there and back again

Whew! Well, we moved. Despite a too-small truck and an apartment that still wasn't ready when we got there, we managed to get everything shifted and the truck back on time. Unpacking is proceeding slowly...both of our collections need to be weeded, so to speak, and because the closet/storage space is not quite as big as it seemed before we got our things in, we will probably be indulging in "creative organizing" activities for quite some time.

Unfortunately, we moved in with some outstanding maintenance issues that the apartment complex managers and maintenance have been slow to deal with. We keep on going to the office and complaining that little or nothing has been done, and they keep on taking lists of our needs and promising that maintenance staff will be in ASAP, and we keep on coming home every day to find that the same issues are outstanding. It's not been the best of ways to start our tenancy.

The good news is that our balcony and the bedroom window faces out over the canal, so the place is nice and quiet and we get lots of cool breezes. Given a little more time to settle in and decorate and it should even feel like home!

In my work life, I'm mostly trying to catch up on some of my professional association duties. I've been setting up Roundtable Discussion sessions for the Florida Library Association conference in Jacksonville in April--or trying to, at least! Very few people seem to be interested in participating this time around. More locally, I've just been named the Webmistress for the Broward County Library Association. The "interesting" part about this job is the Board is a little...fuzzy...on exactly how one sets up a web site, and as the last person in my position just "handled" things without telling anyone what she was doing and why before disappearing into the ether, it's hard to retrace steps and figure out where the site is hosted, how to get access, and so forth. This is not really my forte--I know how to create/edit the files and change/update the site, but I'm not so experienced in buying/registering/transferring domain names, choosing an ISP to host the site on their server, and so forth. Made even harder when you don't know anything about what the last person did except that she seems to have acquired, paid for, and registered everything personally instead of in the name of the association! Well, technicalities aside, I'm excited about the chance to brush off and improve my web authoring skills, and giving the site a much-needed content and aesthetic overhaul.

In dance, I think I may finally be getting over my year-long-if-not-longer plateau and moving forward again. Maybe it was taking a couple of workshops over the winter; maybe that I challenged myself a bit by incorporating some new music and zills into a couple of my performances. A week and a half ago, I was one of the performers at my dance teacher's last performance parties at the Sawadee Thai Restaurant. I performed a four-part show, which included a slow veil section and some improvised zill playing in some of the faster parts. I guess the stars were in the right alignment or something...I managed to pull off the best bellydance performance I've ever done! The audience was enthusiastic, and my teacher and my classmates were also impressed. Not quite sure where the dance ability demonstrated in that show came from, but it's nice to know that it's there, and that with a little work and a little luck I can maybe do that well more consistently!

Just about time for me to pack up here. Better save any other news for later, I suppose.

entering the new world

Well, things are just about in place for our move. I've been distracted with preparations, packing, and things to do, so I haven't had much of a chance to post lately. But, my house is pretty much packed, Michael's is the same, we have truck and friends lined up for tomorrow, and hopefully everything will go well.

We did hit one problem, finally--our apartment will not be ready for us until tomorrow afternoon, instead of in the morning. We had arranged for our lease to be begin on tomorrow's date, and made all our plans accordingly. Then I went to pick up the keys yesterday and found out about the delay. Maintenance staff are apparently not quite finished yet--they still need to clean the carpets. Thanks to some pushing on my part, they've moved the time we can have it up to 2, instead of 5 or later, and the people at the office said that they would work tomorrow to see if it can be ready even earlier. But considering our moving truck is supposed to be back at 6 it's going to be tight, and we only even have that much time because Michael was able to call UHaul and change our reservation time. Whew. Well, we'll do what we can do. Worst comes to worst I suppose we can use the truck for the furniture etc and shuttle boxes back and forth for a day or two afterwards--we're not really mandated to be out of our apartments until the 1st.

