writer. singer/songwriter. techie geek. princess of random.

Zip It

Once upon a time my sink led me on a crazy adventure (see - La Vida de Caridad: Everything and the Kitchen Sink).  Apparently, my sink likes to be the center of attention in my life.  It likes to do things like accidentally let a bag of tea fall in and then proceed to clog for a week despite drano and a plunger.  Okay…so maybe the ‘accidentally letting a bag of tea fall in’ was my fault, but it didn’t have to go and be mean about it.

Today – while I had dough mixing in my bread machine in Christmas Eve cooking mayhem – I dashed out to the store to find something and discovered Zip-It.  It’s a flexible piece of plastic with jutting gro0ves that pick up things in the drain.  No, this isn’t some infomercial for it…it actually worked.

And it got me to thinking…

…in my previous ‘Sink’ adventure I didn’t know exactly what I needed and I went around trying a million things – creating contraptions – before it finally rested on the good ole plunger.  In this sink adventure, I knew what I needed, but didn’t know where to get it or how to describe it.  Not to mention, I was so caught up in life that I didn’t go out to get it.  It wasn’t as if the sink wasn’t working entirely…it was just working decently enough that I didn’t give myself a crazy adventure to find it.

But I did find a solution.  The only mayhem I endured was a clogged sink and last-minute holiday shoppers.

As it is, this may just have been one of my more ‘quiet’ adventures that have gotten written down.  Though it may seem odd – given the sheer amount of stories in my ‘La Vida de Caridad’ series where I am constantly spending 150% – I think I like quiet adventures more.  They might not be the craziest of stories, but they’re certainly more manageable and you can have a lot of quiet adventures that brace you for the crazy ones.

And I also think that it’s the quiet, everyday life events that mean the most in the long run because their quiet quality usually means there’s a nice resolution.  It’s a toss up when it comes to a crazy adventure.

Don’t get me wrong.  It’s a guarantee that there are more crazy La Vida de Caridad adventures to come, but just to be sure I say it at least once – the quiet is nice too.

-cct

What I do for Glee

I often wonder how much of my “techiness” is nature vs. nurture.  As the family tech geek, I am often handed hard drive problems, computer problems, computer purchase questions, camcorders, digital cameras, etc.  Wired had a recentl article called “Five Ways that N00bs Annoy Geeks” that I know well.  But regardless, I do like fixing problems and figuring out things.  I like being helpful.  And given all my other “La Vida de Caridad” stories, perhaps I just have points for perseverance.

Usually I wait to watch Glee on Hulu.  Having moved to my own residence, my television options shifted from cable/dvr to regular television with bad reception.  The previous tenant had an elaborate television wired set-up that extended from the outside, through the dining area, underneath carpet, and wrapping around half the living space of my studio.  The outside must have had a satellite of some sort, so placing the television cable into my tv did nothing.  My friend Melissa lent me her old antenna – a crazy looking contraption from Terk that looks like a bow.  I placed it initially by my television and got enough of the major channels that I didn’t do much other effort.

But two things charged me to try to get a missing channel – Fox: the Glee fall finale and Zooey Deschanel (one of my favorite actresses and singers) guest starring on Bones the next day.

So then began the process of just initially moving the next-to-my-TV set up higher to the other side where there was a taller bookcase.  This gave me about 20 channels…none of which included Channel 11 – Fox.

Then I thought to move the antenna closer to the window, near my desk – where there’s an extension in the antenna wire that I could work with.  The thing about this antenna?  It needs an electric outlet.  So I had the antenna plugged into a wire stretching across the room and then another wire extended into a powerstrip. 30-something channels later, I still had no channel 11.  Then I attempted to leverage a bit with the box from the heater I recently bought.  40-something channels, no channel 11.

Then came the kitchen idea.  My kitchen is near my desk.  I was able to pull the antenna cable extender near my tv and place it in the extension near my kitchen.  Propping the box on a chair near my kitchen window and plugging the antenna into my kitchen outlet, I had about 50-something channels…no channel 11.

I was about to give up, but then decided to try my living room window….and success! – so long as it was behind my curtain, resting on the air conditioner duct of the air conditioner my friend Nate lent me.  This worked for about 30 minutes before the signal went out.  Finally, I propped the heater box on my other desk chair and propped the antenna on top of that.

…and while all this sounds pretty crazy, seeing the Glee finale and its lovely happy ending (won’t reveal any details) was totally worth it.  As one of the songs on today’s episode states by the Rolling Stones: “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need.”

-cct

The Trap

You know when you live life and suddenly something just appears?  Something you’ve been waiting for and let slip from your mind?

I wish this post was about the appearance of something great, like love or an inheritance or the cure to a health problem, but I’ll take what I can get.

Despite the zaniness of yesterday (See La Vida de Caridad: The Cricket), that’s exactly what happened with the cricket.

I was working from home all day, occasionally annoyed at the chirping coming from my tv.  At one point, I pulled my TV cart out and stared evilly at the mess of cords that I couldn’t see beyond, sighed, and then pushed the TV cart back.

But the evening rolled around and I glanced over to the right and saw this tiny bug sitting on my grey carpet, as if saying “Hello.  You’ve been looking for me?”

It wasn’t like I was able to catch it right then and there.  There was a couple of close- calls, some jumping, a few minutes of waiting, and finally a stare down.

Finally, I was able to get it in my trap: Tupperware and my clipboard with Monet’s Woman with a Parasol.

I let it go in the parking lot in the back to the chorus of chirping crickets in the evening.

Maybe I let it go to find true love.

-cct