Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

I don’t even know where to begin. Things have been busy, the world has been a little out of control and chaos has been a close companion. In the interest of being more amusing though, here’s the progress report without any of the causes, goals or even context in some cases.

Health and exercise:
- I still love the gym and see my trainer a lot.
- I’m still feeling better than ever and still shrinking.
- It’s entirely possible I’ll miss working out when we are at Pennsic. Handily there’s a big hill and a lot of walking.

House and home:
- The ceiling in my office and many of the cracks in the plaster walls have been fixed. My office is a different shade of green and my desk is setup again after a week and a half of working from less desk-like areas.
- The ceilings in the living room and porch are also repaired and repainted multiple times and the archway has had its plaster repaired.
- The house has been cleaned thoroughly to try to mitigate the mess the workmen made.
- Many of the broken windows have been fixed. (The windows were broken by hail, not the workmen. The workmen only broke a door to my stereo cabinet as far as I can tell.)
- There are roofing supplies (albeit the incorrect ones) in the driveway to replace the roof post-hailstorm. There will also be siding.

The Mini Clubman and cars:
- The Clubman is in the shop getting $4000 of damage fixed, also post-hailstorm. Paintless dent removal is an amazing thing but there are still dents to be removed with body work.
- The Mercury Grand Marquis has been returned to Enterprise because, despite how novel I found the feeling of driving my living room, it smelled pungently of cheap air fresheners over cheap cigarettes.
- The HHR is sitting in the driveway pretending to have the allure of the Clubman but without the appealing gas mileage or zip of the Clubman.

Pennsic prep:
- We are not certain where all the garb is but we do have hunches.
- Cute Project: supplies achieved. Construction likely.
- Fun Project: may bring supplies to Pennsic and do it there.
- Sewing: HAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!
- Packing: Do we even need to go there? I bought a new basket in Media as well as some toiletries that landed in that basket, does that count?

Work stuff:
- Work has eaten my life lately.
- I’m going on vacation in a week.

Miscellaneous:
- I have wonderful, awesome, greatest of the greats friends and I love them dearly because they really are just that superlative.
- I want to spend more time reading.
- I bought Bejewled for my iPad which means time I would spend reading is actually spent playing Bejeweled. This was an error.
- If I owe you responses to email, voicemail or snail mail, I apologize. I’ve been terrible with that stuff this summer due to work eating my life.

cars, clubman, exercise, health, home, pennsic, work

Ceiling collapse part one: wee hours of Saturday morning.

Ceiling collapse part two: noonish today.

My office is cleaner than it’s been in ages (except the inescapable gritty dust which is driving me nuts) and about 2/3s empty.
Plaster’s a bitch to clean up. I now have a large space of missing plaster in my ceiling that is vaguely reminiscent of a Peep.
I’d say I love my old house but today it was aiming for me. Monster Cat may have been hit with some of the bits too… poor cat. Tasha and Tenny were in my office at the time of the collapse… neither has been back since. Can’t say I blame them…

I did have a great customer service experience with my old-old insurance company. As the rep put it, there was a “goofy enrollment termination problem” that I confirmed to be resolved with multiple phone calls in June 09. After spending easily 15-20 hours playing phone tag with half the planet.

Hahahahaa… it’s apparently not resolved and no one contacted me after that. Bill was helpful, made all the phone calls that I made a year ago, and generally left me feeling like this issue might actually get resolved without me having to take a cricket bat to any computer systems. (Actually the problem was human incompetence at the insurance company and a dermatologist’s office, but anyway…) It’s a good thing Bill was so helpful, or this could have been a very different post… from jail.

My Mini Clubman’s speaker was fixed 3 weeks ago and looks like it might stay fixed. Fingers are crossed.

Work is busy, despite my hopes that it would slow down this week with my developer on vacation, and resembles a full-time job more and more each day. I have mixed feelings about losing my free time but I’m generally enthusiastic about the flexibility and paycheck.

It’s hot. It’s really hot. I have popsicles. Pomegranate popsicles. I win.

house, lath, plaster, summer,heat, work

The washing machine is still not fixed. The repair guy replaced a sensor yesterday and tried to leave without testing it. Luckily, I started testing it and it crapped out again before he got out of the driveway. So parts have been ordered. He’s called me again today to do further diagnostics for him to rule out stuff he probably should have ruled out when he was here. It’s still broken and seems to be getting worse. Hopefully we’ll have a functional washing machine by the end of next Tuesday when the repair guy comes back with the part. This machine really really doesn’t like finishing the spin cycle…

I got exciting news that a couple old friends are moving to Philadelphia this summer. I’m very happy about this because he loves Philadelphia and I miss them. I’m looking forward to having people around whom I’ve known for more than just the 5 years I’ve lived down here. There’s something about talking to someone who’s known me elsewhere, in another time and place, that reminds me I have real roots or something. I’m very lucky to have so many old friends who help me out with this.

