Wondrous Apparitions, Provided by Magicians.

...I slept in until 11. Huzzah! And it's 61° out. Heat wave!

Today, I'm going to:

• Finish the outline for this year's EiR class
  
• Get gifts for the rest of my family that I'll be visiting in FL
  
• Pick up groceries
  
• Write a story (maybe)
  
• Eat leftover pastry thingies
  
• Paint my toenails
  
• Make an appointment for the Toboggan to go in for tires and repairs
  
• Write an outline for my January class on ritual consciousness
  
• Think about hanging up some of this pile of art that I have sitting about the place unframed
  
• ...and other stuff, as I think of it.

Okay, maybe not so slacker today.

EDIT: In other news, Hedgehog Launch. Take that, productivity!

The Dingo Relocation project got off to an excellent start this weekend, thanks to everybody who came out and dug holes, pounded nails, set posts, mixed concrete, etc. Saturday, we had a veritable army of folks: zylch, saffronhare and her three kids, diermuid and his three kids, archway, kaymyth, popefelix and ruisseau, and ysathora and uberreiniger. I spent most of the day managing the care and feeding of the horde. Sunday we had a much smaller crowd: zylch, ysathora and uberreiniger returned, and matchgirl42 came out as well. We got all the post holes dug (with significant assistance from the power auger that saffronhare rented for us), and about half of the posts set. It rained Sunday night and Monday morning, so we weren't able to finish the posts, but it's supposed to dry out the end of this week, so hopefully we'll be able to finish the posts by Saturday. We also finished the reclamation of boards from the old fence, and built a ton of fence panels. zylch came back on Monday to inspect the water level along the post-hole row, and we built a ton more panels, until we ran out of boards. Another supply run in the works, I'm afraid. This project has become much more expensive than I thought it would be.

It's also a lot more involved and difficult than I thought it would be. As it turns out, there's at least one small spring on our property, and the water table at the house is higher than it should be. That means that some of the post-holes are filled with water, and will need a lot more concrete than we'd planned. That also gives some insight as to why there is frequently water in the basement. I think the next outdoor project at our house is going to involve planting some very thirsty plants along the sides of the house, and possibly along the fence line.

As usual, some things got left behind in the construction process. So far, I've got diermuid's sweatshirt (which I'm going to wash), popefelix's hammer, and matchgirl42's bag of tools. Additionally, I think I have half of zylch's worldly possessions, but I know she's coming back to work on it more. :)

We still hope to have the fence completed by 6/14, in time for Dingo Relocation Day, but it might be tough. Any local folks who want to donate a few hours' labor to the benefit of doggies are welcome to drop me a line and set up a time to come out. Also, if anybody's got a truck and is able to help us pick up additional lumber and concrete, that would be good too. :)

First off, I have re-done my entire livejournal in giant squid. No reason, I just like giant squid. I thought you should know.

Second, when we got home last night, triadruid and I discovered that the toilet in the downstairs bathroom had overflowethed its cup, and the entire bathroom was in standing water. Luckily, zylch, who was there for birthday celebrations, captained a recovery effort that was both very effective and mildly disgusting. A dehumidifier was purchased, and the toilet was stopped from running by the method of turning off the water to the tank, so the immediate crisis has been overcome. I'm thinking of tearing the toilet and sink cabinet out of that bathroom and converting it to a closet. zylch was also instrumental in the planning of that project, so that I feel like it might be doable, if she and diermuid (the other master of toilets in our acquaintance) would assist.

Having solved the toilet problem to the best of our ability, we washed up and went out for sushi, which seemed like the only logical response. The sushi was good enough to largely make up for the horror of the previous hour, so all was well.

Then, kittenpants, triadruid and I went to MicroCenter, so that she could buy him a birthday present and both of us early Yule gifts. Unfortunately, we had taken so long at the toilet problem and the sushi that we really didn't have time to dig into anything. I, being a simple creature and easily distracted by shiny gadgetry, got an iPod. triadruid's gifts are still under consideration. I'm lobbying for him to upgrade his PC.

