The View Up Here

A week from today I will be nervously re-re-re-re-re-repacking one or all of my bags, drugging my cat and myself for the long trip, and making sure everything is in order. I do have a busy week ahead of me, but I am feeling more energized than anything. I keep thinking of the palm trees and balmy temps as I sit here wearing layer upon layer, staring at the snow outside the windows. This move is so important - not just because I'm going some place warm, but because I'm at long last pursuing something instead of just running away (oh, the vagaries of youth). I am so grateful that I've been given this opportunity to move forward. I think I might have a buyer for the car (will know by noon), and I've perused online enough to feel confident that I can get something in L.A. in my price range that won't be a complete jalopy. She ain't much to look at, but she'll make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. Thanks to http://lgreport.blogspot.com/ for the p...

The last couple of days I've been wishing fervently that somehow I can bring my Spaz on the plane with me to L.A. Because I'd waited so long to try to make arrangements, the connecting flight to L.A.'s "cat-pacity" (capacity) of carry-on kitties had been reached at 2. I called twice more in case someone with a cat had canceled. Then over the weekend there was an incident that hit home for me - she has to come with me. Last night I prayed to God (which I rarely do, these days) to please make it possible for her to come with me. This morning as I was playing with her, I had a sudden, strong urge to call Delta again. So I did - and lo and behold - Delta's changed their cat-pacity from 2 to 4. So we're in! Spaz will soon be lounging in the sunshine with me, though I wonder how she'll do with the indoor/outdoor kitty to primarily indoor kitty transition. There is a fenced-in backyard where I can take her, but under my supervision, of course. I bough...

We'll be having apple crumble for dessert, since the Dutch apple pie hit the deck on the way out of the oven. Coulda been worse - coulda landed upside-down, in which case there'd be nothing for dessert (except homemade pizzelles and not-homemade Milano cookies). At least I haven't dropped the lasagna (yet).

We spent Christmas Eve with my 89-year-old Aunt Stella and her enormous family of my cousins, second cousins, and tiny third cousin. Such a spread! Somehow arrived home before the food coma set in. I am very grateful to have spent the evening with her. Happy Yule, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza. I wish for you and your family peace, health and happiness this holiday and into the new year.

No, not as in undocumented worker. So last night at 1:21 a.m. I had a very disturbing experience. In mid-dream, without any connection to the dream or anything else in my waking life, I "heard" a crushing, crashing noise that sounded just like a transformer had blown up. Interestingly, my dream-self and all the other characters in my dream reacted to this sound by falling to the decks, and I was short of breath from the shock of it. The explosion sound didn't seem part of the dream, somehow. Now, I usually dream lucidly, and this was no different, but both my dream-self and my "real" self were astonished at this sound. In other words, I hadn't "created" it as part of the dream I was quite involved with at the time. I woke up with "WTF?" on my lips. My heart was pounding, I turned on the light and went to the window, thinking maybe we were having a freak December thunder storm (it's been raining here on and off for the last few da...

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Get your butt up off the chair and shuffle it!

As you might imagine, I've had my eye on the situation in N. Korea and Hanguk in the South. All joking aside, I can't really add any additional insights to what's already been written and said in special reports , speculations , images and news analysis of N. Korea's situation current and past. I will say, from the time I spent in S. Korea, what I know of the general attitudes of South Koreans toward the divided peninsula. The younger generation of S. Koreans - the ones who are facing their compulsory two years in the military - are afraid of armed conflict. They want peace at all costs. Perhaps this is because their lifestyle, compared to that of their parents, grandparents and great grandparents, is very cushy, very wealthy, very "first world." Perhaps they've become complacent, as it seems many Americans have, taking for granted many things and freedoms that were hard-fought and won. Or perhaps they are tired of the shadow of war constantly hangi...

My days are all jumbled up and I'm jumping around from one thing to the next without pause. It's okay, though. I am productive when things get like this, though I am inevitably glad when things calm down. Having coffee with people before I leave, sending out Christmas prezzies to family in Boston, writing a few holiday cards, working on projects that I need to finish before I leave town, applying for jrrbs (which takes up 80% of my time, between revising resumes, writing covers, and figuring out who to address the letters to because those job search websites are designed to keep us poor slobs job seekers in the dark as much as possible). Enjoying every minute of it, though!

Happy Monday morning. It's finally feeling like winter in Central New York. Brrrr. Temps in the teens and twenties. No worries. I'll be back in Cali in a few short weeks! Let's get this Monday morning cranked up! Dial it up to 11!

