She’s releasing a new album–produced by Dr. Dre so it’ll be hip hop again(!)–THIS DECEMBER, OMG. I feel I must do my small part to stir up some hullabaloo. It cannot be possible I’m the only person trying to not pee my pants with excitement. She’s a freaking kickboxing BAD. ASS. with the voice of an angel!
*cough* You should buy it when it comes out. 
I am American. WE are American. That’s going to take some getting used to. . .suddenly not feeling disenfranchised from the previously brainwashed abyss of the States. In the words of a homeless black woman at work:
WE HAVE A PRESIDENT.
Yes, we do. Maybe now we will get to play catch-up with the rest of the developed world.
What a couple of months it has been! I was going about my life–la dee da–and then whoops! We moved. My job changed. We went river rafting. School was in full swing and then I dropped both classes. I started taking melatonin for my sleep problems and hurray it seems to be working. Halloween came and I was so tired and preoccupied that I did not dress up or even poke holes in a pumpkin. Yes, THAT is how weird I have been lately, weird enough to not care about Halloween. But I think I am on the mend. This week I started my new work schedule at the wellness center where I have 3 consecutive days off every week and all evenings open and not being in school has already helped immensely. Thanksgiving and our housewarming shindig were nice and we’ve had two weekends of out-of-town guests, all of which were most enjoyable. I am trying very hard to be happy and it is starting to work again. Wish me luck.
New photos updated to the Food, Friends, and tarataratara pages as well the all new Europe Extravaganza page! Hoooo boy!
Heather has been staying with us for a couple weeks while in-between apartments. It’s been pretty low key, and really she hasn’t been around much, so the most exciting houseguest goings-on have been cat related, for she has two of them.
This is Marigold. She is a voracious lover, possibly autistic, and has either cat-pica or an oral fixation.
This is Toast. His hind quarters are fully grown but his front half is still all kitten. He likes looking at things and being a brat.
This is a video of Toast chasing his tail after taking a bath. I guess he didn’t recognize it in its totally-not-fluffy state? I don’t know, but this went on for entirely too long. It’s a gigantic file so be warned! (I’m trying to figure out how to make this smaller and maybe streamable? We’ll see. . .)
I’ve suddenly become interested in foster parenting, which certainly begs that question. It isn’t something I’d do now, or even a couple years from now, but I know we’re going to want children probably in 3 years or so and we won’t be “ready.”
In three years, I plan to have finished my Master’s and be hopping onto the Occupational Therapy career-boat. Ian will still be in school, whether he’ll have his Bachelor’s by then or not, and will drop his working hours to part-time to take his turn as a full-time student. Maybe we will be buying a house. But, since we’re planning for me to become the primary income provider of the household, the very beginning of a career is a crappy time to get pregnant, have a baby, and then breastfeed.
This is why a foster child sounds really nice. The gob’ment gives you a bunch of parenting classes and puts a potty-trained, solid-food-eating, love-needing chillun’ in your home, and then they pay for food, clothes, and health insurance. If it’s terrifying it doesn’t matter because it’s temporary. The loving and caring for a child are the easy parts, what we need to practice are our patience and time budgeting, which fostercare amply provides. It seems to me the ultimate parenting training wheels.
Is this awesome
(Y/N)?
Thank you, my fellow Estadounidenses. “Excited” and “proud” are both a bit too strong to describe how I feel now, but I am at the very least not as disgusted as I was yesterday. Maybe if I sleep for more than four hours my sense of well-being will improve even still. IT CAN BE A FUN EXPERIMENT.
After all, science is the answer–just ask the ’50s.
Tonight Daylight Saving Time ends and we enter the (to me) very trying wintry months of fewer sunlit afternoon and evening hours, as we have every last October Sunday since 1966. However, as of next year DST will last 3 weeks longer (beginning the second Sunday in March and ending the first Sunday of November). It’s weird to remember that time as we’ve been experiencing it for several months is actually an hour ahead of “real,” standard time, because if we left our clocks an hour behind it would stay light until like 11 o’clock at night in the summertime. CRAZY. I don’t know why we don’t just make DST year-round. I’d rather have it be dark at 9 a.m and light until 5 p.m. in December, considering that as it is Seattle starts to get dark at like 3 in the afternoon around winter solstice. Not that the sun comes out before that, grumble grumble.
