fancy a cuppa?

i've got one right here in my wallet. My Tea Wallet!


so i was at my favorite beach town, and there's a new tea shop there. in amongst the gifts and knick knaks i found a basket of tea wallets. not very expensive, they were only $4.95. normally right up my alley. but i'm a seamster, so i decided to make my own instead. folded they're about 3 x 4, flat it's roughly 6 x 4 it's got four pockets you can put teabags, or sugar packets or even little coffee sachets in there.

I'm going to make a whole bunch for my coworkers at the pharmacy for holiday gifts. and you really can make them with scraps.

I've been able to work up some directions to the tea wallet.

1. start with two rectangles of fabric of two different prints; 6.75 x 4.75 each, plus one rectangle of muslin for the interface.


2. take one of each print and iron it in half, print side out, the long way. They should end up 6.75 x 2.375. this is also when you make what ever closure you want, for this one i'm using a strip of bias tape.


3. top stitch the crease to make it look nice and professional


4. take the fold that is the same as your outside fabric and lay it on the lining fabric so the raw edge running parallel to the lining edge (with the muslin beneath) and sew together. this is the contrast pocket. the yellow highlight shows where you want to sew.


5. take the fold that is the same as the lining and place it over the contrast pocket (hiding the stitching from the contrast pocket) and pin everything together.

(Now is also the time to sandwich your closure in. put it between the ouside fabric and the pockets, don't sandwich it between the pockets themselves.)

6. place your outside fabric over all (RSF!), and pin the whole sandwich together.


7. sew a U starting at one corner of the top, down the side, along the bottom, and then up the other side.


8. Trim your bulk and clip the corners. turn right side out. press and match the top edges together, and then topstitch around the entire thing.


9. fold in half and press to give a bit of crease. then sew along the spine crease. this will help define the fold and it also creates the pockets inside.


10. add a button, and viola!


They are really easy, and methinks the possibilities are endless!

Hey Roger! Get Stuffed!

NOW HERE THIS! under no circumstances have i ever wanted Roger Clemens back as a red sox pitcher. you will never, ever, ever be able to find a place in time where i have said, boy it's too bad... Not once, not ever.

he is a jerk. he's arrogant, he's over paid, he's full of himself and i do not want him to play for my team. i have never once wanted him to play for my team since he left. not once ever did i cheer for him when he pitched at fenway as a yankee, a blue jay or an astro. not once. not even begrudgingly. I was at that game a few seasons ago, I think it was when pedro pitched against clemens in july of 2004. and the whole park was yelling Roger!.... roger!..... roger!.... YOU SUCK! i liked that. then we smoked him that game. that was nice.

In 2004 he couldn't even say, boy it's nice they finally won a World Series. he couldn't even conceed that it might have been nice to be a part of the team that finally won. because being a big person is a foreign concept to him. he has no loyalty- not even to the astros- supposedly a team that had an emotional draw for him because he's from texas, and his family is there. whoops, gotta go- more money elsewhere, more fame in the bronx. better press coverage on the YES network.

Sure, roger clemens is a very skilled and rediculously talented pitcher. but he's an asshole, any way you slice it. I for one, am so pleased he's not back in boston, because i would not be able to deal with all the media and fans tripping over themselves to gush and kowtow and shower him with platitudes. He's a guy who wrote the book on me-me-me-me-ism. And I can't wait to see him get smoked again, by the sox, by tampa bay, baltimore, toronto or whomever.

If I could do a Cartwheel...

I surely would! I just completed the booking for our trip to Ireland!

Mom and I are going along with Dad and Marianne so they can run the marathon. Personally, I think running a marathon is a bit daft, but 'tis ok! After all, it is the Dublin Marathon.

So now I just have to endure another six months of waiting. But between now and then I'll have to find a place to stay, and book the coach trip to the Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim.

(http://www.northantrim.com/giantscauseway.htm)

Besides that, I'll have to start Practice Packing, agonizing over knitting needles and DVD players on board the aircraft, and printing maps and itineraries.

Plus, Dad and Marianne will have to start really training, now that we all have our tickets there's no backing out! Mom will have to start reviewing her journal and organizing the one for this trip. There's a lot to do in six months!

Hoo hoo hoo! I can hardly wait. This time it's a long trip; ten days! But it works out to only be six days of vacation from work, because there are two weekends worked in.

Yippee!
Gosh, I wish I could do a cartwheel!

so, i'm beginning to be worried about hitting

it seems that even with JD Drew in the line up- the sox are somewhat anemic in the hitting department. - i suppose i'm more interested in consistency. It's no good when we can open with 13 runs and then have only one hit the following night. that is not cool.

i'm also concerned about this julio lugo guy. Alex Gonzales is a tremendous shortstop, easily as good on the field as Lugo- so the only thing lugo might be able to bring to the table is a bat- but if he's going to only hit around .250 or .265, then what's the point of swaping gonzales out? and for that matter- i'm beginning to be a bit tired of the revolving door at short and second. Especially shortstop- that is too key a position to have four different players in three years.

I hope that the sox bats will start up soon- i heard once that the early part of the season is always better for the pitchers- then the middle of the season it's pretty even, then the end of the season is better for hitters. makes sense, sure. but the sox need to start hitting more regularly- and all of them need to. Gone are the days of playing the long ball. so far the only REAL threat for the long ball in our line up is ortiz/ramirez. i suppose Drew will be good for a 20 or 25. I don't think Youk will be too dependable for home runs, and clearly neither will jason varitek and mike lowell- a few here and there, maybe, but not the machines thay might have once been. so we get back to what the sox have never done well since the dawn of time- small ball and run manufacturing. coco crisp needs to get on base, as does lugo. get on base.

it's only the first week or so, but it's awfully early to start leaving our starting pitchers out to dry- they are too good- dice k kept us in yesterday's game. but you can't win if only one man gets a hit.

O Museu da lingua Portuguesa

so there is a museum for the portuguese language in São Paulo, Brazil. it is the only museum desicated to a language in the entire world! Though i've never been to Brazil, I've been to portugal, and i have many portuguese friends. so i'm planning on attending a keynote lecture given by the one of the directors of the museum, and you should too!

it's talking place at Boston University in Room B12, in the college of arts and sciences building on Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 5.00pm. the address for it is 725 Commonwealth Ave, Boston. you take the green line out past kenmore square. it's one of hte stops along there- if you take the train to mass art or the paradise, you've gone too far.

See you there!

tomato juice wishes and security dreams

when i travel on a plane, i get tomato juice. I'm not sure why, but i always get tomato juice on a plane. there is something inherently special about a plastic cup with think red juice and a single ice cube. i think it's because i travel so infrequently that i associate the drink with it. When i travel, i try to consider the security check as part of the package. sure it's a pain, and it's a total free-for-all at the security gate; true the TSA workers can sometimes be right prats, but who cares? suffer through that part of the package, and before long, you'll have your tomato juice!

then you can land in some far away destination and do your best to fit in with the locals. try new things, try old things again- you know you love tehm after all. Go to the public library, take a bus and then the grocery store.

so yesterday i was entering purchase orders at my NEW job, (yay new job!) and whilst doing so i couldn't get the memory of the last trip to dublin out of my head, strange isn't it- memory. mom and i went last February, 2006. we were only there for a few days, but we jam lots of stuff into those short days. while we were there we went shopping. there is a road that goes away from trinity college, it's not grafton street, but it runs roughly parrallel to grafton. i'm not sure the name. but there is a fantastic book shop- Hodges and Figgis, i think, and there's an oxfam shop, and across the street there is a gourmet food shoppe.

It's funny to me, how i remember the most inane things about trips. not really funny i guess; i like it.
that's how i know the trip was a success!

I think i might start getting newsweek

i think that would be a good way to get some information. sort of like vitamins, but for my brain. I'm not sure i can float along in life without real facts. though it seems that the big cheese in washington gets along fine without real facts.

to get my mental vitamins, i've recently started to watch 60 minutes. it started with condoleeza rice at the beginning of the season- but now i have begun to watch it with regularity. i watched it yesterday. did anyone else watch 60 minutes yesterday? I wonder if the president ever watches 60 minutes.

what i wonder about the president is how can he blithely ignore all the ugly bits of his pet war in iraq. I really wonder if he truly is not aware of them.

lets start a list:
1. well, there's the stagering cost in dollars. it's hard for me to keep track of how much money we've sepent on the war- bloomberg has an article

here,

but even with the concise, well written article, i still can't get my head around how much we've actually shelled out.

2. lets see, there's the absolute complete crumbling of any sort of diplomatic relationship, rapport and integrity in that neighborhood of the world.

3. I suppose this could be 2a. there's the absolute complete crumbling of any sort of diplomatic relationship, rapport and integrity with many other nations the world. (note the reception to the current Latin American tour)

4. there's the heart-stopping amount of collateral damage. between the civilians who are stuck there, the refugees who now are having difficulty finding a different place to be safe, and the iraqis who worked with the US troops who are now targeted as collaborators, I find it hard to believe that there is anyone still alive in iraq.

