ghosts are good company

oh oh oh oh.

it’s been a hectic month, while at the same time being dead slow. work was crazy-busy, preparing for national mentoring month, until suddenly i was snowed in. for a week. it’s just now becoming safe to drive, and has been dreadful and wonderful at the same time – but the festivities for national mentoring month are definitely going to be lessened due to the loss of so much prep time. angst.

a major force in my world lately has been the olympia free choir. we’re performing our first show on january sixteenth:

Grand reopening

The Olympia Timberland Regional Library will celebrate its reopening from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Jan. 16. Local musicians and performers, including Kimya Dawson, will be on hand. The library is at 313 Eighth Ave. S.E.

this is the most snow i’ve experienced in my life, and i’m excited for it to go away so that things can get back to normal. it would be one thing if we were equipped to handle this at all, but… we’re not. nat and i walked over to see bolt (!! adorable) at the mall last thursday (the thursday before christmas), and the mall closed at six. i think it’s great that the mall was allowing their employees to, you know, get home safely – but i also think it’s a crazy illustration of how the snow broke down much of olympia’s capitalist system for a while.

butter has certainly been happy with the snow, though, because it means that i get to spend more time at home cuddling with him. at the point of this writing, he’s curled up in my lap with his nose buried in the crook of my elbow, asleep. he was drooling earlier.

i was going to plan a new-years-adventure for nat and i, but instead he is house sitting for his faculty, so it will be a new-years-stay-away-from-home thing (which will cost fantastically less money!) instead. we’re still trying to figure out what to do, if we want to go out or not, but i’m sure we’ll figure out something fun. free radio is having a new year’s eve disco.

i can’t wait until transit is back to normal again!

Three!

Originally uploaded by capnpuck

i am so proud of myself!

the night of great-grandma’s funeral, we drove from oly to des moines for a celebration at my grandmother’s house. on the way, nat and i got distracted by my father’s house (it’s right on the way, i couldn’t not stop by) and were gifted an abundance of fruit – canned peaches, dried apples, jam jam jam, amazing grapes (how sweet) and a big bag of apples. i spent a day soon after paring them, and when i was done i noticed… that some neighbors had a bunch of apples sitting in buckets with a sign that said, of course, “free apples.”

so i pared some more. and now there is so much applesauce.

i’ve been piecing together my canning knowledge with information from The Internets, and in one minute (yes, i will be taking a break from typing this), there will be a third jar of applesauce successfully canned!

and we’re at three. there are probably ten or so more to go, as there’s a giant bowl still of applesauce, and then the apple butter. for a total of six dollar’s worth of financial investment, and hecka more time – something that i have a fair amout of, for now. i got the jars from great-grandma, and the only thing that we purchased was the lids. whenever i hear them sucking in, actually sealing, i feel like jumping up and down.

in my morning ritual of peering at the damp earth that the seeds are planted in, i discovered… that glass is more insulating than rice milk boxes are. and also that perhaps i should turn on the space heater that my housemate lent me. because it actually snowed. in april. when it snowed in october a few years ago, that was understandable because it was the very end of october. this… i just can’t comprehend.

i’m really glad that i’m not living in a tent right now.

this planting project i officially declare to be a failure.

i have a job! it is seasonal and low-paying and ultimately would be unexciting except that 1) it is a job and 2) they offered it to me less than two hours after my interview. which made me feel shiny.

i also have maybe a plan! i’m hoping to do evergreen in the spring (see boat class, below), hopefully walk at graduation, and then do a different, cheaper, nice, amsterdam sexuality program in the summer. i like having plans.

in long-term plans, a friend of mine mentioned dreaming of moving to vermont, and i glomped onto it. spring? next year? i’ll have graduated, need a place to go to. vermont? two amazing people to live with? uh, sounds great thanks.

derby starts again soon, with a double header exhibition bout on the 23rd. … and my work schedule means no skating class for me. damn, must figure that out.

anyhow, job excitement is the moral of this post!

actually, when i came to add a post to the blog, it was to say none of those geeky things. it was instead to share with you the fact that

I HAVE FIGURED OUT WHAT I WANT TO BE FOR HALLOWEEN.

if only i had realized before 5am on halloween that I WANT TO BE A GNOME for halloween.

because, i mean, they are round and cozy and perhaps the best ever. all i need is… a hat. which i could knit if i had time. and a belt. which i could knit if i had time. and a beard. which i could fashion if i had time.

we’ll see how it goes. for now, look how much cuter this child looks as a gnome than i ever will (i just looked at that link as if it were a parenthetical, and said to myself “for now, look how much cuter than i ever will” doesn’t make sense as a sentence!!”).

for now i am studying up on my gnome puns just in case i dress up and go out somewhere.

anyway, whatever happens, may this day be full of at least a little magic and peace for you all. gnome what i mean?

other things:

+ you have probably realized by now that i am safe from the fires. a lot of people aren’t, and if there’s a way for you to donate/help out that you feel comfortable with, please try.

- amsterdam application is still pending based on three items which are all out of my control. in fact, these are the same things that it was pending on two weeks ago. and the program is full. apparently if those things show up at the study abroad office soon, i should be able to get on the waitlist. yes, i *have* actually been in touch with people about these things.

