Last Monday, we had ceiling fans installed in the master bedroom, my office, the bird room, and out on the lanai. The installer actually arrived earlier than he'd told us (a phenomenon we seem to be seeing a lot of here). I looked at Bobby and said, "Does he remind you of anyone?" He looked at me, grinned, and said "Gibbs." The guy was a dead ringer for a shorter, slighter Gibbs (circa the eps after Hiatus -- moustache and all).

He'd never seen NCIS and he wasn't familiar with the name Mark Harmon, but I told him that MH used to play college football, and he could check out the eps on USA.

I saw this mentioned on another journal, read it, and loved it. It's sweet, and perfectly timed for the season. Enjoy

http://file40.net/file40g/manger.html

So we ordered the washer/dryer combo with pedestals -- which will make doing laundry much easier on our horribly painful backs (not to mention my knees, which get worse every day).

Have I mentioned the laundry room has a built-in table (covered in crap at the moment) and two double-door cabinets hanging over the area where the washer and dryer are intended to go? Nice, handy, and already in use (I have the extra pads for my Shark steam mop living there).

Sunday, Bobby looks at me and says "I don't think they'll fit under the cabinets."

Yesterday, my brain finally reminds me to find out how tall the w/d set is with pedestals. So I call Lowe's, and the guy (Rick) in Appliances very kindly measurs them for me -- 54 inches.

Bobby and I head out to the laundry room with a tape measure -- the space is a hair under 54 inches. NO way will they fit -- and I want those pedestals, damnit!

Back to the phone, to see if they have shorter pedestals. Rick answers again, tries to look it up -- and their connection to Lowes.com is down. I try here at home -- same thing. He takes my number and promises to call back.

I plop myself on the couch to watch 2nd season NCIS and wait for the phone. Rick finally calls back and says they have 10-inch pedestals they can order for us (the ones we ordered are 14-plus inches), but they won't be here until December 21st. Crap! With any kind of luck, the washer/dryer set will be here long before that (they had a huge demand for them that weekend -- which isn't surprising, since the set was effectively half off), and I don't want to postpone delivery so everything arrives at once, so I ask him if the set comes first, will the delivery guys install them, them move them onto the pedestals once they arrive. He's not sure, but tells me he'll find out and call back tomorrow (now today).

Five minutes later, the phone rings. He called their operations manager, who said it would be no problem, since we're buying all four pieces from them. They'll be happy to do it.

I cannot imagine that happening in New Jersey.

Enjoy, guys:

http://community.livejournal.com/ncisdrabble100/360032.html?view=1260128#t1260128

In Florida, that is. I still can't believe we're here.

After packing that seemed to take years, two days of four movers (really great guys -- three were Yankee fans and there was a token Met fan completing the group) shlepping our entire lives out of the house where we lived for nearly 18 years, an emergency dentist visit for Bobby the morning we left, and a horriffic 27 hours spent in two cars (one Freestar with three parrots in travel cages on the middle seat and the older of each Basset/JRT pair in a large crate, and one Equinox -- which was keyed the night before we left -- with the younger of each Basset/JRT pair -- with both cars stuffed to the gills with stiff we didn't want to have the movers take) driving from NJ to FL, sleeping in said cars in two different rest stops in North Carolina in the middle of the night because no hotel would take us with all those critters in tow, we finally drove up to the front of our new home at 4pm on Sunday November 22nd. Our stuff arrived on Tuesday, and the movers were here and gone in three hours.

We slept on an Aerobed (which was surprisingly comfortable! We got the version with the headboard from Costco) for the first few nights -- we'd left our old mattress and box spring behind in NJ, and bought a new set the day after we got here, which was delivered on Black Friday (I actually get up without a backache in the morning now!). Said Black Friday brought the DirecTV installer, so we now have service in the living room (viewable from the kitchen and the sitting room off the master suite, which is where I have the desktop set up temporarily, and which is also the temporary home for the parrots (still in their travel cages, which are actually pretty roomy) because my office and the bird room need to have tile laid (parrots and carpets are not a good mix, and neither are carpets and office chairs), and each room needs to be painted (light aqua with bright white trim for the office, and a soft sage green with french vanilla trim for the bird room). The tile installers are coming on Thursday and Friday (the earliest they can get here -- which means we have two pallets of tile and installation materials in the garage instead of my van), and Bobby's two brothers and our sister-in-law are coming up to help from Friday to Sunday, so the TV and satellite boxes have to take up residence in the living room, and the big bird cages are going out onto the lanai for a power-washing. The guest bath and laundry room need to be painted, too -- a soft grey for the bath, to coordinate with the grey/pink marble-pattern ceramic tile, and a soft green for the laundry room. We still have to choose colors for the master suite -- like the spare bedrooms and guest bath, it's construction-grade white in both at the moment; apparently, the people who owned the house before never bothered to have anything painted but the great room and kitchen).

Thanksgiving was takeout from Bob Evans, nuked and eaten in our dining room (seated in lawn chairs at our former kitchen table, which is now our dining room table, and which needs a set of four golden oak chairs to complete it. We had two rolling chairs from a different dinette set in the kitchen, since we did the a la carte thing when we bought them -- we liked the table, but not the chairs that went with it, and the chairs from the other set, but not the table). We'll do the same thing for Christmas

We have a new couch (a sleeper sofa -- full-sized, which means new sheets and blankets since our bed is queen-sized) and two recliners that are solid colors that pick up the sofa's print (black Friday weekend sales again) on order from a local furniture store (four to six weeks for delivery, which is making Bobby nuts), and we got a new dinette set from the same store -- a small round table with two chairs in an espresso finish; the chairs have padded seats in a light gold faux suede, which matches (more or less) the two barstools we got in Wal-Mart (and have yet to put together).

The office needs a desk and printer stand, and the bird room needs a smaller desk for my laptop and old printer; each room needs an office chair, too. And the office needs about half a dozen bookcases, plus possibly a small sofa or another recliner so I can watch TV in comfort. The office was supposed to be the guest room, but now with the sleeper sofa on order for the great room, I may rethink that.

And we have no washer and dryer yet. Lowe's had a Black Friday Weekend special on a Whirlpool Duet front-loading high-efficiency set -- $998 for both, delivered/installed, which nearly made me swallow my teeth. Costco wanted $1899 for the same set with pedestals, but even after you add the pedestals in, the Lowe's deal is still cheaper (and I'm praying the pedestals fit under the cabinets in the laundry room. I think they will, but I'm still sweating it -- we forgot about the cabinets being there when we ordered the set last Saturday. We remembered yesterday in a classic "Oh crap!" moment). We were given a tentative delivery date of December 7th or after -- they sold so many, they cleaned out the manufacturer's warehouse stock. The sooner, the better -- we've got clean clothes, but the hamper is filling quickly.

The house still looks like a storage unit -- there are piles of boxes taller than my head in the dining room, still more along one wall in the great room, and the triple window that looks out into the back yard is completely blocked. Most of these can't go anywhere until the two rooms are finished, though some are our china, crystal, and occasional pieces, and I don't feel like messing with them right now.

But I got the kitchen set up first thing, and now we're working on the bedroom. I keep a running list of what we need, and we seem to be in either Wal-Mart or Lowe's every other day or so picking up stiff we need. And I've been in Barnes and Noble three times. :) We found a NY-style pizzeria called PizzaVito in the same shopping center where B&N is located, and were very happy to do so, because NY-style pizza is next to impossible to find here. When we were leaving, a pizza box with crusts in hand (for the birds, of course! It passed the Pepper test, BTW -- that little bird loves her pizza), a woman driving in the parking lot stopped and asked me if it really was NY-style pizza -- she saw my Mickey Mantle tee shirt and figured I'd know (turns out, she's a Newark transplant). It was excellent pizza, but we live outside their delivery area.

