incandragon

At the farmers' market, a nine-year old girl came over and asked if she could pet Zoe. After a few pats and scritches, she looked at me and said, "This is a MFTD."

I said, "What's a MFTD?"

She said, "More froth than dog."

Before we took our walking tour, we looked around for a place to eat breakfast. We didn't have much time, so it had to be fast. Just a coffee and pastry. We found the entrance of Grand Central Public Market -- not knowing anything it was some sort of landmark. It was 8:53, and the market opened at 9. There was, however, a pastry place that was just outside the market, so it was open. I grabbed a muffin and a latte. My sister grabbed a -- what was it? Guava strudel? -- and a coffee. My mom and my sister's friend dithered at the pastry place, and wondered if they should wait until the market opened, when a world of new shops would be available for perusing.

I nibbled my muffin. I noticed that a large crowd was beginning to gather at the entrance to the market, which was just a pinch in the main aisle, protected by a security guard. This crowd was entirely working-class Hispanic guys. At about three minutes till, the crowd started to press close against the starting line. And at 9 o'clock on the dot, a bell rang, the security guard stepped aside, and ( a massive rush of humanity surged foward fifty feet ... )

We went to the Mythbusters talk today. It was just Adam and Jamie sitting around, talking about their experiences, showing a few clips (bloopers, an unreleased episode (lighting farts, although they weren't allowed to use the word "fart"), and explosion porn), and answering questions.

The Q&A was about a third of the show, and I was surprised that about half the questioners were kids. The questions were fantastic ... none were vapid, and even the innocently silly ones they treated with respect and humor. (Those two guys came across as really, seriously nice.) But really, most of the questions were great.

Some were, "did you ever" or "would you ever" or "what episode are you proudest of" but I think my favorite question was "what kind of pranks do you pull on April Fool's Day" and "do you prank each other?"

They don't prank each other, as they are "nuclear powers" with "mutual assured destruction." Jamie started a prank war until Adam pointed out what road he was stepping onto, and Jamie declared detente. But for April Fool's, there was a host of things, including how to make a fake X-acto knife. This was explained carefully to a seven year old, including what an X-acto knife was, and why it was very dangerous, and why one should never make a fake X-acto knife to fake-cut people with. Because, you know, if you accidentally fake-cut someone who has previously actually stabbed themselves in the leg with a real X-acto knife, "it takes hours for them to calm down."

Oh, and they showed us "how great it is to be us" because someone in Seattle went to their hotel to give them a potato gun. Possibly the world's greatest automatic potato gatling gun. They were ecstatic with it. Yes, I believe the word "ecstatic" isn't hyperbole.

It was a great evening.

Does anyone else ever feel bad when you ask someone at a store to find or do something, and they move a small mountain to make your wish come true? I couldn't find a DVD, and asked the DVD lady if they had it. She looked it up, and the computer said that they did. She and her boss -- the manager -- then proceeded to tear heaven and hell apart to find it, because it was not where it was supposed to be.

I felt awkward not to have anything to do while my commands were being obeyed. Maybe I should have double-checked the alphabetization of a section or something.

When we were in Los Angeles, we decided to take the bus to the Getty Villa. My mom is a big believer in public transportation. Los Angeles, alas, is not. Ebeeman says that she just caves and rents a car when she visits L.A. because the buses are unreliable, and the city is so spread out that shuttles or taxis can run over a hundred dollars to get to and back from some places.

But we didn't know that, and we asked for bus directions to the Villa. And we got them. ( And they were bad. )

We went on a walking tour of downtown L.A. -- and by "we" I mean me, my mom, my sister, and her friend. There was no one else in the walking tour. If you have that picture correctly in your head, you've already gone "But, um ... wait. What?" Because my mom has two gimpy knees, and can't walk well. Especially after two full days of freaking enormous, marble-floored, zillion-staired museums that would cripple an athlete. But hey, what's life if you don't accept the challenges? Today's challenge was a septuagenarian on a walking tour ... and the challengees were 1) the tour guide and 2) ( the drivers of L.A. )

You haven't seen posts from me for a few days because I took a few days off work and went to Los Angeles with my mom, my sister, and my sister's friend. I was essentially without Internet the entire time -- except for what I could get on my phone. Ick. So now it's time to catch up. I think I've mostly read everyone's posts, and I apologize if I haven't commented on something important. I'm brain dead.

I went primarily to see my mom and sister, secondarily to see an exhibit of Bernini sculptures that were on display at the Getty Center (which I gathered was a museum), and thirdly because my mother mentioned that anyone and everyone should see the Getty Center just to see the Getty Center, and oh, also should take the opportunity to see the Getty Villa (which I gathered was another museum).

