A post as scattered as my brain

I'm starting to feel the end of the summer looming. This sucks for several reasons.

1) I hate Michigan winters!
2) Thanks to a particularly cool summer, I have ~4000 green tomatoes on the vine, and have gotten exactly 4 ripe ones.

3) The end of the summer means the end of my high productivity and the start of job-market madness.

4) I have a grant proposal due in two weeks...a grant proposal that is in its twinkle-in-my-eye stage.

5) Did I mention how much I hate Michigan winters?

I still don't know what I'm teaching this coming semester. Good thing classes start late this year--Sept 8th.

On a related note, I have no idea how much I'll be making next semester. I could be teaching

.25 (8-12 hrs/wk)

.5 (18-25 hrs/wk)

or

.75 (35-45 hrs/wk).

Needless to say, this uncertainty (and the associated income uncertainty) scares me a little bit.

We spent this past weekend moving everything out of Ross's apartment (we're hopefully renting it out this fall). It now looks like something exploded in our living room.

The cats have an ongoing battle over a chair we brought from Ross's place--a chair that will forevermore be known as The Best Chair On The Planet.

We've started training Roxy to be less of a little shit. We're using something we've decided to call "ham therapy".

Ham Therapy:

Step 1: pet cat

Step 2: feed her chunks of ham

Step 3: repeat

She's responding quite well.

Did you know that a package of ham chunks costs less than a similar-sized package of cat treats, and is approximately 1 zillion times better (according to the average cat polled in our living room).

My brain is working about 1/4 speed right now. Could you tell?

This blog post brought to you by Roxy....

Roxy can't decide which operating system she likes best.


She likes the Mac because it's easy to use. She's good at expose. Sometimes, things bounce up from the dock and she can try to catch them.

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saaaaaaadfadsdffffffffxcsdddddddddddddddaaaaaaaaaaaaaffffffff

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ckjfalhjjjsfdasssdffffffff




But she also likes Linux because random key combinations do the neatest things! Also, it makes her feel hard core. She hopes to meet the Linux penguin someday. And eat him.





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AAAAAAAAAAAAAASSDFFFFfdffsaaaaHHHHHHHHHHHHDHHSEIRWE324
w@#$!SDKLJSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
ALASPOORYORICKIKNEWHIMWELL



Hmmm...if only she could reach the space key.

Fortunately, in our house, she doesn't have to choose which operating system to mess up--we have both! Now if you'll excuse me, I have to clear off my desktop.

Roxy's favs:
Favorite part of the computer: the vent

Favorite key on the Linux PC: definitely caps lock

Favorite key on the Mac: toss up between expose, and whatever makes the most beeps

Favorite part of using computers:: getting thrown off of them

I'm not dead! I swear!

So it's been a while, I know. I have a good reason, though. If you might remember from my list of goals, I am going on the job market this year. Given the amount of time that particular goal is sucking up, I am hereby revising my list of goals.

Goals for 2008-2009
1) Get a job.
2) Stay sane.

I think that I can accomplish that.

Anyway, this is my way of saying that posting might slow down a bit. I'm hoping to use blogging as a break from writing my thesis. However, that activity competes with such perennial favorites as eating, sleeping, petting my cats, and kissing my husband, so that may not happen. In the meantime, here is a short play-by-play:

1) The kitten is huge. Like, the size of a small adult cat. We're thinking of renaming her Mongo. I need to take more current pictures, but here's one from a few weeks ago. Maggie is still unimpressed.

2) The garden has been hugely productive. We've had over 100 tomatoes, probably 25 Anaheim chilies, a ton of carrots, many many lemon-drop peppers, pounds of potatoes, and more lettuce than I know what to do with. Our plot has to be cleared out by the 16th. I'll try to do a final count before then.

3) I got an Ipod touch.
Ok, so it actually belongs to Ross, but he lets me play with it, and I'm plotting a way to steal it for myself. So it's kind of mine already.

4) I think that the bread shop around the corner from me is run by the mafia. I would go into more detail, but I wouldn't want them to find out. In fact, on second thought, I definitely don't think that the bread shop is a front for an illegal drug business. Not at all.

5) I have developed a tremendous addiction to the show House. Ross is even more addicted than I am, which seems impossible considering how much of my addiction is fueled by Hugh Laurie's devastating attractiveness. I even liked him as Bertie Wooster. Ross, on the other hand, has no excuse.

6) I have thoughts on the financial crisis, the bailout, and the presidential and vice presidential debates. Some of them are even worthwhile. But I don't have the energy to write them up. Sorry about that. Maybe next time.

Triangle of Desire

Triangle of Desire, originally uploaded by rcoconnell02.

The wireless network at the Kellogg school of business won't let me upload anything to any server (or download my mail to Thunderbird...grrrr) so I still can't get the pictures into the garden post.

However, I can give you this great picture that Ross took of Maggie and Roxy Anne. Note the relative positions of cat, kitten, and tail.

Bad decision in 3...2...1...