The Mandelbear's Musings

Mostly not such a good day? Something like that. Not terribly productive, no walk (it was raining), and some bad news. I wasn't particularly depressed, mind you; just somewhat down.

I got a call from the person at the bank who had called me a couple of weeks ago suggesting that I could get a better rate by applying for a new equity line of credit. The appraisal came in -- about $40K under the last one. So... no. Another $42K and the place will be underwater. So much for that.

And Mom called to say that Tom, one of her dearest and closest friends, had died. He'd been in declining health for several years, but still...

So... not a good day, on the whole. I did book my hotel room for Norwescon, and buy a membership. So that's ok.

And it's Valentine's Day. Or Lupercalia, which some people apparently call Horny Werewolf Day, if you prefer. Here's wishing you love and joy for the year ahead.

A quiet Newton's Birthday at home. I spent the morning making Ukrainian-style borscht, which came out very tasty. Probably the best batch ever, probably because I left out the potatoes, used nearly 5 pounds of fresh beets, and tossed the cabbage, turnip, rutabaga, and half the carrots in at the very end so they stayed crunchy.

Not many visitors; a combination of bad weather and other things to do, I suppose. Hopefully we'll get more next week. Good talk with Moira, though, and we only had a gallon of borscht left to go in the fridge.

Finished packing, and threw together a CD of scratch and sample tracks for Amethyst Rose because I wanted Mom to hear it, even though it's way too rough for public consumption. (Mom's mostly deaf, and very prejudiced.)

Quite a few links, many of them somewhat twisted holiday-themed stuff.

Whatever you're celebrating, if anything, may the season bring you joy, and may things be even better in the New Year.

And just to add a little gravity to the celebration, happy Newton's Birthday!

So here I am in Shoreline, far from my kids (not so far from the older one, but she's off LARPing this weekend). I still get to feel proud of them, though. They're growing up to be wonderful young adults.

The usual scrim of nostalgia for my own Dad, lost to pancreatic cancer 11 years ago.

A happy Valentine's Day to all my friends.

I especially want to wish a happy Valentine's day to my sister-of-choice Naomi, to Callie and Marty, to my lovely daughters Kat and Emmy, and of course to my oldest and dearest Valentine, Colleen. Today marks our 35th (or maybe 36th) Valentine's Day since we became a couple, and I'm more in love now than ever before.

Here's wishing you all love and happiness in the coming year. It's also Chinese New Year, so wishes for health and prosperity are also in order.

It was a pretty good Christmas day. Morning, especially, was delightful -- I woke up in a good mood, had bagels and lox for breakfast and had a blast watching the kids squee over their presents. I didn't even mind being woken up before 7am to go get the bagels and lox.

Afternoon was mostly spent making the borscht, that and the remains of the ham made up lunch and dinner. There were only a handful of people over besides the five currently in the house; even so, I spent a fair amount of time in the office.

Colleen gave a Creole cookbook to Chaos and Selkit; now she wants one for us. I should probably get a copy of There's a Wocket in My Pocket.

I made a couple of River posts -- I'm pleased about that. I'm also pleased about being pretty sensitive to my moods throughout the day. No walkies, though, and no progress on the FSA forms. I'm rather annoyed at myself for those. Still, a pretty good day.

Yesterday was, of course, Mother's Day. The morning was lovely -- we went out to brunch at MacArthur Park - a lot more crowded than I was expecting, more expensive than Colleen was expecting (I'd read the website), but very tasty. The YD came along, of course -- it wouldn't be Mother's Day Brunch without at least one kid. I'm going to miss that.

Back at home I had a lot of cleaning up to do (TMI later, but you can get some idea from my subsequent purchases). Colleen went to bed feeling worn-out and sore; I went shopping and was feeling thoroughly wrung out and drained. No walk :(, though the shopping and rollycat-wrangling included a fair amount of exercise.

Dinner helped both my energy level and mood considerably, as did a phone call from the chaoswolf with mostly encouraging news, as did a nice IM with the pocketnaomi. Did a little lyric tweaking, which I immediately went in and tried out on Colleen.

