Blather, rinse, repeat

Wow so here I was going to revitalize my LJ, and really keep on top of updating it, and then I just let it sit for another few months. Sorry about that.

Anyway so yeah. Signed with the agent I really liked, waited for the revision suggestions to come in, and then got right to work. She sent them right before we went to Florida, but I got a good chunk done before, and finished up the rest the week after we got home. The week I came home, my agent moved from Sterling Lord Literistic to Donald Maass. I think that's pretty great, actually. Well, both are great, and like I told her on the phone, I was looking for an agent more than an agency.

I tried to send my revisions four times over the last week, but my email is for some reason effed up, and I had to drop box them to her yesterday. So now she has the revised version, and for some reason I'm sweating that more than when she read the manuscript for the first time. Because, what if I made it worse? What if I did the revisions and she reads them, and they're essentially first drafts of new chapters? (Well, not chapters, but a section here and there.)

So nervewracking.

But yeah, in the meantime, we did go to Florida, too: Me, my Mom, Callum and Meghan. We stayed at Port Orleans and we didn't rush anywhere or have to do anything specific and it was super nice like that. I mean we did have some fast passes, and it does limit you to which park you're going to be at any given day. I do sort of miss the times when you could be like, “Ehh, let's go to Epcot today instead,” but if you do that now, you miss your, like, ONE CHANCE to ride that ride you want to get on.

Callum went on his first rollercoaster! It was Barnstormer and he LOVED it. Laughed the entire way through, starting from when it begins its climb to the first drop. But then again, he loved the stupid airplane, too. Giggled and shouted “WEEEEE!” through the ascension. He kept looking at me and saying, “CAM-CAM!” Like, “Look, it's ME, Cam-cam, going way up in the sky!” In fact, a few weeks ago he even told me, “Cam-cam gonna go to work.”

“Work?” I said. “You have a job now?”

“Yey-uhh. In a few months.”

“I see. And what are you going to do at your work?”

“Cam-cam going to drive the airplane.”

Not even two and a half and he wants to be a pilot. He woke up this morning and said to me, first thing, “Cam-cam on the airplane. Way high up up up in the sky!” Which I guess means that he's still dreaming about it. So weird, toddler brains.

But yeah, he went on Barnstormer and he loved it. He loved all the rides, even the Haunted Mansion, and the parade, (“Woooow Mommy-and-Grammom-and-Momo, wook at DIS!”) but was less than thrilled with the characters. Which, I'm not too wild about those, either.

It also rained and stormed every day. In fact we got stuck in tropical Storm Erika's path, and our landing when we came in was delayed for like 3 hours. We had to circle Orlando forever before they decided to land us in Tampa, and then take off again to go to Orlando. That was the beginning of The Trip Of Wait, because every single day another thing went wrong where we got held up doing this or that. They even had us in the wrong hotel room when we got there. :/

But even with all of that, it was still such an excellent trip. So now we're actually thinking about going in on a Disney Vacation Club kind of dealie thing. You pay monthly for 5-10 years, and you get allotted a certain amount of points per year, and you can use them to stay in the villas. You also get discounts on annual tickets and dining. Getting it via resale saves thousands of dollars. And like, I know, those thousands of dollars we'd still be spending could be going in the bank, but honestly, now that I have a kid, I can't see just saying “Well, we're not going to Disneyworld anymore.” We're all pretty much going to keep going. Like, Meghan is 23 and Spencer is 26 and they've been going since they were 2, and they're also not going to stop. Same with Chrissie and Timmy and the kids. And every few years, you save up enough points to use a big villa where the entire family can stay; sleeps up to 12 or something. IDK, I'm thinking about it.

Well, tomorrow is Autumn, and I have to say, it's been such a beautiful summer that I'm anxious thinking that something has got to go wrong. (Well, to be fair, Sano and Haku got mad sick from their food, starting the day before we left for Disney. Tons of meds later and they are both fine, though the food wrecked their delicate intestines so much that they are on Tylan powder for life now.) I mean yes, something always goes wrong and nothing is ever perfect, but sometimes it feels so perfect that I'm like, What's going to happen to balance this out? Every week this summer we went to the ocean. I have this awesome little kid and an awesome literary agent and a job I enjoy. Isn't that just too much good?

But yeah, Autumn, though. Every year I'm always so sad when summer ends, but then I love Autumn, too. It's really just winter I can't deal with. Well, really just January and February, and that's only because we've gotten killed the last three years, with blizzards upon blizzards. I can't even deal with that. And having to stay in the house at night instead of going on a long walk and then sitting on the deck, enjoying the last rays of sun until 8 PM. God, winter is so hard! Ugh.

Here are some things I:m looking forward to:

Getting the next round of revisions done and going on submission. Rad.

Teaching some Hula classes at work. In Florida, I spent some time with Auntie Kau'i and she was like, “Are you dancing and teaching?” I told her it had been a while and she said, “You have to get back to it. Start over and don't stop again.” And I really, really want to, but it's so hard to find a space where you can just get a group of people together and dance. Now I have that opportunity at work and I can't wait to start.

Halloween, naturally. And the holiday season after that. I'm one of those fools who really loves the stupid holidays. All the lights and music and crap. I can't get enough of that.

Umm, and new TV shows. Isn't that awful and so dull of me? But I really like Sleepy Hollow.

