Procrastination 101

What do you do when you have a week deadline to write your grad school entrance essays? Why, you clean house, of course!

Today’s procrastination exercise consisted of me going through my wardrobe (which is looking very shabby) and refolding, tossing, and sorting what is in it. Tons of old socks, t-shirts with crusty underarms (hey, girls sweat too!), and things that simply don’t fit anymore (like the thongs which would likely slice me in half vertically if I tried them on).

The cats had fun spelunking in the spaces left by the dresser drawers being removed. Of course I took pictures, because I have no life. Missy is now being cuddled on my left shoulder as I type, because the caves were apparently very spooky.

Yesterday I procrastinated by going through the pantry and resorting everything. I always discover fun items when I do this: spring roll wrappers, a can of mango paste, two boxes of falafel mix. My New Year’s resolution list now includes actually eating the items in the pantry instead of attempting to run a small ethnic grocery in my kitchen.

I also successfully emptied out the computer/sewing room of all the detritus that has accumulated in it over the past few months (post-move, if that is any excuse). Of course, most of it is now spread over the living room floor (said items were barfed on by one of the cats last night, sigh) where I actually am managing to sort and toss stuff. Items found: my “no religious soliciting” sticker, which will go on the front door (hopefully it will work), my pocket knife (lost since my 2002 trip to London), and the English money I was going to give to my sister, plus other items that were squealed over. Pays to stay organized. Of course, it would be easier to do so if the office wasn't eight degrees cooler than the rest of the house. I swear, there were icicles on my computer monitor this morning.

Happy New Year?

So far today:

Doorbell rings while I am still in bed. I attempt to sleep through it, but they ring a second time. I get up and fumblingly get dressed, since my robe is in the dryer. It is the washer/dryer company (ironically), here to “upgrade” my machines so that it now costs a dollar to wash/dry a load of laundry instead of 50 cents. Very annoying.

Then the local Jehovah’s Witnesses came by. They are under the impression (since I was nice to them previously) that I am interested in hearing what they have to day. They said that they are going to make more of an effort to stop by more often. Great.

Then I broke a mirror.

This does not bode well for the New Year. Sigh.

Merry F***ing Christmas!

Today's Activities:

Wake up at 11 am.
Stay in bed and read until noon, but only get up because I really, really need to pee.
Make and eat breakfast (toaster waffles and free-range turkey sausage patties).

Wait for 1pm to roll around, so that I can start watching A Christmas Story from the beginning (it's on for 24 hours straight on TNT, hard to miss).
Watch Black Adder's Christmas Carol and start preparing dinner.

Dinner menu:
Roasted turkey breast. Turned out magnifico, mahogany skin and juuuiicy.
Stuffing. Stove Top brand, but I added dried cherries and pignolas to it.
Cranberry sauce from a can. Gotta have those ridges or it just isn't right.
Mashed potatoes. From scratch, thank you.
Gravy. Packaged, but with all the juicy bits from the turkey added in.
Fresh asparagus with real Hollandaise sauce. Yum!

Eat dinner and watch The Ref (a Dennis Leary holiday movie that is effin' funny), sporadically interrupted by calls from family.

Clean up. A little.

Watch the last bit of The Ref, followed by the holiday songs episode of South Park (missed the dreidl song, but caught "Merry F***ing Christmas, so all was not lost).

Finish the evening with A Wish for Wings That Work. Opus!

Early to bed to read, likely finishing my book from this morning.

All in all, a happy holiday!

A holly, jolly, bitchy Xmas, to you

So, I was at Border's today, giving myself a nice little present of some books for the holiday. Very traditional for me. If you ever need to get me a gift and don't know what to choose, get me a gift cert at any bookstore. Anyway, I'm trying to find one more book, just to take me over the credit left on my gift cards, so that I have two less pieces of plastic in my wallet. Good excuse, no? I'm sitting in the aisle browsing the Japanese cooking books. Whenever someone comes by to browse, I would tell them to "let me know if I am in your way," since I am blocking part fo the shelf, because my parents raised me to be ultra-polite, or at least regular-polite. Only two people came by, and I got into one book, not noticing how long I was sitting there for. Could've been ten minutes, coulda been 30, I don't know. You know how you can get when your attention gets caught by something, and I wasn't in a main pathway, or so I thought.

So, imagine my surprise and flabbergastment when this, this...woman pushes by me, saying loudly that she thinks that I have spent enough time blocking the aisle and that I should go somewhere else if I was going to read the books. She also said some other things that I don't remember (likely because they dribbled out from my ears and through my dropped jaw), and went to stand by the water fountains at the end of the row (which were more easily reached by going around my section anyway, so that wouldn't be a good enough reason to get mad), face to the corner, practically shaking with her rage. She mumbled a few other things to the wall, apparently thinking that it could solve the situation. Psycho bitch. A man who was walking past glanced back (and down) at me, smiled and rolled his eyes.

I mean, I was trying to be considerate, letting people know that I am aware that I am potentially in the way and totally willing to move, but I am browsing the bottom shelf. In a bookstore. Where browsing is socially acceptable. Many smooth comebacks went through my mind, but all I could think of was to get out of the crazy-woman's line of fire, and I got out of the store as quickly as I could, scanning the customers for her. Gah. And the main thing that keeps running through my mind is if she had the balls/ovaries to make a scene, why couldn't she use her fortitude to simply ask me to move? Too much holiday shopping? I'm lucky she didn't have an uzi under her winter coat. Oh well, I made it home, and I have all my ingredients to cook a turkey for dinner tomorrow.

Hope she gets eggnog poisoning.

Learning Curve

What have I learned this week?

1. Do not put lit candles anywhere that a cat may want to jump to.

2. Burnt cat hair smalls really, really bad.

Poor kitty (he's okay).