Blogging, the even quicker version

Sorry, kind of forgot and now I've got other things that need doing. Back tonight, maybe, if I find myself in the mood.

In the meantime, you can play Spot the Crow if you like. Yeah, there's a crow in the pointless photo.

Somewhere.

Blogging, the quick version

The event featured in today's pointless photo wasn't exactly a party, despite what the grill may be telling you, but it did mark the first time we'd had the thing out this year. That was last week. There's a lot less snow now, in case anyone was concerned that the Great White North really does stay white that long.

And with that...

Well, as the title says this'll be quick because technically I'm working right now. Just taking a moment to recover from an attempt at feeding the world's dumbest garter snake (which is appropriately named Lost. Its roommate, of course, bears the moniker Found).

And why exactly am I blogging now? We're going out for lunch today, and since I normally blog on my lunch hour... you can do the math, I'm sure. Also, I'll be too sushied to care much about blogging later if all goes according to plan.

You wouldn't have wanted me to blog today anyway. It's one of those days. One of those days in which I can tell you precisely what three in the morning was like, that is.

Yep.

Off I go, then.




You can decide for yourself whether to take that literally or metaphorically.

A couple of good things to know

1. Yellow pads and cutting boards are not the same thing.
2. Craft scalpels are sharp for a reason.

Relax, it was just an observation. I still have all of my fingers. Wheat can give you confirmation on that if you'd like.

----------

So anyway. Here we are, back at work after a couple of days kneeling on the floor and trying to save the life of one third of a plastic man (no wonder the poor guy's dying, by the way. If I was missing all of my body except for the head and chest, I'd probably be dying too). The bad knee, as you can imagine, is most decidedly not happy.

Ah well. Where else can you go to hear the memorable words, "ok everyone. Pull out your lungs and throw them in the garbage can"?

Now, obviously I wasn't only trying to save the life of the plastic man.

I was also trying to save the life of the plastic baby.






Ok, ok, and I also do a pretty mean ankle splint. Self will out, after all. Knowing my ankle, I really should be able to do a pretty mean ankle splint. You just never know when it might come in handy.

But you're not here to hear me rattle on about the wonders of first aid (or why, at one point, I found myself pretending to have a strawberry in my ear. Incidentally, if you're pretending to have a strawberry in your ear, the right answer to most of the questions anybody asks you is WHAT???). It's not like I really have anything else to talk about, actually, but since I'm sure you don't want to hear about solar motion demonstrators either, even if I did spend a bit too much time cutting one out this morning (using my craft scalpel and a yellow pad as a cutting board, yes)... um, sorry. Where was that sentence going, exactly? It seems to have gotten away from me somehow.

Everything's about normal around the blog, then.

We could end with a belated question for the t.v. club, I guess. Not a test, since I couldn't be bothered with playing school marm today, but a vitally important question nonetheless. Here it comes:

Precisely which beverage do you think that a bag full of television prop pee resembles most?

Feel free to discuss over wine gums.




Oh, and before I go... the pointless photo is just to show the Toronto office that we have a few things growing around here as well. And, er, thanks for the camel?

Spring has come to Ontario

Or at least to my front lawn. I thought the OLF would enjoy this what with the temperatures "out there" ("out there" being Alberta) bouncing all over the place. Ah, yes, the hope of spring.

I know spring is in the air because yesterday it was necessary to put up with what felt like grit-filled eyes in two different spots in one of the other parks we frequent. Sumac ... it's out there! And it's number one on my ah, geez list.

The pups however found the small creek in no time and a good, if not slightly pungent, time was had by all.

Sometimes animals show us how overdone life can be. They played for an hour with a water bottle that was repeatedly tossed in the water for them. It's a parallel to small children banging on the pots and pans, I suppose. It's just not necessary to entertain them or put out money every time you shop for food. For either species.

You think yuppies dress their animals in funny clothes

This is a camel, yes, not a funny-looking horse that went too close to a nuclear plant. This is a real camel, being in Egypt and all.

The nifty thing is that it's an actual photograph taken by a family member, there in person. The even niftier thing is that he was there on someone else's dime, working. Ah, it's a wonderful life. Or something.

When you click to enlarge the picture, you'll see why my first reaction was "poor thing" but then the beast doesn't know any different and probably doesn't have to worry about other camels mocking him. Erm, her?

And just for your added enjoyment, on the enlargement, take a look at the man behind Carl the camel. I can't be the only one who saw humour in that.


To the T.V. Club... I understand there will be a quiz when SWMBO returns.

So let's play

Today's game is Where's Smudgo! That's right, Bob ... tell them what they'll win!

This is Smudge. This is Smudge hiding of course. She's a calico as anyone knows who's paid attention over the years and so, apparently, is the handmade quilt from Mennonite country. I wonder if she's part ostrich, in her mind. And if that needs explaining you're worse off than me and *I* haven't had coffee yet.

Anyway, I'd wanted a real quilt for some time and you have to admit that Mr. Smudge did a great job in choosing the colours. It was he, you see, who was in the right place at the right time and lugged it back to Canada from that other country to the south of us. It weighs a ton being filled with woollen something or the other and is one of those purchases one grits one's teeth over and just pays the cash, expecting it to be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. And it surely will be.

And it doubles as a Smudge hiding place. Bonus.

Underpants

Well, did that title get your attention?

The pointless photo, of course, has nothing to do with underpants.

This post probably won't have much to do with them either. Or at least it wouldn't have, until I went and typed Underpants in the title field. Now I suppose I should make it right and say at least a few things about them.

Or the lack of them.

Did you know that three different people have told me stories that involved going commando in the last two days? Kind of an odd coincidence there.

Incidentally, if you're planning on going commando it's probably a good idea to not walk around with your fly open. And if you absolutely must walk around with your fly open, it's a kindness to your coworkers to make sure you choose attractive or at the very least interesting underpants to flash to the world.

Yeah, that's one of those you-had-to-be-there moments. And don't worry -- it's not Wheat who's been traipsing around the place looking a little less than fully dressed.

I think that's all I have to say about underpants just at the moment.

