Charlie was NOT happy about having a dog in her house.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Sunday, October 28, 2012
pre-Halloween trip to GA
I have really got to stop telling myself that I will be able
to go home for a few days AND do schoolwork, because it really never works out
that way.
Bagira
Buddy (who is very much NOT anyone's buddy)
Donnie's tail has grown even more absurd.
George
Clean Spartan!
With kitties going in and out all the time, it never stays clean, though.
I left Orlando on Thursday afternoon and drove to Georgia. A
friend of mine was taking her kids and a couple of others to the local
Halloween party downtown, and invited me to come along. I dressed as a
crewmember from the Battlestar Galactica. I would have loved to have gone as
Starbuck, but being neither blonde nor anywhere near as badass, I just went as
a random BSG crewmember. No one knew who I was supposed to be. I didn’t expect
any little kids to know, but several adults in my age bracket asked me what I
was supposed to be. Most hadn’t even heard of BSG. One didn’t realize there was
a ‘new’ series, saying, “Wow, that’s going back a few decades.”
That night I discovered that water was no longer flowing
into my toilet. No, the knob in the bathroom that you can use to shut the water
to the toilet had not been shut off. Nonetheless, no water was making its way
into the tank. No idea why. Water everywhere else in the house is working just
fine. I figured I’d just fill my tank up from a bucket each time I needed to
flush and worry about this later. Like maybe Christmas break.
On Friday, mom went down to Florida, leaving me in charge of
all the animals. I spent a lot of time out at the land, cleaning the trailer
and playing with the kitties.
Bagira
With kitties going in and out all the time, it never stays clean, though.
When I wasn’t out at the land, I was at mom’s house, taking
care of the animals there. Which mainly meant ‘playing with animals.’
Some jackass spray-painted black all over mom’s Obama-Biden
signs. There is definitely a racial element to politics in this town. My mom’s
neighborhood is predominantly white, and there are Romney-Ryan signs all over
the place. I drove through a couple prominently black neighborhoods, and only
saw Obama-Biden signs. Mom’s is the only sign up here that I’ve seen that doesn’t
fit that pattern… and take a look at the results:
I meant to spend Saturday night doing homework, but I
confess that I spent it curled up in bed with Charlie, Mochi, and a good book.
Saturday wasn’t particularly eventful, and I was able to
finish grading an assignment for four sections of a class (over 100 students),
but I didn’t get any of *my* schoolwork done. I did, however, get a picture of
my mom with her new car.
I’m back in Orlando now… time for a nap, and then some major
schoolwork time.
Labels:
Cars,
cats,
dogs,
Georgia (GA),
Halloween,
Photography,
Southeastern USA,
United States
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Of horses and bayonets...
Friday, October 19, 2012
no physical harm!
A long, long time ago, back when I was 16, my friends and I had a rather bizarre and overly superstitious year. I'm not going to get into all of that here (although maybe when I finish writing The Inhumane Society I'll get back to writing The WD-40 story, which would address that year of my life in great detail), but for now I want to talk about one phrase: no physical harm. This phrase, more so than any of the other weirdness that came from that year, has stuck with me. Just ask anyone who has known me since then; I say it all the time. But what does it mean?
When I was a tenth grader, my friends and I could be rather catty. (What tenth grade girl isn't?) There was a girl that our group didn't like (I'm pretty sure there was a boy involved). One of my friends (whose house I happen to be renting currently!) was very upset with this particular girl and said something along the lines of, "I hope something really, really, really bad happens to her! Well, no physical harm." - and that afternoon the girl in question totaled her car. But she was fine.
From that point on, anytime we said anything pertaining to death or harm or danger, or did anything potentially dangerous, we would say 'no physical harm.' "Aaack! This test is going to kill me. No physical harm." "What an asshole. I could seriously kill him. No physical harm." In an airplane getting ready to take off? No physical harm! In a van passing uphill on a blind curve in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan? No physical harm! In a marshrutka on the way to Chernobyl? No physical harm! You get the picture. On facebook, this often appears as 'NPH!' tacked on to the end of posts and comments. (This of course leads to the occasional Neil Patrick Harris joke, because what else could NPH mean?)
