LolaGeek

Just out of curiosity, I turned on my “broken” modem tonight, and… it’s not broken. So I’m back in business. (Unfortunately, our host doesn’t quite have its act back together, so Dear Diesel is still MIA.

GG and I went to see The Devil Wears Prada last night. It was good! Except, after Andy is asked to go to Paris, it’s just sad sad sad until the very end. I’d like to read the book now, because Julie told me that Miranda actually does much worse things than what she does in the movie.

I spent most of today with Jess, helping her clean out her kitchen. I have to say, she made it really easy for me, because she was eager to clean, and didn’t have a problem getting rid of a lot of stuff. We filled up a huge trash bag, plus I listed a ton of stuff on Freecycle to give away.

Before (not too bad – most of the mess was in the cabinets)


After clearing out all the drawers and cabinets, and straightening up the pantry, we figured out what organizing supplies she needed, and then went to Bed Bath & Beyond, Target, Lowes, and Ikea to find what we were looking for. (I think Jess was especially excited to have found the perfect recycle bin at Ikea!)

The pantry after (notice the recycling bin – perfect fit!)

You can see some more photos on my flickr page…

The kitchen after

Got home last night, went to fix Dear Diesel and my band’s website, and… the modem’s broken. So they’re sending us a new one (our third in a month!), which could take up to 30 days, but last time I had to replace it, we had a new one the next day, so I’m hoping it arrives before we leave Monday morning and I have a chance to fix everything. Uggggh!

Tomorrow I’m going to help Jess clean her house, as I continue my secret second career of Home Organizer! Yay! She’s even letting me take “before” and “after” photos.

And Monday… we’re outta here! So … see you in a week!

This whole site was down last night, as were other sites I know of that use my host. So was the host’s helpdesk! Now today, my site seems to be working again, but my band’s website and Dear Diesel are still nonexistant. (And if that band website is down, I assume that means the listserv is down, which I’m sure officers are not happy about.) And the host helpdesk is still down. At least if my site is back up, maybe that means they’re slowly getting everything running again? (And no data loss this time, yay!)

Last night, Ivan was sitting in our bedroom window and he was meowing really sadly at something outside. I thought something was wrong, so I looked outside, and saw… an orange cat in the backyard! So that is probably what he and Katrina are staring at all day! The orange cat was looking right up at Ivan, and standing perfectly still. I put a little bit of dry food on a plastic plate and went out the back door to try to feed him, but as soon as he saw me, he climbed straight up a fence post, and scrambled down the other side. (We have a stockade fence around our back yard.) I left the dish there anyway, and this morning it was totally empty… Of course, any animal could have eaten that food…

[Edit - 9:21 AM] Oh, I neglected to mention that GG is leaving today to spend a week working at his parents’ ice cream parlour in Virginia. When he’s gone for more than a day or so, I start having real conversations with the cats, and that’s weird. But he’ll be leaving there Friday morning, and next Monday, we’ll both be going down for our ice cream vacation! [/Edit]

[Edit - 10:08 AM] One of my submissions to Overheard in the Office was just posted! I entered three of them, so I’ll be sure to mention when the others come up! [/Edit]

Busy day today! I dropped my car off at the Ford place at 9 AM for it’s 55,000 mile visit, which turned out to just be an oil change and tire rotation. GG picked me up there so we could do some errands while they worked.

First we went to Home Depot so he could get some grease for one of his guitar pedals that’s been breaking or something. Then off to Ikea, where we really got inspired to seriously look into redoing the kitchen. Really, all I want is a new stove… but the stove we have now is an odd size, so if we get a new one, I just want a regular size, and then I’d want new cabinets, and if we redo the cabinets and counters, we might as well also get rid of that awful floor (it isn’t even linoleum, it’s more like a sheet of paper that has tiles printed on it). So… this could be quite a project. But actually, I used Ikea’s kitchen planner software, and even just using the price that it generates as a ballpark, the cabinets won’t be as expensive as I’d been thinking…

Then we went to Petsmart, and the SPCA was there and they had this awesome orange cat named Winston who had been there for a long time (in other words, he might be put to sleep soon). It was so sad! GG was just about set to take him … but we really cannot take another cat right now. As sad as it is, there will always be cats at the SPCA who need homes, whenever we are ready. Yes, even cool, friendly orange cats. We got his ID number, though, so we can check on him…

Thennnnn we went to Target and wandered around. We want to get a new TV, like, a flatter one, but I think we need to do some research about what types of TVs are good to get. Also, GG needed to play some video games there, and I played that Nintendo DS game Big Brain Academy or whatever, which basically told me I’m retarded. I’m sure if I played it more, I’d do better.

