Allo. Happy Saturday.

Today was spring shave down day for our little lamb. This morning I dropped her off at the groomer.



And went for a walk around the neighborhood. I stopped at the last ever homo yardsale. Got some good cds. Mostly old Cure and REM that I've only had on cassette until now. There was also tons of Madonna, if anyone's in the market.



Then I went to the bank to get some rolls of quarters for laundry, but that's not worth a picture.

Flower shop. I like these white things on sticks. Dogwood. I think I'd like to use those for our wedding. We like sticks. Sticks with flowers are even better. Dogwoods. I wonder if they're seasonal.



Also taking a lot of pictures of dormers. Shed dormers, cape cod dormers, triplet dormers... There is a house we want to buy, but only if it's possible to add dormers to the roof. Considering every house like it in the neighborhood seems to have had dormers added to the roof at some point, I'm thinking it's GOT to be possible, and probably not too outlandish in costs, as so many others before us have gone this route.



Oui?



Non? That one seems like an incredibly stupid idea. Why make three?

This kind seems to make the most sense, and is what I'd like to ask the architect about:



No bumping heads with a shed dormer like that, right? Hopefully the answers come quickly and easily.

By day's end, dog was 10lbs lighter & is real happy to be back on mah bed:



How cute is that thing? Really!

Check it out. Blog facelift. Doesn't it make you feel like you're witnessing something organic? How novel, right?

Man I really want a new house to paint & make curtains for. HTML modification alone doesn't cut it for me.

Ugh. Today felt like a disaster. I do not remember how to handle a hangover. But hey, Friday night was great fun.

Here are some ducks at that great grocery store in Milford.

Happy 2nd anniversary to my car and me! Today I worked late, but when I came out there was Paco, alone in the parking lot, waiting for me with a big rainbow. Yay.

Man I've really gotten lazy on the blog front, right?

I guess I can't seem to focus on one thing long enough to make an entire paragraph on a subject lately. So hm. Let's just go stream of consciousness, shall we?

michigan ave
We spent our afternoon at the Genius Bar. The battery on my 1 yr old mac book crapped out this week. Fortunately they gave me a brand new battery. Thank goodness for apple care. I had mixed emotions about hanging out in the apple store that long and not finding anything I wished I could buy. Good in the sense that I've gotten over any sort of "gotta have it" bug most people suffer from, and kind of bummed in the sense that hanging out in the apple store was boring. I felt like an 8 year old boy waiting for his mom to try on clothes in a department store. There weren't even any racks to hide in. Wanted to leave.

playing dress up
Oh here's something that wasn't boring: Last weekend my mom and I went out together to try on princess dresses. Even though we're going to try to make our own wedding dress, trying them on is like a rite of passage. You're absolutely not allowed to do it until you've got a ring. So yeah, I had fun with all the strange girdles and under things that go under the fancy dresses. And I liked standing on the little pedestal at the bridal salon. Fun to put on a veil too, even if it made me feel like I was dressing up for a first communion more than a wedding. I'm pretty happy with myself for preferring a $200 dress over an $1100 dress. To me I think the biggest difference between the expensive & inexpensive dresses is amount of fabric & overall weight. I swear you could probably sleep outside in a snowstorm in one of the expensive ones I tried on. Here is one that I liked but will not be buying:



Something like this would require a $40,000 wedding to go with. I think. Oh but pickups are so fun! They make the dresses look like cakes!

Anyhow, yeah, the dress we make will not look like a cake, and will not make dudes feel stupid if they decide not to wear a tie to our wedding. At least that's my hope.

pizza
Man I ate too much pizza today. Ugh.

homework before video games
I'd really like to get myself moving on grad school but I'm not sure which one I'd like to go to and frankly everything else seems like so much more fun than studying for the GMAT right now. While I know that if I want to get it over with before I start thinking about having or adopting a baby, I'm still finding it to be so much more fun to play video games. I got Sims Pets. Oh man. So much trouble.

tadpole
Speaking of babies, Whisper got us this little gift for us which she was going to give us as a wedding present. But knowing that our wedding is still 1.5 yrs away, she didn't trust herself not to lose the gift and gave it to us early. Here it is (they are) on Fannie, who is sitting in for future babies in this photo:



all thumbs
We Netflixed the 2003 adaptation of "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" and watched half of it last night. Man is it ever a crappy film. I have a hard time sitting through movies as it is, but this one.. geez. Painful. I don't think we'll be watching the rest of it.

the hard way
I guess it's earth hour right now. Zach is giving the dog a bath in the dark. I also guess that means I shouldn't be on the computer. dang it.