And after that, next Spring, LOL. Winter is just long, dark, boring, depressing and pointless. And frigging cold and frustrating and icy.

Hmm, I don't want to speculate on anything else. In 2008 I cheerfully wrote in my LJ, “I wonder what will happen this year, and how much will be different next year!” And in 2009 my Gran and my Dad both died. Which I know has nothing to do with how I effing phrased things for pete's sake but anxiety is a bitchass!

Well, now I've still got about 45 minutes left of Callum's nap, so I'm going to sit down and read the new version of [Bad username or site: ”spatterdash” @ livejournal.com] 's wonderful novel.

And then wake Callum, take the dogs out, and IDK, go out for pizza. Maybe a walk later with Callum, Mom, Momo, Chrissie and her boys. (Oh wait no, I tell a lie, Momo gets home late tonight. Walk tomorrow then, when she's off from school.) And perhaps a bar of ice cream later.

This summer has been one of the best ever, and I'm going to miss it. Here's to an Autumn that's just as rad.

As it gets close to the end of summer, I'm starting to realize that we only get, I don't know, maybe 7, maybe 8 ocean days per year. Not counting those times we go in the fall, or Spring. Those don't exactly count, because I'm really talking about those lush, humid, hot summer days when you can actually go into the water. So even if we went every other week, sometimes two weeks in a row, it only comes out to 6-8 or so days per summer. Really not a lot. Which is weird, because, sure, next year we can go again, but next year, Callum will be two. Two is really different to one. Babies and kids change so rapidly. With adult friends and family, you kind of don't change as much, so you can recreate some of those moments from the past. But I only have that handful of days at the ocean with a one-year-old. And then a handful with a two-year-old. Etc. It's weird and kind of sad, right?

Last week, we had our “pre-Disney” summer party. “We” in this case was: Me, CJ, my Mom, Spence, his gf Natasha (I really like this kid, she is a great girl!) Meg, Chrissie, Tim, Gavin, Mason, my Uncle Don, and his gf Jen. We used to do those parties with Gran and my Dad, of course. This was the first one without them. So it was tough. And the trip is going to be tough, too. But still, I'm looking forward to it so much! I'm stoked beyond the telling of it. It's two more months. And we'll only be there for 6 days. But that's enough, I think, with a toddler, and with boarding the dogs. That's really my biggest worry, actually. I know CJ's going to have the Disney melt-downs, and there will be INCIDENTS, and craziness, and I'll probably be way too emotional. But it's just really hard for me to leave the dogs for that long. And I still can't figure out who to get to feed my goldfish, The Doctor, while I'm gone. I have to square that away. Two months is going to fly by. EVERYthing is flying by.

Tomorrow I'm going out kayaking with Dragon. We're taking a sunset kayak tour. Which is super weird, because two years ago, right after I very very very first got pregnant, I went out kayaking on the 28th with Lady Chrysanthemum. I just thought that was weird, you know, the wheel turns and all.

Sunday is already Powwow day! Wasn't I just there a few minutes ago, with tiny little CJ in the Ergo carrier, and my best friend, Glassworker? I bought him a little T shirt, thinking it would be forever until he was big enough to wear it, and he's already worn it a bunch of times. And now CJ will be walking around and probably picking out his own stuff that he wants.

And then on Tuesday, a HitRECord friend of mine from England is coming to visit! Which, EXCITEMENT omg. He's an incredible musician (he did music for a poem that I wrote, and also wrote and sang the wonderful song “Adieu,” for HitRECord On TV, which, HI, we won an Emmy for that show! :D ) and just about the sweetest person.

And then I start teaching a Hula class on Mondays in September – hopefully. If more people sign up.

I took a Saturday off mid-September, too, to have a yard sale. Maybe I can make some Disney money.

Then October and Disney and then Thanksgiving and Christmas and then the loooooooong, loooooong stretch of winter that I can't even bear to think about yet. I'm still not over last winter ffs. I can't deal with another like that. It was too much.

I'm always afraid to say, “Who knows what will be different next year?” because, literally, the last time I wrote that in my LJ, my Gran and my Dad passed within four months of each other. So, I'm not going to say that. I am going to hope that the rest of the year (oh, let's get ambitious and say the next TWENTY years!) can be as good as this summer has been. Even though things change so quickly, can it still be this good? I am going to hope that I will sign with a really rad literary agent (I've still got two manuscripts out, and still waiting to hear back from either or both agents.) I will hope to have less anxiety in general about things. Or, really, to work on that a bit, because it's not going to go away on its own.

Oh, while I'm here: CJ has six teeth, four donor siblings (though I've only been in contact with two families,) and a handful of words and phrases. Words like: hat, out, ant, balloon (“umboooon,”) and “AT?” while pointing to something, asking me to repeat what it is. And the same phrases he's always used: “I did it!” when I tell him he's done something well, OR when I tell him not to do something for pete's sake, (or, “THEY did it!” when I tell the dogs they're good,) and “It's good-good!” when he's eating oatmeal, or when I tell him something is “yucky” and not to eat it. :/ He plays ball, and has an orange car that he loves; a fuzzy, pink rocking horse that he likes to play with but will not sit on; a Mickey Mouse train; a musical chair; various Lilo and Stitch dolls etc. But given the choice, he'll always play with a DVD, remote control, the air purifier, or my cell phone. He loves books more than anything—ANYTHING—and is obsessed with “Go, Dog, Go,” and “Beep Beep.” He likes anything that says “beep beep,” which he copies by grunting twice. And he likes bees, which he calls “DIZ!” because of the buzzing. And he does animal noises, too, and a Donald Duck voice. Sort of. ^_^

I should really update LJ more often, but I get so lazy. CJ goes in for a nap and I usually just sit there looking at Tumblr and reading the stupid, depressing news. I always say that, but I never do it.

