, doors do not hang by the key.
Sigh. Bye bye lucid thought it was nice knowing you for the while. One more week of this and I shall be trying to convince myself and others that underwear is worn on top of ones clothing, breakables are meant to fall from fingers and walking into doors, desks and partitions is just a means of getting around while remaining upright. Now where did I put my morning reminders?

Simple pleasures.

Ice cream bars, feet propped up on the chair in front of me, snuggling, perusing and enjoying the pleasurable feeling of being mildly, if warm and fuzzily brain dead. Ah. The simple pleasures in life.

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.

My desk, now covered in an ever-increasing mound of paper work has left little time for thought. A lump of stress has appeared at the back of my throat, caught between the voice box and oesophagus, leaving me verklempt [I really can’t find a better word.] and unable to speak with any sort of eloquence. The words come out haphazardly, and with it my ability to write diminishes bit by bit. It feels like there is much to say, and much I want to write. There are reams [an exaggeration, I think a handful would sum the quantity up best] of links I have pasted into my little note pad. Each with of few pent up thoughts connected to them by the wispiest of strings, but as of yet I have not been able to form the sounds to produce the words I seek. I need to find a way to dislodge this ever-increasing lump*, so that once again my rampant thoughts can run free.

Till then. I leave you with one of my favourite songs, from on of my many favourite movies, ‘Remember the Titans.’ I give you, ladies and gents, Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell's:

*Any one have any ideas on how to dislodge a throat stress lump?

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough*.
Listen, baby
Ain't no mountain high
Ain't no vally low
Ain't no river wide enough, baby

If you need me, call me
No matter where you are
No matter how far
Just call my name
I'll be there in a hurry
You don't have to worry

'Cause baby,
There ain't no mountain high enough
Ain't no valley low enough
Ain't no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you

Remember the day
I set you free
I told you
You could always count on me
From that day on I made a vow
I'll be there when you want me
Some way,some how

'Cause baby,
There ain't no mountain high enough
Ain't no valley low enough
Ain't no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you

No wind, no rain

My love is alive
Way down in my heart
Although we are miles apart
If you ever need a helping hand
I'll be there on the double
As fast as I can

Don't you know that
There ain't no mountain high enough
Ain't no valley low enough
Ain't no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you

Don't you know that
There ain't no mountain high enough
Ain't no valley low enough
Ain't no river wide enough

*link to windows media player.

Escapism

We went to see the Pirates of the Caribbean last night. It is, in my humble opinion, an enjoyable fun filled movie with lots of swashbuckling, adventure, a touch of romance and lots of Johnny Depp. [nummy] And that is where I shall stop. Spoilers may come later. But for now this shall suffice.

The only adverse effect is that I now have this insatiable desire to pack our bags and disappear, find a yacht and sail away. The world seems to be such a hollow shallow materialistic place some days where some people, though not all, are only looking out for their own best interest, their empathy and concern never extending beyond the confines of their lives. It is on days like these that the lure of the unknown, the yet to be discovered calls to me. A yen deep in my soul, an urge to find contentment living by my own set of rules. I remember being a child and dreaming of swashbuckling adventure. The desire to escape the confines of our society have not dissipated with the years, and deep in me the dream to roam free still holds it place. It is these idealistic dreams of old time rambunctious cavalier exploits, of the rules set by those who walked the darker alleys of the world, where honour meant everything amongst thieves, that keep my spirit intact. A shield against the harsh realities of a world seemingly gone mad where the belief in magic and fairies, imps, goblins and high sea adventure provide a balm, and a hope that the world has not yet lost all its mystery and that there is still much beauty left to be discovered.

Noted.

Cream goes on the face, deodorant goes under the arms.
End of a long week with more long weeks to follow. Soon the house shall be plastered in little yellow squares, notes scrawled helter-skelter. Little reminders, daily tidbits, chores, and how to’s as fatigue takes it toll on clarity.

Predicament.

As previously mention by Hugin, we are trying to amass some money in order to buy ourselves a digital camera, under the guise of a birthday prezzie. We have managed to scrape together enough, to almost be able to purchase either this one, or this one*. The only thing is we are a couple of diniero short, in regards to the taxes and some peripherals, i.e. a bigger memory card as 32 mg just ain’t enough. My quandary lies in this. I don’t know if I should commit the birthday faux pas of asking people who are planning on buying a birthday present to simply contribute to our camera fund, [not that I am expecting presents and not the any one should feel obliged to get me any. Yes y’all know who you are]. Or if I should just leave it be and figure out a way to manage on our own, or postpone the purchase by a couple of months. What would you do? How do you ask bring up the subject, in a tactful manner?

*Though I think we are pretty much set on the G3.

Faux pas

Have made the unfortunate faux pas of stumbling upon Hugin’s secret plans for a surprise birthday thingamawhatsit and am currently feeling sheepishly wretched

It was unintentional done through a combination of winching*, planning ahead and catching him mildly off guard. After many years of hiding from the birthday limelight, I had in my unconventional wisdom decided that throwing a party would indeed be a pleasant affair. Much thought** went into the planning of certain aspects of such event in order to ensure that things would go swimmingly and that all would partake in the festivities with much amusement and merriment. Having finalized the details, skipped home with great enthusiasm to present them to Hugin [love and better half] only to be confronted with an air of blasé. This in turn led to the winching, pouting and general patheticness on my part, which unfortunately had the ill effect of forcing Hugin to spill part of his beans. And, for this I feel rather bad, and quite contrite.

