1. I love springtime in New York… NOT!
2. Chocolate chip cookies w/coffee, lox & onion omelette with cream cheese, or Challah bread French toast are foods I love to eat for breakfast.
3. It seems I’m always searching for more time in the day.
4. SLEEPING is a great way to end the day.
5. I think I need more help with NYC Shiba Rescue!
6. A certain ex-boyfriend is what I’ve been craving lately.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to sleeping, tomorrow my plans include working on NYCSR stuff and Sunday, I want to do some spring cleaning and play with Snickers!

(1) If you don’t have a Gravatar account yet… GEEEEZ! Go get one already.

(2) I keep my [massive and complex] to do lists in a mindmap at mindomo.com (which ROCKS, btw) but I’m not always at my computer to add things to it. I often remember to do items while I am out walking Snickers or walking to work. I’ve tried just sending myself email reminders, but then I’m bothered by them being in my inbox when I’m not ready to deal with doing, moving, or listing them. Today I fixed all that. Now I send an email to a special address at nycgadgetgirl.com with the reminder in the subject line, that address if filtered in gmail so that it skips my inbox and is labeled “to do.” When I’m ready catch up on odds and ends, I view the to do label in gmail, take care of all the little things and add everything else to my mind map!

One of my readers pointed me towards a new blog a couple weeks ago and I’ve been enjoying it ever since. The most recent post is excellent and must be shared.

Please go enjoy The Dog Whisperer Might Be Right This Time at I Am Shiba.

Hello everyone… I’ve recently transferred my site to a different server and made huge version jump in WordPress, so I’m pretty sure my feeds have changed. If you read me through a feed reader and you receive this, please let me know. Thanks!

Snick and I Got to Meet Janet Yesterday

Janet is in NYC for the weekend and stopped by our Shiba Meetup yesterday for her Shiba fix. I didn’t know she was coming, so when she introduced herself I was like "oh, hi" and then "wait! oh, hi!" I’ve known Janet online for a few years now, so it was cool to meet her in person.

Even My Dog is a Fire Sign

I’ve always thought it was interesting that almost all the significant people in my life are fire signs (as am I). My parents and my daughter are all Sagittarius. All three of the men I’ve been "serious" about in my life are Aries. I’m a Leo. I just happened to realize that Snickers is a Sagittarius too! That’s a little weird, eh?

Therefore, I must promote her newest online presence. She’s moving beyond MySpace and Facebook and she’s BLOGGING. Of course, if you’re over, oh, I dunno, 16, you may not find it very interesting, but I’m promoting it anyway!

For those of you who don’t know, She’s actually a pro at this online stuff already. When she was four or five, a friend of mine helped us start a website (on her own domain name, with custom graphics, etc.) which included ratings and reviews of child-friendly attractions around the city. She had me shut that down in 2001 cz she’d outgrown it. Then around 2004 or so, she blogged for awhile on a subsite of my site.

And, now, we give you… Jaqi’s World.

Why did I not choose an easier breed to fall in love with and start a rescue for?? It’s bad enough that a majority of dogs (mixed and purebreds) that come into shelters and rescue are under-socialized and under-trained, but combine that with the Shiba Inu tendency to be dog aggressive (a lot) if they aren’t super socialized as puppies and… OY! SHIBAS!

Our need to play musical foster dogs never seems to end… it seems like someone is always trying to give us another otherwise-perfect-but-very-dog-aggressive Shiba. <sigh>

1. Snowdrops are annoying.
2. I’m going to build a new kind of canine rescue organization.
3. __(ummm…. I just don’t have an answer for this one)__ is a song whose lyrics have meaning to me.
4. Just one sip and I can’t stop until my McDonald’s chocolate shake is all gone.
5. In the arms of a man I was stupid enough to let go is was where I’m happiest.
6. I believe that spending time with friends and family (and DOGS) is a necessary part of life.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to relaxing, tomorrow my plans include cleaning the apartment and drafting two new websites for clients and Sunday, I want to have Shayna’s meeting with a potential adopter go smoothly!

1. My favorite unexpected event of 2007 was the creation of NYC Shiba Rescue, Inc.
2. I’m most tempted by freshly baked chocolate brownies!
3. Today I want the rain to stop.
4. The last thing I took a picture of was Snickers and Shayna.
5. You and I have memories only of blogging.
6. The most recent movie I’ve seen that I really enjoyed was A Knight’s Tale (seriously, Miss ~T~ and I rented it a few weeks ago).
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to taking it easy, tomorrow my plans include a looooonnnnng walk with the doggies if it is nice outside and Sunday, I want to get some work done for NYCSR!

1. This year, I’d like to spend more time reading the books piling up in my apartment, figure out a budget I can both afford and live within, and take an actual vacation.
2. Having time to daydream is what I daydream about most.
3. My daughter is a wonderful person.
4. I would like to have more serenity in my life.
5. I love to have lots of Shiba Inus around the house.
6. Snick the Dog makes me smile.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to sleeping, tomorrow my plans include cleaning my apartment and working on that budget I mentioned in #1 and Sunday, I want to be lazy… watch a movie and read books!

