Bernadette R.I.P.

Bright Eyes

Is it a kind of dream,
Floating out on the tide,
Following the river of death downstream?
Oh, is it a dream?

There's a fog along the horizon,
A strange glow in the sky,
And nobody seems to know where you go,
And what does it mean?
Oh, is it a dream?

Bright eyes,
Burning like fire.
Bright eyes,
How can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes.

Is it a kind of shadow,
Reaching into the night,
Wandering over the hills unseen,
Or is it a dream?

There's a high wind in the trees,
A cold sound in the air,
And nobody ever knows when you go,
And where do you start,
Oh, into the dark.

Bright eyes,
burning like fire.
Bright eyes,
how can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes.

Bright eyes,
burning like fire.
Bright eyes,
how can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes. -Simon and Garfunkel


Bernadette died from what I understand were complications from chemotherapy.   She lost the gamble that chemotherapy can prolong one's life, in her case it may have shortened it. She lived 4 months from her diagnosis. 

Another friend and I were going to stop by her house a few days before she died. We called first, I realize from the sound of her husband's voice that it was very bad. She was still in the hospital which was not so unusual, he said there was no point visiting her there although we could.  It was the first time I heard total despair in his voice.  I hoped he was wrong, it seemed inconceivable.

Even though its been several weeks now, its so hard to take in that I will never see her again, hear her voice, feel her irrepressible energy or see the sparkle in her eyes.  She always seemed so unstoppable, a force of nature. She always encourage and inspired me to go after dreams, and reminded me to approach life as if anything was possible when I would forget.
I don't think it was possible to know her and not think of her with a smile. 

I started to write this post a few days ago, but I started crying when I was trying describe the person she, couldn't stop for quite a while.  I am far from the only one who feels this way, she was one of the most loved people, I have ever met. Last week, I was volunteering at the food coop and another friend of hers came in, it was all we could do not to just break down.

September was a very bad month, I try to look at the various things and think in 10yrs time they won't matter, but this will.

I'm crying again...

I think my luck is changing! The price of gas went down two days after I filled up instead of one.

One of my lovely doctors gives me Cox 2 NSAID samples because its not on my insurance company's formulary. Every month or two, I go to their office to pick them up. The office is in a medical building near a large teaching hospital, in a semi-iffy neighborhood. I park on the neighborhood streets because I am cheap, not to mention still unemployed. Usually the samples are in a brown bag and I can walk around without everyone seeing that I have hundreds of dollars of pills in my hands. Occasionally they are in a large clear ziplock baggy. This time they were like this:



Someone obviously had a sense of humor that morning. On the plus side I had lots of room in the elevator and no one came near me walking back to my car.


NL: Al Stewart Cousins
NR: The not so big life by Sarah Susanka
Feeling: sad, friend died
Mood: still dark with perhaps the illusion of a pinprick of possible light at the end of the tunnel, though its probably a train.

Lol, lobster tickets!

"Just like a river running through." Guess what I am listening to?

This is my first post by cell phone. I tried posting pictures directly from my phone but it doesn't seem to work.

Next year in Jerusalem

"Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the most sacred of the Jewish holidays, the "Sabbath of Sabbaths."

By Yom Kippur the 40 days of repentance, that begin with the first of Elul, have passed. On Rosh Hashanah G-d has judged most of mankind and has recorded his judgement in the Book of Life. But he has given a 10 day reprieve.

On Yom Kippur the Book of Life is closed and sealed. Those that have repented for their sins are granted a good and Happy New Year.

Since Yom Kippur is the day to ask forgiveness for promises broken to G-d, the day before is reserved for asking forgiveness for broken promises between people, as G-d cannot forgive broken promises between people.

Yom Kippur is a day of "NOT" doing. The is no blowing of the Shofar and Jews may not eat or drink, as fasting is the rule. It is believed that to fast on Yom Kippur is to emulate the angels in heaven, who do not eat, drink, or wash.

The Five Prohibitions of Yom Kippur

1. Eating and drinking
2. Anointing with perfumes or lotions
3. Marital relations
4. Washing
5. Wearing leather shoes

While Yom Kippur is devoted to fasting, the day before is devoted to eating. According to the The Talmud the person "who eats on the ninth of Tishri (and fasts on the tenth) , it is as if he had fasted both the ninth and tenth." Prayer is also down played so that Jews can concentrate on eating and preparing for the fast.

