fun friday in the little beach city

Blimey, I'm tired!

Work was, well, work. Caught several jobs. Cleaned squeegees. Got more magnet scraps. It was pretty warm, though it cools down fast.

After work I swung by Walgreen's and picked up some lavender epsom salts, and other things, and when I got home I had a nice hot bath and drank a nice cold beer and read a nice awesome book.

Later on in the evening I went out for First Friday. Janet had invited me to this show that friends of hers had work it. It was at the Felix Kulpa gallery, and the gallery show theme was work inspired by Tom Waits. It was really cool. Some of the reductive woodblock prints by Bridget Henry (who Janet knows) took my breath away. Just big, complicated, beautiful prints. Lots of layers.

From the gallery I went to a movie night at the CTV station (where Ryan works and has the space to set up the projector in). Met Jesse, Veitta, James, and Daniel. We watched Slither, which was my choice and was backed up by Jesse. The majority hadn't seen it and we were feeling in a horror mood. It is so ridiculous and gross, but Nathan Fillion is amazing. We had a comedy cool down with an episode of Mr. Bean. The group hadn't seen the infamous putting on swim trunks OVER trousers scene, and they loved it. Then Ryan and I watched an episode of Peep Show and I said my good nights.

Tomorrow I maaaaay catch a matinee of The Hobbit. It is at 12:40, so I'll see how I feel in the morning. From then on, I think I'll read through my California Drivers Book and work on other to do things. Be a doer this weekend!

must be a Thursday...

Spent my night drawing on vinyl magnet scraps. That was fun! I have plenty more to draw on too. Just little portraits. I turned this magnets into "to do" list item holders. So each thing I have to do is written down in order and is magneted to my red metal shelf. I like it that way. Yup!

Got my W-2, so now I have to do taxes. Hurray! Should be...easy?

Work was another sticker printing/chopping session, with fun machine oil changing time. I rigged the air release valve so that I wouldn't have to sit and press it for 10 minutes. I rigged it with just a piece of tape to hold the thing down. Hahaha. Easy.

Burned & taped screens. It was a relatively short day. Weeded some stuff. Halfway through Maze Runner.

Future Present Tense is one of my favorite tenses. I like narratives that take place in that way. It's a false sense of assurance.

Went food shopping. Yay food! The cashier was named Steve. I've met a lot of Steves since leaving the Pacific Northwest.

jam on toast for dessert. mmm.

Hurray for respirators because we were using an enamel type ink and the solvents to break it down were pretty toxic. Amazing how they didn't eat through the emulsion though. That stuff is tough! It is neat all the different ways to go about doing this and that. Stickers have to air dry, and they have to be durable, so you have to use a specific ink different from the plastisol and waterbased kinds. Anyhoo, I think this is the second time I've been around for running these types of stickers. Making a note that chopping them vertical first takes less time than chopping them horizontal. Chopping = taking the sheets of dried stickers and using a paper cutter to chop them into individual stickers.

Today was very much a sticker day. Spent a lot of time cutting stickers down and weeding vinyl. Finished Unnatural Death and started The Maze Runner. Fun to go to the Young Adult genre every now and again. No swear words (ahem Horns). No one gets killed with shards of tile (ahem Die Trying). No one talks about voodoo sacrifices (ahem Forever Odd).

At home, I had some pasta and watched my telly. I'm taking it easy on the "doing things" front till after I've paid my rent and get my next paycheck. Then I'll do those things that really need doing...both fun and obligation wise things.

But I got the car rego and put that on my plate, so that is one thing down. Just a bunch else to do.

I should make post it notes of all the big "to dos" and post them, then as I do them, I can take them off the wall/wherever I stick them.

January just ran right out.

wow it is almost February

No jobs were run on the press today. My arms got a break. I burned some screens and taped them up. I weeded some vinyl. I finished Forever Odd. Almost done with Unnatural Death (I've been flipflopping between those two books). I also cut stickers and cleaned the pallets and removed the tape from the screens that are waiting to be cleaned and reclaimed.

