Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

If you’re like me and only remember/care about the dream sequences from The Cell and though they were glorious, you might be interested in the interview with the director, Tarsem, up on the AV Club. Tarsem himself admits to only taking the job so he could do the dream scenes. He’s got a new film coming to theaters: The Fall. I’m curious to see it as it sounds fascinating. Take a look at the stills or watch the trailer. It just looks like such an awesome trip.

In other news, I have 3 rose blossoms going full force in the garden and I’m considering starting construction on an ark. It’s been gray and raining here for what feels like a couple weeks. The basement seems the perfect place to test prototypes too. I really wish the washer and dryer were on the drier side of the basement. I don’t mind a wet basement but I do mind not being able to do laundry!

tags: ark, house, movies, photography, phtographs, rain, tarsem, the cell, the fall, weather

There are many fabulous and horrible things about rain.

Let’s focus on the fabulous things about rain manifesting today… primarily: Rain washes away the pollen.

My car is green at the moment, its proper color. Yesterday it was yellow. My eyes are not actually burning like I’m getting sick or I’ve just had a hard crying jag. I can breathe, through both nostrils, at the same time. Last week I discovered the joys of computerized pharmacy systems and got my Flonase refilled down in South Carolina. Last night I dug out my patenol (eye drops my eye doctor prescribed) because my eyes were stinging so much.

I’m on 3 allergy medications and yet still consider myself lucky that my allergies aren’t worse. Sure, they’re annoying and I hate them and firmly believe that if I moved back to New England they’d be much better… but I can breathe and sleep, mostly, if I time my doses right. Still, I fondly remember how well I slept before I started taking Zyrtec.

tags: allergies, pollen, rain

That’s right. It’s March. It’s practically Spring, especially if you ask my thermometer. *grumble* I hate missing a really good Winter.

Monster Cat has been terribly cute lately. I’ve been in Meeting Hell [tm] lately and he’s taken to climbing into my lap when I push back to listen to the conference call. Cute and warm, both of which are good. Except that it got really warm in my office again today. Handily he’s easily displaced if I open a window. Because he can SMELL things through the screen and that’s very exciting to what kitty brain he has.

It rained on the paper recycling. I’m sure the guys who do the pick ups hate that. A lot. I wish the town let us recycle more curb-side. I don’t mind separating nor do I mind the fact that we sometimes go a full month without a recycling day due to holidays and elections. I do mind that we don’t do plastic recycling at all and glass recycling involves running down to the school to dump stuff. So what goes out? Metal and paper. And paper needs to be self-contained in paper or cardboard which isn’t usually a problem as long as we aren’t getting too much junk mail. They won’t dump from blue bins. Please, Upper Darby, just make this easier for everyone. Oh and it will help me save the planet even more! Yes, at least we have curb-side recycling. It is awesome. But I want more!

And that’s all for now. I will post this in the morning. (Yes, I try to get Monster Cat posts prepped the night before so I can just click “Publish” in the morning. I’m not nearly creative enough to build Monster Cat in the morning. Nor am I coordinated enough to do all the right exports and uploads. Trust me, it’s best for everyone. I usually give myself at least half an hour between getting up and playing with fire to make coffee… comics are much more dangerous than my stove and should not be toyed with in an under-caffeinated state! Or in an over-tired state, which I am quickly achieving here. I guess I should close these parentheses and toddle off.)

More comics at: The Chronicles of Monster Cat

tags: , cats, comics, meetings, monster cat, recycling, silly, tennyson, weather, work

This older photo of Tenny really sums up what I feel like at the end of the week lately.

My week was long and rather bothersome at times as you might have guessed from my lack of posts or commentary on Monster Cat. The trip to New London was productive but kind of intense. One of the teams I work with clued in to some important stuff and wanted to absorb it all at once… always fun. Wednesday, I got to clean snow off my rental car! Okay, it was kind of icy and more like accumulated freezing rain, but I think of it fondly as snow. That same day, I attempted to fly home on a mid-afternoon flight and ended up hanging out in the airport until that night. Why? Because Philadelphia still can’t handle landing planes in the rain. We had our plane at the gate in Providence but Philly kept us on a ground hold until 8 pm. I did eventually get home, and only 5 hours later than expected, so I guess that’s not horrible just bothersome. I think I was in bed less than 45 minutes after I got home. Happy, warm, snuggly blankets improved my day immensely.

