fox

So I ran the junior championships at my curling club, which involved being at the club from 3:30-10:30ish Wednesday, 6:30-11ish Thursday-Saturday, and 7:30-5 Sunday, but only because I had a plane to catch, because thanks to tiebreaker hell the event actually went to about 9:30 Sunday and my capable deputy handled the final match and the wrap-up.

Gentleman Caller and I went to Florida for New Year's to College Roommate L's parents' house. L, her husband, her parents, her three kids, and friend S and her husband J. It was good. A quick visit but a good one, and Himself might not have been able to handle any more togetherness, even though it's a lovely family - it's still a lot. (The kids barely let me get in the door before glomming on for hugs, and when I introduced him they glommed on to him too. Me, they remember, but him, they've obvs never met before, but they are utterly unconcerned by new people as long as the new people are not strangers to their parents. By this morning the seven-year-old was climbing up to sit on GC's lap and show him the video game she was playing on her iPad-for-kids. He was bemused but not unwilling to be Uncle Jungle Gym. When I told her we had to say goodbye because it was almost time for us to go home, she cried. ("But ... right now?" She's used to my staying longer than just two nights.)) GC has asked that after our trip home to my family for MLKmas, we can have at least a couple of months without out-of-town travel. I don't think that's at all unreasonable. Oof.

Before the curling, my mother had come down for Christmas (arriving Monday and leaving Wednesday, another quick trip), which was very nice - GC and I did a roast with Yorkshire pudding and potatoes and broccoli and it was lovely. Next year I might try to make my own Christmas pudding, if I can remember in time. Last thing before I went off to the curling, I finished up my New Year's cards, so if I have your mailing address, watch your box. Now I am back home in comfy clothes, thinking about sorting but not laundering the laundry, and knowing I'm off to work again in the morning.

Last night L's mom drove GC and me back to our hotel a little after midnight, and the moment the door to our room closed behind us, I mean the moment that 2012 was really over for good, I just burst into tears. He held me while I sobbed and sobbed, but you know, the good thing is that it will never be last year again. This morning when we woke up he held me tight and it was better. I'm counting on this year to be an improvement over the last one.

I thought I'd do snowflake_challenge. Here's the Day 1 challenge.

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Sure, I can do that.

• Fortune's Fool, which so far is always at the top of the list of things I'm proudest of. Romeo and Juliet, Romeo/Mercutio, written (in iambic pentameter!) for Yuletide 2004.
  
• No Rest, a drabble based on a Banksy picture of what may be a fallen angel, but which to me looks like an angel who has been working far too hard and needs a weekend. I may have recently read Good Omens at the time that I wrote this? I don't remember.
  
• A Very Small Number of Immortal Beings, which is about Jack Harkness and another character not named until the story is over, and which I enjoy a lot and choose to believe more people would enjoy if they only knew about it. :-)

Apartment is mainly clean. Less with the tidy, but I'm so glad to have scrubbed the things I've scrubbed that I don't much mind (for the moment) not having enough place to put things away.

My fuzzy slippers have finally given up the ghost, having torn (or worn) a hole in the heel. So I've ordered some new ones. I also went ahead and ordered some plaid flannel shirts, because I'm throwing up my hands and embracing my inner 1993, and my oldest favorite has blown a hole in the elbow. (I'm apparently rough on my corners. Who knew? I barely have any corners.)

Icon chosen for this paragraph: ARAL VORKOSIGAN HAD A HEART ATTACK WTFF ARE YOU ALL DOING TO ME. Note please that responses revealing any future developments are barred. I'm nearing the end of Mirror Dance, actually, so at the moment everyone is alive and suffering, which so far is about what I expect for the last hundred pages of one of these books, and it won't surprise you to learn that I don't object in the least. I can't have you telling me what happens next, though. ellen_fremedon will bring me the next volume to work tomorrow. I'll catch up eventually.

Today is the birthday of my most very favorite small person. See?