Does anyone else think it strange, though, that I rarely use the term knickers (ok, that part's not so strange when you consider that I'm Canadian and we tend to follow the American terminology when it comes to underthings) unless it's follwed by in a twist?

Somehow knickers in a twist is much more satisfying to say than panties in a bunch. Not sure why on that one.

----------

I shall be away from all things computer for the next couple of days.

*waits patiently for the groans of disappointment to subside*






Geez, people. You could at least pretend.

I'll be spending the next two days getting my first aid and CPR back up to date. I'm a little later on it than I usually like to be, but thankfully no one around me has attempted to die lately so it doesn't really matter.

I've done the course enough times over the years that I'd probably be all right anyway, but still.

Even when my certification's up to date, I usually try to take the full course rather than the shorter recertification whenever I can. I don't think the refresher hurts anything, and there are generally enough changes to the CPR methodology that a person may just as well do everything over again.

I have to be certified for work, in case anyone hadn't come to that rather obvious conclusion on his or her own.

I'd likely do it even without that requirement, though.

The fact is, I've been certified since I was about twelve (if you don't count the occasional time that I've let it lapse for a year or two... like now, for example). I did my first course through swimming lessons, if I remember right, and after that I kept it up because I was doing a fair amount of babysitting. Seemed like a good idea to know what to do if one of the little shi... darlings decided to do themselves an injury.

After all these years it should be second nature, I suppose, but like I said a few lines ago I don't think the refersher hurts anything.

Besides, I need the paperwork. Or rather, my personnel file does.

So anyway, I'll be off pretending to save the world until Thursday. That means the t.v. club will have to police itself, although I may be asking for reports later. Oh, and if you watch the show on the American channel things'll apparently be starting exactly seven minutes late, just so that you know.

How they know it will be exactly seven minutes late is beyond me, but then I'm also the one who started a post with the word underpants just to see if anyone actually reads the titles.

Draw your own conclusions there, I guess.

See you in a couple of days.

Snot

Snot is not the name of the self-portrait, if anyone was wondering. Snot is just the excuse du jour for not being in the mood to post.

I've moved pretty much directly from the end of that last cold to the beginning of spring allergy season.

Yippee.

It's snow moulds now, but with luck that should be ending quickly. It has to make way for the poplar pollen, after all.







Anyway.

I'm at work at the moment, and I'm finding that simple fact mildly annoying. Working on a Sunday, I mean.

That alone is a little bit weird, and I'm going to blame it on snot because it's convenient.

The reason it's weird to be annoyed by working on a Sunday is that I've spent a fairly large part of my professional life working on weekends. It used to be just a normal thing for me, but now for some reason it's become annoying.

That doesn't make sense, and I'm the first one to admit it.

Why should it annoy me to be working on a Sunday? I've just come from two days off, so it's not like I haven't had a proper weekend. I can often get more done on a Sunday because there are less distractions. The person I'm working with is very nice and quite capable, so I don't feel like I'm babysitting or anything.

So why annoyed?

I'm beginning to think that I'm merely annoyed to be working. Now, don't get me wrong. Working is undoubtedly a good thing, especially if you like paying your bills. I, however, am not supposed to be working now.

Not full-time, anyway.

It's completely thrown off my rhythm.

I'm used to being full-time seasonally and then casual the rest of the year. Working now is just... well, it's wrong. When the alarm goes off in the morning my first thought tends to be what the hell??? and that feeling doesn't really go away all day.

My entire psyche is confused.





I'm not at all a creature of habit, you know.

And Wheat... I still want my filing cabinet back. Just in case you thought I'd forgotten.

Ah well. Speaking of work, I suppose I should get back at it. One thing before I sign off, though: WAKE UP, T.V. CLUB. Consider this your early warning. I know that most of you have forgotten that the show exists after so many breaks, but apparently we'll be in fine wine gum fettle for the next few weeks.

I kind of get tired of holding your collective hand sometimes, folks, but I do what I can.

I need to go blow my nose now.

To each his own

So I take the cat out because he wants to go exploring -- incidentally, I'm not sure how he becomes so certain that it's spring (seeing that he's largely an indoor cat and shouldn't have too many clues about the weather), but once he knows it's warm out the howling doesn't stop until he sees his harness being taken down -- and rather than check out the yard he decides to spend his time doing exciting things like sniffing the father figure's SUV.

Ah well, whatever.

Is it too early in the post to say that I don't really feel like posting?

No serious reason. It's just that I did my taxes last night and paid my bills this morning, so at the moment the five-year-old in me is saying that I deserve a reward and should be allowed to play for the rest of the morning rather than trying to be lucid, enlightening, or vaguely interesting.

Not that I'm saying the blog is ever any of the above. I aim for it occasionally, but I've probably mentioned once or twice that I'm fairly nearsighted.

Couldn't hit a rock with the broad side of a barn, I mean.

What? You tell me I can't use myopia as an excuse for the pointlessness of the blather? Ok, but I really think it should be good for something. Why not use it as a general excuse for pretty much everything?

Anyway, I'd much sooner waste a bit of time with a game or something than try to come up with a topic today. So...







Oh, wait. One thing. Remember how I said yesterday that I was probably talking about stars in my sleep? Well, last night (or should I say this morning?) the dog alarm decided that we had to be up at about 4 am, and when I woke up the cats had been... you guessed it... helping me with an imaginary planetarium program. Quite the dream, actually. They were pretty decent about the whole thing.

Wheat, I think I may need hazard pay if this keeps up.

vroomvroomvroom...

What??? A girl needs her toys, you know.

Besides, I've already told you that we're on pointless photo dregs at the moment until I get a chance to take some new (pointless) shots.

Hey Wheat! Did I actually bother to tell anyone that I wasn't coming in to work today? Probably not.

Ah well. Breaks my heart.

----------

I have no idea what if anything is coming out in the blatherage today. I'm tired. It was a long, busy week. I'm seeing stars when I close my eyes, and I probably talked about them in my sleep. I don't think the cat minded, though. He may even have learned something.

Now I've got the music playing and the laundry spinning. In other words, I'm trying my best to have a weekend.

Yes, that's what passes for a weekend in my life. And shut up, world.

