Me so crazy

Everything behind the cuts before "Christmas Week" was written about two weeks ago, before we came to see everybody.

( Ramblings about Gratch )
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( The House )
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( Hosting Dinner )
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( Pre-Christmas Mayhem )
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( Christmas Week )
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( New Years Week )
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General loot acquired over the last two weeks... (given and bought)

-beachfeet shoes for beach walking
-some gorgeous madden girl high heels unlike anything I own, 'cause they're pretty
-tye dye dress, summery top, ruby necklace, bras, and I forget what other little goodies from mum... oh, she bought a nice aoteroa t-shirt when we were in taupo
-corsety top
-four t-shirts with amusing pictures
-red dress figurine neclace holder from Alan
-towel and body butter from Denise
-oily skin treatment creme from Laura and Savannah
-smelly toiletry stuff from Rachel
-various dvds... Band of Brothers, season ten of SG-1 and the two movies, By Any Means (another miniseries with Charley Boorman), Short Circuit, Run Lola Run, Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny
-the fairy jewellery box
-two lego sets, one of dwarf and orcs, the other star wars, from Alan...

...and that's where I forget what else there is. Eh, well. It's been a very up and down kind of year. And a stressful last month. Can't wait for home and some peace.

ETA: Okay, how could I forget the gin? pandoras_evil_t gave me gin. Yay!

Fin.

I have not been to bash.org in ages, but, zomg, this:

You know, you really ought to have a bra with 403: forbidden on it.
And you really ought to have a pair of boxers with 404: not found.

Bwahahahahaha.

Fin.

Please excuse the googly eye, these were taken before she was better. I should get some new ones for you, I suppose. But she's still a little, little thing.

( Gratch! )

Fin.

...when you remember a movie you saw years and years ago, but by remember it means you remember a vague plot without knowing the title or the actors who were in it? How do you look THAT up on imdb? How do you describe the plot or summary in such a way that a title (or year) might jump out at you?

'Cause I was having one of those moments.

Well... I actually had to do a bit of googling that led to some wiki-ing, and then I was able to imdb it. I know it was made in the eighties. I know that it had a few central main characters, one being an old couple, and there was a mostly mute boxer. He was kinda simple from head injuries, or something. And there were these little ufo type creatures that fixed things for scrap metal. But what was it called?

So I googled "movie ufos fix things for scrap metal" and saw a wiki page of "List of Robots in fiction" that led to a title *batteries not included (1987) which is precisely the movie I was looking for. I seriously need to find that movie again, and watch it.

...who else remembers this movie?

Fin.

It's becoming more real as we went to Paraparaumu on Friday to look at places. We've settled on one that is about two blocks from the beach and is $330 p/w but also gotta remember to get power sorted and then phoneline+broadband is in around the $100 p/m range so maybe hang on that until Alan is getting paid. His first salary (monthly) doesn't come until the beginning of January so my savings are going to get us through the month of December before we work out a repayment plan that doesn't leave us flat ass broke to meet costs. Also, need to know if my job/transfer is secure or I gotta hype up my CV yet again.

Will post new address and other contact details for those interested at some stage, because everyone will want to visit and hang out in our sleepout. Which reminds me, pandoras_evil_t I don't mind paying the train fare for you to come visit for a week as a b-day pressy or some such, if you can scrape up some spending money and we hit up Welly and other touristy attractions. We can work out details when I'm up in Hamilton.

Gratch is not happy about the boxes, although she thinks they are a wonderfuly set of stepping blocks. She is addicted to achieving high perches. Thankfully she's only got stuck once. But she also tries to attack the bubble wrap because she likes the popping noises. Will not adore us for shutting her up on moving day and then caging her to travel down. But the new place has a cat door so she can be an inside/outside cat... until we go up to Hams and she's in a cattery.

Having to stop myself from buying dvds, particularly ones on special at the Warehouse or Whitcoulls. Having to keep myself from spending much, period, especially 'til after we move.