So, to you my heart, I present my humblest apologies, and will go about the next few weeks pretending to be none the wiser. Which in truth I am, as I am not sure what he is planning, only the he is indeed planning something.

*Winching: according to Hugin, the act of pouting, and being a hopeless wretch, based one the unfounded fact that you feel that everyone has forgetten you and are making a fuss about that little unsubstantiated tidbit, when you should really know better. [Yes, I was being rather pathetic.]

**Yes, that is a gross over statement. The statement should read: As much thought as can be thrown into the seconds of over packed work week as our deadlines are coming on fast and we still have 40 detail drawings left to do within a three-week period. Oy!

Fourth of July

Happy Forth of July to all of you south of our border!!!
Hope y'all have a wonderful day!

*I am not sure where I found this picture, so if anyone finds the link to it please leave it on the comment box.

Harry Potter Beckons.

Busy. Reading. Must devour Harry Potter. Will be back soonish.
In another day or so.
Hopefully.

'till then. Big Squihies. And. This:
Sent to me by a friend.
Tickled me funny bone.
Thought I'd share.

"The Stance"

My mother was a fanatic about public toilets. As a little girl, she'd bring me in the stall, teach me to wad up toilet paper and wipe the seat. Then, she'd carefully lay strips of toilet paper to cover the seat. Finally, she'd instruct, "Never, never sit on a public toilet seat." And she'd demonstrate "The Stance," which consisted of balancing over the toilet in a sitting position without actually letting any of your flesh make contact with the toilet seat. But by this time, I'd have wet down my leg. And we'd go home.

That was a long time ago. Even now in our more mature years, "The Stance" is excruciatingly difficult to maintain when one's bladder is especially full.

When you have to "go" in a public bathroom, you find a line of women that makes you think there's a half-price sale on Mel Gibson's underwear in there.

So, you wait and smile politely at all the other ladies, also crossing their legs and smiling politely. And you finally get closer. You check for feet under the stall doors. Every one is occupied. Finally, a stall door opens and you dash, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the stall. You get in to find the door doesn't latch. It doesn't matter. You hang your purse on the door hook, yank down your pants and assume "The Stance." Relief. More relief.

Then your thighs begin to shake. You'd love to sit down but you certainly hadn't taken time to wipe the seat or lay toilet paper on it, so you hold "The Stance" as your thighs experience a quake that would register an eight on the Richter scale.

To take your mind off it, you reach for the toilet paper.

The toilet paper dispenser is empty. Your thighs shake more. You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on that's in your purse. It would have to do. You crumble it in the puffiest way possible. It is still smaller than your thumbnail.

Someone pushes open your stall door because the latch doesn't work and your purse whams you in the head.

"Occupied!" you scream as you reach out for the door, dropping your tissue in a puddle and falling backward, directly onto the toilet seat. You get up quickly, but it's too late. Your bare bottom has made contact with all the germs and life forms on the bare seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper, not that there was any, even if you had enough time to. And your mother would be utterly ashamed of you if she knew, because her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, "You don't know what kind of diseases you could get."

And by this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, sending up a stream of water akin to a fountain and then it suddenly sucks everything down with such force that you grab onto the toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged to China.

At that point, you give up. You're soaked by the splashing water. You're exhausted. You try to wipe with a Chicklet wrapper you found in your pocket, then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks. You can't figure out how to operate the sinks with the automatic sensors so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past a line of women, still waiting, cross-legged and unable to smile politely at this point.

One kind soul at the very end of the line points out that you are trailing a piece of toilet paper on your shoe as long as the Mississippi River! You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it in the woman's hand and say warmly, "Here. You might need this."

At this time, you see your spouse, who has entered, used and exited his bathroom and read a copy of War and Peace while waiting for you. "What took you so long?" he asks, annoyed. This is when you kick him sharply in the shin and go home.

This is dedicated to all women everywhere who have ever had to deal with a public toilet. And it finally explains to all you men what takes us so long.

July 1st

Wishing all y'all a Happy Canada Day, eh!
Cheers*.
Us.

*raises pint of moose juice.

In Memoriam: Katherine Hepburn

Katherine Hepburn, one of the strong women of film, who's beauty, charm and charisma graced the silver screen for more then 60 years passed away today at the age of 96.

'Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get — only what you are expecting to give — which is everything. What you will receive in return varies. But it really has no connection with what you give. You give because you love and cannot help giving.' - Katherine Hepburn

Eight more hours.

Eight more hours and a smidgen till the weekend! This weeks has felt like it gone one forever. And, I am not sure if it is the heat, mmm yummy heat, or the lack of sleep that has made this week seem like it will never end. I fear today I’ll be counting the seconds until I can come home, slip into something light, comfortable and airy, prop up the fans and past out in front of them.

In other events it seem that they have been something to say about us:

Hugin is:
Pleasant shape
tasteful clothes
modest demands
tends to not forgive mistakes
cheerful
likes to lead but not to obey
honest and faithful partner
tends to a know-all-attitude and making decisions for others
noble-minded
generous
good sense of humor
practical.

