So my oldest brother & fam are all in Spokane, WA, and every year I send them coffee for the holidays. This is in lieu of buying stuff for them, my nephews, and their 7 kids (I send my 2 nephews with kids cash to do something fun -- 3rd nephew has assured me he's too old for that now. Okay by me!!). Usually I grab something on Amazon, but this year nothing really looks good. Now mind you, I do NOT drink coffee. I hate it with the passion of a thousand fiery suns. So I all really have to go with is "dark/french roast".

Here's a selection of some of the coffees I have found while browsing the internet: Bing cherry, cocoa, persimmon; marzipan, honeydew, cherry; nutmeg, velvety, apricot. WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS EVEN MEAN?!?! All I want to do is buy some dark roast coffee on the internet that they can ship to WA state. Preferably fair trade (is that still a thing?) and a small local company that can use the business.

So, um, does anybody have any recommendations? Since I'm ordering online, anywhere in the US that ships to the US should be fine.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

Really and for truly - just swamped beyond all swamping. But after almost getting cut from one of my favoritest person's feeds yesterday (oh noes!!!), I knew I had to post SOMETHING today, even if it's only a quickie update. :-)

So yes, I am still here! Just lurking like mad. I try to catch up on LJ at least 2x/week (less often for DW, I freely admit), but I don't want to get into the habit of reading at work, and it's easier just to do FB on my phone. And yes, I am still working!! I've survived 10 months so far, and I still really like it, but OMG it gets crazy. But hey, at least I could finally afford A NEW CAR! I am now the proud owner of a Prius v -- it's the wagon version of the prius, so can actually hold all my shit. :-) Currently I'm getting 41 MPG, which is 1 less than the EPA of 42, but it's 21 better than my old car, so I'm sure as hell not complaining. :-> Also, many prius owners have said that it gets better after you put 3000 miles on it or so.

Still doing SCA -- took a short break, but the new Queen asked me to be one of Her Queen's Artisans (think Art Guard! *g*) so back I go again. :-> If 12th Night is any indication, it's going to be an AWESOME reign. And since we adore said new Queen, we actually got the Treblemakers back together to sing for Her Coronation. Yay singing!! I'm also still doing the Stanford Early Music Singers group. In fact, tonight is the "Music of the House" music department showcase concert at the new Bing hall at Stanford. We had a brief rehearsal there last Monday, and the hall is pretty darn awesome. We'll be performing Giovanni Gabrieli's 'In Ecclesiis' with The Whole Noyse Renaissance wind band. Show starts at 7 (our 8 minutes is sometime in the 2nd half) and is being streamed here: http://live.stanford.edu/stream/ Just in case anybody wants to watch. I really have no clue what is going on during the rest of the time - sounds like every group in the music department was invited to do something, so it's bound to be eclectic. :-)

Well, I tried to update this post, and somehow managed to delete it. Go me! Must be the cold. I've felt like crap for the past few days, and am planning on curling up on the couch soon. Anyway, BlackCat, having been fixed and released, is not happy at all about her kittens being in a cage in the garage. She's wandering around between the garage, the neighbors' yard, and now my yard, crying for them. It's this horribly pitiful cry, and it just makes me want to let the kittens out right now so she can abscond with them. But I can't do that. But I can't keep them in the garage any longer because she's driving the next-door neighbor's cats absolutely insane, and when she comes around crying? It's hard to do anything because omg, she's doing the cat-in-pain cry, and how can you do anything when you hear that? gah!

The rescue-cat-lady came by today while I was at work, and she thinks the kittens are about 9-10 weeks old, and hopefully 2 pounds each. AND she found a local place that takes their vouchers that has two openings tomorrow. So tonight I need to go buy the vouchers and pick up the traps, and tomorrow morning early load the kittens in the traps (feral rescue places will only fix cats in traps - if they come in a container, they assume they are tame and charge you more $$) and drop them off at a vet. I am totally hoping they are both boys (and that they are over 2 pounds!). If so, I can release them as soon as Sunday morning. If not, I'll need to keep them for 3 days. It's so sad, because we can pick them up and handle them, and I know they could be domesticated easily enough, but I just can't keep them in the garage for much longer, and it doesn't look like anybody else can take them.

