Well, That Explains It

When the sun is slated to get up at 5:15 and you're sound asleep, noticing that yellow orb when you do get up isn't usual. Oh, if it's cloudy, or heavily overcast or shining straight into your eyes as you sit at the table eating your morning Cheerios, then you notice it. But, usually, it's just another day. Except when it isn't.

I first noticed something wasn't quite right with the sunshine when I headed into the kitchen. Sunlight in June isn't usually this red on the living room floor. I got my cereal and sat down. The sun should be streaming directly into the living room windows. It was but, well, see for yourself.

Ignore the blog on the right. "Someone" is exceptionally lovey dovey in the morning when I have cereal and she gets in the way. I sat there looking at this. I know, from science class, that if the sun exploded, we'd not know about it for 8 minutes. Well, given that we have an abundance of satellites in orbit, we'd know the sun went kerfloof, but we'd still have 8 minutes of sunlight before being obliterated by the shock wave.

Red sky at night, sailor's delight.

Red sky at morning, sailor's take warning. 

But the sky wasn't red. It was hazy but not red. Maybe it had been red as the sun rose, but it usually clears off by the time it gets this high in the sky.

Something about this was odd. It didn't go away all the time I drove to the office so I don't know when the color changed. (As I type this, it's been clear skies for several hours now.) I filed the phenomenon away in the memory cells and figured there would be an explanation at some point in the future. Sure enough. The Weather Channel posted it around 3:30 this afternoon.

There are wildfires in Canada and the jet stream carried smoke from those wildfires south and east across mid-Wisconsin and Chicagoland. The smoke screens out all but the red and orange color spectrum which caused the sun to look like the above. You can read the whole article here.

That's pretty cool, actually, not about the fires, but how it impacts the color of the sun. Kind of makes me want to get up at 4:30 on the 21st to watch the sun rise over Lake Michigan.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Late Spring and Early Summer Reads

My friend, Chris, mentioned in passing that he still had some money left on an Amazon gift card he was given at Christmas. He lives in Canada and his employer gives everyone an Amazon gift card at Christmas. It's usually from Amazon Canada but last year, someone goofed and got them from Amazon US. Well you could order from the US, but the duty taxes to import stuff are pretty steep. So, Chris got me the bathroom set and all the M&Ms back in January. The little bit he had left was mine if I wanted it because he had nothing else to spend it on.

I always wrestle with that kind of offer. I never, ever want to appear greedy. Does accepting something like that make me look greedy? After thinking it over, however, I sent him a list of things which I would like if he really wanted to spend the money. I didn't want to know if he did or if he found something else to do with it. I would be surprised if something came.

Something came.

I have my late spring and early summer reading taken care of. Larson's book is brand new, coming out in March. And I haven't read that Pratchett book. I found out there are 40 books in the Discworld saga. I'm pretty sure I haven't read even half of them. (I still can't find my copies of Going Postal and Hogfather. It's driving me nuts as I want to reread Going Postal.) It's supposed to be a wonderfully warm weekend so I probably won't get to watching the movie, but I'm really excited to watch it.

So, I'm thrilled to be the recipient of Chris' company's error. I need to get the deck stained and sealed and the flowers planted and I'm good for this year's summer relaxing. Ah the simple joy of falling into a book.

Beverage:  English Teatime Tea

Deb

The Day the Earth Turned Pink

Remember the box, the large box?

It arrived at its destination last week. This is the kind of practical joke I love pulling. It involved the purchase of some things and the shipping of said things, which wound up being more than the things inside the box, but the resulting email about how the box and its contents was received was worth every. single. penny. spent.

So, what was inside the box? First a bit of background information. Louise, a member of my World of Warcraft guild, has become a good friend. She sent out a mass Facebook spam to everyone she knows inviting them to her open house to celebrate moving into a new home. She and her hubby, Damien, moved back in October, but haven't been ready to celebrate until this coming weekend, February 23rd. There's just one itty, bitty problem. Louise lives in Canada. Um...yeah. My attending a party there isn't going to happen.

