3rdragon | Entries tagged with family

This book is a murder weapon! Honestly. It's about 8" x 10", and it has 2057 pages. Yes, 2057. Count them. Or maybe don't. Admittedly, it's the really thin kind of paper used for large books, but still.
Murder weapon or not, yay to Jax for lending it to me. It would be difficult to have a readthrough of Midsummer tomorrow without a copy of the play to read from.

In other news, I was nearly late to swing tonight because of a phone conversation with my dad. I managed to disentangle myself from him when I wanted to, but then my brother announced that he wanted to talk to me, too. You have to understand that my brother is 15 (soon to be 16; egads, I need to start looking for a birthday present.), and that he NEVER talks to me on the phone. Not willingly, anyway. And when he is coerced into it, or happens to pick up the phone, it's like pulling teeth to get him to talk. And since he was volunteering to talk to me, I figured that I ought to talk to him. His news: World of Warcraft has added some kind of mouseover effect that he apparently considers to be very cool. I don't think he understands that while I consider World of Warcraft to be a very addicting and effective incarnation of a time wasting occupation (there is a reason that my computer doesn't have any games on it), I don't actually care about it. On the other hand, it does mean that Isaac is voluntarily talking to me on the phone. And occasionally sending me e-mails. So I generate the proper responses.
Really, though, he's turning into such a teenage geek. I'm going to see him on Wednesday or Thursday, and he was so excited by a development in World of Warcraft that he couldn't wait three or four days.

If you're curious, I was slightly late to swing, but so was everyone else (and CMoore and Toby, who were teaching the lesson, were later than I was, and the only in-charge-ish person who showed up was even later than CMoore.)

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Location: Ziskind
Current Music: The corner of my room is making that clicking noise again. Is that bad?

I got my hair cut. It's now what I consider short, although by Smith standards, it's still quite long (down to my chin in the front!). I cut off 12-or-so inches to donate to Locks of Love, but that probably doesn't help because no one really knows how long my hair is since when it's long I have to keep it in a braid almost all the time or face the Tangles of Doom. No pictures because I'm at my grandmother's house, also because I'm a lazy person and refuse to exert myself to set the time on the camera, smile, load the picture onto my computer and then online. I got it cut here because it's less than half as expensive as it is in the city, and I just wanted a really basic cut, which I felt it was unnecessary to bankrupt myself for.

In other news, I failed my driving test. I'm a good driver, darnit!, and I did a credible job parallel parking, if not an exemplary one. I also didn't stop at the correct spot at stop signs and failed to yield at the yield sign (can we say, "Miriam was so confused by that intersection she didn't even know who she was yielding to?"). I also fail at all things related to driver's tests. I was supposed to take it a month ago, then discovered the day of that mom, who I thought was scheduling it, didn't know it needed to be scheduled . . . and the best time we could get was yesterday. To make things better, there are NO times available, anywhere, before I go back to college. Which means that unless I'm lucky over Thanksgiving or Christmas, I'll have to pay another $15 to get my permit renewed (again). Other fun stuff included: both mom and I forgot checkbooks, and PennDOT only accepts checks and money orders. Luckily it's not necessary to pay for a driving test. And, there was only one examiner. There are supposed to be two, and the one guy was working like crazy to cover both slots. We only just got in before his lunch break (we thought he was going to take it before testing me, but then he didn't.). I had the wrong permit, the one that expired in 2006. I found the current one in my backpack today, but we had to pay to get a new one printed (and buy a money order), and by that time, the guy really had gone on his lunch break. Needless to say, I was in a really bad mood yesterday evening.
The only good point was that at least it didn't start raining until we got back home.

Current Mood: hot
Current Location: Grandma H's, ancient computer.
Current Music: strange grandma-house noises

I was lying on my bed, reading a book, and my neighbor staggered in under this giant fruit basket. She dumped it on my bed and explained that she was nearly knocked down by the person carrying it in.
I, of course, was very puzzled, since while I could think of people who would send me fruit, this particular fruit basket is enormous. On reading the label, I discovered that it's from my aunt and uncle.

I called them to say thanks, they told me that it was because I wouldn't be home with my family for Easter. I think that they worry about me. It's very sweet.

