bloodyrosemccoy | Entries tagged with domesticity

… Okay, it is definitely a raccoon—and, as I guessed once I was sure it was not a moose, it is a mother raccoon. I know this because I just saw her exit the soffit* with a fat little baby raccoon swinging from her jaws.

I think she’s relocating them, so evidently our Yelling At The Raccoon strategy actually worked.** I’m feeling pretty smart myself for having suggested leaving the soffit accessible in case of relocation. However, I am not a raccoon expert; I am a dumb homeowner who watches lots of nature shows, so I will still be calling in wildlife people as soon as the clock strikes Reasonable to make sure she really is relocating her litter and not taking them on a field trip or something, and also to do whatever it is wildlife people do about the problem of raccoon poop in the attic and the skin-crawling parasites and microorganisms it carries. (I am having a Hannelore-style meltdown over these. Having survived malaria with no lasting damage does not, it seems, make me any less neurotic about diseases.)

First I’m going to get some sleep, though, because aside from my cartoonish war with varmints, I also have an interview for an amazing job promotion in a few hours. It’s going to be a fun day.

(A lot of y’all offered some raccoon-repelling advice to me. In turn, I will offer you a very useful site I found with some good basic information. I can see why it’s at the top of Google’s list.)

*This is a new word I have learned today!

**Either that, or she does not care for Dad’s classic rock surround sound playlist. And who can blame her? I'd probably head for the hills too if I thought Don Henley or Jackson Browne was in the vicinity.

Current Mood: World Peace
Current Music: Bedtime MST noise

When the suburb you live in is a few blocks away from a national forest, you’ve got to be prepared for some animal activity. Quail will congregate in the middle of the street, deer will eat your garden plants, and every so often rattlesnakes will decide your driveway is nice and baskable. Sometimes birds will make nests in your dryer exhaust. Sometimes skunks will vent their panic glands in your vicinity. And sometimes you will wake up to find that your beloved cat Charlotte has probably been eaten by a mountain lion.

But you take this all philosophically enough, because you may have loved your cat, but you do live next to a god damn mountain. You will give the animals fair play.

At least, until they get into your house.

Yes, our house has a varmint in the ceiling, and it has been there for weeks. Probably it’s a raccoon, although judging by the amount of noise it’s been making it could also be a moose.* We do not know how it got in, although my money’s on the chimney. We just want to figure out how it will get out. We have used a number of strategies:

-Yelling At It To Keep The Noise Down

-Exhorting The Cat To Do Her Damn Job**

-Having An Exterminator Come In And Tell Us It’s Probably A Bird, Then Say It’s Not His Job To Do Birds

-Yelling At The Varmint Some More

-Endlessly Quoting Various Lines And Catchphrases From Aliens

-Checking The Chimneys And Capping Them***

-Discovering This Did Not Work When A Varmint Misstepped And Fell Through The Eaves, Spilling Insulation Gunk All Over The Deck And Nearly Severing Our Internet Cable

… And that’s as far as we’ve gotten; Dad and I just managed to wedge the eave into place, but we’re going to have to come up with a new strategy that is not “Nuke the site from orbit.” (See? It’s hard not to make a reference.) My suggestion to bust out the Shop Vac has been vetoed, but I still think it’s a good idea. But Dad better come around fast. I’m not so sure the varmints’ next attempt to cut our internet and power will fail.

*Or a cephalopod, as I am so often reminded.

**Although given that the cat is officially a “senior” cat, perhaps she thinks she’s due for retirement.

***That one was a team effort. Dad bought the roof safety kit, scaled the ladder, managed to climb from ladder to roof despite his fake hip, roped himself to the chimney so that he would not fall the several-story drop from our side-o’-the-mountain house, checked for varmints, screwed caps onto the openings, and gingerly climbed down. Me, I held the ladder.

Current Mood: Orange Red Carrot
Current Music: The Eagles ~ Take It Easy

ME: I am doing college-style laundry today: clothes, washcloths, and pillow cover in the same batch.

MY SISTER: My roommate does that. All her whites are grey.

MOM: Isn’t that a song from the 60’s? *hums “California Dreamin’*

MY SISTER: Oh, yeah … “All my blacks are brown … and my whites are grey …”

ME: “I’d do a separate batch … but then I’d have to pay. Some freshman stole my dryer … next time I’ll have to stay.”

MY SISTER: “APPLIANCE OWNER DREAMIN’ … on college laundry DAAAAAYYY!”

We haven’t gotten as far as the next verse, but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with your local roommate who takes their dirty clothes to their parents every weekend in a garbage bag. Care to chime in?

And yeah, I know, appliances. Next thing you know we’ll be dancing around and singing about telephones and refrigerators like those crazy ladies in those bonkers MST3k shorts. But at least I got my laundry done.

Current Mood: Constant Comment
Current Music: Tom Petty ~ What Are You Doin' In My Life?

