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MissMelisshttp://www.missmeliss.com

WORD-y

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The fact that both of us now have shiny new Vista-running laptops meant that we needed new Office software. Well, Fuzzy NEEDED it, I was doing fine with Office XP. I mean, it’s friendly, and comfortable like an old pair of sneakers or blue jeans that faded from wear and not some designer’s vision.

But I’m all about the shiny. We looked at the prices of the seventeen million versions of Office currently on sale (for those values of seventeen million roughly equal to four) and determined that a) we’re cheap, sometimes; b) we pretty much only use Word and Excel; c)We only needed to install software on three machines; and d) we were kinda curious about what OneNote was. We therefore decided that $150 (rounding) for the Home/Student version, which is licensed for three machines, was perfect.

(As an aside, I’ve been running XP in Crossover on my MacBook, because NeoOffice just isn’t pretty enough for me, and it works fine, but I can’t access my network drives from within Word within Crossover, so I splurged and ordered the Mac version of Home/Student last night.)

I’ve been using the new version of Word for about a week now, and…I’m not sure I like it. It seems that whoever designed Vista and Office 2007 sat down and said, “Let’s make software that is as UN-intuitive as possible, charge more for it, and call it an improvement.”

In order to get a simple word count, something I need on almost every piece I write for work, you have to go through seventy thousand (or three) levels of menus. Also, I cannot find the UNDO option. UNDO was totally my best friend in previous incarnations of Word.

Unrelated: don’t you live my universe where 17 million = 4 but 70,000 = 3?

Peeking

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We just got back from our tour of the neighborhood, in which Zorro marked every tree and Miss Cleo, in her unerring clumsiness, managed to tromp through every fire ant mound in the mile-circuit we generally take. This was the shorter of our two mid-length routes: around the corner, through the park, across the street, around another corner, and down the long block home. I’m not sure what messages the dogs got this morning, but I noticed a few things:

  • – The neighbors who share our back fence, and thus face the park, were in their driveway (all four of them) staring at their SUV and their boat, as if there was a telekinetic element to hitching the former to the latter. I noticed they have a shiny new (unstained) fence around the boat, separating it from the rest of the back yard. Of course, they hired someone to build the fence. I’m thinking they should have hired someone to teach them how to hitch up a trailer. I’m a city girl and even I know how to do this.
  • – The neighborhood teens are being sloppy. The bench at the far end of the park had a pile of Dr. Pepper cans sitting on it. I realize the only trash can is at the play area, on “our” end, but still, we’re talking a length of maybe half a block. (Of course, we really should have trash cans at both ends.)
  • – The people at the opposite end of the part from our back-fence neighbors have added one of those fire-pit tables to their front courtyard. It’s not a porch – our neighborhood doesn’t have them – but they’ve made a lovely outdoor courtyard in front of their main window. It’s a little too chi-chi even for me, though, with the gnomes and the fake parrot and such, but, whatever. It’s nice to see people sitting outside in lawn chairs on balmy evenings, and not in laz-e-boy recliners in the garage, which will forever strike me as tacky and weird.
  • – The people with the cement dog that Miss Cleo barks at have new flowers – they look like Gerberas but they’re so perfect I suspect they’re fakes. We didn’t cross their lawn to confirm.
  • – The people a few doors down from us who are trying to sell their house had some lovely wine racks in their always-open, apparently unattended garage. They also had something that looks like a lemonade stand sitting on the driveway. It was red.
    It made me want lemonade.
  • – Our peach tree is still peaching. We lost some peachlets in the storm the other night, but the birds and bugs are feasting on those, and I think we’ll have a decent amount of peaches. I think they’ll be about ripe when my parents arrive in 2.5 weeks, but it might take a little longer. Also, the flowers in front of our main window? Are cheery and bright, and I’m glad we planted them.

And on that note, time to make coffee. and maybe a mushroom and dill havarti omelet.

5:42

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It’s Saturday morning, and I use the term loosely because the sun won’t rise for more than an hour in this timezone, but something was calling me to get up, get moving. I haven’t felt well for a long while, it seems, not so much sick but out of tune with myself, and this morning, I’m foggy but definitely awake.

My skin itches, and I think it’s psychological as much as physical. I’m sloughing something off, forming new surfaces of body and brain.

I bought business cards a few weeks ago that identify me as a writer, and even though we owe the Feds a small amount, I’m actually happy about that because, as I posted somewhere, I actually had paper profits from writing. In my first year of freelancing. Was it a book contract? No. But that will come.

I’m thirsty, but the words needed to tumble out first, and now they have, a little, and I’m about to go make, not coffee, but fresh-squeezed orange and grapefruit juice and then perhaps take the dogs out for a pre-dawn jaunt through the neighborhood.

A chocolate cat has replaced the giant orange tabby as the stray on our front lawn. It’s beautiful, so graceful…and it seems to offend Miss Cleo less than the other.

I’m preparing my very first podcast.
More on that later.

Getting the Hang of Thursdays

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Outside, while it isn’t particularly cold, it is windy and gray, and a storm is threatening to form. In the house, my ear/throat still hurt, especially when I swallow, and I think I still have a low-grade fever. It’s the kind of day that makes you want to put on a ratty old bathrobe and frumpy slippers and spend a lot of time getting to know your tea kettle.

