That’s right, as of today it would appear that we have aquired another kitty bringing us to a grand total of five. This one is no tame domestic kitty like our others though. She’s a wild one indeed, and has proved true to form indeed. We’ve been calling her an ocelot, but after closer inspection have determined that her markings more closely resemble those of a leopard.
See for yourself:
Happy halloween!
I haven’t been keeping up with the countdown this year, so today I’m getting caught up. I’m only through October 17 so far; pity me for my slow computer.
Some of them are pretty lame this year, but some of them are pretty good, and I still am in love with the concept. October 6 is pretty creepy. I need to make the recipee under October 6 for a halloween party someday. I need to make the recipe under October 10 long before the generic someday. I would love to do October 11, but alas I have no bike and there is snow on the roads anyway. October 14 contains a lesson that it would be wise to take note of. I was excited to see October 15, but then I couldn’t get beyond the splash because it seems that I am missing a plugin. October 17 was a lot of fun.
October 4 was the scariest so far.
The rest of the month will have to wait. I’m off to buy some candy before the hordes come knocking at my door.
I’m doing Nanowrimo again this year. This year I will finish. Really. The insanity starts Monday.
For the record: three years ago I made it to twenty-thousand words or so in ten days, and then I made the mistake of going back and reading what I had written. That killed it. I didn’t type another word. Two years ago is best not mentioned. Last year I didn’t even pretend to try; I knew I didn’t have a chance with a two-month-old.
Unlike past years, I am in a big city this year. There are other participants here. I’m hoping that the community aspect and support will help me to get through and get finished. I’m off to meet a bunch of them at the kick-off party. I never know what to expect when I meet in real life with people I know online. In this case it is a littel bit different though since I don’t even know any of them online very well. We’ve only shared a few threads on the board.
And still, I’m off.
There is nothing that I don’t love about this game from the Bushisms that reward success to the delightful way the brains splat when you miss.
The highest score I’ve managed so far is five.
The comedy network is showing all the “Treehouse of Horror” Simpson’s episodes, the networks are full of scary movies, and my subconscious must be thinking along the same lines of Halloween preparation because my dreams last night were full of haunted houses and ghosts and such. They weren’t actually nightmares or scary or anything, just bizarre.
I can’t remember any details though – jus the general subject matter. I wish t hat I’d written them down first thing when I woke up. It’s rather annoying knowing that I’ve forgotten a really interesting dream.
These days Munchkin typically sleeps the first five or six hours or so of the night in her own bed and then I get her and bring her in with us the first time she wakes. Last night I heard her prelude to crying on the monitor and so got up and went into her room to get here. Then I woke up still in my own bed listening to her prelude come closer to actual crying – I hadn’t gotten her at all but only dreamed it. It reminded me of that Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin gets out of bed and gets ready for school then walks out the door only to find himself waking up in bed again. He comments that his dreams are getting just a little too mundane.
I’m not sure how other states do it, but for each election Oregon puts out a voter pamphlet with a blurb on each of the candidates running for the various offices and information on the various measures on the ballot. The information for the ballot measures includes the text of the measure, a brief summary, an estimate of financial impact, and arguments for and against. The arguments for and against are contributed by anyone who is willing to pay the fee – it was $400 in past elections; I am not sure about this one. Each person/organization who contributes an argument gets a single column half a page wide in which to make their case.
Some measures have only a single argument or none at all, while others have pages and pages and pages of arguments for and against. Anyone care to take a guess as to which class measure 36 – amending the state constitution to specify that marriage can only occur between a man and a woman – falls into?
I try to be an educated voter. I make it a point to read the entire section for any issue that I will be voting on (though of course this isn’t my only source of information). I don’t vote if I don’t feel that I clearly understand the issue.
This is how I came to be reading the arguments for the ban on gay marriage. The first three surprised me; they rocked. I love the people who wrote them. They almost swayed me; go read them yourself and find out why.
