Thanks for the fish

Just got the call that Eddie the Grouse is dead. : ( Apparently he flew into my in-laws window and broke his neck. At least that’s the news from the mother-in-law. We hadn’t seen him around much lately. This year he was hanging out with my father in law who fed him birdseed and befriended him. Oh well, it’s sad. I feel bad that he never seemed to find a mate or anything. He just hang around here for a few years. I know I hated the bird at one time, but we had made our peace. A few times this year he’d meet me in the mornings and chase my car up the driveway. I wonder how long they’re natural lifespan is. I can’t help but partially blame my in-laws for feeding him and befriending him, but I know there is no point in blame at this point. It is what it is. And so it goes.

The approaching winter is having a profound affect on my energy level. I used my grow light this morning for 15 minutes at 70% intensity. Maybe it worked a little. I was feeling a little manic this morning and was a little ornery with a coworker. I was just giving him a hard time, but then I felt bad. Anyway, now I’m exhausted and ready for bed, which is about par for the course lately. Yesterday I went to the gym and did some jogging and felt way better. Exercise definitely helps. The problem is that I’m so damn tired and listless that it’s a miracle that I get to the gym at all. I guess I just have to remember the good feeling it gives me and let that motivate me.

Dietarily I’ve also noticed some changes. I’m mainly living on bread, cheese, and wine, which could explain my bathroom habits lately, or lack thereof. I suppose this is typical of the season though.What else could our ancestors do but eat things they stored…starchy things. fermented things.

Ok, so I’ve been a little infuriated lately with all this “spread the wealth” socialist crap. For one thing, I personally don’t think socialism is a 4 letter word. Second of all, when you make 45K a year, I’m all for spreading the wealth. Spread it my way, brother! I can’t help but lose all respect for my peers who are republicans. It’s just so infuriating. I’m paying nearly a third of my income on taxes under the bush adminsitration for wars and cronies and making sure the fat cats are taken care. If this damn idiots would realize that the republicans aren’t out to protect them…. ARGH. I got in a fight with my piano teacher tonight over this. And things are getting heated at work. I used to have good natured arguments with a young (cute) guy I work with and he stills sends me these inflammatory emails, but I can’t even be good natured about it anymore. I really hope to God that Obama wins. Now, I’m not like some people and I don’t think Obama is the savior. I don’t even know if so-called “socialist” ideas are the right answer. But I do know this… whoever we elect, the government is going to spend a shitload of money on something and taxes (for me anyway) are most likely going to stay the same. Do I want to potentially help people less fortunate than me, or do I want rich people to get richer and more poor orphans in Iraq to suffer? (sorry I just had to put a shamelss emotional plee in there.. it seemed like the politically correct thing to do.)

Rant over. I need to write my novel so I quit working. That’s my goal for this weekend. I have tomorrow off! Good move, me! 3 day weekends rock.

day off. Of course, I just checked my work email and that basically erased all the good that came of today!! sigh… no… I won’t let it upset me. I have decided that I don’t get paid nearly enough to get stressed out at work, so I won’t worry about it (or respond to any emails) until 8 am tomorrow morning.

The whole point of me taking a long weekend (plus Friday off this weekend..so another long weekend!) was to get some gardening done. As of 10 am this morning, I had done absolutely zero gardening. BUT… I’ve more than made up for it today (with J’s help). We got 2 and a half yards of bulk mulch from the local nursery…had to borrow J’s dad’s truck. Usually, we get the bags of mulch, but they were all out so that’s why we got bulk. It was way easier though. No ripping apart bags and lugging them everywhere and then having to throw them out. I got pretty much everything I wanted to mulched..let’s see… 6 beds in all, plus the raspberries and blueberries that I planted last week. Boy am I tired now though.

I’m celebrating my successes by drinking a drink I just invented. I think I’ll call it a Berry Fashionable Cocktail. Sort of a cross between a cosmo and an old fashioned. : ) Actually quite good!

