In My Feels

Jul. 29th, 2024 04:36 pm
valkryor: (Default)
It's been a week.

But, [personal profile] valkryor, you say, it's only Monday.

And to that I reply, yes, yes it is.

Working backward starting today:
  • Monday - End of July always sucks. Today, it's been 19 years since we lost Shannon. 19! I'm not bawling my eyes out every five minutes or anything so obvious, but I'm flat and gray and glum all the same. We did do groceries this morning, so that's one less thing anyone has to deal with. Oh, and because today isn't 'fun' enough, I think I'm coming down with something. What that something is, or even if it is a thing, I do not know. Whee.
  • Sunday - Was okay, but kind of meh as it's been 22 years since Gus the big Mean Bunny died. I miss him a lot, even if he could be a cantankerous ass about the weirdest things.
  • Saturday - Best day of the lot. It was ostensibly a game day, but [personal profile] clawfoot, Ironstone, and I are making up for the time lost during the Great Panini. Yes, we still gamed, which was great, but in person beats online any day of the week. Good times, good conversation, and one actual combat. It was enough. :)
  • Friday - Mammogram and Ultrasound. Yeah. That just sucks even when you're not facing down the Worst Weekend. I'm not entirely reassured by the number of pictures taken during the ultrasound, especially in places where I didn't find anything; it has been hovering at the edge of my thoughts since. Good times. I also lost a chunk of writing (I use Docs on my phone when I'm out and about) and I have no fucking clue where it went. It was there and then it wasn't. I likely fat-fingered something. Not improving my mood was dealing with public transportation. It was ostensibly fine, and yet... While it wasn't cramped or overly crowded, every bus I took over the two days of appointments was BUSY. Lots of stops, lots of movement of passengers. Which is fine, but I had had enough by the time I had to catch my bus to come home.
  • Thursday - A dental appointment. I mean, a cleaning and exam isn't that bad all things considering, but with the impending mammogram/ultrasound and the Worst Weekend? We'll just say that "dental anxiety" wasn't on my bingo card this year. Oh, and I have work that needs to be done at the end of August. JOY.

    Here's hoping that the thing that wants to invade is nothing more than a stress response to the Worst Week and not an actual virus. I am not a fan of either, but at least the stress response isn't contagious. Super annoying, sure, but I won't make anyone else sick.
  • (Stolen from a Discord conversation with [personal profile] clawfoot.)

    I went for a walk yesterday mostly to get some sun, fresh air, exercise. My route took me past the bridal shop on a busy corner and I slowed down to look at the dresses in the window. Aside from the usual wedding dresses, the others were bridesmaid dresses in whatever colours are hot right now.

    The first one was a lovely plummy purple. The second? THE HORROR.

    It was fucking taupe. I can't even.

    (As an aside, there was one in the window that was taupe and okayish. It was a 20s-30s Art Nouveau inspired one with mesh sleeves and beading. It would be a lovely mother-of-the-bride/groom dress, and in that case, perfectly acceptable to be taupe.)

    (no subject)

    Nov. 29th, 2021 10:13 pm
    valkryor: (Hip Deep in Evil)
    Months ago, I discovered an adorable kobold plush that was being sold by Makeship. I posted it to the Discord server I share with my 4e gaming group because it was cute and needed to be seen. [personal profile] clawfoot, DM extraordinaire and my dearest friend for over 30 years, decided that I needed more than just an image of an adorable kobold plush, and thus the birfday giftening happened Friday night before she headed to her writing retreat.

    I would like to introduce you all to Gashur, the most dapper kobold you will ever meet:



    (His bowtie is some red Chinese brocade I had kicking around, with some ribbon and a bit of velcro. I did all the stitching by hand with needle and thread for reasons, and I just finished it tonight. My hands, unused to that much work, kind of hate me now.)

    Two Movies

    Jul. 11th, 2017 10:01 am
    valkryor: (Default)
    I went out to see two movies yesterday, at two separate theatres, which happens so rarely I can count the times that it has happened on one hand and still have fingers left over.

    First up, we took Declan out to see Cars 3. If you completely ignore Cars 2 (or think of it as an unfortunate direct-to-video Mater movie), this is the actual sequel to Cars. It's funny and touching and FEELS like the first movie, which the second never did. And yes, at one point there were onion ninjas in the theatre. Declan flaps his arms when he gets super excited. There were a few points where I was convinced he was going to fly away he was flapping that hard and fast. Worth watching with, or without, kids in tow.

