The Lynnster Zone Has MOVED
The Lynnster Zone has now moved to: http://thelynnsterzone.com/Please update any blogrolls, links, and bookmarks to point to the new site when you can.I am changing the feed over right now.Your feed will not be affected if you subscribed via the Feedburner feed.If you subscribed more than a couple of months or so ago and subscribed via the old feeds rather than the Feedburner feed, you may need to resubscribe.See you at my new home!Labels: Blogging, Updates
To Be or Not to Be Sick
You know that feeling you get when you're not really sick yet and your throat's not sore yet and your head's not feeling bad yet, but you feel kind of funky like you're about to get sick like that? Yeah.Um, I do not have time to be sick this weekend and short of being on my deathbed, I have to go to Chattanooga on Sunday, sick or no.I'm achy all over too, which I thought was a byproduct of all the mad desperation shopping yesterday (well, and falling asleep in the chair again), but now I'm not so sure. In any case, I AM sleeping in my bed tonight and until I feel like getting up. Hopefully that's all I need and all this ooky feeling will be gone tomorrow. Fingers crossed....Labels: Holidays, Sick as a Dog
Bad News for Westerberg Fans
Some bad news for Paul Westerberg and Replacements fans today, good reason to be a little down in the dumps. Paul suffered a massive hand injury, and it's speculated that he may not be able to play guitar for a year.I'm guessing we can probably hang up hopes for a 2007 tour now. Hope that hand heals swiftly and without complications though, that's got to hurt like crap. And just days before not only Christmas but Paul's 46th birthday upcoming on New Year's Eve.(Hat tip to Frank at Left of the Dial for sharing the scoop).Labels: Music, Music JunkieNess, Paul Westerberg, The Replacements
The Song Is Over
I was reading much of the blog commentary around about the closing of Tower Records in Nashville today, and just watched Brittney's spot about it on News 2's broadcast. I guess it's because age is a relative thing, especially when you've been away from somewhere for a number of years, but since Tower didn't exist in Nashville when I lived in the area, the concept of it being an "institution" bemuses me. Then again, I've also been away from Middle Tennessee almost 19 years exactly, so I'm certainly dating myself with that fact.You pretty much went to Cat's back in the days when I was there, although there were a couple of cool small indie shops in Nashville and the 'Boro in the mid-'80s. But lack of inventory was a problem in the smaller shops and I was usually hunting obscure stuff which could often be found in the bins at Cat's, so there I pretty much lived when I was in college, especially the one in Murfreesboro.In 1989, when Cat's set up shop in Memphis and I was back in college again briefly, I talked my way into a job and was part of the group of first Cat's employees in Memphis, and was also part of the group that opened up the flagship store on Union Avenue. Those were some fun days and I worked with an awesome group of folks (including one of Memphis' top Elvis impersonators, no lie), a couple of whom I am still in touch with today.Because of our proximity to downtown as well as Ardent and Sun Studios and the smaller studios, you never knew who might pop in to shop. The most gracious to ever drop by during my shifts were guitarist Steve Vai, and longtime Buffett sideman Greg "Fingers" Taylor (who kindly signed an autograph for my Parrothead mom that's still in a frame in her house today). The worst ever? No contest - New Kids on the Block Jordan Knight and Donnie Wahlberg. It was the height of the group's heyday and they were just, sadly, total jerks.I remember when the plans were announced for Tower in Nashville and thinking, "Well, that'll be neat." I'd been to the legendary Tower store in L.A. in 1979, and the already musically-addicted me had been wildly impressed. Like, "Wow, this is a REAL record store."Now Tower's closed in Nashville; I'm not familiar with the state of the other longtime stores (though I'm sure some of you will inform me). Most of the Cat's stores in Memphis have closed, and the once-great flagship store that my own blood, sweat and tears helped put together is now a shell (and a very small one) of itself. Even the legendary Pop Tunes out on Summer Avenue is now gone, and it kind of disturbs me, if I'm driving out the way in the evening, not to see that great big huge round sign out there and all lit up.To everything there is a season, I suppose. We were already starting to phase out the vinyl when we opened the flagship Cat's store in 1989. My young future brothers-in-law, both in their twenties, have never known what it's like to open up the cellophane and take out a bright, shiny new and unscratched, black vinyl disc and pop it on the record player; nor do they know how to tell when a needle's going bad and needs replacing, or any of those things. CDs - those things they lied to us about way back when, saying they would last forever and were darn near impossible to damage - are probably going to be around a fair amount longer, but they're almost passe' now as it is as well.I practically grew up in a record store, the one around the corner from my family's drug store. From the time I was three years old on, I was in there constantly until we moved to another town in junior high. The owner was an older man and longtime musician who knew my family well; his several sons worked there, as well as many other men ranging in age from teenage to older. They were always nothing but gracious and patient with me, even though I was a dumb little kid and they probably didn't want to be hassled