EEEEEYYUUW!

Wanda and I were out almost all day, came home to a house that smelled horrible. Like rotting garbage but with a chemical edge to it. Looked for burning peripherals, etc, the garbage went out yesterday, and Wanda went outside to see if someone was burning stuff outside (a NO-NO here). I went to use the bathroom and discovered the culprit. A very old can of aerosol spray burn ointment, iodine-based, had exploded, blowing the cabinet door open, the shelf off, and red-brown goo over everything. The mess is indescribable, and the goo is not cleaning up easily. Ok off of porcelain or tile, but not the walls, rug, vinyl tub and surround, the wood cabinetry, the shower curtain, everything else in the cabinet, etc etc etc. And given the mental state of the cats when we came in, I would guess that it was pretty exciting when it went off, too! The poor kitties!

We got most of it triaged, but I think we're going to be finding and cleaning up goo for some time. Festive. :-/

I saw the Pres's speech today. I'd gone to an ethnic grocery to get rose water and orange flower water for this coming weekend, and the tv was on in there- he was just coming on. So I stood in the deli seating area and watched along with a half-dozen or so lunching seniors. The man was AWESOME. I couldn't be prouder of my President. What a gift that we got to vote for him!

Well, I'm off to plan menu for the camping trip this coming weekend. Looks like the weather is going to be nice! Cross yer fingers!

So here's the skinny on my trip (sorry for duplication for those of you who already heard- I'm doing cut-and-paste because I'm a lazy bum. :-)...

I'm nearly recovered. :-) Flew out Monday and home Friday night. Very busy- kinda tried to not do too much, but I hadn't counted on how long it takes just to get anywhere! We saw lots of subway stairs. And my knees haven't forgiven me yet. Goofed around Tuesday, went to Times Square and saw all the flashy-flashy. Dug through some stores in the fabric district (managed to not spend any money!), and went to see 'Mary Stuart'. It had only a passing acquaintance with the history, but it was a cool show. And they had rain! Onstage! I had no idea they could do that. Looked like the front row was getting a little damp, too. Was funny though- I recognized the woman who played Elizabeth I- she was Fanny in 'Sense and Sensibility'- I recognized her voice first. Annie said the house was the same place where Dan Radcliffe was in 'Equus' earlier this year- she went to see it and said he was _really_ good.

Weds we went to the Cloisters. Many stairs. Lots of keen stuff though. We were in the room with the ivories when they closed, so we saw almost all of it. The gardens were great- a lot of stuff was blooming. Rode the A train and saw some of the local wildlife ;-) I bought some new orange socks from The Sock Guy in St Mark's and we had lunch.

Thursday was the big day- we met up with Adamantius and went to the Met. Annie had to take off to work a half shift, so Phil and I wandered through and managed to not get into trouble (though he pointed out to me the David Friedman Memorial Electrical Outlet where Cariadoc decided to power up his laptop and nearly got them both arrested). It was overwhelmingly cool. Saw a lot of things that I have pictures of- but in real life! And quite a few of them are not the size I'd imagined! The armor exhibit was neat but almost all of it was late and post-period. Looked at lots of pictures, saw a piece of statuary I'd wanted to see and was frustrated to find out that it was not in the round- the back 1/4 was unfinished. I wanted to see the back of the headdress, but I was thwarted! Bah! We finally found the display of musical instruments upstairs- lots of neat stuff there, including a stack of early bassoons.

