Oops - I Missed Monday

I even had a topic in mind but then I wandered off. So topics:

Ants. Spring is waking up the insects even though it is still unseasonally cold. Thus I have little ants invading the downstairs bathroom. I think they come in where the pipes exit the house from the basement - which is directly below that bathroom. Ant traps are now in place.

Spiders. I had a total freak-out moment this weekend when I threw back the bedcover and a little spider scuttled across the bed! That's nightmare stuff! So I called Mr. Swami and we moved the bed and found where the spider had run to hide & he killed it. Stupid. Freaking. Spider. I had the window cracked open and the spider was able to squeeze under the pop-in screen or something, right into our warm bedroom! Now I can't get into bed without a full scale spider search.

Boats. We have decided to sell ours and buy a little off-road vehicle instead. We are kind of vague on just what we'll get, but DS is not much interested in boating on our river anymore and neither are we. Craig's list here we come!

Kids. My oldest DD is mad at me (again). Basically because she thinks I am not financially generous enough to keep bailing her out. It's a long, sad story.

Jobs. I applied for another little job to add to my stable of part-time jobs. Most of my stuff I do from home, but this job would involve having office hours twice a week. So I'd have to talk to people at their convenience and stuff. I'm so used to totally controlling my own time, lol.

Lunch. I haven't had breakfast yet so I may segue directly into an early lunch. In this case, that means coconut masala chicken and rice. I think the BLT salad middle DD made last night is all gone.

Dinner. More masala chicken. I made a huge big pot with some BOGO chicken thighs!

What topics are on yhour mind today?

GDMFing Snow!

It just won't leave me alone! I am considering a restraining order.

Oh lookie - more tiny little snowflakes just started to fall. $%&!&*)$$%!!! Although, the yellow forsythia blossoms look very pretty against the white freaking snow. Freaking, freaking snow!

Presenting: Hal

My new computer, which I am still getting used to. We don't have the camera software loaded yet - so no pics of Hal. But these are his vital statistics. *Disclaimer* Mr. Swami designed Hal - I don't know what most of this stuff even means.

Inter Q9300 Core 2 Quad Computer System

Cooler Master Centurion CAC-T05 ATX Case
80mm front and 120mm rear case fans
Antec Neopower 650W power supply
Intel D975XB2 motherboard
Intel Q9300Core 2 Quad 2.5 GHZ CPU
Intel retail box fan and heatsink
2GB Kingston DDR2 RAM
(2) 20X ASUS DVD+RW drives
Western Digital 150 GB, 10,000 rpm, Raptor Hard Drive
Western Digital 250GB, 7,200 rpm Hard Drive
Gigabyte GV-RX387512H, 512MB graphics adaptor
Integrated 10/100/1000 LAN
Integrated 7.1 channel sound
Viewsonic Q241WB, 24" LCD monitor
Logitech MX 3200 wireless keyboard and laser mouse
Logitech X-230 3 piece speaker system
Microsoft Windows XP professional edition O/S
Windows Key
Webroot Anti-Virus with Spysweeper
Nero & Essentials DVD burning software
InterVideo WinDVD - DVD playback software
TuneUp Utilities 2008
Acronis True Image 9 Backup software

Anyway, Mr. Swami is a very proud papa and he is busy loading other software and transferring data from our other computer. My contribution to this whole process was to select some lovely wallpaper. lol.

Padma

I love this woman. I wanted to find a photo of her knife dance, but I couldn't. They have about a 2 second Knife Dance clip in the opening credits that totally, utterly turns me on. She twirls around, her hair flies, her knives flash, her eyes flash. Hot, hot, hot! I love me some Padma.

Killing Time

I'm just killing time at home today while I wait for Dave to bring Hal. Hal is our new computer-to-be.

