So Sarah and I thought that we should maybe, y'know. Try to write another episode of Legion, to see if we could write one that we felt was producable in less than, uh, two years. Ideally, we'd get it done in 5 days. Realistically, if we put it all together in a month I'll be very pleased. We are, after all, new at this. :)
But this weekend we did write a fairly solid treatment for the first two acts of the second episode, and we know where we're going with the third and fourth acts, so we're feeling pretty accomplished and pleased. From what we've got, I feel like the episode is going to come together well. Larry said time and time again that writers should spend at least as much time on the episode treatment as on the script itself: if the treatment is thorough enough, the script should just be adding in the lines to link it all together. Right now I'm feeling like we're well on the way to achieving that. Go, us!
Plus, I printed out nifty address labels. Not that it has anything to do with anything, but I'm smug about them. :)
And still more photos! These ones Ted took, mostly. Not quite entirely: there's a bunch taken in the women's bathroom that I took, but still. Mostly Ted photos! :)
(I'm almost done. I promise. Except all the ones I haven't gotten from people yet. :)
I actually got up and went biking this morning, yay me. :) 12 miles or so, and it was a very nice ride. I saw an otter!
Speaking of wedding photos, here are the ones that I took. I like this one particularly. :)
This afternoon we dropped by my parents' house to look at wedding photos that we'd just picked up from the store.
Dad was calling our house just as we walked up, so I stood on one side of the screen door and he stood on the other and he talked into the phone and I answered and he asked if Ted was home and I said nope, he'd gone to the store and to get some ice cream, and he said did I know when Ted was going to be home, and I said nope, and he said he was calling to see if Ted might want to go golfing tomorrow, and I said probably, but he'd have to talk to Ted about it, and he said, well, okay, he'd call back later when Ted was home. Only after all of which did we open the screen door and enter. :)
I've just taken a quiz that tells me I'm highly narcissistic.
Whoda thunk? :)
Bridal shower photos! They made a paper plate wedding dress for Deirdre to wear. o.O
Okay, it was onlya very *short* bike ride, but 2.3 miles out I realized I was really pretty tired, so it seemed foolish to bike any further out, since I'd have to come back again. But I did 4.5ish miles, and that's good. Plus gymming this morning, so I'm a morally superior sort of Kit, or something. :)
The alarm went off at 6 this morning and pretty much totally failed to register in my consciousness. Ted said, "It's six," and for several minutes I really couldn't figure out why he'd told me that. Then I remembered that meant I was supposed to get up and go to the gym. I thought, "Man, I'm tired, I don't want to go to the gym."
Then I thought, "I don't want to weigh this much, either," and so I got up and went to the gym.
- 125 crunches
- 12 lunges (I hate lunges)
- floor work: leg lifts, hip & inner thigh, 3x12
- floor work: leg lifts, quads, 3x12
- floor work: leg lifts, hamstrings, 1x12
- back extensions: 3x15x40#
- dips: 1x10x85#
- chin-ups: 1x10x85#
- butterfly press: 3x15x40#
- lateral pull-down: 3x15x40#
- tricep extensions: 3x15x30#
- bicep curls: 3x12x20#
And oh, oh, we went to Lilo & Stitch last night. It's the best Disney cartoon since The Lion King, so you must go see it. There was lots of, like, emotional investment and stuff. I really really liked it a lot!
More wedding photos! These ones were taken by Susan Shaffer. :) This one's a wonderful picture of Gavin and Deirdre. :)
Jesus freaking Christ.
I just called the Alaska Club to try to get them to give me a pricing structure for their gyms, because their website doesn't say *anything* about pricing.
I asked for this. I called up, I asked what the membership fees were.
I got: we have pools at some gyms, we have free weights, of course, saunas, massage, yoga classes, what kind of exercise do you do? Oh, we have cycling classes, personal trainers, blah blah blah.
I repeated: what are the membership fees.
I got: Do you have ten minutes today that you could come in, we could show you around the new club, I could go over the UAA alumni pricing structure for you, not today? how about tomorrow? (I work, I said) Well, how about Monday? Again with the working, I said. What are your fees, I said?
I got: there's a wide range of fees and I'd like to go over them with you in person
At which point I interrupted and said, "Stacy?" For that was her name. "Stacy, if you can't give me a pricing structure over the phone, I'm not interested."
Oh, she said, but it's such a range and it encompasses so many different things. Who is this for, just yourself? she asked, and I said yes, and she _finally_ said it ranged from $59 to $107 a month.
I said thank you, that was what I needed to know, and she said, "Is there a mailing address I can reach you at?" I said no, I didn't need any flyers. She said how about a phone number, and I said no, I didin't need anyone to call me, "oh," she said, "I just wanted to be able to call you and see if you'd like to set up an appointment." No, I said, that won't be necessary.
