I don’t know what’s going on with me lately, but I have some serious thoughts in the 10-minute snooze gap. I’m sort of half-awake, half-hallucinating, half-intellectual, half-bad at mathematics.
Today I wondered if digital clocks have any internal parts that rotate. If they do, what direction do they turn? Are they still really digital if the rotation is clockwise? Is it still really a clock if the turn is anticlockwise?
No wonder I never hit snooze more than once a morning.
I have to poke fun at iDJ tonight. He makes low-carb pizza once a week, and every time he does, I hear him chastising himself for being OCD about the placement of toppings. I’d like to be able to say it is all in fun, but he really does make a quick meal take ages because he has to have a bit of every topping in every bite. Poor dear. I tried to tell him that you don’t necessarily want every bite to be identical, and I got bitten myself for my ignorance!
So now I get to poke gentle fun at him. No crushed red pepper pain allowed! Here’s his finished product.
Beautiful, isn’t it? Especially aesthetically pleasing is how every black olive seems to be equidistant from the next. And the pepperoni. And under the cheese, the mushrooms will be as evenly spaced…
Wish he was as attentive to other things! But I guess I should stuff my mouth with this lovely food he worked so hard on, and not bitch about the rest!
(Best pizza in months, by the way! Nom nom nom…)
This morning, in the surreal 10 minutes I allow myself between snooze alarms, I had a Commodore 64 text-only game half-dream wherein your “soul” left your body when you hit the snooze, and if you slept through it, you would turn into a goblin.
The “soul” was a lower-case p, by the way.
I used the above as a FB status update today at 8pm because at 8am it still felt too visual for a short synopsis. I’m not entirely sure if a goblin really was the thing you’d turn into, or if it was a game I was playing in the dream, or if my dream idea of a ‘soul’ just happened to look like a lower-case, slightly green ‘p’ on a black background and my waking brain decided it was an old computer game.
Does anyone remember the text-only game DND? It’s really the only text game I ever played, in 1990, on a Tandy 1000EX. I had graph paper and I mapped out all of the dungeon levels so I wouldn’t get lost. I fudged the truth on FB as no one remembers the Tandy but most would recall the Commodore 64 or 128. We had a 128, hahahah, suck it, you peons who only had the 64-bit version! Our Dad has always been great for keeping up with computers, technology and gaming. We even had an Atari. My older sister liked Frogger best, but I was mad for the Q-man. I played Q-Bert until I got too good at it, and turned the joystick upside down and played it that way as a challenge, until that got boring. And then I realised the whole time I was playing it on the ‘easy’ level. When I switched it to ‘hard’ it kicked my ass and I gave up.
Well I went off on a tangent there, didn’t I. Guess that’s what a blog is for. Mine, anyway.
I have no idea what might happen if you slept all the way through a snooze alarm, I’m just incapable of doing so. Does it give up and stop eventually? Or could it be that the part that makes you you will slip off into the ether, or ethernet, forever?
I keep telling the hubby that I’d be more than happy to start and maintain a photo blog for him. This is why:
This was taken within the last hour, out our upstairs (cat-snot-covered) window. Wow.
Not only am I lucky to have a partner who can take such good pictures, I’m really happy I found one who can see the beauty available right outside our front door.
I forgot about this last night. I knew I had something of real importance to talk about!
For some unknown godawful reason, the Irish think that having a bird shit on you is lucky. I learned this at a wedding we attended that was held in an ancient, re-consecrated church with no roof. It did have a lot of annoyed birds who wanted us to leave them alone, and they let us know this in the way birds do best.
I really hope the bride got the crap stains out of her dress, it was rather nice.
Anyhoo, this odd belief came to mind yesterday when I was sitting outside, reading or playing one of my ‘stupid games’, and a bird flew past and shit all over my iPad. It sounded like rocks landing on it from a height and looked like the bird had eaten something unpleasant.
I don’t feel very lucky, despite the fact none got in my hair.
I have no idea where I’m going with this post so bear with me! Just again feel the need to write, to reach out, and see what happens.