We bought the ugliest curtains at World Market this weekend.



And I am so excited about them. I'm sure my mom would hate them because they look like something from her childhood. Some day when our kids are into airbrushing and pastels or decorating with geese and amish dolls the sentiment will be returned.



I realize we're decorating this place and making it more cozy each week when we're actually looking to leave it, but why sit and wait when you can keep making life nicer?

I'm so anxious waiting for this snowstorm. As if it were Santa. It's 1:00am and I'm still getting up out of bed to peek out the window. I'm just really in the mood for a snowstorm and the idea of a Saturday off in which to go out in the snow just sounds good. I'd much rather my winters be covered in snow than just run on and on as a dry, cracked and frozen tundra.

Snow covers dirt and provides a uniform appearance. Snow makes it look as cold outside as it feels. And makes dogs happy. And driving fun. Among other things.

Also, I would like a pet rat who shares my fondness for stuffies and sleeping in:



Really. This picture is so cute I could just kiss my computer screen.

I feel sad but not sure why. This is ridiculous. Do I need a real crisis in order to fully appreciate the fact that my life is golden? There is nothing wrong! Sure it's winter, and I spend more time commuting than I do at home, and ugh. I want a vacation. Or a mental health day at the very least.

Or a sun lamp.

Chillin on the couch with a freshly shaved poodle. Killing some time before I need to head to the airport for glamorous business trip to canandaigua, NY. If I had faith in my ability to wake up in the morning I could fly out at 6am tomorrow. But I don't. So my weekend at home ends at 4pm today. Looking forward to Hampton Inn bedding. They've got the best sheets ever.

Feeling a little sad that Zach and I are disagreeing on a house we looked at today. Foreclosed houses are sad. It's hard to look past dirt and ghosts sometimes.

Today is beautiful. Melting glaciers and thawing dog poo and mud. I should be running errands. I should be getting my oil changed. I should be taking my doggie to get a hair cut. I should be cleaning our house.

But the window is open and the fresh air is making me so

sleeepy...

c c c c ccold

that's all. Anyone got suggestions for an inexpensive beach stint? Let me clarify - someplace warm.

only month one

Depressed. So sick of winter. So sick of the recession. Need to stop reading the news. Need to go to the conservatory this weekend to sit in the tropical room and pretend I'm on vacation.

I know I'm not facing any real troubles, but I do wish we had heat in our bathroom. Waaah waaah waaaah.....

So it took a month but my arm is better. I guess that means I have to start going back to the gym now.

T Rex Arms

Also, my shoulder hurts. It's a sharp pain when ever I reach up for anything and a dull ache the rest of the time. It's on about week 2 now, and doesn't seem to be getting better. I do know that it started in my sleep one night when I had laid and stared at the ceiling until 5am. My coworker says it sounds like my arm came out of socket. That's some violent sleeping, right? I have a feeling I need to stop reaching up for things in order for it to get any better, but because I'm 5'2" that's not really easy. Everything is up high. Everything. I could maybe tie my arm to my body at the elbow to stabilize it, leaving me with a little T-rex arm, but people at work would think I'm weird. God.

Oh wait, this is great. I just google image searched "t rex arms":

GOOD
BETTER
BEST

update: BEST has been fixed. They can't fool me.

Who has time for a wedding?

