kayray.org

March 2005

31 — This morning I looked in the Oceanside library catalog online and saw that THEY have Absolute Zero! (Henry and I are both enjoying Ordinary Jack so much that I want to get the next book asap) So we took a drive out there and got AZ, and Bagthorpes Unlimited, and Bagthorpes vs. the World. YAY!!! And we stopped and bought Trader Joe food on the way home, and got some cheap paintbrushes so Henry could paint his model submarine. When we got home Henry helped me bring in all the food and then I helped him paint his model. Really, he did all the painting, I just opened the jars for him and held the sub steady while he painted. And then I did the decals for him (he wanted me to) and now his sub is done! I’ll offer to help him blog about it tomorrow :) And then we sat on the balcony and I read two more chapters of Ordinary Jack to him.

It’s a santa ana all of a sudden and my hair is all crackly and dry. Ugh. But the warm weather is kind of nice for a change. And my lovely new car has real actual air conditioning so it’s not grim running around doing errands in the heat :)

30 — Went to the Carlsbad Library, hoping to get Absolute Zero (the next book in the Bagthorpe Saga) but they don’t even own a copy. Boo, hiss! But I got a good stack of other books:

1215: The year of Magna Carta (history — started this one already and it’s excellent)
Bergdorf Blondes (fiction)
Revolutionary Mothers: Women and the Struggle for America’s Independence (history)
The Best Awful (fiction)
The Children’s Blizzard (history, about the same terrible winter as “The Long Winter”)
The Island at the Center of the World (history, about the settling of Manhattan)
Hissy Fit (fiction)
Reproduction is the Flaw of Love (fiction)

The books were just jumping off the shelves at me today!

28 — Extremely busy day. Did all the dusting, mopping, vacuuming, and decluttering in the morning after I made pancakes for the boys (Fargo was home from school all day!), and then built boxes for the auction stuff i had to ship, and dealt with the payments and the printing of shipping labels etc, which took FOREVER. Then had to drop everything off ot the UPS dropoff place, and rented a game for Henry with one of our free coupons, and stopped by the bank for cash for Grandma, and then taught two students. Oh yeah I managed to get dinner started in the crockpot at some point also. Then came home, fixed dinner for Henry, read him another chapter of Ordinary Jack, and put him to bed, then sat here in my nice chair listening to the Brandenburg Concertos and working on my flash animation assignment, which you can see if you wish to. It’s nothing special, just an exercise for attaching actionscript to buttons etc. Here: facefacts_fade.swf. Don’t complain to me about the ugly buttons, I whipped them up really fast to replace some even uglier ones. They don’t bother me, because I know exactly how to fix them to make them look good. What does bother me is the brief preview you get sometimes of the text that’s about to fade in… it’s very annoying and i’m not sure what to do about it. Grr.

26 — Last night I dreamed about loading and unloading a dishwasher. It just doesn’t get much more exciting than that, I tell you!

This evening Mom and I drove down to Viejas to hear Rockola and hang out with Chloe. We had fun! The band had to go on late because of a poker tournament, so Bob bought us dinner while we were waiting, very sweet of him. Chloe and I danced and danced! And they played “I want you to want me” at my request :)

25 — This morning Henry and I worked through a couple of the lessons in my Flash book. You can see his work if you go to his blog :) Chloe flew into town today for her spring break! She’s staying with Bob, of course, and flying to Florida with Rockola next week, but we got to see her tonight at The Steely Damned show at Humprey’s. Kirsten and Marcos and I drove down together and Dan went there after work, and we all got to hang out with Chloe while the band played! It was really wonderful seeing her, and being with K & M, but the best part was getting to meet up with Dan after work, sort of like a date :) Which is silly because if it had been an ordinary night I would have seen him just as much. It’s the Going Out thing, I guess. He says I’m a good dancer!

