Category: Uncategorized

So I wore a above-the-knee dress today ($13 at Sam’s – I think it was so cheap because the sizing was weird; I usually would wear a medium and the XL fits just right). My co-workers teased me a bit about flashing some leg and one said envious things about my great tan and smooth skin. Seems she didn’t realize I was wearing hose. I told her I had hose on and she looked dubious, then reached down and touched my leg to see if I was telling the truth!

Ah, social skills. You find so many of them among medical professionals…

K called from the airport and noted he just dropped his cell phone, cracked the screen so it’s no longer readable.  This is the impetus we need to invest in new phones, methinks.  Both our phones were very basic models 3+ years ago when we bought them.   At the time we didn’t look at any of the cool stuff you can do other than just call people.

So now I’m looking at what else you can get along with basic cell service.  I’m intrigued by the idea of some sort of internet access connected with the phone bill.  Also curious about cell cameras and how they do, and curious about MP3s stored on the cell phone so I didn’t have to carry a separate device.  But I’m clueless, not even sure where to start reading about what’s out there.  Advice? 

I may read the book referenced in this article. (gleaned from my flist)

I became intrigued by the role of politeness in close relationships after watching a number of couples  who,  after some years of marriage, are reduced to barking commands at one another and squabbling over minutia every day.  Even in the closest of relationships, I have come to believe there’s a real value in taking the momentary effort to be polite.

However, I don’t know if I agree that saying “Please” and “Thank You” equates to insincerity.  There’s a school of thought that says that remembering to say “Thank you” actually reminds you that you are, indeed, thankful in some small way.

What do y’all think?

I hadn’t planned to post on the open-source-boobs issue, but a conversation I was just reading (hi,

greeneyes_rpi

!) gave me a couple flashes of thought that I thought I’d process by writing down and hanging up in the wind for people to take pot-shots at. 

Issue 1:  There are certain issues that drive some of my friends nuts, and leave me curiously unaffected.  This is one of them.  And I have always been made to feel that this is a failing on my part.  It’s just sort of occurred to me that I’m letting my own honest reactions be demonized rather than argue with friends.

Had I seen a bunch of people mingling around with OSB buttons at an event, I’d probably roll my eyes, think it was a bit juvenile, and get on with my life.  I wouldn’t feel threatened and I wouldn’t really feel insulted – though I probably would choose not to hang out with someone who was entertained by the whole thing.  Why am I like that?  Dunno.  My life has included quite a bit of witnessing rampant sexist behavior (hi,

ciaracat

, enjoyed your post earlier!) and at the same time, no direct painful personal experiences involving sexism.  Perhaps that’s left me unempathetic.  My professional training has involved quite a bit of breast-groping, which perhaps also makes me rather unsentimental about breasts in particular. 

So, yeah, I’ve been kind of mulling on finding a balanced position in a situation where there’s both overreaction or underreaction – and wondering whether sometimes I’m made to feel unnecessarily guilty that I’m NOT riled up about some subject or other.

Issue 2:  As I was reading various posts on this and on other sexist environments today, I came to think about the concept of culture vs rights.  Certain activities seem to be attached to distinct cultures, and much brouhaha ensues if you say  “I want to be part of your activity but I’m not willing to accept the associated culture – so therefore you have to change to allow me to participate”. 

Examples: I find that I’ve never chosen to join a church because there are certain cultural aspects in many churches that don’t appeal to me.  (badly worded sentence, may or may not try to edit later).  I chose not to be a surgeon – while I love tools and fixing stuff, the culture of surgeons has aspects that I find repugnant.  I will never willingly live in certain parts of the Middle East because there are aspects of that culture that I wouldn’t want to live in. 

Clearly sometimes it is reasonable to demand that a culture change to make you more comfortable – for example, if women (or some other group) are made to feel uncomfortable in a setting where important business gets done, then they can’t succeed in the business world.  But how do I draw the line?  Clearly it’s also sometimes unreasonable:  shouldn’t say “You Jehovah’s Witnesses should stop prosyletizing ’cause it makes me uncomfortable and I want to be a JW – oh, and while you’re at it you should change your mind about the transfusion thing!” 

