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.

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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...

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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?