skyflame  posted this. It's on a Metro sign! (Via dreamwell_ali )

Confess if you are any of these people!
I confess that I am #1, 4, 6, 13, 16 and 18!

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I spy someone who...

1. sleeps with a teddy bear - well, a stuffed cow. :)
2. paints their chest at football games
3. was a spelling bee champ
4. secretly loves kittens (this really is not a secret)
5. is listening to '90s dance music
6. ate glue in kindergarten Heck, later than that.  In elementary school, we had a school project that involved making log cabins by gluing pretzel sticks to milk cartons. 
7. takes karaoke really seriously (at least I used to)
8. loves to talk about their kids
9. is going to sleep past their stop
10. played keyboard in a rock band during high school
11. uses "password" as their password
12. wears a toupee
13. cries during chick flicks
14. thinks Pig Latin is the best thing ever
15. dresses up for Sci-Fi conventions
16. picks their nose at red lights
17. eats co-workers' sandwiches from the office fridge
18. spent long hours doing their hair
19. sucked their thumb until they were 13
20. is too old to be living with their parents

Life is fun. Keep on living.
Use caution around the tracks.

I had a lovely day. I attended the Baronial Investiture of Couer d'Ennui. I have been out of the SCA for 7 years, and only went back for the previous Baronial Investiture 3 years ago. You see, this event is like Homecomming. There were many people who had been gone for some time.Some longer than me, some shorter than me. And friends I had not seen for several years. It really was quite nice. I very much enjoyed visiting with a dear, dear friend with whom I always seem to pick up right where we left off. That is why it was so special and enjoyable. I think I could have stayed all day but I had a date with other friends to see "The Dark Knight" . So I flashed forward to modern times and took in the big summer blockbuster. Liked it quite a bit. The Joker was creepy. Very creepy. Just like an insane criminal ought to be. Batman was reduced to a lot of fighting and some angst. But that is the way with superhero trilogies. The Villain is always the star after the first installment. Big explosions, dark themes. BoYah!

You know what I love...posts like these...

Sometimes, there's no substitute for timing. Check out her hands relative to her veil...


(yes, philady, spring Guild show photos are FINALLY up!)

My first album was actually two albums; Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Full Moon Fever and Def Leopard's Hysteria. No I don't listen to them as they are on cassette and I don't own a cassette player, and am not fond of the format.

As an aside I also rarely use CD's anymore as I can just rip them to OGG. Ironically enough I do own a turntable and use it regularly.

Other than that, I probably would listen to them currently if they were in a more convenient format.

Christopher Lowell creeps me out.

Now that was a non-Hollywood ending I can get behind.

You know, I have my foodie moments, and then I go and read trashy_eats and I'm plunged back, much like Marcel Proust of the ghetto, to remembering my favorite high school food meal:  The Wienerlada.

My home-made attempts to recreate this wonderous fusion of American beef by-product with Mexican cooking usually go something like this:

Hot dog
Tortilla
Cheese (cheddar, American)
some kind of tomato-based sauce (salsa, ketchup, spaghetti sauce, whatever)
Salsa or (better) Durkee's red-hot

Roll cheese and hotdog in tortilla, more cheese on top, slather in tomato product, top with more cheese, nuke, cover in hot sauce.

If I could figure out a way to upscale that thing (chorizo with melted queso manchego in a tomatillo sauce with dried-tomato wrap, let's say) I could make a mint.  Who doesn't like a trashy hot dog?

Day count: 2,276
Week count: 2,276
Total count: 2,276 (60,649)
Crazy Viking Action: GRENDEL ATTACK!

Favorite words: Its cry choked my courage.

Angst: It was a long, sucky week. Bad weeks have to happen occasionally, though.

Hope/Notes: Good start! I like it. And I think it's working, which is even more important. I'm writing Part Two as though it were an entirely new novel, which is weird on one hand, but also it's helping me think about what's going on in new and fun ways. I'm trying to tell the story a bit differently. Wish me luck!

I wish I was able to write in the morning more often. I'm so much better at concentrating from 7-11am. *sigh*

There were a LOT of people out there who were more than willing to tell me that "I don't know what it's like" and "wait until..." as if I was clueless about what REAL sleep deprivation is like. Unless you have a kid you CAN'T know REAL sleep deprivation. To that I say, get over yourselves. Never assume someone doesn't know about something until you've walked a mile in their shoes. Do I sound defensive? Good. I've felt defensive every time someone said anything like that to me, and perhaps now I have the credibility and the "right" to get this frustration out.

