Average Jane

Blog

  • Average Jane Is Back Online!

    We had a huge storm on Thursday night that fried one of our two
    incoming power lines at the pole around 1:30 a.m. Friday morning. My
    husband said that the winds sounded like a freight train roaring past
    the house. I slept right through it.

    If I needed any proof that I’m an Internet addict, it came yesterday in the form of the power outage, which affected our modem, my office, the TV, the stove, our garage and studio, etc. It also knocked out power to our refrigerator, but our house is wired so weirdly that I only needed to run an extension cord about three feet away to get it running again.

    I had already taken the day off from work on Friday and was planning to go to Coffee Morning, get my oil changed, etc. Thanks to the power outage, my car was trapped in the garage, so I didn’t get make it to any of my planned appointments. The lack of Internet access practically drove me insane. I don’t know what I would have done without my mobile phone.

    I called the power company at around 5:00 a.m. and they were supposed to get the outage taken care of by 8:30 a.m. They didn’t show, so I hauled my laptop more than a mile on foot to Einstein Bros. Bagels, only to discover that they didn’t have wifi. What kind of coffee shop doesn’t have wifi!?!

    The only silver lining in that whole scenario is that I had fun taking photos on the walk back. It’s really hard to photograph a squirrel, did you know that?

    There was always the option of pulling the garage door opener emergency release cords, but every time I’ve ever done that, I’ve had to have an expensive service call to reconnect it, so I was hesitating in the hope that the power company would eventually arrive. Around 2:00 p.m. I gave up and freed my car.

    When I got home from my evening activities around 8:00 p.m., I was getting seriously irritated about the lack of repair, so I called the automated system again. I got a message back saying something to the effect of, "We see that your meter is running, so you’re good. KTHXBYE!" Aaaagggghhh! That’s why I reported a partial outage!

    I called again to try to clarify via the robot system. They finally came and fixed our power at 12:30 a.m. after my husband and I had already gone to sleep out of pure boredom. I went out in my frumpy pink robe to make sure the workmen knew what the problem was, but they’d identified it already on their own.

    So now I’m back, folks! Today I’m spending the day in White Cloud, Kansas and its neighboring town, Sparks, at their giant annual flea markets. I may not buy much, but I’m planning on taking lots of pictures.

    What do you have planned this weekend? If you’re local, did you make it through the storm okay?

  • Average Jane’s Favorite Photo

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    This photo was taken of me and my cat, Boo Boo Kitty, when I was in my late teens or maybe 20. By then, Boo Boo was already rather old (which you might guess, considering that I named him when I was a nine-year-old "Laverne and Shirley" fan).

    My boyfriend at the time was taking a college photography class and the assignment theme for the week was "Security." We decided that this was a good representation of the concept, and today I still have a number of prints of this photo of my young, blonde self cuddling my first cat.

    We lived in the country on 13 acres, so all of our cats lived in the barn. Boo Boo was a third generation barn cat; we still had his grandmother, Pastel, and his mother, Wonder, throughout most of his life. He was a large cat, no doubt because the tom cats who wandered through to sire kittens each spring had to be big and tough to find their way to our property in the first place.

    I’d chosen Boo Boo from his litter to be my cat, marking an early preference for black cats that has continued to this day. He got to come into the house more often than most of our cats because he’d paid his dues putting up with being dressed in doll clothes when my sister and I were younger.

    When I moved out on my own, I had always planned to take him with me (which was probably a bad idea on many fronts), but he developed diabetes and died from the first insulin shot the vet gave him.

    Kato, the black cat who came after him, was a gift from the same boyfriend who took this photo.

    Wow, time sure flies.

  • Average Jane Goes Out Walking

    Yesterday evening I did a four-mile walk at a local park with a group of women who are in training for the Breast Cancer 3-Day.  I can tell I have a fighting chance of getting in better shape now that I’m out and about a bit more. I just need to walk like that every day.

    I think I’m going to continue doing the training walks, at least until they start getting crazy long. A Librarian has also offered to walk with me in our neighborhood, so I need to get a schedule worked out with her.

    On Sunday, I have the March for Babies walk. I could still use some donations to reach my $200 goal (hint, hint). Many thanks to Laurie, who donated the first time I brought it up.

    As I mentioned over the weekend, all of this is leading up to the KC Tourwalk Half-Marathon. I picked up some tips about doing long walks from the Breast Cancer 3-Day gals, so I think I’ll have the right socks and supplies to make it through okay. Best of all, my friend LuAnn is going to be walking with me, so the miles should fly by.

    My ultimate goal is to start walking as an alternative to driving. I live within easy walking distance of my grocery store, Blockbuster, Einstein Bros. Bagels (where my husband loves to eat breakfast), and quite a few other places I go regularly. With gas prices approaching $4 a gallon, why shouldn’t I save money and get some exercise at the same time?

  • Average Jane’s Tackiest Possession

    We have an enormous room above our garage that is now a recording studio but began its life as a rec room. It was built in 1978, and back when it still bore all of the hideous decorating sensibilities of that era, my husband and I used to make a point of buying the ugliest ’70s decor items we could find.

    Even though I still have a gigantic, dusty, mite-infested macrame wall-hanging shaped like a tree, this is truly the cheesiest objet d’art we possess:

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    If you don’t recognize it, perhaps this will jog your memory:

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    My wooden version is so crudely rendered that I originally assumed it was some high school kid’s shop project. However, there’s a price tag on the bottom that suggests it was made as a tourist souvenir. That makes it even funnier, I think.

