Seismic Twitch

How well do you know YOUR significant other?

1. They are watching TV…What are they watching?
Jeopardy (otherwise he’ll be listening to music)

2. You’re out to eat…What kind of dressing do they get on their salad?
House dressing

3. What’s one food this person doesn’t like?
I had to ask him and neither of us can think of anything.

4. You go out to the bar. He/she orders…..
Diet cola, preferably Pepsi, but Coke is acceptable.

5. Where did he/she go to high school?
LaFleche Composite School

6. What is their favourite food?
I don’t know as he has a “favourite” but he really likes the curry soup from Saigon Rose.

7. If this person were to collect anything, it would be….
Technically antique bottles, realistically camera equipment.

8. What is their favourite type of sandwich?
I have no idea, especially now that he’s diabetic and doesn’t do much in the bread type.

9. This person’s bedtime?
Whenever he’s tired.

10. Favourite cereal?
Honey Comb, though he can’t have it anymore

11. This person wouldn’t be caught dead wearing…
Hmmm…He’s worn nearly everything including my jeans, a tube top and full drag for a play (special shoes had to be ordered to fit his 15eee feet), perhaps something espousing a right wing sentiment.

12. Favourite sports team?
He doesn’t follow sports.

13. Who will he/she vote for?
NDP

14. What is their sign?
Pisces

15. What is something you do that he/she wishes you didn’t?
Interrupt him…snark at Boy…be a lesbian

16. How many states has this person lived in?
States? None. However, he was an army brat so he’s lived in Europe, plus Alberta and Saskatchewan.

17. What is his/her heritage?
Scottish and German

18. You bake them a cake for their birthday…What kind is it?
Angel food.

19.Did he/she play sports in high school?
Volleyball and, I believe, badminton.

20.This person could spend an entire afternoon doing what?
If it’s not sleep then it’s something on the computer like chatting with friends, using “Stumbleupon” and surfing the web.

It’s really hard coming up with much in the way of news when I work 12 hours on a graveyard shift. It’s not like a whole lot happens. I did room and building checks. A few people stayed up late watching movies (the second Pirates of the Caribbean and The Simpsons Movie). Then they went to bed. One of the people I supervise called needing a place to go because her S.O. was being abusive again – she was going to come to the house but decided to go to a friend’s house instead.

There. That’s what happened at work. So if you don’t count my lunch and a piece of chocolate birthday cake (not mine), it was a pretty danged dull night.

I did get registered for the graduate level seminar class of my supervisor. Actually, that was done on Friday. I don’t remember if I wrote about having done it though. So there you have it. She (the supervisor) suggested that I not buy the other books until we get a chance to talk. I do have the regular text book though. It’s another one of those small seminar classes where I have to do my homework because it’s too small to be able to slack off.

That’s it. I’m going to go read my comics and go to bed. It’s only 11.5 hours to my next shift.

Ta-Ra

That’s me. I must have walked up and down those stairs at work about 20 times. I thought of using a little bit of hyperbole but that would take away from the impact. Five people locked themselves out of their rooms, the laundry room on the 3rd floor (5 flights of stairs up) was locked 3 times (damned thing locks if the knob pushes up against the wall behind it), 3 room and building checks and a headcount, checking bathroom chores as they were done and helping a resident settle in. So that’s…14 times. Okay, it’s not 20, but it’s enough for me. Tomorrow I work at 8 pm.

We got 2 new residents. One is a repeater, he’s leaving on to better places in a few days. So the other was a woman who came in by bus. Poor woman, ended up with a really dense, obnoxious person sit next to her and talk ad nauseum about how much he likes drinking, the drugs he likes, how much he does of both, etc. Yeah, she wasn’t happy.

Otherwise work was ok. It was quiet. I spent most of my time reading my text book for theory. I’ll be doing more of that this weekend as well as start in on the stats book to re-learn stuff so that it’s fresh in my mind when I get to class. I’ve been exchanging email with my supervisor about her class. Hopefully she’ll get back to me before the class is supposed to start on September 7. What fun.

