Spinning on that dizzy edge

...is what my library suggested as a search term when I mistyped "Bette Midler Friends". I was disappointed to find, though, that they didn't actually have any listings for "Butte Milder Friends". Way to lead me on, library! I remain amused that all the CDs I've looked for are in "Easy Listening". Tell that to 10-year-old me, who found it hard at times to sit through hours of Barbra and Bette and Judy, and wished her parents were into cool old bands like the Beatles. :)

The music hunt is to fill in some missing songs for what I hope to be a 20 minute photo collage vid for the anniversary party. I have about a week left before I enter the party/VVC Thunderdome, and I'm at minute 7. It feels weird to be throwing photos at the timeline instead of moving footage, like it's almost cheating. But in trying to build a loosely chronological narrative, I'm missing a chunk of about a decade, so I'm raiding my own photo albums trying to fill in the gap. Clipping is a pain, no matter the source. I'm also talking myself down from the ledge that my parents' reaction will be a bland "That's nice, dear", or "Well. That happened." Stop caring, self! Just do it!

The job queue was blessedly slow this morning, so I spent hours cleaning up email, both work and personal. Signing a lot of online polls and such result in a ton of political email; I had to resort to some mass deletions just to be able to see legit messages. I can breathe now and not click away from that tab in a panic.

Tomorrow, if the weather and other random acts behave, I should be getting a new patio poured. I still have to clear off the crap huddled on the small remaining patch of concrete so it can get broken up and replaced. Progress, please!

All in all, not a bad Monday. I hope you all had at least a fair one as well.

Well, the Fembots vid has been submitted to the VVC queue, hopefully arriving in a viewable fashion. I'm not done done with it; the credits are bare bones, there are still a few clips that need tweaking, and I have vidder's remorse of sources that didn't get included but should have. I winced even as I hit submit, because I knew if I didn't let it go I'd be tweaking things and re-rendering into the wee hours of the morning, and I was already past the deadline. Plus, I'm paranoid about the sizing and aspect ratio; I have no idea how much Sony Vegas automagically took care of for me in stringing together the completely disparate sizes, and if it's going to appear acceptably or as utter garbage on the projection screen. (Holy crapballs, was it a wide range of sizes!)

Many thanks to sabaceanbabe and kass for supportive squee, and jetpack_monkey for valuable source info and feedback. You guys are the best! Also, much love and gratitude to my husband for putting up with me pouring all my free time into my endeavor, and watching new versions and cheering me on as I wondered if it was worth it.

But for now, I can let my brain idle back down from my obsessive 24/7 vid-focus and actually get some other stuff done, like my reading page, the emails that have stacked up, and, I dunno, some actual work for this job that pays me.

...Wait, how do I do this life thing again?

OK, it's not as bad as that. But this kind of grey (or rather dark, now that DST is done), gloomy, rainy weather is best appreciated from the comforts of my couch, with a blanket and some form of chocolate in hand.

I have several long and/or thinky posts in my head. This is not one of them. This is a "I have got to close some of these tabs I wanted to share before Firefox blows up" post.

David Hewlett posting covetous pictures of his son's shoes ("I know That thou shalt not covet thy sons running shoes...but they're Darth Vader light-up ones!") makes me all kinds of happy. One, because he again proves that he is a geek after my own heart. Two, I want a pair for me, and Three, because the Emperor would love those, too. (Though after reading the negative reviews, I think I'd be nervous about buying them.)

This interview with Kevin Murphy about Caprica is fascinating, as he talks about working with Jane Espenson, the problems in their storytelling, the process of writing, and overall making me :( that we never got to see what they had planned for the future. Even if you didn't watch Caprica or BSG, it's still a great article about sci-fi shows, writing for TV, and how advertising can adversely affect the path of a show.

This link (from inlovewithnight, I think?) about giving yourself permission to eat was both good and hard to read. It's a topic I struggle with basically every day. I wish I could rush out and show this to everyone, and internalize it myself at the same time. I hope it's one of those issues that repeated exposure will make it easier to adopt.

Wil Wheaton shared this link of an acoustic guitar duo named Rodrigo y Gabriela playing their hearts out. I love everything about this performance: their energy, the intricacy of the playing, the woman's enthusiastic percussive guitar playing (just look at her smile as she sweats!), and the delight of the audience.

