spinning-jennie :: is not independently wealthy

12/31/2002 01:58:23 PM

stroll
We took our first short walk in Discovery Park. I couldn't record the pungent strains of pot wafting through the air, but here's the old Jibboom Street Bridge, and a sunset at the American/Sacramento confluence.
12/29/2002 08:39:15 PM

all prairie style up in it
We've got two tall, skinny windows in the corner of our living room. Lots of condensation builds up between the layers of glass, and the outsides never seem clean, so their only purpose is to let in additional filtered light. I saw this at Home Depot tonight, and I so want to install it (the Amber Glass, specifically).
12/29/2002 07:02:31 PM

yooper soul food, indeed
I'm so excited. I just ordered a gift combo from Dobber's Pasties in Escanaba, Michigan. The #1 - with four pasties (2 beef, 1 chicken, 1 veggie). And - rapture of raptures - a little bag of Trenary Toast! I've been promising myself these very specifically regional treats for years, and now that the UP has finally caught up with the times, they can be purchased (pretty reasonably!) online.

Pasties, pasties, pasties. Winter yum.
12/29/2002 02:31:21 PM

exercise in a lesser futility
New Year's resolutions - eternally useless, but moth-to-flame compelling. I've decided not to give up on the idea wholesale, but scale it down to obtainability, instead. I'm not going to become a marathon runner or write a novel in one year. But I think I can handle:

1. More correspondence. No, not email.
Who doesn't get excited when they find a real bit of something tangible in their mailbox? Since email became a daily part of life ten years ago, my mailing habits have spiralled down to a standstill. My goal is to find a happy medium this year. Besides, I need to use those dozens of magazine envelopes I made.

2. Finish what I start.
I've got so many half-finished projects lurking in bins, bags, and boxes, it's borderline scary. Knitting, sewing, embroidery, you name it. I'm not allowed to start something new unless I finish something old, first. Unless it's that photo album I've been sitting on for five years. Then I get to start three new things.

3. Remember that all-or-nothing rarely works on a stubborn mentality.
It's time I realized that I'm not going to follow any rigid set of self-imposed rules for long. Run one mile every day. Always eat five servings of vegetables. Never watch Anna Nicole again. Flexibility is more likely to make a dent.

4. Keep growing those mental cahones.
This year, some folks were finally introduced to my inner biotch. I still want to be a team player, but I have to let her stand in to bat a little more often.

5. Cook more. Bake less.
With Safeway.com, grocery shopping is no excuse.
12/28/2002 12:56:45 PM

over already?
We had a nice, quiet Christmas here. Yummy warm streusel for breakfast, followed by lots of unwrapping in front of the fire, and later a tasty, not-too-fussy dinner.

Today I'll be playing with all my new toys.
12/26/2002 12:14:13 PM

Merry Christmas!
12/24/2002 05:25:37 PM

home at last
It was time to get brave. After fourteen years of apartment living, it was time to just do it.

Just hang curtains. Hang them over those sterile, standard-issue mini-blinds. Enough with the echoing bareness. So long to the guilt associated with drilling holes in the cheap, easily-patched walls in an apartment gained through obscene deposits in a city where even more obscene rents are apparently here to stay.

I may even remove the mini-blinds (gasp!) and replace them with Roman shades.

I can't wait until spring, when the sheers in the bedroom will billow gently in the morning breeze.
12/23/2002 05:51:59 PM

big day
Out with the old, in with the new. Car dealerships are a source of excruciating annoyance. Will avoid at all cost in the future.

Someone AIMed me while I was away from my computer before we headed to purgatory, and I didn't notice until it was too late and the program was shutting down. I have no idea who it was! If you're reading this, I wasn't intentionally ignoring you or being a snot.
12/22/2002 06:53:47 PM

any more typing would be a waste
Star Trek: Nemesis... sucked.
12/22/2002 10:36:08 AM

painless finale
It's a special kind of high, I found today, shopping before eight a.m. on a Saturday morning. No crowds. No supermegafamilies. No lines. No stress.

Just a scant handful of people, most of them humming to Billy Joel's "The Longest Time" right along with you.
12/21/2002 10:15:50 PM

work is done, on to more important matters
The January 2003 Fantasy Film League season starts soon. Why don't you sign up (if you haven't already), create a film, and join my little league (#770, password: blog)? It's fun. Maybe next round we can have prizes or something.