I am:
Strong
muscular
adaptable
takes what life has to give
happy content
optimistic
needs enough money and acknowledgment
hates loneliness
passionate lover which cannot be satisfied
faithful
quick-tempered
unruly
pedantic and careless.

Strong?!? Muscular?!? [pokes muscles - pokity poke, poke]
Well that just doesn't seem right.

Go see what they have to say about you.

Meme first spotted at Jennifer's and Melissa's

June babies

Not just another June Birthday, today’s the Birthday of a very special, wonderful talented woman. [yes, we’re talking about you Nicole]

Wishing you a fabulous, warm, happy making, joyous, snuggleable, stupendous birthday Hon. Hope your day is filled with lots of love, big snuggle hugs, laughter and many happy wonderful moments spent with friends and family. Wishing you all your hearts desires, may your happiest dreams come true. Many, many happy returns.

Big squishes and kisses
Us.

Now go, give her lots of birthday loving.

'True Quandary'

A dear friend sent me this, today.

A true quandary...

Imagine that you are a bush pilot in the African veldt. You fly in some
critical medical supplies and enjoy a quick lunch at the hospital. You are
eager to get to your next appointment. It's a stifling 100+ degrees in the
shade. You return to your plane to find that the only piece of shade around
has become very popular in your absence...

Maybe you should stay for Dinner AND Sundown.

Insominia

Insomnia rears its ugly head, once again. It’s has been three nights in a row that I have woken up in the middle of the night to a chattering churning mind running through all matter of worries. These discourses, though unnecessary to the conscious mind, seem of the utmost importance to the drowsy one as it chases away sleep in a never-ending spiral of doubt. The minutes tick by as I try to cajole it back to sleep until not one, but two hours have past when finally exhausted it ceases its endless ramblings allowing me the precious few hours that are left to fall in a dream laden sleep. Waking is an almost torturous hell after that. All I want to do is sleep through the bloody alarm. But no it’s off to work* where copious amount of caffeine are ingested so that I can make it through the day without conking out at my desk and then back home where late at night the cycle repeats itself, over and over again.

Would someone be so kind as to bonk me over the head with a 2 by 4 this evening? Please.

*Which I'm grateful for.

Another Birthday In the Tree

Happy Birthday Bobby G!
Time to swing in the big old tree
Another year older, yes
But lots of vibrant youth left in you
To PartY!

Hope your day is filled with wonderful happy moments, lots of love, giggles, laughs and many joyous yelps. Wishing you all your hearts desires and many, many happy returns.

No scat, go join the boy in his big ole tree and wish him a Happy birthday!

Snazzy Birthday wishes

Happy Birthday Dear Eka! Hope you have a warm fuzzy feeling making, stupendously enjoyable, absolutely fantabulous birthday filled with love, sunshine and all things wonderful! Wishing you all your hearts desires, and many, many happy returns.

Go give her lots of wonderful, yummy Birthday loving!

Stagnating

Trying to find a way to fill up the hours. The staring at screen while twiddling thumbs is getting old and I feel like I’m drowning in my own boredom. A handful of origami pieces now sit on my computer, and there is this little notepad that I type in when inspired. But other then that I can’t think of anything to do that will fill up the time spent while waiting for things to load. So far I have been spent two hours doing, well basically doing nothing other then staring at the screen praying that this time the program will not boot me out. I feel like I am stagnating in this never-ending cycle of waiting.

I am in need of suggestions on what one can do when one’s computer is too busy crunching away and inaccessible. It has to be something unobtrusive and something I can get away with while at work. What do you do when you are bored?

penned while waiting. blargy.

One done. A few more to go.

Many wishes of GOOD LUCK, and congratulations to a dear friend who's writing his last exam of the semester. Kick some arse, Oz Boy.
*squishy*

Dilbert zone.

Yes, please come work for our company. Yes, the work needs to be done ASAP. Yes we have all the tools needed to ensure that the work gets done as quickly and as efficiently as possible. No, we won’t be providing you with all the tools necessary. This would insure efficient productivity on your part and to put it frankly we really aren’t quite sure that would be good for company moral. Asides, we are not sure if we trust you. Who knows what secrets you’ll walk away with we gave you access to the tools that would facilitate your work.

penned @ 4:15 with grumpy enthusiasm in a fit of frustration.
Silly Kniggits. They’re all silly kniggits I say!

Thought tied. Tongue-tied.

It frustrates me that I can have full discourses with myself, presenting one diatribe after another when standing under a shower, or using the facilities [i.e. sitting on the john] or walking from one point to another, but that as soon as I attempt to commit thought to paper, my monologues/tirades will either seem to be trivial and unformed, like some child’s tantrum or they will simply vanish, smoke caught up in a strong wind, never to be seen again.

I am aware that one of the contributing factors is my lack of self-confidence in laying out my thoughts for the all world to see. I do not have the ability to read the things I write and say: This is good. You’ve made some strong points and people are going to appreciate the views you have brought forth. No, instead I pick at every thought and nuance of phrase and wonder if I am just farting in the wind or simply babbling, a monkey at a typewriter striking random keys. And then there are the spurts when I will furiously type something out, a master piece written in the middle of the night when sleep is an elusive muse only to come back to it later, a cynical critic who will mark it up as. ‘Tripe.’ Questioning the world as to, ‘ Whom the bloody hell would want to read anything like this?’

