croco-diamond, the sequel

I have a friend who graciously offered to read The Colossal Cringle Crisp Caper to his daughter, Marie, who is 6. I guess she liked it because he's reading it to her for the third time. I guess he's sick of it because he asked me to write a new story about the croco-diamond.

So I gathered some information from him (to be honest, I think he provided 3 useful facts) and then decided to write a story about the croco-diamond going to school with Marie. I have to finish the story by Saturday because they'll be done reading C4 by then.

Here's the first part. BTW, all of the "non-croco-diamond world" stuff is true (e.g. the tribes of the congo and National Pepper Pot Day).

ON the particular day of which we speak, which is a day you may remember as it didn’t happen too long ago, the croco-diamond found himself eating breakfast alone. The giant man had gone to the dentist to have his teeth cleaned, and since his teeth are so big that would take all day. The kangawrong was at tambourine camp. The croco-diamond was supposed to be at cooking school to learn to be a master chef. But he had been kicked out after doing something VERY BAD which we won’t mention here, except to say that eventually the flour cloud settled and most of the students stopped coughing.

So he wandered over to Marie’s house, where Marie was eating breakfast. “Marie,” he said, taking a seat at the table while sneakily pulling a cookie off the counter with his back foot, “I’ve decided to go to school with you today. I, of course, went to a very rigorous boarding school. It would be interesting to see what it’s like to go to a Waldorf school. I am quite fond of the idea of crayons, though I haven’t used one before. And I know a few poems that may amuse your classmates.”

Marie wasn’t sure that it was a good idea for the croco-diamond to go to school with her, but he looked so forlorn sitting at the table with cookie crumbs on his snout. Marie agreed that he could attend her school. The croco-diamond rushed home to prepare.

When Marie was ready to leave she looked out the window and saw the croco-diamond in the driveway, a white scarf around his neck and aviator goggles over his eyes. In addition, he was carrying a flashing red stop sign and a large picnic basket.

“Oh no,” sighed Marie. “I wonder what the croco-diamond is up to this time.”

She walked outside with her back pack. “I will carry you to school, on my back, like a dragon rider of olden days. Dragon riders, as I’m sure you know, were charged with keeping the peace and underwent years of training in magic, physical endurance, observation, and swordsmanship. They lived on their own island called…”

“That’s interesting, Croc, but we are going to be late for school.”

And so Marie climbed on the croco-diamond’s back, holding the picnic basket in front of her, and they set off for the Waldorf school. That is, until the croco-diamond saw some children on the sidewalk.

“Stop, stop!” commanded the croco-diamond at the cars in the street. He waved his flashing red stop sign around and the cars came to a screeching halt. Even the children stopped and stared.

“What are you DOING Croc???” asked Marie.

“I thought you knew. It is national child safety month. I must protect the children!”

“What in all of the worlds is going on?” asked one of the drivers.

“It appears there is a…croco-diamond…in the street waving a stop sign. A very bright, blinking red stop sign. He’s…he’s also wearing goggles.” Said another driver.

“Wait a minute. Is that Marie with the croco-diamond?” Asked another driver.

“Come on Croc or we’ll be late for school!” said Marie, ducking behind the picnic basket so no one could see her.

Eventually the croco-diamond reluctantly let Marie put his flashing stop sign in the picnic basket where it could cause no further traffic jams.

Even with the delays they arrived at school a few minutes early. Marie climbed off the croco-diamond’s back and he said, with a flourish that was a bit dramatic, even for the croco-diamond, “Show me immediately to the school mistress so that I might collect my sash!”

“Your…sash?” asked Marie.

“Yes, my sash. My visiting dignitary sash. Hopefully it has gold lettering. Silver washes me out and makes me look sleepy.”

“I…I don’t think school has…sashes.” Said Marie. “I think they just give you a name tag.”

“Name tag? Of what material is this “name tag” made?” asked the Croco-diamond.

“It’s a sticker.” Said Marie.

The croco-diamond’s head rose proudly, and he stood on his hind legs. “We, my tribe I mean, are royalty. Which means, obviously, we do not wear stickers.”

“Oh.” Said Marie, unsure what to do next.