The other bad news is that I fell on the concrete steps outside my apartment yesterday, landed really strangely on my foot, and now I am limping, moving more slowly than usual, and in some pain. Wouldn't be so big a deal except I am supposed to be rushing around moving boxes tomorrow! Actually, my first thought was maybe I'd broken something in my toe or the ball of my foot, but I am assuming that if that was the case I would have got worse, rather than better, overnight, and that I would have more pain and difficulty walking. So I'm probably going to end up feeling more useless than not tomorrow.

In other news, I finally broke down and ordered a cell phone and service plan from letstalk.com today. TMobile was running a promotion through them with 1000 minutes per month included plus free nights and weekends for $39.99. The phone I chose--Motorola V600--will be free after the rebate and includes features like caller ID, voicemail and a camera. I will admit the idea of getting a camera phone was pretty fun. I actually hate the rudeness of most cell phone users, and never thought I'd get one, but the frustrating, world-is-built-for-cell-phones-and-I-don't-have-one moments got too much. Hanging around all day at home waiting for my mechanic to call, getting caught in traffic with no way to tell people I may be late to work or appointments, never being able to find a public phone, and so forth. Plus, I do a lot of solo driving, so I suppose it makes safety sense too. I was actually divided over the decision, so I guess only time will tell whether it will actually be worth it.

Weather here has been cooler. We got down to 45 degrees or lower overnight quite a few times last week, and I even had to turn on my heat for a few days! The tile flooring makes my current place cooler, and since no building plans in South Florida include basics like insulation, tight windows, or weatherstripping, you feel the cool temperatures indoors more than you do at home.

And that's the news...more updates to come after the move is over!

Here's a picture of some of the henna I did over the Christmas holidays at home. The pattern is from Arabesque, by Jessica McQueen. I love the two-toned effects!

I had my landlord over this weekend to tweak a few minor water pressure problems, and I presented him with my itemized list of damages. I think I was pretty fair. My CD player on my stereo works again--ironically, better than ever!--so I didn't include it on the list of damaged items. I also managed to rehabilitate all my damaged library books, and quite a few of my own, so I didn't have those on the total either. Grand total requested for what was apparently an event that left 2 inches of water on the floor for several hours: $271. But of course there was a lot of sidestepping. "Well, now, if you were submitting an insurance claim, you wouldn't get full replacement value; things would depreciate." (um...wasn't really aware that brand new items purchased a couple weeks prior as gifts would see so much "depreciation." And how much do pristine, like-new condition books depreciate anyway?) "So, you think that this is a fair value?" (Um, yes. As a matter of fact I think you're damn lucky I'm doing my best to minimize this total and not gleefully inventing or exaggerating damages to extort out of you.) "Well, I'll see what I can do." (Oh thank you, mighty benevolent one!)

Anyway, it's not so much money that I would hurt too much to lose it. It's the principle of the thing, mainly. You say you'll pay for damages, it would be nice if you'd actually pay for damages. Especially when, as I've said, I've done my best to keep the claim low.

In other areas, not much is going on except efforts to start my packing and get organized around the move. We have our new exact address and phone number, and so now I'm wracking my brain trying to remember everywhere I need to change it. We're also going to hopefully be able to consolidate our car insurance etc as well as our other utilities, so there's a lot of running around, phoning around, etc., around that. Michael has had some water leakage issues at his place this past week, too, so we're both really looking forward to getting out of our current situations!

Holiday weekend coming up for us...naturally, Michael and I are on opposite schedules, so I work Friday and he works Saturday, but at least we get the Sunday and Monday together. We're hoping to start packing, do some henna, and finally see The Incredibles.

Before you leave, take a look at this eBay auction item. Priceless, no?

you just can't look away

This game is so disgusting, yet, strangely, so addictive....don't go there unless you have some serious time to kill!

