Not entirely pointless photos of the day:

And you do realise, of course, that this is risking having the blog turn into a pumpkin...

I just thought that Ces might be interested to know that the sky had vertebrae this morning.

The other photo? Just there to keep the first photo company.

----------

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to post today, to be honest, and for a couple of reasons. The first and most immediate reason is that I have a paper cut down the side of my left pinkie, and it's sort of making typing annoying.

I hate paper cuts.

Not that I'm saying that anyone else likes them, but still. Stupid cardboard box that I was trying to wedge into the recycling, anyway.

The second reason I'm a little blather-blocked is that I'm about to disappear from the internet for a few days, and that always makes me feel like I should be working a bit harder to post something worth reading before I go. I don't know why I put that touch of extra pressure on myself, but I do.

It generally leads to some very lame posts, and that's pretty much what's happening here.

I guess I could tell you why I'm disappearing, although that's not terribly exciting either. It's Canada Day weekend here in Canada (well, it would be weird if it was Canada Day weekend in Sweden), and after making it through another spring school programming season I've decided to vote myself a four-day weekend rather than a three-day weekend. With any luck it may even turn into a five-day weekend, but I'm not entirely sure about that yet. A weekend away from the office and my father's place means a weekend with no computer for me, and that leads to a blatherless blog. Well, obviously, since I haven't quite figured out how to do this by telekinesis.

I know some people are reading this and wondering if there's such a thing as a world without a computer for an entire long weekend, and let me assure you that there is. I like not having a computer at home. Sure, I miss out on some things, but it allows me to do more of other things. Take away the easy option and you find other ways to amuse yourself, believe it or not.

So what will I do with my weekend if I'm not going in to see my dad?

NOTHING.

I'm tired, and I intend to do nothing.

I might guilt myself into a little bit of cleaning, especially if I take that fifth day, but other than that... I might sit on my balcony and watch my plants grow. I might watch silly British sketch comedy. I might doodle, or knit a new dish cloth since I see that my current one has an extra hole that it really shouldn't have. Overall, though, the plan is to have no plan.

For days.

Doesn't that sound amazing?

Oh, and in case anyone new to the program wondered, I'll be doing all of this nothing alone. I like it that way. I'm not shy of my own company at the best of times, and after the last month and a half of talking to innumerable school children I think I deserve some time to talk to no one.

That is, except the voices in my head. Wouldn't want them to feel left out.





So there you have it. The last blather of June. Have a great weekend, everyone (and if you're in my area, stay off of the river. It's high enough that even we've cancelled our floats, and we have proper commercial rafts. Having a floating beer party in a Walmart inflatable would be just plain idiotic), and I'll see you whenever I manage to drag myself back to the office.

Or Wednesday. Whichever comes first.

Pointless photo of the day:

Yeah, no silliness today. I'm too much schedule-brain.

I should explain that, I suppose.

I just finished doing up the July schedule for our Visitor Services staff. That isn't exactly a job I look forward to. You see, we can only offer part-time hours (evenings and weekends during the summer; weekends only for the rest of the year) to these folks, so they have to find other jobs as well. Other jobs means they're not available for every shift here.

Picture taking a half-dozen people with other schedules all over the place and trying to make those schedules mesh.

IT'S NOT FUN.

And my head hurts.

Ah well. It's all e-mailed out now, so at least that's off my list for another month.



Guess I should get some lunch before my final school program of the season. Which, by the way, will not be helping my head at all. Booking a field trip on the final afternoon of school? That's just cruel to us, teachers. Why aren't you just taking your kids to the swimming pool like everybody else does?

Ah well. Again.

Lunch time.

I swore I'd never do this

I swore I'd never put a pointless photo of myself on this blog. I've put photos of portions of me before, yes. An eye. Part of my face. My shoes. Repeatedly. My hand holding ladybirds and dragonflies. But me, as a whole?

Nope.

I don't need to be here.

I'd rather remain faceless, to be honest.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not equating faceless with anonymous. I don't post under my full name here (oddly enough, my parents didn't name me Dee), but I know very well that I'd be a quick find if someone felt like putting in a little effort to look for me. For one thing, how many long-time naturalists working at nature centres can there be in Alberta?

I don't pretend for a moment to be invisible.

I've just never felt the need to have you put a face to a name. Or a nickname, as the case may be. It's been a rule with me since 2003 (that, believe it or not, is when I started the old blog) that there wasn't ever going to be a photo of me around the place. No photo of me on the page, no photo of me in my profile...

My profile photo, for anyone who's wondered what the heck that thing is, is of the egg case of a Goldenrod Spider. The mother spider's guarding it. It was a cool find for me, because they're usually fairly hidden. Um, anyway.

Yeah, no photo of me. For years. So it's with a somewhat heavy heart that I very reluctantly share this image with you. It might be a total mistake and I'll probably regret it, but here goes. Putting a face to a name:

That's right. You've probably suspected it all along, but this blog is written by a pissed-off cat.

