Category Archives: Love

Bindu comes to work

May 30, 2006PetsMush

In which there’s dog love.

Just got back from lunch. Bread came and picked me up and we got tacos and sat under a tree at Whitham Woods to eat. Then we stopped at TSC for dog and cat food, then he drove me to the jeep. He’d already changed the tire and it was on its tiny little doughnut.

He took the jeep, I took his truck and came back to work.

Bread brought all three of the dogs into town with him ’cause he wasn’t thinking, and it’s too hot to leave them in a vehicle and too weird to take all three of them to a shop and leave ’em in the jeep while the tires are getting changed. So I’ve got Bindu under my desk because Bread didn’t really want three of them with him. Somehow two are easier to manage than three.

Oh, that blue dog. HOW CUTE IS SHE?!?!?

Standards

May 26, 2006MusicMush

In which I contemplate singing some jazz. Jazz, people! (Did you know I once majored in vocal jazz performance?)

After band practice last night (which wasn’t practice but more like a two-hour conversation), I drove WTC home. After he finished bitching about his job — which he clearly needed to do, the poor monster — we talked about maybe doing some jazz standards together as a side project. Maybe at an open mic or something. He asked me to send him a list of tunes I’d like to do, and maybe we’d find a keyboardist or drummer or something and work up a little cocktail set.

You know, just for fun and to stay sharp.

So today I started surfing for a real book. Did you know they’re legal now?! (Although the legal versions are missing some of the charts found in the original, and some of the other charts are in different keys.)

I found a few real book editions in torrent format that I want to try. There’s also an ultimate fake book torrent that I’m in the process of downloading right now. Mainly to see what they look like; I’m sure I’ll end up buying a legal real book if I end up doing much jazz.

I haven’t sung a jazz standard in at least a decade! It’ll be so fun to work on my jazz chops again. I’d love to do torch-style standards with bass and piano; that would be a dream.

I found some changes for Here’s That Rainy Day, Nice Work If You Can Get It, and Our Love Is Here To Stay. I think I’ll start with those. I’d love to do Skylark, A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square, and A Night In Tunesia, and and and…

Jazz. Yum.

Hey! I might survive!

May 18, 2006Health, Love & MarriageMush

In which I seem to be recovering.

I feel better today. Seriously! I’ve been awake for a few hours now, in a row. I told work I might even be in later, but we’ll see.

And no, I’m not going to get my tonsils hacked out. It takes ten to twenty days to recover from that shit, did you know that? TEN to TWENTY DAYS. And after ten to fourteen days, the scabs come off and if the bleeding doesn’t stop by itself? Emergency cauterization surgery! So, like, fuck that running.

Bread sat at my desk and read all the posts on my index page this morning (he’s been to goblinbox maybe five times in the ~~seven~~ eight (!) years we’ve been together), while I lounged on the day bed in a pile of dogs, and he actually laughed out loud several times. “See, I told you I’m funny!” I said proudly. Then he took that National Geographic survey and only missed two. Two!

“I suppose I’ll never hear the end of it,” I said. “You’re gonna go ’round thinkin’ you’re smarter than me now.”

He laughed. “Who doesn’t know that Italy’s shaped like a boot! Jesus, Mush!”

Insufferable bastard.

Late For Dinner

May 2, 2006Geek, Love & MarriageMush

In which I’m incredibly rude.

Last night I stayed late after work, moving goblinbox.com to its new server. Bread called and wanted to meet for a drink and then dinner. I said I’d be right there… then I got distracted fucking around with this or that thing. I finally realized what time it was — forty-five minutes later — and ran out to the jeep, and Bread was there and boy was he PISSED ALL THE WAY OFF AT ME.

I so deserved it.

We drove to a restaurant for pizza in our seperate rigs. When we were seated, I apologized furiously for being so late. I’m a geek who needs to watch the time.

In other news, I’m totally moved to the new box but Keef wants me to wait ’til the new DNS server’s working. So the move may not be for another day. Or two. Or three. We’ll see.

All My Friends Are Rockstars

May 1, 2006MusicMush

In which you can download a whole album. Or three! Or ten!

In honor of the imminent arrival of the Corbinator here in the fairest of fields (he’s supposed to be at Truck & Amazon Blonde’s place tonight sometime), I went over to Emo’s and fed The Simpletons to my iPod.

Yum.

You should do it, too. It’s a freakin’ great album. It’s free. And it’s, like, Corby, man.

