"Life's Just a Cocktail Party on the Street.."

Zero "helping" me with the laundry. ;) He's such a sweet little boy. <3

Took this yesterday, but didn't get a chance to post it here until tonight.



Bought this little beaut via Etsy.com last year. Adorable!

Let's see if I can keep up with this challenge for a whole year... I have my concerns, but at least the group is wide open in subject matter so it can be a photo of ANYTHING, just one new photo for each and every day. If you're interested in also participating, check out Project 365 at this link. And here's my first of what will hopefully be a continuous series of photos across the next 365 days....



[Project 365:1]

The 34th Street Wall is a 1,120-foot-long retaining wall along SW 34th Street in Gainesville, Florida. The wall, which dates back to 1979, was originally built to prevent erosion of a hill on the nearby University of Florida golf course when 34th Street was widened from two lanes to four.

The wall itself is most notable for being covered with layers of graffiti up to an inch thick in some areas. Messages painted on the wall have included marriage proposals, birthday wishes, graduation announcements, celebration of athletic victories, public awareness, promotion, and tributes. Musician and Gainesville native Tom Petty once noted that among the first things he saw when returning to Gainesville for a concert was a welcome message painted on the wall.

Although technically illegal, neither the Alachua County Sheriff's Office nor the Gainesville Police Department have charged anyone with criminal mischief for painting on the wall. The 34th St wall has been accepted as a Gainesville landmark and is a part of the University of Florida student culture. When the city last resurfaced 34th Street and widened the bicycle lanes, this originally required removing part of the wall. Instead, officials opted to narrow the road median instead, leaving the wall intact. In addition, waste containers are provided to allow for proper disposal of used paint supplies.

One of the more notable "panels" on the wall is a tribute to the victims of the Danny Rolling murders. The memorial lists the names of the five students who were killed, and was first painted in 1990 using black, red, and white paint. Although it has been painted over several times, it has been regularly re-painted and touched up. Other memorials have come and gone over the years, however the Rolling victim memorial is the only one that is continually maintained.

Click the links below to check out the large versions. You just gotta see these large! :)

1. IMG_5334, 2. ww photowalk '09: door county, 3. Candy colors, 4. Truck, 5. Inspecting the Tail Light, 6. IMG_2616, 7. fender twin, 8. my good side, 9. a young dancer, 10. nicbugcrushing, 11. Snout, 12. PAC this philly 8277, 13. another one bites the dust, 14. please stop there!, 15. IMG_7604, 16. leucistic american alligator, 17. Untitled, 18. Nothing is good in moderation. You cannot know the good in anything till you have torn the heart out of it by excess., 19. Electric Hair, 20. Sometimes Imperfection Is Perfect, 21. Ghost Riders, 22. A little summer relaxing, 23. Tree, 24. Still Cloudy, 25. 58/365 Floyd's schooling is paying off

Looking for inspiration, about 3 months back I inquired amongst 'friends' and family at Facebook what books should be added to my "to read" list and I was both surprised and thrilled with the number of immediate and emphatic responses I received. I love books! I love writing. I love reading.

I immediately broke the suggestions into two parts and am now just finishing up reading the second half of those.

Wow.

At this point I believe I might be a bit scarred by the whole experience.

All of the suggestions intrigued me either because of the recommendee or the general synopsis of the book itself (or both!), but I have to tell you that other than a couple of cursory 'decent' reads, I just didn't seem to find humor in the same things that cracked others up, didn't find intrigue in yet another's 'favorite book of all time', was bored to death reading most of the others. One of them I misplaced in the car on a weekend roadtrip and totally forgot to look for it for two weeks, then just didn't bother.

What the hell?!

It seems I'm just basically working for the weekend these days, but at least the weekend upcoming is a long one. I'll drink to that!

Last weekend was good, but seemed short as hell because we went out of town overnight on Saturday and didn't get home til late afternoon on Sunday. A good time was had, but the traveling somehow made it seem like less of a weekend than usual if that makes any sense. At least we got to help ring in my friend Mike's ("Mogroith" of MOG/Multi/Twitter fame) 50th bday at a really splendid dinner celebration at Skipper's Smokehouse in Tampa. Good times!

