October, 2002

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a cat in grayscale

Submitted by domesticat on 2 October 2002 - 12:04am
in
…is a lovely thing indeed. Read the rest »
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sand, stain, and varnish

Submitted by domesticat on 3 October 2002 - 1:06am
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In the end, it will take twelve shelves to finish transforming the room. True, it would be quicker to purchase ready-made shelving. Quicker, brasher; the end result would be just that: twelve identical shelves. I haven't taken that route. Not this time, and I'm not even completely sure why.This morning, I tapped fingernails against the varnish of the third shelf, satisfying myself that the horizontal surface of the shelf would be smooth enough for my liking. Of the three done so far, it is probably the lightest. Read the rest »
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sand, stain, and varnish, part II

Submitted by domesticat on 3 October 2002 - 11:50pm
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Pretty simple, really: shelves make me purr, Edmund hide, Tenzing deathly curious, and Jeff wish he could sit on the couch and do something else for a while. Read the rest »
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This level of relaxation takes effort

Submitted by domesticat on 4 October 2002 - 2:03am
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So. I have to ask. Is it possible to get any more comfortable than what's shown in this photo, or has Tenzing managed to reach some kind of pathetic, heretofore-never-seen natural limit here? This level of relaxation takes effort You know it's impressive when even the seasoned, hardened cat tender walks in the room, rolls her eyes, and says, "You're awful, Tenzing. You should be ashamed of yourself." Replies to my mail (see link at bottom of post) or, preferably, left as comments here.
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Steph's (heavily modified) corn chowder

Submitted by domesticat on 6 October 2002 - 11:31pm
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This is a recipe that is barely even a recipe—more of a guideline. Chances are, I'm the only person I know who likes this dish as much as I do, but that's ok. More for me.

Steph's (heavily modified) corn chowder

4 baking potatoes (I like high-starch ones; they thicken the chowder nicely)
2 cans cream corn
2 cans whole kernel corn
1 can milk
1 white or yellow onion
half-package of bacon (adjust to your bacony wishes)
1 bunch green onions
several cloves of garlic, minced
seasoning ideas: Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, tabasco/cayenne to taste

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Stout German squirrels

Submitted by domesticat on 6 October 2002 - 11:34pm
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The squirrels are on notice. It's that time of year again; it's October, my birth month, so it's time to play the annual "Where will Amy pop up next?" game. This year's answer is one that many of you will recognize as a favorite previous playground: the metro Washington, D.C. area.

I'm not flying this year. I'm driving.Correction. We are driving it. Yep, that's right -- we. I shan't be going alone; I shall have my three stout, trusty German squirrels (Günter, Friedrich, and Konrad) with me this year.

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Script: Maintaining pages of content from a database

Submitted by domesticat on 8 October 2002 - 3:40pm
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Updated version posted. See here for details.

Several months ago, I got very, very tired of maintaining a large number of separate, standalone pages on my site. Since my pages were exactly the same except for three things (meta description tag, title tag, and content), I decided to create a database table that could hold this information and a single page that could be used to display all the information.

As far as I'm concerned, PHP and mySQL are nothing but tools to further my habit of code laziness. What you have here is the result.

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Attention Best Buy Shoppers

Submitted by domesticat on 8 October 2002 - 9:23pm
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All these years, and I still don't like my eyes. Silly squinchy grayish-blue things. Mind you, a good portion of the squinch probably has just as much to do with my nearsightedness as it has to do with the genetics of small eyes, but, nevertheless, part of me wishes I'd been born with eyes that didn't practically shut themselves of their own volition every time I decide to crack a smile.

Maybe it's not right to judge someone by their laugh lines, but if someone in their early thirties has already smiled enough that the laugh lines are permanent, chances are, they're someone I should know.

