Celtic Confusion

The website of Celtic Confusion, one of the Alaska-local bands that I've had the joy of sitting in on sessions with.

The tune "Calico and Velvet" that's featured on one of the tracks was written about my pet hen Calico. <azzgrin>

Little Kid, Big Words

In reading a book about the colors of China to the Little Fayoumis tonight, we came across a picture of a statue of the Buddha. Little Fayoumis asked who that girl was. I said that it was the Buddha, a guy.

Little Fayoumis was surprised, and said that it looked like a girl. I told him that yeah, it was kind of hard to tell if it was a guy or a girl unless you already knew, and that the word for it when you can't tell if it's a guy or a girl is "androgynous".

"He's really androgynous," Little Fayoumis declared, murdering the word, but grasping it utterly.

That really is the way to slip in those nice vocabulary words -- in context, when the kid is clearly searching for the right word that they don't know yet, and are happy when a grown-up tells them a word that fits what they mean exactly. (And it also weirds me that so much of the thinking is done with these words -- they make elaborate constructs possible to store and modify, but unless one's accustomed to being a wordsmith (writer of me?), one can't say anything new compactly.

B5: TMoS Actual Title Guesses

http://www.livejournal.com/community/babylon5/131701.html

Link courtesy gremliness, who thinks this is just as funny as I do.

Religion

Little Fayoumis needs a better definition of the word than the half-assed one that I was able to try to get across when he asked. (That same book with the Buddha.) I said it was what people believed about stuff, like the Summerlands, and different ways they had of thinking about the world, and rules for saying what's right and what's not besides what the government says.

Really, I need a better definition for him, because it's a confusing subject for adults to get their minds around.

He's in the "Please, give me words" stage now, just soaking them up, and asking what unfamilar ones are when I read them.

Spam Subject of the Day

Bad Coffee Sex.

How much better than that can you get? Seriously. I love the surrealism on those things.

Morning; awake

Despite the 2 am bedtime last night (what in the Bastard's hell was I thinking?) I am now awake, dressed, with the vast majority of a decent-sized bowl of applesauce inside me. Okay, make that all of it. And my vitamins, and my glasses and watch on.

(Well, glasses is a given; the only times my glasses are off are if I'm in the shower, planning to fall asleep, or engaging in high-glasses-smudge activities like sex or crying. Being on the computer means glasses are on unless I'm squinting at the monitor from a foot away.)

And... bus fare for Marx...

...and conversation with LF about "phat" vs. "fat", and if it's "phat" like cool, it's all good.

And out of here. Soon.

Zoom!

Freewill of the Week

( Read more... )

Whee for us!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4161820/

Same-sex marriage, Massachusetts.

Excellent.

...

Interview. There won't be coherent time before 7 today, so tomorrow. Morning.

...

At the pizza place.

Well, this is good, I think.

One shoe off and one shoe on.

Decided that it was better to go in for the interview at the local Domino's today than tomorrow morning, as I don't know what time the General Manager will be getting in tomorrow morning, and we do have Little Fayoumis to pick up early because of conferences.

So, I was in my slacks and polo shirt, hair up, lipstick on, earring off, and someone knocks at the door.

And it's the Viking.

votania had left to go pick up the Little Fayoumis, and then marxdarx, and wasn't due back for another two hours. I explained the situation, and the Viking said he'd go home, hang out, and call in another two hours to see what was up.

I got the rest of the way dressed, and hiked over to Domino's. Turned out that I'd gotten the lady's name wrong (oops), but she liked the look of my experience and she liked my answers to the interview questions (one ethics, one handling irate customer with phone customer simultaneously customer service, and one rush rush priority-handling customer service) and my willingness to accept the pay and the duties -- not only making pizzas and customer service, but folding boxes, and cleaning the entire place. The only thing holding her back, she said, was my hours, and those really aren't something I can do much about. *sigh*

But, she'll see if she can squeeze me in, and she'll call back in a few days. And she's looking forward to seeing me. (She said that on the phone as well.) So, there is hope.



I haven't transportation of my own, so I can't be a Deliverator. But then, I haven't a katana either.

I really need to remember to post this to azurelettuce

Hey, shywickedpixie and crisavec...

Why did the spruce break up with the longhorn beetle?


( If you're not an Alaskan, you may not get this. If you are... )

Interesting LJer Nominations

Here. Looks like an interesting project.

Since the Usual Suspects (shadesong, vidicon, theferrett, karlita) had already been nominated, I found someone just as nifty to nominate, someone who seems to be only tangentially connected to the Nexus.

Cooking for a Small Army: Pizza

votania decreed that we would have pizza tonight. And lo! we do! Belatedly, but enough for a small army.

