I haven't done this for a few years, but the internet is forever, right? Also, welcome, new friends!


( 2019 summary )

The pleasant not-summer weather continued this weekend, yay. It rained today, but it's been so dry lately I can hardly make myself care.

We went and did Top Golf last night with L & B & a couple of our collective kids. Mostly, this means I sit around and drink and eat cheese fries, while occasionally getting up and swinging a golf club, which is about enough sports for me. Also, the Braves collapsed in humiliating fashion; I am v. v. glad I did not spend money on tickets for that game. In TV-related news, I started watching Hell On Wheels Friday night and ended up getting through the first season today, which is, not something I really had time for, but whoa-mama are they working the morally-conflicted anti-hero main character and it comes gift-wrapped in tight jeans and boots and a lot of riding horses. My brain went ooooooooHELLOgooooorgeous and did not let go for hours at a time. (CW for blood and violence and language and blood and did I mention the period-appropriate (post US Civil War) medical procedures?)

I've managed to keep writing this week, so once more with the Sunday Six. Same thing as last week (part of a sequel to the last thing I wrote, the Star Trek Discovery post-S2 Pike/Tyler, currently going by the working title of relationships are haaaard in space, subtitled chris pike brings teh draamaaa. Last week, I said it was little pieces that were somehow fitting together, but now I can see where I'm going back and forth between the current day of this story and how they got there from the previously posted story (which means I'm writing present and past tense, depending on where I am, and when I switch over it always takes two or three tries to get into the proper tense, so I apologize in advance for any wild flippings that have slipped through the cracks here.)

( This whole thing is just one giant H/C fluff fest )

Ugh, moving kids into dorms in August is no fun. Especially when the kid in question has a ridiculously complicated wardrobe, with many things on special hangers and an extra shoe rack. He was at least in the bottom floor & so only had to deal with the outside steps up to the front door. And we managed to miss the afternoon thunderstorm so I was just hot & sweaty, minus the dump of storm water.

So that’s BabyBoy sorted & #2Son is staying at home for this semester, and I don’t think I’m under any obligation to move Oldest any more.

I managed to get the handicapped parking permit for D last week, so that was good. Still sorting through disability & the hospital's online payment processor doesn't want to accept the number on their bill, which is fairly aggravating, especially since they're leaving 'courtesy call' messages every single day.

Such an exciting life this summer.

Those of you who've been around for awhile might remember my sadface(s) over the last few years as Karl Urban has had to cancel DragonCon each year. They just announced him as a guest again this year, so I guess we're going for the trifecta? Or, more likely, they'll schedule him opposite Anson Mount and I'll have to clone myself and send off half of my consciousness to two hotels. David Tennant is also on the schedule, but I'm not sure I'm up for fighting the Who-verse crowds. They are very dedicated.

I'm really hoping the weather breaks before the end of the month b/c it's been hideously hot the last few weeks and I'm not looking forward to dealing with that while waiting in line.

Have a good week, everyone!

oy, I did not mean to disappear! On the bright side, I now (unexpectedly) have several newly painted rooms, but HOMG, it's probably going to take me until spring break to get everything clean and put away again. (Painters called to say they could give me a (substantial) discount on said painting, which had been scheduled for April to go along with some other work, if I could let them come in 2 days. I said yes, which, yay for $$$ but gahhhh for everything else.)

It's 37°/3° and thunderstorming, so of course D's baseball season is in full swing and he is coming home like a popsicle. I'm doing my best Southern US hygge with a fire and stew and lots of wooly blankets, but I hate it when it's cold and rainy. Cold and snowy is bad enough, but the rain is so dreary. I have even broken out the emergency BeardedChrisEvans candle (I'm rationing it now b/c Yankee Candle has discontinued the scent, D:).

In cooking news, I'm working my way through Chrissy Teigen's new cookbook, which is super-entertaining and fun (and sooooo different than the dreary, boring cookbooks my poor Mom had to deal with. No wonder she was an uninspired cook.) (Favorite recipe so far is the scallop linguine with casino breadcrumbs, which I will provide if desired. I looked but couldn't find it online to link to... but, good gravy that was gooooood.)

