Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

Weather Happiness: It’s a beautiful day today… meaning that when I went outside to take these photos this morning it wasn’t 95° F already nor was the sun glaring down with its angry rays. This made me really quite happy. Other things that make me happy include my cat, my car’s starter getting replaced under warranty, and the fact that the guest room not only looks like a room again but will probably get a coat of paint today.

In all seriousness, I’m happy for the gray, dark morning and brighter gray afternoon. I got enough sun and heat yesterday!

Gardening and the Evil Vine of Doom: Yesterday after work I spent about 40 minutes clearing the Evil Vine of Doom. The EVoD is a trumpet vine that got out of control and tried to eat the garage. And by eat the garage I mean completely consume it with its ever-spreading greenery. The vine was covering most of the side and half the roof when we tried to remove it 2 years ago. I cut it down to the ground first. Then the roots got pulled and dug up.

Alas, this didn’t work. This vine has running roots… and those roots run along the side of the garage and into the corner behind the rhododendron. It comes back each time I pull it up. Hence its moniker as the EVoD.

So I’m letting the trumpet vine eat the corner of the fence but I’m trying to keep it from devouring the garage again. I planted my rose bush approximately where the vine had started so when the vine tries to come back, it hangs out with the rose bush. Unsurprisingly, I procrastinate weeding, especially when it’s hot, so the rosebush and the trumpet vine were rather intertwined. My wielding yielded a garbage can full of EVoD and a lovely view of my rosebush.

I also took a bunch of indoor gardening photos which I’ll post separately because… well… I can.

Philly Mayor in line for an iPhone: On a random note… slyppi just sent me this great link to Philadelphia Mayor John Street sitting in line for the iPhone. On one hand, go him for doing it himself. On the other hand, if he’s not filing for the vacation day, I hope he gets caught. Yes, the mayor of the 6th largest city(formerly 5th and boy are they sad to have been bumped by Phoenix!)… right, let’s start over. The mayor of the 6th largest city in the U.S. is spending his Friday sitting in the rain for an iPhone.

Oh wait! In an update on Philly.com: Street’s place in line is being held by an unidentified male aide. Street sounds a bit defensive though, don’t you think?

Before he left at 11:30 this morning - he was third in line of about 15 people waiting - he defended himself and declared:

“I’m taking care of my business. By 4 a.m., I sent my first e-mail to my chief of staff. I was doing my job while the city was sleeping. I have my Blackberry with me.”

[…]

“How can you sit here with 200 murders in the city already?” [22-year-old Larry West of Mount Airy] asked.

Street announced that “I’m doing my job.”

Perhaps it’s just the sleep-deprivation making him cranky - Street got in line at 3:30 this morning. But seriously, what was he thinking?

Edit: Hanging out on the sidewalk at 3:30 a.m. is an excellent way to get shot in Philadelphia, regardless of location. There were better ways Street could have done this that would have made him look good rather than make people question him. This would have been a great opportunity for positive PR!

tags: evod, gardening, gardens, iphone, john street, murder, philadelphia, philadelphia mayor, photographs, photography, roses, trumpet vine, yellow

For those of you hiding under a rock, tomorrow Apple releases the much-touted, marketed, anticipated, drooled over and discussed iPhone. The rate plans, from AT&T/Cingular, aren’t too bad, especially if you already are with that carrier (which I am). I’ll end up paying $17 more than I am now. This will get me twice the text messages I have now as well as the unlimited data access. If all goes well and there are no hidden catches, I’ll end up paying about $15 less a month than the new plan price for the same features. I can deal with that, I think.

The raves and rants about the iPhone are already flowing - AAPL has been bouncing around in about a $6 range for the the past couple weeks. The iPhone has been so hyped that apparently there’s some nervousness that it might not live up to Apple’s promises. I expect it will be the new status symbol of the summer.