Wasn't worth the build-up, was it?





Ok, a bit more seriously. I was just fooling around with the 3DS the other night. This is from an application called Colors! 3D, which is, logically enough, a 3D version of the Colors! app Iphone users might know about. It's a pretty simple paint program, really, but I've been having fun just messing around with it.

This, obviously, was me tracing a photo because I wasn't in the mood to be terribly creative. The photo was taken with the 3DS's inner camera, so not exactly the highest quality you're going to find in the first place. Max and I were lying on the bed (Max was "helping" me play a game) when I took the shot.

And yes, he really does look that peeved in the original photo.

And me? Do I look anything like that?

Um.

Well, I do have two eyes. And glasses...

I guess it counts as sort of me. I didn't make up anything, but I didn't include everything either. Think of it as cartoon-me, and you'd be ok.

And why is it even here on the blog?

I DON'T KNOW. Weird mood, I suppose. We're all allowed weird moods now and then. I have them fairly frequently.

As you may have noticed.

I need to get back to work now. I, erm, hope you've found this... edifying?






Or weird. Weird works. Going to stop typing now, because I really don't know how to end this lack-of-post.

Pointless photo and very few words of the day:

As promised, if you'll recall. It's been a busy programming day (and something of a... well, let's just say it starts with cluster), and I'm spent.

But the poppies are pretty, aren't they?



Yeah.

Going now.

Chapter 1591: Wherein Dee gets all self-obsessed

The oriental poppies are in full bloom at the moment. I really love poppies of all sorts, but these are sentimental favourites because the seed came from my grandmother's yard. I usually take too many photos of them, but I restrained myself this year. No worries about the blog becoming All Poppies All the Time, then.

No promises about the irises, though.

----------

Man, was I long-winded yesterday. I didn't realise just how much until I read it back today. Ah well, it is Pointless Blather Blog, after all. Emphasis on the blather part now and then.

To keep to the apparently wordy theme of the weekend, I guess it's time for another 50 Things list. I used to do these semi-regularly on the old blog, but only recently resurrected them here. The idea is to pick a topic and list fifty things about it. I generally try to keep it positive because I need the practice, but that's not a hard and fast rule. It's my house, after all. I can change the rules whenever I want to. And with that... today's topic?

