Seismic Twitch

I’m discovering that new technology is a very steep escarpment for me. I enjoy learning new things and that’s the only thing that has kept me from throwing my new tablet across the room sometimes. I’ve gotten so used to Windows that it’s second nature to find my away round. Using a touch pad with a very different platform is, well, very different. First off, no matter how hard the programmers tried, the programs I use on the computer look and function differently from the tablet. Even web sites will look different (some extremely different).

Today I learned that Go Comics looks very different from on the computer. I can’t access my account. This means that all the comics that I have listed in one place are no longer that way. I haven’t checked it yet, but they send me my daily comics to my gmail account. Perhaps it will look right on that. I hope so. I can’t think of any reason why it wouldn’t look like the web site either except to accommodate smaller mobile devices.

Blogging is pointless unless I’m going to do a quick entry. When one writes longer entries usually a slide bar appears on the side, or with the touch pad, a finger or stylus should move the section of the page down. This didn’t happen when I started doing an entry earlier. I ended up in an area above where I had been working. I knew it hadn’t been deleted because if I did something it would show, but not remain on the area of screen I was working in. I haven’t found any down arrows that would help me get to the end of the entry so I decided to delete it and come to my computer for the entry.

I downloaded and eventually deleted the Android platform version of Firefox. It functioned very poorly compared to their default browser (I think it’s Google Chrome). I don’t have to worry about java functioning properly (as it refused to do in Firefox) and the same goes for Flash. I don’t like flash showing unless I choose it to In Firefox it didn’t show up at all and said that an addon needed to be downloaded. Nertz on that. I’ll live with Flash advertising on the wee beastie. Another thing that screwed up and wouldn’t unscrew was the zoom function. I pressed it once to see what happened and then it wouldn’t unzoom. Colour me unimpressed.

I finally figured out how to do the Twitter thing too. I found out that if you look at the entire screen, right to the edge, you can see other things like a place to click and bring up the keyboard to type. That’s somewhat useful when one wants to communicate with other people.

All in all I’m satisfied with the functionality of the tablet. There are some things I’m unsure of, but I know I’ll get things figured out eventually

We didn’t go to the zoo today as we had planned. I didn’t get up until nearly 1 (the zoo closes at 4), Bran got up somewhat later than that and Boy didn’t emerge until after 2. My back was hurting and I just wasn’t feeling up to leaving. Nothing was talked about, we just didn’t go. If you want to see some of the photos I took, click on my Flickr feed on the side and then click on my zoo set…or go to my photo stream. Whichever floats your boat.

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving. I’m eating smokies and avocado. I’m grateful for my family, to have shelter, food and the means to buy some of the fun things.

After a late start Bran and I went out to do some photography and spend some time together. We don’t do that as much as either of us likes and neither of us is quite sure why that is.

Originally I woke around 6:30 or so this morning having to go to the bathroom. I went back to bed figuring I’d be woken about 10:30 by Bran’s alarm so that I could make breakfast. It went off, but I don’t know what time it was. I didn’t want to get up and I wasn’t feeling up to making breakfast. I did eventually get up around 11 or maybe a bit earlier. Bran went back to bed and I sat at my computer, read comics and listened to the Sunday Sock Hop on Magic 98.3 a local radio station. On Sundays they play music from the 50s and 60s from 9 am to 1 pm. It’s a rather pleasant time of some of the best music made.

At round 2:30 or 3 Bran and I headed out to the Forestry Farm but it closed at 4, just before we got there. So off we went to Diefenbaker Park on the East side. It’s near the small pioneer graveyard on St. Henry Avenue. Bran parked the truck and we went in to the bush on the north side of the park. We took photos in the bush. I found a path down to the river bank that had some steps so I went down and sat at the edge of the bush and watched the gulls wading at the water’s edge. There were a bunch of juveniles there as well as a few adults. A few of the juveniles had parents there because they were being rather raucous in their attempts to be fed by the adults. I got some nice photos of them. I wanted to get some photos of the birds flying around but didn’t get many that turned out. It was somewhat frustrating, but Bran says that’s one of the things that takes a lot of practice. So I’ll practice.

After we got home Bran showered (he’s going to TIP) and then we went to Great Buffet of China for supper. I know there are people who won’t eat there insisting that they became ill because of their food. My experience has been different. I do know that I see a lot of their food being replaced often which means it’s nearly always fresh. We can follow our diet there (mostly) and still have a fairly good variety without feeling deprived. My dessert was a nice bunch of spinach salad, cucumbers, tomato and some cole slaw.

Bran and I have plans on becoming members of the Saskatoon Zoo Society. This will not only allow us to have free admission to the park with a yearly membership, it will also support educational programs about conservation all year round. I’m unsure as to whether Boy, as an adult now, would be able to be part of a “family” membership or if he’d have to have a membership on his own. If he does then we’ll pay for his own membership. The issue with that is that he doesn’t come out with Bran and I very often to take photos. I’m unsure he’d make much use of it. I have plans to go out this winter and take photos of the animals there. I wonder if the peacocks will still display through winter. They have many peafowl there and the males are always displaying at each other, even when it’s not time to mate. Their tails are amazing. I want to get there in the spring when the new babies are born.

