Put the words "knocking" and "door" together

I'm not going to do it -- you have to. That way if you end up with an unfortunate earworm it's NOT MY FAULT.

Oh, and today's pointless photo? A dusty trail, of course.

Now then. Post topic. Someone knocked at my door last night just as I was going to bed. Not too weird, considering the building that I live in... although, come to think of it maybe a bit weird since 'tis not the season of college students a bit drunk (literally) with the thrill of being away from mommy and daddy for the first time. Also, this was a fairly gently rapping as opposed to an over-the-top bashing, all things considered. That part's unusual.

When I didn't answer, the person knocked again. Not terribly unusual.

Shortly after that, my intercom rang. Pretty unusual.

And why the unusual? Well, it means that whoever knocked at my door apparently didn't have the wrong apartment and was specifically looking for me (or at least the person that they thought was in the apartment which, considering that the intercom buttons have our last names on them, would probably have been me).

I know some of my two fans still aren't getting why the above might be unusual, so I suppose I'd better tell you a few things that you need to know if you expect me to answer my door when you pay me a surprise visit (especially at a slightly late hour). First, I don't like surprise visits. Second, you should probably know my phone number. Third, you should at the very least know my name.

You see, I don't as a rule answer my door or my intercom unless I'm specifically expecting someone. Part of that is that fifty percent of the time (ok, more like ninety percent) I'm in my pyjamas when I'm alone in my apartment, and I'm not likely to be too thrilled about putting on actual clothing just to answer the door. More importantly, though, there have been some fairly odd things happen in my neighbourhood over the years (hey, for a while the apartment right below mine became an impromptu crack den. Good times, good times), so if I'm not figuring on anyone being at my door I ignore all signs that there actually is someone at my door. It's much easier that way.

So, say you really did want to pay me a surprise visit. How do you get my attention? Well, let's go back a couple of paragraphs and look at that surprise visit list. First, don't pay me a surprise visit. Let me know that you're coming and I will, in fact, open the door. No, really. I will. I don't mind visits... just the surprise ones. That brings us to number two. If you've ignored number one and have shown up at the apartment building unannounced, don't bother with the intercom. I ignore it. Call me on the phone. Tell me who's there and chances are that I'll then tell you to use the intercom so I can buzz you in. An extra step, yes, but at least I have a better idea of who I'm letting in that way. The intercom speaker is pretty lousy at the best of times. And speaking of knowing who's there, if you've shown up at my apartment building and someone else has let you in (which, sadly, happens a lot. Apparently not all tenants heard about the crack den thing), don't just come knocking on my door and expect me to open it. Use my name, for crying out loud. Knock, say "hey Dee (or, you know, insert actual full name here), are you home?", and I'll know that someone who knows me is there.

None of this is unreasonable, is it?

I don't think so.

And even if it is, I'm not about to change my habits now.




And to last night's eleven o'clock door knocker: I'd say I'm sorry, but if you know me then you should have known better. And if you don't know me, then why in Whomever's name were you knocking at a random someone's door at that stupid hour?

Sometimes I juuust don't get it...

It's the dreaded toilet paper post

Can't remember if I've used this photo before, and I don't really have time to look it up since I'm just taking a quick break from work. Oh, and considering today's post title aren't you extra glad that the photos almost always have nothing to do with the blather?

I know I am.

Anyway. On to the tp. I'm currently having a bit of a bog roll problem, and it's not the kind of thing I was expecting. You see, I like my toilet paper too much.

Yes, you read that right.

Here's the thing. I'm generally a big believer in recycled toilet paper. In fact, I don't think that there are too many excuses for using toilet paper that isn't made from recycled paper. Maybe it's not always the highest quality thing you can buy, yes, but it's toilet paper. It's something you use briefly to clean your behind and then flush down the loo. It doesn't need to be premium. I mean, unless a person has massive hemorrhoids or serious anal problems or something else medical like that, there is absolutely no reason to be cutting down more trees so that the human race can be provided with cushier bumwipe.

Is anyone else wondering how many other synonyms I can come up with for the stuff, by the way?

I buy recycled whenever I can, yes, but the other day when I was out I didn't have time to go to a bigger store to get the recycled stuff and just stopped in at my corner grocery. It occasionally has recycled brands, but not always. This was one of the not times. So... well, I was just about to pick up a small pack of something else to tide me over (erm, so to speak) when I noticed that a bigger pack of another brand that was on sale would be about the same price. Bigger pack = less packaging = good, so I went for it. And that's how I ended up having the big name American brand extra-something-or-other non-recycled toilet paper in my bathroom. You know the one. It has the cutesy commercials that always have me rolling my eyes. I'd never buy it under any other circumstances, you know.

Here's where the problem comes in.

It's great. I like it.





Dammit.

Toilet paper is toilet paper is toilet paper, but I like this stuff better.





Dammit.

So what do I do now? Honestly, I'll go back to buying recycled paper. I just can't justify toilet paper as something to put on my luxury item list, in the end. Or for my end. Or whatever. And in a while I'll probably even stop looking longingly at the other stuff when I go down the paper goods aisle. Really, I will.

