Chase this light

I'm still in the process of cleaning out/clearing out areas of my house and today I made the switch and have the orange room mostly done as the music room now. As I was going through various and sundry cabinets and cubby holes in various pieces of furniture I found the box my camera came in with all instruction books and, the most amazing find of all: an extra lens, sun shield and remote for the camera! So I'm trying to figure out how to use these things and decide whether I want to take them to South America or not. I would like to, but I'm also kind of harping on this idea of packing really lightly. I don't want to lug suitcases all over creation down there. I have a backpack, but it's just a bit on the small side to be able to work as my only pack, I think. I'm willing to give it a go and stuff it full of things, but I'm not that optimistic about this travel light idea. And if I keep cleaning and finding more things to take along, I really won't be traveling light.

Beatrix's "cat sitter" came by today to meet her and get a key for while I'm gone and she and I used to work together and are friends. I saw her last month at a party, but we always find more things to chat about when we get together. And sure enough, we stood around and yammered away at each other for nearly an hour and a half. It was really nice to get to visit for a while. But, it's sort of the awkward kind of visit, when someone stops by for one purpose and then you start to talk about other things and before you know it, an hour has gone by and you're still standing around talking. And that's cool, except my legs get tired from standing in the kitchen for an hour talking, but there's no place to sit in the kitchen and I tried to move the conversation to the living room, but my couches were covered in things because I'm moving the rooms around, so it was still like we were stuck standing around and talking. She didn't seem to mind, though. She's cool like that. As soon as she left though, I shoved a pile of stuff down the couch and flopped down for a bit.

I need to take down my Christmas stuff. I wanted to do that today, as well as move the rooms around. I still plan to get that tree down this weekend. I tried to take a bunch of books that I had into a trade-a-book place in town today in the hopes of freeing up some bookshelf space. Well, I ended up buying a bunch of other books to fill the space, so I'm right back where I started. I know better than to expect to have any free space on a bookshelf. I did notice though that the trade-a-book place in town is carrying more genres of books than they used to. It used to be mainly romance novels, but they've got some decent fiction and historical fiction and even branching into young adult books, too. I saw a cookbook section, too. I was surprised. I'm sure they have some other types that I missed, as well. Anyway, I have plenty of reading material to make up for the lack of assigned readings for school. It's starting to begin to sink in that I won't be going to classes this semester. I'm seeing people arriving back on campus each day and they're carrying their bags of text books and talking to each other about what classes they're taking this semester, etc. It's both cool and a little strange to work on a college campus and not be a student. It's like you belong, but kind of have outgrown parts of it, too.

Okay, am going to watch a couple of episodes of "The Tudors" (I'm on the final season),having dinner, and then I am definitely taking down the Christmas tree.

p.s. Have you heard the duet of Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett doing "The Lady Is A Tramp"? Bennett's entire duet album is great, but this song is extra fabulous, I think. You should hear it.

There is no way back from here but I don't care.

I hope the last rush order for things I'm remembering I need for Peru is over. I'm hoping it gets here in time for packing, now. Hope, hope, hope. It's an extra battery for my camera. Apparently the batteries aren't available in town, so I ended up having to buy the entire kit and kaboodle, but that's okay. It includes a car charger, which might be nice to have anyway.

This week has been dragging. Every day at work seems to craaaawl by. I keep trying to change up the routine by doing different things at lunch, but it hasn't been working. It's still really really slow. It might pick up tomorrow after I finish this one task that I've been working on for a while. I can get back to scanning things and somehow time seems to go quicker when I'm scanning things.

Beatrix stinks. I can't tell why she smells so bad. It's like that character in the Charlie Brown stories, "Pigpen". She's just got stink all stuck on her somehow. She's not likely to enjoy being bathed, although she does have a real affinity for water and she did fall into the bathtub last month when there was water in it. But I don't think she'd enjoy a forced dip in the tub. And besides that, she's not dirty. She's very meticulous about her coat and she's always keeping clean. I don't know. Maybe the cat is just a stinker, simple as that. Smelly cat, smelly cat...

