Category Archives: all posts

Friday evening I went into the city to wish Jenn C. a happy birthday. I also went out playing foosball, and managed to lose my voice.

so sat., I slept as much as possible. I still couldn’t talk. it was terrible! sat. night we went to matt’s folks to drop off a beach umbrella and I started to feel sicker and sicker. so we went home, and I missed Gabulon’s bday party. sad.

At least that night I got 11 hours of sleep. after that, I went to matt’s to use his internets to do some HAZWOPER site supervisor training, and got home around 10. I checked my throat again (still no voice in there!) and went to bed.

Not having a voice is boring. and SILLY. I’ve gotten a call already from a client, and I felt pretty funny whispering to her. I can’t really whisper, besides — it’s worse on my vocal chords than forcing a voice, or so I’ve heard. So I’m trying to be quiet. yuck.

The events today in London have shaken me up. On the one hand, it’s very surreal: here in the office there isn’t a lot of concern for it. I don’t think anyone has mentioned it to me at all. But I have a lot of friends (internet and otherwise) who are incredibly concerned, and are focused on the news. The discrepency really throws me. Yesterday I was thinking about the olympics bid, and how worthy london was to have won because they really really wanted it, they were really really excited. If NYC had won there wouldn’t be the excitement, joy, unity. There would be people upset about the inconvenience, and general apathy. And now that London has suffered terrible terrorist bombings I am concerned about our reaction. We didn’t offer much of a reaction to Madrid in their time of awful either. So while I’m worrying about London, I’m also worrying about America.

And God, but I remember the terrible waiting period after September 11th in New York City, when we weren’t sure if there was another shoe to drop and if it would. I remember waiting to find out who, of those I know, were spared, and the slow scramble to locate my tourist step-sister. I remember the loud silence in the streets as people wondered what to do with themselves, how they could get home, and later, how they could help. And for all of the horrors that NYC experienced that day, we didn’t have the mass injuries and amputations to deal with and to remind us of what happened. My heart goes out to those who are waiting and coping in London.

sherwin williams is having a paint sale this weekend so I’m going to stock up on their no-VOC harmony paint in order to paint my apartment.

And I’m only buying green colors.

I want to replicate my old green color for my bedroom

and I really want to paint my hall a nice real green color to contrast with my blue walls:

The color I like is called “VEGAN” which cracks me up, and is the most top most chip on the left side.

here’s a better view, straight from the sherwin williams website:

so all this green, and on top of that, have I mentioned what color my bathroom is?

GREEN.

I had a great weekend, full of visitors and debauchery and weddings and hot weather.

and today I’m trying to consolidate my student loans so as to get a superduper low interest rate. Apparently, I owe 25K. Thanks CMU! I forgot it was THAT high, I guess I was hung up on 18K for some non-reason. I have to get my Dept. of Education Pin number from home before I can do any of this financial finaglry, and it’s impossible to contact anyone by phone because EVERYONE IN AMERICA is trying to refinance their loans before 6/30, at which time interest rates will go up a whopping 1.9%.

it’s a little disorienting to realize I’ll be back to paying a wholelotta cash out each month for 10 years.
I don’t rembember having to pay this much the last time around, and I thought I had comparable loans after Cooper!
Or maybe it was 1/2 as much, which would make more sense. Plus, through the brilliance of CU for some reason my last year loans had to be taken out through another lender – something about high default rates, I think – and I was paying 2 loans at the same time. Which really did work out well in the whole greater “paying off loans” scheme of things. Hrm.

I secretly love budgeting, but I secretly hate it too. It can be fun to figure out how much money you have and to square away everything neatly, and to even use a spreadsheet to figure it all out easily. But then you reach a point where it’s not fun anymore because you realize you have more bills and expenses than you thought you did. I had conveniently forgotten about this student loan thing, and I’m not looking forward to updating my spreadsheet. But I will, because sometimes even updating a painful financial spreadsheet is a welcome break from trying to figure out why an invoice doesn’t match the project reconsiliation spreadsheet. You know.