What I Learned Since The Winter Solstice:

Clarence “Ducky” Nash not only voiced Donald Duck in English; he also did the voice on all the dubbed shorts Disney made so that the voice would remain consistent~~ly unintelligible~~ across all languages.
Before she became a TV cook show hostess, Julia Child INVENTED SHARK REPELLENT.
Shakira sings very differently in English than she does in Spanish—to an amazing degree. In English, she sounds like so many other Madonna clones; in Spanish she’s got that rich and confident voice. I’d never listened to one of her songs’ English and Spanish versions back-to-back before, but it’s amazing how different it is.
Drawing something that looks like text without being legible is called “Greeking”—the written equivalent of “rhubarb.”
Generally speaking, the human brain can only really count up to 4 at a glance. Numbers beyond that slow us down.
Cookie Monster’s name in ~~Hindu~~ Hindi is Biscuit Badsha.
BONUS EDIT WITH NEW LEARNED THING: Hindi is the language; Hindu is the religion. I never was really sure of the difference in the terms. Thanks, sriti !
It’s incredibly convenient to have a portable musical instrument to carry around and practice when you’ve got a few minutes, instead of having something too huge to lug around.
There is an explanation for my complete inability to ever adhere to the crazy raw food diet so many of our library patrons seem to be interested in starting up: Oral Allergy Syndrome. (I’m sure those raw food books would assure me that I wouldn’t have this syndrome if I just ate enough raw food to detox, but fuck ’em.)
You can get hives ON YOUR GOD DAMN EYEBALL.
There are a few drawbacks to nuclear power. [/understatement]
Mushrooms grow fast.
Calendars generally follow three main types: lunar, solar, and lunisolar. A great deal of work goes into keeping calendars on track, especially the lunisolar ones. Some calendars also have a really complex way to make the weekdays dependent on the date and even more complex astrological positions.
The term for the shaved head, or part of the head, of a monk is tonsure.
It is possible for me to find stars in the sky if I concentrate!
Also, Betelgeuse really does look orange.
The effectiveness of toilet paper follows a bell curve along its price range. Too cheap and it’s painful and thin; too expensive and it’s so pumped with lotions, layers, and moisturizers that it forgets its function as, well, toilet paper, and winds up just waving at your butt as it goes by.
There are Geno fans on the internet. I should have known.
Pizza sauce is a lot simpler than I thought, but crust is still a bit tough to work out.

Current Mood: Rose Petal Tea
Current Music: Futurama audio commentaries

Got my mushroom log up and running! It is so far a bit of an ugly sight, sittin’ on my desk next to my Klein bottle and my jewelry pile.* I am led to understand that they will look quite lovely when they grow, but for now it looks like I have a very weird shrine to nougat sitting near my window. We shall see how that unfolds.

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Speaking of mushrooms, I’ve been learning “Beware the Forest’s Mushrooms” on the ocarina. Only trouble with video game songs is trying to end them. Perhaps this is why my cat has taken to punching me in the stomach when I play them. But it’s worth it—this song is ridiculously fun to play.

Anyway, while trying to find some sheet music for it I discovered that my weird love of Geno is shared by many other people who are probably equally weird. He is one of my favorite characters in the Mario franchise, despite Square’s refusal to let him come out and play anymore. (It’s okay! I made up for that prominently in my own extremely bad Super Mario stories, which I wrote obsessively in sixth grade before I even knew that anyone else in the entire world wrote fanfiction!) Good to know I'm not alone.

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I love the way people who make TV shows are completely clueless about video games. They don’t even try. They’ll have some scene where two people are furiously button-mashing, and saying scripted things like “Aha you got me that time!” or “Let me get the next powerup!”, except that any gamer could tell you that these idiots have got the game on single player mode, and furthermore it’s the middle of a cutscene. It has the great effect of making any character with a controller look like the little kids at the arcade who are furiously toggling the joystick and cheering while the screen still says INSERT TOKEN TO PLAY.**

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I have been craving pizza lately, but there is no good pizza place around here, frozen pizzas are nasty, and ready-made some-assembly-required pizza sauces and crusts all have about four cups of sugar dumped into them to appeal to the discerning consumer palate. But by god, it got bad, so I finally caved in and made my own damn pizza yesterday evening. IT TURNS OUT I SHOULD DO THAT MORE OFTEN.

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It’s a mite cloudy these last few nights, but I did manage to identify Betelgeuse as Betelgeuse and not just “one of the stars in Orion.”*** I’d never bothered to pay attention to star colors before, but it really is orange. I’ll be damned.

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Had to do this the night after a raccoon-and-skunk skirmish in the yard so’s I didn’t pass out from skunk fallout. That must have been some battle, because it involved a raccoon disguising itself as our cat, possibly replete with papers forged by Donald Pleasence. Mom opened the door and called for the cat, and lo a big furry thing with a stripey tail responded instantly by bounding toward her. No hesitation, no wild animal wariness, just “You’re inviting me in? THANK GOODNESS. THERE ARE SKUNKS OUT HERE!” We literally had to slam the door on it when we realized it was an imposter. And yes, we kept the real cat in for the rest of the evening.

*I try to keep my jewelry in boxes, but it always outgrows ’em. It’s like pasta from Strega Nona’s magical pot, only with more shiny bits.

**Or like your little sister back when she was really tiny and wanted to play video games so you gave her your other controller, which was not even hooked to the console, and told her she could “help” you, not that I ever did this.

