fox

I'm working (slowly!) on a fairly elaborate cross stitch cushion cover - and part of the reason it's so slow is that there's a fair amount of dithering, so each color has blocks and then random confetti nearby so they can blend together. Fine. But for an added complication, the fabric is not aida cloth; it's a tightly woven cotton canvas, so when I worked out that I get 14st/in if I do three threads vertically and two horizontally, that meant I have to count threads the whole time my own self. There aren't more prominent holes where the stitches go, I mean.

So naturally at some point I miscounted something and about a dozen stitches were half a column off, which needed fixing or the stitches coming to meet them wouldn't fit. Annoying, but not devastating, because it was only about a dozen stitches. Still kind of a drag to find as close to the midpoint as possible in the offending thread, snip, pick out, redo what I could, secure the new ends (where there didn't used to be ends at all), and finally get new thread and redo the last of the stitches in the correct column.

I showed it to Himself and we had this conversation:

me: See? Isn't that better? [of course I don't expect he has the first idea what he's looking at]
him: Sure, honey.

And what's super funny about that is that I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times in our relationship that he has called me by anything but my name. (This is the second time. 😆 His family of origin are not a pet-naming people.)

XI

Yonder see the morning blink:
   The sun is up, and up must I,
To wash and dress and eat and drink
And look at things and talk and think
   And work, and God knows why.

Oh often have I washed and dressed
   And what's to show for all my pain?
Let me lie abed and rest:
Ten thousand times I've done my best
   And all's to do again.

—A.E. Housman

Prolog

Good-Fortune is a giddy maid,
Fickle and restless as a fawn;
She smoothes your hair; and then the jade
Kisses you quickly, and is gone.

But Madam Sorrow scorns all this,
She shows no eagerness for flitting;
But, with a long and fervent kiss,
Sits by your bed—and brings her knitting.

—Heinrich Heine (translated by Louis Untermeyer)

Das Glück ist eine leichte Dirne,
Und weilt nicht gern am selben Ort;
Sie streicht das Haar dir von der Stirne
Und küßt dich rasch und flattert fort.

Frau Unglück hat im Gegentheile
Dich liebefest an’s Herz gedrückt;
Sie sagt, sie habe keine Eile,
Setzt sich zu dir an’s Bett und strickt.

First week at the new job is in the books. They're all very pleasant and happy to have me there, which feels a little bit strange; nobody is giving vibes like they wanted the gig themselves or recommended someone else for it or anything, and nobody whose writing I've looked at seems to wonder who the hell I am to tell them I think they should say something differently. There's almost no obstruction to anything I ask - can I have this software, is it okay if I order those reference books, hey could I bring in a dorm fridge to put under my desk? I'm so sorry but my key fob doesn't work on the doors it's supposed to. At the old job the answer to all the questions would have been no (or at least not without a lot of rigmarole) and more than one person would have heavily implied that if my key wasn't working (when I'd just said it wasn't working) it was because of something I did. Not because the old job was a bad place to work! But not being with the government, man. It's a whole other experience. These guys want me to (a) be happy and (b) have what I need, and there isn't anything stopping them from trying to make those things happen. What a trip.

And, you know, speaking of not being with the government. UGH. I feel like someone who got a last-minute phone call that caused them to miss the RMS Titanic.

About a month ago, a few of us went for coffee between Christmas concerts and in the course of the conversation about networking and jobs and whatnot one of my fellow singers mentioned that a friend of hers works at an organization related to the one where I've been working for 10 years and is trying to hire someone there to do what I do and long story short, today I gave notice and in two weeks I start at that related org for approximately twice my current salary, better medical insurance premiums, and an office with a window? It's a lot to process and it's all happened really fast and I'm very sad to be leaving ellen_fremedon and the rest of my team, but because the orgs are related I think there's a decent chance I'll still see a lot of them and everyone has been super encouraging and happy for me. I'm sort of hoping in the next couple weeks I go back to sleeping soundly and experiencing less digestive turbulence.

My Marple issue is solved, but Amazon nor Britbox doesn't have Sharpe's Challenge or Sharpe's Peril "due to expired rights," they say - so if anyone does have these in a format they'd be able and willing to share, my set would be complete. :-D (I haven't yet looked to see if my library can supply the DVDs. . . . They cannot.)

Friends

I got two (count 'em) stories for Yuletide this year, both involving fandoms I've had on my requests list for ages:

The Poison of Deep Grief (2158 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Murder She Wrote, Hamlet - Shakespeare
Additional Tags: Murder Mystery, Case Fic, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, 1980s, Additional Warnings In Author's Note
Summary:

Jessica travels to Elsinore, Minnesota, and happens upon a murder most foul.

This is a delightful crossover that places the cast of Hamlet in the upper Midwest, which is precisely where they'd be if they were in the modern United States, and sets Jessica Fletcher on their case, just as of course she would do if an untimely death befell a friend of poor Frank's. Charming!

