anagram of brat

Oh god I'm starting to become one of those people that never posts here anymore. Not good. Especially given my state of mind lately (not bloody good) you would think I'd be translating the mental ick into words. But I haven't been, which may be a little bit of the reason I've been pretty fucked up lately.

It's only a little bit of the reason though. This winter has just been... dark for me, for various reasons. I mean, I've survived worse, but I'm wearying of this ongoing depressive cycle, especially as it looks like it's just going to wear itself on into month #3. Hooray. But seriously, my silence online almost directly corresponds to my silence in other aspects as well - I've hermited up good. Hanging out and watching Movie 43 (which was TERRIBLE btw, don't waste your time) with folks Saturday evening was probably the most social I've been since... yeah. *sigh* Oh there have been good bits of course, but they're quite quickly absorbed into the ick.

I know a good part of this is me still working through Dad's passing. I went through about a month of being numb, even relieved. Now the hurt is setting in hard. I never expected to miss his monthly or so nagging to call him so much. Really his fussing in general. That old black man snicker he'd do after he'd ask after Drew and I'd reply with "eh, I haven't murdered him yet..." And I've been... afraid? I guess to return to New York and confront the true emptiness of the house. Last time didn't count, it was jam packed with relatives. Now it's just my cousin there with occasional stopovers from Ruthy to make sure things haven't exploded. Hell, even Roy and the dog are gone, since he's moved in with his mom in Indy. I keep saying I'm going to go down and then end up not having the money or the spoons or whatever. But a lot of it is just... dread. And not wanting to deal with New York in winter especially since it's been snowpocalypsing more there than here (and we've been getting hammered) but mostly just dread.

One of the big stressors this month is Moonbeam and the UTI that will not die. He's been on special food for a month and a half now and two courses of antibiotics and this damn thing just will not quit. Much like last time, five days after he finished his antibiotics course he started showing symptoms again and now I'm just at my wits end. I know on some level this is just what happens with an old cat, especially one that hasn't been cared for barely at all and has been eating the worst bargain basement kitty kibble Dad could find on sale. I could go on an extended rant on my family's attitude and treatment of animals, especially cats, but that's just going to work me into a pissed off lather and I don't have the spoons for that. But this has been a drain on my ability to can, and also on my already strapped wallet. I honestly don't know what we're going to do if it turns out we can't lick this thing, or if he ends up needing surgery or something. It breaks my heart because other than this, he's a joy - affectionate and snuggly, purrs like an idling truck and just has these big old green eyes full of all the love ever and the idea of losing him is just... not doing good things for my psyche right now. Its like, no. Not right now. Not so soon after Dad. But it's like what do we do? I was not ready to have to revisit this feeling of complete and utter helplessness in the face of possibly fatal illness again, not this soon. And then there's just this overarching sense of failure - I'm already carrying a buttload of guilt over not being there enough for Dad last year, but now I can't even do right by his damn cat.

So yeah... my state of mind is not so great right now.

Well in ways-to-escape-dealing-with-it news, Boo is progressing despite having to rip him out and start over four or so rows in. I have this bulk spool of black nylon thread that I keep attempting to use lying around and the attempts just end up frustrating failures because it's too thick for the kind of thing I'm doing, since it involves multiple passes through a weensy bead with a thickish needle. (for the craft - it's actually much thinner than a sewing needle). I can't quite bring myself to chuck it though, so I think I'm going to save it for loom stringing, if I ever go back to doing things that way. Hand weaving takes a lot longer but the resupt comes out so much better looking... anyway. Nothing majorly exciting yet - I'll take more pictures when I get down to his actual eyebrows cause right now all I got is the top of his... head? Can Mario ghosts be said to have heads?

So that's me right now. This too will pass, I know it will. I just want it to pass a little sooner rather than later.

