And then I dropped, because yeesh, am I exhausted and footsore. But I had a great deal of fun, in large part because the shops were actually not filled with insane crowds this year, and all the special deals were still going strong when we showed up at a very reasonable hour. (I refuse to go shopping at 4 in the morning, just so I can stampede in and maybe get trampled to death. No deal is that good.) As a bonus, it really feels like winter now, as it's bone-chillingly cold and windy. It may seem odd to be enthused about this, but somehow I enjoy the brisk reminder that WINTER IS HERE; it makes the warm shops and bright colors and soothing cups of hot cocoa stand out in sharp contrast, their pleasure just that little bit keener.

Also, I had an excuse to wear my Snapely gloves for the first time, too! Bonus. :D

Anyway. I was lucky, found very good deals and not a few gifts, as well as some new sweaters, hoodies and socks for myself. Mission: accomplished. Now to kick back with leftovers and a glass of wine... oof, and a massage for my poor, abused feet. (Why do I always end up wearing some high-heeled boots for Black Friday shopping? I never learn. My toes hate me right now.)

I also had a call from Pharmacist!Snape (remember him?), who has proved himself to actually be a very sweet and intelligent man. Certainly more so than the staff at my doctor's office. ( More about that--ranting and bad language ahead, so be warned )

Anyway, on the the leftovers, of which there are a great quantity, despite there being fifteen of us for dinner yesterday. (It was lovely, by the way.) The menu, for those who are curious:

( Thanksgiving a la Bluey, 2009 )

And that's it. Now I'm off to eat some more of it. I hope you are all well today, as always.

The wine is poured, the turkey is resting and awaiting carving, the last of the side dishes are finishing up in the oven, the Lions were humiliated on national television... yes, everything is as it should be. Somehow, I even managed to squeeze in some time to dress and put on some makeup.

The minions were compliant. The house smells great. We're all having, in defiance of holiday cliches, a really good time. (Yes, even the cats.) I hope that all of you who are celebrating Thanksgiving today have as wonderful a time and that those of you who aren't celebrating have particularly wonderful Thursdays.

Happy Thanksgiving!


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Another exhibit from the "Bluey is a Dork" case file: I was humming a tune to myself all through my usual methodical morning routine without much paying attention to what it was. It wasn't until I sat down to eat my breakfast that I realized that what I was humming was the theme music from Dexter, at which point I cracked myself up. :D (People familiar with the show will, I trust, get what's so amusing about that, but in case you've never seen the opening credit sequence, take a look under the cut.)

( Exhibit A )

See why I was so amused? Dorkitude, thy name is Bluestocking.

In other sectors, the weekend was a mixed bag. ( Weekend Blathering )

As for this week, I am BUSY preparing and getting ready for guests and trying to prep for the dinner on Thursday. I did the Costco trip last night and just squeezed in a trip to the fresh market to pick up the turkey and the fresh ingredients--twas chaotic in both stores, but I managed to make it out without running over time or getting clipped by any of the marauding cars in the overstuffed parking lots. By Wednesday night, I must do the following:

( To Do List )

Yup, that's about it. I can do it. I can. I switch to a different to do list after that, but I can't think that far ahead yet.

Who needs sleep, anyway? I can always catch up on that while the Lions are receiving their annual holiday humiliation and I've guilted everybody else into doing the dishes for me. ;-)

The weekend was about 90% ick, consumed as it was by stress and headaches and work and many hours in the queue and several emergency beta jobs that needed to be turned around in a day or less. Yesterday wasn't much better, for various reasons that are probably best left undescribed. (Srsly, you don't want to know.) However, today is better, and tomorrow should be better still, so I am optimistic, if also really, really tired and already longing for the next weekend.

However, there are good things going on, and I am going to list them here in an effort to psych myself up to make it through the rest of this week's marathon.

( Five Good Things )

...when you're listening to the Ramones singing I Wanna Be Sedated and the first thought that pops into your head is, "Hey, you could totally do the jive to this!"

~headdesk~

My brain is a very strange place.

Happy birthday, dear Tonksie! You are a wonderful, witty, fabulously wicked woman, and I'm SO glad I got the chance to meet you in person. May your birthday bring you good food, good company, good beer and good times! And good smut. Wait, did I say that out loud?

Here's a birthday treat for you. I trust you'll know what to do with it. Note the flavor. ;-)



Have fun!

This may seem like a strange question, but can anybody tell me if my (not flocked, totally public) previous post is showing up on their flist view anywhere? (Said previous post consisting of a few shinies from SH and OWL.) I see it on my journal, but otherwise it seems to have... disappeared for no discernible reason. It's the oddest thing. It's like it never existed!

Or perhaps I'm going insane.