5 and the coup de ta! the cost in US Soldiers. the price the army and the armed forces is paying is criminal. it really is. Though i understand that to leave now would leave things unfinished, but this is a civil war now. there are civil wars all over the globe that the US has kept at arms legnth, why is this one so important? the fact of the matter is that Iraq is an unstable place. yes saddam hussein was a dictator and he was cruel and he needed to be removed, but i'm not sure the subsequent civil war is ours to fight.

then you add to it that soldiers who come home go to walter reed hospital, if they go at all, and it's posititively criminal. American construction companies would be in big trouble if they cared for injured men as poorly as they do at walter reed. the federal government would fine them!



the other day there was a

scrub drive in Natick.

The organizers have said that it was compassion that was the root of it, and not politics. but come on, how can it not become political? how can the nurses not have enough scrubs?

Could it be because this was an ill-conceived and ill-planned war, and that the ring leader behind it is short sighted, and didn't allow for that sort of thing? Could it be that this war is spiraling out of control with no end in sight? the fact of the matter is that the american people have been hoodwinked into this morass of suffering and ill-will, and it will take many years for us to recover.

perhaps we are the ultimate dumb dumbs, but in the end we lose. the current administration is going to ride out their 35% approval rating, and go screw you other 65%. just because you are the majority, even though in a democracy majority rules. the current administration will contine on it's power trip of power trips, fuled my our very own zealots how gave it an approval. leaving the rest of us with little; no not little, NO recourse of the matter.

Americans need more vitamins, for their body, and for their brains. We'll need to be strong for the upcoming weeks.

boy is he handsome!

I don't usually go in for gushing about famous men and how i would love to be their wife, but i have to confess, that george clooney does cause some weak in the knees.

he sure is handsome. i suppose it's because he's sort of just regular, especially since if he's not on a movie he doesn't bother with hair dye. he just seems so approachable. I suppose girls and women must throw themselves at him, i imagine that if i ran into him at the ballgame i would probably have diminished motor functions, and i bet i would stutter and giggle in a high pitch too. but come on, he's got tremendous fashion sense, he's rediculously funny, and he's got that voice. and that smile.

this all came about because i watched that dopey movie One Fine Day yesterday. you know, with michelle phiffer- (another beautiful person, but we concentrating on the men right now) it's not a terribly creative movie- two people can't stand each other then they fall in love! so it's not too original, but it's cute and it's sweet and it's got some funny bits in it.

but at the end they are in her amazingly outfitted kitchen, which she could only afford if she were totally rich, or inherited the rent control from her parents, and he is trying to kiss her and it's just so preposterously sweet! then they fall asleep on the couch in the equally amazing living room and it's just so agonizingly romantic it's absurd. the reason i think the whole thing is a little believeable is because clooney is so believeable in that situation.

i do like that george clooney. he's dreamy.

sewing shermy.

hee hee hee. My shermy, he's a seamster, and he didn't even know it. Actually, he was trying to catch a ladybug. I've only had him for a short while, three months or so. So he's still totally cute and kittenish. He's got some bad habits, he chews on the plugs at the outlets, and he's terrible about knocking things off the coffee table- he also thinks the pin cushion is a toy. But all in all, he's a totally good investment. he comes running to say hello when i get home from work and he doesn't eat any sort of people food. He's stopped peeing on the floor, and he's not a scratcher or a biter. I love my shermy the cat.

if you haven't got anything nice to say...

don't say anthing at all.

this is a lesson i learned when i was a child- literally. i was perhaps five or six when my dad first said this to me. FIVE OR SIX. so naturally i am surprised when people say rotten things to one another. I'm even more surprised when i'm the recipient of rotten sentiment.

picture it- workplace, october 31, 06. three of us embark on what seems to be an inoccuous enough conversation about a particular hair product we've all tried. it's billed as a leave-in conditioner, but as it turns out a person has to apply heat to attain it's full benefit. Upon learning this, i mention that this is not a route i'll go, so it really wasn't too appealing to me. upon speaking these words, VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES quips, "Yes, and everyone knows that we can't get Ms. Kris to expend more than three steps for her hair".

sorry, but back the bus up. that just isn't ok. Firstly i do not leave the house looking like a bag lady, nor do i leave the house with uncombed hair. secondly, with those two salient points established, telling someone their hair is wrong is on the same level as telling them they are too fat!

What boggles the mind and hacks me off the most are three thoughts: one, this person thinks i'm too stupid to pick up what they're laying down; two, this person thinks it's ok to pick on other people (essentially being a bully); and three, this person thinks that since i'm lower on the work totem pole, i have no recourse (essentially i'm an easy target).

At what point are people going to be responsible for their own actions? I wonder why lots of other people in the world expect that they can say whatever comes to their lips with no consideration for its result and repercussions? Aside from the idea that insulting people, no matter how playfully is delivered is RUDE; Self preservation at least should cause a person to think before they speak- note that now i'm even less inclined to work with this person than i might have been before, because now i realize that they are kind of a jerk. who wants to work wih a jerk?

my personality is to be pissed off and hold a grudge. this is not something i will forget easily. but i will not pass it on. i will not stoop to the lowliness that got me into this snit in the first place. my dad's life lesson is one that i live by, and continue to strive to achive. If i haven't got anything nice to say i won't say anything at all; because no one likes a punch in the nose.

it is voting day in massachusetts,

get out there and vote dammit!

I wish i had a dime for evry person who said, i don't vote, nothing changes. my vote doesn't actually mean anything. or i'm too busy to vote. i don't believe in voting. i don't vote, i don't own my home, i just rent.

pardon me, but if you don't vote, then you have NO SAY whatsoever! you have left the decision to others- and if some texan with ideological plans for the middle east, impossible plans for education, and absolutely no grasp of the actual economy and job market ends up as president because he's hoodwinked thousands of others who DO vote, your non vote means more!

too busy to vote, come on- the polls are open from 7.00 to 8.00 even in my small town. stop in on your way to or from work. it takes longer to park at the mall than id does to mark a few boxes.

i don't believe in voting. why not? if you belive in your freedom of the press, your freedom of speech, or your right to bear arms you shold believe in voting. you can't have freedoms like those and not have a certain amount of responsibility.

you don't vote because you rent your apartment? that is absolutely ridiculous and preposterous and all of those words that mean dopey.

to be an american means you live in a democracy. the reason everyone wishes to live in a democracy is because you get a say. Exersise your right to vote. For that matter, exersise your responsibility to vote. if you don't vote, you forfeit your right to complain about inadequate government.

so today is an anniversary

do you call it an anniversary, though? i always thought an anniversary was a cause for celebration. not one of inherent heartbreak. it seems so preposterous, for me to be so upset, i didn't know anyone personally, who died, nor even through six degrees. but i simply cannot help but feel heartache just the same. I teeter back and forth- trying to forget, and hoping to never forget. if i am not careful, i will work myself into such a state that i'll really need medical attention. then i wish and wash back and forth between guilt over my complete fear of remembering and fear of forgetting.

Then i wonder how here at work we can be so blasé about the whole day- today we have a sales meeting. can you belive it? a meeting dedicated to figuring out way in which we can sell people more product which they truly do not need. But what else can we do? we have to live, we cannot buckle. people have birthdays today. people have wedding anniversaries today. those are real celebrations.

I just cannot get my head around that anyone would want to do something like that to any one. Aside of the fact that it was America who was attacked; September 11 was horrible. the subsequent bombings in madrid were horrible, the bombings in london were horrible, and the recent foiled plan in london were horrible. the situation in lebanon and israel is horrible, and the war in iraq is horrible. the bottom line is that hate breeds hate, and if allowed to continue, human kind will cause its own destruction.

if september 11 taught us anything, it is that we are never ever going to share the world's ideals. nor is the world interested in sharing ours. so what of that? how do we move on from the mutual exclusivities? Can we move on from them? All i can do is make my best effort to do so. i can learn about people, and i can learn to appreciate and celebrate such differences. surely that is possible? if i cannot celebrate a difference, then i can work to understand it and accept it.

i suppose my efforts are just one drop in a bucket, but i am going to make them anyway. and you can't stop me! You can join me if you like though. i wish you would in fact.

the little girl on 60 minutes last night said it best- you cannot kill love.

now hear this!

dunkin donuts drive thrus are for COFFEE ONLY!

when i'm behind you, and you are ordering your effin' bacon egg and cheese on a lightly-toasted poppy-seed bagel and your copilot's steak and egg sandwich on a croisant; plus three coffees: two medium with splenda and skim milk, and one large extra cream and four sugars; oh, yes, and three jelly sticks too please...

bear in mind that i'm behind you and i haven't had coffee yet! for the love of god and all that is holy! DON'T BRING THAT ORDER TO THE DRIVE THRU! sweet jesus, would you just go into the effin store!

the poor kid behind the mic is going to screw it up, and the rest of us have to wait while the dam thing is made, and then for it to be corrected when you aren't satisfied.

you know when you see that big long line at the drive thru? that's because some jerk brought a stupid food order to the drive thru!

coffee only!

