electricland

I have found my ideal bed.

Sadly, it costs over $5000, so... that won't be happening, unless I win the lottery, which isn't likely as I don't play the lottery.

This one is also lovely, and at only $2000 looks like a bargain by comparison. Still. No.

Maybe I can fake one of them somehow? Must ponder this.

(My house is still very unfinished, and I thought it would be a good idea to go hunting for things I like the look of. Sadly this appears to have backfired on me. Well, at least I can lead a rich fantasy life.)

Apparently the source of my fruit fly infestation is the bag of forgotten, melty potatoes under the sink.

ohgod.

I really need to develop a better housekeeping system. Whining that it's not my fault because we always had cleaners while I was growing up is not cutting it (and also makes me feel like an over-entitled princess, which I don't think I am, mostly).

Sent Blue out for his last trip of the evening to the back yard just after 11 last night. He puttered around, came back, then shot out again; we heard some clanging and swearing (no lights back there yet) and then he shot back in making funny noises. Jen said "What's in his mouth?" He'd taken refuge under her desk, so I went to look, and immediately realized he'd been hit by a skunk at point-blank range. He was foaming at the mouth and sitting hunched over and miserable and the smell was indescribable.

Naturally I failed to grab him in time and he took off upstairs, pausing to drip skunk-laden drool on every rug. I left him be for a bit and called the vet emergency clinic (who said "It's not toxic to them, it's just an irritant -- try to flush out his mouth with water"). Jen meanwhile called her parents, who Googled. The top home remedy, peroxide and baking soda and dish detergent, seemed a little toxic for use on an animal, and in any case we didn't have any peroxide. Second choice, for animals' faces, was over-the-counter vaginal douche (who knew?) but we didn't have any of that either. So we wrestled him into the bath (after a brief and unsuccessful interlude with the kitchen sink) and did our best to flush his mouth using a turkey baster and lots of water (never have I so wished for a flexible showerhead).

Eventually we had to stop because he was looking so miserable it seemed cruel to go on. John arrived to help with a bit of cleaning and collect Jen and Tilde, whose bedroom is right next to Ground Zero and who therefore needed somewhere else to sleep. I mopped my floors and bagged all potentially contaminated clothes and towels and turned on all the extractor fans in the house and then, as it was by this time getting on for 1 a.m., decided to go to sleep and deal with the rest in the morning. It seemed like a good use of a personal day.

In the morning the smell didn't seem too bad, but the trouble is you become habituated to the stuff quite quickly in self-defence. I leaned over and discovered Blue sleeping by the foot of my bed, and when I got close to him he still smelled vile, so OK, more work needed. I took him for our usual walk and when I got back John and Helen and Jen and Tilde were preparing to come over for a massive cleaning blitz (Jen had realized as they drove away in the car that in no way had she and Tilde escaped the stench just by leaving the house).

Anyway, we cleaned the dog and the house and ourselves all morning, and I have done tons of laundry and showered and I bet I still smell of skunk without realizing it, but thank goodness for family. Himself has managed to wrench his back leg -- all that struggling out of bathtubs, I bet -- but it doesn't seem too bad; I'll watch it for a day or so before taking him to the vet.

So! How are you all?

For all you fellow bitches: Andi Zeisler of Bitch Magazine talks about That Word. (Via Salon Broadsheet.)

Pretty good weekend -- surprisingly productive, now I look back on it. I did laundry and changed my sheets and helped order siding and went to a party and to choir practice and played Kill Dr. Lucky and bought groceries and cooked chicken stock and chicken chili and sewed more ornaments. And I had another stab at clearing extraneous Stuff, this time out of the third floor. Much of it is now strewn around the second floor, which is not ideal, but at least it's getting more concentrated.

Something rather appalling happened to a friend of mine, though -- she got home from work Friday to discover that her boyfriend, who'd been living with her for about a year, had decamped with all his stuff. No note, no message. They'd had a nice birthday dinner for her the night before. Who does that? It's making me seriously question my judgement, because I thought he was a really nice, standup kind of guy -- as did she, obviously. I'm having trouble knowing what to think.

