Dainty Kitty

Insert Clever Scrabble Pun Here

The 2007 Scrabble Players Championship has come to Dayton, Ohio!

Jake and I went downtown to Thai 9 for dinner Friday night and spotted several players carrying their black and red tote bags (I’d love to have one of those – I can’t explain why but I would). I’d loved to have talked to a few of them but it wasn’t very convenient and I didn’t want to appear to be a Scrabble groupie or anything. I just thought it might make for some interesting conversation. I told Jake that I really wanted to write seven random letters on a piece of paper and ask them what they could come up with. 

As we were waiting for our check, a pair of players walked by and I realized that Joel Sherman had been sitting two tables away from us the entire time we’d been eating.  And who is Joel Sherman, you ask?  Why only the man who won the tournament featured in the documentary Word Wars!  He’s the one on the bottom left on the DVD cover.

On our way out I stopped, briefly, at a table of players and wished them luck. They thanked me, a bit stunned, and one of the older men pulled it together quick enough to wish me luck as well just as we were walking out the door. Oh I love a good game of Scrabble and got a great score once for the word “zen” and also won a challenge once when someone said you couldn’t use brand names…I had spelled the word “sprite.” Ahem. But it takes a special kind of person to play in a tournament.

Oddly enough, we had already had one brush with celebrity that night…we walked around the Oregon District for a bit while waiting for our table and exchanged pleasantries with Tom Archdeacon and his wife/significant other/lady friend. Mr. Archdeacon is a human interest sports writer for the Dayton Daily news – his articles are about the only thing I might read on the sports page.

And to end on a Scrabble note: I found this photo while looking for a picture of the Word Wars DVD. Very cool.

Frankenstein Doesn't Scare Me...But Thumbs Do

My Noro Kureyon yarn just arrived so tonight I can start on these Kolenyas - a pattern found via Ravelry (again, I cannot say enough about Ravelry).  Since the Jayne Hat turned out so well, I decided to continue my journey into Knitting Things That Aren't Knitting and Purling the Same Amount of Stitches Row After Row on Straight Needles.   This doesn't look like it'll be too difficult but it'll still be a challenge.  The thumb scares me. 

If this works out I might attempt a very simple sock pattern next.  Gasp!

This was also my first Internet Yarn Purchase (insert heavenly music here)- unless you count the Jayne kit, of course.  I ordered from The Knitting Garden and was pleased with the service and the time it took foy the yarn to arrive.  My next yarn purchase either be for more Jayne Hat yarn or for Knitty's Mrs. Beeton's which are so cute.  Or maybe both...I'm definitely ordering my yarn smarter next time since I paid nearly half as much as the yarn itself for shipping.  Anyway, all this just to come to the following point: now I understand how easy it is to become addicted to ordering yarn. 

I Can't Come Up With a Title for This

The post I wrote in my head about this, on my way home from dropping off Jake, was completely different.  I was going to start with my bad day and then point out that nothing about my bad day means anything due to what happened this afternoon.  But that's just it.  Nothing about my bad day means anything due to what happened this afternoon.  So why talk about my bad day at all?

We'd been at my aunt and uncle's air show party long enough to park our chairs under a tree, crack open a Mike's and watch a couple events (they live close enough to the air show area to see quite a bit).  A few minutes later, my Aunt Linda called that dinner was ready and we all got up just as two stunt planes started their show, smoke billowing behind them as they loop-to-looped.

It wasn't until a bit later that someone came over from the house next door and said there had been a accident.  We'd noticed that nothing was going on in the air but I think most of us just figured that they were doing something low to the ground that we couldn't see for the trees.  The stunt planes had clipped each other.  One landed safely and the other crashed - that pilot was Care Flighted to Miami Valley Hospital.  A bit later we found out they were canceling the show for the day...the pilot, forty-six year old Jim LeRoy, had died. 

So, see?  My bad day?  Meant absolutely nothing. 

Talking Wrong

This is a good example of just how sensitive I am.

Jake points out when I say or write something incorrectly.  It angers me and really hurts my feelings.  At first I just shrugged it off.  He eventually asked if it bothered me and I was stupid and said no but it was early in the relationship.

