It's All About...The Moon

I am photographing the process of the Total Eclipse of the Moon this evening. Already, just 40 minutes into it or so, I have come to the conclusion that by December of 2010, when the next one occurs, I will need a better camera. Already this one is better than the one from this summer, but I really would love to be able to zoom so much closer. Ah well. Progress has been made, and I hope to have some cool shots. Of course, I'm an idjit and left my card reader at work, so the photos won't be uploaded to Flickr until tomorrow. But Rick should be happy to know that the tripod he gave me for Christmas is doing a bang-up job.

Other than that? I got my picture taken with the Rotary club handing me a big check for the theater. That should hit the local paper soon. Can't post that tonight either.

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Tonight, I heard the oddest thing when we were out to dinner:

We were sitting in the new sports bar/restaurant, and a kid that worked at my plant last year, "M", had come in and sat with us, as did another of our current employees, and we were all talking and eating and having a good time. "M" seems to know everyone, and apparently being recognized is very common for him and he told several anecdotes about running into people he knows in bizarre places.

A young couple wandered in and took the table next to ours. I noticed that the guy kept looking at us. Finally, after about 20 minutes, the guy turned around and said to "M", "Aren't you from [a local town]?"

"M" said he was. We all laughed and shook our heads about how everyone knows "M".

The guy then said, "Aren't you "M"?"

"M" agreed that he was. Again, we were cracking up about him being Mr. Popularity.

Then the guy nodded slowly. "So YOU'RE the guy who handcuffed my cousin to the headboard."

"M" turned 12 shades of red, as he nodded and slowly turned back to face us. Then we all died laughing. I am just hoping, in retrospect, that the guy who asked was laughing too. I was to embarrassed to even look at him again.

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With that, I must get back out to shoot the moon.

So much for the Flu Shot...

snowdayz
Originally uploaded by klutz67

Well, I spent from late Wednesday night through about mid-day on Friday feeling like my insides were staging a coup. Ugh. Luckily, I was able to sleep a lot. K&K came home Thursday to find I pretty much hadn't moved since they'd left in the morning -- meaning I had forsaken the computer and the television. These are damn good indications that I am not in good shape. By noon on Friday, I was at least semi-functional (though a little bedgraggled, admittedly) and by about 10PM, I was feeling almost normal. Sheesh. My stomach still feels like I've been doing crunches for hours on end, but at least I can complete an entire task without being interrupted by thoughts of curling up on the nearest horizontal suface in the fetal position, and the thought of food doesn't make my stomach lurch like I'm looking down from the top of the Sears Tower.Yesterday, K&K and I went to pick up a side of beef that I'd bought from a friend. We split it in thirds with Shug, and loaded up our respective freezers. After that, I commenced with having a day chock full of near-complete laziness and sloth. (Like the previous two days of flu didn't fill my quota of that. Oy.) I took a nap, played computer games, answered e-mail, thought about theater stuff for the upcoming week (though I did nothing about it), and watched about 4 hours of home improvement shows on TV. *sigh* If only I could do that kind of thing for a week in a row without the sickness part interfering. It was bliss.

The home improvement thing? Completely addicting. I have never lived anywhere that I thought I could make any sort of a dent in "improving" my home. Before living at the farm, I always lived in apartments that wouldn't even allow me to paint. At the farm, Shug wanted things to stay pretty much status quo as far as decor, and I never felt like the house was mine (which ended up being true, funnily), so I never felt enough ownership to offer to improve anything. Now, it's all up to me and it's sort of the only place in my life where I am feeling in control. So I broke out the spackle and sandpaper and fixed several holes, bought towel hooks and other accessories for the "guest" bathroom, and I've started making paint color plans. Several wall seams have cracks, and my plan is to get someone to check for structural problems and, barring anything unexpected, I plan to lay in supplies to repair and repaint most of the house once K&K move out. The busier I am at home, the less money I spend, and since the budget is going to be WAY tight, I plan to have enough supplies on hand to keep me very, very busy.