Books read this week:

Girl at Sea, Maureen Johnson
Magic's Child, Justine Larbalestier
A Stranger at Green Knowe, Lucy M. Boston (life_on_queen! Gorilla alert!)
Working for the Devil, Lilith Saintcrow (I had some issues -- such as, if she told me one more time that Secondary Character E was large, blond and shaggy, I was going to have to scream -- but not bad for a first novel)
Voices, Ursula K. Le Guin
Pants on Fire, Meg Cabot

[Edited November 20 to add links and the following] After finishing the last -- which, btw, I really enjoyed, so this is not a slam -- I realized that another reason I have come to adore Cecil Castellucci as much as I do is that she doesn't write romances. There is a limited range of happy endings for women in fiction, and I'm all in favour of those who expand them at every opportunity. Not, you understand, that I'm against romances -- I love 'em -- but it's nice to come across a happy ending once in a while that doesn't involve True Love.

Spent most of the weekend volunteering at Planet in Focus -- Friday and Saturday evenings at the Royal, and Sunday afternoon at Innis. I discovered that the Royal's box office is effectively a cone of silence, albeit one the wind whistles through in disconcerting fashion; it's almost impossible to communicate anything remotely complex to a patron even if she presses her ear up to the little hole.

Managed to watch two movies during all this. Il Giardino was charming and made me want to instantly eat tomatoes and roast red peppers I'd grown in my own garden. Maybe next year. The panel discussion afterward had maybe one too many panelists, although I did learn the intriguing fact that one group has estimated Toronto could theoretically grow, at a minimum, half its yearly food requirement within its own borders. That was cool. And Sounds of Sand was just bloody heartbreaking.

In back deck progress, Jen and John have built steps down to the basement (reportedly -- I haven't inspected yet). Tilde spent Sunday morning a quivering mass of nerves because they were doing things OUTSIDE. With POWER TOOLS. She greeted me with tremendous relief and spent half an hour trying to cut off my air supply with her cheek. I may have mentioned that Tilde is just a fraction neurotic at times.

I'm quite looking forward to restoring my sleep schedule from the wreckage the World Series has made of it.

Books read this week:
The Seeing Stone, Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi (book 2 of the Spiderwick Chronicles)
Turkish Delight, Rosemary Edghill (fun although not stellar, a bit like The Grand Sophy if Sophy Stanton-Lacy had been brought up in the harem of the Grand Turk)
Sex as a Second Language, Alisa Kwitney (seriously fun and very hot; I'm now working through her back catalogue)
...God, is that all? I just took a stack of books back to the library but of course a lot of them were from last week. And I've got a few pages into about four others. Chugging along.

I'm not as young as I used to be. Evidence: I was fried yesterday as a result of staying up to an hour that 10 years ago I would not have considered particularly late. The advantage of my job is now I understand what's going on in my brain when this happens (or at least I have a plausible explanation): brain gets tired, inhibitory centres don't work as well, impulse control gets way worse. Result: I am easily distracted, impulsive, chatty, slow, and think everything's a crisis.

Witness my after-work experience. I tried to buy a file cabinet online from Staples yesterday. It was out of stock. (Crisis!) Headed down to the Staples on University after work and on the way spotted a cute dress in the window of a store. (Distractibility!) Went in to try it on. (Impulsivity!) Didn't buy it. (Luckily not too much impulsivity.) Talked to the furniture guy at Staples ("keep trying"). Wandered down to wait for the streetcar on Queen. No streetcar. Walked along to Ben and Jerry's (distractibility again) and ordered a scoop of Cherry Garcia. The girl said "Small scoop or large?" I said "Large." (Impulsivity again.) Ate my ice cream in the little park behind the food court. Hey, there's the Umbra store! (Distractibility. Hey, it's bright pink.) Went in, bought a curtain hanging set for my closet (impulsivity, but at least I'd decided the night before that's what I needed). Not, however, before wandering around and admiring everything in the store. (Slow!) Finally went home, where Jen made me eat and watch Topper (which it turns out is at least partly about the transformative power of great underwear) before we went upstairs to sort out all the bits of plywood for the bookcase, a task I'd been dreading but which turned out to be not as horrendous as I'd feared -- turns out obsessive planning sometimes pays off further down the line. (Today my parents will be building! AND I was able to order the filing cabinet just now. So all in all life is good.)

