stgulik

So, we said our good-byes to our dog Daisy last week. Cancer has taken another good soul. Now she's gone, and my husband, my daughter and I have been searching for all our best pics of her and passing them to each other on Facebook chat. A sort of three-person memorial service for the internet age.

When the other two dogs line up for Milk Bones, they leave the exact amount of space Daisy used to take. It'll be a while for that space to close up, I'll bet.

They are both terrier mutts with lovely, tiny brains, and occasionally they seem to wonder why it's just the two of them. Here's the weirdest example of their befuddlement. (Don't read this while eating.)

( Seriously )

Well, my poor dog Daisy has been diagnosed with cancer. She is 13. Sonograms and x-rays revealed a tumor in (near?) the bladder, as well as nodules in the chest.

( Read more... )

Greetings from Central California, where we are in our nth straight summer of drought conditions. We're thinking of changing our state bird to the vulture. We're thinking of changing our state tree to the cactus. We're thinking of changing our state fish to a box of Mrs. Paul's breaded fish sticks (packaged in Vermont). You get the picture.

But it's not all bad around here. I've heard from some lovely friends this summer!
( Gifts! )

Turned in my dramionelove piece over the weekend. And the companion piece is sitting in Google Docs, patiently waiting for the fest to be over so I can share that one, too. rzzmg is trying to tempt me with another prompt before the deadline, and I'll definitely pick one, but I'm also turning my attention to the sshg_promptfest with its May 31 deadline.

Work is really going well--a statement I never thought I would make again. Yesterday, my paper was printed and bound and the first copy delivered to my office door. What a marvelous feeling! And it would never have happened with my old boss. In the past, he outright killed one of my projects and smothered another one with weekly "updates" that turned into patronizing lectures on microeconomics. The paper was delayed so long, the client withdrew their request for the study. I'm not saying I was blameless in this mess. I'm not the world's best analyst. But he's the one who promised the deliverable and then frittered away a year playing academic lecturer to a captive audience instead of supporting me as I tried to move the project along. Not that I'm bitter.

But he's elsewhere now, and the bottleneck is unstoppered, and our papers are actually allowed to be finished again. And suddenly, I actually have a full week's worth of work these days! I've been busy and happy about it. Yesterday I even forgot to feed my Neko Atsume kitties; by the time I remembered them, they had wandered off to toblass's yard.

Boy, the more I hear from friends and acquaintances on the internet, the more I think I must be part of the minority, because Daylight Savings has absolutely no ill effects on me. Never has. I have no idea what everyone else feels, or why it's always so hard on them. And I'm grateful! It sounds horrid.

It was a quiet weekend. Worked a little on our future guest bedroom. There are now four big boxes, filled and taped up. I borrowed a handcart from our next-door neighbor, and once the rain lets up, we'll transfer the boxes to the garage. Little by little, the job gets done. You may wonder why I don't make our daughter help with more of this project. The first reason is, she's tremendously busy with work and school; it's difficult to get her to schedule any time here. And the second reason is, she created this mess, but she's pretty useless about reversing the process. I mean, she's brilliant; she'll go far; I admire her in many ways. But whenever I put her to work on this room, she either gets depressed and can't part with things, or nostalgic and can't part with things. Progress is slow, to say the least.

And this is no job for Groom because his knees are so terrible, he could get down on the floor, but there's no guarantee he would stand up again. Please know that in the grand scheme of things, he does his share around the house, so I'm cool.

In fanfic news, I submitted prompts to the sshg_promptfest and put in a request for Draco/Hermione prompts on dramionelove. In case I didn't mention, the Dramionelove entries must be 1,000 words max, which works well for us commitmentphobes. Quite nice. Check it out!

The first manic throes of empty nest syndrome are over. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) a mild yet sticky cold slowed me down for a week, and now I'm thinking a little more calmly.

( Creating a guest room from scraps )

In other news, I bought a tiny, second-hand espresso machine at a yard sale. It's darling. I kind of want to name it, but I know that's just a symptom. Anyway, I know nothing about espresso-making. Do you buy special beans? Special grind? The instruction manual is somewhat vague.

The paper from hell is done. Its Drop-dead Due Date was yesterday, close of business, and we managed to get it PDF'd and to the client with ten minutes to spare.

Ten minutes, baby!

There was a little dancing, I'll admit.

Next week, we dig back in and format it for printing, but that's going to be comparatively easy.

It's 9:20 and I'm holed up in the Room of Doom.

My husband and I were watching West Wing earlier this evening when my daughter strolled through and casually mentioned:

a) she can't access Netflix on the TV in the family room, she hasn't been able to get on wifi for two days, and everything's running on the pricey 4G from about here ::gestures:: to the other end of the house,

and

b) she downloaded Windows 10 on her laptop last night and something's not quite working.

Both these things put my husband in an absolute tizzy. The wireless is borked AND someone had the audacity to download Windows 10 without his royal permission? I swear, he wouldn't have gotten this upset if she'd announced she was pregnant.

I decided it might be a nice night to vacate the common rooms and catch up on Tumblr. When I last saw them, my husband had set up my daughter's computer while she was watching a TV show on DVD, like in Pilgrim times.

Here in the Room of Doom, where the wifi works perfectly well for whatever reason, I just watched home videos of the Sense8 cast at a table reading. That means we are one step closer to a Season 2! omg omg omg I hastened to follow all the Sense8 cast members with Instagram accounts, because Season 2. 

A big wave to the flist! I'm here to prove to akatnamedeaster that there are still a few flisters hanging around LJ these days. I do admit I have been lurking instead of posting, though.

At the start of October, I could tell the month was destined to be chaotic, and it was! The bad news was, there were two deaths in the family. My husband sprained his wrist so badly, he has to have a cast and he sleeps sitting upright out on the couch! On the plus side, there were two birthdays. My brother had outpatient surgery and has made a complete recovery. And my kid is playing piano in her college's production of "The Music Man." So we've kept quite busy.

My Promptfest piece was severely delayed by this oddly busy October. I'd say I have 2k words written of a story that deserves 5k worth of love. So I really have my work cut out for me before the 29th.

At work, life imitates my fanfic world. I have a paper that's due November 1, and I'm quite far from done. The drop-dead due date isn't until December 31; this November 1 due date is my boss's. If she knows I've gone as fast as I can, it will be uncomfortable, but not the end of the world. So the situation isn't as dire as the Promptfest, amiright? That deadline is set in stone.

Went out to dinner last night with my daughter and her boyfriend. We went to some Italian franchise that's become really popular. Their gimmick is, certain meals on the menu include a second portion that is already boxed and ready to take home. You order your "today" meal and your "tomorrow" meal in one transaction. It's clever. Some of us couldn't even finish our today entrees, so we brought a lot home. And I learned again that it's not economical to order wine with my meal, let alone two glasses of it. Why do I do it? Because it's fun and I can afford it at the beginning of the month, oh yeah. But it's home cooking and iced tea again until October, folks.

( Read more... )