Happy Holidays from Technical Services!

these guys have given me something to miss about the place. thanks, guys!

patricia says farewell

david says goodbye

 on my last day.

christmas kerrel

feet of our only patron, Homeless Guy, with nowhere better to go this Florida Christmastide

a borrorwed dayplan

wake up
cappuccino
check email, etc
Work
brunch
do errands
walk
read
dinner with knitting
bed, sleep

this after christmas for a week or and then on Jan 3, begin finding my new way.

the year e

since 2006 is hereby the year of me, i here make a list of 10 things to be accomplished, in no particular order:

1. learn to spin
2. restore house and garden
3. knit all planned projects
4. downsize, downsize, downsize--sell possessions, streamline, stop acquiring
5. find work teaching art
6. continue making art
7. show art for possible sale
8. aesthetics thesis
9. regain health
10.stay afloat

New Orleans is not okay.

Hundreds of thousands of its people remain displaced, their homes uninhabitable; vast swaths of the city remain empty and lifeless, with no utilities or public services; businesses remain shuttered, their owners unsure when customers will return.

The city has put on a brave front, preparing for Mardi Gras and conventions to jump-start its tourism-driven economy. But when will its people come home?
Since Katrina hit on August 29, 2005, the city has struggled for answers about how to restore, rebuild and repopulate its devastated residential neighborhoods and commercial zones. The reality is that New Orleans residents will not truly begin the long recovery process until they feel adequately protected from the next deadly hurricane.


One Voice for New Orleans is a grassroots campaign to educate Americans and rally them around legislative efforts to protect and restore New Orleans.

New Orleans is one of the most historic, vibrant and culturally rich cities in America, but today the city needs your help to thrive once again.

If you care about the city or its residents, tell congress that you want to protect the city from future storms.

It is time for Washington to address the deadliest civil engineering failure in this country's history-one that has cost more than 1,000 lives, has destroyed 250,000 homes and has fractured thousands of families now spread across 48 states.

The levee breaches that allowed Katrina to wash over New Orleans were caused by an act of negligence - not an act of nature - the failure to properly construct and maintain the region's flood protection system.

Right now the federal government is considering funding for a fortified levee system built to withstand strong storms and protect the city from future flooding.

Without your help, New Orleans may die. We need your help NOW.

* Forward this email to your colleagues, friends and family - especially those outside of Louisiana so that they can learn about the plight of New Orleans.
* Email your state's Congressional leaders to tell them that New Orleans matters to you.

We aren't looking for handouts, just a helping hand. Together we can save a great American city.

Thank you,
One Voice for New Orleans
OVNO.org
If your are unable to click on the links in this message, please go to OVNO.org and click on the "Take Action" link to automatically email your reprsentative.

Gmail - WWOZ Update from New Orleans

Gmail - WWOZ Update from New OrleansHoliday Greetings from New Orleans! That's right. After our over 100-day exile, OZ has returned home to the Crescent City, to our new temporary office and studio space at the French Market. It is good to be back. There is still no electricity in the studios in Armstrong Park, so we plan to be at the French Market for the foreseeable future.

Blothday

in noticing it's been just about a month since i posted, i realized as well that it will be a year since i started blogging on the 28th. We'll have a Blothday! (Until then, things are gonna be tight s i finish out THE LAST TEN DAYS ON THIS JOB!!!!)

across the road

 
 

my inheritance

 
 

open for bidness

NOLAdays: "i simply cannot stand it, not one minute more, i'm going back to new orleans. flying in for two days only this time, found a package, cannot wait for St. Charles to open in a month i'll drive back then, but for now i cannot wait. This weekend I am going home!!"

I Found This!

NOLA cafe in Tampa Florida!

It's really true!

beignets! sunday morning in Tampa!

Play here

me writing with beignets in Tampa! (powder sugar smudgies on the screen...)

