7.31.2002
it's that
humid hot thing again. Where if I sit too long I start to just turn into a puddle. There is other commentary that I have...one, I really liked Bridget Jones' Diary--guess I'll have to read the book now. I think I'll like the book better. Also, there are some things that I just don't understand--why masshole drivers insist on driving 50mph in the fast lane...or driving 85mph up your butt in the slow. I don't understand why Belmont doesn't have digital cable or phone (we are having the house wired for cable next week...turns out that direct tv would have needed to wire and drill as well, so we opted to just wire the place for cable).
Oh, and I'm doing one of the geekiest things I can imagine doing...something I swore in my little life that I wouldn't be caught doing (although I swore that about monster truck shows and I did go to one once...miserable experience)--going to a gaming convention...a gathering for people who play Everquest. It is akin in my book to dressing up and going to a Star Trek convention, I suppose, although I guess I'm probably geeky enough that if Farscape ever had conventions, I would be there. And no...I'm not dressing up. We're going mostly to meet people we've met playing the game (average age of players is 32, so that's good at least). We have a friend staying with us from New York, friends from Fall River, MA (yah yah they are close and yes, we should have met them by now you would think), friends from Kentucky and I'll get to meet Shanna too.
Which reminds me that I need to go finish cleaning the house...
5:47 PM | link | up| archives |
7.29.2002
last night
i dreamt that the Fleet Center (the main hockey, basketball, concert venue in downtown Boston) was destroyed. For some reason there was a lawn behind it, a large expanse of green that was in between the various nearby buildings. Many people were around. I was there with some tall, slender, blonde girl named Stacy, whom I do not know in real life but did in my dream. I was talking to her when I saw a tall grey fleshed woman walk through the crowd. I didn't want to stare at her so I looked over at the Fleet Center while I was talking to Stacy...it was then that I realized that a hole had opened up in the roof and black smoke was pouring out. I pointed, out of the corner of my eye saw the grey fleshed woman look in the direction as well, and noticed she began to talk into a device on her collar, a cell phone or walkie talkie of some sort. Then the building started to cave in on itself and dust started billowing outward. For some reason Stacy tried to run toward the collapsing mass but when I yelled at her she stopped and just kept staring. The nearby people were unafraid for their own safety, they just watched in awe and I was dumbfounded that they weren't worried about beams hitting them or pieces of the walls flying outward at them.
It was a very disturbing dream, that I thought of all morning, even as I was getting into my car and the dark, low, fast moving clouds made it possible for me to look at the sun, a brilliant, glowing disk of white in the morning sky.
8:36 AM | link | up| archives |
7.28.2002
an easy way to lose track of time
is at Orisinal.
10:35 PM | link | up| archives |
witches and warlocks
filled my day yesterday. I'd been to Salem as a tourist nearly three times prior, but yesterday Joe and I spent the day doing silly tours and wandering about the history-laden town. We had a great time. The Pirate Museum was cheesy but fun and informative. The Witch Dungeon Museum was more informative. It's amazing to think that some of those people were forced to live in cells so inhuman and that they managed to live through the ordeal if they didn't end up hanged. The Witch History Museum was one of the tours that I hadn't done in my last few trips. It consisted of a small walk through the basement with elaborate dioramas that you walked through, with animatronic installations. Hokey but entertaining. We wandered over to the House of Seven Gables but it looked really busy and so we decided to go again a different day, when we can also do the Peabody Essex Museum and Salem 1630: Pioneer Village. On the way back from the Seven Gables, however, we stopped at Ye Ole Pepper Candy Companie and picked up some peach stones and two gorgeous truffles (mine amaretto, Joe's chocolate decadence). We ate at Finz, a local restaraunt and then wandered a bit on the pedestrian walkway, where I saw the Haunted Footsteps tour sign. I had been wanting to go on that tour for quite some time but everytime I had been there the tour was too late or it was full. This time we were in luck.
