Fig Cookies

I've Moved!

2005-03-06T16:31:00.000-05:00

Fig Cookies has moved.

Her new address is: http://figcookies.blogharbor.com

Please make the necessary adjustments.

Mes Chats

2005-03-05T22:52:00.000-05:00

I've a thing for close up photography. I can't explain why or how I got interested in it, it's just been something that's always interested me. Especially the types of shots where there's a bit of an abstraction to them.

Today I spent some time taking photos of my cats. Maya loves getting her photo taken, she will pose and pose until the cows come home. Winnie on the otherhand is scared of the camera, hell she's pretty much scared of everything. For every five or six shots of Maya I get maybe one shot of Winnie.

Maya

Winnie

Yarn

2005-03-04T15:26:00.000-05:00

So how annoyed do you think Niels would be if I made him hunt for yarn shops while in Germany?

Cuz ya know I'm going to have to buy some while I'm there. How can I go to Germany and NOT buy yarn.

Seriously.

Germany.

Yarn.

Oh yeah baby.

Happy Feet

2005-03-03T20:48:00.000-05:00

My new sneakers came in today. I was long overdue for a new pair, the ones I've been wearing were starting to get holes in the bottoms. And with the trip coming up I decided that if I didn't want to walk around Germany with holey sneaks it would behoove me to buy a new pair. And
they cam in today. I put them on and remembered why new sneakers are sowonderful. I can't wait to wear them to work tomorrow.

Work's been quite busy, trying to catch up from being gone for two days. And I'm sure no one read my email saying they needed to get paperwork they needed processed to me by COB tomorrow. So I'm sure once monday comes EVERYONE'S going to have an "emergency" that they need me to help them with.

I'm starting to feel much much better. I'm not blowing my nose every 30 seconds, but maybe every hour or so, which is nice for my nose.

Someday I hope to have a more sophisticated blog where I can have a separate link to guide readers to my photos. But I don't have that kind of money and I'm not that web savy. So I'll just prolly continue to post my photos in my daily posts for now.

I don't have too much else to report on, since I'm just coming out from my hole. I hope you're having a wonderful evening.

Kicking My Ass

2005-03-02T12:48:00.000-05:00

I'm home.

I've not been this sick in years.

I went to bed at 7pm, that's right 7pm. Got up at 7:30 to get ready for work, and I was all ready to leave the house when a wave of nasty sweaty hot flash came over me.

Lovely.

I called into work and went back to bed and got up about 10 minutes ago. I've not slept this much in years, and let me tell you, I know how to sleep.

I've missed 3 days of work in the past 2 weeks because of my back and now this stupid cold. And I leave for vacation next week. Not good at all. I'll be doing work over the weekend to attempt to catch up. The only good thing about bring work home is that I can do it over the course of the weekend & I can be in my pj's.

I'm going to go eat soup & then go back to bed. Meh. Talk to you all later.

I'm Sick

2005-03-01T15:01:00.000-05:00

Wah.

I've a cold.

I've had this cold since saturday night, although I could feel it coming on friday night.

Saturday night was Mikey's 30th Birthday dinner. We all went to Cafe Asia in Arlington & ate yummy yummy food. I had Curry Laksa soup hoping it would kick my cold out. Unforunately, it didn't.

I spent of Sunday and Monday in bed.

I left the apartment yesterday to go to the chiropractor. He made my back all better. He commented on how suprised he was that I was still able to walk. Yes my back was that bad. I'm going back tomorrow for a follow up. I love the chiropractor, so I'm not sad at all that I've to go back.

Now to get rid of this cold... meh.

Postcards From the Edge

2005-02-25T22:25:00.000-05:00

If you would like me to send you a postcard from the land of Deutche, send me your address and I'll hook ya up.

Now for another photo.

Taken from my bedroom window after the "storm" last night. (If I could figure out how to change my template around the photo wouldn't have had to be shrunk so much.)

I promise I will start my posts again about how much I hate the Bush Administration and how much I think he sucks ass soon. I needed to take a break from the news, it was beginning to kill me on the inside.

Needless to say I'm looking forward to going to Germany and telling people that, no I did not vote for him and yes, I don't know how anyone in their right mind could have, with all the bad things he's done.

(DID YOU HEAR THAT GONZELEZ YOU SUCKY ASS EXCUSE FOR AN ATTONREY GENERAL?? I SAID THE BUSH ADMINSTRATION SUCKS ASS!!)

Nothing Exciting

2005-02-25T09:46:00.000-05:00

Nothing exciting to report. Although two weeks from today I will be in Germany! Huzzah!!

My back's still bothering me, I can't wait to go to the chiropractor monday.

I leave you with a photo of the socks I'm making for me.

Work!!

2005-02-24T13:54:00.000-05:00

Work is very very busy.

So busy that I skipped lunch and am taking a 15 minute break instead.

I think the spinach I ate is not agreeing with me, because I feel like I'm gonna hurl.

My back is hurting BAD today, yesterday it felt so much better, not today. Can't wait for the chiropractor visit on monday.

Soup

2005-02-23T11:49:00.000-05:00

Work's insane no time for a "real" post, so here's a photo for you.

Socks

2005-02-22T14:27:00.000-05:00

Happy Tuesday.
Am at home, I did a number on my back and have spent a good portion of the day laying on the floor. I wish I had a chiropractor...

Here's a photo of the socks I made for my Dad. I tried 'em on & they're a bit big on me, but sooo cozy.

True Love Part 2

2005-02-21T22:09:00.000-05:00

I think I drove Niels nuts for a good portion of the weekend because I was like a kid with a new toy, with all the photos I was taking. Granted most of them got trashed, but there were a couple that I was quite pleased with.

The following one is of the lemon pudding cake his Mom had for us when we got to the house Friday night. I think it looks like something out of a cake book.

Movies

2005-02-20T16:24:00.000-05:00

Am in Wheeling this weekend hanging out with Niels and his family. It's been a good visit, unfortunately it's going to fast and I don't like that.

(Alena I waved to you when we drove past Morgantown. Did you see me!?)

We went to see Constantine yesterday afternoon. I've not read Hellblazer and I know there's been a lot of grief over the fact that the movie's absolutely nothing like the comic. So with that said, I really liked it. I'm super duper hungover so I can't really write up a coherent review. I'll try to write up one in the next couple days.

I brought my camera on the trip & have taken some photos of Niels' dogs so I'll post them when I get back to town.

Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend.

True Love

2005-02-18T12:22:00.000-05:00

My camera came in.

I played with it last night. It is the most beautiful piece of geekness I own.

Even more beautiful than all of my knitting supplies, which are quite beautiful on their own.

In another life I would have been a photographer... and now I can.

Once I figure out how to upload photos from the camera to my 'puter I will update my finished projects.

I Must Have Really Pissed Him Off

2005-02-17T21:35:00.000-05:00

Well I think I really pissed off George because he told me to SUCK IT!!

hahaa

I think this is the first time that I've ever read a post from someone's blog that was pretty much directed at me as a result of something I said in their comments. I guess people don't like being called out when they saying something not so nice. It's too bad, because up until this I really thought his blog was really really funny.

(For those of you who read Dooce, George is her cousin. I feel sort of famous and shit.)

Backlash

2005-02-17T16:28:00.000-05:00

So there's this blog that I read & normally find it to be a fuckin' riot. The guy's really funny & clever.

But.

Today he said the word faggot. As in he called his friend a faggot. Not cool. So I politely told him that it's not cool to do so. That calling someone a faggot is like callin' a black person a n*gger. And that it's one of those words that can only be used by members of that community.

I'm sure I'm gonna get some lovely emails for this one and if I do, don't worry I'll post 'em.

Please Don't Take a Picture

2005-02-17T14:28:00.000-05:00

Broadcast me a joyful noise...

It's been a bad day please don't take a picture.

Work's really sucky today. People outside my office didn't do their job properly and now I have to fix their incompetency. Makes me so mad.

My camera came in! I will see Niels tonight. Those are the only glimmers of niceness in an otherwise horrid day.

meh.

I want a drink and a cigarette.

The Day After VD...

2005-02-15T09:38:00.000-05:00

Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day, even if you don't have a Valentine.

Valentine's Day itself was relatively quiet, Niels & I celebrated it on saturday, I worked the whole day and then came home and did a load of laundry, talked to my sister and watched "Everwood". All in all a nice quiet, relaxing evening.

On saturday Niels & I spent the day together, we went to the Botanical Gardens on the grounds of The Mall. It was not as big as I thought it would be but it is such a lovely building with interesting flowers & plants. Even if you're not really into plants & their names, it's a great place to hang out and read.

Later in the evening we had dinner reservations at The Melting Pot in Arlington. Oh. My. God. It was sooooo good. Dipping food into melted cheese & melted chocolate, how can one go wrong!?

Hope you all have a wonderful day.

Presents

2005-02-13T17:53:00.000-05:00

My ditigal camera's been shipped!!! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

z
Nikon Coolpix 8700

Went to the opening of Wegmans this morning! It was amazing, such a beautiful store. As were were outside waiting for the store to open, at 7am, we suddenly heard cheering noises and it was the staff member doing a countdown. It was really cool. It's nice to have a little bit of home down here. Plus it's the best grocery store EVER.

Unfortunately, I was on 2 1/2 hours of sleep so I took a nap when I came home and wound up sleeping all afternoon. I'm feeling quite discombobulated.

Blogger Hates Me

2005-02-11T12:21:00.000-05:00

Blogger has not updated my writing stats since October 26, 2004.

I think Blogger hates me.

Memorial Scholarship

2005-02-10T11:34:00.000-05:00

When my Aunt Fran passed away in November 2003 she was one semester away from finishing her LPN nursing degree. At the winter graduation ceremony that December my aunt was awarded her degree postumously as a result of her classmates coming together and petitioning the dean. My Uncle Larry and cousins knew nothing of this, only that they were requested to come to the ceremony.

Needless to say all of us where completely blown away that her classmates would do something so amazing.

Today I received an email from my Uncle Larry informing me that he started the Frances B. Hruby Memorial Scholarship Fund at the college my aunt went to, to aid those who want to become nurses but need financial assistance. They will be giving out their first scholarship this fall.

I've asked my uncle to send me more information about donating to the fund. Once he sends me the information I will let you know.

No More Nukes!

2005-02-09T22:28:00.000-05:00

I know this is very idealist and naive of me, but if the U.S. doesn't want other countries to have nuclear weapons than we shouldn't have them either.

