Another dream dashed to pieces - this time by a hurricane.

I've always wanted to take a long vacation and visit New Orleans. Everything about it seems a little bit different than here - the music, the food, the language, the architecture. It has a long, vivid history, and you know how much I seem to like things of historical interest.

I don't think anyone really expected anything of this magnitude to happen. Although, building a city below sea level, near the sea, well . . .c'mon, now!

They're evacuating the city now, everybody needs to leave, it's just too dangerous, too difficult to support refugees in that area. the town is underwater, houses and buildings are destroyed or unstable, electricity and other utilities are out, roads are damaged, goodness knows WHAT's contaminating the water.

There's been quite a few quotes by officials in the damaged areas. I think they're still in shock - hardly anything they've said has made any sense.

I know that in different areas houses are built in different ways - often around the environment. Houses along beaches tend to be up on stilts, houses in warm countries have big porches and trees around them . . . things like that. Dad commented that when he was there several years ago, he noticed some of the older buildings had an entrance on the ground floor - nothing but stairs leading up to the next level. A building prepared for flooding. Most likely these types of buildings will still be standing when the floor waters recede. I hope they'll keep this in mind when they begin to rebuild.

In the meantime, let's pray they get everybody else out safely. And to the idiot shooting at the rescue helicopter: You're an idiot.

Fantasy Books for Harry Potter Fans

I may never go to Lowes again.

Ace Hardware recently opened a store off of 28 - near the G Street Fabrics. (Yes, in my family, we give directions by fabric landmarks.) I went in yesterday, looking for pull handles and cabinet magnets.

The place was clean, blissfully quiet, and packed with all kinds of hardware, tools, and other handy things. It even had friendly, helpful employees! I found what I needed without having to trek across a huge dusty store, dodge carts, large pieces of equipment, or customers who have no idea where they are or what they're looking for. The prices were great, too.

That could be the problem - I always felt out of scale in big warehouse type home improvement stores. What's wrong with a simple hardware store? I don't need to choose from 100 ceiling fans or 50 types of cabinetry. I just wanted two small items.

And they were placed into a brown paper bag. I haven't gotten a brown paper bag in ages. For some reason, that just said "quality" to me. I'm definitely going back.

I have to. I forgot to look for drywall screws.

TVShowsOnDVD.com

Oh, heck, I'll blog the whole site. Check out the Release Schedule. Nice to know what's coming up! Count Duckula is on there!

DuckTales - DuckTales darting to DVD

*beam*

I was finally accosted in the parking lot outside of Target by notecard toting beggars. This time it was a big fat hispanic guy with an 8 year old girl holding his hand. The card had very neat, crisp, handwriting, everything grammatically correct, asking for money or food. I asked him if he had heard of FISH - a local food bank - and he said they wouldn't help him. I told him to go to a local church and they should help him. He shrugged, thanked me, and left. I saw him approach another woman with a minivan, who frowned and shook her head at him.

I STILL think it's a good idea to print up little cards with the names of local food banks. If they're REALLY looking for food, then they should know about these places. There's absolutely no reason to be forced to beg on the streets in Northern Virginia.

I appear to be on an organizational streak. Went to my grandparent's last night for our monthly dinner together (in spite of my allergy's wild attempts to stop me).
Afterwards I made her go in her office and stop complaining about her need to start filing. We started filing. I began with her bills, which she had stored in two different locations and organized by month. With a large pile of blank manilla folders, we created a file for each company that sends her bills and began sorting. Perhaps it's not the BEST system in the world, but if she needed to find, say her gas bill, she'd know right where to go. I explained the FlyLady method of cleaning/organizing for only 15 minutes an evening. Her response was: Oh! I can do that! She's got a lot of papers to go through, and if you look at all of them at once, it's a bit overwhelming for her. It's a good start, though! I'm hoping she'll be able to get rid of some of the furniture in there, but she's reluctant. We'll see!

I feel like I'm on Mission: Organization.

I have a conundrum.

Limited storage space. In many places. At work, I've finally decided to solve the problem by getting rid of the jewel cases we store our DVDS in, and putting the DVDs into binder sleeves. At home, I realize I have the same option. All of my DVDs, CDs, and paperback books are in the same media storage unit. It's full, and I keep having to restack and rearrange and *gasp* purge to fit things in there.

