I may be repeating myself at this point

But I'll go ahead and say it anyway: when you have more than one incident, you have incidents.

In my line of work, which involves helpdesk software, an Incident is a specific item. Anytime somebody calls a helpdesk, it is logged in a 'ticket' as an "incident". When you are talking about two or more of them, they are "incidents".

My irritation begins when somebody uses the word "incidences" to refer to multiple incidents. "Incidence" actually refers to how often or the frequency with which something is happening.

For example, "We will examine the incidence of microbial growth in sterile samples" means they are going to look at how often this is happening (frequency). "Incidence" is a singular noun.

To say, "We will examine these incidents of microbial growth in sterile samples" indicates that they will be analyzing each iteration of this event individually. "Incidents" is a plural noun.

But what everybody seems to be saying is, "We will examine these incidences of blah blah...".

I'm not sure if/when "Incidences" is ever needed or correct. Although "Incidence" is a singular noun, it inherently indicates repeated occurances of something, seemingly negating the need for a plural form.

I just heard it on TV, too, on "The First 48 Hours". A cop was talking about multiple murders, or incidents. And he said, "we need to look into why these incidences are happening". Argh.

Anybody want to weigh in on this? I would kind of love it if I was wrong so I could just get over my annoyance at hearing it over and over. But I don't think I am.

And now for something completely different

I went to a metaphysical meetup today. I mean, the meetup itself was physical, but the subject was metaphysics. There was a hypnotist there who first guided one person through a remote viewing session, then she guided the whole room of us (22 or so people) through visiting a past life of ours.

It was pretty fascinating, but the whole time I kept questioning myself if what was coming into my mind was coming from my mind, or if I was actually with my spirit guides and experiencing it. Either way, what came out of it was that I had been a 16-year-old girl named Annelise Crofton somewhere in England during Victorian times. I (she) was wearing these extremely uncomfortable boots that weren't very high-heeled but had about a million annoying buttons on the inside of the ankle up to the top of the boots, which were mid-calf height. I was wearing layers and layers of very feminine but structured clothing, petticoats and such underneath bustiers with rigid, uncomfortable boning in the seams. I had very long, curly red ringleted hair, and seemed to be wrestling with the knowledge that I was about to be married off to somebody I didn't want to be married to.

I think one of the first spirits to greet me was Miss Ruth, she was a sunday school teacher of mine. She passed when I was still pretty young, so it's not like I was close to her for very long. I was wondering why she might have been so close to me in spirit, then remembered I'm wearing her ring. My great aunt, who inherited some of the estate from Miss Ruth and her brother Earl (a sweet, blind elderly gentleman who used to type little rhymes on postcards and mail them to us on our birthdays and holidays) had given it to me a 5 or 6 years ago since I was so in love with it despite how old it was, and I've worn it continuously ever since. Earl was there too.

My grandfather was there, as was that great aunt. Also, her sister, her sister's husband, my great-grandmother and great-grandfather, all from the paternal side of my family. Maybe because I was closer to them growing up, or because i don't remember any of the maternal family members that have passed. I'm sure there were others there that I didn't recognize.
And just to be clear, I didn't 'see' anybody. It was more of a sense of their personality, their presence, trying to be recognized. There was a light, it was very white-yellow and not cold, but not hot either.

The hypnotist said to ask our guides what lesson we were supposed to take from that life. Mine seemed to be struggling with oppression and suppression. I had very strong ideas and was a willful girl, but I was about to have to succumb to the will of another, and had no choice in the matter. I wonder if that's why I've spent most of this lifetime trying to prove to myself that I can do whatever I want, no matter what other people say, and refusing to be oppressed. It would make sense. It would also explain my soft spot for Victoriana. I don't surround myself with it (anymore. I did go through a phase.), but I find myself drawn to Victorian things even though I embrace a modern, urban style now.

The things that were strangest to me were two physical occurrences that happened. At one point in time during the hypnosis, I felt my skin get hot. Not like when you're outside and the temperature is high so you start sweating. This was more like when you have the cold sweats and a fever, and your skin just all of a sudden feels hot then cold because it gets sweaty and the sweat starts evaporating. So although I wasn't focusing on my physical being at that time, my temperature change brought my attention back to the physical. And the room was very comfortable, I was sitting near a fan so it wasn't hot at all. It was like I had raised my energy level without moving, just by concentrating and relaxing.