Ah, principles. I guess it's hard to abandon the ones I have when there are so few of them...

Hey, want half a sandwich?

There's nothing wrong with it, I promise. I haven't touched it. It's just too much sandwich for my current state of brain, that's all.

Sigh.

Shall I elaborate? Or enumerate? Or get back to work on the August schedule so that I can leave and get back to being overly hot at my place?

Sigh.

Again.

Ok, here's the deal in a nutshell. My apartment is currently about a bazillion degrees (or, you know, thirty) which means sleep isn't happening which means I don't feel like eating because my stomach is telling me it's too tired to be full.

Yes, that honestly happens. I suppose it should happen more often because I could afford to miss a meal or twelve, but at the moment it's making me at least semi-miserable.

The last two days have been liquid breakfasts just to make sure I had something, but after this morning's planetarium program (yeah, on top of everything else I have PLANETARIUM BRAIN) I thought I was hungry enough to make a lunch trip down to the Co-op's sandwich bar worthwhile.

Well, I was half a sandwich right.

It's a decent sized sandwich, though, so I imagine it'll hold me for a while...

Anyway. I really should get back to the bloody schedule. And maybe someday I'll even explain planetarium brain for those of you who've never yet had the pleasure.




Are you sure you don't want this sandwich?

I got a million of 'em

No. Really. I do. I promise not to post all of the hummingbird photos I have but you should see the caverns of my hard-drive. Or not.


So let me say straight off, today I got nothin'. Oh my, a contradiction - first I got a million, then nothing. Well that certainly made my brain go all wobbly and run about looking for a point. Ah, dear friends, such is my life.

Good grief, I'm starting to feel like I'm being directed by Tim Burton with Johnny playing me ... and no, out of good taste, I shall not pursue that latter thought. As much fun as that would be.


I remember a time when I used to speak in whole sentences and didn't place periods everywhere. For emphasis.

Instead of two paws

"Instead of two paws, what?", you ask. Well tu-lips, of course. You see I have gobsmackingly good shots - or as gob-etc good as they get on a cellphone - of proof a bear was wandering up in the "back forty" but the whatsit I need to get those shots from cellphone to here won't connect properly for now. Oh you just know I'll beat it into submission but today you get flowers instead.

For added interest, last Fall when we moved here, we were watching soy grow; oh and gourds of all shapes and types and of course orchards and orchards of apples.

Right now all of the fields in the immediate area have - and I kid you not - ten to 12-foot high cornstalks. I'm guessing you've grasped the obvious, that it might be a tidge easier to spot a lumbering furry beast at 20 yards through a soy field than the previously described cornfield.

As the old joke goes, though, I only need to be fast enough to out-run one of the dogs.

Hey look!! A bird!!

Okay, so that subject line up there is the equivalent of what comes out of my mouth when someone is talking to me and I think of something I've been meaning to tell them, so have to spit it out right away or it's gone yet again......and yep, another of the world's longest sentences. Thank you for noticing.

This photo was taken May 11th as she was going about her business of setting up house.

About the 16th of July the mulberry under which she built her home became a crime scene. Where's Grissom when you need him. (Oh look it up; I'm not like she who owns this place, all smart and willing to provide links) Anyyyyyway, from my livingroom vantage point, something on the ground looked out of place. Now remembering that this was before any intake of caffeine and with only glasses, not contacts, I ventured forth and found two "bodies". Not all was lost as something was clearly still in the nest making an awful racket - well I don't know if it was making a racket or a paddle truth be told.....

Anyway, the moral of the story is don't just throw out tinsel for pete's sake (men, geez); birds love it for their nests as evidenced by all the shiny branches in almost every tree near our house.

Oh and ironically the pink flower is cranesbill. In my world it's worth mentioning, yes.

Pointless post and I'm tired

Not from the usual lack of sleep, though. Just from planetarium. You know, I like doing planetarium shows but I'm really starting to feel like I'm getting too creaky to do them too often.

Or maybe I just need to do them more often, I don't know. Maybe today's creakiness is because of the summer lull.

Ah well. Or anyway. Or however else I habitually end posts. I have planetarium brain at the moment, so wet apples are all you're going to get out of me. Which, I suppose, is too bad since I likely won't be around a computer in the next couple of days so this whole bunch of nothing will be staying at the top of the page unless someone is willing to see if the Ontario (I'm tired of typing not-Toronto) office has melted yet.

I'm not sure I want to poke her with a stick at this point. Might be a bit too reminiscent of a marshmallow roast...



See you in a couple of days, folks.

Quick thanks

No picture today; I don't have my nerdstick with me.

Not much of a post either because I'm really tired and have had a mostly crappy day so far, but I did want to mention that ONE GOOD THING did happen.

That 's for those of you who think I'm incapable of noticing good things.

Anyway. I don't really want to go into detail, but let's just say I ended up having a more expensive day than I was planning to, and out of the blue somebody decided not to charge me for something that he had every right to charge me for. It was unexpected, it was nice, and it really gave me a whoa moment even though it probably wasn't that big a deal to him.

