Voyage of a Valkyrie

The seventh season of "American Idol" premieres tonight.  Will you be watching, or are you over it?

Absolutely over it.

Tumblr's "share this" gadget works BEAUTIFULLY.  I will of course have to test out vox's tools, but I <3 the tumblr one.  Now if only I had remembered to import the posts on tumblr into vox as "unviewable" and THEN I could have saved myself some work.  Couldn't import just photos, so had to import as posts... ah well five minutes wasted.

Here are the stocking stuffers I like this year.  I'm sure there are more but for the life of me I can't find them.  Next stop? MightyGoods.com and SFMoMA!

The Container Store has released details of its 2007 stocking stuffers, and while waiting for the laundry to dry I jumped in with both feet.  Have I mentioned before that I *adore* stocking stuffers, more so than big gawdy presents?  I will share the goodies that I've picked out... this weekend.  Because apparantly right this second tumblr's posting functions are down.  Grrr.

What movie did you expect would be terrible, but was actually really good?

Rocky Balboa.  A total shocker how good it was, to me anyways.

Things have dramatically improved.  Did I mention that?  I'm still struggling to control my debt, but it's improving.  That's all I can ask for.  The full time job at the school library ROCKS.  I love it.  Even though I didn't think working with gradeschoolers would be fun, I've discovered I was incredibly wrong.  The people I work with are fantastic.  Now to get my schooling back on track for my own teaching career.  :)

I'm obsessed with my warcraft and jaiku, so that's why I've been quiet lately.  That and working my butt off with two jobs.  Joy.

My youngest sister's life is falling apart, she's either sinking into apathy, or deliberately following some trend for some strange twisted reason in her mind.  It isn't pretty to watch. 

Hmm. Enough rambling for now.

After work I'm heading to the Borders in Oakbrook to see if R. A. Salvatore is really there or not.  Hopefully I'll have the Dark Elf trilogy with me for an autograph.

Keeping my fingers crossed...

Who's the coolest culinary celebrity?

Alton Brown.  I love the show Good Eats, and his wit on Iron Chef: America

Apparently today was wear_your_drink day and no-body told me about it.  My supervisor at the coffee house broke the coffee machine.  Hmm... Coffee house + no coffee = wtf am I still at work for?!?!  But in the midst of the ensuing chaos, I managed to spill vanilla syrup (not the sugar-free kind, either) and espresso all over myself.  Wipes it all off, and was able to conceal the sticky_later_turned_crunchy bits stuck in my hair at my left temple.  Later on, I decide to hang out at Borders since traffic was a bitch.  Ended up dumping my ENTIRE Maple White Chocolate Mocha (yummy! try it!) into my lap.  Good thing I wore all black today!

So, not only did I smell like yummy coffee beans, I ended up smelling sticky and vanilla-y and maple-y and white-chocolate-y.  My poor car...  But hey, I didn't flip out, and I wasn't overly mortified, when it happened.  Slightly bummed that my I was gonna have to sit through the traffic and go home (because I didn't want to continue squishing in my shoes and pants while hanging out at Borders--so not comfortable!), but I was more amused at the sum total of events, rather than pissed off or angry.  This is a good thing.

I feel... suddenly life has come into focus.  Why it's taken me so long, I'm not sure.  This job at the school is a gift from the gods, I swear.  Now I just have to make the most of the opportunity. 

I was excited to learn that Chicagoland would gain another Planned Parenthood center in Aurora, a fully-functional center.  But, if you haven't been paying attention, maybe you weren't aware that the city council old buggers are trying to stop it.  I just got this in an email from PP.org, so I thought I'd share.  It's nice to know there are alternatives to the Planned Parenthoods currently in Chicago, especially given some of their locations, and the sheer number of people they help.

Just hours ago a federal judge denied Planned Parenthood's request for injunctive relief against the City of Aurora.  Today's ruling by Judge Norgle means that Planned Parenthood will be back in court to present additional material, facts and information that substantiate our request for an injunction to open our Aurora health center.

Read Planned Parenthood's complete statement.

What can you do to help fight to keep Planned Parenthood open?  Join other Planned Parenthood supporters for a Pro-choice Rally this Tuesday, September 25th, 5:00pm Aurora City Hall!  We will provide t-shirts and signs until we run out to anyone who shows up to stand in support of the Aurora Planned Parenthood health center.

I'm in pain.  Yesterday was my trip to donate plasma that went horribly wrong.  The nurse was sort of distracted, that or she was pressing too hard while swabbing me with iodine, or she simply blasted right thru my vein.... or... that vein is done after a year of almost weekly donations.  I'm not sure what happened, but after two attempts to re-find the vein (one of which threatened to turn me green because it *looked* like the needle was fishing around in a 180* sweep, even though I know that that couldn't have been what was happening.. right?) they finally had to switch to my other arm (so as to not risk a clot building and getting into my bloodstream).  Joy, two punctures for the price of one.  Ugh.  The second arm (a different nurse) would have worked fine, but the machine wouldn't reset so we couldn't continue with the donation.

My first arm still is pretty sore, though I'm impressed I don't have a huge puddle of blood under my skin.  I guess that means she couldn't have been stirring up my elbow they way it looked like she had been.  But the pain doesn't reassure me.

Next week I don't think I"ll donate it, and then I can get back to a weekly schedule. 

On the job front, I'm pretty bummed.  The school in the west burbs that had a full time job for me in their Media Resource Center would have been fabulous.  But they haven't called me back yet.  And neither has Life Time Fitness.  Bummer. 

In other news, as I've sat here this morning, I've heard two car accidents on the major road two blocks away.  The squeal of tires followed by the solid crash/thud is pretty unnerving.