Smooshi

Smooshi smitten with trainer

Smooshi and Phil's Myspace

VD Blizzard '07

There's something magical about vegetable soup, salad, and running around in a blizzard drinking champagne with friends and dogs.

Especially if it's on Valentine's Day.

Blarg

There's something not quite right about it being as dark when you're leaving work as it was when you started work...

Robert Blake

http://www.robertsblake.com

He played Portland last night. It was great. Except for the random hipster/punk kids who insisted on dancing around to music that doesn't exactly lend itself to dancing around.

Particularly in a rather small, intimate bar.

I saw him play his first show in Portland last year. April, I think. He's a great bluesy/folksy guitar guy. Mostly, his show is him with his guitar. Last year, I bought his cd 'A Crowd of Drunken Lovers' and it served me well for break-up music. His newest cd is called 'The Beautiful and the Afternoon'--sort of a double cd but not really. The first half is called The Beautiful Night and the second half The Afternoon. Haven't had a chance to listen to it through yet but he played some of the songs last night and it was certainly what I would expect.

If this troubadour happens through your town, go see him. It's totally worth it.

Also, a friend of mine told me last night that I'm the opposite of a fag hag. Does that make me a hag fag? I'm not sure what she's talking about. I mean, it was just me and four girlfriends who went out to the show last night....

Lame.

I just figured out that when I post a link with this new layout using the Link box in the post form on Blogger, the title of the post becomes the link.

Because that's an obvious place to put the link.

Um. Yeah.

I'll try to remember to put links in the body of the post from now on...

I need to go make some curry now.

Under Construction, encore

For the moment, I'm using one of Blogger's new drag-and-drop templates. I haven't quite figured out how to get the old haloscan comments working. Though I honestly can't remember why I started using the haloscan comments to begin with, other than the fact that it let people choose little avatars. And, besides, I'm so inconsistent with posting that almost no one ever comments anymore anyway. So there.

Under Construction

Watch your heads...

Hold on to your hats...

Etc...

Taxes. Check.

Yay. My taxes are done. And though the magic of direct deposit and electronic filing, I'll have a whole bunch of refund money soon. Whatever shall I do with it? Probably I should save it. At least some of it. Or put it towards paying off my new computer. Yeah. But I also kind of want to take a weekend trip somewhere. Hmm. But I'm also going on a week-long trip somewhere in June. Decisions, decisions.

Get out of my head, Rob Brezsny!

CANCER (June 21 – July 22): It's Be Your Own Muse Week, Cancerian. How should you observe this festival? Here's one suggestion. First, visualize in detail your dream lover . . . your ideal soul mate . . . the embodiment of everything you find attractive. Second, imagine that, though this person feels the same way about you, there is a very good reason why the two of you can't make love or be together as a couple for a long time. Next, feel the sweet torment of your unquenched longing for each other, the impossible ache of fiery tenderness. Finally, picture all the ways you will work on yourself in the coming years to refine your soul and perfect your love, so that when the two of you can finally be united, you will have made yourself into a gorgeous genius—a pure blessing and exquisite gift for your beloved.

Ever been too tired to sleep?

Yeah. Me too.

Longest couple of weeks ever at work. Hopefully things will start to get better sooner.

And, there's finally a light at the end of the tunnel of my crazy opening shifts. Yay!

Field Trip

I just booked my flights for a field trip out west in June. Portland, Oregon, for four days and then Denver for three for a wedding.

I made sure that I have a stop-over in Chicago just so that I can be on the ground in all four time zones over the course of the trip, since I've never left the eastern one.

I'm excited about this, needless to say, but also a little anxious, too. I'm ever so cautious about money and it feels sort of extravagant to spend so much money on myself. I'm strange, I know. But it'll be really good for me to get out of this Portland for a while and see something new, see if the other Portland is somewhere I really might want to move to....

Drool

Papa wants an iPhone.

Definitely faking the joy now.

Arrival. Suburbia. My childhood home.

I've been here barely an hour and I've already been told that I'm not eating enough, that my shirt is too tight on me and that I'm a fool for having the job I have.

Ah. I love my family.

