Day so very long

Yesterday we loaded in the Equity showcase in 116. I got there at 9am, and didn't go home until midnight. At times, it was a highly unproductive day. First thing, they hang curtains. First problem, they didn't have the right curtains. That started the day off late for me, since I was supposed to be starting lights by 11, and didn't until at least 12:30. Then it all just went slow. At 9pm the stumble through rehearsal got started, and somehow took 3 hours. I am telling you, the show won't be 3 hours long, so I don't know how it took so long. I tried to write a few cues, to get ahead for today. I took a few notes of things to change or fix. By the time I got home I was ready to go to bed. Ugh. I'm heading back to the theater at noon to keep working.

Certainly uncontaminated by cheese

I made a purse about a couple months ago. I fabricated it from the leg of a pair of pants I cut off for shorts. Since then, I've been intending to do some embroidery on the corner of the flap. I was going to do something with a leaf pattern, but my sample leaves looked crappy so I went with just swirls. Then I redrew the pattern about 4 times trying to get it just right. Once I had it the way I liked it, I drew it onto the purse with a pen. Yesterday, I finally got around to embroidering it. I'm very pleased with it, especially the way the variegated color thread turned out. I have 3 curls with crystals, 3 loops, and 3 little curls. The number 3 makes a nice asymmetrical pattern. The embroidery was fun, so I kind of want to do the pattern on something else now, but I don't know what.


Bonus kitty paw:

HP7- done!

I finished Harry Potter yesterday. It was full of ups and downs, and very hard to put down! I just wanted to keep reading. I know I'm not alone in feeling kind of sad that that's the last book. That's all I'll say, no spoilers here. Donald and I took turns reading. He got it in the evening, and I read during the day. It was kind of fun to be sharing a book. Of course, it was hard to wait while it was Donald's turn.

Donald and I went to Odessa to get his car back last night. Driving on the highway by yourself sure is boring. I don't know how people do it for 8 hour trips. Listening to music certainly helps. Driving at night is even more boring, since you can't see the scenery. And it's only about half an hour to Odessa! We stopped at his parents house for a few minutes, and saw both of the nephews. It's weird that I'm an aunt now.

We watched The Illusionist after we got back home last night. I enjoyed it, but Edward Norton's accent was awful. The story kept me interested all the way through, then the ending didn't really resolve anything about the magic. Pretty good overall.

Well if you insist

I wasn't going to buy this Harry Potter book. I was going to get it from the library, and buy a paperback copy later in order to match my 6 other paperback copies. Then I went to Costco to buy some chips, and there was a huge pile of books lookin' at me right inside the front door. So I bought one. And then it sat- unread- the rest of the day since I was busy. I ended up reading about 5 pages before falling asleep last night. This morning I got up and checked my email, and the library has the copy I requested. So I didn't need to buy a copy at all, because I would have had it today anyway. Oh well. This way I can loan it to somebody when Donald and I are done. Although there seems to be no shortage of this book. I bet there will be a lot of extra copies lying around in a week.

I had a busy day yesterday. I'll make a list:
10:30-2:30- Hot dusty cleanup duty
2:30-3- Drive around in circles looking for parking spot
3-3:45- Watched a rehearsal
3:45-4- Ran to Costco
4-4:45- Watched a different rehearsal
4:45-5:15- took another shower
5:15-7- got ready for LAN party
7ish-2AM- shot people

Yes, we finally had another LAN party. It was a small one with only 4 extra nerds in our house. Off the top of my head I could name 6 more people who would play games with us, if they didn't live an another state. Here in the area, that was about all I could come up with. Next time I'll start looking sooner. I had so much other stuff to do that I didn't organize this one very well. We had fun though. I made cheesy dip and fresh guacamole. They were thoroughly gobbled up, so must have been tasty.

very addictive

I came across the website for the folks who make Quiddler and 5 Crowns. They have a few daily puzzles, one of which is based on the game "Set". I don't have this game, but now I really want it. The daily puzzle is a great brain teaser. http://www.setgame.com/set/puzzle_frame.htm To learn how to play, click the "how to play" link and it will take you through a quick tutorial. After that it's all getting your brain to see different patterns. If the daily puzzle isn't enough for you, at the bottom of the page is a link to Multiplayer Set where you can play online! You can play as a guest or register. Then you can play against other people or practice by yourself. Robyn and I played for a while the other day. Check it out!

Dinner adventure

For dinner tonight I made "homemade" pasta sauce. I say "homemade" because it's actually just doctored Ragu. :) I browned hamburger and onions, and cut up zucchini. Then I added the Ragu, and various spices, and left it to simmer. I started to do some dishes. When I turned back to the sauce to give it a stir, a sauce bubble popped up and burned my hand. I squawked, swore a little, and ran it under cold water. Then I went back to washing dishes. After a few minutes, the water didn't seem to be draining, so I gave the disposal a spin which usually sucks the water down. This time it didn't. In fact it kept filling. Great. Then it came back up. Ew. I thought maybe some food was caught, so I stuck my hand in to check. Again, ew, but nothing. Crap.