Writing-wise, I finished more PWP Han/Lando, which kept me surprisingly entertained even as I was trying to figure out the non-info-dump way to describe positions. Like I said in the notes on AO3, I sort of want to write them all the way through canon. My writing brain thinks time/independent wealth would be a such good thing.

and finishing off, #2Son & I are on Season 3 of Star Wars: Rebels and ( spoilers? I mean, definitely some stuff that happened (and surprise!characters) but it's been years since this originally aired but... better safe than sorry )

Wow, I swear I didn’t think it’d been quite so long since I last updated, but apparently it has been.

So, we had snow, which is always Crazy!Tiems here, and then it stayed cold, which interferes with the let-the-sun-melt-it snow-removal strategy we practice. We ended up missing 3 days of school, but BabyBoy and I had no trouble flying up to NYC on the end of that. He did his auditions, which, STRESSFUL, but we also managed to see Kinky Boots and eat our way through multiple Manhattan food halls. I may never make ramen again, not after some of the exquisite broth I got. There were also some excellent crepes (both sweet and savory), amazing salumi, good pizza, a lobster roll or two, and a chili cheese dog from a Nathan’s truck outside of the Met. (Sadly, we couldn’t go inside, because by that time we were walking along Central Park with our luggage & big bags are a no-go at the Met, but the weather was so nice that continuing our walk was an excellent alternative.)

The auditions were up and down, but I think he handled the downs pretty well (came back to the hotel, took a nap, and spent my money on Broadway tix to remember why he wanted to go through the grind in the first place.) The next days’ auditions went well, I think, so that was good. Of course, now he has bronchitis and is on these mammoth-sized antibiotics, but sometimes sh*t happens.

Also in the sh*t happens category, D totaled his truck somewhere in the middle of all that (pre-snow.) He walked away from it (with the okay of the paramedics) and saw his doctor the next morning, but then went back to work too early and ended up graying out as he walked out of the door of his trailer/classroom the next day. *That* got him a trip in an ambulance and a night in the emergency room for a full work-up of tests and all. Very exciting. (Not.) (Seriously, aside from the worry, it was the most boring 5 hours you can imagine.) Everything showed up okay; he just needed to chill a little longer. Fortunately, the weather came in not long after, so there was some externally-enforced downtime (where he’d have otherwise have been running tryouts and gearing up for the new team/season.)

But his car really is gone, so the car shopping process begins. /o|

On the fun side of things, I got through the second season of The Crown, which I was rationing to no more than 1 episode every other day, just because I knew I’d skip going to bed one night to binge if I didn’t keep strict control. #2Son had gotten through it ages ago, so I’d end up texting him whenever Phillip started getting on my nerves (so, yeah, pretty often), or when some idiot PM did something extra-stupid (yep, again, pretty often), or every time they didn’t flinch away from just how ill-suited Margaret and Tony really were (non-stop, on their episodes.) He finally came upstairs and sat in the same room with me, gaming while I watched, just so he didn’t have to pause his game to pick up the phone and text me back.

There was also a re-viewing of The Last Jedi, this time preceded by a re-viewing of The Force Awakens, and I have 2 thoughts to share, which are spoilery (for TFA as well as TLJ), so I will cut:( Read more... )

If my father had not already passed away from that heart attack a couple of years ago, I am telling you that the price tag on the Christmas tree I just bought would have bumped him right off.

(um, it is entirely possible that I am overcompensating for the general insanity of this last month, but I won't tell if you won't. and I will try for better pictures this year.)

We adopted a new dog! Wonder!Dog is getting older now and we didn’t want a new dog to have to fight the Replacement syndrome, plus we are hoping that a more active companion will be helpful for #2Son’s (slow, so slow I can’t even tell you, but it’s actually happening) advances against his anxiety and depression. So, we’ve been stalking several rescue organizations and finally went and met a few of their pooches in person over the weekend. #2 & I took Wonder!Dog up to the kennel on Saturday and ended up liking one dude who was everything we didn’t think we wanted, but who wormed his way into our heads (and to a lesser extent our hearts, at least that day.) He was big and youngish and not either of the dogs #2 had seen and liked. But we decided to go back on Sunday with BabyBoy and D in tow and, yeah, our guy came out and gave #2 a hug (literally—he jumps up and puts his paws around you, which, yes, we need to break him of the habit of just doing it, but it’s also super-sweet if you know it’s coming and are braced for it, so the command to learn is ‘give me some lovin’.’)