I envy the people who seem to have no difficulties in writing out their thoughts, whether they are presenting their views on current affairs, ranting about injustices, telling stories with their words, or simply rambling on about the non-consequential. They have a knack at making what they write seem effortless and yet it manages to captivate you, drawing you in deeper with every turn of phrase.

They are my blog muses and in my heart I hope that if I keep doing this, maybe, just maybe one day I’ll get that knack. Maybe one day that flair with words will be mine.

Google's Eschered!

I can spend hours staring at his artwork, doodling away attempting to create some 'Eschers' of my own.

Vegetable Envy

If you need me, I’ll be the one flung out on the couch, legs hanging over arm. A squidgee squishy vegetable of a person. Mindlessly surfing through our two channels, drooling occasionally as the mindless drone lulls me off to sleep.

Can it be Thursday already?!?

Naughty ‘puter.

Feh. Arrg. Grr. Mrfff. Thhpt. Grr. Merwp.
Bloody, heavy arsed assembly is driving me to distraction. Mrrf!
'Oh drat these computers. They are so naughty and so complex. I could pinch them'*

This moment was brought to you by the letter ‘F’, the word 'insanity' and the numbers 8 and 30.

Oral fixation.

Have the oddest desire to pop candy in my mouth and play with it. Clicking it up against my teeth, rolling it about with my tongue and finally crunching down, hearing the snap as the sound reverberates through my mouth. There is really no logical explanation. It’s an odd oral fixation that seems to stem from the mundane boredom of twiddling ones thumbs, manifesting itself when I am either waiting for the computer to finally finish generating an assembly/program/whatever else it is taking so goddamnlong to generate or when I am playing on the computer.

In the words of the infamous [if mentally challenged*] Ash**:’ Gimme some sugar, baby. '

*Hugin’s addition.
**Otherwise known as the idiot, according to Bruce Campbell.

'Make it go away'

There are days when you would give anything for a magic wand, so that you could wave it about, utter a few magic syllables and make all the bad things disappear. Other days you wish you could just gather up those who are dear to you in your arms, hold them tight and drive away the darkness. And then there are the days when the only thing that gets you through is the song, a dear friend played, when the world seemed a bleak dark place, devoid of light and happiness. This is for you*. Keeping you in our thoughts. Holding you tight.

*Yes You.

Make It Go Away
Holly Cole.

Make it go away or make it better
Isn’t that what love’s supposed to do
Make it go away or make it better
Cause I would do either one for you

This is not the way you should see me
This is not the face I recognize
Could I lay my head down here for a moment
Would you sing to me like I’m your child
Cause I’m not angry I’m not crying
I’m just in over my head
You could be the angel that stayed on my shoulder
When all of the other angels left

Make it go away or make it better
Cause I am waking
This more then one should have to take
If you do this for me then I will promise
I’ll make it go away for you someday

There are reasons silver linings
There are lessons but I don’t care
Cause I just need a hand that I can hold onto
When it’s darker then death out there

I’m so cold
And so far away from my home
But tonight you’re
You’re where I belong
You’re everything right
When I’m everything wrong

Make it go away or make it better
Isn’t that what love’s supposed to do
Make it go away or make it better
Cause I would do either one for you
(repeat)

Questions.

Nicole asks and I attempt to answer*.

1. What is your favourite childhood memory? I can’t say that I have one childhood memory in particular that I cherish above all. There are a lot of things from my youth that I hold dear: Spending time with my great-grandmother and my great -aunt. Lazy summers spent with my family, seaside. Little quite moments curled up in my grandmother’s arms. Travelling with my mom. Being silly with her. Drive-in movies, curled up on the hood of my mom’s car. Sitting at the kitchen counter at either my grandmothers place or our kitchen, with the sun gently streaming in, doodling, painting and making weird creations out of papier-mâché, egg containers and cardboard boxes. My grandmother or my mom reading to me at night. The good days. Being free, and wild with no real responsibilities.

2. What angers you the most? Abuse and mistreatment. It angers me to see other people oppress those who are weaker them. I cannot abide people who mistreat others just because it makes them feel better. This abuse does not have to be solely directed at humans I hate it when people abuse animals, or any other manner of living creature. It leaves me feeling irate to the point of seeing red and at a loss for words.

3. What is one thing you wish was different about your significant other? Quite honestly nothing comes to mind. He is an amazing caring loving person who is wonderful and delicious just the way he is.
Grumpballishness, tetchy, et al.

4. What is your best talent? Blink. Talent. Sorry no talent here. Truthfully, I am not sure how to answer that one, being a self-deprecating little wench at the best of times. I guess I would say my ease at sardonic self-disparaging humour, which I don’t think truly falls into the category of talent. But if pressed, I will admit to an ability to make people smile or laugh.

5. What is your most prized possession? There really isn’t one particular item that I would claim to be my most prized possession. There is an accumulation of things that I have picked up over the years that hold significance to me. Little tidbits, recollections of memories old and new: A pebble, memory of a dance. Pictures, kept in a wallet of dear friends. An old ring given to me by my grandmother. Boxes of photos, flowers, shells, and other odds and ends. . And Pooh Bear, who’s is now gallivanting about Australia.

