Twitter / atb20

Friday, September 30, 2005

i love fishes...

is it weird that i've been singing that jingle for the last two days substituting things such as "i love widgets cause they're so delicious! i love wid-gets." Yeah... don't answer that.
**
btw, if you haven't checked it out, flickr's explore page is amazing. some of the most beautiful shots i've ever seen. (i've been bringing a few of them here, but there are many more to enjoy.)

things i love

- mac os 10.4
- free speech
- being able to marry the person i love
- no premiums on my healthcare plan
- having a fuzzy pet that i don't have to walk
- parents that want to spend time with me
- friends that invite me to free concerts
- firefox
- widgets (i'm going widget-crazy)
- friends who love me even when i'm not very good about calling
- a job where i can wear jeans
- fall... yay fall!



Rainbow
Originally uploaded by nihilante.

Thursday, September 29, 2005

railroaded


tacoma 3
Originally uploaded by brain tunnel.

well, as you can see i still haven't gotten to uploading my own pics. i tried last night, but i still have all the pics from the vermont wedding on my camera, so it took much longer than i had the patience for.
**
so, life in the fast lane is actually pretty decent. i'm exhausted, and the cold that i had three weeks ago seems to be lingering on into infinity, but i like to be busy. it makes me feel like this year will be over soon.

this placement i'm in is kicking my butt. i currently have 14 hours of field, and i have 7 clients. i've got a pretty even split between kids, adolescents, and adults which is cool, but it keeps me on my toes.
**
can i tell you how annoying these phone menus are? "do you have a confirmation number? if so, please tell me what it is. for example, if you have the confirmation number you could say 'five' (long pause) 'f as is frank' (another long pause, so you can digest what she's saying, because, you know, 'f' is a tough one) 'g as in george' (pause) 'seven' (pause) 'a as in apple' (infinite pause) 'x as in x-ray.' (pause, cause you still might not understand what she means by "x") Please say the number now. if you don't have a confirmation number, please say, 'i don't have a confirmation number'" By this point i'm screaming at the stupid *ss voice lady because if i try to talk over the message, they will say (in the most polite of voices), "I'm sorry. I was unable to understand what you said..." and repeat THE ENTIRE MESSAGE. i think i went through this about three times before i started screaming "AGENT!" in the phone. i'd better watch out, i might be seeing a therapist of my own very soon.

Monday, September 26, 2005

swimming upstream


Nature is playing with colors
Originally uploaded by Linda6769.

i'm doing my best not to become a mouth-breather, but these allergies are really getting to me. i hate having to breathe through my mouth. though i hate it even more when i can hear myself breath through my nose, so for now, mouth it is. or maybe i should start working on gills...
**
today was one of those days that started with a bang. i'd just had time to pour myself a (much needed) cup of joe, when prof #2 called reporting "computer problems." usually, "computer problems" require a brief visit to "system preferences" or the "library" and all is well, but i knew all was not well when i saw prof #2's brand new screen bopping around like it was on crack. eight hours of "apple care" later, i have now requested a "dispatch" from apple. (they like to make sure that they're not wasting anybody's time but yours by requesting various tests and "repairs" before declaring it a "problem" worthy of a real apple technician.)
**
anyway, that's been my wake-up call from a relatively laid-back weekend with the folks involving open house shopping and multiple rounds of ping-pong.

Friday, September 23, 2005

yum...


tasty
Originally uploaded by Mary Catherine.

so, one of these days i'll get back to posting my own photos, but lately i haven't had the energy to load them off of my camera. in the meantime, i'm paying tribute to folks with more talent than me (and oftentimes fancier cameras).

blueberry pancakes are one of my favorite weekend treats, only recently topped by lemon ricotta pancakes, but those don't photograph as well.
**
the folks finally decided against going to texas for the hurricane -- i mean, wedding. this is good. it means they won't have to deal with airports during an evacuation order, and i might get to escape the city for a few minutes. here's to hoping rita is much kinder than katrina... it's already taken 24 lives in texas, and it hasn't even hit land yet. that's a good sign...
**
a little poi for the weekend:
you should wear with pride the scars on your skin
they're a map of the adventures and the places you've been

this pretty much says it all...