50 Things About Me
(in absolutely no order, because I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to type)

1. I'm very strongly left-handed, and I truly believe that I'm wired differently than most of the right-handed world. It sure seems that way, at least.
2. I'm an oldest (well, technically older. There's only two of us) child and an only daughter.
3. I like cheese.
4. I played oboe and tuned percussion in the school band. Tuned percussion because I was trying desperately to escape the oboe. I like the oboe, but there's nothing quite as lonely as playing oboe in a small-town band.
5. I have a very serious interest in historical fashion.
6. I hate it when movies get history wrong.
7. I studied Classics with my available option space when I was doing my Zoology degree. It was a nice break from the labs. My academic advisor thought I was nuts.
8. I don't currently own an MP3 player. When I go walking I like to hear what's going on around me.
9. I almost always have a song in my head. When I don't, I get worried because it's a bad sign.
10. I write two blogs and maintain a third, but I don't own a computer.
11. I'm a lyric mezzo-soprano.
12. I love Louis Armstrong. To the point where I (somewhat pedantically, yes) don't call him Louie because he never referred to himself that way.
13. I'm a comparative anatomy junkie and I frankly found my dissection labs in school fascinating.
14. I no longer cut up dead animals. The live ones are more interesting these days.
15. My cell phone is five years old because I'm having trouble deciding whether I want to change providers so I haven't renewed my contract. Is it worth the bother to switch, do you think?
16. My mother died unexpectedly in 1999 from complications from what was supposed to be routine surgery. The last time I saw her, I thought it would be the last time I saw her. This would freak me out more if I didn't realise that the memory of feeling that way wouldn't be nearly so strong if things had turned out fine.
17. As you can see from #16, I'm skeptical of premonitions and things like that. Skeptical, but not adamant in disbelief. I leave a window open in case proof ever actually decides to come in.
18. I like cats.
19. I'm allergic to cats. The universe laughs.
20. I dislike yellow in almost anything but flowers. I'm not sure why they get an exception.
21. I read far more non-fiction than fiction. I like to learn things.
22. If I get gift cards I go out of my way to buy something that I wouldn't normally buy. That way it's more gifty.
23. On a related note, my brother and sister-in-law have been supporting my art habit for years. Yay new toys.
24. I own the complete Monty Python TV series, including the German episodes.
25. Ditto A Bit of Fry & Laurie. Well, except for the German episodes since there weren't any.
26. I like sharing my books. With only a couple of exceptions, I'm not even overly concerned if they don't come back. Fly, book. Fly...
27. If you asked me what I'd save from my apartment in case of a fire, I'd be stumped. My ID? Honestly, my things are becoming less and less important to me as I grow older.
28. I got the English award at my high school. I know, kind of hard to believe.
29. I can write in fluent dry academic, but life's too short to be that boring.
30. I like playing with words, and think of language as organic. Proscriptive, rule-bound grammarians need to look at language as it actually exists as opposed to how they think it should be, as far as I'm concerned. In other words, go stuff yourselves.
31. My favourite curse word is bugger. It's extremely versatile.
32. I could have easily studied library science. Or linguistics. Language evolution is a very cool thing.
33. I hate dusting. It seems so pointless.
34. I (and my coworker) once used a keyhole saw to cut the breasts off of a mannequin. I should probably tell that story here sometime.
35. I've been walking the same trails in the Sanctuary for over twenty years now, but under the right circumstances going for a simple walk can still make me ridiculously happy.
36. When I was doing youth theatre with the choir I sang in, the lack of boys meant that I always ended up playing male roles. This despite the fact that I'm 5'2" and... erm, round. Apparently no one was supposed to notice?
37. My favourite colour is purple, but I look better in red.
38. I haven't had my hair cut in two years. Sheer laziness. When I do get it cut, it'll be short(ish). Then I'll let it grow again, probably.
39. I tend to have serial hobbies. I'll do one thing for a while and then move onto something else. Then, a few years later I'll go back and do it all again.
40. I once threw a full file folder across the room at my office mate (known here as Wheat. Long story). Missed. They're not very aerodynamic, file folders.
41. I have some pretty weird scars. Or, more accurately, scars gained in pretty weird ways.
42. I once gave myself a minor concussion by running into a tree during a pond study program. Long story. Again.
43. I didn't learn to knit until I was thirty. Now, I knit mostly toques. Too short an attention span for anything else.
44. I used to be pretty good at needlepoint and embroidery. Probably still am. It's not exactly something you forget.
45. I think that being nearsighted changes every single facet of my life. I'm always going to be more comfortable with the details than the big picture. Literally and figuratively.
46. I don't share many of my beliefs on the blog. I have beliefs; they're none of the internet's business.
47. I'm nearly terrified (think beyond scared, but not quite to the point of full-on phobia) of being burned and have been since I was a kid even though I've never been seriously burned in my life. It made it really hard to learn to cook as a teen because I didn't want to get anywhere near the stove. It's the one thing that might make me believe in reincarnation, really. Maybe I was a witch in another life. Hmm. Wonder if I weigh the same as a duck?
48. I'm allergic to the cold. No, I'm serious.
49. I like changing the words in songs. I think we can blame that one on my father, who used to stick nose into every song when we were children. As for me, I have a few favourite inserts. Just about every song about money is better with monkey, if you asked me.
50. I'm very pattern and shape oriented. Any weird photo cropping you see on the blog? Not accidental. I generally aim for things that appeal to my brain, even if they miss the point for everyone else.

And... 50. That was... very random.

But it equals another post, so good on me.





Blogging over the week might be pretty wordless since we're coming to our school year end, so  I might suggest that if this seems too blathery today you should wrap some of it up and save it for later.

Or find something else to read, I suppose. That works.

Done typing now.

Oh. I said something about a post, didn't I?

Damn.

I should never do that.

The thing is, somewhere between doing laundry, entertaining the cat (very definitely his top priority, at least), and making pointless paint splotches for what may possibly end up being my lamest entry for Illustration Friday ever (and I've had some lame ones), I forgot to think of anything to blather about.

So. Um. Let's see...

I...

... could talk about my fascination with grape leaves, I suppose, but that would make today's pointless photo NOT pointless, and as we all know that if this blog ever comes to a point it will turn into a pumpkin...

Yeah. I should probably stay away from the grape leaves. Besides, it'd be a pretty short post. I like grape leaves. They're fun to draw. The End.

Still leaves me without a topic, though.

I could talk work, I suppose, since work is what made the blog mostly blatherless this week. That might do, especially since I've noticed a couple of new people checking in recently. Hi, new people. You're welcome here, although I have to admit that I can never quite figure out why anyone comes at all...

Too many ellipses, Dee. Stop being so incomplete.





Ok, work, then. I know that my references to work are probably a little confusing, but that's partly because I have one of the odder jobs in the world. And... oh. I'm bleeding. Excuse me a sec.



A minute or so later...
 And more ellipses, apparently...

 Yes, it was a little weird to actually type out that last bit. I should probably delete it, but it made me laugh to see that I'd given you people play-by-play as I went so it'll stay. I have a small patch of eczema (aka atopic dermatitis aka bloody annoying) on my hand that got irritated when I was wearing the wrist splint after my sprain, and I must have scratched off a scab without noticing. TMI? TDB, as Yours Blatheringly always says.

Where was I, anyway?

Right, work.

As my profile says, I'm a naturalist/interpreter. I add the naturalist part in because a) I am a naturalist, and b) although my official title is interpreter (sorry -- School and Youth Programs Interpreter, thank you very much), almost nobody outside the business knows what that means and they assume that I'm multilingual.

