The fool-proof Christmas gift

Several years ago I discovered an online service that makes it nigh-impossible to screw up gift choices. Originally, all you needed was a photo of someone or something the recipient held dear to his/her heart - children and pets were safe choices - and you could have them made into postage stamps. Like these.

Nowadays it's even easier. I was about to order some stamps for the cat rescue group I'm trying to wangle out of (it's like trying to get out of the Mafia), and I noticed that some places offer their own artwork.

This Web page has links to four suppliers of custom stamps. I prefer Zazzle.

Sorry, Methodist friends

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Day pass from the borg

Even though I was paid for all my paid time off in June this year, I've already earned several more days off since my re-assimilation in October.  So I decided to take off the remainder of this week and next Monday, so my colleagues with children would be freed up to take their days off between Christmas and New Year's.

Before I head to Austin Friday (more about that later), I have an appointment to see my therapist. The reason for this is that my ADD seems to be out of control too much of the time these days.

I thought re-employment would help. In the past, the martial arts lessons helped. But the ADD actually seems to be worse now that I'm working full time again. I'm at the point where I have difficulty reading a book, and when I go to bed, I have trouble turning my mind off. It just keeps racing along. Hence my occasional decision to get up, get dressed, and take my motorcycle out at 2-3:00 a.m. (Not recently, it's too frickin' cold.) And my blood pressure won't go down.

The Austin trip is not something I'm really looking forward to. I can't decide whether to put the kibosh on the whole Ryan thing - no visits, no nothing - or try to maintain a friendship. You see, I can't help but think he is still holding out some small hope that I will suddenly run into his arms one day.

This has taken me a while to accept simply as I don't think I'm a good candidate for 24/7 relationships.  Not this week, anyway. Ryan* could find someone younger, more attractive, and more moneyed. And besides, Ryan is horribly allergic to cats.

* See Key to Characters at right.

A yuk from the past, courtesy of Facebook

Although Facebook users are usually assaulted by tons of little square banner ads, it seems that Facebook runs out of these ads now and again.

Their substitute? Occasionally showing photos from your Facebook friends' photo albums.

I didn't mind this until I was suddenly confronted with a picture of Dismissed Date* - someone I haven't seen or spoken to for over a year now.  It kind of made me jump a bit, as seeing him unbidden (and a few years younger) was just plain weird.

It eventuated that his ex-business partner Brett still had a couple of photos of him in his main Facebook album. And Brett is one of my Facebook friends. I still do editing jobs for him now and then.

I really hope there is some way I can turn this function off. Perhaps I should just dump Facebook altogether, but I'm hooked on Facebook Scrabble.

* See Key to Characters at right.

Local housewarming

After a weekend of unsuccessful bird-watching, including a trip to Gladewater to seek out the elusive bald eagle, I was wandering aimlessly around Chez Melina last night when I smelled smoke.

Since I hadn't lit the fireplace for several days, I began to wonder if my neighbor had let her barbecue get out of control. But then I realized that my cats were acting nervous. I looked out the back window and saw something equally strange: a frightened raccoon running full-tilt towards the back fence. Usually the local raccoons and opossums look at me with disdain as if to say "You just think we're not getting into the cat food".

But the smell was not my neighbor's barbecue, because when I opened my front door, I realized that the house across the street was on fire. Not just a little on fire; seriously on fire. The back of the house was already consumed, along with the adjoining wood fence and a large tree. And I heard fire truck sirens literally the same second I opened my front door.

Of course, this sort of thing brings out the neighborhood, with the primary concern being that nobody could contact the couple who lived in the burning house. But the firemen didn't find anyone home, even the couple's dog, so it was assumed they had left town for the holidays.

Initially I was concerned about the sparks from the fire, which were being blown directly toward my house, setting my lawn or house alight. So I stood outside until the sparks stopped - all the time with my front door wide open.

The upshot of all this is that my entire house reeks of smoke, and even after a longish bath and hair-washing, I'm convinced that I reek of smoke as well. And I woke up with a stinking headache that I'm attributing to neighbor smoke (can't really call it second-hand smoke).