dealing with me and my dollar or five dollar purchases all the time.Or maybe they - at least some of them - took some pride in helping to shape what would eventually be my musical tastes. Along with my father and various experiences, those music store guys, and others later in other stores and other towns, were definitely influences as much as anyone. All the discussions about music of all kinds, and the hundreds of times I would wind up walking out with whatever was playing in the store. Definitely a big influence, and I would hope that in my relatively brief record store career, maybe I occasionally influenced someone else.And I think that's what kind of makes me sad about seeing traditional record stores fall by the wayside. You're not going to learn the kinds of things I learned over the years hanging out in record stores by shopping iTunes and the like. That experience is all but gone now, and while high technology in the modern day certainly has its advantages, I think it's a little bit of a shame that most future music fans won't really have that experience, that kind of personal influence..Labels: Ancient History, Memphis, Music, Music JunkieNess, Nashville
Back in the Christmas Groove
Hey, all you good and wonderful people. I am OK. I was out of the house for over 8 hours yesterday, what with the office Christmas party and desperation shopping, since I haven't been able to do any. The good news is I do not have to go out to ANY more stores. I have a little online shopping that I was planning anyway to do tonight or tomorrow, and once that's done, I am finished except for the wrapping. Or I should say in my case, bagging.I noted on another blog this morning (sorry, it now escapes me where I saw it - I got so behind being gone yesterday, catching up today has been a blur) the theory that gift bags did not make things as Christmas-y as wrapping up presents one gets to tear into. While I do totally see the point, I gotta say gift bags are the best thing that ever came along for someone like me.You see, much like I was born missing the gardening gene, sewing gene, and housecleaning gene, I also apparently am missing the giftwrap gene. I am like the world's absolute worst present wrapper EVER. Every once in a while, I'll wrap one that doesn't come out looking just plain pitiful, but even those have inevitable problems. I'm just not good at it.Not even working at the giftwrap counter of my godmother's gift shop for a couple of Christmases and one graduation season helped. I learned to do those just well enough to be passable. Most boxes were in one of three sizes, so it was repetitive enough I could make them look like something besides something your retarded 2-year-old cousin might wrap. But I just have never been very good at it. No, that's an understatement; I'm not good at it at ALL. Give me a roll of wrapping papers, scissors, and tape, and soon there will be a disaster of epic proportions.Nowadays, with the widespread sale of gift bags and cute little gift boxes, I'll go out of my way to not have to wrap something traditionally. Right now I have one thing that can't be bagged, though if I had a bag big enough, you can bet it would be bagged too.In any case - yep, like the gardening, sewing, and housecleaning gene, I am most assuredly missing the giftwrap gene as well. I can cook, however, so I guess that makes me not an 100% poor excuse for a female.On another note, I do appreciate everyone's kind words and worry this week. The stress over not being able to shop for Christmas, all the huge expenses, and the inability to sleep almost got added to yesterday when it appeared my Christmas bonus for this year had gone missing, but it turned up, much to my relief.Health-wise, honestly, I think I'm okay, I just need several days with not so much to do and plenty of opportunity for several good night's sleeps. I have habitually overworked myself on a regular basis for some time now, averaging 60-80 hour work weeks for a very long time, and that coupled with all the recent stress plus some other stressors I haven't blogged about, I think I just managed to hit the proverbial brick wall with both stress and exhaustion. Unfortunately the next couple of days are going to be hectic preparing some more for the holiday and getting out of town, and getting ready to go out of town.But tonight I have an opportunity for a good night's sleep - maybe two nights in a row if I can get ahead on all the stuff I need to do before Sunday morning - and I only work two days next week. So my plan is when I get back in town next week, I'm going to pick up some melatonin at McSmiley's previous suggestion, try to avoid taking on much freelance work next week, and just try to chill out and rest and recuperate.And if that doesn't work, then maybe I'll head up to N-town and let Hutchmo and Mrs. Hutch bring me back to good health with peace and quiet, decaf, and danishes. Well, maybe I'll do that anyway. Mmmm... cheese danish!But I promise if things don't get better soon, I will see someone with a medical degree for real so y'all can all stop worrying. You are all sweet and wonderful good folks. I may have worked for and with doctors most of my life, but I don't like to see 'em unless absolutely necessary!Back to finishing the day and hopefully making some headway on projects, catching up, and must-do's tonight and tomorrow as well as sleep. Hope everyone is having a good Friday and not suffering pre-holiday stress. I am most thankful to have gotten that shopping out of the way even though it liked to have killed me doing it all at once yesterday like that - one less thing to worry about!.Labels: Friends Are Good, Holidays, I Never Sleep, Nashville is Talking
Christmas, No!
