Karen's Quilt

Hey, It’s 7/20/2009!  Moon Landing Day.  It’s  been 40 years since Apollo 11 set down and Armstrong set foot on the moon.  I remember that day in 1969.  Camp Wakonda.  I was working as a salad girl in a summer camp in the Ozarks for privileged Jewish kids.  Since I was their age, I’d made some friends with the oldest campers and that night I was at their party to celebrate the moon landing.   After hours, we watched the live TV images as Armstrong made his first step onto the moon.  I’ll never forget those moments.  We, the country, were so dedicated to the space program.  I wish we were still that way today.

It’s been awhile, but I’m still alive and kicking.

My all time favorite tv show is Fireflly.  But, currently, my almost 2nd favorite is Leverage.  It’s starting its second season but I think you can view all the episodes from their website.  What?  You thought I’d talk about Dancing With the Stars?  Never watched.  I have my standard with reality shows.  :)  Top Chef, Project Runway, and currently, with my hand muffling what I say, I Survived a Japanese Game Show.

A few weeks ago I learned the vacation itinerary of my cube neighbor and I was delighted!  “You’re going to Yellowstone?!  They’ve got a live web cam on Old Faithful!  You’ve got to call when you get there and wave!”  My suggestion was not taken very enthusiastically.  My co-worker is, well, not glum, but certainly not into making a spectacle of himself.

Yesterday afternoon, I got a call.  “Hey, I’m here!”  I quickly brought up the web cam.  It took us a minute to realize that there was a time delay but there he was!  Everyone else facing Old Faithful and there he is facing the camera, waving like an idiot to no one visable.  “Hey, we see you!  I’m waving back!”  “Then that’s enough,” he said, snapping his cell closed, he blended into the crowd.  But four of us stood there in the office and shared Old Faithful’s eruption with him a few minutes later.

Much better than a post card…a little slice of vacation.

(And here’s the funniest part…he must have checked out the web cam in spite of his dismissal because he was standing dead center of where it was pointed when he called.)

I know it’s been ages but I’m still alive and well.  I actually witnessed something at work today that made me think to blog about it.  So I guess I will.

There’s this young woman at the office who is very timid.  She acts like she would turn and run if you raised your voice at her.  Very nervous, walks in a bit of a slouch like maybe you won’t notice her.  So I’m coming back from the far printer and I can see her profile just around the corner.  She’s listening to someone, nodding, obviously without the backbone to break away from whoever it was that was talking to her.  The other voice was female but quiet so I shrugged and continued to my cube thinking no rescue was needed.  But I was curious who she was talking to.

Twenty minutes later it was lunch time and I grabbed up my Lean Cuisine and headed to the break room and its microwaves.  This poor girl was still standing at the corner, trapped.  I rounded the corner and rolled my eyes after I passed.  The other woman who had her captive is someone that can carry on forever, giving you way more information than you ever wanted to hear about her life.  Five minutes later warm lunch in hand I headed back to my desk.  The cat and the mouse were still at it.  I shook my head and walked past them without a word.

Had I known the timid one more than to say a passing hello, I would have stepped in and interrupted, giving her a chance to run.  Or, had I not wanted to be the one that got latched onto, I might have said something to the other who I knew better.  As I sat down to enjoy my lunch, I was not quite sure what to think about myself.  Fortunately, the voices went away in the next few minutes and I didn’t have to feel guilty.  Well, I did feel a bit guilty for having been amused at the situation.  And sorry for whatever the little mouse must have experienced in life to not be able to extract herself when she clearly wanted to.

Well, THIS is never going to happen again!  Actually, the last time it happened, that’s what I thought, too.  I was wrong then but I can’t be wrong now.

About fifteen years ago, I walked into a liquor store and got carded by a 90-some year old guy.  Granted, I had just “washed that gray right out of my hair”, had it clipped back in a very youngish style, and was wearing an outfit that my step-daughter would have approved of.  But, still!, I was over forty!

Yes, I’ve always looked younger than my years.  I avoided the sun, unlike many of my contemporaries.  In my twenties, being perceived as younger was annoying.  Not so much the older I got.

After work this evening, I stopped by Dierberg’s and got carded for buying alcohol.  I was at the self checkouts and scanned my purchase.  The screen said to wait for the attendant, I looked up and met her look.  I turned back to the rest of my purchases.  When the scanner didn’t clear, I looked up again and, again, she looked at me.  Once more, I went back to my own business and suddenly here she was standing next to me.  “I need to see your id”, she told me.  I looked her over, she didn’t seem to be blind or wacko.  “You want to see my id?” I questioned.  “Yes”, she replied.  “I’m fifty six years old and I haven’t been asked for my id in decades,” I told her.  And pulled out my license, which she actually pulled up to her face and read.  “Okay,” she said.

I really have no way of explaining this.  I do not in any way, shape, or form, look under twenty-one.  I remember the last time I got carded I told the old guy that I had children that could purchase beer.  But, still, no matter her reason for asking for the id, it was pretty flattering.