By which time not only /I/ was pretty irritated, so was she. Jesus freebing Christ. They're the most convienent gym to where I live, but Jesus _Christ_.
I woke up at 10 to 6 today because I couldn't breathe, and instead of getting up I went back to bed, which was just a mistake. I got up after a while and showered, but ended up going back to bed again because I just didn't feel very good, so I didn't get to work until 9 and I've been working my little fingers to the bone since then. Sufficiently so that my pinky is hurting. I think I need to get offline as soon as work is over, today. I ended up being online like 13 hours yesterday. Blah.
I have nothing else of interest to say. Not that that was very interesting.
Wedding photos! This batch was taken by Dave Forbes. There's no index yet, so you'll just have to click through and admire or not, as you see fit. But this is a great photo of Deirdre. :)
This is Dad's writeup of Deirdre's wedding. Since I haven't gotten anything written yet, I thought I'd just post what he had to say. :) "I" in this posting (after this paragraph, anyway) refers to my father. :)
As one of our friends said, it was the nicest Hindu-Moslem-Buddhist-Jewish ceremony she had ever
been to. Gavin and Deirdre asked Praveen, an East Indian friend of Gavin's, to conduct the marriage
ceremony. Somehow he captured most of the major religions and everyone was delighted with the ceremony. It was a very unorthodox wedding, and it was a joyous affair. It was ceremonial and intense, but it had a spirit of relaxed improvisation and love.
We were seated at tables that were arranged like spokes, with the marrying area being the hub. Gavin's grandma played some pre-show classical music, I brought the bride in, and it was off to the races.
First Praveen had everyone hug other people in the audience. Much to my surprise everyone joined in with a will and it took a while before we returned to our tables. Then some of the nearly newlyweds' friends said nice things about them, and I sang "More I Cannot Wish You" from Guys and Dolls.
Next Praveen lit some sage and smudged the couple, clearing away any negative energy. Then he put oil and water on the nearly newlyweds' foreheads, put lighted incense on the floor and had them walk around it seven times. The nearlys started giggling [they lost count! --ed] and so did most everyone in the audience. Praveen gave a brief talk about marriage and about Gavin and Deirdre, and they said the vows they had prepared. Praveen announced they were husband and wife, they kissed, and presto-zipto, a thousands of years old tradition was culminated.
Many more things that included interesting entertainments, conversations, and food and drink took place. The pre-closing event was two bridal attendants plus the bride and the groom cartwheeling down a grassy slope. The final event of the evening was tossing birdseed at the bride and groom as they ran the gauntlet of guests.
One of the best entertainments of the evening was when Deirdre, Gavin and their friend Nathan sang We Were Cruisin' Along on Airport Way, The Cannibal King, and a couple of other songs I taught Deirdre and Catie many years ago - songs that my mother taught my sisters and me. During the singing I looked over at Mother and Aunt Mabel and they were both singing along. :)
Oh, yes, Gavin ended the ceremony part by taking off his sandal and replacing it with a big boot. Then he took a wine glass wrapped in a napkin and smashed it. It was a great ending and loud cheers erupted from the audience.
When I talked to Praveen after the ceremony, he said he figured he had enough bits of religious ceremonies in there to offend everyone present. I told him there were people there who ranged from conservative Christians to avowed atheists and everyone loved it. He said he was glad because he already had another wedding gig in California next month.
I have left out many details, but I think you can tell it was an unforgettable wedding.
Once more, I didn't wake up weighing 145 pounds, but I *did* get up at 6:07 and stagger my way to the gym. I didn't do anything intense, but instead did a relatively low-key whole-body workout, based in the logic that I'm really in phenomenally bad shape and that I'm not at all eager to injure myself again, so I thought I would give myself three or four weeks of lower-key general strengthening exercises, especially for the back area.
Which brings me to the incredibly irritating fact that this gym does not have a row machine. Wretched, wretched, stupid bastards.
anyway, the workout:
- 125 crunches
- 25 horrible lying-on-your-back leg lifts
- mule kicks, 3 sets of 12
- leg lifts, 3 sets of 12
- lunges, but I forget how many
- butterfly press, 3x12x40#
- bench press, 3x12x30#
- lat pull-downs, 3x12x40#
- shoulder press, 3x12x20#
- bicep curls, 3x12x20#
- leg extensions, 2x12x30#
- tricep extensions, 2x12x30#
I also biked 13.5 miles last night, and I think I forgot to mention that I'd biked 16 miles on Sunday.
On that list of Thinks To Do from whenever, I've finally written Tony's letter and the CS leavebehind. I have to check to see what else was on that list. :)
Today was not the first day of an ideal world. Not only did I not wake up weighing 145 pounds, but also I slept 10 hours when 8 would have done, and I have just realized that I forgot to start making bread when I got up, which means it won't be ready at lunchtime. Frell.