220 yellow beads. Or 2 hours, 45 minutes. That's all I've got left, and then the Giant Bead Thing is DONE. Hell I'd stay up and do it tonight, but I got work in the morning and my hands are screaming as it is. Still, a little time tomorrow and my life is mine again, at least until the next bead project shows up, but at least the next few planned are a lot smaller. I may do another fuckoff huge one at some point, but I'ma wait until maybe New Years to start it.

Holy crap... its been so long since I've taken on any kind of project like this and followed it through until completion. I kinda forgot what it felt like.

Yes yes, pictures upon completion (so, tomorrow), and possibly waving it like a victory banner everywhere as promised.

23845 / 25500 beads. 99.15% done!

My lord, what a week. I need to make a bigger catchup post at some point and I promised to elaborate on why the red and white = signs all over facebook and twitter a few days back made me hulk out with rage instead of being all happy YAY SOLIDARITY WHEE like it supposedly should have, but things have been kinda accelerating in the fucked up department all week and so... behind on posting. But I will say the following:

• A happy and blessed Easter, Passover, full moon, Spring, whatever y'all observe.
  
  
• I passed the halfway mark on the Tetris dance on Friday. Pictures and more elaborate yay bead post to follow.
  
  
• Hospitals remain dull and nervewracking places. (I'm fine, I was visiting.)
  
  
• Love and squee is amidst life suddenly going chaotic, your mother-in-law makes sure to tell you that the Easter bunny brought you a carrot cake. Damn.
  
  
• In TV news...
  
  • Doctor Who was pleasantly devoid of suck. Oh sure, it had to Moffat a little here and there, but thankfully it was merely an eye-rolling amount of Moffatting, not a "FUCK THIS SHOW" amount.
    
  • GAMMATRONS TONIGHT NNNNNNNNNNGGGGFFFFFFF WINTER IS HERE. No seriously, it is. New England is in some strong denial about the officialness of Spring. But still, ridiculously excited for the new season.
    
  • Almost caught completely up with Lost Girl and it still fills me with delightfully frothy silly squee even if it stretches my suspension of disbelief to snapping point.
  
  
• The plastics are down and there are cats in our windowsills again. Also cell23 has been walking Ash. Yes, he's been walking the cat. Think about this. Ash's transition into a small overly fluffy dog continues.
  
  
• head58 has lent me the complete scores for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Awyiss, I have something new to amuse me during data entry. I've been meaning to musically go through the original Star Wars trilogy (and maybe the score to The Phantom Menace, one of the few redeeming qualities of that film) because the scores are practically beasts unto themselves, and I am always kind of blown away by John Williams' work, his fetishistic worship for French horn and low brass aside. Plus I need to amass things to listen to at work when my entire music collection bores me to tears. May take up an audiobook habit. (Taking recommendations for that, btw.)

That's honestly about all I've got in the life of Andee. At least the public/nonpolitical post bits.

• While I'm glad to have an explanation for the bad crop of brain weather I've had for the past few days by way of rather dramatic UTERINESPLODE yesterday, there's always a part of me that's always viciously annoyed by how my hormones affect my mental state. I hate comforming to stereotype. Probably don't help none that I crave fried greasy chicken like hell while I'm PMSsing. Pretty much all I need is some damn birkenstocks to complete the stereotype trifecta. Growl.



• It's been a Studio Ghibli heavy weekend. Saturday night's movie with Kidzilla was My Neighbor Totoro, which Kidzilla didn't remember watching as a very small child (but nevertheless loved anyway). Yesterday we went to see The Secret World of Arietty, which we both enjoyed, probably for very different reasons, mine having more to do with taking in the lush, painterly quality of the animation and backgrounds and bursting into giggling at the commentary being whispered by extrajoker and friends, into whom we ran at the same showing. But seriously, I think it was cell23 that observed how after seeing trailers for all the current animated offerings trying to outdo each other in terms of style and cleverness and then you see one for a Miyazaki movie which instantly makes everything else look, well, amateurish. Not just that. Cartoony. Bah. Well, while I have no interest in seeing the bastardization of The Lorax, I'll probably go see the Aardman pirate movie. It looks just silly enough to appeal to me, and well. It's about pirates. I'm kinda required.



