Personal Perestróĭka

I cooked all day.  Now I need to clean house a little and go work a seven hour shift.  I don’t think I’ve ever wished so hard for temporary power outage.  Got up too early.  Stood all day.  Now I go and run around for seven hours.  Please send booze.  And love.  And half naked Damian Lewis.  Thank you.

Things I made today: homemade lemon squares (exactly as complicated as ones from a box), chocolate lemon custard pie (homemade, my own creation, hopefully it’s good), roasted beets with garlic and fresh oregano, sausage stuffing, salad dressing (from scratch).  Hmm, that doesn’t seem like a lot.  I also crushed lots of chocolate for the pie and seeded two pomegranates, went grocery shopping, and collaborated with the lovely neighbor boys about cooking everything else tomorrow (somehow this got me out of having to mash potatoes, awesome!).  Still to be made: spinach and pea salad with feta, cornbread stuffing, Yorkshire pudding.  Blissfully enough the boys are taking care of everything else (mashed taters, sweet taters, ham, turkey, pork loin wrapped in bacon, soup, green bean casserole and hors d’oeuvres).

I love you all, I hope you have wonderful day tomorrow!!  I will be thinking of how thankful I am for your friendship as I stuff my face.

I woke up a good two hours earlier than I’d intended, from a nightmare that was long and involved.  I don’t remember most of the beginning, but most of the end of it I spent in prison in a foreign country.  I kept nearly getting out, but no one would believe who I was.  I’d get friends on the phone and they’d think I was joking.  In the end I spent years in this prison before anyone came for me.

After I woke up, I laid in bed for a while imagining Damian Lewis coming in, barefoot, wearing nothing but jeans, all sleep rumpled with his hair all sticky-uppy.  He’d be bringing me coffee and and asking what I wanted for breakfast.  I stared at the door for a while, but he never appeared, presumably because he is an actor on TV and not my boyfriend after all.

Monday ended up being the mother of all Mondays.  After I posted about the sewing machine and the mail, the TV died, I broke a few dishes and set off the smoke alarm.  Maybe not in that order.  Not a good day at all.

Today I need to make a list, drink coffee and get cracking!  I have foods to pre-prepare, shopping to do, tons of cleaning, cookbooks to read, panic attacks to have.  Oh, god, I forgot about pie.  People are going to want pie, huh?  ACK ACK ACK.

I might just go back to bed and stay there until tomorrow.  Seriously nothing works for me today.  I’m in the middle of trying to fix the tension on my sewing machine.  It should work, everything is set right, changed threads and bobbins and cleaned it and oiled it and it just will not stitch right.  I’m so frustrated that I am about to cry.  In the middle of it Miss Sparkle sends me a text message asking if Mercury is in Retrograde. The answer is no, but yet everything does feel funky.  So I take a deep breath and head out to check the mail.

Apparently the USPS doesn’t work either as there is a package, something I ordered, that is just an empty envelope in plastic bag.  The envelope is stamped “received without contents” and plastic bag has a little note apologizing for damaging my mail, but claiming it isn’t their fault because they deliver so much mail every day that of course accidents happen.  The envelope itself is not at all damaged.  It appears to have been opened and resealed, but not torn or bent or anything else.

So now, do I go back to bed and just say fuck today?  Do I load the sewing machine into the car and drive through the pouring rain to have it adjusted?  Do I send an irate letter to the USPS, or just beg the original company to replace my items, even though the loss was clearly the fault of the post office?

I’m seriously leaning toward making tea, watching the Tomb Raider movies and pretending the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

There’s about 2 to 3 months in the late summer/autumn in Tennessee where I do pay attention to the weather forecast at all.  It’s just pretty good no matter what the weather is.  The same in the spring/early summer.  In the height of summer I obsessively check it hoping to get a break from the heat.  This time of year I check hoping for some magical very warm day.  Ugh.  Cold snap hit a couple days ago and it feels more like late December or January than November.  BRRRRRRR.