Maybe I'll make a small loaf on the short cycle. It usually doesn't rise as well, but at least there'd be bread at lunchtime.
Despite it not being the first day of an ideal world, I am at least telling myself that I've now caught up on my sleep and that I am no longer injured (although I've got a bit of a stiff neck, because Ted stole my pillow at 1:30 this morning) and so _tomorrow_ I will put forth an effort to join the real world and not sleep for 10 hours a night and get some exercise and that kind of thing.
Ok, Ms. Dehydration Lass is going to get some water and make some bread and maybe let the puppy out again, and probably find some breakfast, too.
I think in an ideal world, I would go to bed at 11pm and get up at 5. Spend an hour drawing. Go to the gym/pool for an hour or two, return home and work until 4:30, then go biking for a couple of hours before either reading or writing until 11pm.
Of course, I would weigh 145 pounds in an ideal world, too. :)
Trees, sky, cedar homes
a yellow butterfly brings
focus to the world
I'm alive! There's lots of writing up to do, but I'm not going to tackle it today. Suffice to say that it was a fantastic wedding, Deirdre looked like a fairy tale princess, the ceremony was wonderful, and lots and lots of old friends were there to be seen. *beam* More later!
The launch date for the new site has been pushed out to August 16. Hah. Take that.
Two of my good coworkers are leaving the company. :P
On the other hand, the upstairs is now *very* clean, because Noel was bored, and I have a chiro appointment this afternoon, and an appointment to have my hairs trimmed after that. And then there is a wedding! Woot!
Noel is upstairs vacuuming. Very strange. I assume it has something to do with her cat allergies.
So in other news, I thought the HTML work for this August 2 launch was supposed to start the 17th of June. The client has not even decided on a design yet. They are evidently going to select one of the designs we offered Tuesday. There will be at least a few days of graphic creation before I can start HTML. But my project managers are saying, "We can launch the site on August 2 anyway, a few days shouldn't make that much difference."
I'm like, YES IT DOES.
*sigh*
I have a canker sore. It hurts. I got stuff to put on it, but the stuff is all the way upstairs and I'm not off work yet, so I'm still downstairs. Right now it's the sort of aching hurt that doesn't so much *hurt* as simply says: poke at me! poke at me! poke at me! And so I want to poke at it, but that would make it hurt MORE, and I may be going a little crazy from it. Gngngngfhg!
Plus I have a headache. Blah.
I went to Deirdre's bridal shower for a couple of hours last night, and that was fun. I didn't stay for the real partying, what with having to, y'know, get up and go to work today, but it was nice to see people and stuff. :)
Uh. That's about all I have to say. :)
Well, I got the house vaccumed and Noel arrived safely. All is well.
Oh, I did figure out what art classes I'm going to take, too. Assuming -- well, two things. Assuming I get a student loan (although I get an extra paycheck in August, so if I don't get the loan I probably won't be totally doomed), and assuming my boss will let me shift my work hours back so that I can make it to 4pm classes, I'll probably take intermediate drawing, and 2-D and 3-D design classes, which are 3 of the 5 core classes I need to take. I may have already taken an intermediate drawing class, actually, but this one, they say, has live models, and I like drawing from life, so I want to take it. The other two core classes are art history classes, and I'm going to see if I can petition out of them. It might be interesting (probably would be) but I have a general grasp of art history and if I can get out of the classes, well, I will. :)
Today is absolute meeting hell. I started out with a 8am meeting and I have an 11am meeting and then I'm in meetings from 1:30pm for the _rest of the day_.
In between meetings, I have work to finish and a house to vaccum, which is sort of the bare minimum that seems acceptable before relatives start arriving. :)
I think I have to go put the puppy in her kennel for the next while, while there are -- you guessed it -- more meetings.
Small victories. I just got the bill for the Alaska student loans. Ted's loan is all caught up. In fact, it appears that it may even be ahead, since the next payment isn't actually due until August. _My_ loan is _also_ ahead, and not due until August.
It seems like I ought to be able to work this to my advantage somehow. I mean, in a fashion which both allows me to stay partially ahead on Ted's loan and still have a little extra money somewhere.
In other good financial news, we paid off one of the god knows how many things haunting our credit record, so yay us. And I called up the dentist to ask why they'd billed the 3 sealants which we were all pretty sure my insurance wouldn't pay (which is stupid, because sealants are 1. cheap and 2. preventative) to my insurance, but they hadn't billed the exam, x-rays or cleaning to my insurance, when insurance *does* pay those things, and had instead billed them to me. They said, "Um, we'll check and get back to you on that." So once more, go me.
