Corner of Bourbon & Division

So I finally figured out the whole knitting-in-the-round thing, thanks to ai731. It was a lot easier than I had thought.

Thus encouraged, I called the yarn store today to order the rest of the yarn I need for my latest Soopar Seekrit Prodjikt, only to be told that my order won't be here for another two weeks.

>_<

Argh! If I had all my yarn now, I would have been *finished* in two weeks' time! I'm working night shift all next week and all the following week. It would have been the perfect time to work on this, but noooooo.

It's not the end of the world by any stretch of the imagination. I have no time limit on this project. I was just hoping to have it done sooner rather than later.

Bah.

Huh. Safari just auto-filled in my title for me. I guess I must've used it before. So I added another word in just to spite the auto-fill thingie.

Anyway, the day should be far from over, except that I got smacked upside the head with the Two-By-Four Of Tired™.

The day started out beautifully enough. I got up at 8:30, which was half an hour later than I'd planned but well within the one-hour-of-oversleeping parameters I allowed myself. I had a nice shower (not rushed the way I am on weekday mornings) and made myself bacon & eggs, which I specifically bought last night for this purpose. I checked LJ, and was out the door at 9:30 in order to feed the felines downstairs.

In feline news, Grimmie has ceased running away in complete abject terror when I come in. Now he stops on the first stair going to the basement before remembering that I am, in fact, his friend, and that I shall soon be providing him with food. Saash still hates me because I'm not her mummy.

I got to the rehearsal space at about 9:50, and spent an hour or so trying to beat "Enter Sandman" into submission, with little success. I stopped for a break around 11:00, expecting toughlovemuse and owldaughter to be showing up at any minute.

By 11:10 I began to suspect that band practice had been cancelled without my knowledge. ai731 is out of town this week, and karine had a last-minute scheduling conflict. I thought that it might not be an unreasonable stretch of the imagination to conclude that practice had, in fact, been cancelled.

My suspicions were confirmed when, then minutes later, a rather harried toughlovemuse came in. She'd tried to reach me by phone (impossible since I wasn't at home), had then lost her metro pass, and had encountered any number of annoyances and obstacles on her way to rehearsal so that I wouldn't have to wait all by myself for people who would never show up, which I thought was very sweet and totally above and beyond the call of duty.

We took advantage of her presence to continue hammering "Enter Sandman" into submission, and I am pleased to say that I have finally been able to play all the way through to Concert Letter D, although I'm still having a few problems in Concert Letter B with the placement of a cymbal crash.

After about an hour's worth of practice we called it a day, and toughlovemuse decided to be a bad, bad influence and take me to the quilting shop in Pointe Claire. :::drooooool:::

Repeat to self: I do NOT need another hobby. I do NOT need another hobby. I do NOT need another hobby...

I picked up something for a Soopar Seekrit Projekt. I am pleased. :D


After that we had lunch at a slightly overpriced tea room that adjoined the quilting shop (which was also overpriced, I might add), and then partook of ice cream at a little stand further down the street.

I dropped toughlovemuse at home after that, because the poor thing stepped on her foot wrong and sprained her ankle along the way. So we figured it was better for her to go home and put up the poor abused foot with some ice rather than continue traipsing about on it.

I left her safe and sound, and hied myself to Chapters where I bought myself a copy of The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel, which we'll be discussing at the next chapter of the Nebula Book Club this coming Wednesday. I've read about 10 pages so far, and I think I'm going to get hooked very quickly.

I'm home now. I didn't end up going to Loblaw's as I'd planned, because, as I mentioned I am teh t1r3d, and I have a very annoying headache, though it thankfully doesn't appear to be a migraine. I shall go to bed early tonight, get up early tomorrow and do all the stuff that I meant to get done today. It's not that much, I don't think. If I'm up between 8:00 and 9:00 again I should have plenty of time to get all this stuff done.

It's 7:15 now, or thereabouts. I shall do my dishes, settle down with my book for a few minutes, and then turn in. That sounds like a plan to me.

Stay tuned for more fascinating insights into the Life of Phnee, folks. ;)

The weekend went by in a blur. I'm not sure how that happened. Wasn't it January yesterday? I keep saying that, but it's true.

Friday was the NaNo wrap party, which was loads of fun even though I was drugged and in pain and not altogether coherent. I did read an excerpt of my novel, though. I was blown away by the quality of some of the writing. Well, at least, the ones I'd never heard before. I'd already read the work of several people there, so I knew that their writing skills were awesometastic.

