PlazaJen: The Blog

Riding the Bike with One Pedal.

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God’s Little Crabapple!

Sometimes I find myself thinking about topics for my blog, and I hear the old adage, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, say nothing at all.” It’s a good one, but I’m not known for muzzling myself well, nor biting my tongue.

That said, I’m not writing about every irritant, and instead chalking things up to the full moon, and a general swirl in general of low consumer confidence and a depressed economy with soaring gas & corn prices. It’s pretty easy to just skip right along to Armageddon if you think about much of anything too long. Everyone I know is (pick one or more): stressed, irritable, on edge, depressed, angry, morose, unreasonable, bitchy, dissatisfied and probably a lot of other lovely adverbs. In the past week I’ve been cranky, irritated, frustrated, and I just responded to my co-worker’s question if I wanted anything from Latte Land with, “A new attitude?” She’s so sweet, she said I didn’t need a new one. She is, however, a programmer, so maybe I can get her developing Attitude 2.0?

So on my drive this morning I decided I could be grateful I don’t live in Kabul. Or Cedar Rapids. I can be happy that I don’t have a 50-mile commute. I am not panicked about paying my bills, and even if they drive us crazy, we have three healthy, lively dogs. Life is pretty good, in fact. I wish the country could collectively shake it off, that things would stabilize and it wouldn’t feel like someone was cranking on the Winch of Life so vigorously.

This too shall pass, and even though sometimes (right now) it makes me cry to remember his words, as my father said in almost every phone call before he died, “It will all be ok.” I marvel at how a man of little faith could instill it so heartily in me.

Deep breath. Exhale. Believe.

Dana, Clay. Clay, Dana.

We watched the Dana Carvey standup special on HBO last night. It seemed fitting, since the Church Lady had come up in conversation at work on Friday – and then Wayne’s World was on that afternoon.

Extremely disturbing. After about 30 minutes, I figured out why. Dana Carvey has had some work done, and now he looks like Clay Aiken.

Tsk, tsk. Good thing I’m still in love with Eddie Izzard.

Random Orts for Friday

1. Update on that crazy outdoor board from yesterday. Yes, I did call my sales rep at CBS Outdoor. I figured if the mistake was on their end, better they be proactive about it with the client, and if it wasn’t on their end, then they’d look good by alerting the client. Fortunately for everyone, it’s not on every single board, but there are a handful that are wrong. My rep was VERY appreciative, and I like building up a goodwill bank for a time down the road when I’ll need a little extra help!

2. Rachael of Yarn-A-Go-Go lost her mom early this morning. I’ve never met Rachael personally, but we’ve exchanged emails here and there, even as recently as this week, as she’s been at home with hospice and her mom and family. Peaceful thoughts in her direction. Oddly enough, there was great cartoon this week in the paper that really summed it all up:

3. The white trash across the street have been driving me NUTS. They sit outside pretty much all day long, listening to their music on their car stereo (with the trunk open). They must be drinking or getting stoned the whole time because I can’t for the life of me understand how anyone could sit outside in this humidity and watch the street and call that a full day. However, I did have a nice realization the other morning: they make an excellent layer to our security system. Apart from the fact they fit the profile of someone who would actually DO the breaking in, I figure the odds of someone rolling up on our house and breaking in again are even less with their crazytown circus across the street. If for no other reason than the fact our outdoor siren would drown out their music and that’d cut through their buzz enough (hopefully) to evoke a reaction.

4. Blog Debate. Currently taking place in my head, I can’t decide if I should just have my blog be front & center on my domain, or house it at plazajen.com/blog. I’m really leaning towards the latter, because it makes it easier for me, setting up the files and templates and stuff, but I also wonder if it makes it more of a challenge for people. (that extra click! who knows?! I have like, 42 people who read my blog and I’d really like to not alienate any of you.)

5. Storms. I am really, really really getting tired of rain and chances of tornadoes on a weekly basis. I grew up north and east of Cedar Rapids and was just sickened to see the entire downtown under water. Then the Boy Scouts in western IA, and the town of Chapman KS getting hit so badly, it feels like an apocalypse. Good thing I’m not one of those Rapture people, I’d be burning my devil mittens and giving my yarn away to heathens. GOOD THING.

6. Now I should explain the Devil Mittens. I love them. This came out on Ravelry some time ago, where a devout knitter caught sight of a sneak preview of the Subway Mittens, and became convinced the pocket was instead a flap, designed to unbutton and allow the traveler’s hand to be scanned for the bus pass micro-chip that had most certainly been implanted under their skin. In fact, they have a pocket for subway tokens. But the ensuing dialogue on the forums was hi-larious. Many spoke of the Rapture and that we would see it in our lifetime. And I refrained from trying to get anyone’s car, as a reference to one of my all-time favorite bumper stickers. (“When the Rapture Comes, Can I Have Your Car?”)