I have a few years yet; I turn twenty-six this month.This weekend we celebrated birthdays with Jeff's family. It's hard to forget the look of astonishment on Jeff's mother's face when I told her the date of my birthday. She asked me to repeat the date again, just to be certain. She had trouble believing that it was that…perfect. Jeff's birthday was the 16th. His younger sister Lori's birthday was the 18th.

Mine? The 20th.

I fall right between them in age; Jeff is two years older than me, and Lori two years younger.

As a result, we have one big birthday bash for the three of us. (It's worth noting that Lori's husband was born in December. We've threatened to arbitrarily change his birthday to October 22. Strangely enough, he doesn't seem interested in us doing that.)

This year, Lori gave me a gift card to Best Buy. I've left it on the counter for the past few days, letting it burn a twitchy little hole in my brain while I figured out what I wanted to do with it. Tonight, when Jeff asked me to hold off watching tonight's new Buffy episode for a little while, I made up my mind: a DVD copy of The Princess and the Warrior.

I sneaked into Best Buy thirty minutes before closing, and spent a few minutes ambling through the DVD racks with the DVD in hand, "just to be sure." After all, there are few things more pleasant than the gleeful feeling of walking through an electronics store, whispering to yourself, "I could buy this…but I'm not going to…not because I can't afford it, but I just don't want to!"

I reached the cashier, and handed him the DVD and gift card. He looked at it and said, "Birthday?"

I nodded. "Not today, but soon. They gave it to me ahead of time because they wouldn't get to see me on the actual day."

The DVD cost just a little more than what my card had on it, so I swiped my debit card to pay for the rest. He asked to see my ID. I flipped open my billfold and showed him my driver's license. "And you can see that it's really going to be my birthday soon, too," I joked.

He smiled, raised a finger to say Just a minute…, and picked up the phone. He dialed a few buttons, grinned mischievously, and said, "Attention, Best Buy shoppers - " (at this point I start turning red) " - happy birthday, Amy!"

(at this point I'm squinchy-eyed and giggling)

The man in line behind me wished me a happy birthday. I think I remembered to grab my receipt before running out of the store, embarrassed, giggling, and tickled all at the same time.

I like to think of laugh lines as a permanent compilation of all the reasons a person's had to laugh over a lifetime. I'm a little closer to getting mine.

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blogchalking the domesticat

Submitted by domesticat on 9 October 2002 - 12:41am
in

Lest I forget once again. This is my new blogchalk:
United States, Alabama, Huntsville, Madison, English, Amy, Female, 26-30, knitting, graphic design, cats, movies, writing. Smiling

For those of you who feel the need to follow the herd, go to blogchalking.tk to put some nice chalky graffiti on your own site.

I have now officially jumped on my single allowed meme per month. Regularly scheduled ramblings will begin tomorrow.

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web sites can do more damage than women (part II)

Submitted by domesticat on 9 October 2002 - 10:11am
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I never expected this guy to show up again. I have to wonder, was last time's tongue-lashing not enough for this guy? I'm starting to think that this guy is just a glutton for punishment. That, or he's not scoring nearly as often as he'd like us to think he is.

Again - this is his real Yahoo screen name. Can't say that I feel the need to change it; this guy needs protection far beyond a level that changing his screen name would give.

If you have suggestions for phrases for next time (as it appears that there will be a next time), speak up.

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Fear and loathing in metro DC

Submitted by domesticat on 12 October 2002 - 5:10pm
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Those of you who are on the mailing list (end shameless plug!) know that my lack of posts lately has to do with my inexplicable desire to go on vacation.

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Chocolate soup for the soul

Submitted by domesticat on 13 October 2002 - 11:29pm
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On my way back down the stairs, I poked my head into the living room, where Brad was packing up his things. He looked up from his packing, undoubtedly expecting me to say something at least halfway interesting.

Instead: "Blue or purple?"

I held out my hands, indicating the newly-scrubbed nails that, up to a few minutes ago, had been painted royal blue. "Purple," he said, with that bemused, louder-than-words look that said I was being silly, and why in the world was I asking him such a question of a geekboy anyway?