This week, I have a lot on my plate. Tomorrow (and, to be fair, part of today), I have to catch up on being gone from work for 2 days. Tomorrow night, I need to come up with some sort of handout to give to a service club that's given the theater a bunch of money to upgrade our sound system -- I know it's all been upgraded, but I have to put the details together for them. Tuesday night, I have the service club dinner, where I hope to distribute the handout and get away without having to speak much, because I kind of suck at it. Wednesday, I hope to finish up a template for a friend's website and get her a copy. Thursday and Friday I have to finish up plans for our theater board "retreat." Saturday is the retreat. And a week from today I will begin packing to leave for my scrapbook weekend on the ocean the following weekend.

Never a dull moment...though I plan on working a few more of those into my life, thanks. So what's going on this week with YOU?

I am still kickin'

December hits, insanity ensues, and pretty soon you wake up and it's February. Crazy, Man. I haven't had the time or energy to blog too much, and I haven't even taken all that many pictures, which is SO not like me.

What's been happening? Um....

• In early December, my mother-in-law got sick. After a couple of weeks in the hospital, she passed away. She'd been in horrible pain, and had several strokes and a heart attack, so that made it much easier to say good bye. The funeral (which was not exactly a funeral and, even then, not in strict accordance with her no-funeral-wishes) was the Saturday before Christmas.


• I got her dog, Jessie, and he has spent the last 2 months leaning to cohabit with a 5-year-old and 4 cats. Luckily, he loves to play in the cat litter. *UGH* Other than that disgusting habit, and a chronic case of the smelliest flatulence you could ever imagine, he is a really great dog. He sleeps nearly as much as the cats do, always makes it known that he needs to go outside, doesn't beg at the table, and loves to sleep on my feet in bed. And he is SO excited when I come in the door. I enjoy that, after 20 years with cats who could give a crap whether or not I'm home most of the time.


• I received a promotion at work, meaning I went up a pay grade but have pretty much the same job I had before. Sweet.


• Christmas was really lovely, despite all the stress we'd had. I celebrated with some friends, then at my Mom's with a chunk of the fam, then at Scott's with the kids, then at home with K & K. My favorite pic from that week was at my mom's:
  

  
  

  

• My Murder Mystery crew was all prepared for our "performance" at the work Holiday Party, but we got snowed out in December. The party was postponed, and we continued rehearsing. The thing finally came together it at the end of January. Some highlights:
  

  
  

  

  
  

  The entire crew. I'm playing the bar wench at the far left...it wasn't too much of a stretch.

  
  

  

• Last month, I became the offical (non-interim) president of the Hillsdale Community Theater Board of Directors, which as I said on my Facebook page, is just another title for "Glutton for Punishment." Maybe "Sucker" would also work. I'm directing at least one show this season, and am even thinking about trying out for another. (Not, mind you, that I am much of an actor -- I just think it would be really fun to be in a show I don't have to manage.) The board has had a rocky time of things lately, and we're just trying to get things back on track. We have about 10 building improvement projects started, and it's going to be an interesting couple of months trying to get those done.


• Got divorced. Sad. Relieved. Sad. Moving forward.


• Did another murder mystery the same weekend as the work one -- this one was a fundraiser for the Hudson Community Library. I have a friend who I'd long ago roped into acting in two of my shows, and he requested a return of the favor last year, and again this year. This one was a 1920's Flapper/Speakeasy theme and, unfortunately, I got the most boring costume of the bunch because I was a "plain" waitress. Ah well. I got lots of nice comments as the audience left, so I guess it turned out okay. Picture won't work on the blog for some reason, but you can see it if you click HERE and view it at the website of the Hudson Post-Gazette (Scott was in this one too and is pictured at far left, I am at far right).


• I went to IKEA for the first time and am completely enthralled. K & K are planning on moving out sometime in the next few months, and I'm trying to plan for my first completely MJ-decorated house. My guess is it isn't going to make any sort of interior decorating magazine, because the loveseat I want for my "library" area is going to be this one that I found at IKEA:

  
  

  



• Still working toward that elusive 5K run. I have a co-worker who gave me the greatest list of Michigan races for the next year, and I'm thinking about trying to do one when I get back from Miami in early April. It's amazing how many of them there are!!! I totally slacked on the running for most of December and January, but am getting back on track and I think I can still meet my goal of the end of May.

