June 2004
June 2004
June 30 — Henry’s home! I went down to SD and picked him up this morning. So nice to have him home again! We built one of the robots in the robot kit that wastrel brought for him. Very cool.
June 29 — Henry is on his way home (I think he’ll be on an airplane most of today and get to the airport late tonight) so I finished moving stuff out of his room and back into our closet. I did a good job. The closet is still stacked with boxes but I think I got rid of more than half the stuff that was in there! There’s still a pile of stuff for Dan to sort through, but still it’s so much better than it was. And Henry’s room is nice again. We’ve been watching The Daily Show every night (thanks, TiVo) and it’s pretty fun. Also we’ve been enjoying Ken Jennings’ run on Jeopardy — I think tonight was his 19th win in a row! The new issue of WIRED came today, yay! I read it all when I went to bed.
June 27 — Sunday. Loafed. Made a poster by scanning a drawing out of “The Saturdays”, printing it out in a huge size on 9 pieces of paper, gluing them together, and then watercoloring it. It turned out great! I put my vinyl bag up on ebay so we’ll see if it sells heh. Handmade bags don’t seem to sell very well there but mine is quite unusual and different from anything else on ebay. *crosses fingers*
June 26 — There was a ham radio event thing in Carlsbad, so we went to that most of the day. I sat in the shade and finished my book, quilted, and played Zelda for hours while Dan talked to the other radio people. It was quite pleasant. Finished the bag I was making in the evening and watched some of the women’s gymnastics trials on TV.
June 25 — Felt crappy, tired, depressed, and anxious all day. Stupid thyroid. I planned to go to SD to see my friend Charlotte, who’s back in town for a short while, but felt too bad to go. Ugh.
June 24 — Spent hours today working on the closet project. I stacked up all the empty boxes and Dan told me which ones could be thrown away — most of them, as it turns out! Lovely! Somewhat less depressed today. Worked on a clear vinyl bag with a flower applique.
June 23 — Today I decided to clean out our closet. It was jam-full of boxes, boxes, boxes so I pulled everything out and stacked it in Henry’s room, and then started going through it, deciding what to put back. Most of it is cables, tons of cables, all snarled together. Every kind of cable you can imagine and some I never even saw before. So I’ve been dumping the boxes out one at a time, untangling everything, asking Dan what gets kept and what gets thrown out, and then putting the keepers in better boxes. So far I’ve been able to throw out a ton of stuff, yay.
June 22 — Sewed some more t-shirt underwear from my perfect new pattern. In case you’re wondering why I keep sewing underwear, I threw away all my hateful old ill-fitting storebought undies recently so all I have now are homemade ones that fit properly. My new machine handles stretch fabric so nicely! I went to the library this evening after teaching, and then when I got home I sewed and we listened to a couple of our Loveline recordings. Yay for streaming audio and helpful software! Star Trek this evening — “This Side of Paradise” — very good episode. Exchanged non-fitting Danshorts for another pair of the nice corduroy ones, of which I am very fond.
June 21 — I cut apart my favorite raggedy old pair of underwear today and made a new pattern, and then made a test pair and they are great! Also went to Mervyn’s and bought Dan two pairs of shorts and a shirt, and two out of three items fit properly! Yay me.
June 20 — Wastrel had to go home today, so we went to the zoo before taking him to the airport. It was a great day at the zoo. The orangutans were very active; one was somersaulting around, and another young one was playing with one of the siamangs! The mother siamang had a tiny tiny baby clinging to her. We also saw the gorillas, bonobos, lots and lots of birds, the polar bears (not swimming, but finding and devouring hidden yams in his enclosure), and the pandas. We walked around the Hoof and Horn Mesa and saw the antelopy things and zebras and giraffes etc. Very nice afternoon. And then I dropped wastrel at the airport. We hope he’ll come back again someday!
In the evening I started knitting the Fuzzy Feet slippers from knitty.com with my leftover sweater yarn. The idea of felting something on purpose still makes me nervous but I guess it’s worth a try! WE watched “The Bishop’s Wife” which was very good. Cary Grant was non-annoying, Loretta Young was lovely as usual, and David Niven was elegant.
June 19 — We all went to the fair! My sweater did not win a prize, oh well. We spent a lot of time in the Photography exhibit and saw tons of great photos, also looked at the crafts and collections, the animals (of course!) and saw the very end of the Bull-Riding. And we saw the hypnotist (Mark Yuziak) — he does a very entertaining show, boy oh boy.
