You know you're in trouble when you run out of spoons

I thought I was keeping on top of the dishes, if nothing else, in my life. I actually kind of enjoy doing dishes if there are some good tunes on or at least I'm not frantically trying to do something else, or get to something else, in the meantime. I did a whole whack o' dishes this weekend. But not, apparently, utensils.

I went to reach for a spoon--I have my 8 soupsppons, 8 teaspoons, 6 of each from another set, and another couple dozen or so cheapos from the dollar store that I keep on the stove for quick stirs, tastes, and the odd dip into the pickle relish. And of course a few bigger ones for cooking and stirring, but those don't really count.

Anyway, I went to reach for a spoon and there they weren't. Not on the stove, not in the bin with the utensils, and not, oddly enough, in the dishwasher. Well, there were a few, but these were mostly clearly dirty, as I have a habit of throwing the stove ones straight into the dishwasher after using them.

But of the at least forty spoons in my life, less than a dozen were clearly visible, and of these none were clean. Now I admit there are a couple of pots and pans in the sink (I did some serious cooking on Monday and left things to soak and didn't get to them yesterday), and I'm hoping most of my spoons are hiding underneath them. But I'm not sanguine. That many spoons simply cannot have disappeared into the sink since Monday.

Which leaves me wondering if things are randomly disappearing from my house. True, I found my iPod and the remote to the VCR, but the contact lenses, and now the spoons, are still missing.

Hmm.

Yay!

Things may be turning in my direction. In the last four hours, I've found my iPod and the remote for my DVD/VCR. I have reset the clock on the VCR, and I have cooked a majorly delicious flank steak. Okay, I found the frozen marinated steak in the bottom of the freezer the other day while I was looking for something else, but the point is I cooked and it turned out wunnerful. And so far I haven't done anything to bring the wrath of my endocrinologist down upon me.

Now I just need to finish marking some papers, get a couple of things read, and decide whether or not I'm going to church in the morning.

Woo effing hoo!

A Meta-joke

"Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." —Bill Bailey

For some reason I found this laugh-out-loud funny when I read it the first time, but now that I've pasted it into my blog, it sort of leaves me cold. Oh well.

I got this from the Wikipedia article on meta-humor. Bill Baily is a well known British comedian and actor, according to his Wikipedia entry.

Someday I want to be famous enough to have a Wikipedia entry of my own, but I'm not counting on it.

Do you know where your contact lenses are?

I don't. About a month ago, I bought a six month supply of contact lenses. Enough to get me through to next winter, since I don't wear them every day, or really any day I expect to be reading a great deal, or driving long distances. But I like to wear them during yoga classes, so I can see what's going on, but not have to worry about whether my glasses are going to fly off, or get dripped on, or whatever.

The day I picked them up, I put them carefully in the trunk of my car, went out to dinner with a friend, and wondered if they would freeze in the trunk of the car. So I know I took them out. I also know this because yesterday I checked, and the only thing in the trunk of my car is my bin full of car stuff (washer fluid, folding shovel, shop wipes, oil. I'd keep my jumper cables there if I had jumper cables--last time I had my jumper cables out I noticed about a 1-inch gap of exposed copper wire behind one of the positive clips. So I figured they weren't safe. And I got rid of them, figuring a) I've never jumped a vehicle in my life, and b) I have a CAA membership and c) I have a cell phone. Other emergency stuff I keep in a bin in the passenger compartment (first aid kid, wetnaps, aspirin, emergency hand-warmer, etc.)

Where was I? Oh yes.

So I'm pretty sure they aren't in the trunk of the car. But they aren't in the medicine cabinet. They're not in the little basket by the bed where I keep my contact lens stuff. They're not on/under/around the table by the door where I throw stu--er, put things as I come in and just need a place to stash them before I put them immediately away. They're not on the couch, they're not by the TV, they're not on the bistro table, they're not on/under/around the computer. So where are they?

And for that matter, where is the remote to the DVD/VCR? It's still telling Standard Time, cuz I can't access the on-screen programming without the remote. And it's starting to get me down, cuz it's really the only clock in the house that I ever really check the time on.

