not the best holiday ever

1 Comment
30 Dec 2009
suriel
daily, just life

I’ve been fighting with my body for a week, and it sucks.

I woke up Christmas Day feeling like I’d been steamrollered. I’ve never had body aches that bad ever in my life. Add in a nose and head clogged with epic amounts of snot and you’ve got a very non-Merry Christmas indeed.

Still managed to crank out two lasagnas (one meat with red sauce, one mushroom with white sauce) (washing my hands so much to avoid contamination that every single finger sprouted hangnails) before collapsing back on the couch. I forgot to roast the asparagus & green beans, making for an all-carbs, all the time sort of meal. Happily, my lack of sense of smell led to really garlicky garlic bread, which was much appreciated.

I managed to stay awake until all our friends had arrived, then passed the hell out. And every day since has been much the same: Get up, stumble about, fight to breath through my 0.024 functioning nostrils, do nothing much constructive, pass out, sleep really badly.

Here’s hoping I recover enough to enjoy New Year’s Eve.

http://splinters.suriel.net/?p=3459

night of strange and painful

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20 Dec 2009
suriel
daily, just life, music

So The Low Men played a show last night, and of course I went, but it was … strange. And painful.

I mean, entirely aside from the fact that their set was meant to be at 10:30, then got moved back to 11:30 until finally settling on 12:30, it was strange. And painful.

When we walked in, there was a singer-less metal band rocking the hell out of the place at ear-punishing volume, including a metal version of March of the Sugarplum Fairies, which was just as weird and/or awesome as you might imagine it to be. They were followed by a guy in a Santa hat and brown leather jacket playing all by himself, accompanied by his acoustic and a mostly-decorative neck harmonica.

While he was finishing up his set, KT texted to say she’d set off for the show, but narrowly escaped being hauled off to jail, and wasn’t allowed to drive, so she wasn’t going to be coming. We couldn’t be having with that, so we went and got her.

We made it back to the bar only one or two songs into the Low Men’s set, which was … interesting. It was Mr. M-F.P.’s birthday, so he was nearly legless, and since Loki isn’t the sort to make people drink alone, he was well into his cups as well. And since they hadn’t played together in a month (the show was seriously last-minute), it wasn’t their finest hour. (It was still better than last year’s Black Friday debacle. So they’ve got that going for them.)

Following the show, there was a near-throwdown over some apparent breach of beer-pong ettiquette (no bitches were cut, alas), followed by a very drunken boy who jumped on the stage to tell a terrible joke. We thought that was the end of the entertainment, until the Rhymenocerous (not his real rapping name) took over with his friend boy Steve (his actual real rapping name) to bust out some rhymes. Or something, I don’t really know. I dragged Loki home shortly after that started.

So we got home and let the dogs in, then went back outside to pick up the cushions they’d dragged off the patio furniture. I was carrying a couple cushions back to the patio when I stepped in a hole the dogs had dug, fell into the rocks, cut the hell out of my knee and hit my head on the chairs. Happily, most of me had fallen onto the cushions, so it could have been worse. I did have to pick dead vegetation out of my dreads before I went to bed, though.

And today I feel like people have been beating me with sticks, which they may well have done as I slept. It was that sort of night.

http://splinters.suriel.net/?p=3455

screenwriter’s blues

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11 Dec 2009
suriel
daily

I’m thinking about movies I want to see.

Either:

The bastard lovechild of Neil Gaiman and Guillermo del Toro, a sort of MirrorMask meets Pan’s Labyrinth meets Big Fish, all saturated technicolor dreamworld with nightmares in the shadows …

Or:

More cold-war spy thrillers.

I should work up some treatments and then take some meetings.

http://splinters.suriel.net/?p=3453

bizarro world

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9 Dec 2009
suriel
babble-mode, daily

Maybe it’s sleep-deprivation, but things seem especially bizarre today. And my responses to them are right out of “I should probably just shut up” land.

  • Beth asked me for my three favorite herbs/spices, and my head nearly exploded from the difficulty. “Wow, that’s a great question. Tough one, though. I mean, what does one gauge his response on: physical prowess, keen detection skills? The ability to banter well with super villains?” Seriously, I agonized for half an hour about passing over dill and smoked paprika.
  • We’re getting a gift for a young gentleman who’s into tae kwon do. Just for fun, I searched Amazon, and the third result was the category NINJA WEAPONS. “I know he’s into tae kwon do, but can I get him the Cold Steel Spike Scimitar? Or Ninja Extinction Arm Knives?” Ninja Extinction, y’all.
  • For dessert today, the chefs made us Cherry Nut Crisp. I got all excited (for I dearly love fruit crisps), dished myself up a heaping bowl, and discovered the cherries they’d used … were Maraschinos. This one, in fact, rendered me speechless.

I await the next weird thing with great eagerness.

http://splinters.suriel.net/?p=3450

catch-up

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4 Dec 2009
suriel
cats, daily, dog, food-girl, just life

When last we left our heroes …

Thanksgiving: Was pretty damn cool. The food was superb (if I do say so myself), the company outstanding, and the wine flowing. I can highly recommend the Blanc de Noirs I found at Trader Joe’s. So delicious! (I went back & bought three more bottles, because apparently my fizzy-wine kick will never end. Also, at $10 a bottle, it’s far cheaper than the Moet & Chandon I was digging before. Win!)