First off I use the WP app to write new posts – rarely for comments – so it was a surprise to realise the update I downloaded over the weekend made a lot of changes. Hence the ‘ooo.’ There’s all kinds of swiping and whatnot instead of the Microsoft-training we all have of closing or ‘x-ing’ out of something. And man, just then: attempting to get the iPad to accept x-ing was a trial… Second time, it’s a winner! I love this stupid thing.
Stupid thing is now a year old! My iPad is a year old. I never wanted it, never even considered it as something I would need. And now? Like a Texan’s firearm, you’ll have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands. Yes, I’m teasing my Texas friends here – I seem to have quite a few and none of you fit that stereotype; I know it well but had to poke fun. Feel free to tease me for being a southerner myself, or an Irish drunk with a bad temper! Apparently I am both. Well, part Irish. I do say I’ve taken to the drinking aspect of the culture quite nicely. And I was born in NewJersey – go have a look on a map where the Mason-Dixon line was! Sigh. I can still speak ‘southrin’ any time I want, which entertains Irish people to a great extent. I think hubby only married me because I can do that. I need a south-Jersey refresher course, though – I end up sounding like Tony Soprano when I try. The bad temper is never going away.
What was I talking about? Meh, who cares. I have sunshine again, on a Monday.
And beer.
Woot!
Wait I need a fresh one. At least I’m not abandoning my empties in the grass like I did on Friday. Man, it was so hot that day my sweat smelled of beer. It might tomorrow at work. Whoops. I better switch back to rum and Pepsi Max after this one. It’s just…beer and sunshine are made for each other. I remember the day I discovered Sam Adams Cherry Wheat beer. I’m not usually a big fan of wheat beer but it was a hot day and I had plenty of them in the fridge, and sun and heat and no where to be. I reeked of cherries. It came out of my pores everywhere, liked I’d bathed in cherry skin-cream. Sort of gross, but by then I really, really, didn’t care.
And that wasn’t even the day I broke my pinky toe by sitting in the sun, drinking, and holding my pee so long that when I finally had to get up – about four or five beers later – I smashed my foot into some stairs and aw, first broken bone ever. I was close to 30 if not past it by then. Probably past it. Wonder if beer makes your bones weak? Or if having a massive-capacity bladder does? Ah well. I broke the same toe about 10 years later, just doing my usual tripping over nothing. Sober (ish) that time. Fun times… sad thing is, I used to be able to wiggle my pinkie toes independent of the rest of my toes, as a party trick, and that one doesn’t bend much any more.
Damn you, cloud, go away!
Better go back and reread and see if I have any point here today…
Ooo. Just hit preview and I have no paragraphs. That is bad…this stream of consciousness style of writing depends on visual breaks or I sound like I’m insane. Which is quite likely but I’m usually good at hiding it better. With paragraphs.
Man that cloud is annoying. Just wide enough to block my sunshine and make me cold. Go away, go away faster! Yes I see you moving, but move faster! And you! you, trailing behind! Move upward. Spiders need solar power.
Right, well, it appears I have nothing to say of any real import. I’m trying, I’m reaching out, because I’m in a good mood today and lately I haven’t been anywhere near a good mood. I’m doing my best to keep up a dialogue and even if it is me talking shite via writing, I imagine you listening and I don’t feel so alone.
Now if that second big-ass cloud would just move it along a bit, I’ll be happy…OMG still no paragraph breaks. Time to go find the help on this new app… Sorry… Will edit afterward so I make a modicum of sense.
I HAVE SUNSHINE.
I’m over the moon – or should that be over the sun? about this. See, our summer is officially over. Over over over. Even though for me, having grown up in Florida, August is supposed to be the hottest month, and the best month to have a birthday (no school! no annoying classroom acknowledgements of said birthday! Sun and life verdant and nothing but books and the woods to play in). Mentally, I’m not ready for autumn at alllllll. So! Sunshine and heat today and tomorrow, back to rain on Sunday – total misnomer this week it seems.
Anyhoo! I’m in the sun, sports bra and shorts, and quite merry from all the beer I’ve imbibed since I got home at the ‘expected’ time: that is, if I only work until 5. iDJ had my favorite camp chair already set up in the sunny spot out back and a beer on the countertop ready to be cracked open. Aw, I’m easy to please! And I’m happy he knows it.
