More Than Many Sparrows

I suppose our new roof came at a good time. As apparently a lot of people have heard, we're having a nor'easter right now (again?). This time, that means (for us, anyway) a lot of rain. Not especially strong rain. Just a whole lot of it. This is causing some significant flooding in some parts--but not these parts. Always good news.

The workers finished the bulk of the roof within two days, and they completed the little details before the week was out. All that's left is for the gutter company to come install the new gutters. We went up into the attic yesterday, and it is quite filthy with all the debris, but it's as dry as a bone. Eureka.

I don't have any finished pictures since it has been raining so much, but I have several pictures of the roof-in-progress. This batch contains views of the outside of the Ghetto Mansion, and I suppose I've never posted any of those before!

( Care to view them? )

When they finished, the roofers raked up all the errant shingles and nails and splinters from our yard and the neighbors' yards. This meant that they also raked up all the leaves in my yard! Free, unexpected yard work--rock on! And they swept my porch. It's the details that count, right?

I keep telling myself to stop thinking I'm so uncomfortable right now, because I have three more months to go!

At least I can look at these pictures and say, "hey, I don't look as big as I feel!" But I am looking big. So imagine how I feel.

( Pictures taken Saturday, 25 weeks and 6 days. )

I'd better post my pictures from my trip, because soon I'll get behind! Missy came for a visit, and I have pictures to post from that, too. So let's get to posting. Commentary to follow later.

( Click here to see them, and be warned: there are a lot! )

We're spending Christmas here in Connecticut this year. It will be our first Christmas alone together, without our families. It worked out this way because this year was Thanksgiving in Pensacola/Christmas in Enid, but when it came time for looking to get days off for December, it didn't seem too promising for either one of us. So we're postponing Enid until January. We can make it a Christmas/Sharon's birthday visit that way, anwyay. So rock on.

We bought our first real Christmas tree this year. I'm very proud of it. I took some pictures the last couple days of our decorations.

( Check out this holiday cheer. )

And finally, check out this weird T-shirt I bought on ebay. I'm not sure what it means, but I find it pleasantly wry.

We went last night to check out our haunted house again around 8 or 9. Not as late as late can be, but lateish. It wasn't bad on our street. There's a moderate amount of traffic, even foot traffic, but people didn't really seem to be up to no good. All the street lights work. Most of the houses had lights on. Most of the surrounding streets looked decent. Some houses were for sale, but nothing looked abandoned or burnt out. The street behind the house is a little more sketch. There's an empty lot behind, and another behind and farther down, and the one farther down had a small crowd of people probably trading drugs. Hmm.

I do feel a little nervous, because it seems less safe than our current street. But the house is so cool. It's also kind of scary, because it's so big and old. But it's so affordable! And as houses in this range of affordability go, this one isn't in the worst neighborhood it could be in.

Some pics:


Down the street:


Down the street the other way:


We're going tomorrow to see the inside in the daylight. Lee went by today and thought the shingles looked like they'd need to be replaced next spring. He says he can do it himself. And we want to get rid of that lattice work and the metal awnings, and do some tinkering with the trim. And, of course, paint the trim. And get to the siding one day, too.

I'll take more pics tomorrow.

For now, here are some shots of the lovely Nora and her lovely parents, Jason and Blair:

Last night, we went to the Swing Monkey Halloween Ball 2006.

It was a nasty day all day, with lots of hard wind and rain. Any leaves that were still clinging desperately to the trees received, perhaps, their final lashing. Since I didn't have anywhere to go and no desire to venture out into the weather, I started getting ready by setting my hair early in the afternoon.



( But you want to see how it looked finished, don't you? )

(Pay no attention to that tortured expression on his face.)

Today I kept track of how many cigarettes I smoked by writing a tic mark on my wrist for each.



My first impulse was palm or back of hand, but I wash my hands so much during the day that any ink there would quickly wash off. Plus, a wrist is well enough hidden under a sleeve that it won't look unprofessional, yet I'll still see the marks regularly.



That's seven. Maybe one more tonight. Not too bad!

I've been waiting for the leaves to get really impressive before going out to take pictures. But I heard on TV that this weekend was probably going to be the peak, and I was kind of disappointed, because they haven't been all that spectacular. I heard last year the fall colors were amazing. This summer, we had a lot of rain, and supposedly that makes the leaves less colorful in autumn. Maybe they need to be dry to be remarkable.

They're still pretty interesting. We went out today to take pictures.

