Here is the first pumpkin.
Didn’t get to the Philly photos yet because I’m catching up on the Project of Mid-August. Made decent progress this weekend plus I realized I had been counting words from some deleted scenes (you know, for the DVD blue ray) but I’m still only a tiny bit behind schedule even with subtracting those words out.
Colleague: Did you take care of X?
Me: No. You said you were doing X.
Colleague: Did you give me the documents?
Me: Yes. I brought them into your office and said: here are the documents.
Colleague: Oh. Well, I wasn’t listening.
I think I have been setting my IMG photo sizes slightly different than I’ve been cropping the photos. Sounds like me but not a project I want to deal with right now. I had to cut off the bottom of this photo so it looks weird.
Just wanted to say we are back from Philadelphia. What a great city to visit! I feel like it’s going to be my personal mission to tell people to visit there because we had a great time. And I will post more details and photos later.
My body hates me and decided to sleep and relax and love vacation and then get home last night and crawl in bed at 10:30pm (1:30am Philly time!) and refuse to go to sleep. It’s been a long day. I’m going to go to bed early and hope for the best tonight.
We get these legal books where they want you to buy a subscription and every year they send you an “update” that’s about 15 pages stapled together and costs $75. They are having a hard time making money since you can get all this stuff online for free. They also republish the entire book every few years and charged you $450 for a new one. I can’t find the post but last time we had to buy this book they forgot to publish part of it so they sent me some pages and told me to glue them in.
I cancelled the subscription for this one book and we received a notice that the 2015 update was available for $82.75 including shipping. I sneered but colleague told me to get it.
The notice said I could go online to get the book. First I had create an online profile. And pick some security questions. One of the questions was about partners at our firm and I gave the name of one of the Portland Timbers. I also said my grandmother’s name is Futty. Then I had to log in again using my new profile. Then when I tried to find where to order my book it told me that I took too long and had to log in again.
I said a lot of bad words during this entire process.
Then I logged back in and I could find my subscription but not how to actually get it. If I clicked on one thing a new window would pop open to say that that was my subscription. If I clicked on the other thing a new window would open and tell me what a subscription was.
I finally gave up and tried to call. The office was not open but please listen to the NINE (9) items on our menu. I made it through three.
This company does something called “risk assessment” and told me they produce accurate law books.
I DON’T BELIEVE YOU. YOU CAN’T EVEN MAKE A DECENT WEBSITE.
I’m still swearing this entire time. So then I decided to take my form and fax it to them — it said I could. And since it’s 2015 and NO ONE uses fax machines anymore except old people who don’t know any better, and risk assessment geniuses, I couldn’t remember how our fax machine worked so I had to input the phone number a couple of times because my session kept timing out.
Colleague grew tired of my exclamations to terrible people who fornicate with their mothers and shouted from behind the protection of his desk: “No update is worth this!” but I was DETERMINED to get him his damn $82.75 book (actually stapled together pages).
The fax went through. I’m sure we’ll never get our dumb stapled pages. But I bet we’ll get the bill.
I also gave them feedback on their website and the image above comes from their reply, letting me know my message was received.
Going to be offline for at least a week. Stay cool!
This morning we had 2 raccoons in the backyard. I couldn’t tell what they were up to but they did a lot of digging around the compost bin and the apple tree. I thought maybe they were looking for water but if that’s the best they could come up with, they aren’t very smart. They finally ran around the side and fiddled around at the side of the neighbor’s house before wandering off in the front. It was getting late, past 7am. Maybe they were weird because of the fireworks last night.
The good news is I’m at a solid 85% recovery on my back, maybe even better. I can bend at the waist and stand back up as long as I go slowly. There is one specific range of motion in my back that’s still only about 40% but it gets better every day. I’m still taking it easy but not despairing about the future.
Well not the future of my back.
The project of August is turning out to be more challenging that I expected. It may be be the project of Mid-August at the rate things are going.
A film by Cameron Crowe. Released September 1992. According to the wiki the film was completed in early 1991.