And we christened the house with multiple playings of STXI -- one of the few DVDs I'd brought with me (the rest of the collection was shipped), followed by even more multiple viewings of the 2009 World Series film DVD (I never get tired of watching the World Series highlights), then by several eps of TOS once I found the box with the TOS DVDs. We're on to the first season of NCIS now (Bobby needed his Gibbs fix), and we've been watching the YES Network whenever it has Yankees content on. I still have to find about half a dozen boxes of DVDs, and a Sterilite tub filled with bathroom stuff (shampoo, q-tips, cotton balls, toothpaste, etc.) is out there somewhere.

We've been eating out most of the time (breakfast is quick -- an English muffin and milk for me, raisin bread and coffee for Bobby), though I made homemade chicken soup on Friday. We'll probably have what's left for dinner tonight. If I feel ambitious (and have any energy left after we finish with the bedroom), I'll make chicken salad with what's left of the soup chicken. Or maybe we'll have chili dogs.

Last night (or was it early this morning?) the New York Yankees won their 28th World Championship!

I managed to stay up for the end -- I took a nap earlier, and dozed through parts of the game (bad Kathy). But I watched the eighth and ninth innings, and yelled out loudly enough to wake Suzie (who thought it was morning and started ordering me to 'turn the light on'). I did no, however, wake Bobby, who somehow managed to sleep through the cacophany of John Sterling's "Ballgame over! World Series over! Thhhhheeeeee Yankees! Win!" blaring out of not one, but both bedroom radios). He came out to the living room at some point during the postgame, asked the score, and went back to bed.

No more baseball now until March -- and we'll be going to Spring Training games. But no more baseball means I can go back to watching regular TV (and I forgot to tape SVU last night, but I think it was a rerun, anyway), and actually getting some sleep at night instead of staying up until 1 or 2, and still getting up by 6:30.

I posted this to a Cockatoo list yesterday, in a thread about the negative aspects of comparing current pets to those who have passed over, and I thought I'd repost it here and expand it.

BJ, a Miniature Schnauzer, who was my dear, sweet, heart-dog, has been at the Bridge for a very long time. He and I had an incredible bond, and it nearly killed me when he passed. He was 12, and it happened so suddenly. Even our vet was shocked, because he had an infection that spread from a pulled tooth to his liver, but he never showed any symptoms until the evening before he passed. Twenty years later, we still don't have another Schnauzer, though I think we will in a few years. I miss him so much. I've found a bunch of photos as I pack, and when I see that sweet little bearded face, I feel a wash of love, followed by incredible sadness.

At the time we lost BJ, we had two other dogs -- Barney, a Beagle, and Davey, a Basset Hound. We called Davey Cousin It, and Thinglet (among other names, like Dude, Doodles, Bugsy, and Bug Juice), and swore he was an alien scoping out Earth for an invasion. He was so funny, and downright weird (he used to sleep on top of the picnic table in the back yard -- with his butt hanging off the side), but no less loveable for all that. He loved me, and I loved him, but while we had BJ, he knew BJ was my Number One, and never tried to usurp BJ's place.

When we lost BJ, Davey decided that the way was free for me to become his person. I'll never forget that night, when we were getting ready for bed. My husband looked at Davey and said "Mommy needs you now," and he charged right over to me and into my arms, and I cried my eyes out into his coat. He didn't take BJ's place in my heart, but he deepened his own. His nutty tendencies disappeared (well, most of them -- he still loved to pull the afghan off the back of the couch and down on top of him), and we started calling him Mr. Perfect. My girlfriends referred to him as a gentleman, and he really was.

Barney passed away in December of 1996 (two days after his 16th birthday), and poor Davey was an only dog (not my choice, but my husband erroneously thought it was better for him). Thirteen months later, we lost Davey suddenly to a brain tumor, and it nearly killed both of us. I still can't think about that day without tearing up. He was only 12, and we thought we'd have him several years more.

My husband was adamant -- no more dogs. Well, there was no way I was going to live my life without one, but I bided my time (unfortunately, my job at the time was pure hell, and my blood pressure skyrocketed -- and being dogless didn't help. And this was before we had parrots, so for the first time in a very long time, I had no pet to love). One day in September of 1998, we went to the mall. We looked at the puppies in the pet shop, and Bobby fell in love with a 3-month old female Basset. I didn't want a pet-shop dog -- I wanted to go to a breeder or to rescue, because I hate the thought of supporting the hells that are puppy mills but by that point, I would have made a deal with the person I hated the most to get a dog back into my life. So we brought her home. I called in sick for two days to keep her company.

Talk about strange -- she didn't want to be petted, or held, or snuggled; didn't like toys, or treats, or dog food -- or people food! But in four months we loved that very non-Basset behavior out of her, and I can proudly state that by the time her first birthday rolled around, she possessed the requisite Bassitude, and she loves us as much as we love her.  My sister-in-law called her 'the sweetest creature God ever made', and she truly is sweet. When we brought our first Jack Russell home in 1999, she thought we'd bought him for her! I can still see the look on her face when we held him out to her to sniff -- it was as if she was asking me "Is he mine? Can I keep him?" Molly and Tucker are best buddies to this day.

In 2002, we adopted a rescue Basset -- Emily was five months old and had been dumped on the street a month earlier. How do you do that to a baby puppy? I fell in love with her as soon as I saw her photo. There were trust issues in the beginning, and she's still very protective of her food -- and is very different than Molly. She's very possessive of me, too -- if I pet one of the other dogs, Emily scoots right in between us. And at bedtime, her favorite place is in my arms.

And both of them are different than Davey. I compare the girls to him, but not negatively. I truly believe we rescued Molly, even though we bought her from that pet shop -- if a family had purchased her on impulse, thinking she was a cute Hush Puppy dog (hah!), and had to deal with her early behavior, she would have ended up in a shelter -- and heaven knows where she would have ultimately ended up. With us, she has a home where her idiosyncracies are tolerated (she goes into the bedroom and barks into my closet while my husband makes the dog dinners -- and we have no idea why....), if not embraced.  And I think my Davey had a hand -- er, paw -- in getting Emily to us, to a home where he knew she would be loved and secure.

Then there's Katie, who came home with us in February of 2005. We'd gone to a pet fair the previous October, and fell in love with a year-old rescue Basset. We applied to adopt her, but she went to a family with kids. That broke my heart, so Bobby suggested getting another Jack. We contacted our breeder, but she had no puppies from Tucker's female line, but his half-sister was supposed to come into heat soon.

Only she didn't. But there was a litter from the same female line available -- Tucker's mama (what a sweet dog she is)was their great-great grandmother. Once again, it was love at first sight when I saw Katie, and we went down to see her. She was 6 weeks old, little (she fit into the palms of my hands, and they're not large), and mostly white, with tan ears. She's a rough coat, as opposed to Tucky's smooth. We put a deposit on her, and went back in two weeks to bring her home.

