Crazy Meggie Plays with Electricity!

A couple of weeks ago I began what I like to call The Saga of the Ceiling Fan Light, or, It All Began With a Light Bulb.... (cause, of course, I should've been a Victorian writer. Or a Hobbit writer.)

Anyway, the kids and I came home one night, and as I switched on the light in the living room, it immediately blew. I pulled out the step stool (9 foot ceilings are great, except when you have a 5 foot body and need to change a light bulb), and went to unscrew the old bulb. It immediately broke off in my hand.

After cursing (silently, of course), I went outside and turned off the power at the breaker box, then got my needle nose pliers and set to work trying to get the metal base out of the fixture. Thirty minutes or so later, I finally had it out, albeit twisted, maimed and in several pieces. I screwed in the new light bulb, turned the breaker switch back on, came in, flipped on the light..... and nothing. Sigh.

I flipped the breaker back off, unscrewed the bulb, poked around a little more, and finally discovered a green wire that wasn't connected to anything. I was pretty sure that was NOT a good thing, but equally sure that there wasn't anything I could do about it at that moment, so I ordered a pizza and called it a night.

The next day I went to Lowe's, and found a cheap light kit for ceiling fans that was pretty much identical to what I'd had on the fan (a style I like to call Early American Contractor Ugly), so I bought it. Over the weekend, I tried to install it, mistakenly starting an hour before I had to be somewhere else (big mistake). I unscrewed the old light fixture, and started pulling out the wires, waiting to see the splice where they attached to the fan wires. And waiting...and pulling...and waiting...and pulling...till finally the end of the wires (without a splice) came out.

Sigh.

I couldn't see much (dang 5 foot body again) so again I recognized (after cursing) that there wasn't much I could do at the moment, so I left it, and finally got back to it today. I was much better prepared this time, though: I brought in my mini-scaffold (best $80 I ever spent) which gives me a solid foot or two more height than my step stool, plus providing a nice little platform to stand on. With the added height, I was able to get the wiring nonsense straightened out, add on my light fixture, and Voila, I now have a well-lit living room again.

Flushed with my success, and sense my scaffold was already inside, I decided to replace the entry-way light fixture. Again, this is one of the cheap-o fixtures that came with the house, and I've had a replacement fixture for awhile now, but just hadn't gotten around to putting it up. I figured hey, it can't be THAT different from the ceiling fan light kit!

Oh, how wrong I was.

Actually, the vast majority of it really wasn't bad at all -- match up the wires, twist them together, twist together the two copper grounding wires, and all should be good...

...except you have to attach the wretched fixture to the ceiling (flush mount, of course), and the b*****ds who design these stupid things cut MASSIVE corners on the hardware. So, after messing with the stinking fixture for, oh, about two hours, I realized that the screws they wanted me to use to attach the fixture weren't long enough. So I used the screws that were actually meant to attach the mounting bracket to the box, since they were a little longer. I spent another hour trying to make THOSE screws work, cursing more and more with each passing moment. Part of the issue was the screws were not firmly attached anywhere (by design), so every time I tried to slip the fixture over the screws, they just mushed up into the bracket.

Finally about three or more hours after I started, I grabbed the screw that was closest to working, and headed off to the hardware store. Which, of course, was closed. So I went across town to the other hardware store, and about 10 minutes before they closed found a screw that I thought would help. I came home, totally faked the attachment process (only used one screw instead of two, but it's firmly attached rather than the "floating" one that the nincompoops wanted me to use, and so on), and finally, have a beautiful new fixture in my entryway.

But here's my question -- when I was a kid, I used to like to do models -- cars, boats, planes, Estes rockets, whatever. Regardless of they type, they were very, VERY clear on the level of difficulty of each model, so if you were a beginner, you didn't get in over your head.

Now, then, what are DIY projects but models for big people? Why the heck can't we have a level of difficulty on the outside of the boxes so that we can see and plan accordingly? Not that it would prevent us from getting in over our heads, but we might at least not undertake a much more difficult project if it's already after lunch!!!

My third project for the day had to get put off. But, it's plumbing, not electricity (replacing the innards of my toilet), and this will be my third take, so it shouldn't take me too long tomorrow.

Dusty and Dazzle

Dusty has figured out how to get around the nasty (to a cat) orange smell I put on Dazzle's cage -- a sneak attack from the rear!