***I know the four stars are supposed to frame his tunic, but frankly Orion always looks more like a guy doing a jumping jack to me. But at least it’s one of the few constellations I can recognize by gestalt!

Current Mood: sleepy

About three months ago my sister

sunshine_shaman and I made us some spaghetti sauce, and took pictures so we could show y’all how to make our famously amazing sauce. Since then, she’s been after me to post it. “For crying out loud,” she said. “People are putting olives in their sauce! They must be stopped!”

This is true. The word of Grandma’s Spaghetti Sauce must be spread. So, by god, it is time to stop procrastinating and MAKE SOME DAMN SAUCE.

Here is what you’ll need:

-4-5 12-oz cans of tomato paste. The family insists that Contadina is the best, but it’s tough to find around here, so Hunt’s will work for today.
-3 cans of water to every can of paste
-1 green pepper
-1½ cup sliced mushrooms
-4 large garlic cloves
-olive oil

And then the really important stuff …

Seasonings!

-2 2/3 Tbsp salt
-1 ½ Tbsp Italian seasoning
-1 Tbsp dried oregano
-1 Tbsp parsley
-4 Tbsp basil
-¾ tsp ground cinnamon (I’ve got it in the same bowl as the cloves here, because I ran out of little bowls)
-¾ tsp ground cloves
-dash of pepper (in with the salt in this photo)
-6 bay leaves (not pictured)

All of these measurements were obtained in a somewhat roundabout way: Grandma never measured, she’d just pinch and dash. So one time when she made this sauce, Mom would stop her before she actually tossed each seasoning into the pot, measure the amount, and write it down. So yeah, it’s variable.

Two more thing you’ll need, in case you haven’t guessed already. First, you are going to need a big damn pot. This recipe makes a lot of sauce. It’s got to reduce, you see, so you start with a ton. But don’t worry: your friends will be appy to take home leftovers. If you don’t have friends, you will once you make this.

The second thing you will need is time. Start this midmorning, or you will have spaghetti juice instead of spaghetti sauce.

Anyway.

( Turn that stuff into sauce! )

If you don’t want meatballs you can leave it now. Cover it with a splatter shield if you’ve got one, reduce the heat to low, and let that puppy sit there for five or six hours.

But seriously, who doesn’t want meatballs? Come on, let’s make some meatballs while the sauce is just starting to simmer.

( Meatballs! )

Now serve it! I like garlic bread on the side with mine, but that’s optional. And don’t forget the parmesan!

One last word of warning: don’t eat all of this at once. It’s tempting, but it never turns out well. If worst comes to worst, you can freeze the sauce—yes, it’s not quite as good, but hey, it’s still damn fine sauce!

There you have it. If y’all insist on making inferior spaghetti sauce after I have shown you the light, that’s your problem. But give this a shot! It’s fun to make, and damn tasty. See if I'm wrong.

Current Mood: Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.
Current Music: Army of Lovers ~ Crucified

Hey, my camera is full! You know what that means, right? CAMERA DUMP!

A dramatization of what the weather was like yesterday. This was actually taken a few weeks ago, but same principle. I love it when it’s so cold the clouds fall completely out of the sky, leaving you with frigid sunny days and a layer of sparkling snow. I am rather sad that my camera did not capture the sparkles, though.

Mom made this wall hanging a few years ago, minus sleigh and decorated tree. We were surprised at how much we liked adding the Christmas effects.

Daja gets her Longnight tunic!

Longnight is what the people of Emelan call the longest night of the year, although just how it got a name like that is anybody’s guess. People stay up all night to greet the sun in the morning. It’s also the birthday of one of Daja’s foster parents!

I am hoping this tunic is a good imitation of the men’s “over-robe” style that Tamora Pierce often refers to in the Circle books. Daja tends to wear men’s clothes more than women’s, so this seemed natural.

And Loke gets a dress, as well!

I did not make this dress. It was part of the iDolls line (yes, really) from Kid Galaxy 10 years ago. I tried to make a dress based on something like these, and it mostly turned out pretty damn good even though satin can kiss my ass, but when I sewed the skirt to the bodice it gathered wrong or something, and now it’s all wonky. Plus, after a while that site gives me the heebie-jeebies.* Hooray for eBay!

I also want to make her a uniquely Hawaiian-type Xmas dress (I have an image saved from a site I can't remember: sleeveless dress with matching sarong), but I'd have to find the right fabric for it. Maybe next year.

Hey, look, I made another Magpie Necklace! This time our scavenger seems to be a mermaid, who has found quite a few pearls to hang on a woven cord, accenting some of the other things she’s scavenged. (That starfish’ll get good and tarnished in the sea water, but hey, so it goes.)

At this point I’m still just making them for myself, but I am still waffling over whether to sell them. It seems like a lot of extra work to do it, but, well, I dunno. I’ve never been very good at selling things. I always feel rather dishonest, and I’m not sure why. I guess I’m just not cut out for Business.

I may take shots of the doll display later, but right now it is Reading Time, so y’all will just have to back off whilst I go read. Good day to you.

