| And ninjas don't embarrass easily |
[Oct. 29th, 2009|05:54 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  embarrassed | ] |
I have ~5 minutes before I need to leave for yoga, and I feel the need to share this absurd story from my day.
There's a grad student in my department who leads a belly dance troupe here in Albuquerque, and she is putting on a show this weekend. The first performance is tonight, and it's the only one I can go to. I kept putting off getting tickets until today, when it became critical that I get them. I figured I'd call the grad student to see if she had any left for sale. Her name is, let's say, Sally, and so I looked up Sally in my phone. There are several Sallys in there, and some with no last names entered, so I chose the one that I thought was most likely and called that one. The conversation was as follows:
Sally: Hello?
Me: Hi Sally? This is Ninja.
Sally: Oh hi Ninja, how's it going?
Me: Pretty good. Huh, you sound weird today.
Sally: Really? Maybe it's my phone. Why don't you call me back on my office phone?
Me: Ok, what's the number?
Sally: 401....
Me: (thinking to myself WTF NM's area code is 505!! Who the fuck have I called?)
Me: Ok great, I'll call you right back. (hang up, freak out)
So I called someone named Sally, who I apparently know well enough that I don't need to say my last name, who lives in Rhode Island! I couldn't for the life of me figure out who this could be. And then! When I didn't call back right away, she called ME back!! I was like, no way am I going to answer this before I know who she is. She left a message, saying that she was worried that she gave me the wrong number, and she was going to a department seminar but would be around later. I was like, ok this person must go to Brown University--time to search all Sallys at Brown. For the record, this person's name is a lot less common than Sally, so I figured it wouldn't be hard. And it wasn't.....
....I had called a very well-known grad student in my field who I am not actually close friends with. She has already published in Science, and she's not even done with her PhD. And she isn't really the friendly type who would laugh at this situation--she actually didn't acknowledge knowing me at meetings until she was convinced that I was important enough to know. Of all the Sallys to accidentally call, this one was the most embarrassing of all--especially since I totally didn't get that I had called the wrong one, despite several minutes of conversation. I AM AN IDIOT. I think I must have got her number when we were both at a meeting in France and slightly inebriated (it's the only thing I can think of for why I have her number). I should have known better--her name was entered in like Sallx instead of Sally. ARG.
So I called another grad student who knows this woman, and we quickly brainstormed possible reasons I might have for calling her. They were few and far between, but we finally decided I might have some questions about a mineral group that she recently discovered on Mars. So I just sent her an email saying that people came into my office and distracted me from calling her back, and I'd love to chat about these minerals soon and I would be writing her a longer email later. She is probably thinking that I am completely insane. FUCK.
Anyway, time for yoga! |
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| Accepting the small gifts that come my way |
[Sep. 24th, 2009|10:13 pm] |
Today I was working in my favorite cafe as usual. I decided to sit in a new location just to mix it up: the loveseat next to the piano in the corner. Usually I avoid the soft seats because they can be a bit too comfortable to be productive, if that makes any sense, but today I was kind of tired and just felt like slouching. A very pretty girl walked in and was like, "Cool, there's a piano!" and then asks me if I mind if she plays. I notice she has amanite earrings just like my necklace. Then she starts to play...and it's immediately clear that she isn't an amateur musician at all. And then she begins to sing a lovely song with a sweet, sweet voice, and I am just blown away!!!
It turns out that she is indeed a professional singer/songwriter. She ended up on Albuquerque because she's on a roadtrip...from Boston, MA! And she was just living in Brookline all summer, my hometown. Wow! She's stuck here for a bit because she got into a car accident right outside of town, and it will be several days before she'll know if her car is fixable. Luckily she has a friend in town, so she was just spending the afternoon in the cafe waiting to hear from the mechanic and playing all sorts of wonderful songs seemingly just for me :) I told her I sing early music, and she asked me to sing her a melody. Then she proceeded to write a song, complete with words, right then and there based on what I sang. Unbelievable!
