Category Archives: Today

What today was like.

Creepy Motivational Messages

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WOLFGANG SPEGG – MUSICMUSICMUSIC INC MU5.FNM: TWST

That’s business-to-business product number two. Business-to-business product number three is a competitive product to the Muzak(r) products where we stream music into industrial locations, restaurants, office buildings, etc., but in a totally randomised fashion, so that they do not have to listen to the same program day after day, hour after hour because the Muzak(r) product is mainly delivered on CD and they play the same 90 minutes of music over and over again for two weeks.

We deliver a never- ending randomised stream and the ability for them to insert their own messaging, whether that’s a promotional message,amotivational message for factory, informational message for railroad station or airport.

The little restaurant/cafeteria downstairs at work was recently sold and is under new management… the new owner seems like an affable guy who’s eager to please and attract some customers back who had given up on the place from before. I think he’s recently changed the programmed music subscription to something that’s like what’s described above (in all it’s RIAA-compliant smarminess).

Apparently he’s going to some rather creepy lengths; I was in the dining area watching headlines on CNN and not really listening to the canned music they play constantly. Suddenly there was a burst of “announcement” fanfare and a male voice said confidently,

 “How may customers have you served? How many sandwiches have you made? Staying on task with your hourly goals is the road to a job well done!”

Later, there was another fanfare, and the announcer said something about “Are you looking for more recognition? your annual review is coming up, schedule it with your manager soon!”

It was beyond creepy. But I left feeling compelled to get back to work making more sandwiches and scheduling my annual review, so there must be something in it.

[tags]Muzak, mind control, creepy, motivational, sandwiches[/tags]

Happy Monday that is a Tuesday!

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Today, I…

  • slept late and was late, so in a rush I grabbed one of David’s plain black T-shirts to wear
  • got in to find not so much waiting to be done as you’d expect for a Monday-Tuesday
  • muttered under my breath a lot and groaned about my aching back
  • welcomed back my groups agent buddy, who had a nice week off
  • caught up on a few items left undone while covering for agent buddy
  • wondered if I could bike to work or not this summer
  • struggled with broken pricing in booking tool (STILL not fixed after 2 months??)
  • meant to talk to TL about a change in wording for when we book interviewees
  • went to Einstein’s for lunch, which I’ve been neglecting to do lately
  • moaned some more about my back and aching muscles (curses be upon weeds)
  • discovered and fixed a problem with emailed itineraries not being sent
  • dealt with several people screaming for their itineraries ( “there was a problem…” )
  • got distracted by news items, but not unduly
  • wondered about getting a massage
  • hung around tinkering with pricing problem after work
  • got home late, complained of aching back, and started rice for stir-fry
  • Agreed quickly when David suggested we dump the rice and go to Marconi’s
  • Enjoyed a delicious stuffed ravioli di mare with raspberry lemonade
  • drew stupid space creature on tablecloth (paper!! ) with “Bleu Cheese” Crayola
  • Giggled when David noticed “my” shirt, which now has girl goobies on it.
  • Laughed at Riley, who’s still tossing his fresh-catnip mousie high in the air
  • Checked on some plants in beds, prognosis: not dead yet
  • got back home, looked glumly at local area bike map, cursed suburban street plans
  • groaned about back, went to bed early

Ta-dah!! That was my day today.

Longnecks r best

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Flickr

There was a swan jam on my way to work today — this pair were installed at the retention pond at the rear of our building to discourage a large flock of Canada geese from sticking around all summer, and of course they have a nesting site that their trainer built for them with bales of hay and bits of straw. A large work crew disturbed them today with a big sod-laying project, and both adult swans and their little cygnets took off for freedom.

Problem was, they waddled all the way to the end of the parking lot and were headed up the bike path that, a  mile or so away, leads through a forest preserve. The work crew was trying to head them off, but they weren’t succeeding, since they were standing between the swans and their home in our retention pond, and the workers were flapping their bright yellow safety jackets, too.

When I came by, they had caused a considerable swan jam on the main road, plus there were several bicyclists that were stymied. Both adult swans were in a very defensive-looking posture, with their necks curled up as if to strike and their back and tail feathers all ruffled. The little cygnets huddled in a downy clump under their mother, obviously frightened and confused.

