Tikuahote's Journal

9:16am: Hot
I've traveled to hot countries. I can deal. But it's different when it's your own turf. Here, it just shouldn't be this hot.

1:25pm: Too hot
Yes, it is too hot.

Went to the local theater this morning for the free movies. Saw Journey to the Center of the Earth. They're on tomorrow too, so we'll go see the other offering. Yay for Thornton Place cinema!

10:20am: Nothing exciting
But I've got Food and Snack on my lap. Wish I had a camera nearby 'cause they're so cute!

11:34am: Escape Artist Snack
Snack (brown mouse) has figured out how to escape from the mouse house (aka an IKEA storage box). So, I need a new mouse housing solution. I do have a cage I got from my SIL, but it needs its wheel removed as the wheel is hamster size and thus dangerous for the mice.

11:09am: Food and Snack are so much fun
I'm loving the mice. They're so cute! If I put my hand into their house, they climb right up. I've got them on me right now--one on my lap, the other on my shoulder.

11:15am: Food and Snack update
The meeces are doing well, the kids are really gentle with them and the cats haven't yet eaten them. Sweet husband commented to me this morning "you know, if you'd asked me if we could have rodent pets I would have said NO" and I just sort of batted my lashes and simpered, which always works you know!

10:48am: I must be insane or welcome Food and Snack
Well, we're now the proud owners of two little mice, named Food and Snack. Food is an albino and Snack is warm brown.

3:46pm: easter candy is on sale
but every place I try is out of Cadbury creme eggs which are the only Easter candy I really like.

9:34pm: Some good books
I am enjoying Nora Roberts' Key of Light on audio, read by Susan Erickson (who also reads the JD Robb mysteries). Also enjoying Mary Balogh's Then Comes Seduction. Also reading an interesting book by the son of one of the founders of H&R Block on why he resigned as CEO of H&R and became a teacher.

4:29pm: Tropic Thunder
Watched it last night with sweetie. Wowza, that's one hell of a good movie. Especially if you like South Park and have seen Apocolypse Now at least once. I can't remember when I've laughed so much.

11:45am: I'm still catching up on Season 4 of BSG. The kids are itching to play the board game I rec'd for V-Day, so I told them they could if they learned who the characters are (by watching the Miniseries, which is, except for a couple of scenes, kid-friendly). The little one has "Starbuck" and "Six" down, the big one knows the others.

In other news, there's not much to report. The sun is shining. I made lovely banana muffins and brownies yesterday. I have laundry to fold. Yes, life goes on.

9:20am: 6:00 AM phone call
So, when the phone rings at 6am, you answer because it's got to be serious if the phone rings that early. I heard it, and at first thought I was dreaming. THen, I was puzzled because I could tell it was a phone call, but it didn't sound like our phone. Sweetie eventually answered.

Yeah, it was school. Apparently it snowed/sleeted last night and school will start 2 hours late.

The kids are hanging out in jammies, watching Mister Ed and having breakfast. It feels like it's still the weekend.

10:38am: Success!
I have successfully made it to the DVD release of Battlestar Galactica Season 4.0 without hearing ANY SPOILERS. And, I am but two episodes away from finishing watching Season 3.0.

Yay me!

6:51pm: Happy 2009!!
Can't believe another year has passed! 2008 had its ups and downs, let's hope 2009 will have more ups than downs!

10:21am: Snow!
This week, we've had two two-hour late school starts and two canceled days. Yesterday was canceled, but turned out there was no snow or even any inclment weather here. Just north though, they got several inches.

Well, it was our turn today. As Frabjouslinz says, it's a Snowcopalyse. And thus, time to stay in and bake cookies.

5:01pm: ...not always right
I love this site, I really do.

This one is a great example of why some nutcases give all Christians a bad name...

Sloth, Envy, Lust...and Prepaid Gas

In other news, we had a catastrophic toilet failure at about 1 a.m. Monday morning (you know, really late Sunday night). The tank of our 30+ year old toilet cracked, spewing water across the floor and through the floor itself into the basement, where it cascaded out of a light fixture and onto the floor, flooding part of the basement.

Since the toilet was so old and not low-flow, we couldn't just replace the tank. Long story short, my fabulous DH installed a brand-new low flow Toto Drake, the Mercedes of low flow toilets. It's great, something I never thought I'd say about a low flow toilet.

1:46pm: And more...

10:48am: Excellent!
Just watch it, ok?

