This is my New old love, Neville Brand. He played Reese Bennett on Laredo, a western in the mid-60's. As a result of my Digital Converter Box, I now get Retro TV Network and watch Laredo religiously every weekend. The Reese Bennett character is silly, kinda dumb, very gallant, and always gets the job done. I was reading about him (Neville Brand) today and found he was actually in the army before he was an actor; in fact he came to acting by being in war education films, and then used his GI Bill to go to acting school. Isn't that interesting? Anyway. He died of emphysema in '92. Why am I finding these men to love who have died or die when I discover them? First Crichton croaks, then I find Brand, and find out he already croaked. It's kind of rude if you ask me.

I was watching "Alias Smith and Jones" today, and he (Neville) was playing a real bad honcho who was in cahoots with a few other guys and were holding 7 people hostage in a trading post. Since I was half asleep, and since follows Alias Smith and Jones follows Laredo, I was confused and couldn't figure out why Reese was pretending to be a bad guy, NOR why he seemed so smart in this episode!!! :) It was 10 minutes before the end of the episode before I realized it was a different show and a different guy, LOL.

So today I am awoke to a New Reality and a New Beginning. It's a bit personal to broadcast all over the internet, but suffice it to say that I have achieved a personal goal I have been struggling to reach for a Very Long Time. I will start 2009 in a position that I have been striving unsuccessfully for for over a year, maybe 2 or 3. I will start in a position that will lift a lot of stress from my life. I am proud, excited, happy, a little ashamed that it took me so long, but relieved, and feeling accomplished and empowered. Hooray! Those 2 of you that follow this blog know what I'm talking about and I thank you for all your support and not being mean to me when you saw me make the same stupid mistakes over and over again.

And with that, I think perhaps it's a good time to clean my bathroom. :)

Happy Boxing Day

Happy Boxing Day! #1 Cuz says that her little brother celebrates this day with fervor. I may join him in this! Since Christmas is so tough for me, it gives me something non-traditional to look forward to. :)

Boxing Day is celebrated on December 26^th. It is a statutory holiday in the federal jurisdiction and in Ontario. If it falls on a Saturday or a Sunday, the working day immediately preceding or following Boxing Day is considered a legal holiday.

Hee hee.

Anyway. It is a slush factory out there and I have to go to Northgate today. I am wondering if I should put some plastic bags inside of my boots. I'm also wondering if I should wear my big, black, shitkicker Sketchers. They have really stiff soles. I wonder if those are better or worse for slushy snow. They are good for putting crooks in cat tails, that's for sure. Im' still confinced that the reason Miss Henri's tail is crooked is from on eof the times she jumped under my feet when I was wearing those suckers.

OK , I think I'll go paint a swatch on my wall and see if I've gotten the right color. If so, I'll go up to Ace later and get a gallon.

Right now I'm thinking scrambled alarm clocks and bacon.

Getting ready

Well it's 5:57, I'm finishing up an episode of Dragnet and getting ready to head out into the wild snowy night. I just got some bad news from my dad, and while it sucks, it's worse for him and I don't know how the next few months are going to be. He needs me. Which is nice, but tough in a way; especially when I can't get up there.

Anyway, I feel the need to be around other people, and besides I haven't gotten gifts for dad or the GF.

And in other sad news, Retro TV Network has decided that a good Christmas Gift to the masses is 34...count 'em...THIRTY FOUR hours of Leave it to Beaver!! You know what that means, don't you? No more Dragnet, no more Alfred Hitchcock Hour, no more Wagon Trail, Laredo, or Alias Smith and Jones until after Christmas. Ugh. This is gonna suck. So I'll come back tonight and soak it all up and then maybe go to Blockbuster or something. The library.

OK Time to boot up and get out there. Let's see if the bus is running or if I have to hike up to Target.

Quote of the Day

had to save this one, too:

"To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)"

Joy

So one of the profs in my dept. has finally picked up on the whole "make coffee instead of buy it" principle of saving money. So he is bringing his own coffee to work. It started yesterday with him bringing his cup for half and half every hour or so, clanging his spoon, stirring his coffee with vigor and gusto. A bit annoying, but I could deal.

Well this morning, he goes into full force. It sounds like a freakin construction site in there!!!! There's the grinding, which normally goes smoothly, but with him, it was whiiiirrrrr, WHIRRRRRR, whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine THUD bang bang clank whiirrrrr!!!! After about 5 minutes of banging and clanging, crashing and booming I yelled "what the hell is going on in there, it sounds like a construction site!" He said "fresh-brewed coffee." I said "is this going to be going on every morning?" He said yes. sigh. I said "greaaaat...."

But now that the apocolyptic noise is over, I have to admit it smells fantastic. :) It's one of my favorite smells. That and the smell of toast.

Frosty Days

Holy blowing snowdrifts, batman, it's COLD here! It was a balmy 23 degrees this morning, as you know from before. I like the picture to the left because it bears such a close resemblance to beach grass when it's all frozen and wilty. The picture to the right doesn't convey the winteriness I intended, but you have to admit it is a very Majestic tree. Here's the scoop:

Seattle Area Weather: Temperature: 37F, 3C. Winds: 4 mph from the NNW. Barometric pressure: 30.06 in (1018 mbar). Relative humidity: 45%. Seattle forecast. The sun rose today at 7:51 and will set at 16:18. The moon is waning gibbous with 86% of the moon's visible disk illuminated.

I must say, the moon has been absolutely GORGEOUS.

Land a-goshen, it is colder than a well digger's ass in the Yukon out there. 23 degrees, to be exact!!! I stood at my bus stop for about 20 minutes watching all manner of icy vehicle go by; there was a school bus that had snow on top and it was blowing off in clouds. It was so fine it looked like steam or smoke. Finally caught a bus that was nice and toasty, and closed my eyes for much of the trip to work.

When I GOT to work I was greeed with complaints about some noise in the attic. Like, why the hell is it assumed that it's this office's responsibility to deal with anything that goes wrong in this building? It's freakin ridiculous. So I called Facilities Services anyway.

Now I'm waiting for my boss' appointment to get here, and then I will venture back out into the cold to take grades over to the Registrar. (shiver, chatter). I am getting a bit stiff and sore from last night's butt-plant, too. :( Poor me.