And that's when the differences popped up. Instead of snuggling on my chest and sleeping like Tucker had, she had to drape herself across my shoulders, like a cat. He's a snuggly kind of dog, and she prefers to be on her own. She's a smart little thing, but stingy with her kisses -- whereas Tucker will kiss you until the cows come home. He'll eat dog food (it has to be Cesar, though) -- Katie has to start with two slices of American cheese, and won't finish her dog food (also Cesar) until the other dogs come in from eating their dinner (did I mention she eats on the bed? The Bassets eat (Pedigree cans and Eukanuba dry at the moment -- we switch dry food every so often because they get bored and leave it in their bowls) with me in the kitchen, and Bobby takes the JRTs into the bedroom for their meal -- Tucker is on the floor, and Katie is on the bed with him).

The good, of course, is my beloved Yankees winning a 40th American League pennant on Sunday night. Diehard that I am, I stayed up until the end of the postgame -- and those of you how know early I tend to get up will understand what it means when I tell you I went to bed at 1:45am. And I was out of the house by 8am to head to Modell's (after a delicious breakfast at the Lighthouse and a stop for my papers) to get my Championship tees: the clubhouse tee (which runs small, as opposed to the Division shirt, in which a large fits like an XL), the 2009 roster tee, a long-sleeved championship tee, and the 'Time for 27 -- the World Series comes home to the Bronx' shirt, which has been out for a while, but which I refused to get until they were in the World Series, because in relation to sports, I'm a superstitious son of a gun. Modell's opened at 5am, and by the time I got to the one in Union at 9:15, there were about 15 people there, snatching up Yankee gear from two tables at the front of the store.

The bad -- packing. We have estimators from two different moving companies coming later this week. I'm just about out of copy-paper boxes (which are the perfect size for DVDs, paperback books. magazines, and, of course, fanzines. The living room is filled with boxes stacked higher than my head (im a lot stronger than I look), with more books in the bedroom begging to be boxed up, and more boxes in the basement.

Okay -- the verdict is in -- I officially like Fringe. I haven't seen any current eps because it conflicts with the ABC shows I tape on Thursday nights (not that I've had time to watch any of them...), and the living room DVR/VCR have been busy with Yankees games. But once I get everything set up in Florida, I'll be able to record it, too, as well as The Mentalist. Three TVs, four hookups. DirecTV, no cable (even though people keep telling me cable works better in Florida, cable there is missing one essential to my life -- the YES Network. No way I'm going to live with watching only 30 Yankee games on TV. I need my boys, and the other programming YES provides (pre-and postgames, Yankeeography, Centerstage, Yankees Magazine, Yankees on Deck, Yankees Classics). We'll have to get the Extra Innings package in order to see all of the games since we're out of the Yankee footprint (and even then we'll be shut out of non-Fox Saturday afternoon games, becaue Fox is tun by a bunch of bastards -- but hell, I've known that since Alien Nation was killed back in 1990).

Anyway, back to the original subject of this post. I bought the Castle first season DVD in Costco last week, and have been watching it this morning. I like. A lot. ow I have to start recording those, too.

Next up -- Leverage.

Many of you know we have parrots. I probably spend more on them than I do on my other mundane addiction, Bare Escentuals. When I go to a parrot store, I feel like a kid in a toy store, and have a ball getting toys for them. I love handling the toys, looking them over while deciding if our parrots will like them, ignore them, or be afraid of them.

Yesterday was Parrot Palooza, an event hosted by Bird Paradise in Burlington NJ every October. Free speakers, free food (big soft pretzels, soda, bottled water, hot dogs, burgers, and food brought in from Carabba's Italian Grill), 20% off everything in the store (except birds and Harrison's bird food), a chinese auction (you get tickets with each purchase for a month before the event, plus at the event). Over the six years, it's gone from a single day to two full days and a Friday evening meet-and-greet with the speakers. People come from all over the Eastern Seaboard -- I've met people from Maine, Virginia, Florida, and Pittsburgh.Bird Paradise even contracts with local hotels for discounted rooms, and there was a actually a tour bus there yesterday.

This will be my last one, since our move to Florida looms, and coming back for a day-long event, plus hauling the stuff I buy back on the plane, would be cost-prohibitive. I drove down in the rain (which wasn't as bad as they're forecast -- and I'm glad I went yesterday instead of today, because today's weather promises to be a lot worse), stopped at a rest stop on the NJ Turnpike (they have a Dick Clark's American Bandstand Restaurant there, and it has a fabulous breakfast -- the best hash browns ever!) stocked up on food and toys, got a new carrier for Mookie for the drive to Florida, hauled it all out to the car, did two more rounds of shopping, then settled in to listen to the first round of seminars (Sally Blanchard, Lara Joseph, and Dr. Irene Pepperberg, who worked with Alex, the famous African Grey) were the speakers. There was a film crew there from Nova, filming an episode on Dr. Pepperberg (I'm guessing it's on her work after Alex's death, which continues with two other Congo Greys. I wish she'd bring a Timneh Grey into the mix -- they're just as smart as the nominate species)

After the seminars were over, I went into the room where the speakers had their sales tables set up to talk with Sally and Dr. Pepperberg a bit before the next round of talks. I got an Alex tee and mouse pad (to replace the mouse pad my husband spilled coffee on).

As I was walking away to buy yet more toys and food, I heard "Excuse me - miss? Excuse me" very softly behind me. I wasn't sure he was talking to me, but I turned to see a young man with a sheet of paper in his hand. Turns out, he was a producer from Nova, and the crew had filmed me talking to Dr. Pepperberg, and they needed me to sign a release.

Hey, no problem -- I filled it out, and as I did, I asked him if they'd gotten the Yankee logo on my jacket. He wasn't sure, but he told me he was a Red Sox fan, so we segued into a discussion of the ALDS where the Angels ran all over the Red Sox. (Side note -- Burlington is in Philadelphia Phillies territory, and so many people with Phillies gear stopped me and told me they wanted to see a Yakees/Phillies World Series. So do I, for that matter -- seeing Don Mattingly in a Dodgers uniform is just plan -wrong-, and I certainly don't want to see hin dressed that way in Yankee Stadium.)

But the hell of it is, I went out with minimal makeup yesterday -- I got up later than I'd planned, so I did the quick weekend version -- no foundation, no eye color other than liner -- just brows, mascara, blush (Healthy Radiance, actually), and lipstick. And if they use that shot in the episode, I'll be on the episode sans my Bare Escentuals! Oh, the pain!

We got our monthly bill from the guy who cuts our grass in Florida. There are vines growing in the shrubs (icky, nondescript shrubs that do nothing for the look of the house) around the front door and around the AC unit near the garage door. Apparently, they provide a nice little habitat for 'snakes and other creatures', according to Mesnel (our landscape guy). Oh, fun.

I'm guessing the 'other creatures' are geckos, which I saw a lot of when I was down there in August -- and they're much cuter than the one on the GEICO commercials. Bobby isn't fond of snakes, though, so we need to find a solution before we move in. I e-mailed Mesnel back to ask for his recommendation.  My idea is to rip everything out and replace it with small river rock, then put in planters with seasonal plants, maybe even miniature roses.

We turned the heat on two weeks ago when it first got cold -- nothing. We let it go because the warm weather came back, and because PSE&G is next to impossible to get in touch with at the best of times.

I called again on Monday, and got through -- after 40 minutes on hold. The earliest they could have arrived was yesterday, but we had things to do, so we made arrangements for this morning. We made do with two space heaters -- one in the bedroom, and the one I had in work (the Council offices were like a meat locker, though I never used it after the Genius moved my desk to Finance), which I moved from room to room as I needed it.