Now I need to drink water, because *man* I have not been drinking enough water lately.
There are wildfires, and while it's a beautiful day, it's hard to tell because it's very smoky out. I thought it was just a kind of grey day, but I went outside and the light was orange. Looks like sunset.
Instead of getting anything done at *all* last night, we went over to my parents' house and had dinner with Deirdre and Gavin and Mom and Dad. Deirdre and Gavin made 'pasta with red sauce', which was very good, and then it was suddenly after 10pm and by the time we got home it was bed time.
I'm going to just have to force myself to get out of bed at 6 tomorrow. I don't think there's any other way I'm going to successfully rearrange my sleep schedule, which has been about 9 or 10 hours a night since I hurt my back. But if I don't get up I won't get to the gym and if I don't get to the gym I'm never going to lose weight and I'm going to continue to feel like a lump of lard and I'm *tired* of that, so I really just need to force myself out of bed and go.
Besides, at least I'll be sure to get to work on time that way. :P
Ok, I need breakfast, and to make bread, and then to find out what in God's name is happening with all my client sites. Fnrt!
Go, me. I got my 401k set up again, which ought to look pretty much like hemmoraging money come the first paycheck in July, but at least it's a savings account of some sort. Now I have to go try to make the website choke up how much of a percentage my company will match, since none of the paperwork says.
Thinks To Do for Monday:
1. Write Tony's cover letter, since I haven't yet
2. Write a CS synopsis, since "" "" ""
3. Bike 10 miles.
4. Vaccum the bedroom
AAAAAAH! Ben proposed to Laura last Thursday! AAAAAH! While they were out camping. *laugh* He'd apparently been going to do it in Alaska, except the ring didn't get there in time for him to bring it with him, I guess. :) AAAAH! Hee hee hee! Congratulations to them! Hee hee hee!
Oh, there /was/ an earthquake this morning, then. I felt it, but I couldn't decide if it was really an earthquake, or if it was just the cats jumping around on the bed. I thought it was probably an earthquake, but I apparently wasn't awake enough to be able to bring myself to care much. :)
Ok, time to call my cousin Noël, who is either staying with us for Deirdre's wedding, or who is not, depending on whether she thinks her allergie and the three animals are going to be an issue. I haven't seen Noël since I was about 12. When I was growing up, Noël was Very Tall. Then when I saw her when I was about ... 12. Or 15. I forget. She'd become Very Short. I was like five inches or something taller than she was. It traumatized my little world. :)
Hiccuping still hurts my back. Ow.
God damn it. I forgot I had a 9am meeting this morning. I've been slacker-ish about getting up the last few weeks since I hurt my back; that has to stop. *Dammit*.
The good news is my back doesn't hurt nearly as much this morning. :} So I don't have to make another chiro appointment, which make me happy. I need to change my Friday appointment, though, because it's at, you guessed it, 9am.
Not not not *not* happy with myself. Frell. :P
16 mile bike ride this morning, and then waffles. :)
Ow, goddamn it. My back is fucked up in a new and different way now; there is a spasming muscle in my *middle* back, which makes it hurt to breathe deeply or hiccup or twist. I'm pretty sure the basic problem at this point is that I am in SUCH lousy shape that almost anything will screw me up. Blah.
I went _biking_ this morning! A 13.5 mile ride, not too long, but it was SO nice to get out of the house and on my bike and be *exercising*. My neck's a little bit stiff, but my lower back seems to be fine, and *whew*! It was very nice!
Off to do, um. A bunch of stuff. :)
heh. i marked the right box. hr fucked up. so the three hundred fucking dollars a month i've been paying out the last year could've come out of my paycheck in a much less painful and interest-ridden way. i've been trying so hard to get our finances in order and...
i just want to go back to bed. :(
ARRRRRRRGH.
HR says that I have my W4 filled out as: married, claimed one allowance and an additional $50. Your prior W-4, you marked married, claimed one allowance and an additional $25.
If she is correct in this, then WHY are they now withholding my taxes at a higher single rate?
Ok, I just got email from the higher-up person at APCS who says that "The most recent form....processed by ADVP....does, indeed, indicate "Married, but withhold at higher single rate". So my HR person apparently can't find her ass with both hands, or something. I am now waiting to see if she will look at the *old* W4 --
Ok, *now* there is email from my HR woman saying: Sorry, sorry, yes, that is the box, married but withhold at a higher single rate.
I write back: *laugh* Okay. So I /did/ mark the married but withhold at a higher single rate on this most recent W4. *That's* all cleared up now. :) Can you verify the *old* one, just to see what I put on it? I was sure I'd marked the married but withhold at a higher single rate on it. It's kind of a moot point now, but I'd really kind of like to know, because if I didn't, then it explains why I've been having to pay huge amounts of taxes the last couple of years, when I thought my withholding should be enough...
