The Neon Nurse's Charting

Beloved Spouse of Armoire_Man, (who we lost many decades too soon last spring), thought up a brilliant plan for finishing off 2007 as it so richly deserves.

She is getting together a group that is going to shred up some old 2007 calendars, set them on fire and then push them out to the Denver equivalent of the sea and THROW ROCKS AT THE WHOLE MESS.

Here is the fine ship Carol K made for this worthy endeavor:



The Lamar contingent will only be there in spirit, but we are adopting the High Dry Plains variation. I've just come in from stuffing our burn barrel with a towering soon-to-be-inferno of cardboard. On it I've written many things we did not like about 2007 -- bullies and lost friends and disease and war. Stuff like that.

We're gonna light it up at midnight! Pics to follow tomorrow if I'm lucky.

Yes, we did manage to get the last 12 boxes of books out of Dreamcloud so we could properly celebrate Free Dump Weekend yesterday.

Today we are going to gather and flatten discarded boxes, scrawl "2007" on them here and there, and stack them up in the burn barrel to light on fire at midnight. Yes, the fun never stops here at the House of Unruly Fish.

I also have to go to town and mail out my last load of books sold in 2007, then go to the store for a bag of frozen pot-stickers and whatever else we need for a New Years' Feast.

Tomorrow I plan to start my personalized version of JaNoWriMo. Does anyone have a good source for one of those word count bars that show your progress? The one at Zokutou doesn't seem to work anymore.

In honor of JaNoWriMo, here's another goodie from my pic backlog:

Ok, HERE'S the site.

It's safe to go there, because they are playing fair and have t-shirts for both donks and elephants. The shirts are also sectioned off into Serious, Humorous and Offensive, so you don't have to look at the ones likely to raise your blood pressure unless you choose to do so.

Here's a bipartisan sample. (I call it bipartisan because I think both parties have failed at creating a fair and decent US health care system.)



Some of the ones I am kind of thinking about springing for:



Conceptual!


HEE!


Double HEE!


My favorite!

I tried that deal that finds your LJ New Year's resolutions, and was amazed it somehow picked out ! I hope I can go writing with him more in 2008!

In 2008, neonnurse resolves to...

Give some heroes to charity.
Overcome my secret fear of blogs.
Lose ten falsifying statistics by March.
Buy new blue believers.
Take crabbymike writing.
Pay for my vintage trailers on time.

Get your own New Year's Resolutions:

Here's Mike in one of his Christmas presents. (The jacket, not the car!)



Yesterday he added another improbable wish to his ever-growing list.

Lobster Ice Cream

If it didn't cost almost $60 to ship a pint from Maine, I might even consider it for his birthday. Maybe sometime we will GO to Maine, instead. Or I could try to guess at the recipe?

# posted by Susan the Neon Nurse : 4:33 PM

I have been busy the past couple of days doing the Tidy-Up-March (Kip_W knows what I mean) because Sterling, Beth and grandgirlie Lexie were going to be coming for a visit. Unfortunately, Sterling's semi had a bad breakdown, which cost him 5 road days and lots of $$, so they have had to cancel their trip. :<

In other bad news, I am still fighting with that Nightmare Death Mutant Toilet Seat from Hell. Beautiful but evil, isn't that always the way?

Could be worse, though. Toilet seats working loose are bad, but consider this quote from this morning's Rocky Mountain News. It's a sentence one seldom gets the chance to say in real life:

"I didn't know it at the time but that's when the propeller fell off."

This guy named Barry Cox had taken off in his private plane from the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport. About 10 minutes out, he heard a loud bang and a bunch of oil squirted all over his windshield. So he just turned around, navigated through the side windows, and glided the eight miles back to the airport. Easy-squeasy, you know?

The clone wonders where the propeller ended up.

Quiet and pleasant. That's the holiday story around here. Quiet except for a couple of dog fights...Smiley is not being so much of a McFriendlyPants towards Climber now that she's feeling like she's a grown-up dog. (She's jockeying for Alpha Bitch, unaware in her youthful folly that that title belongs to ME.)