I rediscovered the photos of the fireworks photos we took back in August. I hope to get a few nice photos processed of them tonight as well as a few of what I took today. I won’t be posting any here. You’ll need to go to Seismic Clicks for that. Or you can click on my Flickr stream on the right.

This morning’s breakfast was awesome! I was really hungry and trying to think what I could make that would be tasty and filling. Having cereal taken off my list of things I can eat makes having a quick breakfast difficult. So I decided to make something on the fly, so to speak. I peeled and cubed a small sweet potato. I put it in a bowl with a little water and some butter, covered it up with a microwave lid thing and zapped it for 5 minutes. While that was being nuked I sauteed some mushrooms while I brewed up a cup of coffee. After the sweet potato was done cooking I smashed it up with a fork and plopped it out on a plate. I layered the mushrooms on the sweet potato and covered the whole thing up while I lightly scrambled some eggs in brown butter. Lightly scrambling is easy. I prefer to not break the yolks until the eggs are partly cooked, then I break the yolk and mix them around a little. When the eggs are just set enough to flip them over (first I quarter the circle of egg) and then after about 10 seconds I put them on the mushrooms and sweet potato. On top of all that I dumped a nice generous amount of Pace Chunky Salsa, in this case, medium heat. It was extremely delicious. Next time I make it I’ll change one thing. The mushrooms will be on the side rather than under the eggs. They made making sure that I get sweet potato with each bit of egg hard because the mushrooms were more firm and made the soft potato squish out from underneath.

I don’t have a lot planned today other than to fold the laundry that was done earlier in the week, ironing a few tops for my trip to Calgary this week and beginning to get organized to go. I’ll also do some dishes, I think. Maybe. Maybe after a nap. I wasn’t really ready to be awake when I woke, I was hungry.

I went through my email for Wicked Witch Jewelry and I downloaded some free patterns and bought a couple of others. It made me itch to get back to making stuff again. I have to tidy a place that I can work exclusively on the stuff. I have a little movie player, I have ear phones/buds. I’ll have Bran help me get the desk in the dining room cleared off and get the stuff out from under (if we can) so that I can actually sit at the desk. I just talked to Bran and he’s agreed. But it’s not going to be this week. I just don’t have the time nor the energy this week and then I’m away for three days. I think I’ll close my Etsy shop. I never got sales there anyway. I’ll have to figure out something else. Maybe I’ll just make jewelry like mad all year long and just sell at the Sundog Handcraft Faire next December. The nice thing about the Sundog is that people don’t expect to pay extremely low prices for stuff. When I did the link up for the entry I also checked around it. You have to be a member of the Sundog Arts Society, but that costs only $10 a year. Then I’d have to apply to be an exhibitor and they do a jury selection of people who can exhibit. Hey, it can’t hurt to try, right? I have two months coming up where I’ll be doing not a whole lot but recovering.

It’s now late afternoon, 5:20 roughly. I am now making supper. I’m making a yummy squash soup. So far I’ve sauteed 2 sliced onions, one carrot sliced on the bias, and about 1 Tbsp garlic in bacon fat (you can use vegetable oil) and added Mrs. Dash as a seasoning. Then I added the two medium to large squash and two litres of chicken stock. I also added a nice Tbsp of curry paste. I might add more, I haven’t decided. I’ll let that all cook together for a while and then see if the wand blender works (remember it stopped when I was trying to make mayonnaise the second time). Then I’ll add a can of chopped tomatoes (I like pieces of tomato in the soup rather than whizzing up the seeds because they’re bitterish) and some shrimp. I’ll cook the shrimp and then add coconut milk. I wouldn’t mind having spinach, but we don’t have any. The nice thing with spinach is that it will cook with the heat of the soup in each bowl rather than adding it to the soup and having it turn all nasty.

Laundry is all folded and put away. Yay! Bran has been puttering in the living room so it’s getting tidier.

There. Hopefully the publish button will work and I won’t get that error.

Pretty much all I’ve done today is read. I did prep supper, get the chicken marinating, making cole slaw, trying to make my own mayo (it’s a liquid salad dressing right now. I’ll try again tomorrow), and making sweet potatoes with butter. Oh, I went out. Bran and I went to Canadian Tire and bought some bbq briquettes and liquid starter, a few groceries (Granny Smith apples and butternut squash), and some pine bedding for the pets at work.

Really, that’s all we did.

I’m still reading the Wapsi Square comics and I finally finished up the Devil’s Panties comics last night. I’m on the Fourth book In the Shadow of Doubt. I’m going to be going to bed and reading again tonight.

Tomorrow we’re going to dim sum. Yes, it will be laden with carbs, but it will be tasty.

If you’re at a loss of what to do on the internet tonight, go read the two comics. Each has complete archives so you’ll be reading for a while.

It’s not midnight yet here, therefore it’s still Saturday. I’m trying to keep up with blogging even if I have little to say.

