Travel plans, I hate them

So I am now kind of grouchy with my brother. We are supposed to be going home to Allentown for Thanksgiving tomorrow, which means we will be driving back together. The trouble is that tomorrow is the busiest travel day all year, and I want to leave as early as possible so as to not hit traffic and get stuck in it for hours and hours. The sensible thing to do, and the easiest on me, would be for him to come over and spend the night at Elsinore tonight, so we can just jump in the car in the early morning. But he's got to film a thing tonight and he hasn't gotten packed yet, so he says he doesn't want to. Which means in order for us to get on the road at an efficient time, I have to get up even earlier, drive into Somerville hopefully before rush hour, and pick his ass up before we can even start heading home. Makes things a heck of a lot harder on me. As if I didn't dislike traveling enough already, what with the severe propensity toward motion sickness. Grumble. Ah, well. In return for my allowing this, he has agreed to drive the whole way and not play his music loud so I can catch up on sleep. I guess that won't be so bad, and it will be worth it if we actually do manage to get home without getting trapped in traffic.

Halloween is coming

I am now back from my lovely excursion, and smack back in the middle of work and responsibilities. Ah, well. Idle hands are the devil's workshop and all that. It was nice to have such a lovely break.

I have a number of things going on right now, but since Halloween is less than a week away, my preparations must buckle down in earnest. My costume is very nearly in order. I am pretty much just wearing the bellydancer outfit I assembled for Stars of Al-Ashtara-- I was not feeling particularly inspired this year and it saves me having to construct an extra costume. I could use a few more little details like a veil and maybe some bangles, but I can figure that out. I just need to finish sewing the waistband into the skirt I am making from the fabulous patterned blue muumuu I thrifted. It's a bigger job than I thought it would be, because there is so damn much fabric. I will put an elastic inside this case I'm sewing so that it will gather around my waist just fine, but that case has to be very long before the elastic can get in there to scrunch it up. Such is the nature of a muumuu, I suppose. I guess I could cut a chunk out of it to make it smaller, but I kind of like how full it is, and it wouldn't exactly eliminate a lot of sewing if I had to sew the side back up as well. So, I'm just going to keep on with the casing. I'm about a third of the way finished, so I should be able to get it done before the day.

I also need to plan the goodies menu. I want to have lots of tasty seasonal delicacies available, but I have yet to decide what they are. Pie is certainly desireable, and I will probably go with pumpkin but apple is a possibility as well. Cider is another fall favorite of mine. Besides apples and pumpkins, other foods I associate with fall are cranberries, squash, pears, ginger, and corn, so I will have to figure out what sort of things I can make involving those. Suggestions as well as the volunteering to bring dishes are welcome.

Whatever my spread, the centerpiece of it will be my newest acquisition, my beautiful skull bottle. In the liquor store on Main Street I saw that there is now a kind of vodka out called Crystal Head, which is sold in this fantastic bottle in the shape of a skull. I don't drink, and the stuff inside it was fifty bucks a pop, but I had to have one for this Halloween. So I stalked an empty one on eBay, nabbed it in triumph, and returned last night to find it already delivered and waiting!

Creepy little bugger, isn't he? I'm not sure what I'll fill him with-- kind of makes me wish I drank just so I could put some creative and brightly-colored cocktail in him --but I want him to serve a drink. Maybe cranberry juice, for the fall feel and the bright blood red. Ah, so much planning to do, and so much lovely cooking to get ready for! God, I love Halloween.

Weekend of parents

Parents will be coming into town today. The timing is good, as they will be claiming the majority of my time from now until Sunday evening, so I will be busy during the same period Jared is busy in Albany visiting Sharone. That means I will have less time to call him at the same time as he has less time to call me. He should be busy doing fun special things like one does on vacation, rather than sitting around on the phone with one's girlfriend like one does at home. I just need to confer with Mom and Dad to figure out what our plans will be. Two possibilities include visiting Salem and my taking them to Kind Richard's Faire, neither of which we are settled on. Tonight, however, I will be going to the next session of captainecchi's Fantastycraft game, which I committed to a long time before they told me they were coming up. They tend to prefer I clear my schedule when they visit, since they see me so rarely these days, so I can't tell whether or not they're annoyed with me. Ah, well. Tonight should be fun. I will enjoy getting to be Ophelia again, and must make certain to think of lots and lots of fun inappropriate things to say.

Home for Easter

Yesterday I got back to Allentown for Easter, but it turned out to be more complicated than I thought. My train got cancelled due to flooding in Rhode Island, so at the last minute my dad got me on a flight that was technically full. I begged a ride early the same morning to the airport from the wonderful bronzite*, to which I am very grateful for going out of his way. I managed to get home, had a lovely and enormous meal with my parents, and went to bed at around 10PM. Travel always takes it out of me.

Tomorrow we will be going out to an Easter brunch, but today will just be low-key. I have to arrange a time to sit down with Jared (though it will have to be over the phone) to cast Alice and Oz. I want to get the sheets out as soon as possible-- it seemed like the whole process of Festival this year started a lot closer to the date of the con, so I don't want to lose any more time.

Eagerly awaiting his return

Jared comes back from his family vacation to the Galapagos today. He's been gone for ten days, and we haven't been able to talk to each other since he's been out of the country. I eagerly await him calling me when he finally gets in; I'm missing him like crazy and I can't count the number of times over the last week and a half I've gone to dial his number and remembered he can't take calls. Never quite realize just how often I call him or want to call him in the course of a normal day until he's unreachable and I have to stop myself short. He returns to Chicago today, and then on the 18th he'll be getting back to Boston. Fortunately I have that day off for Martin Luther King Day, so I'm pleased that we'll be able to spend all of his first day back together. Tomorrow is actually our anniversary, which sadly we will be apart for, but that's all right, we've agreed to celebrate it a few days late.