The other thing was that when she was talking us 'down', back into the physical realm, there was a point at which my spirit guides started to recede and the weirdest thing happened to me - I felt tears forming behind my eyelids, and as the spirits faded away, I realized my body was crying. I wasn't sobbing, or catching my breath like I really do when I cry for real, it was like my body decided to do that as a reflex, independent of any decisions I might have made.

And before you go thinking I've gone off the deep end, I still have my doubts. I don't want to doubt, but it was all so...faint, that I have to wonder, did I conjure that up from my imagination, or did I really experience it? I still don't know. It's like when someone shouts at you from really far away and you think you understood what they were saying but maybe not. That's about how faint these ideas and signals were that I picked up. The tears made me think maybe I did experience it, because on my conscious level, I wasn't experiencing any emotion in particular, much less something strong enough to make me cry in public in front of 21 other strangers. Others said they experienced something similar when coming back, which is interesting.

I'm going to try to practice what she guided us through, the worst that can happen is nothing, and I just do a little deep breathing and maybe relax a little. Unless of course I visit my past again and discover I was a REPUBLICAN. That would be waaaaay worse.

What a handsome chap

Just thought I'd share a photo of my very handsome boy, Romeow. He's enjoying the screened-in back porch, and modeling his 'bling', although the "Harley Davidson" collar is hidden in his fur.

He always looks like he's just about to say something. I would guess that if he did indeed speak English, he would have some sort of European accent. Not sure why.

"I do say, mum, the view from this porch is quite fine on a loverly day like this."

I hate litterbugs

I was about a mile west of my house on a main street, and I looked into a little canal on the right, and lo and behold, saw a really big turtle.

As you probably already know, I get excited about things like this, but this time I wasn't sure whether I should feel excited to see such a large turtle in a canal...maybe he was lost? Maybe canals aren't good places for large fellas like himself? And that plastic cup/flotsam just made me sad.

Made me think of that commercial from the 70's with the Native American crying because of litter, remember, with the tear rolling down his finely chiseled cheek? (It's now commonly known on YouTube as the "Crying Indian Commercial", FYI).

So I was conflicted about Mr. Turtle. By the time I made it to my destination and turned back to go home, he had disappeared. Hm. Does that mean the turtle was actually moving faster than me? I know I'm out of shape, but...

go away

I'm not sure if the people in Jax are overly friendly, needy, or what, but twice in the last two days I've had difficulties getting RID of people in my house.

First, there were two elderly gentlemen who knocked on my door around dinnertime on Monday. I opened the door, only to have them welcome me to Jacksonville by name (my name does not appear anywhere on the outside of my house), and congratulated myself and the other half (whose name they mispronounced, of course) on our new house.

At first I thought they must be neighbors, and since we seem to be the youngest people in the neighborhood it wouldn't have surprised me. After a few minutes of ambling conversation, they got down to business. They were recruiting for Jesus. And had found us by reading the local paper which publishes home sales information. How lucky for us.

So after 5 more uncomfortable minutes of getting 'invited to worship' and asked about my religion, I made some vague references to the religion I'd been raised in (already been saved, thanks!), thanked them for their invitation and made shuffling movements towards my door.

Once inside, I chided myself for having opened the door in the first damn place, and not screening the old dudes to see if they were going to try to sell me something. How does one rid one's self of bible bangers without appearing to be a soulless meanie? I'm not one to slam the door in somebody's face unless I don't feel safe, I'm way too Libra to be that rude. But must I listen to every damn salesweasel who darkens my doorstep?

If you're wondering how often this could possibly happen, let's review a list of solicitations we've received at the house since moving in two months ago:

1.) Local security monitoring agency

2.) Lawn care guy for former owners

3.) Other local security monitoring agency

4.) Life Insurance sales

5.) Baptist church guys

6.) Exterminators

Okay, so it's not a huge list, but it's 6 more solicitations than I received in all 3 years in Miami. Guess I finally found something I like about that place.

Then there's the list of service providers who knock on our door, usually around 8:30 am:

1.) Mailman

2.) UPS

3.) Exterminators

4.) Lawn guy

So even though they've been 'invited' more or less, do they need to come so friggin' early? Don't they know some people SLEEP?

