"If you can't be pretty, you might as well cause trouble" – Florence King
Feb 5th, 2011 by Meetzorp
Mistake: listening to Prince while reviewing concrete contracting documents.
Phrases like “coordinate with other trades as required for any penetrations, embedded items, or sequence of work issues” and “reinforcing steel to be furnished by Concrete Contractor,” suddenly become fraught with nasty, dirty double entendre.
I know Photoshopped lens-flare (and perhaps lens-flare in general) is considered incredibly naff, but I swear this happened by accident, and I don’t care how much of a technical fault it is, I think it looks pretty cool in this context.
I was going back through my Flickr account and deleting some crap pictures and generally doing a little bit of housekeeping and came back across some shots I’ve taken over the years that really pleased me. I might post a few of them from time to time, just because.
The one above was from a little cabin-fever ride Joel and I took one April day in 2007. It had been a cold and crappy spring and on the first nice day we’d had in ages, we got out and aired out a bit.
I’ve been fighting the cabin fever something fierce just lately. It’s been mostly snowy and cold and shitty for the past while, with two cruelly pleasant days thrown into the mix. Last Friday, it was up to about 55, sunny and balmy and just plain lovely. Then it was up in the mid 40s again on Saturday. It’s a sad statement on how acclimated I get to winter when I am simply giddy about a 45-degree day. It’s supposed to be around 40 again this Saturday, and I am looking forward to it with unseemly anticipation.
Anyway, on that ridiculously pleasant Friday, there was a fun and silly cycling event in the evening, another installment of the KC Sprints roller-races. If you’ve never done roller racing, you ought to try it. It’s such a fucking rush. Basically, it’s a stationary drag race, heads up against another person. You go balls out for about 30 seconds, and the adrenaline jolt you get out of it is like nothing else. Whoever spins their wheels the fastest is the big wiener.
I’d had a crapful day at the office – stuff broke, the government was dicking us around, the heat was still out, and the boss was cranky and spreading it around. But after one round on the sprint bikes, I was a new woman. Grinning, babbling, sweating, and going around trying to pester other women into joining the tournament.
My new racing name is “Walleye” thanks to Jevon, in reference to my striking strabismus.
We ended up with only seven ladies racing, but it was still BIG fun. It’s such a short jaunt that even going full bore, you aren’t really hurting much, or for long. The ladies’ bracket wrapped up with Caitlin and me going head-to-head. Apparently the race was close as hell. I don’t know – I always have my eyes closed when I’m up there. I won by a hair, but I ended up splitting my prize with Caitlin, as the jersey was extra small. She is, and I’m not. I kept the gloves, glass, and koozie. I think I earned them! I got a bonus prize from the lovely Tara – a pair of sweet palm-leaf earrings delicately cut from an old innertube.
They’re fabooo! And will be a feature player in my outfit for tomorrow.
Jan 27th, 2011 by Meetzorp
In Anne of Avonlea, Anne has a lousy day, which starts off when she wakes up with a toothache and goes downhill from there. She gets to work (she’s a schoolteacher at this point) the heating stove refuses to draw, resulting in a cold, smoky classroom. The kids are all plagued with midwinter cabin fever and spend the morning engaged in petty acts of screwing off. She then wrongly accuses a student of smuggling candy in class, confiscates the contraband, throws it into the woodstove and…KABOOM. It turns out not to have been a sack of candy, but instead a sack of firecrackers which sends the class further into uproar. The nadir of Anne’s day finds her enacting corporal punishment upon a student (a practice she swore she’d never resort to).
I’ve had a bit of a Jonah Day myself, though perversely I’ve halfway enjoyed it – or at least seen the humor in how many stupid things can go wrong in just one little day.
Today started out awry, ’cause I couldn’t find the coffee-pot. After about 15 minutes of fruitless searching around the house, logic lead me to the garage. Joel and Justin had been out there yesterday morning working on bikes and shooting the bull, and it wouldn’t be at all unlikely that they took coffee out there with them. Armed with a flashlight, I went out and gathered up the migrating coffee pot and a couple of travel mugs.