When you're tired of bashing, head on over to their Home page...they even have Pac-Man! Woo hoo!

my own little tsunami

Well, I'm back from my trip to Edmonton. Makes me kind of sad to be back so soon--going for the better part of two weeks always sounds like it's going to be so much time beforehand, but somehow it never works out that way. We didn't get as much wedding-related planning and running around done as we'd hoped, partly because we never made enough time to formulate specific goals and things to do before we left, and partly because it's still far enough away (and casual enough) that many things just can't be done at this stage. But, we met our officiant, talked a bit about what we want to do, and got lots of offers of help, and I think we both have the feeling that the kind of ceremony we want will be achievable. So things should work out fine.

The weather was chill, with highs of about -18 Cto -20 C being the norm most days. We also got a fair bit of fresh snow. Call me crazy but it felt great!

Seeing Anita, Rene, Randy, Heather and Mike again was great, as well as visiting all three families. Other than just being able to be at home with my parents again, highlights include finding a new gold-and-brown bellydance costume at Anita's dance studio, Isis Dance Productions, shovelling the snow on my parents' driveway, having coffee at The Second Cup, hanging out on 124th Street again, relaxing by the fire in John and Heather's basement, and sipping New Year's Champagne (oh, all right, sparkling wine) with Chris and Rick.

However, after two relaxing weeks of visiting friends and family, I got home to find my water heater had burst the night before and damaged not only my apartment, but others below and adjacent as well. My landlord did get notified by a neighbor who saw water pouring out from under my front door, and he did do a lot of work installing a new heater, cleaning the floor and hauling area rugs etc. out to dry, and I am grateful for that. However, considering that after that he essentially just left all my stuff in wet piles all over the apartment with the doors and windows shut tight, I am lucky that I got back when I did. Another day or so and I'm sure that mold would have been covering the whole place and it would have become toxic and unsafe to enter. As it is, I am attempting to dry out some books with significant water damage, and I've had to throw out others. My stereo (on the floor because I had no shelf or stand for it) will still play radio and cassettes, but not cds (the mechanism closest to the floor). And, a couple of our smaller Christmas gifts to each other got ruined. The one that hurts the most, though, is that my complete boxed set of BlackAdder videos was on the floor as well, and it's pretty much toast. The box and the video sleeves were melded together, and I tested one of the tapes and my VCR wouldn't play them. Ouch!

The good news is that I don't think that things are as bad as they first seemed. Besides the books, which are always painful to part with, much of the stuff I did have to get rid of was either unimportant (cardboard boxes and papersand the like), or things I was planning to get rid of myself anyway (like the old foamy "chairs" a friend gave me a couple years ago that I never really used because they were uncomfortable). So the overall cost to recover should be small. Also, since we're moving end of January, even if there are longer-term problems with the rupture--which wouldn't be surprising given my landlord's typically haphazard style of building maintenance--I likely won't be around to see them.

In the note that he left on my door, my landlord did say he would pay for my damages; however, when I called him and told him I was making lists of damaged items and so forth there was a lot of mumbling about "don't want to be that way, but not legally liable" and damage deposits. It was hard to have a clear coversation--I was tired from our full day of flying, and between his head cold, thick accent and cell phone transmission it was difficult for me to hear him clearly. I guess we'll find out exactly what he meant when I talk to him again.

And finally, the other good news is that, yes, our move for January has been finalized. Michael and I went to the leasing office at Atriums again this morning and signed the lease agreement for our new apartment, with a set move-in date of January 29. We agreed to pay a little bit more to get an apartment with a view of the water. I'm not sure how much light the balcony will get--it's pretty heavily shaded by trees--but I will finally actually have a balcony, and hopefully will be able to grow a few herbs and fresh lettuce. We're looking forward to it, anyway.

blue stone forges ahead

Quick note to mention that after a long, tiring, but extremely productive session in Rob's studio, we have 2 more Blue Stone tracks laid down! One is a duet with another friend of ours. The other just features me. They are still rough but they are sounding good...hopefully we will have more time to get together in the new year!

Also, and I can't believe I didn't mention this before, the Blue Stone website is now up! You can read about our work and listen to some of our tracks there.

snowflakes everywhere!