I can’t find my old stats notes. I wonder if I gave them to someone. You know, I think I did. I like it when I have a brain.

Ta-Ra

…in more ways than you know.

I started reading my texts. I know I’m going to have an obscene amount of reading to do this year, so I’m working at getting ahead a little bit. Today I read the introduction to a text that will have articles by various theorists about various things. I started to read an article, but stopped. I don’t know that they’ll go in order in that text. I do know that the other text, the one that talks about the actual theories along with the theorists will be important, so that I’ll start tomorrow. I’ll read a chapter, take notes, read a chapter, take notes, etc. I’m also going to have to get my stats stuff down and start reviewing it so that I can pass that freaking class. There’s still no news about my advisor’s class, so being the nag I am I emailed her. I also had another question to ask her so it’s more of a nudge (even if it really is a nag).

Work was quiet. There isn’t much going on there right now. There aren’t many residents so there’s not a whole lot happening. Ergo, there isn’t a whole lot I can say about it. Oh, we had lasagna for supper. It was good.

The schedules for September and October are out. I’m going to be working every second weekend as a support staff and only a couple of days a week in the position I was hired for. I am confused by that I mean, it’s not that I mind, but I wasn’t hired to be support staff. On the weekends especially this is inconvenient because I have people who report but I also have to be available to the residents. Maybe that’ll change a little bit after the one staff who’s on maternity leave comes back…if she comes back.

Boy had his first day of school in Grade 11 today. Bran said that he’s unsure about chemistry, but the other classes are great. I asked what Boy wasn’t sure about and Bran said that he couldn’t pin Boy down to an answer. Hopefully either we’ll get an answer or things will iron out for him. One of his very good friends has morning classes with him, perhaps that’s why the rest are “great”. I guess I’ll find out Friday, or maybe tomorrow afternoon if we manage to cross paths. I’ll see him on Friday for certain because I don’t work until 8 pm (it’s graveyards and the breath alert machine for me).

It was marvellously chilly today. I love this weather. Technically it wasn’t chilly, it’s just that it wasn’t 35C either. It’s really nice to not need the air conditioner on here at home. I turned it on at work because they keep turning the entire system off. If they would just turn up the thermostat instead of turning it all off, then it wouldn’t get so danged stale in there. I felt like I was breathing through a warm cloth…or breathing someone else’s breathed air. I hate that. You know, when you’re face to face with someone and they’re breathing into your face? It’s not the garlic breath that I object to (though I’m not wild about that either), it’s the fact that someone just exhaled that air and it’s stale.

I figured out last night that I can’t keep my meds behind me anymore. I used to have them on a shelf behind me. It’s because of the truism “out of sight, out of mind”. I wouldn’t remember them because they weren’t in my line of sight at all. Forgetting dosages of medication isn’t a good thing. So now my container sits beside me on my table, right where I can see it and remember.

That’s about it. Did you know that no one, other than Christine commented on my change of template? Thanks, Christine.

Ta-Ra

Ok, there was no acute apnea, but the cost of my text books were nearly enough to create that.  For three classes (with 3 more texts to get for one of them) it cost over $500.  Yeah.  Most of them were for one class alone, the theory class.  That one had several texts regarding several different types of theory including feminist theory.  It looks like that class is going to be very interesting.  My practices class is statistics.  Why they didn’t just call it that is beyond me.  All I needed for that was a text (which cost over $100) and a workbook of some sort. I’ve not had the intestinal fortitude to open them at all.

I was wrong about when I return to school. I thought it was this Thursday, but it turns out that I don’t until next Thursday. However, Boy does go back to school this Wednesday. He’s got all of his supplies, such as they are. Two binders, pens, pencils and loose leaf paper. That’s one thing I like about high school. There’s not much in the way of supplies that are required like they are for elementary school.

