Ayn's Multiple World

WooHOO!! It's my birthday all over again ... better add in Christmas too!

Good morning. This is me. Sorry for the abrupt cut-off yesterday, but as you know things happen and people sometimes get lost in space. I suppose I’ll have to really think through what happened … cuz at this moment it’s a little spacey.

I’m a bit worried about today, because it’s Sunday and honey bunny is going to be with me all day. This is my treat for not seeing him around for the longest. I think he got home last night about 10:30 pm. I was still up, but we were heading to bed. He looked in reasonable good shape, but he’s admitting to at least 3-4 drinks so we’re not quite sure what the final count was. MAYBE he’s telling the truth.

*Giggle* well, at least we’re pretty sure he didn’t dance with anyone … he doesn’t like to dance, though we’ve had a couple real slow dances with him where I’m nuzzling his ears. AHA! That be the way to go!

As for now … it’s about 7 am and he’s in bed. His alarm clock made a mistake and woke him up about an hour ago, but naturally being a Sunday with nowhere exactly to be going … he went back to bed. WOOHOO … a nice WARM cozy bunny.

Hmm, figured if we’re going to be tolerable that we needed to take our medicine. I think we’ll wake him in 30-45 minutes … but that’s because of his favorite show he likes to watch at 8 am. Ok, we’re all good now. I heard that he’s going to want to clean after his show and that’s like a no-don’t-want-anypart of it on my account. I KNOW I’m going to need helping … with both that and laundry and maybe grocery shopping, but I have to work now on not going down kicking and screaming. We should TRY to be in a good mood about it. After all it’s for my benefit too. Just it seems like good time lost that could have been spent on other things.

I know, I know … she certainly isn’t big on cleaning is she? Nope, nope. My idea is to use as little space as possible so things DON’T get dirty. Just that those silly cats and dust bunnies are leaving bits of their hair and fur over EVERYthing!

YEEKS! I’m going to get a CLEANER animal next time! Maybe a sea horse 

Hmm, ok let’s get on with it. If you looked around and saw yesterday’s post – you may have noticed that we made references to someone named Randy Pausch. He died yesterday of pancreatic cancer at the age of 47. I very much feel for him, because I’m now 49 and would have hated to lose years of my being. He left behind a wife and a young family of three children two boys and one girl. I had picked it up under newsmakers when I was reading through AOL news. I was curious and had a few moments, so I decided to listen to his “Last Lecture” even though it was about an hour and a half long.

That decision paid off well. It was a very good lecture and I’m glad I spent the time with it. He talked about his life and basically he was leaving a marker for his kids. If you will a roadmap to follow. We also listened to another video of him that he did on time management. I’m sure in the end – he thought he hadn’t gotten things done enough because there’s just so much of life to fit in when it is cut so short.

Randy was a computer science person and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He worked on virtual reality and programs that mixed performance – theatre with 3D animation and computer graphics for the purpose of entertainment. He also co-produced a couple of programs that are given freely to the public on computer programming called, Alice and then Storytime Alice. It was to help young kids learn programming. And, it is free. I downloaded the programs yesterday and played around with one of them. It’s pretty cool, but there is a lot more room to play.

To download the programs – go to here …

http://www.alice.org/index.php?page=downloads/download_alice

It’s a really cool program and it came about from Randy’s quest to help himself, his students, and then a much wider crowd – thousands of people have tuned into him and his projects. His site where the video’s are of his presentations have over 6 million hits – people watching him present. It’s really amazing and I can’t emphasize enough to go check out the links.

Ok, ok … probably should be moving along now. You’ve already gotten the message that we’ve been impressed and are encouraging you check it out. Now I have to step back and just let you decide if your going to give his space some time. You won’t be disappointed.

Hmm, maybe then we should figure out what is next to be writing about. It’s about 7:30 am now and we figure that we’ll give Rich another 20 minutes, and then we’ll sneak into bed with him and wake him up with massages.