Thinking we have to push our wedding thing out another year or so. Not that we *have* to, but it's probably a good idea. The next year is just so uncertain. If I get into grad school, class would be every weekend for two years straight, with a break for xmas and a break for some other holiday. That would mean we either have to hurry this up and get it done before next September when school would start, or we wait and fit it in to that "other holiday" break.

So, I don't know. Try and find a place and whip it together and make our friends all fly back from New York City to Michigan every other weekend for weddings at the end of this summer? Or just kind of put it off for a while until we know when that "other holiday" break would be from school?

If I even get into school.

I'm feeling a little frustrated with the not knowing when. We're trying to plan the simplest wedding possible, but it's already a hassle.

HAPPY 17th BIRTHDAY, ZOOMER!

Time at home

I made it through Monday.
It wasn't a good day.
A lot went wrong.
But I'm home now.
And the dog was a good girl all alone all day.

Saturday 11:45pm. Approximately what... 29 hours left?

I'm really irritated with the news in Gaza.

Sometimes I wish I were less sensitive. Life would be easier. But then what kind of person would I be?

In happier news, I swear my friends have made the cutest baby:



Serious?

4:15pm Saturday. Approximately 37 hours left of vacation.

Z and I have been sick for days. Sick sick. The kind of sick that sticks you to the couch. Or the bed. Or the floor. I started this week off with a mile long list of things I was so excited to do. Now I'm running through the list and picking out things that can be done in a stationary position and in short bursts.

But I'm not feeling sorry for myself. At least not too much.
Resolution: Check my attitude. Continually.

Too bad I can't enforce that one on the dog. We have raised a naughty dog. She has a bad attitude about us leaving the house and is very lucky that we aren't the type to spank her. Yet. God help her when I get a web cam and a robotic fly swatter, for she is a bad dog.

Xmas 81


Xmas 82


Pom poms!! Omg pom poms!1!!1

Oops. You know, I wrote this and Zach said "wait! don't post! people will see their presents!" And really, he's right. So here's a day old post. Still good for makin' crutons, you know? Merry Xmas all!
________________

(Dec 23, 10pm):



Success! I only have 2 presents yet to show up in the mail (ugh) and only one present I purchased incorrectly for someone. It'll have to stand in until I can take it away from them and go exchange it for the right thing on the 26th.

But this one is my favorite:



Because...



Oh no. That's not a dinosaur in there. Really.

Don't want to go to the gym. Don't want to go to the gym. It's insanely cold out, so I've been told. I'd much rather sit here in my pajamas all day and annoy Zach with my commentary as he puts plastic on our windows.

I don't want to go to the gym!

Metra saved me from having to drive in the storm today.

Days like these are kind of great at work. When the weather is so bad that no one else shows up. And you're kind of stuck inside. Nothing to do but focus. It's kind of like The Shining. Kind of.

Officially off warranty:



My way home in this week's snow storm



Zooming way in - our car on the gps is a pizza. Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!



Sorry. Real blurry. Can't foto while driving.

Man today has been so borderline disasterous. Forgive how incohesive this must be, but I have to rant before I can get back to work. Read this "superfast" - because that's how everything is coming out of my mouth right now. Uncontrollably. Making up for lost time or something.

First I woke up with 13 min to get ready and out the door.
Then I realize it's pouring. Like really really raining. And cold. And I don't have my umbrella.
Then I realize my CTA card (which is linked to my credit card) is missing.

Almost got hit by a left turning car while crossing the intersection on walk to the bus. Seriously, they brushed the bag I was carring. Jesus.

Stood in the rain for 15 min waiting for the bus. CTA bus tracker via phone is malfunctioning, so I don't know if or when the bus is even coming.

4 min before my train is scheduled to arrive, I give up & get in a cab ....just as the bus pulls up to the stop. But, you know, we're pulling away and I'm already committed to the $7 cab ride to the train. And I HAVE to make this train because my car is out in the burbs and this is my only chance to get to work today.

Got real into working on the train ride and almost missed my stop. Got into work. Set up computer.

Get back up and bundle up again. Leave to take car to car doctor for 10:00 appointment. Of course the freaking grinding noise in question is not happening today!!

