Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

First: It’s snowing. In October. In SE Pennsylvania. This is absurd and wonderful. I thought the storm-mongers were being alarmist as usual, but it’s really snowing. Maine Girl says it’s really snowing – been going steady for half an hour. It started as big, wet flakes and now it’s a steadier, smaller snow that seems dead set on accumulating. If we’d had a hard frost (or any frost at all), the snow might have a shot. But as it is now, it’ll be lucking to hang out on fallen leaves for a few hours. The weather folks say less than an inch of accumulation which seems reasonable now that I’m seeing it come down. According to WHYY, this is the first snow forecast for Philadelphia in October in 30 years.

Second: It was 58 degrees in the house and snowing outside when I got up this morning so I did turn on the heat. I’ll probably turn it off again when it warms up outside later next week. The basement was nice and warm when I went down to make sure the furnace came on. And I’m enjoying living in a house that actually retains heat rather than leaking it in every direction. But it’s been cold overnight all week and it’s 36 degrees out right now, so I caved for the sake of my marriage. Plus we got a propane delivery yesterday, so my last excuse disappeared.

Third: Ever notice that “yippee” and “yipes” have some significant overlap?

1 full-time and a nebulous number of part-time days left until D-Day.

Work is crazy. Insane. Non-stop zoom. My lovely, well-behaved, STABLE processes are tossing me bugs left and right. People are coming out of the woodwork to give me “quick” things to get done before I leave. My own to-do list was not insignificant either… At least I’m running in some sort of exhausted zen state that gives me logic superpowers so the bugs are getting handled with relative expediency.

It could be worse. I could have been put on bed rest last month.

Despite work being busy, and me being totally exhausted, things are going well. If I went into labor right this moment, things are ready enough for the kid. Especially since I wouldn’t tell the Fop I was in labor until after I finished packing the bag for the hospital. (Yes, I’ve been putting it off all month. Are you surprised?)

The past week or so, it has almost looked like real Fall outside. Now snow. In fact it’s still snowing and things are starting to turn white. (I might need to take more pictures.) I win.

I’m making a feeble attempt to post more than just Monster Cat. Which means you get pictures of light up flamingos and ramblings about silliness.

Friday I visited the chiropractor. After some serious adjustment to my neck, I think we’ve resolved my headache problems. My hip problems have at least another 6 weeks to wait, but he did do some manipulation that appears to have helped a lot. I also got a home blood pressure cuff. My blood pressure is pleasantly low at home (like 100/70) so it really is the traffic and the parking garage at the hospital that are driving up my pressure before I see my doctor. I’ll take my little machine tomorrow to compare it to the in-office reading. Should be entertaining. And reassuring. Low blood pressure means fewer tests… or at least a lower risk of various interventions. So hurray for 2 major annoyances being mitigated!

Why, yes, I do feel taller now that my neck isn’t so jammed that it took 2 really good cracks to get back into shape.

Saturday, I did NOT buy the flamingo pictured here. Note the lovely scarf! And the Halloween decor on the wall behind it. That’s right, the real horror is that xmas crap is available so early they haven’t taken down the Halloween stuff yet. Soon the seasonal backdrop for xmas crap will be stars, stripes and fireworks.

Of course, I have already “decorated” for Halloween… which is to say that my terracotta jack-o-lanterns are hanging out around the house. There are apples in the kitchen which will soon be pies and sauce. Last night, there was hot and spicy sausage pasta sauce. Tonight there will be the attempting of pre-made turkey and beef pot pies. Even though it’s 80° F (27° C) outside, I can effectively pretend that it’s Autumn.

And… I’m learning just how horrible the stink bug infestation is in the new area. I just vacuumed up a ton of them (and emptied the canister outside into a bag, sealed the bag and tossed it in the outside trash) and I already feel like my efforts are in vain.

