Hey, it's another post!

Probably another short post because I'm literally just waiting for the (watercolour) paint to dry on something I'm doodling for Illustration Friday. See the other blog in a while for the end result, if I feel like it's worth posting.

The prompt this week is vintage, by the way. Kind of a weird one.

Anyway, today's flower. I wish I could have gotten a better shot of this poppy, but it was a bit windy yesterday (today? Rain, so not much better). It's pretty spectacular, though. Pink double with purple bits on the underside. The funny thing? Dad has no idea where it came from. The oriental poppies we had before came from my grandma's former house, and they were straight-up orange.

I hope this one seeds, because I'd like to see it around for a while.

Speaking of Dad, did you know that yesterday was Father's Day? It was for us, since I had to work last Sunday. That edible plant walk for the local U of Alberta alumni (Quaecumque vera! And yes, I'm an alumna as well. 91 BSc spec (Zoology). Sheesh, 1991. And now I feel even older...) went well, at least. Anyway, when I found out that I couldn't come in for actual Father's Day I asked Dad if I could take him out for dinner the next Saturday -- yesterday, in other words -- instead. He chose a local Chinese buffet, which let me off cheaper than I intended. I'm always up for decent buffet, though, and this one turned out to be just that.

Decent, that is. Definitely Chop Suey (Chinese heavily modified for Canadian tastes, that is), a few too many battered and deep fried things, lacking in something spicy except for the sriracha they had out, but generally tasty and definitely fresh. That waitress put on an awful lot of miles continually restocking things.

It was definitely the pseudo-Chinese food of my childhood, and probably what I would have kept eating except for a friend I had at U of A (Quaecumque vera...). She was the daughter of from-China parents who had a restaurant in Fort Macleod. At the restaurant they served  the Canada-friendly stuff, but at home it was straight-on real Cantonese. When she and I would go to the Chinese restaurant close to our places she'd order completely off the menu and get things that I wouldn't have even imagined existed. Not everything went over well immediately with this small town Alberta girl, but it certainly gave me a taste for something that wasn't sweet and sour pork.

And good on her. Life's boring if you only ever eat pineapple chicken balls.

Anyway (again), my paint's dry now so it's on to the pen & ink.





Don't expect much, by the way. I never do.

What do I title yet another jewellery post that may or may not be about jewellery?

First, I should say in regards to the surgery (the end of March for anyone keeping a calendar. For my sister-in-law, my mother's birthday. See if my brother can remember that date...), at the moment I'm fine. When I got the call, the feeling was at last. I've been waiting for so long. Then the feeling became holy crap this is going to happen. That's where that incoherent deleted post came from. Now? I really am fine. I imagine that anxiety will set in in a big way once the date is closer and that I'll start thinking more about what recovery was like the last time, but for now I'm concentrating more on being prepared. Emotionally, physically.... and, let's face it, making sure that my bills are paid and my apartment is clean before the date. Last time was an emergency, for those new to the program, so I had the embarrassment of a mess on top of everything else.

Ok, now on to more frivolous things.

I was on Amazon a while ago because I had the remnants of some gift cards to use up. There was a book that I knew I wanted, but to use up the rest of the amount I was just going to browse. And that, boys and girls, is how Dee habitually ends up overspending with gift cards.

Usually.

This time I instead ended up going to the Deals Store page, which I hadn't ever thought to do before. I know, right? They're going to take away my Cheap and Proud of It card. Anyway, because I'd never been there before I hadn't realised that there was such a thing as Lightning Deals.

Silly, silly girl.

I had a look, and they had me at amber. Well, at silver too, because I'm very much a silver person. Better for my skin tone, and conveniently much better for my wallet. I got the pendant you see here (there's matching earrings as well, but I suck at ear-selfies) for a stupidly reduced price, which lets you know what the original mark-up was. The amber's heat treated (that's how they get the different colours) which isn't my ideal, but the thing seems well put together and, more importantly, looks nice.

Yet more jewellery for my jewellery resurgence, I guess.

I was big on all the stupid but fun eighties jewellery when I was a teenager, but scaled back a lot when I was in university (anyone wearing rings, for example, in a lab with formalin is a bit stupid. Yes, even though you wear gloves). When I started the naturalist thing I wore a bunch of themed earrings because the students liked them. Then that sort of fell by the wayside. And why? Laziness, I suppose.

So why the return?

A rock show. The one where I met the owner of the rock shop that you hear about so frequently. My coworker already knew him, and between the three of us we decided to make a swap of some of our unused specimens for some good pieces of pyrite for our rock programming. And, naturally, I also looked at his jewellery pieces. They were neat so I bought a couple.

I wore them occasionally until one year when we had a week with the same students (we call it nature school) I found out that the kids -- and not just the girls -- were checking to see which rock I was wearing each day. It sparked more learning, and yep, you guessed it. That's when the rock pendants became part of my everyday work wear. They don't get noticed everyday, of course, but they get noticed enough that I've increased my collection.

As you've noticed.





This is the part where I say that it's time for lunch, as my two fans know. It is, and I've typed enough now. I promise no more surgery weirdness until at least mid-March, ok?



There will be more rocks, though. I can guarantee it. Probably tomorrow...

So...

Yep, they do. They being my parents. And the government. It must be true, then. Also, did you know that if you open Google when you're signed in and it happens to be your birthday, you get this?

I did not. And let me tell you, it slightly freaked me out in a computer Big Brother sort of way until I looked at the right-hand corner of the screen and saw that I was signed in. Thanks, Google, for the ever-so-slightly-creepy acknowledgement.

Anyway.

If you wondered, this is pretty much the sum total of my celebration today. I did some quick colouring on a free phone app (and if you wondered, adult colouring is a real thing, boys and girls. I was in Chapters to pick up a book for my dad's birthday, which is the day before mine, and there were adult colouring books all over the place. And, erm, yes, I bought one. On discount, though. I wasn't going to pay twenty dollars for a colouring book), I was startled by Google, and...? The end, I guess.

Oh, I might make some pizzelle later, since I was given an appliance that makes pizzelle and crepes, amongst other things.

