Soooooo due to a series of circumstances I don’t want to bore you with, I want to rent my grandma’s flat; fixing it partially (bathroom and electrical) will be part of the payment under this option rental law has where “repairs and maintenance are the responsibility of the owner, but by agreement the renter can handle them and transfer costs to the owner”. I’d already talked about it with the female relatives under 80; my youngest brother knew about it; my other brother hadn’t been told but I knew he’d disapprove and don’t give a flying fuck; my male cousin is happy with the idea. Yesterday Grandma was in a happy-ish mood so I asked her for permission: she asked several extremely-pointed questions, liked my answers and said yes. She said I could do any fixes I see necessary “so long as I don’t move walls”. She also said “and speak with your aunt to prepare for when I’m gone; since it is a very old house it shouldn’t be too expensive”.
So, hooray for a very old house in a superb location, and for a family that’s mostly happy about it. I hope to be able to have Grandma come over for Easter and spend a few days, or whenever I next have a few days of vacation during the good weather.
Middlebro was dissaproving and wanted to take over the process, including making repairs wait until the summer when he’ll be available to direct them, but he can kiss my ass. He keeps trying to tell me and our other brother how to live our lives, we mostly ignore him, sometimes ask for his opinion on something, and occasionally tell him to MHOB. He was in an up (therefore, bossy) mood because his contract has been renewed: hooray for brothers with renewed contracts!
The Nephew’s grades have been perfect (hey, it’s 3rd grade but the way his parents go about it you’d think it’s a PhD). This is in part thanks to Phys Ed having been swimming exercises (he’s not very coordinated but does swim like a fish) and thanks to his teacher having noticed a while back that whenever the kid discovered he’d made a mistake, he restarted everything. The teacher was able to explain that this wasn’t necessary without actually calling my brother and sister in law any names for teaching their kid to do that. Now he’s got time to finish the exams, hooray for swimming and for finished exams!
My sister has been trying for something like 10 years to adopt a baby girl from China. It’s been the most ridiculously frustrating experience ever, because the time just kept getting pushed back and back and back, year after year after year.
This morning we got the first pictures emailed from China of my new niece, smiling ear to ear, sitting on my sister’s lap. She had a similar expression.
I’ve been having trouble with eczema for the last few months- don’t know why, I’ve always had it, but it’s never flared up like this before- and on sunday night through monday, it started getting much worse and really painful (yeah, this bit is not an anti-rant).
It suddenly dawned on me that I’d probably caught a skin infection, about 20 minutes before the doctor closed… and this morning (as soon as I stop faffing around online) I’m heading up to stay with the family until the end of the week.
My lovely doctor stayed an extra 10 minutes to squeeze in an appointment for me at the end of the day, and not only got me a prescription for antibiotics, when she found out I’m getting free prescriptions at the moment wrote me a bunch for other skin care stuff, like soap-free antimicrobial body wash.
Got a $50 Amazon gift card: used it to purchase a release of the '85 World Series between St. Louis and K.C. (6th game is known for controversial Denkinger call at first; that’s why I wanted to see it), and a PS3 game called Sonic Generations
I just had my parents, sister and Granny for supper. Afterwards, as we sat down for coffee, I remarked it was a shame there was nobody little enough to immediately run to the tree* to see who The Big Present is for. My mum quickly jumped up from her chair and ran over. She let out the most genuine squeal when she read her own name on the biggest present! It was really funny And now I’m really happy that at least someone ran over to look at who got The Biggest Presents.
I can’t wait for tomorrow. I love carefully wrapping everything and then seeing everyone riiip off the paper as violently as they can. (Not in a psycho-masochist way, as discussed in the other thread. I just like it.) I hope everyone really rips the paper!
*Gratuitous tree picture for no other reason than that tree makes me happy.
The boyfriend has been estranged from his son for the past few years (typical divorce situation). A few months ago they started speaking, and when boyfriend invited him over tonight his son (who will turn 18 next week) accepted.
He’s been here since 3-ish; they’re building a computer together, and we had a nice dinner. He’s quiet, but polite; every now and then I see a flash of the emotional issues he’s been diagnosed with since he was young, but overall it has been a nice evening. I’m glad they’re working on their relationship and hope it continues.