When last we heard from our intrepid thumb-monkey, Hurricane Irene was on her way…

Irene dumped a lot of rain on us. We were very, very lucky in that we only lost power overnight Saturday. Cable/internet was out until Tuesday though, which is more frustrating when everyone in the house works from home. Homes less than a mile from us were still without power at the end of the week and lots of the side roads were closed while utility and clean-up crews dealt with downed poles, lines and trees. The latest inundation of rain this week has not been helping and we’ve had some intermittent power outages. The ground has surpassed the super-saturation point and the little creeks are now rather enthusiastic rivers. I’m glad my little Clubman is a heavy car because there have been some rather large puddles in our way of late! Still, very, very lucky.

For Labor Day weekend, we hopped up to the Poconos. Last-minute travel on a holiday weekend means last-minute room availability. We stayed at a resort with an indoor water park, which was more fun than I expected it to be given I’m not allowed to go on water slides right now. There was this awesome Rube Goldberg machine apparatus with 2 water slides attached. You could climb all over, squirt water from, etc. Every 5 minutes or so, the enormous bucket up top would fill to a tipping point and dump a ton of water onto everyone below. Just awesome. There was also some impressive shopping done at the outlets. And general hanging out. The bed was terrible, unfortunately, so I probably came home more tired than I should have. Despite that, it was a lovely way to spend the weekend. From the web research to find an inn or resort with rooms to the actual experience, I’m left with the impression that most resorts in the Poconos were last redecorated in the late 80s.

Work has been busy – I feel like I’m staring down the inevitable feeling of “never going to ever catch up again.” There have been too many days of barely keeping up – being sick after Pennsic, internet outages forcing me to work from Starbux, etc – so I’m considering declaring it a wash and starting over with a clear conscience. Perhaps as soon as I get one more thing caught up…

We did pick over the bones of our local Borders the other night. The employees still seemed really pleasant given their impending unemployment. Everything was 70-90% off with an additional 15% taken off at the end if you bought more than 6 items. We didn’t have any trouble hitting that goal. I found a couple books for gifts, some entertaining silliness and a few books on topics I’m vaguely interested in but couldn’t justify without the deep discount. The Fop found more (he picked through the SciFi/Fantasy section, which I skipped) and we ended up leaving with a big box of books that we paid, overall, 23-24% of full retail for. Not bad. Of course, the savings is less impressive when you consider that most of the books are available from Amazon or the like for a deep discount. Still, some quick comparisons show us paying about half what we would have if we’d bought the books on Amazon. Now I just need to find more time to read.

Oh and…

Dear Apple,
My iPhone 3g is now 3 years old. I love it dearly but it’s really slowing down and starting to fail. Please hurry up and announce whatever it is you’re coming out with next so I can pre-order it.

Dear AT&T,
It’s been 2 weeks since Hurricane Irene. Please fix your stupid cell towers. Trust me, the crappy coverage I get at my house is even crappier when one or more of your nearby towers is malfunctioning. I’m a patient customer and all, but you are now having an impact on my stress levels.

This weekend was not as productive as I’d hoped… in part because I’m not as energetic as I think I am and we needed to work on the basement in the old house. I did get some pressing errands done. Laundry is on-going. I dumped a bunch of coffee in my keyboard, and while most of the keyboard works… I’ll be picking up a new one tomorrow because the top row of number keys all the way across to the “-” key is not working. The numbers I can mostly substitute with the number pad, but underscore, the at sign, percentages, all those good characters? Not as quick a compensation. Not to mention parentheses and exclamation points both of which I’d like to use here… I clearly started this post BEFORE the keys decided to go on strike. And I’m addicted to tabbed browsing and moving among tabs by hitting command+number, which has made for a very strange day of waiting for tabs to switch, getting irritated that all my browsers are so slow and then realizing it’s just that my number keys are borked. Le sigh.

Sadly, it was good coffee wasted too.

books, hurricane, iphone, random, retail therapy, technology, travel, weather

The grill has come in the house for the weekend. It seemed the easiest and most prudent course of action. There’s only one step between the back deck and the kitchen… there are many more involved to secure it anywhere else. And now the flammable bombola of propane is unlikely to go flying about the neighborhood.

Always a bonus.

We also flipped the patio tables, put the chairs under cover (thank you, ruins and wicked wisteria) and generally battened down the yard. The Mini Clubman and Durango are tucked snug in the garage (perhaps the Durango more snugly than the Clubman, given relative sizes versus the garage bays).