Sometimes -- occasionally -- people are cool.



Thanks, eh.

Oh, nothing

Working late tonight (and probably about to lead a nature walk in a thunderstorm. Um, yay?) and kind of in a rotten mood, so I think I'll skip the blather.

Just as well, really. It was likely going to be about toilet paper anyway.

Tomorrow? Possibly no post at all, because I have to be up stupidly early to help at an event. And if I think I'm in a rotten mood now, just imagine it after six hours in a hot parking lot.



Sigh. I'll aim for a somewhat less snitty self by Saturday, I guess.

What? You want another?

Post, I mean. There were two yesterday, although I certainly didn't plan things that way. There were two, though, and that should mean that I can skip today.

But I've already started typing.

Oh.

Ok, then. But it may or may not be quick.

Today we're actually going to talk about the pointless photo. Hey, it has to happen occasionally. Today's photo is hot off the camera (well, from yesterday) and is of Sea Lavender leaves. Or maybe not. That's the problem with common names, you see. The plant came from my paternal grandmother's place; I've only got her name for it. And just to complicate matters more, an admittedly quick googling of sea lavender takes me straight to Statice, which has different flowers and definitely different leaves. See? This is why scientific classification is a good thing. Especially to the olfs and compulsive cataloguers among us.

Anyway. I kind of like this picture of "sea lavender". You'll notice that it's wet (everything is, around here. Did I mention?). I like the way the rain beaded on the leaves -- I think you'll have to click the photo to enlarge it to really get the effect. The whole thing's a pretty prime example of the way I take photographs, really, especially in this digital age. It's vaguely interesting, and it's fairly disposable.

That's right. Disposable. I don't mind if you think of my photographs as disposable. Hell, I delete almost everything from my nerdstick as soon as it's been posted on the blog. My photographs are all about hey, that's a neat shape or hey, that's a neat pattern or hey, that's a neat spider. They're things that attract my attention for the moment, but not even I think that the resulting pictures are remotely artistic.

Ok, except for maybe some of the spiders...



And shut up, world. Spiders are too cool.

Do they have any sort of point? The photos, I mean; not spiders. Spiders obviously have a point. As to the photos... well, I do call them pointless for a reason. Most of the time they are, indeed, pointless. Every once in a while, though, if I've accidentally stumbled onto a decent shot (and yes, I do keep those ones), I hope that it might cause someone somewhere in his or her stumblings around the internet to maybe see the world in a slightly different way.

Or at least take a moment to say that's a neat shape. Or pattern. Or spider.


Would it hurt anyone to think that's a neat spider, really?






Oh, just go back and look at the raindrops on the leaves. They're neat too.

Feeding the fish

This is kind of a post about nothing, I guess. Or maybe it's a post about the continuing theme of I am a five-year-old...

Picture me, looking at the Illustration Friday entries for the week as I generally do, and enjoying the interpretations that I'm seeing. Um, mine's in there too, although I wouldn't consider it exactly an interpretation. Doodler, not artist, remember. Anyway, here I am visiting artist blogs and looking at technique and all of that and OOOOOOOH! FISH!!!

Yep.

People have all kinds of little gadgets and widgets on their sidebars, and I generally admire them. Heck, sometimes I even add the same widgets to my sidebar if I think they'd be useful.

The fish?

Are not useful.

But I play with them every. damned. time.

I've been seeing them on sites for ages, and I still play with them every time.

They never do anything different, but I still play with them EVERY DAMNED TIME.

I don't even especially like fish.





I really am a five-year-old. And to prove that I'm not the only one (although I don't think I'm going to add them to the sidebar), here you go. See if you can resist feeding the fake fish:





I'm going back to the art now.

Wet

Yes, it is.

Today's photo almost has a point (and, of course, the blog will turn into a pumpkin now) in that the Prickly Wild Rose is Alberta's provincial flower, and this one happens to be wet.

As is Alberta.

This has been a ridiculous summer for rain (for Alberta, at least) and as if to completely rub it in we had yet another storm last night that dumped a bunch more water.

I can't stress enough that this isn't normal.

Any little bit of heat we have in between rainfalls is causing the plants to go absolutely bonkers. I talked to someone on the trails at work yesterday who commented on how lush everything looked, and I honestly had enough trouble getting past the weird to see the lush.

I guess it is lush.

It's not really supposed to be, here.

If we'd get sun for any length of time things would look absolutely gorgeous, though.  The canola fields are coming into bloom, and to my mind there are few things that say Alberta summer like the bright yellow of the canola against the clear blue of the sky.

Or this year I guess it's the indifferent grey of the sky.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not really complaining. Whomever knows, we get enough summers here where we're wondering what rain looks like, and this type of year tops things up to the point where next year may (note that I say may, though. I'm an Albertan. I know that next year is anything but certain, weather-wise) be less of a worry for those who depend so much on moisture. I'm just saying that it's weird, that's all.

And wet.