Word Shadows

Word Shadows: "Just like that. Just stepped back and closed the door on the Father of God and his bag of solar systems. "

Operation Eden: The Surreal Life: East of Eden

Clayton James Cubitt: "And there it is, for now. The internet saved my family. My camera saved my family. I'm a high school dropout, but my writing saved my family. If this had happened ten years ago, my photos, my writing, wouldn't have saved anybody, because nobody would have seen it. It wasn't on CNN. It wasn't on the broadcast networks. It wasn't even on PBS. It was on a plain, small, free website, and that's the only reason Elizabeth saw it, and brought her family into the effort."

moonkill

or this one?

for 'mouse

Library joke

Seven things

Picked up from Kimberly--

Seven things I plan to do before I die:
1. live in New Orleans
2. make art work
3. pay off my debts
4. retire in time to have 30 more years for me
5. design and knit my entire wardrobe
6. find my community again IRL
7. play my piano

Seven things I can do:
1. make art
2. knit
3. write/talk your brains out
4. Think analytically… sometimes too analytically (Thanks, Kimberly.)
5. link up seemingly everything into one mondo malleable megaconcept
6. work without ceasing until I fall over
7. help

Seven things I cannot do:
1. Shut up
2. Solve much of anything
3. Breathe around cats or dogs
4. listen to talk radio
5. find enough time
6. stop once I've started
7. figure out why

Seven things that attract me to the opposite sex:
1. Intelligence
2. Sense of humor (synonymous with 1.)
3. kindness/gentleness
4. Way with words
5. Competence
6. emotional strength
7. talent

Seven things that I say most often:
1. crap
2. I don't know
3. may i help you?
4. sigh
5. you there?
6. I give up
7. ...

Seven celebrity crushes:
1. Dopey
2. Sneezy
3. Happy
4. Grumpy
5. Bashful
6. Sleepy
7. Johnny Depp

Would anyone else like to do this? If you do, or have, let me know. I’d love to read yours.

Say Goodbye to Romance

"Burger King is offering a $6000 signing bonus and $8 an hour to full time workers right now. You have to sign a contract promising to work in a hurricane affected store for 1 year. They are offering part time workers a $3000 signing bonus! There aren't enough fast food workers to open most restaurants right now, so they're in high demand."

not quite paradise

this is the view from the lunchroom at my library assignment...

oh, and...

oh and this is...the, erm, college of business building...

(click to enlarge)

Meanwhile...

"An enormous pink bunny has been erected on an Italian mountainside where it will stay for the next 20 years."

update

untitled: "my first meme" snow got slapped by somebody else, so I'm now choosing.....no, Jo did her....um...Ginny!

my first meme

Rules:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five some other people to do the same.

“I got the call waiting feature AND, it seems, the DSL."

Ah, the quotidian. once again, the indefinability, the complete unsearchability of the picture blog. perhaps my tagged friends can do better.

So now I’ll tag: Ted, snow, 'mouse', bake, and jackie o. wait, not 'mouse, he only has 3 posts. how bout...merc! and just for good measure: Scrine! (squwaaak?)

Meanwhile...

a summer cold is a different animal.

Meanwhile...

Halliburton Gets Contract To Pry Gold Fillings From New Orleans Corpses' Teeth

all together, now...

meanwhile...

Bush allows Katrina contractors to pay below prevailing wage - Sep. 9, 2005: "The administration is using the devastation of Hurricane Katrina to cut the wages of people desperately trying to rebuild their lives and their communities,"

via ted

The Fragile Society

Walgreens sends me an email that my regular asthma prescription will be ready to pick up this week. Yesterday I saw on WWL-TV a story about a young man named Paul who got off his shift at a New Orleans Walgreens a week ago and didn't get to go home, but was instead evacuated from New Orleans in his Walgreens uniform, to Baton Rouge. He, of course, lost everything but his Walgreens uniform. He walked into a Baton Rouge Walgreens, I believe the company had told their employees to do that, and he told the manager there that he was a Walgreens employee from NO--when I saw him on TV yesterday he seemed rather in shock still, so he probably wasn't his most presentable when meeting that manager--and the manager took him in the back. The manager tried to give him money but he didn't want it, he wanted to go to work. The manager made him take the money anyway, perhaps Walgreens had directed their stores to do so, I don't know. And then the manager said when do you want to start and the man, whose name was Paul, said right now. And Paul began to work for Walgreens in Baton Rouge right then.