So. Can anybody see it, or is LJ having some sort of strange issue?

ETA: And never mind, because now it's back. Which makes me wonder how many other posts are flitting in and out of my flist view without anybody noticing. I think LJ is having ishoos.

The sun is shining in such a way as to charm even the most hardened and small-spirited of grouches. No bad mood stands a chance against it, so it's no surprise that I'm very nearly skipping my way through the day.

Nearly. It would look undignified with the long black coat, after all. But in my heart, I'm totally skipping. ;-)

I'm also in a mood of renewed cheerfulness because of some very nice news in my inbox this morning. My little Snape/Luna ficlet, Folie à Deux, has been named a featured story for the month at SH's Occlumency archive! That was really very kind of them, and they even gave me a nice shiny for it:

( Click for a shiny )

Thank you, Sycophant Hex and Occlumency! I'm honored. :D

And I also got a nice bit of flair for the OWL robes, all earned for the greater glory of Slytherin, of course. *g*

( Click for Slytherin Shiny )

Eight stars again this time, too! ~glows green with Slytherin pride~ I'm so proud of my fellow Slytherins and all the hard work they're putting into the House Cup effort, and I've really had a blast discovering talented new authors and making new friends over the course of this competition. It's been a delight, often in some unexpected ways. (If you'd like to join in, go here and declare your House. Slytherin would be overjoyed to have you, I promise, but you're free to go where you like.)

( Other babble: some thanks, and the possibility that I am living in a romantic comedy )

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Happy Birthday to two fabulous ladies who make fandom a better place to be. Red wine and chocolate cake all around! May you both have days as excellent as you are, and may the rest of the year be just as good. :D

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~pops champagne and raises a glass~

To Duniazade, the Kitchen Goddess--my beta, my muse, my collaborator, my friend. You regularly create stories that enchant me, menus that entice me, insights that astound me and words that comfort and encourage me. You're a remarkable person, and we're all very fortunate that you share your talents and your company with us.

I hope that on today, of all days, you've been able to enjoy good company, good food and--bien sur--good wine, and I also hope that the coming year will be kind to you. May it provide you relief, comfort, beauty and joy.

And more good wine, of course. *g*

~big hugs~ Happy Birthday, my friend. I hope it was a good one. And if you dare, drop me a prompt!

When I posted about my Halloween yesterday, dacian_goddess reminded me to actually post some of the recipes that I mentioned. (Um, DUH, Bluey.) I'm posting them now, for anybody who's interested.

These are all relatively simple and undemanding recipes, aside from a lot of chopping, grating and so on. But I can vouch for the fact that they taste good and suit the season. The Green Chile-Avocado Dip is a first cousin to guacamole, I'd say, and it's good with corn chips or just about anything else you might want to dip in it. (Halve the recipe if you'll only have a small group.) The Caramel-Glazed Apple Bread can be made and eaten with or without the caramel glaze; it's delicious and not overly sweet, either way. The Butternut Squash Cake was a big hit, and it's a really good choice for a party or potluck, because it's a snack-style cake, made in an easily transportable 13 by 9 inch pan. (You can convert it to a layer cake, if you want to make the effort, but it's definitely not necessary to fuss.) Additionally, both the apple breads and the squash cake are great candidates for swapping in unsweetened applesauce to replace all or some of the oil, making for a moist but healthier cake.

So, recipes:

( Green Chile-Avocado Dip )


( Caramel-Glazed Apple Bread )


( Butternut Squash Cake with Butter-Rum Frosting )


And that's all for now. Enjoy!

Belated Happy Halloween!

I hope you all enjoyed yourselves as much as I did. It was clear but very cold, so the kids had to once again attempt costumes along the lines of "Iron Man wearing a ski jacket" and "Tinkerbell wearing a scarf and mittens," but what brave souls ventured out were amply rewarded from the candy bowl. The kids were very, VERY appreciative of the pumpkins this year (see below for photos), and for some reason, they were particularly drawn to the Snape one. That amuses me greatly. *g*

Meanwhile, inside the house, we had enchiladas and green chile-avocado dip and a butternut squash cake with buttered rum frosting and toasted hazelnuts. The kids were effectively done for the night by 7:30, so we spent the rest of the night watching movies by candlelight and munching on leftover candy. We'd originally talked about scary movies, but the night ended up turning into a Tim Burton love-fest and triple feature: Corpse Bride, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Sweeney Todd.

Twas very fun. Very, very fun. So fun, in fact, that Jesus and the Unabomber were still sleeping in my Great Room this morning... which makes for quite the interesting sight when you wake up and pad over to the coffee pot. Hee. Meanwhile, I got dressed, fed kitties and have been enjoying a beautifully quiet and sunny morning while the caramel-glazed apple bread bakes in the oven.