Well, it turns out that this was PSE&G's fault -- at their insistence, we had to have a new gas meter installed. When the installer arrived, he shut off the furnace to work on the meter, and never turned it back on again after he re-lit the pilot! We had no clue, because when we checked, the pilot was on, and the switch was hidden. Nevertheless, PSE&G is charging us a $25 re-light fee (even though the pilot was on) because we called for a service call within a certain window (early September through late October) -- yeah, they want you to test your heat in the middle of August, when it can be 90 in the shade.

And from what I've seen, the power company in Florida is no better.

Stolen from Andieshep:

1) Post a list of up to 20 books/movies/anime/TV shows/video games/bands etc. that you've had an obsessive fannish love or interest in at some time in your life.

2) Have your f-list guess your favorite character/member from each item.

3) When someone guesses correctly, strikethrough the item and put the name of your favorite character next to it.

So, with no further adeiu and in no particular order, here they are:

1) Rat Patrol  Dietrich
2) Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea  Chip Morton
3) Classic Trek  Kirk
4) Aliens Hicks
5) Lost in Space
6) The Cape
7) Magnificent Seven Chris Larabee
8) JAG Bud Roberts
9) NCIS Tim McGee
10) Man from UNCLE Illya
11) Stargate SG-1 Colonel Jack O Neill
12 ) M*A*S*H
13) Magnum PI
14) Emergency! Johnny Gage
15) Midnight Caller
16) ST:Enterprise Trip Tucker
17) ST: Deep Space Nine
18) Star Wars
19) Stoney Burke  Cody Bristol
20) Real Ghostbusters

Borrowed from Ithildyn:

Instructions: Open up your iTunes and fill out this survey, no matter how embarrassing the responses might be.

How many songs total:
4994

How many hours or days of music:
45.7 days

Most recently played:
Enter Sandman, Metallica (I was gettin' in that Mo in the ninth mood for tonight's game)

Most played:
I don't keep track of that.

Most recently added:
Sorry, by Buckcherry

Sort by song title:
First song:
Abacab, by Genesis
Last song:
867-5309/Jenny by Tommy Tutone

Sort by time:
Shortest song:
7th Inning Stretch, 0:14, Gin Blossoms
Longest song:
Alabama, (Crimson Tide Soundtrack) 23:50, Hans Zimmer

Sort by album:
First album:
 Absolute Hits, Billy Squier (I only downloaded a couple of songs from that one from iTunes)
Last album:
*61, soundtrack by Marc Shaiman


Search the following and state how many songs come up:
Death: 47
Life: 94
Love: 169
Hate: 14
You: 515
Sex:  0

Borrowed from Themis:

1. First thing you wash in the shower?
My left arm

2. What colour is your favourite hoodie?
My NY Yankees hooded sweatshirt (which will undoubtedly become my winter coat in a few weeks!) is navy and grey.

3. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?
Absolutely -- considering it was my husband.

4. Do you plan outfits?
I used to, when I worked -- now it's jeans and  Yankees tee shirt.

5. How are you feeling right now?
Anxious -- I should be packing and I'm procrastinating.

6. What's the closest thing to you that's red?
The lid of one of the WB Mason ream paper boxes I packed some DVDs in.

7. Tell me about the last dream you remember having.
Theeeeee Yankees win!

8. Did you meet anybody new today?
Nope. The same old regulars were in Quick Chek when I went over for the Sunday papers.

9. What are you craving right now?
Chinese food -- and we'll probably end up with pizza,

10. Do you floss?
I should....

11. What comes to mind when I say cabbages?
Corned beef

12. Are you emotional?
Yes.

13. Have you ever counted to 1,000?
Good heavens, no.

14. Do you bite into your ice cream or just lick it?
Lick.

15. Do you like your hair?
I love it -- it's a gorgeous shade of silver-pewter-salt-and-pepper that makes total strangers stop and compliment me.

16. Do you like yourself?
I sure do.

17. Would you go out to eat with George W. Bush?
Not in this lifetime.

18. What are you listening to right now?
The end of the Red Sox/Angels playoff game on TBS. The Sawx may actually keep alive to play another day. I want those two teams to bludgeon each other for the full five games of the ALDS, so they're emotionally compromised when they meet the Yankees in the ALCS.

19. Are your parents strict?
They've both been gone a few years now, and they really weren't -- but they didn't have to be. I was one of those good kids who never got into trouble. I was easy to find -- in my room reading or watching TV.

20. Would you go sky diving?
Not in this lifetime!
.
21. Do you like cottage cheese?
I love it -- but not with fruit.

22. Have you ever met a celebrity?
Actors and writers at conventions, writers online, and politicians (congressmen, senators, governors) through my job.

23. Do you rent movies often?
Not any more.

24. Is there anything sparkly in the room you're in?
Yes -- some Bare Escentuals eye colors.

25. How many countries have you visited?
I've never left the US.

26. Have you ever made a prank phone call?
No way.

27. Ever been on a train?
Innumerable times.

28. Brown or white eggs?
White.

29. Do you have a cell phone?
Yup. the new iPhone.

30. Do you use chap stick?
Yup.

31. Do you own a gun?
Not personally....

32. Can you use chop sticks?
I used to be good with them when I was a kid.

33. Who are you going to be with tonight?
My husband and dogs, listening to the radio broadcast of the Yankees/Twins game (while it tapes in the living room).

34. Are you too forgiving?
Eternally so.

35. Ever been in love?
Yes, with my husband -- and I still am.

36. What is your best friend(s) doing tomorrow?
Packing up the house to move (I married him 30 years ago).

37. Ever have cream puffs?
Not only have I had them, but the ones I bake are the best you'll ever taste.

38. Last time you cried?
Don't remember.

39. What was the last question you asked?
"What do you want for supper?"

40. Favorite time of the year?
Late spring and all summer long.

41. Do you have any tattoos?
Only the ones God gave me -- they're called freckles.

42. Are you sarcastic?
Yup.

43. Have you ever seen The Butterfly Effect?
Nope.

44. Ever walked into a wall?
I've lost count of the times.

45. Favourite colour?
Blue.

46. Have you ever slapped someone?
Nope.

47. Is your hair curly?
No.

48. What was the last CD you bought?
I downloaded the ST XI soundtrack from iTunes.

49. Do looks matter?
The looks of what?

50. Can you ever forgive a cheater?
I forgave A-Rod....

51. Is your phone bill sky high?
We tend to think so -- A&TT charges an arm and a leg for our wirless plan, and Verizon does the same for the house phone/DSL.

52. Do you like your life right now?
Pretty much.

53. Do you sleep with the TV on?
Nope -- I leave the radio on to lull me to sleep and drown out my husband's snoring, though.

54. Can you handle the truth?
That depends on whose version of the truth it is.

55. Do you have good vision?
I used to.

56. Do you hate or dislike more than 3 people?
No.

57. How often do you talk on the phone?
Not nearly as much as I did before I retired -- my job involved a lot of phone time, since I was the administrative assistant for our five City Councilmen, and also answered the main City Hall number (thanks to budget cuts adn employee reshuffling).

58. The last person you held hands with?
The last human was my husband. I have to qualify that because our Cockatoo likes to reach one claw out of her cage and hold one of my fingers -- and she's a little person in her own right.

