serinde

elibalin invited me to join him at MoMA this morning, but I was feeling Driven about doing home stuff (about which more later, probably), so instead just met up for a late brunch. Our venue was EJ's Luncheonette, which I've passed a bunch of times but never have actually been to. We had a bit of a wait (less than ten minutes), even at 2:30. I got whole-grain wheat germ and flaxseed pancakes, which sounds horrible, I know, but they were quite good (and the strawberries fresh and sweet); but they were completely blown out of the water by Eli's lobster cakes Benedict, which were absolutely fantastic. A+++ would nom nom nom again and again until DEAD.

The mimosas were small and not potent, but at $2.50 you don't have to care; the coffee was a little weak, but drinkable.

Posting from Dreamwidth, X-post to LJ.

...and while stomping around the apartment frothing and raving (N.B.: it is difficult to stomp properly in only two rooms, and they crowded), the last remaining shreds of control said unto me:



So I brewed up, and I changed the house soundtrack from Anthrax to Mediæval Bæbes, and generally had a nice tall glass of Chill the Fuck Out. Following which--at this point, mind you, it was past 10pm--I found myself rearranging, cleaning, sorting, and generally making productivity. (I also found the Ella Fitzgerald CD nedlnthred made for me that had been missing for months.) I finally got to bed around 1am, but was well satisfied with the result.

Today, I woke up in much better case. I think I can't really proceed further without a) purchasing some things and b) getting rid of others. I have found a tchotchke shelf on Amazon that will do to hang on my bedroom wall; I am going to put all software CDs in a flip book and discard the jewel cases; and I will need to get another bookshelf, no two ways about it. (Even if I plump for the Kindle, it'll take a fair amount of time before I can start phasing out the dead trees.) I have an extraneous laundry basket and a large wastebasket (anyone want? they're both good), I have to donate the sack o' clothes to a convenient charity, and I need the Box of Stuff I Don't Want to go away (also charity?). From that point on it is mostly minor tweaking, though I do foresee some SCIENCE!~ will have to occur when I get some kind of televisionary device, for to place the XBox and its bits. where the hell does the rock band drum kit go

And then there's the current Big Problem: what to do about my dead computer. It's clearly not the power supply, so it's the motherboard or the CPU or both. audiovile has offered me whatever bits I need (or the entire thing) of Computer #3 at the house; or, I could just say The Hell With It and get the iMac. I was not intending to do that yet; was going to wait until the house sold; but perhaps it is not worth faffing around any further. I still haven't entirely reconciled what my final intended topography should be. I know I want an actual desktop on my desk for gaming, so that's that; but then, what mechanism shall I use to feed Teh Intarnet Videoz (or whatever) to the televisionic device on the other side of the room? It seems completely insane to buy a separate computer just for that.

In other news, the Doomity Doom Doom insurance letter is because Uncle Bloomberg didn't pay the premiums for a bunch of city employees. It is being worked out, Do Not Be Alarmed, Citizen, All Is Well. Apparently the HR people have known about it for weeks; why they didn't, y'know, proactively tell affected people so they didn't freak out is left as an exercise for the reader.

Am sick of belly. Am running today. (We learn that the yoga classes will extend into the summer! Huzzah!)

I've never had to use a laundromat before, believe it or not. I've been putting this confrontation off, Lord knows why, it's not actually that different from having coin-op-in-basement, and yet here was the avoidance behavior; but I need clean pants if I want to continue fighting evil this week, so.

This being the Upper East Side, there is a plethora of Chinese dry-cleaning/wash-fold-pay-by-the-pound establishments, but only one DIY location (as far as I can tell) in close range; it's one block down, one over. HOLY HELL, $2 FOR THE HALF SIZED WASHERS and $4 for the ones you can fit your comforter in. If it's not a big comforter. Oh dear oh dear. The dryers are 8 minutes for a quarter, as elibalin predicted, which might be okay depending on how sucky or un-sucky the dryers actually are; a question I will be able to report on in, oh, 20 minutes or so. Certainly the washers leave one's clothes more sodden than is quite right, which does not augur well.

It is possible (though I'm dubious) that it might not work out much more costly to take it all to the Here's My Clothes, Make Them Nice businesses, but the thought makes me twitch an awful lot. spride's recounted experience of "You drop off your clothes in a bag, they weigh them, they give you a form where you tick off temperature and whether you want bleach and whether you use fabric softener, and they toss it out and you get it all back nicely folded and two sizes smaller in a couple days" exactly meshes with my rampant fear-laden imagination, and I don't want people messing with my stuff. It could be argued that abandoning my unmentionables for forty minutes could also lead to unwanted results, but then they'd just be missing, not messed up.