Shopping for Mexican

April 30, 2006Domestic Goddess, Love & Marriage, SocialMush

In which we prepare for Friday’s par-tay.

Saturday Bread and I went to town and had McDonald’s for breakfast. I know, I know. Don’t say anything.

Then we went to the vet’s and bought Frontline for the animals. Then we bought kibbles for the animals. Hundred and ten bucks right there. (Next time, we’re getting gerbils. I swear to God, three dogs and a cat’s a habit more expensive than drugs.) Then home.

I had a lunch date with NLW at noon-thirty, but I was totally late and the poor woman was starving when I got there. She fed me spinach pesto and we drank the six dollar bottle of wine I’d brought. Somehow during the course of the afternoon I spent sixty bucks on yarn, needles, and a pattern — I’ll be knitting this in a week or so. My first sweater! Hopefully starting it in May will mean I’ll actually be wearing it by next winter. (I’m still knitting the Fuzzyfeet my mother requested last Thanksgiving.)

I stopped at the store for a few things afterward and was home a little after five. Bread talked me into going back to town for the third time that day, and we ate dinner at the Dead Cock. It was slow in there, mellow and quiet. We watched South Park and went home.

Today I slept ’til ten. (Yes!) When I got up, Bread was doing laundry. Then we went to Nanner’s house, and Bread cooked breakfast. I have no idea why he cooked breakfast; he just did. He made asparagus, tomato, and onion omelettes with hash browns. It was awesome.

Nanner gave me an office chair. When we got home, I cleaned my office and the bedroom and swept the parts of the second storey that aren’t actually under construction. Bread brought my new chair in. IT ROLLS. I love it. It’s a totally legit office chair! It has arm rests and it’s adjustable and everything. It’s possible that I’ve never been happier about a chair in my entire life.

Amazon Blonde and Truck came out; Truck stayed here and AB and I went to ScrOttumwa to do our Cinqo de Mayo shopping at the big goddamned community-killer they call Super Wal-Mart. It’s so fuckin’ cheap I feel dirty — and not in a good way — whenever I go there: we bought a cart full of stuff and it only cost $66. And $22 of that was for the half-gallon of namebrand rum we’d bought!

I know their prices will pop back up to average after they’ve killed all the older, smaller grocery stores in town, but for now? You just can’t get shit cheaper anywhere else. (Plus their Mexican — excuse me, Hispanic — food selection is much broader than any of Fairfield’s stores.)

After shopping, AB and I stopped at the Tom-Tom Tap for cocktails and a gossip. It was lovely. Love the Tom-Tom.

Later, at home, I folded Bread’s laundry (in order to empty the dryer so I could wash and dry my own clothes) and Bread did the dishes. If the fucker’s not careful, I’m going to start believing him soon when he says he’s actually learned to be a decent roommate.

In other news, I had goblinbox moved over to the new server, but then Keef had an interaction with the new server’s support/billing departments that was so scary and wrong it just boded badly for the whole enterprise and he dropped that whole thing like it was hot and got a server elsewhere. So I have to move the whole goddamned site again, but it’s nine o’clock on Sunday night and I ain’t drivin’ to town to do it now, and I sure as hell ain’t doing it over dial-up from home.

In short, there may be outages tomorrow in goblinboxland. But rest assured, my babies, that mamma’ll be workin’ on it.

Music for the Big Move

April 27, 2006Health, Music, WebMush

In which I totally didn’t put my refund into savings. Also: music, massage, my uterus, and moving the ‘box to a new server.

I got my $100 refund from Iowa this week, so I promptly spent it on two CDs and a massage! woot!

MUSIC

Bombay Dub Orchestra: Bombay Dub Orchestra Recently, Comfort Music turned me onto a few tracks from this CD and I dug ’em so much I had to buy the whole thing. It’s eastern Indian pop, basically, and if you know me you know I love me some eastern Indian pop.

The first CD is entitled ‘bombay’ and I’ve already heard three of the 12 tracks. The second CD is called simply ‘dub’ and features eight remixes of the material on the first CD. I’m ripping it into iTunes now and am really excited to hear it.

Magnet: The Tourniquet I intend to buy all the Magnet albums I can find, starting with this one. (I love Magnet.) I’m still listening to the unfamiliar tracks on this one; it’s so exciting to have fresh goodies on one’s iPod.

Nod to The Rex Monday… again… for turning me on to Magnet in the first place.