YAY!!!  After a day of intensive, obsessive checking, my Gmail has themes!!  HURRAH!

So the anti-secular wingnuts know that ‘holiday’ means ‘holy day’ right?  I mean is there problem with people saying ‘happy holidays’ rather than ‘merry christmas’ that is doesn’t contain a reference to Christ? Or are they all just ignorant asshats who expect people to be respectful of their beliefs but cannot be respectful of other folks’?

Also, since we are on the subject of the impending holidays: Dear Santa, please bring me a cute boy who is a good kisser and is not married, gay or made entirely of insecurities and commitment issues.

I inadvertently made very weak coffee this morning that tastes strangely of soap.  UGH.  How hard is it to make more coffee? Not very.  Why am I not doing that?  Hmm, very lazy.

Work was miserably busy last night.  I’m sure no one reading this needs this public service announcement but… If you want to go out to dinner with 30+ of your friends, go to Olive Garden.  Sure it’s not the greatest, but they are equipped to deal with you.  Do not go to the cute local restaurant that only seats 60.  If you must go to a tiny place, either rent the entire place out, or be very clear about the size of your party.  If you are bringing 28 guests, do not make a reservation for 17 people.  Also if you bring more than your reservation, do not complain when we tell you that there are literally no more chairs in the restaurant.

Okay, time to stop reading pointless things on the internets and go get dressed and do the 623 things I feel guilty about not having done yesterday.

THIS FAMILY HAS A HIPPO THAT OPENS DOORS AND LIVES IN THE HOUSE.  Why do I not have this?  Why am I so deprived?  Clearly I have failed at achieving my dreams.  I need to work harder.

The laundry room is so clean.  I can’t even express to you how disgusting it was, or how much work it was.  But it’s done.  Hurray!  Also the living room is cleaner and we have a few groceries.

Then we watched the last three episodes of Band of Brothers and now I have a headache from crying so much.  Seriously I think this is the 4th or 5th time I’ve watched it all the way through and I still cry my eyes out every time.  It’s just so good.

Also have you all see this little French toddler?  Will totally add cheer to your day.

A layman’s explanation of the mortgage crisis.

Ladybug and I are about to embark on a serious, serious journey. Our very lives are at risk, so please, if you have chance, think good thoughts for us today.

What’s so big? Cleaning the laundry room. No seriously. The laundry room is a dank closet of a room, with a partial concrete floor (the rest is dirt). It is currently filled with a disgusting mess of old moldy blankets and clothes heaped in one corner and a surely dangerous heap of old laundry containers in another pile. Much of this is from the former neighbors who were perhaps some of the messiest, most inconsiderate people I have ever met. We plan on undertaking the task with pitchforks, shovels and heavy boots. If I had a hazmat suit I’d wear it. I am terrified of spiders.

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I have this sweater. It looks better in real life than in that picture. Alas it seems somewhat delicate. Which is too bad because I want to wear every single day until spring comes back. LOOK! It looks like fall and like me and like joy!

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Pretty Cabbage girl posted these prints a couple days ago. I am mesmerized by the one from Ashland (where I was born!). Along with these I have recently become obsessed with photography. It is also that time of year when I start thinking of presents (I actually started shopping yesterday, or before if you count fabric and plans for stuff I am making people). I strive to want nothing. It’s long long long long road however, before I achieve that level of Buddhist minimalism and thus I still make wish lists every year. I am focusing on the Etsy this year, since I am also a maker of handmade things, I would like to encourage every one to support such artists. And as ever, with the holidays on us, I’d much rather have you buy some something I made to give to some else, than buy something for me. (When I say that I can never tell if I come off as an insane Capitalist or if the intended spirit of sharing and passing things on really comes through). However, I have begun to fill my Etsy favorites list with photography, if nothing else you should go look, just so you can see the pretty pretty pretty pictures.