To continue the 'game', if you would like us to 'interview' you, leave a comment and we'll send some tough thought-provoking questions your way.

*Nicole you weren’t kidding when you said some of these would be tough. Couldn’t you have just kept them to questions like 2 and 3? I am not good at answering questions about myself.

Further adventures of Munin the klutz.

Picking up the laundry basket in the morning, I managed to scrape a good part of my knee off. The pain only just kicked in and the scrape is pretty impressive; a bright pinkish red with little bits of epidermis missing, yellow goop scabbing over covering the lost spots.

I should not be allowed to perform any menial tasks before a good strong coffee, especially when I am only partially dressed.

Layers

First found at Nicole's. Then placed on the back burner as work took over. Seen again at Erika's. Finally done.

LAYER ONE
-- Name: Munin
-- Birth date: Undisclosed. *
-- Birthplace: Africa, southerly.
-- Current Location: Canada. Otherwise known as the Great White North.
-- Eye Color: Brown.
-- Hair Color: Currently chestnut brown.
-- Height: 5’ 3” and ¾ if you please.
-- Righty or Lefty: Righty
-- Zodiac Sign: Leo.

LAYER TWO:
-- Your heritage: Mutt.
-- The shoes you wore today: Booties followed by black flat sandals.
-- Your weakness: Ice-Cream. Chocolate and yummy lines.
-- Your fears: losing the ones I love
-- Your perfect pizza: cheese, pineapple, hot peppers, tomatoes, green olives and onions. Though the hot peppers are optional.
-- Goal you'd like to achieve: Currently staying coherent until the end of the day. There are many goals that I would love to achieve. Becoming a better photographer, writer and storyteller. Living life to it’s fullest. Finishing off the last of my degrees before I tackle another one. Being a well-read, well versed world traveller. Taking up flying, horseback riding, and snorkelling. Mostly though I hope to end my days having never regretted much, having lived a full life that has left me enriched, surrounded by those I love and hold dear.

LAYER THREE:
-- Your most overused phrase on IM: depends on who I am IM’ing. Though smilies make a regular appearance.
-- Your thoughts first waking up: Mffmfff. Mmerp? Who turned on the air siren? Mffmfff. Coffee. Ooph.
-- Your best physical feature: my eyes. I guess.
-- Your most missed memory: being by the sea, with my grandmother.

LAYER FOUR:
-- Pepsi or Coke: Coke.
-- McDonald's or Burger King: Mcdonalds for their nuggets. But rarely. It’s an odd craving.
-- Single or group dates: huh? Dates? Oh. Depends.
-- Adidas or Nike: Nike. Adidas. Whichever, just as long as the shoe is comfortable.
-- Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: Nestea. Though much prefer Ice-Tea made from scratch.
-- Chocolate or vanilla: Dark chocolate.
-- Cappuccino or coffee: Depends.

LAYER FIVE:
-- Smoke: Never.
-- Cuss: Occasionally when I am scared or frustrated. And it has been said that I can make sailors blush when I am making crepes.
-- Sing: In the shower and in the company of people with whom I am not shy.
-- Take a shower everyday: yes. Mostly in the morning.
-- Do you think you've been in love: yes. Very much so.
-- Want to go to college: A while back.
-- Like(d) high school: as far as I remember it was ok. Nothing spectacular.
-- Want to get married: Someday. Maybe.
-- Believe in yourself: I refuse to answer this question based on the fact that the answer will incriminate me. Rarely.
-- Get motion sickness: when stressed otherwise no.
-- Think you're attractive: no. not really. Occasionally cute. But I wouldn’t go o far as to say attractive,
-- Think you're a health freak: no.
-- Get along with your parent(s): Yes and No.
-- Like thunderstorms: Love them.
-- Play an instrument: No. But would love to pick up the violin or piano.

LAYER SIX:
In the past month...
-- Drank alcohol: yes
-- Smoked: no
-- Done a drug: no.
-- Made Out:. …
-- Gone on a date: Again. A date?
-- Gone to the mall?: Nope.
-- Eaten an entire box of Oreos?: No, but I know someone who absolutely adores ‘em. nudgenudgewinkwink.
-- Eaten sushi: yes. Love it.
-- Been on stage: Yes. Umm oops that was further back then 6 months.
-- Been dumped: No.
-- Gone skating: Yes.
-- Made homemade cookies: Yes.
-- Gone skinny dipping: Too bloody cold, to do that.
-- Dyed your hair: No.
-- Stolen anything: No

LAYER SEVEN
Ever...
-- Played a game that required removal of clothing: Yes. But then haven’t we all?
-- If so, was it mixed company: yes
-- Been trashed or extremely intoxicated: no.
-- Been caught "doing something": that would be telling won’t it?
-- Been called a tease: Yes. Maybe. Perhaps.
-- Gotten beaten up: No.
-- Shoplifted: No
-- Changed who you were to fit in: In the past I have. But I think we all to that to some extent.