Everyone has their little quirks.  One of mine is that I often say "went" instead of "gone."  As in, "Oh the price on that cereal's went down"  (this was the last time he corrected me - yes, I remember).  Sure, it's wrong but am I hurting anyone?  When he corrected me in the cereal aisle I pointed out that everyone has their little idiosyncrasies and I'd be sure to point his out.  "Please do," he said.  My tone was obvious.  It bothers me.  I don't want it pointed out to me.

Today I wrote in an email, "Of course, it started to DOWNPOUR about five minutes before I had to leave."

His comment (besides saying that it stopped raining just before he walked out his front door), "By the way, I don't think that 'downpour' is a verb."

I started to reply but was so hurt and angry that I just couldn't.  I even started to reply to just that sentence.   But I didn't.  I came here instead. 

I mean, come on.  Just let it slide, for Pete's sake. 

I work with a lot of people who regularly say "we was" and it makes me cringe but I'd never point it out.  I've known people who were worried about their grammar or afraid that I would correct them just because I'm an English major.  But I'm not like that. 

It's indicative, though, of his entire personality.  He's a bit snobby.  Sure, he's smart but so am I - we just have different interests.  We're knowledgeable in different subjects. 

Every year, my family has a picnic on the weekend of the air show every year.  It's this weekend and I told him it was okay if he wanted to stay home if he wanted to...because I don't really want him to go.  My family is fairly uneducated.  They're going to "talk wrong."  But I'm not embarrassed by them at all.  I'm afraid of being embarrassed by him. 

That's awful. 

Unfortunately, I had dinner with my mom and her parents last night.  My grandparents haven't met him and it's obvious that they'd like to so when I talked to him last night I let him know that my family would like to have him there.  So he's going.   

I'm just noticing his snobbery a lot recently.  I also know that it has to do with the fact that I'm looking for reasons to end this relationship.  Because I'm going to have to eventually.

I shouldn't be venting like this here but...I am.  And I'll probably delete this eventually but for now...I'm going to go ahead and post it.  And I think I'm not going to reply to his email for awhile.  I want to reply but right now I don't want to be nice about it.  I want to reply to that sentence and nothing else.  But I won't.

When I do reply (to the entire email), though, I'm going to make it clear that this hurts my feelings and he'll stop doing it...but that doesn't fix everything.   This is just another straw. 

Making a Home

I realized last night that I've let a lot of things slip in my home.  I treat it as if it were a landing strip - touching down only to take off again - even though I spend lots of time there.  I've left a broken frame unreplaced (even though I have the replacement and it would take me three minutes to put the photo inside and hang it up)...and, as I mentioned two posts ago, my blinds and curtains are still on the floor (I'm going to hang them myself and not worry about the fact that the window spaces aren't painted - I don't want anyone in my apartment).

I know I'm not going to renew my lease but I'm still  here until February - no need to pretend that that's only a blink away.  It's six months.  My apartment can certainly be a home between now and then. 

It's posts like this from Soule Mama, though, that make me long to really have a permanent home of my own.  A home and a family and a kitchen table.  I'd like to have memories to write about just like she did.  And, by the way - her banner is adorable. 

So my goal is to make a list of all the little things that I've put off.  I'm going to post them here and cross them off - perhaps slowly but I hope to accomplish one or two a week.  I may not have a family per se but that certainly doesn't mean that I'm not my own family who needs to be taken care of as well. 

The Last Potter Book Party

I am now the proud owner of one of these boxes.  Who'd have thought I'd ever want a cardboard box that once contained books?   I'm not even sure what I'm going to do with it (and am surprised my cats aren't sleeping in it yet) but I was kind of caught up in the hoopla of it all - when a procession of them rolled by on two wheelers, preparing for the big moment,  I decided I had to have one.  Surprisingly, people were actually waiting

for boxes after they'd gotten their books.   

My shirt was a nice conversation piece.  I caught a young kid eyeballing it and laughed, "Do you like my shirt?"  He spat out a rather Snape-ish, "No!" and quickly looked the other way. 

My copy of the book is traveling to the other side of the globe on Tuesday!  Since I'd finished the book, I was able to give it to my dad - who is leaving for Wuxi, China on Tuesday for business - when Jake and I met them for dinner tonight.

As for the content of the book itself and what I thought?  It's much too early to whisper anything about it - too many books have yet to be finished.   

A Rant

  I am absolutely LIVID.

I'm on the phone with Jake, a check-in call to see how far along we are in the Deathly Hallows, and I hear a loud voice, laughing and speaking Spanish outside my patio door (I'm on the second floor and have a sliding door but no porch - just a wrought iron fence, waist high)) and there's an odd smell.

