Mortaine’s Blog

Yesterday was a very rough day. I can’t get into it all right now, to respect the privacy of a few people I care about. There’s a serious illness among my family members, Alladin got very motion sick yesterday on the road and pooped all over the bedroom (eww!), and our hosts’ dog died yesterday very suddenly and unexpectedly, and the whole family is bereft and grieving.

It was a horrible, rough, awful day. We’re in Hollister again now. I’m going to Santa Cruz tomorrow, and probably San Jose on Thursday for the STC schmooze. Working from home today, which will be kind of a relief, as Johnny is going into the office. We’ve had a bit of a hard time getting into a good working groove. Some days, it goes well and we just both tap away in different parts of the RV. Other days are full of distractions, and I can’t get anything done.

Today, however, my brain feels like it’s in a fog, which is understandable given yesterday’s emotional roller-coaster ride. Also, we need to get to a laundromat soon, to wash the comforter (from Alladin’s accident yesterday). I cleaned as best I could, but the whole RV could use a good vacuuming, carpet cleaning (or at least spot-clean), and dusting!

The good news about yesterday: our mail was delivered to our hosts, and was waiting for us! I got a cat training book that I’d mooched from BookMooch, and a pre-release copy of a new Ana Castillo novel, which I will be reading and reviewing soon.

[Note: ecto3 is too buggy to use, so I've tried to write this post about 4 times over the course of the past 24 hours. Am now posting it using ecto2.]

Birthday party was much fun.

Sad thing: my bike got dropped upside down when one of the guests leaned into it and knocked it backwards over the side of a retaining wall. Shit. Hopefully, Cyclesport can look at it this week and do my new-bike adjustment on it.

I shared my birthday party with Michelle, a friend of ours from the Santa Cruz 4 Wheel Drive Club. She made most of the food, which was excellent (kahlua pork and teriyaki chicken). Her birthday is Monday!

A couple of pics from the day:

Jeff, Sandi, and Ron (SC4WDC)

Devil Dog, aka Chica the adorable chihuahua. Alladin and Chica almost got along during the day:

Dan, Jeff, and a bunch of other SC4WDC folks trying to fix Dan’s tent poles. It seems Dan’s 3 year old son Jackson really likes to untie the strings holding the poles together and, um, disassemble them. They eventually got it, after much hard work and lots of jokes about suction.

Mick and Johnnyb

We made a lot of food, of which there is TOO MUCH left over. This was my birthday cake:

And last night, we brought everything inside, more or less, but did not wash dishes. Everyone went out on trail this morning, and I stayed back and did the mountain of dishes. Surprisingly, it didn’t take that long– maybe an hour at most. I just went methodically through the pile and when I was done, I had clean dishes and a clean kitchen. Yay!

In addition to the swift and winder, I also received a copy of Getting Started Knitting Socks (from my friend Michelle) and two skeins of (Lorna’s Laces) sock yarn in pink, blue, and brown (yes, the same colors used in my first pair of socks– but these are much warmer: like hot pink and turquoise!) Mick (from Jeep Club) gave me a couple of sticker sheets for my scrapbooks– soooo awesome!

Anyway, Saturday (the day when this post was originally written), I dyed yarn (yay), some of which didn’t come out very well. And I did the dishes from the party (oooo). And I finished reading a book, and almost finished listening to an audiobook. And I cast on for some socks using the pink and blue sock yarn and a pattern from the book (and winding balls with the swift and winder!)

Meanwhile, Johnnyb went off-roading all day, getting back after 8 PM. A couple of rigs had turned around (1 broke stuff, the other escorted), and when they still weren’t back by 9:30, they sent out a search party. Everyone was back home by 10, or so.

As soon as I post this, I’ll put up the video from the party (ooo, videoblog!), so if you’re reading on LJ, pop on over for the video portion of this celebration.

And a bit of meta-blogging. I found 13 Blog Cliches to Avoid today, and, reading down the list, I seem to miss nearly all of the cliches except the “don’t turn your blog into a gigantic pink diary.” Oh, well. I already came clean on that score.

 

 Birthday party [1:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’ve been awake for 18 90 minutes and have already had a bunch of wonderful birthday surprises:

MORE HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMAILS THAN SPAM! This was probably the best birthday present a girl online could get today! I had more comments (in LiveJournal) wishing me Happy Birthday than I had spam comments, and more direct emails than spam (in my inbox– we don’t even look at the spam filter). Keep ‘em coming, folks– I love Happy Birthday spam!

A virtual gift (on LiveJournal) from Jo! Eeee! Thank you, Jo!

My sister emailed me, and posted in her LiveJournal wishing me a happy birthday. I am amused– she says she would have called me at 12:30 AM, but didn’t want to wake me. Guess what? We have no cell phone coverage up here, so when the computer is shut down, the phone doesn’t ring! HAHAHAAH…..

Plans for today: Do some work (yes, it’s still a work day!) Finish the book I’m reading (it’s girl porn, but good girl porn, so maybe I’ll write a review for y’all. Open my birthday presents. Prep and clean for the PARTY tonight (a friend of mine has her birthday on Monday, and we’re throwing a Luau). Get firewood for the party. Dump the septic tank (I wonder if I can use my role as Queen for a Day to get someone else to do this…. probably not).

Also, apparently I share my birthday with Compact Discs. Happy Birthday, CDs! [I also share my birthday with Sean Penn, Daniel Boon, and my friend Susan H.]

My birthday cupcake and presents:

and what did I get….?

[For those unfamiliar with yarn, that's a skein swift and a ball winder: the yarn goes onto the skein, which rotates freely. The ball winder winds it into a little center-pull ball, making it easier to use in knitting without getting tangled.]

I’ll point out at this time that I took John to the yarn shop about 3 weeks ago after my swift and winder had already come in and pointed him at Pam, the yarn shop goddess, then politely looked at alpaca while he paid for the purchase.

So, I recently joined Swap-Bot, which is an online gift-swap site, like for exchanging craft items, or letters, post cards, etc. (My Ravelry invite hasn’t arrived yet, so I needed something to do in the meantime!)

Anyway, I started a couple of swaps that I thought the site needed. For one of them, sign ups end TODAY. That’s right, today is the last day to sign up for my Zombie Swap, where you send a present to commemorate surviving the Zombie Wars to two other people, and receive presents in return. The presents can be hand made or store-bought, and there are guidelines on the swap description.

In honor of this swap, I’m knitting something that caused me to observe today that “Knitting the second arm is much faster when it’s only a bloody stump.”

Check it out, and sign up if you think it would be fun.

John and I are practicing our “trailer trash talk.” He emailed Wells Fargo to ask them a question, and they replied (by email) telling him to call them (we don’t have reliable cell coverage out here). This led to silliness as we envision the email exchange trying to tell WF that we can email, but not call them.

In our best hickbilly accents….

Ah wood call yew, but ah do not have a phone. The pickup truck ran it ovah last night. Ah wood drive into tawn to go to a pay phone, but mah trailuh does nawt have wheels. Please send me some wheels, an’ I will go into tawn to call yew. Otherwise, replah to mah dam email.

…. it’s probably funnier in person.