See Bush’s lost exam paper.. Red pen galore! I’m mad about whoever made this one up. I’d marry him/her, I swear, if only it were legal.
I found it on a site spawned by Bush’s erroneous recrimation: “You forgot Poland.”. Subtitled: “dedicated to the proposition that politics makes you stupid.”
Kerry did not forget Poland, by the by. He was talking about countries that went in with us. Poland did not participate in the invasion; it’s mighty force of two-hundred trickled into Iraq after the invasion was already over.
That’s it. No more political posts/Bush jokes from me, I promise. At least not for a while. Not for the rest of tonight, anyway.
I moved up here during the summer of 2001. That means that I have spent three complete winters here in Canada. I’ve done it without a decent pair of winter boots.
Each year I thought about buying a pair. Each year I put it off because money is always tight. There is always something that I’d much rather spend my fifty or seventy or hundred dollars on than boots no matter how practical they might be.
This afternoon I bundled the munchkin up and strapped her into her stroller and walked to meet M at the mall today - he gets off the bus there. I found two pairs of boots that I liked, and debated between them a while, then decided to put it off until another day because did I really need winter boots anyway when cold feet haven’t killed me yet?
We looked at snowsuits, but we were thwarted again. We looked at a jogging stroller that I really want – our stroller is such a pain to push over snow and ice – and had a quick snack in the food court. Then we left the mall to walk home.
The streets and sidewalks in our old area were kept really clean most of the time. We were on main streets, so they were plowed quite frequently, and most of the people and complexes and businesses etc. were really good about clearing the walk in front of them.
Here it is not so good. Some of the walks are cleared. Some are not. We are on a very quiet street – which is nice in terms of having low traffic – but as a result the city doesn’t want to pay to keep it plowed. Currently it is a solid sheet of ice; you could skate on it. I did today, only minus the skates.
We don’t have a sidewalk in front of our house. This is how we came to be walking on the street. This is how I came to fall on my ass. Or rather, I fell sideways as my feet dashed out from under me, and I damn near broke the wrist I used to catch myself with. It still hurts.
We drove back to the mall a little later. Guess who has new winter boots with nicely gripping soles?
M bought a pair too (his old ones were wearing out) so we took advantage of Zeller’s “buy two get one free” sale and snagged a pair of toddler-size-six Winnie-the-Pooh shoes for Munchkin to wear when she outgrows her current shoes. Perhaps we should have looked around a bit longer and tried to find shoes for me or M that were closer in price to our boots (I feel like we wasted about thirty bucks of free shoe money), but we just didn’t have the patience for it.
My toes will be toasty from now on, and they will remain under me as proper toes should.
Spooky. Looks like someone up there is striking down with great anger and furious vengeance on those who voted for Bush in the last election. See for yourself.
Now that couldn’t just be a coincidence, could it?
A news release from Amnesty International caught my eye today. I thougth that with how many times I’ve head the subject of conflict diamonds brought up these past few years that people would be more careful about what they bought and that things would be getting better. Not so.
Conflict Diamonds: Jewellers keeping consumers in the dark
less than half of diamond jewellery retailers visited in stores were able to give consumers meaningful assurances that diamonds are conflict free.
This is one nice thing about living in Canada. Canadians take pride in Canadian products. This leads to jewlery stores offering special promotions on diamonds from Canadian mines. I know where the diamond in my ring came from. I couldn’t bring myself to wear it otherwise.
I sent in the federal post card application for an overseas ballot about a month ago, and since then I have been anxiously awaiting its arrival. With the election date nearing, I was starting to worry that it wouldn’t get here in time…
Then last night I was talking to my parents and found out that the normal Oregon vote-by-mail ballot had arrived at their house for me. Horrors!
I just got off the phone with the elections office though, and they said that they did have my Canadian address on file and a ballot should be on the way. The ballot I received at my parents’ house would have been voided when the new one went out. There is hope yet!