We also got to catch Inglourious Basterds at the Tampa Fun-Lan Drive-in movie theater on Saturday night. WOO! Jory's first drive-in movie ever.



Now I'm just trying to get through the rest of this work-week so I can lay low at home most of this coming weekend. I'm feeling an overwhelming need to re-Zen or something.

Saturday *is* the opening game of the 2009-10 Gator football season so THAT is definitely exciting. May do some tailgating on Saturday, but other than that I'm going to try to make a point of doing as little else as possible. In fact, I'm going to see if I can make ART out of doing exactly that and nothing more.

Whatever the situation, whatever the race or creed,
Tea knows no segregation, no class nor pedigree
It knows no motivations, no sect or organisation,
It knows no one religion,
Nor political belief.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3rxNCzzJpY



Embedding is disabled for some reason. ?

Heading to St. Pete tomorrow for Mike Dixon's 50th Birthday. How fitting that it should be at Skipper's, which is where I first met Mike a couple of years ago at a Cracker concert. :) We've since attended several other concerts together.. but it's been a while since we last saw each other. I'm looking forward to the festivities. (and some beer-boiled scrimps!!)

We're planning our route to also incorporate some geocaching and.... I'm thinking about hitting the Dali Museum again just because I love it so much. We'll see how things pan out. Too bad we're not there tonight. The Museum is hosting "S'Real Friday Happy Hour" every week this summer where you can view the summer exhibits, hear live jazz, eat complimentary munchies, and purchase hand-rolled cigars. And oh yeah, there's a cash bar. Sounds like my kind of outing. :)

But a hands-down definite for Saturday night after Mike's shindig.... The Tampa Fun-Lan Drive-In Movie Theater!! Rawr!! Inglorious Basterds followed by Peter Jackson's District 9.

Awww yeah.

My Thursday... 08.27.09

8:12- Arrive at work to find pediatric case with anesthesia just starting in my assigned room, which is the size of a closet. There is no room to move anywhere. Room contains two anesthesia carts, our nurse, our nurse trainee, an anesthetist and her attending doctor, my tray full of sterile instruments, the portable ultrasound unit, an IV pole, myself, my attending, one regular garbage can, two biohazard trash receptacles and two dirty linen depositories. Extension cords are trailing everywhere.

8:15- I don my superstar lead skirt and vest and scrub in to case, wearing sterile gown and gloves so that I can assist my attending physician. My patient is 14 years old and has just been diagnosed with cancer. We are placing a portacath so that she can begin receiving chemotherapy next week. She is plump and rosy-cheeked and quite adorable.

(My own son turns 14 in 2 months.)

Fastforward to 11:30AM- Next patient is mid-60s. There's a problem with the chemo portacath, but we sort it out without having to do anything invasive. SCORE!

2:00PM- 4yo. on her 3rd liver transplant. Again with anesthesia in a tiny, tiny room. So much equipment, so many people, SO LITTLE ROOM to move around. 3rd LIVER TRANSPLANT on a 4 year old and our evaluation shows that the third liver is not taking well.

I seriously wonder if I'm in the right profession.

9:22PM- There's a certain irony in the fact that I regularly drink myself into oblivion so that I can go to work the next day and work on tiny livers on their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th go-rounds...

But then again it's really no wonder at all that this is difficult.

And then I return home in the evenings to my wonderful family cheerfully inquiring how my day went.

"Fine," I say.

Because how could I possibly explain? And why would I want to bring them down?

So I guess I'm semi-quasi-explaining it here instead. If you can't handle it, stop reading.

8 Count

from my bed
I watch
3 birds
on a telephone
wire.
one flies
off.
then
another.
one is left,
then
it too
is gone.
my typewriter is a
tombstone
still.
and I am
reduced to bird
watching.
just thought I'd
let you
know,
fucker.

Charles Bukowski

It sure looks like SUMMER! Check out what some of my friends have been up to.



*Click the image to go to Flickr where beneath the mosaic each image has a link back to the photographer's original post.

