anagram of brat

OH HAI WHASSUP SNOWPOCALYPSE.

I took a bunch of pictures on my journey/adventure through the blizzard home. Alas, my camera cable seems to have run away and I don't feel like looking for it. But yeah, what should have been a 5 hour trip max door to door (three if I'd driven) took 9. I can't even.

Christmas was. I will post a roundup a bit later when I thaw out a bit more and my brain feels less like someone sawed off the top of my head and ran one of those Alien Queen Kitchenaid* mixers in my brain on the maximum speed.** I'm usually pretty scrambled after a trip "home"; somehow this was worse than usual.

Right now, my evening is going to be cocoa and Baileys and waiting for cell23 to get home in one piece. Once everyone's in safe and sound I can relax and enjoy the snow and make plans and stuff for New Years, aka the Actually Fun Part of the Holidays.

* TELL ME I'M WRONG, THEY TOTALLY LOOK ALIKE.
** Have not decided if the bread hook, eggbeater/whisk or regular bowl attachment applies yet. Leaning towards bread hook.

When you find an excuse to bum computer time just so you can snag the new Christmas eggs.

~~

DON'T JUDGE ME.

Anyway, got to PA safe and sound, introduced Amastan to the wonders of Netflix Watch Instantly for Wii (there have been a lot of Marx Bros. and christmas movies up in here this morning) and pitched in with the cleaning because of course, they didn't find out they were hosting until like last Saturday, and waiting for the onslaught of people I'm related to.

Amanda said she had good booze on hand. It may be needed.

Merry Christmas y'all.

Running around and packing/freaking out about my trip. Aiming for the 12:00 out of Amherst to New York.

Owing to the various levels of technology fail that comprises the Brownes, I'm probably going to be reasonably offline until I return on Sundayish. Already I can feel the withdrawal twitching. This is not going to help my coping skills, I'll tell you that. :P Wish me luck.

A merry Christmas, Blessed Yule (yes I know it was a few days ago), Happy Kwanzaa,* and good Merlinpeen to you. May the eggnog be strong, the family not too drama-filled and the mouth-pleasures be exquisite for you and yours this weekend.

Catch y'all on the flip. Take care of our dragons, will ya?

~~

* I only really acknowledge the second day of this, as of the seven principles, "Kujichagulia" is the most fun to say. There's a story behind this; I'm don't have time to get into it now.

A blessed, joyful and peaceful Solstice to everyone. It all gets brighter from here! :)

Anyone catch the eclipse last night? I decided it was gonna be too cloudy so I didn't bother looking/staying up.



Previous year Christmas eggs are breedable/catchable now, if people are lacking/wondering. :)

Friday continued to be a very good day, what with a lovely latish dinner at Bertucci's with J&J and some of the squirekids followed by drinks and movies and gamernerditude at The Great Race War. Goddamn we need chairs, lol. But it was good to have a living room full of friends again this month, though both cell23 and I were glad it was a much lower key gathering than his birthday bacchanal earlier on.

Funny note, I had put on Fraggle Rock as afterparty background noise, and someone - cell23 maybe - pointed out that Doc was the same old dude in The Boondock Saints. So after a while we had to put that on because no one could shake the image, and well. I hadn't seen that movie in almost a decade, I'd clean forgotten most of it. I was rather amused at the conversation that arose about "funny looking but could still get it" men in hollywood, since it was generally agreed Willem Dafoe was on that list.

Saturday I inexplicably slept until 1, which is appallingly decadent for me, but I apparently just needed the sleep. The remainder of the day was spent in various Christmas shopping adventures with cell23 and deliriumdeva around Hadley and Northampton, which included excursions to A2Z and Ben&Bills - ALWAYS fun. It seemed to mostly be a scouting mission as I ended up only purchasing something for Kidzilla and something for Dad, but I have some other ideas for the remainder of folks on my gift list. May have to knock the rest of that out tomorrow.

Late Saturday night, cell23 and I decided we were in the mood for a light, silly movie, and we ended up watching the 2005 musical version of The Producers, which I'd been avoiding out of some weird loyalty to the original or something. Course I see my folly now, as this version is hysterical. I kinda want to have a Mel Brooks marathon now. That may have to happen one weekend soon. Have giant TV, will watch movies. Or something. Be nice if I had a working DVD player though, lol.

Sunday was extrajoker's Werewolf game and apparently their game group's Christmas party, in which I was super touched by people I had only met a week or so ago including me with gifts as well. Also it's very hard to outdo extrajoker in terms of thoughtful well-chosen presents, as I happily went home with purple legwarmers, a brandy new coffee mug with "Write your own story" on it, and a box set of Roald Dahl paperbacks. We did get a wee bit of actual gaming done in amidst the in-joking and silliness and Christmas cracker pulling, enough to get to the major cliffhanger/plot hook. After which extrajoker drove me home and sat in my living room for an hour for a much needed gossip/shoot-the-shit/whatever happened to x-person session. Good times.