In fact no one should have nuclear weapons. Period. No. One. Then we wouldn't be in this "You can't have them because we said so" diplomatic nightmare. And the fact that Condalezza Rice is now Secretary of State & most foreign countries hate her just as much as they hate Dubya and that she lacks any sort of diplomatic skills doesn't help.

Would it be wrong of me to hope that a diplomat of Iran says "If you get rid of your nukes, we'll get rid of ours."?

Fat Tuesday

2005-02-08T14:05:00.000-05:00

A bunch of us were sitting at lunch talking about what would be given up for Lent. A coworker mentioned that we need to get it all out today since Lent starts tomorrow. To this I cackled and said "Not me!! I'm a good pagan! Lent doesn't apply to me!" I wanted to add SUCKERS!!! But I didn't because this coworker is a nice open minded Christian so I didn't want to be too rude.

Speaking of Christianity I was chatting with my Mom last night about her Bible study class and she informed me that the Bible is NOT historical, yet is a political interpretation of events. I teased her and said that she has to be careful because someone might hear her & take away her Christian card. I could hear her roll her eyes over the phone & she said that people who think this way need to get a life.

Hearing my Mom, who runs the program for adults who want to become Catholic, say that people who interpret the Bible literally need to get lives and that they just don't get it, made me laugh so hard I nearly fell out of my chair.

(Watch, someone's going to stumble across this & think I need to be "saved". Won't that be fun!?)

blink blink

2005-02-07T14:51:00.000-05:00

Holy fuck.

It's real.

I'm really going to Germany. Niels got the tickets today.

Sorry for the recent lack of weekend posting. Now that I'm not in school I tend not to use the computer very much on weekends. I'm too busy getting my geek on by knitting or playing Red Faction II.

Did I mention I'm going to Germany??

Impatient

2005-02-04T10:04:00.000-05:00

I want to order my camera NOW.

NOW

NOW

But I can't. I have to wait for the funds to arrive. The waiting's killing me. Seriously, killing me on the inside. I want to be able to romp around and take photos again.

The summer of 2000 was the best summer ever because that's when I took my photo class & got to do cool shit in the developing and printing of the photos. Oh to hang out in a darkroom & get high off of developing fluids. ahhhhh Those were the good ol' days.

But to be able to play with my photos on photoshop. Well, that will make me very happy too.

(It's amazing what a goodnight's sleep and a soy lattee will do for my mood.)

Deutschland

2005-02-03T14:15:00.000-05:00

I am feeling a zillion times better today, but still not my normal self.

Two things are keeping my spirits up and I'm almost ashamed to admit that they're tangible items, not spiritual.

But I guess what ever works. Right?

Item number one that has me really really excited: Deutschland. Niels and I are in the planning stages of our trip in March to visit his Omi and tour around. I don't think it will feel definate until we actually have our tickets, which hopefully by Monday it will be set. But I'm so excited I could pee. I've not been to Europe since I stayed with a family in Nice, France for almost three weeks way back in 1992. Egads, it seems so long ago.

Item number two: Digital Camera. My parents & my brothers have pooled their money to give me so I can buy a camera. I did my taxes on monday and, in addition to using some of it for Deutschland, I'm going to use some of the money to to upgrade the camera a bit. I've my eye on two cameras, a Nikon Coolpix 8700 and the Nikon Coolpix 8800. I'm leanging towards the 8700 because of price and that it comes with a memory stick, granted it would have to be upgraded to one that has memory.

I'm giddy. I wonder how much the diet Pepsi has to do with it.

Depression

2005-02-02T16:03:00.000-05:00

I've been feeling quite depressed all day and I hate it. Hate. It.

I woke up feeling out of sorts, but it wasn't until I was about half way through my yoga DVD this morning I noticed thatI was just going through the motions and not really thinking about what I was doing and I was thinking about a zillion other things. I couldn't focus or be in the moment. I should have known right then and there that it was going to be an emotionally blah day.

As the day has gone on I've noticed that the any minute I'm going to cry; if you scratched the surface with your nail, it would come pouring out.

I don't know if I'm going through one of my depressive phases, or if I'm having a reaction to starting The Pill again, even though I only took a two month break. I think it's a depression phase.

I've been fighting depression since I was in elementary school, but I wasn't diagnosed with it until I was in 9th grade. I don't have the "I want to jump in front of a car." or "I wonder what if I just 'slipped' and 'happened' to cut my wrists." feelings anymore. But when my depression hits I just want to stay in bed and sleep and or cry until it passes.

But I refuse to. Because if I do, I feel like its won and I can't let that happen.

I've family members that are fighting a bigger depression monster than I ever will and I see what happens to them and those they love when they lose a battle, it's not pretty.

There's a lot of family history of depression and because I've recently found out that family members have found this site, I'm refraining from going into further detail. I know it's a blog and I'm supposed to talk about pretty much everything here, but these particular family members are extremely private, so I have to respect that.

Socks

2005-02-01T17:22:00.000-05:00

I'm home sick. Not sick in the puking my guts out sort of way. But sick in the my uterus is doing all it can to come shooting out of my belly button sick.

So, I've been parked in front of the tv all day catching up on soaps on ABC, not knowing what the hell is going on, yet still being sucked into them.

While watching Bianca tell Maggie, on All My Children, how much she loves her and that they need to be together, I made a big knitting decision.

I am going to make socks.

Socks? Yes. Socks. The one thing other than fair isle that scares the crap out of me. So, I rummaged through my tiny stash of yarn to see what I could use. I found some pretty yellow cotton yarn and have commenced to make my first sock. So far so good, but that's because I haven't gotten to the heel yet and the directions seem scary & complicated. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Speaking of knitting, while at Dan & Stacy's this weekend I attempted to make a hat. FIVE TIMES. On the sixth try it worked. I finished the demon hat last night & Jingle Bear modeled it for me while I took its picture. Of course the camera is a disposable, so I can't post them until I use the remaining 16 photos on the roll. I've not decided what I'm going to do with it, since I didn't make it big enough for me.

Still Trying to Wake Up

2005-01-31T09:33:00.000-05:00

Spent a wonderful weekend and Chez Dan & Stacy, celebrating Dan's birthday & my graduation.

Words can not discribe how much fun it was. Patrick & Bernice came in for the celebration as well.

Friday night we chilled out and ate homemade pizza, drank & talked.

Saturday was a haircutting day. Stacy, Dan & I all got our hair cut by Bernice. Mine's the most drastic change, I think Bernice cut at least 6 inches off. It's a really cute cut but unfortunately I do not have a photo because I'm a moron & forgot to bring my camera w/me.

Saturday night we played Cranium, which I've decided is the most fun game EVER. I do not think I've ever seen a group of people laugh so hard as we did. I'm sure the copious amounts of alcohol that we imbibed had nothing to do with our silliness.

Sunday was very chill, many of us recovering from the night before. Stacy, Niels & I watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which I had not seen before. I was quite suprised how good it was, but so very dark. I don't think if I were 7 or 8 years old I'd be nightmare free afterwards.

We were all very sad to see the weekend come to an end and have to say good bye to such good friends.

I'm quite sleepy today, I think I'm still recovering from the sleep deprivation but it's so worth it.

I hope you all have a wonderful Monday.

Hair Like Jesus Wore It

2005-01-28T15:43:00.000-05:00

I am getting my hair cut at some point this weekend. My loverly friend Bernice is going to cut it for me!!

This will be my first haircut in almost 10 months. I know, I know it should get cut more often than once a year, but I'd rather buy yarn than spend the money on a haircut.

Bye bye long hair!!

Helloooooooo short hair!!

Rampage

2005-01-27T16:41:00.000-05:00

I wonder if progressive Virginians realize how backwards and homophobic their state is.

Virginia State Laws

Makes me wonder why I still live there.

Education & Hatred

2005-01-27T10:12:00.000-05:00

Have I mentioned how much I hate the Bush Administration??

Seriously. Hate. It.

I'm sick and tired of various apects of it trying to push its agenda of hatred and intolerance.

Minority communities are not going away. We have become an extremely diverse country. And if the Adminstration is saying to foreign nations that we will help them promote democracy and tolerance in their country, then this promotion should in our own backyard.

This is why I'm so mad...(amongt other things)

PBS's 'Buster' Gets An Education

I heart Gay People

2005-01-26T15:24:00.000-05:00

I just took the Sexuality IAT over at the Implicit Association Test site.

And guess what?

I have a preference for gay people over straight people.

SHOCKER.

Seriously, is anyone suprised by this??

If you do not know of, or understand my love for the gay community, you:

a) don't know me very well
b) missed the post of how my dream job is to work w/the LGBT community
c) didn't pay attention when I talk about my gay ex-husband Mike (ok we were never married but I would refer to him as my gay husband, and after he bought me a beautiful sapphire ring for my 25th birthday it was hard not to refer to him as such)
d) never really read my blog to begin with

I Had This Dream

2005-01-26T09:36:00.000-05:00

where I relished the fray and the screaming filled my head all day. It was as though I'd be spit here. Settled in into the pocket into the pocket of a lighthouse of some rocky socket off the coast of France, dear ...

oh wait that's a Tragically Hip song not my dream.

I did have a dream last night that was so vivid that I couldn't tell it was a dream.

Stacy, Niels & I were driving up the humungo hill to Dan's Mom's house. The ruts created by the wheels of cars were so deep that there was no way that we could drive on the path (it's a dirt/gravel driveway). Stacy knew of a secret way we could go to avoid the horridness that was the driveway. The only thing is that the secret way was really close to the edge (more so than the driveway) and it was hard to see if you were going to go over the edge or stay on the path when you rounded a corner.

We finally get to the top of the hill after a very nervewracking experience where I felt like I was going to plunge to my death any second. As I get out of the car I switch my glasses to my sunglasses (yes, I have perscrip sunglasses), and put my glasses in the sunglass case. As I close the case my glasses some how get caught and the snapping motion of the case breaks my glasses. Not just the frames, but the left lens. I said something to the effect of "I'm screwed." There was no possible way I would be able to spend the whole weekend at Swampstock with just my sunglasses and I didn't have the $300 to get a new pair and we were in the middle of nowhere. What the fuck was I going to do?

Amazingly enough, someone had superglue and I tried supergluing the lens and the frame back together. (I don't use my left eye anyways so it's not like it'd be a HUGE inconvenience if there were cracks.) I was working on gluing everything back together when my friend Bernice commented that it was so amazing that I was able to put it back together so well.

When I woke up I checked out my dream dictionary and it said that glasses in dreams are an aid to seeing things clearly, both literally and metaphorically.

With all the shit that's been going on at work, it all makes perfect sense to me.

