The Dangerous Existence of Madame Lee

zyphryus, my great love! I have no idea if you will see this but I figure it is worth a shot. (Also I know this is short notice, so I understand if not doable.) The Indianapolis Opera is playing Faust the weekend after next (4-6 May), which I should like to see. I should also like to see you if the planets align! (And anybody else on the flist in Indy too, of course.)

I am still doinking with timing; the 4 May performance is at 8 p.m. local and I know there is NO way I will get up there by the time it begins unless I take off work, which theoretically I could do and in practice I am not doing because opera just isn't really a compelling reason to take off work. There is no 5 May performance (because that would have been easy and solved my scheduling problem, so, you know, not happening). The 6 May performance is at 2 p.m. local, which is copacetic for me in that I wouldn't have to drive in Indy in the dark, and in that I would probably still be back in Spavinsville at a reasonable hour. (On the other hand, once I returned to Spavinsville after 3 hours of opera and 4 hours of automotive transport, my activities for the day would be limited to "check e-mail, go to bed", so this would require me to have laundry and things arranged well in advance.)

ANYWAY! I seem to have decided that I shall do this thing (somehow), so pl0x advise? :D

So it's after midnight in Lyd's neck of the woods, but it's only about 11:20 in mine, so I am entitled to say this without it being late.

Happy birthday, zyphryus!

I have GOT to start going to GenCon. All the cool kids do.

Warning: This is a long, boring entry about things I did on Thursday and Friday. It is almost Schuminesque in its self-absorption. I figure this is my journal and you're here voluntarily, so I'm entitled to be a little self-absorbed periodically.

I decided to go up and make a day of it, though by the time I was ready to go it was already ten-something in the morning (eleven-something in Bloomington), and I got there about 1:30 or so. I made myself go straight to one of the places where I was going to apply in person on the south side first, since I try not to voluntarily set foot on Walnut Street if I can help it; that didn't take long. The University art museum is hiring guards, so I thought I'd apply even if it doesn't pay enough, because hell, it's work, it's in Bloomington, and I love the art museum.

( OMG ART MUSEUM! )

I guess it is foreordained that I'm not supposed to be a museum guard, because nobody was still at the information desk when I came out. And by then I had to make my interview at 4 o'clock about fifteen minutes away, so.

Had the interview; it was on the better side of average. We'll see what happens. Then I went to O'Malia's and bought grocery-store eel sushi and ate them with my fingers and went window-shopping for books I can't afford but came away wanting a whole bunch of stuff anyway because I am a shallow, vapid, book-grubbing bitch that way. And then, reluctantly, I wended my way south again. That bit really sucked.

On the bright side: the lolmom finally got paid, so we went grocery shopping (om nom nom nom). I control the horizontal, the vertical, and what we eat, because I do most of the cooking. We were over budget this time, because the lolmom wanted ground beef and steak (they were marked down for quick sale, so it's not like this was OMG EXTRAVAGANCE), and also had volunteered to make things for some sort of church persiflage she's doing this weekend. I proved brilliantly, once again, that I don't know anything about chocolate; I apparently suggested The Wrong Kind to Mom. (I am not a fan of chocolate and don't really care about it, and as far as I'm concerned, there are two kinds: the dark kind, preferably more bitter than sweet and even better when cut with espresso, and the crap kind. I don't eat the crap kind, except very infrequently and then I have to be in the mood for it.)

I got her back, though. Mom is a bit illiterate technologically, and when she spazzed about having left her cell phone in the car all day, I told her it was just a little melty around the edges but if she put it in the freezer for an hour or so it ought to firm right up. She almost believed me for a minute. Lolmom is lol.

The lolmom had previously gone to a Pampered Chef party her friend was having down the street, and came away with swag in the form of a citrus peeler and a cookbook. I made one of the salad recipes from the cookbook and found it pretty good (mmm, spinach with avocado and grilled chicken and grapefruit, mmmm), but what amused me was all the bolded product-placement references in the recipe (which I guess is only what you'd expect). For instance, spinach should go in the Prep Bowl before you use the Citrus Peeler to peel the grapefruit.

We're somewhat h4rdk0r3 about cooking in our house, so most of our dinners are accomplished with the Knife (pick one, it doesn't usually matter which), the Cutting Board, and some Wooden Spoons. For some reason we get CHEFS catalogue, probably because the lolmom got the stand mixer from them some years ago, but I find myself giggling at half the stuff in it. I mean, sure, if I were a restaurateuse, I'd probably want to have some of this stuff, but being l33, I personally am extremely unlikely to use, say, a crème brulée blowtorch more than once every couple of years, if that, and if you really do cook, you don't need most of the gadgetry in order to accomplish perfectly good results. Also I see no reason to spend $12 on special pie weights when you can use half a small bag of rice for the same purpose. (WARNING: In case you don't already know, the rice will be totally useless for eating purposes after that, so if you use rice for pie weights, be sure you continue to reuse the same rice for pie weights thereafter. You can reuse it several times--we actually have a special Tupperware container in the fridge for the pie rice.)

So. How was your weekend?

zyphryus asked me if the perfection was what made me cry (twice in one day, which is a red-letter occasion given that I can't even remember the last time I cried once in a day), and I think she hit the nail on the head.

There is perfection, and there is gratitude, and there is relief and joy and a certain amount of hilarity at the inept ridiculousness of the entire affair and how H and I between the two of us managed not to fuck up despite my extremely high-school handling of the situation.

And it is, sometimes, an all-right thing to be loved, if "loved" is even the word, which I had forgotten.