My hands are caked in dirt… oh sorry, I drifted off into a mental scenario about work. tee hee. ARGH. Mental control here is key. I will not let work upset me. I will not let work upset me. I will enjoy the rest of my night, reading, and drinking, and writing, and playing the piano. hmm… what should I have for dinner?

sleepy. So am I. It’s called WINTER. and it SUCKS.Actually the sad fact is that we are still 2 whole months away from winter, but it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it. There’s been frost on the car and a need for a warm coat the last few days. We even turned on the heat for the first time last night. We held out longer than most, but when we got home to a 58 degree house, we thought it was time. We have a propane fireplace and that has been on, but otherwise it’s been wool sweater and socks. And we have a great comforter on the bed so we still haven’t turned the heat on up there. It’s almost becoming a sort of game with me… how much energy can I save… how much money can I save.. I’m doing it with groceries too. I have to admit.. it’s kind of fun! It’s almost addicting.

However, I checked my credit card bill today and it’s $700! I swear, every month I’m thisclose to paying the damn thing off but somehow I manage to put $500 a month on it. That’s just unacceptable. What was it this month? Let’s see… $209 to take the Subaru in when it broke down at the gas station. It was just the battery, but after the service center talked me into a million other things (oil change, grease the gear shift, turn off the “check engine” light, etc. etc.) things added up. But I was happy to find a new place to take my car. They specialize in subarus and are really close to my work. I didn’t like the dealership I was taking it to anyway and it was out of my way, so this is cheaper and convenient.

$120 on Arbonne cosmetics. This is my weakness. I spend so much money on cosmetics and facial creams, I really should look like Catherine Zeta-Jones by now.. but no luck. Arbonne is a Mary Kay-type company where you can’t buy it in a store but buy it from your friends and coworkers. It’s European and supposed natural and stuff. I got a serum and eye cream. This was before my frugal kick. Now I’m all about using up all the creams and makeups, etc. that I have put in the “nah” pile and not buy anything else till they are all gone (that should be in about 2525).

$98 on dinner in Mass. with my sis and hubbie (which neither of them ever paid me back for.. that was one of those instances where J was like “you buyin?” sigh….)

$95 at Target… no idea what I bought… which is why I no longer go into Target.

$10 for Netflix… I’m ok with that.

I’ve been really good lately and have bought nothing lately other than groceries and gas (and a frappucino today.. and one for my firend D) but my roots are getting bad and I need a haircut so that’s like $150, which at one point seemed like no big deal but now seems extremely extravagant. For god’s sake, I’m saving the seeds out of my squash to eat as a snack! I’ve even stopped buying wine. So what should I do? Go the Miss Clairol route and go to Supercuts? I don’t think I can do it.

I found a fabulous dress at Nordstrom for my company christmas party, but I found out 2 important facts today. 1) No cute guys go to the xmas party and 2) no one really dresses up. So I guess I will save that $120 as well. Though I really did want an excuse to buy a fabulous dress.

Ok, so after 3 and 4 attempts at making cheese, I have succeeded! On Sunday, J wanted to take some pictures in a town near us, so we went tootling around (maybe I’ve already mentioned this). My idea of tootling, is running into the grocery store and doing my week’s worth of shopping in the 10 minutes I have to spare before my piano lesson next door. But there is a natural foods store in that town that i have been meaning to check out. So, we are on foot. We are tootling. We are passing the nautral foods store and there is no excuse NOT to go in. so we go in. Now I’ve been going through this bread-making fantasy in my head lately. For some reason, all of my fantasies either involve sexy guys or making/storing (ok, occasionally eating) food. I envisioned these giant barrels of local flour… you know, potato, rye, wheat, white, etc. etc. that I could buy by the pound to make bread. I don’t know where I got that image from, but that didnt’ happen. Though they do have red lentils in bulk. Good to know for when I start making my red lentil stew this winter. Sometimes the red lentils are hard to find. But anything, what I did find was unpasteurized milk. Now I know what you’re thinking..pasteurization was invented FOR A REASON. The problem is that these days milk isnt’ just pasteurized, but it’s ULTRA pasteurized, which means it could survive a nuclear war. You can not make cheese out of nuke-resistant milk. That is a fact. I’ve tried this at least 3 times with local milk, organic local milk, etc. and it’s never turned otu right. But when I stumbled on the unpasteurized milk, I thought..hmmm… I could make cheese out of this AND kill myself with microbes in one fell swoop. Sweet.

