Twisted Spinster

According to the Accepted Knowledge, things like this are supposed to make me feel tiny, inadequate, inconsequential, useless, pointless, and depressed. This existential despair is one of the underlying themes of contemporary culture. But I never get that feeling when I contemplate the endless vastness of the universe. Instead, I feel happy and safe. It’s like this: I realize that I am part of something bigger than myself that is still outside myself, that we will never run out of things to discover, and that if something goes wrong over this way there is still the whole rest of the universe still existing. Isn’t that great?

While I am waiting for thoughts to form themselves into words, I thought I’d share with you some recent photos of how I have been occupying myself for the past few days. First, here is a picture of my dinner of a couple of days ago:

I call that my “pretend it’s already autumn in some place that has proper seasons” dinner. Yes, those are brussel sprouts — I love me some fresh brussel sprouts smothered in butter. And sweet potatoes, I have discovered, are excellent when not canned, and I put salt and butter on them, not brown sugar. (Sweet potatoes are sweet enough — the brown sugar makes them too cloying for my tastes.) And the meat is these pork medallions I found in the grocery store for not too much money. So that was Tuesday night.

Tonight I had this:

First, the photo came out double exposed like that for some reason — I think I need a new battery in my camera. Anyway, that’s green beans (fresh, of course), these really thin steaks, and fresh mushrooms fried in the steak and olive oil grease, with a bit of the zinfandel you see in that wine glass over there poured over them to deglaze the pan. And I also had the brilliant idea of chopping up a shallot, a habanero pepper, and half of a long thin pepper called a “finger hot,” and frying them a bit in the pan as well. Oh oh oh. I am such a good cook. However, I think I had better invest in some gloved for any further chopping up of fresh hot peppers — I had tingly, burning fingers for over an hour.

And that brings me to my project! Which already looks like it’s going to expand… observe:

Yup — that’s a real pot, full of real dirt, planted with real plants: thyme, rosemary, chives, purple basil, and two tomato plants (one a red variety and another a yellow) hidden in the back. If all goes well and my notorious black thumb doesn’t kill any of them I should have tomatoes in or around December. I love fresh tomatoes and fresh herbs, and the plants were so cheap. The most expensive part of the project was the pot and it cost about twelve dollars. Anyway, I am already getting ambitious — Walmart had some varieties of peppers, cucumbers, and other veggies, not to mention more herbs like mint and cilantro. And I’d love to have a lemon tree in a pot. And I could grow lettuce…

Xena (the younger cat) loves the herbs. I’ve already caught her gnawing on my chives, and she can sit and smell the thyme for hours, or would if there weren’t lizards and the neighbor cats to distract her. Squeaky, my older cat, is more mellow; she just likes going out to the patio for warmth. Here she is, getting baked in the hot sun like a cake:

More later…

HI folks, I’m not pining for the fjords — I’ve just been really lazy tired busy. Anyway…

I’d like to thank everyone who has donated so far. I need to send you all individual emails, as used to be my custom before I got so lazy busy tired. But seriously, you enabled me to get to work this week — especially since the price of gas has gone up anywhere from ten to forty cents a gallon around here. That being said, it turns out I am not going to be hired on as a permanent employee at the place where I’ve been temping. How do I know this? Well, yesterday I was introduced to the woman who has been hired for the position, and I’ve been training her. Yay. Well whatever — I have at least until the end of next week and maybe one more week to go and then unless I’ve found another position by then I’ll be experiencing more jobless time. I can tell you, I’ve just about had it with Florida. I know I’ve said this before, but now I am really serious. If I can swing it I’ll temp until I’ve managed to gather enough funds, sell everything except my cats and car, and then I’m driving off. I give myself until April ’09 — that’s when my lease ends anyway. I like my current apartment, but it has one drawback: it’s still in freakin’ Florida.

That being said, I still have some time here, so I have started a project. Tomorrow, or as soon as I get around to it, I’ll reveal the details. Until then, sayonara.

This one is more personal. In a previous post, I mentioned that I had to get rid of my debit card and cancel my direct deposit due to some unauthorized removal of funds from my account, which I could ill afford. (And which, as a matter of fact, caused my bank account to go into being overdrawn.) That means my employer, which is based in Atlanta, has to mail my check to me. I just checked the mailbox right now and so far no check. I don’t know if the mailman came yet or not — the postal schedule in Central Florida doesn’t seem to exactly operate like clockwork. I may not get my check until Monday. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing if I wasn’t almost out of certain non-essentials like food and gas. So to reiterate, if you have a spare dollar or two just taking up space in your life, I’ll be glad to give it a new home…

(I’m serious. Last night I had to break out the emergency penny fund and go to the drugstore for some, ah, necessities. And wouldn’t you know, I get to the cash register and there’s no one around, so I think “at least I won’t have a long line of people behind me waiting impatiently for me to count out $2.99 cents in pennies,” and then lo and behold, a line of people immediately started forming behind me.)

Hi kids. I have either been too busy, or too tired, or too inundated by the cast-off weather of passing hurricanes (for example, Ike may have passed most of Florida by, but that storm I drove through yesterday to get home was no mere drizzle — streets were flooded, lightning hit the intersection five cars in front of me, I could barely see through the rain itself, etc.) to write much. And I’ve had other problems I haven’t bored my readers’ eyes about, such as the fun with a loose alternator belt that made me think I’d be without a car (and thus unable to get to my job), at said job they’ve hired a new supervisor but I still don’t know if I will get offered a permanent position, and I had to cancel my bank’s debit card because of a mysterious monthly charge from some credit checking company that I can’t trace, which threw off my whole bank account, so I had to stop my paycheck from direct depositing, which means I have to wait for it to come in the mail.

Which means right now I have about a dollar and fifty cents to last me until I get that check, and I just read that the gas providers are panicking over Hurricane Ike and are starting to ration gas and raise the prices. Which means this is a bleg! I don’t need much — my rent is paid, at least — but a few dollars here and there sure would help.

Robert McMahon creates artworks of astonishing beauty.

He is also known as commenter “lyle,” the Poet Laureate of Tim Blair’s blogs (both the old and the new).

He has also apparently written a screenplay.

He is obviously a modern-day Renaissance man.

He must be destroyed!

My latest pet grammar peeve: the increasing habit people have of using the word “utilize” when they should simply use the word “use.” No, that’s not “utilize the word ‘use'”, it’s “USE THE WORD ‘USE'”! For example, heard today on the HGTV channel:

You’ve been utilizing this room as a bathroom.

Argh! No! They’ve been using the room as a bathroom, you pretentious little designer twat! Grr, kill everyone.

So, how’s your morning been?

Grumble grrrr #$%@$ those little plastic tubs that fast food places put their sauces in grumble grrr.

Gee, I wake up this morning to the dulcet tones of the station I have my clock radio set to announcing that Hurricane Ike had overnight exploded into a Category 4 storm. And the current track (very far off, it is true) has Florida in the center. Rrrr.

Well, I’m glad he didn’t, or at least he hasn’t yet. Heck, maybe I’ll start blogging again…

Update: ooh, the guy’s on a roll! I feel so lazy.