Good news/Bad news

Good news: instead of smelling like stale cat piss, this conditioner makes my hair smell vaguely like peanut butter cups.

Bad news: I detest peanut butter cups.

Emergency room trip and Robert Jordan: "The good part"

Back in April 2001, right in the middle, votania and I moved into the current apartment. I'm minus my actual journal from the time, but I seem to recall us moving Monday, and according to Semagic here, that was indeed the 16th, which date is forever engraved in me for... sentimental reasons.

Some days earlier, votania had come home to discover a stray cat in her parents' house¹, and had, in the resulting fracas, gotten bitten. Her hand swelled up like a baseball, and she had needed medical attention, which included antibiotics.

She and I moved stuff that whole day, including her rather large terracotta herb planter, which was swarming with tiny ants, to which she was allergic. Though I was the one who did the grunt-work on that, we were not surprised when her upper lip started swelling up, as it was only inevitable that some of the ants would have gotten to her. She took antihistimines, but it wasn't better in the morning -- so much so, in fact, that we decided that there was no way we were doing anything other than taking her to a doctor.

I dashed into school for a moment to let Darkside know that we wouldn't be there for breakfast, and why; he handed me the latest Robert Jordan, hardback², that I'd wanted to read. I wound up taking votania to the emergency room, as she was babbling and very much not connected to reality. It turned out to be the antibiotics, not the ants, causing the life-threatening allergic reaction. I was glad of the book, as I'd pretty much run out the door with my driver's license and my clothes...

Thinking back, I'm not even sure if these two incidents are connected other than by me borrowing a Robert Jordan book from him, because the "good part" thing feels much later, but...

Darkside kept tabs on my progress with the book, in the following days. "Have you gotten to the good part yet?" he kept asking me.

I looked at him like he was nuts. "There are plenty of good parts in here!" I told him. "How am I supposed to know if I've gotten to the good part you're talking about?"

"Trust me, you'll know," he told me smugly.

He kept at it, asking me, "Have you gotten to the good part yet?"

"Evidently not," I'd say.

One day at work, during an evening break, I was reading away, and it transpired that Rand al'Thor had a very interesting interview, and meanwhile, two of his closest and dearest friends and associates wandered off into the night, intent (or so I remember) on getting very, very drunk indeed, as soon as possible. I hooted with laughter, and made a beeline for the breakroom phone. I dialled that familiar number.

"Darkside?" I said, when he picked up the phone. "Darkside? I was reading your book on break, and... I got to the good part." I couldn't hold it in, and proceeded to laugh like a Lunatic.

My dearest Maniac asked a few carefully non-spoiling questions to ascertain that my perception of "the good part" and his lined up, which they did. Satisfied, he allowed me to return to work, which I did, giggling all the way.

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[1] We're calling it a house for courtesy's sake, because it's a very nice and large trailer.

[2] I learned, much afterwards, that Darkside is paranoid about his books, and doesn't ever let other people mess with them. I am suitably impressed.

Phone fun

Since I was wide awake waiting for my hair to dry, I called sithjawa and left a message, called swallowtayle and gossiped (she was going out clubbing, again, because yesterday was her birthday and now she's 21, yay!), called olliesmama and had a nice long babble.

Dawn was going to call again today and wish votania a happy birthday, but we'll probably have left by then...

Hair update:

My hair was very dark to start with, so it looks black in indoor light.

We'll see how it looks outside.

Oh, *joy*. (Cat-ness)

Evidently the cats got into the chicken last night ... I am guessing that when votania says this, she means the chicken in the garbage can. There was therefore a pile of cat barf on the floor this morning by the time I was all dressed and awake.

Both creatures seem lively and alert.

Hair

I guess it's stealth-blue, on hair as dark as mine. Right now, it only shows up very very dark navy blue when it's in the sun and up close. It's either so blue it's black, or so black it's blue.

Party

Went to marxdarx's mom's house. I got to meet the cats and see the walking-carpet dogs. Lasagna, presents, and cake.

I have severe gadget envy of votania's phone.

Dream: Weird Al, popefelix

So there I was doing something-or-other, and somehow someone who was clearly Wierd Al, but crossed in some way in my mind with Jackie Chan, was the romantic hero of the piece.

One of my friends published a well-researched gossip rag, and had shut down temporarily so that something-or-other could happen. And I was reviewing the next issue, and somehow I ran into Weird Al, who was just this guy. And he and I were... on a date or something, and somehow we wound up getting messed with by this group of cluppers¹ in a car, and they wound up getting very scared by the retaliation mess-with, and thought they were so screwed, and fled.

