Maybe It's A Puma

I was filling out a servey today about Geneticly Modified Foods, how do I feel about them, do I suport the research, would I/do I eat GMF, or do I/would I feed them to my kids (no questions about foxes or boxes, or a house and a mouse, which I think will give them incompleat date, but meh).

One of the questions was a Multipul Clickey Box option about why I wouldn't eat GMF, including options like, "Not proven safe in the long term", "Bad for the enviroment", "Makes plants more suspectable to plagues/rots", etc etc. The final option "Other: Tell Us Why?"

My awnser? Other - Tell Us Why: "Two words: Zombie Apocalypse. Why, how do YOU think it'll start?"

It was a small thing, but thinking that some random person, somewhere in the world, at some point in the near future, may read that and get a small, unexpected chuckle out of an other wise tedius job really made my day. ::G::

Life's about the little things. ::G::

Okay, so I'm sick and fucking tired of posing whiney, bitchey posts about how much my life is sucking at the moment. Thank you all for putting up with it, but tonight, I'm ending on a high note.

Thank god for YouTube subscriptions. I needed this today.


Hi, I'm a Marvel...And I'm a DC: The 100th Ep : THE MUSICAL!

Thank you, and goodnight.

I am totaly conflicted about the new storm approching. On the one hand, YAY! STORMS! And also, YAY! SNOW! I mean, sure we already have eight inches in our front yard, and that's more then we've gotten in like a decade, but this new storm could bring our house between 6-18 more inches. Which is hitting the point of both \o/ and /o\ at the same time.

Combine this with the fact that Grandma's airport is still snowed in and will get hit with the same storm we will... ::sighs:: Yeah, I think a few of you are figuring this second /o\ out quickly.

Grandma may be with us though Christmas.

Have I told you her views on "those imigrants" yet? Because she's told me. Multipul times. How about health care? Have I shared with you her opinions on health care? Or the presedent? Or maybe the next president? How about church, have we discussed church yet?

::headesk::headesk::headesk::

::shakes it off::

Back to the \o/, this storm may bring with it a real storm, which means pretty, pretty pictures. Some of the coolest pics I ever took were in the Ice Storm abuot a dozen years ago. Mom and I spent hours sitting together by the big picture window and listening to trees brake in half and transformers blow up in great waves of blue light. And if the power goes out, I'd even be able to walk though actual darkness in the snow at night.

In the /o\ catagory, if the power goes out, people will be cold, and around here, cold people are idiots.

Also, I have a doctor's appointment on Monday. My meds run out two days before New Years. This is my last appointment with this good doctor, and if I can't convince him to keep me on after the change over, I'll be without a doctor period. If I can't get him to take me on, I only pray he can direct me to someone else willing to take my case, because god knows what I went though to get him! That's a huge stresser right there. So if the storm hits Sunday and dumps a shitload of snow and ice on us...and I gotta go to my doctors on Monady...and they close for the Holiday, so if I can't get in Monday or Tuesday... ::burries head in arms::

Also in the /o\ catagory, I feel shitty for whining to ya'all. I really do. Sorry. But I can't exactly whine to my family right now, ya know? And Sel is internet-less, and Joan's heard it all so much, I'm sure she's got the " 'There there.' ::shoulder pat::" line just copy/pasted for future use. ::sighs::

I'm trying to just focus on the \o/ things, but yesterday was so exasuting, it's hard. I spent nine hours waiting for the Cable Guy to show up and give me back my TV, which had been out since 2am (mid-program, I might add). Turns out, he needs to put in a whole new fucking line, which since he didn't get here 'til around 7:30pm, he couldn't do in the dark. So I getta wait not only for him, but for Comcast to just call to give me the times to wait for him. ::deep sigh::

He was nice enough to at least hook me back up to basic cable, so today I at least have something to watch other then whats on my Hard Drive. Though I did get though like six Riptide eps, which was another \o//o\ thing. Because I love the show, but it ended with only three seasons, and this officaly puts me into the late end of S2. Once these eps are done, they're done, and I won't have any more new eps to watch. So I'm trying to strech them out. But because the fandom's been closed for so long, no one bothers to put spoiler warnings on anything, so I've read almost no fics outside my own in order to avoid the worst of the spoilers. So once I'm done, I won't have new eps, but I will have new fics. ::sighs:: So a trade off.

