The Literate Ferret

Y'all: I am in the market for an iPod. I want 60-80 GB. I don't want to pay more than $200 for an 80G or $160 for a 60G (video). These are the best prices I can find on e-bay. This is to replace my 30GB Zen Vision M.

If you have something else you're contemplating selling, let me know. I might be interested. I probably will commit my money within the next 48 hours, max.

ETA: Pending outcome of e-mail negotiations, I think I have one: a 60GB video for $175. A little over, but instant gratification, nonetheless.

My child and her friend willingly provide me all the ammunition I need for the coming teen years:

Well, this is it. The MS150 once again is upon us. This year, all three of us are riding: Me, Mark, and Burgundy. I'm very proud of Burgundy; she's nervous, excited, afraid, and determined. She's an inspiration.

I haven't ridden my bike since my last adjustment, so I don't know whether I'll be pain-free for the ride, but we shall see. There's always ice.

If you want to support us, here are my and Burgundy's e-donate links:
Mine: http://ms150.org/edon.cfm?id=189876
Burgudy: http://ms150.org/edon.cfm?id=199206

I don't think Mark has an e-donate link.

I'm way behind this year in the fundraising. This time last year, I was near $700. This year, I'm at $200, and I have to raise $400. Time for the note-writing campaign.

There are 234 movies in this list, supposedly if you have seen more than 93 of them (40%) you apparently have no life.

(x) Rocky Horror Picture Show
(x) Grease
(x) Pirates of the Caribbean
(x) Boondock Saints
(x) Fight Club
() Starsky and Hutch
(x) Neverending Story
() Blazing Saddles
(x) Airplane
Total: 7
( only 225 left to go. Puh-leaze. )
Total = 74. I have a life, but only because such a high percentage of these were horror, which I can't tolerate.

My little girl has a livejournal. Two, actually. I set one up for her, and recently, she set one up for herself. She's also 10 now, going on 11, so I'm thinking of taking my journal friends only so that she cannot get into what I'm writing because you know, that's never good. Some things she just doesn't need to know.

so this is your warning: if you're lurking, please declare yourself so that we can Mutually Friend and you can keep reading.

I'm going friends-only in one week.

Burgundy told me last month that she wanted to do something like her Angel Tree efforts of a few years ago again this year for her birthday. I told her that proud as I was, I could not run the AT project anymore; it's too much work/too many hours. Also, it's hard to find a family enough kids for her to sponsor an entire family. Plus, the names don't get to me in anything like a timely fashion, so it's hard to plan in advance or tell people what we want. I asked if she would be willing to do gift-gathering for a shelter or something, and she seemed open to the idea.

She's brought it up several more times, and she still really wants to do a benefit party, but couldn't decide on a beneficiary. Well, last night she decided she wanted to do it for an animal shelter, and when I brought up "For the Love of Ferrets," she immediately jumped on the idea. Last year when Sugar dies, the couple who runs this organization, Jimmie & Gail, really helped us out emotionally.

So for her birthday, Burgundy would like for people to bring in supplies or donations for the ferret shelter as their birthday gift to her.

The only problem I really have is how in the world to make an appealing invitation for her friends! I think that ideally I would like to do it somewhere Big so she can invite lots of friends and family, and ideally, we would be able to have a large 'visiting friends' pen where the kids can touch and watch the ferrets.

Help! I'll take any ideas. I might x-post this to ferret lovers comm if they ever approve my membership.

Also, because she's putting her birthday towards charity, Mark and I will be looking to get her something Extra-Special for her birthday/Christmas gift from us. Last night she checked out a small Specialized road bike with Shimano 105 front to back. It would have set us back $800 retail, but because of a pretty serious scratch on the top tube, I might be able to get it for around half of that. I hope so. We are going to have to rearrange the finances a little bit to be able to make it happen, but hey. Who needs to eat? I told Burgundy that we just flat couldn't afford it, while I negotiated with the shop manager to store it for us once we bought it so we could give it to her on her birthday.

An update to my virtual model due to a little more weight loss. Here I are:

October 2006

Previous MVM post here.

Oh MY GOD! Super thanks to wyllow42 for the new icon!

My Personality

Neuroticism	78
Extraversion	62
Openness To Experience	55
Agreeableness	2
Conscientiousness	26

Test Yourself Compare Yourself View Full Report MySpace Surveys, MySpace Codes and MySpace Layouts by Pulseware Survey Software

Good morning! My company is in great need of Oracle programmers. They pay well and it's a great place to work. If you've ever considered Houston, consider it now! We have GREAT benefits, too. If you know Oracle and are interested, e-mail me at mslilly at livejournal dot com.

