Writing with Zette

Sunday June 28, 2009 Saw a wheelchair brand-named "Quickie." The thought came to my mind that it lacked the room for two people to have a quickie.

To the Lake Street Rainbow Foods, to pick up flyers.

On to Cub Foods. Picked up flyers, and checked prices on shelves; mostly in the "nothing over $2" section.

On to Target. Checked grocery prices. I now know that Rainbow's cheapest ketchup is a whopping seventeen cents less than Target's cheapest. (And thirtyseven cents less than Aldi's.)

Devout frugalists search out large numbers of prices at all the supermarkets they use, and keep their price books up-to-date. For a family of six, this might make economic sense. But an economist might suggest also looking at information costs: gasoline used in driving around to supermarkets, to begin with. And opportunity costs: what else could they have done with the time?

On the other hand, I find groceries a source of entertainment. Who buys special salt for Margaritas? Premixed peanut butter and jelly? Is Hispanic spaghetti (imported from Texas; maybe sometimes from Oregon) much different from ordinary spaghetti? Wandering around the supermarkets has benefits as well as costs.

On to Aldi, where I bought groceries.

Tuesday June 30, 2009 To Southwest Senior Center, to use the computer lab.

***Back home, I turned on the radio to see if there was any interesting news. There was.

On November 4, 2008, Al Franken had been elected Senator. So the Minnesota Supreme Court said in a unanimous opinion today.

Would Norm Coleman fight this all the way up to the US Supreme Court? At the beginning, Coleman had led by a slim margin; he said that Franken should do the right thing and not file a ballot challenge. But since then, as the battle went increasingly against him, Coleman hadn't followed his own advice.

Coleman gave a concession speech.

There are activists in both major parties who believe the United States has only one legitimate political party. The Republican ones are going to be very disappointed with Coleman.

Wednesday July 1, 2009 Used the computer lab at Southwest Senior Center.

***To the Wedge Coop. Used the ATM. Bought honey and Canola oil -- small amounts of each. I don't use them up fast enough to make larger amounts at lower unit costs practical.

***To HealthPartners Riverside, to pick up meds.

***On to the Aldi supermarket on Lake Street for most of my groceries.

A solar-powered pickup truck pulled into a nearby parking lot as I was leaving Aldi. It was topped with solar panels. Otherwise, it didn't seem much different from fossil-fuel-powered vehicles. Which I suspect was the point.

This one started out as a sort of dare from my writers' group. At our last meeting we participated in a "thousand ideas in an hour" exercise led by my friend Dale Emery. We did the exercise twice, once to produce a general story idea, and once because I'd mentioned I was coming up short on ideas for Story of the Week 50. Not much story was developed, but we came up with an interesting character, and that character was Thelma.

I quickly realized that Thelma's story, though, was larger than I'd originally anticipated. I hereby post Part One of her story here, and hope to complete the story in one more part. I'd hate to end my Story of the Week project on a cliffhanger. That would stink for both my regular readers, I think.

Anyway, here's Story of the Week 50. Enjoy. Only two more to go!

( PUSHING DOGS (PART ONE) (about 1,400 words) )

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kitchen is 90% done. SPare room 90% done. Bathroom DONE done. Bedroom: about 75% done. Livingroom: well more or less packed up, but kind of disorganized.

Might send the lad off for a couple more rubbermaid bins for kitchen stuff. But most of it's packed away now.

With one trip, we emptied a 3rd of the largest closet of stuff. The awesome vintage medical cabinet may not make the trip, it's a space-hog.

Going to pack up the kitchen tonight, and finish packing up jewelery stuff and desk stuff, clean the stove( a much easier task than I was anticipating, though next move? I'm PAYING for cleaners, so sick of cleaning ovens, I am.)

R"s mom goes in for minor surgery tomorrow for a pacemaker.

A funny finial atop the roof of a mosque by Kali Code:

my direct manager, who's been fucking awesome the time I've worked here, and stressed to the point of tears, is getting cupcakes tomorrow. Gonna get those started ( purple icing, her fave color) and pack the rest of the kitchen.

Monday: deal with the couch.Pack stray items, clean floors, pack some of the van.

Tuesday expected departure time is 10 or 11, but odds are we'll get out around noon or 1. Law of the road trip universe. Obtained a wee battery operated lamp/flashlight, bottled water, and new airbed, on which I had a nap, since.....