I guess that pretty much makes us current with the goings-on here at the homestead. The weather's been wonky, with lots of snow, followed by warm temperatures and thunderstorms and tornado watches. Drop me a line if you get a chance, folks. My e-mail box gets kind of lonely. Well, if you don't count viagra ads and fake watch scams...

It's All About...A Little Me & A Lot of TV

Hi friends. Still Reading? I feel like writing about every night lately, but then exhaustion hits, and I end up making a cup of tea, finishing up e-mail business, crawling under the covers, and zonking out. I haven't knit or crocheted in a week, and this is not the time of year for me to NOT be finishing Christmas presents. Oy. Thing is, life got crazy again. Partially, I let it. Partially, I had no control of the insanity.

The insanity defined? Went to a theater board meeting, walked out as president. Some stuff at work that I hope to be able to write about in the next week or two. Got asked to become a member of the board of the Chamber of Commerce (but had to say no, because of big upheaval at theater which will take too much time this year). My mother-in-law fell and broke her elbow and as of this writing has some mysterious crippling pain that makes it nearly impossible for her to move, yet they can't find a drug to stop the pain. My heart is breaking for her. My mom's husband had a small stroke yesterday morning and was in the hospital overnight, but he came home earlier tonight and other than mixing up a few words here and there, he's doing well. (I told him that I wished it would have taken away only his propensity to watch Fox News 24/7. He laughed.) My niece has bronchial pneumonia. I am running a silent auction to raise $ for American Cancer Society that was supposed to start Monday but will now begin tomorrow because I am so behind on stuff. Ugh.

So, since we spoke last, what's up? I started running on the treadmill in the mornings instead of outside after work. This has been lovely on two counts -- I'm not so wound up from walking at 5PM that I can't sleep at 11PM; also, the treadmill is so easy on my legs that I can run without any shin pain whatsoever. (A friend at work assured me today that as this weight continues to come off, the shin pain will go away too...or at least it did for him.) I am still loving it. My old iPod is skipping songs and doing weird stuff so, though I still use it in my car, I bought a new Nano. I have that thing on full blast when I'm running on the treadmill and it is AWESOME. (Someday I really do need to get decent speakers for this computer...)

Um. TV. Since pretty much everyone who reads this knows me personally, you might know that I have a geeky, addictive personality. And I generally love stuff that is big on the pop culture map. For example, I came late to watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but bought or rented every DVD until I'd seen the whole series. Same with Gilmore Girls. Same with Battlestar Galactica. TiVo (and the related digital video recording device I own) was invented for people like me, I think. You can set your machine to tape every episode of a series, no matter when it airs. When you're ready, you can watch seven or eight of them in a row in one sitting on a weekend. Or late at night when you can't sleep and have had way too much coffee. Or when you're trying to forget that you really ought to be doing laundry and vacuuming. And mine has the added benefit that I can burn the shows to DVD.

So what am I recording these days? I'm feeling chatty tonight. I give you my own TV guide:

Chuck. Chuck is my number one. I want Chuck to be my friend. I want to date Chuck. I want to eat a turkey sandwich and play Halo with Chuck. (This is saying a lot, because I do not like Halo or related shoot-em-up video games in the least, nor do I have the least amount of skill in playing them.) OK. Maybe we could just play Guitar Hero III. Anyway. I really enjoy this show. The premise is that the government created a supercomputer whose data got encrypted into an e-mail and all the data got transposed into Chuck's head when he read the e-mail. Now he has a hottie CIA agent posing as his girlfriend to protect him, and a psychopath NSA agent protecting him too. Chuck lives with his sister, her boyfriend (who they call Captain Awesome, which is dumb but it makes me laugh every time because it really is the perfect name for the guy), hangs out with his best friend Morgan, and works at a Best Buy clone called BuyMore as a computer tech in the "Nerd Herd." While the situations are over the top, the relationships are very, very real. OK. And I suppose I like it because I have always been attracted to dorky smart guys with unruly hair. [Chuck is on NBC at 8 on Mondays. Watch it. I dare you. You will love Chuck. You. Must. Love. Chuck.]

