* I don't feel like being formal and so I shall bullet all my random thoughts of the moment for today.

* I heard on the radio this morning that Chris Noth's girlfriend is 5 months pregnant!! Wow, they sure kept that under wraps! I'm impressed that it didn't come out sooner with all the news on the SATC movie and such.

* I sent 2 more DVDs out this morning that were requested on SaD. Yippee. 2 more credits coming my way. hehe. I so love that I can use credits for books OR movies as I want. I could sign up for the Swap-a-CD site too, but eh, don't feel like it just yet.

* Everyone around here has a cold. Keep them away from me!

* Last night was pretty boring. Ron made steak, mashed potatoes and corn (yummy!) and we watched "Fever Pitch" on TV. He fell asleep shortly after that and I watched GH.

* I'm so glad it's Friday.

* Mr. Bear came for a visit last night. Around 11:00, Ron and I took the dogs outside and as we were out there suddenly Ron heard something. We both quieted and I could definitely hear heavy breathing and I didn't think Dave & Steph had left their bedroom window open. The next thing we knew, the bear was coming toward us. I grabbed Cheyenne and FLEW into the house. Ron and Rogue were right on our heels.

* Mary and I just commiserated about our houses. Sounds like we both got Money Pits. (She just moved into her first home last week).

* I think I want to go shopping after work tonight... but where...? Hmm.

* I won a Webkinz on eBay last night. I've wanted one ever since my niece and nephew have talked about how cool they are and so now I'm getting a reindeer one! hehehe

* I had something else that I wanted to mention, but I can't recall what it was. I know it was something else that I heard on the radio this morning, but obviously it didn't impress me enough to stick in my head.

* Can you develop dyslexia as an adult? Because I'm noticing lately that I'm mixing up letters when I type or write a lot more often than I've ever done before and the sad thing is, when I read back over it I don't notice it. Thank heavens for spell check.

* This morning as I was driving through Butler, I glanced over and saw a sign for the Butler Ridge apartments and I would have sworn that it said "Butter Ridge".

Ugh. Another Kodak/Bear moment and me without my camera! Sheesh. Last night Ron was actually off! Shocking, yes? We had dinner and were hanging out in the yard. (He'd grilled steaks. mmm.) We both thought that ice cream sounded like a good dessert, but alas, we didn't have any. So we decided to run to either DQ or the deli to get some. We brought Rogue along for the ride and chose to go to the deli since it was closer. When Ron parked, he went inside and I stayed in the car with pup. Just as soon as Ron closed the car door and headed into the deli, I glanced over to my side of the car and what is standing there only a little distance away? Yep. A bear. A BIG bear. Rogue noticed it the same moment I did and she began to growl and bark her head off. I hurried to roll up the windows a little bit because the bear started walking toward the car and I didn't want him/her trying to stick her head in. The bear walked really close to us and then another car pulled into the lot and the driver saw the bear and started honking the horn to scare it. The bear just slowly walked back to where it had been before and stood watching. I kept glancing at it and then back at the deli because I didn't want Ron to come wandering out and get into its way. A second car pulled in and honked and finally the bear moved off into the trees. It was so cool seeing it. It's a much nicer experience when I'm in a car and surrounded by metal that can save me from claws and teeth. haha. It figures though that it would happen the one time we run to the deli and I leave my purse at home. Grr. haha.

Other than that, it was a fairly quiet night. We talked to Dave for a bit and then headed inside. It almost felt weird to have Ron home for once. haha.

Now here I am in purgatory. Yuck. It's hot and humid and blechy. I don't envy Kristen and her walk this weekend. Good luck with it! There's a marathon or something going on in NYC this weekend too on Sunday. I wouldn't want to be one of those runners either. This 90+degree crap is getting on my last nerve!

Ugh!!! They've taken away my Craigslist! Yes, that's right.
Craigslist is now blocked from my work computer. What's next? How
annoying. I don't understand why they block that site of all sites.
It's not like I ever contacted anyone, I just always like to see what
people are getting rid of. It's amusing. Sheesh.

