I Really Was Going Somewhere With Yesterday’s Post

Honest.

On and off headaches for four straight days kinda kills the thought processes, eh? I’ll finish the thought here before the next onslaught.

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Where I was going to go as I talked about flowers and vegetables and gardening before the headache hit full stride is that lately I’ve been intrigued with the idea of straw bale gardening (also referred to as “no dig“). If you do a Google search, many sites will pop up and there are several ways to prep the bales. It’s apparently wonderful for those with bad knees (me) or bad backs, and once the bale is exhausted it can be used for mulch. It’s a wonderful alternative to messing around and digging in the soil. It’s supposed to be good for lettuces, beans, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes… but I wonder if I could do strawberries? I haven’t seen anything where I can. That would be freaking awesome. Herbs would be phenomenal–just clip whatever I need, instead of paying the usurious prices for a wilted bunch of thyme or whatnot.

But I wonder, would it not really do well in this climate?

I know I can do it in NC. Yippee! Here are some blogs to read. Completely intriguing.

 I think I’ll buy a bale after the new year, weather it, and play around with it. I’ll start with herbs and go from there. I can’t wait to have all the parsley I want.

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On the political front, people are up in arms about Obama picking all these Clintonites. The source’s response is that people who served for Carter are too old now; what a line of bullshit. The answer is simple, really: it’s time for Obama to pay the piper, so he has to hand out the goodies to the greedies. And the crowd is pushy and greedy for the spoils of his victory–how high is too high of a price to pay for his election? We’ll find out.

I’m sorry folks… but change, my ass. Boy, has he bamboozled people. Change stopped as soon as he picked Biden, that nominal Catholic, as veep. Nobody should be surprised. Politics as usual.

Two potential picks for his cabinet I consider a joke: the gauche and waspish Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and do-nothing Janet Napolitano as DHS chief? The former already has the lawyers out to pressure Obama–I wonder what the agreement before the nomination really said? Hmmm. And she’s already suspect by other countries, and by her husband’s conflicts of interest.

The latter has had me chuckling ruefully for the last couple of days–oh, he’ll be sorry about that one. Janet has sought to either ignore or overturn the voter initiatives re illegal immigration–this is the LAST person we need in this office. She has been a terrible governor of this state, a border state no less, that has huge problems with the flood of illegals. Other than that, the Repulsive runs an article about Janet and how much she loves her daddy for the feel good effect every few months. Janet has otherwise been a bust as governor.

Oh, it’s going to be a wild ride, folks: hold on to your seats.

Not Terribly Verbose Today

This is the time of year that I’m getting a blizzard of offers for seeds and bulbs, plants and rosebushes via the sites I’ve subscribed to. I would die to plant coleus and hollyhock, acres of roses, lavender, tulips, veggies and herbs, amaryllis, hydrangea, callas and cannas, helleborus, clematis and peonies.

Not bloody fucking likely in this climate.

That’s part of the excitement of the eventual relocation to northern North Carolina. Hell, anywhere that has freaking cold temps in November would be great–it was 89 degrees here yesterday. No, that’s not an exaggeration. On November 18, it was 89 officially in Phoenix, a record high.

So my roses muddle through the stultifying heat of the summers, and once the summer goes away, I’m limited to things that can survive wacky temps like we’re having right now. You know… like lantana and alyssum. Lobelia likes the cooler temps but can deal with the spike. Snapdragons have their issues once it gets too hot. And so on.

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Not in the mood for writing much. Four weeks left of school. Still nothing resolved re DH’s job, and therefore nothing resolved with adoption. I’m beginning to despise how my boss disappears for four hours, and then complains that X isn’t getting done. That’s not my problem.

Grumpy and still hanging on tenterhooks.

More later when I feel like it.

Salted Slug, That’s Me

My response to stress is not like others’ response: many people become manic. They go nuts, can’t sit still, work out more, walk more, talk more, etc.

I become a salted slug.

I get depressed. I stop all activity. I stop hiking, walking, working out. I sit on the compy or read interminably to get my brain off of the topic. I ignore my body. I mindlessly eat a shitload of cheddar Goldfish. This time around, I’m back on Warcraft, which actually still bores the hell out of me, but I’m back in touch with old pals, which makes the boredom tolerable (my saving grace is that I’m not getting the expansion pack). I ignore my homework until the day before it’s due, instead of the good habit of doing my homework on a quiet Sunday.

With any luck, all of that is going to change. Last night, I was typing back and forth with a pal on WoW when DH calls out, “Baby!”

The tone broke me out of my trance. “Yeah?”

“Come here!”

The one night that he leaves his cell in the car is the one day there’s an important message on it. The one company he was hoping to go to had their recruiter contact DH and say, “They want to hire you ASAP.” The problem was that it was already nine, so it has to wait until today.