One school tradition isn’t happening this year. Staples used to offer up a deal where you could buy a kit for elementary school kids who didn’t have supplies. It was made up of 5 notebooks, a packet of pencils, some crayons, ruler and eraser. It wasn’t much but for a kid whose parents drank/gambled, paid bills or had the audacity to buy groceries from their meagre welfare cheque, it meant that they’d have a few of the supplies needed for learning. Despite spending many of Boy’s elementary school years on welfare ourselves, we always bought a kit because there was always someone who was worse off than we were. Then when I was working we did because, well, education is very important to Bran and myself. This is the first year since Boy began kindergarten that we’ve not purchased a package. It makes me kind of sad. I’m trying to think what we could do now to contribute to schools.

I picked up the transcript to the interviews my former supervisor conducted for her PhD research. She left them in her mailbox for me to pick up. Being the curious person that I am I immediately opened the envelope and began reading. I remember most of the conversation subjects but the details weren’t held onto. I discovered that I can be an interesting person. I’d never thought of that before. I mean, I know I’m funny. I crack me up frequently (even if no one else finds me funny). Interesting is another matter altogether. Here are a few excerpts (not necessarily funny):

I know that some of you might not get the humour in some of those statements, but some who’ve walked a path similar to mine probably will. It’s a kind of tongue in cheek, wry sort of humour.

My Firefox is upgraded to the new version so I’ve lost some of the extensions I liked a lot. They’ll update eventually, but for now I have to deal with limitations on what I like. One advantage seems to be quicker loading of sites. Reading comics seemed so much faster today. We’ll see if it works on some of the slower loading blogs. The one loss that I had to remedy immediately was losing my “close tabs” button. I had it located so that all I had to do was click it and the tab would close when I was done with it. It saved me from having to do a lot of mouse work. I’m the ultimate in lazy.

I’m still rocked by how much my text books cost. At least I got a lot of them. Behind the sociology section in the book store is the beginning of the law section. Now those are some expensive books! I’m sure that most of the books can be sold back to the book store. I mean, it’s not like law changes that much, after all, so much of it is based on presidents, but really! Ugly expensive! It all makes me glad that I decided that being a lawyer would be a big mistake.

Boy and I have a pile of bus fares. Boy has a bus pass, but getting one for me is pretty pointless since only have classes twice a week. In order for a bus pass to pay it has to be used at least once a day, seven days a week. Unless I start hanging out doing research and such in the sociology grad studies office, it’s not likely that I’m going to be there everyday…at east in the first term. In fact, knowing me, I have all the bus fare I’ll need in the first term already.

I haven’t tested my Sham-WOW towels yet. I’m going to start soaking dishes after I finish this entry. I’ll let you know how it works. According to them, I should be able to use it under my dish rack. I’ll be very unhappy if it’s not true.

The weather has changed. Yesterday it was in the low 90s. Today it’s below 70 somewhere. To add to my joy is the fact that it’s pouring rain. I’m not being ironic. Y’all should know by now that heat is not my friend. I prefer cooler days when I need to wear a sweater and put on socks and shoes…ok, not so much on the socks and shoes, but I do prefer coolness and rain to heat and sunburn. In fact, it’s not just raining, it’s been pouring since about 1:30. On the way home from the university (after being scalped for my texts) the DJ on the radio was bitching and moaning about the rapid change in temperatures and moisture levels. What is wrong with these people?

Other than me being up before 12 today, there being murder and mayhem on television and Bran going out to coffee with a couple of friends, there’s not really anything I can say.

Ta-Ra

I had a very nice night’s sleep. Bran was wanting to snuggle and it was hot (temperature – get your minds out of the gutter) and having him breath on my neck made me fuss. Happily he refocused his breathing elsewhere and I went to sleep. I was woken up at about 11 because I got a package. Yes folks, my Sham-WOW towels and floor mop came. I will admit it, I fell for an informercial product. I’m going to be testing one of them out by using it under the dish rack.