I don’t actually have plans to go stand on line or get an iPhone tomorrow. I’m not saying it won’t happen, but I’m not actually planning to do it. If we happen to end up at the Apple Store and I happen to touch one and want it really badly, I might end up with one if there are any left. It would be really handy to have at Pennsic, for one. While I’m not currently expecting to have to keep track of work stuff at War this year, nor to do conference calls from my yurt, it would nice to have compact computer capability. Of course, the last thing I want to worry about is losing or damaging it. So… yeah. I’m being a bit zen about it and leaving my iPhone purchase up to fate. And by “zen” I mean “indecisive”. I still want one but I’m already hearing about improvements to network performance for the second generation (but no prediction on when we’ll see G2).

It’s a cell phone but it’s also an Apple product so I expect it to be a solid piece of hardware that I’ll be happy with for about twice as long as the average comparable hardware by another manufacturer. (I’m still quite happy with my 3rd generation iPod too… and the batter still works!)

I honestly won’t be stunned if I want an iPhone as soon as I play with one… but I think I’ll need to touch it first to be completely convinced. Really, I’m resisting… can you tell? ;) Will I be successful? Oh, probably not.

tags: , apple, at&t, cingular, iphone, technology

So I was sorting through the photos from Mike and Sue’s wedding. The photos I took of the groomsmen (when they deigned to stand vaguely still, vaguely all in one place and vaguely together) cried out for some amusing commentary so I fired up ComicLife. I started doodling with photos and text and soon ended up with what you see here. It’s such a fun little program. And Mike and Sue had a beautiful wedding that provided lots of opportunity for good photos.

Wedding photos are odd things. I have no small amount of trepidation around picking a photographer for our wedding. I’m very picky about photos of myself, not to mention everything else. However each of the weddings I’ve been to this month has been over-populated with people with digital cameras, myself included. (The wedding this past weekend also included a professional photographer - well several, since the one photographing the wedding was using the groom’s equipment.) I’m inclined to say “screw it” to doing professional photos and just encouraging people to bring their cameras. I can set up some of the classic formal shots and make sure there are opportunities for good photos. I could set up a laptop and card reader somewhere and have people download a copy of their photos for me before they even leave the wedding! (hmm… iPhoto… have people name the roll/import with their own name… very easy… saves money and saves me being annoyed with a professional!)

tags: comiclife, comics, photographers, photography, wedding photography, weddings

Sleep deprivation is bad. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night for various reasons, including the AC fan being turned up too high. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize the fan was on full until this morning. So I’ve been up for 4 hours and worked my way through 2 large cups of coffee and I’m still not awake. But I did successfully prepare for the demo I’m doing at 11. If I were less tired I might be able to build up some nerves about the demo since it’s a demo for a bunch of people above me in the food chain. I guess being tired is handy. Work continues to be busy. Contractors continue to destroy and reconstruct parts of our house. I need to point out to them today that I’d like my guest room back by July 4.

It’s a gray and dreary day today - the perfect day for a funeral. There is, in fact, a funeral going on at the church right now. It has made for some interesting people-watching.

The weekend was good. I drove up to NY to see lisaf and attend a wedding with her. We had excellent retail and restaurant karma on Friday night! The wedding on Saturday was lovely, relaxed and fun. A whole bunch of people I hardly ever see were there as well. Two weekends in a row I’ve been lucky enough to attend such great weddings! The hanging out ran into the evening and night… I got to look at the Moon and Jupiter through a really cool telescope, drum a bit and toast marshmallows! Last week was wedding cupcakes, this week was wedding apple pie. Yum.

My voice was a little hoarse this morning from singing in the car on the drive home yesterday. How fabulous is that?

Now, if only I didn’t feel so tired.

tags: people, sleep, wedding, weekend, work

That’s right, folks. Everyone is on tour doing speeches. Even I formed an exploratory committee (we met twice before we realized I’m too young for the office). Tennyson, however, just turned 5 - that’s 35 in cat-years - which makes him perfectly eligible to be president. He knows it will be difficult to run without a political party to back him but he sounds determined to at least investigate the option. Who am I to keep my cat from his political aspirations?