Almost forgot to mention this...take a look at the Make your own snowflake site. It's incredibly addictive!

onward and upward--ho ho ho!

Sorry for taking yet another long break from blogging. Just can't seem to get into the real spirit of things lately. Christmas time in Florida always seems to do this to me...I find it wierd and a little depressing to be here in the winter. My psyche really seems to need seasonal rhythms and fluctuations, and being here in eternal summer always seems, well, unnatural. Makes me feel like holing up and brooding instead of doing all the myriad other things I should be doing--like updating this site!

Thankfully, Michael and I are on our way up to Edmonton for Christmas this week. We're leaving on Wednesday morning and not coming back until January 3rd. We've got a lot to try to accomplish in that short time frame--celebrate the holidays, visit with friends and family, and wedding-related stuff like trying to find a photographer (we had asked a friend but he didn't feel he had enough experience to do it), picking up Michael's ring, visiting a rental place to arrange for furniture, tent and supplies, meeting the officiant, visiting a florist, possibly dress shopping, and general planning/discussion with family. Whew! Not a lot of breathing room in there...

We had our annual pre-christmas party at Michael's place last night. Quite a few people showed up despite the fact that I made a huge error in the directions which was not caught until, literally, the last minute. Not that I feel stupid about that or anything :( Anyway, this was the last get-together we will have before we move. With Michael's lease expiring in January and my rent going up at the same time, we thought that it would be a good opportunity to find a new, more convenient place together. So assuming that all goes well, we should be moving into the Atriums of Plantation Late January or early February. We've filled out the application, and been approved, so we're just waiting for people to give notice so we'll know exactly which apartment we'll be in. The place has 2 pools, a fitness centre, soothing landscaping, and a lake with a pier/outlook for hanging out on and watching the birds. It's a little farther from my work, but much closer for Michael, and closer to many of my friends and extracurricular classes. Should be good!

Other than that, I've been practicing my henna (more pictures to come as they become available), and trying new dance classes. My regular Wednesday night class with Myriam Eli was cancelled, and will only be meeting every second week in the new year due to space and scheduling restraints. I've been at a bit of a plateau lately anyway, so I thought I might take the opportunity to try another teacher as well. I saw Virgina perform at the Joharah show last month, and I was impressed by her high energy and dynamic stage presence--something I need to work on myself. Her classes are in Miami, but the drive might be worth it if she's a good teacher too. I also took a private class with Ansuya along with my friend Diana last week, which was really helpful, and makes me think that if I can scrape up the cash doing that kind of thing on a semi-regular basis could help too. What I really need right now is individual attention and a focus on precise technique, I think, so it was great to be in a more one-on-one situation.

So, the next few days will be full of frantically cleaning, packing, doing last minute shopping, and getting ready to fly out home. Not sure if I will have the chance to update while I'm there, but at the very least I'll be back in the new year.

turkey and henna parties and other fun stuff

Here's a photo of the henna I did at my friend Diana's house on Saturday. The pattern is from Ganesha's Henna Garden.

We had a pretty fun time with it, painting our hands and hanging out. Diana had a few new videos of traditional Indian dancing, and we watched a really interesting movie called Baraka, which is more a series of images than a conventional film. She also got hold of a couple of bellydance instructional videos of....well....dubious quality at her work. I've actually seen a lot of recommendations and good things said about Amira Mor's Bellydance your way to your soul mate, but I honestly don't see any redeeming qualities except the amusement factor! Which is too bad, because the other video of hers that Diana brought home didn't look too bad.

Other than that, it's been a relatively uneventful, relaxing Thanksgiving weekend. Michael and I both had Thursday and Friday off, and while he worked Saturday and I work today, we are also both off on Monday. Maybe we will actually be able to go on that picnic we've been thinking about forever! We were at a friend's house for Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday, and spent a lazy day Friday hanging out at Starbucks. Saturday night we spent having dinner with another couple we met through work.