I think I will just stay insane from now 'til Sunday.I fell asleep AGAIN! And at the desk once again, and my left shoulder now won't move (well, without an EXTREME amount of pain) from being all crunched up in the chair all night long.I am so screwed. I'm trying to get some freelance work done right now with a deadline this morning (which I should be able to finish in plenty of time), but then I've got to get a number of things together so I can be prepared for some desperation shopping this afternoon, and have to be ready to leave the house in plenty of time later this morning for more REAL desperation shopping this morning for the office Christmas luncheon. This is the second year in a row they have scheduled that on my day off, makes me so happy.I wish I had gotten some REAL sleep and in bed last night, 'cos by the time I get done running around today and get back home I may be comatose. And I really, really, really need to do some more stuff tonight. There is SO much that needs to be done before Sunday.I'm OK with not canceling Christmas, but can we just delay it another week? Ugh, ugh, ugh..Labels: Blah, Holidays, I Sleep Too Much, My So-Called Life
Christmas Is Making Me A Crazy Person
There is so much I want to get done before leaving town for the holiday, but right now I'm my own worst enemy. Not only has there been all this stressful junk, but I'm not doing myself any favors by my inability to stay awake when I need to (and, thus, inability to go to sleep when I should). I had one of those "oh, let me just close my eyes for an hour or so" moments last night, which was a stupid move, because I know how that story is going to end every time. Sure enough, seven hours of time I could have gotten all kinds of stuff done later, I woke up.
Granted, I know I need the sleep, but this isn't even "real" sleep. It's waking up every half hour thinking I need to get up and do something, but being too still asleep to fully wake myself back up. And in the most uncomfortable chair!! The chair at my desk is terrible, I really need a new one. I think I've slept in my bed twice in the past almost three weeks. Maybe three times. It's pretty ridiculous.Thursday is my day off, which would be great except I can't sleep in because my department's Christmas party is that day. But I am aiming to at least get some slightly significant amount of sleep, in my own bed, tonight at some point.Since I fell asleep, I didn't get around to calling my mom last night so she is still blissfully unaware of the bank brouhaha. I'll call her today, I should have called her last night anyway because a family member had outpatient surgery yesterday and I was supposed to pass along the resulting info.I'm definitely not really myself right now (which is good, since maybe that means I'll stop griping and bitching eventually) and very much operating on autopilot. I think I am getting most of what needs to be done on a daily basis done (well, except a couple of things that had to be delayed due to lack of transportation but I'll be taking care of those Thursday). But I am concerned that I'm forgetting something, like I forgot to pay an important bill or some such. I know I paid the IRS (greedy #$%!@%!s - the self-employment penalties on the freelance work are horrendous as well as unfair) their monthly payment this month, though, so I guess as long as I know I did that, the rest is not that significant.Wendell, I do appreciate the vote of confidence RE the Christmas shopping problem but I am pretty much screwed all the same. I don't get paid 'til the 21st, which is the same day as my department's Christmas party, so I have no choice but to get up way earlier than I want to and do some desperation shopping that morning. And the money from the bank deposit brouhaha won't clear 'til the 22nd. I can't even start shopping until Thursday afternoon, really, and I despise shopping anyway. Usually by now I've done most of my shopping online and am at least close to finishing, and here this year I have all of ONE present bought. I'm going to try real hard to just bite the bullet and do everything possible Thursday afternoon so my days of misery not only shopping but having to do ALL at once won't be extended any more days than possible.I know, bitch, bitch, bitch. But this year and this situation has really kind of broken my heart about Christmas this year. And I know Christmas isn't really about the presents anyway. But my family, we make a huge deal of Christmas every year. Our Christmases are fun, you won't see nothing but socks and underwear and ties and sweaters in a gift box. Well, you might, if that's something someone wanted and needed, but generally we all give each other (A) stuff we really want, (B) stuff that's neat and cool, and (C) stuff that's picked out especially and specifically for us.And this year I'm probably just going to have to give everyone gift cards or gift certificates or something, because there is just no time left. I know that's a perfectly fine gift