Oct

29

last day of Freedom…

Filed Under irregular, regular, tout le fromage | 4 Comments

Heylo kitties~

When I say the last day of Freedom, I refer vaguely to the name of the company I’ve worked for over the last six years. I’ve been a pre press technician, dare I say - specialist, for my whole stint here. It’s been mostly good. I started my job out of a desperate need to be rid of the last place of employment, knew I wanted to work with Macs, and was determined to get this position. I nailed it with some creative language at the interview paired with my obvious enthusiasm and system troubleshooting skills. I had no idea what I was doing with the applications, but I knew I needed to be here. I worked at least 60 hours per week for over a month, soaking up as much knowledge as I could. I’m proud to say I’m good at my job. I actually love what I do to a certain perverse extent.

Today is my last day at Freedom. (insert crowd cheering here)

Many of us are dressed up for Halloween. It’s likely my favourite holiday… well, next to my annual celebration of the opening of the Panama Canal… (August 15th, 1914), I Love Nachos Day (November 6th), Middle Child Day (August 12th)… now, technically, being an only child, can I still celebrate that? Am I not in the middle of nothing? Is being centered not the same as being middle? I digress…
I’m in costume today. I’m the Absinthe Green Fairy. I’m getting lots of compliments for my outfit, though I whipped it together just last night an hour before the fabric store closed… OK, I did buy the wings in advance, but that’s it. You can see a little picture of it on my dotmac right now, but I promise to have better shots in a day or so. I just wanted to get something up there in case a safe falls on my head when I exit the building…

Perhaps another post in a little while, dearests, but for now, I have work to avoid…
smooches~
jEN

Oct

27

wings do fail the prey

Filed Under regular, tout le fromage | 2 Comments

Upon entering the barn, a faint buzzing sound tickled my ears. It wasn’t a mosquito; it wasn’t near. I tried to match it to the noise of the chest freezer compressor or the electric box high on the wall, but couldn’t. I shook it off and got my gear together to clean the pen. I’d already locked Chaucer and Katia outside and brought in the beaten wheelbarrow, shovel and rakes. I fiddled with the padlock and tugged at the pole brace on the lower half of the door to gain entrance. The buzzing sound droned on in waves, increasing in volume as I swung open the massive stall door.
The old barn rafters with chipped paint patina had filled with cobwebs, as they do rather quickly, and there are always a handful closer to my level. Standing 5′3″ has it’s advantages when avoiding such things!

As I began the scooping and raking of debris from the stall floor, I heard it again.

I can only describe the sound as a chainsaw on helium in a distant wood. It was slightly eerie and somewhat irritating. After removing a portable lamp from another pen front, I managed a dim glow in my work area. A tiny wiggling thing caught my attention and I knew the source of the buzzing immediately. A rather large fly had become trapped in a web above me. It struggled and wriggled but failed to free itself. The buzzes were the exhausted pleas for mercy. I knew this when I saw the black shape approach. She was bulbous and not much larger than the fly itself but had an imposing presence nonetheless. You could feel a sharp excitement from the creature… she danced around the fly, left and circling right. She was thrilled for the hapless insect.
A child on Christmas morn, not quite knowing from which angle to attack the presents first…

Accepting fate as it had been dealt, the fly’s call diminished into a tired whimper. The eager spider circled still, and I envisioned the expression it must have had in it’s dark eyes. She went in for the kill. The buzzing stopped. I stood watching that web jiggle with a predator’s enthusiasm for a few moments more.

I cleaned the lion’s pen in a slight melancholic state. Nature is not pretty, but we no longer notice such transgressions. The hunt for us is over, we the upright standing beasts. Not one of us need dirty our fingernails by piercing the earth for a root to eat or bloody our hands in killing our next meal of flesh. I’m grateful for my homosapian detachment, but it’s that same detachment that burnishes out our compassion. Stop and watch a truly grotesque display of survival. Understand what it is to live. Then go through the drive-through at Taco Bell for dinner…

smooches~
jEN

Oct

23

anarchy in the UK

Filed Under regular, tout le fromage | 5 Comments

Grocery shopping in the UK is madness. Not in the “Our House”-”Must be Love” sense of Madness, however appropriate that may be, but the chaos involved in this basic hunter-gatherer ritual makes me crazy!

