Too much stuff has been going on; every time I try to sit down and sum it all up, I don't even know where to start.

So, instead, a meme, as seen randomly on ye olde DW circle --

What is the first TV show you remember watching?

Dark Shadows, the original, creepy, gothic cheese-fest. I was 5? I hid behind the couch b/c I wasn't allowed to watch but I was just sucked into the melodrama.

What is the first “grown up” TV show you watched?

See above, lol

Have you ever been in a wedding bridal party? What was your role? What did your outfit look like that you wore for the day?

Soooooo many, hah. (At least a half-dozen, not counting my own. At various moves, I've handed off a burgundy off-the-shoulder long dress (maid of honor), a turquoise tea-length with an iridescent chiffon overlay (bridesmaid and general errand runner), a pastel flowered tea length with a portrait collar (bridesmaid and keeper of the good champagne), and a black, fitted strapless sheath with sheer illusion long sleeves (from when Oldest was a ring-bearer and I was there to keep the peace.) But my first was THE BEST EVER. When I was 11 or 12, one of my younger aunts got married in the most giant, OTT wedding ever and I was a junior bridesmaid (along with a sister of the groom. My brother and the groom's younger brother were altar boys, though there were 3 priests also involved in the ceremony, so the kids just sat around in their robes.) It was the 1970s; the girls (bridesmaids, jr bridesmaids, flower girls and maids of honor (yes, 2) wore aqua (polyester) long gowns with ruffles criss-crossing our bosoms. The groomsmen wore cut-velvet dinner jackets, with swirly patterns cut into them and aqua ruffled shirts. The mothers wore gowns that were a sort of orange-y melon satin and a fuschia chiffon, while the fathers (two 50ish Polish and Italian immigrant steelworkers) rocked the fuck out of the same godawful dinner jackets with peach and pink ruffled shirts, to match their wives. There were 28 people in the bridal party (not counting the bride and groom), we made it through a High Mass with a full choir and at least 4 soloists singing every response and the aforementioned 3 priests (the parish priest, the priest who ran the volunteer group my aunt worked with and the groom's family priest) all having to speak. The reception was held at the Polish Falcon Hall where the cake was 5 layers with a (working) water fountain in the middle and 5 or 6 heart-shaped little sub-cakes connected by arched bridges to the main cake with the fountain and tiers AND at some point during a very vigorous polka, someone went careening into the cake table, knocking it down, and there was a small explosion as the water from the fountain shorted out the motor that was running the pump.

It was at this point that I swore there would not be an open bar at my own wedding, that I was not paying for my genial alcoholic family to go out and get smashed, and though it was nearly 20 years later, reader, there was not.

What is your ethnic background that you’re aware of?

Italian (Calabria) on my mother's side; Polish-Russian (from the part of Poland that always got the Russian invasions so who knows exactly who was what) on my father's. (I will tell you, though, that I looked up at one point during the second season of The Witcher as Vesomir started talking and said (to BabyBoy) words to the effect of holy shit, that's your grandfather. He even had the same mustache for a while, oy.

What was the last hotel you stayed in and where? Did you like it?

Well, we stayed at Old Key West and the Beach Club the last few times we went to Disney World, but those are technically condos, so I dunno if they count? We spent a couple of nights at the Swan at WDW before we moved over to the Beach Club in October. I mean, we do this almost every year, so yes, I do like them but that's kind of a given. The last hotel that *wasn't* attached to WDW was the Ritz Carlton Amelia Island, because I needed to use some free-night certificates before they expired and that was the nicest hotel within driving distance. It was beautiful and very upscale (I mean, it was a Ritz, so, yeah) and our room had a great ocean view, but if I go there again, I might be tempted to go with one of the rooms that don't have a balcony but have a patio with a fire table on it. I don't know, though--it really was a fabulous view.

hi, hi, ducking in before the complete holiday madness hits to wish you all a lovely winter holiday of your choice (belated but no less heartfelt for Hannukah and Solstice.)

I finished up work yesterday (though it's really less 'finished' and more 'made myself a list and closed the laptop') and will not go back until January 4. I'm debating deleting Slack off my phone, though we're pretty much closed up for the next fortnight so it should be quiet. (I hate having to reconfigure things when I reinstall.)

Today, I need to excavate the giant pile of shipping boxes and padded envelopes and make sure everything I ordered did indeed come in so that I can make any emergency adjustments tomorrow, if necessary. If I don't have to do anything, I might bake tomorrow, at least some candy cane brownies or sugar cookies that I can smother in sugar sprinkles.

Right now, I'm trying to figure out what food I have and what I need--I've already gone by Trader Joe's and Whole Foods for fun stuff (why yes, I did hunt down the last of the Talenti Peppermint Bark gelato across 5 different WF, why do you ask?) I think I have too much food, but all the kids are home and I'm happy to feed them their favorites without resorting to UberEasts or DoorDash so here I am with a jam-packed fridge and two freezers.