Wow!  It’s been a long time since I’ve updated.  Way to keep a fan base.  Things have been busy at work and boring at home.  I just haven’t had a lot to say.  So here’s a tidbit.

I’ve been feeling for the last few months very dissatisfied with my hair.  For most of my life, it had been what I thought was one of my best assets.  The last six or so months, not so much.  I color my hair, otherwise by now it would be mostly gray.  I refuse to go that route when I can look way younger with a little color.  But recently the color has looked really drab, really artificial.  So when the gray streak down the middle forced me to schedule another appointment, I asked Tempe where she’d done her hair recently because I’d loved the job she’d had.  She gave me a 50% off coupon for her stylist and I went all out.

Last Friday I spent tons of money getting my hair styled and colored and I thought it looked great.  But, like I told my stylist, there was no one at work who would even notice.  Hey, I work with a bunch of computer nerds.  Hello! I’m a database administrator working on a floor with other geeky admins who all speak computer.  My floor?  50 guys, 5 women.  So after my “makeover” I swung by to see Tempe so that the family could admire my new good looks.

Monday, the one other female in my group passed me in the hallway and said, “Hey, new haircut, nice!  Oh, and highlights, very nice.”  The rest of the day, nothing.  Not even from the guys I work with daily.  Well, what did I expect?  Nothing.  Then today, Thursday, I had a meeting on the 4th floor.  This is where the application folks live and is pretty much half women, who I talk on the phone with and instant message a lot but actually see only occasionally.  One or two in this meeting would notice the new me and comment.  What happened?  Not one of the gals said a thing.  But shortly before the meeting started, one of the Windows guys in attendance (from my floor) across the table from me said, “Hey, something’s different.  It’s your hair.  Highlights! And it’s shorter.  Looking good!”  And he gave me two thumbs up.  Cool.  One of the guys actually noticed.  Too bad he’s twenty-five years too young and married.

Everybody’s doing it.  Well, at least, it seems like every company is doing it.  Layoffs.

A month or so ago, my company announced there was a salary freeze.  No raises for the next year.  We thought that was the hit we’d take because of the economy tanking.  We were wrong.  I don’t know how many in the company were laid off today but from the group that is my boss’s boss, four were let go today.  That’s about ten percent.  My team was not affected.  We are already down two people because of the earlier hiring freeze.  My immediate group of dbas is only at three of the four people normally employed.  I think I’m pretty safe from losing my job.  Even though I’m eligible for retirement, there’s a good chance that the new guy was hired at a salary greater than mine.  Either way, higher salary or not, he’d probably go before I was let go.

It will not surprise me if in the days ahead the company announced a pay cut across the board.  It’s becoming the in thing to do.

Well, I was going to post a picture of the purse I finished today but I still can’t figure out how to post pictures.  I’ll have to consult my personal help desk soon.

Anyway, I finished a purse I started about two months ago then set aside.  I put the pictures up on flickr so they’ll be in the lower right.  I’ve made six or eight of these purses for Tempe and myself and I just now for the first time decided to add a jeweled zipper pull to it.  That will now be a standard feature.

I did figure out why my pictures are so dark and why the flash isn’t working (after I took these pics, of course).  I had it on a weird setting that automatically set the flash off.  It’s been like that since before Christmas.  And here I was hoping I needed to buy a new camera.  Earlier today, my sewing machine was making awful noises and for the first time since I bought it thirty one years ago, I popped off the top to try to oil it.  I only had WD40, not real sewing machine oil.  But I thought to myself that if I screwed it up, oh, well, guess I’ll have to buy a new sewing machine!  Can you tell that I filled out my income taxes this morning and I have a refund coming to me?

U-verse

So how do I look on U-verse?  The AT&T guy showed up at 2:30pm to install.  Late, but he had made two calls letting me know that he was running behind so that was acceptable.  There was some question whether or not he could install…mostly because of the age of the original phone lines some nearly forty years ago.  But in the end, he prevailed.

I am now receiving TV broadcasts through the phone lines.  It includes a wireless internet connection so I dismantled my wireless router.  I fired up my work laptop but couldn’t get it connected.  I’ll have to ask around at work what I need to do to make that work.  I removed my VCR from my lineup, becoming dependent on AT&T’s DVR.  I’ve programmed in the programs I’ve been recording…I hope I got it right.  Time will tell.  I’ve got a whole new set of channels to memorize.  For instance, HGTV is no longer 30, it’s now 450.

So all this is to my own betterment.  But my recording for my missionary sister, Linda, may turn out more cumbersome.  Linda has shows she wants recorded every night except Saturday.  While I can capture them on the DVR, I will have to record them to her DVDs one at a time.  Since I can record to DVD while the DVR is recording other shows, I’m hoping this will only require my checking in hourly when a timer goes off and I need to tend to the dvd recorder.

Forty some years ago, when I was a kid, any boy could grow up to be President.  A girl had to settle for secretary.  Some things still haven’t changed.

Happy New Year!

