You've probably heard me tell stories of my ancient Accord, Ruby Lee, who has been getting less and less dependable. The Mr.'s Avalon made sense when he bought it a decade ago, but it's a little silly at this point in terms of gas mileage. So, Ruby's days are probably numbered, and I'll be stuck driving a Toyota boat. Which is OK, I guess, because I don't drive to work (I take Metro), so it's only for shopping and such. Hence the Prius.

It's white and its rear visibility sucks, but it has a back-up camera (and lots of other strange electronic gizmos). I'm thinking we could call it Jeep and confuse everyone.

Oh, and half the power at the dealership building was out. So it took us more than 3 effin' hours to complete the paperwork (the staff were all sharing the printers in the powered part of the building, for one thing). At one point, I was lighting the process with the Mini-Maglite that I carry in my bag, like the geek I am. I am now more behind that ever on what I was trying to get done this weekend ... .

As proof, I offer the fact that I spelled "dead" as "ded," above, when I started this message.

We're RPGing on Saturday night for the second weekend in a row, in an attempt to get the monthly game back on its pre-summer schedule (it has now become a space opera game; I am an uplifted dog ... who happens to be a fantastically skilled paramedic). And the Young Lady is in a high-intensity driving/driver safety course that runs 10:00am-1:15pm on every weekend (both days) for the rest of the month, and it's located in Rockville (= 40-minute drive).

And between dropping her (and her best friend) off at driving lessons tomorrow and going to the game, I am driving to Glen Air to visit my sis-in-law who is recovering from a hip replacement. So I am not going to be able to mellow out for a day any time soon (hmmm ... maybe Columbus Day, although TYL has school, so I will still be waking up early).

And also! Sunday is the Takoma Park Street Festival. Which will make it hard to get in and out of our neighborhood, because they block off the end of our street near the main drag and set up one of the stages there ... .

No wonder I can't get any creative thinking done ... .

If the top element of the toaster-oven-broiler is apparently not working, one should not touch the bottom element to see whether the same is true of it, as well.

One of the temple pieces snapped clean through, right up next to the hinge.

The Mr. is trying to superglue them, but I don't hold out much hope. It's a very small surface area.

I am wearing my old glasses ... I can feel an eyestrain headache coming on already.

The changes/upgrade to the CMS over the weekend broke lots of things and I am still helping to pick up the pieces.

And I just found out that the lovely lady who founded the Shejidan C.J. Cherryh message board was killed in a car accident a couple of weeks ago.

So I owe people interview questions and reactions to lovely music, and maybe I can get to them sometime tomorrow. But it's not happening tonight.

>sigh<

So I meant to post about this like, Tuesday night, or maybe yesterday. Didn't happen. And nothing disastrous happened either - in fact, I had a lovely (if too-brief) visit with smillaraaq. But so much that was supposed to happen - didn't.

Yesterday I spent close to two hours digging out of the bottom of my compost bins. Last year, when I was out of commission, the Mr. did it, and he just piled it up near the bins. I don't know whether that encouraged the evil English ivy to grow into the bins, but the older bin, especially, was a wad of tiny rootlets, and it was hard to get anything out. Still, I got out about a dozen pails-ful, and poked and turned the upper stuff a little so that it fell down into the empty spaces I'd just made. Then I started planting bulbs, with lots of nice compost in the holes, but didn't finish. I have 30 narcissus (3 kinds), 20 crocus, 20 miniature iris, and 10 squills (pushkinia). The narcissus need to be 4-6 inches inches apart from each other, and the ground is tough - it's ground that's now getting some sun since the big dead oak came down and no one's dug in it for decades at least.

So today my hands and forearms are all stiff and sore. But I was outside in the daylight for about 3 hours, so that's got to be good. I hope to plant the rest at the end of the week, when I'm off for Thanksgiving.

And on Saturday I got a therapeutic lamp for phototherapy for Seasonal Affective Disorder. Man, that thing is bright! I have it in the kitchen because the first thing I do on weekdays is made breakfast and pack lunch for the Young Lady.

Coming up the escalator to the main floor of Union Station (DC's main train station, which I cross through every day to get to my office), I was mugged by the delicious, warm smell of cinnamon. It was probably coming from the Corner Bakery, which was right there. But it gave me the same intense rush of pleasure that I get from the first sight of a lovely sunset, or the first notes of a favorite song.

So why is that? Is it just that I associate it with tasty treats? Or is there something deeper and more basic going on?

... I saw a very handsome blue jay.

I also saw a bumper sticker that said Mediators Do It Until Everyone Is Satisfied.

XD

We have all sorts of wildlife in Takoma Park!

I just had to show a quite large bat off the premises.

I will confess to being slightly freaked out, even though I like bats in principle, because s/he was about twice the size of any other bat I've ever seen that close.

I trapped it in the dining room (the only room on the ground floor that closes off entirely) and then with the Mr.'s coaching (I had to roust him out of bed and away from his crossword puzzle), opened a window in there and exited the room myself. A minute later, it flew outinto the night.