    Later, I went out with [personal profile] clawfoot for Spider-Man: Homecoming. I wasn't expecting much, which is probably why I enjoyed it so damn much. The acting was superb and the casting was pretty much perfect. Tom Holland is spot on for Peter Parker, and Michael Keaton made the Vulture human. One other thing that I noticed was this: the cast was MIXED race. Not everyone who was named/part of the comic's rich and varied history was white. They found the best actors for the roles, skin colour be damned. It made me believe in Spider-Man's universe just a little bit more. It's also funny and heroic and the end-credit scene is probably my favourite of the lot thus far.

    Fuck Yeah!

    Jul. 3rd, 2017 10:45 pm
    valkryor: (Life Skill)
    With the exception of some hand sewing and maybe going over some of the seams to make sure that they will survive the rigueurs of travel/every day use, [personal profile] shanmonster's waist bag is done. My hands do not like me at the moment, but they can suck it.

    Some of it might be a bit wonky, because I am one person doing this for the first time and not someone behind an industrial machine doing this day in and day out. All of it is, however, functional. And better made than the original I was given for patterning.

    After dinner tonight, I gave our waitress my business card, since she had remarked on the bag that I had made [personal profile] clawfoot some time ago. If nothing else, it gets my name out there.

    (no subject)

    Nov. 30th, 2008 08:30 am
    valkryor: (Hip Deep in Evil)
    Ganked from [livejournal.com profile] clawfoot

    Aside from the broken heart bit (I've never had one. Yes, I know that's weird), this is pretty accurate. )

    (no subject)

    Sep. 25th, 2005 10:59 pm
    valkryor: (Default)
    Bedtime, soon, methinks. I spent the evening with [livejournal.com profile] clawfoot, eating burgers and junk food and watching Black Hawk Down (plus American Dad on Global, as it just happened to be on television once the DVD player was turned off..it was amusing, however). It's odd. After two weeks of not eating crap, I feel slow and sluggish now. I guess I did before, but never noticed. If eating too many potato chips and having an ice cream bar and drinking one can of gingerale makes me feel like this, then it's time to stop. I haven't really missed it up until this point (well, except for ice cream...I can eat that stuff for breakfast and have done on occasion), so it will be good to just keep it up as a rare treat and not buy stuff like that every time we do groceries.

    Bed time now. Work tomorrow. I need to get quarters and bus tickets and I have to get the bedding washed sometime this week and still finish my costume. Busy week ahead. Busy busy week. I should get some sleep if I'm going to tackle it.

    (no subject)

    Jul. 2nd, 2005 10:13 pm
    valkryor: (Default)
    Just called the hospital. Shannon's taken a slight downturn. The CO2 levels in her blood are too high, so they're going to put her on a different ventilator (one called an oscillator) to see if that helps. They were fine before we left, so I'm hoping that it's just a minor setback and oscillator does the trick.

    And we've now finally seen Episode III. It was much much better than I was expecting (and since I wasn't expecting anything except some Ewan-y goodness, it was a pleasant surprise). I noticed, too, that the Padme/Anakin scenes were painful (as warned), but whenever one of them acted against someone else, their own abilities were magnified. Now maybe that's just some wishful thinking or it's a result of others talent masking their own woodenness, but it was still very obvious.

    Ooooo! I can't forget the trailers. One was for the Fantastic Four (I'm so worried it's going to suck and suck hard), another was for the Island (more Ewan-y goodness), and the last made me clap my hands like a little girl. I have now seen a trailer for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It looked really good. And come December, I'm going to see it on opening night if I can.

    And one more thing...

    In honour of [livejournal.com profile] clawfoot's Study Carrel Graffiti, I bring you Theatre Bathroom Graffiti...

    I am not a nugget.

    But you are an idiot for writing that.

    (no subject)

    Jun. 18th, 2005 08:57 pm
    valkryor: (Default)
    I feel better today. I dunno. I guess I just needed to get the ick out by letting others know that I was feeling bad.

    Thank you to [livejournal.com profile] clawfoot, [livejournal.com profile] lovecraftienne, [livejournal.com profile] the_daily_rant, [livejournal.com profile] robertom for the kind words, and also to [livejournal.com profile] joncanuck and [livejournal.com profile] meowster for being on Messenger when I needed someone to be there. Damned near everything about this entire experience is a great big bowl of ass sucking cherry pits and being in limbo only emphasizes the bad bits.

    So. Um. Yeah. Thanks and all that. :)

    I'm so stressed out my eczema is coming back on my left pinkie. Just what I need. :P

    And until the wee one is in hospital, no movies for us. Sorry about that, [livejournal.com profile] clawfoot. :( But if you want to stop by and hang out or something, that can happen. Just give us a call.

