ornamentalillness

They Shoot Mourning Doves, Don't They?

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:05:00 +0000

I saw the oddest bird at our birdfeeder today. It had a white body with black head, black wings and black tail. It sort of looked like it had a skunk stripe down its back, but it was just because the body was white and the wings were black. On the black wings and tail were a few random white spots. It had a gold beak and was eating sunflower seeds from our feeder. I've never seen anything like it. I tried to shoot it (with a camera, that is) from the bedroom window, but it flew away, of course. Maybe it's a migratory bird. It returned again this afternoon and I noticed it also had a reddish-orange breast. I tried to shoot it again, but could only get the picture below which I had to crank up the brightness and contrast on. I couldn't get any closer to it, and shooting it through a window without it seeing you is a little difficult.

Mourning doves have to be the stupidest birds in the world. A few days ago I saw one land on top of our feeder. It's one of those feeders that hangs from a fishing wire and is supposedly squirrel-proof. It has a bottom part where the seeds go in, and a top covering that deflects rain and jumping squirrels. The dove was standing on this top part, making those jerky head strutting pigeon movements, looking around, wondering where the food was. Well, at the time, there might not have been food in the feeder, but if there was, it wouldn't have been on top. But it happened again today, shortly after the mystery bird sighting. It landed on top of the feeder, wondering how to get at the food which was in the level below. The stupid bird could not figure out how to get to the food. All our backyard birds, from large crows to baby sparrows learning to fly figure out how to fly into the bottom level, except the Mourning Dove. Such a stupid bird. They have such small heads in comparison to their body size. If a chickadee had a body the size of a Mourning Dove's, it would have a head the size of a tennis ball. Wisconsin recently passed a law that allows people to shoot Mourning Doves. I guess they are overpopulated, yet I thought it was a stupid law. But considering the skyrocketing price of food, our doves might look pretty good when gas is $60/gallon and bread is $15/loaf and chicken is $30/lb. Actually, we have an overpopulation of Allium in our backyard which started from a few bulbs. Each year there's more and more and they're taking over the tulips and everything else in our yard. Allium are from the onion/garlic family, so we can cook the doves with the allium bulbs.

I don't know if I could actually kill a warm-blooded creature. We caught our own crawfish and carp and ate them once (Stan caught the fish with his bare hands). But a bird? You can't catch a bird with your bare hands. You might be able to ambush them with a net...they're pretty slow and tame...and stupid. But I refuse to have any sort of gun.

What will we be willing to do when the food crisis gets bad?

Ginger

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:35:00 +0000

Recently I have been researching natural perfume-making and have been collecting essential oils to work with. Like any topic, there are blogs devoted exclusively to the subject, so I feel a little hesitant on adding to the mix since this is not something I have a lifelong experience with. My comments and thoughts on the matter may sound uneducated and naive since I am just beginning. But at least I admit that. I have no desire to become part of the online perfumerati, or part of an online anything anymore. Those days, the 90s and early 00s of web communities and cliques are so old and tired now. I just want my own little journal here where I write about my life, be it my animals, movies, music, art, plants, whatever.

And lately I really want to write about scents. I've already made some concoctions that I feel smell as good as anything commercially available. There are so many essential oils I'm unfamiliar with, so I add a small bit to some carrier oil and wear them as a single note perfume so I can take them in and "learn" them. Then there are some EOs I had been hesitant to get because I have a prejudice about them from my past.

I started obtaining my own perfumes when I was in Junior High. It began with some cheap mini bottles from Woolworths, plus some Avon solid sticks...they were sort of like lip balm, but scents. They came in little decorated tubes, Lilac, Hyacinth, Lily of the Valley and Hawaiian White Ginger. I didn't care for the Hawaiian White Ginger, but I wore it anyway. Then my 8th or 9th grade art teacher, a curmudgeonly old white-haired woman near retirement, wore the same scent. I really had a hard time wearing it after that.

So after that, up until this day, I have not been able to wear any Ginger. Nonetheless, last week I ordered a 1/6 oz size of Ginger Root from an online EO company. I thought I'd give it a second chance. I tried it in carrier oil. It smells nothing like my grumpy art teacher, or the cheap Avon scent. It smells like...crystalized Ginger. It's wonderful, and would make a good scent on its own.

The unfortunate part about natural perfumery is that the scents don't last as long as with synthetics, which is most everything on the commercial mainstream market today. But at least this gives me a way to sample more of my essential oils during a day, than having to wait until I shower next to try something else.

And here's one final thought for the day: I absolutely abhor all the silly Divacelebs with their fragrances. These chickies had absolutely nothing to do with the perfume other than lending their name to it. They probably know nothing about notes and fragrance families let alone tried their own hand at blending. And if anything, it would make me want to try it *less* than something with an abstract/non-celeb name (that is if I were still buying commercial perfume, which I'm not). The thought of a Br*tn*y Sp**rs perfume makes me wretch as I think of horrible smelly things I don't want to mention. Yes, some EOs have quite the...odd, if not downright unsniffable, waft to them. Valerian Root, even diluted, takes my breath away not in a good way. Black Currant bud, which is supposed to be so prized in perfumery smells like cat piss to me. I had such hopes for Galbanum, but I tried it diluted the other night and it left nothing but the smell of paint brushes that had been sitting in mineral spirits for a week. I need to try it again--that just can't be right! But I'd wear those any day before I'd put on any P*r*s H*lt*n. Yuck.

Context is Everything

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:05:00 +0000

Hey, addictionary word submitters: Would it kill you to use your word in an example sentence? Or can't you think beyond just the definition of your brainchild? I mean, it's *your* word, FFS, use it! I subscribe to addictionary, and it bugs me to see a fairly decent "werd" w/definition arrive in my inbox...but there's no example, no context. How hard is it to frame your "werd?"

