anagram of brat

All around I'd call yesterday a success. Shit got paid, errands got run, three loads of laundry got did, shopping happened, dinner happened and at the end of the day there was cell23 and I horsing around with an overexcited Lily, which is always good for 45 minutes of straight giggling.

Oh speaking of which, I came home between errandry to find cell23 had left me this charming note:



Our cat, ladies and gentlemen. Now with warning labels.

Yesterday's errandry involved bidding a fond farewell to some of my Books of Greater Paganery. It's long been time for them to find newer, more interested eyes to peruse them, and the other day I put up a bunch of stuff on PBS, all of which got requested almost immediately. While I still identify as nebulously Pagan religiously, the truth of the matter is these days I seem to be a proud member of the First Church of Not Really Giving A Rat's Ass, lol. Okay that's not true either. I think it's more of an understanding between me and To Whom It May Concern that we mutually keep our distance until needed. I'm okay with this. Regarding the books, though, I'm always glad to pass something of mine on to someone who can use/love it more. And hey, PBS credits are nothing to sneeze at.

In "moar weird shit from my past rising to thwonk me in the skull" news, I report with great amusement that jaicat relaunched the MSFC on Facebook. Thankfully while at Stop and Shop last night I managed to quell the burning need to buy out either strawberry or red jell-o in commemoration. Regarding the MSFC, don't ask, you just had to have been there back in the days of PINE email and bored college students without social media to entertain them, so what did we do? WE ENTERTAINED OURSELVES.

Today's plan includes inhaling what strange brew of meat and vegetables cell23 has thrown into the crock pot and tending to items on the list that I did not get to yesterday. Apparently maintaining a consistent level of busy is a good mindset for me, as well as staying on top of where my time goes and not letting things like the Internet suck away chunks of time. Again... we'll see how far I get. :) No pressure.

~~

This is "Lily." It's in quotes cause we've only 95% decided on her name. Mostly cause Lovebug still wants to call her Molly. (She was Sadie at the shelter.)

So far she seems super chill - settled down in the carrier for the car ride home like it wasn't no big thing. And after the initial OMGHIDEUNDERBED (which only lasted about 20min) she's been exploring and begging for pettings from all of us. Yes, including the kids. She's been pretty chill with them. Also she jumped in my lap and put her paws on my keyboard as I was trying to tweet about her arrival, so... :) I think we found a good match.

Pretty much what instantly sold me on her was that I walked into the colony room at Dakin and I put out my hand for her to sniff and she sat up on her hind legs and headbutted my hand to get lovings. I was pretty much done, I love cats that do that. So far the only problems we forsee happening is that she's a very athletic jumper (her sheet said "counter surfer") and has apparently a bottomless stomach and an affinity for people food. Oh also, she sheds. We'll have to find a kitty brush soon. Meanwhile I need to mainline loratadine until I get used to her.



cell23 is on cloud >9000 and the kids are happy, even if Lovebug spent the majority of the shelter trip tantruming about how he wanted to go to the library instead. Orz.

Oh local peeps, there's a segment on Dakin airing on abc40 tonight at 6. You _might_ see Kidzilla getting a butterfly painted on her face. :)

*insert crabby whining about cell23's flight home being cancelled due to snowstorm*

I know I know, it's fine, I'd rather have him safe in DC than trying to travel in this mess, and he'll be home tomorrow, but still, ugh, *WHINE* my house is too damn quiet without him, even with music/news radio on.

There, okay I'm done now, stop throwing up.


In other news, I bounced out of bed at 8:30, worked pretty much all day, handled a crisis, and conducted more interesting experiments in Asian cuisine. (ETA: I apparently make a pretty damn good egg drop soup.) Also got the kitchen cleaned up finally. I'm apparently doing something right this week. And apparently bell rehearsal is still on, which I'm mostly yay about except for the venturing out in the cold part, which I'm not a fan of doing right now.

LOVE ME MY DEVOTED MINIONS:


Get your own valentinr

NOW LOVE KIDZILLA'S DRAGONS:

The good news is that I'm more or less over the cold. Still phlegmy and coughing but I no longer feel like microwaved death. It was kind of a revalatory moment sometime yesterday when I just had an "oh hey, I'm better" moment and started acting/feeling human again, whee.

I found out yesterday that I lost one of my aunts. Not one I was particularly close to, but still even though I rarely saw her she was sort of... I guess constantly present? I don't know. Still processing out how to feel about that. Anyway, no idea how things are going to fall out regarding services and whatnot, but since I'm heading to New York anyway to see Dad anyway I suppose that will get figured out when I get there.

Dad seems to be reasonably all right all things considered. Still not really sure where I am there either, other than my usual pit of stomach dread at going home. Graaaagh.

I took a fair amount of sadistic glee in making cell23 sit through the Miss America pageant yesterday. Well, okay it was more a "if I'm making myself suffer through it, I require company." It was about as bad as you'd expect, though there was that extra special moment when Miss Arkansas broke out the ventriloquist dummies and started yodeling. What. If I were any of those girls, I'd have been pissed that she made it to first runner up. WTF. I was personally rooting for Miss Delaware, seeing as she has alopecia and competed in a series of nice but probably purposefully obvious wigs.

