On being a twit

So if the service is "twitter", and the practice of posting messages is called "tweeting" and the messages themselves are called "tweets", does that make the poster a "twit"? Enquiring minds want to know. This mind in particular.

Because I am trying to figure out if this has a place in my life. A friend started using twitter and sent me an email invitation. I don't get to see this friend too often, so I figured, what the hell, maybe a good way to keep in touch, get to know each other better, why not? I signed up, followed him, found a few other folks I knew, and followed them also. I didn't put up any info other than a first name, but I quickly found myself followed also, not just by friends and blog readers, but by random strangers. I'm not sure what the point of that is.

In fact, so far, from a personal standpoint, I'm not really sure what/how/why twitter is used. I mean, after a past history of working for a couple of local non-profits I can easily see how twitter can be used by a business. But for personal use? I just cannot image that the minutiae of my life or the random blips in my brain could be that interesting. From a voyeuristic perspective I can see how it could be quite the fine and wonderful time suck. But hey, I already have Ravelry, YouTube, and healthy list of blogs that eat up my online time.

So...if you tweet, I'd really like to know what you get out of it, why you do it. And why should I?

I finally got Loopy

Ehhh...shifting work schedule, keeping up schoolwork, chasing down tenants, plumbers...aren't we just waiting for the moment I crack?  And then it finally happened.

I got Loopy.

And it was good!

Remember when I talked about the gift certificate I had?  I finally placed my order about a week before the certificate expired. Since this was the first order I've ever placed with The Loopy Ewe I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly I received it, and the little goodies included.

So what did I get?

Three skeins of Araucania Ranco Multi in Cocoa Blue. To make the Meandering Vines Shawl. Yes, I know that more people advised me to buy either Malabrigo or Noro, but I have a long history of taking the road less traveled.  Plus, knitting up this shawl will be something new and different, something that will build on my skills.  I did wonder if the end result would be practical, but I have to believe that my life will not always be ratty jeans and sweats.  Or maybe this will help dress up my jeans!  Either way, I'm happy with my purchase and will be casting on as soon as I get a few other projects off the needles.

My other big spendy purchase last month?

These:

New sandals from L.L. Bean. I had $30 in coupons, so they cost me a whopping $9.99.  Even if I had paid full price, believe me,  they are worth every penny. Flat, comfy padded sole, soft lining - perfect for a summer of standing on your feet.

Oh and the cute red toenails are courtesy of my good friend Leah, the "nails" half of the Catalina Hair and Nail Salon.  See what she did on my big toes?

 A flower and a sparkly rhinestone!

Now aren't these just the sexiest lookin' toes ever?

My feet feel so much more appreciated!

wandering wheels

One unique feature of my island life that I don't think I've ever shared is the vehicle issues. I know I've mentioned that I keep a pickup truck on the mainland, and I pay a monthly fee to park it in the garage closest to the boat dock. The fee may seem excessive sometimes but when you factor in the cost and trouble of getting a rental car, it's worth it to me.

But I don't have an automobile on the island, because the town of Avalon received permission from the state of California to pass special legislation limiting the amount of full-size vehicles. Considering how small the town is, the limited parking, and the potential environmental impact, I don't think that was a bad idea. So there's a waiting list - you sign up and then let the decades roll by. I wish I'd signed up my first week on the island, but stupidly I waited until I'd been here for a couple years. A big part of the reason it takes so long for people to move up the waiting list is that there's really no regular review or close oversight of the process. I'm not kidding when I say there are actually dead people on the list! And people can sign up, move away, come back a few years later and still maintain their spot. Personally, I think that's wrong and I could rant for days on the subject but I'm not going to say anything else now.

What I did plan to say is that for those of us who can't have a regular vehicle, a golf cart is an option. I don't know how many there are here - a lot! Visitors get a kick out of it, seeing the little carts putt-putting around, and they can rent them too. But when you live here you get used to it, and after a while it's the norm.

I have a golf cart and even though I only use it a couple times a week, it's a huge help for hauling groceries or laundry. The rest of the time it's parked on the street near my house. On Friday mornings, along with everyone else on my street, I have to remember to move my it over to the other side of the street before 8am, and then back at 12 noon. This is for the scheduled weekly street-sweeping, and even though the street-sweeping machine seldom passes by on that scheduled day, we do it anyway to avoid being ticketed.

