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January 5, 2009 ~ 11:40 am

Posted by Julie in : About a Julz , 4comments

I would say that there is tons of stuff happening in Casa de Julz, but since most of that stuff involved me staying in jim-jams and playing Wii, it’s not really blog-worthy. However yesterday we had to give the girls back their Guitar Hero World Tour (we gave it to them for Christmas, but it has been living at my house since so we could all play it together), and today I’m back at work, so real life is resuming. That and Rick won’t let me play the fun NES games I downloaded when he’s at home, which further cuts down on my Wii time. He does not have an appreciation for Super Mario Bros. 3, or Metroid, or Zelda, or Mega Man 3. It is a personality flaw that I am trying to overlook.

Christmas was bery bery good to me, and although I have a new Nikon Coolpix that is small enough to go everywhere with me and have taken a fair amount of pictures with it, I have been too busy playing drums on Guitar Hero in my jim-jams to upload any of them. I hope to get a picture of Samang on her new Sit n Spin tonight as an incentive. That kid on a Sit n Spin is freakin’ hillarious, especially when she gets off of it and is too dizzy to walk. Exactly why I gave it to her. Because Christmas presents should be just as much about how much enjoyment they give to me as how much it gives to the recipient, dammit.

Now back to the grind. First day back at work after a five day weekend sucks, y’all.

I should have named him Elton John December 19, 2008 ~ 4:18 pm

Posted by Julie in : Da Cats , comments closed

Obviously I named my cat after the wrong gay rock star. Yesterday Freddie tried to commit suicide. Worse than that, he tried to take Joe out with him.

When we first got Freddie, he had an annoying habit of getting up on the stove. He is naturally curious, and he was young, so I realized that while we were trying to break him of the habit, he would still probably get up on the stove when we weren’t around. Fortunately, the knobs for my stove and oven can be pulled off (that’s also fortunate for when Samang is around, actually). We did that, we sprayed Freddie with water every time we caught him up there, and eventually he learned not to get on the stove. I stopped removing the knobs.

I’ve caught him up on the stove a couple of times in the past few weeks, mostly when I haven’t paid him enough attention during the course of the day. I spray him with water, he gets down, I pay him some attention, life is good. I didn’t think about removing the knobs again, because I’ve only caught him there three times in the past month as opposed to every five minutes like he was when we got him.

Yesterday when I was at work, Rick played golf. He got home around 2 PM and said the apartment smelled like gas. He immediately opened all the windows to vent the place then checked the stove. Pilot lights were still on, but one of the knobs on the stove had been moved just enough to turn on the gas, not enough to turn on the flame. Rick found Joe in short order, but it took a little bit longer to figure out that Freddie was asleep on top of the refrigerator, which is right beside the stove. Apparently he used the stove as a halfway point to get up there and his big foot nudged the knob on the stove when he went up there. Dumbass. He’s fine, Joe’s fine, no one seems any the worse for their little adventure with gas.

When I got home from work last night, though, I had a long talk with Freddie. I told him I realized the holidays are a rough time of year for everyone, including cats, but trying to commit suicide was not the answer. I also stressed that trying to murder your poor older brother in your suicide attempt was really unacceptable. I told him Santa won’t bring catnip to little animals who attempt murder/suicides. I think we came to an understanding, but just in case, the knobs are coming off the stove again.

Would be great on my Christmas cards December 17, 2008 ~ 1:12 pm

Posted by Julie in : Rick, Shorty , comments closed

Rick: “Hey, did you see that commercial? The one where you can put any picture on a stamp? Probably they don’t mean any photo, probably they wouldn’t let you use a picture of an erect penis, but still, you could have a stamp with your kitties on it or something.”

Julie: “How much have you had to drink?”

Christmas makes my ass hurt. December 15, 2008 ~ 1:18 pm

Posted by Julie in : Craftiness Is Next To Godliness , comments closed

As Christmas approaches, so does the deadline for completion of my Christmas knitting. God help me. I got three more presents done in the last week, and all three went out in the mail this morning, thank you Jeebus. My brother’s and my mom’s were pretty easy, although I injured myself on my mom’s several times (no details yet, because Mom reads the blog. And Mom, chill, this was an easy present. I haven’t really done your big knitted gift yet because you said do everyone else’s first. So I am.). My sister-in-law’s though…I thought I was going to die.