----------

And... I wasn't really intending to blather about weather today. In fact, I had a totally different title up for this post, typed two words, and decided that I wasn't going that direction. I get that way when I have something rolling around in my mind, you see. Either it all comes out in gigantic spat of blog diarrhoea that I regret almost as soon as I've posted it (and I do have a personal policy, silly as it is, of not deleting posts from this blog. Words, yes. Sentences to correct grammar, yes. But entire posts? I try hard not to. The other blog's a bit different, but this one stays. Ish.), or I completely clam up and post nothing but I've got nothing for days on end.

You can see where I've been this time around just by looking at the previous posts, really.

Ah well. I think I've nearly worked through the latest non-crisis, so things should be back to abnormal shortly.






I'm sure you'll all be... relieved? Or whatever.

I'm not sure how it works when it comes to the daily blather and my two fans.

Sometimes it's best just not to, you know?

Blather, I mean.

Yeah, I know I said yesterday that I'd try to be more blathery today, but the fact is that I had a pretty rough night and I'm tired enough right now to be on about three separate verges.

Um, that'd be the verge of yelling at someone, the verge of tears, and the verge of just putting my head down on my desk and seeing if I'd have any better luck at sleeping in the office since sleeping in a bed obviously didn't work.

Ah, ain't insomnia grand?

Oh well. Here's hoping I can get through a couple more hours here at work before I hit total crash. Especially since I'm still planning to drive into my father's place after this and it would be nice to not be a complete hazard on the highway.

I'm sure everyone else would appreciate that as well.



I'm going to stop typing now, ok?

Ok.

Pointless photo and I've got nothing of the day:

Yep. That's about the state of things.

I'll try to be more blathery tomorrow.

Pointless photo of the day:

That's all for today. I'm kind of busy.

No, really. I am.

Pointless photo... and I'm ticked off.

Gotta love the faked mood lighting on this one, eh? I got a bit silly with the editing sliders.

Anyway. Short post, as was previously warned about:

How is it that I can spend a week hardly talking at all and still end up losing my voice (or near as dammit) the first time I have to use it?

Just barely made it through today's program.

Thank goodness there's not one tomorrow.


This is getting old, people.

She's Lump

This is all in the interest of fair play, you understand. I don't want the not-Toronto office to start complaining that Max gets talked about all the time on the blog but HER CAT is barely to be found. What can I say? Max is just one of those in-your-face cats (sometimes literally, when he wants his belly rubbed but I happen to be asleep). Penny? Not so much.

So. Penny, aka Lumpy (and you all may as well have the same earworm I get when calling the cat Lumpy. You're welcome), aka the dead cat in the bathroom doorway. Penny is Parisian. Hey, that's what we were told when we got her. He meant Persian (which she's not, in any cat show sense. She's just a long-haired cat), but Parisian sort of fits her. Penny likes to talk. And likes to eat. And likes to talk about eating. And likes to talk about how she would be eating if someone would only feed the poor starving cat (who generally has a good supply of dry food in her bowl at all times, I should mention).

Penny has this way of looking smug and self-satisfied like no cat I've ever met.

Penny likes to sit on my lap but not on my father's.

Penny is also left-handed. And how do I know this? Well, amongst other things, every time she's done using the litter box she has to scratch the wall (I'll take Obsessive Cat Habits for 800, Alex), and she almost always does it with her left front paw.

And now you know.

----------

Well, house-sitting time is almost at its end. I'll be heading back to my place this afternoon so that I can go into work tomorrow.

I wonder if they'll remember me...

Um, anyway. Things seem to have gone fine, as far as I can tell. No dead pets (not even the fish), and as long as the house doesn't wash downhill before the father figure gets back I think that everything's ok.

We've had a bit of rain, though, Dad. Over 35mm yesterday, according to Environment Canada, and possibly upwards of 50mm more today. I see they've ended the wind warning, though, so that bodes somewhat better for my drive down the highway.

Speaking of which, I should think about getting my stuff packed up and finding some lunch, so... oh, crap. Forgot about the laundry I have hanging in the spare bedroom. Ok, run the clothes through the dryer if they still need it and then pack up and get lunch, in some order.

It's been a slice, folks. Tomorrow's post may be extremely short or non-existent, depending on how much work I have piled up for me. I've been blathery enough in the past while to tide you over for a bit, though. Haven't I?

Later.

----------

Edited to add: I'm so disappointed in my two fans. Did no one notice that the header background I've been using for the past few days was snow? I mean, seriously. Snow. On the blog of a person who would be thrilled if winter ceased to exist. I thought it was funny, but you people are far too accepting...

It'll be changed. The background, I mean. I'm not sure what I can do about the attitude.

100% Chance of Rain

Max is helping me at the computer this morning (picture this look but on a printer rather than a couch), much the same way that he helped me with my "art" yesterday. Helpful cat, that Max. And if you're wondering why you're seeing so much of Max and nothing of Penny, well... she's just not as helpful, that's all. Especially once she's been fed.