I’m getting a vase from VUBOQ! I’m so excited! VUBOQ has made lots of pottery and I’ve not gotten a piece. Today he said he was giving away some of his misshapen pieces and I asked for the brown vase, and I’m getting it. Hurrah!

Today Bran and I went out for a few groceries (baby bok choy and granny smith apples) and pet food. Dutchess, being the lovely kitty she is, continues to need food on a daily basis. As such we had mostly run out of her favourite Science Diet mature indoor cat, hairball formula. The other pet food we got was for the chinchillas. They were out of pellets and had no timothy hay. So we got them and a couple of treats. We got two different kinds of pellet packs. One was just the timothy hay pellets, the other had bits and pieces of other things like corn, dried peas, pine cone, fruit bits and such like. Their food smells like potpourri. I got a bag of timothy hay as well. They are now well fed little rodents.

I’m thinking of bringing home the two babies (well, they’re not really babies anymore) because the cage is a bit crowded. That way Bran can advertise them for sale and not have to worry whether I’m at work, whether I have time while I’m at work to attend to anyone who wants to buy them, etc. They will also be handled more and therefore become more socialized.

Have I ever told you about the gastronomic proclivities of our precious feline? No? Maybe? Yes? Which ever the answer you’re going to read about them again. This kitty isn’t really a real cat. Sure, she purrs, she meows, she uses the litter box, and is extremely adept at getting underfoot, but she has profound differences that separate her from the realm of average housecatdom. She doesn’t jump on counters in the kitchen. She doesn’t jump up there unless she feels that she’s not getting enough petting from the person standing at the counter. She doesn’t jump up to sniff or eat at food sitting on the counter, no matter what that food might be. She can sit on your lap while you eat and she will ignore what you’re eating no matter what it is (with one notable exception and I’ll get to that). She doesn’t like people food much at all. She doesn’t eat tuna, salmon, cod, haddock, or pollock, chicken, beef, or pork and has no interest in the gravies of said meats or sauces of said fish. She also doesn’t eat soft cat food. She might lick up some of the gel, but that’s about it. She does, however adore her kibble and meows most aggrievedly should she be able to see the shiny silver of the bottom of her dish. She also doesn’t drink milk or attempt to drink milk out of glasses that might be within her reach.

She likes her water fountain and I suspect it’s because her water is double filtered (Britta filter on the tap and the fountain also filters the water). Yes, we spoil her, but we also live in an old neighbourhood where the equally old water pipes still have lead solder. The lead might not have a huge affect on humans but on a creature as little as a cat we take the additional precautions. The fountain was recommended by the vet because she was slightly dehydrated. The fountain encourages cats to eat. I think it’s because it’s more like a toilet than a water dish.

Oh, the people food we discovered she loves? Yeah, genuine-real-fake-crab-flavoured pollock…and beef jerky (discovered that the other night). She will be very annoying if I’m sitting and noshing down on some krab. So I give her little bits. The beef jerky is, I think, a reaction to the zippered plastic bag it comes in. Her glucoasmine and condroitin treats also come in a zippered plastic bag. As hideous as those treats smell (and it’s hard to wash that smell off your hands) she adores them. Being an older cat it’s a good idea to feed some to her on a daily basis. Apparently they are flavoured, salmon and something else, but they smell the same to me…gross.

The plexi-glass seems to be doing the job of keeping in most of the chinchilla poop. One of the guys likes them and takes videos of them. On Monday evening I’m going to be putting their bath in and he’ll be able to video them zooming around in the rose bowl. It’s quite a site to see.

Today’s menu was breakfast lightly curried vegetables, scrambled eggs and bacon. I sauteed up some onions and garlic then added some curry paste to the pot. When the curry paste dissolved and the onions and garlic were translucent I added red pepper slices and baby bok choy (cut in half) and let the whole thing steam together while I fried the bacon and scrambled the eggs. Curry and eggs go together so well.

Supper wasn’t until late into the evening (night, if you like) because I had an afternoon nap and wasn’t awake again until after 8 pm. Bran and Boy had gone out earlier and picked up some chicken thighs. We were going to have grilled chicken kabobs with sate sauce but because I was sleeping it didn’t happen. Instead I fried the chicken in butter with some herbs and spices, baked up some sweet potato fries and made a huge, kick-ass salad. We didn’t eat until about 10. I had the coffee that I made and was going to have with breakfast. It was tres yummy.

We’ve been getting incredibly hot weather lately. For the past several days it’s been over 30C (86F). Thursday we broke a previously set high set in 1981 of 33.6C (92.48F). Body temperature in Celsius is 37. Today it was 31 and there was very little wind. That’s a rare thing in Saskatchewan. There are no mountains or trees to act as wind breaks, just wide open spaces. When Bran and I went out at about 1:30 or so this afternoon the leaves on the trees were completely still. Happily the weather is cooling down to more seasonable temperatures for the next while. Sometime this month we’re going to have a lovely day of fall (the day all the leaves are coloured and still on the trees) and then the wind will come and all the leaves will be bald the next day. We don’t tend to get a long, lingering, colourful fall. The longest I remember seeing is about 3 days, then fwump! All the leaves were on the ground becoming so much dust that makes me sneeze. Anyway, this is the long explanation to why we have the a/c on and why I have 3 fans blowing directly on me.