Oh, yeah. Everyone should see both places. I'll make separate posts on each. As well as the walking tour of downtown Los Angeles ... as well as the ...

... actually, I'm still exhausted. So I'm going to make tiny posts, I think. I hope.

So, once upon a time I was talking to someone about the kind of AIDS test that the blood center used. (This was years and years ago, btw.) They said they'd started using a new test -- it was "much more accurate" they said, "although it was wrong a lot more often than the old one."

"I'm sorry," I said. "It sounded like you said the new test was more accurate and also more wrong." They said that was what they said. I said those were two mutually exclusive phrases. They said no, not when it came to AIDS tests. The new AIDS test reliably told you when you were HIV positive, but it threw out a lot more false positives. So it was always right if you were positive ... just a lot more often wrong when you weren't. Ah.

( I'm married to a guy who worries a lot. )

My mom gave me useful advice, from high school through college. My mom's useful advice was the green envy of my friends. Occasionally I'll trot some out to either educate innocent or shock the unwary.

One of the mild ones was "Don't buy satin sheets. They sound sexy, but you won't be able to do anything at all but hang onto the bed with your fingernails to keep from sliding off."

I mentioned this recently to someone who apparently hadn't gotten such kindly maternal advice, and who had subsequently suffered for the lack. I spent the next fifteen minutes listening to A) how they'd done nothing all night but try to stay on the bed, and not in a fun way, and B) how much those dang sheets had cost, to be used only once.

That made me smile. Strange but useful advice. The world needs more.

I need a new wardrobe. A Texas wardrobe of cotton just isn't going to cut it. Neither are a lot of the things that I thought were going to be fine -- like jackets. When I wear a jacket, I get pissy because my thighs are cold. Apparently I'm a coat girl.

So ... I went to Value Village and bought three coats. They will replace the jackets that I'd normally wear. A leather coat to replace the leather jacket. A fleecy coat to replace the fleecy jacket. And a thick wool coat to replace the empty space where a thick wool coat ought to be.

I'm thinking that V.V. will be getting a few donated jackets soon. And I'm going to be expanding my hat collection soon, too. They'll be chosen to go with my coats.

Hmm. Well, I liked quite a bit of the writing in Igor, but Igor on the whole is probably a matinee or rental-level movie, for my tastes. Also, parents of young children may want to vet it first.

I was wondering what demographic it was designed for, which made me curious.

What age demographic (young-end, I always assume there's no upper limit) do people consider The Corpse Bride to be? How about Nightmare Before Christmas?

And of those two, which movie do you consider to be "darker"?

I really don't know how I feel about this. I was looking to see what the hours were for Value Village -- which is a chain of big thrift stores in the area -- and I was lured into clicking the "How to shop our stores" link.

One tip was not to rely on size tags, since things weren't new and might have shrunk. But that with pants, to see if the pants are about your size, "wrap the waistband around the neck - if the ends touch comfortably, they will more than likely fit."

I went to my closet and tried it out. Yep. Sure 'nuff.

Forty years old, twenty-five years of shopping if the Realm of Madness which is women's pants size labels ... and they only just now tell me? It's Goober trivia, sure -- but I suspect it's gonna be be very handy goober trivia.

Some friends of ours have a Really Nice House. It's always decorated for the current season or holiday. Their home is always open for us to visit for dinner, or for week long stays. They're sweet people. More than that, the wife throws the kind of parties where there are little nibbles on little tables, and each table has a small flower arrangement on it. That kind of house.

When we visit, they make a point of inviting our dogs to their very clean, very color coordinated, very non-covered-in-dog-hair house. Sometimes we don't. Sometimes we do. Today we did.

Zoe, Stress Sheltie Extraordinaire, had a panic attack and puked on their carpet. Ain't life grand?

I will say, I got to see some really top-notch hostessing up close and personal. You know, first of all, being more concerned about the dog more than the carpet ... but more than that, there was a "let's clean this up together, if you do this, I'll do that" kind of comradeship that made it all seem kind of no big deal. It would have been awkward, I think, if she had made me sit back and had done all the dirty work, or if I insisted on doing it all. But she managed to make it seem as normal as bringing in the plates after a dinner party, or stripping the bed after a stay in the guest room. Good trick, that.

It's nice to have friends; it's nice to have comfortable friends; it's grand to have friends who have the knack of keeping you comfortable despite yourself.