The tour is a ghost tour, and starts at 8PM. We were led through the streets by our guide, Erica, who wore a gorgeous cape that fitted her for the occasion. She led us by latern light through Salem to our first stop, a house that A&E put on their lists of most haunted houses in America--it made number four. The tour is very historical and interesting. Some of the stories were recent experiences, such as the story of a woman who was working a few years back in one of the Peabody Essex Museum's houses and was tormented by a ghost there after hours. I wish we could have wandered closer to the cemetery where Giles Corey (the 80 year old man who was pressed to death to confess he was a witch, and he never did) is buried and his ghost is rumored to haunt (in fact one of the Footsteps tour groups saw the ghost once!!). We had to stand in a parking lot near the old jail, which I have driven by countless times on my way to work and looks long since abandoned. The jail itself is creepy enough and the stories about the inhuman treatment in that facility made your skin crawl. The tour ended next to the oldest graveyard in Salem, and the atmosphere was wonderfully eerie and darkly romantic. We had a lot of fun. I do recommend the tour!
It made me think of Sharyl, who has been fascinated with the paranormal lately (and who I finally met this last week and had a wonderful time with!). I think at some point we want to gather some friends up and do the Haunted Hearse tour and I'll be dragging her along for sure!
I can't wait for Halloween/Samhain this year. It's always been one of my favorite holidays at my favorite time of year and now I'm finally working in one of the most witchy places imaginable. I guess Halloween is a madhouse but I still think it may be fun. I want to do the Peabody Essex's Eerie Evening and I know that other fun events will run across my radar over the coming weeks.
I also picked up the Halloween Tarot deck which is a lively, artistic, whimsical
deck that I'm pleased to add to my slowly growing collection. Now I just want to have my tarot read for real...I know a lot about it and can do readings with help from books, but would love to see someone experienced do a tarot reading.
Oh, and I heard about Kinder eggs from Megan over at Not Martha, and I saw them yesterday! For sale in a little Polish shop where we bought ice cream. These were vampire toys, and I only wish I had a camera (soon, soon, I swear) to take a pic of it. Funny little things those eggs are.
11:27 AM | link | up| archives |
7.25.2002
strangely enough
i really liked Vanilla Sky. And no, I'm not typically a Tom Cruise fan, although for the most part I tend to like the movies he's in. Joe didn't have enough affinity to his character in the movie, but I was intrigued. I think my affinity was mostly for Sophia...and I'm sure that was the drive behind a lot of the things that I felt about the movie. I hated Cameron Diaz's character, but then again, I sort of despise weak, self-pitying, obsessive people in general. I liked the movie...and never felt like I knew the plot.
Direct TV arrives tomorrow, finally. I hate having only two blurry TV stations. I don't really watch that much TV but I have to admit that without Sci Fi (Farscape), without clear WB and Fox channels and without Sex in the City, I'd be sad.
Even more exciting, I'm hooking up with Sharyl tonight!
2:59 PM | link | up| archives |
7.23.2002
wow
long time no blog. Working in Salem is draining, truth be told. I have such a long day and no time during the day to check email or write, then when I get home I'm just exhausted. It's the drive mostly. 45 min there and 1hr to 1:15 home. There have been a million things that I could have written about (and wanted to)--my thoughts about Coinstar being one of the coolest inventions...especially when years of change adds up to nearly $200. About making ice cream in my new ice cream maker (please please send me favorite recipes if you have them!). How gorgeous that the bay in Salem is in the morning. Rants about the jerks on 128. About Joe's friend that owns a box garden shop up in Beverly and the wonderful pots and plants we got from him. How we had a wonderful evening when we made dinner for Paulette recently. How sad that I don't have time to read much. How hot and miserable kitty is and how he lets you know it. The great new clothes that I bought last weekend. How it's funny that one of my coworkers thinks I look just like Melissa Joan Hart. How my back is driving me crazy lately. How I have been homesick a lot. How annoying it is that our apartment isn't wired for cable and we didn't know--having to go the satellite route. How the game Majesty is very addictive. How banged up I got when we were moving. How I finally saw Star Wars II. And how annoyed I was that the book Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood was so different from the movie (why on earth would they need to change the elephant to an airplane?). And that I think Oscar Wilde was wonderful.
