Last night, my mom Pattie and I went shopping. We needed to get something for me to wear to her wedding. All we needed was some kind of blouse or top to go with the satin skirt I already have. With the exception of shoes, I’m not a fan of shopping for clothing. I buy what I need and get on with my life. If I like the way something fits, I get more of the same, in a different color. I buy the same levi’s every time I need jeans. I have a couple of the same cargo capris, just in different colors. Stuff like that. Which is way I probably have drawers full of t-shirts, jeans, khakis, cardigans and little else. There is some variety, but for the most part, I have a limited fashion sense. I’m all about comfort. Which is why trying on several fancy, expensive tops or blouses in a row makes me hot and cranky. What kind of lighting to they use in dressing rooms? Does it have to be so hot in there?
The shopping went a lot like this:
Scenario A:
Pattie heads over to a particular rack.
Jodi, emphatically: no!
Pattie doesn’t bother picking anything off and heads in new direction.
Scenario B:
Jodi heads over to a particular rack or display.
Pattie, firmly: Not dressy enough.
Jodi doesn’t bother picking anything off the rack, but takes time out to make face at Pattie.
Finally we found something we could both deal with it. It was half the price of the blouse that my mom had purchased for me, that I had vetoed. [we returned that one.] And my mom also got some capri pants with a crazy pineapple thing going on on them, for her honeymoon. We we were making the purchase, she was discussing shopping with the clerk, and I was making whiny noises. They kept talking about cute this, and darling that. And sales, and did I check out the jewelry over in the back of the store?
Jodi: I don’t need any jewelry, I’m wearing Moür Moür’s pearls to the wedding.
Pattie: no, I know, this isn’t for the wedding, they just have some cute stuff.
Jodi: Why do I need cute stuff?
Pattie and Clerk have discussion about the jewelry that I cannot begin to recall.
Jodi [with no small amount of horror]: You really ARE a shopper, aren’t you? You ENJOY this!
Pattie: yup.
Jodi: So does Vickie [her sister]. Further proof I am adopted.
Clerk: Oh that’s nice! That’s good, hon, because that means they picked you out special! They must really love you!
Pattie and Jodi exchange a look, recognizing they’ve hooked a live one. Pattie starts to pet Jodi’s hair.
Pattie: We sure do!
Jodi: We’ll … they gave birth to the first one, and look at how THAT turned out.
Clerk [slightly confused at last statement]: I have friends who just adopted a 4 year old from Russian. Such a darling boy. It must feel so good to help kids in needs.
Pattie [still petting Jodi’s hair]: Yes, it does. She’s from Bosnia. [said in a whisper, as if not to remind me of my tragic past]
And with that, Pattie and Jodi left to go on their wicked, lying ways.

An evil stomach flu held me in it’s clutches the last few days. I didn’t even get any Easter Brunch, because it was all too icky. Which is a real shame… that’s what Easter is all about. Brunch. Food and bunnies. Which is why it always makes me think of Fee. That, and her active celebration of the resurrection of Christ… being Muslim and all.
I think the people who help fight evil spammers should be nominated for Nobel Peace Prizes. I think they should be considered for sainthood. And that is why I am currently in love with mt-blacklist and it’s wonderful Creator. In mere seconds I destroy all spam comments from my blog, dating back to it’s birth in Aug. 2002. It’s like you are the hunter, and the spam comments are your prey, and by pulling the trigger just once, you blow their little brains out, all over the forrest. And then you drink the blood out of their tiny skulls and say “I get my antidepressants from Walgreen’s, thank you very much!”

I’m messing with my blog, trying to use a different method of listing the books I am reading. Allconsuming was always busy, would never let me update, and, frankly, the UI is clumsy. And slow. So I am working on setting up mt-bookqueue with mt-amazon.
So anyway, messing with blog and BAMF!! I lost my utf-8 characters! All my lovely umlauts and o’s with slashes through them. [unicod id= C3 98, C3 B8. I don’t know what the slashed O is called specifically. But I do know it’s unicode ID, which is scary.] Which, to be honest, I am using inappropriately. Based on my somewhat limited knowledge of Norwegian. Anyone notice how casually I mix norwegian and german letters? I just like special characters. 🙂
Jeg snakke ikke Norsk, tosk!

I was trying to remain inconspicuous, but the other Jodie saw me peeping at her! Again, it’s a Jodiey thing, we are pretty astute. Perspicacious, one might say if they were fond of that word, which we know I am. Jodie has started a blogroll of jodieys, and has graciously shared her javascript with me. Which is why you see me linking myself under the “jodiblogs” section. So now, we can build upon our list together, uniting Jodieys everywhere.
There is another Jodi at my place of employment. But he’s a Jody, as naturally he would be. What’s even more interesting is he’s a Mac IT specialist. Occasionally i would get phone messages or emails meant for him. But, if I knew the answer I went ahead and told them. It’s a mac, after all. Even tho the Hey Jodi game is evergreen in enjoyment:
“Hi Jody!”
“Hi to YOU, Jodi!”
“How are you, Jody?”
“I’m great, Jodi, how are YOU, Jodi?”
we moved on to a different game. He calls me Awesome Jodi when he sees me in the halls, and I call him Rockin’ Jody when I see him. We think this is great fun. Other people probably think it’s stupid. But what do they know, they neither Rock nor do they Awe.
So everyone say hi to Jodie, and go visit her blog.

