ridesandruns

09:11 pm: Meanwhile, here at the office . . .
Reader called up my boss and yelled and screamed for 20 minutes over our coverage of swine flu. Reader felt very strongly that we hate pigs (evidenced by our use of the term "swine flu") and are making no effort to hide it. Reader said we should be ashamed of our "bigotry."

Another reader called me and spent 15 minutes ripping into me for our coverage of the Mideast. Reader was angry that we don't make it clear that Palestinians live in Pakistan. When I pointed out that that's because Pakistanis live in Pakistan, reader called me an ignorant bitch and hung up.

Now I understand why our circulation is dropping. The sane people don't read us anymore.

10:00 am: An update
OK. So after my angst over Jerky Friend, I overcame my aversion to confrontation and told him he was being a jerk. Well, actually I told him he was being insensitive. I explained why, didn't get mean, didn't get profane, blah blah blah. And he got all hysterical and told me how much I'd hurt his feelings.

And I reflected on the people who told me to just cut him off, and how right and wise they were.

So anyway. After some back-and-forth handwringing, he apologized and we're kinda sorta past it. I get the feeling he still thinks I'm a pitiful, bitter spinster, but screw it. I don't do confrontations, so I'm taking comfort in knowing that I located my spine for once, and the world didn't end. I think I need to do that more often.

And in other news, I'm enjoying the fact that NCIS is kicking ass in TV ratings, that the people who make marshmallow Peeps have created a line of chocolate mousse-flavored marshmallow Halloween cats (Oh, hush -- at least try them before you gag! They're good!) and that I have a lovely Halloween 10K T-shirt attesting to my ability to run 6.2 miles without stopping. So whee!

07:58 am: Signs it will be a craptastic day
So I have this friend/colleague person I never see any more, being that we're several time zones away, but we keep in touch through e-mail a couple of times a year. Two years ago he got married after years of whining about his inability to meet women, and he's been very content ever since. Good for him.

But. I don't know if he's morphed into an asshole, if he's suddenly misplaced his sensitivity, or if he's just so blissful in his marriage (and his newborn daughter) that he thinks everyone should follow his example, but Christ is he pissing me off.
( More whining follows )

08:00 am: Fic: Wilderness Experience
Wilderness Experience
Rating: T for profanity, snark and complete lack of plot
Characters: Scott, Warren, Logan. Many others mentioned.
Summary: Scott’s enthusiastic about camping. No one else is.
All standard disclaimers apply. I own no one and nothing but Darwin the Beagle and Lola the Siamese cat. I deny the existence of “X3,” I haven’t seen “Wolverine” and my grasp of canon is iffy. Odds are I’ll be laid off soon, so good luck trying to sue me. Many thanks to rachel_martin64 for the beta. Is she awesome or what?

( Wilderness Experience )

12:49 pm: Signs you really need to get back to LJ
1) People read you fic from a year or two ago and write to ask if you're dead. (Honest to God.)

2) You attempt to sign on to LJ and realize you've forgotten your password.

3) Your last public entry was almost a year ago.

So it's time to get back to it. So while RL continues to pretty much stink (sister still a loon, elderly kitty still on-and-off sick and job looking to evaporate early next year), I am fighting back. Conjuring my inner Wolvie, enhanced with a dash of Lola, because Siamese is a good thing to be. I'm retooling my resume so I can change careers. I'm doing Assorted Job Shit to make the career change easier. And I've gotten off my ass and finished a story I've been messing with for more than a year. Rachel has it now, God bless her patient little heart.

And to apologize for being such a bad LJ pal, I offer all you writerly types a NYC-area gift:

Marvel is looking for a supervising proofreader. Get the details here. If I were still in commuting distance of NYC, I'd be all over this. I suspect the pay is crap, but hell, it's Marvel! Who wouldn't want to edit comics for a living?!?

11:57 pm: Yes!
Rosa sat so that Martin could walk.
Martin walked so that Barack could run.
Barack ran so that our children could fly.

God bless America.

09:48 am: A short update
This &^%$ing election cannot be over soon enough.
You would not B*E*L*I*E*V*E the &^%$ing whackjob calls/mail/etc. we're getting at work these days. I've been doing this for a long time -- this is my fifth presidential election -- and I've never seen the loon factor this high.

Fandom, I love this, I miss thee and I shall return shortly after Nov. 4. On the plus side, I'm connecting with my inner Logan as never before.

