little bits of everything

the purge continues

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:23:38 GMT

Okay, y'all, I have more TREASURE from the move for some lucky commenter. Alas, it requires a bit of specialized equipment that as of this move, we no longer own, to wit: a VCR.

On VHS, for your delectation, thirteen glorious hours of the 1976 production of I, Claudius. Based on the books I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves and starring Derek Jacobi, Sian Phillips, Brian Blessed, John Hurt, and Patrick Stewart, among many, many others. Kudos as well to the makeup artists, who do an amazing job of aging the cast.

It is fantastic. It kind of hurts me to let it go, which is why I'm offering it to you guys before I donate it to the world at large. Do you have access to a VCR? Do you like Roman history, excellent actors, and things that are awesome? You will love I, Claudius in less time than it takes to boil asparagus. Drop me a comment.

ETA: as before, the postage is on me.

ETA2: If you don't have a VCR, it's on Netflix and is well worth a watch. And needless to say, Graves' books are fantastic.

happy new year!

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 03:58:19 GMT

Hope everyone has a wonderful time ringing in 2010! I am in a HOUSE, surrounded by boxes, but with the furniture all more-or-less where it goes. Huzzah!

And there was much rejoicing.

Have a wonderful New Year!

does anybody like monty python?

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 21:25:40 GMT

My dad has given me two copies of their autobiography. I don't need two, and Powells doesn't wish to buy it from me. Before I donate it to th3e library, I thought I'd see if anyone wants it. Drop a comment if you're interested. Shipping's on me.

house house house

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:59:44 GMT

We are now the proud owners of a three bedroom house. HOLY CRAP. I wrote the biggest check yet of my life, and now it's all paint paint paint, fix fix fix, with the goal being that we move in on the 29th. It's a time in one's life when you find yourself asking things like, "How is it that we own approximately 4,786,225 books? Oh yes, because I have a bookbuying ~~problem~~ habit. Hmmm. More importantly, how can I box them all up??"

To make things more fun, I walked into the elliptical last week whilst barefoot and am now sporting a gigantic purple (and painful!) spot on my left foot. It was a result of that insidious problem, walking while reading. (WWR) Apparently I am determined not to learn from my mistakes, because this isn't the first time something like this has happened to me.

Furthermore, it has come to my notice that apparently someone decided to have Christmas THIS FRIDAY, which I suppose means that I need to have any festive holiday crafts I want to perpetrate done by Thursday. Likewise the remainder of my Christmas shopping. I need a Bag of Holding, but for time.

All of which is to say that for the next few weeks, I will continue to not post much. Hope everyone has a wonderful end of December.

house house house!

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:02:01 GMT

Great news, everyone!

We just received word from our real estate agent that not only do we have a contract on the HOUSE, the seller has agreed to our entire list of ~~demands~~ requests about repairs. We thought there would be negotiations! But there weren't! He's fixing it all, including replacing the gutters and refooting the foundation. If I haven't yet said, woot! allow me to say WOOT! And I can spend the entire winter thinking about the garden we're going to have in the spring. (Another WOOT!)

I'm not even going to worry about packing up our one (1) metric fuckton of books. Not until tomorrow anyway.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!111!!!!eleventy!!!

thanksgiving

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:30:10 GMT

Whew! Finished NaNoWriMo last preparatory to leaving town to go visit relatives for Thanksgiving in a few hours. (Finished is such a relative term. In this case it means 50k of wordbarf, with more to come.)

But for now, the 3-yo is excited that we get to go on an airplane, and we get to see scads of family we don't see that often. Yay! See you guys in December. If you're American, have a great Thanksgiving. If not, have a great Thursday.

HOLY SHIT, INTERNET!

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:41:03 GMT

...We are homeowners!!!

(Or I guess homeowners in waiting? We close in December.)

I am jazzed. And psyched. And gleeful. And so forth.

I have signed my name approximately one billion times.

(Fenced-in backyard! Kitchen bigger than a postage stamp! Not having to deal with the slumlords! Bliss.)

busy november

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:52:56 GMT

1. I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. The result so far is a lot of words, but also a first draft that has exploded on me. Which is fine, but it's going to be interesting trying to make it all fit together.

