Loose Leaf Paper

Really, LJ? REALLY?

2009-12-15T06:31:55Z

Well. As I'm sure most everyone has heard, Livejournal is making gender a required field at registration, and a binary field with no option but male or female.

It's bad enough to not modify an existing policy, but to take a policy that currently allows for the option of chosing "unspecified" and changing it to one or the other male or female is a big step backwards. And if it's about stats or demographics, surely how many people choose not to self-identify as male or female is part of those statistics.

Really, LJ. Sex is biological and is as relevant to my account for an online journalling site as my eye colour or height (which, as far as I'm concerned, is NOT AT ALL), and gender is performative and likewise not something that should be mandatory on a registration form. YEESH.

Geek love

2009-11-30T07:07:31Z

Last night was troutkitty's office Christmas party. I talked her into fancy clothes, and it was fun, despite the bad buffet food (dry roast beef with obviously packaged gravy and frozen corn with green onion were the low points, along with soggy only mostly-defrosted cream puffs--but I am spoiled from working many excellent buffets at Heritage Park as an undergrad). The hypnotist who was the entertainment was not as cringe-worthy as we were afraid he'd be, and we totally scored in the door prize department with 1kg of milk chocolate and a gift certificate to East Side Mario's.

So, tonight we went for mediocre chain restaurant food, and came home to watch Star Trek. We've been trying to have Star Trek Movie Date Night for ages. It is of the shiny, and I am enjoying it. troutkitty is full of squee, of course.

It's an unscheduled Saturday morning crazy hour

2009-10-17T16:02:30Z

Crazy hour usually happens at indeterminate intervals between 11pm and 1am, when the cats chase each other through the house.

Not this morning. Crazy hour came early. Or late, depending on your perspective.

We are well-protected. from any crunchy leaves in the back entry that might murder us in our sleep. Trout fought a vicious battle. He is a wild and bright-eyed Trout, running from one end of the house to the other. He just tore into the living room, stopped in the middle, went hmph, leapt behind Barb's chair, and then bounded back out.

Now I am sitting in said chair witha tabby on each arm. But Trout has spotted birds outside, and his tail is hitting me in the ribs.

The question is, how can I get up to go get a cup of coffee now?

Quicklink: survey on SF and libraries

2009-10-11T18:54:43Z

If you are a SF reader, you could help with research for a master's dissertation on SF and libraries by clicking and taking a short survey, were you so inclined.

Renewing my queer cred

2009-09-22T03:48:15Z

Awww, Lethbridge had its first queer film festival! We went for Thursday night, and there were film shorts. Some of them were really good! ... some of them were not.

First off, there was free popcorn, pitchers of koolaid arranged in a rainbow, and tons of candy. Chewy, sour, convenience store candy. Mmmm, sugar. (Added bonus: watching xmas_holly demonstrate that clearly queenzulu's foraging skills were inherited from the maternal line. Popcorn and candy FTW!)

There were a couple of well-intentioned almost-but-not-quite films, but... oh dear lord, then there was this one. With a guy dressed in drag down the left side of his body and in formal men's wear down the right, and he was marrying himself. The ceremony was presided over by an Elvis impersonator, and there was a wedding party of drag queens and drag kings, and.... you're probably thinking now that this doesn't sound too bad. A bit experimental, perhaps. But let me tell you right here and now that this was exactly like sitting through the wedding video of someone you've never met, complete with shaky camera-work, self-composed vows, and oh dear lord it just would not end! There was no point and it was totally self-indulgent. The girl has a similiar take here.

And I can't say I really GOT the black light glowing naked Dolly Parton look-a-like drag queen singing Whitney Huston at the end, but, meh. I'm sure it was profound in some context or another.

The up side: an adorable Spanish? maybe? film about two girls meeting in the park, an earnest student film about a boy too shy to talk to his crush on the bus, an awesome short about a young Chinese girl not comfortable with being a girl, an illustrated short about a nice Jewish gay man taking a trip to Prague and the elderly couple who keeps trying to set them up with their daughter ("What a nice Jewish boy like you needs is a nice Jewish girl...") and a local student film about road-tripping it to Vancouver Pride.