I'm not sure about this whole work thing. Seems to be a lot more time-consuming than I remember it being. And... it also seems to be involving a lot more bruising than it used to. You should see my legs just now. Nothing but black and blue marks.

Looks suspiciously like I've taken a job as a substitute goal post.

I had a few things I could be typing about, but I think the window of opportunity's closed already. Somehow it's hard to work up a head of steam about, say, equipment failure of the support variety (read that as: why do underwires always seem to pop just at the worst possible time?) when that was days ago now and was remedied by an unscheduled drive across town to my apartment and back in between programs.

Besides, that'd likely be a TMI post for most of you anyway.

We could talk about other support issues, I suppose. I posed this question to the Toronto office a little while ago and I'm still not quite sure what to do about it. Lately I've been wearing my ankle brace almost constantly because programming in the planetarium (what with set-up, take-down, and crawling around on the floor inside the thing) is really hard on the effed-up joint. Wearing the brace has been a big help to the general pain level I have every day (and yes, I am one of those who just expects a certain amount of pain every day. Nature of the injury, as my two fans already know), but it also means that my muscles are getting lazy because they're not having to work as hard as they usually do.

This in turn means that walking without the brace isn't exactly comfortable these days.

I should add here (yet again) how much I hate wearing ankle braces. There's a reason for that, but since I'll probably need that topic another day I won't waste it now.

So here's the problem: does a person go back to constantly wearing a brace that she, for the most part, loathes? Having less pain is definitely a good thing, but on the other hand if the joint's not being worked the problem is likely to get worse as I get older. It probably will anyway, if I'm being honest, but this might make it happen more quickly.

Or it may just work the opposite way and slow down the deterioration completely. Maybe I should be wearing a damned brace all the time and it's my own stubbornness that's making things bad in the first place.

No idea, in the end.

And if anyone's wondering why I don't just ask my doctor... well, mind your own business. Er, that is, maybe I will when I go in for my usual spring can't-breathe-because-of-the-stupid-tree-pollen appointment. That'll be coming up pretty soon, and it always makes me cranky because it always goes the same way and yet I still have to do it every freaking spring.

Ah, but now I'm getting snitty.

Must be the hint to stop typing.

Snittiness, or the fact that I need to change laundry loads.








Either way, I'm off.





Shut up, Wheat.

Twinkle twinkle

It's still too chilly to be out there at night to get a good shot of the stars to make every wish come true, you see, so what you do get is an angled photo (because yes we know she likes pattern and oddities, the OLF) of trees half-blocking the bright 1:56 p.m. sun thus producing the points.

And lest you think I'm cheating again, this is not the same photo of the sun through the willows; that contained more of an orb. Oh you just know someone out there is keeping score.

All in the name of spring-cleaning, I guess, my hard-drive has even been tidied and swept a little. After the house was done, my brain just kept on going. Have to watch that.


Guess that means forays out into the real world with the camera. Shame that. You know, just wandering around looking for decent snapshots of the world instead of cleaning the house or doing laundry or paying bills ...

Do you know what I want?

No, not a wet brick. I didn't get a chance to take the camera out last week, so we're sort of on the dregs just now. If you look carefully you can see the drips from the downspout, though.

Drips aren't what I want either, by the way. I have enough of those in my life already.

No, what I want just for a few hours is to be back in that part of life where singing Twinkle Twinkle really does make the stars come out.

I should mention before I get much further that I've been working with ECS kids for the past couple of days. It's fun, but it'll make it that much harder to go back to Grade Six mentality tomorrow.

The problem with wanting to be back in kindergarten, however, is that it's very much a case of misplaced nostalgia. All I'd have to do is bring it up with my family to find out in a hurry that I never was the ideal of a carefree child. I was bookish, I was neurotic (yes, already), and I couldn't walk properly.

Ah, the good old days.

Still can't walk properly, actually, but that's a completely different topic that will crop up here more often than you want to hear about anyway and I say let's leave it for now so that you're not prematurely sick of it.

And don't bother to even check the grammar on that last sentence. It'd make your eyes bleed.

I suppose what I want is to be something that I'm incapable of being. I'm not wired to do simple pleasure, really. I'm always too busy worrying about what the end result will be.

I have a bit of trouble stopping my brain, you see.

OLF.

But in the end, would I be happy if I could be something that I'm incapable of being? If something happened tomorrow that made it possible for me to stop and count dandelions without five thousand other things going on in my head, would it really be what I want?

I certainly wouldn't be me anymore.

Bit of a pickle, that. Can a person be happy if she's lost part of what makes her herself?

It's kind of like the whole bipolar thing. You hear of so many bipolar people who resist taking drugs to lessen the swings (and if anyone hasn't seen Stephen Fry's The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, it's worth a look. Not the easiest thing to find on this side of the pond, but there are definitely ways) because they're uncertain about losing such a large part of how they identify themselves.

Is happiness more important than self-identity?

No clue, obviously.

But I can't help wondering. In the end, maybe what I really want is the chance to try (for a day or maybe even an hour) being something other than I am with no consequences. Would I like it? Would it make me appreciate what I already have?

Dunno.




These posts almost always end that way, if you hadn't noticed. And then they say something like I need to get back to work.

I do, actually.

This got a bit weirder than I was planning it to anyway. I guess that's what a person gets for trying to post while carrying on a text conversation and eating lunch all at the same time.

Ok then.

Back to work.







Incidentally, how do you feel about facial hair?

I ....

.... drove to take this pointless picture and by ~insert deity of your choice here~ it's going to be included in the blog today.

Lovely blue sky, artsy-looking wild grass. The last bit of snow fighting against the sunlight to stay.

Darn near poetic. Not intentionally but there ya go.

Pointless photo of the day:

Hey, look. It's my stylin' red boots again for no apparent reason.

I like the boots. I so very rarely buy colourful boots, you know.

I'm going to miss the stylin' red boots when they're gone.

And yes, this has nothing to do with anything. Except for the fact that I occasionally include pieces of myself in these exercises in pointless photography.

Call it pointless portraiture, I suppose.

----------

So. My day started off with an oh, hell (actually, it was more of an oh, something else but we'll recap my views on self-censorship in print another time. And yes, I do mean recap. I've blathered on about the whole thing many times on the old blog, so I can pretty much guarantee it'll show up here eventually). As opposed to yesterday, when my day started off with a did I really mean to set the alarm THAT early?

