B.C.

It's never to late for punishment . . .

Then and Now, Part IV

Then . . . and now . . .

Then and Now, Part III

Then . . . and now . . .

Then and Now, Part II

Then . . . and now . . .

Then and Now, Part I

Then . . . and now . . .

On the way to work this morning

I was trying to capture how the trees had suddenly gone from barren to green, but the photos are too dark to see that. But Spring has sprung despite the cold weather we've had this week.

Awakened by the end of the world

Lightning strikes. House shakes. Thunder rolls.

Repeat.

Again.

And then some more but without the house shaking.

Works much better than an alarm clock at getting me out of bed.

Unproductive in a productive way

I haven't done much in the way of crafting or reading or even watching TV or movies this week. Aside from being tired from work, I've been creating a new D&D character I will begin playing next Monday. It's been three or four years since I last played and I've become seriously rusty. I've also managed to misplace my first edition Player's Handbook which is the version our games are loosely based on.

Like just about everything else I do, with rolling up a character, I start at the end and work my way to the beginning. Before I even pick up the first die to roll a statistic with, I have a fairly good idea of who and what the character is I want to be. It then becomes a nightmare trying to roll stats that match this image. I won't bore you with how many characters I actually rolled before I found stats that mostly suited what I wanted. The Prodigal Son watched while I rolled several of them because he'd never used Method V from Unearthed Arcana to generate characters. He hadn't even realized that method existed.

Once I had the stats that matched the vision in my head, I had to create an adventure class non-player character father for Tris. Oh, yes, Tristan Zynara Mardil is my lofty fighter's name. I say lofty because she stands a short 6 foot 1 inches tall. Anyway, to complete her backstory, I had to roll stats for her father so the process of rolling dice to match the image began again.

And here I sit, not quite a week later, with new character in hand, ready to kill something. ~ grin ~ The only thing left to do is actually write up Tris' back story but I've got to do a little research in my old notes to make sure I get some dates right. But, instead of that, I'm taking this morning off to do a little bit of knitting and to watch the next installment of Season 3 Stargate SG-1 which arrived form Netflix yesterday.

Happy Birthday, Best Friend's Husband!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Don't forget to make a wish when you tee off!

Happy Birthday, Karen!

Technically, since it is still 3/16 for me as I type this, I am a day early. But since Karen lives across the Big Pond, it is already 3/17 and therefore her birthday, and so I say . . .

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KAREN!

But I didn't vacuum

As expected, the glasses I couldn't find on Monday have turned up on Thursday. The Prodigal's girlfriend said she found them tangled in the power cord of the vacuum cleaner.

But I didn't vacuum on Sunday. I wasn't anywhere near the silly Dyson.

Ides

Ides \YDZ\, plural noun:
In the ancient Roman calendar the fifteenth day of March, May, July, and October, and the thirteenth day of the other months.

Ides comes from Latin idus, probably from an Etruscan word meaning "division" of a month.

I'll have rice with that Cowboy Leg

I almost couldn't make it to the end I was laughing so hard. Tears were streaming and my sides hurt.

http://www.rahoi.com/2006/03/may-i-take-your-order.php

I finally have glasses

I've been on the hunt for new glasses since about 9:00 this morning. I started with my eye doctor who informed me I could have an appointment in two weeks and that my prescription had expired last month. I checked with two more optometrists who could get me in at the end of the month and there were two more who wouldn't be in the office until 10:00 a.m., one of whom had a sign on her door informing the world walk-ins would be welcome.

I went to the walk-ins welcome doc and only had to wait about 45 minutes before she could see me. I explained my predicament and we chatted while she did the exam. I like her. I may dump my doc in favor of her. She was pleasant and friendly and made me feel as if getting me a new prescription was the most important thing in the world. She was brisk without being brusque.

With prescription in hand I went to EyeMasters. They had only one person working the store and I had to put my name on a waiting list. 'Waiting' was the operative word. I had more than ample time to try on a couple dozen pair of glasses. I actually hated them all, but I did finally settle on one frame that I didn't hate as much as the others. I even had time to pick out a second frame for new reading glasses. I also picked out two of those chain things so I can wear my glasses as pieces of modern jewelry. And then I got to wait some more until it was my turn.

I'm not sure when I got done there, but I went to lunch to kill another hour while one of two pair of glasses I bought were being worked up. I ate at El Chico 'cause it's in the mall where EyeMasters is. My new reading glasses should be in on the 27th.

And I got home about 40 minutes ago. There's really no point in going to the office since it will take me an hour to get there.

I've done another quick look through of the house and my glasses are still not to be found. I wonder if the silly things will ever turn up.


The new specs dangling from their chain about my neck

Where did my eyes go?

My glasses have disappeared. I've spent the morning tearing the house apart looking for glasses that I wore yesterday afternoon to watch TV. They have completely and totally vanished. I even moved furniture looking for them. I even looked in the fridge where I found them last time they were lost. Nada. Nothing. Zip. Zilch.

I just called the boss and left a message letting him know I don't know when or if I'll be in to work today. I hope I can get a replacement pair made this morning using last year's prescription - which still works well for driving - or even get a new prescription if I can find an eye doc who'll take me first thing this morning. I don't expect the doc I used last year - whom I don't particularly care for - to get me in today. Thank goodness we have an EyeMasters at the mall and there's really nothing special about my distance prescription. Unfortunately, EyeMasters doesn't open until 10:00 a.m. so it will be this afternoon before I get glasses even if I can get in to see a doc first thing this morning.

I am at a loss as to what happened to my glasses.

I nearly forgot . . .

I have a new boss. He started on Tuesday. He's tall and slender and a displaced Cajun. He's not quite as carefree and happy-go-lucky as my last boss, but I think he'll do.

The Prodigal Son has a job!

Happy dance!

Today was his first day. It has something to do with insulation and chemical plants. For the next few weeks, he'll be working 7/10s so he'll be bringing home a pretty nice paycheck every week. I may tell him that he gets to pay for having Izzy fixed since she's not 'my' cat.

Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Harper Lee tops librarians' must-read list

The list in full:

* To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Bible

* The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien

* 1984 by George Orwell

* A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

* Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

* Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

* All Quite on the Western Front by E M Remarque

His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

* The Lord of the Flies by William Golding

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

* Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy

* Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne

* Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

* The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham

* Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

* Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

* The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

* The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

* The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

* David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

* The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Middlemarch by George Eliot

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

* A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn

* I've read 19 of the 30 books on the list. And only two of the books I read were as an assignment for a lit class in school - All Quiet on the Western Front and To Kill a Mockingbird - instead of on my own and both of them are still favorites as well as several of the others.

I like my bank

I sent the Prodigal Son out last night to fill up my car and pick up food for us to eat. He called me while he was out to say my debit card had been rejected at the store and it had also been rejected at the bank's ATM machine. He came back home and I sent him out with a credit card to get the stuff.

I immediately got online to check my account and everything looked fine. I assumed there was just some sort of glitch and things would be fine.

This morning, on my way to work, I stopped to pick up breakfast and my debit card was rejected again. This time, the clerk said it had been rejected because it had been reported lost/stolen. It obviously wasn't lost or stolen since I had it in my hot little hands.

I called the bank. One of the merchants where I shop had their database hacked into and reported the intrusion. My bank immediately canceled my debit card and I will have a brand new one in 7 to 9 days. I'm not sure how I will survive without my trusty debit card. I'm not sure I even remember how to write a check.

;D

Artful Dodger Jack Wild dies at 53

I don't know what to say. It almost feels like a piece of my youth just slipped away.

Pay too much and you could raise the alarm

Big Brother is watching.