“It’s no problem,” said the croco-diamond. “One always must plan for the unexpected when one goes on an adventure.” And he pulled out a sash from the picnic basket, which seemed to be pulsing with a red light due to the flashing stop sign. The sash was royal purple, with large gold lettering that said ‘Most Distinguished Visitor’. Underneath was smaller gold lettering that said ‘croco-diamond royale-ty talk-i-mus non-stop-i-tus , guest of the king of South Norwand Island Territories and other protectorates.”

 

“You do realize we’re in Canmore?” asked Marie.

“Yes, well, I did not have time to update my sash,” said the croco-diamond. And with that they went to see the school mistress.

The school mistress was quite surprised to see a croco-diamond in her office. And even more surprised when the croco-diamond took a seat, pulled out from the picnic basket a fancy tea cup and saucer, as well as some McVitibles’s digestive biscuits (he had meant to grab the box of chocolate chip cocoanut cookie nibbles, but with his goggles on inside the giant man’s house he couldn’t read the boxes), and sat with his hind feet up on the blinking red light picnic basket.

“You have been to the South Norwand Island Territories I presume?” he asked the school mistress, sipping his tea.

“No, I haven’t. They are quite remote. I…I was wondering how I might help you?”

“Well, I’ve decided to accompany Marie to school. She has agreed to be my escort. She will do a fine job. I presume she has told you I will not wear a sticker.”

At this Marie and the head mistress exchanged looks.

“I see.”

The croco-diamond attempted to put his tea cup down but couldn’t quite see where the table was because of his goggles. Marie helped him put it down.

“Maybe you should take your goggles off.” Marie suggested.

“Absolutely not! I cannot take these goggles off!”

“Oh.” Said Marie.

“Aren’t you going to inquire as to why I am wearing them?” Asked the croco-diamond.

Marie thought that maybe she wasn’t going to inquire because normally when she asked the croco-diamond questions it took weeks to get to the end of the answer. 

“Since perhaps you are too shy to inquire, I will answer your question without you asking. Besides being national child safety month, it is also aviation history month. In honor of that I’m dressed as a pilot. Surely at the Waldorf school you are aware of these holidays. THAT LAST A MONTH. BUT THEY’RE STILL HOLIDAYS.”

The school mistress looked at Marie, who shrugged her shoulders. 

The croco-diamond continued, “You might also not be aware then, that today is also Look For Circles day, Deviled Egg day, Clean Your Refrigerator day, Button day, Have A Party With Your Bear day, Square Dance day, Mitten Tree day, Cotton Candy day, National Noodle Ring day, Look On The Bright Side day, Make Cut Out Snowflakes Day, Pepper Pot day…”

“How interesting,” Interrupted the school mistress. “But it is also a school day. Perhaps you and Marie should head to her classroom so she isn’t late.”

poems and performance reviews

Yesterday I emailed my friend, the esteemed poet JD Frey and author of Umbrellas or Else (check out his web site here; proverbs from purgatory especially hilarious as is his haiku about knee caps).

I wrote:

I left my old job in July and am now working for a non-profit. Unfortunately, they gave me a position of responsibility, and I find myself having to write 20 performance reviews by Friday for employees I don't really interact with because I have asperger's and don't like people.
I started reading Umbrellas or Else for inspiration as to what to say in the aforementioned reviews. I'm thinking that each review should quote at least one line from one of your poems.

But then I was worried that might upset you.
In my defense, I have the perfect person for "doppelganger, pterodactyl, ectoplasm scones".

Please?

JD wrote:

FF,

By all means, if poetry be the food of performance reviews, play on.

Just be careful--not everybody is going to "get" that you really aren't challenging them to jello-wrestle with Barbara Walters...

Nice to hear from you and I hope things are happy and fulfilling.

JDF

 

I wrote:

 

Actually, thanks for that idea! I'm also supposed to come up with a list of team building exercises for 2013. Wonder if an appearance by Barbara Walters is out of our budget. She might do it for free since we're a non-profit. 

but that's why I have a blog

Today my neighbor, let's call her X, who is also a writer, and in her 60s, came over to see my kitchen. Then we had the following conversation:

X: Hey, you inspired me to start a blog! (she's been reading my blog for kitchen updates)
Me: That's great!
X: So I wanted to ask you for a favor.
Me: Sure! (thinking she's going to ask for writing advice)
X: So, I want to buy you a membership to match.com. Then you'll go on dates and I'll write about them.
Me: Um. What?
X: I bought my sister a membership and she went on some dates but nothing really funny happened and then she met someone and got married.
Me: Oh.
X: Maybe you'll meet someone and get married. And then I can write about that.

