saturday i spent the day at the san diego dixieland jazz festival. i hadn't been before, but everyone who had been in years past assured me that i shouldn't miss it. it ended up being just sukkid and i during the afternoon (everyone else was showing up around 5 or so), but that was fine. give me a good lead and i'm content.
heh. i felt like we were at tio leo's on a wednesday night. the crowd was definitely older, but hey. i don't, and didn't, mind. everyone is so appreciative of the fact that a younger generation is keeping the dance of their youth alive. we had so many people comment on how well we dance...and tell us to keep it up.
i think my favorite band overall was the reynolds brothers rhythm rascals. talk about a fun show! my favorite to dance to was the high society jazz band. of course, that's probably because that's who plays at tio leo's on wednesdays, so i'm used to them and their music. coronet chop suey was pretty good too, as were pretty much all the other bands that we listened to. it was just a matter of hunting down the good dance bands...for obvious reasons.
we left around 4 and met up with jamie to head up to disneyland to hear stompy jones. it started raining about halfway up there and continued to rain until just before we walked into the park. i'm ashamed to say i ended up wandering around in sukkid's k-state alumni jacket most of the night, but when it comes to getting wet and staying dry or being soaked and cold, well, i'll take comfort. hehe. at least he didn't have his camera with him to record the evidence. ;)
it had stopped raining for the most part, but the marble floor of the pavilion was soaked, so for the first set, everyone danced outside on the pebbled sidewalk. really, when wet, the pebbles aren't too bad as i found out at a&m at lindy in the dark. during the first break we ventured into the dry spot at the front of the floor and floated in and out of the pavilion. during the second band break, the disneyland staff finally came out and dried off the floor. i guess they were waiting to see if it was going to keep raining or not. heh. but with the slight damp i danced in my running shoes. made that really cool slightly-damp-sole squeaky noise when i spun for a while. :) you know, that noise that every kid tries to make on the gym floor while shuffling his/her feet...
the park closed at midnight, so we dashed around and hit our favorite rides before we left. with the rain and all, it was pretty empty, so we walked onto pirates, indiana jones, winnie the pooh and the holiday version of the haunted house. fun!
i spent today recovering though. i made it to church, then spent most of the day relaxing and watching forensics shows on the history channel. they're addicting! i did get grocery shopping done, though, and made pizza for dinner...mostly from scratch - i cheated and used frozen bread dough for crust.
now if i could just figure out how to get virtual pc and my mac to share files...i'd be in business...
i finally found a sport i'm good at - croquet. i hadn't played in ages, but still managed to win. lunch was fun. there were a ton of people there - and even more food. we watched the dog show while things finished up and i even managed to choose the best of show.
my uncle's bash was the usual. it was fun to see everyone. the only difference is that we (the kids) watched shrek 2 this year instead of our usual spy kids. my vote was for harry potter, though...
so tonight i sit here and veg in my pj's, listen to the christmas music i added onto my laptop this morning, add spammers to my blacklist (do they do this when they think no one will be paying attention? i notice it peaks on weekends and holidays...), and watch a bit of food network/hgtv. guess i'm just resting up for tomorrow's painting and other such exploits. no shopping for me. i guess i'm just beyond fighting the crowds now or something.
happy thanksgiving to everyone. i still stand by what i mentioned last week to a few of my friends. overall, i'm pretty content. i'm thankful for everything that i have - family, friends, a nice place to live, a great job, a home church...all of it.
it's somewhat strange - in a good way - to not be racing around trying to get home for thanksgiving. normally about this time of the week i'm driving two hours, getting on a plane for another 5 hours and arriving exhausted in san diego. so strange to be at home facing only a half hour drive in the morning up to north san diego county. strange. but nice.