And yes, I did.

Anyway, I managed to get a program time confused in my own brain today (entirely my fault, and you don't hear me saying that often enough), so I had to scramble to get myself ready for something that I wasn't planning to have to scramble to get ready for.

And I don't care at all if that last sentence made any sense.

I don't like being rushed into programs. I'm always set up monstrously early, and it's not because I'm completely neurotic about last-minute equipment problems. Or at least it's not just because of that.

Actually, it's largely because of that.

It also, though, has something to do with the way I prepare myself. Interpretation has a lot in common with dramatic performance, or at least it does for me. I need time to get myself... oh, I don't know... if I said I need time to get into the character of myself as an interpreter you're all going to wonder just how mad I really am.

And shut up, world.

It's me in front of a group, yes, but it's most certainly a different me than the me who comes back to the office and snarks off at Wheat afterwards.

And both of those mes (me looks weird as a plural. I guess that should tell me something right there) are different than the me who shows up at my apartment later, or goes out with friends (I do too have friends. Didn't I already do the shut up, world thing? That's your second warning then), or hangs out at my father's place on weekends.

Yes, they're all technically the same person. I'm not exactly Sybil, no matter what people may tell you. I do, however, put different versions of myself out there for different occasions. Interpreter Me is one of them, and it (she? I suppose I shouldn't really refer to myself in neuter) takes a little bit of work to get going.

And the reason, you soon-to-be-declared-whackjob?

I'm shy.






Yep.

I've mentioned this before to the internet at large, but for those just joining the blatherage I thought (for whatever reason) you ought to know that this particular weirdo who grew up doing the amateur theatre thing, who's sang in numerous concerts over the years, who earns her living by making an arse of herself in front of large groups of strangers... is SHY. Shy, shy, shy, and spends an awful lot of time wondering how she ended up where she did and doing what she does.

I'll stop talking about myself in the third person now, if everyone's agreeable.

I'm by far not the only shy person in the world who lives by massive overcompensation, though. I think that if you really looked at the people you're surrounded by in daily life, you'd find out that a lot of the most outgoing or at least loud folks you meet are the ones who inside are actually hoping you don't notice how much more comfortable they'd be if there was only a handy hole nearby to crawl into.

The fun comes when shy turns itself into SOCIAL ANXIETY (yes, in big bold capital letters). It's amazing how many ways a person can find to turn down an invitation if one puts enough effort into it, really.

But maybe we'll save that for another time. I need to get back to work, and in less than an hour I need to put on the Interp make-up again.




What can I say? It's a living.

I wonder if Wheat would mind adding a hole to the office.

Well now really

With the first day of spring around the corner or at least Wednesday, here's one last shot of winter. That's not to say winter won't take one last shot, you understand. This is, after all, March. In Ontario.

Having said that, we could be up to our ankles in mud in the park by Wednesday, the pups and I. Yep, another promise of good weather that everyone who does not own animals is happy for most likely.

And wouldn't that be a picture, come to think of it. The mud thing, I mean, yes.

Yeah, whatever

Tired. Cranky. Not looking forward to the next few days.

So, how the hell are you?

I've got nothing, by the way. It's sort of a shame, I suppose, because my computer time will be a bit hit or miss in the next while and by rights I should try to make this post at least a little worth reading.

I should.

I'm not going to bother.

Don't care. Tired and cranky, remember? And it's a dull, windy day out there. That part really shouldn't matter since I'm in here rather than out there, but it still puts a damper on a mood that didn't need a damper in the first place.

Anyway, this is your notice that I won't be online tomorrow. Yep, you'll just have to go a day without a quality post like this one.

I can tell that you're beside yourself with grief.





Going now.

It ain't over 'til it's over ....

.... in Ontario, anyway. Winter I mean.

I admit nothing by way of responsibility but one of my good winter jackets (as opposed to dog-related winter jackets) did get laundered the other day with the thought of putting it away for the season.

Then it snowed last night, yes. And dropped to minus 13 this morning.


The pointless photo of the day is a shot taken looking directly down at a pool in the park which had thawed only to refreeze and make the pretty picture. It's nice of nature to cooperate like that.

After all, none of these words would make sense without the illustration. That could very well be the case regarding every post emanating from Ontario, come to think of it.

Anyway, given the choice between the dull days which become warmer due to the amount of cloud cover present to keep the heat at ground level ~and~ the sunny, crisp blue sky days where the heat zooms away from the earth, and given that it is mid-March, I guess I'll take the bright, cooler days where a person can see their own shadow.

I'm tired of feeling like a lower life form growing in .... the dark.

Whut? It's what I intended to say all along.

And just for anyone keeping score: ice, zero; human one. Not even a slide or a slip today. Yet.

Ahhh, we live in hope. And sadly, the land of ice and snow.

Pointless TMI moment of the day:

I sneezed myself into a nosebleed this morning.

Now there's a great way to start the day.

It wasn't a bad one, if anyone was worried. It did, however make me slightly afraid to blow my nose until about mid-morning. By that point there was very little other choice but to blow, potential nosebleed be damned.

Wheat says the sniffling doesn't drive him nuts (gee. You'd think he has young kids or something) but it comes pretty darn close for me. Yes, my own sniffling drives me nuts. And it's not a happy sight to see when a grown woman starts yelling at herself to just go get a tissue already.

Gee, I love colds.

----------

The pointless photo of the day, I should mention, is the end of winter. Yep, that's where winter ends, right there. Not that I'm saying that winter is over. I'm in Alberta, after all. It'd be stupid to say that winter is over at this point in the year.

Winter in my father's yard just happens to end right there, that's all.

Or maybe he'd been out chipping the ice from the pathway.




That wouldn't be nearly as interesting, though.

----------

Apparently I'll be spending the afternoon drawing birds and spiders to the best of my limited ability. Does that strike anyone else as weird? To be paid for doodling, I mean. Yes, there's a purpose to today's efforts, but it just goes against logic that I, the so-called zoologist (well, at least my university degree calls me a zoologist), will be paid to play artist for a while.