Bran just gave Boy the one finger salute. Bran is very, very sore. While he was at the handfasting he became a sort of pied piper for the kids. This involved playing tag and Bran was, of course, “it”. Bran was running to catch one of the kids and while doing so he managed to fall. Now, for any adult of his age, falling is painful enough. Add fibromyalgia to the mix and you’ve got one painful guy. Now back to the salute. Bran wants to get some Dairy Queen, specifically, a Blizzard. Boy also wants Dairy Queen, specifically, only he knows since no one has asked him. Bran doesn’t want to drive, I don’t want to go since I’m not wanting anything from Dairy Queen, Boy can’t drive since he has no license. Then Boy suggested that he and Bran walk. That was when the one finger salute was raised to Boy. Boy’s mouth dropped open in surprise and remained that way for a few minutes until Bran told him to close his mouth.

Oh, yeah. We’re all about the ‘tude.

Of course I had more dreams. Here’s the last one I remember…

That’s today’s dream. I’m sure I’m very sure that I’ll have more of such stellar quality.

I think I’m wanting some ice cream. A small cone perhaps, or maybe a sundae? I don’t know. I think that I might need more time to think about what I want, or even if I want.

I can now heave a great sigh of relief. Bran has arrived home…again. Actually he arrived home and woke me up (second nap of the day) to ask me about the friend’s bracelet. He went to the bathroom while I put the bracelet on said friend. Yay! It fit! After that he took her home and picked up some coffee and an ice cap from Tim Horton’s for Boy and I.

According to the two of them the handfasting was nice. Actually, Alison said it was really nice whereas Bran said it was good. The bride’s daughter thought of it as really fun. She partied all night long. I guess she was happy with the whole deal.

Bran, however, is hurting. He’s low on sleep and is now in bed sleeping. I’m thinking of having another nap with him, but it’ll totally turn my day around and I’ll have to readjust for Wednesday’s evening shift. Thursday is not only my first day of grad school, it’s the first day that I’ll be working and going to school. Shit! I need to get my text books! Joy.

I’m still somewhat groggy despite the coffee so there’s not a whole lot of thinking that I can do at the moment. I do like the new template more and more. I took the moderation function off the comments. We’ll see how well the number verification works to keep spam down to a dull roar. One thing I like about this particular template is that I don’t have to continually code in the br (break) to get the paragraphs to separate. You can tell from entries previous to this and the entry previous that there is the extra break. Putting those things in was a pain in the ass. I was nearly always forgetting despite how long I’d been using the template.

That’s it.

Ta-Ra

Yeah, I go theme hunting. I’ve been looking for a theme that suits the name of my blog some. Tonight I chose this one because of the divided feeling to it. I know that the two characters are male and female instead of female and female (which would suit me better), it has that feeling of what an earth quake results in.

This theme also has a security method (all numbers) of typing in something before leaving a comment. That might help me keep the spam down. With that and the snagging thing that Sherry installed (though I don’t know if it’s set up to work), I should be able to relatively spam resistant. It also lists the categories of my entries. As pretty as the previous template was (and I really did like it a lot), the only place it had categories was in the comments section. Since I’d changed the coding to accommodate Haloscan none of the categories showed up. Now they do.

The other template I uploaded was a coffee cup theme. I liked that one too because so many people read blogs in the morning with their coffee on hand. I don’t tend to that because my spare time tends to be in the evening after work or school. I guess I could suck down a cup of decaf.

I spent the day today either sleeping, playing solitaire while watching murder and mayhem, or doing dishes. I’ve got them nearly all done. There’s just a few frying pans and wiping up to do. Then I sweep the floor, toss out old potatoes,wash the floor and then everything is ready for Bran and Boy to take care of things while I’m working or at school.