And now my whineing is just annoying me, too. Sorry, guys. Hopefuly I'll have something happier to report on soon.

ETA: Also? Still no tree. ::pouts:: I may just tell him to forget it, it's silly to only have it for three days or something. ::sighs::

I love it when you look out the window, and you see clouds and trees, and then you blink, and there's one, lone snowflake that drifts lazily past.

And then a moment later, another one...

And then a few more...

And then a whole blizzard starts, all of them drifting down thick, and softly, and in perfect, puffy little flakes.

And it all started with just that first one that drifted lazily past.

ETA: I forgot to say, so I'm saying it up here so people see it. Tonight in the US, CBS is airring a movie called "Front Of The Class", which is a bio-pic of Brad Cohen, who grew up with a case of moderate-to-sever Tourettes, and went for years without a diagnosis. He eventualy went on to take what he went though, and all the challanges he faced in school with this illness, and became an incredibly famous and well loved teacher himself!

So anyone who's heard me talk about my TS and wondered what it is? Try this movie. I haven't seen it yet, so I can't say how accurate is it, or how close to my own story it is, but the TS Assocaiton is premoting it and backing it and saying it's well done and an fairly accurate protrail of his guy's life. So if you're intrested in what TS is (when it's not just shouting obsenities like in LA Law or Duce Biggalow ::eyeroll::) and what our lives in school can be like, give it a try. It's set to air at 9pm on CBS tonight, Sunday the 7th.

---

Just a quick update today. Mom was much better yestday then I was fearing she would be based on past surguries. However, it's like saying "The hurricane was downgraded from a mark four, to a mark two." It's still a fucking mark two huricane! It's just not a four anymore. ::sighs::

I only made a few pointless trips between up here and my place, twice when she asked for ice, and they don't have ice cube trays up here, but I do. Then I bring them up, and she means "No, I don't want ice water, I want cold water." Despite asking "for ice in my water". Only no, she just wants bottles of watter, not glasses, a straw will help. Only no, because the bottles are too tall and the straws fall down inside, and why did I bring her bottled water, the ice dosn't fit inside the bottles, and she spacificly asked for ice water. ::blows bangs out of face::

But really, that was better then I was expecting. I don't mind getting up and down a bunch, she just had her knee replaced, I was expecting that, I just hate going up and down the outside stairs in the rain for no reason. And also, she asks me to make her food, and she insists she wants a lot, she's hungry, but then eats four bites and dosn't want any more, and dosn't want the same thing twice, so it gets wasted, because with my OCD I can't finish her ceareal after she eats some or anything.

Dad was good, he escaped to went to the store early on and made a huge batch of macaroni crap, because early on mom said she wanted spagettii. Mom isn't eatting any of it, but it does mean I have something to eat up here, something I can just throw on a plate and nuke and it's good to go. I can eat a ton (metric) of macaroni crap before I get too tired of it to want something else. We ate it a lot when I was a kid, and it's pretty filling, between the pasta and the cheese and the ground beef. The corn adds a nice accent to every few bites as well.

Mom's cutting down on her meds, of course, like she always does. She was takeing the painkillers every three hours, but now she wants to only do them every four. I'm thinking I may force them on her ever three, if for no other reason then to make her sleep a little more. I got no sleep last night, and am exasuted. I can't nap myself, because she insists on keepin the door to her room closed to keep the heat out (Mom's like me, can't sleep when she's warm, has to have a cold, prefurably freezing, room in order to sleep), so there's too big a chance I'd sleep though her calling for me. But when she's sleeping, I can rest, at least, and not have to get up and fetch stuff. I'm just sitting here, watching some TV and working on the beta for the third Cub Scouts AU ("Army Of One", I'll probably post it sometime later this week, I want at least a few days between fics so people don't get tired of reading them).

She's already tried to clean the house while my back was turned, yesterday. I have to sweep twice a day or more, just to keep the broom out of her hands. And she's still trying to pick stuff up as she walks past, and she just can not lean over properly, and she won't just ask, "Hay, Torra, can you please grab this?" ::sighs:: She won't let me help her get in and out of bed or the chairs anymore at all, she figured out how to use the handle of her canes to grab onto her foot and lift it, since she can't do it herself. ::sighs:: She's already hurt herself badly once doing this, when the cane slipped and went flying, leaving her to fall back onto the bed. ::sighs::

And since I seem to have the habit of ending a post on a totaly and compleatly difrent subject, today's "in totaly unrelated news": I Haz A Shower Again!

