Besides the Teenager Drama, which I know will sort itself out, because I really do have an excellent teenager, and we love each other and stuff, this was a nearly perfect day. Woke up with a headache, but it didn't stick around very long. Nonetheless, to avoid another migraine, I called in sick to my contract gig, bailed on the volunteer thing I was gonna do this morning, and took a serious downtime day.

Excellent TMI, then a nice long, easygoing walk (those are as much as I can do these days) up into Berkeley. Somewhere around five miles and four hours later, we came home, but along the way, used about half of the gift certificates tenacious_snail gave me to buy a few books at Moe's, while listening to the Hawaiian music act they had in today; ate donuts; used our frequent-buyer gift certificate at Pegasus to buy someotherguy a book on H.P. Lovecraft; ate Hawaiian barbecue for dinner (stonebender, they have chicken katsu that I think you would like), and stopped at a coffeeshop before heading home.

Less than an hour after we got home, the warm damp turned to big raindrops, and then truly the brightest, most beautiful double rainbow we've ever seen. Several of the neighbors came out to see and we chatted like neighbors do, which is one of the reasons I love my neighborhood, because in San Diego, I never lived somewhere where neighbors come outside to look at rainbows together.

And now I'm off to watch MI-5 and eat garlic-parmesan popcorn. Another easygoing day is planned for tomorrow, but I'll be doing it at stonebender's place if he's up for the company.

How was your day?

Have to have a talk with the Munchkin between now and Monday because she's not doing the things she's supposed to be doing. The Fun Aunt wants to just let her continue to slide, because really, it's not fun to make someone do school when they don't want to, or to enforce that they have to clean up their own messes, or shit like that. It's one reason I avoided the roommate thing for so long. It's one reason there are so few people I'm willing to live with. But I just can't be a flophouse matron for someone who shows up at dinnertime for food, and otherwise does nothing all day. And at this rate, she'll be 27 before she finishes high school. It's not healthy for her, and it's building serious resentment in me. (Plus, if she's not going to take school seriously, she should just go get a job and contribute to the household in that way instead. She's almost 18; no one's going to force her to finish high school if she'd rather work.)

I wrote her a letter, because sometimes it helps us to communicate in writing. We'll see how it goes.

Okay, all you people who are watching the new Torchwood right now? Please, no spoilers. We aren't going to see it until it comes on BBC America in 10 days. Please, pretty please?

So the douche from the previous post specifically asks for women to tell him if he's off track, and then deletes my comment telling him he's off track. Quel suprise.

Seriously? Grown men still think it's hilariously, cringeingly embarrassing to buy tampons??

(My comment, which may be removed -- I don't see much but "Har, har, you're totally right, it's embarrassing!" responses there:

It’s a health product, like band-aids. Only people who think menstruation is some kind of icky gross thing (aren’t those only fourteen-year-old boys?) should make a big deal about buying them for someone they love. I don’t fuss if I have to buy band-aids or jock-itch cream or an enema for my partner — their health is more important to me than some prurient “ewww” reaction that I outgrew in the fourth grade.

(As to why there are so many absorbencies, it’s to prevent toxic shock syndrome (TSS), which, though relatively rare, is fatal. Fatal is bad. Much worse than someone thinking you might be partnered with someone who — EWW! — menstruates.)

My partner says this when we occasionally have to deal with menstrual issues (say, blood on the sheets because of a surprise onset): “Well, I could solve that by not sleeping with women. I like sleeping with women, so I guess I just accept that a little blood is part of the package.”

)

So I'm sitting here waiting for the chicken soup to be done, catching up with DW and Usenet, and suddenly I hear this loud clicking sound. I look around and can't figure out what it is, so I go back to my goofing off. And the sound comes again. It's irregular, and MUCH louder than the little click that lets me know the oven is switching on and off. A few minutes later, it's driving me crazy, so I ask someotherguy to help me investigate the sound. He looks around for a while and solves the mystery.

Spartacus is *hiccuping*.

The guinea pig has the hiccups, probably brought on by the massive quantities of raw carrot he just ate, and it's freakin' hilarious.

