The Rose's Grove

This cold officially sucks unbelievable amounts of ass.

What started out Sunday as "oh, I have a little bit of a sore throat," followed quickly by "ow, I have a headache, too..." has become full on "help me, my chest and sinuses are full of gunk, I can't stop coughing, and the endless coughing is making my head hurt and my throat sore."

Yeah. It's really fantastic. Today we reached the "simple tasks take me forever to figure out, and I screw things up and make no sense when I try to talk to people," part of the cold, so unless I have a miraculous recovery tonight I will probably NOT be going to work tomorrow. I probably should have stayed home today. I'm sure the people sitting on either side of me wish I had, because there was ENDLESS coughing.

The Boy went out to get me NyQuil, which I usually avoid like the plague due to a bad experience with really really really weird dreams off it when I was in college, but since I feel like I have the plague (at least the Martian Death Plague), I figure, what the hell. It's not even 9pm and I feel like I'm going to pass out - I might as well be drugged as well.

In good news, we finished Avatar: The Last Airbender last night, and it was the most brilliant thing in ever. Awesome end of the series. Now I'm just upset that there isn't more. And yes, I know about Legend of Korra, but that's not here yet, so it doesn't count. So if you know of any awesome gen fic for this fandom, please do let me know. I'm all about the canon pairings, but I cannot handle anything rated above what was shown in the series, I don't think. They're still kids in my mind, and that's weird. Bonus points for Toph, Iroh, Katara and Aang being awesome, and for Zuko and/or Mai being adorably emo. ♥

Drive-by update to try to catch the things that are going on right now!

- All finished moving out of old apartment, and will be going tomorrow morning to turn in our keys at the office.

- Getting settled at the new apartment (for a definition of "settled" that still includes a whole lot of boxes). My favorite things about the new place are how open and airy it feels, especially in the living room, how gorgeous the upstairs bathroom is, how fantastic it feels to have in-unit washer/dryer again (imagine - I can just throw some stuff in the wash, leave, and come back later to put it in the dryer whenever I have time, without worrying about it being pulled out and left wet on a table!), the balcony (which I fully intend to transform into a little container garden - if you have any advice about this, I'd love to hear it as I've never done so before), and how awesome it is to just step out my door and have, instead of a busy street and a bunch of empty or seedy shop fronts, a nice, quiet, tree-lined street and, 2 blocks down, one of the most vibrant neighborhoods in Seattle with fantastic restaurants, bars, and shops.♥

- I am, alas, having some heart trouble again. I was diagnosed with arrhythmia (cause unknown) a few years ago, and although it quieted down for several years, it's been back to its old annoying tricks lately. At first I blamed it on the stress surrounding the move, but most of that's been done for a few weeks now, and the heart is still all wonky. I'm due for a physical anyway, but I'm not looking forward to another round of poking, prodding, and cardiologists eyeballing me and refusing to believe that yes, I'm only 28, and no, I don't smoke, drink alcohol or caffeine excessively (in fact my caffeine intake has been reduced to pretty much only white tea and the occasional green tea or decaf coffee - my poor, neglected collection of black tea!), take any herbal supplements or drugs other than the daily baby aspirin that was prescribed for my condition and the occasional ibuprofen for a headache or whatever, have high blood pressure (that, ironically, is consistently fine!), or train excessively for marathons or anything weird like that. It gets a little tiring after a while. I don't know what it is - I just live in this body. I've had the heart monitor, I've had the blood tests... it has been roundly agreed by every doctor I've seen to be "really weird." And, apparently, inexplicable. It's also really damned frustrating and upsetting.

...Aaaand then I gave myself a minor panic attack by looking at symptom and treatment info for arrhythmia on the American Heart Association website, because I am a moron and constantly forget, apparently, that it's a bad idea for me to look at that kind of thing while I'm having an episode. ARRRRGH.

Right, that was all a bit of a downer. No big deal, nothing I haven't dealt with for a while, just annoyed because I don't particularly want to go through the whole rigmarole again. With luck, I can at least get the doctor I really like, when I do go in. Anyway!