At home I took a bath. I really need to get some epsom salts or something. Make my baths a real experience, though there isn't enough hot water in the tank to make a really big hot bath. Ah, oh well.

Had some pasta. Started watching Blackpool, this BBC series with random dancing interludes. It's also a murder mystery. It is a bit odd, but David Morrissey and David Tennant are in it, so I ain't complaining.

udon arms

My arms feel like noodles. I was pulling sweaters off the press all day (well half the day). Every muscle I have in my arms is quite used. But that is a good thing. More muscles = better worker.

My housemate Janet is back from her trip to Hawaii. Now the house doesn't feel so empty!

Also at work I set up the jobs, and broke down the press. My coworker is also back form being ill. All is well. It was comfortably warm at work.

I need to go food shopping again. I wish food stuck around longer, but I have that tendency to eat it. Boo!

headed for the hills

Saturday:

I made a road trip snack run Friday night, and when I got back, Ben was there! Hurray! We three got up at 7ish and Helen arrived at 7:30ish and then we hit the long road for Kirkwood. There was a Starbucks stop. We played road trip games. I'm really bad at I Spy. Helen is really good at it. It was a bit crowded in the Prius, but we all fit.

We arrived at Kirkwood Mountain Resort at around 11. I decided not to snowshoe, and instead to just hand out at the base and draw what was around there. Helen rented her snowboard, Ben got his boots and board. We had some food, and then those three went up the lift and I was left to my own devices. I trotted up the mountain in an area away from skiiers, and got fairly far up but I kept going down to my knees in the snow, which wasn't quite fun because my shoes were not right for that type of snow, and I was just in jeans, and my shoes quickly filled with snow which got my socks wet. So the rest of my day was spent in wet socks, which made the going cold. I got some drawing done, regardless of the cold. Drew people, drew the mountain a bit. It was hard to find a good place to park it though, and I didn't have waterproof pants so my bum would have gotten soaked fast. Ah, learned some lessons. Bring waterproof pants (except mine are in Washington and are being worn these days by mom), wear better shoes, bring lots of extra socks...yeah that should do it. Helen finished up a bit early and we hung out by the fireplace in the lodge. Nate and Ben finished at 4 (when the lifts closed) and we all head back down the mountain. We stopped at Hoot N' Annies, but I was tired and took a nap in the car intending to come into the restaurant a bit later...but slept through the whole meal. I plugged in my MP3 player and we listened to jams all the way back to Redwood City. Ben headed out, I put on dry socks, and chilled out a bit, and then I headed back to Santa Cruz. It was a nice drive, though a chunk of 101 has really bad road.

Sunday:

Steve was in town early in the day, so I mixed up a bigger scramble for a late breakfast/early lunch and we went for a walk up Ocean, over on Soquel, down Seabright, and back on Broadway. It was a beautiful day. He headed back relatively early, and I spent the afternoon cleaning house. Swept the hardwood floors and kitchen, scrubbed the kitchen floor, did the dishes, washed my work clothes. Making it all look nice.

I wish this weekend had an extra day...hahaha. When I do something I always want more time in which to do nothing. Funny how that works.

Some photos, courtesy of Nathan:

up north a bit

Nathan doesn't have anything in his fridge. He has nothing at all! It isn't even turned on! Doesn't even have ketchup. What's up with that? Had some tea though. He has tea and dry stuffs. Right now I'm waiting on Ben to arrive, then tomorrow we three are going to Kirkwood Mountain! They will snowboard and I'll snowshoe, and it shall be fun fun fun!

Work was relatively short. (Nathan says "HEEEYYYY!!!" I don't think he likes me blogging about him). Anyway. I ran the job, and ran the sleeves on the job as well. Broke down the press, cleaned things. It was a sunny day. A little bit rainy, but overall really nice. Looks like winter is over in Santa Cruz!

I did some laundry and washed the dishes, and then I headed up to Redwood City. I have a key to Nate's, so I let myself in and relaxed and dug through the cubbards looking for food, and came up wanting.

