alexandralynch

<a href="http://www.fabricfabric.net/images/swatches/HH916.600x600_thumb.gif">Here</a>is the patterned silk twill I am going to buy tomorrow. The deep plum in it is the color of the raw silk I am using.

Gold or silver jewelry? I look good in either, my glasses have a silvery frame, and for those who haven't seen me, I wear mostly cool jewel tones, look good in black, and have dark red hair and grey eyes.

I have to decide which of three earring candidates I like better so I can figure out how much it will cost to order them, and I just don't know.

(I have to order. Clip on earrings are not terribly available in stores these days around here.

So my niece (by marriage) is getting married.

It is a family command performance sort of thing. Which means Bear and I must show up in the appropriate clothes, and be social.

All my dress clothes are from the fourteenth century.

This will not be acceptable.

Therefore, I must put husband and self into acceptable dress clothes.

(rummages through fabric stores) Item, one bolt of purple silk noil. Item. One bolt white crepe de chine. Item. One pattern for shift dress. Sounds like a dress to me. 

I went online today and found a patterned silk twill online for ten dollars a yard that will make a cocoon style jacket, off a pattern I already have.  Also found earrings that will go. I have shoes that will pass muster, both in terms of societal approval and in terms of "I can stand in these". If I make the dress long enough I can get away without wearing pantyhose, which are Evil.  So I will get off for somewhere around forty dollars.

Bear is going to be more expensive. We are looking at about $170 for him. Shirt, pants, bolo tie, and boots. As the alternative is that he will show up in a t-shirt, jeans, and Crocs, and if he does that, his sister will Never Forgive Him. (sigh)

So on Saturday or so I will start working on my dress. I am not anticipating problems from the silk noil, which is very pleasant tractable fabric, but the white crepe de chine I am lining with is slippery as hell.

Rump roast, about five pounds, with onions and green peppers and garlic, deglaze pan with red wine and beef broth, and run the meat through the slicer and bag the broth for a sauce later or just au jus.

Pork tenderloin roast, about three pounds, with onions and polish sausage seasoning on it. Same process as with the beef. I tend to put the sliced meats like this up in rather larger packages than a single meal, as I will thaw it, have a couple slices the night before for supper, serve it properly the next day for lunch, eat another couple slices for my dinner, and then eat more for my dinner the next day, as sliced meat and bread and cheese are happiness for me. Alternately I will slice the meat into bits and stir it into a rice or barley pottage and that is also happiness.

Also there is a massive nine pound shoulder roast that was too big for the crockpot. I started it in the turkey roaster, and finally pulled it out half-cooked and cut the meat into large chunks and off the bone, thereby permitting it to fit in the crockpot. The crockpot won't burn it, the roaster might, and I am not staying up all night to tend it.

Also there were two pounds of bulk sausage, which the butchers make on site and is exceptionally good , that I fried up and sealed up in half-pound bags. They will get used in frittatas and sausage gravy and other nice sorts of things.

I have also managed to bruise the hell out of the ball of my left thumb. Very impressive shade of purple, quite swollen, and is of course right where I press when holding onto things lefthanded. The weird thing is, I don't know what I did to do it, and I wouldn't have really noticed it if it hadn't changed color, because it doesn't hurt so much that it stands out among the rest of the pain. I know it's not an infection, and I know it's not a burn; those both feel different. I'd just like to know what I did.

And now I am going to take a bath and do some work to try to get the bruise gone faster and then I will go to bed.

Puck cannot figure out the bed curtains.

He went in and got up on the bed while I was unmaking it so Bear could go to sleep (Taking off all fancy pillows, turning off the stereo and Christmas lights, turning on the fan, moving the blankets, etc.) and Bear petted him thoroughly. The bed curtains were about half open, and when he left he ran down to the corner, stopped, and made his way back along the curtain to the center opening and jumped down with a little noise of "I solved it!" and left.

Well, I said good night to Bear and sat down to finish my evening's stuff before yoga and bath and bed, and heard BANG BANG BANG on the wall. This means Bear wants me to come back in the bedroom. He wanted me to make him more Koolaid in the bottle he keeps tucked in on his side of the bed since he doesn't like plain water in the night. (and he complains that he gets up at five am to pee. Gee, wonder why....) . So I took the bottle and made him more Koolaid, and then went back in here.