• I'm not sure what I'm doing right, but things seem to have taken a turn for the better with regard to my everyday gut complaints. Things still hurt, but not like as often or as bad, and I'm a little bemused to note my appetite seems to have rebounded, so I'm eating slightly more than normal sized portions of things again as opposed to my tiny little bites of meals I'd been confined to before. I also seem to have put on weight, but that could well be ladytime bloat, so I'm not going to put that much store by it. Really the only change I've made diet-wise is trying not to eat too much in the way of candy (the only thing I can definitely say sets things off) and just basically eating more in general. I think just having more of everything - calories, nutrients, what have you - available for self-repair is probably the key.



• We have the kids a couple extra days owing to school vacation this week. Pros are yay kids, and getting more time to hang out with them. Cons are Lil'Beast being four and actually having to deal with that. He had a DAY yesterday that made both cell23 and I want to curl up with a bottle of Mr. Jameson's finest offerings at varying points of the day, though this was contrasted with him curling up in my lap and telling me how he wasn't actually angry when he threw tantrums, just sad, and didn't know why. Also with his periods of being a little gigglemonster. Poor kid. It's rough being four. Once again I'm reminded of a passage from Peter Pan when it's remarked upon that fairies are so small they only have room for one emotion at a time. I think the same could be said for very small children.



• We're having a spate of gorgeous early-spring weather these past few days. Warm (by which I mean high forties/low fifties) and, well, that sort of not-quite cold that's fresh and clean feeling, not merely freezing. Crisp. Like an apple. It's delightful AND incredibly strange, it being not even March yet. I mean, we had a picnic on Saturday. Outside and stuff. In February. What is this madness?



• Also been doing a LOT of reading lately to the point where Goodreads says I'm on track again for my 75 book challenge. I have five books out from the library plus I finally got past the initial hurdle of the first few chapters of Lois McMaster Bujold's Sharing Knife series and subsequently demolished my way through the first couple of volumes. Nothing like as good/fun as the Vorkosigan saga, but readable nonetheless. I enjoy authors that can create believable character interactions despite or even because of their circumstances/setting, goodness knows internal character bickering have kept me reading some series long after they jumped the shark into soap opera-y dreck (*cough* Black Jewels, Kushiel Legacy *cough*). Aside from that, I'm also enjoying Laura Gilman's Paranormal Scene Investigations series and The Child Thief, Brom's cracked take on Peter Pan, though I did have to get over my initial disappointment that it wasn't a graphic novel. Somewhat less engaging was the second volume of Sarah Monette's Doctrine of Labyrinths, which had way too many passages that bored me silly between the actually interesting bits. I'll probably pick up the last two volumes at some later point, but I don't quite have the give-a-fuck to push through them right now, especially as most of the conflicts set up by the first novel have pretty much been dealt with.

Wellp, that's pretty much me.

Back at work today after leaving early on Wednesday and calling out yesterday. I still don't feel exactly 100% (more like 60 at generous best) but money has to be made and it's not like I get sick time on this gig. Not that the time home was entirely a wash. The great thing about the 21st century and having a tech oriented job is that there all kinds of devices you can crawl into bed with and continue to be productive on, even if you feel like leftover poop. Which is good. I'm still playing a horrifying amount of post-holiday catchup, money-wise.

Every morning I agonize over whether to bring the Hatemonger out with me. Usually when I decide to leave him home is the day when there's something FANTASTIC to photograph, of course. Goddamn Murphy's law. This morning someone had stuck a manniquin painted and dressed to resemble to jolly green giant in the Haigis Mall bus shelter. It was so fantastically WTF that I'm going to be kicking myself for leaving the camera all day.

