Hi-Jinx

Who was the last person you offended?
Submitted by May.

Oh man, I really offended one of my best friends.

I said some things without thinking and she called me on it.  She was absolutely right to be offended and be very mad at me.

We were able to talk about it, I profusely apologized, and we were able to work through it.  Amazingly we are even closer after that event because we have a better understanding and appreciation for each other's perspective.  

I've been trying to change two of my behaviors as a result.  The first is to shut up, listen and don't offer unsoliced "advice".  The other is to deal with issues right away.  Letting them fester only makes the issues, bigger, uglier and harder to resolve.

 

 

For those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, spring is upon us. How does your life change as the weather gets warmer? 

There are times in the winter when I feel like a vampire going to and from work in the dark.

With spring and longer daylight hours, I'm more motivated to do projects after work and work on my new veggie garden.

 

A grand experiment is taking place in my backyard.  For the first time ever, I'm planting a vegetable garden.

I've always had houseplants.  Some of them started as $2 Target baby plants and are now large 10+ year old hardy and mature plants.  Each plant goes through the same initiation ritual that starts with a brief statement:

"In this environment there will be periods of drought and neglect and periods of intensive watering and pruning. Only the tough will survive. Good luck. 

Sometime they make it...sometimes, well, let's just say some plants are tougher than others.

But now, I'm venturing outside where these new plants won't just face the adversity of droughts and floods by my own hand, they will also need to brave the natural and unnatural elements that are beyond my control:  cats, birds, neighbors, random trash, weather, bugs, weeds and over zealous ivy.

It took me 2 weekends to clear out all the old rose bushes, dead olive tree, weeds, grass, begonias and other randomly planted things from my side yard. Last weekend I took out the last of the weeds, worked the soil, added fertilizer and more top soil. 

The beds are ready for some new baby plants to put down some roots and get growing.  Perhaps I need a new initiation ritual for these plants.  One that includes a prayer:

"Mary Mary full of grace,

Please watch over this garden space.

And when destruction comes to play

Send them to my neighbors, ok?"

This year I dressed up as Bacchus.  Appropriately, I ran into my Greek counterpart, Dionysus at Bar.  It was a fun night with characters from Gilligan's Island running the show on Saturday night and well known consumer icons like the Coppertone Girl, Mrs. Butterworth and the Pillsbury Doughboy running the show on Halloween night.

Picture 258

Jesus was spotted drinking and gambling at Don's Indian Casino where "Everyone's a Winner".

Now we know WWJD

Which friend or acquaintance most influenced your taste in music? 
Submitted by Rev Stan.

An ex-boyfriend who shall remain nameless.  He was taking his second trip to Brazil shortly after we started going out and we took some samba classes together before he left.  He returned from Brazil with a lot of music, a bunch of which was samba and bossa nova style.  He burned a bunch of cds for me and I took a lot of samba classes. 

Now, years after our relationship ended, I still love samba music and have continued to expand my library of all types of Brazilian music.

A few months ago at a clothing swap, my friend Teri and I talked about getting a group together to play bingo.  In our quest for a cool game, she came across a "do it yourself" bingo kit and ordered it.  It was then that we decided to break out the game at my birthday party. 

So, in July my roommate Mason and I hosted my birthday party as a BBQ - complete with Booze, Blankets and Bingo.  Lots of our friends came by to wish me a happy birthday, eat some of the yummy and exotic meats Mason cooked up on the grill and to play bingo for *fabulous* prizes.

Check out my pics.

Before we started playing, Monique had me open my birthday gift.  That morning, she had found vintage bingo cards at a garage sale.  When I opened the gift I couldn't believe how PERFECT they were! 

We gave out bingo cards, passed around various ice cream treats, everyone sang happy birthday to me, and we got the balls rolling.

B-I-N-G-O

We started the game out with a "T" formation in my honor.  It took forever to get a winner, but it was fun getting everyone involved.  We took turns calling out the numbers - with the winners being the next callers.  I had collected a number of dollar store prizes and charity give aways so the prizes were ecclectic and cheap - just like - oh, ahem, nevermind.

So I thought my bingo story was done...but NOOOO.