I don't know what they did to fuck up my shower durring the work, they wern't suposed to touch it other then to actualy shower at night (since the water tank at the rental was about the size of an acorn and you only got about 20 seconds of hot water a night for one shower out of three people), but they did something and broke it. It was at least usable for awhile, though mostly just a fine mist came out, not a spray, and what spray there was, went in all directions excetp down.

Well, even that broke afte while, and for the last week or so, it's been toatly dead. So I've been showering upstairs, and going nuts, I hate having to go outside and into someone else's house just to get a shower.

Dad had to put a new showerhead upstairs (I dind't bother asking why, as it's a brand new shower top to bottom), so he went down last night and put a new one in for me, too. I was too tired to use it last night to try it out, and dad asked me to be up here at 10am today to take care of mom (turns out, they were both still asleep so I didn't need to be), so I didn't have time this morning. Boy am I looking forword to that shower. I'm sore and exausted and it sounds wonderful.

Okay, Mom should be up soon, so I'm gunna finish this beta. More updates as stuff happens.

First up: Surgry.

Mom's first knee surgry is on Wednesday. Well, her first knee replacement surgry is on Wednesday. They're doing the left leg. Right knee will follow in six months to a year. She goes in for her pre-surgry tests in a few hours, and then will have to stay in hospital for about three days afterwords. Apparently she has done something to piss Danika off. She does not know what, so it'll fall to me to take care of her, which I do not have a problem with.

I'm really not all that stressed about this surgry. She needs it, I've been saying that longer then she has. This is a good thing.

In fact, I won't even be here when she goes in, which I do feel a little bad over. Tuesday is the Guild Chrismas Party, which I promaced up and down to people there that I'd attend (probably with yet more cornbread in tow), and even Krista is takeing Susan to show off. And my back just will not make that drive both to and from Seattle in one day. So I'll be staying Tuesday night at Krista's. Which I don't really want to do, since I'm still kinda pissed at her about July. So I may say "fuck it" and drive home anyhow if I find her inssurferable. But I wanna see Susan. Without any compotishion. ::snickers::

So I'll go up to the Guild party on Tuesday, Mom'll go into Surgry Wednesday morning, I'll come home Wednesday afternoon or evening, and Mom'll come home sometime around Friday or Sat, depending on her healing...probably Friday...Thursday if someone dosn't keep an eye on her at all times.

---

*


Compleatly apropos of nothing else, the results of my Happy Birthday Sparkly Text Poll...turns out, more people like it then hate it. But I did have one person say they hated it, and I hate to have something that someone hates. So despite the fact that the majority said they love it, I may do something, like a just the size, so it's not quite so...so much. We'll see. Next up is Skip's birthday, and I promaced him the full works, so he'll get the usual, but past that, I'm not sure yet. I don't think I have anyone else on book 'til the New Year...

---

In other and also toatly unrelated news, I changed the quote in my sidebar. I've deside to try one full year where I post a new quote on the 1st of each month (or there abouts). Last month I did this, too, but forgot to say anything.

So for those who missed it because they only read my posts on their own flist, last month's quote was :

"Never judge a book by its movie." -J. W. Eagan

And this month's quote is:

"An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives wtih, insists on boring future genorations." -Charles de Montesquieu

I thought the quote was appreoprate considering December is the season of one of the most awful bores, Charles Dickens and the dredded "A Christmas Carol".

---

In a sadly related topic...I've started writing in a third new fandom. Riptide. My first finished fic is in the hands of the beta, and I'm debating wether or not to also claim it as a Small Fandoms Fest fic so I can get more eyes on it. It actualy fits two prompts, so reallly the question is "which does it fit better?"

And tinx_r, before you ask, no, I did not want you to beta this one, because I wanted it to be a suprise gift. You got me into the fandom, it's only fair you should get something nice in return. So you can help me beta my other one, the Stutter fic, but this one is just for you. andeincascade should get it back to me tonight, so I'll post it either tonight or tomorrow, depending on how many mistakes she found.