And then I slept. Sweet sweet sleep! All better now.

Jen and John have been making great progress on the back deck. Today, apparently, they will try to make it waterproof. Most exciting.

Weekend of much puttering. But productive puttering.

Friday evening: party for life_on_queen at Jen's parents' house. A fine time was had by all, at least they said they had a fine time and they sounded quite sincere. We seem to have done OK on the food and drink end of things; about a case of wine left over, which John and Helen are buying from us, and a lot of cheese and some bread and spinach and grape tomatoes and the remnants of The Ham. And, for some reason, basil. Not, however, any of the salmon or lasagna, which were inhaled. We delegated the food to an extent where we didn't actually have to cook, which was awesome. And people said I looked nice. (It was my parents and Jen's Aunt Jane. I trust them.)

Saturday: Nursed my hangover by going to the gym, where the owner talked me into new workout pants (she enticed me with pants that are actually long enough. Fiendish). Then went to Sunset Grill to offset all that healthiness. Then went home and had a bath. Tried and failed to nap. Failed to help with party cleanup. Did three loads of laundry. Changed my sheets. Ironed. Moved some sheets and towels from the bottom drawer of my chest of drawers. Moved my sweaters from the bottom shelf of my wardrobe to the chest of drawers. Moved my spare purses from a cardboard box in the corner to the bottom shelf of the wardrobe. Pulled tarpaulin over the hole in the backyard when it started to rain, but alas not quickly enough to prevent half an inch of water from piling up. Luckily the basement did not flood.

Sunday: Removed rotting vegetable corpses from my crisper drawers and put them in the green bin. Cleaned the fridge. Cleaned the sink. Admired the progress of the garage demolition next door. Saw a ruffled-looking cardinal on its soon-to-be-nonexistent roof. Removed the raccoon poop from the not-deck outside my door. Did more ironing. Took delivery of the party leftovers (I got the bulk of them, including the basil). Ate brunch at Il Fornello with Jen and life_on_queen. Bought pillow covers, a clear box, hangers, and a small plastic locking jug. Poured more vinegar on the weeds next to the house foundations. Put smaller purses and wallets into new box. Restored order to clothing on shelves. Bought groceries. Made pesto. Made fettucine carbonara for self and life_on_queen. Watched an Inspector Lynley mystery on PBS. Hemmed my new black pants (from Mexx, which seems to build for Amazons). Drank port. Went to bed. Slept soundly.

Books read this week (not all that many, I seem to have been busy with other things): The River at Green Knowe (reread, but from so long ago it scarcely counts). Right Ho, Jeeves (reread). I'm sure there was something else, but hell if I know what. (Edit 2: Howl's Moving Castle! I knew that. I think I need to watch the movie again for comparison purposes. I'm pretty sure I still prefer moody-but-not-emo book!Howl.)

(Edited much letter later. Feh. Sorry. I continue to lose at HTML.) (Edit 3: and apparently spelling.)

but first: I am very excited to learn that George Brown offers courses in emergency management, and I would LOVE to take some.

On Friday I went to Enterprise (I get a discount) after work and rented Vanzilla. (Brand new, just arrived, a mere 66 km on the clock.) Took me a bit to get used to driving something so HUGE and with so few side windows, but I didn't kill anybody or squish anything and that's what counts. life_on_queen and I moved a load of stuff up to her parents' that evening (moving truism: You have more stuff than you think) and finished around 10:30. I came back early Saturday morning, with coffee, and got help parallel parking the monster in front of the apartment. Failed to read the parking sign correctly and got a ticket (you'd think I'd learn), but I choose to think of this as my offering to the parking gods because we got excellent parking for the rest of the morning. Dan and Dennis came over and we moved the furniture and the cat (poor Tully) all in excellent time for me to get Vanzilla back by noon.