1. I was mistaken - my friend's parents have a relatively complete Robin Hood set, so there's definitely a Maid Marian nutcracker, and she feels sure there's a Guinevere as well. This is the converse (reverse? obverse? inverse?) of what I said yesterday, which doesn't matter one bit, but I did want to set the record straight. :-)

2. The gold-foil "extra dry" champagne is nicer than the silver-foil whatever-it-called-itself and much nicer than the Rosa Regale everyone else was drinking last night, dear god. We didn't get to the white-foil "deliciously sweet" nonsense; if we happen to do so tomorrow, I will have a tiny taste (for science), but confidently expect to grimace painfully. (This morning, everyone helped me polish off the medium-dry silver-foil stuff in pale orange mimosas.)

3. Speaking of nutcrackers, though, I can't stop thinking about this middle kid and her genuinely curious question. I mean. In the specific instance, a couple of dozen nutcrackers in which she can't spot more than one or two female characters is a pretty trivial example, right?, of course it is. But now I just want so badly for her not to stop thinking that way, because in my head she grows up to look at, forget nutcrackers, to look at - I don't know, the Supreme Court? (One in three at the moment, not bad, but still.) The Joint Chiefs of Staff? Presidents? (Of whatever - the United States, Fortune 500 companies, major universities, etc.) Major award winners in non-gender-marked categories of any juried competition ever? - and ask, "Where are all the girls?"

Where, indeed. ♥

New Year's in Florida this year; here with College Roommate L and her three children, girls ages five (FIVE!) and three and a half, and boy age 21 months.

Greetings from these children last night were, respectively: "Um ... hi! Oh, hi! I want to give you a hug and a kiss."; "Guess what? I'm three and a half!"; and "zzzzzzuuuh, neh!" (The boy is not talking as much as his middle sister did at that age, but the eldest didn't talk much until she was about two and a half either, so, you know.)

Today the middle child, running across the room, tripped over her brother where he was sitting on the floor, knocking him down and falling over herself, so for a few tragic moments there were two shrieking toddlers and exactly two adults with arms free; Momma got the boy, and I got the girl, and she cried until she realized she was okay (and I reassured her he was okay too), and also patted my shoulder ... to make sure she was okay. This is a very sweet thing her sister used to do as well. I was always charmed by it.

Went to the hockey game tonight with my friend and her dad, and saying good night to the kids before we left (because they were, miracle of miracles, asleep when we returned), the eldest child hung from my neck and said "No, stay! Stay, stay, stay." Middle child verified that my house is far away, and then said she wished she could come to my house. Youngest child was a little wary of me yesterday but pretty relaxed and okay regarding me today, even though I remained the fourth-ranked adult by preference, following his mother, grandmother, and grandfather - and of course I would have been fifth-ranked if his dad hadn't had to be at work. I was allowed to wake him up from his nap, and he likes the songs I sing, and he giggles happily when I dance him around the room or even just make him wiggle.

Tomorrow, chili dinner and champagne. And, with all love and respect to the party I chose not to attend in the frozen north, no 40mph winds and no snowbanks. All in all, my NYE is shaping up pretty well.

Here in Boston at my brother's, where my wee nephew is every bit as fabulous as I'd suspected. ONE MORE DAY OF SNUGGLES and then I come home on Monday.

First, a snippet of conversation from this afternoon, quoted directly except for names.

four-year-old child: Auntie Fox, why don't you're going to stay here forever?
me: No, baby, I'm going home tomorrow, to my house.
four-year-old child: Aw, man!

Furthermore, at his birthday party Friday evening the one-year-old child - handed to me early by his grandmother so she could go wrap presents - was not interested in being passed to any of the other aunties or uncles. I imagine he wouldn't have cried if I'd given him to his parents, but they were busy enjoying grown-up company, so I didn't try; and every time I asked other adults if they wanted to hold him, his little face crumpled up and he turned and clung to me. I know he doesn't know me well enough to have cared that it was me specifically, but I was the one who had him before the overstimulation began, so I was the safe comfortable one. Heh. Paid for it later, though, when I was the one to hose him down after he was comprehensively smeared with frosting and crumbs.

The two-and-a-half-year-old child has had a series of remarkably bratty afternoons, but even she has her moments; she'll be on a tear, pitching a toddler-sized hissy over something completely inscrutable, and I'll pick her up and sit on the couch with her and hold her through the yelling and squirming, and after a minute she'll settle down and put her thumb in her mouth and her head on my shoulder.