We got very lucky in the postal lottery yesterday, when the last three presents for Mike arrived on time! Another arrival via UPS was not exactly a Christmas present, but still something the clone and I had been looking forward to -- a new toilet seat. She had found a dealer on eBay with a great selection, and we decided on one with chrome fittings. (The plastic kind just don't seem to hold up over time.) Imagine our delight when it turned out not to just be dark blue, but METALLIC, SHINY dark blue!

I glanced at the directions for putting it on, even though I'd done this task a bunch of times over the years. It did not take long for me to discover they had been written by someone who a) was high, b) was not too S-M-A-R-T, c) had never actually installed a toilet seat and was using his imagination, or d) all of the above.

After an hour, I had it in place. By bedtime, it was way off center and kind of a hazard to navigation. Today I ignored the instructions and used my good common sense, and it's now on there and at this point in time still steady.

Darned pretty, too.

Other things: we need to get batteries tomorrow for several of today's pressies. Also adapters that let you plug a gameport-ended controller into a USB port. (We got Mike a driving wheel and a joystick, but I just assumed the computer he's on now had game ports, and it does not. My bad.)

Also there are a couple of projects I fully intended to complete before Christmas Day which I did not. You are shocked, I can tell.

For today's pic I will first give you the backstory via an old post in The Neon Nurse's Neighborhood News, my 'in hiatus' newsletter:

Probably the strangest present ever given in our family (and it does have stiff competition) was Death. Kenny became an avid role-playing game fan as soon as he discovered them, and one of his favorite characters was named...Death. (Don't let it worry you--he was and is a sweet boy. We all have our own ways of coping.) So I had a brilliant idea--our friend Carol Kimball sewed up a traditional black hooded robe. I already had an antique scythe from a farm auction, and a mannequin ditto. So tucked in behind our tree that memorable Christmas was a looming, ghastly figure...that none of the kids noticed until nearly noon. And then they laughed like maniacs. I guess Death isn't all that scary when he's wearing plaid polyester pants and penny loafers under the robe.

This is a must see to believe vid! A Russian group doing (very well!) the classic "It's Raining Men" with a pirate theme!



And for my holiday pic sharing mode, well, a cartoon, not a pic, but anyway:

I went all day Thursday feeling like it was Friday. Today feels like Friday too. I can't remember what yesterday felt like, except...pretty good, aktualy. Although I went to bed at midnight and slept until noon today, so that feeling might have been the caffeine talkin'.

Here's another one of those pics I was mentioning the other day. If I can't have the rocket car, I want a motorcycle with a custom sidecar like this. Except I think I want mine to look like a shuttlecraft from TOS Star Trek.

Still an oldie but goodie!

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday(tm), practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all . . . and a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great, (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only "AMERICA" in the western hemisphere), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual orientation of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, which ever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Some friends of mine are going to go so far as to give 2007 a viking funeral. They plan to shred some calendars into an aluminum roasting pan, light them on fire and send 'em floating, then THROW ROCKS UNTIL IT SINKS. On New Year's Eve, of course.

I'm only going to be there in spirit, but OH BOY am I there.

As we ride out the last few jumps of 2007, I'm going to do some advance work on my perennial resolution about clearing stuff up around here, and FINALLY put up some of the pics I've saved back to share and then never actually, you know, SHARED.

This is a great piece of magazine art from 1958, and look, they were promoting solar panels! Seriously! (Gosh, imagine if renewable energy sources had actually caught on 50 years ago.)

Check out the car in the drive, too. Think it flies? I bet it flies! I want one!!!

I forgot I was going to post this too. It's a pic of the neon rainbow disco mirror ball ornaments the clone got me for an early Christmas pressie!

Or so the song claims.

Today Mike had an appointment to see a new doctor. The guy he has seen all his life, who actually delivered him, is retiring. I felt lucky that my first choice of doctors was willing to take Mike on. I had known Dr. Ray from when I worked at the hospital. He's a very good doctor with a great sense of humor, which I thought might come in handy in dealing with Mike.

Little did I know.