That last one was in its own class of awesome. It was less polished and nuanced than a lot of the films, but totally captured the way it feels to go on a road trip with friends towards something important, and brought you along with them for the in-jokes and the getting lost, and the fatigue and the giddiness. The parade footage was pretty neat to see, but the best part was watching their reactions, this bunch of friends in their early twenties from a prairie city in Canada's bible belt, all of a sudden in the middle of a big-city GLBT community and hit hard with a sense of belonging. There were tears, on-screen and in the audience. I think it was the most affecting and effective film of the whole night.

So yeah, I'm glad friends dragged us out to this, and I hope there's a next year!

Oh, Psych. Oh, BOYS.

2009-08-18T14:39:15Z

Dear Psych,

I continue to find you highly entertaining. You are pretty damn adorable, and make me laugh out loud. True, there are the odd moments of racial FAIL (Shawn, plz to not be mentioning your Indian tracking skills, m'kay?), but I love your kick-ass female characters. And Shawn and Gus are so totally my OTP. Basically, you are squeeful in too many ways to enumerate, especially at 11pm on a weeknight.

Now, I know your grasp on reality is somewhat tenuous and you frequently go off in all kinds of improbable directions. And don't get me wrong, I totally appreciated the lack of Canadian politeness stereotypes in ep 401, "Extradition: British Columbia." And I was willing to overlook snow-covered Whistler in the summer. (Most ski hills in the summer tend to be... hilly. And non-snow-covered. Better for hiking than skiing. Yes, even in Canada.) But. Um. Guys, RCMP are not just Canadian police. Trust me on this one, but Vancouver does have its own police force.

But keep up the cuteness and the willingness to send Shawn and Gus on romantic horse-drawn carriage rides together.

Love,
Me.

Tehran and twitter

2009-06-21T17:31:42Z

Via a friend on Facebook:

" If anyone is on twitter, set your location to Tehran and your time zone to GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches. The more people at this location, the more of a logjam it creates for forces trying to shut Iranians' access to the internet down. Cut & paste & please pass it on."

Return of the random links!

2009-06-01T05:48:17Z

I have cleared out all of my Firefox tabs except for about a dozen that fall into the to-read category! Fic recs coming as soon as I pull everything from delicious and lgbt_fest that I meant to come back to later.

Here, have some random:

In which many people write Nine things About Oracles, as inspired by a pendant.

I Has a Sweet Potato, the saga of a dog and some sweet potatoes. Obviously. (And if you haven't already come across it, Dogs in Elk.)

In the realm of bookish discussion, authors that expose their id on paper. A somewhat belated link.

Here are some truly inspired ideas for Neil Gaiman t-shirts.

Battle of the church signs!.

Roger Sutton on the queerness of Batman.

I am sure we could dream up some sort of library program based around Romance Title Bingo.

How awesome is sex toy recycling as a concept?

A quiz, for your edification and amusement, So Who Do You Think You Are?, or, which Diana Wynne Jones character are you?

I know numerous people who'll relate to Writing a Novel, A Love Story, from YA author libba_bray. Also from Libba Bray and equally awesome, albeit in a different and much more serious way, thoughts on growing up with a gay, closeted dad, There is Nothing Wrong With You.

The Secrets of Storytelling, a look at narrative, the power of story, and our brains from Scientific American. Relatedly, What do kids love most? Their parents reading to them: Study finds that children are hungry for bedtime stories.

Six Reasons Why You Should be Watching Being Erica picspam. I emphatically agree.

I like this bag, but can't really justify buying it. Ah, well.

Plan for the day

2009-05-31T20:13:22Z

I have four open Firefox windows with something like 128 open tabs. (zulu/queenzulu, stop laughing!)

I have stolen troutkitty's laptop table (Dave. Dave the Ikea laptop table. Dave is awesome. and pulled my computer chair and a mouse into the living room, and am going to comment on posts and leave feedback, tag delicious links and compile recs to post.

Here is a slightly fuzzy picture:

Note the coffee, headphones on the keyboard, and the lovely Trout sprawled on the coffee table in front of the open window, from which there is the barest perfect hint of a cool breeze.

And then I need to go to Canadian Tire to get a soaker hose for the lawn and some potting soil for my tomato plants. Summer weekends, mmm.

Oh, Ghibli!

2009-05-30T05:49:59Z

I am on a Studio Ghibli kick.

A couple of months ago, we rewatched My Neighbour Totoro.