So anyway… headed off to dinner now, I look forward to such comments as people feel inclined ot leave!

Work:  Lotsa busy.  Am learning something new every moment, and scrambling to keep up. So far they seem pleased with my progress.  Life will be easier when the new IT girl comes on.  Next week involves two dinner meetings and the week after, will be mostly spent in Dallas.  Last week was a trip to San Antonio.

Home:  Something is wrong with my shower – a few tiles sort of caved in at the base and there’s a gap behind them.  Haven’t got the nerve up yet to pull the tiles off and dig around behind them to see what’s up, tho I have bought the grout-removal kit for my dremel.  I’m hoping it’s a local defect I can fill in, perhaps with some filler epoxy, and replace the tiles without further fuss. 

K:  Is starting to think he’d like to find some new direction professionally.  He’s wondering what sort of opps might be out there in the renewable energy domain…  he’s gotten pretty disgusted with the cancer research thing.  I doubt this line of thought will result in any hard decision-making for months or years to come, but in the meantime he’s buying all kinds of interesting books to browse.  Because, you know, we really needed new books.

Friends:  are as always dear to me.  Spent this morning at a memorial service for one of my dearest friend’s grandmother – I met her only a few times but she seemed to have some of the same qualities I find delightful in my friend.  Spent the afternoon at a wedding shower where the guests of honor (future bride and groom) decided that they’d take the chance to clear out stuff (combining homes does lead to a need to thin out the belongings).  So they had a white elephant gift exchange for the guests!  Hot trading activity for the papasan chair; less interest in the collection of old ties.  Very entertaining.  I realized after that I was crass and left a price tag on my gift to them – and since it was a real bargain I guess they now know how cheap I am.  Not that it’l be a surprise to anyone.  I assume that if I’m planning to give them a nice wedding gift I’m not really obliged to spend a lot on a shower gift as well…  Upcoming weekends will include a child’s birthday party, a beach weekend with friends, and a wedding. 
 
Family:  I finally got around to making the surprise gift payment on my brother’s school loans – have been planning it for a while.  Hope it comes as a nice surprise next time he looks at his balances.  I probably should be thinking about when/how I’m going to arrange to spend time with them over the summer.

Beasties:  Gracie continues to be the cat without fear and we finally gave in to her pleas to allow her to go outside.  We insist on supervising her.  This led to K meeting the neighbors who have lived next door for more than a year – I had to go out of my way to meet them and K never had.  But they wondered why this man was standing in their frontyard looking at their shrubbery, so came out to investigate.  It’s fun to spend a sunny hour or two watching them scamper around chasing butterflies and trying to climb trees.

Other:  I’m sure there’s lots, but K wants to go work out now so I will not write further…

…

Have been busy, I guess.  Thus haven’t posted in a while.

New job is generally fun.  New coworkers are generally pleasant.  I am actually appreciating the more structured environment rather than working from home all the time.

But last weekend involved a lot of business and gardening and watching my beasties chase butterflies in the yard and a birthday party that happened to be scheduled on Easter (my second-favorite holiday that involves candy and the walking dead), where a dunk tank was played with despite the somewhat chilly weather… K said he was entertained by the wet-teeshirt view and I told him those weren’t my boobs, they were just very large goosebumps….

And Monday I spent the evening trying to chase down some data for work and Tuesday was… I don’t remember… and Wednesday (yesterday) evening some wonderful old college friends were in town so this evening was the first night all week I read LJ.  And I don’t think it’s possible to catch up on my whole flist.  So if I missed something you wanted me to read, could you please point me to it?

K is busy trying to arrange a teleconference involving 4 people:  one here, one in DC, one in Scandinavia, and one in Melbourne. 

What’s new with y’all?

We’re having a classic Texas blue norther – wind roars in and the temperature plummets.  The house is getting chilly so the little grey creature comes up and crawls into the little space between me and the back of my chair.  After a few minutes I come to realize how much warmth can be generated by one small cat…wiggly warmth, to be sure.