LAYER EIGHT:
-- Age you hope to be married: Never actually thought of a specific age.
-- Numbers and Names of Children: None currently
-- Describe your Dream Wedding: A marriage between two people who are in love. The day should be a celebration of their love, and their commitment to each other. Nothing more, nothing less.
-- How do you want to die: Peacefully
-- Where you want to go to college: Already been. Though would love to go back to Uni at some point.
-- What do you want to be when you grow up: I have to grow up? Um. Thank you no. I much rather stay young at heart.
-- What country would you most like to visit: New Zealand, Australia, Greece, Italy, France, Ireland, and Spain. Portugal. Scotland. UK. Holland. Morocco. Egypt. Japan. Indonesia. India. Most of South America. Mexico. Caribbean Islands. Parts of the States. Parts of Canada. To name a few. Am always open to suggestions.

LAYER NINE:
-- Number of drugs taken illegally: Only once.
-- Number of people I could trust with my life: A few. They are people who I trust and love.
-- Number of CDs that I own: Never actually counted.Though I much prefer Mp3’s
-- Number of piercings: 2 holes in my ears. That is all..
-- Number of tattoos: None.
-- Number of times my name has appeared in the newspaper?: Never.
-- Number of scars on my body: A few.
-- Number of things in my past that I regret: It all depends on what you mean by regret.

Morning reverie

Sunbeams stream in tickling my nose and warming my toes
As the cat begins to purr, a small motor curled up next to my tummy.
The blankets, fortification against the mild chill that rises from the floor
Lull me deeper into sleep. Dreams come. Riding horseback
Through fields filled will long golden reads. Dandelions puff up.
Filling the air, a summer snowstorm.

A blaring ring fills the air. Sit bolt upright to a rude awakening.
The dream is broken. Someone. Anyone. Can I please just have
some Coffee.

Therapy.

Hurt. Distressed. Sad. Vexed and Venting. Writing it out is the only way I can deal with this right now. So please forgive the rant. I promise that: Funny. Cheerful. Positive. If occasionally Entertaining. Good News posts, will resume shortly.

Dear Dreams Thereto*.

I would like to thank you for the wonderful message you left on our answering machine today. I must confess that since the last one of it’s kind left only a few moons ago, I have not had the pleasure of listening to someone be so forthright and acerbic. To hear the words coming out of your mouth, to know that every syllable was uttered with conviction, feeling and a deep belief that your view is always right, left me with a feeling that is beyond my ability to express in words. But what touched me most was knowing that the contemptuous tone in which you uttered every phrase was only used with your deepest regards for my well-being and with the greatest of affection that you hold for me.

I would like to point out, however, for future reference that leaving messages in which you proceed to belittle me, call me names, and are just generally unpleasant, scathing and caustic will not entice me to actually pick up the phone and return your call. Which makes this sadly a rather large game of Catch 22. Thank you for your understanding.
Yours always.

*Anagrammed. Simply because she deserves that much.

Fneh.

Well that just bites the big one. The project we were working on was cancelled after 8 months of work on the company’s part and a week and three quarters on our part. Blarghy. I really, really do not want to go back to part time. I am just too weary and unwilling to deal with that kind of stress. Damnitalltohell, all I want is a regular paycheck*, a regular biweekly [or if you please, a weekly, bimonthly, on the 15th day of every month, whatever, as long at it comes on a regular basis] paycheck that covers all our expenses and allows us to save a little bucketful o’ gold** for future consideration.

Sitting here cringing and praying to all the deities that be in the hopes that the company finds other projects for us to work on.

Update: they are transitioning us over to some other groups. Hopefully this bouncing will continue for a while.

*I confess that is not entirely true. I would prefer that the paycheck be attached to a job that is challenging, interesting and does not involve spending long hours glaring at screen twiddling one's thumbs. I would like to work for a company that doesn’t frown when you take your vacation time [which in my mind should be at least four weeks per annum], and respects that you much prefer working in the wee hours of the night safely ensconced at home, curled up in your favourite chair, dressed in warm flannelly PJs. Is this too much to ask? No. Good. I didn't think so.

**Make that a semi-large bucket full o’ gold. Lots to do, lots to see. Would prefer not to be complete paupers for the rest of our lives.

[penned on Wednesday @ 4:00pm]

Hankerings.

Went to see this last night, now I really want one of these. Neat little thing, ain’t it? Zips, zooms and can fit almost anywhere.

Validation: An open letter.

You* may not agree with me but please do not ask me to defend why I chose a certain course, or why I am not following a predefined norm that you, yourself are following and expect everyone else to pursue. i.e.: Get married. Buy a car. Buy a house. Have kids. Invest. Invest. Invest. Renovate said household. Grow old and retire. I am not a melon with an expiry date, nor am I a mechanical devise that has a set sequence of steps that it must complete in order to reach it’s final output. And, this is definitely not the way that I want to live my life. Furthermore, if I suggest to you that we, my SO and I, intend on moving to such and such place. Please do not come back to me days later with the line, ‘Tell me you are not moving to such and such. It’s godawefully expensive, the salaries are comparatively low, the weather is dreary and is not doing well financially. You should really reconsider and invest your money.’ I am aware of these facts, but as the planned move is probably not happening for a little while, please give us the benefit of the doubt, and trust that we are doing what is best for us. Your constant nitpicking of the issue leaves me feeling uncomfortable and cornered, dissuading me from seeking further conversation on any topic that does not fit into your mindset. Thank you for your understanding. Please know that even though we don’t see eye to eye on this subject or others, I still enjoy conversing with you.

*General you. But you do know who you are. But it’s not YOU. Ok. Is that clear?

