Summary

What follows is a summary of what I've posted over the past few weeks on my previous blog. Since that blog will be closed within about 24 hours, this is where the summary goes:

Nov 21,

So I'm getting this new roommate, and she's really cool, and now she's reorganizing my house, trying to put things together so it won't be such a mess. She cleaned my kitchen yesterday. I was at a wedding. I came home and I was in total shock. My kitchen hasn't been that clean since I moved in!

Nov 22

Mess of a day.

Last night, I went to pick up the books for my neice's Bat Mitzvah. There are supposed to be 5 - 1 each for Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkos, Passover, and Shavuos. There were 5, but 2 of them were for Rosh Hashana and no Yom Kippur one. So I have to go back tomorrow - Only I can't go back tomorrow, because we're doing thanksgiving tomorrow.

("Let's do the time warp again")
I swear, doing Thanksgiving on a Wednesday... soooo weird... it took out all the oomph -- I really wanted to bake pumpkin pie, but for a Wednesday?! I'm just not sure about this...

Anyway, so I got home late and my new roommate O. was at my house, cleaning up. I grant you, it's really nice, and we ate dinner together and that was really nice too. But she didn't leave until 10:30, and I still needed unwind time after that, which meant I didn't get up at 5:40, which meant I ended up getting the 7am bus, and I was late for my Pilates class (oh, the pain) and then after pilates, I was wandering around and I ended up missing my train to work, so I took a cab, but only after I'd already run my train ticket :( I guess I'll try to get my ticket refunded, but I'm not too hopeful.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Morning again... why?

So I tried a new way to work. Was quick, but expensive... got a ride in to the area with a neighbor and took a cab from his workplace. ended up costing twice as much as the usual way.

I oughtta buy a bus map. There has to be a bus from around there.

Anyway, the latest is that O is moving in tonight, which is pretending to be thanksgiving in my family. We'll be having our traditional turkey and potato kugel, I guess.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Turkey Day

Can you believe I have to work on Thanksgiving?!
It's a crime.. I swear, it's just not right!

Thanksgiving... of yesteryear.. I remember waking up early early in the morning to make cranberry sauce. We always made the simplest kind. 1 cup cranberries, 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar. boil.

I remember standing on the stepstool in the kitchen, stirring the little berries in the water until, one by one, they popped out of their skins, turning the water pink and foamy. When they had all popped, we'd let the water boil just a little longer, let the pectin start thickening the water, and the berries color it that beautiful deep red, and then we'd turn off the flames, pour it into a bowl, and put it in the fridge.

This year, we had canned cranberry sauce. On Wednesday.

I should still be thankful. I was with my family.
There was a lot of joy. I have a lot to be thankful for this year.

My new roommate moved in yesterday, and she brought a tv and a dvd player, plus a nice stereo. Her parents may be difficult, but they didn't skimp on that stuff. Not that I can complain... My parents did provide the house we're living in...

She also brought me cookies. Raisin cookies. Really yummy ones. :)

I actually should have found out if she has weekend plans, and if not, if she wants to make them.

Insanity abounds

My roommate, O., kept talking about this guy she'd gone out with and she told me that she doesn't want to call him and she wants him to call her. me.. I have no patience for these things.
He has three cds and a book of hers. I called him and asked him for her stuff back. Not that I give a hoot about her cds or her book, but it gave me an excuse to make him call her.

Had a weird Sabbath - went to my parents for dinner and to O's parents for lunch. It's hard... pretending that everyone's one big happy family and stuff. I think next week we'll stay in and invite J & L (and C.G.) for a meal. I like cooking, and I like having guests.

Anyway, am now trying to figure out whether it's worth the effort of helping my father burn his goldarned dvds or not.

Probably isn't.

Swoosh

Swoosh. I finished a whole kilometer at the pool this morning. Plus I'm down to just one dead box of stuff in the apartment.

Did loads of laundry this week. It's nice to have clean clothes all neatly stacked and waiting... even if I have to stack them and put them there to wait.

Last night, I made something really yummy with zucchini (courgettes), sweet potatoes, onions, and some olive oil. I'm thinking I oughtta make loads more today. It was kinda like eating french fries only with about 1/10 the oil and more flavors.

If you want the recipe, lemme know.

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

boxing day

It isn't boxing day, but I wish I could box with someone. I'm so tense and my joints are very painful today. I wish that fibromyalgia would make me look different. I wish people would see how sick I was.

