Scraps (n. ,fem., singular)

The Oldenfeld.net forum is free of spammer accounts. Not that they could do anything but artificially inflate the member count and cause me grief since I have all accounts set to admin activation only, but still… they were there and now they are not. Hah!

Of course, that was the total of my efforts on the site today. Not so hot. Tomorrow I’ll do some content work for a little while. Chipping away is pretty much all I can do.

My passion right now is on research for Wedding Tarot. I’d be more judicious of the time spent only I’ve put this project down for months in the past without a thought so I’m sort of stuck in this ’seize the moment’ thing. Maybe it’s the waning moon pushing me to complete this leg of the research (because heaven knows this will not be the end of it), maybe it’s procrastinatory serendipity (finding desire for a wayward project when I should be working on others), or maybe it’s just that whole ’should’ issue: it’s my time and I’ll be damned if someone else is going to tell me how to spend it. Not that anyone really is, it’s me reminding myself that there are other items on the to-do list. Ahh, internal dialogue, gotta love it.

Today was a bit slow at work. The last two days were spent tidying up random loose ends (i.e. the stacks of low-priority paperwork and filing on my desk) and fighting the urge to plan my next party. I have the ground-work layed in my mind, I just have to nail down a few more details and execute the invitation design (which came to me in a flash of inspiration this morning).

But for now, back to the Wedding Tarot research. *shuffle*

I suppose I could warn you when I’m going to do that. If only I knew in advance myself!

So, let’s see, where did we leave off? Cousin M was in town and I played hookie (with permission) half a day to take her to lunch and show her around T-town on Wednesday. It was the Loop for lunch, five hours of driving around Tallahassee (I’m still a little uneasy about looking at a map and trying to see what sort of screwed-up loops I made), then dinner with Mom, J & K at Marie Livingston’s. Yum! Since Cousin M’s hosts were the early-to-bed type we got her home just after seven and I ran a couple of party-related errands before going home, myself.

Since it was only just eight o’clock I figured there was no sense in wasting time so I started draping the walls. Wow. Somehow I did not expect to have to move one wall of furniture and–should I ever be crazy enough to try this again–that so many trips up and down the step-ladder would be needed. My thighs are still protesting all of the steps but hey, it’s a great glut workout! Three hours and a quart of sweat later I had drapedthe four walls I was going to (because I ran out of sheeting), hung up the silver stars with their kick-ass mini lights, and draped caution tape over the bookcases and vertical-blind valance.

And wouldn’t you know I came home Thursday to a note on the door saying Pest Control was coming by on Friday.

Thankfully I did not get a call from the office on Friday, so I can only presume that the decorated table and prominent bar-cart convinced whomever not to report strange activity.

Would you believe that on Saturday I was actually 2 hours ahead of schedule??? I know, totally unheard of for one of my parties. Usually I’m waiting on at least one appetizer to finish when the first guest arrives right on time. Instead, I was cooling my jets at two o’clock (having already showered and primped and changed my shirt four different times) just waiting out the clock until I could reheat the final appetizer and start the popcorn popper.

This turned out to be a good thing, though, as just as I was getting ready to start the popcorn there was a knock on the door: the Bard was 45 minutes early! See, I must have known something like that was going to happen, but it was actually fine (though I did tease him about it for a little while), but it gave me a chance to give him his birthday present before the party started and he kept me company while I finished up the last-minute preparations.

‘It’s a Disaster!’ Movie Night was a rousing success. All of the food went over wonderfully, there was plenty of it (which means I don’t have to cook for a few more days! yay, leftovers!), the guests mixed as wonderfully as I thought they would, and the movies provided ample mocking factor. Here was the rundown for those that might be interested:

4pm: Dante’s Peak and Spicy Appetizers (cheeses with pepper jellies, jalapeno and ham corn muffins, black bean dip, salsa, guacamole and chips, and–even though it’s not spicy–bacon wrapped artichoke hearts or, as Palmie refers to them, Crack)
6pm: Twister and Tasty Cow (’nother cow/same cow) Roulade (with garlicky green beans and red potatoes)
8pm: Posiedon (2007) and Pineapple Upside Down Boat Cake (with blue jell-o sea!)
9:45pm: Armageddon with S’mores and Rumballs

And the house drink was a Mudslide, though I do try to keep my bar fairly well stocked in case someone wanted something different. I also provided a pleathora of popcorn toppings, both sweet and spicy, though I think most people preferred it merely salted.