There are different kinds of interpretation out there, folks. Some people interpret languages; I interpret natural history. And sometimes history history. And sometimes astronomy, just to throw people off.

The whole point of interpretation is to help people understand things. To teach without being pedantic. That's what I do. Ironic that I ended up teaching, since I come from a family of teachers and took a science degree to try to stay away from teaching. I guess that some things are genetic and you just can't escape them. At least I get to teach in a creative environment.

So that's the philosophy of the job; what's the job itself? Well, as my job title suggests, I spend most of my time doing school programming (as opposed to public programming, although I do a little of that too when I'm needed). For me that means leading actual school groups -- either at the nature centre or at the schools themselves if they've booked me for extension programming -- through what we call an interpretive program. Thus my constant and largely unexplained use of the term program on the blog. Sorry to anyone who thought that I was really a computer wizard for the nature centre.

When I started at the nature centre, leading programs was all that I did. I still do it, but as generally happens when you've been at a job forever there've been more responsibilities added on over the years. Now I also write the programs (which means being familiar with the school curriculum, since nowadays we have to prove our value for the schools' limited budgets. Pretty much all of our programming is curriculum-related. Why didn't I just do an education degree, again? I probably spend more time with the curriculum than a lot of teachers do. Sad, that), make sure that all the props are there, train the interpreters, supervise the interpreters, evaluate the interpreters... well, you get the picture there. June's a busy month for all of that, so I think you can see why the blog falls by the wayside.

Somehow or other it also fell to me to supervise the part-time weekend and evening front desk staff (known as Visitor Services) and edit the quarterly newsletter, which is a giant pain in the behind because no one ever gets their submissions in on time.

When I'm not doing any of the above I might be answering questions from the public, leading edible plant walks, doing astronomy programs with our mobile planetarium (think giant inflatable silver igloo, if you've never seen a mobile planetarium. Or, you know, just google mobile planetarium. That works, too), or drawing, since I accidentally became my own program illustrator a few years ago. What can I say? We're a non-profit. There's no way I'd ever have the budget to pay an artist.

I'll say one thing: with all its annoyances (and really, what job doesn't have at least a few annoyances?), it's a job that offers a lot of variety. On any given day I could be talking about rocks, researching aboriginal plant use, or playing with a snake. It's the kind of thing that's managed to keep my notably short attention span interested for (sigh) twenty years come last September (when did I become old enough to be doing anything for twenty years?), and the kind of field I've been working in for almost twenty-five years now if you count my university summer job. It's weird, it's hard to explain, and it's such a big part of me now that I don't think I'll ever be able to shake it.

A good thing, that? Oh, sometimes. Sometimes I'd rather be working in a library or an art supply store. We all have those sometimes moments, though, and I think I have less of them than most people do.

And that definitely counts as a good thing.

And...



LOOK! A POST!

TIME TO GET LUNCH, NOW!

YOU CAN STOP READING!

Pointless photo of the... well, whatever it is.

There may possibly be an actual post here tomorrow.

I say may, because obviously my track record hasn't been so great this week.

It's been busy at work.

But you probably gathered that. Or that I was eaten by a killer whale, maybe, although that would be a bit weird here in Alberta.



Um, yeah.

Tomorrow, then.



Or whenever.

Stewing

The pointless photo is not, of course, of stewing. It wouldn't be a pointless photo if it was.

Actually, it would be pretty much a miracle if it was, because the kind of stewing I'm thinking of is the kind that goes on inside rather than the kind you can take a pointless photo of.

Yeah, I'm stewing. Stewing about something.

You see, I tend to stew about things when I don't have all the facts or details. I hate driving someplace if I don't know exactly where the place is, for example (and that can be a bit of a problem when I'm programming out at schools rather than here at the nature centre). I hate being put into unfamiliar situations if I don't have at least an outline of what's supposed to be going on.

I guess you could call it a slight touch of OCD. Or just plain neurosis.

Either way, I'm stewing.

I have a program tonight, you see. Well, two of us have. It's for a group we haven't programmed for before.

AND I KNOW NEXT TO NOTHING ABOUT IT.

I know that the booking sheet has very little information that's useful for me so far as prep goes. I know that there's supposed to be a "social" after the walk. I'm hoping that the "social" part is being taken care of by the organisers, because I certainly know nothing about what's apparently happening.

I hate knowing nothing. It makes me... uncomfortable.

And I still have over an hour of stewing left before I can officially declare that there's nothing to be done about it.



Some days I'd give quite a lot to be a little less OLF, really.

And now, back to stewing. Um, yay?

Pointless photo and again no post of the day:

Seriously, I'm tired enough now that you really don't want me to post.

Or at least I really don't want me to post...

Um, tomorrow? Maybe?



Hey, at least you're getting a flower out of the deal.

Pointless photo of the day:

That's it from me today. I'll try for something more tomorrow.