Butch Walker....

and the lets go out tonights!

so i've had this question in my head lately, since i'm a singleton; worse, i'm a thirty-person. which is less cool? going to a rock and roll show alone, or skipping it altogether? my research indicates that it is WAY worse to skip something you dig than to go alone. if you dig it, go to it. if you enjoy going to a ball game, then go to a ball game. anyway, you might have a better chance of getting a single seat at fenway than if you have to get one for a sidekick.

so i went to see Butch Walker at axis the other night. i timed it perfectly, i arrived just in time for the last set change, so i didn't have to see the openers or sit through the awful set changes, which i swear bands intentionally make long. and then out come seven people. seven! and they've all got the ridiculous 80's get ups on. it was very funny. i was a bit nervous at the beginning, there was a lot of sort of dorky things; like tossing the pick into the air and all that hokey stuff. but i realized it was part of a little schtick. and it was a short lived schtick, and we soon got down to business of rockin.

the thing i love about this guy butch walker is that his stuff is really like these little stories and anecdotes and a little bit of poetry. it's sound really queer, but his stuff is this really emotionally charged material. even when he was with marvelous 3, the material was full of this sort of truth. i told my friend eric that i would swear his guy writes his stuff whilst spying on everyone's life, though it's probably about his own life mostly. on the album Letters, there are three songs in particular, Mixtape, Best thing you never had, and Maybe it's just me; that every person in the whole world can apply to their own life. everyone! and on a marvelous 3 album there's a song called Beautiful that every girl dreams about some guy dedicating to her.

so this show was full of all this ridiculous emotion, and energy, and tangible, palpable truth and realism. at one point walker sat at a piano all by himself and sang three of the most heart wrenching songs i've heard in a long time. complete with sorrowful back stories. that really is a ballsy move for a musician- who knows if the crowd is going to tune in on the sorrow behind it? and you know, and that certainly does reduce the pace of a show to a crawl. who knows if they'll be able to recover from it? it might be hard to get the rockin energy back. but it was perfectly seamless. such a good part of the show.

i have no idea if it was the end of the tour or the middle, but it hardly matters, because it could have been on my living room with 5000 close friends. it was such a good show, and i would have been so mad at myself if i talked myself out of going simply cause i had no companions.

now i can accept paypal!

I'll probably get smoked with some sort of horrible per use fee, but who cares! I just want other people to be able to buy some of my products! and I want it to be easy for them. It really is a pain in the neck to have to jump through hoops to make a purchase from an online up and comer. so I don't want to be one of those artists.



if you have a bit of time, go have a visit to my on-line shop! i Think you'll find something you like!

www.violetgarden.etsy.com

so, I've got an esty shop!

here is my newly opened esty shop.

Violet Garden Gifts

I'm planning on selling the things i make, bags and accessories. i'm planning on offering coin purses, messenger bags, mini and regular size, belts, key chains, and travel pouches.

I've only just opened the doors, so there's a tiny bit of construction still going on. Paypal will be up and running on Monday; and a more extensive product range witll be available. If you need a gift for someone, or you want to give yourself a well deserved present, stop on by.

see you there!

oh how i hate aol!

aol is the most ridiculous thing on the planet! and shame on them for tricking people into thinking that aol for broadband is some kind of great thing. here's a newsflash everyone! your online experience is no safer by using aol! rememebr that aol is time warner, and time warner is the most giant company in the world right now, with their shjitty little fingers in every pie imaginable. from entertainment to banking to communication and probably to cars and energy too. make no mistake, they share your info, because privacy laws allow for sharing info between divisions of companies. so where's your safety, really?

and then i could go on and on about the horrilbe interface they have. they make everything so effin cutesy, that you can't find the effin send button! and downloading a file? who knows where it goes, when you really just want it on your desktop so you can move it to the proper folder yourself.

i am on vacation this week, but i need ed to check on thestatus of a proof for work. so i'm using my sister's computer. a computer geek like myself can't fault her, she dosen't make her living electronically. so she hasn't realised yet how aol is a complete disservice to her and to her family too. none of her kids have any internet smarts, and they can't even get to the effion bbc news site, because phrases like "raised fears" send the aol safety flares off. on top of that, aol has shitty attachment features, so sending and receiveing attachments, (if they are permitted)is clunky, and cumbersome. if you want to go to a yahoo mialbox, and you type www.mail.yahoo.com in the aol search engine bar you get a new window! irritating! and then if you decide you're done in yahoo mail, you go back to the url bar, and put www.boston.com, another window! and it's not even the same one as when you were in yahoo mail! DUMB! and all that extra shit that aol offers- buddies, and instant messenging, and favorites, some sort of search list- all these things are are little more than desktop clutter!

Clutter on you pc desktop is no better than on your desktop desktop! it's littele wonder that america's children are geting less and less cerebral as the days go on. so when they go to college and find that www.yourcollege.edu doesn;t run like aol. they'll be in trouble. that is why those IT guys will always be in jobs, they'll always have to pick up the pieces of aol.

my ten month plan....

...to get out of credit card debt is going along quite nicely, thank you very much. Provided i don't need to use it for anything i should have those bums at Chase paid off in January. Though I am remarkably fortunate that i didn't fall into the the horrible cc debt that some college kids do, i did crank up my share of debt. the highest my balance ever was was $4500. but i have never ever, since graduation in '97, had a true $0 balance. I came close about two years ago, but my foolish brother needed to charge his car insurance, and it was all downhill from there.

here are my tips for soon to be grads or recent grads. i'm no suze orman, but i have learned a thing or two since college.

1. Do not get that perfect car right out of college. drive a few years in a banger. you will save on car payments and you will save on car insurance. Car loans are a sure way for you to get in over your head before you are ready.

2. Do not over spend! It seems so trite and obvious, but it is not an easy thing to do. Do your best to ask yourself, do i want or do i need that item? is it a good investment? will i get true value from it?

3. Set aside part of your paycheck every week to a SAVINGS ACCOUNT. for instance, if you take home $525 every week, then set aside $25 of that to a savings account. (it's very easy to do this if you can get two direct deposits. one to your working ckng acct and one to your svngs acct.) this is a key to saving! $25 clams is not that much! a person can live quite comfortably on $500 take home a week. (i know, i have been living on $472 weekly take home for the past six years) If you deposit just $25 a week from the moment you graduate, then in ten years time, you have $12,000! that is a down payment on a house! I cannot stress that you must start saving little by little right away!

4. pay your bills on time and faithfully. aside from what i see as something akin to a moral obligation to do so (you did sign whatever contract you did to get the account in the first place, and signing the contract is an agreement and promise to pay the money you are credited, or paying for the service rendered) Aside from this, if you pay things late, or go over your balance, you are punching yourself in the financial gut every time! every time! Credit card companies do a happy dance every time a peson pays late. A late fee is found money for them, then on top of it you have to still have to come current. if you don't come current by the next statement, another punch in the gut. you can see how shit might roll down hill on this.

5. Don't over draft your checking account, and don't skate the lines of postdating or paying with a check before the funds are actually in your account. A bounced check just ain't cool. (refer to tip #4. bouncing your payment or bouncing a check at a store results in late fees and usually bounced check fees from the payee, and from your own bank too). also, passing bad checks is fraud. and if the company thinks you've done it intentionally or too frequently, you can actually be arrested and prosecuted. Again, shit rolls downhill on this one

All i can do is tell people be smart. have a sense of balance in your finances. have a sense of your actual balance, have a sense of what you've already paid out, and have a sense of what your actual style of living calls for. Be sure to weigh purchases as investments- what value are you getting for what you are paying. as long as you feel you have gotten good value when you make a purchase- big or small, you are ok. remember carrie bradshaw from the surprisingly insightful hbo show sex and the city. she had 100 pairs of $400 shoes. lets all do the math-$40k.
That's a lot of money invested for squished toes.

well, at least it's also raining in dublin

i simply cannot believe the rain! it has rained here almost non-stop since wednesday. it's monday now, and the forecast shows that the ran isn't supposed to end until tomorrow afternoon. then wednesday it's not supposed to be nice, but cold and gray and not good weather for picking up the pieces after a terrible rain storm. nothing will dry properly.

ugh. we haven't played a softball game in weeks, and now we are running out of time. there's graduation coming up, abbots farm day, and class day too, plus the league requres that all the games are completed by the 31st of may, but you can only play four games a week. Though i think we still should be able to fit it properly, it will still be very tight.

plus, there hasn't been red sox baseball for days either. i had to find something to watch on tv over the weekend. but luckily i worked a long day on saturday, and i didn't need to find too much tv. i watched that movie wimbledon with handsome paul bettany on saturday afternoon, and again on sunday, because my mom came over for mother's day scones and tea, and we watched handsome paul bettany.

it was sort of nice to have a weekend burrowed in my apartment like a little raccoon, though I can only have that opinion because i didn't actually have any emergency associated with the rain. but i'm dreading the sun to come out, the world is going to look a mess.

