A BIG job

Feng Shui

My New Year goal is to Feng Shui my house. The thing is the 'How to Feng Shui your House' wasn't a Christmas gift to me, but to Penguin. I think it was for him to apply to my house. I got the 'How to sell stuff on EB and Make a ton of money'. These seem to have a common theme to me.

My first self-appointed task is to weed the Christmas stuff. I weeded last year, but now it's garbage bag time. I will not part with the 'vintage' ornaments, but I will rid the rest. I promise.

I'm not sure about the power E-Bay selling. I would think it would take time to follow the sales, the payments, and package and mail. Maybe after I'm 'Shui-ed'. I have a hard time throwing away perfectly good items that will just fill up the landfill. SOMEONE could use them.

Our house is also a storage facility. I have NinJa's things that he will want down the road down the way. I have items from my previous Media Center. My new library doesn't have the same layout & I'll have to weed there too. I haven't been at WP a whole year, so I don't really know what I'll end up using .

I will try to work on a small area at a time with garbage bag in hand and nibble at the job. Hopefully the next time anyone visits they will notice the transformation and how much better CHI we have.

Shui-ng!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas to ALL!

Impressions

MY Impressions

-Walking is a race. No matter how fast someone is walking, another person HAS to be in front.

-Power shoes. You have to wear shoes that make noise. The loud click-clack of shoes hitting the ground command power.

-It seems that everyone loves to wear black. Dreary weather......dreary clothes.

-A lot of males in NYC are gay. "you know, twisted. You know what I mean".

-There aren't enough places to sit down.

-Pictures of NYC don't show all the people. How do they do that? Rockefeller tree shots don't show the throngs of people milling about.

-The Rockettes are great. Their show was great. The building was great.

-The transit strikes stinks. It costs us hundreds of dollars to deal with it.

-Bodegas are great. Quick and close everywhere. Open when others had to close when their workers couldn't get there because of the strike

-Bodegas are awful. Over-priced toiletries and limited items.

-People are surprisingly friendly, like the lady and her daughter with a Christmas tree on the subway and strangers helping us with train/subway connections before the strike and the hotel/concierge folks after the strike.

-Hat hair is unavoidable. It mattes the fluffiest hair.

-Cold weather is not bad, it's the wind. The wind cuts right through anything that you wear.

-Inside buildings, you will sweat to death. First there are the trickles of sweat, the peeling off of the hat, marshmallow-fluffy coat and scarf, and finally toting them around knocking into displays and people.

-People won't avoid walking into you. It's like a game of chicken. YOU'D better move cause they won't.

-No matter how hard you try to hold your camera still, pictures will still come out blurry. Luckily, others in your group have better luck and it's easy to share digital pictures.

STRIKE?!!! YIKES!!!!

A transit strike in NYC? Oh, great! Cabbies may stay home. Now I'm scouring the internet for a transit strike survival guide.

We're going Sunday from So FL and our biggest chore has been trying to get clothing that will be warm. Not only will we need to stay warm, but looks like we will marathon walk. Blaine says if the Macy's Day parade can walk the distance, so can we. Yeah, Right. Remember, I'm the one who will be so bundled up that I'm going to look like a sausage with legs.

We think its cold when it gets down to .......50 degrees. I've been checking the daily temps. Highs in the 30’s...low in the 20's.

Union Prepares to Shut Subways. The transit union has begun instructing members how to shut down the subway system and keep it locked down for the duration of a possible strike.

! Penguin wanted me to ‘get conditioned’ since Thanksgiving, but I don’t think he thought we’d have to walk this much!

My thoughts…..give them anything they want.

We was ROBBED!

It's gone. Stolen! Sometime last night Penguin’s nano-pod was taken from his car. All the joy of the week-end was robbed too.

Questioning. Interrogations. First from the family. Are you sure you didn't take it to the party? Is it in your room? Did you look under the seat? Then by the police. Did you lock your car? When did you notice it missing?

The police make you feel really dumb. Why don't you know the serial number? The model number? Was the car door locked? Something that's always routine that you do like locking the car door become hard to answer. Must not have locked it......the nano pod is gone.... and no sign of forced entry.

Ma'am, I must ask these question in order. Ma'am, we only put them in by serial number. Ma'am. Taking prints is really useless as anyone can touch your car, but that's what THEY want us to do.

Ma'am, why do you have a camera by the front door? What is it's purpose. Suddenly, I feel like a criminal. Uh, we wanted to watch the garbage trucks go by. You want to watch garbage trucks? (Wonder what the officer thinks we have a camera for? Something illegal I'll bet)

Guess you can add Nano-pod to his Christmas list. I feel awful and I know he does too. Merry Christmas.

Christmas Goals

Oh my! I have goals. After reading ninJA's post I will wear wonderful shoes to NYC or never complain. Actually my shoes didn't hurt my feet in September, it was walking miles and miles and miles and miles with the encouragement that it 'was just a little bit more'. Translate that into a couple more MILES. Or only another block.... or two or several more MILES. When I followed some really young things wearing very high heels trucking down the street, I had to mentally switch to my internal Marine Hymn cadence. For some reason that helps. At least I kept up with them then.