Since it's on my mind right now, I'd better go check Amazon for a fish self-feeder or something, and maybe a timer to turn the lights on and off.

I will absolutely check in with LJ more often. Will absolutely try. ^_^;;

Let me tell you about this goddamn pool. So the guy came over on Tuesday and he agreed that it looked all kinds of wrong. Yet, he still couldn't figure out how to fix it. He said he'd drain it, so as not to put pressure on the sides, then look at the manual some more and come back to try to fix it on his day off. He put the pump in the pool and I said, "When will you be back? Tomorrow?" No, not until Saturday. I said, "Won't the liner dry out and tear by then?" He said it would be fine.

Yet everyone else who's ever had a pool said that this was the worst idea ever, especially in this heat. With only one foot of water, the liner was going to crack for sure, and then the wall really would get pulled down.

So here we are, a Thursday, and the pool is being refilled. Only to be drained again tomorrow night. Such an abhorrent waste of water, and such a huge water bill. If he doesn't show up Saturday, the whole thing is pretty much screwed. I am so mad right now. A lot of money went into this pool, and it's money that I could really actually use, you know? It's over 9000 degrees right now, and around here, it starts to get cool in the middle of August. >_<

Jo-chan got a job around the corner from here, so she's spending half-weeks here until university starts up again. Today was her first day. It's nice, having her around. Tonight we're celebrating her first day on the job with ice cream and a movie (and not swimming.)

I really freaking miss Kung Fu, y'all. I could go practice it in my yard, but A) over 9000 degrees and B) I've never been self-motivated. Mostly, I miss training with the people I train with. And also, yeah, training. I feel stiff and inflexible and like I'm losing all my muscle tone. However, I'm saving a lot of money. I have been jogging a few times a week (the heat doesn't bother me when I'm just jogging; it's a lot less taxing than KF,) but it's not the same. But, I really do need that money.

I did get some more blood test results back, and am glad to say that they were all really awesome. My homocysteine was in the normal range, but a little high for my nefarious purposes. The nurse practitioner said she was going to send me a prescription for a supplement (that I will throw away because the last time they gave me a prescription for a supplement, it had Red40 and saccharine in it. Really? Are you trying to give me cancer? The whole thing is such a racket.) I looked up what can cause elevated homocysteine and I read lots of things about "anger" and "hostility" LMAO. Maybe I'm hostile because people are dicking me around! Haha, no but it wasn't really elevated, in fact it was right in the middle, but still, the lower the better.

So I bought some folic acid today, after a lengthy discussion at the store with some rep who kept trying to tell me that I didn't need folic acid, I just needed her company's one-shot pill dealy thing which the store didn't have, but I should totally just "run down to Whole Foods" (forty miles away) and grab some there. I had found folic acid, but not the vegetarian kind and she was pretty sure that this store didn't have any of that anyway. Then she sat herself down—in the aisle--in front of the vegetarian folic acid that I had originally asked for. I reached around her and grabbed it anyway. Supposedly it lowers homocysteine, but that encounter made me feel, you know, somewhat hostile. ;D

Apart from all that, I released my three baby starlings today. The aviary is empty, but I have two little robins who are fledging, and tomorrow I'm getting a fledgling sparrow that someone kept for three weeks. I go through this every. Goddamn. Year. It's the same exact conversation. "I found this baby bird and I really want to do the right thing but I don't want to release him into my yard/don't know how to release him/I don't think he can fly but I really love him and I fed him some strange-ass thing since I found him, oh, and I've had him for like a month." GOD. Why do people do this? You have my goddamn phone number, why did you not call me the first day you found him?

HOSTILE.

I guess this entry could have been a lot more cheerful, sorry. ^_^

Today is the first day of summer and it is hot as balls up in here. It's like 90 degrees or something. Yesterday it was in the mid 60s. WTF. Not complaining, because this is the weather I absolutely love.

Yesterday (after having my first client simply not show up for a 90 minute treatment, and leave me sitting there for 2+ hours not getting paid,) I came running home to catch the 3:45 of Avengers at the Island 16. (That's far away, for those who don't know.) This was a very important viewing, you see, because SB, Jo-Chan and I took the Boychild to see it. It was his first ever cinema movie. Boychild's Mama let us borrow her car (and her kid,) and we made it just in time. We got Boychild some ice cream and popcorn (you have to have popcorn for your first time at the movies!) and got into the theater as they were doing the last two trailers.

I know it's tough for kids in the movie theater sometimes, because they can get bored, because it's dark and loud, and because they sometimes don't get the "indoor voice" thing. But he was so good during the whole thing. He was a little nervous in the beginning because it was loud and explodey, and he hid his eyes when Bruce Banner yelled really loud at Natasha. But then after that, he was really into it. His favorite was the Hulk, and you can guess his two favorite parts. (Don't want to spoil it for anyone.) He loved the "boss fight" at the end, with the "big puppies from outer space." (The Chitauri. Those were "big puppies.") Only once did he comment, "This is kind of long," but then that thing with Hulk and Loki happened, and he literally squealed with laughter. He really had a good time.



