http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php en jclpat@gmail.com Copyright 2010 2010-03-13T06:08:18-05:00 http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/sleepy_time1/ http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/sleepy_time1/#When:05:08:18Z Well, here it is, after 1:00 AM in my neck of the woods.  I’m sleepy. But I’m watching for fallout from the biggest work project that I have ever done in my entire life.  There was some excitement about five hours ago, but nothing at all has happened for the last two hours.  I did get to finish a book while I was waiting, so that’s nice.  (It was Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson - very exciting!) So now I’m going to read Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens.  It is my own private rule to always be reading a classic at any given moment. Anyway, I just re-added a tracker for my site to see if anyone at all is out there.  And then Buzz reminded me that I should try posting something once in a while, which is a very good point.  Only I don’t really have anything to say.  So this is what this is.  Nothing to say.  Except that I’m sleepy.  And I’d like to go to bed now but I should probably stay up for a few more hours to keep an eye on things.  We’ll see. Hope you are all having a good weekend!  2010-03-13T05:08:18-05:00 http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/mmmmgood_morncrash/ http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/mmmmgood_morncrash/#When:12:47:00Z It’s a sunny Sunday morning.  Man, it’s nice to be able to sleep in today, what with being up until 4:00 AM!  I’ll just run to the bathroom for a quick visit and head on back to bed. What’s that shoveling noise?  Who is shoveling today when it’s been in the 40s for four days and the snow is actually starting to melt? (The bathroom curtain lazily rises.) *blink* *blink* *blink* *blinkblink* Why is there a car in our front yard, pray tell?  That one I still can’t figure out. (This is after the tow truck yanked it out of our landscaping.) (This is where it landed.) The woman driving gave two different stories (one, that she hit a patch of ice and lost control, except that, as mentioned before, it’s been in the 40s for four days and there wasn’t any ice on the road; and, two, that she fell asleep).  We suspect that she was airborne for a second before she landed in the landscaping.  We have a small bit of shrub damage, I think, but it’s a little hard to tell with all the snow.  The police told us that if we find that we do have damage after the snow melts, we can add it to the police report. (This is where her car left the road and drove up our snow bank.  All of the snow in the street was from the tow truck and her car pushing it out into the street.) 2010-02-21T12:47:00-05:00 http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/late_night_ramblings/ http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/late_night_ramblings/#When:05:36:19Z I actually have a lot of things on my mind, for a change.  However, given the late hour, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get them all down “on paper”.  But I’ll try. 1.  Stupidity.  I heard a report on the news this morning about chocolate.  The news report said that a new study showed that chocolate can help to reduce the risk of stroke.  The report then went on to say that they weren’t sure if it was the antioxidants in the chocolate that was helping or the fact that only the healthiest people were eating chocolate. Let’s pause for a moment, shall we?  Only the healthiest people are eating chocolate?  I don’t think so.  No, I know so. Are these people complete idiots?  Do you think that the US could become the world’s fattest country if only the healthiest people were eating chocolate?  Give me one tiny break, will ya? 2.  Snow.  After 40-some inches of snow on the ground in the last week, can I tell you how much I do not like snow any more?  There are mountains, literally mountains, of snow everywhere in this area.  It makes it almost impossible to drive around.  You can’t see a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g.  Including what’s coming up the road when trying to get out of our driveway. And did I mention the mailbox?  Or lack thereof?  Yes, our mailbox was once again obliterated by the snow plow.  And, really, in actuality, it doesn’t matter.  The snow is piled up over the mailbox post anyway.  So, if you were planning on mailing anything to us, we might not get it until spring.  Just sayin’, ‘sall. 3.  Physical Therapy.  I finished my first four weeks of physical therapy today.  I was in for plantar fasciitis in my right foot and bilateral knee pain.  Which translates to lots of ice packs on my lower body at the end of the physical therapy sessions.  My knees are much better, and I credit the improvement of my foot pain.  I think all I needed was to be able to walk right and the knee pain would dissipate.  So my physical therapist says that she will allow me to stop my knee PT if I would agree to do more exercises at home.  I will.  But she is recommending to my orthopaedic guy that I continue with the PT for my foot.  I’m OK with that.  I think I need it. 4.  A 4-day weekend.  Finally, finally, I am done with Phase 1 of this huge project that has consumed all of my time for the last 8 months or so.  