Not only that, but some of them are downright hard to get rid of. Yesterday I had a security monitoring company come to the house to assess the installed system and discuss monitoring packages. I COULD NOT GET RID OF THIS GUY. He was very nice and polite, about 6'4" with too many elbows and sharp collarbones, replete with bad teeth and a bad muttering habit. Your typical IT geek, he was. (I recognize my own kind.) He was very complimentary about the house (despite it's current ghetto-construction state), and perfectly pleasant, but STILL. I had a demo scheduled for later that afternoon, so I wasn't trying to hang out and chat. But somehow he managed to direct the conversation to anecdotes about camping with his church group ("Do you go to church? I mean, are you religious???" GAH.), his college education (higher mathematics), his former career (predictably, IT), and probably the price of eggs in China, but I'd already zoned out by then. I seriously couldn't get rid of him. I finally said, "Ok, let's do this contract, yeah?" Maybe that was his sales tactic, just barrage me with boring semi-unintelligible conversation until I relented and signed on the dotted line. (I would've bought without the blab-fest, FYI.) Sadly, I don't think that was a sales tactic. I think that's just how people are around here.

You know it's bad when I complain about somebody talking too much.

So the rule is, from now on, when somebody shows up here to solicit, invited or not, I'm going to let them know right away that I have "a phone appointment" in 10 minutes so we have to 'keep this short'. If they've knocked on the door uninvited, I think I'm going to ask them directly if they're recruiting for religion, and if so, say "thanks but no thanks" and actually close the door. I got sick of having the police solicitors calling my unlisted home phone and soliciting money out of me for the MADD campaign, etc., so I actually told the last caller that I'd already donated, and I really didn't care to receive so many phone calls soliciting for the police. I felt like a gigantic ass, but I said it nicely, and he quickly agreed to remove my name from their calling list. I really hate the hard-core charity appeals direct to your home phone during dinner time. It does NOT make me feel generous.

Frankly, it pisses me off. I knew Jax was a religious town, but should I have to deflect religious recruiters everywhere I go? When it comes to religion, I'm a big believer in doing your own thing and other people minding their own damn business. I also, rather cynically, tend to think that many people use religion as a crutch, so I'm not a fan of organized religion in general, despite the best efforts of the older generation of my family. I think I turned out ok anyway.

So the lesson here is, if you're going to visit me, call first and please, please, leave Jesus in the car.

it's a sham, all right

Is it just me, or are the people pitching gadgets on infomercials the most annoying people on the planet?

Just watch anything with Billy Mays in it - but be warned, you might want to cut the volume by HALF before he starts talking. He has VOICE IMMODULATION DISORDER. HE TALKS IN ALL CAPS. HE CANNOT SPEAK AT A NORMAL VOLUME. EVERYTHING IS LOUD LOUD LOUD. He also, regrettably, seems to have either a speech impediment or a Pittsburghese accent. (The two are sometimes indistinguishable). You'll know it when you hear it...they can't pronounce the letter "l" properly, at least not without tacking an extra "w" to it. Ok, I just googled him, and Wikipedia tells me he's from McKees Rocks, PA. Holy crap, I'm good. I spent the first 5 years of my life there, so that accent is embedded deeply in my subconscious (and in certain parts of my family, unfortunately).

And that ShamWow guy, Vince...don't even get me started. I'm already irritated anytime anybody thinks "chamois" is spelled "Shammy" (which 99% of the world does), so to use the phonetic misspelling of an object as part of it's name (a BAD name at that) is just hella-annoying. And we haven't even talked about the freakshow they have pitching this thing. He's like the creepy carnie bastard child of Willem Dafoe with one crazy eye and a fauxhauk wearing a Gap headset (what is he, on the phone? It's a TV COMMERCIAL! We all know they use boom mikes, so you can take your 1992 Plantronics model A60 off now.) because he's on a break from his day job greeting shoppers and folding button-downs at the Trenton mall. He is SO SLIMY. He just screams "snake oil salesman". I see him on the tv, and I'm instantly in a fetal position in my chair, holding my knees and rocking back and forth with my eyes closed looking for my 'happy place'. He just totally skeeves me out.

The first time I saw that commercial, it was so cheesy that I thought for sure it was like a mock commercial on a tv show, like making fun of informercials. But no! It's a real infomercial!

I particularly love it when, at the end of a particularly crappy informercial for a particularly crappy product, say, non-circulating currency from Guam with a 24-carat engraving of the twin towers on it, they say, "strict limit of 5 per caller!"