    In other (and probably more important) news, Shannon rolled over for the first time yesterday. It seems like she's late, but if she's anything like my sister, she's doing things in her own sweet time. :)

    (no subject)

    Jun. 9th, 2005 10:22 am
    valkryor: (Default)
    I cleaned the kitchen last night. It's not spotless, but it's a damn sight better than it was (the top of the refrigerator is no longer grey and fuzzy!). It needed doing, but now I have the impetus to do so. [livejournal.com profile] clawfoot is going to be house sitting while we're in Toronto, and even though she's seen the kitchen at its worst (when I was painting it one July...ugh!), that's still no excuse. It was becoming an embarrassment to me, even if no one else noticed.

    Part of the process involved cleaning the grey film off of the liquor bottles. At least now you don't need gloves to touch one. Some of them were pretty disgusting. And I also cleaned out the toaster. The crumb tray was only part of it. After I removed that and emptied it, I gave the toaster a shake. By the end, I had a nice pile of crumbs (three times what was in the crumb tray) on the counter. I must remember to do that more often.

    I also did something last night that I thought I'd never ever do. Many years ago (ten, eleven?), a bottle filled with red-brown liquid was given to me by Michelle. It was stoppered and sealed with wax. She said it was Neil Gaiman's blood and while I knew that it wasn't, it was still a prized possession. Last night, I emptied the bottle, cleaned off the wax and threw away the cork. When I was doing it, it felt good, but now the empty bottle just seems so sad. I think I'll have to find something else to fill it with, but what, I don't know.

    My feet are swollen again. It was a constant when I was pregnant (and it got pretty bad), but last night I noticed that my feet felt odd when I was in the midst of cleaning. When I looked down, my ankles had disappeared and the tops of my feet were jiggly. I drank some water, and that helped, but I'm not impressed. Gah! The heat and humidity can stop now. I'm done, thank you very much.

    (no subject)

    Jun. 5th, 2005 08:57 am
    valkryor: (Default)
    [livejournal.com profile] fuzzpsych wants me to make him an icon. Not sure what I'm going to do yet, but I'll give it a think an see what kind of inspiration hits.

    I am pleased, though, that both [livejournal.com profile] robertom and [livejournal.com profile] clawfoot got a kick out of the icons that I made and are actually using them. It's one thing to go "that's neat" and completely another to go through the bother of downloading. It's a nice ego boost and it makes me feel like preening, but I'll refrain and just say thanks. :)

    [livejournal.com profile] joncanuck and [livejournal.com profile] the_daily_rant were over last night for a movie. Live action anime with none of the cartooniness lost or downgraded to something more serious and/or less appropriate. If you can find it, Cutey Honey is good for a laugh if nothing else and the ending makes a heck of a lot more sense than the one for Stacey: Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies.

    (no subject)

    Jun. 4th, 2005 02:42 pm
    valkryor: (Default)
    I went garging this morning with [livejournal.com profile] fuzzpsych and [livejournal.com profile] clawfoot. We bundled Tabula Rasa into her carseat and hit mostly street sales simply because it's a lot easier to push a stroller than carry a baby everywhere. Between the three of us, we spent less than $3, and we all got something. I even found a shiny pin to replaced the one that was stolen from my chocolate brown suede jacket late last year.

    Now the baby and [livejournal.com profile] fuzzpsych are both asleep and I should go and clean the bathroom or something instead of stalk LJ. :)

    (no subject)

    May. 31st, 2005 06:09 pm
    valkryor: (Default)
    I'm doing some laundry and I noticed that the furnace was on AGAIN! WTF? It's not that cold, even in the basement apartment. And if you are cold, put on a sweater or something, but for the love of Pete, don't turn on the fucking heat until October.

    With the last of the money from [livejournal.com profile] fuzzpsych's grandmother, I went to Zellers and bought a Jolly Jumper. Shannon's not quite sure what to make of it, but she doesn't scream when she's put into it, so I'm going to take that as a positive sign. She should figure it out soon enough, and then she will scream, but only when we're taking her out! :)

    The surgery date is looming ahead. We're both under constant stress and unease. The next two weeks are going to be maddening...not all anticipation is good. Adding to this is another layer of stress coming from my mom. When we told both sets of parental units about the surgery and about our wish to not have them come down to the hospital and wait with us, my in-laws agreed to that without argument and will only come down when it's a good time for Shannon to have visitors, but my mom is being argumentative.