Al and I followed them, to really mess with them. We ran into them in a restaurant, and there was a kerfuffle, involving martial arts, and I got to be buddy-buddy with the kids, who weren't that bad after all. I went with them, and they and I went to a Weird Al concert. One of the "kids" was evidently popefelix, though he was going by his wife's name (which was evidently his name in the dream). Part of the concert involved some of us pranking the show. I wasn't doing that, though, I was helping some of the other mothers, who were babysitting the four-year-olds.

The prank (something involving the lights) finally got done at the finale of the show, and popefelix came zooming out of the light box on his skateboard. Weird Al was amused.

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[1] "Cluppers" is from the onomatopoeic "clup", which is the sound that clumsy teenage chickens, especially roosters, make (especially when you pick them up). Extended to cover physically and/or socially clumsy teenagers of all species, particularly humans. Also, "chuppers", "cher-chuppers".

Party (more detail)

votania woke me up before my alarm, and I got dressed and ready. I'd been contemplating skittering out to check the mail from yesterday, but never got around to it before we had to leave.

marxdarx's mother doesn't like the concept of toy guns (or guns in general, I think) and so Little Fayoumis couldn't bring his toy gun -- or his sword, because he always uses that as a gun. Instead, he brought a little robot guy, and a dinosaur, who has evidently morphed into some kind of Godzilla. I was practicing words with him in the car, while we were still getting all loaded up, spelling out words and having him sound them out. I started, I think, with C A T. We progressed through other simple C A __ words, and then moved on to other words with that flat A-sound.

marxdarx was still tired, and was acting accordingly. Just as he got into the car, Little Fayoumis decided that turn-about was fair play, and asked me what S A M spelled. marxdarx, not having been there for Little Fayoumis doing cat, car, cap, mat, and hat, jumped on him and told him that he could sound that one out by himself. Little Fayoumis made a judgement call, and asked, "Are you grouchy?" marxdarx isn't used to this classification of parental modes and rulesets into grouchy/not grouchy, and grouched back that he was just tired. (I am only to hope that Little Fayoumis correctly interpreted this as yes, too grouchy to admit to being grouchy.)

After a brief discussion over the Doom song (NO, Little Fayoumis, you will not sing the word "Doom" over and over until we get to Mesa), we were on the 17.

The A/C in B (votania's white convertible) has died, so we had to go with the windows open. It was a brisk 101°F. We got to marxdarx's mother's house in plenty of time.

I got to meet the pets. Marx's dog Shadow is very black, very shaggy, and rounder than ever. All the dogs are that breed that has long, curly fur, height about knee-high to a grownup, with feet more fluffy than a Black Langshan rooster's. Shadow is black; the other two are blond. There are three cats: the little kittens are Amelia and Schroeder, both pure black. Rita is older and far more shy.

Marx's stepdad-to-be surprised him by serving him some soda in a mug from back in the day. It's a really cool mug on the outside, with rather trippy faces, and inside, there's a little guy peering up. After recovering from the startlement, Marx thought it was really cool. Little Fayoumis was giggly.

After a while, there was lasagna. Yum. Hippy Dave brought out the stereo, and "They say it's your birthday!" was soon blasting. Little Fayoumis was dancing in his chair, which he cut out after we reminded him that this was the rickety chair. Mmm, lasagna. And the good bread! I'm still not sure what-all was in it, but tomatoes did feature rather prominently. votania finally caved to my requests for a bread machine on the condition that I try and duplicate that.

Marx's mom whisked off the lasagna-stained tablecloth to discover that the cracked place where Hippy Dave had dropped something a while ago and cracked the glass tabletop had spread, possibly due to the heat of the lasagna pan. There was intense debate over how to go about repairing the table (remove glass, put in wood, and tile -- but ah, which of approximately a zillion different ways to get the wood cut the right shape?).

And presents. votania got a green tea shower kit, a lovely stained-glass dragonfly wind chime, temporary tattoos, some 3mm garnet beads, and a customized journal. Then we had cake, and then we grownups decided that some quality couch time was a good plan. votania and I poked at the phones for a while, and Little Fayoumis played with the toys that Marx's mom dragged out.

It was time to go after a while, and we played in the yard a bit. I shared with Little Fayoumis the properties of pitch from the pine tree; he was none too thrilled about the sticky part, but thought it looked way cool.

We drove home in the evil intense afternoon heat. I hadn't brought enough water, and wilted before we got home. No one was feeling particularly good after that, and I fell over on my bed and had the oddest dream.

Incidentally...

Both marxdarx and I have been noticing the heat, off and on. It's fine in the living room, but in either of our rooms, it periodically gets hotter than hell, and it's not good.

I've been having trouble sleeping. Even with the fan on.

Think I'll go take a look at the settings.