luciab | Entries tagged with tv

I have almost finished the prize cape I'm making for the Most Valorous rapier fighter competition this weekend at Assessment. Oh, you didn't know about it? My bad. I should have written an announcement for the Merry Rose but didn't think about it till last night. Today I'm fairly incoherent, so have asked my valorous apprentice

harleenquinzell to put some text together. Of course she's at work today so may have other things to do. (Pah, work!) Anyway, the cape-sewing went very quickly and it looks good. The cape, BTW, is designed for use in rapier fighting-- not a fancy-shmancy one. It is, however, large enough that it can be worn, unlike the ceremonial one that designates the WH Baronial Rapier Champion.

Miranda and even Molly helped me with the cape-- Molly helped with the cutting and Miranda was in on both cutting and sewing. I have such good kitties. Miranda has been especially lovey this laast week. I have clearly been gone from home far too much recently, and she's making up for all the petting she didn't get while I was gone. She's in my lap when I get on the computer, in my lap when I read, and plastered to my side all night while I sleep. She's also been walking through the house crying at random times-- she manages to sound really pitiful. She's going to be most unhappy with my being gone for a week again. At least I'll be home a little longer before I head out yet again for a week at Pennsic.

I have the History Channel on this afternoon and am watching "American Eats," including hot dogs. The descriptions of the creation of Nathan's makes me want a hot dog, and it's midafternoon and I've had lunch pretty recently. Crap-- now they're talking about pizza. I dunno if I can watch this whole hour.

I have gotten several minor errands done today, thank heavens. Still a few left to do but I'm generally in good shape. Now I think I need to go grocery shopping. Maybe some hot dogs.....

Oh, and it was nice to do nothing at all. But no, that isn't true, I just didn't have to stand up for six hours to do it, is all. I got a call from the Social Security office-- the woman who is handing my case is pretty sharp. She noticed that I hadn't finished my application online, and wanted to check. Well, sez I, when I was working on it last time, it gave me an error message, saying to call the office, so I did, and the woman said I'd have to come in to the office to finish it up. I made an appointment for Jan 25th. Turns out the woman on the phone was wrong-- I suppose I should have expected that; she has a job with the government, answering questions for a living, and those people are wrong SO much of the time. I think they just get so burned out they don't care, and just say the first thing that will get the caller off the phone. Anyway, my caseworker suggested that I try again, and lo, it worked. So now she'll be able to do the prep work before I go in. Yay, us. Again, I plan to be perfectly clear on the point that I do not expect to recieve SS disability, and in fact know that I am not qualified; this is merely a required step for the disability that I AM qualified for. Anyway, that step is done.

Last night I finally saw The Sopranos. I am way too cheap to pay for HBO or whatever it's on; I never watch TV. It wasn't exactly what I expected but I did like it. I didn't expect the humor, mainly. The main thing that suprised me, though, is that it gave me nightmares. WTF?? I had trouble going to sleep because of all the caffeine I had yesterday, and when I did get to sleep, I dreamed all night-- several different dreams-- that one of the crew was pointing a gun at me and was going to kill me. I have never had that happen, not even with all the shoot-em-up-bang-bang action flicks I watch. Too weird.

I started looking over the Humanities Resources material online today, and it looks like it's actually going to be enjoyable. What a concept! The first group of questions is "Literature" and I feared it would be all classics. Nope. Well, I take that back-- it's NEW classics-- two of the ten questions were about Neil Gaiman and William Gibson. Heh. Margaret Atwood was in there, too, but I'm not as familiar with her work.

Tomorrow

zihuatanejo and I are going to a workshop on Book Repair at Wake Forest University. I'm looking forward to it, even though I'll have to leave the house at 6:15. Ick. It'll be an early night for me, which should be no problem since I got so little sleep last night. In fact, I'm sinking fast. Pitiful.

