Check it out!

My bamboo plant has started to sprout! Look beneath the middle gold twist tie and you'll see the tiny new sprout:

You might be saying, well, that's pretty neat and all but also, isn't it what plants do? They live, given food and sunlight?

And that's where, personally, I am so amazed. Because yeah, I've been watering this plant and talking to it, on occasion, but it has never gotten actual sunlight. From my time when I worked at the end of a hallway to my new job now, this plant gets only fluorescent office lighting. And I just think it's pretty awesome that this plant is taking that light, which makes me feel dull and groggy, and it's using it to sustain life. And to grow a new shoot! Oh man, there's gonna be pandas up in here soon.

Dear weather, please l2play. Thanks.

First things first. Is l2play still a thing? I'm a little afraid it's no longer a thing and that the reference is horrendously outdated in this age of constantly updating technical terminology.

Second - I don't get what the deal is with weather here in the "wonderful" panhandle of Florida. See, where I came from in Illinois, the weather might have been colder, yes, but it played by the rules. And the rules say that the warmest point of the day should be around noon and then it can cool off so that by the evening time, a walk with the puppies would be a relaxing jaunt around the block.

But that's not the rule book Florida weather plays from. Oh no. At my lunch hour today, which starts at one, it was about 89 degrees Fahrenheit (uh, let's see... 31 Celsius for my Canadian friends). Fair enough, it was basically noon and the sun was shining. I went on with my afternoon.

Come five in the afternoon and checked the weather to see if it had cooled down some. It had not. In fact, it had gone up four degrees and there was a stupid "feels like 98" taunting me below the "93". This is not how it works, weather. I shouldn't be more comfortable outside during the middle of the day than in the evening.

I decided I should have a picture for this post since my last post was picture-less despite the multitudes of cute animals mentioned.

Enjoy:

The above picture suggests one possibility: the sun is a three year old being told to go to sleep.

A little story called "dogs are just better than cats"

I get it. Cats are self-reliant, independent and don't need much care beyond a place to go and some food. But me, personally, I like dogs. I like knowing that when I get home, my puppies are going to go to crazy level 9 (refer to the end of this article for the chart) because they're just that happy to see me.

Ok, ok. They're happy to know that they get to go for a walk and have food. But the important part is that they direct this happiness at me.

So take last night. My husband, sister in law, and I went down to their parent's house for dinner. My in-laws have an adorable calico cat, an outdoor car that loves to roam their 10 acres of land. This cat seems to like me alright and I always make it a point to go outside when I visit to give her some pets.

But it's not that easy.

Last night, like most nights, the cat came near the house when she heard the car. She always keeps a large distance from moving cars which I am always thankful for. I headed around back and then the dance began. First, I can't look at her. If I look at her, she will look back with a sort of terrified yet proud look and she won't come any closer than five feet.

If I make any movements, she'll dart away a few feet and then slowly come back in. I assure you, I have never hit or hurt her in any way to make this a reasonable behavior.

So as long as I sit in the grass avoiding ant bites for a good five minutes, she'll come up to me close enough that I could pet her at this point. But no, I need to wait until she's sniffed my legs and then she'll brush up against me and then - only then - can I pet her.

Oh, then she started purring like this was the highlight of her evening and I couldn't help but get a smile on my face as I picked her up and she nestled up against me with her eyes half closed and happy.

And I guess it's normal for cats to drool when they're being pet? And that this does mean they're happy? Because that happens. She keeps it real.

In any case, keep in mind that I have been trying to win the love of this cat for over two years now, and it still takes me that long to get her to let me pet her - even though she clearly enjoys the attention once she gets it.

So to contrast this, Sunday night was the first time that I had gone over to my husband's cousin's grandma's house. As it turns out, she has four dogs. And the moment I stepped into the house with my husband and sister in law, half of those dogs, a Pomeranian and a curly gray mop of a dog breed I don't know, came over, happy to see newcomers.

The third dog, a Labrador Retriever mix who turned out to be 14 years old (according to what I was told), was slightly more sedate, but leaned her head over from her spot by the counter so that I could give her nose a pet. Her tail wagged back and forth slowly but steady and I could have sworn she had a smile.

The fourth dog was also interested in us, but significantly more nervous. Apparently a shih tzu/ yorkshire terrier blend, this tiny pup looked like she might have weighed two pounds, if that. She would come close enough to sniff at our feet when she thought we weren't looking, but would run under the couch if we tried to pet her.


Basically, what I'm saying is I don't know why cats have to act like 2-lb tiny puppies meeting me for the first time. I just don't care for that.

Astrological musings

I'll start off with the standard disclaimer - I don't really follow my horoscope; I just think that astrology is an amusing, harmless form of entertainment. And sure, I might believe that my sign describes me perfectly, but that's just because each sign uses such broad descriptions that I could see myself in any sign if I tried! Probably.

But, the truth is, I'm pretty satisfied with my zodiac destination. Being born in the month of August, I am the fiery Leo. And sure, most of my supposed traits are forms of "stubborn" and "vain" but most astrological guides use much more flattering terms like "proud" and "self-assured" and "likes to be the center of attention." (That last one is a good one, right?)