Justifications: an addendum
I dislike having to justify my dreams or the plans I have made for the future to people, dear or acquaintanced.** The need to so only makes me grumpballish and defensive. It’s not that I do not understand their concern, nor is it that I do not believe that they are only presenting their views because they care. However, what does occur is that I feel they do not trust my judgment, which ultimately puts me on the defensive. And, here I go again justifying myself, in a never-ending circular argument. [wry smile]

**Yes, this is a made up word, but it sounded better then 'dear and acquaintance'.

Bony mouse elbow.

Am I the only person who bruises their elbow while mousing? Or am I just that talented. [/self deprecating sarcasm] I should invest in elbow pads, except that I am afraid I’ll be ridiculed if I wore them to work.

mondays.

Monday morning already?!? What happened to weekend? Wasn't it just friday? Do I have to get up? Can't I just sleep in for just a couple more hours. [whine]

I really can't handle monday mornings.

Annular eclipse

We missed the last lunar eclipse, being that it was too cloudy to see it, so I give you these pictures found at the BBC of the Annular eclipse. . I have yet so see a full lunar eclipse, or solar eclipse or even shooting stars for that matter. The weather has either been uncooperative, or I have left my specs, or have been otherwise occupied. It bothers me, because these are things I would very much like to see in person, and not as a byproduct of someone else’s sightings, thrown up on a screen or hung on a wall.

Pooped.

The stress that was holding my body upright has dissipated a little, and I feel like a puppet whose strings have been cut. It’s all I can do not to slump in a corner, let my head fall to my chin and fall into to a deep sleep. [wide yawn] Time for sleepy-bye.

me me meme

There’s a meme over at Nicole’s place that I was supposed to be doing. However it’s a little long and I don’t have enough time this morning to get it done this morn before dashing off to work, so will see about doing it later. In the meantime, why don’t y’all give it a try!

Hooked

The Amazing Race II Amazing Race IV** is on, and all it took was 15 minutes and I was hooked. Again. I never expect to become addicted to show like these, and when I do, it always feels as if they are a guilty pleasure.

*Spoiler.
** I am a twit. For some unfathomable reason I was convinced that this was indeed, the second installment of the show. But, no it's the FOURTH! Goes to show you how much attention I actually pay to details. Thank you Christine, for the heads up!

Was I the only one to tear when the married couple were disqualified, or is just the further proof of my complete and utter sappiness? They were just so amazingly in love.

Photoblog Thingy

Does anyone have suggestions for Photoblog software? Need to find a quick and easy way to post pictures. Software must be non-geek friendly, user friendly and geek proof, requiring very little fiddle time.

Brief flash of insight:

Amidst the usual drone of work, a thought came barreling to the forefront of my mind; I realized that it’s not what you have in common, but the idiosyncrasies, the little quirks, follies and differences and the acceptance of those differences that separates your good friends from your acquaintances.

I wonder if this epiphany means that I’m maturing, becoming wiser in the ways of the world. Nah. Probably not. Must have just been something that I ate.

'Back from out of space.'

Yes. We're back from outer space.
Things were a little awry and now we're back again with a smile upon our face.
Yes we're back. We are ba-aack. [sung too 'I Will Survive' -Diana Ross]

Seems the serves experienced a few hiccoughs*/difficulties today. But everything seems to be back on track. A big thank you to Erika for the heads up.

*Hiccups. Which is the way I normally spell it. I believe this is the first time I have encountered the word hiccoughs.

Hobgoblins

Why is it that the thought demons chose to plague your mind in the middle of the night when you should be sound asleep, completely oblivious to the going ons of the rest of the world, snoring blissfully and dreaming of soft cuddly fluffy things whilst you are snuggled up next to the one you love? Cowards. They are cowards, I say. To top it all off, not only am I up at this godforsaken hour pondering all matter of silly things, worrying over equations and numbers, and standards and finances. But, my skin is itching something fierce and the dust fairies have decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to valiantly attack my nose, making it stuffy, and tickly and unpleasant. Blarghy. Need cream, Kleenexes and something potent enough to knock me out. Oh Bullocks. Now me toes and thighs are itching too. Fneh!

Giddy.

Giddy seems to be the best word to describe today, almost to the point of flighty scatterbrained enthusiasm. Even now the adrenalin still pumps through my body, drumming out a tempo, that starts deep in my tummy, tingling as it moves up my spine making the ability to think in coherent structures and not equations, an almost futile activity. The need to be up and active, applying thought and knowledge to problems makes me want to buzz about, gleaming information from people who have long since gone home and then sit through the night bent over sheet and paper playing with numbers, equations and theorems.

As for the rest of the day, it felt good to be back in an engineering milieu, it was wonderful to see old friends, and catch up with people I haven’t seen in a dog’s age.

early

Am no longer use to waking up at this hour, feeling groggy, sleepy but happy and nervous about going back to the company. The world feels surreal, almost as if the rest of the world is asleep as I gather my things, dress and prepare for the full day ahead of me. Soon the anticipation of meeting new challenges will kick in, natures adrenalin 100 times more potent by caffeine, which should mean that by the time 2 O’clock rolls around I’ll be a drooling mess, ready for blankets, pillows and bed. Got to get cracking, see y’all later. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Ok. Thanks. Squishy hugs.

News. Good/Bad.

