Month: April 2006

Crankypantsing, Photography

All interspersed with weed

Shelly

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Seed Pods with Spider’s Web

I ought to be making devilled eggs, but instead, I’m playing around with Photoshop. I’m too tired and cranky to want to fuss with food.

As a result of last weekend’s power outage, my phone–I only recently realized–has not been receiving incoming calls. I was able to make calls and get online with no problem, but anyone who tried to call me either got a busy signal or the call was dropped after the first ring. Very odd. So I had to take yesterday off work to wait around for Cody-the-phone-guy to come out and fix the problem. This is, I believe, the fourth time I’ve had to have my line repaired after a power outage. Hrmph. There’s nothing I can do about it, because the failure is out at the pole, and not anything inside my house. I would think that, eventually, Some Bastard Company would get tired of having to make repeated trips out here, and might fix their frigging phone lines. I’m not holding my breath or anything, though.

That’s all by way of saying that I had to get up ass early and go into work this morning. Working was not–I repeat not–on my To Do List today. Hence the crankiness. And it’s raining, and is supposed to keep raining for the better part of the next week. That meant that I spent my unscheduled day off preemptively mowing instead of doing anything remotely entertaining. Again, resulting in much crankiness.

Alrighty then. I’m off to cleave wee eggies in twain, so that I can take them to Ms. Lea’s birthday festivities. I’m also supposed to bake her a cockeyed cake, but I completely forgot that I’m out of both sugar and flour. Even the mighty cockeyed cake requires sugar and flour. Oops!

I’m really hoping that the liberal application of alcohol will improve my attitude, because somehow I doubt that having to spend the afternoon and evening with hordes of people will.

Oooh! One good thing did happen today. On my way home from work, I got to see a bitty buckskin Quarter Horse. He was brand-spanking new–so new, that he was tottering around behind his mamma like a drunken little sailor. I had to pull over and watch him for a few minutes, he was that adorable. He managed to find his legs well enough to boink straight up into the air at one point, which nearly induced a sugar coma in me. I thought for sure he’d fall over, but even though he swayed a bit, and looked a little bewildered at what he’d just done, he stuck the landing. It was wonderfully funny, as if he had no idea how or why he’d gone up into the air. Boink!

Crankypantsing

Germs!

Shelly

One of my coworkers has an unhealthy relationship with her Lysol can. Several times a day, she sprays it all over her cube and the phone desk, which is right behind my cube. The smell is overwhelming, and the chemicals make my allergies go crazy. Right now, I can hardly breathe and my eyes are burning.

Because we have a bone cancer patient in our section, everyone is hyper-germ-phobic. The liberal use of Lysol is being encouraged, not discouraged. I can understand the need for folks not to infect the already ailing, but this is ridiculous. Hand washing and the use of hand sanitizer ought to be sufficient.

Crankypantsing, Photography

Or till rust will come upon the screw

Shelly

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Rusty screw

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Dandelion

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Lightning seeds

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Heart

I spent a good bit of the past weekend outdoors. The weather was gorgeous–sunny and warm with a perfect breeze. I decided to take my camera out and get some spring-y pictures. It was also a good excuse to play around some more with the macro settings.The dandelion seed image is un-retouched. All I did was resize it. The others were Photoshopped. I knocked down the saturation and upped the red and yellow channels. I also added some noise to the last image. I did a crappy job of squaring my camera to the tree branch, so the bottom portion is out of focus. Hrmph.

In local news, there was a nasty wreck near my house last Sunday, knocking out the power for over 6 hours. As I came home yesterday, I noticed that a big chunk of an electric pole was lying beside the road near Fish Creek Bridge. Yikes. We also had some asshat kids go on another mailbox-bashing spree. I guess we should be thankful it was mailboxes and not people’s heads, but still… I mentioned that I spent my last $14 on gas? I did not exactly factor a new mailbox into my, um, “budget.” Luckily, I originally bought the cheap-assed plastic model, which is pretty much unbashable. The rotten little vandals tore the door off it, but the box itself is still in decent shape. Unlike my neighbor’s mailbox, which is totalled. This went way beyond the usual drive-by whacking. Whoever did it took their time. It can’t have been easy breaking the door off my mailbox, and my neighbor’s was hit from two different directions.

Crankypantsing

Gas

Shelly

And now a word about gasoline. A few words, in fact. And a few more about why I should never have gotten out of bed this morning.