Oh man – it should go with note … that we had a little free time between his games and him leaving for his friend’s daughter’s wedding. Well, we’re not going to go into the details, but suffice it to say … it was time VERY well spent. WOOHOOO!!!

That a boy Rich!!!

Hehehe ok, silly goose … enough of that talk … but, it WAS really, really nice!

Hmm, now gotta work hard to think back and figure out what else happened yesterday.

Randy’s stuff really overtook me. Maybe if I try to figure out times … hmm, I know maybe I should go back to the entry posted from yesterday and figure out from there where we left off. Ok, hold on.

I can see now … that we must have pretty much gone over the day. I think we got to the parts where we were talking about what happened at work on Friday. I don’t know if there was more material to be covered, but it might be almost enough. Want to check though on my “kids’” stuff to see if I got fully updated there. I might be missing some time being or talking to them. Seems like I got through most of the day … and I talked about Thinking Group, so that covers the hours up to 2 pm. Did I do anything else that day? Ok, got the part where we were getting the Netflix package … what else? Oh yeah did the part of having had our car hit.

Anything else there? Maybe a little … when Rich got home yesterday, he reminded us that we needed to call our insurance agent. We talked to that lady and gave her a full accounting of the situation. She said that we should talk to someone else from State Farm today … I think an adjuster. He’s going to ask me the whole entire story again … which is ok, I like the part where we can voice our complaints. Doesn’t seem fair that I should get hit when I’m minding my own business. Oh, there is one other little side note. I got a ticket yesterday or the day before. The Brookfield police are very good at catching people who haven’t updated their city vehicle sticker. That too happened when I was parked out back. They come into your parking lot just to ticket you. I have to remember to tell that to Rich today … because if we’re going to be out … we need to go AND get our renewed sticker. REMEMBER that ok?!

Ok, I see … we got to the end of yesterday’s post and it appears we left off on having just talked to my mother and sister. That was good to finally get those calls taken care of. It meant however a couple long hours getting caught up. They both asked a few questions on how I was doing and I voiced my complaints about being hit, but otherwise there wasn’t a whole lot of information going out. My sister did ask about the weight loss as did my mother, but even that wasn’t spoken about in any great length.

My mother’s husband is going through some problems with skin cancer. We’re not real positive we know much about that situation. We know that he has a couple of doctor appointments and a funeral to go to this week. We should call again in a week or two to get an update.

With my sister … we spent a long time going over her life situation especially their financial burdens from Mark being out of a job. Apparently, the school he was teaching at went bust. However, he was in a good situation in that … he’d won a grant to go to Denver to learn how to teach in schools environmental science. CS stated it as he was learning how to go green. I thought that was an exceptional thing. Apparently, too they are going to pull in some resources from an early retirement account, so they are going to have some income soon AND still have a good chunk put back into retirement savings. I think the most positive was that Mark did some networking and found some job leads. There was an offer from Denver, which would mean they’d obviously have to move, but then also there were leads back in Milwaukee around the area they now live – which would mean not being too separated from their son Nathon.

Whoops, gotta take a break here … It’s time to go massage my funny bunny. Be back soon.

Ok we’re back for a little though traditionally this time between 8 – 9:30 am when Rich’s show is on … hasn’t been one of my most productive times. I’m really worried about my writing time. It’s already 8 am and I’m still about page 3. That’s really slow. Shoot, did we sleep in or something? Yuck I turned on the TV for Rich and am listening to an ad on Dino-somethings. It’s so loud! I know some story or another will catch my attention, but consciously we’re going to try making the most of this time. Rich is already into his cleaning mode. He’s downstairs putting the white load in the washer.

Oh good Charles Osgood is back. Ahh … we’re in a biking revolution.