6:02pm: And there's more
I don't usually post twice in a day, but this post by a blogger I found (Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom) is a must see. You'll have to click to it, since I don't know how to embed video.

5:37pm: Courtesy of Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom!



Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

2:08pm: On drugs...
at the dentist!

I have dental anxiety. But I also am totally paranoid about having bad teeth, so I'm really good about getting to my twice-yearly cleanings. Thing is, when it comes to fillings (I have fillings in all my adult molars--guess who's parents didn't make her brush & floss every day??--they were amalgam, when those wore out, I got nice tooth-coloured ones), I have issues. I can't be given epinephrine, and due to that, the anesthetic they use doesn't last long. As in, I've needed extra shots IN THE MIDDLE OF A PROCEDURE. Yeah, seriously not fun.

So at my last cleaning, when the dentist again said that I need to have an old filling replaced as it is wearing out, the hygienist suggested that the dentist could call in a prescription for Valium for me. At first, I didn't want to have anything to do with it--Valium? Me? I'm so not the sort of person who takes that stuff. But to help with the anxiety, I thought it would be worth a try. 

Since I often have bad reactions to various pain relievers and such, I asked for an extra tablet so I could try it out on the weekend. I didn't want to have a bad reaction AT the dentist and thus create bad associations not to mention have an awful time. I tried it out and ... it was a little like having a couple of drinks. Almost instantly. It was the weirdest sensation. I didn't like it, but it also wasn't bad. I didn't hallucinate or get sick to my stomach. Good so far.

Fast forward to yesterday morning. The pill bottle says "take one hour before appointment" so I do so. On the way there (no I didn't drive, sweetie drove me), it started to kick in. I was apparently giggly.

At some point before the drilling began, I started to worry that it wouldn't be enough, so I took another. Yeah.

All in all, it was a weird experience. I'll take them again, for this purpose only.

2:51pm: Books a Hundred
frabjouslinz has a lovely book reading meme over at her blog. Here's my take. I've read 45 on the list, not counting the Shakespeare since I haven't read it all.

* Look at the list and bold those you have read.
* Italicize those you intend to read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - Love it. I re-read it every few years.
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - Love it. Love the movies too. I recently re-read the trilogy.
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte- hated it, but had to read it for school.
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling- love it. I went to three midnight release parties (for the last 3 books)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - I read it for school, didn't like it, won't re-read it.
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - oh, God, this book made me cry. One of those "I'm glad I read it but never want to read it again."
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell - read it for school...this is one everyone should read.
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - I read the first two and got bored during the third. They're just not that engaging.
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - never have read much Dickens, but I mean to.
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - see comment for Wuthering Heights, above.
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy - um, I saw the movie with Nastassia Kinski. Hated it.
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller - tried to read it. Got bored.
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare - I've read about a third of the plays and some of the sonnets.
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - oooh, love it. Read it in 8th grade (on my own) for the first time. Love the movie too.
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - read it several times.
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks  -  never heard of this one...
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - maybe I wasn't old enough, but I just didn't get it.
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - read this in 8th grade or so, loved it. Re-read it several times.
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - loved this way back when.
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - see Wuthering Heights comment above.
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis - Read and re-read numerous times.
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden - didn't read it but I did see the movie. Does that count? I didn't care for the movie. Almost plotless.
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell- another book read for school.
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez- tried to read it...boring.
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood - hated it, but see Wuthering Heights comment.
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding - read for school
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley- again, read for school, but a good read.
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov--ooh, icky.
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt--Tried to read it, but it was too boring. I remember the mega-hype this book got though.
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding-Tried to read it but too much navel-gazing by the protagonist.
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - Loved this book.
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert - read it for school. Hated it and hated her.
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom - overwrought fake-self-enlightenment
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Love Sherlock Holmes! I've read all the stories.
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - read for school, hated it.
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery - read it in French and English. Still way too sad.
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams - Loved it, re-read numerous times.
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - Book is much better than either movie version.
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

5:21pm: Oh, South Park!
Did you catch last night's South Park? They have truly outdone themselves this time. It's AMAZING. Dig around online and you should be able to find the full episode...

9:50am: Why does the Federal Government poke ...
in where it shouldn't be?

Yet another reason No Child Left Behind is leaving us all behind!

Read the NY Times story here. (it may ask you to login. It's free, and worth it to get older NY Times stories.)

12:00pm: Back from Las Vegas
I love Las Vegas. 'nuff said.