Today, I think we're doing Jo-chan's birthday. Actually I'm not sure if that's tonight or tomorrow, but I think it's tonight. Jo-chan is staying over again to watch Haku tomorrow while I have my dr. appointment way the hell up the island ffs.

Oh, I should mention: Monday, I had my first ever acupuncture treatment. Umm. It was intense, let's just say. I really didn't feel the needles going in, but once they were already in, then, yeah. There was one that was so weird. She put it in Kidney 3 I think (it was hard to tell because I wasn't looking,) and it felt like someone shocked the bottom of my foot. Strangest bunch of sensations ever. Very achey, sort of. I'll be going in again, and this time it will be with the knowledge that it's not 100% pleasant. So there's that.

FFFFFFFFF it is so hot. The pool is open, but it's all brown and gross. Glassworker and her husband came over to help take the cover off. They found thousands of tadpoles in there. Which should not have been a surprise, since there's been a bunch of frogs yelling all spring, in the trees behind the pool. I just had no idea they were doing the nasty in the pool cover! So Glassworker and her husband rescued the tadpoles and took them home to their pool which they don't use, but are going to turn into a water feature with frogs and stuff. Nice! Meanwhile, my tree frogs are still singing like crazy. Maybe they'll put some tadpoles in my pond, or maybe they already have. I hope so! Haven't seen a lot of frogs or toads around here in many years.

But a lot of things seem to be coming back to this neck of the woods. Last summer, I saw all sorts of crabs in the bay, like moon crabs and spider crabs. Snails are back, and horsehoe crabs, and tons of mollusks. Maybe the local environment is getting better. I hope so! It seems like a good sign.

Seems like Jo-chan's party is tonight. Cool. Tomorrow, my Dr. appointment; Friday, bring Haku to the chiro with me; Saturday, work; and then who knows. Going to see either Prometheus or MIB3 with Dragon one of those days, though.

Happy summer, everyone!

I haven't written about any of my crazy dreams lately, and they have been pretty crazy.

So, I've got a few recurring dreams / themes over the years. One of them is the "taking the place of the person in danger" one that I sometimes have. The other recurring one is the "ditched at the altar" one. This dream always manifests in the same way: I'm about to get married. I have an awesome dress. The guests file in. I realize that I either don't have a fiance, or he's dead, or he's not going to show, and it's all for nothing. (One time the fiance was John Lennon. I had a white dress with red embroidery, and I was waiting for the ceremony, when someone told me that John Lennon was, in fact, already dead.) At the end, I decide that I like the dress and I want to have a party.

This dream repeats in different forms every few years, and I had it again this morning.

In this one, my family had rented, not a hall, but an entire gothic mansion for my wedding. My Dad was still alive in the dream. The mansion was huge, with hundreds of rooms, some of them hidden. Secret passageways, historical documents hidden inside, antiques everywhere. Clothes hanging up in closets and such. From one of these closets, I picked my wedding dress. It was a purple gothic thing, with tons of laces. There were photographers everywhere, hundreds of guests and whatnot. Big round tables, intricately carved, in the reception room. Masses of flowers and a big old cake and everything.

And then, as usual, I was like, "Oh, snap. There's actually no one to marry." Then there was a brief moment of panic, like, "What am I going to do with all these guests? How humiliating. Maybe I'll just wait at the altar anyway?" And then, as is always the case in this dream, I decide that, well, seeing as how we're set up for a party anyway and I'm all dressed up, we might as well continue the celebration.

So that's what I did. In one dream, I brought out a trampoline. In another, there was a gaming night. In this dream, last night's (or this morning's – or by the time I post this, yesterday morning's,) I decided to A) call a "photogaphy party" and B) run around and explore the mansion behind the backs of the staff.

So I got out my camera, and everyone else got out theirs, and we all started running around. I was determined to see every room there was. Every corner. Every hidden passage. Open every last door. (Now that I'm thinking of it, there are always tons and tons of doors in this dream; some barred, some barely open, some wide open.)

So first I was going into the opened doors. I took pictures of everything. I posed for pictures in my awesome dress, next to the fantastic windows with amazing views over the ocean. Then, I started breaking down the locked doors. For some of them, I had to find a hidden lever. Some of the doors were in the floor and I had to drop down into secret rooms. I dodged around kitchen staff, and went behind backs of butlers etc.

At one point, a few guests and I were spotted going into a secret room, and an alarm went off. All these mansion-staff people started yelling, and saying that we had sprung the trap. Then wine started to flow along the floor, chasing us. I realized that the wine was electrified and if it touched out shoes, we would get a shock. So we ran from the wine which flowed faster and faster – but as we were running, we were all laughing. It was scary, actually, that the electric wine was right on our heels, but we were all laughing. (I don't know who the others were. Random people.)

Here's the funny thing. Then my dog woke me up. It was around 5:30 AM and I got up to go to the bathroom and re-apply lip balm (I do this about once a night. It's an addiction. I use raw shea butter. Anyway!) Then, I went back to bed and I loved the mansion so much, that I rented it again for a continuation of the dream!

But, this dream was a tad less exciting. I couldn't find the awesome, voluminous dress. Many of the guests had left. I did manage to find a Victorian lacy top and long, fluttery skirt. I decided that I would buy it. So I put it into a box and left the mansion.