7. Organization, cleaning and sleeping are on my list for the weekend. And blender drinks, most likely. Are you doing anything fun?

Aight!

Aight.

This kind of shit makes me crazy.
Oh, and I thought it was just a goof on a snipe*, on one particular board? (This one’s at 73rd & Wornall, approx.) But we were out south last night, and there it was, typo and all, informing us that another Wendy’s was, indeed, “staight ahead”….

ETA: *Snipe: Refers to a small added strip along a poster design to announce special or revised messages.

Gummy Smiles….

Thanks for the notes and comments yesterday. I went home and JWo was a super husband, frying up homemade hot wings (extra extra crispy) and then made me a PB&J sammich with the chocolatiest milk, ever, for dinner. We watched a movie, and just had a quiet night. I didn’t want to talk much, so I just did my knitting & watched the television. When I went to sleep, I did what I usually do – stare out the window, looking at shapes and whatever I can see, depending on the clouds and moonlight. One of my favorite visuals that I had a child, and now get in my life because of our big yard, is lightening bugs, twinkling away. I started writing a really kick-ass haiku in my head, and almost got up to write it down, but alas, I didn’t, and of course, it’s gone. In any event, it was another point of reassurance in my life, as true as a cold glass of milk coats your throat, that life goes on, things are ok, I’m going to find joy and sadness throughout the journey, and it’s better to feel them fully than insulate yourself, because without one, you cannot have the other.

It was also interesting yesterday, because a couple people called me to chat, unaware of the date’s significance; my friend Shelley called from a nearby park, and I suggested she and Miss Kara swing by if they had the time. Miss Kara is growing up and her personality has grown by leaps & bounds since I last saw her. Holy Toledo! And now, she interacts even more, and treated me to countless enormous, hilarious, gummy grins. So I had to take some pictures. A snuggly, funny kewpie doll, on a day when I could use a little pick-me-up.

Starting to wind up the gummy grin...

It Starts on One Side...

Beaming the Gums

And Almost A Wink...

I realize I’m biased, but I think she is absolutely gorgeous, and hilarious, and no, her eyes simply cannot get any bigger. However, she may be emulating a Saint Bernard, because LORDY that child can drool. (Her teeth are starting to come in.) It was just the entertainment that I needed!

Oh, Time.

I remember being about 7 or 8, and my father, who never quite grasped the concept of treating me like a child, informed me that one day, indeed, he would die. And in his atheist belief, that upon death, there was nothing more. He would be gone. I felt terror, and it must have been evident on my face, as I cried, and told him I didn’t want him to die, ever, that I didn’t want him to leave me. He was the one who was always there for me, no matter what.

He told me, in a mixture of reassurance and dogged adherence to reality and a promise to never lie to me, that we were all going to die, and he couldn’t change that, but that he would do his best to be around for a long, long time.

I wish it could have been more than 32 years, but I did have those years. The memories of this time, two years ago, flooded me last night, and I felt every last nuance of sadness and pain. I used to relive those moments every night; now I think I’ve learned that I’m not going to actually forget them. They can feel as real and present as if they just happened – the film is etched onto my soul.

But so are the good moments. I’ll never stop loving you, Dad. I miss you from the bottom of my heart and I ache from the pain of missing you, sometimes. But there is balance as time moves on and puts more minutes on the other side of that day, June 10, 2006. And so, I add a new label to all this that I put out there: Moving Forward.

Dad Grins

I’ve Coded….

I have been getting my geek on. Only in my case, it’s more like “gecko”. I am such a wannabe, I roll my eyes at myself! That said, I have been working on my own domain, which I’ve owned for quite some time, and the battle royale of yesterday was getting WordPress installed – I actually did it, but grew so frustrated trying to run the script that I finally submitted it to WP’s fabulous team of “install-for-free” volunteers, and then I got a whole new set of parameters and steps to wrangle with. As in, hello, how DO I get the screen to log in as the admin? I spent at least 30 minutes with the wrong address, getting an error message, so I continued to edit my config file, and then finally, blessedly, something clicked. Intuitive, this shit is not.

So! At some point – now in the not-so-distant future – I will be moving Ye Olde Blogge. Right now, when I think about moving all my archives over, I just roll my eyes. Uh, yeah. Lemme get a few more things sailing smoothly before I take that route, mmmkay?