On Friday I got the Calvin and Hobbes collection that was offered for free from GoComics when I subscribed to their services. I figured that there were so many comics that I read on that site it made more sense to subscribe and have access to piles of archives than to not. So I did. Anyway, The Days Are Just Packed arrived on Friday. I love it. Calvin and Hobbes is one of the very top comics that has ever been created.

Bran will be returning from the handfasting he did. I’m quite looking forward to him arriving home. I miss him dreadfully when he’s gone and I tend to not sleep well in bed. I can sleep on the couch, but in bed is another matter altogether. I sleep in 4 or 5 hour cycles in bed instead of the usual 8 or so. Yeah, I know, I sleep a lot, but darn it, I really enjoy sleeping.

I repaired a friend’s bracelet. She has a lovely tiger’s eye bracelet. The beads are flat on the bottom and arced at the top and shaped like a rectangle. Each bead has two holes in it. Originally the string holding it was elastic, but one broke and it was more fragile. I’ve improved that somewhat by putting wire through the beads and putting a closer and ring on. Hopefully it’ll still fit her, but if it doesn’t that’s easy enough to fix with a couple of tiger’s eye beads.

I’m organizing my stuff so that I can set up a spreadsheet of what I’ve made. That will help me keep track of what I do and what my inventory is. It will also enable me to make more of the same kind of earrings. This whole, selling-things-on-the-internet, thing is a whole lot more complicated than I thought it would be. I mean, I have to create store policies, figure out shipping costs, create an FAQ, make a spreadsheet to keep track of inventories and sales, keep track of expenses and all that stuff. It’s moved beyond a hobby into something I want to do right. I’m really sorry for the delay, but I really want things to be right.

That’s about it. Sorry that all your comments have disappeared again, but they’re not lost. I still have them on Haloscan and the old ones are still here on the WordPress thing. Oh, that reminds me, Sherry, if I update WordPress will it screw up all my widgets and stuff? I need to know so I can make sure I’ve got all my coding on WordPad and saved on my computer before I go ahead with that.

I’ve been abandoned…sort of. I could have gone with Bran to..Yorkton? but the living accommodations involve being around people I don’t know, sleeping in a sort of dormitory type cabin and being around people I don’t know (did I mention that already?). So I’m staying home in my familiar surroundings. Bran will be back on Sunday sometime.

One of my co-workers is a beekeeper. He and his partner (spouse if they were married) have hives and harvested the bee puke last week. That sounds appetizing, doesn’t it? Anyway, I’ll be picking up the honey on Sunday afternoon. If Bran isn’t home then Boy and I shall be walking to work to pick it up. Boy doesn’t know this yet. I’m saving it for a surprise. I don’t know if he’ll like it though. He’ll be the one carrying the honey home.

I’m off work for 5 days now. Very soon I shall be going back to bed for more sleep. It’s much needed all things considered and I might as well take advantage of the lower temperatures to get in some good snoozes. I just realized something. Sunday is supposed to be hot again with temperatures around 30C or so. That doesn’t fill me with any kind of happiness. I guess I’ll have to wait for Bran to get home before picking it up. Anyway, today and tomorrow are supposed to be around 20C (comfortable room temperatures) so that’ll be nice.

Bran got a bike rack. He put it under our bedroom window since that area is covered by a motion sensor light. Not only is his bike locked there with a u-lock, he’s got a chain wrapped around it. That chain had to be cut with a torch. Since the average thief doesn’t carry a torch around, his bike should be relatively safe. The rack is bolted to the ground with really long screw bolts as well. However, Boy’s bike is in the front closet area (it’s the under-stairs of the suite above us). Apparently Boy’s bike would cost about $2000 to replace new. Bran doesn’t trust that someone won’t come along and figure out a way to steal it. My bike is still downstairs. It hasn’t been given a tune-up yet so its not really rideable at the moment. Bran will be getting an alarm lock sometime in the future that will go off if someone tries to steal one of the bikes. Since it’s under our bedroom window it should work fairly well.