There's this great site called "but you don't look sick" about fibro/cfs/lupus... I highly recommend giving it a read, especially if you or someone you've heard of has fibro/cfs or lupus.

My fibro is really bad today :(

I use an ace bandage a lot to keep joints from hurting too much... bt it doesn't work when the worst pain is in my neck... Literally my neck is so bad that I'm not even able to look at the screen as I type this. I hope I don't discover I was one letter off for this whole chunk of typing.

Actually was able to type okay. Only had two small errors It's funny to type while looking at the ceiling. (my boss just came in and laughed at me.)

But the pain is so bad that no one could possibly understand the need to do anything possible to ease it. I wish I could always type this way without looking at the screen.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Thanks for the Rotten Orange!

No really. I'm not being sarcastic!
I really appreciate whoever let that orange rot. I mean the one that became penicillin.
Just 2 doses, and already I feel almost human.

Imagine another 2 doses. I might feel something close to healthy.
Anyway, better get moving on all the work I have today.

There's soooo much to do.

About the recipe:
(for 2 people)
4 zucchini, 2 medium sweet potatoes, 1 onion.
Cut the zucchini and sweet potatoes lengthwise, sort of julienne style, but a more slice and less square. (zucchini should cut into 6-8 strips).
cut the onion into chunks (8ths is good enough).

put all of the above into a baking pan.

mix 1/8-1/4 cup olive oil with salt and granulated garlic. drizzle over the veggies.

bake at 375 for a while. Every 15 minutes, drain all the olive oil into a dish and pour it back over the veggies and mix the veggies around.

When the sweet potatoes are mushable with a fork, it's ready. You'll probably need to add a bit more salt and garlic to make it very yummy.

That's it.
not so difficult.
right?

Enjoy!

Sweet Sweat.

I have strep throat. That's why I didn't post on Thursday, Friday...

Finally got to the emergency clinic Sat night after Sabbath, and they gave me a swab test. now I'm on Pennicillin.

I'll be writing press releases soon. I like that.

I am so tired though. can't stop sweating. I hate being sick.

Monday, December 05, 2005

Deep Thoughts for the Day

So here are my deep thoughts for the day...
#1. A bus is a mobile petri dish.

#2. There's something terribly wrong with the fact that I'm jealous of a street person...

On the other hand, when I'd been up for over an hour, sitting on a germ-infested bus and
trying to sleep sitting up, he was still curled up under a quilt. I'll grant that said quilt was
outdoors, but he was horizontal and there was a quilt. That is enough to make me jealous
these days.

#3. It was deeply satisfying to watch the woman who cut in front of a line of cars get stopped by police. She had been just behind us. When we passed, the police were showing no signs of letting her through anytime soon.

I had to leave early yesterday for a meeting... (I left at 5:40pm to get to an 8pm meeting, and I didn't have much time to spare) and my boss was displeased. So today I'm in early, planning to leave nice and late and get a lot done in between...

So as Dr. Phil says "Get out there and take on the day." Oh wait, I think that's Dr. Laura. Not listening to/watching either, they seem very similar, except that Dr. Phil is into weight loss.

hmmmn.

okay, bye guys

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

I bet you didn't know I could write German. Well, I was born in Germany.
(which once led to someone asking my mom how they communicated with me - after all, I was German, and she didn't speak much German.)

Actually, since someone will probably someday notice that I've "written" in Spanish, French, and German on sites I've done, I should give credit to babelfish - Altavista's cutest toy.

So back to German, I have this uncanny ability with German... I don't speak it, don't understand it, but still, on the few occasions that I've watched "who wants to be a millionaire" in German, I've gotten more answers right then my parents (who know a good deal of German) or the contestants (who supposedly speak German). Which is not to say I haven't flubbed the easy ones, but I seriously suspect that somehow I pick up on very subtle signals from the host, because knowing the answer (or the question) really doesn't come into the equation. I wonder how I'd do in Japanese...

Today, I'm feeling more alert than yesterday, but still a bit envious of Mr. Quilt-on-the-Sidewalk. If I continue like this, I'll go to the gym tomorrow or Thursday. It would be nice to get some exercise.. well, not really, but we can pretend.

So, now that I've finished writing sites for 16 different countries, I can move back to good old 'American' sites.

The marketing writing course I'm supposed to be taking is delayed by another week, which is just as well, because I have so much on me that it's nice to be able to procrastinate legitimately.