Later on, Paul was sitting out in the parking lot, presumably in the dazed state he remained in even yesterday, and a customer saw him and asked him if he needed a place to live and so now Paul lives with her and the 17 others who are now living at her house in Baton Rouge and they look fine.

I remember the Walgreens on St. Charles and Felicity, near where I stay in NO. I have heard that the place where I stay is in process of recovering, they have a web page message out, but of course who knows what will happen to any of us in the long run. Maybe the Walgreens on the corner in New Orleans, which fixed my prescription so quickly for me when I was there, is the one where Paul worked, I don't know. But today I got an email from the Walgreens on the corner here in Tampa. My regular asthma prescription is almost ready.

the thing is...

I'm going to have to take some time off from my time off. I'm going to have to clean up this house, for instance. Haven't unloaded the dishwasher for over a week and the dishes ready to be washed have piled up. When I mentioned this to a friend, she said enviously "you have a dishwasher!" Be that as it may, I still have to start at one end of the house and pick through the rubble, there is no reason for ME to have rubble, and sweep through all the way to the back of the house. maybe that will straighten my mind, too. I learned yesterday that the Red Cross won't take me anyway because I have asthma--oh, Merc, I have a link for you, I think I forgot to send it?--and that makes some sense as it's probably the mold. Email tells me this morning that Bakerina has helped get word of the wikipedia project out to the greater New York area. I'm not meaning to make myself so self-important that I neglect the necessities. So I'll see you later today, when I recognize myself again. Right after I find this link I had for Merc...

The Irish Trojan's blog - Brendan Loy's homepage: "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!
"

It Matters!

I have been keying data on the Missing in Wikipedia as detailed below and it is so discouraging. Many posts don't have email addresses or contact info at all, the material is days old, it seems pointless. IT'S NOT POINTLESS! I was putting in a post from a missing forum on NOLA.com that recorded that someone was safe in a hospital, and I checked back to the post it referred to to get the stats on the person. On a whim I decided to call just to make sure they had gotten the info; I wasn't going to, it was two days old, they were probably exhausted, I was a stranger, but I decided to do it anyway...

They hadn't gotten it. They didn't know they had gotten a response two days before. I was able to tell them their loved one was okay, and give them the phone number to the hospital. The person who had responded had provided a paragraph of good information that I read to the guy. He didn't sound excited at all; he must have been in shock. I, on the other hand, am shaking.

I contacted Belo Corp, on the line they put up for their employees to call in, and asked them to get the message out to be announced on the air on WWL-TV (I think I was talking to the benefits guy so who knows? He called me back, though, so maybe...) People, check back on the fora frequently once you've posted your plea!! Ted says they're like messages in bottles tossed into the sea. But sometimes they work!

Unbelieveable. Unbelieveable that it's me doing this, too, from my bedroom which I haven't yet left today. It's not Armageddon, Grace; it's just the breakdown of civilization as we thought we knew it.

Keep stuffing those bottles. Keep typing.

PeopleFinderVolunteer - Katrina Help Wiki

PeopleFinderVolunteer - Katrina Help Wiki: "All you need to help is an internet connection and the ability to copy data onto a form. No other fancy tech skills are required."

Mary Landrieu: I'll Punch Bush, 'Literally'

Just in case you were thinking about it, too, this guy's timely public service consists of reminding us that "it is illegal to threaten the president with physical violence."

"Broussard: 'We have been abandoned by our own country.'

Here is the video of Aaron Broussard on Meet the Press today. Watch it all the way through to the end. Watch it while the Charmaine Neville Mardi Gras music is playing. Hell, watch it with the Neville video playing in the other window AND the music playing. Watch it all and weep. Nobody's coming to get us.