But the plot thickens. I get a call (or email, I forget which) from my dad (or mom, I forget which) saying they came across a goat farm that sold goat milk. Then they asked me to call them back with detailed instructions about when I would be home, etc. etc. etc. which of course I did not do because I am a horrible daughter and never call them back, ever. Soooo… after purchasing the raw milk over teh weekend and planning to make deadly cheese sometime in the future, I get home from a very very stressful day at work to find an Igloo Cooler on my porch with a gallon of fresh goats milk (and some goat cheese too). Awww.. am I the luckiest girl in the world or what? not only can I be a total bitch to my lovely husband when I have PMS (sorry sweety!) but I have just the best doggone parents in the world. So freaking sweet! So I spent the entire night making (yes! Making!) cheese! and succeeding! I feel a little nauseous now but hell I’ve got enough mozzarella to survive a nuclear holocaust.

I know.. you are wondering about all the nucelar holocaust references, right? it’s Jericho. That TV show. I love it. J used to get on my nerves when he would say 6 times a day “Let’s watch an episode!” and I woudl say “no! we have to preserve it. We need to save it for a special occasion…like once a day. You freaking addict!” but now, he says that and I’m like “aww yeah, bring it on brother.”

Well my fingers are burnt from cheese making (it’s kind of dirty and gross and in the future I will think twice about where I get my cheese from as there is a lot of hand to hand combat involved) but it was fun. Also J read some article that he has not yet forwarded to me about how peopel are depressed because they aren’t doing any of these survival things themselves (like making food and stuff I guess). I really want to read this article because you know I am really into evolution and dna and stuff. I totally believe I am a product of evolution and that’s why I want to have sex with various cute italians and really get a kick out of growing, preserving, and storing food. Plus I also dig hanging my laundry out to dry. This was what was missing from my life when I lived in Greater Metropolitan Washington DC. Let’s face it girls, we are gatherers. We are made for this! Go get some berries! Speaking of which, I just planted 3 raspberry plants and 3 blueberry plants in my yard. Amen. That’s all there is. There isn’t any more.

Work, life, etc. has been kind of poopy lately. I have no boss, I got drunk (again) at another company function, and I have an arch nemesis who is a Doctor and doesn’t believe in the value of what I am doing, which is making my Life At Work Hell. And I’m also really, really tired. So…. when J got up this morning (despite the fact that he promised to sleep all day) I felt absolutely no guilt about sleeping or at least lying in bed till close to 11. Then, I finally got up and listened to J saying “I should do this, and I should do that,” and I had to tell him “I don’t want to hear about anything anyone ’should’ be doing so freaking RELAX.” So… even though I really wanted him to buy me some mulch and do some other stuff, he decided he wanted to go shoot some pictures in picturesque Brunswick today. So we got our cameras and took lots of pictures of water, and buildings, etc. We also did some “tootling” which is something we don’t normally do.

Tootling is really a girl thing, and something I’m not necessarily very good at (like many other girly things). Now buying cosmetics, and baking, and cooking, I can do. But shopping and tootling are not my specialty. I have one friend, A who can shop for 8 hours straight. I’m the kind of person who makes a list, then puts it off for a month, then finally finds a way to get it bought as quickly as possibly. Don’t get me wrong, I do like tootling, especially if it involves a coffee/pastry break. So today, we tootled around and checked out the natural foods store that I’ve passed by a hundred times. They had unpasteurized milk, so I bought a gallon of that to make cheese with, and a bottle of organic, sulfite-free, red wine too.

Then, we went to the book-barn, the art store, and the grocery store to pick up cat litter. I’ll upload some photos later. Right now, I’m baking some apple pies and getting drunk on sulfite-free red wine.

cook the squash?