For those new to the program, this isn't the first time it's happened.

I draw. A little. For many, many years that was a deep dark secret. Members of my own family were surprised to find out that I liked to doodle. No one here at work had the foggiest idea that I knew which end of a pencil is supposed to contact the paper.

It's the sharper end, for anyone who wasn't sure.

I'm not entirely sure when things changed. I must have received positive feedback about something at some point (I'm nothing if not Pavlovian), because I ended up sort of unexpectedly doing a bit of doodling here at work. It started with quick weed sketches (not marijuana, no. We're not quite that hippie here) for an edible plant display, and it's since moved on.

Dangerously.

As in I think my boss may believe I'm capable of more than I am.

Ah well. I guess I should post this so I can get to the important stuff.






Doodling.



My job is so weird.

When I say Ides, you say...

Beware, probably. How many of you have had at least a fleeting thought that today is somehow ill-omened or at least unlucky?

Ok, now how many of you are under delusions of Caesarhood?

Shall I tell you what the Ides really are?






You better have said yes, because I'm going to do it anyway.

Originally, when the Romans were using lunar months, the Ides were the days when the Full Moon fell. That's it. No bad luck, no nothing else. The Kalends were the first day(s) of the month and marked New Moon, the Nones marked First Quarter Moon, and the Ides marked Full Moon.

Things changed rather a lot when the Romans later decided to fix their (at that point) effed-up calendar and make it more reflective of the solar year, but if you want the details on that kind of thing you're better off going someplace like here instead of expecting me to type it all out using my somewhat selective memory of my university Classics courses. In fact, follow that link anyway. It's got loads of interesting information about all kinds of calendars.

I like calendars, you know.

Incidentally, if you can remember the word Kalends you stand a better chance at getting the a's and the e's in the right order when you spell calendar. Just saying. And if anyone's looking for a handy Latin proverb (and I know you are) why not try Ad Kalendas Graecas? It means At the Greek Kalends, and is pretty much the Roman equivalent of when pigs fly. The Greek calendar didn't have kalends, you see.

Which means they didn't call their calendar a calendar either, but if you start thinking about things like that your brain may start to smoke if you're not careful.

This is your brain. This is your brain on non-calendar calendars. Any questions?

----------

Here's your warning that I may have something to be cranky about soon. Wheat's in the mood to move furniture, apparently.

Actually, rather than coming across as a total snot I'll say that I can understand why he wants to do it, but if he starts moving things around you have to know that I'll end up moving things around too and the end result is that I won't be getting my filing cabinet back (or at least back where it belongs). That's a tragedy, you see. The filing cabinet (beside, not inside) is how I hide from the rest of the people who work here, and if I lose my place to hide then people will know I'm here and that leads to people expecting me to TALK to them.

I mean, really.

If I wanted to speak to people I'd go home.






And talk to the voices.
The voices are very lonely at the moment, after all, being left home by themselves all day.
Wheat, I'm not sure I can deal with not having my filing cabinet...

More green things

Ok, so it's not as showy as the portulaca below. But still.

Yeah, hardy primulas are a little weird as to when they decide it's growin' time again.

It's something, anyway. In a grasping-at-straws sort of way.

----------

Wheat to me, this morning: What are you doing here?
Me to Wheat, shortly after the above: I work here, remember?

For those of you wondering whether or not Wheat's lost it (or whether I finally did quit. I threaten it often enough), it's all right. We have pretty much the same conversation every time I start back in at full-time hours.

It doesn't help that things are a little weird this year. Normally I'm not full-time until at least May, but this time we're starting early and ending late. Long story... and by the way I say that you can imagine that you're not about to hear it.

This all leads to Wheat having to get used to having a regular office mate again. I generally drop in every (week) day when I'm on casual, but having to deal with that for an hour or two as opposed to all freaking day means that we both (I'd imagine. I don't suppose I can speak for Wheat, although you've probably already noticed that I'm doing it anyway) have to redevelop a working rhythm. It happens reasonably quickly after all these years, but there's still always that day or two of what are you doing here?

For both of us, yes.

I generally spend a lot of my first week or so wondering what I am doing here.

Is anyone asking yet how I can manage to survive on casual hours for most of the year?






It's called laziness.

I like my time off, so I've learned how to budget for it.

That's not to say that the first full-time pay cheque of the year isn't appreciated.





Highly, highly appreciated.

Ah well, be all of that as it may. I'm back in the saddle again (or at least I am when my cold is behaving a little better than it was yesterday), so my two fans can expect lots of tales of wacky office high jinks and...

Who'm I kidding? Back at work just means lots of whinging about work.

Ain't we got fun, boys and girls?




Oh, go back to looking at the plant.

A little bit of a cheat

.... but it's meant to buoy the spirit of she who lives in the other corner of the blog.
The cheating part means I think I may have posted this photo once before - not sure.

These beauties lived under the maple tree on the front lawn for three years but the sapling turned into an actual tree-let and the shade prohibits me from planting them now, with any good result.

The up side is I got my red maple after years of really wanting one. Well I guess there is only an up side; there's certainly enough flower garden to go around.

Today's forecast in the backyard: 13 C degrees, two-thirds of the yard under water due to sudden melting, mud up to the pups' knees, leading to a blue streak in the house.

Look!

This'll be quick because I need to go walk the dog, but I just had to share a current photo of something that looks like it may actually be alive.

Now, granted, this is from a warm area right next to the house's foundation. Most of the yard is still knee-deep in snow. But still.

Real plants.

And a bonus ladybird. A real, moving, not-dead one, yes.





You can't underestimate the importance of this to my frame of mind. Yep, even if it does end up being covered in winter again by the end of next week.

Anyway, gotta run. Or hopefully not run. It would be nice if the dog would choose to go at my pace for a change, because I'm still a bit congested.




We all have our dreams.

Later, all.

Pointless photo of the day:

Because I'm tired of snow photos.

Actually, we've been having a bit of a spring preview (note how I say spring preview and not IT'S SPRING!!!? I'm in Alberta, folks. It's never spring by March in Alberta. We do get teasers, however) these past few days, so with any luck I'll be able to go out today and take some pointless photos of... um... snow. Melting, at least.