Several of us were teasing her about this housewarming party and someone mentioned needing pink flamingos in the yard. She said Damien would be horrified but she would love it. An idea was born. I started checking out pink flamingo yard ornaments and found a couple at Bed, Bath and Beyond that were a reasonable price. Then, I stumbled onto Home Depot's add for 10, count 'em, 10 pink flamingos for $30. Another friend, Jon, bought the flamingos and had them shipped to me. That's the box you see on my porch. Here are the contents.

Look at them all looking at me with their beady little eyes. The box was only half full of flamingos and the total weight was something around 6 pounds. It was less than one of the cats even though the box was very tall, about 34 inches tall. I was really worried I couldn't ship this via the post but there is a total inches shipped of 108 and I was well below that. Plus, the light weight made for less shipping cost. You don't want to know what it would have cost me to ship via UPS, had I not been able to ship via the post office.

As this was designed to represent the WOW guild, I had to dress up the birds with something appropriate to the guild. Our guild tabard is green, a robust summer grass green. Pink and green. Perfect.

I printed out a copy of the guild tabard and hit JoAnn Fabrics. I had a coupon for 20% off a regular priced item. With a flamingo under one arm, the gal at the cutting table helped me figure out if one or two spools of green ribbon was needed. We figured out only one. Using a generous 15 inches, I cut 10 pieces of ribbon and adorned the necks of these gloriously tacky birds.

Isn't that just the most stunning thing you've ever seen? I was even going to attach green bows to the area where the knot was, but realized that hot gluing them could a) melt through the body plastic. Face it. These are not made of the world's best plastic. Or b) prevent Louise from doing other things to them  by permanently putting decoration on them. So, I decided green neck ribbons was enough. Once reboxed, I took the box to the office and used ALL the packing peanuts we had as well as some foam, to fill up the empty space and to make sure the flamingos were comfortable. Can you imagine the customs inspectors x-raying this box? I only put "yard ornament" on the custom's slip. If Louise read it, she would know, but perhaps Damien wouldn't.

I handed over the box to the post mistress and then set about trying NOT to say a word about anything. I sent her a Valentine's card and that takes about 2 weeks for first class mail. Right before that would have arrived, I sent a cryptic "INCOMING" email. The flamingos, I was told, would take 6 to 14 working days. They would be at her house by her housewarming.

On February 14th, she tells me she got a notice that there was a package to pick up at the post office. She couldn't get it until the next day. All through the next day, I kept emailing her asking if she'd gone to the post office to get the package. "Now? Did you get it now?" "How about now?" She said her dad is known for sending stuff so I did wonder if it was the birds or something else. Here is the email I received on Friday, February 15th.

"Alright, finally got the box, here's the low down of reactions
1.Damien (hubby) enters in the house with this HUGE box, pretending it weighs a ton, because he's an ass:
-My reaction: Disbelief and feverish curiousity (Quote: What the F*** did Gimm do now????)
2.Box is deposited on the living room floor, I immediately take the cisors to the box. meanwhile Damien sits at the very other end of the room and watches (he couldn't see what was in the box). I open it up and look inside.
-My reaction: Hysterical laughter, including tears
-Damien's reaction: Confusion
3. I start pulling out the box's "cargo", only pulled one out at first.
-My reaction: still laughing my ass off (Quote: omg Gimm, really? REALLY? THIS IS WICKED AWESOME!!!)
-Damien's reaction: Surprised but shaking his head (Quote: Why Lou? Whyyyyy? This is horrible. You are NOT putting that thing in the front yard)
4.I keep pulling more, and more and more out....
-My reaction: totally still laughing, developping a devious shenanigans shit-eating grin
-Damien's reaction: Total disbelief with a tinge of horror crossing his face
5.I finally have them all pulled out
-My reaction: Laughing still and nodding (Quote: Oh I've have tons of plans for these....)
-Damien's reaction: blank stare (Quote: I don't like your guild leader anymore.....) [Note: This is now my absolute favorite quote.]
So there you have it. I thought it was full of the awesome! Damien won't let me put some up front (I can't completely blame him), but seeing as the house warming party is coming up, I'll have to get him to make a one day exception, just to mess with people. ALL of them will be planted for that party, both outback and outfront.
After the house warming party, I might grab one or two and make them look a bit more "metal", as in the style, not the material. This way both Jay (our roomate and hubby's best friend) might be more inclined to let me have fun with my kitsch.
Totally unexpected but awesome gift gimm! Didn't see that coming from a mile away.
thank you so much!"