Luckily for you all, she gave me a card with all her info, so you too can hear her sing (even if it's just on the internet):
Elana Brody
http://www.myspace.com/elanabrody
I swear that one day she is going to be famous, and then I'll get to tell everyone the story of how I briefly sang with her :)
Even though I wasn't nearly as productive as I could have been today, I feel like this experience was like a little gift to me--something lovely and special and unique, which I will remember much more clearly than the graphs I was supposed to finish. It's been a goal of mine for some time now not to let these kinds of opportunities slip away from me in the name of Work, and today I'm glad to say, I didn't. Maybe I'll get lucky and she'll come back to the cafe tomorrow! |
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| The irony, etc. |
[Sep. 18th, 2009|09:32 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  busy | ] |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mouser_nerdboy pointed out that right after I posted the article about how my personal happiness affects 1,000 other people indirectly, I then posted about the Annie Le case and how it made me sad and scared. My apologies to the 1,000 people who I just made sadder and more scared!
Tonight I shall be hosting a farewell cocktail party for a dear friend who shall be entering the Peace Corps next week for two years. Currently, my house is a dump and I have no alcohol. This shall be a busy day, I suspect! We decided to take it up a notch and make it "semi formal," where semi formal basically means no Chaco sandals. We'll see what these geologist come up with. |
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| Not even the lab is safe |
[Sep. 13th, 2009|09:39 pm] |
This story about a missing graduate student named Annie Le at Yale is really upsetting me. I think it's because I can relate to this young woman...she's a female grad student, a bit younger than myself, who is in the physical sciences, and who works in several different lab facilities. She went into one of her labs this week, in a building full of students, and never came out. That afternoon, someone pulled a fire alarm in that same building to evacuate everyone. Now there is a report that a body has been found in one of the lab walls. I'm just speechless...the story forming in my head is something terribly cruel and horrific. And--this could be any of us geology students. We go into a busy lab building every day, expecting to be safe in our place of work because it's bustling with people. And yet anyone--ANYONE--can walk into our building during the day. No one has yet positively identified the remains as Ms. Le, but I don't think this story is going to have a happy ending. I feel so sick and sad and scared. She was supposed to have gotten married today. |
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| Happiness is contagious--so stay happy! |
[Sep. 13th, 2009|03:34 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  curious | ] |
The NY Times Magazine had a very interesting article today about how social networks can influence individual's health and happiness. It's really long, but I am really intrigued by the idea that our personal actions may affect as many as 1000 other people! I'll keep most of the article behind the cut except for the last few paragraphs:
NY Times
September 13, 2009
Is Happiness Catching?
By CLIVE THOMPSON
( Read more... )
.....
Yet there is also, the two scientists argue, something empowering about the idea that we are so entwined. “Even as we are being influenced by others, we can influence others,” Christakis told me when we first met. “And therefore the importance of taking actions that are beneficial to others is heightened. So this network thing can cut both ways, subverting our ability to have free will, but increasing, if you will, the importance of us having free will.”
As Fowler pointed out, if you want to improve the world with your good behavior, math is on your side. For most of us, within three degrees we are connected to more than 1,000 people — all of whom we can theoretically help make healthier, fitter and happier just by our contagious example. “If someone tells you that you can influence 1,000 people,” Fowler said, “it changes your way of seeing the world.”
Clive Thompson, a contributing writer for the magazine, writes frequently about technology and science.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company |
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| Back in the game again! |
[Sep. 11th, 2009|07:54 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  mellow | ] |
I don't know what happened, but I just lost the will to even look at Livejournal. I think it's ultimately been good, because I've been spending a lot of time taking care of long-overdue business and getting my life in order again. But I miss you guys!
