If spiders could talk

It was a warm summer day. I was basking in the sun, relaxing, enjoying my web. I thought to myself "this orange tree is the perfect home for me, I rather enjoy building webs and trapping prey here". With green leaves and large oranges, the fruit tree was divine, and what a beautiful persimmon tree I had to look at across the yard. I was disturbed in mid-thought by a human - he was coming at the orange tree with a weapon of destruction and that is when my world as I knew it collapsed. He chopped down branch after branch until my home was destroyed. I fell onto the ground and started running, knowing I had to get away as fast as I could. All I could think was...Oh Human...why today? Then, suddenly, I could run no further. The human had shielded me in some sort of glass object. He was looking at me, studying me. Then I was floating - above ground - in this object. The human carried me far, far away and dropped me, head first, in a totally new environment. I was free, but really - was I? I was lost, alone, no home to speak of, no orange tree. Realizing there was not even a persimmon tree in view - I sat and I cried. Where was my home? Where shall I live now? What did I do to deserve this? I crawled around with only sadness as my guide. It must have been hours that I crawled, looking for my home - it was nowhere to be found. I was deep in despair when I discovered the apple tree. I just happened upon it, not really paying attention - my heart was so heavy I was barely paying attention to where I was going. I was halfway up the tree when I realized what a delightful little tree this was. The bark was beautiful, brown with a nice pungent smell. I crawled onto a branch and for the first time in what felt like years I smiled. This is my new home. I began spinning my orb webs and became entranced in the job. Ahh...how relaxing it is to spin a web. By the time I was finished, night had fallen and I settled in for a good night sleep. The next morning I awoke to several prey entangled in my web. I spun them in silk, looking forward to a good breakfast after the heartwrenching day I had endured.

New Cougar on the Block

Today, as Ramsay and I were leaving the house, we look across the street and see 2 kids, about 18-20 yrs old, rummaging around the neighbor's yard. The neighbor in question is hot - in his mid-to-late 50's and has this cool old sports car in the driveway that he keeps covered most days and spends the weekend restoring. If I cared about the car I would know the make/model but I mainly spend those free-stare 5 seconds I get looking at him rather than the car whenever I see him bending over fixing the muffler or what have you. But I digress. So...these kids were wearing run of the mill jock jogging gear - loose shorts and t-shirts and were looking under the cover of the much loved sports car. One seemed to be doing the sketchy looking around under the car, over the fence, etc., part while the other was looking around the street like he was guilty of something. So I make sure they see me seeing them and progress to put Ramsay in the carseat. By the time I am backing out of the driveway - they are in another neighbors yard looking over the fence. Because I am from Oakland and also just not a very trusting person in the first place, I automatically assume they are doing something wrong/stupid. So I back out of the driveway and drive up to them and roll the window down and say "What are you guys doing?!" and one of the kids come up to the window and says "Looking for his cat!, She's missing!" And I remember my neighbor (not hot sports car guy but the other neighbor) just got a couple black and white cats and said they always escaped and were missing. This is not the first time I have seen them looking for the cats. I also remembered at that moment that they have a son who goes to UC Davis, so it was all clear. This must be The Son and The Son's Friend. So I then said to the kid, "Oh, OK! Well, you know you look pretty sketchy walking around like that!" And then he pulls up his t-shirt in a peek-a-b00 fashion, giving me the fruit of the loom tighty whity TMI, and says "Oh, THANKS!" with a big smile on his face. I drive away thinking, wow that is weird that he responded that way when I said he looked sketchy. How odd. That is really weird. What the DOH! And it hits me. He didn't think I said "WOW! You look Sketchy", he thought I said "WOW! You look SEXY"!
So now I am the new cougar on the block. Hello. I guess I can say goodbye to any friendship I may have formed with my neighbors! arg. oy.

i heart art

I just purchased the most awesome piece of art ever. Have you ever had that feeling where you just LOVE to look at something? It makes you happy! It makes you soo blissed out? That is how I feel when I look at this piece of art. I love it. I love looking at it. I love that it is in my dining room. I especially love that my friend Lyn is the artist who made it. How cool is that? She rocks! You have to come look at it. It is so awesome.
meow!

Skirts. Skorts. And everywhere in between.

I love skirts. Dresses, in particular, are my favorite. Have you noticed when you wear a skirt you have to sit differently than if you have on jeans or shorts. You have to be aware of what your legs are doing at all times. I think this comes naturally to people who are inclined to wear skirts and dresses. Oh hey! Remember the skort? At least a viewer was aware that it was just a peekaboo short when they viewed the back. It was like garment mullet, instead of party in the back, business in the front, it was shorts in the back, skirt in the front. But I digress.
I was very unlucky this last weekend to be in the company of woman wearing what I thought was a short skirt. It was very shocking when she sat down on the floor, cross-legged - I thought What??!! and my eyes thought Where Do I Look!!! Not unlike the moment when someone is in front of you with lots of cleavage. Oh wait, did I mention this woman is in her 50's? Yes. So then her daughter says "MOM! Does that skirt have shorts sewn into them? Why are you sitting like that?!" And I say "You must remember, only YOU know there are shorts under that skirt!".
Ouch.

peace and quiet

This just happened:

Me: Do you hear that car alarm? It's loud!