Ok, so now we are hooked on this TV series called Jericho. We’re watching Season 1 on netflix and for all I know, the series has already been cancelled. I hope not. The premise is that there is this small town in Kansas, called Jericho, and they are going about their lives when they see a giant mushroom cloud coming from the West, presumably Denver. They are cut off from the world and then suffer through different trials, like losing electricity, dealing with local thugs, nuclear waste raining down on them, etc. all while trying to put the pieces together of what happened. Who bombed them? What cities are left? And then, of course, there are personal dramas going on too. The mayor gets sick and there’s another guy vying for his job. The mayor’s son is in love with the owner/sexy barmaid at the local bar, even though he is married and unbeknownst to him, his wife is pregnant. It’s pretty good. The characters are likeable, the plots are good, the actors are cute…all the makings of a good show. But the thing that bothers me is that they have been without electricity for weeks now and they all look perfectly clean, nobody is complaining about handwashingt the clothes (which they must be doing, right?), and now they’re going about preparing thanksgiving dinner like nothing is wrong. Here is Mrs. What’s Her Name chopping squash in her kitchen. Ok, so maybe she had saved the squash from before the bombs hit, but how on earth is she cooking it? And what about Mrs. Green and her turkey? I suppose they could have a gas grill… but how do you cook a turkey on a grill? Maybe they have a deep fat fryer… I don’t know. Not to mention the water situation. The water supply must be run on electric pumps, but again, nobody looks dirty.I know.. it’s the little things that bother me.

We had a chili cookoff for charity at work. I made a vegetarian one and came in 3rd place out of 5. I was a little disappointed, especially since I was up till nearly midnight making it. But oh well, it was fun. I got to talk to people I haven’t talked to before, saw some cute boys, so it was a success in that regard. Oh, mom’s on the phone.

Got home this morning and have done nothing productive since. When I’m in a situation where I’m trapped and can’t do anything (like on a plane), I have these great productivity schemes. I want to go and do stuff soooo badly. First, I was going to have a shower and wash all the grime off me. Actually first I was going to go into the office on a holiday (ha ha  haah!! I kill me), then I was going to go over to my work friend’s house to work on something… so that plan got cancelled quickly. Then I was going to have a shower, make myself look gorgeous, do work, do laundry, make not 1, but 2 types of soup, etc. etc. So I got as far as the shower, then I decided a quick quick nap was in order. 3 hours later, I woke up with my hair half dry and looking like medussa, so I even gave up on the looking gorgeous part. Then I stumbled downstairs and devoured the entire contents of the pantry and freezer and now I”m sitting here with a really bad tummy ache.

If I hadn’t been like this my entire life, I would ask myself this question “Why am I so goddamn tired all the time?” I do have a cold, and I am on meds, and I did have a fairly active weekend, and traveling sucks, especially when you get up at 5 in the morning. So I guess that’s a dumb question. But, the fact of the matter is that I absolutely have to get a work project done by 9 am tomorrow morning.And I’m not feeling motivated at all. So I’ll avoid it for a while longer.

My vacation was fun. Sometimes (usually?) things sound funner in anticipation than they are in reality. I think that’s because you only focus on the fun stuff while you’re fantasizing about it (it would be stupid to do it any other way). But in reality, there are other things involved, like public transportation, heat, walking, cranky people, football teams who lose, diarhea…you get the picture.

I thought for sure I would lose weight because the antibiotics i”m on require quite a schedule. Every 6 hours and I can’t eat for 2 hours before and 1 hour after I take them. Yet somehow I managed now to lose any weight.

On the plane, I was thinking about my short story (oh yeah, that was another major one on the productivity plan). I have one month until I have to submit it to the contest I’m doing. I have a writing group tonight and I even said I would go to it (and sort of even want to), but its’ a long drive and I have work to do, and not in a social mood at all.

The leaves are really pretty here. Driving home I tried to take pictures, but that was sort of dangerous, so I stopped. There are also a lot of leaves on the ground now. It must have been windy while I was gone. IN VA it was warm, a little too warm. I’m so over summer. : ) I want to go take another nap, but I guess I will actually start my work though. : (

is not a sight I see very often. My cats, for some odd reason, seem to keep their lunch intact most of the time. Or else they are puking somewhere out of sight (fine by me). But I’ve been hearing one of them hacking lately and then the other one barfed up a bunch of green slime tonight that looked eerily like a plant. I don’t feed them plants, so I started trying to figure out what plant they were eating and then I remembered! I dug up all my calla lillies last weekend and left them laying down in the basement to dry. Luckily the cat puked it up or I would’ve probably forgotten about them till Spring. So, even though it was the last thing I wanted to do tonight, I went down and trimmed all the leaves off and got them packed in peat moss. They looked a little weird, which makes me think I probably did something wrong, but oh well. Poor kitties.