If you haven't seen it, words cannot describe either totoros (sorta like.. well.. maybe if you took a bear crossed with a cat and an owl and he was eight feet tall...) or the cute:

The first time I saw Totoro, it was a Chinese dub that a friend's coworker had lent to her when she found out she liked anime. We picked up a surprising amount of plot without understanding a word of it. The little totoros make dibby-dah sounds as they walk in the Chinese dub. We called it the dibby-dah movie for the longest time. It is still one of my all-time favourites, which was why there was about a four or five year period where everyone gave me stuffed totoros. They're all sitting on top of my bookcases, with the exception of the large one. By large, I mean two feet tall and three feet wide. He has taken up residence on top of my filing cabinet in my office at the library. (And if anyone tells you that totoros eat cows, they liiiiiie! Look at those teeth! Vegetarian!)

Totoro is still one of the best all-ages movies out there in existence ever. Also, I, um. Need another DVD copy. Mine is the old English release, and the newer Disney-released version has better subtitles. (Whiiich would make three versions, since I also have the Japanese version. And several more versions on VHS. But who's counting?)

Then a few weeks ago, we watched Kiki's Delivery Service when Mannie and her little guy came to visit. (Take that, fundamentalist extremists! An absolutely charming, gentle, endearing story about a little witch girl!)

Tonight, we watched most of Pom Poko but got bored before the end (now I remember why I don't own the DVD. Still good, but not my favourite.) I like the folklore elements (Japanese folklore, where shapeshifting racoon-dog/tanuki testicles are canon!), but with all the slapstick and the kinda weak plot, and it didn't stand up very well to a second viewing. I'll probably go back and watch the last twenty minutes later tonight. If you are curious:

Then we watched Whisper of the Heart, which is all kinds of awesome. It's a deceptively simple story about a Japanese schoolgirl who reads books, follows a cat on the train, and tries to decide what she wants to do with her life. (Budding romance via library book! Meticulously crafted visuals of everyday life in modern Japan! Heroine who is totally unaware that she could possibly be described as "spunky" and hence is not in the least annoying!)

I thnk either Spirited Away or Princes Mononoke next. (Although I also have Howl's Moving Castle, Castle in the Sky and Nausicaa.) Oh, Studio Ghibli! You are the anti-Disney and I love you for it!

Celebratory birthday-ish things

2009-05-27T05:16:40Z

Yesterday was my darling troutkitty's birthday! And I had meant to post then, but we were doing birthday-ish things like going out for supper and such. We had pizza and pasta at Coco Pazzo's, the local place with a wood-burning pizzaoven, mmm! I smuggled Lush bath stuff back from Edmonton for the girl, and she never suspected, bwaha. And by "smuggled," I mean handed to a friend attending the same conference and said "Quick! Can you pretend this is yours and take it back to the library for me?" Which made her car smell like Lush all the way back, and my office smell like Lush all last week.

I had arranged for a seekrit birthday visit from queenzulu/zulu and drakkenfyre, and had to sacrifice the seekritness because troutkitty's dad was going to come the same day (he came today instead, as all involved opted to spread out the visiting rather than having everyone here at once), but the important bit was that people came! Yay! There was Mario Kart Wii, homemade Mexican food (details of the truly awesome black bean mash here, and a ramble down into the coulees. Pictures to follow, of scenery, river-wading, expeditions up a hill, and other such things.

And now I am just about ready for bed. How long until another weekend?

Book lust

2009-05-18T17:39:38Z

Okay, I knew Sarah Waters had a new book out and I knew it took place in the 40's, and I was waffling on whether to order it from Amazon now along with a couple other books that fall into the want-enough-to-own category (plus seasons one and two of Psych) or wait and...

Nobody told me it was a GHOST STORY. (Thanks for the link, guyindkny!)

Especially after rewatching the BBC miniseries of Fingersmith this weekend, I am trying to convince myself that I don't need to spend an extras $10 just to buy it from Chapters in-store immediately.

Psst, want some candy?

2009-05-17T16:25:32Z

Or in this case, an invite code to Dreamwidth? I've got four left. As I am on my usual curve of procastination vs intention, I don't know how many people are still needing one, but just comment if so!

... coffee. I need.

Crossposty testing!

2009-05-08T03:15:05Z

Hmm, let's see if I did this right and I can crosspost...

Bandwagon-jumping

2009-04-17T05:10:01Z

I can also be found at dreamwidth, daemonluna.dreamwidth.org. (Thank you, jadelennox!)

