Well, hey there. Back after an extended visit to PA. Got back to the office to find a scant few voice- and e-mails. Hooray for the halt of the workplace over the holidays. Christmas was lovely; the theme of my gifts this year was "Housewares for the Girl Who Finally Got Her Own Apartment." In my Christmas stocking I found a new stick vac (the old one previously mentioned here at sixlayerkate kicked the dustbucket about 2 weeks after LindaTheMom gave it to me), a new microwave, a blender, a Brita water pitcher/filter thingy, new towels, a wall sconce, and these weird plastic things that resemble flower pots that you use to boost your bed frame about 6 inches. The best thing, though, is my new coffee pot. Has a timer and a built-in grinder. Before you go to bed, you set the timer and dump coffee beans and water in the machine. As you're waking up in the morning, the machine kicks on, grinds the beans, and makes your coffee. I'm beside myself with joy. No more AM bleary-eyed stumbling about the kitchen spilling coffee grounds everywhere. And oh yeah. Mom and Dad decided it was high time I got with the program and joined the ranks of the 21st century. They bought me a cell phone. It's going to take some getting used to. Last night I was driving back to Cleveland from PA, and I'd tossed the phone into the basket of clean laundry that was riding in the passenger seat. At some stage of the journey, someone called. Scared the shit out of me. I nearly jumped through the roof thinking, "Why the HELL are my clean underpants RINGING??"
posted by Kate at 10:30 AM link/comments
Tuesday, December 25, 2001
Just wanted to wish everyone a very merry holiday. Hope all of your travels and celebrations went well.
posted by Melinda at 8:15 PM link/comments
Saturday, December 22, 2001
I hear ya Jen... the meal/flying part. Unfortuantely I'm flying out of Dulles airport, so two hours may not even be enough. Of course it will be at 4 am, but who knows.
posted by Mike at 11:01 PM link/comments
I cannot express in words how small the Moscow-Pullman airport is. Let's just say there's no need for me to arrive 2 hours early, since the entire operation is contained within one room, and if, perchance, I'm delayed while checking my baggage, I can just shout over to the boarding area and ask them to hold the plane for a minute. I think that's the way all airports should be. So the Fun Visit to Ohio begins tomorrow...I'm humming "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and trying to decide if I can make a meal out of the random food items left in the apartment...
posted by Jen at 4:08 PM link/comments
Friday, December 21, 2001
Whaddya know. Word just came down from On High that the university president has realized what we all realized weeks ago ... that New Year's Day is on Tuesday, so making us come in to work on Monday, only to have the following day off, is silly. Work-wide email announces that we all get the 31st off. A major boss displaying compassion and common sense ... isn't that one of the harbingers of the apocolypse?
posted by Kate at 2:26 PM link/comments
Yeah, Jen, I'm so with you. The last thing I need to be reminded of while I'm drinking my morning coffee is environmental devastation. Hell, I can't even bear the thought of getting dressed before I've sucked down a cup of coffee, much less the thought of global issues.
posted by Kate at 2:22 PM link/comments
Thursday, December 20, 2001
So today I quenched my curiosity by visiting the "Forest Fire Museum and Gift Shop," which is across the street from the grocery store. The "museum" is a room documenting all the horrific forest fires that have burned Idaho to the ground again and again. You know, cheery. The gift shop has a complete line of Smokey the Bear dolls, Smokey the Bear blankets, Smokey the Bear mouse pads, Smokey the Bear everything. The best thing, though, was a coffee mug. Unfilled, it shows Smokey smiling in front of some green trees. Fill it with hot coffee, however, and the green trees change to charred, blackened remnants. It's the most inappropriate coffee mug I've ever seen. Who wants to be reminded of the brutality of nature and the carelessness of humans every morning in this particular manner? I'm also happy to say that the gift shop is offering 1999 Smokey the Bear calendars at full price. I think I was their first customer in a decade.
posted by Jen at 8:22 PM link/comments
Final exams here at the university ended yesterday, and this morning, I rejoiced at the marked silence in the building, where usually there is the constant sound of noisy students. My joy lasted about half an hour until the university maintenance people showed up. Apparently, they've decided that now is a good time to start power-drilling every wall within a 20-foot radius of my office. No peace.