*It’s the Purity Balls. You read one article about dads taking their daughters out and promising to guard her virginity until he hands her over to her husband, and you wind up conditioned to have an adverse response to girls’ party dresses forever.

Current Mood: Pride of the Port
Current Music: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem ~ 'Zat You, Santa Claus?

I have discovered mushroom and cheese pie! MY LIFE IS FULFILLED.

Also, I think I accidentally made Plague Cookies yesterday. I thought I was making a fantastic batch of sugar cookies,* but this morning I woke up with THE PLAGUE. Sore throat, sore eyes, and don’t even ask about the nose. I am just hoping no plague found its way into the delicious cookies.

Off to make tea and see if there’s any mushroom and cheese pie left! I may have the plague, but today, life is good.

*Tragically colorless, however. We will have to get to the store for food coloring for the next batch, because there is nothing more fun than dividing the frosting you’ve made into small bowls and colorizing it. This was just one of the many Early Educational Activities Mom came up with when we were small. Inevitably we would decide to experiment with mixing ALL THE COLORS, resulting in a whole lot of what Dad called “earth-tone cookies.”

Current Mood: Cranberry Blood Orange

Once again, it turns out that being an alleged grownup who plays with dolls is helping me at work! Last time it was because I was the World’s Greatest Mannequin Dresser;* this time my experience doing silly photo stories will come in handy. See, the Liberry will be doing a bunch of stuffed animal parties over the next few weeks, in which kids drop off their stuffed animals and the critters have Liberry adventures all night and we take pictures, and then the kids watch the show and we give the animals back and tell the parents they may want to wash the beloved ball of plush before they do anything else.

And, as reigning photostory champion, well, I have volunteered to help make up and photograph silly scenarios. Anyone have any swell ideas?

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Speaking of such things, I got the dolls all set up for XMas! It is too dark to take pictures now, though.

Now only Daja needs an XMas outfit, because I just made one for Loke (and HOT DAMN my sewing skills are getting better) and then somehow wound up with four more for her anyway.** Daja will probably get a shiny over-robe for her current shirt and pants combo, if I ever get my ass in gear enough to make it.

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This may also warrant a trip to Dumb JoAnn’s, which is the little JoAnn’s closest to us. They call these smaller branches the convenience stores, except that Dumb JoAnn’s was recently remodeled into a Terribly Inconvenient Store. You can’t see a damn thing in there anymore, and there is no way for two shoppers to get around each other when they meet in an aisle, and for some reason they’ve started doing the take-a-number thing when they cut fabric and have a huge loudspeaker so they can say “NOW SERVING NUMBER 74” as loudly as possible in a store the size of a 7-11. This is weird, because we could hear people calling just fine. We just can’t get to them, because we are lost in the Unsolvable Craft Shit Labyrinth. I think I caught a glimpse of a Minotaur, trailing pipe cleaners and fabric bolts, with chunks of Sculpey matting rough fake fur, roaming the aisles last time I was there.

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I actually cooked dinner tonight! Tasty rosemary pork with applesauce, whole wheat noodles, and peas. I am totally unmotivated to cook right now, but when I do it is AMAZING.

I have Plans for cooking tomorrow, too. You will get to hear all about it if things go as planned.

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I should be playing Epic Mickey right now, but I DO NOT OWN IT.

Ditto the Donkey Kong Game, which I believe is officially titled OMFG DKC.

Instead I’m all up ons buyin’ Xmas presents for everyone else. Isn’t that just the saddest damn thing you ever heard?

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The cat has fallen in love with my Xmas surprise to myself. (WHAT? I was just trying it out!) I did not expect that at all.

*No, seriously, all the other ladies at the store complimented me on my unsurpassed technique in putting clothes on dummies.

**eBay is friend to ~~children everywhere~~ doll nerds! I just got a huge lot of clothes from the golden days of iDolls FOR CHEAP, yo! I wasn’t even sure that stuff actually existed!

Current Mood: eyeball-achey
Current Music: Jonathan Coulton ~ Chiron Beta Prime

I think I’m getting better at New Super Mario Bros. Wii! I feel a lot better now. After eighteen years playing Super Mario World, I can pretty much beat the whole thing with my eyes closed, so I take it for granted that I am a Mario whiz. It was a bit of a blow to the ego to play another Mario game and SUCK at it. But now that is behind me.

I'm chucking the next helpless Toad into boiling lava, though. Little bastards need to use their own legs. Their blue- and yellow-spotted pals can do it! Why can't they?

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Got a battlefield promotion on Sunday, following the executive decision of the one coworker who showed up to work. Sundays are ridiculous at the library, and one person handling everything going on in circulation is Unacceptable.

Which is why, when I came in just as we opened, she informed me that I was now qualified to work circulation.

So I wound up leaving the books to sit on their carts in favor of answering patron questions. Given that this is October, the questions were mostly along the lines of “DO YOU HAVE CHUCKY?” and “DO YOU HAVE FREDDY KRUEGER?”,* although I did get to bond with one patron over how awesome Star Trek TNG is. Still, I am afraid to work circulation at Christmas time. (“DO YOU HAVE SANTA?”)

