Morning Secret

Every morning, I have a secret ritual that L knows nothing about.

Our little kitty, Joule, follows me everywhere I go but gets overstimulated quickly when petted — she starts to meow agitatedly or has to go nurse a dog pillow — and hates being picked up.

She’s more of a sidekick and we have a good understanding.  I know her limits well and now she even rolls over for a quick belly rub without immediately running off or murdering somebody’s hand.

Our other two cats are teddybears and prefer being held and snuggled.  Sagan will even bite you if you quit petting him before he’s satisfied.

L wasn’t ever really around cats before me, so he can’t wrap his head around Joule.  He adores her but wants to smother her with affection, so she avoids him like the plague and that makes him want to steal hugs even more.

Every morning, about half an hour before L has to get up for work…or just at 5:00 a.m. on the days he’s off, like today, I get my own sweet, secret little alarm.

It’s impossible to be mad waking up to a purring headbutt.  Then she actually snuggles down and gets her morning dose of chin scratches until L’s alarm goes off or he moves suddenly.

Best. Secret. Ever.

Stitchy progress of sorts

A week’s progress sure doesn’t feel like much when it’s so tiny!

That’s my first 500 stitch block and a bit of progress on the next set.  I ran out of needles, which is almost absurd.  There are so many colors and it’s hard to tell.

The one thing about it that’s driving me a bit bonkers, that you can see in photos but not really in person, is that some of the stitches are a bit looser than others, especially that first row and when a new color is added.  Guess that’s what I get for having a zoom lens.  Bah!

Shouldn’t be left alone.

L and I went to a metal festival on Saturday and then ended up going to another concert last night…with some of the same bands.

It was a bit of a weird weekend.

I ended up going angry old lady on one of the pat-down chicks at the festival when she opened my purse, without asking, started pawing through it, then grabbed my pill box and opened it in the rain and started going through it as well.  She obviously isn’t a medical professional so has no clue what she was looking at or doing and getting that stuff wet isn’t good for it, especially since my expensive migraine tablets are orally dissolving so were ruined by her actions.  Sorry, but not sorry; she definitely got one of my more passive-aggressive, over-blown, very loud lectures about how she could kill somebody by ruining their medication doing what she was doing because she was clueless and rude.  One of the managers ended up pulling her aside, so hopefully she won’t be doing that nonsense again.  I understand bag checks are mandatory in most places now but manners are still a thing.  Ask and I’ll open the bag and show you what you need to see.  You don’t just rip somebody’s bag from them and definitely don’t start messing with their medication.  I think if I was trying to bring in something illicit, I would have been a bit more discreet than putting it in a pill box.

As a contrast at the concert the next day, the bag checker laughed at my bag because it is so small (it’s a very tiny crossbody bag that my Mom gave me many years ago because I never seem to have pockets) and said I couldn’t hide anything in there if I wanted to.  He didn’t even want to look inside of it, just waved a metal detector wand over me and let me through.

I also somehow flustered the ticket takers at both places, to the point both had issues putting wrist bands on me.  I’m not sure what it is about me but it happens everywhere I go.  =/    L and his friends once tried speculating about it and only came up with that I’m unusually approachable and oddly direct to the point it’s disarming.  I’m pretty antisocial and really awkward…and a general giant…so I certainly don’t understand it.

It’s a running “joke” that I can’t be left alone anywhere or I won’t be alone by the time the other person comes back.  When we go shopping, if L goes to another aisle, when he comes back to find me, there will ALWAYS be somebody talking to me — either an employee or another customer.  Once at Home Depot he had a question about concrete paint and went to find an employee, gave up, and found me chatting with the regional representative for Behr paints who just happened to be at the store that day…I didn’t go looking for anybody, the guy had came up to me and just started talking, not knowing I was looking for paints (I was in a different part of the store).  When I was in college, my Mom left me in a parking lot in a random city once because a random guy beelined it to me out of nowhere and just started talking to me.  She thought I knew him from somewhere because he came up to me so confidently like he knew me — I think she was just trying to have me thrown into the trunk of a car.  She still finds it hysterical because the first thing out of his mouth turned out to be “Boy I sure am glad I brought my library card with me ’cause I’m CHECKING YOU OUT!”….and she was a librarian at the time.  The guy that pet sits our dogs always calls L sir and is super respectful, I go there and get invited to hang out and go smoke (which I don’t partake in) and get life stories.  I can’t be left alone with people.  =/