~sips coffee, stretches, sets aside NYT Sunday crossword~

Yes, it's a wonderfully lazy morning, which is usually a prelude to some good creativity later in the day. :D

Anyway, the pumpkins. The winners of this year's pumpkin poll were Severus Snape (big surprise there) and Fawkes, and so they were indeed featured on this year's jack-o-lanterns.

( Potterish Pumpkin Pic Spam )

And that's all for now. Kitteh costume picspam later, perhaps. ~grins~

I have to feed Jesus and the Unabomber...

And I don't care who knows it. The sky is overcast, the weather is cold, the rain has been pouring for most of the day, sinuses are being their usual diva selves... but who cares? Life is good. Life is very good.

( Reasons why life is good )

And what do you know? The sun's coming out now.

Okay, off to get dressed and then out for the evening. Good evenings/mornings to all of you, wherever you are. If I can send just a little bit of this cheerful well-being your way, I will be pleased. :D

And also: "THANK YOU!"

The last year was kind of a lost year for me, for a lot of personal reasons. My writing output was extremely low as a consequence, and so I was really not expecting any nominations of any kind. Just having managed to produce something during that time was a victory in itself, you know? So when I got a nominations letter from sshg_awards, it was a shock. The best kind of shock, to be sure, but I'm still a little bit dazed, so please forgive any dorkishness, okay? (Okay, more dorkishness than usual. *g*)

I've been nominated in the following categories:

"Tidings of Comfort" - Best Drabble Series
"Let Nothing You Dismay" - Best Fluff
"Let Nothing You Dismay" - Best Short
"The French Connection" - Favorite Post-DH Story

And here's the pretty shiny that comes with those:




Again, what can I say but thank you? Thank you to the mods whose hard work make the awards possible, thank you to anybody who nominated my stories, and thank you to everybody who's helped keep me sane and afloat this last year through your friendship and support.

Truly, I am fortunate. ~hugs flist~

Nicked from camillo1978, tudorpot, veradee and others...

Ten books I love, and ten first lines--or first couple of lines, where appropriate. Chosen because I like them and they were easily accessible from the Book Pile O Doom. *g*

Leave a comment with the title and author, if you recognize any of them. Names are excised where they would be too incriminating.

1. 'XXXXX,' I said, 'may I speak frankly?'
'Certainly, sir.'
'What I have to say may wound you.'
'Not at all, sir.'
'Well, then-'
No - wait. Hold the line a minute. I've gone off the rails.
Right Ho, Jeeves, by PG Wodehouse, guessed by corianderpie

2. In later years, holding forth to an interviewer or to an audience of aging fans at a comic book convention, XXX XXXX liked to declare, apropos of his and XXX XXXXXXXX's greatest creation, that back when he was a boy, sealed and hog-tied inside the airtight vessel known as Brooklyn, New York, he had been haunted by dreams of Harry Houdini.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon, guessed by corianderpie

3. "It was a nice day. All the days had been nice. There had been rather more than seven of them so far, and rain hadn't been invented yet. But clouds massing east of Eden suggested that the first thunderstorm was on its way, and it was going to be a big one."
Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, guessed by ariadne1

4. "XXXXXXX XXXXX took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle and rolled back his left shirtcuff."
The Sign of the Four, by Arthur Conan Doyle, guessed by cosmiccoz

5. I sat back in my chair, jabbed the cap onto my pen, threw it into the drawer, and abandoned myself to the flood of relief, satisfaction, and anticipation that was let loose by that simple action.
A Monstrous Regiment of Women, by Laurie R. King

6. Three hundred and forty-eight years, six months, and nineteen days ago today the Parisians were awakened by the sound of loud peals from all the bells within the triple precincts of the City, the University, and the Town.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo, guessed by ariadne1

7. There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart's Desire.
Stardust, by Neil Gaiman, guessed by valady

8. Who that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt, at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa, has not smiled with some gentleness at the thought of the little girl walking forth one morning hand-in-hand with her still smaller brother, to go and seek martyrdom in the country of the Moors?
Middlemarch, by George Eliot, guessed by corianderpie

9. The Minotaur had been causing trouble far in excess of his literary importance--first by escaping from the fantasy-genre prison book Sword of the Zenobians, then by leading us on a merry chase across most of fiction and thwarting all attempts to recapture him.
Something Rotten, by Jasper Fforde. Kudos totudorpot and mundungus42 for identifying the author!

10. XXXXXXXX said she would buy the flowers herself.
Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf, guessed by dreamy_dragon73 and ariadne1 at the same time.

Poll #1477197 Pumpkin Poll
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 38

What theme should I use to carve my pumpkins this year?