Miss ~T~ just IM’d me with lyrics from a funny song that we both like.

I looked on outa the window
An’ I started in a countin’ phone poles
Goin’ by at the rate of four to the seventh power
I put two an’ two together
Added twelve, an’ carried five
Come up with twenty two thousand telephone poles an hour

Turns out 22,000 telephone poles an hour would be almost 417 mph, not the 110 they were supposedly going when they hit the tunnel. Oh well, I guess counting and calculating aren’t that easy when you’re flying down the side of a mountain.

There was a time when my accent would have tipped the scales far in a southernly direction. Even when I was taking this quiz, I was a little nervous to see the results. I was relieved when it came up “neutral.”

I’ve never lived in flyover country and I didn’t move around at all as a kid, but I have been away from the south longer than I lived there growing up, so I guess it does make sense.

found via Treppenwitz

He sent me Alpaca socks! I checked my mail today and I had

1. Alpaca socks (and they are the softest damn socks you ever touched!),
2. the July/August copy of Hobby Farms with a bunch of Alpaca info in it, including an article by Adrian,
3. a brochure with a lot of Alpaca history, which I haven’t read yet, and
4. I swear to god(ess)(es) I am not making this up… A BAGGIE OF ALPACA FUR! I guess it is called Alpaca wool, but it is SO SOFT.

So, now I feel like I have almost petted an Alpaca! Thanks Adrian!!!

Now, if I could just spend the night in a yurt, I’d be happy. Anyone wanna send me a yurt vacation?

It has been quite awhile since I’ve posted about Alpacas. (If you missed the original conversation, you have to read about my plan to live in a yurt and own some Alpacas. Well, tonight, I got an email from someone that owns an Alpaca farm in Oregon. He was fascinated by the fact that the photo I posted when my sister first told me about these adorable, soft footed animals is apparently now the number one result for the search “Alpacas” in Google Images. Of course, the first thing I did when I got home was check that I’d credited the site the photo came from. (I did.) Then I tested out the search in Google Images and he’s right!

The part of all this that actually made it blog-worthy though is that Adrian (who sent me the email) actually has a great site with lots of information about, and photos of, Alpacas. I didn’t see it when I was first searching for info, but I enjoyed looking over it tonight and thought I would share it. The name of his farm is Mulberry Alpacas. Go and visit!

They really are SO cute. If I ever break down and leave the city, I think I HAVE to have some of my own. (However, I know now, after reading through Adrian’s site, that owning a single Alpaca is a bad idea. They prefer to be in groups.)

Read this on CNN this morning and had to share…

FREEPORT, Texas (AP) — When the cook on his shrimp boat went into labor 30 miles offshore, captain Ed Keisel grabbed a new roll of paper towels and a first aid handbook and did the best he could.

He successfully delivered Cindy Preisel’s baby boy, even though the baby’s feet emerged first.

“I’m no doctor, but even I knew that’s not supposed to happen,” Keisel said.

Click here to read more…

Follow the link for The Misanthropic Shiba, back when it was still funny as hell.

Fat people meandering along on the sidewalk bother me.

Umbrellas in my face really bother me.

But, FAT PEOPLE WITH UMBRELLAS???

AUGH!

Edit after the fact: I’m not talking about any and every overweight person and I shouldn’t have written the post the way I did, but since I don’t normally believe in editing or deleting my posts… I’m clarifying. What bothers me is when anyone, of any size, is inconsiderate on the sidewalk. It happens to be that there are a number of people that walk slowly in the middle of the sidewalk on my way to work many days and they make it very hard for the 100s of other people trying to move faster and more efficiently around them. They happen to mostly be large. It also really bothers me when people are inconsiderate with their umbrellas; I’m tall and you have no idea how many umbrella spokes to the face I have to dodge when it is raining. THIS PARTICULAR MORNING, a person, who happened to be quite large and carrying an umbrella was walking the wrong way through a crowd - completely oblivious - and smacking everyone with their freaking umbrella. I’m sorry if my post was inconsiderate, prejudiced or inflammatory.

Saw this over at Janet’s while I was catching up on some blog reading today and decided to take it myself, just for giggles.

You are Strength

Courage, strength, fortitude. Power not arrested in the act of judgement, but passing on to further action, sometimes obstinacy.

This is a card of courage and energy. It represents both the Lion’s hot, roaring energy, and the Maiden’s steadfast will. The innocent Maiden is unafraid, undaunted, and indomitable. In some cards she opens the lion’s mouth, in others she shuts it. Either way, she proves that inner strength is more powerful than raw physical strength. That forces can be controlled and used to score a victory is very close to the message of the Chariot, which might be why, in some decks, it is Justice that is card 8 instead of Strength. With strength you can control not only the situation, but yourself. It is a card about anger and impulse management, about creative answers, leadership and maintaining one’s personal honor. It can also stand for a steadfast friend.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

No time to blog, but I got a kick out of this and had to pass it on.