Medical info

This is my medical info, should i fall and be knocked out cold. There's a silly bracelet on my wrist that has this link.

so here goes:
i use insulin, i use humalog(or novolog) on a sliding scale according to carb counting

Breakfast and Lunch: 1:10 (1 unit insulin for every 10 grams carbs)
Dinner: 1:8 (1 unit for every 8 grams)

I use Insulin glargine (lantus or Levemir) at bedtime
22 units at or around 10.30 pm.

I do not use other medicine. I do not have allergies to medicine, but i do wear contact lenses.

My doctor can be reached at the Joslin Clinic, in Boston, MA. 617-732-2400 You should speak with Liz Halprin, Liz Blair, or in a worst case scenario, Lori Laffel.

My mom's telephone is 978-568-1483, her cell is 978-790-7732. Heidi's home is 978-568-8551 and Colleen's Home is 978-952-0144 her cell is 978-790-8576

well, tomorrow is 30 days

tomorrow is exactly one month from when we landed home after our trip to ireland. when i go away, i like to go to the shops that people go to to get things they need- we went to eurosaver and to Dunnes Stores and we also went to Spar, and of course we went to marks and spenser. we also went to Boots. i got things a person needs in boots. Shampoo and conditioner, hand cream and things like that.

when i was in portugal last summer i went to Pingo Doce to get groceries and things like that. it was very funny on the check out, the cash girl offered me a laundry soap trial size. now you must understand that i went to portugal i selfishly went haardly knowing the language at all. i could say Olá! and Obrigada, and Boa Noite, Boa tarde, Bon Dia. oh and Bem Vinda, Mas o menos and Nao. so clearly you can tell that my two weeks in portugal would be an adventure indeed. so back to the girl with the free sample. she tells me al about the great things, the words wash over me like a tidal wave, and my friend sofia translates for me. i was so embarrassed. then to make matters worse, cash girl told sofia, i was trying to decide if i sould speak french or english to her. AH! how doubly embarrassing! imagine she could choose from three languages! i'm so inadequate!

but the greatest thing about going to portugal, and to scotland in '99 is that i got to stay with families of friends. i got to really be a regular person. In scotland i watched TV with Brian and his mom and dad. their dog would chew on the crushed stone from outside, then bring them in and leave them all over the kitchen floor. by the end of the trip even i knew the standard scolding: jezzie! stop bringing those in, you're making a mess!

When i visit Ireland with my mom, we try our best to look like natives. though i'm sure we don't we just think we do. but our skin tone and our hair and eye color and also our physical build makes us look like we might could be natives, clearly our silly oohs and Ahs give us away, but not like in portugal, where no matter how hard i tried it was like i had a sign on "tourist"

I like being a tourist. i just like to do it not so conspicuously. i love being american. i love the fact that i can actually belive that my government is inept. i love that we have baseball. i love that i have what i have here, my family, my friends, my health, my resources. i don't live on easy street, I'll be paying CardmemberServices until 2008 for those four days in dublin, But i am a lucky american girl, it's just that i would like to give it a go being an irish girl, or a portuguese girl, or even a canadian girl. just to try it on. you know, for adventure's sake. Today i used the shampoo from ireland. the smell brought me right back. Perhaps the idea of the adventure is better than the actual adventure is. maybe just daydreaming about it is a better plan.

time to go!

So today is the day my mother and i leave for Ireland. I'm leaving right from work. i hope i have everything i need. i'm catching up on junk and tying up loose ends here. i hope i remember to do everything, so when i get back next monday i won't have some shitstorm to sort out.

So this is our rough itinerary. we have lots of things to to. everyone says, boy that's a long flight for a short trip, but it's really not, the flight is only about 5 hours. the flight to orlando from logan is 3.5 hours. and i don't mind saying, if i'm gonna shell out $1500 for a vacation, it won't be orlando.

02/20/05 Depart from logan

02/21/06 Arrive in Dublin
Spend the day shopping. Go to Arnotts and Boots, Perhaps go to Dublin Public Library, see what has replaced Bewleys. Go to Christ Church Cathedral to look around. Go to the National Gallery or The National Museum. have pub supper or
perhaps get supper ready made at Marks and Sparks.

02/22/06 Spend the day in Dublin
Go to have coffee, and perhaps a curry. Go to Easons and the GPO.At 13.00 there is a guided tour of the Chester Beatty Library. in the afternoon, see about a matinee of the play with Ralph Fiennes, or see if there are any games being played at Croke Park this week. Wander around St Steven’s green. Go to Hickeys Fabric Shop and Marks and Spenser to do real shopping. Supper at a nice little place like that italian restraunt.

02/23/06 Take the Bus to Glendalough and Wicklow mountains.

02/24/06 Side adventure out of town
Early in the morning, take the Dart Train or Bus to Malahide Castle, then come back and go to the Winding Stair.Then later in the afternoon, take the Dart Train South to Bray to go to the fabric shops and yarn shops. Perhaps have supper or tea in Dun Laoghrie on the way back.

02/25/06 Fly Home (Booo!)

I'm going to try to post a web journal at cybercafes and what have you, but i might not be able to do so. one thing i like to do is send a post card to myself every day of the trip. you know, write it at the end of the evening, andthen post it the following morning, that makes a nice travel journal, and then you know you'll get at least one good photo a day.

more news later!

yippee! spring is here!

it's truck day! It's truck day! it's truck day! that is the sox equipment truck is leaving fenway today with all those bats and balls and uniforms and pitching machines and extra bases and bat donuts buckets of david seeds. for the treck down to fort myers.

how fitting that the truck leaves the day after a gigantic snow storm. there really is light at the end of the winter tunnel, and it's not a train, it's the red light on the top of the pitching machine!

hoo hoo hoo! five more days until pitchers and catchers, such as they are and then the rest show up a few days later. buy me some peanuts and cracker jack, i don't care if i never get back! PLAY BALL!

it's just that i think George W is inept.

i just don't get the impression that he's actually in touch with reality. i really wonder if he actually reads the reports or actually listens to msnbc or wbz 1030.

it's just that i really wonder how he plans to get things accomplished. Sure, medicare part d works, but it only works because dedicated staff at the pharmacies and insurance providers have spent long hours on the telephones figuring the shit out.

the dependency on oil has been exacerbated by politicians (republians especially) for decades. just now there is a project proposed for a wind farm off the coast of cape cod massachusetts

called the cape wind project,

that is languishing in beauracracy, red tape, the courts and all that crap that nobody understands. I realise that checks and balances prevent the president from interfering with the courts, but come on, it would be a sparkling reccomendation if the president gave his endorsement to the project.

no child left behind is a joke. this plan hasn't actually made students smarter or more qualified, it makes them able to pass dot tests. whoopee. did you know that in my niece's school system they no longer teach phonics? The tool they teach the children is the idea that "if i know how a word begins and ends then i just put those letters, and that will be ok." well, actually love, that is a spelling mistake, and it's not ok. c-a-t spells cat, not k-t.

on top of these, i really wonder if he is reading the same newspapers we are when he hears about the war in iraq. it really dosen't take a mental giant to realise that the war is not going as planned, and it's not going well. the soldiers are up shit's creek, for lack of a better term; and we can't keep shovelling good money after bad trying to dig ourselves out of the mess into which we were hoodwinked. At some point the well is going to be dry.

three or so years ago, my company was going inventory the day bush decided to move the war to iraq. i vividly remember my coworker Ed say to me, "kris, it's situations like this that you have to trust your president. That is why he's the president and we aren't. he's better equipped to deal with this sort of problem than we are." At the time Ed explained it, he made it sound so sensible and logical. and when i listened to him i decided he was right. and i figured that George W had more info than i, so of course he was making a well informed and well thought out decision.

I have to confess though, i'm just not so sure any more, and the more i think about it, the more i really have to come to the conclusion that Geoge W. Bush really has no blessed idea about much of anything. He's full of bluster and hot air, and piss & vinegar, but empty of diplomacy, foresight, or real skills.

In short, we are in for a long three more years, and buckle your seatbelt it's going to be a bumpy ride.

bah! i missed out!

can you believe it! i never went to the theater to see harry potter, walk the line or the constant gardener! and i'll probably not get to see munich while it's still in theatres. i'm so dumb! now i have to wait until they are on dvd before i see them, and i'll have to watch them on my tiny television!


bah! the movie i did go and see lately is dumb jarhead. it just wasn't very good. it wasn;t bad, but it kept teetering on really good action, but then it chickened out. the same thing with the emotionality of it. it kept teetering on the edge of mental breakdown, but never really going the distance. it was sort of like the movie got all the way to the three yardline and then went three and out. just kind of ot complete.

there are a few movies i need to get for my collection: Enigma, Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious, french kiss, the bourne Identity (not the supremacy) Strange Days, and ocean's eleven. also i think i will probably purchase HP 4 and perhaps even the constant gardener. i'll borrow WTL and Munuch from the library, but the other two i'll probably buy. I like to only buy dvd's that i know i'll watch over and over again. for instance, i have watched midnight in the garden of good an evil so often that now i just quote some of the lines. that jim williams done shot a man... Canape? i have to be able to get a good cost per view ratio for dvd's i purchase.

i wonder if i could bring my knitting to the movies. i knit on a loom. i wonder if there would be enough light to do so easily? i'll have to consider that.