I... am still not sure what I am doing with it. I'm sure I'll figure it out. *g* Right now, I'm subscribing to and granting access to pretty much everyone on my flist over here who is over there. Eventually, there will probably be some cross-posting. (Learning things via mucking about FTW!)

Amazon Fail

2009-04-13T01:01:46Z

I am Unimpressed.

You've all seen Amazon Rank a zillion times today, right? (And a more extensive list of affected books here.)

And the petition?

And the google-bombing?

The utter randomness of some of the titles make me wonder if part of the colossal fail is due to a search algorithm gone wrong. (ETA: ie, something like this.) But don't get me wrong--the underlying philosophy still makes me furious.

In which I am glad for comfy runners

2009-04-12T03:14:25Z

Today, I dragged troutkitty out of the house on the premise that taking a brief walk around the neighbourhood would make her feel better.

Then we ended up hiking through the coulees for almost two hours. ... oops? (If you have no idea what a coulee is, they are the folds in the hill around the river that look like this, and I am blatantly borrowing a picture from a friend's Flickr account for show and tell.) We went down the hill at the end of 4th St, meandered along the river bottom and ended up at Indian Battle Park.

I had a water bottle, cel phone, and two granola bars. We were wearing comfy runners. It was all good. But there is a lot of down and then up again between here and there, what with it being a river valley and all.

On a totally unrelated tangent, Dreamwidth is exciting! So far, I have only created an OpenID account. (My reading list has one person on it! It's dine! If anyone else has an account already and I have missed you, lemme know.) Definitely thinking about getting a paid account eventually.

Am still missing the lack of new Psych. This is what mainlining a series does to you. And Being Erica is done for the season, though I hear rumours of a season two. troutkitty has suggested Leverage. And I've also got half a season of Supernatural to catch up on.

We have opted to not drive to Calgary for the day for Easter, but will be cooking a ham, possibly tomorrow. Mmm, ham. If anyone feels like coming to Lethbridge to share it, we would happily feed you. :)

Media consumption

2009-04-07T05:18:24Z

House, all I can say is WTF? That was really random. Also, very... Canadian. AKA, were those colour filters really necessary?

Being Erica, your season finale did not disappoint! Oh, man. First of all, I love how the penultimate (heartbreaking) episode of the season didn't revolve around Erica finds loooooove. Not that she and Ethan aren't cute and all, but I liked that it wasn't ALL about the relationship. The utter heartbreak of her situation made it hard to watch, though. Any more coherent comments than that require me to have had considerably more sleep than I have had, though.

And troutkitty and I were just talking the other day about how the most powerful bits can be when a character acts out of character with good cause. Michael Riley is is GOOD, good enough to make Dr Tom losing his unruffled calm goosebump-inducing.

And I have mainlined all three seasons of Psych in less than a month. It is fun and clever and self-referential and has random recurring pineapples! But seriously, fandom. WTF is up with Shawn/Lassiter being the main OTP? Are you BLIND? Shawn/Gus CLEARLY = not just BFF but OTP! (And... Gus/Jules? Just to get them paired up and out of the way? REALLY?) I sputtered in indignation. A lot. troutkitty laughed at me.

And MOST EXCITINGLY! I HAVE THE NEW TAMORA PIERCE BOOK! I preordered Bloodhound last-last December and it showed up in my mailbox TODAY! I am saving it for the weekend when I can devour it all in one sitting. Mmmm, one-of-favourite-authors new fiction.

Library geek moment

2009-04-02T05:33:30Z

So, yeah. I may have told the kids' department at the library today that we'll be shelving the picture books based on the colour of the spine from now on. It went something like this:

Subject: New shelving arrangments for picture books

Hi everyone,

We are going to be taking part in an experimental pilot project happening nation-wide!

Starting today, our picture books are going to be shelved by colour of spine rather than author’s last name, because this is the way that many of our library users search for the books, and let’s face it, no one reads the call numbers anyhow. Exact location will be determined by spectrum analysis, and we will be printing all new spine labels to better determine where the book fits on the spectrum. There may have to be some fine-tuning of location as books age and the spine fades, but we will deal with that problem as it comes up. There will be some retraining for the pages, and in the future, anyone with a fine arts background will strongly be considered for the positions.

I am also currently investigating another shelving configuration for the Juv Fiction, placing the books intended for the youngest readers on the bottom shelves, and the books with the most difficult reading level, mature content, etc on the highest shelves. However, [Facilities In Charge Guy] tells me we may not have enough shelving in storage to create the multiple levels we would need for our collection, so we may have to wait to implement this one.