- Continuing my grand tradition of being at least 3 years late to every awesome TV show ever... We're almost done watching Avatar: The Last Airbender! We're most of the way through season 3 at the moment, just finished the Invasion Day 2-parter - no spoilers, please! ♥ But omgwtf I love this show. The characters are all so awesome and fun and the writing is shockingly good for what it is, and yayyyyyyyy.♥

Move has mostly been achieved! There's still some assorted random stuff (speakers, some of our dishes and glassware, etc) in the old apartment, but The Boy has the week off from work and will probably be retrieving those items, and then over the next weekend we'll do a deep-level cleaning of the old place and be done with it. Woo! The vast majority of our stuff has already been installed in the new apartment (and is now being slowly unpacked and put where it should be - we have two bookshelves up and filled, and the TV and PS3 and so on are up, as is about half of the kitchen stuff. Enough that I was able to make dinner last night - a nice big casserole to take us through the first few days of the week.

Love love love the new location. Yesterday we got up, got out straight away to go and get coffee and some bits and pieces from the drug store and hardware store, and it was so nice to be so close to the hub of local activity, but yet be far enough away that we woke up to little birds singing in the trees just outside our window. And the new apartment is quiet. Weirdly so, to a certain extent - the floor plan is very open (bedroom in an open loft over living room), so we can hear whenever the cats are doing anything downstairs. It's very strange, but kind of fun. Except for the part where my cat likes to sit on the rail overlooking the living room and pretend that he's considering how to jump down onto the bookshelf below. Please don't, kitty. Please don't.

And now, even though I feel like I don't because I feel very much like it ought to be Sunday (Saturday did not happen - Saturday was a whirlwind of running back and forth and madness!) - I have to go to work. Siiiiiiiiiiiiigh. Oh well.

Hell of a day. We ran circles trying to do errands, several of which ended up not being anything we can accomplish today because of stupid things like the apartment office changing their hours so that they're not open on Sundays anymore. Damn and hell, I want my BSG t-shirt! And I wanted to turn in our blasted notice of intent to vacate, too, so that isn't hanging over my head anymore, but nooooo. They had to be closed. Whatever, we'll do it next weekend. *Sigh*

Somewhat amusingly, our toilet spent the vast portion of the day being plugged (as we fiddled and fussed and plunged both our hearts out), and then when we finally got hold of the maintenance guy... he unplugged it in, like, two seconds. Apparently we need a better plunger. :P

But I did my taxes (hooray), and actually am getting a refund for a change, which is quite nice. So now I can stop feeling harassed about knowing I have to do that, at least. It's never actually as agonizing as I think it's going to be, but damned if I don't wish they'd just send a damned invoice or something, since they're already keeping track of it all anyway. Oh well.

There's still laundry to be done and dinner to be made, but at least now I can sort of relax for the rest of the day.

Oh! And look, look, look! hearts_blood wrote me lovely Delenn/Dukhat fic set in the pre-series days of our AU-verse! ♥

Interesting. I seem to have forgotten my keys and my cellphone charger at home today, and only noticed the absence of the keys just as I was leaving the office. Meaning I did not have a chance earlier in the day to tell The Boy "gee, maybe I should borrow your keys so that I can go home, since you have a meeting off-site tonight and don't expect to be home until about 7:30."

Oops.

So, I'm just going to hang out here in the office for a bit (too bad we have construction right now, complete with jackhammers, but... eh, that was going toward the end of the work-day, as well, so it's not the biggest deal), and I might stop by the Tully's to pick up a stupidly sweet drink of some kind to keep me company on the walk home and in case he's later than expected. Fortunately I can get into our building. ...Just not into our apartment. :P

ETA: All fixed. The Boy got my email and stopped by work after his meeting to find me still at my desk. "I bet you want to go home." To which I answered YES, PLEASE. ♥ And all was well.

Today, I get to totally negate the hour of overtime I did last night by calling in late to work so that I can stop by the leasing office to yell at them for leaving a note on our door telling us we hadn't paid rent... when 2 seconds on my online banking site confirmed that, in fact, they deposited the freaking check yesterday. With our apartment number written on it. By them.

