You'll Be a Song I'll Sing

Yesterday I did no writing on my NaNo.  After work I went to husband's work where I saw some short films by Robert Beavers.  Interesting stuff.

Today was Sammy's Gotcha Day.  We didn't really do anything to celebrate it but he let us sleep in until 11:30am and he rewarded with a long walk.  As usual, Sammy did climb into bed at 6:45am looking for cuddle time and some belly rubs.

I am still behind on my tv watching but am making progress in getting caught up from watching shows while my husband and I were out of town last month. 

And today I had my best writing day for the month to date.  3188 words.  This still leaves me behind but I am catching up to where I should be.  My total word count is 7219.  I knew I wasn't out of this yet.

For dinner tonight I made a sausage/bean risotto which was yummy.  Very perfect for a cool day in fall.

Watched some of the World Series of Poker (down to about 19 people, I think) and then got to writing.

Wrote 1251 words for a total of 4031.  I am still behind but am starting to build some steam to catch up over the weekend.

My 20th high school reunion is this weekend and it's been weighing on my mind.  Many of us live in the same area but I've only come across one person by accident.  My city can seem so small and yet so big at the same time.

This is just the summer of high school I guess... Big Brother breaks people into high school cliques and now John Hughes has passed away.

Because of our trip to North Carolina last year I got behind on Season 1 and didn't finish it until a week or so ago.  (No spoilers to follow.)

So I'm halfway through the first episode to Season 2.  One thing I thought for sure happened at the end of Season 1 turned out to not be the case.  I like it when I get surprises!

Friday I called into work because I had a huge lump in my throat.  Didn't feel great at all.  I slept most of the morning and made myself get out of bed at 1:30pm.  A few hours later I discovered the hose to our ice maker came out and water was all over the counter between the stove and the refrigerator.  And of course water ended up in the basement.  I had no idea how to fix it.  Hubby came home early from work.  As it turns out, the hose won't stay so we either have to get it fixed or not have ice from the machine.

Saturday watched Tin Man and the last two episodes of Battlestar Galactica Season Three.  The reveal of four (possibly five) more cylons was exciting to say the least.  I remember in the first season there was a blood test to determine if a person was a cylon or not.  Wonder if some of them got missed or had a different type of chemical makeup.

Hubby came in from the morning walk to say our garage had been tagged.  Makes me want to knock some skulls together.  I want to help hubby clean it but I know he'll refuse the help.

Friday morning Sammy had a bad start.  We were about half done with our morning walk and he heard the garbage and recycling trucks.  He refused to walk further and  ended up popping out of his collar and leash.  Sammy took off at full speed down the sidewalk.  I walked after him and then called to him.  Luckily he looked at me and then sat down when I told him too.  I called him to me and (what a shocker!) he came.  I put his collar back on and then carried him down the street.  When I set him down again his little legs were going as fast as they could.  When I was making breakfast he was trembling.  Poor little guy. 

I know Sammy is hardwired to listen to his instincts.  That's why he barks and I can't get him to be quiet.  So I was really surprised he came running back to me when I called him.

I was planning on making hamburger buns today.  Now I'm not so certain I feel like doing anything at all.

Read Devil in a Blue Dress and Kitty Goes to Washington this weekend.

I just found out three of Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallender books were made into 90 minutes for the BBC.  The first one aired 11/30/08.  I've only read the first book (eight of them feature him as the main character and the rest have him as a secondary character) but now I want to really rush through them.  Love me some Swedish thrillers!  It appears I have some time.  They aren't going to be aired on PBS until the spring/summer. 

And Kenneth Branagh stars as Wallender.  Apparently Branagh was in Sweden for an Ingmar Bergman festival last year and met Mankell there and sparks flew.  :)

Snow!  There was a rumor about it on Sunday which didn't show up but this morning when I took Sammy for his morning walk it was there.  Snow!  We made it through the walk okay.  But towards the end he had to rub his neck in dog poo.  Ick!

At the vet's office when Sammy walked back to be weighed he greeted everyone so they would know he was there to visit.  There was an accident at the onramp I normally take from the vets so of course I got lost.  It would not be a proper trip on the freeway if I don't get lost at least once.  I still managed to get to work early though, which was the goal.  With no overtime allowed I can leave early for things like picking up Sammy when I would normally be at work.  :)  He was apparently a model patient.  He was next to a bunch of 11-week-old kittens.  He could smell and hear them but not see them.  The vet said Sammy was quiet.  He didn't whine or do anything unusual.  Yay!  I don't mind if he's a hellion at home (well, I do...) so long as he is well behaved in public. 