I showed a very good friend and thoughtful person the pictures from father’s day, and she said my family looked like we were full of life. I thought about this for a while, and replied that something my family really has going for it is a focus on living in the present. It’s true, what with the health problems and various financial debts to be paid off and the difficulty in planning activities when you’ve got (at latest count) ten households that need to be coordinated in order to spend portions of holidays together, well, somehow that has translated into relishing the time together we do have, and a general flying by the seat of our pants. sure, we make plans, but it ends up often being a vague coming together when we can instead of a regularly scheduled event to which people are expected to attend. We are flexible with each other, generous, and try to make things work for everyone. And we all show up. Even though there are groups of people who traditionally are expected to have animosity towards each other (aka, divorce in various forms) there really isn’t, and we all manage to work it out in the end.

my friend said “what a difference that must make in a family (let alone in a single person)” and she’s right. I’ve never thought about it before, but we’re doing quite well for a family of ‘broken homes.’ aw, my heartful family.

I had a really good time in albany this weekend for father’s day. I arrived sat. evening and played games with sarah, kevin, and dan aaron (after making collage cards with daniel and eating dinner and having some sweet ryan time).

the next day we had a super time with breakfast and gifts and then all cruised down to the baseball game, starring the unintiminable daniel james!

I absolutely enjoyed seeing the sarah+kevin+ryan family

enjoyed seeing daddy, and even though I’m tall, he’s still a whole foot taller and we had a hard time catching the top of his head:

we did see some disturbing things that day.

but dan aaron

and mom and I

shook it off went to lkens for milkshakes and cheesey fries.

thank you, jimmy hoffa, for making wonderful day at the ball park possible.

it’s HOT outside. it’s been in the 90s for the last 4 or 5 days, or something, and I think my apartment thermal mass can only fight the first 3 days before it gets too totally roasty. Last night the temperature only dropped to about 75, so it was a warm night for me. I didn’t sleep that great.

Of course, the A/C at work is too cold for me: I walked up the big hill to get lunch with my sweater on and didn’t really warm up until I got to the top of the hill. So, you know, it’s all relative. I do try to stay out of air conditioning because I don’t have it in my car or my home, but those 9-10 hours a day I spend at work have the potential to screw things up! plus, I’ll pretend it’s the A/C and not the job that’s giving me my current headache.

ALL THAT SAID, I’m (grossly, yo! it’s a heat wave!) not using even deoderant anymore. That storebought stuff is for the birds. I’ve been primo happy for the last 3 days using only baking soda on my underarms, and I dare say my friends and neighbors have been happy too.

I was unable to bring my nephew to the renn faire, so instead I had to buy him an ice cream cone on the hottest day of the year:

and here’s gabbi all dressed up!

you can download beethoven’s symphonies from the BBC (all 9 of them!) after they’re performed. Five of them are up now. They take a looong time to download but I anticipate it will be worth it.

I’m getting my hairs cut today, at 6:30. I picked the shee-shee-ist place in my town and waltzed in last night to make an appointment. I noticed while I was there that there were only mens having their hairs cut, but there was a price on the wall for ladies cuts, so I should be fine.

I’ve been going to bed between 9:30 and 10 every night this week (except sunday, ok, for the last 2 nights), because I am apparently burnt out and stressed beyond belief. The sleep seems to be serving me well, althouh it’s really getting in the way of unpacking, which is important b/c my brother and my nephew may be joining me this weekend for some family time and for some good friend’s renn faire exploration. I want to buy my nephew a giant turkey leg! and take pictures of him eating it!

The wedding was great: friday night I met michelle at the airport in fort lauderdale, and aurora and gibson fetched us. then the next day we were up early for wedding fun!

gibson and I were accidentally dressed like a couple

I had a fun time with selfphotos:
michelle

aurora

johanna

gibson

deanna

and scott, pretending he’s looking down my dress, and I TOTALLY told him I’d be posting this on the internets:

we made friends with the photographers:

enjoyed the fish:

and got beautiful original art from the bride’s aunt as favors:

after the early reception (wherein we made gibson dance with all of us) we drove to paulina’s parents house in a gated community

and michelle fell asleep on an ottomam.

by all accounts, the bride and groom had a wonderful time:

after the reception and the parent’s house afterparty, we went out dancing at a mediocre club in ft lauderdale. the next day we went to the beach! and the sun came out! and my shoulders got red! but it was worth it!

michelle and I had super coordinating flights, and both left the airport at 7:15ish.

the weekend was magnificent. there’s more pics here.