never catch up

[mamajoan]

Y hello thar livejournal! How have you been? Whassup? Have you missed me? ;) Sorry I haven't been around much. It's been a busy week, and also I've unfortunately discovered this ridiculously addictive Facebook game called PackRat. Don't check it out, srsly, I am warning you. It will eat up all your not-really-copious-at-all free time.

Anyway! How to get caught up? Well, Isaac had a good birthday. He and his grandma took an Amtrak down to Providence and back, about which he was unbelievably excited. Then in the evening we all went out to dinner and he got a couple of gifts. But he'll be getting a lot more gifts tomorrow at his actual birthday party.

And speaking of the party, I am off work today in order to prepare for it! Today's very important to-do list includes:
* mow lawn
* clean house
* shop for supplies
* figure out whether we have enough tables/chairs and if not, what the heck to do about that
* acquire another birthday present, and something for Ruthie
* wrap presents

And more, I'm sure, but those are the most important items. And what have I accomplished so far today?
* drop kids off at daycare/school
* mail bookmooch book
* cook and eat leisurely breakfast
* play PackRat

d'oh. Guess I better get crackin'.

But before that, I'll just spew a bit more update-y goodness behind this here lj-cut.

Kitty
Chubby is doing well although he still spends most of his time hiding. Ruthie still alarms him with her chasing and loud screeches of "Hi!" and "MEOW!" as he has yet to realize that she is harmless and just wants to be his friend. ;) I have had to shut him out of the room each night while I'm putting the kids to bed, because otherwise he has an uncanny talent for coming into the room and meowing plaintively just when Ruthie has started to drop off. Yep, he's a cat all right!

Last night around 1am I was awoken by horrendously loud feline screeching that sounded like it was right in my room. I bolted up out of bed yelling something like "Stop that!" (except the slurry just-woke-up version thereof) and Chubby went zooming out from under my bed. After a moment of heart-pounding, I realized that the noise had actually come from outside and everyone inside was okay, so I lay back down. Of course then it took me a while to get back to sleep between the adrenaline rush and the gory imaginings of what could have happened/been happening to that anonymous kitty outside. yikes.

Food
Yesterday was the first dropoff of our CSA farm share for the year! Yay. We got spinach, pea tendrils/shoots, mizuna, and kale. I sauteed some of the spinach and pea shoots with tofu and garlic last night and it was deeeelish. Then this morning I had more spinach and tofu scrambled with eggs and sort of wrapped in a tortilla, except that the tortilla disintegrated so I sort of ate it all with my fingers and it was a huge mess. But soooooo tasty. I am really looking forward to the summer of greeny goodness.

Books
I finished reading Imaro by Charles Saunders, which I believe was recommended to me by morgan_dhu when I said I was looking for more scifi written by people of color. It was certainly a good read and very worthwhile, a gripping fantasy tale set in ancient Africa -- but so dripping with testosterone that afterwards I felt like I'd need to read Little Women or something along those lines about a half-dozen times to counteract it. ;)

Then I read Troll: A Love Story which was also recommended by morgan_dhu and which I REALLY enjoyed. It's translated from the Finnish and is a sort of horror/fantasy/romance/gothic/impossible-to-describe story. I don't even know what to say about it. Easily one of the weirdest and most "different" books I've read in a long time.

And now I'm reading The Dress Lodger which was recommended by mofic. It's certainly very different from the previous two ;) and I'm enjoying it a lot so far.

I've now read an even twenty books in calendar 2008! Go me.

Ruthie
All is basically well on the Ruthie front. Well, she is 2, but aside from that. ;) Certainly there have been some tantrums and so forth, but nothing too far beyond the pale. It continues to crack me up how imitative she is. She only has to hear something once and will start doing it incessantly. Case in point -- one time I was trying to get Isaac to see something and I said "where my finger is pointing" because he wasn't looking at my pointing hand. So now Ruthie is CONSTANTLY saying "right da, wa my fingoo pointee." lol. Also last night out of the blue she started singing the Papelbon song! Which I haven't sung in at least a week or two! Papelbon is the name of a Red Sox pitcher and I have this silly song that I sing when he comes into the game (it basically goes "Papelbon, Papelbon-bon," repeat ad nauseam). And Ruthie was singing it. too funny.

She also keeps telling me that various things are not for boys. First it was "my binky not for boys." Then it was "my goldfish not for boys." Then during a diaper change, "wipes not for boys." On the one hand LOL, and on the other hand I hope she hasn't been hearing a lot of "not for boys" at daycare. But on the third hand as I've just demonstrated above, she only has to hear something once, so!

Money
I got my $1200 bribe, excuse me "economic stimulus payment" from the government. Alas, I am not using it to stimulate the economy, on account of it's almost the exact amount that I owe on my credit card. Ah well.

I have lots more, of course, but it's time to get off my ass now and start the mowing. Whee!

Comments

[sydb42.livejournal.com]

I have been playing Packrat for quite some time. It is quite addictive! Do you play co-op?

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

If that means cooperatively, then yes! When I first started playing I didn't realize there was an etiquette, so I unintentionally stepped on some toes. But now I have mended my ways.

[sydb42.livejournal.com]

I played for a while without knowing the etiquette too, and a friend of mine and I were getting pretty nasty about taking things from each other. Then I discovered playing cooperatively and suggested it to all my friends (who fortunately were all cool with it) and now only add people who also play co-op. I don't know your last name...what's your facebook account? If you'd like, I can add you and you'll have another co-op player to play with. I find older cards fairly frequently so I can help you some with completing retired sets too, if you're wanting to do that.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Um, how does one reveal one's facebook account without posting one's last name? Does this work? If not, you could try searching on my email which is this username at gmail.

[sydb42.livejournal.com]

Yep, that worked and I added you. :)

[mogwar.livejournal.com]

If it helps you feel better about the kitty noises, when I hear such sounds outside my house in the middle night, I'm pretty sure that most of the time it is caused by the kitty getting laid. :P

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that did occur to me, quite belatedly. heh.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you enjoyed Imaro. I do agree with you that it's very testosterone-packed, but that's true of many of the works in that particular genre. If you like the style and cultural setting, but want somewhat less in the way of manly hormones, Saunders has decided to publish his books through LuLu since no one else wants to, and the first book he's put up is a collection of his short stories about a woman warrior (based on the traditions of the Dahomey women warriors): Dossouye (http://stores.lulu.com/dossouye).

I'm also glad you liked Troll: A Love Story. I really thought it was quite amazing.

It makes me wonder what else is being written outside of the British/North America/sometimes Australia market that we're missing out on completely. I know there's science fiction being written in English in India (and possibly other countries that were former British colonies) that never gets sold in North America, to say nothing of all the works that are never translated.

Hell, there's an amazing SF series in five volumes written by a French-Canadian author that I'm just dying to finish reading, but so far, only the first two volumes have been translated.