I kind of failed at dinner, but at least I had green beans (from the farm share!) with my frozen pizza!  

however, I made up for it with the strawbverry-rhubarb-apple-pear crisp.  I was a little worried about the apple-pear part, but I think they worked exactly like I'd hoped - maybe next time I'll cut the sugar down even more.  This was the first time I've ever cooked with rhubarb (yay for the farm share!), so I nervous about that, too.    

And on the topic of fruit crisp, here is an "adequate" haiku:

Oh! To eat raw plum!
Alas, disappointment my lot -
I prefer plum crisp.


(yes - I've now eaten a plum and a nectarine AFTER tree pollen season started and I've been OK!!!  I've also been eating apples + pears all winter, and a bunch of avocados, too.   Maybe I really can defeat the oral allergy syndrome!)

I should be loading the car - off to the Faire for the weekend again - but it's raining :(  

I haven't posted in a while - I'm trying to teach myself to be less wordy, and keep it down to a facebook status update (twitter is beyond me). 

My grandmother has let the surgeon know that she intends to be at her granddaughter's wedding in August, and then she needs to find out what happens when the Mayan calendar ends.   I guess they think she has kidney cancer.   I couldn't quite tell how hopeful the prognosis was - the email was titled "red alert", but it sounds like she'll pull through.   I want her to meet my children - preferably before that Mayan calendar ends... 

My mother did have endometrial cancer, but they found that out after they'd taken it out.  Yay!  She's doing well, for which I am very thankful. 

I'm having fun dancing at the Silver Kingdom Renaissance Festival - even if it's left me completely exhausted.  We'll be there next weekend, too - come see!  In between sets, ask for me at the booth with the 10 foot tall blue + white batik banners in front.  And look for the sets listed as Serenazhar!

We joined a farm share!  So far we've been *pretty* good about it.  I picked up our second week today, and it looks yummy!

Work is generally  boring, frustrating or both.  I think I need my otherwise awesome boss to figure out that yes, he *IS* responsible for helping us find a path through the company.  And no, that *isn't* impossible.  

Which is all the news from Lake Woebegone... 

Not that he didn't have a good long life- I thought I'd heard he was 97 a few years ago, but now I'm hearing that he passed away at 96. Although the Raddings aren't actually my ancestors, it's interesting to me that they settled in Springfield, MA.

In the usual family fashion, they didn't tell me so much as my mother made a comment about re-framing a cross stitch sampler that she'd gotten "in the box back from Uncle Earl".

Perhaps it's irony that my latest anxious obsession is a story that it was.. a bit of a faux pas to tell him, back in... well, the late 90's. I should get over it, I know.

I think I really need to STOP doing solo bellydance performances. I can never get my act together until the last minute, and it stresses me out + is NO FUN. And, I'm pretty sure my performances are not, therefore, nearly as good as they could be. Even aside from the adrenal-fatigue induced "arms full of lead" bullshit.

(OTOH, my new veil is GORGEOUS, and I ADORE the color on me!!!!)

I *am* looking forward to dancing with Moirae at the Silver Kingdom Faire this year - I'm pretty good at committing to rehearsals, except when it's just me, and then, somehow, food or dishes or nursing a panic attack or a bellyache becomes more important. I hate it that life gets in the way of art. It's no fair that I can't just live on pizza and taco bell like every other artist out there!

OK - one more time and then I'm giving up and going to bed!

Planning on goin' to Haven tonight. (took tomorrow off)

how long *could* you wait?

And what would happen, after that?




(Sometimes I amaze myself. I'd better get back to it..)

Went with Miss F to see the Smith Faculty Dance Concert yesterday - the level of sophistication of choreography in the modern pieces blew me away! Much like great music, I couldn't *begin* to understand exactly what they did to evoke such feeling, but they sure were masters at it! I'd love to work with someone like that - I always love working with good choreographers! Alas, as an amateur, I'll probably never have the opportunity. (we do have some good ones.. but MAN.. these were AMAZING.)

That migraine showed up about 15 minutes after my last post.. Pax super-sweetly helped me try to kill it last night, but it won't stay dead :(

Went to see Quantum of Solace last night- that movie was SO not made for me. It was almost like they took James Bond + took out 80% of anything I might like. I don't remember Bond flicks being chronically "all the good people die", for example. Not into it.

I also used to think that I shivered through movies because they keep the theaters so damn cold, but I'm sure I wasn't cold and I shivered through most of the movie anyway. I don't get it. At least I didn't end up with a migraine, this time.