Thursday was, of course, V-day. I am so lucky I planned ahead this year on the whole gift thing because I’ve had so little sane time the past couple weeks. I had a call run past 5 pm which made us late for our dinner reservation but luckily it didn’t matter. Dinner was fabulous. The rub on my steak included coffee beans - a subtle addition yet delicious. I foolishly ordered hazelnut chocolate cake for dessert. I say foolishly because the slice that came out was bigger than my head. We took home 3 meals worth of left-overs and I am stretching the cake 4 meals or so.

Friday was another day of crazy work. I feel like I’m going to need Monday to catch up on stuff I was too frantic to address yesterday.

Today is much more relaxed. I woke up earlier than I wanted to and gave up on going back to sleep. I cleaned my desk before lunchtime though I’m still contemplating how I can rearrange things better. I’ve got some throws in the washer - I bought them to turn into curtains… if I can get them to smell like something other than diesel that is. The dishwasher is running, a round of trash has gone out, and I’m getting a handle on the paper recycling in my office. I like visible progress. And I like being able to slow down and take the time to breathe.

tags: airports, busy, home, rain, snow, travel, weather, work

Happy Friday! The fact that this is a long weekend finally sank in while I was planning my work for next week. Hurray for long weekends! Eek for short weeks when I need to get stuff done! I have 2 major objectives for next week - both of which are critical, at least to me - so hopefully nothing else will blow up and steal my time.

I took this photo this morning while I was making coffee. The rain took away all my snow (well almost all my snow) but at least the residual water was pretty on my rose bush. (Special thanks to slyppi for her assistance with choosing the favorite of the bunch!)

I’m making excellent progress in NOT getting sick. I slept a lot last night. There’s something delightful about going to bed early only to wake up, look at the clock and think, “I’m usually falling asleep about now but tonight I’ve already sneaked in a REM cycle!” I’m actually feeling better as the day goes on, which is better than yesterday went so I’ll take it. Happily my network is feeling better today too - last night I was getting huge lag spikes. I suspect in the MASS CHAOS caused by less than an inch of SNOW FALLING FROM THE SKY (aka omgwtfbbq on wheels!), someone hit a utility pole somewhere and my network connection ended up routed through Nebraska.

tags: health, photographs, photography, rain, snow, water, weather, work

La Befana is apparently still not making trans-atlantic flights. My socks were empty this morning. Of course, I didn’t leave any wine out to entice La Befana to come fill my socks, but she could have helped herself to anything on the wine rack!

Epiphany’s Eve was marked, for me, by a lack of parking last night when we got home from dinner (from a fabulous Chinese restaurant, staple of the holiday season). The churchies were dutifully attending Epiphany services or something. Yesterday 2 chilly people under-dressed for the wind took down the church’s pretty white Christmas lights. I should check to see if the manger setup is gone yet.

Personally, I prefer my mom’s tradition (which may be a “Maine thing”) of leaving the Christmas wreath up until Easter… This is more a practical thing than religious thing. Usually by Easter the snow has melted enough that you can get to the wreath to take it down. As opposed to here where I’ll be lucky if I see more than two snowflakes at once this year. This week’s forecast puts us into the mid-60s - aka far to warm for winter, even for the January thaw.

My office has a new rug! Hurray! Now I need to clean my desk so that my cat can have his spot back.

tags: cleaning, epiphany, holiday musings, rain, random, warm, weather

7 states yesterday… 8 states total for the road trip… almost 1200 miles total, over 400 yesterday… 2 hours lost to traffic and another half or so lost to rain yesterday… But after a 10 1/2 hour drive yesterday, I made it home last night, safe and sound though tired, cranky and not quite sane.

I listened to almost 10 hours of Car Talk (hurray!), chatted with a few people along the way, had very bad Sbarro’s pizza as a break after the aforementioned 2 hours in traffic, and in general had an awesome drive.

I love driving.
I love my car. (I got new rubber floor mats for Christmas!!!)
I had a great time during my road trip.
I saw SNOW for many days straight!