indeed, i am tater tots.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

how i feel


Maren Crashed
Originally uploaded by J.Bird.

i think i have my cold back. actually, i think it never really went away. it's different now though. exhaustion is once again the most prominent symptom, but it's more of a cough-y, sore throat thing instead of a nose-dripping-gallons-of-snot thing. i guess i'd prefer this since it means i don't have to have tissues permanently at the ready for fear of public outrage.

at the moment, i have plenty of work to do, but all i can think about is how much i want to be in bed right now. i actually laid my head on my desk momentarily and even over the incessant plink of my swatch, started to drift off.
**
so, my folks are planning to fly to texas tomorrow... is that dumb, or what? what kind of moron flies towards a category 5 hurricane? for a wedding, no less! granted they changed their flight plans such that they don't fly to houston today in favor of flying into san antonio tomorrow (the wedding is in middle-of-nowhere, tx), but is that much better? i mean there's going to be horrid travel conditions and a distinct possibility of losing power and potentially the roof overhead. it's like flying to baton rouge on august 28th... dumb.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

in the trenches

i feel like i am awaiting rifle fire. it's less than two hours before
my first client in this placement, and i am quite nervous. i don't
really know what to expect. i spoke with her briefly on the phone,
i've seen her intake information, but none of that really tells me
who's going to be sitting in the waiting room and who's going to be
sitting here next to me in a matter of hours. am i going to be able to
help her? will we be able to connect in a meaningful way? will she
like me? will i like her? it's almost like a blind date -- though
she's probably better than most folks you meet that way because at
least she's admitting that she needs help. anyway, it's rather
nerve-wracking not knowing what to expect, so i get hung-up on things
like agency protocol and paperwork. will the client be billed
properly? how soon do i need to draw up the treatment plan? silly
stuff that has very little to do with the great unknown which is what
happens in this room when it's just the two of us.
**
in other news, we've had a couple of friends staying with us the last
couple of nights. it's been great catching-up, but given our insane
schedules (and the ridiculous number of people they have to visit while
in NYC), we've really only seen them for a total of about two hours.
it's impossible to catch-up on a years worth of stuff in two hours...
so we had to make do with discussions of family guy and the utter
hopelessness of the situation in new orleans. since doodle-bug and i
are both from houston, we made numerous comparisons with the great
hurricane of 1900 that bulldozed galveston and created the thriving
metropolis of houston, texas. surely, the only constant in life is
change.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

oma's house

occasionally i just get overwhelmed by nostalgia. this morning as i was in my morning stupor i had this vague sense of having re-visited my oma's house at some point in my sleep. as my senses returned, i was reminded that the house was now owned by strangers and oma and opa were long since buried. lately, i've been thinking a lot about that house. it's the only physical structure i feel a strong emotional attachment to, the only place i visited consistently from birth till age 16, the home my mom grew up in and where she lived when she met my father -- and i imagine that today it would be changed beyond recognition. there are certain scents that exist in new york that bring to mind with clarity moments in that house. a waft of moth balls and oak, and i have visions of playing "restaurant" in opa's basement bar. crisp, fall air makes me think of helping oma with the gardening (or at least searching for fresh raspberries while she did so). i can easily imagine myself sitting on the red, vynil bench in the kitchen watching as oma shuffles about the stove cooking various wursts and tarts -- or if i was really lucky, spetzle. i can sense my feet not anywhere near reaching the floor. i can see opa sitting next to me with the paper while 1010 wins plays on the radio. it's not difficult to imagine myself lying in my basement bed, staring at the radiator on the cieling, waiting till i heard the creak of footsteps overhead to roust myself and see what's cooking. i remember thinking that the aqua toilet paper oma bought to match her aqua bathroom must have been as old as the house because where else could you buy aqua toilet paper except in the 1950s. my heart breaks a little when i realize that i'll never be able to share those experiences with my husband or my kids. that those experiences exist firmly in the past seems to require regular reminding. i feel like i should be able to go back and visit whenever i want, but i guess that's what memory is for...

