Waiting for my Saturday Morning Flood While Enjoying Coffee

It's only 10am and I'm writing!  Look ma, no Farmville!!!  First thing in the morning on the weekends, I generally enjoy a good hour or so of Farmville.  It used to take an hour.  Now it takes a few hours because the Zynga folks decided to add an English Farm to our existing Home Farm.  That was fun and exciting at the time.  Then they added the New England type Farm, which I really love because I'm born and bred in NE.  After managing to function with three farms, we obtained the always cold and snowy Winter Farm.  I try to decorate that one with as many flowers as possible because it's just so Buddhist Minimalist White.  I feel like I'm in George Orwell's 1984.  I even feel bad placing animals on this farm because their little virtual bodies are probably shivering on a level that I can't detect.  I feel like this is the Death Row of all the farms.  Yesterday Farmville gave me a swimming pond and forced me to place it on the Winter Farm because that's where I was when I started the game.  The effing WINTER FARM?  For a swimming hole?  Oh my mind is in compartment Hell because in a world of PC'isms, it just doesn't belong there.  Unless maybe I view it as one of those weird geothermal pools in Iceland.  Yeah...that's what I'll do.  And I'll petition Farmville for my own virtual Bjork while I'm at it.

Oh but that's not all.  After the Winter Farm came the Hawaiian Farm and even though I barely have that one under control we've received Jade Falls, our Japanese getaway.  The music for this one is the loveliest of all the farms. You go into a meditative state on this farm and keep playing on for another 20 minutes past the time you would have naturally.  You also pull out your credit card and buy FV dollars in which the Impatient will purchase the newest and hard to get trees and animals.  If you wait long enough, Danielson, you will obtain these animals and trees through other people's throwaways.  And if you don't, here is where you've fully learned Zen....you don't want what you haven't got.  Or was that Sinead O'Connor?

 However, all of these farms cause us hardcore Farm Folk to spend way more time than should be spent on a game.  So yes, I am waiting with extreme expectancy for someone, anyone, to come up to me right now with a ribbon of Excellence for writing instead.  

I've moved the writing party to the front porch so that I can put the piggies out to graze in the grass.  I have a strong Guilt gene and it flares up when I walk by them and have to use the High Piggie voice to make sure they respond since they look like death took them with a yawn.  They just look so bored in there.  Kyyo is still not well but surprisingly has been hanging on for weeks.  He looks like one of those gastro bypass experiments....the suddenly skinny pig who's face would look a bit better with a tad more weight on him.  I thought the fresh air might perk his spirits and by that idea alone, the other pig, the healthy rambunctious one, also needs to come outside or it just wouldn't be fair (Yes, Guilt gene, I hear you.)

I live in a village so anything that goes on to create that weekend, homey, quaintness that villages enough, is audible from my apartment.  Right now the farmer's market is happening and they usually have a singer/songwriter (can we stop using that phrase?  Why not just singer?) singing along to your applying discretion to the red leaf lettuce from this stand or that.

I hear we are in a flash flood warning, another great reason to "Like" your town on Facebook.  As soon as I sign on to get my FB Fix, there's the Heavy, waiting to let me know to be careful.  So before I build an ark out of Erdinger bottles, I'll sit out here and enjoy the Pre-Storm breeze and gray skies.  

Speak of the Devil.  Melodic guilt just walked in. The Singer/Songwriter just expelled the Father of all guilt songs, "Cats in the Cradle".  As a paying customer to this apartment and air space, I do not want to hear this song.  While it's a great song, one note of it bothers me to the point of wanting to call my therapist.  Good thing it is now over or I would have had to walk down, braless and barefoot to grab the nearest batch of kale and stuff it in his mouth.

The breeze is picking up a bit, and I see my child zooming back from the library in her black velvet dress.  She insisted on a Saturday morning at 10am to go to the library in a black velvet dress.  Yet if we were going somewhere where we'd be more represented, she'd have on some dirty shirt she's worn and dropped food on along with mismatching socks and a ball of knotted hair in the back of her head.  

My sober shhhh time is over for now.  So I'll continue to drink my cold coffee, enjoy the breeze and plant some crops.

When Will You Learn Your Lesson With the Phone Old Lady?

