climacteric

Christmas in the Northwest

Well, it's been a while. And I explained everything in my last post, unfortunately Firefox crapped out on me, so that all disappeared. It had to do with a motorcycle accident, caretaking, hibernating and non-flaky people. Trust me, it was good readin'.

Anyway, I was saying that I haven't done a whole lot of Christmas stuff up here in Seattle because of the aforementioned things, but I am making a mixed CD tentatively titled "Merry Crapmas" or "Christmas in Hell", haven't decided yet. I'm not making it for any masochistic reasons, but the reason is a secret. Here's the list so far:

1. Christmas in the Northwest (Brenda Kutz White)
Quite a gem. A gift God wrapped in green?!? This has become a tradition, like picking out a tree or looking at Christmas lights. The first time we hear this on the radio we have a good chuckfest.

2. Where Are You Christmas? (Faith Hill)
Shmaltz fest. This is sickeningly sweet and saptastic. Here is some of the lyrical awfulness:
Where are you Christmas Why can't I find you Why have you gone away
Where is the laughter  You used to bring me Why can't I hear music play
Oy... please stop.

3.  Hey Santa (Wilson Phillips)
An oldie and a badie. The nasal voices, the ultra-pop melodies, the ickyness. Ick

4. All I Want For Christmas Is A Real Good Tan (Kenny Chesney)
I had only heard of this song this year. It is so lame lame lame. Here are some of the lyrics, I am sure he must have written it himself:
Well if you’re thinkin’ ‘bout gettin’ me a present this year, Let me put a bug in your cute little ear
How about two tickets to a tropical show, Where we don’t have to wear these winter clothes anymore.
Not much more you can say about that.

5. Christmas in America (Kenny Rogers)
Now, I love old Kenny. Islands in the Stream... The Gambler... gold. But Christmas in America?? Please NO! Patriotism and Christmas don't mix.

6. The Gift (Jim Brickman & Susan Ashton)
Just shmaltz. Pure & simple. It's just cheeeeeeeese.

7. I Don't Wanna Spend One More Christmas Without You (N'Sync)
A Christmas song by N'sync. 'nuf said.

8.  Christmas Shoes (Newsong)
This is the cream of the crap. The craptastic crappiest. It is so so SO awful. There's even a section where some kids sing... that's always a good clue. Here's the chorus (if you read on, don't blame me for your nauseousness):

Sir, I want to buy these shoes for my Mama, please
It's Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size
Could you hurry, sir, Daddy says there's not much time
You see she's been sick for quite a while
And I know these shoes would make her smile
And I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight

auuuuh... i dont feel so good

Pettree a tiny tree to take with you!

I love miniature things. Pettree, or pet tree is just up my alley. A little tree that you take with you on your mobile phone or on your keychain, or just sit it on your desk! They are small and cute, so of course, I must have one!

You can buy them at www.firebox.com and they have a couple of varieties to choose from. :)

connecting

For some reason, this past week  I've been bent on connecting with people. I've written to people I'd been meaning to send an email to for months,and I even have a new penpal! I don't think I've ever had a penpal before. It should be interesting.

Back in the day when penpals were all the rage we only had snail mail. So, conversations were slow and it took a long time to get to know someone, especially from a different country. You would send a question to someone in England and wait a month for a reply. Today, I'm not sure penpals can work.  It seems, since questions only take a couple minutes to travel across the globe, that you'd get to know the basics of your pal pretty quickly. Can you build a penpaly relationship so quickly without running out of stuff to talk about or share? I guess I'll be finding out. I'm hopeful. :)

I've been doing a lot of fun stuff lately. I took a scuba class and I think in September I will be trying to get certified so I can take some diving trips out in the Puget Sound. I went to a waterpark last weekend for Lisa's birthday... that was VERY fun! Having some new friends over tonight. We've met them for drinks before, but this will be our first time having them over. In fact, except for Lisa's birthday, this will be the first time we've had guests over. FUN! :) Let's see, what else is going on? Oh yeah, Zips broke!! :(( I was riding home from a writing group that I've just joined (it's awesome) and I was almost home when all of a sudden, POP, and zips wouldn't go forward anymore!! The engine seems fine, but no forward momentum... maybe a chain/belt broke? I have to get a hitch put on my crv so I can get it into the shop. I miss my zips. Ok, that's it for now!

blue

blue today

push down the disappointment
it cracks the pavement
sprouts little prickly stems
with tiny blue flowers
beautiful but sickeningly sweet
a whiff might put you to sleep
like the poppies of Oz.
Next time plant those seeds in soil
water and tend
stake up so they don't touch the damp ground
maybe then they will produce the medicine you need.

