Between the good and bad, that's where you'll find me, Reaching for Heaven

Quiet day of housework and trying to write today (and having a bit too much fun with carpe_ho_ras, the multi-fandom craziness RPG I've recently joined: you might have Tolkien elves chattering with Japanese death gods or characters from "The Scarlet Pimpernel" rubbing elbows with characters from George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire"). But yesterday, I had a few adventures in book-buying.

I've been making good use of the Store Pick Up option on the Barnes & Noble website, but that isn't without it's tricky moments: I'd earmarked a copy of the new Supernatural novel, "Heart of the Dragon", along with two other books (Trinity Blood vol. 6 and George R.R. Martin's "A Storm of Swords"), and when I got there, they had the Trinity Blood and the Martin book all nice and ready for me, but the SPN book was nowhere to be found, even though the slip for it was there. So the clerk called the sci-fi department to see what was going on; meanwhile, the woman in line behind me starts muttering about the line being held up, so one of the managers opens the next register. The clerk who was helping me apologized very profusely, and I told her about the glitch I'd had with my eye appointment at LensCrafters a month ago, then added that I've seen so much bad behavior where I work that I made a promise to myself to try and "not be That Customer". Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw the grumbler wince a little. Well, needless to say, they found another copy of the missing book for me.

Also got:

--"Roadkill", the next Cal Leandros book, looks like there's a new POV character coming into the story, which should mix things up marvelously. And

--the latest issue of Supernatural magazine (featuring an interview with Richard Speight, jr., the guy who plays the Trickster -- whom I honestly think is a hottie in a cute, cuddly, just-pudgy-enough sort of way)

I've mentioned that we usually go to Mass at a parish which has the pre-Vatican II Mass in Latin, plus the young pastor has revived a lot of the older traditions, such as sprinkling the congregation with holy water before Mass begins. Well, today, I was right in the line of fire during said sprinkling and I got a liberal shower over my head (fortunately covered by my black fedora) and my open missal. Even still, I got some holy water right in the eye (my right one, which is my weak eye to begin with). I'm fine, but it does hurt a little.

Also: still reading Rob Thurmann's "Deathwish", and to anyone reading this or who has read it, be sure and mark pages 188 and 189 for re-reading if you're ever having a bad day and need a lift. There is a really sweet (well, relative to the Dark and Edgy content of the series) Crowning Moment of Heartwarming on these two pages. I don't want to be too spoilery, but it involves the two of them recalling one of the bright spots in their rough childhood. Gotta love the bromance between the Leandros brothers, but these two pages just dial it up to Eleven in a good way.

Inventory last night: They did this differently than they have in previous years. Instead of having all of us gather in the back room and get our assigned aisle there, we had our assignments listed on a sheet near the time clock and when we punched in, we had to head right to our assigned aisles. Except I somehow wasn't on the list, so I had to consult "Joe the Angel" (ie. the assistant store manager) and get an assignment from him: I ended up in the cereal aisle counting organic/gluten-free oatmeal and such.

Today: Because of the snowstorm we had the past two days, people weren't in out shopping. Today they were. I'm in a bit of a cranky mood right now, but it's nothing that can't be cured by some random absurdness. Like people's LJ icons, and my mother asking me if we had any "tacky tacks" when she was looking for some thumbtacks. To which I replied, "Tacky tacks?! Are you implying that our tacks are cheap and ugly-looking and likely to come apart randomly?!" said mischievously.

Typing up an "A.I." fic, which is also the last of the requests/prompts, which will likely go live later tonight (read: "Just after midnight"). I'm undecided about cutting the second Evangelion fic from the 12 Days of Fanfic list: I'll probably type it/post it if I have time, and since I have tomorrow and Wednesday off, I may be able to squeeze it in. Wednesday is likely to be a bit of a fic-dump day, so brace yourselves (especially since I have at least two in mind that day).

Flurry the budgie is continuing to become more personable; he's making up his own sentences now: we definitely heard him say "You're a good parakeet" the other night. My mom says "You're a good bird" to him when he does something cute, but he somehow swapped out "bird" for "parakeet". The look on his face as we praised him for saying his first sentence was comical, as if he were thinking, "Huh? Why are people squeeing over me?" He's a very shy and modest little bird.

Doing a bit of "something old, something new" this week in terms of fannish stuff. The something new: I just started reading "Deathwish", the fourth of the Cal Leandros books by Rob Thurman; I keep chuckling over how much the series reminds me of what you'd get if you crossed "Supernatural" with the Dresden Files and threw it into a setting very like White Wolf's World of Darkness. The something old: I've also started rewatching Cowboy Bebop. Hey It's That Voice moments galore, including the voice of Aramaki from GitS:AC as a random old guy in a market; also had a moment where I jokingly said, "Hey, I know who Faye Valentine is: she's Haruhi Suzimiya, all grown up. Guess her hair and eye color changed because of the cryostorage." (Ie. Wendee Lee voiced both characters).