{The picture above is there because I want a hug like that.  I have been relatively hugless lately and am missing contact}

I am involved in a highly classified experiment.  It involves putting on the Big Bang Theory, attempting to write while one and half ears are perked for the punchlines....BUT, Comcast is having interruptions in service, resulting in the sound blipping out every 15 seconds or so.  If I get through the full half hour (including commercials) I'm told that the brain capacity that I had in Spring of 2009 will be fully restored.  

My horrible black hole habit of playing Farmville is strong-arming my concentration and time as I try to write this blog tonight. AND to make things worse...I am quite hungry.  Sure there are roasted beets that I made yesterday, and sweet potato fries that I made tonight (and got the Teen's major seal of approval - always like winning a date with Johnny Depp through a one way mirror!).  But you know, there isn't anything EASY to eat.  Ok, not true again.  I forgot there are black beans.  I'll sneak up on them later and woo them into my mouth. 

My trunk is still not fixed from the other day.  Mostly because when I walk away from my car, I no longer think about it.  It's when I step outside and see the car I make the "Oh, that's right!" face.  I thought I was so smart when I left work today and tied it once again with the same shoelace that tied it and broke the other day.  This time I thought I'd tie it to the license plate frame! Yes!  I got it this time!  No embarrassing ride home with someone coming up along side of me to play charades about my open trunk!  I think I even had a little strut in my step....yeeeeaahhhh....!  A GIRL figures out how to deal with a car issue!  Temporary, I know, but still.  A carefree ride home. Almost good enough to drive with my eyes closed.  

Well within a mere 120 seconds, I heard the shattering sound of my ego being crushed under my tires as I looked into the rearview mirror.  The damn trunk lid was laughing, swinging up and down like an idiot.  With each ascension, the "AH" and the jolting bounce of "HA!"!  And then the inevitable vision of someone catching up to me...someone who may feel the need to pull up along side me and let me know by hand signals and exaggerated mouth expressions that indeed, my trunk is flapping open and closed.  All the way home for a 30 minute drive.

Hey who remembers this game?  When was the last time you took the phone off the hook!?  We have all kinds of maneuvers now  where this action is no longer needed.  But I am maneuver-less today.  I have a cordless phone that rings almost as many decibels as the train that goes by here.  Or it sounds that way when the child is sleeping.   FLIP called.  I picked up.  Mostly so that he can't etch one more tally on his scorecard by saying that he called and I ignored him.  He says hello rather sternly and then launches into a diatribe.  We don't see eye to eye, and we won't.  He claims that I have been the disrespectful one, setting up double standards, etc.  I say that we've had this argument for 3 weeks now via email and I'm not elevating it to the phone.  Once he gets going, the words come faster and the pitch gets higher.  So as he gave me an infraction for not picking up the phone three weeks ago because I was 'afraid he would yell' I answered him by letting him know how it sounds andthenItalkedlikethisreallysuperfastandmyvoicestartstogoup and wouldn't you know...he didn't like that sound either. He hung up on me.  And so I called him back.  Which I never do.  Just to say, Point Made?  But he started yelling at me.  So the phone went off the hook.  Only I think these dastardly contraptions hang themselves back up after awhile.  

Well. Time to refill the beer mug and stalk some beans.  (Unlike Jack).  

Red Velvet Crumbs and a Mockingbird

Tonight we had the best and baddest mama jamma of a storm. We aren’t prone to worrying about tornados and the like in my area. Well, we weren’t anyway. Until that crazy tornado in Springfield, Mass last week. NOW we believe in ghosts.

The way home from work was brutal….visibility only allowing the ability to see a huge tree in the road right as you were about to drive over it. Lightning streaking down the sky constantly, strobing the town in a steady tempo. And of course, plenty of sirens to make us all pull over, wondering what the scene would be like, wherever that EMT was headed to.

So I know that I have this love for crows and all but our animals in the house are trying to get into the act. They’ve heard that a group of crows is a murder and are attempting to be the villainous bad asses of this hood. Le chat Azrael and le chien Ziggy both had their evil moments today. Azrael first, strutting around the house with a dead chipmunk. She is probably the single highest cause of Chipmunk Mortality around here. Not cool. She doesn’t even eat them. Ziggy took out a woodchuck who tried to defend himself. That makes me even sadder….an animal wanting to live and trying to stay alive and losing. But I guess that’s life and its opposite, Compost. I hear there were entrails involved with the woodchuck incident. SHIVER.