Item One: When the saints go marching in

Ted has posted a link to the Charmaine Neville video, in which she unburdens herself of her escape from New Orleans. For Charmaine in a prettier mood, go here. If these things can happen even to American music royalty, isn't it time for all artists at the very least to rethink?

Metroblogging New Orleans

Metroblogging New Orleans: "T'row me sumthin' mistah! Like a chance to go back.

Today is a MUCH brighter day than yesterday. And thank all of you for your kind words."

the stupid broad

on whatever morning "news" show that's looping back into the WDSU feed via Orlando just said in voiceover for some NOLA footage: "the calvary is coming!"

Too late, honey. It's obvious that Calvary is already here.

Metroblogging New Orleans

"French Quarter Update

Earlier this afternoon I called CDs Saloon, prompted by a post on NOLA.com's Vieux Carre forum that indicated that people were there. It was confirmed that all the news sources that said yesterday that the quarter had 6 to 8 feet of flooding were purely false.

Yesterday I saw a CNN video report online that indicated that the reporter was standing in the quarter - on common street - while the water was rising. Usually it's the tourists that ask where the quarter is while they're standing in it. So much for responsible journalism. It's like telling me that my house just collapsed...and then saying "Oh, sorry. Wrong neighborhood." Jerk.

The only street that is flooded is Conti because of some kind of water valve breakage coming for the Wax Museum.
I didn't hear abot the degree of flooding."

Plus ca change

Amazon.com: Books: RISING TIDE: THE GREAT MISSISSIPPI FLOOD OF 1927 AND HOW IT CHANGED AMERICA: "In the spring of 1927, America witnessed perhaps its greatest natural disaster: a flood that profoundly changed race relations, government, and society in the Mississippi River valley region. Barry (The Transformed Cell, LJ 9/1/92) presents here a fascinating social history of the effects of the massive flood. More than 30 feet of water stood over land inhabited by nearly one million people. Almost 300,000 African Americans were forced to live in refugee camps for months. Many people, both black and white, left the land and never returned. Using an impressive array of primary and secondary sources, Barry clearly traces and analyzes how the changes produced by the flood in the lower South came into conflict and ultimately destroyed the old planter aristocracy, accelerated black migration to the North, and foreshadowed federal government intervention in the region's social and economic life during the New Deal." (thanks, C. JoDi)

Apology

badgerbag: messy, surly, full of books I'm sorry, I hadn't looked at everybody and here badger has been blogging righteously all along. I'm just out of my mind. GraceD, too. And probably others. And the ones that aren't don't know, I know, I'm just out of my mind.....

i need to stop reading

i need to stop reading other people's blogs right now. it's so clear that they have no clue what's going on here by the inapropriate cleverness of their writings, haha. It is just offensive. So I'm checking out except for posting updates for awhile. Thanks. all.

martial law declared in New Orleans

from WWL. (correction: that was from WDSU) The situation is getting worse in New Orleans, water is rising because they think a levee has been breached.

NOLA tv is back on streaming

Streaming New Orleans stations:
WDSU
WWLTV

inadvertant inappropriateness

the commercials already programmed to run on the streaming video stations all turn out to be fatally inapropriate at the moment. how long before somebody thinks to unprogram them?

Streaming Video

the best we've found is from Mobile. Go to TBO.com and click on the Live Stream: WKRG-Mobile link.

Do you know what it means to lose New Orleans?

"This is really scary," he said. "This is not a test, as your governor said earlier today. This is the real thing."

The map projecting storm surge is here.


WWOZ signed off the air at midnight. The bloggers seem to have taken heed and moved out.

