Well crap. Look at the time. No research again tonight then.
I sent out a reminder email at work today about the SPCA and Food Bank drives. I must have hit a few guilt buttons because some people brought money over to me. I went out tonight and picked up a few things, mostly for the food bank. I forgot to copy the wish lists so I didn't go crazy with the buying. Besides, last year I must have shopped at least three different times for the drives, so I know I'll be going again, and I'll remember the lists.
A week from tomorrow morning is my exam. I'm not even done my first read-through of the material. Crap x 2. I am taking Friday off to study some more, then I'll also be off on Wednesday. The only good thing about all of this is that my exam will be done by late morning and then I'll have the rest of the day to goof around and maybe do some Christmas shopping. Oh, and I'll be missing the client cocktail again this year since it's the night before the exam (although Boss seems to think I should pop over for it since it's only two hours long - ummm, no). I'll wave to the bottomless shrimp as I weep over my textbook.
Edgar's meows tonight are quite clear and loud, especially when he's sitting up in my lap and looking me in the face when he does it. I'm sure it means something. Maybe he's trying to tell me that even though our Thanksgiving is over and done with, I should be making him turkey to celebrate with his US kitty friends tomorrow.
Okay, I have to go to bed. I still have a few days left to finish up NaBloPoMo with a blast, right?
...I would invite every one of my handsome, adorable, clever neighbors to my apartment for Thanksgiving dinner.
If I could, I would expand my list of invitees, like a sparkling balloon, to include parents, children and all manner of pets. How I would love to be introduced to them all.
If I could, I would alter the design of my dinner table into something Dr. Seuss or Lewis Carroll might design - curving into space, higher and higher - until it had lengthened sufficiently so that every one of you could find a place.
If I could, I would alter the space continuum so that my kitchen would be BIG ENOUGH to accommodate the positively epic, Edwardian dinner I would plan for you.
If I could, I would alter the time continuum so that my far-flung precious ones would be able to find their way to the Aubrey domicile with ease and economy. And yet still be able to travel first-class.
If I could, I would place a glass of flower-like, art nouveau proportions at each place setting. It would be full of champagne, and glittering at the bottom would be either a diamond bracelet, or a brace of diamond cufflinks. They are for you.
If I could, I would arrange the champagne toasts thusly: they would not be to your hostess, to your family, or to your loved ones. You would not toast this innocent North American holiday. You would, instead, toast yourselves.
Because words fail me.
Happy Thanksgiving, all.
Tired. Falling asleep, but I'm in the middle of a Scrabble game on Pogo. (update - I won!)
My car was supposed to come with Bluetooth (one of those clip-on jobbies for your visor) but he forgot it. It came in the mail today. Too bad I don't have a Bluetooth phone, eh?
I've been cheating and bringing my car to work. It's so nice. But, at $14 a day to park, that'll be stopping any day now. Plus, I've still got a few days to make the most of my November bus pass.
Seriously, you have no idea what having a car means to me. I want to cry every time I drive it.
Finished a marketing report and sent it off today. It's a good accomplishment, but there is still work to do on that project.
Seriously, I'm falling asleep. I'm gonna go make a sandwich for lunch tomorrow and hit the hay. If the couple next door has another screaming match for an hour and a half (not starting until after eleven), I'm going to lose my mind.
Feel free to suggest something for tomorrow's less lame NaBloPoMo.
Sometimes, when its late at night, and I'm lying in bed trying to sleep, I feel like walking up to Lizzie's room and saying to her
what the fuck are you actually doing?
Because it sounds to me like she's moving a large herd of cattle through a small obstacle course.
Or sometimes its like hospital noises. You know, random things crashing about, television blasting, phones ringing, laughing. At any moment I expect her to crank up the vacuum cleaner.
And I'm beginning to think she's retarded in some way. Because no matter how many times I ask her to try and be quiet after 10.30pm, she persists in being exactly the opposite.
It seems that she lives in the filth and squalor that only a teenager can live in for months, then suddenly decides she must clean her room at 11.30pm.
This also requires a loud thumping up the hallway past my bedroom to the bathroom, where she deposits an extremely large pile of dirty washing which she is always surprised to find hasn't been washed ready for her by the next morning. It also means a large pile of towels to be washed, some of which feel suspiciously like they have never been used, just left on the floor for a while.
Now here it is, 11am and she's still in bed. Meanwhile I had to be up at 5.30am to fit a 30km bike ride in before my day even began and she'll be up soon wondering why I need an afternoon nap.
I wonder if you can have morning tea naps.
Maybe tonight I'll post an FSotD or two from what I wrote very late last night. But I have to share this sentence I just read in a book called The Ghost Map, about a cholera outbreak in London in the 19th century:
"But reports had surfaced of some customers discovering live eels in their drinking water, which suggested that the filters were not perhaps working optimally."
I love the British way of understatement.
