This morning wasn't good. After cleaning up cat poo I discovered a lovely little surprise pool of cat puke by the front door just as we were leaving, so I was late for work. Then I just had one annoying office thing happen after another, so that by lunchtime I was thoroughly cheesed off. Doc C didn't know what to do with me, poor man!
Fortunately he went to the post office after lunch, and then came straight to my office bearing a massive cardboard box and then pulled two parcels out of his bag. My birthday presents had arrived! Hoorah! Today suddenly got a lot better!
Stu, Lee and Katsu had read my mind and sent me the DVD of "Pushing Daisies" season one, and the second Buffy comic bind up. W00T!
The other two parcels were both from my Mum, and she spoilt me rotten! I have gorgeous red leather gloves, some lovely fluffy socks, a tester of Jean Paul Gaultier's new fragrance Madame and the complete range of Montezuma's chocolate bars. Eeeeehhhh!!!
Doc C was equally delighted with his McVities' Caramel Digestives, in fact he went straight back to his office to make a cup of tea to enjoy them with. He had a smile from ear to ear at the mere thought.
You know, the day just seemed SO much better after that. I am a very lucky woman to have such thoughtful people in my life, even when I am 5,500 miles away from them. Give or take a mile or two.
We have just returned from a very nice dinner party at Kim and Jill's, which was fabulous and very fun. They have recently finished remodelling, and this was to celebrate their very nice new living room. I have had a couple of delicious rum based cocktails, and a glass or two of wine, so I am feeling pleasantly sleepy right now.
When we got home it was very gratifying to discover our cats are taking to the Citikitty like ducks to water. I would love it if they whizzed through all of the training steps by Christmas, but realistically I think that's probably over ambitious.
We had a terrible time trying to find a parking space today because there is a big football game in town, but we managed to get to the library where the pro-gay marriage march was assembling in time for me to make a banner. In the end I went with lots of red love hearts, partly inspired by the lovely necklace Jason sent to me as part of my birthday package (I also got Malteasers, cake decorations and a bag of assorted fabulous sequins! All of it wrapped up in the most gorgeous paper! Yay for birthday surprises!)
I also wrapped a small hot pink feather boa around the handle, which helped to make it comfortable but was mainly because, hello, it was a hot pink feather boa! That's my kind of protesting!
We marched in a circular route around the town which took about an hour and a half. For the most part we got lots of smiles and thumbs up, with just one or two people expressing their disagreement with our views. It was actually really quite fun!
It did start to rain towards the end, so I was glad to get home, which is when we discovered that Edith is pro gay marriage too. She really loved my banner, and kept rubbing up against it.
Unfortunately she was so enthusiastic about the sign that she pushed it over on top of Nancy, who survived unscathed but presumably less keen on protest signs than our little fluffy radical.
Quite often when we get home from work we'll want a small snack to keep us going until dinner time.
Today I thought some cheddar, a handful of triscuits and just a touch of Branston Pickle that Jason brought us would be nice.
And it was. Very nice indeed.
I got the idea of serving the pickle in a teaspoon from "Top Chef", it makes it much easier to put a blob on top of the cheese that way.
It's my birthday! Yay!
And I'm still not feeling well! Boo!
I've been on the NHS Direct website and I'm pretty sure that I have sinusitis, my favourite official symptom of which is "A feeling of being generally unwell", isn't that just so beautifully vague? The good news is that I should be better in the next day or so.
It's just so annoying though, because I'm ill today, and I usually love birthdays! I was planning to bake cookies to take into the office for our weekly meeting, and at lunchtime I was going to go out for a nice meal with my charming husband, whose birthday it also is.
Still things could be worse! This morning I spoke to my mum, and I know she's sent a parcel which is very exciting, plus we had a lovely birthday party already. I also get to clean up cat pee snuggle up with Edith on the sofa again today, whilst Nancy keeps a close eye on the food bowl.
It being a Monday night at this time of the evening we would usually be with our friends in the pub and I would be enjoying a pint of Guiness and a salmon sandwich with fries. We had to cancel this evening, because of Doc's cold.
All is not lost however. I have Bombay Sapphire Gin, I have a little bowl of delicious Snapea Crisps, I have cats, I have a sniffly, slightly grumpy husband and I have back-to-back episodes of "CSI:NY" that I haven't seen before.
Things could definitely be worse.
Doc C has a cold. He was fine last night when we attended a very nice after dinner drinks-and-dessert at Kim and Jill's, but he woke up at 5 with a bad head cold. It's all in his sinuses.