Current Mood: Okay
Current Location: studio
Current Music: Walking Blues, Victoria Spivey

I've had a migraine all day, though it's been at least partly subdued by meds. I was so crosseyed this morning that I didn't go to work, and I think that was a good decision. I had a paper due in class tonight, though, so I took it and went. Another student was in the throes of a bad migraine and sat shading his eyes from the flourescent lights the whole time he was there, which was only half the class. I was glad the meds- and a Pepsi- knocked mine back enough to go to class and even be coherent enough to ask questions. Now I need to work on Saturday to make my hours this week. Whee.

I'm watching The Shield now. Forrest Whitaker has a recurring role this season as an IAD cop who is trying to nail Mackie. While his character has the moral high ground, Whitaker still manages to imbue the role with menace, smiling all the while. *Shudder.* He says "It's good to meet you" to Vic and it's scary as hell. This guy's a pretty damn good actor, I think.

And now for the book list. ( Read more... )

Some of those I've never heard of, some I had no idea were any kind of big deal, and some just bore me to even think about. And the way homework reading is shaping up, I might be doing well to read one non-required book per semester. Holy cow.

Oh, and for god's sake, buy stock in a copy paper company. None of the copiers at the library print on both sides, nor does my poor little printer on which I'm printing everything I can download. Geez. I'm going to be buying paper at an alarming rate. Two of my three teachers use pwer point presentations, and one them only prints out one slide per page, so there might only be a dozen or so words on a page. Talk about wasting paper. At least the other guy prints 3 slides per page with lines for notes beside each one. I need to figure out how to do that.

Hope I can sleep, what with the Pepsi. Right now I feel like I might never sleep again.

Current Mood: upbeat

I bought a new cookbook this morning at Ten Thousand Villages. It's called Simply in Season and is put out by the World Community Cookbook company. Needless to say, it's divided by season and has lots of recipes for fruits and veggies appropriate to each specific time of year. Since I've been in fall food mode for a couple of weeks now, this is highly appropriate. Plus, in the back they have a general section with stuff like Naan, cinnamon bread, and lots of pancake recipes (yum); plus how to make basic things like yogurt and white sauce, and a "cream soups substitute" for when you don't want to use Campbells Cream of Mushroom. I'm looking forward to several of the pumpkin/winter squash recipes.

In the category of "delicious," I have fallen in love with Boston Legal. It comes on after Commander in Chief, or I would never have thought to turn it on. It makes me wonder if I should have watched the show it was based on. Although, now that I think of it, I believe I did see it a few times but just never got quite hooked.

And on the "guilty pleasures" theme, I just got some Denali BearClaw ice cream for the first time. Oh. My. Deeeeep daaaaaaark chocolate. With cashews and caramel. Tonight I found myself taking little half-teaspoon size bites to make it last so I wouldn't go get another bowlful.... or two. Mighty fine.

Tuneless Boy is serenading again. (Hey, it can't ALL be good news!) I don't recognize the tune he's aiming for this time; I guess he's trying to learn a new song. This isn't one of his standards. Can't decide whether that's good or bad.

Mother called last night to tell me that Aunt Susan fell yesterday morning and broke her hip. It's apparently a bad break. That sort of didn't surprise me, since she used to be so tall but is now several inches shorter than I am. I mean, I'm assuming osteoporosis caused both the loss of height and the break. Not that I'm a doctor, or even play one on TV for that matter.

Mother also said my brother is going to try to come see them in early November, and could I come up, too? I had to say it would kinda depend on budget stuff. Man, I hate to have to say that; I want to just hop in the car and go. Especially with Aunt Susan being in the hospital and all-- I'd love to go right now AND in November AND at Christmas. Unfortunately, though, I figure it's now going to cost about $100 per trip and I just don't always have an extra hundred to spare. It almost makes me wish I'd been a responsible adult and stayed steadily employed so I could afford to go. Oh, wait, I got laid off from the job I had for 13+ years, and now I have migraines. It wasn't my decision! Plus, if I were employed, I couldn't go anyway. Oh, well. I might as well deal with what is, instead of what might have been. I think I'll go wash dishes now, and maybe cook something out of my new cookbook.