Ande is also my second beta on my DSSS fic, and she got me the edits back last night. After I make the changes, it should be good to post! Which is kinda flooring, considering how paniced I was this time a month a go, when I just thought it was due in 14 days, instead of now when it's actualy due in 14 days.

I am wondering, though, how many other peoploe are done or nearly done. Judging from my flist, not a lot. It seems like a lot of people are struggling with getting their DSSS fic written this year. I find this...intresting. Not really sure what it is past that, but it is intresting. I wonder if my slice is truly indicitive of the whole, or if my slice is squeded slightly one way? Maybe I'm a dragging influance? Though I finished, so I don't see how, this time...

* Because I can use HR lines to seporate subjects matters if I want to. ;-p

---

ETA: The counter guys are here installing Mom's granate countertops (which apprently they cut wrong), and I'm trying to identifye the language they're speeking to eachother in. It's either Russian, Ukrainian, or some Polish derivitive, I can't quite tell...fasinating, though. It dosn't sound quite like any of the three, but close to all of them...

So three news tidbits things today, one fail, one funny, one win. First, the fail, because I just find this funny:

I got a call from a collection agency. ( Yah, I Know, It Sounds Like A Joke Setup And it Kinda Is )

And just to get all the badness out of the way before the yay, I will not be able to go to MJ this year. ::sighs:: There was much sadness, but really, all my cash is going into my appartment, which I just did not know was gunna happen when I was at BP, it didn't happen 'til months later, so if the appartment/remodling thing hadn't happend, I'd totaly be signing up for MJ the moment it opened. Sadly, I can't swing the air fair and a hotel and food and the appartment all at the same time.

Now, onto more of the funny and yay stuff...

Next up is just...yah, that was the hardest time I've had in years trying not to burst out laughing in a man's face. ( You Know It's Halloween When The Door-To-Door Christians Outnumber The Door-To-Door Mormons )


And finaly, the epic, total, made of WIN moment:

I Finished The Blanket!!!

My GOD I thought this had become the project that would not die! It just would not end this month. I've been litterly counting the rows for the last two weeks, and the last few days, everytime I counted, I had about two blocks left, over and over and over.

So I pull it out this morning to work on it, and I'm halfwy though a row and I think "Okay, I should have about one and a half blocks left, four rows per block, plus a finish row, so maybe six and a half rows at most, maybe? I'd better count, just to be sure." So I turn it on it's side and start counting...

And I came up with 46 compleat blocks.

I frown. I turn it to the bottom and doubble count my blocks across, just in case I'm having a dislexic moment, and no, it's still 46 blocks across. So I doubble count my blocks up again...and again...and one last time...and it was true!

I was actualy halfway into an extra row! I had finished the night before and not even noticed!! ::doing happy dance::

So I quickly undid the half row, pulled out a larger size hook (really glad I bought a three size pack on sale this weekend) and did a final row of slip stiches, tied it off, and I was done! It took me five minutes to sow in the ends and bamb, no more blanket!

My goal was to finish before Susan was born, which was oringaly suposed to be the 13th, so I'm a few days late there, but she was a week early, and I missed that date, and then I was going to go up last friday to see her again, and I missed that deadline, too. But I didn't go up last friday, so I still made my deadline of "before I go back up."

I am so frick'n incredibly proud of this thing. It's definatly taken longer then any other piece, and used more yarn. Somewhere between nine and ten skeins of yarn. And it's my very own pattern, too! I created this pattern!

Some of you saw me working on this blanket version 1.0 back at bitchinparty, I cast on durring the very first orentation, and was a couple of rows in by the end of the weekend. That one I undid a few months later when it kept getting tighter and tigheter and ended up far smaller then I wanted. So I re-started with 2.0 and just made it much wider this time around...and then it eneded up significantly wider then I ment it to, but it's at least a uniform width, so it looks like I ment for it to be this way.

This size it'll easily work to keep this kid warm for a long time. It's gunna dawarf her for about the first year, I think. ::LOL:: But, if I do brag so myself, it's of a rather quiet eligance and subtle beauty, I think it'll look good on any bed, even at the foot of an adult's bed. It's the same pattern and yarn that I used for Grandma Ramona's lapgan in Spring, and she's still saying how much she loves it and how lovely it looks on her coutch.

