pretty soon the man and the child are going to need to hit the store for an onion. without an onion, food just will not happen today.

.

it's sort of disheartening how many people are looking for the holidays to be over and done with. what's even more disheartening is that i'm one of them. you would think with a three year old in the house, i'd be in a perpetual state of OMG SHINY, but that's just not the case.

there are so many reasons why this is so; they are all creatures, great and small.

i would love to change things up for next year and remove 99% of the stress and annoyances involved in christmas/theholidays. the key, i think, is low key. instead of trying to get everything winter-decorated after i get out for winter break, we need to just start stuff up on thanksgiving weekend. instead of procrastinating on presents and wondering what to get everyone, i'm going to shoot for 80% hand crafted (by me or someone far more crafty) and 20% maul-bought. ok, maybe i'll switch that to 60/40 since i actually do like shopping.

i just don't like feeling compelled to shop, i guess. somehow i've fallen into a little trap where i feel like if there are not enough presents under the tree, then i'm doing something wrong....i'm a bad parent, a bad friend, a bad wife, a bad daughter. i've been bamboozled and i plan on changing that! srsly! no, i'm not kidding. (please to be noting: sephora and macy's do not go on the list of stores i am going to be unbamboozled about, k? k.)

so, yes. there are plans for 2010 that will either make me happier around the holidays OR will fail so miserably that i will overcompensate and spend so much money that i'll singlehandedly save the economy. go lori!

.

paul had to work on our accountant's computer for the last few days. he finally got it fixed (something about many viruses and a root boot kit? a root booter? something bad....) and is going to drop it off today and pick up a healthy, chubby little check. sadly, little of it is going toward fun stuff....seija is starting her new preschool on the 4th and it's going to be 120$ more a month until she's fully poopin' on the potty. after that it will drop down to just 70$ more a month. bah. preschool should be free!

so, anyway, the extra money will be heading toward her new school, some new shoes for her, and the paying off of a credit card and a few other bills. i like when surprise money finds its way into the kitty. indeed.

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i'm thinking about putting an ILL dvd on and letting that specific type of joy fill the house. we all, you know, do so love lucy.

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only 4 hours to write this entry. wow.

in that space of time, much has happened! food's cookin', the cats are being taunted by birds, and i've discovered there is NO coffee in the house. omg. omgx2. what are i going to dooooooooooo?

Here is Part 24, in which there is a parade. Which comes across like bad fanfic.

Here also is Part 25, in which the Wintergreen Witch comes to a bizarre conclusion.

And finally, Part 26, in which the whole story comes to kind of a stupid end, honestly.

I would have ditched the Cinnamon Bear somewhere around episode 16 I think. He's a jackass. And the bickering between him and Crazy Quilt once they got to Santa's place was obnoxious. But there you have it.

The whole thing will remain on my site here:

http://www.velcrohead.com/cinnamon/

if you want to pull it down.

Here's what I have been doing/feeling/thinking between yesterday at 4 p.m. and today at 4 p.m. Time is on a 24 hour clock, so 13:00 is 1:00 p.m., 16:00 is 4:00 p.m. etc.

• 07:04 Appointment attended, errand run, and McRib eaten. On my way home to feed the other set of beasts #

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Here's what I have been doing/feeling/thinking between yesterday at 4 p.m. and today at 4 p.m. Time is on a 24 hour clock, so 13:00 is 1:00 p.m., 16:00 is 4:00 p.m. etc.

• 08:25 House one: beasts fed and watered and accounted for. Next stop: appointments and errands #
• 13:59 Appointment attended, errand run, and McRib eaten. On my way home to feed the other set of beasts #
• 14:09 The hardware store has a lil red wagon for sale. Is it wrong for me to totally want one for Christmas at age 36? #

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I'm defining "Out All Night" stories as stories where the protagonist(s) leave the safety of their home and normal routine and spend all night having some sort of adventure, returning to home/safety/normality by the next morning. Examples include:

The book After Dark by Haruki Murakami

The movie Eyes Wide Shut

The movie After Hours

The movie New Jack City

The movie Adventures in Babysitting (sort of)

The movie The Warriors

Any others you can think of?

Seriously?

Fucking seriously?

Here's what I have been doing/feeling/thinking between yesterday at 4 p.m. and today at 4 p.m. Time is on a 24 hour clock, so 13:00 is 1:00 p.m., 16:00 is 4:00 p.m. etc.

• 17:13 @JeepsGirl71 Dork! lol #

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But, anyone want to hit up Lupies tonight???

Watched the GI Joe movie today...

So its a big budget chop-socky movie. It was never going to be anything resembling a masterpeice, and we got exactly what it was a toy tie-in movie playing to the next generation toys and the nostalgia of us 80's kids.