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Need more coffee. Ad protective, durable clothes. Here we go to work.

I had a bunch of stuff to say about periods, bras and other womanly things.  But I am feeling lazy and trying to psyche myself up to get ready for work, so for today you are spared.  Instead I give you:

Crayolabama!!

Obamas’ Secret Service code names!!  Whee!!  These make me surprisingly happy.

Why is Sarah Palin on my TV giving a fairly offensive speech in her grating and hideous accent?  Why is she still getting press? Why is she giving a speech?  She has nothing to give speech about?  It’s first thing in the morning and already I want to kick puppies.  Seriously she needs handlers.  She definitely needs someone to monitor how she speaks in public before she embarrasses herself further.  Oh it’s some Governor’s convention speech that she’s using a platform for, well something besides addressing Governor’s but I’m not sure what her damn point is.  Really that shit she just said about my kid’s got more chromosomes than yours was, hmm, maybe no offensive but definitely showing a lack of understanding.

I have a peculiar loathing for shipping companies.  With the old USPS you send stuff and eventually it gets there, or it doesn’t.  You check your mail box and there is stuff in it, or there isn’t. But now that FedEx and UPS and their ilk are all online it’s become this maddening, bizarrely ritualistic, crazy waiting period to get your package.  First you start checking the online tracking, continually refreshing to see if it’s anywhere new. And what do you get? Usually that the thing has gone 3 miles in the first two days, or there are no updates at all, and then suddenly it’s gone from Seattle to Louisville in 6 hours and is already halfway to your house.  Or, as has happened to me, it shows arrival in your city, ‘out for delivery’ and then six hours later it’s suddenly on it’s way to Atlanta, and then back to you, taking 2 days longer than the original out for delivery notice.  WTF?  And then once it is out for delivery all one can do is check the damn porch every 20 minutes.  Well at least at my house.  I have a good (and pretty cute) UPS guy.  He knows me and my neighbors.  He delivers to my job as well.  He waves when we drive past each other in other parts of the neighborhood.  He always gets my packages to me. However he doesn’t always work.  I’ve had drivers knock on my door and in the time it takes me to get from my couch to the door (about 6 feet), the driver is already back in their truck and there is notice stuck to the door saying they couldn’t deliver the package without a signature.  ARG.

Hi.  Guess what I am doing this morning? Yep, waiting for an ‘out for delivery’ package. Which should contain my new phone.  So I can lose the rest of my day setting up the new phone and messing with it.  Good times.

I was an hour late for court the other day.  They acted like it wasn’t a big deal, like the difference was between me waiting in the hall to testify for 20 minutes vs. an hour and 20 minutes.  It was a hearing to get the guys who robbed me tried as adults (they are 17, I think).  They aren’t, as far as I understand it, trying them for robbing me, rather they got caught in other crimes, with fingerprints, and they established that their fingerprints matched the prints on my car.  So I go in, get sworn in.  They ask where I work, what happened on the night of blah blah blah.  And if I know anyone by [redacted] name. No, I don’t.  Could I please look to my left and behind me and say if I recognize any one of the defendants as a friend or acquaintance who would have had reason to touch my car.  Ugh, all four kids were right there (two robbed me, four were involved in the other crime I guess, and no, I didn’t realize they were in the courtroom, as it was laid out really weird).  I said, no, I didn’t know any of them.  And that was pretty much it.  They said I could stay and watch the rest of the proceedings, but I bolted.  And I am still very uncomfortable about it.  Here’s the thing, I did not have the option to testify, I was subpoenaed and (very very mildly) threatened that I had to testify.  They put me in a courtroom with the perpetrators, and their families and girlfriends and then asked me to give my full name (including spelling it) and tell where I worked and what hours.  So you know, if some one wanted to retaliate against me, it would be pretty fucking easy for them to find me.  And while I find that scenario highly unlikely (since they already knew where I worked anyway), I assume that there are no victims rights advocates in the Tennessee system.  I think people have probably been put in very very very bad situations because of this very textbook, very impersonal judicial system.  Ugh, I’m not sure I’m stating this right, just I think the whole thing was pretty fucked up, and I am unhappy with how it all went and I doubt the system is going to do anything at all for these kids besides make them prisoners and probably worse more desperate criminals in the future.  And oh, UGH, after I typed this up I read this.  Man, Tennessee, I love you, I really do, but seriously you fucking suck in so many ways.