I have no idea how it got inside in the first place!

So we just drove back from dinner at Faryab in Bethesda (the Young Lady's choice: the Mr. pointed out that come this weekend, fresh from having her wisdom teeth removed, she probably won't want to eat much of anything), and turned onto our street, and had to dodge a cyclist who had no reflectors, no helmet, no nothin'.

Including no second wheel. Yes, we had to swerve to avoid hitting a unicyclist at 9:20 p.m.

Gee, I love my town!

XD

So today I should be doing wash and packing. But while I was getting the Young Lady off to school for her last 2 exams, I found that I couldn't turn the kitchen tap off completely. This is a symptom of low water pressure, and sure enough, the Mr. heard on the radio that there's a major water main break down the highway at Piney Branch Road.

They haven't locked down the main yet, so by using the basement bathroom, I was able to shower, and I'm running a load of cold water wash (mostly lingerie and some linen tops) - I hope it gets through the rinse before the water goes away entirely ... and I've been catching the trickle in the kitchen sink in every soup pot and bucket I can, to flush the johns and so on once the water goes off.

This is, BTW, the third time we've had water issues in 10 days. I feel like I'm living in a third-world country instead of one of the nation's wealthiest counties.

Ahh, it's morning ... I never could get the hang of "morning."

I forgot my badge/keycard for work, and had to go through the metal detector and stuff like a visitor.

The bead bracelet that ipperne gave me when the illness was diagnosed last fall has broken. Not too surprising: 6+ months of all-day everyday wear. I'll have to get some new cord for it this weekend at the bead store down the street. So now I'm carrying it in a little plastic parts bag in my pocket. My wrist feels naked.

And speaking of that ... the Washington Post Express (free newspaper handed out at the Metro) had a pic of 18-yr-old Daniel Radcliff ("Harry Potter") in his "Equus" theatrical role. Nude, shown from below the navel on up. I looked. And looked again. And again. > facepalm <    OMG, I'm turning into a dirty old lady!!!

Our agency is having a conference today, and apparently it's filled to capacity, if not actually SRO. And then, although the weather is not very spring-y today, it's apparent that the yearly spring school field trips to Our Nation's Capital have started. So when I went out to fetch lunch (I had a yen for curry today), I was dodging hoards of clueless people wearing name tags, all the way through our lobby, around Union Station, and down into the food court. People, don't stop dead at the bottoms or tops of the escalators, and please turn, look, and walk, instead of just turning 180° and charging off ... .

> sigh <

Well, it's Friday. And the curry was tasty.

Because I was tired and icky and I think my body has had it with the medical activities. Only 3 more sessions to go ... . I came home after today's session and played Civ for about 30 minutes and read a fic I had saved offline and then went back to bed and slept for about 4 hours!

We already get lots of junk mail because I shop online, so all those places (and those places' buddies) send us their dead-tree catalogs. To that mass has recently been added college mailings for the Young Lady. Thank God we have curbside recycling, is all I have to say!

So we heard the water go on again in the Young Lady's bathroom, 10 minutes after she was finished with her shower. And then she shouted that she couldn't turn it off.

It had been dripping, and she turned the faucet handle so many times that it unscrewed from inside the "wet wall," and all the water that normally would have come out the shower was running down inside the walls, from two stories up.

We finally got it temporarily straightened out, after turning off the house master valve for a while so the Mr. could play plumber. But we need to have a real plumber come in, and soon ... .

Well, here it is 10 days into the new year, and a week after receiving some very good advice from the f-list about how I should spend my time, and I have not done any of those things. No new manga or books blogged, no costumes even started, no new fic written.

On the other hand, right here beside the keyboard is a stamped, addressed envelope with registration form (and fee check) for the Tai Chi class, which starts on the 24th. I'm hoping I'm not too late - I will mail it on my way out tonight (I'm waiting for a server swap to occur - I need to make sure things are running on the new server before I leave). And I have been playing with the specific fic idea that was suggested.

Major obstacles to progress: that blasted cold, persistent low-level pain at the surgical site (which I was told is normal - I've just got to remember to take ibuprofen before the pain gets annoying), having to go to radiation 5 days per week, and preparation for late X-mas this weekend with the Mr.'s family. (At least that one will be out of the way soon.)

Two steps forward, one step back ... .

In the fruit bowl, in the kitchen
Lay a sticky pool of slime.
It once was a healthy snack - that
Dreadful, sorry clementine ... .

Inspired by my afternoon snack, and my brother-in-law, who was trying to write something on this theme ... .

Honestly, the health situation is already stupid enough without having my nose imitating a dripping faucet.

(And if the title of this post looks familiar to anyone, it may be that you read Ballet Shoes as a child ... that's more or less what Pauline says when Dr. Jakes asks her why she's sitting on the steps looking miserable, when they first meet each other.)

So I tried playing with the generator for a while, and I was averaging only 1 out of every 6 or so that I could even remotely possibly do.

I think my ignorance of TV is the major factor. I'm glad I didn't decide to play the "Roll Your Own Challenge" game!