12:09 am: Work, work, work, bitch, moan, work some more
I'm up to my ass in work. I say that often, and I'll be saying it more often at least until the election is over.

Really sick of politics, office and presidential, by now.

My work schedule is all screwy, and I'm weary and crabby. When I finally get two consecutive days off, though, I'd like to write some fanfic. I have an idea about Scott and camping. I keep writing pieces of things, but it's hard for me to have the time, the inspiration and the motivation all at once.

One more week until I get a two-day weekend.

09:22 pm: Baby elephant!
When the going gets tough, the tough (or in my case, the neurotic and anxiety-riddled) indulge in news stories about baby elephants! With video!

I adore elephants. I was appalled to learn that they routinely kick their newborns to make them stand up, but then it occurred to me that if I'd been pregnant for the better part of two damn years my patience might be in short supply, too.

But yay for the baby elephant! So cute! So fuzzy! With little flappy ears and a little trunk it lacks the motor control to use properly!

11:57 am: So I've been busy attempting to tame my work-related angst, knitting a very cute little lion hat for a friend's baby (I'd post a pic but my computer's not letting me at the moment -- AOL Pictures is being evil), and pulling OT to help with Olympic coverage. (Michael Phelps is amazing. Mark Spitz is a jerk. And boy do I feel bad for the runners. A running buddy of mine went to Beijing a few years back on business and attempted to run outdoors. Nothing major, just five or six miles. Ended up coughing blood. God help the marathoners. One of the world's top runners bailed out of the race rather than compete in such a polluted environment, and I don't blame him. A guy I work with is over there covering stuff, and he says the air's unbelievable. And he's from freakin' Newark. Gah.)

In other randomness, can someone please tell me when "sassy" and "cheeky" became such popular words, and when exactly people decided they were positive attributes? In my mind, saying you're "cheeky" means you're rude as hell, you know it, and you take pride in it. And if your kid is "sassy," it means you've raised a brat. Period. I, for one, am neither "sassy" nor "cheeky." I skew more toward "surly" "snarky" and "unpleasant," thank you very much.

12:36 pm: Aww
I had to swing by the vet's today to pick up a bag of prescription cat food, and for the first time in my life I'm wishing I had a cell phone that could take photos. (Yes, I'm a low-tech troglodyte. I don't even have electric windows in my car.)

At the vet's there was the cutest. puppy. ever. in the waiting room. A teeny-tiny beagle, 9 weeks old, all tail and tongue and floppy ears, so young his little pads were all pearly pink because he'd never walked outside. He was baby!Darwin in the flesh, or in the fuzz, really -- he still had that fuzzy puppy coat! -- and he was adorable. His name in Angus and he was getting a checkup, and his owner said he really, really likes to chew things. I've heard other women wail about their biological clocks and baby rabies, and although I've never experienced that, I imagine it must feel an awful lot like what I feel when I see puppies. Namely, Oooh!Solittle!Socute!Iwant!Iwant!Iwant!Oooh!

I've been feeling really low lately, and seeing that beagle was just what I needed. Well, that and a career that isn't likely to leave me laid off/outsourced/suicidal, but I take what I can get. :)

12:09 am: Sick yet funny
Overheard at work tonight: "Don't you think it's a bit of an understatement to say this (police operation) went 'awry'? They shot the guy in the head!"

12:54 pm: Diet aids
I've always been the sort of person who, if a mugger demanded, "Your money or your life!" would have to do a pro-and-con list. So you can imagine my joy when I went grocery shopping today -- for a smallish haul -- and the bill came to nearly $70. Coupons and such knocked it down to $57, but I'm still reeling. WTF?

Mind you, I'm single and childless. So that's almost $70 to feed me for a week. Cat litter and saline solution for my contacts was $20 of it, but still. (I'm very brand loyal to those two items, because I've learned the hard, stinky way that my cats have very strong litter box preferences. And as for the saline, I feel brand loyalty is warranted when it comes to stuff that can blind you.) I don't drink soda or coffee. I wasn't buying meat. (The protein in this haul came from four cans of garbanzo beans and two cans of tuna.) No cereal, where you pay $5 for a box of air and some oats. I buy a helluva lot of produce, but it's not organic. (This goes back to my cheapness -- I know that organic is better for you and that pesticides will kill you, but I figure I'd rather die of pesticide poisoning in 20 years than have a stroke at the checkout now when my produce bill is added up, you know?) I buy stuff in season, mostly. My prepeeled baby carrots and sugar snap peas and bagged spinach are killing me. Just how in hell are people with families managing to feed them? Christ.