Today was a crazy day at work…one in which you dearly wish you had a beautiful Japanese or Chinese partition to close your little piece of pod real estate off and not speak to anyone. I have fabulous workmates…I just need quiet sometimes to work. And today we were all interrupted to the nth because our boss really wanted to know when this or that might be worked on, creating and slamming panic buttons wherever possible, like that landmine game. This doesn’t keep a flow going to finish the job. It just creates more fires to put out.

Regardless, I had a nice radio day. NPR decided that in all likelihood, its stories were not what I needed today and would not play for me. So I thought I’d check out some living in France podcasts, perchance some also on crows and ravens. So I did. I will have to reach out to a couple of those crow guys to see if they’ll be on my Scorpion Equinox show. One is Tony Angell and the other is John Marzluff. They wrote a book called In the Company of Crows and Ravens.

I lost my batting streak on MLB yesterday. I’d been up to a 7. This means I’m sort of a big deal (Not.). It really means that I guessed seven days in a row who would get a hit in baseball. Suzuki, how could you let me down? Now my boyfriend is beating me! Or….I’m getting a head start on my new streak so that by the time his crumbles, he’ll be behind me. Wah hahahahaha….
So to make me feel happier, Farmville decided that we could plant cupcakes. Which I did promptly. I am part of the ecstatic nerdville that is a committed farmer. I can’t let down my neighbors, nor can I let my crops wither (it’s a waste of my virtual cash!). So cupcakes it is. J’adore cupcakes. I am sure to eat one at least once a week. We have a great bakery in the area, McKinney and Doyle, and wow, talk about lookers. Those cupcakes could be rocks with frosting and I’ll eat them. I usually share one with Humanling on Tuesdays. I don’t know about her but I end up with red velvet crumbs all over my lap like an animal.

So tonight I decided to do yoga since it was still lightning out during my usual walking and cavorting with the crows time slot. I haven’t done a full yoga routine since I started walking during our lovely weather and boy, it was a task. My balance was all ragged. Note to self: do not ignore yoga or else it will make the joke out of me that I am once cold weather comes.
Eventually I decided to grab a plastic bag and take my Year in Provence book, along with camera and Murder Treats (ok really one faithful crow does not comprise a murder but he did lead 2 of his family to me a couple of days ago and they were fed too.)

Now I’ve noticed that there are a couple of other Birdie Cues out there that let me know Crow is around. Mockingbird is one of them. He starts with his bizarre Rehhhhhhh Rehhhhhhhh noise which I usually hear when Crow and I are in the same area. Mockingbird dive bombs Crow constantly and Crow, being the (much) bigger of the two doesn’t even bother to kick his ass. He just continues to get pelted and shows some patience. So when I heard Mockingbird’s Rehhhhhhhh tonight as I headed out of the driveway, I saw Crow also. I put down some vittles and left the driveway. I have a feeling that Mockingbird is very territorial over the driveway area so Crow instead flew to one of its tree posts that I normally feed him under. I happened to get a photo of the attempted dive bomb because I enjoy taking photos of Crow whenever possible (see above photo). Crow then flew down to eat.

On my way back to the house, my mile almost up, it had started raining again and I decided to just do one mile tonight instead of two. Red-Winged Blackbird is the other messenger to let me know that Crow is around. RWB started making noise and also dive bombing Crow. Very patient Crow, who simply wants to eat peanuts and cheerios and crackers. And almonds this time around.

So tonight I tried to teach Crow a word….”Once Around This Time”. Ok that’s a phrase but it might sound like a giant syllabic word to Crow. The rain, of course. Tomorrow I will lap 2 miles and feed him again.

See you tomorrow Crow. For now I see that my older one, Miz Eye, has sent me a request in Farmville. A first. Of course in the exuberance of sharing something you like with one of your very favorite people, I have already sent a gift back with a long paragraph telling her to friend my Farmville Friends, with footnotes.

The Legend of Dorothy Hopkins

I don’t know how many of you enjoy playing those soul sucking and crack addition like games on Facebook but, Hello, my name is Dawn and I’m a Gameaholic.

I play my games daily. I look forward to a good Saturday morning when I can expand my farm and then take the time to move each and every chicken to a new location.

But in these games really all you need is Love….Love…Love is all you need. From Farmville or Frontierville or Ravenwood Fair Neighbors. Not just neighbors who started a farm and left it to wither away so that every time you visit them, you see the pink “hungry” markers above their animals’ heads. At that point, the markers really represent “starving” and you’re looking for the PETA option to thrust upon these irresponsible Farm Abandoners.