Weather remains too hot. Usually it cools down at least a little bit by this time, but we're not even into jeans weather yet! Counting the days till we travel to Edmonton ...

oh suzanna

Catching up on other areas of my life...I had the Suzanna del Vecchio workshop this past weekend. It was pretty good. I think I mentioned before that she does yoga as well as bellydance--one of the good things about the class is that there was a lot of attention to proper body alignment and what to do--and what to avoid--when performing certain moves. Most of the class was taken up by learning a 2 minute choreography. She built in time for us to sit and take notes on it, and I bought the CD that had the music we were using, so hopefully I will be able to reconstruct it later on! The music had a really nice, heavy Saiidi beat, which means I *really* want to adapt it for a cane. Along with the CD (called Sensual Goddess) I also bought Suzanna's instructional DVD on drum solos, called Lock, Roll, and Flutter, which I wasn't initially going to do, but hey, it was on sale, so....

Always interesting to see some of the people who come to a large workshop class like that--usually ends up being a huge mix of dancers of all levels and styles. Some were obviously professional dancers, some just starting out, and then the usual crowd of rank beginners who don't even know that street clothes are appropriate attire for a dance class. One woman even insisted on doing (well, attempting) the entire class in her skimpy kitten-heeled shoes held on by nothing but one slender strap low down across her toes! What are people like this thinking??? Weird. Another strange thing is seeing people who paid a fair amount of money to come participate in a class led by someone nationally renowned for her teaching get angry and cop an attitude when they're given any kind of instruction or correction. I mean, really, if you're not there for that then what are you there for? I just don't understand that mindset.

There was a bazaar in progress during the afternoon and throughout the evening show, so I got to have a lot of fun drooling over hugely expensive designer professional costumes dripping with fringe, beads, sequins, and other lovely details. I did buy one thing there--an abayah to use as a coverup for my dance costumes. Black with a few small turquoise crystal designs on the front, and a matching chiffon scarf. I also saw a really nice deep green beaded hip scarf that I think I may have convinced Michael to get me for Christmas :)

The show was really interesting--there were some really good dancers, and much of the dancing was in a style that I don't see very often. There were a lot of teachers there with large student troupes, doing these high-energy, almost Vegas showgirl-style routines--not my preferred style, but very fun and high energy. It would be neat to take some classes like that. The honored guest performer was Suzanna, of course, and then the night closed out with a really good singer from Washington (I can't remember her name right now), who got everyone up dancing for fun. I was exhausted at that point, having danced all day and been at the show all night, so Michael and I left sometime around midnight.

Other than those highlights...life this week has been pretty much same old same old. We are closed tomorrow and Friday for American Thanksgiving. Michael and I are going to a friends' house for dinner this year, instead of leaving town. I have Saturday off, too, but unfortunately I'll be back in the reference desk trenches on Sunday. The good news is my friend Diana and I are getting together on Saturday for Henna, Indian movies, and fun!

And just because I can...here's the first design I did for him a few weeks earlier. It was from a picture in Loretta Roome's book, Mehndi: the timeless art of henna painting.

Here's the henna design I did for Michael in Key West. We removed the paste at night, and took the picture in the morning--it got darker through the day. It's an original design that I made up as I went along. I think the shape of the pattern really looks good on his palm.

Post vacation letdown

Well, I seem to be quite the slacker girl lately. No blog entries for, what, close to three weeks? I know that my legions of adoring fans are breathless with anticipation, so here we go. I'll even break it up into separate posts to spare you reading fatigue as you navigate through!

Our trip earlier this month to Key West was great, though like most vacations it felt way too short. I wish we could have found a better place to stay...we were going to spring for a hotel this time, instead of staying at the cheap-but-dodgy youth hostel, but there was an airshow going on that weekend, so all the places we found were booked or had been jacked up to horrendous rates! Oh well. Not like we really spent any time there at all except to sleep. Anyway, overall it was a great vacation. We had breakfast at the french bakery every morning, hit the beach each afternoon, and travelled everywhere by bicycle. For once, the weather was perfect-warm but not hot, and low humidity--which meant we both had a lot more energy than usual. We usually hit a couple of attractions each time we're there--this time, we went to the Lighthouse and Keeper's Quarter's Museum, the Shipwreck Historium, and the East Martello Tower garden. It was interesting to learn a little bit more of the history of Key West as a place that grew rich on salvaging offshore wrecks. I also took some henna paste with us, so we could practice on the beach. I'll post some pictures later.

