maharetr

Okay, so I read here almost daily, and I keep having the itch to post and generally (it feels like) contribute to my cosy little nook that feels like my corner of Dreamwidth, and also freezing up when it comes to the idea of Making A Post(tm).

But! My annual leave has kicked in as of today, and I just remembered that Arcane is a thing that I've been meaning to catch up on, thank you gorgeous Tumblr gifsets. So!

My holiday plans, as I think of them:
- start watching Arcane (so less intimidating than 'watch' Arcane. Yeah, I don't get it either)
- catch up on the guy who was doing the Disco Elysium streaming, the substance abuse counselor who had some fucking fascinating takes on things. (-1 this step: figure out who that was again)
- hang out in the park with the dogs, once we stop having Fucking Heatwave Warning temps
- tune guitar and figure out where I was up to with the online video lessons
- read books! (Currently reading: The Teller of Small Fortunes, and it's not perfect, but it's solidly holding my attention, and I'm Charmed af by at least one character. I have Papergirls complete from the library, as well as Gina Chick's memoir 'We are all stars')
- pick up my drop spindle for the first time in ages
- catch up with friends in various ways

...And that's a post! Go me. How's everyone doing? <3

And possibly also yesterday combined, because

1. It is very very hot today. I've not looked up to see how hot, but enough that things are still hot and ugh at 10:30pm. ... Just looked, actual temp is 30C ish, apparent temp mid-20s, but it's totally 30ish in the house right now. Air con for sleeping tonight. At least it's not humid, and I've solidly learned that difference.

2. Yesterday we had a work gathering at work, instead of usual staff dinner. And it was really good -- the weather was great, it wasn't too noisy because it was outside, the food was meat-heavy and delicious and very prompt (yay on-site catering!).

3. Before gathering, co-worker and I strolled carousel looking for an A5 spiral bound notebook for me for work. (srsly, how hard is it to find an A5 spirax notebook? A: Impossible where we were. Not even Kmart or Target had them.) But at work today she'd bought me one (a top bound thing, but so, so feeling the love)

4. When I got home from gathering, samvara had bought and left on my bed a gorgeous present Eating through the zombie apocalypse. It's beautifully put together, funny, and has a CDC-zombie-outbreak outlook to food preparation and emergency cooking/survival. I approve wildly, and am into this.

5. I've give my cold to my co-worker and my housemates. Boo :( On the other hand, there's a shitload of people sniffing and coughing on the train, and at least one other person sick at work, so it's clearly Making The Rounds hard.

Bonus: Got a call from the insurers of my Super income insurance. I called them back, like a grown up, and answered their question honestly, and they're like "yeah, that's fine, thanks." sooo it seems like I'll have the income protection insurance I want, I hope \o/

1. I got myself out of bed to go to the beach, and drove samvara and Kiba to said beach. samvara guided me through parking with cars on either side. Still not something I'm comfortable doing alone, but I did it! Kiba was so well behaved, and the water and weather were wonderful. It was packed at the beach, more people than I'd ever seen usually (hi public holiday). Then cafe for breakfast. Iced chocolates are like food of the gods at the moment.

2. I made a smoothie this morning before we left the house, too; practice for making smoothies when I'm in the morning rush. (long story short: I'd been eating breakfast at work at my desk of a morning, which I was aware was pushing it but boss finally went from 'only during homeroom' to 'no more, sorry'. So! Smoothies. I might battle to find something that tastes 'good', but current recipe:

soaked oats and chia seeds
frozen berries
a little water
big dollops of yogurt
a bit of cottage cheese (apparent 'super secret' ingredient of the foodie websites. I'm not convinced but am going to finish the container anyway)

Mix, then stubbornly apply stick blender.

Anyone have their own smoothie methods?

3. I wrote! I wrote 100 words and then I wrote a little more, and I have half a ficlet. Oh my god.

4. I played Fallout 4 for the first time a few days, too. Have left Piper in Diamond City, and took Nick as a companion because I couldn't find Deacon. Take that 'it's been a while since you did the thing..." anxiety!

5. We've been feeding Kenobi mince to take his meds (wild success), which last round turned out to be amazing-quality beef hamburger patties cos that's what was left at the IGA. They smelled so good raw that I sequestered two for myself, and had one this evening with rice and beetroot 'salad'. A+ life choice, although the rice was slightly hard. Still good.

All in all, an excellent day off. The fact that tomorrow is Wednesday is going to be unbelievably confusing.

(Bonus thing! Women's International Cricket, broadcast on channel 9, on Australia Day. So many women being expert and sponsored and on TV and it took my breath away)

Pancakes with strawberries and the Moonlight Sonata in my kitchen. My life, it does not suck.

mynxii (indignantly): "My thoughts never wandered above the belt!"

prk: "If you beat me to the car, I'll give you a lift."
mynxii: "Like I could ever beat you to the car."
prk: "Fine, so we get to the car, then you beat me."

I love you all.

A radio announcer dials down the volume on a song. “Shh, shh," she says to the song, and then to us, to the rest of the world: "You still there?”

I'm standing at the reception desk, checking in on Thursday afternoon. harveystoat, who I went to uni with and have not seen since Swancon 2007 (pre-shave) comes up to the desk and fails to recognise me for a minute or two, then as he's about to move away, realises it's me and stares.

harveystoat (explosively): Jesus!
Me (cheerfully): Hi!
harveystoat (recovering beautifully): Oh, you're not Jesus, you're Maharet. Hi! Or, if you are Jesus, you might not want to be around tomorrow. Bad things happening!

Dear Slashgropers secret birthday person...thing. [grin] I can't find the list I downloaded, so you really are secret for the moment, but I've just set up an amazon wishlist and dumped a whole lot of "ooh! shiny!" sort of things on it if you're looking for inspiration. Located here, for reference: Wishlist You don't have to use Amazon; places like planetfantastic are probably a helluva lot cheaper, but whatever floats your boat.

On with the proper random:
Work was... eh. I checked LJ at work, and not on my lunch break, which I guess says how bored I'm feeling. However, I did take some random-but-reasonably-pretty photos with my shiny, shiny new camera (like this, except it's a silver TZ2 (so, the same thing, just with one less megapixel) So far, I'm very happy with it, and I'll spam spam you all once I've figured out how to resize images.

I discovered to my joy that the internet cap resets every 30 days, rather than the end of the month. Yay! *promptly downloads a lot* *(Read: 3 eps)

There were two girls on the bus this afternoon, about 15, in dark blue uniforms, doing the sort of flirting at each other you seem to be able to get away with when you're girls and you're already established friends: horsing around, being loud and bitching at each other. Sample conversation:

Girl A: Man, look at my hair, I can't believe I spent all day looking like this.
Girl B: Yeah, you idiot, here *Does A's hair*
Girl A: No way, that sucks, do it again. *Rests her head on her arms so B can do it again*

And back and forth they went, with A randomly yanking the lacky out and doing it a third time, and both of them generally finding excuses to touch, in a loudly tentative, giddy way. I was totally charmed, and quietly ... jealous isn't quite the right word. I wish them well.