A hungry African lion was roaming through the jungle looking for something to eat. He came across two men. One was sitting under a tree and reading a book; the other was typing away on his typewriter. The lion quickly pounced on the man reading the book and devoured him.
Even the king of the jungle knows readers digest and writers cramp.
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Monday, June 28, 2004
Color me waiting to be happy
The nice A/C repairman just left and he has fixed the problem with the A/C. He climbed thither and yon and jiggled things and flipped breakers and now there is coolish air coming out the vents. He assures me that by the time I get back home from work tonight the house will be nice and cool.
However, the smoke detector in the hallway was making that irritating chirping noise so now I have to hunt down 9 volt batteries on my way home from work later.
It will be nice not to sweat the small stuff once the house cools down.
However, the smoke detector in the hallway was making that irritating chirping noise so now I have to hunt down 9 volt batteries on my way home from work later.
It will be nice not to sweat the small stuff once the house cools down.
Sunday, June 27, 2004
Color me annoyed
You know that A/C unit I had replaced on Thursday? Guess what it isn't doing tonight?
Saturday, June 26, 2004
Miss Muggles
Miss Muggles, whose real name is Rainbow Marie, is the third cat to join my household. Technically, she belongs to my son Alex. She came home with us on May 22, 2004. That was the day we attended the memorial service for my niece Sydney Marie, aged six, who had died a week and a half earlier from the effects of an inoperable brain tumor. It was Sydney who'd named the kitten Rainbow Marie.
I think Miss Muggles is quite a clever little creature. She sits and watches and speculates. She's also fairly well behaved . . . for a kitten. She understands "no" and will stop what she's doing to look at you. Of course, if she can't see you looking at her, she goes right back to doing whatever it was she wasn't supposed to be doing.
She and Mouse are inseparable and prone to tearing through the house like demented demons on speed. One of their favorite places to wrestle is in the curve of my leg as I nestle on the sofa to read or watch TV. That's also one of their favorite places to nap.
None of the pictures I've taken of Miss Muggles yet does her justice. I can't quite capture her where her markings are shown to advantage. I spent a goodly part of the morning of June 20th trying to snap her picture. There were several that would have been priceless if I'd been able to get them, but what I got instead were quite a few really good shots of where she wasn't. I don't think she's quite the diva camera hound that Mouse is.
I think Miss Muggles is quite a clever little creature. She sits and watches and speculates. She's also fairly well behaved . . . for a kitten. She understands "no" and will stop what she's doing to look at you. Of course, if she can't see you looking at her, she goes right back to doing whatever it was she wasn't supposed to be doing.
She and Mouse are inseparable and prone to tearing through the house like demented demons on speed. One of their favorite places to wrestle is in the curve of my leg as I nestle on the sofa to read or watch TV. That's also one of their favorite places to nap.
None of the pictures I've taken of Miss Muggles yet does her justice. I can't quite capture her where her markings are shown to advantage. I spent a goodly part of the morning of June 20th trying to snap her picture. There were several that would have been priceless if I'd been able to get them, but what I got instead were quite a few really good shots of where she wasn't. I don't think she's quite the diva camera hound that Mouse is.
I've been scalped!
I finally got tired of that mess of once brown now mostly grey hair I'd let grow untended for the last couple of years. My hair is actually shorter than my son's which he noticed immediately I came back home from the salon. I feel so much better now that mess of mass is gone! Yipee!
Friday, June 25, 2004
Gray Matter Exercises
1. A murderer is condemned to death. He has to choose between three rooms. The first is full of raging fires, the second is full of assassins with loaded guns, and the third is full of lions that haven't eaten in 3 years. Which room is safest for him?
2. A woman shoots her husband. Then she holds him under water for over 5 minutes. Finally, she hangs him. But 5 minutes later they both go out together and enjoy a wonderful dinner together. How can this be?
3. There are two plastic jugs filled with water. How could you put all of this water into a barrel, without using the jugs or any dividers, and still tell which water came from which jug?
4. What is black when you buy it, red when you use it, and gray when you throw it away?
5. Can you name three consecutive days without using the words Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday?
6. This is an unusual paragraph. I'm curious how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so plain you would think nothing was wrong with it. In fact, nothing is wrong with it! It is unusual though. Study it, and think about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit, you might find out.
(I received this in an email from the Mike Resnick list I subscribe to - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/resnick/. To check your answers, read the first comment.)
