Monday, March 27, 2006

Hello? Anyone home? [UPDATED w/ PHOTOS]

So, blogger isn't working right now.

Which sucks the bag pretty hard since I have a bunch of photos from my sunshiney weekend in Arizona to share with you nice folks.

I was all digging the wild contrast between last weekend's snow filled goodness and this weekend's sunshiney-ness and was going to do some neato photo comparisons AND show updates on the progress of my monster seedlings, but no, I have been twarted by the shortcomings of blogger and will therefore have to resort to lame descriptions of what I hope I'll be able to share later.


Photo #1: Lovely sunrise desert scene with the hills east of Phoenix in the background a canyon on either side and an early morning, let's say dusk, view of a winding trail, many erect cacti and the corner of a driving range.


Photo #2: The same whimsical desert scene from #1, but this time with The Fountain (2nd largest in the US) spouting in the middle of the valley.


Photo #3: Desert hills spotted with low lying brush, many cacti, a winding trail and a crisp blue sky strewn with whisps of clouds.


Photo #4: My attempt to capture an animal in the wild. It's actually a far off semi-view of a tiny brown bunny foraging below my balcony. It's not all that close up, so this description is probably as close as you'll get to actually "seeing" the rabbit.

As you can imagine, the photos would be helpful, so if we could all hold hands and pray that blogger will be back to uploading photos soon, that would be ideal.

In addition to my glorious time spent in Fountain Hills, AZ drinking wine with friends, welcoming a new baby to the group, getting hot stone massaged by a man angel named Seth, dining like a wild beast on enchilada style ground beef burritos from La Pinanta and playing "Celebrity" with my best friends I also had a blessed day off from work today (self-imposed) to do a little thing Finny likes to call, Nothing.

Let me describe Nothing, Finny-style, for those who are unfamiliar with my ways. Finny Nothing is a lot like what other people might describe as Everything. Or some might call Anything. Or even others might call Something.

Finny Nothing goes like this:

Tell everyone including Hubby that you are doing Nothing during your day off. On the day of Nothing, get up earlier than you normally would for work, make tea and begin the rounds through the house picking up and relocating things that are out of place.

Make another cup of tea.

Drink one sip and set it down in a location that will soon be forgotten.

Go about your ways through the house finishing random abandoned projects, cleaning forgotten corners, discarding old magazines, sucking grodiness with the Dustbuster, etc. All the while kicking the cat out of the way every time you turn a corner.

Find cup of tea and drink half of the icy cold liquid before becoming nauseous and then dumping the rest in the can.

Consider putting on real clothes and then decide against it because you've just become distracted by the calculator and decide to balance your checkbook.

Balance the checkbook.

Realize with horror that it is nearing the 9am hour and you haven't yet been outside to say good morning to your seeds so that they might be coaxed from the soil. Put on your garden Mentos and race out to the beds, remembering to bring your third cup of tea with you. Stare idly at the barren soil searching for even the tiniest of sprouts. Give up and start pulling weeds. Drink/dump out the rest of the tea and use the mug to hold all the weeds you've pulled. After the entire yard has been stripped of all weeds, proceed back in the house after dumping out the mug in the yard waste bin.

Clean up the kitchen. Put in a load of laundry. Feed cat to get her the F*#% out of the way. Turn on Scooba and watch cat flee the building.

Start making lists of errands you need to run.

Go to Trader Joe's. Go to the bank. Go to Target. Go to Goodwill.

Throw down your pen with haste and race off to the bedroom to throw everything from the corner heap into a bag for Goodwill before you lose your ambition. Accidentally throw cat in bag and tie up bag before noticing. Begrudgingly let cat out of bag.

At the sound of the Scooba, load everything in the car, put Scooba back on the charger, put on real clothes, brush tooth, ponytail hair, grab keys and lists and race from the house as though on fire.

Do a hundred errands, barely avoid being clipped by maniacle soccer mom drivers, treat self to naughty lunch at In-N-Out, return home with a staggaring amount of groceries from TJ's (there is so much more to find in that store when you don't have to push 18 carts and children out of the way to get to the shelves), rotate the laundry and begin on random afternoon project TBD.

Do project TBD which has now become Mission: Take Down Holiday Decorations and Replace with Spring Like Decorations Before Hubby Divorces You for Leaving the Wreath Up for One More Day. And during this project decide on the next project TBD.

Do project TBD #2 which is now, Polish Discarded Silver Tray from Garage That We Found While Preparing for Project #1, so that we can use it in the bathroom to display pretty sheshells. (I usually say it this way because I'm mildly insane)

Dismantle flower arrangement recently purchased at TJ's and make into two bouquets. Decide that the little bouquet would be lovely next to some succulents. Take clippings of succulents from the garden and fashion a spring centerpiece to replace the holiday centerpiece and arrange all on a tray with the flowers. Arrange the other flowers. Set out.

Look down and realize you have on two different Chacos. Laugh hysterically and kick the cat.

In a moment of indecision, grab the camera and photograph your days undertakings. Wander to the computer for a short stint of blogging. Realize blogger is jacked and won't upload your photos. Become desparately annoyed and blog anyway, describing the photos instead to your extremely limited, but mercifully loyal, audience.

Make for the booze.

As soon as blogger gets its act together, I'll be back to post some lovely photos of the desert, the succulents, some seedlings, the Garden Mentos and the cookies I'm about to bake.

Oh, and for those of you who aren't familiar with the aforementioned game, "Celebrity" its goes like this:

1. Break into two teams of at least 3
2. Have each person of each team write down 8 names of people you either all know or are celebrities of some kind
3. Put all the names in a bowl/hat/holding apparatus
4. Team 1 goes first by pulling a name from the bowl and describing (without using the name of the person) the "celebrity" to their team only. Each right answer by the team gets them 1 point. This goes on for 1 minute while the other teams times them.
5. Team 2 goes just like Team 1 did. This goes back and forth until all the names in the bowl are out.
6. Team 1 starts second round by pulling a name from the bowl and uses ONLY ONE WORD to describe the "Celebrity". For one minute while Team 2 times.
7. Team 2 goes just like Team 1 until all names are gone.
8. Team 1 starts the third round by pulling a name from the bowl and acting out (Charades, folks) the name on the paper. This goes on for 1 minute while Team 2 times.
9. Team 2 does it, too. This goes on until all the names are gone.
10. Winner is the team with the most points. 1 point per right answer. 1 point deducted for each "pass".

Just try not to pee yourself when your friend's little sister does an erotic interpretation of "Dick Chaney" in front of both of her parents and aunt. Damn that's good.

Some good "Celebrities" from our recent bout: Christopher Reeve, Star Jones, Jimmy Carter, Liza Minnelli (eh?) and Gordy, the crazy accordian player from a restaurant in Vegas.

1 comment:

[2013 update: You can't comment as an anonymous person anymore. Too many douchebags were leaving bullshit SPAM comments and my inbox was getting flooded, but if you're here to comment in a real way like a real person, go to it.]

Look at you commenting, that's fun.

So, here's the thing with commenting, unless you have an email address associated with your own profile, your comment will still post, but I won't have an email address with which to reply to you personally.

Sucks, right?

Anyway, to remedy this, I usually come back to my posts and post replies in the comment field with you.

But, if you ever want to email me directly to talk about pumpkins or shoes or what it's like to spend a good part of your day Swiffering - shoot me an email to finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom.

Cheers.