Only partially faking the joy.

I don't travel well, particularly when it involves family. I get myself way more stressed out than I need to be.

I rented my car yesterday for the holiday weekend--it was rather less expensive than I expected it would be and it will be nice to be able not to worry about other people having to shuttle my sorry ass around all weekend.

I'm working today in an hour, until 4, which is not going to be pretty, methinks. Not only am I on the verge of getting sick, I expect it's going to be a madhouse since I'm working at our highest volume store. It should be relatively okay, though--I'm on as an extra person so that should help to take some of the pressure off everyone. I was on as an extra last Saturday, too, and it really wasn't too bad.

So, after work, I come home and pack (which mostly will be grabbing my toiletries and my dirty laundry plus what I plan to wear Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, which is all already clean) and then hitting the road.

The game plan is as follows:

Drive to mum's tonight, stopping at aunt's to pick up her Kitchen Aid.
See high school friends tonight and/or tomorrow morning.
Commence panettone baking tomorrow morning early enough that it will be done by midafternoon-ish so that it has a chance to cool.
Have dinner with mum's family on Christmas Eve before heading into Boston for Midnight Mass. Because I'm a queen like that and need some high church excitement.
After that, drive two hours west to grandparents', which should get me there around 3 am.
Sleep, with the option to get up to go to church with the grandparents' at 10.30.
Be merry. Eat. Enjoy the family.
Drive four hours back to Portland Monday night so as to be home and ready to go to work at 7.30 on Tuesday (an hour later than usual. Yay!).

I'm stressed out about having a rental car. I'm stressed out about getting sick. I'm stressed out about the fact that I've never made panettone before and that I'll be making it in my mother's kitchen (because she'll be standing over my shoulder the whole time, criticising how messy I'm being--never mind the fact that she would never undertake such a recipe). I'm stressed out about the fact that I didn't get anything for anyone even though I generally don't and give a donation to charity every year instead because who really needs more stuff (particularly my father's side the family--we're all such pack rats)? I'm stressed out about work today because I really don't want to work today. I'd rather sleep until noon or so and then hit the road and have a four day weekend. That would have been sweet but, alas, it was not to be.

And what's with the high of 7c today and rain?! I want a white Chirstmas, dammit.

Season's greetings. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Joyous Kwanza. Happy Eid. Merry Festivus. Happy Solstice. (Did I miss anyone?)

And big, big, big hugs to you all and best wishes for a joy filled new year. (I'll probably post again before the new year, but in case I don't...)

Work, work, work...

...work, work, date, work, date, work, work, work.

Not sure yet. Nice enough guy and all, but, I dunno. Do I hesitate because of him or do I hesitate because of me?

...not that I have any issues or hang-ups or anything like that. Pfft. Of course not...

iTunes free single

You all need to download the iTunes Music Store's free single this week, James Taylor's new version of 'Jingle Bells'.

Just for the horror of it.

Yeah. That's just not quite right.

There's something sad and ironic when one is his own top match when searching a personals site.

Just saying. I mean, if that should ever happen, it would be sad and ironic. Not to say that this has happened to me. Yeah. That's why I used the third person above.

Blog updating

I need to rework this layout, methinks. Update my links. As Kit-Cat has noted, the Dancing Banana disappeared a long time ago. Alas. Blogger has recently updated itself and added some new tools and such. I need to update my template to be inline with their changes but they've warned me that I will lose many of the changes that I may have made to this template in the update process. I don't think I quite have the ambition to do that right now. Soon, though, perhaps.

I'm trying to decide what to do with my day off today (other than continue to get sucked in by the car-wreck of a novel that is The Corrections. It's a grey and cold day here by the sea. Looks like it could snow but it's not going to get quite that cold. It's 4c now and we have a high only of 6c today.

I'm listening to The Mavericks' 'Music for All Occasions', which I've not listened to in quite a while. I think they should have called it 'Music for when you're depressed about a breakup'. Not that I'm any more or less depressed about things right now than I've been. Actually, I'm in a vaguely better space than I was a few weeks ago round about the one year anniversary of my first date with the ex. I am, perhaps, way too nostalgic for my own good.

