Be A Good Worker
This morning I procrastinated for a bit and then worked on the illustration for my project. I think I made it more complicated than it had to be but I felt like I was learning something so I stuck with it.

I finally decided I was fried and checked the clock and saw it was after 1pm and since the news is that it's going to rain tomorrow, I thought I should try to put in a little more time in the yard. I cleaned up some general stuff and dug out the roots of this lavender thing I cut back to the nub since it looked bad. Then I cleaned up the rosebed and then, finally, after having it for eons, I took out the hedge master and went to town on the front hedge.

If I wasn't so tired I'd tell a better story, but basically it's this stupid box hedge that was randomly placed out front and a couple of years ago we had a bunch of snow on the roof and it all slid off at once and did some major damage to the hedge. We chopped it back and intended to pull it out but never did and it's been growing and growing until it looked like a spiky space alien out there.

I finally took the hedge cutters to it and smoothed out the edges. I considered taking pictures but it doesn't look that special now that it's done and I could see you guys thinking: Why the hell did she put a photo of her hedge on her blog? It looks like it was trimmed by a blind person.

[Aside: don't you hate when your software checks for updates all by itself and randomly interrupts you when you're doing something to say, "Hey, I have an update, do you want it right now?" and I want to say, "No, do I interrupt you when you're in the middle of doing something and say, "Hey, it's my birthday, do you want to bake me a cake?"]

My confidence boosted by how easy it is to use that mother, I went to the side of the house to chop at that hedge. That's another story I can't get into right now, but basically I chopped until I felt like my arms were falling off and they still feel like they're falling off and my forearms are throbbing and typing does not feel good.

Tomorrow I'm making something with those roasted Poblanos I bought and doing some serious couch surfing.

I Want My System Font Back
This morning I arrived at the office to find that the last person on my computer was an administrator and that my display settings were all screwed up. The system font is stupid and all my desktop icons are smaller and so on like that. The sad part is that this majorly aggravated me and I stomped into someone's office to bitch about it.

I have become that woman in the office whose head spins around and who loudly whines about her system fonts. Get over it already.

Also in today's ramblings, I just read my Wednesday NYT Dining Out and on the cover is a super interesting article about a guy who studies how outside influences affect how much a person eats. Try this link.

The article starts out saying people will swear they aren't influenced by the size of the package or how much variety is on the buffet table, or fancy names on the label.

Nuh-uh. I'm TOTALLY influenced by portion sizes. I'm the queen of eating junk food just because it's there on the table. I will run out a buy a goofy product because of advertising or pick the prettier label if deciding between two brands. This is exactly why I don’t like to buy a lot of chips or any food I know I will eat in absurd quantities. This is also why I don't like for my husband to fix my plate because he loads it up with so much stuff and I'll eat it because it's there. My serving guideline for him is: "Think about how much you think I would eat. Then cut it in half."

Finally, did you know rebates are a total scam? I've always thought they were an excuse to collect your personal data for direct mailing/telemarketing. Turns out it's more insidious than that AND a company was recently granted a patent for their business practice that takes pride in denying you your rebate. Their mothers must be proud.

Crazy Man with Red Ponytail
This morning I walked down Main Street near a young guy smoking a cigarette and wearing green pants with a green bag slung over his shoulder and sporting a red ponytail. He looked like a character in Dazed and Confused but time does not permit me to find a photo. Sorry.

I stopped at the red light on 2nd. He continued across. There was no traffic. He made a production of looking to the left and then to the right and then looking back over his shoulder at me standing on the corner and giving me something between an irritated sigh and the stink-eye. (And it's a one way street so the right glance was superfluous Mr. He-Who-Thinks-He's-So-Great.)

So you chose to go, I chose to wait. Let's agree not to judge each other.

Then my light turned green and I crossed and caught up with him at the next corner which was red and the intersection filled with cars. We stood waiting. Traffic thinned out. One car remained but paused in front of us so that the driver would not block the intersection.

Mr. Green Jeans opens his arms to the sides in a big impatient "what's the matter with you lady" gesture and as she drives through the intersection he does a big high karate kick at the car.

I was terrified he was going to go into my building because there was no way I was getting on the elevator with that bundle of crazy. I suppose we should be grateful he wasn't driving.

Three Unrelated Items
1 - On Saturday morning I went out to the kitchen to refill my tea. My husband sat at the kitchen table with his headphones on, eyes closed. The paper was spread-out before him and his head tilted forward as he gently snored.

He sat up a bit when I came in the room.

ME: Hey Hon, whatcha doing?

Him: Sleeping and reading the paper.

2 - This weekend I read three reviews of Cormac McCarthy's new book The Road. (The URL takes you to the website of the Official Cormac McCarthy Society. Who knew that even existed? Also, they don't have the new book on their site. For shame.) I like McCarthy's writing a lot. However, one of the reviews I read characterized this as his bleakest book yet which doesn't put me in a big hurry. If you recall, I read Suttree earlier this year (see book #9) and the words I used were grim and joyless.

3 - My text book for my Illustrator class starts each chapter with a section called, "Why Would I Do This?" Why, indeed.

A Conversation that took place on Tuesday evening, the day the cleaning person came, one minute after arriving home and putting my things on the kitchen counter.

Me: Omigod, the counter's all sticky.
Bob: That's where I made my lunch.
Me: You mean we paid someone to clean today and I don't even get to enjoy it for 5 minutes?
Bob: I can wipe it off if you want.
Me: No. I want it sticky.

Real Electrician
Actual electricans came to our house to look at our problem and turns out, portions of our electrical system are totally mickey mouse. I had noticed, as early as shortly after we bought the house that there were signs of people without a clue doing projects on the house. And we've had other clues that things were a bit off so this wasn't a huge surprise.

I suppose I can see why some people would cut corners and have a nephew do a shitty paint job OR reinstall only part of the kitchen floor OR wallpaper right over the old wallpaper.

But why would you mess with the electricity? Why would you do the cheapo, I have a friend who read a book about wires and breakers once and took shop in high school do the electrical work?

We're still not clear what we're in for but we'd like to get it right so some dollars will be going into electrical fixing. And here's a shout out to LeRoy who mentioned when we bought the house that it was a good idea to set money aside every month for a house fund for just these types of situations.

Meanwhile, my class is taking up more of my free time than expected so the blog lags. I never told you about the food article that paired wine with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or FoodDay Martha on another bender about things in the east that are better than the west. She mentions this family farm where they get their better apples and how this farm has been in the same family since 1700-something when King George (or whatever) gave them the land and isn't that cool? Yeah, sure if you conveniently forget that other people were using that land first.

Bitty Booties
I made these with a pattern from Heather Baily which you can find here. I wish I knew how to take better pictures of things and I'll invest some time and energy into that at some point.

The star booties were the test pair and the heart booties I gave to Katie. The hearts are a picture of the cast of Beverly Hills 90210 and came from some earrings Katie's mother gave me years ago.

The booties weren't too hard to make but the test pair took forever. I've got two more pairs for gifts sitting by the TV about 50% finished. Just an hour or two of hand stitching and they'll be done, too. They aren't practical for wearing. At least not the way I made them. But they are cute and a fun little gift.