June 18 — Our dear friend wastrel is visiting us for the weekend! We picked him up at the airport tonight. Yay for wastrel!
This morning I picked up my sewing machine and sewed for hours. I finished about 6 of the pieced quilt blocks, and made a couple of pairs of t-shirt underwear. The only problem I had was that the top thread occasionally unthreads itself from the takeup lever, which causes the thread to break. Also a couple of times the bobbin thread came out of its tension guide and that caused a bit of a probelm. I don’t know if its a machine problem or a Kara problem (it can take some time to get used to a new machine and get everything threaded properly.) so I’ll test it a while longer and then take it back in for adjustments or whatever if I still have problems. Boy it’s a nice machine! The integrated walking foot thing is amazing. It makes it so easy to sew with stretch fabrics! Amazing. Love love love the Pfaff!
June 17 — Dan vacuumed, I mopped, and we got the whole place looking nice! Yay! I had to get more blood drawn today (liver panel) and for the first time it hurt like crazy. You’d think having a giant needle in your arm would just always hurt but it doesn’t. One of the lab guys is so good, I can barely feel it. This afternoon we went to Baker’s Sewing Center in Escondido to look at sewing machines. We were there for a couple of hours! Very nice store. I brought a large pile of all different kinds of fabric scraps and tested the two machines I was interested in — both Pfaffs, one mechanical, the other computerized. I thought I wanted the mechanical one but after testing the computerized model (Pfaff Lifestyle 2022) I decided I liked it better. Boy it’s nice! It’s a bit out of our price range but they happened to have a slightly-used one that a lady traded in for a fancier model — only a year old, and a couple hundred dollars cheaper, and they’re extending the warranty so it’s just as good as the warranty on a brand new machine. So it looks like Lucky Kara gets a Pfaff! They needed to clean it up and give it a once-over, so I get to pick it up tomorrow.
June 16 — Um, Wednesday… Worked on Dan’s quilt, taught students, played Zelda, acquired wrist-pain from too much Gameboy, fixed Dan’s favorite fish dish for dinner.
June 15 — Henry flew to England with his dad today! They’ll have a great time :)
I noticed that my front tires were extremely worn, and the right one was just about bald around the edge, ugh! So after work I went to the Discount Tire Company at El Camino and Vista Way. Very good place. They put two new tires on for me, and noticed that one of my back tires was a little low so the guy looked at it and discovered a nail in the sidewall! But that tire was still under warranty so he put a new one on for $5. Whew! Tonight we played Scrabble again — lots of fun. Now I think it’s time for a big cone of Haagen-Daas strawberry ice cream, yes indeedy.
I installed the latest Firefox browser (0.9) today, and now, half an hour later, I am frantically re-installing the previous version. Problem #1: the default theme is butt-ugly. The only tolerable replacement theme does not show the draggable thing on the scrollbars! Ok so I went back the the default theme, not a huge deal. Problem #2: The location bar does not necessarily reflect the location of the webpage you are currently viewing. I was at a forum, hit a link to view a thread, enjoyed the thread, copied the location bar so I could url a friend, and he ended up somewhere else. Hmm, I said, and looked at the location bar. Sure enough it was still showing the url for the “recent posts” page. Tried again, reaching the thread a different way. Still the location bar showed the url for the recent posts page, even though I’d been to three different pages since then. So I went back to 0.8 as fast as I could. Nice jaerb, there, firefox.
June 14 — Grocery shopping this morning, then a trip to the ham radio store in SD around noon, then a student in the afternoon. But I got home nice and early after that and sat around in my new chair, playing “A Link to the Past” which is so much fun, even the second time through! What an excellent game. I’m wimpy and use a walkthrough, heheh, but hey I like to make sure I get every single treasure in every dungeon. In the evening we caught up on some tv — Arrested Development and an episode of Jeopardy. Nice :)
June 12 — This afternoon Dan and I went out to do some shopping! He bought me presents — a deluxe Scrabble set and the They Might Be Giants’ “Then: The Earlier Years” double CD. It’s got their first two albums plus lots of EP stuff, B-sides, alternate takes, etc. I’ve been wanting Lincoln, which is their second album, and now I have that plus a ton of other stuff! Very cool. And yes, I could have dl’d it all but TMBG is a great band and they deserve some money. The only reason I became aware that they were a great and talented band, however, was by downloading some (ok, a LOT) of their music for free. If I hadn’t, I would never have gone to any of their concerts (total tickets purchased: 7, at an average price of $40/ticket) or bought any cds or merchandise (total spent probably $90), or recommended them to friends who have now bought some of their cds! So I feel that we have a win-win situation here. The RIAA can go play in traffic.