We are also exploring adding some new life to the pond—either some miniature squid, or possibly a very small octopus.

And finally, happy April Fool’s Day! Nothing will be reshelved and sadly, I do not think squid or octopi would do well in our fish pond.

Next year, I need an inflatable octopus for the pond...

Awesometastic awesome ficness

2009-04-01T05:20:22Z

I have been sadly remiss in fic reccing! I have many open tabs...

But! queenzulu has pulled off amazingingness of awesomeness with running the SECOND EVER HOUSE BIG BANG. (The sheer volume of awesome? Overran her bandwidth! But the archive should be up on the first of the month, which will be in the next few hours. In the meantime, everything should be linked over at house_bigbang)

And the most awesometastic part? HER STORY.

Woodwinds is part of her House/Foreman Percussion 'verse, but this particular bit is Wilson-centric, and ventures into volatile House/Wilson territory.

She is all with the nuanced and complex characters and OMG PLOT that impacts their emotional lives, and all the perfect little details, and the fragile mix of hope and despair, and...

Seriously, if you are at all familiar with House and want something that takes the emotional complexity of the show and goes further, you should totally go read it and tell her how awesome she really is!

(... I may have had half a bag of chocolate easter eggs. That may be why I am using words like awesometasticness. BUT EVERYTHING I HAVE SAID IS STILL TRUE!)

Vacation! Yay!

2009-03-23T03:49:41Z

Tomorrow morning, we leave for Victoria! Yay!

The original plan: We spend Saturday and Sunday morning getting ready in a leisurely fashion, do laundry, clean up the house, etc. Sunday early afternoon, we leave for Calgary, potentially visit danma and ming_lei and the wee one, meet drakkenfyre and queenzulu for supper, stay overnight at my parents' and head to the airport at an ungodly hour tomorrow morning.

What actually happened: About 1 pm Saturday, troutkitty is talking to her dad. Who mentions a winter storm warning for Calgary overnight. We check the forecast. We check it again. We look outside at the 16C weather. We check the forecast again. We pack. Trout has a vet appointment at 3:30. We take him to the vet, come home, finish packing (and oh, wasn't that the DOUBLE ANGST for him, because VET AND SUITCASES.) We leave home at about 6 and get to my parents' about 8pm. Still no snow, but it is getting colder and we did drive through several rainstorms on the way up.

This morning: WHAM. There are 20cm of fresh snow outside and it is still snowing.

So yeah. I am glad we left in a bit of a rush in order to not drive through the aftermath of a snow storm. We also did not go anywhere today other than to the mall to pick up things we forgot.

Things we forgot: Swimming suits. Toothpaste. To mail the letters in my purse. Headphones for my ipod. Batteries for the camera. I am sure there are several other things we will discover when we get there.

But nothing crucial was left behind, and there was no driving through blizzards. So yay! (We'll see what I manage to forget tomorrow morning when packing up to go to the airport.)

And if anyone has recommendations for restaurants or shopping or such, let me know. :)

Vacation, yay!

Is it spring yet?

2009-02-28T17:59:29Z

What I was going to post Wednesday night: "I think I have misread part of the budget requirements for the $120,000 three-year grant application that needs to be in Edmonton by Friday that I have just spent most of my waking hours working on for the past six weeks. AUGH."

Well. I had. But the person in charge of finances at the library is truly awesome, and she found a fix for me, and I did emergency revisions on the budget and triple-checked the proposal and fixed typos and formatted pages (and figured out how to insert different-sized sheets into the same document, yay section breaks!) and my partner in ~~crime~~ grant-writing went and ran around some more and got things re-signed and we printed everything and...

All nine copies plus the original fifty-four page document complete with signatures from six contributing and eleven supporting organizations arrived in Edmonton yesterday at noon.

I am ded from gah.

Now I can stop dreaming about this damn grant proposal and can forget about it until mid-May. (Seriously! A couple nights ago, I dreamt that I had budgeted in all the ingredients for banana bread. And then I thought, wait! We can't ask people to make banana bread! We're just going to buy it! I have to rework everything!)

I am SO taking some time off. In fact, I am taking the last week of March off and we are going to Victoria. (troutkitty's working on a book set in Victoria. It started out as a ghost story in Salem, moved across the continent across the border, gained selkies and a whole lot more supporting characters, and I think the only things intact are the title, the main characters' names, and the ghost story part. Which is about typical. *g*) If anyone has any must-see suggestions or favourite restaurants, let me know!