Fannishly speaking, I started watching S2 of The Witcher (I think we got to 2 eps) and we watched Tick, Tick, Boom last night (which, if no one has told you, the scene in the diner has every single Broadway legend you can think of in it. I made the kids stop so I could figure everyone out. They were less impressed.) And now I kinda want to go re-watch Rent. I'm still only on Ep 3 of Hawkeye, still haven't seen Shang Chi, and am contemplating going to see Spidey on Monday morning, when hopefully everyone will be other places. (We all finally got our boosters & I got a whole new batch of KN95 masks, I might risk it in the theater. I might also buy extra seats so we have a buffer around us. We’ll see.)

Bookwise, I'm in the middle of my annual re-listen to The Twelve Clues of Christmas, which is one of Rhys Bowen's Her Royal Spyness cozy mysteries, so lots of dead bodies with bonus pre-WWII English country Christmas setting. Next is possibly Rosamunde Pilcher's Winter Solstice--no bodies, just minor melodramas in the Scottish countryside, also at Christmas. I've lost count of how many times I've read/listened to them, but listening keeps me company while I run around and try to get things pulled together for the holidays.

Ok, I have shoved lunch at everyone & the kids have headed out to shop, so I am going to start digging through the aforementioned pile of presents & see what’s what.

Oh! I posted another chapter this morning, so my Darcy/Bucky post-WV/TFATWS fic is up over 50K words (and as I had suspected previously, the slow burn blew up so it’s rated Explicit now, waiting in the eye of the storm.

Ok, now I really am going to go deal with holiday stuff. Have a good day/night/morning!

I'm still here; unfortunately, we haven't found the right meds for D's complications so no one is sleeping for more than a couple of hours at a time and we're all getting a little testy with each other.

Really, all I'm doing is working and feeding people and trying to carve out a bit of time here and there to not feel like a robot. (Mostly, this is dedicated to getting words down on virtual paper, and to that end, I realized as I was doing my August EOM counts for getyourwordsout that I actually had written something every day during the month, yay? Also to that end, the Darcy/Bucky fic I've been noodling along on is up over 24K words posted, so I'm throwing out that link here, too: waiting in the eye of the storm (so far, 9 chapters of a rated T sloooooow burn.)

We'd sort of planned on doing a bit of DragonCon, but I really can't leave D (he's fallen a couple of times b/c he's so tired) and between that and the university kids being back to class full-time and covid, I don't think we're going to do anything. We'll see if T feels like going later, but... I think I'm going to give it a rest this year. I know I don't have the energy to really go full-tilt. Maybe we'll have this sorted out by next year, fingers crossed.

That's about all I've got brain power for--mostly, I just wanted to say hi b/c you know you people have kept me sane over the years and I do appreciate all of you. *mwhah*

Okay, an actual life-catch-up post ( behind the cut )

Hoping to be back with stuff I’ve been reading & watching, have a good week!

I’m in the middle of updating operating systems on the office laptop, so I thought I’d pop in here and say hi to all y’all. So...

Hi!

Nothing very exciting has been happening over this way, but D is *actually* on the waitlist to resume physical therapy, which is a relief; Oldest got his 2nd vax shot, #2 is getting his 2nd this week, and BabyBoy gets his first jab tomorrow. Also, I survived the worst of my deep cleaning appointments at the dentist & have been being a good girl & doing the whole multi-step brushing protocol they’ve set me up with daily. Also, I got my first haircut since all of this started, \o/. I swear, I almost burst into tears when I saw my stylist.

In other boring news, I have been puttering about the house & I officially own too many books (which is not a surprise) and too many clothes (which totally is). The stuff with the clothes is even more ridiculous given that I’m not going to be in the office until the end of the year & possibly not even then. And I’ve been wearing the same pair of Mom-jeans (that I happened to grab at Costco on my final, pre-pandemic shop) almost daily. I def need to work on those absent-minded ‘oh-that-looks-cute’ impulse buys going forward.

I finished TFATWS and ( Read more... )

I have zero familiarity with Shadow & Bone (or the sequels) so I’m turning to y’all as a barometer as to whether I should give the show a try...?

And finally, today’s recs from the (metaphorically) teetering pike of bookmarks both involve time-loop shenanigans to rework how canon played out.


god loves everybody, don't remind me by napricot, Black Panther, Erik & T'Challa, ~70,300 words, Mature === Whether or not Killmonger worships/believes in Bast is irrelevant to how things need to play out and if it takes a thousand mornings before he (and the rest of his family) figures things out, so be it.

Battle is the Great Redeemer by Lady_In_Red, Game of Thrones, Jaime/Brienne, ~69,300 words, Mature === I mean, almost anything would be a better use of Jaime Lannister than what canon gave us, but this is a particularly satisfying journey.

Previously, in PandemicUnhingedTime...