Anywho... have I mentioned enough that packing sucks?

Fin.

Yet another story out of my cousin John recently, same old style, but not the usual subject...

Yesterday we were celebrating Thanksgiving with a family from our church. I don’t recall how the topic came up, but somehow I found myself talking about my childhood, specifically the story you’re about to read. Thinking about it was so fun I decided to write this story. No, this is not my typical story about my zany adventures at work; this is a story about being a juvenile delinquent.

So there I was…

…Sitting in my sixth grade science class listening to Mr. Brannon, my teacher, wax eloquently about the structure of atoms. This was my first foray into nuclear science, and I was fascinated. I sat transfixed as he described the way protons, neutrons, and electrons interact with each other and bond to form atoms. Right then and there I decided to be a nuclear physicist. Of course, that didn’t last once I learned my brain doesn’t wrap itself around differential equations and other types of math that doesn’t even involve numbers, but that’s not the point of the story.

It got even better when Mr. Brannon explained the process of electrolysis, where electrical current is run through water to break apart the hydrogen and oxygen molecules. He demonstrated it by running current through a beaker full of water, and we could all see the tiny gas bubbles forming on the electrodes.

I said to myself, “Self,” (that’s what I call myself), “We have an easy, cheap way of obtaining two pure, highly flammable gasses. Now what can we do with that?”

Imagine, if you will, the metaphorical light bulb over my head pulsating with sheer delight when I came up with the idea. I rushed home after school and went right into the garage, not even bothering to drop my backpack in the house. I got a five-gallon bucket, filled it with water, and brought it back into the garage. In hindsight twenty years later, I think maybe doing this in the garage wasn’t a good idea, but that’s neither here nor there.

Once I had a bucket of water, I stole some wire coat hangers from in the house and cut the straight bottoms off them. That way I had two straight wires about a foot long each. I set those aside. I dug out dad’s car battery charger and set it up next to the bucket, then put the wires into the alligator clips. I stuck the alligator clips into the water and made sure they didn’t touch – I wanted the current going through the water, not completing a circuit between the electrodes. My next step was to put a garbage bag over the bucket and tape it off with masking tape (I didn’t use the ol’ standby of duct tape because I didn’t want the bag to tear when I tore it off). Finally, I plugged in the battery charger.

Being merely twelve years old, I had the patience of a twelve year-old. I could barely contain myself waiting for the bag to fill up, which took almost a week if memory serves me. It felt like it took all year, though, and at times I wondered if I was going to be married and moved away before I had a garbage bag of 2/3 hydrogen and 1/3 oxygen.

In the meantime, however, I got a two-foot length of cannon fuse from a friend, James. You see, hobby shops at the time regularly sold cannon fuse. It wasn’t hard to come by, wasn’t controlled, and apparently no one assumed twelve year-olds buying cannon fuse were up to anything dangerous (don’t let your twelve year-olds read this, but it still holds true today. Just go to the black powder section of Sportsman’s Warehouse).

Ok, the longest week of my life (up until then) was over, and the bag was full of flammable gas. I couldn’t stop myself from giggling as I carefully pealed the masking tape off, then quickly closed the bag so as not to lose any of the precious material inside. I inserted the fuse so about twenty inches or so was sticking out the bottom, then taped the bag shut.

Essentially, I had just created a garbage bag-sized balloon that was lighter than air (due to being 2/3 hydrogen) and had a fuse for a handle. HOW AWESOME!!!

I hadn’t bothered to tell any of my friends about my little “science experiment,” for fear their sixth grade mouths would run and tell someone. I took my experiment outside by myself into the alley behind our garage, lit the fuse, and let go.

It was a beautiful thing to watch that brown garbage bag float higher and higher, anxiously awaiting the impending earth-shattering kaboom. I had planned for my own safety very well, however, by making the fuse so long – I didn’t want to be anywhere near that thing when it exploded. In the two minutes or so it took the fuse to burn down, the balloon floated so high I couldn’t even see it anymore. “Darn,” I said to myself, thinking it would be too far away to enjoy the benefits of my labor.