We finished up the movies just after midnight with a mass exodus for the door. We were all exhausted, but that’s a great way to end a party. I made sure everyone had their favors (small boxed sets of Worst Case Scenario cards, compass/carabiner clip and emergency whistle) and was safe to drive home before starting the clean-up. It actually only took about an hour to put away all of the food, load the dishwasher and clear the table of it’s debris. In fact, the only thing waiting for me Sunday morning was to take down the draping, rehang the pictures on two walls and clean out the rented popcorn machine for it’s return today. Otherwise I vegged out and did some reasearch for Wedding Tarot.

Thankfully I had this week’s Random Acts… in the can already so I didn’t have to worry about that tonight. Instead I wandered through StumbleUpon for a while, flipped through some old music books, and fiddled with a story that might end up on New Bard’s Press. Tomorrow I forsee spending a lot of time clearing out the Oldenfeld.net forums of the rest of their flotsam and making some content changes. One of these days (someday soon, hopefully) I’m going to overhaul this site, add some pages for the different long-term projects (like Random Acts… and Wedding Tarot) and make a space for I-Friday submissions, too. It’s still on my to-do list to get back into that habit.

I feel like, right now, I’m in a planning stage. I have a lot of big ideas that I want to see through, if I can, but I need to figure out how to balance them with the things already on my plate. Do I need to let go of some projects, again, decide which are more feasible first, or do I just need to find some stronger internal motivation? It’s probably a strong case for of the latter, so if I can keep the ball rolling I might just pull it off!

I cleared out almost 200 spam accounts on the Oldenfeld forum then made out the master to-do list for the party, Saturday, and got to work. I’ve moved furniture, cleared side tables, started the basic decorating, packaged the favors, and verified the disposable items. I’m in pretty good shape, I think.

I also managed to tidy up one of the hall closets in the process of digging out the party supplies, as well as the floor of the pantry (I’m still not sure exactly what happened in there, but it involved some non-perishables, a gallon of emergency water that decided it didn’t want to live, and a bag of what might have been, at one point in time, potatoes. They were unrecognizable, despite what the label said, and had formed a rather strong attachment to a partial box of citronella candles. I decided it was the better part of valor to bury them as one…

Anyway!

The largest part of the decorating is still to be done and almost all the food but Thursday will be soon enough for all of that. Wednesday afternoon and evening I’ll be hanging out with my cousin who is interviewing at FSU this week so not much will get done tomorrow night. But I have until 3:30pm on Saturday to have everything finished, so I anticipate that will be sufficient time (the party doesn’t start ’til 4, but I want to give myself a few moments to chill and collect before guests arrive).

To do my damnedest not to let my inbox get /that/ out of hand again. Seriously, folks, we’re talking 13,000+ among my actual email inboxes plus another 5,000+ automatically shunted off to Junk Mail. It’s not that I never check my mail, it’s that a lot of it I skim during the day but they don’t actually come off the server until I download them at home. A decent system as it means I don’t accidentally delete something important, but then I put off actually going through them at home and deleting that which I do not need. Sigh…

A lot of the issues are yahoogroups I’m on. I’d go digest but I detest reading them that way, so I’ll delete them rather than read anything. Some I will be adjusting to special notices or no mail in an effort to save myself the headache of nights like tonight where I pretty much glue myself to the computer ’til it’s done. But now that everything in there is read and saved on purpose I’m going to do my best to keep up with it. Honest.

But I did manage to get two weeks of RA… scanned, edited and uploaded so I’m good there. Yay for a teeny bit of a buffer. I’ve got another week about 3/4 sketched, but that really is the longest part. Inking is quick and the editing is merely a matter of dropping out the bits of blue pencil that the scanner picks up, resizing it and saving it for web. I admit the current family vacation storyline is dragging out a bit, but we’re almost through it so this is a good thing. Truly random stuff for a month or so then I can start with the Major Deviation for a few weeks.

But now, with the inbox overhauled, I can actually /find/ the messages that require action on some of the otehr web-properties so that I can get those done and such. Tomorrow night will be split between Oldenfeld updates (mostly mucking out the would-be forum spammers from the member list) and beginning to decorate the apartment for the party. Maybe some advance food prep while I’m at it.

By that I’m referring to HP7. I’m not going to write any spoilers in here, so don’t fret in case you haven’t read (or finished) it yet. I will say that I enjoyed it for the most part though it wasn’t until about page 400 when I really got into it. The first 300 pages or so had some very snark-worthy moments but I am happy with the ending as it stands. I’m not quite sure about what JKR meant about the whole ’some people aren’t going to like it’ bit? Maybe certain shippers out there will cry and gnash teeth in angst? Eh, whatever.