Back from Christmas vacation

And now I have returned from my Christmas vacation at home. Yesterday's trip was the first time I ever made the long drive from Allentown, Pennsylvania back up to Boston; usually my brother handles the driving, but he wasn't coming back yet and so couldn't come with me. I'm kind of proud of myself, given I've never driven anywhere that far and I kind of, you know, despise driving. :-) But Constantine and I have made it safely back. I probably drove a little faster than I should have, but the trip was five and a half hours as it was, to say nothing of what it might have been if I'd gone slower.

The trip was made immensely more pleasant by the Sherlock Holmes audiobook I listened to on the way. All stories I was already very familiar with, but I always enjoy them. My interest has been reawakened by the new movie that has just come out, and tonight I will be seeing the film with bronzite*. It will be lovely to spend time with him again. I am a longtime Sherlock Holmes fan, but I must take care to remind myself that one must not be too married to one's perception of the literature when seeing it transferred to film.

Eventful weekend, installment 3: Burn Notice on Sunday

Sunday Bernie was supposed to come home and I was going to pick him up at the airport, which I was excited for because I've missed him like crazy. But we got snow on Sunday, so he was forced to reschedule his flight for Monday evening. I was pretty disappointed, not only because I wanted to see him, but also because I was planning on running Burn Notice that night and he wasn't going to be able to be there. But I really wanted to go, so after some ideas from Bernie I decided to throw together an interstitial adventure for just Matt and Kindness's characters and sent Bernie's guy out of town on a family obligation. It activated a subplot for Kindness's character Gwen, which pleased me, and given I only had a day to put it together I think it turned out decently. Bernie videoconferenced in on Matt's computer, which worked well enough to have Donovan reachably only by phone, but unfortunately he couldn't hear us quite well enough to totally follow the action. Ah, well, it was nice to have him around at least. Now we have two threads of the story going at the same time; I'll have to decide what to do about that. Could lead to some interesting conflict. :-) That reminds me, I'll have to talk to Jared about building a particular NPC that will be needed in the near future. Given my shakiness with mechanics, the dear has kindly offered to help me construct a character that could give our PCs a run for their money!

Bernie gets in tonight, so here's going to get him take two. We're going to hang out this evening, and I think we're on for dinner tomorrow night too, since I'll be leaving Wednesday. It'll be nice to have him back, if only for a bit until I get back myself.

Home, apparently.

So my family decided I will be going home today. *Sigh* Okay. That's fine. I wish I'd had a bit more input, but since any attempt to make home visits more convenient for myself seem to result in my mom interpreting things as me not wanting to come home at all, I guess I'll just go with it.

It'll be nice to see the parents. I do like spending time with them, though it is somewhat dull to be at home. I'm not the best traveller in the world-- I get motion sick at the drop of the hat --so that part isn't so fun for me, which I think makes me even more reluctant to undertake the process. I will be gone until Sunday afternoon, so I'd better go get things together.

Ninja of tinyness!

Today I must go into the city to meet with a headhunter who might be able to help me find a job for this coming year. I've very carefully planned my trip using the T, which seems easy enough, but I'm a bit nervous as I'm going alone and I don't use the lines very often. Wish me luck.

Also, I must brag about something stupid. Last night I went to the tech rehearsal for the BORG play to hang out and be an extra pair of hands. It turns out that the circuit breakers that must suffice as a light board were in a little booth in the back of the Schwartz Auditorium which was locked. It did, however, have little open windows with bars over them. I wiggled through one of the openings in the windows and unlocked the door. I am a ninja of tinyness! I am ridiculously pleased with myself. I must try very hard every time I'm around that booth not to point at the little gap in the windows and tell people, "I fit through there."

*runs off to make herself a sign that says "ninja of tinyness."*

Good Kincaid

Today is Epiphany, as well as Carmen's birthday. She would have been fifteen today; this is the first birthday she's not been around for. My dad put a picture on her on the refrigerator of when she was in her prime. She really was a beautiful dog.

Had a riding lesson today. Went better than I expected it to, given how long it's been. But I'm pleased with how well I rode, and though Kincaid may have been totally unable to go round, at least he wasn't as stiff as he sometimes is. I hear they've been jumping him again, which I hate since it makes him get all strung out and go really heavy on his forehand, and I could definately feel the effect. He just doesn't carry himself well enough to maintain it with that intensity of work. But I managed to keep him in a good frame. Unfortunately, even though I've been working out, my muscles just weren't used to that particular kind of punishment-- seems like the only place the muscles in riding ever get used are in riding. So I'm parked out with sore hips and thighs for a while. Ah, well, hard work is good for 'em.

Thanks to having to kind of stay in one place due to the soreness, perhaps I can use the remainder of the evening to get some writing done. I made a little progress on Oz since I've been home, but not nearly as much as I'd like to. A little focus of some kind is in order. I get back to Waltham on the 11th, and school starts up again the 13th, so I should try to use my free time while I can.

Casey getting in

So, because the snow continues to pound down, Casey and I are still unable to go home for Christmas. He just got back to the States from his time abroad, and we were supposed to drive back to Pennsylvania in my car yesterday, but the snow was just too damn bad, and continues to be so. He's coming over to Elsinore today to hang out for the day and then spend the night. Hopefully we'll have a group of people over to play games and keep entertained, and then have first night of Hanukkah dinner courtesy of Dave. I'm going to learn how to light the menorah, that'll be nice.