“Wake me up when September…” oh, it’s over.

And so, a list of things I did in September:

• Started school– It took me a while to get into the groove, but I think I’ve got a good routine going. I’ve just got to get over this whole procrastinating during the weekends thing.
• Went to my first Red Sox game– We lost (duh) but I got wicked drunk and had a fantastic time! Woke up with some really disturbing bruises.
• Fun with apples– Apple/Peach festival, apple picking, eating more apples than should be allowed. Apples, apples, apples!
• Roller Derby– TWICE! Super fun times. Though, I’ve been called a “Southie Rat” I don’t think there’s anything wrong with drinking beers, cheering, and doing the “clap-clap, clap-clap-clap” thing. Oh, and I can’t wait for Olivia to have her baby. She’s going to be one rokkin kid.
• Started my internship– I’m at the Concord Free Public Library, and it looks like my project will be pretty straightforward, but with some interesting challenges. I think I’ll enjoy my time there and learn a lot. I picked up some brochures from the Concord Visitors’ Center and will explore the town.
• Life is Good Productions— getting ready for Creative Sugar (November 4th), working on songs, DJeT is in the play, making time for the website, etc.
• Joined Netflix– Watched “Walk the Line” and have been singing Johnny Cash songs for a week. Next up is “Akeelah and the Bee.” I won the (I think) 6th grade spelling bee with “onomatopoeia.”
• Went to Boston’s Knit Out! (and Crochet, too)– I competed in the fastest knitter competition and lost, taught DJeT to knit (he’s getting really good, and wants to make stuff!), said high to Peta (from GSLIS SNB) at her Yarn Safaris booth. I also need some light up knitting needles.
• Started working out again– Even though I swear at her and curse her perkiness, I’m doing “Turbo Jam” regularly. Four days a week is about all I can manage with my schedule. I find that I do better when I have a million other things to think about. It’s not THE thing I’m doing, but one of many, so it’s easier to fit in, if that makes any sense. It’s just part of my routine now.

Happy ROCKTOBER! Today is the first day of Halloween, and I have begun writing a song: “On the first day of Halloween, my true love gave to me: A spider in a spooky ol’ tree.” Stay tuned for more hauntingly fun lyrics. Mayhap I’ll perform it at the BlogSEA spooktacular at the end of the month. DJeT’s birthday is Friday. He didn’t want anything big planned, so we’re just going to do dinner next weekend. I think I’ll convince him that he deserves Grasshopper. Still haven’t gotten him a gift, yet. I’ll get on that. I’m loving the weather, even today with its rain. I love it when I’m not sweating.
If I don’t pop in for a while, it’s because I’m up to my nose in school work. Slip me some halloween candy, and I might poke my head out for a visit.

Buggin’

The cats have fleas. It’s disgusting. Poor Crookshanks has them worse than Phoebe, and he isn’t the one who brought them into the house! We’re making them both indoor cats so that they don’t keep eating weird things outside and getting sick, and bringing in bugs and whatnot in on their fur. Part of me feels bad for making them stay inside, when we live in a really nice place for outdoor cats (provided you bring them in at night to avoid making them into coyote snacks). But we’re just tired of all this hullaballoo.

On another cat-related note, ‘Shanks has pooped fairly normal yesterday and today. He’s out of his medecine, so we increased the amount of canned pumpkin, and it works better than that other stuff ever did. They told us to stop feeding him the canned pumpkin when we started him on the lactulose syrup. We had no success with the syrup whatsoever. And we were giving him doses of that stuff that would send a grown man running for the bathroom just in time. It had no effect on him. I’m just going to go back to what we were doing before, and keeping up with the belly massages. That really helps him go. Not that any of you really needed to know those kind of details about our cat’s intestinal business, but there you go.