I do not pretend this is a rational reaction, but it's what I've got to work with.

So, all last week, I was at an ITIL Foundations course at the Mothership. (Which was initially supposed to be in February, I might add, and they kept shifting the date.) It was moderately stultifying--apparently there had been Special Requests to make the course longer because "it was too hard"--and it will probably come as no surprise to the Gentle Reader that I aced the test to obtain my certification.

Then there is Part II, the Intermediate course, which is specifically on Operational Support & Analysis (i.e., helldesk and friends). This finally ended up being rescheduled for three weeks following, i.e., the week of May 18th. This was a pain in my ass, since my final is that week, but I talked to my really excellent and cool professor and got it rescheduled for the 15th, i.e., the day after our last class.

Therefore, of course, last night, the person at the Mothership who is (mis-)arranging these courses sent mail saying:
I'm trying to fill a class of 12 for next week. Please let me know if you
can definately attend. The May 18 class is not confirmed. It may have to
be rescheduled if I can't get it confirmed by tomorrow.
[sic]

YES OF COURSE SOME FIFTEEN PEOPLE, MANAGERS UP THROUGH DIRECTORS, CAN DROP EVERYTHING ON A WEEK'S NOTICE. What in the hell? It can take two weeks' notice to get an hour of time on $OVERBOSS's schedule, and a few of the people in this course are at his level. A full week? Forget it.

Ranger spontaneously decided that he wanted to start sacking out on top of my dresser. Said space is currently about 1/3 occupied by my ancient boom box; the remainder has the two small earring receptacles, and all my Required Pocketstuff when it is not in pockets or purse: keys, other keys, money, wallet, flash card, etc. So the sequence of the night went something like this:

1. I drift off to sleep.
2. There is an earth-shattering kaboom; I wake up.
3. I blearily look up to see Ranger looking at me going MOW?, having just kicked something clattery off the top of the dresser.
4. I make an "oh no not again" noise, chivvy him off, and pick up whatever's fallen down.
5. Climb back into bed. Try and sleep as Ranger paces around, settling first here, then there, generating a certain amount of nervousness about the chance for a nose chomp.
6. Repeat.

If you're wondering why I don't apply water bottle correction methods, it's because that making him spaz and flee would almost certainly result in my earring boxes going over, and we just do not want to go there.

So. Yes. Very, very sleepy.

(Also, some other tenant has an enormously loud fan in the airshaft, but it isn't bothering me too much. I had rather it were not there, certainly, but it's tolerable as white noise.)

Take ye a package of ground turkey that needs eatin'. Mix it with 1 egg (beaten), thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper, and breadcrumbs ynogh (maybe a generous slice). Glob well and form into biggish but not gargantuan meatballs.

Slice one orange pepper, 1/3 c onion, and a couple cloves of garlic. Put in skillet with a bit of oil and a bit of butter; let slowly cook on lowish heat, getting all nice and aromatic (my Italian cookbook calls this "insaporire"). When bored, put in the meatballs. Let that cook, turning occasionally. Phone sweh, forgetting what you're doing, until the smell of caramelizing onions grabs your attention. Splash some of the Chardonnay you're drinking into the skillet to loosen things up and put a lid on. Wait some ten minutes, then OM NOM NOM NOM.

I'd like this in a more sauce-like substance, but a) I don't have what I want to make one, and b) it'd be bad for me anyways. Still awfully good, though needed a bit more salt.

In spite of sundry other commitments & distractions, nesting proceeds apace. I have hung my signed Alex Maleev print on the bedroom wall, so I am officially Arrived. Pay no attention to the ten unpacked boxes.

I might have been further along, but the weekend involved a great deal of frantic running around--but then, it was necessary running-around in order to actually proceed. E.g., the god. damn. counter. top. I have cleaning tools, which will be useful when I have cleared enough space to clean; I have organizational wossnames; I have a full length mirror that I'm not sure will stay up, and an under-cabinet toaster oven, ditto; I have LED stick-on lights over the kitchen workspace; a screen so I can have the fire escape window open without Ranger wandering out and getting horribly confused, and so on. Immediate needs include a 20' ethernet cable so that I do not have DSL wiring festooned across the center of the living room, varying sizes of screws and anchors to attach shelves to walls with some level of stability, and some kind of shelving to hold kitchenstuff overrun while I have time to make some decisions (and will hold pantry items afterwards).