The basket is truly huge. It's roughtly 1' x 1' x 1.5', and it easily weighs 15 pounds - maybe more. It's not the biggest fruit basket I have ever seen, but it's definitely one of the biggest nice fruit baskets I have ever seen.

So - would anyone like some fruit? There's loads of the stuff.

Current Mood: surprised
Current Location: Ziskind
Current Music: computer-y thrum

My mother sent me our annual christmas letter this afternoon so that I could proofread it and make sure that she wasn't saying anything totally unacceptable about me. It was rather strange, firstly because I was present for my mother talking about me as if I wasn't there, which hasn't happened since I left for college (me being present, that is, she often talks about me when I'm not actually there), secondly because Christmas letters drive it home that it is really almost Christmas, and that I am nearly done with my first semester of college.

Where did all the time go? A semester of high school took much longer than this. Even while I was watching the days and weeks fly by it seemed to be moving faster than usual. I'm told that time moves faster as one gets older because a year is a smaller faction of one's total lifespan, but surely 19 shouldn't be all that different from 18 - as opposed to time suddenly moving in large jumps as it has started doing lately. I hope that things slow down a little next semester; college costs way too much to rush through it like this.

My mother is talking about moving the furniture in the living room again. This must be some sort of penance for going to college - I though we'd moved a year's worth of furniture over Thanksgiving break. With any luck, none of this lot will have to go up and down stairs.

Viola has already left for Winter Break - that seems very strange to me. I seem to recall that she started comparatively late as well.

I've been working on my final art project lately - a papagaio kite, based on the Brazilian design. I'm quite pleased with how it's going, but wish that there were somewhere to put it in my room.

This has been a rather disjointed entry, leaping from topic to topic, but that's how I feel tonight.

Current Mood: pensive
Current Location: Dorm room
Current Music: silence underneath computer hum

I had a quite decent Thanksgiving - or rather, Thanksgivings, because I had one on Thursday with my dad's family and one on Friday with my mom's family. My relatives are still conservative, but everyone toed the line and no awkward subjects came up, so that was okay. My youngest cousin is still as cute as anything - he was very proud to tell us all that he is four and a half. On mom's side, we were joined by two graduate students from China who nobody actually knew but who didn't have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving. That was a little awkward at first, but then my aunt brought out an atlas so that they could show us (that is, my cousin) where in China they grew up. Then, of course, my cousin had to pull out the globe and show them where they grew up, what the continents are, where Philadelphia is, where all the various bodies of water are (he really likes reading the names of oceans), and so on. He was not without encouragement, I will admit. So that broke the ice (as I overheard my grandmother say to my aunt, he's the perfect little ambassador). The meal was less formal than it sometimes is (the table wasn't big enough for everyone, so we ate on our laps in the living room), and that helped too. And of course the food was excellent. The food at the other grandma's wasn't bad either - certainly better than the cafeteria food here - and for once, the stuffing didn't bear a huge resemblance to croutons.

It was a little strange being home, but VERY good to see friends. It was also a little strange to get back here, but Tonje and I have been discussing how Ziskind is a soap opera - we may actually film some - and that got things back to being just as crazy as usual.

M.

Current Mood: content
Current Location: Room
Current Music: Computer hum, since iTunes can't read the stuff from home.

Lately I've just been hanging out with family and friends, not really doing anything of note. This morning my aunt, my cousin, my brother and I went to a local bakery/ice creamery and spent the last of a gift card that I got for my birthday last year (from a friend who worked there) that's going to expire in a month. And since I'm leaving in 3 days . . . well, we had to spend it all. We all got different sorts of pastries to eat for breakfast, and there was still $9 left on the card, so we got cinnamon rolls for tomorrow's breakfast, along with an eclair that my brother wanted and a cannoli, because my aunt likes them. That was fun; I love Bredenbeck's Bakery and Ice Cream.

Then we went to get plants because I ripped out an invasive weed from the front garden, but need to plant something else there before I leave so that it doesn't come back . . . so we got the plants, and I planted them. We had lunch at my aunt's house, during which my cousin decided that he didn't like macaroni and cheese because of the shape of the noodles (he's a very picky eater) but told us that he would eat the same brand with the shrek-shaped noodles or regular elbow macaronis, just not the straight ones.