My October film is ranked at 818/1923 (of course that doesn't take into account any Liv Tyler earnings yet). I won't finish well in March on this round, probably, because for some dumb reason I thought the new Matrix movies would be out before then, and spent a huge chunk of change on Keanu. Bad on me for not doing my research. At least Mr. Columbus is earning lots, and Jennifer Lopez (erg) has done surprisingly well (on what I had left to hire her with) for "Maid in Manhattan."
12/20/2002 04:11:30 PM

the winter un-diet
A good rainy-day dinner is firm polenta rounds, fried crisp, with beef gravy. And a fresh orange on the side.
12/19/2002 06:54:36 PM

tempus fugit
Time once again for the Mayfly Project.
12/19/2002 05:19:22 PM

washday maneuvers, part duh
So I was on my way from the office to the kitchen when I heard a loud, metallic 'THUNK.' Took me a few seconds to realize that it was coming from the laundry closet. One of the doors was open about five inches (this when I'm always certain I close them tightly), and the vent hose was rustling behind the washer. Cat or foreign furry? I was almost afraid to crawl in and look. But before I could react, McFly was frantically hoisting himself up over the back of the dryer. He slunk away as quickly as he could, while I stood there, wishing I'd had the camera so I could have shown you the look on his peeping kitty face right before he scrambled up and out.
12/18/2002 10:59:07 AM

second city
It was always so mysterious to me, Chicago. Less than two hours away, but completely unreachable. We never went as a family; I finally made it on a class trip in fifth grade. And so I was hooked, but only in spirit, because I was never again to live as close to the city as I did growing up in Milwaukee.

The story of Chicago is coming to American Experience, January 13-15.
12/18/2002 06:09:52 AM

12/17/2002 04:38:40 PM

washday maneuvers
They built our laundry "room" to accommodate a stacked, apartment-sized washer and dryer. Very recently, they replaced them with a new full-sized set. So, because the doors slide, you can only access one machine at a time. Which makes transferring wet clothes from the washer to the dryer a process and not a step. But still, I'm just happy to have these new, and too often unincluded, appliances at all.
12/17/2002 04:22:37 PM

two flood alerts
There are new little ponds all over campus. Including one in my storage room, courtesy the leaky roof. Luckily the book loss was minimal. They started work on the new building again last week, finally, but of course can't do anything now in gale-force winds.

I'm actually liking this rain. We need it so badly, after the long, crispy summer, and it makes being inside so cozy, warm and dry with a hot drink. Though I feel sorry for the poor students who have to slosh across campus with those 50-pound rolling backpacks in tow with the rain drilling down. I still wish they had lockers, potential weapon storage or no.

Last night we went to the Old Spaghetti Factory downtown for the first time. So historic and right up my alley - a restored train depot filled with dark vaulted ceilings and gigantic fireplaces that I wish they would've lit. There are still operational train facilities next door, and we watched a freight clack past while waiting for our table.

But, still. If I don't get home for the holidays next year (that would be the fourth in a row), my ability to put a cheerful face on the situation will have completely eroded. Which I'd better not think about right now, because I'll have my own little rainstorm in front of twenty kids.
12/16/2002 03:19:02 PM

now leaving hoi polloi
D. got a used iBook on eBay, to more completely develop DomAPI. Cute little thing.

Or... is it?

When it's "sleeping," that little white light on the front of the base pulses. I imagine it's Sauron's eye, watching me tapping and mousing at my PC, and if I give in to the hypnotic throb and open the iBook, I'll be trapped as surely as if I slipped on the One Ring, unable to resist the evil power that lurks there, will start nodding and mmm-hmming when I see one of those borderline slander Mac ads on TV (I know I'm a horrible person, but I can't deny that I'd love to smack the daylights out of the "I saved Christmas!" girl).

Then again, maybe it's really saying, "pshhh... pshhh... pshhh... Jennie... come to the Dark Side... pshhh..."
12/16/2002 09:02:34 AM

yes, so, I'm procrastinating...
I love those Torani flavor syrups (get 'em at Cost Plus). And they've got a recipe gallery on their site! I want the fuzzy navel mocktail. Mmmm.
12/15/2002 01:57:30 PM

three new ornaments
12/15/2002 01:21:22 PM

yule fire
12/15/2002 11:41:43 AM

you know you've had enough wrapping for one day when...
...you say to yourself "Hey, I'm finished!" after taping up the last box.

And then you see a rogue present that should have gone into said box, and you say "Aw, screw it."

Yup. Time to go downtown to see Bond.
12/14/2002 05:26:36 PM

test
12/13/2002 06:59:59 PM

stepford store
I stopped at the new Raley's on the way home today - the one just up the street from the school, that just opened this morning, the udder that will feed all the $500,000 clone homes. It was the first time I'd ever been to a brand-new grocery store, and I really should have brought a camera.