Well anyway, we bought my stuff at Barnes and Noble, and then walked over to the Radio Shack for a timer for the water cooler (the power bill is outrageous and Dan thinks we can save quite a bit by not cooling our water all night every night), and browsed about in a shoe store and a video game store. I wouldn’t mind some new sandals, but all the cute sandals this season are slip-ons and I like a heel strap. Sigh. And then we went to an early dinner at Chili’s — not usually my favorite restaurant but they’ve changed their menu quite a bit since last time we went there, and I had some very delicious vegetable quesadillas, yumyumyum! Four-thirty is a great time for eating out — no waiting for a table :)
When we got home we played Scrabble! It was a ton of fun. I hadn’t played in years. And then we finished “Bells are Ringing” which is now one of my favorite musicals! Judy Holliday is just marvelous.
June 11 — This was a good day. I had a few bad days in a row where I felt tired and crappy most of the time, but today was better. Henry and I did some errands, getting him ready for his big trip to England (he and his dad will be there for two weeks!). Bought batteries for his digicam, flossy picks for his teeth, and gathered a bag of things he needs to take down to his dad’s house to pack. I made him a few mp3 cds of audiobooks and his favorite music to take along too.
In the afternoon, Dan drove us to the dojo for Henry’s karate, and he and I sat outside while Henry helped with the little kids’ class, and then watched his actual class. He’s doing so well! When we got home, Henry and I watched two episodes of Star Trek — “I, Mudd” and “Journey to Babel”. The former was better than I remembered and the latter was a little worse, heheh. Still very enjoyable.
Henry’s all tucked into bed now, and I’ve just cooked some pork chops for Dan and some zuchinni for me, and now I’m going to put on “Bells Are Ringing” :) “I’m in love… with a voice… Plaza oh double four double three…” Ahhhh Judy Holliday. I’ll probably be ff’ing the Dean Martin bits whenever possible.
June 10 — This morning Henry and I made some Harry Potter Spell Books to share with the kids at parkday. We found a website with a list of HP spells, then copied and pasted them into Adobe Indesign so there were four little pages on one piece of paper. Printed them out, cut and folded them, and then bound them together with the sewing machine. And Henry drew nice cover art of two broomsticks and a Golden Snitch :) They were a big hit with the kids, and they all ran around casting spells on each other all afternoon.
After park day, we went to gymnastics. I was so tired I didn’t want to have to talk to anyone so I waited in the car and read “Altered Carbon”. When I went in to pick him up, they told me he needs to move to a more advanced class. Yay, Henry! So he’s moving up from the “Handstands” level to the “Giants” level and will have Mr. Justin as his new instructor. His new classes are longer — an hour and fifteen minutes. He’s very proud and likes to say he’s “leveled up”. Can you tell we play a lot of RPGs around here? Heheheh.
June 09 — This morning I shoved some furniture around in the bedroom to make more floor-space, and then vacuumed and dusted yay! Also vacuumed Henry’s room (nice and clean now) and part of the hallway and then I got tired and decided to leave the rest of the floors for another day. And then I went to work and taught piano students etc. While I was gone, Dan vacuumed the rest of the house — even UNDER the sofa cushions! And he tidied up the living room, too, and took the junk out of the hallway. It looked so nice when I got home! What a great Dan he is.
June 08 — I found a perfectly good rocking chair by the dumpsters today and dragged it home. Dan hauled it up the stairs for me. It’s the kind that sort of swings on its base, rather than rocking on rockers. It has no cushions but that can easily be fixed! There’s absolutely no room for it in our crowded apartment, but I managed to stuff it in near the glass door to the balcony. Very comfy for laptopping.
June 07 — This morning Henry and I did a bunch of errands — bank, library, toystore, fabric store. He had some money burning a hole in his pocket and wanted a new Harry Potter lego kit (Quality Quidditch Supplies), so we loooked at Toys’r’us first but they didn’t have it. Target did, though! Also bought some black twill to make his knickers for his Morris Dancing costume. Then when we got home I had to do laundry which kind of tired me out so I lay down for a while before we left for piano students and karate. Busy day.
June 06 — I owe my robust physique to your tubes of triple-bleached goo!