Yeah, right. Let me know how many takers you get on that offer. I got a bridge to sell them.

my latest obsession

River rocks! Having discovered that the countertop of my dreams (seen here) would end up costing me about $8k (okay, so I'd get some shower glass in there, too, but STILL), I started researching what it would take to make it myself. I talked to product vendors about finding an epoxy that won't yellow or cloud up, got advice on how to build a pour mold, and ordered 40 lb. of these shiny river rocks above, which I adore. I need them to be less than 3/4" high to fit in the mold, so about half of them will go in some other bathroom-related project.

So I'm planning on creating a channel along the back of the counter (the part that will be on the wall) that will house LED lights to light the whole thing from within, and it's going to be topped off with a 1/4" of glass to protect it, since one hot coffee cup would be all it takes to blemish it. Our sinks are surface-mount basins, so I only need 4 small drain holes for them and the faucets. I'll find a glazier locally to handle all of that. I just need to concentrate on building a watertight mold and pouring the layers quickly enough, then keeping the dang thing level until it cures. That's a lot of precision for someone who embraces, nay, specializes in imperfections. Well, I'm nothing if not creatively ambitious.

Yuck!

So this is pretty much the overall feeling about today's feline-related events: Yuck. Poor Roscoe, in addition to losing weight and some other symptoms, he's been scratching at his head in random places for a loooong time. Not very hard, just, you know, I-have-an-itch-and-I-can't-get-rid-of-it scratching. Until yesterday, when he scratched so hard his little ear started bleeding. That's when we realized he might have something more than an itchy head. So I called a nearby vet (less than 2 miles from the house!) who let me bring him in at 4 pm on a Friday, saw him immediately, and found a long-standing ear infection. And when I say infection, I mean INFECTION.

If you are easily grossed out, please skip the next paragraph. I am not easily grossed out, and what happened in that vet's office almost made me gag. No, it did make me gag. I just managed not to throw up. Barely. So, seriously. If you get grossed out, don't read it then complain to me that it's gross. I know it's gross. I lived it. And I've thoughtfully annotated the gross parts for you in red, so if you are gross-averse, don't read the parts after the red.

GROSS PART STARTS

The kindly veterinarian who saw us was the owner of the clinic, and he was soooo nice. Just really customer-service oriented, and you can tell he just loves the animals. The whole time he was working with Roscoe, he maintained a running dialogue. With Roscoe. Which I'm sure some people would consider crazy, but I happen to admire it. Hey, cats are people too. If you're going to be poking and prodding them, the least you can do is talk to them about it. So once he found that nasty, deep ear infection, he of course tried to clean it up by getting some of the muck out. (This is the gross part.) He puts the Q-tip in, and ook comes out. I mean, I'm sparing you the worst of it by just calling it "ook". He put some drops to help clean it in there, and again and again, removed more ook, much to Roscoe's displeasure. Then (here's the REALLY gross part) Roscoe decides to help and shakes his head really hard. Ook flew everywhere. I mean, ew. I want to gag again just writing this. And I seriously don't gag over anything. The poor vet tech, who was holding Roscoe down and is barely out of his teen years, got splattered. The vet got splattered. The table got splattered. Oddly, I, wearing a white t-shirt, somehow did not. I have never, ever, been so close to spontaneously throwing up in my life. Probably the combination of knowing that ook came out of my poor old kitty, and the fact of what that ook was made up of. I'll spare you all that description.

GROSS PART ENDS

So, sorry about that. I have a blog so I can express and overshare when I feel like it, and you have a close button (that little x at the top right corner) that you can exercise when you don't feel like reading it. :) And you can't say I didn't warn you.

I'm glad we're hopefully on the road to recovery with Mr. Roscoe now. I'm mostly just angry at myself for not intuitively knowing that my kitty repeatedly scratching at random places on the left side of his head meant there was a deep infection somewhere inside. I feel like a bad kitty mommy. But it's not like he hasn't been to the vet! That dang mobile vet...she claimed to give him a "full work-up" 2 weeks ago, (and I certainly paid for a full work up) so how did she miss a big honkin' ear infection that he's apparently had forever? I'm going to call her, and have her fax all of his test results to his new vet, and tell her she missed the ear infection. Being a non-confrontrational Libra, this will not be easy for me, but I think she needs to know that she missed something pretty obvious, and why I won't be calling her again.

