The Dangerous Existence of Madame Lee

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. (In the immortal words of Ass Dan, "you know I'm going to live forever!" All joking aside, I am not as confident of my immortality.)

( What have I been doing? Here's a lot of words to say that it hasn't been very much. )

I don't know if this post heralds a golden age of my glorious return, or if it means I'll be back in another six months. I suppose there's only one way to find out. In my absence, I haven't really read anyone's back posts extensively, though I have gathered from skimming that some of you are Going Through It, and I'm sorry to hear that.

There is no Stirring Conclusion here. I'm feeling tired and it's time to hit the hay for an exciting day of Cleaning! tomorrow. Not locking this because nothing matters anyway :D

This morning, I rolled out of bed, went to go get my every-other-weekly pedicure (because my feet get nasty without much provocation and I'd rather pay someone for them than do it myself), and found that it was much colder in the house than outside. My toenails are relatively subtle this time, if one can consider fluorescent pink to ever be subtle. (We're moving into sandal weather, so I have to look normal for a while. I don't favor shy and muted colors.)

Then I went to go get my ears pierced. (This is going to be the last hole in my lobes; I'm going to gradually move on to other stuff after this.) This is my third lobe piercing (for both ears), so I know the drill by now; the pain wasn't as bad as when they try to draw blood at the doctor's office, but now we've moved on to the HOLY SHIT MY EARS ARE ITCHY AND THERE ISN'T ANYTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT stage.

And THEN I went to the library downtown, where they were having a small book sale, and since I cannot help myself if I see books, I immediately relieved them of a stack from the history and biography sections and they relieved me of $13. I got A Delusion of Satan (about the Salem Witch Trials), which I'd only been wanting forever, and Chrysanthemums and Thorns (which I seem to recall duokinneas read a while back but that was about 5 years ago so I don't even know). I got other stuff, but that's what springs immediately to mind.

Anticlimactically, I then came home and made dinner. We had smoked turkey sausage on the grill pan (I'd wanted to grill outside, but the sky kept making noises like it was going to rain), cheesy biscuits, and coleslaw. The coleslaw was a little on the Cajun side, so I halved the cayenne pepper to avoid cruelty to lolmom, whose delicate system cannot tolerate the spicy food.

Lolmom has finally had the porch roof fixed, after lo these many years; one of the parishioners at her church is in construction and does roofing, and they're friendly, so when he hit a slow patch, they came over earlier this week to fix the roof. No more need we worry about it caving in and killing the next person who steps foot on the roof! Lolmom is very excited about this, as it means that once the porch is hosed off, she can go outside and enjoy the weather. She's especially looking forward to this on Mother's Day (for the British and Australians on the flist, our Mother's Day is in May), when X-chan will come up again to help her clean out the garage and we'll have tea for dinner. (I told lolmom I could either spend the day in the garage or the kitchen and to pick what she wanted. She chose the kitchen. I have no idea what the tea menu is going to be, aside from turkey and avocado sandwiches.)

I am looking at the beginnings of a draft and I have given one of the main characters a tail and I do not for the life of me remember why this is. I assume it will be important at some point.

Also: arisha, I owe you a response to your lengthy comment on Troy, Achilles' character arc, &c. Will get to that but probably not tonight; still have things to do that aren't done. (Go me.)

This has been the shortest work week EVAR. I was off Monday for MLK Day, which I spent mostly doing laundry and also driving my friend Michael to Lowe's to pick up some boxes (he's moving out of Spavinsville, lucky stiff). I worked Tuesday and Wednesday, and then on Thursday I went home early because I caught The Plague from lolmom (who had it last week) and had to call in yesterday as well. I'm feeling better (albeit heavily medicated) now that I'm not coughing until my eyes water every fifteen minutes, and I was well enough to do some errands today (if by "errands" you mean "I got my every-two-weekly pedicure" and "oh yeah, I went to the bookstore and spent the FUCK out of the $50 gift card my father sent me for Christmas and still wound up going over because I am constitutionally incapable of avoiding the bargain rack").

Also, you can always tell I am really out of it when I can't follow a battle scene; I watched Samurai Banners last night and towards the end, kept going, "Wait, what the fuck?...Oh, right, there's the vanguard, yeah. Did Takeda win this one? I don't remember." (He said he did, though a lot of Takeda Shingen's battles with Uesugi Kenshin were pretty inconclusive.) Also, if I were lost in the snow and some guy who looked like Toshiro Mifune were following me, I'd let him find me, but I'm not gonna lie, I'm shallow.