I think he’s got a shot at being more popular than the other candidates as well. He’s friendly, out-going and easy to talk to. He comes from modest roots and is driven to rise to greatness! He also has all the catnip toys he could ever need, so he won’t be susceptible to the ploys of special interest groups. He doesn’t enjoy travel, so the campaign trail may be especially hard on him. But he’s doing it for us, he’s doing it for America!

In short, he’s a candidate we can trust.

Really, with the field of candidates in both parties so crowded, what’s one more? Potential candidates are still dithering and I’m sure that he won’t be the last late-comer to the race. I know he won’t be the least qualified.

The rest of the episodes can be found at: The Chronicles of Monster Cat.

tags: cat comic, cats, comics, exploratory committee, home office, monster cat, president, presidential election, silly, tennyson

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.

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

Things are starting to get back to normal for Monster Cat. Featured here is the box I gave him to make him more comfortable when he had the cone on his head. Being able to prop his head up on the side of the box made it easier for him to nap. I tried to reclaim the box to use for paper recycling. I failed. Apparently the box is his new home office. Why does my cat have a home office? I guess most of the rest of us who live in the house have a home office, but (for the record) Tennyson is the only one with an assistant.

We’re trying to figure out if Monster Cat is still favoring his front left paw as a ploy for sympathy or because it’s just still weak and stiff or because something’s actually wrong. I don’t think there’s anything wrong - he lets me poke and prod it without any problem. He’s not above behavior modification for more attention. Sometimes he walks almost limp-free and other times he limps heavily. It’s certainly funnier if he’s faking it… but regardless of the cause I’m hoping the limp will go away soon.

The fur is growing in around where the collar and toe were. (The pictures for this episode are from this week - they just coincidentally hide evidence of his imprisonment in cone and bandage.) Luckily, Monster Cat does not appear to possess the vanity common in most cats thus making this comic possible.

Click here for more episodes in The Chronicles of Monster Cat.

tags: cat comic, cats, comics, home office, monster cat, silly, tennyson

So I’ve been known to contribute to environmental organizations such as the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund and Defenders of Wildlife. I do it fairly regularly actually. Once you get on one or two of their mailing lists, you’re suddenly on a score of Earth-conscious organizatinons’ lists. And you know what that means? Lots of animal and nature themed address labels.

The message is clear:

Environmental organizations want us to send more snail-mail.

I admit it: The first thing I do when I move is to donate to one of the above organizations so my new address gets on the lists and I can get updated address labels. But after a few months, the address labels start taking over my desk!

Well, even if I sent out all the holidays cards I intended to each year and wrote to all the friends and relatives I keep meaning to write to, I could never use all the address labels I have just for mail. Never ever. I can’t just throw them out or recycle them, so I’ve had to come up with other ideas to keep the large stack of sheets of address labels manageable.

I present you with a list of things to do with address labels besides sending mail - I’ll update it with suggestions from the comments!

• Label your books and notebooks. Address labels make great bookplates!
• Label portable electronics accessories. I don’t recommend sticking a label to the power brick - wrap it around a safe part of the cord loosely and stick it to itself instead.
• Label other little things that are easily confused or snatched by other people - scissors, office supplies, tupperware you’re taking to a party, leftovers or lunches in the office fridge, etc.
• Use an address label instead of filling out all your info on pesky things like the envelopes for film development. This will work for any form that is NOT intended to be read by machines. I took a couple to my first appointment with a new doctor. The person doing the data entry actually thanked me.
• Use them instead of tape when organizing your receipts for expense reporting. I never have tape handy and using the address labels ensures that the receipts can be matched up with me if they get separated from the rest of the report.
• Stick them to the inside of cards when you’re providing someone with an updated address. (”Oh yeah, I moved in May so here’s my new address. And Happy New Year!”)
• Cut the address bits off to make them into animal/nature stickers for your favorite kidlets to play with.