On the upside, I found lots of vegetarian options at Tesco. Sainsbury’s is a nice looking shop, (with slightly more frantic shoppers), but doesn’t have nearly the veg or organic options that are available at Tesco. And, wonderfully enough, I’ve found that the Tesco in-house brand items are very animal friendly. Most products, (didn’t look at every one though), are cruelty-free. :D I’m a happy expat!

There is a distinct lack of foo-foo coffee supplies here though. I can’t find candy-like liquid creamers, but I did find a serviceable syrup. It ain’t Starbuck’s-the home version, but it’ll juice me in the morning adequately.

It’s raining, but I would guess it’s gloomy and colder in Wisconsin right now. I can’t be bothered to check the weather site, but I know what October in Wisconsin is like. (and it’s usually poo.)

Not much to report, and I realize this is a boring post, but I’ve just had lunch, could do with a nap and am generally lazy on rainy days anyway.

Coming to you live from the UK and blowing a smooch your way~
jEN

Oct

21

Bunny love

Filed Under irregular, tout le fromage | 1 Comment

Remember the salad days of 20 years ago? The 1980’s and all the pop culture manipulation you could shake a Swatch at…
Swatch? Remember those? Well, dear kitties, though difficult to find the once prolific timepieces here in the US without online ordering, they are still ticking- perhaps not as lickin’ reducing as Timex- but ticking nonetheless.

Oh- erm… and they’re gettin’ it on too.

I happened across a really odd Swatch, and kitties- I had my fair share of them once, but this one struck me as possibly the strangest watch I’ve seen from them. Now, I don’t follow the politics of Swatch, so there may be a racier watch out there. Feel free to educate me and send me a link.

There doesn’t seem to be an exact link to just a page on the Bunny Sutra, but here’s the Flash link and one to an Amazon page with it too. I can’t decide if it’s adorable and I want one, or if I’m slightly put off by the graphic depiction of plush love.
You decide.

Swatch ‘Touch’ collection animation
Amazon page with one for sale- used. (How dirty… ;) )

smooches~
jEN

Oct

20

y’all are too sweet…

Filed Under regular, tout le fromage | 2 Comments

Hello my kitties…

My silly little profile on .Mac Buddy is generating a lot of iCards back to me. I am flattered that so many of you are sweetly going out of your way to shout out to me! *blushing jEN*

As you may be aware from reading this blog, (hopefully you made it here and not just to the dotmac page), I’m moving and in a slightly disorganised state due to my transcontinental relocation efforts.
It’s not that I don’t love each and every one of you, or that I’m ignoring your cards and emails. Believe me, I get a little thrill knowing someone went out of their way to say hello to this silly little american girl!

Once I’m settled in a few weeks, then I’ll begin getting into a routine of correspondence again. I am paying attention, my lovely geeks, so please continue to say hello, comment on this blog and have a laugh at my adventures and pictures now and then. You make me feel like a techni-colour princess in a pixelated tiara and I salute each of you with a parade wave and a slight blush from your attention. I just wanted to let you know that I’m here and reading your words. Thank you!

smooches of magnitude and gratitude~
jEN

Oct

18

every single one of us, devil inside

Filed Under irregular, tout le fromage | 5 Comments

I love chocolate.

No… I really looooove chocolate. There’s a reason I don’t buy it often. I love it. Most commercial chocolate bars are pretty shit. Then there’s chocolate candy bars. That category would include Snickers, Kit Kat, Whatchamacalit, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups… (Zero doesn’t count because it’s white chocolate and nougat. That’s a different animal altogether.)