My manager is hinting that this will look even better when they promote me, which she thinks will happen as soon as the Liberry acquires some money. I am not holding my breath, but it was fun to learn some of the new system.

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Went to The Mall today. You know you’re turning into a grownup when the acquisition of bras, underpants, and pajamas is almost as exciting as acquiring Super Mario Galaxy 2.

The bra ladies sure thought it was. Apparently, there’s not much happening in Braland down in the depths of the department store, so when somebody comes in and purchases their new bright red bra that somehow makes you aware of breast cancer,** it is an event. “She bought the red one!” the ladies kept saying to each other. “I have sold my first red bra!”

I bought it largely because it holds my boobs up, something that my current bras are not doing, but I admit it was also red, which is fun. Who doesn’t like festive underwear?

And who doesn’t like new jammies and Super Mario? I am going to wear the first while playing the second. It is a good night.

*Answer: No. For some reason, people always steal the slasher movies. I checked for Child’s Play, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, and every other horror movie they could think of. We theoretically have several copies of each, but given that not one copy of any of them had a due date past 2009, I’m thinking these folks’ll have to get some Netflix.

**I don’t know, perhaps it is a scare tactic: you wear it with a white shirt and people see it and think “MY GOD, WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER BREASTS UNDER THERE? They look like they’re about to explode! Could it be … CANCER?”

Current Mood: content
Current Music: Saving Grace (movie)

The Day Mom and Brother Leave

AMELIA: Hey, Dad! How was your day?
DAD: I broke the new stove.
AMELIA: Good! I loaded the dishwasher wrong! We are getting this party started in STYLE.

Dad Casts A Summoning Spell

DAD: (morosely) Don’t mind all those beers in the fridge. I put them there this morning.
AMELIA: Why? I don’t drink the stuff.
DAD: *heavy sigh* I had thought maybe Across-The-Streeterson would come over and watch The Game with me. He didn’t.
AMELIA: Did you invite him?
DAD: Of course! I clearly told him last Thursday that he’s always welcome!
AMELIA: You may have to be a bit more specific next time.

Getting MSTy-Eyed on Movie Night

DAD: Last night we watched Rear Window. Shall we continue with works of cinematic genius?
AMELIA: I don’t know. I’m in the mood for something good-naturedly dumb.
DAD: I do have this movie coming on TV … it’s a Walt Disney cowboy flick in which James Garner washes up on a beach in Hawai’i and teaches several Hollywood Standard Issue Dumb Natives and one vastly obnoxious child actor how to round up wild Hawaiian cattle!
AMELIA: Damn, you’re good.

Her Father’s Daughter

DAD: What a glorious day! The vast western sky displays its infinite blue, and the mountains begin to turn red and gold—an homage, perhaps, to the sunlight that will be so scarce in the months ahead. This day exhorts us to consider it with rapture! There is only one place one can properly spend a day like this!
AMELIA: Barnes and Noble?
DAD: Damn straight.

At The "Book"store

DAD: I couldn’t find you the Lord of the Rings box set in Blu-Ray.
AMELIA: That’s all right. These are just the theatrical releases, anyway. I’ll hold out for the extended cuts.
DAD: What’s the difference ?
AMELIA: The theatrical releases are only about three hours long each.

Take-Out

AMELIA: Let’s get these fish tacos to go. Restaurants stress me out.
DAD: I am glad someone else feels that way, too.
AMELIA: We can eat on the deck! It’s better than any restaurant.

on the deck

AMELIA: THIS DECK IS STRESSING ME OUT.
DAD: Throw the hornets your fish taco and run while they’re distracted! They’re lousy tacos anyway!

Lu’au

AMELIA: So, how’d Next-Doorington’s pig roast go?
DAD: About how you’d expect when white suburban Utahns decide to roast a whole pig.
AMELIA: Chaos?
DAD: Well, they didn’t have any plan beyond “Acquire pig. Heat pig up.” I had to bail them out with all our briquettes, and then at 8:30 when the pig was finally done, I was the only one with even the slightest idea how to carve the stupid thing.
AMELIA: All those years of surgery finally paid off.
DAD: It was disgusting.
AMELIA: Sure, but at least you’re a hero now! Why, you SURE SAVED NEXT-DOORINGTON’S BACON, DIDN’T YOU?
AMELIA and DAD: WAHAHAHAHAHA.

Birthday!

AMELIA: So I was thinking, since Mom will be just getting home Sunday night, and I work, I will have a low-key birthday.
DAD: Nonsense! You are a quarter-century old now! You deserve some fanfare! We shall have a special birthday dinner!
AMELIA: Wow, Dad, that’s very—
DAD: You’ll be home in time to cook one, won’t you?
AMELIA: No cake for you.

Actually, he wound up cooking me aged ribeye steaks, which were FANTASTIC. And he also paid for all the shit I got at Barnes & Noble, as well as an extremely nifty thing I will show y’all later. It’s nice to have Mom back, but I admit I sorta like it when it’s just me and Dad. Contrary to what many people believe, we do know how to entertain each other.