My 2nd Fafarazzi league started last night. Woo hoo. I think this one
looks like it'll be closer to "fair" than the first one. It doesn't
seem as if any one person in League 2 is loaded with the "top" celebs.
I have more points in that 2nd league in just the few hours since
midnight than I had the first 2 days of the first league. I love the
game because it's fun to swap out celebs to see if it helps any, but I
also love reading all the gossip. Hehe. Guilty pleasure.

I brought in about 25 books today to give for the book swap next week.
And I got a request on Paperbookswap.com for one of my books. Yay! So
that one I'll send out in the morning and when they get it, I'll get a
credit for another book. Woo hoo. Gosh I'm loving all these books!
Two of the books I requested from pbs have been sent. Those two are:
Blood Roses: A Novel of Saint-Germain by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and
Lord John and the Private Matter by Diana Gabaldon. The book
that hasn't been sent yet is Red Death by P.N. Elrod. Not too
shabby for "free". Now that I've brought in a selection of books for
the work book-swap, I'm planning to put more books up on pbs so that I
can get more books out of my house and at the same time earn credits to
get more to bring into the house. Hehe.

I just told Kim about the bear. I called her in the customer service
room and said "Guess who came to visit me last night?" She knew exactly
who/what I meant and said, "You're kidding me?!?" She was amused when I
told her the story. We decided that we must share the bear with some of
our coworkers so we're waiting to see if anyone else has a sighting.

Sounds like everyone's in a chatty mood today. So far it's not too
annoying, but it could easily get on my nerves within a few moments.
Yeah, it's getting to that point already. Arghhhhhhhhh.

Today Ron finally has a day off. Although I think that was almost a "no
day off" thing. Wendy's called our house last night, but we both
ignored the phone. I'm sure someone was calling to tell him that he had
to come in or something. He was so exhausted last night. I can't blame
him after not getting home until 3:00 a.m. the night before and then
having to get up at 5:30 a.m. There's no way in heck I would have done
that. They would have had to fire me because I would have told them in
no uncertain words just what I thought of those hours.

(I posted this on Gather, but figured that I'd post it here too.)

We had some excitement here tonight. It wasn’t exactly a good excitement, but more of a “jump-start the heart” type of excitement.

My husband and I were sitting outside earlier this evening. It had been a scorching hot day and the temperature was finally starting to drop. A lovely breeze was rustling the leaves on the tree branches above our heads and we were trying to finally get cool. Our puppy, Rogue, was out with us and she was attached to her tie-down that gives her 25 feet to roam in a circle. The three of us were playing fetch and having a nice relaxing evening.

Out of seemingly nowhere, Rogue dropped the Frisbee she was carrying back to us and she started barking her cute little head off. This was not a bark for attention. It was a deep, warning bark. She was growling too. She’s never been like that before. In fact people and other dogs often walk by and she never utters a “woof”. She’ll watch them and wag her tail manically, but she won’t bark. Usually the only time she does bark is to get our attention if we‘ve ignored her for too long. This was definitely a different situation all together.

Rogue was staring off toward the side of the yard that was blocked from our view by our enclosed porch. Ron and I both assumed that the neighbor was doing something outside to annoy the pup and so Ron jumped up and walked around the side of the porch to see what was going on. I was only a step behind because I was curious too. Ron suddenly turned around and said “Get inside the house!” As he said this, he was reaching to grab Rogue and I looked up and there before me was a black bear! It wasn’t a huge bear and was probably only a yearling, but it was a bear all the same. My mind froze for a moment as I realized that I wasn’t looking at someone’s loose dog. For a split second I thought, “Oh how cute!”

Rogue continued to bark and I think the bear was more shocked to see us than we were to see him. He started to continue the direction he was going, which would have taken him straight across our backyard, but then he seemed to think better of it. He turned around to go back the way he‘d come. At that moment my brain started back up again and I ran into the house… not to get away from the bear, but to find my camera! Yeah, my priorities were a little funny.

I ran back with my camera and unfortunately missed seeing the bear try to climb the neighbor’s fence. I saw him dash around the side of the house toward the front and so I scooted my way to our front porch. I glanced out and then stepped onto the front stoop only in time to see his hind end disappear in the bushes across the street. So alas, no photos were captured.