----------

A slight digression before I get to the weather report. Today's title comes from a cantata I took part in when I was in church choir, and much to my surprise the thing is still around (although I see they call it a musical rather than a cantata). In the 70s there was a real thing for making church music folky and, I guess, accessible (although, really,  there are plenty of good, accessible hymn tunes...), and in my youth choir days I performed in a lot of (occasionally cheesy) cantatas based on bible stories or "good Christian lessons". I'll reserve my adult opinion of the lessons, I think (all right, except to say that some of them were simplistic in the extreme), and I'll admit that as a kid I found some -- ok, most -- of the productions to be fun, but one of the unfortunate things about being an olf and doing that kind of thing is that the music DOES NOT GO AWAY. Ever, I'm beginning to think. To this day I could sing you snatches of things I learned for a supposedly brief time when I was eight or nine years old. And certain biblical names are always, always going to be associated with a musical phrase in my head, leitmotif-style.

Abed-ne-go... whoa whoa whoa... sigh. And how sad is it that I even remember the names of these things to be able to google them?




Anyway. Back to rain. It's supposed to rain again today, and it's supposed to rain tomorrow as well.

That's weird.

For Alberta, I mean. To have this much rain in July. Or, you know, ever. I'm not saying that Alberta's a desert because it's definitely not, but we just don't usually get this much rain. The farmers, who were talking about drought earlier in the season, are now worried about all the things associated with damp (I sooo would never be a farmer. It's just one damned thing after another -- um, to quote my grandmother -- for them, the way I see it). And a funny thing happens to gardens that aren't used to a constant supply of water when they actually get it.

They explode.

My father's place is looking decidedly jungle-ish at the moment, and I'm afraid that when he gets back he may need a scythe to get through his lawn.

Yep, my father's daughter doesn't mow. Ordinarily that's not a problem because the grass doesn't grow fast enough to make missing a week a terribly big deal, but not so much this year.

Sorry about that, Dad.



And with that half-hearted apology, it must be time to find some lunch. Max is off watching a bug now, which for him is absolutely cat television. And Penny?

No idea.

She's not very helpful, remember. Even when it comes to bug watching.

Now playing

For those new to the program: the photos featured here are almost always COMPLETELY pointless and generally have little or nothing to do with the post's subject. Today? Is no exception.

Blue Flax is pretty, though.

----------

Ok, I'm the first to admit that I'm not really a movie buff. I'm not saying that I don't like movies; it's just that I don't really go out of my way to watch them. Something about investing the time, maybe, or in the case of movie theatres (which... I think it's been about ten years since I've been in one, actually) investing the money.

Having said that, it was kind of weird to find myself shopping for movies yesterday. In my defence it was more a case of looking for cheapness than anything else, but even at that to find myself in a rental store looking for liquidation bargains was to find myself completely out of my comfort zone. After wandering around the shelves in a daze for a while I did come to a very definite conclusion, though.

I should never go into rental stores.

I remember as a kid going to pick out things for movie nights and never having a clue as to what I should get. I'm sure I was frustrating as hell to the rest of my family, because it was almost impossible for me to make up my mind. So many choices. And what was I in the mood for? And what if I picked something that turned out to be complete crap and my family hated me for the waste of time and money?

Yep, choosing a movie rental was never easy for an olf like Yours Blatheringly.

Now, fast forward a few years (or a couple of decades... gah) and picture me trying to choose movies to buy rather than rent after being out of the rental loop for so long. It was fanTAStic. Or not. What I saw were shelves of really stupid-looking comedies (ah, those old rental memories came back pretty quickly when it came to the shelves of stupid-looking comedies), shelves of dramas that all seemed to have the same description written by the same person, shelves of horror and action movies that I didn't even bother to look at, and shelves of television shows that I never even watched for free when they were first-run. Too bad, that last, because I could have got some decent deals on boxed sets if there was anything there that I could have managed to care about.

But did I get anything at all in the end?

Well, yes. A few things. I ended up sticking with the new releases (which... sigh. They were more expensive. But at least the discs should be in decent shape) mostly because I could still remember the reviews and stood a chance of getting something I might like rather than just something that was cheap. Erm, yes. Reviews. One of the weirder things in my weird life is that even though I don't go to the movies and even though I rarely watch movies, I still keep up with movie reviews. Because... you never know, right? Someday I might want to see a movie or two. Or sift through the WalMart dvd bargain bin, at the very least.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

Anyway. I guess that's it for now. Smack the Cat is telling me he'd like to be outside (although I don't think that it's going to happen, since it's still so wet from yesterday) and I haven't even got to my Illustration Friday drawing yet, so I guess I should get myself moving. Or at least have breakfast, which is rapidly approaching lunch at this point.

Type at you later. Oh, and if anyone has any suggestions of movies to look for when I next visit a liquidating rental place ('cause you know it'll be happening regularly), feel free to leave a comment.

It's gonna be one of those days

I'm dragging today (tell you why in a second), and I just have a feeling that nothing much is going to get done even if I try. There are things I should do, really, but so far staring into dead space seems the preferable option. It doesn't help that I was planning to drive into the city to water my balcony plants, but it's raining at the moment and it seems like a weird thing even for me to drive down the highway to water plants in the rain. Even if I know that they won't get much water from the rain itself, yes.

