Wednesday, July 25, 2007

So. Many. Boxes.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

NO SPOILERS, I promise

Just finished the last Harry Potter book. I liked it. Please don't post spoilers in the comments here, either, out of courtesy to the folks who haven't finished reading.

I feel strangely listless now. Dunno why exactly. I think some of it is the experience of knowing something is truly over. Don't get me wrong--I like it when creative endeavours have an ending. Otherwise they tend to just blunder on until they're crushed under their own weight (see, for example, the books of Laurell K. Hamilton, the poor thing). I'm glad that J.K. Rowling decided that she would write seven books and wrote seven books. It's just that I keep having great ideas for my next HP costume and then remembering that there won't be another launch party because there won't be another book. I remember feeling sort of the same when Buffy the Vampire Slayer went off the air, because even though I felt the show was floundering, I'd been watching those characters for a long time and I cared about them. I also missed the experience of watching with my friends. It's fun to have some common culture stuff to bat around.

I suppose I should now turn my attention to the slightly more pressing matter of packing everything in my apartment. Sigh.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

potter party and one picture that will horrify Jennifer

On the eve of the release of the final book in the Harry Potter series, how could we do less? So here's our Harry:



and his archnemesis (children fled before Lord Voldemort...except for two girls who poked him in the face, declared "You have no powers!" and then decided that they could defeat him with teen magazines)



Professor Trelawny



who apparently saw a dark portent in the tea



Dobby




Professor McGonnagle



The Fat Lady from the Gryffindor common room portrait



The Fat Lady and Moaning Myrtle



Beauxbatons chicks dig Quidditch players. It's true.



aaaaand, me with my new boyfriend Merlin. Oh my god, I love Merlin so much. I missed him all day today. I now want a snake, which is not an experience I ever expected to have. Too bad I don't have a picture of spook with the tarantula...

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

happy anniversary

Sometimes, in order to get my attention, the universe has to be a bit unsubtle. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that my marriage started with a fortune cookie.

"Stop searching everywhere" it read, "happiness is just next to you."

I looked up at spook, who was at that point not yet my partner, and thought "uh oh."

Indeed.

For the last couple of years, I've been wearing my mom's wedding ring, because at the time of our barbecue, rings were at the bottom of our financial priorities. I was pretty surprised when spook pulled this out at dinner last night. Finally I too can squee over my ring! Eeeee!




Ahem. Well, that's that then.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

before and...during.

I promised you pictures, and pictures you shall have, even though they are at this point pretty boring. This is our new house! I have spent the last two days painting and cleaning. Much, much more cleaning awaits, but the painting is mostly done.




This room with the brownish walls (they're quite a bit grayer in a non-flash light) is our bedroom. The room with the one green wall is the den, and I think y'all can figure out which one is the kitchen.



Wednesday, July 11, 2007

but what do I do if it's a *fashion* emergency?

Our employer has generously signed a bunch of us up to do basic first aid training, so I spent my day today in a conference room, rehearsing all the horrible things that might happen on my watch. Observations so far:

1) Nobody in the first aid videos ever appears to be in a hurry. Um, your coworker? Has just collapsed and isn't breathing. Perhaps a little rushing is in order. I understand one is not to go charging into an emergency situation without assessing possible risk, but I don't think that applies to walking briskly toward a phone to dial 911.

2) Apparently, as per the videos, every work place has a first aid kit right next to wherever an accident is about to occur! Isn't that awesome? No video for us of panicky people scrambling across a crowded sales floor to try and get the gloves out of the kit that's aaaaall the way over there.

3) I am better equipped than I thought I would be to do two solid minutes of chest compressions and rescue breathing, but I sure wouldn't want to have to do it for very long. It's hella hard work.

4) Blood onscreen? Dizziness and trembling. Blood in real life? Calm, reasonable response. Adrenaline is a strange strange thing.

5) I really missed my calling as a drill sergeant. Ask Benny, who had to listen to me count off his CPR. He very graciously did not punch me in the mouth, for which I commend him.

AAAAH! A BEETLE! A HUGE FUCKING--

Ahem. Excuse me. There was a slight incident of enormous terrifying beetle. We now resume our regular blog posting.

So yeah, aside from a monstrous tension headache brought on by the possibility of being responsible for people's lives, I'd say today went okay. We're going to be covering brain injury in the next class, which is Friday. Lucky us.
First aid is something I've been meaning to do for ages now, and I'm actually very grateful for the opportunity to learn, because in my experience, knowing you have to be responsible is bad, but not as bad as feeling responsible and having no idea what to do. And this way, when the zombies come, I'll have a slightly better chance of making it out alive.

It all comes back to zombies.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

how I don't know what I should do with my hands when I talk to you/ how you don't know where you should look so you look at my hands

Weird, gray, rainy day. I'm doing laundry, which you wouldn't normally think of as a melancholy activity. I can feel myself getting ready to miss this place, though, and it sucks.

I'm thirty-two and so far I have moved, on average, more than once a year for every year of my life. This apartment put a real dent in my stats, though. Depending on how you count it, there's only one place in my life I've lived in longer. I expected to feel panicky, but instead I'm just sad.

Don't get me wrong--I'm very excited about the next part of my life. I'm excited about our house, and about living with spook and Lizbeth, and about negotiating the hijinks of our many, many cats. I look forward to filling our home with new memories and soaking the walls with laughter. But this strange, beautiful, work-in-progress apartment has been my refuge, and it's harder to leave it than I would have guessed.

Growing is just being broken open, and healing again around a new space you couldn't encompass before. If home is where the heart is, I'll take it with me.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

home sweet home

After much grumbling, agonizing, and poring over online classifieds, we are the proud new renters of a house. A whole house. I'm so...grateful, I had really forgotten how stressful it is to look, not having done it since Sarah and I were searching for what turned out to be House of Chicks.
The skinny on the place: it's two storeys with an unfinished basement, a backyard, front parking pad and a giant shed. There are three bedrooms, living and dining rooms, and the kitchen, as well as a weird little nook in the front of the house which might once have been an enclosed porch. I will put up pictures as soon as we get in and start getting it put together--we take possession on the fifteenth.

This is a very boring post mostly because Tish was the Cat of Evil from four-thirty till about six this morning, and I am subsequently very tired. I'm gonna go drink celebratory wine and watch When Harry Met Sally.