For the love of all that is good, please do not express any sympathy. Doc C does not like to be mothered whilst ill, I wasn't even allowed to heat up his chicken noodle soup this evening.
However he did let me take over his scooping duties.
He's ill, he's not daft.
If Laura ever offers to host a party for you, just say yes! Immediately! It was SO much fun!
When we arrived Laura had already been cooking up a storm and there were all the making of tacos and enchiladas on the table, with plenty of options for veggies and carnivores alike and it was all so delicious. The TV was tuned to a Mexican music station, so we had suitable tunage as we ate and tried to translate the song titles to much hilarity.
After dinner we smashed the pinata, now traditionally one is supposed to be blindfolded and then spun around until your dizzy before you get your three hits. Well I can see how that might be fun for kids who playing the game outside, but we were adults inside Laura and Randy's house and flailing around with the shovel from the fire irons set seemed like a bad idea. Besides we were in it for the destruction! I got the first round of hits, and I'm sure I dented it, but Doc C was next and he took the entire back half off with one swipe! It was hilarious! All of the sweets and little plastic things I put inside went flying. Jasmine finished it off by very neatly separating the head from the neck, and then we all set about collecting all the stuff from the floor. I'd made some solid choices with the filling and everyone found something they really liked, including one of the cats who loved the little plastic spider rings. I only wish that I had gone with my original plan to attach some red streamers to the inside of the pinata, so that they had spilled out like entrails! Yeah, I'm not sure how I get ideas like that either, but it would have been cool.
Then we played Apples to Apples, which I have mentioned before as being one of the best games ever ever ever. I think we need to buy our own copy of that, it is just so much fun when you ply with a good group of people. I suspect academics are particularly good, because they do enjoy arguing their case, but the highlight of the game was probably Jasmine pulling on Shawn's leg yelling "But creamed corn! Creamed Corn!"
I did make skull masks, but I was the only one. How anyone could resist the lure of craft paper and glitter glue I do not know, but I suppose it was coming up for midnight by that point and we had all had a lot of Mexican beer.
It was the most fun Mexican Day of the Dead Birthday Party I have ever had!
My lovely friend Laura is going to be in town for a few days, and she offered to host a birthday party at her house tomorrow evening for Doc C and I! How can you turn that down? And when I asked if we could have a pinata, make Dia De Muerto skull masks and eat tacos she thought that was a great idea! Hooray! It's going to be a very faux Mexican birthday; except I think The Doc plans on making another pecan pie, but it would be churlish to turn up my nose at Doc's pecan pies just because it doesn't fit a theme.
So I've been very busy this evening disembowelling a tissue paper bull and stuffing it with sweets and tacky plastic stuff. Edith loves the pinata, and keeps rubbing her face up against it, but Nancy has ascertained it has no cat biscuits in it and is therefore totally uninterested.
We actually had quite a difficult time choosing our pinata because there were some excellent options. I think Doc would have preferred the pirate, but I thought we should go traditional for my first pinata. Neither of us wanted to get a Dora the Explorer pinata, because she had an oddly grey face and it was creepy frankly.
In case you didn't know tonight is the Presidential election here in the USA. That means after today they might just stop talking about it for eighteen months or so before it all starts again. It's ridiculous! How long do people campaign for in the UK? It feels to me as though they just put out adverts the week before, but I'm sure that's just rose coloured spectacles because this has been so over the top.
We are having people over to our house, and have purchased champagne to celebrate if Obama wins, and Pabst Blue Ribbon to drown our sorrows in if McCain wins.
Doc C is making a pecan pie, and some pizzas. I totally failed to make an elephant shaped pinata, but I have decattified the living room. There are no food bowls, scratching posts, stray fur, or cat toys in sight, because they are in our bedroom with the cats. We thought that would be less stressful for the felines; and as Nancy had to be forced into a pet carrier today to go to the vets, where she was given a steroid muscle injection, I think the less stress for her the better. Plus she still looks terrible still, and I am vain on her behalf.
So this time tomorrow we will know who is the next President of the United States. Let's all keep our fingers crossed.
I hate my mobile phone.
It's supposed to do all this great stuff, but it's clunky to use, doesn't actually have anywhere near enough memory for all the features to work properly and it's just not at all user friendly. This is my fourth phone now and it's not like I have no idea how to use the things, so I'm choosing to believe it's just a bad design. And all the ring tones are awful too.
Fortunately I don't really use it very much; in fact it's main use is as my alarm clock with some texting and a few calls. It's somewhat annoying, that in the past year that I've had the thing, I have answered more wrong numbers than calls intended for me.