So anyway, the thing I'm choosing to blame for my inability to get the hamster wheel in motion this morning is that I was out in yesterday afternoon's heat doing a bit of weeding. That's right, I was weeding someone else's yard. Just call me a sucker for punishment, I guess. Don't worry, Dad -- I've left most of it for you. I just wanted to get as many of the Creeping Bellflower stalks as I could before they flower (here's a pdf from the Alberta Invasive Plants Council on the nasty stuff. Don't ever, ever plant it, folks. It was an accidental invader here, and invader it certainly is). And yes, those are my tracks you'll see stomped through the poppies when you get back. There was a lot of it in that patch. And I'm sure there will be again in a few days. Lovely plant, that.

Ah well, as she says when she realises she doesn't have much more to blather about and is thinking about wrapping things up. I suppose I should hit the road, even if it's only to stop at my apartment for a few minutes and then come right back again. To stare into dead space, or something equally exciting.

Catch you later.

Ooooouuut

Well, another quiet (as in, still trying not to talk) day here minding the ol' homestead, and

Um...

Ok, sorry in advance for any weird typos, but apparently it's necessary for me to have a cat in my lap just now.

I guess that means that today's post will be about Max. Would have made sense to have a pointless photo of Max in that case, but I've already uploaded the grape leaves so they're staying.

Anyway, Max. Max has been very affectionate today. On my lap right at the moment, in the bed this morning... and yesterday he slept on the chair behind me whenever I was down at the computer. It would all be very touching, if there wasn't so obviously an agenda.

Max, you see, hasn't been out in two days.

Max wants me to know this.

Max is definitely a cat with a one-track mind. Max wants to go out. And Max wants to go out. And you know what? Max wants to go out.

Will he? I'm not sure. The last time I had him out I thought he may have ended my father's wren problem (the problem would be the singing, which starts awfully darned early in the morning). He obviously didn't, since I can hear the wren even as I type, but that only means it was something else that he caught. I didn't get a very good look at the bird -- I managed to get him off of it fairly quickly, and it flew away -- but I would imagine that it didn't have much of a chance even though it didn't get chewed on. Between the stress of being pinned and the fact that a cat's mouth is a bacterial wonderland, it wouldn't surprise me if that poor bird didn't last much longer despite the fact that it got away.

Max the great grey hunter. Man, the cat's fast. He had that bird down before we were even off of the patio. I hadn't even seen a bird, but that cat was already on top of it. Can you imagine what damage he'd be causing if we just let him roam free?

Actually, that brings up a really sore point with me. It's been mentioned here before, but what the hell. This blog is nothing if not circular. Anyway, I have a real beef with people who just let their cats roam. We used to do it when I was a kid, but honestly? In those days no one thought much about it. We know better now. Roaming isn't good for wildlife, isn't good for the neighbourhood, and isn't good for the cat. Anyone who says a cat needs to be allowed to roam is just plain wrong. Period. A cat can be happy staying completely indoors, or can be trained to a leash (like Max and Penny are) if you're desperate to give them some fresh air. As I mentioned above, though, even a leash isn't perfect if you want to protect the local birds. As for the "happiness" of free-range cats? Well, how happy would you be if your lifestyle led to drastically increased chances of injury and disease as well as a much shorter life span? That's what roaming really does for cats.

Ah well. Max eventually gave up on my lap and moved to the cat tree, so I thought I may as well grab the camera and show you his hidey-hole. Cute little blood-thirsty predator, don't you think?

And he'd really like to go out.

You know, just in case you wondered.

Shhh...

Feeling kind of dozy today, so I'll try to keep this short. Which probably means that it won't be. How does the quote go? Let's see... oh, here it is: I would not have made this so long except that I do not have the leisure to make it shorter (it's Blaise Pascal, I see. The original, for anyone interested: Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.). Well, I do have the leisure, so I guess it doesn't apply as much as I thought it did. I have the leisure; just not the brain.

Anyway, about today's title. I'm trying very hard to keep things quiet today, because after all the coughing (which seems to be getting a bit better, knock wood) my vocal cords are completely frazzled and I'm very, very squeaky when I talk. Always a good time not to talk, then, but I'm finding that more difficult than I would have expected considering that it's just me and the cats at the moment. Part of the problem is that I think I overdid it at work yesterday, but the main issue is one I didn't really expect.

Singing.

Yes, I do realise that singing isn't talking. It may as well be for me, though.

I always have some kind of song going through my head -- yeah, that actually counts as normal for me -- and when I'm around other people the songs stay in my head. Um, for the most part. When I'm alone, though (or with cats, I guess), they start coming out.

A lot.

And it seems that it takes the drastic measure of not having a voice to show me just how much of my time is spent singing. It is, frankly, an absolutely ridiculous amount of time. It's not that I'm putting out entire Broadway musicals, mind. It's snatches here and there as I go about my business. But it's a LOT of snatches, apparently, and that's not even adding in things like singing along with the internet radio as I sit at the computer.