The rain seems to be delaying both the UPS guy and the regular mail.  I am going to stop peeking through my curtains like an insane old lady and go watch Bruce Lee movies and make lunch.

Work was hell tonight. I have a violent pounding headache (so why am I on the internets and not in bed, clearly I am an idiot). I was rewarded at the end of my shift by a visit from the fabulous Miss D, a cute boy I know sporting a ridonkulous mustache (I believe he lost a bet with his father or something), and a table full of very cute boys who were all very charming. The universe gives and takes away. One table early in the night expressed shock that I could remember their order without writing it down (yes, three pies and one chicken sandwich, god, when I get to the point I can’t remember that, just kill me). I never write down orders and I rarely mess them up (which isn’t to say I don’t forget, but usually I realize it and go back and clarify with the customers). Is this a skill? I mean, it’s not rocket science, it’s just what good servers do, right? Another table was horrible to me, insisting I’d brought them the wrong beers. I didn’t. It would have been impossible, as we only have one IPA on draft and no other drafts that color that could be confused. Finally they decided that it must be bad batch (a local microbrew). Yes, it was bad and no one else noticed even though I probably served a hundred glasses of it tonight. Then when I tried to find a substitute beer for them, they started arguing about how the wife didn’t even like IPAs. So clearly she wasn’t going to like the beer she ordered. ARG. They proceeded to be rude and entitled in a variety of ways. Good thing the universe sent me all those cute boys at the end.

One of my friends is shipping out for his second tour in Iraq today.  So in addition to sending thanks and love to veterans of all past wars on this Veterans/Remembrance Day, I’d like to offer extra hope and love to the 267th MP Company out of Dickson, Tennessee.

Guess who was supposed to be in court this morning?  Guess who didn’t figure it out until 35 minutes after they were supposed to be there?  Yeah.  Nothing like calling the DA’s office first thing in the morning to explain you are an idiot who can’t use a calendar.

Any hopes I had of today being a calm and productive day are now dashed.

Last night I dreamt about some sort of artificial intelligence that built itself a life sized T-Rex robot body.  I spent most of the dream, in NYC, with a group of people trying to avoid the non-dangerous, people sized robot dinosaurs (they’d report back to the big one) and running through the city trying to get to a dock (and a boat) to get away (the giant robot couldn’t go in water).  Kind of an epic stress dream.  Hours of being chased.  UGH.

Someone pasted a lot of great old photos of part of my neighborhood: North Edgefield Facebook. This makes me want to research my house and neighborhood.

Have y’all seen Home Ec 101?  It’s pretty awesome!  I know a lot of the stuff here, but the recipes and some of the laundry stuff is great.

I really really really want most all of the Floragraphix fabrics (there are many more than listed here, but they are all over and I didn’t want to link all over the place). Sadly I do not quilt and honestly do have much use for prints like this.  And yet it is so appealing I just want want want want.

I put up some pictures on Flickr of the the little decoupage house I made my mom for her birthday.

The best news, BEST, I have, possibly ever heard!! Punny just sent me the email about it!! Rare baby pygmy hippo is size of puppy! I NEED ONE.

I admit these pics of tiny Obama supporters look a little contrived, and yet they are so sweet! Especially the dads at the end!

Now that the presidential election is over I can start obsessing over Tennessee politics. Which, damn it, already got really really screwed up while I wasn’t paying attention. I mean, not like I am going to do much to change it, but wow is it a clusterfuck and I guess I better start watch watching carefully in case there is anything I can do to help. TN poli links:

Aunt B. points out that the TN Dems don’t seem to be looking inward much.