L and I were in separate lines at the venue this time and I didn’t think much of it this time until the guy at our local venue that’s known for being a real hardass actually knew my name and told me to have a good time.  I don’t even know how he KNEW my name but he did.  o.o;  All I did was chide him for asking a lady her age this time — I know he was doing it because he has to for the venue and for alcohol reasons, but I totally blanked and was buying myself some time until I remembered how old I actually am. I’m 30!  I should be able to remember that!  >_>;;  Poor guy was shaking when he had to put my wrist band on and ruined a few of them trying.  Then he immediately told an 18 year old kid she couldn’t see the show like it was water off a duck’s back and made her cry.

At the local show, I ended up picking up a sort of impromptu body guard.

Again, I can’t be left alone.

L was rocking out in his typical flailing fashion.  He really gets into certain bands and Battle Beast is one of his favorites.

L ran into the singer from Battle Beast somewhere in the crowd at the metal festival

L started his venture into music in the rave scene and isn’t afraid of dancing and being the center of attention.  He quickly attracted a small crowd of teenagers that were at their first metal concert and after filming him for a bit, they declared him their new hero and immediately started flailing around him in the same fashion for the rest of the show.  It was mayhem.  He was in heaven.  Those kids are going to be so disappointed when they realize that L is not typical to metal concerts…but maybe they’ll carry on his bizarre behaviors and make it a thing.  XD  They all seemed to be wildly enjoying themselves.

Regardless, some awesome stranger took one look at the bedlam that I was surrounded by, combined with my sprained ankle (why do I still go to concerts with an injured foot?!) and voluntarily took up post as a guard for me — he started out by acknowledging (I didn’t say anything) I was there with L then actually told me he was going to clear out space for me and did so.  He spent all night intercepting drunken jerks and pushing the overflowing mosh pit away from me.  The guy was a stalwart wall of protection — only one guy was able to bulldoze his way through and that was at the very end…unfortunately the guy that got through managed to land a kick full on my ankle.  He was drunk and stumbling and pushed by the festering mosh pit, though…and he apologized profusely; not sure if my “eat shit and die” look prompted that or if the looming hulk of a guy with me did.  L didn’t notice at all; he was still too busy dancing with his group of fanboys.  This was one time that my inability to actually be left alone paid off.  I know I thanked you last night but thank you, random stranger. ❤

…so it was weird.

…and now my ankle hurts worse than it has in a few days.

…and I still shouldn’t be left alone with people.  =/

Even the grocery clerk after the concert started telling me her life story and boyfriend drama.  I was much more interested in trying to figure out what on earth was with the chick with the weird metal vampire teeth caps and chains behind us.  o.o;;

 

Thread everywhere

At least with a sprained ankle, I can’t do much more than sit around and craft.  That’s positive thinking, right? 😀

L knows that’s all I’ve been doing because I’m covered in every kind of thread and fiber in my house right now.  I’m kind of a hot mess.  It’s totally worth it.

I –finally– finished Chapter 3 of the MKAL-RPG scarf.   I think after Chapter 4 is the turn so at least I’m starting the almost half-way home-stretch?  I’m sooo far behind on it that it’s ridiculous.  Hopefully it’ll be ready to wear by next winter?  😛

I’ve also spent some time quilting my Spock quilt.  I got about half way through with it and ran out of bobbin.  For some reason, running out of bobbin is always an instant mojo killer.  It’s now in time-out again until I feel like rewinding a handful of those little suckers.

