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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
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| Saturday, December 19th, 2009 |
norabombay
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12:36p |
Travel
I feel as if I've been packing for hours. Mainly because I have. I'm leaving town for 10 days. So I've got to pack EVERYTHING. Plus, it took over an hour just to desnow the car and put all the things I'm taking for my parents in. I haven't really even gotten my stuff in. And I haven't done the dishes, taken out the trash, or gotten a shower either. It's going to be a long ass day. |
ase
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1:02a |
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amireal
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12:01a |
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| Friday, December 18th, 2009 |
norabombay
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9:04p |
The boo boo
Tucker is at the vet's for the holiday's. It's supremely quiet. I miss him when he's gone. That said: He's about to cost me a fortune. In December I spent about $800 doing a bunch of deferred maintainence on the car. A tune up, some repair work, and general fixes. After all, the car was seven years old, and needed work. In January, I get to spend about $800 doing a bunch of deferred maintainence on the dog. A bunch of teeth come out, a lump on the jaw gets removed, and generally, he's getting a tune up. He's 15. I suppose I should just be happy that he's not costing twice as much as the car. Last year his teeth weren't quite bad enough for a dental. This year? A hella lot of them have to go. It should vastly improve his horrid little doggie breath. And all things considered it's good, as it means he's going to be kicking about for another year or two with his new and improved mouth. Both the dog and the car need to make it through most of 2010 without costing me a fortune. |
iroshi
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9:54a |
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amireal
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10:41a |
Hmm. I wonder which is more accurate.
If I wake up around 6am, I catch a bit of local news while getting sleepy again. This is what I got: Network news: STORMWATCH!!! BLIZZARDS EVERYWHERE! STOCK UP ON CHOCOLATE AND RUN FOR YOUR LIVES. The weather channel: Eh, could be snow, but it won't be as cold! |
jacquez
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12:39a |
Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv
It took me almost a year to read Last Child in the Woods -- my mother-in-law gave it to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nlanza for Christmas last year, and I picked it up in January sometime, before switching mostly to fiction for a while. I finished it earlier tonight. It -- I have trouble articulating some of the things I think and feel about this book, partly because in areas I am bone-deep convinced of its rightness (children do better emotionally and academically if they have some unsupervised playtime in natural environments in their lives), and in others I am eye-rollingly unconvinced (dismissing atheist thought on nature by bringing up Sigmund Freud's nonsense? He is not the only atheist on record, Louv, you twit). The version we have has a useful list in the back of ways that individuals can get involved with various educational initiatives, help kids in their communities get access to nature, and so on. The first section of the checklist reads like -- well, like my childhood, actually! Thanks, parents! -- which might be why I feel so in agreement with so much of this book. |
jacquez
|
12:24a |
In the Forests of Serre, by Patricia McKillip
I found this book difficult to get into, because shortly after it begins, you are given a very vivid image: the prince's wife dying in childbirth, and their tiny baby immediately afterwards. This is in the first few pages. I was pregnant when I picked up the book, and so I very quickly put it down again. I'm glad it had -- entirely by chance -- fallen last of the McKillip books thwomp loaned me, because if it had been first I probably would not have read it, or any of the others. Instead, a few weeks later, I picked it back up again. Prince Ronan of Serre's wife and child are dead, and he's trying to kill himself in his grief -- and crosses the path of the witch Brume: part 1 of the plot is set in motion. And to top off his bad day, his father's gone and arranged a remarriage for him, to the Princess Sidonie: part 2 of the plot is set in motion. The ways in which those two threads intertwine and branch provides a frame for the madness that occurs in the forests of Serre. What I liked best about this book was the monster: its namelessness, its unspeakable and undescribable horror -- and how it plays off the named, describable, horror of Ronan's monstrous father, and the wild magic of Brume. But what drew me into the book was the Princess Sidonie: her anger, her intelligence, and her compassion. (And her lack of tolerance for bullcrap, I admit it.) |
amireal
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12:00a |