The internet radio's off today, by the way. It wasn't yesterday, but I'm sure feeling now like it should have been. Hindsight is so good at making a person feel like an idiot, don't you know.

Anyway, that's how things stand. I'm dozy and voiceless and I should go find some lunch before I start on the important task of... wasting the rest of the day.




It's good to have ambitions, you know.

Oh, I dunno. Something something blog post

Sorry. Got back not all that long ago from my place, where I was watering my balcony plants in hopes that they won't be completely deflated by the time I'm back again. Oh, and I also went in to work for a few hours.

I don't generally get in to work much when I'm house-sitting here, because frankly it's not worth the gas money anymore. I mean, yes, it's only a forty minute drive to get there, but when gas is as high as it's been the last few years those forty minutes both ways eat into a part-time worker's salary pretty significantly.

Of course, when I don't go into work at all there's no salary to speak of anyway...

Hmm. This is sounding suspiciously like a lose-lose situation. Why do I agree to do this, again? Oh yeah, to help out my father. That's ok, then.

Honestly, I don't know how people can handle long commutes at the best of times. I'm sure it's different when you're not driving yourself (not a big fan of driving, personally. I'm competent, but I only do it because I have to. The ability to live life without a car would be a great thing, if only it was possible around here for your average working-age person), but even given the best of all possible public transit worlds how can people stand spending an hour or two of every single day just going somewhere? Every single day. Well, every single workday, anyway. I'd go mad.

Or I'd read an awful lot of books. Or have an awful lot of daydreams.




Oh, wait. I already do that last part. Occasionally when I'm driving, which isn't always the best idea.

Anyway, I think that's about all I have for the moment. Stay tuned for further changes to the blog's appearance in the next few days, since I'm using it more or less as the work blog's lab rat until I figure out what the work blog's going to look like.

And after that what'll happen to this blog?





Identity crisis, I imagine. Ought to be fun.

*blink blink*

Um, yeah. Things are looking different around here. Again. The fact is, we're thinking of making a few changes to our work blog and I've decided to guinea pig a few of them here. I wasn't especially happy with the last template anyway.

Don't get terribly comfortable with this one either, by the way. I'm expecting to be doing a bit of fiddling in the next while. Here's hoping none of my two fans are too OCD about change...

What I've learned so far today

But first, today's photo is hot off the camera. Well, maybe not still hot as it was taken a few hours ago, but definitely fresh off the camera since I haven't done any editing to it (no particular reason for the no edit, by the way). I noticed these brand-new spiderlings on the side of the house yesterday but didn't want to take the camera out in the rain. I was surprised to see this morning that they hadn't dispersed yet. To give an idea of how tiny those things are, the texture in the background is a piece of siding. Tiny, tiny little spiders, yes. Obviously a nonspecialist like me can't tell yet what type of spider they are (beyond some kind of orb weaver), but they're pretty cool at any rate.

Shut up. Spiders are too cool.

----------

Now. On to what I've learned so far this Tuesday (Tuesday, right? My days are a little mixed up at the moment since I usually come here on weekends rather than weekdays). What I've learned so far today is that at the moment I have too strong a gag reflex to clean up warm cat vomit. I'm hoping it's a temporary effect of having been under the weather for so long since I'm usually pretty good with gross things (I was a Zoology student, for pity's sake. I spent four years of my life cutting up gross things), but let me tell you. Today's clean-up came far too near to being a double.

Um, you're welcome for that mental picture.

Speaking of the cats, though (and leaving aside the barf. You're welcome), I think that my father would have been a bit bemused to see how my morning went today. It was pretty quiet overall, and he'd be fairly quick to tell you that his mornings are generally anything but quiet. From the moment he stirs, Penny (aka Lumpy aka The Walking Stomach) decides that it's cat feeding time, and she lets him know it. Meowing, pacing the bed, getting up on the dresser and knocking things down... anything to remind the human that the cat. is. hungry. And never mind the fact that there's always crunchy food available to her. Penny wants her canned stuff, and she's not about to let you forget it. I've seen it in action -- there's no doubt that the father figure gets pestered.

This morning?

Nothing.

Max came in for his usual belly rub, but he left after a few minutes. When I got myself out of bed, both cats were asleep in the living room. As I walked in they both looked up, gave me a whatever stare, and went back to sleep.

Seriously.

Dad, if he's reading this, is now in complete disbelief.

 I've said before that the cats don't really believe that I'm capable of doing much, and I'm looking at this as proof. Why should they pester me for food? I don't know how to do food.

Unfortunately, it's looking like Penny's noticed that this is the second day in a row that I've been the one to feed them. I may be in for the full treatment tomorrow. Guess I should enjoy being left alone while I can.

And now, on to... well, on to what? I should probably go downtown and pick up a couple of things that I need. Or I could do some work on the work blog while I don't have the distractions of the office. Or I could go outside and do a bit of painting, since there are plenty of paintable things in bloom. Or I could cough, which seems to be the ongoing theme. Yeah. This could stop anytime. I'd be fine with that.