I then swapped back to working on making blocks for the Skill Builder BOM; this one should be for June if I don’t just set it on fire first.  I’m not enthused about it.  At all.  I really don’t like samplers, remind me not to do more samplers.  😛

I am, however, loving how others are putting together the blocks and how some of the more experienced quilters are adding their own flare to it.  The next block in the series is about Y seams and, let’s be honest, I hate Y seams.  I can do them but if I can, I chop blocks up to avoid them….but it’s a good skill to have in your back pocket so I decided to go ahead and torture myself and put three Y seams in each block and 12 blocks in the quilt.  Nothing like practice to really force something into your noggin!  I’ll finish cutting it out at some point.  I also don’t like templates so this isn’t my favorite block. 😛

Any clue on what this block is called?

I know the name of a lot of traditional blocks but I keep drawing a blank on this one.  I sketched it out in EQ7 and it labeled the pieces (weirdly, I might add, because they all printed out identical so not sure why some got different letters and others didn’t), so since it wasn’t in the block library, there’s no fancy name for it.  =/  Big, dumb, huge, blank-ety-blank here.  =/

I’ve also bitten the bullet and started stitching my HAED.

I think I underestimated when I said it was going to take me a decade.

This is the first time I’ve tried parking instead of cross country stitching.  The pattern is about 645ish across, so figured working in blocks of 50 would be a reasonable enough number….and on 22ct aida, a sad two inches at a time.  😛

There is so much confetti in this thing, it’s insane.

I’m insane for trying it.

I can’t even tell the difference in some of the 14 colors in the first 50 stitches.   …but the last 18 stitches were all in the same color and that made me a very, very happy woman.

Ignore the shadowy blob in the corner. >_>;;

I got tired of gridding, so only did it in 100 space increments.  I figured that was more than enough to make sure I’m roughly on track without driving me totally insane.  I’d much rather actually be stitching than just weaving shiny thread in and out.  I’m probably going to regret that decision at some point and may go back in and grid out at 50 blocks since that’s what I’m stitching at, but we’ll see.

I may never finish this first 50×50 square. 😛

Grandmother visits for Easter!

I have a little plaque hanging by our door that says:

“All our visitors bring joy,  Some by coming, Others by leaving”

This time, we had some visitors that fit into the first category.

This was the first year that L and I have celebrated Easter in a while, most holidays just slip away from us unless we’re traveling somewhere to see family…and the celebration came to us!

My Uncle and Aunt brought my Grandmother allll the way up from southwestern Virginia to visit us for the weekend!

L always says Grandmother is what all grandparents should be like and, not to be biased or anything, but she really is.  She even made us a cheeseball (one of our favorite things she makes) and brought it in the tiniest cooler I’ve ever seen.

I wish I had taken photos of their visit (they did) but I was too busy enjoying myself.  They arrived Friday night and departed Sunday afternoon, so it was just a short visit but a fun one.

Grandmother doesn’t have internet at home but as soon as she found out April the giraffe was giving birth on Saturday morning, she had my phone and my Uncle’s Kindle and was watching the live stream most of the morning.  We ended up watching the actual birth on my computer since it has a huge screen.  She then carried some sort of media around all day to check on the calf.  If they had internet or cell service in her area, I think she’d be quite the modern woman.

Grandmother enjoys a morning walk and wanted to see the neighborhood — I know I’ve mentioned on here before that we live in a bit of a unique one — so Saturday morning after everybody’s recovered from the 13+ hour journey north, we started a two mile walking tour of my neighborhood.

…and leave it to me to fall over absolutely nothing halfway through.

…at the bottom of the hill.

…and completely skin my right knee and sprain my left ankle.

I was able to finish the walk home, even though my ankle has been very unhappy with me since — it’s about three time its normal size two days later.  L says I have to baby it because we have two days worth of concerts this coming weekend and there’s no promise of seating.  Gee, thanks. 😛

It was like I was three years old again with how they all wanted to doctor me up.  There was much disappointment on my part that I’ve developed an allergy to bandage adhesive as an adult.  I loved bandaids as a kid and would often wear them for no reason.  I would also play on my Dad’s old crutches from an injury in high school — people would call Grandmother and ask what happened to me when they’d see me playing on them outside at her house.  It’s too bad I don’t have a pair of those handy now.