So last night, and this morning before I left the house, we’re cautiously happy. It depends on the offer they make. Dan’s condition is that it’s contract to hire–and the guy who interviewed him was having difficulties getting his boss to give him the green light. The downside to the contract deal is that we’ll have to do COBRA for three months–not cheap–but you just cannot be without health insurance these days.

So things are looking up.

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The preliminary offer means that once an appropriate offer is made, we can go forward with the adoption process. For obvious reasons (see previous posts), it was on hold. Assuming it’s an appropriate offer, we’ll sit down, complete it, and send it in to the agency. Then we’ll have to wait anyway for the application and the fingerprints to crawl through their process.

Cross your fingers, please.

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Yesterday, the media was all panicky over the ’skinhead plot’ on Obama’s and 102 other people’s lives. Funny, by this morning, it’s been diffused to a couple of idiotic wanna-bes spouting off with racist bullshit.

Nice little piece of fearmongering.

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I can’t wait until November 5. Since I truly believe that neither candidate is appropriate for the highest office, it won’t be with a sense of relief in that regard. Rather, it will be a release from all of the ridiculous media bullcrap.

I am wary of Barack Obama because after all of this time, nobody still really knows who he is; he’s been cleansed of any real past (his flighty mother has been elevated to sainthood and his absentee father is not spoken of at all). I’m not an ignorant fool–I know he’s no Arab or Muslim, or any of that ridiculous rumor mill bullshit–but really, who is this first-term senator from Illinois? Why are people so hysterical over him? That kind of mindless hysteria bothers me, and I don’t care who is the object of the hysteria. Old biddys who are vehemently anti- many liberal stances are voting for him, but can’t explain why to save their souls. It’s a weird phenomenon. And where in the hell did he come from that he has this insane rise?  Nobody heard of him until about a year and a half ago.  

I’m no fan of John McCain, either; he represents my congressional district, and as far as senators go, he’s been relatively steady and all of that; certainly he’s no Ted Stevens. For me, the only thing going for him is that he is a known quantity compared to Mr. Obama.  I’m not worried about his age–look at his ass-kicking mother–but I do wonder about his legendary rages, his irrationality, his vindictiveness. I do not believe he’s Bush, Continued–people who are saying that could never then vote for many people, as for the majority of the time, a candidate of a particular party will vote for the party line the vast majority of the time. Duh. But McCain has many weaknesses that makes him equally undesirable as a potential president.

DH has wished often that we were voting for the Veep candidates–both of them are more desirable than their running mates. You want change? Let’s aim for Sarah Palin: she’s a charmer and a half, smart, witty, and has actually held her own in the ghastly mud-slinging from the media and everyone else. Talk about a woman with guts! Have you noticed that every single thing they try to pin on her has pretty much slid off, much like egg off teflon? Not that I’m naive enough to think that she’s faultless–not like my boss, who has been useless since her nomination, praising her to the skies every chance she can–but then none of the four represent the lily of a blameless life.

Eh, that’s just dreaming. Don’t fool yourselves, folks: we’re screwed either way this election cycle.

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The paint is done and the tile is in. It’s beautiful. I like the fact that I can Swiffer the place. I’ll post on that later–it’s phenomenal.

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I don’t care what is written about me as long as it isn’t true.  –Katharine Hepburn

This and That

Funny thing I saw on the way to work this morning: a lady running with her dog, probably a Great Dane, and I glance down at the dog’s feet. The dog had teeny little ankle weights on. I laughed.

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This media-fueled panic re the banks and market was predicted nine or ten years ago. They lowered the credit standards for mortgages, and now, despite being warned by experts, they are freaking out. They made loans to people who should never have been buying a house in the first place, so why should the majority of mortgage holders, who made savvy decisions in their purchase, who make their payments on time and manage their finances, pay for these idiots? And the “idiots” include the banks that made risky loans. You don’t need a degree in finance to figure this whole thing out.

If they insist on a bailout, it should be given with many, many restrictions, conditions, and oversight committees. Neither the lenders nor the people who made poor financial decisions should be given carte blanche, especially with the already overburdened taxpayers being asked to foot the bill.

That’s just my take on it.

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DH flipped out a little bit in the adoption process. Mostly on the financial aspect, but I also wasn’t clear on timelines, either. He was under the impression that everything had to be done before the end of the year… no, so sorry. My bad. I also think that the abstract conversations now being concrete blew his mind a little. But despite the lashing out last week, I know we’re going to be okay: we were looking at the MLS for houses in the GSO area and he was looking at the schools.

It’ll take time, but we’ll be okay.

