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/in my heart I know there's just no place like home/Welcome Home....
2002-04-10 11:18:55
Palm Trees.
Check.
People.
Check.
Racial Diversity.
Check.
Okay, I'm home. Thank God.
It went well, overall -- even though by Saturday night, I was looking forward to going home. Tennesee is a gentle mind grok...there really are no hidden agendas, people are *extremely* sweet and you can get anywhere with please, thank you and yes sir/m'am.
And they don't talk. They sing. Californians talk very quickly, with flat tonal values. The Tennesee twang is a slow stretch of all the long vowels and the pitch holds steady but rises and falls based on the content. It's easy to clean up, easy to mimic (which I did - when in Rome....) but by the time four days had passed, I was thinking in it. Talk about resistance being futile!
Other thoughts about Tennesee:
Grape, Raspberry Pop-Tarts. Damn near impossible to find here. Ditto Onion Salad Dressing.
Steakhouse had baked, mashed or sweet potatoes. I keep forgetting how really GOOD one baked sweet potato is with a little butter and nothing else.
Two trips to Cracker Barrell and one trip to Steak n Shake.
Dillards, Parisians, Goodys, Proffitts, Kohls, Mens Wearhouse are not just names. They really do have stores somewhere.
If you're going to make sweet tea, make sure you can still taste the tea. Otherwise, it's sugar water over ice. Blech.
No clean-air nozzles on the gas pumps.
No SUVs, even though the terrain and climate would seem more ideal for them than California.
Men like babies in Tennesee. Saw a lot of cute little families, but more often than not, Dad had control of the littlest ones - that's a switch. But then again, I've had excellent luck with men from Tennesee.
They call them mountains. They're hills. But they're covered with something other than the conifers I'm used to - tons of deciduous trees, but few pines - and the dogwood trees were just beginning to bloom. That also was a trip.
Really nice place to visit. You feel instantly at home. But...it's not my home. And I was really glad to get back to it. Why, I wonder?
Jim's grandmother is recovering well off the big surgery they did a couple of weeks ago - right now, I'd call this a honeymoon period. It won't be long before the cancer starts making it's presence known again...and things will go downhill quickly then. I'm confident that she'll run the show and make all the big decisions, and the ones she won't make alone, she'll have a hand in. She has eight kids and too many grandkids (and great-grandkids) for me to keep track of - so they're well-set for pairs of hands. I feel good about the situation being well handled. I didn't see anything to overtly concern me.
But we all know by summer, she'll be gone. And when it came time to say goodbye, she wouldn't let me. It's understood that Jim is going to go back and see her one more time - but she asked me to come back and see her before summer.
CRAP.
I don't think she asked anyone to do that but me. CRAAAAAP!!!
Okay, grandma. You got it. Here come the flying monkeys....
iserlohn - *does the happy dance* Okay - wohin in Österreich werden Sie sein und für, wie lang?
EK - *rolls eyes* When it comes to bitches, hasn't anyone told you yet that only 12% of the population has an original idea, and the rest of the population spends most of its time and energy trying to copy it? It's a classic marketing tenet - yeah, there might be more of them, but you're the only one with an independent thought in your head. If you were meant to be a cow in a field, you'd have been a herd animal just like them. I just think about all the money, time and effort people go through to look "perfect," and the perfect shit-eating grin appears on my face.
They can think what they want. When I sense that stuff coming, I tend to stare right back and give them double. I have *every* right to breathe the same air and take up space as they do. Mamma taught me to be well-groomed...well-heeled is something else. I believe the battle cry is "die yuppie scum!"
And good job with the schmuck!! You got style.
I guess that's just the cynical Californian I am. Plenty of pretty faces out here - that might get you in the door. Talent is more attractive than tits and teeth, baby - don't let anyone convince you otherwise.
amidazai - the care package is definitely taking shape. Jim sends his sympathies - he gets those migraines too. Just like yours - they call them cluster headaches, though they feel like a cluster f-
*ahem*
Got a ton of work to do. And lunch. Hmm. Pho sounds good. REAL good.
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Did I pack my toothbrush?
2002-04-03 21:53:37
Waiting for the Priceline to come through - found out how many folks are staying with Mom...and it's chock a block...need some space, fast!
Oh yeah...I'm going to Cracker Barrel land...ohboyohboyohboy!!
Now I *really* know what I'm gonna get for Ami's care package!
EK - can Brett twirl the drumsticks? Tell you what you can do - wear whatever. I used to wear a turquoise t-shirt with a jewel neckline and kelly green (BRIGHT kelly green) overalls clubbing - just sidle up to him, let him make nice nice and mutter something about "only a dog likes bones" as you exit the land of high-maintenance.
I couldn't compete with those kids in 6th grade - I think I got over it by the time I hit high school.
Gotta jet - hopefully, I will be posting from purgatory within the next couple of days. Taking the computer. And a net. -
90 Minutes? I was on the interstate...
2002-04-02 21:00:21
I am just not that cool.
Oh well.
EK - I took the KoHD DVD, popped it in and then cued up the "I Like Chinese" piece from Monty Python. ^^
I dunno - how about that Niilson Schmeilson piece "You're Breakin' My Heart" for the big fight scene?
...
But Mommy, I just finished playing on the freeway!