Friday, September 16, 2005

sleep blogging

i think i might be dream blogging. my eyes are not really open and my body seems to be sending me messages that i am in bed. i think i'm really on the couch though because i just watched a pretty crappy episode of six feet under. i hope it gets better. mil and i are slowly catching up as the dvds come out. we're on season four i think. they just had some law and order type of episode where instead of doing anything interesting, david gets himself kidnapped by a hitchhiker. lame. i feel gypped. i don't watch six feet under to be like "no! stupid david! beat the sh*t out of that guy! friggin' drive away, you idiot!" i watch it to be like "jeez, clare, you knew he was an idiot in the first place, why are you sleeping with him?" "ruth, can you shut up already about the shit and the kyle? it's not winning you any points!" and "nate, come'on you barely even liked lisa, what are you doing moping about for a year. get over it. sleep with brenda already!" see? very different.

anyway, clearly this is a boring post. even i don't know what it's about, so i will end it with this, a quite from poi:

And you who say that in death we will pay,
The dead they can't hear a word that you say
Your words are not kind, sober or giving,
they only put fear in the hearts of the living
So put away your tongues and roll up your sleeves,
and pick up your shovel and bury me deep.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

awakening

*

well, i may not be pretty (or showered, for that matter), but i made it through the majority of my new and improved schedule. since i am done with class and field for the week, i feel like i'm home-free. namely, i can once again wear shorts and not worry about offending anyone with my stench (purely because there's no one here in the lab to offend). though one week is far from a thorough analysis, i think i might, in fact, survive this year. i don't want to get excited -- well, because who the h*ll knows what will happen, say, next week, but this whole working & going to SW school seems almost doable at the moment. then again, i haven't had any papers to write or clients to see, so i really have no ground for that statement at all. i guess i'm just feeling good because my boss didn't freak out at all this week about my new schedule which i had been fully anticipating. so, anyway, yay!
**
i'm not sure how mil is doing because i only saw him for a few minutes this morning, and most of them were spent berating him for not waking me up in time. ("ung, honey, what time is it?" "8:20" "what!?!? i'm supposed to be at work at 9! why didn't you wake me up!?!?" "um, i didn't know." "oh, yeah, right....") maybe i should read his blog.
**
bird's not dealing with the new schedule well at all. she's started angrily plucking feathers from her back. she prefers to do this while she's on my shoulder, so i'll be sure to see how pissed she is that i'm not around during daylight hours. i'm not sure what to do about this whole situation. i love the bird (despite her many flaws), and i made a commitment to her when i bought her. at the same time, is it really fair for her to live in a home where she's by herself 80% of the time? i dunno... i dream of someday having a big aviary where she'll have friends and she can stretch her wings, but right now we don't have the money or space for either of those things. perhaps, she'll just have to suck it up like i am -- one year of hell for a chance of a better future. hmm.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

happy 101st post, moosk!

so right now i feel like soup... full of liquid, vegetable-y soupiness... i guess that's what twelve hours of work feels like. it was actually a relatively easy day because it was my first. for instance, i got out at 7:45 instead of 8 (but, shh, don't tell my boss). i had my first supervision and got the full tour of the office (these are the filing cabinets, bob, key to the bathroom, jeff, your office, sally, etc.). i even called two clients to set up appointments for next week (i love having a waiting list!). last year i felt like a salesperson trying to unload useless wares on unsuspecting passerby... "don't talk to that lady -- she'll try to get you hooked on some time-sucking, non evidence-based, free psycho-mumbo-jumbo" i wouldn't have talked to me either. anyway, this new place has a waiting list -- meaning that people actually want to be there and want to pay for my psycho-mumbo-jumbo. well, not necessarily mine but someone at the clinic... and i happen to be the only one available. so there you go!

anyway, with the new schedule sleep is at a premium, so off i go...