She set up a couple of shots of the flamingos for the guild web site. Here's one with her Border Collie, Skoll. He was being "eaten" by the flamingos. He's an attention hog and she'd just taken him out for his afternoon romp so he was tired and more than willing to stay put for the photo shoot.

And then she put the legs on the birds and posed them in the living room.

She said they were fighting over the remote control.

These are the practical jokes that are so worth the cost. I wish I could have been there although it would have been way too hard not to keep a straight face and not to want to help pull the birds out of the box. I can hardly wait to see more photos of what these birds might be up to. 

10 flamingos for $30. So totally worth it. 

Beverage:  Water

Deb

More Growth

From the initial spurt of growth, the amaryllis has settled into a bit more each day. I forgot how tall these things get. The ones you can get at the dollar store are not as big as the ones from the plant stores. That I remember. I shall explain the stuff surrounding the amaryllis as it's in the photos. These things sort of describe who I am.

Thursday, January 10th.

 My 365 Word-a-day calendar.

I love words. I love language. I've been buying this calendar since 1980, yes, 1980. I cannot imagine my living room without it. I used to save the pages and try to use as many words as possible in sentences when I wrote my friends. Eventually, because some words, like "hydromancy" shown here, are not words I could fit into a reasonable sentence, the stack got to be years deep. Sensing frustration, I tossed the lot and haven't looked back. Some words make it into my vernacular. Some, I just acknowledge when I tear off the page in the morning. Normally, this calendar has a back stand but, in trying to pop that open, I broke it off. I'm going to have to prop this year's calendar against something. Oh well.

Friday, January 11th.

The pitcher behind the amaryllis is from one of my favorite antique pottery sets, Jewel Tea's Autumn Leaf. Jewel Tea used to be sold by door-to-door salesmen in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Think of it as similar to the Peapod or Schwan's service available in some places. The Autumn Leaf pattern was hugely popular in the 1930's and 1940's. What is visible is a water pitcher from my collection.

I've never had a house where the collection could be properly displayed or used. I've always wanted to give a party where everything I have could be properly utilized from the plates and cups to the covered baking dishes and the coffeepot (assuming I can remember how to make coffee in the thing).

I haven't collected anything in years. I used to ask for something every year. Storage is the problem and the boxes of Jewel Tea sit on shelves in the basement. Maybe some day...

Saturday, January 12th.

The milk glass cat dish that sits on a Jewel Tea covered casserole dish was a Christmas gift from my late best friend, Rita. It's a small candy dish. It really has no antique value and the lid is rather wobbly. She got it at a garage sale and it was a Christmas gift to me.

Why save it? Rita passed away in June of 2001. I don't have anything to remember her by other than the things she gave me and photographs. Time has blurred the memories of her and the things we shared. I keep the candy dish even though it's superfluous to my existence because it reminds me of her. "I saw this and I knew you had to have it," I remember her saying. I've never used it, but it sits there, reminding me of a time in my life when we called each other once a week, just to talk.

Sunday, January 13th.

Now that the amaryllis is getting taller, I have to step back to photograph it. That brings more of the background, the things on the walls, into the photo. I don't have enough wall space. Does anyone, really? I also haven't changed in decades what hangs on the walls.

The framed cat plate was given to me by a woman I used to know who lived in Canada. We met in an online book chat room and because fast friends. She went through a series of jobs before becoming a professional framer. This plate, with a cat asleep amongst books, was one of her first attempts at framing something different than a square.

