She's funny and classy, and sassy and thoughtful and raw and just down to earth really for real... and amazing, and incredible and wonderful and I would go see her again in a heartbeat!
She said the coliseum was intimate, *raises eyebrow* it has two mezzanine balconies and seats ~4,296... and yet somehow she has made it her home away from home, and it really was kind of intimate *smiles*.
She knocked it out out of the park finishing a couple of her songs in classic Celine fashion, but even knowing that she was going to do it didn't lessen the impact. In fact seeing it in person was even more phenomenal than I could have possibly imagined... until I realized she was singing the guitar solo.
*jaw dropping* whaaaa?!?
My mind *exploded* and she shattered my perception of an amazing singer into a bzillion sparkling crystalline pieces.
Yep, that pretty much put her light years above and beyond anyone I've ever heard. In. My. Life.
I ran the full gamut of emotions that evening, she shared pieces of herself in the way that only people who are fully comfortable on stage can, including a little leg from her cocktail dress "for Renee" she confided, and then again a little later "for anyone who wants to look", and she looks amazing!
We laughed and cried, and I earned even more respect for another artist I admire deeply. This artist can turn feelings into lyrics, and when Celine needed it most she wrote a song for her. It's called Recovering, and the artist is Pink! If you haven't heard it I recommend taking a listen, but it's worth having some kleenex on standby. One of the friends we went with kindly shared her make-up wipes and we sniffled together :p
No matter what you think you know about her, if you're the least bit interested and you have the opportunity definitely go see her show live, it's an amazing experience. She's a very special one of a lifetime kind of person, and I'm so thankful I was able to see her, it's a memory I wont soon forget!
I read once that when you make a mistake you should take immediate steps to correct it...
Last year my friend's Auntie Mayweather lent us her parole (it's a traditional Philipino Christmas decoration, some are more elaborate than others but as far as I have seen they are all beautiful). It came to us in a large black plastic garbage bag, the string of blue lights were burnt out and the cord was wrapped in masking tape where it had be twisted together with the plug end... but it looked wonderful blinking in the window - after I immediately replaced the masking tape with electricians tape of course.
Some months later while innocuously playing scrabble we heard a large crash outside and then nothing... probably cats, thinking nothing of it until the next morning when I discovered the wreath box I thought I'd so cleverly entombed the parole in on the floor... with a slightly bent and broken parole inside.
My heart sank.
On a number of levels I felt responsible. I shouldn't have put it in the wreath box without modifying (dremeling) it so it fit better, and I should have put some kind of padding in there with it... at very least a towel. *exhales*
Of course this happened not long before Christmas, when people *cough* Auntie Mayweather *cough cough* would notice it was missing. The initial look is always the worst, your worst fears manifest themselves and it's broken broken. The second look, where I took a deep breath and actually looked was much better. I realized that none of the shells were broken, and for the most part things had just popped out of place.
It took a few days of mentally preparing myself to hunker down and start the project of "fixing" it.
The girls joked that we should take a picture and say that I was "making a parole" Martha Stewart style because I'm crafty like that, but I was still too nervous that I wouldn't be able to pull it off and that pre-emptively taking a picture would somehow jinx my chances of completion.
Also, I say "fixing" because it turned into six hours of hunched over tongue biting concentration, composed of vary degrees of holding my breath, sweating, swearing, crossing my fingers, praying and crazy-gluing my fingers together countless times before I had the outer half edge of the parole back into more or less the right shape. Save two points which were under slightly too much strain to crazy glue.
*exhales* This was when I started to feel like it really might be possible to fix it fix it. I took a drink of water, and then began "phase 2". The purpose of phase 2 was to reinforce everything, and make it fixed forever. I gathered some tiny clamps and a disposable paint brush and mixed up the small choose your own adventure travel size epoxy.
One of my favorite quotes of my Dad's is that:
"Epoxy is forever"
Another hour or so, a stiff paint brush and four quickly solidifying piles of epoxy later and I had dabbed each of the joints of the outer ring and clamped the two remaining points that the crazy glue couldn't hold.
