Snow in Portland

Broadband spoils snow days. We had a kind-of surprise snowstorm last Tuesday morning. The forecasters all called for snow flurries, 1-3" at most, and what we got was a solid 3 inches, all within about 4 hours - it was snowing heavily! Happily, I am a wimp when snow is predicted and even though the streets were clear at 6AM, there were little dancing flurries and evidence of accumulating snow on the traffic camera for my route to work. So I decided to play it safe and work from home - just for the morning, mind you, so the traffic could settle down. Instead I spent the morning attending meetings by phone and dashing out to sweep the walk in-between calling in. I put in a solid day's work, and Wednesday I stayed home...and did the same thing. More meetings, no snow-frolicing. Sigh.

Since then it's warmed up and there's no snow left, which is good since I don't really care for questionable road conditions. My tango class starts this week, and I carefully rearranged a trip to Folsom for Monday through Wednesday next week so I wouldn't miss next week's class (clever, eh?).

I'm just waiting for the axe to drop on the jury selection. Best case, they immediately disqualify me for one reason or another. Worst case, they run out of objections and I'm stuck. The general consensus here is that they won't want me (should I take it personally that all my bosses believe this?). We'll see...

Hope all's well with y'all. Missed catching up with you this weekend!
Love,
Martha

Jury Duty?!?

So, this weekend I got a summons for jury duty. Not content with just a one-day summons, your dear sister got one for a trial that could last 4 weeks (or longer), and I won't find out if I'm selected until I actually show up for selection. That fateful day will be Friday, Feb 2nd - just a few weeks away.

The jury is still out (so to speak, heh, heh) on whether I would be a desirable juror. WIll my overeducated state weigh for me, or against me? What about where I am employed? What if I state things like "I believe in data-driven decisions, speculation is futile?" Will the defense love me? Will the prosecution hate me? What if I say that I love CSI?

Stay tuned. THis is going to be interesting. Or it might be completely anti-climactic, I'll build up this whole big thing, and then I'll get back to work on Monday as usual...

Love,
Martha

Another No-Rain Weekend?

This week has provided some snowy weather, and left us with clear but COLD weather. Cold for Portland, anyway, where the highs during the day are only touching the 30's. This clear weather, though, means No Rain, which then provides No Excuses for staying inside huddled under blankets with my feet on a radiator so I don't catch a cold in the chilly, damp outdoors. So, off to Home Depot I went, to pick up hopefully the final batch of lumber and a vinyl gutter for the side of my garage. (Have I mentioned that the truck is a godsend for this kind of trip?) There is no gutter there now, though I suspect there was once, a long time ago. So, water sheets off the roof and into a garden and puts a lot of water right by the side of the garage. This arrangement seems to be starting to leak. Therefore (you guessed it) I need to install at least a rudimentary gutter to divert it away from the garage.

$165 later, I'm home again. Awfully expensive, these trips are. Did you know it's possible to spend $24 just on deck screws? Yeah, it's 5 lbs of screws and these should now last me forever (1 lb being too few, 5 lbs being a bit excessive, and naturally they don't come in in-between increments).

But, after procrastinating an hour or so talking on the phone, getting lunch to make sure I'm well fueled (PB&J, the weekend lunch of choice) I piled on the clothes, ignored the white dust that occasionally drifted down from the sky, pretending to be snow, and I finished the stairs. That's right, I finished them. I am so proud of myself I could just split. OK, so I can point out all the little flaws and errors and things that didn't line up just right. But from a distance, it looks wonderful.

And now I can go sit on my backside and watch Battlestar Galactica with no guilt whatsoever. I have EARNED that down time.

Mini chocolate chip fix

Have you ever, in a fit of chocolate/sweet/must_have_dessert desperation, pulled out the mini chocolate chips as your quick fix?

It's not pretty, mainly because they're impossible to eat one by one, so you have to resort to tossing handfuls back.

Just your snack-food thought of the day...

Ga-Rumpy

Sleeping in on a Saturday morning is a great way to start the day, no? And we had a pleasant evening last night, where knitterly friend Heidi came by and dropped off some crack in the form of Battlestar Galactica DVD's and admired sweater progress. We talked about her wedding (possible elopement) plans and after she took off, D and I had dinner and watched one of the episodes. I knit. All good, no?

Along with the errands (how long does it take one to get stamps when needed? Ans: three weeks, give or take a week. I could have walked the letter to its destination by now. Possibly on my hands and knees.) I picked up my new down jacket from REI. I'd had to exchange it because I completely misjudged the size, but round two worked very well. It surprises me how light down is - my old jacket was a second-hand special (Youth XL) that could take any kind of beating I chose to rain down upon it, and was completely washable. I'm keeping the old one - it works, it's washable, and I can do mucky work in it. But the new one is sleek and smooth and light. It makes me happy and cozy.

We also went dancing last night - a new venue is opening up something like 20 blocks from the house, and the first night was free. So, we turned out to check it out. It'll be $8 once it gets rolling - we'll see if it's worth paying for. My biggest beef is that the dancers I LIKE to dance with typically aren't there, and this night was no exception. There were enough, though, that I was able to get a light sheen of sweat, pant some, swear I need to work out more, and leave with a nice after-dance glow.

Still trying to add music to the Nano, too. I'm putting CD's on. This takes forever, really it does. Doesn't help that my CD collection is on the first floor and the computer is on the second, in the bedroom. I need to get some more on there for my flight to FM on Thursday - I'm very much looking forward to actually be able to listen to music during the flight, instead of the voices in my head that have been stopped in there by the earplugs...

Love,
Martha

So, this is 2007?

Hmm, seems like this is a lot like 2006, only the days are finally starting to get longer, minutes at a time. In case you haven't already seen it, Battlestar Galactica (the miniseries, segwaying into the series) is actually really good. D and I watched the miniseries this weekend while I was knitting away, and I'm now anxiously awaiting the first disk of the first season, which seems to be in high demand at Netflix, since there is actually a *wait*. The sweater front is moving along well - I've now gotten to the v-neck part, and I'm working my way up the left half of the V. I actually had to stop knitting during the miniseries when I hit this part because I didn't want to screw it up. I resumed knitting to a PBS special about Ramses I - figuring out that this mummy in Niagra Falls (now back in Egypt) was in fact a royal mummy, and then the process by which they deemed Ramses I to be the most likely culprit. Quite interesting!

Otherwise, life in these parts is rather dull, except my boss Tom is getting promoted to a "two in a box" division head, and so I'll be passed off to another person shortly. But the two options are both people who have supervised me before, and I like them both, so it's not a bad situation. It's just sad that Tom's going on to bigger & better things - he has just rocketed up the promotion ladder - he's just that good. So, while it's a gain for the division and they can use the leadership, it does suck that he won't be working on our day to day stuff anymore. Them's the breaks, I guess.

I have the Jones Family Calendar hung up in my cubicle, and showed Bruce, my old (and possible new again) boss the photos. His favorite was the one Lisa took of Margaret & me at the glacier. What is it about that photo that tickles peoples funnybones that much? Sure, I think it's cute, but I like the growling dragon one, or the mosquitoes one just as much. Maybe you had to be there for the other photos...

And it's still raining. And raining. Sigh...
Love,
Martha