Keeping Track of that Weirdo

the weather outside is frightful...

bane_6@livejournal.com — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:25:10 GMT

Whahgh!

That's part celebratory noise and part rally-the-warrior-spirit yell. Tomorrow, I take to the air once again to go home for Christmas break. My destination city is in the midst of an inch-an-hour blizzard. Of course it is. Why wouldn't it be?

Hopefully, by the time I get there, the worst will be over. I was trying to cheer myself up with the thought of a Norse horde going a-viking by plane, but then it started to remind me of a Capitol One commercial, which I enjoy, don't get me wrong, but amusement doesn't bolster the warrior spirit that well.

Sigh. Wish me luck!

but what does it mean?

bane_6@livejournal.com — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:23:55 GMT

Weird dream last night, probably from watching Ghost Rider with the book club.

I dreamed that I had somehow inherited this sprawling mansion and five or six schmancy cars and I didn't care because the place was haunted and I was worried about my cats. Lights would flicker and hands would stroke my hands and back or try to pull me towards different hallways or staircases. There were lots of people there too that I didn't know and Sam Elliott as the caretaker (see Ghost Rider above). So I spent most of the dream exploring and being spooked and talking out loud to empty rooms to stop scaring my cats and begging the caretaker not to leave me alone with this big honkin' haunted house. I ended up giving him the schmancy cars.

I dunno. Meanwhile, I watch this:

See what kind of dreams that gives me.

we got snow

bane_6@livejournal.com — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:21:00 GMT

sick day

bane_6@livejournal.com — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:24:48 GMT

I'm home sick today. I was dizzy and queasy this morning. Mom made me chicken soup and brought me a sprite which is above and beyond since I'm all grown up and stuff.

My stomach has mostly settled down except for the occasional 'oof' and the dizzy has evolved into a throbbing headache.

I also have a new computer. I named it Dug. This one has shift keys and everything! I have to get used to the new spacing though. And it swears the product key on the packaging is not the right one. I don't know quite what to do about that. A nap sounds good though. Maybe it will help my head too.

SPOILERS!

bane_6@livejournal.com — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 06:44:41 GMT

Mom and I are in Fairbanks! We have shoppped, boy howdy, have we shopped. I have the secret santa thing taken care of! We have also went to the River City Cafe and had what I believe to be the best holiday drink ever. Hot chocolate eggnog. It was fantastic. Warm and thick and frothy and chocolatey and just a teeny bit noggy. So very, very good. I would have happily bathed in it if it wasn't so perfect just to sip it.

We went to North Pole, AK and saw ice sculptures and went to the Santa House. All the street lights there are made to look like candycanes.

We saw Men Who Stare at Goats, which was not what either of us expected. I liked it, Mom not so much. I don't want to give too much away, but I'm glad it ended the way it did because I was starting to worry that the reason they were all so broken and crazy was because there had never been any psychic abilities at all. That would've been so sad.

We also saw A Christmas Carol in 3-D. Disney's cute version has spoiled me because I was actually spooked a few times. Jacob Marley was creeeeepy. A lot of it was creepy. The spookiest part of the Disney one is Goofy moaning "Scrooooooooooooge!" In this one you have demon horses, flying teeth, shrieking in straitjackets, the works! Still, I liked it.

huntsman77 sent me this:

bane_6@livejournal.com — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 22:32:09 GMT

And made my day.

I let the K3s watch an episode of Muppets the other day and they were fascinated by Sam the Eagle. They tried so hard to mimic his expression of unibrowed disapproval.

"That's a madddd bird," they decided. They loved him.

Take that, Squeam!

bane_6@livejournal.com — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:39:25 GMT

It's happened. I'm officially squeamish.

Staring at our turkey in the recently sterilized sink, I knew it. I didn't want to touch this thing. Sure as shootin' didn't want to reach into the cavity and pull out its neck in a bag.

Then again, I am only a day away from a four day bout of stomach flu, so maybe it's the tail end of that leaving me gulping hard at this pale, pimpled thing in my sink.

BUT! Squeamish or not, I did it. I cleaned the thing out, rubbed in some garlic and thyme per the recipe, slathered it in some oil and put it in the oven. Whatcha wanna bet that squeamish won't last once long once it's on a plate with some gravy?

somethings are maybe better left unsaid

bane_6@livejournal.com — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:05:15 GMT

So, somebody said something and I concocted a whole counterargument in my brain and later wondered if I should’ve said it out loud. You be the judge.

“Everybody is so aggressive these days!” complained the person. “Remember when something bad would happen and people reacted with horror instead of contempt? Like women! Women used to faint! Why don’t women faint anymore?”

I wasn’t finished with my eye-rolling by the time the person walked away, but I did supply an answer, if only in my brain.