And hopefully, we have hit our last cold snap of the winter and it will start to be springtime soon.

Prone to attacks of randomness

2009-02-23T08:08:45Z

I feel the need to ramble about several random things tonight. I also have intentions of posting an equally random assortment of fic recs, too. We'll see how that goes later...

READING LISTS

I am up to forty-nine books read from my award committee pile o' doom. I am afraid that I have inadverently picked up a self-published book for my next one. *eyes book suspiciously* And it's blurbed inside by someone at a Catholic elementary school, someone at a private Christian school, and then it starts with a bible verse and an inspiring quote. Ummmmmmm. I am dubious and wary. (Then there was always the book from last year with the comma error IN THE TITLE.) My self-published book rant, let me spare you from it.

DOMESTICITY

About six months ago, I inherited a hand-me-down sewing machine from my aunt. My grandmother was a seamstress, and both my mom and my aunt sew well enough to follow a pattern, hem pants, or put a button back on. Um. I can put buttons back on, sort of. Anyhow, at one point my grandma bought my mom and my aunt identical sewing machines, so this is the same machine on which I learned to sew. And by sew, I mean I can kind of do a straight-ish line.

It is a Singer Touch & Sew 600. It was a refurbished machine in 1971--it's originally from 1963. In theory, it can do all sorts of fancy stitches and everything. (The REALLY fancy stuff requires some metal disks that go inside that I fear have been lost to the mists of time.) My mom still has a copy of the manual for hers, which I have borrowed and am going to photocopy and return. Random googling has informed me that this was one of the last lines made with all metal gears inside, no plastic. With the help of a demonstration from my mom, I have remembered how to wind the bobbin.

Anyhow, with the luxury of last weekend being a long weekend, I spent a morning wandering around on home decorating blogs--always a dangerous prospect--and now I am attempting to create a cover for the small cat's favourite chair out of an old Ikea sheet and a couple worn-out towels. Next up, a cover for troutkitty's notebooks with pockets for post-its and pens. I have no plans for any projects that can't be accomplished with interesting-looking scraps from the remnants bin, however.

LIFESTUFF

We made yummy things for Valentine's Day. troutkitty has finally seen the specialist for her evil arm issues. Surgery isn't an option, but thank GOD, the pain management clinic people seem to be helping. I was suddenly craving brunch at the Deane House this morning like WHOA, eggs benedict on their yummy, yummy biscuits. I was willing to concede, however, that driving the four hours to Calgary and back in the ice fog and if we left THAT MINUTE getting there fifteen minutes before they stopped serving brunch was probably not the best plan. So my girl made me biscuits. I loves her. For more than her biscuit-making tendencies, of course. But they were good biscuits.

WORKSTUFF

I can see the end of The Grant That Ate My Brain. It's for our early literacy/family literacy program, and is for three years at a time. I have inherited this program from another department, and they are a much smaller department and not so inclined to, oh, write things down. Like where the numbers in last year's proposed budget CAME FROM. (The answer, usually: oh, we ran out of time, so we just guessed. I've done some guessing too. But my guessing goes on a spreadsheet with explanations, and is really more of an estimate, I hope. And I made our financial person double-check my math and spreadsheets.) And the prior application is also prone to vague statements without any concrete explanations of how we are going to accomplish these lofty goals. It's all about specific, concrete strategies (and occasionally, measurable outcomes), baby.

I wasn't supposed to have to do this particular grant application until 2011, but last year, the proposal was turned down. We were lucky in that the granting agency said, okay guys, we will give you money to run the program for one more year, but we want you to submit a revised three year proposal next year as to how you're going to target high needs families REALLY FOR REAL THIS TIME.

Guess what? It's next year now.

I have been doing all the pretty words, and my partner-in-~~crime~~grant-writing has been chasing down hard data. We have met with other organizations, gone to a day-long workshop in scenic Brooks, crunched numbers, made spreadsheets, chased stats that didn't support any of our conclusions definitively or flat-out didn't exist, chased around in pursuit of signatures from fourteen different partnered and supporting agencies, relied on anecdotal evidence, played telephone tag with people at the granting agency and eventually had a two-hour conference call that cumulated in a discussion of how best for the program participants to transport leftover soup home on the bus, cancelled one existing site in favour of another where the person at that site didn't tell her boss that we were for sure going to start in two weeks and now we need her to sign forms and she is out of town and won't be back until the day before the grant needs to be ON THEIR DESKS IN EDMONTON. (Hellooooo, next-day delivery Canada Post!)