Once he was gone, my body realized what my mind had ignored and I have to admit that I started shaking. I know it wasn’t a big bear in the scheme of things, but his claws and teeth can do mighty damage even so. He’d been only 10 feet away from us when we first noticed him. That is closer than I’d like without thick glass separating me from the beast.

I have to also add that this is rather ironic in a way. Today at work my coworker, Kim, told me that she had a bear behind her house this weekend and I was amused by her tale because she said she freaked out and ran screaming through her house. She doesn’t even live out in the boonies like I do. We joked about it and had some fun and I figured that was that… until Mr. Bear paid me a visit tonight. I guess I had it coming by making fun of her reaction.

All things considered… I’m just really disappointed that this happened on the one day that I didn’t have my camera with me outside. I always bring it outside to take shots of Rogue or trees or what have you. This one night, I left it inside and lost the chance of getting a bear shot. Ah well. You can bet that camera will be permanently attached to my hand from here on out!

What the heck is up with this weather? Why oh why are we at almost 70
degrees when it's November? This is wrong. Awfully wrong! It should
be cold and snowy, not sunny and warm! Stupid weather! It was nice
that it was so warm last night for the kiddos trick-or-treating, but
today it should be November weather. Why do I think I'm going to get
stuck with a lousy winter with little snow? Sheesh.

I didn't get to watch much of "Ghost Hunters" last night. I put the TV
on, climbed into bed and was dozing off within a few minutes. I don't
know how late Ron stayed up watching it, but the TV was not on when I
woke up around 5-ish this morning for some unknown reason. I was tired.
I still am. I did not want to get up this morning.

It's been a long, quiet morning. Although... GOOD NEWS>... The Holiday
Blend coffee is now in our company store! Yippeeeee. So guess what I'm
drinking right now? :-) I love the Holiday Blend. It's the best. Now
if only the weather would turn more Holiday-like.

Yesterday I started reading Trace by Patricia Cornwell. I love
her books. This one was given to me by a co-worker a couple months ago
because she just couldn't get into it. Fortunately it was one of the
few Cornwell books that I didn't own yet. So now I get to read it. I
feel like I'm barely scratching at the pile of "to be read" books that I
have. If I didn't have to deal with school stuff, I'd be busting
through those books like no tomorrow.

Oh. Ron told me last night that our scary stuff did not keep the bear
away. The night he and Jeff were decorating outside, it showed up.
Jeff was just getting ready to leave and all of a sudden they saw this
HUGE thing in the yard between the house and the car. Needless to say,
Jeff stuck around a little longer. After a little bit, a SECOND bear
went walking through our backyard. So the one was in front as the other
was in the back. They also saw some beady eyes across the road and
think maybe a possum was there. It was funny to hear Ron talk about how
he and his brother were a little scared uncomfortable with the
bears being so close.

This has been a day of major annoyances. First off it was the people at work being loud. Then this afternoon Rick royally pissed me off. I'm not going to go into details because I'll just get irritated again. Suffice it to say, he's a Gemini. I'm a Gemini. With two Geminis butting heads, it's never a pretty picture. 'Nuff said.

Then I posted another LJ entry at work via email that obviously hasn't come through yet. Here it is:

Oh man. Another dull day. Sheesh.

I'm annoyed with myself... Well, not with myself exactly but rather with my faulty memory. Haha. Last night I made sure to plug my cell phone in to charge it up. I always make sure my phone is fully charged when I have a night class at WPU because you never know what might happen that would require a way to call for help. It's better safe than sorry, right? Well, yeah. So now my phone is fully charged, but guess what? It's sitting at home on the charger. Lovely. I completely forgot to grab it this morning. The full charge does me no good since it's at home. Grr.

I've been reading a little bit more of Living Dead in Dallas today and I've been playing on Gather... But nothing is keeping my attention. I feel like taking a nap. Someone needs to amuse me, because I'm having no luck of it on my own.

Oh, and it's pretty much a given that Dilcia got the job upstairs, although it has not been officially announced. She was over here at my cubicle talking to me earlier and made a comment about "When I get up there, I'm going to..." She used when not if. So she spilled the beans. Although I think most of us already knew. OOOH! Guess what? When she goes that will officially make me the youngest in our department. How cool!