In olden times, a woman could faint at something horrible, I thought huffily, and stood a decent chance of waking up on a couch being fanned or something, whilst the nearby gentlemen put the horrible thing right. Nowadays, we’re more likely to wake up robbed, raped, and maybe dead in a dumpster while the horrible thing was manfully ignored by the local menfolk. Simple evolution at work. Those who didn’t faint lived to pass on the ‘don’t faint’ genes.

To be fair, waking up RR&D was probably common in olden times too. But it seemed an appropriate reply to someone who thought incapacitating fear was a desirable and proper quality for a woman. We could also blame it on a lack of corsets, I suppose.

Woe!

bane_6@livejournal.com — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 06:45:46 GMT

Augh. I'm fighting the stomach bug that's going around.

I had to work today so I sat there, popping chewable Peptos and imagining a giant hand squeezing my guts out each end.

My usual method of treating tummy bugs is make it a siege war. I just cut myself off. Nothing goes in, nothing goes out. Which was sad since there was the breakfast potlock. The worst symptom so far is the fatigue. I've spent most of the day just sore and exhausted. It felt like a Dramamine haze, without the relief from queasiness. Nothing on the chewable Pepto box mentions marked drowziness, so I'm gonna blame it on the bug.

I went home and went to bed until Mom called and then slept again until a cat decided all that was needed to make my butt perfect was some clawmarks. Now I'm up, watching Ghost Lab, and swigging ginger ale. I may go back to bed at any moment now.

called it!

bane_6@livejournal.com — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:25:23 GMT

I was blog-hopping to stall before finishing up the last phase of my Early Childhood Literacy assignment and saw this.

Oh. Em. Gee.

Back when there was just rumors that The Hobbit would be a movie, I was geeking out about it with huntsman77 and going on about how the "I am SMAUG!" speech was one of my favorite parts. That got us thinking of who would be the best voice actor for the most famous dragon ever and Ron Perlman won. So imagine my fannish glee to see that we weren't the only people who thought that was a good idea. I'm gonna march around with my fists in the air for a bit and then get back to work. Woo!

bane_6@livejournal.com — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:52:15 GMT

We had a great time at the Murder Mystery dinner at the library, but there was sad news on the answering machine when we got home. My uncle Richard had died and Dad was heading over to be with Grandma.

So, send up some good thoughts for us, if you would. It's been a long, sad time for the family watching him get sicker and sicker and even though his suffering is over, we still have some sad times to get through.

A fandom meme from rosehiptea

bane_6@livejournal.com — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:03:14 GMT

Summarize 10 of your fandoms in one sentence, then see who on your friends list can guess each fandom.

1. ~~A stubborn girl trying to get home falls prey to a loved one and in love with a predator.~~ The 10th Kingdom

2. ~~Third time’s the charm, but the charm is scary and has bad teeth, a loud suit, and the stink of the grave.~~ Beetlejuice

3. ~~Costumes and good intentions aren’t enough to make a hero by themselves.~~ Watchmen

4. ~~An old man (or is he?) roams the world and haunts the hearth with his dog and a tale to tell.~~ The Storyteller

5. ~~An orphaned girl makes dangerous alliances to protect her family name.~~ Hellsing

6. ~~The last of her race searches for her own kind and falls in love with the son of the man who hunted her kind out.~~ The Last Unicorn

7. ~~A group of outsiders follow a psychic hunch to escape the destruction of their home.~~ Watership Down

8. ~~A restless soul returns for revenge and do-goodery.~~ The Crow

9. Two supernatural women compete for the love of a mortal man.

10. A misfit prince learns about war and his own lineage the hard way.

I have weird fandoms, but some of them should be guessable. I'll mark them off as revealed.

pardon my French

bane_6@livejournal.com — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:58:11 GMT

Fic of the Day: Watchmen

I stayed up to watch Craig Ferguson because tomorrow is Inuit Day and thanks to my own Queen-among-Women Mother, we have the day off! (Mom was on the Calendar Committee) Usually I only get to watch Craig on Fridays, so color me tickled. And! He did a puppet thing with a French snail named Josh. I love the puppets. I cackle every time Wavey waves at me. And Josh's cute little Scottish-French accent only made the fact that they substituted 'ooh-la-la!" for the usual bleep that much funnier.

And since it was after midnight, I went ahead and did a 31_days fill. I probably shouldn't write this late at night so I'll go to bed now and try not to dream of hypnotic snails.

bane_6@livejournal.com — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:18:29 GMT

Fic of the Day:Watchmen

Part 2

bane_6@livejournal.com — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:35:10 GMT

Fic of the Day: Original. Sequel to yesterday's.

bane_6@livejournal.com — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:40:41 GMT

Fic of the Day: Original The Biker story. I really need a name for it. He meets one of his fellow boarders under unusual circumstances.