*exhales*
Now we can talk about me building a parole *weak smile* at this point I was tired and relieved... there was still work to be done, but we had reached the tipping point where I knew it was doable and I was fully confident in my emergency arts and crafts abilities. With the Ninja's help and her extra set of very patient hands, we hot glued all the lights that had popped off back in place, and found that with a little luck the first blue bulb she touched just needed a little jiggle to settle back in place and the whole string lit up again!
*grins* Now we're golden, not only is it fixed, but it's better than when we got it.
As a final touch I clipped and soldered the power cable with appropriate amounts of shrink tubing in all the right places, and called it a day. The parole looks awesome in the window, feeling is slowly returning to my fingertips as the crazy glue peels off, and there are only two panels where we got the lights slightly out of order... but you probably wouldn't notice unless I told you muahahahaaa ;)
It is still a mystery why it jumped off the filing cabinets after all that time up there undisturbed, one theory is that it was the ghost of Houdini the bird that escaped his cage (Auntie Mayweather's bird to be precise) - but that's a story for another day... In any case, I feel as though I were able to live true to an old Girl Guide saying of "leave things better than when you found them."
My new bike rack arrived Wednesday catalyzing the expenditure of a weeks worth of pent up excited energy and anticipation!
I spent a good chunk of the evening installing it, and overall am impressed!
My only disappointment is in the cable locks, I know they're only supposed to be a deterrent... but it just seems like they did such a good job of making them integrated and easy to use, that the implementation of the actual lock bit falls short of my expectations. It just doesn't feel that secure to me, like maybe if I reefed on it the right way it would just pop open :/
That aside, I love the rack so far! It feels super secure in the hitch, and my bike feels super secure in the rack and when I try to wiggle either the whole car moves rather than jiggling... which makes me happy :)
The cutest thing was our neighbor literally jumped out of a moving car when his wife said "Oh look Sammy got a surfboard". He was *so* excited for me, and said the best thing about them is that when you get dumped you don't have to cover your head and face like with the old wooden surfboards... he got 15 stitches from one once!
You know when you put something together, and things fit the way you had envisioned... Does that still scare you, or do you have enough practice now that you know how to do it properly?
Because it still scares me a little. Like when mechanics used to have pieces left over after putting cars back together, and they would still run...
Nevertheless, behold! It could probably use a few more things holding the two trellisesss together, but all in all I think we did pretty well.
*high five* team
$5 Garage sale jade plant score! (except that it came with spiders!)
New meaning to the term "sun dog"
Once when she was let out before the sun was actually *on* the deck, she leaned into the patch of sun on the wall... Absolutely pathetic and adorable all at the same time, like she doesn't get enough sun down her in California *rolls eyes*
I'm afraid I don't have a picture for you, so we're going to have to do this the old fashioned way. You're going to have to use your imagination.
Picture this... one of those old dark blue milk crates, securely fastened to the front of the handlebars on my "new" BMX bike, which is juuuuuust about the right size for a chihuahua.
Are you with me so far? No? Hmmmm...
Think back, waaaay back, remember E.T.? Yeah that's right *head nod* you got it, that's how awesome it looks in my head too *grins*
Anyways we went for a little bike ride today, and despite ending up on the wrong side of the road for like 30 seconds, during which we were passed by the Sheriffs police cruiser?!? *gulp* we managed not to get pulled over...
We did however garner many well deserved double-takes and other such looks... ranging from "Awwww" through "OMG there's a DOG in that basket!!!" and "WTF?!?" to the *huge reminiscent smiles* of "That. is. awesome." which totally made it all worth it.
I think today we did Kermit proud, and made people smile.
When my Granny was 80 she went down the big water-slide at West Ed "The Sky
Screamer" which is located 83 feet above the rest of the water park (it's the red one down there, on the left).
I've mentioned this before, but it's lost in my other ramblings. It really deserves to be told on it's own, so here's the whole story.
She
looked up at it and said "I think I want to do *that* one" I'm sure my
Aunt looked at her like she was crazy, but said "Okay Mom, I'll be
waiting for you at the bottom" and as Granny started up, my Aunt grabbed
the nearest lifeguard and muttered "You're coming with me..."
Granny
took her time and hiked up the stairs, and waited patiently in line at
the top. While she was up there she
watched to see how "everybody else" was doing the big waterslide, and
of course modeled herself after the 30-something hunk who crossed his
legs, lay down flat and tucked his arms in.