What I sang was Get Up and Go (with the lyric tweak), Where the Heart Is, Gentle Arms of Eden, Riverheart, and QV. I need to make lyric files for a couple of songs, and print a new songbook. Baycon is coming up frighteningly fast.

Welcome to the last year of the Naughties!

Please join me in the fervent wish that it will be a far, far better year than 2008.

The tax data-entry is done. There are still a few receipts to be sorted out, mainly from charities, but those are just supporting documentation: the actual numbers come from the check register and the AMEX year-end summaries. I still have the various forms 1099 and the W2 that I need to get out of their envelopes, but those get entered directly because they don't have to be subtotalled.

So I'm going to declare the data-entry finished, and spend most of tomorrow on music (and being social with our various guests -- we've invited three or four, and we often get drop-ins). Call ahead if you want to drop in, and bear in mind that our idea of an Easter celebration involves barbecued rabbit and a ritual showing of The Wicker Man.

Today for Solstice I gave each of the kids a Bag of Holding from ThinkGeek, and gave the flower_cat a Cheshire Totoro Face T-shirt.

Briefly noted: Juneteenth (Wikipedia)

Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, is an annual holiday in the United States. Celebrated on June 19, it commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas. The holiday originated in Galveston, Texas; for more than a century, the state of Texas was the primary home of Juneteenth celebrations. Since 1980, Juneteenth has been an official state holiday in Texas. More recently, however, its observance has spread across the nation.

[...]

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day Union General Gordon Granger and 2,000 federal troops arrived on Galveston Island to take possession of the state and enforce slaves' new freedoms.

I will refrain from editorializing on the probability of such a thing happening today.

... to lovers everywhere, and especially to my own beloved flower_cat. I hope you liked the pot of purple tulips. And the kids, of course -- can't forget the kids: chaoswolf and super_star_girl; and _amethyst_fire_, who sometimes feels like my kid even though she isn't. (And who I ganked this icon from -- I hope she doesn't mind.)

Either I'm in a particularly strange mood, or I'm coming down with the flu. Maybe both.

(If you were expecting fanfic or a filk, I'm sorry to disappoint you. It just seemed like the right title for a post-Christmas wrapup.) Just as a reminder: this year's Starport party is this coming Saturday, 12-31. I'll post a more explicit and detailed invitation later today, but if you're reading this, you're welcome to come.

The flower_cat and I exchanged only small, token gifts this year; our big-ticket items (the knife set and the walk-in tub) were all a sort of give-as-you-go, combined Christmas and anniversary extravagance. I found some great little 8-LED flashlights at Computer Surplus to use as stocking stuffers. The Cat gave me/the house a big tray of dried fruit, the same as the one we always order for my brother. I wrapped up the copy of Peter Beagle's The Unicorn Sonata, which I had picked up at either ConChord or Loscon but was pretty sure she had forgotten about. She had.

The big-ticket item for super_star_girl was a new computer: a WinXP box plus LCD monitor from Fry's. She really needed it -- her old box was still running Win98 at 700MHz. Looks like that one's going to misdev -- one less box to clutter up the house. Naturally, I spent much of the morning getting it set up and installing Firefox 1.5, OOo 2.0, and putty, and configuring the printer (shared, on the main server). The rest of the morning was spent doing dishes and working on the borscht.

Our traditional meal for Christmas Day is a big pot of borscht -- the flower_cat found a good Ukrainian recipe in Please to the Table a couple of years ago. She kind of overdid the sour salt (pure citric acid) this time, but most people seemed to like it. We always throw the house open to drop-ins -- nothing is more miserable than having noplace to go on a holiday.

Big change in the relationship between chaoswolf and grendies -- they're now "brother/sister" instead of "boyfriend/girlfriend". Doomed from the start, probably, but it's hard on both of them. Here's hoping that neither of them ends up doing something stupid on the rebound. (Update 9:22pm Or maybe not. At least they're talking about the relationship instead of basing it on unfounded assumptions and wishful thinking. This is a major improvement, no matter which way things eventually go.)