Easy to Forget How Hard it can be…

…Raising a puppy.

We got a new lil puppy yesterday; another long haired miniature dachshund. Our dog now, Brody, is super laid back and very easy to live with. And I’m sure one day Isobel (that’s her name) will be, too. But right now we pretty much just have to keep an eye on her all the time…make sure she isn’t going to electrocute herself by eating an cord, make sure she doesn’t destroy (eat) a shoe, or the carpet, or ensure she doesn’t pick a fight with Charlie the Battlecat, because…because well, he’ll kill her. (not really?) Also, potty training a puppy is a very proactive deal-e-o. You have to be there as it’s happening to correct them, or else it doesn’t really work.

We probably should have waited to get a new puppy until after we moved into our house. Moving is such an ordeal on it’s own, now we have thrown the care of an infant who chews into the mix.

All the bitching aside about how difficult my life is… Isobel is very very cute. Here are some pictures to prove it!

Just…a Flood. A Big Crazy Horrible Flood.

I haven’t posted about the flood because I’ve been immersed, flooded even, in flood coverage for a couple of weeks now. In the beginning it was all quite riveting and horrible. I live in Iowa City, and even though there was extensive flooding here, and in our “sister city” of sorts, Coralville (It may not be a sister city, but they are connected…) but up north in Cedar Rapids, Iowa the flooding in the city was insane. Huge urban structures submerged in water up passed their second story in some parts. Crazy town. I’m sure you’ve seen the coverage, so I won’t go into it.

Even though I wasn’t directly affected…well it made getting to work quite a traffic nightmare (not as bad as it would’ve been if i worked in Cedar Rapids. Since the interstate was flooded the detour route for what would be a 30 minute drive turned into a 2 hour drive.) I’m safe, D is safe, the pets are safe, all of our loverly things are safe. It’s still been an amazing thing to witness. Amazingly sad, to witness the loss. Amazing in how powerful nature can be. Amazing how people pulled together to fill bags of stand and stack them high. I am curious to see how things will change from here on out when it truly becomes about stuff and money.

Anyhoo…I took some photos of the flooding early on. Here they are. (We went to Ft. Madison when the waters were at their highest…the Mississippi was just beginning to flood then. It’s kickin’ the FM residents in the ass now, I think) Some of the photos I too while looking at the waters rising. I have OCD…okay? I can’t focus on one thing for very long; Even natural disasters.

Spore!

Well I bought the Spore Creature Creator yesterday. It’s nice to mess around with ideas for the creatures I’ll be making when Spore hits the shelves in September. Here is a video of one of the creatures I made. This is a Tree Hugger and it protects the forest. (I get 50 nerd points for that sentence.)

Me Meme?

Not usually. But because Auld Hat said I probably wouldn’t repost the meme that she had memely borrowed I was forced, FORCED darlings, to do my version. So…Here we go!

What Was I Doing Ten Years Ago:
Oh boy. Mostly, I do not know. I do know I started working at my present place of employment in October of 98, and I think I was living with my ex-Boifriend Bob and our friend…oh my god I can’t remember her name. And actually I’m not one billion percent sure I even lived with them then. I may have already “broke up” with him then… I dunno. I am horrible HORRIBLE at remembering stuff. Let’s just say I was not as self-aware then. I think.

Five Things On My To Do List For Today:
1 - Redo All of My Training Binders. (got three of 40 done!)
2 - 5S The Sample Prep area. (Look up 5s or SIPOC and you will understand why my job is giving me OCD)
3 - Finishing reviewing my charts of “reactive donors” (One’s whom tested positive for not so good stuff..the HIV and whatnot)
4 - Write a blog entry (ta da!)
5 - Remember to not think about work when I get home (fail!)

Snacks I enjoy:
Not a snacker, in general. I forget to eat sometimes; I’ll remember when the light headedness kicks in. However if I must choose…I’ll say grapes are a favorite, or an avacado. I enjoys giant bowls of cereal for late night snacks. Fruit rollups rock.

Things I Would Do If I Were A Billionaire:
A Billionaire? Whew. I don’t know. All of my family would be set, for sure. I would not go crazy town with the money. I would buy a house with a few acres and I would have a ‘hobby farm.’ I would invest a good portion (because I think I’m supposed to or something.) I, of course, would donate a lot to charities… mostly charities involving planting trees, smart farms (not necessarily organic), the rest of the charities I would research the shit out of and make sure something good truly came from them. Then I think I would randomly give out large sums of money to people; probably waitresses…sometimes the vibe from a waitress can just break my heart.