I just have to share this with everyone!

You must read this book!

It's available at Amazon,

and probably at your library. It's such a good book. It's at times so embarrassing that people could be so cruel and judgmental, yet on the other hand it's so uplifting and empowering that other people could be so strong and inherently good.

Gosh it's fabulous. And on top of it, the plot follows three girls as they get a fledgling cafe off the ground, so it's full of scents and imagery and even imaginary pictures of delicious things to eat and remedies to make. The chapters are each preceded by recipes that figure in to the plot. One of them is for elephant ears! I hadn't realized that elephant ears were an Iranian specialty. John and Son's bakery used to sell them when I was a child.

It really is a tremendous book. It's not really very heavy, insofar as the author sort of glosses over the revolution and its causes and the implications of it, but I think that was the plan, sort of like the characters kind of glossed over it as a way to cope; but the events weren't so trivialized that the reader is left in the dark as to what the horror actually meant. The opposite in fact, the reader can get a very real sense of the emotional repercussions if not the historical ones.

This book is so very good, I have to share it with people. It's moving, empowering, chastening, educational, comical, and suspenseful all in one hard to put down quick-tempoed read. get a copy today!

well, that settles it.

i cannot have a cat. i'm simply not emotionally prepared. i was driving to work today and there was a big pile of road kill near the cumberland farms. and as i drove by, i just had to look to see what it was, and it was a black cat! can you believe it? a black cat. i haven't seen my black olive in quite some time, since it got cold and snowy really, so i was hoping that he went south for the winter. but seeing the dead cat in the road makes me wonder. And it really makes me unhappy too.

my last hope against hope is that it's somewhat far away from my apartment building, so maybe it's not him. but on the other hand, it's not really that far away, only 1/3 of a mile or so, so it's not too inconceiveable that he would go down there.

oh gosh, i hope it's not my black olive. but then on the other hand, that just means that it's someone else's, and that doesn't make me feel one bit better. so today i am going to be an unhappy person, and it might be for nothing.

So i can't have a cat. i don't want an indor cat, they stink up the house, and it really is clear that i can't have an outdoor cat on the road i live on. it's just too busy.

sigh.

i want this teapot!

i have been doing a lot of cruizing around online today, and i found some great things to add to my list of great things to get. when i get a bit more money

first, this super teapot!


isn't it so cool! the yellow is really appealing to me, even though it doesn't match my kitchen atall atall. i just love bright colors.

and then the next item is this super de duper wrist watch.


i had it once before, but it was stolen when some stupid kids broke into my car. can you believe it they took this great watch, and a few cds and baseball cards, and left the stereo and gas cards in the console. jerks.

anyway, when i go back to dublin next month i'm going to look for the watch. i'm also going to get a tea pot of some kind, i would like an every day teapot, like people use all the time in dublin, but i wonder where i would get it. in portugal i would go to the supermercado, and in england i would go to tesco, but i wonder where in ireland.

hmmm. a project for today.

hoo hoo hoo! ireland here we come!

so my dad gave my mother and i tickets to ireland for christmas again. I am so grateful, yet i also feel so sheepish. i just don't think i'm worth such a super gift, but on the other hand i'm certainly not going to refuse it or regift it!

so i just received word that there's room for us at the inn! We're staying at

the glen guest house;

it's a super b and b in Dublin 1, which is right around the corner from the busaras, and close to a dart stop also.

it's also a short easy walk to o'connell street, and you come out sort of near the GPO.

hoo hoo hoo! I just can't wait! i'm going to bring my resume so i can see if anyone wants to sponsor an american for employment!

this is a good site to visit to start yuor ireland holiday planning:

ireland online

and this is where the hotel is


it's just a few steps up gardiner street from where it intersects beresford place!


yay! yay! yay!

y'know, i really tried

i really tried to the best of my ability to keep this whole signing professional. i really did i was willing to say that we lost a baseball battle to the yankees and we lost an effective leadoff hitter. but i can't do it any more. Now i know, we surely didn't lose a spectacular centerfielder. and we surely have not lost an irreplaceable man in the clubhouse. and i can't keep it in any longer.

johnny damon is an arrogant prick and the reason he fits in so well as a yankee is because it takes one to know one. obviously keep snapping photos.

trimmed damon unveiled

pardon me, but fuck off johnny damon. you go take yourself and your rag arm and go fall down the steps at your new dugout. you better believe i'll keep snapping pictures of you then. Why should we continue to kowtow to you when you have walked into new york and essential slammed your former employers and your former fans? now we really see your true self, spineless.

have some fuckin stones and say you had a good experience here, you fucking sally. stand up for yourself and what is true, and tell everyone that it really was a magical year in 2004 and 2005 was magic too. that you are looking forward to life in new york is also true, and i would be ok with that if you weren't so dismissive of your work here in boston

All that you are now is another one in a long line of moronic zombies with glassy eyes and short hair. come on, tell the truth, it will take some adjustment to go from hands off management to an owner that wants to schedule your next shit. you fit in so well with the yankees, because you have no gumption. no stand up. you talk that talk about being your own person, and having a great idioc personality, but face it buddy, you buckled and you folded and you cracked under pressure. and now you look just like every other centerfielder who played at Yankee stadium. you have no originality whatsoever any more. there's a reason why nobody oustide of the 718 area code likes the yankees, because they are irritating, obnoxios, arrogant and dumb. and you are one of them now too.

so good on you man, sure. win your games with the yankees, you got more money and more of whatever you were looking for but make no mistake, you are nothing more than a yankee now. not a superstar, not a shitty player. you're simply a yankee. you're the same as all the other ones. whoopee.

So the gang of three

Really are like the three blind mice. Lets have a brief overview. We have no shortstop. We have one Major League catcher; we have no second baseman. We have no actual "this is my position" first baseman. Now we have no centerfielder. At this point I would take shitty players. Oh, and our rotation has question marks and our bullpen really isn't the shiny coin we all dream about. And that isn't even considering out batting order.

so it would seem that the sox management team (who knows how many there are or who calls the shots) really don't have a clue about negotiating a contract or running a team. For crimminy's sake, they couldn't even manage to come to an agreement with one of their own, how can they possibly think they are going to be able to deal with the hardball that scott boras plays. Clearly they had no idea what they were getting into.

We have made some spectacularly bad moves this off season, and personally (and this is complete speculation) I think that the next one out is going to be curt schilling. He isn't going to dig the idea of playing with half wits and guys culled from the scrap heap. And lets be real, nobody likes to work for dumb bosses either. On top of it, the gang of three really have mismanaged the media. As of today I've heard rumors that trot Nixon, bronson arroyo, kelly shoppach, and even tim wakefield have all been discussed for trades. Hello? Is there anyone home? Tim Wakefield? Trot Nixon? That's the sort of shit you keep secret!

it really is like an episode of the keystone cops. It just gets worse and worse. Here is a funny article by Dan shaughnassy, who generally is a prat, but today it's good.

for sox, a little off the top

besides the loss of Damon, he goes to the effin evil empire. So we really look like country bumpkins. Remember when Nomar found out they were shopping him from espn? Well, lucchino found out about Damon from them too. Exactly why wasn't that cell phone glued to his ear with boras on the other end? I'll tell you, because they are not good at being general managers.

the whole thing simply smacks of inaptitude! So now we see that it wasn't the number of years Damon wanted, it was the money. A skilled GM would already have realized that Johnny Damon is as shallow as a puddle of spit and conceited and greedy. For crying out loud, we all knew that, how did management miss it? How could they possibly have been ok with the idea that no news is good news?

we are in deep sneakers for next season. The only silver lining is that Johnny Damon is never going to have an assist on a put out at his home field for the rest of his career. It's roughly seven miles from center field to second base at Yankee stadium, and he can't throw out the trash.

it's really a good idea...

to stay sober at your company holiday party.

so i was at my work holiday party the other day. and there was beer and wine. some of my coworkers indulged a bit too much shall we say. here's the thing, it really puts your coworkers in a moral dilemma and conundrum. how do we react when a member of staff is dancing like julia stiles did in 10 things i hate about you? (please note, Julia Stiles is, after all Julia Stiles. when she dances to the Notorious BIG it's sexy. when coworker does the same, let's say it hasn't got the same charm)

how does one expect their coworkers to deal with the fact that they are clearly bombed. Do we try to cut the person off? Do we drive them home; miles out of our way(in this case two hours out and back)? do we stick our head in the sand and hope to hell they get home safe and don't kill anyone?

