I can’t believe that I have become so into the number game, 1010. With a high score of 5708 on my iPad, I have been trying to break my best achievement. Almost every night, I stay up beyond 1.00am playing it, it’s bad!
So much so, I have even forsaken my regular dose of candies, monsters and farm animals. Amazing.
People who cannot pronounce my name properly shouldn’t be calling me to solicit for an appointment or whatsoever. It peeves me to no end when I get such phone calls. Same goes for people whom I don’t know, calls and pronounces my name correctly but tends to be fake and over enthusiastic in their conversation, irks me to no end.
My fitness and spa center called me two days ago and I was addressed as “Aggie”. Gawd… Obviously it’s someone new; I bristled and declined to make an appointment.
I have been inadvertently called ‘Angel’, ‘Angela’, ‘Agnes’, spelled as ‘N-G’ and ‘Angle’ (the result of the smart phone’s auto-correct ability and the not-very smart user to rectify), and now this. Eeesh… Why?
It’s not like I have a coined up name (remember Qalvin?), some exotic name or difficult spelling one. Let’s not even go into having my first initial to be the same as my last name, like that ‘K’ ‘klan’… I mean clan.
Get it right, people, it’s just a simple ‘Angie’, spelled ‘A-N-G-I-E’ and pronounced as ‘Ann-Gee’.
It has been unbearably hot for us for the past few days. The atmosphere is like a giant furnace, but with extremely high humidity on top of the desert-like temperature. And this discomfort is without the haze. Imagine with the haze added, double whammy! Then again, I read somewhere the haze will be making its way to us soon. Sigh… and super sigh.
Although I did not check the temperature, it feels like it’s at least 36 degrees Celcius or more. Even when we are indoors, it’s uncomfortable.
And to think that M1 complained to me last week that with Spring here, it has been so hot for her at 20 degrees Celcius. Hah! Call that hot? Wait till you come back for your holidays!
Every now and then, I look at the little aquarium and find that HobNob’s is still alive. Feeling thankful, I am glad our little friend is hanging in there.
Maybe moving away from the death corner has helped and definitely with the support of the other two, there’s reason for him to go on living.
We like our house and enjoy the space, warmth and comfort it offers. But I realized we are not the only ones who like it; there are creatures who share the same sentiments as us. We have had a bird come and made a home with her nest not too long ago at the car porch. But this feathered friend is not the first, there were earlier settlers, on the gutters outside the kitchen, M2’s bathroom and in the garden. I’ve lost track.
So far we have had other short term visitors: rats, squirrels, cats, more birds, snake(!), bat and owl. With our dog, fishes, tortoises and turtles, it’s almost like a mini zoo!
This morning when I woke up, I heard noises up in the ceiling.
Something is up there, busy traipsing across the length of the room, lugging what sounded like a twig or wire. I think it’s a bird because it sounded light footed. Surely it cannot be a furry four legged? Gulp…
Whatever it was, I think it’s trying to build a nest and settle down. Maybe we will check out the ceiling in a few days’ time to see who’s come a calling.
Day visitor
Unwelcomed visitor in the garden!
“Indoors is better!”
Ever sat in your car while waiting for the traffic light to turn green and you stare at the blue yonder and before you know it, you see faces or animals in the clouds? I get that all the time.
Every cloud formation is interesting to me. Days when it’s cloudy I see animals shaped vividly. Then they evolve into faces. It’s really stimulating. I looked up on this ability and found out that it’s called pareidolia. And it’s either you have it or you don’t, seeing faces or animals in clouds or inanimate objects.
But apparently people who has this ability are also neurotic! Eeeks. Me… neurotic. Hmm…
I saw Yoda here. Can you?
A while back I thought I’d try the number game, 2048 and I did. However, my interest in it did not last and I was back to my candy crushing habits. Two nights ago, M2 introduced me to a new number game, 1010.
