Thanks to all the rainy weather lately...my weeds have flourished while my flowers have grown thin and pale. I spent the entire weekend pulling weeds in the garden, and there are still plenty of weeds left. Sigh... So Monday at work was spent simmering in residual heat stroke and pulled muscles and sunburn. I need another weekend to rest up from my weekend.
Noticed something strange in the garden area at the back of our property. Our yard backs up to a small bit of woods, with a pond and open meadow area beyond that. We have lots of birds and all kinds of Midwest wildlife back there. The wild animals tend to creep about at night...so we don't see them much. But something flattened one of my hostas:
And it appears that something was crouching in the middle of my geranium sanguineum flowers:
And something has tunneled a path between my "Diablo" ninebark shrub and my "Angel's Blush" hydrangea bush:
There is a small farm across the road from our subdivision; they keep a few goats and geese on their property. I am only hoping that it is not el chupacabra creeping through my garden at night!
Ok, so I was reading this about not acting old when using Twitter and thinking "Oh, I'm always trying not to act old; I already know all this." The point of the article was to not Tweet like an old lady, but the article states that "people over 40 may dominate Twitter" and "the median age of Twitter users is the oldest of any social networking site", which suggests that if you even use Twitter - you are old.
I don't use Twitter at the moment. I was going to get a Twitter account, but like an old person, I carefully read all the FAQs and Known Issues before I signed up, and there were a lot of comments from new users about being pestered by bots and ghost followers that they hadn't approved. So...being a prudent old lady...I didn't sign up for Twitter.
But lots of my favorite bloggers are Tweeting...and I want to follow them...but their median age is probably over 40...so, yea, according to that article, that makes me old. And some of my co-workers have been discussing getting Twitter accounts, and asking me for technical advice on getting started (since tech support is my office title)...and these co-workers are around my age. They feel like they are missing out, which just seems old and desperate to be cool like the youngsters.
So - to Twitter or not to Twitter? If only it was so simple to choose whether to age or not!
Started this post last week but it still doesn't have an ending. I'm not a shoeaholic or a purseaholic, so I browse accessories only sporadically...when I'm more in a curious mood than an acquisitive mood. I've been put off by the latest trend in bags...all the bling and the hardware. I'm on the small side, and one of these new purses slung over my shoulder makes me look and jingle like a Budweiser Clydesdale in full harness for a parade.
And what's with all the big, blatant designer labels on every bag?! Some of the logos are huge and metallic...as attractive as neon signs. I'm supposed to pay $299 for the privilege of being a walking billboard for some designer?
Obviously I'm just too old and cautious to go into hock for an overpriced accessory that will be out of fashion before the charge on my credit card is paid off. Having said that - I fell in love with the color of this purse and ordered it from Zappos.
The leather is like butter and how could I not love the lipstick red color? Then I took a good look at the price tag and panicked and boxed the purse back up again. I will stew over the price for a couple more days, and then probably return the purse. That's why I love shopping with Zappos...they are so good about accepting my returns of indecision.
And no, I have no business relationship with Zappos. They don't give me a thing but good customer service.
Not been doing much because I seem to be on my third round, since January, of some wacky virus that affects my inner ears and gives me vertigo. I've been told this is a common effect of viruses at my age. Someone please shoot me.
Dizzy or not, I managed to drag myself to the hair salon for my routine cut and color last night. I wouldn't want to die with my streaky gray roots showing. For economy's sake, Meester gets his hair cut by my stylist while we wait for my hair color to take. The hair salon is one place where the Meester can shine, believe it or not. There's always a big discussion of how Meester is older than me, but still has all of his hair and original hair color. He has almost no gray. You would think with all the whining and complaining and yelling from me..Meester would be grayer than me. Meester likes to be all wise and say "Maybe you should learn to relax." ...but that's not going to happen...it's just not my style.
Talking with a co-worker this morning about our institution's e-mail program. Supposedly our e-mail tech support group has been working on improving our spam filtering. Hmmm, seems to be working...cause I am getting way more spam directed to my Inbox instead of my Junk e-mail folder.
This morning I received an e-mail from one of my technical e-mail listserves. The subject was "Maximize Uptime and Performance." At first I thought "Oh, no, not another ad for Viagra", but then I realized that they were talking about computer servers. Who the heck created that subject line; isn't that just asking to be blocked as spam!? Good thing our improved spam filters got it safely through to my Inbox.
Spam e-mails are a reflection of the ups and downs of our economy. We've gone from the old ubiquitous Viagra e-mails titled "Enlarge your size" and "Make it bigger" to the current spam from predatory lenders titled "Reduce the size (of your mortgage payments)!" and "Make your big (mortgage) smaller!"
I just wish it would all stay the hell out of my Inbox...
Ok, what is worse? Finding a spider crouched on the top of your desk first thing into work in the morning...or having the spider disappear while you hunt for a tissue to grab it with? Ha, finally found it hiding among all the cords trailing across the back of my desk! And now it is squished and in a trash can way far away in another room. ...just in case it's not totally dead and crawls out of that tissue all pissed off, or something... Spiders in my garden - fine; on my desk - not so good.