Sorry. I get a little flower-nostalgic this time of year. Sometimes it gets bad enough that I end up filling my very small apartment with seeder flats just so I can pretend that something's thinking of growing outside too. Not this year, though. Starting seeds in a very small apartment is kind of silly, when it comes down to it, and it doesn't actually save you much money in the end.

It's something to do, I guess.

----------

So, speaking of the time of year...

Has the world ended? Is anyone out there?



I'm speaking (well, typing) of course of the big fuss about this early daylight savings time and its effect on computers and such. Yeah, we changed early in Canada too because god help us if we didn't follow the U.S. government in everything we do.

Oh, right. We didn't officially go to Iraq, did we? Ok, so maybe we get a little feisty every once in a while.

But we did change our clocks.

Actually, despite the snottiness that attempted to rear its head above, I don't mind. I like daylight, and I like savings. Put the two together, and you get not much more than an hour less sleep, I suppose. It's not exactly an earth-shattering difference.

I think we should have it all year long, myself.

I'm serious.

It's depressing as hell to go to work in darkness and then come home in darkness all winter (assuming I'm working, of course, which isn't always the case). Why not just leave the clocks an hour ahead and give people a fighting chance to at least see the sun for a few minutes before they have to go to bed?

And shut up, world. I know most people don't go to bed as soon as they get home from work. I'm just trying to make a point here, ok?

The way we measure time is fairly arbitrary anyway. Yes, the length of a day and the length of a year are based on physical facts. The length of a month was originally too, although nowadays months have almost nothing to do with moon phases. As to the rest of it, we're just looking at convenient divisions of those natural time periods.

Who says there have to be twenty-four hours in a day or sixty seconds in a minute? It's not like it really means anything. Who says we can't set our clocks an hour ahead and leave them that way indefinitely? It's not like our clocks show accurate local time anyway. Not since the introduction of time zones, they don't.

And I personally like time zones. It would be a pain in the arse to have to adjust my watch a few minutes just because I happen to be in, say, Banff.

Never mind the fact that I haven't been in Banff for years. I could be if I wanted to. And it's very convenient that if I wanted to I currently wouldn't have to change my timepiece.






Ok, this is getting a little silly. I should go find some lunch anyway.

And find out if the world's ended.





Nah, maybe just the lunch.

Pointless photography, the collected version

Just quickly...

I see by the Blogger home page that they've very helpfully (depending on your current mood you can imagine that last word in quotes if you like) transformed Blogger-posted blog photos into Picasa web albums. The link for Picasa is now on the side bar, if anyone's interested in checking it out.

I've made my two instant albums public (thought I may as well, since it's all stuff that's been posted here already). I may eventually add the fancy picture link to the blog, but for now (assuming my brain's working at all, which of course is a ridiculous assumption) those of you with a burning desire to see what's been transferred over so far can click these links to go to the albums:

New Blog
Old Blog

As for Smudgers, she can decide for herself if she wants you to see the albums she probably doesn't even know that she has yet.




Did that make sense? If so, yay me.

The eye of the beholder

Today's entry brings you .... a trash bin. Yep, if you look closely you'll see that the inner right-angled thingie is a frame in which could/should go a poster of "help us keep your park clean" or some such. See? A trash bin. I knew you'd see it right away.

The title of course is self-explanatory.

There can be beauty in ice, the proviso being that none of my body parts have made direct contact with said hard surface.

And doesn't every blog need a trash bin, really.

I thought so, too.

Yeh, I know ... so very pointless

Now you have to understand that the subject line is to be read with Eeyore's tone of voice. If you knew the dog or knew the type, anyhow, you'd get that Duchess being typical of her breed constantly looks like she looks in this photo - you know, all ignored, unloved, unfed, un-everythinged.

Never mind that this was my sick-bed cocoon she stole while I was up making tea.

As someone recently said around here, it is cold season.

Ah but we blog and nothing can stop us; not rain, nor sleet nor dark of net.

Don't know much about

Wheat says I have to say geography. I told him that it should be history. Between us we've now recited the whole damned song, and the sad thing is that it has nothing to do with anything I was going to say here.

I do know what a slide rule is for, though.

I've never used one.

I'm not quite as old as the hills, no matter what they tell you.




Is this a good time to say that I've been up since three in the morning and it isn't a good thing that I have to be functional this evening? I'm supposed to be doing something or other that has to do with stars. I'm not exactly an astronomer at the best of times, and pretending to be a half-assed (well, not literally) astronomer on less than four hours of sleep is likely to prove... interesting.

My cold and I aren't getting along, in case you were wondering.

Anyway, the star thing takes me marginally closer to having a topic. Scary? Yes. About the topic, I mean. I so rarely have a topic.

The topic today is that I don't know much.

I am, by nature, a compulsive researcher. I always have been, from way back when my parents would tell me to look up the answers to whatever subject was taking up too much of my brain in the encyclopedia.

Not that my brain was in the encyclopedia. My head was, much of the time, but that's something different.

For the kids out there, encyclopedias were sets of books that had short articles on a variety of topics. Kind of like Wikipedia, but slightly more reputable.

Anyway.




Where was I?

Oh yeah. Not knowing anything. What I was going to say is that I used to be more or less a specialist as to my own personal learning style. I'd get interested in a subject, learn a whooole lot about that one topic, and then move on to the next interest.

Serial obsession.

As opposed to cereal obsession, which is a whole 'nother problem.

Serial or cereal, I don't get to do it any more.

Obsess about one topic to my heart's delight, that is.





Sorry, my brain's currently flailing about like a seal lost in a penguin colony. The noise, the smell, the little people in tuxedos...

What I'm trying to get to is that in my job I have to be a generalist. I need to know a few things about a lot of subjects, instead of knowing just about everything about a few subjects.

This is completely against my nature, and I've finally figured out that it's the reason why I feel so frigging inadequate most of the time. Well, one of the reasons. There are, no doubt, more. This happens to be the one on my mind today.

It doesn't matter that I might know more about a particular subject than eighty percent of the people in my audience, or occasionally even ninety percent. I usually don't know enough to feel like I really know the subject, and it makes me extremely uncomfortable to have to present something that I'm grey around the edges about.