I began Phase 2 today but it is not as physically intense as Phase 1 and I feel I need a break.  So I took Tuesday off.  Combined with the holiday on Monday, that gives me a 4-day weekend.  Sort of.  I still have to work a little tomorrow morning, but, hopefully, not too much.  First thing on the docket for my days off?  Clean the upstairs cats’ room.  It desperately needs it and that’s also where the treadmill lives.  I will be back on the treadmill as early as tomorrow (see #3 above).  I need the exercise! 5.  Electrical woes.  We have an electrician coming out tomorrow to give us an estimate on all of the small, but bothersome, electrical projects that need to be done around the house.  I can’t WAIT to have these all addressed.  They have been bothering me for quite some time now. 6.  The Olympics.  I watched the opening ceremonies tonight (or most of them, anyway).  I was moved, as always, with the inspirational speeches and the parade of nations all in the same place.  Is there any more good feeling for the world than the Olympics?  And, of course, I shed a tear for the Georgian Olympic athlete who was killed today in practice.  What a terrible, awful thing to happen.  It’s beyond words. OK, there are my thoughts for tonight.  There are actually more, but my back is sore and I want to go to bed.  So happy weekend, everyone.  If you celebrate, have a nice Valentine’s Day.  We are planning a nice home-cooked dinner and some fine wine on Sunday.  That sounds fabulous to me. 2010-02-13T05:36:19-05:00 http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/vacation_planning/ http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/vacation_planning/#When:11:00:49Z This is looking way far ahead, but it gives us something to anticipate. We will be going away on vacation for a full week.  This is something we have never done before.  We usually stay away for three or four days at the most so it’s sort of daunting to think about.  We will be heading north and staying in New Hampshire for three nights, then heading down to Connecticut for two nights and then home.  What we are missing are the one or two nights on the way up to New Hampshire.  We want to stay in upstate New York or the very south of Vermont but can’t decide where to go. We looked at this place - which looks totally fabulous and is co-owned by Kate Pierson, ferchrissake! - but we would really like to share that experience with friends sometime.  And they can’t make it the weekend we’d be there. So what do we do?  Where do we stay?  Who will help us??? OK, granted, our vacation isn’t until the end of July and we do have plenty of time to figure it out, but it weighs heavy on my mind!  Poor me. 2010-01-29T11:00:49-05:00 http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/sensitive_new_age_me/ http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/sensitive_new_age_me/#When:20:46:35Z My senses are being assaulted.  And I blame it on my lack of exposure to certain things lately.  Case in point. I used to smoke way back when.  I quit many years ago but ever since then, I have enjoyed the smell of (most) cigarettes.  Nowadays, chances are good that wherever you go, the smoking section is outside.  It is so where I work as well.  I used to pass through a pleasant cloud of smoke when entering or exiting any of the buildings.  But they moved the smoking areas and now I never pass through the second-hand goodness.  The people who go outside to smoke on my floor have to pass right behind my desk to get to where they’re going and on their way back to their desks.  We have an open environment (I mean REALLY open) and whenever they pass by me on their way back, I smell the smoke all over them. Only now it doesn’t smell so good.  I’m finding myself being offended by these people who walk behind me.  And I think it’s because I’m never exposed to smoke any more. And another thing. When we cook, we have started (for some reason) to back off on the salt.  The flavoring comes from other ingredients - pepper, fresh herbs, etc.  And we don’t eat a whole lot of canned things or salty snacks as a general rule.  And now?  Give me a Wheat Thin and I’m scrambling for a bucket of water to wash down the extreme saltiness.  The last time I had a Wheat Thin, I couldn’t eat more than a couple.  It bothered me a whole lot. I have become quite the delicate flower.  I guess it’s healthier for me but it makes me feel like I should be carrying little lace gloves and covering my mouth and nose with them and saying in a teeny tiny voice, “Oh my!” 2010-01-05T20:46:35-05:00 http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/books_i_read_in_2009/ http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/books_i_read_in_2009/#When:18:28:38Z OK, I feel much better about this post than the one I wrote about the books I read in 2008.  I mean, come on.  Five books in the entire year?  Well, I didn’t read my first book until May of this year, but I still outdid all of my years that I’ve been keeping track so far.  