Of course, I it took so long for me to totally decompress, relax, and leave all the day to day stuff behind that by the time I started to feel human again, it was time to turn around and come back! So the week or so afterwards Darcy was pretty grumpy...

More later.

Retrench!

Well, Michael and I are headed off to Key West tomorrow for a four-day minibreak . I can hardly wait! Between the post-election depression and the latest round of stupid management decisions at work, I am going to be more than glad to eat pain au chocolat and cappuccino for breakfast, bike around town, shop for Christmas presents, and read and do henna at the beach.

I'm also excited to report that I am registered to go to the Suzanna del Vecchio workshop and performance in Miami on November 20th! Suzanna is a famous bellydancer, teacher, and yogini from Denver, CO. She's being brought in by a local dancer named Joharah. I am attending the afternoon class on my own, but Michael and a couple of friends will be coming with me to the show. I don't get to see professional performances often, so this will be a real treat!

I can't link to it now, because he's starting to reorganize his website post-election, but some interesting experiences were reported by voters on Michael Moore's website this past week. Many Floridians who wrote in said that when they went to the polls, the voting machines tried to change their presidential votes from Kerry to Bush! They would select Kerry, but on the final confirmation screen before their vote was submitted it would show up as a Bush vote. Most if not all of these people said that they found they had to correct their votes three or four times before it would register correctly! The response from the pollworkers? "Oh, yeah, the touchscreens are sensitive." Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it, about how many Jeb state voters didn't notice the switch in time, and had their vote changed? eta: found this interesting tidbit on Randy's pod bay door. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......

after the fall

Well.....America drank the kool-aid. Four more years.

Though I was pretty sure that the election would go this way, I have to admit that in the past couple weeks I had allowed myself to hope for a different outcome. Working in a building that was also functioning as an early voting polling place, I saw the larger voter turnout here firsthand. People were waiting four hours or more to cast their votes, every day, and there was talk about large turnouts in the youth and first-time voter populations--groups who usually favour the challenger over the incumbent. However, I guess that living in one of the few Democratic areas in Florida skewed my perspective of the larger picture.

Watching the networks call state after state for Bush last night, I really felt a sense of despair. Our local "fair and balanced" Fox affiliate station was, of course, all but announcing a win for Bush by about 10 pm. Thank goodness I get better reception with my new rabbit ears and could switch over to ABC/Local 10 and Peter Jennings! I've never seen such biased coverage of an event--I was flipping between the two stations but when the Fox anchor prefaced the announcement of a new Bush state as "more good news!!!" I had to sign off in disgust--I'd rather sit through commercials than deal with that kind of biased garbage.

So. Here we are, having reaffirmed our isolationist America-rules-the-world unilateral attitude, spit in the face of the international community, and washed the States red with the blood of over 100 000 innocent Iraqi civilians. I really hoped that people were smart enough to see through Dick Cheney's "vote Bush or you'll be killed real dead" rhetoric; believed that the mainstream press exposure of the lies and manipulations and hidden agendas and brainwashing behind the invasion of Iraq was enough to convince even conservative voters that Bush was not working in the country's--or the world's--best interests; couldn't fathom how an experienced, decorated war veteran could really be seen as "softer on terror" and "less able as a commander in chief" than a drunkard who spent the term of his "service" avoiding duty in any way possible; thought that "nuanced thinking" trumped "sticking to your guns no matter how wrong you are." Stupid me. I come from Alberta: I should know how this works by now. The way you get elected is by pretending that you're "just folks" instead of a part of the highest, most priviledged social echelons; by pandering to the lowest common denominator possible; by putting on a rural accent, bragging about your lack of education and having one too many with the boys behind the woodshed.