Today's post is a tribute to that bastion of all knowledge that is true and good (or at leasts contain enough believable information to get you through a NaBloPoMo post about animals), Wikipedia. I advise you to click on the link and find out ever so much more than you thought you would ever possibly need to know about the site that knows everything that you don't or thought you did. Or didn't. I also advise that you check out, or at least hover over, the many links in the article. Knowledge, I bow before thee!
It's Pole Week. And I'm back. I was supposed to take two classes back-to-back, but that would have been stupid considering it's Pole Week. Class was huge. We had 10 girls and I was making up in a level 4, so a lot of them were reviewing things I already know. Because the class was so large I didn't get a lot of personal time with my teacher. Oh well.
Pole Trick Review
- The Pole Cat - I was having a better day inverting. I felt strong in my tuck and dropping my head back. I love this move, but only when I feel I have a good grip with my legs. This day I was sliding a bit.
- Spinning Descending Angel - I suck at all the spinning inverted moves. I just sort of think myself out of it. I go up into the inversion and then my legs kick around wildly. My issue is that when I'm upside down I lose all sense of direction. I don't want to keep my eyes open or I won't invert at all and start looking for the pole. Ugh. I think I'll just have to fuck around with this at home until I "get it".
It's the holidays and this year I actually have holiday conflicts. Usually the default is to go home and spend it with my family. Now He's a major player. It's too soon to introduce Him to the folks. I've never introduced any of my boyfriends to my family before, so for me to do that...well, it really means something.
Thanksgiving I'm spending with Him. It just turned out that way. I was planning on going home for Thursday and Friday, but I booked another laser facial Friday. The plan is to spend Wed-Thurs-part of Friday with Him, and head home to recover at home with my parents after the procedure.
We've started talking about our Winter Holiday plans. Not sure what we're doing, but we've thrown around options. Go north again and venture into Napa. Go south and explore my hometown and eat carne asada fries. Or...
Go to Vegas...
Return to the scene of the cryme? I shudder internally at the thought, but wouldn't that be sweet justice and redemption for last year? Of course He doesn't know about the Canadian. He doesn't know the details about any of the dates I've been on. I'd rather keep it that way.
I'd rather forget it ever happened.
So, maybe I do need to do Vegas. For closure. To wipe that city clean (so to speak) for me. What do you think?
Otherwise my vote is for San Diego so I can eat carne asada fries everyday.
Thank god its only 24 degrees today. Thats 20 degrees cooler than yesterday. We've had four days over 40 (thats over 100). Tells of a hot summer coming up. Already bush fires all over the state.
And yesterday this poor old King Parrot dropped by looking for water. Its the second time I've seen him and he's about the most exotic thing I've ever seen in our backyard. Besides myself of course.
No idea what he's doing around these parts. They usually hang in rainforest type areas and that I can assure you we are not.
Wonder if he's someones pet. Hmmm.
Anyway of course yesterday was the day a leak appeared in the bird bath and there was harldy any water in it. So of course then I went in and gave Daz a serve for being a slack arse and not fixing it immediately and that now the poor bird would probably die from heat stroke and it would be all his fault.
But I've dragged an old bird bath out and filled it so hopefully he'll come back.
Hopefully Betty won't try to eat it. Because she hates magpies, (don't we all). Doves are ok. Magpies are scum.
So here are some fairly crap shots of the beautiful boy. I didn't want to get too close and scare him off. He sounded exhausted. Those little strips of bluey green down his side are almost fluoro. (fluorescent for you non australians)
Archaeopteryx, sometimes referred to by its German name Urvogel ("original bird" or "first bird"), is the earliest and most primitive bird known. The name is from the Ancient Greek archaios, meaning "ancient", and pteryx, meaning "feather" or "wing".
Archaeopteryx lived in the late Jurassic Period around 150–145 million years ago, in what is now southern Germany during a time when Europe was an archipelago of islands in a shallow warm tropical sea, much closer to the equator than it is now.
Similar in size and shape to a European Magpie, Archaeopteryx could grow to about 0.5 metres (1.6 ft) in length. Despite its small size, broad wings, and inferred ability to fly or glide, Archaeopteryx has more in common with small theropod dinosaurs than it does with modern birds. In particular, it shares the following features with the deinonychosaurs (dromaeosaurs and troodontids): jaws with sharp teeth, three fingers with claws, a long bony tail, hyperextensible second toes ("killing claw"), feathers (which also suggest homeothermy), and various skeletal features.
The features above make Archaeopteryx the first clear candidate for a transitional fossil between dinosaurs and birds. Thus, Archaeopteryx plays an important role not only in the study of the origin of birds but in the study of dinosaurs.
The first complete specimen of Archaeopteryx was announced in 1861, only two years after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of the Species, and it became a key piece of evidence in the debate over evolution. Over the years, nine more fossils of Archaeopteryx have surfaced. Despite variation among these fossils, most experts regard all the remains that have been discovered as belonging to a single species, though this is still debated.
Many of these eleven fossils include impressions of feathers—among the oldest (if not the oldest) direct evidence of feathers. Moreover, because these feathers are an advanced form (flight feathers), these fossils are evidence that feathers had been evolving for quite some time.
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