Well… I need chocolate today. So… I mosey on over to our vending machines here at the workplace and scan the calorie laden contents. The chocolate row seems a little slim but lurking at the end is the day’s salvation.
One Hershey’s S’mores bar.
Typically, I am not fond of Hershey’s chocolate. It’s waxy and commercial. I like Lindt very much, but no one stocks that in the machines (thank god). I also like a handful of crappy commercial chocolate candy bars, though my taste for many of them has waned in my adulthood. I’ll still partake in a Snickers, a Kit Kat, Whatchamacallit, Reese’s, or a Milky Way… They all have additional ingredients like caramel or peanuts… so that’s acceptable. It’s kind of like ice cream. You can pile a bunch of stupid toppings onto a sundae and enjoy it completely, however, if you want a good Vanilla ice cream that you can eat plain - well, that’s a different category of ice cream altogether. You choose the plain ice cream more carefully. I think this way with chocolate.
Back to the chocolate.
Well, the S’mores bar also gives me a strange nostalgic satisfaction. I was a girl scout for years and years. We camped. We made s’mores. There’s something about chocolate, graham crackers and marshmallow that makes me go weak. This little candy bar is brilliant. All the bliss without burning your tongue on molten marshmallow or singing shitty camp songs. I swear I only went to camp to make s’mores and catch snakes. I am halfway to that time again, right now in my mind, as I sit here wallowing cheap commercial chocolate wrapped bliss over my tongue. The bar is smaller than many in the machine, but for a few minutes it gives me a memory. I hold onto that smoky campfire just long enough to finish the treat and realise once more that there’s a reason I don’t waste my money on chocolate candy bars often- Hershey’s chocolate still tastes waxy and now I’m out seventy cents, up eleven fat grams and sinking into the reality that I’ve got over an hour of work to go and an impending sugar low to look forward to.

Fuck. Why am I so easy?

smooches laced with sweets~
jEN

Oct

18

why do I have to sit next to the gassy guy?

Filed Under regular, tout le fromage | 2 Comments

I just got back from another weekend trip to my new home, Maidenhead. I still am shocked and amazed that flying to London with my belongings is cheaper than shipping them. Granted, I could probably ship over sea pretty cheaply and am doing do with part of my book collection, but I’d rather accompany my most treasured items in person. Now, I’m not handcuffing myself to my suitcases like a Guy Ritchie diamond merchant, but at least I get the piece of mind that my shit is stowed on the same plane I am. I take some comfort in that.

See my dotmac page for mildly informative and completely boring pics of my new abode. It was a drizzly, and at one point, hailing weather weekend, but I don’t mind that a bit. I was considering relocation to the upper west coast once- the Vancouver/Washington state area- so a little damp and rain shall not put me off.

I’ve got another trip planned before the final, one-way transatlantic flight. I’ve got a bunch more of my things to move, but I’m getting to the point where the items are meaning less and the cases are getting heavier. I find that I’ll need organisational items pretty desperately, so I’ll have to pack items into the things that could help me stay tidy and get them over there soon. I hate living out of boxes, but I hate living from piles of stuff even more.

I did have an opportunity to walk around the town of Maidenhead a lot this weekend. I found some things that comforted me with familiarity and other things that frustrated me with newness. I have a learning curve ahead kitties… I’m moving to another country and changing cultures as much as I’m changing jobs. It’s going to take time to adjust to all the aspects of daily life, but I’m ready for the bull with my red cape drawn and waving.

Bring it on, England. I’m ready.

Oh, and the title of this entry has to do with the fella on the plane back from the UK, not the fella I’m rooming with in the UK… heh heh. (Well, ok, he had his moments too… LOL)

smooches~
jEN

Oct

12

no news is not good news

Filed Under me so g33ky, regular, tout le fromage | Leave a Comment

I was just digging around for a shred of the former blog host, Polywogg.

For awhile, you could still find a little trace of the former app owners via the parent company, Rainjul.
Well, here’s what you get when you go to the Rainjul site now:

XO Communications
www.rainjul.com Not Available

The domain www.rainjul.com which you are trying to access is currently unavailable. This may occur for several reasons — the name may have changed, or it may have moved to a new location. Please try to access the site later, or contact the site’s administrator.

Goodnight sweet Polywogg. You served your purpose.

smooches~
jEN

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