NaNo

Ok, well, I've been informed that it's a good idea to make this public because if nothing else will keep you in it, shame and/or encouragement from friends and family will. I know my mother-in-law reads this, and she already brings it up nearly every time we talk (may she be blessed; nobody else does, and that lets me hide most of the time).

I went and did something impetuous. I regret doing it, but it's done and I'm not going to back out.

I signed up for NaNoWriMo.

For those of you who don't know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. People from all over the world sign up to write a novel in 30 days. The website keeps track of your word count and lets you post excerpts, find writing buddies, and get in touch with other local people who are doing the project. There's a weekly writing group going on at Legacy Village, which is halfway between home and work for me.

It will probably be crap. I'm not even positive what novel I will start writing two days from now. But I've said I'll try, and try I will. It is helpful that I have the next week off from work completely because my employer is going out of town, so I will be sitting at home watching her dog and being bored. Or will I? No, I will not!

I will be sitting at home, watching my boss's dog, and embarking on any and every conceivable around-the-house project that I can find to keep from writing. And when I've done all those, I will be writing.

Listen, I'm just trying to be realistic here.

I've got two hours before work, because Friday is a late-start day, and I'm not sure what to do with it. Maybe a trip to the library, or JoAnn's? Maybe just hanging out at home with the kitties. We shall see.

Mornings

I'm madly in love with my husband all the time, but I think the time I feel most in love with him is i the morning before I leave for work. The alarm goes off and one of us hits snooze so that we can have nine minutes of half-asleep snuggling before I have to get up and get ready to go.

Once I've gotten dressed and washed my hair, if I have any time left (and I almost always do), I sit in bed with the laptop and read the news and get my mind in gear for the day. And while I'm doing that, Dave is fast asleep in the bed next to me, but even though he's asleep he'll reach out for me and scoot closer and sigh, and then all I want to do is put the computer away, turn off my phone, crawl back under the covers with him and hug him forever because I love him so much that it almost hurts my heart to feel it.

Oh sheet

I am afraid of the dark.

As a result, every time I go into our basement at night (where the overhead lights are all burned out), I am convinced that I am going to die. Our basement is a terrifying place, full of the carcasses of someone else's antique furniture and bicycles, multiple boilers and furnaces, eerie storage rooms where the darkness is so intense that it looks solid, and, for some reason, a toilet.

My terror at having to venture into the basement is my only excuse.

You see, I had to wash our sheets today. I've been meaning to do it all weekend and, with one thing and another, it just kept getting put off. I realized this afternoon that time was running out and I really had to get it done, so I stripped the bed, bundled up the sheets, and made my way downstairs, noticing only as I walked toward the door to the basement steps that it was already almost completely dark outside.

It's ok, I told myself reassuringly. There's a lamp plugged in next to the washing machine. Just get to the lamp and turn it on, and you'll be alright.

So I girded up my mental loins, clutched our sheets to my chest, held my breath, and walked down the stairs into the darkness.

There was just enough light coming in from the windows to cast bizarre shadows over the spot where the lamp had been. It wasn't our lamp, so I wasn't particularly worried about theft. I was, however, aghast to realize that I was in the basement, in the dark, with no way to turn on a light.

My first impulse was to turn and run right back up the stairs, dirty sheets and all. But I knew Dave was expecting to come home to nice, crisp, clean sheets on our bed after work, and I didn't want to disappoint him. I made my way to the washing machine, holding up my cell phone in an attempt to light my way a little bit (it didn't really work).

There were strange noises coming from the other end of the basement, an area where I have never been, because it is always dark, even when lights are on. Things creaked and groaned, and something rustled in a way that makes me almost positive that there must have been some sort of animal there. I opened the washing machine, shoved everything blindly in, dumped in the last of our laundry soap, and started the cycle.

And then I ran. I mean it. I was out of that basement seconds later, and my heart didn't stop racing until I'd double-bolted the kitchen door and turned on every single light in the house.

This is my only excuse.

You see, normally I check the laundry very carefully as I put it into the machine. I look at each individual article to make sure that I'm not mixing things that shouldn't be mixed. Laundry is domesticated chemistry, after all, and anybody who's taken chemistry knows that you need to be careful about how you put things together.