So a major milestone that passed in my LJ absence was.....I TURNED 30!!! Holy crap people, I'm one of those folks you're not supposed to trust! I think the anticipation of 30 was much worse that actually getting there and passing it. Now I'm having fun surprising people with it. Just the other day, I told someone that I have a soft spot for Guns 'n Roses (not kidding), and he was like, oh...wasn't that a bit before your time? And I just looked at him and said, I'm 30. And he was like !! I thought you were more of an early-twenties, just-graduated-undergrad age. HA! It's probably my immature behavior more than anything :)
I've gotten back into my regular yoga schedule, and I'm reading non-work books again, and going to bed ~10pm again. It's great. I've also started pursuing tango dancing with a lot more commitment. I don't remember if I shared the saga of my tango shoes here, but the short version is that I invested in some top notch, super pricey tango heels, and having them is helping me make it to 1-2 tango events per week. I still kind of totally suck at it, but the folks in the Albuquerque tango community are so happy to help that I think I may someday, with their help, be able to do this dance. And I'm learning to walk gracefully--and backwards--in stilettos in the process.
I've been spending a lot of time in a local cafe called Winning's (where I am presently located) because for some reason I feel like I can really concentrate on my work here. I'm in the process of writing my second first-author paper, and this is the only place I seem to make significant progress. They also let me nurse a single soy chai over an entire day while I sit here and use their interwebs. Thanks guys!
Today was not very productive workwise because I ended up going to one of mouser_nerdboy's flight lessons in Santa Fe. He has gotten really into flying, and I think he's quite good, especially considering that he just started. It was a lot of fun getting to meet his instructor and see/experience what he's been working on. I even started thinking I might want to learn how to fly one of these days :) Of course, "one of these days" = $$$, which means having a job, which means graduating. Gotta keep on typing away and finish these dang papers!
Now I have finished my second soy chai, so it's probably time to head home. Even though it's Friday night, I'm really looking forward to an evening at home doing random crap and drinking a glass of wine. Also, my cats puked on the floor yesterday, and I couldn't bring myself to clean it up. Hopefully the glass of wine will give me the strength to do it. |
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| Time for some postins |
[Aug. 3rd, 2009|05:00 pm] |
I don't know what causes me to fall off the LJ wagon, but I don't like it. Time to climb back on!
Let's see if I can summarize the most interesting things that have happened to me in a while...well, firstly, I was a model for mouser_nerdboy's Flickr group a few weeks ago, and it was surprisingly fun/hard work! A lot of the photographers in the group are professionals, and the final images really show that. They ended up using my gold pants!!
When I came home from that, I discovered a disgusting bloody feathery mess in my kitchen. Clearly, my cats had brought in a bird, but I couldn't find any body. I found that vaguely disturbing, but decided not to worry about. I checked my email, and got a glass of water. As I was lifting up my head to take a sip, I noticed....that there was a live dove perched silently above my sink. How did I not notice that? After some internet searching, I found a name and number of a person who did wildlife rehab for birds. It turns out that this is just a really nice lady who loves birds and cares for them out of the goodness of her heart. I went to her house, which is truly the House of Birds. There had to have been at least 50 birds of all kinds, both inside and outside! And some of them were giant parrots that were really, really excited to see me. They went nuts when I showed up. The lady took the bird and worked on the wound right then and there--she had all kinds of equipment right there in her kitchen, as well as bird medications of all kinds. She said that the wound didn't look like it came from a cat, so it may have been that my fatty cats were only able to catch it because it was already hurt.
I stayed and visited with this lady for two hours. I think I want to send her a present or something. People like that restore my faith in humanity.
This past weekend, mouser_nerdboy and I climbed Humphreys Peak in AZ, the highest point in that state at 12,637'. It was an absolutely gorgeous, amazing hike! No part of the trail was very steep (although it's long), and most of it goes through a beautiful, lush forest that makes you think you're in CO and not AZ right outside of Flagstaff.
I was wearing a new pair of boots, which rubbed a bunch of skin off the back of my heels, but other than that it was a wonderful hike. Afterward, we went into Flagstaff and found a great sushi restaurant, where we stuffed ourselves silly and I had a beer that seemed at the time like the best beer ever made.
On the drive back to Albuquerque, mouser_nerdboy kindly reminded me that we were relatively close to the Grand Canyon Deer Farm, which we had visited several years before. This is a sweet petting zoo with deer you can feed and hug! At least, you can hug them as you're feeding them (they don't like hugs, apparently). I love this place soooo much! Even though I was really tired from all the hiking and eating, I perked right up when I saw the deer. There are some hilarious pictures of the deer eating my shirt when I didn't feed them fast enough. Oh deer, you are not too bright.