I've put off rereading The Hunger Games for a long ass while, despite head58 treating me to the hardcover box set for my birthday. I guess I was terrified that it would lose something in the reread; its immediacy maybe, or my initial engagement with the characters, I don't know, I figured something would jump out at me that would make me not like it as much this time around. Since I'm falling behind on my 75 book challenge and needed something to do that wasn't staring at a screen last night (and since I haven't paid my library fines yet) I finally pulled out the first book and have been happy to find that a year and a half was about the right length of time between readings. Even though I know how it ends, it still has me quite firmly by the gonads.

People have spent so much of my life telling me I would grow to hate snow as I grew up, learned to drive, got older. I'm pleased to report that at 33.5 that has yet to become the truth. A good part of my morning indignance at being awake and moving at such an early hour was erased by the weirdly fun sensation of fresh snow creaking as it packed down under my boots.

No plans for the weekend other than finishing the recovery from this last round of uck, housecleaning, making some OJ chicken, and doing some work for job #1. Also working on Sqwrrl, as I've been neglecting that a bit this month in favor of Real Work (heh) and shoring up some gaps in my PHP knowledge. It may necessitate rewriting a fair bit of code but I think the game will be better for it. I also need to bite the bullet and start looking at books/tutorials/classes for smartphone app creation. Speaking of which, thank you for all the suggestions for Boston books.

I guess, TGIF, eh?

One of the few dates where it don't matter which side of the pond you're on, it's still right, lol. Anyone who makes wishes at 11:11 in general should make a couple of big ones today, I think.

I'd like to say something big and important about Veterans' Day, but elf_fu not only beat me to it, she said it far more eloquently than my caffeine deprived brain is capable of doing so I'ma just link over with a resounding Hell Yeah and a reminder to self that I need to call Dad. I need to check whether he's finished those Carnagie Deli sandwiches yet anyway.

I do not have the day off, which I'm okay with. The buses, however, are on No School Schedule, which I'm somewhat less fine with seeing as getting back across the river on Fridays is challenging enough with traffic. Tonight is the Boston run; we shall return with two short stacks to entertain for the weekend (and hopefully one Hess Truck). The only thing really on my agenda is reading to Kidzilla - during the blackout I started reading her The Graveyard Book and I'd like to at least finish that, not to mention make some progress reading Eragon as well. Also I want to find her a copy of So You Want to Be A Wizard - it's an older kid book, but if she can handle Graveyard, she should be fine with evil man-eating taxicabs prowling the streets of New York. Which they pretty much do anyway.

The Secret Sqwrrl project is getting a bit big to contain within my head at this point. I may need to go through my stacks of blank notebooks and three ring binders for one to dedicate to the project. Either than or take the excuse to make a trip to Staples - I have Things to Find Out there anyway.

Other than kiddos, I'm gonna do my best to Get Things Done this weekend - between blackouts, trips to New York, lingering sick and constant tired/lazy I've kinda fallen behind on Life and Everything. Course, playing catch up when Lil'Beast is chasing the cat trying to get her to eat handfuls of kitty treats never works out well, but I'm gonna take a shot at it nonetheless. :)

It's September and we're going frakking apple picking tomorrow. Fuck it, I'ma start using this icon.

( moar icon stuff )

Shaping up to be a very lazy Sunday, seeing as we don't have any big plans or anywhere to go today as opposed to yesterday (Fair! Farmers Market! Shopping!) and tomorrow (Kidzilla's birthday party! AAAA!) cell23 and I stayed up late last night watching the latest Torchwood and Doctor Who (hmm, I'm overdue for a "What's Andee Watching? post... later maybe) while I oven-dried the tomatoes I bought at the farmer's market. I finished those up this morning and I think I overdid them this time around, as some of them taste a little burnt, but they're still good. They also have a bit of a bite to them since I sprinkled pepper on them this time as well. Thinking of looking up a recipe for bread that incorporates them into it - I still have very fond memories of the sun-dried tomato bagels at Brueggers and am still mad they were only available that one summer years ago. But really all that's on tap for today is sticking close to home, making sure the kids don't kill each other, and chilling. I may try to get some work done or my hair yarned up today as well. Also we have some party prep to do later, mostly in the way of baking Kidzilla's cake and wrapping up her presents. Also figuring out what the hell we're going to do with the bajillion apples we're going to come home with tomorrow, considering she's having her party at the orchard for at least the third year running. I say at least because I've only been attending them regularly since she turned five - she very well may have had previous birthdays there as well and I'm kinda too lazy to ask cell23 about it right now. Oh, that reminds me, I'd better charge up the camera.

