Tuesday, December 12, 2006

the calm between the storms UPDATE

Have you switched to Blogger Beta?
I can't leave a comment on your blog until I do too.
Funny how that works.
I thought I had a choice, Blogger. Apparently not, eh? Funny... I feel as though I am being lead down into an increasingly narrow chute...and that light at the far end might be a man in a white lab coat weilding a 'humane killer'.
Or maybe thats just me. I get funny around this time of the year.

I stuck a needle into the second joint of my index finger the other day. It didn't hurt as much as you might think it would, but it did kind of ache; and it made bending my finger difficult. To make matters worse, I couldn't pull it out. As I was attached at the time to a rather sizeable piece of sewing soaking it was out of the question ( and stupid, in afterthought.) Furthermore all my pliers were OUT IN THE GARAGE FOR SOME REASON. I ended up pulling it out with my teeth. This made an audible popping noise as the point left the cartilage, and chipped my front tooth.
No, I don't do things halfway.

The snow has gone. However the wintry assaults continue on rancho FirstNations. Yesterday starting at 11:30 in the morning, freaky disgusting bathtub-temperature winds rose up from the south and maintained a steady 45mph with gusts up to 60. Good thing, then, that these were not the usual winds from the south we experience here at rancho FirstNations. We expect more of the same tomorrow, along with torrential rains and a chance of snooooo. It almost goes without saying that we'll lose power again. We did twice yesterday. Yay.

In Oregon they called these freak warming trends a chinook.
A chinook is a salmon.
This is not a fish.
There are no fish associated with this phenomenon.
There is nothing remotely piscine about it.
That is why I moved away from Oregon. People in Oregon are fucking strange.

Tell you what though, I look out at the giant rotting stump which markes the place where the Tree of Evil stood only one year ago and thank God we kept bugging the city until they took it down. For those of you who have just joined us, the Tree of Evil was a freakishly large Lombardy Poplar that stood in the center of my driveway, just on city property. Lombardy Poplar is a softwood anyway, but this one was rotten all the way down the property side-that is, OUR side. To make matters more interesting, yardarm-sized branches would tear away from the main trunk and fall off just for the hell of it. Rather than breaking, though, they'd burst and shatter and spray wet cottony pulp all over the place. This made our driveway and the sidewalk out front a less than optimum place for mommies with baby strollers and hippies and dogs and cars and people and things.
Understandbly we got real tired of waiting for the next high wind to bring half the bastard plowing through our roof in the dead of the night and started a campaign of 'friendly visits' to City Hall. Finally the city removed it. No charge; their tree, their dime. SoooWEET! Took two days, four trucks and a crane. Giant chunks of this tree are still to be found at the city compost heap, chunks bigger than my car. All of them rotton and hollow down the side that faced our house.
Better there than my roof.

28 comments:

  1. I like the sound of 'THE TREE OF EVIL' , I feel it deserves capitals.In my small front garden I planted an innocent tho laughably named dwarf phoenix palm , which within two years has grown to the size of my two story house and taken over everything.I shall take pictures when we have some sun....it was only a foot high when I planted it.
    I hope you get some nicer weather soon , ew have lots of loverly wind and rain(liquid sunshine as me old granny used to call it....daft old bat)

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  2. beast; what part of england do you live in??? phoenix palm? dang. i'm impressed. you and frobi, man; you da horicultural men. now i have climate envy.

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  3. Anonymous11:52 AM

    "I stuck a needle into the second joint of my index finger the other day... [It] made an audible popping noise as the point left the cartilage."


    Thank you for giving me the biggest case of heeby-jeeby collywobble willies I've had since they pulled out my wisdom teeth. UGH!!!!

    How's your finger doing?

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  4. Anonymous11:53 AM

    "I stuck a needle into the second joint of my index finger the other day... [It] made an audible popping noise as the point left the cartilage."


    Thank you for giving me the biggest case of heeby-jeeby collywobble willies I've had since they pulled out my wisdom teeth. UGH!!!!

    How's your finger doing?

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  5. I'm not on beta blogger. It won't let me upgrade, giving me a variety of spurious reasons. Grr!

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  6. Hmm. I can comment on yours, and I don't have beta blogger, yet. Discrimination?

    Owie finger toothie thing no good!

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  7. Anonymous2:12 PM

    There are definately problems with beta. I smell a mass exodus in the air.

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  8. I think you can comment others blogs if you set up a google signon (it prompts you when you try and comment) , you then have to verify your sign on set up and supposedly off you go , flinging comments in every direction as normal

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  9. I live in Bournemouth , on the south coast of England , right near the Isle of White

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  10. Anonymous2:45 PM

    I agree about Beta Blogger - I had the same bizarre experience as well. I guess it is to force us all to have google accounts.

    We have a carnvivorous tree on the corner of East Street and Sea Street between the Kindergarten and the All Night garage. It is cordoned off but sometimes people as well as monkeys etc wander inside thwe cordon, when a huge sticky branch whips out and pulls them in.. I live in Bridport Devon, East of the Isle of Wight and South of the isle of Dogs!

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  11. What are the advantages to Blogger Beta over regular Blogger?

    Piscine. Hee hee hee. Good word.

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  12. Anonymous3:37 PM

    i had a google account long before the whole beta blogger phenom, so maybe that's why it worked smoothly for me.

    for what it's worth, Googlemail is WAY better than hotmail or yahoo or any of those other free mail thingys. it works really well, and the user interface is very simple and straightforward. you have to be invited to join, but i still have, like 100 invites left to use up, so if anyone wants one raise your hand.

