Rachael

There are these blackberries outside my window, wrapped around George, the giant aloe vera (wait, it’s not a metaphor, I swear) that are the sweetest damn things I’ve ever tasted. They’re like magic. I can’t seem to pick a bad one. Even the ones that have cobwebs on them don’t bother me. They’re best warm from the sun (like tomatoes). I think I ate one with a bug in it yesterday, and I didn’t even care. Just kept chewing.

They’re not mine, actually. They belong to the house next door. Their yard is almost my yard since they don’t have a fence up yet. When talking to the neighbor one afternoon (why won’t his name stay in my head?), I asked if it was okay that I steal some berries from time to time (read: every morning when I get home from work). He said sure, that they weren’t very good anyway. Then I made the classic mistake by telling him the truth: “NO, they’re INSANELY good.” He tried one, and agreed. Darn it. Now he knows, and there are fewer berries for me.

In my future, way down the road, when I get settled, when I move into a place where I can put things right into the ground without thought of transplant, I’m planting blackberry vines. I know they’re a noxious weed, but I have to have ’em. That and a sheep.

I don’t have much weekend coming up — I have to work Saturday night, and the rest of the weekend is filled with to-dos (including one fun one: going to The Producers on Sunday). I need to spend some time working on my dang computer. (I realized I spent 18 hours yesterday looking at computer screens — 12 at work, 6 at home dealing with the crash and subsequent discovery of the spyware nest.) You’ve all given me fabulous suggestions of downloads, so I’ll add a few more and work on killing those bugs. Such a major pain. Clear your cookies, folks. And eat some, too.

We lost this round.

Addressing Democrats, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay summed up the arguments on both sides at the start of the debate. “You think this bill is cruel and we think same-sex marriage is a contradiction in terms,” DeLay, R-Texas, said.

Yeah. It is cruel. I have to move to Canada.

*** Added later, on second thought. Screw that. While I still want to move to Canada someday, I will not be driven out of my country by people who think I deserve fewer rights than they do because they don’t fully understand love or its different manifestations. Let’s keep fighting, shall we? Togther.

https://rachaelherron.com/we_lost_this_ro/

Go, Marie, go! She finished her wave-along stole! Check it out, isn’t it gerjess?

I love how alluring it looks, leaning provocatively on the fence like that.

All right, so I ran AdAware and Spybot S&D (thank you for your suggestions!), and I’m hoping that’s all I need to do for now. I ran ’em at work, too, on the shared computer, and the pop-ups are still happening. Blast it all.

Eh. Enough complaining about computer woes. We’ve all got them, haven’t we? Why can’t it just be easy? Why can’t there be life without crashes? (You, Mac people, put your hands down. I know you know the answer.)

Instead, I gotta show you this:

Best? Fire?

It’s on all sides of the building, and I’ve wondered about it/at it for years now. Was it someone with limited English skills who just liked the way question marks looked? Or perhaps the printer mistook exclamation points for question marks? Perhaps it was meant to be Best! Fire! But in that case: Huh?

Dunno. But it rocks Oak-town, yo.

I’ve spent the last two and a half hours reinstalling my operating system, which had somehow become corrupted, and now I’m having the dickens of a time logging on to the internet. I’m finally in, but I think the nefarious spyware has latched on to my computer’s innards. I have a strong feeling spyware is a catchall phrase, much like shin splints. My computer keeps throwing all these OFFICIAL, IMPORTANT, READ THIS AND CLICK THIS LINK TO GET RID OF SPYWARE SO YOU DON’T DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH pages at me from my System Administrator, only I can’t help thinking my sys admin would have better grammar. So I ain’t clickin’, but if anyone’s got a good way of dealing with this, lemme know. I need to find a very very small, very very smart child and send him into the depths of my HP Pavilion with a scrub brush. The 21st century American equivalent of the chimney sweep child labor force of 18th century England.

Erg.

But while ye olde laptop was chugging away, resetting itself (bless its electronic neurons and CD backups), I was forced to use the phone. I got a ton of things done, those phone calls I’ve been putting off, like calls to credit card companies. My mortgage broker (isn’t it funny that I have one of those and yet have no mortgage?) thought I should call my credit cards and ask them to raise my credit limit without checking my credit score, as a courtesy. I need to get my score raised by one measly point. Welp, those phone answerers answered the way you might think, with incredulity and a remarkable lack of politeness. Providian and CitiPlatinum, bite me. Just because I don’t know the rules doesn’t mean you should scoff at me. Simply explain that it doesn’t work that way (even though I bet it COULD, iffen you wanted it to). Don’t get so bitchy that I feel horrible that my silly question has had an impact on your personal and social life.

Double erg.

I believe this calls for ice cream.

So. Anyway.

Ahem.