On the eve of Yom Kippur the community joins at the synagogue. Men put on prayer shawls (not usually worn in the evenings). Then as the night falls the cantor begins the "Kol Nidre", it is repeated 3 times, each time in a louder voice. The Kol Nidre emphasizes the importance in keeping vows, as violating an oath is one of the worst sins.

An important part of the Yom Kippur service is the "Vidui" (Viduy) or confession. The confessions serve to help reflect on ones misdeeds and to confess them verbally is part of the formal repentance in asking G-d's forgiveness. Because community and unity are an important part of Jewish Life, the confessions are said in the plural (We are guilty).

As Yom Kippur ends, at the last hour a service called "Ne'ila" (Neilah) offers a final opportunity for repentance. It is the only service of the year during which the doors to the Ark (where the Torah scrolls are stored) remain open from the beginning to end of the service, signifying that the gates of Heaven are open at this time.

The service closes with the verse, said 7 times, "The L-rd is our G-d." The Shofar is sounded once and the congregation proclaim - "Next year in Jerusalem."

Yom Kippur is over."

http://www.holidays.net/highholydays/yom.htm

This is for you Pickle!

How Randomly Cute Is Your Personality?

Underwear Cute Your personality proves to be so randomly cute that you'd wear underwear on your head just because you can. Let's just hope there clean...

How do you compare? Take this test! | Tests from Testriffic

Logic Quiz

You Are Pretty Logical

You're a bit of a wizard when it comes to logic While you don't have perfect logic, you logic is pretty darn good Keep at it - you've got a lot of natural talent in this area!

How Logical Are You?

I took this from Geoff's blog. The shoe question did me in. I kept thinking why would you have socks that didn't match your shoes esp if you dressed in the dark? Also why not just turn on a light? I am a little shoe obsessed at the moment but I will save that for another post.

Wodehouse humour for the day

Even at the Drones Club,
where the average of intellect is not high,
it was often said of Archibald that,
had his brain been constructed of silk,
he would have been hard put to it
to find sufficient material to make
a canary a pair of cami-knickers.
~ P.G. Wodehouse,
"The Reverent Wooing of Archibald"

10702 steps

The second most I have walked since the challenge ended.  I was at the state fair and walked home.  It was in the high 80's today and dripping, my eyes stung from the sweat rolling into them, I thought of Beaumont, I looked for lizards, but there were only the lounge variety.
I picked up a second sapling, got some fresh cotton candy on the cone, tasted nitro ice cream, had a pickle on a stick * looked at the 4h textiles exhibit. I ended up with quite a few canvas bags.  It was the last night and they wanted to get rid of them.

I heard Starship, the 3rd incarnation.  It went Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, Starship. The lead singer was the "I fooled around and fell in love" guy.
http://www.mickeythomas.com/
They were quite good.  At one point they did a tribute medley to the previous incarnations which was okay, but miracles they didn't sing the sexual parts, hmmm
I sent a song.  I watched the last set fire works.

My feet hurt and I need a shower.

* everything at the state fair tries to be on a stick.

"banana guards" I can't stop laughing!!!

Every morning I go through all my feeds. I read my friends blogs daily and then read what looks interesting to me for the day. .

I read fashion incubator about once a week unless I am in a pattern making/sewing frame of mind.  They had a pop quiz a couple days ago, which I noticed today because it made  the tailoring trade newsletters:
http://www.fashion-incubator.com/mt/archives/pop_quiz_467.html

I know what they are, but I have never used one like that, but I would like to.

I am sure I could run up a few banana covers for anyone who needs one ;)

Just had my first tomato from my balcony

It was very good! I ate it with some fresh sweet basil also from my balcony.

I have 5 tomato plants on my balcony and a few tomatoes are on them, but only 1 was anywhere near ripe.  The cucumbers are just starting to flower.  I hope everything gets ripe before the first frost.  The leeks are very thin, look just a bit thicker than the chives ;-(

I have thyme and basils-sweet, thai, cinnamon, and lemon. I had 3 thymes but only the creeping one is left.

We have had some bad weather here but at least most of my plants survived the storms.