Let's end with a revisit of my 70's childhood, which I found while looking for something else (isn't that how it always works?). Oh, and excuse my horrid skin; I had a reaction to a new wrist brace. This lovely leather sign of the times was well worn during my phase of being obsessed with owning things with my name on them. It used to be much pinker, which is funny because I've never been much for pink. Maybe the name won over the pink? Probably. I'm taking it home with me. Maybe I'll wear it this week for old times sake.

And speaking of old times sake, this is pretty cool. And I love how Dee Snider still totally owns the corniness of that song so many years later.

And speaking of later, this is the part where I usually say that. So... later, folks.

Pointless observation of the day:

The next corporate media person who uses on fleek to make their products more appealing to so-called millennials needs to be put in a room and made to listen to Valley Girl speak from the 80s until they no longer want to have anything to do with being pretend-cool. Ever. In any decade.

Just saying.

In other, unrelated news, I found this thing (to the left, I mean) on one of my father's rosebushes on the weekend. I have no idea what it is. It's probably evil. Looks neat, though.

I'll let you know if I make an ID.





Yeah, need to keep it short today. You've had plenty of words from me lately anyway.

Not-berry picking

And look! A spider on a rose, courtesy of the new phone.

Oh, and before anyone says anything, I do indeed know the difference between portrait and landscape. I took some of each; just liked this one better. I promise, however, that if I ever post a video I will shoot it in PORTRAIT on purpose to completely annoy you.

Anyway.

This shouldn't be as wordy as the last post, but I thought I should mention that I had a little revisit of my childhood yesterday. Dad's few saskatoon bushes were absolutely loaded with fruit, so I picked about half a margarine container full so that they wouldn't go to waste. Waste? No, that's not quite right. The rest can go to the birds, which won't be a waste, or to casual grazing by Dad when he's gardening.

For whatever reason, the nursery-stock saskatoons seem to be having bumper crops this year. I say nursery-stock, because many of the wild ones I've seen set fruit that then dried up because hello drought conditions. The more domesticated ones seem happy enough, though, and the u-picks are saying that they have some of the best crops ever.

I grew up on saskatoons, but for those who haven't had the pleasure think blueberry but with a somewhat brighter taste. They're kind of a thing on the prairies/parkland, and for some reason (many people think soil conditions) grow much sweeter here than in other parts of Canada.

Wondering about the not-berry in the title? That's because saskatoons aren't berries, as much as people may call them that. They're pomes. For you French speakers out there who may be thinking that I'm missing an m in pome, I'm not. That's just science-speak for a structure that's like an apple.

When I was a kid my maternal grandmother did a lot of canning and preserving, and much of that was wild fruit. Chokecherry (which, despite the name, is pretty fantastic once sugar's added and it's cooked down), pincherry, nanking cherry from her yard (not wild here, but practically grow wild once you get them going), and, of course, saskatoon. Mom and I used to go out and help her harvest them, which sometimes was fun and sometimes... was not. Hey, they were both pretty strong-willed women, and some days that's confusing as a kid.

Not all saskatoons were preserved, of course. Some were used fresh, and some were frozen for use later in pies and things like that. My grandmother made a mean saskatoon pie. Well, she made a mean pie anyway, but saskatoon pies are what I miss most.

I wish I could make pies.



Ah well. The most complicated thing that will happen to these particular saskatoons is that they'll be scattered on some ice cream, and that's ok too. And as for spiders on roses that have nothing at all to do with blather topics? They're better than ok, you know.





Yes, really.

Purple things! And... I dunno. Maybe something else.

 Get the feeling that I'm not feeling terribly blathery? Well, I've said it before but whenever I take a break, intentionally or not, from blogging I either find myself absolutely brimming with things to say or absolutely empty. Today seems like the latter, but I'll keep typing and see what happens.

First, I suppose I should be identifying the purple things, right? This first one is Viola tricolor, better known as Johnny Jump-ups. It's a naturalised import from... oh, probably England. I'll look it up later, maybe. Naturalised is a fancy biology way to say escaped (from gardens, often) invader. Some invaders are nasty and can disrupt ecosystems (like Purple Loosestrife or... oh, heck here's a link to Alberta's noxious weed guide. That's easier) , but these little violets don't hurt anything. I have kind of a soft spot for violets anyway. Pretty, hardy, and you can eat them too. Yep, pretty much any member of the violet family is edible.

 This one is Moss Phlox (Phlox subulata, but don't even ask me which variety after all these years). This is a cultivated plant, but I know that at least  one species of Moss Phlox grows wild here in Alberta. Erm, not here here, exactly, but in sage-ier areas of the province. Oh, I see here that one's probably Phlox hoodii. And why should you care? You likely don't I expect, but I remember hiking up a place called Thumb Hill years ago with a group of interpreters at a conference. Thumb Hill is known for its First Nations tipi rings and long history of sacred use, but as we went up someone noticed that the Moss Phlox was in bloom. Someone else misheard that as Moss Floss, and we had a pretty good laugh about "what kind of a name is Moss Floss for a plant?" until we reached the site and the utter history and majesty of the place caught up with us. As we came down the sun was starting to set and the coyotes were howling at each other. It was so much like a movie set and soundtrack that it was hard to believe that it was real.

Here's pretty much the last Pasque Flower or Prairie Crocus (Pulsilatilla patens, depending on which book you consult) of the season. I've said before how much I like these things. The purple is so gorgeous. I find them really hard to draw, though, because they're pubescent (botanist for fuzzy). You don't want to make them look smooth, but you don't want them to look like they have thorns either.

That's a petunia. Scientific name? No freaking clue. Let me look. Ha. Figures. It's Petunia sp. This particular flower is from a Wave Petunia plant, so the thing (the plant, I mean. Not the flower) will go on to fill up the planter.

To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of petunias. They don't smell right. Still, they're colourful. I'll admit that. And when you buy a variety like this one, it's a lot of colour with not much effort.

And finally, one of my favourite wild purples, Purple Clematis (Clematis occidentalis. You'll probably find it listed as Blue Clematis because botanists have historically declared purple to be blue, but don't let that fool you. It's purple). This particular one is a volunteer in my dad's yard; that is, no one actually planted it. They're robust plants, though. There's another one in the yard that's growing up through a crack between the planter that the begonias are in and the driveway. It's been hacked down a couple of times for various reasons, and it still comes back.