Staggered home in a cab with baronscartop and ai731, and ended up passing out around midnight or 1am, I don't remember.

Was up at 8:00 the next morning, packed my stuff and tried my best to hustle my way out the door in order to go to Alexandria to visit fearsclave, the Wuh-Mun (who still has no LJ despite our best efforts), looking4wings and wultabat. looking4wings wasn't feeling 100% in the morning, so she took a nap while wultabat hoovered. I assisted in the cutting and peeling of carrots and potatoes, while we were subjected to the entirety of "A Tony Bennett Christmas." Some Christmas carols are not meant to be crooned, that's all I have to say about that.

Once that was done I went back to my knitting. The Supar Seekrit Projekt continues apace, and at the rate I'm going I think I may well have time for the Other Supar Seekrit Projekt I was hoping to get done. For a while I thought it might have to wait until after Christmas, which would be too bad. I shall not say more in this public forum, lest little pitchers turn out to have big eyes as well as big ears.

After a quiet lunch of carrot soup (oh, God, the carrot soup! ahem...) and yummy soft white bread, the Hordes descended upon in the form of looking4wings's sister, her sister's boyfriend S., and her sister's three children, aged something like 5 to 12 or so. Very nice kids, well-behaved and well-mannered, even though the youngest was a little hyper and climbed all over the place. Overall I was very impressed with them.

We (that is I, fearsclave, wultabat, S., and the eldest of the three kids) set out into the woods not long after to bag ourselves some Christmas trees. fearsclave pointed out one which looked suitable for me, and so I chopped it down without further ado. I then struck a triumphant pose, because it seemed like the thing to do at the time.

We staggered home triumphantly with our trophies, and fearsclave continued my ongoing corruption by introducing me to something he has decided to callGlögg. He put in a lot more rum and brandy than the recipe called for, and thus he and I got very, very sloshed. Not so sloshed that we were incoherent and sick, but definitely enough to make walking a challenge and to make everything seem a lot funnier. Mulled wine is very, very nice.

looking4wings made a positively scrumptious dinner, from which we emerged slightly on the wrong side of stuffed. You gotta love the holidays.

fearsclve and I eventually made our way back to the Fearsranch across the road, where I decided to stay the night. The Glögg did nothing to improve my driving skills, after all. Despite my virtuous intentions of going to bed at a halfway decent hour, I ended up playing this very addictive game called Bejewelled on his computer until a completely ungodly hour of the morning. It's like crack on a computer screen, and it just keeps going and going and going... I also briefly checked my email and LJ, just because I had access to a computer and teh intarnet. Whee!

We woke up later than we intended the next morning, since we were scheduled to go to breakfast with looking4wings and wultabat, but we managed to make it only about fifteen or twenty minutes late. I caught up quickly with the Wuh-Mun, but not nearly enough, so it's a good thing I'll be seeing her again next Sunday.

Bombed back to Montreal in the car (gas is so much cheaper in Ontario! It's not fair!), and headed directly to see luvenditti. Did not pass Go, did not collect $200. We vegged out for most of the day, watching movies. We saw Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which was positively uninspired. I haven't seen such poor onscreen chemistry since the remake of The Thomas Crowne Affair. We moved on to Madagascar, which was cute but not as funny as I thought it might be. It had some very good moments, mind you, and I suspect a lot of kids who watch that may end up becoming vegetarians. :P

We made a quick stop-off at the store, where I bought some cheap Christmas baubles for my new tree, and made another detour by the grocery store for a few more essentials which are too boring to list here.

Trooped back to luvenditti's just in time for dinner, which was also delicious (it always is), caught a few minutes of A Muppet Christmas Carol, and then ended up watching a Bill Murray movie called Scrooged, which was also very cute but not especially impressive (sorry luvenditti!). I knitted and we chatted, and altogether had a great time.

And, all too soon, I had to go home and haul my Christmas tree up the stairs (thank goodness it wasn't very heavy!). I put it in the stand that fearsclave generously lent to me, but when I got up this morning the tree had fallen over(whether it was all gravity or the cats helped, I'm not sure), so I suspect I shall have to do some bracing/tying of the tree when I get home today. Decorating shall happen Wednesday, when I have time.

That's all, folks! One day I shall not be in a position wherein I have to make monster updates to keep everyone up to speed. :)