He’s also been busy taking brilliant photos of my flowers grown from seed. Which makes me think of something I saw this week on FB – some guy still trying to say that appreciation of flowers is not a masculine enough occupation, in his estimation. Um. Why would adoring the beautiful female form be any different than realising the majesty of a flower? What-ev-ah. *hand wave*
It could be that hubby only loves my flowers because I grew them, but he has his favorites for sure. He put this one up on FB and said ‘I love these!’
My cornflowers, this year in both blue and white.
I think I’ll have to grow these every year, just for him, as he adores them and is just amazed by their color and proliferation:
The California Poppy! They kind of collapsed at ground level, but are still blooming like mad. Not sure if was the horrible compost we bought that made a lot of plants rot at ground level, but I lost a good few plant-babies to that this year. Sad. But…there’s still life!
This is a planter I made up of larkspur and rudbeckia. It’s on our kitchen windowsill because the slugs killed about a dozen rudbeckia before I put it up so high. The larkspur is juuuust blooming, the rudbeckia is taking forever! I thought maybe they would open last weekend but nooooo, and they are still just thinking about it hard. I’m not really sure what they will be like, but if they are yellow or orange like they seem to be thinking of being, I bet hubby will love em. I tend toward purple myself, but I think he likes the warmer colours. I hope the blooms last for ages, since they are so slow to ‘cook.’
Lastly, our cosmos is finally starting to bloom! Last year our next-door neighbor told me that it made her sort of sad to see me growing them, in a good way, because she is from South Africa and they grow wild there. Last year I had ‘candystripe’ and this year I grew a mix. The photo he took today of one of the first blooms is just amazing, hope you like it as much as I do.
I have more photos… Oh yes. I’m trying not to overload here! But… I can’t exactly explain why I love plants so much. I always have, but never really got to try my hand (hand? It’s called green thumbs in the US, green fingers here in Ireland! I have green fingers and toes, it seems, yay!) until I was in my late 20’s. Perhaps it is so simple that I connect with the life, so visible, so joyous, revelling in sun and water like I do myself. I cannot imagine my life without plants any more than I could without cats.
But I’m not entirely sure about that exclamation point up there. Not that I feel or even look particularly decrepit – or even my actual age – its more that this one is a bit anti-climactic. Last year was a biggie, you see, and I won’t get another biggie for a while.
We are planning a BBQ at our place tomorrow, which is a little stressful as my house is a disaster since the dog started blowing her coat and hasn’t stopped quiiiiite yet. Tumbledogs everywhere. And that icky white dander that coats your fingers and anything she brushes up against. Ewww. Cats are so much easier.
I’m also being asked to work the weekend. Any and all days I can. Which suuuuucks. A: because it’s my birthday weekend B: because it is a bank holiday weekend and I’m meant to get THREE days off. Not one, or none, or two. Sigh. And why will I go in? Not for the money, which will be less than what is supposedly what I’m entitled to for working a national holiday. Because I feel responsible. Because I want to help. Because I know they are in a deep hole with things that need done and a deadline to do them in. Will I be given tasks that actually help achieve that end? Doubtful. Last time I lost a Saturday to work – I kid thee not – I ended up stuffing envelopes. Not a proper use of my time, and not a proper use of my skills.
But hey! I have a rainbow in Ireland on my birthday – gonna take this right now with the iPad so forgive the poor quality:
So that’s something, right?
Tonight hubby is making me Thai green curry and then we’ll go out to the pub to see some friends that are home from London. It’s their last night here and I missed them last weekend as the stress got to me and I wasn’t well enough to go out (or work). We also have a friend home from Manchester who will be coming to the BBQ tomorrow, just to even the numbers of Irish and not-Irish. Don’t let her Manchester accent fool you, she’s a classy Culchie through and through! She’s also seriously tall with gorgeous long straight blonde hair and is a lovely person inside and out. I’m glad she’s a new friend and glad she’ll be here. Will see if the group allows photos to be posted here. It will be the KIBIS crowd and their male hangers-on. Had to invite the guys as mine is doing the cooking!
Well, once again I think you all have cheered me up, even though I haven’t hit ‘post’ yet. Just talking things out, knowing you are there and will listen, helps enormously.
And I still have that rainbow up above!
heretherebespiders 