There must be a place where all this missing stuff is ending up. Last time (a couple of summers ago, with my prescription sunglasses, it was the refrigerator) (okay, I dropped the sunglasses in a bag with some vegetables and was in such a hurry when I got home I just stuffed the whole bag in the fridge and *boom* missing sunglasses until I got around to noticing the bag of dead vegetables at the back of the fridge a month or so later).

Sometimes I wonder if this is just me descending into age-related dementia, or if I manage to get a handle of the mental health issues all these problems will just go away. Or rather take care of themselves. Probably not either.

Did I mention my vacuum cleaner is still in the trunk of the car?

It's Tuesday. I woke up sort of late, meaning on time, but late in the sense that I had meant to get an early start.

I started my day at StB hospital, to have some blood drawn for some tests. I'm supposed to do it a week ahead of an appointment, but the appointment is on Thursday and I forgot about it until Saturday and didn't have a chance to go in yesterday.

I then had a 'baby' apple pancake at the Original Pancake House. Yum. And sat and had a coffee at the coffee place at the Forks, working on some notes regarding my latest Acting-Head crisis. Which we're going to have to suck up and pay for, and in the scheme of things it's not that much, but really, I'd rather not go begging for money from the Dean considering I've already done stuff to to make his life miserable. So I noodled out some questions for some others that might lead to some solutions I didn't/couldn't/wouldn't think of on my own.

Then I went to Diamond Sports & Medical supply, where I hoped to find a thick yoga mat, and better blocks. And maybe a knee pad for those lunge positions. Didn't find squat. Spent a long time playing with the stretchy bands and tubes and things they use in Pilates and stuff, and considered the purchase of a distance-gripper thingy and a bedpan as a gift for a friend of mine (long story, to be shared some other time).

Then I went to the mystery bookstore and bought some books, now that I'm back to reading at night.

Which was originally going to be the topic of this post. I've just discovered Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" series, featuring one Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, the only openly practicing Wizard known, who works as a sorcery consultant, sort of a PI of the supernatural, out of an office in Chicago. Good voice, well drawn characters. Lead with a shady past. Funny and atmospheric, lots of great supporting characters (my favo(u)rite being Bob, the lascivious air spirit who lives in a skull in Harry's basement). Good supporting characters with inner and outer conflicts. Not 100% sure about the world, the way magic works in this universe. But lots of hints of more to explore (The White Council, a Vampiress owner of a pricey escort agency, the mysterious Nevernever, a Warden with a sword and an axe to grind. And a mortal crime boss to get in the way--I particularly loved the line "I've never had a Godfather, but I do have a godmother, and she is, as it happens, a faery." Or something like that.) So I went looking for book #2 at the mystery place, which of course they didn't have. The did have #9, the new one, which apparently just came in, but I have to read things in order or it just doesn't work for me. Ended up buying some other stuff, but I'll have to go elsewhere to hunt up the rest of the Butcher novels.

So after all that, I did some shopping, bought groceries, and now I'm contemplating doing a whole lot of cooking so I can save some time as I go on this week. Really need to do laundry at some point. And get my new vacuum cleaner out of the trunk of the car.

Suddenly, it's March

It's now the fourth day of March, and I'm still working on February. Leap day took me totally unawares, in spite of all the talk of leaplings and Superman's birthday and whatnot (although how people manage to equate 'years of age' with 'numbers of birthdays celebrated is beyond me).

But the biggest weirdity is that I still don't have a March spectrogram up. So far no one has called to complain, but I just completely flummoxed up this month. And since my voice isn't quite back yet, I'm thinking of yet again recycling and old one. Actually, two more and I can do away with the 2001 archive. But that's not really the point. I just couldn't cope with the spectrogram stuff. So that's what I'm doing today, when I'm not working on next year's timetable. Argh.

I was going to go into work today to do all this, but now that it's noon, I don't really have the energy, and I don't think picking up now and changing location would be good for the momentum I've developed so far.