I attempted to go to a basketball game earlier this week to no avail. Spontaneity doesn't work out when you're going to see one of the few undefeated teams left in NCAA basketball, apparently. Mizzou was playing Oklahoma and a co-worker and I had decided to go but we decided to just get a ticket at the door because school is off and a lot of students aren't back yet, so we figured that it wouldn't sell out. Well, that was wrong. It was such a blowout game with Mizzou squashing Oklahoma that it wouldn't have been that exciting anyway, but still. We were surprised to see the Sold Out sign on the arena door before it was even 5 pm. Good on ya, Tigers. Both Mizzou and Baylor are two of the four teams that are still undefeated in the nation! It could all change pretty quickly, but for now, at this moment, it's good. Anyway, since the basketball thing didn't work out, we just went to the new cupcakery in town and it was good! My only problem with cupcakes (as if anyone really has a problem with such a wonderful thing as a cupcake) is that they often put too much icing on them for my taste. I am happy to say that I powered through and enjoyed my red velvet cupcake a whole lot. They just opened the cupcakery within the last couple of weeks and they don't have their menu up yet so the lady was telling us all about what they had. Get this: s'mores cupcakes. Tiramisu cupcakes. Carrot cake cupcakes. Triple chocolate cupcakes. Red velvet cupcakes. Some others that I've forgotten. I had my eye on the red velvet from the moment I set my eyes on the glass case. I do remember that they have a cupcake of the day, which was lemon and that sounded really good, but it was all sold out (story of the day, apparently). I heartily approve of the general idea of cupcakeries, though. You can always scrape some of the icing off when you reach sugar code red.

Earlier this week when I was eating lunch I overheard this person emphatically telling this other person how many choices a person makes in a day. And how every single choice that you make can change your life. And I was thinking about that. And it's not the first time I've heard that, but you tend to forget that you make so many choices in a day, you know? Like, you make so many decisions without even really thinking about it every day, but if you consciously chose to do something different, you could change the scope of your entire day at the least, and your whole life at the most. Not a minute goes by when you haven't chosen to act a certain way, do a certain thing, handle a given hurdle in a certain way, etc. It's interesting to think about for a bit, just the true amount of free will that you have every single second of your life.  Of course, you can't think about it for too long because you start to fall behind in your normal routine of auto-pilot and doing those things that you chose to do however many weeks or years ago when you consciously made that first decision to do what you now always do. I think the people at the restaurant were some sort of support group or church meeting or something because things became very Christ-heavy and I tuned them out at that point and focused on my yummy grilled cheese sandwich and super delicious snickerdoodle cookie. But, I did think about all the myriad of options facing me after I finished eating. I could have driven to the airport and hopped a plane to some place, I could have gone and bought another snickerdoodle cookie and stuffed my face for a little longer, I could have gone over and sat down with those people and tried to talk more about this topic of conversation and maybe end up making new friends, etc. In the end, I chose to forgo a second snickerdoodle, spontaneous plane ride, or the hijacking of a churchy/support therapy session, and instead just went back to work and tried to stay awake while working on entering details of Missouri regimental histories from the the Civil War into my spreadsheet. But still...I had options.

Huff and puff and change the house around.

2012! HAP-py New Year!

Sometimes the way things sound in my head doesn't translate to blogdom, but I hope blogom gets it more often than not.

I decided to start the new year off on a new re-organizing foot, so to speak. I woke up yesterday morning with a need to move furniture around. New year, new room layouts. I'm pretty ecstatic about the way it's turning out. It's not done yet. But, I have essentially re-done 4 rooms in my house. Out of...8. So, half the house is shifting to a new look for 2012. I like it. The kitchen has a giant island in it now, not really for sitting around and eating, but more for extra workspace for all the cookie baking and whatnot that I've begun to do. It's great. The orange room is no longer the 'do my homework room' so it's slowing going to turn into the music room with my stereo and I'm going to drag down the record player set-up + vinyl collection that I have upstairs and bring it down and make that a much more hip sort of room than it could ever have hoped to be as an office/homework/grad student study room. It's bright orange, so it kind of is begging to be awesome. My bedroom is completely different, which is fantastic. It looks bigger now even though I have more furniture in it than I had. I love it. Sleeping in it all new and stuff last night was weird. I hear more noises than I used to because my head is pointed toward a different area. I kept waking up hearing noises, and waiting for Beatrix to attack if something was coming. It's amazing how easily you can totally spook yourself when all you've done is shift some furniture around. Like, suddenly, the house that was never haunted for the last year and a half is now haunted...because you moved your furniture around and pissed something off? But, after some snooping around, it turns out that it was just the wind. I never heard the wind this way when I was facing another direction, so it's all kind of going to take some getting used to. But I like it. Then, I'm turning the guest room upstairs into a sewing room. I never have guests, so it's silly to have a room that I never use just waiting for that one guest to show up. So, I'm going to make it into something useful. I had an old table in the basement that the previous owners left and we brought it up to the second floor and put it back together and it works perfectly. I love it, too. A whole new room for zero dollars. It's a nice table, really really sturdy because it's from probably the 50s or 60s and is all metal based and pressed wood on top. Heavy as hell, but really sturdy. Great for a sewing machine. So, there you have it. My four rooms in progress. Well, the kitchen is done, so the other three are still a little in progress. The casa di Jill is all shook up for 2012. In a good way. It still needs some de-cluttering and some 'uh, what is this?' and 'ew, when did that fall behind there?' kind of things, but mostly, it's on its way. And I SWEAR, I'm going to take down my Christmas tree this year. It's been up for 13 months straight now, but seriously: this week, it's coming all the way down and being put away. I pinky swear, blogger.