Locker Combination

2005-01-25T13:20:00.000-05:00

I'm having one of those days where I cannot remember any combination of various numbers I use multiple times a day.

It's bringing back flashbacks to high school where I would stand in front of my locker and not remember my combination, even though I had just used it.

argh

Biased?

2005-01-23T19:53:00.000-05:00

Today's cover of the Washington Post Magazine was intitled The Bias Test. The article was an extremely interesting look into prejudices in American society. And how that even though people may not think they have biases whether it be racial, gender or weight, they really do.

The article went on to say that of the people who have taken the online test those who consider themselves more conservative on the political specturm tend to be more biased against minorities.

I'm not doing the article justice. Go read it. You might have to create a login at the Washington Post website, but it's free and it's worth it.

Then go take the Implicit Association Test. You maybe really suprised at your results.

Baby it's Cold Outside

2005-01-23T14:14:00.000-05:00

So cold. So very very cold.

I can't keep my apartment warm. The heat's set at 70 (I normally keep it at 64) but because the windows leak like you wouldn't believe, all the heat the radiators produce hasn't been able to warm things up.

brrrrr

Off to make a cup of coffee, hopefully that will warm me up.

Belated Birthday

2005-01-22T23:18:00.000-05:00

Because I wasn't home last night I was unable to give my sister her deserved Happy Birthday shoutout.

Happy Birthday B!! I hope this year brings you nothing but good things.

Thanks for introducing me to Peter Gabriel, Bruce Cockburn, dream interpretation and Carl Jung. Thanks for also breaking Mom & Dad in with your left leaning politics. And for making sure that those whose voices often are ignored a chance to be heard. You are more of an insipiration to me than you'll ever know.

Lots of love to you.

Let it Snow

2005-01-22T14:41:00.000-05:00

I feel like I'm back in Buffalo, it's snowing so much!!!

I hung out with Niels last night & stayed at his place. We had lunch with our friend Matt V. and I headed back to Falls Church around 1pm. It's a good thing I left when I did. When I came out of the tunnel, on the metro, after the Ballston stop, it was snowing pretty badly. I had to wait for the bus a bit longer than usual, but that's to be expected in this weather.

I just put a load of laundry in. Once that's done I'm going to cuddle up with the cats, drink some tea and read Entertainment Weekly and The Economist.

A perfect relaxing saturday.

How is your day going?

That Boring?

2005-01-21T14:05:00.000-05:00

My readership had greatly diminished?

Am I that boring? (Mike you're not allowed to answer.)

I realize my posts haven't been the most exciting lately; but come on!!!

Is it because I've graduated? And only have two things to complain about now (the Bush Administration & my job)?

How could it be that I've lost my spark so much that my readers have run away??

Yahoo

2005-01-20T20:45:00.000-05:00

Yahoo is down.

I'm not amused.

I'm grumpy & depressed, I'm sure the oversaturation of the Inaguration hasn't helped.

bah.

I'm going to watch the last 10 minutes of The O.C., maybe that will help cheer me up.

Dark Days Ahead...

2005-01-20T16:52:00.000-05:00

Ugh.

I tried to watch some of Dubya's speech today, and fluctuated between laughing and being disgusted.

I rolled my eyes when he tried being like JFK, I was waiting for Dubya to bust out with "Ask not what your country can do for you..."

Puuuleeezzzeeee... I would like to know what good things Dubya's done for the less fortunate. From what I remember from the these past four years, social justice was far from his agenda.

I'm also still pissed off that the Federal Government refuses to reimburse D.C. government the almost $20 million for the security costs.

I swear if I didn't love this country (yes, liberals love this country no matter what the far right says), I would leave. But I've to stay to fight the fucktards like Dubya.

Hating. It.

2005-01-19T14:34:00.000-05:00

I'm hating Blogger right now. I wrote a post & went to publish it & it vanished. grrr

Hating work today. And jerk boss isn't even here, so that just makes it even more unfair. Stoopid researchers getting on my nerves.

The job search is frustrating. I'm either way over qualified, or way under qualified for the positions I've been looking at.

See! I know when I'm not qualified to do a job.

I had something else to say, but I forgot. I'm sure it was something to the effect that I hope a snow storm breaks out tomorrow during the Inaguration...

Joyful Girl

2005-01-18T14:38:00.000-05:00

Well most of the time anyways. Today I'm tired and cold. The yummy Indian food I had for lunch aided in the warmth, but not the sleepiness.

It's cold out.

I even wore a winter coat it's that cold.

Those of you who know me, know how much I hate coats.

Hate them.

They're bulky, make movement difficult, and take up too much room on the metro.

Welcome to winter.

Fascist Architecture

2005-01-18T09:33:00.000-05:00

For my new readers, I do write about more than my hatred of the Bush Administration, I really do, but this article just got me so mad...

US 'making secret plans to attack sites in Iran'
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
18 January 2005

The Pentagon has been conducting secret reconnaissance of potential target sites inside Iran, a magazine claimed yesterday, reigniting the debate here over whether the US should take military action to destroy Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons programme.

The report in The New Yorker, by Seymour Hersh, the journalist who uncovered the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, paints a picture of a rampant Pentagon that under the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, is steadily gaining complete control of covert operations.

According to Mr Hersh, President George Bush has authorised commando and special forces units to take action against terrorist targets in "as many as 10" countries in the Middle East and south Asia. But the top strategic target is Iran, say unidentified officials interviewed for the article. Both US and European experts believe that the regime in Tehran is only a few years from acquiring a nuclear weapon and a delivery system, under development at "three dozen or more" sites scattered across the country.

The reconnaissance missions are said to have been under way "at least since last summer", to identify targets that could be hit either by air strikes or commando raids on the ground. "It's not 'if' we're going to do anything against Iran," one former high-level intelligence official is quoted as saying. "They're doing it."

If the report is correct, the Pentagon is on the verge of triumph in its long struggle with a discredited CIA for control of most covert operations. It now appears that the CIA's paramilitary arm will be placed under Mr Rumsfeld's control. Its operations would be reclassified as steps to "prepare the battlefield" in the continuing war on terror. The Pentagon would thus not be required to inform Congress of such activities - in contrast to the CIA, which has to keep the House and Senate broadly abreast of its activities.

There was no immediate comment from the Pentagon on the claims. But Dan Bartlett, Mr Bush's communications director, told CNN that the New Yorker report was "riddled with inaccuracies", though he did not deny it outright.

The administration was committed to negotiations over Iran, Mr Bartlett said. However, he added, "no President at any juncture in history has ever taken military options off the table" - implicit confirmation that the Pentagon at the very least has contingency plans for military action.

The issue is sure to feature during the confirmation hearing of Condoleezza Rice, at which the Secretary of State-designate will be grilled on the administration's second-term plans for Iran and North Korea, the other member of the "axis of evil" identified by Mr Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address. Her answers during the two-day session which begins this morning should throw more light on where she stands in the tug of war between moderates and neo-conservative hardliners over US foreign policy.

As national security adviser during the first Bush term, Ms Rice mostly steered a middle course between the two factions. But if the New Yorker report is only half right, there seems little doubt that, like her predecessor Colin Powell, she will soon be embroiled in turf fights with Mr Rumsfeld - usually allied with Dick Cheney, the Vice-President.

With some misgiving, the Bush administration has gone along with a Europeaninitiative to strike a deal with Tehran, whereby the latter would abandon its nuclear ambitions in return for aid from the European Union.

Happy Birthday

2005-01-17T20:49:00.000-05:00

I have to give a shout out to my oldest brother J; he's the dad of my most awesomest neice & nephews.

Today's his 36th birthday.

I love you J.

Thanks for always being there to help me with math homework through out the years and for offering to beat up a boy who broke my heart when I was a senior in high school.

But your politics still suck & I will never understand how you voted for Bush.

Love,
Caren

Unless it Was Champagne With You

2005-01-17T13:41:00.000-05:00

Sorry I've been away.

Niels came back to town friday night & he spent the weekend at my place. So, we did romantic things, like going grocery shopping, grabing a bite to eat, play Red Faction II, or watching The Tick on DVD.

Speaking of The Tick, I don't understand how that show never took off; it was a farking riot! I've just chalked it up to the fact that the American population is just too stupid to watch good television.

Saturday night our friends Matt & Jerry came over. We watched a German film called Good Bye, Lenin, which was very good. Niels commented that even when German films have a happy ending they're still depressing, which to hear him say is quite funny. But, I guess you had to be there.

It was a very good, low key weekend. I just wish it hadn't gone so fast.

Anniversary

2005-01-14T11:08:00.000-05:00

Happy 38th Anniversary Mom & Dad.

Someday I hope to have a marriage as long lasting and love filled as yours.

Here's to many many more years.

Love you lots & lots.

2005-01-13T16:29:00.000-05:00

Past

Can someone explain to me why it is that out of the blue, after many years, guys from my past have, in one way or another, ventured back into my life?

Why now?

Seriously, what the fuck?

2005-01-12T21:52:00.000-05:00

Interesting...

I think this is pretty accurate.

ESFP - "Entertainer". Radiates attractive warmth and optimism. Smooth, witty, charming, clever. Fun to be with. Very generous. 8.5% of the total population.

Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs)

Three Things

2005-01-12T20:10:00.000-05:00

Brian requested that I do the following and because I am a nice person, plus secretly I love these things, I will do it.

Three Things

Three Names You Go By:
Caren
Miss Mita
my last name

Three Screen Names You Have:
Miss Mita
calaterre
cmcalamita

Three Things You Like About Yourself:
My hands
My lips
My phone voice

Three Things You Dislike About Yourself:
My Self Image
That I cry when I get mad
That I'm bad with money

Three Parts of Your Heritage:
Sicilian
Polish
Lithuanian

Three Things That Scare You:
Losing my friends
Dying
The Bush Administration

Three of Your Everyday Essentials:
A cup of coffee
Reading Blogs
Knitting

Three Things You're Wearing Right Now:
Blue yoga pants
Long sleeved green t-shirt
Beige knickers

Three of Your Favorite Bands/Artists:
R.E.M.
Bruce Cockburn
Ani DiFranco

Three of Your Favorite Songs at Present:
Final Straw - R.E.M.
All the Ways I Want You - Bruce Cockburn
Leaving New York - R.E.M.