**ETA: Oops. I guess next time I need to do a 5x5 grid so I don't squish the last column! ;)

We shared a house with some friends and went scalloping last weekend at Steinhatchee, FL. It was tres fab! I loved the little drive over to the coast, the place we stayed, the day on the boat, and the evening's meal of "Scallops Diablo". It's great to get away for a day or two like that with friends when you can. It really helps to "re-rack" one's general outlook. It sure did mine anyway!

I took a lot of really killer photos if you want to check them out @ my Flickr page.

And, of course, we geocached on the drive home. :p Yes, I know. The geocaching is getting entirely out of control. haha! But we love it!

So anyway... to TOTALLY change the subject...

I've been thinking a whole lot lately about the state of online social expression. It seems (for me) it's becoming more and more fractured. Several years ago I blogged at LiveJournal. I spent about 5 years there and really enjoyed it. Then I discovered Mog and subsequently Multiply. I loved the interface at Multiply so much (and still do) that I left LiveJournal behind and started blogging exclusively at Multiply. A lot of the interaction at Multiply was music-related for me, so I created a Blogger account for strict blogging. Then I signed up at lastfm for more music, and now I have Facebook and Twitter accounts too. I also joined some photography groups at Flickr and there's a lot of interaction there. Oh, and I created an account at FriendFeed also, to check it out except I keep forgetting to go to it to look around.

Where does it all end?! Obviously I'm stretched so thinly at this point that I can't keep up thoroughly ANYwhere and a lot of my friends are in similar situations. I've noticed that many of them have started sync'ing their posts across platforms so that what they post at Twitter also shows up on Facebook or what they post on Blogger shows up on Multiply and they post a link to the same material on Facebook, etc., etc. I've never been a fan of that because if you're following that person in multiple places it sure gets old seeing the same thing posted 14x at various locations. I actually make an effort to try to keep my content DIFFERENT at each site, but I'm beginning to wonder why. I mean... it's got to be a fairly small percentage of people who follow me at multiple sites... so what difference does it really make?

I know the obvious solution here seems to be to pick one platform and stick to it, however, the problem with that is that I have different clusters of friends/family using several different sites and I would really like to keep in touch with them all.

This is driving me batty! How do YOU do it?

This is what a geocaching hobby can do for you on a Sunday afternoon.


Gorgeous, huh? I picked Cedar Key for geocaching this weekend because it's only an hour away, is really pretty, and had a great lunch possibility at Tony's Restaurant which recently won the title for Best Clam Chowder at a Rhode Island competition.


The prize-winning clam chowdah hoopla was well deserved as we taste-tested to find out. :-)

And apparently we weren't the only ones with a Sunday @ Cedar Key destination in mind...


Gotta stop and smell those flowers, yo!! ;)


Check out the rest of today's photos here.

((Another excerpt from a collaborative writing experience. All things "Bing & Bert" are written by me, the cat "Lorimar" is written by a girl named Dana and is indicated by italicized blue text. Bing & Bert are tiny Tighe Faeries and are about 2" tall with potbellies and nearly hairless heads. They are identical twin brothers and have a deathly fear of cats. This is original fiction. All Rights Reserved.))

Bing and Bert had partied non-stop for what seemed like weeks now. Oh wait. It HAD been weeks!

The two were drunk and exhausted. They'd been trying to find their rooms for well over an hour now, but the hallways all looked the same inside the palace.

"Wasn't there striped wall paper on that LAST floor?" Bert moaned as he trudged along beside his brother.

"No dummy," said Bing, "flowered wall paper was on the last floor. Striped was on the floor before that."

"WhatEVER!" Bert grumped loudly. His feet were throbbing inside his tiny leather shoes.

"Actually..." Bing had paused and was rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Do you think we could have been on this same floor two floors ago? Or is this a different one?"

"ARGH!" Bert harrumphed. "You told me you knew how to get to our rooms!"

"I DO know how to get to them," Bing insisted. "They're right down this way," he pointed ahead of them, where the hallway seemed to extend onward almost indefinitely.

"But we already CHECKED this floor!" Bert griped. "Just admit it. You have no idea where we are or where we're going." He threw his hands up in disgust and sighed loudly.

"That is not true! We're going to our rooms! How could I not know that?"

"I MEAN," Bert had lost his patience, "that you don't know how to GET to our rooms!"

"But..."