Reminds me of Freshman Art History at CSU when we only had to remember the artist, the name of the work and the year it was produced. No, nothing about the context in which the work was created or the culture of the country and the era. The first test was a total shocker. I think I got a D. It would've been a boon for Rainman and Aspies who get off on that trivia date stuff. This is probably one of the underlying roots of all my anxiety dreams about not studying for tests. I pulled my grade up to an A for the second semester, but only after cramming to remember useless and irrelevant trivia that I soon forgot after the test. That's what fact- and data-based tests do, make you forget after you no longer need the data--unless you have Asperger's and you thrive on that--but for us Neurotypes we want to go beyond: "32. Artist: Max Benkelman; Title: "Sunflowers in Evening with Farmhand"; Country: Germany; Year: 1927; Genre: German Expressionism. In fact, I don't even think in my class we had the Genre or Country. The instructor didn't care that you studied--as well as a freshman could study given the reading material that was given for the course--about German Expressionism, or Max himself and that he soon emigrated from Germany to the United States, Southwestern Nebraska, specifically, where he set up the Sunflower Institute that was sort of like a Van Gogh cult for suicidal artists. No one cared that Max's fixation on Sunflowers was obsessive to the point that he painted nothing else, not even starry nights. No one cared about how colorless Max's paintings became throughout his years until finally his canvasses were nothing but thick black paint. No, there was no context back in Freshman Art History.

(Sound of current and former art and art history students Googling Max Benkelman because they can't remember studying him in class).

I didn't think about it then, but now I realize it was probably so that the TAs could grade the papers easier since there were hundreds of people in these classes. Wouldn't want a TA to have to mull over essay answers and different TAs give different marks for similar responses.

Why not simply give multiple choice, for that matter? That'd make it even easier and the university could forgo employing TAs as test graders altogether and implement the tests with the number 2 pencil where you fill in the circles and have a computer read it?

I never met a TA that didn't feel a sense of entitlement. Grrr.

So, if I say the work was created in 1788 but the work was actually created in 1787, does that make me every bit as wrong as the bozo who said it was created in 1632? Yup, according to the way Art History 101 is graded.

Routine Junk Mailbox Cleaning

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:24:00 +0000

So this is my first post since I've been back (and I've been back for a week now), and it's not even about the trip. No, it's about porn spam.

I got the stupidest porn spam today--yes, I know, they're ALL stupid so how can I qualify one as stupidest--I guess it's just stupid in terms of porn marketing. It wasn't your typical porn spam with your 4-letter word in the subject title in reference to some body part. No, this sender was somewhat more advanced than that, at least maybe advanced in years--they used a 6-letter word in the subject title.

Bosoms.

Who uses the term "bosoms" anymore? Especially for porn spam? I mean if I was the kind of guy--and I'm not even a kind of guy--looking for internet pictures of breasts, "bosoms" is about the last word I would think of that would describe what I want to find. It conjures up images of very clothed breasts, albeit large breasts, encased in a heavily armoured multi-panelled white brassiere forming them into a torpedo shape like headlights on some classic 1950s car. Grandmothers have bosoms. Pictures of pin-up women from the 1940s had bosoms. Contemporary girlies posing on the skinternet have breasts known by other raunchier names that I need not mention...but they don't have "bosoms."

Well, I guess it goes along with the demographic that is consuming the other thing I get spam for all the time--Viagra (not only do spammers think I'm male, they think I'm an OLD male).

Grandpa got his Viagra and now he's googling "bosoms." It's the next big thing.

Things to do in Denver When You're Dead to the World

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:20:00 +0000

Not the most comfortable accommodations, I don't have anywhere to sit comfortably and use my laptop, except on this twin futon if I prop pillows up against the uncomfortable arms and lie crosswise on it. I can't access the internet while I'm doing this because the phone line doesn't reach, but it's dialup anyway and there's only one line and Montgomery Burns (the doghating version) will yell if he can't call to check the weather.

It is like a prison here, literally. I am in an approx. 10x12 room with two windows that I can't see out of because it's in a basement and there's those stupid plastic bubbles over them. The irony is that this is an improvement over what it was prior to 2004. Back then, I had to sleep on a mattress on the floor in the living/dining room, no privacy. And before I figured out that the mattress on the floor was actually more comfortable, I was sleeping on a rollaway cot that squeaked and was lumpy. The things I will endure just to see friends.

We almost got a motel for the rest of what would have been an extremely abbreviated stay, because the hot water heater broke. Had I not complained very loudly about the tepidly cold shower, they would've continued to use as is, rationalizing (if you can call it that) "the water is cold because it's cold outside", each shower becoming progressively colder and colder, and shorter and shorter, until finally they took no more showers and just washed in the sink and boiled hot water on the stove.

The above paragraph is supposed to be read in a Garrison Keilor voice. A Scary Home Companion.

So here's what went down so far.

Monday, March 24: Left Madison and went to Galena, IL. Disappointment. The rock shop in town has closed forever. I wanted mass quantities of Fluorite and Galena mined from this town, but instead will have to buy it in Colorado and elsewhere that imports rocks and minerals mined from Galena, IL. The irony. I like hills, but Galena is too hilly. Would not want to live there. Old mining towns are creepy. It reminded me a bit of Bisbee, AZ, but creepier. Since we didn't stay long there, we headed down the road and stayed in Lincoln, NE for the night. Not at our usual haunts because that one was going downhill the last time we passed through (coming back from Arizona a year ago), but this time at a Super 8 so I could take advantage of my Trip Rewards (which I should've signed up for over a year ago). It was near the stairwell over the lobby so it was loud, and although it was a non-smoking room, the room across wasn't and the occupants kept the door open and it stunk. Not a lot of sleep.

Tuesday, March 25: Got coffee at the best coffee shop in the world. Stan felt lousy...he was coming down with a cold. We both felt dessicated and were drinking mass quantities of fluids. I was about to come down with a cold, so I didn't feel my best either. Lots of interstate rest stops. Nebraska. Boring. Eastern Colorado. Boring. Hot. Dry. When I arrived in Fort Collins, my mom had found a Coty Sweet Earth Woods perfume compact for me. This was possibly a rosebud. I don't know if this was THE one I had, or one she had. If it was mine, where were the other two? The smells instantly brought back memories, and now I know why I thought they all smelled alike. In my final analysis, I think the Vermont Country Store's version actually has more distinction between the scents than the originals did.