It was all so... perfect.

Hundreds of boxes of cereal were precisely aligned on shiny shelves. Pristine greeting cards, all with the correct envelopes, sat in their assigned slots. Coffee cans stood in perfectly orchestrated rows of metal towers, each label facing outward. Was every shelver equipped with a ruler? I couldn't help but wonder. Even things that are difficult to stack nicely, like big bags of dog food, were almost freakishly uniform.

It was the perky, glazed banter from the cashier and bagmistress that really scared me.
12/11/2002 03:54:12 PM

dreams do come true
I was wrong - this is the best Christmas present. Oh, sweet, merciful, doctor-free Claritin.
12/11/2002 09:26:55 AM

zen highway
On my drive home via the deliciously twisty Garden Highway (not really a highway, but a narrow levee road), there's a spot where the towers of the city open out over a quilt of freshly-turned brown and green fields on the left, and the Sacramento River gilded by the setting sun through the trees on the right. I can't help but envy the cows and horses that graze there on the plain.
12/10/2002 06:04:53 PM

outhouse
My favorite gift this year so far is a toss-up between my newly abbreviated riverside commute, and having a second-floor balcony that allows for a pet door. Which means no cat box in the apartment.

Alleluia. Oh yes.

As a rule, cats aren't all that bright, and ours are only called "Einstein" in jest for a reason. They've always begged to be outside, but when first faced with that magnetically-sealed plastic flap, there was a flurry of freak-outs and duhs. Even though we shoved each of them through about a dozen times, flap = door = freedom just wasn't registering. We started to fear that training accidents were inevitable.

But, by George! Elli was the first to wise up, popping in and out like a pro in less than a day. Next was Elmo. We were shoving McFly through to use the box for a couple of days, but he eventually developed an uneasy peace with the concept (probably when he realized that there were ducks in the pond).

So everyone's happy. Except the person who has to deal with Elmo's dried willow leaf esophageal floss deposits. Ew.
12/9/2002 08:52:55 PM

ho ho hum
I adore the holidays, I do. But I'm finding that this year, for the first time, I don't seem to want anything to do with the accompanying fuss. Possibly due to the fact that I'm still unpacking. The tree did go up yesterday, undecorated. But large-scale craftings and bakings and giftings cannot happen this year. All my plans to knit and sew gifts for my family went up in smoke with the move. Cards are still in negotiations.

I'm afraid it's going to be a rather quick and commercial Christmas. And I'm too tired to feel bad about it.
12/9/2002 06:48:02 AM

Lloyd F. Cambray, 1913-2002

Grandma, Lloyd, and me at cousin Chris's wedding, 1996

My grandma's brother, my mother's uncle, veteran, lifetime Wisconsinite, and all-around good guy. He'll be missed.
12/5/2002 05:58:44 PM

mantra of the recently born-again health nut
V-8 and carrots are yummy. V-8 and carrots are yummy. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.
12/5/2002 02:03:07 PM

synthetic boogies
You know that clear gummy sticky stuff that holds things into magazines but peels right off? What is that? I need some for something, do you know where I can get it?
12/4/2002 02:25:48 PM

and then there are days
What do you do?

What do you do when a group of adults insists on engaging in behavior that's damaging to your already insufficient collection, and you've tried asking them to desist nicely, followed by not-so-nicely, and they JUST WON'T STOP? In fact, even though you've clearly explained exactly why they shouldn't do what they're doing, they act as if your concern is just a funny little joke that (of course!) pertains to them not a whit.

Do you "tell" on them (ick)? Yell? Buy voodoo dolls?
12/4/2002 05:23:10 AM

play mo bil!
12/3/2002 06:53:28 AM

normalizing and nesting and stuff
Now that the boxes are 85% dealt with, we found some time to do a little exploring.

D.'s dad gave us a very generous Macy's gift card as a wedding present, so we spent Saturday downtown, buying into the low-fat grilling craze. I was skeptical, but we tried it out last night, and, yum. All the grody fat dripped down the little hole into a conveniently dishwashable pan. And, since our old blender is all but dead, and I'd love a food processor (adore onions but hate chopping them), we may also be getting one of these.

Oh, and we finally saw Harry Potter at the Plaza, too. I couldn't tell I'd been sitting three hours. Though - was it just me? - Rupert Grint's facial expressions were getting a bit on my nerves about halfway in.

Coming home to the new place after work today really drove home the fact that this now is home. Wow.

Link and Think archive is here.
12/2/2002 10:40:28 PM

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