Lamest ‘Value-Added’ Products
05.09.07 | 2:00 AM
By Paul Adams

As every trillionaire knows, the easiest way to turn a quick profit is to take something that’s just lying around, put your name on it and sell it in huge quantities.

Doing something that adds concrete value…(more)

So, Miss ~T~ and I went to see this with a friend tonight. All I can say is DON’T BOTHER. This could have been a really good movie, but they missed every opportunity for the main character to learn anything about herself. The writer apparently thinks people who are crazy in love with animals are incapable of making connections with humans.

…are A Good Thing

Today I slept late. Again. Had coffee at the dog run. Came home and did a TINY bit of apartment cleaning (never did it the other night when I said I would). Had more coffee with an old friend. Went to the pet store. Ate a yummy late lunch from new soul food place in da hood. Did a bunch of financial stuff on the ‘puter. Answered some email. Sorted and dropped off laundry. Went to the dog run so Snick could play with an old girlfriend. Managed a few Shiba things here and there. Completed and filed my state and federal income taxes.

Why does that not sound like enough for one day?

I’ve been busy. OK? Just busy, that’s all. Here’s a quick recap of what I’ve been up to since my pre-cocktail pawty post.

And that’s just the stuff I can remember off the top of my head!

A few days ago, I logged into Meebo and found this message waiting for me:

[12:45] Bibby: Hi, I have been enjoying Snickers Blog for a while. I have a Black and Tan Shiba called Lily, she is 5 months old and we just started puppy classes. Shibas are a new breed to me, I had big dogs in the past. i am amazed everyday how intelligent and brave my little dog is and often forget how young she is. I have also enjoyed the links on to other sites, especially about Shibas escaping, we laughed as Lily could not be held in a puppy pen and baby gates only slowed her for a few days.

[12:45] Bibby: look forward to your new piece

I just want to say "thanks Bibby! you made my day." I know I have a lot of lurkers, because I can see all sort of stats on the hits on my blog each day. It’s nice and fun to get a note now and then though.

Yes, I am certifiably insane.

People ask me sometimes how I deal with the whole single mom with two dogs and two jobs thing all whilst living in midtown Manhattan. I usually shrug and go “eh, it’s not so bad,” meanwhile knowing it probably isn’t normal that I (1) almost never sleep more than 6 hours a night, (2) haven’t had time to sit down and read a book in several years, and (3) only take vacation time from my real job when I need to do something for Miss ~T~, catch up on my freelance work, or clean my apartment. Oh, and have I mentioned that I’m also the treasurer for my local, private dog run and the organizer for the NYC Shiba Inu meetup group?

So… that said, I suddenly decided about six weeks ago that it would be fun to have one of my Shiba meetups be a "canine cocktails" event.

Ahem. Yeah, right. Me and my SIMPLE ideas.

On Tuesday, March 20, at 7pm, the NYC Shiba Inus are hosting EIGHTY PEOPLE - yes, that’s 80 people - at a fund raiser for Animal Haven Soho. If you google canine cocktail pawty, you’ll get an idea why so many people have bought tickets already. Plus, this doesn’t show up in Google yet, but we were featured on a FULL PAGE in Time Out New York! How awesome is that? (It looks better in print.)

If it goes well, which it seems that it will, it may become a regular event. It has its own website and I may even have a corporate sponsor lined up for next time! (More on that if it pans out.)

Anyway, wish me luck. I’ll be taking a LOOOONNNNG NAP when this is all over.

If you live in the city and you don’t go to the flea market, you don’t know what you are missing. You really should check it out.

First, there is Chuck. He makes benches, stools, and desks from reclaimed wood and they are incredible. I bought one - custom made to the size I needed and stained the color I wanted - 6 or 8 months ago and I just love it. He and his wife Jeannie are very sweet people; Snickers likes to visit with them every Saturday morning.

I recently bought a vintage, black leather coat (part of the kinky outfit actually) for only $20. Seriously. It was going to be $25, but the merchant didn’t have change for my two twenties and gave it to me for $20. Miss ~T~ has purchased more than a few adorable handbags from our favorite merchant of all time - Judith Adler - and I got another REALLY awesome leather jacket from her for a price too low to be disclosed!

Oh, AND, the best deal so far? I got these awesome, red LEATHER chairs at the flea market a few weeks ago for only $125. No, not each. $125 for the pair!!! Can you believe that? They are in amazing condition and they are very comfortable too. Almost too good to be true!

Periodically, on my way to work, I see a woman walking two older dogs, I think one is a Yorkie and the other, a Maltese. I don’t know how often I pass her - maybe not so often - but periodically for over 3 1/2 years is enough to have a sense of recognition. I hadn’t seen her for quite awhile actually and then a week or two ago, I passed her and she only had one dog. I thought “oh. oh no.”