Anyway. Tomorrow should be fun. Pedersen cousins assemble!

always the best advice

My coworker is out sick, so I'm head job running honcho! I showed up at work, fired up the compressor, got the dryer going, got the screen on head six aligned, ran a tester, got the thumbs up from the boss, and programmed the Roto mode. Go self capable awesome me! Ran that job, and ran the backs on another job that I'll run the fronts and sleeves on tomorrow. Getting all kinds of skills! Or rather improving them. Making myself valuable and part of the team and what not.

Checked my car oil in the morning. I'll probably get to my next oil change before the oil runs down (it's at about 1/5). Could put more in, I suppose. Pa, what kind of oil does the car take?

I got a late birthday present from my friend Dee.

She hand embroidered it! In the other corner is my initials, "hoopy frood" and a pan galactic gargle blaster (specifically an image of a lemon slice intersecting a gold brick). How cool and awesome is my new hankie!

In the evening, I hung out with Ryan at the CTV station. He is the production manager there, so he can use the projector and stuff after hours, which is a totally rad way to watch movies. We had an 80's double feature of Legend (young Tom Cruise! his gams!) and Heathers (what a dark, black comedy and Winona Ryder was so adorable).

Oh my. Now it is well past my bed time, and tomorrow is a day that I should probably get around to washing my hair on. I do so only a couple times a week, to reduce damage and because natural oils in your hair are actually good for it. Plus hair washing takes time and I am lazy.

Out, damned ink! Out!

Ran the shirts today! Wheee! Getting better. Washed my hands a bajillion times because white ink just...sticks to skin and I was pulling black shirts, which will show smudges. Anyway. Feels good to run a job. I also taped screens, and weeded vinyl. I like to listen to Lord Peter Wimsey novels while weeding, so I paused Forever Odd and started Unnatural Death. Mum, I highly recommend Wimsey novels. They re full of delightful Holmes references. The narrator is really good too.

I'm feeling tired, so I might go to bed soon.

It was quite a long day at work. Also did the squeegees. Nice to get hours.

My poor hands are all kinds of slathered with lotion. Washing them a bunch isn't good for them, but it does kill germs. Alas, poor cuticles, I knew them Horatio.

Had burrito, and it split into both my lunch and dinner. Meat and beans are reasonably priced, so I think this shall be making its way into my diet as a regular easy lunch staple. I keep trying to remember what I ate for lunch during my college days. I guess I walked to Safeway more than I thought?

After work, I sat in the bath and read from The Big Over Easy. Jasper Fforde has such a universe to his books, I'm glad I'm acquainted with the various references.

little toot

The great thing about having Monday off, is suddenly the week is halfway over and it is almost the weekend! Yay! Not that I dislike working, not at all. But some fun things are in store for this weekend so I'm excited to get to doing them.

Anyhoo. I ran the fronts of the sweaters on today's job. And while it was slow to warm up, I did get to the point where I was pulling and putting them on the pallets faster than the machine, which is a good place to be.

After those were boxed up, I broke down the press, removed the tape and excess ink from the screens, taped up some screens, put away the ink, and burned a few screens. There was some loitering, but all in all it was a good full day.

I spent a bit of my Trader Joe's birthday gift card and made burrito fixings (meat and beans). So now I'll have some variety in my work lunch diet! I had a burrito for dinner, so I guess I'm testing to make sure I don't toot the bedcovers off. That would be an embarrassing thing to occur at work.

25 years young, with hopefully 75 years to go!

Prezzies! Cupcakes! Sleep! Wheee!

Made myself a scramble, because I'm the birthday girl and birthday girls eat scrambles. I stayed in today, except for when I went to The Buttery to get myself birthday treats. The cashier/helper lady asked if my parents read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I wish more people got where my name is from, but they often don't. I got a little cheesecake thingy, which was good though it was a meld with a cupcake so not like a slice o' cheesecake. I also got a brioche and the jam and butter it came with was a perfect taste combination. And finally there was a chocolate cupcake filled with chocolate mousse and a caramel drizzle on top. Now THAT was good. Mmm.