But it was dark, and I was terrified and embarrassed that I was terrified, so I rushed. And besides, it was dark. Did I mention how dark it was? And the scary noises?

I thought about just not putting the sheets in the dryer till Dave got home to either do it for me or hold my hand while I went back down into the abyss, but I knew he was expecting clean, dry sheets when he got home. So, when his brother stopped by to pick something up, I asked him to come down in the basement with me and hold off any monster attacks while I transferred the laundry. Being a good brother-in-law, he agreed.

It was still really dark though, so I just blindly felt around in the machine for all the sheets/pillowcases/etc and moved them into the dryer.

When Dave did finally got home, there were no sheets on the bed. But, just as he walked in, the buzzer went for the dryer.

"It's dark in the basement. There's no light, and I was ascared," I said. Yes, I really did say 'ascared'. That should tell you how ascared I really was.

"Oh," he said. "Is there dinner?"

"Tell you what," said I. "I will make you some dinner if you go down into the horrible basement and get the sheets and make the bed.

We called it a deal and he went to get the sheets. When he came back up, he had a funny look on his face.

"Well," he said, "we have yellow sheets now."

I think I made a "bguh?" kind of noise as I turned to look. Alas! When I'd pulled the sheets off the bed, they'd fallen on the floor and gotten tangled up with a very pretty orange and red scarf that I recently bought. In the dark, of course, I didn't notice that it was there, so the scarf went into the washing machine on the hot/whites cycle with our formerly pristine white sheets.

Now, all's well that ends well, so I will say that the dye mixed very evenly with the sheets, and now it just looks like we've owned very pretty butter yellow sheets all along. We agreed that we'd both be more upset if the color wasn't so attractive.

Still, I really liked our sheets. They were an expensive wedding present, and I find white sheets to be a most delightful thing. I guess now I'll have to buy some new ones.

I just feel like an idiot, because it's such a typical, traditional kind of mistake for new wives and housekeepers to make, and I know that I ought to have known better. I feel like a character in a 1950's cautionary tale.

But it was so, so dark.

Markon '09

I can't imagine that I haven't mentioned in the past how totally awesome our wedding-stravaganza was. One of the awesome things about it was seeing all of our old school friends who we never get to see, and hanging out with them. Apparently, they felt the same way about it, because at our wedding some of them hatched a plan to get together again and hang out for a weekend.

One of them, Mark, decided that the perfect opportunity for this was his birthday. We all made plans over the summer, and this past weekend we got together for what was officially dubbed Markon '09. Mark knows Dave from the Order of St. George, a club they were in together in college (Dave was president for three years). So, all the old guard of the OSG group core (and their wives) rented out hotel rooms, road tripped, and met up on Friday night for some good times, old school style.

We carpooled down with Dave's brother and his iPod, which meant a rad rockin' in-the-car dance party that involved Dave and Matt singing along to ABBA's classic hit Dancing Queen. They knew all the words. I'm not sure how that happened.

Most of the weekend was given over to OSG's favorite activity of tabletop gaming. It's not something I've ever really done before, but I was willing to give it the old college try, so to speak, for the sake of Mark's birthday and Dave having a good time during the weekend. I'm not sure it's something I'd care to do all the time, but it was a lot of fun.

On Saturday night, everyone dressed up in 1920's-era costuming (more or less) and went out to dinner at a fancy restaurant. To be honest, the restaurant wasn't anywhere near as exciting as it should have been for the price, but it was fun to get dressed up and go somewhere nice all the same.

Matt, Cody and I play ADVENTURE!

On Sunday, we wrapped up the gaming and then all went out to Primanti Brothers for lunch. Primanti Brothers is a Pittsburgh institution, known for their crazy sandwiches, which have cole slaw, cheese, and french fries on them. It is magical and delicious.

It was a great weekend. Even better, though, was coming back to the kitties and our own home.

Ahhh...

For once, and I do mean for once, our apartment manager actually got on the ball and dealt with something immediately (have I mentioned that our shower is still broken and the only actual shower I've had in the last month and a half was in a hotel? It was amazing, by the way. I almost cried). Dave called at 9pm and the manager showed up the next morning and got the pilot going on the furnace.