I called the building office and was told that the police were on the way, the swans’ trainer was on the way, and some building people were on the way to get the sod crew to back off and let the swans head back to their pond.

I should mention that the swans and their fuzzy little progeny have been the source of much excitement and comment at the office, so it was Topic 1 this morning. Apparently, it got a little out of hand down at the scene of the swan jam – people getting out of cars to try to help herd them – but eventually the trainer got them calmed down and led them back to the pond, very slowly. The little cygnets must have been tuckered out, because it’s a long way for their little feet to piddle-paddle.

After about an hour, an email went around the office with the subject line:

THE SWANS ARE SAFE AND BACK IN THEIR POND!!!

A general cheer went up.

After work, I drove over by the pond side of the building to observe them. They were swimming around contentedly, and then the parents made a beeline for their feeding station in the corner of the pond, not far from where I was standing. A couple of uninvited guests were there – a pair of Canada geese that the swans tolerate. Normally, there are a dozen or more adult geese by now, and almost as many goslings. It got pretty messy out in the parking lot when they decided to go on stately parade, so the building decided a pair of swans might be the thing.

I noticed that the swans’ necks are long enough to get into the feed tub, but the geese are SOL – their necks are too short. They had to settle for the bits of feed scattered about after the mother swan was finished feeding. She settled herself on her nest on the one dud egg that’s still there, and the little goslings all crept up under her wings on one side and were either trying to get warm, or eat bits of feed or bugs that were in her feathers, or both. They looked so cute stretching up to get under her wings.

Via: Flickr Title: Longnecks r best By: GinnyRED57
Originally uploaded: 25 May ’07, 6.44pm CDT PST

Nice, Nice, Very Nice Day

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Lovely days like today don’t come often enough. It was warm, pleasant, and I had time to both tinker around online and dink around outside sticking plants in to my two whiskey-barrel containers.

David drilled a whole in the one barrel that didn’t drain properly, and now it’s useable and not a yucky object that looks and smells like a swamp. I added a couple of handfuls of rock mulch to keep the drainage hole clear. Tore out some more  of the prickly bush that insists on growing up through the roots of the one bushy pine shrub, and even got some mulch down. It’s kind of a bright brick-red color, this mulch, but what can you say when they were practically giving it away at Lowe’s?

I’d left the planting of container and bedding plants for a week, and have to salvage one set of annual plants – they have to be babied for a bit to be convinced that they’re not dead yet. Everything else made it through the week, and I have one small bed (the kitty garden) to dig out tomorrow afternoon. The landscape guys whacked all of my perennial plants down to the ground, and some made it through the winter, and some didn’t.

Later on, our friend Jill came over for a nice visit and dinner at Bahama Breeze, so we could get caught up on everything and decry our inability to make firm plans to get together more frequently before now. We ended up hosing off the plastic patio chairs so we could sit “out” after returning from dinner, and didn’t feel like crawling around in the rafters of the garage getting all the “good” chair cushions down. It may not have been classic outdoor entertaining, but it was outdoors and we were highly entertained by each other, so there.

Martha Stewart I am not, so although the effect will eventually be pleasing, the front of the house still has a scruffy, not-done-yet character to the containers and bedding plants. At least last year’s 3 clematis plants made it through, no thanks to me, and they’re thriving for now.

I may even get the one tomato plant in the ground tomorrow – I’ve never grown vegetables before, and wanted to start with something simple. We’ll see how this goes.

Grey Spring

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What’s it going to be? Warm and sunny (yesterday) or cold and rainy (today)? I’m so confused!

At least I won’t have to water stuff for a couple more days. I’ve got a bunch of plants to get in the ground and will have to put that off now until at least Thursday or later.

Brr. Brr. Brr. Yum. Yum. Yum.

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January 30

Each dawn is a new beginning.