I keep it because of the subject matter. A cat asleep amongst books. That sort of describes me. Cats and books. Life is good. The piece also reminds me of Margaret. She was vivacious, willing to take chances, gregarious. I am, by nature, reticent and quiet. It takes me a bit to become comfortable with new people. Margaret was not that way and I gravitated to her like a moth to flame. We drifted apart in 2003. I sometimes wonder what she's doing now.

Monday, January 14th.

Here's what it looked like this morning. I'm going to have to turn the container again. I also should water it tonight when I get home. It seems exceptionally happy in this location.

Beverage:  Darjeeling tea

Deb

Reclaiming the Table

Two posts down is a view of the table with all sorts of wrapped packages. I was out of package sealing tape and would have to wait to box everything up until more was purchased. On a trip to the post office Friday, I bought a roll. We set it aside so I could mail a couple of bubble mailers and then I promptly forgot it. The clerk did, too. She even looked around to make sure we had everything. It was 7:00 p.m. before I realized I didn't have it.

Perhaps I would have been believed at the post office, had I gone in first thing and explained the problem. It wasn't much money so if they said, "Without clerk verification, we can't do anything," I wasn't too upset. In the travels of yesterday to finish everything off, I just picked up another roll. I had a coupon at JoAnn Fabrics and that made the roll really cheap.

When I got home, there was a package in the mailbox. I am down to waiting for ordered items to arrive so I wasn't surprised. I was surprised when I opened the package and here was the roll of tape. Since I was mailing flats with my address on them, it was very easy to match up who bought the tape, get my address and send it to me. Complain all you want about the post office, that's service.

So, last night, I wrapped. I have been saving boxes since July. I look at a box and think, "Hmmmm. Will this be a good size for Christmas?" I used to save all sorts of boxes, from 6 inch square cubes to 2 foot by 10 inch by 18 inch rectangles. You just never know when you'll need a box.

But boxes take up space and the more you save, the more space they need. They don't always nest well and they had taken over the space on the kitchen table. Last night, I cleared all the boxes off the table.

I was up until 1 a.m., but, dang it, I was on a roll. I wrapped and wrote the card and found the box and packaging. I labeled and addressed and stickered. The post office is advertising Sunday hours but I have too much to do today to head over there. This is going to be a process. Tomorrow, the red bag gets mailed. I did all the cards that don't need a personal letter. I have two flats that have to go to Canada tomorrow. It takes at least 2 weeks to get items there so I need to get those out this week if I hope they are in time for Christmas. The parcel to Australia went out on Friday.

What's left? Well, I'm waiting on stuff to arrive. Then it needs to be wrapped, boxed and shipped. I'm organized this year. I can actually sit down and not worry that something has to be shipped or I don't know what I'm getting someone and I have to endure the crush of shopping in a struggle to find "the perfect" gift.

I'm done.

I keep waiting for something to pop up and mock me. "No, no you're not."

Beverage:  Huckleberry tea

Deb

Only One Got Done

It was supposed to be a reasonably decent weekend, meaning no oppressive heat. Yeah, and I'm the Easter Bunny.

Saturday, we got much needed rain in the form of small showers. It wasn't nearly enough to green up the grass, but none of it went to waste. I couldn't be outside, pruning back the overgrowth or fixing the pig and chicken as I would like. I also noticed there are probably wasps setting up shop in the garden shed so I'll have to spray them and "invite" them to move along.

Sunday dawned warm and humid but with no wind. So that's the perfect day, in spite of the heat, to get one small outdoor project done.

I have this pig and this chicken small statues on the deck steps. I got them a decade ago when visiting a then friend in Port Perry, Ontario, Canada. They are reinforced plaster. I remember the artist's card that came with them saying they will adopt "character" as the years passed by. I looked at them and could see the years sloughing off more bits and pieces and, eventually, I'd have nothing. So, I decided to refresh their coat of paint to make them more non-winter-hardy. Once the weather turns cold, they are put in storage. I don't leave them outside in the winter. If I had room for them, I'd put them on display in the house. Alas, they spend their winter in the shed with the lawn furniture and flower pots.