Current Mood: content
Current Music: Kenny Rogers ~ I Just Dropped In To See What Condition My Condition Was In

So my brother got a job.

It is a pretty sweet job, more so than the abortive national park one and, incidentally, much more relevant to those four and a half years of engineering school I'm told he went through. I’m not entirely sure what it is. I believe he refines lightning, after it is extracted from the lightning mines, and then puts it into large machines, but I could be wrong. I might be confusing this with the magic smoke factories.

Anyway. This is totally awesome, because he no longer has to sit around in the room across from me in the Bat Cave moping, and also it is a bummer, because now I’m the only one in the Bat Cave. It’s hard to yell witty comments about whatever is occupying one’s interests* when there’s nobody in the other room. I may have to remember how to operate one o’ them instant messengers again.

Also it means that while Mom helps my brother drive to California, I get to stay home with Dad, which means alternating between companionable watching of old movies** and reassuring a somewhat nervous Dad that no, that one time he got a call telling him which hospital the Life Flight was dropping his wife and kids off at was probably just a fluke, and that road trips don’t always lend themselves to broken necks and crushed cars. Sometimes we toss in some grocery shopping, although more often the garnish is moping about my brother’s absence.

Oh, and also, we broke the new stove already.

Perhaps you shouldn’t let the two slightly autistic family members alone for a week, is what I’m sayin’.

But I digress! I would now like to take the time to wish the Dude good luck at his new lightning-related job in California. And Dude, I think I speak for all the family when I say: FUCK TUBULAR.

And you know I mean that.

*Such as: “I can’t watch Lord of the Rings anymore! I keep inserting ‘Dammit, Jim’ before every line Éomer utters!”, “Alton Brown has just compelled me to make homemade Pop-Tarts, but it’s 3 in the morning. What do I do?”, “Look! I drew an alien’s respiratory system!” and, of course, “JESUS CHRIST YOU WOULD THINK AFTER 18 YEARS I’D KNOW HOW TO BEAT THIS, BUT FUCK TUBULAR.”

**Although we have agreed: no more Doris Day movies. That shit is bananas.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Hans Zimmer ~ The Kraken (PotC: Dead Man's Chest)

Ah, it’s good to be back at work again. Already had to educate a patron that, when the library aide tells you that you can look at the DVDs after she has shelved them, responding with “I’ll just look at them now” and continuing to paw over the cart will be taken as a cue for the aide to take the cart back behind the desk and go to the bathroom.

Home sweet job.

And speaking of jobs, my brother somehow landed a sweet six-week gig as a receptionist or something up at one of the fancy lodges in Jackson Hole. He leaves tomorrow, which is a bummer because now I won’t have anyone to hang out with down here in the Bat Cave, but which also means that at least I can wander around the Bat Cave without pants on if I so choose.* I am going to have to try this vacation --> job strategy. It seems to work!

*I mostly choose to when I have forgotten my bathrobe, which I manage to do every time I take a shower.

Current Mood: busy

So the trees around here are having themselves a nice little orgy, and my face, as it does every spring, has decided that the only possible response to this is to seal itself off. I’m waiting for the year that I actually manage to pupate. A butterfly may not be my style, but I would make one absolutely adorable fluffy little moth.

For now, though, my face has taken on the same climate as a wetland.* And the swampularity seems to be migrating through my skull, since my brain feels pretty sluggy, too, causing me to make rambly entries like this one, when I’m not lying around reading or giving myself Nintendonitis with Super Mario Galaxy.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: blarg. I love spring, but I wish it agreed with me.

*True story: I was so miserable that I bribed my brother, with Fruity Snacks, to chop the onion for the chili I made today so I wouldn’t exacerbate the problem.

Current Mood: hooray for lemon tea
Current Music: America ~ Can't Fall Asleep To A Lullaby

MY SISTER: Dinner was nice, but what about dessert? Anything good?

MOM: There’s cake mix in the pantry! You could make cookies or brownies or cake!

AMELIA: And if you cook the cake mix with a Super Shroom Shake you’ll get Shroom Cake, and it’ll restore 30 of your HP!

MY BROTHER: Dammit, you’re playing Super Paper Mario again.

I don’t know why, but I love the hell out of the stupid cooking feature of that game. I can’t really put my finger on it, but I think it distills one of my cherished beliefs: that cooking is MAGIC.

Okay, not quite, but something even better—a testament to human creativity. I mean, I can sort of understand how someone may have figured out that if you get the food hot for a while it becomes tasty and less likely to kill you from the inside, but on a larger scale, it’s baffling. Which one of us little monkeys figured out how to combine the food? How did they figure out how eggs relate to flour and water and oven heat? Who came up with flour? And what in god’s name led to the invention of cheese?* Was it deliberate trial (and error), or just some lucky accident?** And who thought their discovery was good enough to share it around to the point where it became common place?

There’s always a little of that going through my head when I crush some garlic or whip a cake mix or make some banana nut bread. Taking something necessary for survival and adding so many bells and whistles denotes a brilliance almost staggers me at times—as with so many of the things we humans do. It’s commonplace and everyday, but it’s amazing all the same.