Today is a happy day for me, bookwise. There is a new Tanya Huff book out, called Smoke and Shadows. It’s a bit of a spin-off from her Blood series. And Henry, who was only supposed to make a cameo, ended up with a bigger role. Not that that would have mattered to me. It could be about anything, if Tanya Huff wrote it, I’d read it. I wonder why there are not tons of websites out there, in her honor. How can you not love someone who, when asked in interview her thoughts on this year’s Stanley Cup replied that, as non-Canadian as it sounds, she didn’t watch much hockey because “I’m afraid it would cut into the time I spend memorizing my Firefly DVDs and sending mental messages to Joss Whedon: “You want me on your writing staff…” ”
I hope Joss is listening. Personally, I am sending Tanya Huff mental messages that read “you really do have more Keeper stories to tell. many many more… quit fighting it! Let them out!”

My manager is in Portland for the next two days. Wheeeee! I think I will run amuck!! fun! Ok, I run amuck every day, so that’s nothing new. Truth is, amuck is pretty much my Default State. The other is probably Lighthearted Sloth with Slight Ennui.
Next Monday is my five year anniversary at this job. And I am eligible for my sabbatical, which is an additional 3 weeks off that must be taken in one lump. It’s kind of sad, that I am too broke to really travel well on my sabbatical. My dream, when I first started here, was to go to Europe on my sabbatical. But that was back in the day. The good old days, when tech stocks were gold. But no matter what I do with my sabbatical, it’s still 3 weeks of not coming to work, right? Sure it is!! The only thing is, 10 people in my dept are all coming into eligibility this year. Over the next few months. 8 of those are on my team. EvilDeb and Lloyd have already scheduled their sabbatical. I think Dr. Stevil may have, as well. Emroo just got back from hers – Australia. So I may not be taking my sabbatical for a while. I already have 2.4 weeks of PTO saved up, maybe if I keep saving, I can just take 2005 off!

This morning there was a duck standing outside the double glass doors of my minimart of choice. [the source for my morning Dr.Pepper]. It was a male mallard, and he appeared to want to go inside with me. I told the current AM clerk, who’s name is not Edgar but that’s what I call all of them in my head – Except Sam, but he doesn’t work there anymore – anyway, i told Edgar14 that there was a duck out there. He said he is there every morning. [Obviously before I get up, but I had an early meeting today.] I asked him if he fed the duck, and he replied he did, but I’m not entirely sure he knew what I was asking. Edgar14 is not overly familiar with the English language. But he very polite and friendly, and getting better every day. I had a little baggie of cereal in my car, and before I left, I fed some to the duck. Life Honey Graham cereal. I like ducks.
In the post Ivanhoe Inn days, Moür Moür moved out of “town” and up on the palisades. She had a lot of land surrounding her house, so she did the only logical thing, got two ponies and started raising ducks. I think, in the beginning, the baby ducks were a much anticipated event, but after several years of trying to get rid of baby ducks, the thrill may have worn. One summer, she sent my older brother home from a visit, to her ex-son-in-law’s house, with two baby ducks. In a shoe-box. On the airplane. It’s not like my father was going to ship them back. We named them Lucille and Mr. Smith.
Another summer, during my visit, one of the baby ducks was born sickly. And the mother duck tried to kill it. Moür Moür rescued it, and brought it inside. We put it in an empty margarin tub with some grass and nursed it back to health. It was so sad looking, in the beginning. Not fuzzy at all, the feathers were all matted together. So we started calling it Poor Baby Duck. Then we started calling her PBD, for short. And out of that came Peebers. I spent the next few weeks raising Peebers, and she followed me everywhere. She slept in the bathtub, and sat on my shoulder, in the crook of my neck, when I watched tv. [she liked General Hospital] I loved that duck. Moür Moür decided it was time for Peebers to sleep outside, shortly before the end of my visit. I was against this, as the ELEMENTS might get her. Moür Moür created a mini-pen with chicken wire, and sure enough, she put Peebers out there at the end of the day. Peebers cried and cried. Or peeped and peeped, depending on how you wanted to view it. So I went outside with a blanket and slept with her. I had to protect her from the ELEMENTS. I was so sad to leave her, when it was time for me to go. Moür Moür had decided she would definitely keep Peebers, tho. There was no getting rid of a duck we’d worked so hard to save.
At Christmas, we all came back to Tara [that’s what we called Moür Moür’s house.] We had a family reunion. Peebers and I had a Jodi/Duck reunion. She was smaller than the other ducks, but she was still very friendly. And, as fate would have it, the leader of the all the ducks. They did whatever she did. But – queue the foreboding music – one of my aunt and uncles decided the Moür Moür desperately need a ratty, mean, evil, Scottie dog for xmas. I have no idea why. And that ratty, mean, evil dog went outside and took a gigantic bite out of MY DUCK!! They had to hold me back from first seeing the damage done to her, and then from going after the dog. As luck would have it, another uncle of mine is an exotic pet vet. We cleaned all the xmas foods off the breakfast bar and set up an impromptu surgery. We have these horribly bloody Christmas pictures of the operation. Someone even has video of it! Moür Moür’s overly decorated Christmas house and duck guts. But Peebers was saved!! it was a Christmas miracle!! and my aunt and uncle kept the ratty, mean, evil dog for themselves. Good thing… I was coming back next summer, and I would have brought some plans for that dog with me.

it’s called “good advice” and it’s her fault that i was playing online magnet poetry in the first place.

i don’t write poems, really. only limericks, haiku, and poems made up of magnet words.
I changed the site color because it’s practically Easter, it IS daylight savings time, and Spring… so I wanted colors that reflected those things. Plus, my hair is no longer red, it’s back to my natural color. Which, as you can see, is the color of brown hair that people who were blond as children often end up with… not dark enough to be brunette, not light enough to be dark blond.