dianaschnuth

You know you’re a LiveJournal enthusiast (for lack of a better word) when life events prompt your husband to comment, “Well, at least this will make a good story for your LiveJournal later!”

What prompted this comment, you might ask? How about driving all over freaking Toledo looking for something so simple as photo album pages? All I wanted was a couple packs of damn album pages. Non-magnetic, clear pages that would fit three 4×6 prints on a side. Aaron and I struck out at Meijer, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Taylor Photo, Office Max and Target. I mean, jeebus! How asinine! None of these places carry the right damn photo pages?! *rolls eyes*

I finally ordered them from B&H online, along with some photo storage boxes I’d been wanting… but I’m sure I paid more with shipping and all.

The need for photo pages arose after the realization that I hadn’t put any photos in my photo album since Halloween. That’s nine whole months. Hello, slacker! So, I went through my overstuffed photo box (here again, note the need for those storage boxes I ordered) and located everything that had happened since October 2003. That would include Christmas, moving into the new house, getting Mei, visiting Fort Meigs, Fourth of July fireworks, and the Ann Arbor Art Fair. I have a stack of photos about half an inch thick that finally have names and dates written on them, but no homes. Bah. (And that doesn’t include the ones that don’t make it into the album—I’m more discerning about that sort of thing than I once was.)

And in other news, today is the final day of my vacation. Aaron still has all this week off of work, but I go back tomorrow morning. I guess I don’t really dread going back to work, but I’m certainly not excited about it. As Aaron says, I finally got to feeling like a normal human being again. It kind of gives me a teeny tiny taste of what it might be like to be retired.

Pretty pathetic, I know, dreaming of retirement before we’ve even had kids, but still… I guess if you don’t want to work for The Man, though, your only options are a.) start a successful business, b.) own a farm, or c.) win the lottery / receive an inheritance. Those options don’t include d.) become homeless (like my uncle), or e.) go on welfare (like my Mom when I was really little), since I don’t currently consider those viable alternatives.

And as follow-up: I’m currently trying to purchase a lomo on eBay, though my patience is being sorely tried. I want my new toy now, dammit! I don’t want to have to wait and snipe an auction tomorrow night! Gah!

*deep breath* I’m OK now… I just want my lomo. I’m excited.

It all started when I saw that my jade plant was much, much wiltier than usual. It had been getting a little wilty lately, so I’d stopped watering it, having recognized the early stages of stemrot. (The jade is a succulent, related to the cactus, and can’t handle overwatering.) And, sure enough, when I checked it today, the stemrot was in full force. Damn plant couldn’t stand up on its own at all, the almost-trunk was papery-dry on the outside and empty on the inside—all rotted out. Damn.

So, I sat down and yanked the damn plant out of its pot, removing the rotted parts from the still-healthy parts. Currently, the healthy parts are sitting on top of the microwave stand so they can be repotted later. I’ll leave them sit for a few days, to grow a callus where the roots will be, then I’ll repot them and attempt not to kill them again. As I seem to do every few years.

With that crisis handled, I went upstairs to water the remainder of my plants, only to find that the cat had been up on the plant table and had severed my barely-recovered begonia right under the healthy, leafy part. It was only just getting used to being potted, and was finally beginning to stand up on its own and bloom again. Damn cat managed to pop off the top, where all the leaves were resprouting and the one bloom was just budding. Now, I was already pissed off at myself for having given my jade stemrot, so woe be unto the cat if she even sets foot in the same room with me today. She’s already discovered this, and is giving me a wide berth. Anyway, I took the decapitated begonia top downstairs and put it in a vase to sprout roots again.

Now, on to the outdoor plants. The coriander is just about dead, the dwarf hydrangeas are definitely dead, there are bugs eating my rosebush, my lavender isn’t blooming and neither is my rock cress or baby’s breath, and my pearlwort, while having spread mightily since May, is now looking brown and icky in spots.

Fucking plants. Why do I even bother?

Yesterday was a moderately lazy day. We got up, ate lunch, looked for garage sales, did a little thrifting, and watched a matinee of Fahrenheit 9/11. Great movie—if you haven’t seen it, you should. I never considered myself a “swing” voter; more of an apathetic one. This year, though, I’m definitely going out to vote, no matter what I once said (oh, about four years ago) about the electoral college.

This afternoon, Aaron is over at Kris Heath’s apartment, helping him install Windows XP. See, Kris doesn’t believe in paying for antivirus protection, apparently, and his computer got royally screwed by various viruses and spyware programs. He managed to get it back up and running well enough to back up all his mp3’s, I think, but most of his applications are corrupted and too screwed up to function. So, Aaron’s over at Kris’s place, helping him install a new OS. *shakes head*

Meanwhile, I’m here at home, chillin’. About to clean out the cat box, and balance my checkbook, and maybe put some of my clothes away, and put some photos in the photo album.

Yeah… life is good.

I’m awfully prolific with the posts tonight.

Anyway, I just searched out and located a ZIP file with WAVs of the coverage of the Hindenburg crash of 1939. I’d never heard the whole thing through—just the reporter sobbing, “Oh, the humanity!” But, listening to the whole thing, it’s really fascinating to hear an example of radio reporters’ ability to convey what they saw verbally. The listener can almost see the majestic airship coming in and being tethered to the ground—then, after its grand transatlantic flight, suddenly bursting into flames.

The guy really loses it, too. I believe Aaron told me that journalists and reporters, especially back then, were expected to report factually and unemotionally, and that this particular man’s reaction to the scene lost him his job. Seriously, though—he’s almost sobbing uncontrollably and babbling by the end of the clip. I can see why they fired him, devastating though the scene was.

If you’re interested in hearing it yourself, you can download the ZIP here. Also interesting is the blurb that comes in the text file packed with the ZIP files: “This file contains WAV files of the most compelling moments of the famous Hindenburg Crash Radio broadcast of 1939.  They make for interesting Windows Startup sounds.”

What a fine disregard for history.

Do medical professionals really need a new invention for this? I thought Rabbi Tuckman did it fine with just his little guillotine…?

“Oh, I forgot—I already got one!”