Scott: *weird look*

Me: Listen!

Scott: It's Crickets...

Me: Doh!!

***Later that night***

I wake up and hear a noise, like maybe my cell phone needs to be charged? Or no, wait! It must be an alarm going off in the living room. What is it?
DOH! It's crickets....again!



Hours later, probably around 3am.
Phig and I wake up to a scratch at the bedroom french doors (we have no curtains yet). I look outside and see a small cat running around out back. I say to Scott in a sleepy grumble "Get that baby cat! It's all alone out there!" Scott wakes up, confused, looks outside and says "That's a skunk!" And we both clamber around to grab Phig before he freaks out the baby skunk.

Ludovico Einaudi

Loving this.

Technology Sticks

The RSA Conference is where I went this week - it was in SF at the Moscone Center. Lots of geeks. White. Male. Geeks. And it is amazing (and sad) to me that the IT community is still made up almost completely of mysogynists. I was walking around with my robot-friend and everyone at the Expo portion of the event was talking to him, asking him what he did, blah blah. I was completely invisible. Which, to me, was like heaven because come on - who likes to talk to those who-haws anyways? First of all they don't even know what they are talking about half the time and second of all they are just dumb ass salesmen. Robot-friend even made a comment once about how he wished he had a vagina so no one would talk to him. But after a couple days of this I was getting pretty disgusted at how gross it was. Add to that the booth bimbos and there you have it. Women are for oogling and wearing short skirts and dresses with their boobs hanging out so men will come to their booths and ask for a free thumb drive. Or Mug. Or Tshirt. That's about it.
But none of this is a surprise to me. It was just something that I haven't witnessed for a long time. Blackhat in Vegas isn't even almost as bad as this.
Hello Glass Ceiling.

The south beach diet = one way ticket to hell

I started the south beach diet 6 days ago. It sucks ass. Really, it does. Everything that I am allowed to eat sounds absolutely disgusting to me right now, I can't even imagine how I am going to feel on day 12. My only hope is that by day 12 I will so strung out on my sugar withdrawal that I will be only semi-conscious, with no understanding of reality.
But I finally just got it - this is the way you lose weight on the sb diet: for the first 5 days salad is your best friend. YUM! Salad with salmon on top. Tasty! Salad with grilled chicken on top. Even better...Bean salad with a side of regular salad. Feeling crazy? How about broccoli slaw and bean salad with some sliced tofu? Hungry for dessert? No problem, have this very small plastic container of sugar free jello. Wait, you feel like chocolate? How about a sugar free fudgsicle the size of a toothpick? Sounds great, right? Totally doable! But then after you have had every single salad imaginable and then some, it gets really boring. So boring it is maddening. But not mad in the "Damn it, I'm just going to cheat and have a chocolate chip cookie!!" kind of way, more mad in the "SB You suck ass! I am going to beat you! Take this SB!" And then you just don't eat anything. Why bother? Food? A waste of time. I am too busy complaining and starving to death on this stupid diet to find time to eat something!
I did it 5 years or so and for some reason had no problem doing it, or at least that is what my memory tells me. But then again I know people who had a baby 5 years ago and don't think the entire pregnancy and birthing thing was excruciatingly painful.

I L'ove' it!

The 'Ove' Glove rocks. It is one of my most favoritest things. If you don't have one already, you definitely need one.

OMFG "real" life rocks!

Did you see The Bachelor Finale? And The Bachelor: After the Final Rose? It was so totally awesome TV. I only wish everything I watched on TV was as entertaining as that. The best part was that I dvr'd the shows, so did not watch them one after the other. They both originally aired on Monday night. I watched the finale last night and went to bed thinking he was happy with Melissa but then this morning I watched the after show and WOW! What an asshole! It was so wonderful. LOVED IT. There is also an After the Final Rose Part 2 that I have yet to see. Can't wait!

TCBY

Did I ever tell you that I always thought that the frozen yogurt store with the name TCBY meant "Taking Care of Business Yogurt"?!? Well, apparently that is not what it means. Who would have thought! But really, do people even eat frozen yogurt anymore? The whole concept of a frozen yogurt store seems very late 80's/early 90's to me. Like VCRs and/or acid washed jeans.

Meow!

Read this. I couldn't have said it better myself.
Thank you Jill!!!

obamarama.

The internet is magic.

So she asks me to send the credit card number to her in an email. I respond by asking for her telephone number so I can call to give her the credit card information. When she answers the phone she says to me "Oh...You're one of THOSE..." and I say "huh?" and she says "One of those who won't send the credit card number in an email" and I say "it's insecure..." she cuts me off to say "Well, you order stuff online...RIGHT??" and I respond "ordering something from amazon.com is not the same thing as sending a credit card number in an email" and her response was a dismissing laugh, like I am paranoid. Or stupid.

Growth Tracker

I have started a set on Flickr to monitor the growth of Ramsay. I would like to say I will update the page daily but I know myself, and I am a perpetual underachiever as well as a total procrastinator, so hopefully I will add new pictures a few time a week. All pictures will be of him in the car seat so his growth is more accurately reflected. Here is the link.
In other news, the Lambatron has created a Pee Poo Tracker device. yay!