If Harry Potter is the winning theme, which characters?

1. Good news: My H1N1 turned out to be a fairly mild case, for which I am very, very thankful. It was unpleasant and uncomfortable, but the Tamiflu worked and the whole thing was over quick-ish. The only lingering sign of it is the fact that I still tire very easily, which I keep forgetting in my zeal to catch up and rejoin the land of the living. I was actually good enough to get up and go out on Sunday, so I spent the day changing the sheets and washing things and generally de-germing the house, followed by grocery shopping and a bunch of other errands that had been put off while I was out of it. I overdid it, but it just felt so good to be out of the house; I'd been getting really stir-crazy and cranky. Besides, for whatever reason, we're having a spectacularly beautiful autumn this year, so it was a pleasure to be out and enjoy the reds and oranges and luminous golds and greens... lovely, lovely, lovely. I feel fortunate, at times like these, to live in a place where nature issues the occasional reminder that she's Pretty Damned Stunning and Awesome, thanks very much. *g*

Yesterday was back to campus and back to the routine. It pretty much kicked my ass, and I wound up exhausted again by the end of the day, but the fact remains that I am really pretty lucky, and I'm grateful.

2. Also good, if random: my iPod alarm clock randomly selects songs with which to wake me up. It's always an interesting adventure to see what comes up for a given day, but this week's selection is particularly appropriate: AC/DC's "Back in Black." Hee! Awesome. That just makes me grin in the morning. :D

3. Bad news: in my zeal to catch up with things yesterday, I did something to my back, which is really ow and not good. I'm pretty mobile, but something back there is definitely tweaked and letting me know it. Ibuprofin is not really helping with that in the way one would hope it would, and I am reduced to hobbling in a funny way. (Oh, the shame.) Does anybody have a spare masseur to send around?

4. Other stuff: Halloween is coming! I love Halloween. It's one of my favorite holidays. I've always had a taste for the macabre (my friends and family will regularly forward me links to virtual autopsies and such, saying, "It made me think of you"), and Halloween is the perfect excuse to indulge. Plus: costumes! Candy! What's not to love?

I've been remiss in preparing for it this year, but I still have a few days to pick up some candy, carve up some pumpkins and bake up some cookies that look like severed fingers. Or tiny little brains. Or maybe I'll do the gelatin-mold brain this year. Decisions, decisions... I may put up a pumpkin poll later, because once again, I have a lot of potentially great options and need to decide on a direction to take.

5. Also other stuff: I spent some of my sick time writing and sending in SS/HG awards nominations, but I also finally indulged my curiosity and watched the first episode of Dexter. Why didn't anybody warn me that this show is like crack? I've glanced through the novel, which was entertaining, but somehow the material really comes alive (heh) when filmed. Also, Michael C. Hall is far more sympathetic and appealing than any serial killer has any right to be. I am now addicted.

Good Tuesdays/Wednesdays to all of you. And get your flu shots! Seriously, do it.

This meme is obviously making the rounds, and since I am laid up and could really use the distraction... well, why not? I'm having fun asking questions and seeing the answers others have given.

The problem with LJ: we all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other. So ask me something you want to know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away. Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you.

So my brother has given me the gift of Swine Flu. Joy of joys.

I was hoping that it was just a sinus infection, but I dragged myself out to the doctor's office this morning, and she concurred that no, it's not bacterial and looks like H1N1. The good news is that it isn't as terrible as it could be (~crosses fingers~), and hopefully won't be as long as I take it easy and take care of myself. Was sent off with Tamiflu, a booster pack of prednisone (just in case it messes up my lungs), a warning to call if things get worse and strict instructions to take it easy.

I feel moderately miserable, but not at death's door. Mostly, I'm just completely exhausted and very restless and uncomfortable, between the aching joints and headache and alternating chills and sweats. (Hot or cold, body, hot or cold. PICK ONE AND STICK TO IT.) I've slept a lot over the last two nights, but I'm still bone-tired when I wake up. And I have zero appetite, although I know I need to eat.

However, I am safely set up in my Flu Fortress on the couch, surrounded by blankets and sleepy kitties and with water bottle, tissues, laptop and remotes within easy reach. The laptop feels very warm and soothing on my lap.

I'm too mushy-brained to come up with a clever way to end this post. Imagine I said something snappy, okay?

I think I need another nap.

I'm lighting candles today, both virtual and real, for all my friends and their families who are in need of healing and hope. You're all in my thoughts and in my heart today, and I'm wishing for the absolute best for all of you.

&hearts &hearts &hearts &hearts


Want to share the love and pass it around? Light your own virtual candles! Idea inspired by juno_magic and miamadwyn