Then life_on_queen and I ate breakfast and went to MEC. Always a happy thing. I bought a (basic, but decent) compass and two pairs of pants and some tops and some Clif bars and evidently spent enough that it raised the eyebrows of Visa, but I think I am mostly all set for England now.

And then I went home and figured I had basically accomplished plenty for the weekend and could stop now. I did get up in time to pick up my dry-cleaning and my photos and some library books, and made a long list of things to do of which I achieved about half. I did cook: vegetable biryani (laziest method possible including frozen vegetables) and sorta kinda penne puttanesca (tomato sauce, tuna, capers, olives, jalapenos -- very tasty). And I watched Gilda on TVO, which was fantastic although I found the ending troubling. Rita Hayworth rocked that part, however.

Yesterday I got sucked in by Sudoku and Eva Ibbotson, but I did manage to paint the annoying plaster patch in my kitchen so my kitchen is back to normal now, hurray!

Vanzilla gave me a bruise on the outside of my left thigh from hopping out of the cab so often. Ow.

Books read this week: She Went All the Way (OK, cute but not a keeper -- pretty ordinary). Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (started off feeling intimidated, and I still feel I was never that cool and together, but I loved it -- they've both been slightly maimed by their respective exes, and they're as uncertain as you'd expect teenagers to be, and they spend most of the middle of the book utterly out of sync with each other and it works out in the end). What the Lady Wants (reread). Madensky Square (lovely -- a very unconventional romance, and one of her love letters to Vienna). I'm forgetting something. Although maybe not, it was a pretty full week. (Edit: Swordspoint! *headslap* Which I reread for the first time in years and years and years -- I originally bought it for the pretty Tom Canty cover but didn't really cleave to it. Liked it much better this time around especially in light of The Privilege of the Sword.)

Returned to the library only partly read because someone else had it on hold but I think I have the gist: Inequality Reexamined.

Harry Potter: Picked it up from the library, read it in one 6-hour chunk from about 6:20 on (with pauses to move around the house in search of a more comfortable spot). I liked it -- much more than the last two, in fact, which I found a hard slog and which didn't manage to stick in my brain. Surprisingly good and surprisingly moving.

It continues to be hot. I finally figured out that my fan was turning the wrong way; fixing this enabled me to sleep. (Note to self: clockwise is the way that makes the breeze.) Would've been nice if I'd worked it out a few hundred pages sooner, though. And (possible TMI coming up) I finally caved and waxed my legs myself this morning so I could wear skirts; couldn't take another day of this heat in pants, and it was becoming obvious I wasn't going to get around to getting someone else to do it. MUCH better this way.

I have a giant bug bite of some kind on my thigh. Cortisone cream has stopped the itching, thank goodness.

I'm in love with my window seat. My mother made a mattress for it and I have a zillion throw cushions and I can lie there in front of the windows and survey the passing scene and read for hours. It is THE BEST (even though I still haven't found quite the right fabric to cover the mattress).

Internet service at work continues ridiculously patchy. Up, down, up, down. It's one thing for LJ, which I shouldn't be on in any case, but sometimes I need the ACTUAL INTERNET for ACTUAL WORK, dammit.

Distressed to hear of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis.

Potterwatch: 125 of 4078.

House: We've finished the masonry! Did some backfilling yesterday afternoon. I dug for all of 5 minutes without gloves and got a blister. Apparently there's a reason I wear them. Next up: framing. And we're going back to Designer Discount Fabrics this evening -- with any luck I can focus sufficiently to actually buy something.

Books read this week: Harry Sue; The Android's Dream; Getting Rid of Bradley (reread, I have the original edition, the linked edition really is a terrible cover); The Moon-Spinners (reread; DUDE, least accurate book description EVER); Zorro.

Books returned to the library without finishing because someone else wanted them: Magic for Beginners.