(uncomfortable pause)

Me: Don't you think the back splash turned out really nice?

Maybe I'll stop inviting people over to show off my kitchen.

back splash, done!!! And it's better than awesome!!!

More pics later, got home from Bozeman Ice Fest around 530 and have been working ever since to get my kitchen set up!

behind the scenes

Behind the scenes at the Bozeman Ice Fest:

• They put up cameras to capture live footage of the guys building the ice breaker wall. But they mounted them to a fence and some moron put the port-a-potties in front of the cameras. So all the cameras captured were three days of the back of the port-a-potties.
• We didn't have an "official" score board for the speed comp so Liz (another volunteer) and I made one out of paper and cardboard, which we duct taped together and then propped up on the stage using rope and the aforementioned duct tape. All the news reporters were taking pictures of it because it was so ghetto. Then the duct tape started falling off and the score board almost blew away so I had to staple it with a lightweight stapler. No idea how it stayed together.
• I was given the job to man the booth where we were taking pictures of people at the ice fest last night with the ice breaker wall behind them (kind of like getting your picture in front of the great pyramid in egypt, but cooler). Anyone who knows me knows I am the WORST photographer EVER. Also, I had slipped and accidentally kicked the tripod so it was in the wrong position. So most of the pictures I took had only half the person (or couple) in them. Then a little kid started throwing a major tantrum in front of the camera so I took a bunch of pictures of him having his tantrum. The guys who upload the pics to facebook were laughing their asses off when they saw my pictures.
• Conrad and I took down all the banners as part of clean up last night. That was kind of surreal. I think he offered to help me because I was using his knife, which has a lot of sentimental value, and I almost stabbed myself in the face with it (YOU try cutting through frozen zip ties with numb fingers while hanging onto a chain link fence with the banner whipping around in the wind).
• Two nights ago in the theater Joe gave me some schwag to throw out to the crowd (gloves) and I pitched them so far I hit some guy in the back of the head with them (he was looking in the other direction because they were throwing stuff on that side too). Oh well, at least he got free gloves.
• A guy who was cooking at the festival last night set his grill up on a PLASTIC table. I was like "dude, that is NOT a good idea". He insisted he had done it before. So I went to the ice breaker wall and got the builders to give me some left over wood and gave it to the kitchen guy to put under his grill. Instead of putting the wood UNDER the grill he propped up the four corners of the grill. Needless to say the table was scorched and melted by the end of the night. Joe was like "I need someone to make that disappear NOW" so we didn't get in trouble with the people we borrowed the tables from. I suggested we keep it and give it out every year as an award.

There was more hilarious stuff but I have to run do some work. To be continued...

ice breaker

Here's a picture of the climbing wall the athletes had to dry tool.

My friend Mayo on the wall

It was even more insane in person. The wood, which came from Conrad Anker's backyard, had swivels on the top. Only a few climbers made it out on the boom. Gadd won. To watch him climb the wall click here and then scroll to the middle of the page. It's a short video.

North Face, you are THE BEST (at least your reps are)

(this was supposed to post last night but the internet was down)

Have been working long days at the ice fest as a volunteer and spent all day and night out in the driving snow and cold, so probably won't write until tomorrow about all the amazing and funny things that have happened over the past two days.

But, even though I'm exhausted, I can't sleep until I give the biggest fucking shout out on the planet to BJ, a rep for North Face.

I am very susceptible to cold. And wearing the wrong clothes doesn't help.

I was working with another volunteer named Liz keeping score for the speed climbing event today. I had dressed pretty warm but not warm enough for standing in the snow for hours at a time while not being able to move around or get out of the driving snow/wind. And I couldn't leave my position because you can't just walk out in the middle of an event when you're posting scores.

At some point in the early afternoon my brain was like "we're going hypothermic, bitches". I was shaking uncontrollably and doing these weird arm and step moves trying to warm up. My hand warmers were failsuck, my gloves wet, my feet wet, and it was generally miserable.