In other excitement, tomorrow is Fiber Fun Day with spinpsychology! I think I’m taking knitting and spinning over tomorrow. Must motivate on these projects! This has been a good week for opportunities in general too. I’m feeling enthusiastic all over the place. That could also be a result of the ten and a half hours of sleep I got last night. It was sort of an accident but a happy accident!

So there’s the random update for those of you excited by the mundane details of life. The washing machine is on strike, friends are awesome, projects are moving, and sleep is glorious.

house, friends, projects, random

A week after the first rose bloomed, the rose bush is fiercely exploding with blossoms and buds! It’s a gray day here today so the colors are definitely influenced by that. The rosebush out front which is much newer and smaller also has its first buds on it!

This week has been a series of ups and downs and round and rounds. A major highlight was going to New Hope, PA for the first time with spinpsychology! We had great fun wandering about, buying disembodied heads and chocolate covered strawberries! Naturally we did not acquire the heads and the strawberries from the same establishment, but would you have really been surprised if we had? There was also yarn shopping and yummy lunching. A good day.

Now if only the washing machine wasn’t fighting with me each and every load… yes, I will be calling the repair people tomorrow. Yes, I will be annoyed if they tell me it’ll be 2 weeks before they can get here. Yes, I will keep trying to do laundry until it’s fixed. After 2 days of wimping out on the spin cycle, just this morning it made it all the way through a full cycle without my coaxing! Go washing machine, go!

We went to see Star Trek last night. My expectations were fairly low as I haven’t ever really loved Star Trek movies. Like most people who’ve chimed in, I was pleasantly surprised that it was so good and I enjoyed it so much. It was a great deal of fun and a clear beginning of a new Star Trek storyline. The casting was excellent – Simon Pegg as Scotty… totally spot-on. Perhaps the writers were a little obvious or simplistic at times but all in all it was a very enjoyable movie. I might even consider seeing it again in the theater on IMAX!

This has also been the first week of grilling! I have sent the Fop out into the backyard to play with fire for dinner twice already! I’m not a big hot dog fan usually, but when they’re grilled they are oh-so-yummy.

And now, back to my irregularly scheduled laundry wrangling…

garden, house, miscellaneous, movies, roses, star trek

The hot water heater was replaced without incident yesterday. Well, there was the faint pain of writing a check for said replacement, but the plumber who did the work was nice, chatty and good at his job. And now we can turn off the water to the hot water heater without turning off the water for the entire house! Same for the gas. Exciting, eh? And we have both hot and cold water running through our pipes again!

Work is really busy this week. Fun, chaotic, slammed, amusing, productive, crazy busy.

Today’s comic of the day is from Sinfest. It makes me smile. A lot. So true. (Okay, it makes me giggle a bit too.)

I’m heading to New London, CT again next week. Leaving Sunday again and coming home Wednesday. Yay! I already did my expense report for last week (aren’t I virtuous?) and now I’ll have to do another. Have I mentioned how much I hate forms? No? I will tell you a story about my 1st grade parents’ night sometime… but not now because I’m starving and need to go eat dinner. But Sunday I’m actually arriving much earlier than usual thanks to my usual flight being booked solid… this means hopefully I’ll have time to visit with Andy and his fab family and maybe make it into Mystic while the bookstores are open.

comics, fish without a bicycle, hot water heater, house, sinfest, travel, work

Explosives, light and cameras, oh my!
I’ve posted a set of my fireworks pics from last week. These are all from the Upper Darby display on the 1st. We saw fireworks on the 4th but it was raining so I didn’t pull out the camera. I’m definitely going to take my tripod next year! Fritz has some awesome fireworks shots up as well (they’re up over here too). You can never have too many fabulous fireworks photos to distract you, right? Most of Fritz’s photographs actually look like fireworks and are totally amazing. (And they are exactly what convinced me that I need to take my tripod next year!)

Several of my photos look odd and funky – vaguely like sci-fi sky vistas from a far-away planet. That’s part of the fun though – seeing how the random shots come out and how even the ones that aren’t strictly “good” make your imagination wander much like your imagination gets going during the display itself. There’s something about fireworks that just inspires glee in my heart. I think I mentioned that I had my screen saver using the fireworks photos. Seeing them drifting across the screen when I glance over at the Mac while working is fun.

