. . . well, right now.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:27 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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It was four difficult hours, but we accomplished a lot. Also—she charges less than my last clutter lady, and has more experience.

Call me if you want good organizational help in the L.A. area.

I'm exhausted, but I am working from my actual desk, which we dug out from under a pile of papers and books.

I pointed out to her helpfully that you can always recognize those who aren't serious about getting organized, because they only have one file folder for each subject: some of us have two or three or four. We're not like the lightweight psuedo-organized: We're overachievers.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 03:15 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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A couple of computer crises made the newsletter for my nonprofit group an adventure this week. The beautiful thing is that I do that work as a volunteer, but my responsibilities as a paid employee kick into high gear once we send the beast to the printer. That week of hell each month culminates in two Saturday meetings held in dusty rooms that trigger my allergies. During the 4-5-hour ordeal I'm expected to give four written/oral reports (two as a volunteer, and two as the office manager).

I generally stay at my mother's place those Friday nights, so I can get into the office earlier on meeting mornings. Under the best conditions this means I sleep a bit more than if I had stayed in the Pasadena area. Under the worst conditions it doesn't work because her dog chews up the couch I'm sleeping on, and that disturbs me in the night.

And by the time I leave the Center on those Saturday afternoons my mind has often turned into whatever that stuff is they make Vienna sausages out of.

It's like that now. I'm tired, but content, in that sicko feminine codependent way.

[Yeah. I end sentences with prepositions; ya wanna make something of it? I mean, is there something you would like to make it into?]

Posted by: Attila Girl at 12:34 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The husband made such good time today that by the time we went out to the 18-mile checkpoint to cheer him on, he'd passed it by twenty minutes before. This is partly due to his wife's problems with time management, but more of it had to do with his habit of always making the conservative, "safe" judgement: the range he gave us of when he might pass by just didn't allow for the possibility of his getting across the start line early, and keeping up his best pace.

Attila the Hub finished the marathon in four hours and twenty minutes—an hour and forty minutes ahead of how he did last year in Hawaii.

At a certain point his sister urged me to give up the vigil. I agreed, and went to the Circle K for ice. Once I got back here, I checked with Mr. Internet, and found out that he'd finished—and made good time. So I went down to check the shuttle buses; he stepped off one of them just as I reached the lobby.

Running has done great thing for A the H. And I'm very proud of him.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:05 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I'm here in the Valley of the Sun. I'm supposed to have lunch with Desert Cat today, and then tomorrow I'll be cheering my husband on in the Phoenix Marathon.

Blogging will be more-than-light for the next few days, as I'll be occupied fetching ice to soothe sore spousal muscles.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:05 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 Small world. My father is running the half-marathon. My mother is with him to cheer him on/pick him up after it's all over. They took my grandmother along for a much-deserved vacation and an excuse to do some AZ site seeing. I'd say I'm jealous but it's not that warm there now, and the thousands of people there for the marathon would get in my way. I'm waiting for Spring Training in March.

Posted by: Sean Hackbarth at January 14, 2007 01:28 AM (QJ5cf)

2 AND!!! DC has posted a certain Picture, taken, I think, around the time of said Lunch. That's my blogdad and blogmom in the SAME PICTURE AT ONCE!!! With a great restaurant sign AND pretty flowers too! All right, all you bloggers out there. Now you tell me: How often does that happen? HUH? HUH? I am the LUCKIEST blogchild to ever be virtually born.

Posted by: k at January 14, 2007 01:33 AM (lCUKc)

3 Oooh, hoorah. I was going to send you that pic, and one like it that Daisy Cat took. I was hoping DC had posted it--was going to check on that after I answered my comments. Daisy Cat is an extraordinary woman: bright. With-it. Thoughtful. You'd like her.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 14, 2007 06:22 AM (ha3lH)

4 Sean, it's COLD here right now: maybe not by Wisconsin standards, but by Southwestern standards, it's intense. And I left my jacket and coat in SoCal, so I'm muddling along with sweaters and sort of dancing around to keep warm when I have to go outside. Usually when I come out here in the I pack clothes like the ones I take to the mountains. It's warm generally warm during the day (that sunshine thing), but at night the temperatures drop straight down like lead. It typically goes from 65 degrees in the daytime to 30-40 when it gets dark, here in the desert. How cool that your dad is running the half: I'm going to run a half this coming fall. I'll remember to look for your family in the crowds . . . ! ("Do you like good cooking? Tanqueray gin? Baseball?")

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 14, 2007 06:32 AM (ha3lH)

5 AG The last couple of mornings, the thermometer on my patio has been a rock steady 30 degrees. (Friday I ran outside to take pics of my house covered in a mixture of hail and SNOW!!) Spousal unit traveled to Adelanto on Saturday to help set up a friend's new computer... neighbor kids were having fun spraying the bushes with water and watching icicles form.

Posted by: Darleen at January 14, 2007 01:01 PM (x/ea7)

6 If my mother did the same thing as last year she hunkered down at an Einstein's Bagels with a book and waited for my dad to finish running.

Posted by: Sean Hackbarth at January 14, 2007 07:37 PM (QJ5cf)

7 Actually, Darleen, I did get your mail, and I showed A the H the pix of your house covered in snow. It reminds me of the time it snowed in Northridge in the early 90s. Wild. Sean, there was ice on the sidewalks here. One runner slipped on it and fell. This is something like a 20-year record cold day for Fenix--VERY atypical. I'm sure your parents didn't even notice.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 14, 2007 09:53 PM (ha3lH)

8 Oh, I do not LIKE being cold like that. Feels too much like Minnesota. Unfortunately I didn't have the luxury of hunkering down somewhere warm this weekend to wait it out. I'm still thawing.

Posted by: Desert Cat at January 16, 2007 04:54 PM (B2X7i)

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"I am content now that I'm taller than James Bond. It took me years to accomplish that."

—Darrell

Posted by: Attila Girl at 06:35 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Fear, or envy?

I'm talking about on the individual level, here: which emotion tends to be more corrosive to someone's personal development? Discuss.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 07:19 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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This is your window on drugs.

H/t: My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:15 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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. . . about a guy who still tends bar at the age of ninety.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 12:10 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I don't go out of my way to kill spiders in the house: I keep a few around to dispatch any bugs that make their way in, and then I try to trap the others and take 'em outside, where they are perfectly fine.

And there are some local animals such as squirrels that my husband will use humane traps for, and relocate.

But it sounds like an awfully dicey idea to use the "humane" strategy with mice or rats. By the time rodents make it in, there are generally too many of 'em to trap humanely: they need to be killed, just like ants do.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 04:33 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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