Three New Things You Want to Try in the Next 12 Months:
Can't even come up with one right now

Three Things You Want in a Relationship (Love is Given):
Trust
Compassion
Really good sex

Two Truths and a Lie:
I've slept with women
I don't have body art (tattoos)
I cheated in school

Three Physical Things in a Love Interest That Appeal to Me:
Hands
Eyes
Smile

Three Things You Just Can't Do:
Skateboard
Ice Skate
Blow my nose only using one hand

Three of Your Favorite Hobbies:
Reading
Walking
Listening to Music

Three Things You Want to Do Badly Right Now:
Cuddle
Have a really good makeout session
Have sex

Three Careers Your Considering:
Grants Management
Teacher
Outreach Coordinator

Three Places You Want to Go on Vacation:
London, England (not Ontario)
Vancouver, BC
India

Three Kids Names:
Emma
Abigail
Claire

Three Things You Want to Do Before You Die:
Travel the world
Get my Ph.D
Have a job I love

Three People Who Have to Take This Quiz Now:
Stacy
Martha
Karen

2005-01-12T19:19:00.000-05:00

Ads

I've caved in. I joined Google's Ad Sense to create a bit of revenue.

I also decided that I will donate one week's earnings to charity, I'm hoping it works out to 25% of revenue.

12 weeks out of the year = 12 charities.

I've a quite a few I really like so I'll be rotating them. I'll post a list with the newxt few days of which 12 along with a link to their site, if they have one, will get money.

So please, help me, and help me to help others.

2005-01-12T18:22:00.000-05:00

Happiness is...

My Wegmans Shoppers Club card coming in.

2005-01-12T10:53:00.000-05:00

It All Comes Down to You

I've this unfortunate personality quirk that I have worked really hard to minimize, not get rid of because sometimes it's a good thing. Beforwarned, the following post makes me seem really insane.

I often become fixed a particular thing and become slightly obsessed about it. Sometimes it's a good thing, like writing letters to my Congresspeople about a particular issue, harping about something the Bush Adminstrationg did & reading up about it & telling EVERYONE I know the horrendous thing that is going on, knitting, Red Faction. Sometimes it's a band (*cough* R.E.M *cough*), or a band member (*cough* Mike Mills *cough cough*), and sometimes it's a blog.

I'm currently fixated on a blog. I'm also really intrigued by the person who writes it. I go to this person's site multiple times a day to see if it has been updated. I think I may even have a blog crush on this person. (This crush in no way diminishes my feelings for Niels.)

I truly understand that this sort of behavior is not the most healthy. But we all have our personality quirks and if we're really lucky friends who tell us when we need take a step back from a situation.

So, welcome to the insanity that is in my head.

2005-01-12T09:59:00.000-05:00

Letter

I sent the following letter to the Blogger people this morning; hopefully I'll get something more than an automated response from them.

Dear Blogger,
I'd like to make a recommendation regarding your request to know the gender of your users.

I'm sure you've realized by now that your clients are a very diverse bunch of people. And in this diversity there will be people who do not fall within the traditional notion of male or female gender identity. I would like to suggest that you add selections to reflect the diversity of gender identity, such as adding the following choices: "transgender", "transsexual" and "intersexed".

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Caren M. C...

2005-01-11T20:35:00.000-05:00

I'm Movin' On...

I realize that some of my readers may have found my previous post quite sudden and unexpected. And in a way, I think I'm suprised too. So I guess I should fill you in on what has transpired the past 2 days at the office.

But first let me give you some background information.

Over the weekend I went into the University's web information system. This link allows students to regsiter for classes, look at grades, and look at balances on their accounts, for employees, it allows us to look at our pay history, W-9s, withholdings, and other fun stuff.

On Saturday I logged in to see if my payroll for this friday's check was up so I could figure out what to pay on bills, have for fun expenses, etc. I noticed my check was a tiny bit bigger than the previous, and after doing calculations, I figured it was 2% bigger. Meaning my raise had gone through.

Yup a 2% raise.

I was quite upset over it, because in the conversations I had with my boss over the past two years I was told that I would get a substantial increase in pay once I had finished my degree.

On Monday I went into his office and asked if we could talk, and if I could be frank in what I had to ask. I calmly and politely asked him why I had only gotten a 2% raise. His defenses shot up and he started yelling (not yelling AT me, but yelling) that because of all the considerations I was given to be able to finish my degree that he & the Chair of the department believed that it was a very generous raise. He went on to say that I was not qualified to do my job and that I was never around to do my job.

I was already nervous about talking to him, and when I'm nervous I tend to cry easily, which I hate hate hate. So when I was told I wasn't qualified to do my job I becan to cry and try to tell him that I have all this experience. To which he replied that what I got my degree in (English) has nothing to do with what I was doing. I was so stunned by all of this that I couldn't formulate a decent retort.

I asked what the point was, then, in me finishing my degree, because now I felt like it was all for nothing and that I was being slapped in the face for finishing. He replied saying that me finishing was a personal goal and that was admirable and reiterated that it still has nothing to do with my job.

He also informed me that the cap on raises was 3% for everyone.

I had also told him that had I been sat down prior to today (monday) and had been told that I was not getting a raise for x, y and z reasons that I would have handled it better. That I would have understood. He apologized for that and said I was right to say that it wasn't handled well.

So, when it was all over, I felt that things were fine.

Then the delayed reaction to what was said kicked in and I was furious.

Two years ago a coworker of mine had gotten a huge raise because she was 3 classes away from finishing her degree andI was informed by him, that when I finished, I would get the same. Well she never finished her degree, in fact, she quit in December. When I brought this topic up in my review last month, I was informed that it was not going to happen because her raise was somehow political. I was like "Fine. I totally understand."

But to say that I was never around and that I wasn't qualified to do my job. That put me over the edge. There are so many things I could say about him, but I'm going to refrain. I was always around, if I had class during the day, I didn't take lunch, I would stay late, I would come in on weekends to get things off my desk if I had to, I even skipped classes to do my job, I answered emails when I was home sick, or on VACATION!! I was more qualified to do my job than most people, I have over five years of experience in my position, I am the one people come to regarding the ins and outs of policies, I can recite them in my sleep. Not one person ever complained to me that I wasn't doing my job or wasn't available. And if there were complaints, I didn't know about them because I was never told.

He was also the one who pushed me to finish. He knew that my degree had NOTHING to do with my job. And because it's a B.A., it doesn't have to. If I was getting my Master's it had to pertain to my job. But there's nothing in the University handbook that says my B.A. has to be related to what I do.

Also, the 3% cap on raises: that was a lie.

In a nutshell I was lied to. I think that is what hurts the most in all of this, not the raise, not the promotion, but that I was lied to by someone I really trusted.

So, I'm looking for a new job. I sent my resume to my brother to review and I'm starting the hunt.

I'm sad about all of this, I was really looking forward to spending the next couple years there, and it's all changed, so very suddenly.

2005-01-11T13:45:00.000-05:00

Please Don't Take a Picture

Bad Day. Really bad day. Bad two days in fact. I want to crawl into bed and sleep the rest of the week away.

Let's just say, the hunt for a new job is starting tonight.

2005-01-09T17:10:00.000-05:00

Me in Honey

So I did it. I made the big switch on my home computer to Mozilla. I have it on my work computer but hardly use it because it's not compatable with Oracle. And since most of my job is spent running reports I use IE or Netscape, both of which are icky.

Yesterday was very quiet. Too quiet. After I finished the last three episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", I had no clue what to do. I was bored and didn't like it. I was sick of working on my sweater so I put it down for the rest of the day. I went for a walk, but that didn't help. I played some computer games, but that didn't help. I watched Josh Whedon's commentary on the last episode of Buffy, which did help fill in some blanks on what I was unsure of, so that helped, but not enough.

Today I met up with Mike & Craig for brunch & a jaunt to the National Gallery of Art. Brunch was very very yummy. We went to Beacon Bar & Grill, it used to be the 17th St Bar & Grill. I think I'm going to have my graduation happy hour there, I've just to decide on a date.

We then went and looked at some art. Unfortunately, it took us a half hour to find a parking place. The Mall is crazy busy because they're prepping for the Inaguration, so there's lots of fences and lost parking places. The NGA was pretty busy, but, for the most part, not unbearably so. Saw a lot of nice things, and some not so nice. We went to the Dan Flavin exhibit, which I totally did not understand. It was a bunch of coloured florencent lightbulbs. I don't get why he was such an influental artist. All I know is that it made my eyes hurt & give me a headache. We also went to the Gerard ter Borch exhibit which I really enjoyed.

Our inital reason for going was to see Palace and Mosque: Islamic Art from the Victoria and Albert Museam. It was absolutely stunning. I wish it wasn't as crowded as it was, it seemed like everyone who was at the museam was in that exhibit, because I could have spent a lot more time there than we did. I'm hoping to make it back before it closes on February 6th.

So, how was your weekend?

Much love to you all.

2005-01-08T02:00:00.000-05:00

Insomina

All I want to do is sleep! Is that so much to ask for?

I had a quiet evening in, watching more Buffy, and catching up via phone with my friend Lori. While we were on the phone my window of opportunity to go to bed opened and closed. So now I'm up, wishing for sleep to come visit me. Oh to be in happy dreamland.

la la la la la laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

2005-01-07T13:56:00.000-05:00

Lentils

I love lentils.

I eat about 4 pounds of lentils a week. I know that's an insane amount of lentils. I'm guessing it's 4lbs because that's what it feels like after cooking the crap out of them.

I've had a ritual for the past 3 months where I'd buy a bag of dried lentils every weekend and make a HUGE pot of lentil soup on Sunday nights to eat for lunch during the week. Last night I made a small pot for lunch today & tomorrow.

I was in the lunch/conference room with my fellow troublemakers today and had made it through about half of my lentils and rice when I turned to Karen, and said, "I'm sick of lentils."

Which is not good, because I don't get paid until next week friday so I've no choice but to eat them for another week.

2005-01-07T09:56:00.000-05:00

Potential

So, I was watching season seven of Buffy last night, my friend Matt let me borrow his DVDs, and it was the episode where Buffy and the gang is looking for the potential slayer that lives in Sunnydale.

Willow does a spell to find out where this young girl is. Anyways the ball of aura energy created by the spell goes through Dawn and hence everyone there, Willow, Xander, Anya and Dawn think Dawn's the new potential slayer. And in Buffy like fashion confusion ensues.

I'm sure you're wondering where I'm going with this, don't worry you're not alone.

Dawn freaks out & runs away, because that's what one does when faced with potential life changing challenges. When she was jumping out her bedroom window I think I said "Oh yeah like running away's going to solve this. Dumbass."

(Everytime she speaks I say outloud to the tv, "Shut UP, Dawn!")