We’ve spent yesterday and today cleaning up the house, trying to debug it. We threw out that nasty ol’ green carpet (even though it really did tie the room together), and the brown patterned rug upstairs has to be severely dealt with. Someone decided it would be awesome to piss all over it while we were gone. (And I don’t think it was Woo, this time. Damn carpet pissers). Ugh. I feel so dirty and disgusting. I’m pretty sure the bedroom was closed up while we were gone. At least, I know I shut the door before we left, but JeT thinks the door to the bedroom was open, and he was the first upstairs when we got home. Either way, we didn’t think to check the cats for bugs when we opened the room and let them sleep on our bed with us! Argh.

We’ve washed every exposed textile in the house, just to be safe. We’ve got some carpet treatment stuff to put on tonight, and the cats will get shampooed. We slapped some flea collars on them this afternoon, so that should help us out to start with. Dirty, dirty, dirty.

I need five showers.

books on a wall

I live in a small house. All space needs to be used efficiently, or it drives me crazy. I get no end of pleasure from things organized well. That’s not to say that I actually have everything organized well, just that when I do, I am happy. Nay-sayers who claim that any organized space in my home is contrary to my true nature are vastly misinterpreting what it is that I am. Or they’re completely balmy.

This week has been devoted to removing the clunky, inefficient bookcases and instalilng shelves beneath the large windowsill that spans the front of the downstairs portion of the house. I did it mostly myself, with some preparation and errand running from the JeT. We teamed up to actually get the books from their holding area on the dining table to the shelves. I think they work quite well, though in order to fully utilize the space at hand, most of the books have been placed on their sides with their spines facing out. The front door interrupts the sill; on the left we’ve placed non-fiction, and the right, mostly fiction. I say mostly, because in addition to fiction there are a couple of memoirs, games, and a few other things I can’t think of right now.

This is not an interesting post, but I’m not really doing much of anything interesting. Unless you count waiting for the call about the second job interview and waiting for the cat to shit as interesting. I’ve been watching the World Cup while putting up the shelves and the aforementioned waiting, but I don’t actually know how to write about sports. Oh, I’ve also been reading, but I don’t write very well about books, either. I’m never satisfied with how I write about things I like. I should find more things to dislike so I can entertain myself by writing about it.

Pretty much a waste of a post, really.

creak, creak, creak

Sometimes I forget where I am.

I hear noises above me and I assume that it’s the people living in the flat on the third floor walking around or scooting chairs out from the table. Then I remember that I live in a house where no one lives upstairs, and the noises are just the trees or the cats outside.

But sometimes at night, the scraping of the trees on the siding or the scratching at the door of the cats sounds really damn creepy and I remember that I don’t like being alone in the woods in the dark.

In other woods related news, we explored the grounds yesterday. Pretty fecking cool, if you ask me… and you did… I heard you. I have no idea how far back they go, but we walked far enough that the house was out of sight. It’s amazing how isolated it feels in the woods — it’s really wonderful that even just a small patch of trees can sheild one from the smells and nastiness of living next to a car dealership and gas station.

Replies: 3 comments… woo hoo!

Speaking of woods, you wanna hit the Chasm this weekend? It is supposed to be a really nice weekend, Sunday being the better of the two days. Doesn’t matter which day to me though, yer call.

Perhaps we can also trek to Mt Wachusett, pretty nice this time of year.

Posted by EvillMonkey @ 10/21/2003 04:37 PM EST

Covered in BEES!

I woke up this morning (well, later this morning, after having taken Jesse to work at 5:30 and returned to take a nap) to a dull, droning, buzzing sound.

Turns out, there were no less than 20 bees in the big room upstairs (onto which the bedroom opens) desparately attempting to get outside. I’ve managed to put 10 or so out, but the rest are trapped in between the window glass and the screens. As long as they aren’t in the house, directly, then I’m ok. They’ll probably die tonight, what with the frost and all. Little bastards shouldn’t have come in. Should’ve stayed in they’re little hives where they could hibernate or whatever they do.

The whole upstairs sounds like it’s alive with buzzing. Crazy business.