But at least we won't have any more litters? Yay? :-/

It feels like forever since I've been able to post anything, but man, it's been nuts. New job is still going awesome, though I just got handed a big cup of responsibility that is a bit nerve-wracking... So much to learn, so little time! But what a wonderful difference it is working in a large group with supportive people! It's so much better than the last big company I can't believe it. I'm trying to not develop the habit of doing LJ & FB at work, so I just kinda check it periodically on my phone. But OMG, you guys, I have a paycheck now. A *real* paycheck! After 2 years of part-time (much as I loved that start-up, I really couldn't afford to stay any longer!), part of me wants to go completely wild and BUY ALL THE THINGS!! But luckily the rest of me is all into catching up on bills and building up on savings and crazy shit like that. :-D

I had planned on taking pretty much the entire year off from SCA, but the Queen of the West asked me to be on Her Court. So now, I've been doing alot of crazy sewing projects and am actually going to go to Pennsic this year. So I will be sewing like a maniac for the forseeable future! I am also on the lookout for light-weight linen... anybody got some extra in their stashes that isn't being used? :-> Going to Pennsic totally means I need to get my butt back in gear on the diet, because I would much rather have less of me dealing with the heat and humidity of Pennsylvania in August. I gained some weight in the first month of working because, well, cafeterias with Indian food and stir-fry! Vending machines! Fast food! But believe you me, seeing the number on the scale really put the kibosh on that. I've managed to lose almost 1/2 of what I gained, so I'm back on the right track.

So what else? Early Music Singers is AWESOME, and I finally managed to drag Judy into singing with us. We are doing the most incredible music this quarter -- the Three Spanish Greats: Morales, Guerrero, and Victoria. Concert is June 6th at 8:00 at the Stanford Memorial Church if you happen to be in town... Physically, I'm rediscovering the joys of computer-related tendonitis, and managed to tweak my knee again, so I'm back doing PT. Mentally, well, it's tough some days. We just lost my oldest friend's dad. They moved across the street from us when we were 1.5 years old so I practically grew up over there. E spent so much time helping with my dad, and right after the funeral, they discovered hers had cancer. Man, cancer totally sucks. Mom seems to be doing okay... We've kinda gotten in the habit of her coming over for dinner Saturdays when I'm not doing SCA, and then we watch a movie. Last night we saw Captain America, and today I am taking her to see The Avengers for Mother's Day. And I am going to make her promise not to ask any questions until the movie is over!!

Well, that was an interesting experiment. I made my first ever batch of steel-cut oatmeal in the crockpot Friday night, and had it for breakfast 3 days in a row. Wow, that stuff is *filling* -- I wasn't hungry for hours after eating it. I forgot to prep it last night, so ended up having a meal-replacement bar for breakfast today. And I'll be darned if I haven't been starving all morning. I think this means I'm officially switching to oatmeal now. ( Read more... )

Speaking of cooking, this weekend is the SCA West Coast Culinary Symposium, which I'm quite looking forward to. I'm daytripping with Johanna, and I just need to decide what clothing I want to get a mess all over. :-> I mean, yea, tunics are definitely the way to go, but most of mine are linen, and I'd hate to get food all over them. Maybe I'll take my old cotton broadcloth one for slumming and change to a nicer one for dinner. I am hoping I learn something, though my cooking skills are pretty much at the slim & none stage. I am actually thinking about taking a cooking class... has anybody ever heard of Cucina Bambini? The menu choices for their Essentials series seem a bit odd, but if it really does teach stocks, proper knife skills, roasting, sautéing, and baking for $175, it might be worth it. There's also a Kitchen Basics class at Sur la table which looks interesting. It's $25 more, and 1.5 hours shorter, but I'm actually free all three Sundays it is offered this month.