BJ came up to me and asked if I wanted to wear his down coat (I was wearing my down coat already, that's how cold it was). I didn't know him so I was like "that's okay, I'm fine" (was so cold I could barely talk). Then he said he would get me a thicker down jacket than the one I was wearing (my down jacket is pretty fucking thick). I turned that down too, not because I'm stupid, but because I know reps and they always complain about people trying to get free gear from them and I didn't want BJ to think I was one of those types of people who borrow or want to be given stuff.

A few minutes later BJ came over and said "I can't stand to watch you anymore because you're obviously freezing." He handed me a prototype (love prototypes!) light down jacket. I looked at it (was so cold the only thing I could focus on was what the score keepers were yelling at me) and BJ said "Let's take off your down coat and put this underneath". I couldn't even get my coat off by myself so he helped me, and then he helped me put the prototype jacket on, zipped it up (my fingers were useless because they were so cold and at that point someone else had to write results on the score board after I got them), and took off the tag. He said I could keep the jacket and he helped me put on my down coat. I tried to protest but he insisted. And then pulled the hood for the prototype jacket under my neck warmer so it wasn't in the way and was against my neck (the inside of the hood is fleece - NICE!!! - and very soft and warm!!!!).

North Face is probably thinking "we give you a nice jacket and you take a shitty picture of it???? Franki's an asshole!" Sorry North Face, I'm not a photographer.

Even though gained through suffering I LOVE this jacket. It's so perfect. The wrist things that go around my hands are lycra. The underside of the arms and down the sides of the jacket is a stretchy fleece material. Hood is lined with fleece. Rest of the jacket is down. Cool pockets. Bomber zipper. Perfect for anything (and, no offense to Patagonia, much better than my light down jacket I got from them).

BJ is awesome and one of the most chivalrous men I've ever met. I hope they put this jacket into production. The little details, like the fleece hood, make the jacket. And it DID warm me up a lot.

I used to not buy North Face stuff but now I'm going to check them out. And maybe can get BJ to convince North Face to make ice climbing pants that have a longer than 32 inch inseam for women.

Over 10K

...and just checked my blog stats. Over 10,000 views. Not bad for a site that isn't publicized...

Actually, that's probably horrible. Oh well.

bozeman ice fest, day 1

So I'm here in Bozeman, for the ice fest. But, not actually climbing the ice at the moment because I'm being Joe's bitch. Examples of tasks I had to complete today:

-pick up dog poop in a field where there's going to be a dry tooling comp called Ice Breaker (the wall is more insane in real life, will take pics tomorrow) (to be honest if I found poop I covered it with leaves, but I DID pick up trash)
-get 12 pallets from the Chronicle so Joe could build a stage (luckily Conrad Anker's son wanted to do that so I didn't have to - BTW, I met Conrad today - I was talking to Malcolm Daly and Conrad walked up to talk to him too and Mal said "do you know Franki?" and Conrad said "no" and Mal said "Well, you SHOULD know Franki" - then he turned to me and said "so you're not a spy any more?" because I told him about my new job - Mal likes to tell people I'm a spy or an assassin for some reason - no idea what Conrad thought about that)
-call a bunch of annoying people who signed up as volunteers and then decided not to help after all - if you fucking sign up as a volunteer do your job assholes so I don't have to run around with my hair on fire
-pick up bits of wood left over from making the climbing wall for the bonfire on Saturday (I picked up two pieces and then was like fuck this)
-cut 60 willows for roasting marshmallows on Saturday (I was like "Joe, I don't even know what a willow is" and he turned to Sara, another volunteer, and said "she's a really smart geek but doesn't know the simplest things and that's why I love her" - um, thanks? I guess?) (Sara cut the willows while I was taping up posters)

I'm supposed to head back to the Emerson for a show tonight. Tired though.

Ran into my pal Will Mayo. It was great to see him. He's competing on Saturday. I hope he wins!

Speaking of exes I found out another ex has been living in Golden for the past two years and is building a gym there. Fucker. Colorado is MY state. I was here first. He should take his dumb ass somewhere else that isn't near me. Like, go to fucking Siberia.

picture, plants

My friend Camile and I went to see the lights at the Denver Botanic gardens. Amazing, as usual.