    Let me set the stage for Shannon's first heart surgery (PDA Stent and Bilateral Pulmonary Banding...also called the Hybrid Procedure) on 2004 Dec 07: the grandparents (my in-laws and mom) want to be there. I would rather that they didn't, but [livejournal.com profile] fuzzpsych wanted them to be there for support, so I relented. I don't play well with others at the best of times, and being under so much stress, I couldn't handle anyone, so I went into the CCU waiting lounge across the hall alone. [livejournal.com profile] fuzzpsych felt like he was being pulled in two directions and he also felt that he had to entertain the grandparents while at the hospital. I felt pressured and high strung for most of the day until my sister stopped by in the late afternoon. I started to calm down. While my sister was there, the grandparents left to go home (thank the gods) and after seeing Shannon one more time, we went back to my sister's place with her on the subway, had a bite to eat, then met up with [livejournal.com profile] clawfoot and [livejournal.com profile] epi_lj for the Spongebob Squarepants Movie.

    All in all, not a very pleasant experience. We both had enough on our plates with the Hybrid procedure without [livejournal.com profile] fuzzpsych having to deal with family and me trying to avoid them. It clearly didn't work very well. This time, we decided to do this one alone, calling with the result as soon as we knew what was going on.

    But that's not good enough for my mom.

    When we told her the surgery date, she argued against our explicit wish to not come to Sick Kids. She's even using strong arm tactics to guilt/pressure my in-laws (who are being incredibly supportive about this) into changing their minds so that she can be there. I understand that she's terrified. But she has no right to make this all about her. She made the case that if something happens, she wants to be there to say goodbye. But this is open heart surgery with a heart-lung machine and the whole works. If something happens (touch wood that it doesn't), it will happen fast. There won't be time for the kind of goodbyes where Shannon can hear them. It will be too late for that.

    I know it's morbid and negative to think like this, but this is why they have survival rates for surgeries.

    I want her to understand that we're not doing this as a punishment or to marginalize her importance in Shannon's life, but that as her parents we have to be as focused as possible and we can only do that without distraction from the parental units. [livejournal.com profile] fuzzpsych is going to talk to my mom about this sometime this week. If I went with him, it would become a heated argument and it wouldn't get anyone anywhere.

    I'm just don't want this to turn into a grudge. My mom and her brother no longer speak to each other because when he needed her to be there for him, she was too busy with something else (this was 7 years ago!). It's stupid, but that's all it takes, and I'm worried that this whole surgery thing is going to cut me off from my mom and poison the it's-now-finally-a-good relationship I have with my sister (which is very bad, since we'll be staying with my sister and her boyfriend while in Toronto).

    Now my tummy is urpy. :P That's enough or I will get an ulcer.

    Open Ears

    May. 1st, 2005 01:14 am
    valkryor: (Default)
    Just got home from seeing Negativland and Diamanda Galas. This was also the first time that we left Shannon at my mom's so we could go out (we had [livejournal.com profile] clawfoot come over to babysit the last time we went out). Shannon took to it okay. There was some crying, and even projectile vomit, but she didn't sleep, so we have a very tired baby right now.

    Anyway, on to the shows...

    Diamanda Galas was first at one of the churches downtown. She was like a spectre of a forgotten fury still screaming for justice. I can't describe it. It was. I did enjoy it which is what really matters. Though it will give me something to chew on for a while.

    Negativland at City Hall. In the Council Chambers no less. Very cool. Again, enjoyable. It's going to be used for a webstreaming radio broadcast, so if you can catch it that way, do so. They even managed to tie one of their pieces to the Diamanda Galas perfomance in theme, which was most likely serendipity, but still very cool.

    Very tired. Going to have tea and then go to bed. So sleepy.

    minutae

    Apr. 18th, 2005 06:40 pm
    valkryor: (Default)
    It was such a lovely day. It would have been a lot nicer if I could have sat outside in the back garden and read or something, but not having a garden or the time to read, really, killed that quite nicely.

    I'm currently working on my character history for the Elder's LARP. It's going fairly well, but it's getting out of hand already. I'm eight pages in (twelve was the set maximum on account of a character history that I wrote for another game being a mere thirty-six pages!) and no where near done. At least [livejournal.com profile] clawfoot, one of the storytellers, is willing to read it in its entirety. But I still have to include a reference sheet for both her and the other storyteller, [livejournal.com profile] wildelf, for dates and times and such. The irony of this is my previous character for this game had a character history of a mere three pages, because I was keenly aware of [livejournal.com profile] wildelf looking at me when the page limit was announced. *sigh* Infamy...who needs it? :P

    That aside, it was great to play again. It was even more fun to dress up a little and wear a pair of boots that I hadn't had on since before I was pregnant. My feet were unhappy by the end of the night but I just didn't care...I felt good.

