I can see for miles and miles… February 28, 2006 ~ 9:17 pm
Posted by Julie in : Rick , comments closed
Central Park, Blizzard ‘06
I was at a tremendously long salespitch for HR and student management software today, but at least I was out of the office. Because in addition to crazy students, reports to write, lists of candidates for graduation to generate, and diplomas to be picked up, now people in my office have degenerated to name-calling. Oh yeah, I work in a happy place!
I’m out of the office tomorrow, too, to be with my Weet Boy while he has his LASEK surgery and take care of him afterward. Apparently LASEK has a longer recuperation period than LASIK (no, they’re not the same thing), so I plan on being around him most of the rest of the week and weekend as well. Poor guy is gonna have to keep his eyes shut most of the time so they can heal, so I’ll try to do for him what he isn’t able to. He’s got the girls this weekend, so they should be able to help, too. (See, this is when having a teen and a tween is good - they’re old enough to make food for you and run errands!)
So, if I’m not commenting as much as I usually do in the next little bit, you know why. And since we read the statement of “things that probably won’t go wrong but might possibly so we have to tell you about them,” Rick and I are both a little anxious about the surgery. Kind thoughts and well-wishes will be appreciated starting at 12:45 tomorrow afternoon.
Oh, and if you want to read something really cool, check out the Yarn Harlot’s blog. She writes about the just past Knitting Olympics, and makes a failed medalist (me) proud.
Another time February 27, 2006 ~ 10:52 am
Posted by Julie in : Fambly, In Da Hood, Story Time , comments closed
Light and dust (and maybe wishbones) ~McSorley’s Ale House, NYC
Rick and I stopped in at McSorley’s last night. McSorley’s is the oldest tavern in New York City. That is, the oldest one in continual operation as a tavern - I think they’re at 152 years and counting. And if you look at the picture above, it’s obvious they haven’t dusted in that entire 152 years. This is probably because women weren’t allowed into the place until 1970, and there wasn’t a ladies room put in until 1986. McSorley’s is a place where time seems to stand still. The tables are older than Rick, the potbellied stove is older than my grandmother, and the only thing to drink in the place is McSorley’s Ale, which is served in pairs. No fancy-ass drinks here, the only choice you get is “light or dark,” and by light they don’t mean reduced calorie beer; they mean lighter in color than the pitch-black dark beer. The walls are covered with memorabilia that my camera refused to shoot. Even cameras respect a place where Abraham Lincoln supposedly drank after delivering his famous Cooper Union speech a few blocks away. I like the place a lot, even though years seem to go by between my visits. Last night’s trip reminded me of a man who always reminded me of another era (and who spent a fair amount of time in bars): my Uncle Tut.
Tut was 82 when his cancer caught up with him last week, and no, his real name was not Tut. It was Charles. But back in the days when drinking was a sign of manhood and alcoholism could be joked about, he earned a reputation for getting “drunk as old King Tut.” That was well before I was born, and I never knew him as anything other than Uncle Tut.
Tut was a good guy, full of stories. One of my favorites was about his tattoo. He got it during his stint in the service in World War II: a picture of a mermaid with “Julie” emblazoned under it. Unfortunately, my aunt’s name was Ruth, not Julie, and I wouldn’t be born for another 30 years. The last time I saw Tut, he told me that he “knew Frank [my father] was going to have a daughter and name her Julie.” Obviously that’s why my name was on his bicep.
My best Tut story was one that someone else told, though. My mom and I went to a Barenaked Ladies concert when I was in college, and in the middle of it the guys went on a riff about their time in Pittsburgh. One complained he didn’t realize the Pittsburgh phone book had listings for places 30 miles away - he had gone for a haircut that afternoon and ended up in Sewickley. After the haircut, he had apparently gone sightseeing and ended up in a bar “with an old guy that was telling me about the wonders of Sewickley.” My mom and I looked at each other and laughed; there was only one old guy who would spend time in bars telling young people about the “wonders” of Sewickley, and that was Tut.
I didn’t make it home for Tut’s funeral. I was sorry for that because in our family the viewing at the funeral home turns into a kind of wake with everyone telling stories. My cousins would have gotten a kick out of hearing how my uncle met some Barenaked Ladies one afternoon.
Photo Safari February 25, 2006 ~ 9:34 pm
Posted by Julie in : In Da Hood , comments closedThe weathermen lied about how cold it was going to be, so we got to take a decent walk around Central Park today without freezing our asses off. What exactly is the new camera capable of?
Documenting this squirrel population boom and how three out of four New York City squirrels are little beggars:
Showing the first signs of spring in the City:
Catching a glimpse of Pale Male (or Lola, who the hell can tell from this distance) minding the nest:
And finding the one straight hot guy in the Ramble:
Not bad, little camera. Not bad at all.
