Must. Keep.Blogging.

So, I am totally going to fail Blogtoberfest. I'm heading to a writers conference in Canada (America's Hat! So hilarious. But I love Canada, actually.) next week, so unless I 1)Take the dust-farting laptop 2)Use free wi-fi that may or may not exsist in the hotel we are staying in 3)Have any time or inclination to write blogs on said farting laptop with said hypothetical free wi-fi, there will not be any blogging.

I am terrified of this writers conference. Also, excited beyond repair, but that's mostly cloaked in 'the fear', which is a term I usually use in reference to the smoking of the pot.

See, in a freakish, kismet turn of events, I have been invited to attend this conference by T's beautiful sister, A, to whom these conferences are old hat. She knows her shit when it comes to writing, has years of 'real' writing (as opposed to 'fake' writing, which is what I think I do....Don't ask.) expirence. This will be my first conference, like, since I was a child. I have no real writing to take with me (but have begged off speaking with editors/agents/publishers, so that's not soooo terrible) so I have been outlining and reading and swearing and bellowing things about dialouge and grammar and plot to T, which I think confuses and scares him more than he likes to admit. (Nothing like quietly doing a crossword puzzle in front of the fireplace, enjoying your cocoa, when your wife to be comes howling out of the bedroom demanding your justification of past and present participles in a context you cannot understand, then tears up a little and stomps back into the bedroom.)

I love that I am expressing my fear of my writing forever sucking with a huge run-on sentance with grammar problems. Love that.

(I just bang out blog entries and publish them. I am not one of the elite {not that that is a bad thing} bloggers who types everything in a Word document over the course of several days, edits, spell checks and so on. I just barf words out and let fly. Which is not the case {and therefore the problem} with my 'real/fake' writing.)

Anyway.

My mommy sent me a package today, which contained knitting patterns, recipes, and a leaflet on 'Safe Holiday Cooking', which reminds me of such gems as "Wash your hands before cooking", "Use a meat thermometer", and my favorite, "Don't partially cook the turkey".

Bless her heart. Seriously, my mom has like, no money at all, and it's a big deal for her to be able to send me stuff. So when she does, she feels like she needs to pad the order a little. She seems to forget that I have worked in professional kitchens a time or two. But the thought was there, and that's what matters.

She also knitted me a hat, which is made of really pretty yarn, and sent me a skein that matches so I can make one for T (no.) or make myself a scarf to match.

I have a huge head. And thick hair. So my mom, when knitting for my giant bean, always makes something akin to a grocery sack in size. She crocheted me a hat several years ago that I used as a basket because it was 1)very firm and 2)Huge.

This hat is really big, but it fits ok. And it's pretty. T says it's cute, and it sure beats my other hat (which has earflaps!) so why not. I'm not really out to impress the world.

See?

What?

Created by OnePlusYou - Free Dating Sites


The sad thing is, that's a low score. I scored lower than 90% of the other websites who submitted.

Damn.

My Favorite Game

Is called "Find the Sweatshirt". Or, "Find the Keys/Cellphone/Purse/Etc."

I lose things a lot. I just spent several minutes playing that first game, only to realize that the sweatshirt in question was sitting next to me.

I rock. Have I mentioned that before? 'Cause it's true.

********************************

Also, I need to learn to use my words. Taking A to the transportation hub today, T (who was driving) considered pulling out in front of a truck that he didn't see. Rather than saying something along the lines of, "My darling fiancee, there appears to be a large vehicle outside of your current range of vision. Please use caution before journeying further into this intersection", I made a sound that was similar to "Auughtrphaaaa!!" and pointed at the truck.

Seriously? I amaze myself sometimes. I do that all the time--See something in the road, a traffic snarl or something weird, and if T doesn't react immediately, I start making barking/moaning/growling sounds rather than forming words.

Sounding like a drunk infant is not the best way to alert someone of peril.

Just sayin' is all.

I Fail

Fail fail fail fail.

Didn't post yesterday. Granted, had superbusycrazy day, which no one had anticipated, but still. No post. Should have posted via the iPhone while killing people with stares in the grocery store, or while driving.

T's sister A came out for the wedding show, which I had forgotten about entirely.

This wedding show was essentially worthless, being that we don't live in a huge town, and organization was not, it seems, high on the 'to-do' list.