Who thought this was a good idea????

Kathy is having a New Year's Day open house, so I volunteered to keep her cats, Jack and Dusty, so that she wouldn't have to shut them up for the next 3 days.

She'd have to shut them up for 3 days for a 3 hour party because these cats are not normal cats. They're velociraptors. Truly. They can destroy a room in less than 10 minutes, and a house in under an hour. Kathy has had no indoor decorations this holiday season because every time she tried to put something out, the cats attacked it. They climbed the greenery she tried to drape over the door. They pulled down the tree (fake). She didn't even wrap any presents till late, because the cats would've attacked them. Oh, and she kept the presents that she DID wrap in the bathroom so the cats couldn't get them.

So, for her to have a party on Tuesday, she has to get them our of the house by Sunday; that gives her time to clean, decorate, etc without the velociraptors in the way. Since the kids love them, and are constantly asking when WE can get kittens, I'm happy to kittie sit periodically.

The last time I kittie-sat, they were much smaller, and I kept them in the playroom the whole time (we didn't trust them to not fling themselves off the balcony. This time, though, they're very big: probably 8-10 pounds each, and LONG. So we decided they'd be better off having the run of the house this time.

So Kathy brought them over today, and they had a grand old time for about a half an hour running around, looking out all the windows, sniffing at everything, and generally making nuisances off themselves.

And then Jack found Dazzle.

So who the heck thought it would be a good idea to bring two half-feral cats into a house with a rodent in the kitchen????

So far they've just looked at each other. Dazzle doesn't seem fazed at all; I guess it pays to have a brain the size of a peanut. Jack is the most interested in figuring out exactly what Dazzle is, how he (Jack) can get into the cage, and if he (Dazzle) would be delicious. Dusty, though, is certainly interested; just not fixated.

I managed to keep Jack away for a bit; I had a clementine and rubbed the peel on the base of Dazzle's cage. The next time Jack tried to look in, he got a horrible look on his face and got down quickly. Which only goes to prove that I do NOT have a brain the size of a peanut!

More updates later......

At the game

Every year I take Peter to a Charlotte Bobcats game over Christmas break. Both last year and this year, we invited his friend Blake to come along. Last year Blake, Peter and I took the train from Burlington to Charlotte, but this year we drove down with Grace, and stayed at my friend Cindi's house (who I've now known for 22 years, more than HALF my life....).

Grace was going to go to the game with us this year, but at the last minute found the lure of time alone with Griffin and Marshall (who usually gravitate towards Peter) and the Cook's Wii to be too much, so she stayed with the Cooks while Peter and Blake and I went to the game.

Sadly, the Bobcats lost, but as they've lost all three games we've been to, we're kinda used to it. Either that or we're really bad luck, and eventually they'll stop selling me tickets. We still had fun, though; the boys got to see the big Rufus Blimp, which is always fun.

The promotion was a Bobcats knit cap; it was sponsered by Bud Light, so technically you could only get one if you were over 21. They gave me four hats, though, so Peter and Black got a chance to mug for the camera with their new hats...

...crazy boys

Happy Birthday, Blog!

According to NPR (my main source of information, so they must be right. Or, correct, because as we all know they're a bunch of left-wing liberal commies!) the term "weblog" has been in use for 10 years as of this December. And Wikipedia confirms this. If it's on NPR AND the internet, then it must be true!

To be fair, the term Blog didn't come into use for another couple of years, so my title is a little off. Oh, well.

So Happy Birthday Weblogs, and Happy Blogging!

A Feast for the Soul?

Tonight my Dad, Kathy, Adrianne and I travelled to Winston-Salem to a "real" Moravian Lovefeast in the Home Moravian Church in Old Salem (no, not Love Fest -- that would be something else entirely, and probably not done in a reputable Church).

The notion of a Lovefeast began in the Moravian Church in the 1700's, simulating early Christian meetings which usually included a meal. I suppose if the Romans AND the Jews are both trying to expunge you from the earth, or at least nail you to a tree or toss you to the lions, sharing a meal makes for a good cover. "Honest, we were just having dinner! There's no secret meeting!! See the plates????"

Anyway, the Moravian church began celbrating Lovefeasts in the 1700's with a church service including a simple meal. A Christmas Lovefeast typically includes a candle ceremony as well.