This week Burgundy had an hour long lesson with tabbyfoo to make up for rescheduling last week to go to the Astros. So I've been sitting here for the last 45 minutes or so goofing off on the laptop. I intended to work on the Oracle stuff so it would be ready for the office tomorrow, but the signal here can't decide whether it wants to be 1Mbps or 11Mbps. So the two or three tasks I did finish, each one got erased when I tried to upload it. So I said screw it. I played minesweeper for a while and got exasperated with the mouse "function", then I surfed myspace for a while.

Now I'm just waiting for Burgundy to get done, then the three of us will go to Starbucks. Afterwards, I will run. Looking forward to it, actually.

OH! Burgundy just came out to tell me she's going to sing "Ain't Misbehaving" for the jazz festival. Oh! There is a God.

Well, here I sit on a new laptop, putting off our inevitable separation while I sleep. God. What a waste of time. Getting new computers makes me wish that I knew how to do programming and stuff. That would be cool.

I altered one of Burgundy's tank tops this afternoon - it was just as easy as I had predicted.

Day one of Junior High down. Just two point nine years left.

Sigh.

Our wonderful students went home yesterday. We stayed up until 2AM Sunday night/Monday morning. Suzanne and I made a midnight run to Kroger. I taught Axie to knit and gave her a couple good balls of yarn and two pair of needles (size 15 clovers and size 8 boyes).

When we dropped them off Monday morning to go home, I cried so hard that I could barely see. As we drove away, Burgundy broke down, and she cried all the way home and most of the morning. Eventually, I had to make a deal with her that I would not allow her to cry anymore. Basically, she was crying because she couldn’t stop crying at that point.

Today we’re both much better, but I still get a little teary-eyed when I think of them. That’s kind of funny, really. We’ll see them again – maybe even next year. All the same, I feel so sad without them in the house.

It makes me want to evaluate the possibility of taking on a foreign exchange student here next school year. Then again, it would go well beyond breaking my heart at the end of a whole year. This was only two weeks and I’m heart broken!

I just wrote them both thank you notes for their gifts to us. Tomorrow I’m supposed to pick up a book that I wanted to give to Suzanne on Harry Potter, so I’ll probably pack up some Oreos for her as well. Apparently, one cannot buy Oreos in Scotland. Barbarians. I also want to send Axie a copy of Stitch & Bitch. Her grandmother is an avid knitter, so I have no doubt she’ll have plenty of support for her new habit hobby, but the S&B is a good book for someone younger. So I’ll try to get all that in the mail tomorrow. I hope it doesn’t cost me $50 or something.

Okay. I need to get back to work. I’m being held prisoner by a vicious array formula that doesn’t seem to want to work.

Let me backtrack.

Last year, I went on honeymoon and bought the Spring 05 Interweave Knits. I fell in love with the pattern called "A Good Bias." I knitted it, then stored the magazine for a while. I decided to knit it again, and started carrying the 'zine around with me. After a while, it fell apart, and I began carrying just the page with the pattern on it with me.

One day about two weeks ago, I went out to my car to go to work in the morning, and someone had thrown a landscaping brick through my window to take my purse, which he or she apparently fancied.

I've looked for the pattern everywhere, and all I can figure is that it must have been folded up in the purse when it was taken. I am about halfway through the second sleeve of the work, and I have the whole thing memorized except the three increase rows (where I am right now), and the number of repeats for the remainder of the work.

Does anyone have the 05 Interweave who would be willing to help me? I only need the graph of the second sleeve. I can photograph my WIP and my falling apart fall issue if necessary to show I'm telling the truth.

Thanks in advance. misslilly at gmail dot com.

x-posted like a crazy woman

International Space School. This is our second year to host students for the school. Previously I wrote that we were to keep our students for one week, then they were to go to another family. This was due to us having no advance notice of their arrival at all. Indeed, although we had asked several times for information, we heard nothing until the Tuesday before their arrival. By then, we had plans for family to be here in the middle of the kids’ first weekend here. We knew we wouldn’t have enough sleeping space for everyone, so we told the organizers that we could host for the first week only. The students were to go to another host family beginning Saturday.

Friday night at 11:30, Mark got home from picking the girls up to inform me that the girls had nowhere else to go. Apparently, both of the other families the girls might have stayed with changed their mind or had problems at the last possible moment.

In the meantime, Mark signed up months ago to take a course this weekend making him a certified instructor of Adult, infant and child CPR and of the Red Cross babysitter’s course. He would be gone until late Friday night, then all day Saturday and most of the day Sunday.