59. What are you wearing?
Jeans, a Firefly tee with Jayne Cobb on the front, and the saying "Let's be bad guys."

60. What is your favorite animal?
Horses, dogs, parrots.

61. Where was your default picture taken?
It's Rags to RIches winning the Belmont Stakes in 2007 (so kindly made for me by Amedia)

62. Can you hula hoop?
I was pretty good when I was a kid, and I undoubtedly could still do it.

63. Do you have a job?
Not any more! I am blissfully retired!

64. What was the most recent thing you bought?
The Sunday papers.

65. Have you ever crawled through a window?
Not that I recall....

Interesting as in the Chinese curse:

http://www.paulickreport.com/blog/one-third-fewer-keeneland-november-weanlings/

The TB industry is in a sad state due to the economy.

...the greatest racehorse the world has ever seen was put down due to laminitis.

Secretariat: March 30, 1970 – October 4, 1989

RIP, Red.

I still get chills and am moved to tears whenever I see the film of his Belmont win. I would have loved to have seen him race at age 4, and older, but financial considerations related to his late owner's estate settlement forced his retirement.

His genes live on, though, in the progeny of three of the most influential sires in the TB world today: Storm Cat (pensioned), A.P.Indy, and Gone West (recently euthanized), all out of Secretariat mares. He never really duplicated himself in a son, though Risen Star won the Preakness and Belmont, and if he hadn't had such a rotten trip in the race, might have beaten Winning Colors in the Kentucky Derby (he showed). And the great Lady's Secret was the best of his racing daughters (though she never reproduced herself when she was bred, despite being bred to prominent stallions like Seattle Slew, Alydar, and Mr. Prospector. I always wondered what she would have produced if she'd been bred to Stage Door Johnny, this doubling up on the Princequillo in her pedigree, or to Sir Ivor, thus doubling up on Secretariat's dam Somethingroyal, or even to an *Herbager-line stallion like Big Spruce, *Grey Dawn II, or Bounding Basque).

Not a rant -- just an honest question.

For decades, K/S was the predominant slash pairing in Trek fandom.  Then along comes the Reboot, and bam! I see Kirk/McCoy coming out of the woodwork, and there are a lot more stories with this pairing than there are K/S -- at least, that I've seen.

I'm not going to say it's wrong -- I'll just say it doesn't work for me.

What I'd love to know is, why the K/Mc slant in Reboot fanfic instead of the more traditional K/S. Is it because Spock was paired with Uhura in the movie? That certainly hasn't stopped slashers in the past.

I received an e-mail from Sephora the other day -- bring in 5 used cosmetics and get $10 off a new purchase -- the offer is good until 10/12. You have to be a Beauty Insider (their customer loyalty club) and you have to bring in the printed e-mail.

Hmmm...I've got a couple of Avon mascaras that I'm about ready to toss (an aside -- I am incredibly ticked off at Maybelline for discontinuing Unstoppable mascara. It was the best mascara I ever used -- so, naturally, they stop making it), and a couple of lip liners that have had it, plus a broken lipstick -- I can take those in and get $10 off on the new Bare Escentuals Happiness kit (which I was going to get anyway).

I keep asking  myself why I keep buying makeup beyond the basics -- I don't use it to the extent I did before retired, though I do use it when I go shopping. I won't ever go anywhere but the gym and QuickChek without the basics (brow color, eyeliner, mascara, blush, lipstick), but the truth is, I'm addicted. And really, the stuff makes me look good. I've gotten so many compliments on my skin since I started using it in 2004 (one woman actually used the word 'exquisite'. It's not the skin -- it's the makeup). And I've found that it's actually improved the condition of my skin.

As I do every summer, I've gotten into the habit of grilling everything outside -- if the weather was too bad, we'd call for pizza ("Pizza! I want pizza!" I swear, she starts as soon as I walk past the bird room with the pizza box in my hands). So we ate lots of barbecued chicken (cutlets or skinless/boneless thighs, marinated for a couple of days in my own homemade 'kitchen sink' barbecue sauce -- we preferred the thighs for their taste and consistency, as well as the way they caramelized on the grill), boneless spare ribs, hot dogs, the occasional shell or porterhouse steak, shrimp (marinated in garlic and olive oil for at least two days) -- and when Shop Rite had filet mignon on sale for $4.99/lb (and they do starting tomorrow), I'd buy one, butcher it myself, and use the larger filets on their own and the smaller as 'barbecued surf and turl' -- filet and grilled shrimp. I use the trimmings for pepper steak (the best pepper steak you will ever have!). The ubiquitous side dish was a salad -- lettuce (Boston and red leaf for me, iceberg for Bobby -- I cannot convince him to eat lettuce that is healthy) topped with beefsteak tomatoes from Costco (since we didn't put any plants in this summer), topped with homemade Russian dressing.

Now, with it getting cooler, I have to get back into the habit of cooking inside. Tonight I beat the dickens out of chicken cutlets, sauteed them in some olive oil, and served them with green beans sauteed in butter and a bit of white wine, a lot of garlic (but not enough), and topped them with Rao's marinara sauce (the only jarred sauce I will ever use -- it tastes as good as fresh, and better than my own).

Tomorrow it's pot roast day -- my french onion soup pot roast, made from scratch. It's super easy -- sear the beef well all around (I use bottom round, about 3 lbs or so), deglaze the pan with a bit of water (or wine, if you prefer), add three tablespoons of sweet butter, then slice two large sweet onions and saute until soft. Take the pot roast, put it on top of the onions, pour in one 48-oz can of beef broth, cover, and cook over low heat for 2 hours, turning every 20 minutes or so. When it's done, take it out and let it rest for about 15 minutes, and turn the heat up on the liquid that remains in the pan (I serve it as it is, but you can thicken it if you care to). I serve it with a green veggie (usually plain green beans), and my killer mashed potatoes (killer because they contain butter, heavy cream, and sour cream). Slice the roast against the grain, and store whatever is left in the juices. The two of us usually get two dinners and a lunch out of one roast. And it's better the next day.

Stolen from jubal51394 (and altered slightly to allow for the feathered kids in my life)


If I Didn't Have Pets...

I could walk around the yard barefoot in safety.
My house could be carpeted instead of tiled and laminated.

All flat surfaces, clothing, furniture & cars would be free of hair,
And all electronic items wouldn't be coated with powder down.

I wouldn't have to trash clothing because one of the parrots decided to nibble on it.

Our freezer would be filled with people food instead of bags full of
Frozen veggies, bean mix, and Beak Appetit.

When the doorbell rings, it wouldn't sound like a kennel,
And I could get to the door without wading through fuzzy bodies who beat me there.

When the pizza delivery arrives, we could eat in peace,
Instead of hearing  "I want pizza!" coming from the bird room every five seconds.

I wouldn't be at the beck and call of a parrot (who's smarter than a lot of people I know)
Demanding I put the light on, feed her breakfast, or put the radio on.

I could sit on the couch and my bed the way I wanted,
Without taking into consideration how much space
Several fur bodies would need to get comfortable.

I could get up in the middle of the night without having to worry about tripping over multiple Bassets.

I would have money, & no guilt to go on a real vacation.

I'd be able to sleep past 5am if I wanted to, instead of following four furbabies to the back door.

I would not be on a first-name basis with numerous veterinarians, as I put their yet unborn grandkids through college.

I wouldn't get strange looks from supermarket cashiers when I (with my silver hair)
Buy three dozen jars of baby food for birdie bread.

I wouldn't spend more in Petsmart than I do in Shop-Rite.

The most used words in my vocabulary would not be: out, sit, down, come, no, stay, quiet, stop that, & leave him/her/it ALONE.