R. Neal explains that the TN Dems don’t really know how to use the internet or understand why it’s important.

DailyKos has a lovely map showing which counties voted more Republican than in 2004. Yeah, see that huge red swatch? That’s us right in the middle of it.

Now I am going to turn off MSNBC and try and get back to my life.

Last night I dreamt that I had a twin sister. We were raised into a magic family, and were both going to be powerful witches, but the power required us to always work together. We were taught that when we were 18 one of us would go blind and become the most powerful person alive (in terms of magic), and the other would be required to assist the blind sister, but also the power would come from the sighted sister, in the sense that using the power for magic, or especially for negative magic purposes, the sighted sister would be drained like a battery and become unable to care for the blind sister. This was to maintain balance and keep us together. We were carefully raised to love each other more than anyone around us, to prevent us from abusing each other or our power when we got older. On our 13th birthday a prophecy told I would become the blind sorceress and my sister would become my support. So for the next five year our families devoted teaching, time and energy into preparing us for this outcome. The day before our 18th birthday my sister woke up blind, revealing that our all our planning and learning had been wrong, backwards. And I guess forcing us to work together even more than we might have otherwise. I’m not sure, since this is about when someone sat in the parking lot next to my house blasting some crazy hip-hop and waking me up.

If I wasn’t already stretched so thin, I’d seriously consider devoting some time to writing a book of short stories, fairytales really, based on my dreams.

Things I have heard this morning:

Voters under 30 voted for Obama 2 to 1. (Go Millenials!!)

It was the highest voter turn out since women got the right to vote (I assume percentage-wise). (Go everyone!)

I am still very emotional about all this today.  I haven’t actually cried yet, but it seems to be bubbling just below the surface. The pictures of peoples’ reactions during Obama’s speech really set me off this morning.  When I start thinking about how Obama’s campaign was run, about how many people gave $5 or $10, people who had probably never participated in politics that way before.  About how so many people seemed galvanized to simply participate in the process.  It is so much more than just electing the first black president, but, I think, an underlying change in the cultural morals of America.  I can only hope we are moving toward a more community-oriented society.

I spent a good portion of the day crying over the idea that we could tell D’s babies, born today, that they were born on the day we elected the first black president. It wasn’t just hope, like I knew it just had to hppen that way.  I told my coworkers and they were not suitably impressed.  Luckily my friend S came in to restaurant (she’s the standard of what I want to be as I grow older) and she cried when I told her.  Babies born on the day of hope.

Early in the evening another friend brought his 8 month old son in.  And while I was holding this lovely baby, he was smiling the most devilish smile at me.  Arched eyebrows, wrinkled nose, look of pure joy.  His dad told me he’d never made that face before and it was a smile just for me.  I’m saying, it was a good day.

So we had the results on in the restaurant and when they called the election I went around and told all my tables in case they didn’t hear.  I had one table of middle aged Hispanic men (all of whom I know fairly well) and they all just blinked at me.  Made me repeat it three times.  It didn’t seem real.  I guess in way it still doesn’t.

Later all the customers sat rapt (on the floor even) around the TV, drinking champagne and watching Obama’s speech.  I admit, I cried all the way through it, while my boss patted my back and we all smiled at each other.  It was a lovely night.

I have smart things to say, about how Obama’s campaign ran, about the momentus nature of this, about people in my neighborhood.  But it will have to wait.  I am a little drunk. I do have restored faith in my fellow Americans.  I feel like I can breathe again. Hope. Hope. Hope. Hope.

In a final note, Ladybug came back from vacation tonight.  I texted her election results as she sat on a plane, waiting to take off.  She was asleep when I got home, but she got a small present: Tibetan prayer flags.  Something I’ve always talk about.  If there was ever a time to send our prayers flying to heaven, it is today.