Today I lazed about a bit and watched some tv. Thank you TiVo! Last night we took out some old season passes for shows we never ever watched, and today I told the TiVo to quit recording its “suggestions” for us. Man, we watched one season of Survivor and now it’s suggesting Spanish-language reality shows for us. But anyway, today the TiVo provided me with the some quality entertainment while I worked on Dan’s quilt, especially Star Trek (Mirror, Mirror) and the Antiques Roadshow.
Dan is laughing at me because I like to dilute my sparkling water with plain water :) Waiter! I’ll have some diluted water, please!
June 05 — This was a very good Saturday. In the morning I took Henry to his outdoor demo class, and I took Dan’s Nikon D70 along and got a few good photos. Not great, but better than nothing. I’m still getting used to the new camera and all its fancy settings, heheh. Henry went home with Matthew after class, and I came home and made breakfast for Dan, and then in the afternoon we went to Guajome to walk around and take pictures again. It was lovely there, as usual, and we had such a good time walking around together! Here’s a photo I took of some flowers… don’t know what they are but they grow on a big bush and smell nice. I like doing macro-ish shots.
After we were done at Guajome, we went out to Barnes and Noble to look at books, and hung out there for quite a long time (how could we not?). Dan bought himself a photo book and bought me a slice of key lime cheesecake from the cafe there, mmm :) And then eventually we got home and I made dinner and we watched a couple episodes of Simpsons from back in the day when every episode was funny and creative. And now it’s bedtime! Bedtime, wonderful bedtime. I love our bed. It’s enormous (California King) and we have a thick fluffy featherbed that I sink into, and cotton flannel sheets, and real silk (homemade) pillowcases on my real feather pillows. It’s so soft and cuddly and soothing, with all the flannel and silk and feathers.
June 04 — I keep forgetting to update. Sorry, regular readers, I know it’s annoying. I promise to try to do better.
This morning Henry and I went to the movie theater to pick up tickets to an afternoon showing of “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”. We decided to try out the new theater in Vista — the Krikorian Googolplex. We drove out there on Vista Way, which is always a wierd trip down memory lane for me. I remember driving on it back in the early 80s, back when 78 was much narrower and less important than it is now. Some of the stores and buildings along Vista Way are the same as they were back then — the Rayne Water Softener place with the funny marquee is still there, with a new message on the board every time I drive by. The nursery near Emerald has been transformed into a rent-a-car place, though, and the saddest change happened long ago when the wonderful “Two Floors Of Books” used book store moved out and the building was taken over by a Bail Bonds place. Sigh. That still makes me sad when I see it.
We live right on the border of Vista, almost literally, but we almost never go there so I’m still not used to the renovation that has gone on there in recent years. The movie theater was a construction site last year when Henry and I went geocaching in a new park in downtown Vista. Crazy. Now, near the park, there’s a movie theater and a little out-door shopping area that’s slightly charming. At least it’s not a Mall. They’ve got the same thing as every other shopping area, though — a Coldstone, a Subway, an eyeglasses place, fast Japanese food, etc. Grumble.
But anyway, the theater is brand-new and squeaky clean, with comfortable stadium seats. And the movie was pretty good! Better, I think, than the first two Harry Potter movies. The film was messed up for the first fifteen minutes or so — covered with dark blotches and streaks. Somebody spilled coffee on it maybe? Somehow I feel that paying $18.75 for three people to see a movie entitles us to a pretty good print, especially on the day the movie was released! I recall that one of the LotR movies had sound problems, and Kill Bill had odd orange dots on it (and that movie was bad enough without odd orange dots on the print). And they wonder why people download movies. But ANYWAY the movie was good! And we had a great time all together :) I thought Professor Lupin was wonderful and the Hippogriff was amazingly believable.
June 01 — Henry and I did the shopping this morning. First we had breakfast together at Einstein Brothers Bagels, which was a nice treat. It took about three hours to do the groceries, and then when we got home Henry and Dan carried everything upstairs and I put it away. Sorry this isn’t a better blog entry… I’m tired and I’m trying to just write anything so I can get my June page started here.
Michelle gave Henry a ride to the dojo when she dropped Daneesha off for her piano lesson, so Henry was able to be Senpai for the Little Dragon class and go to the juniors class too, and then I took Daneesha to the dojo when I picked Henry up between students. And we treated ourselves to an ice cream cone at Vinakas — really good ice cream they have there. “Niederfrank’s” or something. And then we went back to Sal’s and I taught another student and then eventually we came home.