24 — Jeeze where does the time go. What have I been doing lately? This has been a busy week I guess. I signed up for one of those Cnet classes for beginning flash animation, and the first couple of lessons were fun so today I helped Henry go through them. He seemed to really enjoy working with flash! It took us about 3 hours to go through the first three lessons and I thought he’d get sick of it, but he kept saying he wanted to continue. The result is an animated face, which you can see if you go to his blog. Ok well I’m tired so I’m going to bed now!

20 — Set up a couple more auctions today, and they’re all going well. I played WoW for many hours and got my Warlock up to level 24! Also cleaned and decluttered my sewing/office area, got rid of the crappy white plastic clutter-trapper rack thingy and sorted out my thread and notions and stuff. I’s SO much better now! And I threw away a whole big bag of stuff and gathered up some more giveaway stuff too. Now we’re going to bed early to watch 7 episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm :)

19 — Still feeling sick but had a nice day with Dan anyway. Mom came over in the evening and we watched the two episodes of Survivor that were in the Tivo. Very entertaining! The good team (Koror) won a reward challenge and got a new shelter, and the bad team (Ulong?) quarreled amongst themselves and voted off Kim (no great loss) and Angie, who seemed like one of the smartest, strongest people… So entertaining!

18 — Feeling a bit better already! Fargo was home from school today due to car trouble so he and Henry played allllll day. Fargo broke his right arm on Monday so they are a matched set, heh. He says his break is just a crack, and he had a splint, no cast. But still, they’re two boys with broken right arms. It rained this afternoon when I took Henry to karate, and the Tiny Tigers class was so crowded I sat in the car and listened to NPR and played Minish Cap, but then during Henry’s class I sat in the dojo and watched/played gameboy/read Smokescreen. Dan and I are on a serious Dick Francis kick. We got two more Curb Your Enthusiasm dvds in the mail today!

17 — Sick. And Henry’s still coughing, too, so we stayed home and had Movie Day. First I put on Some Like It Hot, then Henry chose A Mighty Wind, and then we watched Best In Show. Funny movies, all three. We lay around on the couch together and played on our gameboys some of the time. It’s not bad feeling semi-sick when you have a sweet 9 yr old to watch movies with.

16 — Last time I went to the library I got “Freddy and the Ignormus” (audiobook) for Henry. He was playing it on his computer in the livingroom yesterday and I started listening, and it was really entertaining! Quite a funny story, really, with a delightful old-fashioned vocabulary and good “lessons” that don’t seem “lessony” at all. We played all five cds over the past two days, and, although I wasn’t paying 100% attention every minute, I’ve been laughing out loud at it quite a bit. We did a bit of math today for about 10 minutes (adding single digits to 9 and 8) and then played WoW together for a long time — Zinny and Ramona in Redridge, mostly. And this evening I read TWO chapters of Ordinary Jack to him for bedtime :) Dan had to work very late tonight and I miss him but he’ll be home soon.

15 — Henry made me laugh so much tonight! I was reading “Ordinary Jack” to him (which he loves, btw) and we got to the part where Jack creates a Mysterious Impression by accident, and all of a sudden Henry sang, to the tune of “I Won’t Grow Up” (from Peter Pan)

“A Mysterious Impression (a mysterious impression)
and he didn’t even try! (and he didn’t even try!)”

(if you dont know the song, the original words are “and a serious expression (and a serious expression) in the middle of July (in the middle of July)) I love fitting new words to old songs, and Dad did too (5 foot tree, don’t blame me, if it’s so tiny that you can’t see — has anybody seen my tree…) So I was delighted :)

14 — Now we are home. We drove home yesterday. It was funny — Idyllwild was completely clear and sunny, but right when we drove out of town there was all this thick fog that didn’t clear up until we got almost down to Hemet. The first time we reached Hemet, I realized we’d left my sweater, Dan’s coat, and our hats on hooks behind the door of our cabin, argh! So we turned around and drove all the way back up the hill, heh. But then we eventually got home. We were so tired last night. We put Henry to bed at 8 and just went straight to bed ourselves.

