Day got better....

Ok, so once the water was on, I was able to bathe and get to work - on a perfect day for driving! Windows down, stereo turned up, hair in a clip so it doesn't fly into my mouth.... today was an excellent time to be on the road. And it was a short call today, so I was back home in just a few hours.

Tonight - Atlantic City. Woooo!

*grumbles*

The water isn't working.

Let me expand on this. The township is currently rerouting the water in our town from another area while a sewer-clearing project is going on. This is to prevent sewage from backing up into the water lines in our houses. However, the water that comes in now has an unpleasant taste (from the pipes, I assume) and much lower water pressure than we're used to. Also, because the temporary pipes are above ground, if something happens, like some damn fool breaking a pipe by driving over it with his car, and driving away and not doing anything about it until someone else in another house on the street notices the toilet won't flush, for example, and then it takes a while for someone to get over and fix it, and....

Let's just say that if I'm not showering within the hour, someone will pay. I might make people have to smell me.

I'm updating away from home!

It's just that I never do this anywhere other than sitting on my bed, and it's a novelty.

I'm at my friend's house, waiting for her cousin to get here so we can go to a birthday dinner. Yay, birthdays! But the cousin is stuck in traffic, we think. Boo, stuck! It's hard to tell; we can't get through on the cell. So, we wait and I putz around in the office. Indifference!

I'm really just doing this from here so the blog shows up in the visited history and she'll be able to find it again. Because I'm bad about forwarding my address to people.

Ulterior motives, much?

edit - because it's (forty-five minutes past) midnite! The cousin never showed up, so we had a local do at the Cheesecake Factory instead of going all the way to P.F. Chang's. Still fun. They write "Happy Birthday To You" in flavored syrup around your dessert when you're the birthday person, apparently. Too Cute. J enjoyed her (literary-themed) gifts, too.

Rusty

Let's all give big wishes of hope and health for my grandfather's cat, Rusty, who is currently having trouble breathing due to fluid on his lungs and is in the vet's for observation. Rusty is a great cat, extremely friendly, and actually understands what people say to him. He'll actually come to you when you call him! He was a stray, adopted from the same feral community the gave my family pretty much all of their cats for the past five or so years. (Harry, Maggie, Mollie, Lil' Bit, Clover, and Cinnamon.)

It's odd; I noticed that the males are always super-friendly and smart, and the females are shy, elusive, and reluctant to let humans touch them. Discuss.

From my brother

His idea for a superhero. And I quote -

"CAPTAAAIIINNN BREAKFAAAST!!!

"What’s that kids? You don’t have time for breakfast? No problem!

"And he whips up something old people ate when they were kids, like goatmeal or lardcakes.

Brilliant right?"


I can see the comics now - Captain Breakfast Vs the Toaster Waffles of DOOOOOOM!

Speaking of Mr. Pratchett

The first two chapters of Making Money are very good, indeed. It's another Moist von Lipwig story (roguish man leaves past life of thievery, totally makes over civic services!), which is a nice treat. I'm mainly a fan of the Ankh-Morpork Watch stories, but this guy's growing on me.

Finished things, things in progress, things yet to be done

That's a generic title for ya. Woo!

I finished grafting the toe on the kid's second sock yesterday. They're finally done! I'm going to give them a spin through the wash (and wait for cooler weather) before he wears them anywhere, but they look fantastic. I also finished the first of a pair of Monkeys. I think when I remake these for my mother, I'll substitute a short-row heel, only because I dislike the look of heel flaps. I guess I'm just picky like that. Pictures are when my lazy butt actually decides to take them.... :)

I recently reread all six of my Jasper Fforde books. (The first four Thursdays and the first two NCDs, for the curious.) Out of order. Purposely. I like seeing where things that happen in the earlier books go to in the later ones, and reading them out of sequence makes the setups more visible. I like that. Fforde's a great writer; I hold him to the same high standards that I do Pratchett. He assumes that his reader knows what he's talking about when he makes out-of-the-ordinary references; does that make sense? It's not pandering to the lowest common denominator, which I can't stand. (See also: why I don't read romance novels) His books make you want to enthusiastically tackle the classics.