In the short term, I intend to get some kind of flat-screen or cinema display that I shall use for TV (by which I mean, "DVDs"), XBox, and (eventually) hooking up a computer that is much smaller than gfefx's current incarnation. Maybe. I'm not sure how well a system such as this would work for PC gaming. But the idea of having all DVDs and CDs on it and thus clearing all the space those items currently take up is deeply attractive, and it also means Hulu etc. can be viewed as other televisionary items. In any case, the screen shall be on one of those wall-mounted arm things so I can put it flat against the wall when not in use, and extend it & angle at 90 degrees to watch it from the couch. I also need to get a couple of frames for some posters I want to hang; I realized that some 40% of my Crate of Art is wedding related. Aheheheheh. (Mem: must reclaim Mark Rogers painting.) Oh! And curtains. At last, full length curtains with nifty curtain rods shall be mine.

I am also thinking long and hard about eBooks. I have filled the two bookshelves I brought and I still have two boxes of books to go. Looking at what's on the shelves, if I got a reader that did nothing but hold Martin, Brust, Bujold, Butcher, and maybe Kay, that'd clear out nigh half a bookcase--and all of those are available in electronic format. Mmm, I haven't checked the more obscure Brust (I had a hell of a time finding a copy of To Reign In Hell even in physical form) but the Taltos and the Khaavren series are available, and that's most of the sq. ftge.

When I clear more space, I intend to get a gatefold table; so, small occasional table most of the time, expandable to seat a few guests to dinner. (This also implies folding chairs; I noticed BB&B had some very handsome ones that looked Real, that is, not like folding chairs at all.) I also need to take some leisurely thought toward the current misc furniture next to my bed which do not add up to a sensible set-up. And, finally, I need a Fiber Arts Solution.

I intend to start a tag-series for Local Stuff Reviews, but for now let me quickly note that the pub across First--O'Flanaghan's--has tasty pub food, and apparently has live music Thurs - Sat nights, but is not cheap. Seven dollar pints, what the hell, people. Also, it is important to note that it's really damn hard to find parking around here, at least on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

The university on the end of my block is actually a biomedical research institution. Ground zero for zombie plagues, kids! I have an axe and a mace, don't you worry about me none. And the glorious big stone church on the corner of my street is a Slovak Catholic church. It makes me think of Grandpa's stories of his childhood 3-hour ordeals on a hard wooden bench listening to services entirely in Slovak, and I purr in fond remembrance.

(Yes, I only just got to see it. I've been busy.) elibalin, nedlnthred, and I went last night. We had the perfect mix: Beth had never read the comic, I had but not recently, and Eli had fairly recently. We all give it the Thumbs-Up of Approval. No, of course it's not as nuanced, how could it be? but I think it transmitted the central theme well. The casting choices ranged from "does the job" to "fucking brilliant": that Rorschach was picture-perfect, let me tell you. I was also getting a large amount of nerdgirl happy over Blue Beetle Night Owl. Yes, yes, yes.

I saw a DVD of "Tales of the Black Freighter" in my FNCS; I wonder if that means they'll cut it together with the film for ultimate release?

Also, let me take a moment to indulge in the happy of being home in half an hour after leaving the theater.

So, the revolution is confirmed for tomorrow. We will do the move in reverse order, since there's an open house at Our House tomorrow at 11:30, and it would be nice to not have movers schlepping shit through it. This has the unfortunate effect of Ranger in a cat carrier for longer, but I don't want to either move him today and leave him alone in a mostly-empty apartment (with nowhere to hide, which is important to him) or try and drive in another day with all the headache that entails.

The chorus of fail is composed of these parts:
- Myself, for not realizing there was a second page on the quote. All the pertinent data was on page 1, and there was no indication of there being MOAR (it didn't break off mid-paragraph or anything, and there was a fair amount of whitespace at the bottom), so it didn't even occur to me. Page 2 is where it says "oh and call back to confirm with your CC".
- Their administration-flow designers, for not making the "oh and call back to confirm" BIG AND OBVIOUS, and possibly in MULTIPLE LOCATIONS. Like, after you go through the online contract signing, a friendly message saying "Great! We have a deal! Now phone us with your moneys!"
- My Designated Rep Guy, the fellow who came out to give me a quote. He called back with abject apologies for not following up; it seems that most people after getting the quote call him five times a day with various trivia and head-explodey, so there's plenty of opportunity to make sure that the Is are dotted and the Ts crossed. The silent wheel does not get the attention of grease.

I am impressed that they managed to get everything together to reschedule for tomorrow; not that they shouldn't, but sometimes all the will in the world is insufficient. Also, everyone who I spoke to this morning was falling over themselves to be helpful and Make it Right and so on. (And they're getting me a discount.)

Am in a reasonably stable mental state--having the Internet acting out your emotions seems to help--but I still have a gently-friend psyche and my throat hurts from my initial howl of frustration. I think I shall do nothing useful today, instead embracing the way of the couch potato.