Thirty minutes later, the nails were purple.

Such has been the weekend.

Is it silly of me to say that I 'miss' someone, when for the vast majority of the years we've known each other, we've been nothing more than screen-printed words and occasional phone calls to each other? I think not. I've missed Brad—enough to say it when I know that my saying it publicly will probably make him grimace in embarrassment.

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From Amy to infinity

Submitted by domesticat on 14 October 2002 - 11:07pm
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Sometimes things can be boiled down into a few photos:

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Your SUV will not protect you

Submitted by domesticat on 15 October 2002 - 9:47pm
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Got home at 4:30 Central time today, having driven since six a.m. Eastern time. (For those of you unfamiliar with US time zones, that's eleven and a half hours total.) Traffic in Chattanooga and Huntsville was worse than metro DC, due to the number of bad wrecks I saw today.Rule #1: if you are driving a truck, and you are hauling a heavily-laden U-Haul trailer, it is most definitely in your best interest to obey the little road sign thingies when they yell things like "Sharp Curve Ahead - Slow To 40 MPH, You Dumbass." Mr.

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Thigh-high, bustier, yawn.

Submitted by domesticat on 17 October 2002 - 1:11am
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Let's not kid ourselves: dragon*con's annual Dawn contest is a brilliant excuse for some red-headed T&A for several thousand sex-starved male geeks.

For the rest of us, it's a chance to stand around for an evening, shake our heads in shock/derision/disbelief, and snap lots of photos for the folks back home who really haven't the foggiest idea of the enormity of what they're missing.

This slideshow of Dawn contestants [link removed in 2008] pretty much says it all. Be aware - all of the costumes are work-questionable at best, and there are several that are most definitely not worksafe.

You'll also never look at international safety orange in the same way again, but once you see the photo in question, you'll agree that that statement pretty much goes without saying.

Have I mentioned lately how much I adore dragon*con? I'm firmly convinced that it does not actually exist in my current reality.

It would explain a lot…

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a life lived safely

Submitted by domesticat on 18 October 2002 - 12:32am
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By most people's standards, I don't think you'd call today a day of rest. There's nothing quite like realizing for the seven-millionth time that making dinner for fewer than eight people really isn't that big of a deal, but, really, it isn't. Dinner for five (like tonight) - a cakewalk. I could practically do it in my sleep at this point.

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Rice-rice-baby

Submitted by domesticat on 18 October 2002 - 5:15pm
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Freed from the constraints of actually being forced to pay for the photos they take, new owners of digital cameras generally begin to snap photos of every single thing they can get their hands on.

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Torn

Submitted by domesticat on 18 October 2002 - 10:51pm
in

As with every good problem, there are constraints that must be obeyed. The events in question will take place in the same state, which is far enough away from my home that I can only afford to go one time.

My question is, which option would you choose?

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Toss me a one-liner

Submitted by domesticat on 21 October 2002 - 11:36am
in
me: I should note - the new Santana song is poppy and fun.
Geof: Hmmmm. Santana … never totally sure about them for my tastes. Some stuff works. -shrug-
me: His collab[orative] stuff has been fun. But, then again, I have a bit of a weakness for Latin music in general.
Geof: heh.
me: His is like the Rosie's version of Latin music - just enough to bring in the Anglos.
Geof:
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Those pesky windmills

Submitted by domesticat on 23 October 2002 - 5:54pm
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Quests are bad. Not bad as in "world-ending" bad, but as in "my friends will all need antacids and my spouse will be praying for pizza tonight" bad. Quests usually involve my blowing nearly half a tank of gas on the back streets of Huntsville, with addresses scrawled on sheets of paper and a eerily determined look in my eye.The last quest was to find a restaurant supply store in Huntsville that had some very specific equipment I needed. Half a tank of gas and one rainy afternoon later, I came to the conclusion that there wasn't a single restaurant supply shop in Huntsville that had what I was looking for. Afterwards, I came home and received a very thorough list of complaints from Tenzing and Edmund, namely:

  1. that the owners of the house, namely Tenzing and Edmund, were left alone in the house for a period of five hours, and
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Names wanted

Submitted by domesticat on 24 October 2002 - 12:02pm
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I'm thinking of extending my oh-so-geeky touch a bit further out into this InterWebNet thingy, and could use an opinion or two.

