The · Greenwood

Ahh...hazy, hot, and humid - this is what summer in New England is supposed to be like! Now if only it would stop raining on weekends so we can have a few more cookouts.

I seem to be in a writery sort of mood, so watch for upcoming posts with story ramblings, fanfics, and even *gasp* poetry.

( Cut for those who are squicked by caterpillars )

In other critter news, the local bunnies are so tame that when you walk past a yard containing one, it pretty much just sits there, utterly unimpressed. One bunny I saw on my walk today kept right on munching the greenery as I strolled by, only a few feet away. Of course, if we ever get Schrodinger that harness and leash and start taking him for walks like we keep saying we will, that all could change...

Happy birthday to the United States of America! And for the first time since I bought it back in...03? 04? I can't remember...I have not felt the need to wear my American Traveler's Apology Shirt, because we no longer have an idiot for a president.

Just for fun, to celebrate, here's a bit of US history whimsy: Stan from American Dad! explains the Iran-Contra scandal, Schoolhouse Rock-style. (SFW video, unless you can't watch videos at work.)

July 4 was also the one-year anniversary of the day Schrodinger followed darthsatyr and myself home - twice! - and thus adopted us. We gave him some catnip and chicken, which is his favorite, and lots of cuddling. He is a wonderful cat and we are very happy to have him as a part of our lives.

It was a good weekend. We actually had sun (except for two spectacular thunderstorms on Friday), and we had two separate cookouts and a s'mores party with the neighbors on Sunday evening. We did a fair amount of our patriotic duty as Americans, by which I mean shopping - groceries on Friday, clothes on Saturday, and a little of both on Sunday plus a phenomenally lucky find at a tag sale. I bought new bras for the first time in about two years (hurrah for the V's Secret sale!), and I'd forgotten just how delightful it is to have a new, comfy, supportive bra, plus I picked up some pretties that were on sale just for fun.

So again...happy birthday, America. Happy anniversary, Schrodinger. Happy summer to all.

One of the things that I love about Pixar is that they remember what a lot of filmmakers - and sadly, particularly those working in the CG medium - have forgotten:

A film needs a story.

So many films today focus on technological dazzle, shock value, making pretty pictures, or cleverness. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but for me, a good story is more important than any of these. I'll enjoy the spectacle or the beauty, but what stays with me is good storytelling.

Up doesn't come near to matching the sheer dazzling brilliance of last summer's Wall-E, but it is a sweet and charming movie in its own right, and - like Wall-E, it remembered to have a story.

( cut for spoilers )

In life, things don't always go the way you planned. But you regroup, you revise your plans, you make the best of the bad things and you enjoy the hell out of the things that do go well. Personally, I find this to be far better than some gauzy romance where everything is perfect.

darthsatyr and I spent the weekend in Mystic, a trip we'd made last summer on our honeymoon week. The good parts included a visit to Groton's submarine museum, where we got to crawl through the Nautilus the first nuclear-powered submarine and one that made a trip to the North Pole. (Bonus: the museum is free!) Also, we had a lot of fun rambling around Mystic, poking into shops (Darthsatyr got an awesome vintage leather Red Cross coat at the military surplus shop), buying fudge from the general store, and eating lots of seafood. We also got to feed oyster crackers to a school of really tame striped bass. On a side trip to Rhode Island, we visited a beach, poked into lots of overpriced shops (though we did score some really good candy), and saw the country's oldest flying-horse style carousel. Sadly, only kids could ride it, but it was lovely - the horses not only had real horsehair tails, which many carousels have, but also hair manes which I've never seen on any other carousel.

The not-so-fun included getting screwed over for our hotel room, then being unable to contact Orbitz to report the problem. We are never using them again, which is sad because we've gotten really good deals in the past, but not being able to report the room problem is inexcusable. Also, the lighthouse we wanted to visit turned out not to be open to the public; and due to questionable weather, the steamboat ride we wanted to take was canceled. This wouldn't have been so bad if we hadn't scheduled our entire day to accommodate it. Still, I am personally grateful that we didn't get rear-ended like we did on our honeymoon trip - that's one tradition I'm just as happy not to continue!

We returned Sunday night and reassured the cats that we still loved them, then fell asleep.

Monday, our actual anniversary day, we slept in until around 9:30, then drove out to Manchester to pick up our anniversary cake. I thought I'd remembered just how good Yoli's cakes were. I was wrong. If you need a cake baked for you in the Hartford area, I highly recommend her - her cakes are delicious and her prices are very reasonable. We spent the rest of the day relaxing, pondering the bedframe we've decided to pick up as our anniversary present to each other (more on that in another post) and checking out Affordables for possible curtain fabric.

Then in the evening, we went to the Mansfield drive-in, where we saw Up (more on that in yet another post) and the new Terminator movie. The latter was better than I'd expected, plus I was amused to see baby!Chekov playing the teenaged Kyle Reese.