Small political quiz

I am a leftist Libertarian, LOL

http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html

The political group that
agrees with you most is...

.

LIBERTARIAN

LIBERTARIANS support maximum liberty in both personal and

economic matters. They advocate a much smaller government; one

that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence.

Libertarians tend to embrace individual responsibility, oppose

government bureaucracy and taxes, promote private charity, tolerate

diverse lifestyles, support the free market, and defend civil liberties.

Your PERSONAL issues Score is 90%.
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 60%.
(Please note: Scores falling on the Centrist border are counted as Centrist.)

Netflix!

I am so thrilled to have been given Netflix.
I finally finished watching my second disk. 
It was Due South Season 2, disk 2 and it was great! 

Finally, its happened, I became invisible!

When I was younger especially in college, I tried very hard to be a wallflower and not be noticed, but it rarely worked.

The only time I can remember was when I was about 27. I had gotten a haircut I like to referred to as the "twinkie do", and went to the Minneapolis Strictly Business Computer Show. I had some money to spend, about 20K and no one even noticed I was in their booths. So i started playing with their computers. No one noticed! They did eventually notice their screen savers had somehow changed to say "I'd rather be a Mac."
In fact, I was still in one booth when it was discovered but still no one noticed me, I was amazed! A few days later, I flew off to Germany to attended the Hanover Cebit where I had no problem being notice wearing the same outfit, "twinkie do" and all. I actually got all the information I needed, plus seriously wined and dined! I got rid of the "twinkie do" when I got back home but my hair stylist and I still reminisce about it sometimes.

I had heard that when women become a certain age they become invisible, and today I realized it was true, I have become invisible.
Usually there are people and rabbits around my apartment building, and the neighborhood also has a lot of rabbits. When I come home at night there is a usually a rabbit looking at my headlights and chumping on something. Sometimes the rabbit says and sometimes it takes off when I close the car door. I never really thought of why that was until today.

As I was walking to the post office, a rabbit come out in front of me to eat some grass, I kept walking and the rabbit kept eating, I was within 6 inches of the rabbit and it didn't even notice me. Thinking about it I realized the rabbits take off when I am with other people (most of whom are younger than I) and they stay when I am alone.

Suddenly it dawned on me, I have become invisible to RABBITS! How this can be possible is beyond me, but I guess its a good thing as I am allergic to them...
I am wondering if rabbits are color blind because if you had this combination of colors next to you, wouldn't you notice?

Just a bit of weather...

When I got home Friday night at about 2 am I was wondering where is that weather that we were supposed to get.  My friend said that's tomorrow.  A few of my neighbors where up and outside, the weather seemed just fine,
When I was doing an email a bit later I thought I heard some thunder so I unplugged my computer before getting ready for bed.

I was just reading a bit, having sent off my final emails and text messages for the day and getting all comfy when the storm started.  It was very loud, lots of close lightening, deafening thunder, sound of rain and tree branches scrapping the building.  Then the lights flickered a few times, so I got up and started unplugging the tv and assorted video stuff, the microwave, put the lanyard reading light around my neck and checked the flash light by my bed. The lights went out, then on for a few more minutes then off for good.  

I tried to look outside but the rain was coming down so hard I couldn't see beyond the end of my balcony.  It was so hot.  The electricity and the more importantly the AC didn't come back on until 11am. At which point my phone rang and my gardening partner asked to come over to iron a shirt as she still was without power.
the first pic St Anthony Park is MY neighborhood!!!
http://wcco.com/slideshows/local_slideshow_223104336

###

Well, it looks like I will have to postpone the rest of my weather and picture post as we are about to get hammered again.  Need to move glass stuff off balcony for hail. We are in a thunderstorm warning already.  Time to freeze the apartment in case of power outage, unplug stuff,

She smiled!

I was going to post about the lovely bit of weather we have had recently, but when we stop by the zoo and conservatory during our view of the damage, we went into the tropical encounters part. We watched the turtles, and the fish. There is also a sloth there always in the same spot in this tree, curled up and sleeping. However today when we were in front of the tree, she woke up! Stretched in a very sloth like manner, smiled at us, relaxed and went back to sleep kind of sprawled out on her back. I have never seen a sloth do that. My brother took the photo.