We may have chosen our wedding cake, and we got a free wine tour/tasting out if it, so I guess that's something.

Then A and I went and had a martini at my former place of employment, and I cooked dinner.

I look forward to sleeping in tomorrow. Have spent a lot of time with people who require my conscious attendance in their company before 8 am. (E's parents, for instance. 9 am is nearly AFTERNOON!) Eleven sounds like a late sleeping dream. Even if I don't get nearly as much crap done when I sleep that late....whatever.

I got nothin'.

Went and saw Bill Maher's new movie today.

Go see it....knowing you might be offended, if you are religious.

It was thought provoking, and depressing, and brought up interesting points that I hadn't thought of before. Therefore, I liked it.

Also, finished 'watching' Neil Gaiman's new book today, and loved it, even if the ending was.....meh. But I am here to judge. And I have a feeling there may be a sequel, which might not be a bad thing.

And....that's really it. Hooray for that, I guess. Off to feed myself (and E) dinner. (T is helping his brother J move the big-screen television he just bought home from the store. It would seem that J wanted a huge television, one so huge, in fact, that it will not fit in his car. I am getting that man a tape measure for Christmas, I tell you.)

Maverick.

I'm sure you have all seen this. If you haven't, enjoy. (We are all still laughing about this in my house. But again, I'm really trying to leave my political leanings out of the blog.)

Animals

I took T to work this morning, as it is COLD outside....at least early in the morning. He didn't have to be there until 8, which is a nice respite from the usual 4:45. The company he works for is going through the 'annual down', wherein they turn everything (and I mean everything, electricity, everything) off and have a bazillion contractors come in and they fix, clean, repair and do maintenance on every single thing on the property.

This lasts for a week. During that week, everyone works overtime, works 7 days straight or more. And none of them (aside from the operators, which T only is part of the time) do their normal jobs.

Today, for instance, T is a "Hole Sitter".

He gets to sit in a chair (I assume there is a chair involved, I didn't ask, now that I think about it) and stare into a hole for 9 hours, to make sure that the contractors that are inside the hole, fixing whatever, don't fall to their doom. If they do fall, T calls someone on the radio and the anti-doom task force is deployed.

Thrilling. (I want an anti-doom task force!)

Anyway, so I got up earlier than usual today.

After my return home, I called my mom, being that if you want to actually talk to her, getting a hold of her before about 10am is advisable. If you just need a quick exchange of information, you can go as late as 2pm.

My mom recently acquired a new kitten. She has named this cat "Zip", which would seem to be an appropriate name. She beats up the other cats (Sasha and Cleo) and races all over the place, like kittens are wont to do. She also has learned to get out the front door through the screen, which drives my mom to distraction.

She always comes back, Zip, but she brings with her a gang of ne'er do wells. She will be gone for ten minutes and come back with four other kittens, who invite themselves in and help themselves to the food dish and get in the kitchen sink and generally traumatize the older cats and annoy my mom.

Are we bored yet?

Anyway, while I was on the phone with my mom, and she was telling me all about the kitten gang in her sink, I went into the garage to have a cigarette (Yes. I know.) and I opened the garage door, not wanting to fill the place with smoke.

As the garage door opened, I was face to face with two deer. Just standing in my driveway. The clattering of the door didn't seem to bother them, and so we faced each other for a few seconds before I went and sat down.

They wandered around for a little while, ate part of my now flowerless garden, and headed to the backyard for some apples. I finished my cigarette and went to look at my herb garden, which I need to move inside shortly, and the deer came back around the side of the house and stood less than three feet from me.

Now, I have seen the videos where deer attack hunters. I generally leave the nature alone, in hopes that the nature will return the favor. (That's all I need. To be mauled by a doe in my front yard in my pajamas.) So the deer just stood there, looking at me, and I just stood there, waiting for Bambi to make her move.

I'm still talking on the phone, by the way, in a normal tone of voice. Deer are unaffected. They started grazing on my lawn, close enough to me that I could have touched them. I could see their little teeth, the spots where the fur starts on their noses. The individual hairs in their giant ears.

I went in the house. They're now out back, getting rid of the rest of the apples and dandelions and giving the neighbors dogs heart attacks.

I almost ran over a woman last week because she was STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF AN INTERSECTION so she could take pictures of two deer in someones yard. Really?

I really do have the most interesting life, huh?