I decided to make my sister-in-law a nice pair of felted clogs. Everyone raves about this project, it’s on big needles, guaranteed to go fast. And it did. I enjoyed knitting them greatly. It was the felting part that I have a strenuous objection to. The directions say to put the clogs in the washing machine. Problem: I don’t have a washing machine. So I figure, “Oh, it’s okay, I can hand felt them. Stick them in a bucket of hot water with some towels for friction, use a potato masher to agitate them, it’s all good.” Famous last words.

I filled a bucket with hot water, stuck it in my bathtub. I put in some Soak knit wash, a couple of hand towels, and the clogs. I mashed it with the potato masher. For ten minutes. I took the clogs out. No noticeable felting happening. I tried a different technique, using my hands as the agitator. Ten more minutes of leaning over the bucket, I looked at the clogs again. Some felting. Okay, we were getting places. I switched up between the potato masher and my hands, because goddamn that is tiring. Ten more minutes. Some more felting, but nothing substantial. I put the iPod on the sound dock to break up the tedium. I agitated some more. And at this point, let me tell you that I have glass doors on my shower, which means the side of my bathtub has tracks for the doors on them. I was sitting on a towel to cushion those tracks, but after half an hour, I was starting to feel a little bruised on my posterior from them.

I stood up, thanking god and goddess for my small feet, and started doing my impression of the grape-stomping episode of I Love Lucy, one foot in the bucket swishing everything around, the other foot in the tub. Ten more minutes, and I was getting bored as well as tired of felting. Looked at the clogs. They’re a little more felted, but not shrinking down to a size 8 any time soon. See, that’s the thing about felting: felting is basically shrinking down your knitted object, in this case on purpose (as opposed to that time you accidentally stuck a sweater through the washer and dryer and ended up with a sweater fit for Barbie). So you need to start out with a gigantic knitted object for it to felt down to the right size. After forty minutes of felting, these things still would have fit Big Foot.

I went and got a beer. I felted for a half hour more, with various checks on the progress of the felting. Damn thing was going sloooow. Finally, after an hour and twenty minutes of alternately hunching over the bucket like an Irish washerwoman or doing the grape stomp, it seemed done. And by “seemed done,” I mean “was close enough to a size 8 that I didn’t care anymore because I was fucking crippled and sis-in-law could just wear some really thick socks with them and make them work. I put a ton of plastic bags in them to shape them, stuck them on the radiator to dry, and swallowed a fistful of Advil.

By the light of day the next morning, I could see they were a bit big, but as I hobbled around the house, I tried them on with socks and figured what the fuck, close enough for government work. I sewed on suede slipper bottoms to make them a little less slippy, then stuck a little note in them that said this was my first attempt at hand-felting, please excuse the unevenness, but I hoped she would like them anyway. I did not say that this would also be my last attempt at hand-felting. Because screw it, I don’t care if I have to beg, borrow, or steal, the next time I do felting it will be with the aid of a washing machine. I still hurt, and ain’t no one on earth special enough that their present gets to cause me pain for two days.

A week and a half left till Christmas, three knitted presents and one cross-stitch to go. I can do eet.

A minor Christmas miracle December 7, 2008 ~ 2:55 pm

Posted by Julie in : Shorty , comments closed

I have one thing that I need to buy in Park Slope tomorrow, and then I am officially done with the Christmas shopping. For some reason, an inner voice has been pushing me to get the shopping done early this year, and so I did. I would’ve liked for that inner voice to direct me to some cash so I didn’t have to use my credit card, but I will take what I can get. The shopping, it is (pretty damned close to) done. Now I just need to wrap everything.

And finish the Christmas knitting. Gah.

Actual conversation from two days ago December 4, 2008 ~ 4:59 pm

Posted by Julie in : Da Cats, Shorty , comments closed

Rick: Are those the jammie pants that were on the floor by the bed?

Me (looking down at the jim-jams I’m wearing): Yeah. Why?

Rick: I meant to tell you. Freddie was…using them earlier.

Me: What do you mean “using” them? (light slowly dawns) Wait, he was using them as a humpy?

(Rick nods.)

Me (stripping them off, desperately trying to get them away from my skin): Oh, GROSS! Freddie, why are you such a nasty fucking animal? Jim-jams are NOT HUMPIES!!!!

