CoffeeJitters has moved to coffeejitters.net/blog


Monday, June 26, 2006

is it just me?

So it's 8pm and still 89 degrees (F) in a part of the country where this is not every day fare . . .
air-conditioning? not in this town

I'm just nursing my bruised ego from an all out - tears included - argument about, of all things, ice cream flavors, and it occurred to me that I heard somewhere that people tend to fight more when the tempurature goes up. Anyone else notice this phenomenon in their own lives?

Do you find it's easier to get into some silly, non-sensical argument with your significant other/ family/friends when the tempuratures soar?

come on, work with me here - tell me I'm not alone

Sunday, June 18, 2006

#32

I just wandered around to see what he was up to – and he was washing the windows.


See more progress on: identify 100 reasons why I love my partner

Pop

I am so lucky.

Happy Fathers' Day Pop

071022-070 071022-062 071022-005Judy_Daddy
071022-068040905 judy pop 1

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Good Day

Today Sarah brought fixins for Office S'mores into the office...
Every office should have a Sarah
I love Office S'mores


After work I met up with Mr. H,
Then to Johnny Rockets for Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Then we went to the movie theater and saw Over the Hedge





freaking awesome day!

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Rufus

I was sitting in the doctors office when I finally came to terms with the fact that I am, in fact, extremely allergic to my dog. I had suspected it for some time, maybe even knew it. This wasn't the first time it came up. In fact, we'd been discussing my allergies and my dog for years when I finally *knew* what I'd known all along.

Years of trying one med after another and in different combinations, air cleaners, humidifiers, de-humidifiers, and every other suggestion from doctors and alternatives we could find - and yet my sinuses raged, one infection after another.

We talked about it for a few months and finally decided that we needed to find him another home.

We put adds in the paper, talked to friends, talked to friends of friends, and their cousins too. We talked to the Humane Society, but that didn't go anywhere - he's much too anxious in a cage do ever be adopted in that environment. We met people at dog parks, tried a few trial runs, but could not find the right people.

'He's too big' was a common response, and at 85 pounds, that's understandable. 'He drools too much' ... I got a kick out of that one. And don't get me started on the people that wanted him, but we rejected. One guy said he had several big dogs, he wanted to come over and pick him up but had no interest whatsoever in letting the dogs meet each other in a neutral place or even telling us where he lived. Thank you very much, but we'll keep looking.

Well over a year later we met, through a friend of a friend, a couple in portland. They have an older dog, a fenced in yard, and they're totally dog people. When we talked on the phone we instantly connected. They're in their 50s, no kids, just dogs. Love to have parties. A little over a month ago they invited us down to Portland for the dogs to meet. We met up at a dog park and the pups seemed to get along fine and I was totally impressed with them. "Oh look, he's a drooler too." That comment made points with me. So we took him over to their house.

They have the cutest cottage, very homey and dog friendly, awesome back yard, great references (I totally trust my friend that referred them)







we left him there







That was the hardest thing I have ever done. But I feel really good that I did the right thing. He has a back yard and a playmate - he had neither of those here with us. I know he's getting lots of love and I know he's well cared for. They just sent us pictures... (Rufus is the younger one with the tongue hanging out)




As for me... it took a couple weeks for me to notice a difference in my health, but now I can tell I'm doing a lot better. It's still so strange to come home and not be greeted at the door.

Monday, June 12, 2006

Birds & Bees

While looking at my pictures of my zucchini plants, mom mentioned that all the flowers were male.

Me: How do you know if they're male or female?
Mom: Look for fruit or just a stalk right under the bud.
Me: So does the male have fruit or just a stalk?
Mom: Female has the fruit, do we have to talk about the birds and the bees again?
Me: So should I pinch off all the male flowers so the nutrients go to the females?
Mom: You can pinch off most of them, but you need at least one male for pollination. You really weren't listening during that birds and bees talk, were you?

Sheds a new light on our infertility issues...

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Proud wife, with a chocolate problem

My husband received a letter from UW today stating that he's been accepted as a transfer student into the Near Eastern Studies program (I should specify that I mean the University of Washington rather than the University of Wisconsin / Waterloo / Wurzburg / Wyoming / Wales / Warwick / Westminster / Wollongong) I'm so proud of him I could just pop. I think we should celebrate with chocolate.

Hmmmm..., we have a chocolate problem (specifically a lack thereof)
I told him this...

Me: I need chocolate
Him: (something completely unrelated to chocolate so I wasn't listening)
Me: that's nice, but what are we going to do about our chocolate problem?
Him: What do you mean we? I don't have a chocolate problem
Me: What's mine is yours and I have a chocolate problem
Him: (laughs and returns to playing Grand Theft Auto - Why did I ever buy him that game?)

How is it possible that we have no chocolate in the house?

Zip

Zilch

None

*pout*

I'm off to go find chocolate.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Note to God

I already learned patience. I was patient yesterday, twice.

Monday, June 05, 2006

#31

He can speak several different languages including Farsi, Arabic and Spanish – and that is just so sexy to me.

See more progress on: identify 100 reasons why I love my partner

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Marjane Satrapi

This afternoon we hopped in the truck and tootled our way over to the Ballard Library for a reading and book signing with Marjane Satrapi. Marjane Satrapi is best known for her books Persepolis, Persepolis 2 and Embroideries.

I was shocked at the turnout. We spent the first part of the talk standing in the doorway between a tall woman who was kind enough to occasionally turn around and summarize what was just said, and the old woman who kept pressing her cane into my toes - I'm sorry I'm as far over as I can get, I'm not standing in your way just cuz I don't like old people, I literally can't move.