By the way, those of you with iThings and an overdeveloped sense of voyeurism or a liking for anonymous confessions? The PostSecret app just dropped and it is addictive as FUCK. Buyer beware, you will do nothing else for an hour after downloading it.

But yeah. The Andee abides. Pretty much it.

"Last week, LJ came under attack and was down for three days. I missed it horribly; I went over to Dreamwidth, but it just wasn't the same. When LJ came up, several of my good friends posted to say how much they missed LJ, but several also posted to wonder whether this wasn't really the end for LJ, whether they wouldn't just move wholesale to DW or Twitter or Google+, for so few people post now and so few comment.

Let's make this week Show LJ Some Love Week! If a friend posts to LJ, and you've read that post, comment. Even if it's just a silly three-word comment going 'that's really hilarious!', 'your boss sucks' or 'get a divorce', show that the community's still here. I know I have many friends on my list whom I do read every day, whose lives I do know about and care about, but whom I never comment on, because it doesn't occur to me, or because I don't think I have the time, or because I'm on my iPhone and typing is a pain. This week, that's going to change. Are you in?"

hattip to firinel who got it from a friend who got it from someone else.


Today is full of T-storms (yay!), housecleaning (boo, but necessary), much anticipated doorstops waiting to be read (yay!), work (not objecting, it means $$), Witch finishing (ugh, but also necessary), and the squee that comes of happy tomato plants (yay!). Sticky's second tomato came off while we were repotting him; 1 day later, suddenly he has 5 itty bitty tomatoes on him. Icky still has two big 'uns but they are now turning yellow/orange and looking happy. I'm guessing in a couple of weeks I'm suddenly going to have more tomatoes than I know what to do with.

Wellp, that's enough of a break - off to finish scrubbing the kitchen and cook up some dinner.

Haven't done one of these in a while. But I didn't really like my other Lana icon much. I'm a lot happier with this one.

Happy April Fools. Or, if you're like most of the grouches on my f-list, including me, Let Me Know When It's Over April Fools!



I'm rather glad that the April Fools snow we got was nowhere like as bad as the April Fools snowstorm of 1998 (I think) where after a mild, snowless winter OMGSURPRISE 3 feet and Smith wasn't gracious enough to close campus, even through none of the professors bothered to show up. Fun shit.

Youtube's viral 1911 vids are pretty cute, as is Google's Helvetica gag, Wikipedia's front page, and the Dragon Cave turning all its dragons to carrots. WoW's Crabby the Dungeon Helper got an actual audible snort out of me (but I'm one of those people that were amused rather than annoyed by the Office Assistant). Less impressed with Gmail motion. bellarisa's troll on facebook was actually really funny once I stopped having a heart attack. Otherwise, April 1 this year is kinda bleh, which is fine; anytime anything of note happens on this date it tends to not go well for me, so I'm genuinely okay with bleh.

In other news surviving the first day without coffee with lots of water, a cup of tea and extra strength tylenol. Getting work done and planning projects for the weekend, and since the weather's finally eased up, trying to psyche myself into getting laundry done, though that will very likely fail. Whatevs, not like I have to have anything nice clean before Sunday morning.

I'ma go find and hug a kitty now. She will hate it. I don't care.

~~

*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: