Inside My Tortured Heart

On June 17th, 2005 history will be taking place at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. I live 21 miles away from the stadium. Where will I be on June 17th? In a tiny Swiss American town in Wisconsin called New Glarus. Why? Oh, why torture myself this way?

Contest Winner Announced

We have a winner! It's not the fountain. And it's not me. The batteries died some time in the early morning after I went to bed.

LAURA is the big winner because she is the only one who entered! Congratulations, Laura! You won the fountain contest. Laura, please make your selection between a fountain that lasts for only a few days on two Duracell AA batteries or a donation to the charity in your choice in double the amount of the cost of the fountain.

It will be easy to come up with the money because I'll be returning the 2 fountains to Walgreens this week unless Laura wants one of them. Surprisingly, it is very soothing and does not make you feel like you have to pee all of the time.

The thing is, I really LOVE the fountain. But I can't afford batteries every 2-3 days for the thing.

Congratulations to Laura! Woe to me and the fountain with the appetite for batteries! Someone at CVS told me their CVS batteries last longer than the brand name batteries. Maybe I should test out their theory. I really hate to get rid of the fountain.

Unsere Nichte/Our Niece

This is Pierre and Celia's younger daughter, our niece and Fredi's goddaughter, Tamara. Sooo cute!! She and Deborah were our flower girls. Another Meli is on the way in July as Celia is pregnant. We can't wait to meet the newest arrival, hopefully we will hear from immigration soon.

Lovely Mom and Daughter

This is my sister-in-law, Celia and our niece Tamara, who live in Switzerland. Aren't they gorgeous? You can read more about them at www.meli.cc. We miss them!! We haven't been able to see them since 2003 because we're waiting for our immigration interview and Fredi's kind of stuck here in the meantime.

So I could use a pedicure ....

Fredi thinks my feet are ugly! Harrumph. They are not my most attractive feature, I agree. But I've seen some ugly feet in my day and I don't think mine qualify. My feet are back under the desk for typing now but they were in this position at some point during the last 24 hours, which is a good thing.

Money Cat & Co.

These are Mr. Money Cat's two best friends, Piggie and Yellow Cat. Piggie and Yellow Cat were adopted by me when I bought my used Mazda MX-6 in 1999 and they were stuck on the dashboard. The previous owner abandoned them there!! Along with my friend Matthias, Piggie and Yellow Cat survived a near brush with death when my car was, sadly, totaled, in 2001. (See the scar on Yellow Cat's head?) I love these guys!

Mr. Money Cat

This is my lucky cat, Mr. Money Cat! He is good luck and hopefully will keep bringing me more work, money and good fortune. Too bad he cannot actually do the work for me. Mr. Money Cat has a twin who is on my desk at the office.

Ahh!

My tranquility fountain! I always wanted one of these. This one was affordable. At least affordable before the cost of the batteries. It's cordless! Neat-O.

We will see how long the batteries last. I'll be sponsoring a contest -- whoever can guess how long the batteries last (two AAs) wins one of these fountains or double the cash equivalent donated in your name to the charity of your choice (okay, the fountain was cheap; thank you, Walgreens). Post your guesses in the comments section with the number of days, hours, minutes and seconds that you guess the batteries in this fountain will last, starting now. Alternatively you can post the date and time you think it will stop running.

Here's the tricky part -- I would love for the sake of science to run the darn thing 24 hours a day, but my cat might destroy it or drink all the water when I'm not here, and hey, batteries are expensive! So you agree this isn't scientific, and I agree to keep the fountain running as continuously as possible. That shouldn't be difficult, since I will be glued to this desk transcribing for the next few weeks. (See previous post.)

Ahh! I feel so tranquil already.

Working Feet

This is why I am eating what I am eating right now.

And this photograph is number 4 of my new series. Working title: "My Feet." Is that too obvious? So it's a working title. Hey, "Return of the Jedi" was originally "Revenge of the Jedi." So I will call this series "My Feet." It's about the photos in any case, not the title of the series. Coming soon to a fine art gallery near you.

This is where my feet are right now. I should just glue them there because that's where they will be for the foreseeable future. For those not on the "inside", as we call it in "the business," the pedals on the right are foot pedals for transcription. One is hooked up to a transcription machine and one to my computer so I can transcribe digital files. How cool is that?

Due to a lot of hard work and a lucky cat I'll call "Mr. Money Cat," the work has been pouring in lately. Do I need sleep? No. Just a tranquility fountain!

Darn, I wish these blogs were in actual chronological order instead of reverse chronological order. My through line is getting all messed up. Okay, just pretend you are watching that movie Memento where everything takes place backwards. And please scroll down to the bottom because it's my favorite post and I want everyone to see it.

Sorry I haven't posted lately. My feet have been glued to these pedals. Okay, so not really. Actually my feet have been moonlighting as the subjects of my new photography series so they have been quite busy. A pedicure is becoming more and more necessary.

But a lot has gone on in the last couple of weeks, and I will update you all very soon.

Food for Thought

What I am eating right now.