Anyways, for the whole episode I'm hoping she gets killed, because I found her to be the most useless and annoying character of the show. But, alas, she doesn't, and she turns out not to be the potential slayer, but some other girl. Thank GOD! Because if she was a potential slayer I think I would have stopped watching it right there, cursing Josh Whedon for such a stoopid plot device.

At the end Xander gives her this great pep talk about knowing how hard it is to be in the shadow of everyone else, and just for a moment my heart went out to Dawn, it actually went out to Xander because it was the first time I'd ever seen him articulate his feelings so eloquently without a hint of his comic defense mechanism, but only for that moment, I still hope that she gets killed off, but I'm betting she doesn't.

Oh god, I need to lay off the caffeine...

2005-01-06T11:57:00.000-05:00

Alias

The season premiere of Alias was on last night. Boy did it suck ass. I used to love that show. And I used to love Jennifer Garner. And by love I mean I want to do bad bad yet oh so good things to her.

But my love for the show, and just a smidge for her, has gone away. It's gotten stoopid. I mean she still totally kicks bad guy ass, but the plot has become so forced and far fetched that I actually changed the channel while watching the show last night. And if you know how dedicated I was to the show when it first came out you would know that I didn't answer the phone unless it was Stacy & it was a commercial break & we would talk a mile a minute about what just happened then hang up on each other as soon as it came back on.

That sort of love for the show is gone. And I'm sad about it because it used to totally kick ass.

2005-01-06T09:32:00.000-05:00

The Christmas Elephant

I'd like to wish all my Christian friends a happy Epiphany. Today is the day that the Christmas Elephant brought the 3 Wise Men to the baby Jesus & gave him wonderful gifts of gold, frankincense & myrrh.

"Christmas Elephant?" you're wondering. I know all these years you thought they came on camels, but nope, they came on an elephant. Don't be sad, you're not the only one who was mistaken, I had to correct my Mom on the issue when my cousin Sarah & I were making cut out cookies and she wanted to know why were making elephant cookies. She was suprised to find out that she had been wrong all these years.

So go out & celebrate the elephant, because without her there's no way the 3 Wise Men would have been able to do their thing.

2005-01-05T09:37:00.000-05:00

Say No To Torture

From an email from MoveOn.org:

Dear friend,
I hate to start the New Year with bad news, but the Senate is about to consider Alberto Gonzales' nomination to become Attorney General, replacing John Ashcroft. Gonzales is the White House counsel notorious for opening the door to torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons. Senators should view the Gonzales nomination very skeptically, given this radical history. As part of the upcoming hearings, we can call on Senators to ask Gonzales to unequivocally renounce torture as an instrument of American policy.

Join me in asking Gonzales and Senators to prohibit torture by clicking here:

http://www.moveon.org/gonzales/

Thanks.

Please sign the petition.

2005-01-05T09:33:00.000-05:00

Update?

I really wish Blogger would update the posts in my my profile. I've written a bunch of posts since October, but if you were to read my profile you wouldn't know it.

meh.

2005-01-04T16:51:00.000-05:00

Wegmans

Happiness is finding out that the BEST GROCERY STORE EVER is opening a store on February 13th and it's not too far from where I live. Unfortunately, I don't know if it will be metro accessible. At this point I don't care!!! Because I, along with my pseudo sister in law, & I will be there on opening day.

Only those of my readers from Rochester & Buffalo can completely understand how exciting this is.

Yes, I know I'm weird.

2005-01-04T10:08:00.000-05:00

Long Over Due

Yes, I know I promised to resume normal posting sooner than today, but I didn't. I was sick yesterday, my uterus was trying to push its way out of my abdomen through my belly button. It was not pleasant, it felt like someone was cutting it with a hot knife.

I'm sure that's more information than you wanted, but too bad, that's how it felt.

I'm much better today.

I came back from my winter holiday with a huge stack of crap on my chair. I guess my mailbox was so overflowing my boss had to move it all to my office for me. Isn't he so nice? Now I'm swimming in paperwork that needs to be sorted, organized, and processed. Yippie!!!

I finally got my Stats grade, so I can now say with confidence that I've graduated. Do I care that I got a *C*?? Hell no!! I was worried I had failed the final, so I'm ESTATIC with the grade I got. My GPA is where I wanted it to be, so I'm content, but I'm not sure grad programs will be as content with it as I. But thinking about grad school is a topic for another day.

Like most people I'm still grappling with the tsunami that happened last week. I can't even begin to wrap my brain around it. My heart & thoughts go out to those who were affected by it. If you can help, the following organizations do wonderful work and can use any bit of assistence we can give.

The American Red Cross
Oxfam International
The International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies
Medecins San Frontieres International

2005-01-02T13:11:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!

I hope this year brings you much happiness and joy.

Regular posting will resume tomorrow.

Love & kisses to you all.

2004-12-26T09:31:00.000-05:00

May the Ranting Resume...

Now that Christmas is over, even though it's not technically over until January 6th, I will resume my rants about religion.

My Dad was in the family room watching the news, so I thought I'd join, I like Sunday morning news shows, until I noticed he was watching FOX News. I thought, well, I should give it a chance, Brett Hume isn't that bad compared to the rest of the anchors. He was interviewing the Archbishop of Washington DC and the Archbishops was saying, in a nutshell, that a person could not be a good moral person without religion. Of course I'm sitting there trying not to freak out because my Dad hates it when we make side comments to what's on the tele. Eventually I voiced my opinion, by this time my Mom was there, and she "shh'ed" me!! Argh!!!

I quickly left because I was so furious that I had just been "shh'ed". The Archbishop wasn't even talking for cryingoutloud, Brett Hume was asking the same exact question in a different way.

Blech.

And my opinion is, yes you can be a good person with good values (by good values I mean treating people well, helping the poor, equal pay for equal work, equality in marriage, good educational system, etc.) without belonging to a church. And I'm sick of being told by various media outlets that because I don't have religion, what ever the hell that means, I'm not a good person.

2004-12-24T13:53:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas!

I'm not sure if I'll have a chance to post on Christmas; my parents' house is going to be full of relatives and I'll be alternating between loving it & wishing it wouldn't end and not being able to be social for five more minutes.

Thank you all for your words of congrats, it means so much to me that you guys are excited about it just as much as I am. I'll be taking a short break from all things school related before I start looking at grad school.

So, I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas. I hope that you're spending it with those you love and cherish. Eat, drink, be merry and treasure the time with your families, even if they drive you nuts, because lets face it, that's what families are supposed to do.

Much love to you all.

2004-12-22T22:39:00.000-05:00

How I Spent My Winter Vacation

Well, spent may be the wrong word because I'm still spending it.

I'm up in Buffalo hanging out with the family.

My Mom, cousin Sarah & I went to the Woolly Lamb, and I bought some yarn for a hat I made for a coworker's daughter. (Yes, made, not making, I started it & finished it today. It came out really cute. It's a pretty shade of orange-y/yellow.)

Afterwards we made cut out cookies and then my Dad joined us and helped us to frost them.

Spent the evening knitting and hanging out with my sister. It's been very low key which is what I want because once friday comes the weekend will be quite hectic.

Tomorrow I'm off to Borders for a last minute present for one of my nephews.

Sorry no exciting news to report.

I'm off to bed. Hope you all had a wonderful day.

2004-12-20T22:48:00.000-05:00

I Be Gradumated

I'M DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's very surreal.

whooohooooooooo

*does dance of joy*

The exam went ok. I'm totally not sure of how I did. If I get a *C* in this class I'll be happy, a *B*, estatic.

I've been home for a bit. Did some last minute things to prepare the apartment, like taking out the garbage so I don't come back to a stinky apartment.

I'm off to pack. Next time I write I'll be in tropical Buffalo. Have a wonderful evening. Keep warm.

Hugs & kisses to you all.

2004-12-20T14:03:00.000-05:00

Bless Her Heart...

The receptionist for my office thought I was 23, not fast approaching 30. She totally made my day.

Random Thought
I watched Dr. Zhivago last night on PBS, it wasn't what I had expected it to be, but it's worth seeing, I think I missed a couple things so I've to watch it again.

Dude.

Omar Sharif... soooooooooo hot back in his youth. And I think Julie Christie looks more beautiful now than she did then.

2004-12-20T10:18:00.000-05:00

Shuffle Off to Buffalo...

Twelve hours from now I will be packing to go home for a week.

Twenty four hours from now I will be at my parents' house and I'll most likely be napping.

I am so excited to be going home. I've not been since July, and while I know it's only six months ago, one has to remember I used to go up every 3 months. I used to go up for my niece and nephews' birthdays, but that hasn't happened in a couple years.

I'm so excited about going home that I have to remember to go to my Stats exam tonight.

Stoopid exam. The people who came up with having an exam at 7:40pm need to be slapped. I was barely awake for class at 6pm after a day at work and they expect me to be awake for a final at 7:40pm!!!? Damn them. I hope they get coal in their stockings.

Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday to my sweet Niels. I hope you have a wonderful day. I love you.

2004-12-18T14:51:00.000-05:00

The Weather Channel

Hi, my name is Caren & I'm addicted to the Weather Channel.

I used to be one of those people who would make fun of people that would constantly talk about what they saw on the Weather Channel, completely befuddled how anyone could be that into weather.

Then I got cable.

I don't know how they do it. But those crazy meteorologists suck you in with their soothing voices telling you the weather outlook for the day. Those soothing voices... except when there's a storm brewing, and then they get all excited like they're about to have an orgasm because nortnern Michigan is about to get walloped with a snow storm.

Damn you Weather Channel!!

2004-12-17T11:35:00.000-05:00

Interesting!

Unlike some of my friends, I like to know who reads my blog because, it's nice to know the demographics...

So when I was looking a few minutes ago at my CQ Counter, I discovered that my blog was read at a company my Dad work at over 30 years ago. I know it may not mean much of anything to you, but I find it to be really neat.

2004-12-17T09:38:00.000-05:00

One Down One to Go

Had my lit final yesterday, it went pretty well. My prof gave us the questions in advance, there were six questions, four of which would be on the exam, of which we had to write about two. The two questions I wanted to write about were on there, so that made me happy. The exam was 2 hours long and I finished with 10 minutes to spare. I think I did ok.

After handing my exam in I got my final paper back. The criticisms my prof had of my paper were the exact same ones I had; so the notes she made were not a suprise to me. I'm hoping for an A-/B+ in the class, but we'll see!