I’m off to Virginia tomorrow for a bachelorette weekend. I’ve been sick and now I’m on anti-biotics, which always make me nauseous, and I’m burnt out and behind at work, so this is the part where I would normally say “I’d rather just stay home and rest.” But I called in sick yesterday and slept all day, so I’m actually looking forward to the trip. Mostly I’m looking forward to the football game I’m going to! My team is doing awesome and I can’t wait to see them live.

Work is getting tense. Everyone is stressed out and people are starting to fight. I see divisions forming, and I am perhaps on the losing side. The fact is, though, that I’m a loyal friend if nothign else, and if that means everyone else not liking me, so be it. Though I’d rather it not come to that. I think I will try to mend some fences next week, but for now, I won’t think about work. Actually I will probably end up doing work tomorrow morning and going into the office on the Monday holiday. I make myself sound like a martyr, but I rarely work more than 45 hours a week, if that. But all in all, it’s not that bad. I like being busy and I’m starting to feel like I have a good handle on stuff. The good thing about my boss leaving is that now I have more ownership of stuff, and as a control freak, I like that.

I’m a Doctor Zhivago mood lately, what with the weather getting cold and me getting gloomy. : ) Actually I’m not really gloomy, but there’s always somethign a little dark that comes over me once the days get darker. I’m not opposed to a little melancholy. After all, it gives me a chance to delve into some darker piano pieces. Last night, I was goign through some old piano books and I have a snippet from Lara’s theme (Somehwere My Love) that I like to play when I’m in a mood. I looked online for a longer version and then ended up not buying one. But at my lesson tonight, my teacher asked what I wanted to do for my next recital, so I told her I wanted to do Somewhere My Love. We found a really nice version online and then downloaded then and there. They could even choose the key. We got it in G and I played it and I love it! At the end, it switches to E (I think…4 flats) and I love it even more. I’m looking forward to playing that so many times that it drives J crazy.

Well, the election is starting to get ugly, no? I was thinking about when Clinton was first elected. I had just turned 18, so it was my first election. I hadn’t been a huge Clinton fan and had wanted Jerry Brown to win the primaries. But after my whole adolescence and childhood seeing Republicans in office, I was freaking ecstatic. I lived in northern virginia, so we went into DC for the inaugural parade… I bought a button… hmm… yes, I would like to relive that feeling. Go Obama! Ok, that’s officially the first time I’ve said that. I’ve been holding a grudge because of Hillary but I officially let it go now. I hope to god(des) McCain doesn’t win.

I’m on a 10 day course of antibiotics and have to take them every 6 hours. I hate to do this to my body. But I also hope that this will finally make me feel better. I’m sick of this crap!!

At work today, we’re making a funny video for a coworker who is leaving. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen myself on video, but it was a strange experience. I look and sound totally different than I thought I did. I also flip my hair a lot and make a lot of funny faces. But I was also kind of cute. : ) In the book I was reading “Eat, Pray, Love” the author has an eccentric friend who says about herself something like “I may not be the type to look good in everything, but sometimes I just can’t help but love myself.” That made me laugh. I feel like I’m so hard on myself most of the time, but every now and then I see myself like a little sister and just say to myself “Oh honey, it’s ok. You’re alright!” I know.. koo koo.

Well,that’s it. Time to pack. Camera, football gear, book, underwear, makeup, drink for the plane I will not check bags, I will not pay for a drink or snack, the airlines can kiss my damn ass. I hate em! But it’s better than driving for 12 hours.

here, Clem. I feel like lately all I do is work. And J works twice as much as we do. He works at least 65-70 hours per week. We don’t make huge salaries that justify this, and it’s starting to seem less like an anomaly and more like the norm. I don’t mind working hard, and I don’t mind being busy when I am at work. But what is starting to bother me is the expectation that this is just the way it is. And now I have a cold, and am still having other health problems, and I really feel like all of this is brought on by work stress.

Isn’t there a better way? In France, aren’t they working 35 hour work weeks, eating good food and drinking nice wine, having great social lives and just being oodles happier? Don’t get me wrong… I love America. I think we have access to a great way of life. But corporate america owns us. And we accept that as the status quo. I’m just getting tired of it.