You can tell that my life is exciting when one of the highpoints is that minute differences in macaroni. */sarcasm* I wish I could say that things got more interesting as the day went on, but - well, you'll see.

This afternoon I painted a watercolor portrait of my librarian friend's dog. She'd seen some fellow online who painted portraits of people's pets, but that was pretty pricy, so she's just showed me some of the samples of his work and sighed about when she inherits money from somewhere. My thought at the time was, "I could do that," but of course I didn't tell her, and just snagged some of the pictures of her dog from the computer one time when she was busy with someone looking for a book. Then I let the pictures moulder on the harddrive for a few months, but I figured that I ought to make the painting if I was going to, so I did. This afternoon. It didn't look quite as professional as the website guy's, but it does look like her dog (and I don't know what the dogs he was painting from looked like; they could have been good paintings but only so-so likenesses). There were some parts I was more pleased with than others (one side of the face looked real and the other was a bit flat, same with the ears except the bad ear was on the good half of the face), but I suppose that's just an artist's perfectionism. At any rate, she was very pleased with it, and didn't have to pay a hundred dollars, or whatever the guy was charging. In case you're curious, the dog is a whippet and is named Samwise the Brave. She has another whippet named Thalion, but I didn't paint him.

As I was leaving the library, I ran into my junior high history/art teacher, and we talked, which was nice.

I'm currently reading Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams, which is a very good endangered species/travel book. It's also hilarious. Douglas Adams wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and is nearly as funny with nonfiction.

The only other point of interest was that we ate the eclair after supper, for desert, and I can definately say that eclairs do not improve with age. The chocolate topping wound up sticking to the bag, and the dough was soggy. In my defense, I will say that a) I would not have bought the eclair had my brother not begged for it; I was leaning towards a scone, a muffin, or some cookies; and b) I did offer that he could eat that for breakfast, instead of the "pig's ear" that he got (which is like crossant dough cooked in honey, or baklava without the nuts, and would have been fine all day). I wasn't actually thinking of what the eclair would be like later, but you can see that I was on the right track.

M.

Current Mood: mellow
Current Location: In front of a fan
Current Music: Hum of aforesaid fan

Yesterday, after church, I went to an extended-family reunion. It was at a park with a lake, about 2 hours away from home. The first thing was this power point presentation about how the family homestead is being taken apart, renovated, and re-built somewhere else. Apparently the house was sold to some guy who gutted it, and then they figured out that it had historical value, so some other people bought it, hired an architect to draw and label everything, and now they're taking it apart, doing stuff to the logs, and then they're going to put it in with a bunch of other 18th century houses. It was a little strange, because the people kept saying things like, "We think this was the dining room, but we can't tell, because it was stripped . . ." when they could have just asked. My grandma grew up in that house, and she's not that old - definitely not senile - I mean, she and my grandpa live by themselves, and were running a campground up until a few years ago - so she'd remember. It was a long presentation, but here's a point of interest: they found one 1738 penny in the foundation, and a 1742 penny in the roofbeams, and they think those mark the start and finish of construction on the house.
After the powerpoint there was pot-luck style food, so that was good. After that, I went fishing with one of my distant cousins. She was 12, and a bit annoying, but I didn't have anything better to do, and I'd never been fishing before. Most of the time I fished with just a bobber, but then one of the relatives who knew how to fish showed up, and I drowned a few worms. I didn't catch anything, and I wasn't really expecting to (but maybe you figured that out already, because I didn't have a hook for a while). The adults were all really glad that I spent time with her, because a) being 17, I could keep her out of trouble, and b ) (as I pieced together later) she's been in foster care and stuff, and they just recently adopted her, and she doesn't really have any friends.

After we got home, my dad and I rented a DVD because my brother's at camp. We got 2001: A Space Odyssey which I hadn't seen, but it started pixelating as soon as the action started. It didn't even look very scratched . . . After messing with it for a while, we gave up, and I re-read The Eagle and the Nightingales, by Mercedes Lackey. I stayed up 'til 4 in the morning finishing it, which was fun. I'm a bit short on sleep right now, though.

M.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: faint computer hum