As usual, though, a week’s worth of prep, cleaning and cooking left me wrecked, and I was in bed nursing my aching muscles at 9:30. I’ve got to figure out a way to do Thanksgiving that doesn’t involve half-killing myself in the name of food.

Dogs: They’re doing great. Freya’s fitting in quite well, although she doesn’t really get that Fenris doesn’t always want to play, nor that, alone among the cats, Carrot will play with her. Doesn’t stop her chasing them, although she’ll stop chasing if we bark at her.

House: Things are really coming together, finally. We’re cleaning and purging and organizing and getting things just as we want them. Sometimes I just stop and look around and am amazed that we’ve created this cozy place that I want to come home to. It makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, too, because others don’t have that. Fingers crossed that situation improves.

Everything Else: I’m feeling pretty good. Fairly sleep-deprived, and there’s something horrifically wrong with my back, but overall? Not so bad. It’s kinda nice, and I’m enjoying it.

So what’s new with you?

http://splinters.suriel.net/?p=3444

we shall not flag or fail

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24 Nov 2009
suriel
daily, family, food-girl

I can’t escape the Thanksgiving battle plans checklists … this is the biggest Thanksgiving we’ve ever had & I’d be lost without my lists.

  • Recipes: Printed.
  • Schedule: Triple-checked.
  • Turkeys: Defrosting.
  • Prep: About 75% complete..
  • Cleaning: Nearly there.
  • Mind: More or less intact, yay.
  • Body: Still not completely destroyed, hurrah!

I’ve got tomorrow off work, and I’m hoping I can knock out the last of the prep, and get a good night’s sleep, so I can be ready to kick ass on Thursday.

Oh, and relax with our guests. That’d be nice, too.

I really have to stop thinking of this meal in terms of a battlefield that must be conquered. It’s just dinner, right? No beaches or landing grounds to fight on, just 40 pounds of turkey and enough sides to make the sideboard groan.

Onward to victory!

http://splinters.suriel.net/?p=3438

not quite drowning

2 Comments
17 Nov 2009
suriel
daily, food-girl, just life

Yep, I blew NaBloPoMo, once again. Bad, bad me.

Moving on!

Thanksgiving, y’all. It’s now nine days away.

Our house is a disaster area of biblical proportions, complete with dessicated palm fronds dragged in by the dogs; muddy paw prints on the tile, courtesy of the dogs; a fridge I still haven’t cleared out to make room for the incoming piles of food; a spare room that’s full of stuff from the studio (did I mention we are re-arranging the studio for better functionality? We are. Well, mainly my sweetie. It’s a Major Project.); and an office you can barely walk into?

Let us not speak of the library, dining room or buffet, all covered with extraneous Stuff, nor of the two rugs, unvacuumed for lo these many weeks.

I’d like to blame this whole deal on the new pupperina, but aside from needing to put her outside (or clean up after her) about every 45 minutes, she’s settled in pretty well. Once her stitches heal and her Bordatella clears up, she and Fenris will wear each other out every day, as per our Grand Plan, and we can get on with things. That day is too long in coming, though.

(Also? Freya is painfully cute. Her habit of half-closing her eyes and prancing around with her ears back every time she sees us after ten minutes’ absence is a thing of almost unbearable adorability.)

So I’ve got nine days to prepare for 14-15 people to dine in our house: cleaning, advance prep, shopping, more cleaning. My schedule is packed to the gills. Let’s hope I don’t collapse and leave all the cooking to my mom and the cats.

Fingers crossed!

http://splinters.suriel.net/?p=3436

they’re full-on buds

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14 Nov 2009
suriel
daily

Freya’s bordatella isn’t slowing her down any.

clan

nom

chomp

Click to embiggen, or hit the full set here.

http://splinters.suriel.net/?p=3432

just happy it’s friday

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13 Nov 2009
suriel
daily

It’s been a long, crazy, exhausting week, but tomorrow, I’m hoping to pull some Freya-pics off the camera so you can revel in her cute, too.

http://splinters.suriel.net/?p=3427

restraint

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12 Nov 2009
suriel
daily, job-stuff

Y’know how, when you’re about to ask for or be considered for a raise, you’re supposed to justify it? You’re supposed to make lists of accomplishments, tot up all the ways you’ve saved The Company money, prepare a spreadsheet of all the revenue you’ve generated?

Well, I’m not going to do that.

Instead, my plan (for the unscheduled day on which this performance review might happen in the unspecified future) is to say, “My contribution? I’ll tell you what my contribution was: I did not argue with my boss on Those Days In November when I learned that, not only were we not getting rid of the Bad Customer that was responsible for my losing the coveted Spam-Fighter Silver Star of Righteousness, but we were, in fact, giving them more network space and probably generating even more work for me. Remember that? Remember how I calmly said “ok” and went back to work, how I didn’t start shedding tears of rage and or throwing things? That’s gotta be worth ten percent, right there.”

I fully expect to be laughed at, but I’m well gonna say it.

http://splinters.suriel.net/?p=3424

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