BUT... at least by the time I got my car to the dealership it still had FIVE MILES left before it went off warranty. So that's pretty great, but again, borderline nuts. And at least the dealership has a sense of humor about it.

And at least I have my rubber boots on. So the only dry part about me is my feet. But hey, dry feet!

And at least I didn't poop myself when I almost got runned over by that car.
And at least I didn't get fully runned over by that car.

Oh and great. My computer just installed a new version of Office on itself. I can probably plan on spending the rest of the week dealing with resetting preferences and figuring out which macros no longer work. Just in time for the mean season!

But I'm warm and dry(ish) now and hopeful that this day will come down off its tight rope.

I'm also hoping some homeless person found my CTA card and spent the night riding a warm bus up and down Ashland. Or something. At least.

On a lighter note

stringbot (11:28:58 AM): omg what is the music on this bulldog puppy video
ants555ants (11:29:09 AM): uh. i dunno.
ants555ants (11:29:13 AM): it's not BAD though
stringbot (11:29:27 AM): um it has panflutes in it
stringbot (11:29:34 AM): by definition that is bad
ants555ants (11:29:38 AM): but panflutes kind of go with those puppies
stringbot (11:29:49 AM): i don't even know you anymore
ants555ants (11:29:57 AM): hahaha
ants555ants (11:30:03 AM): i can forgive!
stringbot (11:30:15 AM): you just went from saying you want jesus lizard tickets to "panflutes kind of go with those puppies" in like 5 lines

Anyhow,

Happy Thanksgiving, America

In case you didn't hate Sarah Palin already:



Who would give an unrelated interview in front of animals being slaughtered? Oh. That's who.

Then again, maybe it's a good thing. While I'm positive it's not what they had in mind, maybe someone watching this will think for a moment about where their deli slices come from. Does watching the animal struggle pull on at least one of your heart strings? Eh. Maybe not. Many people prefer to not to actualize this.

I guess what really gets to me is the fact that this is not necessary. We're an advanced society. We don't need to be doing this to survive anymore. Compassion!

Sometimes you just HAVE to take pictures of your tv.



Best Christmas special ever.

So it's a good thing this house thing isn't gonna happen for a little while, because it takes a whole lotta research & preparation. Now can I relax?

Apparently not.

The spring on our garage door broke Wednesday morning. As a result I have to park on the street for a day or so while it gets fixed. Already, someone smashed my passenger window as the car sat in front of our house yesterday. Really nice. Right?

But tonight while I'm picking glass out of the seat crevices with freezing fingers, I'm gonna remember to feel fortunate that I have the money to fix it. And I'm glad I had the money to straight up purchase a replacement gps for $130 on ebay last night. Had we purchased something like the house in the last picture I posted, I'd probably be saving up change before I could do all that.

And fortunately I have renters insurance which will cover anything stolen from the car. How that relates to your rental property I have no idea, but I won't complain. And fortunately my car is just barely still under warranty - which might get me something for the fact that the car alarm failed. And fortunately my Z is great and attentive as always and gave me hugs and found some places to get the window fixed.

Despite my bad luck this week, I'm a really lucky girl over all.

House hunting is really easy to lose sleep over. Even if you just kinda started looking around and don't intend to actually buy anything for months. I'm good at generating my own what-ifs out of nothing. Add pretty houses to the mix and I'm a wired, matrix making, 2nd and 3rd opinion asking freak.



A big problem is that most of the kitchens already look like this:



The contractors have already swept through our neighborhood, making everything in their path overly swanky. Is there anything out there that we can still do ourselves?

Oh oh! This one: Could it be any cuter from the front?

Probably not, but it's about the size of a shoebox inside. : (

Plant trial early in the morning. I've been having trouble sleeping. Worrying about a whole lot of nothing. Everyone else over here is asleep. I should be sleeping.

Don't have a whole lot to say here today. Maybe I can dig around and find a photo for you. Give me a sec....


Here. Here are two snaps I took of the park outside the polling station on election day. It was a perfect day to take off work and appreciate the neighborhood.