( February turned into quite the month; also medical and dental discussions though I tried not to get too gory )

On the flip side, my jaw actually doesn't hurt now, for the first time in 8 or 9 months (yes, I know, I really shouldn't have put it off, but it wasn't BAD until last week and we've been having this discussion about ignoring personal issues during Covid so I guess this is just another entry in that book of lived experiences. I can't decide if feeling semi-proud that I actually took off the rest of the day after they pulled the tooth is progress or just a sad admittance of how ridiculous my brain can be. )

I have a lot I want to talk about wrt Wandavision but I'll save that for when I have enough brainpower that I can string together a coherent paragraph outside of the office setting (where I *have* to.) The kids have also gotten me into Ted Lasso, about which I'll only say that it's as much about football as the first season of FNL was back in the day. (Totally loving it.)

I'll leave you with two links:

Beyond Burned Out (Harvard Business Report, not paywalled, I don't think) - I mean, on the one hand, duh? On the other, it's nice that somebody is calling out the systemic bullshit.

Obi Wan & Anakin from the School of Sabrefighting, with full symphonic accompaniment. Slightly less fraught than the first link.

bye, be safe, take care ♥

( cutting for random observations related to covid testing and diagnoses )

In less depressing news, my team shares a random link or fact or observation when we do our status posts, and this morning I shared a link to a spotify playlist of the music NASA used to wake up the Mars rover + a listing of what day each song was used and why. It made my nerdy engineering heart happy so I thought I'd share here, too.

( covid update )

( holiday update )

I'm off this whole week (the office closed down and I am not so much as even looking at my laptop) and so have had time to watch a few things. For one, I ended up binging Bridgerton, which is (I hope) not a surprise to anyone. The non-spoilery stuff is that the casting and the set design and costuming and music is all phenomenal. I know some people find the orchestral adaptations of Ariana Grande, etc, to be off-putting, but I love the energy it brings to the scenes. You put on period music and everybody yawns, but this brings out the whole clubbing/meat market aspect of the parties and balls and fetes without a single word.

( cutting for spoilery discussion, including Lady Whistledown stuff, please don't click if you don't know b/c the reveal is sublime )

Okay, I am going to see if I can make a full-tilt Milk Bar Funfetti cake for L's birthday, starting tomorrow, wish me luck! (If I manage to pull it all together, I will definitely take pictures.) Have a good rest of the halfway-out-of-time week before the new year!

Well, that's what my grandmother & I called it, because when I was little she and I spent all day in the kitchen making the pies for the extended family Thanksgiving (and my Mema's idea of family extended halfway across the state, as we sent boxes of the full US standard Thanksgiving meals out in a dozen different directions. She made a 22 lb turkey for the blood family, plus another one for the people she was feeding and her sons-in-law and nephews and even some of the guys who drove for the bakery my grandfather ran started delivering food around noon. I feel a little wimpy to only have one 13 pounder about to be brined.)

Back to the important stuff: I have a pecan pie in the oven and a pumpkin one on the cooling racks and I'm debating whether to make a mini apple/cranberry. (Yeah, it's just us this year, and possibly not even BabyBoy as he's just finished up his semester and is being extra cautious about bringing anything home. If it's nice enough, we'll set up on the deck but it's looking awfully cloudy out there even now. We'll see.) But you can never have too much pie, right?

In other news, I started posting a Darcy/Steve fic I've been poking at for years--I have somewhere around 15K words and I decided to scare my writing brain into finishing the damn thing by throwing it out there as a WiP, so the first chapter is up: baby, won't you swing it with me.

It's a loose sequel to losing control of the whole world (a guide to surviving thanksgiving at stark avengers tower), which is the fic that kept me sane the year my dad had a heart attack the day before Thanksgiving (when it is *impossible* to get anywhere in the US without hours and hours of extra time, because even in matters beyond his conscious control, my dad was a serious piece of work, as they say.)

Anyway.

That first fic is the fluffiest thing I think I've ever written and the sequel isn't much sharper, but hey, it's the holidays and it's 2020 and my brain feels we all need a little bit of sugar-coated, cottony fluff to ease out of the year.

I was procrastinating about cleaning the house (you’re all shocked, I know, but the robo-vac fell down the stairs and I was waiting for #2Son to have a minute to put it back together, et voila, procrastination) and ended up going through my entire AO3 Works listing (I’m topaz there), retagging and creating those courtesy series that pull everything from a fandom into a conveniently clickable group, and man, there was a point where I was tagging all kinds of sex acts. Like, really, Brain? What was up there? So, that got cleaned up a bit and I added a few other tags, and (not that this is any kind of a surprise) boy do I love me some Friends/Partners-to-Lovers and Team-As-Family and Found-Family tropes. That’s like my entire Works page.

Also, BabyBoy and I were having one of our wild, elliptical text conversations and ended up on the subject of how much we both love Jonathon Groff (and how him having already left Hamilton when we did the mad trip to NY for LMM's last performance was the only thing that wasn't perfect about the whole thing) and then when he went off to have a social life and I went to fold sheets and towels (ugh, bedding week on the laundry schedule), I remembered I'd written a ridiculously silly (and fun! so much fun!) piece of flash fiction involving Groff and SebStan and had to go hunt it down on tumblr, so now (in the spirit of love and further procrastination) I'm sharing it with you all: Gay Disney Princes In Love