"The bottom line is this is a worst-case scenario and everybody needs to recognize it," he said. "You can always rebuild your house, but you can never regain a life. And there's no point risking your life and the lives of your children."

playing with picasa, turning the contents of an entire folder of pics into a "collage"--looks like the wall above my drawing board back in the depicted day, somewhere around 1980.

storm comin'

asthma day. i left about an hour early last night coughing my head off, got home by 5 to see on the news that Tropical Depression 12 is on its way. As of now it's maybe going to come from the east, cross over about Ft. Myers. But I am drowning nonetheless. Heretofore, I would have suffered through it, but since I've been encouraged to use my leave i feel no compunction whenever I feel ill to stay home as long as I feel that way. So we'll see if it passes with the morning, as it usually does, or stays the same and I'll have to be out the whole day. Gurgle.

i an contemplating refinancing the 2nd home equity (responsibly, not with one of those shyster ones, through my same credit union) because my property assessment went up (here in Tampa, not the port charlotte lot already reported) and I should probably keep the draw at par with it. That might ease some fears, I don't know. We shall see. I will have to clean this place up quite a bit to do it as it will have to be appraised again, although that will be free as a credit union perq. Perhaps I can do that Labor day weekend. We'll see. Sigh.

Into The Ubergrowth

WEEKEND!!!!!

10 sentence day

1. Woke up; hadda go in.
2. Spent 2 hours training my replacement.
3. Discovered that I have Deb's phone number wrong and can't get her, although I'm supposed to pick her up to go to Knitting Night tonight. Called the LYS to see if they could contact her and fix this.
4. Had lunch with Bea, finally assuaging my shrimp craving.
5. Got Deb.
6. Went to office meeting, where I was stripped of my remaining duties except for the most laborious one and the filing, in a futile attempt to humiliate me or at least make me less delighted with life than I am at present, dammit.
7. Drove back to Tampa at 5, stopping by the house to discover that my Cafepress sample order had arrived, with which I was most pleased.
8. Picked up Deb and drove to LYS.
9. Drove Deb home from LYS when it closed; spent time once I got home trying to pick up a stitch I had dropped.
10. Powered up Semele to read the mail and rearrange the Cafepress offerings.

I lead an exciting life.

IE idiocy

I have found that my knitting blog, Defarge, is not easily read on IE. I have further found that this depends on the size of the reader's screen, it's fine on some and not so on others--the sidebars squnch around. And it might not only be my kniting blog, it might be this one, who knows? I don't know how to compensate for this discrepancy and would welcome any ideas if there are any ideas. Firefox, safari, all work fine but, as usual, IE is problematic. Sigh.

stil blessedly pain-free

only thng is, it's 4:30 am and I have neither slept nor eaten today. er, yesterday, I guess. ah well, one can't have everything and at least the pain is gone. that's some Super Decon!

it worked!

i don't know why I never believe things will take as long as doctors say. somehow it seems to me that when you go to the doctor it should be over, am i right? but no, 48+ hours. give or take. so, at three 3am i awoke with a pounding head, pounding directly the top of my skull, insistent enough to awaken its inhabitant, and stumbled into the bathroom (a cliche, but the only way to approach the room at 3am) to gobble both a heavy duty d-con and a pain reliever, simultaneously, hoping it would kill me now. it must have been the accompanying tall glass of water, but I awoke just before 8, flat in my bed--180 degrees flat, a position unimagined for months!-- amidst a tangle of damp sheets, pain-free! pain-free! with apologies to prof. derrida, wherever he is, I've been decongested!

and so today it will be socks! on two needles, I'm going to my LYS and spending the day making socks. i'd been saying I was going to wait until fall cometh but Snow has inspired me. the time is now. Socks! Pink socks! and exclamation points! pink exclamation points !!!

well, that didn't work

i got up and my head exploded. i ate my oatmeal and drank my cappa and got dressed and then gave up. called in and left a message that I just couldn't do it. I could no more face work with this migraine, not to mention driving there i'd probably go off the bridge, than I could flap my arms and fly to the moon. I really had hoped to attend this morning's office meeting, if only to show them that I still exist and am willing to help out with whatever is needed for as long as I am there, but perhaps I don't exist after all, who knows. not me.

so i'm back horizontal again with my knitting and semele with the screen very dimmed. I give up. it has been improving some in the later afternoon and then I can become mobile, but i'm not safe to drive much. use up all my sick leave, i don't care. i can do no more. until next week, anyway.