Jim *loved* Odori Gone Wrong - thank you SO much.
amidazai - remember I said we had details? That drunk driver...was actually a drunk .. er .. prostitute that some guy picked up. She had him drive to a liquor store, restock...and while he was paying for it, she took his car...and killed my classmate. Couldn't really put that in the school paper, y'know.
Honey, it just doesn't matter now. People make mistakes - sometimes, they're at survival level and that's all the difference there is.
Note to self - no crack and no cell phones while driving.
AD - those .mp3s are just rocking my world - and I'm passing them on. Maybe if I pull something off the taiko album I have -- I might find something to give you.
I have got to get this site up and going...I just have to.
Oh, and you want a real bitch? They gave me 10 emails to go with the webspace - but if I want to have email with the domain name, like goddess@half-baked-prods.com? I have to alias it to something lame like dhutt1617@earthlink.net. And pull each one down with its own little password. I've admin'd enough firewalls, web/mail servers and gawd-help-me, Exchange Servers. This sucks.
I want my own server. Okay, I'm spoiled. Okay, it's good to want. Builds character. -
I wish I had an Oscar Meier wiener....
2002-04-02 17:09:26
Cos' I didn't get lunch again todaaaay!
*ahem*
EK & dokidoki:
Repeat after me.
Wrong is good.
Wrong is good.
Wrong...when you do it...is definitely very very good.
Make sure you do more of it. <nyah>
Catch you on AIM? It's loaded during the workday all week - if you're talking about that chat room, there's only a guy in there called HappyKiller and he doesn't like me very much.
For all of you who want to find me...handle is konanut. Like the website Yahoo stuck me with when they took Geocities.
amizadai - if I look up the cost of flying to Australia one more time....
I'm the moderator for a young widows support group over at Yahoo...quit laughing...they made me do it. The sudden deaths are the WORST to get your mind around. People three years past their loved one's death still have trouble figuring out what the heck happened. This is a totally senseless death with no rhyme or reason - and I deeply, heart wrenchingly sorry for all the people who ever knew her. There was a death like this one when I was in school - a classmate had a head-on in an old VW bug with a drunk driver. Being that she was in Comm Arts (I was Broadcast, she was Public Relations), she also was well known to the Journalism students as well - and some of her closest friends had to talk to the cops and write up copy from the details leading up to her death. They knew everything - and poor Carol didn't die suddenly either. She died after reaching the hospital, coding three times.
You're already sick - please look after yourself. Put bandaids on your fingers - and then find a nice set of gothy lace gloves - the lightest weight you can find. And wear them. You are going to make a wreck of your hands without even thinking about it. You should see the hair on the floor over here from the past two weeks.
And that 911 tape will make the beginnings of a nice care package.
Bowler - I gotta sit down and have a drink with you. Looking over your notes from the last week, I remember so well how it went down with the two writers I worked for. Sheesh. That mentality is everywhere - and it's really bad when I roll into it my job hunting spiel.
"Play to your strengths...yeah, well, you just got out of school? You're young, talented, inexperienced and CHEAP! Sell them on that!"
Capitalism is all about winners and losers, my friend. Winners and losers.
It's all about doing what you love...and love what you're doing, getting paid enough to keep your bills covered. Can I have a copy of your demo reel?
phade - I am NEVER going to see Tainted Donuts. I just know it.
And for the 4/1 RIAA joke? Check this out:
http://www.riaa.org/Copyright-What.cfm
And they ain't kidding.
Keep your heads down, children.
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So lame, I need a shopping cart to move myself around....
2002-03-30 13:08:17
Updated the DNS at the NIC for half-baked-prods.com Been paying for the webspace for almost a month and have done absolutely nothing with it.
Never ever done anything like this before - learning everything the hard way - no manuals, no tech support...just me and my monkey. Gorilla. Yup.
So EK caved and started a livejournal. *sigh* Well...after hearing some rather nasty stories related to what Someone Read in Someone Else's Journals...been resisting for the longest time. Caving, here I come!
I'm sure my Goth friends will enjoy having a place to poke more fun at me.
Got Photoshop 4.0 on a 486 upstairs with a 256 color vid card. Did I mention no manuals, tech support or clues how to use it? Dare I try to master it again? It bitchslapped me so hard the last time I tried....
All I know is that I want a forum area and a journal section on my site like this one has. It'll probably remain totally empty, but there you go.
And my fan fic is up for voting, beginning Monday. And what do you know, another guy posted *all* of his wonderful miniseries the same month.
No chance, no way...uh uh. It's wonderful, I tell you. Nobody is going to give our stuff a second look after that.
Go check it out, if you can stand Ranma fan fics -- http://awards.thetop.net - go check out what's available under the monthly voting links.
Jim and I did Ranma:Motherhood under Miniseries. And I think newRanma is just fabbitty fab fab -- 144,000 words by his own admission, but GOOD.
Odori Gone Wrong? I've been having dokidoki withdrawl for a month and she's going to keep it to herself...*sob*
I'm just so uncool.
...and for my next trick, learning XML and going to TN to watch Jim's grandmother's swan song. I don't want to to this...I just don't want to do this....
JOURNAL: kyburg (Donna Hutt Stapfer Bell)
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