Staffing the Arc

hello world, we are here waiting for Ida to pass us by...but wait, she may re-organize and make a nor'wester...what fun. we lost a bit of siding today...it is sitting in the side yard looking up at us...have to call the landlord and get him to get the woman who does his handywork over here to replace it. he should have had her install it in the first place and maybe it wouldn't be flying off in the storms. oh, well. not my house, not my problem, i just get to report them.

anyways...it has been raining here for several hours and things are getting a bit soggy...it has been dry, but now the ground is getting saturated...glad to have more sandy soil than clay-y down here...in ohio this would feel worse, but we lived up a hill in ohio and didn't see much effect at home, but people down-river saw big effects when it rained this much. they are predicting 4-7 inches...wonder what the lake down the way looks like and i also wonder what greenmill run looks like...wonder if the "flood lot" has flooded yet, last time it rained hard they just closed the lot so no one could park there and then it didn't rain half as much as they predicted...

emailed my boss and told him we were staffing the Arc and he laughed...shame the cats are neutered (not!) but if we float away, i guess we can't start a new clowder...oh well, health before kittens, and i am sure there are some un-neutered kitties out there that are suffering the rain but will be able to re-populate the entire city, given a chance...stupid college students...NEUTER YOUR PETS, and DON'T JUST THROW THEM OUT WHEN YOU ARE GOING HOME, TAKE THEM WITH YOU, THEY ARE NOT DISPOSABLE!! anyways, enough of the ranting...peace for now.

the squirrel and our trip to the quilt retreat...moslty the squirrel

well, there fonda and i sit, minding our own business - fonda smoking an me rocking in a rocking chair - and there sits a squirrel...quietly, as quiet as squirrels can be, checking out some acorns that had dropped on the deck of the place where we were staying...he was really working at an acorn and then he turned his butt towards us and low and behold...he had nuts...not the kind you are thinking, but cahoonas, gonads, balls, testicals...those kinds of nuts! "damn," i say*, "have you ever seen those on a squirrel?" and fonda replies..."damn, didn't know they got so big!" me: "i guess i have never seen a boy squirrel, only girls in Ohio..." fonda: "me too, humm..." we watch him for a while and marvel at the size of his gonads and discuss the relitive presence of girl squirrles in the state of ohio and wonder where all the new squirrels come from that there has never been a lack of squirrels in our neighborhoods when we were growing up or even later...if there were no boy squirrels...maybe they are parthanogenic and lesbians... ...anyways, well we go up to the class room and i mention about the squirrel and no one says anything...(bunch of prudes, i think)...and sigh, "oh, well..." later...sue (our friend from Nerk (newark), Ohio) comes and says "something, something...squirrel!" i look at her and say, "you saw that, too?" and now i feel relieved because fonda and i are not the only ones who have seen this. so we fall to discussing the anatomy of a certian squirrel and then along comes carolyn (from vermont (or somewhere up there), who happens to be rooming with sue) and the four of us continue talking about the nuts on the squirrel...i am sure that the other women all think we are nuts (no pun intended, really) but we have never seen a squirrel with nuts so big! anyways, that remains a small point of fun for the rest of the time we are there.

when fonda and i left, there was a woman sweeping the dropped acorns off the deck (don't see the point, really, more will fall) and feeding this boy peanuts...just made me wanna laugh.

*conversations are approximate, but \reflect the general thoughts/conversations while some (very small) bits have been made up just to make you laugh...fonda may have more to contribute, but maybe not, i think i covered it all.

Peace, KK

hovercat

don't you just love the picture of the hovercat?? it makes me laugh just to see it...i have a printed copy on my desk in the lab...what fun.

i had always wondered what their feet looked like underneath, well now we know. i am always on the look-out for cool photos...i am happy to have gotten a smaller laptop and it has more memory!! which means that i can keep more photos on it...i have a folder called "cool pictures i didn't take" and it is ~1.44GB at this point...ok, so there are a few pictures i did take (the cats, duh) but it is mostly other people's stuff...i give credit when it is available, but it is not always so, like the hovercat. thank you to whomever took the photo. enjoy. and looking at things from a different perspective is always an option..."it is all about perspective"...and as dr. phil will tell you: "no matter how flat you make a pancake, it still has two sides!" as i said it is all about perspective : )

peace.