Then we went to the diner, and I was SUPER frustrated because they now serve a TON of grilled peanut butter stuff - so I didn't feel safe getting anything from the grill. And I *really* wanted breakfast food... or at least a grilled cheese. I had a few bites of Pax's french toast, and nothing bad happened, but that kind of luck isn't good enough for me, alas.

And apologies to anyone I was super bitchy at.

I didn't go to a bellydance thing tonight that I wanted to, either. Grr.

I'm also super pissy about my latest "diagnosis". It's yet another thing that happens to most people sometimes, but me ALL THE TIME. WTF? I just want "them" to be able to *FIX* something my body has done wrong, for a change.

In good news, yesterday my MIL brought out a mattress that didn't work for them - it's a nearly-new (aka low dust-mite content) "Naturally Bob's" - which is cool. It also came with a black fitted sheet and a BEAUTIFUL lilac and sage bedspread. It's GREAT to sleep on + doesn't seem to hold the cold like the futon mattress did. It is HUGE though - we put it atop the old futon (no boxspring..), and it's a pillowtop so it seems SO HIGH. Also, SO COZY! I feel like an adult, with a real mattress! I'm also hoping that it'll help my back - I hear that sleeping on things that are too firm isn't good for us girls with big hips + smaller waists...

(Meme going around) If you saw ME in a police car, what would you think I'd been arrested for?

I *should* go to haven tonight. We'll see if I *do*...

Apparently, the roofers forgot to cover the roof that they took off at the end of last week - thus, the dripping. We got off light, though - the back hallway of the dance studio downstairs was quite damaged from what I hear.

Otherwise - I was Wild Mood Swing Girl all weekend, but productive!

Now for trying to get to work early (7:30) tomorrow morning... ugh...

Today is turning out fairly frustrating.

Woke up in a panic that Pax wasn't home at 7am. He got in moments later, said "Man, and I STILL don't think I can sleep". And then I fell asleep for three more hours.

For most of that time, there were contractors banging around, tearing apart a roof 15 feet from us, etc. Pax also had to deal with this for most of yesterday, and didn't really sleep much as a result.

I woke up (super groggily - REALLY should have taken some allergy meds yesterday..) around 10, to find that the contractors needed to get into our apartment to install a smoke detector. I kinda wanted them in and out ASAP, but I also needed to clean up the area they were going to be in (it makes cleaning up after them easier, and I HATE splinters in my feet..) and get dressed, so I said I'd let them know.

About when I was ready, the broke for lunch - Pax could sleep. I figured I'd let them in when they started being noisy again. But, they haven't, much.

And I don't want to bang around the kitchen doing dishes or anything because, well, there's a CHANCE that Pax could FINALLY be getting some sleep.

This is irritating.

Oops.. I missed a post.. unless we can all pretend it's still the 7th.. which it ALMOST is...

I joined Facebook yesterday out of.. well, I don't know what. Like I need another place on the interweb to waste time. But, it has really been an ego boost today - I have 23 friends already! Crazy.

Work has been stressful. Co-Worker B had his baby on Monday, which is the same day that J. came back from maternity leave. So, I've been trying to cover most of his desk. He's the smart kid, in our department of smart kids. The good news is that I've constantly been surprising myself by just how much of his desk I can successfully cover.

Funny bit - we spent awhile this week trying to figure out how to "do the LOL spins". No, I'm not kidding.

I swear I had some witty post about the election in my head, but of course it's gone now.

Ok, assuming California goes Democrat, we only need 8 more votes... it'd be nice to get them by the time TREM is out of the shower, so I can go to bed. I'm tired. And I need to actually be ON TIME to work tomorrow - there's just too many reports between mine + B's!

I told myself I was going to bake something tonight. And do laundry. Instead, I'm sitting here refreshing NPR every three minutes for election coverage.

MSN seems to think that the measure to get rid of the income tax is going through. Idiots. Ah well, hopefully we've elected smarter people who will NOT follow that lead.

I had a spooky dream last night that well meaning people were trying to dose everyone with some agent that caused changes in a person - the changes weren't certain, but somehow gave The Man some mind control abilities over them and some tracking abilities. And frequently they caused you to look like you were glowing under black light. In areas of high concentration, the whole world glowed a bit. It usually took several doses for full effect - I (obviously) spent most of the dream running away from the folks doing the dosing. Apparently, they had a tendency to lock people up for several doses if they struggled. Eventually, I let them dose me once, because I figured it was better that then get "caught" and dosed until it took full hold. Of course, then I glowed + could maybe be tracked some, so I wasn't able to go to all of the "safe" places (it would make them less safe).