Me, I'm starting to wonder if this isn't all some government plot to combat obesity. I don't buy a whole helluva lot of junk food, and now I'm gonna buy even less. (Though I did spring for $3 worth of gummy bears. They were on sale! And they're fat free!) Much as I love chocolate and ice cream and assorted other dreadful-for-you things, I love my money more. Miserliness uber Milky Ways. It's a dark day, friends.

12:14 pm: Yarn wars
Three people in my office are having babies, so I've been up to my eyeballs knitting for them. (My standard baby gift is a blanket, a jester hat with pompoms, and a pair of wool socks for the mom, on the theory that anyone enduring pregnancy/childbirth/adoption/motherhood-in-general deserves warm and pretty feet.)

On one of the knitting boards I frequent, there's this incredibly heated debate -- more than 500 posts! and counting! -- about knitting with acrylic and how it'll kill your baby. Honest to God. The argument is that acrylic, as a man-made fiber, will melt when it comes into contact with flame, whereas cotton will burn and wool is mildly flame-retardant. (Wool will burn if it comes into direct contact with flame, but it'll go out when the flame is removed; it won't keep burning the way cotton will.) The other side of the coin is that acrylic wears very well and is machine-washable and -dryable, which is key for kids, and for the adults who have to wash their clothes.

Me, I maintain that giving a new parent an item that needs to be hand-washed is an act of passive aggression, if not downright cruelty. And that if your kid is exposed to open flame, the fiber content of his blanket is the least of his problems. Honestly, acrylic has a pretty high melting point -- the only way one of my blankets is gonna melt on the kid is if his parents wrap him in it, then turn all four stove burners on and place him atop them. So I'm feeling good about my blankets, knitters' hysteria be damned.

10:39 pm: All that worry . . .
. . . and the cat tests negative for heartworm and for thyroid problems. Aside from the minor kidney problem, she's OK. I gotta call the vet Monday and get some meds for her arthritis, but that's nothing new. Thanks to everyone for putting up with my fretting, for making me feel better and for sending good vibes my kitty's way.

( Scoop thanks all her LJ friends )

12:09 pm: Waiting
Took Scoop, my white kitty, to the vet today, since she's the one who's been drinking a ton of water, and her arthritis has gotten very bad lately. The vet drew some blood and is gonna test it for all kinds of things. Said the Big Three worries right now are kidney function, thyroid function and diabetes. He said she looks good for her age, though. He had a hard time listening to her heart because she was purring. He's gonna call me tonight with the bloodwork results. Here's hoping that a) it's good news; and b) that if it's bad news, that I don't start crying at work.

ETA: Vet says she definitely doesn't have diabetes, but she may well have very early stage kidney disease. He's putting her on a special cat food that'll be easier on the kidneys, and he's doing a more precise thyroid test, as well as testing her for heartworm. (I didn't even know cats could get heartworm, but he says it's becoming common in cats on the East Coast.) I'll get the heartworm results tomorrow and probably the thyroid Friday. The good news is that whether she has heartworm, thyroid problems or both, it's all treatable.

10:05 am: Damn, damn, damn
Ever have one of those periods where nothing goes right? And little things mushroom into big things?

( Cut for gratuitious whining )
*whimpers*

On the plus side, today is World Wide Knit in Public Day! Granted, in my life, every day is Knit in Public Day, but what the hell. I'm going downtown before work, where I will gather will other members of my tribe in a fiber lovers' show of force. And I'll get to ooh and aah over other people's projects, and show off my latest pair of destined-for-a-friend socks.

09:20 pm: Timestamp meme
Hallie and rachel_martin64 wanted 35 hours after "The Call of the Wolverine." Featuring Jean, Scott and Darwin the Beagle.

( Thirty-five hours later . . . )

11:41 am: Timestamp meme
For jeangreyrocks, who wanted 10 years before "Frosty Relations." Featuring Warren, Jean and Professor X. Scott and Emma mentioned. :)

( Ten years earlier )

08:38 am: Timestamp meme
For derangedfangirl. "Great Scott," the morning after, featuring Scott and Jean.

( The morning after . . . )