"Oh move out of my way!" Bert shoved his brother aside, planning to return to the stairwell to ask one of the servants for directions.

As Bert turned to go back the way they'd come, he froze, his breath caught in his throat and he coughed and gasped for breath. "C.. C... Ca..."

"Go on with ya then!" Bing was furious and refused to look at Bert. He stood staring at the door behind his brother, arms crossed, and toe tapping.

"C... Ca.." Bert lifted his arm and pointed weakly toward the stretch of hallway behind Bing.

"What?"

"C... C..."

"What's the MATTER with you brother? Cat got your tongue?" Bing hayucked at his own silly joke, bending to slap one knee in merriment, but his hand froze in mid-air just before it connected. In slow motion, he turned to look the direction his brother was facing and saw a white cat poised only steps away from them, ready to pounce on them at any second.

"CAT!!!!" Bing shouted, grabbing his brother's arm and making a leap for the crack beneath the door behind Bert. He rolled beneath the door and into the room beyond, his hand still gripping his brother's, but Bert was still on the other side of the door in the hallway, now lying on his back but crammed up against the door and
not quite fitting beneath it in this position.

"GET IN HERE!" Bing shouted at Bert, tugging at his hand. "Squeeze under the door Bert! NOW!"

The muscles of the white cat's leg twitched three times, then pounce! He landed just as he'd aimed, a fraction of an inch short of touching the remaining tiny fae.

Bert let forth a series of terrified screams and lay there bunched up at the crack of the door with one arm stretched beneath and gripping at his brother's hand in the interior of the room. The other arm had been thrown across his eyes in a feeble attempt to block the hideously ferocious feline image from his view. Bert wasn't even yet aware that he had wet himself and a dark stain now bloomed across the front of his red party pants.

Lorimar let himself grin at the apparently terrified Bert, then dart his tongue out to lick at his whiskers.

Then he spoke. "Don't worry, I'm not going to eat you." He put one paw out toward Bert.

Bert, who'd been watching the cat through a crack between his fingers, screamed again and thrashed against the foot of the door trying to wrest his hand back from his brother so that he could attempt to make a getaway.

"Listen to me Bert," Bing tried to coach him from within the safe interior of the guest room in which he'd found haven. "Don't panic, brother. Flatten yourself against the floor and slide beneath the door. Bert LISTEN TO ME!" he jerked on his brother's hand.

"Let-go-of-my-hand BING! LET GOOOOO! Let..." Bert ceased to struggle and slumped into a limp pile upon the floor. He'd thrashed so violently against the door in his attempt to get away that he'd clocked his head against the heavy oak and knocked himself clean out.

"BERT?!" Bing shouted as his brother's hand went limp in his own. The increasing panic was apparent in his voice. "BERT! You answer me right this second, brother!" A pitiful sob escaped Bing's lips as tears coursed freely down his cheeks. "Bert?" this last was barely a whisper.

Lorimar felt a twinge of guilt over the exact timing of his chase. He had not meant to disturb Kalista's rest. He had not thought the critters could fit under the door -- well, only one could, but still. He tried to peer under the door while still watching Bert, but he couldn't see much of anything of what was happening inside.

Bing's sobs caught in his throat as he saw one huge golden eye peeking through the crack beneath the doorway. Peeking at HIM!

"Get away from me you.. you... YOU MURDERER!" Bing scrambled to his feet, wiping at the snot hanging from his nose with the sleeve of his shirt. "You killed... my... br.. br...BROTHERRRRR! My... " he collapsed upon the floor in uncontrollable sobs punctuated by several pitiful "Berts".

(I do a lot of creative writing on the side and I've decided to start posting some of it here. This is an excerpt from a greater collaborative writing endeavor which took place in a "faerie" fantasy setting. Bitsy is a tiny sprite-type faerie out alone on a scouting expedition. This is original fiction written by ME, all rights reserved.)

Bitsy shouldered a tiny knapsack with water and snacks and headed off towards the distant forest clearing. She was full of purpose and self-importance. She was determined to be out of these blasted woods and that clearing ahead just HAD to be the exit. She was sure of it.

She blinked out of sight and proceeded upon what appeared to her to be the shortest possible route to her desired destination. She peeled a thin strip from a dandelion stem and stuck it between her teeth and chewed on it while she walked.