posted by Kate at 11:44 AM link/comments
I would really love to know what the hell the "early settlers" of Cleveland were thinking when they decided on this spot to start a city. "Gee, let's see. In the winters, it's so cold out that if you breathe too deeply, your lungs turn to glaciers. In the summer, the heat and humidity make going outside akin to walking through a giant vat of boiling chicken soup. Yep! This is the place!"
posted by Kate at 11:38 AM link/comments
Wednesday, December 19, 2001
Yeah, animals and medicine always provide much amusement. Here's how it goes with Pan: I grab the miniscule scruff on her neck (she's still tiny, like she never grew) and lift her straight up. She glares, locks jaws. I wiggle syringe-thingy into her mouth. Jettison foul-tasting benadryl into her throat. She actually swallows most of it before remembering what it is. Spits out rest. Rolls around like she's dying. I give her ferretone or a raisin, and she's instantly happy again. She's actually pretty good about it. It's made Paul and I recall how Loki would fight to the bitter end rather than receive ear drops for ear mites.
posted by Jen at 1:11 PM link/comments
My brother goes to Catholic school. Same high school I went to. Said high school requires that its students wear uniforms. Girls wear plaid skirts. Today, my brother decided it would be fun to bend the rules.
posted by Kate at 1:06 PM link/comments
Tuesday, December 18, 2001
Yikes. Give Pan a raisin for me. Poor thing. Hard to believe she's already a "geriatric." Last time I saw her, she was just a baby. The only animals that are a pleasure to administer medicine to are dogs. Wrap pill in some food product, give to dog, dog is happy. Chloe the Ferret now lives with my parents. When I was getting ready to move, it became quickly apparent that no landlord/lady in his/her right mind was going to rent a decent one-bedroom apartment to a woman with six pets. Nessie and Bugsy were adopted by a lovely ferret owner here in Cleveland who owned something like 15 ferrets and had an entire floor of her house turned into Ferret Paradise. I hated to do it, but I'm sure they're much happier now running wild all over someone's house. Once, while I was still in college, Chloe had some sort of chest infection that required antibiotics. They were the liquid kind, so every 6 hours or so, I had to fill one of those syringes with so many CCs of medicine, jam the syringe down Chloe's throat, and spurt the stuff down her trachea as quickly as possible. Then she'd gag and spit, and I'd have to spend the next 20 minutes washing an antibiotic-covered ferret (and an antibiotic-covered Kate). As for the cats, giving them pills has always been nothing less than a two-person operation involving someone holding down all four paws and restraining the cat's head with me stupidly trying to insert my entire finger into an angry cat mouth. Crushing the pills and hiding them in tuna is completely futile. Cats are not that dumb.
posted by Kate at 4:30 PM link/comments
The trip to the vet turned out to be very surreal and slightly traumatic. Pan, the little ferret, had a massive allergic reaction to the distemper shot, which has never happened before. She threw up for an hour, scratched at her face in a highly disturbing manner, and just about went into shock. First the vet gave her epinephrine to stop the reaction, then benadryl, and then, when none of that helped, out came a shot of steriods. Poor Pan was not a happy camper. An hour later, she seemed to be coming out of it, and she's happily sleeping now. I have to give her benadryl every eight hours for the next three days. And we all know what a pleasant task it is to administer medicine to ferrets, especially ferrets who spend the afternoon puking and receiving shot after painful shot. Robin, the other ferret, seemed to enjoy the entire episode. Paul said Robin tried to climb into the fish tank in the waiting room. The vet felt really bad about the whole thing, and she gave me her cell phone number. She has two ferrets of her own, and she said these allergic reactions are so rare she's only ever seen it happen one other time. Trauma, trauma, trauma. Also, Pan is now old enough to be considered a "geriatric ferret," and despite all the trauma today, I continue to find the term "geriatric ferret" to be extremely amusing.
posted by Jen at 12:06 AM link/comments
Monday, December 17, 2001
I hate taking my cats to the vet. I hate taking my cats anywhere. The last time put Tiamet in the car, the melodramatic mrow-ing was unbearable. All she would have needed to complete the motif was a tiny tin cup to rattle across the front metal bars of the cat carrier. When Lazarus is in the cat carrier, his voice gets about 6 octaves deeper than usual, like he's doing some weird feline Barry White impression. In other news, it appears as though Jesus Christ has started fighting crime. I always knew he'd make a great superhero. I wonder if we can get a spotlight signal for him like Batman's. When trouble's brewing, we could just shine a giant crucifix light into the night sky...
posted by Kate at 3:30 PM link/comments
I'm taking the ferrets to the vet this afternoon. As always, it promises to be a good time. I have convinced Paul that he needs to come with me.