Heroes. This probably comes as no surprise. While I didn't really get into "Lost," I do -- by nature of some innate personality flaw -- tend to watch the one big show in the country. Heroes is it, but I haven't liked this season much so far. Last year was really incredible, but I have watched every show since September and barely cared who did what or why. They introduced a bunch of new characters and did very little development of them and now I could care less if they live or die. The exception? Veronica Mars herself, the lovely Kristin Bell, who plays Elle. Elle is a selfish, naive little bitch of a villainess, except that she wasn't really evil last night, so I don't know where that leaves her when we start "Volume 3" after the new year. I hope they give Peter (who I loved last year, and loved in Gilmore Girls too, though he was never right for Rory) more things to do next month, because he was pretty much boring as boring could be for the last few months. I was so excited to see the evil guy from Alias play the evil Kensei/Adam in Heroes...until he was boring and I didn't care about him. I was thrilled that he is buried alive in Japan somewhere after last night's episode just because it was the most interesting thing he'd done so far.

Bionic Woman. Oh. I loved the first episode. It was everything I'd hoped for. It was slick, it updated a show that I'd watched as a kid, it made everything new and technologically wild, the storyline was intriguing, the special effects rocked, the cinematography was slick. I love the lead actress, I love Gabriel Ferrer (who is Rosemary Clooney's son, btw), and I love the geeky computer tech who has a mini crush on the lead. The 2nd episode was okay. As was the 3rd. And the 4th. I really perked up when they brought in the love interest CIA guy. And then the next episode was okay. Which would all be okay, except that I was really hoping this show would Rock. My. Socks. And it's just okay. I still watch every week. I keep hoping I'm going to care. Please, Bionic Woman, make me care just a little.

Journeyman and Life. Meh. They're fun. Lead actors are quirky and caring and easy to like. Storylines have plenty of pop culture reference to keep me happy. Journeyman is a modern "Quantum Leap" (minus Al), and Life is a cop show that needs to stop with the underlying "where-the-conspiracy-theory" subplot. But fun to watch if you're feeling like killing a few hours.

Pushing Daisies: Perhaps it's just my state of mind, but I want to date this show's lead too. (But not if I've died once first, because then I couldn't touch him...you have to really see the show to get this part.) Anyway. The story is weird and fairytale-ish: Boy has the power to bring dead things back to life with his touch. But if he touches them again, they are dead forever. And if he doesn't touch them again within a minute (to make them dead again), someone else dies. Therein lies the plot. Boy falls in love when he is little. Boy's mom dies. Boy brings mom back to life, and his little love's father dies. He never tells her. Many years later, when boy becomes the PieMan, he sees his old true love has been killed and runs to the morgue and touches her and brings her back to life. (The morgue guy dies.) They are in love, but they cannot touch. OK. I could go on an on about this plot, as it is complicated, but it is very fun to watch, very comedic. The visuals are rich and comic to watch. And it's narrated by Jim Dale, who narrated all the Harry Potter books on audio and whose voice I adore. Even better, Kristen Chenoweth (who is most famously from the musical Wicked) is in the show and they even had her sing a few weeks back. Delightful. Highly recommend this show.

Bones: I love this show. It has my murder mysteries (which I listen to on audio all the time), and in fact, is even based on a series that I've been reading for years. It has forensics, which I have been creepily interested in since high school. It has David Boreanaz, who was in Buffy and Angel and reminds me of my brother, Drew. It has geeky people working in a lab who are all okay with being geeky. It is mind candy and I love, love, love it.