I think I'll shower soon and head out into the world with the new toy. Take it out on the town and go to Casco Bay Books and work on some stuff. I happily was able to retrieve all of my files from my old iBook since it was only the video card that had gone and not the whole thing. I had been working on and off on an essay about the importance of costumer education in coffee and now, especially with my new position, I think it's really important that I work on that. Make a sort of essay-length mission statement for myself. A raison d'être for the new position. As I keep saying to people as I've been explaining my new job, coffee is one of the ways in which globalisation can actually work—as long as it's done correctly. Coffee is second only to oil in terms of the amount of money traded around the world for it and it impacts so many lives around the globe. Coffee is one of the few things that cuts across global cultures in its consumption and we owe it to the people who produce it to care for it and respect it.

Okay. That's enough sentimentalism for the moment. I need to save that for the essay.

NY Times Editorial

As it is, I hate the holidays. Mostly for the stupid family stress (everyone has to get along, dammit) and, of course, the crass consumerism. Even before I started going to church again, the consumerism of the holiday and the complete divorce of the original meaning of Christmas from the non-stop sale that has become 'The Holiday Season' really bothered me. I grew up in a house that measured the success of Christmas by how much money had been spent not by how happy everyone was by the end of the day—or the end of the week, even, when all the new toys had essentially been forgotten. (I don't really have any problems with the more p.c. 'holiday' versus 'Christmas'. It's easier than assuming the celebration of Christmas or wishing everyone a Happy/Merry/Joyous Kwanzaa/Christmas/Hanukkah/Eid/Etc.)

Anyway, it's always nice for other people to take notice of these things. Other people like the New York Times. Here's the conclusion from an editorial this morning:

For all the Santas sprouting in store windows around Halloween, Thanksgiving has remained the national holiday marker, like the Great Wall of China holding back the hordes of the Christmas-shopping frenzied. Now it looks more like a pierced Maginot line. Soon it could all end in a hostile bid to merge Christmas and back-to-school sales.

Click the link to read the rest of it.

Arrival!

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi rirovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

Mentre ch'i' rovinava in basso loco,
dinanzi a li occhi mi si fu offerto
chi per lungo silenzio parea fioco.
Quando vidi costui nel gran diserto,
'Miesere di me,' gridai a lui,
'qual che tu sii, od ombra omo certo!'

I got my new MacBook today. As I mentioned in a previous posting, when Squirt died, he already had a name before he arrived: Virgil, after Dante's guide through Hell and Purgatory. Not a guide so much as a companion as a get through this mid-twenties angst thing that seems to be defining my life right now.

That, and he'll come in rather handy for work. Now that I've been promoted and all. The inevitable has happened and they've made me a manager. I say inevitable like it's a bad thing but actually I'm rather excited about the new position. It's a new position for the youngest location. I have a lot ahead of me to get things on track and to help to grow that location but it's going to be oh so much fun too since it's very much meant to be a location focused more on education and engagement rather than just a place to pop in for a cup of coffee. Tastings, mini-classes, drop-in workshops. Stuff like that. I'm not really going to get into details because most of them have to be worked out but it'll all start to take shape in the new year. For now, we have to get through the holiday season. Which shouldn't be too bad. We're well organised and we made it through last year rather unscathed.

As for myself, Yanksgiving was pretty good last week. Aside from the almost 500 miles of driving in two days and the horrendous rain on the drive home Thursday night. I managed to fit in both Mum and Dad over two days. Dinner with Dad and Step-Mum and that side of the family on Thursday, which was lovely. I hadn't seen them since last Christmas and it was really great to hang out even if it was only for eight hours.

Other than that, nothing really new to report. My roommate was in Montréal over the holiday (so jealous!) and she brought me back bagels and chocolate. Yum. I'm so easy to please.

That's all for now, I think. Now that I have a computer of my own again, perhaps I'll be better at keeping this silly thing up-to-date. Or not. We'll see.

Oh, one final thing: I started reading Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections over the weekend. I'm only about 75 pages into it but it's fantastic. Kind of like a car wreck. Really uncomfortable but you just can't look away.