Sera woke me by crawling on the remnants of the dead airbed and batting at my back and head while I slept.

Make itunes playlist. Load torchwood season 2 on the pod.

Ok, work now.

New chapters up at edencycle for your enjoyment. Three--count 'em--three chapters! :)

Yeah, we pretty much passed on going to Amoeba today. Being that we finally got to uninterrupted sleep sometime around 1am, we're both too lazy to do anything other than some necessary errands, most of which we've already done. No big, we'll go at a later time...for now, some random updates:

--Most likely will go to Borderlands on the 18th (two Saturdays from now), as jaylake is going to be signing there and I really want to pick up Green.

--As said, nearly all errands done. Just need to do laundry, vacuum the apartment (which takes all of ten or so minutes to do--the good thing about a small place!), and run the dishwasher.

--I'm not sure, but I think the people across the street--you know, the guy I talk about who stands in front of his window for hours on end, either staring or talking on his phone, and I swear he's watching me--look like they're moving out. I can't be sure, but there seems to be packing going on in that apartment.

--In a related note, the quiet, unassuming woman that lived next door to us (not the couple across the hall) that we've only ever seen in person maybe three times since we've been here, seems to have moved out as well. We can see into her apartment from one of our windows and it looks empty.

--Also related, I'm seeing a strangely large number of empty apartments here. But to be honest, this is normal this time of year, when all the kids move out at the end of their college year. On the plus side, I've seen our management showing people apartments all the time, so at least business is moving.

--One of our local channels played How I Won the War last night. I'd forgotten just how absurdly weird this movie was... :p

--Amazon's having an anime dvd sale! YAY! Going to order the Paniponi Dash and Ergo Proxy box sets!

--I just started reading The Lord of the Rings, after not picking up the books since 7th grade (and even then, I didn't get far). I find it a bit unnerving that I found myself geeked out by the "Notes on the Text" and author's foreword about how he wrote it? I haven't even gotten to the novels themselves yet. And why do I get the sinking feeling I'm going to feel all this nerd love for the books? This may or may not be a good thing... O_O

--If I have the time, I may post a few more edencycle chapters. I'll let you know when I do. :)


That's it for now. Hope everyone has a swell weekend! :)

I've known for a pretty long time that late-medieval and Renaissance European plate armors often had really excellent articulation, but I've only recently become aware of the extreme degree that this articulation could be taken to, as in some of the harnesses discussed in this myArmoury forum thread. They even had full articulation for the crotch--and codpiece!

*jawdrops*

So ASCAP is considering making AT&T and Verizon charge for their ringtones on the basis that it's a "public performance".

Seriously? I think it would make more sense to charge those guys with the woofered-out cars and the motorcycles with the audio setups that drive past my apartment every day. I'd say that hearing some cheapass rap rattling my windows for minutes at a time while they're waiting for the light to change constitutes more of a public performance than six seconds of someone's ringtone.

We have the getaway vehicle!

Off to wallymart for a new airbed ( we'll likely be using one for a bit in TO till we buy a proper mattress) and some cheap travelsnax.

Wicked tired, but upon sleep and re considering the kitchen, the task doesn't seem so...ominous.

Gotta go leap into the shower, and then get rollin. ( I also want to see what sort of space we have. R bought a "sherpa" carrier for the top, which I think we can resell in TO after we're done.)

In honor of the fact that the sun is shining and it's the quintessential lazy summer Sunday afternoon, I am taking the day off.

I'm going to the store to get ribs to bbq in the crockpot, and shrimp for tomorrow night, and while I'm gone, I'm going to charge/upload things to my Ipod. I'm also getting a lounge chair.

Then, once I get home, the ribs are going in the crockpot, the chair is going outside, the sunscreen is going on, and I'm going to sew. I'm making a new overdress for GNEW. Actually, I'm remaking an older dress that I made wrong. So I cut out some gores and am adding them in. Should be pretty.

Now time to upload podcasts to iTunes.

Have a great day, all!

Ok, half the kitchen done. I can finish it tomorrow, the worst of it's done, at least. ( edit: did a bit more.)

Sunday and monday: hectic pack clean pack sort clean pack.

No problem.

Have some stuff I want to print before we say goodbye to the printer we're not taking, add some photos to my ipod and make a travel playlist of music since my pod randomly shuffles in a language lesson on me now.

Basically we're down to the remnants in the livingroom, and a sweep n mop or comb and vaccuum is all that's really left.