While GG went to Guitar Center, I went to Famous Footwear and (whoops!) bought two pairs of really comfy shoes. Then I went over to meet him at Guitar Center. I heard someone playing and thought that was him, but it was this little kid! GG was sitting across from him, and I was like, “Hey, that kid is pretty good, I thought that was you!” GG asked the kid’s dad how old he was, and he is seven! So he and GG had sort of a showdown, and I think this kid might’ve won! GG told his dad not to let him have a girlfriend until he’s 25. (It’s his theory that guitar players with girlfriends lose their skills because women are “time thieves.”) On our way out, he gave the kid some of his fancy guitar pics that he uses. I hope this guy really does stick with it, because if he’s this amazing at only seven years old, imagine how great he could be when he’s older!

By this time it had been several hours since I dropped off my car, so we headed back to that area to get ice cream at one of our favorite places. Right after we ordered, I got a call from the Ford place that my car was ready. So as soon as we had finished our ice cream, GG dropped me off to get my car.

After we both got home, we hung out on the sofa and watched TV all afternoon until he had to leave for his show. Annnnd I probably should be doing laundry or cleaning up around the house, but I’m not. It cooled off outside a little since it rained, and I’m enjoying sitting here in front of the window and getting some breeze for a change.

We went to see Lady in the Water this afternoon. On the way into the theater, we saw a guy GG used to work with, who had just seen it and didn’t like it. So I was a little nervous going in, but it was pretty good. It doesn’t have the M. Night Shyamalan “twist,” but there were still revelations and surprises up to the end.

Tomorrow my car goes for a check-up and oil change, GG and I go to Target and do errands or something. Sunday he has a show in Atlantic City. Monday he leaves for a week :o( The following Monday, vacation!!

Okay, too hot to keep this computer on…

We had another crazy storm last night. Of course, GG was downtown at his usual Tuesday comedy open mic, so I had to hold down the fort by myself. I moved my car from the street into the driveway just before it started to rain, in case the street flooded again. The winds came first, and they were insane! Once the rain started, the wind was blowing so hard that it was blowing the rain and it looked like waves on the ocean. I would’ve taken some pictures, but I don’t think they would have come out.

The cats were freaking out and hid under the dining room table. At one point, Katrina looked at me with a worried expression on her face and asked, “Mew?” Translation: “Are we going to die?” Luckily, the house is incredibly solid. As much as I’d like to move out into something more modern, I don’t want a house with cardboard walls. The other day at lunch, everyone was talking about how they’ve lived in apartments with leaks and the wallboard got all mushy, and I was so glad our house is super solid brick and plaster. And with those winds last night, we didn’t feel a thing inside. The place that I lived my senior year of college was newly constructed out of cardboard, and the slightest breeze seemed to make the whole house shake.

Also luckily, our power didn’t go out. It did flicker a couple times, but we never lost it. A lot of other people did – I just heard one woman at work say a lot of people were getting dressed in the dark this morning.

GG has an interview today with yet another temp agency. Maybe they can find him some work? Tonight I’m in a concert in a park, but we’re supposed to get another storm tonight, so maybe not.

It was so hot yesterday, I was such a grump to GG when he finally got home at like 3:30. I felt bad, because I hadn’t seen him for a couple days, but it was just too hot to be nice. We went to the Acme and did a pretty good food shop, then when we got home I made us this really awesome parmesan chicken. (My recommendation – it tasted a little salty. The recipe includes salt and garlic salt, so maybe leave the regular salt out.)