When I went outside, it was dark; the parking lot was wet from rain. I was no longer outside of the mansion, but outside of a strip mall. The strip mall included an old Hallmark store, a grocery store, and a dentist. I thought, "I'm not covered for dental; I can't even afford to go in there."

I went to my car and my Dad was waiting there for me. He said, "Be careful on your way home and make sure you don't get any more flat tires."

That's about all I can remember.

I can glean some subconscious info from this recurring dream, but not all of the symbolism. This dream always starts out exciting, then turns to that moment of panic, then turns into a fun kind of game with awesome clothes. Once in a while I wake myself up laughing. What even IS that?

Yup, so that was my head movie from last night.

What other news? Oh, there is a pool again! YAY, YAY. It's not set up yet. We have to see if the old filter will still work, and replace a part. It's a small pool, but I think it fits very well. Maybe I'll even get to go into it before the season ends. It has been hot as balls in the last week, but tonight, it's cool. That "mid-august" evening cool, that makes you dread the end of summer, you know.

Two more Hula classes and then I'm done until the Autumn classes begin. Don' t know yet when that might be, though.

I think that's about it. One of these times, I have to make a list of the songs I hear at work. I know how dull that sounds, but it's actually quite fascinating, I promise. ^_^

OMFG where have I been? Well, yes, where indeed? Umm, let's see. My Hula class started last week and I was reminded of how much I love teaching. Not only that, but the fact that I can teach. I went in there really worried that I'd just stand there and freeze. But I didn't. I taught, from 7-8 in the upstairs studio, in high summer on a beautiful night!

The students—no, the dancers because I believe everyone who tries to dance is a dancer—really had a great time. They got the gist of the Hula, if not the moves right away. But people have to realize that this is not a western way to move. Our bodies are used to different styles, so can feel unnatural to people who have never done it before. At any rate, they area lovely group of ladies and I can't wait to see them again next week. Or really this week, since it's only about 3 more days until the second class. :D

Also, I wrote a Tiny Story and Joe reblogged it, AND it got some art by the wonderful skitty_kitty, so that was really awesome and made my day. That was yesterday.

Before that? I went to the beach for fifteen minutes, parked my car bayside a few days after the beginning of the season, with a note sayint that I'd forgotten the dates of the season and I'd be right back and PLEASE don't give me a ticket, I only needed 15 minutes. And I came back and there was a $100 ticket over the note.

ARE YOU GODDAMN KIDDING ME? Seriously, for parking for fifteen minutes at my frigging beach, where I go all year anyway? And mine was the only car there, it's not like I was blocking anything or taking up space that someone else could have been using.

EFF YOU.

So yeah that pissed me off.

Umm and I've been working. That seems to about cover it.


ALSO, NOTE TO SELF: GO OUT DANCING ON MONDAY THE 25TH. DON'T FORGET.

This dream starts out with me at school. It's not the way the college is in reality, but the same "dream college" I always have. With a huge main room, like a kind of meeting hall. And for some reason an airline is close by. I don't know why that is.

Somehow or other I meet Cillian Murphy at my school and he asks me out. And I'm like, OMG, YES without even wondering why. A few weeks go by quickly and he doesn't do much but hang around. Eventually he begins asking me to get certain objects for him. It starts out with a key to the door of a utility room in the college. I bring him his key in exchange for a kiss. The next time I bring him something (a metal pole, I think,) he's got his shirt off.

Apparently I'm easily trained, because Cillian Murphy keeps asking me for various items and every time I bring him one, he's got one less piece of clothing on, so I'm inspired to keep on bringing him whatever. Thinking to myself, "COOL, soon it'll be just like in 28 Days Later. Full frontal!"

He actually doesn't move from this sofa he's on, either.

Eventually one of my college acquaintances (Margaret, real nice lady,) approaches me while I'm on my latest scavenger hunt and says to me, "Did you ever stop to think WHY Cillian Murphy asked you out?"

I ignore this and keep searching for the item.

Then, more people approach me with questions. "Why you? Did you ever wonder? What does a guy like that want with you? A famous actor? YOU? Think about this."

I'm defensive right away, telling them, "Maybe he likes smart girls! I got 106 on my final. Think about that."

But instead, I do start to think about it and I realize that he's probably up to something big. I've gotten him keys, scrap metal (I've got scrap metal on my mind lately, what-with figuring out how to take down the wrecked pool etc.) some plastic, a big metal pole, a map, and various other innocuous items that are vaguely nefarious in the dream when you put them together.

And I realize, holy crap, this isn't like 28 Days Later or Inception. This is like Red Eye. He's a terrorist and he's going to blow something up. Probably starting with my school!

Just as quickly, I realize I don't care. We're down to underwear now and my school is dumb anyway. So I keep on fetching the items.

END.

Uhh, what else. I got three baby birds on loan from a friend: two fledgling sparrows and a fledgling bluejay who is in the aviary.

I lost one of my first batch of birds in a really horrific and unusual way. He was a starling, and he somehow tore through a piece of the screen that lines the inside of the aviary, and crawled in between the screen and the chicken wire, where he got stuck. I didn't find him until he was a few hours dead. Awful.

I got 106 on my path2 final. Tomorrow is Med Massage 2 and I'm not as confident but can't wait for it to be over. Tomorrow is my last day of Clinic 1.