( Click to see. )

Today was a great day. We practiced writing estimates, and I feel really comfortable with that now. And at the end of the day, the trainer quizzed us on the car systems, and I answered almost every question he asked me. I needed only minimal coaching. I remembered every part of the emissions system--though I called the Positive Crankcase Ventilation valve the Positive Crankshaft Ventilation valve (no big deal; I'd find the right answer on a multiple choice test). And I finally--finally! after not being able to multiple times on Tuesday!--named the frame rails. After that, one of my classmates told me he was blown away. Totally gratifying.

I still need to study my Connecticut statutes before the test tomorrow. We haven't covered those in class, because we've been studying the other stuff hard core.

I can't believe how really high I feel right now. Overcoming my obstacles--woot! Building my understanding of the world around me--double woot! I'm actually really fascinated by all of the car components. Check this out. Steve showed this to me originally. It's really amazing, especially if you kind of know what all those things do; I find this animation helpful as well.

It's easy to forget how much fun it is to learn.



Before I get to my statutes, I want to share pictures of the Amazing Haul I received from my amazing secret pal, Lisa, of Bubbles and Purls. Oooh, man.

( Click to see the haul. )

So that's my amazing haul from my amazing secret pal. Thanks so, so much, Lisa!

After I made my last post, I hung around the mall until I pretty much had to leave. Then I found out that Blair's flight was delayed again, but only by half an hour or so. So I got in the car and drove to the airport, which is in the opposite direction of my house from the mall a far enough distance that it didn't make sense to go all the way home. Then her flight was further delayed... so I found the airport and decided to drive around a little. Then I got lost. I considered making a voice post and pleading for someone to call me and give me a little MapQuest aid (I called Lee, but he was asleep and didn't answer), but then I had a totally revolutionary idea. I went to a gas station and bought a map. My sexy map-reading skills got me back to where I needed to go.

I had quite a bit of time, so I took a random exit off the highway and drove and drove--and I found myself in Chappaqua, New York, the home town of Dar Williams! I was so excited. "This is where it all happened," I thought dreamily, driving through the vacant commercial district. "This is where all the ideas began. 'Are you out there, Jimmy Olsen? Johnny Memphis?'" I looked around to see if I could spot the local theater where the babysitter might have leapt up with a sparkling horn coming out of her head in the prestigious Chappaqua production of the Unicorn, but I didn't see it. I was getting a little loopy by then.

I also drove by the Reader's Digest Global Headquarters, an unassuming-looking gated compound. Oooh! Aaah!

Eventually, I gave up and went to the airport to wait, and her plane landed at 2 a.m. We stopped at a 24-hour diner in Danbury on our way home.

The next day, I gave Blair a gift I had crocheted for her. Well, I crocheted it for her baby; she's expecting her first child in August.
( Click to see the blanket and hat. )

I had a short list of things I thought we could do while Blair visited: I wanted to go to duck pin bowling at the St. Joseph's bowling alley. It's a bowling alley at a church. I've been eyeing that thing since I moved here, and I finally called to find out what the deal was, but I was disappointed to learn that it's not open to the public. They use it for some kind of league. I have only a tenuous grasp on what duck pin bowling even IS, let alone what a league might be like. Will I ever get to try?

We also said we wanted to go to the Melting Pot for fondue, so Friday night, after getting up really late (hey, we went to bed really late), we gussied ourselves up and drove to the nearest location, a few dozen miles away. It was raining like the dickens, and that delayed us considerably as we tried to get out of town over flooded roads, but we made it, only to have to wait 45 minutes for a table.

Here's Blair across from me in the bar area, enjoying a cup of coffee while we waited.

( Click to see! )

When we got home, we watched Sarah Jessica Parker's little-known 1983 flick, Somewhere, Tomorrow. This movie is awesomely bad, and I recommend it heartily. I found my copy at the dollar store, and the racks continue to overflow with it.

Saturday was still rainy as all get-out, and our sleeping patterns didn't improve. We went out shopping for the materials for the next project we wanted to do: prepare and devour some crab legs. Finding the crab legs proved to be more difficult than I anticipated; we wanted to try some kind of fish market or farmers' market instead of the grocery store, but I'm not familiar enough with my area to know what kind of place like that is available, if any. We ended up buying them at the grocery store, and man oh man, they were good! I was so pleased at how easy they were to make. I will definitely be doing that again. Thanks to Gabi for the simple, yet effective advice on steaming crab legs.

After crab legs, we continued our Sarah Jessica Parker theme and watched Girls Just Want to Have Fun.

Sunday, we got up a little earlier than the previous two days, and we went to lunch with Lee at Maggie McFly's. Then we went to the mall so Lee could buy some pants and shoes for an upcoming business trip, and Blair and I browsed baby stuff at Burlington Coat Factory. Oy, there are so many different contraptions and tools for mothers to use--and lots of adorable stuff that I know I'll love picking out when I'm getting ready to have a baby. I do love to collect accessories.