See, I’m finding it hard to think of what to write today, because I had a good date last night. I know, I’m not dating. You’re totally right. Completely anti-dating, me. But come on, she’s a knitter who plays the banjo in an old-time band. I had to meet her. I was surprised I hadn’t already.

I had fun. That’s all I’m sayin’. (I ‘fessed when I found her blog and anted up with mine, so this is not a secure channel, as we say at work.)

And as we return to our previously scheduled broadcasting, I present to you Brick Joy:

Specs:
Yarn: Fairy Hare Softie: Merino/Angora blend, 4 skeins
Pattern: Debbie Bliss pattern, Cotton for all Seasons
Size: 38in
Gauge: Let’s call it 20st/4in, since I’m too lazy to look it up (to pattern specs).
Needles: 5US

Then I got distracted by the purdy flowers:

And my favorite (for so many reasons), the nicotiana:

Digit tried to help with the photo-shoot:

She ain’t being modeled, not for any shyness factor (you know me better than that) but because she needs a zipper, and I haven’t got around to picking up one yet. And I might not today, either. Today, I’m throwing myself a little Alone Party (at least until I go to work tonight). Yeah, not that anyone would remember this but me, but last week I said Saturday would be my alone day. Then I agreed to work for a friend, all good. Then I said, firmly, assuredly, that Monday would be my alone day. Bethany was supposed to be on the road home to Mom’s that day, and I would hide away, watching TV and knitting and not answering the phone or checking email.

Bethany, however, was such a sweet loving little person yesterday, and did NOT want to leave. We had lunch with Christy and Kira and Rachel at Cafe Colucci (best Ethiopian this side of Harrar), and then went shopping (the other thing I swore I would not do yesterday) at the East Bay Depot for Creative ReUse, which is a fancy name for Place With a Lot o’Junk for Real Cheap.

But dude, I fully scored. Check:

(The chair, not the cat.) And the backs in the sun:

I’ve been eyeing chairs like this to go with my formica table (given to me by my friend Laura), and they usually price out at around fifty bucks each. Kitsch is in. Vinyl is hot. These puppies? I led the green young man up to the front and outside, where five of these were languishing in the sun and dirt, and asked how much. “Geez. I don’t know. Two fifty each? Or all five for ten?” This is the same place I got the Cascade Sierra for fifty cents a skein. Just like last time, I nodded slowly. “Oh, all right. I suppose I’ll take them.”

Rachel helped me spit and polish them—lord, they were dirty—and I’m in love. Look at those legs! Hooray!

Oh. Tangent, sorry. Alone day. Anyway, around five-thirty yesterday I started to ask Bethany what time Mom expected her to arrive (the folks live four hours away).
“I still have to call her,” Bethany said.
“So call her,” I said, sitting on the couch, icing my shins.
“When I get up and find my cell phone.”
“Let me get it for you. Here. I found it for you. Want me to dial?”
She tells Mom she’ll leave in another hour. One hour later I say, “Won’t Mom be upset if you’re late?”
“I just wanna hang out a little longer here with you.”
“But you don’t want to let Mom down…. She’d be so sad.”
“She won’t mind.”
“YOU HAVE TO GO NOW OR I’M GOING TO LOSE MY FREAKING MIND!”
“I’m out.”

Beth’s such a good egg. She didn’t mind that I kinda flipped, and she got out of my hair pretty darn quick after that. Of course, I only had a couple of hours alone before I had to leave for said date, but I regained some composure in those few hours. That alone time, man. I don’t know how you mothers do it. I firmly believe that’s why bathtubs come standard in most homes. They’re an escape. Hey. Good idea. I’m off to escape right now. (Long-ass post. I guess I thought of something to say.)

I can NOT get over that. The first two miles were horrible, as they usually are, and then the next six were a breeze. I mean it. We’re doing a 3:1 pace right now in my group (run three minutes, walk one), and it just felt right. I didn’t mind running when the walk breaks were over (nor did I mind the walk breaks, heavens, no).

It was dark in San Francisco yesterday morning – that deep heavy fog that drips like rain. But at least it was cool. It’s been too warm here in Oakland recently, and it can’t have even hit eighty. I’m such a heat light-weight. (And I want to run a marathon in Hawaii?) And Bethany was a water volunteer, so twice I got to see her smiling proud face, which the run even easier.

The shin splints were uncomfortable, but they’re feeling better already today, always a good sign. It’s going to be an aqua-jog week, unfortunately.

Eight miles. Wheee! And yet, only about a third of how far I’m gonna have to go. Holy crap.

Bethany’s knocking about the apartment, talking and singing, so I’m laughing at her rather than thinking of coherent, clever sentences. (I can’t believe she hijacked my blog! And the perm was bad, yeah. But thank god she didn’t mention the bifocals I was wearing at age six. Oh. Whoops.) And Kira and Rachel just arrived on my doorstep and we’re headed out for Ethiopian, so I’ll just blow you a kees. Mwah!