Rick's not too happy with this place lately. I feel bad for the poor guy. He's interviewed and applied for many positions, but because he doesn't kiss butt and have someone go to bat for him, he keeps losing out. Same with a few others around here. I guess it's probably the same no matter what company you go to. People that deserve a chance end up getting stepped over by those that just happen to know how to pucker up.

The mailroom didn't bring us our mail today, and they didn't pick up our outgoing mail either. Guess that really shows how this department rates in the scheme of things, eh?

* Thought for the day: Honesty is the best policy, but Insanity is a better defense. *


Ok, so that was the one that never made it through. That wasn't the last of my annoyances either. After work I needed to kill a little time before class and I wanted to get something to drink to bring with me to class. I thought about hitting Starbucks but I really didn't have enough money for that, so I went to Five Below. (In case you don't know what that is, it's like a dollar store, but a step above. Everything in that store is $5 or less). I figured that I'd walk around and see all the cool stuff and then pick up a drink. It would be a good way to kill time. So I did just that to kill some time. Finally I picked up an Arizona Red Apple Iced Tea (VERY GOOD btw). As I was waiting in line to pay, I saw that they had Nancy Drew books for $2! For that price I thought that I'd pick one up. I thought it would be fun to revert to childhood for a bit. However, as the guy rang it up, it came up as $3. I asked politely if the book was two or three dollars and the kid replied that it was three bucks and that they'd just marked them all. So I pointed out that the tag said TWO, not THREE. He looked at all the books and they were all marked that way. He said that it was incorrectly marked and asked if I still wanted it. I said no. It's not the one dollar difference that made a big deal to me, it's the fact that it was marked as one price and that should have been the price given. Since he wasn't going to budge on the price, I didn't want it that bad. I would have fought harder but I didn't want to deal with it.

I get to school and had to drive around ages for a parking spot. (Yep, more annoyance!)

Class itself was boring, but the professor annoyed me. She STILL had not graded the papers. She said she's gotten through about half of them and should have them back next week. Um, yeah. That's what she said last week.

I do have to admit that I annoyed myself tonight too. Well something I did two weeks ago annoyed me. The professor gave back our quizzes and I was shocked at my grade and then realized what I did. The quiz had 7 or 8 questions listed with the instructions to complete FOUR of them. Dummy me only did three. I think I know what happened. I had three done on the front and had continued the third one, which happened to be #4, on the back. So I probably looked and counted the three on the front and then counted the last portion of the third question as a forth. Or maybe I just misread the question at the top. Or perhaps I was too tired. Anyway, no matter what the excuse, I messed up and I'm annoyed with myself. At least I have 40 extra credit points sitting around to make up for the 25 that I lost due to my momentary stupidity.

On the way home tonight I was feeling paranoid because I didn't have my cell phone with me. Suddenly every noise my car made or every bump I went over, I was feeling as if the car was going to die and then I'd be stuck in a dark, wooded area with no way to call for help. Fortunately I made it home and guess what? I saw the bear. At the corner of our street as I was starting to turn, the bear walked casually right across the road in front of me. He was heading in the direction of my house! I passed him and hurried home. As soon as I stopped the car, I JUMPED out and RAN into the house as fast as I could. I didn't want to meet the bear if he did in fact wander this way.

People need to shut up! My goodness! About half of my coworkers are
gathered around Joan's desk and they are extremely LOUD this morning!
Joyce just came over to me and was going crazy from having to sit right
there. Joan's just on the other side of my cubicle wall, so I'm getting
almost the full brunt of their noise! I couldn't care less about their
hair stylists and the color of their hair. Oh well golly gee, now
they're discussing fashion. Big whoopdee doo! This is the problem with
having nothing to do... It makes it really hard to ignore the loud
people and they tend to get louder and louder each day. Is it too much
to ask that they wait until after noon to be so rowdy!?!

Maybe I'm just in a pissy mood today. I had a horrible night of sleep
last night. If I got 3 hours total, that's saying a lot. So I could be
easily irritable today. I'm just in no mood to deal with inane
conversations! I've got a long day ahead of me and I'd rather not have
to put up with stupidity.