Wednesday, March 26: Can't remember what happened that day other than buying a cactus at Fossil Creek Nursery. shopping at Sunflower Market. and going into a Mexican grocery to get some juices (Jumex...my favorite). We also went downtown to see if I could find some scents at the Tibetan store, but ended up buying blue coffee mugs that said "Namaste" (LOST reference) because there are no coffee cups at the Burns residence that are of a normal size. Every utensil, every cup is miniature in size, so in order to eat with a normal size spoon, one has to use their version of a tablespoon. It's like some sort of weird Alice in Wonderland through the looking glass alternative world where everything has shrunk in size. Went to Mellow Yellow in search of Frangipani. Found nothing. Went out to eat with Bill at El Burrito that night.

Thursday, March 27: I was sick. I felt awful. I stayed in the prison practically the entire day until I got bored out of my freaking mind (no tv, no radio, that's pretty unbearable when you're sick) and Stan took me for a ride in the evening.

Friday, March 28: This was the morning of the cold shower. At first I thought it was one of Montgomery Burns' money-saving methods of setting the hot water heater down so low that one can't take a shower for more than a minute without being frozen. But Stan checked the heater and it was set pretty high. I convinced them it was a problem with the hot water heater, and that it was old and needed to be replaced. They amazingly got someone over here to fix it...on a Friday afternoon. No way that could have been accomplished in Madison. Earlier in the day, Stan and I went to Bath, Fort Collins Nursery, and Gulley Greenhouse to get some cactuses. After that we came back to deal with the hot water heater guy and meddling Mr. Burns. After that I seriously had to have a Margarita with Bill at El Burrito. I don't drink much anymore because of the pain in my jaw it causes me, plus it makes me unproductive. But when I'm on vacation, productivity is not an issue.

Saturday, March 29: I was not exactly hung over (I only had one margarita the night before), but not exactly well-rested either. Went to the Longmont/Boulder area to see our friends Russ and Lamya and their two kids. On the way stopped at a greenhouse outside of Loveland to get cactus. We ate at a nice restaurant in Boulder that serves South American cuisine, like Cerviche. (sp?) I had a Mojito to drink which was delicious. Stan had a Margarita. We drove back to Fort Colins about 9:30 pm, but when we got back, we were dead. We used to do this all the time, and much later in the night. What has become of us? We are getting old. Unfortunately, this would have been *the* day to go for a bike ride had we not been out of town, unfortunately we couldn't have the nice weather on Saturday come later the next week.

Sunday, March 30: Dead to the world after the Mojito and the long night (up until all of 10:30, well, 11:30 Madison time) before. Went to Avo's to check our email on their free hi-speed internet. Had an absolutely delicious Creamation omelette. Went to East West Imports and found a Persian Attar scent, plus some Asian rice crackers to munch on for road tripping. I also broke down and went to the place in town I swore I'd never go to again, ever. The dreaded Whole Foods. I just wanted to see if they had more Kuumba Made scents available than they do in Madison. Bought some Tunisian Amber and Black Copium, plus some Vetiver essential oil and Jojoba oil to use as a carrier oil, and an empty roll-on vial so I can make my own Vetiver perfume. This might be the "smokier" more molassesy Vetiver that I'm not used to as much as the other kind I got as crystal resin from Eden Botanicals. I felt pretty dead the whole day. We got drive-thru food that night and drove around a lot. Nights are pretty much spent driving around until we're tired of it or have exhausted all the places to see, and then we come back here and hole up in the prison while the TV blares upstairs. If they would just turn the tv off and have conversations with us, that would be fine (non-judgmental, non-worrywart, non-persnickety conversations, that is), but no, the TV is all important. And loud tv too. Just shoot me if I ever get that way. I know I have my favorites like LOST and No Reservations, but if I had guests, the guests would take priority. But maybe that's just me.

Monday, March 31: Met my friend Barb for lunch and got to see where she worked, which ironically is in the same building where I had Driver's Ed in high school. Her boss had someone over that day who came from Baraboo, WI and knew Madison quite well. Coincidences and Ironies. We went with Barb and her sister, Nancy, to the Ethiopian restaurant we ate at with Bill last time we were out. It is so delicious there. We took some food "home" with us to eat for dinner, and even cold, it was still delicious. In the afternoon and evening we drove to Waverly, Wellington (scary), Owl Canyon, Bellevue, Masonville and back through Loveland. Anything to get us out of the house and Monty Burns and the LOUD TV.

Tuesday, April 1: Apollo's 8-month birthday. We took off and went to Denver in search of Dardano's Flowerland and Isis Books. We couldn't find Evans, where Dardano's is located. It's been ages. We found Isis's former location on East Colfax, but they have now moved to South Broadway. On the way to their new location, we came across Evans, fortunately. At Isis I got Heliotrope, Cypress and Wisteria essential oils, and Frangipani, one of my rosebud scents from ages ago that I have since stupidly lost. What an idiot I am. Stan only found one cactus at Dardano's. I remember them having so much more when I went there in the 80s. Maybe it's the time of year. After Dardano's it was still fairly early in the day, so I got the crazy idea to go to Casa Bonita. We haven't been there since the 80s either. Now back in the 70s when I was first introduced to CB, probably in the company of Barb's family and later with Stan, I thought it was delicious. People would say "Casa Bonita, the food's not very good, but you go there for the experience." I didn't understand what was wrong with the food...compared what I was used to, it was quite a treat! Now I know why they say the food wasn't very good. It's not. You can't compare it to any family-run Mexican restaurant. But when you don't know anything better and your family never takes you out to eat good food, what have you got to go by? But yes, the experience is fun, even if it's just in a cheesey "oh, I remember that!" way. I feel so sorry for the "performers." I had no idea what was going on...some Black Bart and a She-Sherrif... really stupid act and horrible PA system that's probably not been fixed since the 70s. After that, Stan drove by his Grandmother's old homestead which looked nothing like how we remembered it, and we took the dogs for a walk on a bike path. We have to take the dogs with us on these long day excursions. Monty Burns and Co. are completely incapable of dealing with dogs in their house while we're gone longer than a couple hours. Of course we always have to kennel them in the basement, hell forbid we have them LOOSE in the house. On the way back, we found a greenhouse in Lafayette and Stan got some things there. After I got back to the prison, I added the essential oils to jojoba in empty vials. I used medicine droppers and rinsed the droppers out in a little water and that water smelled so good. Who would've thought the combo of those four oils would smell so great? Now I really want to try my hand at perfumery when I get home.