Happily, that did indeed prove to be the only issue with our heat, and things warmed up promptly and have stayed that way. At this point, the only radiator that still isn't working is the one in our bedroom, and since I have mentioned in the past that Dave is a human radiator once he falls asleep, that isn't too much of an issue.

So, our house is warm and cozy, my brother in law is staying with us for the week, which is rad because it means an extra person to hang out with, and things are good.

But, it's 10:30, and I am old, which means it's time to go to bed.

House Woes

Le sigh. Ok, we don't really have house woes--our current problem does not amount to a woe, at least not yet, because we believe we know what the problem is.

When we moved in, the gas man came to light the pilot for our water heater/boiler et cetera and asked Dave if he should also light the furnace while he was down there (the house having three separate boilers and furnaces for the three separate tenants). Because it was the dead of summer, Dave said not to bother, and we continued on our merry way.

However, now it is not the dead of summer. It is the dead of Autumn, and Autumn in Cleveland is a chilly thing indeed. Our way, at least momentarily, is somewhat less merry than before. We went down to West Virginia this weekend for the wedding of our good friends Bill and Jenn, and then spent a night in Pittsburgh to hang out with old college buddies, and when we came back, our house was so cold that it required socks, four layers of clothes, an hour of cooking in the kitchen and a hot drink for me to reach a point where I felt like I was actually inside of a building and not standing outside in a remarkably breeze-free zone.

Unfortunately, the residual heat from cooking dinner did not last through to this morning, when dragging myself away from a pile of blankets and a husband who sheds heat like a furnace in the night became almost impossible, and made my teeth chatter.

This is a problem that has to be solved. I don't like to be hot, but I don't like to be freezing, either. Also, Dave's brother is staying with us this week and I feel bad having the house be a refrigerator when we have a guest.

Thankfully, it's a relatively easy problem to solve, now that we've put our heads together and remembered what we didn't have someone do in the summer. We put a call in to the landlord and asked if he could send someone to light up the furnace so that it can get hot and send hotness up from the basement to warm us.

If he has not come by the time I get back from work, I will be grumpy enough to consider going down into the Big Scary Basement and trying to figure out how to do it myself.

Potpourri

My dad and my brother both came down with the influenza, apparently. However, because my mom is a ninja and reads the same interesting things that I do (because we have the same Facebook friends, in this case), they've all been taking elderberry, which, as you may recall, is a magic gypsy remedy against the flu and all other diseases ever. As a result, my brother's already back in school and my dad was only really sick for a couple of days and is now just dealing with hoarseness and sinus congestion but not actual flu flu.

I am buying elderberry extract immediately. For serious. Apparently it tastes delicious, which is how you know it has to be magic, because since when does medicine taste good? Since gypsies invented it, that's since when.

Yesterday, I bought a sweater at Target. It was $20 on sale for $15 and tomorrow, after I get paid, I am going back to Target and buying the four other colors that they had, because it is a delicious and cozy sweater, and I'm a sweater addict.

One of my goals this year is to knit a sweater. I'm starting out slow with the knitting projects, though. For instance, in August and early September I knitted one (1) fingerless glove. That was to practice cabling, which you should look up on our good friend google. I didn't make a second glove, but I meant to. Now I am knitting two (2) socks.. that is to say, I'm working on a sock and hopefully will not be so bored with it by the time it's done that I refuse to start the second. Inertia is strong in knitting.

But next, oh, next I will attempt to knit a sweater. I feel like there is some degree to which one is not actually a knitter per se until something of that magnitude has blossomed forth from the needles.

Once again, I am delaying my leave for work until the very last possible moment, which means snuggling in bed with the computer and my husband under our heavy pile of blankets. The house is freezing, because we still haven't figured out how the heat works. When I woke up this morning, my teeth started chattering as soon as I made my exit from beneath the aforementioned blanket pile.

It isn't that I don't like my job, and I love making money, but it's so cold and 7:15 is so early in the morning to get up and 9 hours is a long day and you can insert more whining here. It gets repetitive after a while, I know.

I will bottle it all up inside of me for the rest of the day, and nobody will know. Except for you.