And a bit of Ick for you. The two cats? They filled up the litterbox. In a NIGHT. I cleaned the box out and went to bed and next day, the cats were sprawled out in their usual lazy puddles.

“Ah,” they seemed to say. “Excellent. You’re awake. We have a little job for you, when you have a moment.”

My nose was way ahead of them.

“Phew!” I said. “Y’all sure are stinky today. I’ll just-WHAAAH!”

There wasn’t any loose litter in the box and two little happenings outside the box. No way just two cats could produce that much in just one night. I think they threw a party and didn’t tell me.

bane_6@livejournal.com — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:31:52 GMT

Fic of the Day:The Last Unicorn

bane_6@livejournal.com — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:46:19 GMT

Fic of the Day:Watchmen

For 31_days. It's a short one, and kind of sad, but I wanted to get back into the swing of it. I don't think I wrote for 31_daysat all last month, I had so much else to do. But Daylight Savings Time completely slipped my mind so I have an extra hour.

It's the morning after Halloween, and my email is full of Christmas shopping notices. They don't waste a minute, do they?

bane_6@livejournal.com — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 07:27:17 GMT

Phwah! I'm about to crash. And hopefully I won't have nightmares about doors. I watched Coraline with Jay and the vibrating door with the Other Mother screaming "Don't leave me!" always spooks me, and then I was channel-surfing and saw the door scene in Ginger Snaps, which set me up to stare at my own door all night. Unless I just go to sleep.

Had a pretty busy day. Did 8 loads of laundry (still need to dry the last one) made a pie, updated a fic, did the annual Halloweenie pic. And got all dressed up to hand out candy. I was a Nocker from the Changeling game, though I could probably be mistaken for vaguely steampunky beer wench too.

Tomorrow will also be a busy day. I have to finish my lesson plans and my last October project. I'm a little behind. I had hoped I would be done with it this week, but it still needs some work. I also owe siarwenevenstar a chapter and I'm going to try to do better with 31_days. I've been too busy for it. And I'm wayyyyy too busy for NaNoWriMo, as much as I would love to do that eventually. Sigh.

Watching an investigation of the Beast of Gévaudan case is nowhere near as scary as Ginger Snaps, but sure has some graphic re-enactments. Yuck. I'm going to bed.

Writer's Block: Would you talk to the dead? (Suess-style)

bane_6@livejournal.com — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 08:12:06 GMT

Have you ever participated in a seance? If not, would you consider it? What spirit would you summon and what question would you ask them? Do you believe we can get messages from the dead?

View 674 Answers

I have not, shall not call up a ghost.
Not with jam, not with toast.
I do not summon here or there,
I do not summon anywhere!
No afterlife spoilers please,
I'll beg on my hands, I'll beg on my knees.
I get enough spooks without seeking them out
No seances here! I insist and shout.
I don't want to hear what the passed on have said.
I don't like to hear from the talkative dead.

Thank you

formal dress optional

bane_6@livejournal.com — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 07:40:47 GMT

Whew! Back from Rocky Horror Picture Show night. I wasn't brave enough to go in just my charming underclothes, but I did wrap up in a red sheet and squeal "Dr. Scott!" where appropriate.

Riff Raff is still the cutest. I still know all the songs. Pumpkin whip is really good on gingersnap cookies. That is all.

Memories of Temp Jobs Past

bane_6@livejournal.com — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 02:58:24 GMT

I've noticed some commotion about Ralph Lauren's unrealistic view of women in the news and while it may be an insult to femininity everywhere, it is not the reason I hope there's a special seat in a very warm room waiting for him.

Y'see, a few years ago I lived in North Carolina, and the bottom just fell out of the economy and there were massive layoffs and business closings and all that good stuff. The first time I was laid off, I found a new job fairly quickly. Then they had layoffs and I was let go again. And so on, and so on, for two years until I landed a temp position in the Ralph Lauren Polo distribution center in Greensboro.

Only the fact that it was a temp position kept me from losing my mind. It was a hot, dirty, concrete warehouse with various levels, just like hell. They searched you when you went in and you weren't allowed to have any kind of loose clothing or purse or bag that wasn't transparent so that you couldn't make off with any of the precious merchandise. I couldn't help but be offended.

My first job was in tagging. That's where you stand by a conveyor belt and wait for a box to come to you and when it does, it is completely filthy and has big' Shipped from Some Exotic Place Where the Bugs Eat You Alive' stamps all over it. You cut it open and unpack about a million and three ittybitty tiny t-shirts in plastic bags (praying that you won't also unpack any ginormous flesh-eating insect as well). You tear those bags open, remove the tag that says $35 and replace them tags that say $75. $75 for a shirt the size of a hanky?? In this economy?? I thought. He must be out of his mind. That was nauseating enough by itself.