Now that that’s out of the way… I suppose I should get around to seeing the 5th movie at some point. It’ll be a couple weeks, at least, as next weekend is the Disaster Movie party and I have tons to do to get ready for it!

Scraps, what are you talking about?

I’m talking about the fact that my apartment is once more ghetto-free. No more stupid coax running down the hall to the Abyss, tripping me and everyone who tries to go from the front half of the apartment to the back half and generally looking tacky and ghetto.

Because?

Sonja is here!

Who is Sonja? This is Sonja:

Named so because of her color and my odd way of word association. The same association that led to the following yesterday:

Releasing an idiot into the world ->prompts-> Mom to sing chorus of “We are the World” -> which led to -> me having that song stuck in my head ->prompts word association to-> ear-worm -> and ends with -> Checkov.

That gem won me back the geek crown from palmie yesterday lol

And I take back some of the things I said about DHL shipping lines (though they really need a few more Atta-boys before all their ‘oh shits’ are balanced out) because, y’all, Sonja shipped out of Nashville on the 18th and arrived at my office today. 3-5 day shipping became overnight by some lovely twist of fate (I’m guessing they didn’t have much to do today since they can’t deliver all those HP7 pre-orders ’til tomorrow).

Oh, but I still haven’t fully explained about the lack of coax down the hall.

With Sonja’s arrival I was able to finally use the Windows-only install-this-first disk for the new wireless router I bought back in January (best laid plans…) and, y’all, I didn’t even have to call tech support. It was a close shave getting comcast to play nicely with Vista (which, for the record, has not been all that aggravating so far) because the installer thought I was running Windows NT (because Vista wasn’t heard of in ‘03 when I got the DSL) but somehow it worked even though the installer doesn’t think it did. But no, I now have a wireless network set up and password protected and even managed to have it still work when I relocated the modem and router to the living room. Yay for AirPort being another one of those programs that ‘just works’; it saved me immeasurable headache.

And, yes, I know I’ve been absent for a week. Art/Sci was fun: I got to help with judging, do a tiny bit of shopping, and got home before midnight! I’m still surprised by the non-Oldenfeld people who remember me from event to event, but it’s a very good kind of surprised. Sunday I did the pre-shopping for the Disaster Movie Party. And then this week I got a few little things done but spent a lot more time resting the brain, etc. But now it’s Friday and I did the network thing and I am done. My copy of HP7 will be delivered sometime tomorrow so I’m not even going near a bookstore this weekend.

And way too freaking early to rise! Tomorrow morning is going to come dangerously soon as tlh_in_tlh will be heading down to Weeki Watchee for Summer Art/Sci round about 5am-ish. Crazy is one way to put it.

We’re just day-tripping because, well, it seemed like a good idea to me at the time and she asked for a ride and I was welcome for the company. I managed to get another week of Random Acts… nearly finished but I’m heading to bed as soon as I print out driving directions so inking the last two panels will wait til Sunday.

Eye appointment this afternoon and, historically, I’ve never had a problem with the dilating drops–until today. Wow! It’s not like they hurt or anything, but maybe the past experiences haven’t been as potent, something. By the time I went out to my car (after stopping to have some blood-word done while I was in the same building) I could barely open my eyes to slits without the sunglasses on. Whoa!

I think it was the distraction level that had me so out of sorts that I felt brain dead. I’d figured, what with my appointment so late in the afternoon, that I’d be done just before five so there was no point in trying to go back to the office. Which was correct. Instead I went across the street to the mall to check out a cute shop I’d seen when Mom and I were shopping for her cruise dress. I felt like I was drugged, people. I broke no vehicular codes but I certainly felt spaced out and having to jerk the car to stay on my side of the parking lot. Not to mention the fact that I drove the ENTIRE circumference of the mall without realizing it.

However, I did manage to park at the entrance nearest Ashley Stewart so while my internal navigator may have plotted a curly-q bee-line of a course, it got me where I needed to go. Being the only white girl in the store may have been a little less disconcerting (not that I honestly care, but sometimes it’s hard to miss–the clothes are worth whatever odd stares I might have gotten) if I hadn’t still been wearing my sunglasses (my eyes were so incredibly dilated that it really was best to keep them shaded). But I did get a good deal on two pieces and then found a great deal on a top at Lane Bryant across the way.

The idea that I would actually accomplish something tonight, however, was really optimistic. The distraction level has dimmed and my eyes are somewhat more tolerant to light, but somehow (maybe the heat? maybe the effort it took squinting my eyes?) I was wiped out by the time I got home. Looks like I’ll have to be productive tomorrow night instead.