So when I got home from my adventure, and upon taking out the garbage and such, I noticed this little trail of Froot Loops...to the left, the green Froot Loops lead out the door; to the right, the pink Froot Loops lead in the door from the outside. It's like I have my own little Hansel and Gretel in my building! I don't know whose kid(s) left these but they were too precious to pick up. :) Well at least I know I won't get lost.

So I did manage to go on my little adventure. I went out to the bus stop, already a little late. Neighbor Ben was outside having a smokey so we talked about Coconut Vinegar and pork adobo. You see, they got some coconut vinegar at the Filipino store, and they gave me a whole bottle for myself! So I now have to figure out how to use the damned stuff. I can go to the Asian Store and find a nice piece of pork. Anyway, the bus was late, so I didn't miss it, but not too late. I went to Rite-Aid and got some paper products and new face scrub cause I'm OUT. Then I toodled up to the office to get my camera so could take some fancy shots of the snow, but by the time I retreived it it was dark out, so too bad for you. I made the return trip to the Ave JUST in time to catch the 72 home! I was so pleased.

So I had been walking so carefully on this sojourn, this adventure into the cold, and when I got back to Lake City I was feeling all sure of myself and comfy cause I was home and knew I was safe. So I stepped off the bus and fell RIGHT on my ass!!! All I knew is there were eyes looking at me, "are you ok? are you alright? do you need help up?" and I felt like a deer caught in the headlights, and said "FUCK!!!!" which I think startled some of my concerned audience. So I assured them that I was alright, then proceeded to go to the store, crying just a little bit because I felt sorry for myself. But Pani was at QFC so I told her my sad story and she gave me 2 hugs, and then I told Mike, too, for good measure and he gave me a goodly amount of sympathy as well. Then chugged home and here I am! I had a lovely bowl of clam spaghetti for dinner and am doing another mini-season of my cast iron skillet because I had to use soap to get all the parm out after my decadent dinner. Now I'm going to do some veggie prep for tomorrow.

Goodnight.

Oh yeah and quote of the day:

Kindnesses are easily forgotten; but injuries!—what worthy man does not keep those in mind?

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)

So here it is, a cold, snowy Sunday afternoon, and me without my camera. I feel naked with no pictures for my blog. It started in the evening, and I went shopping in the first flurries. I was so happy I couldn't get the goofy grin off my face. I did laundry all night in varying degrees of snow; sometimes I'd go out and there'd be big, fluffy flakes; sometimes they were thin and icy; sometimes a small drift, sometimes a vigorous flurry. It was wonderful.

Last night I was quite productive. I got ALL of my shredding done, which was a relief. I sorted and filed a bunch of papers, washed my sheets and made my bed, cleaned up my room partly, made some carrot soup, which turned out to be quite tasty after some doctoring, washed and put away a LOT of plastics, and did the dishes. It was kinda nice. Today I have been pretty lazy. I had a sad morning of missing the OMA; something about not having him here for the first snow of the year just made me all blue, so I had a good little cry, watched an episode of Star Trek, and took a little nap. Felt better after that.

Now I'm considering going into the world and getting my camera so you can see all the snowy wonder. It's supposed to snow again tonight and then get down to 16 - 21 degrees. Can you imagine? And me with no winter coat. Oh well, that's why god invented layers.

So I am finishing up my carrot soup and an absolutely lovely salad, and there's a half-eaten pear on the coffee table which I will finish up, and then plan the rest of my afternoon.

Well here it is the end of another perfectly good Christmas party. Here's a picture of my Christmas Cactus to commemorate the auspicious occasion. Now we have a big fat hairy buttload of leftovers, mostly sweets, which I don't eat, so I'm pawning them off on anyone who walks by. Except for the truffles and the Swiss Chocolates, of course. I took some of those, and some delicious cheeses, and even a goat cheese, which I bit into by mistake, and just about retched. But, I do have a friend who likes it, so I'm bringing it home for her. Meanwhile one of my students brought me cookies, and one of my profs gave me a bath set which looks like all kinds of relaxing goodness.

Tonight I have a date with a friend up on Capitol Hill. We'll go to a place called Boom Noodle, to which I have never been, but it looks promising.

If I'm not too full I'll give the full report later. Now I've got some posters to send out, and I will leave you with the image of these mutant carrots I got at the Asian Market last week. As you can see, they are just about as big as my foot. They even have little nublets at the end, like little carrot toes. I should see about making some carrot soup with them. Have lovely evenings.

Hooray!

Hallelujah and praise be to Allah, I am DONE WITH CALC for THREE WEEKS. And the capper is, my instructor is giving me an incomplete so that I can review the chapter I completely bombed and retake the test in Winter Quarter. Does that kick ass, or what!!

So to celebrate I returned some overdue materials to the library, and was rewarded by finding a dollar. Just a little icing on the cake! :) Now I have my german oral to dread tomorrow; luckily it is pretty short and then we can get to the party part, where we eat German food and laugh and play with glee.

For now, I'm going to whip up some sweet and sour shrimp over rice and I got oatmeal too cause I thought that a good hearty breakfast is in order tomorrow. :)

Is it Still Over?

I was watching National Treasure. My favorite Country Artist of All Time, Randy Travis, was performing for the President and singing my favorite Randy Travis song of all time (well one of many), and it goes:

"Is it still over? Are we still through? Since my phone still ain't ringin', I'll assume it still ain't you..."

This is absolutely one of my favoritest song lyrics of all time, I swear. It's simple and clever.

Anyway. 8 more days til the end of my quarter. Pray for me, willya? I'm beyond tired right now, in fact I think I'm going to go into our little "library" and have a little nap on my makeshift bed of armless chairs. Maybe I'll have something interesting to say later.

Turkey Tet!

Today I made my first turkey tetrazzini! I think I've made half-assed attempts before, but this time I actually followed a recipe. So simple; onions, celery, mushrooms, mushroom soup & milk, a big fat cellulitey buttload of cheese, and pasta. I used up my Bucati, which is a hollow pasta that resembles fat spaghetti. I don't know what that would normally be appropriate for, but it made for messy eating in normal use. Splats on the glasses and on the shirt. No more Bucati for me. Anyway it looks delicious, smells delicious, and it should taste delicious in awhile when I'm ready to eat.