I think it's all do able sunday/monday.

It'll have to be, right?

Sleep now. Haul out more garbage later, ( it's piling up by the door), and repack the kitchen and my desk stuff, finish cleaning the kitchen sunday as well.

Monday; whatever's left, and we pack the van so it'll be easier to move around.

Tuesday, I assume we're leaving around 9 or 10 am. I don't think it'll be much later than that.

Oh, and yeah, one of the new supervisors at work up and quit.

Did I mention that they implied they wanted to train me for it, but never did, whilst training a slew of others, who all quit? Funny that.

Part of the issue here is that it's PT, and so people are juggling 2-4 jobs to make ends meet, ( thanks low wage halifax) and so when something's gotta give...

anyway. yeah. On to hopefully a less insane workplace.

I am SO exhausted.

Scrubbing down the kitchen now, and aside from the stove and floor, should finish that much before I crash.

I just want to be packed, van loaded ( and all our stuff fits!) and on the road.

I want to find an apartment in Toronto. I want to be living again, and have this 2 and a half year nightmare done with. It's SO close to being over.

We don't have a place lined up, unsurprisingly, people aren't going to rent sight unseen to us, and that's fair. Still kind of stressy, just the same.

Need to find the damn dustpan, and get more stuff taken down to the trash. We've gone through one box of 20 recyclable bags and working thru a second box, and nearly demolished a 40 bag box of large trash bags. not to mention what was hand carried to the garbage, paper, cardboard and common room recycling (books, excess kitchenry stuff) and the stuff we plain abandoned in the elevator lobby like everyone else does.

I really wasn't kidding when I said we'd pared it down, and yet, I think "Could we possibly do more?" perhaps. But not in this time frame. But it's a massive purge just the same.

R picks up the van sunday (later today) and is dropping off the monster easel, and that just leaves the damn couch.

Our air mattress has croaked, good timing on that. Too bad it couldn't have held 2 more days.

I'm anxious to get to Toronto. Visit the universities, make a plan, take language and math classes, find a gym, and a better job. Travel a bit more. Live.

I do not ever expect to be back on these shores again, I can't fathom any reason why I'd ever come back. Once we're gone, we're GONE.

There's no sense of real dread, only anxiousness, excitedness, optimism like I haven't felt in years.

and in 60 hours, we're driving out of this nightmare. I honestly wondered if the day would ever come.

Yup. 11:30pm and the streets are still PACKED with cars. We ain't gettin' any sleep for a while longer... :p

OH! And if I can figure out how to edit and upload it, I'll see if I can upload the fireworks I filmed using my camera. :p

Sera found an old stuffed eyore toy and is delightedly mauling it now.

Might as well, I don't know what else to do with it. ( it was new, with tags, and I have no idea how I wound up with it.)

Workroom is pretty much done.
Bathroom as well, more or less packed up.

( as in, just a few stray items to be herded out)

Kitchen will be done when I get back from errands.

Bedroom is about 3/4 done.

Livingroom is...kind of a disaster but its also a staging area for sorting. We got a good chunk of work done last night.

Ok, off to get foods n things.

Tomorrow we get the VAN!

Monday: pack up.

Tuesday GO!

Ow, My back hurts. I doubt I will reach my goal and finish the draft by tomorrow. I have new scenes that I need to add. But I am happy with what I got, so far.  It will be intresting to see how long the next draft will be. Maybe it will turn into a novel after all !

beard5 and I celebrate by getting up and going to the Concord Farmer's Market. We do this every Saturday that we are both in town: we go and get coffee (for him), tea (for me) and we split a bagel or a sandwich (today it was a BLT to die for on toasted sourdough bread - yum!). Then we go to the Farmers Market. Today, I got new potatoes, snap peas, broccoli, donuts and a corkscrew. He got donuts and fudge (the lamb folks weren't there, so he couldn't get lamb). It was a good morning.

Now I'm home, and cleaning. My living room is cleaned and vacuumed. Now I'm working on the dining room. My only slight sorrow was that none of the flowers spoke to me at the FM - maybe I'll see if I can get some pansies from my overgrown flower bed. Oh, and I have to thaw the salmon! Dinner tonight is salmon with lemon sauce, roasted broccoli and rice. I think I'll have Argus and Dad pull the table out and we'll eat outside tonight.

Have a great 4th, everyone!