Current Mood: variable
Current Music: One Man's Ceiling is Another Man's Floor- Paul Simon

Oh, it's beautiful outside today. Totally cloudy, and the "cold" front actually worked. The high today is only supposed to be 84, which is a full 20 degrees cooler than Tuesday and Wednesday. The storm that ushered in this day of bliss was a doozy, but more on that later. The heat may have had something to do with the killer headache, because it's gone, too.

The last two days have been quite interesting for me in terms of pop culture. On Wednesday I saw Sin City, mostly to beat the heat. I thought they did an excellent job of transferring the graphic novel vision to the screen. Beautifully done; very stylish. As a movie it was okay, but it was visually stunning. At 10 PM I watched Over There on FX. It's a new series by Steven Bochco about 7 soldiers in Iraq. It was excellent. I think I need someone to tape it for me while I'm at Pennsic. (Hey, wait... maybe, with a little over a week to practice, I could figure out how to program the VCR? Hmmmm. Not sure I can pull that off, but it's worth a try.) It, too was extremely graphic, with parts of bodies flying through the air and a sufficiency of shots of the resulting bloody stumps. One thing was very strange, though. They showed the lower half of a body (enemy, of course) that had been blown in two, and there was no blood on the ground around it, and the... um.... entrails? guts?... all remained neatly inside the body cavity. Very tidy. Still, the show was good enough that I watched the second showing, which ran back-to-back with the first showing, because I felt like I'd missed some stuff that I needed to see to put other bits in context.

On Thursday the friend who had planned to come over couldn't make it, so I went to Livia's instead. She'd emailed me earlier to ask, saying she wanted feedback on the scroll she's working on. I grabbed my sewing and went. We threw together some dinner and settled in to our respective tasks. She had Spike TV on, and we saw several episodes of a really strange game show shot in Japan and dubbed into English. The dubbing was very funny, with lots of word play and bad puns. Since it was on Spike instead of oh, say, NBC, many of the puns were of questionable taste, which you surely know wasn't a problem for me. I would have had trouble trying to scribe with it on, but Livia was doing fine. Since I was hemming a tunic, it was no problem for me, either.

It started raining about 9, and I think we may have heard hail a few times. I thought it had eased up by the time I left, but lordamercy! At first it wasn't raining too hard but the lightning was almost constant. Lots of it was hidden by the clouds so the whole sky just lit up. Then I got to the heart of the matter, and dozens of cars were pulled off to the sides of the road with their blinkers going. I didn't think it was THAT bad, though I slowed way down, as did everyone else still driving. By then we were getting the real lightning flashes, the kind that split the sky in half and make you wish you had gotten a photo. They were so frequent it was like a strobe light. What was really strange was that the windshield wipers looked like they were dancing-- you know, the seventies kind where you wave your arms in the air a lot-- and not going side to side but up and down. Weird. Between the strobe effect and the afterglow on my eyeballs, it was hard to see to drive.

More sewing today. Or maybe I'll check on some details for stuff like the pavilion. Plenty to do!

Current Mood: blah

I just saw the neatest show on the Animal Planet on dragons. It's apparently been shown before, but I missed it. The show about "the making of" is on now, and one of the guys said, "If you were in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, elephants and dragons were equally likely." I can see that. The drawings they started with are absolutely beautiful, and the animation looks real. Very convincing. I found myself rooting for the dragon in the final scene. What a surprise, huh?

Current Mood: intrigued

I haven’t filed a kitten update for a couple of days; I’ve been trying to wean you off gradually. They have actually settled down a lot more quickly than I expected in relation to my painting in the studio. For the most part, they curl up either in the office chair or on the towel behind the painting table and are happy to be nearby. Every hour or two they decide they need some love but then they quiet down again. They have, of course, discovered the knock-the-paintbrush-off-the-table game, so I have to keep an eye out for that, but I have been delighted for the most part. And relieved. It had been so many years since I had a really-truly-kitten I wasn’t sure what I was in for.

