I can just imagine the people staking out this crime scene. Every day sipping their coffee saying, “Are they done yet?” “No, the big guy got a little further, but the weasley looking guy’s been slacking off. Give it another month.”
Then BAM! I guess maybe the officials have plans to use it in the future and this way it was free labor.
Tasha, my sister’s cat who I have become extremely attached to, loves it when I stay home. She has this habit of jumping onto the keyboard tray and forcing me to pet her while I try to type or mouse. There is always a moment when she becomes annoyed with my mousing and attacks my hand at which point we have a face to face talk about whose keyboard this really is and even though I think I’ve won, I have this sneaking suspicion that whenever she jumps down after these conversations she knows she just got the last word in somehow.
Today when she jumped up for attention, I was watching movie previews on Quicktime as usual. This works out well for us because I don’t have to do anything but pet her while the trailer plays. She is never interested in the computer, just where my hands are and they better be scratching her head or the spot on her back right by her tail.
Today however I discovered that Tasha cannot wait for the movie Ice Age 2 to be released. For the first time ever, she sat up, stared at the screen and watched the entire trailer. I followed her eyes and she was seriously watching that little rascal try and get his acorn out of the ice glacier. And just when I thought she couldn’t possibly know what she was watching, the title of the movie came in and she settled back down for me to pet her, knowing that the trailer was over. Hmmm…
Then after having enough of me (and she tells me this by attacking my hand) she fixated on one of my hair rubberbands for a few minutes before executing her plan to pick it up in her mouth, carry it over to a corner of my room, and play with it for the next 45 minutes. God I wish I were a cat.
So I have a tendency to fall in love with music other people introduce me to and usually years after an album has been released. When Jay played Mirah for me, I melted. It had been so long since I had a love affair with an artist (since Ani DiFranco) and I hadn’t even realized I was aching for a new one. If you followed my blog last summer and fall, you probably remember me drooling over, I mean paying much respect to Mirah.
She has at least 7 albums, all of which I love.
But truth be told, I love her earlier stuff even more. She has a mixture of sounds, a lot of texture, and the earlier albums highlight her talent far more than her newest.
Favorite Songs on Advisory Committee:
“Garden” and “Light the Match”
Favorite Songs on “You Think It’s Like This, But It’s Really Like This”:
“Of Pressure” and “This Dance”
Favorite Songs on “Cold Cold Water”:
“Cold Cold Water”
Favorite Songs on “Songs from the Black Mountain Music Project”:
Favorite Songs on “To All We Stretch With Open Arm”:
“Dear Landlord” and “What Keeps Mankind Alive”
I could go on and on. I can’t wait to hear more of her work.
I have found that I work much better at home. I get more actual work done at my home computer in my sweats with no underwear on than I do at my desk in the tiny cubicle I share with a man whose amazing head of hair distracts me. I know what you’re thinking. You’re not wondering what’s so great about his hair, or why I don’t have any underwear on (but why would I, I ask you). What you are thinking is “Hey bitch, blogging doesn’t count as work.” And seeing as we were specifically told we couldn’t work from home, I want to take a moment to defend myself.
If I were at work, Amazing Head of Hair and I would be answering some jeopardy questions from my calendar right now. Questions like “what flower is also a nickname for liberals” or “who’s going to get this peri-op work done” (oh wait, no, that second one came from my boss). Then we follow jeopardy with a tuna melt sandwich from the roach coach (with fries of course). This means a trip out of the building down to the van that sells the sandwich, some chatting with other co-workers, then a trip back to the desk, followed by eating and internet surfing (because this is of course my lunch break). Then after that I feel sick from the tuna melt and fries (what was I thinking…each time) so when I hear another co-worker is driving to a place for food I say I’ll go for the company so I can grab a coffee or smoothie or fruit or something to make me feel better than the deep fried greasy skank that I am.
Now when I get back, it seems so close to the end of the day that I begin my ritualistic bitching about emails I’m receiving or work that I don’t think is necessary, to which Amazing Head of Hair listens attentively because he’s sweet that way and wherever he came from I think he was taught that you give your undivided attention to silly women rambling at their computer screen. This attention of course makes me feel like I need to say more. Before I know it, the day is done, and neither of us really seem to have gotten anything accomplished.