Hubby was nice enough to pick up dinner for us on his way home.  So we ate dinner while Sammy moped at our feet.  Sammy has been tired from his visit but hubby has been all smiles to spend time with me.  We watched the pre-show to the 2008 World Series of Poker final table.  (I already know who won but he doesn't and I want to see how it all goes down.) 

Bet you didn't think I wrote today, huh?  I wrote 2047 today for a total word count of 25665.  It feels good to have 51% of this completed.

I'm pretty sure I have not seen the Heroes episode "One of Them, One of Us" and it's now been taken off the NBC web site. I hope it's available on demand. Otherwise I think I will not get to watch the season until it comes out on DVD. There are 4 or 5 episodes on the DVR from after that one.

Going back to work was much easier than I thought it would be. I had 318 emails and 5 voice mails waiting for me. Nearly everything has been answered because most heeded my advice to not leave me a voice mail and to call the hotline number and to not expect an answer to the email from me and email the generic mailbox. Of course... all the direct contacts started up again as soon as word got out that I was a back in the office. :)

After work today I ran some errands (including getting groceries for different meals this week). Right now I am downloading the vacation pictures from the memory card to my PC. Hubby is itching to see some movies but he's being understanding about my taking time to write.

I'm still running behind on NaNo. I wrote another 1241 words for a total word count of 4241. I stayed up a little bit later than usual to catch one of the World Series of Poker shows. I think I have another 1 - 2 hours to watch before learning who is at the final table.

I have a mild frustration.  I can't look at my Yahoo entertainment module today.  We're not caught up on The Office (I think we have 2 more DVDs to go of the last season) and Survivor was DVR'd downstairs to be watched on the HDTV.  Which is at hubby's work for a week (and maybe more!).  But I don't mind, really.  It's of miniscule importance in the scheme of things.  :)

Yesterday I walked to the post office carrying a 5 lb book, went to the grocery store and pet food store where I came back with over 5 lbs of stuff in my backpack.  Crossing the street to Giant Eagle there was another woman with me.  She had a one shoulder backpack slightly larger than a school bag.  In Grandview, walking to the grocery store with a backpack would be out of place.  It's not that it's a hoity-toity neighborhood, but that most people drive everywhere unless it's to go out to eat.  Back then I'd walk to Giant Eagle and carry the stuff back in their plastic bags.  On the return trip home I stopped at Patty Cake Bakery where I bought two traditional tollhouse chocolate chip cookies as a sweet treat for husband and me.  It was a 1.2 mile walk.

The afternoon was pretty.  After resting up a bit and cooling down we had our cookies with a glass of milk.  Patty Cake is a vegan bakery and their stuff is good.  I forgot the cookies would have walnuts so I ate around mine.  I've never understand the appeal of milk and cookies until yesterday.  The sweetness is cut through with the milk.

We've been watching a lot of The Office (American version) to catch up to the next season.  Also, we've watched the first day of the World Series of Poker.  I was surprised by Chuck Liddell.  It may have been his first time playing poker in a casino but he was really cute; he was just having the best time and having so much fun.  I just wanted to pinch his cheeks.

Sammy finally performed stomach surgery on his platypus and found the woobie inside (it's a rectangular piece of woolie material velcroed shut with a squeaker inside).  He carries the woobie around in his mouth then pushes it against my leg or stomach to make it squeak.

Saw Ghostown yesterday.  It had a slow start but Tea Leoni and Ricky Gervais have good comic chemistry together.

I've been catching up on everything that was DVR'd while hubby was gone.  Nearly done with watching all those shows only to have a new week's worth of episodes pop up.

Went to 30th birthday party for husband's cousin on Friday.  I'm glad I like hubby's side of the family.  Family events wouldn't be as fun if I didn't.

Which Office Character Are You?
	You are Pam. You are sweet and likable, but your shyness makes it hard for you to express yourself sometimes. Regardless, you are always there for your friends and will usually come out of your shell to help anyone.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

This summer we've watched Seasons 1 - 3 of The Office.  I must admit... it's pretty good.  The BBC version was good too but it hit so close to home that it made me uncomfortable and not want to watch it.  

Though the American version reminds me of my old job from time to time it mostly makes me think of the era just before I started working there.  They had more time on their hands and would do crazy things.  Photoshop was a favorite toy.  When someone left the company they would create PowerPoint presentations of all their fun times which never happened - like hanging out in Las Vegas with showgirls (heads and bodies would be photoshopped).  They created fake business cards.  Person A put vaseline all over the mouse and phone of Person B.  Person B got back at Person A by spraying his entire cubicle with perfume.  There was one person who refused to make left turns so was always given driving instructions with as many left turns as possible.  