I would be able to have a phone conversation without a jealous parrot talking so much
That I can't hear the person on the other end of the line.

My house would not be cordoned off into zones with baby gates or barriers.

My house would not look like a day care center, with toys everywhere.

I wouldn't save every single plastic grocery bag I get for poop patrol
Or every newspaper I read for birdcage liners

I would no longer have to spell the words B-A-L-L, F-R-I-S-B-E-E, W-A-L-K,
T-R-E-A-T, R-I-D-E, and G-O.

I would not have as many leaves INSIDE my house as outside.

I would not look strangely at people who think having ONE pet ties them down too much.

I would not have to answer the question 'Why do you have so many animals?' from people who will never have the joy in their lives of knowing they are loved unconditionally by someone as close to an angel as they will ever get.

How incredibly  EMPTY my life would be!!!

I love McAbby fanfic -- it's puppy love, but better. :)  I've loved it from the time I first saw Tim onscreen in Sub Rosa.

I'm looking for recs -- short, long, novel-length. UST, early days of the relationship, established relationship. Got any music vids? I'll take those, too!

Yes, I'm greedy -- I want it all!

I didn't start watching this one when it premiered last season because of a conflict. I'd heard the buzz, though, and bought the DVDs last week when they came out.

I'm kind of ambivalent about it. I like a couple of the characters, the first episode was good, and the idea is intriguing. But so far (I'm on the second disk, ep 5), it doesn't give me that 'gotta watch it' feeling that I need with a show.

So, can anyone convince me that I should keep watching?

Speaking of packing, I tossed a few hundred old videotapes over the last couple of garbage days, plus old Eclecticon paperwork, badges, miscellaneous paraphernalia. The garbagemen must hate us. I'm washing towels and sheets, only keeping two sets of sheets upstairs (one on the bed, one in the closet), and we'll be using only our oldest towels. I'll pack the rest, and toss the old ones when we leave.

I've got a plan -- basically, I triage each room. Go through what we have, and toss the obvious stuff. I set aside the stuff I know I want, as well as the questionable stuff that needs to be looked over again. That gets me working room. It also frees up boxes for me to reuse to pack the good stuff in. We've got one wall of stuff left -- there's more Eclecticon stuff there (including two large coolers we used in the con suite for perishables, since the con suite had a sink, but no fridge). There's a huge stack of tapes down there, which means more trashing of stff I have on DVD, and more packing of tapes which are irreplaceable (stuff like the 1985 Breeder's Cup, with Lady's Secret's win, and the retirement ceremony of Creme de la Fete, a hard-knocking claimer who was incredibly popular at the NYRA tracks. I loved that horse -- he won 40 of his 151 starts. He was a professional racehorse).

The basement holds two big jobs -- packing up zines (sales zines and my keepers) which are in the basement as well as up here in my office, and going through my father's baseball cards. He had some good cards (no, no 1952 Mickey Mantle rookie or T-206 Honus Wagner), but most of the stuff isn't worth shipping to Florida. I'm keeping the obvious stuff -- Ken Griffey Jr's rookie card (I think we have two), any Yankee cards from any era. I'm also taking the cards from the 1940s onward that have value, and will resell those when the market comes back.

The majority of the cards are being donated the the Bayonne Dept. of Recreation. I called my friend Pete, who's the supervisor, and asked him if he wanted them to give to the kids in the various programs as prizes, and he jumped at it.  I have them set aside in the basement -- he had them in pages in albums -- over 100 of them! -- and we spent a couple of weeks going through them after Bobby was released from the hospital in 2005 after his appendix went blooey. Some are still in pages, and others have been sorted out into baggies; the best are in sleeves and hard protectors and those are well away from the chaff. So once I have them finished up, Pete will come down and get them (parking stinks at City Hall, and I don't have a clicker any more to get into the basement).

"Some idiot smuggled a koala onto a submarine."

It was intended as a non-sequitur, but damn, the Voyage fan in me jumped up and did handsprings.

An idea for a Nexus Cycle/NCIS crossover has been percolating in my mind. It's logical, considering that JAG already exists as part of Nexus. Chip and Lynn would be retired from NIMR at this point, running Diamond Shamrock Farm for Dietrich and Bridey (who'd both be up in years at this point). Brian would be in pre-vet at UPENN, Michael would be out of Annapolis and either at NUPOCS or assigned to a submarine, and both Andrea and Shawn would have graduated college and be working the farm with their parents. (For those of you who don't know, Diamond Shamrock Farm is a Thoroughbred breeding farm, and made its first appearance in The Last Ride Raid, a Rat Patrol zine novel set toward the end of WWII, which I cowrote with L C Wells).

This is tentative now, but I'm thinking Lynn would receive a death threat from an organization like the Animal Liberation Front, or an actual attempt would be made on her life. Now, would NCIS come in as a result of Chip being a retired admiral (2-star), or as a result of there being a death threat on the family of a serving Naval officer (Michael)? Or would Harry Nelson just pull strings?

I can see Lee Crane putting together a detail (Sharkey, Riley, Kowalski) and flying them to the farm on FS-1 as a protection detail -- would there be a bit of friction between them and the NCIS team?

Would Gibbs drink all of Lynn's coffee supply? (That would be like drinking the Pacific dry...)

With Tim's dad being Navy, I can see a possibility of a connection. We don't know what he did (other than Tim's statement that he lived The Great Santini -- ouch), so maybe he TDY'd at NIMR, then was hired by Nelson for his particular skills. Tim is of the age to have gone to school with Lynn's older brothers younger kids -- and her brother owned a computer game company at that time -- so maybe this is where the young Tim was exposed to computers?). Jack's oldest daughter is a former NIMR public information officer who marries an astronaut, and has written two successful technothrillers (Crash Dive, set on a submarine, and Night Trap, set on a carrier) -- maybe she and Tim have the same agent?

These are the kind of ideas that rumble through my brain (brain and brain -- what is brain?) as I clean out the basement and pack.

This weekend saw a three-game series with Boston, which ended up with a sweep of Boston -- the Yankees' 100th win this season! They also clinched the AL East division title and have the best record in baseball, which gives them homefield advantage throughout the postseason.

Home runs -- one from my Melky (the Melkman delivers!), one from Teixiera, a win for Andy, and the 44th save for Mariano.

Tuesday (Barnes and Noble new book day), I'll hit Modell's for the division champion tee shirt -- which I hope will be followed by three more (one as they win each of the three postseason series).

God, I love this team.

Mister Big Mouth of the faked bloody sock had this to say about Alexander Emanuel Rodriguez, aka A-Rod, Yankees third baseman (and the lightning rod for all criticism):

"His problem has always been that he's a guy with holes and you can pitch to those holes," Schilling said. "For a guy that's as good as he is, he still strikes out a lot. Guys who strike out a lot tend to have a tough time in October."
Once again, Mr Blowhard proves he shouldn't be allowed out in public without a keeper.

"Guys who strike out a lot tend to have a tough time in October." Hello? Anyone home in that swelled head of yours, Mr. Schilling? Do you know anything about baseball other than the years you played? Or are you just pandering to the fans in Boston again?