It's hot as hell; wish I could go to the beach for a few hours and swim.

Talked with my brother for a while today.

Can't get rid of the nitrates in my fish tank.

No Hula shows coming up.

I have a party to attend in a week and a half. There, I'll have fun, for sure.

In a corner of this glittering city
Just thinking out loud
This world is full of nothing but idiots, huh?
Broken hearts, city lights
And me just thinking out loud.

I'm so happy to be going to see Inception tonight with My Wonderful Glassworker Friend. She's going to bring me a green tea Smoothie Of Immortality from her food processor. Can't wait to try. However, I'll also be shoveling gobs of ice cream down my maw during the film, as is my tradition. (I've tried, by the way, this Arctic Zero ice cream stuff, which claims to have 128 calories PER PINT and no artificial sweeteners. Which, I'm not sure that's on the up and up. Maybe you grow a second head a few years down the road. Still, didn't taste too bad.)

Anyway, so finally I'll be seeing Inception which everyone swears to me is so far up my alley I can practically taste it. I'm excited. And we're going late, so hopefully it won't be too crowded, and maybe most of the people there will be going to watch Twatlight Part One Thousand, Revenge Of The Sparkledouche or some crap thing like that.

I'm sure that tomorrow I'll post a raving review of Inception. I go into this cautiously, though. I know how I get when I want to love something. :)

In other news, my foot continues to act up. Some mornings I can hardly put weight on it without stretching it first. I DO NOT want to give up running. I'm just starting to get good at doing a mile a day and I don't want to quit. I've been out of Kung Fu for a whole day, and will probably not go tomorrow either, which, DOOM. I hate missing my beloved Kung Fu.

So, I drugged Haku last night in hopes of him having a seizure-free night, and he did. Still, I'm worried. I know it means the phenobarb is losing its effectiveness and I'll have to switch meds. I just hoped it would last longer than this. But who knows! Maybe I'm being too pessimistic and this will be an isolated incident.

Umm. It's very hard for me to be anything but cynical after the year my family has had. My optimism borders on naivete, stupidity even.

And so, my pool is destroyed, (still no news from the neighbors on how hard they are going to ride us for their cellar, and we can't make any claims till then,) and my water filter leaks like a bastard and now my Mom's dishwasher backed up and flooded. I'm not a moron and I recognize the elements when I see them. O_o WTF, water? Honestly.

And last night, my lovely little suckerfish Ruto died. I realized last week that she didn't seem to be thriving, and was kind of listless, just swimming around and not really sticking to anything. But, how do you treat a suckerfish? I checked the water and all the levels were fine.

Also, yesterday was a tough day for me, in terms of missing Dad and Grandma.

BUT. I remain stupidly enamored of this dumb life. I can't help it. I can't stay miserable. Something comes along to make me giddy. I guess that's crazy.

I got a lot of critiquing done yesterday, and a lot of revising of Qualia done today. Some days, I can't help but think that Qualia's gonna make it. That someone will love it as much as I love my favorites. I can't shake that feeling. Ridiculous faith. OTOH I also feel like I'll win the lottery. Haha.

It's as hot as Satan's asscrack today and I spent some time outdoors just breathing in the sweet humidity. Mmmmm. Sun, moon, stars, rain. Yadda yadda.

Today was so pretty, I took some photos. Prepare!

Actually, this one is from last week. ( My sword (in its case) and staff outside of the kwoon. )

( Some of my house spiders. )

( Havok's mug in the camera )

( My two Ninja Wizards playing and running together. )
Dogs so do not take things personally. They just bounce back. After the year they've had (their THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS WORTH OF VET BILLS,) all they wanna do is get back to playing. I appreciate that.

( My pink dinnerplate hibiscus. )
I have a red one, too, but it's not as bloomy as this one.

( Plumeria in the morning, and then in the afternoon. )

( My hair + humidity =... )
FWHOOSH.

I love summer on this island. Well, I love the island, really. :) Hate the tourists and the rude people who make the road hellish, and all the damn loudass summer people yelling all the time.

It's not the heat, it's the stupidity.

The rest of the summer? *fingers crossed*

Yesterday was the only actual summer day we've had so far. It hit about 85, the highest it's been this entire summer, and not a cloud in the sky from afternoon on. Just like I'd hoped, and just in time for the “party.” (“Party” is in quotes. LOL. But more on that later.)

Early in the day I took the dogs out and damn near stepped on a baby robin who had probably been battered out of the nest by the previous night's storm. It's weird, because about two weeks ago the local vets called me and asked if I would take a baby robin and I turned them down because I'm going to China pretty soon, and I didn't want to burden my Mom with extra birds to see to while I was gone, if I could help it. I guess the universe had other plans. He's adorable. I named him “China.”

The yard and pool looked gorgeous, like a tropical resort. Everything was perfect up until my goddamn neighbors decided to run some kind of hugeass machines that roared like trains passing by for the next three hours. I have no earthly idea what they were doing, but they decided to do it on the one day when I was having company over, so I hexed them and their blasted noisy machines. When they were done, the trash behind me decided it was high time to white-wash their filthy hovel, so for a few hours after the train-sounding machines, it was “weeehhhh! Weeeehhhhh! Weeeeehhh!” Stupid bastards. Hexed them, too.