We finished up this phase of prep about a half hour before the first rain hit us at noon. Now it’s been raining, pouring and drizzling for 6 hours and the wind is starting to have serious blusters.

Water is set aside for all manner of things in the very likely event that we lose power for a day or two. I’ve laid in a good supply of catfood, kitty litter and toys for the ones with tails. There’s nothing I can do about the lack of sunbeams for the weekend, I’m afraid.

I’m really glad I went grocery shopping and dragged the Fop to BJs on Thursday evening instead of trying to do it last night. Last night, we hit Booth’s Corner, which is essentially an Amish+others indoor farmer’s and flea market. We bought a few essentials, like bacon and candy, browsed about and generally snacked our way through the market with friends last night.

The candles, lanterns, flashlights and book lights have all been located. The portable electronics are charged. We’ve got batteries. We’ve got waffles, bacon, candy, food and water. We’ve got cats. I guess we’re as ready as we’re going to be because we’re already getting flood warnings…

I’m going to go be completely addicted to the weather radar now… be safe everyone!

PS: Since we are expecting to lose power, Monster Cat is queued to post automatically Monday morning. Because I care. ;)

food, hurricane, hurricane irene, irene, preparations, rain, weather

I’m a bit of a weather tracking nerd, I’ll admit it. In my Mac’s dashboard, I tend to track places I work with people, places I’d like to go and places I’ve been. That’s Portland, MAINE in the upper left at 100 degrees. Concord, NH. Glen Mills, PA. Toronto, Ontario. Eau Claire, WI. Key West is certainly looking appealing and Vancouver, my beloved Vancouver, BC? 63 degrees. How civilized. Now that it’s after 11 p.m., the temperatures here are down in the low 90s.

Pennsic prep is necessarily abbreviated this year. Laundry is on-going but I think most of the Pennsic stuff is clean at this point. The humidity may be at 65-75% but it’s hot enough that stuff is still drying quickly in the sun out on the back porch. I have achieved footwear that is more supportive than my usual little medieval shoes and shouldn’t kill me in the heat. I wouldn’t call these shoes subtle or say they’ll blend in all that well, but they’re not sneakers. I’ll be taking sneakers too. Must keep feet happy.

I’ve got a vague plan for food but nothing involved. I have a bunch of eggs to use up so there will likely be cookies. (OH NO!) And Pennsic is always better with Chex mix (at least it means I get my salt).

So, yes, crazy week at work. Pushing probably a little too hard to get stuff done and yet it doesn’t feel like hard enough… Worried about vacation coverage so I’m already planning on checking email lots. Stressing about stupid stuff. Getting interrupted by other stuff. Not being able to prioritize due to conflicts. I’m ready to shut up and reboot my job. Even if I check my email 3 times a day at Pennsic, I will enjoy the time off immensely. I need it.

heat, packing, pennsic, weather

It’s so warm this lily may burst into flame! We still have less than ideal AC to the bedroom, but the house is otherwise cool, thankfully. I would still prefer to have some cooler days though… I’d rather have windows open than be running the AC. The house feels so comfy with the windows wide open.

My morning has already had a crisis… the k-cup machine didn’t want to work. I have coffee now, thankfully, but it was touch and go for a little over an hour. Every once in a while the water system fails to produce water. Usually turning it off and turning it back on has worked, but this time it wanted a rest before it decided it was ok to actually function.

As a result of this trauma, I’m now on my second cup of coffee. With whole milk. Yum. I’m so decadent.

In completely random science news, it’s been a year on Neptune since Neptune was discovered as a planet. Neptune was discovered in 1846.

coffee, heat, neptune, random, summer, weather

Happy birthday to the Mini-cats! There is tuna in your immediate future. The ladies are 2 years old and have been filling in quite a bit the last few months. They’re still “mini”, but it’s hard not to be with Monster Cat around.

For another year I resisted buying legal but crazy fireworks from the grocery store or fly-by-night fireworks stand. I got a taste of the Wilmington fireworks display last night which was, remarkably, just enough to make me content.

