joy and shadows

There's a new fencing school opening up in Somerville!

And I even have the right ring to wear to my class. Bitchin'.

My husband is the sweetest thing on two legs.

When I came home this evening, he was all shamefaced about something. He said he'd done something bad, but he could fix it. This of course made me very nervous, because there are any number of items we own that could get damaged. While I'm envisioning one bad scenario after another, he comes in from the desk room with two boxes from Dell. In the boxes are two 20GB MP3 players, one for me and one for him.

Why on earth did he think that might upset me? Because I started running last week, and my bribe to myself was to be that if I could run three times a week for four weeks, I'd buy myself an MP3 player. The CD player's kind of a pain to run with, because it skips and/or falls off the treadmill. (I don't have one of those pouches you wear on your back.) Funny thing was, I was sourly considering moving up the MP3 player schedule because the CD player was such a pain. So, now there's one for him and one for me. The player comes with a monthlong promo for Napster, but there seem to be some significant catches with that service that I will have to investigate. (Husband gets very concerned about illegal downloading, so I don't go into too much detail on the BitTorrent.)

Tonight we had planned to go out to Short Hills to get a new watchband for the Omega my husband's grandfather left him. Husband picked out a very nice brown leather strap, and then he bought me a new Skagen titanium watch just because. I took him out to dinner afterwards, and then we stopped at J. Crew because I wanted to check out a little pink dress with embroidered dragonflies on it. (We are very big on dragonflies, because when we go to Maine, these big fellows with green racing stripes buzz around and sit on our toes when we're out floating on the lake. They are our friends!) I expected it to make me look like the Fat Farm Refugee (short dresses are generally not that flattering on me) but what do you know, the size 8 fit and it was very cute. I didn't expect to take it home, but husband thought I looked so cute that he wanted to buy it for me.

Then I spent my Sephora gift certificate from my birthday on a small bottle of Chanel No. 5. What better way to top the evening off than with a little class?

Certainly didn't expect any of that this evening, and it was a lovely surprise.

I had about the best weekend ever.

Why, you ask?

I did NOTHING. It was GREAT. Here was my schedule on Saturday:

11:30 PM Friday - 11:30 AM Saturday: Sleep.
11:30 - 2:00 PM: Get showered etc.
2:00 PM: Started watching F1 Qualifying.
2:05 PM: Dozed off.
3:30 PM: Woke up in time for end of qualifying.
4:00 PM: Made cookies.
5:00 PM: Back to bed for a snooze.
6:30 PM: Woke up, went out to dinner.
8:00 PM: Finished dinner, lazed on couch.
11:30 PM: Watched FMA.
12:30 PM: Sleepytime.

Yesterday was a little more productive; I finally cleaned all my shit off the floor in the bedroom (sweaters, sweatshirts, random crap, whatever) and vacuumed. If this sounds like a small job, it wasn't.

Today we are all feeling a little jet-lagged due to the time change, and I have definitely been grumpy all morning. Not to mention that with the heavy rain this weekend, the ceiling fell in on our lab instruments again. Oh well, at least the UV-vis didn't get fried this time, though we'll be getting a new monitor for the IR microscope. Plus, it was definitely NOT a good sign when coworker picked up the computer and water ran out of it.

It would be nice if people learned to plan ahead for their goddamned microbiological testing and would not expect their chemicals to be in on Monday when they only requested them on friggin Friday afternoon, and didn't even tell me besides so they could be ordered. What am I, a goddamn peracetic acid factory?

The only good part of being grumpy is that I have called up at least five people who needed some bitching at and bitched at them. They will probably start feeling grumpy themselves when they get those messages, but I don't really care.

Gonna go running this afternoon. Last Friday I got on the treadmill and ran for TWENTY WHOLE MINUTES. And don't laugh, because for me that is a lot. Maybe that will make me less grumpy, a la Renet's icon. Endorphins make you happy!

WHY AM I SUCH A LAZY SACK OF SHIT?

I have TWO MONTHS' worth of lab notebook to update, and I'm reading Livejournal.

Time to get down to business.

...I hate updating my notebook. :P

I have Dove chocolate pieces.

That means you all want to be friends with me, right now.

Mmm, chocolate.

Ganked from jaina

Off the top of your head, right now, what ten ships would you likely drop what you're doing to read fic for? Or, alternately, what are the top ten ships that you'll give a fic a chance for, or that you've been dying to write, or that you've been dying to read... These can be new loves, old flames, or something in between. Explain if you like, but you don't have to. Then tell us 3 things these ships say about you. Leave a comment about what you think these ships say about me, then repeat in your own LJ.

Like jaina, I'm leaving out Vash/Meryl, because it's too obvious.

1. Jin/Shino. (obsessed much? yes.)
2. Mugen/Yatsuha. (Because for those two, breaking things = foreplay, and sex would be loud.)
2. Egon/Janine
3. Keith/Allura
4. Ichigo/Rukia
5. Ayato/Ixtli
6. Ed/Winry shut up. just shut up.
7. Jet/Faye
8. Laguna/Raine
9. Squall/Quistis
10. Kyo/Tohru

What does this say about me?

1. I like the default m/f ships, especially those with UST.
2. Grumpy couples are fun.
3. Deep inside, I'm a hopeless romantic.

And another stolen from jaina...

Give me a relationship (romantic or not, canon or not) from a fandom you know I'm interested in. I'll comment on it, be it cheering, explaining why I don't get it, ranting, or whatever.

...But it was a good ride while it lasted, and terribly funny besides.

I'm amazed, though - we counted at least three ways the series jumped the shark in the last episode/rumors of first 4th season ep alone.

1. UST couple gets together. (Sally and Patrick)

2. Main character gets pregnant. (Susan)

3. Cute character leaves the show (Jeff), and is replaced by another cute character who is almost exactly like him/her (Oliver.)

Husband is amused at Oliver because when the two youngest on the Brady Bunch stopped being so young and cute, they brought in Cousin Oliver to be the cute kid. This is a definitive jump-the-shark moment.

Honestly, the end of Season 3 irritated me. It annoyed me that Susan was trying to oops Steve, and then oh noes she can't get pregnant and oh yey it's a miracle! Susan getting pregnant kills the point of the show, to my mind, since it's always been about sex, not its consequences. Julia bailing on Jeff was stupid - no reason was ever given for it, and it made no sense whatsoever. Did someone want to leave the show in a hurry?

Besides that, Coupling has always been a funny series, and then we get four episodes that turn up the angst. It felt like someone switched discs on me.

Don't get me wrong, Season 3 was still funny as hell, but Season 4 won't be happening. Gauging by the cancellation, the British viewers agreed with me too.

I just feel the need to gloat about all the lovely Japanese-inspired fabrics that have just started showing up at Joann's. Japanese fabrics and batiks and silk dupioni seem to be all the rage in current quilting, and they were all over the quilt show the other weekend. Last weekend I went a little nuts and bought a half-yard to a yard of several gorgeous fabrics.

( Wanna see? )

Lá fhéile Pádraig shona daoibh!

Here's a couple of excellent MP3s from Ashley MacIsaac, in the spirit of the day. It's like power Celtic.

Ashley MacIsaac - Brenda Stubbert

(I think I want that one to be my theme song or something. XD)

Ashley MacIsaac - Sophia's Pipes