*I firmly believe that my love of cheese renders any right I thought I had to point at other cultures and say that they eat WEIRD or GROSS food invalid. There is nothing more disgusting than cheese. I tried describing it to my host family in Kaloleni and they were with me as far as “Well, you start with some milk,” but after that they assumed decidedly Do Not Want expressions. Can you blame them?

**While discussing the origins of leavened bread,

ironychan once theorized that a lot of great breakthroughs in cooking were probably precipitated by the words, “I dare you to eat that.”

Current Mood: rambly

It’s been a weird week, and I can’t even articulate all the reasons why. Mom is in California, leaving the June Cleaver Vacuum,* we had to fix the car’s brakes, the Olympics dragged me out to watch the skatings,** my sleep schedule keeps getting interrupted for errands, I’m still trying to establish Going To The Pool as part of The Routine, and also I found myself doing battle with the most obnoxious case of not-quite-hives I’ve ever had to put up with, and it’s buggered my whole immune system. I’m tired and feel like I’ve spent every day running a marathon. I’m thinking that’s from the disrupted routine and the disrupted immune system.

And yes, before all y’all internet doctors start, my first thought when I started to sprout tiny angry welts all over was “DAMN I WILL HAVE TO FIND A NEW SPORT AGAIN.” Second and third suspects after “attack of the pool water” were the body wash I used in the locker room—not one of my usual delicate brands of Fairy Kiss And Unicorn Blood For Whiny Babies With Skin That Tarnishes When Exposed To Goddamn Air Like It’s Silver Or Something, but a scented type that comes in a convenient travel size—and the new brand of lotion I used. Yes, we will be testing these hypotheses, but the I think I have already found the offender.

It’s my goddamn allergy pill.

Or lack thereof. While rummaging around for some antihistamines to slow the itchpocalypse, I remembered that Mom had a similar problem when she forgot to take hers. And I have let mine run out this week.

Which means that I now have two pills with a protection racket going on, where the withdrawal effects are worse than never starting the pills in the first place. They’re little chemical versions of the mafia. Rotten bastards.

But even though this may suggest that I can still go swimming, it really didn’t do much for my week. Maybe I should just cancel it altogether.

*We try to help out around the house, but after a lifetime of being useless little kids, it’s hard to break that habit of taking care of our immediate needs and either leaving other things for someone else to do, or noticing them only when they’re pointed out to us. Fortunately, I seem to do better at seeing what needs doing when Mom’s not around.

**My sister and I were thrilled with the outcome of Men’s Skating, right down to Lysacek winning and Plushenko raising a tantrum because silver is a blow to his giant thunderous sun-blotting ego. We would have been disappointed if he hadn’t pitched a fit, because one of the reasons we love him is that he’s a haughty diva who we’d probably kick in the teeth if we ever met him in person. He’s got a right to be a bit egotistical—his performance here was lackluster, but he’s a damn fine skater—but we trust him to take it and run.

Current Mood: drained
Current Music: The Guild ~ (Do You Wanna) Date My Avatar

– The sewing machine is the broke, which leaves Daja with half a winter shirt and no jammies. Since it’s Pajama Time here at the doll display,* this is a bit of a bummer. At least she gets to hang out with Tris, who also has no pajamas yet. Maybe I can say they’re off at some late night movie for some sisterly bonding time. At least Daja has a new pair of pants, though!

– Yesterday , for some reason, I was tremendously out of sorts at work. In one case this became a literal thing, since I sorted half a cartful of DVDs and then went off to help another person check stuff in. When I got back to the cart I found my manager had unsorted it in order to find something. So I had to re-sort it, then shelve DVDs, which I really hate because my cartful of DVDs tends to collect browsing patrons like seagulls around a garbage barge. I politely tell them they can look at the DVDs after I shelve them because otherwise I get buried, so they wind up hovering around behind me watching me shelve. It’s obnoxious as hell.

Also, while I was doing that the same manager went and shelved the fiction cart I had queued up. I was looking forward to doing the fiction. Nobody ever chases me around to browse that cart. It only made me poutier.

– I think I managed to give myself cellulitis in my heel—there’s a knob on it like a giant callus, but it hurts like when you poke one of those deep zits when I stand on it. My best guess is I got too excited while trimming calluses.

I’ve been walking on tiptoes for two days when I’m barefoot; for some reason my shoes distribute the weight so it’s not on the thing. According to WebMD, I am going to die a horrible death alone and afraid, secure in the knowledge that nobody loves me, unless I go see a doctor YESTERDAY JEEZUS CHRIST WHY AM I STILL AT THE COMPUTER WASTING PRECIOUS SECONDS.

It already feels better, though, so perhaps, just perhaps, WebMD is exaggerating just slightly. Imagine that.

– I had a whole mess of crazy dreams and night sweats last night, even though I took my Fukitol. Mostly they were the usual fare, although there was also some dude called “Gary” who kept popping up through the dreams and delivering non-sequiturs, to which I replied “Shut up, Gary” and went back to whatever I was doing.

– One of the dreams involved shopping for art supplies, which I am going to do because I got me a paycheck, but these art supplies were all ridiculously expensive. Like, a length of copper jewelry wire was $63,485. Seems I’ve added to my repertoire of Dreams With Really Obvious Meanings.