Saturday afternoon we went over to see Albany.  We got there right as the Trump protest for taxes was assembling in the Empire Plaza — we had no idea — and being from such a conservative (incredibly, super conservative, insanely rural, coal-country) area, I found it hilarious when Grandmother exclaimed “Oh, give me a sign!”.  They all seemed excited to see the protest since they typically only get to see things like that on the news, so we ended up watching it for a bit and they took lots of photos.  It always makes me happy to see protests too — somebody has to stand up to this nonsense we have in office right now.

They all seemed to really enjoy Albany and I always enjoy when people realize how nice (most of) New York is and that it’s not all just NYC.  It’s funny how the rest of the world really seems to form that misconception, even L had it before he first visited here for his job interview.  He didn’t even want to fly up here for it (they were paying for the flight and hotel) because it was in NY and he was just sure it was all going to be one big urban sprawl.

On the way home we hit up the chocolatier that we always get Grandmother candy from when we travel down for Christmas.  Usually we just get a pre-filled box of assorted goodies (she swears they’re all good) but this time since we had her there, we got her to pick out some stuff she wanted from behind the counter.  She filled it all with peanut and peanut butter based chocolates.  She’s obsessed with peanut butter.  I don’t think she packed any on this trip because she knew I’d have Peter Pan peanut butter waiting on her (we both packed a jar when we went to the beach together) but normally a jar of peanut butter goes on every trip with her.

Yesterday we, of course, had to have Italian.  L wanted to be a really bad influence and take Grandmother to an Irish pub — and she was willing to go — but most of those were closed on Easter.  Thank goodness.  >_>;  The Italian is better in my opinion anyway.

She asked at dinner what I called the bag she was carrying — one I made for her in very modern and trendy patterns/colors that she picked out — and I told her I’d probably call it a “clutch” if she was carrying it on its own (she was) or “wallet” if she was carrying it inside of something else…and then I call her little red leather shoulder bag a “purse” or a “bag”.  She usually calls such things a “pocketbook” but had heard somewhere that calling it a pocketbook makes you seem old, so didn’t want to use that terminology anymore.  She cracks me up.

I hope they enjoyed visiting even half as much as we did having them here. ❤

Home again, home again.

The trip, aside from being in a car waaay too long, turned out to be pretty fun this year.

My eternally pessimistic nature usually prevails.  I worry and bellyache, then end up enjoying myself because it’s never quite as bad as I expected…or I get to be smug because it was just as bad as I expected.  Either way, I win!

Since it was our 5th wedding anniversary, L and our “preacher man” took their romantic boat ride in alligator infested waters as the hobbit groomsman — his wedding toast was wishing that the hair on my hub’s feet never fall out — fished from the shore.   I wasn’t invited on the boat but it was preacher man’s birthday, so I can’t gripe too much.

Always the groomsman…

Thankfully, I preferred my life in hammock city to outrunning alligators; we brought three down to the beach.  It was all fun and games until the birds roosted above us and then crapped on everything.

We feasted on the “Best Butts in ‘Bama” for lunch.  We’re creatures of habit and they catered the wedding.  I think there would be a riot if we skipped eating there, even though one of our friends is a vegetarian.  >_>;

Afterwards, the hobbit groomsman conjured himself a hobbit lady — his girlfriend was finally able to meet the insanity of the group just in time for our annual photo! — I hope we didn’t scare her off since she went along with our shenanigans. *-edit-* We totally scared her off.

I didn’t get to wear my huge heels for the actual photo because I was the only one that knew how to work the camera so had to run my chubby Angmarian self into the shot each time…without glasses and with that huge helm.  It’s okay, though, I still stomped around in them later.

The miracle of all miracles occurred this year — we had an even number of males and females!  Then when the hobbit found him a lady, we had more females!  For yearsss it has been a sausage fest….and by that I mean I was the only girl at almost everything.  It was nice to have a bit of a balance.