Whatever.

Arabesque

Okay....

I. Want. This. Book!!!!

Not a lot to report except for the usual Gryphoemia with the usual round of coworkers/managers, which is why this blog has been quiet of late. I am trying to get myself more organized, so as to actually accomplish some of the things I keep thinking about, but as usual it's a long slow one-step-forward-two-steps-back process. Which leads to predictable ironies like sitting next to a kitchen full of dirty dishes and empty of useful groceries reading Home Comforts. Sigh.

Other than that...let's see....I attended an interesting video day at my bellydance teacher's house, where we watched lots of Turkish/Romany/9/8 performances. Michael and I bought tickets to see the Princess Diana exhibition at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art next weekend. Don't know how much Michael will be into it actually, but I guess he's humoring me :) Michael was also nice enough to let me henna his hand with a Moroccan-style design this week. If we get a picture of it we'll post it. Aaahh, my exciting life....

Wiggin' out

Here's a picture from a recent party at a friend's place. It was a wig party, but as you can see I had just taken mine off.

Gryphoemia

Wow, I finally found a word that describes precisely what living here is all about. Courtesy of The Henna Page:

Gryphoemia

A morbid affliction of one's patience. Outbreaks tend to be caused by too much time spent dealing with the stupid. Symptoms of a Gryphoemia outbreak can include increased heart rate, heavy breathing, severe headache, blurred vision and a driving urge to injure someone -- anyone. The most serious outbreaks have been known to cause smoke to rise from a person's ears. Henna artists are particularly prone to Gryphoemia when they've had to be enormously gracious to very irritating people under difficult conditions. Gryphomia can never be cured, but outbreaks can be suppressed by indulging in something you're NOT supposed to do ... like eating junk food, shopping, consuming or imbibing "attitude adjusting substances", and ..... whatever your favorite naughtiness happens to be.

(Definition by The Fabulous Gwyn)

Gwyn, I've never met you.....but thanks!

Interesting....

Check out Dilbert's Ultimate House!!!

Hey, I'd live there. Wouldn't you?

Spared again!

Well, South Florida got lucky...again. Hurricane Jeanne essentially followed the same path as Hurricane Frances, skipping lightly over us and slamming areas to the north. While many Broward residents lost power temporarily, and there were some nasty storm squalls throughout the weekend, overall we are okay.

I stocked up on canned food, water, dry milk, and other non-perishables late last week, and Michael and I rode out the storm at my place. Libraries and businesses were closed for at least Saturday, some into Sunday, and people were told by the County mayor's office to do their preparations, get inside, and stay there. We spent most of Saturday, especially Saturday night, tracking the hurricane on TV, watching reports as it made landfall up in Stuart and Melbourne. A pretty surreal experience, actually, as the weather was eerily calm in my neighborhood while they were getting hit. We emerged midafternoon Sunday, went to check Michael's apartment (which is much closer to the ocean than mine), and spent most of the rest of the afternoon hanging out at Starbucks with his new roommate.

Seeing the weather--and the damage--inflicted on other areas just drives home how incredibly fortunate this place has been. Florida has never had four storms make landfall in one season. The only other time it's happened in the U.S. period was in the 19th century! Just about every other area of the state has incurred major damage and flooding--some areas more than once--and the estimate for insured losses is in the billions. I didn't even have any power outages this time, and my neighbors told me that they only lost power for a couple hours total with Frances. I think we're all feeling pretty grateful right now even as we empathise with people up north.

In other news...

I hear Kerry is losing ground with younger, married women. This is apparently because this demographic, of which I am nearly a part, is looking for a "big strong protector man" in a president, and Bush is seen as better fulfilling this role. At least, that's what all the old white men newsanchors tell me. Excuse me....I suddenly got this strange foul taste in my mouth....