DLand - ACHOO!

If Thursday was Holy Thursday and Friday was Good Friday, then yesterday must have been Sucky Saturday. It was the day when nothing would go right. Jeremy gave himself a "paper cut" at the forge with a piece of red hot steel. I sewed 48 lacing loops on my Italian only to have them misshape and fly across the room when I attempted to lace myself into the dress. And MikenRae's car broke down on them again. Oh, and I think I got another cold (my throat was sore all last night). I was ready to punt on the entire day by 5 that afternoon. But today has shaped up to be a lot better. I called Gen and she imparted her wisdom on soldering the brass rings before lacing them on. We won't go into how my sweet husband suggested this last night and I told him that was a really stupid idea that would never work. Needless to say, I was a real grump about the whole thing, and he still soldered 50-some rings for me this morning so I could finish the dress. I laced myself in successfully an hour ago and all is well. Sweetpea rocks! Gen rocks! The dress rocks! The dress still needs sleeves but I'm sure you'll get an update on that this upcoming week.

We spent most of the afternoon at Mungoe and Siobhan's digs for the "A&S day". It was mostly a bunch of people hanging around and more screaming kids than I would have preferred. But I finished my lacings and met some more people around here. My favorite new person to meet was probably the lady who's a computer tech support goddess on a destroyer for the Navy. She's pretty awesome. I'm hoping we didn't scare her and her hubbie off and we see more of them. I would describe more about who there I was fond of and who I wasn't but don't want to risk them reading it. That and the jury's still out on quite a few of them. Bug me for all the caustic details in person. Oh, my other fav there was Opie. He's one of the 84,000 Mikes that this generation produced and his SCA name is something like Opi-skrtrsdngesr der Sumthinerother, which became Opie. He rocks as well (agreeing to be called Opie is the first thing in his favor). I watched him fence today and he had a really awesome attitude about the whole thing. I wouldn't mind goofing around with him in some fencing armor. So, I'm a card-carrying member of the Opie Fan Club. I'll be sure to introduce you to him if we're ever in the same vicinity.

Brian and I are about half-way through an overcoat thing for him. It's like an early period knee length bathrobe that's made of black and gold lozengy fabric. It's so atrocious, it should kick ass. And I totally screwed up my hat through my bleary eyes and snot that I decided sewing could wait til tomorrow. The Muse had gone home for the evening and it was time to put down the needle.

The snot and sneezing I'm hoping is a cold. You say, Genie, what maniac would hope for a cold. But my only other explanation is allergies and I refuse to accept that I might be allergic to anything. I have never suffered from allergies before in my life and I don't plan on taking it up now. Trees are having sex all over town (and my car and the cat's fur and EVERYWHERE) but there hasn't been a sniffle out of me til today. Now I've got this scratchy throat thing going on and running nose and sneezing. And it has to be from the "cold" that I have. Definitely not the pollen. Nope, I could drink pollen ginseng tea in the mornings because I'm so not affected by pollen. Remember, I'm not allergic to anything!

*sniff* *sniff* ACHOO!

Ugh, I'm carrying my sneezy butt to bed.

DLand - Dern Tootin' Swell Friday

Good Friday. Dang if it didn't turn out to be pretty good. I got out of work early, deposited my paycheck (yippee!), and we all headed off to Jeremy's parents' house for Good Friday dinner. Brian is in town so he came along too. He may as well be our family. Dinner was an Emeril recipe (BAM!) for paella/jambalaya that had more shellfish and bi-valves in it than I've eaten in a long time. You would think I would get more seafood since I can see the ocean, but alas, it doesn't happen that often. The spice was intense but good. Friday was Alyssa's 17th birthday. She's my favoritest sister-in-law and she rocks! She's sporting a pixie do (wispy short hair) these days that looks good on her and will come in handy once the humidity and heat sets in around here. The Newman's and the Stilley joined our festivities. Overall a pretty good evening. Props to Mary for concocting such a delectible meal.

I admit, I have a lot of issues with the Drunk. Sometimes I think I shouldn't diss my drunk-in-law since nobody else does and they have to live with him every day. Maybe that's why they don't tell him to go to hell. You'd feel better for about 10 minutes and then have to look at him the next morning over coffee. Other times I feel like standing up and saying "Hullo?! Doesn't this belligerant drunk person bother the shit out of anybody else here? What's wrong with you people?". *sigh* The Drunk is a big test of my understanding. When the Drunk is the Sober Guy, he's the bomb. I enjoy spending time with him then but that only lasts for about an hour or two. It's just such a foreign concept to me. Maybe I'm too rigid, but there are just some things that totally blow my mind and my first instinct is to come up swinging. But enough of that...

Mary gave me another book to read. This one looks promising. It had good cover art and didn't look too intense for my pudding brain. I have been a book bum lately and I believe even temporarily misplaced the book that I was supposed to be reading right now. Whoops. I'm a dork.

DLand - So I thought you said you were married?

Some of you may be wondering what my darling husband is doing during all of these adventures. Well, today is the update on Sweetpea day. Avid readers will have noted that Sweetpea is finally employed. He works at a public library literally across the street from our neighborhood. The place is basically a homework center so is only open Sun-Thurs from 2-7pm. He works almost all of those hours. He is one affable young white male working with a gaggle of old black women. So far, he's fixed the printers, reprogrammed the thermostat and reorganized the office area. They don't have much of a job description for him now, being that his job was created out of thin air. But he works the reference desk and has been getting a feel for the overall concept of working in a library. So far, it's pretty cool. This job will hopefully turn into full time employment soon. Fingers are crossed.

My Sugar Lump also has been occupying his time at the local mechanic shop that replaced his Jeep engine. He does work there in exchange for knowledge and cheap labor costs on our cars. And it fills up his mornings. Apparently this morning was a rack and pinion job. Overall that's a pretty sweet deal as well. The fellas there are really nice and it's always good to be buddies with a mechanic. The only down side is that they keep trying to convince us to replace parts on the Jeep with performance equivalents. I don't need a new transfer case or a Chevy small-block. The 258 straight 6 has been fine for Jeeps for many years. But I digress.

And when he's not off doing those things, he's at the forge. He's gotten really quite good a smithing since our move here. He came home with two portable holes earlier this week (stakes you put in the ground to support banner poles etc.) and it was the first time he'd tried making them. I was impressed. He's supposed to go to a Spring Fling festival later this month (the same weekend as Night on the Pizzaria SCA event) which basically is like a Pennsic for blacksmiths. He's going with some other folks from the Blacksmith Guild and they are going to goob out for the weekend. He should learn alot and perhaps find some good loot.

Weather has gotten better so he and my brother will most likely be fishing again very soon. In fact they may go on Friday morning. My oldest bro is a fishing fanatic so Jeremy has a fishing buddy. Honestly, he's is not very good, but I can't criticize because I've never caught a fish in my life and I can't imagine how it could be easy or fun. But I'm a stick in the proverbial mud when it comes to fishing. Perhaps the practice with big bro will get him better.

So that's my dumpling's Curriculum Vitae of late. If you want more info, tell him to get off his ass and make his own diary. :)