Friday, December 23, 2005

Soccer Balls Just Wanna Have Fun

Wicked.

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Vodka and a Sippy Cup

I have a pretty good relationship with my teeth. I had some cavities back in the day, mostly attributable to three years of braces running interference with my brushing. However, those fillings are now ancient-with-a-capital-OLD, and my dentist is in the process of drilling out the old silver amalgams and putting new, better-fitting, white fillings in those teeth. As these things are in four disparate places about my mouth, I'm getting to know the front office staff pretty well as we painstakingly move from appointment to appointment. Doc takes most of the pains, whereas mostly I'm feeling little to no pain, but I like it that way.

That is, until a couple of days ago.

My dentist's office usually runs very smoothly and very punctually. I'm a punctual person myself, so I like that. However, something was going on the other day. I spent almost an hour sitting in the chair, with a droolingly numb jaw, tongue, and lower lip. If a village had an opening for an idiot, I definitely had the look. Finally, Doc told me his partner was going to have to do my teeth, as he was dealing with an emergency. Fine - I understand emergency, and I've met her - she's good people.

So she starts in with the drilling. Since it's been almost an hour since I had my novocain shot, she's a bit concerned that I might need another, but I am resistant to the idea, as that would mean more delay and a longer evening with no feeling in the lower left side of my mouth. She drills and drills. Drills some more. Oh, and by the way, she TALKS. She's from Western Mass., so she's got a half-comforting (homelike), half-irritating (ditto) accent.

The talking and the drilling and the filling went on for another hour. This cavity is not only old, but deep (ouch), and the amalgam has been sitting against the neighbor tooth, so that one's got a small cavity as well. My jaw aches, my ears ache. When asked to rinse and spit, I feebly swish and dribble. It is not a good evening for Our Heroine.

By the time I get home, Our Hero meets me at the door and asks what I want. "Vodka tonic in a sippy cup,*" I reply in my best Village Idiot, rubber-lipped manner.

And because Our Hero is a wonderful man, that's exactly what I got.


*ETA - Which sounded more like: "thibby cub."

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Got Yarn?*

The animal shelter in NoLa can use knitted "cage cozies." A perfect beginner's project - dogs and cats don't care about dropped stitches or uneven edges. Additionally, if you have a bunch of not-quite matching yarn you can't bear to throw away, this would send it to a good home.


*With apologies to Mark for copping his title style.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Yeah. What She Said.

Rana, in my opinion, hits the nail on the head about this season and the current discontents:

When I offer my wishes for cheer and happiness and good fortune, I want all my friends to feel embraced and nourished by them, not alienated and offended... Thus far, they have all met my wish for a happy holidays with the spirit with which it is intended: a recognition and celebration of our shared humanity and desire for warmth and friendship during a time of darkness.

We are all small creatures in the dark, huddling together to keep warm. If we in our pride and arrogance insist on standing alone as special, we will freeze long before winter's end, and it is no one's fault but our own.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

Remember When?

Snagged from Artichoke Heart at Octopus' Garden, a meme:

Whether you know me or not, even if you have never been here before, make up a fake memory of us. That is, post a comment with a COMPLETELY MADE UP AND FICTIONAL memory of you and me. It can be anything you want - good or bad - but it has to be fake.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Dramatic Reinterpretations

It's kind of like found-object art, only funnier:

Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Ze Frank (link is to Quicktime movie with sound)

Has anyone located any others out there?

If You're Visiting from Scalzi's Wonderful World of Whatever...

I've been getting some hits from a post he wrote last year about hateful holiday music. In case you're curious, I had fleshed out my hatred of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and "Happy Christmas (War is Over)" here.

Monday, December 05, 2005

Public Service Announcement

There are only two weekends between now and Christmas.

You may commence your freakout now.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Fun!

Tell me where you're at if you so desire. I seem to have a lot of readers lately (not sure why that is) and I'd love to know where you're reading from.

(It's also a fairly cool Google Maps hack, and I'm a sucker for that sort of thing.)

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Look on my Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair!

Attention all knitty types: the woman who taught me to knit now has a blog. She is a master knitter,* teacher of other knitters, a spinner, a weaver, a seamstress (I was going to say "a sewer," but I feared you all might misinterpret). Her hands are always busy (and now, with two children, even busier), her mind is restless and curious. We have been friends since the tenth grade, when we played two of Prospero's spirits in "The Tempest." I am glad to see her take her place online.

Now just watch how fast that kid's sweater goes up. Like the title says...


*She informs me in comments that she is not technically a "Master Knitter." It would seem to me, however, that she may keep her $325 and still retain the lower-case title.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Random Bits

I left for a business trip on Sunday. That would be the Sunday after Thanksgiving. As someone who travels a lot for her job, I can get - well, a wee bit cranky about amateurs who think that boarding an airplane should include standing in an aisle for minutes on end while carefully storing their luggage in the overhead bin so as to take up as much room as possible, or the really tall men who shoulder their way in front of me at the luggage carousel, leaving me (not short by most people's standards) to peer around them in hopes of seeing my bag whiz by (NB: While the travel-traffic of humanity flowing through various airports wasn't truly terrible, travel on the Sunday after T-day is not a good idea and should not be repeated).

I came back yesterday evening. There was already a really tall Christmas tree at National Airport. Oh, dear. I should not be surprised in the slightest at this (since DCA, like many airports, now basically has a shopping mall in its main concourse), but somehow I was. It was one of those trips that simultaneously seemed to last for a month and no time at all. So the Christmas tree was something of a shock. I was having a hard time remembering that last Thursday's dinner included turkey, after all.

Dooce wrote the post I've been stewing on about life needing to have a TiVo remote. Damn her. And she did it better than I would have, too.