Was it a perfect weekend? No. Things went wrong. We got angry and frustrated at times, and had to rearrange our plans. But perfect is the enemy of good. And our anniversary was very, very good.

A year ago this coming Monday, darthsatyr and I had our wedding.

It was beautiful. And we both made ourselves insane, doing as much as we did ourselves. velvetpaws performed the ceremony, and she and mimian both were a great deal of help during the last frantic rush of prepwork. lordavon was kind enough help me pin the hems on my gown - which I had done for her at her wedding, though I think I had rather a lot more skirt than she did.

I didn't cry when darthsatyr read the words he had prepared for me, though I was expecting to, but those words have lingered with me throughout the year, giving me a warm little rush of gladness that helped me get through some very difficult times.

And believe me, it's been a hard year. The winter in particular was terrifying as during the time from just before Thanksgiving until early February neither of us were working full time. I truly don't know how I would have made it without darthsatyr by my side - comforting me, encouraging me, making sure I was actually job-hunting and not just reading LJ all day, making me laugh, telling me everything would work out. As for darthsatyr, it's been a pure joy to see him finding work that he loves, succeeding so brilliantly in the EMT exams, and starting on a truly heroic career path.

We're going to spend the weekend down in Mystic, and most likely go to the drive-in, both things we did in our honeymoon week last year. We're also commissioning a fresh anniversary cake from Yoli, the baker who made out wedding cake, as we both agreed that while it was traditional, cake that had been frozen for a year was unlikely to be a taste sensation.

Happy anniversary, darthsatyr. I love you, and I look forward to as many more years together as we may be granted.

This past weekend, darthsatyr and I wanted something light and fluffy and fun and brainless to watch. We decided to hit Redbox up for The Spirit, based primarily on the cover having a picture of Samuel L. Jackson in a furry pimp coat.

Well, we wanted brainless, and we got brainless.

I'm going to have to assume that this was meant as a parody of hard-boiled noir comics, and that it wasn't ever meant to be serious. It had characters with names like Silken Floss, Sans Serif, and (I am not making this up) Plaster of Paris, the French belly-dancing assassin. Samuel L. Jackson did indeed play a pimp/mad scientist named Octopus ("I have eight of everything!"). I couldn't even be horrified when Bad Things happened to a perfectly good cat, that's how stupid this movie was. Quite possibly the best moment was a scene where a female character is supposedly underwater, and they didn't even bother making it look like her hair was floating rather than being blown around by a fan. That was at the beginning, and the movie just kept getting dumber from there. I'm assuming, given the cast (Jackson and Scarlett Johannson) that this wasn't a direct-to-dvd, but if it hit the theaters it bounced off them awfully quickly because I don't even remember trailers, let alone seeing it on a single marquis.

I suppose as a parody it works. Certainly it delivered on what we expected - ie, Samuel L. Jackson in a furry pimp coat. But I can't help wondering if the bad was intentional or not, and that's never a good thing. If you're looking for a good movie, this is not it. But if you're looking for a good bad movie, this could very well be it.

The tiger swallowtails have hatched!

I checked the tree in the back yard, and saw two tiny caterpillars immediately. There had been more eggs, but I couldn't find any more; maybe they'd crawled away, maybe they'd been washed off by the rain, maybe they'd been eaten. Such is nature.

So I picked a leaf with one of the babies and put it into a small jar that I'd washed after removing the nails from it. It's too small for the baby to stay in, but I'll be checking people's recycling bins tomorrow. Sadly, we've been a bit too diligent in our recycling as we have no proper caterpillar jar. Ah well...

In case you're wondering, this is what they look like. Scroll about halfway down the page for baby caterpillar pictures. Not as gorgeous as Monarchs, with their black and yellow stripes, but they grow up to be entertainingly creepy with the big yellow eye-spots. And the butterflies are just plain stunning. I am thrilled beyond belief to have a pet caterpillar again - it's like coming home to my childhood in yet another way.

Just in case you hadn't realized exactly what a strange person I am, I should point out that I love creepy-crawlies like caterpillars...and yet I am afraid of mushrooms. I'm not as bad as I was as a child, when I would run in panic from the sight of a brown mushroom cap poking up through the grass, but I still get chills down my spine and a distinct case of the creeps. I can't explain it, but there it is.

darthsatyr is fighting off some nasty secondary infections. Healing vibes greatly appreciated.

Random thought on the Star Trek reboot movie: Apparently the worst insult in the galaxy is, in fact, "Your mom." Or at least it is for Vulcans. I am reminded of one of Peter David's Q books, in which "Your mom" is the insult that starts a war between the Q and another similarly powerful race.

After weeks of trying, I finally have achieved remote access. The irony of the job with the fifteen-minute commute letting me work from home when the job with the two hour commute would not, is not lost on me. But it's still nice.