I’ve had these notes sitting here for months. I am a huge Cameron Crowe fan but I only saw this movie one time. I did not love it. I didn’t love Jerry Maguire the first time I saw it but it has grown on me since.
I saw that this was on cable and decided to re-visit to see what I thought watching it now.
I still did not love it.
The movie is set in Seattle and there’s a grunge scene plot thread and several bands including Pearl Jam and Soundgarden are in it (Or their members). As you can see from the photo above, I still own the soundtrack. I must have listened to it a million times because I remember all those songs. It includes Paul Westerberg songs that are probably among my least 2 favorite PW songs.
First, some historical tidbits since it’s hard to remember the chronology way out here in the future.
Pearl Jam released Ten in August 1991. Nevermind was released in September 1991. I always thought Nevermind came out first. It maybe be that Nevermind sold better first — I’m sure this is a researchable fact but I’m not doing any extra credit for this assignment.
It’s a single people finding love story and I didn’t like any of the people or care if they liked each other. I’m not sure if it was the performances or the characters but possibly a little of both. I kinda liked Matt Dillon – hasn’t he had an interesting career?
Here’s what I did like the second time through. Paul Giamatti. He’s in it for 10 seconds as “Kissing Man.” If you look at his bio it’s his third part after “Heckler #2” and “Larry Canipe.” Victor Garber and Tim Burton make brief appearances, too.
There’s also a bit where this woman is getting a video done for a dating service (who remembers video dating!?) and someone refers to Martin Scorsese as “Martin Score-seeze” and I sometimes use this pronunciation as a joke and I didn’t remember this is where it was from.
Finally, there is a subplot involving Seattle traffic. Crowe was so ahead of his time.
My next Cameron Crowe rewatch is Elizabethtown. I only saw that one once, too.
I know what I’m about to tell you will strain reader credibility but for the third time since the beginning of the year, I have had an infirmity that kept me in bed for a few days.
I keep having issues with my back. I want to say all my clean living is for nothing but perhaps I would be a complete wreck if I didn’t do everything I’m doing.
My backpack was super heavy and I did something as I got on the bus — some combination of awkward bag holding, and awkward getting into the seat. When it was time to get off the bus I could barely walk. I hobbled up to the office and assumed I would shake it off.
I did not. I had to use the restroom which is down a long hallway and there was a point where I thought I wouldn’t make it. I felt okay sitting and that was about it.
Bob came and picked me up and I have spent the last few days in my bed desk, working from my laptop and hobbling around as needed. It’s terrible when I wake up but tolerable in the afternoon.
This morning I was in tears when I got up because I was all hunched over and unable to walk without hugging the furniture going on Day 4. I figured I was permanently broken and would have to quit work and cancel our vacation and never be able to clean my floors again.
I did what normally you should never do when you don’t feel right and I did a thorough online research project and learned that I was mostly approaching it right except I needed more patience and I needed more activity.
I did a 60 minute exercise class for tight low backs which was amazing. So I’m going to assume I’m on the mend and try to power through and move around more.
Other than cropping this is intentionally zero Photoshop.
One thing I’ve learned from being at home during the day more than usual the past several months, is that the strongly accented callers who want to warn you about your computer virus, call almost every day. No point in telling them to put you on the no call list. They don’t have one.
The last time I said to the woman: Seriously? There is no better way that you can make a living?
She said: Ma’am, this is serious.
The good thing about being trapped in a bed desk is I’m making steady progress on the Project of August. I’m slightly ahead of schedule but we’re out of town one weekend and I will take that weekend off rather than stress about writing on vacation.
A couple of weeks ago we had dinner with some friends who live practically in the middle of Lucia Falls park. I had never been there before or anywhere in the vicinity for that matter. I’ve lived here for almost 20 years and my knowledge of areas beyond the paths I’ve worn for myself is pitiful. The park was lovely. Shady and green on a hot day. We had a delicious dinner outside on the deck. Wonderful way to spend the evening.