It's 4:41 and dark out already. There is a lovely fog that is making for some dramatic effect. I shall not photgraph it, however, cause, like I said, it's dark out and you can't see jack. Or jill.

I'm working on Calculus, of course, and the house is still pretty clean from Thanksgiving. Had 2 neighbors down for dinner, and it was a nice companionable time. Neighbor 2 finally found out what he's been missing all these years I've invited him down, and he said that next year he'll be sitting on my porch at 10 a.m. going "is that bird in the oven yet?" :) I am very pleased with it all.

The Inestimable Miss Henri is curled up on her little blankie. She had a false alarm a few minutes ago where it looked like she was going to retch, but she just laid there and made unlady-like noises for a few minutes and has now stretched back out.

I will leave you with today's quote, which made me go "hmmm...":

Perhaps it is impossible for a person who does no good to do no harm.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

All in all, not much going on in Casa de Blueberry, so I shall bid you a fond adieu and wish you good health and happiness in your first week of December. :)

Darius Rucker

Thank Goodness, Darius Rucker has found his True Calling!!! I have been a long-time loather of Hootie and the Blowfish, not only for their stupid name, but also for the fact that Darius' voice doesn't seem to lend well to pop. Well he's crossed over to country music, and I think he has found his niche!!!! He's got a GREAT country voice. He's on Leno right now covering Toby Keith, I think, and it sounds SO good. Hooray!!! I wanted to like him, cause he seems like a likeable guy, and now in this genre, I dig him like a grave. :)

Saturday School

So I went to the math learning center today. It turned out good because I finally learned what is meant by dy/dx = dy/du * du/dx, and I met one of my classmates who is a really nice guy who is just as behind as I am and we got some help together. We may get together to study later, as well. Plus I copied the answers for chapter 4.

When it was all over, I decided to walk to HT Market, which is about 10 minutes from school. As you can see, it rained. It started raining right when I left school, and stopped right as I reached the parking lot of the market. Ain't that a bitch! But I was treated to a gorgeous rainbow and some dramatic sunny/stormy sky action. It was a rewarding walk, yes it was. Storms can be so dramatic and appealing and make you feel so adventurous! There's all this atmospheric craziness going on and it's just neat.

Anyway, I'm still at it, learning about maximum and minimum values. I made a pot of zesty zucchini soup and the house smells of curry. Henri is being a little high-maintenance, so I pat her on her furry little head now and then and she settles down for awhile, then prowls around yowling again. Earlier today I had laid down for a nap, and she sneaked up behind me and yowled VERY loudly in my ear. It was a miracle that I didn't void my bowels on the spot. My heart raced for a few minutes though!

Ok so here's one last picture for posterity, and I am back at my calculus. At least this time I'm closer to catching up on what we studied so maybe I can get a C on Monday's exam instead of a D-. Alfred Hitchcock is keeping me company on RTN, Robert Redford (a VERY young RR) is a murderous thief who has married his maid and bashed in the head of a mortuary guard when he (RR) was trying to steal some jewels off a dead lady. Next up I think is South Park; I got Season 9 from the library and can't wait to sink my little eyeballs into it. Happy days, all, and love and peace and all that hoo-ha.

Happy Thursday! I am procrastinating. I should be studying my Deutsch, but instead I found an "Arbeitsblatt" page with all these assignments on it, and printed out all these practice pages, and then I got some students that needed help, and then I just generally screwed around. We have a quiz tonight and I'm probably not going to do very well on it because I'm REALLY struggling with accusitive case, and I don't even understand what it is I'm not understanding, so I can't even formulate a logical question to ask my teacher. Sigh. I should do some flashcards or something I guess. 20 minutes left in my day then I'm off. And I really have nothing to say so I'll sign off. I just wanted to post another pretty picture from my trip. :)

Sunny days, smoky air, flat flat cities. I went and saw the OMA this past weekend!!! Here I am coming into LA, and I am constantly struck by its vast flatness. Hence the photo.
I think that the takeoff on the flight down was perhaps the smoothest, most perfectest takeoff I've ever experienced in my 20+ years of flying. It was truly amazing. I can never help but think though; what if we were at too steep of an angle on takeoff, and bumped the tail of the plane on the runway????? LOL It's not a fear, I have no fear of flying, it's just one of those crazy 'what ifs' that's silly and kind of fun to think about.

Meanwhile, the weekend was quiet, uneventful, and completely wonderful. When I got into town we stocked up on provisions, went home, and holed up for the weekend. There was cleaning and organization of the apartment, and it is really shaping up into something nice. The OMA obtained a new video card for his "monster," and we FINALLY were able to play the Bioshock game I got him for his birthday in March. It was everything we'd hoped for and more! Zombies, plasmids, guns, blood, gore, monsters, ghosts...

The game opens in 1960. The player assumes the role of Jack, a passenger on an aircraft that crashes into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean... Descending into the city using a bathysphere, the history of Rapture is told through a pre-recorded film narrated by Andrew Ryan, its founder. But upon arrival, the main character discovers that the once-prosperous city has decayed into a shadow of its former self. A man awaits Jack's exit from the bathysphere, but he is killed by a grotesque figure that is apparently insane. .. Jack explores Rapture with the guidance of Atlas until he discovers a vending machine containing hypodermic needles. When he injects one, Atlas tells Jack that his genetic code has been rewritten, and in a spasm of pain, Jack falls from a ledge and is knocked unconscious.

Yeah. Genetic codes. You get crazy powers like telekinesis, the ability to incinerate your enemies to 4,000 degrees, static shock. And of course guns. GUNS. Like most First Person Shooters you start out with a wrench to bash your enemies with, then you get a pistol, some different kinds of ammo, shotgun, machine gun, etc. By the time I left, the OMA had a pretty impressive array of weaponry and and was kicking the asses of the mutants. It was awesome.

So anyway, that was the highlight, pretty much. There was gaming, homework, eating, and LOTS of napping. Very relaxing, good quality time together, and I'm very happy I went although the trip was entirely too short. Oh well, I should see him for the holidays and that will be aces, just aces!

I'd say this pretty much sums it up, wouldn't you? I was actually halfway across the parking lot, and i liked this sign so much that I turned around and came home to get my camera. Too cool. Actually it worked out well because I forgot my shopping bag. ;>

YIPEE FOR AMERICA!!!!

