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One would think the laundry room located two floors below me here at Condo-land (not pictured above) would be relatively quiet at 12AM on a Monday evening. Imagine my surprise when I trudged down, baskets in hand, only to discover 3 of the 4 machines were in use, either actively or serving as storage bins for freshly cleaned undies and socks. So here was my chance, I stuffed the whole basket (barely) into the empty unit, inserted the "Landro-card" which we are forced to use here, and whammo... it sucked a double fee out of the $10.00 I had to put on the card last week. So this was going to cost me $3.00 instead of $1.50. Yet again I am robbed by the giant metal box as it smiles back at me in triumph. I give it a kick and spout out something very appropriate to let it know just how pissed I am. Pouring in detergent and starting the cycle I return upstairs feeling completely violated.

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Once upstairs I proceeded to catch up on some dishes, clean the kitchen a bit, grab a drink and hit the pc to catch up on some of my blogger friends. I guess time escaped me and I didn't make it back down there for about 45 minutes (10 minutes longer than the cycle evidently). So..empty basket in hand, I run down ONLY to discover all four units are now going and my wet clothes are piled in a heap ON THE FREEKING FLOOR. Ugh.. the excitement of Condo living, I so miss my own Washer/Dryer back at the old house. That will teach me to let it go until I absolutely have no underwear or Tshirts left. Is there some kind of small portable unit you can use in your Apartment/Condo secretly ?? Anyone know? I have sooo had it with community Laundromats, and well doing it at my mother's or gram's just is an incredible pain.

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Oh well, it's my Humpday today, since I'm working Sun-Thursday. It's great to be at the midpoint, these hours are killing me. I cannot believe the difference in the people who work 2nd and 3rd shift at my place of employment vrs. the day crew (who are quite the interesting lot themselves). I guess night shifts lend themselves to some pretty interesting people by and large. Either they are young and spaced out or middle aged and incapable of turning on a PC without my complete assistance. I guess you get what you pay for, and well we aren't paying so much. Everytime I have to go into the warehouse to resolve a problem, they all stand there like wide eyed yokels gawking at the new Mayor in town. Then they hover all over me while I try to get something done and make it impossible to concentrate. Ok..only two more days and it's over. *sigh*

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I've been sleeping too much, I feel like a walking zombie and haven't been able to run yet this week. I wonder what people who work these hours do with their lives, because at present I have no life. Moving right along.....

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Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanoff

I am not going to stray into many details of the short and tragic life of this young woman, should it interest you, click here. Essentially she was the fourth child, and youngest daughter of the ill fated Czar Nicholas II of Russia. She and her family met their untimely end at the hands of Revolutionists in the cellar of a home which had become their prison at Yekaterinburg Russia on July 17, 1918. The family was massacred by firing squad, then later dismembered and buried secretly, the location of which was only discovered in 1991. Rumors have floated around over the decades that Anastasia had somehow survived the ordeal in the person of a woman named Anna, identified more accurately after her death as a mentally ill peasant named Franziska Schanzkowska. MTDNA Testing (thanks to donations made by Prince Phillip of England, who shared a common ancestry with Anastasia and her siblings) has proven this without reasonable doubt. See my post on this fascinating scientific study here.

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This was all groundbreaking news in 1993 when a young singer-song writer from Baltimore, Maryland named Tori Amos would have been working on the completion of her 2nd solo album entitled Under The Pink , which was released in February of 1994. I submit an interview she gave, in typical zany Tori style from April of that year when asked about the incredibly beautiful piano ballad which served as it's last track and entitled "Yes Anastasia".

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"It's a journey. Anastasia Romanoff... it's not like I've read loads of books on her. I was aware of the family and that's about it. So I'm in Virginia, and I had crabs...I keep saying that! I had crab sickness, I had eaten bad crabs in Maryland! But I couldn't cancel the show. I was at soundcheck, and needless to say, when you are very, very ill, it is easier to communicate with your source... you are fragile and vulnerable. Well, her presence came. Now I have only heard of her in history, I've got no point to make. She comes and goes 'you've got to write my tune.' I 'go ohhh, now's not really a good time.' She says 'no, you've got to understand something from this, there's something here that you've got to come to terms with.' And that night came," as she softly sings the line "'We'll see how brave you are,' and that was really about the whole record. That came just about before everything. And whenever I sing that chorus, 'we'll see how brave you are,' it means so many different things to me. It's part of my self, my spirit self saying to the rest of myself, 'if you really want a challenge, just deal with yourself. The funny thing is that Anna Anderson, who claimed to be Anastasia, died very close to where I was playing, an hour or so from there in the 80s. The feeling I got that Anna Anderson was Anastasia Romanov. She always tried to prove it and a lot of people believed her and some people didn't want to believe her, because of what that would have meant. And again, it's really working through being a victim. 'Counting the tears from ten thousand men, and gathered them all, but my feel are slipping.' You can't blame the men anymore; there's always you. It comes back to us; it comes back to me."