What Harry Potter Character are You? Hermione Granger You are a smart and intelligent person. You use your smarts to help out friends. You can be emotional at times but you always seem to be in the mood to help someone out. Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests

Grabbed from Kami Sanctuary

What kind of Poetry are you?

I am, of course, none other than blank verse. I don't know where I'm going, yes, quite right; And when I get there (if I ever do) I might not recognise it. So? Your point? Why should I have a destination set? I'm relatively happy as I am, And wouldn't want to be forever aimed Towards some future path or special goal. It's not to do with laziness, as such. It's just that one the whole I'd rather not Be bothered - so I drift contentedly; An underrated way of life, I find. What Poetry Form Are You?

Stardust-another, very different, red hot fairy tale.

I was going to start this post with a great quote but I can't remember it right, its about how romantic it is to bring a hurt kidnapped women home as a gift.

I am very sleepy, stayed up too late and had to get up early, plus I spent the day in meetings and attempting to learn Dreamweaver. I was afraid I would fell asleep during the movie, but it wouldn't let me!

Stardust is amazing, almost as good as Princess Bride. The cast is great and no one can touch De Niro's performance in this, no one! The peanut gallery is hilarious. Costumes were fun too. I almost forgot the special effects were fantastic, I didn't see any mistakes, and no ILM!!!

It opens on Friday, I have no idea why on earth they did a screening today, but I am happy they did.

Dilemma

Recently I purchased a new publication from someone I know professionally and usually see about once a year.  I was reading this a couple weeks ago and something about some of it felt very familiar.  Today it dawned on my where it might have come from and I looked it up. 

The pages I was wondering about are pretty identical to a magazine article published in December 2004.  The article is not long available on line without paying serious money but I have a copy of it.  Some of it is copied word for word and what is even worse that part of the article is describing another person's methodology which was properly credited in the magazine article.  There are a couple people who worked on this publication so maybe the credit got removed during editing or something.

So I am not sure what to do, but I need to do something.  Any ideas?

Humble, lovable shoe shine boy?

Am I the only one who likes Underdog?  I keep seeing this ad for the new Underdog movie and whenever I mention it, I get blank stares and/or silence.  Surely someone other than me (and my brothers) like Underdog?

The Great Walk Challenge

Congratulations Jack on winning the walk challenge !!!

Thanks Laurie for walking with us and being our fabulous scorekeeper! The final scores are below.

Based on my rough calculations Jack averaged over 6 miles/day, Laurie over 2 miles/day and I a bit under 5.4 miles/day. All in all a good showing for each of us considering the physical stuff like Laurie was not a walker, Jack did it in spurts, and I broke a toe during it. Then there was the stuff happening in our lives during the challenge like my place of work making a mad dash not to go under and then going under, Laurie's becoming a grand fabulous mother and Jack's, ummm..., life.

Before we started, I was walking about 5 miles most days, now that the challenge is over I hope to start walking for about an hour every morning, and then maybe a short walk in the evening around dinnertime. I am working on having the proper equipment so I can walk everyday. I have the hot sunny days worked out, poncho for the rainy ones, wind pants and yak trax for the snowy/icy ones but I still need new hiking boots (mine bit the dust last year) and winter clothing. I have some power dry, lots of fleece, wool for trousers and ultrex to play with. I lost a few mittens last year so I need to make some of those. I am most excited about the polar dry and wondering if it could also be used for dance work out stuff too.

The Walk Challenge

Total Steps to Date

Jack...768,422

Susan..683,181

Laurie.260,768

Week 1 (5/13/07 - 5/19/07)

Jack....67,568

Susan...69,357

Laurie..38,634

Week 2 (5/20/07 - 5/26/07)

Jack...150,501

Susan...77,752

Laurie..41,081

Week 3 (5/27/07 - 6/2/07)

Jack....74,037

Susan...54,750

Laurie..37,247

Week 4 (6/3/07 - 6/9/07)

Jack....48,759

Susan...79,352

Laurie..33,308

Week 5 (6/10/07 - 6/16/07)

Jack....50,869

Susan...86,242

Laurie..31,791

Week 6 (6/17/07 - 6/23/07)

Jack....61,615

Susan...54,828

Laurie..16,644

Week 7 (6/24/07 - 6/30/07)

Jack...129,251

Susan...67,949

Laurie..19,618

Week 8 (7/1/07 - 7/7/07)

Jack....82,199

Susan...72,986

Laurie..19,065

Week 9 (7/8/07 - 7/14/07)

Jack...103,623

Susan...93,653

Laurie..23,380

So I am beginning to recover

from CONvergence.  I was going to put some of my pics up and I can't find my camera!!!  I hope it turns up soon. 