I have so so much to be happy for. I’m not sure I can get it all down.
One of my regular customers came in today to buy a pair of boots for her daughter and she was thrilled that I noticed her haircut and remembered that her daughter had been spending a semester abroad. She told me all about her daughter’s semester and told me to have a spectacular Christmas! My customers are awesome. All my other customers today were pleasant and patient and seemed to be very happy to either be shopping or nearly done shopping.
My mother and I just had about an hour long conversation about creationism/evolution and it was one of the nicest conversations I’ve had in a long time (she’s a fundamentalist Christian, I’m agnostic).
On Sunday night I finally acted on a life-long desire to learn to make fudge. I started out with the typical sweetened condensed milk, no candy thermometer variety. It came out great. Last night I made 6 different kinds of fudge, one of which was an old fashioned vanilla fudge with vanilla bean paste and caster sugar (had to go to Wegman’s for those since my local stores don’t sell British ingredients), amounts in grams, and a candy thermometer. It came out even better than the other 5 flavors and my fiance said it was just as good as, if not better than Aunt Rena’s (his late great-aunt whose fudge was so good that it would be auctioned off at the family picnic to raise money for the family memorial fund).
I passed all my classes this semester (B+, B, B, B, B-) and even though all those damn B’s brought my GPA down a lot, I’m still in the respiratory program unlike nearly half my classmates. One semester down, three to go.
The tree is up and decorated, two pies made, presents all wrapped and under the tree. I’m looking forward to having my daughters, son-in-law and most of all my granddaughter here for dinner tomorrow. And since no one is coming until about 3:00, we can sleep late!
The weekend before Christmas my wife took her son shopping with her to have him pick out some clothes she could buy him for Christmas. There were some slacks that he found at Kohl’s that fit but were not the color he wanted. She went online when she got home and found the same slacks at Zappos, in the right color, and cheaper, so she bought two pair. Her purchase qualified for next day shipping, and the slacks showed up on the doorstep on Christmas Eve! She was sure she wouldn’t be able to get him the pants before Christmas and was just so happy when this all worked out.
I bought my husband some very nice speakers for his new computer (that we haven’t got yet) on the day before Christmas. We happened to go into the store where I got the speakers yesterday, and look at that! The same speakers are $40 cheaper on sale today! I was a little bit irritated until I talked to the department manager, and he said they have a 30 day price guarantee, and if I could bring in the receipt, they’d happily refund me the difference. I went home and got the receipt, and they did exactly that (right down to the “happily” part).
We’re in the middle of a Go-live. The last few days, lunch has been provided; in their usual style, this wasn’t announced beforehand at all, so people would bring lunch and discover they already had dinner ready.
At two-ish we asked one of the department managers whether she knew what was for lunch today. Nothing, she said, we’re leaving at half past.
Well, that meant I was going to have lunch a lot later than I’m used to, but hey, free afternoon, yay!
I left the industrial area where my client’s factory is, crossed the bridge over the dry riverbed, and entered town. As I walked down the second block of houses, I noticed a small, friendly white dog whose demeanor suggested “recently lost” rather than “gone feral”. Seeing a collar with a large tag, I thought it might have a phone number.
A name, chuche (it means “candy” and is also a play on words with chucho, meaning “badly-looking dog”), and two phone numbers. The doggie was indeed very well behaved, not too happy about all that “holding it with my knees while moving the tag into a position which let me see the numbers” but other than wiggle a bit it let me do my manoeuvering without any trouble. Given the date, I called the cellphone first. “Out of coverage or disconnected”. The landline got answered after several rings, a woman’s voice sounding pretty harried “hello?” “hi, have you lost a piece of candy with curly white hair” “yes we have” “I have it!” “where are you?” “let’s see… there’s a gate here that says Rose Street XYZ” “oh, you’re downstairs! Give me a second to send someone!” She hung up and a fwe minutes later the dog was picked by a very happy 11ish year old girl I asked her to let me take a pic of Chuche because I didn’t want y’all to be mad at me
And now I’m really happy that at least someone ran over to look at who got The Biggest Presents.
I asked her to let me take a pic of 