If we had an airlock, somebody would be meeting it this morning.

On the plus side, io9 has a very cute little selection of pictures of rare birds. Top of the list is the kakapo, a bird so charmingly stupid that, judging by Douglas Adams' chapter about it in Last Chance to See, I can only say I was pleasantly shocked to discover is still around. And so cute!

Spent New Year's Eve with The Boy, irishninja and shadawyn out at the Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America (Shinto shrine in Granite Falls). We started the drive at about 10:30, and pretty quickly figured out that there was still snow on the ground up north. The sky was perfectly clear, so the stars were absolutely brilliant once we got out past the lights into the country, and the snow on the ground had sort of frozen over again so that it sparkled wherever a little bit of light hit it. Even bundled up as we were, it was freezing when we stepped out of the car at the gate of the shrine, but they had a little heater stand set up by the entrance, and a fire further down. I wish I'd brought my camera - the evergreens were all weighed down with glittery snow, and so were the shrine's statues and gate. Oh, and the little hand-washing well thing, too. There was ice floating in the water. Kind of a different experience from washing one's hands in one of those on a balmy late-autumn day back in Tokyo. Same goes for taking my shoes off at the shrine entrance - as nice and cozy as it was in the little waiting room upstairs (where, bless them, there was tea), my feet absolutely froze during the ceremony itself downstairs.

Overall, a beautiful way to start the year, but I think next time I'll have to remember to wear thicker socks.

Today... writing (at least I hope so...), and possibly out to see The Tempest later on. At the moment, I'm still trying to wake up. ;)

It occurs to me only now that the biggest thing about this new year is probably that I graduated from high school almost ten years ago. It feels at once like it can't possibly have been that long ago, and also like it might just as well have been a hundred years and another life. Very strange.

Added: In completely unrelated news, I have just noticed that IMDB now shows no information at all for projects listed as "in development"... which neatly makes it almost completely useless for anyone who doesn't want to pay for their "pro" feature. Nice one, guys. Thanks.

I've never done fandom_stocking before, but my post is over here, if you'd like to see it / leave something.

Please leave me a link to yours if you're participating - I'd love to leave something for everybody I know over there, even if it's just something small. :)

Today we bought a tree and put it up for the holidays. I can't find most of my ornaments, and most of The Boy's are in storage, so with the exception of a few things I could find and the lights, and some new little things that we bought today, it's pretty empty, but it's very pretty, and I'm happy to have it.

( Image under the cut, with Attendant Cat )

It's snowing again! Fat fluffy flakes this time - very pretty!

We were supposed to be going to my aunt's out in Orting today to hang out with massive amounts of extended family, but after a look at the snow and a look at where we're both at mentally and everything like that, we're going to have a quiet Thanksgiving at the apartment. Supplies have been laid in, including a stuffed turkey breast and a pumpkin pie (which The Boy swears is the most important part). I intend to use the rest of the fresh cranberries that maymargaret and I bought long ago and have been keeping frozen ever since (hmm, I should probably have bought an orange or something, too, shouldn't I?).

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving to everybody out there who celebrates - enjoy the turkey or the tofurkey or whatever it is you happen to be eating, and enjoy the company of whoever you're eating it with. Enjoy this blog post on NPR about the historical first Thanksgiving. And enjoy the modern meaning of the whole thing - being grateful for everything you have. I'm grateful for a lot of things this year (the fact that NaNoWriMo is nearly over, the fact that the snow started again, the fact that I got a day off work this week...), but most of all for the fabulous people in my life. My family, The Boy, and all my fantastic friends, both the ones I know in the everyday world and the ones I know only here on LJ. It means so much to me to have such a fabulous network of smart, fun, caring people that I can talk to about everything in my life. You guys are the best. ♥

And everybody outside the US not participating in our wacky little holiday, the love applies no less to you, and I wish you a very lovely Thursday.

It snowed! Just a little bit, nothing sticking yet, but it snowed! ♥ And there's supposed to be more coming!

...And the low on Tuesday is supposed to be 17! o_O Okay, that last is not so good. But I love snow, and it makes me happy. ♥