Then my commute to work was Murphy’s Bike Ride. I decided that instead of going around back of Kemper today, I’d take the shorter route up Beardsley Rd, forgetting that I usually take the back route in the mornings because there’s often a train blocking my way through the Bottoms.
There was a train blocking my way through the Bottoms.
And I was already out of the way to go ’round back of Kemper, so I had to cut over to Woodsweather, then go up through City Market, through downtown (I went straight up Main Street from 8th to 47th). And on my way, I managed to hit EVERY SINGLE, SOLITARY RED LIGHT between 8th & 47th on Main. Every. Light. I’m pretty sure there were 13 of them.
I ended up 20 minutes late to work! This is not the way I roll. 20 minutes. Reeeally!
The toilet decided that flushing was no longer part of its job description, so I had to take the top off of it and see if I could fix it. With the aide of a pair of pliers and a paper clip, yes, I could and did fix it.
Yesterday, my boss and I had a discussion about an unexpectedly high heating bill; he wanted to be sure that I had turned the heat down to its lowest setting in the basement and the unoccupied offices. While we were discussing the possible causes of the unusually high gas bill, I commented that I thought I’d been smelling gas, and that a leak could be the culprit.
Cue this morning, our accountant coming in and commenting that he’d caught an ominous whiff of natural gas on his way in and thought he heard it leaking at the meter.
So, I called the MGE emergency line, they sent a tech over, he found the leak, and shut off our gas.
Fortunately, it was a sunny, mild day and our office is located on the south side of a stout, brick building. It never got terribly unpleasant inside, but it remains to be seem if the gas service will be repaired for tomorrow. In the meantime, the boss borrowed some portable heaters and we shall see what the ‘morrow will bring.
Fortunately, now I’m home and things are looking up. I’ve got a glass of my favorite “mocktail,” that being soda water with 1/4 tsp lemon extract in it. It’s basically sugarless 7-Up. There are two unwatched episodes of Cowboy Bebop awaiting Joel and me for after-dinner entertainment, and we have some of the good noodles in the cupboard, so I am going to make a sort of Tom Yum flavored noodle stir fry, which is always pleasant.
Also there’s this:
This is the Condiment Song from the Zippy The Pinhead stage play, and my day improved about 8-fold after I watched it.
Jan 27th, 2011 by Meetzorp
I work on the Plaza these days, as a secretary for an architect.
In all of my time in living in Kansas City, I have always worked downtown. Down in the financial center or the government district. Even when I worked for the Metro, I was still in the downtown-ish area, east of the Crossroads on 18th St. Getting used to going South and West instead of North and East has been a bit of a challenge. And I miss downtown quite a bit. But the Plaza does have a few charms (aside from the swarms of Yuppies, the insane drivers, the clueless pedestrians, and the shitting horses).
Mosaic tilework, for example. Plus ships.
Polychrome terracotta trim.
Acanthus leaves.
The sky, viewed through pierced, moulded concrete.
And this guy!
It’s supposed to be really nice on Friday, so I’ll probably go out and shoot a few more pictures. I need to get one of Hall’s parking garage now that the Christmas lights are down.
Jan 24th, 2011 by Meetzorp
I pass by this church every morning on my way to work, and every morning, I get a wee case of the grumpies from this:
The first half zillion times I passed by it, I just thought, “oh, a phone box. You don’t see many of those around anymore. Darn convenient when you do need one, though.”
Then, one morning I looked again and realised that it’s not a phone box. It’s a prayer box.
Apparently the big J-man is on speed dial there. Just pop right in and give your Savior a little ringy-dingy. Seraphim are standing by.
I honestly can’t explain exactly why this thing annoys me so deeply, but every time I pass by, I grumble a bit. Mostly I don’t find it half as clever as somebody (or a bunch of somebodies) in the church obviously did. Also, I think it’s a bit of a ripoff to anybody who might need a phone.
Jan 23rd, 2011 by Meetzorp
Apparently we’re going to get our winter weather all in one go this year.
It didn’t bother to snow or do much of anything but be cold and uninspiring throughout November, December, and the first half of January, so I am guessing that we’re getting all of the saved-up weather in one big chunk now and expect to be more or less solidly snowed in until mid-March.