It’s quite addictive I must say especially now when I am having challenges crossing the levels that I am stuck at for my three usual games. So forget, 2048, 1010 is the way to go!
When we drove the girls around my old hometown to see my past homes, house number three brought back one distinct memory…
It was a dark and rainy night (cliche, I know. I couldn’t resist), I was 17 and home alone. I cannot recall where Mom and Dad were but I was in a midst of an intense battle. A rat ran into the living room and scared the guts out of me. But somehow I caught a second wind to fight back! No furry pest was going to do me in.
I reached for the closest thing, an umbrella and a bottle of mosquito spray, Shelltox!(rebranded to Shieldtox now) Yes, mosquito spray and started fogging up the living room and beating the heck out of the rat! Sweat beaded my forehead, legs trembling and I was having an adrenaline rush.
It ran. Behind the cupboard and under the chairs but I gave chase. Sprayed the bottle out of fear and poked with a degree of madness. I think I was possessed. The rat scurried to the bathroom and I think I used up the whole bottle of spray! After that, it was all a blur.
The next day, when I told Mom about it, I think she found the groggy pest in the bathroom. When I think about it now, I can laugh but back then, it’s amazing that I was that brave. For someone who jumps at lizards, it was quite a feat. Would I do it again if faced with the same scenario now? I gotta be possessed to even pull it off!
Using the iPad is bad, I think. My eyesight seems to have suffered from the constant use of it with my games and reading or maybe it’s not the iPad but age catching up? Or something else.
I was having problems with my computer yesterday and again, the QuarkXpress that the dinosaur in me is still using could not launch. Whenever this happens and quite frequently I must say, what I normally do is to reinstall the software. It’s complicated to elaborate but I find this the best solution to solve my problem.
The CD is usually on my desk, in its box but for once, it wasn’t inside the box. And for the life of me, I couldn’t see or find the CD. Panic ate into me. Oh no… How am I going to start on my latest book design if I didn’t have my trusty software reinstalled to work with? I am not an InDesign person and try to avoid using it at all cost if possible.
That night I went home and searched for my QXP CD again thinking maybe I could have brought it home. But nope, it wasn’t at home. Not only eyesight has become a problem, the memory too! Oh dear… I couldn’t sleep that night.
The next day when I went into the office, I looked again but casually this time and suddenly, the CD popped out, it was right there! On my desk, under a book. How come I didn’t see it the day before? Am I so blind?
Then again you know that theory when you need something, you just cannot find it. And the more you look, high and low, the harder it is to see the thing. Then after a breather, you look again but not so hard and voila! It appears right before your eyes. I’d like to think it must be this rather than my eyesight and for this reason, I will continue using my iPad for my games and reading. Phew
M1 is having her Spring Break now and has gone off skiing at the mountains with her friends. How fun! During my college days, I had the San Francisco Peaks and Arizona Snowbowl in my backyard but never once had I tried skiing the three years I was in Flagstaff. I did take the ski lifts though but it was during Fall and there wasn’t any snow yet! Does it count?
Then I moved to New York City. Together with hubby (who was boyfriend status then) and a group of friends, we took the opportunity and headed for Upstate New York to go skiing. I must say I did not enjoy it at all even though my experience was not on the slopes.
It was cold, I couldn’t balance and was afraid of the downhill speed if you can even call it speed on the bunny hill. Yes, bunny hill. The point being, I fell quite a bit, got bruised and felt pained all over. Ouch.
Well I hope M1’s experience will be better than mine.
But I like Spring Break. My first break, I flew to sunny California and hung out with a friend in Annaheim. We visited Disneyland and I did Knott’s Berry Farm when she was still having classes. And when we didn’t do the theme parks, we just hung out with her friends and enjoyed the Fullerton area. I think something like this is more fun than falling on my butt half the time and being chilled to the bones.
M1 returns to campus today.
“Mom! Lookie me!”
Beanie for warmth and helmet for safety
Is this how you do it?
And off they went!
Remarks