I washed a few more dishes, having to stop every couple of minutes to wait for water to go back down. Naturally, it was 6:45, well after the time anybody would be in the landlord's office, so I left a message. About 7:00 I started the pasta. Donald got home when it was just about ready. I was getting pretty hungry, and he's usually ready to eat as soon as he gets home. I took the pasta to the sink to drain it, held the lid on the pot and turned it over to let the water drain out like I always do-- then dropped the whole thing in the sink. As I stared at my pile of pasta in the sink, it quickly slithered into the garbage disposal. And I just watched it go, as my stomach grumbled.

So my dinner has literally fallen down the drain, and I could do nothing but fill the pot with water again, and put it back on the stove to make more pasta. Then I had to get the old pasta out of the garbage disposal, because it chose today to not work right! I pulled the trash can over to the sink, sighed, and stuck my hand in the garbage disposal AGAIN. I immediately yanked my hand out of the garbage disposal because that pasta was still very hot! Slimy and hot! About half of the pasta came out through my ingenious idea of using a fork. Then I ran some cold water to cool off the rest, and dug it out with my hand. Several minutes and a new batch of pasta later, we got to finally eat dinner.

Moral of the story: fuck cooking.

Here's the pasta after entering the disposal:

Here's the payload in the trash:

And the cat just sat there, not helping at all:

summertime Missouri hatred sold here

My family went on vacation this week. They left last night for Santa Fe on the Amtrak Southwest Chief. Donald and I drove them to Union Station. Naturally, the train got to KC an hour late. Gee Amtrak, I wonder why nobody takes the train anymore? They ended up boarding at 11:20. Yep, PM. They had a sleeper room. I can't wait to hear how tiny and uncomfortable that was! Hopefully not too uncomfortable. My mom likes everything to be... just so. Donald and I helped pull/carry their luggage to the train, then we waited on the platform for the train to leave so we could wave. The train looked like it could be kind of fun. Dragging a suitcase along with a bunch of travelers made me wish Donald and I had done some traveling this summer. Maybe in the fall when it's cooler.

My job for the week is to look after their house, bring in the newspaper, collect the mail, and water the plants outside. This involves no less than 3 hoses. One in the front yard, one in back by the patio, and one all the way back to the garden. I'm also supposed to pick and eat any vegetables that get ripe. I am responsible for keeping the plants alive! It's an epic battle of garden hose vs. Missouri heat! Who will triumph?!? I will, dammit. I have the power of the running water at my fingertips. Take that, heat!

plastic tooth forthcoming

The root canal went fine. I now have 4 fewer tooth roots in my mouf. There was much drilling, and they had to stop at one point to shoot some more anesthetic in me. The holes were filled with 19mm of whatever the hell they fill those things with. That looked pretty interesting in the X-ray. They stuck the temporary crown back on, and I'm scheduled to get the real crown put on Thursday. It's much better now. My jaw has just stopped hurting today. Having my mouth open as far as I possibly can for an hour sure hurts when the numbness wears off. Unfortunately, now that that tooth doesn't feel pain, I can feel that the one behind it isn't quite right. Hopefully, it will just need some adjusting. It feels too high right now. But I can chew again!

The bad news is that I'm just about out of the allotted dental benefits. That means I probably get to pay $800 out of $1000 for the root canal. I was supposed to be 80% covered for the root canal. The other bad news is that I still have 3 (theoretical) cavities on the OTHER side of my mouth. Now I don't have any insurance money left to pay for them. I also can't stand the idea of having to go through this whole bullshit all over again if something goes wrong. I honestly think if I'd never set foot in that dentist's office all this wouldn't have happened. I should have gone back to my old dentist right after this one told me I had seven fucking cavities. Too late. Anyway, I'm not doing anything else until after the first of the year when the moneys come back.

Dental Fun? maybe

Today I'm scheduled for Root Canal- take 2. I've been taking penicillin for 6 days. I really want to get this over with. Donald took the day off to go with me, which is nice of him. Cross your fingers for me.

Otherwise not a lot going on. Donald and I were relatively productive this weekend. We took all our glass to the recycling center Saturday. In retrospect, we should have done that before taking showers because it was HAWT and sweaty business. Everyone else also seemed to have taken their glass in, because the bins were very full. We also recycled batteries, but I forgot the styrofoam. After that I was less "productive" while still getting something done. I beat the Pit of 100 Trials in Super Paper Mario. You have to fight through 100 levels of creatures in a row without leaving. It took 2 hours, and I gained 2 levels doing it. But it's done! Sadly, finishing it opened up another Pit in a different area.

Sunday we did a bunch o' laundry and Donald went through ALL his computer parts to sort out things to get rid of. Now we just have to get rid of all the stuff. There are 6 empty computer cases and 3 boxes of parts to get out of the living room! I think a lot of it can be recycled.