As a stranger give him welcome (8824 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 8/8
Fandom: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Additional Tags: Canonical Character Death, Canon Compliant
Summary:

“It started with the ghost,” Horatio said after a moment, clearly coming to a decision. He looked upset, finally, but in a frustrated way, not in the way you would expect from someone who had just witnessed four people die, and one of them in his arms. “I got roped into it because of the ghost.”

Why Hamlet chose to put his trust in Horatio.

[flail] The voices. The machinations. Horatio trying to work out what's going on with Hamlet. Ophelia.

There is a substantial part of me that wishes I had written this.

Himself's aunt came over from the UK for Thanksgiving and asked for my pecan pie recipe. I've made that pie in the UK twice, once successfully and once not, and the difference was the availability of corn syrup; when I couldn't get it, I tried to cook down brown sugar to substitute, and either I didn't boil off enough of the liquid or it just doesn't behave the same way, because that pie never did set properly. Tasted fine, but it was soup.

So. For a pie whose filling's ingredients are butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, pecans, and dark corn syrup, if you couldn't get corn syrup of any sort, what would you do? I've been thinking about using brown sugar instead of white and golden syrup instead of Karo. (The aunt said "oh no, golden syrup is such a sticky mess," and I had to point out that corn syrup is as well and that's sort of the point.) Any more expert bakers have other thoughts?

Himself is heading out of town for a couple of days this week, so although I usually go to the office Tuesday and Wednesday I'll have to be at home this Wednesday and was waffling about whether to make my second in-office day Monday or Friday. Ultimately decided I might as well get it out of the way, and then promptly forgot about it, so when he woke me up this morning and said "Weren't you thinking of going in today?" all I could say was UGH. But I did, I got up and dressed for going in and got all the way to the train and went to lock up the scooter and realized I didn't have my lock, because I didn't have my bag, which meant I couldn't even haul the thing in with me and charge it at the office because I didn't have my computer. Sigh. Scooted back home, picked up the work bag, and did it all again.

I've been fighting off a sinus cold thing and I think it's making me stupid.

• ordered the Chirp wheel
• ordered some boots
• didn't order the slippers I was thinking about and now they're not listed anymore, which is fine because I didn't actually *need* them
• did the advance paperwork for my mom's appointment
• ordered Himself's Christmas presents
• moving along to renew our passports and get one for the prince

Onward

• voted (put the ballot in an official dropbox which has not, to my knowledge, been set on fire)
• mailed the 500 postcards to Ohio
• signed up to drive voters to the polls in Pennsylvania next Tuesday
• scheduled my mom for a doctor's appointment she needs
• (last week) took my mom to the optometrist to get her glasses tightened and on the same day to the DMV to get her non–driver's license ID
• ordered my kid some replacement shoelaces
• got some dresses hemmed up
• took some boots in to be resoled
• thinking about new slippers; also thinking about the 4.5" Chirp wheel for the back of my neck (and its friends the knot behind my shoulderblade and the TMJ on the right side, which presents as pressure in my right ear)
• not going ahead and ordering either of these until after the election in case we need to flee to Ireland or someplace we can get to without a visa

[eta: Plus I have a plan for my husband's Christmas present and he didn't even have to suggest it to me. What is even happening in my life? (Now if only I could get moving on Yuletide)]

The prince, who is almost 8, still likes a snuggle in my lap at bedtime. Last night he climbs up and does his best to tuck his head under my chin, then changes his mind and bumps his forehead and nose against mine like a kitten, and says "Hmm, Mommy. Your breath doesn't really smell like anything." (Well, no, kid, I'm breathing through my nose.) "Actually . . . it smells like love."

❤️

When we last spoke (or—last time before I triumphed over the stack of Postcards to Swing States, that is), my mother had briefly almost failed to recognize me and I had made an arrangement with my doctor to medicate my anxiety as well as adjusting the medication for my blood pressure.

( Then one Thursday evening )

( Then Himself went on a work trip for a week )

( While he was gone )

( MEANWHILE. )

( This past weekend )

AND (a) I mean, look at the world, plus it is (b) concert week—which means three late nights and a full Sunday for me, always a pain in the ass, although we're doing the Brahms Deutsches Requiem, which I love more every time I sing it—and (c) the month of October, which is always uncomfortable for me ever since the time, 12 years ago tomorrow, that my mother told us my father's oncologist said it was probably time for my brother and me to come home. There's no avoiding it: Even in years when I haven't realized where we are in the calendar, the body remembers. Last night I got home from rehearsal and got quietly ready for bed so I wouldn't wake Himself and lay there with my phone screen dimmed trying to wind down by doing the crossword puzzle and reading a few pages of . . . something, I don't even remember what, and I could feel my bite guards clacking together as my TMJ just twitched and spasmed. Making the effort to hold your jaw slightly open so your teeth don't clench is just another kind of tension, of course. I can't win.