Four Things Meme

Four jobs I would stink at:

Sales of any type (high pressure sales like cars, telemarketing, etc)
Clothing designer (as anyone who's ever seen how I dress can tell you)
Makeup lady at the department store (must! fight! urge! to make people up like clowns!)


Four pretend nicknames I make up for myself:

Actually, I've never made up a nickname for myself.

Four Movies I have watched over & over again:

Some Like It Hot
Bridget Jones's Diary
The Birdcage
Any Harry Potter movie

Four places I have lived:

Jacksonville, FL
Portland, OR
Moscow, Russia, USSR (at the time)
Vancouver WA

Four things I love to do on my weekends:

I don't have weekends.

Four TV shows I geek out to, or used to geek out to:

Survivor
NCIS
Any sitcom on when I'm making dinner
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Four alcoholic beverages I’ve enjoyed on vacations:

Margaritas
Beer
Margaritas
Beer

Four things I could NOT live without (besides oxygen, H20, and miscellaneous life-sustaining substances, included kids, and other family members):

Laptop
Glasses
Cellphone
Paper and pen (and it better be a good pen)

Four of my favorite foods:

Salad rolls
Ice cream
Really good kosher hot dogs
Anything chocolate

Four places I would rather be right now:

Disneyland
Mt. St. Helens, hiking around the lava beds
Juneau, visiting friends
England, visiting a friend and seeing everything

Surprise

Immediately upon replacing the last of the crucial items lost with my wallet, I found it languishing behind the driver's seat of the small car, buried beneath a pile of miscellaneous things (some trash, some toys, some... stuff). The small car that both I and my better half had searched. GRR!

But now I have a spankin' new library card which is far more decorative than the old one, and my new debit card is much prettier than its predecessor. So it was not all for naught.

Chickeny goodness, and meeples

So a few nights ago I was on the phone to my better half who was away and suddenly the back patio was crawling with chickens. Disgruntled chickens who were loafing about complaining and bellyaching. It being 9pm or so I felt compelled to check out their hut to see what was driving them out into the night, since typically they hit the sheets by about 7 and are not heard from again until morning.

I cracked open the back doors of their hut, which is in desperate need of cleanage, and found a small possum inside. Naturally, I did the only logical thing (after squeaking loudly and jumping backwards, involuntarily) -- I ran for the camera.



Once I had taken sufficient photos, I brandished a dollar-store water shooter (like a giant plastic syringe, which shoots about 30 feet and is a total deal if you ask me) that was lying in the yard and used it to poke the little varmint until it wandered down the ramp and scurried under the shed.

In the meantime, one of the chickens had discovered the vent from the gas fireplace. Turns out that it's warm all the time from the pilot light, and what nicer place for a chicken to homestead than beneath a yummy warm fireplace vent? And how nice of us to provide them with these lovely, cushiony pots of Gerber daisies upon which to roost!



There was a lot of grumbling as I carried each one back to the hut and then closed the door on them. Some of it even came from the chickens. Since then I have had to put them into their hut every night and am going to be relocating the Gerber daisies today since I do like them and would like to see them bloom again.

Today, Delia is watching a bit of Backyardigans while unclothed. I have tried to dress her but she has taken an anti-clothing stance today. Today's episode had a pirate theme and she excitedly yelled to me, "MAMA! I'M A PIRATE! WITH MEEPLES! AND I'M NAKED!" I offer photographic evidence of same:





By the way, meeples = nipples. Thanks to Grandma for teaching her this important anatomical term!

A Great Big Grown-Up Girl

Today, my tiny little baby girl went off to her first day of preschool. I dropped her off and the extremely nice teachers took over, making her a name tag and pinning it to her, showing her around, where is your cubby, where is the potty, all that. When she was settled and it was time for me to go, she barely gave me a look and off she ran to play with the kids and the toys, with hardly a thought for her poor bereft mother...

She's so not sentimental about these things. It's probably better this way, no teary scenes, no clinging and crying, but it still wrenches a bit. The first few times I dropped her off with others, at the gym club (once she was familiar enough with it not to freak out) or with friends or family, and she didn't cry or even seem dubious about my leaving, I wondered if she had an attachment disorder or something. But, she is always glad to see me and is a bit clingy at times, so she's probably fine.

At any rate, I did get a little choked up when I left without her. A little sniff, a tear in my eye, and then it was off to the mall for a haircut! Browsing the library for books, unhurried and thoughtful. A bite to eat. A stop at a shoe store advertising Crocs, because I am looking for the kind you can put an orthotic in. (They didn't have them but I did look at the incredibly ugly Z-Coil shoes, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I will end up in them when I start nursing school.)

Then, unthinkably, I ran out of things to do and came home, watched some TV, read a book.

As I sat on the couch, I saw a beautiful goldfinch light on the hummingbird feeder which made me want to blog, so here I am. I didn't get a picture, but you can bet I'll keep trying. :)

Taking my lumps

I have not blogged about this but shall, finally: I did not make it into nursing school.

I did not make it this time, because although I was led to believe that I had first 46 points and then 49 points (out of 53 total possible), I in fact had 43. The shock of getting a letter that said "no" when I had really expected one that said "yes" was so depressing that I just couldn't face blogging about it.

The cutoff for selection varies from deadline to deadline depending on the pool, they just total everyone up and skim off the top however many, but it has generally been in the neighborhood of 46 for the April deadline and lower for the October one. So you can see why I was pretty sure I'd get in, since I thought I had 49 points.

They start 3 new classes per year, 40 students in each, and the April deadline selects for Winter term, October for Spring and Fall. So had I made it, I would have been going in January. As it is, I now have 47 points and in two weeks I will have 50, which puts me definitely in for October, and I should start in April of next year though it could be September if there are 40 other applicants with 50 points or more and an earlier log-in date than mine. Which is the tiebreaker.

I had to make an appointment with advising anyway to fill out some paper for financial aid, so I had them go over my points and am now reasonably mollified, but it still stings a bit.

On the same day that this letter came and slapped me in my overly-confident, misinformed face, we also got one from the insurance company telling us that a medical bill was not covered. For 6600 dollars. So I was shocked, dismayed, and totally stressed out for the whole week.

Then we called about it and were informed that the bill is actually covered, though not the 500 dollar copay which we would have had to pay either way, so my week brightened considerably at that point.

May your weeks go better than that one did for me.

Power to the Poultrytariat!

We decided to clip the chickens' wings and let them roam the backyard at will. Today was the inaugural stomp around the yard -- sort of.

J. detached the chicken hut from the pen and pointed it out so the ramp to the doorway sticks out into the yard, thus enabling the birdies to step on out as they wish. But after two years of confinement to their smallish pen, they are a bit overwhelmed at having options and so far have declined to stray far from the pen. In fact they hang around under their house and in the pen enclosure when they are not inside their hut. Evidently the are just not getting it. One assumes that eventually they will.

We went out early this morning since it was so warm, and a smallish member of the household was so excited about the freeing of the banties that I was forced to run for the camera. I was looking at the paper and turned my head just in time to witness Delia hiking across the yard with a chicken under her arm. I have some idea, I think, of how the rest of the summer will be spent.