Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Where are you?

Rich and I are having trouble keeping track of each other today. We both have home offices, so we should pretty much know where the other one is most of the time. But I left this morning to run errands (trying to clear my calendar so I could spend the rest of the day at my desk), and he thought I was just making a coffee run. Grocery store, bank and Starbucks later, I walked in the door to him saying, "Where did you GO?"

A little before noon I asked him if he wanted a sandwich. He reminded me that his friend and subcontractor, Kent, was coming over and that they'd probably go to lunch together. Half an hour passes, I go out to say, "So Kent hasn't made it here, yet?" and he was gone.

Isn't that nice? Our 27th anniversary is next week and we're still surprising each other.

Sigh.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Summer reading

Okay, so I finished that light-and-breezy novel I mentioned. It was Enchanted, Inc. by Shanna Swendon, the first book in a whole series (which is a plus in my book) (pun intended).

I found that title by searching for, literally, "light and breezy reading." I'm reacting badly to stress right now, enough so that I find myself resisting anything heavy, meaningful or thought provoking. (Including The Bible, which a friend suggested. Nope. Comforting, yeah, but besides the fact that I've already read it — har! — it also makes me think too much.) In fact, I'm even resisting my usual first-choice fiction, cozies.

Normally I love cozies. They're what I reach for first when I want to read for pleasure (and some day I'll tell you all the series [they're usually series] I've enjoyed). But I realized a few months ago that I was avoiding even them because when the protagonist suddenly finds him- or herself in danger (which is what happens in cozies to get you emotionally invested in the outcome), I actually feel stressed enough to make it unpleasant.

Little Debby Nutty Bars, which is a good description of me sometimes.




How's that for nutty?






Well, anyway, nutty or not, I was having to force myself to read for pleasure, which wasn't working very well, when I realized that I needed something really light and breezy. Hence, the search.

Swendon's reputation is for romance and chicklit, and I always considered myself as opposed to chicklit as I am to chick flicks.* But the Enchanted series — so far, at least — doesn't have a lot of girly details, like what she's wearing (yes, Stephanie Plum, I'm talking to you**) or how she feels about him as she's hoping he'll kiss her….There's a romantic interest, and she talks some about her dating life, but it's nothing intrusive.

I've started the second in the series, Once Upon Stilettos, and so far, so good.

Incidentally, I downloaded both of them for the Nook app for iPad. I didn't think I would care much for it, and only got the first one in that format because it wasn't available at my local Barnes & Noble and I wanted to read it right now! I've found, though, that I really like it!

  • I always know where my iPad is.
  • The second book is in the same place as the first one.
  • I don't have to make room on a bookshelf for it after I'm done reading.
  • If I somehow lose it, I believe it remains available for download again.

And the page-turning graphics are mind boggling! Seriously, the graphics are so cool, I get distracted sometimes. (On the back side of the page as you're turning it, you can see the text from the front of the page in reverse, as if you were actually looking at the back of a printed page. That has to be some complicated coding, doesn't it?)

Technology meets summer reading. What a world!



*Can't stand chick flicks. I like movies where things blow up; no romantic comedies for me! I can't say I've seen many movies starring Meg Ryan or Katherine Heigl.

**The description of every freakin' outfit Stephanie Plum puts on is one of the reasons I couldn't get through the Evanovich number series. Snooze barf.***

***No, I really don't care for chicklit.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

I ought to be on the horns of a dilemma

Should I be working? Meh. Maybe. I'm caught up with everything I needed to get done today. Tomorrow won't be any great picnic, but I am, in fact and strictly speaking, caught up for today. Am I going to sit and read for pleasure? A light-and-breezy novel, not something that's going to improve my mind?

Why, yes. Yes, I am.

And I'm going to drink a beer while I do it.

(You'll know where I'm at by where the lightning strikes.)

Another one from our carport, in cloudy weather. I live in a beautiful place!

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Not quite stream of consciousness…well, yeah, really, it is.

Sometimes writing is easy, and all you have to do is get out of the way and keep typing. Today is not like that. I just spent about four hours composing an entry for my business blog, and it was very much like slogging through molasses. In winter. Carrying luggage. It's an okay entry and all, but I don't think it contains four hours' worth of value.

The news is, once again, too sad to watch. Terrible tornados in Oklahoma, where the sheer volume of destruction and death is staggering. And there was a firefighter killed yesterday in Dallas. That story really gets to me. The fire crews had been working inside the building for a while when they saw it was about to collapse. They called for all the firefighters to get out, but Stanley Wilson couldn't. He communicated with the men outside by radio, telling them he was trapped and didn't know where he was. Then they lost radio contact, and later found his body. I'd like to think he had a peaceful end, but it seems unlikely. A friend of mine, an aeronautical engineer, once had the job of investigating military air crew deaths. There was one particular incident where the pilot had ejected properly, but the parachute on his ejection seat never deployed. So he had a long fall to think about what was happening. I wonder how many times he thought, "But they told me this would save my life."

Terrible.

All right, let's lighten things up here. I've actually had some work that past week or so! That's a very good thing, but I've been doing a lot of research in addition to writing, so I've been sitting at my desk a lot. A lot. My hindquarters would like for me to earn enough money to switch to a treadmill desk, and soon. (Yeah, that's right after a pump espresso machine on the shopping list.)

I have to make my first 2013 Oktoberfest appearance before Southlake City Council tonight, assuming they don't cancel because of bad weather. And my next-to-last meeting of the Chamber's Executive Board is a few hours before that, ditto on the weather thing. I asked the Chamber president if the meeting might be canceled, since we'll be parked at a bank (our Chair Elect is president of it, and they have this mondo-beautiful board room he lets us use). The Chamber president said he'd let us know if we were going to cancel—and called dibs on parking under the cover at the bank's drive up teller windows. (Funny guy.)

