debxena

Looks like I'm getting back in the swing of regular, albeit weekly, posting. This is a good thing!

This past week has been full of nice stuff - all weeks should be this pleasant, I think.

When I went with Alex to the hospice social day (Opening Doors) on Tuesday, I received a lovely facial and hand-massage - the trainees from International College of Camille were present, doing make-overs and massages and pedicures and the like. I feel a bit guilty sometimes receiving these relaxing things (when a patient could be in my place), but I have to remind myself that a) they're there for a few hours, and everyone who wants attention gets it, and b) as a caregiver I deserve pampering too! A very good pampering it was, and I glowed all day.

I also attended a very successful job interview mid-week (reminding myself all the way there that 'I am made of awesome' obviously did the trick), and I now have additional part-time work, a few evenings a week, to supplement my income. I have some more from-home admin-type work as well. This is all very, very good, and will make the household finances a lot happier :) Working part-time in a few different roles really suits me, as it keeps the hours flexible, and my interest high. Some of it is extroverted people stuff, and some is time-alone focus stuff, and the balance will work well for me.

Saturday we helped ekmahal and Tobermorey to move house. This involved bed-assembly, duct-tape, filthy jokes, sally lunn, and (eep) me accidentally backing into their new letterbox. No major damage, however! Their new place is HUGE, and *nods* definitely going to move Waifs and Strays to there this year (at their suggestion).

Saturday evening Ben and I joined the Wolverines having dinner at neongraal's place. It was a real pleasure to not have to cook, and the food - dinner and dessert - was delicious! We were completely bushed by the time we got home, though.

Thursday and Sunday were complete relaxation days, where I spent a lot of time in bed, some time on the computer, painted, watched more Buffy S2, and stayed in my nightie all day. Luxury!

TV
~ Ben and I watched the third ep of Fringe. It continues to be creepy, cool, and compelling - Ben and I are both enjoying it, although for completely different reasons. Interestingly, neither of us is that enamoured of the main character (but we both like Astrid a lot)! Took me a while to click that Broyles is also Abbadon from Lost, though.

You know you can see Walter's lab notes every week, right? His banana cake recipe after Ep 1 was hilarious.

~ Heroes eps 1 and 2 of S3 (were they played together?). Interesting twists, specifically ( cut for spoilers )

~ Wipe-out. I blame bigtaz for making me watching this, and it happened to be the 'Wipies' episode, so we got to see the worst of it all. Granted, I laughed (a lot), but I felt like a worse human being afterwards. I miss The Krypton Factor and L&P Top Town.

Books
I plowed through a lot of books this week, nearly all of them re-reads, and for good reason.

~ Lady Slings the Booze, by Spider Robinson. Can't go wrong with punsters, sexual openness, crime and time travel now, can you?

~ The Curse of Chalion, and Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold. I really like this fantasy series, as much for the world it's set it and for the characters within it. Definitely has the Bujold touch though, making characters memorable and the protagonists loveable despite their faults.

~ Richard Adams' Favourite Animal Stories. Many familiar, many not. Most interesting discovery is that I can't read the Br'er Rabbit stories in the original argot Joel Chandler Harris wrote them in. What happened to the children's book with great coloured illustrations where I could actually understand what was going on?

Movies
Whilst eating Deb's delicious dessert on Saturday evening, we poured animation into our brains, via The Animation Show Volume 1. (Mixing Don Hertzfeld and Mike Judge is creeeeeeepy.) There were some amazing animation styles and stories, and most of them held us spellbound. According to the wonderful interwebs, there are more volumes, which I think we may have to track down ...

These are what Ben and I decided later were out favourites from the disc (with youtube links):
~ Aria by Pjotr Sapegin
~ Das Rad by Heidi Wittlinger
~ Brother, Cousin, and Uncle by Adam Elliot
~ Bathtime in Clerkenwell by Alex Budovsky (below, and my personal favourite, for the music as much as the animation)
~ and, of course, Billy's Balloon by Don Hertzfeldt



And tonight! Tonight I'm off to see the new documentary about Tim Minchin, Rock n' Roll Nerd (I won tickets, and am delighted)! I'll let you know how it turns out.

And if you haven't heard of Tim Minchin? Oh dear ... go and watch this - the first thing of his I ever saw :)

This week's post is brought to you by the image of me dancing across the living room to 'They Might Be Giant's (Flood), in order to kiss Ben on the nose.

The media thing worked well last week, so here's something sort-of similar. My week was a lot more social and a lot less media-full, though.

So:

Media of the week
~ BOOK: The Queen of Air and Darkness by Poul Anderson (not to be confused with Frederick Pohl).
I generally like Anderson's writing, but ultimately I only liked about half of these stories. Still, that's what you get when you purchase second-hand based entirely on the author's name. 'Time Lag', the final story, is the one which impressed me the most. Bittersweet yet compelling.

~ BOOK: Pronoia is the antidote for paranoia: how the whole world is conspiring to shower you with blessings, by Rob Brezsny (whose name you may recognise from his Freewill Astrology column, which has been running for many years).
I haven't finished this yet - I'm reading a few chapters every day, and savouring them. Nonetheless, I think I want to own this book myself - it makes me happy, I smile more, and I walk with a swing in my hips that isn't always there otherwise. Non-fiction often doesn't appeal to me as often as fiction does, but I am making a gleeful exception in this instance :)

~ MOVIE : Ben and I did mean to go and see Dark Knight returns, and didn't get around to it. Hopefully this week.  But we did sit down on our new couch and watch Thank You For Smoking. It took a while to get going, but we found the satirical take very amusing, and Aaron Eckhart an excellent actor. Rob Lowe's character eccentricities also amused us greatly. (And yay for William H. Macy! I've been a fan ever since ER.)

~ TV: You know, pretty much nothing. Other than the usual Buffy - two episodes (I'm rewatching S2 for the umpteenth time: mmm, Spike) meant I got all the ironing done on Tuesday afternoon.

Funniest Social Moment of the Week (just because I feel like sharing)

Saturday morning started with a bang - between 10:45 and 11am, the following cars/people arrived at our house (which, before the influx, contained four adults, two cats, and one small dog):
1: car + trailer, containing four adults, one couch, and one washing machine
2: car, containing one adult, one pre-teen, and one toddler
3: car, containing one adult and one HUGE dog

cue: chaos. Big dog and little dog played excitedly on the lawn; toddler was shood back in car after pre-teen was deposited, old washing machine was moved out of the way, new washing machine and couch were installed, old couch was carried onto trailer. Coffee and tea and V was distributed and drunk, the sun shone, and general madness ensued.

Also, I got LOTS of hugs, as pre-teen, all adults except pre-teens daughter, and both dogs wanted love and cuddles :)

And by 11:30? Everyone had buggered off - including me, as I went to help a friend move house. Leaving Ben to plumb the washing machine in, and enjoy the piece and quiet ...