Breakfast: small bowl of muesli and dried cranberries, milk
Snack: Energy Rx juice drink product whatchamajigger. Hey, it’s mango juice AND caffeine! I read the ingredients!
Lunch: Slimfast, granola bar, 1 piece string cheese (I hate how the cafeteria closes before I can even get there)
Dinner: Shrimp fried rice (veggies and egg also, leftovers for lunch tomorrow)
Workout: 25 minutes on recumbent bike at lunch

I didn’t work out yesterday at all – still too sore from my last session with the trainer. I did, however, get in and ride a recumbent bike today during my lunch hour. I was kind of stumped at the end of last week when I couldn’t remember if I’d worked out 3 times or 4 times, so I’ll try to keep better track. I’ve notice a very definite improvement in how I feel, and my general sense of well-being has returned after a very long absence (I haven’t felt like this in years, since the last time I went on a
fitness kick). Also: a few pounds have been lost, and I can actually look at my silhouette in the mirror without wincing and rolling my eyes. It helps to have bought some jeans recently that are the best fitting ones I’ve had in a long, long, LONG time. I actually enjoy wearing them, instead of feeling like I’m being throttled amidships. It helps that they have a generous helping of Lycra.

Stretch denim. What a wonderful invention. Why did I wait so long to try it?

It’s gotten cold, so after about a week of comments along the line of “Huh! It’s finally winter!” everyone in at work has switched from grousing about how mild the winter was and how there wasn’t enough snow, to grousing about how frigid and dry the air is, and how it’s snowing “again.” Remember, this is Chicagoland; even though the weather is not that terrible, it has to be more terrible and more dramatic than anywhere else. Even places that have been experiencing truly awful weather.

David and I have both been eating a lot better – more importantly, I now reach for a piece of fruit as a snack and make a point of eating SOMEthing before leaving the house in the morning. Still relying too much on “convenience” foods, but I’m trying to be aware of the ingredients before buying them.

We made some pretty awesome cheeseless lasagna last week, and on a whim, I decided to make a full recipe off the back of the box (jazzed up, of course). We had leftovers a couple of times for
lunch, and one other evening meal. Yes, the old standby, leftovers. What a concept. I remember when Mom, or moms in general, made the same thing for dinner for every night of the week. As in “Monday: Pork chops and applesauce. Tuesday: Pot roast. Wednesday: macaroni and cheese. Thursday: Beef Mac Apple Surprise.”

We’re not so much about the meal planning here, but have started to get the Big Idea about menu planning. Some things go really well together: nicely baked salmon filets with olive oil and a few herbs, some mushroom risotto, and salad. Now we’ll have to find something else to go with the lasagna, which was a spur of the moment thing that took 2 nights to actually get around to making.

Note to self, however – never use that Gia Russa Whole Wheat Lasagna, 9-Ounce Boxes (Pack of 12) stuff again. I think the box it came in would have more flavor.

Perhaps it would have tasted better if we had boiled it in spite of the package directions? Or perhaps if we boiled the box?

For the rest of it, I substituted 2 kinds of soy cheese (a grated mozzarella type, and a grated mix of “romano” and “parmesan”). Also substituted a small amount of silken tofu for the ricotta. However, we had ground beef and spinach in there too – the point was to make a lasagna that David could enjoy (he can’t eat cheese without problems, even with Lactaid). And danged if it didn’t taste very much like a “real” lasagna – the only difference being that the soy cheeses don’t melt right. The recipe from the
box called for less sauce than I used – I ended up using 2 cans of Contadina tomato sauce, plus a dab more sauce from another can. Next time: mix up some Contadina tomato paste in with the cans of sauce for more flavor. And if we make it with a ground meat again, definitely the seasoned ground turkey that Dom’s carries, and definitely chop up the spinach like I did, but add it AFTER all the meat is browned, but before spooning the “cheese” and meat into the pan. Nutmeg added to the spinach again, too
– I used maybe a quarter teaspoon. And also next time: boil up the noodles and lay them out right.

The Passing Year

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Great Performances . From Vienna: The New Years Celebration 2005 | PBS

I've been listening to KUNC's "eclectic music" programming via streaming Internet just now, and they  announced that they'll be broadcasting the annual New Year's concert from Vienna later this afternoon. I started crying.

Last night at midnight, I was just dozing off when firecrackers and loud "reports" (guns or M-80s or whatever) started going off. It occured to me that 2007 was a year without Mom in it, and started crying. 