I know it was a wonderfully well constructed metaphor for something, I just can't explain what... Rightwingism? Didn't bode well, but hey, my dreams are rarely prophetic!

I'm thinking I might try a variant I've heard of on NaNoWriMo - write in one of my BLOGS every day. I have at least 4, this shouldn't be too hard.

Also worth noting- it turns out that my landlord/contractors were probably NOT in my apartment. In fact, they (probably), broke the old door out of the space it was in (thus moving the shelving up against it), made a new "door", then installed it - all from the other side. This does not explain how a screw matching those in the project showed up in the hallway outside that room, though I'm guessing power tools might. The door might have been left unlocked by one of us, too.

They claim that no one knew that the door went into that room - but *I* did. And I'm guessing the architect did, too.

So, still frustrated, but less so. Thankfully.

OK - gotta go decide whether to be an evil sorceress or an anime schoolgirl for a costume party tonight...

So I was totally in one of those moods where I'm avoiding people because I'm going to say something nastily blunt. But, I figured, I'll go to bed + call that it. But first, I should find clothes for tomorrow. (Probably going to Haven. If my mood hasn't improved...well, I'm good at pretending...)

As I walked into the room my work clothes are in, I noticed that there was a candleholder on the floor that hadn't been before - and not as if it had been put there intentionally. And that the shelving it was on had been moved. Like, "shoved aside". Which is tricky - that one is a cinder block construction. And the boarded up doorway the shelving was blocking had new... boarding. A screw was left on the hallway floor.

Thinking back, the FUCKING DOOR WAS UNLOCKED WHEN I CAME HOME. I almost reamed my husband out for it.

I have NEVER had a landlord do anything like that before.

Fucking unacceptable.

My housemate helped me write a less-nasty-than-I-felt note about it, noting that we felt a need to be present for all work to be done, and that we would move anything in the way, given proper notice.

Any guess as to what to do if it happens again? Not that I think it will..but still. Never should have happened once.

 I know, you were just sitting around hoping that I would post a last-minute announcement of a bellydance event tonight! 

So, to keep you happy - I'll be dancing in the NBDA Halloween Hafla tonight in Oxford, MA at 6pm.  Oxford is about a hour from Noho towards Worcester and I'm told that there's a problem with the google directions, but mapquest is fine.  The hafla is only $5, and if you get there during the day, there's workshops (starting at noon) for only $15 for the WHOLE DAY.  

Ok.. now to finish re-working the sword choreo that I decided wasn't working last night... ...someday............ (I'm doing a sword solo to Peter Murphy and the Bacchae choreo to Corvus Corax)

There's two parts to art, conception and execution. Thankfully, Pheonix did the conception part of the Bacchae piece - we just had to help her bring it to life.

My self-image in dance is not 100% correct - I doubt many people's self images are.

This photo is *exactly* what I wanted to look like at that moment of the dance.


Thanks to "Ernie" for the pictures! (I must say that my facial expression in the rest didn't quite live up to my hopes - it was supposed to look stoic. Instead, I look stone-faced and maybe terrified. Oops. )

 So, I was chatting with an old friend on the phone tonight (who I'll get to see at King Richard's tomorrow!  Yay!!!), and he says that another old friend wants me to add her on Yahoo.  You can add people on Yahoo?  So I've been poking around trying to figure out how to do so, when I stumble accross my horoscope:

If you're feeling bored with the same faces in your group of friends, then maybe it's time for you to look to the past for your social future! Dig out your phone book and refresh your memory about friends who you've let slip away, either through change of life or change of job. You will quickly remember at least one cool person, and the chances are high that they would love to hear from you! Give them a call and see what's new in their life. Set a date and your 'bored' is cured!

Now, I'm not sayin' I'm bored with y'all - in fact, I'm more "fallen off the face of the earth" - and it's more like HE looked ME up - but the rest of it was accurate!

In other news, I guess I'm going to King Richard's tomorrow!  I'm super excited.  I'm really looking forward to seeing my friend, and I haven't been to King Richards for YEARS, so that'll be fun, too.  

I can't decide what kind of garb to wear - I'd pretty much settled on the corset etc., since that outfit NEVER gets to comeout, except that it might be too chilly for that tomorrow.  Especially since I wanna wear the BEAUTIFUL lightweight silk chemise that I got this summer + haven't had reason to wear yet.