I'm not sure what it was about this year, but the wild clematises were absolutely loaded with flowers. I did have a photo of this entire plant, but I didn't like it so this is all that you get. Just imagine this times about fifty on a plant that's only about a metre high (climbing, that is. If it doesn't have anything to climb it creeps instead), and you can see how beautiful it was.

And there you have it. And there were actual words besides. Maybe I should just blather about plants all of the time? Nah, that sounds too much like my job. And besides, the only reason you got all of these plants at once is that I want to clear my nerdstick of some old pictures (not that these are old. It was just last month) so that I have room for more recent pointlessness.

And maybe some spiders. There's been a distinct lack of spiders on the blog lately. Right now, though, there's a distinct lack of lunch. Later, folks.

The flowers that bloom in the spring...

Tra la!

Oh wait. Some of you don't have the same music in your brain as I do. Gimme a sec...

Here you go -- from Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. I chose a clip with the dialogue that comes before the song so that maybe it's a bit more understandable to those of you who don't know the operetta.

The youth choir that I was in as a youth (um, duh) put on abridged versions of G&S. In the Mikado I was, of course... Koko, the (idiot. Well, that's oversimplifying, but you get the direction) Lord High Executioner. The one who gets to marry the ugly old lady that they talk about in this song. Yay? Oh, it was good fun, actually, but the fact that I never once got to play a female character in all of the productions that we did was a bit hard on an insecure teenage girl. It was only due to a shortage of boys, but still. The one time that I was supposed to be female (Ruth, in Pirates of Penzance) our director became ill and it never happened. Figures.

Aaanyway. That was an awfully long aside when I only wanted to explain the post title. These particular flowers are in bloom right now, and that makes me happy because they're the first wildflowers around here that are. Early Blue Violet (Viola adunca). Even though these are in the yard and surrounded by plant litter (and blown-in garbage, of course), they're still wild. They showed up probably before I was born, they faithfully come up every year, and we're happy to let them.

Tra la.

----------

Sorry I missed the Saturday post that I generally make when I'm in at Dad's, but I came in later than usual and then we ended up taking a trip to the local trade fair in the afternoon.

Small town trade fairs can be fun, even if in this particular rural centre they come with a lot of farm-related things that this townie has no interest in. As a kid I always loved trade fairs because of the stuff. You know, the giveaways. The pens, the key chains, the stickers, the balloons; basically anything that any company was giving away I'd collect because I could. Occasionally some of the stuff was useful, but most of it -- except the pens -- hit the garbage can within days of being brought home. But still. Free stuff, right? Who can argue with free stuff?

I still generally try to grab at least a pen when I go to a trade fair because you can always use a pen, but I have managed to restrain my stuff-collecting impulses over the years.

This year's show was a bit politics-heavy because we're having a provincial election and of course all of the candidates needed to be there (and incidentally? Way to have no class, Wild Rose. Bringing those inflatable stadium thingies that you bash together to make noise -- thundersticks, apparently --because you know that the kids will all want them? There's more than one reason that I wish you would just vanish. Even though Danielle Smith managed to get rid of herself), but there were still some interesting things to look at. I bought a grand total of nothing even though I'm sort of in the market for a purse and Phil's Fudge Factory makes reeeally good maple bacon fudge (seriously), but I did, naturally, pick up one or two things. You have to, or you just don't feel like you've been there. This time around, a key chain from the Town that has a tape measure on it, a key chain from Corrections Canada (not entirely sure why they were there. Recruiting, maybe. Employees, I mean, not more criminals) that has an emergency whistle on it because the one I got from a pile driving company a while ago is showing some wear, a couple of cards from businesses that might be useful work contacts, and a whack of catalogues from companies who would love for me to either host parties for them or become an associate to find people to host parties for them.

To be honest, I don't understand how party-style selling is still such a big thing, especially in the online store age. Not my lifestyle, I suppose. I also don't understand how Tupperware gets away with being so expensive, but obviously they do so what do I know?

The one thing I didn't get? A pen. I forgot. Dad got one and he offered it to me, but I have other pens. Still, though. I forgot a pen? I must be slipping.

----------

There's enough words to last a while, but one last thing before I probably avoid drawing today. I was surprisingly gutted to hear of Jonathan Crombie's death. Not because I was one of the apparently thousands of girls who has a crush on him as Gilbert Blythe (although he was a near-perfect Gilbert Blythe, speaking as someone who grew up on the Anne books), but because he was so young, so talented, and had so much potential. Reading about him yesterday made him seem like a really neat person, too. Just goes to show that you can never tell what's going to happen in life, I guess.

Enjoy it while you've got it. He seemed to.

Something about food, probably

And this, which is me playing pointless photoeditor game with a shot that wasn't all that great. It's more fun now -- kind of like a twining honeysuckle on a musical stave, maybe.

Well, I like it.

----------

So, the potatoes are on and from the sound of things upstairs the turkey will soon be in the care of Mr Popeil (I mean the rotisserie, for those who don't follow the infomercial scene). And there'll be dressing and gravy and cranberry and of course pumpkin pie for dessert. You'd think it was a holiday or something.

Dad and I do holidays in a small way, which I think is appropriate. It would seem weird to go to a lot of fuss for just the two of us. I was mentioning to him, however, that it seems a little odd in a way to do turkey and pumpkin pie for Easter. Isn't that more autumn-like? I mean, not that I'm complaining. I like turkey dinner. Just, for whatever reason, Easter seems more ham than turkey to me.

Good thing we're not having ham, though, because I got ham in my head last weekend and bought a small one for myself this week.

Anyway, the whole thing got me to thinking about our arbitrary ideas of when food is appropriate. For example, I had a grilled cheese for breakfast this morning. Hey, I'd been up since four (as, sadly, usual) and by the time I got around to having breakfast it was practically lunch time, relatively-speaking. Nothing wrong with a grilled cheese for lunch. But for breakfast? Some of you are thinking that it's weird. But if I'd had a couple of pieces of toast instead with an egg and a piece of cheese, no one would have thought a thing. Put it into sandwich form and it's suddenly not breakfast.