I haven't given in my thesis proposal yet. That should get top priority. My mom wants me to start dating again. It's not that I'm against meeting someone nice. It's that I don't know if I have the strength to meet all the not-nice that's out there. I took a break for a while after some really rude brush-offs, some of which were definitely related to my weight, but I'm down almost 9 kilograms since then. I still have another 29 to go, and I can't seem to break this particular number that I'm at. :(

Today, I had my herbalife shake, and then fruit, but now I'm seriously starving. I'm like... jonesing for food.

I have sushi for lunch :) It's from the supermarket, so I'm not expecting too too much, but I'm still looking forward to it, especially since they use Japanese ginger (white) instead of Thai (pink). (thanks, Ira, for explaining the difference.) I don't like the pink stuff at all.

Anyway, I gotta get some work done on sites, and then start preparing a PAD file for the new launch - PADs are really weird files that include your whole product description as an XML file, and then you make just one file and you can link it to a whole bunch of places that carry software descriptions. It's pretty cool. If you make software and you want to know more about PAD files, contact me privately.



Answers to Your Questions

Gavriel: apparently the sushi had nothing to do with hunger. It neither caused nor stopped the hunger. It was also a particularly poor example of the sushi species. The fish was not fresh enough, and there was no avocado (I *LOVE* avocado).

Today's news... There's not much to tell, really. I woke up this morning, and was not so deeply jealous of Mr. Quilt.

I found an irregularity on my bank statement, but it turned out that it was a legit charge :(.

Then I got called and told that my credit card had bounced on payment for my dog's food. I know why, but it's annoying. I need to get a higher credit limit, because every time I buy anything big, then it kills my limit for the rest of the month. good thing I have 2 cards. Otherwise, I'd always be stuck...

hAche: you asked where I swim. Yeah, Holmes Place, Azrieli

Anyway, in other news, I apparently have an atom feed. Now I have to find out what to do with it.

That's all for now.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Apples and Trees.

In this day and age, it's so easy to eavesdrop on people.
No one even thinks about the person next to them, or behind them on the bus.

So this lady was sitting in front of me on the bus. Her cell phone rings, and she's apparently talking to her daughter. All I can see of the lady is her frosted salt-and-pepper hair. So Frostie is talking to the kid, and she says:
I understand, but I think you've missed too much school
I believe it hurts
No you do whatever you want. Just tell me later.
You should go to school.
and so on...

And I've had this conversation with my mom a zillion times, and I'm sorta sympathizing with both sides, but I'm not really that interested. Frostie hangs up, and I go back to my semi-sleep state. Then Frostie's phone rings again. This is a wicked long conversation. I'm pretty surprised that the guy next to me, who happens to be exceedingly cute looking, is still able to sleep. I'm fully awake by now, and I can't even focus on my soduko puzzles* so that I end up listening to the whole conversation. Most of it is blahblah. Nothing interesting. All I know about this lady is that she pays more for her hairdresser in two months than I do in a year, that she has a daughter, and that she probably lives within a few miles of me. The conversation doesn't tell me much else, which is fine, because I really don't want to talk about people who can be identified anyway...

So she's talking, and I hear her say "yeah, we just have to pay some amount of money and then we'll be done." pause "there are two papers, but I'll just get someone to write them. I can't be bothered." pause "No, I could go to the professor, but it's not worth it, I'll just pay someone to write them for me."

I'm thinking... I wonder why her daughter doesn't value school much.

* Soduko joke.... So this lady's really really hooked on soduko. She's so addicted she finally calls her doctor. She says 'you have to give me an appointment. I'm totally addicted' and he says 'okay, I can fit you in between three and four.'

(apologies for that poor attempt at humor ;) )

When Can I be Hungry?

So... it's 12:43pm and I'm hungry. Only thing is, office culture frowns upon lunch before 2pm. Not quite sure why that is. It just is.

More than that, I could order in, but everything I'd want to order in is fattening. I have a very very strong hankering for chicken nuggets and fries... meaning all my calories before I'm even halfway through lunch.

Today the bus was too full, and some woman decided to put her tush (which was even bigger than mine - and that takes some doing) in my face. I had a very hard time getting her rear out of my personal space...

