The Shadows on My Wall Don't Sleep

After due consideration, I think I need a name for a small starship. ( Writing stuff under here. )

On other subjects, I survived the summer trip to see the family, though I had the lovely adventure of having the exhaust drop on the Jeep while traveling the NY Thruway. Thankfully my AAA membership was current and I was able to get a tow to a muffler shop in Canandaigua that was able to get me a new midpipe and catalytic converter (ouch!) and have me back on the road with only two and a half hours of delay.

There's not really a whole lot to say about the last few months.

I read a lot and despaired for the amount of romance crammed into otherwise interesting books. I read a very good original fiction novel by a fan author I enjoy and wished she had written more in that universe. Tanya Huff got me hooked into another series of hers.

I knitted some, but nothing that interesting since I focused on finishing a pair of socks identical to the last pair I knit except for being half an inch shorter in the foot. I'm currently juggling a few doll projects. One is finished and needs to be dyed and blocked, the others are all still in progress. Since one of those is destined to travel to Utah with the one that needs to be dyed I'm trying to focus on that one. Unfortunately the last couple days have been very, very bad with my hands so the 00 needles aren't fun.

I got an awesome haircut that I need to go have trimmed . I should have about two weeks ago actually. Wish me luck in getting it cut the same way again by a different stylist since the one that did the original is back in Massachusetts. There is one stylist I am pretty sure can do the cut, but I can't remember her name (I only had her cut my hair once before) so hopefully she'll be working and I can get her.

I lost a bit more weight, just enough that the awesome jeans I bought on clearance for $3.60 require a belt. I'm very glad I didn't spend more on them or I would be ticked.

And I think that gets everything caught up. Get ready for the NaNoWriMo spike in postings. :)

And it's going to take forever to catch up on everything, even if I did have email and skimmed LJ/GJ/IJ/JF while I was gone.

Well it took 18 hours to make the drive this time, not the best of trips this year. I got a good start (for me) on the road at 8:20am (which, considering there is only one bathroom and my brother leaves for work at 5:50am and Mom leaves at 6:30, isn't that bad) and while I did forget something it wasn't important.

The problem started after I got into New York, the first toll booth for the Thruway (Canaan for those that know the area) had an "emergency" and would be "closed for some time" after I had already passed the last exit before the toll. So I sat and waited for about an hour, at which point the lack of restroom was becoming an issue. So I checked the map and decided to cross the median and head back to catch the exit for route 22 from the eastbound side... and missed it somehow. :P So back into Massachusetts I went, stopped at the service plaza and then took the first exit off the 'pike (route 20 north) which was fortunately a zero toll (as the first five exits on the Masspike are). I then drove route 20 back into New York and caught interstate 90 westbound in Albany. The sad fact is that four hours into my trip, when I would normally be about an hour past Albany, I was still in Massachusetts.

Other than that most of the drive was uneventful.

At one point in New York I was hit with a strong scent of fried chicken, in an area with nothing but farms (made a nice change from manure, that's for sure!) and I can only surmise that one of the cars I passed was running biodiesel made from the fryer grease of the local KFC. The scent was so strong I craved fried chicken for the next fifty miles.

Both border crossings were quick and painless, only two cars ahead of me both times.

About 10 kilometers before the bridge back into the US the Jeep informed me that I had a "rear lamp failure" so I need to see what burned out. At least I hope it was just one bulb burning out like the time it said "brake lamp failure" and not a major issue. I just had the shocks replaced all around so I'd like it to be a simple, cheap, fix.

Michigan treated me to quite an impressive light show while I was driving on 69 and 475. The rain must have been stored up somewhere because it was like trying to drive in a waterfall for the short stretch of 75 before the first northbound rest area. I stopped there and waited for it to lighten up because it was basically impossible to drive in.

I did continue on after about 15 minutes, though it was still a bitch to drive in it was only "raining at night on an unlit highway" and not "OMFG, did I drive into Niagara Falls?"

When I started to have problems keeping my eyes open around midnight I stopped with the intent of napping while the rain passed by. This of course meant that when I returned from the restroom the rain had stopped completely. So I opened the windows and let the cool, damp air keep me awake as I booked it that last 150 miles home.

By the time I got home (2am) I settled on just brining in the stuff I had in the cooler, called the folks to say "home and safe", petted the cats, bathroom, PJs, bed.

Speaking of cats, mine must comfort/boredom eat, the younger ones are a pair of butterballs.