That night we pigged out at the always fantastic Cajun place.  The haunted bathroom was blocked off, though, which was a major disappointment.  The restaurant is in a older building and you had to walk through a creepy, dimly lit, hallway, holding your full bladder, then it dumped you in a decrepit, unlit, old ballroom — with a full sweeping stairway to a second story and everything — before you could get to the grungy toilets.  I hate going to public bathrooms…I always went here.  It was one of the best parts of the experience.  Other than the food.  The hobbit groomsman’s girlfriend remarked that he didn’t even need her after he kept moaning over his grouper po’boy.  =X

…and back in time for sunset at the cabin, overlooking the lake.

Five years ago, the wizard was our photographer at the wedding, so he snapped another photo at sunset of L and I.  I generally don’t like my photo being taken, but I agreed to this one…I can be nice sometimes.  L had to remind the wizard that five years ago our friend had to tell us to pretend to like each other.  >_>;

“Wood” Anniversary

We also had some fireworks, but the groomsman hobbit managed to drop one in the launcher upside down and exploded it everywhere.  Oops.  XD

Sidenote!  I ended up making our actual wedding sunset photo into a small art quilt at some point.  It was a fun project.

The above photo is from when it was in progress and being laid out.  It has been trimmed, sewn and framed now.  It’s hanging by our stairs now with the rest of our wedding pictures.

 

I need to learn to stay on topic.

I need to finish spray painting some rubber boots for L’s impromptu Tom Bombadil costume and finish packing, then I can call it a day.

We’re leaving tomorrow for the migration to see his friends.

We take a photo every year and in an effort to spice it up, we’ve started to theme them.

Usually we’re pretty lame and just choose to wear a silly hat or something.  This year, his friends chose Lord of the Rings.  I think they were wanting to rewear their outfits from our wedding (roughly Renn themed if it was set on the Holodeck; it was pretty weird) — it’s our 5th anniversary Saturday — I’m not rewearing my wedding dress ON my anniversary for a photo….and L has a food baby now so his doesn’t fit.  Sooo we had to improvise a bit more.

I ended up dying a shirt I made him a few years ago blue and we’re spraying some boots yellow.  We bought a horribly cheap beard and I’ve felted and fluffed it and sprayed it with about a ton of hair spray until it looks passable.  He’ll be a passing Tom Bombadil.  Better than his favorite elves, at least.  He didn’t want to shave to be an elf.

The decision was made entirely last minute so I didn’t have time to pull off a proper Dwarf outfit I would have went there.  I will not be a shorn beard and I will not do a disservice to their craftsmanship…so I decided to go a bit darker and pulled out a black robe and found a mask.  Witch King of Angmar, ahoy!

I was taking it seriously until L insisted I had to wear gray gloves and shoes to indicate the fact the wraiths wear plate or chain armor under their robes — he’s a big fanboy and takes Lord of the Rings entirely too seriously, as evidenced by the fact that he wouldn’t be an elf unless he shaved his beard.

That’s when I went to the costume shop and got silver smoking gloves and plan to wear my 5″ gray stilettos with it.  When photo time comes, I fully plan to show some leg and strike a pose.  Angmar will have never been so fabulous.

I’m 5’10.  L is 6’ish.  These bad boys don’t come out to play often.

In other fun news, my lap stand arrived!

I went ahead and swapped out my 36″ rods for the 20″ ones that came with the stand.  This thing is awesome!  Helps that I got it for half price too.  Half price always helps. 🙂

Actually, as a really cool side note that I’ve never mentioned before on here:

The table in my sewing room is really chewed up.  I’m sure the photo above makes that really obvious.  I redo a lot of furniture but have chosen not to redo this table.

I “helped” my dad refinish this table when I was little.  I think I was probably more of a distraction than a help.

The second reason I’m not really messing much with this table is that it’s old and pretty fragile…and even more sentimental.  It’s one of the few true “family heirlooms” I have.  If I understand correctly, my great-great-grandfather made it.  My great-grandmother, Granny, his daughter, was born in 1899, so it has seen its fair share of my family.  It’s much too short for me to use as an actual table (or maybe I’m just too tall; Granny and her siblings that I remember were all very short), but it makes a fantastic sewing table now that it’s on risers.