Bran and Boy are putting together a computer desk for Boy. It’s constituent parts are rather shoddily put together (quality isn’t one of Staples’s fortes). Already Bran is having to reinforce some of the pieces so that they don’t come apart. Bran is noticing that the angles of their brace is wrong. The return policy of Staples is that the item be returned in sale-able condition and yet they engineer the item in such a way that it is extremely easy to break while under construction. So yeah, when Bran’s done with it the desk will be stable and strong, but certainly not because Staples did anything useful other than cut the wood pieces and supply some of the hardware. They’ve had some conflict around it, but that appears I thought that most of that stemmed from them not having eaten since afternoon’s breakfast. Happily it’s not me putting it together. I’m not sure my back could take that.

I downloaded a pile more free books again today from ePub Books I have to wonder when I’m going to have time to read all the books I’ve gotten. I’m still stuck in The Three Musketeers and there are at least piece more books in the series. I am so much enjoying my little Kobo. I think being able to read has also contributed to my wanting to write again. So many things suffered from the demands of school. I’m finally getting back to some of my loves.

Time to retreat to the bedroom and crack my Kobo to continue the consumption of a classic in literature.

Since it’s been a while since my late post I thought I’d use bullets to update you on my life as it is right now (and has been for the past couple of weeks):

• Remember how proud I was that I put together the Ikea dresser and chiffonier? Maybe I forgot to post about it, but I did do that and I was proud of my l337 skillz with the screw driver and whatchamacallit key thing. I got a sore wrist from doing that. The reward of feeling good about putting together the furniture was superseded by the growing discomfort in my right wrist. Gradually I was unable to do much because any twisting of my wrist brought sharp pangs in my wrist. So off I went to the doctor. I was worried that I suddenly developed arthritis in that joint. The good thing is that it wasn’t arthritis. The bad thing is that I’d created tendinitis in my wrist. I was told that I should up my intake of ibuprofen (which would also necessitate a new and stronger anti-acid medication) and/or get a wrist splint. The splint thing is to keep the wrist from twisting, thus allowing the tendons to rest and ergo the swelling to reduce. I chose the splint alone. It will take my wrist longer to heal, but I won’t have to take stronger medications. It’s a semi-win-win situation.
• Work is a bit screwy at the moment. We’re still waiting on the security clearance for the staff who is going to take the full time night position. This means that we have some issues with filling her spot until she’s able to be trained and get working. We also lost one of the part-time staff. She got her degree and has started working at a job she’s enjoying very much. So we’ve been down for her time as well. Today is my weekend. While I grant that I had all day yesterday after I finished my overnight shift training a new staff, I had to recover from a week of overnights to shift my sleep pattern so that I can work 2 evening shifts and then move my body to day shifts for the remainder of the week. Yeah.
• The house is still for sale. There have been three or four tours through, once last Tuesday while I slept the day away. Bran asked them to be quiet since I was on overnight shift and would be sleeping. I didn’t hear them at all and didn’t wake until about 5 pm. Yay!
• I still like my Ute and like driving it.
• The weather was hot for a while. It was not only hot, but it was wickedly humid. Stepping outside of the house, work or my Ute was like stepping into a bowl of hot soup. I drank so much water and yet was hardly going to the bathroom because I was sweating it all away. Work was hard. The upper floors aren’t air conditioned so doing room and building checks were torture. Happily for staff we get to spend at least part of our day in air conditioned comfort. Many of our residents work in construction so they didn’t get a break except when they were on main floor./li>
• We got one of those portable air conditioners and it’s installed in the living room. It truly has been a saving grace for us. We have three desk top computers in the living room and the conditioner has kept the space livable. Too bad the cool air doesn’t reach the bedrooms (even with fans encouraging it on its way). We’re now getting more livable temperatures. We do expect Monday to be hot again, but nothing like it had been and it’s only for one day. I can survive that.
• My fancy light-up keyboard, the one I was so happy to have, was incompatible with my computer. That made me sad. It stopped the computer from completing the start-up routine. I don’t know how it did it though. We took the computer in and they confirmed that everything was working right. Bran brought it home and started plugging in things to see what was holding up production. It turned out to be my favourite peripheral. Damn. I’m using Bran’s cordless keyboard now. It’s smaller than my light-up keyboard and I can remove it from the drawer without worrying about cords, but it’s not the same.
• Today I did a manual update of my WordPress. It drives me crazy that I can’t get an automatic update to work. It wouldn’t be so bad if it would work just once, or if it would stop telling me the update failed and I should attempt it again. I mean, it’s updated. That should disappear. I guess next time (by my calculations that should be sometime later this week) they come out with another update, if I don’t try to do the automatic update, maybe that message will disappear.
• Along with the update I upped my security with a plugin called Secure WordPress and will hopefully reduce the spam making it into my spam filter with SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam that will work along with Askimet. I doubt I get enough traffic to attract anyone who could hack into my blog, but hey, it can’t hurt, right?