Happy Friday

Still reveling in the whole witch factor. People abhor math and science, but you gotta love a disciplines that come up with things like "magic numbers," (2, 8, 20,28, 82, and 126), imaginary numbers (i), and now the Witch of Agnesi. Well it makes the heart flutter, it does.

Anyway it is a grey, drizzly day. I skipped German last night because the thought of 4 nights in a row to myself was just too good. So I stayed late at work (silly me) and futzed around, then I went shopping. I made a lovely batch of sweet and sour chicken. I realized lately that I LOVE S&S, but I don't like breading, and I don't like carrots in it. Then suddenly it occurred to me (I'm so freakin brilliant, it only took me how many years to figure this out) that I could make my OWN freakin sweet and sour, and make it any way I want! So what *I* do is use chicken thighs, douse them liberally in garlic powder then add a splot of olive oil and let them sit at room temperature for an undesignated amount of time. Then I cook them up, remove them from the pan, make the sauce in the same pans amidst all the crunchy bits, and add lots of onions, some pineapple, and bell pepper. And that is MY idea of perfect S&S. No goddamn carrots!!! Don't get me wrong, I do love carrots; just not in my S&S.

OK well it's Joni Mitchell's 65th birthday today, so I am going to go get a hot steamer to celebrate. Happy Friday, y'all! :)

The Sexy Witch

Tonight I met the witch of Maria Agnesi.

"The Witch of Maria Agnesi ((pronounced 'Anyesi')) is the curve defined as follows.

The Witch of Agnesi with labeled points

Starting with a fixed circle, a point O on the circle is chosen. For any other point A on the circle, the secant line OA is drawn. The point M is diametrically opposite O. The line OA intersects the tangent at M at the point N. The line parallel to OM through N, and the line perpendicular to OM through A intersect at P. As the point A is varied, the path of P is the witch.

The curve is asymptotic to the line tangent to the fixed circle through the point O." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_of_Agnesi)

And this is the woman for whom it was named.

"Maria Gaetana Agnesi (May 16, 1718 - January 9, 1799) was an Italian linguist, mathematician, and philosopher. Agnesi (pronounced 'Anyesi') is credited with writing the first book discussing both differential and integral calculus. She was an honorary member of the faculty at the University of Bologna. According to Dirk Jan Struik, Agnesi is "the first important woman mathematician since Hypatia (fifth century A.D.)". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Gaetana_Agnesi)

How frickin hot is that! :)

R.I.P., Michael Crichton.

I woke up pleased to hear them talking about Michael Crichton on NPR this morning. I was later chagrined to learn that they were talking about him because he died! I am SO sad; I JUST discovered his wonderful, wonderful science fiction (and that's science as in medicine and environmentalism and stuff, not aliens and planets), and was wondering if he'd be writing anything else soon. I guess not. :(

Crichton's works are frequently cautionary in that his plots often portray scientific advancements going awry, commonly resulting in worst-case scenarios. A notable recurring theme in Crichton's plots is the pathological failure of complex systems and their safeguards, whether biological (Jurassic Park), military/organizational (The Andromeda Strain), technical (Airframe) or cybernetic (Westworld). This theme of the inevitable breakdown of "perfect" systems and the failure of "fail-safe measures" can be seen strongly in the poster for Westworld (slogan: "Where nothing can possibly go worng .." (sic) ) and in the discussion of chaos theory in Jurassic Park" (taken from Wikipedia).

Turns out he also wrote under a couple of pseudonyms, which I am going to seek out: John Lange, Jeffery Hudson, and "He also co-authored Dealing with his younger brother Douglas under the shared pen name Michael Douglas."

Meanwhile, we have a new President Elect, and I'm pleased as punch. My 88 year old granny is absolutely delighted, thinks he's just as cute as cute can be and wouldn't mind taking him home. You gotta LOVE 88 y/o grannies, don't you?????

President Obama!!!!

My grandmother served white families in the South. She had to sit in the back of the bus, behind a curtain, because she was black. We now have a black president. My hands are shaking and I can't stop crying. There are fireworks going off in my neighborhood. I'm all verklemt. Katie Couric had tears, too. As one of the Scandanavian profs said earlier "today is an historic day in American history."

Happy Voting Day!

Happy Voting Day meine Damen und Herren!!! I came to campus this morning and was greeted by enthusiastic, grin-wearing, sign-toting, sticker-distributing students! I got a nice 8-1/2 x 11 Obama/Biden sign and an Obama Gregoire sticker. :) Between all that and a nice morning greeting from the OMA, I started my day a Happy Woman.

It was marred only slightly by an hour long meeting, but I got a nice walk in the crisp autumn sun so not all was lost. Our German teacher is letting us go after our exam tonight because she said "Nach dem Examen können Sie nach Hause gehen, denn morgen Abend wird ein sehr emotionaler Abend werden." Which means basically that it's going to be an emotional evening: ' I now have CNN.com live TV on and it is getting me all revved up. I hope I don't fail my Exam tonight!

Healthy Snacks

Remember I said "I want to be the girl that reaches for fruits and veggies when she feels snacky?" Well I realize that that is coming to fruition (pun intended). I just finished a big bowl of persian cukes, mushrooms and carrot sticks in onion dip made with reduced fat sour cream. Now how awesome is that? It was delicious, nutritious, and very very low cal. And it's tiding me over long enough to decide what I want to eat for real food, because other than that all I've had today is a bowl of Hungarian mushroom soup and a red plum. So veggie-headed today! I must find some meat.

Then of course I wanted to find out why cucumbers make us burp. All I could find is

"One of the less-desirable characteristics of cucumbers is their tendency to cause indigestion—burping, in particular. Research has found that this is caused by a chemical compound concentrated just underneath the skin and around the stem of the cucumber. To limit the unpleasant side effects of this veggie, peel deeply and remove the stem end."

While there are all kinds of articles acknowledging that cucumbers make us burp, nobody really wants to say why, specifically. Let me just say that I don't find that particular side effect unpleasant, however. :)

Happy Sunday

Happy Sunday. I'll bet most of us wish we could bury our heads in the blankets and sleep the day away like the Inestimable Miss Henri here, but alas, Circadian Rhythms do not allow.

