Click here and read this. Someone on this site took my Catherine Asaro The Moon's Shadow entry & either ran through a translator & put the translation up or attempted to translate it themselves & put it up or..?? I don't know. Maybe it's a Catherine Asaro fan who feels I wasn't complimentary enough?? A troll who has nothing better to do? Kinda funny though! :)
Sorry I've not been here all weekend, the weather was gorgeous & we were busy. If you left comments between last Thursday and Sunday I've replied. Every week I tell myself I need to write up a few posts to schedule but I almost never actually write them. Somehow, I'm not often organized enough or I don't have ideas to post about & can't natter on about nothing for days on end (believe it or not, lol).
Saturday~
We drove down to My Lovely Sister's house and had a wonderful Irish lunch (corned beef and cabbage) and played outside in the sun with Nephews 1 & 2. Little nephew 2 swatted Hubby with a badminton racquet just above the right elbow on the inner arm- the spot is now as big as my palm & black. Hubby just laughs and says the nephew has a great arm & that Hubby will simply have to pay more attention next time. LOL :) Little nephew 2 and I played frisbee together. Hubby turns out to be correct, the kid has an arm. He regularly tossed the frisbee directly to me or within arm's reach. My lack of hand eye coordination was what made the whole thing funny to watch.
After a fun family afternoon, we were driving home (it's about an hour and forty five minutes), Pianist and Anime Queen were snoozing in the back seat. Hubby looks at me as I'm trying to stay awake beside him. "So, sweetie, what are we serving for coffee hour at church tomorrow?" O. M. G. !! I totally forgot. Therefore: no food bought or made. Generally there is a twelve week sign up sheet for coffee hour hosts after the eleven o'clock service at church. I signed up for one in January & then forgot & we weren't even in church that day! *BLUSH* So, I really felt bad that I'd forgotten again. Jeez. Later that night we bought two small cheesecakes, a pineapple, some dip and veggies for a veggie tray & we were set.
Then we realize that Sunday morning was "spring forward" day. As in- move the clocks ahead an hour at 0200 (am). Here we thought it was only 11:30 pm & in fact it was actually 12:30 am and we were all wide awake. We're slow in the morning & we'd have to leave for church at 9:30 to prep the food & set up for coffee hour. :(
Sunday~
Coffee hour went well, despite the er..lack of early preparation, not to mention lack of adequate sleep. We had fresh pineapple & watermelon slices & a veggie tray & two cheeses & & two quiches & pita chips plus juice, sherry & coffee. The sherry and the coffee are provided by the parishoners, thank goodness. *phew!* Most everything was gone except for some watermelon and pineapple chunks. We didn't return home until the middle of the afternoon. Yesterday was sunny & incredibly warm (73 F) & the house was 80 inside. Way, way too hot for March. We dragged out the fans and turned the air conditioning on to cool the house down. Then it was naptime for Hubby and me. The kids worked on homework all afternoon. Hubby roasted a delicious chicken with potatoes & carrots. A peaceful end to a gorgeous weekend.
I did manage to read a few pages in the Scott Westerfeld science fiction book I'm steadily working on. I totally ignored my email & my feed reader, both of which I will now go & winnow.
We've a little snow and some ice, thus the children have today off from school. Yesterday was a day off due to teacher inservice, so they nearly had a four/five day weekend- after having one last week due to MLK (Martin Luther King Day) & the inauguration being side by side. It'll be a miracle if they recognize their teachers by the time they return to school.
The problem for me is that very little gets accomplished when the precious darlings are home from school. Reading, yes. Keeping up with my feed reader, maybe. Domestic stuff, yes. Writing & posting, not much. I guess I'm not figuring out how to organize myself and them well enough to get blog work done.
Image found on Eyeglasses 123 & no, I didn't buy Prada glasses.
Minor emergency today. I'm as blind as a bat. Seriously. If I take my glasses off, in order to read I have to hold a paperback so close that it nearly touches my nose. We have crappy vision insurance. Now I must admit: glasses are one of the things that I make an effort to be choosy about. I'm a short, round couchpotato who spends her fashion money on books. Pretty much all of the time I live in jeans and sweatshirts. I like to spend a little extra on my glasses, though. Not a huge amount by any means, we don't have the money for super expensive chic glasses. But still: upgrade the lenses so I'm not wearing coke bottles.
Anyhow, my glasses have been on life support for months. After getting out of the shower, the screw came out of the left arm. Now, like I said above- the arm had been loose for months and I'd been babying them as long as possible to put off the expense. The screw is teeeny tiny. No glasses = completely blind. I couldn't find the screw. Two eyeglass repair kits later didn't yield a screw small enough to fit to make another temporary repair.
Hubby drove me over to the optical shop in our local Wally World. One glance at my poor old glasses & the clerk said, "Maybe I can put the lenses in new frames, but both of the arms would have to be replaced. The remaining arm is cracked. We don't carry these kinds of parts here." Great. Wonderful news. My presciption is old & it'd be a huge hassle & a bigger delay to see the doctor & get an up to date prescription. After a few phone calls to the insurance company, we decided the most cost effective way to try and fix the situation would be to try and put the lenses into new frames.
Then the clerk, a heavy set, deep voiced, kind young man says, "Are you worried about how you look or do you just want to be able to see?" On the horns of a dilemma. Hoist on my own petard. Yes, I want to look nice, but this is an emergency & I don't have the resources to be picky right now. I gulped a little and said, "I need to see most of all." He hands me a pair and says "I might be able to fit the lenses in here." As soon as I put them on both he & hubby tell me they look nice. To me they look like 60's throwbacks. Vaguely cateye, black rimmed. Hubby says the dark color matches my own coloring better, and the heavier frames are more popular than the wire rims I had before.
I guess I'm ok with them. *Snort* all that matters is that I can see to read and to cook and to drive and I won't be a prisoner in my own home. I've made an appointment with the optometrist for next week so I can at least have up to date lenses put in these. Maybe I'll see how pricey contact lenses would be. The newest problem? Now that I've glasses that fit properly? I've had a fierce headache.
Took the bus home today. OMG, what a ride. The transit center is approximately 10-11 miles away. By car about 15 minutes with average traffic. By bus about 40 minutes with stops in average traffic. Not today though. Today was really bad, even by our standards, and we've lived here 11 years. It took us an hour and a half to get home from the transit center. By the way, these buses are pretty small, carry maybe 40 people or so, so when they're full we're all pretty close. It was actually a fun ride, believe it or not. I mean, listen, I didn't have to drive in all that mess. I'd remembered an umbrella for the spitting rain. I was going home as opposed to going to work.
A few of my fellow passengers had just gotten paid, plans were discussed as to exactly how much beer would be bought as soon as everyone got home. Cell phones rang, "where the hell are you?" or "Traffic is standing still, I'll be there as soon as I can." Toddlers shared Cheerios and bottled water. Sirens wailed and motorcycle cops and ambulances whizzed by going down the road against traffic. A woman carrying a leather briefcase and wearing beautifully stitched shoes shared a seat with a neatly dressed cashier whose long rides on the bus showed in her ability to sleep through all of the chaos and noise.
Two little ones sat on the back steps eating dry cereal and laughing while a nearby young man flirted with a woman surely old enough to be his grandma. The 'boys in the back of the bus' continued to plan their evening's beer consumption, while a man with a beautiful smile complained that the seats were uncomfortable. A woman across from me laughed at him and said, "You just don't have enough cushion, baby. Us womenfolk have plenty of cushion to keep us comfy, don't we hon?" That last bit was addressed to me because I'd burst out laughing.
Someone suggested a hymn sing and another answered that karaoke would be more fun. More people piled on with grocery bags and strollers. We listened to one woman rant and rave into her cell phone about how her new supervisor is incompetent & etc. etc. etc. until someone finally asked her to be quiet. It began to rain. An SUV driver cut in front of the bus with only inches to spare, prompting irate honking & swearing and much protests of sore backs and necks.
Finally we many of us got off the bus at the same stop, stepping out into the cold breezes and spitting rain. Our own little happy hour was over. Back to payday Friday night, the drugstore, irate girlfriends. Home to cook dinner. Pay bills. Hug your babies. Another shortish walk and I was home again.
BTW- title comes from a children's song that begins, "The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round.."
Image found on Wikimedia
Otherwise known as visiting the grandparents in the Tidewater area, most importantly the Graduate. Who signs his emails Coolidge Stoodant so that is what I shall call him here. Earlier this week he spoke with hubby and sounded homesick, so off we went. Only to arrive in the middle of a windstorm. My parents had no power.. So we ate Chinese- sort of. The kind of Chinese takeout that you can only get in semi rural America. Neither Chinese nor American, an odd kind of hybrid only found here.
Well, let me back up a little. I'd worked Friday closing shift, which is 2:00 to 10:00. Saturday I open, which is 6:00 to 1:30. It takes 45 minutes to get from home to work & vice versa. I think I got 4 and half hours of sleep if you're generous. So hubby scooped me up after work yesterday and we stopped off and got the kids and our bags. I didn't dare sit down at home for fear I'd fall asleep and be dead to the world for hours. I napped in the car along the way, about an hour and a half or so I think.
Anyhow. It was a great evening. We lit every candle we could find, which was plenty..My mom likes candles. Listened to Prairie Home Companion and talked and laughed for hours. My parents' house is pretty big, so normally we would've scattered all over, but with no power we sat together and visited. It was nice. That's a pathetic word, but it was nice. Coolidge Stoodant sat next to me and I ran my hands through his hair just like when he lived at home full time. Thick and wavy and soft, enough to make any girlfriend jealous. The big brown mole just inside his hairline that I always think is a tick is still there.
My mom knitted me a prayer shawl, a beautiful thisck yellow yarn just big enough and heavy enough to drape over my shoulders and it won't fall off. Now she's knitting me a silk and cotton short sleeved green sweater. It actually looks Asian, a Mandarin collar and frog closures down the front. When she's done I'll post an image if I can.
Map image above courtesy of Old Halifax.com
The Husband swears this is the cheapskate sales coup of the year, bar none. Since it's only January 4th I'm not so sure but it's likely he's right. This whole episode would never have happened except for my intense dislike of bugs inside my house. Outside- no problem. In the house? The stuff of nightmares. A series of bad incidents while I was pregnant with Pianist cemented the bug-Bookwormom relationship into one of a very tense detente as long as the bugs remain where they belong. Outside.
So there we were. In the kitchen listening to BBC Outlook on the radio & preparing to make dinner. Lift up the glass cutting board. Discover three, not one or two, but THREE bugs under there. Picnicing on leftover Thomas' English Muffin crumbs from this morning's breakfast. Screech a little and dance around the kitchen with the cutting board (likely the closest I'll ever get to a formal ballroom, lol). Discover we're all out of bug killing spray. And yes I know that pesticide in the kitchen is not such a good idea. TOO BAD. The only good bug is a dead one. After a few moments to calm myself I announce to the family that after dinner I'll be driving up to Lowe's in search of a new bug killing arsenal. Husband decides to keep me company, probably to try and convince me I really don't need one of every type of pesticide in the place.
Once we're in Lowe's we pick up a couple of things on our list. I bend down to look at some mildewcide spray cleaners (our bathroom is a pit of dampness no matter what I've tried) on the bottom shelf of the cleaning aisle. Straighten up to discover Husband has disappeared. In 5 seconds flat. Into the vast ocean of empty space that is Lowe's at 9:15 pm. I wander for a moment and then discover him in the appliance area. Luckily for us no salesmen in sight. Today is the first day of their clearance sale. There are quite a few scratch and dent and repaired appliances marked for quick sale.
Now- as my immediate familty knows I've been in desperate need of a new clothes washer for a year now. However, with Graduate starting college and increased car insurance and whatnot we've patched and prayed over our old machine all year. It's only thirteen. Poor old Whirlpool- it's moved a bunch of times and seen us through three kids and two dogs. Old Bessie deserves a rest, but like loyal servants everywhere *Eye roll* she can be coaxed into limping along until the Mistress fianlly has mercy and allows her a well deserved rest.
Husband is standing beside a brand new refused special order clothes washer marked at $50. Yes children. 33.95 Euros; 25.27 Pounds Sterling; 49.65 Canadian Dollars. To buy a new bottom of the line clothes washer. Simply because the original customer refused purchase. There are no bells or whistles (or many choices at all for that matter) but it's new to us and will allow us to get by until I've squirreled away enough to buy the washer I really want. Poor old Bessie Whirlpool can now retire with dignity knowing she held on as long as any self respecting clothes washer could.
Tomorrow our newest family member will come home and take pride of place in the kitchen beside Baxter Whirlpool, Bessie's partner. Who seems fine if a bit banged up. He'll look lonely and forlorn and old beside his new partner. Hopefully they'll settle in together nicely and rub along well until Baxter can join Bessie in retirement.