And in an alternate Universe, I had told the students that I would let them go to the Galleria Saturday while I took Burgundy bed shopping in our Honda Civic. The students found out that three other young ladies were without anything to do on Saturday and asked if these stranded students could please go with them on Saturday.

So Saturday morning I woke without my husband, cleaned a little and made breakfast, then tried to figure out how to give our students a place to sleep for the next week (they are here for school! I couldn’t just say, “too bad, you’re going to have to sleep wherever someone will let you”), how to transport seven people (comprising 5 teenage girls, Burgundy and myself), how to take them shopping at Wal-Mart (a special request of my Scottish student), Baybrook Mall and the Galleria, how to get to IKEA and buy a bed, then back Somewhere Else to buy a mattress, get all five girls to Clear Lake Park by 5 PM, move furniture into a larger bedroom to accommodate my incoming family, and finally get from Clear Lake back up to Intercontinental Airport by 7 PM to pick up my incoming family. Home again, home again, jiggity jig, to pick up our young people by 10:30 or 11.

So it went like this:

1. Call Annette and inform her that
   1. We will be picking up the three entertainment-less students, and
   2. We will continue to host our students throughout the two weeks. Annette offered to loan us a couple of camp cots, resolving the earlier issue of “where do we all sleep?”
2. Borrow the neighbor’s huge, old, red Suburban. We got into it, and Axie, from Canada, said, “Oh my God, can you drive this thing?”
3. Take the girls to the Post Office, then to Kolache Factory (neither had heard of kolaches before).
4. Call to see if the three other girls are available. Find out they have not been heard from yet even though they are about ½ an hour overdue.
5. Take Suzanne and Axie to Voldemart. Suzanne (Scotland) walks about open-mouthed for a while, they get lost in the cheap DVD section, check out clothes, furniture, vacuums, etc.
6. Leave, track down the Three Musketeers at Baybrook, and pull up to meet them outside the Sears automotive center. I see them roll their eyes when they realize the lumbering, decrepit yacht on wheels is there for them.
7. Drive all girls to the Galleria. Took us longer to turn right onto Westheimer from 610 West Loop South than it did to drive from Clear Lake to Westheimer. Finally gave up and dropped them at the Starbucks, explaining that they should cross the street (it’s only six or seven lanes, and there’s a stop light there!) and enter at the Neiman Marcus. Turns out crossing the street was the girls’ greatest adventure of the day.
8. Drive to Ikea, shop shop shop, buy a bed, drive to Parker Road north of Houston and check out the dirty discount furniture stores, looking for a cheap mattress.
9. Give up, drive to Galleria, retrieve students from Starbucks.

It’s now 3:40 PM. Remember I still have to rearrange furniture at the house, get a mattress, get the girls to the park by 5 and get back to Intergalactic by 7. Oh, and unload the Suburban and return it to the neighbor.

1. On the way home from the Galleria, accidentally enter 59N instead of 610 W Loop South, sit in traffic for 30 minutes, swear at other drivers, and learn over the phone that the BabyDaddy will be joining us this weekend as well. Now we are back to being one bed short. He’ll have to sleep with his mother.
2. Get home, have students unload the van. Axie and I moved the bed from the students’ room to the larger spare bedroom after I rearrange some of the furniture in there, vacuum, and take out the trash
3. Make the bed, take the students to the park.
4. Drop them off and go to the gas station. Forty Freaking Dollars to put the needle to a little higher than it was when I borrowed the thing. Given the cost of gas and the neighbors’ gracious loan, I felt it completely appropriate to give back more gas than I took.
5. Go home, drop off the Suburban.
6. Burgundy and I go back to Walmart because I’ve realized that I don’t have enough sheets and blankets for all the cots and beds.
7. Leave Walmart and realize we don’t have my cell phone and the car is full of crap so there will be no room for luggage
8. Go home, unload the car, get the phone (which turns out to have been in Burgundy’s pocket). It’s now 6:30. 45 to 60 minute drive to Intergalactic, and we’re supposed to be there at 7.
9. Drive, drive, drive
10. Get to the airport and Mimi and Daniel have between them a purse, a backpack, and a kiddie suitcase. Between the phone in her pocket and the minimalist luggage, we didn’t need to go home

Meanwhile, Tabby calls and asks if Mimi Mike and I want to go to a sex toy party. At this point, I’m thinking, “Why the hell not?” So when I picked up Mimi, I asked her and we pretty seriously considered it. “But,” I said, “we have to stop and buy a mattress first.” This of course leads to a wonderful course of humor for our evening. Unfortunately, we didn’t finish buying the mattress until after the party started, much less get to Clear Lake in time for it, so we had to decline.