This morning, I saw her again. I was already running a few minutes late for work, but there she was, walking one cute little old dog (the Yorkie) I walked up to her and explained that I see her walking her dogs every now and again and I noticed she only had one with her that last couple times I saw her. I asked “Did he… ?”

She said yes, he was killed by a cab just a block from where we were standing. She was waiting at the corner for the pedestrian light about 6 months ago and a cab turned the corner cutting really close in front of her. He killed one dog and sent her and the other dog to the ER and the vet. We talked for a few more minutes about how she was dealing with it, her remaining dog, etc. I told her I was really sorry and then I went to work.

I’ve had close calls with cabs myself. They don’t see dogs that are low to the ground and they cut SO CLOSE to pedestrians. I saw a cab run over a woman’s foot one day outside the Port Authority! There is one intersection near my apartment where the cabs just WHIP around the corner and Snickers has almost been hit twice as we’ve started to cross the street and had a cab cut in front of us.

Walking dogs in the city can be a real challenge with the traffic, the crowds, people pulling out of parking garages without looking, construction sites, electrified grates, etc.

This woman seemed like such a nice lady and her remaining dog was so sweet and well-behaved. I just feel terrible that that happened to them.

Check out the box in the sidebar… to the right and down a bit. The gray box that says “chat with me.” YES, that one!

Well, what are you waiting for? If it says I’m online, then SAY HELLO!!!

When your girlfriend gives you a compliment… she’s possibly biased (and may have ulterior motives).

When your straight male friend gives you a compliment… he almost certainly has an ulterior motive.

But… when your GAY MALE FRIEND gives you a compliment, you can bank on it.

Actual conversation, earlier today:

him: What wonderfully kinky outfit!
me: Why thank you!
him: It’s a shame that doesn’t turn me on.
me: Well, at least I know that’s no fault of mine.

Yes, I walked home with a little extra spring in my step today.

I’m writing a silly post because I’ve been very emotional about Snickers the last few days. I’ve realized he’s really my “heart dog” (a phrase I found ridiculous until recently, btw) and I can’t bear the thought of what I’ll do without him when eventually leaves me. Tonight, a friend sent an email to Shiba-L about finding out her elderly male Shiba has an enlarged liver and spleen - possibly cancerous - and I’ve been teary and sniffly ever since.

So, on to the silliness… this weekend my NYC Shiba Inu Meetup group wore their bandanas for the first time. They were custom made for us by Barb at bandanamania and they ROCK. If you need pet bandanas for any group or occasion - or even just for a single dog - she is the woman to talk to.

Well, I was planning on coming up with a whole new template, but it just seemed easier to sort of graft the old stylesheet onto Wordpress and be done with it. I’m about half done. Give me another day or so and things might be looking good.

Well, as you can see, my blog LOOKS horrible. <sigh> However, looks can be deceiving. I actually was able to get into the old Movable Type installation on the server that blew up and export the old blog. I spent the better part of today configuring a new installation of WordPress (over and over and over) until it would publish my old entries and categories to the same "permalinks" that the old blog used. Once I’m done getting the functionality right, I’ll make it pretty again. I promise!

This past weekend, everything came crashing down. Email stopped working, websites disappeared. Hours later I finally found out that the company where one of my hosting company’s server was stored went out of business and the plug was pulled on the servers. I spent the last three days helping move domains - websites, email, applications, databases - and restoring data from a two week old backup. I haven’t had time to look at my own applications yet. I grabbed the flat files for my blog, added the latest entries below from the Google Desktop cache (I HEART GOOGLE), and kept working on client stuff. So, for now, no blog. The old files are here, but they aren’t connected to anything - no application, no way to comment, add real entries, change formatting, etc. The worst part is that I was planning to port the whole thing to WordPress, but now I have no way to export the old blog into a format the new software can understand. <sigh> It might be salvagable, but I haven’t had time to look at it yet. In the meantime, I keep wanting to blog, but I can’t. Therefore, for now, I’m going to just edit this page by hand. Most of you know my email address, so you can still comment privately if you want to.

Oh, and get this! I got my first hate mail today. It wasn’t in response to the blog directly; it was from a mailing list that I’m on, but it said, among other things: "…proclaiming yourself an expert on everything because why? you have a dog." and "…in your Shiba meetup group and your navel gazing blog…" I guess you can’t please everyone all the time. Good thing pleasing strangers isn’t my mission in life!!!  ;)  I am kind of flattered that she clicked over and read the blog though.

PS… isn’t "naval gazing blog" redundant?

• I’m porting the blog to WordPress and redesigning the templates sometime in the next couple months. Fun fun.
• I received some photos last week from a high school reunion that was held this summer. (I’ve never made it home for one.) I’m sad to say I only managed to recognize 4 people out of about 40.
• WATER, IT DOES THE BODY GOOD!
• Snickers is scheduled to take his AKC Canine Good Citizen test on October 24. We have some work to do between now and then.
• Did someone shorten the days to less than 1,440 minutes each and not tell me about it? Lately, I can’t seem to keep up with everything that has to get done in one day.
• A neighborhood friend gave Benedict some dog food for Kaos a couple days ago.
• Why do tourists insist on trying to flag down cabs that are occupied???
• ~T~ is getting a Sidekick. She’s paying for it herself from savings. WOW!