And then Camile gave me a new cactus. I've decided to call him "Thinner Gadd".

He's going next to the baby toe's cult to keep them in line so they stop murdering people in my house.

Why I LOVE Russian movies

Watched half of Stalker last night. It's pretty long. Enjoying it a lot.

I had to take pics of my favorite lines in the movie so far:

In case you can't read the above, it says "Don't stick your nose in someone's underwear if you don't understand it." In this scene a scientist has gone through the zone by himself to retrieve a backpack with his underwear. Normally you need a stalker to get you through the zone because bad things can happen to you because the zone is supposedly inhabited by aliens. The stalker had just finished admonishing the scientist about his backpack full of underwear, and this was the scientist's response.

And the response to the above, by the stalker, was "What is there to understand? Binomial theorem?" Ha ha! Math joke! And I love B Pascal, who documented binomial theorem!!! Though, of course, there's historical proof that an Indian and Persian discovered it first. Oh well. It's Pascal's triangle now.

I'll drink to that. This is a writer who sneaks into the zone with the stalker so he can write about it. The zone is segregated from the rest of Russia and they shoot people who enter it. Only a stalker knows how to sneak in.

It's on netflix. Check this movie out if you like sci-fi that isn't violent and stupid.

broken bottle bathroom, done!

Note: I did not empty the bottles seen in this counter top.

My weird faucet and counter top (recycled granite, beer bottles, and wine bottles - saving the environment one drink at a time) look great! I do have some painting to do...that pepto-bismal grey color is where the mirror used to be.

Christine found those crystal knobs and the Vetrazzo slab. She's going to help me redo my upstairs bathroom too! 

never take a $200 southwest flight

Got the the airport this morning thinking I would be in california by noon...

...and then I realized I had accidentally booked a flight that had a stop, in L.A (wondered why the flight was so cheap). On the way to L.A. some fuckwit sat in the second row with his two screaming infants. Oh, and he tried to entertain them by playing a video turned up loud enough for me to hear it crystal clear in the fifth row. Heard of head phones you rude asspipe?

Parents, please. Everyone knows kids go in the back of the plane. People who sit up front have status and don't want to listen to your screaming kids as part of their flying experience. On top of which, it takes you FOREVER to get off the plane and instead of letting people who know how to travel get off the plane before you collect your blankie and toys and screaming children you can't control you'd rather block the aisle for 5 minutes.

Ech.

And then, as the flight was taking off for Oakland (I moved to bulk head seating when we landed in LA), there was a woman sitting opposite me, also in bulk head. She got upset about having to put her purse in the overhead (are you fucking kidding me), then got upset that the woman sitting directly behind her, who had obviously had a stroke or something, was burping loudly (she had been brought on the plane in a wheel chair - bulk head bitch wanted the steward to move her back further on the plane and they were like "um, no, because we'd have to carry her" - I would also note stroke lady was in the seat before bulk head bitch sat down in front of her).

Next, a huge guy (as in super tall and not fat, just big) got on the plane and sat down next to bulk head bitch (he barely fit in bulk head, there was no way he would fit in a regular seat). Bulk head bitch started complaining about him sitting next to her because she didn't want to sit next to anyone (uh, you do realize this isn't your private plane???). She threw such a fit that the steward offered to reseat her in row 6. She didn't want to sit in row 6. Then she got off the plane and said southwest would have to put her on a different flight. Then she got back on the plane and decided the tall guy would have to sit next to me (I was in the window seat and another large woman, who was also brought in on a wheel chair, was in the aisle seat).

So he sat next to me and we couldn't put the arm rest down between our seats. Luckily he was nice enough so I didn't mind that he was smushing me into the side of the plane. And bulk head bitch said "Let me give you a drink ticket" to the tall guy because he had been such a bitch but he refused to take it. I was thinking "hey, I'll take it" but she didn't offer it to me.

Turns out tall guy is a lobbyist. I was like "how about lobbying for a law that prevents assholes from buying plane tickets? we could determine the assholes by letting other passengers rate them." He said he'd look into it.

back splash drama

On top of having to leave for the airport at 930 this morning (yes, I did just fly back to Denver last night - at least I got 12 hours at home before traveling again) I had to pick my back splash and get that done today.