Along the way you may be “friended” by people who want your Neighbor Skills and Loyalty. People who want to swap gifts as much as possible to meet goals. People who want to ….visit your farm!

And there’s nothing wrong with that. You may become friends who eventually write something on each other’s walls. Or not. You might just show your unwavering dedication by simply swapping and visiting daily.

While checking out your friend’s wall however, there are times you will look over your friend’s shoulder to see that they have this other dedicated Game Friend. And you notice this Game Friend’s name every day. Meaning, they are quite attentive to the game and willing to share the goodies. You don’t know this person and you want to. You want them to send you nails and bricks. You want to get bushels from them. You want to ….Feed Their Chickens!

But you wonder….Will this reflect strangely on me if I contact this third party and name drop our mutual game playing friend and ask Third Party if they want to chill out with me night after night, swapping animal feed, holiday lights and baby turkeys? Will my current Game Neighbors feel slighted? Or will they widen the circle, and step back so we can all hold hands together?

But the thirst for the Game and Devoted Neighbors is too strong. Facebook Email Sent.

This was me. Just two days ago. I won’t use the real name here because her name is way too cool and distinct. But I saw it all over two of my Game Neighbors’ walls….the gifts, the visits, the Dedication! Finally, I contacted her…..and she accepted my proposal. Finally, the name I’d been seeing daily that was disconnected from my game, was intermingled amongst my normal cast of characters on my Facebook wall! It was a breathtaking moment to behold and see that I now have a pact with one more Player of Substance!

However, it may have come with a price.

Remember, the real name isn’t used here. But I did rather enjoy saying her unusual and cool name out loud….so much that Honey is doing it too. Only we’ve invented an accent to go with it as well. Imagine saying Dorothy Hopkins. Now say it like this – Dahr-Ah-Thee HoP-kins. We’ve invented some old school bowling alley accent in Queens for this name. It rolls off the tongue.

After I enjoyed being privy to Dahr-a-thee’s farm and gifts, I eventually went to bed. And had a nightmare. Hannibal Lector was locked in the basement where I was staying. He sat upright in a chair, his wrists bound. He was dangerous and seemed pretty darn uncool about his situation. A woman came down to check on things and also decided to fill the Wall Mount Type Hand Soap Dispenser with sweet potatoes….as it was attached to a large crib, where an elderly person slept.
Eventually Hannibal got loose (Naturally. It isn’t a great nightmare unless you can’t scream, run or be completely safe.) I happened to be in the kitchen area looking at the basement door (think kitchen set up from A Christmas Story). Only the top part of the door to the basement looked like an oven door – glass and see through. And…..with a reddish light behind it – illuminating Hannibal’s face behind the door! He slammed the door open, as quick as a Venus Fly Trap on an unsuspecting insect and hit The Man of the House (whoever that was – one of those Dream Prop People that you don’t know but is assigned to a role) with it, then grabbed him and pulled him into the basement. WHAM! Just like that! And I knew he wouldn’t be back. I walked the downtown area with my daughter in the cold, avoiding going back there but knowing we had nowhere else to sleep.

Dream over. And I wake to a Sunday, full of gaming possibilities! I had to think to myself though, why….why would I have this dream?

Humanling and I ran out to the store eventually today. On the way out of the store, we were walking behind a rather tall truck in a parking spot. I kept my eyes on it as I’d noticed the reverse lights going on and Humanling was closest to it. Sure enough, she started to back out and in my Super Zero efforts to protect the innocent, I instead whapped the innocent in the eye, full force with the back of my blue gloved hand. That particular play was meant for me to protectively reach to corral her in my arms. Instead, she yelled, really loudly.

Once we got home, she was finally speaking to me just a little bit (that whole deal with wanting hot chocolate with marshmallows will snap a kid out of it). I hate making 2nd trips into the house with bags and loaded up with all of them. Unfortunately the kid at the beer store gave me a flimsy plastic cobweb to hold six 16.9 ounce glass bottles. Two of the depressed ones tried to leap. I caught one. The other succeeded, a foamy death on the driveway blacktop.

And it leads me to wonder….is this a karmic gaming trade off? A steady Pig Slop partner for the price of an Otherwordly oven cannibal, glove slap to the kid’s eye and Angst Ridden Tall Cold One? is it all worth it for the glory of my newest Gibraltar-like acquisition for the game?