What's on my finger today?

You people are going to think that I'm jewellery-obsessed all of a sudden. I'm not, honestly. It's just that this is the first time I've worn this ring, and it's sort of on my mind at the moment.

What you're seeing in my fairly-unphotogenic hand (and sheesh. You'd think I could have slipped out of the loop of my tensor brace before I took the photo. Didn't think to, to be honest. The wrist is doing fine, by the way. I'm just wearing a light brace now to make sure it continues to do fine) is a ring.


Well, duh, Dee.

It's a mystery ring, of sorts.

I found it in my mother's jewellery box when I was looking for chains, and it was one of only two rings in there (the other being her high school ring, if any of my two fans were interested for some reason). Anyway, I'm thinking that it might be an aquamarine, since my mother was born in March. I asked a friend of mine here at work who knows more than I do about stones what she thought and she said aquamarine before I even said anything else, so maybe I'm right with my guess.

It's a nice, simple setting, and as you can see from this angle featuring my very unmanicured thumbnail, there's almost an art deco-y feel to the sides with that swoop.

It's a nice ring. I wouldn't imagine that it's terribly valuable, but it's pretty wearable. Which makes it a bit odd that I don't ever remember her wearing it.

Ah. We get to the mystery part.

My mom did wear rings, so that wasn't the problem. She had her wedding ring, of course, and a family ring that she was ever so slightly peeved wasn't a little more colourful. Curse my father and me for both being born in the same month, I guess. Hmm. Wasn't the family ring in her jewellery box too, along with this one and the school one? I can't remember now.

Erm, anyway. She did wear rings and this is a decent ring, so why wasn't it worn? Not that it's important at all, but it intrigues me. I know nothing about this ring. It was important enough to be kept, but wasn't worn. Where did it come from? Was it a present from her parents? I'm guessing it's a 60's setting, but I don't even know that for sure.

I suppose it bugs me a little when things don't have stories.

Ah well. I need to get back to work now, so we'll just have to leave the mystery a mystery. And as for the ring itself, I think I'll be wearing it more often now that I've had it on for a while. Incidentally, a little aquamarine googling tells me that it's the star sign stone for Scorpio.

I know a Scorpio. She's wearing an aquamarine (well, presumably aquamarine) ring on her right hand just now. And she definitely needs to get back to work.




See you in a day or two. No computer for me tomorrow. Oh, and early Happy Father's Day to my dad, since unfortunately I won't make it into town this week. Maybe we'll have to do a belated something next weekend.

What's in my ears today?

No, not ferns. I just didn't feel like taking a pointless photo of the side of my head. Especially since I would have needed to use the work camera to do it, and taking a picture of your ear with work equipment is just... well, a little bit weird.

I think, anyway, although stranger things have happened with the work camera.

Or at least I'm assuming.

I, erm, don't really have anything, if you haven't already guessed. I've been taking advantage of what this time of year is a rare day in the office to work on the EXTREMELY LATE newsletter (thanks for getting things in before I hit programming-busy, everyone. Sheesh.), and when my brain gets into newsletter mode it's hard to make it want to blather.

So...

Oh yeah. I was going to tell you about my earrings. I've mentioned that rearranging the jewellery box has made me a bit more interested in jewellery variety than I've been for a while, and I guess it really hit this morning.

I had a whim.

I don't usually have whims in the morning. I have other things to do first thing in the morning.

Today, though, I had a whim. And that's what caused me to dig through the earring stash and come to work dressed in the finest of late 80s junk jewellery. Thus:

• large
• dangly
• mismatched on purpose

Ah well. At least they're not neon.

What are they, then? A cat on one side. A fish skeleton on the other. Add that to the fact that I've been wearing a silver ear cuff lately that I used to wear when I was in university (another whim, I suppose, but I'd forgotten that there was a time that I really liked ear cuffs. Still do, come to it. Maybe I can get them back into fashion? Yeeeah, whatever on that one, Dee. Although, a quick google shows that there are plenty of ear cuffs still to be found out there...), and my ears are kind of their own time machine today.

I'm sort of enjoying it.

Maybe I should become the office queen of gaudy eighties earrings?





Nah. That'd mean I'd have to have a whim every morning, and I'm not sure I'm up to that.

I could probably manage one day a week, if I gave it a little effort.

And I must admit that I have some totally awesome gaudy eighties earrings.



Hmm.

Back to work just now, though. If by some miracle I have time in between tomorrow's programs to post, remind me to tell you about the new snake. I'm about to be back in the business of pinkie-buying again, for better or for worse.

Better, mostly. I've missed having a snake.

Later.

Too tired to post

And believe me, I get tired of being tired.

How 'bout I give this a try tomorrow, then? Both the sleeping thing and the posting thing.



Ok, then.

Works for me.

Leftover hobbies

I used to teach singing. Oh, wait. I got paid for that. Maybe it doesn't count as a hobby, then. I did, however, also have a children's choir that I didn't get paid for, so the hobby thing still applies somewhat.

