Went to load the dishwasher and found a garden slug inside. No idea how it got there.

I'm surprising myself at how sad I am about the death of Clarence Clemons. It seemed like he was a part of every hit song featuring a saxophone for the last 35 years.* Why else would anyone recall "Freeway of Love"? His is the part of "Sun City" that I remember. (ok, and the weird matted-in crowds in the video) He and the rest of the E Street ( Read more... )

I have an unexpected guest arriving tonight: my awesome little sister. Her flight out of NJ is delayed, so she's going to miss her connecting flight to Nashville--so she's going to spend her Baltimore layover with me. This is such a welcome surprise, because I adore my sister and it's always so good to spend time with her. TA and I spent a ( Read more... )

1-800-CONTACTS creeped me out. When I said I'd like to place an order for lenses, the lady said, "Oh, hi. Is this Anne?"

I called from my home phone, so I know they pulled my customer profile from that, but it's still creepy that all I had to do was recite my address, and they had the rest, including a credit card number on file.

For as much effort as went into preparing for shutdown, I'm almost disappointed that we didn't shut down for at least a day. Maybe it was a useful exercise to get the details of shutting down the government sorted out, since not approving budgets and running on multiple CRs seems to be the practice of recent years. Last night's deal was a ( Read more... )

The agency I reviewed grant applications for back in the fall released the list of award recipients last week. This means that I can now shred my paperwork, a whole three-inch binder full, but I decided to look over my reports and see how I matched up with the results ( Read more... )

What American accent do you have?
Created by Xavier on Memegen.net


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Yesterday we went into Baltimore to see a popular culture museum that my friend Stewie wanted to see, Geppi's Entertainment Museum. The last thing I wanted to do on my long weekend off from the museum was to go to a museum, but the guys talked me into it. I liked the collection a lot, but small museums like this always make me sad because I can ( Read more... )

I've gotten to where I can watch a movie at home. I prefer the smaller screen and smaller sound, because they don't suck me in, and I like being able to pause and take breaks. I like that books have those qualities, and to a lesser extent, episodic tv. I like to keep control, and I do that by keeping myself in my surroundings. I can watch older ( Read more... )

My house is damn cold. Now that I've gotten that confirmed in an energy audit, I just feel only that much colder. Last winter we had feet of snow, but this winter it seems that we've had more days of below-freezing temperatures. I can't find any data to support this--temps this winter are reportedly above average--but cold weather seems more ( Read more... )