Wednesday, April 2: We'll go up to Bill's later. Thursday we'll see Stan's sister, and Friday, I think we'll split the scene. Not only does the weather look the best for Friday as far as travelling across the mountains on I-70, but I'm going stark-raving loonie here. Even though the TV will be loud in Montrose, and sometimes I really feel like an outsider there, at least there'll be a beautiful window I can gaze out of with a beautiful scene of the San Juans. Bill said he's fixing up a room downstairs, so maybe in the future Stan and I can stay here instead of at our cell at the Montgomery Burns State Penn. I guess we could chip in for propane, as Bill keeps the place very cold.

DREAM: Kissing Cousins...the Distant Fictional Variety

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:14:00 +0000

The other night almost a week ago (I have extremely limited internet access right now) I had this dream. I can't remember which night because I'm not where I usually am right now, and perception is a bit distorted and confused. It all harkens back to that silly "which LOST character are you" quiz.

I dreamt that I was with Stan, except he was Charlie. It was like we were in the early stages of our relationship, because we seemed younger. We were running, and he, Stan/Charlie, kissed me while we were on the run. Just for the record and to set things straight, I'm not that attracted to Charlie...I'm a Desmond girl...but there was something really sweet about that kiss, maybe because despite outward appearances, it was Stan behind it.

That sounds really cornball.

Anyway, the dream continued in a LOST vein, because we went into this strange place like a dungeon with chains and shackles and torture equipment, and Charles Widmore was there. It was rather sinister. As I was dreaming it, I was thinking how cool it was that I was actually experiencing my very own LOST episode.

I wish I could remember more of the dream, and perhaps I would've if I could've written it down afterward like normal, but it's been very difficult lately.

Long LOST Relatives

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 21:29:00 +0000

Which Lost Character Are You?

More on Lost. Created by BuddyTV

No seriously, I am Charlie Hieronymus Pace according to this "Which LOST Character Are You?" Quiz.

See, I always thought, with all the British rock musicians out there, past and present, surely I must be related to *someone* (my grandfather was from England).

As it turns out, I'm related to a *fictional* rock star. Well, that's my Karma for you. Or is that Dharma? As in Dharma Initiative?

The surnames Stratton (as in Dexter) and Stretton (as in me) are genealogically related (Dexter Stratton was Charlie's great-grandfather), and that would also explain why back in 1991 (before LOST was even a flashforward before any of the series' creators' eyes) I gave my first dog Charlie's middle name, Hieronymus. Heh. I guess it's a family name.

On a different topic, the name "Hieronymus" is a variant of "Geronimo." Geronimo, as in Geronimo Jackson, obscure 70s-era band found in LP collection in the Hatch. Hmmm, kind of makes you think it might have been Charlie in another alternate timespace wormhole universe continuum or something.

Bisbee

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:05:00 +0000

Unbelievable...I no sooner post about the unfortunate flooding in Missouri, but then hear there's a horrible wildfire in the mountains near Bisbee, Arizona. Southern Arizona was the post-Route 66 part of our vacation last spring, and we spent a morning in Bisbee and Tombstone.

So glad we're not doing that trip this year.

We're getting a blizzard today, but it'll all be melted by the time we leave.

Thursday Night Journal Entry

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 02:29:00 +0000

We are so lucky we took our Route 66 trip last spring and not this one. There is much flooding in Missouri that would have effected us. We got lost around St. Louis as it was. I'll never forget all the Redbud trees blooming throughout the beautiful hillsides.

I was craving a Creamation today, and then I realized, in a week, I can have one. I think Avo's and I will be friends a lot during this trip...they have WiFi and there's just only so much of my parent's single phone line dialup I can handle.

Just a Slew of Bizarre Dreams Last Night

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:58:00 +0000

1) I had suddenly remembered where I had put my old solid perfume compacts from a couple posts ago, and found them inside my vanity (IRL they were not there, I checked this morning just to be sure). The scents were not the ones I remembered. I had a compact that contained 3 scents I never had, one was something called "Mandarin" (orangey, neroli-ish, I presume), another was "Caraway", which IRL was actually from the Herbs collection I never bought, and the third one might have been "Vetiver" but I can't remember precisely (mmm...Vetiver...yummy). They were rather dessicated and a lot of the scent was gone, but I was so glad I found them, yet puzzled about why I didn't remember buying the Mandarin/Caraway/Vetiver trio. (probably because I didn't buy it, and it didn't even exist). OK, that settles it, I will have to buy some Essential Oils and try a combination with those scents.

2) I was in an old university-type building, which I have reoccurring dreams about, like the buildings on Bascom Hill at the UW or around the Oval at CSU. I was standing on the steps at the front door, looking outside and waiting for a ride. A car pulls up, maybe a taxi, and the man in the back seat looks like Desmond from LOST. Then I realize he also looks like John, my former Boss from Kinko's over 20 years ago (IRL, I don't see any resemblance...John was taller, darker hair, different features, no resemblance). Then I start telling people who are there that it's no wonder why Desmond is my favorite LOST character, because he reminds me of my favorite boss. Truly odd. Actually, IRL Stan commented while watching a Larry King interview a few months ago with Eric Clapton (yeah, I know, odd, but not as odd as the Larry King/Snoop Dog interview probably was...I didn't watch that one in case you're wondering) that Eric circa the 1980s(?) resembled Desmond, and there actually is a resemblance there, but not with John my Kinko's boss.

3) I was in a reoccurring-dream mall, in a clothing store that usually has a lot of things I can find (in dreams, that is), but this time I couldn't find anything. I kept finding odd hats like maybe they'd wear in Western Asia. Then as I'm waking up from this dream, I realize that on the radio IRL they're talking about Tibet.