I have been literally dreaming about this stupid proposal for the past few weeks. (I stopped working on it and went to bed one night last week when I realized I had created a sentence with the masterful turn of phrase, "in order to facilitate the accessibility to access....")

SO. ALMOST. DONE. The budget balances now, and I just need to pretty up two last sections of random notes into real sentences. That will be tomorrow afternoon. Then, in and around assorted other things on Tuesday, I will ruthlessly chop all rambling sentences back into coherence. Then we will proofread the hell out of it, make sure all the appendices and attachments are appended and attached and all things that must be signed have indeed been signed... send it off, and hope they like it.

And then I get to go back to all the things I have been pushing off to one side while working on the grant app. I have a teen program on Friday for which I have yet to even see one of the games we are supposed to be playing (Wii Music, to go with Guitar Hero and Rock Band) and have done nothing at all about figuring out where we are going to get any of the anime series on DVD, let alone the public performance rights, for our March program. (Anyone want to lend me the first episode of Bleach, Ranma, Fruits Basket, Death Note, Cowboy Bebop, EVA, and is Ouran host Club even out on DVD? We have Fullmetal Alchemist.)

SPEAKING OF MEDIA CONSUMPTION...

troutkitty is mainlining Farscape. We are both pleasantly surprised at Being Erica. (Although the end of Rabbit Fall was a HUGE disappointment.) Being Human is in no way similiar or related, but also of the good. I have decided that I want to watch Psych.

And now I need to go to SLEEP.

Lazy Saturday

2009-01-31T19:43:22Z

Mmm, lazy Saturday. This is the first Saturday out of four where I haven't had to be at the library. Chronologically: Kids Book Club (my pet program), an afternoon-long orientation workshop for the library board in which I was there just to smile pretty and answer any questions, and a big to-do for Family Literacy Day in which we had to send maintenance out to get emergency back-up cake. (We had a sheet cake for fifty, and a hundred and seventy five people came. The trick... we had a school choir sing, which means that most parents HAD to come and lots stayed and some brought siblings and grandparents.)

So this weekend, there shall be much sprawling on the couch with a book. (I am way behind on my RMBA reading, and the next committee meeting is Tuesday. But still, time to read!) There will be running of errands (um. We are almost out of toilet paper. And bottles need to be recycled.) and I have good intentions of making a big batch of spaghetti sauce (commonly known as chilsketti, for being as thick as chili) and maybe cabbage rolls, all to restock the freezer. We'll see.

Also, queenzulu is an auntie! Yay!

Festive things

2008-12-30T05:41:40Z

There was Christmas. It was good. Except for the bit where troutkitty was sick. But she did get to come home to a zombie themed stocking! :)

It contained:

Whack a Zombie inflatable desktop zombie
Shaun of the Dead on DVD
The DS game Teenage Zombies
World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide)
Two things I can't tell yet because I am still waiting for them to come in the mail (curse you, Canada Post!)
And a make-your-own-zombie-army kit of felt and fabric paints based on these zombie gingerbread men on etsy. Pictures to follow when we have finished assembling them.

Also, a bag of good coffee beans (zombie prevention) and the traditional chocolate orange in the toe.

I wanted to add this gelatin brain mold, too, but wasn't able to get it in time.

I am skimming through Yuletide stories, and have made it into the F's. We are now almost caught up watching Supernatural. I am idly curious about Merlin. We still have the Doctor Who Christmas Special to watch!

My typing is hindered today. I was reminded this morning, while innocently opening a taped-shut box, that sharp scissors are sharp. Now I have a Shrek bandaid AND a Peanuts-in-space bandaid adorning my right middle finger (because the bandaids are from work). (To which troutkitty looked queasy, and inquired as to how bad it was to need TWO bandaids. To which I say, um. No. It needed one bandaid, properly applied. I had bandaid-applying issues.)

I am scattered today. The alarm went off this morning. And my body said whyyyyy do you do this to meeeeee? I am not a morning person.

We get a drakkenfyre tomorrow! Yay!!! It has finally stopped snowing, too.

And now I am going to go to bed very soon.