No Robits Month would be right or complete with out The Robots (sorry, no embedding allowed there), by Kraftwerk . According to that monolithic font of Wisdom and Accuracy, Wikipedia: The lyrics reference the revolutionary technique of robotics, and how humans can use them as they wish. The Russian lines "Я твой слуга" ( Ya tvoi sluga , I'm your servant) and "Я твой работник" ( Ya tvoi rabotnik , I'm your worker) (also on the rear sleeve of the album) during the intro and again during its repetition at the bridge are spoken in a pitched down voice, the main lyrics ("We're charging our batteries and now we're full of energy...") are "sung" through a vocoder. Techno group Kraftwerk captured my imagination in college, which didn't have much to do with any substances that may or may not have been present in my system at the time. Coming out of a tiny urban depression in the shale of Upstate New York (i.e. Elmira), where the on...

(how weird that I just did a M*A*S*H* up a few days ago)

I can't get away from this meme, so why fight it?

Yes, this is Christmas. Well, we're getting there, anyway. Today I dug into the closet and pulled out the Christmas decorations I planned to put up this year. I no longer do a tree - it's way too small in here, and anyway I'm the only one who does any decorating. It's a lot of work for one person to put it all up and take it all down again. I used to put up a 6 foot fake tree, then went to a 2-foot table tree, and now I just put up a holly garland with ribbon and lights over the fireplace. I put a couple special items out - like the ceramic St. Nick my mother made many years ago, and a cranberry-scented candle with a wreath that was Mom's. I also put up "The Jingle Bells." It's older than I am, in pretty rough shape, despite Mom's and my attempts at sprucing it up over the years, and the music box is starting to sound its age, but I love it just the same. So many memories of Christmas at 624 Forest St., Rockland, Mass. For the record, there are...

I guess Robits are the theme for the week. They have a Plan.

Last night I had a very lucid, frightening dream about robots. Rod Serling was brainwashed by the robits . I was visiting an R&D company that insisted the robots would be the best thing that ever happened to humans. I saw them in rows, awaiting activation. These weren't any Will Smith-hating I Robot creeps, or Terminator death machines, or frakkin' Toasters, or even this guy . These were giant, menacing, metal boxy things. And there weren't no vacuum cleaner hose arms, neither. I'm sure that's a death ray in his head. I was being guided on a tour, meant to convince me of the goodness of the robots, but I knew better, and I was scared witless. I faked my agreement and went along with the tour, nodding and smiling all the while. Finally we ended up in a giant lecture hall type of room, with a glassed-in office high above looking down. The room was filled with old robots - not the new ones I'd seen lined up awaiting activation. They were all taking a tes...

Yesterday's blog post by my friend and fellow blogger Mrs. Thor put it best: Trust the Plan I've written a little sign for myself on my cork board that says just that. It's a difficult thing to do, sometimes, when fears and doubts and Other People's Voices start ringing in our heads. It also sounds vaguely Cylon , complete with Head Baltar and Head Six, although their Plan didn't quite work out for them the way they'd envisioned , did it? But that's how it is with Plans. Sometimes it doesn't work out the way you had originally intended, but it seems it almost always works out in the way it needs to. The trick is to trust in this while you're going along. Recently, I've been asked about my Plan once I get to L.A. Here it is, more or less: 1. Work P.A. jobs and connect with all the folks I know out there to find out where/when other jobs are opening. 2. Pursue project management-type jobs in addition to administrative assistant-type jobs. 3...

I really have changed - even more than I thought I had - from just a few short years ago. I'm done with people's head games and selfish behaviors. I'm no longer the "make other people happy and keep the peace, no matter if it means my needs aren't being met" type of gal my mother raised me to be. I used to let other people (friends, enemies, family, authority figures, lovers) call the shots of what my relationships with them were all about, and I'd give them the power of validating my life by seeking approval. Even if they were the lowest form of human waste on the planet, I'd give them some of this power when I was younger. And of course some of those people (not always because they meant to or wanted to hurt me), used that power. I just realized how angry that makes me, and how I don't put up with that bullshit any more. I am so much more at ease with who I am. I don't placate anyone or seek approval or play games to keep them around in t...

All that chilly vaulting has caught up with me. I don't do well in damp, stagnant, chilly air. Woke up sometime around 4:00 a.m. drenched in fever with a banging headache. Took some Advil and went back to bed until Spaz came in to snuggle with me. This was a pleasant surprise, by the way. She hasn't been coming in to snuggle with me for the last couple weeks. Of course, the snuggling didn't commence until after she'd run across my chest a few times and knocked something off the nightstand onto the floor (couldn't tell what it was). So I'm home for the day, wrapped in a blanket. Just had my morning cuppa, but will be switching to tea. A funny thing. Whenever I'm sick, I just completely lose my taste for coffee; I only want tea. This is how I know I'm actually sick and not just grumpy. Oh - one thing I do need to share before I forget. As I was pushing papers around my desk at work the other day, I came across a form that corrected the spelling of some...