My block has been tore up with moving this weekend. My old neighbors moved out, new ones are still in the process of moving in. In the duplex two doors away, another neighbor moved out and we're waiting on that new arrival sometime soon, too. Apparently it's a new worker from the Governor's Office who's moving in. One of the funny things about living in a more urban area than I ever have is the close proximity to your neighbors breeds familiarity and gossip. I'm realizing that since I already know some about the two new sets of neighbors, that those who were here when I moved in probably already knew quite a bit about me. Hmm. Anyway, with all the moving and trucks and helpers and people carrying stuff all over the place, God help you if you were just trying to drive down the street through my block this weekend.

I feel pretty fantastic about this year, already. Changing the way your house feels can have a big impact, you know? Like, you have a new start sort of, or at least a new way of living.

Audrey Niffenegger

Oh, Snickers? Come home.

It's already Wednesday? Time flies. Another year is almost over. Shut THAT door! (If you and I were speaking in person, that would have been said in a funny way, mimicking something from a british sitcom that used to play on PBS about a decade ago. But, alas and alack, mimicry doesn't translate online. But trust me, it's funny. Although, after typing this explanation it occurs to me that I don't know anybody who would probably get that joke if I did say that line in person because perhaps nobody remembers that tiny snippet of a scene from a sitcom episode years ago. Nevermind. I'm sorry you had to read this.)

My neighbors moved out today and they lost their cat in the process. I'm on the lookout for "Snickers", should she come a-calling. She slipped out the door during one of the trips to and fro. Come back, Snickers! Don't get run over.

I saw the movie "The Social Network". I don't know how long that's been out, but a while, I guess. I deliberately did not see it when it first came out. As uninterested as I am in Facebook and due to my mostly-hate-never-love relationship with the site, I didn't think having to sit through hours of facebook chit-chat on the screen would be something I would ever want to put myself through. But, after once again removing myself from the site (yes, that Timeline update that I put on the profile months ago really couldn't hold my interest very long...), a friend suggested I watch the movie because it had changed the way that they saw the website. I'll have to question that friend a bit more because why would that movie make you like the website? I know the movie is fiction, but even so, it's about the website. It was everything I hate about the site all thrown together into a movie. I kept waiting for the happy part. The part that would be the epiphany. Where I would be like, 'Oh! That's cool.' But, it never came. I mostly sat there becoming more and more certain that this was a sad, sad person who created a sad, sad website that ended up having over a million virtual members and zero real friends. Maybe Zuckerberg isn't quite the sociopathic he portrayed as in the movie, but reading the reviews of the movie afterward and seeing what the real co-founders thought of the movie makes me think that, in Zuckerberg's personality at least, the movie was not far off. He didn't seem like a very happy person with any ambition other than creating a website that easily allowed him to cyberstalk his ex-girlfriend and get some name recognition in the process. I guess in those things, he's won. I mean, she did sign up for his website, right? Good job. But in the end, he has no real friends at all. As a side note though, those twins that he was forced to payout those millions to was a crock. I don't feel bad for the guy, seeing as he's rolling in dough, but it would kind of gall me to have to pay up to fools like those twins. But, still. In the big scheme of things, watching that movie did in no way alter my views on the website. To my mind, it's still boring, it's still potentially a very creepy place, and it's the worlds largest hole in which you lose touch with actual friends under the guise of 'staying in touch'.

Enough of the boring facebook chit chat. Back to real life:

Are you ready for New Year's Eve?! My family calls NYE 'Amateur Night' and as a general rule, we mostly try to stay off the roads that night, or at least celebrate in places where we don't have to drive ourselves around but can walk or whatever. I don't remember what I did last year, but I still have the two pennies I put out on the porch on the 31st of December 2010 and re-picked up on January 1 of this year. They have made it no further than the neon green stool sitting right inside my entryway. Another indication of life getting away from me this year. If I were going out and had oodles of cashmoney on hand for a dress I'd probably wear once, this would be my dress. And shoes. [And how catchy is my title, whatwhat?] :

I don't think I'll miss 2011. It kind of came and went before I noticed it was here. I feel like it should be March, maybe, as far as how much I've consciously been aware of it being 2011. It was all school, school, school. Really. I can't think of much else that I did this year but school, school, school. I wonder what next year will be? Certainly not school, school, school. Maybe travel, travel, travel? Peru! [Certamente!] New York City? [Megan? Maybe!]  Florida, South Carolina, Get-me-to-a-beach-right-now? [Seriously thinking this is a must do next year. Standing on a beach in Peru won't cut it. I'm envisioning a relaxing week-long beach sort of trip where the only language I have to struggle to understand is the deep southern drawl of my fellow Americans.]

