Thanksgiving day

• Was up at eight to bake loaf 2 of pumpkin bread and to make breakfast before turning into a parade zombie for three hours and then running out the door. Managed to do all of it and my butt was on the couch with a plate of pancakes and a mug of coffee precisely at 9am.
  
  
• Watched the parade. If you read my tweets from the 25th you'll know that I completely FAILED to resist the temptation to livetweet the last 2/3rds of it, but there was so much to squee and snark upon this year.
  
  Two special things of note: This year's Rockette tallies - 1 Asian, 2 Black, and one Latina girl this year, all shoved to the back of formations while the blondes got to be in front. Also I feel the need to mention this guy, his outfit (it looks like the Grinch, Flavor Flav, a Muppet and the NBC peacock had a bastard furbaby), his scary balloons, and the fact that I realized last night that he's the same guy who did this particular $15M statue (not safe for work OR life). *dot dot dot* well, at least he looked both warm and like he was having the time of his life, but I'm still kinda surprised (in a sort of good way) that they let a guy who sold a life size hentai statue of a boy wielding a cum lasso design (creepy cute) balloons for the parade. Either that or Macy's parade committee hasn't figured out how to google yet. Still, oh, Japan.
  
  
• I joined cell23's extended family for Thanksgiving, much to everyone's apparent delight. We met up with the kids there, pictures were taken, whack a mole was played, and I discovered that Kidzilla likes to giggle over silly pictures of her father as much as I and her grandmother do. Dinner at cell23's grandparents was delicious. I failed to weigh in on the Great Stuffing Debate. I liked both of them, sorry boys. The pumpkin bread I brought seemed to be a hit, and there was pie and the carrot cake cell23's mom made for my belated birthday. So NOM NOM NOM. We also had an entertaining round of Apples to Apples which Kidzilla did quite well in despite us playing the grown-up version... this led to some hilariously awkward moments.

Black Friday

Y'all saw the pictures. Fuck your Black Friday.

Saturday

Other than the movie and poop debacle at the end if the night, lol, Saturday was kind of an easygoing, visit-the-other-grandparents kind of day, which we did - we spent a quiet afternoon over at the Geoffroys (and had another Thanksgiving dinner/lunch that couldn't be beat). Shortly after we arrived home The Internet pounded on our door baying for cell23; he later spent a little time hanging with them while me and the kids had movie night (ha ha ha ha ha). After they got put to bed, lysscat pinged me asking if she could escape The Internet's invasion of her house, so she came over and we chilled and bitched and ate leftover pumpkin bread. I need to hang out with her more often. :)

After cell23 came back, Lovebug woke up wanting a glass of water. Not sure what happened then but cell23 ended up bringing him into our room to fall back asleep; I spent the night being adorably snored at and snuggled by both of them. *squee*

Sunday

• Dragged myself out of bed at ass-o'clock for bell rehearsal at 8:45 and got a warm welcome back from everyone. I guess they missed me! We played some kinda expansion on "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" which came out quite nice and I hummed carols on the quick drive home.
  
  
• Which was just as well because LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, TIS THE SEASON FOR ALL DAY CHRISTMAS CAROLS ON THE RADIO.
  
  
• oh my god you guys, so to celebrate (and catch up!) with cell23's, aliwings', and my birthdays, cell23's family treated us to buffet brunch at this place. Yes, go look at the menu, I'll wait.
  
  Done? Yeah. I ate myself SILLY to the point of actually being too full to breathe properly. Don't care it was DELICIOUS. And then there were birthday cards, presents (belated birthday money and the last two books in Scott Pilgrim for the win) and these individual chocolate cakes that were so rich that once we cut up enough to let everyone have a slice there was still a cake and a half that went home with us afterwards. oooof. So yeah that happened.
  
  ALSO SO MANY DUCKS. I should have brought that end of a stale loaf with me. Though I imagine those ducks are fat enough from all the kids feeding them.
  