As most of you longtime readers know, domesticat.net isn't exactly your home for the latest and greatest linkfood. (All adverbs, all the time!) I've toyed with the idea of creating something shorter and snappier - a place to just post links.

Your questions are….

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Jeff's baked beans

Submitted by domesticat on 24 October 2002 - 2:00pm
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Normally, I post recipes here. But, in this case, Jeff's already done the work for me. If you check out this page on his site, you'll find his recipe for baked beans, which as far as the locals around here are concerned, is crack.

I'm not going to steal his thunder and reprint his recipe here, but I did want to add it to the slowly-growing recipe repository.

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Penné Bosciaola

Submitted by domesticat on 25 October 2002 - 11:40am
in

I haven't actually tried this recipe yet; I found it on a box of "Santa Sweets" grape tomatoes. Geeky name, true, but the tomatoes were sweet, and that's saying something in the depths of October.

This recipe was tucked under the lid. It looks promising, and since I'm going to be doing some major kitchen work this weekend, I suspect I should archive this recipe now before I give myself the chance to lose it amidst this weekend's kitchen upheaval (more on that soon enough).Penné Bosciaola

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Eventually you realize

Submitted by domesticat on 28 October 2002 - 8:48am
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Every now and then, this town catches me by surprise.

The first six months I lived here, I hated it and wanted to go 'home' - home, of course, being the quiet swaddle of friends and familiarity that was my collegiate life in Arkansas. But, with everyone graduated and moved away, 'home,' as I remembered it, no longer existed.Without my friends, Conway was nothing but a collection of streets that connected a series of dormitories.

For the first six months, Huntsville consisted of a collection of streets that connected nothing to nothing, with many people (none of whom knew I existed) zooming back and forth to places that I didn't know about.

Then you begin to find things.

I found a yarn shop. A bakery. We acquired felines. Eventually, we bought a house, and began to make friends. A couple of years later, I find myself calling up friends on a Saturday and saying, "I'm trying out a new curry recipe tonight - want to have some?" and ending up feeding eight for dinner.

Then, one night, you find yourself driving down the freeway on a foggy night. You catch yourself staring at the sinuous curve of the sodium-vapor lamps on I-565 as it winds its way to the east side of town, and you find yourself realizing that somewhere along the way your heart has softened a bit toward the town that you once thought annoyed you so much.

If you didn't know any better, you might begin to suspect that you might miss this place if you ever moved away from it. Something along the lines of a sneaking suspicion that Jeremy's statement the other night was probably right: every place has its issues, be it house prices, lousy coffee, grumpy inhabitants, or faraway friends.

True, Misty has a point when she notes that most local businesses are ghost towns by 4:30, and that most big concert tours don't come any closer than Nashville or Birmingham. In exchange, we get shockingly reasonable house prices and rush hours that last about fifteen seconds.

Not to mention…I have friends. They like to carve pumpkins; evil pumpkins at that. They take photos of each other. It's just what we do.

Over the course of a couple of years, a social life creeps up on you. Eventually you realize that you're keeping the board games in the common areas of your house because people are likely to show up on any given night, and it's always nice to have something to play.

Eventually you realize that, while you weren't looking, the place you thought you were only marking time in has suddenly become…home.

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What Will is having for dinner

Submitted by domesticat on 30 October 2002 - 2:55am
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I never thought I'd see the day that I had a post that qualified under both "freeform writing" and "kitchen life." I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it would be Will that would make it happen.

He's adorable, and the next time we get together, he's making me dinner. I'll even buy the wine and clean the kitchen up afterwards.

I present what is, quite possibly, the most conversational recipe known to mankind. I can't even read it without getting a grin. It's probably the next best thing to actually getting to eat it.

With that said, I present Will's discourse on how to prepare salad, garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus, and chicken breasts stuffed with apples and cheese.

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New skin: trompe l'œil

Submitted by domesticat on 30 October 2002 - 5:41pm
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In yet another maddening case of my finally making a skin available after having the design completed for half a year, I've finally gotten around to posting the latest (if you can call it that!) skin, trompe l'œil.

Long ago, when I got started on this bizarre skinning odyssey, I'd had the idea of creating not just skins, but groups of skins. With not much thought, you'll figure out that pazdziernika (fall) and glacial (winter) are intended to be part of a series.

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intent to convert

Submitted by domesticat on 31 October 2002 - 11:05pm
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I'm not much for proselytizing. Nor much, outside my close circle of friends, for expounding upon my spiritual beliefs. I tend to draw the line at random strangers publicly announcing religious beliefs, especially with intent to convert. (We should so make that a tort.) For me, there's a vast (and only rarely blurry) difference between two friends talking about the things that matter over coffee, and some random, unknown person trying to take a few minutes to convince me that their belief system is the right way to go.

This, from the person who still takes a quick look up at the sky every time she sets foot outside. "Yep, still blue," I catch myself saying, before carrying on with whatever life-fulfilling activity I was doing in the first place. (Trying to convert me is like trying to talk to a cat. Expend as much effort as you want, but all you'll do is wear out your voice and annoy the cat.)

It's hard to explain my resulting dumbfoundedness and general surprise, then, when I see signs like this one we saw today on I-65 southbound:

SATURDAY the TRUE LORD'S DAY
Avoid the Mark of the Beast!
Anti-Christ "will think to change times and laws."
Free Book 1-866-7TH-DAY-A
Advertising paid for by Eternal Gospel Church

Had to do a little bit of digging, but apparently the Eternal Gospel Church is an offshoot of the Seventh-Day Adventists, with a bit more of a penchant for attack ads that would make even Alabama politicians envious.

Apparently, some of their newspaper ads have been even more…ahh, impressive - somehow I think naming the Catholic Church as the biblical "whore of babylon" isn't going to go down well in this country…

Quoting a bit from one of their tracts, available here in PDF form…

"By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this three-fold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its constitution as a protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near…"

Now. I'd just like to take a quick moment here.

I realize that, in the years of domesticat.net's existence, I have taken the usage of em-dashes, ellipses, and compound-complex sentences to dizzying heights heretofore unimagined by rational, grammatical humans. I realize that I tend to let my modifiers dangle, my parenthetical statements confuse, and my extraneous clauses flap about in whatever breeze is handy….

…but please, please, promise me that if I ever write sentences that bad, that one of you will come over to the house to shoot me.

Out of pity.

I have to say, though; signs like these are starting to make me want to proselytize. I'm thinking that perhaps my true calling was right under my nose: the protection of innocent billboards from religious splinter groups. Not just the billboards - the graphic design programs, too. Think of how much safer the world would be if we could just keep billboards and graphic design programs from falling into the wrong hands.

It's harder for them to find the time to go out and piss off drivers on I-65 if they're forced to spend all their time hand-writing three thousand leaflets. Not only would they create fewer leaflets, they'd actually spend a bit more time making sure that they gave them only to people who were actually interested.

Now, personally, I found it funny that I saw such a sign while I and two of my friends were driving down to Birmingham to work in a bit of housewares-shopping and to catch a screening of Secretary.

Yep, that one - the little S&M-themed movie that's actually a little love story at heart.

I fear the Eternal Gospel folks would be interested in putting up a billboard about that, too.

We really should look into that proselytization idea. Might not be a bad idea.

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