Visitors for the new guest room!
Jon and Kirsten arrived last week on the 4th proper and we settled them into to the freshly painted guest room! The baby animals are gone and the walls all have fresh sheetrock and are a lovely blue!! (Before/beige and after/blue pictures! Remarkably the rug still kinda works.) This also means the walls are smooth and mostly flat! Very exciting for our rather unique house. The contractors have another week or so until they finish up the master bath and patch the ceiling and paint in the dining room. The celery-hay color got old and I need it to go away! We picked a sagey green for the walls and will be keeping the trim white. It’ll be nice to get an even coat of paint on the walls. I might even put up curtains after this! (Don’t hold your breath!)

Excursions while Jon and Kirsten were here included Independence Mall, the Liberty Bell, Monk’s, the Japan House (the koi have grown) and a vain attempt to see the Tut exhibit at the Franklin Institute. Alas I had not grasped that the tickets had times attached to them and we didn’t have quite enough time to wait for the next available slot. And probably the week of the 4th isn’t the best time to be trying to see the big sights in Philly… But at least it wasn’t as hot as last time they visited us!

Weather = too hot
This week is as hot as the last time Jon and Kirsten came to visit. It’s 100° F out there and the heat is staying through Wednesday. The National Weather service has had a heat advisory in effect since yesterday. In short, it’s bloody hot.

I’m missing the WebCT reunion tonight, which is kind of a bummer but I really couldn’t justify a trip to Boston with how work is going this month. Next week I’ll be in Connecticut for meetings and stuff – if only they hadn’t been rescheduled! (Originally they were scheduled for this week so I would have been up in the area for the reunion…)

June Stats!
Oh hey, I’ve been meaning to post these too…

June Stats:

• Flickr: 8 new photos, 184 unique visitors.
• Miscellaney of a Cheshire Cat: 13 new posts, 7707 hits.

4th of july, fireworks, fourth of july, heat, home improvement, house, liberty bell, philadelphia, photography, sight seeing, statistics, visitors, weather, webct

Sleep destruction
Unsurprisingly, I find 6:30 a.m. to be a heinous hour of the morning. And I will be finding it heinous for the next 2 weeks while contractors work on the house. It’s worth it to get the job done sooner I guess but it means I have to get the Fop up early too which is possibly my least favorite task in the world. 6:30 a.m. is only 2 hours earlier than I usually get up… but those are important hours. I anticipate going to bed quite early tonight.

Home destruction
Yesterday demolition started on the master bath. Can I just say how glad I am that we’re not doing this ourselves? When one of the guys was turning off the water valve to the toilet, he heard a “tink” in the wall, then water. The connector had snapped off inside the wall. (I’m also glad we’ve never had to turn off the water to that toilet!) The result was much scurrying to turn off water and a water feature in the dining room below. Half an hour after that, there was a 4×6 foot hole in the dining room ceiling. There’s an enormous amount of dirt and grick that builds up under the subfloor and over the ceiling in a 100 year old house.

Yes, the contractors are insured. Yes, I’m probably going to change the color of the dining room. I also get to replace the rug, which pleases me even more. Luckily this all made me giggle and didn’t damage what little furniture we having in the dining room.

Other reasons I’m glad we’re not doing this ourselves? The wall tile in the bathroom looked like it was probably layered over another set of tile. Nope, not tile. THREE INCHES of CONCRETE. On the wall. Under the tile. Huh? I suspect it has slowed down the demolition a tad. They also found 2 improperly closed off outlets behind the wall. Our house is so entertaining. But now the contractors understand why we’re so eager to run fresh electric to the rooms we’re renovating. The dumpster fit snugly in the driveway, so at least it’s out of the street and closer to the front door (which is convenient for all the concrete that needs to be hauled out).

I like these contractors. They amuse me.

Wedding!
On a non-destructive note, we went to a beautiful wedding this weekend. ld_lorenzo and Sue are now hitched! It was a beautiful garden party wedding. (Sue’s gardens are amazing.) I really enjoyed the whole afternoon. It was one of the most lovely weddings I’ve been to in ages. I especially adored the cupcake wedding cake! The ceremony was touching. The atmosphere was beautiful and mellow. There appeared to be very little stress and no rushing about. I think I got some nice photos which I should package up and send off to them. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful event. I’m so glad we were able to be part of the day.

Computer destruction
As a side note, a highlight of the Fop’s horrible-aweful-very-bad-day yesterday, his hard drive apparently ate its partition table or something equally debilitating. Poor Fop.

Weather destruction
It’s a hot week already. I am unimpressed. Global warming is bad. So are summers around Philadelphia. Ick.

destruction, heat, home improvement, sleep, weather, wedding, weekend