The rosebush we planted last year has exploded into bloom. Not only has the bush itself grown, the blossoms are double the size they were last year.

A Tiger Swallowtail butterfly has laid eggs on one of the backyard trees. I'm seriously debating picking one of the leaves and seeing if I can raise the caterpillar. I used to do this with Monarchs, and loved it - never raised a Tiger Swallowtail.

darthsatyr had a nasty flare-up of a bad tooth, and spent the weekend in agony. It got to the point that even Vicoden wasn't killing the pain, that's how bad it was. Darthsatyr's dentist is in New York (he's had enough bad experiences that he didn't want to drop a good one just because he was a state away) so we drove down to the city for dental work today. I came along in case the pain got as bad as it had over the weekend and he was unable to drive, which meant calling in for my first official sick day at the new full-time job.

I will admit I got a little paranoid, and not only emailed my supervisor but also called from the dentist's office to make sure he'd gotten my email. (I got his voicemail.) Want to keep job!

As it turned out, darthsatyr was able to make the drive in fine, but I wound up taking over on the trip back. The trip also gave me a chance to close my Citibank accounts (useless to me now, as Citibank has closed all their northern CT branches). I'm sure darthsatyr will post his own account of the dental adventure, so watch for it; all I'll say is that he's still in pain, but he can at least eat solid food again.

Must go off and nap now, as I'm picking him up from work at midnight.

After two years of being offline, darthsatyr has returned to LJ-land with a lovely, in-depth post. It's well worth reading - for story, for laughs, for tears.

Go, read, comment, join me in welcoming him back.

As for me, I think the fact that I accidentally wrote "PVS Environment" as "PMS Environment" in meeting notes adequately sums up my physical and mental state. I am very grateful to have a boss with a sense of humor.

Because I am incredibly dense, I was just today made aware that Sarek is played in the reboot movie by Ben "Dark Shadows" Cross.

For those of you who managed to miss the hilariously bad "Dark Shadows" remake, it aired in the early 1990s, and starred Ben Cross as the vampire Barnabus Collins, who spent about ninety percent of his air time gazing angstfully at the camera. I have very fond memories of gathering in...I think it was velvetpaws's dorm room with a bunch of friends once a week and heckling the show without mercy - including keeping score of the number of Tormented Vampire Looks we got from Ben Cross in any given episode. Other highlights included Angelique and the Curse of Bad Makeup, the Eternally Stormy Sea, and our heroine searching for answers in her own cleavage. We were thoroughly disappointed when it got canceled in its first and only season.

This, by the way, is one of many reasons I couldn't take First Knight seriously. The minute I realized that that was Ben Cross as Meleagraunt, all I could think of was "Tormented Meleagraunt Look #1!" and I started giggling like mad.

Cross did a fine job as Sarek. I was impressed at how well he managed to get Mark Lenard's voice and mannerisms. But now I don't know if I'll be able to watch him with a straight face anymore.

I'd been having a fairly lousy day.

Then, on my way home, I decided to walk through the park. As I walked through the tallish grass at the edge of the woodsy bits, I suddenly heard a sound just behind me like I'd stepped on a squeak-toy.

Startled, I turned around to see if I'd stepped on a dog-toy - just in time to see a baby bunny, about the size of my hand, go scurrying away.

Conclusion: There are few lousy days that can survive an attack by baby bunnies.

Darthsatyr and I saw this Sunday night, at the drive-in, which was fun because we could sit in our own car and comment/rave/heckle as much as we wanted without disturbing the people around us, while still getting to see the movie on a nice big screen. This is one of the reasons we &hearts the drive-in.

Without spoilers, we went into this with trepidation, in my case a bit eased by the large number of trekfen who were raving about it. I found myself enjoying it quite a bit. It felt respectful of the material that came before, and while it wasn't afraid to poke a little fun at it, it was done affectionately. There was a lot that was done well, including some phenomenal casting - Karl Urban as young(er) McCoy was so good that imo he stole large chunks of the movie. I was also very moved by Leonard Nimoy's performance - I think I can safely say without spoilers that he radiated the warmth and tranquility of a Spock whose internal battles were won, and who was finally at peace with who and what he was.

And now...( Spoiler Space, the Final Frontier )

Because it's been a while.

Last Saturday, darthsatyr and I had a slightly late Beltane feast: roast leg of lamb with herbs, mashed potatoes, and....*drumroll* fiddlehead ferns. Which we paid far too much for at Whole Paycheck, but dangit, fiddleheads only come around for a very short time every year. They're the quintessential spring food.

Much yardwork is happening, and much of the huge pile of leaves has been mulched up and piled to compost. Two of my favorite flowers are in bloom now: lilacs and lilies of the valley. Both smell absolutely heavenly. May is fragrant.