For those of you who can't wait for me to find the camera, C. pointed me to this blog, http://rubyd.livejournal.com/306444.html that has some nice tame pictures, even one with me in it! 
Based on what I am wearing I believe it was taken at about 2am on Sunday morning, after a mere 19 hrs at con with about 5 hrs sleep between Friday and Saturday. 

I am still keeping relatively late hours but I plan to be wide eyed and bushy tailed at 8am tomorrow, and at 6am by Monday morning.

Hopefully I will find the camera soon and can post my pics.  Perhaps it is hanging out with the library book I lost called "getting unstuck."  On the plus side, I do know where my favorite necklace is, Jack ;-)

I could have danced all night, I could have danced all night

oh wait...I did. At least some, and I didn't want to stop, but but was 4am and was invited to a tea at 11am.
So its 5am now and I am home in one piece.

I won a Canadian trivia contest and Sci Fi video bingo!!!!! Neither of which I am an expert on by any stretch of imagination, but I won!!!

Since Friday I have been at CON, more later and even perhaps pictures. I really ought to go to sleep soon.

So I have my Sunday's free again

so I join my brother in his frequent Sunday activity which is rebate shopping. 
I am not very good at this, I pretty much have to fill out of the forms and everything right after we shop or I forget.  Usually its just sport unless there is something you really want, then its deadly serious.

I really wanted a new hard drive for backup since I am getting my life organized. Jack showed me what he was doing in Quicken when I was down there visiting and it seemed like a good idea esp as I am unemployed now. I am also going to organize a bunch of stuff and want to use my current back up drive for that.

So we get to the store at 9:40 and there are 4 guys sitting in 4 cars, 1 guy standing in front of the store.  We get out and wait with him.  I try various things to see if I can get my pedometer going while we wait, the only things that works is pacing and I could have lost my space in line if I did that. More guys show up, store employees slide themselves into the store and carefully close and lock all sets of doors afterwards.

My brother and I discuss strategy.  He will go for the drives and I will go for the free after rebate things. This was Office Depot and they have been changing a bunch of stuff. he tells me where he thinks they are.  We are not sure about the drives so he will find and ask the manager. 

In times past sometimes he would go early, load up a couple carts and then call me and friends to come help check out.  These things are usually 1 per address.  I am a bit out of practice, I have forgotten my office max coupon so they can match it and we are not working like the well oiled machine we were in the past when we got ourselves every freebie (including a car tv) plus the rebate items.

I can't find the free after rebates things, so I find him at the drives, there are 3 of them, we grab the two best looking ones.  They are listed at $199, marked down to $89, we have $40 rebate. Its a 250g seagate external UBS2 drive, a bit slower than firewire but not bad for $60. We found the freebies too. There were also a hardware and an auto parts store with stuff.

I just finished filling out the rebate forms. We got each a drive, 3m glue stick, two side repositionable roller 3m tape, 3 pk of energel pens, box of 4x6 inkjet photo paper, 2 gallons of antifreeze, 2 gal of prem bug wash window washing fluid, a microfiber towel, elmers polyurethane glue, 2 pks ge softwhite 4pk light bulbs, a utility lighter, an assortment of 3 plastic funnels, 16oz murphy oil soap, tech stain remover, and black tire wet protectant.

Cost for the above after rebates- $68.53 including tax and stamps to mail in the rebates.  Not bad, not bad at all.. 

Oh except for a kid who was some nerd's daughter, I was the only female doing rebate shopping this morning, another place to pick up guys for your list Laurie!  One could just find the best thing on sale & rebate and hold it ransom until a cute nerd wants it. Today everyone was going for the drives and some inkjet printer that was too infer by our standards so we left it.

Anyway if anyone wants to play this game, just email me and I will try and forward any decent deals I hear about and you too can do it.