Ten years have given them "character" but I preferred them to be the solid color they once were. In looking at the chicken, there is gray and aqua blue and a white, probably a primer. What color to paint them? After standing in the spray paint aisle for a good 15-20 minutes and having 3 people ask me if they could help me, I decided on this color. There was no light gray. There was a "silver" but that was, silver. There were several variations, owing to three different manufacturers of spray paint, of dark gray. I wanted a light blue gray. The front steps color is too blue and not enough gray. I should have brought one of them to the store. They could have mixed me a quart of the desired gray which would have matched, perfectly, what they were before being sprayed. But, I didn't think of that at the time and wanted spray paint so it would be easy to do. That was Sunday's project.

The heat made the paint dry quickly. It took a couple hours to do both as they have so many nooks and crannies that I had to spray each side many times to get every spot covered. Here they are painted.

And here they are on the steps.

You probably could say this is my "blue phase", with the steps being painted a color similar to this. I'm very happy with the result. they look fresh and new again. I figure the sun and rain will weather this color too and next year, I will probably have to do some touch up.

Personally, I think the pig even looks happier.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Weekend Project

Well just "ewww". I fished the two deck chairs and the table out of the storage container last night. I haven't had them out in a couple years. It was much, too much, of a hassle to move everything to get these out and then put them back in.

But with the deck painted and flowers growing in pots and actually feeling better, I want to be outside now. That space is more inviting. I was going to fish these out last weekend but got involved in other things.

They are pretty dirty. Empty, dirt-filled flower pots sat on both of them. I found the chimney to start a fire, if I'm ever inclined to grill on my falling apart Weber grill. I found the brackets that go over the deck rails, if I had money to fill the pots that sit off the rails. I really need to recoil the hose and reorganize the contents of the container so it's easier to find things. That's not going to happen now.

The weekend's task is to scrub these off so they can be used. If Zeke comes around to mow the lawn while I'm home, I'll ask if he could power wash them. Otherwise, where did I put that scrub brush?

The other thing I need to do is buy gray spray paint and repaint these two plaster animals I got about 10 years ago in Canada. They have seen better years but they are whimsical and I like whimsy. They just need a fresh coat of paint for more weather protection. That's a pig on the top and a chicken on the bottom. I get an expense check next week and I also want to paint the front steps. I think next weekend will be a painting weekend.

And three out of the 6 pots in which I planted seeds are doing well. I'm unsure if the other 3 will even sprout. I need to water them all tonight as we've gone almost a week without rain. Our next chance is next Monday. I should also rotate 2 of the pots as you can certainly tell these are set against the north side of the deck.

I'm not sure if I should try to replant, at this late date, those other pots or just let them be. Who knows what might happen if just left to their own devices. The biggest plants are the sunflowers. To the right is a mix and those small plants in front are asters. The white pot is supposed to be poppies and nicotania is in the pail at the bottom.

Once I add the chairs, the table and the statuary, this will be a comforting space to be in.

Beverage:  Raspberry Earl tea

Deb

A Tale of Perspective

It's been quite a an evening and overnight for the U.S. I don't think this will go down as one of those events in the national psyche where you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when you heard the news. But the killing of Osama bin Laden will go down as a milestone, a unifying point at a time when unity is very hard to come by.

For the record, my WOW guild and I had just downed Lady Deathwhisper, one of the bosses in Icecrown Citadel. I was preparing to divvy up the loot she drops and one of the raid members said, "Bin Laden is dead. It's on the news, right now." He's not the kind of guy to make jokes about that kind of thing. People scrambled to check their preferred news source. I kept refreshing my Internet browser. Nothing. I finally typed in the call letters of one of the local TV stations and up came analysis and the announcement that the President would address the nation "soon". Wow. This is quite the story.

In my guild, probably a good third of the members are Canadian. We American members were checking our news sources while they were also checking theirs. Did you know there is an election today in Canada? It's akin to our presidential elections, where not only is the Prime Minister being voted on but also members of the House of Parliament. I knew there were elections on the horizon but I didn't know they were today. Canadian TV was discussing the elections. There was no mention of Bin Laden. You had to have cable and get CNN to verify what we were saying in guild chat.

That struck me. I am proud of my country, proud to be an American. Yet I am aware that I am but one of many on this ball spinning through space. What is important to me is not important to someone in Japan, Turkey or Canada. At a time of great pride in my country, I can drive 4 hours and be some place where the average Joe may look at me and say, "O-whatta bin Who?" Do you even know who is the current prime minister of Canada? I didn't. I had to look it up.

We should be justifiably proud of what we did in the wee hours of a Monday morning half a world away. If I ever met the members of the Navy Seal group that carried out the raid, I would thank them for a job exceptionally well done. On the world stage, however, it's just another day.

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

This is Interesting.

So I'm messing around in the blog controls yesterday. Blogger put in a bunch of new doodads and widgets (highly technical terms, I know) and controls for making your blog more personal.  I have composition of the blog down to a science so I don't look for changes to what I know. I'm a bit resistant to change, frankly. What I had learned worked so why do I want to mess around in controls I don't know and, quite possibly, break the formula I have. Much to my surprise, the new posting controls are nice and will allow me to do some things the old controls didn't.

One of the things they did was add a "Stats" tab. I have no idea how long it's been on the tool bar. A comment was that people were using outside programs to keep tabs on stats about their blog so Blogger decided to add this to the controls.

I find the stats quite interesting. As I expect, because I live in the US, most of my hits are in the US. I have a number of guild mates from Canada so I was not surprised to see Canada second on the list of hits. What surprised me, at first, was Russia coming in 3rd.

But then I got to thinking. It's because of my connection to and blogging about World of Warcraft. In the game, you need money to purchase goods and services. By design, there is a thriving economy. You purchase items that make the gaming experience more successful, more useful to you and more fun. Yes, it's pixel transactions of fake merchandise with fake money. But I don't think the game would be as successful as it is without having some form of currency to buy goods and services. There is an incentive to continue to do quests because the gold reward will go toward the purchase of something. It cost me 16,000 fake gold to get my fake Traveler's Tundra Mammoth. But when we are raiding, that mammoth comes in handy because it carries a repair guy and a vendor who has food, drink and items needed for people to cast spells. It was well worth the 4 months it took me to make the money to buy it.

And that leads to abuse of the established system. They are called "Gold Sellers" and in the capital cities of this world, they come into the main square and yell their sales pitch. "Worried about having enough gold? Go to [insert web site] and be certain your transaction is safe. 10,000 gold for only $19.95." Yes, you read that correctly. People will pay REAL money, REAL coins and dollars for fake gold so they don't have go into the game and earn it. It's against the user agreement you click "Accept" when you install the game but people do it a lot.

And here is where Russia comes in. That real money gets funneled out of the US to places like Russia. Blizzard knows there are Chinese people spending hours at computers hacking their way into game accounts, clearing out all the goods on characters, selling them and then stockpiling this fake gold to be sold to people who don't want to earn it. This occurs in Russia too. Maybe I have a Russian reader or two, but I'm really willing to bet it's not a reader who came to my blog. It's a spam bot or other search engine that just happened to see I tagged WOW in the labels.

I looked at this yesterday and there was a hit from Singapore and Brazil. Today, those locations are absent. I also know that these probably aren't real "readers", that these are just hits from a search engine who happened to find one of my labels for someone doing a search. But I like to think that, thanks to this grand thing we call the "Internet", someone in the Netherlands today read the piece about the first snow of the winter.

I hope they enjoyed it.

Beverage:  Lady Gray tea (Lunch time and I finished the English Breakfast)

Deb

You have what here?

Sunday, we were walking out to the car after church and Carole says to David, "I want Tim Hortons for lunch." I came to a dead stop. "Tim Hortons? Tim Hortons is here? In Connecticut?" David looked at me quizzically and shrugged, "Well, um, yeah. They are all over New England."

For those who don't know, Tim Hortons is a Canadian institution. They are akin to Dunkin' Donuts but with less donut selection and more items at lunch. They are famous for their soups and they offered soup before it was commonplace to do so.

I encountered Tim Hortons when I had a friend in Port Perry, Ontario, Canada. For 4 years, I would travel, twice a year, to visit Margaret. I knew I could stop at Tim Hortons and get good food at a good price. They also offered hot tea, something American places hadn't yet discovered.

So, I was thrilled to be headed to Tim Hortons for lunch. I got a good turkey and swiss deli sandwich. Carole had a sandwich and a nicely spiced pumpkin muffin. David had a bagel. We also got a dozen donuts.

We were intending to nosh on donuts later in the day but we decided to head off and be tourists so the donuts sat overnight. On Monday morning, I ate the triple chocolate donut and then realized I should have taken a photo of the whole box. A day later, they were a bit stale, but day-olds were something I lived on in college. The triple chocolate, a donut with chocolate frosting and filling and topped with mini-chocolate chips, was okay, but I had one of the sugar frosted and those were much better. On Sunday, I got a cup of hot tea that was as good as anything Starbucks could make and for 75% less cost.

As I sit here having had my Cheerios, I remember Tim Hortons. They compete with Dunkin' Donuts in the Northeast and I think I'd find myself at Tim's if he made it to the Chicagoland area.

Beverage: Irish Breakfast tea

Deb

Are they really friends?

I know this is an odd photo to attach to a post about friendship, but bear with me.

Jessie posted a musing in her blog about the nature of friendship. She realized that the people she calls friends have usually been accumulated via church or work. She felt she was missing friends but was unsure how to find them.

I've been stewing on this topic since she made her comments. It's a gutsy comment to say you don't feel you have enough friends. The ones you do have can feel "Well, I guess I don't matter". I have to say I sort of felt that way after reading her post. But, like I said, I've taken some time to stew about this.

I am not an overtly friendly person by nature. I'm an introvert and we are energized by being away from people. I don't like walking into a situation where I know no one and have to make contact with people. I would rather stand at the wall or over by the punch and people watch. If you come up to me and engage me in conversation, I'll listen and talk and we'll find things we can talk about. But force me to do it and it's excruciatingly difficult.

The friends I have took me awhile to make. I have no friends from grade school, middle school or high school. I thought about going back to my class reunion this past August but, the idea of walking solo into that room of people, many of whom have never left the small-town insular life, filled me with dread. I like to think I am beyond initial judgments. I like to think I give people a chance to show they have a boatload of issues and I should run away. I like to think I've grown up from the small-town everyone's business is my business mentality. Yes, I didn't give these people a chance to prove me wrong, which is my fault. I just couldn't get past the judgmental attitude some of my former classmates had. Oh well, I have 5 years to get myself to the point of wanting to go to the next reunion.

The close friends I have, the ones who know everything, to whom I bare my soul, were made later in life. Our bonds were forged through some painful, some happy, some peaceful and some angry periods in our lives. We just happened to be walking the same road at the same time. There are quite a few I trust to be there, even with simple words of encouragement, when my life appears to be filled with potholes. And this takes me to the photo at the top of the post.

That's Gauss. He plays World of Warcraft as I do. He plays a "tauren", which is an upright walking cow, or, to be anatomically correct, bull since he plays a male character. His character is of the opposite "faction" than my little dwarf. His character is also much better geared than mine.

Our "friendship", if you will developed over a period of months. He runs, on weekends, an event where his faction tries to kill the leaders of my faction. I try to put together a group to stop him. He likes to keep tabs on the number of tries and his successes have been 87 while his failures have been 12. Of those 12, I know I led at least 5 of them, maybe half. I love to try to stop him. It's just a lot of fun for me.

It was after a particularly rewarding stop that he contacted me. We got to talking and I realized that he was well award of my little guild and what we are trying to do within this big, broad game. Since that time, he's been a cheerleader for us, a thorn in our sides, a helpful ear when I'm frustrated and simply what I would call a friend. He has his own blog, the link is to the right, and I'm always very flattered when he posts something about me in his blog. Last weekend was this little comment about my attempts to stop his weekend raids.

I've never met him. I've talked to him a few times on the voice over Internet program I have, but he lives in Toronto, Canada and that's not a place I'm liable to go soon. We may never, ever meet. How can someone like that be counted as a friend?

I have a lot of people like that, people whom I've met through this game. While you can play solo and never talk to another person, I find myself more gregarious when I have the anonymity of the computer screen in front of me. I've met a few of the people I play with, but most are, at best, a face on Facebook or simply a voice rather than a real person. Yet, I call them friends.

I think of my ancestors, traveling from Scotland or Germany on boats, at sea for what was probably 3 months at a time. Chances are they met people who became friends for the duration of the voyage. I don't see those friendships as anything less than what I have established through the Internet, just a different medium. There may have been comments of "I'll stay in touch" as the boat docked and they went into different lines to be processed. Maybe some stayed in touch. I would suspect most friendships forged on the sea dissolved on land simply because there was no social network to find someone who went to the left while you were told to go to the right.

Do I want more friends? Absolutely. I would love to have friends to craft with, play games with, go to movies with, explore the Chicagoland area with, figure out how to fix each others' homes with. I think life conspires against me because joining a group with a like interest generally means dues and I don't have extra money for anything like that. The dating service was supposed to be a way to meet guys, not necessarily for matrimony, but for friendship. You all know how that turned out.

I don't wish to make any of my current friends uncomfortable with the amount of time you can devote to me. That's not the point. This is not a pity post either. If you know me, you know my stance on pity. I merely say that I wish there were more of you in my life. I know exactly where Jessie's root point dwells. I know the feeling. I'd just like someone or a handful of someones to hang out with. They don't have to be tauren. I'd hang out with an orc or, gasp, a human.

Beverage: Dr Pepper

Deb

But it's June 30th!

Why the heck am I wearing a sweater at the end of June? It is 66 degrees outside. The sky is gray with no sign of any rays of sunlight. There are rumors of rain later. And the air conditioning is on in the office.

I think I've mentioned that my boss detests hot weather. He is happiest when the weather is like it is today, in the mid to upper 60's with the nights in the 50's. I just got over my allergies and that annoying cold. I have to sit on my hands occasionally to warm them up. YES! I'm all out of hot tea but I have water in the microwave for more.

So, inevitably, the conversation will turn to "where's this global warming we've heard about"? It is tempting when your lips are turning blue at the end of June, when the HIGH temperature is "supposed" to be in the mid-80's, to question whether the scientists garnering headlines for predicting the melting of the ice caps really are right. Am I going to need the heat tonight just to remove the damp chill from the air? I can't ever remember having the heat on at the end of June. When Carole graduated from high school at the beginning of June in 2001, it was like this. Her college graduation in mid-June 2005 was hot and humid. It is supposed to be gorgeous over the 4th, but 66 on June 30th? When was Hudson Bay, Canada moved south?

If you're of a "certain" age, you grew up with the headlines from the National Enquirer screaming "New Evidence Shows Russian Weather Machine". The Cold War was still in effect and any weather anomaly was quickly attributed to this mystifying machine that the Russian had supposedly built and were aiming at the heavens. What we take for granted now, such as Dopplar Radar, hadn't been invented yet so my grandfather was dead serious when he said, as we sat in the shed watching baseball size hail fall one July afternoon, "Them damn Russians are at it again."

Yes, I believe in global warming as I hold my numb fingers over the steam from the tea. I believe we have changed and continue to change the climate. It doesn't mean that suddenly all my summers in Chicago will be above 88 degrees. It means that there will be cold days when, historically, there shouldn't be. All I can say is thank goodness for flannel sheets.

Beverage: HOT Prince of Wales tea

Deb