I did those things.

Past tense.

I'm not likely to do them ever again, as far as I can tell.

It's not that I didn't enjoy them. Well, the teaching bit got a little old, but that was partly because I was doing it on weekends after a full work week (as full as a part-time job gets, anyway) when I just wanted to not be working.

That, and the vocalises. Spending your Saturday mornings listening to vocalises and other exercises and marking theory papers is about as fun as it sounds.

Anyway. The point of this was that I did do those things, but I don't now.

The problem is that the leftovers don't just go away once you're done.

My room -- and former studio -- at my father's place is filled with music. There's a filing cabinet full of choral music (as well as all the binders that I'd put the currently-used music in) and a shelf full of teaching stuff. And that's not even mentioning the pile of books on the piano.

Um, yeah. My bedroom at my father's place is full of music AND a piano. And it's not like it's a big room, either.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what to do with all of it. With the exception of the piano, although I suppose I think of that, too. I'm not saying that I'd get rid of it all, especially since I still use a lot of the books for my own personal singing, but the old Conservatory books aren't doing me much good anymore (and wow, is their website ugly), and the choral music is being wasted just sitting there.

I feel a bit guilty about it just sitting there, to be honest.

And while I feel guilty, the cat is thinking "why are you taking photos of music on your unmade bed, doofus? And why is there a duck behind me?" I'm not entirely sure on both counts, really. I do at least know that the photo on the shelf is the U of A Mixed Chorus, circa late 80's, of which I was a member.

I'm standing behind the duck.

Um, anyway. About the music. I'm thinking very seriously about donating the choral music to the church that lent me practice space when I still had the choir. I don't think they have a junior choir at the moment, but they might in the future. A lot of the music -- especially the holiday pieces -- would do for the adult choir, anyway. At any rate, the music's more likely to get used if it's out in the community, so it sort of makes sense.

I think.

Maybe I should phone them first. You know, rather than dumping a few boxes of music and running.

As for the rest... oh, I don't know. I suppose I'll find something when the time comes that I need to find something. It's just too bad that leftovers don't automatically poof away when the hobby's no longer a hobby, is all.

And as for the cat? I'm assuming that he'll keep being judgemental. It seems to be his forte.





And as for the duck?...

Shiny

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is shiny. And I don't usually say that on this blog. I'll be saying it on the other blog later today, though, assuming that I think of something to doodle for it. Click the other blog link above to look at previous week's stuff if you want to until then, but keep in mind that I've been dealing with a sprained wrist lately so the last month or so hasn't exactly been wonderful in the artsy department.

Anyway. Thinking of ideas for the prompt plus continuing frustration with my father's computer (the hamster wheel's definitely slowing down these days) has kind of blocked the blather for me, so I'm going to use the opportunity to post the photos of my non-jewels that my two fans will remember I was threatening them with last winter if things got dull, pointless-photoly speaking. Well, things got dull all right, but between the crappy photos and the fact that I rearranged the gewgaws after I took them, I kind of lost my enthusiasm for the project.

Erm, such as it was.

Here they are all at once, then, or at least the ones I hadn't posted already. If you're actually interested in a closer look (for some weird reason), click on the thumbnails. The photo quality is horrible, but whatever floats your boat in the end, I suppose.

Incidentally, in some cases the photo quality is horrible on purpose, because while I did take photos of everything that was in my jewellery case (and another couple of boxes that I keep things in), some of it was really not the internet's business.

I know, I know. In that case, why take the pictures in the first place, right? Well, I guess I was in the mood to be thorough.

Besides, I think it does all of us a bit of good to go through all of the inventory every once in a while, right? Or in my case, I guess it's more like... um... every thirty years? Seriously, when I was going through this stuff I was feeling like a hoarder in miniature. No toppling stacks of magazines here, but every pair of junky earrings I've had since I had my ears pierced? Oh. In that case, revise that thirty years figure up a bit, since I've had pierced ears since I was in Grade One.

And by the way, who lets their kid get pierced ears that young, Mom? It was my choice. I remember that. But my mother wasn't the type who let her kids do everything they wanted. Why she was ok with the ear piercing is kind of beyond me.

This post is going to have a lot of anyways, I can just tell.

For this particular anyway, I'll say: anyway, some of the stuff you see in these photos (actually, more of the stuff that was in the earlier photos, since those drawers were the least used. And if for some reason you missed the earlier photos and --oddly -- want to see them, just click the "box" link at the end of this post. And don't mind that I'll be thinking you a bit weird for it) has gone home to the dustbin, finally. Taking everything out to take pictures did give me the chance to have a why-the-hell-are-you -keeping-this moment and get rid of some things that were just taking up space.