Not sick yet

Ok, so, here's the deal.

I work in childcare. Dave is a waiter. Both of those jobs involve a pretty high rate of exposure to pathogens, and when flu season rolls around that means that it's time to think about what the heck we're going to do to avoid getting sick. With H1N1 on a roll around the country, this only gets more true. Sick time doesn't just mean being sick, it means being broke.

So imagine my surprise and curiosity this morning to see a link to this abstract posted on my Facebook page, of all places (it pays to be friends with people in some type of medicine).

Seriously? The results of Elderberry Flavonoids compared favorably to the effects of Tamiflu and Amantadine? Correct me if I'm wrong, but seriously, doesn't this say that Elderberry works better against the flu than the $90 flu drugs that they sell at the pharmacy?

If this is true, and let's hope it is because that would be rad and I would laugh, it solves a problem, because I am paranoid about the flu and also have no desire to drop $180 on two rounds of Tamiflu if one of us gets sick.

So, I googled "Elderberry for flu", because google knows everything (duh). Apparently elderberry is an ancient gypsy remedy for flu, among other things. Gypsies, man. Everyone knows that gypsy medicine is practically magic and therefore has to work.

According to one slightly questionable site on natural medicine, they did a study of Eldberry and flu in Israel in the 90's and had a 100% cure rate in 2-3 days. Now, a 100% cure rate is less impressive with the low mortality rate of most influenzas, but the 2-3 days thing is pretty impressive, given that without it the flu takes 6-7 to go away, and on Tamiflu it still takes about 5. I have no idea if they're telling the truth, but it isn't like elderberry is bad for you. People eat that stuff for food. Also, they make wine out of it, so it's got to be good.

Homemade elderberry extract takes 30 days to make, and I'd prefer to start taking it, well, immediately. But, we don't live five miles from a Whole Foods for nothing. Have you ever seen the pharmacy aisle in that place? It is a cornucopia of herbal remedies and weird supplements, not to mention their plethora, yes, plethora of bizarre and outlandish teas. And I will also check CVS because hey, you never know.

If Whole Foods doesn't have it, there's a Middle Eastern import store and I am quite positive that google and I can locate a health food store in the vicinity. I probably wouldn't do it if it were just a bunch of naturalists and herbalists recommending it (much as I love herbal medicine), but an actual, legit study published in a legit science journal is worth checking out, and it can't hurt. The worst that happens is we drink a lot of elderberry extract and/or tea for a few months and still get sick and have to take Tamiflu. That isn't really the end of the world, right?

Ok, time to go to work. But seriously, you all think about that. And don't breathe on me.

My husband is not awake for over-coffee conversation, so a blog is in order

Once again, I am freezing and Dave is bundled up under three piles of blankets to continue sleeping until he chooses not to continue anymore, at which point he will get up. I'm snuggling in bed with him and the laptop for 15 more minutes, and then it's time to go to work. It was 40 degrees last night--Is it seriously time to break out the winter coat already? At 8:15 in the morning, it is 45 degrees outside, with a projected high of 65 for the day. Tomorrow, I am told, it will be 59 and raining. 59, I tell you! What am I supposed to make of that?

I have tomorrow off, which makes today Friday, in a metaphysical sense, and I am blissfully happy about it. Long weekends are the best, even if only working 24 hours in a week means getting paid much less than usual. I will cope, for the sake of an extra day of sleep to gird up my circadian loins before working 45 hours a week all through October.

Sock number 1 is about 50% done. I'm nearly finished turning the heel, and then it's just basic knitting until the sock is long enough to fit Dave's foot. The problem with socks, of course, being that once you get one done, you get to bask in your sense of accomplishment for like five minutes before you have to cast on and start the whole thing over again, and without the sense of curiosity and adventure that came with a new sock pattern the first time you knitted it.

I have decided that, at least as far as the Internet goes, people do not use outmoded exclamations often enough, by gum! I won't commit myself so far as to say that I will make an actual effort to use them (more) often, but if it occurs to me--if the spirit moves, so to speak--I will not resist.

After work, I will take some pictures of the cats, and of my jelly, and perhaps of the sock, and then there will not only be blog entries, there will be blog entries with pictures. By Jove.