Dr. Ray was doing the going-over thing on the boy, and after looking in his ears he asked, "Does that ear hurt?" I had just been saying how Mike almost never gets sick, so I was puzzled that he might have seen some redness, since this isn't really the time of year for hay fever.

Dr. Ray sat down, made a note on the chart, and asked me, "So, how long has he had an eraser in his ear?"



Dr. Ray tried a couple of ways to get it out, but no joy. He thought one of the local surgeons might have better tools, so he made arrangements for him to meet us over at the hospital ER. Mike and I went over there...and waited an hour and a half, with no explanations as to why the surgeon never turned up. The ER doc gave vacuum extraction a whirl, but that didn't work either.

I joked a little about the possibility of SMACKING it out of him, and everyone just nodded understandingly. I wouldn't really, of course, but GEEZ, you know?

So tomorrow I have to call the surgeon's office, make another appointment, and also diplomatically inquire as to what he was thinking, blowing us off like that...though perhaps AFTER we get the eraser out of Mike's ear.

Mike swears he will never put an eraser in his ear again. I believe him. He will probably come up with 67 weirder goof-ups...but not this same one....

Mike's big giant tree: up and working

Soup: Warming and tasty

Big Sterling: Unstuck and driving again.

And here is a link to a funny video for your enjoyment. It's the Bob Rivers' song "The 12 Pains of Christmas", illoed by clips from Disney films.

http://www.jibjab.com/view/214756

Enjoy!

It has not yet started 70%ing outside, but it's foggy and cold, so I'm thinking, yeah, any time now.

That might be why I am having trouble snapping my brain out of hibernation mode today, even though I got a good night's sleep and have sucked down at least a minimal amount of coffee. Oh, well, can't be a buzzsaw of getting stuff done EVERY day.

Just to have something resembling content, here is a meme I have seen all over, but gacked from my friend Filkferengi:



It was that last one that really gobsmacked me! Because Deadwood/Firefly fic? So very wrong, and yet, could be so amazing if done well!

I'm going to try to get a little post written before Mike comes home. Unless he has a darn good explanation for why my car keys were not where I had them hidden (very long story cut to spare you more of my tedious ranting), we are NOT going to be putting up the tree this afternoon as planned. A stampede of many herds of drama llamas will probably ensue.

Another son, Big Sterling (Onetruckertorulethemall) has emailed to say he's "turtled up" in his semi somewhere in Massachusetts, because of the snow storm. We are expected to get snow here tomorrow, as well. I think today was the only sunny day out of the whole past week. In other cold-related news, I am making a BIG pot of home-made vegetable beef soup even we speak. Or, you know, as I type and you subsequently read.

I have been making fairly good progress in re-deranging things around here, especially my work area. Book sales are going slow but steady, and there have been some kind of cool ones. A while back, I sold a children's book from the 60s to the author, or at least someone with the same name as the author. Last week I was contacted by a lady who wanted to get another children's book post-haste, as a shower gift for a friend. The book was written by the grandmother of the friend (the one the shower was being held for). She knew about it but didn't have a copy--so by now she does!

Yesterday a man called me about yet ANOTHER children's book (they should call this time of year the nostalg-idays!), now rather scarce and pricey. But he wanted a really nice copy to give to his granddaughter. It had been a favorite of his daughter's that he read to her many times when she was little, so now the tradition can continue!

I was also able to use my online biz expertise to help out the son of a friend this week. He had listed a phone for sale on Craig's List, and someone wanted him to send it to a "client in Italy". (Red flag #1) He had gotten an email supposedly from PayPal saying the funds had been taken from the buyer's account, and would be forwarded to him as soon as he sent in proof he had mailed the phone. OMGWTFBBQredflag2!!!!!!

I was 99% sure this was a scam, but had him call PayPal just to make absolutely sure they hadn't changed their rules lately and I hadn't heard about it. He did, and reported back to me that they said he should NOT send the phone, and halt all dealings with the scammer. I suggested that if the guy did give it one last try, he should just say, "Gosh, the funds never got into my account, you better have PayPal run a trace for you."