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| Thursday, December 17th, 2009 |
norabombay
|
10:46p |
Administration
I've got both Dreamwidth Codes & LJ Paid Time coupons. Hit me up if you want any. |
norabombay
|
8:21p |
Errand Running
I went to Best Buy this evening, looking for a cheap bluetooth headset. I was reminded of why I purchase all my electronics online. Than to the Mertz Apothecary, to pick up some special German body wash for a friend. What I have learned is that I am in fact allergic to any and all things that can be described as natural remedies. And now home, where I'm trying to pack for next week, using the relative warmth of the evening to load up the car. Which is why it's 8:30, I'm not dressed, and I'm checking LJ. |
mamadeb
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9:00p |
Yesterday and Today
Yesterday, I had five minutes of absolute terror and there was nothing I could do about it. I'd just stepped off the subway in Park Slope, on my way to my therapist, when jonbaker called. His father was missing. Dad is 89 years old, in reasonable physical health, except that he's very deaf. He also has no short-term memory anymore. It's not dementia. It's a result of untreated congestive heart failure (Dad never complains, you see) which left some brain damage and a series of mini-strokes. Both are under control, but the damage has been done. Yesterday, Dad decided the day was Tuesday, not Wednesday and so he had a class at their synagogue. Mom was out, so he just left. Without a coat (it was very cold in New York City) or his belt pouch. He made it to the shul, where they all immediately recognized him, and someone walked him back home. Dad assured them he had a key to the apartment. Even so, someone called the apartment to check on him. He didn't answer. Yeah. Mom refuses to turn her cellphone on when she's not using it, so she was unreachable. So they called jonbaker. He called me. Neither of us are sure why. And then he called the real estate office who manages the co-op, so he could get the number to reach the doormen, who could check on Dad. Scared the guy at that office, too. Doormen said Mom had just walked in. Jonathan called the apartment. Mom answered. Dad was there, safe and sound - he hadn't heard the phone. Jonathan called me back, of course. The whole thing took five minutes, but it felt like far longer. And, of course it became a focus of the session. They're going to have to figure something out so Mom can have the active life she needs without worrying. I think she should enlist the doormen to help out. Also, she should keep her cellphone on, darn it. An attendant would be a last resort before a rehab because, unfortunately, attendants tend to make kosher homes not kosher anymore (while I do my very best, the kashrut where I work is questionable at best.) In other news, they gave me an extra responsibility today. While I'm glad to be trusted, three hours isn't enough anymore - I have to keep Mendy stocked up, and now I have to keep things prepared for Mischa in a way that gives him a choice, as well as just cooking dinner. Also, please to not be giving me extra stuff to do TODAY at 11:30 on Thursday when I don't even know where to put Mischa's food or have containers for it that look different than Mendy's because Mischa just needs his food pureéd. He doesn't need it measured or prepared in special ways. And on Friday I have a third house, they want me to make an extra salad AND keep the boys stocked and... I still love my job, but surprise extra responsibilities are HARD for me. Change in routine is traumatic enough for me. |
| Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 |
norabombay
|
11:00p |
Presents
This year, as always, I'm not buying any actual presents. I'm giving money to Heifer International instead. (Spoiler Alert: This year it's Bees!) But I am um, giving some 'dvds' I had floating around to a friend who doesn't have high speed access at home, and thus is practically media deprived. True Blood S1 & S2 Leverage S1 & S2 Dresden Files: Full Series. And I'm feeling bad, because I just don't have the energy to deal with Farscape. Despite the well known fact that it is the greatest science fiction series of all time. And I'm not giving any Due South, on the ground that it is my pet obsession, and not everyone on earth considers Benton Fraser an appropriate Christmas gift. |
ase
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11:09p |
Hump Day Is Over
Let's take a look at the week so far: MONDAY: Fillings. TUESDAY: Pay let us never speak of that final again. WEDNESDAY: New-to-me thing takes four and a half hours, not three as planned. Broken lab equipment is broken. HR lunch presentations day one of two. THURSDAY: Second half of Wednesday's thing; HR lunch presentations day two of two. FRIDAY: Cannot come soon enough. Looking at the first half of the week, maybe there's a reason I was so on edge today. LJ is having a promotional: paid users get "$10 off a one year paid account" coupons that can only be used by unpaid journals. As blatant promotionals go, this one's pretty obvious. But if you've been on the fence, comment or PM, and I'll punt a coupon your way. Current Mood:  tired |
jacquez
|
12:20p |
seriously, what?