After the mall, Blair and Lee took naps while I went to Mass. Then Blair and I watched a documentary called Always a Bridesmaid; it was pretty good. Blair had Netflix and cool taste in movies, so she brought that one. If I had Netflix, I'd still probably end up wasting my monthly fee by renting, like, First Daughter and then not watching it because it doesn't actually look good, and wondering why I rented it but not wanting to waste the rental but then forgetting I have it...

Finally, today we got up early enough to get Blair packed and ready to go with enough time for us to visit Holy Land USA, the Waterbury landmark I've been dying the most to see.

( Don't miss these pics. )

It was an exciting, fulfilling trip to the Holy Land, and while we saw the main attractions, I know there's more to see. I hope to go back there and do more exploring.

We saw a potentially scary dog hanging out around the car as we approached it on our way out, but he ran off, and we drove to Danbury for lunch at the Sesame Seed. Then it was off to the airport. Here's hoping Blair's flight home was faster than her trip out here.


ETA: The pictures are still sizing themselves, I see. This annoys me greatly.

Most weekends are three days long for me since I usually don't go in to work on Fridays, but this three-day weekend is different. First of all, I DID go to work on Friday, and second, Lee gets three days off--highly unusual.

We did our usual run of putzing around town on Saturday. Those are some of the best days: just kind of running around town together, picking up some crazy thing Lee bought on ebay or going to the fabric store or buying groceries or whatever.

Today after church, we drove to Misquamicut, Rhode Island. I've been wanting to go to the beach.

*

( More pictures of the beach and Mystic Seaport--click here! )

Finally, pooped, we headed home.

Tomorrow, we may just hang out and be worthless, but I hope we straighten up a little around the apartment, because folkgirl is coming to visit this week. We have plans to set up a futon in the sunroom for guests to sleep on (Sharon, my stepdaughter, is coming later in June--I'm really stoked about that visit), so we need to get on that. Then the floodgate of visitors can be thrown open (hint, hint).

* I'm not sure why these pictures turned out smaller than the rest. I've been saving my sized pictures as PNG files lately because they reduce nicer than JPGs, but ever since I started doing that, sometimes random ones translate smaller through Photobucket. This happened in my downtown Waterbury post, too, and I don't quite know what to make of it. Any tips?

The rain finally stopped, and today was warm and pretty. I went out and took some pictures.

( Click to see them. )

Last weekend, Lee and I went with the Hat City Scissor Squad gals to the Connecticut Sheep, Wool, and Fiber Festival. It was barnsful of wool of all kinds, all touchable, all amazing, all fascinating. There were people all over the place at spindles and spinning wheels, spinning. Sometimes when Lee sees me knitting, he'll say, "Oh, spinning yarns?" When we saw all these people, I said, "These people are the ones spinning yarns. I just knit with the yarn."

There were animals, too, including two pairs of oxen who gave cart rides. This one was so pleased that Mary was talking to him...



( Click to see more pictures. )

A good time was had at the festival, in my estimation. And Mary and Sarah made off with bagfuls of unspun wool that they're going to dye and spin. They are SO hardcore!

Last year, I spent Holy Week and Easter with apeliotes. This year, I couldn't have had all of Holy Week off, but I drove to DC to see Jason and Kate on Good Friday and to stay through Easter.

I got there on Good Friday just in the nick of time to make us miss the liturgy at the Dominican House of Studies, which is where Jason and I went last year. Instead, we went on to the Franciscan Monastery for the Good Friday liturgy.

It was very springy there!



( Click for more pics. )

Good times.

So on my birthday, everyone on all of LJ and MySpace who has ever had an account or ever will have one wished me a happy birthday, which was really cool. Thanks, guys! AND, when I got up the next morning, I had a special voicemail from the night before. It was Amanda, and she said hello from Fairhope--the MFAers are at the annual conference in Fairhope, which I was so sad to know I was missing--and then this whole chorus of people sang "Happy Birthday" to me. It was the sweetest drunk-dial ever!

Here I am, 26 years old.


I'm holding the Ronco knives my dad gave me, and on the chair are my other birthday gifts, including some books from Samantha and a rotary mat and cutter from Lee. Excellent.

I have some special things to show you.

First, from Pensacola Beach. ( Click for it. )

I went to New Orleans Saturday for the prom. Missy and I prepared for Prom 2006 at her grandmother's Lakeview home. Click the link to see the video slideshow:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=665038606&n=2

If you'd prefer to see the stills, ( click here. )

I also made a video slideshow of my pictures at the prom. See:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=665002018&n=2

But the slideshow program lets me use only a limited number of pictures. To see the rest, ( click here. )

That's it.