Monday, September 12, 2005

it begins...

well, it went by fast, but i enjoyed my summer. i enjoyed having a flexible schedule and getting home before 6. i especially enjoyed waking up at 8:45 in the morning... i took full advantage of my boss's absence by bringing my bird to visit and meeting friends for lunch. i enjoyed being able to make doctor appointments and have weeknight cocktails without fearing for my job. needless to say, all of those fun and games are now over. classes began last week, and this week i start my internship (or "field" as we social work students like to call it). additionally, i have finally heard from professor #2. apparently, he is ready for me to start working for him this week. i guess this means i'll start looking forward to these days when i'm only working from 9-7 because they will be my short, quiet days. woo-hoo!

i know i don't have it too rough. i think mil has it worse. his classes are definitely more painful, and his schedule requires him to go back and forth between times square and the upper east side multiple times a day (with a backpack full of orgo and physics books, no less). i'm also beginning to see the glimmers of the end in sight. i now have less than a year of this work + school foolishness. (for all those twenty-somethings who are getting to that itchy place where you feel like school is the answer to your 9-5 drudgery, come talk to me, i will knock some sense into ya. school is not the answer, job change, perhaps, but not school.) my professor last week made mention of our impending job search (hallelujah!). i must admit it made me a little giddy. of course given my work situation, i have to wait a little longer than most students for that joy, but at least i've been given permission to think about it. (ah, life with a living wage... imagine that...)

the reason i mention this whole ridiculous schedule of mine is so that my two loyal readers will understand my growing absence from the blog. i will do my best to keep it going, but i make no promises. i'm even planning to hem down my blogroll to the mere necessities. scary, isn't it?
**
pink flower
anyway, i won't bore you with any more school nonsense. who really cares about that anyway? we were blessed with a gorgeous weekend in the city. it was in the 70s with the sun shining and a pleasant breeze -- a little fall was in the air. while mil grew paler in the library, i joined some friends at the bronx zoo. after ten years in the city, i figured it was about time to see what all the fuss was about. it is actually quite beautiful. the sheer size of the place was astounding, and all of the animals had beautiful natural-looking habitats. the high point of the day was when my cheapness won me a free full-park pass. seeing how small moosk's entertainment budget is, it's easy to understand why i opted for the $12 "limited pass" (which apparently doesn't get you into much) versus the $21 full-park pass. unfortunately, all of my friends had purchased the extended pass, so i was s.o.l. when it came time for the gondola ride across the park. i was actually happy to walk, but my friends figured that they'd find me a way on via one of their tickets. when we got up to the ticket-taker and tried to explain why she should allow me to ride on my friend's full-park pass, she just handed me a full-park pass that had fallen on the ground. from that point on, no clever shenanegins or pitiful stories were needed, and i got to experience the pleasure of the gondola (and gorillas, and butterflies, and tigers) on the back of someone else's misfortune. the moral of this story is not to be cheap like me and hope that a full-park ticket falls into your lap, but to buy the full-park pass in the first place, so you can see more than a couple of monkeys and a camel.

Thursday, September 08, 2005

yay spam!

sad that i'm leaving these little spam comments up because they make me feel like this place is happening...

btw, why "spam"? what happened to plain old
**
two lessons learned today:
1) email blogging works
2) html tags don't work on email blogs

oh, well, it's still pretty cool.

email post

let's see if this works... can i really send an email to my blog? that would be so friggin' sweet.

i've also added mil to my "blog team" in case he ever feels like adding to my blog. could be fun...

does anyone know how you can add the books you're reading to the template? i think that's really fun, though mine would get boring because i'd be showing the same book for years and years. for example, i am currently reading the source. so you ask, when, moosk, did you start reading the source? well, i think it was sometime around august 2003. yeah... you read right -- 2003. sad... but true. fortunately, i have read other books while the source has sat collecting dust underneath my nightstand, so it's not as pathetic as it seems, but most normal folks would give-up after two years.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

if you could see me now...

you wouldn't stick around for long. i just went to the bathroom and i noticed that i have that lovely, i've-been-sick-for-days pallor, and that glassy-eyed look that comes from every orifice of my body leaking, not to mention the beauty of the red, swollen rudolph nose. yeah, combine these with the limp, scraggly nap hair, and you have a good image of me right now. a modern-day audrey hepburn, that's me. i'm now wishing i had that woman on the subway's shirt: brown-eyed beauty.

