Dear snow,

Please stop.

Love,

Elizabeth

PS I hate you, go away.

Of wrists and watches

I thought I’d have an interesting post about wrist size and my complaint against most watch makers but as it turns out, I do not.

I bought a watch from Amazon (you can see it here ), for four reasons. First, I like how it looks—it has a small face and I don’t have large wrists and sometimes watch faces look silly on my wrists. Second, it’s silver (I don’t wear yellow gold). Third, when reviewers mentioned the watch, they said it was great for people with small wrists. Finally, although it's more than I normally spend on a watch, it wasn't stupidly expensive.

So I ordered it. It’s definitely exactly how it’s pictured on Amazon, it’s silver BUT there is no way it fits small wrists. The watch measures eight inches long! Then I got curious about whether or not I even have small wrists but so far everything I’ve turned up online indicates my wrists are solidly average.

And that's why I don't really have an interesting post. My wrist measure six and one-half inches around and on most sites, that's listed as average. Given that mine are supposedly average size, I have no idea why bracelets and watches never fit my wrists.

I'm keeping the watch and I’ll get it re-sized because I do like everything else about it. I just don’t want a watch I can slide over my hand. That’s ridiculous.

Caffeine

Last week on my return trip from Hawaii, I didn’t have enough time while changing planes to get a jumbo cup of proper coffee. I don’t drink the airline’s coffee because it’s just brown water and why bother? So I ended up with a honking big headache, even though I drink just two (strong) cups of coffee a day and don’t drink any other caffeinated drinks.

Kent has had a stomach/ lower GI virus and hasn’t had coffee until today so he’s got a whopper of a headache too. Of course he does drink a lot more caffeine than I do so to my way of thinking, his headache is more appropriate. I thought mine last week was just mean.

Do you drink caffeinated drinks? How do you manage when for whatever reason, you cannot get your normal dose?

Ding, ding, ding

We have a winner. Jenni, the pet sitter we had come by yesterday for a trial run, sent me an email that said:

Hello,
It was a success! No animals or people were harmed :)

In fact, she emailed a bit later and said Eddie came by while she was scooping the litter just to check her out but didn’t hiss or anything.

I am so very relieved.

Of course then I had to email the Cat Nanny and let her know that we were trying someone else for our vacation later this month. I dislike sending bad news emails but yesterday was a day for just exactly that kind of email, since I had to share reduced contracts and budget cuts with the contractors on my team.

Now I’m working from home because we have a blizzard in Boston.

I missed you too

How did a week pass since I last posted?

For some reason, I’ve had a little more trouble readjusting to the Eastern time zone this go-round—mostly I just can’t fall asleep at my normal time which makes getting up really hard too.

Today is the trial run with a potential cat sitter. We met her Friday after I got back from Hawaii (I am confident I looked as stupid as I felt, man was I tired) and neither of the boy kitties hissed at her. In fact Eddie deigned to allow her to pet him. She used to work at our vet’s and is now in nursing school and also appears impossibly young. She’s stopping by this afternoon while I’m at work to see how the cats behave when Kent and I are not here. She charges a little bit more than the Cat Nanny but it would still be cheaper (and better for the cats) than having one boarded at the vet’s AND paying for a cat sitter.

I feel a little bad for the Cat Nanny though. I’ve mentioned before that she is disabled (had a bone infection in her hip almost 10 years ago); the money she earns caring for cats helps supplement that and I know we’ve been a good customer. But at the end of the day, I need to take care of my cats, not the nanny. I still feel bad.

Wally has been needy this week with me, swarming me when I get home and generally acting like Velcro—unless he’s getting into things. I sometimes think he does that just to get the attention. Bad attention, good attention, he doesn’t care.

A small splurge

I bought this print in Hilo. Look closely and you'll see why I bought it.

Random thoughts that don’t add up to anything coherent

• I leave today for Hawaii (again) and get back Friday night.
• Kent leaves Saturday for Europe (again) and gets back Thursday.
• I don’t like this pattern.
• But it’s better for the cats since we haven’t solved the cat sitter issue.
• Wally hissed at Eddie loudly and constantly for three days—day and night, no kidding.
• I keep thinking I’m hearing Chloe snore, but it’s Eddie.
• I have my suitcase out in the living room so I don’t wake up Kent, and Wally has done his best to unpack things, starting with the socks. That cat is obsessed with socks.
• Coffee is good but sleeping till a more civilized 5AM would be far better.
• I didn’t get Christmas cards out this year; by the time I was actually home enough to consider doing so, it was far too late.
• The snow from last weekend’s blizzard has almost vanished (except in our patio which is a heat sink). The temperature yesterday reached 61F.
• I’m going to show the picture I posted of the snow in our patio to the class participants in Hawaii. Hey, they get excited over leaves that have changed color.
• More than a few friends have commented that 2010 was awful for them and they are hoping for a better year this year.
• 2009 remains on record as the worst year for me and I hope never to repeat a year like that again.
• No New Year’s resolutions for me; I generally don’t wait until the first of the year to make changes. I’m way too impatient for that.

Do you make New Year's resolutions? If so, what are they for 2011?