BUTTERFINGERS!

My mom came over for dinner last night. Some people would have prepared by cooking, or cleaning. I didn't have to cook, since she was bringing dinner with her (now that's service, damnit) but I damn well could have cleaned, or finally brought in the dining chairs from the garage, or something useful.

instead, I prepared by making a porny centerpiece out of butternut squash and oranges, and this was totally an acceptable use of time in my mother's estimation.

some days, my family just rocks.

daisy came to town.

we had theme cake:



and a tea party.

Also, manly fisticuffs!



(not to scale.)


The end!

from a defunct journal of mine circa 2001:

so, jay has been making fun of me for my plans to do a suicide run to see vnv as many times as possible in december...today (last night/early this morning, actually) he sent me this:

"and shannon blake, she emailed me
and our lovechild was some pudding
she dresses up, in pastel clothes, at least for me

all those pinks and blues and greens
bring the goths down to their knees
with her face turned to her lap, she watches pokemon "

if I'd been wearing pants, I'd have laughed them right the fuck off. it actually crowns *yesterday's* mocking vnv nation champion ("I'm in this mood because of scorn, and I can only sing three notes").

other choice moment from that year:

"formerly known as "all-saint's day," november first shall now be known as "wear pajamas and mock the dutch" day. "

My brother couldn't get a rescheduled flight out of Honolulu until the 24th, so he's (hopefully) catching an early morning flight into Vancouver tomorrow, and will be staying there til either my parents leave for Manning Park on the 24th or until common sense prevails and determines WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH SNOW, THANK YOU and cancels the Manning Park trip entirely.

My mom's flight left - about an hour delayed, in theory - and between the roads and the delays and everything else, my parents made it straight from the baggage claim to my house by...right now. Seriously, they just picked up my dogs and left.

Under normal circumstances, I'd be REALLY, REALLY SHITTY about having to be awake at 3:20am on a work day, but today, it was no big deal since my alarm clock went off at 3:00 anyway - because I have to try and walk to the park-and-ride and catch the 5:05 bus, which is apparently the ONLY BUS that can be even slightly assured to be RUNNING this morning. AW YEAH!

Oh, and the best part? IT. IS. STILL. SNOWING. Mother Nature really is one mean slut.

I just set my alarm for 3am because leaving at 4am is the only way I have an outside chance of catching a bus tomorrow, what with the Snowmageddon 2008 Public Transit Raping scheduled. Birthday or no, Baby Jesus and I are gonna have some WORDS about this fuckery come the morning, let me tell you.

We've secretly replaced Shannon's yard with an arctic tundra. Let's see if she notices.

GEE, YOU THINK?

oh, and: STILL SNOWING. However: the internets informs me that it's 26 degrees outside, which is 6 degrees warmer than it's been in like a MONTH, so I guess I should jump for joy or something. And, you know, I would, except for how it is STILL FUCKING SNOWING.

ETA: Cabin fever, defined: I have lost the ability to automatically grok that other places are not just like here. Yesterday, Daisy said something about driving over 17, and I had to deliberately NOT make comments about how THAT IS STUPID IN THIS WEATHER, JESUS, YOU'RE GOING TO DIE, DUDE. On Friday, my mom was on the phone marveling at how deserted the parking lot at WalMart was, and I actually said that it was probably the snow keeping people away.

You know, all the snow that's been falling in Waikiki.

I think I'm about to reach the bargaining stage of snowed-in-crazy.

Oh, hi, snow.

Again.

Come to Seattle, they said. It'll be nice, they said. Warmer than Canada, they said.

LIARS, ONE AND ALL.

After spending 1 1/2 hours yesterday standing shin-deep in the still-falling snow waiting for a bus that just never came*, and spending another 45 minutes in the afternoon waiting for a return trip, the mere thought of going to the bus stop today is making me anxious and cranky. Also, yesterday, it was in the mid-20's. Today? Mid-teens. My feet still haven't thawed out from yesterday's adventures. I am in NO WAY prepared to deal with Round 2.

My favourite part? They're advising people to go to park-and-ride stations for better bus service. Except...if the roads are still so whacked that the buses have to be chained, I don't know that driving to park-and-ride stations is going to happen safely for, like, ANYONE. Also, to do so would require me to have access to schedules and maps for alternate routes, such as one might find on the bus website. Know what's not working now - hasn't been working since mid-day yesterday? The bus website; all the traffic from all the other people who also spent hours waiting in the morning and were afraid of being stranded in down town and points beyond come the afternoon broke their servers, and apparently those need rock salt and chains too or something, 'cause they're still broken - all you can access is the emergency message about park-and-ride stations.

YAY FUCKERY.


* = it really didn't. about an hour in, another person waiting walked off - the other waiting people and I figured he was giving up and going home. In fact, he went home, chained up his car, and came back for those of us who'd been waiting the longest. Nicest thing EVER, really, but I cannot and will not rely on a repeat performance. Also, I'm going to have to start carrying cookies and a thank-you card around with me in case I ever wind up on a bus or at a bus stop with tht guy again.

if it doesn't get up above 19 before I have to walk to and wait at the bus stop, oooooooh, someone's gonna get treated to some cranky this morning.

because the temperature is supposed to reach HIGHS of 30 this week, my dogs are staying the week with my parents where they can get all-day attention and in-and-out privileges.

luckily, the internets is around to give me reminders about what it's like when they're both in residence:


see more puppies

Excepting for how my dogs are NOT stubby little orange mutants (well, ok, one of my dogs is not a stubby little orange mutant), that's totally Jasmine on the right and Finnegan on the left. What the picture doesn't show is how failure to provide snacks will cause Jasmine to follow you around with her nose up your butt panting and drooling until you finally sit down long enough for her to fall asleep and forget why she was stalking you. The picture also fails to illustrate how you could be wearing a suit entirely fashioned from snausages, and have tumbling tendrils of bacon instead of hair, and still, if you were a Strange! Man! with a Hat! or a Bag! or Hands! In! Your! POCKETS! then Finnegan would never be receptive to your many delectable qualities, as he would be too busy sounding the OH MY FUCKING GOD BARK BARK BARK JESUS DID YOU HEAR ME BARK BARK BARK OH BARK OH DAMNIT BARKBARKBARK alarm.

But otherwise, totally as depicted.

it's raining men! hallelujah!

only when I say "men," mean "utility bills," and when I say "hallelujah," I mostly say it because I can't actually spell inarticulate hollering.

So my lungs are full of bumble bees and I have officially run out of things to do that don't involve glaring at things or sleeping on them, but.

BUT!

There's a funny thing - oh, god SUCH a funny thing - that I cannot possibly explain without lengthy side-stories and also sounding like a total catty bitch, which really, may be the case in general, but really ISN'T in this instance. Suffice it to say that I've spent the past few minutes laughing so hard that even the lung-bees can't restrain the mirth.

COUCH COUCH COUCH, I LOVE COUCH. COUCH COUCH COUCH, I LOVE COUCH.

Sorry, having a mid-week day off AND a comfortable thing on which to squander it makes me giddy.

Antony and the Johnsons all the fuck over network tv soundtracks the past few weeks; it's like the best early Christmas present ever, except for how I cannot figure out what the hell is precipitating it. Did Hollywood suddenly get cool, or are they just so desperate for cheap music that they're reaching into years-old records to play music that makes the average listener make faces and say THANKS BUT NO AND ALSO I HATE YOU*?

either way, good news by me.

*this represents a response range, actually. some - my brother, who fears me - were rather polite in their dislike; others - jay, who likes to call kettles black - called me a douchebag. What a douchebag!

I just tried to write an entry about all the things I've managed to get done today, but it was like the longest TL:DR in the history of fucking ever. Suffice it to say I've done a genuinely impressive number of necessary things, so, uh, hooray me.

see also:



this guy is my goddamn hero.

I hope to see taking responsibility for ones own actions, inactions, fuckups, and foibles, make a HUGE FUCKING COMEBACK this year.

That is all.

1) I tossed a baby around for hours yesterday. At the time, mostly fun; today, shit, my arms. Ow. Ow ow ow ow.

2) Regarding the "mostly" qualifier: less fun when they have diaper leakage and you wind up TOTALLY PEE SOAKED. I was at a wedding. I was wearing nice clothes...and then, PEED ON. Luckily, I AM exactly the kind of person that carries a change of clothes in the trunk of the car (times when I will take ribbing for that habit: NEVER AGAIN, BITCHES) but that did mean spending the rest of the wedding in sandals and jeans and a wifebeater. But: no pee.

3) Jay's friends know how to do wedding planning: send invitations for an hour after the wedding actually starts. That way, no one has to deal with the ceremony, and can just be there in time for tamales and booze. Good job, Mr. and Mrs. Sanchez!

4) Mongolian BBQ: great for lunch, bad for motivation. Was supposed to knit with people after lunch, but dude, SLEEPY. Even followed by coffee in large quantities, my belly full of skrimps and noodles commands me to nap. Naaaaaaap. And I would, if I didn't have pee-soaked laundry to do.

5) Predicted date for getting over this whole peed-on-at-a-wedding thing: oh, never.

6) While here, Jay insisted on wearing my boots. My four-sizes-too-small, knee-high pink plaid rubber rain boots. I have (bad, hastily-taken) photographic evidence.

7) Last night while at the wedding, three cop cars showed up at my parents' house looking for the previous owner/tenant/something. We'd gotten notice of legal crap for him in the mail before, and sent it back, and kind of wondered what it was all about - my vote was mass murderer, and my parents' more reasonable suggestion was bland regulatory infractions. TURNS OUT I WAS RIGHT.

8) Peed on. Jesus.

Jasmine does not like toys. Jasmine does not like fruit. Jasmine does not like vegetables.

Jasmine does, however, like to play with tomatoes. She chases them, fetches them, chews on them, and even eats them - the works, really. She prefers the green ones, but she'll take a red one if that's what's on offer.



She also likes to pick them herself, which is probably not a habit I should encourage; it's just too funny, because every time she's gotten into the garden patch, she is betrayed by the chlorophyll stains all over her shiny white face.

There have been a few rodents in the yard lately - a few squirrels, and last night I saw a field mouse. The dogs have been on rodent-patrol like CRAZY: mostly it's been funny watching Jasmine stare at seemingly-innocuous corners and walls as though in perpetual time-out, and seeing Finny go scrabbling across the yard in apparently erratic patterns after invisible interlopers. As far as I can tell, they've playing raptor - Jasmine stays calm and stalks, then as soon as they appear, pounces at them in such a way to drive them toward Finnegan, who is fast enough and agile enough and low-to-the-ground enough that he apparently poses a genuine threat to Order Rodentia.

That threat is no longer theoretical, because today in the space of mere minutes, Finnegan:

a) caught a mouse!

b) ate the mouse!

c) barfed up the mouse!

d) brought me Regurg-Rodent to admire.

What I wanna know is: since the mouse came up unblemished and whole, WAS IT STILL ALIVE WHEN THE LITTLE BASTARD SWALLOWED IT?!