Yesterday, at the farewell liturgy for Holy Innocents (AKA Holy Moly), a former vicar came up to me, gave me a big hug, and asked how I was doing – specifically, how I was doing in regards to losing Mom last June, because one of the last things he and I did before he left was read some of the prayers for the dead for Mom. I started crying.  

Really, I don't spend all my time crying. It's just that New Year's is strongly connected in my mind with cherished old memories of Mom, especially from when I used to go home from Oregon or Washington for Christmas, stay in my old room, and sit up a lot of nights talking. She'd build a fire in the fireplace most evenings, and we'd watch TV and talk and just be cozy. At New Year's, we often stumbled on the annual broadcast of the Vienna Philharmonic's concert on Great Performances, and it became one of those little traditions between us. We'd watch the little interstitial dance sequences that Great Performances would insert so that it wasn't just a straight concert broadcast.

And of course, we'd always clap along during the traditional encorre of the Radetsky March. I have the March on iTunes and when it comes up, I clap along then, too. Quite often, I start crying a little, but not so much. I thought I was more or less immune to it, but may lose it just because of the time of year.

One year I introduced David to this tradition; the live broadcast is picked up by a ton of public radio stations, and it can often be encountered if you happen to be traveling anywhere in the country over New Year's Day, which is what happened when we were enjoying a driving vacation between Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon. The northern Arizona NPR station in Flagstaff broadcast it, so we were able to listen to the whole thing as we drove through the desert landscape. It's NOT broadcast by our local NPR station, because of their stupid jazz. It may be on one of the other local stations that broadcasts classical music, though. 

And here it is, the traditional New Year's Concert, conducted by Zubin Mehta, brought to you live by the wonders of world-wide radio broadcast/web simulcast via KUNC… with two announcers, one Austrian and another American doing the translation. It's a little awkward, but the only way it could be done. 

It's odd how I had forgotten about this, which is probably why it sideswiped me last night when I realized it was 2007. Even then, I forgot about the concert. It was only when the KUNC announcer mentioned that I realized. And it seems that the technical problems we've been having are going to prevent us from leaving any time soon to see David's parents, so it looks like I'll be here for the duration.

I've got it queued up on TiVo to record the GP version of the concert tonight; Walter Cronkite, bless his heart, is still the host after 23 years and his voice and demeanor are part of the charm. Mom and I must have been watching some of the earliest GP broadcasts together in the mid-Eighties, when I was either still living in Eugene, or after I moved to Seattle.  

On another related topic, Mom's little "thought of the day" doo-dad (it was a table favor from a luncheon in 1992) has some interesting notations for the day:

1992 – 158 Buck "necked"                    January 1
1999 – 145 — Rah!
2000 – 145
2002 – 140
2004 – 139

Today is the first day of the rest of your life. 

Looks like she was noting her weight down from year to year; I think she meant "buck nekkid" in the one for 1999, and was congratulating herself the next year with a little "Rah!" for the weight loss she managed. The next years, 2005 and especially 2006, her vision got to where she couldn't see to write her little notes.

Traffic Refugees

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Last night at about the time when people log out and go home, we got word that there was a big accident at the intersection at the far end of the parking lot. Supposedly, the intersection was closed and they were re-routing cars around it; it's been listed as one of the most dangerous intersections in this part of the suburbs because of the high number of serious accidents that occur there.

Fair enough, I made mental note to possibly hook around and take the tollway in the direction of home. As I left the building, a long, long string of cars was going along the edge of our lot, headed toward the access road that leads toward another major intersection. It was clear that the police had allowed some traffic to detour through our lot in order to clear the area. So, I avoided them as well, and hooked around to a nearby on-ramp. The line of cars stretched back, back, back, for all the world like refugees fleeing some catastrophe.

This morning, the word went around just before lunch… another major accident at the same intersection, which again cut off my access westward. As I had a half-day today, there I was again, hooking around to the tollway, this time in daylight. It was a dark, grim, foggy day here, so flights at O'Hare were backed up in their own right, not just because of Denver's blizzardly woes.

Weird.