So that's it. Now, it's time to get back on the wagon, I guess.

+ Boiler has been replaced, to the tune of $10K, but at least the heat works now. YEAH.
+ Christmas came and was somewhat uneventful. X-chan was going to go up to Grandma's but sprung a flat, and of course there was no place to fix it on Christmas Eve, so she stayed with us. We watched A Christmas Story (after I struck out in my efforts to find White Christmas at the 'Mart) and the MST3K version of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, also ate salmon with avocado and pomegranate salsa for Christmas dinner. (Nomnomnom.) Lolmom loved the new slippers I got her, will probably like sweaters but we don't know how they fit yet. X-chan was pleased to receive the dinosaur necklace so at least that was a hit. (I also gave her Flambards, the BBC series after which she was named.)
+ Went to investigate whether the toilet had overflowed just now, slipped on wet floor, came down heavy on my ass. OW. I can feel a bruise forming, ready to wreak havoc at a time known only to me.
+ Back to work tomorrow. Then I have another three-day weekend and another four-day work week. Then I will have a normal work week, crowned by ANOTHER three-day weekend. Experts anticipate I'll be fucked up until February!

I spent ~23 hours at work this weekend, by which I mean I did 8 hours on Saturday, 9 on Sunday, and 6 today. But! My quota for the weekend is made, and I am done. At least until tomorrow.

Cosi Fan Tutte tix go on sale to the general public tomorrow. Why yes, I will be going to the opera this year. I haven't gone in years mainly due to lack of money, and dude that is changing. I'd like to take lolmom to see Carmen in Louisville, but the dates are problematic, viz.:
23 September is the day I'm having my wisdom teeth out, and I definitely won't be up to much of anything.
25 September is doable, but just; we're probably going to have to leave right after lolmom gets back from Religious Ed. (For those of you just joining us, lolmom teaches the confirmation class at her church.) I don't know how long mandatory overtime is going to continue, so I might need to have a day free, or else a lot of wangling.
30 September is doable for me, but it means not bringing lolmom because she has to work, and now I don't feel like I can do that

Randomly: I admit that this is my fault for using such a vague search term, but while punching "samurai" into Amazon will bring up some hugely entertaining stuff, it also brings up a lot of crap. Including some lolarious romance novels, which I may need to purchase for future snarking...

I seriously need to be in bed on account of I am taking lolmom to Louisville for the Jane Austen Festival tomorrow, yes yes we are litfags. DUN JUDG.

Also, I have goddamn samurai in my brain, so here, help me out with a very srs poll that should be taken very srsly.

[Poll #1760229]

And that's it, going to bed. :D

Did you get stuff done at work, l33? Yes. Actually it was a very slow day on the updates folder, so much so that I kept having intermittent concerns that Outlook wasn't working.

Whiny missive from my father: No. I am amazed, because I thought surely he would send one (for the new additions to the flist who might need to be told this: my father and I are estranged and I will never love him again or allow him back into my life after the way he's treated me. He doesn't understand that this is final and not negotiable and keeps sending me whiny missives on my birthday and at Christmas).

New sandals: No, but they did ship! :D As of today, they are somewhere in Mississippi.

State Farm acting the fool up in here: No. They finally cashed my insurance check, so I can stop worrying about whether lolmom ditzed out and thought she dropped it off but didn't actually.

More lemon pavlova: There was. Then I ate it and now it's gone. :9

What kind of produce we got, l33? A cabbage. (Mmm, delicious coleslaw!) Some beets (slated to be turned into salad). MORE GODDAMN KALE (seriously, I like kale, but we already have like three or four bunches). Some tiny green onions, a cucumber, and some garlic. A bunch of Swiss chard.

Teeth update: The oral surgeon wants to do a Panorex. Fine. I am slated to go in at 7:30 on Friday morning and take care of this. They want me to pay $92, which is what I would pay if I were uninsured; while this is not chump change, I can handle it and am told my insurance carrier will reimburse me. However, if they expect me to plunk down $2000-$3000 when I have it done, I'm firing this oral surgeon. I will gladly pay the 20% for which I am responsible under my plan. I will NOT gladly pay the entire amount, in part because I really don't have $2K for this stupid shit. ($2K for serious business like moving back to Bloomington is another matter.) In part, also, the entire reason I have insurance is because a sudden payment of $2-$3K would be financially ruinous for me, as it is for a lot of people, and that. Is. The. PURPOSE. Of. Having. Insurance. ARGH.