There's someone on a ladder, face peering into my living room, painting the fence! 

What the fuck?!  No note, no phone call to say that some complete stranger is going to be looking into your apartment Sunday afternoon.  And I don't care if they're not paying attention to what's going on inside...for Pete's sake - what if I were having sex on my living room floor when that face first appeared outside my door?!

I'm absolutely furious.  I left a voice mail for the apartment manager using the word "unacceptable" and demanding a phone call.  My demands for a phone call in the past have gone unanswered but I will call back this time.  I'm tired of letting this shoddy place walk on me.  I had serious problems when they were fixing the leak in my front rooms in February - including the fact that workers showed up on a Saturday morning, unannounced.  At the time my heat was out and I was waiting for the office to call me back about getting someone to fix it (this was the second or third time it had happened).  The workers finally left, saying they'd be back on Monday, and I then called Wendy to ask if we could get together because it was something like fifty-eight degrees in my apartment and I needed to get out.   On my way to meet her - around noon - I stopped at the office.  The manager hadn't even listened to the voice mail!  She said she would send Jay, the maintenance person, to fix it although she didn't say when.  I left.

When I returned, several hours later, my front door was standing open and there were four strangers in my apartment.  Not only was my door standing open (I have two cats) but there were four workers there, again unannounced.   Four!  To work on my tiny drywall problem!  Strangers!

I guess I should count my lucky stars that the heat was fixed, though.   

I called and left a nasty message then, too.  Never heard back.  In fact, after the drywall was fixed I never heard anything again.  They never painted my rooms or rehung the blinds.  This was in February! Sure, it's my fault now that I haven't called but I pretty much feel like vomiting when I think about someone else coming into my apartment to paint.  I'd rather live without covers on my window for a year (my lease is up in February) than have someone in here. 

The second thing that got me up in arms was the fact that they hung paper over the front windows a month or so ago because they were painting the building (haphazard blinds, perhaps?).  That paper stayed up over my windows for TWO WEEKS! 

Unacceptable.  I'm going to seriously think about demanding that I am let out of my lease without penalty and moving while the weather is still warm.  I can't really afford to considering that they'll hang onto my deposit as long as possible, I'm sure - but I will demand it back even if I break my lease - but this place has really turned out to be a pretty shitty place to live. 

I have a few more examples but I guess I've vented enough.  I've got one hundred and fifty pages left in the Deathly Hallows.  I'm going to try to calm down enough to sit back down to read....

Plus, I think the stranger is finally gone.    

Seven

I am caped, buttoned (a S.P.E.W. button Jake's boss made) and sparkled.

We're mere minutes away from a Potter party.

More photos tomorrow...or rather Sunday...after I've finished the book!

Chelsea Morning Coffee

This is my souvenir from the weekend.  Bought on the way home, in Bowling Green, Ohio.  Starbucks makes great mugs, I tell ya. They're colorful, beautiful, large and come in such pleasant chapes.  My favorite mug is a beautiful retro/arty mug I bought around Thanksgiving in Charleston last year.  This is now a close second.  They also had it a blue/green theme.  I might have to go to a store here to pick one up...although I'm trying to tell myself that it's more fun to have mugs that don't match and not buying one would make room in my cabinets for one more I might find somewhere else.

Hmm, I think I'll have to replace this photo eventually with one taken on a sunnier day.

And is there anything nicer than Joni Mitchell in an otherwise quiet, dark room?  Nevermind that "Both Sides, Now" always reminds me of Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman and Love Actually. 

Tuesday: Lunch at the Park

Squirrel was none too happy with me today but he was so close and so cute…I had to go get my camera. I’ve started leaving my camera in the car when I go to the park for lunch…otherwise I’d have a million photos of trees, squirrels, robins and frogs – photos that are really only special to me.

The pond is full and the frogs have disappeared but the fish are more active. Yesterday I was entertained by tiny fish, an orange koi who would have nothing to do with my scraps of bread and a giant carp that swooped up like a whale to grab the larger pieces with his fat pink lips. Today I watched this squirrel and finished eating early so I could just walk around, trying to find the woodpecker I’ve seen a few times or maybe the cardinal who sat in a nearby tree for awhile and watched me eat with his head cocked, beady eye fixed in my direction.

Instead I found an inch worm.