9:42 PM | link | up| archives |
7.15.2002
it's coming together
slowly but surely. We have patio furniture now. My clothes are out of the plastic bags and in the drawers (finally!). I have herbs growing in pots on my windowsill. Romeo seems happy (although he gifted us with the largest furball ever seen...right in the middle of the WHITE rug, sigh). Joe found a minature orange tree for my big pot in the living room. We still need a dining room table. We still need a few more lamps. We still need a new couch, but overall it looks cozy and liveable, finally.
I got paid on Friday and unfortunately, I'm not on direct deposit for two paychecks. This means my check arrives on a Friday while I'm at work. I get home, deposit it, and am stuck waiting until TUESDAY before I can do anything with it. Sigh. Bankers hours suck. And then it takes all day Monday to process the damn thing--I should have just held onto it, brought it to work with me and walked it to the bank. Then it would have been available faster to me at least. I feel like I was being teased though. Yes, we'll pay you, no you can't use the money. I had hoped to do some much needed clothes shopping this weekend. Nope. Tonight though, if they managed to make the balance available to me, I'm stopping at the mall, yessiree!
I have a terrible time trying to get up to drive to Salem in the mornings though. I have to be up early in order to avoid the heavier traffic. I know that I could add many a tidbit to the Masshole Drivers site. It's amazing how much of a jerk that some drivers can be. I figured out that Rte. 16 through Cambridge and Somerville is the fastest for me...to get to 93, then up to 128 and over. The whole trip can take 45 min to 75 min, depending on traffic. Driving through Cambridge and off 128 to get to Salem is the longest bits of it. On Thursday night, I followed my boss out to 128 since she said she had found the shortcut to get there. Turns out her shortcut was literally twice as long as the way that I had been going. I'll enlighten her when she's back tomorrow from vacation.
11:46 AM | link | up| archives |
7.9.2002
when i was about six
or so, my father taught me to play chess. We played many times over the years and he NEVER let me win or beat him (I mean come on, can't you throw a game for an 8 year old once in awhile?). It taught me to be ruthless in playing games, to be smug when I won (I used to be a terrible winner and a worse loser). Over the last couple years I found ways to become more gracious about winning and losing and to play games to enjoy them, not necessarily to win (although I still play ruthlessly!).
During the move, Joe's chess set ended up unpacked and sort of on display. We have played the last few nights and he won the first match, then won again tonight but I finally turned it around and beat him in the final game. Neither of us have played in years. It was interesting how, over the course of each game, we both made stupid mistakes and at the same time, we both managed to remember, to strategize better and to become stronger players.
It's been so long since we've played though, that both of us forgot two rules in particular. I just discovered them, so next game we can play correctly.
1. He had always played (or remembered that he had played it that way) where the only time a pawn could jump two spaces is if you were white and only on the first move. I had always played it that any pawn moving for the first time could, if you chose, move two spaces. Turns out I was right. HAR!
2. Neither of us could remember how to castle and here is how you do it: when your king and a rook (it can be either one) both haven't been moved out of their home boxes for the entire game, you move your king two spaces towards the rook, and then move the rook to the opposite side of the king.
I also didn't remember the rule of En Passant:
~I have a pawn in the two spaces away from Joe's original pawn line-up (in other words, my pawn is in row 5).
~Joe moves a pawn TWO spaces so that it is in the square right next to my pawn.
~When Joe moved his pawn, it passed through a square in which if it had only moved one space, I could've captured it. So we pretend that he did only move that pawn one space, and I take his pawn, moving one square diagonally forward, just as if it had been a normal capture.
Pretty cool. :)
I am quite confident that I would kick my father's ass in chess these days. Just like I do in Othello, which he never used to let me win either. He hasn't won a game against me in the last ten years.
11:05 PM | link | up| archives |
7.7.2002
cats and glass
don't mix.