the radio says:

tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of hurricane charlie. that makes sense, seeing that I've been stuck at home for much of this week with a crippling sinus migraine. going in to work this morning, i should be able to make it for just one day until the weekend, non? went to the dr. on wednesday, who gave me a new prescription sample heavy-duty decongestant and sent me home to sit in a hot tub--apparently i actually made it in there before a sinus infection took hold this time, which is much better than last year. sigh.

the hurricane around this year at present doesn't seem to be headed for here, but rather the mid-atlantic states. but it's irene, not charlie, so you can see how much more active this year has been than last already...

ted requires pictures...

of my cherry hair

today i am a camera

self-reflexive

cheers

Anouncing girly girl!

i've opened girly girl on CafePress! this is a place to purchase generic items printed with my images, which i plan to rotate frequently. I'm taking requests.

girly girl ain't no girl anymore.

heartbroken

I was so looking forward to it and now the weekend is just CRAP. I drove over to lunch and the traffic towards the beach was awful and I almost killed people to get there and then couldn't find parking and parked several blocks up the street into the neightborhood and then had to ask where the restaurant was and I finally got there just a little more than 15 minutes late. The guy said she had just left. I even called out her name in the parking lot, but who could she be, we've never met. Then I drove back home in the same traffic, took another hour and a half, and then the storms hit and I had to restore my wireless connection to get into my email and get her phone number and finally, her phone was off. It's still off. I can't even leave a message.

I am devastated. I had so looked forward to making a friend. I had made up such a nice festive package for gris gris. Now everything is all dark and black and thundery. WAAAAAhhhhhhh.

I knew it, there is just no way to make friends in this fucking town, I HATE IT!

goin' for lunch with a netfriend!

hard to believe that I've been online for less than a year and yet here I've made all these friends--friends I never have made in the decade+ I've lived in tampa. Friends I've missed having so much. Today I meet one of them for the first time,we're going to lunch! Yay! We can be Jo and Badger at BadMoms coffee, only we're not badmoms and we're having lunch. We can be ourselves! Life is good.

the yoruba lady

when I was in New Orleans a month ago, I encountered an young yoruba lady dressed all in red and set up at a card table under an awning in Jackson Square just as I was coming out of my restful pause in St Louis cathedral. She offered to read the cards and the bones for me. I only had enough money on me for the cards and so, after making sure she was benign, I said sure. All she read was quite good, and she didn't foresee the car accident a week away (but then it was really an accident avoided, so maybe that's why:) but she did say I would soon be receiving a blob of unexpected money. This was the least likely of the things she said since everybody to inherit from is already gone. It was a nice encounter, though.

Yesterday, a month after my spinout, I discovered that the lot in Port Charlotte, where the hurricane came in last year on the very weekend I had planned to go down to see it, which was worth just under $2,000 when I inherited it 12 years ago...my lot now lists for $65,000.

laginappe!

my little slices of N'awlins are arriving all over the country, only one to go now. Some folks are putting pictures of them on their blogs--what fun to see how they landed! Bakerina referred to her pralines in a scrine. Everybody got different stuff. I like this idea; think I'll do it some more! :)

Meanwhile, there's still the unclaimed tshirt. I suppose I will have to take a picture of it and dispay it in a plain brown wrpper here. Poor tshirt, nobody dares:>

i forgot to mention

that Ray seems to have apeared to Kaleb at 10:04 on Monday morning, the exact time at which he died. or something did: Kaleb asked gramma what that was by the window and she caught sight of the clock. Susan said it was the curtain, but Kaleb said no, there NEXT to the curtain. i'm just saying. Kaleb would have no idea what he was saying, being 2. Susan mentioned it to Chad, even, at the time, hours before they found out about Ray and what time he died.

well, I felt Nina visit me at the time of her death, although it was in thought, not in manifestation. perhaps Kaleb is too young to know the difference? who knows. who knows. they say there are many documentations of these moment of death things.

i will miss those bear hugs. how odd that I seem to be able almost to cry at this one when I wasn't for any of the others. perhaps Ray was far enough distant...