Today I did a lot of Stuff that had to get done… packaged up my auction stuff for UPS, picked up Kirsten at the airport, did laundry, did half the weekly housecleaning (Henry did all the bathroom windexing for me) and, um, other stuff which I can’t think of right now. And taught four students. And Henry and I had a little time to play World of Warcraft together, and I read him two chapters of Ordinary Jack for his bedtime story.. gosh I love that book and Henry seems to like it too! He laughed out loud at “I see dot dot dot, I see dot dot dot…”

12 — Slept late, made breakfast, hung around in our nice cabin. We played with our cameras and got lots of good photos which I’ll post when we get home. We just had dinner at the Greek place again — we went around to other places and looked at menus but nothing looked as tasty as Greek food, so that’s what we had! now we’re in the internet cafe catching up on email etc, and then we’re going to go home and lie around some more :) We got our wet firewood to burn last night by using FireLog(tm). Immediately upon use, FireLog increased our fire efficiency by 364%. I highly recommend FireLog to anyone. (Note: The Duraflame Company asks that you respect their products by ignoring proper article usage in language, so you must never refer to FireLog as “the firelog” or “a firelog”. It is simply FireLog.)

11 — I woke up pretty early this morning, read for a while, then got up and had a shower and made coffee, and then walked into town to the market for juice, salt and pepper, a newspaper, and a shady hat. We didn’t expect it to be so sunny here and I got a little sunburn just from walking around yesterday. Then I came home, put our wet firewood on the porch in the sun, and sat in the open doorway reading. When Dan woke up he had no internet, of course, and he usually wakes up by reading his email and looking at his websites, so I pretended to be the internet and I told him he had 7000 new emails, and that cnn.com said there was trouble in the middle east, that boingboing.net reported on a new Monkey Attack and people being upset about the government censoring bloggers, and that slashdot reported that Microsoft Sucks, that someone made something cool out of legos, and that someone made something new that does something interesting in an overly complicated way. So then he was happy :)

And then I made him breakfast (I brought ingredients and my lovely cast-iron skillet) of scrambled eggs, toast, sausage, and juice, and then we sat around reading together for a long time. After a while I wanted to go out so I walked to the library and browsed around there for a bit. It’s a nice library for such a small town! And then I came back and we read some more… and then we took a walk into town again. We had a good time browsing around the tourist stores and Dan bought me a silver and garnet necklace :) Also looked around for a present for Henry but couldn’t find anything really neat. But it was a good long nice walk in the fresh air under the beautiful trees. Now we’re back in our cabin. Dan’s reading some more and I’m typing up this post in textedit on my laptop so I can post it quickly next time we go to the internet cafe place. I imagine we’ll go find some dinner pretty soon… This is the nicest honeymoon anyone could ever possibly have, just doing almost nothing in the quiet, taking little walks, and being together.

10 — Today we drove to Idyllwild for our honeymoon! It was a nice drive and only took about 2 hours. We’re staying at The Manzanita Cabins which is a wonderful place! Our cabin has a little front room with a daybed and a little table with two chairs, a little bathroom with a shower, a little kitchen complete with gas stove/oven, small fridge, coffee machine, toaster, and microwave (and helpful accessories such as a corkscrew, cheese grater, dish drainer, dish soap, hotpads, and some dishes and silverware!), and then a large main room with a queen-size bed at one end and a fireplace at the other, and a couch and tv right in the middle. And there are lots of windows and a front door and a back door. It’s extremely home-like and comfortable and we are very very happy to be here!

After we got here, checked in, unpacked, and lay around for a while, we took a walk into town. It’s only a block or two into downtown Idyllwild — past the library and the propane supplier, around the corner, and there’s the town. We got some lunch/dinner at a fabulous Greek place, walked around a little more, and then came back to our cabin. Then we watched a couple of episodes of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (brought our latest greencine dvds along for entertainment), and then drove over to the Java Lounge which is an internet cafe with free wireless! I bought Dan a couple of pastries and we checked our email, etc. (that’s how I am able to post this, of course) And then we went home again and lay around and watched more dvds and had fun using Dan’s digital camera and laser pointer to make light- paintings — example soon :) Also tried to build a fire in the fireplace but the wood we brought is so wet it won’t really burn. but Dan had fun with matches and paper trying to help it along. We’ll get some dry wood or a fake log or something tomorrow. We are having the BEST TIME already. It’s so beautiful and quiet here, and the air is fresh and everyone smiles at us.