So we got Idaho plates for our car...at a bargain price of $75.00. It's like the plates were our Christmas presents to each other. Lest we fight too long over who got the front plate and who got the back plate, we also bought a CD burner and 50 cds and 40 multi-colored cases.
posted by Jen at 2:32 PM link/comments
Add this to the search engine list: "High Resolution Wet T-Shirt." Heh heh heh.
posted by Kate at 2:20 PM link/comments
I don't care what anyone says. I can believe it's not butter.
posted by Kate at 9:21 AM link/comments
Saturday, December 15, 2001
Search engine queries are so random. I don't know if they suggest the existence of a higher power or just a power. I particularly like "pick a blond adult gallery."
I'm happy to report that I have a pasta salad saga to share. Last night there was a reading held at a grad student's house, and it was a potluck dinner sort of thing. At previous readings, the definition of "potluck" had been shamefully bastardized into everyone bringing either not enough food (i.e. a bowl of pudding) or unfulfilling food (pumpkin seeds) or food full of meat. So, in preparation for last night, I made two gigantic pasta salads. I was like, "Everyone will have food! It will be filling and wholesome! They will call me Martha Stewart!" I had to scour all three grocery stores in town to get the ingredients. But the reading didn't last very long, and everyone was being strangely polite by not gorging themselves on free food. Now, the morning after, I have more left over pasta salad than I know what to do with. It has been distributed across four large bowls/containers in my fridge, and I feel strangely stressed out about how to proceed from here. WWMD? (What Would Martha Do?)
posted by Jen at 12:38 PM link/comments
Friday, December 14, 2001
I hope they found what they were looking for.
posted by Holly at 11:26 AM link/comments
Here now are highlights from the last 20 search engine queries that yielded Six-Layer Kate: mumu clothes; home+movies+coach+mcgurk; H. Jon Benjamin; size zero clothing; pick a blonde adult gallery; picture of the hair style layer; infected wisdom tooth; happy birthday linda song; english videos kate; Kate Foster; Crossing Over Private Reading John Edward; hate buffy; nice words for brother's birthday; old lady six. As far as I can tell, this site would have provided no real help whatsoever to any of those queries. Six-Layer Kate: Completely Useless Information at Its Best.
posted by Kate at 10:33 AM link/comments
I'm fed up. I hereby submit my most respectful request that the global media come together in a show of solidarity and make a decision, once and for all, on how to pronounce "Al Qaeda." Is it "All - Kay-da"? Maybe we should put John Ashcroft in charge of this one. A military tribunal put to the task of foreign pronunciation might be kind of fun.
Is it "All - Kie-da"?
Is it "All - Kie-ay-da"?
posted by Kate at 10:21 AM link/comments
If that were true, I wonder if they'd give you little stickers on your ID card a la the ones they give you on drivers' licenses when you're an organ donor. Tiny sticker with a picture of Hitler next to ... wait. I don't want to think about what kind of pictures they'd use to denote STDs and diarrhea.
posted by Kate at 10:17 AM link/comments
Thursday, December 13, 2001
The answer to your question, Kate, is that if you have an STD, the runs, and Hitler is your uncle, all this would be on your National ID Card, and the whole world would know and laugh at you. (The first of many fallacies in that particular essay). But, alas, I have finished grading the essays, and am off to the bar in a mere ten minutes, haunted by the fact that one student's essay equated ID cards with the biblical prophecy of the Mark of the Beast, and that anyone supporting ID cards is, in fact, one of Satan's Minions. Yeah for religious separatists in Idaho!
posted by Jen at 5:57 PM link/comments
Oh, and Mother, I think you'd be the grandgoddess. It rolls off the tongue quite nicely.
posted by Kate at 9:33 AM link/comments
Soooo, I'm going to regret asking this, but what exactly do STDs, chronic diarrhea, and Hitler have to do with National ID cards?
posted by Kate at 9:31 AM link/comments
Wednesday, December 12, 2001
Nice story about the jackass bike kids. Very amusing. I have 23 essays remaining, fermenting until tomorrow. Had to call it quits today when I came across an essay that had mentioned sexually transmitted diseases, chronic diarreaha, and Hitler all in one sentence. Paul had a paper that explained how "the terrorist attacks made Americans crawl into their turtle shells." Yeah, I need a turtle shell right about now.