I’ve been closing the door to the studio at night to keep kittens off the scroll and out of all the tempting toys, and last night the inevitable happened—Miranda got shut in the studio. Hey, they were all out, and she was just awfully fast, okay? This morning when I got up I saw her paw reaching under the door to play with Carmen and realized what had happened. Oh, no! Poor lonesome hungry kitten! When I opened the door she threw herself upon me, meowing piteously, and immediately started purring like mad. When she started chasing Carmen ferociously, I figured she couldn’t have been too traumatized and relaxed. There were no disasters in the studio, either, fortunately.

I have finished the scroll and started making a dress for my current narrow self. The kittens are enjoying the hell out of that endeavor, of course. Little bits of fabric flip enticingly, large folds of fabric make great places for hide-and-seek, the paper pattern rustles, the scissors tip bobs up and down, thread spools make such a funny sound when they roll across the hardwood floor… what’s not to love? The only limiting factor is how many places can they pounce at once.

I saw the neurologist today, to mixed reviews, I guess. She thinks I’m maxed out on dopamax but says that there is another med that works well in combination with that, so now I have yet another pill to take every day. Sigh. If it works, I won’t complain. Hell, if it works, I’ll be dancing in the streets. Yeah, I know, working on my crazy-lady street cred already.

The Legend of Earthsea is on Sci Fi tonight. It is apparently a re-run from November, but I didn’t catch it then, so I’m looking forward to seeing it. On second thought, high hopes may be misplaced, since I haven’t heard anything at all about it. Oh, well, I’ll keep sewing and watch while I work.

Current Mood: pleased

I’ve been quietly painting along for the last couple of days. Just painting, with the TV or a movie playing. I tell ya, the TV is getting pretty old. Last time I was sitting here for a year painting, La Femme Nikita was in reruns on one of the cable channels, but there’s nothing so good on now. It’s all ER, Law and Order, American Justice, Cold Case Files and NYPD Blue, and I’ve seen all these episodes several times already. At least I’ve missed the ones with Sipowicz’s butt in them. Whew. That’d put me off my feed for a day or two. I did see a City Confidential I hadn’t seen before last week. I love the cheesy similes they sprinkle through the show like candles on an octegenarian’s birthday cake. This one said the woman was drawn to the man “like an SUV to a gas pump.” Heh.

Damn, people. This is pitiful. The Food channel makes me think about food, which isn’t exactly the plan when you want to lose instead of gain weight, and the Travel channel has an analogous effect for the broke. The History Channel has too much on WWII and too little on the middle ages. National Geographic has some good shows, but I have to watch out or I fall into a nest of Seconds From Disaster which I find very interesting, but it sure doesn’t help the whole depression factor. Dr G, Medical Examiner falls into that category, too. I’ve only seen a few episodes of Diagnosis Unknown but it seems to be pretty predictable—what kind of poison is it? Duh.

The movies haven’t been so great either. Yesterday I mentioned Where the Buffalo Roam. When I went to rent that, I also got Ray which is the first movie I’ve seen in a reasonably timely manner in ages. Problem is, I couldn’t get into it at all. I figured, with the music, how could I go wrong? Maybe I didn’t watch long enough but there wasn’t enough of the music to carry it, as far as I was concerned. Maybe I just wanted the music and not the biography; I dunno what I was thinking. Anyway, the woman who used to enjoy movies, almost any movies, has now struck out twice in a row.

In terms of the painting, though, the scroll is coming along nicely. It’s nearly done. It’s looking gooooood. Heh.

Still no word from the job interviewers. It’s been about three weeks, which really isn’t long for the state. I was talking to a friend the other day, who asked, Are you ready to go back to work? The question surprised me. Erk? Further questioning made me realize that she was asking me a really good question and that I’m not sure my automatic “of course” was accurate. Last month I thought the migraines were doing better, but this month I’ve maxed out all my pills again. The prescription-month I’ve just started isn’t off to such a hot start, either. All I can say is, the job is in the hands of a Higher Power, and if it’s supposed to work out it will. I feel kind of like a mooch not going to an office every day, but the migraines aren’t stopping. I think that I could manage a less stressful job but I don’t really know that, do I? And I won’t until it’s too late. I thought I really wanted the job but now I have to wonder. Maybe I do need to wait a while longer. If they offer it to me, though, I know I’ll take it. Drug myself to the gills and go. Whoopee! Pop those Imitrex! Max out the dopamax!