Little did Granny
know at the time, that this is the position you assume when you're trying to model a
human torpedo... and accordingly torpedoed out the bottom of the
Screamer!
My Aunt rushed in, to check her pulse and when the lifeguard asked how Granny was doing, she muttered "better than I am..." *grins* that's *my* Granny.
Later
when anyone asked her about the big waterslide and how she liked it
she would say "Oh it was fine!" and grin like a school-girl.
For anyone who cares to look, there are little morsels of the human element behind the machine scattered amongst the detritus of automated feedback... things like this that make me smile, because someone just like me put them there.
I was out walking with a friend of mine near dusk, when I spotted this little guy camped out and presumably waiting for dinner to run by.
It was soooo cool!!! We just stood there checking him out and he didn't go anywhere. I think he was probably so cute, because he was just a little bit bigger than the length of my hand... you know, that whole eyeball to head ratio.
Anyways we looked him up in the bird book, and I think he's a Boreal Owl :) Anybody have any other ideas?
It was hard to believe it was the first day of December, and that I was up and ready to go relatively early... the weather was perfect, it felt like an early spring day. Cool, but no frost... with the sun shining through gently warming everything.
I could feel the stiffness of unused muscles shaking the dust off, the wind on my face... and that feeling of being completely and absolutely free. I put on a burst of speed with reckless abandon, tearing down the street like a kid seeing how fast they can go down the hill without even considering how tired they're going to be after... or how they're going to stop.
It felt amazing.
With my wisdom of the ages I avoided the loose gravel, and started to slow down long before I hit stop signs and sharp corners... but I *did* hit every puddle I found *grins*
Absolutely nothing of note, or story-worthy happened... it was just a good day to ride :)
Guess who found an *old* copy of the full Oracle 10g client install files, which are no longer available on the Oracle site... for love nor money?
Yep, that's right *buffs fingernails* I did!
Man I love the internets... and Google, and I thank whatever Gods may be for long-forgotten ftp folders with the files I need sitting in them, just waiting for someone to find them *grins*
We are doing a huge server upgrade this weekend which will affect access to our Secure Customer Portal. We dutifully informed our Customer Service team it would be offline, and in order to inform their customers they issued a memo to all of the Reps. By some strange coincidence it was Rep Memo #404.
Everyone in IT got the joke, but the humor of it all was lost on them completely...
I didn't tell anyone before we left that Faith didn't know how to drive standard... Not that it was a big secret or anything, but I didn't want everyone to think that I'm actually as crazy as I know I am. But the thing is, she already knows how to drive and she can play drums, what more do you need?!?
She was justifiably a little nervous about it as we got closer and closer to the trip, and I reassured her with utmost confidence that everything would be just fine... *whispers* never for a second letting on that if I stopped and thought about it for more than a few seconds, it made me a little nervous too.
So after a couple loops around the disappointingly small gated-off ice arena parking lot, we took the back road out to the highway. Since driving a standard on the highway is *exactly* the same as driving an automatic... except that she's stubborn and wouldn't believe me until we did it ;)
Back in town we did a crash course on the most frustrating part of driving stick... That moment when the light turns green and there's someone behind you... That zen moment when everything has to come together in perfect harmony or you will stall.
Needless to say I am not a Zen Master and was unable to pass on all that I have learned... So we hung out first in line for the light for two, maybe three sets of green, and I watched everyone just drive around...
Shortly after Faith confessed to being thoroughly frustrated with the car, herself and me - not necessarily in that order ;)
"I'm really glad I didn't learn in LA people would've
been yelling at me and honkin' and throwing stuff!"
Who can drive stick shift now?!? *this girl* that's right ;)
... while I eat my baby moose mousse for dessert ;)
Obviously a professional would have left something for perspective in this picture... but I didn't realize until I started eating it that it was served with a baby spoon too!
It's about the size of a shot glass mug... it's just widdle, and soooo tute and it was the perfect amount!
Thank you Duffy's in Kamloops for curing my chocolate craving without overdoing it in such a way as to eliminate the necessity of applying it directly to my hips with a spatula.
I love the article, but this site also has some brilliant baby sleep positions that anyone who has tried to sleep in the same bed as a baby... can relate to.