We had lunch out on the steps- official New York hotdogs from a vendor there. Spent another couple of hours in the museum, then I spent far too much money on books in the giftshop (the jewelry was out of my reach though, sadly). When they closed we went down and picked up Susan from work, and then took a cab to a German restaurant (no idea where we were) where we met up with Annie. The cab ride was... an experience. They mocked me for automatically putting on my seatbelt, but MY GOD! I aged five years in that cab! And Phil didn't even bat an eyelash. He was getting far too much amusement from this Oregon mouse, I think. And I have several new white hairs. =:-O

The food was great, though the place was noisy. We had a great time hassling Annie- Phil pointed out to her that she's nearly 25- a spinster! I leaned over and said "Thass whut yew git fer edjictin' wimmin!" Susan lost a mouthful of wine on that one. And the table next to us was full of good-looking well-dressed young men, which Annie noticed. When their desserts arrived, Phil leaned over and said "Oh! Are those the apple fritters?" Oh yeah, yeah, and did we want a taste? We said no but Annie said Yes! So a fork full was passed over, and then Phil said "Young lady! Didn't your mother teach you to not take apple fritters from strangers?" It was great. Annie was bright red but she had a mouthful of apple fritters and couldn't snark back at him!

Not a single New Yorker was rude to me. The one rude person was in New Jersey, at the airport (I was flying through Newark).

Annie's apartment in Brooklyn is huge. I was expecting a teeny little place. She has lovely wood floors and good-sized windows. Bugs in the kitchen though, which I expected. I went in in the night for a glass of water and they looked at me and said Feh! and went about their business. Annie's kitty Iso slept on me while I was there, though I wouldn't let her sleep on my face. I do have my limits.

I don't know if I could ever live there- very big and very noisy and getting anywhere is such a chore! But Annie is flourishing and that's what matters.

This Slug ain't made for walkin'...

But a lot of walkin' was done. We took the subway to Times Square and negotiated our way through the crowds to the ticket place, and stood in line for awhile. After tickets were procured we walked some more, finally found a plate to get a bite to eat- some panini (which was yummy). Then we walked some more. Wandered into the fabric district and looked through a couple of stores until time for our show.

Went to see 'Mary Stuart', which was interesting. The gal who played Elizabeth I was the woman who played Fanny in 'Sense and Sensibility' I recognized the voice right off- it took me awhile to figure out where I knew it from. I kept hearing her say "He has a barouche". The play was interesting- the script played fast and loose with history (nah, really? Yes, really). The guy who played Lord Burleigh was very good. And their Dudley was very interesting

Since we weren't up and about early enough today, the Met and/or Cloisters will have to be Weds, maybe Thurs. Hopefully I'll feel better in the morning.

I is in New York!

Here at Annie's- got in to Newark this afternoon, and after much walking and training and subwaying we arrived here at Annie's place! She fed me pasta and pesto and chocolate ice cream. And Iso had decided that I'm ok.

Tomorrow the plan is to go to the Met, and maybe the Cloisters Weds or Thurs.

And I may just crash early tonight- got up at 5:30 and didn't get much sleep on the plane.

Things not to do:

1. Don't tug on Superman's cape
2. Don't spit into the wind
3. Don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger
4. Don't mess around with Slim

5. And never, never look up at the sky and yell "What next?!"

This has been the week of nausea. Here I am, at 3:30am, finishing off a bowl of yogurt in hopes that it will settle my stomach so I can sleep. So far no luck I think Monday I will break down and call Dr Becher and see about the anti-nausea drugs she mentioned. I hate nausea almost as much as I hate twitching, and I will do almost anything to not throw up.

So far I am not being successful in dealing with this.

In other news:

Saturday we had the work party here. I draped a cotehardie pattern for Liadan and cut out a bunch of stuff for Helena. Then I made pizza while Wanda helped Cat with her bodice. Too many hours on my feet- it was pretty exciting when I finally got my shoes off.

I spent the rest of the week not really getting much done but sleeping, except for printing out a pile of pool info for the other ladies at the pool--

This was the last week at the pool. Pretty depressing. I think I'm going to check into the Providence program further, but probably not until after I get home from---

New York! Yup, I'm going to see Annie, the 4th thru the 8th of May. Looking forward to goofing off, maybe eating pie, seeing some museums, visitng people, and maybe eating some pie... and did I mention pie?

