Winter Bloom

The camellias in this part of California always signal that winter is coming to an end soon. I liked this perky one that recently opened near the house.

I could spend hours taking pictures of flowers. I don't even know if anyone else enjoys the pictures as much as I do, but hey, the first person you need to make happy is you, right?

Ping: My Boy Finn

It has been a long time since I've done any catblogging (and some of you *cough* Kathy *cough* are probably peachy-keen with that oversight).  But when I had my camera out last week to take pictures of Mr. Donkey, I snapped a few shots of Finn and thought I'd share one.

He still hates having his picture taken, almost as much as me, so it wasn't easy to get him to look at me. I have to play on his inability to ignore my little clicky noises for long. He's gotten really big (that vet who told me he'd be "a big boy" sure knew what she was talking about!) but there's still that same kissable nose and chewable ears. He puts up with me accosting him on a daily basis because I can't resist snatching him up for a snuggle or two. But then, I am The Mighty Holder of the Food.

Making Progress

I've been taking my list of goals for the year seriously and I'm trying to be mindful of the items on it, in order to look for opportunities to advance them. (I think blogging three times this week -- so far -- is a fine example of that!) I realized that my blog anniversary is coming up, and it would be nice to have made progress on my "Get a new blog design" goal before then.

Last night I decided to take the plunge and made major changes to the layout. I figured that if I pay someone to do a full-blown re-design, I'll have to upgrade it on Blogger in any case, so might as well do that. I've been cobbling together bits and pieces of HTML on the original layout to keep things afloat for a couple years and it just gets harder and harder to make it what I want. That is simply not where my talents lie.

As you can see, if you've ever been here before, things look seriously different. I realize that it's not great just yet, there are still a lot of things that need to be tweaked. I'd let you tell me what you like or don't like, but the biggest problem I've encountered is that my comment function is not working with the new template. I'm sure it's an easy fix, but I haven't been able to puzzle it out on my own. I'm getting some help with it, but people have been coming to visit today and I wanted to thank you and apologize for not having comments working.

Because of this, I've added something now that I'd planned to add later: A link to me on Twitter. I've resisted doing that for a long time, but the reasons for doing so seem less relevant to me now. Twitter has become a huge part of my life and I want to integrate it into my blog. Over there to the right is a rather clunky-looking widget, which I hope to improve on, that will take you to my Twitter page. If you're not already following me there, I hope you'll come by and say hey. If you are, please feel free to leave your feedback there until I get the comments up and running. Because, let's face it, tweets are great but there's nothing to equal a comment left with a post.

So, technically, I've met the challenge of my goal because this definitely constitutes a "new blog design." But I'm not ready to cross it off because it's not the final version and it doesn't meet the spirit of the goal. So let's consider it to be struck through with a dotted line for the time being. I'll keep updating the progress over there in the Welcome message and I hope you'll come back to watch as things develop.

***UPDATE: For the moment, it's essentially back to the old template. But the header and comments are back up. (Thank you Emma!) But the Welcome message I mentioned is gone. This will be a work in progress. Thanks for your patience.***

Stick to Whistling While You Work

I was watching TV tonight when I saw a commercial that sparked a memory: A woman was tooling around her lawn on a mower, whistling and looking generally happy and carefree.

When I lived in New York, we had a really big backyard. A big backyard full of lawn. Beautiful, but a lot to mow and it was my job to mow it for a number of years. We had a self-propelled lawnmower but not a riding mower; the lawn was big but not quite big enough to justify that expense. It was a job I didn't particularly enjoy but I tried to make the best of it. (Okay, I bitched and moaned about it generally, but in the end I got it done before the grass was high enough to lose the dog in it.)

One day while out mowing, with the motor roaring and making such a racket, I figured I'd sing to distract and entertain myself, seeing as how no one could possibly hear me over the mower. Right? (Ah, the naiveté of youth.) So I was singing my heart out, throwing in a little opera just for fun. Finally, sweating and singing my way through it, I finished and went in the house for a drink of something cold. I told my mom I was done, and that I'd been singing while I did it.

She hesitated and said, "I know. I could hear you. Loud and clear." (Read: I could hear your caterwauling and so could the neighbors.)

This would be the time to point out that I really can't sing. And I totally can't sing opera. At all.

Yeah, that was mortifying.

I think I was able to convince her that it was probably time for my brother to take over that task right around the point in time.