I made a valiant effort to stay in bed but I think I must have FINALLY caught up on my rest for I could not....I have been laying there, listening to the radio since 9-ish (8-ish if you take into account the time change, which *I* will not do until tonight, so as to maximize the effect tomorrow morning).

So; on the agenda today, Sunday, a goal-oriented day:

• continue to chop through my derivatives. I'm doing so well on them now that I get them, but I have a lot of catching up to do.
  
• make some Hungarian mushroom soup. I got a HUGE thing of shroomies at Sam's Club yesterday, so I think I will have some with dip and then make soup.
• juice all the lemons that Adam gave me and make a batch of lemon bars; maybe two.
  
• Find my carpet powder, lay it down, and vacuum later
  
• burn some CD's for the maternal unit. Introducing her to some "techno" or whatever you call it; some old school BT, some Jr. Boys, maybe some KMFDM and DEFINITELY some Karsh Kale.
  
• Meet study buddy Anna, chop through all my Arbeitsbuch, and see if she can help me understand what the hell word I'm referring to with "unser, euer and welcher."

And that's about it!

So I've had a fairly stellar weekend so far. Friday night was when I finally caught on to derivatives, and you know that feeling when you're struggling with a concept, and you feel like you're swimming in oatmeal and you'll never reach the shore; then BAM you get it and the oatmeal thins out and you start gaining ground and pretty soon you're chugging along like nobody's business, feeling all victorious. :) So I was able to differentiate 2 pages of functions before #1 Cousin texted to see if I wanted to hang out, so I got out of my jammies and toodled up the Claire's Pantry who, it turns out, has the BOMB-ASS happy hour. HUGE HUGE HUGE piles of food; we had nachos and clams strips (which were VERY tasty) and chicken strips which were good but the stickiness of them would probably preclude me from ordering them on my own. They had some kind of interesting, semi-spicy sauce; we were expecting buffalo sauce, but it wasn't quite. Anyway, next time no chicken unless I remember to bring a wet-nap.

After that we mosied up to the store for supplies, and I ran into Pani who is also going to school and just about a quarter or 2 ahead of me. She knows the struggles I've been having with calculus and totally feels my pain, so when she asked how I was I said "I CAN DIFFERENTIATE FUNCTIONS!!!" and high-fived her. It's always fun to commiserate with her. She's at the UW right now and we keep meaning to get together but it's hard.

Then I came home and had a long, long nap. I have been so tired all week; probably because I've been struggling with calc so hard and losing sleep over trying to get all my homework done. So I slept really hard til 11, did some more differentiation, had a few beers, and went to bed; woke up midmorning, but dozed and napped until noon again. It was great. Did some chores, went to Avenue with #1 Cuz to return a shirt, got some pilot bread for almost $7 at QFC ($7!!!!!), and then we went to HT Market for Produce. I got a couple of pounds (at least) of red plums, some Bartlett Pears, a pork roast, 4 huge regular onions, a red onion, some green onions, sprouts, a couple of jasmine sparkling teas, and I forget what else for $14.51. :) I LOVE my Asian markets to no end.

Later on, the paternal unit and his GF came to take me shopping at Sam's. I got LOOT, baby, LOOT, groceries, beer, and a 40# bucket of kitty litter. Among the grocs, a 24 oz tub of mushrooms from whence the soup shall come. I treated myself to a polish dog cause Sam's has the best, of course, and god in heaven it was sooooooooooooooo delicious.

The OMA called while I was there, and so I called him back later and we hung out for a couple hours being nerdy together; me differentiating my functions, he installing his RealTournament game, going on line and looking at games (I'm going to get Halo pretty soon and he thinks I could probably run Orange Box on my machine). I finally kicked him off at around midnight so I could play with my Product Rule and my Quotient rule, watched Lola Rennt and then off to bed!

And that's my story. You see my goals, I hope I can achieve all of them, you will know more later. And in case you were absolutely dying to know what I'm doing (and you know you were, you math perv), here are the sexy little rules that I'm working with today.

Product rule: or in the Leibniz notation thus:

Quotient rule:

What I did not realize until this morning is that you can write it out in prime notation rather than the way that crazy Liebniz did it, and it's much less confusing:

(f*g)' = f'g + g'f, and (f/g)' = (g'f - f'g)/g^2

Now isn't that much sexier? So clean, neat and tidy! I'm going to start writing it that way when I'm solving so my eyes don't cross. OK I'm off to cook, clean, and differentiate, like a good woman should. ;>

Last Days of Autumn

Here we are in the last days of Autumn; the rain is coming, the crunchy leaves are getting wet and slippery, there is a definite haze in the air and I had to turn the heat back on in my office. I'm a little sad to see the leaves drop now; they have been so beautiful and resplendent.

Along with fall comes international applicants! I have spent the morning futzing with international applications; the deadline is November 1st so I should be getting a few more at the beginning of next week. My to-do list includes

• cleaning off the old applicant jump drive to make room for the new
• updating the web page title and making sure the admissions committee has access
• scanning the applications, loading them onto a drive, then uploading them onto the UW server so my little committee members can see them with their own beady little eyes
• setting up an admissions committee meeting so they can discuss the newbies amongst themselves

This is just the preliminary wave. Later on there will be loads more to do as the domestic apps come piling in. I have a little rolly cart in which I keep my applicants, all neat and tidy in their little hanging folders, waiting, waiting on a decision, their lives in the balance.

OK well I have 1:15 left before I go home and struggle with my derivatives again. I have barely made any progress in the last 2 days. Oh well. I have this little tutorial I should watch before I leave. Meanwhile, enjoy some more fall color.

I'll Be Better, I Promise

OK so I'm going to try and write SOMETHING in here if not every day, then every other day.

First of all, hooray for a splendid Autumn! The color out there is so fantastic. Look at my fantastic campus. Isn't it wonderful? Let me tell you something about campuses. You know the little squirrels we have? Invasive species, brought here from campuses in Europe to make our campuses look more collegiate. Funny, no?

So I had a little mental meltdown when I found out that I have another calc exam on Monday. I am still behind and trying to figure out derivatives, but think if I can do a section/day from now until Monday I should be fine. I'm stuck at the very basic level but I can leave early today and go in for help. Once I crack these suckers out, I should be golden.

