5.6.08

teedbeets

Well I haven't exactly been slammed but I guess just solidly busy and almost always occupied. Er, rather, when not actively occupied with work or New Place stuff/errands, I'm vegging, which is crucial also. Add to that the fact that it took the crazy cable company SIX days to fix my internet last week... Oh, sure, I have no real excuse for the days since then for not blogging or answering emails but still, it messed up my online rhythm or something, honest! I'll try to work on it. Meanwhile here's some nibbles...
  • Getting money back from numerous places - yay! Credit for aforementioned cable problem, plus I had overpaid Aub*rn water so I have $50+ coming back from them, $250 reimbursement from CU for moving expenses (covers about 30% but still it helps), $50 rebate from Lowes from the W/D purchase on its way. (All this plus the aforementioned reimbursement from Charter, yet to arrive but I have faith still.)
  • This isn't money but it is still proactive-y fun: my fridge here has those molded plastic shelves where there's a detachable railing without which you absolutely can't use the shelves and of course one of my little shelf railings was missing. I called the handy 800 number on the wall of the freezer to see about getting a replacement and after following a little phone number trail I had my new shelf thingy about 5 days later. Oh and there is money attached, kinda - the landlords are going to reimburse me so yay. Might do the same for the dishwasher if possible: the bottom shelf is wearing thru (the plastic coating I mean) and has rust spots that have got on a few things. Grrr. Anyway it's worth a try calling the company. Meanwhile I load much more strategically now than I did before (which was already interesting - many of the little divider pins are gone, too, plus the whole thing keeps falling out of the cabinet so you have to hold it in with your knee the whole time you're loading - the landlords are coming Sunday for a fixit day and this is on the list).
  • Joined the Meetup for upstate SC hiking and a couple in my neck of the woods have offered to let me ride with them for hikes since they are always either over towards Gville or when they're near us I never know how to find the rendezvous. Also the Sierra Club here is quite active and they have a trail cleaning morning on Saturday nearby which I'm probably going to (esp. since the fixit day agenda messed up my Meetup hiking plans for Sunday, but that's OK)
  • The Meetup group did an incredible hike last weekend (that I missed) which I really really really want to do whenever anyone comes to visit who is interested. You can check out the Blue Ridge Railroad Historical Trail here if you want.
  • Which reminds me of probably the very worst thing about not posting recently and not from home either: I have yet to share with you comments and pix from Andy's and my drive to Highlands, NC, and back on Memorial Day Sunday. I asked him to make us a googlemap so you can see the route we took - meanwhile I'll post pix from home in the next day or two. It was a really beautiful drive and anyone visiting who is interested it makes a nice afternoon outing.
  • Of course now it's in the upper 90's every day (but only about 1/4 the humidity of AL :) so Hal becomes a mobile convection oven for long drives under these conditions. The day of the aforementioned foray (kee) it was in the 70's - perfect.
  • Despite the higher temps I have finally started riding my bike to school, tho only every other day til I break in my muscles a bit more. Spike the hand-me-down Gary Fisher has new, more road-friendly tires now and even tho it would still be easier on Toulouse the road bike, I feel stupid on Toulouse when I (think I) am fat. I feel like I should be as streamlined as the bike if I'm going to ride Toulouse or something. So anyway I'm roughing it with the mountain bike - especially on the way back home: I was wrong about the habitual wind direction, it is against me most of the way home plus there's a very slight steady incline most of the way out the seemingly flat road to my neighborhood which is best appreciated when someone is really tired and hot! Still I'm pretty proud of myself riding again.
  • I just found out I'm not teaching second session so I'll check out the rec. ctr. then when I have more time, and hopefully get back to weights, plus I won't have somewhere to go every day on my bike and just riding around town is boring I think. Altho I could explore a bit around campus to really get to know it better; that's a great idea. I've already decided that in the winter when I am not up for riding due to weather I will start swimming again instead. That's a pretty decent yearly schedule: 1/2 biking 1/2 swimming.
  • I have new pix of the kits as well which I'll post soon or whenever the blog needs more color. They spend most of their time at the windows all around the pad, unless the AC is on. Partly because they act like it's chilly when the AC is on even slightly (they take on their bunched up/curly winter postures) and partly b/c I know they are bored when they can't hear stuff outside, and partly b/c I like to think of myself as super hardy heat-resistance-wise, I am only using the AC from when I get home to when I go to bed. There's probably a valid argument about its using more energy to re-cool the house each day than simply to keep it cool all the time but I think the difference is negligible and honestly they do get really really bored when they can't hear the squirrels chirping teasing them.
  • Not that there aren't indoor critters to be checked out... numerous little black spiders, lots of crane flies (finally I know what these things are called! my students always call them mosquito hawks, I only knew the French name up to now: des cousins -yes like the family member- but I found it by accident during a Google search earlier) and a fair amount of daddy long legs....es :) (lololol I crack myself up... "...nemesis... es" :). I will have to do some more research on the latter as to their actual capacity to harm. Sam went to inspect one the other day and when he sniffed it, the DLL started kinda bumping up and down in place, which I guess was to make himself seem really scary. Imagine my surprise when Sammers jumped back, snuffling and shaking his head for the next few seconds. Absolutely no idea what the DLL did that Sammers found so unpleasant. There are purported myths online about their having fangs "too short for humans" (yeah, whatever - even as a myth this is not exactly stellar) but no info on anything they might shoot out or a smell or anything. Supposedly Clems*n has a really good entomology dept. so I guess I'll have to write someone...
  • Last night Miss Lucy ran into the bedroom REALLY snuffling and drooling and shaking her head like CRAZY. I only slightly freaked. She seemed OK after a couple minutes. I have no idea if she found an even more interesting critter or if she happened to get a particularly potent tongueful of flea treatment from Sam. (They had their smears the other night so the last few days have been spent in hyper-grooming, often mutual, and the vet told me way back when that if they ate it it would make them spit and drool but I had never seen it happen.) I hope it was flea stuff and not some spider. She seemed fine the rest of the night and this morning, no swelling or anything anywhere...
  • Off to Barre Hall in a mo. Laurie S. is going to play with SeaMonkey with me on my laptop. No idea why it has been so hard to find a way to edit web materials but it has. The long saga (which I will spare you) finally led me to Laurie and SeaMonkey which is freeware I guess from the Firefox people and I'll finally be able to work on my homepage stuff from Aub*rn to get it posted here.
  • bai

2 commentaires:

ap a dit…

Thanks for reminding me about the map route.
--nn

Applecart T. a dit…

sea monkey sounds so cute, but i bet it is boring education software. even java sounds cool, but it is just a dull language.

i have always wondered about crane flies, too. so many kinds, wow. and, well, fun larvae, sure.

maybe they are just sticky to cats' noses? they are tickly.

back when i had my first cat, and we went overboard on flea treatments because the cat was a chronic case, poor thing foamed at the mouth and was all ill. i can't believe how dumb and naive we were (my poor mom included). it's just amazing how i've only learned in later life what a pesticide really is.

i guess that answers my question about why there isn't advantage for humans. would save me tons of grief camping. ticks are devils.