D loves big dogs, and this guy is (as best we can tell) 65 pounds (29 kg) of lab/border collie mix, gray and black and white, with the size and head of a lab and the color and markings (and feathery ears) of a border collie. He’s like a big gray wolf. BB wanted a lap dog for snuggles, so he was holding out until the dog basically climbed in his lap and sprawled out for a belly rub. All 65 pounds of him. Wonder!Dog was pretty chill about it all, just wandering around the meeting area and ignoring the youngster, so after another little while of the dog draping himself over people, and #2 getting attached, we said okay and started signing paperwork. #2 was super-good at getting him in the car, because the poor guy did *not* like the look of my SHIELD van and only got in after sitting on #2 and edging closer to the car every few minutes, which seems like a win in more ways than one.

Now, we just have to figure out what to name him. We have various geeky names under consideration:

Grey Wind (GoT) – A little too obvious with his coloring + all the direwolves die so horribly. I hate to saddle the poor dog with that karma

Oliver (Wood, HP) – D is *rolling* his eyes at this one, but I swear, the dog is the canine equivalent of that sweet, dumb Quidditch player. We eliminated Cedric (Diggory) b/c, hi, dead; also D might die with a dog named Cedric even before he got to the source.

Orome (the Valar of the Hunt, LOTR) – Oro is… okay as a call name? Maybe? D might not be able to survive explaining the origin of the name, though.

Shadow (Gaiman, American Gods) – Again, maybe a little too obvious with his coloring and we’re fighting off the Sonic gaming associations

Maximus (the dog that’s part of the Roman army at the beginning of Gladiator isn’t named, but he runs into battle with Maximus) – D is totally fine with Max, and we can all see this dog running flat out with horses, but BabyBoy feels it’s too boring. Also, I somehow doubt the dog survived Commodus’ rage, so again with the bad karma.

Strider (also LOTR) – Again, D might choke on explaining the name

Mouse (the Dresden Files) – He (the dog) does not particularly look like a Mouse, but we were grasping at straws.

For non-geeky names:

Beauregard - I have mentioned that I married a good ol’ boy, right? Beau isn’t too bad of a call name, though. I guess. The kids are less excited.

Harry (not Potter) – Yesterday was the 950th anniversary of some pre-Battle of Hastings battle and Harold was the king at that point. D actually doesn’t mind this.

Viking - We were mourning that Odin’s wolves had names that nobody liked & D suggested just plain Viking.

Indy - #2Son offered that we could just keep calling him ND (New Dog), which slurs very easily into Indy, but I don’t know what D thinks of that.

And finally, since he’s part Border Collie, if you look up the Gaelic clan name that D’s family is a sept of, you get a mouthful that could easily be shortened to Mac. That might sidestep BB’s ‘but it’s boring’ argument.

Okay, there’s more stuff, but this is the big news and I think I’ve gone on long enough. I will be back with the name decision and some pictures (if we can get the dog to stay still long enough.)

So, I got all the way to Sunday evening at home, but then Oldest's car died on the side of the interstate and by the time we dealt with that and got everyone and everything where they/it needed to be, I didn't get to bed until 1 a.m. and the final laundry/cleaning/cooking didn't happen. :(

Plus, the car is mostly dead (the timing belt blew and it'll take ~900 USD to even see what else got damaged when it went) and not worth fixing, so now I'm on a blitz to find the kid a new car so he can get back from his late classes, which means I've got another weekend of back-and-forthing coming up.

Also, my aunt and uncle live in San Bernadino and he's a semi-retired fire chief and yeah, did that situation blow up overnight or what? I know there are several of my fandom friends who are affected by this situation, too, and I am hoping everyone is safe. ::hugs::

But, since adulting means you better learn to let go of the crap when you can, so the non-crap can sustain you when you can't, here's the Wednesday book meme--


read
The Royal Nanny, Karen Harper – a fictionalized biography of the nanny who raised Edward VII and George V and their siblings, including their youngest brother, John, who died as a teenager of complications due to epilepsy. I picked this up less because of David and Bertie and more because you almost never see mention of Johnnie in any book about the royals of this era. Despite my general dislike of fictional biographies, this worked well enough on most levels for me. I did appreciate the bibliography the author included, just for the ability to fact-check the narrative.

What Angels Fear, C. S. Harris – You know I love me some Regency crack, especially when we’re dealing with the post-Napoleonic years, no matter the genre, but this one was extra helpings of catnip for me, what with the lone-wolf, PTSD-suffering, badass viscount of a main character. I really should have gotten to this series sooner—my mom had been talking about it for the last year of our daily ‘whatcha reading?’ chats—but now I’m on it. (Also, I would like to raise my hand for a ship with the calm, rational, plain, do-gooding daughter of the morally-ambiguous advisor to Prinny. Just sayin’.)