I'm giving up

tomorrow is Ray's funeral. he was in the Fire Department, I keep forgetting, for years before I really knew him, so it will be a large affair, I'm told, with trucks and pipes and everything. and so we have yet another family funeral. i was guilty of trying to maintain my regular life again, but i realized this morning that i am going to visit the family today, not go in to work where they don't want me anyway, why persevere there after all? yesterday i discovered that several family members didn't know yet and so left work early to make some calls, this morning i was staring at the ceiling thinking i have payroll transfers to do/ i wonder if susan has figured out how to handle K when my mind caught up with me. i'm hoarding money on the one hand and profligate with it on the other. i'm maintaining an allegiance that nobody cares about or even notices. i'm taking today off and dealing with emotions, both my own and the family's, which they (we?) don't seem to deal with much these days. this is the ninth (I think, I've lost count) death in the 15 years I've been here. to be expected when everyone was born before well WWII--more than half of them before WWI--but wearing nonetheless. off to aunt e's.

Ray

GORDIE, Gerald R., 75, of Tampa passed away July 25, 2005. He was preceded in death by his parents, Fred and Ollie Gordie, brothers, Howard and Dick Gordie, and his wife of 25 years, Peggy Gordie. Survivors include his son, Gerald R. Gordie Jr., and wife, Sharon; daughters, Diana Fisher and husband, Gary, Debbie Hartzner and husband, Charlie, Susan Larson and husband, Keith, Holly Warriner and Sarah Housh; mother-in-law, Eleanor Diaz; sister, Ginger Carlisle; grandchildren, Christopher, Justin, Shanne, Casey, Rachael, Jordan, Michael, Holly Ann, Chad and Kimberly; and nephews, Steve, Neil and Rick Gordie. Mr. Gordie was a Florida native. He was born in Dade County, lived and was raised in Sneads, and moved to Tampa in 1954. He retired from the Tampa Fire Department after serving 21 years. He was also with the Hillsborough County Fire Department for 10 years. Mr. Gordie also served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. He received three Bronze Stars, ROK Presidential of Unit Citation a nd the Korean Service Medal, and was the recipient of an Air Medal, 6147 Tac Control Squadron. Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Friday, July 29, 2005, at Garden of Memories Funeral Home with interment following in Myrtle Hill Memorial Park. Family and friends will gather Friday one hour prior to services. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Attention: Joe Voscherian, Gold Shield Foundation, P.O. Box 271791, Tampa, FL 33688-1791, in his memory. Published in the TBO.com on 7/27/2005.

poltergeists

well, it's been an unusual time. first i got pink-slipped, and then there was the car, which I have noted ad nauseam below. the other night the faucet in the tub gave way and now comes on in the middle of the night all by itself repeatedly. the wireless keyboard on the desktop is not responding, and now I've discovered that the phone does not work, I think it's been blown out by the lightning. saturday morning the car window started going up and down all by itself and I was trying to figure how I would keep the daily rainstorms out later on that day when it stopped and I was able to capture it in the up position and activate the lock.

my stars and garters. i'll just keep knitting. and taking days off from work to fix things. i had a wonderful, life-saving time in new orleans and 'though the car ended up costing me about $750, nearly $500 of that, being brakes and tires, was maintenance anyway, if admittedly untimely. I'd planned to take the opportunity to put in the tub faucet I really wanted instead of just fixing this one, but obviously this is not that oportunity. I bought some new batteries but I still have the original keyboard if I can't get this one working and the phone only cost ten bucks, so I can just get a new one of those if need be. The car window is still up and I really hate the job so all in all all's still right with the world here. if I can get it all done, I may even be able to finish the top I'm knitting today and get some time in at my LYS later this afternoon...