From Ma & Pa, I got two Jasper Fforde novels (yay!) Becky Cloonan's Dracula (oooooo!) The Hive (wheee!) a nice Moleskin in the paperweight that I like (niiice) two water brushes (TWO!) and a Trader Joe's gift card (food!). Celia gave me a felted oven mitt, a scarflet, a shirt, some felted soap, this special secret recipe stain remover, and chocolates! I'm so spoiled.

It was nice to just take it easy. Lounge about. Eat cupcakes and watch telly.

last days as a 24 year old

Saturday:

• Slept in, of course. 
•  Got cashback at Trader Joe's and some snacks for the drive up. The couple behind me in line was really nice, and they were from Poulsbo so we bonded over being far away from the gray weather.
•  The drive up to San Francisco was uneventful.
•  Carmen and Josh bought some guinea pigs and named them Merlin and Arthur. They are quite cute.
• Carmen and I took the N Train to tonight's venue. 
•  The gig was Trails and Ways with My Satellite and Tremor Low.
• Phil and his brother Stephen were also at the gig. Phil and Carmen both bought me birthday drinks. Nice people. 
•  It was a good show. Not hop around and dance type music, but I dug it. Tremer Low moreso than Trails and Ways, which was the headliner.
• We ate sushi down the street and it was good. 
•  Cabbed it back, though it wasn't that late.
• It was nice to sleep in that big cozy bed that I slept in all those months ago while looking for, and eventually finding work.

Sunday:

• Woke up relatively early for me, though Sundays tend to be early days.
• Had some oatmeal and tea and chatted with Josh and observed the guinea pigs.
• I was a bit late leaving San Francisco for Oakland.
• And my GPS refused to locate any satellites.
• So I got turned around, and turned around again.
• And arrived on Lakeshore an hour later than planned
• But I made it!
• Finn, Robin, and I drove onwards and parked and had brunch at Cock-A-Doodle Cafe.
• We browsed the used bookstore while waiting for our table.
• I had the eggs benedict. It had avocado and it was delicious. I ate it with my hands and made quite a mess of it, and I probably embarrassed my companions but they have good poker faces.
• From there we returned to Robin's, where I parked.
• We walked down to Lake Merritt and went into another used bookstore (though it also had new books). George Grosz's autobiography caught my eye. I want to read more biographies and non-fiction, so this with my Lucrezia Borgia and Berthe Morisot tomes will make for some good historical reading when I eventually get around to it.
• Finn treated us to coffee, though I had hot cocoa, and we sat by the lake and Finn read to us from This Is How You Lose Her as the sun set. It was a nice time. Finn biked away.
• Robin and I drank wine and watched Clueless.
• Then we drank tea and watched a bit of Basquiat.
• Then I drove home.

And now it is past midnight, so I guess I am officially 25.

books and the last days of 24

Yaaay! Birthday party weekend shall commence!

At work, I ran the sweater portion of the job. It took the press longer to squeegee the ink that it did for me to load and unload sweaters. Booyah. 200 sweaters backs done! I came in a bit later, at the Boss' request, I wasn't late. Ran the job and all was well. A shorter day.

Took a bath when I got home. Did laundry. Lounged about. Worked on getting plans together. Tomorrow will be San Francisco and a show in the evening. Wheee! Then Sunday will be Oakland and hiking and fun fun fun with Finn & Robin. I can't wait! It might be a three day weekend. I need to contact my boss about that.

Anyway. Hurray!

I finished Some Hope, so now I am starting Mother's Milk, the fourth of the Patrick Melrose quintet.

we named the dog Indiana (actually that is Last Crusade, not Ark, but whatever)

Hey Mum, I got your email. I'll respond to it all proper like tomorrow.

Dusted and cleaned the press. There is always cleaning to be done in the studio. Such as chipping off the ice buildup in the fridge. Also caught some shirts and sweatshirts, counted them, boxed them when they were printed. Weeded some stickers. It was pretty warm in the studio. Warm enough to remove my sweatshirt. Maybe winter is over in Santa Cruz?