Stay up late: Check
Sleep in: Check
Shop for food: Check
Put chicken soup on to cook: Check
Put food in the oven for dinner: Check

Still to do:

Finish chicken soup and take some to aquenigmatic
Make cole slaw to go with the pulled-pork sandwiches for dinner
Clean the kitchen
Have a talk with the kid about school and chores
Get some magazine work done (cover artist, if you don't send me a byline by next weekend, you're gonna be "anonymous". ;-)
RELAX and read my books
Play some music and get "Desert Moon" out of my head

Remember when I asked you to save August 2nd for our anniversary party? Well, unsave it. I forgot that I'll be reading for the Bar Exam (someone else is taking it; I'm just reading it) that day, so I'm not free to party. Sorry!

A friend is catching cold, and I want chicken soup, so you know I gotta make soup. Any local friends who want a quart of homemade chicken soup, raise your hands and I'll save you some if you can come pick it up within 2-3 days of tomorrow.

Stuff about two friends' books recently, and I should share, promising no impartiality:

1) sogwife picked up my copy of pameladean's Tam Lin the other day, and said, "Huh," which I was unable to interpret. She likes fairy tales, so I asked her if she knew the legend. "Oh, yeah, and I'm pretty sure I've read this one. It's the one set in a college, right? I liked this one." (I know it makes no sense for ME to be proud that someone liked someone else's book, but I am anyway.)

2) Finished Farthing this morning. As is the case with Pamela, I've liked papersky's writing since before I knew she was an author. (I *think* I knew her before her first book was published. Let me go look. Yes, probably so, as I was posting on our then-shared newsgroups for a couple years by then.) Anyway, I have always liked her writing, and this book is no exception. ( The type of spoiler I hate, which gives an idea of how the book ends, but not enough of an idea, so that you are waiting for it to happen and it ruins the rest. ) Overall, I loved the book, though, and found it to be the perfect combination of ease of reading, fresh story, interesting and sufficiently complex plot, and talented characterization.

Things I have done this week to take control of my finances:

1) Eaten work-provided food and drunk water, rather than buying breakfast and coffee
2) Shared lunch with a co-worker (the place we like serves way too much food for one, and splitting works for both of us)
3) Planned meals around food we already have
4) Sat down and figured out how the monthly fixed bills fared after the past few months of paring (down from ~$800 to ~$600, go me: got on the energy partners program, reduced the Netflix bill, bundled phone & internet, got on an income-dependent student-loan-repayment plan...)
5) Said several times, "No, thanks," when I didn't have money, rather than spending
6) Didn't buy bagels for the office (I like to do that, but right now, I can't afford it)
7) Reminded two contract clients that I haven't been paid yet.
8) Checked out a money-management book from the library, and did the first few exercises, including finding out my current FICO score (ouch)

Want to make me happy?

I love the way serenecooking looks. I *hate* the way serenecooking looks. Can anyone help me beautify, or at least move the DW site toward the feel of the LJ one? If you can do this, and I have any idea who you are, please let me know so I can give you access. I need you, graphical geeks!

[also posted to serenecooking]

I forgot to mention one of the great things that happened on mom's visit. I made kneidlach [Edit: matzoh ball] soup for her, as I often do, and she had no corrections to make! Now, the significance of this may not be clear to anyone else, but mom knows that I want her to tell me when I've got something "off" in one of her recipes, because I want to get my childhood foods right. This time, she just kept telling me how good it was.

If you've met my mom, you know she's not shy about offering criticism. I think I may have made the perfect kneidlach soup. Too bad I didn't measure when I made the kneidlachs, but I think I have the texture down perfectly by sight, so we'll see how that goes next time.

I did most of the cooking while she was here, and she appeared to love it all. That makes me happy. She ate a LOT. She even put on a couple of pounds (which of course prompted her to give up bread on the last day here and go all Atkins on me, but hey, after that, I made her a mushroom omelet that she couldn't stop raving about, so all is well and I really really am not going to try to talk my mother out of her crazy food stuff. It's pretty much engrained by age 69, I'd say).

It's a frikkin laser-beam shrink ray!!!

(Accidentally posted this to the cooking blog. One thing I haven't found yet is a good client for DW that handles both crossposting and tags, so I have to post everything from the web, which means occasionally forgetting to log out and log in as the other account. Any ideas, DWers?)

EDIT: I just installed Epiphany. Looks like that'll work. Thanks, micheinnz!