If I don’t get it by the end of the week though, I am going to have to figure out how to send in a federal write-in absente ballot. I will be counted.
Hello, Winter.
It’s good to see you again. We’ve put out clean towels in the extra bathroom, and we’ve shut all the storm doors, so go ahead and make yourself at home. We appreciate the lovely gift of snow you brought us Saturday – it goes so well with the bare trees, but I’m afraid we could have done without the added chill that you brought us Sunday.
Clean towels or not, I’m afraid that we are not quite up to an extended stay from you just now. We do wish that you had given us a little more notice. I guess we should have been expecting you, but the time since your last visit has gone by so quickly that we didn’t realize you were due again so soon. However, it appears that we weren’t the only ones not prepared as the shoe stores were crowded with people trying on winter boots, and we tried three stores but couldn’t find a decent snowsuit size 12-18 months. There were plenty when we looked last week. If only we’d bought one then!
I don’t mean to be rude, but perhaps you could leave again for just a little while longer? I’m sure if you gave us just a few more weeks, we could get everything ready and so really be prepared for your visit and so be better hosts to you. Right now our front step is quite slippery and you could slip and fall. I know you didn’t intend that, and really it was our fault for not sweeping up your lovely gift from them the instant it fell.
We’re sorry we can’t do better for you at this time. We do look forward to welcoming you back shortly though. However, you might want to keep the maxim about visitors and fish in mind. I’m afraid that you may have started to wear out your welcome by February or so – that forty below whether the previous month was a bit of a hardship – and so staying until May was a bit much. Perhaps you’ll be feeling the need to return home by March or so this year? I’m sure that you will remember things that urgently need to be done elsewhere by April at the latest, right?
Sincerely,
Pers
Or wait, Bush backers definately should watch this.
Seriously.mpg (video/mpeg Object)
So it won’t chang your vote. It still rings of glorious truth.
ABC News: What Happened in Kerry’s Vietnam Battles?
More evidence that the Swift Boat Veterans for “Truth” are dishonest and despicable bastards.
This is absolutely ridiculous. No, make that rediculous, because it is so diculous as to be diculous again!
I suppose that it good that they aren’t telling mothers not to breastfeed while sick (babies need the extra antibodies they get from it), but why create a special section just to tell breastfeeding mothers not to breath on their babies at all costs? What, a formula feeding mother can breath on her baby all she wants because it is only while breastfeeding that babies can catch the flu? And you can only give your baby the flu while feeding?
And surgical mask? I think not, outside of extreme circumstances.
In other flu news, we are off to get our shots in a minute. At least I think we are. I’ve been putting it off all day because I feel like such an evil monster for taking my poor innocent baby to get a needle stuck in her leg. .
Oh yes, and please go email the CDC and say shame on them for providing misleading information.
*taps fingers*
Is this thing on? Aren’t I supposed to be doing something?
I know that I always have a ton of stuff I want to do if only I could find a bit more time on the computer. Well, here I am. What was that stuff I wanted to write about? What did I want to do.
Haven’t the faintest.
Munchkin girl is sleeping. She sleeps all night when with me, but she usually doesn’t sleep this long in her own bed. The normal pattern is to put her to bed by herself and stay up until she wakes then go to bed myself and bring her to bed with me.
I’m finding this extra sleep on her part to be rather confusing. I don’t want to wake her and bring her to bed, but there is no where in her room to put hte baby moniter right now (we put her dresser in the closet so she couldn’t climb on it and tip it over), and I worry that if I leave her I won’t hear her when she wakes until she is so upset that she won’t go back to sleep.
Which reminds me; last week we got her a big girl bed (a twin matress which currently sits on the floor) so that I could lie down with her and get her to sleep there. Moving my light sleeper to her crib never worked for us, and she refused to go to sleep there on her own. Now she has her own bed though! My big girl!
The crib is still up in her room, but it is going down this weekend. We just havn’t had time to take it apart yet.