My own church (Methodist, not Moravian) does a Lovefeast each year in December, and it was a little gratifying to see that our Lovefeast was nearly the same as a "real" Lovefeast. The differences were subtle, and mainly in hymn choice and when the candles were lit.

The meal in a Lovefeast is usually a sweet bun (for some reason they always look like uncut hamburger bun), and a cup of coffee. I'm not sure why that is, but that's what we eat. The coffee is pre-sweetened and creamed; it's quite tasty, even for me who NEVER uses cream or sugar!

The service got me thinking about theology a bit, though. We hear of "mega" churches, and contemporary churches, who try different services to encourage more people to come to church. Some of these include having a "coffee house" style service, taking Bible Study out for dinner, etc.

Many people who attend "traditional" churches are wary of these non-traditional services, but it strikes me that they're simply doing what some of the early Christians did; thinking and talking about their faith wherever they happen to be. And, in fact, the Lovefeast, which has existed for over 200 years, essentially serves a latte and a scone (not quite, but similar enough for my purposes....), and yet it's treated with reverence and is a much-loved tradition. Go figure.

(DISCLAIMER: For the record, I do attend a traditional church, and like it! But sometimes I think it's silly that we spend so much time worrying about How we worship rather than Why.)

Two Gross!

Just in case you ever wondered what 30 dozen (approximately) cookies look like, here they are:

And yes, I know that a gross is 12 dozen, but "Two and a Half Gross" just wasn't funny.

I'm done! YAY!!!!

Baking Day, part Two

Finally last night around 7 pm, I left my house after my all-day bake-fest to go out with Kathy to get a bite of dinner. We ran a couple of other errands, had the SLOWEST cashier EVER at Lowes (I used cash, figuring the register will tell her my change. My total was 12.78, I gave her a 20, so change was 7.22. She looked at the register, looked at the cash drawer, looked back at the register, pulled out a five, thought a moment, pulled out two ones, looked BACK at the register, looked back at the cash drawer, pulled out two dimes, hovered over the nickels, then finally grabbed my two pennies. Sheesh.), got a car seat from Adrianne (long story, but Grace's booster seat from my car walked away from a Children's Choir party. I suspect a pre-schooler who thought it was theirs!), and eventually made it home by 9:30 or so.

I was debating between making my Whiskey Balls and decorating my rolled cookies, and had about decided to go with the Whiskey Balls, when what to my wondering eyes did NOT appear but powdered sugar!! I had NO powdered sugar in my pantry! I felt a bit like the Lowe's cashier... I looked in the pantry, it wasn't there, I wandered into the kitchen, went back to the pantry, and it STILL wasn't there. Lather, rinse, repeat! I was absolutely discombobulated by this.

For those who think I'm just nuts, let me explain. I enjoy cooking, but I LOVE to bake. My ex-MIL once teased me that she looked for 30 minutes to find a large, covered skillet (don't have one), but in that 30 minutes she found a half dozen different cake pans (including one that looks like a football stadium) and multiple cookie sheets, muffin tins, cookie cutters, etc. So I pretty much always have the baking staples on hand, and usually know when I'm getting low and get extras so that I never run out. Plus, with things like butter, which will freeze, I'll buy when the store has a good deal and stock up, because I'll use it all eventually (before this baking spree I had 6, repeat SIX, pounds of butter in various places in my fridge/freezer).

So for me to be absolutely, positively OUT of something is just wrong! This doesn't happen to me!

Since the Whiskey Balls were on hold, I decided to decorate my rolled cookies (Santas, stockings, reindeer and angels. The angels are all named Harald!) Now, as much as I love to bake, I feel no need to make icing from scratch, so I always buy the tubes and put decorating tips on them. Well, I did that last night with my red tube, and started to decorate my stockings. It was had to get the icing to come out, which is not unusual; they frequently need some "working". So I squeezed and squeezed... and suddenly had red icing all over my hands. The stupid tube split! I transferred the icing to a sandwich baggie, cut a hole in one corner, and proceeded to try to use that, and IT split open, too!

OK, what is up with this!!!! I should NOT be prone to bad baking karma! I bake well! From scratch, no less! And I give my cookies away!! I'm a NICE baker (and a pretty good one, too)!

I finally thinned the wretched icing with some warm water, found an unused paintbrush upstairs in the playroom, and painted my cookies. It was fun, and they look cool, but I was up till midnight.