Greg, the keyboard isn’t 100% noise free. There’s the sound of your fingers hitting the keys, but otherwise it’s pretty silent. It doesn’t click like most other keyboards do. That’s probably because it’s made mostly of soft plastic with key sensors inside. It does take some getting used to. They key action is somewhat different. The longer keys like, the space bar and shift keys may need some extra encouragement to go down, but for the most part I’m getting used to it. I do like the idea that I could work on something in bed with Bran sleeping beside me and he wouldn’t wake up to the sound of clicking keys. It’s also waterproof and food proof being as it’s a totally sealed keyboard. You can be that makes me really happy.

School starts on September 4. On that morning I have a 9:30 methodology class. I have to get text books, pay for my tuition, pay some extra for Bran to be covered as well (being as his student coverage stops on the 31st of this month. Then I have to get back into the concept that I’ll have obliged reading, essays galore along with smaller papers in between. Oy! What have I let myself in for?! At least, so long as I work hard (yeah, like that’s going to happen!) I should graduate in 3-5 years with a Master of Arts degree. Then all I have to do is figure out what I’m going to do with that degree and figure out if I want a Ph.D. Hmmm…Doctor Dykewife. It has a certain ring to it, doesn’t it?

I think it’s time for me to go back to sleep now. My eyes are getting dry from all the moving air (yes, the fans and such are still blowing air about) and I’m rather sleepy. I may write more later, but when one has slept the day away what can one write about?

Ta-Ra

First off. this keyboard is taking some getting used to. I mean I like it and all, but I’m not used to the action and finding the root keys has proven to be interesting.

I’m better now, thanks. It’s been a long time since I’d had a bout of IBS and I’m not used to the discomfort and other “issues” that tend to arise. I left work early and rested on the couch. I went to bed fairly soon after that though. Because it was so early I ended up waking up at the unholy hour of 2 am. Of course, having had a lovely nap and feeling much better I stayed awake for a while. I went back to bed at 10 for a sleep before work.

It’s been ugly hot here. Yesterday we got up to 37 (98.6 F for all my American friends). Up until now this summer had been downright balmy. I guess we’re in the dog days of summer now. Today was somewhat cooler which made the house somewhat cooler, but we’re still very dependent on the air conditioner. The bedrooms have been quite warm and with us not wanting to open the window very wide we haven’t gotten much of a breeze. This hot weather is just plain evil.

Tomorrow is my last work day of the week. It will also be my 6th workday in a row. Up to now I’d only worked 4 in a row with a day or two off in between. After tomorrow I’m off for 5 whole days. I’m looking forward to the time off.

Bran got a new table to try out for our computers. It’s from Junk (they call it Jysk, but what do they know) and styled after those hospital tables that you can eat off and such. Instead of having a compartment to store things under the larger section, it tilts, allowing you to have your laptop at a slant The smaller side bit holds the mouse and whatever other things you put on a table (which in my case is a considerable amount of junk and pennies. He’s going to the store to get me one tomorrow (or get himself one because I’d rather not have to set it up. I guess we’ll see how things go.

Its been an interesting time at work. We’ve got two new guys there. I swear, one of them is just out of kindergarten. He looks so young to be in the federal system. Shit, he came back for supper on one of those smallish bikes that kids ride. With his shorts, his long shirt, his hat on backwards, I swear, he was just born yesterday! He makes me feel very old. I hope he manages to succeed. It’d suck if he got sent back.

We lost two today as well. One reached his warrant expiry date and was free to walk out of the building at 0001. I think he stayed for cake though. The other went back into treatment. The loss of a daughter had proven to be too much and the choice was made to get back into a more controlled and supportive environment to prevent a back slide to drug use. I have to say kudos for knowing what was needed and how to get it.

Now I’m tired. I haven’t been sleeping very well because of the heat. Now that it’s cooled down some I hope I can get more sleep.

Ta-Ra