Kingfisher Cove

you are paleturquoise #AFEEEE

Your dominant hues are green and blue. You're smart and you know it, and want to use your power to help people and relate to others. Even though you tend to battle with yourself, you solve other people's conflicts well. Your saturation level is low - You stay out of stressful situations and advise others to do the same. You may not be the go-to person when something really needs done, but you know never to blow things out of proportion. Your outlook on life is bright. You see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Not so sure this is all true. (I do tend to be the "go-to" person quite often....) But I definitely agree with the color scheme. (Just glad it wasn't yellow).

This would be me. I'm at work, waiting on OTHER PEOPLE to do THEIR JOBS so that I CAN DO MINE. On one end (over me) I have a flakey project manager who has waited until the last minute to provide me with any direction and now she's freaking. On the other end (basically equal to me) is the graphics designer trying to slam together a PowerPoint presentation with very little information to go by and he isn't having a real good attitude-day. I'm in the middle between these two, trying to make sure something happens!! (But with the understanding that things do not happen by magic in the real world). I'm hand-holding a flake, and I'm hand-holding a grumpy artsy type.

The problem with all of this, as I see it, is the right/left brain thang:

Left Brain
Logical
Sequential
Rational
Analytical
Objective
Looks at parts

Right Brain
Random
Intuitive
Holistic
Synthesizing
Subjective
Looks at wholes

psssst.... I finished my 100 things (see About Me)

I just had to share this!

OVER LAKE WASHINGTON - Spiders the size of the Space Needle? A house fly that looks like it's larger than Mt. Rainier? We've seen that before on the Washington Department of Transportation traffic cameras.

But we've never seen this one before.

During KOMO 4 News at 6 a.m. Thursday, while we were checking the morning traffic on the 520 bridge, we were shocked to see this image pop up on the screen.

It appears there was a bird that had captured its morning breakfast and was taking a break while resting on top of the camera. What you see is the fish's tail hanging below.

As you can see, it didn’t affect traffic too much.

It's just been one of those days. (Seems to be a lot of these lately). Ever notice that work zaps you? Is that so not fair or what? (I sound like that Valley Girl site...) Work has a way of squeezing out every last drop of brain juice, and so by the time I get home, I'm a deflated balloon, a moronic zombie, a lump. And then it's bedtime. And then it's time to get up again. And then it's time to leak out all the brain juice I stored up while I was sleeping. What's wrong with this picture? The people who love me are getting short-changed.

(And why again do they love me? How can you love a lump?)

Did I mention I'd be one helluva candidate for retirement? (Or was that a lotto winner?)

As I have time (between brain juice deposits), I've been working on my list of "100 Things About Me" that I've noticed a lot of people have done, and I find intriguing. They're fun to read! It's a daunting task to create, though. I guess I need to be a bit perkier (and not so grouchy). I'm only on Number 6. (94 to go...)

We had some rather wild weather today. I even heard that in northern Washington, near the Canadian border, a tornado touched down! That's almost unheard of around here. In fact, it basically is unheard of. There are funnel clouds on very rare occasions, but they never actually touch down. I just finished reading "Breathtaker" which takes place in Tornado Alley, and I just can't imagine! (However... if I did live there, I'd probably be one of those idiot storm chasers, just because they fascinate the hell out of me. But, I'd rather not live there, thank you very much). So here we are in the midst of a lovely spring and the wind is blowing and the rain is slamming against the windows and it's hailing and thundering and lightening -- and the power goes out at work. Albeit briefly, but long enough to make us all a bit giddy about the prospect of having to close it all down for the rest of the day. Bummer. It did hose up the elevator, though, and so we all had to use the stairs afterward. (Which I tend to do anyway, but for those who don't, it was a double-disappointment!) All around us the power remained out for quite some time -- no traffic lights, etc. Fortunately, a power outage like that (brief) doesn't affect our computers anymore since we're connected to an emergency power source. This is good. Otherwise, there would be a LOT of cuss words flying around.

But during the time the power was out, a few of us took the opportunity to rehash other "crises" that we'd experienced and could recall "where we were at that moment in time". Aside from 9/11, we all remembered 2/28 of that same year (2001). We were hit by a 6.8 earthquake, and luckily it was a lot more "awesome" than it was damaging. Some folks truly did suffer significant damage, but most of us just rode it out and later appreciated the incredible, amazing power of it. An earthquake of that magnitude in Bangladesh would have probably killed 400,000 people. This definitely attested to the durability of the structural design and quality construction of our "built" environment. (I'm in this biz, so I know the buzz words). People piss and moan about all our codes and regulations, but the only buildings that were damaged by that quake were the old ones that were grandfathered in based probably on whining rich folks and politics. (And FEMA probably took care of that...) Oh, I'm so caustic.

At any rate, where was I when that earthquake hit? The only place in the whole wide world where I WOULD be. On the toilet. In a restroom at work with no windows and so when the power blinked out, it was darker than dark. I held on to the handicap bar, pants around my ankles, and thought about how very UNATTRACTIVE I would be if discovered DEAD. Such is my luck.