Dueling Designer Camera Bags February 24, 2006 ~ 11:56 am
Posted by Julie in : Technobabble , comments closed
Jesse says work sucks. TGIF.*
Yesterday I ragged on Regan for getting a Kenneth Cole camera bag for her new toy. Last night she ragged on me. This is the conversation (more or less, I was still in sticker shock) we had.
Regan: Hi!
Julie: Hey, guess what I have in a shopping bag right now?
Regan: A new camera?
Julie: Yep. And a camera bag.
Regan: Is it Kenneth Cole?
Julie: No, it’s Lamborghini.
Regan: LAMBORGHINI???
Julie: Yeah, it was all they had. I win the battle of the camera bags, in a bigger, gayer, more 80s kinda way.
So yes, I went to J&R by City Hall last night and got a new camera. And a Lamborghini bag. And from the small amount of playing with the camera while reading the manual that I did last night, it’s freaking awesome. I can adjust the shutter speed and f-stop value manually, meaning that I am not tied to taking pictures the way the camera thinks I should. This camera also has a kickass focus setting where I can focus on anything in the viewfinder that I want to, no matter where in the picture it is. (Off-center? No problem! Way in the upper right corner? No problem!) And the zoom is so powerful that I can sit on my couch and take pictures of things outside the apartment. This bodes well for future photo safaris. The only thing I really need is a bigger memory card, since with the jump up to a 5.1 megapixel camera, my 128 MB card doesn’t hold as many images as it used to (the camera says it will hold 43). Fine for a normal day, but not big enough for a vacation. But I’ll hold off on the memory card for now and wait till I’m a little closer to my vacation to buy it.
In the meantime, I am seeing many photo safaris in my future. I kept seeing things I wanted to shoot on the way home last night!
*The picture of Jesse sticking his tongue out was taken with my old Cybershot. It took 10 minutes and 7 pictures to get one that good. And most of the 10 minutes were spent waiting for the old camera to decide to take a picture, or to recover from flash, or some other stupid camera glitch. Hel-LO, new camera!
Pet PEEves February 23, 2006 ~ 12:51 pm
Posted by Julie in : Academic Office Monkey, Rants , comments closed
Stars, Time Warner Center
One of the “perks” of my office is that we have our own bathroom. All the rest of the offices in this building, with the possible exception of the President’s Office, are bathroom-less. They have to go out and use the public bathrooms with the students.
Sounds like my office has a good deal going, doesn’t it? Until you figure out that there are about twenty of us in this office and the bathroom has one toilet. I imagine it’s a lot like what large families with one bathroom go through. If someone is in our bathroom, we wait in line, because no one wants to use the public bathrooms - they’re gnasty. But unlike a large family, I can’t get everyone together and have a Come to Jesus talk about how we keep the bathroom clean because we are not animals. That’s why I have a blog, so I can vent.
Come To Jesus, People. In no particular order, the list of bathroom rules that my co-workers’ families should have taught them:
- Don’t pee on the seat. Come ON, didn’t your mother teach you this?
- If you are a little monkey and pee on the seat, WIPE IT UP. Don’t leave your pee droplets on the seat for the next unsuspecting bathroom user to sit in, you gnasty little animal!
- If you decide that you are going to lift the seat and pee like a boy even though you’re a girl, remember to put the seat back down. Just because you wanted to put your fingers on toilet seat does not mean I want to.
- For the love of all that is holy, FLUSH THE DAMN TOILET! I don’t want to see any evidence of your last meal or the fact that you’re on the rag when I go to the bathroom. That is too much information for me. I don’t talk to you outside of work, what makes you think that I want to know this much about you?
- If you leave a log, drop an otter, bake some brownies, whatever you want to call it, use the air freshener. It’s sitting on the sink for a reason, and you’ve just left that reason behind. There is no reason the next person in has to gag on the stench.
I am not paid enough to go through this once, let alone several times a week. We’re all adults, aren’t we? If my mother could drill good bathroom etiquette into my head at a young age, why the hell couldn’t yours?
Why too much TV is bad February 22, 2006 ~ 10:34 am
Posted by Julie in : Random Insanity , comments closed
Under the stairs ~Upper West Side, NYC
I’ve spent a fair amount of time sitting in front of the TV since the Torino games started. Admit it, you all did, too. The Olympics are on, dammit! We can’t miss any Olympic action or we are bad Americans! (The Bush administration has been trying to tell me that I’m a bad America for years now, so why I’ll accept that designation from NBC and not the White House remains a mystery, but still.)
So in an attempt to be a good American and absorb the total overload of sports streaming into my house via satellite, I found myself unreasonably attracted to Snowboard Cross. It was fast. It was fun. It looked like a video game. Hell, it looked like I could do it. Wait a minute…I could do that! Nevermind that I have never been on skis or snowboard in my life (I like to blow Rick’s kids’ minds by telling them we were too poor for skiing where I grew up, just to remind them how the other half lives). Snowboard cross wasn’t like the half-pipe, where you have to contort your body and defy gravity. Instead, it was like going down a hill with turns. Anyone could do that! Maybe not at high speeds like the Olympians, but I bet if I could grasp snowboarding, I could do snowboard cross.