I had picked two tiles and only received one sample. So this morning I was like fuck it, that's the sample that came, I guess that's the tile.

Of course, I had no idea how much it cost or what the availability was...

It was $600 over budget. Shocker.

And then I found out there are only 50 square feet of that tile left in the entire US. I was like are you fucking kidding me????? I had to order it this morning (I needed 40 sq ft) and of course the tile company is charging a fuck load of money to ship it.

But do I care? No. I just want my kitchen to be done.

Side note: how come everything I picked, from appliances (refrigerator and hood extension), to counter top, to back splash, is being discontinued????

I picked a back splash. I think.

This sample came while I was in Virginia. I like it because it's what I initially was looking for. It's also recycled glass and quartz (good for the environment). Finally, the collection is called Shutter and the color is gunmetal. Kind of like my life style...

But I have to wait to hear back from my designer Christine to see if she likes it.

The back splash in situ

It goes with the cabinets.

The whole tile.

In other news, I left my coat in my dad's car last night. And it was 29 degrees F when I got home. But that's Colorado cold, which means I was fine in my sweatshirt.

And, I'm writing again. I am writing a story about the croco-diamond going to school with the daughter of a friend of mine. Still have to add the prologue to that book so I can start shopping it around.

we've got a book for that

Over the course of my week at my parents' house I mentioned I am trying to learn more about the civil war and the making of the hydrogen bomb (I used to know a lot about that but have forgotten over the years). And my friend Cam gave me the other two Stieg Larsson books but I didn't have the first one in the series, which I mentioned to my mom.

And I said that I had to find some tile samples for my back splash because I have to pick a back splash by, like, yesterday.

Which is how I ended up with a suitcase that's 2 pounds overweight (tile samples weigh a lot):

Straws, a cute hat, and pink lululemon socks...what more does a girl need for travel? Oh yeah, max freeze, which I LOVE more than my last 3 boyfriends.

So I had to shove all my books in my backpack, which now weighs more than my suitcase:

Dark Sun, Chancellorsville 1863, Book of 5 Ring, Portrait of a Lady, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Enterprise Architecture Strategies - fuck off, I DO own a kindle, and a tablet. I like real books.

Hopefully I'll get through airport security before my spine is destroyed...should have taken my dad up on his offer to fedex the books to me. Why did I let that woman at Colorado Luggage talk me into such a big backpack?

Oh yeah, because I can fit 6 bottles of wine in it.

can't be thanksgiving without someone going to the emergency room

 And to think on Tuesday night I teased my mom that we were entering our second thanksgiving without someone ending up in the emergency room.

My dad's brother (my Uncle Joe) and sister (Aunt Mary) came for thanksgiving. My Aunt Mary just got a new dog, an albino german shepard, named Bikota (pronounced By-Coe-Ta, which is an acronym for be kind to everyone, don't ask, my family names animals with acronyms). My sister just got a dog, a black lab mix, named Max.

My Uncle Joe and Aunt Mary arrived on Wednesday, and my sister and her kids brought Max out to "meet" Bikota. Things were great for about 2 minutes and then Max decided to rip Bikota's ear off. For some reason my Uncle Joe decided to stick his hand in the middle of the fray. For that he ended up with four holes in his hand where Bikota bit him.

My dad drove him to the emergency room, and 2 hours and four stitches later, he was back at the house. Bikota was in and out of the vet's office in less than an hour and got one staple in her ear. The vet also tried to fix her leaky anal gland with some success. Festivities resumed.

This is my Uncle Joe's hand. Didn't stop him from playing pool, though he didn't win as much as he usually does. I changed his bandages because he doesn't like blood. He said "hey, you actually know what you're doing!"

Um, yeah. After you break enough bones and get enough stitches it's second nature.

Another happy Thanksgiving!

final cabinet install!

Now all I have to do is pick a back splash and the project will be finished! Um, any ideas on back splashes? I've been through a ton and can't find anything I like in my budget.

I mean "budget".

yarn head

Was emailing with a friend who is sponsored by red bull and remembered this dream I had about him when I was in the middle east, which, I just realized, I never posted:

I wrote:

Dude, I had the weirdest dream about you last night.