So the four of us buy the mattress, drive to Clear Lake while planning to go to Kemah for dinner. It’s 9:30 by the time we get home, unload the mattress, and get back in the car to eat. Meanwhile, I need to wire gas money to JB so he can drive to Houston. Back to Voldemart, because I can’t wire after 10PM. Never mind that it’s the total opposite direction from Kemah. By now I’m yelling at Burgundy for daring to speak to me, chewing out the cashier for screwing up the wire and taking 20 minutes to fix it, and snapping at Mimi for daring to suggest that she look at clothes while I’m standing there dealing from Impatient Idiot Teenager Voldemart Minion from Hell.

We leave Voldemart, now 10 PM, and head out for Kemah. The car stalled at the exit onto Bay Area Boulevard. Out of gas. Oh the irony. Mimi Mike and Daniel get out and start to push the car while I steer. We’re about ¼ mile from the gas pumps at Sams. I get out and start pushing as well, and Mimi decides to steer. Daniel and I push the car, and we’re running to keep up with it, me in my dress shoes (at least they weren’t heels). We push the car up into the Sams parking lot and realize that all the pumps are dark. These are not 24hour pay at the pump. I nearly start crying. I feel like Janet: “Look, I’m cold, I’m wet, and I’m just plain scared!” Except that I’m hot, I’m tired, and I’m just plain pissed.

Daniel and I push the car into a parking space and we all walk over to Texas Roadhouse. Like I can afford this. I’ve easily already spent $300 today.

At the Roadhouse, I had a margarita. I could have had ten. We all eat dinner while we wait for Mark, who doesn’t get out of class until 10:30. Mark comes with a gas can (from Kemah no less) and puts gas in my car. We drive to a gas station, fill up, and then home. Swap cars. Mark goes to get the girls and the cots from Geoff and Annette’s (we’re only at least an hour late now).

I don’t know what time we went to bed, but I remember Mark telling me that he was so tired and had worked so hard at his training class.

Burgundy finally came home this morning. I picked her up from the airport at about 8:10 AM. I had some fears and concerns about seeing her. She’s been with my mom for two and a half weeks. Mom encourages her to be really sassy. She thinks the sassy, catty behavior is cute and funny; it is funny in moderation, but sometimes I think Mom encourages her to behave badly 24 hours a day so she can stockpile funny Burgundy stories.

Last night I talked to Burgundy briefly and reminded her that Mark and I do not allow her to talk back or be a smarty-pants at home. I could tell she thought she was being chastised, so I let her know that it simply constitutes a difference in rules from one house to another. I insist on respect and honor from my child in my home. A sassy, flirty response is cute and funny from time to time, but it is not the way we “do business” in general. My mom wants to have a great time with Burgundy all the time. And that’s what grandmas are for, right?

When I picked her up this morning, she was genuinely happy to see me, but she seemed a little stand-offish. Almost like a little stranger. I seemed to be overboard no matter what I did. I hugged too hard, squealed too loud, talked too much, etc.

We went to IHOP where we planned to meet Tabby, and over breakfast we talked about the house and plans going forward. I told her about the new Ferret Plan (more on that later), and I told her that her room had to have some SERIOUS work done on it. She and I will spend spare time over the next week sorting through ALL of her stuff, starting with the closet and working our way out through cupboards, dressers, shelves, and boxes.

At the end of it all, we are going to let her have a garage sale next Saturday, and she gets to use the money she makes to go shopping for school clothes. Her face lit up at that. We have a rule that whatever money she makes, she has to save 10% and give 10% to a charity (generally the church, but if she ever wanted to give it somewhere else, we’d probably let her), but whatever else she makes, there are no rules about how she spends it. If she wants $15 in gum, it’s her money and her decision.

Mark and I are throwing in a lot of stuff for the sale, including a working vacuum cleaner (we have two), a couple of nice, functional armchairs (okay, one of them is butt-ugly, but it’s so ugly that I’ve kept it as a conversation piece for years), and whatever else I can find as we go through it all. Hopefully, she’ll be able to make at least $100 out of it all. I’d like her to be able to get some stuff she really digs.

( The Ferret Plan )

So today after WW, tabbyfoo and I ended up at the ICM resale shop where, at the last possible minute, I spotted something I didn't really need: A cute little purse.

Good Lord, I'm turning into a girl. A quick glance revealed it to be a Gucci purse, explaining the $10 price tag in a thrift store. Normally I won't spend that much on a piece of furniture in a thrift store, but you have to understand: the bag is CUTE. and it says, "Gucci."

