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

Or, Hark! a Real Entry!

I've been nose deep in writing/typing comment_fic entries, or working, or watching episodes of Stargate SG-1 to really feel up to posting a real entry. Also, due to various things, I have been feeling rather down lately, but I shan't get into that just now.

I actually started celebrating on Tuesday, since I am a firm believer in Spreading out the Fun: went to the Burlington Mall for a poke-around, and got myself some Godiva Mint Chocolate Chip Truffles and a bag of dark chocolate-covered coffee beans. Wednesday and Thursday, I had to work, but yesterday, my actual birthday, out of the blue, I had the day off. Part of the day I spent running errands, but that evening, we three went to the park at Salem Willows for a picnic. There were some picnic tables, but then I spotted a huge tree with a wooden bench around the base and decided that was a better spot, since it gave us a view of the water on the north side of Salem Peninsula. We watched the sun set over the water and went for a walk along the water as the moon and the stars began to shine.

I'm planning to go back to Salem sometime this week to poke around and visit some of the historic houses that I haven't seen yet and to visit a few favorite places (ie. the Salem Witch History Museum located in the basement of a storefront on the Essex Pedestrian Mall: the animatronic dioramas are hysterically decrepit! Also the Salem Wax Museum: the wax has started to melt back from the eyes on some figures, leading to these hilariously bug-eyed/expressions, as if the sight of the visitor has startled them!). I hope to visit the Endicott Mansion, which is reported to be haunted, thus, I'm hoping I can share the tour (which is self-guided) with some other visitor. I'm not afraid of ghosts by any stretch (I'm more afraid of the living...), but I'd rather have someone along in case something odd does happen, so that I'll know it isn't my active imagination playing tricks on me.

And a Blessed Samhain, to those who follow the Old Ways. I've started to find "Happy Halloween" a bit oxymoronic. Of course, you don't want a cruelly frightening Halloween, but even still, it is the celebration of things going "Bump!" in the night, so perhaps a "Spooky Halloween" is in order. I got a jump on the festivities last night, when I slunk out at midnight and tooted a vuvuzela, in honor of the mysterious vuvuzela player who haunted our neighborhood twenty Hallowens ago.

I'll post more in a bit about our yard decorations and our recent jaunt to Salem's Haunted Happenings. I gotta go find the witch hat to go with my costume. I'm reviving the bed sheet ghost of last year and adding a witch hat. Hey, it worked for one of the kids on "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown", so I thought I'd give it a go.

Our family has officially entered the 21st century: we now own an iPad. My dad won this little widget in a raffle at a plant grower's convention a month or two ago, and we -- or at least my dad and I have been eagerly awaiting it's arrival. He knew it was arriving sometime today, but imagine my surprise, when I came home from a somewhat long day of running errands to find it had arrived. Dad had it set up on the charging base, and all I had to do was download the software for it and we were ready to go!

It's gonna take a little getting used to: the pull-up keyboard is a lot of fun, but the scrolling throws me a bit, as it's the reverse of what I'm used to doing. But other than that, it is freakishly easy to use: almost easier than my laptop and slightly more portable.

Technically, I'm not the primary user for this thingy: it's my dad's widget, I'm just the one twiddling with it and figuring out how all the bells and whistles work. Which coiled take some time, heh-heh... Ah, yeah, that's it... ::shifty eyes::

Just up from finishing up washing the dishes after watching the Fourth of July concert from Boston. Rather quiet Fourth, as my dad had to work today, thus we'll be having our indoor cookout tomorrow evening -- Yes, I know, contradictory name is contradictory: we have so many BUUUUGGGS in our yard that we rarely have a cookout before October and our Hallow-Weiner Roast at Hallowe'en. Dad and I watched our town's fireworks last night (would have gone to the ones in Wilmington, as it's a better show, but it turned out they'd scheduled them for last night, which is weirdly early for them).

Have been watching "Dexter" on DVD (from the library) and enjoying every minute of it. I think if I do end up redeeming a certain pale fellow, he may end up somewhat like a certain blood-spatter expert, in terms of temperament.

Also found a small and sadly defunct Gormenghast fanfiction community: thestonelanes; there's a nice number of fics on there, which I'm working through slowly. I know there's a section on ff.n for Gormenghast fics, but since the incident of the virus attack in April, nothing can possess me to go back there. Especially not with this new laptop. I might sneak on via one of the comps at the library, but not from my own (mean of me, but it's a matter of principle).

My Twitter tweets have been spotty, this is how far into hermit-mode I've been: plus, I've been up to the eyes with work, Easter, and shenanigans at Carpe Horas -- the last has been keeping me sane when the first started to eat me alive.

--Easter: Had a fairly quiet Easter Sunday; we had a late supper at Cracker Barrel, and my dad and I spent much of the day cleaning up the yard after winter and all the windstorms we had (lots of downed branches and twigs in the grass). Gave my mom a Hello Kitty Easter plushie in her Easter basket.

--Work: crazy hours last week due to the holiday, also being asked to come in earlier and earlier on one day in particular. I understand it's busy and they need me, and I did miss a day due to that flood, but I ended up feeling a bit put-upon, especially after I waded through six inches of receding flood water on my sidewalk to get in to work one of those days. Forgive me for feeling a bit entitled: I just felt like I'd stuck my neck out for them and my efforts weren't being recognized.

