The Land of No Birthdays

I think I do my best thinking while I dry my hair in the morning. Which, given that I spend less than five minutes a day drying my hair, could be seen as unfortunate. But there you are.

This morning, I realized I’d been at this job for four months (minus one day.) And in that time, we’ve never eaten cake, signed a card, or even said “Happy Birthday” to anyone who works here. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been inconvenienced more than once by a work birthday of a coworker I didn’t like all that much. I’m not advocating birthday extravaganzas. But it’s just not possible that of the 30-40 people who work here in various capacities none of them has a birthday between November and March, right? That means it’s something of an office policy to make no mention of one’s birthday. Isn’t that a little odd?

~ by meteowrite on March 21, 2007.

2 Responses to “The Land of No Birthdays”

1. Jenn! That is sad. Sure, b-day responsibilities could get out of hand and all, but still, cake is cake. You may have to take the lead here m’chara, get them going. Then maybe you could call my place of employ… Hmmm, cake…..

   Sancho said this on March 21st, 2007 at 7:56 pm

2. At the late, unlamented State Lands Commission we worked it a little differently. You brought cake (or whatever-I usually opted for Chocolate Amaretto Cheesecake) on your own birthday. That way no one else was responsible for remembering when everyone’s natal date happened to be. Start up a tradition…..

   Goodyear said this on March 22nd, 2007 at 11:28 am

Goodyear’s soulmate at my library

I went to this symposium a few weeks ago (Nathan quote: “I LOVE symposia!”) and learned all about turning a public library into the place patrons really want it to be. Namely, a cool bookstore, with more options. Anyhoo, to that end, I’ve been working on “marketing” in our library. I’ve spent a fair bit of time turning the chunk of our reference stacks that face into the public area into a lovely display of our gardening books. (I was really happy that the powers that be let me run with this idea, I mean, I’m a new person with new-fangled ideas, and I got an enthusiastic thumbs up on this. Pretty cool.)

I’m looking at my display now. It’s so pretty. I digress.

Yesterday, I was standing up on a chair, applying the final touch to the display–die cut letters in bright colors that say “See what’s BLOOMING at the library.” And instead of the letter “O” I’ve used flowers with their centers cut out. Really, it’s quite charming.

So I’m up on a chair, and the librarian in charge of our history room wanders by. This is not the first time he’s reminded me of dad, but this was to be the most telling. He’s a nice guy, knows more than is probably healthy about the history of Los Gatos, and tends to bring in home grown oranges by the laundry basket full. “See what’s blooming at the library,” he read. “You know, you could have said ‘Everything’s coming up roses at the library.’” I agreed, that would have been a good one. He went down the hall to his office. Then I heard him laugh out loud. From down the hall. He was back. “What about ‘Can you DIG it?’” Yes, yes, I said, that was a funny one. I said he had a real flair for this sort of work.

Several hours later, I was passing through his office to get to the staff room, and the microwave. Sure, he had a patron in there working, but he dropped what he was doing to say, “How about ‘Come to a HOE-down at the library?’” I said, “Have you been thinking about this all day?” His reply….wait for it….

“What? Is that a little….SEEDY?”

ARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH.

~ by meteowrite on March 16, 2007.

2 Responses to “Goodyear’s soulmate at my library”

1. Are all dad’s this into puns? My father-in-law is quite fond of them as is my own pa (albeit in Korean. and sorry, it just doesn’t translate). And wouldncha know it, as if in preparation for his own future fatherhood, Michael Kenny could give you a run for your money in the puns department. Somehow, it’s terribly charming when other men (particularly those of a certain age) pun it up than when mine does.

   jean said this on March 16th, 2007 at 3:07 pm

2. Now, if you just mixed some Tolkien in with the flowers, you could have said “Watch Orland Bloom in our Library”….

   Goodyear said this on March 19th, 2007 at 9:30 am

I’m a rototiller!