No sooner did I sit down then BANG BANG BANG again. "Would you let this damn cat out?!" he said with some degree of annoyance.  Apparently Puck slid in when I wasn't looking, and was unable to get up on the bed with Daddy because the curtains were closed. So he paced back and forth on the floor beside the bed crying.

Yes, he really is that stupid.

He vanished the other day and scared Bear. I knew I hadn't been outside that day and had seen him, and after a four am search we found him. In my closet, behind my summer shirts, in an open suitcase, curled up on the laundry bags stored inside it, asleep. He was rather annoyed. Apparently we had profaned the Super Secret Nap Place.

And now a check of the weather for tomorrow, a check of the food plans for tomorrow to see if  I need to pull anything out of the freezer, and yoga, Ambien, bath, and bed.

It depends. If you are waiting on a job callback, if you are waiting to hear if your sister went into labor, or if your spouse/housemate took care of something at home all right...then sure. But if you spend most of the time with a phone, I'll tend to reach in my purse and pull out a book;  I read when I'm eating alone, and you obviously would rather eat with your phone than with me. And I'll likely be just a little too busy for another date.

Very  nice day yesterday since D. came over and we did naughty things.  If you go to my fetlife profile, you can see pictures of the naughty things I did to him.

And then I made a nice dinner of roast beef and mashed potatoes and gravy, and broccoli with cheese sauce, and biscuits, and cleaned up, and Bear went to bed.

And then I found my period had come. So I took a muscle relaxant in addition to the rest of the night pills, and was unconscious til about noon. I knew I would be, so I left Bear a note, and he took care of his own lunching and uniform and all. I got up just before he left and got hugged and kissed. It's not as bad as usual right now, but it may be that the really excellent time I had just beforehand helped. I am mostly very tired and cold and feeling vaguely depressed. J left me two slices of roast beef, and I had them today, and did a little more kitchen cleaning and put some pork ribs that really need to be used up damnit into the crock pot with beer, onions, garlic, and pepper. I'm not sure what will come of this but it will likely be pretty tasty, as I am vaguely aiming in the direction of pulling the meat and adding barbecue sauce later.

For now I think it is bedtime again. And perhaps another muscle relaxant, as things are feeling like they might get angry again.

Roasted a chicken. Sliced off what slices, picked what remains. Sliced is one meal with mashed potatoes, chicken gravy, and broccoli with cheese sauce. Picked will go into chicken and noodles, with homemade noodles. I will make a double batch. The carcass is in the crockpot becoming soup. I will first cook the noodles in it, then after they are removed, add steamed barley and mushrooms and chopped smoked sausage. Because I like that combination.

I also roasted a rump roast in a cast iron skillet on a bed of green peppers and onions. I deglazed the pan with red wine, strained, added beef broth and simmered, and poured it off to be saved and become a lovely pan gravy in due course. The beef was run through the slicer, and will make two meals. Bear also got beef manhattan tonight for dinner.

I also made the spaghetti sauce for tomorrow and refrigerated it. I still have some grocery store going to do tomorrow, but it is just small, and mostly limited to canned goods I did not get today.

Cooking is happiness. I go to bed happy. I shall cook more tomorrow.

Now that I've spent a day resting from the weekend, I can actually consider cleaning up from it.

The dishes loom at me from the kitchen. I shall presently sally forth and slay the pile. I have been working on finding the cheapest eye exam in the area, as my eye muscles have started twitching when I spend any time at all on the computer, and looking at ordering a set of glasses online. I can then take my frames and my prescription to a shop locally and have them put new glass in them. These are good plain frames for SCA purposes, and I will get myself a set of fun ones for every day, and probably a set of dark tinted lenses for glare. I seem to be way more susceptible to that than I was.