Now for the Whiskey Balls -- wonder what will happen with THEM!?!?!?

All Cookied Out

Today was Baking Day. It's also Saturday, so I think it actually corresponds to the ditty in the Little House Books (Wash on Monday, Iron on Tuesday, Mend on Wednesday, Churn on Thursday, Clean on Friday, Bake on Saturday, Rest on Sunday). Don't ask me why I remember that.....

Anyway, so today was the day I'd set aside to do all my Christmas baking. I didn't get up quite as early as I'd thought (oh, well!), and I had to run to the store a couple of times, but now, 11 hours, 4 pounds of butter, a dozen egg, and innumerable cups of flour and sugar later, I'm done. Well, almost. I still have to decorate my rolled cookies, and I might make Whiskey Balls after dinner.

End result?

• 4 dozen red sugar cookies
• 4 dozen green sugar cookies
• 6 dozen rolled cookies, cut into shapes (Angels, Santas, Reindeers, and Stockings)
• 6 dozen molasses cookies
• 6 dozen peanut butter kiss cookies (PB cookies with a Hershey's kiss in the middle)

That's a crazy amount of cookies. My kitchen is a wreck and I have cookies on EVERY flat surface!

But, it's fun, and I give them as gifts.

Withdrawal...

Wow, a week without a post. Wonder how that happened.....

Well, last weekend I went to see my Dad (with Kathy, Peter and Grace). Grace had a sleepover with Granddaddy, Peter and I came home. Saturday morning Peter had a basketball game, then he and I went to the mall so he could do his Christmas shopping. Then I went to Raleigh to see the Raleigh ringers, then home, then church on Sunday, then the Lovefeast Sunday evening (more bells), then work and school Monday, then Peter had a hurt foot on Tuesday, Christmas shopping with G on Monday, my ceiling fan broke on Wednesday, and wrapping Christmas presents last night.

Whew!

I'll try to do better....

Life With Grace

Last night after Grace went to bed Peter and I were watching "Don't Forget the Lyrics", one of my favorite shows. The host is Wayne Brady, who is hysterical, and I get to sing along to tons of great songs! The only downside is Peter keeps telling me to hush, but I ignore him.

Apparently we were being loud and keeping Grace awake. Grace, I'm sure, will someday keep a blog, because when she gets angry she writes notes. More specifically, she writes notes to ME, makes them into paper airplanes, then flies them downstairs.

Where I typically discover them anywhere from 24 hours to two weeks later.

OK, so it's not a particularly efficient means of communication, but it's funny!

This morning I found an airplane with this message: "I can hear you. I can't sleep. I'm MAD!"

Grumpy Grump Grump Grump!

It's not 12:16 EST, and I've crammed about 37 hours of personal and professional angst into 4 hours. I don't like this day.

But, I have a B'loney sandwich for my lunch, and that's yummy!

Yay, me!

One of my goals is to get back into running. What with my schedule (ok, my kids' schedule), it's been tough finding time to run -- they're not old enough (IMO) to be left alone, even for the 30 minutes or so I need.

Once Grace's baseball was over, though, I realized I had two nights a week that I could potentially run. Tuesdays, when the kids are with their Dad, and Thursdays, when the kids are at choir practice (yay for choir!).

So I got into that schedule, and was doing OK...but then I got sick.

Now you have to realize, I have two kinds of sick. I either get a cold that I fight through for a week or so and doesn't really slow me down, or I get a cold that turns into a sinus infection if I'm lucky, and some sort of hideous bronchial nightmare if I'm unlucky.

Well, this fall it was the hideous bronchial nightmare. I was laid out for a solid three weeks. Blech. No fun. Plus, it was right after I got myself into the habit of running, but not at the point where I was truly back in shape.

So, this Saturday I decided I'd go run again, and try AGAIN to get back into the habit. I managed about two miles, and walked a third (my normal run is about 3.25 miles), and was pretty happy with myself.

But today was the test. Would I actually get my lazy body, after a full day of work, into my running clothes and out the door?

I DID!!!! YAY, ME!!!!! Plus, I ran the entire route, and did it in about 41 minutes. Not world record pace, but not to shabby for an old lady! And an old out of shape lady at that!

Silly Web Sites

Some people want to fill the world with silly web sites. What's wrong with that, I'd like to know......