This is ridiculous. Black Jack, Missouri has a city ordinance that prohibits more than three people from living together in the same house if they are unrelated by blood, marriage or adoption. Wait… did I read that right? I did. WTF??? From Reuters:

Olivia Shelltrack and Fondray Loving and their children moved from Minnesota to Missouri earlier this year, buying a five-bedroom home in the tiny community outside St. Louis.

Shelltrack and Loving have lived together about 13 years and have two children together, along with a 15-year-old daughter of Shelltrack’s from a previous relationship.

Black Jack, a town of about 7,000 that prides itself on a city Web site for its "character and stability," refused to grant the couple and their children an occupancy permit for their home because they do not meet the definition of "family" as set forth by the city, the complaint alleges.

The full story is here and here.

Putting aside for the moment the complete obnoxiousness of legislating who can live together, I have a couple questions…

1. Don’t they meet the criteria anyway? The dad is related to two of the kids. The mom is related to three of the kids. All of the kids are related to each other. There’s no way you can pull three people out of the group and not have at least two of them be related to each other by blood.
2. If that isn’t enough, my next question is… why is this couple not considered to be related? I don’t know about elsewhere, but the family court in New York State considers you to be family if you are "related by blood, marriage, or child in common." They have two kids together! That makes them family.

It just makes me crazy that this family that has been together for THIRTEEN YEARS is being told they aren’t "family" when I’m sure there are plenty people in that town that fit their narrow definition of family but aren’t nearly as stable!!!

(PS Don’t miss out on the blog birthday party going on in the previous post. Everyone is invited!)

This blog is two years old today. I posted two entries on August 11, 2004. One was a picture of Snickers (of course). It was titled What A Handsome Puppy and I was so happy to get a comment on my first post! The second was A Few Other Photos From Saturday and two people commented on it also. (I started off thinking this would be a photoblog, but ended up with just the “blog” without the “photo.”)

First, I have to say, I hate the name nycgadgetgirl’s mental ramblings, but I think I’m stuck with it now. I really didn’t expect to be doing this for so long and I didn’t put any thought into the name when I started (obviously). Second, I want to say that I have met (virtually and in person) some very cool people through blogging. So, thanks to everyone that visits, comments, emails, and even lurks. This is fun!

Now, I have a favor to ask - for my blog, of course, not for myself - can we have a birthday party in the comments? Come on… everyone say something witty or silly and make my blog’s day special!

This is very cool. Scientists are using x-rays of fossils to piece together full images of what prehistoric organisms looked like and how they developed!

Paleontologists have been using acid to dissolve the embryo fossils out of rocks for about a decade, focusing on specimens from the time about 500 million years ago when multicellular animals began to proliferate. Tons of rock must be dissolved to retrieve a few hundred embryos, none of which are more than a fraction of a millimeter across.

Until now, Donoghue said, the specimens have mostly been treated as "curios of fossilization."

Using the new technique, he and his colleagues have been able to create cutaways, cross-sections and, by stringing together images of embryos at different stages of development, virtual time-lapse sequences of the animals’ metamorphosis.

The rest of the story can be found here.

One question though, for the people who don’t believe in evolution (not that anyone like that would be reading my blog, so this is rhetorical I guess)… if God snapped his fingers and “creation” started with the Garden of Eden, why did he plant all this evidence to the contrary? To confuse us? To keep us busy? What?

Seriously… I don’t know what’s happening with me, but I’m apparently getting stoopider as time goes by. Examples:

• I lose words with alarming regularity these days. I’ll be in mid-conversation with someone and just LOSE the word I need to finish my thought. Sometimes I have to resort to a thesaurus to get my thoughts back on track.
• I forget things CONSTANTLY. Until recently, I simply blamed this on having become increasingly dependent on my computer to remember things for me, but it’s getting where I feel like I’m disconnected from my brain if I can’t reach Google and Google Desktop.
• Last, but not least, I took one of those online IQ test thingies a few days ago and it reported my IQ as about 25 points lower* than it should have. Not that those things are completely accurate, but a few years ago I could take those play tests and get every single question right. I didn’t even finish this one within the time limit!

*Still above average, thank you, but definitely unacceptable.

The last thing I EVER thought I would do is put a YouTube video on my blog, but you must see this.

It seems that I’m always tagging something… tagging my blog posts, tagging my gmail, tagging, tagging, tagging. So, I decided to tag myself - not in the descriptive adjective sense, more in the "roles I play in life" sense. So, imagine if you will, that there is a virtual tag cloud above my head wherever I go. This is what it would say:

single mom, new yorker, responsible urban dog owner, geek, Shiba Inu enthusiast, freelancer, sister, daughter, friend, blogger, ODP editor, meetup organizer, reluctant employee, tenant, pedestrian, volunteer

I’m sure there are more, but that’s off the top of my head.