Asside from those quandries, let's move along to monday morning. Assuming they've recovered from the superstar hangover they must have had on sunday. Now the level of respect between coworkers has declined substantially, just for the nights foolishness alone. But to ice that cake, we all know they drove home drunk.

at the risk of being a wet blanket, just stay sober. at least then you'll be able to make fun of people, you won't be the butt of the fun. it's like that beer ad i saw in rolling stone a long time ago. when you are sober, you get in on 100% of the fun, and 0% of the bar tab.

If you can't handle your booze, or if you know you like it a lot, then skip it all together.
Stay sober. don't drive drunk.

think this will work?

ok, so i tried to like the pdf to my yahoo brief case, but i have to be a premeir member to make the briefcase public. i'm not a premeir member yet, and i haven't decided if i want to go that route, but in the mean time i'm going to see if blogger opens large photos in another window at full size.

let's see....

ok, so blogger will link to a larger picture, and that is a start, but when your download it and print it, you'll have to enlarge it somewhat. so print it to start on legal paper, then bring it to your local kinkos (or your local work copier) and monkey about with the settings til the measurements fit the actual size.

I'm still working on an actual pdf that's printable at 100%, but i need to figure out a way ot post it publicly. more on that later!

so i'm trying to figure out

how to post a pdf for download on this site. because i want to offer you a pattern on how to make these super bags i made.

they are tote bags that i made for my friend sofia and ana for their trip home for the holidays. thay have a 5.5 hour flight ahead of them, and that can be slightly boring. so i'm going to put fun entertaining things in there. spin magazine, tootsie pops, cheeze-it's, a bottle of water, word finds and things like that. i'm also going to put a nice zipper pouch like the ones i posted before in there with a wash cloth and face soap and lotion and a toothbrush and toothpaste.

there really is nothing nicer than getting up right before final approach or even after you've landed when the rest of the passengers are going mental; and washing your face and cleaning your teeth and putting your contacts back in. that is one of my favorite travel rituals. sometimes i do it in the airport sometimes on the plane.

where was your worst cup of coffee?

so over the past few days i have been drinking coffee away from home. and i have to tell you, i have a list of places that make terrible coffee. and i'm going to share them topping my list- starbucks. for all they think they are so smart, and are looking to take over the world; they make horrid coffee. not only do they use two tablespoons when one is sufficient, they burn it. i don't go in for the super cute status symbols, i just want a cup of coffee with cream. how hard is that? the starbucks on route 9 at the lyman streeet intersection gave me the most awful cup of burned, yet cold coffee i have ever drank. it was so bad.

fast forward to yesterday. i was at the alewife T station. the dunkin donuts got the coffee and cream balance correct, but the coffee was just old. it was burned. i wonder if the coffee palaces realize just how profund and distinct burned coffe taste is, and how easy it is to achieve. it really doesn;t take long for a pot to turn into 10w-40 motor oil.

I tried my luck at au bon pan on berkeley street yesterday afternoon. nothing doing. the coffee was so strong and acrid that it curled my hair. acrid is a good way to describe it. like when you get that beer you aren't expecting to be so bitter, and you make that funny face. so i shelled out a total of 7 clams these past few days and got swill in return.

on the flip side, the best cup of coffee i've had in a long time was at cumberland farms on central street. go figure that the gas station coffee would be the best. but you can add the correct amount of cream, and nuke it if it's too cold. and they don't even make it too weak anymore. weak coffee is as bad as super strong coffee. but lately they've not been so skimpy on the gounds. Honey Dew on washington street also makes a first class cup of coffee, always. very dependable.

what about you? where is your favorite java? and your horror stories?

my first quilt

and it's not even a very challenging one at that. But the problem is that the ideas just keep coming, and I have to try them out before they vanish, so that means that projects sometimes have to be set aside. Then regular life takes place, and my weekends free for crafting and sewing are taken up by more mundane things like putting snow tires on the car, going away on vacation (which was one of the greatest trips i've been on) and before i know it, months have gone by.


so this is the whole thing, it's for my college roommate's little boy. I'm pleased with the fabric choice. It's cushy flannel on one side, and on the other it's flannel-y calico that looks like river weeds, like where snakes and tigers live in Africa. The piping around the edge gave me a few fits and the next one will be better I think, but I think that he'll like it.

This is a detail of it.

I'm quite pleased with it, even if it did take me months to actually complete it and ship it to him. hee hee hee

medicare and me

So as a type A personality, I have been spending lots of time mulling over this Medicare Rx. Now I know, you're thinking, what do you care, you're only 30? well, I care because the only way this is going to work is if people try to understand it. That and the fact that soon enough Mary Mary and my dad will have to start looking into it. Add to that my employment at a pharmacy, and people expect us to be knowledgeable in it.

So the inherent problem is that there are private companies involved. Just as Geroge Bush wants us all to be in charge of our govt social security plans (a clever ruse to get us all to unwittingly funnel money to people he has associations and interests with) he wants us to figure out the prescription plans as well.

This is fine, really, it makes sense that we should be the masters of our destiny, BUT, the selection is simply too large. It's daunting. Add to it the fact that the plan companies are marketing it, like sales items. This too is ok, but as we all know, there is far less truth in advertising than we would like. Not to mention the fact that the tools that can be useful in figuring out the plans are not really easy to find online, and, they are not readily available in person. So unless your gran is a fairly advanced web user, she's in trouble.

So I have done my best to figure it out and break it down into manageable steps.

1. Calculate the cash prices for current meds.
2. Determinte the total cost of the current Rx Plan (include premiums, deductibles, and copays). Also be aware that some of these items are only charged if the plan is used.
3. Be sure you know the duration of current plan, and if it's likely to change.
4. Review the Medicare plans available in your area and compare their benefits versus their charges. keep in mind that each plan is different, and that plans may include premiums, deductibles, and copays. They also have specific formularies, or lists of drugs they will cover and not cover.

The trick of course is tracking down the participating plan information. Webmd has a good medicare page.

WebMD Medicare Page

and a Medicare Rx Tutorial page too.

WebMD Medicare RX Tutorial

They also have a link to the feds plan lookup tool, but here it is also

Rx Plan Lookup Tool

A columnist on boston.com said it best, the new plan is called Medicare Part D. D says it best; D stands for disaster.

half.com

i like half.com. i think it's very affordable. and dufflebag.com too. i like buying used music, and tough on the record company. it is too bad the band might lose out on money, but the simple fact of the matter is that i don't want to pay the full price.

so over the weekend i went shopping and blew through too much money, and i stopped at newbury comics, a good place to get music on the east coast. i purchased two weezer albums, an old bad religion album, the lost in translation dvd, and a cd by a guy named butch walker. do you remember him? he used to sing for a band called marvelous 3. they were quite good in the 90's. you know when we were getting overrun with the terrible sounds of spin doctors, sara mclaughlan, the indigo girls, ugh, and hootie and the blowfish and bare naked ladies, Marvelous 3 was a breath of fresh rock and roll air. the stinky, sweaty jump up and down kind that you get drunk and flirt shamelessly with strangers to. it was fantastic.

But then the record company turned terrible, as frequently happens, and they split up just to spite the execs. so then he went solo, and has since released two albums. i just got the most recent, Letters. it's full of great songs, though i must confess, one sounds EXACTLY like everlong, by the foo fighters, but what do i know? so what i like about marvelous 3 and walker's stuff is that the lyrics seem really heartfelt and emotional. it could be that i am a romantic, and i have a wild imagination, but the songs are really like poetry; rockin poetry, but poetry none the less. sometimes they are silly, but sometimes they are really profound. really!

so i just purchased Math and Other Problems from someone on half. they better get on the stick and send it out already!

on line communities

i am a member of an online crafting community. i was slightly nervous at first, what if i didn't have anything to contribute? but it became apparent soon enough that of course i have something to contribute, just like all the others do.

i like it very much. one thing i think is very interesting is how you get to know a person online. you get to know a little bit about their likes and dislikes, their personal philosophy and of course their talents. Also in this community you get to know who is a control freak, and who is more laise faire about crafting. it really is interesting to see the two interact and converse.

i find it very remarkable, also that people can be so alike and yet still come from very different cultures. for instance, there are knitters in every corner of the globe. facsinating. of course there would be, and why wouldn't there be? knitting is not for a specific group of people, americans, austrailians, or portuguese; rich, poor, or median incomes, it's just for knitters.

yet there are also differences, the colors, the yarn or fiber, the culturally favored patterns. i think that is so interesting. it's like an anthropology thesis just waiting to happen.

i wonder if i could do that, be an anthropologist.

how does that sound?
hi. i'm kristine, i'm an online anthropologist.

i think it has a good ring to it.

bollocks, that!

bugger all! manchester united beat chelsea over the weekend. i love chelsea. Forgive me if i am just a silly american with not too much knowledge. I try not to jump on bandwagons just for the sake of it, I love watford too. that is a no no, i know, to support two clubs, but that is the luxury of being on the outside. english people can watch the red sox and also follow the orioles (never the yankees); but sox fans are sox fans, and that's just how it is. (not unlike supporting a football club) it just seems to me that man utd are the yankees of the FA. and bollocks to the yankees, so you can imagine my view on man utd.

one nil. i haven't read who scored, so i don't even have my facts straight yet, but this is terrible. Bah! Darren Fletcher scored the only goal. Darren Fletcher? who the hell is he? he's only got one goal all season! fooey! I hope he stubs his toe.

here is the report.

chelsea/manutd report

egads, look at all those yellow cards awarded.