I did it. November 25, 2008 ~ 11:26 pm

Posted by Julie in : Politically Incorrect , comments closed

My uncle said it was cool with him, and since it’s his place I’ll be invading, that was crucial. That out of the way, I went on the internet and managed to find tickets for the Bolt Bus to and from Washington, DC. And then I told my boss that I would be out of the office for one very long weekend in January. I’m headed down to our nation’s capital on January 16 and coming back on the 21st. Which means (for those of you living under a rock who haven’t guessed where this is going) that I will be in town for Barack Obama’s Inauguration. I don’t have tickets, so I will have to get up at the crack of dawn on Tuesday to take the train in and hang out on a street corner with the other nobodies in the hopes of catching a glimpse of him on the parade route, but what the hell. Hope got me Barack Obama as my next President, surely it will give me a chance to take a photo or two of him, right?

Oh yeah, I did something else, too. I went from this:

To this:

The Oldest says I look kind of like Emma Thompson. I will take that as a compliment. I love Emma Thompson, and the Oldest knows that.

Team Edward November 20, 2008 ~ 4:44 pm

Posted by Julie in : Random Insanity , comments closed

I have spent way more time than necessary trying to plan when I will see Twilight this weekend. Oh, that’s right, I’m going to fork over $12 to see Sparkly McVampire fly across the silver screen. Me and five million teenagers. Well, that’s where the planning comes in. What movie times will be least likely to have hordes of people? The movie is geared right at teens and tweens, and I have to work tomorrow when they’re in school (that was the best viewing option, and I did consider it, but the boss will be out and we can’t both be out at the same time). Then I thought “Okay, they’re all going to get their Edward on Friday night. And possibly Saturday night. So if they’re out all night and up until all hours, they will sleep until noon. Hell, I used to sleep until one when I was their age.” Obviously the best time over the weekend is thus Saturday morning. At least that’s what I’m planning on. And the small movie theater up the street from my house will be far less crowded than any place in Manhattan.

Do you see all the thought I have expended on this? Do you? If I would take this much time to think through my finances, I wouldn’t have credit card debt. If I would think this hard about world peace, we might have it by now. But no. I waste this brain power on vampire love stories in the Pacific Northwest. And I know at least two teenage girls who have done the same. Fear for America, people. We are the future.

Friends ain’t nothin’ but a number. November 14, 2008 ~ 1:54 pm

Posted by Julie in : The Girls , comments closed

A lot of people from my college and high school are finally making their way to Facebook, and it’s wonderful to catch up with them. Lately there has also been an explosion of knitters over on Facebook. People I know from Ravelry and Plurk, famous knitters, old friends, they’re all popping up over there. So I am friending right and left and getting friended in turn. Right now I have 282 friends on Facebook.

The number wouldn’t matter, except that in August, the Youngest turned 13 and was able to join Facebook like her older sister and I. She was thrilled that she was finding so many friends and thought the was the queen of popularity. She proudly announced to us that she had 100 Facebook friends, and asked how many we had. The Oldest had over 500 (she runs in wide social circles because of her mother’s lifestyle). A little crestfallen, the Youngest turned to me and asked how many I had. Surely an old person like me wouldn’t have as many as a really cool 13 year old. I told her I had about 165 (this was pre-knitter/friend explosion). She was seriously bummed, not taking into account that I’m older than her, work in several different fields and have online friends. At that age, I guess it’s all about the numbers, not the circumstances that would explain those numbers.

Since then, we occasionally compare numbers, and I think she is always hopeful that she will surpass me. Today’s: Oldest, 590. Youngest, 147. Julie, 282. Facebook: helping me fuck with teenagers’ self-esteem and earn the “Evil” in Evil Julie since 2008.

Brrr. November 13, 2008 ~ 12:18 am

Posted by Julie in : Academic Office Monkey , comments closed

It’s November, so I should not be suffering from allergies. I’m also 99% sure I do not have a cold. And yet I am sneezing and blowing my nose a lot, particularly when the office does not have heat like today. I sat hunched over my degree audits in a hoodie and fingerless gloves like some sort of modern day Bob Cratchitt, trying to ignore the breeze that was blowing across my desk from the window.

When we eventually move to the new building, the one we all hate already because we will be crammed for space since no one thought ahead and took proper measurements? I can only hope that there is heat. That’s the only chance the new building has of competing with our current building, but regulated temperatures could go a long way towards closing the gap.

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