My sister-in-law has moved to Colorado and is going to set up a pet-sitting business. She's got the legal side set up, but she knows she needs a web presence. She's asked me:

How does she purchase a website name? Is name.com the best place to purchase the domain name? (If not, where's a good place?)
How much (ballpark) should she expect do basic website designs run: Home Page, Contact info, and Prices?
Where should she go to find someone to do it?

I actually don't know the first thing -- I've never bought a website. I *do* know she's usually sinking all her money into her animal rescue hobby, so she probably doesn't have a lot of disposable income.

Does anyone out there in LJ-land have any advice?

When you see this, post another Buffy quote in your LJ. Let's see how long this can go on.

"Nowadays every girl with a henna tattoo and a spice rack thinks she's a sister to the dark ones."

meme via ebeeman

I opened a five dollar savings account at First Tech Credit Union, just so I could use their coin counting machine. My spare change piggy bank was full, and in Washington, Wells Fargo doesn't have coin spinners. Well fine, FTCU for teh win. It's been a year and a half, and that makes for a lot of accumulated nickels, dimes, pennies.

What I like to do when my space change is to cash it in and get dollar coins, which then go into my dollar coin piggy bank. It's just something I do.

It turns out that we have a new dollar coin: the Monroe dollar. It's gold colored. The Sacajawea coins are kinda reddish gold, but the Monroe dollars are shiny gold-gold.

I'm telling you guys, it was really, Really, REALLY fun to hold a fistful of shiny gold coins. Dragon-hoard fun. Mustache twirling, maniacal laughter fun.

Seriously, it's just my pizza money from a year and a half of sofa change, but ... I'm just saying, if you get the opportunity, cash in some spending money for a fistful of gold coins and clink 'em together. BECAUSE WE'RE GROWNUPS AND WE CAN!

If a boy dog piddles 45 times on a walk, it's just another day in his quest for doggy dominion. If a girl dog piddles 7 times on the same walk, she has her fuzzy tail hauled into the vet. Same day, earlier if there's a cancellation. Water restricted in case her bladder is about to explode. Urine collected for analysis. X-rays. Antibiotics. Text messaging between worried owners.

The good news is, no surgery. The bad news is, we've been sneaking meaty treats to Fairy Princess Fruit and White Bread Only, and we're Bad Owners.

On the upside, I was informed that she's much younger than I thought she was. I don't know why I thought she was eight, but apparently she's probably six.

And that's the only thing of note that happened today, really. Which was plenty.

We'd originally planned to go to Victoria this weekend, but Lycangeek's job had him flat on his face and we decided to do some emergency recovering. That was pretty much 1) cancel all plans, 2) do not make any new plans, 3) do whatever sounds fun and relaxing at the moment, as the mood strikes.

The mood that struck was that he wanted to buy cheese and bread at Pike Market and go into the woods for a "get away picnic." That's what he did when he was falling in love with Seattle, back before he moved here, and he hasn't had a chance to do it since we got here. So ... off we went.

The only two things of note was that our sheltie, Zoe, was freakishly popular. Weirdly so. Everyone from drunk homeless guys to tourists to food venders were Utterly Delighted to see her. (And, oh, you have another dog, don't you?) She got pats, she got treats, she got smiles from everyone. I couldn't make a full block without people asking if they could pet her. It was really spooky. I expected to see people kickdancing behind us, ala Enchanted.

Then we went to Tiger Mountain State Forest with our bread and cheese. They are nicely set up for picnics and strolls, but apparently have one bear-n-cub too many for our comfort. Not that we met them, but when folks tell us which paths will take us to the bear and which paths will take us to the parking lot, we tend to pack up our cheese and doggies, and take the path to the parking lot.

So, you see, I grew up watching TV in the 70's, and they had these ads that talked about the power of pyramids, and how they would channel energy and all that woowoo stuff. We should sleep inside a pyramid-shaped canopy bed, or put our razors in little pyramid keepers, or ... you get the idea. Ancient Magic 101 fed to an entire generation of Saturday cartoon watchers.

So, Galveston, right? It's got these huge glass pyramids, right? The Moody Gardens pyramids are enormous. Big cosmic enhancers, pointed at the sky. And what do they put in there? A bunch of stuff hauled up from the watery grave of unsinkable Titanic. And now ...

... well, lookee there. Ain't it just like a magnet folks? End of the world weather: rain, hail, fire in the sky, the sea standing up and smiting major smackdown.

Sooooo. Next time, let's not store the cursed graveyard accoutrements in the Giant Mojo Machine. Okay? Okay.