rorqual

1 - It was lovely and warm. I went out without a jacket and only regretted it a little. I was tempted to buy fresh veggies and have them for dinner, but we're really not to that stage of spring yet.
2 - Spring forward, people!
3 - TurboTax is cool.
4 - It being warm this morning makes it even more unfair that I'm cold now.
5 - My freakish eye-color mutation is terrifyingly apparent in photos where there is too much flash.
6 - I watch too much tv.
7 - This isn't from today, but apparently the honeybees are disappearing.
8 - I would much rather stay home than go to work tomorrow.
9 - I killed off the hyacinths I tried to grow in little forcing jars.
10 - I've eaten eight marshmallow bunnies today. Ewww.

Okay, so it's not a snow day, in that I did go to work today, and I didn't get any Official Time Off...but I left at 1.30 to beat the traffic, and now I am Home! And it's all lovely and sleety outside! And if I wake up tomorrow and there's 1/2 an inch of ice on my car, I am definately calling out.

Plans for today (and hopefully tomorrow!):

1) make gingerbread
2) make CD for Certain Furriners
3) play Neverwinter Nights 2
4) loll about.

Off to see if have molasses.

Well, be sad no more, with Baby Otter Slide Show!!!!

I mean, come on!

Total guests: 36

Bottles of champagne consumed: 8.5

Bags of recycling taken out this morning: 8

People who got drunk enough to be sick in my backyard: 1

People who got drunk enough to be sick in my house: 0

Flat surfaces covered with a thin sheen of champagne: 3

Ferrets accidentally released into the wild during the course of the party: 0

Unexpected guests from Gradsul: 1

Odd math equations written on the chalkboard: 1

Solution of said equation: 0

Hours the Roomba will have to work to get the floors back into shape: 4

Days until next New Year's Party in my house: 364

All the lights are off....the tree is glowing pleasantly in the living room....I put the candles in all the windows....the lights on the hall stairs are lit.....overall, the house is mellow.

Best of all, I don't have to get up early tomorrow.

Mmm, Friday.

I let the weasels come into the bedroom with me as I was cleaning today; they aren't usually allowed in, so it's always a treat for them. I had pulled out a pair of socks I wanted to wear (no carpets = chilly floor), and when my back was turned, one of the weasels made off with one of them. I looked in the easy places first, but then figured they must have hidden them in the bottom of the pillar sink in the bathroom (they can get in there and we can't get them out, which makes it one of their favorite places in the world. I sat down uner the sink, wedged my arm in the back of the pedestal, and proceeded to retrieve: five socks (but not the one I was looking for), two dirty tissues...and sixteen stuffied mousies. Sixteen! No wonder I can never find any mousies to play with them with.

So, I pulled all the mousies out, brought them downstairs, and put them in a pile. I figured they would distribute the mousies throughout the house, rather than taking them all the way back upstairs (stairs are big when you're a weasel!). But I have just watched Otto, methodically and without pause, carry thirteen mousies up the stairs, presumably to put them back in the sink. That's dedication! For some reason, three of the mousies got sent off to other locations; I don't know what they did wrong.

The other thing I did today (besides mousie collection) was put up xmas lights on my staircase. Yes, I am now a grownup, with a real house, and thereby a real staircase. I already put some nice evergreen garland on the bannister, and the lights make it extra-lovely. I am totally in love with my front hall right now; it's my favorite space in the house.

Then: went grocery shopping (bought chocolate for what look to be tasty cookies, if the photos are any indication), made myself a pizza, and now I will probably play Neverwinter Nights. This is the first Saturday in a while where I didn't have anything to do, and i thoroughly enjoyed it.

...smells of productivity!

Today, being a day during which I am both at home, and the sun is up, has become Home Projects Day. I am hoping to have all my windows sealed, my back porch enclosed in plastic, and my arts and crafts project (decoupaged table) all done in the next hour or two. Of course, then there's the ferrets' room to clean. And also? I got a Roomba! It's sucking stuff off my hardwood floors like you wouldn't believe, people. I mean, look at the copy for the site:

"From the battlefield to deep inside Afghan caves our robots are hard at work."

So, clearly my Roomba is hardcore, if it can clean a cave.

Back to work!

Things I have on my mantel:
a blue vase with yellow and purple flowers in it,
a jar of tea lights and a jar of colored ribbons,
three blue-glass bottles of varying types,
a glass penguin,
two pillar candles and an oil lamp, and
a model of Galactus and a model of Cthulhu, posed as if they're about to Fight for Control of the Universe

Things I had on my head on Saturday, which I had not planned to have:
an air conditioner.

1) Who thought it was a good idea to close the streets in the center of the city, on a weekday, during rush hour, to film a movie? Is it just that I'm bitter because I sat in the same three-block space downtown for 40 minutes?

2) Why does it make it worse when I discover that that move may be Die Hard 4? Which apparently may be called, Live Free or Die Hard?

3) Is it wrong for me to now call that movie, Die Hard, but Not Hard Enough, you Traffic-Blocking Jackasses?

Seriously. I got home an hour and ten minutes after I got into the city. Kill everyone.

I heard a funny noise in the front hall, so I walked out to take a look. Then, the sound of water - I look down on the ground and see water just spilling down onto the floor from a height. Oh god please don't tell me water is pouring through two floors of my house into the front hall please no I can't possibly ignore this I can't afford it what the hell is happening!?!

And then, a noise to my left. It's Otto. He's climbed onto the front hall table and knocked over the flower vase and the water has spilled everywhere.

First thought: Oh thank god.

Second thought: "God dammit Otto! You're the devil!"

And then he was wet and running everywhere, and that was fun. Well, more fun than having your front hall ceiling falling in, certainly.