I don't think I'd have a problem with getting rid of the CD cases. I hardly ever touch my CDs as it is. The movies, though . . . I LIKE the way they look on the shelves, I like their fancy covers. It's really easy to find one when they're all right there at a glance, no page flipping needed. If I get tired of one I'd sell it or donate it to a used bookstore . .. but would they take a DVD without a case?

If I could condense my digital libary into, say, two or three notebooks, I could get rid of my media cabinet and buy something nicer, but big enough to hold my paperback books. I was thinking about a credenza (or lowboy, whatever they're called.) I have a big section of wall that needs a large, narrow piece of furniture. Right now I have the cabinet and an empty tv stand, and it just looks cluttered.

Apparently I need to make my mind let go of the cases. *breathes in* *breathes out*

Vote for a Giant Panda Cub Name - National Zoo| FONZ

I'm so glad we get a choice! (It's bad enough we have to send him BACK!)

Comic of the Day:

Why yes, yes we have.

(Take the label off and improve the gene pool!)

I bid on the ring. I won the ring.

I can't believe it.

Distraction o' the Day:

Computer Stupidities

Universal Press Syndicate: Feature Detail


CALVIN AND HOBBES IS BACK! THEY'RE BACK! THEY'RE COMING BACK! WHEEEE!

After last week's craziness and the peaceful weekend I can't get back into the swing of things. I find myself zoning out and then jerking back to the present. Huh? What am I doing? Oh yeah . . .

My sister's house and neighborhood is SO different from mine! I love the peaceful silence . . . everywhere you go is just so relaxing. I went out on her front porch to feed the goldfish and sat down, thinking, I could sit here all day! The trees screened you from the neighbors and gave you a nice shady spot to sit. They hung up a bench swing, although I think it's about a foot too high . . . The house was blissfully quiet, save when two siamese decided to have a race. She has a clock on the mantle that gracefully chimes the time away. No cable, so the tv was off, I was rarely on the slow Internet . . . I read, I wrote, I watched Kung Fu and Stargate, I cooked, I played with the cats, I wandered the antique shops in the main drag below, I walked on the treadmill . . . I basically went brain dead. Unfortunately, I don't want to go back to overstimulation USA! Ten million things to look at and do . . . it's no wonder so many people suffer from a short attention span. We don't need all this crap!

I wonder when they'll leave town again . . .

A few days ago I decided to do a random eBay search.

I saw something opal, and was reminded of the ring that my grandmother got when she was 16. She passed it on to my mother, who then passed it on to me. I passed it back to my mother a few years later because one of the prongs was loose, and she was planning to have several of her own rings repaired. All of the rings are gone now. We have no idea what happened to them. Did they get lost in the house? The car? Left and forgotten at the jewelry shop? Stolen? We may never know.

We certainly hope my grandmother doesn't find out! So, I was looking on ebay to see if I could find any like it. It was an opal ring, surrounded by diamonds (or more likely, rhinestones.) I quickly became distracted by the wide variety of rings! Now, I'm picky about my jewelry, it has to appeal to me, or I'll never wear it. I tend to like light, open pieces, usually with some fine details. I have expensive taste. I also have tiny hands, making rings difficult to buy.

I am currently staring at an auction for a beautiful black opal ring, trying to justify the cost. Is it worth the cost? Is jewelry considered an investment? Am I selfish for buying myself jewelry? Will I be too afraid to wear something that expensive? Would the money be better spent on clothing (which I need)? Do I really want it?

The answers all seem to be yes.

Item of the Day: Gothic Commode Seat at Pyramid Collection

It's been a crazy, crazy week. (Yes, I know, it's not over yet. ack!) I've been bouncing back and forth helping various people out. They only ask for one thing to be done, but I realize there's more things I could do for them. Most people I know like being self sufficient, but they're overwhelmed by a lot of responsibilities and just can't get around to the little stuff. For example, my grandmother's been trying for months to reorganize her office, trying to make do with what she has, reluctant to get rid of things she doesn't need or to spend a little money on items that will make things easier. I don't need to go into describing all the other stuff she has to do.

It's never been in my nature to charge in and take over. I want to be asked. (yeah, yeah, that attention and recognition thing.) I've become more confident and more demanding over the years, and am perfectly willing to take on tasks for other people. I'm BORED! Give me something to do! Give me a time frame, possibly a budget! I'm good at completing projects. OTHER people's projects, anyway. (She corrects herself as she realizes that she has a messy room and her own unfinished projects behind her.)

