Category Archives: Diary

From The File Marked “Homocidal”

I had an incredible morning. It’s sunny, there’s a good breeze, I got three pairs of pants that fit — on sale! — and I got gifties for both my guys. I’m so excited about one of them, because it pertains to music-listening in the car. (Yay! Yay! Finally! Ssssh — HRH doesn’t know and won’t till tomorrow morning.)

And then I got home and found a message on my machine from HRH. Who, incidentally, got home last night later than he’d expected, because the ostensibly easy build went wrong thanks to bad measurements taken by the quotes guy, and then was told that he had to pack the truck for a long-distance two-person build today. The message informed me that some of the wrong stuff had been packed for today’s build and neither of the guys caught it last night. So he’ll have to drive four hours out to wherever it is to finish this build on Sunday.

Yes. You read that correctly. On Sunday. One of the days that’s part and parcel of our booked vacation.

I could scream. I don’t even know what’s going on this weekend any more. I don’t know what can go on.

I’m so angry that I’m trembling.

I am so very, very tired of life kicking us and our friends when we’re down.

From The File Marked “Grrr”

Know what I hate? I hate it when something totally beyond your control — like, oh, say, the lodge where you booked your retreat cancels your four-day booking because their water supply has had to be turned off for some reason — ruins something for which you’ve spent an awful lot of time and energy organising — like, oh, say, your annual spiritual retreat with ten other people.

Sometimes, life really, really sucks.

Fine. We’ll go to visit my parents instead, because HRH couldn’t get an extra day off at Thanksgiving, and the retreat will be rescheduled for later this fall.

I accept it. I don’t have to like it. (The rescheduling part, not the being able to visit my parents after all part.)

Anniversary Joy

The boy will wake up from his (blessedly long) nap any moment, but I absolutely had to take a second to tell you what HRH got for me as an anniversary present:

A big red metal toolbox, with a full set of new tools, all for my very own.

Squee!

See, my toolbox has been one of those marital points of contention. I had a fully stocked kit when we got married. And I used it regularly. (This is just one of the many things that makes me so darn cool. Did you know that until he went out and bought himself a cordless DeWalt for this job, I owned the only drill in the house?) Over the past seven years, my toolkit has been slowly eroding as HRH “borrows” this and “uses” that and it gets left somewhere… And having been raised by my father, who insisted that every tool I used was placed back exactly where it came from promptly after use — well, I get snarly when I have something I need my tools to do, and I go to my toolkit, and what I need isn’t there, and in fact cannot be found anywhere.

So HRH said he was sorry in a magnificent way by giving me this kit (it has three sets of screwdrivers! each a different size! and he won’t borrow any of it because he has his full kit downstairs!).

Plus I got roses, too. I love the juxtaposition of roses and tools. It says so much about me.

“I don’t know who is cooler,” said Ceri to him when she found out, “you or your wife.”

I got him the three original theatrical Star Wars films on DVD, so he definitely wins the Coolest Gift award this year. (Not that we try to top one another; in fact, most years we don’t buy each other anything at all, or even do anything to celebrate at that.) But HRH claims that no anniversary gift from either of us will ever top the X-box I gave him two years ago, with an extra controller so that we could game together. He’s probably right.

And thank you for you good wishes yesterday, everyone, posted here and emailed privately!

ESTC Update: Only One-Third To Go

Ack! It’s ten to five!

Total word count, ESTC: 33,250
Total words yesterday and today: 1,119

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
33,250 / 50,000
(66.5%)

Two-thirds done. Yay me. (Also, more wibbling and mild panic as I wonder if I have enough room left to write the rest of what I need to write.)

Things are still feeling disjointed, because I’m burrowing through the MS fleshing out point-form notes I left for myself and linking thoughts. I have a feeling that I’m not going to be able to include all the other detailed rituals that I wanted to include. It also looks like meditations will be very short and refer back to a basic procedure, so I can write it all out once and then just include the imagery and so forth for each new meditation, directing people back to the how-to for the structure and process. That will save wordage.

Off to pick up the boy.

ESTC Update

Total word count, ESTC: 32,131
Total words yesterday and today: 1,444

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
32,131 / 50,000
(64.3%)

The week is not getting better. With Liam’s regular homecare person away on vacation, I’ve been recruiting friends to come play with him for a couple of hours while I try to work. Apart from the average daily quota on Wednesday, yesterday was pretty much a failure thanks to Liam being cranky and clingy and spending most of his time hanging over the child gate in my office doorframe crying for me. This morning I discovered that my mother in law wasn’t expecting to watch Liam today, as he’s also going over there tomorrow, and I had a moment of sheer panic wondering if I would get any work done at all this week other than those two hours Wednesday afternoon. She rallied, however, and has taken him for a few hours so that I can get something done. Stricken from the list of things to do today as an unfortunate result were a nap (Liam’s been waking up two to four times throughout the nights recently, and HRH sleeps right through it), and the purchasing of a new ink cartridge for the printer and a pair of jeans that fit. The shower is going to happen, though, come what may.

On top of it all, Liam appears to be showing every classic sign of beginning to teethe again: rashes, excessive drool and the accompanying cough, incessant chewing, the night wakings…. Can we just have some time out, please?

In general, things have been working up to a point where I would like to scream. Perhaps cry, or some sort of similar expression of frustration. My so-called vacation is a mountain of work, and the next weekend trip might not even happen thanks to bad scheduling. I have a wild urge to throw everything I agreed to organise and do back at the people for whom I’m doing it, and telling them all to deal with it themselves.

I did have a nice evening out last night: Pasley and I went to see The Illusionist, which was a beautifully made film. I enjoyed it a lot.

I’ve done a few hundred words today and that’s going to have to be enough, because I have other stuff piling up that’s due this weekend and next week for various commitments, and I have no other time in which to do them. And I have to go pick the boy up early.

Once More Unto The Breach, etc.

Jan arrived for her afternoon with Liam, and whisked him off for a walk.

The first thing I did once alone, even before sitting down at the computer, was clean the bathroom, because somewhere between yesterday and today it went from “the bathroom needs to be cleaned this weekend” to “I have to clean this bathroom RIGHT NOW”.

I feel much better.

Also cleaned the fishtank earlier, and am drying apple slices. Am on roll. Go me.