I got back to Hartford last night around midnight and back to Waterbury maybe an hour and a half later. I am pooped! Not just from getting back late and getting into work early (okay, not THAT early, but earlier than a person who got in late would like to). The poopedness also stems from the mad packedness of my trip.

I recently joined the LJ community called Day in the Life (ditl -- http://community.livejournal.com/ditl/96732.html) in which everyone hauls their cameras around, taking pictures of everything they do on a scheduled day.  Last Friday was ditl day, so I documented all of my activity.  Here's my post, modified for my special readers.

( My day involves some blood-letting, but it's totally hot, I promise.  ) ( A day in the life you live when you manage to go home again. )
ETA: I'm really sorry there are three cut tags.  Every time I use rich text, I say I'll never do it again.  Then I do anyway, and something like this happens.

Lee and I both had the day off today, so we ran around town doing fun, exciting, mundane things. I woke up on the sofa this morning; after dinner last night, I stretched out to rest and maybe nap on the couch, and I didn't wake up for twelve hours. So even though I got up early, I got up very rested, and all day, I thought it was Saturday. It helped that the weather was perfect. Perfect! Good job, Connecticut. I knew you had it in you.

We started out at Chase Park, which is near my house, looking for the Grizzly Bear letterbox. We didn't find the box; the directions were a little vague (sometimes they're intentionally vague so as to be challenging), but the box may just be missing.

While we were there, we took some pictures.

( Cut for your viewing pleasure. )

Then we went to the Sew & Vac where I'd dropped off the free sewing machine I scored last week. The repairman called me last Sunday to say it really wouldn't be worth fixing the machine because it's got some stuff wrong with it. I could tell that when I tried it out at home, and it definitely needed cleaning anyway. So. While we were at the Sew & Vac, we decided to buy a new sewing machine. I was going to buy one of the overhauled ones the guy had for sale, because he promised a 3-year parts and labor warranty, but the thing is, I already have a sewing machine that's dysfunctional that I got with the idea that I'd need to buy a new, nice one later. My mother-in-law gave it to me for my birthday two years ago, and I really appreciated her gift, and I have used the machine. I don't sew that often, but it's been poopy from the get-go, and I always feel like I'd sew more if I didn't have to pull out my hair every time I wanted to try it. My new machine is excellent. It has all the fancy stitches I want, plus it's hardcore; it can sew through denim and upholstery. We've never finished our dining chair reupholstering project, and the dude at the Sew & Vac said the machine would certainly sew through four layers of vinyl "like butter." We'll see. He promises a five-year parts-and-labor warranty, and the machine comes with a ten-year warranty. So rock on.

After that, we went to the Waterbury police station to pick up some Munters equipment that had been stolen from a job (at the police station) and found in a pawn shop.

Then we went to the Timex Museum in Waterbury. Timex is directly descended from the Waterbury Clock company, which began in the late 1800s. Who knew? The main clock room, filled with clocks all set to approximately the same time, had a really neat sound. Clocks upon clocks ticking softly all around. For several minutes around three p.m., they sounded the hour one at a time. The woman who winds them came up to do her job while we were there and told us she'd be setting them all for Daylight Savings next week. Other than her, Lee and I were the only souls there.

After the museum, we went to the grocery store and then home for frozen dinners and some fun on my new sewing machine. I made part of my MFA prom getup. You can preview it, but not in its intended form. That's a surprise for the prom-goers.

( Prom Preview )

And though this time I was not sewing through four layers of vinyl, the machine did go right on through the material "like butter."

It's cold as the dickens today (as usual), and I marched through flurries on my way out of church, but guess what's growing in front of my front porch?



That's right, buddy. So FUCK YOU, winter!

In the spirit of hawt bitches, I'd like to tell you about a little get-together I attended last Saturday. The purpose was simple: have a good time. The means were noble: sing karaoke.

My stitch 'n bitch friends have the love for the karaoke, and I've got to love them for that. So, in fact, do the staff of Molly Darcy's, where we have our weekly meetups. (In fact, tonight is SNB night, but I totally skipped it so I could hang out with Lee, who was out of town for over a week until last night. I missed that crazy guy.)

But these gals take it to a whole new level. They have a game called Karaoke Revolution.



This game is available on Playstation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and, I think, another game system that escapes me right now. In this game, you first create a character to represent you, to be the embodiment of your voice. The process is not unlike in the Sims: you select face, hair, clothes, accessories, build. Then you pick the venue in which your character will sing. Then you pick your song.

You sing into the provided microphone, and the game tells you if you are on key and on tempo. And the "crowd" either cheers or boos.

You can even get booed off the stage. Wow!

( Click to see my photos of the events. )

I didn't realize how late it got until just before I left. I didn't get home until 5:38 a.m., and the sun was rising. Good times!