in the long run, but that's just not really me and I don't like having to do that.I also always experience a fair amount of hyperactive anxiety when having to travel, even if it's just overnight. It'll take me three hours at a minimum on Sunday to be ready to leave, actually probably four, and it'll be horrible, and once I get on the road everything will be fine. But everything up to that will be nail-biting and cussing under my breath from Saturday night on. (And if I don't get any sleep between now and then, it will no doubt be worse.) I don't do well with this, and this is certainly one thing I miss about sharing a home with another person, because when there was someone else to do some of that stuff, it wasn't nearly so overwhelming.Oh shit, I haven't reserved the rental car yet. Must do that too. Crap, one more thing that has to be done. I know I'm forgetting something.And I know everything will be fine once Christmas Eve is here and I'm where I gotta go. All this craziness lately and no sleep has turned me into a neurotic batch of nerves, and that also is just not usually me. I hope that once all this is over and Christmas has passed and I'm back home and can maybe possibly get back into some semblance of a normal routine again that I will turn back into my normal, less whiny and bitchy and gripey and sometimes funny, self again and everything will be just peachy. Maybe?
On a much happier note, the Lynnster & Momster Post-Christmas Meet-and-Greet Tour is shaping up to be a fun event. Looks like I'll be stopping on the mountain to say hi to CeeElCee for a few minutes, then onto Rutherford County for a quick coffee klatsch or something with
KathyT and Ivy, then on into Nashville. Not sure yet about the status of the Mothership that day, on the day after Christmas (I'd be closed if it were up to me) but it would appear that Sista will be in West Nashville anyway, so we are probably going to attempt to meet somewhere out thataway and anyone else who wants to join us, that'd be cool, I'd love to see anyone but since there's probably no BBQ in my future next week we'll probably just settle for the Barrel or something at one of the exits on I-40W. I wish I had more quality time to spend that day to really hang out with folks, but we are going to be on a tight schedule to get on back to West Tennessee; however, as I said, I'm planning to come on back in January or February and predict there will be BBQ in my future when I do, so if not this time, hopefully I can meet up with some more folks next time, and drag Newscoma with me when I do.OK, enough of me, over and out. Oh, and go check this out at Jag's, it's funny!.Labels: A Family Thing, Blah, Holidays, My Luck Sucks, My So-Called Life, Nashville is Talking
Christmas, Wow
OK, I should probably know by now that just about the time everything seems to be on the fast track to hell in a handbasket, something good might happen, but this was just plain weird.No sooner had I even hit the publish button on that last whiny post when my doorbell rang. I might not have even actually hit the button yet.Turned out to be the FedEx man bearing completely unexpected gifts from one of the companies I do freelance work for. Turned out to be a couple of Amazon gift certificates and another little gift. What a trip.I had just started doing work for them right before Christmas last year, so I had no idea this was coming. The gift certificates are not that big and not enough for me to do most of my shopping on, but gosh, nice gift. And something that unexpected is always neat.I'm certainly still frustrated about all the other, but this was a nice pick-me-up, for sure..Labels: Blah, Holidays, My Luck Sucks, My So-Called Life
Yeah, Merry Christmas to You, Too
The grinch has totally stolen my Christmas, I am defeated, and I give up. Until pay day anyway (Thursday), when I will have to go running around town like a chicken with my head cut off to be at all prepared for Christmas and right now, if I could, I'd cancel it. The Lynnster Zone (online and off) would be a Christmas-free zone this year.I won't bore you all with all the details since some of the primary points are rehashes of the past three or so weeks, but the brief recap leading up to this would go a little like this: Too much work to do, car dead, more disasters trying to get car fixed, other car dies, car costs a small fortune to fix, Lynnster doesn't sleep for three weeks. No money, no transportation = no Christmas shopping.Christmas score right now is I have ONE present bought, and some stocking stuffers.So, my Mom, good soul that she is, sends me a second check on top of the one she already sent last week, since after writing that gargantuan auto repair check Friday, I had bills yet unpaid as well as no Christmas shopping done and, you know, great Scott, we have to leave in five days for Chattanooga for Christmas. I ran out to the bank yesterday morning immediately to get the deposit in so it would process overnight, in hopes I could do a