So on a recent sunny Friday morning I strolled down the stairs to the sidewalk at 7:55am and discovered that my cart was not there. It's fairly distinctive too - the body is a sort of purple/blue and the seat covers are green. I looked up and down the street a bit, thinking perhaps I had parked it further up the street than usual and forgot? Or perhaps someone released the parking break and rolled it downhill? No, it was gone.

It is not unusual for a golf cart to go off wandering without its owner. Many of the carts are keyed the same, or a used cart is sold, and a previous owner still has a key. This happens with alarming and annoying frequency. But it's a rare occurrence for me. My instincts told me to do what any normal person does when their vehicle is stolen - call the police. I did that but unfortunately the local deputies were too busy dealing with another situation that morning to come over and take a report. So I did what any islander would do when their golf cart gets stolen...I went out looking for it.

That may sound kind of wacky but essentially this is a town of less than 3 square miles, on an island. So clearly - it's here somewhere. I just had to find it. And that is precisely what I did. I borrowed another golf cart from a friend, started at one end of town, and drove up and down each and every street. And just a short time later.....

Hey...what's that at the end of the row there???



Could it be???



Yep! That's my baby!

Thankfully, it wasn't damaged and started up right away. So I returned the borrowed cart to my friend and took my own cart home again. All's well that end's well - right? Not exactly.

The problem as I see it, is that my cart was stolen on a week night from a mainly residential neighborhood. The place I found it is most definitely a locals residence - it's the parking lot of a small apartment complex. This means that someone else who lives here basically helped themself to my cart, and drove it home. And they could do it again. That sucks. In so many ways.

So my golf cart has acquired a fashionable new accessory:



A length of coated steel cable and a padlock. Remember The Club? This is the same idea. Crank the steering wheel all the way around, run the cable through it and another piece of metal and lock the ends together. You could insert a key and start the engine, but good luck driving anywhere but in a circle. That'll fix 'em!

Schedule shift

Well....it appears my schedule has opened up a bit more. Unfortunately this is due my hours being cut back. Nothing personal, just that the store's business did not pick up this summer the way it has in the past. Along with gaining a day off, I also acquired a rather icky bit in the middle of the week where I close the shop late one night and open it early the next morning. The turnaround on that is a little tight if you actually want to shower, eat and get a full eight hours sleep. This is the wrong time of year to pass on bathing, and skipping meals leads me to unbearable crankiness followed by passing out and hitting the floor, so you can figure out where I skimped in order to get it done. And I am feeling it now.

Tomorrow is that shiny brand new day off, and I have every intention of making the most of it. As much as I'd like to sleep in late, I know from long experience that will not happen. Between the neighbors I loathe and the feline family I love, I'm doomed. I accept that. But I do have a list of projects I'd like to work on, a whole day for them, and here's the best part of it...every single blessed thing I want to do can be done with my butt firmly planted on the couch. Yep, that's right. Me and the couch are gonna have some quality time!

Hiatus

–noun, plural -tus⋅es, -tus.

1. a break or interruption in the continuity of a work, series, action, etc.
2. a missing part; gap or lacuna: Scholars attempted to account for the hiatus in the medieval manuscript.
3. any gap or opening.
4. Grammar, Prosody. the coming together, with or without break or slight pause, and without contraction, of two vowels in successive words or syllables, as in see easily.
5. Anatomy. a natural fissure, cleft, or foramen in a bone or other structure.

Origin:

1555–65; <> 

Related forms:
hi⋅a⋅tal, adjective
Synonyms:
3. break, interval, space.

I do not know exactly why this is happening. There are things happening in my life, bloggable things even. But on the rare occasion I sit down to the computer I can barely motivate myself to leave reasonably intelligent comments on blogs I read regularly. So if you haven't heard from me lately, please don't be offended. I'm still there, I just can't seem line up the two brain cells next to each other needed to line up words into a sentence or two.

This may be somewhat a result of the new job. On the one hand, I've been living my life on my own schedule for the past couple years, and rearranging it to suit someone else's schedule has been challenging, not to mention the fact that for about 35 hours a week someone else is "the boss of me". And on the other hand, although on the surface it isn't a particularly hard job, there are aspects of it that cause it to be rather more physically demanding than you'd expect, more so than it ever should be.

So all this to say, please bear with me for another week or two.  Hopefully by then I'll figure out by then how to organize my life for rest of the season so that I can conserve some energy and save a little to put towards the blog and other parts of my life that have been ignored for the past few weeks.