Going to do... something now. Later, all.

And so.

So. Yes. About says it all, don't you think?

Ok, maybe it doesn't. But at this particular moment I'm not sure I can say much of anything at all. Just a liiittle lacking in sleep today, really.

And why?

Well, the father figure had to be up fairly early to get to the airport (yep. It's house-sitting week for Yours Fumblingly). Early, but not unreasonably early. At least by my internal clock, which -- you'll remember -- considers anything after five in the morning to be sleeping in. At any rate, anyone who's read this blog more than twice can probably fill in the rest. Dad had to be up, so my insomniac brain kept me up to make sure that he didn't sleep in.

I've been up since three.

Yep.

To be fair, though, so has he. His brain must have been doing the same thing to him, because we both were up at Stupid O'Clock today. Ah, company in my usual misery. It's not as comforting as you might think it would be.

I hope at least that he got a bit of sleep on the plane...

----------

Unfortunately, there's a pretty good chance that I might have been up at three even without the you-have-to-be-somewhere alarm going off in my head. The cold which I thought was finally, finally going on its merry way apparently had one more trick up its sleeve in the form of a persistent phlegmy cough. Um, yay? The last few days it's got progressively worse, and this morning it had a real go at blowing my head off. Ever cough so hard you gave yourself a nosebleed? No? Well let's hope you never do. If you'd like to, though, I'll give you my address and you can come over and be in my germy presence for a while.

The thing is, I don't really feel all that bad. I sound like I do, because the voice is awfully squeaky at times (thank Whomever that school programs are done for the season), but if you ignore the obvious vocal cue the only thing that actually seems sick about me is the frequent display of Let's Hack Up the Digestive System.

I, erm, think I'm beyond the hacking up a lung part.

Oh well. What can a person do besides pretending that she's auditioning for La Traviata?

Actually?

Lots of things. But since I brought it up (and why, exactly? Blame it on the lack of sleep. I don't even like opera. Oh, some of the arias by themselves are pretty good, but the recitatives? Agh. Makes me want to beat them all until they stop singing and talk like normal human beings), let's wrap it up with a toast. Libiamo, everyone.

Pointless photo of the day:

It's the rare saskatoon-leafed poppy, don't you know.

That'll be it from me today, simply because I'm not in the mood to think of anything to blather about. Don't worry, there'll be plenty of blatherable time to muck about with the blog in the next week-and-a-bit.

Why yes. I suppose that could be considered a threat of sorts...

Bowling, of course

As you know if you've been following the bouncing ball for any length of time in this blog, this is one of my favourite flowers - well not this one exactly, but favourite type then.

How boring would it be in here if we actually went back and edited ourselves, placing proper sentences where they should be instead of just blathering. Why, even the title of the blog should contain the word blath....oh. Yeh. It does.

So, seriously now - or as serious as it gets anyway - just look at the centre of that flower. Is there a more perfect specimen of holy cow on the planet? I think not.

Tonight's festivities may be blog-worthy - we'll see. Apparently it is an important milestone birthday for one of the folks "up the road". They've hired a live band. I'm interested to know what that means here. Where we came from it would mean no sleep 'til Monday and even though they are a fair jaunt from our place (I'm in the boonies now, don't forget) there's "always a breeze"© here so I'm certain the sound will carry.

Stay tuned for true blather from no sleep or a short post relating how they got blown away and not in a good way, but literally, by Mother Nature.

The lips! The lips!

If I have to explain the reference you don't really need to know.

Today's pointless photo is not of my lips. Good thing too, because they're a mess... or at least my bottom one is. My own, fault, sadly.

One of my absolute most annoying nervous habits (to me, anyway. I probably have more annoying ones to other people, but I really don't want to hear about it right now) is chewing on my lower lip. I'm a pretty heavy user of lip balm because of it -- I'm almost always chapped -- and I don't care how long a company says its lipstick will last, it doesn't have a chance with me.

All of this wouldn't be so bad, but lately I've been cracking. What a pain. A literal pain, yes, especially when eating anything having to do with lemon juice or things like that, but also a pain as in frustrating. When you go to bed with a cracked lip you have a good chance of waking up with blood smeared on your pillow, for example. As pleasant as it sounds. Also, when you're a person who has trouble leaving her lip alone in the first place, you know what happens when a crack starts to heal? You tend to tease the edges of the scab. Without realising it. And then the edges get ragged and hangy, and the next thing you know you're pulling at them without thinking about it and the next thing after that...

Is gross.

Right now part of my lip looks suspiciously like I've taken to using sandpaper-flavoured Blistex.

Yeah. I already said gross.

Ah well, what can you do but wait for the mess to heal so that you can start the process all over again? And again and again.

Ah well.  Again.



I probably won't be posting tomorrow, but stay tuned for the exciting upcoming week where I will be babysitting -- and probably complaining about -- my father's cats. Oh, and his house, too. And his fish, I guess.

Ain't we got fun, boys and girls?