Category: Uncategorized

OK, in response to a flurry of people feeling yucky grumpy all at once on my flist, I decided to try to create a meme.

Here’s the challenge:

• Pick a positive mood from the LJ list, such as “accomplished” or “excited”.
• Define it or write down a few synonyms.
• Write down five reasons why you ought to feel this way.
• Spread the meme.

Let’s see how this works….

An article in which the author asks various people on the street if they’d be willing to wear a t-shirt saying “This is what a feminist looks like”. 

Best quote:  ‘But isn’t carrying this slogan on a T-shirt encouraging men to stare at women’s chests? “It is a possible design flaw,” admits Rake. “But on the other hand, if they’re going to look at your chest anyway they may as well get a message at the same time, right?”‘

Makes me think about shiv5468‘s comments the other day about how empty rhetoric in support of a good cause is actually a good first step – if you get everyone saying the right things (even if they don’t believe them), then it creates an environment where people are gradually convinced to actually believe those things.  And kids grow up hearing the right things.

Random thoughts, random connections….

I bought one of these and a similar thing with two long drawers, three little ones for my desktop.  Things look much neater now.  I like Ikea.  I could easily spend way too much money there, which is funny since their stuff is really quite inexpensive.

They should put up some sort of a site where you submit pictures of their stuff in your house – in return for which you get a coupon for your next purchase or something.

On other fronts, have been working steadily on a project for work and another for school.  Had what felt like a productive meeting with my advisor this afternoon.  Got my car’s oil changed and they replaced out a small part that was under recall.  And I decided to skip a grand rounds lecture about professionalism, which probably means I needed to hear it…

We did our clean-up activities today.  We went through the 3 rooms that I most needed K’s input about – and cleared out a bunch of stuff.  Our approach was “Please put away the stuff that has a home, and make piles for things to get rid of, and things to keep but currently we don’t have a home for them.”

It was relatively painless, we have another load of stuff for Goodwill, and it was sort of funny to hear K say things like “Hey, I forgot I bought these pants!  Looks like I’ve never worn them…”

Now there’s clear space.  If we had people over and wanted to play cards, it’d be the work of a few seconds to clear the coffee table for the game. 

Aaaaaaaah.

I still need to clear off my workspace, and sort through some piles of my own stuff.  But I can do that without worrying that I’m going to get rid of something that was precious to K. 

Once I get the stuff cleared out and the professional repairs done (tree removal, roof replacement) then it’ll be lots easier to embark on my own improvement projects indoors and out, without feeling worried that later work will undo my efforts.

Am thinking about the pros and cons of hiring an electrician to rewire the house, versus doing it piecemeal myself as I do other improvements room-by-room.

Also wondering about the cost of replacement windows, and how hard they’d be to do myself.

While I’m jealous of the weather that auspeople are experiencing, I still am enjoying the somewhat cooler temperatures here and still determined to bring my garden back from the dead.  Or the jungle, as this is Houston. 

I’m realizing (reference above walkway idea) that the really great gardens don’t just have neat plants.  They also have well-though-out hardscape.  Pathways, benches, planters, retaining walls and edging, even a little potting shed will make my garden much more pleasant.

And tiki torches.  Must get some stands in place so I can put out and light the tiki torches.  Citronella oil will drive the insects away and I can sit on the patio in the flickering torchlight with a glass of wine, and contemplate my little patch of suburbia. 

Now for a late dinner and maybe I’ll seduce K for the evening’s entertainment  🙂

Just wrote, then revised, then revised again, an email to a fellow who’s rapidly making his way to my “never work with” list.

Hopefully this will shut him up. I don’t like alienating people in my field but if he responds with more condescending bullshit I will have a hard time avoiding an unfriendly response.

Grrr.

Splinters. 

The advice I give to patients who are under the weather is “Stay home from work.  Let yourself rest and get better, and when you think you’re well again stay home one additional day to be sure”.

Granted there’s a few people who will abuse that advice, but most people need permission to take care of themselves.