I am also working on the grocery list. I don't care what else he wants to buy, the pantry is drawn down on hard and if we miss a paycheck in February we'd have severe ingredient shortages. I like to keep about two weeks worth of food in the pantry and freezer, just as a cushion. It also minimizes my perception of poverty to have a well-stocked pantry in terms of dried fruit and nuts and other baking ingredients. Not that I bake every night, but knowing that if I wanted to I could is important to me.

We also have to fix the kitchen light switch, which died in the on position. While that is at least better than it dying in the off position, because the kitchen does not have very good natural light, it is nevertheless not very energy efficient, and eats lightbulbs.  So Bear will be doing that this weekend. He says he has a new switch, somewhere in the van. He needs to clean out the van. But otherwise, most everything is well here.

No call, no show.

No problem....No relationship, no interest, no contact, no conversation.

And don't ask me for a second chance.

that I think the heating element is going out on the dryer.

This is profoundly annoying. On the other hand, it would not be the first time I have hung laundry. And most of it is done, and it will not harm the whites to be air-dried, not heated. It will just take longer.

I have a boy driving down to spend the weekend with me. We will see if the sparkle is real gold or fool's gold.

Bear's playpartner D. is here, because she is having boyfriend issues. She will go to the party at Joe's and the Lilith party and IMAS with us. I am looking forward to it.

I think it will be a very interesting weekend. There will be a postmortem post on Sunday evening or Monday morning, but til then I'm going to go have a life that doesn't involve the computer.

I had another bad night, as is evidenced by my writing this at 8:45 am. This is what I get when my IBS kicks up AND I forget to take my sleeping pill. I do like the energy of the sunrise, though. It's annoying, because while it would be nice to get up with the sun in the winter, I can't do that AND stay up to see my husband in at midnight, and that's very important to us both. It matters a lot to me to nurture him with his sleeping clothes laid out, a fresh towel hanging ready in the bathroom, his supper ready when he's ready for it, and a sympathetic ear to hear the stories of his night's work.

I got a yoga CD for Christmas, and the last two mornings have been working through the routine. I really think I need to lay down the couch and do the laying poses up on the futon, though, because the pelvic trigger points and hip points were screaming at laying on the floor to do it, to the point where I was really having trouble achieving the nice tranquil mindstate that encourages everything to relax. The left hip point continues terribly pissed off. Oops. But I think the yoga is going to be very good to rebalance my body and gently encourage toning in some bits that need it and stretching in the parts that need that....definitely something I want to keep up with. Who knows, maybe with time the pelvic/sacral trigger points will back off and I can work on the floor again.

I'm not sure exactly what lunch is going to be, but there is beef simmered overnight with beer, onions, garlic, black pepper, and beef broth in the crockpot, so it's going to involve that in some way. We need to run to the store for cat litter and so I may pick up a can of mixed vegetables for beef stew.

I feel like crap. The friend I am talking to does not, I think, understand about chronic illness. He is treating "I feel like crap and want to lie down" as "I don't like you any more."

I'd pound my head on something if it weren't so much work.

There is no paycheck. (sigh)

If I'd known we were going to get fucked over, I would have bought lube last time. Not to mention more groceries.

I'll just be over here, alternating between muttering obscenities and quietly having a panic attack.

everyone should read.

Excerpt:

Laws restricting access to medical services are laws restricting access to medical services. They are not laws creating family talks, better worlds, or moral teenagers. They are laws creating restrictions to medical services, which people do not seek unless they need them. Laws creating restrictions to medical services are laws creating restrictions to services people need and need desperately. You can argue that the lawmakers had some kind of noble intentions in mind — I will not buy it, but you can argue that. But you cannot argue that once the law has been in effect and created an inability to comply, and yet remained unchanged. If this was a law about notifying parents, it would have addressed how to notify parents. If this was a law about how to seek a bypass, it would have addressed how to seek a bypass. Since it didn’t address either of those things, this is obviously a law about something else. You only get one guess about what that something else is.

source

Except not just that part. Because what she talks about is something a lot of people do not take into account when they try to parse the entire abortion debate. It's bound up with our culture in so many ways. I know quite a few women who understood, without anyone saying a word, that part of the way they were paying their rent, paying their share, getting cooperation, getting protection, was by letting someone fuck them, and that saying no had consequences like homelessness or a violent rape. So saying "well, you could just have avoided having sex" is the kind of thing that makes me bang my head on the table. Because sometimes that's not an option. At least in the world I live in.