Also, the new vet said that Roscoe's weight loss might be due to hypo- or hyper-thyroidism, can't remember which. He said that they get really really hungry (true), and eat a lot (also true) but continually lose weight (sadly, also true. He's down to 11 lbs from a robust 15 or so). So I'm very hopeful that with this vet, we can patch the ol' kitty back together and keep him well for more years to come.

Sigh. And this is only one of four cats. I have this to look forward to with Romeow, Frijol, and Boo-Boo. Rest assured, if they scratch more than twice in the same spot, they're getting rushed to the vet. The new, good vet.

Decisions have been made

Well, my fears have been confirmed, and we won't be getting our see-thru fireplace. Bummer. The fire box insert is much smaller than the opening we'd have and it would look inadequate. Also, there's ventilation and security concerns. Oh well. I have a new dream now.

Here's where I think the money formerly allocated to fireplace renovations is going to go:Awwwwww, YEAH! Now, we all know I have a water aversion. (Don't know why, I just do.) But this tub might just be enough to get me over my aversion to water. Tub isn't even the right word for it. Aquatic relaxation receptacle? Water-enabled multi-tasking portal? Still not enough of a description. But you can visit Overstock.com here and read the manufacturer's description for yourself. And if you're thinking, "J, you are not really going to spend all that money on a tub?!", you're wrong. I most certainly will. As soon as my plumber okays it. I think that a master bath needs something special, and right now ours has nothing special. We were planning a remodel anyway, to switch the location of the tub and the toilet. The image below is a snapshot from a 3d model I built in Google SketchUp. It represents basically what our new bathroom is going to look like, although some of the finish choices (tiles, colors, etc.) may change.

That empty room is the walk-in closet, and that weird box thingy floating above the tub in the model below is actually the existing skylight. Which right now shines majestically down upon the toilet, as you can see. This model below is pretty close to what we have now, but I left the 80's cedar paneling above the garden tub out. I don't like the view from the tub, nor the enclosed tile shower. It's all too cramped and dated. So I think swapping the tub and toilet, putting a little wall in between them, and changing the shower enclosure to glass and cutting the corner of the closet and eliminating the wall between the vanity and the shower will all add up to a bigger-feeling space with minimal structural changes.

Since The Tub is so mighty and large, it's going to take a little more space than the one in the first model shows, so we're going to build a mock-up out of cardboard later today and put it in there (yes, really), and see if it feels too cramped. Our walkway to the toilet room is going to be more narrow than typical, so if we don't think it will work well that way, we may have to steal a few more inches from the closet and move that wall out. I'm hoping we can avoid it though...I gotta save some $$$$$$ to buy The Tub.

at long last

Methinks we have found the floor of our dreams. It is Cryntel's Kempas exotic engineered hardwood, available at Lowe's. Rather, it was available at Lowe's until we bought it all. We bought out our local Lowe's with the first 38 boxes, then had to go across town for the remaining 22. We needed 1000 sq ft for the three bedrooms and office. Luckily, I had a handy 10% off coupon, which, on a purchase like this, really adds up. We almost saved enough to purchase the glue...but not quite. There's only one place in town that sells Bostik's EFA (Engineered Flooring Adhesive), which is apparently the pro's choice...and they won't have it until Thursday. So if you include the GAS we're burning doing all this running around and picking up in the ol' hooptie truck, there goes those coupon savings after all.

We were worried about matching the floor to the color of the trim in the house for fear it would be too country, especially with some of the more widely available woods, like oak. But since Kempas is an exotic, it lacks the easily recognized grain patterns of oak, and the color varies greatly, which I think adds to the look of a real hardwood floor. It's sandable and re-finishable, and although I hope never to have to do either of those things, I find that knowing I could is comforting.

I was afraid that it would look too much like a laminate floor rather than hardwood because the texture of each board is identical when viewed in cross-light. However, due to the depth and variance of color (it's almost iridescent), it really does read as a solid hardwood floor would. It's also photosensitive, so the color will darken with time, which is fine. We've learned that the doors in our house are a darker, rosier colored wood than the trim is, and with the variance in this product, we've managed to coordinate with both.

So now we have to let it acclimate in the rooms it's going to be installed in for 4 days or so, so it can make adjustments for humidity or whatever. In the meantime, we still have the living room concrete to smooth out and acid stain (AGAIN). Here's a shot of the Other Half applying the skim coat, since I was totally not getting it. The instructions said to mix it with water "to the consistency of a milkshake". Apparently, I like my milkshakes thicker than the average person, so when I put it on it was pretty thick and hardened almost immediately to a play-doh like texture, which apparently was not the goal. So O.H. took charge and thinned it down to a consistency I would call "Tomato Soup", not "Milkshake". Maybe "Melty Milkshake on Hot Floridian Day". They should've been more specific about that whole milkshake thing so I didn't look so damn incompetent.