10 — We’re leaving today for our honeymoon! We’re going to Idyllwild, to stay in a little cabin and relax and do nothing. We probably won’t have internet access so I’ll post again when we get back on Sunday :) Have a good weekend everyone!

09 — Dan and I got married today! It was a tiny civil ceremony at the County Clerk’s Office. Here’s one photo for you, and there are a few more in my photo gallery. We had a wonderful time. Mom and Henry were there, and Dan’s good friend Midori. And afterwards we went to the Maritime Museum and walked all over The Star of India and the H.M.S. Surprise. It was a wonderful day!

08 — My wrist is hurting, argh. It hurts even though I wear my wrist-support thing all the time. I’ve been crocheting a lot of lace, lately, also playing the piano a lot the last couple days, so it’s probably all that activity that’s causing the pain, darn it. Yesterday I taught one of Mom’s students and the little girl played an arrangement of the old doo-wop song “Come Go With Me” and I liked it so much I brought a copy of the book home to play here. Henry likes it too and started doubling the melody way up high on the piano. I jazz up the rhytym a lot and it sounds really good. But anyway that’s probably why my wrist hurts. Sigh. Henry and I watched the Antiques Roadshow together today. Love that show! I learn so much every time. Dan and I are getting married tomorrow yay! Hope it’s not raining :) (when have I EVER said that before? heheh)

I’ve been obsessed with a great old tune lately: The Darktown Strutters Ball. It’s one of my favorites on my old Benny Goodman 1935 album. This morning I decided to try to find an mp3 of it (since I can’t digitize my LPs) and found a (differnt) Benny Goodman version, an Ella Fitzgerald version, and a Boswell Sisters version. (ever heard of The Boswell Sisters? Me neither, but they’re good!) All three are great, and now I know the words too. Dance all over my shoes when the band plays the jellyroll blues!! Speaking of acquiring music, I went to the used record store across from karate today, just looking. I found a New Christy Minstrels record for $.50, which I bought because I’ve never heard them but Mom says they’re the group that The New Main Street Singers are based on, so I thought it would be fun (or possibly agonizing) to hear the real thing. Too bad when I got it home I noticed that the wrong record was in the jacket, heh. Oh well. But while I was there I bought another Benny Goodman LP for $7 and an album of Rush doing cover songs for Dan. And then I was wondering — why doesn’t the RIAA crack down on people reselling used records and cds? The artists and labels don’t get any money from such sales. Why is _sharing_ music wrong but _reselling_ it is ok? Hmmmmmmmm… Yeah, I know, it’s because sharing creates copies. Tough, technology marches on. Sigh. I will reiterate what i’ve said many times before — the ability to get a taste of new music via p2p filesharing has caused me to actually purchase far more (NEW) cds in the last couple of years than I would have ordinarily. And hey, sharing is nice! Some stranger today provided me with some music that makes me extremely happy, and now I’ll be looking for a Boswell Sisters cd to buy. RIAA, you can go jump in a lake.

07 — I made an almost-sleeveless chemise to wear under my Romantic Blouse which I will wear under my Romantic Jumper, which I washed and ironed today. So all my wedding clothes are all ready for Wednesday :) Henry helped me with the housework this morning and then we played together, and then I taught three students this afternoon. I had to renew my domain registration for kayray.org today, so you can enjoy this blog for yet another year, lucky you! And now I am tired and going to bed.