Today is my middle DD's birthday. Saturday I took her to Mall of America for a little shoe shopping. We got her a pair of Enzo Angolinis at Nordstrom. They are 4 inch strappy heels in a turmeric yellow color - very nice. Sunday we took her and her BF to brunch at the Lowell Inn in Stillwater where I ODed on bacon. Really, really good bacon. Their blintzes were good, their eggs benedict pretty good and their broccoli salad was excellent. I didn't mess with the other meats - sausage, ham, roast chicken, roast beef; I was busy eating BACON!!!!

Mr. Swami had yesterday off - and it was a perfect day! Temps in the 70s!!! We cleaned off the deck and arranged the furniture. Using our deck is always a race with the mosquitos and gnats. I figure we should have about 2 or 3 good, insect-free weeks before the nasty, biting things drive us to use the screen porch exclusively. We also had lunch at the Dock Cafe and did some river watching.

The garbage guys didn't take our recycling yesterday. I think the kids left it too messy. We have very fussy garbage people and they don't take messy looking garbage. I'm not kidding! Everything needs to be bagged and tied and squared off and sanitized or they won't take it. This gets to be annoying.

*waits for Dave*

What are you waiting for today?

Which Is Worse? Friday Edition.

Which is worse?

A. The pathetic, potty-mouthed morons of BB who are unable to sustain logical thought?
or
B. The pathetic, fork-fumbling morons of Hells' Kitchen who are unable to fry bacon?

A. A mammogram, wherein a comparative stranger in latex gloves manhandles your boobs one-by-one then squishes them between cold metal plates while saying "This may pinch a bit."
or
B. A gynological exam, wherein a comparative stranger in latex gloves sticks a chilled speculum up your vagina, cranks 'er wide and then says "Hmmmm."

A. Neighbours you don't like who let their golden retreivers run amok through your yard?
or
B. Total strangers who walk their dog (on a leash!) through your property like it's a public park or something?

A. Spilling hot coffee on your keyboard?
or
B. Spilling just a bit of nailpolish remover?
(I know the answer to this one!)

A. A loud fart on a crowded escalator?
or
B. A silent fart at a table for two?

Also? Feel free to add your own current which is worse favorite.

Potpourri Anyone?

In a priceless silver chalice.

You All Look Fat

Mr. Swami put a new monitor on our old computer, to tide him over until the new one gets built. This is the first wide screen we have had with a computer and it is set so whatever we are viewing fills the screen. Thus everything and everyone gets s - t - r - e - t - c - h - e - d way out. For some reason this doesn't bother Mr. Swami but it drives me friggin' nuts! I have been to people's houses where they watch TV with people looking like pulled pork - and I really don't like it. Wish I knew how to fix it.

Free At Last! Free At Last!!!

Yesterday the temps went over 50', which for this northern girl means HEATWAVE! So I left my jacket at home and went to the grocer wearing just a long-sleeved shirt. It was so heavenly!

Today? it is supposed to hit 68'! At this rate the remaining banks of dirty, grainy, disgusting snow will be gone by sundown. MWA-HA-HA!!!!!!

Page 123, Sentence #5.

"The high dose triggered his heart failure."

This is from The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury. I haven't read the book yet so I have no idea if this is an important sentence or not. Actually (waves at Boo) I just picked this book up from B&N's bargain table - $5.98 for a nice hard cover. I like to read hard covers.

I think everyone I know who does such things has now been tagged. Thanks for my tag, HD!

I'm Back! Didja Miss Me?

Huh?
Huh?
Didja?

After bloodying Mr. Swami last week, I turned my evil mojo onto our computer. So this week I have:
1. Burned out a monitor
2. Blown up the capacitors of a video card
3. Blasted an AGP port all to hell

So I have been offline. I did borrow my DD's computer to stay afloat on my home job, but I decided to not visit any of my favorite places so I would not leave a trail of breadcrumbs through cyberspace. She's good at breadcrumbs, my DD.

Thus, limping along - using an alternate port, a new video card and a monitor that goes all kablooey now and then - I will try to catch up with you guys soon!

Poor Mr. Swami

This time I burned him. He still loves me, but he's just -you know - more careful now.