Somewhere out there is a numpty called Luke (insert Jedi joke here) who has a very similar number to mine and is apparently incapable of giving out his phone number correctly; or I suppose it could be that he gets the number right but hangs out with people who have number dyslexia. Either way it was annoying. Particularly because the calls would come at all hours of the day or night, and the person at the other end would never just apologise for ringing the wrong number, and then ring off; no, they always wanted me to quote my number back to them to work out where they went wrong when dialling. Which I could never do because for some reason I just could not remember that number to save my life. I really wanted to tell them that they had phoned England, and that the international calling fees were going to be astronomical, but I was just too polite to do that, even to very annoying people. The final straw came yesterday afternoon, I'd decided to have a disco nap before going to the Ghost Train. I'd just drifted off for a nice little zizz when my phone rang and a girl asked if this was Luke's phone. No, it's not and now I'm annoyed, so I won't be able to sleep. Damn you Luke! Damn You!
So today we drove over to the Verizon shop and a very nice lady changed my number for me. Even better I can already remember it, it's really easy! Now all I have to do is go through the hassle of telling everyone in my phone book that my number has changed. It'll be worth it though.
NaBloPoMo! Go! Go! Go!
Yes it's National Blog Posting Month, and since Edith rampaged around the house at top volume until I got up to play with her, I may as well post.
The Ghost Train was SO much fun last night! The weather was perfect for being at an amusement park after dark; it was crisp and clear so you could see all the stars, and there was just enough of a nip in the air for hot chocolate to seem a very attractive prospect. When we arrived the car park was only about half full, which boded well, and it turned out that there really weren't that many people there (which I suspect was because of the big football game at the University; which was televised and which we won by a ridiculously huge margin). This meant we could whizz around the park going on all of the rides, and didn't spend most of the evening waiting in queues.
We went on the Ghost Train first, and Jasmin established a pattern for the evening by being so easy to spook and make scream that the costumed staff wouldn't leave her alone. It was hilarious! I do have to admit that, although I am assured I did not actually scream, one of the werewolves did get a definite jump out of me. As I suspected the Ghost Train is about 50% more effective when there is no-one on board with a torch (American translation: Flashlight), shining it out so you can see exactly where you are and what's going on around you. It was just much more atmospheric and spooky.
After surviving the Ghost Train trip through Werewolf country we watched the Main Street Dancers for a while, until they were about to segue from "Thriller" to the "Macarena"; at which point we went to buy funnel cake, and catch the ski lift to the top of the mountain. We went straight onto the Tunnel of Terror, and I have to say I thought the Mad Butcher's heart just wasn't in it last night, maybe it's not so much fun if there aren't crowds of people, but he didn't bother trying to make anyone scream and didn't get on our train so he could menace us with chainsaws in the Tunnel itself. We did still get a great scream from Jasmin, when something animatronic leapt out at her. David and Doc C were almost crying with laughter by the time we got off.
Another good thing about going in a large group was that there was always someone willing to do whatever you felt like next, so David and I rode the Scrambler (one of those really rickety looking funfair rides that throws you around at high speeds), whilst everyone else watched and made rock signs at us whenever we were thrown towards them. That was a great ride, not least for the excellent choice of music "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult! Nice!
We also rode the Tilt-and-Whirl, walked through the 3D maze and the Black Hole, which were all things I hadn't done before. The Black Hole is very odd, it's a walkway through a spinning tunnel of lights, which doesn't sound like much but your body see the movement and tries to compensate by making you lean so you end up throwing yourself against the hand rail, and staggering along. We went through that twice!
I am very proud to say that this time I felt brave enough to finally go into the Haunted House and it was really fun. We were all very nervous (except, obviously, for Doc C who just finds such things hilarious). It was really cleverly done, so when you first arrived it was a hotel reception area, and I did not hear a word of what the man there was telling us, so I don't know if there was any sort of clear narrative to the house or if it was just a series of grand guignol vignettes. From the reception we were ushered into a lift with a mad ghost bell hop, and that just shook us about whilst the bell hop laughed, and then were let out the other side to continue the tour. It's sort of a blur because as a group we just decided to rush through, with ever-one holding hands like a crocodile of small children. I forget what order it all came in but I know there was a girl covered in cobwebs screaming for help; a giggling lunatic; a very grumpy looking girl with a knife, a pram with something nasty in it and bloody eyes; a mad scientist in a bio hazard suit who had the only well lit room so we could fully appreciate the twitching bodies; a mad electrician (I think, there were sparks involved) who threw a switch and set off an electric chair with someone convulsing in it and then finally some sort of enormous demon thingy who followed us right up to the door. It was really really fun!
