Reviews, Recipes, and Random Slices of Life

+ Season premier of Pushing Daisies was charming, whimsical, and involved lots and lots of bees.
+ That 3 hour nap was very refreshing, even though I should have been working instead.
+ Seasonal and decorating catalogs to look through, mock, and occasionally even want to buy things out of. Not the Thomas Kincaid Christmas Tree inhabited by towns, circled by a train and a Santa sleigh that rotate, with blinking lights, that plays 12 Christmas carols on rotation.
+ Perused many strange varieties of Asian beer and liquor. I find novelty so pleasing.
+ Enjoyed my re-read of Bujold's Paladin of Souls. Yum.
+ The headwind biking home was not so bad as all that.
+ I got to "work" at the on-site, which means that I had lots of downtime to work on updating my website. More of that today.
+ The next chapter of Vicesteed is in the Critters queue for critique. If any Critters are reading this, want to give it a shot?

• 07:50 Off to 2-month post-knee-surgery check-up. #
• 12:22 Got urgent call from work demanding that I come in immediately. I'll call 'em back after I finish lunch. #
• 14:10 Back at work because they insisted. Never mind that transit time will equal working time. #
• 15:23 That rush job they dragged me in for? Tiny and totally not worth the hassle. Now I go home again. #
• 16:49 Note to self: Start checking weather forecast again so you know when you're likely to be rained on. #
• 16:50 Ugh. Shiitake mushrooms smell absolutely foul while soaking. The things I do for lasagna! #
• 17:08 Whoa. I can maybe supercharge my Canon? tinyurl.com/38at76 #
• 17:33 I feel the urge to lie down and sleep. But now's when I have to make dinner. #
• 18:37 Wow. I had to make so many substitutions, I'm kinda scared of what that lasagna will taste like. #
• 21:43 Ick. I really don't like rehydrated shiitake mushrooms. At least not in lasagna. #
• 21:49 Turning into a pumpkin, going to dream of fairy coaches and white mice footmen. #

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Got home today 12 hours after I left for work. Enough time to snuggle a bit with the Mad Scientist while eating spaghetti that he cooked for me, try and get a few crucial bills taken care of, and perhaps catch up a bit on a few emails. Spent all of today interviewing people for jobs, or arranging interviews. Not bad, actually. The day passed quickly. Hired two people, arranged more interviews, made one person cry (maybe), trained in two new people. Can't really afford not to work as much as possible right now, which means that I'll be difficult to get objects/attention from for maybe a month, maybe more.

Tomorrow, physical therapy appointment, work until I have to bus home to grab stuff for martial arts, martial arts, sleep.

Speaking of sleep...I'm dead tired, so it's about that time. Despite drinking more coffee today/in the last few days than I have in the month previous. I was all weaned from coffee, pretty much.

Mostly everyday stuff--cold, work, snowpants, Roomba love, and the cat calamity that I blogged about earlier this week.

( Summary of the Week )

Between the most recent Project From Hell, socializing late at night, and trying to Get Stuff Done (note: lack of sleep may lead to Gratuitous Capitalization), I haven't felt fully rested for more than a week...until this morning. Ah, there is little that is better in this world than that wonderful feeling of waking up naturally in a warm bed beside a purring cat, stretching, and knowing that you can just lie there for a bit, waiting for your mind to wake up and thinking about what you'll be doing this day.

Yesterday I was so tired during work that I actually crawled underneath my cubicle desk and curled up into a little ball for a few minutes. Yes, one of my stress/exhaustion/fatigue reactions is to hide under things, preferably desks. This is something I have done for most of my life. I find it oddly comforting. The Mad Scientist has had to talk me out from under my desk on more than one occasion.

I was getting to the irrational-tired stage, which is one of the more dangerous states for the Abra to be in (Kansas is another). So, because I knew that I'd have to be going out to see the awesome brent_woodfill, briefly in the States for the holidays, I ended up taking a much-needed nap instead of going to Tae Soo Do. I can't even successfully beat myself up about this choice (and trust me, usually I'm pretty good about beating myself up for what I consider to be failures), so I'm pretty sure it was the right one.

It ended up being malcubed, brent_woodfill, the Mad Scientist (elfdope) and myself. It sounds like the opening to a joke: "A neuroscientist, an archaeologist, a chemist, and a writer walk into a bar...." Really, though, it just led to good conversations. I'm so glad I know interesting people.

Tomorrow, the Spec the Halls: A Winter Celebration of the Weird and the Fantastic opens for submissions. I'm all a-flutter! What if nobody submits? What if so many people submit that I can't keep up? Anyway, the guidelines are here, and if you're interested in getting the weekly email, which will contain contest news and links to featured submissions, you should send an email to specthehalls@gmail.com with "Subscription" in the subject line.

A couple of days ago, I also made some very delicious Peanutty Chicken. Which I think could also be easily adapted to a vegetarian/vegan version with firm tofu.
( Peanutty Chicken Recipe )

Yes, I'm trying to post about my Actual Life more often. The posts may be rather disjointed, as that's what my life frequently feels like.

Life is going much better now that I'm at the library. This morning was an unpleasant, hasty, why-am-I-running-so-far-behind start to the day. I didn't have time to eat breakfast, and I'm not one of those people who can skip breakfast without any problem. I've got to keep my blood sugar balanced, my body reacts to not being fed at regular intervals by inflicting extreme pain and shakiness on me, and I get ravenously hungry within an hour of waking up. So I grabbed a poptart to chew on as I ran for the bus. Literally, as I ran. Food isn't allowed on the bus, but the driver took pity on me and allowed me on with a crumbled half-handful of pop tart. In my hurry to get out the door, I forgot a couple of things:
* books that are due at the library today
* headphones to use with my laptop, and
* my tape player for listening to audio books or the radio at work

I give myself points for actually having my hair up, my tennis shoes on (no sandals allowed at work--besides, the better to run with), and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch in my bag.

However, this meant I was starting to lose it at work today. I just couldn't take it without something to listen to. Also, I hadn't expected there to be enough work to last for more than a couple of hours. There was. And it was tedious and mind-numbing as always, but I had nothing to distract myself with. I knew it was bad when I realized that a) I was about to scream or start talking to myself in a crazy bag-lady fashion, and b) I was honestly happy that my co-worker was half singing along with the rap music he was listening to.

So after lunch I fled. Packed up my bag and absconded to the library. Feeling much saner now. Think I'm on edge because a) haven't had more than one day off per week for the last way-too-long, and b) the damn heat wave means I haven't been able to sleep. I wake up every two hours, like clockwork--that's when the wifebeater I've been wearing to bed (is it a husbandbeater if a woman wears it?) dries out, and my cooling-by-evaporation system stops working. And I get irrational on sleep dep way faster than most people do. In fact, that may have been a large part of my problem the second year in college.

And I got to bed late. And I don't know what's for dinner. And I can't sleep in the library because somebody might steal my laptop. But I'm tired. And I have things to do. And I have so many, many things to do.