You Know It’s Hot…part 8,675,482 July 31, 2006 ~ 4:03 pm
Posted by Julie in : Shorty, Technobabble , comments closed…when you look at the little weather icons in the lower right corner of Firefox and the next two days are marked with little flaming thermometers. Not little suns, not little clouds, but little thermometers with heat waves just radiating off of them. Apparently that means: “Mostly sunny, humid, and very hot, five million degrees in the shade, your ass is gonna burn if you venture out.”
Last night I had the strangest dream… July 31, 2006 ~ 11:04 am
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind, Random Insanity , comments closed(And no, I did not sail away to China, in a little rowboat to find ya. Name that song.)
Instead, I dreamt that somehow I was in Las Vegas and the guys from Queer Eye were there, and Kyan was teaching me how to spin wool on a spinning wheel, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of it and he wouldn’t answer my question about “Wouldn’t this be simpler with a drop spindle?”. I had no weird food or alcohol before bed, so I really have no clue where this one came from. I would like to learn how to spin, although being taught by five gay men is not exactly how I envision it happening.
We are in the midst of heat wave part deux in the city (heat index is going to hit 100* today, and 114* tomorrow), and I’m wondering (as I’m sure my fellow New Yorkers also are) which borough is going to have a power outage next. Queens and Staten Island have already been hit this summer, so things are not looking good for Brooklyn. If this happens, I could be screwed. Not only does my place get hot during the day, but Jesse’s insulin has to be kept refrigerated - the fat cat would be screwed on two counts. Keep your fingers crossed that we make it through the rest of the summer without an outage!
And in the midst of the heat, I’ve been knitting again. Crazy.
Boredom July 29, 2006 ~ 11:38 pm
Posted by Julie in : Shorty , comments closedAfter a great morning at the New York Aquarium, I came home and took a nap and haven’t had any desire to do anything since I woke up at 7. I’ve knit a little, watched some TV, played on the internet, talked to ESC on IM, and heated up German leftovers for dinner. I have a writing meeting with Jordana tomorrow, but haven’t felt like writing tonight. Unless I can come up with the desire to do so, I’ll be scrambling tomorrow morning to get something on the paper, but I just don’t care.
Good thing I found a meme on Leenie’s LJ to keep me distracted:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
6. Tag three people.
“Offended me! How could you suppose so? Believe me,” and Elinor spoke it with the truest sincerity, “nothing could be farther from my intention, than to give you such an idea.” ~Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
Not tagging anyone because that would be mean. If you want to do it, do it.
The Third Horseman of the Apocalypse July 29, 2006 ~ 9:20 am
Posted by Julie in : Rick, Shorty , comments closedThe end of the world is coming: Rick got a cell phone last night. Now we know exactly one other person who doesn’t have a cell phone. When that person gets one, the Apocalypse will be here. Cats and dogs will be living together, and it will be anarchy.
Sweltering July 28, 2006 ~ 1:28 pm
Posted by Julie in : Da Cats , comments closedIt’s hot and humid and EH here in the city today, and since we’re still on the four-day-workweek schedule in my office I spent a good part of the morning melting on the couch before I caved and turned on the a/c. The cats, they are hot too. So hot that they are camped out in the bathroom on the tile and in the tub. Joe’s worrying me lately; his little ears are hot, I catch him panting a couple times a day, and I think his nose is running (although who the hell can tell - cat noises are supposed to be moist, aren’t they?). I don’t know if this is just his reaction to the heat, or if he’s actually sick. And there is no money at the moment to take him to the vet, especially if he’s not actually sick. He’s running around like normal, still eating and drinking, but from what I’ve googled, hot ears are bad in cats. *sigh* I guess I’ll just keep watching him and see what happens.
At least the a/c is kicking in now.
Uncle Walter July 26, 2006 ~ 9:52 pm
Posted by Julie in : About a Julz, Politically Incorrect, Story Time , comments closedI’ve been watching a PBS documentary about Walter Cronkite this evening and I remembered a conversation I had with my mom about him a couple of years ago:
Julie: For some reason I find Walter Cronkite’s voice really relaxing to listen to.
Mom: (laughing)
Julie: What?
Mom: (still laughing)
Julie: What’s so funny about that?
Mom: When you were a baby and were really fussy because of colic and earaches, we couldn’t find anything to make you stop crying. So we would sit you in front of the TV for the CBS Evening News, and Walter Cronkite would always make you stop. You thought he was talking just to you.
Julie: Well, that would explain it.
Bonus points to Walter Crokite for using a PBS Documentary about him to slam Dubya and Iraq. I knew I liked him for more than his voice. Now if only Dubya would listen to him like LBJ did and step the hell down.
The Piss Crusader Rides Again July 26, 2006 ~ 10:11 am
Posted by Julie in : Da Cats , comments closedI went out to the opening night of a play last night and to the reception afterwards. When I got home, I thought all was well. The Couch Condom (TM) was clean. From the ambient lighting outside my window, the Bed Condom (likewise (TM)) looked piss-free. I picked up the laptop and cruised the internet for about twenty minutes, then decided to go to bed.
It was when I turned on the lights in the bedroom for the first time since I’d gotten home that I realized the Piss Crusader had struck again. Fortunately the Bed Condom had protected my bed from saturation and kept the Piss Crusader from instant death. As it was, I yelled at him several times during the cleaning process and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck to enforce our little “Come to Jesus” talk. It was all I could do to keep from flinging the little bastard across the room…if there isn’t such a thing as “Shaken Kitty Syndrome,” it’s only because the media doesn’t care about the nation’s felines because I guarantee you people, I can see exactly where such a syndrome would have its roots.