This is all that is left of a dance club that was there a long time ago. This is what our hosts told us.
In other news, my grocery store no longer has the prunes I like. It has some generic brand and then a fancy organic brand which is cleverly packaged so it looks like it’s a decent amount but you can tell when you open the package there will only be about 5 prunes in there that you paid about $1 each for. I thought about asking someone but I didn’t want to be that old lady asking about prunes.
You also might have noticed that I haven’t said a peep about Women’s World Cup. It’s a tragedy. I managed to watch one half of one game with the USA. There are numerous contributing factors but the biggest one is this writing project. But also a bunch of miserable commutes stacked together and the timing of the matches is during my commute home. I’m going to try to watch USA tomorrow.
Another weird thing about the writing project is that my brain is so wrung out even if I do read or watch something, I need it to be simple or something I’ve already seen or read. I just got out my ancient copy of the The White Mountains, by John Christopher to read again. And last week I watched The Lake House for at least the fifth time.
Pumpkins! You can practically see them pushing out of the dirt.
Yay, thanks for the update Photoshop. Just what I need, to set aside time to do a tutorial since apparently the three functions I use are now outdated and who knows what happened to them? I can’t wait until the kids today are old and start complaining about how everything changes so fast. (Kidding, I can wait.)
I am behind on everything. I have so many photos sitting here and notes for posts.
I’m not working on the same writing project that I was at the beginning of the year, but I am working on a different one. I spend so much time sitting at the computer that I now schedule breaks to keep my spine from fusing me into a hunchback.
Here’s the current project of forever which I have promised to first readers the first week in August so it’s actually the project of August:
I think I mentioned that my double whammy illness this spring destroyed my gardening mojo. I kept thinking next weekend I would get some work done and then I would go out and pull a few weeds and plan to do more the following weekend.
I finally found the tomato seeds I’d saved and planted them. And now it’s the end of June and all I have to show for myself are these tiny sproutlets. I have a volunteer in the garden that’s more impressive than this.
I went to the grocery store and picked out two plants labeled as fast growing and productive. Might as well get science behind me.
This morning I finally prepped the soil for tomatoes and pumpkins. So my pitiful little garden will be in. There are some greens sprouting, as well, although at this rate they will probably bolt before they do anything meaningful.
These are the pumpkins now and ready to go outside. I will sprout some cucumbers for my annual exercise in failing to grow cucumbers and set those out next.
I wasn’t even planning on digging potatoes today. But I was weeding and I pulled a weed and there was a potato, just the size to sit in my palm. I gently prodded the dirt and two more appeared. By the time I was done digging this one mound, I had all the potatoes you see in this basket.
For pure entertainment value, there is nothing better than potatoes in the garden. The things I planted were tiny and shriveled and didn’t look like they would amount to much. Potato salad coming in our future.
Last night I came home and saw this on the counter. I said: Is that an otter holding a pizza? Bob said: Yes. His friend Kitty made a whole bunch otters with pizza and each one had a different topping. She let him pick the one he wanted. The otter is his spirit animal. And here is proof that there are a lot of otters with pizzas out there.
In other news, huge tragedy. My favorite summer shoes finally bit the dust.
We used a chunk of savings to pay off a loan last month and ever since everything you can imagine has been breaking: cars, A/C unit, plumbing issue, my tooth, and now my favorite shoes.
They are super old. Someone was admiring them last weekend and I said they were really old. I looked it up in honor of this post and they are 15 years old. They could have started driving next year. They have been all over the world and all over the country.
They were not cheap and I remember when I bought them a friend balked at how much I paid for them.
I estimate I paid less than a dime for every time I wore them.
Look: the heel completely disintegrated. I was walking back from my dentist appointment and wondering what was wrong with my shoes. Both feet pooped out at the same time.
I went to use my fancy camera for these pictures and that seems to have died, too. I checked and I bought that in February of 2008. The dryer has been acting funny but I thought that was going to die for the past 5 years. We got that before we got married (1996). I hope it hangs on.