I'm reading a new book, entitled The Star of Kazan, and I'm really enjoying it. It's slated as young adult, but I'm enjoying it plenty. If it stays in its current tone, I will pass it to my neice (aged 12) though. I like to preread books before I give them to her. I think I'd pre-digest her food for her if I had the option. (I'm a little over-protective). The story is about this girl who is found in a church by two maids, and they raise her, and then her mom comes to take her back, and overall, you feel like she'd be better off if she was back being raised by maids. Apparently, there's more intrigue to come.

There's something reminiscient of Heidi, and maybe a little bit in the vein of Little Lord Fauntleroy.

Monday, December 12, 2005

Nostalgic...

So today, I'm trying to start up the company's google ad-words campaign. We'll have to see how that works.

My brother is actually going to be coming in to work on that with me, since he has expertise in the field.

Anyway, the guy with the quilt seems to have moved. He wasn't sleeping by the bus stop the past two days. I kind of miss him. oh well.

Took the early bus today and the cute guy from last week wasn't on it (or I didn't find him).

But all day, I've been feeling wildly nostalgic for all kinds of things. Mainly for all kinds of people I dated a million years ago. Like some guy named Joel. I went out with him ten years ago for a month. Why is he still in my head?

Funny, I looked him up & now I'm pretty sure I know where he did his master's degree (with honors)...

I sent him an email. we'll see if he answers.

Anyway, I'm just seeing familiar faces everywhere. it's so strange.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Lost my Virginity

Okay. not THAT kind of virginity. If you lose THAT kind at 27, then you don't tell anyone, because either they'll think you're a slut for having pre-marital sex, or they'll think you're a big loser cuz you didn't do it before that. So no. not that.

I went to my first Tupperware Party. Not only that, but I actually BOUGHT tupperware.

Well, not really. I just bought a tupperware brand can opener. It's frightfully expensive, but I'm now fully ready to trash my fourth can opener in 2 years. If I'd bought tupperware to begin with, I would have spent about the same. except I'd have a working can opener. Of course, if you're British, then it's a tin opener... but the concept is the same, except for not believing in tinned beef being a food product (or sardines, for that matter).

Home on the Range

Today, I am blessedly home. Of course, that doesn't mean that I don't have a million things to do...

I have loads of cooking to do, and I have to get a package from the post office.

I think I'll wait to get the package when a parental can drive me.

Which means, we start cooking NOW.

I have loads to make. Since O is a vegetarian and doesn't know how to cook... meals are always a challenge... I'm planning on making a veggie chulent and a veggie stir-fry. Plus I'm having guests who eat real food too, so for them, chicken with potatoes, salad, maybe rice...

so I oughtta get to work...

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Holiday Blues

Actually, my fertility is in no way a part of my holiday blues, but I couldn't find anything useful about being single during the holidays.

I think I'll just skip the holidays this year, although I did find three books for my wishlist.

I was sure Stephen King had retired... Turns out, it's just not true. He has two new books out: The Colorado Kid and Cell v:shapes="_x0000_i1026"> not to mention co-authoring a new collection, Dark Visions. Unbelievable... I thought he'd really packed it in when he ended The Dark Tower v:shapes="_x0000_i1028">.

And I was so upset when I finished reading it, thinking it was not only the end of Roland, but the end of all things King.

Anyway, there's the stuff that my dreams (or nightmares) are made of... I hope I'll get to have them soon.

For those of you celebrating Kwanzaa or Hannuka or Christmas, or Ramadan, or whatever... happy holidays.

Monday, December 19, 2005

On to more important subjects. Y and I are supposed to meet Wednesday night, and I'm edgy and excited. He told me to choose the place, and I'm completely lost for ideas. blah.

In other news, O is driving me crazy. Every time she eats, I have to hear hours about how fat she is. I would really sympathize if I didn't outweigh her by more than 60 lbs. (and yeah, I'm about 3 inches taller than she is... so that could account for maybe 15 of em.)

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Wednesday Wednesday, can't trust that day

Someone is making some kind of toast that smells incredible and I was hungry to begin with. I suspect there will be an early lunch today. And I had something in mind, but I see that the minimum order is about enough to buy 3 lunches. I have been known to over-buy to get delivery, but it's a great way to waste money.

Too bad :(

Anyway, big date is tonight. I'm pretty nervous... wish me luck.

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Scary stuff.

So Y. told me that he read my blog...
I wonder if he means this one... if so, that makes everything more complex, doesn't it..?
Maybe not, since I'm brutally honest anyway.

I really like him. And I think it's mutual. that's all I'm saying.