  
• After taking the kiddos boot shopping with Grandma, cell23 and I drove them home, came back and hung out at deliriumdeva's and renegadethumper's for a bit and watched their cat valiantly try to eat their Christmas tree. We returned to find we had no internet. OH NOES. After doing the usual swearing and router cycling and cable jiggling and checking if the TV still worked (it did) we gave up and tried to piggyback one of the networks in the general vicinity... to find that they weren't connected either. So I wandered over to verbena76's and aersi's to confirm that yes indeed, pretty much everyone we knew had lost their internet. I'm honestly surprised that the outcry of deprived nerds wasn't louder. *shakes fist* COMCAST. Apparently they had a DNS server fail that took out a good chunk of their East Coast customers. O_o Wow. FAIL.

Anyway. That was my weekend. Now I feel all caught up in LJ (publicly, anyway, lol). Time to go catch up in other departments.

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No idea. If someone answering this writer's block knows, let me know? ;)

I kid. Obviously the diplomatic answer is however long you need, using whatever methods you deem necessary to cope. I've gained plenty of amusement from the so-called "bad advice" of "the best way to get over one person is to get under another" because in a lot of ways that is exactly how I deal with heartbreak, even if I know that's not exactly healthy. And yet I also know I completely fail to thrive on my own. There's a lot of stuff I sealed off and shut away from the last relationship meltdowns that I couldn't deal with until I was at least 95% sure cell23 and I were stable and he wasn't going to be freaked out by me being crazy, and there's some other stuff I probably won't unpack until I'm about, oh, 172% or more. Just how I roll, I guess.

There's a dramatic part of me that wants to say you never recover from such things, but that's not true. I say this while peering down at my belly button, or more specifically the scar bisecting it that only now, two years and change after it got there, is beginning to loosen its grip on the surrounding skin, soften, and fade. Two years though. And it'll never go away, not completely. The landscape of my abdomen is altered forever. But it's less a disfigurement and more of a badge of survival, even though getting it hurt like hell. Scars on the heart and soul are much the same, really. They heal and leave you stronger for that healing.

Incidentally? I still have staples in my intestine. Truefax. What, it's not like they could go in and pull them out like they could with the outside. But they're there, I've seen them in the VCE footage, embedded in pink tissue like bits of the Titanic plowed into the ocean floor. It's got the same kind of creepy eerieness. But yeah, stretching the metaphor until it snaps, it amuses me sometimes to imagine this strange stitches-and-staples covered, Frankenstein-like beast in my chest rather than the reasonably (or so I'm assuming/hoping) healthy actual heart patiently keeping my ass alive. 'Least it makes me smile when it's hurting.


I'm faced with an OMG DO ALL THE THINGS sort of day today since this weekend was hijacked with books and lazy. No real regrets, but today and indeed this week, I need to get stuff done. In the meantime I've blown through Naamah's Kiss and of course enjoyed it quite a bit (Jacqueline Carey is purely fluff reading, but at least it's engaging/sexy fluff reading!), but I'm going to be good and not start book two for a while. That whole needing to get shit done thing. Gods, so many irons in the fire this month! Oh well.

It occurs to me that little things make me inordinately happy. Caramel cream cheese on aersi's spice bread, listening to cell23 sing in the shower in the morning, squares of warm sunshine on an otherwise freezing kitchen floor, crawling into a pre-toasted bed at night (that electric blanket was probably one of the best presents I'd ever been given, seriously), how the inside of a not exactly new but new enough hoodie feels before it goes all balled up and felted from washing.... And then there was yesterday when I asked deliriumdeva if I could borrow her sifter so I could make pancake flour before the kids show up next weekend, and mysteriously after she runs into cell23at Target, he comes home with one for me. Eeeeeeeeee.

Well. Today and all the things within aren't going to do themselves. Behave, netmonkeys.

Oh lazy do nothing Saturday. I haven't had one of you in a looooooooooooong time.

Seriously today was sleep till noon, drink scads of coffee, watch 30Rock with the Manbeast, bake bread, bake pumpkin bread, shell a pomegranate, potter around with various web projects and read shit kind of day. I've finished The Lightning Thief on everyone's overwhelming recommendation... am kind of on the fence about it, honestly. I took something of a dislike to Percy, and it's hard to read something where you don't much like the protagonist. And unlike Katniss, whom I also kinda disliked at the beginning of The Hunger Games, he failed to grow on me as the book progressed. I may take avalon616's offer of borrowing at least the second one later on though, see if that one does a better job holding my attention but so far... eh. Not really impressed.

