Corner of Bourbon & Division

Okay, I am not dead. Promise, and cross my heart!

I am FINALLY starting to get my life back. As of last Thursday I once again have a floor in the basement (though still no walls), and this morning t! came to help me move the furniture back into the basement.

Tonight I get to sleep in my own bed again! I am ridiculously excited. \o/


In the meantime, I am leaving on Wednesday at some point for two weeks to be operational support for the G8/G20 Summit taking place in Ontario.

When I get back, there are plans. For one, it's possible I might go on a fishing trip. fearsclave accompanied me to get geared up, and I am now the proud owner of a bunch of fishing equipment. He, Carolyn and I christened my rod with a crappie and a bass, and I am anxious to get back out on the water. Yay fishing!


Also, if there's one thing that this basement debacle has served to bring home to me, it's that I have too much stuff. So the other project is to do a massive declutter of the place. Get rid of papers and the like, and most of the Stuff that seems to accumulate without having a real purpose. Oh, and clothes. I have lots of clothes that don't fit anymore, and those are all going, either tossed or to Goodwill, depending on what state they're in.


So, yeah. As you can see, my life is really not very exciting these days. Hopefully when I'm back from Ontario I'll be around a little bit more.

Sorry for falling off the face of the planet, there. I'm doing my best to climb back on, but someone seems to have coated the surface with Vaseline. :P

Happy trails!

I don't have a fish icon...

There is a rant about IKEA and traffic conditions that I will spare you. Suffice it to say that today consisted of multiple conspiracies to make me lose my mind, including a 30-minute detour on the 20 getting back from the Godforsaken Howling Northern Wilderness.

Onto more pleasant things! I went fishing with fearsclave. A good time was had, and many fish were caught. To wit:

( I caught an eeny-weeny bass! )

After the eeny-weeny bass, I caught a big-ass catfish. A very respectable specimen of barbotte, thank you.

( Catfish! )

fearsclave caught a gorgeous bass which we ended up keeping. It is now in my fridge in fillet form, awaiting consumption tomorrow. I am very pleased. We both caught a bunch of smaller fish which we released back into the water. I caught another bass, which was probably legal, but it was barely six inches long, so we didn't keep it, and then I caught an eeny-weeny perch (even weenier than the bass!), and a sunfish. The poor sunfish did not fare well, I am afraid: I accidentally brained him on a rock (or her), and he was already hooked through the gills. We dispatched him to the great pond in the sky, right after he spattered me with gore. No pictures of that, sadly.

It was toward the end of the expedition that I hooked what felt like a huge fish on the end of my line. I tugged on my line, trying to remember all of fearsclave's advice about keeping my rod tip up and playing the line and all that... only the fish wasn't exactly thrashing the way I was expecting it to. Perplexed, I hauled harder on the line, and was very startled to see a semi-circular silhouette emerge from the water and wave a very angry tail and leg at me.

"Oh my God, fearsclave, it's a TURTLE!"

I think I was more traumatized than the turtle, which executed what fearsclave termed a "long-distance self-release" and swam away, doubtless confused and offended by this turn of events. I was thoroughly discombobulated, although we both agreed it was a good thing I didn't land it: neither one of us really wanted to try removing a fishing hook from the mouth of an irate snapping turtle. I don't have a picture of the turtle as a result, but I do have a picture of me looking traumatized and not a little sheepish.

( Photographic evidence of my discomfiture )

fearsclave and I went back to the Fearsranch afterward, where he showed me a nifty way to clean the fish, and I chatted with Carolyn for a while. I also scored two jars of raspberry jam, and a baggie of Amish Friend Bread starter, which I'm supposed to feed in a couple of days. We had a beer and some Amish Friend Bread (made from the earlier batch of starter which spawned my current baggie) before I made my way home again.

A really nice way to spend the evening, overall.