We then went back to Main Street to take photos posing on the life size plastic horses before we left. We actually left forty minutes earlier than Doc C and I did on our previous visit, but because it was so quiet we actually had packed in a lot more to our visit.
My verdict: Two thumbs up, an excellent way to spend Halloween.
I've had a lovely Halloween so far! I re-deployed all of the decorations from last nights Dorm of Doom, so we had a nice scary office; and I've inherited the Fortune Teller's magic 8 ball, which perfectly matches the rest of my black and white office stationary.
Tonight we are going to the Ghost Train again, but this time we are going with a group of friends. It started with just one other person, and has grown to six. Mostly it's faculty from the Philosophy and English departments, but we do have an intrepid teenager coming too despite the distinct possibility that we will be very nerdy.
I don't really have a costume as such, I couldn't think of anything warm enough but still fun. In the end my solution was to just pile on the eyeliner, put too much product in my hair, accesorise with as many skull based things as I own, and go as "A thirty year old woman who thinks she can get away with being a bit Emo". I have no doubt it will be the scariest costume of the evening!
p.s. I'll be skipping the photo post for today, because I'm hoping to have a lot from the Ghost Train to post tomorrow!
This evening my department had an event for the students, so I stayed late and then headed over to the library to catch a film in the queer film series "Saving Face" (which is not the point of this post, so I'll just say here it was a really terrific romantic comedy and I enjoyed it very much. It's out on DVD, so rent it now!).
It was snowing a bit, so I cut through the Student Union and as I was rushing along the corridor I saw a man walking the other way who looked exactly like Carver from "The Wire".
Which was because it was Seth Gilliam who played Carver in "The Wire".
Oh. My. God.
I actually stopped dead in my tracks and blurted out "I love your work!". Bless his heart, Mr Gilliam stopped to shake my hand and talk to me, he was a very nice man! When I asked what the hell he was doing in North Carolina he explained that he was here campaigning for Barack Obama; and that Gbenga Akinnagbe and Sonja Sohn who played Chris and Kima where here too.
And they were! In a meeting room next to the bookshop! I called Doc C and as soon as he answered I said
"Carver,Chris&KimaFromTheWireAreInTheStudentUnion!!!" "What?"
"Carver, Chris & Kima from "The Wire" are in the student union!
Get over here NOW!"
Both Ms Sohn and Mr Akinnagbe were talking to students, and I didn't want to interrupt (after all they were there to talk to prospective voters, and I'm not a citizen so I can't vote), so I ran off to the screening, so I could tell Kim and Jill (they organised the film series) who are also big Wire fans. It was one of the most surreal and most exciting celebrity spots ever! It almost tops that time I saw David Beckham topless at Broadcasting House, but I wasn't wearing my glasses, so he was blurry!
If only Doc C had been there too it would have been perfect, because he would have thought to say what a travesty it was the "The Wire" never won an Emmy. Unfortunately by the time Doc got to the Student Union they had already left, so he is very jealous of me. He says he's not letting me go anywhere with out him now, after all it's not just that I spotted three celebs in one go, but they were stars of one of the greatest television series of all time. Which you can't argue with really.
I know, I know you are probably thinking "Good Grief Woman! We get it! You own cats now!" but I have an excellent reason for posting this picture.
Mum and I were just discussing the other day how none of previous pet cats would ever even look at a toy or a piece of furniture that they suspected of being designed especially for them. Particularly if they managed to intuit that it was probably not cheap.
Imagine my delight when our pusskies both deigned to use the cat tower at the exact same moment, and without any prompting!
Plus that's currently Nancy's best angle (I am beginning to suspect she might literally be mangy, poor thing. Back to the vets. sigh.), so it's a nice picture of both of them!
We are planning to have an Election Party on Tuesday 4th November, Doc C e-mailed some people about it yesterday and he's started to get RSVPs back.
Unexpectedly Doc also got a phone call from his brother, who is very excited about the election too. In fact he's planning to fly from Boston to join us for just for the evening; because he thinks that it would be more interesting to be in N.C., which is being counted as a swing state in this election, rather than Massachusetts which is a strong hold for the Democrats.