I had a dream this morning

not a usual occurrence. What I remember is that I was waiting to meet Steph, who had somehow arranged to meet me at 7 at a shopping mall of sorts, but she wasn't there. I waited around and went upstairs and when I came back down the stairs she was standing outside the elevator saying where was I? I told her I had been there since 7 as she said and then we were in a restaurant of sorts, sitting opposite each other and drinking white wine, or at least I was. And he was standing beside me--the mature man, not the one I knew. I wasn't sure who he was, or else I wasn't sure if Steph knew him, so I didn't introduce him and after a few moments he reached down and poured some of his red wine into my glass, making it pink. I had been trying to remember the name of a show I'd seen (although I remember I called it a "conference") in the course of recounting my history to Steph, and he said something about stretching fabric and I said "that was it!" and he poured the contents of his wine glass into mine and made as if to leave. I said "are you trying to pour (your?) art knowledge (back?) into my head?" thereby acknowledging him (did I introduce him to Steph?) He crossed around behind her and sat down next to me, as one might do when taking off but pausing awhile, and we continued our conversation with him occasionally interjecting softly. He had grey hair and wore no glasses. Earlier (?) in the dream I had made up a book of pictures and aphorisms and non-sequitur articles and included something of his in it. He emailed me to comment on whatever question I had included in the piece. I think this was before his appearance at the restaurant--which I don't know was an appearance, he might have been with us all along since there was no continuity before it, but might have just shown up there, too.

I don't remember having dreamed of him before ever, since I don't remember my dreams much at all. I know I've never dreamed of him as we would be now, if here were alive.

marketing

in the studio?

sunday morning

portrait of the artist

feetblossom

then

Astounding WTF?

I just received an email from my supervisor that amazes even me. She is glad I survived but reminds me that vacation time is supposed to be pre-approved, although she realizes that I hadn't planned this accident. WTF???? I wrote back reminding her that I had pre-approved the vacation time of at least a week and possibly longer, depending, and she'd said then to do whatever was best for me, but perhaps she'd forgotten. Tried to be as gentle as possible (give me strength!) but really--they just non-renew my contract AND "encourage" me to use my vacation before I go and then, when I ACTUALLY HAVE A CAR WRECK, she "gently" reproves me for not pre-approving it????

Sounds like she's not quite sure what she means, it must not have been a very good week there last week. Ah well, they'll have to get used to it sometime, after all, as I won't be there in six months. Since they really weren't sure what I did, I suppose it is confusing. But pre-approving this situation? After they've essentially insisted I get lost?? Gimme a break! I should've just taken the whole two weeks in the first place, when they were all anxious for me to, rather than leaving it open to extend if necessary--and now this, THIS is necessary! Unbelievable. But not really, I suppose; this actually is just another example of why I'm so glad I'm out of there.

To think that, when I assured her I did not intend to take all 6 weeks (actually, some 8.5, by December) she was all "you do whatever is best for you, I really mean that." Yeah, right. Guess the shit that hit the fan was somehow "unforeseen." (Pay no attention to the shit that hit my car...)

And so we wait

motel boredom

busywork

Posting here again

More damage than I had hoped. I had to get new rear brakes and drums and three new tires. I would have had to get that anyway, though, as I was about due and this incident just seems to have pushed them over the edge (and me.) I also have to investigate how to get a new right rear wheel assembly hub here, whatever that is but I think it's what holds the wheel on. The guy says I should be able to get back to Tampa with the three new tires and the new brakes, but we shall have to see once that's done, and I need to get it checked out and ordered when I get there so it might make more sense to do it here. Meanwhile, the picture below is AFTER the power wash....

10 lbs of swamp mud in the wheel wells

While waiting..

I stroll the streets of Marianna of a morning:

marianna morning

suitman

himself

PO

And now for something competely different...

Denouement: I creep into Marianna, Florida this morning to find out just how much damage really is done to my car. I am hoping for a simple pre-paid alignment fix, but the fact that both hubcaps blew off the right side of the car does not seem to me to be a good sign. It may be a while before I post here again...

What I saw on my walk today

lily

relflection

interior

shop chipley