Northern Sky at Sunset
Category: Photography
Fresh Veggies
Some of the veggies I brought home from work. I hope my coworker continues to bring in her surplus, because they’re delicious. She said her tomatoes should be ready soon, for which I shall be eternally grateful. Grocery store tomatoes are terrible. However, while at the store this morning, I suddenly couldn’t stand it any longer, and had to pick up some green tomatoes. It’s just not summer if you don’t have fried green tomatoes, right? Only, the stickers on the greenies say they are “vine ripened.” M’kaythen!
I managed to find a couple that had a decent amount of pink and light orange in them. They make better fried tomatoes, because the flavor has developed a bit. Pure green tomatoes are too hard, even after frying, and they just don’t taste as nice.
Storms
We’ve had a few nice storms recently. I’ve been at work during the daytime ones, and only one had interesting cloud contrast.
A few months back, bits of stone started falling from the south side of the main library, so a company was brought in to repair the facade. They’ve worked their way around to the northwest corner of the building, which is sort of entertaining, as we are a captive audience. I’m sure I’ll feel differently about it when they are working right outside our windows, but for now, it’s kind of cool to watch them haul hunks of limestone up and down the building.
(It’s 7:30am on a Saturday, and guess whose television is blaring away already? I was really looking forward to sleeping in this morning, but alas, it was not to be.)
Ow!
I still can’t type worth a damn. Mousing is no picnic, either. And to add insult to injury, I slammed my right (!) hand in a filing cabinet at work this afternoon, so now I’m sporting a lovely red knot on the back of my middle finger.
Somehow, my left hand and arm have managed to remain unscathed. Praise be!
Princess Di
Once again, Harriet turned on the water works while I was eating rice. Rice, for chrissake! For some reason, rice and french fries make her drool buckets. Please note that she made two drool bubbles. Miss Brown is a talented girl.
And now for a cuteness chaser. The Princess Di eyes crack me up every single time.
Mr. Chipmunk
Mr. Chipmunk
Isn’t he cute? I love his itty bitty ears and his bright beady eyes. He usually comes out of his hidey-hole in the early morning, and spends a few minutes sitting and scoping out his domain. There are a lot of birds and other predators around, so being cautious is a good idea. He picked a great spot for his den, though. He gets a little bit of protection from the balconies overhead, because the larger raptors aren’t likely to come that close to the buildings.
I also saw a yearling deer this morning, moseying along just off my patio. I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture of him, though.
I’m Not Dead Yet!
I got so disgusted with the DSL cutting out on me that I haven’t bothered to even try getting online lately. Mr. Cable Guy was here this ayem, though, so I’m all hooked up with broadbandy goodness. It is beautiful.
In order to get ready for cable internet service, though, I had to pretty much rearrange my entire apartment. The bedroom had to be flip-flopped with the studio, and the living room furniture had to be rotated 180 degrees. Aieee! And, of course, being the master procrastinator that I am, I didn’t start until yesterday. It wouldn’t have been so bad, even then, but when I was about half-way done, I slit the index finger on my right hand open. It was deep enough to need stitches and was bleeding like nothing I’d ever seen before, but since Prompt Care wasn’t open, I just bandaged it up tightly and finished moving crap. Lemme tell ya’, moving a full-size mattress and box springs one-handed is not completely impossible, but it is No Picnic.
The good news is that the cut is deep enough that it doesn’t hurt. I’m whiny enough without adding “Waaah, it hurts!” to the litany of stuff to complain about. The bad news is that it is a pain in the arse to type. Work should be lots of fun this week!
Anyway, rearranging the living room meant moving CDs, which was sort of comical, given the injured hand problem. I finally got everything emptied out of the shelves, when I recalled being cranky a few days ago because I didn’t have anything to listen to. Um, clearly, that was not true. What I meant was that I wanted something new to listen to.
And there are a couple hundred more out in the car. I remember once, when I was about 12-13, getting a lecture from my step-father about how it was unreasonable to spend all my money on records when I already had plenty to listen to. Lord knows, I can listen to the same thing over and over and over again, until everyone else’s ears start to bleed, but I do finally get bored and want new aural stimulation. More importantly, the arting is directly tied to the requirement for new aural stimulation. No new music eventually turns into no new art.
Anyway! The new cable modem is installed, and it is working beautifully. The cable phone connection is also clearer, which is nice. What is not nice is that AT&T are socking me with a $99 early termination fee, even though I terminated because their service was sucky. AND! Get this! When I called last week to get help with the flaky DSL, the tech guy told me to restart my computer. Gee, I would have never thought of that! And then he started hitting on me!!! Not cool at all. And the woman I talked to this morning couldn’t figure out why I didn’t just keep calling tech support every time the DSL died. Well, let’s see, perhaps it’s because the manchildren you have manning your tech support lines are misogynist pigs? Worse, they are unhelpful misogynist pigs. Also, who wants to struggle with their horrid voice response system every 20 minutes? Life is too short for that bullshit.
Harriet the Spy
Harriet likes to keep an eye on Across the Hall Neighbor. As you an see, she’s got just enough line to crane her neck around the privacy fence.
In the Sun
I have been a lazy, bad blogger lately. Mea culpa. Between being easily sidetracked and willfully procrastinating, I’ve gotten a whole lot of nothing done. That’s not entirely true, though. I’ve gotten boring stuff done, like laundry and cleaning and putting away the hundreds of CDs that collect and breed around the stereo and computer.
What I should have been doing, though, is rearranging the bedroom and studio. I have to have the rooms swapped around before Monday morning, because the cable person is supposed to come and set up my modem and phone. Wheee! No more AT&T! Before that can happen, though, the computer has to be moved to the other room, because that’s where the phone and cable jacks are near each other. It’s a pain in the ass, but a good one. The current bedroom is actually the larger room, and it would be nice to have that extra space for the studio, instead of wasting it on sleeping.
But, because of the laziness and the procrastination and the gnat-sized attention span, I haven’t really gotten much accomplished moving-wise. Instead, I’ve been downloading and watching episodes of Big Brother UK (no, really) and hunting for new music. I’ve also been swearing at the phone company because my DSL keeps going crashing. Despite my lack of interest in getting things ready for the cable folks, Monday cannot come quickly enough.
There is never enough time to just sit and watch Miss Brown bask in the sun. The weather here has been spectacular the last few days, and Harriet has spent a lot of time outside, enjoying it. The black Lab on the 2nd floor balcony next door has gotten used to her being outside, and now just smiles and wags at her. It’s very sweet and companionable. The white Pit Bull on the 3rd floor balcony still has a snit whenever she sees Harriet, though I’m happy to report that her owner has been paying closer attention, and has been bringing her inside when she gets obnoxious. This makes Harriet happy, because she can go back to being a lazy sun worshiper. And that makes me happy, because I love watching her sunbathe.
Clouds
It rained earlier today, but for the most part, the sky has been kind of yucky and boring. We have huge, puffy white clouds right now, with sunshine, but who knows how long that will last? I wasn’t able to get any decent photos, so I Photoshopped the hell of this one. I lowered the saturation, warmed up the color, darkened it, and increased the contrast.
red paper boat 