Incidentally, I had a fried egg and toast for supper last night. It's what I was in the mood for.

As another example, back in university I had the habit of ordering two extra large pizzas on the weekend and living on that for as long as it would last me. Breakfast, supper... not usually lunch because I was on campus. If I did that now people would wonder about my health, if not my sanity. As a student? It didn't seem any worse than living on ramen or Kraft Dinner the way some people did.

Er... should I admit now that lunch more often than not was chocolate milk in those days? Gah. I can't justify that at all even now, except to say that often I didn't have much of a break between my morning lectures and my afternoon labs. At least the milk was a bit of energy.

Anyway (again), my eating habits are much better now for the most part, and thank goodness. Your body won't let you get away with the same garbage in your forties as you could in your twenties. And today, as I said, we'll be eating especially well. Happy Easter, Passover (seems weird to say happy Passover...), spring break, or whatever else you may be celebrating, everyone.

Turkey brothers, assuming that you didn't see them enough yesterday

Today's going to be mostly photos, since I have something else I want to get done this morning besides blogging. You had enough words for a week from me yesterday, anyway.

Here's Tom being spoiled by my hand. He can be a bit of a sap when he's not being a turkey.

They're being turkeys right now, by the way. They're playing some sort of game that involves running in the room and around my feet. I'm not sure of the rules, but if they don't watch out they're going to have a referee anyway.

Do you remember me telling you about Bob's thing for damp face cloths? It hasn't stopped. Earlier this morning he presented the one from the upstairs bathroom to me. Down here. In the basement. At the computer.

Sheesh.

Now, just for fun, let's have a little cat bed retrospective:

20 September 2014

4 October 2014

24 October 2014

23 December 2014

Yesterday (28 March 2015)

And aren't they sweet?

Yeah, they'll fool you. They're still obviously close, though. And partners in trouble. I think they'll be good cats, but right now they're still in the I look like a cat but my brain is still a kitten phase. That can be destructive when you're as solid as these guys. You can't tell from the pictures, of course, but these two have the deceptively muscular build that makes you think twice when you pick them up.

That's enough turkey for now, I think. There may possibly be something on the other blog later this morning if I can get anything to go. We'll see.

How to spend New Years when you're boring

Today's pointless photo? I dunno. I just liked it.

----------

So, I have plans for New year's Eve. Obviously, if I'm bringing it up, I'm about to tell you about them. Ready? I'll be...

Sitting by myself in my apartment and doodling.




Yay me.

Actually, that's not a bad thing because it means that I've made the annual trek with my gift card from my enablers brother and sister-in-law to get some new art toys. And beads. I have to admit that I got tempted into the 60% off Boxing Week sale on beads while I was there, so it won't be All Art All the Time this year. Unless you call beading art. Which some people do, I suppose, but I'm not sure that you can count the way I bead as anything close to art.

Anyway.

I'll be quietly home playing with my new toys (and maaaybe a glass or two of wine. Haven't decided that part for sure yet), making a pseudoartsy mess, and, frankly, happy. I never did like the fuss of going out on New Year's Eve and being expected to have fun even when all I wanted to do was get out of a stuffy, noisy room. The only real exceptions to me preferring a quiet New Years were a) back in the dark ages when I used to babysit and knew that New Year's Eve meant some decent cash for a teenager, and b) when this city did First Night for a few years back around the turn of the century (makes me laugh to type that). Yeah, cheap, non-booze-based entertainment actually got me out of the house back then, and it's too bad that the event folded. Tonight, though, it'll be me, DVDs to avoid the vacuousness of TV MARATHONS (otherwise known as we didn't feel like actually programming anything over the holidays), and the new mixed media journal I started last night when I realised that the olf in me just couldn't take the mess of my old one any longer.

It, um, hit the garbage on my way to work this morning. Maybe one of our local dumpster divers will appreciate the sheer weight of the gessoed pages.

Oh, and the toys (but not the beads, because you'll probably see them in various forms on the blog later anyway)? These pencils, and these ones, and a lettering felt on a whim, and a something else that I'll tell you about later because it will also likely be starring in some pointless portraiture here as winter makes me increasingly desperate for things to take pictures of.

Bet you can't wait.

----------

Nothing like ending the blog year on a sad note, but I just had to mention Edward Hermann's passing. Funny that he's headlined as Gilmore Girls Actor... since I never even watched that show. I remember him more for one-offs and guest shots, really, but wherever he showed up he always seemed to make an impression.

I suppose that there should be some significance about his exit coinciding with the year's, but my two fans know that I don't buy into things like that. I'll just miss him being around, that's all.



See you in 2015.

Bob Watching

 I called this photo Bob Watching. It fits. Bob was inside watching the birds; I was outside watching Bob.

I kind of like this shot, actually. There's more going on than you first see. There's Bob, there's me taking the picture, there's the living room inside, and the bird feeders and bird bath outside. A bit of a story, I suppose.

Not bad for a mostly accident.

----------

So how was everyone's Christmas? Ours was quiet, as it usually is. No tree, as I said, but presents anyway. Turkey supper, to which my uncle (other uncle, not recently-dead uncle) even came this time. He usually just does Christmas by himself, but for whatever reason Dad managed to get him out of the house this year. I'm glad. It was a nice visit.

Later on Dad and I took a drive around town to see what Christmas lights were up. There were some nice ones, but overall there were far less than there used to be when I was a kid... or at least that's the way it seemed. I can't say that I blame people for not wanting to go to the fuss. I probably wouldn't if I had a house. Still, it's one more thing missing, like the old NORAD Santa reports on the radio. Yeah, I know that the reports are still around, but tracking via twitter is just never going to be the same, boys and girls.

Speaking of boys, the Turkey Brothers made it through the day without destroying anything. I imagine that's partly because we're low-key, but it's also partly because the boys are growing up. They're definitely little cats now, and, I think, a little past due to make the Big Trip to the Vet.

Here's the latest photo of the two of them on their bed, and just for comparison... oh, hang on. I was just going to give you a link, but why don't I pull the photo instead? Just a sec...

There. First bed photo, back in September. My caption for this picture was Kind of hoping that they don't grow into this bed...

