joy and shadows

I was going to sneeze and then I lost it and I'm still upset about it.

Why is LJ now coughing up all the back notifications from comments left to me a month ago?

Note to everyone: I've been offline a lot recently and miss you all! Working on cosplay 1 - 2 hr a night, plus holiday, plus cooking, plus household chores equals not a lot of time for AIM. But I wanted you all to know I'm thinking about you. You know who you are.

the short list:

jaina came over and we made cosplays

husband is sick

I was sick (again), not now

work busyish

want to have weekend and happy baking joyfulness and gingersnaps

want Jints to win on Sunday

need to go Xmas shopping

omg lol at House MD wankage

It feels like Sunday night, but that's because we just got home from a football game. :D

Thanksgiving weekend went nicely enough after the mishap on Wednesday morning. Husband and I split up that night, as he wanted to help his parents prepare Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday morning, but I wanted to watch the Macy's parade with my mother. (It was my parents' turn to host Thanksgiving, but Mom Q upset the apple cart there.) It was a delicious dinner, and I spent the rest of the day moving around very slowly and burping.

Friday, my mother and I braved the Horrendous Crowds to do a little Xmas shopping at Kohl's and Joann Fabrics. Kohl's was nutso, but we piled up the cart nonetheless, and they had arranged the checkout so that it was a controlled affair rather than consumer chaos. Joann's was similarly overrun, but we got some great deals on decorations and fabric. My father and my husband had gone out to investigate iPods, which I found spectacularly funny. My dad's new thing is that he Wants An Ipod, and it amuses me to no end that a 62-year-old retiree is jazzed up about a Nano and a Razr cellphone. When did my PARENTS get more trendy than I did? XD

Today was splendiferous fun. Rutgers U's football team, after a full decade of Purest Terribleness, is in a position to bid for a bowl game (a rinkydink bowl, but a Bowl nonetheless!) We decided we'd better see them while the seeing was good, and it was Family Day at the stadium, where a flat fee got you four tickets, four sodas, and four hot dogs. Not bad! Husband and I went with my parents, and our seats weren't bad at all, and it was a cold football-y kind of day, and everyone was in fine spirits.

We had practiced the RU Fight Song many times, and we were feeling very fierce in the cheering department and lucky besides, because the Broncos (with the aid of Fierce Cheering) had beaten Dallas to put the Giants temporarily in first place in the NFC East. We started out at Medium-Level Cheering, but it rapidly became High-Level Happy Cheering, especially as my mother and I got each other going.

No two ways about it - RU came out and owned Cinncinnati. There was much R-U RAH RAH, R-U RAH RAH because they play the fight song every time the Scarlet Knights score, and they scored a LOT. I learned the GO! GO! FIRST DOWN, FIRST DOWN, GO R U cheer, which I believe shares the same lineage with the "fuck 'em up, fuck 'em up, go C U" that is apparently common at Cornell U hockey games (also when a player goes in the penalty box, they all yell "SEE YA, ASSHOLE!") We also yelled "R!" "U!" back and forth with the other side of the stadium. The Scarlet Knight cantered around on his white steed, who was a very good horsey and didn't startle or try to run away when the cannon went off after every score. Rutgers trashed Cincy 44-9, and there was great joy down on the field. Nice way for the seniors to end their season. Of course, I won't be able to talk for the next couple days, but it's worth it.

Tomorrow will be the Giants/Seahawks game, which I expect them to lose but you never know, and in the meantime there's sewing to be done.

I get an enormous amount of spam at my arafel @ oceandreaming.com address. Every once in a while, one will come through with a perfectly wonderful name listed as the originator. I'm using one of them now (Postdoctoral G. Tailpipes.) However, a recent review of my spam folder revealed some tremendous new candidates.

I'm partial to Ms. Dishrags, but let's see what you think!


[Poll #619091]

A minirant.

Enya's new album Amarantine came out today, and I eagerly anticipated buying it, as I am fond of pretty floaty relaxing music. Her songs are never terribly complicated. She sings about love and trees and moons and stars and being far from home and other such complex concepts. Her songs are usually in English, but occasionally she'll branch out into Latin or Spanish, or into some pretty-sounding Irish. If you can read the Irish (and I can, to some degree) you find, again, that her songs are about love and trees and moons and stars and being far from home (though the Irish songs tend to center more on family.)

English and Latin and Spanish and Irish are fine choices for languages to sing in, as one who is learned enough may do some independent research and translate the song (about the moons and stars etc.), since all those languages are reasonably well known and/or resources are available. In Amarantine, Enya takes a stab at Japanese (and I assume again she is singing about flowers and trees and love) but fully three of her songs are in Loxian, a language invented by Roma Ryan (her stunning lyricist.)

She has wandered into the "made-up language" territory with Elvish, which, despite being JRR Tolkien's invention, is still reasonably well-known. This is, of course, because JRR Tolkien is well-known, and if you happened to be a student of Quenya (or whatever the heck it is) you could translate her song, which is probably about moons and stars etc. However, no less than three songs on Enya's new album are in Loxian, a language not made up by a well-known author like Tolkien but by Roma Ryan herself!

So, if you would like to know what Enya is singing about, you must read Roma Ryan's book. Nice little marketing tie-in there, right?

Take my word for it. It's probably the moon and stars thing.

Now begins the interesting part of Bleach (as of ep 15+). Ichigo and Ichida finish up their peeing contest, and Bleach starts in on the Soul Society arc. Ep 15 introduces Yoruichi, the best black cat in the history of anime (you learn why she's so cool much much later.)

Bleach 13

Bleach 14

Bleach 15

Off to The Breakers for the weekend! This is my and my husband's gift to one another for our 5th anniversary, so it's gonna be posh. As husband put it, "I'm having a dilemma. I don't know whether I should sit by the pool, or by the ocean." We're officially going for a wedding, but it's kind of tangential because I couldn't pick the bride or the groom out of a lineup.

See you all Monday!

Finally worked my way to the last ep of Speed Grapher.

( cut for spoilers )

YouSendIt is being a total h0r today and won't let me upload episode 10. So, I just have 7-9 for all of you.

Bleach 7

Bleach 8

Bleach 9

Japanese commercial for Link to the Past

Zelda fans, don't miss this. Seriously.