I think this was 1997 Christmas, making Granny 98 years old.  This photo was among several rolls of film I had taken when I was a kid (~11) and recently had developed. 🙂

So, off of that side rant.

Yesterday ended up being quite “a day”.  Meaning I was quite a grumpy, grumpy bear.

Leave now if you’re squeamish!

The little dog had an appointment at the vet for a tooth cleaning.

She had one infected tooth that we feared may need to come out; it wasn’t causing her any obvious pain, but it was swollen and a bit of pus oozed out if you pushed it near the gums.  Gross, I know.

Our normal vet just came back from a hip replacement, so is booked solid for a few weeks.  The vet said it wouldn’t really matter since the tooth didn’t seem to be hurting her or affecting her piggy appetite.

I trust our vet.  We’ve moved a lot and we’ve had a lot of vets.  This one is probably my favorite.

He’s very old school and no nonsense; more of the “animals are animals” breed of guy — dogs will be dogs and snarl at weird guys that are stabbing them with needles, cats will bite when you put your finger in their mouths.

I wanted to wait until our vet had an opening.  L wanted it done immediately because he was sure it was really hurting her.

I capitulated.

I regret it.  So, so badly.  I don’t regret many things in life, but this one, I regret.

L was supposed to pick up my little dog — she’s MY dog now, he makes no decisions about her any longer — at 4:30.  The vet isn’t that far away; he took her to the back up vet hospital we use when ours is out of town or closed.

…two hours later, he’s still not home and not answering his phone.

So I’m already panicking because it’s raining like mad and he’s not always the best driver in bad weather (the roads are crap here and almost impossible to see when it’s raining because of the reflections), much less when a dog is there to distract him…and he had to come a long way from work and there are some other bad drivers out there.

Then the doorbell rings.

Uhhhh.

…and there is L.  On the doorstep.  Crying.

Of course I jump to a million conclusions and just about have a heart attack.

Why did he ring the doorbell?  Why is he crying?  Where the hell is the dog?

Thankfully the little dog decides to run around the corner and into the house.

He rang the doorbell because the little dog was sick from anesthesia and pain meds.  She’d had a massive, poopy blowout all over him and the car, so he was covered head-to-toe in dog crap (which was hilarious) and didn’t want to touch his keys or the doorknob to the house.

L is crying because not only is he covered in poop, but he has to deliver some news he knows I’m going to be FURIOUS over…and he’s right.

That’s a vial of teeth.

The crazy butcher (certified dog dentist, mind you) ended up taking out SEVEN of her teeth.  The infected one (far left) plus six more that, if you look at them, weren’t bad?

He seriously took out 6 of her front teeth because “she doesn’t need them”.  Most of them were her front teeth…which dogs do use to remove stuff from their fur, including fleas, ticks, burrs, etc…  If they didn’t use the teeth, I don’t think they’d still have them…

WHAT. THE. FUCK?!

He just removed 16% of her teeth?!

Thankfully L thought to ask for the teeth to take to our vet so he can inspect them to make sure they weren’t actually rotten or something, but to me they look just fine other than covered in her gum tissue.  It’s not like he can put them back in though.  😦

I hope he can go old man crazy on the other vet.  There has to be some sort of veterinary board or something this guy can be reported to…because it just seems cruel and unreasonable to me.

The little dog kept waking up whining through the night, even though she’s on pain meds.

She’s a resilient little thing and doesn’t complain much — usually only when we leave her. Even when L stepped on her, she only yelped when he actually stepped on her then whined when we had to leave her at the emergency vet.

That was a complete accident; she was only 7 weeks old and we’d only had her for a week so he wasn’t used to having a little thing literally underfoot.  He was out in the yard and she was following him around and he stepped backwards and didn’t realize she was there.  No permanent damage, thank goodness, but she had to be hospitalized for three days — one of her lungs swelled shut and the other only had 20% function, so she had to stay in an oxygen chamber until her lungs recovered enough that she could get enough air in the normal atmosphere — two days at the emergency vet over the weekend and an additional day at the animal hospital when they opened on Monday.