They sort of did, didn't they?

Ah well. They're growing up, and they're turning into mostly nice cats with just the occasional hint of shit to remind us what they're capable of.




I suppose that without that, they wouldn't be cats.



Anyway, that's about it from me. And to all those idiots who were so happy that we got Christmas snow after all even though it wasn't in the forecast, all I can say is enjoy the slippery roads, twits.





There's your bah humbug for the day.

Milestone... or was that just stone?

Milestone first, I guess. I'm currently doing laundry, which, considering that I've been here at the computer when I'm not changing loads, means the longest time I've been away from the recliner since I came to Dad's. Yay me. I'll probably be exhausted tonight, but whatever. I'd be getting bored otherwise.

Dad's going to have to be the one to take everything back upstairs, though. This no heavy lifting thing is a pain. You don't realise how much lifting you generally do in a day until you're not allowed to do it, you know. But since I don't exactly want to burst...

Anyway. On to today's rock. This is Blue Tiger's Eye, which is pretty cool. I've been a fan of tiger's eye in its usual brown form since I was a kid. Years ago, somebody -- couldn't tell you who at this point -- gave my brother and me tiny rings with even tinier pieces of tiger's eye mounted in them. I still have mine. Can't get it past the first knuckle on my little finger these days (yeah, it's that small), but I wear it on a chain now and then. I'll take its picture at some point when I have nothing better to do, no doubt.

And now, on to the weirdness. Most people like tiger's eye for its chatoyancy (that light-shifty thing you notice when you move it around), but it's also a hit with the healing crystal crowd. Let's see if it'll cure what ails you...

Ok, here we go. Blue tiger's eye apparently aids in communication and organising thoughts (who knew?). It's also supposed to reduce stress and anxiety, and promote a positive attitude (such an amazing stone). It can boost psychic abilities and give insight into mental conflict, and protects against curses (wowww...). It shares the powers of regular tiger's eye as well, which I'll be getting into when we get to my regular tiger's eye things.

So, yeah, all of that stuff... or it's just pretty and kind of fun. Guess which side I vote for?

Either way, not bad for a piece of quartz, I figure. The towels are in the dryer now, so I should probably head back upstairs. Are you tired of me ending posts like that yet? I'm open to other suggestions, you know. They just aren't presenting themselves at the housebound-moment, that's all.



Later, everyone.

Mixed grill

No, I didn't grill the apple. and no, it wasn't rotten. It was actually pretty good -- it just browned quickly because it was hot that day.

The post title, if you hadn't got it yet, just means that I have a few small things to talk about that have nothing to do with each other but are going to be served together anyway. A chacun son goût, as they say.

Well, as some say.

The French, mostly.

----------

First, then, I wanted to let you know that I'm not going to complain about working the late shift again because I'm not. I'm working a late meeting. Working late at all puts me in a bit of a mood no matter why I'm doing it, though. Probably goes back to working at some subway shop.  Late shifts there were brutal, and they generally only scheduled one person to close (I'd imagine that newer OH&S regs mean that they can't do that anymore. What a pity). Close the storefront, put all the food away, clean up everything... all by yourself. When you left depended on how much of a mess there was; not just from your shift, but from the whole day. It was just after university and I'd moved back in with my parents temporarily. After the first night that I didn't get in until two in the morning, they refused to let me drive myself home. Yep, I had to phone mommy and daddy for a ride, no matter how late it was, so that I wasn't walking down the alley to the parking lot alone. Thanks, both of you. I actually really appreciated that.

----------

Next, and probably should have been first, I have over a foot less hair than I did when I got up this morning. Yep, finally had it with the whole having to tie it back even at night thing. Erm, because otherwise it was so long that it would get caught under my armpits and wake me up when I rolled over. Seriously. So now I have a hairdo for the first time in well over two years. Possibly over three years. I can't really remember.

Speaking of remember, I'll have to remember how to use hair products again. And do something with my hair besides a ponytail (because I can't anymore. Yes, I really did get that much cut off). I always make myself a deal when I get my hair cut: it has to be down for at least two days. After two days it's usually driving me so bonkers that I have to pin it back, but two days starts... now.

Ok, maybe more like tomorrow morning.

----------

Last, I've (finally) finished up the 2% milk I had in the fridge. Good. I know that some of you are wondering why the finally and the good, but let me tell you, when you're not used to 2% it feels pretty much like you're drinking butterfat. I used to drink 2% as a kid, but then at some point -- I can't remember why now -- the doctor put me on skim instead.

And as soon as I said skim a lot of you went ewwww. I likely did at first too, but once you drink it for a while you find it way more refreshing and far less... coating, I guess. I genuinely like skim milk now. Dad usually buys 1% and obviously I'll drink that, but for myself it's skim all the way.

Until your neighbourhood grocery store decides to switch allegiances and suffers some unexpected supply shortages as a result. What do you do? Well, if you're me and you need milk for the meal you're making that night, you suck it up and buy the 2% that's about the only thing staring up at you from the milk aisle (I'm not counting the homo. And for those of you not Canadian, that's just short for homogenised whole milk. Doesn't stop the Americans from laughing at pictures of Canadian dairy sections, however. And don't get me started on Regina...).

The 2% is gone now.

Good.

Toys

Today's pointless photo almost sort of has something to do with anything (make your own English out of that statement). If you click on it you'll see a piece from an outdoor game board wedged in the crotch of an apple tree. The game board is well down the yard from the tree. I have no idea how the piece got to the tree. I doubt it would have been my nephews when they visited last year, because they would have had to've worked their way through quite a thicket of daylilies to get there. Maybe a crow or a magpie? I dunno, but it's kind of funny that I never noticed it until a couple of weeks ago.

Before I get on to toys proper, this video shows one of the easiest ways to make an office supply weapon. The bonus is, everything except for the pen is reusable so you're not even wasting anything. Well, time, I guess, but we all need stress relief now and then. I suppose I should have taken a picture of the one I made, but I'm too lazy to go get the camera just now.

Or joust now, which is what I typed. I guess I'm in a weapons mood.