2. A woman shoots her husband. Then she holds him under water for over 5 minutes. Finally, she hangs him. But 5 minutes later they both go out together and enjoy a wonderful dinner together. How can this be?
3. There are two plastic jugs filled with water. How could you put all of this water into a barrel, without using the jugs or any dividers, and still tell which water came from which jug?
4. What is black when you buy it, red when you use it, and gray when you throw it away?
5. Can you name three consecutive days without using the words Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday?
6. This is an unusual paragraph. I'm curious how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so plain you would think nothing was wrong with it. In fact, nothing is wrong with it! It is unusual though. Study it, and think about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit, you might find out.
(I received this in an email from the Mike Resnick list I subscribe to - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/resnick/. To check your answers, read the first comment.)
Goblin
Goblin is the second cat to join my household. I got her in October, 1996, for my birthday. She was a present from my best friend (Roseunicorn) who asked me what I wanted. For some reason that I still do not to this day understand, I told her I wanted a cat for Annie. So we went to a local pet shop and picked out a kitten. The papers I got for Goblin at the time listed her birthday as July 18 so she'll be a grand dame of 8 in just a couple of weeks.
Unlike Annie, Goblin didn't come with a name and she wasn't very forthcoming with telling me what hers was. I pulled out my baby name book to see if something would inspire me. After much page turning, I settled on Gabby. However, two days after I brought her home, she was being the cat from hell, tearing through the apartment and racing up and over all the furniture. She took a flying leap at the blinds and I yelled at her, "Goblin, get off!" And that, as they say, is history.
Where Annie is a delicate lady, Goblin is a charging rhino. Where Annie has all the feline grace assigned a cat, Goblin has the grace of a Saint Bernard. Where Annie has porked up to a hefty 7.5 pounds, Goblin has grown to an amazing 13.9 pounds. I think this helps explain why my pet name for her is Gobzilla.
Unlike Annie, Goblin didn't come with a name and she wasn't very forthcoming with telling me what hers was. I pulled out my baby name book to see if something would inspire me. After much page turning, I settled on Gabby. However, two days after I brought her home, she was being the cat from hell, tearing through the apartment and racing up and over all the furniture. She took a flying leap at the blinds and I yelled at her, "Goblin, get off!" And that, as they say, is history.
Where Annie is a delicate lady, Goblin is a charging rhino. Where Annie has all the feline grace assigned a cat, Goblin has the grace of a Saint Bernard. Where Annie has porked up to a hefty 7.5 pounds, Goblin has grown to an amazing 13.9 pounds. I think this helps explain why my pet name for her is Gobzilla.
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Houston, we have lift off
Or maybe that should be touchdown. The A/C people left about an hour ago and I have deliciously cool air coming out of vents all over the house as well as screws, insulation material, and a funny not-quite smell. The kittens have been freed, Annie is out from under the sofa, and Goblin is still napping on top of my cross stitch stash box. Life would be perfect if not for one tiny little thing . . . my phone stopped working . . . sort of.
The drop that goes into the living room, where the master phone base was, has stopped functioning. No amount of crawling around the attic looking at phone wires with the nice A/C repairman gave either of us a clue as to why. We did discover that the other two phone drops in the house work perfectly. So the master base has been moved into the bedroom and the slave base has been moved into the living room and now there is phone service again.
But I'm still mildly annoyed that the phone drop has gone dead.
The drop that goes into the living room, where the master phone base was, has stopped functioning. No amount of crawling around the attic looking at phone wires with the nice A/C repairman gave either of us a clue as to why. We did discover that the other two phone drops in the house work perfectly. So the master base has been moved into the bedroom and the slave base has been moved into the living room and now there is phone service again.
But I'm still mildly annoyed that the phone drop has gone dead.
DAW 30th Anniversary Science Fiction by Elizabeth R. WollheimMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The anthology had four stories I liked for the same reasons as I liked the fantasy stories. It almost goes without saying that I liked C. J. Cherryh's The Sandman, the Tinman, and the BettyB. I don't think I've ever read anything by Ms. Cherryh that I didn't like. I was very pleasantly surprised by Timothy Zahn's The Big Picture. Unfortunately, I associated Timothy Zahn with writing professional Star Wars fan fiction (none of which I have ever read) so I was expecting something . . . well . . . bad. I am very happy to realize Mr. Zahn is really a very good writer. Like the Valdemar story in the Fantasy Anthology, Tad Williams' Not With a Whimper, Either is an excellent story (my favorite in the book, in fact), but the end truly does justify the means. And lastly, but not leastly, I liked Downtime by C. S. Friedman. That story adds new dimension to the alienation of parents and children. It was very creepy.