This auntie thing is a pretty good gig. :-)

So I left Rochester earlier than I'd intended to with the idea of visiting kass and Yao and young Zaphod - and arrived nine hours later, having missed the Thruway exit and had to turn around at the end of 390, and then made a wrong choice around Albany and had to turn around at the New Paltz/Poughkeepsie exit, and then discovered that despite her front-wheel drive my little car cannot handle the driveway here, which was no problem really except that in reversing back down to the road I got both left wheels stuck in the ditch and had to leave her there overnight and be dug out today before lunch.

Yesterday was not a good day for me, in short.

But I did eventually arrive chez kass, and I did get my auntie on after baby-feeding time before I went to bed, and I slept very well, and I have been doing auntie-duties this morning as well, and soon I will go check in to the hotel, and it will be good times.

Happy New Year's Eve, everyone!

The first bit was a thing where the fifth season of Doctor Who only had one episode, and it involved a nuclear bomb hitting Paris (sorry, Paris), and Rose and Sarah Jane and some random dude and I (?) had just enough time to join the Tenth Doctor in the TARDIS and get the damn door shut before the ... rolling cloud of destruction, such as (a) would be created by something more like a meteor impact than a nuclear bomb and (b) would be moving faster than the speed of sound, never mind faster than, you know, me (but, hey, if Jake Gyllenhaal can outrun freezing) ... anyway, get the damn door shut before it got there. The TARDIS is evidently radiation-proof when closed and secured with one of those question-mark-shaped hooks you often see on screen porch doors.

That was evidently the warm-up act, because the really annoying or troubling dream involved a house guest -- someone I didn't know very well, but a young friend of a friend who needed a place to crash, and he was kind of awful, making a minor ruin of my kitchen and flooding the bathroom and using the vacuum cleaner, which is (note) not a shopvac, to clean it up; all of which was annoying, right, but then when my friends J and D from high school (whom I haven't seen since B and H's wedding omfg ten years ago; D's father died two years ago last week, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, and I couldn't get home for the funeral; my parents did go, and I'd asked them to give her and her mother big hugs from me, and they took this directive quite literally, and explained to D and M as they hugged them that this had been my instruction, and told me later that D and M had agreed that sounded just like me -- none of this was a dream, just a tangent) turned up and I rearranged some things to make room for them too (my apartment as currently configured can sleep about six, and the apartment in the dream was a little bigger), J soon confided in me that the kid, whoever he was, had said something disparaging about my housekeeping. And of course I was having none of that, and if memory serves I slapped him across the face and pulled his hair and tackled him in the manner of a Law & Order police detective and held his face to the ground until he recanted the slur. The fact that my floorboards are soaked and there's a broken vacuum cleaner on my balcony (note: I do not have a balcony) and rice dumped all over my desk (note: I also do not have a desk, though in the dream I had one with a sort of well for a pencil cup, which was, yes, full of rice) is not because I keep a messy apartment, right?, not when the person with my knee in the small of his back is the one who made it that way. At some point in all of this wholenother appeared and also needed a place to stay, and was starting to say how she seemed to have wandered into a party, and then saw me twist the kid's arm behind him a little further, and I clearly remember her saying "Ah. Never mind."

In short, I had an unpleasant dream about a bad houseguest. Given that datlowen -- a good houseguest! -- is coming next week to crash here for a bit before he can move into his place for the summer, that's only a little bit surprising; then as I was putting the coffee on this morning I remembered that I got a notice that shortly some county inspectors will be coming to take a look at my place. I have no idea what they're inspecting for, but it's evidently got me sufficiently rattled to give me unhappy dreams between snooze alarms even though I vacuumed and scrubbed and generally tidied up (vacuumed the freakin sofa!) less than 48 hours ago.


In other news, another of my oldest friends in the world, who never expected to be married, much less to be anybody's mother, is expecting a baby. I'm nothing but pleased for her and her husband, of course -- and really only a tiny, tiny bit heartbroken for me. :-] Happy new year.