Hmm, we’re back again … we’ve watched the whole news show with sweetie though I never left my computer. And, do you know what? Their very last piece was on Ranch Pausch the guy that we just watched and have been talking about. Rich was here and we said, see, see! That’s our guy … and he’s so important here he is on your favorite show … and we’re going to listen to him just today! I’m glad I downloaded his video, because there’s going to be a lot of people watching his stuff on-line today. Wow! Can’t believe they did a segment on him after we’ve been just crooning over it the last 12 hours.

We decided to look over at the Storytelling Alice – this one is meant for grade-schoolers like the regular Alice is for teenagers. Hmm, seems to be taking a few moments to load though. I guess we have to wait and be patient. There were a couple other good segments, followed by some I wasn’t as interested in … one was on riding bikes and the other was a famous lady who lip-synced back in the olden days.

Ok, we’re back … it’s really some time now later. It’s still Sunday, but it’s 2 pm. Well, now about 2:18 pm. I took a moment to dust too! Yup, yup … Rich caught me in a cleaning mood. We had set aside with him some time to move around furniture and by that I mean that he was moving the furniture and we sat on the side trying not to be discombobulated. Pshwoo. That was tough. And, then when the steam had subsided we kicked him out so we could do some real cleaning. He had though vacuumed … I might vacuum for him, because he leaves out the vacuum saying he’s going to do this or that and the machine sits there for a long time. It’s really not any trouble getting it out of the front closet. Hmm? He started the dishwasher, cleaned out the litter box, and started some stuff in his bedroom. I don’t think he got very far there. We put away a whole lot of stuff in the living room, especially the stuff that finds its way to the bookshelves. We have some desk and pretty stuff – colored tins and candles out on the shelves in front of the books, but it had gotten so anything could land on those shelves. Same went for the coffee table in the middle of the floor. So, we cleaned that up washed surfaces or dusted. One way or another it looks much better now.

We also did a few other things. We made sure the back bedroom was picked up, we cleaned up that poor suitcase that been sitting there since California and we cleaned up the back kitchen table, and chairs, and our desk. Hmm, now if I can vacuum AND unload the dishwasher … just think how surprised Rich would be. WOW! He had only really asked that we do the suitcase. This is a case of not micro-managing so your workers could surprise you. Hmm, two of my speakers are gone … where’d they go? Better ask Rich about that .. we’ also couldn’t find the quilt for the big bed. I wanted to put it over the chair, but now it’s disappeared. We’ve looked everywhere.

Hmm, maybe then we could take a shower too?!! We didn’t ever get that done. We weren’t really suffering though. Both Rich and I had a large 36 ounce drink while we were working. Oh, and we washed and folded and hung up 3 loads of clothes. It really is much funner to clean when there is someone else to help. I’m a little disappointed about the bedroom though. He’s got too much stuff sitting around … maybe he needs more space. I think he was going to put the rest of his ball clothes in the front hall. He’s got most of that closet and we’re going to give him the back-rear closet … He’s going to use that for his fishing closet. He really needs some room, because the way it is now the fishing poles are in his bedroom, which might be ok for him, but a little too woodsy for me. I’m also telling him that I really want his map pictures out on the front wall in the living room. We need to have more of him and less of us. Hmm, thinking too. Maybe we could put some of his map books either up on the shelf or maybe under the coffee table. It’s got a nice glass top circled in wood and it’s got a beautiful ledge under it for showcase items.

I don’t want to start doing maps though, because I want him to have some sayso in how it goes. Plus, he will know the maps that should be showcased the most. I told him that it was almost neat enough that we could be inviting Bob over. He said, again, no not yet, but I think he’s getting close.

Hmm, do you want to know now where Rich went??? He had to do some grocery shopping, but he also went out to buy the new TV set. Well, at least that’s my version. He’s like maybe I need to do some more looking around. And, I’m like YEEGADS! Just take out some money and say, I want the best! I hope he’s not too tired for it. AND, I hope it’s not so big he can’t squeeze it in his car. Maybe he should have taken mine without the wheel chair … and then he could have put down the back seats. We might call him up and remind him of the option. I think he has big back doors, but I’m thinking that usually his car is pretty filled-up. I really hope to hope to hope that he’s going to get it tonight. It would be the proper climax for all this fixing up in the living room.