It’s here:  Twenty oh nine.  The first day of this new year is a national holiday.  Actually, an international holiday.  Even the Chinese celebrate it, although on their own calendar later in the month.

So what makes the first day of a new year so special?  Well, we all like new beginnings, don’t we?  Second chances?  A time to wipe the slate clean and start over?  Who doesn’t like the thought of finally doing it right?  At my age, firmly middle-aged, one could almost have the attitude of just another day.  Thanks for a day off without taking vacation time.  But I can’t be that blasé.

I loved beginnings as a kid.  My favorite day?  The first day of school.  That was the beginning of the year for me.  I loved the pristine notebooks, the smell of new textbooks, the excitement of starting a class totally new.  I remember an afternoon in late summer sitting on the roadbank with a neighborhood friend, watching the shadows elongate on the final day of summer vacation.  It was almost here, the first day of school.  All that was left of the day was family dinner, some television, and then a good night’s sleep.  Then, School!  A whole new year using all the school supplies I had carefully picked out!  I vividly remember watching the shadows grow.  I have no idea what my friend and I were talking about.  I only remember the excitement I was keeping contained for the following day.

So I’m not eight or ten or twelve or whatever age I was when I sat in the grass with a friend and waited for the day to end with suppressed anticipation.  I’m fifty six and still young at heart.  It’s a new year out there.  A new beginning.  So many things can be fixed that have been broken in the past.  Look your own things over.  Pick a few to make right.  And be sure to record your progress in that shiny new notebook.  :)

Merry Christmas!

Yesterday, Christmas Eve, was great, we had an awesome time exchanging gifts as you can see in my flickr.com pictures.  The new kitchen made such a difference in the dynamics!  I was cooking and setting up and always a part of what was going on since people were sitting at the counter, leaning over to talk to me…it was great.  Well worth all the money I spent on it.  The first family affair since the kitchen makeover.

Today, Christmas, was a very relaxed day.  I slept late, finally dragging myself out of bed knowing that I needed to make a raisin pie and a green bean casserole for Christmas dinner before leaving by 1-ish.  I’m sure the pie tasted okay (I did not sample it myself) but I had issues with the cornstarch.  It looked fine in the end and I don’t think the cornstarch would effect the flavor at all.  (Comment if I’m wrong about that.)  Then I started playing the Nintendo DS game Brain Challenge and was almost late getting started on the green bean casserole.  But I whipped it up and showed up on time at Ben and Tempe’s.

I had opted for casual dress…my usual stay-at-home jeans and oversized t-shirt.  Tempe greeted me at the door even more casual in pajama pants!  Had I known, I’d have worn the pajama pants they’d given me!  We all played a cool game of Apples to Apples and then feasted on ham, roasted veggies, Boston salad, my green bean casserole, and, later, lots of pies to choose from.

At home again later, I started the game Professor Layton and the Curious Village, meaning only to play for twenty minutes or so.  After a half hour, I thought, I’ll just finish this one thing…then well over an hour later, I was still playing!  So far I’ve only been playing the Brain Age type stuff on my Nintendo DS, but this game veers closely into real gaming and it has my attention.  :)  Andrew, what you tried with Harvest Moon, you might have achieved with Professor Layton!

So, to all, this Christmas night, be open, be willing to do the unexpected, and embrace change.  For it is coming.  At least I hope so.  Merry Christmas!

Wood Family Christmas 2008

Pictures are up on flickr.com.  It wasn’t a huge gathering but we had a lot of fun.  We were missing any representative from my oldest brother’s family.  But all of the other siblings in my family at least had one member.

Pre-Christmas

I took Friday off and it’s been a busy three day weekend here.  I’ve been making candy to give as my office present.  I don’t know yet how to post a picture directly here but I’ve posted it on my flickr account so a pix of my candy should be in the lower righthand corner.

I first made chocolate covered raisins with semi-sweet chocolate.  If I had to do the recipe again, I would do a greater ratio of raisins to chocolate.  I think half again as many raisins would have been better.

Next I tried a peanut butter ball.  I had thought not to coat it in chocolate but the peanut ball by itself was too soft.  So I coated it in milk chocolate…should be a homemade version of a peanut butter cup.

Then I reached way out and executed the recipe for Raspberry pate de fruits.  A grown up version of Gummi Bears.  A raspberry jam flavored gelatin thing cut in little squares and coated in superfine sugar.

And last, but not least, I tried a new recipe for bourbon balls.  I had lost my original recipe (and the whole book of candy recipes to the divorce).  The new recipe included corn syrup which I didn’t remember from the original and which made the rolling process extremely sticky.  But in the end I rolled the balls in confectioner’s sugar and had white bourban balls.

I plan on giving the candies on Thursday, the last day everyone in my group will be there before Christmas.  In the past, Sharon, Judy and I always coordinated the day that we gave out our team presents so that there was a mini-food day.  But both Sharon and Judy retired during this past year.  It’s only me now on the dba team (well, and the guys).  And for the next ten years. <sigh> Ten years, every third week on call.  A whole ‘nother post.