The night before, and that morning, I'd gotten all these emails from various people going, “I'll be there / send me directions / we're on our way!” etc. Out of everyone who said they were coming, three did, four including a baby who can't make such decisions as “let's go to a party.”

Sifu and Simo showed up at around 3:45 with their adorable baby and their huge sweet akita dog Fabuki. Sifu said, “Uhh... I think we are the entire party.” He texted The Empress and apparently she got stuck at home painting the house with her Dad. No one would drive her. I felt bad.

So, we chatted for a while and then Simo took Si-baby in the pool while Sifu and I hung out poolside and Buki ran around. We chilled until around 5 and then they had to bail for another engagement all the way in freaking Levittown.

Just as they were leaving, the Gold Dragon showed up, and I should really call him the Reliable Dragon because if he says he's gonna, he will, and if he says he can't, it's for a good reason. Well, by that time we both figured that everyone else was a no show so we decided to just hang out. I told him, Hey, while you're here, help me unpack the massage table and then you can have a go on it. He was all like, “REALLY, CAN I?” So we dragged it into my room and unloaded it. It's really very nice and quite simple to set up. It's sturdy and cushy and not at all heavy. Except I didn't get the leg bolster which I'm pretty sure was supposed to come with it. I'm gonna have to check about that 'cause they are about 20 bucks and I really need one for my final.

Anyway, so he jumped on and I'm going, “Weee, first client ever on my very own table!” and I promptly forgot everything I learned in class. He is so much fun to massage though because he's so ripped. I told him, “You're actually kind of helping me study for my myology final, tbh.” He had lots of trigger points though and I commented, “Wow,” and he was all, “OMG, what? Is it a tumor or something?” I was worried I was doing everything wrong but he assured me that it was great and everything was fine. It's really different from in class when you have an instructor to tell you what comes next in case you forget.

We went back outside, talked on the deck for about an hour then decided to jump into the pool. The water had been really warm early in the day but now it was around 8 PM and it was REALLY GODDAMN COLD. I jumped right in. The Gold Dragon took about fifteen minutes to get in and said, “Pretty soon your neighbors are gonna hear a woman screaming. And it's not going to be you.” Then we messed around with the pool toys, the new Whale of Fail (which isn't really as faily as the old one,) and generally acted retarded. Soon we were both hungry for pizza, which, he had to drive because I'd had some pina colada earlier with rum. We ended up going to Radio Shack too, to look at gadgets and they had these adorable little robot spiders that I told myself I wanted but then thought, “But why? I have real spiders at home.”

After dinner we sat on the deck under the summer lights but then it got too buggy. We went indoors and stayed there for the next two or three hours and I just wish I had challenged him to a game of Soul Calibur but it didn't cross my mind. We ended up talking about Kung Fu and various ways to kick someone else's ass, or get one's own ass kicked with good grace. At one point he saw the pic I have of the old KF school, when Lao Shir was teaching; all of us standing behind her. He said of her, “Everyone else in the picture looks so different, but not her. She looks the same as she always has.” (He had lunch with her a few weeks ago.) He said, “No matter what seems to happen to her, she has this light in her eyes. She's radiant.”

It was the best description of her I've heard anyone use. The only other way I could think to describe her through the Chinese idea of shen, which is the spirit that shows in the brightness of your eyes. But I like “radiant” for her and I think if I were to ever give her a Hawaiian name it would be Alohilohi which means “bright, radiant eyes.” Maybe I should tell her that.

Ku'u Dragon left at around 11:30 after helping me clean up and I was so sun-tired I took a hot shower and went right to bed. But then I lay there unable to sleep, with a feeling of something not quite right.

At 7:45 I awoke to Haku's terrible “OMG I AM HAVING A SEIZURE” scream. He didn't even get out of bed for this one. From a sound sleep, he just had a fit in his bed. It wasn't a huge, paddling, stumbling, peeing the floor, thrashing one. He just tensed up and twitched for about three minutes. Then he woke up and I took him outside to pee. There was a huge thunderstorm happening and it scared the christ out of him. We went back inside and he did his “wandering and whining” thing until around 9:15 and then finally went back into his bed and fell asleep, and then I got up at 10 AM anyway, so. He's sleepy today but otherwise fine, and chasing Sano around asking for trouble.

Maybe I'll take him for a nice jog later if it's not storming.

As for me, I have to get back to eating better again. This last week was terrible, with nothing but cereal, bread, sauce, cheese, and sugar. Yesterday alone I ate about five chocolate chip cookies. My mom went out shopping and she bought me some ice cream which I will make sure to finish tonight, you know, just so that I don't have it sitting around the house, and they yeah, tomorrow I will start to eat better again. For sure. :)

Sooooo that was this year's summer party and I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to try to do this again next year. It's so much preparation and craziness, and buying all these neat goodies etc. and then three people show up. We always have a great time anyway but I'm not going all out again for people who aren't even gonna be there. From now on I'll just say, “if anyone wants to come and visit, go in the pool or whatever then feel free,” but no more of this weeks of preparing / buying tons of food I'll never eat kind of thing.

Next weekend I hope to see my god(dess)daughter (if not sooner) and then the following weekend The Empress asked me to help her chaperone a Kung Fu sleepover ad the kwon Saturday night to Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon is a family party.

The weekend after that I leave for China so I'd better get my ass in gear. And I'd better get my qi in gear, too.

OMFG, teeny, tiny, little micro houses. They are so cute.