Places I Have Lived:

Iowa. The end. I have traveled a lot, but since that’s not the question asked I’ll just appear very sheltered.

Blogs I enjoy:

The Voluptuary

The Anatomist

Boing Boing

Lots of StumbleUpon Blogs

Just Fraud.

Fraud.

A deception made for personal gain.

I suppose a Bi-weekly paycheck could be viewed as “personal gain;” I mean, I gain from this check, personally. This is a bit how I view my life. Not day, to day, perhaps. I don’t everyday think, “What I’m doing is personal fraud,” but at times when I’m being contemplative, I do.

When I say I feel as if my life is fraudulent; I mean I just don’t know if how I earn my paycheck is necessarily how I was ‘meant’ to live my life. This is assuming first, of course, that I was meant to do anything with my life. If Any of us are. But, you know people have dreams, or something, right? I think I did. I think I imagined greatness on some scale. A great one, probably, the scale. But, I think we all did. We all imagined we would do something great: Astronaut, King of the world, Queen of the lands, unicorn wrangler, smurf collector, magician, space pirate, curer of the world.

It boils down to… “I thought I would do something that mattered.” AND “People would remember me after I died.”

When I was a kid, I loved to put ‘treasure’ in mason jars and bury them in my backyard. When I say ‘treasure’ I mean: buttons, drawings, shiny things, snail shells, rocks. Real treasure. And then I would draw a treasure map so that one day someone could find what I had buried and be happy with their find. I really was burying someone else’s little Eureka!

It’s a cute story, sure. Kids burying treasure…adorable. But I don’t want this to be my legacy, you know? I don’t want a dug up mason jar, just several feet from a hamster skeleton in a shoebox, to be how I’m remembered. And I, personally won’t be the one remembered. It’ll just be in the thought of, “Gee I wonder who buried a jar of 3 buckeyes, an agate, a geode, and a pearl* button punched shell.” And then I’m gone for good. Just a great great great uncle. A twig on a tree. The saga of the gay man who will most likely choose not to adopt or turkey baste.

And that’s fine. I’m sure this rant isn’t about the egotistical sadness involved in “not seeing may face in the eyes of a child’s.” Is it? No, I don’t think so. I think it’s in the egotistical sadness of ending; living and then just dying. The End. And there will be some nice stuff along the way, of course. I have a wonderful partner to share life with now, and hopefully till the end…so the the nice stuff will be there. Pleasant stuff, and perhaps some exciting stuff…but will I look back and say, “I’m pleased with what I’m leaving behind. I changed the world.”

And then there’s the question, “Does everyone need to change the world?” And just how wonderful the world would be if everyone tried…instead of bloggin’ about it into the neterscape like an echo in a cup. And I would be guilty of that. I tend to think of myself as one of those ’support’ kind of people. You know? Can help anyone out with their problems, an innate ability to read people, and interpret human nature…but has no idea what they truly want.

I have no idea what I want. But what I’m pretty sure is I’m not quite getting it right. Or maybe just thinks there’s supposed to be more. By now. If not now, when? When I’m 40? When I’m 50? At my deathbed will I say under my breath with a grin… “Ahhhh. Now I see. There truly is nothing to be left behind.”

*While I was writing this I remembered when I was about 10 or so, the kids in the neighborhood used to play by the “woods” in the alley.  We would sift through the gravel in the alley for ’shiny’ rocks, and we would a lot of times find clam shells with many holes punched in them.  Someone told be they were the shells left over from buttons made from them.  The insides of the shells were pearlescent like oil floating on water.  The clams were harvested from the Mississippi.  I wonder if I’ll ever realize just how much I appreciated growing up in along the Mississippi river.  “M-I_Crooked Letter- Crooked letter I, Crooked Letter- Crooked letter I, Humpback-Humpback-I.” That’s how a grade school teacher taught me how to remember how to spell Mississippi.  O.M.G. I sound really…really…OLD.

Golden Star Show Choir

So, my friend Angie showed me this website that will allow me to grab you tube videos and edit them. Finally! I’ve been wanting to do this for awhile.

Video editing is not something I’m necessarily good at, by any means, but I enjoy playing around with Windows Movie Maker. I’ve never really had any video files to mess around with, mostly because I’m too lazy to grab the camera and make my own. Now I can rip other people’s videos and mash em all up. It’s like a collage, really. But with videos.

So here it is. A mash up I made today using a My Brightest Diamond song, “Golden Star,” and videos of show choirs on the You Tube.