I’ll take some pictures soon, but mostly he broke up the big U-shape of the couch.

He put the one long side along the big wall, but then he took a middle side – can stand up for itself – and my chaise and he put it on the opposite side of the wall in front of the big windows. Then he placed my rocking chair on the long wall next to the long couch. It’s a big wall and all of it fit. I really like the new place that my chaise is … though I really liked the old place. I’m going to be missing the bookshelf ledge next to it where I used to put stuff. No, not that it looked nice … just used to be handy. We moved the light in back of it for my reading in front of the curtains in the middle of the two double doors, yet in back of the couch. I think it looks nice, and I look forward to seeing it at night ESPECIALLY with the new TV. I know he wants to get a big HD flat screen. I decided that I shouldn’t go because it would only interfere. I would say just get the biggest and the best we can do. He’s going to want to be practical and budget it in just right.

We’re still giving him a hard time because of our desk chair. It’s a nice leather-like back chair, but he got it cheaper and it never got it’s arms. It was manufactured and packaged poorly. I’ve long since gotten used to it and the fact that I can’t lean back on it because it doesn’t have the right supports, but I still know it is a chair that’s not worth much especially in its present condition.

Oh, and you know what? He said he wanted ribs tonight so he’s bringing some back.

I told him that he should just get a regular dinner and I’d just have a little bit of it. I love rib tips, but again … it doesn’t take much to fill our stomach. I think with all of that he’s not going to be back for a long time. That’s why I was thinking I could still do the vacuuming AND do the dishes AND take a shower AND write. Just have to be conservative with my time. I was really really glad I got in a cleaning mood. Do you ever do that after you’ve moved furniture around? You get to feeling like you want to fix everything so it really looks impressive. I remember doing this kind of stuff long time ago. I really liked moving stuff around in my bedroom growing up. I like the feeling while you are doing it of sitting taking small breaks and feeling it out – and then the period like now when everything is so good and you can then live in the space. It’s so big of Rich to be doing stuff. It makes me really happy.

We had to budget this time though. I think we’ve stated before he was gone Friday and Saturday. When he asked me what I wanted to do on MY day … It was to get the TV and take care of the moving stuff. I can’t believe it’s before 3 yet, in that it seems as if we’ve been working all day. Pswhoo. We done good!

Wow! I did it! At least part of it. I vacuumed at one time both the bedroom AND the entire living room. There was a time not too long ago where that would have taken me an hour and I would have had to break it down into 3 stretches. That’s pretty cool. I feel very accomplished. Unfortunately, my back really hurt at the last of it. I had trouble bending over to pick up the cord. So, I’ll rest for 15-20 minutes and then I’ll try to do it again – in that We’ll empty the dishwasher.

Maybe all at once, or maybe broken down two times. There’s no sense in being silly about it. Hmm, I kinda miss having a smoke now that this much has done. I always used to have a smoke in between cleaning stretches. But, that’s a dangerous thought … better stop that … the big lie is thinking that you can have only one. That be a terrible expensive habit to pick-up and it wouldn’t fit with my new healthy self.

Rich and us talked about it this morning. We’d like to make it a goal that I can one day ride my bike the 12 miles to work. Wouldn’t that be something? I could see it happening if I lost enough weight. I got it from the show we were watching.

They said throughout the country less than 1% ride their bikes to work, but in Portland, Oregon, it is up to 6% - those people really did a super job. I would still have to drive a car during the winter months and on rainy days, but it sure would be fun to get to work after sprinting through the city. I think I could go the back streets and totally avoid of course the freeway. That be the thing – riding through the city. I think most of it is fairly safe. You wouldn’t want to sit around a lot, but if you had some serious bike gear out … I don’t think too many people will mess with you.