Yesterday I got my badge switched over from consultant to employee. I don't officially start as a full-time employee until Monday, but my manager wanted to make sure I didn't get locked out Monday morning because my consultant badge didn't work. Which turned out to be a good thing, because today darthsatyr came by unexpectedly for lunch - and as a temp I wouldn't have been able to sign him in!

Yesterday as well, one of the atria at work was full of cute little snails. It's not as dramatic as turkeys flying through the window, but I love unexpected critters. They were all gone today; sadly, I suspect birds ate them. Or maybe it was just too hot for them and they crawled back into the undergrowth.

Finally, an old friend is coming back to town at the end of the month. It'll be good to catch up, as we haven't seen each other in years and a lot has changed for both of us.

Happy first of May to all, happy Beltane for those who celebrate, and happy birthday to 7kim_moon!

One year ago today, I was deep in the madness of wedding plans, and more specifically, the madness of working on my wedding gown. May 1, 2008 I posted the following (copy/pasted because the original was under a filter and I don't feel like playing with settings):

***

Upon reflection, and getting some advice from the Corsetmakers JL community (forgot how to do community links...), I have decided to single-layer the inside part of the corset. Depending on how insane I'm feeling, I might even try using the seam allowances for boning channels, as some of them mention, but I'll probably default to twill tape.

Didn't get to press the silk layer last night, as I had to work late and didn't get home until nearly 10pm. However, since darthsatyr needs to be in the city today, and we both need to be here tomorrow for a going-away party - one of our friends is moving to Texas for grad school - we're crashing with K., which means some sort of stumery will likely be committed. I brought my bodice with me in the car and started basting it while we drove, and I have both the corset and sleeves to work on as well.

So, progress is happening. It probably won't really feel like progress until the overgown is at least sewn together, but I have to keep reminding myself that yes, this is still progress even if it doesn't feel like it.

***

...wow. You know, somehow I'd forgotten that I did all that sewing while commuting to New York City every day! I'd forgotten just how much of my wedding gown was made on the train. At the time this seemed perfectly reasonable. In hindsight, precisely how insane was I?

The weeping cherries are starting to fade but not gone yet. The double cherries have exploded into bloom, right alongside the pink-and-white froth of apple blossoms. The dogwoods are just beginning to unfurl.

Everywhere I look, trees are dripping with pink and white lace.

It's a beautiful thing.

(Yes, even if it does give me sniffles and itchy eyes!)

Dear allergy symptoms that are distressingly similar to early flu symptoms:

Why did you pick right now to launch yourselves in full force?

In other exciting pandemic news, the Hartford area's water has been declared safe to drink again, after several days of precautionary "boil your drinking water" alerts. Apparently tiny critters were found in the drinking water, and while they themselves weren't harmful to humans (hey, extra protein!) there was a concern that other nasties might have been getting through the filtration system as well. At least, that's my guess as to the alerts. CIGNA had all their fountains and bubblers shut down, and handed out free water bottles.

It was 90 degrees out today. 90 degrees. In April. A month where in New England we sometimes get snow. Anybody still want to argue against global warming?

Finally, in happier news, I believe we have achieved kitty detente of sorts. There have been a couple of nose-sniffings that did not lead to either cat swatting at the other, and this evening I witnessed Daisy and Schrodinger eating crunchies out of the same dish. It only lasted a few seconds, but hey - it's progress.

I've been meaning to post this for a while, and kept forgetting. This seems like a good brain-break from copy editing vampire manga. ^_^

Started by racerexmachina, most recently by hoshikage: "Writer's Block" style: "What's the best/most outrageous/lamest backhanded compliment you've ever received?"

Way back in the day, when I worked for a certain mythological journal which shall remain nameless, I wrote an essay for said magazine on deception and evil in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, which had recently been released. I didn't have terribly high hopes, because while the editor liked it, it had to be approved by the senior editors, none of whom were fond of the pop culture thing. Many, many aspiring writers tried (and probably are still trying) to get Star Wars themed essays into Nameless Mythological Journal, and all of them failed, with the exception of Ursula K. Le Guin, who wrote a less-than-thrilled review of the original movie back in 1977.

Imagine my shock when my essay was approved by the senior editors! I squeed mightily with velvetpaws, and we had a lot of fun putting the piece together and sending it out into the world. Months later, at our next editorial planning meeting, one of the senior editors came up to me, and said, "Your essay almost made me want to watch the movie."

Now, this man, like the other senior editors, was a highly intelligent, educated, literate and literary, and generally highbrow individual. Star Wars was so alien to him that it might as well have been in a galaxy far, far away. At the time, I felt mildly insulted - he was basically telling me my subject matter was unworthy, and I had to restrain myself from saying something like "I almost want to thank you." Later I realized that he was saying my writing was skillful enough to spark an interest in something he'd clearly felt was beneath him. And that, however backhanded, is quite a compliment.