So my doctor called today and thinks she finally figured out what is wrong with me. Meanwhile, I’ve been treating myself with natural remedies for the wrong thing. Now she wants to give me more antibiotics to kill more things in my body, so more things can grow out of balance. I tend to believe that antibiotics were how I got into this mess in the first place. It’s beyond frustrating and I’m close to being at the end of my rope. I also hate being sick and this little cold could very well kick my ass. However, if I were to look for the silver lining, at least I have a good reason to take Nyquil tonight. I love Nyquil. It’s the only time I actually sleep, but I am very careful to only take it when I get sick. Though I do usually give myself one grace night after I’m pretty much better. : )

I made some applesauce last night with the apples we picked a few weeks ago. It was really good. It takes like apple pie without the crust. I made a triple recipe, which made 3 jars. I didn’t bother pressure canning them, because I knew I would eat them soon enough. This week I plan on donig more and actually getting them canned properly. I may add a little less sugar to the next batch though.

What else? I want to say something positive before I sign off… Well, our ballroom dancing lessons are going well. We absolutely suck at the merengue, but it’s super fun. We giggle the whole time and I’m sure get on everyone else’s nerves. But my feeling is that it’s better to get on people’s nerves for being too happy rather than too angry.

It’s starting to get cold so I have the propane fireplace on, which doesn’t do me much good when I’m not in the living room. So, I’m going to read “French Women Don’t Get Fat” (since obviously American women do, especially as winter starts setting in) and trying to figure out how to write something for work that doesn’t totally SUCK. Then, I’m going to take my Nyquil and go to bed earlier than is seemly.

French class, and feeling incredibly guilty about it. Hmmm, there’s a phrase I didn’t think I’d use past high school. Of course, I took Spanish, not French, in high school. I’m just too tired tonight. I way overextended myself this fall and I’m too busy at work, and too hungry, tired, and burnt out by the end of the day to sit in a chair made for a skinny 16 year old for 2.5 hours. I wanted to skip watercolors last night, but I forced myself to go. But French just requires way too much effort. I wonder how much I’ll pick up by going every other week. : ) Oh well.. C’est La Vie!

Work is rather interesting lately. I really have to just detach from the whole thing. It’s a disaster. I got called in to talk to the VP about my “ideas and thoughts” regarding all the changes going on. The only reason he called me in is becuase my high maintenance coworkers are all making power plays and had already met with him. Am I the only person who realized that the vp doesn’t give a rats ass about all the crap going on in our little dept.? So whiny coworker #1 was in there for an hour yesterday. I took 10 minutes and this is what I said: I hope you hire a new manager quickly, I hope the culture stays positive, and I have no interest in career advancement as I have worked my whole career to be exactly where I am right now. Then I threw in a few “certainly”s and “appreciate”s and nodded and smiled and gracefully exited. As any normal person would do!

We have a new acting director, who is someone my age, who is waaayyy more motivated and ambitious than I am, and I’m a little scared of her. But so far I’m liking her a lot. She’s being very hands off and even though I know some people on her “official” staff don’t like working for her (she’s kind of a hard ass), I think I’ll like working for her. However, that won’t be permananent. I think she’ll officallly get the director job and then someone will be hired between her and my group. Which is fine too. I really don’t care. I just want to do my job, have people cooperate, etc. etc. I refuse to get sucked into all becaues I honestly don’t care about any of the political crap.I’ll save that for the young power players. You know, I used to look at my freind J when she was my age and I was younger and I’d think how she was so unambitious. Now, I can totally embrace the role of the older worker who knows what they want to be when they grow up.And I feel good about that.

What else? Jeez… I’m gaining weight from quitting smoking, which offically stopped today (the quitting part…is anyone following this?). Went to McDonalds for lunch. Health and wellness is a long forgotten memory. I don’t know why I let stress do this to me.

Fall… that fresh air… honestly.. there’s something about memories and fall. what IS it? Part of it is starting school and that feeling of possibilities. I guess something else is just… well actual memories. I miss people sometimes. But I’m at a point where I don’t feel bad about things in the past anymore. And it’s kind of sweet to remember things. I don’t know…. I thought that yesterday anyway. And thought I’d share it today.

I don’t know… today I’m just here. I don’t even know what is in my head or my heart.