I Am An Only Child...

...and this is my little brother.  His name is Merton. 

 Sometimes he is almost as weird as I am.  Probably why my parents adopted him.  Hmmm....

He gets Christmas presents.

And goes to the beach with my parents.

And gets his picture taken with both of them. 

He also goes to Grandma's house, sits on the couch, and gets his belly rubbed... and his picture taken. 

There are moments I get jelous of how much time my Little Brother gets to spend with my faimily becaus I live far, far away from them all. 

But then I go home and he remembers me and comes running with a toy, then attempts to engage me in a game of "chase-me-around-the-kitchen-table-then-run-so-I-can-chase-you-please-please-please," and I melt and feel so thankful that I have a Little Brother.  Also I am so grateful I am so apt at anthropomorphizing the animals in my life.  It adds richness that would otherwise be lacking. 

Recently Merton had a sore paw and had to wear the cone-of-shame and I felt so terribly bad for him, my poor sweet Little Brother. 

But my mom had sympathy for him, and it didn't work anyways, so he got to cuddle on the couch with a dog shaped pillow (you can't quite see it, but that quilted thing his head is on is a dog shaped pillow) at my other Grandmother's house.  Okay... that last part is a stretch of the truth.  I have no idea when this picture was taken, but I like to think of him getting to sleep with a dog shaped pillow after the cone-of-shame. 

I really wish I lived closer to my family.  Really, really, really. 

Okay, bye for now.  

Word of the Day: Troglodyte

Troglodyte:
  noun

1.a prehistoric cave dweller.

 

2.a person of degraded, primitive, or brutal character.

 

3.a person living in seclusion.

Definition courtesy of Dictionary.com.

I am a fan of simple living.  People who try and simplify and live a very meaningful lives impress me.  So in the name of supporting people like this today I called one of my classmates a troglodyte after he told me he has gone off Facebook to simplify his life.  How very sympathetic and expansive in my thinking I am.  Oh well, at least it's a cool sounding word.  Right?

Yeah, I know.  I'm a bad person. :)

Anecdote of the Day: Speakers, Please Work!

All sorts of hijinks and shenanigans go down at the office where I work.  Dealing with seriously mentally ill people and suicidal people for a living (a paltry living) means you need an outlet.  It also means some days you get back to the office and your brain is fried.  Take today for example...

We have this nifty system at work where you can get your voice mail on the computer and forward messages through e-mail to whoever the client has called to speak with.  Today my boss got a message for me and forwarded it on to my e-mail. 

Dutifully I opened the message, clicked on the attached sound bite, and turned on my speakers manually at the base of the computer.  The media player popped up.  Pretty colored sound wave simulations went swishing across the media player's screen.  I leaned in close.  And I heard absolutely nothing.

I turned the speakers off.   I whined a little under my breath.

The speakers clicked back on.  Leaning closer still I again heard absolutely nothing.  I might have muttered something unflattering towards the computer then said aloud "why aren't these speakers working!" 

Turn the speakers off again.  Turn them on. 

Make sure the sound is up on the media player.  Look at the pretty simulation of sound waves. 

Wail plaintively that my speakers are not working.  "They must be broken!" 

From across the cubicle a coworker that knows me pretty well, without even looking up, comments "did you turn the mute off?" 

Humph. 

Lets just say it was a long day and the mute button had been hidden as an "unused icon."  The speakers are now working just fine.  At least I have other people who can be my brain for me. 

Can We...

...sleep a little longer?  Please?

This is what I ask myself and the voices in my head every morning.  This is also what Suka asks me when I try and move her from under the curtains on the rare occasion I vacuum.

Except she doesn't say please.  She says something that sounds more like "I'ma cut you if you wake me up again!  I don't care that you feed me. I a' cut you." 

Oh well.  I can sweep around that spot.

Word of the Day: Sough

Sough:
  verb (used without object)

1.) to make a rushing, rustling, or murmuring sound: the wind soughing in the meadow.

2.) Scot. and North England . to speak, especially to preach, in a whining, singsong voice. 

Definition courtesy of Dictionary.com.


So I'm contemplating stepping out and actually following in my father's footsteps and trying to... gasp... travel.  In favor of small steps I bought a National Geographic magazine called100 Journeys of a Lifetime.  In perusing this beautiful magazine I found myself drawn to a picture of a killer whale popping up out of the water amid stunning icebergs in Antarctica.  At the end of the brief article I found this beautiful sentence regarding the cruises:  "Conditions on board the ice-reinforce cruise vessels are comfortable, but for the true experience of these waters, you have to wrap up and go on deck, where you feel the frosty grip of the air on your face and hear the sounds of ice creaking, birds crying, and the polar wind soughing in the rigging."  Le sigh.  I love learning new words.