Which is quite a lot nicer than, "I think I marked the right box and you fuckwits screwed me over," isn't it? I mean, maybe I /did/ mark the wrong box. I guess I'll see.
From now on, I'm keeping copies of my W4s. :P
I think I'll just wait to post this until I find out if I marked the right box or not.
Oh, hell, this is taking too long, I'll just post now.
Gnaaaaaaah, what a morning.
Erica came over last night, and while we started to bring her home at a fairly reasonable hour, on the way home she mentioned a Fantastic Business Opportunity that's come up for her, and while I think that her husband Joel is right and that she's already made up her mind to do it, she's in a (quite reasonable) panic and uncertainty stage, and wants to talk to people, use them as sounding boards, and get some reassurance. So we ended up talking until a quarter after twelve, and then came home and of course then I had to tell Shaun all about it, since he was wondering where we'd gotten to, and anyway, it was around 1am that we got to bed.
Then this morning I got up at the usual time, except it was an hour later than normal, and I had a chiropractic appointment at 9, which was 20 minutes after I woke up, so I leapt out of bed, put my contacts in the wrong eyes, spent a couple of minutes wondering why my left eye was seeing things So Very Clearly, and my right eye was unfocusing every time I blinked. I figured it out, switched my contacts, Ted dropped me off at the chiro and I had a nice short 10 minutes appointment and he got a few pops out of my neck (still a sensitive spot there, although not nearly as bad as it was) and I am now _absolutely_ convinced that if you've been going to a chiro for more than a few weeks, you have a chiro who is treating the symptom and not the cause and you should try to find another chiro. So Speaketh The Catie.
Then I walked home in the beautiful sunshiney morning and now I'm trying to get it together enough to shower, feed the dog and, uh, do some work.
Also, on my Thursday list of Thinks To Do, I put down 'rewrite a chapter of US'. I didn't get that done because there was a visitor last night, but I did get /some/ writing done. Does that count?
Ooooooooh. I called officialpayments.com and explained that I'd made this payment last month, yadda yadda yadda, and found out what the problem was. The problem was that they credited the money I sent last month via their online server to the *2001* taxes, whereas it was *supposed* to be the final payment for the *2000* taxes. After an extremely frustrated dance through the IRS phone tree, I talked to a woman (who wasn't nearly as smart as Ms. Harris) who listened to the whole rigamarole and then transfered me to someone who could help me. So I went through the whole rigamarole *again*, and she credited the payment back to the 2000 tax returns, so now we really ARE paid off for the 2000 taxes! Yay! *laugh* Gawd, what a mess.
Let's see. Thinks To Do for Friday:
1. Write and print a cover letter for Tony's script
2. Write a synopsis for CS
3. Email Royal Printing about the OYL business cards
I'm totally forgetting some stuff, but I donno what. :)
Augh. Ok, so I was balancing the checkbook so I took a look at my paycheck stub and they'd taken out $184 more in federal taxes than they normally do. Now, I /did/ ask them to withhold more money from my paychecks because it was clear the amount they were withholding was insufficient (see previous story about having to pay extra taxes) but $184 is not how much I told them to hold out, nor is it any sort of multiplier of how much I told them to hold out. The money gods are out to *get* me.
Huh. Ted just called to say that the little duplex in the Valley of the Moon has gone back on the market. I called Mom to tell her. :)
Work, work, work, I really must do some work. Oh, hey, the dryer's stopped. Perhaps I'll see if Chanti can behave herself well enough to come downstairs for a while. *vroom*
Thursday's Thinks To Do:
1. Print Legion for Tony
2. Email A.C. Crispin
3. Rewrite a chapter of US^h^h^h^h^h^h^h do some writing
4. Email a desc of the character for Last Angel Standing to the elfwood artist
Splah! Well. The RMFW contest at least *received* my stuff, presumably in time, although the postcard is postdated the 8th, but one assumes the nice lady didn't rush out the instant the materials were received and stick it back in the box. There's no note on it saying, "You suck! Got here too late!" or, "You suck! We already have our 200 entries and nobody else gets to enter!"
Not that this means much, but at least it doesn't *say* that. :)
I just went and re-read the rules for the RMFW contest, and they take the top 6 point-gathering submissions (minimum of 100 points out of 120 possible) from each of the four genres (general fiction, mysteries, sf, and romance) and an acquiring agent/editor reads them to determine the winner. So all other things being equal (like assuming everything got there in time and there weren't too many other submissions), an entry has about a 1 in 8 (point three, if you're being picky) chance of being read by somebody relevant. That's really good. Neat!