Then we had a tornado drill. The place we, valued temporary work force that we are, were to stand? Was between a massive electronic switchbox (in a puddle of water, of all things) and a gigantic gas valve hung with Flammable signs. Oh, and a wall of stacked boxes from Malaysia. I'll take my chances with the tornado, thanks. I did that for about a month.

Then, I was sent to packing. We were given a little bar code reader thingie called an RF or something, a cart, and sent to run willy-nilly all over level 2 and 3 to fill orders. The RF tells you what number product and how many, so you track it down and load up the box, tape it up and put it on a new conveyor belt that takes it to shipping. This is where it got bad.

The air conditioners broke. They told us to drink lots of water and not lock our knees. Then, they removed the water fountains. As in, took them clean off the wall. The skittering about on concrete floors started to make itself felt in all the places my legs bend. When my limp became noticeable they gave me an ace bandage to wrap around my feet. And we had hour long meetings about why we weren't getting enough done. And when there was a power outage we couldn't leave the building for fear that one of us might be smuggling out merchandise, so we had to sit in the dark for 45 minutes until the power came back on.

And all the while this went on? Beaming down on us like an especially prissy saint? Several gigantic photos of Mr. Lauren himself, coated, cravated, here with a yacht, there with some sort of vintage car, there on a balcony overlooking some ocean, huge looming photographs, bigger than my bed. Maybe they were just there until the stained glass versions arrived from Rome. Maybe I'm just bitter wageslave, but having to look at him smirking and larger than life through the heat mirages and foot pain while management kept a close watch to make sure we didn't make off with any obscenely overpriced fashioncrap? THAT'S the reason I despise and boycott all Ralph Lauren products. Bleagh.

Happy Leif Ericson Day

bane_6@livejournal.com — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 07:36:41 GMT

Every time I fly, I think about the kindle. Normally, I love real, tangible books that smell like the forests they came from, as if stories grew on trees. I'm a book fiend. I love the bookstore smell, the rustle of pages, the different fonts on different pages, all the sensory benefits to a physical book. In a pinch, they can also be used as self-defense against large bugs and small mammals, but it had better be coming at you with poisonous mandibles and quoting the Necronomicon if you use one of my precious tomes. ( Not afraid of bugs. Not enough to risk ichor stains on beloved books anyway.)

My point is that a book is a full sensory experience and my main beef with the kindle is that you lose that. However, traveling by air makes me reconsider, especially in the weenie airplane I traveled in today. It was a a Cessna Propeller plane, and just ittybitty. Lugging a backpack holding my weight in books into a plane the size of a large couch makes me reconsider the benefits of a kindle. Assuming the weird-ass books I like/love/need are available on a kindle, I could frolic in and out of planes with my hands free and standing upright. If there was a way you could draw on one, say a kindle sketchbook, it would be the perfect travel toy for me. Cuz I fly a lot and for a long way.

And I bet I could still stun a Goliath Birdeater with it if he got uppity.

October is off to a grim start.

bane_6@livejournal.com — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 04:19:37 GMT

It's just one thing after another...

A woman has gone missing out on the tundra, so search and rescue is out there trying to find her. She's been gone since Friday. And back home, my aunt may or may not still be with us. I haven't heard either way. I said before that these things happen in threes, but this puts us up to five. Six if you count both the little girls that drowned.

give me toe pain over heart pain any day

bane_6@livejournal.com — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:01:33 GMT

I was just settling in to bed when a sound came from the dark house outside my room.

It was a scrabbling sound, of claws on wood, as if some undead creature that no longer remembered that there were such things as doorbells wanted very much to tear its way in and eat my brain*. That sound had startled me out of half-sleep fog more than once, so when I heard it wide awake, I was more annoyed than spooked.

I got up and walked out into the dark hall. Hearing me coming, my she-cat trotted out and did her very best to look as if the last thing in the world on her mind was mauling the bathroom doorjam to splinters while people were trying to sleep.

"Nice try," I said. "But you know better." She looked adorable. "Yeah, you."

Then, her brother, who was laying in wait in the packing material in an Uncommon Goods box pounced. I admit it startled me too. Facehuggers have nothing on the boy. He appeared in midair right in front of his sister, who bolted. Right across my bare foot.

I'd have to see it slow motion to be sure, but I'm fairly certain she had every claw on every foot flailing like a panicked blender as she tore across my flesh and into the room behind me. It took about a second and a half and when the smoke cleared. I was still standing there, bleeding from four gashes across my foot, while the boy danced happily. That had worked way better than he planned.

"Was that really necessary?" I asked him, holding up my bleeding foot. He went all wide-eyed and then tore off again to his next exploit, tail all poofed up. I limped to the bathroom for a dousing in alcohol and some carefully arranged band-aids.

True story. And not as painful as the other one about me having to sing with the K4 class and
staff at the double funeral for the two little girls that drowned.

*Hope the zombies never catch on to doorbells. That would probably work a few times.