Obsessive little freak, remember. It's tough for me to just fly with what I know. Goes against the grain.

Kind of weird that I'm in the business of doing exactly that then, don't you think?




And if you do think, what does it feel like? I'd like to try it sometime, but I'm not sure my head could handle the stress today.

See you in a couple of days, folks.

Sleep or no sleep.







I'd prefer the former, if you're taking orders.

Pointless something something

And yes, the photo is also a pointless something something. But I liked it.

This is going to be quick, because I need to do set-up for this evening's program in a little while.

Besides, my head is too full to have come up with a topic.

Ah yes. Now you know. It's cold season again, boys and girls. Cold season, although I have a bit of a problem with the term. What is cold season? I seem to pick up colds any damned time of the year. Does that mean that cold season = all freaking year?

If that's the case, it sucks.

Anyway.

I was... erm... treating? my cold with a bit too much Mayan Chocolate ice cream (yeah, I know. And yes, I did choose the ice cream instead of groceries that I actually needed. Leave me alone. I'm not well) and it occurred to me that it's a pretty badly misnamed product.

Unless I'm mistaken, the Maya are from the new world, yes?

And cinnamon? Well, it seems to me that you look for that stuff in oh, say, India and other such places.

Does anyone else see the problem here?

Cinnamon-spiced chocolate ice cream is undoubtedly a good thing (although, sadly, it doesn't appear to cure the common cold). I just don't quite see how the Maya come in at all.

They did (and still do) have chocolate.

They did (and... oh, you get the point) spice it.

With chilies, I believe.

Wait. Let's use the magic interweb to check.... ah, here we go. Can't vouch for the authenticity, but at least someone besides me is using the word chili with the word chocolate.

Not cinnamon.

Although cinnamon is good.

And goes well with chocolate.

Especially in ice cream.






Ah well, whatever. I'll try for something of more substance tomorrow, but no promises. Oh, and just so that my two fans feel completely abandoned (I'm good that way), I won't be near a computer on Friday or Saturday so you're going to have to miss me.

I know, you're heartbroken.





I hear that Mayan Chocolate ice cream works for heartbroken...

The dog

This is the dog. Or, more properly, a pointless photo of the slightly peeved-looking dog. The dog, you see, doesn't like to have her picture taken.

If you're looking closely, you may also notice pieces of another animal up towards the corner. That is not the dog.

The dog was ticked at me yesterday because my father had to drive up to Edmonton and asked if I would mind taking her out before I headed home. Coming so soon after my dad's trip, it naturally made the dog worried that he was leaving again.

Like any good daddy's girl, she took her worries out on me.

It makes a person feel so loved to see the dog in full-on pout.

Ah well.




I'm not going anywhere with this, in case anyone was wondering. In fact, I'm cutting the blather short today out of necessity. I'm not very blathery anyway.

I'm not very anything, really.

Did I say ah well already?







Oh. Yeah. Right. Ah well (and shut up, world), at least it's a wine gum night for the t.v. club.

Hey, you take your ups where you can find them.

Everyone say, "bye, dog."




Bye, dog.

Boundaries

I had a thought in regards to this post. Yes, a real thought. Unfortunately thinking isn't my strong point just now, so it may be that I just introduce the thought today and then play with it a bit more another time.

And why isn't thinking my strong point? Well, in yesterday's post when I was talking about causes for more than one headache day in a row it seems that I forgot option C.

And what is option C?

Oh, you'll likely be finding out in the next few days. I'm not usually very good at keeping a whinge-worthy topic to myself, after all.

Anyway, let's talk about the post title before I run out of...








Kidding. Sort of.

What I'm interested in here is an opinion or several. We had fish for supper last night, and it occurred to me that it's a little odd to eat fish and then go down and admire the brainless wonders living in the tank downstairs. It's a weird sort of boundary, don't you think? That is, the fact that we can so easily separate pet fish (otherwise known in my world as decor) from dinner and not have many qualms about it. How different was last night's haddock from the monstrous koi than managed to barely poke its nose into today's pointless photo, really?

Let's take it a little further. If you had a pet chicken, would you still be able to visit KFC?

Some people would start to develop a little queasiness at the thought, I think. So what makes a chicken different from a fish? Besides the feathers, I mean. I suppose a chicken could be considered more intelligent than a fish, and possibly more aware of its existence (although that's already getting into pretty dicey territory, if you ask me). So does that give it more right to not be a meal?

Please note that I'm not making any sort of vegetarian argument here. If that's your choice in life, well, good on you. It doesn't happen to be mine. What I'm more interested in is the border between food and companion.

A chicken could be a companion, although I wouldn't consider the ones I've had dealings with for any sort of friendship. I know there are people out there who are very fond of their chickens, though. Are they still able to manage scarfing down a Sunday roast?

At what point does guilt start poking a person in the side?

Ok, let's go another step. Would you eat a dog? Most people in my part of the world would very quickly say NO!!! here. But dogs are perfectly edible. Many people in many cultures do eat dogs. And in some of those cultures the dogs are also considered pets. So how does one deal with that particular dichotomy?

I live in cattle country. I don't think many would argue with me that cattle are for eating (whether we're talking beef or dairy, we're still using those animals for food). But a lot of 4-H members have had the experience of hand-raising calves. They become extremely close with those animals, believe me. They take as much care of them as an urbanite would of a favoured cat. Right down to the grooming, yes. The calves are shown for prizes, and then they're auctioned.

They aren't bought by petting zoos, folks.

So how does a person care for and about an animal knowing full well that one day it will be on someone's plate (in pieces. It's hard to have a whole cow on your plate.)?

This is the part where I mention that I don't have any answers. I rarely do, you know. And my two fans know that the more questions I ask in a post, the less likely I am to come to any sort of conclusion.

This would definitely be one of those posts.

I'm done typing now. It's time to take the dog out.



Yeah, I thought I was done with that, too. SURPRISE!...


sigh.



Oh, one more thing. Wake up, t.v. club. This is your official warning that it's actually a wine gum week for a change.

Should I explain that sometime, do you think?

Pointless photo of the day:

Please ponder the meaning.

In other words, that's about it for the moment. I woke up with a bad head, and in my world more than one day of headache in a row means that either the allergies are acting up or the neck is. I haven't quite decided which, but either way I'm not in a blathery mood.

Maybe later.

Or not.

We'll see.




And yes, I did take the pointless photo for a reason. It'd be no fun if I told you why, though, and I need all the fun I can get just now.

A slight venture into snititude

For anyone wondering about the sleep thing: no, not great. Thanks for your concern.

I'm just assuming you're concerned, of course.

It's the nice part about these one-way conversations. I can assume anything I like and no one tells me anything different.

What do you mean there's a comment function? Who put that there?

Anyway, I'm dealing with a headache, I'm at work on the first day in ages that's been warm enough for me to want to be outside, and there are a few things rolling around in my head that very simply aren't making me terribly happy.

We (that'd be me and alllll of the voices) aren't quite at full-on snit yet, but it's headed that direction.

I'm fun when I'm snitty.






Fun there should be translated as a pain in the arse, but then I'm guessing that everyone got that.

Even the music isn't helping today. I came back here for lunch now that I have someone else to man the reception desk, I turned on the internet radio, and I'm about five seconds away from turning it right back off again.

That's not normal.

It's terrible when you desperately need some time to yourself to slow down for a while and you just don't have that option.

Ah, the plight of the maladjusted loner.





I can hear the tiny violins as I type, you know.

And you don't have to be quite that unsympathetic.





See? Even my one-way conversations are against me today.

I think I'd better take some acetaminophen or something.

And stop typing.




Yeah, I suppose I can do that.

Are you sleeping, are you sleeping...?

No I'm not, no I'm not...

Is everybody singing Frère Jacques yet? Here. Have a go.

Meanwhile, back at the blog...

Yeah, I'm in more than a bit of a fog. Have been for a couple of days now, but today for whatever reason it's really really really really really hit.

Sorry for the reallys. I got a little stuck.

My two fans will already know that I have a slight insomnia problem at times. Right now would be at times, for those who are slow to catch on. I came in to the office today to do some programming research, but considering that I'm having trouble focussing for long enough to remember how to spell research (seriously. Both times it's taken me faaar too many hits of the backspace key), I'm thinking that it might be better left to another time.

Two o'clock in the morning was very nice, though. We had ice fog. It kind of made everything look slightly unreal.

This morning we had hoarfrost.

Tomorrow it's supposed to be up to +7C.

Any surprise the brain gets a tad confused this time of year?

Not that I'm blaming that for my lack of sleep. Lack of sleep and I are old friends. He drops by on a regular basis. We talk alllll night...






Yeah.

Anyway, at least I have that excuse for not being able to read the monitor at first glance. I was a little worried about that, to be honest, because this is my first go with Wheat's old monitor (which has replaced MY old monitor) and I didn't want to find out that I could actually see the old, reflective, headache-causing screen better. That would have ticked me off more than a little. I hated that thing.

My monitor lizard hates the new one, though. He can't perch quite as comfortably on top.

Monitor lizard?

Big purple beanbag lizard. He lives on the monitor. The name seemed obvious.




To me, at least.

Seems to me I talked about him on the old blog. Gimme a moment.

Hey, what do you know? Here he is, complete with picture. I forgot about that part. He doesn't look quite as happy now, because I had to position him differently to keep him from sliding down the back of the monitor.

Not that any of this matters.

It really doesn't, you know.




Man, I wish I had a brain.

And how annoying is that midi?

You're welcome.





Going now.

Dydd Gwyl Dewi hapus

And that, boys and girls, is the sum total of my cut and paste Welsh. Cut and paste as in don't blame me if it's not right.

Happy St David's Day, though.

I have Welsh in my background through one of my great-grandmothers, in case anyone was wondering why I bring this up. That, and the fact that those silly Irish get all the press (in a couple of weeks... can you believe that St Patrick's Day is just around the corner already?) because they're good at being louder about the whole thing.

And before anyone takes umbrage, I have (or had. She's long gone by now) an Irish great-grandmother (or great-great-, I think it was) too.

The rest of me is English. Oh, and Ukrainian and French are in there somewhere as well.

Typical Canadian mutt, yes.

It's funny, lineage. Some of us spend so much time being proud (or alternately, ashamed) of where our forefathers (foreparents? I suppose forefathers isn't politically correct enough these days) just happened to be born, like it really has anything to do with... well, anything. My ancestors came from where they came from. They ended up here, where I come from. Should it really make any kind of difference to me?

It does.

It does, but not for reasons of patriotism or false pride (how can I be proud of a country I've never even visited?) or anything like that.

It's identity.

In a weird sort of way, it helps me fit in the world.

You see, I have two very different sides to my family. On the one side I can go back numerous generations. In one case, the family's even been traced to a Domesday Book listing. I could go to England tomorrow and find exact ancestral homes (and favourite pubs) if I wanted to.

On the other side, I have nothing.

It's like there's this enormous blank space. I know the basics of a grandmother and grandfather, and after that it's just empty.

That feels weird.

Almost like that side of what created me doesn't really exist.






Maybe it doesn't. Maybe I really am an alien, Smudgers.

And for the rest of you: never mind. You sort of had to be there.

Now, the odd thing about all of this is that the blanks in my family history on one side have made me that much more interested in what I do know about my family in general (including where they came from), and yet my grandmother on the well-documented side refused to think of herself as anything but Canadian. Not an English-Canadian. Not a Welsh-Canadian. Not a hyphenate of any sort. She was stubborn about it to the point that she wouldn't fill out the line on the census forms where it asked for your family background. She was born in Canada, she was Canadian, it was good enough for her, and it should darn well be good enough for the government.

So how do I think of myself? I'm not wearing a leek today, if that's a hint. No daffodil either, but that could be because they're not in season here.

AND BY THE WAY, WE HAVE ENOUGH SNOW NOW. Dammit.

Erm, yeah. Distracted myself there for a moment.

How do I think of myself?




Typical Canadian mutt, just like I said above.

And overall, it's not such a bad thing to be. Even if it doesn't really have anything to do with anything except the luck of the draw.