For example, I hadn’t taken a sick day in over 3 years.

So, I came down with some sort of nasty tummy bug last night.  Wasn’t up to par this AM, and actually decided to call in sick.  And when the office manager asked if I would be back tomorrow, I…. took my own advice.  And cleared tomorrow’s schedule.

So now I can get a good night’s sleep and actually have a day to finish getting well and to catch up on missed work and to clear up some of the debris from sitting around feeling sorry for myself.  Kind of nice, really.

On other fronts, have decided to sell my chipper-shredder.  I don’t use it enough to justify owning it.  Just have to figure out a reasonable way of putting it out on the market…

Started with a productive day; after breakfast with friends I managed to put together a set of recommendations that I’d been putting off for a few weeks. Stopped to pick up a gift at the bookstore and had lunch with my students.  Got another long-standing, niggling task out of the way in the afternoon.

Also managed to drag an enormous pile of brush and branches from my backyard to the front curb:  tomorrow’s “large trash pickup day” which occurs once a month.  I keep forgetting about it so the pile has become rather enormous.  Now there’s a nice empty spot in my yard which will (hopefully) cover over with nice lawn and stop being an eyesore.  The realization that we’ll be hosting a large number of out-of-town relatives and friends in a few months has rather galvanized me to action…  I’m trying to arrange for an attractive home and yard to impress people I don’t see that often.  Which doesn’t really make a lot of sense; wouldn’t it be more motivating to impress the people I see all the time, since they’re obviously more important to me?

So instead I’ll make it my goal to create a garden that nicoleallee will want to sit in on a long, lazy fall/spring afternoon.  When the ligustrum isn’t in bloom, of course.

K has promised that we’ll do a sweep through the house and get rid of stuff we haven’t been using for years, over the weekend.  I’m good with that. However, if I’m to be truly honest about this process I probably should sell the chipper-shredder, which hasn’t been used in a year and takes up a lot of space in the garage.  It was a thoroughly frivolous purchase, after all.

At this point, though, I’m inexplicably exhausted and not feeling great – so will probably sleep early and hope to feel better tomorrow.

I was walking through the med center, enjoying the fact that the weather’s cooled off and glorying in the fact that my meeting ran only a half-hour longer than scheduled. 

Ahead of me I saw K, leading a group of people – he appeared to be giving a bit of a tour or something.  I didn’t know any of the people.  As they drew closer I heard him discussing what a friendly city we live in, how the people are so nice and accomodating, even if you don’t know them. 

So as they drew even with me he barely paused, just reached out and swept an arm around me, planted a big kiss on my lips, then released me and continued on his tour. 

Only a little eeeevil.

A little further along, found a little old man limping along.  “Excuse me, miss, is this the way to the VA hospital?”  He was at least two miles away from the VA, and not looking really very fit.  So I walked him across the street (I’m a regular boy scout!) and to the bus stop, queried the people at the stop about which line made it all the way to Holcombe and Almeda, and made sure they all knew to help the guy get onto the right bus.  He said he had a bus pass so I didn’t bother to give him a dollar for the fare.  He also said he had a ride home after his appointment at the VA, so I don’t have to worry that he’ll be stuck there forever.

The people at the stop were a little reticent at first but this guy starts rambling on about how without our help he would’ve found himself walking in the wrong direction “doing a Gump, you know, like that guy who was in that movie The Right Stuff?  He’s such a good actor…”  I asked “Are we talking about Tom Hanks?” (was he even in The Right Stuff?) and he lit up “Yeah, that’s the guy!” and somehow by now the half-dozen people at the bus stop were all paying attention and all smiled and laughed when he started going on about Tom Hanks… so I think I left him in friendly hands.

‘Cause when you get down to it, this is a friendly city.  It is the kind of place where you can ask a stranger for directions and feel fairly sure they’ll be given.  They may not be correct, mind you.  And they’re likely to contain useful phrases like “turn left where the old Bellaire Theater used to be”.  But they’ll be given.

Now to get some work done…  On call tonight, bleah.