I've wanted to get a tattoo of something since 1997. Luckily, I'm not one of those people who rushes into things, because had I gotten any of the designs I was mulling over tattooed on myself way back then, I would've ended up taking a hot iron to my body for the purpose of burning that shit off within the year. I've had lots of ideas for tattoos over the years, although none has ever really stuck. Some I simply grew out of. Other designs ended up reminding me of things I'd rather forget. Then, this past January, I had a bit of an epiphany: I would get no physical harm tattooed on myself somewhere!
Unfortunately, I was in Korea at the time. You can definitely get tattoos in Korea, although finding a reputable, quality tattoo parlor is a bit of a challenge. In Korea, tattoos are still, for the most part, seen as something sported by gangsters and criminals. There are certainly young punks and hipsters who have started to sport the odd tat here and there, but it's really not all that common. I looked online and found a couple of websites for tattoo parlors in both English and Korean, but when I say "a couple" I mean two. In a city of 18 million people. Not exactly confidence boosting - and I didn't want to end up with a Konglish rendition of my catch phrase permanently embedded on my body. So I decided to wait.
In the small southern town where I lived from March through July of this year, there are a couple of tattoo parlors... but nothing to particularly inspire confidence. If you're going to have something permanently etched into your skin, it should be done by someone who exudes confidence - and has evidence to back up his or her skill, you know? I asked friends with tattoos, and got recommendations for tattoo artists in Tallahassee and Sarasota and Savannah, but I never felt like making the drive. Then I moved to Orlando. I swear there's a tattoo parlor on every single block down here. But again - I needed to know where I could go to get a quality tattoo. Then a friend of mine from the small southern town recommended the place where he had just gotten a tattoo - and yes, he had driven all the way down to Orlando to get it: Ascension Tattoo.
I spent a lot of time over the past few months perusing their website. After totally rocking my midterms - and having a few days to rest and relax before throwing myself into the swing of studying once more - I decided it was time:
Labels:
Florida (FL),
Orlando,
Southeastern USA,
tattoos,
United States
Friday, October 12, 2012
A short break from my studies.
I've knocked two of the three midterms down (the third is next Tuesday), and I'm just about ready to submit my conference proposal... now it's time to work on my web-post (due Monday), exam #3 (Tuesday), and my presentation (Wednesday). I figured I had enough time to run Mochi down to the dog park for a little squirrel chasing :-)
Labels:
dogs,
Florida (FL),
Orlando,
Photography,
Southeastern USA,
United States,
wildlife
Monday, October 8, 2012
Quests for Bows and Yellow Flowers
In the area of southeast GA where my mom lives, there's a yearly event called the Fifteen Mile Yard Sale. Pretty much everyone who lives along its route has a yard sale during this event. People who don't live there drive in and set up shop along the side of the road. Food trucks sell sausage dogs and funnel cakes and hot tamales. The fifteen mile stretch of the normally sleepy two-lane is packed with cars. Yes, I drove three and a half hours to GA to attend the Fifteen Mile Yard Sale.
Mom and I spent SIX hours yard sale-ing. It was a little insane. I even ate a sausage dog. I came away with a bunch of paperback mysteries, a lot of clothing, a picture frame shaped like a cat, a super-awesome orange purse (originally priced at $80; purchased by me for $5), and a $500 value compound hunting bow (purchased for $250). Before we started out in the morning, I had actually said that the one thing I really wanted to find was a compound bow. I'd been looking at them online and knew how much they went for, and I certainly didn't expect to find one, but whaddyaknow. I'm one step closer to being ready for the apocalypse.
Mom and I spent SIX hours yard sale-ing. It was a little insane. I even ate a sausage dog. I came away with a bunch of paperback mysteries, a lot of clothing, a picture frame shaped like a cat, a super-awesome orange purse (originally priced at $80; purchased by me for $5), and a $500 value compound hunting bow (purchased for $250). Before we started out in the morning, I had actually said that the one thing I really wanted to find was a compound bow. I'd been looking at them online and knew how much they went for, and I certainly didn't expect to find one, but whaddyaknow. I'm one step closer to being ready for the apocalypse.
see here, here, here, and here.)
This was definitely wetland. Emphasis on wet.
You can see a few yellow flowers, but nothing like the view from the highway.
This path started out all dry and promising, but just led to a muckhole with no view. Alas.
Labels:
1906 Bungalow,
Florida (FL),
Georgia (GA),
Orlando,
Photography,
Southeastern USA,
United States
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