There is nothing like having to clean up cat piss to put a damper on the night. The free mojito that I’d gotten at the reception wore off as I tried desperately to find something to take the smell of ammonia off of the vinyl mattress cover that serves as an all-purpose Condom for Large Furniture (should be (TM)). Because of course, I was out of Nature’s Miracle. Fucking cat is actually lucky he didn’t get launched out the window. He knew it, too. He normally hops right into bed with me but I don’t think he did last night until 4 AM. And he stayed motionless in one spot to avoid my wrath until this morning. Little fucker got his insulin upped this morning, and was told that if he peed on the bed again, he was going to the vet. He’ll be going soon anyway, but there’s nothing like putting the fear of God into him. We’ll see if it works.
In the meantime, my evening plans are shot. I now have to go in search of Nature’s Miracle and clean the house to see if there’s anywhere else he hit. Fucking cat.
Why I am not ready to be a parent, #3,678,942 July 24, 2006 ~ 11:25 pm
Posted by Julie in : About a Julz, Daily Grind , comments closedTonight’s dinner:
- One can of large pitted black olives
- One bowl of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran
This happens on a regular basis (the food changes, but not the strange nutritional content combinations). And this is despite the fact that I had defrosted a chicken breast, had leftover pork loin in the fridge, and had just bought a scrod filet that I could have eaten. I eat like a five-year-old, therefore I am not ready to have a five-year-old. Or even a baby.
On the plus side, hey, the lunch dilemma is solved for the rest of the week.
Now go check out all the cool pictures that I took while Aimee was here. They’re under her Flickr account because I would have seriously surpassed my 20 MB upload limit with these.
Cat Scratch Fever July 24, 2006 ~ 10:39 am
Posted by Julie in : Da Cats, Rick, Technobabble, Urban Family , comments closedI noticed a spot of blood on my jim-jams yesterday while I was staggering around in my morning routine. I was confused. It’s not that time of the month, I had no wounds when I went to sleep that could have reopened during the night. What the hell was going on? I peeled back said jim jams to discover a little scratch-like puncture thing. Apparently, the nightly cat wrestling match had continued after I fell asleep. Continued over me. And included me. All without my knowledge. Before this, I thought that the spot of blood I found on my sheet last week was from the cats tearing into each other while playing WWF. Now I wonder if the blood was from me while they tore into each other. Damn cats.
I did get one very important thing accomplished this weekend: I ported my cellphone number over to Verizon. The porting was completed in short order, the awkward “how the hell does this new phone work?” phase is at least partway over. Anyone who is on Verizon whose phone number I do not have, let me know. Because calls are free to anyone else who has Verizon! And free is good. Next Friday will be spent getting Rick his Verizon cell so that he and I can talk for free. He already has phone envy over my new one, so his original plan to get a simple phone might be in the garbage.
I also spent the better part of two hours yesterday at an insane going out of business sale at Wet Seal in the East Village (the one on Broadway and Bond, for any interested New Yorkers). Crazy discounts and buy one, get two free on top of that. I got a pair of capris, a dress, and a sweater top for $14.99. Jordana got a pair of jeans, two pairs of pants, a dress, and two tops for $35.99. We rock the discount shopping.
The only thing ruining this? That I had to go back to work this morning. I really need to win the lottery.
Most Random… July 20, 2006 ~ 11:53 am
Posted by Julie in : In Da Hood, Urban Family , comments closed…Pick-Up Line: The guy at the bar last night who sat down beside my friend Bekkah and I (we were both knitting) and said “Do either of you lovely ladies want to go on a motorcycle ride for 45 seconds?” Not so much, no. We had been wondering why a motorcycle had been circling the block and then parking back in front of the bar after each circuit, there was our answer. Someone was picking up chicks. A lot of chicks.
…Aimee: Well, duh. Random Aimee, of course. I can’t remember most of the details of our visit, probably because we were laughing too hard or knitting too fast or sweating too much, but I can tell you that Aimee is one of the loveliest people you will ever meet and that she and I are on precisely the same wavelength. Be afraid, people of earth, be very afraid.
I do remember that we clicked immediately, which was a huge relief. Aimee and I email almost daily and talk on the phone occasionally, but still. I had invited her into my house four four whole nights and three days. There was the possibility that we wouldn’t get along. There was the possibility that she was an axe murderer. Fortunately, neither of those were true. How could I have doubted someone who was willing to watch hours of Doctor Who with me?
I took Aimee on a very non-traditional tour of my city. We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan, because everyone should do that at least once. We saw City Hall. We saw Canal Street. We saw Chinatown. We saw yarn stores. We went on the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty close-up without having to pay money. We went to Coney Island and ate Nathan’s and watched fireworks exploding over our heads. I baptized Aimee’s feet in the Atlantic Ocean. We saw parts of Brooklyn. We saw the Upper West Side. We saw more yarn stores. We went on the three-hour Circle Line tour that circles Manhattan, had an awesome docent, and took a zillion pictures. We went out for German food in Hell’s Kitchen. We briefly stopped in Times Square. We saw fifty million Starbucks. We spent way more time in the subway system than I’m sure Aimee wanted to, but she saw New York the way New Yorkers do, dammit. And along the way we knit and watched 10 episodes of Doctor Who. And talked. Oh, my Goddess did we talk. About everything. And in the end, three days and four night still wasn’t enough time. We have a list going of things we’ll do next time she comes here. And a list of things we’ll do when I go to visit her, eventually.
Aimee, you were a blast. I can’t wait to see you again in the fall! Oh, and thanks for the yarn!!
Pictures to follow when I get off my ass and upload them to Flickr. Hopefully this weekend.
