Rising Tide Neurosis

I have this recurring dream about the ocean rising up to the level of my home and basically washing everything away. Feeling overwhelmed?  Me?  What?

Anyway, I had this dream again last night, and it was the first time it had been set here in this apartment even though I've been living here for two and a half years.  And my family (which apparently now includes my 13 year old daughter's boyfriend of six months) spent a lot of time trying to decide what to carry out of the house and save, and then we all went to an emergency shelter and survived to return to our muddy, soaked house when the tide receded.

Which I'm trying to see as a positive sign, right?

New Love

New love: Hyperbole and a Half

Tag, I'm It!

Because I like to play nice....

Rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Ok, the 7 things:

1. I like to eat sardines. Usually on crackers.
2. I'm a member of a dream group. We meet every week and talk about our dreams.
3. I failed NaNoWriMo. I blame the Yes on One folks, because... why not?
4. My only significant encounter with the law is one speeding ticket.
5. I've been so tense this week that, while I'm sleeping, I clench my hands until they are numb and bloodless. There is no one reason for this stress; I think it's a month-long accumulation. I need to get to the gym more.
6. In high school I used to play clarinet, bass clarinet, french horn, hand drums, and electric guitar.
7. I like to make my own beer and wine.

I'm going to break the rules because I dislike tagging people. However, I would LOVE to know seven random things about you, so if you posted them I would clap my hands with excitement. Really. Consider yourself tagged.

Speaking of funny google search results...

Yes, Google. That's exactly what I meant.

Baby pears

No, really. Baby pears.

I don't usually link to kottke articles but I couldn't resist.

Baby pears! Baby pears!

Fall Plans

Mmmm.... Venison.... Hopefully coming to a freezer near you. I'll keep you posted as plans progress.

Haunted

I like to listen to podcasts when I'm doing unpleasant things, like the dishes, or working out. Some people like music for this purpose. I generally don't; music doesn't have enough words to distract my busy busy mind.

So this weekend I was catching up on some old This American Life episodes while cleaning up, and heard this story of haunting, explained here:

Some nights after I have been in bed for a while, I have felt as if the bed clothes were jerked off me, and I have also felt as if I had been struck on the shoulder. One night I woke up and saw sitting on the foot of my bed a man and a woman. The woman was young, dark and slight, and wore a large picture hat. The man was older, smooth shaven and a little bald. I was paralyzed and could not move, when suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder and I was able to sit up, and the man and the woman faded away. Sometimes, after I have gone to bed, the noises from the storeroom are tremendous. It does not happen every night; perhaps a week or ten days will pass, and then again it may be several nights in succession. Sometimes it sounds as if furniture was being piled against the door, as if china was being moved about, and occasionally a long and fearful sigh or wail.

It turns out that they were being poisoned. They called a doctor:

He examined the house thoroughly from top to bottom and interviewed the servants. He found the furnace in a very bad condition, the combustion being imperfect, the fumes, instead of going up the chimney, were pouring gases of carbon monoxide into our rooms. He advised us not to let the children sleep in the house another night. If they did, he said we might find in the morning that some one of them would never wake again.

It makes me wonder about "ghostly" experiences of my own. Were they just bad air? Will anyone ever explain alien sightings this way, or just ghosts? How about unicorns? Are all the ramblings of the mind preventable?







images from http://www.ghoststoriesandpictures.com/

Can't resist

In light of my previous love for Brett Michaels, it would seem amiss for me not to share this brilliantness:



And to think I flashed that guy once. Sigh.

Babies! Animals!

For your Thursday afternoon enjoyment, a photo that is so cute that when I saw it I was forced to make incomprehensible cutsie noises until I ran out of breath and COUGHED.Well, cute and a little disturbing and wierdly dirty. But CUTE!

Travelin

Yesterday I took a one-day trip to Washington DC to attend a conference for work. It was held at a crazy giant hotel that had an outdoor shopping plaza--with trees and flowers and picnic tables and the works--inside the hotel! I felt kind of like ma kettle, standing there gaping with my cell phone camera held high. Unfortunately the pictures didn't come out, but you can see other people's pictures of the hotel here.

This trip was a landmark for a couple of reasons. First, it was the farthest I've traveled by myself, and only the second time I've been to DC. Second, it's only the second time I've flown. I was pretty proud of myself that I managed it all, and also acted like an adult the entire time (ie no screaming, crying, or urinating in my pants).

The best part was the flight, though. I was completely enchanted by the view, and I hope that I always am. On the way, I saw the sun rise from 32,000 feet, and on the way home I saw all of the East Coast cities lit up like jewelry. There was a guy sitting next to me on the flight home, and I kept wanting to nudge him and point out the window, but he was too busy working on a powerpoint about fatty bone marrow. Fatty bone marrow may be important, but it's not pretty.

For Anna

And everyone else, too, on second thought:



Happy not snow day. Safe travels.

For a slow news day...

The top 10 evil clown stories of 2008.