After work, I met up with Ryan for dinner at this cajun place. Pretty good hush puppies and chicken pot pie. After that we caught the Thursday movie at the Regal 9, which was Raiders of the Lost Ark (only $5). The good thing about seeing movies on the big screen is that you can see details like a fly going into an actors mouth midtake, and the actor not breaking character. Hahah! A pretty good night, though according to Ryan this is unusually cold for Santa Cruz. Dang, I brought the cold with me!

Tomorrow is Friday, and then whoo birthday party weekend! I'll hold off on opening presents. I can do it.

Oh also went food shopping and tried to buy things beyond the same stuff I always get. The problem with buying a variety of things is you end up buying more things and thus more moolah, but hey, some variety in diet is good! And I have enough to last me a while. Plus bacon and eggs. Yum yum.

I only had three cups of tea today...

Had a self moderated day at work, so I slept in and arrived at noon. I should have kept to my usual schedule because I still ended up working seven hours, and after seven is a bit late to get back. Especially when one needs to go grocery shopping and when one gets lazy...ahhh oh well. I can do that...tomorrow.

The squeegees were sharpened, though the rubber on one ended up being melted by the friction of the rotating sander thingy. It was one that I've never seen used. Still...gah!

I weeded and cut stickers as well. The stickers that needed weeding had lots of little bits. I also vacuumed around the studio. Almost done with Die Trying! Not sure which audiobook I'll listen to next, but I have plenty to choose from. Discworld? Maybe a bit o' sci fi?

I want to open my preeeeseeeeents. But I'll wait. Only a few more days! Ma & Pa, expect a call from me Monday morning. I'm not waiting till I'm done with work to open them. Bah.

two tone 'do

I actually only got one full haircut in 2012, and that was by Carmen. And that was in June! Oh how times fly. And my roots are so very grown out. I like being more auburn in my hair color, but that takes so much effort and redying, so I'm just going to let my hair go natural. After work I went to SuperCuts and got my hair cut (as you can see above). It's so flippy with tons of layers and it is so much lighter and it is just GREAT ahhhh. Can't wait to show it off during my birthday party weekend. Wheee!

The necklace I'm wearing is the one I made. The hand was made by Morgaine. It's so neat.

Work was short. I sharpened squeegees for the first part, and caught some shirts for the second part. I'm almost done with Die Trying. Sharpening squeegees is time consuming. Tomorrow I'll be working solo, so I get to sleep in! Perks of my job.

This Tuesday keeps wanting to feel like a Wednesday. Almost done with "Some Hope". Just breezing through the most awesome Patrick Melrose quintet. So many books to read, just a great bed to read them in!

Ahhh I love my new 'do.

hair beware

Started my shift with coating screens. Trying a different emulsion for the lower mesh count screens, so we shall see how that goes. Then after I cleaned and sharpened the scissors and tidied up around the studio, I got to sharpening squeegees! Which is pretty much just grinding off the bottom of squeegees and making the edge nice and square. It's a lot of handiwork and moving the same thing against the grinder for 20 minutes, but it's good work to do while listening to audiobooks (Die Trying, the second Jack Reacher novel, specifically) so I can't complain. Though it was a bit cold in the studio, though a bit cold by my standards means "fucking freezing" by my coworkers. Hahah. Precious. Anyway. Got all the manual squeegees sharpened. Tomorrow will be the automatic press squeegees.

Got done a bit early, not that it did my any good. Conserving my moolah for the birthday weekend. Haven't been to board game night in almost two months! Soon, I'll go soon.

Did the dishes and contemplated getting a haircut, except the salons in town are expensive! But the beauty school isn't...do I risk it?

just call me "rarely travels half mile radius from home on the weekends" trill

Saturday:

I wasn't out that late, or anything. I just figured that since I didn't do much on Saturday, might as well just wait till Sunday to double blog. Anyhoo. Slept in till 1. My body was extra tired from that first week back at work. Did the dishes. Tied up. Relaxed. Later on I went over to the CTV station thingy where Ryan works, unfortunately the comedy show that was going to go on that night (local access) was cancelled, so we just hooked up Netflix to the projector in the station and hung out. Watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol,  which was fun, and Miller's Crossing, which was confusing.