Well, I'm not Irish, but...

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:20:00 +0000

This is my lucky day.

I'm Addictionary's Werd of the Day for March 17!

The word? Punditz. Go take a look!

The Headstone

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:17:00 +0000

What has really sucked for the past two weeks is that our yah-hey local ABC channel has been favouring High School Basketball games on Thursday night, and playing LOST after 10pm when they are over.

WTF. This has not left me in the best of moods. Stan, who has a job that starts at 6 am and has to get up at 4:30 pm in order to do his stretching and catch the bus is none too pleased about it either. Mr. Sandman's come to put sand in our eyes by that hour for us to catch any major clues. Stupid local yah-hey high school sports anyway.

Take last night for instance. I'm looking at the Korean characters on Jin's headstone wishing I could read Korean when really I should have been looking at the Arabic numeral DATES. Just found out this AM by lurking in LOST message boards that the headstone states that Jin died 9/22/04, the date of the crash. I found screen caps online. It really does say that.

This means Jin is not one of the Oceanic 6 (as I previously believed and was led to believe by a Spoiler). Does that make baby Aaron one of the 6?

But who is this Jin walking around on the island now if he supposedly died when the plane crashed? Did he really die in the crash? Did he die somehow else and there's a cover-up? Is he not actually dead? This episode's flash forwards were fairly close in the future, approx. 9-10 months after the crash, considering Sun just gave birth and she got pregnant on the island. And it's pre- Post-Crash Mental Hospital-era Hurley (as opposed to the Pre-Crash Mental Hospital-era Hurley), as he looks great...who'd ever take Hurley for a snazzy dresser? And remember in the Hurley-centric episode earlier this season, Jack looked really good when he went to see him, so that took place pre-feral Jack.

So it appears that ever since the Flash Forwards started in "Through the Looking Glass", they've been getting closer and closer to the time they are rescued, since this last one seemed the closest yet. Soon they'll be flashing forward to a couple months before the rescue, then a couple weeks. It'll then be like that Seinfeld episode when they went to India and they essentially played the episode backwards.

I'm just intrigued with how they'll explain all these mysteries...Jin's death (how could Sun have gotten pregnant on the island if Jin died in the crash?), Kate's possession of Aaron (did Claire die, and did she too "die" in the "crash" and if so, how did she manage to give birth to Aaron?), and Jack and Hurley's mental collapses, not to mention Sayid working in collusion with the Benster!

And what about Michael, aka Kevin Johnson? We all suspected Michael was Ben's "man on the boat", but why the name change? Would the name "Michael Dawson" raise a red flag to the ship's captain as being a spy, so he aliased himself, or is something else going on? Was there recognition in his eye when he saw Sayid? I couldn't tell.

And what about the tsunami? Time's running out.

Smells like Rosebuds

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:17:00 +0000

I've probably mentioned the term "Rosebud" in this journal before, my appropriated term from "Citizen Kane" meaning anything from my past that I lost, forgot, abandoned or threw out, that I crave for and, with luck, find again. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof. I've been rosebudding with scents and perfumes lately, and today I got part of my "Rosebud" collection that I never actually had.

Scent is the strongest sense when it comes to memory, as they say, so it would only be natural that something we crave from our past is a scent itself. It's the closest we can get to time traveling. Unfortunately, there are some scents that I'm afraid I will never smell again, that were too much a part of their era and wouldn't translate to the here and now in terms of product profitability. I remember two liquid perfumes I got when I was around 15, around the time of the bicentennial. Their packaging and graphics were hippie 1776--if you can imagine--with a round plastic ball on top and a plastic stick applicator. I'd used them up a long time ago, but somehow their empty yet still somewhat scented vessels found their way here, to Wisconsin. And stupidly, just a few years ago, I threw them out. I can still see one of them sitting on a small cabinet in the bedroom. WTF was I THINKING?!?

I won't dwell on that unhappiness. There's a bright side too. Around that same time, 1976, I also acquired some fragrances from Coty (brands meant nothing to me then) called "Sweet Earth." They came either individually or three to a compact, related scents in little rectangles. Coty released about 7 varieties of them, unfortunately, I only had 3 of them (THIS WOULD BE UNHEARD OF TODAY) and one single fragrance (hyacinth, I think). The ones I had back in the 70s were Woods (Sandalwood, "Amberwood" and Patchouli--which isn't a wood, but is often included with wood-related scents), Grasses (Clover, Gingergrass and Hay), and Colonial Garden Flowers (Peony, Lemon Verbena and Lavender). I can still remember how they smelled, all of them. I remember how the Grasses almost had a slightly grainy yet very soft quality to the wax, and how all Colonial Flowers smelled lemony, as all the Woods smelled woody, sometimes indistinguishable from each other. I loved them all. But I have no idea what happened to them.

In a newfound/renewed interest in fragrance lately, Google is definitely my greatest ally. I can't remember the exact search terms I used, but I managed to find a message board of like-minded 40-something women who were longing for the EXACT same thing! And on the message board was a link to a store, the purveyors of retrophenalia, Vermont Country Store.

My parents bought from their catalog before. They got me some nice soaps for the holidays once, and some English licorice candies (Licorice Allsorts) that I like a lot. But nothing in their catalog really hit me that much...old people clothing, outrageously expensive food that, according to my parents, disappointed them and was not to the quality of the item that they remember from the pre-technological era. But most of their items were geared toward the over-50 crowd, or even the over-70 crowd like M & P. Make that the over 100 crowd, over $100,000 year in income, that is. Some of the food they sell is OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive. But they also seem to be cashing in on the under-50 crowd too, and their updated versions of three of Coty's Sweet Earth Fragrance sets hooked me in.

