Finance News

I'm loosing the plot with this house project; I've begun to confuse the names of the tradesmen and request/report the wrong things. I'm on the verge of tears most of the day, but not when I need to talk to the tradesmen. If reason can't get through to them, I wondered if feminine tears would work, but I'm so not that kind of a Sheila, and I'll probably burst out laughing. I've always found it tricky to try to be stern and make a point across, and being nice and not offensive; I often send mixed messages this way.

National Radio was on while I made lunch. I don't pay attention to the finance news, but today I giggled twice. I'm paraphrasing, but here goes:

"(British Prime Minister Gordon) Brown's speech in front of the US Congress was interrupted upwards of seventeen times by standing ovations."

I can't decide if he was uncomfortable or secretly pleased; I've tried to watch him on YouTube but the subject being not the most riveting, I only got to the first applause.

"Every (Japanese) person will receive 12,000 yen (from the government) in the hopes of boosting the economy."

Yeah, right; that'll pay for one really nice lunch, an OK-but-short night out, or grocery for one day for a family of two to four. Some T-shirts cost more than that.

Then I watched 20 minutes of the American version of Strip Tease, where young muscular men bitched and moaned and threw tantrums. Those blokes made me look composed in comparison.

Trying to Make the Best of My Day

Didn't see the front of the hearth until I peeled back the carpet today to wash the tiles. GRRRRRRRR!!!!!

I got one draft draft. C'est tout. Not exactly productive, but nothing like a fussy draft to calm this noisy mind. (Not exactly "funky", however.)

You are Your Soul

Just heard on the radio, while scrubbing the kitchen ceiling; CS Lewis supposedly said, "You do not have a soul; you are one." Nice, don't you think?

Benefits of Facebook

I shudder to think that without Facebook, the previous post would have been much longer! It's nice to have two places to whine and rant and get sympathy. Though certain people get repeats of the same whine. Sorry, H.

Bloodless (Comparatively) Tuesday

The house saga continues. This morning I was ready to kill a few big blokes. I had to sort things out once and for all, so I didn't go to work and asked (told?) Ben to stay home, because some of these guys are big and I was more than a little terrified. The lesson of the day is a recurring theme for me: talk to the person who can remedy a situation, not to folk who are nice or easier to get along with, or the one who will never get it. I never seem to learn this, but today we came to an acceptable compromise. I hesitate to think it was because Ben was here, and I hope we're not going to be charged for their error.

Neighbor Neil came over and cut some branches; they were sticking out over the fence (not a big problem) and clotting his patio gutter (problem.) I started tidying the area a couple of months ago, and left the high bits for Ben and forgot all about it. It's pleasant talking to Neil about.... stuff. He's a proactive calmer-downer, a solution guy, whereas Ben's a contagious calmer-downer, which doesn't work on me sometimes.

Joinery guys came to measure the pantry; they're from an old, reputable company; the main guy had an Irish (?) accent, (guilty of noticing accents!), the younger guy looked like Tolkien's elf in dreads.

Still needing to get some morning yuckiness out of my system, I started scrubbing the kitchen cupboard doors. Which was silly considering not all the work in the kitchen is finished, but I had to physically get rid of yuckiness. If I'd washed the insides of the cupboards, it would have been far more productive, and I knew this then, but sometimes I find it very hard to be reasonable.

Lest you think I've nothing weaving-related, I posted a few weaving pics on my Facebook. (There I have two photo albums named "My Life as it Is" and "My Life as it Should Be" and the weaving pics are in the latter, of course.) All these years later, Lalla, who now lives in the Middle East, finally got to see my weaving today, and she approves. To me, it was like tracking down a kindy teacher or a nurse from the maternity ward where/when I was born!



Tomorrow can only be better.

Bl@@dy Monday

Heaps of problems with the construction, but I'm in denial.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation sent me another form email reassuring me they received my email, and the reply will arrive in up to four weeks. So I have four more weeks of freedom!

Made up a "package" to non-line Marlborough Weavers about our blog. I used big fonts and included lots of screen shots so the thing came to whopping 20 printed pages. Goodness gracious me!! I edited some, but I felt I needed to give them essentially the same info as what the on-liners have been receiving, so out went the forest.

Received "Patterns of Life: West African Strip-Weaving Traditions" by Peggy Stoltz Gilfoy, a book I wanted for ages, in the mail; I bought it from Amazon marketing place man in Arizona.

Got the Collingwood DVD in the mail a while back, but haven't felt like watching it yet. Maybe tonight's the night.

Kinda got the gist of Facebook, quicker than I expected. Don't want to know too much, just as long as I can follow what my friends are doing.