little shopping tonight after work. Not only are we leaving in five days, but my department's Christmas party is Thursday.Today, I get a notice in the mail from my bank that the check is being held until Friday.Absolutely furious as not only have I had an account with this bank for 20 years, nor have they ever held any regular deposit, but they have processed probably hundreds of my mother's checks into my account and thousands of dollars' worth over that 20 years, I call. Spitting nails and ready to chew someone up and spit them out.It turns out that my mother's bank is no longer verifying checks automatically for my bank, so that's why the hold for verification. Technically, it's my mom's bank's fault.I'm not going to call her 'til later to tell her about it, no point in ruining both our days.I think I would sleep 'til after Christmas if I could at this point. I do apologize for all the bitching and moaning of late, it has just been four million and one things after another lately. I'm not looking for sympathy and nobody need feel compelled to comment, just venting so I won't go put my fist through the nearest wall. Grrr. Maybe my Christmas present to myself this year should be a punching bag.
PS Just heard from the mechanic as I was getting ready to post this. My other car will cost a real fortune to fix, looks like I'm selling it for junk or whatever. Good and bad, really, but right now I just don't really care anyway. Blah.
.Labels: Blah, Holidays, My Luck Sucks, My So-Called Life
Good Food, Good Friends, LOTS O' Laughs
Y'all are just going to have to excuse me and John H for a bit, as our newfound mutual admiration society is liable to make others want to throw up for a while. But we just had so much fun last night out to dinner with our mutual friend here in Memphis, Phil - who, two weeks ago, we had no idea the other even knew - I know I'm just positively gushing about what a great guy he is. No wonder he attracts such fabulous blogwives and has other lovely bloggers simply smitten. What a great guy! Oh, I already said that, oops.
I had to get more dressed up than initially planned 'cos I learned earlier in the day a former co-worker had had a family member pass away, so I made a quick stop at the funeral home to pay respects on the way down to the historic Cooper-Young neighborhood, where we were all meeting. Cafe Ole' is my fave Mexican restaurant in town and I've probably eaten there a couple hundred times since the first week it opened years and years ago, so that turned out to be an excellent choice.The Hutchmo was waiting outside on the sidewalk, and it might well be that I walked on inside when I first got there without stopping because the guy on the sidewalk looked much too young at a glance to be who I was looking for. Seriously! And he has been far too kind and complimentary towards moi (I should have shown up in my daily work uniform of t-shirt and sweats - shorts in summer - bare feet, no makeup, and glasses, heh). In any case, we were both later bitching about how our friend Phil, who I've known about 15 years and John has known nearly as long, has not changed an iota since either of us first met him. He looks EXACTLY the same, it's almost scary how much.Anyway, we had a fine time, the wait staff probably hates us since we sat there for well over four hours, and I just laughed and laughed and laughed. The two of them were hysterical together, and contrary to rumor, they weren't monopolizing the conversation and I did get several words in edgewise between giggles. Really I was just happy to be up and walking and talking at all seeing as how in three weeks I still haven't slept but just a little bit, so being able to form a coherent sentence at all and not look totally like some zombie out of Night of the Living Dead was sort of an achievement anyway.I think John and I were dying to talk about music and blogging and bloggers and some other stuff we didn't want to bore Phil with (which doesn't explain why Phil and I probably bored him to death with legends and tales of our nutty crew here in Memphis), but that's okay, there'll be other opportunities, especially since I intend to miss no more Nashville blogger meet-ups/meat-ups. I think we did all three manage to get into a fair amount of technocomputergeekbabble, which would probably have bored anyone else within earshot but we dug it. The group of friends down here in Memphis used to tell lots of blonde jokes at my expense back in the day, but my not-so-secret weapon in defense was the fact that I could take apart and put back together and redo a computer just as fast or faster as any of those techguys I hung out with.In any case, it was a great evening, was more like meeting an old friend than a new one (which I'm sure is going to be the case often the more other bloggers I meet), and I thoroughly enjoyed the good company and the laughs. Thanks for hanging out with us, John!I was also happy to have gotten in and out of Cooper-Young without having even looked in