The very next day after I took the pictures of the robin infestation, this is what my ride to work looked like:
My internal monologue consisted solely of swearing.
Joel had the day off work and decided to ride in to work with me, hence the picture of me trudging my way up Penn Valley Park hill. The snow was so thick and oddly rutted that for about half the hill, all one could do was walk. And swear, either silently or aloud. At one point, before I fell off and ended up walking, I recall loudly declaiming the utter bullshitness of trying to ride through that mess.
Fortunately for me, it warmed up on Friday and most of the streets cleared out quite well. On Saturday, I went bombing down this hill at regular speed; the street was perfectly clear, though the hillside was still gratifyingly snowy. There were swarms of kids sledding down the side of the hill, toward the pond which I can only hope was fairly solidly frozen.
Ruby makes really funny faces when she’s out in the snow. She narrows her eyes to try to fend off falling flakes and it makes her look rather sardonic.
Minnie had sneaked out, but ventured no further than the back step. The cold, wet, squishy stuff on the ground really, really pissed her off.
Here’s how a bike looks after being ridden in fresh snow for about 10 miles.
I took a piece of blue plastic tarp to work. I am allowed to park my bike in the back hallway of the building I work in, so I rolled out the tarp and let my bike drip off on that daily, so as not to ruin the carpet.
My boss thinks I’m absolutely insane, but he seems willing to overlook that because I’m a fast typist and am actually enthusiastic about things like filing and fixing the printers.
Jan 23rd, 2011 by Meetzorp
Guess what I saw on Wednesday?
Holy crap! A robin!
Dude, some more of them!
No kiddin’! January the 18th and the holly trees* outside the building I work in were teeming with robins. There had to be a good 15-18 of them circulating around.
Now either these little dudes are crazy-go-nuts vanguards, or else they completely failed at migration.
In any event, it completely made my day to see them – and it made my day even better to have my camera handy. I haven’t been carrying it lately, but there was something else I wanted to take a picture of, so I had it with me for that.
But this was totally, totally better. I’ll show the other thing tomorrow. Tonight it is late and I am tired.
*they’ve got to clock in as trees. I know holly is generally considered a shrub or bush, but these plants are nearly up to the roof of a three storey building. I think that counts as a tree.
Jan 15th, 2011 by Meetzorp
Some while back, I took it upon myself to acquire about 3 yards of SCREAMING ORANGE corduroy. At the time, my intention was to replace my beloved and utterly worn out orange pants of yesteryear.
Yes, I am the sort of woman who will wear a pair of orange corduroy jeans so often as to actually wear them out.
So I was looking to replace them, and you have no idea how hard it is to find orange corduroy. I’d found some somewhere online and decided “here goes nothin'” and ordered it. It turned out to be several shades more obnoxious than my old jeans and I just couldn’t really feature making an entire pair of pants out of it.
So, of course, I made an entire suit out of it.
I am apparently constitutionally unable to make a proper, sensible, interview-appropriate, grown-up-lady’s suit.
The closest thing I have is as seen below:
Unfortunately, it is made out of a very heavy weight outing flannel, and while it looks sharp, imposing, and perhaps slightly gangstery, it’s also STIFLING to wear in a normal office setting. I wear the jacket as a coat in middling-cool weather. The pants don’t see much use as they have no pockets and pocketless pants are useless to me.
Then, there’s this ridiculously minty bastard of a ladies-who-lunch suit which I constructed in a desultory fashion over the course of about three years:
Not a-tall sensible unless you are Jacquie Kennedy, whom, of course, I am not.
My other suit is a rather giddy affair with bias-cut flounces and an *ahem* assertive plaid pattern:
One of these days, I swear, I’m going to buckle down and make something sensible and conservatively styled in a nice, coffee-brown herringbone tweed or similar. I really ought to, since my current “interview” suit is this dreadful, boxy Anne Taylor affair with a pencil skirt I can hardly walk in, and a long, insufficiently fitted jacket that makes me look like Strong Mad in pinstripes.