House: Oh, it's a trend, but I adore Hugh Laurie too. Not House necessarily, but the actor? Mm Hmm. I am also House in my mind. Most people would not ever have a clue how negative and cynical and bitchy I can be on a regular basis, but if they could see into my mind? I am a mini House. People Lie. This is the basis of the show. And I agree, wholeheartedly. I have loved this season with his picking a new team. I didn't like his old team. I especially liked the episode with DAVE FRICKING MATTHEWS, who was INSANELY GREAT as a savant piano player. And of course that's the episode I accidentally deleted before burning. So I bought it on iTunes. Heh. Now I can watch Hugh AND Dave Fricking Matthews on my Nano. I know you're jealous.

I am having too much fun typing and before I embarrass myself with telling you how I watch CSI and Forensic Files late at night when I wake up afraid that I have crashed the network server at work, I am going to make some peppermint tea and climb in bed. And watch Chuck again. I love Chuck.
Next Time: Why Karaoke Should Be A Mandatory Weekend Activity

It's All About...The Cheese

And amid the belated Happy Thanksgivings I wish to each of you, I wish you a little cheese. This entry will end up being a little cheezy, no matter how you "slice" it. (Warning: The bad jokes will not improve from here on out. Turn back now.)

My Thanksgiving was not typical, but I sure give thanks for it today. What a BLAST! Scott got me tickets to go see the Packers vs. Lions at Ford Field, and I was ready to deck the halls with green and gold. I woke up early, decorated my face with some GB tattoos...

donned a bit of the green and the gold and the cheese (with water all glamorously down the front of me from applying the tattoos)...

It didn't even take 2 hours to get to Detroit. There was almost no traffic until we got within a mile of the stadium or so. Once we got parked, we found we had to walk right through the middle of the Detroit Thanksgiving Parade to get to the stadium. I have watched that parade since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and it was really neat to see the huge floats and balloons in person. The Tuskeegee Airmen passed right in front of us and it was very, very moving.

And as the policeman let us across the street in a lull, I risked my cowboy-hat-cheesehead blowing away to snatch a picture of the parade from the middle of the street:

Getting closer to the stadium, we saw as many cheeseheads tailgating as Lions fans!!

Security there was tighter than any airport I've been to since 9/11. We got frisked and wanded and my purse was searched. There's a limit to how nice of a camera you can bring into the stadium, and mine fits the lens limit. I had to convince this nice security man that my camera was a still camera and not a movie camera. Sorry, Mr. Security Guy. I was lying. It does both.

I grabbed a beer -- NOT a common thing for me to do at 11AM, but it was a Packers game, sheesh! -- and bought a program and climbed and climbed and climbed to our seats. I am not complaining. They were nosebleeders, but it was a great view of the field!

Even being there early, my boys showed up on the field with an hour to go:

And the only man who has my heart at the moment, my revered Brett Favre, warmed up. Even from that far away, and even when running drills, that guy just looks like he's having a blast. I do appreciate watching that.

I was seriously ready for some football. When it started out 6-0 Lions, I was a little...um... nervous. You see, I've seen the Pack play live about 7 or 8 times. I'd only ever seen them win ONCE. Even during their '96 Superbowl season, I was only at games they LOST. I had nothing to fear.

These folks shown below were sitting next to us and were a RIOT. There were a ton of like-minded cheeseheads there, so I was in good company. (Scott, though he was wearing Dallas Cowboy gear, did actually root for the Packers. I was impressed...hadn't heard him do that before. I have a feeling next week's game will be a little different story, though...)

As you may or may not know now, my boys pulled through in glorious form, winning the game 37-26. Favre set a Green Bay record with 20 consecutive completed passes, his 7th 300-yard passing game this season, and passed for 381 yards. Jennings caught 2 more touchdown passes, Grant scored again, and Driver had 147 yards. Now I'm thinking that I need to drive to Wisconsin to see if I can buy same-day tickets for the 12/30 Detroit game...but we'll see. I Tivo'ed the game, but haven't had time to watch it yet. I'm saving that for tomorrow night.

As we left the stadium, we noticed yet one more sign that Packer Fans are just the BEST:

And there you have it. My fantastic Thanksgiving Day, 2007. We made it back to Scott's house in time to watch the last quarter of the Dallas game, and then I mosied home. NFL Football Rocks My World.

(More to write about today, but no time. Must. Go. Buy. Sweet Potatoes.)