Oh also, the shoes in the DSW Miss America collection? awful. Yeesh. I'll be really glad when sleeveless formalwear and peekaboo toe pumps go back out of fashion because ugh, really?

I finally tried out Rock Band for Wii this morning as for some reason I'd been avoiding it since cell23 brought it home at Christmas. Nah, that's a little disingenuous, I know exactly why I've been avoiding it, and it's a dumb emo reason. It's still abysmal trying to get it calibrated on Monstervision, but I can usually get it close enough to compensate for lag, and I actually was having fun playing it and talking to Kidzilla about The Clash and The Ramones and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (she's still too shy to actually try playing, but she likes the music a lot). I think I may pack her home with a mix CD later. :)

It's been a pretty good kid weekend overall despite everyone being under the weather/actually sick and cranky. (Both kids are getting over colds/stomach bugs, Kidzilla more than Lovebug). Poor cell23 has had to take care of everybody this weekend. Have I mentioned I love him? *sheepish*

Pretty much the next day and a half are going to be kiddos and wrapping up business up here, because at this rate I'm going to be in NY until at least next weekend. *twitch* No help for it, but... yeah. Y'all have been here with me, you know how heading down without backup does wonders for my headnoise. Whee. Oh well. Meantime I'm gonna try and soak up enough squishy kid and manbeast vibe as possible to take with me and hope that'll be enough to get through the week.

The problem with mostly working from home is that snow days are pretty much days like any other except for the prospect of company. In this case, lots of it, as digging out Squire is a dodgy proposition at this point and I know at least two people have completely failed to get out of here and everyone else are on official snow day time. Still, there's about a foot on the ground so far and the storm is scheduled to rage for the remainder of the day. Perhaps I will venture out and take some pictures later.

cell23, bless him made a valiant effort to go to work this morning, but snow is mighty and River is a teeny little car. He'd have had better luck taking Hanzo, but I didn't think to let him know that until after he was out there. I very much doubt anyone'll be checking his stickers today. Nevertheless he did make the attempt, and he just charged back out to give virtualdragon a hand with his. *shakes head* He's a good man, that man o' mine. (ETA: ah. That attempt was more successful, as he just IMed me from work.)

Seeing as all of MA is well and truly whitefucked until at least tomorrow, today seems like a good opportunity to play a little catchup with workstuff, so that, along with some around-the-house type pottering, is what I plan to do. But first, I think more coffee and some investigation on whether there's anything left in that box of Frosted Flakes the manbeast brought home last night is in order. Or oatmeal. Haven't decided which.

ETA: Just a quick housekeeping note - if you have a dreamwidth account, can you add my username to your circle pretty please? I'm not switching, but I do have an account over there (same username) for locked comment and reading porpoises.

I finally figured out a use for my Christmas Kindle* that does not make the baby Kal-El** cry:



Who doesn't need her sheet reprinted tonight? THIS TIEFLING PSION BITCH, that's right.

Already planning on tossing my WoD character sheets on here too, as well as some other game related PDFs I've got laying around that I don't feel like reading on my computer. Why hello there, NERDBOX3000***, how are you today?


* Insert usual rant about my irrational luddite hatred of e-readers. But since the gods have a sense of humor, I ended up with one for Christmas.

** cell23 and I watched Superman: the Movie last night. It was a lot better than I expected, but that may have been because I was watching cell23 react to it more than the actual movie, which proved just as interesting.

*** aaaaand name acquired.

A public service announcement to everyone dating Black women:

Never ever ever EVER get our hair wet without permission. Not even in the shower. Trust me, we have gotten the art of showering without dampening the hair down to a SCIENCE. So just because I'm standing in the shower covered in soap? THE HAIR BE DRY. UNTIL YOUR ASS DECIDED TO DROP COLD WATER ON MY HEAD THAT IS.

Consequences include dick punching, all of today's chores and other acts of violence.

Excuse me, I have to dig cell23's shovel out of his car so I can bury his dumb corpse.

Goddamn, cell23 had some serious GQ motherfucker mojo on last night.

Seriously I would totally pay him to just loll about being manly in classy 3 piece suits if I could.

Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)
Day Seven: Four turn-offs.
Day Eight: Three turn-ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.

Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.

Interestingly enough, these are both from comics.

1. 
   
   This is a panel from Jhonen Vasquez' I Feel Sick, also known as Fisher Price® My First Comic Book™. (Well, the first one I ever actually liked.) Way back in '99 my then boss and friend Jim handed me the first issue of this (it was a 2 parter) saying "oh hey, this isn't really my style, but I think you'll really like it." Years later, it's still one of my favorite things ever.
   
   What's happening at this point is Devi (in the purple hair) has been nagged, cajoled and generally pain-in-the-assed outside by her best friend Tenna after a long period of shutting down and hiding in her apartment consumed with work (and not being able to complete it), fear/disappointment after a string of guys have all tried to kill her in some bizarre way on the first date, and what turns out to be a parasitic force living in/feeding off her head, preventing her from creating/working.
   