On an unrelated note, I think I'm in love with Michael Kitchen. Or, more accurately, his character on Foyle's War.* We've been watching the series on Netflix for a while, because Rich thought it looked interesting and quickly got into it. I wasn't enthusiastic at first, but lately I've gotten wrapped up in the characters. While Rich was out of town last week, I decided to go back and re-watch the first few episodes, to get the setup and see how the characters came together now that I'm familiar with them. I don't know what was going on when we watched them the first time, but I only remembered about half of the episodes. I mean, literally, about half of each episode. I remember one scene but not the next one. I may have been knitting and not much paying attention, or I may have dozed through it (I tend to watch TV at night stretched out on the sofa, which is also a most excellent position for napping). In any case, I'm hooked now. And I'm delighted it's coming back for another season. (Of course, that's the BBC definition of 'season,' as in four new episodes.)

Not much else of substance to say. Everybody in the flat middle part of the US, stay safe through this weather we have going on.

*Actors, meh. Taciturn police detective chief superintendents who don't drive and always wear a tie, even when they're fly fishing, oooh, baby!

Saturday, May 18, 2013

What I'm doing today

Rich is out of town for a few days, off to Hamvention in Dayton. That's Mecca for ham radio operators, or at least it used to be. I understand it's getting to be a mere shadow of its former self.

Anyway, he's had a great time there in the past, but this time he went alone (more or less; he has friends there, but none riding with him or sharing a sales tent) and ended up spending a good part of the day yesterday literally wringing out his clothes, pouring accumulated rain off all the bins of stuff he had brought to sell and otherwise having TONS of rain-related fun. I'm hoping today is going better.

Anyway, while he's out of town, I decided to get a few large-ish chores done, namely

  • Change the pump and remote on our Select Comfort bed. The old one no longer shows digits on my remote, which is not that handy. This involves moving furniture in the bedroom, like—duh—the bed.
  • Conduct an all-at-once-in-the-same-pot cleaning of the silverplate bits and bobs I dragged out of the breakfast room cabinets when we replaced the shelves with drawers.
  • Put all the stuff back in those drawers. (Yeah. Still not finished with that.)
  • Conduct the semi-annual cleaning out around the litter boxes. The two in my office are tucked away in opposite corners, with plastic sheeting underneath and behind them to contain any litter that the cats kick out of the boxes. It's not much, but it gradually accumulates and eventually has to be swept up and the plastic wiped down. You might can understand why this is something I put off.

Rich has been gone since Tuesday night. Ask me how much of that I've done so far.

Uh, here — look at this! This nicely illustrates one of the reasons I love this house:

The view from our carport. This is what I see when I go out to get in my car.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Now it's up to Chicago

Well, the Anaheim Ducks failed me. Now it's up to the Chicago Blackhawks to eliminate the hated Detroit Redwings from the Stanley Cup playoffs.

That's what we like to see!

It's kind of a tough situation, though: the Blackhawks (who I believe will end up winning this series) absolutely humiliated the Stars this season at one of the most excruciating hockey games I've ever attended. But…I really hate Detroit!




Could they both lose? Please?

They're actually very sweet to each other.
(Too mean?)

Images are not mine. They're from Google Images, and I'll take them down if someone tells me to.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Stream of Consciousness II

The NHL playoffs have started. I'm disappointed with Anaheim. I so want Detroit to be eliminated in this first round. Don't care that the Stars now have a Detroit guy as GM, or perhaps kind of because of it. On the other hand, now that the Stars will no longer be part of the Pacific Division (yeah, that made sense, didn't it?), I'm finding it much easier to be kindly disposed towards both Vancouver and San Jose. The Sharks are whomping up on the Canucks, and I'm not unhappy for SJS and feeling a little sympathetic towards VAN. Such is hockey, I guess. Ooh, but I just HATE those Red Wings and Blackhawks!

Oktoberfest is threatening to kill me once again. Seriously, I've had a few moments in the last ten or so days when I've been concerned about my blood pressure and the possibility of stroke. There are some very contentious people involved, once we get beyond the Chamber folks (staff and volunteers), and last week I had three, count 'em, three meetings with them. Oy. Of course, during those moments, the thought of stroking out and, therefore, not having to deal with those people any more actually had a fair amount of appeal.

I've become aware that I've been pretty irritable lately. And by 'lately' I mean the last year or so. I'm not sure why, whether it's a physical thing, an aging thing, a financial struggle thing, or what. But it's going to have to change. I need to be more fun, and more fun to be around. I used to be, I'm pretty sure, and I have to figure out a way to get back there. [shrug] Dunno. If anybody has any advice, I'm open to it. And I'll try not to be too irritable about it.

My mother-in-law's orchid, now residing
quite happily in our bathroom tropical jungle.
Changing the subject abruptly (my mother used to say that), I found a great tool for keeping track of what I'm cooking. I don't mean while I'm cooking, but as in when the last time was that we had pot roast, or whether or not we really had takeout three times last week. It's an app called Clear, and I think Lifehacker suggested using it for this purpose. I'm guessing it would be awfully handy for other things as well, but it's superbly useful when I'm trying to figure out what the heck we're going to have tonight and can see what all I haven't served in a while. I enter what we had last night as a new item, and never check things off as done (so the list just keeps getting longer). The newer entries are red, and the color changes as you go to the older items, which are yellow. I guess I'll eventually find out if there's a limit to the number of items on one list!

Okay, enough blabbering. Onward and upward. Back to Oktoberfest. And Go Ducks!