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  13. Anonymous5:27 PM

    Blogger sucks

    You sound grumpy. Have some puppies (check your email, you'll see what I mean) and come see your Gooneybird. I am sure he wouldn't mind being hijacked from school by his gramma in the slightest. You have my permission...go!

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  14. Anonymous5:49 PM

    I made a new blog with teh cuteness.
    Accompanied by I hate XMas rant.
    You should steal GB from school, I think he would enjoy gramma stealing him away a little. Or a lot.



    lucuiiu = the sound of lucy lui and lucy lawless dukin' it out. yesssss.

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  15. Anonymous6:10 PM

    I made a new blog with teh cuteness.
    Accompanied by I hate XMas rant.
    You should steal GB from school, I think he would enjoy gramma stealing him away a little. Or a lot.



    lucuiiu = the sound of lucy lui and lucy lawless dukin' it out. yesssss.

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  16. Anonymous6:53 PM

    Aren't we having fun with the storms? I heard another bad one is on it's way through here tonight. More to follow. Living in Washington is fun fun fun fun.

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  17. If you want to leave a comment on a Beta Blogger blog, click on the Other option in the Choose An Identity section under your comment, then leave your blogger identity name and URL. The comment will be accepted this way. Problem is, if the blog doesn't accept anonymous comments, you don't have this option.

    I've just checked - the only way you can get a Google account is by someone who already has a g-mail account recommending you, or via your mobile phone. I don't have a mobile phone.

    The only other option is to go over to the Dark Side of Beta Blogger (cue Darth Vader breathing noises).

    Beta Blogger and non-Beta Blogger - we're being carved up like East and West Europe after WW2, I tell you.

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  18. I haven't gone over to Beta because I DON'T LIKE CHANGE.

    I can still comment though.

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  19. ...except I con't comment on Realdoc' blog.

    Bollocks!

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  20. Anonymous5:25 AM

    ARGH! Not the finger story! It's nasty! ouch ouch ouch ouch.

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  21. i'm not allowed to post on the betas either. and yet, i'm afraid to switch. i feel like blogger might lose all of my profound thoughts from the past year and then i'll have to start all over again. poo.

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  22. Anonymous8:26 AM

    Where me and Beast live we get the Gulf Stream which brings warm water from the southern hemisphere, the water warms the land and makes things like palms and "weeds" grow well. The south coast is the warmest (and most attractive) part of Britain. We rarely get snow (can't remember the last time) and perhaps only a couple of dozen frosts a year. But we still like to moan about the weather!

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  23. cb; the finger is a-ok. it ached for a little while, then i did some dishes in hot water and that took care of it. weird, huh?
    billy: me either. and i tried. maybe because the password i chose was 'fuckyougoogle', huh.
    danator: its all messed up. losing power twice did nothing for all my cookies either.
    realdoc: oh yeah. and go take a look at blogger help; its full of Beta problems! some of which are HAIRY.
    beast: will try. meanwhile relax amongs the palm trees with an umbrella drink and wait for my next utterance. you are welcome.
    muttley: DINGDINGDINGDING! thats it exactly, i'll bet! carniverous tree? sounds more like a tree-triffid mutation. check for radioactivity in your neiborhood.
    mj: none as far as the consumer goes, judging from all the freaking and tweaking on bloggerHelp about problems with Beta. piscine is a nice fishie word.
    cb: I may be taking you up on that. i may also actually already ahve a google account, but its via my daughters computer and its all confusing *snif*
    ssa: i will go check (read: leave lots and lots of bizzarre and annoying coments and links to weiner pictures)
    EVERYONE: GO TO THE SSA'S NEW BLOG AND LEAVE HER LOTS OF ANNOYING COMMENTS AND LINKS TO WEINER PICTURES
    megan: i used to climb pine trees! you go all the way up to the top until it starts to bend, then you get it whipping back and forth! dangerous but FUN.
    pam: how are you doing? you folks had sideways rain and thunderstorms this morning!!!!!! crap! hang on!
    betty: thanks for the crack! i'll see if it works. no shit we're being carved up; remember when television was free? getcha hooked then pull the old switcheroo on us; thats what it is, A PLOT I TELL YOU SALIVATE FOAM RANT GASP ACK
    spin: probably a wise precaution seeing as all the other blogger 'upgrades' have fucked up the whole thing royally speaking of which, seen the pix of prince bill's impressive 'william'? DAYUM!)
    loganoc; tried to comment at your place yesterday and was spat upon by blogger. wanted to say that i utterly dig the mitties with the question mark on them! and the finger is ok. apparently a good soak in Dawn dishwashing liquid cured it.

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  24. Gack, so sorry about your finger and tooth. That sounds awful to have a needle in your cartilage. But then again in adulthood I decided a needle phobic I shall be. So there's that too. Oof.

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  25. To hell with Blogger Beta. It's just another form of oppression.

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  26. Anonymous7:37 AM

    I'm testing...

    one two one two.

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  27. Anonymous7:41 AM

    Okay sure that went through - I think I've lost two comments somewhere around here.

    This blasted blogger thing has me pissed - I switched to Beta and although it is more updated and easier in terms of creating posts, the whole commenting things is sort of turned on its head. But you know, why don't you join me in my aggravation - plus I miss you at my place!

    Although I think the WCSN may be correct, we just may all be that cattle being led down the chute on that day when they say no more regular blogger.

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  28. Anonymous12:24 PM

    A Google account is like the sign of the Beast so blame him, now outsider blogs have trouble with comments.

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