Although I have to say, that when they story-boarded the movie, surely someone in the room must have been aware of Team America and should have mentioned this when they thought that blowing the shit out of Paris and the Eiffel Tower was a good idea.

Because quite frankly the two movies are pretty interchangable...

"No Hawk, dont listen to the Baroness. Shes only ACTING!"

So yeah, I was entertained... But unfortunately some of this entertainment came from my mind overlaying Team America dialogue at inoportune moments...

You'll have to excuse me now. Its time for a montage.

Not that anyone's complained. Still.

Episode 21
Episode 22
Episode 23

In which the twins meet a big fat man, there is much jollility (yes that is a word shut up) and a whole lot of filler occurs.

This is just too frakking cool.

Apologies for my lack of formatting-fu: you may want to click through to YouTube for best effect. And giant props to Jessica Stover (of the very cool Artemis Eternal for totally making my day!



John

So. The snow came, and laid it on thick. And almost immediatly the system broke down and travel chaos ensued...

Now I know that there are those of you on the Continent, or over in the USA and Canada who can lay claim to much, much thicker snow than anything the UK can give, but the thing is that we have 2 factors at play here that made this situation worse.

1. It was unexpected. Its christmas week, and quite frankly we have not had a white christmas since (I think) 1973... Shit, I couldn't even rememeber that one what with being 1 at the time.
But lets face it, as a nation we have become acclimatised to the ideal that a white christmas was not really very likely...

2. The UK has the gulfstream, and this affects the weather systems of this little island, and as a result, heavy snow is very light and often limited to only a couple of days only in the whole year. Unlike continental Europe or Northern American Continent where snow can lay and be a factor for months. This means that our driving experience is limited, and that most snow-driving precautions (specialist tyres and the like) are just not worth the money, to put on only to take 'em off again a week later.

So when you get snow like yesterday it DOES cause a certain amount of shit... Short term shit, all over everything...

For myself, I knew the car was low on petrol, so I just decided to call it quits and rather than get stranded with no fuel in the traffic jam, I just left it at work and looked to the trains. Which wasn't too bad.

The rail network was a bit late, and snow-going on foot, but eventually I made it to mum and dads.

However the roads were still gridlocked. We knew it was bad but didn't realise QUITE how bad until today...

http://www.basingstokegazette.co.uk/news/4815108.Blizzard_hits_Basingstoke/?ref=mr

Anyway, its fortunate that Li was in London yesterday, and as a result grandparents were baby-sitting, and so getting to their house put the whole family together, and eventually we just decided to call it quits on that and settled down for the night... Which it seems was several times better than many other people had it.

All in all, we ended up not getting home until about 1pm today. After a change and a shower I didn't see the point in getting to work. So I'll go in tomorrow. With any luck being that close to crimbo, we wont be seeing many people bothering to go in and I'll have a reasonably clear run on nicely gritted roads all the way home with a piot-stop for petrol.

And I think if this happens regularly snow chains for tyres might be a good idea...

I am so fucking annoyed at my parents right now. Well not just right now, have been for some time, I'm just having to actually deal with it right now.

Whats the problem? My mother has suddenly decided that my decision to have dogs instead of children is fine, but she doesn't want them at her house. As you could imagine, this makes visiting Miami for more than one day kind of a PAIN IN THE ASS. I know it's all because the last three pets she's had (two are now passed on) have been a feral cat that never truly became domesticated, a 125 pound dog that had a bunch of health issues, and a 90 pound dog (that's still alive) that is neurotic about storms, so she has to be chained at night (or during a bad storm) so she'll stay in her very nice doghouse and not try to escape and get hit by a car.

But fucking A, it's not like I'm asking to move back in with them, it's two fucking days, and I know she would never act this way if it was a child I was bringing with me. Even though one single child is more trouble than three of the dogs combined considering the Beagles want to lay around all day and the Little Brown Julie is afraid of her own shadow and would barely move away from the other dogs. Oh yeah, and the two days I want to stay? CHRISTMAS AND MY FUCKING BIRTHDAY. I can so feel the love.

Right now I'm waiting to hear back from her and my friend Adiam to see if she'll reconsider or if his offer to let us keep the dogs at his place is still on the table.

Just fucking pisses me off.

victortenzin was looking at the calendar this morning, and then said to me "Chinese-Americans celebrate Haunnakah, but Mexican-Americans like us like Kwanza."

Then he got mad at me for laughing.

So, the roads are gridlocked, hell, looking out the window, the damn car-park jammed too. So what with all this snow panicing people left and right.

What are the odds on a white christmas now... First since god knows when?

Or. Do you think it'll warm up a bit and start raining on Wednesday and melt the bastard snow so that we cant even get that out of it?