And Indiana is doing okay, but OHMYGOD he hates me. They found 3 additional smaller lumps when they had him under, so went ahead and took those out too. He totally looks like franken-kitty. They are all standard mast cells, thank goodness. No cancer. I tried sticking a tshirt on him to keep him from messing with everything, but he could still reach one of them, and the poor guy could barely walk because the arm holes were too tight. (pic 1, pic 2) So I swapped it out for an old fabric cone that was Rosie's. It barely goes over his head, which means even when it's untied, he can't get it off. Yay! And he seems to not totally hate it. He was supposed to go in this morning for a checkup, but my mom called this morning sick as a dog, so I had to take her in instead (to Kaiser, not the vet!!). So Indy goes in this afternoon. Hopefully he won't kill any of us. They've already said if they can't take his stitches out next week, they're going to teach me how to do it. Oh, HELL NOES!! He's only got 3 doses of meds left, thank goodness. He's been off the pain meds since the 2nd day because he just wouldn't take it. And after he bit through my finger while I was trying to shove the antibiotics down his throat, they gave me some empty gel caps at the vets. It's still a struggle and a half to get it down his throat, especially since I can't find a decent piller, but at least it only takes 2 tries instead of 10 minutes and him frothing at the mouth looking like he's got rabies. :-/

Cats. Gotta love 'em!!!

Took Indiana in for his shots today (my city has mandatory rabies shots/licensing requirements). I had noticed a lump on his shoulder a while ago, but with all the family stuff going on, that was kinda on the back burner. Turns out it's a mast cell tumor, and has to come out. Odds are very good it's benign, and surgery will take care of everything, but still, it's a bit worrisome. Also expensive! So Escapade is officially out, Vividcon is officially out, and all SCA events except for the Crosston Ball & the West Coast Culinary Symposium are most likely out.

On the amusing side, Jazzie got her shots last week, and she is now 7 months old, and 8 pounds 13 oz. Indiana, after 5 months of eating her full-fat food, has hit ~20 pounds~!! So I was telling the vet that as soon as Jazzie is old enough, I'll be switching them all to lite food. She's all, "DO IT NOW!!" :->

I have a spagetti squash. I have only ever cooked it once, and I forgot how, so I looked it up in my copy of "How to Cook Everything." It basically says, "cook until done."

o.O

My brothers are trying to help my mom pick out memorial mass music. So my mom looks up something and says, how does this go? And then they all start singing it. They are _so_ not picking out music for me. I mean, it's all in English!!

Oh god, and they want to do Wind Beneath my Wings. Again. This will make the 4th funeral I have had to sing that at, and it reminds me of a Lord King Bad Vid.

We really need a wheelchair ramp at my mom's. I called a place that does modular steel removeable ramps and got a free estimate. O$$M$$G$$. There is absolutely no way my mom would go for the amount of $$ it is. So now I have to figure out another plan, and frankly, I am out of ideas. It's a 21" rise... not exactly something you can slap a board over and call it done. :-/

This is public, so it's not going to have too many details, but my dad's health is failing. As he was a public school music teacher in the area for 30+ years, there are alot of people he touched. I wanted to do a page where we could put up pictures, and people could leave comments, and I'm having a hard time figuring out what to do.

Facebook would be an obvious choice, as everybody in the family (even my mom!) uses it. BUT, if we made him a page, after he passes away, they "memorialize" it, so only friends and family can see it. Which is bogus. If somebody hears after it's locked that he passed and wants to see pictures or read some stories about him, they can't. So then I thought maybe a "fan" page, but FB now has those set up for "official celebrities" which, y'know, doesn't quite work. :-> There's also the Group page, but that only has 3 levels of privacy: hidden, closed (nobody can see anything except the title until they are added) and open (every spammer and freakazoid can join and post something). I wouldn't mind "anybody can see, but need permission to join/post" but there are too many weirdos out there. And then there's the problem that not everybody *has* facebook.

There are "memorial" sites, but he hasn't passed yet, and I know my mom would freak if we got a page that said he had. I want to be able to phrase it as "look mom, people can leave messages, and we can read them to him!" Slight but very important distinction there. My middle brother has a domain at www DOT the<familyname> DOT com, but how would we go about making things open for comments, yet filter the spammers of the world?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!