• We haven’t gone to see the last Harry Potter movie. I haven’t seen part 1 of it yet so we can’t until I do. Well, it’s also possible that I won’t see it in the theatre considering my rather profound dislike of crowds and people in general. I might just wait until it comes out on video and then watch the entire series. I am rather sad that the story is ending and has ended in the books. They were fun reads and the movies were fun to watch. It’s a good thing I like repeats or else it would be more tragic.
• We haven’t managed to get our spit together to get out of town for a picnic and photo session yet. We had wanted to do so a week or two back (on a Sunday) but the weather was less than cooperative and insisted on raining. While all of our DSLRs are water resistant, they are not water proof. We are also limited in the number of lenses that are water resistant as well. This means no rainy day photos outside. I tried to get pics of the kitty, but she wouldn’t be still enough to get any decent shots. She’s rather camera shy with me.
• I went out and was social on Wednesday. That was the day we went out for “drinks” (mine was ginger ale since I had to work later that night) to say farewell to the staff I spoke about earlier who got a job she enjoys. We all sat around and munched on snackies, drank our drinks and talked shop in a way we can’t at work. It was quite a bit of fun. I gave her (the staff who was leaving) a ride home afterwards. When I got home (round about 10) Bran was beginning to get worried since I don’t usually stay away from home that long.
• Bran got a surprise in the mail this month. It came on a day when he was feeling grumpy and out of sorts. Some time before the lock-out of Canada Post workers I’d ordered the latest Dominic Deegan book. Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire is one of Bran’s favourite on-line comics. We have the other books the artist/writer/creator, Mookie, has published. When I saw the new book was out I ordered it for Bran and didn’t tell him. So when it came I just handed him the envelope and told him it was his. It cheered him up a lot. That made me happy.
• I want Dairy Queen. Specifically I want a Turtle Pecan Cluster Blizzard with cheese cake. Failing that a small or medium cone will suffice.
• If it weren’t for the fact that I’d end up with a sore back I would be hiding away from the world today. There are a lot of things I could be doing, but I have no wish to leave the house, let alone bed. But since I would get a sore back/hips/ribs if I laid in bed as long as I’d like I’ll make do and embed myself into my spot on the couch.
• I have two sore knuckles. They are somewhat bruised from the splint. They ram into the splint when I try to do things the splint is designed to prevent the motion of doing…like working with a mouse. I tried using Bran’s tablet. It worked like a track pad on a laptop but was larger. It worked fairly well, too. The problem I had with it was that my finger tips would dry out and the tablet wouldn’t be able to “feel” what I was doing. I felt like I was slowly polishing my finger prints off. So now when I have to do a large amount of mouse work (like playing minesweeper) or when I have to type a lot, I take the splint off. I still can’t mouse for long periods of time, but it’s getting better.
• I finally have my Rosetta Stone French lessons. I might have mentioned them before, I can’t remember and a quick scan of my previous entries doesn’t reveal anything of note. I decided some time ago to increase my ability in Canada’s other official language. Since buying all the lessons from Rosetta Stone is as cheap as taking a single semester class of basic French at university, I decided on the one I can do at my leisure. I should probably go to one of those teacher stores and pick up books and such to teach myself the grammar and such. Oh, and a becherel would probably be useful too. I’m sure I spelt it wrong, but a becherel is a book containing conjugations of various verbs. I can’t use the discs at work but I could do the work in written French. Being semi- or fully- bilingual would mean that getting a job with the feds would be much easier. So far I’ve learned things like: he drinks, she drinks, they drink, she reads, he reads, they read, he wears pants, she wears a skirt, he buys a hat and she buys a dress. Thrilling, yes? My biggest challenge still appears to be the “eu” sound. Dad spent a significant amount of time trying to help me get the sound of those two letters correct when I was in high school. I think, if I recall correctly, I managed to get it right enough times he was satisfied. I could be wrong. It’s equally possible that he simply ceded defeat in the face of my anglophone accent.
• Boy hasn’t shaved for a while. I can tell because he’s got sideburns with a tacky and sparse beard. I still grow a better moustache than he does despite it his protestations to the contrary.

I believe that’s it. I sit and wonder what else there is to say, and frankly, there’s nothing.

Today is the last day of the May long weekend. For us, it’s Victoria Day. Most people will have planted their gardens this weekend (or perhaps the weekend before this) because the risk of frost is nice and low. Those who don’t have gardens might have gone out of town for the first camp-out of the year, or to the various city, regional, provincial or federal parks for a picnic. Today we went to Beaver Creek Conservation Area to walk around and take photographs.

Bran, me and a friend went out this afternoon. She wanted to get out of town and I wanted to take photos. I didn’t particularly want to go out to do so, but it seemed stupid to give up an opportunity like this. It’s cold outside today. If it had been this temperature in late February or early March I would have gloried in the clement weather. Today I just got cold. Despite the Scotch mist, the wind and the cold temperatures it was a pleasant time.