Been here 25 hours approx. Babies still unanimously cute, although the three-year-old is, well, three, and therefore (you will be surprised to learn) willful. We are still bigger and stronger, though, so when the chips are really down, the grown-ups will win. The 20-month-old is awfully sweet-tempered, despite having a tummy bug of some kind, poor thing. The 14-month-old is fascinated by being in a different house with all these different toys. The two-week-old is frequently hungry; when his sisters were that age, you could stick a pacifier or a fingertip in their mouths and let them suck on that for a while, and thus buy their mother a little more time, but this kid is seldom fooled for more than about four seconds. Tonight, though, a breakthrough - he slept in my arms (where babies go to fall asleep, after all) for two solid hours and in the swing and then the bassinet for four more hours after that. My poor friend might actually get to sleep in her bed tonight.

I'll be trying to get pictures tomorrow. Meantime, I check in to say hi, and I learn that the Supreme Court of the state of Iowa (Iowa!) has unanimously (unanimously!) insisted on equal marriage rights. There's a lot of Field of Dreams stuff in my head, but it's all trite, so I'll spare you; nevertheless, you go on ahead, Iowa. Others of us from the heartland are proud and a little envious. [applause]

Got an A on Yiddish midterm. \o/

Cast on last cupcake while in waiting room for allergy shot. Will absolutely finish in time to give pre-determined number of cupcakes to small children; this may be the first time I've ever finished a knitted gift on time. Let's all try to contain our amazement.

Got folder with red-tab notes of stuff that needs fixing from colleague who is busy with other project this a.m. I swear every time we look at the document we see more typos and logical inconsistencies. Just hand it in already and then it won't be our problem anymore.

Soon enough it won't be my problem anyway, b/c I am off 6ish this evening to head to the airport and then head south (five-day forecast calls for high 70's, can't wait) and see my girls! (two of them, anyway) and their babies!

Miss me!

Got all my cold calls finally finished today, and I'll tell you what, when you have thirty-five people to call and eight of them are unreachable for reasons like their numbers having been disconnected, the people at their offices never having heard of them, and similar, you're probably not going to get the thirty interviews you're aiming for. Yeah, so we'll need some more options -- but at least my whole spreadsheet is color-coded now.

Surprise all-staff meeting this afternoon, to tell us that the layer of government employees in between us and our clients is going away. Soon we'll be dealing with them on our own, which is good because fewer middle-men is always good and nobody will be taking our credit, but bad because fewer people going to bat for you is always bad and nobody will be taking our blame. We're pretty sure most if not all of them are being reassigned rather than laid off, so that's less bad than it could be, but given that a lot of us can't think of a solider reason for this than budget streamlining (we can think of other legitimate reasons, but that seems like the main one), there's a non-zero amount of apprehension w/r/t the hypothetical eventual day they decide to streamline us right out of existence. Right now and for the foreseeable future I have a job, but given that we didn't have an inkling about the disappearance of these middle-man colleagues until noonish today, I'm not sure how much of the future I can really foresee.

My friend College Roommate L had her baby! NoRMaN #4 (Not Really My Nephew) was born at 5:45 pm, 8 lbs 9 oz., and (according to his mother) already hungry. His parents and his big sisters NoRMaN #1 and NoRMaN #2 are well and very pleased. College Roommate K and her daughter NoRMaN #3 and I will be there visiting in (omfg) two weeks.

It is time to go to sleep, I think.

NoRMaN #1 has been declaring the above subject line for the past ten or fifteen minutes, which her mother tells me means not that she is tired of her pajamas, but that she is too tired to deal with them right now, i.e. she doesn't want to get changed to take her nap.  I think we can all relate to the feeling of being so exhausted we can't face changing our clothes and going to sleep.

The grown-ups are much bigger and much stronger, so both babies are now down for naps whether they like it or (as proved to be the case) not.

NoRMaN #3 is here!  (Who is not, in case you're playing along at home, the sister of NoRMaN #1 and NoRMaN #2, but rather a "cousin" of these.)  I think her due date was next Wednesday, or next Saturday, next week some time, so she doesn't actually count as early, medically speaking.  And she is healthy and my friend and her husband are exhausted and everybody is fine and hurrah!