I should take a second here and say, now that we've hit the chain section, that most of my chains are of genuine precious metals. That's unusual, when it comes to me and jewellery. I have no hesitation wearing completely crap earrings, but for some reason I've never been all that happy wearing junky chains. As a result, nearly every chain I own is very fine (as in tiiiny) and not at all suited for pendants, as I found out after I bought some neat pendants a few months ago at the Centre's Rock and Gem Show (and I wrote about that at the time, so if you're desperate to know more you can find it in the archives). Pendants with no chains necessitated a dive into my mother's and grandmother's jewellery boxes here at dad's place (which I blathered about too. Obviously I'm hard up for material sometimes). I did find a few chains that do, but is it awfully shallow of me to admit that I wish they were gold or silver rather than base metal? I mean, it's not like anyone cares, so why does it irk me?

Anyway, last photo so I should wrap up for now and go find some lunch. If anyone wonders, there are a few treasures hidden in amongst the vast pile of cheap you've just seen. Some of them are treasures because of family history, some very few of them are treasures because they actually have some value, and some are just memory treasures that won't mean anything to anyone once I'm gone.

You know, like anyone else's long-neglected jewellery box.

The funny thing is, between going through the boxes (mine and the others) and buying the three pendants, I've kind of got more interested in wearing a bit more of my jewellery than I have in years. I'm not saying that I go out completely adorned -- I work at a nature centre after all, and it would look weird -- but I have been making an effort to change things up a little at least a few times a week. Considering that I spent years going to work in the same pair of joined-up gold earrings (joined up because I have two holes in each earlobe. Long story, and I'm sure I've already it here. Probably more than once), wristwatch, and silver ring (and no chains at all, since I'd been wearing my nerdstick on a lanyard instead), actually thinking about what I might like to wear is quite a departure.

Now if I could only be bothered to go out and get a haircut...



Oh, but that's another post, so I'd better save it. And I think I finally have an idea for the IF prompt, so it might be worth checking the other blog later after all.

If you're into that sort of thing.

But that probably goes without saying.





Didn't I say something about lunch ? Later, then.

Pointless photo of the day and a brief note of appreciation for the weather

It's raining.

Yay.

No, that's a genuine yay. It was a good day for it to rain, because I've had a busy programming week (thus the massive amount of blogging that's happened), and just when I was wondering where the energy &/or attitude was going to come from for my afternoon pond study it started pouring rain.

And not only that, but the school called at a not-the-last-minute time to postpone. That means that I didn't find out that they weren't coming after I'd already set everything up.

Yay.

It also looks like it might stop raining for just long enough that my interpreters who have the groups that didn't cancel can get their programs in without being completely soaked.

Are we hitting triple yay, then?

Yes, we are.

Yay.

This means as well that, since my program's off,  I'll get a chance to see one of my newer programmers program, which I haven't been able to do yet because I've been busy programming myself.

Get the feeling that June's a busy time around here?

Yes, yes it is.

Going now. Consider yourself lucky to get any blather at all, because I really didn't think you were going to today.

And then it rained.



Yay.

Pointless photo of the day:

Thought I'd better use this one before it got too old, since I noticed at my father's place last weekend that the prairie crocusses are all finished flowering now. It's not a great shot, but it's the only one I got this year. I'm not sure why -- I love that rich purple colour and generally spend a lot more time taking crocus photos. Ah well. I suppose you can look back in the archives if you want more.

And if you want more blather, as well. This is actually more than I thought I'd have time for today, but it's back to work now.

Oh, and don't expect any blather at all tomorrow. I did warn you that it was going to be one of those weeks, didn't I?

Silly things I do sometimes

I'll be honest -- I don't really have a post in mind again today. It's a shame, because it's shaping up to be another blog-neglect week since work will be busy (yeah, there's yer warning). So... I guess we're going to talk photography. Somewhat.

I like taking pictures, but I don't really care if they're award-winning. Which is a good thing, because I know that about 95% of what I take (ok, more like 99%) is immensely forgettable. That's fine with me. Most of the photos I take are pointless, which is why they get used on the blog. By the way, if you've ever wondered whether I carefully save all of the shots that have been posted here over the years, the answer is a big fat undeniable NO. They're disposable. They get deleted from my nerdstick almost as soon as they're posted, for the most part. I rarely regret that, because one of the beauties of digital photography (especially when you're posting it on the web) is that it's pretty darned easy to recover something if you suddenly decide that the artful shot of the downspout covered in ice just has to be sent into some completely useless photography competition that you're not going to win anyway.

Um, not that I do that sort of thing.

Ok, once. But it wasn't a downspout, and I'm not going to tell you which one it was because, as predicted, I wasn't going to win anyway.

And I'm not bitter.

Actually, I'm really not. I probably would have dropped down dead if I had won.

Anyway.

Like anyone who takes a lot of photos I occasionally get lucky, even with a point-and-shoot camera. Those ones I'll hold on to. Sometimes they become resource photos when I'm doodling, sometimes they get posted here... sometimes I think a bit about getting one or two of them printed and mounted, but it doesn't happen. I hold onto them just in case, though.