On the stove, right now, a pot of chicken rice soup is simmering. I made a roast chicken last night, and purposely chose side dishes that would work well in soup. (Except for the apple/raisin/onion stuffing inside the bird; does not translate well to broth-based dishes, lemme tell ya.) So tonight's meal is last night's, with extra water. Yay, I suppose. At least it's fast leftover turnaround, so there's no chance of developing Nasty Fungal Growths while in Refrigerator Limbo.

I finally started assembling my knitted backpack I started last summer. I hope I can actually finish it by winter. It's Mega Man, after all; how much would it rock to actually use it? :)

The shirt that I wanted to get my brother for Christmas is no longer available in his size. Boo! I don't know whether to get a medium and hope he hasn't eaten all month, or just chalk it up as a loss and think of something else.

The best album I forgot I had

I recently blew the dust off of my copy of Common Rotation's "The Big Fear". I first heard this band several years ago when they opened for They Might Be Giants, and then again when they did a show at Vintage Vinyl.

I forgot how good it was. Damn.

If you go to their web site, you can download "Indie Rockin'", the first track. Tell me you don't love it. I'll whup ya.

Also currently rocking my world - the bass line to TMBG's "Withered Hope". Woo!

While I wait for things to print out....

I have a whole lot of paperwork printing at this moment.... ah, the fun of my job, it's so... something something something. Actually, I rather enjoy it, but I'm setting up Holiday displays in my stores (Holiday displays? and summer isn't officially even over yet.... sigh....) and they require several million pages of planogram each, so I sit patiently while good ol' DJ (that's DeskJet for the rest of ya) cranks out page after page in draft mode so I can actually get moving some time this week.

Went to New Hope with the girls this past weekend. It was a blast - I hadn't had a girls' day in such a long time, and it was a relief to just head out and check out ten gazillion shops and things. Yay. There's this one place, I forget the name, they charge twenty cents admission to get into the store - but you do get a lucky pig. I kid you not. It's in my wallet right now. It was well worth it; it was a thrift shop, but the best possible kind. There were action figures and lunchboxes and silly things along with the expected vintage clothing and kick-ass hats and the like. I found what appeared to be an Emerald City Guard uniform on a costume rack, many Hefner-esque men's dressing gowns, and The Greatest Pants Ever - white corduroy with aqua and lime animal print. And what did I buy? A figurine of Arthur from the Tick. For three bucks, only! A fine addition to the toy collection. A shop right next to a "magic supplies" store sells some of the best organic coffee I've ever had. There's a bookstore that had another dimension - I swear I entered L-space at one point. We went to a restaurant called Wildflowers, which serves a combination of Mexican, Italian, Thai, and American food. Since there was four of us.... let's just say we covered the gamut. It was a blast, and the desserts were great.

Looks like I'm getting toward the end of the stack of papers here. Good timing, too - my black ink seems to be running low.

A list of Things

Inspired by Laurie (from Crazy Aunt Purl; read, laugh, obsess, buy a book.), I shall make a bad-mood busting list of Things that I Enjoy.

My son
Obviously. He cheers me up like nobody's business. Even when he's the one whose actions have gotten me cheesed off in the first place, a little hug or cuddle from the kid gets me right back on track.

Secret Platinum deodorant
Because nobody likes a sweaty fat chick. Now, I am simply a chick. Without an unpleasant odor. Bonus!

Rediscovering gaming
I haven't played a tabletop roleplaying game in YEARS. Still liked them, just didn't play any. Now, I'm in one game and pl anning on starting another. Hooray! It's like improv, without the appreciative audience! And with dice. And geeks. But geeks rock. So there you go.

