12/5/05

house tour page; the picture was taken about 4 years ago):

After: I like it, I think it looks really cozy in there with the walls that color. Fred was planning to paint the master bedroom this weekend, too – he went and got the paint Saturday night – but when he woke up Sunday morning his shoulder was hurting, so he decided to take the day off. It’s probably for the best – at least if he waits until next weekend, I’ll have most of this week to pull all the books off my bookcase and put them in a box so we can pull the bookcase away from the wall. Speaking of hurting shoulders, I woke up with my left shoulder and the left side of my neck very stiff and painful Saturday morning. I don’t know if I slept on it wrong or what, but it hurt all day Saturday (no, I didn’t take anything for the pain. Then I couldn’t bitch about the pain. DUH!) and then Sunday morning when I woke up, my right shoulder was hurting as well. So I finally took some Aleve, and the pain mostly went away. Now my ankle kinda hurts. * * * Fred went out to buy a new DVD player, because the one we bought back in March – which we returned less than a week after we bought it for a replacement, and then had to send to the manufacturer to be repaired a month later – has finally got on our last nerve. For the record, it’s a JVC VCR / DVD recorder combo (model DR-MV1), and it is a piece of CRAP. Not only did the VCR side of the machine never work, but in the last month or so every time we used the DVD side of the machine, it skipped and broke the image into artifacts when playing brand new discs (ie, out-of-the-box movies, not scratched rentals), and the motor that spins the disc made a loud grinding / rubbing noise when the machine is on, to the point of being distracting on the rare occasions we could actually see the picture. (Part of that paragraph above was stolen from Fred’s letter to JVC, by the way.) Friday we started watching March of the Penguins, and the picture started breaking up and skipping, and finally Fred went out into the garage and got the DVD player out there – the very first DVD player we ever bought, 5 or 6 years ago – and we watched the movie on that. That DVD player – a Sony – is probably the best investment we ever made. It never gives us a bit of trouble, and although the picture isn’t as clear as it is on newer DVD players, it never even thinks of skipping or breaking up the picture. Anyway, on Sunday Fred went out to look for a new DVD player – I told him that, if possible, I’d like to have a DVD player/ recorder, and he ended up coming home with an Emerson DVD player/ recorder/ VCR. So far it’s working just fine and I’m hoping that it continues to do so, because I’d really like to transfer all my home movies from VHS to DVD. Only time will tell if it’ll continue to work – but so far it’s working better than the JVC machine ever thought of working. * * * Currently reading: Gods in Alabama, by Joshilyn Jackson. Recently finished: Talk to the Hand, by Lynne Truss. I’m sorry to say, this book bored the ever-loving shit out of me and I ended up skimming most of it. Oh well, I guess ya can’t love ’em all. * * * Sugarbutt is a bad boyfriend. During the day, he’s all “No! Put me down! I don’t WANT you to kiss me! People might SEE!”, and yet at 3:30 am EVERY FRICKIN’ MORNING, he’s all “Come here, my darling, and let me frantically lick your neck. Let me lay upon your head and purr so loud I vibrate your brain right out of your head, I LOVE YOU AND I DON’T CARE WHO KNOWS! NO, you cannot go back to sleep, you cannot sleep when I am FILLED with the love for you, and I must express it!” He’s kind of like Pepe Le Peu at night, now that I think about it. Sugarbutt doesn’t care if the older cats WANT to snuggle or not. If he sees enough room, he’s in there like a shot. Usually the older cats put up with it for a little while, and then stomp off in a huff. Which is probably part of his evil plan. Talk about taking your life in your hands. ]]>