Today is supposed to be 105 degrees with the heat index, but at least since GG is home again, he can make sure the temperature is somewhat regulated for the kitties in the house. I feel so bad for them … but they do have their little methods for keeping cool.

I had a really strange dream last night. Some Indian women were putting on a production of Jesus Christ Superstar, except they got rid of the part of Judas and split up his lines among a few of the other characters..? At the last minute, they asked me to be in the show and I agreed, since I have the soundtrack and know the words to the songs. They were going to let me just show up the night of the show, but I asked if I shouldn’t maybe show up to a rehearsal first? I guess they agreed… then one of the women wanted to take me out to buy perfume, but it was just a big bottle of scentless alcohol. While we were shopping, something came up about someone who does song parodies or something, and they did Psycho Killer by the Talking Heads, except they changed the lyric from “Psycho Killer, Qu’est-ce que c’est” to “Psycho Killer, sommelier.” Weird.

I’ve got a bunch of boring work to do today, but luckily I’ve got the MP3 player, so that makes the time go faster. It’s got a neat feature that plays ten “Rarely Heard” songs, so I just keep doing that over and over, and I get a really good mix of stuff to listen to.

Woo, two weeks until vacation..!

There was a lot of thunder this afternoon, but no rain. Finally, it started getting pretty dark, so I thought I’d take some pictures…

The clouds rolling in:

Suddenly, the skies opened up:

These guys got caught in the rain, and ran to the closest shelter they could find:

My street literally became a river! The water was rushing so fast, and it was deep:

The gutter of the post office was overflowing – it looked like a waterfall:

We’ve never really had any problem with flooding here, but it was raining so hard, and started so suddenly, I thought I’d just check around the house anyway to make sure everything was okay. When I opened the basement door, I heard the sound of water running. I went down, and there was water gushing out of this pipe! The pipe is left over from when the washer and dryer used to be in the basement. They’re now upstairs, but they left the drain pipe just… open in the basement. There was some duct tape covering the top, but that had come off. So I just put new tape on, and that seemed to fix the leak. But I called my uncle to ask about it, and he said we should get a real, PVC pipe end piece to seal it up for real, because otherwise, sewer gasses could be leaking out. The only problem with that is that if we ever get such a heavy rain again that the drain backs up like that, it will leak at the next highest place, which would be maybe the kitchen sink or the laundry sink or the washing machine. Which doesn’t make me happy. I mean, if we’re going to have a leak, I’d rather it leak in the basement. Blah.

Be sure to check out my flickr, because there’s also a few new kitty pics :o)

GG just got home from work, it was his second day at this temp job that he actually really liked. He was proofreading ads, and the work was pretty much exactly like what he had been doing at his last job, that he had for five years. He was really excited about this job, they had mostly full-time employees (not all temps), and they had an illustration department. A friend of his from his old job had been temping there, and actually just interviewed for a full-time job there in another department. So he was really enjoying it there and thinking about staying for a long time.

He had to rush, because he’s driving down to Maryland for a show tonight. We were trying to put the air conditioner in the living room window when the phone rang. We don’t have an answering machine, so we just let it ring for a while because, actually, nobody even has our number, so it couldn’t have been that important. Finally, he was upset with the way the A/C was going and couldn’t take the ringing anymore, so he answered the phone.

It was the temp agency. The place he’d been working said he “wasn’t really proofreading,” and today was his last day.

He got so upset, and that makes me upset! He hasn’t been able to keep a job since he was laid off in October. I know he feels bad about it (I’m sure the fact that I, meanwhile, have a great job doesn’t help).

So he just left, and he’s all upset and frustrated, and I’m upset for him! I wish he could just get a job that he likes, but I also wish that he could make a successful business of his own – either painting murals, or with his internet hot sauce store, or by doing freelance illustrations, or something. It’s just frustrating for everyone.

Yeah yeah, I finally made myself one of those Johari window things… So go fill it out, okay?

GG’s playing in Maryland tonight, and then driving down to Virginia to help his parents for the rest of the weekend. So I will be lonely :o( But he’s going to put the air conditioner in the living room window before he leaves, so at least I will be comfortable!