Mr. and Mr. Smith, HelenKay Dimon—m/m novella of the secret agent variety. I could have gone for it being a little bit longer (I get the appeal of jumping right in, in media res, but if you’re going to give me flashbacks/dreams of happier times anyway, maybe give me a little base to build my worry on?) On the plus side: remember when m/m pro-fic was just atrociously bad? Yeah, this isn’t that. Definitely worth my amazon credits.

Veil of Lies, Jeri Westerson – DNF, though I think it was b/c I wanted more Regency investigations (see above) and I couldn’t quite make the jump back in time to the Black Prince and Chaucer. I’m placing this on the Try Again pile.

now
Turn Coat, Jim Butcher – More Dresden, still audiobooking the series (thank you, James Marsters), still rolling my eyes over Dresden’s particular form of idiocy. So far in this one, we have Thomas and Murphy and Molly involved, so my Found Family button is safely mashed. I’m beginning to worry about who really might be leading the Black Council, but I’ll just leave it at that.

next
More of the aforementioned badass Regency viscount sleuthing around, I think.

Hello, hello, happy day to you all!

I'm sneaking away to tell you all about my holiday because I'm sort of laughing helplessly at how it's going so far and I can share with you all with much less blowback than on fb or Twitter, etc.

Okay, so first off, WonderDog ended up with the thing where his stomach was folded back on itself (this happened last week) and had very speedy (and expensive, omg) surgery. He's been wandering around with his Cone of Shame bumping into walls and stairs and being very perplexed about his lot in life. He's doing okay, but just really started back eating food yesterday.

Then, the weather has freaked out and is hot and humid and raining like Noah, et al will be by any second.

Now, putting this all together, #2Son was home with WD when the bad stuff started happening and though he handled it very well, it triggered a pretty serious anxiety attack (bad enough that he actually took a Xanax, which he hates.) This is mostly okay, except that it's really hard for him to go see D's family even in good times, so he ended up not going with us last night. (He was fine by himself, but I was vaguely worried about him all day and we never quite connected on FaceTime during the evening, as was planned.) So that stressed me out (on top of the regular holiday stress) and I was worn out by the time we got home last night/this morning and it was late by the time I crawled out of bed to find that all the ridiculous amounts of rain meant we had standing water in the playroom/storage room in the basement.

Sooo, we dragged everything out of the affected area, hauled the throw rugs up to the garage to drip in peace, threw down the gazillion beach towels we have from Beach Week to mop up the water and got fans going in the affected rooms. (Wet vac tomorrow morning when the shop is open.)

And then WonderDog is whining pathetically so BabyBoy takes him out to do his business (he's not allowed to go out on his own now as he can get over/under fences and likes to eat trash and other nasty things, which contributed to the stomach issue.) So I'm making cinnamon rolls and the other boys are building me a fire in the fireplace (and yes, I did turn the AC on so we wouldn't die of heat exhaustion) when BB texts me words to the effect that he NEEDS MORE POOP BAGS RIGHT NOW. So we dispatch Oldest to go to his aide and they come back and fill us in on how WD's digestive system is once again functional, which is *charming* information to go along with the handmade cinnamon roll breakfast I'm sweating over.

But, you know, yay that the dog is recovering b/c we did just spend a small fortune on his medical needs (and we lub him, too, sigh) and we move off to finally open presents. Before we get too far along though, it turns out that I Santa mis-read the packaging and so the water pistols in everyone's stocking (to be used to keep the cat out of the tree/off the table/etc) turned out to be cap guns and we took a brief detour from Peace On Earth to re-enact the Gunfight at the OK Corral.

Gifts were finally opened and we ended up buying each other 2 sets of the Star Wars Planetary Glasses (a complete surprise as no one realized the other set of shopping teams had gotten it) and despite there being a brand new laptop unwrapped, people spent lots of time on LED flashlights, the aforementioned cap guns, and a set of little Lego Star Wars vehicles (that shoot even littler bits of Lego ammunition.)

It's been a little bonkers and I'm on my 3rd laundry load of nasty smelling towels from the basement, but everyone was laughing and having a good time while things were going wrong, and I kinda wanted to share that.

So, yes, a happy day to you all! (A, your Enough J2 is going to be a bit delayed, I'm so sorry!)