Back in my daycare days, I knew a little guy by the name of Casey. Among his other talents (some of you may remember Casey as the guy who said “YOU WANT JUICE!” ) Casey was a fan of work machines. Now, lots of kids like work machines, we have a whole separate section of books here in the library just about machines. Casey took it a step further. He BECAME the machines. Many days he’d greet us with the words “I’m a front-end loader!” and then putter around carrying things from one place to another. One day I was walking backwards, carrying a stack of chairs, when I heard a beeping noise behind me. Beep. Beep. Beep. Yeah, it was Casey, announcing to the world that I was going in reverse.

And so, it is in hommage to Casey (who, geez, probably graduates high school this year) that I say to you “I’m a rototiller!”

Spring has hit in a vengence these last two weeks, some people would say we’ve scooted right into summer. I’ve decided it’s finally reasonable to begin work in the garden. Specifically in the raised beds on the side of the house. They are, I imagine, a gardner’s dream. Four beds, walled in, with drip system irrigation on timers. Blank canvases. There are one or two rose bushes that look like they might blossom again someday, but other than that, mostly empty, with a few twigs that were probably healthy plants at one time or another.

My plan was to fix up the dirt last weekend, and then install the flowers next weekend. I went to the Home Depot on Saturday to get dirt improvement supplies. Mulch, compost, a shovel and a rake. I filled the Celt Mobile (II) to bursting, even in “truck mode.” Came home and unloaded all the supplies on the side patio. And set to work on the first bed.

The first bed was pretty much solid clay, that seemed not to have been disturbed in decades. I hauled an empty trash can over, and tossed some of the clay into it (tossed makes it sound like I did it easily, but that’s poetic license.) When the can was, oh, maybe one-sixth full, I’d drag it over to the low spot in what I like to think of as “our future petanque court” and tipped it over. (Saying “tipped it over” makes it sound like I did that easily, but really, I leaned on it until it fell, then got down on the ground to scoop out the dirt with my hands until such time as I could actually invert the can and dump the remainder. Want to know what smart people use for this task? A wheelbarrow.) Lather, rinse repeat. I did this a few dozen times. At some point, I could actually get the hoe into the remaining dirt. That was all I could accomplish the first day.

On day two, I incorporated the compost-mulch mix into bed one. I read the directions on the package which informed me I had to mix thorougly down to a dept of 8-12 inches. Whew. Me and the hoe became good friends that afternoon. That was the day I learned why clever gardners don’t work in the garden in the middle of the afternoon.

Yesterday and today before work (my 11-8 shift, I wasn’t up at dawn or anything) I worked on bed two. The other three beds are filled with sand. All sand. I don’t understand several things. One, how does anything grow in all sand? I mean aside from iceplant. Which as we all know is a non-native invasive and should be crushed whenever possible. Two, why isn’t every cat for miles using our yard as the world’s most glamorous litter box? Whatever the reason, sand is much easier to hoe than clay. Though I think I’ll need more compost-mulch to make it garden-able. Probably, I should be mixing between the clay bed and the sand bed, now that they are both mulched.

Anyway, I’m absurdly proud of myself. No pilates or ballet class I’ve ever taken has done as much for my arm definition in a week as being a human rototiller has. And, when a friend came by our house for the first time this week, I drug her out to the garden saying “Come see the dirt I made!”

~ by meteowrite on March 14, 2007.

3 Responses to “I’m a rototiller!”

1. Raised sand beds?!!!! You have a true treasure my dearest daughter. What grows in sand you ask? Asperagus, carrots, radishes, turnips…all requuire “well drained soil”, which actually translates to “sand”. Fresh asperagus…..it’s enough to move one from the far north of Yachats. Careful though, it spreads. Like underground runners. Thus, the raised bed. As for the cats, I might assume the former occupants had a dog, and the cats have learned that your yard isn’t particularly comfortable.