Anyway, toys. As my two fans (and my nephews, for that matter) know, I have a lot of toys on my desk. Some I've been given, some I've bought on purpose to see what people play with, and some... oh, I don't even know why they're here. I'm a bit of a toy person, I think, because I'm a fidget. When I'm not actively doing something with my hands they're playing with something. One of my desk toys, maybe, a vegetable peeler that I forgot to take home, my jewellery, my hair; you get the idea. I was never good at the whole sitting quietly with my hands folded in my lap thing.

Do they still get little girls to do that? Stupidest thing ever to tell a child, as I recall. It just makes you want to fidget more.

Anyway (again), I have a whole 'nother subset of toys that appear a little more grown up. On the surface at least. I was playing with them last night, but to a purpose. Yeah, anyone who's been reading this blather for any length of time can guess that I'm talking about art supplies. This time of year I get an almost unbearable desire to go to the art store. It's all those back to school ads, you see. I love stationery, and have since I was a kid. Yep, weird and I know it. It's just that having all those fresh new pencils and pens and binders and glue (I, um, come from the generation of rubber cement, remember. Rubber cement was fun) was always such a good time.

Hey, I already said weird. Shut up, world.

Anyway (the third), as I got past school and had a sadly-admitted lower need for stationery, I transferred the urge to art supplies instead. Art supplies? Definitely fun. And it used to be that I'd always find myself cruising the art stores -- heck, even the department stores -- in late August looking for something to play with.

Not this year.

Sigh.

I don't need anything right now.

Sorry, I'll speak up. I will grudgingly acknowledge that I don't really need anything just at the moment. I can always make an excuse for paper, yes, and I could replace some cheap brushes with one or two better ones, but I can't honestly admit that it needs to happen right now.

No promises about a month from now.

Ah well, I'm sure I can find another toy to satisfy me in the meantime, even if it's something silly like Kinder Surprise.

A girl's got to get her fidget out somehow, after all.



Oh, and I'll post last night's effort on the other blog after this. It was for work, so I guess it wasn't really playing.





It was playing.

Pointless photo of the yet another evening shift:

It's an insect. On a house. Because sometimes you just gotta be an insect on a house.

Or should that be sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug? Ah well, whichever.

So, yeah. Covering another evening shift. The short staffing this summer has made things interesting, and not in a good way. It's not that there's anything wrong with the evening shift; it's just that I'm not used to working it. It seems wrong in my brain. Like it's past my bedtime or something.

Ah well.

Again.

I don't really have anything. Again. What I do have is a desk full of slightly weird things. I stopped at a grocery store on the way here to pick up some lunch? dinner? why isn't there a brunch word for mid-afternoon, anyway? Where was I? Oh yeah. I stopped at a store and kind of got distracted. The plan was lupper (or whatever) and maybe a snack. What I ended up with was peaches, mixed nuts, the aforementioned meal-thingy, chocolate toffees, tic tacs, and lychees.


Well, you certainly can't resist the lychees when they're right at the front door, can you?

Or maybe you can, but I can't.

I remember the first time that I had lychees fairly vividly, actually. It was when they were pretty much new to mainstream grocery stores here, and obviously the one I was in wasn't having any luck getting most people to try the weird-looking things. I mean, at the time if your typical Alberta WASP had heard of lychees at all, they were something you got in a can filled with overly-sweet syrup. This store was so desperate to move the non-moving produce that they'd stationed a poor teenaged staffer at the lychees, offering samples and showing people how to peel them. I had one. It was good. I bought some. And I've kept buying them.

Sometimes marketing works all too well. But at least lychees are mostly good for you.

I think.

Isn't everything in the produce section good for you?



Ah well. Again. Back to work for me. And probably some lychees, because that mesh bag ain't staying closed all night, I can tell you.





I'm pretty sure that everything in the produce section is good for you...

More about food. Then lunch.

Chickadee? Not food. Not for me, anyway. It was, however, ticked off at me because I was standing between it and the bird feeder, so I guess it sort of fits.

----------

My Dad gave me a bit bit of a surprise when I got in yesterday. Coming into his kitchen I noticed an open package of Indian spicy chickpea snacks (labelled Masala chani, if anyone's looking for some spicy chickpeas). I thought to myself that he picked them up by mistake and now that he'd tried them they'll just sit until they need to be thrown out. Nope, wrong. Turns out that a recently re-branded grocery store in town (was an Extra Foods, now a No Frills. Still, all Loblaws all the time...) has an Indian snack section and he decided to try a couple. On purpose. And he likes them. Will wonders never cease, as they say. Mind you, I don't know what he'll think of the Bheri puri when he tries it.

Things have changed a lot around here since I was a kid. I grew up in a food culture that basically hadn't changed much since the fifties. Meat, potatoes, slightly overcooked pasta... and it should say something that my favourite dish at the local Chinese restaurant was pineapple chicken balls. Westernised Cantonese food was as daring as we got in those days around here. Even the pizzas didn't get past the excitement of pepperoni.

It's conceivable that I might have stayed that way if I'd never gone to the great cultural stewpot. Um, that'd be university, for those who didn't follow. Unless you spent your entire time eating at the rez dining hall or living on ramen (even ramen was a new thing to me, to be honest), you can't help but experience at least a few new things when you move from a small town to a big university. In my case, my best friend was Chinese and her family owned a restaurant. For anyone who doesn't know, that's one of the best ways to experience the things that aren't on the menu. When I'd go to a Chinese place with her we never even saw menus. She'd just order. I didn't know most of the time what we were having until it got to the table. Sometimes I didn't know even then until she'd explain it to me. That's how I found out that it wasn't all about deep-fried battered things, plum sauce, and "special" fried rice (it was always white rice with her. I have to admit, though, that I'll still order fried rice much of the time. I just like it). Did you know that there are actually spicy Chinese dishes? It sounds weird, but it was a new thing for me back then. Nowadays you find a lot more of it on the actual menus, but we're talking nearly thirty (sigh) years ago and things have changed.

Lots of things have changed. There's so much more variety out there, and more people are accepting it. It's not just the food we eat and the food THEY eat anymore, and I think it's fantastic. I wouldn't have imagined myself enjoying curries and being a regular sushi eater, but I am. When the girls at work ordered Chinese food and it was deep-fried battered things and plum sauce, I was honestly a little disappointed. And I even put a little heat in my own cooking, especially when you compare it to what I grew up with.