In between Flagstaff and Winslow is a huge stretch of absolutely nothing. We were driving along in light traffic when suddenly everyone came to a complete stop. We had no idea what was going on, but as we inched forward we could see cars stopped on the other side of the road. As we got closer, I started to have a really bad feeling about what had happened...all signs pointed to some terrible accident that had just occurred, so recently that no emergency responders were there yet. Unfortunately it became clear that this is exactly what had happened when we passed through the bottleneck. There were two smashed motorcycles, one on either side of the highway (as in, one in each direction of traffic). A crowd of people surrounded a man lying in the middle of the road, his head and face covered in blood and at least one shoe missing. There was another man lying in the grassy median strip not moving at all, and no one was tending to him. There were no helmets anywhere that I could see. It was absolutely horrible. The closest towns were at least 40 minutes drive. It's times like these that I wish I had some skills other than geology :(
Now I'm back in Albuquerque, trying to get my house ready for a visitor and also get my equipment in order for my upcoming fieldwork in UT. This week, my friend/collaborator will be arriving this Thursday to do some work on stats. We are going to try to apply some specific statistical techniques to her data, and if it works we may write a paper about it. In two weeks, I'll be going back to my UT field site to collect more samples. I can't for the life of me find my rock hammer, which admittedly was falling to pieces anyway, so I went ahead and bought myself a shiny new one with a leather handle, along with a fancy holster:
The leather handle is a bit more expensive, but it is really pretty! So I decided to go for it :) To be fair, it was only $5 more.
Tonight I think I will cook myself some tofu, open some white wine, and watch the movie Milk, after which I shall retire to bed early. Yay! |
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| I've got a fundieburn |
[Jul. 1st, 2009|05:02 pm] |
So I realized I was not going to make it to spinning, since by the time I got my tight pants on it was 5 minutes to 5pm, when the class starts. Also, I seem to have gotten a rather severe burn from standing outside talking to the kids. It's red, and it hurts! Maybe that's God's little way of telling me that I should flee his tiny self-appointed messengers when I see them rather than chat.
Maybe I'll just have a nice cold glass of wine instead. Thank the Fiery Centaur God for wine! |
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| THE FUNDIES AAAAAH |
[Jul. 1st, 2009|04:09 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  annoyed | ] |
I've been quite absent from LJ recently, but I just had an experience that has goaded me into posting. I was leaving the gym after a yoga class when I was approached by three young kids who asked me, "What do you think happens when you die?" Now, I have been approached by their adult brethren in the past. These people try to prove the existence of God by asking you a series of questions that are hard to answer in some way. Usually it's because the questions are posed in an impossible either/or format, but sometimes they require that you have some piece of knowledge that no one could reasonably have. I told the first kid (a boy ~15 years old) that thanks, I've already seen the pamphlet, and kept walking. He *stood in my way* and asked what happens when we die? again. I said, "Then we're dead." Seemed like a good answer. Clearly, for fundies this is the wrong answer. Thus began a questioning session that lasted for 40 minutes!!!
I really should have run away more forcefully, but I was outnumbered. There were three of them: A boy and a girl, both ~15 years old max, and a smaller boy who looked 10 but was probably 12. They surrounded me, and asked me more questions of a similar nature. What was so very disturbing about it all was that they had clearly memorized speaking points, some of which were really weird. Like, "Wouldn't you agree that this country is very anti-Christian?" Um no. I could care less if you're a Christian. God bless 'em! Whatever god you like best can do the blessing.
It came out that they are Young Earthers. I asked them if they knew what an isotope was. They said that the rate of decay of radioactive isotopes could have changed over time. I pointed out that it was POSSIBLE, but did that seem likely to them? Apparently, yes. I suspect they haven't hit the chemistry home school module yet.