So I bought it and took it home, and just now made the mistake of looking on e-bay for a matching "kiss-clasp" coin purse. I determined that Gucci bags, in good shape, retail for $25 to $900, assuming authenticity.

Now the possibility that it might not really be a Gucci bag never crossed my mind, and frankly I don't really need a Gucci ANYTHING except for one detail. If this bitch is authentic and worth the average $200 - $400 I saw for similar bags, I am going to sell it.

So now I need to know, how does one go about verifying authenticity of designer label clothing and handbags? spiffstress, I'm counting on you.


Okay, here's the plaque on the front of the purse.



And here's a view of the whole thing. I still haven't solved the problem of needing a coin purse to go with it.

Well, all offers and counter-offers are in. UW wants me and offered me the job Friday night with a 15% salary increase, but I lose a week of my vacation. I said no deal, I want the full 20% increase. They said they would have to see and call me back.

This afternoon, the company I work for now called and offered me about a 22% raise and I get to keep my three week vacation accrual rate if I stay. The new company said that 20% with 2 weeks is as good as it gets.

So you tell me:

Poll #734077 Which job to take?
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Which job should I take?

poetpaladin,

Thank you very much for the paid account gift. I really do appreciate it.

WOW!

Today has been a good day, and I ate chocolate. What else in life is there but chocolate? Peeps. There are peeps. And here's a shout-out to all my peeps. You were delicious. And I think I shall eat some of your remaining number. Yes. Hmm. Mmmf. Sglorp. Mmm. Pink bunnies to keep the yellow chicks company. I love my peeps.

God I'm a goofball.

It's been a heavy week. My co-worker's mother died last week. Another one's mother has cancer and has been given 3-6 months to live. Another lost her mom to cancer just a couple of months ago. Also last week, my best friend's father in law died rather suddenly. I had called to tell her that whatever she needed, I would do it for her. She called Friday to say that Robert Lee (who was her foster son until his 18th birthday) had lost one of his guardians; he died during the week. Apparently, Robert was very distressed, and my friends would not be home from Michigan (where the father's funeral was) until late next week. She asked me to attend the funeral for her. So I have to go into work tomorrow and tell them I have to miss work. For the umpteenth time. If I'm getting tired of saying it, I KNOW they're getting tired of hearing it.

I didn't ride much at all this past week. Starting about Tuesday, I started having allergy attacks. It kept getting worse and worse, and I had to choose between getting on the bike to keep myself ready for the Big Ride and staying off the bike to preclude getting so sick that I wouldn't be able to do the Big Ride.

A couple of weeks ago, I talked to my friend Kira during a soccer game about running. Apparently she has been running for 20 years (and hasn't even done anything wrong!). So I tried it out tonight. She had suggested that I try running three minutes, then walking a couple of minutes, then alternating to build up my endurance. I was shocked to find that I could not run for three straight minutes when I first got outside. So I set my sights on two-minute alternations, and was doing fine. I used my heart rate monitor to pace myself and to time myself. About 20 minutes into the run, I noticed that I wasn't even looking at the clock for the first 90 seconds or more of my run, so I started trying to push it out to three minutes. After two alternations of 3 minutes/2 minutes running/walking, I started the next run cycle and was at 2 minutes the first time I looked down! So I just kept going. That alternation was six minutes, and the next was six and a half; I walked two minutes between them. One thing I noticed early on was that my heart rate would exceed the target zone before I finished my "running" cycle. So I played with breathing and pacing and managed to stretch it out. As I did that, I found that if I tried to force myself to breathe in a long rhythm (four footfalls in, four footfalls out) when I was starting to get tired, then my heartrate would accelerate too quickly. So I got into a rhythm of breathing four/four, then when pulling in four breaths started to feel forced, I would switch to three footfalls in, three out. During the two longer cycles, I was able to keep my heartrate within the correct zone almost the entire time and to bring it back within the zone very quickly without stopping running when I did go over. In all, it was a really good experience.

I do have some questions, though. For one thing, my right foot points slightly outward, and toward the end of the run, it hurt to run on it. I found that I was running on the outside of my foot, and it hurt the inside of my calf. When I tried to force myself to point the foot in while running, it relieved the pain on the inside of my calf, but caused a burning sensation on the outside. For another, I need better shorts. I hated having someone's headlights point out that my shorts had crawled up my thighs and were trying to lodge themselves permanently into my crack. Just . . . gross. Is there such a thing as running shorts that do not make me feel like I'm going to get picked up for indecent exposure?

I thought of a lot more as I ran along, but I'd better be hopping off to bed right now. Good night!