A Crocodile Is Not A Toy
Hey Look. A distant relative got his thumb bit off.

A circus ringmaster performing in Le Mans, France, had to carry on with the show despite having just had his thumb bitten off by a crocodile! Daniel Renz, 39, of Friedberg, Germany, was on tour with his Renz Universal Circus demonstrating to the audience of 4,000 that crocodiles are not man-eaters. As he stroked King, a 5-foot-long crocodile, the animal suddenly snapped its jaws shut, chomping down on his left thumb.

Since today was my first free day since I finished class, as I've been whining about, I had a lot of things I wanted to do. I decided that first I would stay in bed for a few more minutes so I could read and naturally since I was so close to the end I thought I should finish the book. Two and a half hours later, I still had some morning time so I spread the mat out in the yogatorium and put on my yoga clothes and then Bob told me he was going to Omi's to get potato pancakes. I folded up the mat, put on jeans and went with him instead.

I arrived home sleepy with delicious pancake and thought about trying to finish my other book but instead got online and visited blogs from the contest including almost every person who left me a comment. Then I had to leave comments on their blogs. That took the better part of the afternoon.

I had about a half hour left to find the Christmas stuff in the backroom and do the D-minus job on a few chores and then it was time to go to a party.

Now I'm home from the party and I'm thinking it's time for Battlestar Galactica. This wasn't exactly the stuff I wanted to get done today, but it was a good day.

Photos: the first is my Auntie, Mom and Grandpa on the Orleans bridge and the second is the Orleans bridge now.

The Whine and Cheese Edition
This week has gone on forever.

I had insomnia issues. I had hormone issues. The traffic was terminally forked such that I averaged an extra 45 minutes a day in the car. I had my class final this morning so any spare moments I spent reviewing for that. I did a few bits of xmas shopping which are flung all over the floor. There's laundry, dishes, mail, etc.

I haven't even started the holiday newsletter. I haven't finished the photo project. We had electrical work done back at the beginning of October and never heard from them. My dear husband called more than once to try to find out what was going on, did additional work need to be done, what sort of bill were we looking at and not only did they not provide this information but they weren't very nice about it. I ordered him to stop. We don't grovel to pay people in this household.

Meanwhile back in September I called our heating oil place and asked if they could top us off then. No, we're on a special program, they bring it automatically. I told her that it never failed that we got this giant oil bill in the middle of xmas. Filled with a deep ambivalence about making the customer happy, she told me it would cost extra if I wanted oil right then. I told her to forget it, we'd deal.

Guess what arrived yesterday? An electric repair bill AND a fuel bill. $1000 of extra bills right in the middle of xmas. Thanks everyone!

But now I'm finished with my test and feel confident I performed decently. Two months ago, I fortuitously made a massage appointment which I can look forward to in a short hour. I've just had my hot cocoa. I'm going to relax this afternoon and emerge on the other side refreshed and prepared to charge full speed ahead.

Photo: Hey look, I must have won a t-shirt, too. It was64 KFI as visitor Mr. Toast was kind enough to point out in the comment he left here. The photo includes my Grandma and my sister after what was probably a fun day in Orleans, hiking and swimming and a picnic lunch.

Hasn't She Read MISERY?
My co-worker likes, or used to like I should probably say, this writer named Melanie Rawn. I've never read her and know nothing about her but based on a quick peek at her website: looks like magic, princes and dragons.

She apparently started a book series and has yet to complete the third volume.

We go to Looking Glass Books on a regular basis and every time we're in there, he goes to the new books in the fantasy section, ready for book 3, and is denied every time. This has gone on for years.

Earlier this week we stopped in the bookstore at lunch and he said he wasn't even going to look. That it made him mad. But I was up there poking around and he eventually stopped to look at the new books.

I heard a gasp. He pulled a hardcover book from the shelf. I could see her name on it.

Finally!

Except: this was not book 3 of the series. She wrote a whole different book about some other princes and magic. Can you imagine the cruelty of a writer who leaves readers dangling like that and then finally writes a book about something else?

Because of Rawn I can't get him to read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell because he won't start a series that isn't finished. Way to go, Melanie.

Some Day My Prints Will Come
When I first got my first digital camera I spent about 30 seconds flipping through the instructions (memory card, battery, go) and then ran off to take my pictures. One part of the instructions that I did notice was that if I put the camera on a certain setting, I could take 1000 photos on one memory card. 1000!

I never looked back and it wasn't until I took my first Photoshop class shortly thereafter that I understood that my pictures looked pretty crappy. Plus I figured out that even in extreme circumstances like vacation, I did not take even close to 1000 photos.

Meanwhile, since I went digital I have never made prints. We don't have the technology at home or office and my primary purpose was for web so I never did it.

Recently, I decided I want prints. I have a bunch of shots I'd like to share and a huge part of my extended family lives in a rural area which is dial-up city so you can imagine how exited they're going to be to look at a Flickr stream. It's holiday time, why not take the time to figure out how this works and print stuff that can sit on the kitchen counter during the holidays for everyone to enjoy.

There's a camera shop near the office and I took the time and trouble to actually walk in and ask them how to do this: CD? Thumb Drive? File format? I would have had better luck getting information from the sandwich shop next door. What, are these state secrets? And if you're going to have a job in customer service, shouldn't the most basic qualification be that you have some tiny something that resembles a personality?