The forest was the way the forest HAD been for the past.. how many days had they been walking in it now? Far too long, Bitsy'd decided. She continued uneventfully, sometimes taking note of unusual plant life or the presence of certain forest animals, or "game"
as Desh would call them.

Within a couple of hours the trees had begun to thin considerably. Bitsy had not encountered another faerie (to her knowledge) on the entire walk and of this she was thankful. Though her presence would not be questioned in these parts, she knew that once their party left the Woode it would be a whole new undertaking for Desh. The Woode
was inhabited by all sorts of creatures, not all of them savory. But south of the Woode was most definitely Seelie territory.

The Sun was dropping low in the sky and she hurried forward out of the forest so she'd be able to take a look around before darkness fell and obscured her vision.

The forest drew back and opened up upon a hilly expanse which stretched as far as Bitsy's eye could see. The terrain was not mountainous, but rather a gentle rolling hillside proceeding on and on into the distance. She cupped her hands around her eyes
and looked long and hard at the horizon. Nothing. Nothing but dag- blasted hills!

Bitsy spat in disgust.

She pulled a tiny mouse bladder filled with water from her knapsack and took a long drink from it before returning it to her bag and wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Oh well. Still beats no adventure at all," she mumbled.

It would be full-on night by the time she returned to her companions and she knew Desh would be anxious to continue under cover of darkness. Bitsy spared herself only a few minutes rest before collecting her bag and preparing to return the way she'd come. She
sighed wistfully as she looked back over her shoulder one last time.

What's that?! She spun around, leaning forward and squinting into the twilight. Is that a smear of *something* out there? She rubbed at her eyes and looked again. It was still there. A splash of gray upon the sandy horizon in the far distance.

"Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!" Bitsy popped into visibility and jumped up and down repeatedly in her excitement. "I wonder what it is?! Could that be it?! Could that be the Oracle's Tower?! Oh my GOSH!"

She ran forward hoping to get a better look, but the structure was a good day's journey from where she stood. The best she could tell, it was a structure made of gray stone or painted in gray and looked as if it might have a red roof. Was the roof pointed? Was it a tower? She couldn't really tell.

"Oh dear," Bitsy wrung her hands together. "I wonder if that's it?"

"Ya w'nder if wot's wot?" a strange voice asked from behind her.

Bitsy squealed and spun about in alarm before blinking out of sight.

An old man was hunched before her, bent and twisted and supporting his weight upon a gnarled walking stick. He was about four feet tall with a long scraggly gray beard and a corncob pipe stuck between his decaying teeth, of which he appeared to have a total of three remaining.

"I know yer still there, idget!" he exclaimed, his voice wheezy and gruff. "I'm not gonna hurtcha. Why wud I trubble m'self wi' tha likes o' you? Ya ain't even big enuf to be called a morsel!" He laughed long and hard at that, setting himself into a frightful fit of coughing.

"You alright?" Bitsy showed herself. The old man looked like he might cough himself into a pile of rags on the ground at any moment, but alas the fit subsided and he wiped at the spittle on his chin with the sleeve of his dirty homespun cloak.

"Yeh," he managed. "Don' mind yerself wit' me. I'll be fine."

"Alright then," Bitsy nodded. "I've got to be going. I've got some traveling to do and night's coming on fast."

"Headin' to the Pythia are ya?" the old man asked, gesturing with his walking stick in the direction of the structure Bitsy had spotted. It was no longer visible now, but she'd memorized its location.

"You know the Oracle?" Bitsy asked, giving the man her undivided attention. "I mean... her tower's that way? Is that the building I could barely see out there in the distance? The gray one?"

The old man chuckled which led to another spasm of coughs, this one much shorter in duration than the last. "That's the way," he nodded. "Ain't much a' nothin' else out here'n these parts."

Bitsy nodded up at him and smiled. "Yes Sir. And thank you Sir. I really must be going now."

He waved his hand at her in dismissal and began a slow painful shuffle into the hillside. Bitsy, overcome with excitement, headed back to Desh and Millie at a sprint.

I haven't been logging in here for some reason. I'm not sure why exactly.. but I do have some theories.