Tomorrow I have a German quiz, and a shitload of homework due. I can do this. Really, I can. I will feel much better when I'm caught up with calculus, this too, shall pass.

OK that's all I can muster for the moment. I'm going to see about rustlin up some grub.

3rd Try

OK so I blogged on Friday, and said "I'll write more later." Ran errands, came home, got ready to edit, and what do you know, no bloggage. I figure I must have closed the window without publishing. Rats. So I decided to blog today. Luckily I didn't get very far cause my browser started freaking out when I was chatting with Bonetti, and gave me 3 windows of g-mail, with 3 windows of chat. It was quite freaky. I had to close out and reboot and, of course, lost everything.

But all I really said is that we are having a gorgeous autumn, that the colors on the trees are simply resplendent and nigh poetic, and life is good, and that's about it.

Now let's try to post THIS, and if I'm finally successful, maybe I'll try to add more later.

The Road to Wellness

OK Enough pussyfooting around with the lazing, and the tiredness, and the whining around . The cough is pretty much gone, the nausea is pretty much gone, and I decided that today I would start walking at least 30/day at least 3x/week. So I did it! I went out to 45th, came back down by Stevens, down to the Burke, up several sets of stairs to the HUB, and back to work, for 31:50. I walked enough to take off a layer and break out in a sweat. I'm feeling accomplished and I do believe there are some endorphins running around in my system. :) Kudos to me for sticking the stairs on there. Next time I should bring my camera cause our campus is so gorgeous, and I travelled roads heretofore unseen by me. :)

I PUSHED THE BUTTON

That's right, I finally "committed" to the deed, I ordered my ticket to LA today. You know it makes me think of all those times I resented the students in my program, cause they were supposed to be "poor students," yet they were ALWAYS flying off to other states. But considering this is my 4th trip this year, I realized that "where there's a will, there's a way." Considering my maternal unit isn't the nuturing type, travel to AK wasn't that important. Now that the OMA is 955 miles away, suddenly travel is much more of a priority. :) Now here's the crazy thing; in case you were wondering why I'm not going for Thanksgiving. Well, the ticket price goes up by $144 for thanksgiving!!!! Isn't that insane??? Even booking over a month ahead! Those damned scamming airline bastards, anyway. Well I'm confident that the OMA will probably be scooped up by his mentor for the holiday. I hope. Either that or he'll stay home and drink beers and play Halo. :) I don't think it's too big on his radar.

OK so this has been a decent weekend. I found a great calculus tutorial last week, so I've been wasting my ink printing it out and going over my limits and learning quite a bit. This Paul guy, while not being as funny as Michael Kelly (Complete Idiot's Guide...) is just as good at breaking it down and explaining what it is you're doing and why you're doing it. Not so much to ask, is it? So I'm now up to the limit laws again, which is where I got last week, and hopefully by the end of next weekend I should be caught up to where I need to be. I'm interested to see my test results though; teacher said the exam was "an embarrassment." Well, dude, if everyone is getting bad grades, what's the common denominator, as it were? Hmmmmm......

So tonight is my study/beer/nachos/pool date with Study Buddy Anna, I'm so looking forward to it. We'll go hang at the College Inn, and I will share my little cheat sheets that I made with her. I need to remember to make copies. If I had any sense, I'd do it right now. But who ever said I had sense?

OK well that's enough of a blog for right now. I will probably edit/add a little more later; I want to show you the color of paint I picked for my bedroom, which I think is too dark. But you know how I like putting pictures in here! :)

Shuffling Down the Road to Recovery

OK you can't see to clearly, but here is my poor, abused toe. If you look very closely you can see some bruising where they stuck the needle in. If you were to see it in real life it also had little puncture marks all around. I actually took quite a few pictures but apparently bruises are really hard to photograph, AND I left my camera at work, so I can't show them to you. Well I have one more picture that shows a couple of pinpricks, below.

Through this process I relearned that Ibuprofen is a miracle drug. It always baffles me how you can have this pain in some part of your body, and you take this pill, and somehow it works its way down to the affected area and makes it all better. Well, actually I know that's not true. Here's what I found:

When your body's cells get injured, they release a chemical called prostaglandin (say: prah-sti-glan-din), which can have a powerful effect on the special nerve endings that detect pain. The nerve endings react to the prostaglandin by picking up and sending the messages of pain and injury through the nervous system and to the brain. Once the brain finds out where the pain is and how much it hurts, it responds with a yelp!

Ibuprofen and acetaminophen, however, prevent damaged cells from releasing prostaglandin. Without this chemical, the brain won't get messages of pain as quickly or clearly. And, as a result, your pain either goes away or becomes less intense.

So anyway, today is my first Ibu-free day, although I didn't REALLY need to take any yesterday. Well, it hurt, but not desperately so. The stiffness is gone and I'm just looking forward to being able to wear my cute shoes. But I'm really not in blogging mode, so I think I'm going to go lay back down. I already had one nap, surely another one couldn't hurt! :)

Nice pedicure, eh? Well it WAS nice in August, when I went to California. I was going to get another one done before I got this procedure done but I ordered a new shirt instead. :)

Trauma!!!

Oh my god the trauma. I got my resection done this morning. The stuck fuckin' NEEDLES IN MY TOE. You know where's a really bad place to stick a needle? IN YOUR TOE. God it hurt. So they gave me 3 shots of whatever they give you, left me alone for awhile for it to get numb. So I called the OMA once I got my nose blown and he is sick as a dirty dog so we just kind of hung out on the phone for a few minutes. Then they came back in to torture me some more. Purple gloves, sharp instruments, they started the cut, then OW!!! I could TOTALLY feel it. But THIS guy, unlike the last one, listened to me. Shot me up some more, left me alone while he helped another client. Once I stopped the big, hiccuping 2-year-old-wholost-her-favorite-toy crying, and I talked and sniffled at the OMA and listened to TV with him while he ailed. Then they came back in after another 15 minutes or so and did the deed, and I was numb, my toe felt like a block of wood stuck on my foot, and they finished. After they did that they cauterized the area with phenol ( a toxic, colourless crystalline solid with a sweet tarry odor, commonly referred to as a "hospital smell". Its chemical formula is C₆H₅OH and its structure is that of a hydroxyl group (-OH) bonded to a phenyl ring; it is thus an aromatic compound.) So very interesting!