One conversation with Lori later, I had convinced her that she, too, could learn how to snowboard cross with me. I am very persuasive when I want to be. So now we have a goal for next winter. We are going to learn to snowboard, come hell or high water. Ayyyyyyiiiiii!
On Saturday I found myself knitting, waiting for the Olympic coverage to start for the day with the Travel Channel on in the background as I was too lazy to find the remote to change the channel. (Everything can be blamed on the Olympics, even watching the Travel Channel.) Without realizing it, I started watching a show about the Mall of America. Five minutes into it, my mother called.
Julie: Mom, we should go to the Mall of America! It has an aquarium! And an amusement park! And stores!
Mom: Okay.
See? I am muy persuasivo. That was record time for anyone giving into me, by the way. And we are now planning an April excursion to the Mall of America. How American is that, to devote an entire vacation to a shopping mecca? With sharks!
And now you see why I obviously need a new camera. How can I not document fledgling snowboard cross attempts and a trip to the MoA? Damned Olympics.
Stoopid camera February 21, 2006 ~ 11:45 am
Posted by Julie in : Technobabble , comments closed
Birds on ice ~ Central Park
Last week when Bunsen got her new camera, she was joking around that I need to get one too. (At least I think it was joking. Some of it could have been that perverse human instinct that makes you think you will feel better about spending copious amounts of money if someone else does, too! I know that game. I am a past master of it.) We discovered when I went down to Atlanta last September that we had the exact same Sony Cybershot, so it only makes sense that when Bunsen upgrades, Julie should upgrade too, right?
But I demurred, saying for once I was going to be responsible with my tax refund and that it was earmarked to pay down credit card bills (and buy yarn). And that I would just wait and see if I could get some money scraped up or hint broadly that I wanted a camera for my birthday. I was strong in my resolve.
Until my camera decided to fuck with me. I’ve known I was going to need a new camera soon - my Cybershot has hit the ground once or twice while I was photographing cats or kids, and it was in my pocket the night I got hit by a car outside my house, so sometimes the display goes a little weird or it freezes up. This weekend it took these little quirks to a new level. It shut itself off four times in a row because I wanted to use the zoom. “You think you can use the zoom, Julie? Well you are WRONG! DENIED!” And yes, before you ask, the batteries were fine.
Couple this with the basic plan that Mom and I have to go on vacation in late April, a vacation that will cry out to be documented, and I think I need a new camera. I’m trying to be strong, dammit, but the camera isn’t making it any easier. It’s almost as if it wants to be replaced. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
Maybe Bunsen’s camera will go massively on sale soon?
Happy blog-day to ME! February 20, 2006 ~ 12:00 am
Posted by Julie in : Shorty , comments closed
Taking a break from watching the ice dancers fall all over each other (literally) to wish myself a happy blogoversary. Rabid Rabbits & Psycho Squirrels is 2 years old today. How the hell did that happen?
Tax Time Sux February 18, 2006 ~ 4:02 pm
Posted by Julie in : Rants , comments closedI am generally a person who enjoys tax time, because I get a refund every year. A refund that allows me to get myself one really cool treat for myself. One year it helped pay for a laptop. One year, my iPod mini.
This year, I was going to be all responsible and use it to pay down my credit card debt. So of course this is the year that my taxes become incredibly complicated, even with the help of Turbo Tax, simply because I made $1,000 as a dramaturg last year. Suddenly Turbo Tax is telling me that I need to file all sorts of forms that I never filed before, declare myself a business…it’s crazy. What the hell button did I press to start this insanity, and how can I get it to stop? I don’t think I’m a business, dammit. I think that I made $1,000, which I am perfectly willing to pay taxes on, for artistic services rendered. To me, this does NOT constitute a business.
For years, everyone here has been telling me to get an accountant. I’m starting to think they’re right. Dammit anyway.
Hi, I’m bored. February 17, 2006 ~ 12:34 pm
Posted by Julie in : Academic Office Monkey, Daily Grind, Shorty , comments closed
Stars, Time Warner Center
Work has sucked hard this week, to the point where my only desire is to get through the day so I can go home and have a drink. I leave here feeling like someone has beaten the shit out of me, with insane headaches and neckaches, and knowing that the next day will only bring more of the same. This week, I hate my job. This does not bode well for the future. Or for my health. It’s a damn good thing this is a three day weekend coming up, that’s all I’m saying.
In the interests of a more positive outlook (and because I am too fucking lazy to blog today, I borrowed this from E-Lo:
Basically, you go to that website and choose 5 or 6 words you would use to describe me. It’s to see how well (or poorly) my view of myself jives with the way other people see me. Now, we’ll take this with a grain of salt since only a few of you know me in real life, but it could be fun, right? Right. Go click some buttons, people. Comply. Now.