And my alternate haunts (like Flickr and Twitter) are just so.. abbreviated.. I need to talk about my mundane day to day and I need to be able to use more than 140 characters to do it. Ya know?

So first of all I'd like to say that lately I'm sick of niceties. Isn't that a funky word?

I'd also like to take this moment to say that I *dig* strawberries. Which are in season in Florida right now and are also sweet and red and DELICIOUS and really cheap. :))

Annnnnnnnndd. I've been having insomnia. WTF is up with that? It is SO not fun.

We've been so sick and waylaid here lately with my family that I am thinking my house should have one of those termite tents over it because every single occupant has come down with the plague and we do nothing but breathe it back and forth over one another.

But the weather's been BEAUTIFUL!

So I'm confused..

For the first time in my entire life I was late to work due to Daylight Savings Time. My dumb ass managed to spring forward every clock in my house *except* for my alarm clock.

I woke up this morning, went into the kitchen to get a drink of water, stood there drinking it as I noticed on the oven, the coffeepot, and the microwave clocks that I was already 4 minutes late to work. Cussing, I walked back to the bedroom where my bed is flanked by "his and hers" alarm clocks. I'd managed to forward Mike's, while somehow missing mine.

Smoooooooooth.

Dear Diary,

Over the past week, I've gobbled down multiples of every pretty little pill/lozenge you see pictured above and... I am SO over it.

I caught a nasty cold flying to/from New Orleans for Carnival that developed into my first-ever case of bronchitis. I was wheezing so profoundly that it put my dogs on red alert. They thought some scary creature was in our bed whistling and whining each time I tried to breathe, and they were right! It was ME! And tried as I might to cough and clear my throat and make it go away, each night turned into a circus of wheezing and barking and general sleeplessness that was absolutely ridiculous!

As a result, I had to postpone my uterine fibroid embolization, which cut short the time I could take off recovering, screwed up the work call schedule, and caused me to stress about every little thing even more than I already was! Boo!

Now I've passed the wheeze baton to my husband who's sick as hell and is now in charge of keeping the dogs on their toes, and in the meantime, I had my delayed procedure and overnight hospital stay on Monday. All went well and the 'aftermath' was as expected, which has been NO fun at all.

Pain, pain and more pain, a little nausea, some constipation, a sprinkling of sleeplessness, a lingering cough. YeeHAW!

I am SO thrilled that today I woke up feeling like a new woman with a FUTURE beyond all these stupid little pills and their individual promises! I mean, don't get me wrong, you'll never see me turning down the right pill here and there for recreational purposes, but when you're having to take a pain pill because you're actually in pain? Well that's no fun!

Gonna take it super extremely easy throughout the rest of the weekend to cement things, but I'm suddenly sporting an optimism I haven't felt in weeks. WOO!

Ugh.

So yeah, I managed to get sick somehow. I haven't been sick in 2 or 3 years so I guess I'm due, especially with all the partyin' in New Orleans and the flying. Seems like I get sick pretty much every time I fly somewhere.

My embolization procedure's been pushed til Monday. Hopefully I'm well enough for it by then. I really REALLY want to get that whole thing over with. I slept like hell last night and feel much worse today than I did yesterday. Boooo! That's no fun.

Just staying home and taking it easy today; using every miracle cold-shortening product I can get my hands on. We'll see what happens.

Thankfully the sickness didn't cripple me until AFTER New Orleans or that would've been a real bummer. We had *such* a good time there. Between the beignets, po' boys, fried shrimp, muffulettas, jambalaya, and seafood pasta I must've gained ten pounds. Or more! :p As soon as I'm feeling a little better I'm cracking down and getting back to a healthier eating regimen. Until then though, comfort food FTW! I definitely see some chicken noodle soup in my immediate future.

Took a ton of pics in NOLA. General Bourbon Street/French Quarter stuff, the Krewe of Pontchartrain's balcony party at Johnny White's, the Krewe of Cork parade, the KoP parade last Saturday... etc. Also got some really fun shots of a lot of the dogs (and their owners) in the Krewe of Barkus parade. Fun times. :) Check 'em out!

Now it's back to bed with me. Sure would be helpful if I could breathe!