I’m having some really good memories now. We used to ride to my father’s gas station all the time. It was about 9 miles and we would also ride to my mother’s work which was 6 miles. I used to ride up to the high school 3 miles and of course to my friends’ houses. It would be so free and liberating. Man … what a cool thing. AND, to think that I could be saving the planet too! Not to mention my gas tank. YUP, YUP … I think I’m going to make it a goal. I know that it is a lot easier for me to ride a bike than to walk or run. Just have to build up our endurance – and become light enough I can sit on a seat proper. I could get one of those lightening fast racing hats, shorts, shirts, and shoes. Have to get a back pack too. Wow … I’m really seeing this. I think we’re going to have to agree with Rich that I need some kind of peddling devise. We’re going to need those special boxes on my two old TVs, but I don’t see why we can’t use them yet.

I’ve got it imagined that the back bedroom will stay pretty much as it is, but that the double bed back there will be on its side. That way we could have enough floor space to keep the walking machine AND the bike … WOOHOO … wouldn’t it be something if we had two bikes? Then rich and us could be riding around. The TV in the living room now could go on the long dresser easy. Rich has got the other TV on his tall dresser now. Every once in a while … we’ll both end up in there laying on the bed and watching it, or if one of the kids dropped by … sometimes Rich will turn on the TV back there. I think he’d probably turn on the TV too if he were cleaning the room. I think it’s to a point now that if we could get the book stuff out of there and the pictures of the framed maps, that he’d have that much more space. I think that my stuff is just in the one closet. Otherwise it is all his stuff.

We asked today again about getting his stuff out of his wife’s place. He talked about all of his grandfather’s books. He made it seem that his grandfather might have as many books as we do. Yep, you could see my eyes light up. He said they aren’t worth much, but we adamantly disagreed. I look at my books as my whole entire life-time. I’ve lost books, but have carried some of my books since elementary days. Me having the books is a big deal and I think that Rich would feel totally blessed to have his grandfather’s books and thoughts surrounding him. If we’re going to stay here a while, it would make sense to get rid of that bed in the backroom all together and put book shelves back there around the exercise equipment which will take the center of the floor. I also think that the wall behind the TV where the equipment will face should be a big mirror. That will leave the entire long wall in the back for books. Hmm, might have to get rid of my dresser? Well, maybe it would be enough to give up 9 feet of books. Maybe we could put them along the wall under the tall windows too. We could maybe get some specially made, or at least purchased. I think they have at most places 2-3 shelves … that would be good.

Man now I got the bug. I wonder if we could do this. Maybe if I saved I could get Rich a set of bookcases for the back room for his birthday and Christmas gift. I think he’s putting up a stink about the books, but the truth is … he’s never thrown out the books. I know that Rich loves books. We are both readers. Why not have books from the front to the back of the house? Hmm, let’s check out a few things now. BRB

Hmm, that is better. We’re back. We moved some books and maps. Rich’s books fit nicely on the bookshelf. The pictures would be better on the wall. But, we really need him for that. We brought them out which is part of the battle. Maybe we could ask him to surprise us. He did say something about going out on an overnight trip next weekend that was a surprise. I will have to do some searching. Rich wants someplace along Lake Michigan in Michigan but somewhere different than we were with Saugatuck. That’s going to be hard … especially given the summer season. I really don’t know of destination spots. I guess I’ll have to look up special tourist type stuff. Wow! Turned on the music and we’re getting a Pink Floyd … how can you do this without wanting to be high. The draggy tunes send me spiraling!

