new blog

Ok, I'm moving things over to a new blog.

http://gexxinknoxville.wordpress.com


because I can

Gardening

So I now have a 5 foot by 7 foot by 1 foot raised bed ready for vegetables.  I also have a yard without an icky brushy spot or frustrating stupid overtaking tree.  And recently, a pear tree and plum tree have been included and a spot for an apricot tree has been picked out.  Seeds have been started in a mini-LED powered green house.  Two window boxes have been sown with kale.  Now to just figure out what to do with the grapes.

Hopefully this is a fruitful summer, no pun intended.

In gardens, beauty is a by-product.  The main business is sex and death.  ~Sam Llewelyn

Plants cry their gratitude for the sun in green joy.  ~Astrid Alauda

my boyfriend

I hate the concept of "traditional gender roles."  Traditional to whom?  It's not my tradition.  Instead, I want equality.  For some reason I don't enjoy being thought of as an unable individual, a second class citizen.  I want someone to treat me well because they like me and wish to be altruistic, making my life nicer at expense of their effort, not because I'm female.

Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.

Last night my friend had a birthday party, and Morgan and I attended.  He started talking to some of our friends and some topic came up, I think it was regarding a letter that he wrote to the editor of the school paper after it had a headline stating that"Cocks bring Vols to their knees" was bad on two counts. 1) we won the game. 2) equating sexual acts with demonstration of power is really not classy and the editor should be mature enough to realize that.  He was then asked "wait, your a feminist, aren't you."  He stated, "Yes I am."  None of that beating around the bush of claiming but also attempting to educate that feminists are about equality, not non-shaving, army boot wearing, men haters.  Just "Yes I am."

My friend turns to me and says "Don't you ever date guys with balls?"

I tell her that I find the fact that he views me as a partner, as an able equal to be extremely sexy.

He offers to show her his balls if she doesn't believe him.

I think that what he said, while it should be 'expected', in this situation was openly shown hostility, and instead he didn't hide behind privilege.  It *was* rather ballsy.

Sick Kitten Edition

First:
I wanted something sweet for dessert.  I poured myself a glass of scotch.

Second:
Look at These

 I would order them if they were in my size. But, alas, of all the sizes to be out of, mine is included at the moment.  But perhaps it's a good thing since I need to watch my finances.  The cool thing about the company here is that they use all reclaimed/recycled materials.  In the area, their stuff is sold at Mast General Store and at some other place out west (go to the simpleshoes site).

Third:
So my kitten:
Yesterday I came home and noticed a few spots of watery puke.  I wasn't too worried since normally after they heave up a hairball, a few seconds later (and in another room) they puke up a thinner batch.  So i went looking for the substantial deposits.  There were none, but I caught Neci in mid puke. It was thin. Then she did it again. And again. And again.  I cleaned them up and picked her up.  She was more cuddly than normal and when I set her down she curled up and chilled.  I figured it was a stomach bug and we would go to the vet the following day if it continued.

That evening she didn't puke much more, she slept right next to me.  This morning, however, I woke up at 5AM to cat-hacks.  And sure enough, it was the same style of puking.  Then she ran off and I had to check all sorts of hiding places to find her.  About 7AM I got up and got ready. 8AM I had her in the carrier... no drama there so she really must not be feeling well... and we went to the vet's who opened at 8.30AM.  We sat in the parking lot till they opened and as soon as the door unlocked, we were in.  The vet got to us rather quickly.  She felt around and confirmed what I embarassedly thought was the most probable. 

She was constupated. 

But to rule out anything else, we were going to have an xray.  Which would also show fecal matter to confirm the constupation diagnoses.  We had the xray and sure enough, there was a whole line of poo from her butt to her stomach.  Poor Kitty!!

The doctor said that we should do an enema, and she offered to keep the kitten for the day so she didn't "explode" (doctor's words) in my house.  I took her up on that offer and went to work.  This afternoon I picked her up.  Apparently she hadn't pooed defecated much, so the doctor warned me she might still "explode" in my house.  Ah well.  If the puking doesn't change by Monday, we're to come back in.

So we go home.  And she pukes again.  And again.  And she goes to sleep.  I pick her up and massage her belly to promote the poopage and she stays there for over an hour.  Then she gets up and wanders.  I realize it's a good time for our 2x daily pill, so I retreive her and we have a battle of wits.  She thought she could spit it out later, but NO! I caught it and covered it in petroleum jelly (their fave snack).  Then we had another fight.  Poor kitten!

When I let her go, she ran off and I didn't see her agian for hours.  I started to get worried that she slipped outside when my neighbor or when Morgan showed up.  Just now, while typing, she appeared from under my bed and puked on my favorite shoes, my bra, and then somewhere in the other room.  I should probably try to figure this out now. 