I totaly don't have the energy to move right now, let alone get up and take photos, but I will soon. As I mentioned, it'll mostly look like the lapgan I made, though, so you can just look HERE and imagine this one as wider and longer. I'll take pics later.

I still can't beleive it's done! Squee!

Dear Slightly-Further-Away Red Neck Neighbors Up The Street;

I do hate to beleighbor a point so many times, but we did go over this in Summer, so perhaps your mind was still not on school-mode. Perhaps now that your kids are back in lessons, your own mind will be a little more reseptive to the information. Let's do another quick lesson is science.

You live up the street. You have X-number of cars. There is one (1) tree in the yard, and one (1) empty house between us.

If your car A is wailing like a fucking god damned banchee because you're too fat and lazy to find the fucking remote to turn off the god-damned alarm then will that sound reach my house?

Anwser: YES IT WILL. Becasuse, and lets go over this fact again, sound waves move in multipul directions and dementions. They do not stop at the tree. They do not stop at the house! They do not, in fact, stop somehow maigicly in the three empty yards or at the chain link fence! If your car alarm is going off for nearly twenty minutes after I have only gotten four fucking hours of sleep and already have a migrane, then YES, THOSE SOUND WAVES WILL REACH MY HOUSE, ASSHAT.

Any questions? Good. I sinsearly hope we will not have to repeat this lesson again.


No love,
Lots of Hate,
Die Painfuly, Assholes,

~Torra

PS:
Awwww, my first LJ Letter Post.

The Baby's okay, and Krista is okay, but the plan has officaly changed. Krista's blood pressure is steadly going up, and that has the doctors worried. So if she dosn't go into leighbor before next week (which is looking incredibly unlikely, no one really thinks she will), then they're going to induce on Tuesday. If she dosn't go into leighbor within 24 hours of that, then they'll do a C-Section on Wednesday.

No clue how they're takeing this news, though, I just got told by Mom. I'll see them on Sat when Joan and I go up for Mythbusters (We Haz Tickets!), so I'll talk to her some then.

Mom's going insane trying to get the house done before then. She wants to be in Seattle the moment they inject Krista with anything, she wants to be up there for every second of it, so she wants as much done on the house as possible. Considering we're suposed to moved in by then, we'll see. ::shakes head:: Dad's stress levels are though the roof right now. He lost his phone again tonight. I went over with him to the house with a couple of flashlights to look for it. Good thing I did, it didn't occure to him to check the outside of the house, despite the fact that he was working out there. I found it along the side of the house by the latter he was on all morning. ::shakes head::

I guess I don't have a lot else to say, just wanted to keep you guys updated. Like I said, everyone is healthy, no one is in danger, they just don't like Krista' blood pressure. And since it's her first kid, they don't have a baseline of what's normal for her at this stage, so everyone's erring on the side of caution. I'm just bummbed they aren't inducing on Monday, I wanted my niece to have a 10/13 birthday. Because I am a geek. Yes, I know. Maybe the next one will manage 11/21, we'll see.

Oh, and just a reminder to everyone, don't forget to watch tonight's episode (1/3/'08) of Jeopardy! kernelm is gunna be on it! That's virtualinsomnia's boy, and we all need to root for him! I'm thinking smart thoughts for you, kernelm! In Latin even! And Klingon, too, just to be safe.

Clay Aiken just came out.

I can not stop laughing!

How many yeas has it been? Oh My God, how NUTS must his uber-Christian fanbase must be going right now! Oh good lord, the foul language they threw at any reporter who dared even ask Clay about his sexuality before this.

I just can not stop laughing.

I still remember the night I tried to tell Joan's mom he was gay like five years ago, and she was still saying "no, he's not, he's cute!" as of a this afternoon.

::giggling madly::

I came out when I was a teen, I've been out for all of my adult life...when a little girl has more balls then a celebrity? Yah, this is funny!

And not to sound insencitive about comeing out, it's a deeply personal thing, everyone makes a choise, yadda yadda yadda, but come on! Was there anyone here on this list who acutaly thought he was stright? Why spend years denying the blindingly obvious in today's world? No, it won't be easy, but neither was the life he was pretending to live!

Too funny.