--Also, a word of advice to fanfiction.net: No more ads with viruses, I mean it. I couldn't hit the Ad Block fast enough to keep from getting hit. I did not need a virus scare at one in the morning, which kept me up till three trying to calm down. I am not going to archive my fics on your site any more, as I'm scared to death of your buggy site now.

Unfortunately, this means I can't read fics on there any more, and some of my favorite fics are on there. :: Sighs:: Someone needs to come up with some kind of plug-in to make ff.n safe to surf, or to collect fics from there and disinfect them. There was a new YnM fic that I'd just started reading and enjoying.

But there's been some good things, too:

--Mom's parakeet: The past week or so, Flurry the budgie has suddenly started to get very friendly: he's coming up to the side of the cage to say hello to us, even getting close enough to give "bird kisses" (ie. teeny nibbles on our noses, if we get close enough to the bars of the cage). He's also getting much better about sitting on and staying on fingers -- and not biting them, either.

--carpe_ho_ras shenanigans: Crack plots a plenty, both the spooky and the silly! Practical jokes have been played on people by two twin elf boys, to the delight and annoyance of many. The moon turned blood red over the Mansion, leaving people scrabbling for an explanation. And I've introduced a character from one of my earliest serious fandoms, namely, Parsifal from the opera by Wagner; the guileless knight has been a hit at the Mansion and there is much plottage being planned.

To everyone on my friends list, I hope you all have a lovely day surrounded by the people you love and care for deeply, on whatever level of love: friends, family, sweethearts, buddies....

I'm in a bit of a grumpy mood (thank you, hormones. :: Glares:: ), but in spite of this, I feel well-loved by all of you: the folks who first friended me back in the Diaryland era, many of whom I met through the "A.I." fandom; the folks I've met along the way since then and now through various fandoms, the folks who joined the party this past autumn and winter via various friending memes/forums.

Just gave my folks their Valentine's presents: my dad went hoopey over the jars of pistachio nuts I gave him to replace the contents of a bag of nuts which a small mouse stole from the living room: Dad took one look at the jars and said, "Ooh, perfect! The mouse can't get into these! The nuts are all locked up!" And my mom loved the book of L.M. Montgomery stories which I'd hunted down on Amazon some weeks back (and she also found the Head-Tiltingly Strange redactions in it as hysterical and odd as I did).

Went back to the antiques store near St. Mary's in Newton: my dad was hunting for some andirons, a fire screen and some fireplace tools for our fireplace, since we've been lighting it every night lately. Poked through another shop next to it which was almost wall to wall in antiques from the Far East, including but not limited to a glass case chock full of ivory netsuke, several five foot tall vases, and what at first I thought was a kimono, but which as soon as I'd said as much to my father, I realized was a haori jacket. Baka! :: laughs::

A few things I forgot to mention about Mom's birthday on Sunday:

--Flurry the budgie was chattering up a storm during dinner: he's starting to talk! Not clearly, but he's getting there. So far he can say "Baby" and "Baby bird" and repeats it if you say it to him. I heard him say "Baby 'keet" and "parakeet", and we think we've heard him say "Good bird".

--As my dad and I were singing "Happy Birthday", Oskar the cockatiel started making these "Yerk?" noises, as if he were trying to sing with us! He's never done that before!

--We waited till tonight (well, Monday night) to cut the cake, which had a picture of Hello Kitty drawn on it. This conversation ensued:

Mom: "Whoops, it looks like I cut her head off."
Dad: "Ooh, you're so mean!" :: Kidding::
Me: (In the kitchen, getting a knife) :: Adjusts glasses, lets out evil/insane giggle::

...who's the naughty mouse who broke the NaNoWriMo site?!

Kidding... The NaNoWriMo site is currently down for maintenance, which made me wonder if so many people had logged in that the site broke itself somehow. I was about to update my word count and ask a question on the forums, but that's going to have to wait till the site comes back up.

Spent most of the day shopping for ...Hello Kitty party stuff for my mom's 60th birthday which is coming up later this month. I had half-jokingly suggested to my mom that we throw her a Hello Kitty-themed birthday, but she demurred... But when I proposed the idea to my dad, he hopped on it like a kid on a merry go round. I am even planning to see if the anime stuff store in Cambridge has any unusual Hello Kitty stuff (though I won't be going for some of the more bizarre items, as seen on the "Hello Kitty Hell" weblog). I managed to get a good chunk of the NaNo novel written while I was riding the bus hither, thither and yon, which I should be typing instead of browsing the Hello Kitty Hell blog (which I haven't looked at in months).

My crazy father turns 60 today (and mind you, he's a fairly young 60: what hair he has left is still mostly black, with enough grey to give him an older, wiser look). I've already surprised him with a mylar palm tree decoration (meant for cheezy luau parties, but since he loves palm trees, I thought I'd get it as a gag gift), which I surreptitiously hung up in our dining room before I had to jet out to run some errands: he utterly loves it, even popped some Beenie Baby monkeys on top of it! Just got his cake at the store, and since he was asking me if there was a book that the movie "Valkyrie" was based on, I'm surprising him with that. When I was out picking up my copy of Richelle Meade's "Succubus Heat", I also managed to find the DVD of the movie at a bargain price, but I think I'll save that for Father's Day.

Last year, my dad's boss gave us three tickets to the Boston Pops' "Pops by the Sea" concert in Hyannis, since they were supplying the plants to decorate the stage. Apparantly, it's a standing gig, so this year: we scored tickets again. My mom is a little reluctant about going, so it looks like he and I might just be going down there ourselves... maybe even staying overnight, we'll see. I'll keep you all posted.