MASSAGE

My massage therapist, who also happens to be Amazon Blonde, totally fucking rocks. She has a heated pad for her table, so I got to lie there in wonderful warmth while she worked on me. She’s really good at what she does, and her warm table kept me from feeling too crampy. She’s going to turn her front room into a massage room. I told her I’d bring her all of my mellow CDs to play when she’s working.

I loved that warm table, so soothing. When I got up, though, the Cramps From Hell™ arrived like an avalanche. I popped 500mg of acetaminophen and drove home. On the way, before the meds kicked in, I was all shaky and watery and trembly and felt like my guts were tied in knots.

BLEEDING

At home, I didn’t have any more Tylenol, so I waited seven hours before taking any ibuprofin because I didn’t know if you could take them both at once. This means I spent the time from nine to eleven last night rocking and crying and moaning and being in pain. Then I took a pill, but it didn’t help. Twenty minutes later I took another — for a total 400mg of ibuprofin — and was able to fall asleep.

“Some women experience increased menstrual pain in their late 30s and 40s as their endocrine systems prepare for menopause by decreasing hormone levels and thus fertility… An estimated 10 percent to 15 percent of women experience monthly menstrual pain severe enough to prevent normal daily function at school, work, or home.”

It’s called dysmenorrhea. The pain. And yes, it is excessive. Quite.

‘Normal aging,’ my ass.

MOVING

In other news, the ‘box is moving — for real. I’ve got much of my crap moved to the new server, I’ve regained control of DNS for the domain, and I’ll probably stay late tonight after work and finish the move so I can update DNS tomorrow morning. When Rants is back up, you’ll know the move is done. You may get errors trying to visit goblinbox.com tomorrow or over the weekend, depending on how fast DNS propegates and how well I test my apps before moving over.

Farewell, sweet Dhuma

April 16, 2006PetsMush

In which one of our canine/human family passes.

Re-re called me last night after I’d gone to bed, so of course I didn’t answer. She called back a bit later and left me the message that I got late this morning: Miss Dhuma died last night.

dhuma

~+~+~
Years and years ago, Dhuma and I cohabitated. Actually, her people at the time, Re-re and her then-BF RP, shared a house with Bread and myself, but that’s secondary. Dhuma and I lived together, so I knew her well, and she was an awesome person. Awesome fur person. Whatever.

Dhuma was not only Stella’s littermate, but one of the many, many dogs that ties a rather large group of very old friends (and lovers, on occasion) together. The canine family lineage goes like this:

Once upon a time, Blount got a dog. A short-haired Golden/Lab mix bitch he named Tigger. [She’s 14 now.] Blount was close with Bread, Re-re, RP, BoS, Truck, and others. Tigger became the foundation bitch for five generations of dogs, many of whom are owned by our friends.

Tigger begat, among others, Ginny [12 yrs] (originally Trucks’ dog, and now living with the Craig-Phillipses) and Kaia [12] (the apple of BoS’s eye, and the One Who Has Been Known to Physically Push Girls Out of BoS’s Bed On Occasion if They Were Sleeping In Her Spot).

Ginny (now known as Jenny) begat, among others, by Bread’s dog Stimpy (deceased), both Stella [10] and Dhuma.

Kaia begat, among others, BoS’s dogs Shiva, Luna, and Buddha, and Prana [5], RP’s current dog.

When Stimpy died, Bread took Stella because she was one of Stimpy’s. Eventually Stella begat, among others, my Shiva, and Thea [5] (who makes her home with Jenny and the Craig-Phillipses).

There are other dogs from these various litters who live with other friends of this extended group of people…The point is that a great number of our family-of-friends’s members have dogs from this line, so it’s more than just a friend losing a pet: we’ve all lost her.

Dhuma was a honey-colored short-hair Golden/Lab mix, a world-class swimmer and fetcher, and a really nice person. Dhuma had a cute pinkish-brownish nose instead of a black one. When she greeted you she’d sing this wonderful keening love song just for you and wiggle a lot and growl and smile, pulling her lips back and ducking her head. I used to say, “Dhum-dhum-dhuma-dhuma-DHUMA!” when I visited her house, and she’d sing at me with her deep voice, and grin at me.

She was obedient (in her own special way), and gentle, and smart, and handsome, and loyal.

I loved that dog. She was the kind of dog who’d give you a happy-to-see-you-dance whether you hadn’t seen her in four hours or four years. And she was a great snuggler.

You’ll be missed, Dhuma.

I’m going to hug Stella and Bindu and Shiva now.