Poo. both as an imperative and an explitive.



btw - I love Broadway Vet Clinic.  They've treated us very well.

today's plans

I have all afternoon free:

1- Walmart for Rx (need to transfer to someplace NOT Walmart)

2- load of stuff to Goodwill

3- put away laundry

4- re-arrange dining room

5- refill dresser

6- dinner

On to the weekend

Ok, I MUST meet w Dr. A before the weekend. Other than that, I'm pretty much free, so here's the plan:
1- hang out w J and H at some point
2- plant those damn seedlings
3- finish the damn seed starter
4- read for class
5- clean up porch
6- clean up basement
7- re-arrange dining room
8- look at lawn mowers

Cult of Done - Joining

http://www.brepettis.com/blog/2009/3/3/the-cult-of-done-manifesto.html

The Cult of Done Manifesto

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you're done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

A regular Monday

Answer to the riddle... and I'm going above and beyond. I found a 9 letter word that can be reduced: splitting, spitting, sitting, siting, sting, ting, tin, in, I

I found an awesome streaming NPR site: KAXE ( http://www.kaxe.org/kaxe_live/index.html ) out of Grand Rapids.  They play a bunch of Jazz/Blues/World/Americana.  And their news/Human Interest are a whole bunch of green/enviro/soc articles.  For example, I just heard about a green Bar Mitzvah and a promotion for a piece of coal miners realizing that just what their impact was (what their labor was worth, that they could interrupt the power supply). Oh, and the weather is a high of 20... in Grand Rapids.  Not surprising.

What did I get done:
2- Go to Target and get new bins.
4- Check BookMovement site for accuracy
9- keep room clean

Yay!

--
-Eliz"D2 92 F9 F2 A2 A5 1D E8 96 51 F9 14 16 46 C9 26"abeth

The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now. - Thich Nhat Hanh

The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass. - Dogen

To accomplish by Tuesday PM

Morgan and I went to McKay's today after brunch.  Girl Scouts were selling cookies.  Unfortunately I didn't have any cash on me. :(

My friend Kazen sent me to an NPR site with a full listen to Neko Case's new CD.  She's really starting to grow on me.

Riddle:
There is a common English word that is seven letters long. Each time you remove a letter from it, it still remains a common English word -- from seven letters right on down to a single letter. What is the original word, and what are the words that it becomes after removing a letter at a time?


Todo list.  How exciting am I?

1- Finish Midterm
2- Go to Target and get new bins.
3- Meet w Dr. A
4- Check BookMovement site for accuracy
5- wrap/get Bday gift to friend
6- make seed starter
7- determine new layout for dining room
8- mortgage
9- keep room clean

That looks admirable.

stepping back... after x steps forward

I have been on the search for my drill bits for days.  I want to make a LED seed starter.

I searched through three tubs of stuff.  You know that stuff, the stuff that accumulates because you don't know where to put it.  I ended up putting it in a series of laundry baskets and tupperware totes.  After I went through them, seperating out what was going to Goodwill, seperating out the paperwork/old mail for further detailed perusal, and finding places for everything else (if it had no place, it was Goodwill), I still had no drill bits.  I was so certain that the bits were in them because that's where I threw everything when my parents visited.  So, no bits.

Onto the next possibility: The dinning room drawers.  This is a set of drawers that came from Justin's parents.  The top drawer is full of catchall stuff, rolls of scotch tape, fuses, lightbulbs, spools of thread, ribbon, dry-erase markers, all that good stuff.  I emptied the drawer into one of the now-free laundry baskets, searching for the drillbits.  They're in a blue nylon book, so it's somewhat obvious.  Still no drillbits.  I take the opportunity to re-pack the drawer.  I use gladware: one for batteries, one for screws and nails, one for fuses, one for sewing stuff.  I stack up all my appliance manuals on one side.  I find places for my tape measure, my screwdriver set, and my hammer.  I take all the random wrenches, pliers, and other hardware and set it aside for it to be brought into the basement.

Then onto the bottom drawer.  This drawer ended up being stuffed so full of stuff that the front was pulled off, leaving the drawer more like a cubbyhole.  One side is stuffed with fabric, which I refolded for the purpose of getting it to fit better.  I ended up finding some lovely brown and blue fabric that I was going to make into my bedroom curtains but I think I'll use for a dress or skirt (depending on how much I have) and some red and cream fabric that was going to be a pillow but will work for another skirt.  They're both rather stiff, but that will be ok.  Working on the other side I pulled out a plethora of other hand tools that migrated up from the basement, and in them was the pack of drill bits!

My first project was to reattach the doors to my kitchen cupboard.  They were taken off when I re-did the kitchen.  I attached the handles and the hinges to both and then carried them to the kitchen.  For some reason I ended up purchasing the wrong style of hinges.  I'm not sure how that happened.  So one project still not done.

Then I wanted to build the seed starter that I had mentioned for last weekend.  I pulled out the tupperwares for it, but for some reason when I bought them, I never checked that the lids fit on the bottoms.  ARGGH! 

So needless to say, I'm a little peeved that I can't do what I wanted, but at the same time I'm glad that I was able to clean up those piles of junk.