I just don't know how to convince them to let me worry about it. I found out earlier today that the girl in the arts council office had been stressed out for four days because she couldn't send emails from her new computers. While she starts off on how upsetting and stressful and annoying this is, and how no one's fixed it, and so on, I kept trying to interrupt and say, ok, ok, I can fix it! Let's shut up about it and go do it! I fixed it within a minute. (stupid cable company changing their security things again. I had to fix this on other computers a few weeks ago.) Four unnecessary days of stress for her because she didn't think to mention it to me. Hello! I'm useful for a variety of things! Trust me! I can help! Stop being so . . . so . . . *runs out of steam*

They can't do everything by themselves, you know. I can't help but worry about them. So much stress.

THE DOLLHOUSE CASTLE

*Drooool*

This site is for all those people who think that dollhouses are toys for children. I'd like to see it in person, and I understand that it's on display - but it's closed! Time for some window peeping . . .

I've been keeping a close eye on Mai Xiang and her new cub, whom I quietly refer to as Truman. So I decided to see if any other zoos had webcams. There's a zoo in Monterey Bay, CA, that has a penguin cam, but found the quality a little fuzzy. So below is a polar bear cam! I'll have to think of what other animals I'd like to watch now . . .


San Diego Zoo.org

Duckplanet Home: Rubber Ducks, Rubber Ducks and more Rubber Ducks


The quacks.

I went to the orthodontist today, rather excited to be able to show them that the gap between the two teeth on my left side had finally closed. The ortho was excited, too. A little TOO excited. "Wow, it looks fantastic! I'm really impressed that it looks that good!" When I questioned her, she told me that she really wasn't sure that she would be able to make that much of a difference without surgery. She pulled up my 'Before' pictures and spent a few moments comparing them to the current state of my teeth. BIG, big difference.

Now we get to concentrate on closing up the gap on the right side. (Remember, I had two teeth extracted. The gaps are where they used to be.) That means I'm back to rubber bands.

*sigh* I knew they'd be back.

Some *cough* helpful hints . . . (as found elsewhere on the 'Net)

Tape a chocolate bar to the outside of your microwave. If the chocolate melts you will know that the microwaves are escaping and it is time to have the oven serviced.

A mouse trap, placed on top on of your alarm clock will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep.

Old telephone books make ideal personal address books. Simply cross out the names and addresses of people you don't know.

Before attempting to remove stubborn stains from a garment always circle the stain in permanent ink pen so that when you remove the garment from the washing machine you can easily locate the area of the stain and check that it has gone.

Lose weight quickly by eating raw pork and rancid tuna. I found that the subsequent food poisoning enabled me to lose 12 pounds in only 2 days.

Avoid parking tickets by leaving your windshield wipers turned to fast wipe whenever you leave your car parked illegally.

High blood pressure sufferers: Simply cut yourself and bleed for a while, thus reducing the pressure in your veins.

Olympic athletes. Conceal the fact that you have taken performance enhancing drugs by simply running a little slower and letting someone else win.

Heavy smokers: Don't throw away those filters from the end of your cigarettes. Save them up and within a few years you'll have enough to insulate your ceiling.

Create instant designer stubble by sucking a magnet and dipping your chin in a bowl of iron fillings.

X File fans: Create the effect of being abducted by aliens by drinking two bottles of vodka. You'll invariably wake up in a strange place the following morning, having had your memory mysteriously 'erased'.

A sheet of sandpaper makes a cheap and effective substitute for costly maps when visiting the Sahara desert.

A FAIRY STORY - Renaissance Faire Filk Songs, Lyrics, Free MP3, Chords, Sheet Music

Several years ago Gaelic Storm performed this song at the Herndon Festival. I had never heard it before, never heard it since, didn't know the title, and couldn't find the silly thing online every time I tried to search by the few lyrics I remembered.

I found it while randomly browsing Napster, as performed by the Brobdingnagian Bards. (talk about a tongue twister!) It's a silly song, but it made me laugh, and I'll take anything that makes me laugh right about now.

After seven or so months and at least three attempts, I finally succeeded in refinishing the rush seat of Grandma Whitmer's sewing rocker.

The worst part about doing this was that if you began weaving crookedly in the beginning, you wouldn't know til the end, when nothing lined up properly. I finally discovered that the chair itself was a bit crooked and added some rush here and there. It worked out, I think. I'm not ecstatic about the finished job, but, it'll do. It's a rough and tumble little rocker, so it seems to look appropriate. I may post pictures of it in a few weeks, after it's been sat on, mashed down, wiggled on, and otherwise settled in. I'm hoping it will look better after all that!