Picking her up on Moday from the emergency vet to transport her to the animal hospital for another day in oxygen.  She was so tiny! ❤

So not only did L have to deliver the news that my poor little dog can now only gum people to death, but then he had to deliver the blow that the vet charged over $700 to mutilate her.

I about died…as in popped blood vessels in my brain from anger.

…and then I almost killed L for insisting on taking her to a different vet then agreeing to let them do whatever they wanted to her.

No wonder he was crying.  Ugh.

Seriously though, he was crying ’cause everything was covered in poop and he knew I’d be so upset/worried about the dog that I’d refuse to help clean the car in the pouring rain.  He was right…and it was awful.

The night L stepped on her, our neighborhood ghost skunk sprayed him when he took our big dog out for a walk.  He’s always considered it her revenge.  I consider the poop blowout her revenge for the teeth.

L said he’s not sure which is worse.

(Trust me, it was the skunk.)

Wrong side of the bed…and a L rant.

Color me grumpy today.

Isn’t it weird how even though you can go to bed perfectly fine and happy but wake up a total bear?

I think I’m just stressed.

 

In happier news, I was brilliant and gave L a game for his birthday last week.  I want to thank my past self for that a thousand times.

As a bit of background, since we’ve been together, he’s not wanted to play any one player games.  Which was kind of cute at first…but it’s a really frustrating 10 years later.  I also like gaming and there are a lot of fantastic one-player games.  If the story is good enough…and if he quits playing bumble-bee cam to the point of making me motion sick…I don’t mind swapping out and beating a game together.  I really miss Link and Kratos. 😦

But he always, always, ALWAYS wants to be a team…and not just with games.

If I get dressed first, he finds a matching outfit to wear.  If my medicine is hitting and I zonk out, he wants to go to bed too.  If I go wash dishes or laundry, I turn around and slam into him because he’s ninjaed into the room behind me while the water was running.  He’s not actually being helpful or contributing, he’s just there because I’m there….which drives me INSANE.

It’s not even the annoyance of having somebody literally right behind you, it’s also a safety thing.

When does he always want a hug?  When I’m holding a super sharp knife chopping  food or cooking at a hot stove.  My arm is scarred from my iron because he’s jostled me into it while looking over my shoulder.  I’ve cut my finger to the bone while dicing vegetables because he’s bumped my elbow.  I’ve had burn blisters on my hands from not being able to get away from the broiler or popping pans because I couldn’t jerk my arm back because he was there blocking it.  I’ve sewed through a fingernail (thank goodness I have long nails and it wasn’t a finger!) because of he’s knocked into my chair.  I know it seems like a lot of blame and I know I’m doofy, but that’s a lot of “accidents” involving somebody else.

I’ve fallen down the stairs, had a concussion, broken my nose, had black eyes, and other weird stuff all because of bizarre “L is nearby” accidents.  It sounds crazy because it is.

Then there’s the super rare occasions that I somehow leave a room and he doesn’t notice; he actually panics and runs through the house screaming for me, like I’ve completely disappeared from the planet.

I guess it’s good that he always wants to be up my butt but there’s no alone time.  No sanity time.  No breathing space.

Back to the point!

I got him a one player game:  Berserk and the Band of the Hawk.

He’s obsessed with Berserk and loves Dynasty Warriors/Warriors Orochi play style (both great two player fighting games, so we play a lot of them)…and there’s an end eventually so I don’t have to monitor his playing.  Win/win!

Again, what does it matter?

I got to knit on Friday while we were waiting for the electrician to come by!

It’s not a whole lot of progress (I had up to the dark band with the light squiggle all across it, above the paw prints), but it’s enough to make me happy.  I hadn’t been able to work on this RPG scarf in about a month.

I was also able to finish rewatching Claymore!  While knitting!

AND I finished our federal tax return yesterday!  We get our information really late…though early this year, usually it doesn’t show up until about the Friday before they’re actually due to be filed so this is a bit luxurious.

Normally I wouldn’t have been able to do any of those things when L is home.

This Berserk game is going to save my sanity for a little bit.  ❤