Good Reads

Well, I made an account on goodreads. It was kinda fun to try remembering the books I've read. Of course there are too many to list in one sitting, so I started with the ones I remember most liking. Apparently I am a fully qualified Zelazny fan.

Today is a gray and cold day and I have a cold. However it's not the worst of times.

I am also reading Gavin de Becker's "the gift of fear". I started somewhere in the middle and it was just exciting to read the accounts of close calls -- but that's not the purpose of this book of course. Starting over at the beginning, I found a section I really liked where GdB emphasizes the humanity of the violent (they are not inhuman monsters -- they are precisely human) and asserts that introspection is an evolutionary gift that allows us recognize threats from other people.  I mean, of course it allows us to recognize ALL KINDS of things in other people, but still.

FUN TIMES!

Now, where was I?

So, its about 3 years and 1 month since my last post. I thought to myself, "now that I have 2 kids with spontaneous diarrhea and 30 inches of snow to shovel, it is time to resume blogging."

So, here we are. It's UberBowl Sonntag. Is it better to drink beer DURING or AFTER strenuous snow-shoveling? These are the questions of our times.

*COUGH*

About ninety pounds of dust just flew out of this blog's lung.

D-reams

I had an interesting dream the other night. but-- before that -- we rearranged our bed so the AC could Flow. My dream:
with a few other teenagers we discovered a barn near the edge of the overgrown field. it contained what was supposed to be a nonfunctioning corn harvester. This was probably nothing like a real corn harvester and more shaped like a scooter on a big rectangular platform. We basically held onto the start button for much longer than neccessary and it started. We then made plans to harvest the corn in the stead of the actual farmer. We harvested and decided we'd need a good cornbread recipe.

In the morning, waking to pee, I got out of bed the way that I used to before we moved the bed. This ended up putting my head right into the nearby wall. I decided to do my post-pee napping elsewhere. I will probably get used to it later.

Today we went swimming at the local park featuring a river. Rivers sometimes smell rivery. Not entirely appetizing but definitely cooling. There were plenty of Puerto Rican families there as well enjoying dominoes, barbeque and the swimming. It still felt rather isolated for being at a supposedly public beach. Perhaps that had something to do with the proclamation that the "beach was closed due to strong river current". The river current was definitely considerable. But then again, it wasnt exactly white water rapids, or anything that would stop a reasonable swimmer. We decided if anyone came to tell us to stop swimming we would say in a falsetto voice "me no speak englais" Is that wrong? We got CHILLED in the water and went to the supermarket where we got even colder. I think we'll probably be back to go swimming in the river. It was the color of whiskey like many rivers and smelled a bit, but nothing so bad as to prevent you from going back. Not to mention that it is VERY close to our apt.

I have been experimenting with BASIL mojitos. I have lots of christmas present rum, and not many known rum drinks. Well. let me tell you. Some basil muddled with lime juice and brown sugar is a good start. Add rum and some fruity seltzer and you have a decent drink.

Peace.

later on,

last night was my first "full" shift at fedex where I wasn't being trained or assisted. When I got home I knew that I had to take the trash out and I was stumbling around feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. I know now that I need more than 1.5 liters of drinking water, my boots are uncomfortable, and I need some grippy gloves. While in training, my packages were all going to TX, OK, LA. Last night, I was in a different area ( with some different methods and practices I wasn't filled in on until it was too late) but the charts showing permissible zipcodes were much shorter and in the new england area. I loaded duffel bags and nascar standees to maine, a gajillion boxes of what I can only imagine are lightweight chinese trinkets to booth bay harbor, lots of coffee to connecticut.
Electric lawnmowers, guitars, bicycles, bundles of drill bits BARELY held together by torn shrink-wrap. The BEST packages by far are the boxes of green mountain coffee. They smell heavenly especially in contrast to sweat and cardboard.

Breakthrough

The problem I've been trying to figure out for a few months has been solved. It's frustrating how trying the wrong things for so long makes it seem hard, but when a correct solution comes up it is all so clear. It's time now to take stock of the things I've already done and to reorganize them, so that I don't have to spend ages rewriting my thesis when its contents have settled. Boo.
There are a lot of things I've done that I don't even remember!

Shawsino

I dreamt that I was at a shaw's supermarket, in the coupon casino. There were a bunch of green and orange slot machines into which I fed my coupons. Whenever you won, it would spit out a new coupon redeemable for cash or groceries. I got lucky and won about 990$ worth, and it tried to print out a laminated coupon. I tore it off and started looking suspiciously at the other gamblers as they caught on to my big winnings. Then I started to wonder how I was going to redeem my coupon, since there were no employees around.