what was all the hoop-la about??

so...the big day came and it went...i am now 40, but feel not much differnt. still in school, still not done, you know. everyone was nice about it and all went well. my brother was the only one to mention a hill, and he is seven years older than me, so i guess either he has room to talk, or not...i keep surprising people at school who either don't or can't believe that there might be someone still in college that is not a professor, but is this old...i guess i hang with a young crowd, and they rub off or something.

anyways...i survived and f made me a cake and we went out for dinner last night (yeah, a week late...oh, well--it was by common consent) and had a good time.

we shall see what the next year brings...peace

the count down

OK, now there are just 12 days until i reach that fateful landmark of 40. what will the next decade bring me? i hope it brings graduation, a job and peace and good stuff for all my family and friends...graduation and a job and some peace would be OK too : )

*graduate (may??)
*a job teaching (sometime after may)
*peace--anytime

i am trying to keep my mind open to the prospect of work...i know i want to stay in the south, preferably nc, but willing to go almost anywhere...i want to teach where teaching is the main (only) focus and i will be able to take classes out in the field too...i know there are places that this could happen, i just need to begin my search and more-better focus my aim...just don't really know where to start...sigh...ok...i need to split for now (12 days!) and go to lab...hope all is well.

peace.

my birthday

two weeks until my birthday!! i will be 40 this year, damn time flies

went to nashville, tn last week to present a bit of my data...it went well thanks to the bullying done by some of my cohorts two nights before the presentation. they mean well and i took it as such, but was still a bit frustrated by the event. anyways...it turned out well and seemed to be coherent and to the point...probably tomorrow i am going to begin to translate the powerpoint into the formal written document (chapter of my dissertation & hopefully a journal article).

below is a fun picture taken in downtown nashville--taken mainly for my girlfriend and her mom and brother...i will send them a copy later. : )


all went well, but i was very happy to be home...i remember my dad saying after i graduated with my AAS that he "liked the togetherness...but wanted to try non-togetherness for a while" i had my own apartment shortly after that and that was the way it seemed to be with us, it was nice, but to be together for so long was a bit much for all of us. it was a 12+ hr drive and they wanted to go on an hour-long "behind the scenes" tour of the grand ole opery (@11:30). i ended up sitting out in the courtyard and knitting/reading...what a pia. and noone asked if there was something i wanted to do (not that i would have taken them up on it...i wanted to go home)...by the time we got to ashvill, NC they were thinking that the tour sounded good at the time, but...i just shook my head...sigh...nothing we could do to change it.

well, we made it home and everyone was alive and well (sorta'-cc was sounding sick and milking it and saying that she was "hiding" being sick for the last two days-give me a break!). we all recovered and lived to tell the tale.

two weeks til my birthday

there is nothing happening for my birthday, except that i am getting older and i plan to make myself some cookies or cupcakes to share with the masses at school in celebration of my birthday...i can't wait!! i love my birthday...i just can't believe that i will be 40...damn.

ok, enough of that...time for bed (old lady)

[two weeks until my birthday]

peace
[birthday!!] hehehehehe

check in

well, i spent some money and bought a netbook. it is an ASUS-EEE PC. it is a big change from my 17" dell! damn it is small, but the keyboard is almost as large as the other, but just a little closer...just enough that it is hard to go between them. i think i finally have them figured out now i just need to get them linked in some manner. i think it should be easy...the guy at school said it would be really hard to find the secret place where i could copy my favorites and transfer them to the new laptop, but it was WAY easy...don't know if i was just lucky or if they made it not so secret. we shall see about getting things from one laptop to the other which would make it easy to keep things updated between them.

i have been quilting...made three that were going to go to the estuarium, but only 2 will go. f will add some more things to it and then it will be good and another is ready and then another one is too big to go, but i really had a good time making it and used "big stitch" to quilt it...requires using pearle cotton and maybe 4-5 stitches per inch. compared to a "good" quilter might have 10-12 stitches per inch...that is after a lot of practice, etc. i had a good time and things went well...now i am looking for another hand project (knitting) to entertain myself on a trip to Nashville, TN in two weeks...sigh...that is likely to happen this week.

more later...peace