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