As for the rest, the decent ones show up on the blog, the bad disappear completely, and the mediocre? Well, sometimes I play. Like the version you see above of the photo to the left. Not a bad composition, I suppose, but in the original you can't even tell that they're apple blossoms. The angle was a nice try, but you didn't get it. Usually those ones just hit the bin, but sometimes I'll run them through the various silly filters in the photoeditor to see if anything comes out of it.

Like an inverted-colour purple portrait, I suppose. Or at least in this case.

If you went waaay back in the archive you'll find that I used to do this sort of thing a lot more often. I was using a different photoeditor back then, and it had a lot of useless toys. Useless because I could never figure out when you'd actually, seriously use them, but they were kind of fun to tinker around with when I had an iffy picture on hand. Then that software got pretty outdated, and I switched to using one of the free editors you can download from the internet. It did the trick for basics, but no toys.

Oddly enough, I didn't really miss the toys. I guess all toys get old after a while.

Anyway, a while back I updated the software.

And gained some toys.

Apparently, there are people out there who really use the toys, and not just for silly things.

Who knew?

So what does this mean for the blog? Well, probably not much in the end. I've probably grown out of (or maybe got bored with is more accurate) spending way too long fooling around with bad pictures to make them look... I dunno, arty? You might find one now and then if I haven't got anything better to do with my time, I suppose, but I wouldn't expect much more.

Or who knows? Maybe I'll just surprise everyone and turn this into the Pointless Assaults With A Photoeditor blog. Whomever knows that the blather part hasn't been going all that well lately.





That's it for now, then; see you at some point. This week might be interesting. Or at least blog-deficient.

So, this blogging thing

I promised a post, didn't I? Well, it's not looking good for anything of substance. I got a late start to the day, and I'm still catching up. And yes, the more observant of you will notice that I've apparently found the time to doodle since my Illustration Friday thumbnail has already shown up on the sidebar, but that was just because I was waiting to change laundry loads and my father's headed-towards-geriatric computer had hung up during its scan. What else to do but doodle, really?

As for topic, work's out at the moment because work's been the main reason I haven't been blogging and I don't want to think about all the work stuff I still need to get done because IT'S THE WEEKEND (you know, in case you hadn't noticed). Besides, bad news about a coworker's boyfriend's brain cancer has kind of put a damper on the workplace at the moment.

So that leaves me?

Oh, how about the cat. The cat who's sitting on my foot in the pointless photo. And why is he sitting on my foot? Well, because that's what he does. I don't ask why.

Want to know what else he does?

He makes my mornings... interesting when I'm here at my father's place.

I generally go to bed earlier than my dad because I wake up at stupid o'clock and I pretty much have to go to bed earlier. I close my door but don't latch it, because I know that if I latch it I'll be woken up by the sound of a cat's paw reaching under the door to scratch the other side. And he does that why? Because he knows it wakes me up, I imagine. If it's unlatched, at least all he does is lean into it hard enough that it bangs open. Waking me up, yes.

He'll usually visit me at least once before Dad goes to bed. He'll want to be petted (or as I refer to it, serviced), but in the past year or so he's finally figured out that he should just go away if I'm ignoring him. Before that, he'd climb up on top of me and stare. For ages.

He's good at staring, is Max.

So, on to mornings. Usually sometime around three o'clock I'll feel a cat jump on the bed. If I'm awake, that is, but I'm often a little bit awake at three because I have stupid brain. Anyway, the cat jumps on the bed and stares. You can just tell that he's staring, even if you're facing the other way. Did I mention that he's good at staring? It used to be that he'd stand there staring for what seemed like forever, but nowadays it's just a few minutes before he decides that nothing's going on and he leaves.

We'll repeat the same thing about five o'clock.

And probably again at six, by which time I'm definitely and irretrievably awake. Stupid brain is no fun, folks.

All this time he will have been ignored, because no cat needs servicing at stupid o'clock in the morning. Unfortunately (or fortunately for him), generally before six thirty I'll have to get up to go to the bathroom.

The cat will be innocently "sleeping" on the couch in the living room.

When I leave the bathroom he'll still be "sleeping", and yet somehow he manages to make it back to my bedroom before I do.

So... I'll briefly go back to bed, the cat will fling himself down beside me, and he'll have his belly rubbed because he's decided that belly rubbing is my job. He never asks Dad for a belly rub. But then, he never actually sleeps with me. That's Dad's job, to keep the cat company at night.

Yes, we've been assigned jobs by the cat.

Have I already said that this happens every morning when I'm here? Every single morning?





He's quite the cat, is Max.

And apparently can cause blog posts to materialise.

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Today's World Drawing Day, everyone. Check out the website for details. I know that I've sort of already drawn something today, but I'm going to try to do something specifically Drawing Day related after I have some lunch. You should, too. It's all just about having some fun with art. Draw something, and let me know if you've posted it somewhere so that I can check it out. Or not. Just draw. That's the point.