I should further point out that you can get off the lists. If you never intend to donate again (aw…) and want to stop the flow of pleas for your money, most organizations have a way to request removal from their mailing lists.

Any other ideas?

Other tidbits - my new scanner is set up and there will be more Monster Cat soon!

tags: address labels, creative uses, labeling

I am waiting for packages. I had forgotten how exciting that could be - there are things in the mail that I am excited to have arrive so I can play with them! Yes, this is positively silly, but I’m happy about it so here I wait, changing my mind every couple hours about which box I want to have arrive first!

Some random links from my open tabs:

• Jon posted about “The truth about auto fuel-saving devices”. The truth is, of course, that none of them work and the EPA did the testing to prove it. A better way to save fuel? Clean out the trunk and/or backseat - the excess weight reduces your car’s fuel economy.
• Speaking of Eco - ecogeek has the top 10 list of environmentally happy sky scrapers. A couple are actually in the US! (Note how many are in or planned to be built in the oil-rich Middle East too…) #10, the Urban Cactus in the Netherlands, really appeals to me though… If I were to move to Rotterdam, I’d totally want to live in the Urban Cactus. It’s a fun list (with pictures!) that shows just how innovative architects are getting when it comes to alternative energy sources and green design.
• Apple’s iPhone is set to launch at 6 p.m. on June 29th, giving eager fanatics all day to line up to get the first of the iPhones. Also, Safari is in Beta for Windows - you can now run Apple’s browser on your PC! Of course, I’m a FireFox girl myself… but that’s still pretty awesome!
• The Pennsic University site has the schedule of classes posted for this Pennsic. Now I can start planning which classes I want to go to even though I will inevitably miss most of them!

tags: apple, environmentalism, iphone, packages, random, random links, safari

So… The Sopranos is over. I have yet to see more than a snippet of an episode or two and I’m just fine with that. Apparently I will remain a luddite when it comes to that particular facet of popular culture because I just don’t care. Am I alone in my apathy?

I am forced to note that NPR cares a lot about The Sopranos since almost every program I’ve listened to today has touched upon the finale and reactions to said final episode. I’m fascinated that NPR is giving this rather violent HBO drama such press but I couldn’t care less about the show itself. I think the secret is out: the entire staff of NPR is addicted to The Sopranos. Oh, and apparently there’s very little real news today, probably because everyone newsworthy was watching The Sopranos last night. I half expect the next pre-presidential debate to contain a question about the candidates’ reactions to the finale.

I am very proud of myself. I cleaned my craft desk this weekend. Now there’s space for my sewing machine to stay setup all the time! I dug out my copy of Omiyage by Kumiko Sudo as well. This book is beautiful and fun - it contains lots of little fabric projects. Pretty bags and pouches! And they’re small, short projects which is an excellent way to ease myself back into being productive on my sewing machine again. I don’t know if I’ll sew much of anything for Pennsic. I am keeping the bar low this year. I am glad I’ll be able to putter at my machine anytime now that it has a spot on the desk. (Maybe I’ll even plug it in tonight!)

Tennyson is being quite cute in the box and apparently I am not allowed to reappropriate said box to use for recycling. When I was taking photos of said cuteness, I was shocked to find schmutz on my camera’s lens. I spent a tense 4 minutes painstakingly de-schmutzifying it carefully with my cleaner and a microfiber cloth. The schmutz came off without any damage to the lens but now I’m paranoid. I really need to get a UV filter or two to pop on the ends of my lenses.

The total number of murders in Philadelphia reached 180 as of last night - averaging more than one a day so far this year.

tags: camera, crime, murder rate, npr, philadelphia, photography, pop culture, radio, schmutz, sewing, television, tennyson, the sopranos