Yesterday I was unpacking books near the door to the attic, which had been open for some time and neither Joe or I had really thought much about it. Romeo has been blissfully uninterested in doing anything more than lie on the couch or under the bed while we have been unpacking. I was rather surprised to hear him meowing at me from my right and sure enough, I look up and see two pairs of glowing eyes peering down the stairs from the attic. He wasn't on the stairs though...he was lying on the fiberglass in the eves. I yelled at him and he knew he was in trouble. We so rarely yell at him that when we do he wigs out and runs to where he is supposed to be. This time though he knew he would have to run by me and he didn't want to, which means he didn't come down out of the attic but moved to another place instead. I went up there and saw him huddling in a corner behind some boxes. He didn't want to run down the stairs so I began yelling for Joe to come help. Finally he was close enough for me to pick him up, which I did, and I marched down the stairs with him under arm to the bathroom.
Now mind you, the last time I gave this cat a bath it took two people, both wearing very heavy duty leather gloves and even then we barely escaped without bites. I was leery about how he would handle it but he was filthy and the last thing I wanted him to do was to start cleaning himself off and end up with a mouth full of fiberglass. So we turned on the tub just a tiny bit and sat him on the other end. He yelled the whole time we were dousing him with the plastic cup that Joe had brought in with him, but he only actually tried to leave the tub twice. I was amazed that he let us shampoo him and rinse him repeatedly without trying to kill us. Finally, after nearly 10 minutes of his bath, he started making the low low growl deep in his throat that is the master warning that he could cut loose and make us bleed. We got him out, toweled him off and honestly, I didn't know he was so thin! He is normally covered in a layer of downy white fur and he looks ten pounds heavier when it isn't wet. Poor little kitty DID look like a drowned rat.
He's been fine since then, and actually, more affectionate, strangely enough. He slept tangled in my feet all night long, which he normally doesn't. I just hope that his little adventure keeps him out of the attic in the future.
Furniture is here...the place is shaping up finally!
11:11 AM | link | up| archives |
7.2.2002
it really IS a bewitching little town
Salem that is. I had only been here twice before I began working here, both times as a tourist and both times with my friend Michael. We toured all the cheesy museums and did the mandatory gawking at the little stores and monuments scattered throughout the town. His son Alex was nervous to go in the Pirate Museum (a stone's throw from where I work), I remember, and was afraid of going to some of the museums because he might be too freaked out.
It's funny but the map I have in my head of Salem when I was visiting is different than the reality of me navigating the town to work. I still don't think I've found the shortest way to 128 from Salem's downtown (or the shortest way from Belmont to get to Salem, sigh). I hope that I can take more time to wander the town on my lunch breaks--there are some great shops and restaraunts in the area and I want to check them out. I love how some of the parking spaces (the ones for buses) have witches painted into the space. I bet this place is a serious madhouse around Halloween/Samhain.
I love being on the harbor though. It's so gorgeous to walk to the building and see the little boats moored in neat little rows. It's hazy today from the heat and humidity and it lends itself to a poetic glow on the water and the little backdrop of Marblehead in the distance.
Humidity...I'll never get used to it. Give me 110 degrees in the Idaho desert any day...far preferable over this sticky, mucky feeling. Romeo is miserable. I'm miserable. Joe is playing a game tonight and I bet he's miserable. We're picking up the air conditioner maybe tomorrow night though...whew.
3:38 PM | link | up| archives |
7.1.2002
so we're
here! And going to be living out of boxes for a bit, but it's worth it. The movers come on Friday and the rest of our furniture will be here. We're going to be there on Wed and Thursday to clean up and finish moving the weird odds and ends. Not having furniture means sitting on the floor, the computer up on boxes. Got DSL figured out today and after a lot of hassle the gas guy came out and hooked us up. I had to have a cold shower last night, which was REALLY cold even though it was hot outside. Kitty isn't sure what to make of it all yet. He apparently stayed under the bed most of the day. For the most part, it's very quiet here--just the occasional sound of kids playing outside or the ice cream truck coming up the street. My commute is about 10-15 minutes longer than before but still not too bad.
All in all...very very happy to not be sleeping there, to be away from the horrid horrid neighbors and to have such a wonderful gorgeous apartment to boot.
6:19 PM | link | up| archives |
