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.

I just got out of a meeting, the Training Committee. This is my favorite committee. Others have come and gone, I’ve dropped out of others, but I love the Training Committee. Essentially, I get to shop. We noticed we were losing wasting a lot of training budget by not using it. So we started the committee in order to find out what we really needed, continuously educationwise, and then spend our budget to get it. Plus, being on the committee, I get to push, just a little tiny bit, for the things I want.
So I was sitting in the meeting, about to give my feedback about some training I just sat through, and I reached up to scratch my left shoulder. I am wearing a tshirt from Target… some boys shirt with a bit of a bobby brady stripe to it. And, most importantly, no tag. It’s tagless. I think that is part of it’s charm. I just liked the stripe. So I reached up and scratched my shoulder and I felt stitching.
me: do I have my shirt on inside-out?
everyone else: [together] YES.
me: [laughing] I do?! That’s AWESOME!!
Lloyd: no.. it’s not really awesome. [[then does the pantomime of “I am a tard” that is universally accepted within our team]] “My name is Jodi… I’m a tard.”
me: no, it IS awesome. I am such a dork, and that’s awesome. [leans down to check out sneakers, making sure she is wearing two blue ones, and not one blue and one black.]
I refused to bite at the “jodi’s a tard” bait that Lloyd was flinging my way. Poor guy, it was finally his chance to give instead of receive. And I wouldn’t let him. Then I got back to my desk. And I realized that I am an April Fool’s Prank GENIUS. I played a prank on myself by putting my shirt on inside-out. It’s BRILLIANT because I never would have suspected me.

I want to be friends with this woman from New Jersey. Everyday, I get more and more concerned about the direction our country is going, and what damage could be done between now and Nov. 2004. I cannot allow myself to think that Bush will not be removed from office. I shudder to think. It really sends a chill through me. Seriously. He cannot be allowed another term.
If he wins, I envision a band of rebels… people who value free speech, separation of church and state, a woman’s right to choose what happens in her body… people who believe love is love, and any two humans of any mix of race, religion and gender should be allowed to get married. People who think the FCC is getting a little big for their britches, and want to take back the right to decide for themselves what they want to read, listen to, or watch. Pirate radio stations will sprout up. You’ll see an increase of ‘zines and websites about personal and political freedom. And we’ll all wear bandanas around our heads, and army fatigues. It’s going to be like Red Dawn!! YEAH!! And we’ll have our own secret codes and signals. And we’ll build an underground railroad with spoons, in order to smuggle out atheists and radio shock jocks to freedom. We’ll get some of that free land in Kansas, build a compound, and hide them there.
And as fun as all that sounds, I think it’s just best that we boot his scary ass out of office. I’m going to start getting nightmares soon, I just know it. It doesn’t matter, as it turns out, Neil Gaiman is the next president of the United States. and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Seriously. I couldn’t.

Uh oh… there’s another Jodi blog out there. Only, in this case, it’s a Jodie blog. And you know, I came across her completely by accident. Looking for something for Movable Type. I was scared, you know what happened when I found that other Jody, the one I didn’t like. Such a disappointment. But she seems fine, does the name proud. Even with that extra letter on the end.