There are several trails a person can take. The area is only open from 9-5 on weekdays (the hours on the weekend vary) and we didn’t get there until nearly 3. This meant that we wouldn’t have time to do one of the longer walks. In fact, being open so little time it’s a wonder they have any trails that take much time. We took the yellow trail. I took a fair number of photographs. I wish that I could photograph the smells. I love the smell of a forest (even a bush forest such as this). It was more aromatic thanks to the damp earth. Sometimes it was quite fragrant with the blooming of fruit trees (berry trees) and the heady aroma of sweet grass when we were out of the valley on the flat prairie.

Because the day was so overcast the light was, what is called in photography lingo, flat. This means that there is little contrast in dark, light, and varying shades. I’ll be working on editing up some photos that I took to look more vibrant. I used the flash to take some photos of some bracket fungus growing on a fallen tree. I’m curious to know what that’ll look like.

We trouped around there for a little over and hour before we all went back to the truck and headed back to town. Beaver Creek is about 10 or 15 minutes south of town, just north of the White Cap Dakota First Nation (where Dakota Dunes Casino is).

Then we went for sushi for supper. We were going to go to Szechuan Kitchen, but Bran decided that sushi was ok because he could get sushimi. So that’s what we did. Before we had anything to eat I saw something crawling on his bunnyhug (hoody to anyone who doesn’t live in Saskatchewan). I used my serviette to get it off him and showed it to him. It was as I suspected. He collected a tick. Luckily it wasn’t attached to him. I smooshed it in the napkin and wrung the napkin and thought that was the last of it. Then I decided to peek. It was not only still alive, it was fully intact ready to crawl out of the paper. I smooshed it up again, wrung it again and sent it outside when Bran went to get a hanky out of the truck a bit later on. Then I got all paranoid about whether I’d picked one up. Happily it doesn’t appear that I did. I forgot about tick season.

After supper we went to Shoppers on the West side to check out Bran’s point-and-shoot camera battery. It stopped working in the camera so he wanted to see if it was the camera or the battery that died. Yeah, it was the camera. He’s going to hunt up the warranty to see if there’s something he can do to get a replacement or something. I got a new pair of reading glasses. I’m tired of the ones I have being all scratched up and permanently smeared. I can’t figure out why they don’t ever come properly clean. That’s the last time I spend that much on a pair of reading glasses though. The way to go is the cheap way by picking up a pair at the drug store for $35 or so. I also picked a couple of DVDs. Sadly, one of them I already have. I hoped that I would be getting a new Scooby Doo. I wasn’t . I already have the one I bought so back it goes. I did get Groundhog Day.

I went shooting last night too. One of the things I captured was the video of the fish in the entry before this one. Fish are so weird.

I wish I didn’t have to go to work tomorrow. Except for being sick and in pain for 3.5 of the 5 days I’ve been home it’s been quite relaxing. I slept when I wanted, got up when I needed, got flowers (gonna have to do that more often since they look so darned pretty), and took lots and lots of photographs. I have lots to edit.

Check out my photostream at Flickr. I have a thing in the sidebar that’ll take you there.

Bran figured out what the problem was. It had something to do with he and I sharing the same static IP number or something like that. My laptop was giving some kind of warning window that helped him figure out what the issue was. Now we have separate IP numbers and everything is hunky dory again. At least it’s not that we need a new router.

Everything else is going ok. I spent much of this weekend sleeping. I know, that’s not any news but it’s what I did. I’d get up in the morning, have a little something to eat (this morning it was two zipper skin oranges and some peanuts) and then it’s back to bed for another four to five hours then up again. Now I want to go to bed again. I’m going to try and stay awake though I do have to be awake to call the doctor’s office and find out when my physical is. I had it in my calendar for today. Since today was a stat holiday and their office wasn’t open, I’m going to assume that I wrote it in wrong.

Another reason I want to be up is to take a couple of texts in to school to sell. I went through my bin (mostly) and packed up the school related stuff. Before I closed up the boxes I input the text authors to find out which texts can be resold. Inconveniently enough, only 2 (maybe a third) can be bought back by the book store. Sucks, but that’s the way of school. The rest of the stuff in the bin is office supply stuff and extraneous other things that will find their way into drawers. The books that weren’t texts but were of general interest reading are on a book shelf waiting for me to get around to reading them. I’ve already read Hunting Humans and Stolen Life but there is also Just Another Indian and Thunder in My Soul that I want to read. I also have to return a couple of books to the library. Those ones were at home. With luck, they’ll be the only library books I have out. I’ll check when I return them.

I’m using my old laptop. It’s somewhat noisy (compared to the quiet of most other laptops as the fan needs to be replaced) but it has a much larger screen and that makes me happy. It also has a touch pad that actually turns off (what a concept!) and a keyboard that’s a more standard size. I’m still getting used to it again. I’ll be downloading my address book and old emails from the net book, backing up all the information there and letting Bran do what he wants with it. I suppose it could be sold for a few dollars after everything is wiped off of it. I will miss the matte screen.