In other news, a nice lady named Ms. Harris at the IRS confirmed that this bill I got a few days ago means they did not, in fact, receive the online payment I made last month, despite the fact that the site I used to make the payment says it was made, and the checking account shows the withdrawal having been made. I can't get ahold of a live person at the customer service line at officialpayments.com, which doesn't make me very happy, but I'll try again tomorrow. Ms. Harris also helped me set up payments for this year's taxes due. I hate money.
Let's see. What else? Not much else. Um. Oh! The chiro told me I should exercise (boy, THERE'S a news flash) and so I really should try to go to bed early tonight so I can get up and go swim in the morning, since it's Thursday and my gym pass is no good for Thursdays. And, um, um, um. I feel like there's a lot more I'm forgetting to say, even besides the fact that I haven't written up the Great Glacier Hike yet. I need to email A.C. Crispin and ask her if I can send her a synopsis for a Starbridge novel idea. Of course, it's possible I should first *write* the synopsis... futher futher futher! I am all futhery!
And I can't figure out what art classes to take this fall! Fnrt!
I am HEALED!
At least, the chiro says I'm pretty much healed: my hips have leveled out, doing lower back stuff no longer hurts, my neck is still a little stiff but only a little, and my orders are to start exercising ... and now I have to go bring the puppy out, because she is barking pathetically.
Amazing what a little laying-on of hands can do, eh? I'm HEALED! *beam*
Saturday! Saturday, we went to the annual blues festival, Blues on the Green. We did not anticipate it being windy enough to blow tents over. We ate some funnel cakes, looked around at the tent city that had sprung up, and decided that discretion was the better part of valor and beat a hasty retreat to my parents' house, where we discovered not a tarp, which we had intended to discover, but instead the tent that they've apparently been storing for me for six years or so. Tent in hand, we went back to our house, got cloaks and warm fuzzies and went back out to Kincaid Park, where we wrestled with putting the tent up (the photo isn't really me in a tent that's been blown over; we were putting it up, and I was lying inside it acting as ballast, and it /did/ flop over on me, which made me laugh and laugh and laugh) for what Laura claims was an entire hour, which is wholly possible.
So, in barely fifty-degree weather, with huge gusts of wind pushing the tent into our hair, we sat around listening to blues music, playing Guillotine, tying Laura's hood shut, looking contrite about tying Laura's hood shut, and other various sillinesses which aren't actually in a navigable webpage yet, but that's okay.
Alaskans are very very strange people, though. I mean, it was really *cold* out there, and yet we were determined to hang out in a *tent* for several *hours* so we could listen to the musicians and -- well. It was a lot of fun. *laugh* Laura thought it was all very weird and silly too. :)
Oh, and here the tent turned into a gelatinous cube which tried to eat Laura! Bad bad tent!
Not really the weekend writeup yet, because I haven't finished with the eighty quadrillion photographs, but some minutia.
I went to the chiro yesterday, and he didn't yell at me for going hiking on a glacier, which is gooooooood. In fact, he seems very happy with me. :) Tomorrow I am X-rayed and we'll see if I'm all healthy-backed again. Actually, I know I'm not; my neck is still stiff. But it's better than it *was*, and even if my back is tired from glacier hiking and sitting around at Blues on the Green, and *vroom vroom vroom*
No brain. I'm in a meeting. Enough writing. More later. :)
Lucy is creep9ing ever so slowly across the desks and across the piles of mess and across the printer and to the computer monitor, all the while looking at me with the Very Largest Kitty Eyes, as if ... I'm not sure as if what. As if she suspects she's being bad, or something, and is expecting me to yell awfully. Silly kitty.
I'm back from vacationing! We had a fantastic weekend and there is *much* exhaustion and many many photos, which I'll try to get posted today, but there's a lot of work to do and, uh, something like a hundred photos to deal with, so they may not get done. :) I'll try, though. :)
Ben and Laura and I went to the zoo today. A significant number of the animals were sleeping, which was boring of them, but most of them were at least sleeping where a person could get a look at them, which was obliging. Aphun and Oreo, who are kind of the zoo's highlights -- a cohabiting polar bear (Aphun) and brown bear (Oreo) were -- well, Oreo was out sleeping (but I didn't take any photos of her) and Aphun was hiding in a cave. Still, the glacier bear was wandering around, and Jake the brown bear was being cute, and we looked at the sleeping wolverines and said, "Wolverines are meaaaaan," and there was a BRAND NEW wolf puppy who was very, *very* cute, trotting back and forth in his cage, and yeah. Generally all was well. It was fun. :)
Then we went to, um. The Alaska Fur Center? I've forgotten the name already. I bought Laura a swath of purple (VERY purple!) leather for her to make a fighting vest from (I'll get a picture of her with her leather later tonight) as a birthday present, and she bought *me* a jade billiken as a birthday present and she got her friend somebody or other some musk ox wool to spin, which her friend had been hoping for very much, and she got her mom a couple of bags of random fur scraps that her mom will use to put on Santa Clauses and stuff like that. Oh, and in a fit of, um, fitfulness, I got a couple of copper rings which are even now turning my fingers green. :)
And right now Ben and Laura are off walking Chantico down to Earthquake Park, I am making ice cream (actually, that's done now and it's in the freezer becoming more, er, frozen), and Ted and Shaun are at the store buying things to make dinner with.