I get a little panicky when my gas gauge gets below 1/4 tank. It’s silly, because 1/4 tank will get me to Bloomington and back two times. But still, it makes me tweaky, so I try not to let it happen. Well, this morning, the needle was resting on top of E (which, alas, does not stand for Enough). I stopped at our local Bigfoot on my way to work and put the last $14 dollars in my checking account into my gas tank. Then, I went inside with the last of my ash tray change to buy a big, fat pepsi-coke-soda-pop[1].

While waiting in line behind the inevitable “cigarettes and lottery tickets” crowd (why the hell do folks need lottery tickets and smokes at 5am?), a couple of town marshalls came in. Apparently, someone had done a pump and run, and the clerk had called the cops. Poor kid. When that happens, it comes out of his pay check. He was just ending his shift, and was likely tired and thinking of his warm, comfy bed. He told the marshalls that he didn’t even remember approving the guy, and so he didn’t get a plate number or a good description of the car. That really sucks. Here I am, spending my last $14 dollars on gas, and other folks are stealing it. Hrmph.

The best part of the morning, though, was getting to Bloomington and finding that 17th Street is closed at the football stadium. Hello?! Who the hell thought it would be a good idea to tear up the street in front of the largest parking lot on campus, the week before finals? Hmf. I just hope I can remember not to get off the bypass at Kinser tomorrow morning.

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[1] Growing up in the Crossroads of America does unkind things to one’s vocabulary. To some folks, anything fizzy is a “coke,” to others, it’s all soda, and to others, it’s pop. Our local drive-in calls it “Coke-cola.” They also serve “Mellow Yellow,” so perhaps their authority on the subject of fizzy drink nomenclature is questionable. My favorite, though, is the ever popular Pepsi-Coke. That pretty much covers the major bases.

Pets, Photography

A sphere of simple green

Shelly

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Harriet enjoyed herself while I mowed. It’s nice to have a dog who can be outside with me while I’m working. With Elliott, I always had to worry about what he was up to. He was just as apt to get in the way of the mower, or plop himself down where he was in danger of flying rocks, as he was to tunnel out while I wasn’t watching. Harriet, though, does none of those things. Instead, she runs around, doing the butt-tuck-zippy-zoomies with an ecstatic expression on her face. When she runs out of steam, she flings herself to the ground and flops around on her back, like a long-legged trout. Harriet, thankfully, prefers to roll in freshly mown grass instead of dead animals. I dodged a bullet there. Not only does she come up smelling, if not like a daisy, then of hay, but she also is quite entertaining in the process. I win!

I took the above pictures while I was mowing the section outside the dog yard. Harriet wasn’t too amused with that. She doesn’t like being locked in while I’m out. She paced and whined for a bit, then gave up and grazed on the tall grass along the fence. Apparently, the very tenderest blade was juuust beyond her reach. At one point, a rabbit ran across the driveway. Harriet turned on the charm, hoping, no doubt, that if she produced the correct rabbit call, it would hop into her waiting mouth. I tried to tell her that it doesn’t work that way, but she was unfazed.

Crankypantsing

Crankypantsing, the Early Bird Edition

Shelly

I somehow managed to get to work 20 minutes early this ayem. Some employers might find that to be commendable, but not, apparently, mine. As soon as I sat down, a coworker barrelled over to me to explain why I shouldn’t be here. “Duh,” says I. “I know there is a ‘no working before 6am’ rule. And, guess what? I’m not working! In fact, I’m screwing around. You see, when one commutes, one cannot necessarily control the time at which one arrives at one’s destination. One is just as apt to arrive 20 minutes late as 20 minutes early. Usually, lateness wins out, but occasionally, earliness triumphs. Get over it. And, you aren’t the boss of me. Neener-neener.”

What-the-fuck-EVAR!

Irony aside (what was she doing here at that unholy hour, hm?), what business is it of hers? I’ve discussed my schedule with my supervisor. She understands the vagaries of commuting, as she, too, lives out in the country. I’ve explained that many days I’ll be late, and a few days I’ll be early. On the days I’m early, I promise I won’t do any work before the appointed time, because I’d hate to invoke the wrath of the union-to-which-I-do-not-belong.

After a mere two hours of sleep, I’m in serious “kiss my ass” mode.