So we'll see how that turns out. At least we know we have an alternative (although I'd have to purchase yet another 1000 sq ft. or so (YOWZA) of wood if it doesn't work out, since we'd do the whole living room, dining room, and hallway too. Add that to the cost of two tries of acid staining and concrete overlays. Ouch. My wallet hurts. So let's hope it looks darn good this time.

Whoooo?

I think we got an introduction to the neighbors tonight. At about 11 pm, the Other Half was sitting on the back porch watching TV. (I know, perfidy.) Well, apparently Mother Nature doesn't like Telemundo any more than I do, and all of a sudden there was a bunch of hooting going on in our back yard that sounded quite like this, only much louder, closer, and more exitable. I had to wonder for a few minutes if it wasn't possibly monkeys.

So I did a little research, and found out the culprit was most likely a Barred Owl (also called a "Hoot Owl"), which are pretty common in heavily wooded areas near water. Which is exactly where we live. I even saw one in the yard the other day, but it was pretty far away, he perched high in a tree, and it was dusk so I didn't get a great look at him, just enough to know that he was big enough that I wouldn't let Boo-Boo out of the house past 6 pm knowing he's lurking out there looking for small furry treats.

Is it sad that this is so exciting for me? O.H. is creeped out by them, but still fascinated. I won't be creeped out until I find an owl pellet, I'm sure.

We actually looked for night-vision cameras, we were so excited by this. It doesn't take much for us, really. But in our defense, even the (human) neighbors got excited too; somebody had a flashlight shining up into our trees almost immediately after the hoot-fest started. Hopefully they're bird watchers, and not just nosy.

Mr. Roscoe update

Oh, and by the way, the vet says nothing really looked bad on Roscoe's millions of blood tests. A little elevated liver panel here, a little anemia there, but nothing else. So she prescribed some mystery drug that I need to shoot down his throat once a day, that she said might help. And said if he's extra hungry, just feed him some more. I'm sure he likes that.

So the vet called in the prescription to a pharmacy, and said they'd contact me to make arrangements for shipping or pick-up. Here's how the conversation with the pharmacist went when they called me.

"Hi, this is the North Beach Pharmacy calling about Roscoe's prescription?"

"Oh, yes, hello."

"Yeah, we wanted to know if you wanted us to add a flavor to this since it tastes pretty bad."

"Oh, yes, good idea. How about something fishy?"

....prolonged silence....

"Soooo, Roscoe is a cat?"

Heh. Thought they were a veterinary-specific pharmacy. Guess not. Shoulda just told them Roscoe is a 3-year old with very eclectic tastes.

Plan B

Due to the fume-snorting, hair-pulling, baseboard ruining, money-wasting problems we've been having with staining our concrete, we've resorted to Plan B for the rest of the house (the bedrooms and office). Engineered hardwood.

I'd go straight for the hardwood, but we're in the damp state of Florida, and you can't put solid hardwood on slab; if the moisture permeates the concrete, your boards will probably warp and cup and that won't be good. Hence, engineered wood. Not quite the same as laminate, which is a picture of wood laminated onto a plank of something that was derived from wood. Engineered wood is actual thin strips of hardwood laminated onto that same plank-y thing.

Not sure if we can install it floating or if we have to glue it down. I've heard that doing the glue method is a little glimpse into the 7th level of hell. And I am absolutely 100% sure that I'd end up with glue in my hair and have to cut it out. Don't ask me how I know, I just do.

I seem to have turned into Charlie Brown as of late. I don't know what it is. I used to be handy! I used to be able to cook! I could shoot a decent game of pool! Now, I can barely unwrap a frozen pizza without injuring myself, much less spread a skim coat of concrete on a floor. I turned that into such a hot mess that the Other Half had to go back over the mess I had made (which I only did wrong because I actually followed the directions..which were WRONG) and un-do it. I was then not to be trusted with the Magic Squeegee, which we used to smooth out the skim coat - so he had to do the rest of the floor. Hmmph. That's what he gets for being good at everything.

I must have lost my mojo somewhere. Maybe Miami ate it.