Friday’s in my business are either calm or chaotic, never in-between. Today was both calm and chaotic, but in small bursts only, so even though I was in the office until 4:30, when I was scheduled to leave at 1:00, it wasn’t a bad day.

I nearly came to blows with an underwriter, but finally just ended the call to keep from reaching through the phone and throttling her. Strangely, she must have sensed her reprieve, because not five minutes later, she faxed over a clean approval.

I took a nap after dinner, because we had tickets to the 10:25 PM showing of The Day After Tomorrow, and I have a nasty habit of falling asleep in movies if I get bored. The nap was helpful, but I was never bored with this film – weather and natural disasters are always so compelling for me, and this had both.

The effects were awesome, the story, frighteningly plausible, and while I don’t wish to spoil anything, it must be said that I was relieved that there were no ID-4-ish plot-holes like interfacing a Mac with an alien spaceship.

I was disappointed, only, in that the rain from this morning was gone by late afternoon, because it would have made the evening perfect if I’d been able to step from the theater into cold rainy weather. (I’ve said before that I’m always slightly disoriented after weather movies, when I step outside and the weather doesn’t “match”)

Also, the popcorn didn’t have enough butter (well, okay, it’s not butter, but we call it butter so we don’t have to think about what it really is.)

I’m not a fan of animation, really, but I liked the first Shrek enough to actually consider seeing the second this weekend.

But right now, it’s almost two-thirty in the morning, and my eyes are becoming gluey.

Bed calls.

Astute readers may have noticed that my blogroll hasn’t been showing up for several days. This is because I was a day late renewing my blogrolling account, and now, even though I can create multiple NEW blogrolls, they still haven’t re-enabled the blogrolls that were disabled.

If I was previously linked to you, and no longer appear to be, please let me know.

Thanks!

Zorro is pouting.

Zorro has been pouting since last night, when we brought home pizza as part of our dinner, and then refused to give him any, until after he’d finished his dinner.

Please understand…Zorro and Cleo are not plebian dogs, forced to exist on bland kibble and water that comes from the tap. Oh no! Zorro and Cleo have hand-cut chunks of meat and bone delivered to their front door on alternate Wednesdays. A cooler full of it: chicken, pork, lamb, ostritch, turkey, and pureed vegetables and offal twice a week for roughage and essential vitamins.

So, you’d think, that given the choice between, say, pureed turkey mixed with lots of green leafy things, or dry, icky, pizza crust, he’d go for option a.

Well, you’d think that if you don’t own a dog.

But if you do, you’ll understand how frustrating it is when your eight-pound chihuahua refuses to eat his own food because he has seen the Magic Cardboard Box that the pizza lives in.

(Cleo doesn’t have as much of a taste for people-food. She never has these issues.)

You’d think that after 24 hours, Zorro would have stopped pouting about this. Especially since he ultimately received some pizza crust.

You’d be wrong.

You see, I had macaroni and cheese tonight, and my dog flips for cheese.

And I wouldn’t let him lick the dish when I was done, because that’s just…iewwww. (Also, it leads to messy ‘presents’ being left in the laundry room.)

So, he’s pouting.
He gives me that slitty-eyed look when I walk by.
And even though he’s in the room with me as I write this, he’s pointedly ignoring me, and finding endless fascination in the grooming of his toes.

And even though he’s insanely cute when he does this…

He’s not getting my chocolate chip cookie.

(No, he really isn’t. Chocolate is toxic to dogs, and one of the foods that sometimes triggers seizures in epileptic animals.)

Over the past few weeks I found myself absorbed in Bravo’s reality series, “Showbiz Moms…and Dads,” watching it even though I knew the parents would annoy me, and I’d have unquenchable urges to lecture the children. I’m almost embarrassed to admit I watched every episode, but the truth is, it was vastly entertaining.

There are message boards that do a far better job than I could, of showing the number of people who watch these things, and I was relieved to find that they, too, had the same issues I did.

I’m bringing this up because I forgot to mention it in response to this weeks Thursday Threesome, which was all about TV.

Also, I wanted to put it in writing: This show made me appreciate my own mother. Sure, she’s insane, but, in a GOOD way.

::Beginnings, Middles and Ends::

Onesome- Beginnings: Are there any television shows out there that you’ve watched regularly from the very beginning? Or for those of you not into TV, any book authors that you’ve read from the very beginning?
I don’t watch a lot of TV, and the shows I do tend to be quirky rather then trendy, at least at first. Over the last year, I’ve become addicted to The West Wing and Crossing Jordan, I can’t say that I watched Buffy from episode one, but I started watching it the summer after the first season, when they aired all the first season episodes, and then launched into season 2. I was sad to see that go, briefly, but not hugely so. I mean – it’s a television show, you know? I watched Angel from the beginning. I watched ST:TNG, DS9, and Voyager from the beginning, and Enterprise, but I stopped watching the last.

Twosome- Middles: What about shows that you came into in the middle of the season but immediately grabbed your attention and turned you into a die-hard fan? Again, for non-TV fans, have you ever begun reading a series of books in the middle and then just had to read everything else in the series?

See above: The West Wing, Crossing Jordan, and Monk are three of them.

Threesome- And Ends: Recently, a number of big name shows have ended, Friends, Fraiser, The Drew Carey Show, and the cult hit, Angel. Did you watch any of the big finales? Have you ever been really sad to see a show go? Ok, readers, here’s one for you. Have you ever read the end of a book first? Why? ;)

I watched the last ep of Friends, more by accident than by choice. I wasn’t feeling well, and I didn’t want to watch anything dark or violent…that was the only choice. I watched the last ep of Angel, intentionally. LOVED the last line. The only show I really really wish had stayed on longer was Forever Knight. But it’s still just tv.