I'm one exam left, dreaded Statistics. I shouldn't say it's dreaded, because it's not. But I do think I would have enjoyed the class a lot more if I had a different professor. At the beginning of the semester I was really excited about it but by the end, not so excited. And it was all because my professor sucked ass. He couldn't teach for shit. If it wasn't for the TA, I don't know how I would have survived that class. The scary thing is that I kind of understand it, but just didn't have the motivation to excell in it.

All Good Gifts

Stacy made me this beautiful bag for Christmas, in two shades of blue (I love blue, blue's such an awesome colour, my 2nd fav next to green!). It's perfect sized! I can fit my wallet, keys, cell phone and a tiny knitting project in it. She also got me a gorgeous handmade drop spindle so I can start spinning my own yarn!! All I have to do is learn how to use it so I can make yarn out of the roving she got me!! I love when Christmas come early.

Shout Out

I've to give a shout out to my friend Karen, she had finally joined the cult of blogging, and it's quite funny. So go read Percolating and see what's brewing!

2004-12-14T13:31:00.000-05:00

Twenty Thousand Miles to an Oasis

It's really only 452.9 miles, but it doesn't sound as cool.

Anyways 11 days until Christmas.

Seven days until I go home! Yiiipppppppppppppieeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!! (Yes I still consider Buffalo home even though I haven't lived there in almost 7 years. )

Six days until I graduate.

One Christmas present and one Birthday present left to shop for.

Hope you all are having a wonderful day.

2004-12-13T16:05:00.000-05:00

Why I Dislike Organized Religion (Or Why I'm glad I'm Not Mormon)...

LDS author disfellowshipped
Palmer calls the six-hour trial fair, but exhausting
By Peggy Fletcher Stack The Salt Lake Tribune

After an exhausting six-hour disciplinary hearing Sunday, Mormon leaders temporarily suspended Grant H. Palmer's membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Palmer, a longtime Mormon educator, was asked to defend himself on charges of apostasy stemming from his 2002 book, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins, which challenged traditional beliefs about the church's history.

The all-male priesthood leaders in his Willow Creek Sandy LDS stake could have excommunicated the 64-year-old author, but chose instead a lesser punishment - to "disfellowship" him - which means he may not enter the temple, serve in a church position, give a talk, partake of the weekly sacrament or offer a public prayer. This typically lasts about a year, but the length will be determined by his LDS stake president, Keith Adams, who may also spell out more conditions of the suspension in a letter sometime later this week. Palmer has the right to appeal the decision to higher church authorities.

Both Palmer and his ecclesiastical leaders left without speaking to reporters waiting outside the LDS stake center after the closed-door hearing, which began at 7 a.m. and ended about 1 p.m. LDS Church spokesman Dale Bills also declined to comment on the hearing or the punishment.

Reached at his home later, Palmer did not want to discuss the hearing, but said only he was pleased with the outcome.

"As church trials go, this was pretty fair," he said. "But I'm very tired."

The discipline is reminiscent of the 1993 sanctions imposed on six high-profile Mormon intellectuals - three men and three women - for their views on feminism, church policies and history.

At that time, five were excommunicated and one disfellowshipped; several other scholars since then have been excommunicated or chastised.

Palmer's disciplinary council came two years after his book, which has sold more than 3,000 copies, was published by Signature Books. The book was the culmination of Palmer's years of study, including a master's degree in American history from Brigham Young University, and working for 34 years in the LDS Institutes of Religion in California and Utah and as an LDS seminary teacher in Utah.

In the book, Palmer argues that the faith's scripture, The Book of Mormon, reflects LDS founder Joseph Smith's own 19th-century environment, not ancient America as Mormons believe. He further suggests that Smith embellished his divine revelations to respond to critics and to stabilize the church.

In the charges, Adams said that Insider's View had damaged others' faith.

But earlier this week, Palmer insisted that was not his intention. He has never counseled anyone to leave the LDS Church, he said. The fourth-generation Mormon said the Book of Mormon may not be a historical record, but it is "an inspired document. It brings many people to Jesus Christ."

Though there was no early morning vigil or television cameras at the Sandy LDS chapel, news of Palmer's disfellowshipping spread quickly among supporters and friends. Some thought any punishment too harsh for simply recounting discrepancies in Mormon history, while others saw a reason for optimism in it.

"I'm pleased that he was not excommunicated," said John Hatch, a friend and fellow Mormon intellectual who has read Palmer's book. "I hope he can continue to work with his stake president and return soon to full fellowship in the church."
__________________________

Although I'm no longer Catholic or Christian, that was one thing I have to say about Catholicism, you could challenge it with out fear of being punished. (I'm excluding the Inquistion here and talking about post Vatican II Catholicism.) Why one would want to belong to a religion that punishes you for questioning and challenging it is beyond me.

2004-12-12T17:35:00.000-05:00

Recipe

Many of you who have stumbled across my blog have done so because you were in search for a fig cookie recipe; not because you heard amazing reviews about my inarticulate rants and raves about knitting, R.E.M, and school, or how I think this country's going to hell in a handbasket because of George Bush and his adminstration.

I'm guessing that you've been disapointed to find that there was no recipe, just some crazy girl writing about her life.

Well, be sad no more! I got the recipie for the cookies from my Mom, which came from my Italian Grandma, which came from... well I don't know where Grandma C got it from...

They're my favorite Christmas cookie, I just wish they didn't take a better part of a day to make.

Italian Fig Cookies

Mix: 6 eggs
6 Tablespoons. sugar
6 Tablespoons. oil, not olive

Start with 4 cups of flour to which 3 Tablepsoons. baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt have been added.

Add flour gradually to egg mixture.

Gradually work dough on a floured board adding more flour until the dough is elastic.

Roll out dough thin, cut into long strips wide enough to hold filling. Fold dough over filling making sure that the ends of the dough overlap to ensure the filling won't ooze out. With the filling in the dough it should look like a long tube. Cut into desired sized pieces (roughly 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 inches long), bake 350 for 15-20min.

Filling: 2 lbs figs, 1 lb. dates, 1 lb. raisins, 1 orange, 1/4lb walnuts, finely ground, 1/4 c. water.

Note: soften raisins and figs in water which has been brought to a boil and removed from the heat. Drain, mash and add the rest of the ingredients.

Recipe Edited on 12/14/04

2004-12-10T14:53:00.000-05:00

O Canada!

Canada is so ahead of the game; it has universal health care, a good school system, great radio.

It's also the home of Spirit of the West, Bruce Cockburn, Sarah McLachlan, Tragically Hip, Barenaked Ladies, Neil Young, Lowest of the Low, Humble and Fred, Mr Goohead, the CBC, Seseme Street en francis, Degrassi Junior High, Great Big Sea, Moxy Fruvous, Toronto Maple Leafs, the Yarn Harlot. And now the Canadian Supreme Court has declared that the government can legalise gay marriage without violating the constitution.

Oh Canada how I love thee!

2004-12-08T10:51:00.000-05:00

Yummy for My Tummy

Starbucks Peppermint Mochas taste like liquid Peppermint Patties.... sooo good.

2004-12-08T09:15:00.000-05:00

Am I the only one not suprised by this report?

Our dying sea

Royal commission warns of a marine 'catastrophe' and calls for a ban on all fishing in one third of British waters

08 December 2004

THE DISAPPEARING COD
The fish that once sustained fishing communities in such places as Grimsby and Fraserburgh has now almost disappeared from the North Sea, as it has done from many parts of the north Atlantic. It is the most extreme example of a pattern: according to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (Ices), the proportion of north-east Atlantic fish stocks within safe biological limits fell from 26 per cent to 16 per cent from 1996 to 2001. In the North Sea, the minimum recommended stock size to sustain cod at an acceptable level is 150,000 tons; it is now at about 46,000 tons. In the Irish Sea, the figure is as bad - 5,200 tons compared with a recommended level of 10,000. The west of Scotland and the north Atlantic are at similar levels. Ices says there should be no cod fishing in these areas next year.

HAKE
The hake stock of the southern part of the North Sea is estimated to be at a low of 10,200 tons, compared with a minimum recommended level of 35,000 tons. This is largely because of overfishing by Spanish trawlers to satisfy huge domestic demand, and continues a 20-year decline of what was once a common species. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea recommends that there should be no hake fishing next year.

PLAICE
Like cod, plaice is a staple of the British diet that may soon become a rare and expensive luxury. The current stock in the North Sea is estimated to be around 190,000 tons, below the minimum level of 230,000. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea has advised that the level of fishing must be reduced by a total of 55 per cent to help stocks recover.

MAMMALS
Many thousands of dolphins and porpoises are caught accidentally every year in the nets of European boats, to judge from the hundreds of animals washed up on French and British coasts, thought to be only a small fraction of the true total. The practice of pair-trawling - use of a colossal net by two boats working together - by the French winter seabass fishery is thought to take a heavy toll.

DISCARDS
One of the most environmentally damaging and wasteful aspects of fishing is that huge numbers of fish are thrown back dead into the sea after capture, because they are the wrong size or for other reasons.
The European Commission has estimated that discards may account for nearly 70 per cent of fish mortality in some species and locations, and the problem poses a serious threat to fish conservation.

SEABIRDS
Thousands of seabirds are killed in fishing operations every year, often by "long-liner" boats, which send out lines of baited hooks which can be up to 22 miles long. This technique is having a catastrophic effect on the albatross populations of the Southern Ocean, threatening some species of albatross which mate for life with extinction. But it also causes wide mortality in Europe, with large numbers of fulmars (seabirds which occur widely in Britain) being caught annually by long-liner boats from Norway.

RUINED SEABED
Underwater photographs, right, show the condition of the seabed before and after bottom-trawling. The result is clearly atrocious. Bottom-trawling can plough furrows up to 20ft wide and 6ins deep across the seabed, which destroys the rich, complex bottom-dwelling life. Some areas are trawled this way five times a year, turned over much more than arable fields, and afterwards they look as desolate as the surface of the moon. Large parts of the North Sea have suffered badly.

FOOD CHAIN
Commercial fishing is thought to have killed 90 per cent of larger, predator fish. Severe overfishing of the Grand Banks cod fishery off Newfoundland, which collapsed in 1992, caused a shift in the ecosystem which means numbers never recover, even when fishing is banned.

2004-12-07T13:13:00.000-05:00

Holiday Season

Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish readers...

Christmas is fast approaching, and unfortunately it doesn't feel like it is. I miss Christmases in Buffalo, to me it's not Christmas without snow.

I just today pulled out my one and only Christmas CD, Bruce Cockburn's - christmas.