Season 4 comes out on 9/2/08 and Season 5 airs on 9/25/08.  I sense September will bring a lot more viewing of The Office.

A few weeks ago it was Nigella Lawson week at my house. Tuesday night was Roasted Buttermilk Chicken night. I made the marinade in the morning and accidently dumped some when the freezer bag fell over. My helpful assistant, Sammy, was there to clean up the mess. Much later I found out he regurgitated some of what he cleaned up so maybe he wasn't much help after all. Hubby finished up the last few steps of the cooking and I came home to drumsticks right out of the oven. The recipe is supposed to be good on chicken breasts or a whole (cut up) chicken too. Very tender meat.

We tried the Linguinne with Lemon, Garlic and Thyme Mushrooms but slightly modified. I used only a quarter to a half the amount of the mushrooms called for in the recipe. My husband is not a mushroom fan and I was off of them for a long time after watching them sprout from the carpet in our first apartment. Hopefully that didn't gross you out so much you've stopped reading. I loved marinating the mushrooms in the olive oil and lemon juice first. When the meal was all together, I'd get lovely unexpected bursts of lemon juice when biting into some of the mushrooms.

Note: Again, another old entry I started and never finished. This one is from May, I think. :)

Yesterday at work they had the final table of the World Series of Poker showing on ESPN.  Phil Laak went in with a pair of jacks against another guy with a pair of kings.  Phil was his usual nervous self and I was just giddy with watching him.  It is definitely the most animated anyone had seen me at work while watching tv.  

During Sammy's last class we started learning how to "heel".  As a tip, one of the instructors suggested a wooden spoon with peanut butter on it to keep Sammy focused on me.  He was so freaking cute even with his eyes nearly popping out of his head watching that spoon of peanut butter float in front of him.  I had not been in the mood to go to class and almost didn't go but I bucked up and did it.  I'm glad we did.  At last week's class they took the dogs through an agility tunnel.  This class they had the dogs walk up and down stairs.  He did good on the small ones.  He got up the big ones until it was time to go down.  In one direction was open stairs and in the other was closed.  He had hotdogs and cheese  trailing down the open side but he wouldn't go down at all.  Not even when he had a handful of hotdogs and cheese held just out of reach would he move.  

My favorite birthday present this year has been the red Weezer album.  At my last job when I did documentation I would put in one CD after another into my laptop and be a thinking, typing machine.  It would probably work at my present job but every time I seem to get into a zone while listening to music someone calls my name I'm just working away with no clue until my name gets yelled or they touch my shoulder.  So I don't really listen to music much unless it's to drown out the sound of the commercials and other people's music.  But I bop along with the CD while driving to work.

Lance Armstrong and John McCain are here for a town hall meeting.  I've had my head in the sand so I didn't know until last night that Armstrong is talking about his new LiveStrong.com site and McCain is unveiling his plan to fight cancer today at OSU.  Apparently Armstrong and Kate Hudson were at one of the restaurants down the street from our house enjoying dinner.  Whomever gave them the tip about the restaurant gave them a good one.  :)

I didn't make it to the movie last night. At home I gorged on 3 episodes of Dead Like Me, a nice juicy steak and fresh hand made baked french fries. It was all good.

Today I was up way too early at 9am. Sammy and I saw a blue jay and a cardinal on our walk. I put food out for Christmas but didn't see evidence of any of it being eaten. This afternoon I made certain the bird feeder was full. I don't think it's been touched but maybe tomorrow the birds will come and eat. It usually takes them a day or two to figure out where food can be found.

For dinner I browned a pound of country-style ribs in the oven then put them in the crockpot for about eight hours. I mixed them with a cup of original Gates Bar B. Q. sauce along with one cup of their extra hot sauce. It had some kick to it! My mouth was all tingly and I couldn't finish my last rib. (At Weiland's a pound came to three ribs so they were split evenly between the two of us.)

On our way to see Do The Right Thing my husband noticed something crossed the street ahead of us but didn't think it was a cat. He was right. While waiting for the light to change we watched a raccoon waddle across the grass and climb a tree. He was very slow and methodical about reaching up into the bark with his paws and pulling the rest of himself up. As my husband noted, the raccoon wasn't very svelte; he had to really work to pull himself up.

Not surprisingly, our weekend plans include movies. Tonight is Colossal Youth introduced by the director, Pedro Costa, and tomorrow night is Do the Right Thing. Right now I just want to have my feet pampered and to go back to bed. Hopefully I'll make it tonight but we'll see. Hubby won't be there to wake me up if I fall asleep.

Usually I notice the winter blues about March when cabin fever kicks in. I'm almost there. It's cold (most of the time) and I want to snuggle in my warm house to hibernate until flowers start poking out of the ground. The recent storms and shootings don't help either though it's always possible a tornado could rip through here while I'm hibernating.