Yeah, anyway.

My son's Grammie sent him a cute little e-card with a singing Ground Hog. He showed it to me, and in my typical cynical-Mom mode I asked when the big foot was going to come out and stomp him.

That, of course, reminded me of one of my favorite animations

Which reminded me of these guys, who are much funnier here than they were on the Quiznos ad.

Oh, the things people can post when they have too much time on their hands.....

Ugh

I won't go into too much detail, but I had a nasty little.....stomach disturbance last night. Something I ate obviously didn't agree with me; luckily it didn't last long but it was no fun while it did.

It was incredibly poor timing, though, as I'm currently reading The Ghost Map, which is a look at a cholera outbreak in London in the 1800's. Really interesting book, but I spent my 30 minutes of hell last night not only feeling cruddy, but worrying that I was going to die within 24 hours!

Reunion Night

I am bad at reunions. I've been out of high school long enough to have had the opportunity to go to two "major" reunions, and blew them both off. Even worse, my high school has started having multi-year reunions, so I could go ANY August, and I still blow them off.

Why? I don't know. It's not that I don't want to see people. It's not that I'm not curious what they're up to. It's not even that I worry about how I've aged relative to anyone else, or if my life stacks up well. I've figured out at age forty that anyone can look good, we all look lousy at some point (usually upon waking), and everyone's life has it's ups and downs. So I guess I can only chalk it up to sheer laziness.

But now an old friend from high school is organizing a "supper club" for alums who live in either the Triange (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) or the Triad (Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point). The theory is that we'll get together every three or four months at a restaurant, alternating between the Triangle and the Triad, very casual, whoever can make it makes it.

The first one was last night, and given that the restaurant was about 15 minutes from my house, AND my friend was emailing me every day or two reminding me, AND she was threatening to come and drag me by my hair, I went.

It was a blast! We wound up with about a dozen or so people (some were spouses and at least one was a kid). The first folks showed up about 6, and I think the last finally left around 11. The thing that struck me was that there were 4 or 5 classes represented, ranging over 7 or 8 years, yet there was no "clumping" together by class -- we all hung out, talked, and caught up. Of course it helps that I went to a very small, k-12 school, so the guys that were basketball stars in '79 were quietly being idolized by those of us who were still in elementary school! And, of course, younger and older siblings help bridge the gap, as well.

So, I've stuck my toes into "reunion water". Given my reactions to blogging and facebook, I hope this isn't another adiction..... ;-)

Boooo, CVS!!!!

I had some pictures on my computer that I wanted hard copies of, so I decided to use a local drugstore (DVS) to print the pictures.

I've printed pictures online before at WalMart and Target, and have always been fairly happy with them. My Christmas Cards this year were actually printed at Target; they were quick and cheap. So why did I go with a different store? Well, because CVS is 5 minutes from my houes, and Target is 20.

So, on Wednesday I uploaded the photos, selected the prints I wanted, and ordered them. And that's when the nightmare started......

First, because my order total wasn't 5.00 they tacked on an extra $1.50. OK, not such a big deal, but it would've been nice if they'd told me that up front.

Second, they decided it would take them 1 or 2 days to print my photos, and they didn't tell me THAT till after I ordered, either. Now, this is harder to accept. These were digital pictures, for heavens sake. There's no processing here. Just open the file and print it! It should take about 10 seconds......NOT 2 days. But, OK, whatever. I hadn't gotten furious yet.....

So this morning I get an email from CVS saying that my order had shipped. What? I think. Shipped? What the heck are they shipping to me?

Turns out that when you select a store where you want to pick up your prints, that does NOT mean that's the store that processes the order! Oh, no!!!! The photos are printed at some undisclosed location, and SHIPPED to the store where you want to pick them up, which takes ANOTHER TWO DAYS!!!!!

And just to reiterate..... these were digital pictures. Files, in fact. Could be emailed anywhere. Oh, and every CVS store has a photo processing center, where you can bring disks, cds, memory cards, etc to print your digital photos.

SO WHY THE HELL DON'T THEY JUST EMAIL MY FILES TO MY LOCAL STORE AND PRINT THEM THERE?!?!?!?!?!?!

Needless to say, I was a bit irked. I sent a nasty-gram to CVS telling them their digital photo services are abominable, cancelled my order, and about 2:40 pm placed it with the Target store that's near work.