    Here’s your challenge: photograph and post your ugliest home decor item. It doesn’t have to be something you actually display in your house – that horrible lump of glazed ceramic from your grandma counts, too. Be sure to comment to let me know when your post is up. I’ll start a list within this post so everyone can visit you to point and laugh.

  • Average Jane Goes Hiking

    The Monkey Mountain Wilderness Hike was wonderful! There were seven of us on the walk and we ended up hiking about five miles through woods, up hills and across meadows, all through the park.

    I have a big set of photos on Flickr, but here are a few of my favorites.

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    I had intended to wear my sturdy Bass hiking boots, but I wore them around for a while in the morning to make sure they’d be comfortable enough – and they weren’t. Thus, I ended up wearing other boots which were more comfortable but not completely suitable for the terrain.

    For the last two miles or so, my right big toe felt sore and blistered. There was nothing to do but press on, but as I walked I was dreading the moment when I’d change shoes and get a look at my feet.

    As it turned out, I didn’t have blisters at all. Hooray! The only real injury I sustained was a scratch from a knee-high sapling that got me through my jeans.

    There’s some doubt as to whether I’ll ever wear the boots again. I think it’s time I invested in some real hiking boots.

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    Thanks again to ScooterJ for organizing and leading the hike. I think I’ve actually managed to psych myself into the half-marathon on May 18th. Who’s with me?

  • Does Typepad Have A Secret Message for Average Jane?

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    Kinda makes me reconsider the interestingness and validity of whatever I was planning to write. Eh, who am I kidding? I’ll keep inflicting the minutiae of my existence on the blog-reading public until the stats meter drops to zero.

  • Average Jane Has Work To Do

    It rained quite a bit yesterday and I came home to find this:

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    The drain across our driveway usually does a great job…if I clear it out a couple times a year. Obviously, I have not yet done so this year.

    That means I’ll be spending one morning this weekend with a crowbar (to pry up the grate), a trowel and a bucket, scooping dirt and leaves out of the gutter. It’s too bad I don’t fish, because I’m sure to find a lot of juicy earthworms in the process. Perhaps I can get a compost pile started and use them there.

    I also couldn’t help noticing that the dandelions have taken over my flower beds already. If it ever stops raining long enough, I’ll get out my roto-tiller, get the beds back to neutral and plant flowers. I have a $100 gift certificate for a plant nursery, so I should be able to do something pretty with a little advance planning.

    My back hurts just thinking about all of this.

  • Average Jane Is Annoyed By Technology

    First Twitter went into major FAIL mode over the weekend, now I discover that my beloved Gmail has been making my job harder.

    I read Seth Godin’s post this morning about Gmail deciding that his Google Checkout orders were spam, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t checked my spam folder lately.

    Guess what it was chock-full of? Google Alerts!

    Yes, the same Google Alerts I rely on every single day to monitor activity for my clients. Thanks, Google!

    Gmail’s decision to spamify my Google Alerts was quite random. I never stopped getting them, I just wasn’t getting as many as I thought I should. I’ve added the Google Alerts e-mail address to my Contacts list, so let’s hope that solves the problem.

    Are you dealing with any annoying technological failures lately?

  • Average Jane Goes To A Birthday Party

    Today is my niece’s eighth birthday. One of these days I need to post a photo of us together because she is my mini-me, except that she has pink and purple streaks in her hair as opposed to the blue streaks in mine.

    Starting last Christmas, I decided that my job as a cool aunt was to get her interested in something unusual that her friends probably wouldn’t know about. My choice: children’s anime movies.

    TotoroI started her out with a DVD of My Neighbor Totoro (dubbed, of course), which I’m pretty sure I liked as much as she did. We’ve watched it together three times now and she’s watched it on her own, too.

    One of her birthday presents is a stuffed Totoro similar to the one pictured, except that the one I got her is more greenish and has a leaf on its head (as well it should).

    The last time we watched the movie together, we ended up seeing a long preview reel of other Studio Ghibli movies that didn’t come up on my DVD player for some reason. I could tell that my niece was intrigued by the other films, so I ordered a copy of Kiki’s Delivery Service as her second birthday gift.

    We’re going out to dinner tonight at a Japanese steakhouse (her choice because she loves shrimp). I have to admit, I’m kinda hoping we have time to watch the movie afterward…

  • Average Jane Hangs Out With Bloggers

    Last night was the Kansas City stop on Bossy’s Excellent Road Trip. Cagey met up with me at my house and drove us to Manny’s Restaurant to meet up with Bossy, Dorothy, Cha Cha, Cady, Dawn and Criquette.

    After several hours of great conversations, margaritas, Mexican food and beer, and chips and salsa, the restaurant staff were fidgeting in anticipation of our getting the hell out of there, as they’d closed down the rest of the top floor more than an hour earlier.

    I did get some documentation:

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    After Cagey dropped me off and headed home, I drove out to Dorothy’s house and hung out with her, Beloved, and Bossy. We talked about music, travel and awkward social situations, and watched part of a truly awful local karaoke contest on basic cable.

    After 1:00 a.m., we finally said our good-nights and I drove my tired self home. As ready for bed as I was, I still stopped at the grocery store to get some ingredients to get this started before I went to sleep.

    It was a lot of fun and I hope to get to hang out with the local gals again soon. Bossy, thanks for including us on your road trip! Perhaps I’ll see you again at BlogHer.