When I first bought it, many many moons ago, I was like "Bruce I love you, but this is shit." Now almost 10 years later it's really grown on me, it has a combination of song that I grew up listening to (O Little Town of Bethlehem, Joy To The World) and songs that I would not have ever been exposed to (Riu Riu Chiu, Mary Had a Baby) had I not bought the album.

I know, I need to get more Christmas albums. But my many many years of working in retail has tainted my enjoyment of it. I can only take it in small doses. Which I get when I go home. My Mom & Dad have a pretty good collection of old school albums, and I mean albums, that I listen to when I visit. Johnny Mathis, Mitch Miller, Bing Crosby, and John Denver and the Muppets.

It also doesn't feel like the holiday season because I don't decorate. It's not that I don't want to, because I do. I don't decorate because of my insane cats. I had a tree once in the 6 1/2 years I've lived down here, and it would get knocked over every day. Since then I've given up decorating & just soak it all in when I visit my parents.

I Can See The Finish Line

Two more classes
A paper edit
A 2 page paper on my favorite text of the semester
English Final
Stats Final

Then I'm done!!

Whooohooo!!!!!!!!

2004-12-06T10:14:00.000-05:00

Progress & Promises

I'm suprised the US did so well... That's if you can call getting a "C" doing well...

Progress and Promises: Trends in International Assistance for Reproductive Health and Population

2004-12-02T13:38:00.000-05:00

To Do

I never used to make "to do" lists. Never. Then I gained some wisdom a couple semesters ago and came to learn and love how great they are. Especially at the end of the semester.

So here's my list of crap I need to do:

1. Finish Imaginary Maps so I can write paper.
2. Write Paper (due 12/9)
3. Stats homework
4. SPSS Project (due 12/8)
5. Read Selected Short Stories (for 12/7)
6. Write 2 page paper (due 12/9)

I know, compared to many people's end of semester list of things to do, it's not a lot. But #2 has me freaked. Writing is very much a struggle for me. I'm taking tomorrow off so I can spend the day staring at a computer screen & freaking out over my writer's block.

2004-12-02T13:27:00.000-05:00

Some Abstinence Programs Mislead Teens, Report Says
By Ceci ConnollyWashington Post Staff WriterThursday, December 2, 2004; Page A01

Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals "can result in pregnancy," a congressional staff analysis has found.

Those and other assertions are examples of the "false, misleading, or distorted information" in the programs' teaching materials, said the analysis, released yesterday, which reviewed the curricula of more than a dozen projects aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.

In providing nearly $170 million next year to fund groups that teach abstinence only, the Bush administration, with backing from the Republican Congress, is investing heavily in a just-say-no strategy for teenagers and sex. But youngsters taking the courses frequently receive medically inaccurate or misleading information, often in direct contradiction to the findings of government scientists, said the report, by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), a critic of the administration who has long argued for comprehensive sex education.

Several million children ages 9 to 18 have participated in the more than 100 federal abstinence programs since the efforts began in 1999. Waxman's staff reviewed the 13 most commonly used curricula -- those used by at least five programs apiece.

The report concluded that two of the curricula were accurate but the 11 others, used by 69 organizations in 25 states, contain unproved claims, subjective conclusions or outright falsehoods regarding reproductive health, gender traits and when life begins. In some cases, Waxman said in an interview, the factual issues were limited to occasional misinterpretations of publicly available data; in others, the materials pervasively presented subjective opinions as scientific fact.

Among the misconceptions cited by Waxman's investigators:
• A 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person."
• HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears.
• Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse.

One curriculum, called "Me, My World, My Future," teaches that women who have an abortion "are more prone to suicide" and that as many as 10 percent of them become sterile. This contradicts the 2001 edition of a standard obstetrics textbook that says fertility is not affected by elective abortion, the Waxman report said.

"I have no objection talking about abstinence as a surefire way to prevent unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases," Waxman said. "I don't think we ought to lie to our children about science. Something is seriously wrong when federal tax dollars are being used to mislead kids about basic health facts."

When used properly and consistently, condoms fail to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) less than 3 percent of the time, federal researchers say, and it is not known how many gay teenagers are HIV-positive. The assertion regarding gay teenagers may be a misinterpretation of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found that 59 percent of HIV-infected males ages 13 to 19 contracted the virus through homosexual relations.

Joe. S. McIlhaney Jr., who runs the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, which developed much of the material that was surveyed, said he is "saddened" that Waxman chose to "blast" well-intentioned abstinence educators when there is much the two sides could agree on.
McIlhaney acknowledged that his group, which publishes "Sexual Health Today" instruction manuals, made a mistake in describing the relationship between a rare type of infection caused by chlamydia bacteria and heart failure. Chlamydia also causes a common type of sexually transmitted infection, but that is not linked to heart disease. But McIlhaney said Waxman misinterpreted a slide that warns young people about the possibility of pregnancy without intercourse. McIlhaney said the slide accurately describes a real, though small, risk of pregnancy in mutual masturbation.

Congress first allocated money for abstinence-only programs in 1999, setting aside $80 million in grants, which go to a variety of religious, civic and medical organizations. To be eligible, groups must limit discussion of contraception to failure rates.

President Bush has enthusiastically backed the movement, proposing to spend $270 million on abstinence projects in 2005. Congress reduced that to about $168 million, bringing total abstinence funding to nearly $900 million over five years. It does not appear that the abstinence-only curricula are being taught in the Washington area.

Waxman and other liberal sex-education proponents argue that adolescents who take abstinence-only programs are ill-equipped to protect themselves if they become sexually active. According to the latest CDC data, 61 percent of graduating high school seniors have had sex.
Supporters of the abstinence approach, also called abstinence until marriage, counter that teaching young people about "safer sex" is an invitation to have sex.

Alma Golden, deputy assistant secretary for population affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement that Waxman's report is a political document that does a "disservice to our children." Speaking as a pediatrician, Golden said, she knows "abstaining from sex is the most effective means of preventing the sexual transmission of HIV, STDs and preventing pregnancy."

Nonpartisan researchers have been unable to document measurable benefits of the abstinence-only model. Columbia University researchers found that although teenagers who take "virginity pledges" may wait longer to initiate sexual activity, 88 percent eventually have premarital sex.
Bill Smith, vice president of public policy at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, a comprehensive sex education group that also receives federal funding, said the Waxman report underscored the need for closer monitoring of what he called the "shame-based, fear-based, medically inaccurate messages" being disseminated with tax money. He said the danger of abstinence education lies in the omission of useful medical information.

Some course materials cited in Waxman's report present as scientific fact notions about a man's need for "admiration" and "sexual fulfillment" compared with a woman's need for "financial support." One book in the "Choosing Best" series tells the story of a knight who married a village maiden instead of the princess because the princess offered so many tips on slaying the local dragon. "Moral of the story," notes the popular text: "Occasional suggestions and assistance may be alright, but too much of it will lessen a man's confidence or even turn him away from his princess."

© 2004 The Washington Post Company
__________________

I'm going to go & bang my head against my desk now...

2004-12-01T16:00:00.000-05:00

Bang

Ever have one of those days where you just want to bang your head on your desk??

Yeah me too. And today is it.

No matter how many pieces of paper I get off my desk it just doesn't seem to be enough.

And the stress of all that I need to get done between now and next thursday just hit me today, when I got on the metro & went in my backpack to get the book I need to finish for tomorrow's lit class and realized I left it on the kitchen counter... I knew right then & there it was going to be one of those days.

2004-12-01T09:20:00.000-05:00

World AIDS Day

I remember when this day of awareness started I had hope that it would be a day that wouldn't be around for as long as it has. Have I been disappointed...

The statistics are staggering:

According to UNAIDS estimates, there were 37.2 million adults and 2.2 million children living with HIV at the end of 2004, and during the year 4.9 million new people became infected with the virus. Around half of all people who become infected with HIV do so before they are 25 and are killed by AIDS before they are 35. 95% of the total number of people with HIV/AIDS live in the developing world. But HIV still remains a threat to people of all ages and nationalities. (Avert.org)

I'm not going to get on my soapbox (much) this morning. We all know what needs to be done. Education, advocacy, and funding.

The Bush Administration needs to do a better job of funding AIDS prevention agencies. As someone who works for an organization that deals with access to health care services I can tell you that our funding for researching HIV/AIDS services has all but vanished since Bush came to office in 2000.

This horrible disease is preventable. If we want to cure it, we need to put our money where our mouth is and do something about it.

2004-11-30T13:01:00.000-05:00

Update

I was informed that I need to update my blog. I know, I've been bad about it this week.

Things are crazy so it's going to be a short post...

Work's busy, school's even busier (lots to do in the next week & 2 days), I've a couple knitting projects for gifts I need to do. One is an original pattern (I KNOW!! Can you believe it??) Pattern to follow if it works out well.

Back to work.

Happy Tuesday.

2004-11-24T09:27:00.000-05:00

Greatly Missed

I can't believe it's been a year since Aunt Fran passed on to her next journey. Some days it feels like it's been longer, other days it feels like it was only yesterday. And there are days where it feels like she's still here.

She was one of the most amazing people I'll ever know and I was super lucky to be related to her. She knew that I was a huge Hello Kitty fan & every now & then I'd get an HK gift from her in the mail. When Mike & I were living together she would address holiday cards to the both of us even though she had never met him. She would always ask about my friends even though she knew she'd never meet them. She didn't agree with homosexuality but really tried to understand the issues that were affecting the gay community. She had this crazy sense of humor and an infectous laugh that lit up the room. She & my uncle were so in love that when either one of them walked in to the room they would look at each other and smile the way that you could tell that at that moment all they saw was each other. She was an amazing Mom to my cousins and you can see so much of her gentle spirit in them.

I miss you Aunt Fran. I know you're happy where you are, but it still sucks you're not here.

2004-11-23T14:28:00.000-05:00

Bad Yarn

The normally lovely and wonderful Cascade 220 is being very very bad. I'm using it to make my nephew James a Harry Potter scarf and it needs to sit in the corner until it stops being so bad.

Stacy & I went to the Ewenique Yarns on saturday and she & Maggie the owner had an intervention on the length of the scarf I wanted to make. The pattern says for it to be 85 inches long and that about 1000 yards of yarn would be needed. James is nine, his scarf doesn't need to be that long. So Maggie, figured that I would only need 2 skeins of Cascade 220 (each skein has 220 yards... get it Cascade 220... plus the 100 or so yards of the contrasting colour) making the scarf about 540 yards. How many inches this is, I've no idea, but it's nowhere near 85 inches.

So, I left content with my yarn.