And then! When we got home, I went to download iTunes so that I could use that shiny new iPod, and discovered that technology has moved on and left me behind. Any version of iTunes new enough to work with the iPod that I got is also new enough that it will not install on my Windows 2000 box. It checks the operating system before installing, and then shuts down. I can get iTunes 7.3.2 for the 2000 box, but the iPod wants at least 7.4. I'm hoping one of you clever individuals knows a way around this problem, because I'm not keen on installing an OS that I don't want just so I can use the toy that I do want. kittenpants has the proper iTunes installed on her XP laptop, but was of the opinion that I wouldn't be able to just use that because the program was keyed to work with only one iPod. I don't know if that's true, having never messed with any of this Apple stuff, and didn't have time to test it last night, so input on that is welcomed also.

I've fallen down on my good intentions to not injure myself before going to Dragon*Con. Possibly literally. I seem to have a big bruise on my right knee from... something? I don't know what. I like to think that I notice when I injure myself, but... er... no.

Also, for extra bonus points, I burned the hell out of a couple fingers last night while making swag for kittenpants' art show panels. Note to self: Next time you say you'll do a florals project more complicated than standing some silk flowers in a vase, check to see if there's floral wire and green tape in the house. Fortunately, the thing has some gold in it, so the thin brass wire doesn't look terribly out of place, and a lot of it is covered with hot-glued on leaves (hence the burning). Looks pretty good, though. I think. It looked pretty good last night late, when I was really tired, anyway.

I'm really looking forward to the trip. In addition to all the usual Con goodness, I'll be extra excited to sleep in a place where there are no crickets. Yesterday, I killed two in the laundry room, and captured one in my bedroom and ejected it from the house, and still had one in the bathroom this morning singing its little fucking cricket legs off. triadruid tried to kill it, but it wriggled up under the toilet stool, and continued to sing just as loud, except now with a little more reverb. Crickets are rapidly rising to the status of most hated many-legged creature ever. Centipedes are really really gross, and spiders bite you on the ass, but neither of those things steals your sleep, as a general rule. I'm going to have to spray the wall between my bathroom and the laundry room. Perils of living next to the garage, I suppose.

Still to do:( Read more... )

Yesterday kind of sucked. It rained out Gaia's Beltane. So far, Beltane has been cancelled for hail, tornados, and now, flash-flooding all over the metro. Woo.

This is not the end of the greatest hits list of yesterday, though, because you also have to take into account the fact that our roof is leaking again (per N. Stephenson, it is always leaky, but at the moment it is also leaking, which is different). When the roof leaks, it leaks into the smoke detectors. When there was water in the smoke detector on the top floor of the house, it makes the smoke detector go off without cease, which sucks. So two years ago or so, we dismantled that smoke detector.

So it was sort of a surprise when the two smoke detectors on the lower level of the house went off in ear-bursting discord at 8 a.m. yesterday. We figure that the water triggered the top one, and then leaked through the system down to the bottom ones. So we dismantled them, too. Now, with any luck, we'll have a fire.

( The Good )

( The Surprising )

( The Not So Much With The Good )

( The Exciting (but not in the happy fun way) )

So, how was your weekend?

Part of the long holiday weekend at EHQ was a festival of cleaning. Being of the, well, entropic persuasion, keeping the household orderly has never been a real priority. In fact, visitors to EHQ can attest that at any given time, the house has a definite "in use" feel to it. However, we came to realize that this meant that we weren't using the space very efficiently at all. So, re-organizing began to occur. In another thread of this story, between last year and this year, I'd lost my driving gloves to said chaos, and was looking at having to either a)suffer through the winter with cold fingers or b)buy a new pair of gloves. Neither option seemed very appealing.

But lo, in the cleaning, triadruid discovered one of the gloves. And then, there I was, with the single glove in my hand, saying to myself, "Now, if only I had the other one, that would be really stellar." And then the answer came to me. I turned around, walked one step, and picked up a pile of papers that had been on my bedroom floor for awhile undisturbed. And there it was.

So what, you ask, makes this story worth repeating? Just this: The papers were leftover handouts from a class I did sometime last year on Frazier's laws of sympathetic magic. You can't make this shit up.

Step One: Move out Roommate
Step Two: Get rid of junk in basement
Step Three: Fix wall, paint
Step Four: Tear out remaining basement carpet
Step Five: Replace carpet
Step Six: Obtain couch
Step Seven: Watch movies in our own home, like we live there, or something!