The other week I noticed that their "Rare Flowers" collection--Tuberose, Jasmine and Mimosa, became available, so i ordered it and received it today. I'm adding it to my other two I ordered last month, "Flowers'"--Hyacinth, Honeysuckle and Ylang Ylang, and the abovementioned "Woods." It's odd that I now have three fragrance sets, just like when I was a teen. But only one of them is a true Rosebud, the Woods, which also happened to be my favorite. The fragrances seem a bit different, perhaps not as strong as the original 70s versions, but still enjoyable. A reasonable facsimile.

I do hope Vermont Country Store decides to put out the four other sets, the "Grasses" and the "Colonial Garden Flowers'" that I used to have, as well as "Colonial Wild Flowers" and "Herbs" that I never had. I remember looking at the Herbs set when I was young, wanting to get it, but not having the cash. I missed my chance. I will stalk VCS often, just to see if they add a new scent to their repertoire. Some people want things they used to have, and then there's those of us who want things we never had.

I guess I could always get the essential oils and construct my own scents, but there's something about finding a Rosebud that can't be replicated.

Dream with Deer and Gunman

noreply@blogger.com (Stan) — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 18:55:00 +0000

I was in a park in a city where the snow was still on the ground, but a section of this park was in spring and green. I was thinking about moving my cactus plants there and there was a female deer eating grass near me. A tall hairy faced man with dark skin came to the park, and he looked like someone who was once a teacher of mine. He was hunting the deer with a pistol, and when he arrived the deer started charging at me. The deer ran right past me and stood on top of a stone wall with me between the gun man and her.

I approached the man and asked him not to hunt this deer in the park and if he was going to kill it he needed to wait until the deer left the park. The man then pointed the pistol at me and told me I was going to die a long painful death. His hand was shaking as if he was having some difficulty about pulling the trigger. Another male deer ran past us and stood by the female deer. I turned around to look at them and they had transformed into deer with human heads - both of them were African American. I was still standing between them and the gun man.

The gun man was still trying to point the gun at me and shaking. I believe he wanted to kill me so he could then kill the deer, but then I woke up.

A message from ebay on their General Announcements page

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:21:00 +0000

"I'd like to address a common question we hear - How do scammers get a bidder's email address? Unfortunately, a high percentage of eBay members have registered an email address that is very close or identical to their User ID. Fraudsters attempt to send emails to the bidders they are targeting by using the User ID, plus several of the most common domain names – i.e. userid@yahoo.com , userid@gmail.com, userid@hotmail.com, userid@aol.com. This combination yields a very high success rate for them. Subsequently, too many eBay bidders get fooled – and lose their money - as an unfortunate result."

Oh that is so laughable. Neither my buying nor selling ids are anything CLOSE to the corresponding email names I use for them, neither do I use "common" domain names for the email accounts. Yet I am bombarded with phake phishes.

Fortunately, I'm pretty experienced with this stuff, so 99% of the time I know when something is phake, and the other 1% when I'm confused I always go to my ebay messages to see if I got a legitimate message there too.

So if I am using an uncommon domain name for my email accounts, and my email names are nothing like my ebay member names, how do you suppose phishers got ahold of my email addresses then, unless they KNOW what they are, like they sold me something, or they bought something from me. However if THAT were the case, then wouldn't I get different phishing emails to my buying account and my selling account? No, I get DUPLICATE phishy messages to both accounts. meaning, it's not from someone I did business with because I sell to different people than I buy from.

Makes me think it's an inside job, someone who has access to all ebay accounts with their corresponding email addresses. I mean, how carefully can you screen your disgruntled, low-paid employees?

DREAM: The Roommate

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:18:00 +0000

I was renting an apartment. I don't know if I was renting with Stan as well, but I had at least one female roommate who was Asian. The apartment is on the second floor, and as I walk into it, I immediately notice that the place has changed. My roommate had taken down all my art, painted the walls light sage green (in the dream they had originally been a light golden sandy color...how did I know this? I have no light golden sandy color rooms in my house) and placed only one painting per wall, and the art wasn't even done by her, but instead a third party. There was also a large dining room table in part of this great room taking up a great deal of space. I go into a rage and try to explain to her that there will be no art by third parties hanging on the wall, that the art must either be done by her or me. Then I start hanging a bunch of my old paintings on the wall--not my recent paintings, but paintings I did over 20 years ago. There is plenty of wall space to hang lots of my art, but I try to explain to her that we have to hang our art on the walls because there isn't enough storage area within the house (which is what we deal with IRL) and that's why I don't want anyone else's art here except the occupant's. This roommate's mother is there too, and she speaks even less English, and she seems really confused by everything. I think there's another roommate there, maybe someone I shared a studio with in grad school, and she has these wall art pieces with these brightly colored fabric balls (approx. 3-7" in diameter) hanging off of them. They were kind of stupid looking, like a clown suit, except better colors. Then I go into the basement to get more of my paintings, and it turns into this reoccurring dream basement which haunts my dreams so frequently that I often forget to include it in my dream journalling. This basement seems so familiar, and I'm wracking my brain to remember if I ever experienced it IRL, but I can't recall any house that had it. It's a basement that goes on forever, it's very long and you keep walking back into it to find more and more storage. The color white is prominent, and sometimes the concrete floors slope. I don't know where I draw this from, it could be the Chemistry Stockroom, but it's very residential, not institutional and the CS was grey and green, not white. This basement is also very old, maybe 100 year, but all the old house basements I've been in have been very small. I don't know what happened next, but I hope I kicked the roommates out. How dare they redecorate the place without consulting me!

Hey, speaking of 100 year old houses, our house turned 100 this year.

Timeline

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:03:00 +0000

Sweet! There are 3 more episodes of LOST in March, the 20th being the last one. Then we go on vacation, and when we return, there will be 5 more from April 24 - May 22. Is that incredible timing or what? No having to struggle with watching it at parents' houses, dim CRT tvs, mothers who don't understand what's going on, having to tell friends "we can't see you that night, we HAVE TO watch LOST" or having to get settled in a motel/hotel on the road in time to catch it.

The last 5 are bonus, because of the writer's strike we were only expecting 8. Since there were 16 scheduled though, will they compress the content throughout the next 32 episodes, or will they tack on 3 more next season?