The guy did call, the kid told him what I said to tell him, and the defeated would-be scammer hung up without saying another word.

I believe the youth today say "PWNED!" on such occasions.

Among (many) other things, I take garlic capsules for their health giving qualities.

I guess I must have dropped one without noticing, because our pup girl Smiley McFriendlyPants definitely FOUND one while she was hanging around under my feet here at the computer desk.

Dog breath is not always so grate, aktually, but enhancing it with garlic oil? BIG time FAIL. Even when one LIKES the smell of garlic.

Did I mention that we went to Lamar's Parade of Lights last Friday? No, not here, I don't think. Well, we did. It was a little shy of floats this year. Maybe some groups bailed because of the freezing drizzle going on at the time.

My camera is getting old and wonky (kind of like me), and when I replace it, I think I will try to find one that gets rated highly for doing night shots, as that's the type I have the least success with. Though there's always Fun with Fotoshop to spruce them up!


(The clone and Mike, extra neon-y)


(Ghostly original)

I clearly pay way too much attention to the sender/subject lines of the spam I get.

But wouldn't it make YOU go "Hmmm" if you got something where the subject line said "the great the one" and it was (supposedly) sent to you by Jayne Baldwin?

(Friendly note: the above will only make sense if you have watched Joss Whedon's Firefly series.)

Speaking of that, sort of, I am keeping very, very busy rearranging and clearing space. (House, not Outer. Although I warned Caro that if we keep getting better and better at packing more things into smaller containers, we are eventually going to create a black hole and suck everything in the the known universe into it. Through our living room, most like. So we need to be careful and not overdo.)

Besides almost being ready for The Tree, there is a bare stretch of about 6 inches on the treadmill. Once it is empty, I am going to start preparing for next year's National Dem convention by walking on it daily while watching my DVDs of Buffy and Firefly...and maybe the first three years or so of Angel, but definitely not that last year, which was another black hole waiting to happen, if you know what I mean.

But plans, eh? Sometimes they go, sometimes not. My plan to stay inside all day was foiled by Nature saying, "I think they need more ice falling from the sky all along HERE!" So the buses did not run today, so I drove Mike to school and as long as I was going drove Caro too. (We still have a lot of boxes of books in Dreamcloud, but were able to shift enough to give Mike a seat of his own instead of tying him to the roof rack. Which he always objects to.)

And now I have to go fetch the fam home again in a few minutes. Or at least, that's the plan.

But the day got away from me. Tomorrow looks good for it, though, especially since I am going to STAY INSIDE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE!

I took this on my way to town today, about 4:30. Yes, we have been having rain, sleet, hail and gloom of night. Sometimes all four and more in the same hour!!

I...I think I'm caught up.

As we all know, Bob, I went out of town over the weekend, calling it my early Christmas present. (Yes, I owe the clone big time regardless!) I had a LOT of fun, but of course a few things did not proceed optimally.

Despite being up in the Big City, Sears did not have any of the stoves I WANTED in stock, and I was too stubborn and annoyed to encourage them to upsell me. So although I had a fine time shopping all over the place with my pal Carol K, all I managed to gather from my shopping hunt was a vacuum cleaner.

Then my laptop, which has Issues and does not believe I am the One True Admin, decided to choke on an upgrade of ZoneAlarm, so I wasn't able to do much keeping up with LJ in the brief periods of time available for me to do so. Hence I had to read back about four days worth once I got home. I finished THAT last night.

Just before I took off last Thursday, I had to decommission the main overhead light in this end of the living room. One of the light bulbs had been Making A Noise off and on for a while, which would stop if you got up and moved the bulb and/or casing a little. This time, the nut inside wot holds the casing on gave way, and the light socket deal sort of fell out, trailing wires. Of course it did, since it was almost dark and I had to leave first thing in the morning....

On Monday I was too tired to climb up on the stepladder to see about it, and yesterday I was too busy running errands. But I finally finished it today. Light is now coming out again, as opposed to giant balls of flame or something, and it's not making that spit-spit noise. At the moment. So I count that as a win.