I'm going to talk to a mortgage dude on Saturday morning. I sure hope we can afford to stay in this neighborhood. I suppose if not, well, then our little rental ain't all that bad, is it? Living in 700 sq ft is fun at times because it forces you to keep it real, and deters you from crap collecting for the most part. But dang it would just be so nice to have a real kitchen. And to have a bedroom just a little larger than 8ft in one dimension. And hm. to have heat in our bedroom. Yeah that would be super.

holy multi media weekend

We're bun-sitting this weekend. Let me add to the numerous videos of cute animals munching things on youtube:



Sorry Mom. That was you calling in and yeah, I did decide to defer your call. But, I mean, I was capturing a moment. He was about to finish his leaf!

Also, doing my duty as the youngest child and hippie of the family, I got to take my brother and his munchkins to an art show today.

The Exquisite City is a set of city blocks of Chicago (fantasy or otherwise) built out of cardboard. Each block is done by a different artist. I love things that show multiple people's take on the same thing. And this one is pretty unpretentious for the most part, so that is also great.

Today was a pretty nice day to go back because we had the entire place to ourselves and could hear the city soundtrack that went with the show. Here are some pictures our friend Jason took for the newspaper:







And here are four of my (much less profesh) photos:





J. Ryan's block (shown above with Lia) must be the most photographed of them all, even though it's one of the least complex. We spent a lot of time keeping the one-year-old from going godzilla on the city blocks that included little cars but it was fun.

No matter how you voted, you have to admit this is pretty great:





Especially the little suitcase. And ear.

Justin, who knows the cartoonist, says of him: "He wears really tight pants for an older gentleman."

Okay so that is totally irrelevant, but still, hard to pass up. You know.

So, you know, I'm feeling pretty emotional as is.

Then on the drive home tonight traffic slowed to a crawl. Flashing lights of the minute men and police cars seem to slow time down to an equal pace in the dark. When I finally made my way up the procession I saw a man violently pulling on the legs of a deer that had been pinned under the frame of a sparkling Audi. Immediately beyond this, traffic picked up to a regular freeway pace and I drove in silence south toward the city with tears in my eyes.


And now the sad grandpa is pulling on my heart strings. Even though I unsubscribed from his mailing list three years ago, tonight he sent me an email asking one last time for my vote. Funny enough, it started out: "My friend, from the time I entered blah blah blah..."

Oh John. In the past I've been so excited about you. You've made so much sense and you've made so many enemies in awesome ways. I've admired your fiscal conservatism. I was totally excited about your efforts to cut the crap with regard to campaign finance (what ever happened to that?) and general ridiculous government spending. I was really excited when you and Kerry were working together on fuel economy standards before the green wave even hit. And in general, I always really liked listening to you speak.

But then you became a candidate. I thought that was what I always wanted, but you are not so much the McCain I've been following for the past eight years. You've become a device, regurgitating the catch phrases of your party's campaign. Of course so has Obama. And this is why those "debates" had me fuming. I know neither of you stand behind everything you're saying now. As if that could've helped anyone get to know either of you better. As if either of you were actually saying anything at all.

Seriously, I think I tripled my workout each night you two got up and spit rehearsed lines at one another on the televisions at the gym. Like if I pushed hard enough I could've run away from the insults of modern general election politics.

And then you chose her.
I find this to be unforgivable.

I am really unhappy and worried tonight. Even though I'm well aware that in my district it doesn't matter what I finally do.

Oops. I put this on my twitter but forgotted about you guys.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Your assignment for today is to listen to this old DJ Spooky record. Download it [here].

It's a safe file. I uploaded it myself for you last night.

Party like it's 1996!

Organizing my widgets etc.



Okay so it's one thing that I chose that word to test the widget, but yeah... Nice example sentence, doods.

Man I'm really having a hard time with life lately. And reajusting to my cubicle and fluorescent lighting is making it just that much harder. Can't wait till the end of this week. If I'm not back into the swing of things by then, well... I guess we'll deal with it then.