i think that sh*t's kind of funny, don't you? i mean if she were such a looker, would she need to announce it on her shirt? i mean unless she were wearing a bag over her head? makes no sense. at least those "flirt" shirts might be telling you something you don't know. i need a shirt that says: i look... and feel... like sh*t. yay!

anyway, i need a nap, so this is all i've got.

here's a photo from a better day... don't look too closely.
swimmin' hole

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

(sniff)

well, i have returned from the land of the midnight stars. yes, they have stars in vermont, and they are gorgeous. i had forgotten about those little lights in the sky. we don't get to see much of them around here.

barns

i survived the wedding, and the bride had the wedding of her dreams. well, almost. the weather was beautiful despite early reports of weekend storms. the food, the music, the setting were all perfect. unfortunately, the bride's grandmother who has been confined to her home for the last couple of years but made the four (plus) hour trip to vermont anyway went into the hospital shortly before the rehearsal dinner. her declining health cast a shadow over the otherwise beautiful event, and i know it was hard for bride to leave for her honeymoon not knowing whether her grandmother would survive till her return. hopefully, her fears will prove unwarranted.

Here's a little peek at the gorgous garden bride chose for her wedding:
gardens at hildene

the best part of the weekend (for me) was the day after the wedding when i got to go down to the quarry and swim around in a swimming hole. (we don't seem to have those here in new york either.) i've now decided that if mil and i every get enough money together to buy a country house, we're doing it somewhere near a swimming hole. those things kick *ss. better than a beach because you can dive off cliffs and the water feels clean and clear. better than a pool because there are little fish swimming around and no chlorine to dry you out. anyway, i'm now an advocate for swimmingholes.org...
**
so, now here i am back at work. no stars to gaze up at or swimming holes to plunk down into. to add insult to injury i have a doozy of a cold that just started early this morning. blech. AND i had my first class of the fall semester... ooh, am i in for it.

though, as we've all been saying for the last week, it could be worse... so much worse.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

gracias, damas

so first week of singlehood seems to be going relatively well thanks in large part to my lady friends. tuesday, astrophysicist, came by to make burritos with me, and last night, cat and crimson swung by for some yummy cheap eats. (thanks, metsfan, for parting with cat for a few hours there!) a good time was had by all, catching up on all things work, love, and family related. hopefully, this will remain ongoing throughout this sure-to-be-painful school year. lawd knows, i'll need it!
**
so, this weekend is the second to last wedding on my calendar. (woo-hoo!) it should be quite nice... vermont in september. no colors yet, but we should be in store for some brisk, breezy evenings -- a n ice break from the city humidity. in ncase your feeling a bit green, just remember that this is what i get to wear.

speaking of which, has anyone sold a bridesmaid dress on ebay? what's that ebay process like? not that i'm thinking about it for this dress... of course not. but you know, it might someday come in handy.
**
also, in moosk news, starting next week, my visits to the blogworld will likely be decreasing thanks to the commencement of the fall semester. fun, fun, fun. i'll do my best to substitute quality for quantity, but don't get your hopes up. i haven't managed quality yet, so i don't know how i'd learn now. old dog, new tricks, whatnot.

n'awlins

can ya'll believe what's happening in new orleans? it just seems to be going from bad to much, much worse. the reports from the area are staggering. in our little consumerist, gadget-loving paradise, it's impossible to believe that something like a hurricane can destroy one of america's great, historic cities. how quickly civilization devolves in the event of such a disaster is also mind-boggling. i still cannot believe that our great nation cannot cope with the displacement of half a million people. we can't feed our own people. we can't offer them a safe, sanitary refuge from the flooding. who are we? what the hell are we doing? i thought after 9/11 our country was supposed to be learning how to deal with large-scale national disasters?

listening to randi rhodes while i write, she makes a very good point. so, sunday, before the storm came, new orleans had a mandatory evacuation, but the question remains: how do you evacuate the poor people of new orleans when they have no cars and no access to an automobile of any type? hmm? how 'bout the sick people who are bed-ridden and can't leave their homes? planes and trains were diverted away from new orleans long before the hurricane struck leaving thousands tranded? anyway, obviously, i -- like most -- am still trying to get my head around what's happening down there... i'll let you know if i come up with any answers.