I asked for them to be done in 2 hours. I got the order confirmation at 2:41 pm EST. I got the "Your order is ready" email at 2:50 pm, EST. Target, obviously, gets it.

I'm never using CVS again!

If it Doesn't Look Right....

It probably isn't.

Every year a week or two before winter break, the kids' Spanish teacher always has a little celebration in class and gets parents to send in goodies. The kids always volunteer me to make cookies. That's OK because, A. I love to make cookies, B. They always want me to make no-bake chocolate-peanut butter-oatmeal, and C. I only have to make about a half a dozen.

Earlier this week Grace came home telling me the Senor Pablo wanted the cookies on Friday (Peter needs his on Monday). So, I set out to make them tonight.

Now, these are the EASIEST cookies in the world to make. They're nearly as easy as slice and bake cookies. They are E-A-S-Y, easy. All you do is bring butter, sugar, milk, and cocoa in a saucepan to a boil, boil for a minute, take it off the heat and add peanut butter, then mix in some quick oats. Mix it up, spoon them out into clumps, and they harden. Piece of cake.

So I get everything boiling, mixed it all up.....and it just didn't look right. It wasn't dark enough. So I glanced back at the recipe, and noticed that it clearly called for 4 TABLESPOONS of cocoa, and I'd put in 4 TEASPOONS. I tasted them, hoping against hope that using half the chocolate wouldn't make that much difference. Uh, yeah, right. Chocolate? There's no such thing as too much, but there's definitely such a thing as too little.

Well, there wasn't much I could do at the moment, as Grace was in the shower, so I quickly threw another 4 teaspoons of cocoa in and mixed it all up. I figured I'd let them set, and if they were lousy I'd drag the kids off to the store to get more oats and peanut butter, and make a second batch after they went to bed.

Luckily, though, the quick thinking saved the day. They weren't the best I've ever made, but they were OK, and they got the Grace and Peter seal of approval.

I'm the Cool Mom!

Parenting, particularly motherhood, is cyclical. When your children are infants, you are THE most important person in the world to them. Understandable, since they associate you with food, safety, warmth, and all that other good stuff. As they get older, you begin to move into a more, shall we say, minor role. They still love you and all, but at some point they figure out that you are not the be-all and end-all of the universe. And then, of course, you move even further away from the blinding center of coolness, and become Just Mom.

But periodically you can remind them that yes, while Just Mom, you are pretty darn good in your own right. With Peter I can do this by asking him how many other Moms can throw a spiral, teach him to field a double play, and shoot a hook shot.

My momen of glory with Grace came last night at Peter's basketball practice. Yesterday was her library day at school, and she came home with two books, one on constellations, and one on Understanding the World Wide Web (I kid you not...).

She thought she'd be cute and show off how much she knew, so she started quizzing me:

Grace: "Mom, what does W W W mean?" (as she hides the title of the book)
Me: "world wide web" (shock and amazement from Grace)
Me: "Grace, you do know what I do at work, right?"
Grace: "Well, yeah....."

Furious flipping of pages as she tries to stump me.....

Grace: "OK, fill in the blank. 'Some web pages have lots of pictures, or graphics. Others don't, and may use a type of computer code called ____________"
Me: "HTML" (more shock and amazement)
Me: "And it stands for Hyptertext Markup Language" (major shock and amazement)

More flipping of pages......

Grace: "Web pages have 'addresses' made up of words and letters..."
Me: "A URL" (OK, I was showing off at this point, but it worked!)

By the time we made it through the end of the book, I had answered a couple of other questions involving HTTP and tags, and Grace and I even talked about well-formed HTML tags. By the end of it, her comment was "Wow, you really know this stuff!"

It's good to be cool!

Ahhhh, that's better

This was one of those mornings where suddenly, for about 15 minutes, the world turned inside out and everything right was wrong again!

I got out of the house later than I'd wanted, and had barely gone a mile before I hit the Chapel Hill 8:00 am traffic jam. Now, Chapel Hill doesn't have traffic issues the way some urban areas do. But at 8:00 am, if you're trying to get to the hospital, on to campus, or driving by either, you're just going to have to wait.