So anyway, here we are a few hours later, and I'm a little traumatized and the anaesthetic is wearing off and I'm afraid to move my toe. It's hot, and started to throb a little while ago but I took some Advil so that seems to be working. I have to soak it in epsom salts every night for awhile and make sure it doesn't scab over, which seems counterintuitive but that's what they say to do, so do it I shall. And once the healing begins, I will be able to wear those gorgeous Franco Sarto loafers I laid out $70 for awhile back. :) And whatever other cute shoes I might be inclined to be attracted to. It's making me think that the reason I'm not a shoe girl is cause they all hurt my toe. NOW what's going to happen??? Well I'll take pix later.

Sunday, Sunday

Nice, quite, peaceful Sunday morning. I luxuriated in bed til 11 or so; well, actually I kind of tossed and turned cause my back hurt a little, but I had silly crazy dreams that kept me amused. In one of them I was backstage/in studio of one of the local network TV stations, and met Lori Matsukawa and someone else famous. She was thanking me for getting involved and giving me all the codes to the station, but she was going so fast and I couldn't get a piece of paper so I couldn't write them all down. I kept the silver pen though. In another part, I found a bunch of things I had apparently left there, and packed them all up into a big purse. They made me a badge with my picture on it with JP Patches, and I was so happy that I cried. They were unimpressed. At the end of the dream, I had to catch a boat out of wherever I was, and I had to go up a very steep, very skinny ramp that scared me, then a dock that was SUPER high off the water and also very skinny, and scared the pee out of me. I was just rounding the corner, sure I had missed the boat, when I woke up to KUOW's stupid pledge drive. Then Garrison Keillor sang a funny song, accompanied by Chet Atkins, and then they did a skit about Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickens, and Melville all meeting and discussing each other's work. Emily was a perky spitfire who wrote silly poems, such as:

I taste a liquor never brewed
A sandwich never cut.
I hope to never see you nude
Cause you're a horse's butt.

and:

Because I could not stop for death
He kindly stopped for me.
His little horse, he thought it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near,
He asked if he could have a beer.
I said, You can't hurry love, no, you just have to wait.
But come on, honey, don't be late,
I'll pick you up about half past eight,
The woods are lovely, dark with dew,
Do-wacka-do-wacka-do-wacka-do
And baby----- it's you.

Yes, I lay in my bed in paroxysms of laughter. I realize now that I used to really love A Prairie Home Companion because it used to be a lot funnier. How sad that it's not so much anymore.

Anyway, crazy dreams and stilly skits aside, I am procrastinating terribly from my calculus right now, so I guess I'd better get back to it. I have a date with Study Buddy Anna and Patrick in 40 minutes to practice our Deutsch.

Later, taters.

Magical Feast

Well somehow I got a crab fixation today. My sister had some, the OMA was talking about getting it at the Fisherman's Market by where he lives, and I just got a deep, abiding desire for it. So this afternoon, I showered off the grime and took my hungover self up to the HT Market where I got a very fine crab with 1 stunted leg, 3 HUGE white nectarines, 3 fairly fat black plums, a mess'0'tomatoes, 5 heads of garlic, a bag of chips, a bottle of selzter water and a sleeve of cashews for the low, low price of $23. BARGAIN. This, my friends, is why I adore Asian Markets. They had shrimpies on sale there, too, and someone bought FIVE POUNDS!!!! I thought that was a might fine idea, and one of these days when I'm flush (like after my Sealaska check or something) I think I will buy 3 or 4 pounds at a time and just have a shrimp feed like no other. Maybe when the OMA comes for Christmas.

That's right, I said Christmas. Last night he said "maybe; maybe" he would think about coming over but I'm pretty sure it's in the bag. I can't frickin wait to have him back in my clutches. It's all well and good going to visit him (which I'm going to do mid-November), but having him in MY house where we have all kinds of good memories from our very second date to just before he left will be bonzer, just bonzer! :)

So anyway, now I have plunged my arthropod friend (C. Magister) into a pot of roiling, boiling, salted water, he's gone claws up, and is just bubbling merrily away in there, having given his life for the greater good of my stomach. It's barbaric, isn't it, how we can just throw a living creature into a vat of boiling water and call it a day. Well, I don't know what to say. Other than "yum." :) Oh here's a little crab info in honor of C. Magister:

Males are attracted to potential mates by pheromones present in the urine of female Dungeness crabs. Upon locating an available female, the male initiates a protective pre-mating embrace that lasts for several days. In this embrace, the female is tucked underneath the male, oriented such that their abdomens touch and their heads face each other. Mating occurs only after the female has molted, and the female signals her readiness to molt by urinating on or near the antennae of the male. The female extrudes the eggs from her body several months later; however, they remain attached under her abdomen for three to five months until they hatch. Young crabs are free-swimming after hatching and go through five larval stages before reaching maturity after about ten moults or two years.

So it's 9:00, and I finally don't feel like dying (staying up til 3 a.m. drinking vats of beer can kind of put a kink in your Saturday plans), so I'm going to have a cup of double bergamot Earl Gray and get together with Mike Kelly's "Complete Idiot's Guide to Calculus" and finish ferreting out my limits and derivatives.

Life is good.

What I'm watching: Battlestar Galactica. (The ORIGINAL, TOO) :)

Giddiness

So the weekend started off with a squash game, which I apparently wasn't ready for, as I was completely sweaty and shaky after 15 minutes, came home and went to bed for 1-1/2 hours with a dull, throbbing headache. Grmph.

After my nap I got up to go find the Complete Idiot's Guide to Calculus, which I did find at Barnes and Noble, along with a Calculus 1 Cheat sheet. I then meandered around the mall and was delighted to find they installed a burbling fountain by Gene Juarez, and I imagined myself sitting there in the sun in springtime. Something to look forward to. :)

I stopped in Eddie Bauer to see what I could see, and found a CUTE knee-length brown skirt, originally $50, which I obtained for the low, low price of $16 (after tax). So I not only reveled in the fact that I'm thin enough to shop at Eddie Bauer, but also delighted in my bonzer savings! Afterward I went to Bath and Bodyworks and got myself a little tube of Tahiti Sweetie (GOOD STUFF) and a baby hand sanitizer in Japanese Cherry Blossom, then took myself to Azteca for dinner and read the first 2 chapters of the calculus book. This dude makes TOTAL sense; he's the one who did the on-line tutorial I found the other day, as well. Mike Kelly, I believe. So anyway, I wasn't as hungry as I thought, so I picked at my Camarones Blances (some delicious shrimp dish) and then packed the rest for a delicious lunch tomorrow (lucky me) and then came home! And here I am, still a bit tired but alive enough to work on some Calc.