I've seen the new Harry Potter trailer several times- looks like the sixth movie is going to be really good. And I've also seen some shots from on-location shoots for the first part of the seventh movie- so far, so good! The dress that they have Hermione wear for Bill and Fleur's wedding is really nice. I want one!

Off for another try at the sleeping thing...

This looks familiar...

Wish I had some of that Instant Pain Annihilator, but I would bet that it's components are no longer legal, and I'm too cheap to buy them on the street. So I guess it's another handful of ibuprofen.

So what's been up lately? Not much. I picked up another ILL today- chronicles from the reigns of Stephen through Richard I. However, they didn't arrive in the facing-page translation I wanted- the library said there wasn't a copy in the system. Grr. And yes, my Latin skillz are feeble, but I know enough to poke through the period I'm looking at, and see that what I need to know isn't there. ARGH!

However, the last two ILL requests came in right, in translation, and I took them down to the local cheap copy place (5 cents a page still!) and copied them and put them in ring-binders. So I now have a copy of the _Gesta Normannorum Ducem_ And the _Gesta Stephani_. They're a little earlier than the time period I'm looking for, but way cool sources nonetheless.

I'm planning to go see Annie the first week in May- really looking forward to it and hoping she'll make some pie for me, since she's gotten so famous for it. Hoping to get to see the Cloisters, and the Met. And maybe eat lunch at one of the famed street vendors. :-) And I'll get to see her nifty rent-controlled apartment, and hassle the Iso kitty!

The big bad news is that the pool I've been going to is closing, a week from Monday. They are having financial problems keeping it open, especially now since the babies' classes have left, and apparently it needs some renovation to keep up with operating requirements. Don't know if/where we're going to go somewhere else- I found some stuff on line about the Arthritis Foundation's pool programs, I need to make some phone calls and check out the various locations here in town.

Larry found a new job, but the scheduling really sucks, and he's not very happy. But in the economy, maybe happy isn't as important as it once was. But we don't get to see him very often, which is a pain.

Been alternating laughing my head off and being really cheezed at the protests this week. Allegedly a tax protest, somehow there was an awful lot of really icky anti-Obama signs, which made it look like a bunch of sore losers rather than grumpy taxpayers. And the funny thing is, they aren't paying attention to _reality_ (as usual) because 95% of us are getting a tax cut! So why are they protesting? Well, it might be related to this (which I posted on Facebook earlier today): in the Eugene paper- "The Springfield rally was one of 20 held around the state by the national anti-tax group Americans for Prosperity, which is run by the owners of Koch Industries, the largest privately owned business in the United States." This isn't grass-roots- this is astroturf. By Big Business. And Fox News.

The reason to laugh at them? Because they fancy themselves a modern-day 'Boston Tea Party', and have been calling themselves 'tea-baggers'. And if you look up the term 'tea-baggers' in the Urban Dictionary (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teabagger ) you'll see why. (Not Safe For Work!)

Of course, when pressed, most of them will insist that the protest is non-partisan, and that they were angry at the taxes and spending under the Bush Administration too. To which I have to say: "Where were you last year?"

Heeeeeeellpp!!!!!

I always swore I wouldn't get into the social-networking sites, because they're a time sink and I don't need that.

Famous last words.

I'm up to 61 'friends' now, friends, family, etc. And spending too much time reading and commenting and taking silly quizzes. How can it be that 'What Looney Tunes character are you?' turns out to be Daffy Duck (woo-hoo!) but 'What Muppet are you?' was Sam Eagle? (Even Karl and Linda said I was definitely Sam Eagle. Pout.)

In other news, the pool was c-c-c-c-old Weds and those of us who stayed only lasted about 40 minutes. And the locker room was cold too, which is in the 'insult-on-injury' range for me. I came home and went back to bed just to get warm. And it's been cold and rainy a lot the past couple of weeks, which makes it even easier to pull the covers over my head.

A little more than a week until Lent is over. I can hardly wait. Think I'll celebrate at Burgerville.