They asked me why I didn't believe in God. First, I pointed out that I actually have no idea whether or not God exists. I explained that there was no measurement I could do to prove God's existence in a tangible way, so for now I was going to go ahead and say there's probably no God. They asked me how I would feel if I were wrong. I said that I would be happy to change my mind once God made his presence know to me. They said what if by that time it was too late, and God put me in a fiery hell hole to be forever tormented? I said I was comfortable with that risk. Apparently the littlest boy didn't feel like I understood--I would be ON FIRE FOREVER. It would hurt REALLY badly. Oh gee, now your religion is starting to sound really convincing. Sign me up!
They asked me how God could prove his existence to me. I told them I would need something really remarkable, like if he appeared to me as a giant centaur with flames coming out of its eyes. Or lasers. I would totally change my mind then. Really! I am happy to change my mind when confronted with new evidence.
The girl piped up by asking me if I "believed in" George Washington. I said I didn't "believe in" him, but I was pretty sure he was once alive. She tried to draw an analogy between Jesus and George Washington--both died a long time before I was born, so how did I *know* one was real and one wasn't. I said that while I had seen people be the President of the United States before, I had never seen anyone be the Son of God, rise from the dead, etc.
She asked me all kinds of other questions, like what does it mean to be a good person? What is the meaning of life? I told her I had specific answers for *myself*, but I couldn't answer them in a general way. In a rare moment of frustration, she said, "So, once you get your PhD, then what? That's it?" as if to say that I have nothing else in my life! To be fair, as a grad student I barely have a life. I gently pointed out that I would probably keep living after receiving my degree, and that I would also probably go on doing things that made me happy and pursuing interests that I thought were meaningful.
The whole time I kept thinking WTF are your parents doing making you evangelize to UNM students?? None of them could possibly have truly believed that they could change anyone's mind with a list of questions. It would have been more effective to send out some biblical scholars who could really argue the finer points of history, but I guess this church thought it would be better to send seemingly harmless children. I don't have a problem with parents raising their children in a religion, but don't turn them into mindless automatons who simply memorize information! There is no reason in the world that they shouldn't be allowed to question and probe and examine all parts of their religion--that should make their belief system *stronger*! I was truly saddened by the whole experience. Those kids are getting a lesson in "us against them" more than any thing else, and that really sucks. The one thing I really should have asked them was if there was anything I could do or say or show them that would cause them to NOT believe in God. Clearly, the answer is no--so it makes no sense for them to keep trying to use logic to prove his existence. Arg.
I would probably rant more, but my spinning class starts in 10 minutes. Gotta go spin out this irritation! |
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| Update from CA |
[Jun. 20th, 2009|09:07 am] |
In case you're wondering what I've been up to whilst silent on LJ, here's a link to the robot recon test blog (with some entries by me):
http://lunarscience.nasa.gov/roboticrecon/blog
This test has been incredibly interesting, and I think I've learned a lot about how we get data from remote robots. Which is totally sweet! Today is the last day of the test (yes, it's Saturday), so I should probably get ready to go. |
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| Just a (not so) small bitchfest |
[Jun. 8th, 2009|04:27 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | irate | ] |
I like to participate in clinical studies. It's a great way to contribute to science in general, and sometimes they even pay me. After I finished the last study I was in, I gave the study staff permission to put me on a list of healthy people willing to partake in other studies. So last week, when I got a call about participating in a functional dyspepsia study, I agreed to do it.
Today was the first appointment. I had talked at length with the study coordinator about how to get there, including parking. Unfortunately, it became clear when I arrived that she had no idea that the parking situation had changed significantly since last fall. The parking structure I was used to parking in was no longer for patient use. It was seriously irritating, considering that I had explicitly asked about it. But ok, I thought, maybe this woman didn't know about the change.
So I get there, and it turns out the nurse is the same as for the previous study. However, despite the fact that I had come in regularly over 20 months to have my blood drawn by this very nurse, she never remembered me during that study, and clearly didn't remember me this time. I could tell she thought I was just a dumbass for parking in the wrong (formerly correct) place. After some discussion, I decided to just risk a potential ticket and carry on with the appointment.