Gonna dive into the two doorstops on my list next, I think - first Naamah's Kiss (depending on if I like it or not, I may immediately follow it with Curse), then Kavalier and Clay. By the time I'm done with those I'll be in the mood for light and fluffy so I'll read The Season, then probably give the two ? books on my list a shot. And then devour cell23's books, as he'll likely be done with them by then.

tomorrow, I need to put in some serious OMG WRITE time, as all the reading has distracted me thoroghly from that project, and then clean the cesspit that our room has become lately, and plan for the week... Also tend to some time sensitive stuff that needs doing. But I'm hoping overall it'll be quiet and low key as today was. I really need that right now.

...okay, one of you people needs to tell me how to get a cute little custom icon next to my username. I envy ruisseau and khristomophelle their wee pirates. ENVY I tell you. Halp? I know it has something to do with selling a bit of your soul to the Russians, but I'm fuzzy on the exact procedure.

Also I has new dragons. Nothing fancy this time, I'm mostly being a good samaritan and clearing balloons out of the cave. But I will likely hang on to the purple and the pygmy. I figure I'll get back into the habit of having at least a couple of eggs on tap, considering the Lovebug seems to think they're really cool and asks if I've gotten new eggs since he's last seen em. Adding new things to his interest list besides THOMAS/Trains, Daddymonsters, being a kitty and DINOSAURTRAINDINOSAURTRAINDINOSAURTRAIN is always a good thing. :)

See, I don't lie.

Oh yeah, I voted and stuff too. But more importantly, there's a bag of cookies on my desk and two pumpkin spice muffins in my belly. Civic duty is YUMMY.

I'ma get dressed and go vote in a few.

I wish it was because I truly gave a shit (I'm on the fence), but really, it's because Sunderland Elementary usually has a pretty good bake sale going on Election Day and the prospect of home baked cookies will usually get me to get dressed and go do just about anything. I am nostalgic for the bake sale the Northampton Senior Center threw for the presidential election though. Grandma baked goods >>>>>> Mommy baked goods. Truefax.

Anyway go vote. There may be cake.

But I do have to do this one.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MASTERADEPT!!!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled non glittery programming.

Today's phrases are "WORK LIKE FIEND" and "CLEAN ALL THE THINGS." I have done more scrubbing today you guys, oof. However I seem to be falling into a nice comfy pattern of "It's Friday! I need to clean the house!" And lo, the house gets cleaned, so it seems to be all good. As opposed to be being all "It's friday! OMG! Clean the house!" and then not cleaning and feeling like crap about it. So um, I guess at least stuff's getting done? And I got actual bathroom cleaning stuff, so there may have been chemical fume inspired cackling. Maybe.

I seem to be comfortably back into size 16 pants, with the ability to get into one particular pair of 14Ws that I've been saving in my closet for a couple years. They're only a wee bit tight. Alas, my everyday pants are officially too big - I put them on this morning and realized I could easily have done so without unzipping/buttoning. There's like three inches of space between belly button and waistband. Normally I'd be all oh hai smaller pants, except I don't really have anything in my closet currently that's not 18/20 except for the aforementioned pair I have on. Crap. That's kinda the problem with gaining/losing a bunch of weight for whatever reason - I hate going clothes shopping.

I have to clean and work MOAR now. Possibly also eat something too. At least the rampant nausea's more or less done so I actually get hungry as opposed to nauseated when I then have to translate into hungry. Stupid digestion.

• Kidzilla's "Adventures" are getting more and more interesting. Yesterday we had to figure out how to attract sun bears that had invaded Venus. Her idea of playing a CD of their mating calls through the spaceship loudspeaker caused a stampede of them, so we have to think of a way that's not quite as effective. D: Tune in next time (aka later today) to find out where we end up next.
  