   Goodyear said this on March 15th, 2007 at 11:49 am

2. Good thing I didn’t get to the other two sand beds yet. Asparagus, you say. That reminds me of the asparagus fern I transplanted from your yard. Remember how Gandalf’s sword was barely a match for that thing. Even after you told it you were a wielder of the Secret Saw of Arnor it still didn’t want to come out of the ground. It spreads. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to whip up much enthusiasm for growing radishes or turnips. But it does provide an answer to our mystery.

   jenn said this on March 15th, 2007 at 12:41 pm

3. Ooh (as in “ooh” that rhymes with “boo” and not “go”) jenn! Are you guys going to buy that house? Because if you ever have to leave it’s gonna be real tough, I can see. A petanque court?? And a garden? Yowers!

   Hey don’t pass up the opportunity for fresh radishes yet. Have I made radish butter for you? I’s not what it sounds like, it’s YUM. Finely grate one radish and squeeze out as much of the juice as possible. Mix in one tablespoon (or so) of room temperature butter. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Spread on a slice of a crusty french loaf. Eat far too much of the stuff to be healthy for any individual (and let’s face it, the radish is totally a sham. there is no health benefit to this spread just cause a vegetable was involved in the making.). I can’t describe what it tastes like. It’s just really good and really addictive. There, I’ve gone and put another drug in front of you like a good little rec-drug pusher. But really, I think this is only fair given what you did to me with those Cadbury Mini Eggs.

   Ps. I remember Casey of the front-end loader! Dear GOD! He would be in high school by now, wouldn’t he? For me, he was also Casey who asked his mom in a grocery store: “But MOM! What about my booger??” And then there was that incident with the toilet and the stick, but perhaps we want to keep that to ourselves?

   jean said this on March 15th, 2007 at 1:49 pm

i’m pretending to be an elf

From blog stuff

My good friend Gina celebrated her 30th birthday last weekend. She’d put a lot of time into planning *just* the right activity to really encompass this new decade. She decided to have a henna tattoo artist over, to give everyone temporary henna tattoos. It was sooooo much fun! I’ve loved having my pretty swirly hand. You pair that with some boots and an olive green and brown toned outfit, it’s really easy to pretend you’re cruising through Mirkwood looking for orcs, rather than just checking in magazines. I’ve got three to four weeks of fun before the swirlies fade off.

Happy Birthday GT!

3 Responses to “i’m pretending to be an elf”

1.You know, my first thought was: dude. Jenn got a henna tattoo. How wild.

But looking at the design (and remembering the ephemeral quality of henna inks) I think this is totally you! Very pretty!

jean said this on March 5th, 2007 at 12:57 pm

2. Hear! Hear! Nice earth-stained “tat”–I think that is what the kids are calling them these days. Gosh, how much more like “Stewie” on the “Family Guy” could I sound?

Jean’s right though–looks great!

Sancho said this on March 5th, 2007 at 9:53 pm

3.Tres cool. Have to work up “tattoo” in Quenya….

Goodyear said this on March 8th, 2007 at 10:02 am

stolen identity

Dude. And I say that in the most serious way. Dude.

Some else *thinks* they are “meteowrite.” I don’t know how this happened. But it’s the most bizarre thing.

I was on a site out there in the world, a site where I had registered and claimed “meteowrite” as my own. I was having trouble with the site and so I deleted meteowrite and went to start fresh. The first few times I got the message that the “meteowrite” was unavailable, I didn’t worry much. I figured that my deletion and thus the freeing of the name was not yet processed. I never dreamed someone else would snatch it up. (And in passing, I did try to re-snag it both immediately, and then frequently after my deletion.)

My clever husband was the one who discovered that someone else had claimed it. (I still feel there’s been some sort of computer-clerical error here, and bless his heart, NIL is looking into it, as this particular website is affiliated with his place of employ, is you know what I mean.)

Here’s the thing. It’s really quite simple. I AM METEOWRITE. Back off bunky, whoever you are. Back your boat up and get away from my alter-ego.

I did a little research (does looking something up with Google still count as research? or is it now just part of being alive?) to see a) what I could learn about this person and b) how severe the meteowrite invasion was. Mostly, I’ve got meteowrite secured. At least most of the places I go. AND, to be fair, it does seem like my alter-ego is only hanging out in places I wouldn’t need to be myself. Places with different alphabets than the one I use. A reasonable person would probably learn to share.

And yet, I feel somehow completely invaded. There’s that episode of Friends where Monica’s identity is stolen, and ultimately what gets her is that the person using her credit card is doing things Monica herself isn’t gutsy enough to try. Skydiving and tap dancing lessons and the like. It’s not that exactly. It’s just that I AM METEOWRITE. I’ve been using the name, geez, I feel old now, for more than a decade. Scribbling it on the back of homemade cards, and for everything on the web. I remember that moment of brilliant inspiration, when I thought it up, in my fourth hour of driving along Highway Five. Me-Teo-Write. Meteorite. Double entendre. How cool is that? I literally can’t spell the word the way the rest of the world does anymore. Not on the first try.

So even though whoever it is probably has no idea I exist, and certainly most likely isn’t out to get me, it still makes me sad. I just want to have the name all to myself. All mine.

Sigh.

2 Responses to “stolen identity”

1.There is only ONE Meteowrite and her name is Jenn. People who say otherwise eat sabre sandwiches.

Sancho said this on March 1st, 2007 at 8:20 pm

2. Oh no fluffy!!

PS. sabre sandwiches? that makes my mouth hurt. eek.

jean said this on March 2nd, 2007 at 11:37 a

coffee - you actually have to DRINK it

I was just reading about Jim’s new coffee pot–it’s shiny. And you know what they say about shiny things. Friends, in passing, have you watched the now defunct TV show “Firefly?” If you liked Star Trek, you should watch Firefly. It’s like StarTrek, only sassier. And there’s only one season of it, so it’s a minimal time commitment. If your last name is Kenny, in particular, you should watch it. All of that from “shiny.” Watch it, you’ll understand.

Anyhow, I’ve been away from coffee lately. My morning beverage has been tea or cocoa, or just water, depending on the day. But yesterday, I needed the coffee. It was a coffee day. I was fuzzy feeling, and tired. Coffee.

So, I got some coffee. All was going well. I was at my desk, pondering a pdf that someone had printed out for routing.

Then I knocked the cup over and spilled most of it all over my desk. Huge puddle of coffee. We don’t have any sponges here in the library, only those paper towels you find in elementary schools and gas stations. Huge mess. Though, to be fair, I didn’t get much of it on myself, and I was wearing brown pants, so it could have been worse.

All this to say, conclusively, it’s not enough to sort of soak in coffee. You can’t just surround yourself with it, to feel the effects. You actually have to consume it.

~ by meteowrite on February 22, 2007.

4 Responses to “coffee - you actually have to DRINK it”

1.JENN!!! Oddly enough, I too spilled coffee on myself this week, though ice had a lot to do with it. Yes, from the “shiny” coffee maker ;-) It’s my own fault, really, as I decided to dress up a bit. Hard to bring that off to full effect when one is spackled with coffee blotches. Must consume it, yes, not wear it…

Sancho said this on February 22nd, 2007 at 9:30 pm

2. Michael Kenny expressed no interest in “Firefly.”

shiny - I know that should be funny. Or at least poignant. I can’t remember which blog post it was… maybe an email? I probably need more sleep. How about a hint for the tired old woman?

