Goddammit.
I woke Josh up to remove it (I couldn't really reach with the angle it was at), and called the doctor, who confirmed my instinct that no panic is necessary. Just watch the site and move fast if any illness, fever, or rashing appears.
Wow.
So, our lease will now be beginning Sep 1, and I will be moving in a few days prior to that.
I'm a little sad -- I was hoping to spend a few short weeks walking to work before the office move -- but overall, the extra packing/preparing time probably won't hurt.
- Mood:
disappointed
Luckily, only one lady saw who was the responsible party for all the smoke and nasty, and I put it out and cleaned it up verrry quickly.
Still. Mortifying.
(If you don't recognize the subject line, you should hang your head in shame.)
I can't wait to see it! It'll be so purty!
These are brought to you by my teammate, Donna.
Being goofy in the medal lineup. I got a shiny!!
I have a couple other pictures coming as well.
ETA: Cool... I just noticed that you can just ever so slightly see my star tattoo through my socks... :D
I've been keeping a roll in my room. I take it with me when I need it, and take it back to my room when I'm done. Is it immature? Well, yeah. Do I care? Not especially.
It's now been over a week. A WEEK.
...Nasty.
Fucking hell. Work is going to be FUN tomorrow.
SATURDAY, Women's Open Epee: An "open" means anyone of any level can fence, so there'll be some tough folks and some beginners. Out of the pools I broke dead even, 3 and 3 (wins/losses). I advanced to Direct Eliminations (DE) seeded 40 out of the 79 entrants, so again, dead middle. I was knocked out in my first DE, but the girl was seeded like, 24 or something, and I fenced it smart and only lost 15-14. So, even though I was knocked out, I feel pretty good about my performance. Kinda sucks, though, that had that last point been mine, I finally would have earned my rating. Dammit. I placed 46th.
SUNDAY, Unrated Women's Epee: Unrated fencers are newbies, people who aren't very good, and old heads who'd let their rating expire. A smaller group, much easier overall. I came out of my pools 5 and 1, which is pretty good, though they made me work for it, dammit. Beat my first DE no sweat, but went down in the second. Lots of drama in that bout which I'll go into later when I'm not half-unconscious, but suffice it to say it was VERY frustrating, and I again lost by one lousy point, and again denied a rating as a result. I finished 6th, and got a potato-shaped foam toy and a medal. My feelings on this result are... mixed.
Now let's just hope I can walk tomorrow.
Oh, before I forget, I learned why the competition is called Pomme de Terre. There is a famous Canadian tourney called Homme de Terre (Man of the Earth). Apparently the original founder of this tournament thought that was an obnoxiously pretentious name (agreed), and called his small, local tournament Pomme de Terre (Potato). Over the years the competition grew in popularity so that it is now one of the largest held in the NE US -- and it's still called Potato. So there you have it.
Just found out that there are 80 registrants in my first event. 80!!!
Jesus, that's a lot.
I'm gonna diiiiiiie.
In other news, our lease is signed. It's really happening.
Here's the layout, as I remember it:
1st Fl: Walk in the front door and you have the first "bedroom" to the right. It's not really a bedroom; more an office space. We don't know what we're going to do with this yet, but I'm thinking a hobby room (for knitting, photography, fencing equipment etc) and my old futon, for if we have guests. Attached to that room is a powder room. To the right is the steps to the second floor. Walk further down the hall and you wind up in the dining room, and beyond that, a small, but serviceable kitchen. We'll probably eat in the dining room most of the time. To the left is a doorway leading to the basement. There is laundry down there (yessssssss!) and Josh will be using that as his mad science laboratory.
2nd Fl: You walk into a giant, airy sitting room, with huge, beautiful bay windows. I love, love, love this room. Across the room, to the front of the house, is the first "real" bedroom. It's pretty sizable, and has an incredible built-in armoire. It has a door to the bathroom, which is smallish but not cramped. There's a door on the other side that leads to the other bedroom... also accessible from the other side of the living room. The other bedroom is larger, and has a nice closet but not the amazing built in armoire of bedroom 1. I'm not sure which one we'll wind up in! I think I need to see them again to be sure.
I. CAN'T. WAIT. The cats are going to go apeshit at all this space. :D
I'm going to be living with the man I love, in a beautiful place, 8/1. I can barely see straight with pure joy.
It might be leftover caffeine from the migraine I got last night, I guess. But. Lame!
The graduation itself took forever, but it was nice to see Josh walk, and his daughters were VERY well behaved despite the Long and Boring.
Afterwards there was a scare; Josh's grandmother fell in the hotel, and had to be rushed to the hospital. It was mostly precaution -- she just had a bad bump on her head; a real, old-fashioned goose-egg -- but especially with an older person they really need to check out and make sure they're not concussed. She was cleared and released JUST in time to make it to dinner; yummy Afghan cuisine at Kabul.
In the ensuing shuffle, though, my birthday cake was left at the hotel, instead of coming to dinner as planned. Oh well.