BOOOOOOMMM!!!! Came the report. I couldn’t actually see the bag anymore, but a big orange and blue ball of flame was all the evidence I needed to know where it was – er, had been. I doubt any fragments of the bag survived, and even if they did I never found them. About three seconds later, I think, I actually felt the shockwave push against my head and chest, and car alarms started going off throughout the neighborhood (those were a new thing in those days).

I was so giddy I actually started jumping up and down, laughing hysterically in a way that strangely reminds me of my two year-old son today. Every time he gets excited and starts laughing like that, I think of how grey my hair is going to be in about ten years.

DOOM ON ME!!!

Missed out on the house we really wanted.
Hopefully get another...

It's unreal I finish at work next week.

Which reminds me, get Georgia's details for a reference just in case. Transfer is a bit iffy atm.

Sleep is eluding me Wednesday mornings. Sucky. PMS is sucky and needs to hurry up and piss off.

I'm hoping to surprise mum by staying up in Hams for the entire visit. She's gonna cry no matter what.

Life is life.

Fin.

ETA: Been reading Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels, and his sex scenes always crack me up. Oh, fandom, how you've ruined me for old fashioned smut.

So, as I understand it, you fill out the wee meme questions, and based on the answers, describe your personal hell. Sounds like fun.

( Yay )

Fin.

As much as I love that Alan has got this new job, part of me is sad to be leaving our home. I love our little two bedroom farmhouse and the killer view we have of the valley with the river running through it. I love the privacy and freedom (dude, hot days, nekkid, no neighbors to get offending, 'tis a sweet thing). But, move we must.

Packing is gonna be a real bitch.

Also? All that's gotta be done in two weeks. Because today he handed in his notice, and I'm handing in mine (and asking for transfer). The old manager was supposed to work 'til the beginning of the new year, and we were hopefully going to move in a couple of weeks if we find a place, and they would work together. But the old manager is leaving next week. So it's really on to us to land a place and move.

Fuck.

Don't stress, don't stress, no pressure...

Also, my headphones on my mp3 player died.

Fin.

So, the good news is... HE GOT THE JOB! Yay! My darling is now to be manager of the blue store down in Paremata. Of course, this means packing and moving, but... hey. We gotta.

I will have to speak to my manager, try to arrange a transfer to a store down there, preferably starting in the new year. Georgia will not be happy I can't work 'til the end of the year, but even though Alan's official start date is around New Year's, they'd like him to work with the old manager some before that guy finishes. Fair enough. But if I can work out something regarding my outstanding leave so I don't have to start until after New Year's... That will allow me the time off to shimmy up to Hamilton and see mum for even more time than expected. Kitten may have to go into cattery for a time.

Speaking of kitten, damn property listings that say "no pets." I always feel like an ass sending an email saying, "We've got one cat, spayed and house-trained, are you sure that's not okay?" But I also want a nice house and not all the "pets ok" ones are necessarily fantastic.

Spent this morning in the car, not sleeping soundly like I should have to make up for finishing at midnight and being woken by the alarm at seven, but instead I was curled up in a ball crying my heart out. For no apparent reason. Best guess? PMS. It's the only explanation that fits.

Was at the library the other day picking up some Clive Cussler books (hey, I liked the movie Sahara, so give 'em a try, right?) in the hopes for some pleasant light reading. Dirk Pitt cracks me up because he is SUCH a manwhore. Always saving damsels in distress, too. It's very formulaic but entertaining so long as I don't try to get deep with it. It's not deep material. Anyway, while I was there, this row of corkboards caught my attention as I recognized some of the comicwork as that of Jitterati. My old fwb Grant draws them. Reminded me I haven't been keeping up with them at all. Oops.

Anywho... that's life, at the moment. Flat hunting.

Fin.