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Party Girl

You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but right this moment, right now:

I’m baking a cake.

“Yeah, I was gonna surprise you, but then I decided it would be funnier to tell you I am baking you a birthday cake — which also happens to be your favorite kind of cake,” I told The Lovely a few minutes ago.

“Hmm, let me guess: It also happens to be your favorite kind of cake, right?” she said.

“Uh-huh,” I said.

Then, in unison: “Yellow cake with chocolate icing!”

: )

Her favorite, actually, is red velvet cake ... which her mom made her for the pre-birthday bash on Saturday. (I have never attempted to make a red velvet cake, but I have heard that it ain’t easy ... and I know for a fact that at least one person who has attempted to make one ended up with something resembling a red velvet Frisbee.)

: o

Here’s how the herbs are going:

Chives Lavender Dill

Speaking of food (?!):

I tried the buttered lobster bites from Long John Silver’s today, and I have to give them a solid B.

Like everything served at LJS, they were incredibly salty — so salty, in fact, that the sweetness of the lobster was pretty much overpowered. Still, there was a hint of lobster taste. Also, the box of lobster bites, which was about the size of two boxes of playing cards, cost $2.99 — a mite pricey, I thought at first, until I got to thinking about the cost of lobster ... and, now that I think about it, the availability of lobster (or, more accurately, the lack thereof) anywhere else within a 10-mile radius of this town, on any given day, including months with the letter(s) R, Y and/or U.

: )

I hate the world today ...

guitar riff

Yeah, that’s the opening line from the great Meredith Brooks song, “Bitch.” And no, I am not a bitch (though, admittedly, I can be) ... nor do I actually hate “the world” (nor anyone in it, really) ... but, at the moment (actually, over the last four to five hours or so), I have been annoyed enough with everything, in general, that those lyrics seemed to apply.

Plus I almost burned my crabby cakes, just now, which I really do hate because now I will have a distinct lingering crab smell in my house for the next few hours.

: (

I hate being wrong. Ask anyone who knows me, really knows me, and they will tell you: Di hates to be wrong. Truthfully, that is not entirely correct: Mostly, I just like to be right ... and when I truly believe I am right but am then proven wrong ... well, that is not exactly my favorite time of the day.

Similarly, I hate making mistakes. Especially in my personal life, and even more so when they are mistakes of a hurtful nature. I do not believe that I am a person who consciously sets out to hurt anyone intentionally, but I do believe that those kinds of people exist ... and I try to avoid them whenever possible. Mistakes happen, though, and I hate making them at work, also ... and, I admit, I hate when other people make them.

On a slightly related note: I need to start trusting my “gut instincts.” I swear, I have had just enough instances in my life, especially work-wise, in which I find myself thinking, Hmm, I am not sure about this — only to realize, when everything is all said and done, that I was absolutely right! (And we all know how much I like being right!)

: )

I find it somewhat amusing that one of my previous posts was titled “Open.”

Sometimes, I feel as if I am the least open person I know.

More on that later. Right now: The Sopranos!

... and the herbs, they are a-growin’!

Little by little, just one week later:

Thyme (these were the first herbs to sprout)

Basil (and these were the second!)

And yes, I did plant some rosemary, just forgot to realize/mention it during a previous post. And tonight: a hot pepper mix. Mostly for Mona (she was the recipient of most of my habaneros) and for photographic purposes.

: )

My Yellow Phase

Yes, I am still in it.

These are from two summers ago ... just to tide me over for the next few weeks.

One of My Dream Cars

Field of (Sunflower) Dreams

Open

I took a drive out to the lake today. For the first time in, like, ever.

Winter in the Midwest makes me gloomy. I detest cold weather, and I miss the colors of summer, spring and fall.

Something occurred to me a while back, though: Despite the overall lack of color in winter, there is an openness about it that allows you, in some ways, to notice more stuff. To see through the trees, for example, to the water; to notice the branches and their random symmetry, without being distracted by the leaves.

Nearby, I saw another tree with red berries. I have not yet checked it out in my handy-dandy new field guide, but I know I have never noticed the colors of this tree at any other time of the year.

Not long before that, I spent some time by the lake. The day was warm (mid-60s) and the wind was strong (10 to 20 mph, with gusts at 30+), so I pretended I was near an ocean.

If I had a surfboard ...

Meanwhile, I continue to catch bits and pieces of the Winter Olympics.

We all know I love ’em, but there’s something special about the winter sports, to me. I suppose it’s because I have never really done any of them!

I mean, do you think I’ve ever ice skated? No. So that leaves out figure skating, speed skating and hockey. Yeah, I’ve roller skated puh-lenty, but somehow, that really doesn’t seem to compare. Just as my skateboarding days are in no way related to snowboarding events — which, by the way, my new favorite is the snowboard cross. And I have never skied, either, so forget about any of those events.

I suppose the closest I have ever been to competing in Winter Olympics event is the luge ... if you can even slightly compare sledding down a fairly steep hill with a dip at the bottom — and a tree! — to the wackiness of the luge!

Anyhoo, I don’t care all that much about who wins which events this year. I root for the Americans, of course, and I continue to wish the commentators would SHUT THE HELL UP DURING THE FIGURE SKATING SO I CAN ENJOY THE PERFORMANCES, but other than that, I’m only in it for the entertainment.