(To be honest, I could have done without the rain and the traffic though…)

tags: car, driving, holidays, road trips, snow, traffic, travel

It’s a weekend for holiday cooking which has distracted me from the disgusting weather. The volume of popcorn I made yesterday far surpasses the volume of snow our area has received this year. I made a LOT of caramel corn - 6 batches. I also made cookie dough to bake up today. I’ve got 2 other kinds of cookies on the list to bake too. I’m beginning to think I might be a little insane. Well, I certainly was yesterday as I bopped around my kitchen. I’m a desk-worker though, and as such not accustomed to bopping around my kitchen all day and all night. Last night when I finally stopped and hung out on the couch, my legs, feet and back started to remind me of that. This morning, Advil is my friend. As soon as the coffee kicks in, I’ll be firing up the oven and KitchenAid. … Oh and clean up more of the popcorn bits that are now everywhere in the kitchen and dining room.

Hmm… I think I should just go have more coffee.

tags: coffee, cooking, popcorn, weather

There’s nothing like a busy week to make Friday arrive startlingly quickly. Between work craziness and cooking experiments, I’m both surprised and relieved that it’s Friday already! By the way, you can use white chocolate bits instead of semi-sweet in Never Fail Fudge with no problems. butterscotch bits don’t melt as nicely though. And don’t use old chocolate chips - they muck up the whole “never fail” part of the recipe.

Unfortunately, I do not have any snow. While there is snow in the forecast this weekend, it is bookended by rain. This positively sucks. However, at least I am assured of some snow next week when I head up north. If nothing else, my dad will put a snowball in the freezer for me if it looks like the snow is going to melt away. I page through my pictures of snow from years ago and get rather homesick. I don’t think I’ve taken any photos this month. It’s been pretty busy, I guess, but it still seems strange.

The primary elections continue to scare and amuse me. Fred Thompson appears to have woken up finally in Wednesday’s debate in Iowa. He’s really quite witty, but maybe he prepped his lines first. Huckabee and Ron Paul are still nutty. But I’m tired of lawyers, which doesn’t leave me a lot of options with either party. I hate the concept of “elect-ability” in our modern, marketing-driven democracy. I also have become wise or cynical enough that I can see the lies inherent in the system. I need to figure out if I need to pick/register for a party in advance in PA to vote in the primaries. Currently I’m registered as an independent - not only does it leave me blissfully unaffiliated, it means I get less junk mail.

In other news, I’m a sucker for the year-end lists in review. NPR had a book list from independent booksellers on Morning Edition. So many lovely books on the list! Which of course, leads me to remind myself that purchasing books does not mean I am purchasing the time to read them. Ah, the folly!

tags: books, cooking, never fail fudge, politics, primaries, rain, snow, weather, work,

Pennsic was hot, humid, wet, damp, and great. I have a cold now, but I think the happy chinese medicine nisaa gave me held it off an extra day (so I could help unpack yesterday) and in general lessened its impact on my life. Hurray! Of course, that still means I’m rundown and congested today, but that’s better than having it hit me Saturday or Sunday.

So here’s the quick rundown of things I want to remember for next year while I can still remember it.

Lessons learned and/or reinforced at Pennsic this year:

• I need another large memory card for my camera.
• We need to level our bed next year.
• Acupuncture is amazing.
• Heat and humidity of mighty oppressiveness make it easy to skip Pennsic classes.
• Rain and mud of mighty quantities make it easy to skip Pennsic classes.
• More linen and silk.
• Viking apron dresses are key and I should make some.
• Food at the food court is boring and fattening. We should bring some food to grill in camp next year.
• On the topic of food, it’s such a pity to watch an amazing bed of coals go to waste in the Stargate (our amazing firepit) each night… I should put together some interesting things to bake in the coals for breakfast. (Either in foil or a dutch oven or both…)

I’ve imported all the photos from my camera’s card. Most of them are of the Rapier Champions Tournament, unsurprisingly. Most of the sunburn I got was from that Tournament too. Hopefully I’ll get some of them up this week. I’ll probably throw the whole series from the Champions tourney somewhere other than Flickr for you fencer types.

After 2 showers and a loooooong bath, my toenails are still dirty but the rest of me feels clean. I should start to tackle the laundry next. Eek. Laundry.

tags: heat, pennsic, pennsic xxxvi, rain, sca, sick, travel, weather