One thing I do resolve to do is to clean my house and get rid of things. I got rid of a bunch of movies tonight. I have plans to get rid of other things, too. Sometimes cleaning out your life is...cleansing. Duh. This post is neither here nor there, it seems. Enjoy your remaining days of 2011 [y'all].

The little grey cells.

Over the holiday weekend, I saw several old mysteries. My parents loved the PBS mysteries that were on when I was growing up. I think I've seen all of them, or very close to all of them. The first cat my parents ever adopted when I was alive they named after Hercule Poirot. My dad's cat now is named after Sherlock Holmes' trusty sidekick, Dr. Watson. I could have named Beatrix, Miss Jane Marple to continue the trend, I suppose. But, anyway, I saw several Poirot mysteries again over the weekend and I forgot how much I loved them. I found a youtube video of amusing snippets from various episodes. Poirot is so dapper with his little spats and cane and penguin walk.




So. Great.

Noboooody knooows the trouble I've seeeen.

Aaand, Christmas 2011 has slammed shut. Tomorrow is back to business as mostly usual. How was your holiday? Good, I hope. Mine was nice, jolly, and all-around happy. Beatrix, however, decided to crap in her cat carrier in an effort to be deemed 'unfit for travel'. She was proven wrong. My philosophy on this turned out to be that once I have caught her and stuffed her into the cat carrier, no amount of meowing or pooping is going to get me to let her out of the carrier or car prior to arriving at our destination. Despite doing this on the way to and from our Christmas port of call, she failed at getting me to turn the car around and celebrate Christmas at home. Instead, she spent the majority of the rest of both the first and last day of Christmas traveling cleaning herself after sitting in her own poop for a while. She ruined her Christmas toys on the way home, though. They were in the carrier with her. That sucked. But, mostly, a good time was had by all. She and my dad's cat got along so much better than they did at Thanksgiving. They're practically friendly. Almost. Watson can't quite control his hissing and growling and by the end of the holiday, a member or two of the house would tend to break into this song in honor of him when Beatrix would start to look like she was going to initiate an unwelcome playtime: "Nobooooody knoooows the trouble I've seeeen. Noboooody knooows my sorrrroooow. Nobooody knooooows the trouble I've seeeen. Gloooorrrry Hallelujah."

I saw the movie "A Christmas Story" with that kid named Ralphie in it, you know? I'd never seen it before, but I saw it twice over the weekend. I get it now. It's funny. For years I've been out of the loop. Welcome to the loop, Jill. There was also some church-goin. We sang Christmas carols as if they were dirges. I know Lutherans can be a dour lot, but this was surprising. If you ever want to hear "Hark the Herald Angels Sing!" and "Good Christian Men, Rejoice!" sung in the most depressing way at a Christmas service let me know. I can hook you up. I kept trying to sing a little faster in the hopes that those around me would also speed up the tempo and we'd have a less depressing carol. It was to no avail. And then they kind of skimped us out of Stille Nacht, which is my most favorite thing about my Lutheran sect's Christmas service. Last year, my dad and I were completely gypped by the service because we went to the wrong one and they only sang Silent Night in English and--while it's a pretty song no matter what--it's beautiful in German with the lights out and everyone holding candles. I mean, really. It's magnificent. This year we were determined to make sure we went to the right service, and we did, but they had a soloist sing it and she only sang one verse and was finished before they even had everyone's candles lit and the overhead lights were still on. I wanted to jump up and be like, 'Encore! We're still lighting up down here!' Foiled again. Oh, church.

Tomorrow I go in to learn about strength training at the healthplex I joined. They're going to show me how much weight I need to use on some machine to make my knees and ankles strong(er). I'm optimistic about this. They did an initial health assessment, which I passed with flying colors! I was in the good-excellent category in all the tests that they had me do, even the hand-grip strength test. I'm not ready for arm wrestling or even thumb wrestling, but it wasn't bad.

Have you heard of the Webcam Travel site? I think it's neat. It's just a google map full of web cams that you can click and view. It's interesting right now to look at the world as a whole and see the little thumbnails because so many of them are in prominent cities that have their holiday displays shining. Parts of the world are very colorful right now. It's neat. Here's the link if you want to check it out: http://www.webcams.travel/

Chinua Achebe