That’s one of the things cookin’ here at Chez PlazaJen; the other is that those DPN holders I made? Are soon going to be for sale at the Loopy Ewe! I KNOW. That’s one of the aforementioned “SQUEE”s. I about passed out from the sheer excitement when I got that email! And then I recovered, and placed a frenzied order for more devil duckies. Which turned into its own nightmare of sorts, as I selected “expedited shipping”, and the seller used DHL at Home, which takes its sweet time to get your package to your local USPS who in turn delivers them to you. Uh, yeah. So instead of 1-3 days, it took 6 days. It goes without saying, I was Not Happy. (Oh, and I got the shipping charges refunded.) So, this little bit of excitement goes hand-in-glove with the website, because even though I don’t want to delve into e-commerce, per se, I would like to have a few pages with my photos of the holders, and anything else that might be joining the “Wants & Kneeds” line of quirking knitting panaceas. Because yes, there’s something else. (But that announcement needs to wait!)

In other news, because lordy, I have been a little distracted from blogging, we are fully embracing the notion of a staycation. However, I am also highly resentful of the staycation. It’s sort of a love/hate thing – I know we’re doing the right thing by conserving our cash and we’d be grumpy if we went somewhere and spent too much money, BUT, I’m just resentful of the fact that this is happening, the economy is tanking, and gas prices are being jacked with (because seriously, OPEC says there is no supply issue, so what gives? Someone’s making a shitton of money AND having a lavish all-inclusive vacation! That’s what gives!) So my answer to all of the above is quite simple: Blender Drinks. They’re a mini-vacation in a glass.

And, quite honestly, all that’s kept me from throwing the computer out the window this weekend.

More soon, with extra SQUEE! :)

Holy Crap, I’m Tired.

This has been a LOT of work, just to reach this screen. I had to have a stranger install my WordPress files, and then I’ve battled my server and config pages, and then spent thirty minutes mentally arguing with an error message, that I got because I was trying to access the wrong thing. YAY! If this were running, I’d be skinny.

More to come. I have even announced this site yet. Just a big quiet room, four white walls, waiting for me to do mah thang. And you know I will.

Hello world!

I don’t want to delete the first auto-generated post, because this entire process has felt like giving birth, if I knew what giving birth was like, but I’m pretty sure the screaming has been comparable.  But I am not leaving the dippy auto-generated text in here. So there.

Me + An AK-47 = Trouble.

I am sure this is one of those statements that doesn’t even really need to be MADE. But I had a rough night last night, waking myself up with a surge of acid in the back of my throat, and I didn’t sleep well after that point. I haven’t had that much stress, but as I lay in bed last night, wondering why I felt SO out of sorts, I realized that I’ve been ignoring, to some extent, that next Tuesday is the two-year anniversary of my father’s death, and that I’ve made my brain separate onto two planes, of sorts. I have the bulk of my brain set on “good times!” and living in the now, and being in relatively good spirits. And I think that big chunk of brain is set on “put the hammer down” on the other plane as a preventative measure, because I want to be progressing, moving forward, being happy, and I am acutely aware that June 10th is coming, not to mention the wincing at all the Father’s Day crap bombarding all of us.

So the lower, squashed plane of my brain is getting back at me in oblique, under-handed ways. Like trying to drown me in stomach acid, or giving me insane, bizarre dreams that stay with me long past the alarm has me up and moving around. I felt like I have been in a stupor for a good 10-15 minutes every morning, trying to shake off the dream memories from the night, sorting out what is and isn’t reality, like picking cobwebs out your hair.

Last night? I dreamed my co-workers and I were driving around town. In the Murano, of course, and I was driving. But even though it was Kansas City, it was very, very dangerous. And as we went through an intersection, an oncoming car – like an old Nissan Sentra – passed us going the other direction, and the driver was a crazy terrorist, and he brandished a baby-blue AK-47 at us, and his AK-47 had all kinds of floral stickers all over it. Kind of the “Hello Kitty” version of weaponry.

I went into a RAGE. Because I had MY AK-47, and that fucker wasn’t going to threaten me with his flowery gun, mine was black and all badass. And my co-workers were kind of freaking out, but they all got out their guns, too, and we went driving through a cul-de-sac Johnson-County-esque neighborhood, shooting at the windows of the houses, just to prove we weren’t powerless.

Someone might have a control issue or three, ya think? I’ve decided my new solution, when faced with situations I can’t control, is to shout, “I’m Right!” at the top of my lungs in the car. It at least makes me laugh and stops some of the obsessing. Plus, it’s far less dangerous than brandishing weaponry.

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