Also, can someone explain why I can view YouTube links here at work through Google+ and through Gmail, but not YouTube directly, and how I can exploit this to view anything from YouTube? Right now, I can view embedded video and anything that comes up on the Recommended list or whatever YouTube calls the related videos, but I can't input a search. I love that it works (it's a pleasant relief from the relentless Big Brothering of my network access), I just want to bend it further to my own needs. *grin*

I don't own an iPad or iPhone or anything of that ilk, but with apps like this Warehouse 13 Farnsworth Video Communicator, I really, really want one. (Original messages from Artie and Claudia! What's not to love?)

Now I need to go home and similarly relieve my DVR by watching and deleting some of my saved shows. Too much TV to watch is not the worst problem to have.

I am determined to not obsess about having gotten one (really wonderful, but still only one) person's feedback to one of my stories, and none to the other. It bugs me much less than it would have in the past, and realizing that makes the lack of attention almost worthwhile. (See? Not obsessing.)

I earned so many Responsible Adult/Parent Points over the weekend I'm still chuffed - you know, those pats on the back you give yourself that you can actually handle this Grownup thing. I cleaned off the kitchen table, desk, and counter. (For as often as those surfaces get cluttered up, I should install force fields on them or something.) The Emperor and I worked on pasting party info in his birthday invitations. I achieved Halloween decoration level 1 (tablecloth, flags out front, gel clings on the windows, and door decorations), and the Halloween tote is ready to be decanted for levels 2 and 3. I had sushi with friends, pushed the husband to take the Emperor to the Vet Clinic Open House to see animals, and then whisked the Emperor off to a local author reading at a library, and then went to the other big library to get Scooby-Doo books. While he read those to himself back at home and the husband waved me off, I did the grocery shopping. Later that night, I finished up the invites, addressed them, finished the other paperwork due for kindergarten today and got it all in his bag ready for this morning. Whew!

Tomorrow the husband and I are meeting with the Emperor's teacher to map out a plan for how to steer him on the Path of Good Days. It would be lovely to hear that he's been awesome, but I'm not expecting that to be the case. Then next week we meet the Building Intervention person. Then we enter the holiday whirlwind, starting with the Emperor's birthday (he's going to be six! How did that ever happen?), and proceeding right into me being the designated social coordinator and therefore bad guy for snubbing one side of the family or the other. Some things you can never win.

No wonder time is flying by so fast!

I am officially tired of being a Responsible Adult. (Though considering how I've spent my afternoon, a completely irresponsible worker drone.) Pardon me whilst I whinge about my first-world problems...

Today I have had to research:

1. How to get the Emperor into kindergarten. You see, my enlightened town has this wonderful system called "Controlled Choice", which they claim "gives parents and guardians of all students the opportunity to apply for admission to a variety of elementary and middle schools, each with its own unique learning environment." It basically translates to, "Hey, sorry you specifically bought a house in a nice section of town so your kids could go to the good schools, because a random lottery will determine your pick, hopefully from one of the top 3 choices you indicated, but we make no guarantees." Oh, and the school board just announced that they've been forced to implement cutbacks in the teacher/support personnel population, so we'll be getting even LESS than we paid for. Thanks, Blago, for your stunning leadership and fiscal responsibility here in Illinois!

2. Online appraisals of my house and surrounding real estate, in preparation for getting our mortgage refinanced. The three sites I checked for our property had a range in estimated current values from a little over the original purchase price to twice that. Sure, I'd love for my home to have doubled in value, but somehow...I don't think that's what happened.

3. What outstanding charges we have left to claim against my medical flexible spending account. This includes glasses, prescriptions, my CPAP, and office visit copays. Of course, obtaining records of the smallest charges were easy, while getting copies of the big ones have met delay after delay. I was very happy that this was the Emperor's healthiest year on record (1 prescription and only a few office visits), but the trending from his earlier years threw my budget way out of whack. I really suck at guesstimating. Worst case scenario, I might be getting last-minute contacts and maybe even some dental work to try and use up the whole FSA by the end of the week. Oooo, or maybe I could get a his-and-hers visit to the chiropractor.

Bah. I hate paperwork. I haven't even touched the taxes yet.

Stupid Mondays.