Rich just called … he was going to let me down and still might by explaining tired-like that the TV he wants is too expensive. It is $900. I had to talk to him awhile about that because he wanted to say that it’s impossible because he only wanted to spend $500. We encouraged him strongly, but mostly on the motherly-side, but still … this is what you gotta do. We said that it is not very much considering what TV’s can cost. We reminded him about Thom’s $3000 TV’s and I know you can get them for around $10,000 and more. TV has always meant to be a big expense. AND, Rich seems to know what he wants. Someone has talked to him, or he has read about pixels. I think that he’s looking at if a 37” TV would be worth what it cost. I thought he’d wanted to go like 47-52”. I thought when I left him that he might go out and get one, but he’s just as likely to get some groceries and ribs and that will be the end of it.

I think I got some rights since its my birthday present, but I told him to go with the better one and we’ll consider it his gift. Maybe we could consider it our Christmas gift this year and then he could just give me the bike for Christmas … I think we can safely get one of those for under $900, though again … I’m sure more gets you better. We didn’t tell him we did all the work yet, because we wanted it to be a surprise. I’d call him again and give him more thoughts, but I know that he’s gotta sort this one out for himself. He’s also looking at needing another vehicle soon enough and about getting his boat, etc. I know that costs here could affect costs there. Poor Rich … he’s such a Bohemian. No … not kidding … he really is a Bohemian … it’s his nationality. It’s against his grain to spend a lot of money. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I love him though. He’s more safe and secure than most.

Well, God Bless him, for whatever he decides hehehe though I told him if he comes home without a TV he’s just going to be tossing and turning more because he’ll be fighting the disharmony of value over cost without having the time to go back out soon. Just build up more resistance. I haven’t had too many TV’s in my life. The one I got I bought with the boys when they were still younger and the other one is a 1984 that came from my father’s estate. *Sigh* We’ve probably gone over this before. I asked Rich how he was going to get a TV up the stairs. That was earlier when I was still resisting the thought of getting ANY TV for a birthday present. He said he would worry about that when the time came. Thinking now that I spent about $900 for both my camera and my video camera which I gave to Maury. That wasn’t even like a whole TV. Or that I spent a couple thousand on books. He’d just gotta work through his difficulties. We’re still at the point that almost everything in this house was purchased by me. That is except the toaster oven. I think he is going to have to bite this bullet or live with the problem of not being satisfied. Pshwoo.

Ok, better let this go. We’ll see how it turns out.

God Bless, bless!

Mmm, I’m starting to get hungry. I hope he doesn’t stay out too long. I don’t want to fill up my tummy with ribs coming home. BUT, it could be another couple of hours. I didn’t eat lunch. Hmm, when in doubt I always say … eat a fudgicle! BRB
*Sigh* Much better. I took care of that fudgicle and I went in the kitchen and took care of the claim with my insurance company. Then after that I caught the call from Rich. HE DID IT!!! He got the TV. He seems to have had a dickens of a time fitting into the car … I think he’s pleased even himself – though he’s not giving himself much a break. He talked about it being MY TV and MY ½ rib dinner. I thought EEKS! I better tell him how good I was when he was gone. That might have rolled off his back not sure. All I know is that he’s got groceries a TV AND ribs!

AND, he’s almost coming home very soon!

I jumped in the shower cuz I figured I better be squeaky clean for this kind of high ratings. He then said something about how were we going to get it up and running.

Umm, I stalled … don’t you want to do that? Well, at least that’s what I thought.

I think he realizes that he’s going to need figuring it all out … it’s kind of a male dominance thing. Just I know someone’s going to have to give a VERY BIG BACK RUB!!! Whoo … might not sleep tonight it will be backrub to 3 am. I’m pretty sure we are going to owe him at least that much a favor.

I think the excitement is starting to build … He knows that he’s going to need coming up and down those stairs for a bit AND he’s been out AND he was working all day on the house. Well, except the part where he was having a Margarita. YEEKS!

Just thought of that … maybe it is going to be thought of as “Plying him” to have fixed the drink. I don’t know though … I didn’t volunteer it first. He was the one who suggested someone should be making him a drink. Yup, yup … it was like that!

posted by Ann Marie @ 7/28/2008 03:43:00 AM Comments: 0