I picked a good week to have a physical. My IBS is acting up. Nothing like having something actually wrong to make the check up worth while, right?

That’s about it.

What have I been up to? Oddly enough, a fair bit. This is a long entry so get yourself a cup of tea. I’ll wait.

I got some seed beads to work on Bran’s handfast outfit thing I’m making for him. It’s like a priest’s stole but made of beads instead of embroidered cloth. I’m sure it’ll be quite a bit heavier too. Anyway, I picked up lovely red beads and some blue that are drop dead beautiful. It’ll all look really nice when I’m done.

Yesterday was a day of dishes and laundry. I got ALL the dishes done, the stove and counter tops all wiped off and thought about sweeping the floor. Yes, I thought about sweeping the floor. Alas, my back, after standing at the sink to do load after load of dishes, was in no fit shape to wield a broom. Some witch I am, right?

While I was doing that Bran and Boy were hip deep in laundry. Really, we hadn’t done all the laundry in a few weeks, just a couple 0h-I-Have-No-Shirts/Pants/Underwear loads that just did the necessities. It’s still not done yet, there are 3 more loads to go, but they made excellent progress in that. Not only did they do that, but I got the folding nearly done as well.

Boy also dried dishes and pumped up the bike tires. He was an enormous help to us. I just thought I’d put that out there as sometimes he feels under-/unappreciated. Without him the work would’ve taken much longer if it got completed at all.

Then today was an excellent workout. I did a full 20 minutes on the elliptical machine. I didn’t stop to drink water and when I drank I didn’t spill all over myself. I really have to get a bottle with a built in straw. It saves me the embarrassment of looking like a totally uncoordinated slob. I’m only a partially uncoordinated slob.

We also did work on our arms on the weights. I was in the Captain’s Chair and managed to get to 5 leg lifts before my shoulders gave out and I started drooping. We also did weight assisted chin ups (two different kinds) and dips. Then we worked on pecs on two machines and the other of my favourite machines but I don’t remember what it works.

Then it was home to shower (eventually I did) and get ready to go out for sushi with friends. It was wonderful connecting with them again. They’re both good people with good hearts and fabulous senses of humour.

My shower was satisfying. This past week I’ve been dealing with a bit of an emotional dip. Ok, so more than a dip. I tanked earlier in the week and I haven’t recovered from it yet. So my mood is low. So showering is something that fell somewhat by the wayside. It’s hard to be motivated to do anything and getting out of bed to get to work was a major accomplishment. Let’s just say that personal hygiene has been taking a hit.

Anyway, I did shower today. My legs are freshly shorn and moisturized. My hair is fly-away clean (as only curly hair can be) and I smell fresh. I’m hoping to hit the shower at least every second day as a part of trying to lift the mood. We’ll see how that works.

This week has been somewhat distressing as well because of a co-worker/friend’s circumstances. Anyone who has friended me on Facebook will have seen my status thingie about that. She and her hubby went to Edmonton where he could have heart surgery. He has a congenital heart defect and it needed some work. They spent twice as long in surgery as they planned (11 hours) then, because of bleeding and other complications, he had to go back into surgery the next day. He’s currently in critical condition on life support. Though he’s making small improvements there’s the spectre of him not making it. They’re a young couple with two young children. I’ve been sending Reiki left, right, and centre and hoping for the best. I hate it that there’s virtually nothing else I can do in terms of helping.

This added to the general lowness of my mood and had me in tears on Friday night. I don’t usually cry unless there’s some impetus, like a movie or someone hurting my feelings. Just sitting and being weepy isn’t something I normally do. It’s also not a good thing considering that I’m on anti-depressants. This leads me to think that perhaps my dosage needs to be elevated. However, I can’t do that without seeing a physician and my doctor scarpered (see previous post about that) so I don’t have a doctor right now.

Earlier tonight I was called in to work because the person who was to work the 8-12 shift didn’t show up. I got out of the house and was on the way when I got the call that she’d finally turned up. So instead Bran and I headed off the the drug store (pharmacy/apothecary/chemist’s) for cinnamon, antihistamine and junk for Boy and I. We also got a squirt container of liquid soap for the kitchen. The old soap squirt container we had was a long-ago Christmas present from Boy when he was in elementary school. It never did squirt right and recently wouldn’t squirt at all. Thanks to the antihistamines I’ll have less vertigo related nausea when I’m doing things like ab crunches and such. Gotta love being allergic to your pet.

Speaking of pets…Bran managed to do some grooming of her today (or was it yesterday?) and got a kitten. She’s also lost a little bit of body fat thanks to the food she’s been on the past while (older cat/indoor cat). This means that she can take care of her own “intimate” grooming. Of course she has to stop and do it while I’m walking behind her…on my way to the bathroom…first thing in the morning when my bladder is screaming to be emptied. Yeah, she’s such a cat.

When we were leaving to take me to do the work that I didn’t end up doing tonight, I was confused. Somewhere, thanks to the housework we did yesterday, I lost the entire day. I thought today was Saturday and I wasn’t going to work a 4 hour shift, but an entire 12 hour shift.