Here’s my list for 2009: B is for Beer by Tom Robbins Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne Novelties and Souvenirs by John Crowley Emma by Jane Austen The American Claimant by Mark Twain Giving by Bill Clinton Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie Speedbumps by Teri Garr Mr. Palomar by Italo Calvino An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasan Crippen by John Boyne Lost Island by James Norman Hall Bottomfeeder by Taras Grescoe Search the Shadows by Barbara Michaels The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Paganism by Carl McColman The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury Sabbatical by John Barth David Copperfield by Charles Dickens The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum The 39 Steps by John Buchan The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald That’s it!  I’m currently in the middle of three books and so happy to be there!!  Happy reading in 2010, everyone! 2009-12-31T18:28:38-05:00 http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/christmas_wrapping/ http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/christmas_wrapping/#When:12:53:01Z In the immortal words of The Waitresses: “Bah, humbug!” No, that’s too strong ‘Cause it is my favorite holiday Yes, Virginia, I really want to just bypass Christmas this year.  I am not feeling it at all.  The house is a mess and not decorated to my liking and that makes me disgruntled.  I have been sick since before Thanksgiving and I can’t sleep.  At all.  And that makes me miserable and grumpy.  We still have Christmas shopping to do and I haven’t wrapped a thing.  Christmas cookies are not done yet (although, they have been started) and 2009-12-16T12:53:01-05:00 http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/twitbook/ http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/twitbook/#When:09:34:03Z I wonder if there is something genetically wrong with me.  Besides the obvious, I mean!  I don’t have a Twitter account.  I don’t have a Facebook account.  I don’t even IM any more.  Looking around me, the vast majority of people I know - even those who aren’t all that computer-savvy - have at least a Facebook account. So what’s wrong with me? I really feel no need to communicate with anyone that way.  You’d think this blog is a similar device but it’s not.  First of all, there are only three people left in the world who ever read it, but that’s beside the point.  A blog is not interactive the way Facebook and Twitter and IM are.  It’s passive.  And so am I.  Years ago, I took the Myers-Briggs test and scored, expectedly, extremely high in the “introverted” section.  (Please see name of this blog.) One of the characteristics of an introverted person is that they prefer time to think about responses before speaking.  Because of this, the highly introverted tend to work better via e-mails than phone calls or face-to-face.  That’s totally me!  The blog is the same way.  I get a chance to think and re-read before posting.  (Sometimes it doesn’t seem that way, as I tend to ramble on and on and on.) I think that’s probably the crux of the matter.  But still.  Don’t you think I’d at least be curious about certain people?  I mean, I could be out there following Elizabeth Taylor or Ashton Kutcher on Twitter (they’re really the only two I’m sure have Twitter accounts ‘cause I read about it in the news).  But I really don’t seem to want to.  Curiosity is not a strong trait of mine. And that’s the part I can’t figure out.  That’s what I’m curious about! 2009-10-30T09:34:03-05:00 http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/life_with_a_diabetic_cat/ http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/life_with_a_diabetic_cat/#When:10:07:45Z Well, we have been living the life of diabetic-cat-owners for almost a week.  I thought I’d write down my observations as one from the trenches. Phoebe does not mind the insulin injections in the least.  She doesn’t even notice them, actually, and she comes running at the sound of the box coming out of the refrigerator.  She’s very excited for the 15 or 20 minutes we let the bottle sit out to come to room temperature.  And why is she so excited? She gets treats!!  And lots of them!!  She hunkers down and eats her little treats and we just pop the insulin in her scruff and that’s the end of it.  This is WORLDS better than trying to pill her.  In the morning, she gets some treats and her injection right before breakfast.  (At this point, we’re still only feeding her canned food once per day but she goes in for her first monitoring on Monday to see how her glucose level is.  Then she may be getting her canned food twice per day.  We’ll see.) In the evening, she gets some treats and her injection and then she gets brushed, which she now totally enjoys. So we have a routine.  And it’s not too bad.  The worst part is making sure we are home at 6:30 to give her her evening injection.  We work until 5:00 and if we want to stop somewhere on the way home (or have to roam far and wide to get a 365 picture), it’s sometimes tough to make it home by 6:30.  But we’re doing well so far. Life goes on.  Phoebe seems happy.  Let’s hope it stays that way! 2009-10-24T10:07:45-05:00 http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/cutted_and_dryded/ http://empress.buzzstuff.net/index.php/site/cutted_and_dryded/#When:17:31:44Z I sat in a meeting today and listened to two people repeat the phrase “cut and dry”. It’s CUT AND DRIED, people! CUT. AND. DRIED. Sometimes certain things really bug me. 2009-10-13T17:31:44-05:00