I'll have to keep a closer eye on the tables from here on.

i am an organized person!

i simply cannot believe that my dad doesn't think i am organized! i'll have to work on that. i'll have to clean my house and my desk properly this weekend. and my car with 100,015 miles on it (it clocked over the day after i posted that post. i guess i drive more miles in a day than i realized).

I like being a control freak. it's comforting. i am nothing if i am not planning something. i do try to roll with the punches, and not be cranky if i don't get my way, but i like to plan for every possible scenario in life. for instance i am currently planning my christmas shopping. i am going to get Easy Rider for one brother in law, and music from the TV show Globe Trekker for one of my sisters.

I mean just because i shreded everyone's paycheck and none of my cd's are in the correct jewel case, doesn't mean that i am not organized. just because all my laundry is still in baskets doesn't mean i am not organized!

ah, perhaps all these things do indicate a lack of organization. i guess i'll start getting my to-do list for saturday ready now.

midlife crisis!

so my car has 99,962 miles on it. i expect to break 100,000 before the end of the year. maybe even before the end of november.

this is having a more profound effect on me than turning 30 did. I have a car that has 100,000 miles on it! when did it get so old? i won't even be able to trade it in an get one with fewer miles on it, because i'll need to keep it after the loan is paid off, to save some money! oh gaah! what a revolting development!

it's a very good car, it's a pickup truck, and the only bad thing about it is that i need concrete blocks and snow tires in the winter. but that's ok. people with mustangs do too. it's dark blue. when i've washed it and vacuumed it and used armour all it's a very nice looking car. shiny and blue.

what i would love to have is a bmw. a black one. hard top. two door. tan interior. if this were a proper midlife crisis, i would go and get one, but it's not, so i can't. i'll just have to dream about my beemer, and make plans for what cd to listen to first!

zipper pouches!

these are three of the zipper pouches i made for a co-worker.



i have lots of the cherry and sleeping cat fabric left over if you would like one. the price for one of these great pouches is a bargain at only $7.

they are 7 x 4.5 and the bottom is 2" wide. you could give one to your girlfriend, or one to your mom or grammy. they are perfect for holding makeup, or a notebook and pen, or a package of crayons and a small drawing tablet for children.

they are also good to use for a little craft kit, if you need one of those for a gift. you put a few skeins of embroidery floss and a sewing needle or two, some small scissors, and a little square of cross stitch canvas, and you have made a gift that is sure to score you some points with its recipient!

Post a reply if you're interested. I'll post some more as they become available!

what a busy weekend!

well, the weather men all said it was going to rain all day on saturday, so i decided to sleep late. it was very nice. but also i had a super long list of things to do. chores and all that fun shit. i had to take the garden out before it took over the world, and harvest the last few stragglers of gourds. then i cleaned the fridge. what an adventure. i live more and more like a bachelor every day. i eat nothing but crap, and there are socks all over my apartment. but i cleaned everything well and truly, and i'm going to give it a go to be less bachelorlike. also, i cooked a proper dinner for myself for the first time in months. barbeque pulled pork and smashed potatoes and cornbread!

but it's beginning to be evidendent that i am in trouble in the cat department. whilst i was clearing away weeds, there was a gray furry thing that sneaked back into the brushes. i shrieked like a little girl! at first i thought it was a ferret; but then i could see that it was another cat. a little tiny one. perhaps two or three pounds. this one is much more wild. very scaredy cat. can you believe he spit at me and took a swing? dopey thing! i think it's one of the striped cat's kittens.

see the thing is there are getting to be too many cats. one cat is nice. two cats are bearable, but three cats? too many. and besides, there are probably more kittens to go along with mini stripe. so i'm going to have to enlist the aid of a cat rescue league i think. they can't stay ot next to the river all winter, and they can't stay with me.

it's too bad, because i like cats, but i don't want to be that old lady with hundreds of cats!

woo hoo...The Foo

so matt and I went to the foo fighters show two weekends ago. Firstly can I just say that the guy from hot hot heat needs to keep his hair shorter? The crazy curls just aren't cutting it. He looks like the guy from that awful band firehouse.

Then next up was weezer. I have to admit; I wanted to not like them. I have never been a weezer fan and I was slightly disappointed when I saw that the Foos were going out with them. But ok, what can I do. So we paid 45 clams for the tickets (more than a 100% increase since the last time the foos were in Worcester, but ok) so I wasn't going to skip the openers. I wanted my money's worth dammit!

Well. Did I get my moneys worth. Weezer was so good. So good. They totally rocked. They played all the songs I knew, and the songs I didn't were bearable. And even my most unfavorite song; the sweater song was super! The lights were tremendous, and they didn't screw around with talking or being funny. They simply played great stuff, and they played it loud. They even played a bit of Blur's Song 2, also a favorite of mine. Really good. I was really pleased with them.

So then the foo fighters came out. Rock on. The title track from In Your Honor has concert opening song written all over it, and so they did, and it never looked back from there. They had super cutting edge screens and lights, I mean from a design standpoint they were really good to look at. The Centrum is a small stadium, large enough for Farm System Ice Hockey, but the sound is terrific, and it wasn’t so big that we couldn’t see the bands. We had floor seats, but I am a short person (bollocks) so we have to stand kind of far away from the crowd so I can see. Well, that's ok, because in the middle of the set, doesn't Dave Grohl run through the crowd to the back of the floor and hop up onto the piece of scaffolding I was leaning on? Yes, he does!



Security was going mental; You can see me scurrying away from them. I’m the one turned around in the blue tee shirt over by the fence on the left. Matt is the one in the gray and black tee shirt between the two yellow shirts. That was so cool when he did that! He slapped high fives as he went by. He’s not really that tall either. But he is skinny and rock and roll looking, so that’s good.

They whole show was just so good. It had the energy of Avalon, but with 10 times the number of people.

$45 clams was a bargain.

my latest bag

here's the bag i made last night. it only took a single fat quarter for the outside, and the lining was leftover fabric from my sister's house. i need to start making things with the supplies i already have. i really have to stop goingt othe fabric store and getting things that take my fancy, because i have so much fabric that it is taking over my life.

I am interested in unloading some of my wares. if you are interested in purchasing one of my bags, post a reply!

On reading

i sometimes wonder if reading is the same for other people as it is for me. i love to read. i just love it. I don't usually read anything of real validity, i mostly just read murder mysteries. but occasionally i'll read something romantic or funny. my favorite books include the Bourne Identity, No News at Throat Lake, Eureka Street, nineteen seventy-seven, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Neverwhere, Maise Dobbs. All of these books i could read over and over again.

notice that most of them are mysteries of some sort. but not all of them. throat lake is just a hysterical book about a Guardian journalist who splits his job and moves to a tiny village in ireland to write for the village paper. and Neverware is about a London man who gets involved in a surreal underworld based on the underground system, it's such a clever book. Masie Dobbs is about a woman detective shortly after the end of WWI and it's heart wrenching. it really is. Jacqueline spears has written three masie dobbs novels and they always make me cry.

Currently i am reading a book by victoria blake. it's called Bloodless Shadow. it's kind of an ugly name, but it's a fabulous book.

I like to read and imagine all the characters, and what they look like, and how they act. i love it. I love to imagine the location and the weather and the smells. some times of couse you get to know the characters and then you can empathise with them, and other times you get to know them and they are just awful people. i love books like that. i just love them.

sometimes i wish i could just read all day. i would like to skip work and finish my book. wouldn't that just be so great?

a funny thing happened to me at work the other day:

i shredded everyone's paychecks.

but it's not all my fault! it's only mostly my fault! so now to set the background, i work at a retail store. We recently switched over management. our previous management used to make us sign for our paychecks. our new management doesn't make us sign, and neither do they hand them to us. they are left in the office until we come and get them.

now, i get paid with direct deposit. so i don't actually need to get my check, because it's not a check. so i am hopelessly delinquent about going to get my check- even the previous management had to seek me out to sign for my check. the company pays weekly. i haven't gone to get a check for weeks. i mean weeks. possibly even as long as this new management has been on board. i would guess somewhere around the first or second week of august. so the checks for me have been piling up since then.

so when i got in to work on friday, a coworker said to me, oh, kristine, your checks are here. and there was a pile of them at my workstation. i don't keep those things, they just clutter my life, while i know that is bad financial practice, i just can't stand the dumb things. so, i shred mine. well, i figured the whole pile was mine, and i shreded the lot of them.