Kate, the problem with grad school is that you end up overworked, underpaid, and too educated to know what to do with yourself. It's quite glamorous.
Everybody needs to go see the movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Best goddamn drag queen movie in the world.
posted by Jen at 7:17 PM link/comments
Quit feeling so damn melancholy. (I told you to go to grad school....it's never too late.) If you are a goddess, what does that make me? the goddess mother? the grandgoddess? she who has been trying to whip the goddess into shape for over 25 years? the goddess' old lady? yo' momma goddess?
posted by L at 5:28 PM link/comments
| Damn kids | The other day, I was driving down my street, concentrating on both operating my vehicle and paying extreme caution to the 97 children that were running around the vicinity. Every child that lives on my street has a death wish. They dart in front of speeding cars for no discernable reason; they ride their bikes at full tilt, narrowly missing collision with assorted parked cars; they occasionally have somersault/cartwheel contests in the middle of the road. Deathwish. All of them. I looked up from assessing the possible repercussions of a sidewalk "spin-around-so-fast-your-body-becomes-a-centrifuge-and-turns-your-internal-organs-into-oatmeal" match being undertaken by a herd of four-year-olds to see 8 or 9 prepubescent boys involved in an activity with the following rules: Ride bicycle to top of street, where exists the summit of a slight hill; Rider #1: Mount bicycle; Rider #2: Mount same bicycle as Rider #1, sitting directly behind him; Rider #1: Begin pedaling as fast as humanly possible; Rider #2: Reach around and cover Rider #1's eyes; Rider #1: Continue to pedal rapidly, despite fact that you can't see a damn thing; Rider #2: Shout "helpful" instructions to Rider #1. Some suggestions include, "GoRight! GoRiii ...! AwNo! IMeantLeft! Left!" and "Hey, man. Watch out for that car!" Fail to make obvious deduction that telling your friend to "watch out" for anything while simultaneously blinding him is completely futile.; Rider #1: State the obvious. Repeatedly. "Awwwww, sheeeiiiit! I can't seeeee!" Having noticed this was going on, I stopped the car, and sat helpless as two children whose names will eventually appear somewhere in the text of the Darwin Awards came careening down the hill and towards my vehicle in the fashion described above. Rider #1 steered the bike away from my front bumper at the last possible second, narrowly avoiding a scenario that would have involved a crushed bike, a smashed bumper and car hood, and two airborne children sailing over the roof of a 1990 Pontiac Firebird in a slow-motion, tv-public-service-announcement-about-bike-safety sort of way. Someone remind me to never have children. Seems to me their main goal between birth and age 18 (arguable. the age goes much higher for some, particularly boys.) is to put themselves in as many situations as possible where there is a high probability of death and/or maiming.
posted by Kate at 4:26 PM link/comments
| Pride Pampering | I knew I should have gone to graduate school. I never get to torment anyone around here. The most satisfying mind game I get to play is hiding behind a veneer of technological prowess, which means that everyone I write web sites for thinks that I am some sort of computer goddess. Well, actually, it's not a game. I lied. I am a goddess. Note: Today is "work-on-my-self-esteem" day, due to some recent personal ego bruising. All delusions of grandeur and references to deity status will likely disappear after I'm feeling a bit better. In the meantime, someone please email me and tell me to quit feeling so damn melancholy.
posted by Kate at 9:55 AM link/comments
Tuesday, December 11, 2001
I have plowed through 44 freshman essays...highlights include the word "maintenance" spelled like this: matiness. I had to sit there and stare at the sentence for about three minutes before I could decode it. Also, in a weird moment of synchronicity, Paul and I both read essays, mere minutes apart, that used the word "higher" instead of "hirer." As in, "Someone might not higher you for the job." This resulted in a volley of pot-smoking jokes, which was delightful.