If you're in the East Bay and have a space you might be willing to rent out once a week, please hop over to sogwife's post in which she lays out what exactly she's looking for. Thanks!

We stayed up late last night (mom crashed at 1am; the rest of us played Fluxx or goofed around online until 2am), so I slept in a little today (8:30ish). Mom woke around 10 and was raring to go. I think the woman is made of pure energy. I had kind of been hoping for a lazy day, but we were busy all day, and it was fun. She dragged me (she didn't have to drag too hard) out yard-saling (where she bought me stuff), then to the New Zealand (and other South Pacific Places) store, where we bought goat, lamb, mussels, and many packaged and new-to-us foods. I tried a Crunchie bar, and some cheesy poofs from Fiji. I'm trying to remember what all else we got there, but I can't. Mom spent $75 and my freezer is now full AGAIN, due to massive goat and lamb influx.

Then we went to Lake Anza (my first time there) where we watched worthyadvisor swim, and just hung out together. Then home, and now I'm crashing. someotherguy is making ribs for dinner, and he says he'll handle everything else. I put away the groceries, made the dip and cleared the table, but now I'm spent.

Mom leaves tomorrow and I go back to work on Wednesday. Between tomorrow afternoon and Wednesday morning, I literally have no commitments or obligations. I am going to take advantage of that and declare some Official Down Time. If you have any desire to come hang out in Down Time Zone, dinner's at 7, but don't ask me to go anywhere or do anything. I'm on Down Time. :-)

I have swimmer's ear (from water in the shower) and don't have the mental energy to do much editing on this post, so please forgive the rambly, laundry-list post that will surely follow.

Long day, full of activity and emotion. It's great being with my mom. My kid is charming the socks off everyone and making me feel like I'm doing something right. Munchkin The Elder is adorable and annoying in turns.

Mom, Munchkin The Elder, and I went to stonebender's place this morning. I made him chorizo and eggs, and baked bread so that he could taste it warm with butter. He and mom visited for a while, which was amusing to watch, and a little cringe-inducing for me. Okay, maybe a lot cringe-inducing.

Then we dropped the kid off, picked up someotherguy and went shopping, first at the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse, then at Genova (local Italian deli), where my mom got her first cannoli in fifty years.

When we got home, Mom and I did our version of saying our goodbyes. We talked about how much we love and value each other, and specifically apologized for the things we did wrong, or wish we'd done better. We reminisced. We cried. It was important, and I'm glad we had the chance, even if she lives another ten or twenty years. Then mom took a nap, and I needed a bit of snuggling from someotherguy before I was ready to start dinner.

bastette_joyce and [Bad username: inflection_point] came over for dinner. It was lovely to see them both, and to laugh with them. I think my mother made Joyce a little nervous, but I may be projecting.

Dinner was good, even though my timing error meant that there was not as much rare meat as there would have been. Rib roast, mashed potatoes, corn, pasta salad, gravy, and homemade apple pie.

My ear hurts, and someotherguy and mom are out at the drugstore finding me some kind of ear remedy. I'm just really too tired (and fragile) to handle another shopping trip today.

Tomorrow's our last full day together. After they leave on Sunday, I plan to crash. Hard.

Mom got here last evening a little before dinner time. We had soup and visited while I gave a fashion show of a bunch of really adorable clothes she brought for me. Then today, we visited and went shopping together. She bought us LOTS of food and snacks, to add to the massive amounts of food and snacks she brought with her.

She thinks she's probably dying. I'm afraid she might be right. She's sure her painful gut means more cancer; she'll go see early next month when she sees her doctor. Even if it's not cancer, she appears to be winding down.

And there's no segue that will make this sound not-sad, but it isn't meant to be: If you'd like to meet my mother and eat lots of meat-heavy dinner, please feel free to join us tomorrow night (Friday) or Saturday night. Dinner's at 7, and she'd be happy to meet any of my friends who want to come by. We brought out the big table, so there's plenty of room. Tomorrow is prime rib; Saturday, someotherguy will be making pork ribs.

Over the next while, I'm gonna be un"friend"ing the LJ folks whose stuff I read first on DW. Don't be alarmed, and if I unfriend you and you actually still post new stuff to LJ that's not on DW, please let me know so I can put you back.

(Thanks to maize for pointing out that I posted this to the wrong journal at first.)