Sorry the files weren’t the greatest to start with and then a couple of conversions later they’re down right pixelated. Meh. It works.

Nick. Elodeon.

I’ve had this song in my head for a couple days now, ever since I rediscovered the show Chapi Chapo on the YouTube. Here is the opening:

When I was a kid I love love loved the Nickelodeon channel. It was so freaking odd back in the 80s. I was freaking odd in the 80s so it was the perfect match.

One of my most favorite shows on Nick was You Can’t Do That on Television. I’m realizing my friend Auld Hat’s most famous saying, “Leave a tender moment alone,” it oh so very true as I re watch episodes from the show. But when I was a kid, I got the humor, you know? It was funny then, before I discovered sarcasm and let the beast eat away at my heart over the years. Getting slimed was tot. hilar. I thought Moose was the coolest, felt a little bad for Lisa, and sort of had a ’secret crush’ on Alisdair. (All my true crushes growing up were secret…like the one I had for Bo AND Luke Duke.)

Here’s a clip from the show followed by a clip of Moose talking about her audition for You Can’t Do That On Television while at reunion show.

Nick also had a lot of really scary stuff. One of my favorites was a series called Children of the Stones. I, of course, have a clip: Listen to the soundtrack…friggin’ spine chilling, huh? Pretty Phantasmagorical. This show was one of several in a very eerie series call “The Third Eye.”

What were some of your favorite odd children shows or movies? I want to know!

Here are a couple more to jostle your memory, perhaps.

“The Rats of Nimh.”

“Light Years“

“Watership Down.”

Cartoons from Pinwheel, such as Chapi Chapo which started this whole thought tangent.

I will end this a Bowie video for the title song from the animated movie “When The WInd Blows,” with music by David Bowie.

Just in a Lightbox

Today D. and I made a makeshift light box, using a box from a table lamp, printer paper, 3 plant lights, tape, and hope the whole thing didn’t burst into flames. The hope being the most important here probably.

So, the box didn’t turn out perfectly, but with the right amount of tweeks on the next model (i.e. better fibrous paper, brighter lights, better tri-pod) I think it could come in handy.

Here’s what I got.

This scary lil mo fo was a gift from little sister L. She bought a curio cabinet from a lady friend of hers, and the lady friend included tons of clown curios. I picked this one from the lot.

-Bonsai In Training

This is a Fukien Tea Tree and is one of the first trees I bought. I have had it for about 5 years. She’s pretty. However I find the ‘light box’ doesn’t work as well with larger items.

Mystery Plant.

I’m not sure what this plant is. It has read leaves, and dark barkish stems, and occasionally blooms with tiny yellow flowers. It must be cut back at times to get a flourish of growth. The pot I picked up at Houseworks (a ‘junk’ (and when I say junk I mean treasure) store) in Iowa City.

A Big Purple Rock.

Purple quartz. I’m Six Sigma sure. This I bought at one of those cheesy rock shops in South Dakota. OMG I love cheesy rock shops so very very much. I believe this one was from Wall Drug.

.

Photoshop Much?

This is the mystery plant shoved haphazardly through Photshop, like hamburger through a hand crank grinder. But still…”neat.”

Well, that’s it. Those photos are the end result of the project. It was fun, but not perfect. Ahhh, just like my life.

Um, what? …. sigh.

Some of the Weekend.

The weekend at Mom’s was O.K. Pretty much par for the course…if going to my mother’s was a golf course and you happen to do ‘just fine’ whilst playing on said course.

We drove ‘home’ on Saturday. (It’s about a one hour and half drive…no big whoop.) Soon after we arrived my stepfather asked me if I would mow my grandfather’s lawn. I didn’t mind the idea of mowing his lawn, however I didn’t really want to spend time with him at his house. My grandfather’s house is falling down around him. Literally. One part of it is closed off because the ceiling panels are coming down. And the sun porch is full of dead plants. It’s not a happy place. It’s reflective of him in a lot of ways…maybe that’s why he is so comfortable there, and doesn’t want a thing touched. Which is fine with me because it’s sort of gross.

Anyway, My Stepfather said, “I’ll take you out to eat tonight in Keokuk, if you mow your Grandpa’s yard.” (Keokuk is another Iowa river town south of Fort Madison. It’s a bit larger so they have more meth. <—this is a joke. We weren’t having meth for supper. Though I s’pose some do around there) I didn’t want him to think he had to ‘pay’ me for mowing the lawn, so I told him it wasn’t necessary. He replied, “Well, why not? I have 20,000 dollars.”