After all that hassle with the passport I didn't even get asked for an ID to get into Canada. I did to get back into the US though. I managed to hit both borders at times where I only had to wait for two or three cars ahead of me, talk about a nice change of pace.

Instead of the traditional thunderstorm around Albany this year I was treated to FOG, off and on pea soup fog from Albany all the way to my folks' place. :P

The internet here didn't need fixing for a change, but damn I have a lot of software to update....

[Yes, I did get my passport. It arrived while I was at Anthrocon. That would be... eight? maybe seven, weeks after I applied and paid the extra for expedited service (two to four weeks). I'll be writing a letter to try to get that fee back since I paid for a service I didn't receive. Somehow I doubt anything will come of it, the government wiggles out of things that a business would be held to, but it can't hurt to try and I could really use that cash back.]

The cats have been cuddled and are now inspecting the luggage. (Patches is giving everything a very through sniffing.)

Sleepy-time now.

Well the plan was to leave Wednesday morning, and as always happens with my leaving the folks' place that seems unlikely. It looks like tomorrow will be so full of last minute running around the city with mom that things like packing are unlikely to occur. So consider this a reschedule to leaving Thursday.

( And now for the absolutely huge LJ interests collage. )

Actually I got in around 2am Tuesday morning, I just didn't get around to posting here yesterday.

Dad bounced back and was actually doing very well before I even got there. No one told me this so I was rather stressed for the drive thinking I might not get there in time. I suppose I should be grateful that someone actually called me when he first went to the hospital since there have been numerous incidents where I found out about a hospitalization well after he was discharged. Still, a call saying he wasn't on the threshold of death's door any longer would have been nice.

While dad's medical situation turned out to be a relative non-issue (we've had several he-might-not-survive moments over the last decade) it was fortunate I was there to help my brother with his medical situation. Unfortunately this has alerted the family to how handy it is to have another person with a license, and no pesky job, around the house. Right before I left dad made an ominous comment about needing someone around the house because of the visiting nurses not living up to his standards and how mom might have to quit her job so I might have to come back soon so she can keep working....

Good gods, NO! My brother was trying my patience but having both him an dad home and laid up was pushing me close to homicidal, add in how mom reacts to them and I'm quite certain I would have snapped in some way. Homicide, suicide, hell at times genocide started to sound good. There's a reason I live 1000 miles away.

And now for some entertaining content, something the fans of good writing will appreciate (and have probably seen). Linked to the original page (where it is large enough to read).

One of the errands to be completed before Anthrocon was a haircut. The wait at the salon inside the super Walmart was about 45 minutes so I scooted over to Fiesta. Now I used to get my hair cut there a few years back (before I went back to Massachusetts for a couple years and got spoiled by Leigh at Connie's Salon) and I was okay with them, they just aren't as conveniently located as Walmart these days.

Anyway, I said I wanted an asymmetric bob, longer in front, severely stacked or wedged in back because I hate hair that flips out.

This is not the cut I got.

What I got was shorter in the front, and reverse stacked so it would flip out.

Now as you may recall from a previous post, I can't see without my glasses. I didn't know that my hair was being cut this way until it was far too late. I did get the back shortened up though so the front is nearly as long as the back but other than that there's not a lot to do about things until it grows out some.

Fortunately the new cut is cute, even when it is flipping out. Also fortunate is the fact that my hair laughs in the face of The Flip and wants to roll under anyway. Once the styling products are washed out it may roll under with little help. There is an upside as well, it cut a lot of the old bleach and dye damage out.

In the mean time I must deal with the fact that someone managed to make me look good with cute hair.

I don't do cute.

I am not cute.

But my hair is. For now.

Finished packing, heading out to FC tomor... later today. :)

Been busy the last couple days, most of it uninteresting.

( Jeeps and Hair and Stuph™ oh my! )

On a completely unrelated note, has anyone else noticed WinAmp 5.03 doesn't seem to pick up OGG files if you tell it to add an entire directory (recurse into subdirectories) to the playlist? Is there a solution to this other than remembering what music you have in OGG format?

create your own personalized map of the USA
or write about it on the open travel guide

Not bad for someone from a family that doesn't travel outside New England (and rarely outside Massachusetts and New Hampshire). It still freaks most of the family and many of the family friends that I drive a thousand miles by myself without giving it much thought.  And they completely spaz when they think about how I just hopped a plane and moved to Arizona without even having been there before, knowing no one, and having no car there waiting for me.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm really related to these people. ;>