WELL.

you can imagine my dismay when i found out that the entire department's check was there. i called my friend from work and said: oh my god! samantha, i am in so much trouble i could puke right here. Elizabeth hates to work with me, she thought i was dumb to begin with, and now she's sure of it. what'm'i'gnnu'do?" all the words slured in to one.

it was very funny after the fact and after i sorted out with my manager who gets D.D. and who needs a reissued check. but at the time i wanted to quit. i just wanted to go home. i was so embarrased. i turned so red. it was terrible. but i have learned from this disaster.

no matter how busy you areat work, you shold only go as fast as your brain can allow.

sigh. but at least my drawer balanced at the end of the night.

on being alumni

so every year around this time there is the alimni game at my college. it's when all of us greaduated softballers go back and play the current team. it's really quite fun, then we all get together and eat. (the alumni get to reminisce, and the current players get to have a suitable meal for a chage)

so when the alumni game takes place, i dread it. i always dread it. i get these attacks of anxiety and self doubt, even though it's easier to go to the alumni game than it was to go to college. college for me was very lonesome. and it's funny how even just walking onto campus makes me feel profoundly all by myself. then i get there and i have fun and i chuckle to myself that i was nervous to go.

so anyway, i love to go the alumni game, except that even though we are old and mostly retired players, it is still NOT ACCEPTBLE to make errors. so we still need ice after the game.

but when i do go back, i get to reminicsing and all that fun shit.

but i want everyone to go to the website, and if you live in the area, go check out a game, it really is top drawer sports.

softball

and there are big shake ups in the soccer program there too. i'm pleased that coach McGuigan is still there in the men's program, but i am slightly surprised that he's an assistant now. Still it is good that Coach barosso is now the head coach of the men's program, because those two would make a good coach combination.

women's soccer

far away places

I love the idea if travelling. if i had even a tiny bit moremoney, i would use it to go places. i've been to london, scotland, ireland, Lisbon, and spain. i've also been to california, nevada, arizona, hawaii, and up and down the eastern coast. i just love to go to places that are not where i live. i'm not sure if its because being on holiday is better than being at work, or something else, but i love to go to see new places, and get a map, and learn the culture and personality of the the place.

i like to go to a far away place, and insert myself into its every day life. i imagine it's some sort of escapism, you know anywhere is better than here sort of thing.

in any event, i like to check up on the places i've visited to see how they are getting on without me. so here are some snap shots:

this is in dublin, where my mother and i had a row because we couldn't figure out where we were and were and how we got to where we wanted to go.



also in dublin we heard the word that a-rod had agreed to the trade to the Yankees. we were just like americans- shouting and shouting more about how the yankees made us so mad!

this is in london, my friends and i stayed in a slightly sketchy hotel down the street from bayswater road, right by hyde park. it was not many stars, but who cares? a seven night stay including air fare and taxes cost just $400. you can't really beat that.



in london i dropped a mitten on one of the double decker buses, i didn't notice it until i was off in picadilly circus. i was so upset! but then there was a tap on my shoulder, and there was a man there who had gotten off at the next stop and doubled back to find me (clearly i was a tourist, in a bright blue jacket) and return it to me. that one single gesture reinforeced my belief that people can be good if they choose to be so.





and here is lisbon, i had a fantastic time in lisbon with my friend and her family. such a good time.

take a tour of beautiful lisbon

heart wrenching story, really

so here is the terrible story of the baby who was accidentlly poisoned at a cook out a few summers ago.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/09/20/case_of_babys_arsenic_death_brings_wrenching_testimony

i read this this morning and my head began to swirl with thoughts. really, how could he mistake rat poison for spring water, wouldn't it smell? but then i thought, but why would he do that? did those parents make him so mad that he would want to kill their child? oh god, but it gets worse and worse! they lost their child by taking him off life support. how awful. but this guy is an old man, and he made this terrible mistake. how equally awful. there is no happy ending possible for anyone involved in this story. just considering the possibilities makes me almost sick with sadness.

but then, as if that weren't bad enough, i have to worry about how i would react if something terrible like that happened in my family. oh gosh, i could worry myself right out of productivity at work if i am not careful.

i guess all i can do is pray for these people. all of them. If prayers were ever needed, this is the situation.

hoo hoo hoo!

yay! i got tickets to the Fighters of Foo on friday! Yay! i had to settle for seats. I really wanted to get the General Admission section. but no luck. a friend of mine has GA Tickets, and i'm hoping to convince him that i should go with him, and i'll unload my seats. I got the seats because i wanted to be sure i would get to go. last year they came to the Fleet pavilion, and i wasn't able to score tickets, so this year I said self, get those tickets no matter what the cost!

I love the foo fighters. i like to think i have outgrown my facination with rock and roll stars, but come on, the foos, man! i saw them once at the paladium, and it was rockin. i just love how clever and crafty and rockin and they are. just enough rock, and just enough slow, and just the right amount of politial soapboxing for me. i dig them.

plus they're easy on the eyes. i realize that they look slightly unkempt and like they haven't taken a shower for a few days, but that is a carefully crafted look, and i dig it. think of joe strummer in 1979. he was dead sexy. and consider trent reznor, even though he's looking a bit older than i remember, he's dead sexy too. and there's the guys from the bouncing souls, and pete yorn too! and jakob dylan.

sigh.

i guess i haven't outgrown my facination with rock and roll stars.

i love internet radio

so here is my unsponsored advertisement. you should check out www.radioiorock.com it's an internet radio station. this guy robert goodman streams radio. i can't tell if it's pre-recorded and he just uploads a zip cartrdge, or if he's got some sort of real elaborite studio or what, but he plays good music. it's really alternative. lots of smiths, and the cure, franz ferdinand, and emo like crazy. but he mixes in some real good brit pop and weird and wacky stuff like paul anka's rock swings album. he's got some real good stuff on there.

tuth be told i would like him to play some stuff he hasn't gotten to yet, like more bouncing souls, the explosion, millencolin, clash, flogging molly and the like, but i really can't complain. it's easily as good as my beloved 'fnx. (they stream too, but it doen't work so well on this workstation www.wfnx.com) i never ever hear the same song twice, the same artist sure, but never ever the same song in one day. it's really quite good.

oh, right now it's Johnny Cash's Personal Jesus. a really good mix of alt stuff. i dig it.

three games up

ah, baseball in september. yesterday tim wakefiled was poetic. he struck out 12! twelve! and that home run that giambi hit was ugly, but it went out, and so it counts.

you can't even know how badly i wanted wakefield to win, and how badly i wanted Randy Johnson to lose. he's a prat. sure he pitches well, and the yankees play well, but i cannot stand them. the same way many NY fans cannot stand the Sox. it's just how it is. and that's ok.

so now we're three games up in the AL East, but i'm nervous for the yankees to play Tampa. Tampa has owned them all season long, and it might be that they are tired of playing the laughingstock against the Devil Rays, so they just might sweep them. that could be very problematic for the sox.

the sox are going to toronto, where we have not really played well this season, so that could be problematic too. but schilling was lights out over the weekend, and for that matter so was wakefield, so i'm begining to be less concerned with the pitching than i was a week or so ago, i just hope that we don't go into a terrible hitting slump, because that will be the kiss of death!

go check it out!

boston globe sox report

update!

so remember a few weeks ago i was whingeing on about my grandmothers purse? well it's been found! i guess i have to take back some (not all) of the naughty things i said in that post. the purse isn't really very beautiful and she used it so much that it really is quite worn, but she loved it so much. it even smells like her old apartment. it's quite sweet really. it's totally not my style, so i can pretty well honestly say that i'll never use it, but if i do a craft fair to sell my made bags, then i'll use it to keep the money in.

reminiscing

when i was in college there was a small circle of people that i considered my friends. there were not too many of them, and that's ok, i don't mind. they were all very important at the time. whether they are now or not is irrelevant, they were very important to me at the time. i think that college in general is a time of life that is taking place without you even realizing it, and before you know it, it's gone, and you don't even realize how important people are, or events and non-events for that matter.

in any case, my friend russ is of italian and scottish decent. he was fiercely protective of both his parent's geaneology. but in a way that only college kids can be- slightly chip on the shoulder, slightly informed, but not totally aware. so he would sprinkle the limited italian that he knew into his slang. the swears and the things like that. many of the rest of the circle were frequently referred to as Stoonod.

so fast forward to today, and i was at work at the pharmacy with paul, and we were generally complaining about people, and lo and behold they are stoonods! i asked if that was a real word- he said of course! it's italian!

so it got me to thinking about how thre are lots of things you learn in college that are so much more useful than you learn in class, or than you can imagine at the time.

:)