The doctor gave me a quick physical and asked me some health questions. Then the study coordinator described the study to me and went over the informed consent forms. As an aside, she asked me if I was a student and what I was studying. I kept it simple and told her I did earth and planetary sciences, which is the name of the University department. She then asks, "Oh, is that in Biology?" Um, no. What's really funny is that she just graduated pre-med from UNM, so she must have taken classes in the Bio department...which is literally right next to the Earth and Planetary Sciences department.
Next, she asked me to fill out some forms about potential gastrointestinal symptoms I may have experienced over the past two weeks. I don't really have any GI issues, but of course I answered truthfully that I have had a non-zero amount of "excess gas," "belching," and "bloating." AND THEN...the study coordinator informed me that since I had experienced some "symptoms" I was going to be a bad control, and I couldn't do the study. Are you kidding me? Maybe I'm completely abnormal, but who DOESN'T have some gas sometimes??? Is there actually someone out there who hasn't farted or belched in two weeks? Seriously, if that's you, I want to know. Maybe it's a question of the definition of "excess." I think pretty much any non-bathroom toot is "excess"!
On the positive side, at least my car wasn't ticketed or towed. But I was in a foul mood when I finally got home--I am definitely going to open a bottle of wine tonight! |
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| Amazing early music group in Boston this Friday! |
[Jun. 7th, 2009|11:11 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  crazy | ] |
Attention all Boston area peeps: go see my favorite early music vocal ensemble Stile Antico performing this Friday, June 12 at the Emmanuel Church on Newbury Street at 8pm. They are in the U.S. for the Boston Early Music Festival. If I had more money to buy a plane ticket (and I weren't already going to a meeting in CA that weekend) I would fly out there to see them. They are that good!! Tickets are still available. I am so mad that I won't be there--make my day and go in my place and then tell me all about it :D
If you're not quite convinced, go listen to their music on the website. And then get your tickets.
DO IT NOW!! So I can live vicariously through you! |
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| Is it my shorts? |
[Jun. 5th, 2009|04:35 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | confused | ] |
Today, as I was walking on campus, a guy who was walking behind me ran to catch up with me to let me know that I had a "nice tight ass." I stared at him, completely speechless. He took this as bashfulness, and enthusiastically continued, "Really, it's sweet!" I could only laugh and say oh MAN as I walked away. This was coming from a kid who was 20 years old, max. Was I supposed to give him my number??
Later in the day, I was fueling my car at a gas station, when a guy on a bike came up behind me and made an extremely loud woofing/animal-like sound behind me. I was pretty startled, and when I turned around he was looking right at me, and smiled as he slowly biked away. I can't decide if it was a positive or negative woof, but it was certainly disturbing.
A few hours later I was waiting at a crosswalk on the same street recounting these stories to another grad student, and my back (and thus also my butt) was facing the road. And a big hearse that was driving by honked! A HEARSE honked at me. My friend laughed and said it must be my shorts. FYI these are the shorts I'm currently wearing:
Front view
The all-important rear view
These are not some hot pants--these are bermuda shorts. I must be having some kind of a hot day. That, or I am giving off an especially easy/cheap vibe. Sheesh. |
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| You know you're in Albuquerque when... |
[Jun. 2nd, 2009|12:14 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
...you're driving down one of the busiest streets in the city, and you see a guy riding a horse. In your lane. Now, Albuquerque may be somewhat backwater compared to other American cities, but we do have cars and multilane roads and street lights and electricity to run them. The horse rider turned down the same side street as I did, and the last I saw of him he was hitching his horse to the bike rack outside a local italian restaurant. I'd like to point out here that this place is one block from my house, and the neighborhood is decidedly unrural.
I spent another morning at the courthouse, waiting to be called for a potential jury (and wasn't--yay). I sat with the same laptop ladies as last time, and one of them had kindly brought a power strip for the rest of us to plug into. We ended up getting into an interesting conversation about flexibility in the workplace, and it turns out that one lady is an HR specialist who is working on a PhD on the generational differences between workers. She said even though I was born on the cusp of Generations X and Y, I had the ideas of a Yer, and she wanted to interview me at some point in the future as a part of her dissertation. Sweet--I represent a generation!