Last week I impulse-bought a lovey new waffle iron, after not using one for years and years. And today (Sunday) he was looking forward to homemade waffles. Since waffles cool quickly I decided to warm our plates in a 200' oven, something I virtually never do.

When the last waffle was cooked (2 waffles each) I put the hot plated waffles on the kitchen counter and called Mr. Swami to come and get his plate. We like to eat Sunday breakfast at the little conference table in our office, so we each carry our own food and coffee in.

I didn't realize I had forgotten to warn him about the hot plates until he picked his plate up, yelled "!!!Yeow!!!Argh!!!Jesus!!!" and promptly slammed it back down while simultaneously jumping up and down. Then he ran up and down the hall flapping his hands in agony. Oops. Poor guy. I have become a danger to live with, I guess.

I put butter and a generous sprinkle of powdered sugar on my waffles. Mr Swami put raspberry jam and Mrs. Buttersworth syrup and powdered sugar on his. It was probably some kind of delayed shock topping reaction.

One Daughter, Four Cars.

My middle daughter (age 23) does not have the Luck of the Cars. *sigh* Yesterday we bid farewell to her fourth car.

She totalled her first car at age 16, just days after she received her driver's license. This car was Mr. Swami's former commuter car - a Toyota Corolla, I think. She and her BF of the moment were on their way back from Valley Fair (a local amusement park) when they rear-ended another car.

With your kid's first accident you are just so darn glad they are okay!!! You don't look at them all steely-eyed or cross-examine them too closely - just hug them and think thank goodness! So it took me a few weeks to figure out that her freaking boyfriend - not her - had been the driver. But by then we had already sold the lie to our insurance company and the court system, so legally it was her accident. Daughter was given the steely-eyed lecture then.

Since Mr. Swami had a new car he still liked we then bought her a used car, a Mazda of some kind. It was a dark, purply red color, sporty looking, loaded. She drove this car for a couple of years until it mysteriously died in her dorm parking lot at the U of Wisconsin. She must have neglected something critical because the car wasn't that old. I know she drove it hard because the car had multiple dings on the body.

So Mr. Swami got himself a new commuter car and gave her his old one. This car was totalled in a one car ice storm accident. Daughter was crossing the I-94 bridge over the St Croix River and hit an icy patch. The car did a 180, then slammed into and slid along the concrete median divider, neatly peeling off the passenger side of the car but leaving the driver's side intact and DD shaken but unhurt. Bye-bye car. Totalled, but an understandable accident.

At this time Mr. Swami had decided that he didn't like his Toyota Prism commuter car and wanted something larger with more pizazz and options - so DD got the Prism. This car took her through the rest of college and lasted until just this week.

The car had developed a cylinder problem. We knew about it, but DD didn't want to take the Prism into her dad's regular car shop because she thought they were too expensive. She found some backyard mechanic who was going to do the work but then he injured his leg somehow and couldn't take it in. DD went looking for 3rd option. We told her and reminded her that this was a critical system and needed to be fixed. We would pay to have it fixed - just take it to the damn car shop. She dilly-dallied and procrastinated and drove for a month doing nothing. So of course the car froze up one night on the freeway with a blown engine. Bye-bye Prism. We donated the car to a place that offers no-tuition mechanic training to low income students. We will get a PPV tax deduction.

Now DD is up commuter creek without any wheels. We will not be buying her another car, lol. So she and her BF are driving his mom's SUV which gets about 8 mpg and has transmission issues. At least she is looking for full-time work with a bit more urgency this week!

One daughter, four cars. *sigh*

schwup schwup

This ^ is the sound a snow-blower makes when throwing 4-5" of fresh, heavy slush.

This: ---> . . . . . . . . . . . . <--- is how far it can actually throw the cruddy muck. If it weren't for bits of dirt and pine needles I could shovel this stuff into teeny-tiny cartons, sell it as Italian Gelata and make a fortune!