Alas, the day went downhill from there as the blue cheese turkey wrap I'd gotten for lunch turned vicious on me. Spent the remainder of the evening curled up in bed feeling like someone was digging out my intestines with a rusty spoon, running to the bathroom, and sleeping fitfully. Fuck food poisoning, seriously. At least it wasn't bad enough to warrant puking, but there were a few rounds of OW OW OW MOTHERFUCKER OW that I could have done without. This was mitigated somewhat by my making progress through The Magicians and cell23 coming in to hug and fuss from time to time, and sleep apparently helps everything as I'm mostly recovered from all that this morning.

This week will alas mostly be dedicated to stressing over Christmas and the accompanying trip home, some token celebration of The Longest Night after Geist tomorrow, and work. Also see trying to score '09 and '07 Christmas eggs from the Cave. I don't have high hopes for the latter, but the AP ought to be reasonably flooded with the former late tonight.



And speaking of work, back to it with me.

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. :)

And thus begins my second favorite month of the year.

December is pretty awesome. My lover, my oldest friend, and my Dad all have birthdays within the first five days,* the holidays, which I admit to unabashedly loving with all my little five year old heart (even if the presents aren't quite as cool/magical as I remember), an anniversary of something I completely didn't expect at the time (and still kinda look at with a good deal of "wait, what?" bemusement), and if not with a full blown debauched revelry, marked at the very end with at least something alcoholic, a kiss, and watching the mad fools stand around freezing in my home town while a metal disco ball slides down a pole like a gaudy spherical stripper to the sounds of an ancient gentleman counting down the last few moments of a dying year. Everything is sparkly and lit up and people buckle down and reflect - either back into the past year or on what they hope the one coming will be like. I guess I take this month to do both.

Today is dreary cold and sleety but I don't really give a shit. The home stretch has been entered, time for that last push to the finish line. It's been a rough year in Andee-land, you guys, but past patterns have shown that the not so great years of my life have been punctuated by pretty awesome Decembers. I challenge myself to make that happen again. So should you, no matter what your 2010's been like. Shit year or good year, lets take it out with a bang, eh?



* Indeed, I am rather enjoying cell23's discomfiture at his brandy new tricenarian status today.

Happy birthday htl_1126! Hope your bash tonight is fantastic.

Not much going on really - cell23 and I are still food zombies from the spread at the Chiasson's yesterday. Kiddos got up reasonably late (for them) and it's just been a quiet morning. Currently I'm amused because cell23 is talking League of Legends with Kidzilla. Nerds and their children, let me show you them.

BTW - she hasn't lost the tooth yet, but it's so wiggly now that both cell23 and I are actively resisting pinching and yanking. Also her other bottom front tooth is loosening. And her two adult replacements are coming in behind them. AND she's had Fisher Price® My First School Picture™ taken and they're adorable.

I feel like I should post things I'm thankful for, but all I really have are the usual suspects - family (blood, adopted and extended), friends who have somehow managed to stick by me through everything, reasonably decent health for once, and while my money issues are annoying and stressful, I'm thankful that they aren't worse than they are. And I'm thankful for cell23 for so far being exactly what and who I need in my life right now, even if and sometimes especially because he's willing to just annoy me until I smile and come out of my blue funks. It's been far too long since I've not been stressed out and resentful of/by someone sharing my life and living space.

The holidays, as I think I've mentioned, have officially started, which of course means the year is winding down to a close. And as a result I've gotten reflective. It's been a year. Not the worst one I've ever had, but certainly nowhere near the best and I won't mind putting a bullet in it in a little over a month, which sucks because I really wanted 2010 to kick ass. I suppose that puts double the pressure on 2011, seeing as it not only has to be awesome in its own right, it needs to make up for the stresses and failures of this past year. With, obviously, some help from me... I'm perhaps a little too aware that a lot of the shit that made 2010 suck is self-inflicted and really need to work on avoiding a lot of the shit I did before, break bad habits and such like.

That said - much about this year was amazing and awesome too, so I probably shouldn't complain too hard. :) And it can't be all bad when your partner's mother and daughter surprise you with a handmade/frosted carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Nom.

Anyway. Gonna go finish my coffee and distract myself from my headnoise with ridiculously cute children.

Guys. You guys. The new Girl Talk album, All Day. I can't even. *kermit the frog flail* It started off kinda slow and I was all like ohnoes, greg gillis lost it! and then it gathered steam and kept going until this THING happened involving Portishead and Big Boi that segued into Skee-lo layered over T'Pau and then there was Gaga mashed up with Bananarama and HOLY CRAP IS THAT LIL JON OVER MY FAVORITE PART OF SIMON AND GARFUNKEL'S "CECELIA?"

Jury's out on whether it's better than Feed the Animals, but it's good. Very good. I am full of the aural squee. Go download it! http://illegal-art.net/allday/ (or here: http://www.mediafire.com/?78j01knnb3w4bca the original link has been... swamped all day)


You know what else is awesome? THE HESS TRUCK'S BACK AND ITS BETTER THAN EVER... FOR CHRISTMAAAAAAAAAAAASS THIS YEAR, THE HESS TRUCK'S HERE.



I've missed the last couple of years owing to angst and drama BUT NOT THIS TIME BITCHES. THAT SHIT SHALL BE MINE. BOMBER JET HELL YEAH MOTHERFUCKER.

*cough* what? SOMETIMES A GIRL HAS TO PLAY WITH TRUCKS OKAY.


Ooh ooh ooh also also also? These look delicious and need to be inserted in my face now.