Now it's time for some of the berry pie I made on Sunday. I love pie almost as much as I love ice cream. Pie + ice cream = perfect :D |
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| Trapped in Metro Court |
[May. 28th, 2009|11:30 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | ecstatic | ] |
Of course, I am one of the "lucky" 21 potential jurors that just got selected. So that means I get to stay here while everyone else leaves. My new friends just gave me some apple slices and some almonds, so that was nice.
JUST KIDDING THEY CAME BACK AND TOLD US THEY CHANGED THEIR MINDS!! Hooray! I'm freeeeeeeeeeeeee!! |
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| Nerds will understand |
[May. 28th, 2009|09:24 am] |
I'm at the Metro Courthouse awaiting my potential selection on a jury, and I have discovered that the guest wireless here blocks port 22!! No ssh for this ninja :( I guess it's somewhat comforting that this probably means the ITS people here know what they're doing. I still want my ssh.
I'm sitting at a table with two nice ladies. I think we'll be getting to know each other quite well in the next two weeks... |
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| Lovely lazy weekend |
[May. 24th, 2009|02:39 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | content | ] |
I am having a decidedly lazy weekend, and it's wonderful. mouser_nerdboy was here on Friday before he left on a business trip, and we saw Terminator Salvation. Not exactly a cerebral film, but pretty darn fun to watch on a big screen. Then yesterday I decided to go to the Albuquerque Wine Festival with a friend I haven't seen in a while. Wow, that was fun! There were ~30 different vineyards represented there, all from NM, along with fancy chocolate and cheese makers and booths with jewelery, hats, candles, and other pretty things. It was delightful to spend the afternoon flitting from booth to booth, chatting with the vintners and tasting some delicious wines. I ended up buying a red dessert wine that tastes like chocolate and a Gewurztraminer called Girls-are-meaner. HA!
Then, as I was slowly waking up this morning (drinking slowly for 8+ hours really takes it out of you!), I got a phone call from a dear friend back east, and we chatted for hours. Then mouser_nerdboy came online for a video chat from overseas. Now it's almost 3pm and I'm still half-dressed and haven't done anything productive and I love it :D Maybe I'll go get a new yoga mat, and then make myself a nice dinner to go with all my new wines... |
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| Psycho neighbor strikes again |
[May. 18th, 2009|01:21 pm] |
Yet again, I heard my car alarm go off and looked outside to see the Note Writing Neighbor leaving me yet another note. I popped my head outside and asked her if she had something she wanted to say to me, to which she replied, "GO TO HELL!!" and went back into her house. This time, the note wasn't threatening, only strange:
"You're illegal Go to Mexico where you belong yourself"
So now I'm an illegal immigrant from Mexico who has stolen her identity to take out student loans for UNM in her name. I guess this story makes sense, except that it's entirely false. My friend suggested that maybe my new Florida tan made her think I'm Mexican! I called the police, and an officer came out and looked at this note as well as the previous two. He seemed kind of irritated that he had to come out here for something so trivial, which I totally understand. But I wanted to make sure the Note Writer's behavior is officially documented just in case she makes good on her meat cleaver threats. The officer took the note and went over to talk to her. I could hear her talking loudly but I couldn't make out what she was saying, so I gave up on my eavesdropping and started mopping my kitchen floor. After a few minutes, the officer returned and said, "O-K, she's totally psycho!" HA! Apparently, she knows I'm a "good person" and she "didn't mean" to leave the note (?). And then she started talking about how "everyone" is telling her to go to Mexico, and then something about Lord of the Rings in the Catholic Church, and implied that she was hearing voices. Yeaaaahhhh. The officer is going to make sure that their mental health division is notified about the Note Writer's behavior. I don't know if it will make a difference--the last officer also contacted them (in late January), but I suspect they haven't gotten to this case yet. They're probably wildly overburdened with people whose mental illnesses are far worse. Maybe it's three times a charm...? Three notes a charm? |
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