Has this numb-brain ever heard of names like Babe Ruth or Reggie Jackson? High-strikeout hitters, both of them -- and Reggie is the all-time strikeout leader, with 2,597 -- as well as 13th on the all-time home run list, with 563. A-Rod is 9th, with 581). Babe Ruth's career needs no explanation, and Jackson is known for his clutch play in October with both the As and the Yankees (where he was given the name Mr. October for his performance in the '77 and '78 World Series -- hitting 3 home runs on three pitches off three different Dodger pitchers. His first plate appearance resulted in a walk, but if you count the homer he hit in the 5th game in LA, he hit homers in four consecutive at-bats, since while walks count as plate appearances, they don't count as at-bats).

I completely and utterly detest Schilling (I think the way he has used his blogs and interviews to bash the Yankees and also Yankee fans. I don't like trash talk in general, and the Yankees never engage in it -- though that has never stopped their opponents. But bashing fans is a whole 'nother kettle of fish entirely), and if he had ever been signed by the Yankees, he is one player I would never have embraced. Yeah, we say you root for the laundry (to me, changing team allegiance is like changing your blood type), but the man has no redeeming qualities, and despite his ability as a pitcher, he never deserved to wear the pinstripes.

He's a showboat who loves the limelight -- and entertained the thought of running for Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. That would surely have brought on Armageddon.

Put a sock in it, Curt.

Playing with the layout to see if I like it better.

Melky (see userpic) is at the plate. I'm in the kitchen, and the radio is on in the birdroom for Pepper. As soon as Melky came up, she started in. "Melky! Yaayyy! That's my Melky!" She's something else.

I spotted this on Crack_van this afternoon, and want to echo the rec. Michael Biehn  as Reese makes me go all gooey inside (and my husband loves to tease me about it, too). Biehn is one of the most underappreciated actors in the business.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhxoZqcbMdo&feature=related

I made a few notes while I watched the season premiere. I purposely didn't watch the last 4 episodes of last season until I got the DVDs recently because I hate cliffhangers. This way, I didn't have nearly as long to feel frustrated.

These are pretty much stream of consciousness as they occurred to me, so I apologize for any disjointedness.

Interesting execution -- present day bookends, then flashbacks. Were the flashbacks intended for the new viewer? It wasn't a clip show, as I've seen people say elsewhere -- the flashbacks were new scenes filmed for this ep.

Tony's hairdo -- very reminiscent of the cut from the first season. I'd just gotten used to the spiky do (used to it -- I never liked it).

Commercials -- the DVDs have me spoiled.

The older MW gets, the more he reminds of of George Peppard. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

Tim -- his hair is shorter, and he's thinner. Looking good.

Not nearly enough Ducky (there's never enough Ducky for me, even in Ducky-centric eps), and where's Palmer?

Nice to see Tim and Tony acting like friends and equals. I hope that's a trend in future eps. I hate it when they pick at each other.

Too many commercials!

Gibbs as the sniper -- I knew he was going to be involved somehow (what, leave his guys to go into the desert alone?), but I should have seen the sniper bit coming.

Ziva -- she looked beaten and broken.

What -- couldn't they find time to change their clothes between the Sahara and the Navy Yard?

Too damned many commercials!

The standing ovation as they entered the bullpen -- lovely.

Leave it to Abby to be the one to hug Ziva. Which begs the question -- did any of the guys hug her at any point on their way home?

I need to watch this one again soon.

Last night Derek Jeter just got his 200th hit for the 7th time in his career -- which he followed by stealing second.

They beat  the Angels 6-5 (on two two-run home runs by A-Rod and Posada, a solo dinger by Posada -- who's got a badly bruised foot from fouling off a pitch on it -- then the Lord it's not broken, because we need him in the postseason -- and a clutch sac fly in the 9th by A-Rod to drive in Brett Gardner, which broke a 5-5 tie) -- and the Red Sox lost (which reminds me all over again of how ticked  off I am about the changed start time for Saturday's game) to Kansas City, of all teams (note to Brian Cashman -- can we sign Zack Greinke when he becomes a free agent?). They need to win today's game -- they need to beat the Angels so they can pick up another game on them for the best record in the league (which will decide home field advantage in the playoffs) and to pick up a game on the Red Sox to win the division.

I've got the game on the radio on the kitchen while I'm taping it in the living room. I also have the radio on for the birds -- Her Royal Highness (aka Pepper) demanded it about half an hour ago ("Mommy? Put the radio on.") -- and then the usual routine started: "Let's go Yankees! Yay! Derek Jeter! Let's go Yankees! A-Rod! Melky! Johnny Damon! Derrrrrek!"

I'm a packrat, and I freely I admit it. But you never know what you may need in the future, so I like to hang onto things.

We spent a couple of hours de-junking around midday. I tossed stuff that had been in my desk at work (kept the nameplate that my boss ordered for me when I was certified as a Civil Service employee back in 1980 after nearly 3 years of work under the CETA program, though), old computer peripherals (Zip drive, anyone?) and programs, old zine production notebooks, Eclecticon membership forms, story edits, zine orders and zine order logs from 10 years ago, old Priority Mail boxes and envelopes in a format that are no longer used.

Various articles of clothing we'd stored in plastic tubs with the idea that we might actually fit into again? Washed and waiting to be bagged up to be donated (I've been washing and packing off-season clothing as I go, too). There are two large coolers we used in the Eclecticon con suite that need to find a good home, and two old computers that have to be disposed of. Let's not talk about the stuff that we cleared out of my parent's house before we sold it.

But things are progressing. I'm saving newspapers to use as packing materials (above and beyond the papers I need as birdcage liners), and plastic grocery bags, too. I need to go through magazines and tear out articles I want to keep, and box up Mount TBR as well as office supplies.

Tuesday -- new DVD day. I treated myself to breakfast at the Lighthouse (a diner-style restaurant here in town -- which I will miss greatly, especially since the closest thing to a diner in Florida is Bob Evans. Don't get me wrong -- I love their food. But I'm a Jersey Girl <tm> who grew up on diner food), then went SHOPPING.

First stop -- Barnes and Noble. Tally: one book, one magazine, plus a cup of coffee to bring home to Bobby.

Second stop -- Costco. Tally: 4 DVD sets ( Fringe 1, Grey's Anatomy 5,The Mentalist 1, Smallville 8). No Grey's 4 (how I missed that last year, I have no clue), so I'll order it from B&N.com. No Ugly Betty 3, either, but they may have it in a week or two (Costco isn't as good with their DVD selection as they used to be, which is disappointing since they have the best prices). In fact, I was very surprised to see Fringe and The Mentalist there.

Last stop -- Best Buy. Tally: 1 DVD set (L&O SVU 10). Their sale price was $5 cheaper than even B&N.com or Amazon.

Now it's off to dejunk more of the basement. I'm a fan, and fans tend to be packrats, and we've had nearly 30 years of marriage to accumulate stuff (most of it is mine, of course).

He just got his 198th hit for this season -- another leadoff hit. He's simply the best -- El Capitan, as John Sterling loves to refer to him.

At Fox TV, and at the Yankees and Major League Baseball for letting Fox call the shots.

Back when the tickets for this season went on sale (presale, actually -- a friend who has season tickets let me use his pin), I bought tickets for several games. One was a ticket to Saturday's game -- since we're moving, it was to be my last game at Yankee Stadium.  It's Yankees/Boston, and that's always a good game. At that time, the start time was 1:05pm.

So I get a message in my mailbox about this weekend's games (pushing unsold $900 and up tickets), and when I open it, I see the start time is now 4:10. Because both teams are in a pennant race, damned Fox TV exercised its rights to take the game from YES and telecast it as the game of the week. Crap! I take public transportation and I go alone (Bobby hates going to NYC and he hates crowds and noise -- so I leave him home), so there's no way I'll ride the NYC subway/PATH/Light Rail and get home around 10pm -- or even later (Yankee/Red Sox games take a minimum of 4 hours, Fox games take longer because of the interminable commercials).

