Wednesday, March 29, 2006
amusing observation for the morning:
Virgil seems to think that hubby's alarm clock is another bird. so rather than just 'eeeh. eeeh. eeeh.' from the alarm, we get 'eeeh. cheep! eeeh. cheep!' very funny.
(oh. did i mention i got a finch? yep. Virgil is an adoptee. more about The Ark in another post.)
Story #2, as i work thru the backlog: Buttered Toast, with a Subtext of Cat.
there was a week at work where everything was going wrong, or at least not right. and it was happening to everyone. this somehow brought up a discussion of how buttered toast always lands butter side down, and wasn't that a good analogy for the week? and that night, on Mythbusters, they did a segment on just that theory. come to find out, if you're knocking toast off the table, it's a 50/50 shot that it will land butter side down. if you're dropping it from a greater height, then the algorithm changes - especially if you have vigorously buttered the toast and created a concave surface. leave it to those guys to figure that one out. :)
subtext of cat? well, i figured that all the geeks have heard this one by now:
GRAND PRIZE WINNER:
When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet. And when toast is dropped, it always lands with the buttered side facing down. I propose to strap buttered toast to the back of a cat; the two will hover, spinning inches above the ground. With a giant buttered cat array, a high-speed monorail could easily link New York with Chicago.
judging from the huge guffaw emitting from my coworker's office (after a ridiculous delay in which my email left the building, circled the globe, stopped for coffee, and then came back to the guy who works 10 feet away from me), he hadn't heard it yet.
:: scribbled at
9:06 AM ...
...
o
Monday, March 27, 2006
oh, let's see if i can't start catching up on stories, shall we?
Story #1: Midnight Blue, or, The Painting Project That Would Not Die.
today's lesson, boys and girls, is that if you switch roller types halfway thru a paint job, you'll end up with two different finishes on the wall!
(in my normal mode of a half dozen digressions and backstory, because that's how everything all strings together in my head, you'll get much of the rest of that particular week as well.)
so. why am i doing a painting project, one that turned out to be fairly major, the week before having a house full of people for my sister's baby shower? well. MedSm was off on vacation that week. school vacation, yes, but also a family trip with his mom. she managed to snag a great deal to Bermuda, so that's where they were that week. i was mildly envious of him, but also really happy for him – what a great experience. getting him there turned out to be half the fun, as well.
the way things worked out, BioMom and SD (well, barring better nicknames, that's what they'll go by here, i think) got a hotel room down here the night before the flight, so they wouldn't have to get up at the ass crack of dawn. (even tho BioMom is a morning person, i still think that 4 am is pushing the boundaries of good taste.) the trip was intended to be a surprise for MedSm, at least the destination; i think he knew he was going somewhere with his mom. so i offered to either let her come by the house whenever, just show up, or to do a whole Spykids/MIB thing and take him on a secret spy mission. she thought that was a great idea, and ran with it, making up a whole set of secret missions for him for me to use.
i folded up all the missions, numbered them, and stuck them in my bag before we, MedSm and i, went to run errands in the afternoon. errands, in this case, involved getting crickets for the reptiles, and buying paint. he had energy to burn, since it was bitterly cold, and the only exercise up to that point had been his basketball game and grocery shopping. yes, food shopping can be a contact sport with him. ;)
so we get to Home Despot, and i let him go pick out paint. he zones in on the display, crawls up on the counter, and points. 'that one. i want that one.' and it was a fairly lovely shade of dark blue - not too dark, not too cold. 'okay. done.' we get the paint, i snag a painter pack (tray, brush, rollers, drop cloth) and off we go.
on the way home, i hand MedSm the first mission. he figures it out in a snap, and is jazzed. over the next hour, we do the rest of the missions, and he breaks out the atlas to interpret the map clue. 'Bermuda?!?! i'm going to Bermuda?!?' smart one, that kid. and he's bouncing off the walls with excitement. we take off in my car, to the Secret Rendezvous Point. BioMom's car is nowhere in sight when we get there. we go into the lobby, and i call up to my Secret Agent Contact, and give the password. permission is granted, and we head up for The Meeting.
i can't even explain how funny it was when we got there. his stepdad did the whole 'do you know the handshake?' bit thru the door, made him slide the completed missions under the door, quizzed him, and generally made a hoot out of the whole thing. and off they went, on vacation.
took a day off to do other things, then, thinking that i had 5 full days. first night: taping off, and moving furniture. pain in the ass, but prep always takes longer than you think. second night: painting. it took longer than i thought to get deep blue to cover anemic yellow, but i figured i was about halfway done. third night: painting. and for some reason i now forget, i'd picked up a different roller. and this is where i discover that the right tool for the job makes things far speedier. however - the first round of painting came out with a matte finish, and the second round is shiny. so i have to retouch *everything*. it doesn't suck too much, tho, as the right tool allows me to catch up on covering the walls, and get part of the way thru the trim work.
fourth night: i start finishing up the trim. now, this is cutting it pretty dang tight. but i figure, they won't be back until midnight, so if i get cracking, it'll be fine.
and then the phone rings.
at 10 pm.
'hi! we'll be there in 15 minutes!'
ohshit. she figured the time difference wrong, and gave us the wrong arrival time! the trim is done, but the paint isn't dry - and *all the furniture is still in the middle of the room*!!
you've never seen anyone move so damn fast. i'm telling you - all the trim tape down, floor swept, tools picked up, furniture back in place, and bed made in under 15 minutes. and i was sweating like i'd run a marathon. but the room was clean, and MedSm had a place to sleep. of course, i snuck in after he was asleep to put up the wallpaper planets and glow in the dark stars. and it took a few more days to get the finishing touches up. but as far as i can tell, he didn't miss a beat.
and the best part of MedSm coming back was this: he ran in the door, said 'i haven't gotten enough dad love! and i'm gonna fix that!' and made a beeline for hubby, then proceeded to smother him in hugs. :)
so here's how the wall over his bureau came out. i actually sort of like the light blue ceiling now. it looked horrific with the pale yellow walls, but with the rest of the blue? not so bad.
:: scribbled at
11:18 PM ...
...
o
Sunday, March 26, 2006
unconscious mutterings:
Glass castle:: goldfish
Preserved:: lemon
Jealousy:: useless
Territory:: marking
Coffee:: grounds
Stephen:: Hawking
Slut:: tramp
Dynamic:: energy
Daybreak:: sunrise
Dew:: Mountain
well, that was a fairly pedestrian romp. no odd, unexpected associations there. ;) seems like the hyperactive subconscious has other things to wrangle with these days.
:: scribbled at
12:22 PM ...
...
o
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