– Goddamn, y'all, Peet's 2009 Holiday Breakfast Blend is one terrific tea. I am going to make myself a strong cup and give my hands a break to go read for a while. Perhaps later when my hands are less fatiguey and spongey from typing up Doctors!, I will tell you about these books, because they're quite good!.

*It was also Pajama Time last summer for a little while, but that was a fluke; late January is official Pajama Time.

Current Mood: tea, dammit!
Current Music: The Archies ~ Sugar, Sugar (DON'T YOU JUDGE ME)

You know, far be it from me to criticize my family’s holiday traditions, but I have to say that the Annual Christmas Plumbing Disaster is probably the worst one we have ever come up with.

I mean, sure, the holidays bring people together, but last year it was while we were barricading the driveway against the waterfall up the hill created by a burst water main, and the year before that we got to strengthen familial bonds as we steam-cleaned the carpets after the sewer backed up, and the year before that we got to join in a communal potty dance when the toilets just kinda broke.*

I was hoping we’d decided just to skip it this year, but no—it was simply fashionably late. But this week it showed up, in the form of Backed Up Sewer Part 2.

Let me just say that it’s a good thing we got new towels for Christmas, because all the old towels are … well, let’s say they were on the front lines.

Given the somewhat obscure nature of the disaster, we had two possibilities: either we would have to flush out the pipes and unclog the mess, or we would have to DIG UP THE WHOLE DAMN BASEMENT.

Today, we are trying Option A.

I am really hoping Option A works, because let’s face it, if this drags on for weeks and includes taking Dad’s Giant Entertainment System and the Sewing Corner apart to jackhammer the basement floor, going to the laundromat and doing the dishes by hand, and finally recarpeting the stupid floor and setting everything back up, I tell you, I don’t think I can take all the family togetherness.

*If you want to expand it to the Annual Christmas Utility Disaster, you can also add the year we spent three days in the family room sleeping in sleeping bags, playing Clue by candlelight, stuffing the pets down our vests to keep both pet and boobs warm, and eating cold canned food.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: The Colbert Report

Ah, buggrit, Amazon seems to feel today that I do not need to use the search function, because it knows exactly what I want. Amazon is wrong. Today I’m looking for a couple of entirely new things—the first, obscenely expensive season Star Trek TOS from all of us kids to Dad, and a yet-unrevealed Mystery Item for my brother,* which the store I was damn sure it was at does not carry.

If this keeps up I may go off to Barnes and Noble to get it, despite their failure to use the word “Christmas” enough.

Anyway! I’ve got half the dolls changed into X-mas gear, including Laurel, whose dress surrendered after a valiant fight.** We’ve got a good spot for their puny tree. Now I just need to get some fairy lights for the room, and things will be all set!

*My brother has been known to read this blog, but Dad never does.

**The surrender was not unconditional. I had to concede the sleeves.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: It Came From Outer Space

Considered getting Dad a MAN COOK MEAT WITH FIRE apron for Christmas, in honor both of the fact that he likes to grill things and the way he refuses to eat any food he does not think has been cooked thoroughly through to its core.*

I was stopped, however, by the third paragraph on the apron, because it does not follow Dad’s philosophy, as summed up by the following conversation:

DAD: This seasoning needs more salt! And rosemary!
MOM: I am not so sure …
DAD: Trust me; I am French! I know these things.
AMELIA: What? You’re not French, you liar! You’re English and Italian.
DAD: Well, I should be French. I have the cookbook and everything.

So once again, I am back on the hunt for a gift for him. Maybe I’ll buy him some bad monster movies from the ’50s. At least we can agree that you don’t need to season monsters before cooking them with fire.

*His philosophy for this is that he does not want it to resemble, in any way, the stuff he works with in the OR. Fair enough, but it does make for some rather overwrought backseat cooking. “HAVE YOU COOKED THE CHICKEN ENOUGH? CHICKEN SHOULD COOK FOR 40 MINUTES, YOU KNOW.** AND IS THAT PORK BROWN YET?”

**This is one of The Rules, as defined by Dad’s obsessive-compulsive personality. It is true for whole roast chickens down to chicken cubes in stir fry. Don’t tell him we tend to fudge it sometimes so the chicken will not be jerky.

Current Mood: unsure
Current Music: Rockapella ~ Glow Worm/It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

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The Desert Mermaid

I Am The Boss Princess

Entries tagged with domesticity

Oooh, Ah Hates That Varmint

Of Course You Know: This Means WAR

AIM HIGH, SISTER!

The Life Experience ~ Winter '11

Bite-Sized Life Slices

Spaghetti Sauce Time!

CAMERA DUMP!

Things Are Better Today!

Reloaded The Bullets

Goings-On

My Week With Dad

Good News, Everyone!

Back In The Groove

Not The Lunesta Moth, Of Course

And Don't Get Me Started On Cacao

Subjects Are For People Who Feel Less Crummy

Blah Kinda Day

Deck The Halls With OH GOD

Christmasing

Also SMOKE. Lots Of Smoke.