And that's it, I gots e-mail to answer. Probably won't get to LJ comments right now.

A conversation I had last night with lolmom when we were both punchdrunk. We were talking about my wisdom teeth, since I finally got a referral from my dentist.

Lolmom: lol maybe u cans kepe ur teef n hav tehm in, liek, a neklas or sthg
l33: Yeah. I'll tell people I removed them myself.
Lolmom: lol
l33: In the wilderness. With a flint knife.
Lolmom: lolol ppl wil b impresst
l33: It will give off this nice "don't fuck with me" vibe.

You know, because my normal personality isn't offputting enough :D

LOLMOM update: Lolmom had been going to take the money from the insurance company and repair the car herself. The body shop estimated that the repairs would run around $4300, with the caveat that they hadn't actually looked at some of the interior damage yet and it might be more or less. After they actually did take a look at the damage, it turned out to be about $6500, so lolmom decided to take the car to the salvage yard and buy a new car (she'd already talked to the bank and knew she could get a loan, which is not a surprise since her credit is really good). So she went out on Thursday and bought a Chevy Equinox.

LIFE IN GENERAL update: I have been learning to work the update folder at work (where loan officers and title companies send things like updates or ohai-can-you-change-the-loan-amount or ohai-can-you-change-the-effective-date or ohai-when-can-we-expect-this-commitment), and have found that this inexplicably has not caused me to die. The main reason I've been learning to work the update folder is because one of my co-workers who usually handles that is going to be on vacation next week, but hey, it's a new job skill.

Also: I am trying to get my life into some semblance of order. HURRAH. Today, I have accomplished absolutely nothing other than remembering to pick up my meds (which I called in last night), reading a bit, and doing the laundry. (Of course, it doesn't help that the goddamn POWER was out for four hours today. FUCK YOU VECTREN ENERGY DELIVERY. YOU FUCKING SUCK. WHEN I LIVED IN BLOOMINGTON, WHERE EVERYTHING IS BETTER, WE DIDN'T HAVE THIS PROBLEM because we had underground lines.)

Oh, and I wrote a page of The Piece I Kind Of Like Okay and hacked out a few lines on The Piece I Don't Like Why Am I Writing It. Basically, I have adopted this new agenda of making myself write for things I want. We'll see if it works out, but at the moment I at least got something written today, so hurrah.

Things That Have Happened Since Last I Wrote:

+ Lolmom's claim has been turned over to the Total Loss Center. Very not-good. We have yet to hear back from them; I assume they are going to call us as it seems to be a dick move not to do so.
+ Remember when I said our first CSA pickup was on Saturday? I lied! It was actually tonight! :D Lolmom and I had been going to hash out who was picking up what when, but we forgot so I went out tonight. We have a bunch of lettuce, a bunch of kale, a head of pacchoi, some shallots, some green onions, and some dried hot peppers left over from last year (which sounds delightful to me and abhorrent to lolmom). There is also a pick-your-own herb garden on the farm, so I need to remember to bring some shears or a knife next time so that we may have delicious herbs. I think the pacchoi is destined to be turned into chicken chow mein (it is related to bok choi, so would probably work) and the kale will probably become our perennial favorite, balsamic kale salad with strawberries and hard-boiled eggs. We have good strawberries and farm-fresh eggs, too! Shallots will keep a while, and so will the peppers since they're dried. I have no idea what to do with the green onions. Salad, maybe. (I'm also not sure about the lettuce; it is fresh and tasty but I like salad to be more composed and less "here's some vegetables we need to use up".)
+ Also, I think we're going to have a delicious spinach salad with apples and oranges and red onion because that just sounds good to me. Actually, I should probably be making it now, but what the hell.
+ J sent me two boxes (large boxes, mind you) of chocolate orange slices, possibly because he is crazy. There is something to be said for having an ex who is still your really good friend and still inexplicably feels something for you. :D (Also: chocolate orange slices.)
+ I ran into Raina (one of my former supervisors) at the store when I swung by to pick up spinach and other things, and she noticed that I'd lost weight. (I actually gained 5 pounds back as of Sunday, and so I'm now in OH NO WE'RE NOT DOING THIS AGAIN, BODY mode. The chocolate orange slices aren't helping, but I've done okay in terms of avoiding other crap.)
+ Next up: some EXCITING pictures of our shower fixtures! (Lolmom wants new fixtures for the upstairs shower, so she was all "lol i n33d u 2 take pix ov this & print out plz". She didn't say anything about uploading to the Internet, so that's what she gets.)