Oooh, click that link above, Stan, there's something about finding out what happens between Ben and The Real Henry Gale! (Future Storylines) Ah, but there blows my Tsunami theory, as this season ends on December 23, 2004. I guess the next 3 episodes are taking place concurrently back on the island when Desmond was on the freighter.

There's the one armer now! Marvin Candle/Mark Wickmund/Edgar Halowax's arm will be addressed! And why Libby wound up at the mental hospital in the past, as well as the mystery coffin content reveal.

Maybe Season 5 will revolve around the Tsunami. It has to!

Those Damn Numbers Again!

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:43:00 +0000

Yes. Charles Widmore's Bidder number was 755. But it's not 4 or 8 or 15, 16, 23 or 42. What's with that? Simple. 75/5 = 15.

Notice how the two years that played into this episode were 1996 and 2004, and that there's an 8 years difference. These weren't what I'd call flashbacks this time...flashbacks or forwards are a storytelling device, whereas, these events were actually really occurring (in terms of LOST, anyway). Each time I try to explain this, I get really confused. So I won't.

And Eloise, the rat. That was so familiar, and I was wracking my brain trying to figure out the connection other than it was a Damned song and Rat Scabies was in the Damned. But there's another connection I read on Lostpedia and felt silly for not catching it sooner, considering I quickly picked up on the Daniel Faraday/Tom Tom/actor Jeremy Davies thing. Tom Tom, in Million Dollar Hotel, was in love with a woman named Eloise! Duh! Of Course!

---

I'm puzzling over duplicate or similar names. There's lots of theories going on in the Lost-o-sphere about Jacob = Jack. But what about Charles Widmore/Charlie Pace? Both are British, but that's where any obvious similarities end. And what about Danielle Rousseau/Daniel Faraday? They are both scientists on expeditions, and both are a little whackazoid. Makes me wonder, "the sickness" that Danielle talks about...was it the "side effects"? Did the science team that landed on the island not follow the bearings correctly and experience what Desmond did last night? These name pairs have got me wondering what, if anything, is going on with that, and if it's intentional. Peaks had a lot of name pairs, like BOB and Bobby Briggs, his friend Mike and Mike the One Armed Man. Curious.

DREAM: Texas's Other Coast

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:48:00 +0000

Stan and I were on a vacation and traveling in the west. It was like we were viewing a map of the US, or traveling very high in the sky looking downward. There was narration in the background, some man talking about how when Texas was settled, they didn't know it led to the Pacific Ocean. I was looking at Texas from my aerial vantage point, and saw that it did have a very small part of its southwest corner that attached to both the Pacific Ocean and Arizona. Then we start descending on a very steep mountainous road. We wonder if our van will make the steep inclines. We go around a curve and find a hotel. There are a lot of old white-haired people wandering around. I am wondering if we should spend the night there. It's only about 4 pm in the afternoon and we could go further, but we don't know what's ahead, and when we'd find it. I go inside and it's nothing like your usual hotel lobby. There's no comforting furniture, just rows of doors painted in late cold war-era yellows and oranges, more like a grade school. I ask the man at the desk if he takes some kind of discount, and I couldn't remember the name of the discount, but I do remember my Trip Rewards card and pull it out, as well as a credit card. He never comes right out and says yes or no, but he's stalling, telling me he can't give me a room for free (not that I asked for one) and that the rooms are filling up because of some planned execution of some criminal that Bush is taking part in that is staged for that day or the next (?huh?). As he's stalling, I'm getting ready to grab my cards and leave because he's wasting my time while we could be traveling down the road.

My Prediction

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 11:16:00 +0000

I thought last night's episode was very romantic with Desmond time travelling between 2004 and 1996, going back in time to tell Penny to remember to answer her phone on Xmas eve, 2004. I think about stuff like that myself, present me going back in time, not necessarily to speak to someone from my past, but to speak to myself. Could the good decisions I make actually be made with the advice of future me?

Then, it struck me as I was lying in bed at night. Xmas Eve, 2004. I couldn't wait to get up and verify it, so I woke up early (5 am) and checked it out.

Two days later: The Tsunami. December 26. 2004.

Obviously when LOST was made and first aired in September 2004, only the Desmondesque among us could foresee the Tsunami. So they must have worked this into the plot somehow. After all, the Oceanic 815 wreckage was found in the Sunda trench.

I predict somehow the Tsunami will play a major role in a couple episodes, namely ep. 4.7. This is not a spoiler, I have no inside scoop. This is only a prediction. It has to be.

If it ain't fixed, don't break it.

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 05:35:00 +0000

Well, I got my ibook back today. Seemed fine in the store. What they were supposed to fixed got fixed. Of course weirdness never shows up right away. Now there's another user account, "apple". I can't seem to delete it because it's an admin account. Also, somehow my HP printer driver disappeared, and my Alien Skin filters wouldn't work. I'll have to look into reinstalling the printer stuff tomorrow. I Installed the Alien Skins and they seem fine now, but in the process I realized I had no record of my Human Software plugins serial numbers (that has nothing to do with the apple repair problem, that was just my own negligence). Then I couldn't find the disks they came on. This sent me into a panic, which explains why I am up at 11:30 at night.

Oh yeah, and Stan is sick, which means guess who's next in line?

I really wish I had a secretary and a maid. Hell, I wish I had STAFF. Put a geek on the payroll as well.

My static speakers was not a speaker problem, but a mic problem. And it wasn't even a hardware issue, it was software weirdness, some firmware causing a feedback loop. Well, I'll be. A big old WTF. Didn't see that coming.

Floating World

noreply@blogger.com (Stan) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 03:16:00 +0000

I wanted to include some ideas I remember from East Asian Lit. which may be relevant to Lost.

Many of us remember and love the Kung Fu TV series. The structure or type of story is what some would call a Renegade Monk Story. There are lost of stories involving renegade monks in East Asian plays and writings, but Kung Fu was the first time this style of story was ever presented to - so called - western viewers.