I had good old Hale for my colloquim, and two of the slightly certifiable communications profs for my seminar, that rhetoric seminar. But I didn't have the same profs that Kate and Paul had. I can't remember their names, which sucks. But yeah, beating a dead horse. Right on.
My poor students are terrified that they will fail this essay, and a number of them have sent me emails, or sulked outside my office door, begging for mercy. Paul's students also sulk outside the door (we share an office) and Paul is great because he puts on this show, this act, where he gets all serious and tells them to sit down, he has some bad news. Paul keeps it up for 5, 10 minutes and the poor students are terrified. They think their academic careers are over. Then Paul tells them he's joking, and life is all better again. Furthermore, Paul now has this weird policy where if a student happens to stop by the office and Paul is engaged in a game of online chess (which is the case about 90% of the time), the student has to sit quietly and watch him win before asking any questions. These are the perks of being a TA....
posted by Jen at 10:46 PM link/comments
Ahh... frshman seminar.
At least you didn't have Parker Kate, I did, and I was alone. Gothier, fine. Parker, insane. Nine tenths of the reading material was femminist. I kid you not. Which is all well and good, but the class was Heroism, past and Present or something. She dug up every female heroine she could fine, and I think made one or two up to combat the overly male subject.
I got an A+ on one paper I'm sure, just because I picked my Mom as my personal hero. Parker wrote all over it in red, thrilled to death.
In current news, I'm flying home, Dec 23. I'll be around for four days... flying back out like the 27th.
posted by Mike at 2:50 PM link/comments
Gehhhh! Gack! I've been trying for years to erase the memory of first-year seminar from my brain. I'm sure some people had a fantastic experience with it, but Paul and I were team-taught by a pair of professors who were completely certifiable, both in unique ways. One behaved at all times as though she were senile (she wasn't), and the other was one of those people who was very concerned about the poverty in South and Central America. A fine cause, don't get me wrong, but she tried to relate every facet of every conversation or topic of study to Guatemala and Nicaragua, both of which she pronounced in a nasally pseudo-Spanish accent. Also for some reason, that two-semester-long grapple with hell was choc-full of athletes who had come to a $20,000+ - per-year school for the sole purpose of finding creative ways to hide full kegs under their bunks. I remember one class discussion where we were talking about (I think) Socrates, and one of the nutty professors was explaining something about him. One of the jockgirls was like, "Wow. That must be awful to have to think like that. I would never want to be that smart." Paul and I held onto one another and wept for the children. The subject of the class was rhetoric, and Paul's notebook was filled with sketches of our cartoon professors beating cartoon dead horses in an assortment of ways. Sometimes the horse was being kicked; sometimes the horse had "RHETORIC" written across its back and was being pummeled by a giant club; once there was an entire cartoon strip of a horse being beaten and buried, then exhumed from its grave by a cartoon professor and beaten again. Paul's cartoons were the only thing that kept me from slipping over the edge.
posted by Kate at 9:29 AM link/comments
Monday, December 10, 2001
Am preparing to read 100 freshman essays on the topic of National ID Cards: Violation of privacy or a way to "smoke out" the terrorists? This is their final essay, which they pretty much have to pass in order to pass the course. I am fearing for my sanity, given that when I announced the topic, not a single student could explain the ID card controversy. Ignorance, bliss, retake English 101.....Kate, one time Paul and I tried to explain Hiram's equivalent of the English 101/102 requirement, which is the colloquim/seminar thing, where you learn to write but it's cleverly disguised as a course you might be interested in for other reasons. It seems to freak people out, so eventually we stopped trying to explain it, which only reinforces the notion that Hiram is a fantasy land unlike any other college on the planet.
posted by Jen at 3:00 PM link/comments
Oh, man. I know I shouldn't admit this, but I'm really happy that The Hampsters are still dancing. The site even includes an explanation for why the word "hamster" is misspelled.
posted by Kate at 1:30 PM link/comments
| Friends | This is how I know that I'm hanging out with the right group of people. Some of my former housemates had a wine party on Saturday night. A bunch of us spent the night there, having no business behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. Sunday morning, there were about 8 of us sitting around the living room having coffee and discussing the idea of breakfast. Jen: I think we should cook breakfast here. It's Sunday, so every restaurant is going to be jam-packed with the church crowd.