So far we don't have a theme for the evening, other than nervous tension of course, but we are thinking about having an elephant pinata. Well I'm thinking about having a pinata, and trying to talk the Doc into it, mainly because we have the perfect stair case to hang one from, and I've never destroyed one before. They look like fun to me!
We have to take Nancy back to the vets next week, once she has finished her antibiotics. I'm really not looking forward to trying to get her back in the pet carrier, so I was talking to the lovely Laura and asked if she had any top tips. Laura said that she would just leave the pet carrier in the living room, so the cats got used to seeing it and didn't associate it with stressful things like people trying to force them into it against their will.
I thought I'd give that technique a go this evening, so brought one of the pet carriers into the living room; Nancy immediately saw it, and started edging away from it, whilst keeping an eye on it. I just put the carrier next to the window and walked away. Nancy sat a good distance away from it, and kept an eye on it. Meanwhile Edith jumped on top of it, and sat there quite happily watching birds.
After about ten minutes (and once Edith had got off the carrier) I got the bag of cat treats, and made lots of noise with the bag, so Nancy was aware there was some food being offered. Making sure she could see the open door of the pet carrier, I put the treats half-way inside and then walked away. Nancy looked at me and gave a single plaintive mew, but she knew where the food was.
Slowly and cautiously Nancy edged over to the carrier, sniffed all around it and then inched her way in until she could reach the food. I think she just stuck her head in, with maybe her front paws but her hind legs and tail were still firmly outside. Nancy ate a few of the biscuits inside the carrier, and then ran off.
I'll be honest in that I just did not expect that to work so quickly! I have never owned a cat who was so easily motivated by cat treats before, and if I tried that type of trick on any of my other cats all I'd have got would have been a withering look for my troubles. I think this whole thing may just have got a lot easier.
As I mentioned yesterday the weather is starting to get a bit colder. I've broken out the cosy undershirts that I like to wear layered under t-shirts and hoodies, so I am keeping warm. One thing I really like about the change in weather is that it makes the cats much friendlier. Nancy was taking an hour and a half to forgive me for giving her the bubble-gum pink antibiotics previously, but this evening she was on my lap within thirty minutes.
The cooler weather also means that I have an excuse to crochet up a storm! Doc C wore his scarf last weekend, and said it was very warm.
Today I took my skull and crossbones scarf to the wool shop with me to ask the nice lady behind the counter how much more wool she thought I needed, and whether blocking would help lengthen it. When I took the scarf out of my bag and unrolled it along the counter, the two other customers in the shop came to have a look. One of them was a sweet little old lady who peered at it, then gave me a big beaming smile and said it was very pretty. I'm not sure she had her glasses on, bless her heart.
I bought the two balls of wool it was agreed should get the length I want for my scarf, and I also bought some lovely Scottish wool to make Doc a nice warm hat, which I think I'll attempt to felt. However the hat wool was ten dollars more expensive per ball then the wool I made the scarves out of, so I think I'll do a practice run in nice cheapo acrylic first.
On the way home from work Doc C and I stopped off at the local bakery to buy some sourdough bread. Do loves sourdough, but when he tries baking it he can't get it quite like the bread we buy from this bakery; so he asked how long they left the dough to sour for. The girl on the till didn't know, so she nipped to ask the baker, who said they'd started the starter dough when the bakery first opened seven years ago and it had been kept alive ever since. That is pretty impressive!
Whilst The Doc was getting baking tips, I was looking at the display of vintage glasses they had on the windowsill. They were small molded juice glasses (about twice the height of an egg cup), which I thought were just lovely and Doc agreed. They were only $1.75 each (That's less than a pound each), so we carefully choose six that we liked.
The owner of the bakery saw we were buying the glasses, and came over to tell us how much she loves the ones she's got at home because it's so easy for everyone to keep track of which drink is theirs and they are really sturdy. She does use them to give her children juice in, but I think we'll be using them as slightly over-sized shot glasses.
I have no idea when we'll have six people in our house all sipping whiskey, but when we do I think I'll be using the glass second from the left which has a row of tiny stars around the rim.
Today was fairly awful, for boring work related reasons for me, but I found that pretty much everyone else was having a bad day too. It seems to me that ever since I heard that Paul Newman had died, everything has just been wrong. For example Jason e-mailed to say that he had got home ok, but his suitcase hadn't. Again. What is it with Delta, and the inability to fully co-ordinate a change of flight? I haven't heard the suitcase's full itinerary yet, but I expect you will be seeing Jason's first book "Places My Suitcase Has Been Without Me" in airport bookshops in time to catch the summer tourism trade next year.