Lost may be structured after some East Asian stories like Ghost World stories. There is a common story, usually involving a fisherman, who becomes lost under the sea. While he is under the ocean he finds a whole new reality there with new people to meet and he has a lot of fun there. After a few hours he thinks of his family and friends and decides it would be great to show this new place to other people. He returns to the surface of the ocean thinking he has only been gone a few hours. He goes back to his town and can't recognize many of the buildings. He looks for his wife and friends, but they are no where to be found. Eventually he learns that everyone he knew has died a few hundred years ago - so a few hundred years had passed while he thought he was in this lost underwater world for only a few hours.

Lost could be using East Asian lit. to bring some literary ideas to us so called - western - viewers.

I think a writer could find a life time of work for writing TV shows just looking at some small segment of East Asian writing like Kabuki Plays. East Asia is a vast source of written works most of us westerns know only a sliver about at best.

Framing Dead People

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:40:00 +0000

This is not my catch; I read it online.

Watch this snippet of this season's Episode 2 when Miles ghostbusts the grandmother's upstairs room. Notice the pictures on the wall as he enters around :44 seconds into the clip, then notice about 3:40 the pictures as he is leaving.

It's the FRAME! The frame around the picture of what I presume to be the woman's deceased grandson goes from an ornate wooden frame to a plain golden frame. Here all along I thought they were focussing on the pictures because of the CONTENT, i.e., the boy. I was wondering who the boy was, it resembled a young Mr. Eko, but that wouldn't be right, he was too old to be her grandson, he was Nigerian, not American...etc. But the kid's identity is irrelevant.

I do not think this is a production error, I think it is intentional. They camera purposely focuses on the pictures. If it was a prop goof, 1) the camera wouldn't "stop" and focus and 2) why would they use the same picture and change frames?

Moving into my own theorizing:

So why do the picture frames intentionally change? This is either symbolic for the "framing" of LOST itself, which I can't figure out because that gets too postmodern artschool text vs. context blah blah blah which I hate thinking about, or there is some parallel universe shift that happens after Miles banishes the ghost.

We know that there seems to be a parallel universe theme throughout LOST. LIke Charlie at the end of Season 3, when Naomi says "Oh, you're the dead rockstar." But Charlie wasn't dead (yet). There probably was a parallel-universe-Charlie (as well as a parallel-universe-everyone-else) that really did perish in the crash (as opposed to drown in The Looking Glass station). This would explain Desmond's changing visions. He's not just seeing visions from one event in one place, he's seeing different visions of similar events from different parallel universes. So it could be that in another still different parallel universe, Charlie doesn't even go down to The Looking Glass, for example, and no one gets "rescued." This is the place Jack wants to get back to.

----

Stan and I are rewatching the previous seasons on DVD, and last night we watched the "Dave" episode. Because Hurley sees Charlie after Charlie dies, I suspect Dave is one of the people that was killed when the balcony that Hurley got onto fell. Hurley sees dead people.

Ben, Coffin, Possible Futures

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:37:00 +0000

Remember last May when I thought it was Ben in the coffin for the Season 3 finale of LOST? I've come to revise that. Yes, I think it's still "Ben" in the coffin, but it's not Ben.

The reason I thought it was Ben is because of the lack of friends and family. Ben has none, at least off-island. Jack is also broken up, not for Ben's death, but he figures Ben is a way back to the island, which he wants. Now with no Ben, there's no going back.

Remember the last time we saw a closed coffin in the show it was for Locke's father, who had staged his own death. I think Ben has staged his own death. Jack doesn't want to see the body when the funeral director asked him, but if he had, it would have not been Ben, but someone taking Ben's place. There is a reason, other than just keeping us in suspense as to who it is, that the person in the coffin is not shown, it is because whoever is in the coffin isn't the person that is really supposed to be there, but just some hapless victim.

Remember this season when (was it Sayid? or Kate? Sorry, I can't recall) went to New Otherton and they find a room in a house full of Ben's passports? He obviously has many alternate identities (not just Henry Gale).

"Ben" is in the coffin, but Ben is still alive.

LOST will last 3 more seasons (including the present season). I don't think it will end abruptly and discomfortingly unnerving like Twin Peaks did with a Black Lodge Bob-possessed Agent Cooper set loose on the world. Although that has become part of the unintentional mystique and mythology of Peaks, there was more planned had ABC not pulled the plug. Hmmm...ABC is LOST's network too...but I have hopes. I don't think we will be left with a suicidal drug-addicted bearded feral (I put that last word in because Stan likes to call Flashforward Bearded Jack "Feral Jack.") Jack wandering the streets of LA. Not that I want a "and they lived happily ever after" wrap-up either. My suspicions are that there's sort of a time loop thing going on and the series finale will end with the very same passengers boarding Oceanic Flight 815 (Or maybe Oceanic Flight 1623), leaving us to ponder will they crash and start all over again, or will they end up landing at their destination to continue their lives, as if the original crash never even happened? Just a thought. I don't like neat wrap-ups, I like it where the audience can put their own spin on it, perhaps to live on in our own little mental exercise hypothetical fiction that we think up ourselves.

Those Damn Numbers

noreply@blogger.com (Ann) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:59:00 +0000

Three of them, anyway.

LOST Season 4 Episode 3: Daniel Faraday receives a payload rocket containing a stopwatch which reads: 03:16:23. There's two of those numbers, you say: 16 and 23. Huh-uh. There's THREE of those numbers. 03 in military time is 15.

15:16:23

I figured that one out myself.

Not that I know where they're going with it or anything. But there they are again.

-----

I did happen to read something on a theory site about the Valenzetti Equation and the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 meaning that the world will end on April 8, 2015 at 4 pm, 23 minutes and 42 seconds. I don't know if this is actually the meaning of the numbers or just a theory, but it if is...whoa, April 8 is the anniversary of when they found Kurt Cobain dead (things I will always remember forever), and Jack is listening to Nirvana when he pulls up to the funeral parlor. The newspaper clipping obituary that Jack sees days before has a date of April 5, so along with the Kurt radio anniversary clue, I'm assuming that day that Jack goes to see the mysterious coffin is April 8, so I'm wondering if that is in the year 2015? That seems so far in the future though, so I'm confused.