The weekend has been excellent and relaxing if insufficiently productive due to heat and insufficient air conditioning. There’s been lots of pool time and hanging out. We have proof, once again, that if you add a couple glow sticks to a group of vaguely responsible adults they are all likely to act like kids for hours. (Glow sticks float!)

I’m starting to think seriously about getting things ready for Pennsic. I’m hoping not to sew much, but we’ll see. Thinking, however, does not count as doing and hope is not a plan. I have a new comfy-garish chair for War though… it’s bright yellow-green with orange arms and has a terribly non-period print on it… but it’s the right level of comfortable and will be fine if I throw something over it to hide it a little.

4th of july, cats, fireworks, mini-cats, pennsic, weekend

I know, I’m a terrible person!

Actually, I blame the poppets. Clearly they are adventurous and trouble-makers. They’ve been encouraging the flowers.

These photos are from yesterday. Today was gray and gloomy all day, very Spring-like indeed!

This Spring is definitely going to be fun. I don’t remember what all I planted last Fall for bulbs. I do remember that I wasn’t sure at least one set of bulbs were viable though… they were… odd. Not that I remember what they were, so I won’t actually be able to say if they came up or not. But there are tons of daffodils and some tulips coming soon and then there will be irises for the summer.

I’m sad that my snow is all gone, but at least there are flowers to amuse me!

Now if only the tool I’m trying to use for work would do what I want it to do. *grumble* Tomorrow…

crocus, garden, photography, poppets

I decided that the photos needed a model to add some perspective. Enter: Little Yellow Poppet to help by providing a reference for scale! (A reference photo for scale of the little yellow poppet can be found here.) Poppets are curious creatures in many ways so it seemed logical to take one out to the garden. There are no buds showing yet, but it’s still early and chilly at night. (The lows tomorrow night are supposed to be in the lower 20s. No, I will not be knitting bulb cozies to keep the plants warm, but it did cross my mind.)

It’s nice out, spring-like even. I have to admit that I don’t recall what the plant is in the second photo. Possibly a poppy? I recall it’s something tall but that’s all I remember for certain. At any rate, soon there will be daffodils everywhere, and that’s the important thing! I should probably trim back the rose bushes soon too so that they’re a little more tame, at least until their growth spurts hit. I also need to start seeds this week or weekend. Tis the season for green and growing! And garden clean-up… not to mention general spring cleaning. Oh, and taxes.

The weather doesn’t explain why I’m looking at the world and asking, “How is it only Tuesday?” Lots got done yesterday and today, but apparently not enough to speed me through to Friday. I started Monday with a sleep debt so that’s probably the real problem here. More sleep tonight and then maybe it will be Friday when I wake up. Right? I don’t want to hear any silliness about having to sleep for 48 hours in order to wake up to Friday “tomorrow” morning.

gardening, photography, poppets, weather, work

Perhaps this post would be better titled, “Photos not to show my mother on her birthday when she’s in the middle of a big snowstorm in Maine…”

Sorry, Mum.

And sorry to everyone else dealing with snow. But look! Spring is on its way!

We had torrential rain overnight and through the morning. At noon it was still as dark as early morning. It’s also a very blustery day.

By 4 pm, the rain had broken but the wind remained. The snow? Pretty much all gone.

Taking photos of the bulbs coming in the garden made me wonder if I should get some ruby slippers just in case I needed to get home from Oz. The wind did not blow me over though, but it sure tried! The sprouting bulbs are definitely getting taller by the day. I can’t wait to see how the new irises look when they come up. They’re double-blooming too, so there will be purple in early summer then again early fall!

The sun wasn’t out much today, but when it was, Miss Abby put herself in the perfect place on the back of the chair. She really has a talent for finding the best position to light herself beautifully for photos. She’s our little supermodel cat.

It’s been a long week, despite the holiday Monday. Productive, but long. I’m very enthusiastic for the weekend. I’m twitchy to get things done that don’t involve my job. This tells me that Spring is indeed waiting to blow in. At least I got my last bit of snow before the end.

garden, spring, weather, wind