“20 thousand dollars?” I thought. Wow. Um, O.k? Jolly good work? I was confused as to the correlation between this amount and dinner, or even with the mowing of the lawn. So I just said, “ok,” Maybe that was his plan, some sort of “LOOK OVER THERE!…”

“20,000 DOLLARS!”

He received an inheritance from his father. And now it’s time for the famous “Buy everything he wants game.” It’s quite fun for him, but it drives my mother (and the rest of us vicariously) crazy.

My sis rode home from Supper in Keokuk with D and I. Mom and B (stepfather) rode separately so they could stop at The Wal Mart to spend loads of cash on things that will boost their ratings in the social Echelon of our family. I.E. He was going blow a chunk of his inheritance, and Mom will (pretend) to be quite angry with him.

We took ‘River road’ home. The drive brought back many memories of my step-father (my first one, the one who raised me…he was mostly a jerk. mostly.) Anyway, he would take my sisters and I for a drive in the evening while my mom was out playing Bingo or bowling. Mom played Bingo a lot…come to think of it. (WAIT! holy shit, I just re-read this paragraph and I’m…I’m white trash. LOL just foolin’ i knew’d I’s that already.) So yeah, he would take us on drives along old highways along the Mississippi river, both on the Iowa and Illinois sides. It was actually a good memory…I was a bit surprised I had any of those involving him. Guess that only proves how much we sensor our life as we go on. Holding onto memories which solidify a certain ‘image’ we have of a person. So rare it is probably, that these images are anywhere near the core of who the person really is. I suppose that’s a bit sad…that realization.

In short. The drive through the woods along the Mississippi was nice.

While at The Wal Mart they bought a 46 inch flat screen t.v., a surround sound system, and a modern looking television stand which will most certainly clash a bit in their wood paneled living room decorated with a plethora of Eagle (I capitalize out of respect for our nation’s symbol) statues, Eagle ‘paintings’ and Eagle mirrors. <—think this but as a Living room. Or this:

The most annoying thing about the purchases was now D and I were responsible for figuring out how to put it all together, and make it work. B refuses to read to instructions, and refuses to put any effort whatsoever into actually putting something, anything, to memory. He will blame it on chocolate mescaline use in Vietnam, but I blame it on laziness. (pretty much at any point I say “D and I” were stuck doing something…I mostly meant D because he’s super nice like that. I needed a half a Xanax just to deal with the dismantling of the old entertainment center.)

The spending has kicked into a frenzy. I fear for their souls. There will be fights, and crying. Mom has already said, “Your father would never have blown this money on T.Vs and crap for his ‘ol pick up” (B. is also spending lots of cash on his truck(s). Neon Underlighting. Flashy Chrome Details, and other testosterone driven knick knacks.) Mom is playing the Disappointment From a Dead Father card; quite the bold move on her part this early in the Mad Cash Spree game.  I heard him mention the amount of dust behind the shoddy old entertainment center (it bowed in the middle from the weight of the old mammoth television.) He was playing the “Poor Housekeeper Card.”  Pretty risky to use with all the people in the living room to hear.  Man, I’m glad I don’t live there…  (I, of course, love them both dearly.)

I took some photos of the ‘Native American Children’ dolls that inhabit the guest bedroom upstairs. These are the faces staring at me while we sleep.

Almost adorable, this face…but if you look in the eyes…actually DON’T! Don’t look into the eyes!

It’s a wonder we can sleep at all.

Home For the Weekend

I’m heading home soon to spend time with the Fam. It will be nice seeing everyone…and stressful at the same time. Going home brings on a lot of feelings of edginess, er on edgeness. Whatever. I’m glad Grandpa isn’t staying at mom’s anymore. He’s a bit of a downer…not because he is really sick, that’s not his fault, it’s his attitude about it all. He’s quite rude to Mom, and she mostly takes it. He’s just kind of a pathetic person in general. And yes, you can say things like that about your family; at least in mine you can. I was surprised to hear he is driving. Hell, a couple months ago he was picking imaginary watermelons in my mother’s living room, now he’s behind the wheel of a car. Friggin’ scary. I think I’m going to recommend he calls someone for a ride from now on.

Well, I’m going to eat some food…the Red Bull I had for breakfast is pushing my body over the edge. Wish me luck with my fam.

Sure this post was lame, and pointless…but it gave me an excuse to post this hilarious photo of my Mom (on the left) and my Aunt giving my families’ love salute.