The Day Lady Died by Frank O'Hara

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don't know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
in Ghana are doing these days I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les N'gres
of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

"each year gets late earlier."

this morning i walked outside and had a mild heart attack. here's my early morning thought process 'oh my god, why is it so light out? am i late? are my clocks an hour off??? (breathe) oh. i went to work early yesterday and that's why it was dark...'
anyway, i'm happy to realize that spring is close at hand. there's a james richardson quote about how as our days get longer, the sun is actually moving away and when they're at they're shortest, it's actually moving closer to us, but i can't find it. will search through my book later and find it :) listening to lisa loeb this morning on launchcast and filling in the daily metrics sheet... get to leave work early today for a hair appointment, cutting all my hair off! (sorry mom)...
oh, ps, title of this post is a james richardson ten-second essay ;)

i dink i'm ghedding shick.. sniffle

which i definitely don't have time for! hopefully it will magically disappear when i get a full night of sleep tonight. at least that's the plan anyway. cleo didn't even want to get up this morning. 5:15 came a little too early. well at least it wasn't snowy and windy...oh wait, yes it was! i'm done whining now :)
cassie made red beans and rice with chicken for me lastnight :) i'm spoiled. that was shortly followed by a girly conference call (long overdue!) with ashlea and jules.
tonight? homework! but i still have great hope my thursday night class will get cancelled like last week...

so that's why the grocery store was so crowded...

woke up to a winter wonderland this morning. after sweeping snow off my car, was only eight minutes behind as i headed up our not-so-intimidating parking lot hill. turns out, with all this snow it becomes impassable for a corolla ;) so now i'm waiting for a 4WD ride, or until they plow, whichever comes first. so far, 4 of my 22 made it to work. or 23, counting me! they even delayed tech a few hours, which in my experience, has been rare. anyway, going to go sit on the couch, watch the snow fall, and enjoy another cup of coffee.
can this be considered march coming in as a lion?

i love my dictionary and my dictionary loves me

i had to look up two words from the poem below, so why not share?
'insouciance' is blithe unconcern and 'susurrus' is a soft whisper.
see? now don't you feel smarter? now i'm off to the grocery as we've eaten everything in the apartment. cassie even got up this morning and had a bowl of rice i had cooked for cleo (who's still sick, but getting better). happy sunday ;)

'A Life' by Michael Blumenthal

So you grew older just like everyone else
and the questions loomed
with their easy, alternating answers of yes and no
and then their reconsiderations,
promising us a false simplicity
like a flock of sparrows at dusk,
and you were there,
in the fragrant osciallating light
of the good, the noble, the daemonic,
and the simply inexplicable
that might have passed, in lesser hands,
for a kind of confusion,
but you saw it for what it really was:
the clarity of conflicting clarities,
the sorting out that led to no perfect solutions,
and so you merely contented yourself
with the here-today-gone-tomorrow certainties
you hoped would lead to the right choices
(or choices you could later define as right):
the bright, loudly proclaimed insouciance
of the jay, or the scent of lemons,
though you knew in the end
that you would always return,
like a shoe in love with its foot,
to the same luminous starting point
of mixed feelings, the susurrus
of your one body mumbling and cussing
from its nest of desires, that old tune
of the profane and the sacred,
the noble and daemonic,
the unanswerable singing.

yaaaaaaaawn.

wow i'm tired. that part of my brain that's supposed to send me home at a reasonable hour didn't kick in last night. ah well, a few more hours at work, then home to take a nap. in the meantime, i should really clean my desk- can hardly find it beneath the papers and notebooks and backlogs and various office supplies. would probably make me feel more productive, besides, i'm not setting a very good example ;)
did anyone notice it's almost march? are you kidding me? i can't believe it. now if only it would get warmer...

poetry deluge

so 5 of my latest 7 posts have been poetry. must be feeling poetic or something... at least 71% poetic anyway. apparently 29% of me is still engineering or i wouldn't have calculated percentages around this recent fact ;)

altitude

this town breathes a sigh
of relief when i’ve left
my feet too heavy
on its streets.
sometimes, when we sit
inside on sunday mornings,
the waitress comes by
with the coffee, and i pretend
i’m somewhere else. a ski chalet
where the syrup is thick
like the snow and no one
has seen me before.
let me breathe- this altitude
suffocates me.

arizona collected

11 November 2000
arizona, i feel you calling me
deep inside late nights when i am almost asleep,
i feel your breath through the window
-a raspy dust filled breeze-
drift across my cheek
and whisper past my ear.

arizona, i sleep fitfully and wake
from dreams of you only to feel disappointed
at the continued loss of your landscapes, your twilight,
the sweet scent of orange blossoms in spring,
the way palm fronds thrash in a summer monsoon,
and most of all, your skies.

arizona, there is a part of me unwilling to leave you,
no matter where i sleep, still searching for your scent
in the breeze through the window- always longing.
arizona, i feel you calling me.

15 December 2000
arizona, you left me when
i needed you most.
the grit of your deserts
nowhere to be found
when i lacked the strength.

i feel as if i’ve failed you,
in a way, i know i have.
but you’ve failed me too,
i cried alone while your night sky
stood empty.

where were you on autumn nights
when the chill froze leaves
still too green to see november?

the night i dreamt of you,
the scent of your rains lingering
even while i slept-
where were you then?

arizona, why did you do it?

9 January 2001
arizona, i’ve left you far behind,
still, your sidewalks burn my feet,
your sun still warms my skin in a way
i could never capture with words.

17 January 2001
arizona-
i felt your breeze through the window
the other day-
a hint of dust lingered,
then faded and i stood there
long after, trying to recapture the moment.

arizona-
how can we be angry with each other
when you are so much a part of me?
i left you only because i had to and
while away i have only grown to love
you more. no, that’s not true. you
felt it to, didn’t you? the last time,
when we met, you knew, just as i realized
i could live without you.

14 November 2001
arizona-
how can i leave you behind?
i can still taste your breath.
he speaks of you and i with sadness
in his voice. he knows i’ll come back
to you.
arizona, it isn’t fair. can you not hold
us both?
why do i feel as if i cannot hold on
to either of you?
arizona, i’m pleading with you.

26 August 2002
arizona,
how very far apart we are- your sun
reaches me only long after i’ve risen,
and even then, i’m not sure it reaches me at all.
arizona how could you give up on me so easily?

the 2.5 year itch?

all of the sudden i'm overcome with a desire to move.. far far away! i think i'm conditioned after all those college years of relocating every 3/9 months. the west coast is calling my name. ooh that reminds me of some arizona poems i don't think i've ever posted. always threw my poetry professor off a bit, he said they were addressed as if to a lover. i'll post them later.
anyway, findyourspot.com is a great site to check out if you're feeling that itch to see what else is out there, geographically speaking.
just don't blame me if it makes you want to pack your bags and move to a downtown loft apartment with ocean and city views ;)

a poem for this cloudy windy day

Pagan Litany by Paula Closson Buck

The sea swells over the breakwater,
careers in heavy showers
across the harbor road
where salt pines
lie broken by the wind.
It's nearly dark by four p.m.

Through open doors, small markets
like grave sites surrender
a naïve collection of supplies:
ouzo, chocolate bars,
cigarettes and toys.

If we have souls, if we dare to think so
on a day like this, we play them
close to our bodies.
What gods there might be
won't hear us above the wind
or the tarp of the sky
lashed down. Days like this,

we demonstrate the simple
economies of our need

and bury our dead
with change in their pockets.

singles awareness day

here's to all the guys that i saw at the mall and at target, frantically scouring card racks, jewlery stores, and victoria's secret for that perfect last minute gift ;) oh yeah, and they cleared out the entire red-themed gift wrap section at target too.

"On Valentine's Day, millions of men give millions of women flowers, cards and candy as a heartfelt expression of the emotion that also motivates men to observe anniversaries and birthdays: fear."
-Dave Barry

something with a little more valentine's ring to it -

The Giver by Sara Teasdale

You bound strong sandals on my feet,
You gave me bread and wine,
And sent me under sun and stars,
For all the world was mine.

Oh, take the sandals off my feet,
You know not what you do;
For all my world is in your arms,
My sun and stars are you.

Garrison, Nebraska by Ted Kooser

The north-south streets are named for poets --
Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant, Lowell --
so it's no surprise that this tiny village
is fading to gray, mildewed and dusty,
shelved at the back of the busy library
of American progress. On this winter day
all that's left of Whittier's "Snowbound"
whispers in under the nailed-shut door
of a house at the edge of a cornfield,
and slides across a red vinyl car seat
wedged in a broken tree. All but a few
stubborn families have packed up and left,
seeking a better life, following Evangeline,
leaving this island with its cars up on blocks,
its gardens of broken washing machines,
its empty rabbit hutches nailed to sheds,
cold and alone on the sea of the prairie,
to be pounded and pounded forever
by time and these whitecaps of snow.

yawn...

...i must have been worried about this kaizen because i slept horribly last night! but now i'm at work, not really bright eyed, not very bushy tailed...but i'm here! and after today when we get things rolling, i think i will relax...maybe!
(in the meantime i'm really surprising those that are calling in sick by answering my phone this early when they just expected to leave a message...mwha ha ha ha ha) ;)

aw, doesn't sound like this is true

i heard this on the radio yesterday and had to check and see if it was valid at all -- looks like not so much ;) too bad. below is from snopes.com -- they research and verify most of the stories circulating on the internet or in e-mail chains -- handy stuff!
Claim: A man freed himself from an avalanche by drinking beer and urinating on the snow to melt it.
Status: Undetermined.
Example: [news.com.au, 2005]
"A Slovak man trapped in his car under an avalanche freed himself by drinking 60 bottles of beer and urinating on the snow to melt it.
Rescue teams found Richard Kral drunk and staggering along a mountain path four days after his Audi was buried in Slovakia's Tatra mountains. He told them that after the avalanche, he had opened his car window and tried to dig his way out with his hands.
But he realised the snow was falling faster than he could dig. and would soon fill his car.
He had 60 500ml bottles of beer in his car as he was going on holiday, and after cracking one open to think about the problem he realised he could urinate on the snow to melt it.
'It was hard and now my kidneys and liver hurt,' he said later. 'But I'm glad the beer I took on holiday turned out to be useful.' "
Origins: The story about a Slovak man who was buried inside his car by an avalanche, and supposedly freed himself by drinking beer and urinating on the snow to melt it, was carried by a number of western news services in January 2005. The story has so far proved difficult to verify because its attributions have been vague (e.g., "correspondents in Bratislava"), and it evidently originated in a part of the world (the Slovak Republic) where information sources are more difficult to track down (particularly because the language is unfamiliar to most westerners).
However, a correspondent who works for a Slovak news agency informed us that not only has the avalanche story (or any news story about an avalanche) not appeared in the news media there, but the very same tale (of Czech origin, told about an unnamed man caught in the Austrian Alps) was circulating in that country as an e-mail joke even before the heavy snows described in the article occurred.

have you had your adrenaline rush today?

here's a short little story i like to call 'bri momentarily misplaced her brain and decided to take walton road to class because two inches is not that much snow"
for those of you who don't know, walton road is one of those curvy (and steep, don't forget steep) back country roads, and it's a shortcut. in my defense, the first stretches of the road were deceptively clear, but about a mile down the road, where it stays nice and shady and cold, the road was pure packed snow. i came downhill around a curve and went sliding into a ditch (small ditch). after a moment of panic and the realization i didn't have my cell phone with me, i jumped out of the car and tried bracing my feet against the dirt wall, my back against the rear end of my car, and pushed really hard. nothing (go figure...) got back in the car and rocked it back and forth and got it somewhat mobile, but not out of the ditch, and at this point, my wheels had spun down to mud. a guy drove by though and hopped out, directing me how to aim my wheels to the point where i worked myself out. now came a decision. try to turn around on the snow sheet, and head back to paved safety OR continue down the road of treachery. unknown stranger advised that i head down the road of treachery. and with not too subtle B-rated movie foreshadowing, i asked: "but what about those steep banked curves?"... "nah" he said, "you're through the worst of it right now."
okee dokee-- so i headed down the road as they shouted after me "keep it in low gear and take it slow." i was doing fine until i reached the aforementioned steep banked curves. as instructed, i was going slow, but as it turns out, when going up a snowy hill, you should in fact have one foot on the gas pedal and the other foot on top of that foot. so i made it about 40% up the hill and started sliding into the oncoming lane. luckily, not many people are stupid enough to take walton road, so this wasn't an immediate issue. it was at this point i tried the stepping on the gas option, but since i had already lost my momentum, i just kept sliding. it was then that a guy came out of the house that's right at the curve and offered some help: "you'd better turn back around and go the other way".... after i explained i'd been that route as was not going back, he tried to push me up the hill to no avail, so he headed to the house to put some boots on and really get the job done right. so i sat in the car and watched a pepsi van come up the same route i had just been on, only to get about 10 yards in front of me and start sliding...down down down...and i'm thinking...oh god, this guy is going to slide into me! but he managed to keep his foot on the gas and after 1-2 minutes of burning rubber and splassing snow and mud, he found some traction and slid on up. then my help was back- we tried the up route again, still no luck. finally he determined i needed to back down to his driveway rather than get any worse off. so, car in neutral, we slide down the hill, me at the wheel, he outside the car, giving it some pushy direction. i safely arrived in the driveway. then he shoveled off his driveway while i wandered around my car, poking the snow out of the wheel wells with a stick so i could feel mildy useful. when the driveway (and some of the road) had been cleanly shoveled, we were ready to give it another try -- he offered to drive, so i gladly accepted -- so we ascended up the snowy curves like a bat out of hell, which i definitely could not have done on my own! when we got to the top, my good samaritan hopped out of the car, wished me good luck, and walked back down toward his house.
if there's one thing i took away from this, it's the following bit of wisdom: "you ain't stuck, you just ain't going nowehere just yet." good point ;)

don't believe everything you see on ebay

D'oh! 'Duff beer' sale a hoax

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- A woman has pleaded guilty to selling on eBay three nonexistent cases of Duff brand beer -- the favorite of cartoon character Homer Simpson.
Tara Edith Woodford, 28, pleaded guilty Wednesday to three charges of dishonestly gaining money by false pretenses.
Prosecutor Gavin Burnett told the court Woodford was paid a total of $1,511 by three separate buyers after advertising the bogus beer on the auction site.
Buyers paid money into Woodford's bank account, but contacted police when they never received the beer. Woodford was placed on 18 months' probation, and was ordered to reimburse the money and undergo counseling.
Duff is the beer brand of choice for Homer Simpson and his barfly friends in the animated U.S. television series 'The Simpsons.' Its creators have a policy of refusing to license 'The Simpsons' merchandising for products that would be detrimental to children."

it's not easy being...pink

so i arrived home lastnight to find my sister grinning like the cheshire cat. why you ask? i figured it out soon enough as my little dog came running in, covered in bright pink dots- a watercolor canvas of the french bulldog variety. someone needs to get that girl a hobby. pretty funny though ;)
today we are experiencing a nice wintry mix- a savory blend of ice, sleet, and snow. but i made it into work okay ;)

profound coffee cup?

"1.6 million years ago a youth died in Africa. His body was swept into a swamp. In 1984 his bones were painstakingly excavated to reveal a species on the brink of becoming human. All people on earth have one thing in common. We share a single African ancestor; the same as this young boy."
--Dr. Louise Leakey, Paleontologist

the above is from my coffee cup from starbuck's. i'm conflicted actually, because i really like the quote...but it's off of a coffee cup! on the other hand, it's just as stupid to NOT like it because it's commericalized as it is to like it just because everyone else does.
anyway, to read more of this caffeinated wisdom, check out www.starbucks.com/wayiseeit.

the age of aquarius

happy birthday shannon!

if you like my poems let them by e.e. cummings

if you like my poems let them
walk in the evening,a little behind you

then people will say
"Along this road i saw a princess pass
on her way to meet her lover(it was
toward nightfall)with tall and ignorant servants."

party like it's 1926

tagline shamelessly stolen from comment on the below post ;) so this weekend was spent in a rather relaxing manner - lots of friends over friday evening for potato cheese soup (mmmm..., if i do say so myself) and some fun books to pass around (astrology meets humor). saturday i spent at the coffee shop, then the rest of day with miss ashlea as it was snowing and as any self-respecting respecting blacksburgian would do in a snowstorm, we headed to the grocery store! we had every intention of cruising by the dairy section to laugh at people scooping up the gallons of milk, but got distracted by frozen mini cheeseburgers. yum yum.
other weekend accomplishments? just one. put together a 1,000 piece puzzle. or... (2) 500 piece puzzles - with no picture to go off of because it was a murder mystery (puzzles were the crime scene and evidence) - are you impressed yet? eh?
fine then - don't be. but later, i'll post a pic of it, and you will be impressed! you will! :)

'luck' by charles bukowski

what's bad about all
this
is watching people
drinking coffee and
waiting. I would
douse them all
with luck. they need
it. they need it
worse than I do.

I sit in cafes
and watch them
waiting. I suppose
there's not much
else to do. the
flies walk up and
down the windows
and we drink our
coffee and pretend
not to look at
each other. I
wait with them.
between the move-
ment of the flies
people walk by.

friday's on speed dial?

well, we finally made it to PA! amid numerous mishaps: meeting that ran WAY late, missing the company expedition...but the bad luck stopped there! we ended up with a fully loaded mini-van! this may not sound cool to you, but complete with one-touch sliding doors and a dvd player, it was. finally after a dinner at perkins, we arrived lastnight at 10:45, ready to sleep in our rented beds :) now it's plant tour time (after a complimentary continental breakfast of course). see you back in VA.

altoona! no, not albacore

so i'm headed to altoona tomorrow, but just for about 24 hours. we're driving up to PA to take a plant tour on wednesday. oh the excitement! actually...shhh.. don't tell anyone, but i am excited! :) should be very cool.

material dog

cleo is the only dog i've ever seen that while i'm telling her excitedly "good girl cleo! that's a good girl!" will give me a look as if to say "you want to put your money where your mouth is?" and wait for a treat.

a wintry mess?

i kid you not, that is the official weather statement. here are some excerpts:
... A WINTRY MESS LIKELY THIS WEEKEND... THE PRECIPITATION WILL LIKELY BEGIN AS SNOW OR SLEET SATURDAY MORNING... THEN CHANGE OVER TO RAIN OR FREEZING RAIN IN MOST AREAS BY SATURDAY AFTERNOON. AS THE PRECIPITATION CONTINUES INTO SATURDAY NIGHT... IT WILL CHANGE BACK TO SNOW AS IT TAPERS OFF.
ooh... sounds like all kinds of fun. at least it's moving east...

a few inches of snow...

...showed up lastnight, beautiful on the trees this morning :) i took a picture out the door from work, will post it later. first week of classes was good, looks like it will be a busy semester though, lots of projects and homework.
in other news, cleo has a new spike collar! it's awesome, red! we've started calling her spike now.
this weekend, i plan on renting movies and hibernating! they're calling for snow and sleet and the like. which is bad, because shannon is supposed to be driving to WA this weekend. so here's hoping that snowstorm is just a big fluke...
unbelievably, it's the end of january already! i can't believe it. i've also seen no sign whatsoever of my W2s. hmmm...
anyway, back to work! it's friday and we're not working this weekend :) woo-hoo!

You gotta leave me now, you got to go alone.
You gotta chase a dream, one that's all your own,
Before it slips away.
When you're flyin' high, take my heart along.
I'll be the harmony to every lonely song
That you learn to play.
-Nickel Creek, When You Come Back Down

10..8..7..back up to 9?

it's soooooo cold! i'm moving back to arizona! no, not really, but on mornings like these, the urge is even more so than usual. guess what today is? no! you guessed wrong! today is my first day of class. lean conversion here i come (my first class is a lean manufacturing and six sigma course). in fact i just checked and there is a grand total of eight, yes eight people, in my class.

believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if i have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
-buddha

favorite quote of mine :) anyway, better get back to work, several things to clear up before our 9 am production meeting...

lucky 13 degrees

brrrr...it's cold this morning. but the sun was just breaking the horizon (that kind of blue light behind the clouds?) this morning which means the days are indeed getting longer. which is good to know, i'm already ready for spring and we haven't even had a solid snow yet.
time to start the workday! hope it's not manic :)

do your boxer shorts call 911?

Ultimately, the market for smart clothing will extend far beyond its current audience of early adapters with fetishes for gear.
Textiles are getting smarter, as companies weave tiny sensors into fabric to gather and distribute information about the human wearing it.
Philips, the Dutch multinational, has developed a line of underwear, bras and accessories containing tiny electronic devices that monitor heart rates, body temperature, insulin levels and other parameters. When some measure goes awry -- think heart attacks or strokes

your boxer shorts call an ambulance.

Philips expects the product to be widely available in Europe by the end of 2006.
Germany's Infineon Technologies offers something called a thermogenerator, which measures the difference between body temperature and the temperature of the garment. Too cold or too warm? Your shirt will be able to fix it.
Then there's the "joy dress," which has been prototyped by Alexandra Fede, an Italian designer. It massages women as they wear it, again via tiny sensors and a programmable microchip in the fabric.
The ideas are coming fast and furious. Orvis has a hit with its Buzz Off line of clothes, which emit insect-repellant scents (from $18 for socks to $170 for a jacket). Fly fishers like them, but so would people in malaria-ridden neighborhoods.
Not one to go wading through wetlands? There may still be a scent-emitting textile for you. Various companies are working on fabrics that sense when you sweat, then counteract the odor by releasing perfume.

see the whole story here

i shot a man in reno just to watch him die

no not really, but i'm listening to the greatest country hits and that was the first one that came on. so calm down!

calendar girl

i've been thinking a lot about calendars, beginning of the year, time to replace my day-to-day on my desk, my agenda, the mini-monthly calendar on my bulletin board at work, the one behind my door at home.
the other day i was working on a new '2005' spreadsheet for some data and i started thinking about days. how every year, we start over with them - these slates blank of significance. already though, they are starting to fill in. a wedding on august 13th, a a visit on february 4th, trip on january 23rd, another in march. 2004 was filled with them, dates to remember. just something to think about.

winter

yesterday was a GORGEOUS day -- left work in the sunshine and drove home with my windows down -- not bad for january.

stranger than fiction...

the story below is only topped today by the man who sold the christmas gifts he gave to his three children based on their "naughty" behavior. santa's getting tough this year! the man promised to give the $2K he raised in the auction to his church and other charities.

now check this one out:

MUSCATINE, Iowa (AP) -- A Wal-Mart greeter was sacked for apparently showing too much of his friendly side to customers.

Dean L. Wooten, 65, was accused of greeting customers with a computer-generated photo of himself in which he appeared to be naked -- except for a carefully placed Wal-Mart bag -- and of telling customers that Wal-Mart was cutting costs and the sack was the company's new uniform.

A supervisor at the Muscatine store where Wooten had worked for seven years told him to knock it off after customers complained. He was fired five days later, in September, after he displayed the photo again.

Wooten's application for unemployment compensation was rejected by an administrative law judge, who said

a reasonable person would know the act of showing a naked body wearing a Wal-Mart sack would not be good for the employer's business.

Wooten said he did not see the harm in the photo, which he said was made by a friend who spliced a picture of Wooten's head onto a shot of another man's body.

"When I first seen it, I pretty near died laughing," he said.

grandma, what gives?

gram, per your request, i have upped my post frequency -- but no comments from you! that's okay though :) you might be too busy with the great-grandbaby!
headed to the cellar tonight for some blues -- nothing beats doc's blues revue and a glass of wine. if only it was errazuriz or black dog (they stopped selling them by the glass...)

Danaher Assists in Relief Effort

Danaher associates are deeply saddened by the catastrophic events of the past week in South Asia and offer our condolences to all those affected by this disaster. Danaher Corporation will be making a contribution to the American Red Cross and is encouraging all of its associates to give what they can to the American Red Cross or any agency providing aid in this relief effort. In addition, Danaher has donated water testing and purification equipment and will continue to work with aid organizations to assess additional equipment needs.

poetry shuts you people up like nothing else

but that's okay, i still love you. so i have an official trend of 7 data points going at work -- been in every day before 6:52 am ;) ha ha! maybe i can even get back to being a morning person :) i used to be, i swear.
cleo has spent her mornings lately curled up on my bed- sometimes watching me get ready, but most times buried beneath the covers with either her head or legs sticking out. funny dog that one.
lastnight i got so far as to watching the pilates dvd from the library. doesn't look too bad, tonight, i might actually do some of it ;)

John Donne A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls, to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"The breath goes now," and some say, "No:"

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;
Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refin'd,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begun.

new year, new leaf?

i've always hated new year's resolutions. well, maybe hated is a strong word. but i don't like 'em. mostly because it's seems a little silly to base a new start on the turn of a calendar year. but maybe it just gives people a reason and a time frame to have a new start.

with that in mind, i now am the proud owner of a 2nd alarm clock. makes for a stress-free leisurely morning routine, which i'm enjoying so far. also rented all kinds of trendy exercise videos (pilates, tai chi, etc.) for fun, entertainment, oh yeah, and a little exercise too :)

back to work!

the native is restless

so a four-day weekend, although relaxing, has made me a bit restless. so on the fourth day, bri decided to leave the house! just kidding, i've left the house- just not often. and isn't it annoying when i refer to myself in third person? today i have great ambitions for all kinds of stuff - we'll see!

overheard and worth repeating:

everytime i watch gangs of new york, my inner monologue has an accent for a few days afterward.

tomorrow it's back to work, and i know i'll later think i'm crazy for saying this, but i'm actually looking forward to it!

happy 2005!

the new year is here :) make the most of it

a new year and the days get longer

'stay or leave..i want you not to go..isn't it strange how it changes everything we did?' (loosely quoting) ah dave matthews, enjoying my acoustic version of the heart wrenching 'stay or leave' this morning :)
work is so quiet this week. today, among other things, my plan is to clean and organize my desk (maybe a little rearrangement?) and make sure we ship everything we're supposed to ship (that last one might take a good portion of my day).

i want every instant to be as lovely as crayons*

now listening to a little federico aubele, definite recommend if you like music that almost makes you want to sashay (a: WALK, GLIDE, GO b : to strut or move about in an ostentatious or conspicuous manner c : to proceed or move in a diagonal or sideways manner ), now if only sashay was low lowercase...
*another steal, gu cheng, from headstrong boy

my flight is what?

that's right. it's cancelled- but we've recovered, it's been rescheduled for tomrrow - and we're flying FIRST CLASS! damn roanoke weather...

merry christmas eve eve!

today is a wonderful day ;) got in to work at 5:56 am, am headed out on a flight at 3 for phoenix!

one person can make the same mistake at least 3 times

in case you were wondering... on the bright side, i had a mystery gift on my desk this morning that turned out to be from none than joey card! :) i'll have to test my trivia on how well i know the 90s ;)

long blogs long gone?

it's been awhile since i typed up a nice lengthy blog. seems as if my attention is scattered all over the place lately!
even now, i got caught up doing other things for a few hours and abandoned this post.
so it's the shortest day of the year, which reminds me of a james richardson quote:
...which i can't find. but i will later! and i will post it!

punctuation for sarcasm?

so i read an article on slate today about the sarcasm point. preceded by legendary greats such as the exclamation point and question mark, the sarcasm point makes its debut on slate.com. it's the best thing since sliced breadi

look ma! my lotion's froze!

so i keep a bottle of lotion in car for when i forget to put it on my hands in the morning, and this morning, i went to use it, and it was frozen solid. i'm moving to a warmer state!

stick a fork in me...

...i'm done! done i tell you! done! down down down, go go go, mine mine mine...oh, sorry, wrong rant :) point is, no more school until january! :)

above thy deep and dreamless sleep...

let's take a vote...

is it okay, or not okay to eat a gravy biscuit while on a diet? i suppose i already know the answer to that.

if i close my eyes, do you think they'll all go away?

that may be too much to hope for this morning. i'm flying it solo. typically, my office is shared with 2 other people (the other supervisor, and our boss), but they're both in training tuesday-thursday this week so it's just me and the soap opera that is our workplace.
today is the last day of class for me, then only 2 finals stand between me and the couch, sex and the city, and wine! sister soiree here i come.
in other news, my boyfriend has taken to calling me "briannica" as in britannica due to my almost compulsive need to look everything up. but i've been called worse ;)
counting the days until i get one off...

random lisa loeb lyrics

I was restless,
I was restless,
I was restless,
I was restless.
I just want this to be good,
I just want this to be good.
but you don't understand,
you don't understand me, and I want to be understood.

But if it doesn't brush my shoulder,
and it doesn't beat my heart,
that's not what I want - no, that's not where I will start.
I never kissed somebody so that they would break my heart,
that's not what I want.

happy birthday michael :)

foresight

i can't remember where i read it, but a long time ago, i read a story about a guy who when he was 17, sat down and wrote a list of everything he wanted to accomplish in life. i mean, a huge list. it was like hundreds of items long. and crazy stuff too, like...see such and such river in africa, or climb whatever mountain. at the time the story was published, he had worked through the list to a substantial degree (he was maybe in his 60's by that point?), so...i guess the point is, i was just thinking about how incredible that is since sometimes i don't even know what i'm doing next week.

merry christmas from cleo.

how many times can one person make the same mistake?

i woke up this morning at 7:20 to the sound of my phone ringing. what time do i start work? 7.

the search for horace

'who's horace?' you might be asking yourself...horace is our thanksgiving turkey. this year, due to my mother's recent avid pursuit of all things organic and soy, a fresh organic turkey was requested. after a sequence of events involving a requisite pre-order of said turkey and a family characteristic of procrastination, no turkey was found. a few frantic monday morning phone calls and we found horace. not organic, not fresh, but a frozen natural turkey...company motto? our turkey's don't do drugs. that's right, no 12-step program for this turkey, horace is antibiotic free and free range. all 17 pounds of him now resides in our fridge, defrosting away.

it's tough to lose at monopoly

not that it's easy to win, but if your aim is to actually go bankrupt, it can be difficult. i spent part of my weekend at a cabin just off of the appalachian trail in front royal, va (3.5 hours north of here). the cabin was a 2 mile hike from the parking lot (which puts a whole new twist on packing for us city girls), and had no running water or electricity. it did however have a huge fireplace, mattresses for 12, a cast iron wood burning stove/oven, and a beautiful front porch complete with swing.
back to the monopoly game, i got tired after a two dinners (frito pie and spaghetti) and wine. so i wanted out! but i'm no quitter, so i thought i'd actually lose before heading off to bed. i was unsucessful at failing it turns out. i didn't win, but i didn't lose. just somewhere in the grey middle.
in other news, i also got to play tour guide sunday evening yet again to danaher hopefuls and spent some time at work on saturday morning. and while i'm being chronologically backwards, friday night was spent at the basketball game and watching 'eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.' which i got into trouble for sleeping through. so i woke up and watched it. it was a good movie, but odd. interesting plot.
only 1.5 more days of work! yippee! and then the parents show up wednesday night, hopefully they'll go easy on those they're meeting ;)
happy (organic) turkey day!

i love my dictionary

"There are times when I think that the ideal library is composed solely of reference books. They are like understanding friends- always ready to meet your mood, always ready to change the subject when you have had enough of this or that."
- J. Donald Adams

flaws

"Do not be too quick to pull out your flaws. They endure dry seasons, thrive uncared for. They have deeper roots than you. They hold the slope in place."
-James Richardson

nice to see you again larry

ryan, for your benefit, i'll throw in as many japanese words as i can come up with :) so it's day four of the kaizen, and we're knee deep in poka yokes, searching for opportunities for jidoka and implementing kanbans for inventory :) that being said, i am TIRED! we worked from 7 am until 10 pm lastnight, luckily, they bring in food since it's my aim in life to never miss a meal. except breakfast, i'm happy with coffee for breakfast. tonight, my hope is that we will leave here in time to go to a nice dinner, but i have a feeling that's an empty hope... ah well :) i'm still having fun and that's what counts.

off to a place that's colder than here!

got back from unc lastnight after a fantastic win by the hokies (note, the hokies - not my hokies - the boilers are the only ones i claim). had tons of fun doing the hokie pokie with ash and jules in the middle of unc's student section and getting pelted with what they could find to throw ;) i also think it's possible i missed my calling as a yuppie intellectual who went to unc and hung out in wine bars, but ah well, we can't do it all, right?

today it's off to michigan for a shingijutsu kaizen event in saginaw. should be pretty crazy, our CEO is participating in the event. i'll be tired and full of good by next friday when i make it back to blacksburg :)

Halloween :)

Happy Halloween from Cleo and I!

And the pumpkin too!

From the left, a Tornado, a Runaway Bride, Cruella de Ville (sp?), and Hugh Hefner. Happy Halloween!

oracle, not the one from the matrix

yawn. just another day at work on a saturday (yes, i'm whining). our plant is in the middle of migration to a new MRP system, and it's quite the undertaking.
but it's a lot of "hurry up and wait," so currently, i'm waiting. on the bright side, there's enough food around here to provide for a small village for a week or so. and coffee of course. caffeine - the productivity tool of champions.
tomorrow is st. hallow's eve, if you haven't gotten the memo. tonight, we're all headed to downtown blacksburg for a night of fun in costume. still haven't come to a final decision on what to wear though.
in the meantime, i'm going to go grab another cup of coffee....

happy birthday ryan hanlon!

In Which Autumn Attends a Beach Party

so this one is super old -- dredged up from September 2000 -- but i think most are aware of my long running obsession with all things fall:


In which Autumn attends a beach party

There’s a chill in the air tonight that I had long forgotten,
as if Autumn had suddenly strolled into a beach party
draped in a cloak of fiery leaves-
(just yesterday, I could have sworn they were green)
but now here she is, surrounded by them,
with her auburn hair tumbling over bare shoulders.

How could anyone have forgotten her beauty?
Her presence is striking, and suddenly the Sun
seems too harsh for the setting.
Knowingly, he fades into the sky and the light becomes softer.

Unsure now if she plans to stay, we glance wistfully at the trees,
then the calendar. How did the months slip by
when only minutes ago the Sun burned so intensely?

Autumn seems to sense our reluctance-
with a soft smile and a nod of reprieve,
she slips through the crowd and disappears.
A single flame-colored leaf floats to the ground where she stood,
a reminder that Autumn is close by and Summer grows distant.

Fog by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

arizona here i come!

sampling of purdue pics as promised

the engineering fountain (without water!)

University Hall...

the early bird gets the...audits done?

was here at 6:30 am this morning :) which is pretty good considering my goal was 6.

in other news, i have no hair! it's all gone. seriously, i had it cut on wednesday, and she straightened it, so it seemed longer, but today, it's one big ball of curls :)

back to work! :) and then class, and then work, and then party! :)

vicarious is low-lower case

but vicariously isn't. either way, i still like the word. my time in west lafayette was well spent :) i'll post pictures from home, don't have them with me right now. got to see jason, anna, tweedle's friends, my grandparents, and a lot of other family members ;)

now i'm back to blacksburg usual, but am leaving next friday (not THIS friday, but NEXT) for arizona! three cheers for arizona! hurrah hurrah hurrah. as it is, i feel as if i'm NEVER at work, but ah well, i didn't take any vacation in the first 8 months of this year, so i had it comin'.

off to lunch ;)

feed a cold, feed a fever?

mmmm...enjoying a southern gravy biscuit before i head up north.

james richardson vectors, aphorisms, and ten-second essays

just cherry picked a few of my favorites ;)

"his lie doesn't bother me as much as the truth he thinks he knows."

"billions of years, the dust hasn't settled. water's still seeking its own level."

"ax built the house but sleeps in the shed."

"useful to see how you could love every person, every job, for an hour. necessary to realize how short an hour is."

"the despair of the blank page: it is so full."

slackety slack, and don't come back

ah september. how i love it.
noteables:
a. hurricane ivan, scheduled to strike virginia later this week. also scheduled to submerse new orleans in 12-18 feet of water. scary stuff.
b. cleo's halloween costume, a pumpkin. so far, she refuses to wear it without biting and clawing at it. negotiations are scheduled to continue until late october.
c. purdue, next week! will be haunting my old haunts (aka vienna and harry's) and hanging out with jason and anna. oh, and trying to recruit a few people to work at danaher while i'm there.
d. moonlight stomp, this weekend. big plans to stomp grapes like lucy and roast marshmallows in the moonlight next to the winery.

that's all for now ;)

happy birthday austin!

my brother is 13 today -- my my how time does fly.

...yawn...

wow. 3 a.m. comes quickly sometimes. as does 6 a.m. when you've only been in bed since 3 a.m. even the dog was like: are you kidding me? i just laid down! but luckily, it's friday, which means i can happily recover sleep this evening.

amhrein winery - roanoke county

sophisticated wine tasting at this weekend's festival...from the left, jules, zack, stacie, and ashlea

and what's a wine festival without a beret?

stolen poetry from "before sunrise"

(untitled)

Daydream, delusion, limousine, eyelash
Oh baby with your pretty face
Drop a tear in my wineglass
Look at those big eyes
See what you mean to me
Sweet-cakes and milkshakes
I'm delusion angel
I'm fantasy parade
I want you to know what I think
Don't want you to guess anymore
You have no idea where I came from
We have no idea where we're going
Latched in life
Like branches in a river
Flowing downstream
Caught in the current
I'll carry you
You'll carry me
That's how it could be
Don't you know me?
Don't you know me by now?

loo-dog.

new top five movies ;)

so as a result of seeing the current movie at the lyric this week, before sunset, i have changed my top five favorites. in no particular order, here is the revised list:

• before sunset

  music from another room

  something's gotta give

  love actually

  when harry met sally

counting sheep...

the hopefully LAST day of physical inventory is tomorrow, then it's off to the game! it always annoys me when people say "the game" as if the world is aware and will be in attendance. so to clarify, "the game" in question is the virginia tech vs. usc game in none other than fed ex field in d.c. but first, a party, hosted by my good friend demay :) it's even being webcast...which i may post a link to tomorrow if i think of it, but right now, i'm going to bed.

congrats to legatto on his new baby girl :)

Flash Cards by Rita Dove

In math I was the whiz kid, keeper
of oranges and apples. What you don't understand,
master, my father said: the faster
I answered, the faster they came.
I could see one bud on the teacher's geranium,
one clear bee sputtering at the wet pane.
The tulip trees always dragged after heavy rain
so I tucked my head as my boots slapped home.
My father put up his feet after work
and relaxed with a highball and The Life of Lincoln.
After supper we drilled and I climbed the dark
before sleep, before a thin voice hissed
numbers as I spun on a wheel. I had to guess.
Ten, I kept saying, I'm only ten.

autumn

this morning when i drove in, the sun was still trying to burn off the fog. the temperature was in the 50's and it felt like fall. fall is such a bittersweet season (and my favorite one at that), i love those evening when the air has that crispness to it. ending of summer, beginnings of winter, makes it hard to present a unified front to autumn on how i feel about it. come september, i'll drag out all the pumpkin and carmel apple scented candles out and fill our apartment with fall. until then...

a looooooooong poem...

...but one of my favorites, this is in my top 5. i may have even posted it before.

Sunday Morning
Wallace Stevens

1
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound.
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.
2
Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measure destined for her soul.
3
Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.
He moved among us, as a muttering king,
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.
4
She says, "I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?"
There is not any haunt of prophecy,
Nor any old chimera of the grave,
Neither the golden underground, nor isle
Melodious, where spirits gat them home,
Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured
As April's green endures; or will endure
Like her remembrance of awakened birds,
Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
By the consummation of the swallow's wings.
5
She says, "But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss."
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths,
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness,
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.
6
Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set pear upon those river-banks
Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
The silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning bosom we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.
7
Supple and turbulent, a ring of men
Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn
Their boisterous devotion to the sun,
Not as a god, but as a god might be,
Naked among them, like a savage source.
Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,
Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their lord delights,
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feet shall manifest.
8
She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirits lingering.
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay."
We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

the internet drought has ended!

we finally have the internet at home! yippee! :)

on a brighter note...

tonight, i'm headed to the fiddler's convention in galax, virginia. it's every august and a big deal 'round these parts :) i've always wanted to go, so i'm excited :)

tomorrow evening is leo extravaganda, a celebration of all things leo. our favorite roaring lions will be gathered to eat, drink, and be merry. good stuff.

freaky friday the 13th

can someone remind me why i like my job????

i'm walking on sunshine - whoaaaa

took a quiz once, and this song is apparently my theme song. and now, it's on my streaming yahoo radio at work. which is fitting, i've had a great day. nothing in particular, but depending on the day, i really enjoy my job ;) today is one of the enjoyable days. this is the closest i've been to a rewarding "helping people" type job since receiving my engineering degree.

a few website plugs:

ryanhanlon.blogspot.com - your newest link to the genius that is r-dawg's blog

www.colorquiz.com - scarily accurate for a simple choice of color palette