Sunday:

Set my alarm, because Saturday is for sleeping in and Sunday is for not making it really difficult to get up on Monday. Janet was gone for the weekend, as was Amanda, so I had the house to myself. You bet I wore pajamas all day and had a blanket wrapped around my waist. I roll in style here.

Next Sunday, I'm hanging with Finn & Robin in Oakland for Birthday shenanigans, so that will be fun! Might go up Saturday and hang out in San Francisco and spend the night, so I don't do a whole bunch of driving in the same day. Birthday stuff coming together, yay!

So last weekend, a guy came to my door offering up DVDs. Really obvious bootlegs. I said no thanks and he went away. Today a guy showed up and said, "I don't have any movies." He looked a bit....off kilter. I said I couldn't help him and he said thanks and left. Is this some sort of spy code? What is going to happen NEXT week? Well, I won't be around for that.

I watched the Golden Globes (how can Benedict Cumberbatch continue to not win for Sherlock? He is so very good). Generally I took it easy. Stayed in. All that good stuff.

999,999 : 1

This first week back at work kicked my butt! I have a knot in between my shoulders from all the repetitive motions of the cleaning of screens, hauling of screens, and all the other related things. Having a bit of variety is good. Not that I feel close to having a repetitive strain injury, just that this week has had a bunch of the same stuff going on, and prior to that I wasn't doing much of anything. So my body is adjusting to being in motion again.

I got a starter on sharpening squeegees. Wasn't so good at it though. It is tricky to get the speed right. Can't stop at all when doing it. Basically you are grinding off the bottom of the squeegee to make it really nice and smooth. Its a small grinder and you run the squeegee against it.

Brock came by with some printing stuff. I mixed up the new emulsion. He brought a clapper (you know, clap on clap off) BUUUUTTTTT it only takes two prongs, and the light and heater are three pronged plugs. NOOOOOOOO the exposure unit was going to be SO COOL. Oh well.

And I reclaimed the last of the screens! We sorted through the big job and pulled the ones that won't be used. And I also taped up a bunch of screens and listened to Guards! Guards! and started The Alchemist. The latter is narrated by Jeremy Irons, who sounds like a kitten wrapped in velvet.

Pa, I think I gave you Guards! Guards! I highly recommend it. There are a few pauses in the mp3s, I think that is just where they left pauses when splicing the tracks together or something. If the sound stops but the track is still going on, just wait. It's one of my favorite Discworld books thus far. Very good characters and humor.

Got out with plenty of daylight. Took a bath and read in the path. Need to get some bath salts or something. Baths are so boring when it is just hot water.

Watched Mr. Selfridge, well the first episode, it is a miniseries about the founder of Selfridge's, which stars Jeremy Piven who ALWAYS sounds to me like he is putting on a fake American accent. Anyway. Watched that, and Elementary. Now might stay up watching a Discworld adaptation on Netflix. I sleep in tomorrow! Yay!

And my birthday plans are coming together, which feels good.

bed bath and not so beyond

Oh woah, suddenly it is 1am. Got caught up chatting with people online. What would I do without instant messaging? Maybe be more social?

All the screens are clean! Only four are to be reclaimed. Well actually there are about 5 in the stack that need reclaiming, but those need to be looked at. Screens that didn't work for the job, but look similar to other screens that might be used again soon, as we might run some of the jobs again pretty soon so why burn them again?

Anyway. Did that. My back has a knot in it from all the doing of that.

Coated screens. Burned screens. Didn't tape the screens.

Took a bath when I got home. Read some more Patrick Melrose in the bath. I need some bath salts. Baths are fun but they'd be more fun if they smelled nice. I wonder if there is a Lush nearby...

Anyway, it is chilly and I have work, so goodnight!