Plus, it gets better. I know, you're thinking - how? I see you sitting there, half forcing yourself to keep reading this sentence, hoping that perhaps something good will come out of it - and be assured, something will. Not only am I a Leo, but by the Chinese zodiac, I was born in the year of the dragon. That's right. I am a LionDragon.

When I roar, things get set on fire.

So yeah, maybe I haven't checked my horoscope since the last time I picked up a hard copy newspaper (uh, let's see? 2006?), but I am pretty thrilled with the timing of my birth.

You all might remember that there was a big to-do earlier this year about how the zodiac signs as we know them were supposedly off by as much as a month. The theory was that when the ancient  Babylonians mapped out the zodiac some three thousand years ago, the Earth was tilted on its axis at a specific angle that has actually changed over time.

I read the articles and began to wonder. What if I was wrong? What if I wasn't a Leo? I tried to tell myself that since it really didn't matter to me to begin with, why would it matter now? In fact, it made a lot of sense that I was a Cancer! I started writing a list.

There was my love for water! (I can't swim).
There was the fact that I hated change! (I moved from IL to FL).
Sometimes I could be intensely moody! (But usually only at a certain time during the month).

I stared at the list and could feel it staring up at me with beady little crab eyes, willing me to accept this change.

But I just couldn't.

Because I knew that it just couldn't work out. Because you know what happens when you get a dragon and a crab together?

Crab cakes.

Is it just me?

An issue that has plagued me as long as I've been using public restrooms is the use of too-short stall partitions. I understand that this is somewhat a consequence of being tallish and also being female (I suspect any guy would love to tell me about how much privacy you get at a urinal) but despite these limitations, I am still going to go forward with my complaint.

Why, bathroom stalls? Why is it (presumably) so expensive to install stall partitions that go up higher than me? Do you know how awkward it is to stand up and realize that if I had been looking anywhere but straight, I would be looking into the stall next to me? It's bad enough to know that anyone else in the restroom can now see my head floating above the stall door because the mirror is almost guaranteed to be in front of all these stalls! (I guess on the plus[?] side, I could fix my hair from the stall without taking up any space at the counter.)

Pictured: Awkwardness.

 In conclusion, if I become Miss America, I vow to replace all shorter stall doors with taller stall doors. And then world peace. Whatever.

Also, in the same vein, changing rooms that have this same problem. Not cool.

Feeling sleepy?

I'm working on some pictures for the backlog of ideas I have in my brain and then realized I wouldn't have any one story ready for tonight. Then I remembered that some time back, I wrote an article using Cracked.com's topic page form. They never featured it so I didn't make any money off of it, but it's still there in a readable form.

So if you need something to read to put you to sleep, check out my topic on sleep. (Supposedly 12,000 people have viewed this topic page but I suspect that it is just from the time I accidentally got my mouse stuck on the refresh button.)

Oh, and for extra fun, here is a graphic I made for that page but didn't include:

Active voice vs. passive voice... a story few will appreciate

When confronted with boredom, I typically choose to combat this by reading anything nearby. Usually the internet is my reading material of choice. Sometimes, though, I have to get creative. The other day, looking for something to do and having no current access to the internet, I came across a correspondence manual from an old job.

It looked like it was several years old and the inside cover confirmed that this was written in 2005. I shrugged and sat down to see what sort of advice and ancient wisdom the tome would impart. The first few chapters were based on general writing technique, such as when to use a period or comma. And did you know that one exclamation point is always sufficient? (emphasis included from the book). I couldn't believe it!!

But then I looked back at my previous sentence and found that the second exclamation does look a little awkward and out of place, like she showed up to a party wearing the same exact dress as the other exclamation point. I felt bad for inflicting that sort of punishment on an innocent punctuation mark and vowed to never again misuse my punctuation.

I skimmed over the next section, which was a list of often misspelled words followed by a list of often misused words.

Then, I got to the part that involved actually writing letters. First there was a lot of information on how to write a clear and concise letter - stick to short sentences and if the letter goes over a page long, check to make sure you are not adding unimportant details.

Then I got to the part that made me laugh.

The manual discussed using the active voice over the passive voice. I'll attempt to describe this briefly so even those who don't give a whit about the English language can perhaps find the amusement as well.

The active voice arranges items in a sentence to let you know who is doing what. Such as, "I wrote the most amazing blog post ever about the passive voice." In that sentence, I wrote something.

The passive voice would turn that shit around and emphasize the what over the who. Such as, "The most amazing blog post ever about the passive voice was written today." You still get to know what happened, but you don't really know who did it.

The correspondence manual correctly noted that the active voice is superior because it lends itself to shorter, clearer sentences. It also correctly noted that the passive voice avoids assigning responsibility and therefore should be avoided.

This was followed by a few short examples of when the passive voice is acceptable.

And I kid you not, the first example was "Use the passive voice when it is best to avoid naming names," followed by the example sentence "A mistake was made during your recent audit procedure." ("by our company," being the unspoken ending of the sentence.)

I laughed.

And then I worried that I am kind of lame for finding that to be hilarious, so I quickly recounted this story to my husband, who looked at me blankly as I giggled madly at my "punchline."

And then I wrote this up and worried for a bit that everyone else is reading this with the same blank stare and slight confusion and then I posted it anyway because it still makes me laugh.