Spring trying to muscle its way into the Midwest always comes off as schizophrenic. Yesterday was a prime example: sunshine, pouring rain, sunshine, pouring, cycling through at least once or twice an hour, to a rousing climax of pea-sized hail in the afternoon, followed by more sunshine and rain. Now we're looking at temps in the 80s at the end of the week. I can just hear my garden basking and preening in satisfaction.

I'm sorry that I've been so grouchy lately. Days like yesterday, where Monday tries to outdo itself in sheer Mondaycity, does not help in the least.

( Newsflash: Mondays suck. Also, fire indeed hot. )

Oh, and also on the glasses front...I've spent way more time than is good for my sanity dinking around with several online glasses vendors (with many thanks to byrneout for providing that link so long ago), only to find that all those testimonials of "I got new glasses for $30!" doesn't apply to people with ridiculously defective vision like the Emperor and me.

I finally found a site that let me order a spare pair for him so we can send his current scratched-to-hell ones back. (A lot of the sites either don't carry kids' sizes or don't provide correction for eyes past +/- 7.5 or so.) I'm hoping that they'll work out well for him, as I'm gambling a lot of money on non-returnable merchandise. At that, they'll still be a ton cheaper than a second, non-insurance covered pair.

MONDAY: WHY SO DIFFICULT?

Seriously, for a Monday, today was beyond tolerable and well into satisfactory.

( When Mondays don't attack )

( The chocolate is also cursed )

( I am not a merry maid. )

( Pacification Elimination Renumeration )

Oh, and just to top off this ramble...a link from inlovewithnight. As she put it, Presidential politics as a D&D campaign. The campaigners campaign and complain. samwize and garrity, you two especially should check this out.

And now I really must be going.

I amused the hell out of a friend recently when I told him that I had been watching the Olympics. "I thought you didn't like sports!" he commented. "Well, I didn't watch the team sports, I watched the graceful and artistic parts!" I replied.

Gymnastics, both artistic and rhythmic, will always thrill and fascinate me. How do they bend like that? How can they put that much stress and wear'n'tear on their bodies with smiles on their faces? It's like ballet dancers getting hardcore. Plus, let's face it -- all that muscle in posed display is just damned beautiful. Male gymnast shoulders in iron crosses, female long legs in extension...*purrrr*

The diving was also incredible. How does a person's mind and body move that fast in unison to complete those insanely tricky twists and turns? Boggling.

Of course, I watched Michael Phelps swim. I don't think I could have avoided it if I tried. Really, though, it wasn't too bad a hardship. *grin*

I always love watching the strength events like discuss and shotput, because those bodies aren't built for grace or speed, but brute strength in narrowed focus. There's also the "Who the hell thought up this event?" ones like the human steeplechase. It's like a bunch of people said "Screw the horses, let's splash through the puddles ourselves!".

If it came down to choosing which Olympic event in which I'd have the best chance of doing well, I think I'd either go for the shotput or maybe rowing, because heaven knows I've got the muscles.

If I got to create my own wacky event, I'd love to compete in Brainstorming and Creative Idea Linking. I'd so kick ass in that.

What would be your ideal Olympic events, real and created?

The problem with a 3-day weekend is the recovery afterwards. It's nice to not have a day of running after the Emperor, but my mental capacity is hovering on Empty. It may be Tuesday, but it reeks of Monday.
( Mini-vacation: St. Louis was kewl. )
Hope you all had an enjoyable weekend! I'm gearing up for the long, hard wait until Shore Leave.

Just when I thought I was out of the illin' zone...I've got a drippy back of the throat thing going on. *sigh*

Taking a cue from the family Hot Toddy recipe, I've been experimenting with mixtures of tea and booze. SoCo and tea? Yummy. Brandy and tea? A classic. Tonight's offering is tea and cherry wine. It's somewhere between an extra fruity mulled wine and a hot sangria. Very tasty, in any case, especially in my Farscape mug.

The Emperor requested "Don't Lets Start" as one of his bedtime songs tonight, and the last I heard from him, he was sleepily mumbling it to himself. He and his daddy were singing "Snail Shell" at dinner. It's been a very TMBG couple of days.

Random crappy politics things are going on at work, but I can't give a damn. I'm firmly in "nod and smile" land. This may change, but for now, I'm doing OK.

Time for more tea.