Saturday, January 26, 2008

Good to be home

Friday was definitely the best day of my trip, and not just because it was a Friday. :p We got to talk about Nerd Stuff that actually pertains to my job. Plus Nerd Stuff is infinitely more interesting than blah blah buzzword blah blah. Bingo!

Thursday night a co-worker and I went down to Veselka for dinner. mmmmmmm. And then of course across the street to the chocolate place. OMG, so yummy! I bought a little present for Galahad, obviously. :)

Anyway, I was so happy to come home to warm weather and sunshine.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Go-kart racing aka Team-building

FFS at what some people consider fun! I've been to many idiotic team-building exercises, but I would have to say this was one of the worst. I thought it might be fun, but apparently people on my team are shitty drivers who think brute force is more appropriate than finesse. The go-karts were fun to drive even though it was about 45F in there, and my hands were cramping from the cold. It was lots of fun until the first good hit by someone sent me careening into a wall. By the 5th or perhaps 8th hit, I was pretty much at my limit of fun. One of my co-workers was not as fortunate as I. He got hit hard enough that his helmet flew off, and they instantly shut off all the cars with the Master Kill Switch. Because he's not female, it wasn't appropriate to burst into tears (which is what I would have done). He left the track clutching his ribs. Nice cohesion, synchronicity even!

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Bodies

A few of us from martial arts class (yes I include myself even though I attend only the conditioning classes) went on a field trip with Sensei to see Bodies the Exhibition. I was wary at first because of the human rights issues of these bodies being from China. The Chinese government said they were all legitimate. Oh okay well that makes it all better. Perhaps I was trying to rationalize it, but I decided that I would be better able to honor these dead people by seeing them than if they had just died in vain.

The Frugal Frannie in me was able to procure a discount for us and brave the lines since I didn't want to pay the web service fee. It turns out there are no lines on Friday night, for which I was relieved.

OMG, that was the coolest (and I say that figuratively since it was actually very warm in there -- all the lights I'm guessing) exhibit! Sensei is a great instructor and showed us every little tendon, nerve, ligament, etc.  He also went on to explain to his violent students (haha just goofing, I mean the ones who actually punch each other in class) all of the pressure points and which nerves & muscles are affected.

This is going to sound gross, but I got so hungry at first while walking through there. It all looked like salmon jerky. :( That is until we got to the intestinal room. Holy hell that put me off for a bit. By the way, did you know that the appendix is ridiculously tiny? I had no idea how small it was. It's about the size of my ring finger, and I have long, skinny fingers. Because these were all Chinese people, they were small-framed and coincidentally enough, all about my size. That made it even more fascinating because I could line up my body part next to theirs and see what it would look like inside.

We spent a long time in there studying every facet of the human body. And of course, us being us, we started in with the jokes. That made me feel as if we weren't actually honoring the dead, but that is who I am. I remember getting dirty looks when I laughed during my grandmother's wake. I also upset my own brother when I laughed shortly after our mom died. He knew I wasn't laughing at that, but emotionally it still hurt him.

I give everyone permission to laugh when I die, although try not to laugh too hard at the method in which I die. :) Man, I hope it's not too embarrassing like choking on a health-promoting supplement. I always push the envelope on that, too, by swallowing 5 or 6 at once. Just know that I would be laughing if I died that way. What can I say? I love to laugh.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Trying a new site

I've had a website on geocities for several years now, but for the past few years I've really only updated the blog page. Since I messed something up on my theme and Yahoo got difficult about allowing FrontPage to upload, I've decided to try my blog somewhere else. Some other fkr took my moniker, so I've had to use my backup one for the link. Damn those wendygirls. :p

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Kitten really started a debacle here in our community.  She & this other neighbor cat can't seem to get along.  So every week or so, he chases her home and they both hiss & yowl.


Arch Nemesis


Today, another neighbor (heretofore known as Duck Lady for reasons which will become obvious) witnessed yet another catfight.  Of course Kitten is a little ninja girl, so she was inside a hedge, while her Arch Nemesis was standing outside of it like a sore thumb (or a bright gold cat), looking very guilty.  Duck Lady yelled at Arch Nemesis until he ran home.  He's a very sweet cat when he isn't around Kitten.  Then she started in on me, telling me all kinds of horrible things would happen to Kitten because he is a Serial Stalker!  Apparently she's caught him pouncing at her pet wild ducks.  I know my little girl, and although I was concerned for her, I knew she was fine because she's a ninja like that.  :)  I kind of brushed off Duck Lady while we both looked for Kitten, who of course vaporized the second Arch Nemesis had his attention distracted.

I left to run errands knowing (& hoping) that Kitten would be waiting for me when I got home, which she was.  Yay!!  I checked her out and she was fine aside from needing lots of hugs.  I went over to Duck Lady's house to apologize for being snippy with her, thank her for caring about the well-being of Kitten, and to let her know that Kitten was fine. On my way, I got intercepted by Joe (Arch Nemesis' owner). He’s all kinds of furious at Duck Lady for calling him at work to bitch about his cat. Apparently, she made him drive 30 miles back to put the cat inside. Duck Lady is a little overzealous about animals but means well. She has 1 or 2 house-cats of her own that never see the cruel, scary outside world. Joe was practically spitting, he’s so mad.  He’s ready to sue her and feed bread to the ducks. Hehe, he actually threatened that. They’re on some special duck food diet apparently. He said if he were 10 years younger, he would … and then trailed off … mumbled something about prison, then said not that he’s ever been in prison before. He’s kind of a rough-edged guy but not really that scary. Plus, he has a point. The neighborhood yentas do seem to go out of their way to harass him.

Anyway, he tells me that some other neighbor guy complained about a brown cat carting off a mouse AND mousetrap from his yard. He swears it wasn't his cat, so I went over to the direction he pointed. I knock on their door. No answer. Then, I hear Joe yell “Sweetheart”. He’s forgotten my name already. It’s been 3 minutes. He says maybe it’s actually the house next door.  So I go next door to knock and secretly congratulate myself on being so brave today. This tiny little woman answers. Hehe, okay she’s probably my size but shorter. I ask if she lives there cuz Joe specifically mentioned a man. She says yes, and I felt dumb at this point. So I started the story about the mouse & mousetrap, wondering now if Joe misremembered it. She says she’s an animal lover and would never kill anything. It turns out she & her son have been feeding Kitten cuz they thought she was a stray lol. They apparently love her (who wouldn’t?) and even gave her milk this morning. I wonder if that was before or after the fight. :P  I thanked her for being nice to Kitten and asked her to talk to her neighbor if she gets a chance, if only to let him know Kitten isn’t a stray. Fuck, I guess I should keep buying collars, even though she's lost 5 or 6 by now.

At some point, I was able to talk to Duck Lady's husband to ask him to let his wife know that Kitten is fine.  I tried very hard to keep this from escalating into some dumb neighborhood drama that shows up on the news.  I know most of you are wishing for the news because it would be funny if it weren't my neighborhood and my cat, but I ask that you think peaceful thoughts for Kitten.  The last thing she needs is to have Animal Control coming around.