    Right now, the baby's trying to decide if she wants to sleep or cry. She fusses for a bit, then settles and looks ready to drop off into dreamland. But, can't have that! So she fusses again. Silly tired baby. Sleep now, sweetpea.

    rambly rambly

    Apr. 3rd, 2005 11:07 am
    valkryor: (Default)
    I'll post Rabbit Sabbath pictures soon. I have to go through the disc and pick out a few good ones. I will even do my best to make sure that I get at least one of the faboo mask from this year as well.

    I should probably go shower and get dressed. Or something. I feel really slovenly today and the weather's not really inspiring me to aim for more. Losing an hour's worth of sleep isn't helping either.

    Last night, though, was fun. Okay, it does take a while to complete a five person game of Trivial Pursuit, but hanging out with [livejournal.com profile] clawfoot, [livejournal.com profile] joncanuck, [livejournal.com profile] the_daily_rant along with my other half was needed.

    No matter how much you love someone, you need to interact with others, or you'll go mad. Although, who can tell the difference with me? :P

    Oh, and a point to note for Doctor Who fans in KW...local CBC listings point to the episode being aired at 8 on Tuesday not 7, on account of Coronation Street holding the 7 slot.

    (no subject)

    Mar. 26th, 2005 06:02 pm
    valkryor: (Default)
    Rabbit Sabbath was fun. We brought two more to the ceremony last night, so that meant that it was me, [livejournal.com profile] fuzzpsych, [livejournal.com profile] clawfoot, [livejournal.com profile] the_daily_rant, [livejournal.com profile] joncanuck, Robigus and Tabula Rasa. Tabula Rasa cried throughout the entire ceremony, including her baptism, but that was expected by [livejournal.com profile] hare_mengele and his lovely wife, so no worries there.

    She was pretty freaked out, actually, so [livejournal.com profile] fuzzpsych spent the majority of the evening in another room keeping her calm. At least he got a piece of the Guinness Chocolate Cake that I made for the event.

    I will post pictures of Tabula Rasa in her outfit when I get them. She was adorable. :)

    And now onto the ranty bit...

    Today, I was coming out of the local Tim Hortons with coffee and goodies when I noticed the old man who exited afer me go to his car. Now he was parked in the handicap space and I know that the asphalt gently slopes up towards the sidewalk leaving a very minimal (about 2 cm) lip between them. And old guy had to lean on the hood of his car so he could get to the driver's side door!

    Okay, so correct me if I'm wrong, but if you need support (the arm of another person, a railing, etc) to go down a slope that a just-learned-to-walk toddler can manage, do you really think that you should be driving?
    Well, I didn't get my birthday wish afterall. Damn. I've been looking forward to that drink for a long long time. Oh well. Not that I would have enjoyed the taste of alcohol yesterday, what with the cold and the aftertaste of Ricola and everything, but it would have been nice.

    Otherwise, though, it was a good day yesterday. I ate WAY too much, thanks to my mom and [livejournal.com profile] clawfoot, and even got a huge boquet of yellow freesia from the Grays. I like getting flowers. It's also probably the only aspect of me that's really a girly girl.

    Now I have half the money for that writer's conference in June (my mom is incredible, really. She even permanently loaned me her old sewing machine because mine is pooched), lots to read ("Shadowmarch" from my understanding and very patient husband and the first Lemony Snickett book from [livejournal.com profile] meowster) and gift certificates to squander delightfully on comics and a hair cut (from the exceedingly generous [livejournal.com profile] joncanuck and [livejournal.com profile] the_daily_rant who stuck them in a punishing card).

    Friday night, I drank a little too much tea, but was in the company of friends, so having to get up at least six times to pee in the middle of the night was worth it. :) So thanks to all and sundry who made my very low-key "milestone" birthday worth celebrating, by making it all about me and not at all about the parasite.
    [livejournal.com profile] clawfoot dropped off the coolest baby gift this afternoon. After not getting one and unable to order one online 'cause they were out of stock, we finally have a Ramones sock hat! Hurray!

    Since it has a little slate blue bow on the back of it, it looks like it will be two pictures, one for family (black hat, blue-ish bow) and one for friends (Ramones all the way, baby!). My mother-in-law will more than just a little disapprove of black on a newborn (like she did with my wedding dress), but it's not her baby.

    So extra special thanks go to [livejournal.com profile] clawfoot for ensuring that our kid has the coolest winter hat in town!
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