Work gave us some good news this week. They have managed to land us a contract! Good bye, part time. Adios days without pay. Hello Fulltime! [happy dance]. Well at least for 8 weeks, and than I am seriously hoping that our sales people/managers manage to keep us working full time. Ahem. [looks pointedly at sales people.] I don’t think I can handle the stress of part time again. At least not, for a long, long while. The only downside to this is that that we’ll be going back to the Company of Internet Dearth. No emailing. No Chatting. No MSN’g. No daily news. No perusing of sites. No posting of silly daily occurrences as they transpire. No snippets of online life. Just work, work, and more work. [sad snivelling pout]

Hopefully, Hugin will pick up the daytime slack. [nudge, nudge - wink, wink - poke, poke] and I will redouble my posting/visiting efforts in the evening/nights and on weekends. See you all then. Will miss you all greatly. Big squishy hugs!

Foot in mouth

‘I don’t know if you read’, is perhaps, not the best phrasing of words when one is trying to recommend a book and inquire if the person you are talking to, does indeed enjoy reading books in their spare time. It would seem that I have become quite adept at placing foot firmly into mouth with this particular manager.

Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got to find me a crowbar.

one little word.

Some days all it takes is one little word to get the ball rolling. Other days, it feels as if a lifetime can be lived while trying to find the right turn of phrase to express what is hidden deep within. One little word. Go. Play. Discover.

link nabbed from the wonderful Jill Matrix

psst!

Kaydee turned 39 today. Go wish him a Happy Birthday.

Hope you had an absolutely fabulous day Kaydee! Many happy returns. Wishing you the best of everything!

Odour of munchy

A light breeze wafts by my nose, imbedded with the heavy scent of sweet oily smoke. Cognizance kicks in, a sense of familiarity and recognition. Recollections of outdoor concerts percolate to the foreground. The smell of lazy summer afternoons, sitting in a crowd, clothes moist, sticking to body as the sweat trickles down our backs, heart beating to the rhythms of the band while a greyish blue haze envelopes the concertgoers around us.

It’s official, am gradually but unquestionably losing my marbles. It smells as if someone was smoking Ganja in the office. The concept is bizarre, almost ludicrous. But the scent is still there, hanging in the air, evasive and yet present, tantalizing memories of years past. Perhaps someone is wearing a hemp perfume or something.

Beloved.

Happiness does not begin to describe the delightful richness, contentment, and joy that you bring into my life. Happy ‘love you’ day. yours always. munin.

Corporate Rebel

Am not very good at following the rules and regulations of an office. I dislike being constrained by other people’s notions of what they deem to be appropriate behaviour, let alone appropriate work wear. My general philosophy when it comes to workplace etiquette ‘Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself’. So far it has served me quite well.

The Big Guy decided that today would be the day to impose policies regarding dress code. New policy requires all employees to wear semi-formal attire Men: dockers, dress pants, dress shirts. Women: semi formal wear, semi-formal foot wear.

My instantaneous response is outright indignation/rebellion. ‘What do you mean I have to dress in a particular manner when coming into work? How dare you insinuate that my current work attire is inappropriate. Semi formal. Fneh. Buddy you want me to wear semi formal attire you’d better be prepared to give me a raise. Sputter. Sputter. Sputter!’

It’s not that I am completely against some form of dress code: No holey jeans hanging onto body by last thread. That I can agree with. What I dislike is the idea that you have to be dressed to the nines in order to be productive. Personally I find the opposite to be true. Have you ever tried working in high heels, and a tailored skirt? I have, and from past experience I can tell you that productivity flies out the window when most of your day is spent fidgeting, as you try to re-arrange yourself so that the cold blast from the air conditioner does not ride up all the way, leaving you nippley, agitated and just plain old grumpy.

These ain’t your regular grits.

Breakfast foods have sho changed since I was I young’ing. Why we had to trudge through 4 feet of snow and blizzard just to get us something warm to fill our bellies in the morning. No Fruit Loops for us, no siree bob, no Captain Crunch and none of that flavoured oatmeal stuff that you kids have now a days. We just got us some bland old gruel, with maybe a teaspoon full of honey to sweeten it up, if we were lucky. You young’ings sho have it good. Yup. [gums chops] Banana bread oatmeal: not bad, not bad at all.

Breathe. Must remember to breathe.

I tend to stress over the little things. The little niggly matters that are not directly in my control, where someone else is holding all the cards, guarding them like some overzealous paranoid poker player. These will drive me to distraction. So much so that I will keep picking at the issue, a scab on my conscious, until it is a raw festering wound, painful to the touch, inducing a sense of nausea whenever it is poked. I need to learn to let go of my concerns. I need to become that calm center in the eye of any storm, but as of yet, I have not been able to find the secret, the trick, the Zen know how of complete and utter serenity. Until I do I must remember to breathe.

Lazy bones

Weekend: fresh air, trekking about town, watching movies, lazing on the lawn, grilling ourselves to mild perfection, squidgey vegetables in the sun.

Workday: yen for weekend activities has unfortunately transferred itself over to the work environment. Am quite content to curl up under the desk and spend the afternoon blissfully daydreaming of the lazy summer days to come.

Da Goddess!

Happy Birthday Goddess! Wishing you a fabulously delicious and blissful Birthday! Hoping that the day is filled with much love, joy