Tummy is happy after dinner sandwiches composed of grilled portabella, roasted bell pepper, spicy brown mustard, and gruyere on ciabatta (sp?) bread; I’m contemplating a girl scout cookie and an early bedtime. 

Tomorrow I get to dress up in suit-type clothes and go present the report I wrote last week to the client’s board.  I feel so grown-up…

Fri after work tried out the gym in my new office – fairly deserted, I got in a good workout and cleaned up in time for dinner.  Dinner was with the usual gang, middle eastern food.  Mmmmm, baba ganoush!

Sat AM got my tail out of bed and ran a couple errands – a gift for a birthday party, a tool I needed.  Then over to a friend’s house where we erected about 8 ft of cedar fence in her yard, completed and looking good in time to keep her homeowner’s association from suing her 🙂

Sat afternoon was a friend’s kid’s birthday party – cute kid, lotsa fun adults there, generally nice.  Came home and did some housecleaning until dinnertime, then had italian food at a new place with friends.  Wasn’t so impressed with the restaurant – too much onion in my chicken masala – but the company was good.  Came home and crashed relatively early.

This AM, worked out with trainer, then a big brunch with various people including the always-wonderful nicoleallee and johnbrandon.  I am always in a good mood after hanging out with those two.  Stopped by to see a friend’s newly-purchased house, then home to do some gardening and housework.  The after-dark hours have been spent puttering – catching up on LJ, cleaning off a bit of my desk although there’s a lot left to go.  Playing with cats – Judy is my personal paper-shredder, helping me dispose of already-scanned documents…

Tomorrow I must buy gas on the way to work. 

Huh, reading over that my life sounds boring.  I kind of enjoy it, though!

Missed Christmas… Missed New Year’s… Missed MLK day and Valentines day… but have a standard “holiday letter” assembled in time for President’s day!  If you’d like me to send you a copy snail-mail or electronic – let me know what address to send it to.

Well, two weeks ago our garage door opener went kaput.  Assessment revealed it had shredded an integral gear that was cleverly made of plastic.  The thing was clearly not designed to be repaired (key components riveted instead of screwed, etc), so I figured I’d replace it.  But it was our anniversary weekend so I deferred the job.  And then there were other obligations… and then I got sick… and then this and that… so the opener didn’t get replaced until today.

As often happens, the project ended up being far more complicated than it should have.  Stupid little details like my garage not having quite enough clearance between the top of the garage door and the rafters gave me sticky technical details to contemplate.  The outlet that was perfectly placed for the old opener was positioned exactly where the new opener was supposed to go, so the outlet had to be moved.  My best drill seems to have burned itself out somehow… suddenly started making odd sparks and smoke which seems like a bad sign; I wasn’t even straining it particularly so maybe the replacement battery I recently bought was the culprit?  Or maybe it’s just old… though ironic that I finished up the job with Granddaddy’s old drill which is probably 40+ years old. 

But now I can open and close the garage door smoothly from the little button by the door, and from either clicker unit, and also from the built-in buttons in our cars, which is pretty cool.  (turns out that the car instruction manual didn’t include the essential step for programming the thing, but fortunately google knows all).

In the process I had to haul out a ton of stuff that was stored by the edges of the door… and it made me realize how much I need to declutter the garage. 

And this all leads to an interesting question:  I’m accumulating quite a pile of the sort of stuff that  might be useful to someone someday.  The old garage door opener, for example, will never work as a garage door opener again – but contains a working electric motor, a long length of chain, a pair of laser sensor things… there’s a kid’s science project in there somewhere!  And I hate throwing out useful stuff.  BUT I have sworn to myself that I will not be stockpiling random spare parts until my garage is completely neat and organized again. 

So… anyone want a bunch of “parts”?  I know that if I gave it to a conventional charity like Goodwill, it’d go in the trash. So if no one claims it, I’ll probably try offering it on Craigslist…  free to whoever comes by to pick it up.