However today I did discover what could well be the perfect alarm clock; I currently use the alarm feature on my phone, but it literally scared me awake last week (I sat bolt upright and whimpered according to Doc C. I dispute the whimpering) and I hate it. I've been thinking that I really needed to buy a good alarm clock as an alternative, and whilst looking for one I stumbled across the website to the Voco. It has a voice chip in it loaded with 150 different phrases read by Stephen Fry in Jeeves mode, and that sounds to me to be the most delightful way to be awakened. If you don't want to buy the clock itself, you can also just download the phrases and a bit of software and it will play through your iPod instead. There are different versions for Sir and Madam, as well as a Horoscope and Bible version (Stephen Fry doesn't do the Bible one though, which I was quite glad about actually).
Before we took Jason to the airport today, we packed in a few more fun activities. First Doc C whipped up a breakfast of pancakes with maple syrup, as well as eggs and bacon for the carnivores. Then we went to the Humane Society to introduce Jason to the two cats we've decided to adopt, he approved of both of them; so we filled out the paperwork and we shall be picking them up on Friday (I'll wait till we've got them to post their details!). Last thing before we hit the road was a trip along the Parkway, so Jason could enjoy some of the fantastic scenery in all it's early autumnal beauty.
I have to say dropping Jason off at the airport was a lot less fun than collecting him; but the woman who checked him in loved my "Miss Scarlet in the Hall with a Revolver" T-shirt which was gratifying. We walked Jason to his security gate, waved him off and promptly left, because I would have got something in my eye if we'd hung out for too long.
Right now he should be in Atlanta waiting to transfer to his flight to Heathrow; let's hope his suitcase has learnt it's lesson and catches the same flight as him this time around.
Doc C was teaching this afternoon, and this morning he had a meeting so Jason and I went into town with him when he went to work and I showed Jason around the local antique shops, restaurants (we covered one for breakfast, one for lunch and a bakery for a sampler selection of their finest cookies) and the university campus.
We also picked up the post from our post office box and the CitiKitty I ordered last week arrived today. All we need now is a cat or two, and I will be able to report back on whether or not it is indeed possible to train a cat to use a toilet. Oh, let's hope!
We were planning to go to Asheville on Saturday, but it turns out that the petrol shortages that have been effecting other towns in America has finally reached our town; so we may have to be more careful about the distances we're going to drive over the next few days before we go to Charlotte airport. Otherwise Jason may be here for considerably longer than he had anticipated, which would honestly suit me perfectly well!
This evening we introduced Jason to Kim, Jill and David, "Project Runway", our shiny new grill and smores. It was very fun!
Tomorrow I will take Jason out to my favourite breakfast place, then around campus and the antique shops in town, before we go bowling in the evening. More fun!
The weather has been behaving itself beautifully (knock on wood) and we've had some nice bright sunny days. Jason has been enjoying sitting out on our deck and watching the hummingbirds putting on their aerial displays.
After work today Doc C and I came home to have a cup of tea, and then took Jason into town to see all the Halloween stuff that's on sale. We went to Kmart first of all and explored all the Halloween themed baking goods, candy and costumes. Then we went over the Lowes hardware which has a great life size animatronic witch (stirring a bubbling cauldron) and some utterly ridiculous inflatables, but unfortunately the life-size mummy (with moving eyes, that mumbles at you when you move too close to it) had already been sold.
Tomorrow I still need to be in the office, but then I can take Thursday and Friday off so Jason and I are going to explore our town and the next town over. Then on Saturday we'll see if we feel like exploring further afield on a day trip, before we take Jason to the airport on Sunday afternoon.
Jason's bag flew into Charlotte from New York today, and then was put on another plane to Tennessee, where it was then put onto a van and driven to our house. So the suitcase is technically better travelled than Jason, having been to a whole extraneous state.
It took the entire day for the suitcase to get here, but it has finally arrived. Inside it (apart from all of the stuff he puchased in New York) were a huge jar of Marmite, a large jar of Branston Pickle, the biggest box of maltesers I've ever seen and A BOTTLE OF PIMMS!!!
Jason is the best houseguest ever.
We drove to Charlotte today to collect Jason from the airport. We parked the car, walked through the main entrance and I immediately spotted Jason at a luggage caousel. His suitcase, unfortunately, had not made it from New York to North Carolina, so he gave them our address and they'll deliver it to us tomorrow.
Apart from that small hiccup, I think he's had a good trip so far.