So, here I am skivvy-less in my bedroom and I have already taken care of half the stuff I need (that should have been done all yesterday). Which leads me to my pet peeve of the day. I’m just going to go ahead and post it inside this post because it seems somewhat relevant to my morning.
To set the stage, we must remember I’m at home, in my sweats, sans underwear (what a wonderful feeling), and ready to have a snack. So I grab the GIANT tupperware container from my fridge and sit down with a fork to gorge myself on the contents. It’s obviously not fries, although now that sounds good, but instead it is a big thing of fruit. I made stir fry last night so in trade my sister cut up pineapple, peaches, and strawberries for dessert. And when I say giant tupperware container, I’m talking the size of a basketball. But it’s fruit right, so I can’t feel like a total fat ass.
Anyhow, I open the container (still feeing a little rebellious that I’m planning to just sit and eat out of it like a trough) and what do I find? A big silver spoon sitting on top of the fruit. Okay. Here’s the deal. I’m not very picky or anal or anything like that. Honestly, my sister thinks I’m a slob and that I behave like a man most of the time especially when I don’t notice things like the newly mown lawn OR the blooming flowers OR that she just put toilet bowl cleaner in the toilet and how could I not have noticed that! (For the record, the toilet is for peeing and I had to pee. I didn’t turn on the light in the bathroom, because I’ve peed a million times before and I know how to do it in the dark, so NO, I did not notice the blue water waiting to be scrubbed.)
But I do have a few things about the kitchen and the fridge that put me in the less than male category. Do NOT put leftovers in the fridge with nothing covering them (and as my former roommate will attest to, another plate turned over on top of that plate of food does not constitute covering it: Tupperware, plastic wrap, some sort of smell blocker so my milk doesn’t taste like mushrooms or curry or fish.) I also don’t understand why even if you’re not going to wash the dish that you’ve set by the sink tonight, you can’t just rinse the food off so I don’t have to use sandpaper to get whatever that crud is off the dish.
But finally, I know you didn’t want to wash the spoon. I know exactly what your thought process was. You used that spoon for the salad, you don’t want to wash it, you leave it in the tupperware container with the fruit thinking that you’ll use it again when you get more fruit. Tell me honestly, that spoon is friggin’ cold to touch now that’s it’s been in the fridge all night. You know what else? It’s sticky as hell from all the fruit. Are you going to use it? I didn’t think so.
Just so we’re clear, I’m using this as a means to justify the fact I just ate all the pineapple. Sorry.
Last week when I was having one of those days. You know the kind. You’re not sure why but everything just seems coated in grey and no matter how hard you try to get out of your head, you realize not even you can stand to be around yourself.
Then I went to the first practice for Special Olympics Softball. I had only assisted in coaching the year before and didn’t think any of the Special Athletes would remember me. Despite my wishing that it would rain and practice would be cancelled, I could feel my spirit lifting as all the same athletes from last year started playing catch out on the field.
Listening to each of them tell me stories about their day or new job or how far they were going to hit the ball when they get up at bat, I realized how much I loved to be around them. Then my favorite athlete arrived. Good ol’ Trevor who likes to verify every piece of information with you. He walked up to the field and the first thing out of his mouth, through his smirk, was “Hi Katie.” He remembered me. He really remembered me. I got a little teary-eyed and said, “Hi Trevor. It’s good to see you.”
And so began our softball season. “You shouldn’t wear your shoes in the house, right, Katie, right? Because shoes shouldn’t be worn in the house, right, right, Katie, right? And the auto track is in Portland right, not here, right Katie, in Portland, right right right? And Katie, I uh, Katie, I shouldn’t shake a can of beer before giving it to my mom, right Katie, because that would be bad, right Katie, right?” “Yes, Trevor, that sounds reasonable.” I’ve never loved hearing my name said more than when Trevor says it. Luckily, he says it a lot. Which is precisely why he’s probably the only one who remembered it, but that’s good enough for me.