Armed with what I could pry out of her, I went home and decided to do a test run. I took a dozen photos and dicked with colors and filters and cropped them and saved them in different ways so I could get an idea of how they would look. Went back with my CD and they have two billboards hanging over the counter with prices and instructions and I guess they do 1 hour printing. I don't know. Clear communication doesn't appear to be part of their business plan.

Drone #2 takes my CD and money and asks what time I want to pick them up and since I don't need them in an hour I say I'll come back tomorrow.

I went back yesterday and Drone #2 was back at her post. I asked if they had a flier that explained all the pricing scheme so I could figure it out and she said no, but she could answer any questions. (!) Then she told me that my photos weren't ready yet.

I guess if you don't want them in an hour, you have to give them 24 hours. Maybe that could have been explained to me earlier. Now I'm mad. Fred Meyer photos, here I come.

Stink-O-Rama
Something in the refrigerator stinks and I don't know what it is. On a scale of one to ten, I'm a ten plus when it comes to paying attention to what's in the fridge. Old foods do not linger there.

I've probably thrown away tons of good food because I couldn't remember how long it had been there or because it had a slightly odd sheen that could possibly be the beginnings of mold or something that could make you sick or kill you.

I've gone through every shelf. I've (very carefully) sniffed Rubbermaids® and dairy products. Nothing like taking a big whiff of something that smells low tide on a hot day to ruin the dinner hour. I've even tested the condiments. I'm not finding anything stinky.

But when you open the door. OOF! I hope this isn't the beginning of an XFile or something.

Meanwhile, the new camera arrived, thus the excuse for picture taking. Is it just me or does looking into other people's refrigerators bring up hard to place feelings of pity?

I'm A Wiener
Yesterday I got some good news and some bad news in the same five minute period. The bad news was when I pulled my jeans on and had to coax the zipper up. Someone needs to cut back on dessert. The good news was when I sat down at my computer and found out I'm the NaBloPoMo Grand Prize Winner.

I think this is the part where I say, I've never won anything, except when I was in high school I won a KFI beach bag on the radio. It was a canvas bag with a towel that said "67.1 KFI" in orange letters (I can't remember if those are the exact call letters and number because this was the early 80's and I've lost a lot of brain cells since then and the only details I remember about those days involve wildly humiliating events) and an orange AM transistor radio that played 67.1 KFI. So I win things about every 25 years. I need to mark the calendar for 2030 to keep my eyes open.

For everyone who's here for the first time I'll give you the 15 second intro.

I'm 42, have a fantastic husband and live in Vancouver, Washington. I'm a proud member of the Karuk Tribe of California. I'm a legal assistant and have been working with tribes in the Pacific Northwest for something like 14 years. We have no kids and no pets and enjoy movies, books, anything with melted cheese and a wide variety of delicious adult beverages.

I have had a personal website since April 1996. They wayback machine only takes you to 1999. I wish I'd been more diligent about archiving when I started but it didn't occur to me. I was going to try to recreate the first site for my 10 year anniversary but never got around to it.

Typical posts are about cooking, gardening and how the rest of the world is doing it wrong.

A few classic posts include my emails home from a Europe Trip in 2000 (also the quaint and primitive html is good for a laugh), going to a String Cheese Incident show, the one about the barbie tampon and how amazingly little I understand about current music.

I had a great time in November reading (and bookmarking) zillions of new blogs. Lane's randomizer is responsible for hours of lost productivity but it was a fun way to check in and see what people are doing. Ginormous thanks to everyone who participated and commented.

Finally, super huge thanks to Eden for organizing the event and to and Jessica for offering up the big prize.

The rest of today will be spent studying for my class, working on two huge computer oriented holiday projects and staying away from the randomizer.

NaBloPoMo Wrap Up

After the first day, I decided not to mention NaBloPoMo in my posts. This was a little rule I made up for myself since the point seemed to be to write every day, not write about writing every day.

The other rule that I made for myself was that I would visit at least one new blog every day and I would leave a comment every day. Prior to NaBloPoMo I've never left a comment on a stranger's blog. I've never even thought about it. The first time I did, I thought the sky would open up and people would point and laugh. (BTW: Angelfeet got my comment cherry.) I could go into a long-winded internal examination on this tendency of mine to participate without participating, but it's not that interesting and I don't have the energy right now.

Let's just say, now I've tried it and I like it and I'll do it again.

The daily comment rule fell apart around Thanksgiving when I got backed up with school and holiday stuff and to be honest, ran out of steam. Sometimes I can't bear the sight of my computer. Still, I averaged way more than one blog a day thanks to the hypnotic spell of the randomizer and I think I averaged at least a comment a day.

I've added zillions of new blogs to my bookmarks. It should be easier to keep up when everyone isn't posting every day.

If anyone from the contest is still hanging around, thanks for reading and/or commenting. I've visited everyone who's left a comment and tried to leave a comment so you'd know I'd been by, as if this was all mandated by the fair and decent blogger rule book.

Overall: Good time. Thanks to fussy.org for putting it on. I'm sure it was tons more work than she'd expected.

In other news I finished my Illustrator final project and turned that in today. I have one more class which will be the final exam. I'm starting to feel like a free woman. Time to get that holiday stuff together.