And, lo, a noise from above
The A/C people are still here. There are strange and mysterious sounds issuing from the attic and the garage. I've locked the two kittens away because one of them (Mouse, of course) was far too curious about what was going on and the other would soon have bucked up her courage and gone 'sploring as well. Annie is hiding under the sofa and refuses to come out, and Goblin is stretched on top of my cross stitch stash box napping away as if strange noise routinely issued from the ceiling. Me? Between the coughing and being unable to breathe, well, let's just say I'm not having fun.
I say, Noah, where'd you park the boat?
It is raining. Again. Still. According to the weather report, it will rain for the next seven days.
And the A/C people are here to replace the unit. In the rain. With occasional thunder and lightning.
Sometimes I just wonder . . .
And the A/C people are here to replace the unit. In the rain. With occasional thunder and lightning.
Sometimes I just wonder . . .
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Look, Mr. Freeze! The Caped Crusader finally arrived
. . . and left. The A/C repairman showed up at almost 7 p.m. I climbed around with him looking at all the things that were either already broken or on the verge of breaking. The goods news is, I get another day off work. Bad news is, I get to spend it watching workmen replace my entire A/C system.
Oh, the joys of homeownership!
Oh, the joys of homeownership!
Not just sick
. . . but stuck in a house without air conditioning as well. It went out yesterday and it is sweltering. I have a service call in but I haven't heard back from the tech to actually schedule a visit to find out what's wrong. If I could actually sit up for more than a bit here and a bit there, I would go in to work just to get cool.
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
The truck that ran over me yesterday
. . . has backed up and parked on me today. Still very much sick so Goblin will have to wait another day.
Monday, June 21, 2004
But sick and tired isn't sick and tired of me
If anything, I feel very much worse than I did this afternoon. I was going to put up a picture of Goblin, but I can barely sit here and type so Goblin will have to wait until tomorrow.
Now that I've moaned about being sick
. . . here's a bit of humor I found in my mailbox this morning . . . um, afternoon . . . It is afternoon, isn't it?
Murder Trial
A defendant was on trial for murder. There was strong evidence indicating guilt, but there was no corpse. In the defense's closing statement the lawyer, knowing that his client would probably be convicted, resorted to a trick.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have a surprise for you all," the lawyer said as he looked at his watch. "Within one minute, the person presumed dead in this case will walk into this courtroom." He looked toward the courtroom door. The jurors, somewhat stunned, all looked on eagerly. A minute passed. Nothing happened.
Finally the lawyer said, "Actually, I made up the previous statement. But, you all looked on with anticipation. I therefore put to you that you have a reasonable doubt in this case as to whether anyone was killed and insist that you return a verdict of not guilty."
The jury, clearly confused, retired to deliberate. A few minutes later, the jury returned and pronounced a verdict of guilty.
"But how?" inquired the lawyer. "You must have had some doubt; I saw all of you stare at the door."
The jury foreman replied, "Oh, we looked--but your client didn't."
Murder Trial
A defendant was on trial for murder. There was strong evidence indicating guilt, but there was no corpse. In the defense's closing statement the lawyer, knowing that his client would probably be convicted, resorted to a trick.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have a surprise for you all," the lawyer said as he looked at his watch. "Within one minute, the person presumed dead in this case will walk into this courtroom." He looked toward the courtroom door. The jurors, somewhat stunned, all looked on eagerly. A minute passed. Nothing happened.
Finally the lawyer said, "Actually, I made up the previous statement. But, you all looked on with anticipation. I therefore put to you that you have a reasonable doubt in this case as to whether anyone was killed and insist that you return a verdict of not guilty."
The jury, clearly confused, retired to deliberate. A few minutes later, the jury returned and pronounced a verdict of guilty.
"But how?" inquired the lawyer. "You must have had some doubt; I saw all of you stare at the door."
The jury foreman replied, "Oh, we looked--but your client didn't."
I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired
I don't know if what I have is a cold or 'flu or just a nasty allergy flare up, but I think what the dog drug up and what the cat buried feel much, much better than what I do. I've been miserable all weekend with this whatever it is thing getting worse and worse every day. I'm inclined to think it's allergies because we have just moved into a new building at work, a building in which they were still painting and laying floor tile all week long. Not to mention all the dust from packing and unpacking. Ooooohhhhh, I'm just so miserable. Feel sorry for me.
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