No no, not a yurt shaped like a pentagon!

This morning I was thinking about yurts again. (For those of you that are relatively new to my blog, I do that occasionally.) The new train of thought started at the dog run a few evenings ago. An acquaintance was talking about buying land upstate and building a cabin. I said build a yurt!!!

That got me thinking about the fact that I may never live in a yurt because I may never actually leave New York. My NYC dream used to be to build a house on top of a building. A little house with a white picket fence and a yard. That’s what a real penthouse is, you know… a house built on a roof. I’ve only been in one real penthouse so far, but it was quite nifty. Anyway… I’ve combined the old dream and the new dream and now I want to build a YURT on top of a building in NYC.

Now, I just need to be wealthy enough to buy some good roof rights and then have a yurt made out of some sort of sound blocking material. Cool.

PS I’ll let go of the Alpaca idea if I go with the pentyurt.

Israel
Without a television, I’m free to form my own opinions about world affairs and seek out news without having the networks feed me whatever their particular slant on current affairs and world politics may be.

Over the past year or so, reading personal blogs such as Treppenwitz has helped me finally begin to grasp the situation in Israel. It has finally become more to me than a distant place with connections to ancient history. With the war that’s going on now though, I almost wish I did have a television to tell me what to think. In the midst of all the different opinions and emotions that I hear and read (including the complaints of my not-very-Jewish Jewish friends that say they are "embarrassed" by Israel’s handling of the situation), I can’t seem to digest enough information to decide what my opinion should be.

Lebanon
I haven’t been able to process it all yet, but I just started reading this enlightening and well written blog, Reading While Falling.

China
A friend of mine here in the city won’t buy ANYTHING made in China (no matter how much work it is for her to find an alternative) because of their history of human rights abuse. Someone very important to me owns (and depends on) a business that is failing because it is losing so much work to China. Who can compete with their prices… their unfair advantage gained by mistreating their workers? And now Lachan links to a news article about the Chinese combatting rabies, not by vaccinating, but by BEATING DOGS TO DEATH.

Meanwhile in the US
Yesterday, Kevin said (in reference to his brother being in Beirut) "it all just seems like bullsh*t now." That really hit home. I remember having that exact emotion for days, weeks, MONTHS after Sept 11. For so many New Yorkers, everything that didn’t involve sorrow seemed ridiculously trivial. Life would never be the same. Laughter and lightheartedness were distant memories, never to resurface. But, five years later, I’m posting inane drivel about my dog. Lighthearted moments come easily. Life really isn’t the same, but pleasure does not necessarily bring guilt.

How the human race survives, creates art, laughs, loves and enjoys life when so much is wrong in the world is beyond me, but clearly we have an instinctive ability to put away the painful memories and move on. Now, if we could just figure out how to learn from our mistakes. <sigh>

My heart aches for everyone affected by the wars and horrors going on around the world tonight.

Walking to work this morning, people everywhere moving to and fro, heat coming from every direction. Like walking through a wok. We’re all just stir fry.

Ami did it. Besides, it only takes one click.

Your Personality Profile

You are dignified, spiritual, and wise. Always unsatisfied, you constantly try to better yourself. You are also a seeker of knowledge and often buried in books. You tend to be philosophical, looking for the big picture in life. You dream of inner peace for yourself, your friends, and the world. A good friend, you always give of yourself first.

Some of that is certainly true some of the time. I’d have to say "Always unsatisfied" is 100% accurate, 100% of the time.

Posts are blooming in my head again. I like that.

Here’s a bit of what I’ve been up to since my last post:

1. enjoying having my apartment (and life) to myself all summer
2. missing my daughter (which goes hand in hand with #1, unfortunately)
3. sleeping late with my snuggly doggie every morning (cz I don’t have to factor ~T~ getting ready for school into my morning routine)
4. working (I know, boo hiss, but someone has to do it)
5. returning to the Open Directory Project, where I was a volunteer editor in 1999/2000
6. completely rearranging and redecorating my bedroom (and wow, I love it!)
7. giving away NINE BOXES of stuff to the local senior center, and, lastly…
8. watching movies and avoiding the heat with my sister when she came to visit last weekend

I have a lot of reading to catch up on as I haven’t been keeping up with my friends in the blogosphere lately. I’ll be seeing ya sooner rather than later!

I want to be able to write while I walk. Seriously. Almost every morning on the walk to work, I think of something I want to write about. It’s a 10 to 15 minute walk. I could get a lot of writing done if I could actually walk and write.

I’ve joked for years about how I’ll be the first volunteer in line when they start testing human-embedded processors. I need a way to THINK into my computer. When I don’t have my laptop with me, I have my Palm AND my USB stick. If I could get my thoughts onto one of them, that would be a great first step. Next step would be to access the Internet mentally, so I could research things and upload what I write, ALL WHILE I’M WALKING.