Lion brand Magic Stripes yarn (and any other self-striping sock yarn, actually)
Let me tell you about this stuff! I love knitting things with a lot of different and fun colors. I detest weaving in ends. I have mittens and a hat sitting and waiting for their ends to be taken care of, and they look sad, but I systematically avoid working on them. Intarsia, fair isle, they're great for adding stuff. Don't get me wrong. Once you know how to do them, you can use them judiciously to make things beautiful. But I digress. Hate changing colors in a piece, especially small items. And lo and behold.... self striping sock yarn! In many many colors! And the Lion Magic Stripe was cheap at the craft store, so I got what, five different colorways? I can make socks that look like they took a million billion years, and yet it's TV knitting in the round. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee! That's some awesome stuff.

The cats and the laser pointer
Enough Said.

I will add more lists of great stuff as they occur to me.

Also: sorry about the hiatus int he hero stuff. I'll be on that sooner or later, I'm sure. Until then, just remember - mutant super powers do not a well-rounded hero make. Talking like Yoda, on the other hand, interesting makes your sentence structure, hmmmm? Yes, innate telekinesis. I threatened to use it at work last weekend. Still one of my favorite powers.

The World loses its voice.

Arrivederci, Pavarotti.

Kindergarten, no crabbing here!

I don't think I have ever seen a kid so eager to get inside and go to class on the first day. Kiddo was practically storming the place. Some of his classmates were a bit more reserved, but he was enthusiastic and ready to party!

He looked sharp, too, in a striped polo shirt and charcoal slacks, and new shoes (that even the principal noticed!). But then, he's a great-looking kid, even with my natural bias.

He came home just as happy as he was dropped off. What a great kid!

Crabs and Kindergarten

For Labor Day, we had the family over. Not the whole family, just my aunt, grandparents, and, um, those of us who live here. The plan was crab legs, corn on the cob, and salads. No biggie, right?

Why on earth did we decide it was an awesome idea to get ten pounds of crab legs? (five each of king crab and snow crab) Especially when neither my mother nor I have ever prepared crabs before? Well, we set a pot of broth on the stove (crab flavored, swiped from some ramen packages), mixed in some old-bay seasoning, and after fighting with and cleaning the legs (TEN POUNDS!) we set them in a bamboo steamer on top of the pot. We perhaps should have measured first....

The steamer overhang the edges of the pot by about an inch all around. There was a layer of dried broth around the edges of the burner when we were done. It was a disaster, except for one thing.....

they were delicious. Apparently, you can't wreck crab as easily as I had thought. Hooray! Unfortunately, there were leftovers. Pounds and pounds of leftovers. We foisted them off on the relatives, knowing full well how even the yummiest leftovers go ignored in this house. Also, the bamboo steamer still kind of smells like the bad part of the Shore. Ick. I hope time and repeated washings get that out before we try to use that puppy on vegetables....

Quick, other topic! Today is the kiddo's last day before Kindergarten starts!

...

TETSUOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I'm watching Akira.

Excitement over Super Smash Bros for Wii!

My source (Hi, Rob!) has let me know about one of the levels that will be in this upcoming Wii release: Wario Ware Minigames. Yep, the environment will change every five seconds. That'll be fun to pull off. I am SO hyped up for this game! Is it Decemberween yet?

But enough about my character.

Last night, I played my first round of Werewolf in, what, ten years? It was shockingly easy to get back into. For those who care, I play a geeky, pudgy Glass Walker named Tommy, who we've nicknamed Choji. What? He likes to eat. It's a quirk. I played it up, but then, it didn't help that our story teller began the story in a diner. Just saying.....

It was fun! I enjoyed finding a way to solve problems in-character (he's a thinker, not a fighter, much to the dismay of some of our pack's warrior-types) and act out a couple of gags. (Yes, it is a bad idea to call your pack leader "Big Momma".) There are some disturbing elements of the game, but when you think about it, we are portraying horror-movie monsters, so it's no surprise when the plots and themes are the stuff that nightmares are made of. Mostly, it's the staying long after the game is over, laughing with the other players, that makes it great.

I also amused people by working on a sock in-game. ("Yeah; Tommy's not doing this.") I haven't turned the heel yet, so some of the boys thought it was a dice bag.

Also, I need to go buy crab legs today. Yum!