Is it just me, or is time really whipping by at the moment? I feel like it was just yesterday that I was bemoaning the passing of the weekend and now here's another one about to begin. Not that I'm complaining, it's nice when the working week is so busy that it truncates like that.
I'm particularly delighted that time is on fast forward because I love this time of year, and I have bunches of fun things to look forward to over the next couple of months:
Let's hope it all slows down a bit for all of that!
Doc has commented several times on how much better I am at handling the warm weather this summer; because I am not a fan of high tempratures and last year, I hate to admit, I did get very whingy. This year I seem to have adjusted quite well, and it hasn't really bothered me as much - Which is a relief to both of us I'm sure!
Having said that it was very warm last night, even with every window in the house open and two fans turned on in the bedroom, and I found it hard to sleep. Today it's still very sunny, and I feel very tired and a bit headachey. The sun it is not my friend. Still I hope it's like this when Jason comes to visit so he can get the full benefit of our balcony.
It's been a very busy day today.
We bought some wool (although not quite enough for my scarf), and then I went to Staples to buy some office stuff and that took quite a while. It is surprisingly hard to choose document holders, who knew? I did get some super cool bulldog clips though, they have retro style typewriter keys on them.
After we'd dropped those off in my office, we got some lunch from our favourite bakery and drove up to the Parkway to have a picnic. That was really nice, and after lunch we went for a stroll.
There were lots of acorns on the ground, and Doc C picked up on of the acorn cups (you know, those things that look like hats for pixies) put both his thumbs over the top of it, if you know who to do owl whistles he held his hands sort of like that, and then proceeded to produce one of the most ear-piercing whistles I have ever heard. It actually hurt to hear it. Naturally I requested that Doc teach me this very valuable skill, and soon we were both whistling like loons. Very fun!
Then we came home, and I started sticking the hole enforcers in a grid pattern on what will be my new bag whilst watching an appalling Harrison Ford Movie. I went off to eat dinner half-way through and when I came back nothing had happened. Literally when I left there were two men in suits walking round a bank, and when I came back thirty minutes later they were still walking round the same bank. Wow, that is one slow moving plot for a thriller.
Before I go to bed I have to make cookie dough, so I can bake cookies for Doc's departmental soiree tomorrow afternoon.
Very busy day.
I cannot believe it is Friday already, this week has flown by. Bob started driving back to Boston today, because he'll be taking a couple of days to get there; unlike our fourteen hour marathon last time we went.
This weekend I shall be getting some more wool to finish off the scarf I am crocheting for Doc C and to start off the one I've decided to make for myself. I shall also be positioning stickers, and using them to paint polka dots on the fabric for my bag flap. The piece of cordura arrived this morning and extremely thoughtful people at Courierware have even chalked in guidelines for me, so that I don't polka dot anywhere that's going to be hidden.
Apart from that I am intending to sleep a lot, but I don't know if that's going to happen because I drank half a litre of coffee at this morning's breakfast meeting. That was at 8am, and I am still feeling wired. I drink tea every day, or I might have a latte once or twice a week, but half a litre of strong filter coffee is clearly not a good idea for me, and yet I manage to forget that and do it again every five years or so.
Note to self: This is your brain on too much caffeine, Eeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Apart from Doc's brother, who was really only here to drop off furniture, we have not yet had an official house guest come to visit us. It looked like Jason was going to earn that title with his visit from the UK in two weeks time; but just pipping him to the post is our friend Bob who drove up from Boston.
We have naturally rolled out the red carpet for him, and even purchased new sheets from the Jacqueline Smith home furnishings collection. Clearly Jacqueline favours a sateen cotton sheet which we bought in a nice chocolate brown. More mysteriously the insect screens that were taken off our windows by some workmen two months ago have re-appeared just in the nick of time.
We're about to go out for dinner, and we're looking forward to showing bob around town a bit too.
Tonight I am going to the cinema with my friends Jasmine and David to see "The House Bunny". The trailers looked too intriguingly tacky for me to miss, but Doc wanted none of it, so it's lucky I found two people who did want to see the heart warming story of an ex-Playboy Bunny's search for new meaning in a university sorority house. For the record I deplore the Playboy empire and all it stands for, and I find Hugh Hefner a little bit creepy, but I do adore a cheesy movie, so that's why I'm going.
Before I dash off let me leave you with a picture of the Chinese takeaway I just ate:
Look at that! It came in the little cardboard cartons with the wire handles and everything! It's just like in the movies!
For those keeping track (Hi Mum!), I had shrimp with broccoli from the low fat menu, and then ruined that good intention by having prawn toast and fried rice too. It was tasty.