One cute thing, though... Josh's older daughter, Naomi, was sitting on his lap. She turns to me and says, "You know what? I think you really do love each other." You're right, kiddo; I think we do. Out of the mouths of babes. :D
 | VoicePost  31K 0:09 | “My iPod is so smart. I sit down on the trolley and the first song that it puts on is "Birthday Girl" by the Roots. Gotta love that!” Transcribed by: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} babyraven |
1 cp packaged gnocchi, cooked and still hot
appx 1 cp frozen spinach
2 slices crisp bacon, crumbled
A tablespoon or so crumbled gorgonzola
dash of olive oil
cracked pepper
Add it all together and apparently you get Awesome.
I am so making this again.
Also, Josh will be graduating. Hooray for us!!!!
- Music:Clock With No Hands - The Roots
- Mood: melancholy
rhiann31, we saw a fantastic place that we would have taken on the spot -- only they don't take pets. Dammit. Today, though, we found two very good possibilities -- one is a whole HOUSE for rent, right near both the fencing club and my (current) workplace (though once we move to our new office, it'll wont' be quite so convenient). The price is right, and I'm nearly drunk at the idea of all that space. We decided to try for it, so fingers crossed for us.
We also saw another place at 24th and Catherine that was a little smaller and a bit more expensive, but the neighborhood was better, the layout was neat, and it was all very recently redone. If the other one falls through, we might try for that one.
I'll just be so happy to be out of this current hole, and someplace where I don't have to choose between spending time with boyfriend or spending time with cats. Weekend children will be an adjustment, certainly, but I think (hope!) it'll be ok.
There's something fun about the low-fi, medium format images made by these cheapo pieces of crap... see here for examples. I would love to see what I can get to come out of one of those plastic boxes.
It's only a matter of time before I get one -- in fact, I have a bid up on a really cheap used one on eBay right now.
I also have, but haven't yet used, a "quad-cam" that takes 4 pics per frame with 35mm film. Hm... maybe I'll pop some Tri-X in that and head out with it today -- on a gorgeous day like this, it does seem kind of silly to be sitting inside playing video games.
At least tomorrow I'll get a little "me" time in before Josh picks me up to go back to the hospital again.
Today was rough for my mom. She's gaining in strength daily, but she's been unable to have anything but liquids, and hasn't had much desire to eat them. Her empty stomach means that the antibiotics are making her nauseated -- which makes her even less likely to eat, which makes her even more nauseated -- a vicious cycle.
In the afternoon the nurse pumped some anti-nausea drug into Mom's IV, and she perked up a little. When I was leaving, she had managed to eat half a bowl of her pureed soup, so hopefully tomorrow will be better. But man, she sure did look grim for an hour or so. Pretty amazing to see her so sick; my mom has a pain and illness tolerance that would put most people to shame. Hardy farmers' stock, you see.
| VoicePost 141K 0:42 | “My mother is out of surgery. Doing as well as can be expected. So they have to take out more of her colon than they expected. They expected they do about 6ins. They actually do about a foot but other than that things went pretty well. She's alert for the most part. A little bit confused but that's expected. And other news. Ever have one of those days where every transit that you try to take is a miss. I'm totally having one of those days. I woke up and whatever it is I am looking for is just pulling out. Happen considerably to me 4 times today just so aggravating.” Transcribed by: adamjury |
| VoicePost 40K 0:11 | “I ask you: what kind of a coffee shop runs out of bagels at 10:00am on a Sunday? It's just... that's peak time! It's nuts!” Transcribed by: multiple users |
I forgot what colour my light was -- I never hit the kid.
REALLY nice guy though!
In other news Donna hit me on the squishy tendony stuff just above my knee cap. Um... ow. That's gonna suck for a few days.
Plus, there will be an 8X10 Kyle Cassidy print signed both by the artist himself... and Neil Gaiman. C'mon, you know you want it.
WHEN: Friday, 29 May 6:30 - 10:00
WHERE: Studio 34 at 4522 Baltimore Avenue
HOW MUCH: $5 at the door (which goes towards any winning bid)
For more information, including information about the artists and performers, check out our website: http://citykitties.org/art/index.ht
See you there!
Stop licking toads at work, Babs.
Babs:
Well, they were asking for it. Look at how they were dressed.
Pennsylvania State Senator Daylin Leach for his intention to introduce
legislation that would grant full marriage equality to same-sex couples.
"
I didn't even think this backwards state would be ready to even THINK of
such a thing. I know it won't make it, but I'm still gratified to see it
on the table.
1) My sister's been having a really tough time with her depression, so I wanted to give her a night off to do whatever she and Nick felt like doing. We'll probably be doing this about once a month.
2) Liam and Laurel have no cousins -- and neither do Miriam and Naomi. They're kind of the closest thing they have. So we want to start getting them together more... especially since Naomi thinks Laurel is awesome, and could learn a lot from her. And it gets Naomi and Miriam out of each other's faces for a little.
3) I don't feel like I get to spend enough time with Laurel and Liam. Especially Liam. Laurel and I have a really close bond, and I can't help but attribute some of that to my nannying for her when she was a baby. Liam does know who I am, but that's about as far as it goes.
So we drove out to my sister's and they went to dinner and a movie. I made extremely simple food as Josh's girls are picky eaters -- just baked chicken legs, mashed potatoes, and salad.
Aside from cooking making the house really hot, and the usual battle to get the children to eat ANYTHING, I think it went pretty well. And it was really nice to actually sit around the table to eat, for once -- neither Josh nor I really have the ability to do that, and I do think it's important for kids to have that instead of eating in front of the TV all the time.
I also enjoyed putting little Liam, who's 2, to bed. He went down very easily. He did wake up once -- it was too hot, he was all sweaty, so I took off his pj bottoms and changed his diaper, which he had also wet -- but after that I gave him a kiss and he went right back down. This was the first time I felt he ever really *trusted* me. I could see in his little face that he knew I was a grownup who loved him and was looking out for him. If that's not good for the soul, nothing is.
I wonder what I should cook NEXT month?
I said to Josh as we were leaving the movie that the Vulcans were basically "intergalactic space Jews." I hadn't thought about it as deeply as this Rabbi clearly has -- but I guess that's his job.
(via
serrana)Next Friday is the City Kitties Second Annual Art Auction, at which myself and many other artists will be making available beautiful pieces of original art at auction prices. There will be live music and munchies, as well as great company.
Doors open at 6:30. Admission is only $5! Pixel cat says "It's cheaper than a movie!" And you can help City Kitties keep bringing success stories to the area's strays.
SEE YOU THERE!
 |
| Sakura festival -- Reaction shot The moment of realization when the gentleman informed me that I'd been painstakingly calligraphing from an example that was backwards. (Photo taken by Josh. Click for embiggening.) |
| VoicePost 134K 0:41 | “A lively morning in West Philly today... I get to the trolley stop and there's 7 backed up trolleys. Apparently one of them rear-ended a lady. Which means I'm gonna be standing here for quite some time waiting for them to clear through. They did send them through now but they still have to go to the end of line, loop back and come all the way around for us. It's gonna be a while. So while that's happening a whole bunch of police pull up and I didn't see why but they, like, grab this guy that was on the corner and put him across the hood and pat him down and throw him in the back of the car. I don't know what's happening this morning; this is very surreal.” Transcribed by: multiple users |
The day didn't start out well when, for the first time ever, my pre-scheduled taxi did not arrive on time. In fact, it was 25 minutes late. I thought allowing a half-hour cushion for a 10 minute drive would be plenty. Thank heavens my team-mates waited the extra 5 mins for me to get there. Still, starting out the day panicking and rushing is not really the way wants to begin something they're already terrified about.
Once at the competition, here and there I did things well. This includes one really smart thing against someone who otherwise slaughtered me; she was an older woman with a very old-school women's epee style. This means she would stand there, barely moving, wait for me to make a twitch, and then she would EXPLODE on you and hit you when you panicked. This works pretty well on me, actually. So, for one touch, I didn't give her the chance. As soon as the director said "fence," I "fleched" (essentially, that means ran at her), taking her in an 8 parry. This was so out of my normal style that it took her entirely by surprise, scoring my only point in the bout.
Alas, she was on to it after that so I couldn't do it again. But I feel good about it anyway since it was a) smart, taking advantage of her preconceptions about my style and b) really out of my comfort zone -- I am not an aggressive fencer, if anything, I'm a chicken. But I saw that there might be an opportunity, banished my fear, and WENT for it.
This alone is a victory for me, and I did a few other things that were not entirely stupid. Therefore, despite my losing record, I feel at peace with my overall performance.
Next up, I think I'll be heading to Pomme de Terre in Massachusettes end of next month. This should be an easier competition, but it's an overnight so it may be more expensive. Still, sounds like fun, and there's a very, very small chance of getting a rating out of it. When I say very small, I mean it's about as likely as getting hit by lightning, but, it's a chance.
I don't remember ever having nerves like this in college. But in college, I had my whole team there, supporting me. This time, I'm on my own. I never realized what a huge difference that would make.
Now, to convince myself to go to sleep so I can get something resembling rest before rising at an ugly 4:30a for this thing tomorrow...
...wish me luck, all. I'm gonna need it.
I did not have a bad night.
I did not have a "mixed" night.
I had an *excellent* night, for the first time since I started back about year ago.
People who I usually do well against, I destroyed. People who I tend to do poorly against, I either beat, or at least gave them a real run for their money. I was moving, I was upright, my hand was in the right place, and I had plans that sometimes even worked.
I'm hoping this wasn't a fluke, as for the first time, I really feel like I'm making some headway, and that there's hope for future.
I will still get killed this weekend, don't get me wrong. I'll be hopelessly outclassed. But if I can fence as smart as I did last night, I will at least respect myself in the morning.
You and me, Marilyn. We're gonna show 'em.
I love this show. Even better, he's never seen it -- he has no idea what he's in for. :D :D