I would be very tempted to skip class tonight, but I want my paper and
quiz grades! Of course, knowing the professor, she probably still won't
have them grades. Sheesh.

The bear was in our yard the night before last. Ron told me that after
I had gone to bed, he was playing a bit on his computer and then decided
to perhaps call it a night as well. He tried to round up Lucky to get
him back in his cage. According to Ron, Lucky started flipping out and
would not move. A moment later, Ron heard something bang outside so he
ran to the back porch. He didn't see anything at first and then heard a
thud as something hit against the house, almost where he was standing.
He looked through the window and right down below it was a HUGE bear!
Ron said he froze completely because he realized that the only thing
between himself and the large animal was a pane of glass. Fortunately
the bear wandered off slowly and Ron watched him go. It's amazing that
somehow Lucky knew that the bear was out there. Once the bear moved on,
Lucky went back to being normal and went right back to his cage. With
all the windows closed and all, I can't figure out how he'd sense the
bear, but clearly he did.

Last night was pretty boring. Although Ron and I did see a Raccoon. I
was hoping the bear would be back so I could see him, but alas, I only
got to see a little raccoon. Bummer.

That evil B got me hooked on The Poppit Show game. I didn't want
to stop playing last night! I was having so much fun with it. Hehe. I
wish I could bring my laptop to work and connect to Pogo. That would
make the day go faster.

Well, there's rumor going around that Dilcia got a job in another
department. I think she's a fool and I think the department that she's
going to is even more foolish! She's lazy and doesn't work most of the
time. When she does work, she only does a half-arsed job of it. I
cannot believe that of all the people going for the job, that she was
the best candidate. This company is so screwed up in priorities. (I
have no real personal interest in the job itself because I haven't
applied for any, so I'm speaking from a fairly unbiased point of view).
They keep hiring the wrong folks and leave those here that are the ones
that would bring the most to their departments. Oh well. As for
Dilcia... She's going to be in for a rude awakening. There's no other
department in this company that will allow her to do her homework.
(She's in college now as well). Plus the department she's allegedly
going to requires one weekend a month. I wish her the best of luck with
all of this.

Oh well. I shouldn't complain about any of that because I haven't
tossed my hat into the ring. Until I do, I shouldn't have much of a say
on the lopsided politics that go on here.

Thank heavens the humidity level is down quite a bit from the past two days. It's still a little on the warm side but it's not too uncomfortable. There's a nice breeze blowing too, so that helps quite a bit.

Ron's working on the front door floor area. It's worse than he thought. It's going to take a ton of work to get that fixed. Oh the joys of homeownership. Haha.

We think we had a bear in our yard last night. Or at least it was something big and strong. We have a birdfeeder on one of those thick metal sheppard's hook poles and when we got up this morning, it was bent completely over so that it was running parallel to the ground. The bottom was still stuck in the ground so whatever was hungry managed to bend that pole right over. That takes some strength to do that. I know I couldn't bend it. I'm pretty sure it was probably a bear. He bent it over and then ate all the birdseed. I wish I had been awake because I would have loved to get a picture of that. It must have been after we went up to bed at midnight because when I glanced outside before bed, the pole was still standing straight up.

I'm all achy again. Or still. It comes in spurts. I'll feel pretty good for a little while and then I'll go to stand up or move and then the pain rushes back. I had hoped the silly pills would have kicked in already and taken away some of the annoying pain. I'm just glad I'm not at work today because it would have been quite a hassle having to stop every time I wanted to move and wait for the harshest part of the pain to roll away.

Oh well. I'm sure it'll go away soon. I'm just impatient and want immediate results. Haha. With all the water I'm drinking I feel like I should just move into the bathroom and stay there. I feel like I'm going to float away from all the water. I usually drink a bunch of water but I'm making it a point to drink even more than usual.

Well, I'm going to go sit or stand outside and watch Ron make a bigger mess of our front door. It's fun watching him work when I can't help in anyway. Haha.

It's FRIDAY!!! This week has been rather funky. I'll be glad when it's
over, that's for sure.