Our run rate for ads has been great. It was 99.2% in December and 99.6% in January. Our division is getting pizza and salad today. I might actually enjoy the salad part if anywhere had spinach salads. So I guess pizza for me. We had a light dusting of snow last night. Combined with the lunch today that means very little walking in the cold for me today. One good thing I can say about Sammy... he's a dog on a mission during his walks. Very little sniffing and poking about with a lot of marking.

I'd been hearing about how great Dead Like Me is and it's at the top of our Greencine queue. I'm nearly all the way through the first disk and for some reason it wasn't until Episode 4 or 5 that I began enjoying the show. I'll probably finish this disc over the weekend. I already have disc 2.

I can't remember if I mentioned it or not, but I submitted two poems to two markets (my first ever similtaneous submissions!) about two weeks ago. I've been obsessively checking my snail mail and email ever since though the earliest I should expect a response is a month. Silly me.

Monday night I dreamt my husband got a tattoo. I remember being a little peeved about it but don't remember what the tattoo was of.

Tuesday night I dreamt my husband made a confession to me while I was looking at the mail. He'd gotten really drunk the other night with his brother. His brother talked him into another tattoo. "You took the last one so well I thought it would be okay." This one was of a video game controller (of course for a game system not invented yet) that was four inches wide and six inches long. I had to say the person who did the tattoo was an artist but come on... it was a bad tattoo! I was furious.

Last night the dream began with a search of public records to find out what really happened to my brother's friend that went to jail. (The only details I was ever given was that the charges involved a van, blood, and a 13-year-old girl. His sister was in the same class as me and I was friends with her.) During my search of public records I find that my husband has a stalker who works for the BMV. I click on a link to find out more about this stalker and suddenly he knows the whereabouts of us. He claims my husband filed charges against him for no reason so he's decided to make there be a reason. The stalker looked like a shorter, stooped, Harvey Pekar.

Usually when I have dreams like the last one I've been watching too much of a specific program. For instance, when I was viewing seven or twelve Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes on DVD each week I began having dreams with Buffy, Xander, Willow, etc. in them. I haven't read or seen anything with Harvey for a few months. The only thing I can think of is that I watched 1.25 episodes of Bones last night.

I really wanted to finish my NaNo this year to prove the first year wasn't a fluke. In reality, I guess it was a fluke.

I wrote a little bit (less than 200 words) while at work. Home was lovely. We ordered pizza and wings, watched The Amazing Race and 30 Rock and then it went downhill when I sat down to write.

Sammy would not stop barking. Before I actually began to write I checked my email and LJ when hubby, trying to be helpful, said something like, "I thought you were going to write" which I took as criticism. And it did not sit well with me since I was busting my butt at work today, did two loads of laundry after getting home, and wanted to check on a few things before I settled in. I was three minutes into a word war when Sammy started jumping in the kitchen trying to reach his bag of food. Within a few more minutes he was barking and jumping around in the dining room. I lost it and shrieked something at him about "Quiet".

In order for writing to get done at home I'll either have to have the office setup well (right now it's still a bunch of boxes and a half apart computer) or create a little area in the basement amongst the boxes of books where I can't see anyone and won't really hear them.

When I gave up writing for the night, I worked on laundry some more, put away the clean dishes I washed yesterday evening, and swept and polished some of the living room floor before chatting with hubby about the evening. I'm feeling overwhelmed and like a failure. With Sammy around it's hard to keep up on the cleaning (I sweep his hair up in the bathroom only to have it come back five minutes later) and even though he's not allowed on the furniture, his hair gets on our clothes and transfers over which I then try to clean off. Rarely have I met any of my writing goals this month. I thought Sammy was getting five or more walks a day and I've found out it's really more like three. The laptop that was only supposed to be delivered Monday - Friday was attempted delivery on Saturday, is closed for delivery on Monday, and will try again on Tuesday... which means I have to get off work a little early, make it to home and hope I'm here when they deliver it. Our NaNo ML suggested a last minute write-in with word wars that I was planning on attending. Oh well.

Writing is important to me as is spending time at home. Since I can't write, now that the words are actually coming again, I feel like a failure. Right now I don't see the word count as better than last year (which it is), or the attempt at writing consistently, or anything else. I see the PC that needs software installed, the unwritten email to my friend about the awesome author pictures she took, the undone web site, Christmas Shopping (which is not only usually done by me but also happens to need to be done super early since my mother insists on celebrating Christmas on the 8th), and obdience classes. (These aren't offered again through the humane society until January.)

Total Word Count is 17,301.

( Without Further Ado... )