2. I read "A Memory of Wind", a short story by Rachel Swirsky over on Tor.com, and it has been haunting me sufficiently since then that I thought I'd share it here in case anyone hadn't seen it. It's a retelling of the sacrifice of Iphigenia by Agamemnon. It's lovely.

3. Holy crap, we put an offer on a house today. Eeek! Another couple has an offer on the same house. We should find out tomorrow whether we get it or not. I'm very excited and very nervous. I will be thrilled to move out of the apartment, but I'll miss our upstairs neighbors (my in-laws.)

Whew. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

what we did for halloween

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:55:32 GMT

We took our son trick-or-treating, for one thing. This is the first time he's really been old enough to get it, and he got it big time. Between the costume (Thomas the tank engine) and the candy, he was thrilled.

I have always loved Halloween. Part of that is candy, part of that is an inclination to the theatrical and macabre. Last year changed that; my mother-in-law died last year, after a protracted struggle with lung cancer.

So this year, on the anniversary of her death, our family decided to make a picnic lunch and take it to the cemetery. There were eight of us, including my three year old son. We spread out a tarp, because the ground was wet, and put a tablecloth on top of that. We poured champagne, and ate cold chicken, and pasta salad, and corn, and deviled eggs, all next to the grave marker, which says SEARS in big letters.

My son climbed up on the grave marker and started tracing the letters with his fingers. Spotting a learning opportunity, I spelled it our for him as he traced each letter. When he was done, I said, "Do you know whose name that is? That's your last name."

I looked up, and my husband and my brother-in-law were watching me with funny, sort of horrified expressions. I hadn't thought about it; I was just trying to reinforce the alphabet.

But I took my son to a graveyard on Halloween and showed him a tombstone with his name on it.

My mother-in-law would have laughed her head off. It was a really nice picnic.

tee hee

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:58:06 GMT

So, Ben and I are going out tonight to celebrate our anniversary. (Seven years! Actually, it was yesterday, but Ben had to work. But I digress.) I put on nice clothes, and, since I had a few minutes, straightened my hair. I almost never do this, because it takes too long & I have better things to do. Anyway, I walked out of the bedroom and asked my three-year-old son, "How does Mommy look?"

"What are you dressed up as?" he asked.

Heh heh. Good question.

laundromat

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:40:18 GMT

We recently had lunch with a friend who seems to attract odd happenstance. Some of his stories suggested comics to me. Here's one about laundry.

Someday I may do the one about the waiter and the wine cork. It was awesome.

I'm an aunt!

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:37:31 GMT

My sister has produced an adorable offspring! Tonight, I drink to nephews.

the haunting, page 13

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:42:04 GMT

page twelve

...and that's the end! Goodbye, Cat and Ghost. May you have many exciting adventures.

the haunting, page 12

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:50:57 GMT

page eleven

page thirteen

the haunting, page 11

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:15:34 GMT

page ten

page twelve

the haunting, page 10

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:33:27 GMT

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the haunting, page 9

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:06:03 GMT

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the haunting, page 8

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:32:24 GMT

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the haunting, page 7

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 17:04:47 GMT

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the haunting, page 6

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:39:25 GMT

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miscommunications

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:59:20 GMT

(So playschool just started up again, after a summer hiatus. During that time, the tiny human moved up to the 3 and 4 yo class, or as we've been calling it, Big Boy School. I almost always dropped him off in the morning last year.)

A conversation in my house, 7 a.m., this, the second day of playschool:

Tiny Human: I want Daddy to drive me to school today.

Me: Daddy can't drive you today. I'm going to drive you.

TH: But I don't want you to drive. I cry when you drive me.

Me: You don't have to cry when I drive. You can choose to be happy that I'm driving you.

TH: But I don't want to go to little boy school.

Me: Oh! You're too big for little boy school. You're going to big boy school even if I drive you.

TH: Yay!!

the haunting, page 5

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:17:05 GMT

page four

the haunting, page 4

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:06:02 GMT

page three

page five

the haunting, page 3

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:46:11 GMT

page two
page four

the haunting , page 2

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:36:37 GMT

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