MyFriendKate: Sunday? It's Sunday? (deadpan) Oh, shit. I missed church again.
Everyone In Room, including FriendKate: BWAH HA HA HA HA HA!
posted by Kate at 11:53 AM link/comments
Friday, December 07, 2001
| A Dog's Mind | My question is this: If he did catch them, what do you think he'd do with them?
posted by Kate at 4:36 PM link/comments
Goody! Now you can start to pay me all the millions of dollars you owe me, Kathleen. I am SO evil. Love it. Congrats!
SydneytheDog is out chasing two doe all over creation and having a wonderful time. He will never catch them but I don't think he cares. Butty&HoneytheGoats are looking at him as if to say "Why?"
posted by L at 2:51 PM link/comments
My sympathies to Kate and the infected wisdom teeth. Toothaches are the worst. My dad once had a toothache so bad that he woke me up at 3 a.m. and asked me to drive him to the emergency room. In my sleepy, what-the-hell-are-you-doing voice, I reminded him that emergency rooms don't do dental work. He didn't care. He just wanted some high-powered painkillers.
The ferrets will be having a holiday at the "Animal House Kennels" while Paul and I visit Ohio. After perusing the Yellow Pages and deciding that a vet who names her business the "Animal House" must have a healthy enough sense of humor to take two ferrets for 16 days, I made the reservations. However, I have to provide the cage (not a problem) and I have to "bring the ferrets in for a check-up, to make sure they are OK." I think this was a polite way to say they've seen some evil ferrets in their day (imagine that.) My mom is disappointed -- she was honestly thinking I'd haul the ferrets through three airports in a little pet carrier. She saw no problem in doing that. I, however, had myself a good chuckle at the thought of two ferrets "enjoying" a series of overnight airplane flights, not to mention how pleased the other passengers would be.
posted by Jen at 12:36 PM link/comments
| The Silver Lining | Guess whose new office Macintosh computer just arrived, complete with lightning-quick CD/RW and 60 gig hard drive. And oh yeah, guess who just got a 12% increase in her salary, retroactive to November 15. I rule.
posted by Kate at 12:36 PM link/comments
| Drugs | Well, yeah, see I would save these lovely narcotics for recreational usage, except for the part where my face would throb like hell for the next few days until the antibiotics take effect. Keep in mind, HollyBear, that you hang out with me on an almost-daily basis. Do you want to deal with me being ten times grouchier than usual?
posted by Kate at 12:32 PM link/comments
Holly's Druggie Tip of the Day:
(What is that? I don't post a tip every day? Well, do you really expect that level of commitment from a druggie?)
Deal with the pain with as little as the Tylenol from the heavens as possible. Save them for a rainy day. Or a sunny day. Or a day with scattered showers.
posted by Holly at 11:27 AM link/comments
| On the Other Hand ...| The Good News: Nasty toothaches are no match for Tylenol with Codeine
The Bad News: Neither are basic motor skills.
posted by Kate at 9:08 AM link/comments
Thursday, December 06, 2001
| Keywords | Keywords from my visit to the dentist: x-ray; sharp metal things that poke; bleeding gums; infected tooth and gums; prescriptions - penicillin and tylenol with codeine; oral surgeon referral; pending wisdom tooth extraction. I think I'll go stand in line at the pharmacy now. Then, it's me, my couch, my codeine, and an ice pack. Thank god there are decent shows on TV tonight.
posted by Kate at 4:42 PM link/comments
| The Instruction Manual is Your Friend | Holly, have I mentioned my bewilderment about every facet of your mother? Mother, how the hell has Dad managed to "screw something up" on the digital camera?? You point, you shoot, you plug the cord into the computer, you start the software that came with the camera, you follow the instructions on the screen. You're both beginning to worry me. Before long, you're going to be saying LillianTheGrandma things like, "That VCR is too complicated for me. You can have it." On second thought, her inability to program the VCR is the reason I now own said VCR. Buy more cool stuff, get bewildered by it, and give it to me. Mwahahaha.
posted by Kate at 1:23 PM link/comments
I thought I posted - I did, I did. Here it was: my momma sent me a joke on e-mail, calling it "the best joke I have heard in years." I'm pretty sure she's hitting that bong again. You be the judge:
Two atoms are walking down the street.