Today I got an e-mail from Victoria at nowpublic.com asking to use photos from my party as part of her story on the history of bingo.  Now my lovely vintage cards are part of a larger bingo story and Don is the new poster boy for bingo fun.

How cool is that? 

What do you get when you combine different groups of girls, their dogs, a campfire, smores, booze and great food?

The camping trip I just experienced this past weekend at Salt Point State Park.

The She-Devils

I had such a great time with everyone and I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.  Definitely a great experience with some truly wonderful gals.

Pictured is: (back row) Claudia, Janet Jackson, Mandie, Monique & Lori

(front row) Lisa Frittata, Susan, Erin, Tracy, Rhea, Justine & Diana

and our 4 legged friends Gypsy, Makita, Shadow and Bandit

There's nothing quite like a deadline to put me into overdrive.

About a month ago I decided it would be fun to have folks over for a BBQ.  Soon after I decided that,  I looked around my house and realized that there were a number of projects I'd been putting off that now seemed incredibly important.  Recovering the living room chairs and ottoman, getting new pillows and pillow covers for the couch, recovering the dining room chairs, making drapes for the bedroom, finishing the curtains in the kitchen...

So I set off for one my favorite stores, Discount Fabrics - the one on 4th St and the one on Mission near Thrifttown.  It's such a rush for me to see all of that fabric, those notions, the colorful thread just waiting to be made into something wonderful - begging for it actually!

Now, I don't have a lot of skill when it comes to crafts.  I have a lot of ambition and I'm really creative, but often my imagination far exceeds my skill level.  But that doesn't stop me from trying.

$300 worth of fabric, pillow stuffing, thread and other odds and ends later, I was back at the house filled with enthusiasm and excitement about the projects ahead of me.  That's when the PANIC set in.

I don't know what I'm doing!  I've never recovered furniture before.  The staple gun was still in it's original packaging for god's sake.  What was I thinking buying fabric at $28 a yard!?!

So I measured, figured stuff out, made patterns out of newspapers, sewed and ripped out and resewed those same stiches over and over again until I got it right.  Covered and re-covered the ottoman twice because I wasn't happy with the initial result.  Broke 3 sewing machine needles after unhappy confrontations with pins.  And filled more bobbins and threaded the needle more times than I care to think about...but we did it.  

My sewing machine and I got through it.  Oh there were times when I cussed it out for jamming, for running out of thread, for doing the wrong stitch, for making weird noises and not anticipating what I was trying to do. It remained ever resilent despite the late nights, the last minute changes, the tricky fabric and the unskilled user at it's helm.  But in the end, we ended up with a closer bond than ever.

As I put the machine away last night, carefully placing it back in its protective box, I lovingly wiped the dust and lint from it's still shiney white exterior and told it, "Rest easy, my good friend.  The pillows look great!"

How many email addresses do you have?  What are they for? 
Submitted by clippedwings.

Holy Smoley - I've got 5!

1 - work e-mail

2 - generic help-desk style work e-mail

3 - personal e-mail

4 - personal e-mail for job search related stuff

5 - personal e-mail account I use to collect junk email - when you have to register for a site to be able to shop or search through pages, I use this account as a junk collector.  I love getting e-mails from companies that start off by saying "Dear Evil, have we got a deal for YOU!".

Tell us a true story that proves it really is a small world after all. 
Submitted by havybeaks.

A few years ago my friend Justine and I had planned to go to New Orleans, but we were having trouble finding a place to stay because a large convention was in town.  Since she was flying there before me, I joked that it was her job to meet someone on the plane who had a place for us to stay so we didn't have to stay at the overcrowded youth hostel.

Justine is amazing, and on her layover in Las Vegas called to tell me she met someone staying in a flat on Bourbon street who had an extra bedroom because of a last minute cancellation.  The guy she met in the Vegas airport turned out to live only 3 blocks from me in San Francisco.  He was going to New Orleans to attend the very same conference that was causing us to have lodging troubles. 

On the same trip, we met a cool bartender chic who told us she had a drag queen brother who lived in SF.  Turned out that Justine's roommate knew the bartender's brother.

It was a trip filled with lots of characters, incredible serendipity and strange connections.  And a LOT of fun!