Wow, what a boring post. I look foward to that extra hour of sleep tonight. . .SO tired.
As some of you know, I tried out for a new, second job within the company for which I already work. I just found out today, er yesterday (yes I know I need to fix my sleep schedule–that is the OLDEST hat), that I got it. It’s only on-call for now, but it may turn into a set schedule, which would be super nice. I start training on Wednesday and I am, as the kiddies don’t say, stoked. My fancy position title is a Wellness Services Coordinator and the Center, which provides hygeine and health services to homeless women, is actually in the basement of the apartment building where I work the front desk. I think this will be a really good, albeit perhaps challenging, experience, one that is excitingly closer to what I want to do with my life. Of course, since I care considerably more about how good I’ll be compared to my past occupations I’m also more nervous than I ever remember being. But hey, my boss suggested it to me in the first place, and she’s worked the very same position, so if she thinks I’ll be good at it I’ll just have to borrow some of her confidence on the matter. ¡También, más dinero= vengo, España!
What do you think a potato bug looks like?
Like this?
Or like this?
My personal belief was that the former is a roly poly and the latter a potato bug, but then I heard that some people think potato bugs are what I thought were roly polies. Actually we are all wrong. The first picture is a woodlouse and the second is a Jerusalem cricket (which are fucking disgusting creatures, by the way). Well, now you know.
Yup, that is where I’m going to spend my day tomorrow morning/today! I hope to have many churros, corn dogs, and greasy chow meins, regardless of the nay-saying I’ve received regarding that last desire! Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been to a fair? FIVE YEARS. That is exactly how much time it takes to equal “too darn long.” I am so excited for the remedy that I cannot sleep!
I realize that is probably common knowledge, but I need frequent reminders. So, since I’m working the morning shift after a scant 3 hours of sleep and trying to keep myself encouraged, here are some various items of news that won’t crush your spirit:
Apparently there is now an inhalable form of insulin. Exubera, which is a fine powder that one huffs through a tube, was approved by the FDA this January and was welcomed onto the U.S. market this month. Interestingly, but not too surprisingly, it is Pfizer and Nektar Therapeutic’s love child.
While snooping around about insulin, I also found this article about an AIDS drug that Pfizer is going to release by the end of the year, which is both exciting and disappointing. I’m glad the big guns are behind an effective and less destructive AIDS treatment so that it will be well funded, promoted, and received, but I foresee major issues with making it available to those who need it most like our dying friend Africa.
The countdown for when a immunosupressantless life will be a possibility for transplant recipients is well under way, and although this isn’t new news to me, I like to occassionally hunt around for articles about it so I can get all excited and teary-eyed. I mean, wow! Let’s get on that train.
Kitty cats are so badass!
there was a massive march downtown last night basically protesting the widespread hatred against non-legal U.S. citizens with sun-tanned appearances. Since I was working in the vicinity I got to witness the prolonged traffic jam and correlated grumpiness of everyone affected by it and a part of me thought, “gosh, if I wasn’t at work I’d love to be out there with them!” because it was heartening to see such a large turn-out of people who aren’t crazy or apathetic. But then I realized that a bigger part of me thought the whole effort was just funny and sad. Of course people shouldn’t be felons just because they happened to be born outside our borders and of course everyone ought to be given equal chances and blah blah blah. But the idea that all those people actually think the white guys in D.C. care AT ALL what anybody thinks or feels, well, that makes me want to cry.
This is where I’ll be putting blog and news type things like “I’ve posted stuff in the ___ section,” “Over the weekend I did ___,” and “OH MY GOD WATER GEYSERS ON ONE OF SATURN’S MOONS!” The site is very ugly right now, but hopefully that will change sometime soon.