jean kenny said this on February 22nd, 2007 at 11:54 pm

3. Shiny, well, it is different things to different people. In “Firefly” (and I think MK is off on this one, it’s very funny, but I understand he’s very busy) “shiny” is a phrase generally used the way we might use “cool” or “awesome.” In our own LOTR circles, we use it to reference Liv Tyler’s use of her natural dazed or dopey personality to convey a sense of the ethereal, which was really quite brilliant on someone’s part. It’s as if she walks through the movie thinking “Shiny things are pretty!” and not much else. Also, as a derivative, it’s used to describe anyone who might not have thoughts beyond “shiny things are pretty” in their day to day lives.

jenn said this on February 23rd, 2007 at 11:59 am

4. Dude. “Firefly” is already on my Netflix queue. Pending MK approval. It’s my queue, but he apparently has veto rights. Mostly it’s filled with flicks that he thinks is missing from my film viewing repertoire. But if say, I request that “Charlie’s Angels II: The Full Throttle” be added to my queue, you can be sure that an icecub in hell has a better chance of making it.

What about shiny happy people?

jean said this on February 26th, 2007 at 3:36 pm

fictional mortality — part two

There are a few conventions authors seem to follow, archetypes, perhaps. I thought I’d jot down the ones that came to mind, so we can talk about people who break them. The good way and the bad way.

Who’s not going to die? William Goldman said it this way. “Well, since the book is called ‘The Princess Bride’ and since we’re barely into it, obviously the author is not about to make shark kibble of his leading lady.’ In the Sally Lockhart mysteries, by Phillip Pullman, I’m not that worried about Sally in Book Two, as there are at least two books to come that bear her name. The exception to this rule, of course is that the title character may die at the end of the book, if there is only one, or at the end of the series, if there are several. Hence all the hubbub around J.K. Rowling and the fate of Harry at the end of Book Seven. Will she, won’t she? That’s right, J.K. I’ve got more to say to you later.

Who CAN go? Well, there are a few obvious categories, aren’t there. There’s what Jean and I call “The Random Ensign” phenomenon. Based on Star Trek, and my ST of choice is TNG. So, if Riker, Troi, Data, Worf and some guy you’ve never heard of form an away team, you can lay money only four of them are coming back. It’s easy, I see why they do it. Gives Picard something to be incensed over, but doesn’t require much emotional drain on the audience.

The aged teacher is disposable as well, the Obi-Wan Kenobi, if you will. Really, once he’d taught Luke, what role was there for him? Again, his death provides a kick in the pants for Luke. Right, we were talking about books. Galapas, from the Hollow Hills. Brom, from Eragon. We could look to JK again, though of course that raises the question “Just how much like Gandalf is Dumbledore, really?” Verdicts still out.

An aged king with a healthy heir won’t survive. Else why is he old? Why have an heir? (In thinking this one through, I got sidetracked contemplating how bad things happen to Tolkien characters whose names start with a “th”….Theoden, Theodred, Thorin, Thingol, all though the last didn’t have it so bad…anyway, I’ve digressed.) Certainly Theoden fits here, and so does Denethor, if you want to consider him a self-styled King. Kay gives us Aillel, though more on Kay later as well, he’s the master, as far as I’m concerned.

Who else? Who do you know is doomed the minute you first run across them?

~ by meteowrite on February 16, 2007.
One Response to “fictional mortality — part two”

1.Then of course there is the fate of multiple heirs to the old Kings estate; some or one of them must go to allow the “rightful” king emerge. Ancient High Priestesses also seem to have a high mortality rate, for the same reason as ancient Kings.

The Greeks give us the whole hubris thing, which leads to the certain knowledge that any mortal who has gotten “protection” from death (a la Achilles) is going to be done in at some point.

The analog to the “unknown Ensign” in most war stories is the “ne Lieutenant”. At some point the “old Sergeant” will be taking his dog tags home. You can’t kill off the Captains, they are the veteran leaders, and you can’t kill off the Sergeants, because they keep the men together. But incoming, eager lieutenants are perfect. Mow ‘em down. The naval story equivalent is usually an overage midshipman. They seem to be cannonball magnets.

Goodyear said this on February 20th, 2007 at 9:33 am