Another thing that makes me crazy, besides that walk to work, is the bedtime walk with Snickers. We walk at least a mile every night, usually closer to 1 1/2 miles. I don’t blog mentally at night, like I do on the way to work in the AM. But I think a lot. Usually about conversations I need/want to have with people. For the people I can text, that works fine. I’ve perfected the art of texting while I walk Snick. LOL… actually, my best friend told me a few weeks ago that his girlfriend commented on the fact that I have text conversations with him late at night. I was like "what difference does it make what time it is?" (He’s a night owl like me anyway.) He said she thought I was thinking about him when I get into bed at night! I thought that was too funny. I said "You know I usually text you when I walk the dog, right?" He looked kind of disappointed… I think maybe it was him, not his girlfriend, that had the idea about when I’m thinking of him.

Anyway, back on topic, if anyone can figure out how I can walk and write, that would be great. I’d be able to blog more! The digital recorder thing won’t work - I tried it briefly and there is too much background noise for the software to pick up and translate what I say.

After commenting over at Janet’s a few days ago that I’d fallen way behind on my blog reading lately, she wrote me back and just said “it’s called life :-)”

Well, she’s right.

Perusing my own blog tonight, I realized that I haven’t had much to say lately and when I have, it hasn’t been as interesting (to me at least) as posts of the past. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was doing some thinking. The result of that time spent thinking is that I have a couple projects going on in my life that are about (1) ME and (2) ME!

Seriously, this introspection was mostly prompted by a conversation with someone incredibly important to me. I found myself apologizing to him for not making time for him and it really hit home when I thought about what I was saying. Here was someone I truly love and when I had the opportunity to show him how important he was to me, I mostly took him for granted and pushed him away. So, I’ve realized that I spend WAY too much time working and doing things for other people and not enough time for myself and the people closest to me. I am changing that by undertaking a couple of self-improvement-type things for myself, resigning from a volunteer position, limiting the number of freelance projects that I work on consecutively, and making time and space in my life for my loved ones.

You would think blogging falls into the “for me” category and it MOSTLY does, because I started the blog for my own enjoyment and I mostly write for my own enjoyment. BUT sometimes I write because I feel like now that I have this great group of readers, I have to write or I’ll lose them. So, knowing that, and realizing that I need to spend less time at the computer if I’m going to actually obey my new rule to cut down on my work time, I’ve decided to become more of a weekend blogger. Maybe I should say “officially become” as I’ve sort of been weekends only for the past few weeks anyway. I think _saying_ that’s what I’m doing, and why, is important though.

So, that’s the scoop. I know those of you that have me in your feed readers will wander by when I post. I hope the rest of you will check by periodically and comment. I’ll still be reading and commenting on my favorite reads, but probably only once or twice a week. When I’m not in the blogosphere, I’ll be working on me, making room for the new, and spending time with the people I love. Because, you know, it’s called life.

Well… I am pretty sure I have the dubious honor of being the first attendee to get HOME from TequilaCon.

I called my friend lulu at about 7:00 tonight and told her I didn’t want to go because I would end up staying out too late and drinking too much and then I would sleep late tomorrow and feel crap and my whole day would be down the drain. At first, she said “well don’t go then” and then I told her WHAT it was that I was not going to and she was like “you should go, you have to go,” so I went and I took her with me! We made a deal that we’d only stay till 10:00 and that way we’d wouldn’t trash our day tomorrow.

I started getting a headache before I got there and by the time I’d had one drink I felt like my head would explode. I almost left, but good ol’ lulu wouldn’t have it. We’d agreed we’d stay till 10:00 and that’s what we did. We actually stayed a little later. I’m really glad too because it turned out to be fun and my headache eventually went away.

Jen is as charming in person as I assumed she’d be from reading her blog. I met Sandra when I first got there, but didn’t see her again later after the headache subsided and I was feeling more social. I met Brandon, who seemed just wonderful and I wish I’d spent more time talking to him. I do need to try his headache cure sometime. I met Leslie who said "I have a dog" and made me feel totally comfortable and ready to enjoy myself. I met one person who was introduced to me by her blog name “true blue” but I don’t know her blog address or real name and I also had a great conversation with her husband who was very, very nice but I only know him as “true blue’s husband.” There were two other people I met and liked but don’t know their names. AUGH! I am terrible with names, so if you’re reading this, I’m sorry I forgot your name.

My one regret is that I saw Sarah out of the corner of my eye as I was leaving, but didn’t get a chance to say hello. I was looking forward to meeting her. I coulda/shoulda stopped, but in my head I was thinking “we said we were leaving at 10, we said we were leaving at 10.” *sigh* I can’t seem to get these things right. I know there must be a balance somewhere where I can go out and have fun without staying too late or leaving too early.

I’m determined to be happy that I went instead of angry with myself that I didn’t stay and meet more people. I almost didn’t go, but I’m glad I did and THAT is a good thing. I will get to know them online and, who knows, maybe I’ll go to TequilaCon 2007! I’ve never been to Seattle*.