Very busy weekend at EHQ... well, sort of. We started off Friday at a viewing of the space elsewhere christened "The Loft" that Gaia Community is considering moving into. It's a dump. However, it's a dump that has all the space we need and wouldn't require us to pare our worship style down to suit the landlord, so I'm willing to consider it. It's a rental, but I heard a rumor that the landlord was willing to let us rent-to-own, so again, I'm interested where I perhaps wouldn't be otherwise.

The rest of the weekend was devoted to working on the Fence of Doom and planning for the trip to DragonCon. A new breakthrough in fence technology has occurred, as Co-Worker D. was kind enough to talk her husband into loaning us his compressor and pneumatic nailer. Good times. Of course, when he showed up to bring us the equipment, we were all recently risen and not yet dressed. Oh well. The neighbors see us in our bathrobes all the time anyway. The delivery inspired us to spend some more time deconstructing the existing fence, so that part is nearly done. Now, to finish pulling boards, and start digging holes for new posts, and then,the world, actually putting up the new part of the fence.

Also, we spent some time working on Wheel of Time costumes for DragonCon. triadruid and I spent another afternoon combing the thrift stores. This yielded a black dress with a mandarin collar that will convert very nicely to an Asha'man coat for triadruid. Must say, the boy looks good in women's clothes. kittenpants ended up with the sea-green silk(ish) dress we bought last weekend, so we're getting close to done. Still to go:

• Black pants for triadruid. (super easy)
  
• Some sort of top for me, preferably sleeveless or short-sleeved, green, black, or white, and either somewhat oriental looking, or somewhat militaristic. Or something. (unknown difficulty. Tried a couple of options from our existing costumery, and liked a combination of green faire bodice and velvet top shaped to go under a sari, but it's not quite right -- too much tit showing for an Aes Sedai, and certainly too much tit for a Borderlander. This is the problem. I think that I inherently have too much tit for an Aes Sedai. Really, this should be something like a fitted and flared jacket, but I'm damned if I can find anything like that, and am looking for other options.)
  
• Shawls for kittenpants, matchgirl42, and me. (Not too hard.)
  
• Great Serpent rings for same. Spent some time last night making Sculpey mockups of the rings, on the theory that they only have to last for 12 hours. I made one that looked really nice and broke in the oven, and two that look okay but not great that survived. I gilded one of them, but I'm not entirely happy with it, as the liquid leaf I used was a more brown gold than bright gold. Maybe they'd be better with a different paint job. Or something. We'd just buy them, except that a) this will likely be the only time we ever wear them, and b) the versions of the thing that are commercially available look nothing like what I think they should look like. So the only method of getting rings that look like what I think they should look like is to make them. But I'm not sure that Sculpey is the ideal material. Suggestions welcome.
  

Also, we learned that there will be a showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show at DragonCon, which may require yet more costuming. Whee! Less than a month to go.

Two things of note for the weekend.

One is that, with kittenpants gone, triadruid and I have been having a minor festival of Doing Things She Wouldn't Want To Be Involved in. So far, we've gone to see Land of the Dead (which was a little like the civil rights movement and/or the marxist class struggle, only with zombies), cleaned in the kitchen, cut zylch's hair in the kitchen, and eaten red beans and rice. Later, there could be whiskey. We can, of course, do all of these things when she is home, but she makes faces at us for some of them, and won't kiss us after we've been drinking whiskey, so it's uncertain whether there's any percentage in it or not.

Also, triadruid has offended the water demons at EHQ. Saturday night, he looked cross-wise at the downstairs toilet while re-installing a toilet paper holder and caused it to flood in Biblical fashion. It reportedly flooded not only from the bowl, in the way of normal toilet-flooding, but also from the tank, and from underneath the bowl, just for spite. On the plus side, it was clean water.

Then, yesterday, he apparently offended the kitchen sink demons by asking the sink to function as a place where dishes could be washed. This resulted in the faucet coming out of the sink in his hands, and a piece of something underneath the sink snapping off, causing some leakage from the pipe.

I'm pretty sure we can fix the sink thing. The toilet thing may result in the demolishment of the downstairs bathroom and its conversion into a closet. Maybe. I was pretty resolute about that yesterday, but then I had to pee at 4:30 this morning and had to navigate the stairs in the dark half-asleep. So maybe some reconsideration is in order.