I went to the chiro this morning and he made me do my leg lift things to see how my lower back was doing, and it DIDN'T HURT AT ALL! That's the first time it didn't hurt! YAAAAAY! He says on Wednesday we'll do a re-evaluation (i.e., more X-rays, I imagine) on my lower back to see how it's doing, but I'm going in Monday again to do some more work on my stupid neck, which he prodded at this morning, causing me to go, "AAaaaghgah!" when he hit the place that was Wrong and Hurtful. However, he seems to think I'm healing right up, which is *so* *very* *nice*! As my mother said, "Well, you're young."
Which I allowed was true, but while I was lying around in the chiro's office this morning, I was listening to the 'easy listening' station he's got playing in there, and they were playing 80s rock on the easy listening station. When did I get old enough for the songs of my teenage years to be on the easy listening station? And somebody's remade Papa Don't Preach, which kinda threw me for a loop, too. *laugh* I was like, "Hey! How did I get old enough for them to be remaking Madonna songs?" 'course, Madonna's been around for a looooooong time, as far as pop music is concerned.
So I was saying all of this to Mom, who said she was waiting for someone to remake Red Roses For A Blue Lady, which she first heard as a teenager, and thought was a new song, but her father (whom, she said, was not prone to knowing these kinds of things) scoffed mightily at her and said it was a song from the 20s? 30s? Mom wasn't actually sure, and I can't find the original copyright date on the net, and as such wasn't new at ALL. She said it seems to be re-recorded and become a hit about every twenty or twenty-five years. :)
Okay, I'm going to trundle offline now, since I imagine Laura and Ben will be back shortly. Vroom!
I went off to the chiro, and he said, more or less, that my shoulder/neck was all seized up because we were working on my lower back and working on the base of things does tend to make other things move around. He thought it was good that I came in early. I did too, because I hurt quite a lot less now than I did when I went in.
The cake is made, but not finished. Much to do, still. I should go upstairs and work on it. Soon. Sooooon.
Go me! I went to the doctor and got a prescription for Allegra, so there will be no allergy doom for thirty days! Go me!
Of course, I forgot that the cable people were supposed to come by and figure out what was wrong with our cable, so I missed them. However, I called back and a nice lady said she'd try to get me an appointment set up and that she'd call me back. Nice lady! The people at GCI have invariably been very very nice to me. Goooooood GCI.
Now I must -- well, not immediately, but soon -- go to the *other* doctor and have my bones crunched and see if he can make the pain in my neck go away. Hm. That sounded sort of ... not like I meant it. :)
Ow. My neck and shoulder on the right side are all seized up. This happened yesterday, but I thought I'd give it a day to see if it relaxed on its own. It has not. I called the chiro for an extra appointment. :P Pain sucks. :P
I need to call a regular doctor and get an allegra prescription, too. And I need to go lock the puppy up, I expect, or see if I can convince her to come downstairs and behave, but my stupid shoulder is too screwed up to cope with her right now. Fnrt. *sigh*
Breakfast. And more water. I have a headache. Feh.
So the amazingly annoying thing about the comic shop here is that if you get a pull box, your comics generally aren't ready until close to closing or the next day, rather than being available when you go in after work on Wednesdays. This is sort of defeating most of the point of the pull box, in my opinion. Feh.
OTOH, I now have all the whipping cream in the world. Pudding tonight, cake tomorrow. Woot!
Ow. I don't think I moved all night; I have a vurry stiff neck this morning. :P No fun at all.
I'm trying to keep Chantico downstairs with me so she doesn't have to be locked up all day long. I brought her blanket and a big bone and a little rawhide swizzle stick and a rope down, and *mostly* it's going okay. She just lay down to wrestle with her bone and stuck her entire tail in her water bowl. :) She has stretches of being distracted by the bones, and then it's pretty good, but there are stretches of OH LOOK A CAT *POUNCE POUNCE LEAP BOUND* which are less good. :P
One of the people in our row of the condo got a *cute* little grey fuzzy husky puppy. He said he was at the Dimond Center mall and somebody was giving away puppies, and all his judgement went flying out the window. :) Apparently the woman was giving away the mother dog, too, and he said that when he went by, there were 2 puppies and the momma dog, and that if he'd had a house, he'd have taken all three of them. Such a *cute* puppy! I wanted one. Even though I've got one. Humans are dumb! :)
I'm having this vague urge to put up some kind of writing site. A place for either short stories (not fan fic) or essays. Or both. Nnng. o.o
Hm. If anybody who reads this knows Erica's email address, could you send it to me? I tried the one I thought she'd said (erica at spac.org) but it done got bounced back to me.