Happy Valentine’s Day (Plus-1)

Amongst the holiday gifts:

I would’ve included Lea’s peace flowers, but she didn’t take ’em outta the box while we were at the news office!

Lea: Look what I got!

Sheila: Those are peace flowers!

Me: Yeah — p-i-e-c-e flowers.

(Chuckles all around.)

: )

The herb garden has officially been planted. Or at least started.

Here are the herbs I am attempting to grow: basil, chives, cilantro, dill, lavendar, oregano, parsley, sage and thyme (what, no rosemary?).

The Lovely: Are you gonna use all those?

Me: Well ... I’m gonna try!

: )

This is a little song that we used to sing in youth group; I think it originated during one of our two trips to John’s Island, South Carolina:

These things I have spoken unto you / That my joy / Might remain in you and that your joy / Might be full.

Just Googled the words; apparently, it’s from John 15:11.

We used to sing it in a “round.” (Is that correct? Somehow, it doesn’t sound right. Anyway, one person would start singing, and as soon as he or she sang “spoken,” another person would start singing, until we had like eight or nine or 20 people singing this song.)

I miss those days of spontaneous group singing. In a sorta-sappy, “I’d like to buy the world a Coke”-kinda way.

Monday Night Viewing

Gotta love a Monday night that includes the Winter Olympics AND the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

: )

And someday soon, I hope to become a regular contributor to this blog.

Snowy Bouquet

Super Bowl Sunday

Does this say anything about me: I would rather stay home and spend the next 6 hours watching Paula Deen than go to a Super Bowl party?!

: )

Oh, and I am thinking about starting an herb garden. Not today ... but sometime within the next couple of weeks.

Need

You need drizzly days, sometimes, for contrast.

A Brand New Month!

And this is a beautiful day, too: Sunny and warm (an unseasonal — or is it unseasonable? — 61 degrees in what has been an unseasonally — or is it unseasonably? — warm winter so far). And I am showing my optimistic nature, just a bit, by hoping that this month will be better than last.

And in the midst of that train of thought, I am suddenly struck by the sadness of realizing that no matter how good (or bad) any moment ever was, in the past, that moment is gone forever ... except as a memory. No matter how much you might think you can revisit a time in the past, along with all the thoughts and feelings that went along with it: You can’t.

It’s gone.

Yesterday I said goodbye to my very first e-mail address, which had been my e-mail address the entire time I’ve been online. Which is, what, 10 years? I don’t remember!

I only remember bargaining with The Lovely — “I NEED my own computer so I can do all my writing at home!” I told her, shortly before buying a used 386 from Sandy, one of our fellow tennis players. And I set up a portion of my living room as my “home office,” but the computer was so archaic compared to the Macintosh I used at work that, of course, I hardly ever bothered with it.

And shortly thereafter I flounced into Circuit City in O’Fallon and bought me an IBM ThinkPad laptop computer — “I NEED a laptop so I can take it with me and do my writing anywhere!” I told The Lovely. It was on this computer that I officially ventured online, sometime during the mid-1990s ... until the night I was listening to* Sex and the City and Charlotte said something funny and it made me spew the swig of iced tea in my mouth all over the keyboard of my beloved ThinkPad. (I learned a valuable lesson then: When something like this happens, do NOT sit there and keep turning your computer off and on for the next 45 minutes, thinking you can “fix” the problem; you WILL short out your video card or something equally important. Instead, turn the computer off IMMEDIATELY, towel dry as much of the computer as possible and then leave it the hell alone for the rest of the night ... and if you are lucky, ex-TREME-ly lucky, you might wake up the next morning to find that your computer is completely unharmed.)

(And then again: Monkeys might fly out of your butt.)

: )

The computer tech charged me $56 for 45 minutes of examining my computer to tell me that to fix or replace or whatever they do to the video card would cost $850. Which was more than I paid for the laptop computer in the first place.

My next laptop, a Toshiba Satellite, lasted 14 days — just under the 15-day return period, after which I would have been charged some ungodly amount as a “restocking fee.” The Toshiba just locked up one afternoon, so I exchanged it for an HP Pavilion that lasted me ... well, a few good years, despite requiring a hard-drive transplant sometime during the early 2000s. And when it crashed and burned a couple of years ago, I decided it was time for a “regular” PC. (Mostly ’cause they now made flat-screen monitors that didn’t take up the whole desk.)

Honestly, though, I’m still a laptop computer girl at heart.

: )

Last night, whilst driving home from Auten’s Pizza in McLeansboro about 30 minutes after sunset:

The western sky in front of me was a brilliant mix of yellow, gold, orange, blue and black. Just ahead was a railroad overpass, silhouetted in black, and walking across the overpass, from left to right, was a man, also silhouetted in black.

“That would make an awesome photo,” I said, but as I made the statement, the man had already crossed the overpass that I was just about to drive under.

My camera was in the back seat.

* — Yes, I was only listening to this episode of Sex and the City. I did not have HBO, but for some odd reason, I could hear the dialogue from any show on the network but could not view the show because the images were scrambled.