Nothing that a dream catcher, a mug of hot cocoa with mini marshmallows and a better grip can’t fix. You betcha. Dahr-A-Thee Hop-Kins.

Face Kitties

The rain comes in from all over this week. Hurricane season had onions for lunch and is enjoying it’s after affects. Leaves fall, glossy and decorative anywhere they land. Branches reach up from the ground to offer themselves up for kindling, now with the cooler season approaching. The cats….well….MY cats…Azrael – my hunter and all around Tough Girl Mush, demands to go out and do business, even though there is a litter box available. She probably just doesn’t want to share it with Princess, the Persian Poof, who does enjoy going outside, wide eyed and skittish. When Azrael runs, it’s with stealth, grace and strength. You can hear her paws gallop across the earth. When Princess runs, it looks more like she’s being chased. Her eyes seem terrified and she is much more clumsy than Az. Princess is usually Humanling’s Bed Décor. She just flat out refuses to deal with the rain.

I am of late, trying to really dig in and see what I’m truly made of. I see many many instances in my life of where I could have been more true….to others of course, but that would have involved being true to myself.

In the meantime, during all of this thought, of which I feel there is never enough time to deeply immerse in, but scraps of moments where you can perhaps sketch one out to think about later, I have also to see yet another side of me. Video Game Me.

In Farmville, I am leveled into the 30s. I love making wine and fruit drinks. I am obsessive about my crops and have decided that my farm looks tons cooler as a beach. I jump with joy when securing a Llama or a Himalayan kitty from another player. I can’t seem to expand my chicken coop fast enough and therefore have decorated the outside of my white picket fence with chickens. I have found that I have no patience for growing things that take 2 days. I enjoy a variety of bloomers and plant things at varying harvest times. While I enjoy harvesting and planting, I don’t enjoy plowing as much.

In Frontierville, I obsess about chopping down trees to create more land. I’m a wood lover (literal and figuratively!) I love the premade goals because of the element of surprise and the task of making them. I use other people to feed as many of my animals as I can. In both Farmville and Frontierville, I’m a gift giver of great proportions.

Now Mafia Wars isn’t something I wanted to play instantly. Frontierville forced me into it or else it said that I can’t have a horseshoe pit. Or rather, I can HAVE one, because it sort of made me take one when I signed on one day, but I won’t be able to USE it unless I play the listed five games and level up a few times. Very very sneaky and fabulous marketing, that Frontierville! In order to complete your horseshoe pit, you have to date the other games too and claim your pieces. ALL of the other games…unless you want to use that elusive and hard to get special sort of money they have (horseshoes for Frontier, FV bucks for Farmville) to pay for it. Which you can’t, because you usually won’t have it unless you obsess so very much that you run out to Target or Walmart to purchase a card that will get you more cash. So in Mafia Wars, I have no idea what I’m doing but apparently I have robbed a few warehouses, taken on some thugs and am really wanting to be a Pig Master. I am swapping pigs with an ex boyfriend and former co-worker from years ago, whom I haven’t spoken a word with since we’ve become Facebook friends over a year or so ago.

The gift giving and swapping in these games seems to me to actually BE communication. Hey, I need something but I’m also communicating with you and will give to you … will you give to me? You will?! That’s great! We are both acknowledged! Would we talk about this in person ever? Probably not. Or maybe a quick conversation, end-punctuated with “See you in Farmville”.

I have been also trying Tropical Isle, but really, anything more than one game seems to be nearly a job. Tropical Isle is also being thrust upon me due to my really want to please Frontierville and meeting my goal of completing my Horseshoe Pit. Eventually, FRV, I AM going to have that Pit. Even if I grow tomatoes in it, so help me, there will be a pit. I am not really so much into caring about why I have a Tiki Thing on my island or what the point is of upgrading it. I’m impatient with this character of mine….she digs way too slow and I can’t simply point and click her onto the other spaces ahead of time like I can with FV and FTV. In fact, it isn’t like there is a real POINT to any of these games, but with this one I see it the least.

I actually feel guilty for the amount of time at home that I spend on these games. So after I get what I want, in way of a Horseshoe Pit, I might have to dump some of them. Ah, is this another insight into a part of me? Am I one of those people who will dump you because I’ve gotten what I want??? Absolutely not. Because I don’t actually *want* anything from my friends, except for them to be my friend in the way most natural to both of us.

So. See you in Farmville! And please be sure to accept these shovels. It means that I was thinking of you.