Incidentally, even if the chiro pissed me off, he did say that my hips are leveling out nicely, and he seemed pleased and satisfied with the pops he got out of my back, so I guess I'm healing, or something. That's good. :)
I'm alive! Laura and Ben (seen here with a polar bear) arrived safely around noon on Sunday, and we've been off gallivanting since then. Most extensively, we gallivanted at the Alaska Native Heritage Center, which is very cool and which has 14 foot bowhead whale jaws that you can stand around in or walk around in, if you're so inclined) and dancing which they invite you to do with them even if you can't seem to actually stay in time. (You being me in this case; as far as I can tell, Laura was perfect!) We spent a good five hours at the Heritage Center, and it was very cool. :)
We also went to the Renaissance Faire here in Anchorage, which was really pretty awful, but at least we saw Erica, whom we had not seen in ages, and whom we are supposed to Catch Up With next week while she's still in town but is no longer Renaissancing. Which reminds me, I should email her. There, that's done now.
We have spent many many hours talking and hanging out and having a very fine time. Last night, because we were all tired and wanted something mindless to do, I made cookies while Ted, Laura and Ben took Chantico for a walk, and then we ate a bunch of cookies and watched The Princess Bride, which really is an *awfully* fine movie. We kept quoting it, of course, and howling with laughter, and cheering, and generally behaving like idiots who were all very happy with the state of things, and we all said we hoped they knew while they were doing it what a very wonderful movie it was, and then we wondered why Cary Elwes has never done anything else worth mentioning, and so on and so forth, and then we slept, because we were real tired, and Laura and Ben went off to Seward today, where they'll be for 3 days.
When they return, I will have made the Chocolate Death Cake and there will be a birthday-party-like-thing for me, Laura and Shaun, who all have birthdays in the first half of June (well, Laura's is technically the 16th, but if you're going to get technical, you're going to lose all your friends). Go Geminis! :)
This morning I went to the chiro. I had a 10am appt and wasn't seen until 10:20, and then I had the heat thing on my back for 10 minutes or so, then it stopped its heat thing and I lay there through 4 songs and a full set of commercials before the doctor came back, and it all makes me pissy. Bad scheduling. *snrrr*
Now, um, maybe I'll do some work. :)
Got my submission to the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers contest postmarked at 11:30 or so last night. I hope it makes it to Colorado in time.
I think the wet carpet downstairs is making my allergies worse. The landlord came and fixed the leak (and the heat that wouldn't turn off, YAY!), but the carpet is damp and very smelly and it makes me sneeze.
Off to finish folding laundry and vacuum, which Ted doesn't seem to be doing. Phooey.
Oh, thanks to everybody who sent me birthday wishes. *beam* Nicest friends!
Nooooooo guests!
Laura just called and said they were not in Alaska, and in fact were not even on their way to Alaska. They are stuck in Minneapolis with a plane having mechanical problems, and so they're staying overnight there and will be in at 11:30 tomorrow morning. o.o
"How civilized," said me mither.
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die(t).
Well, I have eaten and drunken and am merry in an exhausted low-key way. Actually, I pretty much can't breathe, so I'm really not that merry, but I'm going on a diet tomorrow anyway. Hopefully I will stay on a diet longer than just, y'know. Tomorrow. Dieting's not so bad if you do it for just one day . . . *tired grin*
Meat and vegetable diet, mostly. Small portions, really. Small portions are most important. That's gonna be hard to learn. Breakfast carbs because I like my cereal or oatmeal in the morning. Limit of 16oz of milk with lunch and dinner (8oz each, not 32 total), which, for me, is a real sacrifice. I really love milk.
Lots of super supper salads for lunch, I think. With small blobs of tuna, and probably no Ritz. Ritz aren't necessary to make the meal. :) Or eggs, which upset my tummy.
I need to get some apples. And I need to cultivate more of a taste for oranges (I actually like them pretty well, but can rarely be bothered to eat them). I need to not make cookies or brownies or other sorts of sweets, because not having them around makes it a lot easier not to eat them. 'course, having said that, I'll probably make some for Ben and Laura's benefit while they're here. :)
And right now, I need to go get some more cleaning supplies and a new comforter so Ben and Laura have something to sleep under (the last extra one we had now belongs to Chantico, and I'm pretty darned sure Ben and Laura don't want to sleep under that one. eeewwww).
bai bai.