I spent the first few minutes of the talk wondering why I was actually still standing there. Aside from the fact that my husband really wanted to be there, I couldn't see a damn thing, I was being jostled around by people with absolutely no manners, packed in like sardines with lots of people and let me make this very clear - I hate people. I had my eye's closed straining to hear Ms. Satrapi over the chatter of the people behind me talking about how they couldn't hear, when I was shoved again, this time from the front as people were trying to make their way out. I let the lady with the cane in ahead of me and after a few more people left we were able to inch our way inside the room and so was able to hear most of the second half of her talk - which was the question and answer section. I didn't hear most of the questions, but her answers were illuminating anyways.

She has another book coming out in the fall that will be called Chicken with Plums and Persepolis will be made into an animated feature film, it will be black and white and the role of her mother will be voiced by Catherine Deneuve.

She made it clear that she didn't have answers to questions about Iranian foreign policy or nuclear weapons "If I say I support Iran's right to have nuclear weapons, then I am siding with the Islamic Regime; if I say Iran should not have nuclear weapons, I'm saying 'Please Mr. Bush, invade my country.'"

When asked about the American war against Iraq she mentioned that 80% of the world's population live under evil dictatorships, but few of the other countries have resources of interest to the United States. As far as the Islamic fundamentalists are concerned, she said that fundamentalists of any persuasion, whether it is Islamic, or Jewish, or Christian, or Secular (yes there are secular fundamentaists too) ARE the problem, the fundamentalist point of view precludes thought and reason and especially learning.

Ms. Satrapi grew up in revolutionary Iran. The revolution occured when she was 10 years old, and Iraq attacked a year later. The Shaw was an oppressive dictator. The Iranian Revolution, like the French Revolution centuries earlier, overthrew and evil government that oppressed the people and had to go. Unfortunately, in both cases, the government that rose up to fill the void was just a different kind of evil. On the topic of democracy she said "Democracy is a cultural shift more than a political one. It will take time. You cant force democracy."

The world is full of idiots and that wont stop. Often the idiots are more alike than different. George W. Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have more in common than just a messiah complex. On the topic of dictators, she was careful to specify that it was not a comment against men. "Dictators are raised by their mothers. Their mothers teach them how to be."

Ms. Satrapi currently lives in France with her Swedish husband. She speaks 6 languages and is a huge supporter of education. Continuous learning for everyone is the most important thing. She also believes that the more you travel the better a person you become because you can shed the brainwashing by experiencing the truth. The more points of view you can understand the better a person you become. She finds that often, in France, she is the defender of Americans to the French, because she has been to America and experienced American people despite the brainwashing against americans she experienced as a child in Iran and in France.

She talked for quite a while, and there was a lot that she said that I missed, but I would stand in a croweded room to hear her speak again in a heartbeat, and you can bet I'll be getting Chicken with Plumbs as soon as it hits the stores.

Purge & Binge

So lately we've been buying a lot of books and they're starting to stack up. This afternoon Mr. H and I looked at each other and around the book pit we call our home and decided that we can't bring another book into this house until we take at least two boxes of books out.

I started with the computer books and that was easy. Why on earth do I still have a copy of WordPerfect for Windows 97 when I don't even have WordPerfect installed on any of my current computers? Then there's several variations on C++ the easy way which I never actually got around to learning. And Windows 2000 Professional Server for a computer named HAL that spontaneously combusted several years ago. Ah the memories. Chucked them and most of the other computer books in a box and made a nice little space for more computer toys.

Now on to the rest of my book collection, because that only took care of one box. Which of my childred to cast aside... There are the textbooks - although most of them are outdated and most used book stores wont take them, but we'll give it a shot at least for the books from classes where I hated the professor. Well that topic was fascinating though so I'll keep that one. And I wrote all over in this one, and well we'll see if they'll buy these four.

Then I hunted around and found another 10 books that I thought I might be able to part with to complete filling the second box. Don't get me wrong. There are quite a few books in here that you could remove from my house and I wouldn't even know they were gone. There are books that are completely uninspired that I started reading and will probably never, ever finish. There are books that I will probably never actually start reading (in addition to the textbooks). But this was a big emotional event for me and I think 2 boxes of books is enough gut wrenching for one day. So we packed up our books and took them down to half price books.

They said it would take 20 minutes to come up with a quote, so while we were waiting we did some browsing. Mr. H found a copy of the Holy Bible printed in Persian in the Arabic section (can't expect these guys to be able to distinguish Arabic from Farsi). That's a pretty rare, and a pretty cool find. Is it wierd that it turns me on that my husband can read to me from the bible in farsi? It's like the scene in A Fish Called Wanda where she keeps telling him to talk to her in russian...I wandered around and found a book by Dave Eggers I hadn't read yet "how we are hungry" well I can't not get that. I love, LOVE Dave Eggers. I would have married him but then I met my husband and dave eggers still doesnt know I exist. And dave eggers probably couldnt read to me from the bible in farsi anyways.

I looked a little further and found a book called "No Touch Monkey! and other travel lessons I learned too late" by Ayun Halliday. I had never heard of the author or the book before but I opened it to a random page and laughed out loud - turned to another page and laughed out loud again. I'm really looking forward to reading this one.

The total for the two boxes of books came to $13.75 and our purchases cost $17.30, which means it only cost us $3.55 to unload those books and now we have space to bring home even more books.

© Judy Haley. All rights reserved.

Labels