06 — Dan was using our main WoW account today so I started a character on the 2nd account — all my other chars there are ones I use when I want to play with Dan or Henry, so I don’t like to use them to play solo. So I started a night elf Druid (Animala) and got her to lvl 7. Fun! It’s nice to have healing spells. And in only three more lvls I’ll get to learn how to take an animal form. Cool.

I have figured out the perfect way to listen to Loveline while I go to sleep. We record them from the internet stream so we have a huge archive of old shows. So I run one on my laptop, turn the brightness all the way down, and plug in my earbuds. Then I get in my comfy sleeping position, on my side, and put one earbud in my ear, and turn the volume almost all the way down. When commercials come on I take the thing out of my ear for a few minutes, and usually I fall asleep pretty quick. Very relaxing and soothing.

04 — This morning Henry and I worked on his bookshelf a little bit, and he came up with some things to give away/throw out! Yay Henry! Then we worked on his Math-u-see for a while, which was fun. It’s a nice system. The early stuff is quite simple for Henry so we just do a few excercises until he’s sure he knows it. And then we played WoW for a while (Mooly and Yry went to Oggrimar together and then took the zeppelin to The Undercity), and then it was time for karate. Matthew picked him up from karate and I went to the fabric store for embroidery floss for the vintage stamped-for-cutwork linen napkins I got on ebay, and while I was there i bought a fabulous encyclopedia of needlework (used the gift cards mom gave me for Christmas). I’m planning to take my linen napkins to Idyllwild to work on. (We’re getting married on Wednesday and going to Idyllwild on Thursday for a long weekend honeymoon!)

03 — Claire (Fargo’s mom) came over with a borrowed sewing machine for me to thread for her. I threaded it and tested it out but it was having some kind of bizarre tension problem. I fiddled with it for quite a while and then gave up and sent Claire home with my old Kenmore machine, which I haven’t used since Dan and Mom gave me my Pfaff last year. I tested it and showed her how to use it. The sound it makes is so comfortably familiar. Nice. And then Henry went home with Claire and little 3 year old Max to play for a while, and I set up some auctions on ebay — getting rid of STUFF yay!

Oh I also went to the post office to pick up the math-u-see stuff I bought for Henry, and to the pharmacy to pick up our prescriptions, which I had refilled online yesterday. And they actually filled them all with no problems! amazing. Then Henry came home and we played a little WoW together (Zinny and Ramona this time, collecting red leather bandanas in Westfall) and then went over to Sal’s to teach. We took our new math stuff and watched part of the video in Sal’s VCR. Looks good! Henry understands about place value now, and is eager to do more.

Then we went to karate for the fist time since Henry broke his arm. He did well in class, but came down with a migraine at the end and turned all pale and ill. Took hime home, tucked him into bed, and waited for him to puke, which he did eventually and then felt immediately better and got up and had a little dinner before I put him back to bed for the night. And then Dan and I watched Survivor and I finished sewing buttons on my blue dress :)

02 — Doctor appointment for Henry today, and they x-rayed his arm and said it’s healing well, yay! He gets to go back to karate as long as he’s careful :) And he also can sleep without it being elevated which means he can sleep in his own room again so I am going to go clean it and make his bed all nice before he gets home (He’s hanging out with Matthew right now).

01 — I’ve started to feel a little bit hyperthyroid again… it’s very very subtle but annoying. Yesterday I called the doctor, prepared to argue my way into a blood test again, but amazingly enough they didn’t argue and gave me a lab slip that very day. We’ll see… The last time this happened I felt even more hyper thank I do now but the test showed me being only slightly above “normal” so I would not be surprised if this test shows nothing. But at least I tried.

This morning Henry and I went down to the free museums in Balboa Park. The free ones today were the Science Center, the Model Railroad Museum, and the Natural History Museum. We had a nice drive down and parked as usual in the lot off president’s Way and took the tram into the park. Then we walked up to the Model Railroad Museum, which was crowded but fun, and then to the Science Center but there were 989349389170 school children on field trips and the noise was unbelievable. So we only walked around a little bit and then went for lunch at the Park Cafe instead :) We had a good time together!