Now, granted, a little heat. Not that I can't stand hotter; it's just that I like to taste my food rather than blow my brain up.

Did I mention Thai or Vietnamese yet? Not so much pho because I'm not really a soup person, but you don't have to go pho to have some great meals from those two cultures.



Aaanyway. Enough food talk, especially when I'm about to go upstairs and have a leftover hamburger for lunch. Tonight, though... oh, right. I'm planning to do some baking so I'll probably just buy a rotisserie chicken so that I have lunch meat for work. Nothing wrong with rotisserie chicken, though. After all, there was a time when even that was new to me. Later, folks.

Pointless new photo of the day:

New this afternoon, even. And very pointless. If you really pay attention, though, you should see a dragonfly silhouetted on that branch. It's a meadowhawk.

The dragonfly, that is. Not the branch.

Oh, and meadowhawk. That's me being a helpful(ish) naturalist.

Yes, I'm at work again today, and all evening. It's a weird shift to work for someone who's used to being off at four o'clock. I make it to around seven and start wondering, in a perfectly whiny internal voice, when I can go hooome.

It reminds me a bit of being a grocery store cashier back in high school. Stores weren't open as late then as they are now, but we did have a later closing on Fridays. You'd get to about eight thirty or so and just pray that no one would come in so that you could do your closing at nine. You see, the store had a policy -- a silly one, as far as I'm concerned -- of letting anyone who came in last minute (even if last minute was one minute to closing) do their shopping. Yep, if some arsehole customer came in at 8:59 and 59 seconds and decided to do an hour's worth of wandering around the store, we all had to stay.

I guess I still don't want to be made to stay. I dread seeing someone come in last minute to the nature centre, even if they're just passing through the building to get to the walking trails.

Anyway, that's enough of me being a baby for tonight. I need to professionally blog for work now. Pictures, mostly, and hopefully somewhat to the point. The work blog's less tolerant of blather, after all.

The medical me... and a hat

One of the reasons that I've been even more lax than usual about blogging is that I had to stay home for a few days. Um, that was last week. This week it was because we've been busy at work.

For those new to the program, staying home = no blogging because I don't have a computer YES I DON'T HAVE A COMPUTER. I don't really need a computer at home since I work at a place that allows personal computer time on breaks. It probably helps keep us semi-sane. Anyway, no computer at home, so I disappear from the internet for a while if I have to hang around there. I recommend it, actually. It's a good way to remind yourself just how completely unnecessary a lot of our computerage is these days. No computer, and you remember that you used to have hobbies that didn't involve farmville or whatever.

I did get a bit stir crazy at one point, though, but that was more from wanting to not be stuck at home than from electronics withdrawal. In my case it meant taking random photos of things in the apartment, 99% of which have been deleted. This one? Little bit of a story behind it, so what the hell.

This is my mom's Tilley hat. Tilley's a Canadian company that makes... well, hats. And travel wear and things like that. They've got a somewhat overblown air of adventure, but the fact is that they do make good hats. Not generally in teal, though.

Way back in the dark ages (or the early 90s. Whichever) when I started out as an interpreter, I thought about getting a Tilley. My dad had one, and I was outdoors a lot so a good hat seemed pretty necessary. At work at the time we had fake safari hats we could wear if we wanted, but no one wanted. Bad enough the khaki Ranger Rick shirts; add a pseudosafari to that and you're in full costume. A Tilley was a very much preferable option, but they're fairly expensive. Well, not as far as quality hats go, but for someone who had recently convocated and was working a couple of part time jobs? Yeah, money was an issue.

I'd gone to Klondike Days in Edmonton with my parents (now officially K-Days, I guess, after a misguided stint as Capital Ex) that summer, and as we wandered through the commercial exhibits I noticed that Tilley had a booth. It was the early 90s, as I said, and they'd apparently tried to appeal to a different demographic besides retired seniors cruising the Mediterranean by taking some of their old standards (this is a T3, I think?) and dying them more interesting colours than khaki, brown,  and navy. I can't remember how many there were, but I do remember getting excited that there was a purple one.

Purple? Yep, I admit to a love of purple. I don't wear as much of it as I used to because I seem to look better in red or blue, but I'm still drawn to purple. A purple Tilley looked like the answer to everything at the time. I lingered a little too long at the booth before admitting to myself that the colour didn't change the price and reluctantly moved on.

In the meantime my parents must have been having a conference or something, because before we left the commercial section I was told that they'd decided to buy me a Tilley for work. Yay parents, especially since they can't have been planning to plunk down for an expensive hat. I got the purple one, and my mother decided to get a teal one for herself. Free braided shoelace headband with purchase, in case you wondered.

So why aren't you seeing a purple hat up there? Because mine got used. And used and used and used to the point where it's a beat-up greasy (in spite of anything I've done to try to clean it) mess that now lives in the back of my car in case I find myself in sudden need of a hat. Mom's hat is a lot more presentable, so even though it's slightly too big for me (guess who has the smallest head in the family? And is that something to be proud of? Not sure there) it's the one I use these days.

But not at work. We have uniform ball caps now instead of the safaris. Not a fan, myself. I mean, I'm not against ball caps per se, but if you're out in the sun for any length of time they're massively unprotective to a large part of you. There's a reason for the term redneck, after all.

And so, the reason that I was stuck at home for a while? This is the part that many if not most of you may want to skip, because I've got a picture. I don't usually use jump breaks, but I will today for any of my two fans who would like to say goodbye now. And I'm not judging.

For the rest of you...

Lobes

Pointless photo? Not of lobes. Sorry, but I've got to work with what I have. And besides, I kind of like this picture, pointless as it is. I really can't wait for more actual green things to come out now so that I can really try out this lens properly.

You know, by taking shots of spiders on flowers.

Aaanyway, lobes. And what kind of lobes? Oh, let's go with earlobes, since I'm rather aware of mine at the moment.

Yes, it's another pointless blather about jewellery. Considering that I'm not exactly jewellery-obsessed, I sure talk about it a lot on this blog. And today? Earrings.