I am so ticked off. I was so looking forward to this game -- and, not to pat myself on the back too much, but I seem to bring the Yankees luck when I go to see them play the Red Sox, because in all of those games I've attended, they've never lost a single one.

I wanted to see my boys. I wanted to eat hot dogs and ice cream. I wanted to spend money in the Stadium Store. I wanted to scream my throat raw one last time. And now I can't. Damn it.

Not even making progress de-junking the basement this morning or getting new Bare Escentuals eye shadows in the mail this afternoon makes me feel any better about this.

Well, new to me, anyway. I don't watch too much real-time TV these days, unless it's a Yankee game, and we generally listen to those on the radio while the VCR does its thing in the living room. So I buy the DVDs of the shows that interest me, and watch them when the urge strikes.

This time, it was Private Practice. I love Tim Daly (I've cast him in my Nexus Cycle universe as Joe Cullen, the brother of Bridget Cullen Murtagh Dietrich, brother-in-law of Hans Dietrich, uncle of Lynn Murtagh Morton, stepfather of Jack O'Neill, and an ex-Marine who was awarded the MOH for heroism on Pelelieu in WWII), and became interested in the series solely because of him.

But the series goes beyond that initial interest. I've been junking out in it since Saturday afternoon, watching it straight through from the first ep (though I haven't seen the backdoor pilot from Grey's Anatomy yet), and I really like it -- the setting, the characters, the plot. Now I'm looking forward to the premiere on October 1st.

And we bought a house in Florida, and will be moving there in about 2 months.

In June, I went to Florida and spent 2 full days looking at houses with a real estate agent. We looked at about a dozen properties, but ended up with the house I'd originally contacted her about. We'd written it off originally, because when I called her in April, she said there was an offer in on it (it was a short sale), but by the time I made hotel and flight reservations for June, it was back on the market.

Bobby stayed home to take care of the critters, and I went armed with my old laptop, my video camera and plenty of tapes, my small digital camera and plenty of batteries, and 2 dozen copies of a form I'd created for each property (yes, Annie, it's Agel being Agel). We hashed out the pros and cons of each of the other properties (too small a house, too small a yard, too old, too far from civilization), but realized that the first one was the one for us. That Friday, we called the agent, submitted our bid, and waited.

It took over three weeks for the offer to be accepted, but it finally was. Built in 2006, it's got three bedrooms (the master has a walk-in closet as well as a small sitting area that has its own door to the lanai at the back of the house), two bathrooms (one in the master suite, one between the second and third bedrooms) and a two-car garage, and a gorgeous kitchen that opens to the great room, a laundry room that opens into the garage (no more lugging laundry up and down stairs to the basement -- yay!), and a dining room alcove that's the perfect size for our current kitchen table and Bennington Pine wall units that my parents gave us as a wedding present nearly 30 years ago. The table will need 4 new chairs (we have two wheeled chairs that we bought at the same the same time as the table, but which are from a different set -- we'll use them in the breakfast nook and will get a new small round table to go with them, which we'll place in front of the door that opens out onto the lanai. We've got a breakfast bar between the kitchen sink and the great room -- we'll get a couple of barstools to put there. Bedrooms two and three are mine -- one for a media room (which will double as a spare bedroom -- we'll get a sofa bed), and one for the birds. I'll need a new desk/hutch for the media room, and a smaller one for the bird room (so I can do what I need to do when we have company). Each room will have satellite access and a TV; my newer laptop will go into the bird room and the desktop unit will be in the media room. There's carpeting through the whole house, and I want to have it replaced with tile for the bird room.

I saved the best for last: it's on 1.14 acres! It's square footage is over 50,000 -- over ten times the size of our property now. No pool yet, and we need to set up a dog run -- the property is fenced, but with vinyl three-rail fencing that all four could easily get under. But there are two gorgeous live oaks on the property (as well as a couple of small trees that need to be removed because they'll interfere with the eventual location of the pool and patio; the shrubs around the foundation of the front of the house and alongside the garage need to be removed -- they're a haven for snakes and creepy-crawlies).

And now, we get to move. And I don't want to. Oh, I want to live in the new house -- it's the actual moving I don't even want to contemplate. We're tossing stuff regularly -- and I know the garbagemen hate us. And we won't be able to paint or do the tile in the bird room until we get there -- which will be a royal pain.

My life has undergone a lot of changes in the past few months.

In October 2007 I made the decision to retire, with an effective date of July 1, 2009. It was a hard decision to make, but it was an incredibly easy one at the same time. The contract between the non-uniformed unions and the City would expire on June 30, and word was that the lifetime health benefits that had been made available to employees with 25 years of service in that particular contract (which everyone in the bargaining units gave up 3 years worth of raises to get) would no longer be offered to employees who retired after the expiration of the contract. I was eligible; in fact, when  I retired I had 31 years, 9 months, and 4 days of service (yes, I was a baby when I started work with the City). So, I took the big step of filing for retirement.

And...it's great!

It took a few weeks before I got over the feeling that I was just on vacation and would have go to back to work once it was over, but now it's sunk in. I'm sleeping a little later in the mornings -- but the dogs still get me up well before 6 (and I like it). They love having me home, and Bobby is thrilled beyond belief. I don't miss the job, especially with the changes that were made in October of '07 (it's no fun being underutilized -- and having to work harder to do so, just because a new business administrator wanted to put his own stamp on the place), but I do miss many of the people there.

I wasn't the only one who took this step -- over 30 non-uniformed (and several police personnel) retired as well. The City lost a lot of institutional knowledge all at once.

I felt the need (no, not for speed...) to start a new Yahoo mailing list dedicated to the relationship between Tim McGee and Abby Scuito.

The URL is http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/McAbby/, or you can send a blank e-mail message to McAbby-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

So, who's waiting with bated breath for the new season to start?

I can't wait for the Season 7 premiere of NCIS, and the first ep of NCIS:Los Angeles right after. I'm glad the Yankees are on a West Coast trip - the game won't start until 10, so the eps will be safely out of the way by the time it starts.

The 9/11 commercial.

As a resident of the NYC area, I see the errors. The last scene with genuflecting Clydesdales, was shot in Liberty State Park, in Jersey City, looking east across the Hudson to where the Twin Towers formerly stood. The bridge they are seen crossing previous to that, presumably on their way to the end shot, is the Brooklyn Bridge, which goes from NYC (very near Ground Zero -- on 9/11, evacuees fled across it) to Brooklyn -- a case of 'you can't get there from here' -- unless you go way the hell out of your way.  And if they were heading west on the Brooklyn Bridge into NYC, they'd be able to visit Ground Zero itself, rather than look upon it from afar from the Jersey side of the Hudson.

I know, I know, it's just me being picky.

Still, it's stirring, and it gives me chills every single time. It's nearly eight years and that skyline still looks just damned wrong every time I see it from the NJ Turnpike. It's like being punched in the gut all over again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4yfivS8SWs

Yet another favorite:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGx4E8w5VHg

This one, and the 9/11 commercial, are my favorites. Too bad InBev will be cutting back the advertising budget now that they've bought Anheuser-Busch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4NLvcoN58E

http://youtube.com/watch?v=De0vL53EDgU

I've watched this dozens of times, but it never fails to make me laugh!