Some of our medical benefits are changing at the end of the year (no choice -- the company changed providers), and we got a letter telling us to call to notify the new provider of the ongoing treatment. It says, call this number between Dec 1, 2009 - Jan 31, 2010, choose option X, and you are all set. Fine. So I call. Option X does not exist. I end up at a representative, who says she can't help me, and I should call back after the new benefits kick in in January, and aren't my benefits through someone else, and I'm not listening to her and I need to call someone else entirely. I read her the letter. She tells me she can't help me and can't transfer me to someone to can. Look, health insurer, if I can't find the option the letter tells me to pick, I'm going to end up at a human. If the human cannot tell me how to find the option, AND cannot transfer me to the appropriate place, AND cannot help me herself, YOU HAVE FAILED. Also, your employee is an incompetent bitch. (I did eventually, by guessing, find the option I needed, buried in a sub-menu.) |
fairestcat
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8:05a |
I hate mornings
I have a dentist appointment at the godawful hour of 8:30am, ie. just over 20 minutes from this posting. ![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) commodorified is kind enough to a) go with me and b) bring me a big full cup of coffee while I checked my email. Which I, being sleep-clumsy, managed to knock completely over without even taking a sip. I just spend the time I should have been drinking that coffee cleaning it off the floor, the wall and the two books and small stack of cd cases that had been between the coffee and said wall. It actually managed to seep inside every single cd case. Yeah. We were taking the bus, now we're driving which makes up for the time lost during my clean-up AND means I can have a new cup of coffee and this time I plan to actually drink it. This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. Please comment there using OpenID.
reply to post. view  comments</ |
ratcreature
|
11:21a |
random rat post
Why is it that rats themselves can smell so awesome, when their pee smells just like smelly pee? Seriously, rats themselves smell very nice: If you bury your nose in their fur it is a pleasant smell, much better than most other animals I've smelled up close (admittedly mostly cats and dogs so the comparison sample is small). And yet -- they pee in their sleeping spaces where they then lie down, and they pee on each other anyway, but while I smell like gross rat pee when they inevitably mark me or my clothes, they come out smelling like roses. Well not roses, but a nice non-pee smell. I just don't get it. |
amireal
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12:04a |
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| Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 |
norabombay
|
9:51p |
A Truth Universal
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the official video of Britney Spear' "3" sucks. Alas, it is also a truth to be universally acknowledged that the "Director's Cut" version of the video also sucks. Dear Fandom, there is but one solution: Use this song for good. It's a uptempo number about having sex with three people. it's easily missing any of the annoying 'dialogue' or 'lyrics' or 'metaphor' that make some songs difficult to vid. The highlights:
1, 2, 3
Not only you and me
Got one eighty degrees
And I'm caught in between
Countin'
1, 2, 3
Peter, Paul & Mary
Gettin' down with 3P
Or of course:
Three is a charm
Two is not the same
I don't see the harm
So are you gamePlease, go forth and vid. Vid hard. Vid heavy. Vid any fandom where you can possibly EVER find a moment to hit to "Lets make 'em say my name". |
ase
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9:03p |
Baking on the Internet
So I have a recipe which calls for one egg plus one egg yolk. What can I do with one egg white? ETA: I froze it. Egg-and-a-half omelet this weekend, I guess. Current Mood:  hungry |
amireal
|
3:17p |
Today's fangirl is brought to you by...
IMMITREX. OMG. MY FAVORITE MEDICATION EVER. Doc gave it to me in shot form at the office so I could clear up the lurking migraine. Have some samples and a scrip for more for the pill based stuff. Just. IIIIIIIIMITREEEEEX. WILL YOU MARRY ME? Interesting side affect: Spaghetti Arms. |
ratcreature
|
8:13a |
it would probably be intrusive...