Oh, one thing about yesterday. I got a pair of ear buds to replace the ones that I lost the rubber thing to. These are Sony buds for sports. They have soft over-the-ear holders and are sound eliminators. They came with a hard case that makes it more difficult to lose bits. They should last a nice long time. They’re quite comfortable to wear and muffle outside noise nicely. Since I won’t be wearing them for outside exercise they’re be quite useful.

I also figured out a way to go on the jogging outings with my gym partner. You see, because of sciatica I can’t jog. It’s what makes standing still for long periods of time painful (remember how dishes made my back blow out? That’s why). The compression of the disc onto the sciatic nerve is the reason jogging (which would cause further compression) isn’t a good idea. However, I have roller blades. So long as I manage to move forward and not land on my butt, I can go along while he runs. He also has a pair of blades so we could zoom along together. Cool, right?

That’s about it. Now I have to label this entry. It’s going to be a long list. Try and pick out the one thing in the labels that I didn’t mention in the entry.

I tweeted a whole lot yesterday. I was counting down the hours of a 12 hour shift. I was freaking tired. Because Friday was spent mostly in bed (as testifies by the lol of the last entry) I got too much sleep to settle in on Friday night. That meant I got only about 2 hours sleep before having to be up and awake for Saturday’s shift.

Then I get home on Saturday at about 8:30 pm (2030 for those on the 24 hour clock) and I’m in bed by 9. I knew going to bed that early was a risk, but I was so very tired. I slept until about 1:15. Yeah, awake in the early morning having had a lovely nap meant that I wasn’t going to be able to settle back in for more sleep. I did eventually but it was about 1/2 hour near to 7 am or so.

This meant that Sunday’s shift was a nightmare of trying to stay awake for the 12 hours of my shift, be aware of what’s going on during the day while there’s nothing (and I mean nothing) going on. By the time 8 pm came around I was nigh on dropping on my feet. I went to bed immediately upon getting home, about 8:10 pm. I knew I was taking a chance, afterall, just the night before I ended up being wide awake after only a few hours of sleep. I was willing to accept that if it meant I’d not feel like I was. I did wake up around 1, but after going to the bathroom I went back to bed and fell asleep again. I woke up again at 7 am and decided that I was hungry and needed to eat.

So I got up and ate some of the leftover food I didn’t eat on the weekend. I read comics, I caught up on blogs I didn’t read last night and then at about 10 am or so I went back to bed. Bran woke me about an hour ago. Yay! I don’t feel tired anymore!

I got to have Dutchess make a kitty loaf on my chest as I petted her. Then she decided that the chest hair was softer on Bran and she went over to him. But she didn’t just walk over. She made sure that her delicate feet didn’t touch the lava that is the bed. She stepped across using my arm as a bridge. She was back shortly after because Bran was a bit too enthusiastic in his petting of her. She settled down on my chest with her tail toward my face, swiping across my nose. She is so thoroughly a kitty sometimes.

Work was dead quiet this weekend. We’re low on numbers so when a few go out the place is empty. Though I didn’t have a time when the Centre was bereft of people (one didn’t go out at all during the day), when they were in their rooms nothing was going on. On both days I did room and building checks more frequently just to keep awake.

That’s what a working weekend is like for me. Work, sleep. There’s nothing exciting about it. I should be thankful. Really, I should be. My first weekend shift working alone, a graveyard shift, there was a stabbing in the alley behind the building. A young woman was stabbed by either her boyfriend or pimp. One of the guys ran down from the deck and carried her into the building. It was an exciting time all around which involved basic first aid (the knife broke and the blade was embedded in her thigh and she had a small stab wound in her shin), and keeping the gents calm and out of the way. I also had to convince the gents who were on the deck and saw things to get over their dislike of cops to talk to them. I’m still quite proud of all the people there at the time.

Why? Well, in prison something like this could have set off a whole lot of overreaction. That didn’t happen. Sure there was much excitement and animation, but it was not out of control. For the most part they stayed out of the way and the guys who needed to talk to the cops were actually helpful. You could tell they didn’t like it though. An interesting side effect was that I got a two man escort to the trash bin out back (where the stabbing took place) when I took out the bloody trash. They were wanting to protect me. Yeah, a man who murdered his roommate and another who raped his ex-girlfriend were convinced that they needed to keep me safe on the quick trip to the bin. I felt ok about it. Afterall, they were sober when they were with me. They weren’t when they committed their crimes.

It’s like I’ve always said, sober, most of the people at work are really nice and good people. Put them on some mind altering substance and it’s a whole different story. It’s the same for everyone. Who is the same person sober as they are when they’re drunk or stoned? Who hasn’t become hypersensitive when they’ve got a few beer in them? Yeah. Exactly. The difference between the people who reside at work and those who don’t is a very small one. Always keep that in mind when you think about most people who are in prison.

Ok, I’m off my soap box. I’m going to see what there is for me to nosh on. I’m hungry again (7 hours after my last nosh known as breakfast).

So yeah, I should be thankful for the quiet weekend at work.