Totally unrelated, and on a much lighter note, this is pretty great:

Haunted?

Even though the fluorescent lights are painful, I might have to consider putting another one or two of them in my house. Should also check the house for vampires. I have a feeling there are a few lurking in our 2nd bedroom.

Put up some pictures of my bumpa's funeral procession.



And our drive home afterward.



The gallery is here

Glad to be home but wondering when I'll stop feeling so worn out.

Oh Bumpa. Thank you for taking such good care of me when I was small. I always felt safe with you nearby.

Heading to Detroit tomorrow to say goodbye. Will be good to be home and away from work and life in general. Been walking around in a little cloud for the past day or so. Not that clouds are bad. They looked really pretty yesterday afternoon outside of the dollar store:

I got nothing. Got up very early. Worked. Worked hard at the gym. I'm really into that lately. Its a good thing. Watched some news there. I hate the news these days. It's going to give me hives.

Here. This is better. I don't know if it has anything with my recent dental work, but Z got all interested in sonic toothbrushes and invested in one for us this weekend. It's intense. I can't wait for my next cleaning to see if the dentist will notice a difference.

Gosh. I'm so happy I just got to use that tooth image.

Whoa. We're watching American Experience: Nixon, and someone just used the analogy "Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's hard to get back in."

That's great.

Anyone remember the story where Ramona Quimby squeezed out an entire tube of toothpaste in one shot? That was also great.

This is about the stupidest blog post I could've written today.

Oh oh! Tomorrow is my half birthday and Z and I are going to Little Italy (i.e.Taylor) street to get a fancy dinner with fancy breads and fancy gnocchi and wine and I'm really excited about this. We'll do it right after work. After I get back from the gym. You know. Preemptive carb burning. I'm officially in my 30s now and I need to do that kind of thing.

Tonight I went and got some cavities fixed at the dentist. They ended up having to give me six shots - one of which was in the roof of my mouth - and that, my friends, is not fun. Now it's 10:00 at night and my nose and left eye are still numb. I keep hurting myself. It sucks.

It also kind of sucks that they have televisions in front of each patient chair and today they chose to show me Sex & the City - the movie. Not that that sucks, but it does totally suck to listen to people "doing it" all over the tv while your teeth are being drilled. Why not make an uncomfortable moment even more uncomfortable?

Man, last time I went there they had me watching Arrested Development. That's not bad, but the dentist just happened to pause the dvd to talk to me right when Kitty was flashing her boobs at what's his name. Maybe if it were someone else it would've just been funny, but for me it was both funny and awkward, because the woman who plays Kitty happens to be someone who went to my high school in real life. Ugh.

Nice boobs, Judy. I saw them at the dentist office the other day.

I want the left side of my face back. Like soon.

I am so not on top of my game lately. I need two good, productive, cognizant, consecutive days.

I don't know why this result surprises me. I never thought of myself as such a socialist. I mean, should we not be subsidizing museums? I'd think for what they're worth, it's probably a small portion of our budget in relation to some of the things we should be handling. ?? And I never said anything about national healthcare, although, yeah, basic healthcare would be novel. I can't help it when I see a hugely pregnant woman sleeping under a bridge. Or maybe I've listened to too much Stereolab in my time.

You are a Social Liberal (66% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (23% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Higher permissiveness, on either axis, indicates a "live and let live" philosophy. Of course, we're almost conditioned in America, "Land of the Free", to think positively of such a philosophy. But practically speaking, permissiviness (or its opposite, regulation) can create any number of outcomes:

For example, on the economic axis, a highly permissive system, like the American system of the early 1900s, might mean things like low taxes and increased scientific innovation. It might also result, as it did back then, in unrestricted child labor and millions of poor people with black lung.

At the other end of the economic spectrum, a highly regulated system might conserve the environment, establish national health care, and eliminate poverty. But as we've learned from the Soviet system, extreme regulation can also lead to stagnation, sameness, and unhappiness.

I FINALLY get a business trip to NYC! Hooray!!