The other thing I did this weekend (my 4-year-old niece would say "The udder thing I did...") was have 5 charms soldered onto my charm bracelet. Wow, talk about setting me back a bunch. I could have bought a couple more 14K charms for the price of those silly little "bails" and the soldering. However, my bracelet is pretty much full now. I may have room for one skinny little kayak charm eventually, but for now I'm calling it good! I love my charm bracelet! Last fall I decided I just had to have one, and I opted for gold because I really don't wear much (any) silver. (When I had my "colors done" in the 1980s I was told I was a Spring and Springs wear gold, not silver! Silver washes us Springs out -- makes us paler than we already are, I guess). Anyway, it was a good enough excuse for gold. So, gradually I've added charms, plus my mom gave me a couple for Christmas (a clam shell and a little boy, both decorated with a pearl, which is my birth stone, plus it's my "little boy's" birth stone, who will be 18 in June...) Then JDub gave me a lovely little heart with a very sparkly little diamond in the center for Valentine's Day. And my girlfriend gave me a "Best Friend" charm -- I hear you are supposed to "break" it in half and each of you wear one half (one would say "best" and the other would say "friend"). I decided I wanted the whole damned thing! Am I a bitch or what? It required two bails, one for each half, yikes. (Serves me right!) So, these are my charms on my charm bracelet:

Snowmobile (see picture)

Heart with sparkly diamond (thanks, JDub!)

The letter "T" (my first initial)

"Best Friend" (thanks, Lis!)

Clam shell with pearl (thanks, Mom!)

Kingfisher (of course!)

Little boy with pearl (thanks, Mom!)

Crab (love those Dungeness...)

Weenie dog (naturally!)

Rowboat (I love 'em)

Typewriter (because I didn't like any of the "computer" charms)

That pretty much sums up me! And yes, the reason we blog is because we're narcissistic, right? (I keep reading that). It's all about:

A VISIT TO GRANDMA & GRANDPA'S
MAIN STREET STORE

They sold mens’ hats,
patterns and fabric,
buttons on cards,
Buster Browns,
and old-lady rain bonnets folded like tiny maps
and you could never get them back that way again.

Grandpa always let me pick one out
and I would choose polka dot
and the ones that snapped under your chin
were the best.

I would stand before the 3-way mirror in home-sewn pedal pushers
that Mom made me from Grandma’s fabric remnants,
and I would check out the 3-way tilt of musty fedoras
shadowing my eyes.

The store front opened to Main Street
and sometimes a parade passed beyond the finned tails of angled-in cars
and the bass drums would rumble through the sidewalk,
tickling my tummy.

The old blind man
(I think his name was Al)
came by with his seeing-eye golden retriever
and the grown-ups would talk anti-welfare
while I petted the dog and later got in trouble for it.

“That dog has a job to do and can’t be distracted!”

The store had the comfortable scent of old folks and clutter,
and each time the front door squealed on its hinges,
Grandma in her polyester purple pant suit greeted someone familiar.

They sipped perked coffee from chipped ceramic cups with pink swirls
they stored beneath the countertop container of plastic combs.

They shared a party line with the Coast-to-Coast store across the street
and impaled carbon sales receipts of work pants and rubber boots
with a gracious smile.

Bored at last, I would retreat to the back,
avoiding the ominous shadows and rust stains of the neglected wash room,
and I’d bang away on the electric adding machine,
eventually drifting to sleep among the stacks of ledgers.

At home, down the highway,
they were building a mall.

I've definitely begun planting my deck pots (with the aid of weenie dogs). Speaking of which, they are so funny. So damned excited to have "Mom" outside on the deck playing in the dirt. They stretch those long little bodies with their stubby little legs up on the pots and sniff the flowers. Naturally my camera wasn't handy to capture that!








And now I need to head out front and plant the rest in the flowerbeds. I took a break because I went and had my nails done, and I want to make sure they are good and dry before I stick my hands back into my garden gloves. I think I'm ready -- I'll be back!










TA DA!!! The flowerbed is planted!! It's nap-time now!

"A couple on a low-carb diet were kicked out of a buffet restaurant after the manager said they'd eaten too much roast beef."

(Oh my gosh, I haven't laughed this hard in a while!)

"The couple, who had been on the Atkins Diet for two weeks, were asked to leave after the husband went up to the buffet at the Chuck-A-Rama for his 12th slice of roast beef."

(Wow, 12 slices?)

JDub has to work all this weekend. Thankfully that doesn't happen very often. But wouldntcha know, the weather is supposed to be stellar both Saturday and Sunday, and we won't be going to H*ars*tine Island to try out our new tent (that arrived yesterday -- in a very little box. Hmm.)

So, while he's in the Da Airplane Company paint hangar doing his thang, I'll be home doing my thangs:

Planting flowers in the deck pots.

Planting flowers in the flower bed.

Getting my nails filled (might do that on my way home tonight).

Have new charms I received for various gifts soldered onto my charm bracelet.

Laundry Laundry Laundry Laundry Laundry...

At least some of those items sound like fun. (Certainly more fun than hanging out in the paint hangar).

I'll probably finish my current book I'm reading, too. It's "The Breathtaker" (see sidebar) and quite honestly? I'm not all that impressed. I discovered at lunchtime today that I had the "bad person" correctly pegged. I hate when that happens. (The only author who could get away with fooling me on a regular basis was Agatha Christie).