Clowns don't scare me, but I know lots of people feel otherwise. I'm also not scared of dolls, aliens, snakes, needles, or knives.

I am, however, all-out-of-proportion scared of ugly bugs (spiders, house centipedes, hornworms), the dark, dogs, handguns, and germs.

via

Antidote

After that last post I felt like crying, which I don't want to start the day off doing, so I watched this. You should watch it too.

It doesn't fix anything, but it's hard not to giggle and make cutesy noises. And it's impossible to despair and also make cutesy noises. Promise.

iFart

Finally I can stop having bad self-esteem about my cell phone. Because iPhone users aren't any better than me. How do I know?

The number one application for the iPhone is an app called iFart.

Heh. Heh-heh. I said "fart." Heh heh.

(via mashable)

Street Smarts

Dear Portland,

I would like to offer some tips for navigating in our beautiful, snow-narrowed streets:

1. Hang up your cell phone. Especially if you are
-parking in a spot that is covered with six inches of sandy slush
-driving on a road narrowed to one lane
-any combination of the above
2. Stop honking. It will not get you there any faster, and there's probably a good reason why the person ahead of you is driving slower--they're probably avoiding a pedestrian. Which brings me to...
3. If you are walking, try to be on the sidewalk. Sometimes there's no room to drive around you. If you can't,
4. Wear clothing that is not white or black, because you blend in with the snowbanks and are likely to become one of them.
5. On a street that is down to one lane, yield to the driver coming downhill towards you, because chances are pretty good that they are going to have a hard time stopping. Even if you're driving a Lexus. And even if you're really in a hurry.

Sincerely,
Everyone

This Morning's LOL

From theoldpinebox.com: "The "Pioneer" may be purchased with a shelf option as shown here to serve as storage or display for any of your fine articles. It comes standard with a removable lid that may be stored separately or if a cabinet style is preferred, you may order a hinged lid."

Dual-duty. A priority in my life, for sure. Plus, I like to think about taking my final rest in the same space where I, like, stored my canned goods or displayed my knick-knacks.

(thx, kelly)

Dairy-free Drugs

I've been having a hard time lately finding prescriptions that do not contain lactose. Apparently not even my pharmacist knows what's in the drugs I'm taking (I did ask, and he did look, but was unable to identify lactose in the inactive ingredients, and then I had to spend two days at home when he was wrong).

Of course, when there is lactose, I know pretty quickly--but I'd like to avoid that in the future. It's really not nice.

So in my researches, I found this list of lactose-containing medications online that is proving extremely hepful. Add to that list every single birth control pill available in the US (not kidding--maybe there's a secret government plot to increase the lactose-intolerant population?).

Rerun

A couple of days ago over at kottke, there was a discussion about which movies you've watched the most. I find this conversation interesting and disturbing. Of course part of what determines the list is the time and place one grew up, but it also must say something about a person's needs. At the Onion AV Club, where the discussion started, one poster says

But in an uncomfortably psychologically revealing way, my immersion in [Ghostbuster's] many quotable lines crossed the borderline separating casual reference and obsessive incantation long ago: It's probably no coincidence that the peak of my Ghostbusters viewing (at least once a week) came just after my parents' divorce, when I was consoled during rocky nights by my friends Venkman, Ray, and Egon.

As a child, I rented Annie every time we went to the movie store for about six months. It must have driven my parents crazy. On my adult list The Princess Bride and As Good As It Gets are far and away the leaders, followed closely by Dirty Dancing. I can literally quote The Princess Bride from beginning to end; I can't even begin to estimate the number of times I've seen it. The beginning of the obsessive viewing also coincided with my parents' divorce, and I suspect that the true love theme was appealing to my adolescent self. Same story with Dirty Dancing, except add sex.

I can't yet explain As Good As It Gets. There is love, but it's a dysfunctional, confusing, difficult love, and ditto characters. Maybe it appeals to a definitely more cynical view of the world, but retaining the happy ending that I really do want to believe in.

After those, the list would include the PBS mini-series Anne of Green Gables, The Breakfast Club, and Terminator 2. I don't really like repeated movie viewings these days, but maybe it counts that I'm watching The Sopranos series for a second time.

What are yours?

Laboring

In celebration of work, I am spending Labor Day working around the house. OK, it's not really that different from any other day lately, and I have, in fact, been confused several times today by the presence of people being leisurely in my neighborhood. Because most Mondays people are working. Unlike me. Actually, sex and work are now in the same category for me: Things That I've Heard Other People Do.

Today's scheduled labors: bake bread, blanch the green/wax beans I picked at the farm yesterday, wash the kitchen floors, take care of yesterday's hoeing blisters.

Today's unscheduled tasks: complete all of the puzzles in the Sunday paper, watch an episode of the Sopranos, take the kids to the playground where a fortuitous internet connection is found, eat a popsicle, discover that you have the beginnings of a double chin in the reflection of your computer screen.

Cheers!

Rainy Friday

No matter how many times I say, "I think I'm getting mildewed," it doesn't make me feel better about the rain.

This did, though. Geek.