...but sometimes I think it would be cool if journalling sites had a function to "suggest me a new journal to read" not a random one, but a suggestion based on your current subscriptions, interests, maybe on some kind of other fuzzy, internal data-mining (the aforementioned "intrusive" part). I'm not sure how these things work, but like what Amazon does when it suggests books to you (sometimes they even suggest me interesting things, though that one is hit and miss, even though I actually tried to refine it manually) or that online music thing, Pandora?, that tries to guess what your tastes music are (that wasn't bad, though I couldn't use it for long, because eventually these location blocks happened). Anyway, something more advanced than the "popular among your friends" feature that LJ offered (offers? I can never really find that on the site anymore), and you could refine its suggestions. |
fairestcat
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1:08a |
This is all over my friendslist for a reason
LJ is full of fail yet again. As of the next code push gender will be a mandatory field in order to create a livejournal and the only available options will be "male" and "female". The current third option of "unspecified" is going to disappear. This is a direct contradiction of previous promises made by lj management. No word yet from lj on how this will effect exiting accounts and whether users who currently have unspecified chosen will be forced to choose or grandfathered in. [ETA: According to this comment it looks like the code may effect the edit profile page as well, and make it necessary to choose a gender in order to make any other profile changes.] Either way it doesn't really matter to me, the effect is the same. Users who do not fit within a strict gender binary are being told that they don't belong, that they need to either choose from a false binary or lie in order to use the site. The reason for this change is simple: it's better for advertisers. Forcing users to choose a gender provides valuable demographic data to advertisers and allows for better targeted advertising. I made my decision to cut my ties with lj long ago and this is only the latest in a long line of actions that have confirmed for me that I made the right call. My paid account just ran out and I have no intention of renewing it. I am still crossposting to lj with comments redirected to dreamwidth, and I'm still reading my lj friendslist, but really, I just want to be done with them for once and for all. I'm tired of not being surprised by each new bullshit tactic lj comes up with to further commodify their users for the benefit of advertisers. I'm tired of watching fandom bitch and complain about each new affront, but still insist on staying on lj because it's where the conversation is, or it's where all their friends are, or because change is hard. Yeah, change is hard. Being among the first in your friendsgroup/fandom/community to jump ship for a new site is hard and it's scary. Trust me, I know. But livejournal isn't going to stop selling its soul to advertisers any time soon. There's always going to be another invasive ad campaign that circumvents adblock, another stupid corporate decision that restricts or hurts users in order to benefit advertisers, more "sponsors", more broken promises. How much is going to finally be too much, how much are we as a community willing to put up with because it's easier than making a change. As always, I have plenty of Dreamwidth invites for anyone who wants them. ETA from synecdochic's post. LJ now says this was a mistake and the code was never intended to go live. I am less than convinced, honestly. In the past I would have taken them at their word, honest mistake and all that, but lj's "honest mistakes" seem to be getting closer and closer together and not all of them seem to get fixed. This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. Please comment there using OpenID.
reply to post. view  comments</ |
amireal
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12:03a |
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| Monday, December 14th, 2009 |
mamadeb
|
6:25p |
Update
Yes, I've been bad. What have I been up to the last couple of weeks? 1. I helped to revise and implement Mendy's new diet. It's a major change - he's getting twice as much protein and vegetables as well as a big boost in carbohoydrates (and corresponding increase in insulin.) He needs all of it - poor kid was starving. I got to be there while he ate lunch today. He resisted but it turned out not to be the food (he ate all of it), just that he is perfectly able to take a loaded spoon of food to his mouth with only a little help to get it started and therefore why should anyone else do it for him? Can't blame him for that. 2. I attended the agency Chanukah party, with a genuine Vegas magician, who was absolutely lovely with the individuals. I also got to meet Mendy's mom, who is a sweet and capable lady. And everyone is apparently talking about the new cook. Yay. It got rather claustrophobic there, especially after they set up a woman's side in the boy's dayroom (for the magician's performance.) I hung out in the hallway instead. And I got a ride partway home. 3. We had the synagogue Chanukah party on Saturday night, where I again hung out in the hallway, but that's because I was the gatekeeper and collected money. The party is geared towards kids, so I was perfectly happy there, so long as people fetched me soda and pizza. I also bought a lovely new necklace from Marina, who makes and sells jewelry, donating a portion of the proceeds to the shul. I get a lot of my necklaces from her. 4. We went to the family Chanukah party Sunday. This wasn't the big one, which seems to be falling apart - no one with a house big enough to host it is willing to do so. This was just us, the in-laws and jonbaker's brother and sister-in-law and their daughters. The nieces got most of the gifts, of course. In fact, they were showered with gifts from both Grandma and Grandpa, and Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Debbie. Jonathan also gave gifts to the other adults (including me. He got me a bunch of random books and he's giving them to me at random times during Chanukah. Jonathan is getting steak and latkes tonight.) Of course, being childless, we didn't get any presents ourselves. Blah. 5. I had menorah problems. I havea lovely, graceful beaded chanukiyah with small and close-together branches, but until this year I had no problems finding oil cups that fit. This year, nope. So, Friday I relied on Jonathan's lighting, Saturday, I used some old/bent candles and last night I lit at the inlaws (one menorah per family.) Today, I bought a "Saf-T-Menorah", which is an oil menorah designed to be very stable, with flat bottomed oil-cups. It's not pretty, but it works. It's what Jonathan has used for years. Aslo, it turns out that lighting under the venitian blinds all these years? Melted them. I lit in the kitchen tonight. Opposite a mezuzah, though. Today's menu - At the group home - split pea soup made with turkey necks, Chinese style chicken, brown rice. At home - prime rib, latkes, applesauce, green beans. |
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