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He’s also got this hangup that we won’t be able to name the child what we want. Babe, hello? If our names are going to be on the birth certificate when the adoption is finalized, you’re darn tootin’ that we can pick the name. Naturally, if we adopt an older child, it’ll have to be a gradual rebadging, but the fact that the kid has a name from his/her birthmother does not preclude us from selecting a name for our new child. Silly hubby.

I have news for you: the Mc/Mac, -aiden, apostrophe catastrophes, and mangled spellings phenomena for children’s names are never going to be allowed in our house. That is one thing that he and I are in absolute agreement on, no atrocious names. I might tease that potential names are Edith and Otis, or Macmadysinlynne and Mavryk, but no “tryndee” or otherwise crappy names will be allowed to cross our threshold.

I have to say that for the most part, the children of family, friends and acquaintances are pretty solid. A sampling includes Juliana, Andrew, Joseph, Catherine, Blair (boy, a family name), Matthew, Daniel, Caitlyn (at least it’s not terribly mangled), a couple of Sarahs, Emily, and Joshua. The only one that is kinda out there on the top of my head is Maile (MY-lay), but it is a Hawaiian name and part of her heritage (I don’t think her mother thought out the terrible tease factor she’s going to get in high school, though).

Over the years, DH and I have toyed with Anthony, James, Robert, Anne, Lauren, and Elisabeth; the other day we discussed the merits of Christopher. Neither of us like the overly Old Testament sounding, such as Benjamin or Nathaniel, and neither of us likes the current naming trends and popular crap. The trend is towards the classic names. However, serious consideration of any name is slated for a later date, once the hurdle of certification has been cleared.

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I had a long talk with my dad last week. We had a heart to heart, and I know he’s grieving for my lost dream of having my own baby. I basically told him that testing could go on forever, then the reproductive medicine part can drain our accounts and any funds he offers, and I just won’t ruin all of us financially. I told him with the utmost sincerity that it has been the hardest decision in my life. He finally aquiesced, and now he’s supportive.

Next part: DH comfy enough so that we can have an open discussion with his parents about it.

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I hate it when a preliminary estimate is nowhere close to the actual. I’m not going to get into it, but I’ll just say that we have to settle for Phase I: Tile. Tile will be installed in the living area, kitchen and downstairs bathroom. I’ll still have fuschia carpet everywhere else in the house for now. Ugh.

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I’m only six weeks into the semester and I’m beat to hell. The only thing keeping me going is that every week is closer to the end.

Weekend Roundup

Ahhh… *sits down for the first time all day*

I think summer’s back is broken… not that the temps are out of the hundreds yet, but because the early mornings are now back in the mid-80s. It was 80 this morning at a 6:40a, and it was WONDERFUL. I would have gone for a hike, except that I had weeds and overgrown vines screaming for attention in the front yard. So I went for coffee at the aforementioned hour, went to Wally World before all of Guadalupe woke up, and not only sprayed the weeds and clipped some of the stuff in the front, but I also washed and waxed my car.

I am all kinds of awesome today.

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Progress is as progress does: I started out so well in the gym, and then Boss went into a week’s worth of conniptions that shot all plans, before and after work, to hell. Then school started, throwing me off even more. I have been skating at CSC on Wednesdays, and catch the occasional Pima Canyon hike now that the weather’s nicer. I haven’t been to the gym in about three weeks, and if I get through other stuff today, I’ll head up the street.

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I do not understand why a set of inline bearings are upwards of $40. I say “40″ because generally I’ve seen them between $35 and $43. So let’s take my rough average: 40/16=2.5. So $2.50 per bearing? Seriously? When it costs maybe $.50 to make them? What a fucking racket.

I’m looking for bearings so that I have dedicated indoor bearings vs. outdoor. I have the stock bearings in my new wheels to mess around on the Sport Court, and the dirt from the outdoor skating have trashed them. I have to get new ones for indoor.

And Dave wonders why I won’t commit to a league right now… I bought my hockey ‘girdle’ for $60 a couple of weeks ago. I got a stick and a puck last week to play around with. I have to parcel out the spending, and then league fees, too? Not yet. January, I promise.

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After five years in our house, we’re finally getting rid of the fuschia carpeting. I told the lady from the flooring place about it, and she didn’t believe me until I told her. When she came to measure, she walked in the door and stopped. She blinked and said, “Wow.” So we’re getting a mix of tile and carpet, and running the same carpet up the stairs and through the upstairs hallway. We’ll do the bedrooms at our leisure.

Better Half was thinking that we could do ~1200sf for under three grand. He’s on crack, especially since we have chosen some better materials than one might actually choose for a house that will be sold in the next couple of years.

Oh, I can’t wait–I have hated this carpet since the moment we first saw this house, but events conspired against us to change it. I’ll post before and after pics, perhaps make its own page. You will understand my joyous backflips when you see.

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All right, off to homework land. See ya later.