Then the steps not the shoes were a concern. 20 steps down into the subway......25 steps up on the exit. And you better move quickly or you will get passed on the stairs. Knees don't like any of that.

Right now my left knee doesn't like me and it's the 'good' one. It's swollen and sometimes buckles when I walk. The book fair the last two weeks at school didn't help. Totally on my feet all day long with the little ones who pick up 5 books with only 3 dollars to spend.

I did buy a coat, but if ninJA is cold with his new coat I'm going to be cold. I will pack to layer and will look even fluffier. If we fluff enough, being hit by one of those cars shouldn't hurt. I will bounce to the pavement and roll to the gutter where my hapless family will struggle to get me to my feet as my knees don't work and I 'don't do down'.

Goals. GLORIOUS Goals.

I hope our reservations stick. I don't like the sound of 'THE MILTON'. Sounds like a typo.
This isn't McDonald's it's MacDougall's. TO-TALLY different.

GLORIOUS Goals.
I will not complain. (much)
I will be positive. (Remember I AM a-negative so it is genetic)
I will not scream at traffic.
Glory Halleluiah!
Peace on Earth, Good will Toward Men.

LOSTCast

The p-cast is half again as long as the original show! I keep looking for the skip button that TiVo has to hustle it along when they fall to talking and joking around. This last cast also had them
dealing with copyright issues. Couldn't play the song he wanted to end with and that they had gotten warning before. Good media issues.

Can't Wait

The holiday marketing seems to be working. Can't wait for Christmas to get things. Want them NOW.
Got a chain saw. Gas powered this time. The electric one was useless when we didn't have power after the hurricane. Gas ones weigh more, but we got the smallest one. It's a Husqvarna. Me too. Never heard of them, but the guy at Lowes said it was professional level. Going to work on the downed trees in the backyard so that it can be carted away by THE CLAW's 2nd or 3 time around. After that we're SOL.

More Post-Wilma

Random Post-Wilma observations:
1. There are SO many dead leaves on everyone’s lawns. Lawn maintenance crews are so used to blowing grass clippings in the street that when they do it with 'Wilma' leaves, the entire street is covered. STOP! There is no place for all of those leaves to go! Suck it up and rake them.

2. There is a huge 5 acre lot that the city is collecting the Wilma trees and vegetation. It now resembles a pyramid. There are 2 yellow backhoes working the material. Placing and tucking. Well, it is now terraced. It has at least 2 steps with a backhoe on each level. On the south side of the lot is a mountain of mulch. In the morning it is either smoldering with potential fire or steaming with water.

I wonder if the city will sell it to a mulch company. We cannot possible use all of that mulch and the debris pile has hardly been touched. Maybe we can get some money back for all of the work this is going to take.

3. With out trees along the canal down, we now have bright lights shining where they've never been seen before. And who is responsible for getting those huge branches out of the canal? How can it be done?

4. When the power was out and we had to rely on flashlights and oil lamps, we found that we had names for the different lights. 'Flicker' was the little tea light size Halloween safely light. It flickered like a candle. 'Cranky' was the no-battery flashlight that all you had to do was crank it up for a minute and it would last hours. 'Goosey' was a LED light that I bought from the DARE vendor at school. It has a goose-neck. 'Jim Beam' or 'Beamer' was the huge and heavy spotlight that could blind a person. Loved them all, but 'Flicker' was my favorite. It was the going-to-the-bathroom light in the middle of the night light.

Claw

Wilma has hung around much too long. It's been 2 1/2 weeks since she blew through and Tuesday was a milestone. "The Claw" came through. Our neighborhood has had a 6 foot hedge lining both sides of the street made up of downed tree debris. When first piled out next to the curbs it looked like a living thing, but weeks later everything is brown. The leaves are blowing in the streets and at night without any streetlights if feels like one is driving through a brown tunnel. The scraggly twigs stick out and scratch the car finish and sometimes you have to take turns with oncoming cars to get through narrow areas.


That changed Tuesday morning at 6:30 am. "The Claw" came. This event inspires crowds to gather and cheer. The trucks are huge and the giant arm reaches out and takes huge bites of debris. The operator delicately maneuvers each bundle into the huge truck and tamps it in. We had spotted “the Claw” early last week several streets over. It didn’t come to us and in fact seemed to totally abandon our area. What did we do to offend the monster? This week we were on the ‘good’ list.

IB

So South Florida is recovering from Hurricane Wilma. Our street has 10 foot high walls of plant debris lining the street. I B seems to be burning it twig by twig on his patio in a chiminea/firepit. He leaves it burning totally unattended and drives off with leaves and branches piled up around the base of the thing. It shimmers with the heat it gives off and a trail of smoke curls up to the tattered screens drooping so far down it practically touches the top of it. I almost forgave him his IB title when he shared generator power with us, but he has again shown why he is an IB with this latest stunt.

Rose is a Rose is a Rose

Golly, everyone has my names. I thought I was unique, but even choosing a blog name showed me that everyone else is 'me' too. Where in the world is Iris Blue? Lilly Rose? Queen Bee?