   Yeah, that sound ENTIRELY too familiar right now.
   
   It's funny, when I first picked up the comics a decade ago, I identified more with Tenna than with Devi. Now it just seems like I get Devi's position a lot more these days. So the task of finding and beating up the psychotic doll using my brainmeats to become real becomes obvious, eh?
   
   As a side note, I almost didn't find this image. Way back when I built a fan site for I Feel Sick, and when I was thinking up answers to this question I tore up EPEEN trying to find a backup of said site, seeing as it's been offline for years. I finally found it wedged in a folder on a folder in a folder in the wrong folder in a folder, and browsing all the panel scans made me go downstairs, yank the now falling-apart issues off the shelf and reread them. Hasn't lost any of its punch years later. Just my perspective's changed. Also made me nostalgic for the site itself. Jesus, all that work trying to accomplish an effect with tables and slices that HTML 4 and CSS could accomplish now like nothing.
   
   
   
2. 
   
   Poking around on DA, I found this fan sketch of Fucshia and Criminy from Sinfest. Their weird but sweetly adorable "girl from the wrong side of the tracks plane of reality falls in love with boy stuck in self erected fortress of solitude" story arc has been a slowly developing subplot in the comic for a while now.
   
   The surface connotation/analogy and why it is OMG RELEVANT TO MAI LYFE should be pretty damned obvious, and if it isn't you haven't been paying attention to my icons much. ;) I do have to admit I'm charmed by the less obvious parallels between their relationship and mine with cell23, not least of which being both the near simultaneous timeline and the courtship via books (though the one I gave him ages ago didn't then try to devour him and everything/one else). Needless to say, I'm shipping them super hard and hope they ultimately work out.
   

Speaking of which (and obvious connotations) the coincidental timing of this isn't lost on me. On 12/15/08, on a whim and a spirit of "fuck it all, I'm doing this" I blew off the second half of my workday to go first out to lunch, then on an ill-advised adventure with a certain young man. Quite a bit happened that afternoon, but one of the bits that stands out in my head was stopping in the side doorway of Thornes after getting ice cream and kissing cell23 for the first time after wanting to for longer than I'm willing to admit. Even though I wouldn't own up to it until later, that was pretty much the moment I lost my heart. Two years later and the pain in the ass still hasn't given it back. Which is okay, I've got his. Nyeh.

Life is so goddamn WEIRD sometimes. The day I met him back in 2004, he and chirping_monkey were a) together b) parents of a fresh baked baby girl that liked having her toes played with (and still does) c) giving me the side-eye for being Janra's stunt cunt. If someone had told me where I'd end up six years later... yeah, about that. It took a lot of hellfire, heartbreak and disaster for both of us to end up here, and I still occasionally catch myself looking at him and thinking "Wait, what? How did that happen?" Not that how matters all that much anymore.

Anyway. Two years later and we haven't killed each other yet. Here's to getting to 3, 5, 10 and forever. <3


- (The four at the end are Kidzilla's. Yep, she's started her own scroll. XD )

Guys, I think I've found my calling in life, or something, because I apparently throw bitchin parties. 'Course with the crowd of people that showed up to our house to properly usher cell23's fourth decade in last night, it's quite hard to have a bad party. Hell even the people that couldn't come but sent well-wishes via twitter (you were there in spirit, Mr. Berube!) helped, so yeah. There were also Muppets, Batman, Castlevania, and Mario Kart assisting. :) Special guest stars: cell23's now infamous Gay Bar Dance while he beat the shit out of his princess pinata (aersi helped). The terrifying pin the tail on the donkey game that oneforellis brought that looked like a donkey staring worriedly at his ass as red liquid appeared to pour out of it (it was supposed to be a target painted on, but it looked way too much like severe intestinal damage). THE MOTHERFUCKING INDIANA JONES CAKE WITH WORKING BALL. That's right you heard me. That cake was BOSS.

But yeah, you know how you know it was a good party? 2 reasons: 1) I just stumbled downstairs in search of breakfast (by the way, aersi? you're a motherfucking genius, thank you for the bagels) saw the horror my living room and kitchen are after everything... and grinned my face off. 2) The part where towards the end of the evening, cell23 (who tends to detest having a big thing made of his birthday, so yes, I threw him a party cause I'm a bitch like that ;) ) was being glomphed by all the remaining ladies present, and while cackling maniacally, declared that he should turn 30 every year.

I clearly win at everything. Including hangovers. I had quite a bit of "kool-aid" (hawaiian punch, sierra mist, tangerine vodka and slushed ice make great punch, btw) and then another_murray brought over pomegranate liqueur and i was just done for afterward. but I only have a bit of a headache this morning and that may well be because I forgot to make/get coffee. Yeah, I know.

But yeah, thanks guys. And happy birthday cell23. I love you, and I think it's safe to say so does everyone who was in attendance. :)