It was not actually my fault, this time, even though it was.

Rather than make the pizza dough laboriously, by hand, or even batch by batch in the bread machine, I whipped up one batch of dough in the bread machine, and then after that pilot batch of dough was done, I put in for the rest. Mind: this is a four person household, and for mouth/stomach happiness, we were to make four pizzas, one each. And, I figured, each of us would take a batch of dough for our pizza.

It may be significant to note that while I was measuring out the ingredients for the three remaining batches, and dumping them merrily into the bucket, that I was on the phone with Dawn. I measured, and counted, and dumped, and started 'er up. Three batches: 4 1/2 cups water, 6 cups flour, oil, salt, and an assload of yeast. In a 2-lb-loaf capacity bread machine. It was moving right merrily along, but didn't seem to be mixing much. I realized, at about this point, that I'd forgotten to put the paddle in. So I did, with much gooing and glumping and sticking of hands.

Things got gnarly after that, with me poking down a mushrooming blob of dough, me adding flour so that the dough would not stick to itself and me like a tentacle monster's suckers to his beloved, batting frantically with the spatula to knead the bits that the paddle wasn't touching.

It was a mess.

It was a monster.

Words were said, flour was flung, the rolling pin was called up for active duty, and plates were marshalled. The oven only has one rack, so pies were rotating in and out on the two pizza trays, with more finished saucers of half-baked pizza dough than baking trays, and more flour in the air than common sense, and overheating.

Some four hours later, all the dough is nearly baked. There are four blank pies left; they will find a temporary home in the freezer until some brave soul dares top them and bake them the rest of the way.

Cracks

It's so easy to slip through the cracks when you're an adult, living out of town from your birth family, out of headspace with your new heart-family. You empty yourself into the little things that look good, that say "all is well here" when those who have known you from birth would be beating down your door.

It always starts out the same. There you are, enthusiastic and happy, ready to meet the world and do your best or die trying. And then you do well. You sail. And then you coast. And then, ever so incrementally, it all comes to an imperceptable halt, about two thirds in, too close to done to really quit, too much to catch up to have a prayer. And you smile, and evade, and wonder what's going to derail you next round.

After a while, you stop trying at the things you know you'd love to do, and focus your efforts on the things you know you've got to get done. That way, when you come to that inevitable gentle halt, you can't blame yourself for going out and having the fun instead of doing the work, you have yourself to blame for just not doing it. Just not caring.

Just not trying, anymore.

Day

Last night I cleaned up the living room. In doing so, I did uncanny things to the chalkboard/whiteboard, and now both sides are accessible. I wrote "LUNATIC LOVES MANIAC" on the chalkboard.

There were, at one point, four hours of sleep.

I woke up early, and did the breakfast thing, and accompanied votania on the "dropping the LF off at school" mission. Little Fayoumis wanted to know what the chalkboard in the living room said. He's starting the "I want to read everything in sight" phase. We will encourage this. Then we went to DeVry, and had smiles over the silly memories associated with the place. Computers and printing and stuff. And then the post office. We got there half an hour early; I wound up waiting in the car.

After that, home. I went off and gave plasma. Saw othercat on the bus; I think we talked about some kind of scary fic, but -- oh. Yes. BtVS. I don't follow the show, so I couldn't write it. Spiderman cameos very very briefly in The Italian Job. Tobey McGuire as a pre-spider Peter Parker has a goofy resemblance to yaksha42. The guy doing the "Hmm... do you have enough red blood cells for us?" thing up front was being cross-trained -- he normally works in the room with the freezer and all. Someone evaluating him or helping train him was hanging over his shoulder, vampiresque. Much silliness there.

When I got home, there was a message waiting for me: the General Manager from the Domino's by DeVry wanted me to call back. I did. I wound up going over there for a brief interview. The Viking's timing could not have been better, for certain definitions of 'better'. Schedule permitting (theirs) I may have job. [Insert track from TMBG BNAF here] The General Manager got the Azzgrin at one point; she took it as a sign of enthusiasm, and not the Scary Thing that it actually is. (I got the "tell me a bit about yourself" on the phone; I did; the phrase "Consistently, persistently cheerful" was used.)

Didn't connect on the phone with Darkside. *sigh* Did leave a message. Or something. Too late to try again now. Oh well.

After I came home, I worked like some variety of lunatic and/or maniac on the pizza project.

Read The Krytos Trap today. Evidently Stackpole is local. Huh. Decent book. I'll have to snorf the rest in the series. I may already have them. DeVry does this thing with library sales. Cheap books that no one wants anymore but the hardcore geeks.