Maybe because the other day I was watching the vid of the endless ascent...

In the dream, I was living in Ouray, but it was like a crazy version of Ouray. Someone told me you had moved there, so I went to the ice park and found you living in this huge red bull tent. You looked normal except that your hair was blue yarn instead of being hair. I was like "dude, what are you doing here?" and you said "I've come up with a new invention, which is a blue berry pie that, when you eat it, turns your hair to yarn. That way you don't ever have to wear a hat. The discovery channel gave me a TV show, so I'm going to travel around the country and show how people won't die of the cold because they have yarn for hair." I was like "that's a really great idea! can I have a pie?"

So you gave me a pie and I took it home and built an engineering design of the pie to figure out how it worked. Then I re-engineered the pie so that it was cherry flavored, and when someone ate the pie it would turn their hands into red mittens. I drew a bunch of engineering diagrams of my pie. I was really excited about my invention and wanted to show it to you. So I printed out the engineering design but, instead of a printer, my computer was attached to an oven, and inside the oven was a baguette that cooked and somehow the engineering design was being cooked into the baguette.

When the baguette was fully cooked I took it back to your tent and you ate it because as you were eating the bread you could see my design which was being projected out of your eyes onto the wall of the tent. Every piece of bread you ate had a different diagram associated with it. Then you finished the bread and looked at me. I was excited to see what your reaction would be.

You looked at me and said "This is the stupidest idea I've ever heard of! Who would want to turn their hands into red mittens?" I was really upset because I realized you were right.

Then I woke up.

And no, I have taken any weird substances. That I know of. I did swallow some sand on accident during the sand storm.

My friend wrote:

Red Mittens might be the future--use 'em for ice, pot holders, fashion, the possibilities! I do have some nice black ones...

Wild dreams, jet lag?

Some people think I'm normal.

now it looks like a kitchen

Got home very late last night to this nice surprise:

Appliances that are inside my house instead of out on the back patio.

Climber handles installed.

I can wash dishes somewhere other than my upstairs bathroom!

View from the dining room. There's space in the island for stools.

Window is open! And it looks really nice!

My plumber Josef, who is the best plumber ever, just got the faucet installed. BTW, the ladders are not part of the kitchen decor.

See pictures of the old kitchen here.

serenade

Wow. The weirdest thing just happened. I ordered room service and the waiter that always brings my tray (Kevin) commented about how healthy my eating habits are (last night I had 2 slices of key lime pie, a fruit plate, and french fries for dinner and that's healthy????), and then he sang me a song about broken tree branches and some other stuff. I think it was a gospel song or something. He has a great voice.

I gave him a $5 tip and said "thanks".

It was nice, but at the same time a little awkward. I don't often have people sing to me and I never know what I'm supposed to do. Clap? Make eye contact? Stare into the distance as if remembering an emotionally sad moment?

Hm. He brought me another fruit plate and didn't charge me.

People are so confusing.

counter tops are in!

My designer Christine sent me this picture:

She and Neal said they look great, which is a huge relief since I only had a tiny sample to go on.

Supposedly I'll have appliances in too when I get home on Thursday night. Which means I won't have to go outside to get stuff out of my refrigerator.

pudding & primordial soup

Yesterday a friend stopped by to see my kitchen, and I was showing her a new non-stick frying pan my mom bought me so the brit (Pascal) could make me an omelet, and my friend said "I'm surprised he'd ever come back here after you made him eat that horrible banana pudding you made." I was like, "um, you tasted it before I gave it to him and said it was good". She was like "It was the worst pudding ever".

Ech.

So I sent an email to Pascal:

subject: banana pudding

Why didn't you just say "it sucks"? My friend was like "worst pudding ever". 
I made you eat it twice.

Pascal:

The banana pudding was good! I enjoyed it! Did you serve her the frozen
batch? Maybe it became denatured in the freezer? Maybe it developed a
personality and evolved into a higher life form. Maybe you stumbled on the
secret to creation of life? You made me eat primordial soup?? Maybe that's
why I had gas, it was because I had a universe developing in my guts.
Cripes we could see a big bang in me bum? I could give birth to the next
messiah? Oh the possibilities!