We did go to a movie last night, "Angels and Demons." We had read the book, by Dan Brown, several years ago, and liked it better than Brown's later book, "The Da Vinci Code." The movie was 2 hrs and 20 minutes long, but so fast-paced and suspenseful that my mind never wandered to "Is it time for this movie to be over?", which is unusual for me. I'm not a theologian or an historical scholar, or a movie critic...so I will leave it to them to pick apart the flaws or details in this movie. I felt I got my money's worth of entertainment for the evening.
And I sure enjoyed watching that hot Camerlengo, played by Ewan McGregor. If I'm going to hell, it will be for way more than saying that I've always thought that a man in a cassock looked hot. If you check out my profile, you'll see that one of my favorite movies ever was "The Thorn Birds." Richard Chamberlain was totally gorgeously hot in his simple black cassock!
Of course, I've had a crush on Richard Chamberlain forever. I loved him as Dr. Kildare on tv. I used to doodle "Mrs. Richard Chamberlain" in the margins of my Big Chief school tablet. Who knew back then that he'd never be interested in marrying me?
P.S. Richard, if you ever change your mind, call me.....and wear the cassock.
Oh, I was so being a beyotch last night... The evening was fine until 9:00 pm, when I decided to do my monthly Microsoft Windows Updates. I have an older computer with both Meester's and my user profiles on it, and we have lots of duplicate stuff in each of our profiles, like pictures. And I recently loaded a huge home design software program on it...with the idea of toying with creating a house plan for our future retirement home. So the computer is totally bloated, and the updates took 2 freakin' hours. So I yelled at the Meester about it...cause he has a powerful brand-new laptop (for work - so I can't use it)...and he was watching a recorded tv show nearby and I wanted to watch my own tv shows on that tv while I was waiting for the fracking update process to finish.
And I was mad because I really, really, want a new laptop, but I don't want to spend the money. (I went through a period of very tight money and can get panicky about spending money on something that is not a necessity.) Meester is fine with me spending money on whatever I want, especially if it prevents my yelling.
So, basically, I was mad at...and arguing with...myself, and poor Meester got sucked into it. So to make up, we will go to a movie tonight -- no yelling allowed in the theater. And I will stuff myself with buttery, over-salted popcorn...so my mouth gets all dry and puckered...that should help...
I thought I was getting boring whining about the weather outside, so I thought I'd whine about the weather inside...just for a change...I never get tired of just plain whining about the weather.
I work in a really old building...built in the late 1800's, I think. It's historical and charming and has wonderful tall old windows so at least I get some natural light during the day. (I detest fluorescent lighting.) But the building has a combination of three different centuries worth of HVAC(heating, ventilating, air conditioning) systems. The tall windows served as air-conditioners in the 1800's. I'm assuming there were fireplaces at some time, but I don't see any evidence of them now. We have steam radiators from some time in the 1900's, maybe? And modern air conditioning vents in the ceilings. The ceilings used to be much taller, but they were dropped down to conceal the modern ductwork, and now we have those ugly white perforated particle board gridwork ceilings. And I've been told that computers are now integrated into the management of the system.
So, anyhoo, this complicated system rarely works perfectly. This week...it doesn't work at all. No air conditioning...which actually is not all bad...because usually the air conditioning system is set to "meat locker" temperature. (There are little fake thermostats on the wall to let you think that you can adjust the room temperature, but we are not fooled. We know that the wall thermostat settings have no relation to the actual temperature of the room, and we have an actual indoor thermometer on someone's desk to prove it - so there.) But without air-conditioning, it's warm and stuffy in here. At least we can open those tall windows...so we have enough air that we aren't suffocating or simmering in our own juices - yet. Strangely for Iowa, the outdoor temperatures will be in the '70's this week, instead of the usual humid '80's and '90's. So I won't actually die in here; I'll just be in a warm stupor by this afternoon. And some people might say that me being in a stupor is not all bad.....
SQUEEE for Adam Bowman!!! I found his wonderful gadgets to add to my blog. And he created a hamster in a wheel! more SQUEEE! Thanks ever so much, Adam.
and, uh, I just stumbled on his web site, but his gadgets have been available on Blogger for a while. Duh. Check out his cool koi fish gadget, too.
I'm back...from my trip to a favorite warm place...I loves the warm places. More on that place in the future. Came back to rain, and more rain. Spent the entire weekend pulling all the out-of-control, well-watered weeds in my garden. I avoid using garden chemicals as much as possible, and I figure the exercise is good for me...until I can't move the next morning.
I got back just in time for my favorite season of the year - peony blooming time!!! With the lack of sun this spring, I wasn't expecting much, but what a great surprise. My poor pictures just don't do the peonies justice, but you get the idea. My idea of heaven is perpetual spring and peonies blooming.....