My fortune cookie said that I have a deep appreciation of the arts and music, so clearly those things are a lot more accurate than I had previously thought.
When I was a little girl I remember being astounded at my Grandmother drinking a cup of tea black, without any milk (I don't remember if that is how she always drank it, but I must have observed her doing so at least once). I don't remember if she had a slice of lemon instead, but I do remember being really horrified at the idea and not being able to imagine myself ever liking tea without milk. Actually my Grandmother also peeled bananas from the bottom end up, which meant she could use the stalk as a handle. I have no idea how she got the peeling started on the slightly tougher green bananas though.
Anyway, since I've moved to North Carolina I've been trying to have my cup of tea as I normally would and I'm finding it surprisingly difficult. Here when you order tea in a restaurant or sandwich shop, you have to specify hot tea, or they will assume you want iced tea (sweet or unsweet). Not just that, but when the cup of tea is brought to the table in a restaurant, it's typically delivered black. Naturally to counter this I've also been asking for milk, but what I usually end up getting get is coffee creamer, and, after some months of lying to myself, I now have to admit that synthetically creamy tea is not very pleasant, frankly. So I recently started ordering a slice of lemon instead, and I'm getting used to that now.
However I also would like to drink tea in the office, and we have neither milk nor lemon slices available, so I have purchased a Twinings variety pack, and I am going to experiment with which tea works best without any additions to it at all. I suspect that Earl Grey will be the winner here, but English Breakfast Tea, or perhaps one of those spiced orange teas, may yet surprise me.
Today Doc C came up with a three point plan for the day, which I was free to pick and choose activities from. I turned down the chance to put air in the tyres, and get a new gas tank for the grill, but I accepted the invitation to go for a walk to Linville Falls and see a lovely waterfall.
It was only a half mile stroll, and it was through a very pretty forest. I enjoyed all of that, and the falls itself were quite lovely. When we got there Doc asked if I had my camera, which I always do, and suggested I take some photos. I took a couple of the river and the falls, then a few of the Doc in front of the falls. Then Doc took the camera and got me to pose for a photo, he took two and then handed me the camera.
I deleted those pictures, and handed the camera back whilst correcting my posture, and re-adjusting my t-shirt so that it didn't cling exactly where I didn't want it too. He took two more, handed back the camera and turned to leave. I deleted those pictures too, and gave him the camera for a third time, then I very clearly explained how I needed to be framed, so as to avoid us being there all freaking day. Essentially I wanted a shot from the shoulders up please.
Honestly I don't hate having my photo taken (not that I'm about to post any here to prove that!), but I do object to Doc C taking a photo of me in an unflattering pose, and not telling me that I need to straighten up, or raise my chin slightly. Anyway, I simply art directed myself based on the photos I deleted, and we ended up with a single shot that I didn't absolutely hate. As I believe I said yesterday, I am my mother's daughter in many many ways, but I don't seem to have inherited my great grandmother's fondness for portraiture, we have some amazing photos of her posed in some fabulous fancy-dress outfits from the twenties (I think). Hmmm... Maybe if I had an art deco head dress, or a pet dove I'd reconsider...
I have recently started reading a blog called Forty Three Folders, and they had a very interesting post today on why on-line social networking could do with a pause button. You can read that post here, and I think it's very interesting.
Networking on-line and electronic communication is becoming so ubiquitous, that you can join Face Book support groups for pretty much anything, and sign up to be texted with the latest news on presidential candidates. With over 175,000 new blogs being created every day, there is now even an on-line magazine from Typepad to help blog readers get an overview of what is going on out there on the net.
It made me think about how I approach my on-line presence, and indeed blogging. I post here every day, and I think, necessarily, the blog posts I write have peaks and troughs of success. So sometimes I'm very happy with my posts and I think they work and sometimes I'm just convinced that the entire internet can hear the bottom of that barrel being scraped.
I still want to stick to posting every day, and that is because I want to get into the habit of writing something every single day and I also want to post pictures because I want to observe where I am every single day.
After work on a Monday we usually go to the pub (well, actually, it's a really nice sandwich place that sells beer).
This evening however I had two other offers on the table; firstly I could watch the Students foam fight, which involves a few dozen students plus a few dozen cans of shaving foam, et voila; secondly I could go out for margaritas with a group of women who work at the University.
I went for the margaritas, and I have to say two salty limey drinks on an empty stomach later I felt a lot happier about today being only the start of the week. Ah tequila!
It was Randy's birthday
Recent Comments