He may be coming back to town end of this month. Hopefully the kitchen will be in some functional state so he can cook for me.

will steal for back splash

Christine continues to be a bad influence...

My contractor Neal recommended I work with a woman he knows to pick out a back splash. She was mean to me, made some suggestions that I thought sucked, and only showed me samples from some collection that was so crap she kept it under the counter. Now, I'm not spending a million dollars on my back splash but for fuck's sake...surely something on the wall was in my price range...

So I contacted Christine and she took me to her people (she also gets a 40% discount with them). We spent an hour looking at stuff and then she got them to give me two samples. Supposedly my counter tops are going in on Wednesday (Christine pulled some strings there too - normally it takes two weeks from templating to get the counter top installed) so I should be able to pick out the back splash by the end of this week.

She also just sent me some pictures of back splashes with comments:

Haha. Stealing my back splash might mean one thing in my kitchen was on budget. Unless I get arrested, like my dad.

Wah. I love it and I'm sure I can't afford it. Rats!

Got to keep Neal happy...

In other news, Pascal told me he laughs every time I send him an email about my back splash because in UK back splash means piss that splashes back on you when using the urinal. That's why they say splash back instead.

randomness not so random

I was logging on to my VPN today with my securID and this happened:

I've also been keeping a log of the numbers when I log in and have noticed what seems to be an excessive amount of the number sequence "234". Which makes me wonder about randomness of my securID.

Why am I tracking the numbers when I log in, you may ask, and then analyzing them. Because I have fucking asperger's. That's what we do.

fancy faucet

My fancy bathroom faucet came today...

And each piece was enclosed in a sack. Like when you buy expensive shoes.

It's even cooler looking in real life.

kitchen, painted

Today the guy came to do the templating for my granite counter tops. It was kind of weird. He put thick paper strips down on the counters and then glued it together to make a sort of paper frame. It seemed kind of low tech.

Christine and Neal also laughed about my painting issues. I'm going to try to get them fixed by Wednesday, which means tuesday night is painting night...ech...

Here's what the kitchen looks like painted.

You can see where the paint color changes. Ech.

home depot and lowes - paint idiots

I knew I was going to have to repaint parts of my kitchen so I went to Lowe's and got some paint since they are the only place that carries Ralph Lauren paint (I thought). My whole house practically is painted with Ralph Lauren cream stone.

Well, the dude at Lowe's gave me a paint called cream stone, but it was their line of paint, not ralph lauren (they don't carry RL anymore). Their cream stone is greenish, but I didn't notice at first when I was painting.

I know it doesn't look like a big difference, until you get it on the wall. The RL is on the left, Lowe's paint on the right and on the mix stick.

I got all of the ceiling painted, and then most of the walls, and ran out of paint around 6 PM last night. I went to home depot and wasted 20 minutes waiting for a guy to mix my paint (think he was spending more time sniffing it than mixing it). Got home and realized...it was the right color, but it wasn't the color I had painted the rest of the kitchen.

Fucking fuck. I was NOT about to repaint the kitchen.

So I went back to home depot this morning (I know, I'm stupid, should have gone to Lowe's), got some paint, finished painting while talking to my dad on the phone...and then realized the new paint didn't match the old paint. At first I thought it was because the new paint was wet. But no, it's because it doesn't match.

Grr.

And of course I did touch ups on every wall with the non-matching paint.

So I guess I'm going to Lowe's tomorrow. Unless I perish from paint fumes in the mean time...

have cabinets, will...put stuff in them

Neal got most of the cabinets and the island built this week. The upper right brown cabinet was damaged so I have to wait until next week to have them all in. Progress!

Came home thursday night...kitchen progress! Should throw some wine in that wine rack.

The island with the pantry in the background.

This window is finally unblocked! Think the round shelves look great (my idea to put them there, of course).

It's going to be a great party space. Too bad most of my friends live really far away.

Friday Neal informs me I need to get the whole ceiling and kitchen painted. By tomorrow. Ech.

The island. The dishwasher is going where that hole is.

FINALLY! A closed pantry.

It totally opens the downstairs.

my floors!

Meant to put these up earlier...because I'm doing some work myself to save money on my renovation I've been super busy...

Before - ugly stairs

After - shiny!

Before: floor in living room

After

Before - kitchen floor

After