They are chasing each other from end to end of the house, through and around things, with much thumping and skittering of claws and punctuated with the occasional "Mrp! Waow!" as they reach a wall. They're going to be deeply distressed when I get the kitchen island painted and it goes in the kitchen. It is Puck's number one happy sleeping place.

Today is laundry day and set up for the week ahead day. I am also planning to work some on the flogger roll.

I really need to do something with the eel in the freezer. It is In The Way, especially since the big freezer broke and I am having to manage with the one above the fridge. I was apparently going to do Eels With Saffron and Onions in Brouet. I should run a test on that, since I have most of the ingredients.

Fresh eels are skinned and cut in chunks, cooked in water with lots of parsley, then grated cheese added: then remove the chunks, and make sops, and in each bowl put four chunks; or cook onions, then let them be cooked in this water, and a little spices and saffron and onions in a pot, and make soup.

I cannot, of course, add the fresh cheese if it is planned as a Lenten dish, I have to do the second version. Which will probably be pretty good.

It occurs to me that with all this weight loss I will have to refit the seams on my green gamurra, take in the red one hard when I get the bodice done, and get a new pattern done before I cut the blue linen. Grr. And I don't dare do anything until my weight settles.

The tree is down, and Bear made lots of implements for hitting people with today. I am going to have to make something to hold and transport them all. We have had a nice quiet day, and Bear is watching a movie and generally relaxing.

Someone in this room is too relaxed. They are being gassy. (glares at the Siamese)

the extreme lassitude part of my period. This is odd, as normally I get it with the heavy cramp days.
But yeah.

I'm working on a sewing project, though, so in a way it counts as having things done, but in the way I wanted to get things done, it doesn't.

I think I will feed Bear the rest of the chicken and noodles for dinner. We're going to have curry tomorrow. And I will go to bed at one am whether Himself is home or not.

My young lovers got together. Such deep passion, such simple, straightforward love. It's such a pity reality is going to crash down hard on all sides. But that is a story for another day. He watched her ride off cherishing a bitemark under his shirt, though. (snicker) She struck me as the sort of girl who likes to bite.

I sense another bit getting ready to be written, later on in the book, where his wife screams at him that his sin is the reason that he cannot get her pregnant. God, there's so much angst in this book it's not even funny. I'll have to expand the scenes of the two lovers to balance it out.

Bear called me a couple hours ago and said he'd be in late, because someone drove into his tow cable while he was winching a car out. People do do the damnedest things.

I must also share with you the podcasts from the Tulsa Police Department, especially this one. Highlight: "One thing I am NOT going to do is to get on the mainside police radio and report myself in pursuit of an emu. I ain't that stupid." ROFL, I tell you. Wonderful stuff.

My period has settled down, and now I just get to deal with the hassle of bleeding for a few days. I cleaned out the cedar closet today. Or, rather, I removed everything from the lower half today. The upper half is pretty much okay. It's the lower half that was a potential location for Jimmy Hoffa's body. I found two tubs of fabric I didn't know I had. That is both frightening and depressing. I also found a half-assembled quilt. It is throw sized, unless I make a very wide border and buy a new fabric for the backing, or something like that. I probably need to do a scrap quilt and use up the fabrics in the tubs, too. Since I have nothing else to do. (sigh)

Speaking of which, I need to go and peel potatoes for Bear's dinner. Life would be so much simpler if he'd let me do skin-on mashed potatoes with spices. I don't much like peeling potatoes.

Gaaaaah. Must finish cleaning up kitchen. Must make bread for sister who is stopping in on way home from seeing boyfriend's family in Wisconsin. Gaaaaah.

I am cramping from the arch of my ribs to my knees.

This is the ONE present I got this year that I did not know about in advance at minimum, let alone purchase and wrap.

And it's Wimseyfic! Here! It's them, very much them, and just so good. Thank you, dear writer! I am SO thrilled. Yay! I shall be very interested to see who wrote it.

Now I go fall down boom.