  
• tagged along for cell23's parents taking Kidzilla shopping for new shoes and school clothes; had a surprising amount of fun doing so. I now sort of understand why my sisters and Mom used to find an unholy pleasure in taking me shopping - meanwhile I remember it being excruciating. But other than a tendency to not really focus on what she was supposed to be good, Kidzilla was pretty well behaved and reasonably easy to shop for - pretty much it came down to me or her grandma holding up things and going "yes? no?" and occasionally "pick a color."
  
  (cell23, I might remark, took one look at the girls' section of Target, picked up Lovebug and vanished, mumbling something about this being way out of his league. Cackle.)
  
  There was a moment where I picked something off the rack because I was all "okay that's adorable" and held it up for Kidzilla's inspection, fully expecting her to hate it... Um. Her eyes got so big with "I CAN HAZ THAT???" that I was afraid they were going to fall right out of her head.
  
  
  
  The only problem we had during the entire shopping trip is that boy howdy she did not want to put the dress she came to the store in back on after trying this. But she got to put it on as soon as we got back to cell23's.
  
  
• The other big event for yesterday was aersi's bachelorette party. Bean did not want the penis hat.
  
  We started it up at House of Teriyaki, where I rather gorged myself on edemame and maki.
  
  
  
  No I didn't eat ALL of that. The two big rolls in the middle are aersi's.
  
  The second bit was a trip to Elements Hot Tubs and Spa in Amherst, which I'm actually really glad I went to because a) it was fun b) I apparently rather needed the hour long hot-tub soak and didn't know it - 12 hours later, and I'm still pretty much a limp noodle. Man, it's a pity hot tub trips are so damn expensive, I'd totally make it a monthly indulgence otherwise. But yeah five giggly women with wedding Mad Libs (read in our best porn star voices) and hot water? nice. Very nice.
  
  I think yesterday was also the first time Hanzo has ever carried his capacity of passengers; I'm sure he was all HELLO LADIES. Me, I had no objection to chauffeuring four lovely women around either... even though driving after hot tubs made for an interesting experience.



• came home and would have fallen over instantly except EPEEN was all like O HAI I HAS A VIRUS AGAIN FIX ME. (Fucking fake antivirus hijackers.) Luckily I had the shit set up so I could deal with the problem quickly this time, and then spent a bit tightening the security in various parts of my machine. Ugh. On the list of THINGS TO DO IN THE NEXT YEAR: Do some serious OS maintenance on EPEEN. He's a year or so overdue.

Today: gotta figure out some way of dealing with the sun bears, among other things.

I've actually had this meme done in advance for a while, I was just copypasta-ing each days entry. Kinda tired of doing that, and kinda annoyed by having my journal hijacked by it for a whole month, so here's the whole thing, with links back to the days I already did and the new stuff behind LJ cuts. So yeah, maybe I can yammer about some other kind of inanity for a change.

( Days 1-19 )

Day 20. A song that you listen to when you’re angry ( Das Ich, 'Destillat (VNV Nation Remix)' / Ladytron, 'Ghosts' )
Day 21. A song that you listen to when you’re happy ( Chairlift, 'Bruises' / Basshunter, 'DotA' )
Day 22. A song that you listen to when you’re sad ( Johnny Cash, 'Hurt' )
Day 23. A song that you want to play at your wedding ( Muse, 'Hysteria' )
Day 24. A song that you want to play at your funeral ( Oingo Boingo, 'Dead Man's Party' / Boyz II Men 'So Hard to Say Goodbye (to Yesterday)' )
Day 25. A song that makes you laugh ( Günther & the Sunshine Girls, 'The Ding Dong Song' / Flight of the Conchords, 'If You're Into It' )
Day 26. A song that you can play on an instrument ( Antonio Vivaldi, 'Winter (Largo)' )
Day 27. A song that you wish you could play ( Johann Sebastian Bach, 'Little Fugue in G Minor' )
Day 28. A song that makes you feel guilty ( Fiona Apple, 'Criminal' )
Day 29. A song from your childhood ( Grandmaster Flash, 'The Message' / Culture Club,'Karma Chameleon'  )
Day 30. Your favorite song at this time last year ( Rasputina, 'Rock and Roll' )


BONUS ROUND: have a questionnaire.

( raaaaaaandom useless questions )