Atom 1: I lost an electron!
Atom 2: Are you sure?
Atom 1: I'm positive!
posted by Holly at 12:33 PM link/comments
| Fear of Reclining Vinyl Chairs | Wee-hoo for flu shots. I had one last week for the first time in my life. Big-ass needles are involved in flu shots. Other than that, I can't complain about the experience. Not having to rumble with influenza this year will be well worth it. So, HollyBear claims she posted to the blog yesterday, but said post is nowhere to be found. Holly? Have you lost your mind? I've had a massive toothache for three days coming from somewhere in the vicinity of my wisdom teeth. I suppose this means I should go to the dentist. Haven't been to the dentist in about 3 years. I hate going to the dentist for the following reasons: 1. I don't like people poking around the inside of my mouth with sharp objects and injecting things into my face that cause me to drool for hours afterward. *whimper*
2. The last time, I went to my hometown dentist, Dr. Cacco. Despite being a dentist, Dr. Cacco is an awfully nice guy who goes to great lengths to not shred the inside of his patients' faces. I don't have a dentist here in Ohio, and I'm scared I'm going to end up with some Horrible Dentist of Ill Repute who will leave me bleeding and my mouth resembling Austin Powers'.
3. The Big Reason - The dentist is going to tell me that I need to have my wisdom teeth removed. I've been avoiding this for a long time now, and I think my evasive tactics are catching up with me. I've never had surgery in my life, and I don't want to start now. I really dislike the notion of being unconscious and completely defenseless while someone removes bits of my skull, then being in great pain and having to subsist on baby food for days afterward.
posted by Kate at 11:01 AM link/comments
Wednesday, December 05, 2001
Hmmm, Kate. You are a Pisces and yet water tends to flee from you. I guess this means you are meant to flounder through life.
I will soon be shanghaied by LillianYourGrandmother and dragged off to Christmas Shopping Land. I feel the headache coming on already. Well, at least she can stop nagging me about getting a flu shot. I am going for my monthly bloodletting on Friday and the vampire there has informed me that I can get a flu shot then. Woohoo.
We took some good pictures at the beach last weekend but TedtheDad has managed to screw something up so they have not been sent to you yet. I will work on that later when my blood pressure goes down a bit. Bet you can't wait to see the mermaid made out of Christmas lights. Actually, I liked the starfish the best.
posted by L at 11:25 AM link/comments
Monday, December 03, 2001
Warm sauerkraut, wet cat chow. Sounds like a poem to me.
Hey, good news in the publishing world -- The Briar Cliff Review will be publishing my nonfiction essay, "Controlling the Light," in their Spring 2002 issue. Hurrah! It's an essay about greenhouses and plants and my family and, well, controlling the light. It will be my first published essay, although I've had some stories and poems published. The BCR is published in Sioux City, Iowa (why can't I get away from that state?)....
Kate, have you heard from Brian Hanna lately? There have been some somber developements in his life. Email me at hirt8573@uidaho.edu and I'll tell you rather than broadcast it over the blog. I'd email you but I seem to have no idea what your email address is.
posted by Jen at 2:14 PM link/comments
More advice: If you wondering why your kitchen sink's water pressure seems offish, look under the sink. It could very well be that one of the hoses that runs from the faucet to the water hookup has sprung a leak, and is consequently spraying water all over your under-sink cabinets. Should this be the case, remove all under-sink cabinet contents, but make sure when removing the 10-pound bag of cat food that you pick up said bag from the botton. Otherwise, the very-wet bottom of the bag will give way, allowing approximately 7.5 pounds of now-moist Purina cat chow to dump onto your linoleum floor.
posted by Kate at 11:59 AM link/comments
If you're going to have friends over on a Sunday, and you live in a small apartment, and you decide that making kielbasa and sauerkraut in the crock pot is a good idea, it's best to open some windows while it's cooking. Otherwise, you could end up with an apartment that smells entirely of warm sauerkraut. Trust me on this one.
posted by Kate at 11:55 AM link/comments