Last night on the way home from Home Depot, we saw a bear! We were
driving down Lakeshore and right in the front yard of this one house,
there it was. The bear was so cute. He was carrying a bucket in his
mouth. At first glance I assumed "big dog" when I saw it because it
wasn't much larger than like a Newfie. However once we got really
close, I could see clearly that it was a smallish-sized bear. We drove
by it too fast to get a picture with my phone and I tried to get Ron to
turn the car around so that we could go back and see it again but he
wouldn't. Meanie! I had to giggle though at the bucket in the bear's
mouth. It was too funny. I couldn't believe that the bear was just
strolling through the yard as if it was no big deal. It was still
completely light out too so I saw him clearly.

Tomorrow the in-laws are invading coming over for a barbecue.
Should be fun. Sunday it'll be more in-law magic because Ron's cousin
is having his son's christening. At least he lives in the same town we
do so it won't be a long drive to get there.

I'm thinking about taking next Thursday and Friday off. Another long
weekend would be very nice. Ok, done. I just put through the request
to get those two days off. I hope that my request is approved. I'm
sure it will be but until I have a definite answer, I won't hold my
breath.

Forget about getting a dog, I think I'm going to get me a kitty cat. Read the story below for my reason why... It happened in the town I live in... I'm not sure where exactly but it can't be too far away. There's even a picture if you go to the link...


Story found here

Tabby Cat Chases Bear Up Tree, Twice

AP

WEST MILFORD, N.J. (June 10) - A black bear picked the wrong yard for a jaunt, running into a territorial tabby who ran the furry beast up a tree - twice.

Jack, a 15-pound orange and white cat, keeps a close vigil on his property, often chasing small animals, but his owners and neighbors say his latest escapade was surprising.

"We used to joke, 'Jack's on duty,' never knowing he'd go after a bear," owner Donna Dickey told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Friday's editions.

Neighbor Suzanne Giovanetti first spotted Jack's accomplishment after her husband saw a bear climb a tree on the edge of their northern New Jersey property on Sunday. Giovanetti thought Jack was simply looking up at the bear, but soon realized the much larger animal was afraid of the hissing cat.

After about 15 minutes, the bear descended and tried to run away, but Jack chased it up another tree.

Dickey, who feared for her cat, then called Jack home and the bear scurried back to the woods.

"He doesn't want anybody in his yard," Dickey said.

Bear sightings are not unusual in West Milford, which experts consider one of the state's most bear-populated areas.


06/10/06 02:23 EDT

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.

I got home from work and finished reading Cravings. The stories were ok... Nothing that stands out as exceptional though, but still an ok collection of tales. After that I started reading Undead and Unemployed by Mary Janice Davidson... and well I finished it too. LOL I had read the first book in that series a couple months ago or so and thought I might as well see how this series plays out. The books are fast reads and so much FUN. I wouldn't consider them amazing or up to par with some other vampire books but I'm enjoying the series so far. Sometimes it's neat to just read something that doesn't require deep thoughts... where you can sit back and be amused by the plot and the characters. Considering I started the book only a couple of hours ago, you can see how quickly it can be read... 272 pages... not too shabby.

I should have been reading my Geology book tonight but I just didn't want to do that.

Oh, I spoke to my next-door neighbor and he said that last night there were actually FOUR bears last night, not three. Damn. He said the one was as tall (while on all fours) as his front porch!! And that's pretty gosh darn big.

Well it's bed time.. I'm so tired. Thank heavens that it's Friday in one hour.

I had a very depressing moment this morning. I woke up and thought it
was Friday. I rejoiced for a minute and then it hit me... It's only
Thursday. What a bummer, dude.

This week has been extremely long and draining. Today's pretty boring
again too. A nap would not be uncalled for at this time.

The bear was visiting my neighbors against last night. I guess it kept
walking up and down the street and through my yard and the next-door
neighbor's yard too. I haven't seen the bear yet this year, but I've
heard him and know that s/he is around... Actually more than one because
last week there were 3 bears hanging around. (Where's Goldilocks?
Haha)

I know I had a few things that I wanted to mention in this entry but I
picked up a phone call and now I've forgotten completely what I wanted
to write. Oh well, if it was important it will come back to me later,
right?