We got Ultraviolet from Netflix. That movie was pretty much terrible. For an action movie, it was damned boring. I can't believe it was from the same guy who made Equilibrium! That was a great movie, with an interesting story and really cool action. Part of what made the action so cool is that it was used sparingly. Ultraviolet just drowns you in fighting, so much that you don't care anymore if it's cool. There are so many bullets flying that it's ridiculous for our "heroine" to walk away unscathed every time. You don't care AT ALL about the characters, the dialogue is corny at best, and the story is practically nonexistent. Milla Jovovich looks cool, but that's about it. Best thing I can say about it is that it was only an hour and a half long. 1/5

Penicillin tastes AWFUL

I've never encountered a pill that tastes as bad as this penicillin. Would it have killed them to give the nasty thing a gel coating? It's so awful that I can't take it with water, I have to use food. :(

My day improved after yesterday morning. I went to a productive (although long) meeting, then to Costco on the way home. I tasted many tasty things, including some Haagen Dazs ice cream. Mmmm. I bought a bag of very tasty all natural blue corn chips. They're light and crispy and just the right amount of salty. I went back to my folks' house and spent an hour sitting on the pool ladder with my feet in the pool hanging out with my dad. We were in the shade, there was a bit of a breeze, it was very pleasant. I really should take advantage of dad's pool more often, or at least put my feet in again.

ungghh... again

I feel crummy. Long story short: I didn't have a root canal yesterday because the tooth wouldn't go numb.

My appointment was at 9, so I got out of bed at 7:15 to leave the house at 8:30. (Rewinding time, I first got out of bed at 4AM to take a painkiller since my throbbing jaw woke me up. Then I tossed, turned and lay there hurting until the thing kicked in 25 minutes later.) I got to the dentist's office at 9, and sat there waiting for almost half an hour while my dentist was doing something for someone else on the other side of a low wall. I will never understand why you make an appointment and are left to wait. They could have made the appointment for 9:30. Anyway- first off the dental assistant does another x-ray. That involves biting down on a huge (seeming) plastic wand. Note: biting down is what I haven't been able to do for 3 months. It hurt, a lot. Then I sat there longer, eventually getting poked with the anesthetic, then waiting for that to kick in. The dental assistant pulled off my temporary crown, which felt really weird. The dentist tried to get started, but the blast of air made me squirm in pain, so I got shot with more anesthetic, followed by more waiting. After that it still hurt like hell, so the dentist prescribed an antibiotic and a painkiller and rescheduled me for next Friday. Fuck. The dental assistant stuck my temporary crown back on. They said the tooth is probably in the process of dying, so thats why it's super sensitive. I spent most of the afternoon sleeping on the couch as the useless numbness wore off.

I really really just wanted to have the root canal and get this done with. I've been assured that with no root, the tooth can't hurt any more. That sounds good to me. Now I've got another week to wait, and a week's worth of penicillin to take. I also have generic vicodin. I took one last night before going to bed, and it sure made me feel odd. Kinda itchy and my head felt swimmy. But the tooth didn't hurt. Much.

Movies today

Ocean's 13: Decent. Better than the second one, still nowhere near as good as the first. There were a few shining funny moments, but it still lacked something pulling the whole thing together. I'd give it 3/5.

Children of Men: Pretty good, but depressing. The end is hopeful, kind of, even though you never find out why women aren't having babies, and just about everybody ends up dead. We gave it 4/5.

Rebel Without a Ticket

I still hate teeth. I'm trying not to think about it. I can mostly put it out of my mind if I take an advil every 4-6 hours, as I've been doing since Friday. I called the dentist office yesterday to see if I could get my appointment moved up, but it was not to be. So 2 more days of mild pain relievers.

This weekend I went to see the new art gallery expansion. It looks a lot better from the inside then it does from the outside. It's very spacious and open and white. Most of the gallery space is sunken into the ground, with the windows near the top of the room. It's built into a hill, so there are lots of places where the ground level meets up and you can go out to the big lawn in front. My mom dragged dad and me into a photography exhibit that I was certain you were supposed to pay for. She didn't seem to think so, but when I went back with Donald and Mike, there was a sign saying that you needed a ticket past that point. It was a neat exhibit, about the origins of American photography. I guess it would depend on the price of admission whether or not I'd have actually paid to see it. My mom's such a rebel, accidentally sneaking into art exhibits. What next, turning left between the hours of 4 and 6 PM?

Netflix seems to be taking an awful long time to get the DVD's we send back. We sent back Clerks 2 sometime early last week, but Donald just got the confirmation email yesterday. I thought they'd get the discs we send in about 2 days. I thought we'd be able to get through 3 discs in 2 weeks, but it seems to be working out to one a week. Donald's theory is that the mailman steals them and watches them before sending them back. Clerks 2 was okay. There were funny parts, and a lot of slow parts. The guy who plays Dante still can't act. (Surprise surprise.) I like Kevin Smith movies more when they're being funny then when he tries to get all dramatic. It just comes off as hokey to me somehow. Probably why I like Mallrats so much. More funny, waay less talking and shit than in Chasing Amy. ("What, like the back of a Volkswagen?")