mom was supposed to make pies for the meal at my uncle and aunt's house. with the number of people showing up...it ended up being about six pies. so, she farmed them out. my sister's making two pumpkin, mom's making two lemon meringue and i got assigned to two pecan - mostly because i don't have a mixer and it was the one of the three that didn't require a mixer to make. they didn't seem to be too hard to make. hopefully they'll taste alright since i doubled the recipe. heh. for some reason i always seem to mess *something* up. hopefully that won't hold true this time...
thursday we're having our first meal at my sister's boyfriend's mom's house. later that afternoon, we're heading to the aforementioned aunt and uncle's house. which put's mom's meal off until friday. she's cooking, though. we tell her every year there'll be a mutiny if she doesn't cook. ;)
friday'll be different from years before, though. mom's cooking. we're decorating cookies. we're decorating the tree. there'll be three men (mom's friend reagan, sister's boyfriend, and our cousin) to haul the tree around and set it up straight. (heh. maybe it won't fall over this year and get water all over the place. though that's only happened once. really. i promise.) oh, and my sister and i have to get up there early because we're supposed help paint the new molding and baseboards in the corner where the tree goes because the tree'll be in the way when we get to painting said pieces in the coming weeks. just another crazy day in the life of the morris'. hehe. :)
this weekend is the dixieland jazz fest. i'll probably be there saturday and sunday, though saturday night sukkid and i will probably head up to dance to stompy jones. it's a long drive, but disneyland is usually a lot of fun. and hey, if the swing isn't good, the 80's band in tomorrowland usually is. ;) (that's where we ended up last time...and i found out i dance with very small personal space...when sukkid and i bumped foreheads in the middle of a flying lindy swingout. *bonk* hehe.)
so, looks like i'll be recovering from another weekend on monday. eh. i can catch up on sleep some other time.
a couple of weeks ago, the church sermon was about being carried. about how the church was there to carry you when you couldn't carry yourself. they sing when you can't. pray when you can't. it was about voices joining together to carry you along. i've helped carry in the past; i think i'm going to need this support today. don't even know if i'll be able to sing in the choir. might just sit in the back of the church so i don't ruin the anthem by being prone to get teary.
good luck in australia, gary.
earlier i was bemoaning the fact that i hadn't taken any classes in networking when i was working on my master's (not that it would have helped since everything was pc-based...). this as i was trying to get my mac to talk to my pc so that i could access the internet. i knew it had to be easy. i finally left. when i came back, somehow the air port option was there. i don't know if it was something i had clicked on or what, but lo and behold, there was my network. no setup needed. whew.
sure wish i know what i did...
i never thought i'd see the day. i'm a mac user. there. i've said it. i now have a powerbook g4...and i like it. :)
though i feel like a complete and total newbie again...for now.
sometimes i feel like too much life is going on...then other times i feel like it's starting to slow down. all in the space of one day. i suppose my personal life is a bit in upheaval with two of my good friends leaving - one of them way too soon.
work life is settling into an easy rhythm for the moment. i've scheduled myself an hour a day over the next month to get a job manual written for my position and policies in place for the changes that we're making effective the first of the year. it'll be nice to be in compliance with those good ol' gaap's which all the cpas keep harping on me about. hey, chickies. i inherited this system. i never claimed that it was good or right, but i can only struggle so much against the current. now that i have the owner of the company behind me, i feel a bit freer to make the changes. hopefully the other property owners will go along with all this willingly and not raise too much of a fuss.
last thursday we sang the first four lines of durufle's kyrie. odd how that piece of music still gives me the shivers when i hear it.
time to head home. i need to do some cleaning up before i head out dancing tonight.
y'know, all the spam that gets posted in the comments of my blog really pisses me off. i have to spend time deleting all kinds of crap out of the comments. it's enough to make me just turn them off. not like many people post in the comments anyway.
at least blacklist kills a lot of it. i mean, really. am i going to use a brand of medicine just because i get 600 spam comments about it? i *don't* think so. get real. neither will anyone else.