Hey, hey, hey, I like being cool

No, not "cool" in the figurative "Oh, she's so cool, I want to be just like her" sense. I mean the literal "I like the temperature to be cool pretty much constantly" sense. I can't even pretend to be cool in the former sense, although once in college these two young girls took in my car and belongings as I was moving back in to the dorm for a new year and asked me, "Are you cool?" I still have no idea how I was supposed to answer that. (It was a pretty cool car, I must admit, so I guess I had them fooled.)

Alas, no, it's my unquenchable desire for chill that I'm talking about here. It's why restaurants where I'm a regular bring the BIG glass of ice water when I sit down and why other restaurants are pestered by me for "a glass of ice...just ice" pretty much constantly. It's why I have a fan going on my desk at work when other people have a heater going under theirs. It's why the A/C is on in my car more than it's off. It's why I walk around in short sleeves in the winter, while the people I'm with are dressed for the Arctic. It's why driving in a car with my mother, who's always cold, is like a punishment from the gods of temperature control. It's why the windows in my room are open year-round AND a timed fan is going in there much of the time, too. It's why I sometimes think that moving to Alaska is really my only option, eventually. (A certain Ms. Palin and Alaska politics have made me rethink that, but I'll definitely be going back to visit.)

I like to joke that it's because my thermostat is broken. But honestly, I'm not sure what it is that makes me seek out the frigid instead of the fiery, I just know that it extends to all areas of my life. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a complete wuss when it comes to spicy foods (though I have gotten better!) and can probably guess that my favorite thing about Costco is the cold-storage room where they keep the fruit.

The reason this comes to mind is that I just read a post by my friend, Twenty Four At Heart, at her blog of the same name wherein I got to interview her as a part of the Great Interview Experiment started by Neil of Citizen of the Month. When it comes to temperature preferences, Twenty Four and I are poles apart, but somehow we get along just fine. I hope you'll go over and read her responses to my questions and say hi.

Up, Up and Away

I saw the neatest thing on my way to work this morning. Hovering above the highway that's the worst part of my commute, just shy of the point where I have to make a decision -- either to stay on the bad road or exit to a better highway but with a nerve-wracking and dangerous merge -- was a zeppelin advertising the new movie, UP.

Seeing zeppelins is not a terribly unusual site around here because a company, Airship Ventures, started flying them out of Moffett Field in Mountain View last fall. They tend to fly by where I work, near San Francisco Bay, and it's always a nice sight. There's something really magical and relaxing, at the same time, about seeing them floating along.

But to look up and see the cheerful ad for the movie, with that enormous, iconic bunch of balloons just made me smile. A lot. Which is quite an accomplishment for me at that time of day. It seemed so right and perfect and made the drive a little less stressful.

P.S. In going to their site to get a link, I saw that they have a small feature about the UP promotion on their site. (There's a picture; you can see what I saw.) For one moment I thought, "Oh, cool, I can take a ride in it!" Then I saw the price. I'm sure it's worth it, but man! I think I'm going to have to save that for a really special occasion.

Coming Along

Just wanted to give a quick update on my leg, but first thank you for your kind words and support. I appreciate it.

So far it seems like I'm healing really well. I spent two straight days icing it, elevating it and staying off it as much as possible. This was fairly easy to do since I spent most of that time sleeping. One day back at work and then I spent the weekend relaxing and continuing to use it as little as I could. Monday I "upgraded" from the crutches to a cane because the crutches were hurting my hand and if I can't have my leg, I need my hand! But seriously, with the problems I've had with my right wrist, I can't take a chance on injuring it further.

Thursday I go to an orthopedic surgeon. I'm not certain whether it's good, bad or indifferent that they're sending me to a surgeon for a follow up instead of a run-of-the-mill orthopedist. I'll see what he has to say and go from there; I'm not about to fret over it. I just have to be careful not to overcompensate by straining my other leg, which I've noticed having little tweaks in the last day.

Now that I've put you all back to sleep, thank you and goodnight.

Ping: A Short Bite

Sometimes, I think I constrain myself here by expecting that a post needs to be a certain thing. This is odd because I'm the one always telling other bloggers, "Your blog is what YOU make of it! Don't let other people tell you what it 'should' be!" You'd think I'd take my own advice more often; no time like the present.

It occurred to me yesterday during a conversation with another blogger that sometimes I want to just say something without a beginning, a middle and an end. Something more like a tweet on Twitter. Without it, you know, being a tweet.

And because there's no sense in having a theme on one's blog if one doesn't use it, henceforth, such little gems here will just be known as a Ping. Perhaps not terribly original, but it will get the job done.

Today's Ping: I'm going to Seattle this weekend. I've been looking forward to it for ages and I'm excited to be on my way. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate and I'll be able to take and share some nice pictures. I hope you have a nice long weekend, too.