Because I don't wear necklaces in my lobes, right?

Did I say anyway already? Oh yeah, I did. Let's continue, then.

Today I'm rather aware of my lobes because I'm wearing a pair of slightly dangly earrings with french wires and rose quartz beads. Slightly dangly only, because I'm at work and it looks weird to wear over-the-top earrings with my uniform t-shirt. I've had these particular earrings since university, and I got them from a beading place that used to be in HUB Mall (sigh. Sad that the shooting still comes up so quickly in a search. And wow. I just looked up the directory and way more of the places that I used to go to than I expected are still there. Not the beading place, though). It was mostly diy there, as beading places generally are, but they had a few done-up pieces and that's what I've got on. Pretty simple: wire, silver spacer, quartz bead, silver spacer. As I said, not too dangly, and I used to wear them all the time because they didn't interfere much in my labs.

They're sort of driving me a little mad right now.

I hadn't realised how much I'm not used to having weight on my lobes anymore. I wear earrings almost every day, yes, and I do have two piercings in each lobe (story here, for those who don't know it), but these days I just wear fairly light earrings. My default is two gold studs joined by a chain, because that way I don't have to pick two pairs of earrings in the morning. Occasionally I'll theme up if I'm programming for little kids, but even then those earrings are featherweights compared to these.

It wasn't always that way, however. I was a teenager in the eighties, and like anyone else who was a teenager in the eighties I wore some weirdass stuff. Big, dangly, neon, mismatched, cuffs joined by crystal chains to studs... yeah, judging by what I still have around I was the weird earring queen, and judging by the tamer earrings I'm wearing right now weight never used to distract me.

I can't say I'm sorry about that. When I look at some of the stretched piercings I see on women who wear heavy earrings every day I'm not exactly envious. Even less so when I see people who can't wear earrings at all anymore because if they do that last bit of skin left to them after a lifetime of stretching will tear through. My earlobes still look like earlobes, and that's fine by me.

Incidentally, for those of you doing the ear tunnel thing, I'm going to sound all old fogey here but I really don't get it. I mean, I don't get extreme piercing period, but at least with narrow holes they become fairly invisible if you decide to remove your jewellery and let them contract. Tunnels, though? All that stretching means that you're stuck with it even if you change your mind later in life.

I feel the same way about neck tattoos, actually. I'm fine with tattoos in general -- I'd even have one or two myself by now if I wasn't so cheap -- but anything neck and above just strikes me as such a bad life choice. You're automatically limiting your opportunities later on with one of those things.



Anyway. For real this time. Back to work for me, and if any of my two fans who for some reason care about my jewellery choices wondered, yes, the rolling ring is still worn daily and is an absolute dream for a habitual fidgetter like me.

I'm just glad that I don't have to wear it in my earlobe.

OMG Pumpkin...

And what's up with that title, Dee?

Well, here's the thing. My two fans will know that I've said from day one (or almost day one) that if this blog comes to a point it will, in fact, turn into a pumpkin. And since I did actually get off my arse this morning and take a photo that has something to do with the topic, that's dangerously close to pumpkinhood.

I've done it on rare occasions before, though, so I think we might be safe.

Maybe.

Anyway, topic. Since I have one and all. Today is Tabletop Day, so it's time to get to a board game cafe or haul down the old game boxes and play an actual, physical game instead of plugging into a game system or staring at your phone. It was started by Wil Wheaton (yes, he of Star Trek TNG fame, and hero of the internet) and has been embraced by nerds -- and board game companies -- everywhere.

Me? Well, it's been years... and I didn't even know that there was such a thing as a board game cafe until a couple of days ago. I did once teach a friend how to play crib in a funky little coffee shop, though. Does that count?

When I was growing up, however, we were pretty big on board games.Yes, there were the endless games of Monopoly, but also a bunch of short-lived things that I'm sure hardly anyone's heard of now. Good thing I can't remember their names. Oh, and there were also The Game of Life, Sorry!, and Mousetrap. I'd forgotten about those. We hardly ever played Mousetrap as a game; just set up the Rube Goldberg machine and tried (and generally failed) to get it to work the whole way. And I kind of hated Sorry. As boring as Ludo, but with the obnoxious sooory you were supposed to say every time you knocked someone's piece back.

Not quite on the board game band wagon, but another thing that I really hated when I was a kid was any game that made loud sounds. To this day I'm very noise sensitive, but it was even more so back then. I'm probably the only kid out there who enjoyed putting the sticks into the Kerplunk cylinder more than playing the game. It wasn't the chance of getting all the marbles; it was the sound that they made when they came down. By far the worst for that was a game called Bang Box. I don't know whose idea it was to hide balloons under a box and then pound (plastic) nails into it until a balloon popped, but that game was an absolute nightmare for me.

But back to board games.

And now (drumroll please), the game in the pumpkiny picture above. I'd figured that there were tons of games still around this house, so it'd be no problem to grab one and take a quick shot. Um, no. First, I'd forgotten that Dad (on my suggestion, to be honest) had donated a bunch to a charity garage sale a while ago. Then I thought of taking a photo of the Trivial Pursuit stuff (the original, of which there's probably only two or three million around now) that we still have. Not sure why I didn't go with that. I loved Trivial Pursuit. It was right up my alley, being a trivia natural without trying to be. Comes with the short attention span, I guess. Anyway, then I realised that there were still games in the storeroom. Then I opened the storeroom door and realised that there was no way in hell that I was going to be able to get to them. So then I found the Pente board.

We've never played this.

In fact, I don't think this particular board has ever been used. According to the tags on the storage cylinder, it was bought on sale from a local drug store and then... put away? It certainly seems that way.

Just as well. It looks like the sort of game that I absolutely suck at. Scanning the rules, it seems very like a game I have as part of a set for the 3DS, and even on the easiest setting I generally win... oh, let's be generous and say maybe one out of three games. I just don't have the brain for strategy stuff, or may I don't have the patience to think that way. Whichever, if you want to frustrate me in a hurry just sit me down and make me play games like this.

I promise that I'll pout when I lose.

Some things about me and board games just don't change, I suppose.





Happy Tabletop Day, nerds (and I say that with affection) everywhere.