I’ve ignored the reading questions, as the series I’ve read are way too numerous to list in terms of when I found them. And no, I never read the end first. That would be cheating.

* * *
Like this meme?
Play along here.

Mena at Six Apart has asked people to write “non-emotional posts” about how they use Movable Type, and send a trackback ping to a post on that site. Technically, I suppose that makes this a meme.

I’m a self-proclaimed domain slut. Across four domains, I have three weblogs (although, I tend to write journal entries, not blog entries), on this site (Uber-Caffeinated, my main journal, a fiction journal, a photoblog), I have my bookblog on another site, I maintain a journal site for my mother, and I maintain a collaborative journal with four or five friends. I also maintain the MT installation for a friend, though I don’t own his site. So if you add up all the authors, there are at least twelve, and while I noted that in MT terms “weblog” = “instance of MT used to create one site, even if it’s from multiple subblogs” and not “individual blog” (so the three journals on MissMeliss.com could count as one if I merged them into one output page, because they’re all running on ONE instance of MT), there are still more than the max number of blogs.

Still, I’ve paid for the smallest personal use license, and have migrated the collab and one of my other sites to WordPress, which I don’t like as well, though I think it has some spiffy features (post by email).

The thing is, I LIKE MT. I find it intuitive, and not too techy unless one wishes it to be.

Friday afternoon at work I spoke to someone who had a rather unique first name, spelled in a truly original fashion. Jyneice (which I would have spelled G-i-n-i-s-e) and I broke from our regular conversation to chat about the fact that she didn’t like her name, and I told her I never liked mine.

Sunday night, I was mulling this over, and I wrote the following, longhand, because being at the computer was bothering my eyes.
Continue reading →

So, I’ve upgraded to MT-3.0. So far, I like the interfac – it’s a bit different, but, I can’t afford a six-author license right now, so ETC may have to go away, or be reconfigured or something.

Apologies to LJers if the RSS feeds get mangled. It’s not intentional.

Bed now.

::Fax Cover Sheets::

Onesome: Fax– Do you have access to or use a fax machine at home? Just curious…
I have eFax, and a regular fax machine, because I work from home early in the morning, or late at night, sometimes.

Twosome: Cover– Hey, summer’s coming! What type of cover up do you use when you’re out in the sun? SPF4000? Sun clothes? A hat? “What sun; I live in a cave?”

A basic SPF between and 25 for everything except my face. My face lotion (for daytime) is Aveda’s tourmaline-charged lotion. It’s non-greasy and works under base, and of course their base makeup has SPF built-in. Admittedly, however, I’m bad about remembering to wear the sunscreen.

Threesome: Sheets– 120 count or 180? (Okay guys, you’re exempt , but you could ask someone who knows!)
180. Lovely, soft, cotton, that, once washed, feels like an old t-shirt, without being at all nubby (I hate it when sheets get nubby or pilly – people who also hate this will understand.).

Like this meme? Play along here.

I’ve been having stress headaches that are translating into a feeling not unlike having daggers shoved through my eyes, and I can feel myself getting crabby and squinty when it happens. They’re exacerbated by sinus issues, but those, at least are mitigated by the effective, if unattractive, method of tracing the path of my sinus passages with Ben-Gay, or any other menthol based ointment (um, the skin on the forehead over the sinuses, not the ACTUAL passages.)

I’ve also learned some things this week, which aren’t particularly exciting, but in lieu of actual content, they’re what I’m offering.

1) It’s a really bad idea to tune a cello with the pegs without loosening the tension on the fine tuner first. I’ve broken my C-string, and even though my current strings are medium-grade (D’Addario Helicores, if you must know) a single replacement will cost $35-ish (though I’m told that certain online places, at least, give free shipping if you spend at least $35.)

2) I’m better at drinking water when I have a house full of sports bottles to pick up and carry around, this despite the fact that we only have them, right now, because Arrowhead left extra water in this week’s delivery because we’re getting a new delivery schedule AGAIN, and they were concerned we’d run out…no idea why they’re in little bottles. But hey, it makes me drink more water.

3) I’m sick to death of teriyaki. I made chicken teriyaki the other night because Fuzzy brought home chicken breast tenders, instead of actual chicken breasts, and I was too far into prep to figure something else out. So, into the frying pan-cum-wok they went, along with a bunch of veggies and some Island Teriyaki sauce. Fuzzy liked it. I’m teriyaki’d out.

4) I really want to trade my Stringworks 4/4 Virtuoso Cello in for a Stringworks 7/8 Soloist Cello. The smaller size is a better fit for my teeny hands, and the step up in line should mitigate the smaller tone from a “lady’s” cello. Anyway, I’m just a hobbyist. But, the trade will cost $5-800 and I can’t really justify that right now.

In other news, I’ve been cooking a lot this week. I don’t really LIKE wrapper-food, and we need to eat more veggies. So this week I’ve made a pasta primavera torta, the afore-mentioned teriyaki chicken, and tonight, linguini marinara and caesar salad. Fuzzy’s been helping in the kitchen more, but he still interprets “clean up” as “bring everything to the kitchen” not “do the dishes.”

Organic strawberries do not make my lips itch OR give me allergy attacks.

I miss blue fish.

And I’ve run out of things to write about tonight.