So there I am, at my desk, in my own little world of data entry and verification as Meat Loaf croons on about not doing that–whatever ‘that’ is–and my ears barely pick up the call of my boss saying ‘Hey, Encyclopedia…’

Me: Wait, what? Are you calling me?
Chorus of co-workers: YEEEESSS.

Me: Wait, what? I can’t hear you.
Boss: Your assignment is to go look up the type of chicken that lays colored–
Me: Araucana
Boss:–eggs. It starts with an ‘A’. What?
Me: Araucana
Boss: Okay, well then, forget looking it up. So it’s not the Anaconda Chicken that lays the colored eggs, Hugh, it’s the Araucana Chicken.
Mom: Instead of Enclyclopedia Brown it’s Encyclopedia [Scraps]
Me: Well, the only reason I know that without looking it up is because Martha Stewart based her basic paint colors/decorating schemes on the colors of the hens’ eggs.
Boss: Thank you Martha.

Obviously this does nothing for my reputation as the font of random knowledge around the office. Boss frequently likes to test my mental file cabinets by asking me random things he reads about. It even happened in the grocery store with the cashier: she asked did I know the difference between jam and jelly as she rung up the strawberry preserves I was buying that day. I thought it was a trick question so answered only ‘yes’ to which she replied: Really? You do? Because I don’t. What is it? (jam includes the pulp of the fruit while jelly is the juice congealed with added pectin)

Score one for retention?

Then today is your day! Yes, that’s right, today is National Pina Colada Day! Just now hearing about it? Well, if you read this pre-midnight on the 10th hasten thee to the nearest blender for a frothy concoction. If it’s already the 11th, well, set a reminder for next year and be warned about these future adult-beverage holidays:

July 14th: National Grand Marnier Day
July 19th: National Dacquiri Day
July 24th: National Tequila Day
August 16th: National Rum Day

And speaking of “gettin’ caught in the rain”: I tempted weatherish fate and made my two laps at San Luis park without the sky falling on me. It thundered and threatened, the breeze was kinda nice, and I think there were a couple of light sprinkles in the 30 minutes I was out there but I perservered and I don’t think the bottom ever really did fall out.

I’m really looking forward to the day when I don’t have to convince myself to make that second lap (oh, who am I kidding, the first one, too). That will be the day that I push myself for a third lap and thereby make use of the 60 minute workout playlist on my iPod that, heretofore, has only been used once when I selected it by accident and wondered why I hadn’t run out of music by the time I made it back to my car. Finishing that second lap, however, is quite a feeling. Mainly because I’ve finally gone numb from the knees down.

I made the very grievous error on Sunday afternoon to lay down for a bit of a nap. Consequently I couldn’t pay myself to get to sleep until about quarter to four this morning. This is not the way to start a week!

Historically speaking I’ve never been much of a nap-taker. I love me some sleep and a nap seems like the cruelest interruption of a sweet, sweet slumber. Usually I nap only when ill for precisely this reason. I tried warm milk: nada. I even gave in and took some of my codeine-laced cough syrup which almost always puts me out: nothing.

On the up side, I made out the shopping list for the Movie Night this month and finalized the menu and decoration details. Still, I would have rather slept.

But oh, today, busy busy busy and topped with a cherry: My first How To over at eHow was published. I also received some very positive technical feedback from the editor who checked my article. Squee!

(the following is not a rant, I am merely bemused beyond belief)

So I’m minding my own business, inking in the next RA strip, bouncy because my cruise art was just delivered and my cell phone rings. I don’t recognize the number.

Me: (in my work voice) Hello?
Person on the other end:[mumble mumble slur mumble]
Me: I’m sorry, I believe you have the wrong number.
PotOE: (slightly more coherent) Is this Dwight?
Me: There’s no one here by that name.
PotOE: (no very clear) No, I said ‘are you white?’
Me: … Uh, yeeees.
PotOE: Oh, sorry, I’ve got the wrong number.

Now just wait a cotton-pickin’ minute! They called me, unintelligible, and I figured out that this wasn’t someone I knew. Granted, the people who have my phone number are predominantly Caucasian, the people who misdial and call me by accident do have a certain dialect to their voice (what I can understand of it) but just because someone is ‘not white’ it doesn’t automatically mean that they have the wrong number.

I just, I can’t, I don’t… no! I mean, really, is it a crime to answer my own cell phone just because I happen to be White? And what if I wasn’t. You know, if I had the composure and swiftness of mind of my friend blb I think I might have been tempted to fuck with them a bit and say I was not, in fact, white. What would have happened then? Would I have been accused of being uppity for having clear diction and no discernable accent (it should be noted that while the drawl does appear from time to time, generally it only does so when I’m on a roll, drunk, with friends, or all of the above). Seriously?