Typically this isn't an issue; I know if I leave home later than 7:45 I'm going to sit, so I make sure I have coffee and music, and I did that today as well (Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses). But, as I was sitting in traffic I realized that the clothing traumas I'd suffered while getting ready caused me to rub all the hairspray out of my hair, so my hair was flopping in my eyes. The same clothing trauma (or something) had left fuzz in my right eye. My coffee was getting cold. And traffic STILL wasn't moving.

Finally, though, traffic picked up, and I made it to work. I took care of the fuzz in my eye, and found some hairspray to get my hair back on my head, not in my face. And, I took a jaunt to the Cafe to get hot coffee (and a muffin!).

All is much better now!

Yes, I'm a Grumpy Geek

Or a Geeky Grump. Take your pick.

Sometime in the last few months, UNC must've changed something in their listserv or email properties to make it easy for people to send what are essentially SPAM to the University community. Because I have a UNC email account (I assume) I've gotten caught up in a lot of these mass broadcasts. Sometimes it's something useful, like about traffic flow during construction, but mostly it's stuff I don't care about. I have no problem deleting emails that don't relate to me, though, so I've just been deleting and ignoring.

But yesterday I got one announcing a local restaurant was donating some portion of it's beer sales to the Children's Hospital. Ok, no biggie -- I'm all in favor of beer, charities, and the Children's Hospital. I wasn't planning on having a beer, but, again, I have no problem deleting and ignoring.

But apparently there are those in the University Community who can't delete. Or ignore. Or something. And, sadly, these people feel compelled to reply to the email to vent their spleens (don't they know they should blog about it?!?!?), either not realizing or not caring that by sending mail back to the list server....they send it back to the list.

So, I got the initial email, then got, I kid you not, a half dozen replies in about 3minutes. One was a "Whoo, hoo, let's drink beer at work" comment, but the rest were all "Please remove me from your list" emails. One was even sent with High importance!

So here's why this bugs me so much:

1. It's the 21st century, people. Listservs aren't new technology. How to subscribe, post, and unsubscribe should be part of the basic training for any email user.
2. If a mailing list is purely for administrative purposes (as these all are), the admin should make sure it doesn't accept posts.
3. Even if someone weren't aware that replying would send an email to everyone on the list initially, they should be after the first reply. STOP sending more emails!! You people are like lemmings jumping off the cliff!

Now, yes, I think too much about this stuff. But honestly, people, is this that hard?

The Perils of Baking

I love to bake, and I'm decently good at it. If I ever throw away my career to "start fresh", my fantasy is to go to the CIA to learn to be a pastry chef.

But based on last night, I'm wondering if it's perhaps more perilous than I realize.

I had some seriously over-ripe bananas in my house, so I decided to make banana bread last night. My recipe for banana bread, for whatever reason, lives only on epicurious.com, so I had to use my computer to get to it. My wireless card was being cranky last night, and refused to see my router when my laptop was on the kitchen table, so I had to put it on the kitchen island.

Now, I'm not the neatest of bakers, but I'm not a slob, either. To some extent you CAN'T be a neat baker -- any time you combine liquids, powders and beaters, there's going to be a mess. But last night I must've just not been paying attention at all: this morning I realized I had batter on my shoes, on my counter (and I'd wiped it down!), and on my laptop! And there was still flour on my laptop, too!

I'm going to have to get one of those plastic covers like they put on keyboards in elementary schools......

A Bad Day?

OK, I whine. I whine a lot. I like to whine, and I'm good at it. And, yes, when I read about people who have seriously horrible lives, I feel guilty about said whining.

But occasionally someone's normal, day-to-day life will jar me out of my whining.

Yesterday we had an extra handbell rehearsal at 10:30 am at the church. Our director, who is also the organist and choir director, is typically a very even tempered man; but he was a bit out of sorts yesterday, and he finally explained why. He was woken up at 7am by an old college friend who was down in the dumps and wanted to talk; he wound up snapping at his friend and then felt guilty, and then when he got to work, the window to his office was broken, and a homeless man was sleeping on the couch.

Now, I personally would, A. freak out completely, B. call the police, and C. never go into my office without an escort again. Granted, I can be a wimp, but still.

Tim, on the other hand, woke the guy up, told him he couldn't sleep on the couch, and got him some bandages since he'd cut himself climbing in the open window.

OK, I know this man is a minister (of music, but still). But OMG. And he could joke about it just a few hours later, and claimed that the homeless man wasn't that bad because he helped clean up the mess.