Happy days, people, happy days. <3

Question of the Day

So my question for the day is:

Why do men spend so much time digging around in their nuts. WHY?????

Smart Boyfriends

Smart boyfriends. They're really quite the commodity when you're going to school! I have been struggling with stupid transformations of functions, because the equation of the function seemed counter intuitive to what was really happening in the graph, and of course the homework problems in no way related to the examples in the book. So I finally broke down and asked the OMA, and he got out a piece of paper down there in L.A. and went through it with me step by step by baby step and VOILA!!! I got it!!! I was so excited and happy. And now I can do this process, and if I get stuck I can go back to my little notes and figure out how to break it down into something solvable. Still, why do these mathematical texts leave these basic steps out? I guess they figure you learned it in precalc, but when I got back to my precalc book, it had the same damned examples that the calculus book had, and not the problem I was working, nor did it say, as the OMA did that f(2x) means that 2x is an independent variable, and if you break it down and say 2x = k, you can get f(x(k)) and then it makes MUCH more sense. Sheesh. Anyway. Limits and transformations. They're not so hard when someone takes the time to actually explain them in a way that makes some freakin sense and doesn't leave the basics out!

In other news, I forgot my keys at home today. So I get to my building, and there is NO ONE HERE. No one in my department; no faculty, no staff, nothing; no-one in CPHN, no-one in the lab, no one in the suite of offices down the hall! I couldn't even find the janitress!!! So I got to hang out in the hallway; I went and visited the ladies in the Scandinavian Studies department til they got tired of me, then I wandered upstairs and downstairs like Wee Willie Winkie (only not in my nightgown). I was just getting ready to hang it up. I texted the boss-lady to tell her what was up (she's off today) and was getting ready to mosey on over to the bus stop when our fiscal tech FINALLY showed up. And so now here I am at my desk, listening to some Sheryl Crow, having a pleasant day, and thinking about venturing out into the big bad world to do some banking before the lines get too long, and then come back to work and get a few chores out of the way before I go play squash with Maryam.

German was, as usual, a hoot last night. Angelika was all perky and fun. There were only 3 of us in tutoring; CW11 Tucker, Kari-not-Carey and I. I logged into my NSCC account so that we could do the Horen und Sprachen exercise, and then we all just kind of visited more than studied. Angelika was grading papers, and we just chitter-chatted and did a little practice and then off to class. We did a lot of exercises in class, and then made arrangements to watch a movie called "Run Lola Run" which a few students had seen and are all excited for; this is going to be on Tuesday because Angelika can't make it.

And that's the story of my life. :)

The Fury!!!

Oh my, we are having quite a stormy afternoon here at the University of Washington. I went out earlier to take the mail to the drop box; just as I looked out the window, it started to rain just a few, big drops. By the time I got to the other end of the building, it was hailing like a sonofabitch!!! By the time I got back (mind you I just went one building over and back), I had HUGE rain splotches on my pants and my head was wet.

So it hailed for awhile, then it rained diagonal sheets for awhile, then we had THUNDER!!! It's all very exciting and I get to go out in it in a few minutes and take my chances. Pray I don't get struck by lightning or something dramatic like that!

THE STOCK MARKET!!!!

OK so it is no secret that I am new to this "investment" business, and having a portfolio is an oddly strange and new thing that makes me feel grown up in a way I never have before. So I get my statement from TIAA-CREF last night, and open it in breathless anticipation...what IS this big fat envelope? What wonders will it contain? An advertisement...some information...and a STATEMENT! Oooh, proof of my first $15 deposit to my RETIREMENT account (can you imagine?) I unfold the sacred page, and to my dismay, see that my initial investment (that's right, I, Carey Blueberry, am INVESTING, for God's sake) has ALREADY shrunk by $.23!!! That's right, my retirement fund, my first little seed, is SHRINKING. Talk about today's economy hitting home. I mean, you wouldn't think that a little tiny nugget like that would be affected, but affected it is. Sigh. Well, all we can do is batten down the hatches and ride it out and hope for the best, and try to think of more platitudes with which to sooth myself.

Auf Deutsche, Bitte

So I figured out that I can take the 4:10 68 to Northgate, transfer to a 345 to school, and be there just around 5:00. That, my friends is a 50-minute trip. If I were to drive, it would take MAYBE 20 minutes; more like 15. But east west service sucks, so it takes a loooooooooooooong time. Oh well, I got a nappy.

I got there right around 5, and Brandon (CW 11 boy) was there in a beanie, and Jasmine the tattoed girl, Emily #1, Kari-not-Carey, and Carhartt Tucker. We had a great review session, Kari and I did flash cards together, and then Angelika led us through some exercises and I gave her chocolate, much like the brown-noser I profess not to be! :) We had a quiz in class and I think I rocked it. I was only unsure about a couple of genders but I originally put down "die Himmel" and changed it to "der Himmel", and it turns out that was right, so hooray for my side. One of the students brought a Ritter chocolate to share, and Angelika brought a bag of Riesen, so we got treats, too.

So on to calculus, and limits, which I am not really understanding. I mean, I understand the concept that f(x) = L as x approaches a, but what the hell does that mean? Harry didn't explain it. My book doesn't explain it. But I just clicked on an on-line tutorial and they laid it out in the FIRST FREAKIN SENTENCE!!!! It's the freakin height of the function! The y! Why couldn't they just say that to begin with, the bastards??? I spent so much time last night trying to figure that out, and I finally graphed a function and watched how it behaved and then I KIND of figured out that the limit was kinda sorta the height. For God's sake.

So next week is test week; both in German and Calculus, so I need to figure these damned limits out and crack down on the vocab.


Have a great day, peeps. I am going to try to find the debate and see what I can see.