Anyway, this far trumps anything else I might have had to say today, so it became the blog. Enjoy and beware, my white friends: your skin color apparently dictates whether its a wrong number or not.

As much as I may hate to admit it (striving to be an enlightened and conscientous human being and all) I have them–I think we all do. I fully admit that they are archaic and not quite fair, but all the same I have trouble when those standards (as I would with any standards) are broken.

One main realm is sexuality. Speaking of archaic, I’m much more understanding of a woman in her twenties who is still a virgin. Granted, if she’s thirty-something and still pure as the driven snow then I’m hoping someone at least gifted her with an X-mart gift certificate but still, okay. Now a man, on the other hand. If he’s reached his late twenties without some practical knowledge of a woman’s body I’m hoping he has the good sense to hire an escort (practicing safely!) just to get the basics down. There is nothing more mood-killing than being half-naked when that bomb is dropped. Well, okay, there is, but it’s a tough call.

The other is tears. Notice I did not say emotion: I mean tears. I have a very hard time respecting a man who boo-hoos like a baby. Idealistic though it may be, if a man has to cry in my presence someone had better be dead or dying and I expect a silent tear or two trickling over a strong jaw. I should clarify, however, that this isn’t a true double standard, it’s more of a one and a half. You see, I don’t think women should lose it in public either.

Sure, I cry, I break down on occasion and no, it’s not always for logical reasons: but I do it behind closed doors whenever possible. It’s just more polite that way. So a man can cry when he needs to, behind closed doors, work things out emotionally to begin with and then? if he wants to talk about things sans tears? I’m there. And I really do expect the same from myself so maybe it’s not even a one and a half standard?

Even if it is, I’m not liable to change it at this point in the game.

For a day off I sure did a bunch of work!

The weird thing about today was since there was absolutely NOTHING worth watching on televisions I’ve had DVDs in all day which rather distorts the concept of time as one episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch runs into another. Meanwhile I cleaned the kitchen (which included sweeping, mopping, wiping down counters and cabinets, and washing out the trash can), scrubbed the bathtub, tidied the living and dining rooms (which included the dreaded vacuum cleaner!), swept the back patio, made brownies and actually managed to grill hamburgers (more of a feat than you know…). In addition to all that I finished my first eHow article after re-reading the Style Guide and started the next Random Acts… strip. Oh, and I played pirate for an hour or two.

See what I mean? Apparently I should have days off more often. This weekend I plan to tackle my bedroom, the hall closets and the bathroom (I only got a tiny head-start today) so that the major tasks are done for the rest of the month. Maintaining order for the three weeks until I have company over is a lot easier when I start with a clean palette. At some point I also plan to make more headway here in the Abyss, but that will take much more than a weekend, truth be told.

At least the dining room table and side table in the living room have seen significant improvement. While not exactly exciting, this clutter has got to find somewhere else to live, it’s impeding any progress I try to make on anything.

Strangely enough, it didn’t hinder the completion of this tonight:

But the completion of the one actually put me in the can-do spirit to start the other. Go figure. Amid the cleaning tomorrow I also need to finish up the first two articles (I need to check the first by the style guide again before I submit it for editing and the second needs to be organized and some photos taken; of course, whether or not I can upload them is yet to be determined. I’m still dismayed at how many sites there are that do /not/ play nice with Safari. [sad mac]) for eHow.

Of the puzzle variety, doncha know.

So. The SuperSecret projects are all finished and went together brilliantly for Julie’s Pink and Blingy (3)7th Birthday Party! (name via palmie) Slumber parties are wasted on the young, you need to be older to really appreciate them. And we did! Lots of pink. Lots of Dr Who. Lots of pink Dr Whos and a Diva Dalek and kid foods (all from the brown food group) and girly movies and manicures and and and… We did actually get to sleep somewhere between 2 and 3 then had cookies and tarts mid-morningish for breakfast while playing a game before we cleaned up and went home. It was SO much fun!

All of that mean that by the time I got home Sunday (round about 2ish) all I was capable of doing was vegging out. I managed to make a decent supper (green veggies! woot!) but I really didn’t do much else. So tonight I was going to pick up a sub on the way home and be able to be productive! Uh, yeah, see, there were these pirates and I had to learn how to run the bilging station and, well, see, I was productive in that way. And then it was 8pm and I hadn’t uploaded the comic yet or done anything but eat supper and play a matching game for 2 hours. Hmmm. And since so much of the evening is done for (and I’ve scanned and uploaded the comic and made two blogposts) I think the bilge needs more pumping…. Arrrr!