Then I started knitting it up. And it's been misbehaving. I had to frog it after knitting about 5 inches and start over again because it wasn't looking right and I was unhappy with where I made the colour changes. Also, Cascade 220 is usually nice and soft, not scratchy like this batch. Bad yarn indeed.

Well, I'm almost done with the first skein and I'm coming to find out that there's no way that I'm going to have enough yarn. Mom & I are going to Stitch DC when they're in town this weekend and I'm hoping that they will have the same dye lot I have so I can buy another skein. I might have to call Maggie & order it from her. Too bad because I was hoping to finish the scarf over the weekend.

I hope the Cascade 220 I ordered today to make a scarf for a friend's boyfriend is much better behaved, otherwise I might have to re-evaluate my relationship with it.

2004-11-17T15:29:00.000-05:00

Knitting...

You know you're obsessed with knitting when you have to create a new folder in your favorite places entitled "Knitting Blogs" which is a completely separate folder from the "Knitting" folder which is only for the online purchase of yarn.

Yes I'm an addict. And proud of it. And then I wonder why I can't afford to buy groceries...

2004-11-17T11:04:00.000-05:00

Gingerbread Spice Lattees

Are so farking good. But so damn expensive that the one I'm drinking (RIGHT NOW) will be the only one I have for a while.

Things are good on the home/school/work fronts. I'm understanding what we're learning in Stats class, so that's quite good. (Even though I had a nightmare about not being able to do a quiz & telling someone "Whould you please shut the fuck up so I can concentrate!") Lit class is interesting, we're reading Gandhi's autobiography and some interesting discussion has been fostered. My prof did a bit of a switch up 1/2 way through the semester, where she now does a "check in" and we go around stating something that jumped out at us while reading that week's assignment. There's only about 10 of us in class so it works out really well & really gets conversation going. I've not liked about half of what we're reading (Gandhi's autobiography being on that list) but the awsomeness that is class time has made up for it.

I had a really good talk with my Dad last night about my post-undergraduate plans. I told him that I'm still unsure but have some ideas. I've always been interested in sex/sexuality/gender/gender representation/gender identity, especially people who don't fall in the gender binary and that I don't know if I want to teach Sociology or get into counseling. I'm telling all of this to my Dad, and he's all "really... interesting... When you say people who fall outside of the gender binary do you you mean gay people?" No, people who are biologically male and identify themselves as female and vice versa. Now those of you who know my Dad, know that he's not big on talking about sex and sexuality, so I approached our conversation very cautiously. I was quite suprised when he said that that was "interesting and worth exploring further." My parents are some of the most gay friendly people you'll ever meet but I don't think they've ever met someone who's transgendered/transsexual/intersexed and, like most people, are more comfortable with people who fall in the gender binary. But when I talk about it they always ask me really interesting questions and want to understand the issues that face the trans/intersexed community.

What's going to be interesting is when I talk to my uber-conservative brother about this... THAT conversation's going to be explosive for sure.

Hope you are all having a wonderful wednesday.

32 days until graduation...

2004-11-12T13:57:00.000-05:00

These heavy notions...

It's rainy and dreary in DC today. I would like to crawl into bed & sleep the day away. I just got back from lunch with Niels and Matt and really need a nap. Oooh Wendy's is putting me in a food coma. I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open.

It's been a rough week emotionally. It's that time of the month and I'm a bit melancholy, and the end of the semester stress is starting to appear. Stats is getting me down. I was doing really well the first couple weeks and now I'm taking a big nose dive. Fortunately, one of the students that works in my office is a Stats major and he said he'd tutor me. He's here late on mondays & wednesdays so he'll help me before class. Of course this was all decided upon 10 minutes ago.

My paper for my Lit class is due in three weeks & I've not done a drop of research. My books from inter-library loan came in yesterday, so I'll be doing lots of reading this weekend, one good thing is that I'll only have to read a chapter each in of the two books I'm using as references, not the whole thing. And the books I'm writing about (The Home and the World and imaginary Maps) are not long, so that will help the stress level.

Will be hanging out with Niels tonight. We're going to go to the mall so he can get a game for his XBox. (I want him to wait to buy Halo 2 so I can get it for him for Christmas but that's not going to happen.) Then coming back to his place to do lots and lots of reading.

Mom & Dad have come to my rescue and are loaning me some money so I can pay my school bill before the semester ends so I can graduate. It's not a lot of money but when my paychecks are budgeted to pretty much the last penny and because I didn't qualify for financial aid this semster things are tight. But! It's my LAST SEMESTER!!!!!

Back to work. Have a great weekend!

2004-11-09T21:48:00.000-05:00

The Proof is in the Pudding...

I know you've all been waiting for the photo of me & Mike Mills.

So here it is... I did edit it to cut out my fat belly (oy, I need to go on a diet)

Ohh Mike Mills is touching me!! eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

2004-11-08T16:30:00.000-05:00

Meh

So last night, I thought I was almost done, or at least I thought I was, with my niece's Christmas present. I'm making her a Very Harlot Poncho (without the fringe) with some yummy multi coloured (comprised of pinks, purples, oranges and grays) Rowan yarn.

Well I started the second skein and realized that it was not of the same lot as the first skein. (Meaning the yarns don't match, even though, in this case anyways, they're comprised of the same colours.) So I've to rip the whole thing apart and start all over again, but this time alternating the yarns every couple rows so they blend better.

In a way this is good because there was some pooling going on and it looked kind of weird. But bad because I wasted about 6 hours of knitting for nothing. And because my cats will think they have gone to yarn heaven & cats attacking yarn is not a good thing.

What has this taught me??
To always look at the lots, because even though the skeins may look like they're identical, they may not be.

2004-11-07T13:39:00.000-05:00

Here's the long overdue concert experience.

R.E.M. Concert Extravaganza

Jude came to town on November 1st for the the show, so I took a half day so we could hang out before the show and grab a leisurely dinner.

Well, we hung out, but dinner wasn’t so leisurely. I had put the tickets in my back pocket since I wasn’t taking a purse and I’ve never had problems with doing so in the past. We were at dinner and I reached in my back pocket to make sure the tickets were still there and… they were not. They had fallen out at some point during our walk. In a frenzied state I retraced my steps back to the apartment. They were no where to be seen on the walk home. The rental manger was still in her office and I asked her if someone had handed in a Ticketmaster™ envelope. No one had. I ran up to my apartment hoping that I had just forgotten to take them with me. No such luck.

So I left the apartment to head back to the restaurant to tell Jude the horrible news that I lost the tickets. I took the same path back just to be sure that I didn’t miss anything. I crossed the street and at a corner that I had been at five minutes earlier there was the envelope with the tickets. I gave many many thanks to the One Known by Many Names.

I arrived back at the restaurant and Jude was not there. I started to freak out because she doesn’t know the area and I wasn’t sure she knew how to get back to my apartment, I didn’t have my cell phone. It was a big mess. I walked towards CVS where we were earlier so I could by a disposable camera (which I wound up not needing) and saw Jude standing there. We both breathed a HUGE sigh of relief and headed off to the Metro.

We got to the venue without a hitch. Hung out in the hallway during the opening act since neither one of us were really into it. Jude spent a fair amount of time agonizing over which concert tshirt to buy. So while I was waiting for her to make her purchase I stood in a corner of sorts. And who did I see three feet away from me? Bertis, the band's lawyer. He was taking to a woman who obviously knew him & the band.

Jude couldn’t decide on a shirt so after waiting what seemed forever, due to the excitement of the show, so we ventured to our seats. We had decent seats unfortunately we had tall people in front of us and we couldn’t see so well. I even switched seats with Jude so she could see better, but it didn’t help much. The people sitting next to her wound up moving to try to find better seat, so that gave us a bit of room to move around and get glimpse of things.

The energy of the crowd was really intense and the band really fed off that. There was a great mix of old and new songs, as well as a lot of their more political stuff. You could feel the hope in the air for a Kerry win the next day. Unfortunately, well all know it didn’t turn out that way.

After the show Jude & I waited to meet the band. Unfortunately we waited in the wrong area for a bit so we didn’t get to see Peter Buck. But! We realized our mistake and headed towards one of the tour busses and I managed to get Mike Mills’ autograph and Jude took a couple photos of me and him. One while he was signing my ticket, Jude’s shirt (after the show she picked one out) and then one with his arm around me. Jude tried to meet Michael Stipe but his personal assistant pulled him away too fast so the only thing that she got was a photo of him signing an autograph for someone.

I was so nervous meeting Mike Mills that the events are really blurry and it almost feels like I didn’t meet him. But the signed ticket & photos remind me that it really did happen. Once I get the photos from Jude I’ll post them. Hopefully I won’t look like too much of a dork.

2004-11-05T16:18:00.000-05:00

O Canada!

I got this from Erin who got it from... who got it from...

You're Nova Scotia. People have spread rumours about you and you have suffered from stereotyping. Few people take the time out to get to know the real you. You hate labels. You are patriotic and loyal.

What Canadian Province Are You?
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2004-11-03T14:17:00.000-05:00

Dark Day Indeed

I'm really saddened by the outcome of the election. But those who voted for Bush are going to be affected by his policies a lot more than I, so when this country goes futher into the shitter they will have no one to blame for it other than themselves.

I do not understand how anyone, in good faith could have voted for him. Not after what he's done to civil rights, the environment, the economy, foreign relations, healthcare, Medicaid, Medicare, Iraq... the list goes on.

The man says he's a good "Christian" yet everything he's done has proved otherwise. So those who voted for him because of the "moral issue" you obviously weren't paying attention.

I'm so mad right now I can't be completely coherent... I will update & edit later.

I'll also be posting my R.E.M. concert soon.

Fig Cookies

I've Moved!

Mes Chats

Yarn

Happy Feet

Kicking My Ass

I'm Sick

Postcards From the Edge

Nothing Exciting

Work!!

Soup

Socks

True Love Part 2

Movies

True Love

I Must Have Really Pissed Him Off

Backlash

Please Don't Take a Picture

The Day After VD...

Presents

Blogger Hates Me

Memorial Scholarship

No More Nukes!

Fat Tuesday

*blink blink*

Impatient

Deutschland

Depression

Socks

Still Trying to Wake Up

Hair Like Jesus Wore It

Rampage

Education & Hatred

I *heart* Gay People

I Had This Dream

Locker Combination

Biased?

Baby it's Cold Outside

Belated Birthday

Let it Snow

That Boring?

Yahoo

Dark Days Ahead...

Hating. It.

Joyful Girl

Fascist Architecture

Happy Birthday

Unless it Was Champagne With You

Anniversary

Three Things

blink blink

I heart Gay People