So… anyway, there will certainly be some much more interesting posts about TequilaCon 2006, you know, from people who stayed awhile, met more folks, had more fun and drank more drinks.

*There’s a rumor going around that it may be in Seattle next year.

I recently received an email from Jen over at Run Jen Run, inviting me to join the fun at TequilaCon 2006. Those of you who know me in real life will be amazed to know that I said…. *drum roll*… YES.

Group social things are just not, well, my THING. Something about being alone in a crowd has always freaked me out. It’s strange because I’m fine if I’m in FRONT of a crowd. Being the center of attention? Fine. Public speaking? No problem. Making small talk with a group of people I don’t know? Forget about it! It’s like I have this odd shrinking violet recessive gene or something.

However, amidst my recent introspection, I’ve come to realize this is an important part of expanding my social circle so when the invitation arose, who was I to say no? Besides, people are coming in NY from all over the country for this thing and it is less than a dozen blocks from my apartment! It’d be pretty lame not to go.

So, this post serves two purposes: (1) makes my intent to attend public, so I can’t back out, and (2) serves as an open invitation to any fellow bloggers that want to join us!

If my blog had background sounds, that’s what you would hear every time you’ve checked here for the past week… busy signals.

I had a very emotional Saturday/Sunday/Monday last weekend and a few days of introspection after that. Yesterday and today? TOTALLY BUSY. Tomorrow I have a little down time though. I wrote a LOT during the introspective days, but nothing that can go on the blog (although some of it did go to someone by email). Lucky guy.

I’ve been afraid to post anything new today because I don’t want to take away from the fabulous discussion that’s been going on in my last post. Therefore, here’s a quickie…

1) Gravatars are cool. Everyone should go get one.

2) Now go read my last post and add your two cents if you haven’t already!

I spent a few hours at a client’s office today, updating computers and fixing minor problems. He told me to go back to college. He’s an executive coach and a pretty smart guy, so I said “OK,” and filled out a readmission application for CUNY tonight.

How am I going to find time for THAT???? :-O

• some of my favorite bloggers write so much that I can’t keep up in the little bit of time I have to read. I end up staying up-to-date on the short blogs and never having time for the meaty ones!
• I have a BAJILLION drafts where I thought of a great post while I was walking to or from work, wrote a couple notes, and then never got back to it
• I work too much. I’d rather spend more time training the dog, writing in the blog, and reading books with ~T~
• speaking of ~T~, I think she’s giving up on the blogging thing. one more short-lived hobby down the drain. I wonder when she’ll find her “thing” but she’s young yet, so it’s all good
• I have a huge to do list in Life Balance right now that is keeping me from writing much, but I’m still around, reading, and commenting when I can
• if I could get some SLEEP it would help. the building across the street installed these massive floodlights last week and now it is so bright in my room that I can’t sleep (and that’s with the winter curtains drawn)!
• the trackback spam is killing me. I need to upgrade MT, but I have to move to a different server first and I’m dreading my blog getting all screwed up
• oh. hmmmm…. ~T~ left for spring break today. maybe I will catch up on some things. but I miss her. so does Snick. he’s asleep in her room right now. she left her iTunes playing and it’s starting to bug me.

As ~T~ would say… THAT WAS RANDOM!

I’m just busy, busy, busy these days! I hope I’ll still have some readers when I get back to blogging more than random comments and links.

Speaking of links, wanna see a CUTE Shiba Inu? Check out Kishi’s Run for the Money, his siblings and his other pack members.

Six posts that have made me laugh, cry, and/or think over the past months:

• pretending not to notice: csi: dan’s room
• Treppenwitz: Daddy Syndrome
• Because I Say So!: Cornered (notice: sadness warning)
• Words For My Enjoyment: The WFME Holiday Party
• SpriteBoy: Social Crucifixion on the Subway (an old post, but I only just read it)
• Blogography: Choice

Coincidentally, when I went out to walk Snickers last night, the RealFeel temp was EIGHT BELOW! Seriously.

Anyhoo…

My mom emailed me last night and said I have to see this movie, Eight Below. At first I couldn’t place it, so I looked it up on imdb. That jogged my memory. I saw a trailer for this when I went to see Good Night, And Good Luck. My reaction when I saw the trailer was "Ooh! It has dogs in it! :)" and then "oh, what a hokey looking movie. :(" What’s with the big Barnum & Bailey-ish tag line "The Most Amazing Story Of Survival, Friendship, And Adventure Ever Told" (emphasis mine)???

Other than the cute dogs, I wasn’t much interested. However, my mom liked it, so I checked out a longer trailer online. This looks like a good movie. The thing is… I started CRYING about halfway through watching the trailer. How can I see this movie without bawling? ~T~ says I’m a wimp. I dunno. We’ll see.

Oh my word. Who SAYS Valentines Day was created by Hallmark and FTD? If only I had known the truth all these years, I might have been celebrating Valentines Day after all!

Someone just sent me a link to the real history of VDay. Here are some excerpts: