The Missing Sock

In elementary school, I wrote an extensive story about where the missing sock in the laundry goes. As a matter of fact, I think it was called "The Missing Sock". You see, they go to another land on the other side of the washing machine (or dryer, I don't quiet remember).

Since I moved into my washing machine-less apartment, I go to the laundromat most of the time unless I'm visiting my parents. :-) I have lost a couple of socks and laugh to myself a little about that story. Last time I lost a hand towel, which was weird. I figured it fell somewhere between my apartment and getting all the clean laundry back in the car.

Tonight though, I am missing a bed sheet. That's right, a bed sheet. Bed sheets don't go to the other side of the washing machine (or dryer). Nor did it fall out anywhere, I drove back to the laundromat and checked. The owner was surprised because he knows that I'm careful about my laundry. I only recall one lady near me, but I don't remember her carrying anything.

I do not plan on using a laundromat again.

The Ocean

My parents are living near the ocean now. They frequently took us on vacation to the ocean growing up, though we lived in a land-locked state. It's a good place to go.

Earlier in the summer, I created this masterpiece with the help of my niece and my nephew who collected decorative items.This weekend, they also made quite the collection of dead horseshoe crabs. This is the group, minus a couple more they squeezed in before getting their hand wipes. :-)
And this is one of the lighthouses near my parents. It was a beautiful day on Saturday, which makes up for the RAIN today!
Some lyrics for you...

When I went to your town on the wide open shore,
Oh I must confess, I was drawn to the ocean,
I thought it spoke to me, it said, "Look at us,
We're not churches, not schools, not skating ponds, swimming pools,
And we have lost people, haven't we though?"
Oh, that's what the ocean can know of a body,
And that's when I came back to town, this town is a song about you.
You don't know how lucky you are, you don't know how much I adore you,
You are the welcoming back from the ocean.

The good, the bad, and in the meantime

If ever my life is or will be like a roller coaster, I think right now would put those past and future rides to shame. I mean seriously. I think in lieu of a wordy, and thus surely annoying, explanation, I will go with (partial) lists.

The Good

• I love CF, my friends, and of course my family. They constantly check in with me and offer an ear or support or help (mostly because they know I am unlikely to ask) :-)
• Visited CF over Labor Day in the midwest full of several nights at the county fair and his friend's wedding
• I have been cooking and baking more
• I had a nice visit with my grandfather, in spite of recent events.
• So many friends getting married, buying houses, and making babies - it is very exciting!!!
  
• Tutoring Fulbright applicants on their essays - they are so excited about their proposals and motivated!
• The undergrad who worked with me over the summer is back for work study: she's sweet, nice, kind, and any other word you would use to describe a good person
• I have a social week! Old roommates over for dinner, dinner with other friends tomorrow, drinks with fellow tutors Wednesday, dinner with two OTHER friends Thursday, off for a weekend with the family on Friday!
• I am almost done with revisions on my dissertation
• My post-doc advisor has funding she could have used to pay me, BUT I got on a University training grant, so I'll be a funded post-doc (does not change the money or responsibilities, but is a good thing)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• I looked into cost-of-living calculators and where I live now housing is 243% MORE expensive than where I will be living, plus I will be making a tad more money...I will feel like a millionaire (only make less money than an actual millionaire)
  

The Bad

• I will sum up one of the bads with one word: advisor. I do not even care to try to explain. I just wish she was more forthcoming and less of a beeeee-atch
• Reviews on one paper came back today. I actually do not need to do any more experiments I think (GOOD!), but extensive rewriting...and the word limit is 2500 so I might as well just rewrite from scratch
• Still waiting on reviews on THE paper that "has to be accepted for publication in order to defend"...My outside member thought the manuscript had interesting data but was premature. If she had liked it, my committee would have "been more comfortable scheduling a defense date" soon
• I still don't have a defense date
• I feel stuck. I cannot tell my landlord when I will move out. I cannot figure out where I will live. I cannot schedule a moving truck or PODS. I cannot decide if I will go on a family vacation at the end of October.
• I have to get my cat's teeth cleaned. I blame her bad oral hygiene on her previous owners
• I have a 60,000 mile check and brakes to do on my car
• I made my grandfather cry by telling him not to say mean things about my Mom and to call her instead of making stuff up about what he thinks she is doing with his money. (I made a joke and amde him laugh before I left)
  

In the Meantime

• I am trying to reclaim my life
• A long overdue and quite nice haircut
• An 80-degree day tomorrow that I believe calls for one last pedicure
• Dinner parties at home with different groups of friends
• Cleaning my apartment from top to bottom (I rather enjoy this)
• Cleaning out my office and filling the recycle bin several times with stuff I do not need to keep
• Cleaning out at home to make moving easier when I get to actually move (i.e.purging)

A whole new level

I am a bit addicted to Facebook. I blame it on the fact that almost a year ago, the class that I took where I met CF started using Facebook as one of the ways to have an online chat for the course.

I do use some of the applications - my sister and I average a game of scrabble a week, there is Bejeweled Blitz, and I play FarmTown.

I try not to have too many people who I do not really know as friends. There is one girl in particular who I am not sure if I know who she is, but I feel bad for deleting her!

My parents are on there. My Uncle.

Now though? Now I am friends with the pastor emeritus from the church I grew up in.

Entertainment

Guess where the birds are in the morning?
It might be the roof of the neighboring house...

One way to look at it

I was skimming through an article titled "The mystery of Chernobyl" about how wildlife seems to flourish in areas of nuclear fallout. I think this is an interested take on that:

The natural world "would welcome nuclear waste as the perfect guardian against greedy developers… the preference of wildlife for nuclear-waste sites suggests that the best sites for its disposal are the tropical forests and other habitats in need of a reliable guardian against their destruction by hungry farmers and developers" - James Lovelock, the creator of the Gaia theory

I mean, the only benefit of those radiation levels that I can see is the exclusion of humans from the area. Just because the bear population is larger in the exclusion area than outside (mentioned in the article), does not mean that they are healthy populations. It may just mean they do not face competition for resources. Some people think the Gaia theory is a little cooky, but it is something to think about.