Holy global warming! It’s 76 degrees outside. That is 2 degrees higher than my preferred temperature… 74. That’s my preferred summer time weather. My preferred spring time temp is 70, with a breeze. Like it was this morning. I’m not ready for summer weather, I’m not getting my legs waxed until Saturday! Luckily, tomorrow will be 56 and rainy. Whew.
I was in javascript training this afternoon. The training was presented at a technical level I am comfortable with for about the first half hour. After that, I was lost. It was really designed for engineers and such. The training was 4 hours long, and it was eating away at my soul. Taking tiny bites out of my will to live, with razor sharp technical teeth. I made it until the end of the 3rd hour. And then I vamoosed.
My current Commuter’s Literary Selection [aka: audio book] is “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman. It is a book that I read a couple of months ago. As soon as I finished it, I knew I’d want to listen to it. To get all the lovely bits and pieces I missed by being a selfish and sloppy reader. When I first started the book, with cd 1, I got the fright of my life, to hear the voice of the Narrator from Mirror Mirror. Noooooooo! Please… nooooooo! But it turns out, he was just introducing it. The real narrator is delightful, and does wonderful accents. And is quite good at giving characters different voices, without being clowny about it. Unless clowny is called for, of course. It’s nineteen discs. NINETEEN! My longest audio book to date. I’m listening with the big boys now, kids.
There is a part of “American Gods” that talks about roadside attractions being the most sacred places in the country. How people are suddenly compelled, for no apparent reason, to construct the largest ball of twine, or sanctuary for black swans… something odd. And they don’t know why. And, in turn, we are compelled to stop and look. It made me think… I think the Ivanhoe Inn, while not a roadside attraction, was about as “sacred” as my Moür Moür could make it. And I dare say no one could ever really explain to me why she constructed the Catacombs. So I thought that I would take some time, over the next few weeks or so, to try to illustrate to you, the “special uniqueness” that was the Ivanhoe Inn. And Moür Moür, of course. Maybe even with pictures!

The power just went here at work. Of course, I have squishy. So I could still work, as long as I have battery power. That’s hardly fair, tho. It’s one of those days in which it’s impossible to be at work anyway. It’s a breezy spring day, supposed to get up to the 70’s. In fact, it is currently 71 degrees. The general consensus is that someone has cut the power on purpose. And we are all trying to figure out how long the power has to be out, until we get to go home. I say 15 minutes. I imagine we’d get to go home when everyone started losing battery power. Those with laptops. But that’s hours away!! I really think that 15 minutes is a more realistic time frame.
Oh, how sad. It came back on. It was out for about 30 minutes. Those were the best 30 minutes of the day, I’ll tell you what.

Ok, this link for adults only, but I can’t help but wonder why we have not seen this before. Especially since everyone knows the internet is for porn.
Plus, I can’t help but notice that the keyboard in the picture is a mac. I’m just saying…. mac people are SEXY!!

When I was in school, I worked in a movie theatre. This particular chain had a little game that they would play at election time. Presidential election time, that is. The Straw Poll. When you bought a drink at the concession stand, you got to chose either the Democratic Candidate straw, or Republican. Not at all interestingly, the results of the Straw Poll always predicted the results of the actual election. Back then, at least. Whatever. Them important part, in my mind, was that this particular movie theatre chain served Dr. Pepper*. But they are gone now. Or bought out.
Anyway, this poll is much much better. Even if it does pitch one of my favorite authors against one of my favorite drunken pirates. Haven’t we already had a drunken pirate for a president, tho?
*right before we’d shut down the concession stand to clean it, the managers would lock up all the cups. as they were inventoried. technically, we were not allowed to drink pop for free, even out of our own cup. however, we’d all hide cups, the little cups we’d give people for free when they wanted water. and we’d drink as much soda pop as we could, after the mangers went upstairs, between shows and after the stand closed. one night, our cups had been thrown away, and i remember sticking we stuck heads under the soda pop fountain, hitting to the button, just to get free drinks. ahhhh…. the good old days.

Sorry, Romy… been running around all day, I don’t feel like I’ve been at my desk all day. And I went to a comic book store at lunch, lost track of time. It was having big sale. I was looking for the first Lucifer book. But they only had #2. But I did buy Black Orchid. Which is a beautiful looking book. I like that Dave Mckean. Plus, he’s a Mac user.
Anyhoo, writing group went fine. And sharing was easier than I thought it would be. Rebecca is a stickler about spelling and grammar, which I am not. So she read our stories with blue pen in hand. But she often just underlined things and wrote “hee!” next to them. Which is nice. All the feedback about the scene, and my entire book, was constructive and very helpful. Often pointing out things I did not consider. We are going to continue with the plan of bringing a bit for everyone to read. It does not have to be from our books. Or from anything specific. Just something. I imagine I will always share something of Lucy’s story. Since that is what I want to work on. Maybe I’ll start from the beginning, tho, this scene is in the middle of the book, with no background, they had to just take some things on faith. But then, maybe not. Whatever the muse wants, the muse gets. I’ll write what it asks for.