My tea kettle is currently in the dishwasher, and anyway, I’m a morning coffee sort of person. My DeLonghi machine decided that it did not wish to be thrown under a bus, which was yesterday’s threat, and actually brewed coffee today, which is lucky for this because I was one click away from ordering a Capresso ST600, and may, still.

After I finish this post, my very lofty plans for the day include actually drinking said coffee, and perhaps making some oatmeal to go with it, and then retreating to either the bedroom or my office to write about the latest news in car insurance. (Note to self: it’s also time to pay the premium.)

I’m in a good mood, but I feel kind of blechy (see the bit about my ear) so putting on actual clothes instead of my fetching blue, green and white pajamas and the t-shirt that goes with them may not happen.

But that’s okay, because it’s Thursday, and loungewear is completely appropriate for Thursdays.
Trust me on this.

Snuggly?

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The problem with allowing your dogs to sleep in the bed with you, especially if they’re terrier-esque, is that they tend to dig in the covers. The first time, it’s cute. The second time, less cute, but a bit annoying. After that? You tend to imagine that you can hear their little claws picking apart the sheets and comforter thread by thread.

It is, therefore, no surprise that I look at comforter sets and sheets sets in every store we enter that carries such things, though I rarely buy them. Sheets and quilts are surprisingly expensive, and I’m picky. 100% cotton is a given, but high thread counts, pretty colors, nice patterns. Our bedroom is really my second (third?) office, and I need the space to reflect that.

I tend to do for nautical stripes, blues and crisp reds, more than sweet floral things (to Fuzzy’s delight) but lately I’ve been straying on the pink side, if for no other reason than I wouldn’t have to worry about my hair staining the pillow cases.

I wonder if my froufrou taste in bed linens encourages the dogs.

‘Twas Grillig…

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…with apologies to Lewis Carroll. We noticed that a neighbor had an old grill on their sidewalk last Sunday, and as we passed it, Fuzzy teased, “You know how you keep saying you want a grill…”

I pointed out that since there was no sign saying otherwise that grill was probably out for trash. It looked much more than “gently used.” In fact the words, “natural disaster” sprang to mind.

The thing is, I do want a grill. We have one of those George Foreman counter-top things, but I want an outdoor grill, the kind with the propane tank and the froufrou grill cover, and the ceramic briquettes instead of real charcoal. I want to roast potatoes and grill salmon and steak all summer. I hate cooking inside when I don’t have to, and the Foreman thing’s okay, but there’s just something about actual FIRE that makes meat taste better.

Vegetables too, for that matter.

Windy

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I don’t know if they make an Alli equivalent for dogs, but I’m beginning to think Miss Cleo would benefit. Why? Because she’s got fatty cysts.

Okay, okay, I know that a fat blocker wouldn’t really help the cysts. They’re a normal sign of aging for a dog of her size and breed, but she does need to lose five pounds, and so in the interest of not feeling like a lump myself, and in helping her accomplish this, she, Zorro, and I walked a mile in the wind today.

It wasn’t hot, but I must still be mildly sick (I know I am, because my throat and ear are still achy when I swallow), because I felt hot even though it wasn’t more than 73 degrees, and despite the fact that the wind had a distinct bite to it.

I like rainy springs better than windy ones.
Really.

Anyway, in the back of my mind there’s a line from a play – Into the Woods, I think – about fleeing or fearing the wind.

A throwaway line, but in my head nonetheless.
Weirder things have happened.

Thump, Thump, Draaaag.

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A box of birthday invitations I saw in the grocery store the other day has been haunting my brain, looking for something to connect with. My birthday is four months away, so it wasn’t anything literal.

I cast backward into memory searching for the relationship, and found a birthday party for my friend Joy that I attended when I was eight or nine. I don’t remember the party; I do remember the lights being turned off, all of us being sacked out around the dining room and living room, and her older sister telling ghost stories, the kind that involve hooks in doors and young girls being attacked by madmen (general escaped criminals) on their way to parties just like this one.

One such story ended with the young girl in question having her hands and feet cut off, climbing the stairs as best she could, with the party invitation gripped in her mouth.

Thump, thump, draaaaag.

From this grim tail, I remembered a later evening, also dark, when my mother, step-father and I sat around the dining room table and listened to a science fiction radio drama while a storm blasted icy rain at the windows.

For all the blood, guts, and gore that movies show, I believe that radio, and now pod-cast dramas, are scarier, because what you imagine is so much worse than what can be shown on screen.

It is because of this that when someone mentions Bill Cosby, my first connection isn’t Jell-o or his television show. It’s Chickenheart.

Hot and Cold

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To borrow a phrase from my friend Ms. Eclectic, we hired a Domestic Goddess a couple of weeks ago. She was a referral from another friend, and she’s wonderful, but having someone else do housework means I have to remember to tell her things.

Example: the blue bag is for recycling, not garbage.

Or: the hot and cold water in the kitchen and one of thebathroom faucets are reversed.

Other than stuff like that, though, things are going well. I work from home, so I try not to get in her way, and she tries not to get in mine, and the dogs go back and forth between us until the Vacuum Monster comes out, in which case Zorro dives under the bed, and Miss Cleo goes into attack mode. She HATES the Vacuum Monster. She hates it so much that if we forget to put ours away (because we’re briefly distracted by something else) she’ll leave a deposit on top of it.

In any case, Wednesday’s are now Domestic Goddess days in the morning, and bubble bath days in the evening.

Yay Wednesdays.