Introductions: Ziparoo

Meet Ziparoo, aka Zips. She's my new TN'G Milano 125cc scooter and she rocks. I got her almost brand new... only 34 miles down, and got a great deal. She'll supposedly do 60 mph, but I can't go over 40 while in the break-in period. I've been practicing on the back streets of Sammamish, as I'll need to take a driving test to get my motorcycle endorsement on my license. I'm going to start putting my creative touches on her soon, decals and paint and such... I'll post as I go.

self-service absurdity

I ran into Albertson's today at lunch to get a pack of 4 AAA batteries to put in my radio at work so I could listen to something other than the hum of the computer. I went right to the batteries, picked out a pack of good ol' duracells and proceeded to the self-serve check out station, of which there were four. There was someone at each of the stations, but no one waiting in line ahead of me. At two of these stations were people older than 85. At one of these stations was a Hispanic couple who seemed to speak very little English. At the final station was a middle aged woman with a cart full of groceries. I assessed the situation... who would finish first?

The elderly man had only two items, he looked fairly lucid and seemed to know what he was doing.

The woman with the cart full of groceries was younger and seemed to speak English, but the cart was pretty full.

The Hispanic couple pretty much pulled themselves out of the race immediately when they couldn't ring up their first item without help from the "Overseer" of the self-service stations.

And the elderly lady, bless her heart, had trouble right off the bat, not realizing that you couldn't put your purse in the bag area or the computer would calmly state, over and over again, "Please remove the last item from your bag, scan it and place it back in the bag."

So, it seemed elderly man and cart lady were my best bets. Cart lady moved much faster than elderly man, but had so much more in her cart. I thought cart lady might actually win. But alas, her computer told her to, "Please put the item back in the bag" and when she did it told her, "Please remove the last item from your bag..." which caused her to tailspin into the depths of confusion.

So, elderly man had this in the bag... literally. He was done ringing up, his computer wasn't telling him to add or remove anything to his bag and all he had to do was pay when, all of a sudden, the computer told him he needed to, "Please wait for cashier assistance", but Overseer was too busy with Hispanic couple and elderly lady to help him!

That's when I started to laugh out loud, causing the growing line of people behind me to look at me quizzically. I'm sure they figured it out soon enough.

Moral of the story:  Please don't use the self-service lane if you can't serve yourself!

p.s... elderly man won.

All moved up

Well, it's been a journey. We're all moved up and settling in nicely.
We ended up having to give Kelsey to another family because we had to keep her in the kitchen behind a HUGE gate thing that was 8' long and 4' high. She always wanted to come be with us, but every time she ended up getting out and being anywhere near Karma I'd start having heart palpatations. Seriously, I've never had that kind of anxiety... I think I had some kind of PTSD. But, the family we gave Kelsey to is really sweet and Kelsey knew them because the woman of the family worked at the vet that she spent a month at, and they bonded. So all is well, even though it was really hard giving her up.
I love my new job. I have some worries about ever being hired on full time, but I'm trying to stay positive. One week Dana gives me signs that she's still planning on hiring me full time, the next week she says something that fills me with doubt. It sucks. I was so confident at my last job, and they thought I was great at what I did.... This job I'm much less confident, but I think it's because I love it so much and there's more at stake if I lose it.
The house itself is interesting. It is very dark... darker than I thought it would be. The pine trees block out a lot of sun. Eventually we will trim the trees up and some more light will come in. Also we plan to put in a couple of sun-tubes, which are like skylights but they amplify the light outside and don't let as much energy out. The master suite is way too small, so we're going to have to figure out how to enlarge that some time in the future.
We'll be having a housewarming party some time in May or June, and will be sending out invitations to everyone then.
Miss all the PDX folks...
latah...

things I can't get enough of

the soft fur behind animal's ears

caramel

driving with the sun low in the sky and a great song on the stereo, and it feels perfect, like you're in a movie

a purring cat

laughing dogs

things I can't stand

the sound of butt-licking, non-stop, until I shout, "karma! Stop it!"

the bed shaking from leg-gnawing, non-stop, until I shout, groggily, "Kai! Stop it!"

walking through the lakes and tributaries around the water dish, in bare feet.

walking through the lakes and tributaries around the water dish, in socked feet... even worse.

typing half of the word "tributaries" into dictionary.com, to make sure I'm spelling it right, before it's done loading, then having it erase what I've typed when it's done loading, so it just says "taries" when i press return.

This might be the scariest thing I've ever seen.

This is from a show in Japan touted to be a "Mannequin Drama". They pose mannequins in different scenes, I guess. They're out on DVD, I think there are 6 of them, I must order! It looks hilarious, but terribly frightening. We had a run of commercials up here in Oregon for a department store named "Meier & Frank" where these mannequins would fall in love across the aisle or whatever. They actually had these same mannequins in the store and the first time I saw them in real life, it weirded me out.
I wouldn't have thought it would, but it did.
Here's the link to the site: http://www.fuccon.com/