Jan 7th, 2011 by Meetzorp
I’m given to understand that pica, the compulsion to eat non-food items, is fairly common in children. Sometimes it is a symptom of a dietary deficiency, but sometimes it falls into a very broad category I like to call, “little kids are inscrutable little weirdos.”
I should know. I was an enthusiastic little weirdo myself at a point.
Obviously, I’ve already admitted my erstwhile paste-eating tendencies – at least twice. But I feel that I should elaborate a bit on the proper technique, since it’s considered rather chic to have techniques for things. There are techniques for brewing the ideal cup of coffee or tea, how to create the optimal slice of toast, and how best to savor a roasted potato. These techniques are often completely esoteric and entirely subjective, and so based on being full of useless and nebulous opinions, I’m going to hold forth on how best to eat paste.
Paste is best consumed in very small portions at a time, much like gjetost cheese, the flavor of which is best when it is shaved into paper thin bits. Paste comes with a built in server; the little whippy plastic spatula attached to the lid is perfect for scraping off a thin curl of subtly sweet and minty paste for the occasional snack. Under no circumstances whatsoever should you dig a big glob of paste out and nom it down like congealed Nacho cheese. The delicate flavor is entirely lost then!
Okay, on to other inappropriate things I ate when I was around 6 years old.
I’m not entirely sure why it occurred me to taste and then later devour the bindings of my Phonics workbook, but I expect it had something to do with the scent of the glue. It had a similarly sweet mintiness that I associated with postage stamps, Publisher’s Clearinghouse stamps, and Kindergarten paste, so I must have made the logical inference that it would taste similarly. It did. And so bit by bit, I picked shreds of the binding loose and savored that delicious, sweet adhesive.
Nowadays, I’m a responsible adult who doesn’t eat anything not intended for human consumption. People look less and less kindly upon the eating of school supplies the longer you’ve been out of school. Much like lifting your skirt to show off your new, super-cool undies*, you’re not likely to get away with certain behaviors once you’re older than 5.
*not my undies – though darned if they aren’t super-cool!
Jan 6th, 2011 by Meetzorp
I distinctly remember the point in my life at which I became aware of the concept of “free time.” It was in the first grade.
I’d taken to school with a typical childish exuberance. You got to be amongst other kids, eat as much paste as you could snaffle unnoticed, and learn stuff. Somehow, the teacher was going to show me how to read, and that was the main event as far as I was concerned.
I went to a one-room rural school from kindergarten through 8th grade:
Generally, there was one teacher and maybe 12 kids, which sounds like an amazing student-teacher ratio, but you have to bear in mind that this teacher might be handling children in every available grade.
This meant that the teacher juggled subjects and age groups sequentially, and would often start one group on desk work while taking another group through a lecture. If she had a student who was a fast worker, she’d have to give them extra work to do, or allow them to amuse themselves quietly until she could start them on something new.
In the first grade, before I’d learned to read properly, I was at a bit of a loss when I’d completed my worksheets, so I was allowed to mess around quietly with art supplies or go play with the toy supply that was kept on the stage at the end of the classroom.
Stage in use, Dec. 1982.
These were mostly intended for use at recess time on those bitterly cold winter days when it wasn’t even worth it to throw the kids outside for 20 minutes. Within the treasure trove was a 5-gallon bucket 2/3 full of Tinker Toys.
When I was 6, Tinker Toys were among my favorite things in the world. I’d blast my way through a phonics worksheet or rows of practice letters in order to get to the bucket of Tinker Toy joy.
One day, our teacher commented on how much I seemed to enjoy playing with Tinker Toys during my free time. The phrase “free time” was a new one on me, so I asked her what it meant, and she explained that “free time” was time in which you weren’t otherwise occupied with required tasks (though obviously in language that a first-grader would actually understand).
From then, I’d have to say that one of my top goals was getting and enjoying my free time. This meant that I was often a sloppy, slipshod student, and nowadays it means that I’m pretty unwilling to take on overtime if it’s not required.
I may have graduated from Tinker Toys to sewing patterns, but I’ve still got to say that being able to stick stuff together in my off time is a great source of satisfaction for me.