Tomorrow is another day.

Thanks for Polling / Facebook

Thank you all for indicating your interest in SSVE. It was never meant to be a popularity contest but I worried Geodyne and I would have to weave lots had we been the only ones interested. I'm glad some felt comfy enough to vote "Hophum" or "No, Thanks," too, because it's not for everyone.

If you indicated to the affirmative or commented thus, thank you and I look forward. But SSVE is a casual affair, so if something comes up and you can't, don't fret. And if you hadn't indicated interest but want to take part, that's OK, too.

* * * * *

Yeah... Facebook. I now realize why Taueret thought Twitter would suited me; that compulsion for disclosure. Guilty as charged. But Twitter's word limit was much too short for the Long-Winded One. I can manage Facebook's limits. Most times. And I'm catching up with non-weaving friends who find Unravelling a bit too heavy going, so that's nice.

When I first discovered blogging, courtesy of Rosy and Liz, (who now got me into this Facebook mess,) I remember staying on the computer for hours, and I mean 7 and 11 hours every day for about three months. I had tendinitis on the right wrist, so I couldn't weave, and I typed with my left hand only. And that was just visiting photoblogs with few or no words! But I got over it after a while; I wanted to make Unravelling interesting so I had to weave. And lucky me, I'm still keen to make Unravelling interesting, so I don't mind working towards that. (Oh, yeah, then there's the tiny problem of Esty... and my web site content...)

I'm a Aries. I'm supposed to get stuck right into things, and then get bored soon after, aren't I? So I'm not sure how the Facebook phase will last, but it is a good way to connect. I see that now. I've had an interesting conversation with four people I've never met. Only one of them, Rosy, knows Liz, whom I know in person.

As your Prez might say, "How about that!"

I Just Heard from Lalla Jones!

Lalla has been teaching English all over African and the Middle East, and gave away her two looms last year to someone in Tucson. It must be the first time we communicated since... 1979? Facebook is officially very cool in my book now.

Is There a Name to This Feeling?

There was this man at the theater last night. In the audience. I couldn't keep my eyes off of him. He looked a lot like Harold Ramis, (huge crush, short-lived, but it lingers on and on!!) except possibly younger, (well, I didn't stare!), and with straight, short, dark hair; nice haircut. But his eyes were just like Harold's; you know the kind that's ready to smile any moment. And I know why I couldn't keep my eyes off him.

I was looking up my high school and college friends on Facebook all day. Some used their senior year pics for their profile pic, some used pics with kids or spouses/partners, and some had respectable photos. Dave looked respectable and he looked totally different and yet exactly the same as he did in our senior year.

Strange feeling. Blogging and the Internet has made Minnesota (and other places) more immediate in my life at the bottom of the planet. Now with Facebook, I can potentially look at photos and information they themselves put up, which is quite different from looking at photos of places I used to know shot by someone else. Freaky... Dave doesn't look exactly like Harold Ramis or the man in the theater, but all three kind of melted together to represent the closeness I felt to Minnesota all day.

Don't even know if the man at the theater was American or Kiwi or something else entirely. He could have been Canadian for all I know and take exception to my superimposing Minnesota upon him...

What if it was Harold Ramis and I missed my one chance to say hello? Didn't think of that last night! Now, if he looked like Mandy Patinkin, I wouldn't waste a second and go straight up to him. (He's been to Aussie, you know. He was on Rove...)

Will Interpol Come After Moi?

Very late last night, after having read an Artlink article by Marcus Westbury, I got curious about ABC2's "Not Quite Art" so Googled it. It turned out to be an ABC2 page Lynne recommended yonks ago. I tried to download an MP4 file, and a screen came up and said something or rather, so I skipped it the way I usually do these pages and downloaded an WMV file. (No screens popped up here, no other obstacles in downloading WMV.) But something about that skipped page kept niggling me so I went somewhere and discovered that, because of copyright laws, these episodes can be downloaded in Australia only!! Shivers. I freaked out a little, very quietly.

I know I've been a bit careless in posting the faces of friends without asking, but I'm usually careful and conscientious about other folks' rights, and usually only put links, and if I do post photos, they are by permission. So I deleted the vid right away without looking. But I was so worried I wrote to ABC telling them what I'd done, but it's weekend over there, too, and thus far I only got the automated reply. I hope they'll be forgiving, but if suddenly I stop posting, it will be because Interpol or the Australian police have contacted Nelson police and Nelson police confiscated my laptop and threw me in the slammer, or similar. And then I'll never ever be able to travel to Australia or the US, ever, again...

Please forgive me, ABC. And please consider making the program available to buy legally? And will the rest of you write to me in jail?