+ i should be able to get back on my skates soon. i need to remember to start shuffling around the house on them, so that i don’t panic the second i get on skates at the rink.

you should really just be glad that i haven’t posted thus far this month, because this may has been perhaps the saddest month ever.

i haven’t updated many things in the back end of the blogs recently – nor the front end, for that matter (this is the part where i look shiftily at my “it is beginning to be autumn!” image). but! today, tonight, i updated wordpress to 2.13 (apparently 2.2 is coming out very soon and has tags…) and i created a tag cloud… list… for our categories. hooray! while i was turning off all of the plugins so that i could do the installation, i got seven spams in two minutes! insanity. thank goodness for the amazing spam filtration of akismet.

so, those are things.

also, i made a marble cake today. except that i don’t know where the baking powder is, and the molasses/baking soda suggestion… worked, but not so much. so it’s a half-risen cake, but that’s *much* better than my not-risen cakes of late. i substitute things much, and it’s a bad plan. i need to either recipe or not, i think. at least when it comes to baking.

do any of you want a blog here? especially those of you without blogs – i keep meaning to ask. there’s plenty of space.

what else? oh! i’m almost done listening to my music in alphabetical order by song. that means that i can return to listening to biased random mixes. i’ve been missing some of my favorite artists, who just don’t have as much music out as other folks.

i really want to go to daiso! my mother trained me to adore asian things by first doling out infrequent trips to uwajimaya, and then moving us into the fringes of an asian neighborhood in san diego (not *the* asian neighborhood, although i spent time there after school sometimes, but definitely a neighborhood that had lots of asian groceries). so, i miss mostly the shiny cookie aspects of these communities, and chamalyn, although amazing, isn’t doing enough – it’s too tiny. besides, where else could i get dinosaur origami paper? or mini bamboo furniture for aviva alexander?

i’m glad that you understand.

cubbie and i are in florida visiting his family for christmas.  it is a little too warm for me here, so i’m currently sitting under a fan and listening to the wind blow through the trees outside of the open window.  i’m sick, i have a cold which has been around for far too long.

the funny thing about this cold is that it started at about the same day my mother went in for surgery, and so i’m hoping that when she gets to leave the hospital, i’ll not have a cold any more.  at least, i hope that’s the way it works – if the cold lasts until she is fully recovered from surgery?  i’ll be very frustrated at the end of those few months.

we head that way on christmas.  i was afraid to fly on christmas, at first, but it sounds like it’ll be fairly quiet on the plane, so that will be good.  hopefully mum will feel well enough to celebrate!  if not, we can all stand around the bed in a made-for-tv-movie type fashion and send her air hugs, so that we don’t injure her with lovin’s.

wow.

i’ve been a big fan of charlie brown all of my life, especially since i stage managed you’re a good man, charlie brown in high school. every year since then, i’ve been especially aware of the christmastime tradition that is a charlie brown christmas, every year trying to catch it on tv.

i’m watching it now, and… i don’t remember it! at all! i know the music, because i have the soundtrack, but i don’t think i’ve seen it! at least, not that i can remember. which is crazy!

i love the old-school peanutsness of it (look at snoopy!), and how much better it is than the newer episodes i’ve seen. heart snoopy.

of course, cubbie just yelled at me from the kitchen – “are you watching charlie brown without me?! that’s not nice!”

when i was buying my coat, there was christmas music all around. it’s crazy how much the stores with their muzac can whet your consumerist urges – i don’t spend much time in stores, is the thing. so i’ve been thinking a lot about gifts to give people (and would love your input on what you’d enjoy), and since i’ve been asked, here are some things that i’m interested in.

mmm, things. these are the computery expensive ones. less expensive things are at the bottom of the next list.

• the thing that i would be exceptionally happy about would be a memory upgrade for my macbook – i currently have one gig of ram, and two would make my computer so much happier. that’s $350 in the mac store, but might be found cheaper eleswhere – i haven’t done much research.
• on a similar note, an external hard drive would be delicious.
• speakers and/or a wall-charger for my ipod, i just remembered, would be helpful

as for other things, i’m all about pirates and dolls and dinosaurs. because i’m secretly four years old?

• doll-wise, i’ve been all about blythe dolls for the past few years. based on a big-eyed doll that was sold in 1972 and brought to fame by a photographer using one as her model, they’re now being released by takara, in japan. my favorite is the star dancer, largely because she reminds me of one my favorite friends. i also love the night flower and rosie red encore. one of the things i love most about blythe dolls is the ability to customize them – i’m thinking about giving one new hair – and the most afforable for that is the new prima doll.
• dinosaur-wise, i’m loving a lot of dinosaur-themed things that are for sale on etsy, a list of which can be found here.
• as for pirates, it’s all about archie mcphee, as always. there are things from there linked in the above list as well.

soooo, those are my wishes. they’re random and silly. cubbie works at a bookstore, though, so all the books that i want i can get for cheaper than… most of the world can. music… is expensive. oh! theatre! local stuff is exciting and intriguing, but i have no idea where to start looking.

anyhow, those are the random things that i like. what do you like? leave me a comment! tell me about your favorite things! tell me about how christmas is a christian holiday, rather than a consumerist holiday! tell me anything!