Soooo Wednesday on my way to Kung Fu I blew out a tire. Not like I was doing donuts or anything (mmm, yum, I am so hungry,) but I must have run over a nail or one of my damn neighbors' broken beer bottles. The tire was flat and I was riding on the rim by the time I got to the end of the block. So I didn't go to class the next day and I wrote to my two professors to tell them I wouldn't be in. One of them wrote and said "no worries!" and the other--my Myo professor--wrote and said, "Your quiz average is so high that one day isn't even going to affect your grade." I was happy, and I pretended like I was Hermione.

A few days before, at Kung Fu the Gold Dragon said to do forms (Sifu wasn't there,) so SnarkLit and I went outside to the parking lot to see if we could work through the sword form.

( The result. )

Not so bad all in all, but I messed up the running part and we both screwed up the ending. Towards the middle, the Gold Dragon comes out and watches. My favorite part is when he asks us (you can't hear anything but cars on the video) "Which way did you guys start out facing?" and we both point to the street. Kung Fu is such a lark sometimes. ^_^ But I'm putting it so that next week when I forget sword form again, I can just take a peek at this entry before I go to train and maybe it will refresh it in my poor empty head.

Last night we had a rain and wind storm so epic it was almost a tai-fun (still reading Shogun, and today the sun was shining and the weather was sweet, if still too cold. There hasn't been a single real summer day yet. Not only did it ( take down a ton of huge branches, )
but it also knocked out the power late last night. It was weird because a transformer totally blew up. I don't know how far away, but I saw the sky light up like blue dusk for a good couple of seconds just as everything else went black. Of course in my movie-addled brain, the aliens had finally arrived. Well anyway, no power means no white-noise machine, and so I couldn't get to sleep.

Even on so little sleep, I was a house-cleaning machine today. Even the gods of cleaning looked down from up on high and said, "Damn." For a while I had Lokepo* out while I hosed his cage. He was sitting on the back of my computer chair where he usually sits, and when I came to get him he got all hissy with me. (He doesn't like to be picked up.) I took some pics because he's so damn cute, but I love the way his wings look in these pics. Almost like spirit wings. ( See. )

Such a little bastitch.

During my mad cleaning spree, I also had time to hang out with Boychild outdoors for a while and play Twilight Princess with him. Outside, we were eating raspberries off the vine and I was telling him that he can only eat berries off of vines if he asked Mommy and Daddy first. Then, if they said yes, he had to pick nice red ripe ones, and check them for bugs. He told me this back for the rest of the day. "Berries, mommy daddy mommy daddy mommy daddy. Pick! Red, nice, YUM. Bugs, NOPE." He was totally humoring me with the bug-checking too; he didn't even glance at them. It was too cute. And I got some fantastic pictures. ( Click! )

Oh yeah, so tomorrow I'm having the Kung Fu party. Or at least I hope that I am. I'm expecting a few people and I only hope that they show up. Last year, you remember, only three people showed up but we had a fantastic time anyway. I hope that tomorrow will blow last year's party out of the water! It was supposed to be rainy and thundery all day tomorrow; the weather channel said so for weeks. Yesterday morning I went outside and said, "Weather Gods, can we make a deal? Can you do all the rainy thundery stuff in one shot and leave Saturday sunny and warm?" I went inside and checked the weather channel only to see that they had suddenly changed the forecast, and now tomorrow is supposed to be 80 and sunny all day. YES. Clearly I control the weather. ;)

Well, I'm starving (my aunt insists I have a tapeworm; I insist that if I did, I would be losing weight rather than gaining it,) so I'm going to sit down with a bowl of cereal and a vitamuffin or something and watch MASTER(bator) AND COMMANDER, YAY! On the recommendation of spatterdash and a few other good folks. I'm sexcited! Better start the movie now, because it's assnumbingly long. Whoop whoop!

Oops, one more thing. ( Yeah, apparently this is who I look like. Umm, sure. )

LMFAO yeah, okay. I think these things are meant to flatter you, and yes I was purposely vamping it up in the second one. ^_^ And I seriously keep getting Japanese people, like, very flattering Japanese people. It's probably because it's the celebrity database and they really don't have any unattractive people to match you up with. However I do have to wonder if Claudia Black is in there and if so, why I don't get her. Hmm.

Oh. And Open Office just informed me that the chapter by chapter summary that I was working on of Le Novel, to send to TOR, does not exist. Thank you, power outage.







*Right, some of you might remember me occasionally calling my crow Lohi'au, named after Pele and Hi'iaka's handsome chief who was saved by lightning. The night I got my crow I thought he was going to die. There was a huge lightning storm that night, and the next day he was so much better so I thought... Yeah. I never looked up the meaning of the name until recently. Turns out that "lohi'au," apart from being the name of the chief, means "retarded" or "handicapped." Well, umm, he is--like I've mentioned, all of my animals are handicapped in some way--but it's still bad name mojo. I've always called him Havoc anyway (since no one could pronounce Lohi'au,) but I still wanted to switch the original moniker to something more fitting. I wanted it to sound alike too because when my Mom visits him and takes care of him while I'm away, she likes to sing his name to him and then he sings back. "Loke" means "rose" and "po" means night, darkness, obscurity, the time of the gods, the other side of the veil, and it also means "Havoc." Maybe that's a little bit goth, "Rose of Night" but he's a crow. Crows are goth by nature.