the windows of the House of Mews, which is a cat adoption place down there. I have frequently looked in the windows, but even though it's been open many, many years, I have never set foot in there and only been near it when it's closed. I know better, I would be wanting to walk out of there with 15 more cats to go along with the too many I already have. Well, I would grab another one or two to take and give to Sista because you know how much she loves cats.So now on to hopefully meet up with some more fabulous bloggers in the coming weeks and months! It's starting to look like the Lynnster Christmas Tour (with the Momster in tow, but she's like really cool) may be making some quick but quality time stops at several exits dotting I-24 and I-40 on the way back west from Chattanooga the day after Christmas, unless the Mothership just happens to be open, and then again sometime in January somewhere in West Tennessee. But definitely planning on getting back up Nashville way and just hanging out for a day or two after the holiday madness, and not missing another big meet for sure. So maybe see you then, or see you later, I hope!.Labels: Blogging, Friends Are Good, Memphis, Memphis Gripers, Nashville is Talking, TechGeekChick Stuff
Miscellaneous - Blogs, Fleas, Teeth, & Hutch
Well, first of all, the new and improved Lynnster Zone's opening is going to be delayed just a little bit longer as I ran into a snag. That snag being that I crashed and fell asleep much of last night, without meaning to. Oops.
I'm kind of irritated about not getting further along yesterday evening but ehhh, it'll get done when it gets done. Hopefully by Wednesday at the latest I can switch my feed and everything else to point to the new blog. I could do that now, but as mentioned earlier, you can't tag posts over there without a full edit and my feed would be updating 300+ more times (whether now or later) without really being an update and you'd all and everyone at NIT would be pissed, so I'm going to do that first and that way it's done and nobody wants to beat my head in.Anyone who's subscribed to the feed via Feedburner won't have to change a thing, once the new feed's ready to go I'll swap it and you'll never know the difference. I think most are probably subscribed via Feedburner no matter what reader platform you're using, but if by chance you subscribed a long time ago via the regular Atom/RSS feeds, you'll need to update the feed when I open up the new blog.If you're reading/feeding on the LiveJournal mirror nothing will change, though I don't know why you would be reading over there instead regularly anyway. I mean you can if you want, but I don't pay much attention to the LJ blog other than transferring new posts over there. (That said, I guess if you're reading via feed it doesn't make much difference, but I do occasionally post stuff on the "main" blog that doesn't get put on the LJ mirror, and besides, the new blog is going to be way cooler anyhow.)And Margaret, even though the new blog is sort of colorful, the content text is on a white background so I think you'll be OK with it!So, fleas. I appreciate all the sympathy. The reason I am so pissed about it is because I have made a huge effort to keep us flea-free for years and other than one I stamped out super quick when the puppies were babies, we haven't really had an outbreak of fleas in probably 10 years. When my ex still lived here we used to fight the fleas with little success every year and it was just miserable, for us and the pets, and once veterinary medicine started coming out with all the modern flea stuff that was a lifesaver.In fact, I have had such good luck with the topical flea crap that for the last several years, I have been able to get by flea-free with only dosing the dogs, don't even have to treat the cats 'cos treating the dogs keeps them gone. Our usual flea season is from March or April to October - usually once it starts freezing, the threat disappears - and never in the last several years anyway have I had to treat them after October. 'til now!!! So I'm pissed.But what I guess I didn't count on and think about was some of my immediate neighbors have acquired new dogs recently - on both sides of my house, matter of fact - so I figure that's where the fleas came from, traveling over to my yard. Really I'm doubly pissed at myself because I really should have thought of that and prepared thusly.I hope I see some signs of them going away before I leave for Christmas. Lulu's already missing huge patches of hair on her haunches from scratching (which I didn't notice 'til the other day either, bad mom that I am), and Dobie's got a spot that Petey alerted me to also. But I didn't really notice any of the pups scratching nor the cats 'til yesterday either so I'm hoping I have caught this outbreak early. I hate fleas, I hate 'em, I hate 'em!And Contrary, I love you, and I realize fleas contribute to your salary and living wage; but my friend, you are a SADIST. Heh. I might forgive you