I’ve also made plans to go to Kentucky in March. I wrote to my brother and asked if there was a chance he could come in, too. I can’t think how many years it’s been since all of us have been together. That would be too wonderful for words. He wrote back and said his honey is scheduled to work, but that he’s trying to switch with someone so they can come. I sure hope that works out.

The kittens are being adorable and have actually slept in the office chair or on the table behind the painting surface for a fair amount of time during the last couple of days, thus allowing me to paint unimpeded. Wow. How great is that? Kitten affection interspersed with having both hands free to paint for several hours at a time. Miss Molly watches them when they play, and once or twice has even stretched out a paw like she’s considering playing with that paw sticking out from behind the door. So far she’s kept her dignity and reconsidered but I live in hope.

Tomorrow is Thursday, so I’ll be going to Ten Thousand Villages for a few hours. It makes a nice break in the week. Gets me out of the house and away from the reruns on TV. I can talk to real live two legged people, who will converse with me, instead of just the furry four legged kind, who will probably converse with me but not in a language I can understand. Wow. I do need to get out.

Current Mood: tired

My first LJ entry. I had been considering/meaning to start this anyway, and nomadicmedic said in his journal, "M.Lucia, you need an LJ." so I did. Heh. That'll teach him to be careful what he asks for.

I am sitting here with the TV tuned to the Westminster Dog Show, which is very interesting. Also somewhat amusing, since I'm a hardcore cat person, but these guys are amazing. Some are beautiful, some just weird, but hey. I'm sure they're world-class weird. There are a couple tonight that have really long white and grey hair, and they look like clouds when they run. Those are the beautiful ones. The Puli is interesting-- damn dog has dreadlocks. I can't imagine trying to grooom that for a dog show. Wow. Now there's a mean-looking self-propelled dust-mop running around... sorry, it's a Peke. Ick. I like the Bloodhound a lot better than the Peke. It's fun watching the different handlers, too. They have to run around in circles while looking professional, which ain't easy.

Locally, the kittens are chasing each other up and down the length of the apartment. I feel like I should apologize to Miss Lily, because I know to her they sound like elephants-- except if she expressed real displeasure we'd both be screwed; there's no way I'm getting rid of the babies and if I've got 'em up here they're going to be playing. So I can only hope she doesn't sit down there being unhappy about it. Tabitha is probably going to her new home tomorrow. She is the one who has been challenging Miss Molly, and she isn't even going to be staying. Both Carmen and Miranda are more deferential to Molly; we'll see how they are without Tabitha to take the heat.

I've gotten some painting done today, but not as much as I hoped. A non-SCAdian friend called and wanted to take me to lunch and ask me some building code type questions. Ah! Lunch! I thought. We went for mid eastern and it was delicious. I hadn't talked to her for a couple of months, so it was good to see her, too. It was a gorgeous sunny day so she opened the sun roof on her car--- which let the sun shine on my face. That is, unfortunately, a good news/bad news sort of thing. It is cosmically unfair that someone who loves the sun as much as I do should get migraines from being in sunshine, but that's what happened. I came home and curled up and slept for a couple of hours, with kittens under my chin. Not a bad way to nap, but I was hoping to paint my little ass off all day. Sigh. I was able to paint after the nap but still not as much as I hoped.

When I got my hair cut last week, my stylist David and I were talking about travel. He owns the salon and does well enough that he takes at least a two-week trip every year to some exotic locale. I commented that I don't have a passport, and David asked why. I was kind of stumped. Well, I've never needed one. I've been to Canada and Mexico but never farther than that, I said.

Well, I guess if you don't want to travel you don't need one, said David.

But I LIKE to travel, and I've always wanted to go to Italy. I just never thought I could. And we talked about why that was, and I got to thinking... maybe I'll just get a passport. Because sometime I hope to be able to go, and maybe it'll give me a little boot in the behind. Why not?