if you call this advertising, you must think the american people are really dumb. those who are smart enough to use the internet are smart enough to tell what is spam and what isn't, and (i hope!) they're smart enough to think for themselves and not believe that just because a name or email changes and because they put in some witty quote that tons of different people are posting about how great "x" is. the company's probably are just trying to get its name higher in the search engine. well, leave me out of it. i'm not a label monkey.
the fact that half the city isn't working today was made painfully obvious today when i made the mistake of going to the mall to run a quick errand over lunch. aie. our "super secret" parking spot was nearly full. i swear people have forgotten how to drive. it was like a demolition derby out there!
also found out i should not drive when i'm really hungry. short tempered. grumpy. impatient. yep. that's me. but i've eaten now, so it's all good. at least the waiter at sammy's took it to heart when we told him we were in a hurry - we were in and out of there in a little over a half hour!
tonight's choir practice and then dancing at the starlight ballroom. i somehow have managed to assemble my entire moe outfit here at work - shoes included as i hadn't taken them out of the trunk yet - so i'll probably try it on here while i'm waiting for choir to make sure it looks alright and that i don't have to make any last-minute changes of any type. *crosses fingers*
Well-behaved women rarely make history.
-Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
tomorrow is the mark of excellence (moe) awards. i've got a dress, shoes, make-up appointment, a friend who's meeting me for the after party, a place to go if the after party sucks...things just seem to be working out. now if i could only get some residual confusion from last week cleared up...
i get to leave early tomorrow to get ready for the moe. today? don't feel like working. i'd much rather be out and about hanging out with friends or something. doesn't help that it's awful nice outside, and two of my good friends and half of the city aren't working today...
four posts in one day. no, five. think i'm bored? ;) no, really. i got management fees posted and did a check run today. i'm working. honest!
we found out today that our leasing agent who's been out on maternity leave isn't coming back. this after she told us yesterday she was. i'm sad that we're going to be going through all of the not-funness of hiring a new person again. i was looking forward to getting back to "my job only" too. on the other hand, i think i have the whole "entering new leases and apps into yardi" thing down to an art now. deposits and first-month rent checks are being entered in a timely manner, and i kind of have a handle on what's going on. so maybe it's good because i wouldn't have to fight her for that when she came back.
sooo...wheee. we finally get one position filled to have another open. anyone here in sd want to be a leasing agent? real estate license preferred, but not necessary if you work on getting it once you get here...
so much for the reassurance that she's for sure coming back.
i found a dress at the end of october for the mark of excellence awards - it's very much like the one that i fell in love with in high school but couldn't buy because it was entirely too long and couldn't be shortened.
today i went to hunt down shoes for said dress at cedros soles in solana beach. i walked in with my dress in hand, and they'd just gotten a pair of shoes in that day that matched perfectly...and were well within my budget and size. i didn't even have to look through the shop; they just brought them to me.
ever get the feeling that something was meant to be? silly for it to be about a dress, a pair of shoes, and a night out on the town, but who knows why or what might become of it.
i think i've found a church i like. funny how stepping into it last night to practice with the organ made me feel like i was walking back into st. andrew's. everyone is terribly nice as well and has made me feel welcome. guess i've got a new home church. :)
The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you.
-John E. Southard
The (Other) Thought For The Day
2004/10/27
Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could;
some blunders and absurdities crept in;
forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day;
You shall begin it serenely and
with too high a spirit to be encumbered
with your old nonsense.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
mom's got a bug that i've started. she wants to take argentine tango lessons. looks like i'll be adding yet another venue to my tuesday night. at least it's right after work, so i might have time to rush home, stuff food in my mouth and run back out to balboa practice...which i don't have to be at by a certain time, thank goodness! and then there is henry's...
goldilocks and the church search
that's who i feel like right now. the first church i visited was too causal, the cathedral was entirely too formal. i'm about to just go to the church in del mar that i know i like. i just keep hoping to find one a little closer to home... maybe all saint's will work out. we shall see. there's only about 15 episcopal churchs within 15 miles of my house!