for liking fleas if you will send tapeworm killer if THAT happens too. Ugh, I hate tapeworms fifty billion thousand times more than fleas. (And yes, folks, that's how dogs and cats often get tapeworms is by ingesting fleas when they're chewing due to the itching.)Anyway, yes. Fleas bad. Bad, bad, bad.Broken tooth again also bad. That's a post/slash/rant for another time but the Cliffs Notes version is I inherited my father's bad teeth and those thousands of dollars spent on my mouth for orthodontia as a teenager was just wasted money. My teeth are breaking at an alarming rate and there is, no doubt, thousands of dollars in dental work in my future. Now it's one of my front teeth again and I'm so pissed about it.This is payback and karma, I'm sure, for my horrified commentary back when the documentary on the West Memphis 3 premiered on HBO , when I bitched about how the majority of people they interviewed had no teeth and thousands of people were going to not know the difference between West Memphis and Memphis, and would assume we have no teeth either on this side of the Mississippi River. In fact, I was rather involved in a certain Usenet newsgroup at the time and spent a good bit of effort explaining the difference between West Memphis, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tennessee for a while after that documentary was broadcast. And now my teeth are falling apart and it's payback. And traumatizing, since I have always been kind of funny about my teeth, but the double digit thousands it's probably going to cost to put my mouth back together is lots more traumatizing. Bad, bad, bad.So what's good? What's GREAT is that I am having dinner with and get to enjoy the company of the famous, awesome, and irascible Hutchmo tonight, along with our mutual friend here in Mempho. That was just freaky to find that he not only knew and was friends with someone I know here in Memphis, but it's someone I have known and been good friends with for 15+ years!!! That was just wild, and wonderful.So dinner this evening is going to be a blast and I'm totally excited about it. Except since they are both really hilarious, I fear I may need to tape up my ribs before leaving the house, 'cos I've probably only got like two or three ribs left to fracture from laughing so much the past week over McSmiley's 12 Days of Christmas. Actually just one now as today's entry has now fractured what was left.Next on the agenda is meeting up with Newscoma either here or there in January probably, and I'm definitely plotting a trip to Nashville in January or February hoping to hang out with some of the rest of the bloggers and say hey. Also, if anyone's free around lunchtime the day after Christmas, I might be able to stop on the way back from Chattanooga - any takers? Sista, you free the day after? No ideas where, I bet the Mothership won't be open the day after Christmas, but if it is, a stop in Berry Hill is probably definitely in order. Or perhaps a stop Sewanee if Smiley and the belle will be there? Maybe a quick stop for coffee in Rutherford County too? So many places to go and people to see, it'll be like being on tour, whoa. Later!
.
Labels: Blah, Blogging, Friends Are Good, Lynnster's Zoo, Memphis, Nashville is Talking
Fleas!!!
I am taking a momentary break from all this blog moving nonsense to scream.Dogs aren't supposed to have fleas in December!!!AUGH.Happy I am not..Labels: Blah
On the Horizon
I am working super hard trying to get what I think is going to be the new and much improved Lynnster Zone up and going today. There would be only some fairly insignificant tweaking to be done, but the biggest snag is that while WP makes it really easy to import old entries (I'm having to move my LJ posts instead of the Blogger ones 'cos of you know what not working), you have to edit posts to categorize them. So I'm trying to do that as I move months over, because if I start categorizing/editing a few hundred posts later on, everyone at NIT and everyone who is subscribed to my feed is going to kill me. So basically, I'm busting my butt today for your benefit. Heh heh.I know I don't HAVE to move all the old posts nor do I HAVE to tag them. I could just link back to here. But I'm a completionist (completist? hell if I know) and anal retentive about that kind of junk and it will drive me crazy not to do it. If I leave them I'll want to do it later and you'll all kill me when the feed goes crazy.So once it's done it should be all spiffied up, and has got a whole lot of really cool bells and whistles and I gotta say I am super happy with WP. Depending on how much I get done today (since I stupidly took on some work for the weekend, which I know better than to do, ever), it might not be 100% complete but should be mostly. And it's pink, and that makes me happy. But I promise it's not in-your-face pink really. I think it's pretty cool and not overly obnoxiously pink. Fuschia, magenta, whatever.OK back to work. Will post when done and ready....Labels: Blogging