Now it's my turn to tell YOU something. Insomnia is a *bitch*. Baby/preemie twins? A walk in the park.

There are different levels of sleep deprivation. The worst insomnia I've had is when you CAN'T sleep. When you're wired up, scared, nervous, emotionally driven to the point of hyperactivity and functioning like you're constantly on ten pots of coffee at all times. It's draining and you can't sleep no matter what you do, and you feel like you're either going to die, or live forever in a vampire-like state trying to enjoy the night as well as the painful day. It's a *special* kind of hell. Those with insomnia know what I'm talking about.

I never approached that state with the kids home. I thought I would and felt like I got off easy from the start. I've been through this in high school, in my 20's for a little while, and especially post-K.

Then there's the type of calmer insomnia when you just won't sleep. I mean two things by this. Either you just can't get yourself to sleep and/or will yourself awake so that you can have more time to worry and fret about life OR your brain just will not stop spinning and will not allow you to fall asleep. This is less emotionally driven, less frantic, and just an odd state of existence. You actually function quite well and your mind is sharp. Many people can go to work, and live normally like this. Even if you lie down to rest, it's not really sleeping but you feel refreshed anyway. Your life consists of cat naps, and you can go without if you have to.

This is how I "slept" for the last months of my pregnancy and the first six weeks the kids were home. Except when I was pregnant it hurt all the time and felt better when the kids came home. :) The nice part is, I was not losing sleep for bad reasons, not because I was upset or my mind was racing. I was awake because my babies were keeping me up and that made it much easier.

The next step is what I'd call sleep deprivation. This is when you actually spend some time in REM, you actually get some deep sleep time and it keeps getting cut short. It could be nightmares, or again emotionally driven, or because of environment and children waking you up. This is the kind of sleep that seems to hurt more because you're getting a taste of restorative rest but not a complete recovery. It's also what I like to call the "stupid" phase. Your brain doesn't function as well at night (or even during the day) and you do a lot of double takes. I imagine this is the lack of sleep that most parents bitch about. It's a hard phase to go through when you're recovering from insomnia because it makes you feel like you're failing and might as well stay up. This is the stage that makes you LOOK wiped out as well. But you know what? It's better than the first two I described. By a *landslide*.

Now that we moved the kids into their own room as night and I don't feel constantly on guard, I've entered this stage. I realized this when I had my first stupid part last night. We have to wait three hours between feedings. Last night I fed Kaden at 2:30 and he woke me at 5:30, I told him that it had only been two hours and he'd have to wait to eat. He kept crying... I thought about it... and clued in. Then he made his little peep-squeak sounds for about an hour after that. LOL! I *feel* better and even less sore getting some actual sleep, but I look more tired as G politely pointed out this morning. :) When you know it's coming and you know what it feels like, it's much easier to deal with. When this deprivation surprises you and hits you like a sledgehammer it hurts like a bitch. Parents have every right to complain, don't get me wrong. This sucks! But I didn't have to have kids to know what it's like, and I was probably more ready for it than many first time parents. I'm cool with it, daddy-o!

After this, I know I'll enter the "just really damn fucking tired" stage. This is when you sleep, really do sleep, it's just not enough. When you're going to bed at midnight and getting up at 5 and you can convince yourself that you got a good night's sleep but it's not enough to feel good. (Okay, I know that for many of you this is normal - you're not getting enough sleep either, buddy.) This kind of tired is easier to fight through. I think we all did it in college/university years staying up until godawful hours. I also lived like this during the years when I was commuting.

I expect this stage to come later for me (I can't speak for G) when the kids find some sort of sleeping schedule with naps during the day and what is called "sleeping through the night". Which is not an adult sleeping schedule by any stretch. I know it'll stay that way for years, I remember as a kid being up for a long time before my folks, watching cartoons. (Side note: Did you know that "Hilarious House of Frightenstein" is on at 6am every day? RAWK!! http://www.frightenstein.com/)

"You don't know until you have your own kids." Uh huh. Pfft. Never assume. (It just makes an ASS out of U and ME. LOL!) You know what? There are a lot of people out there who DO understand, they get the fucking message loud and clear and that is exactly why they DON'T have kids! They get it in a big way.

Regardless of what sleep stage I'm in my Fibro is coming back with a vengence and this gaggle of thunderstorms we're getting is not helping. (Yes, I know gaggle is not the right terminology, but I think of them as loud geese coming through the neighbourhood to annoy me these days.) My muscles are not recovering from the surgery fast enough for my liking and the lack of restorative sleep is bringing back my symptoms just as I suspected. Sigh... This frustrates me when I can't hold one of my kids as long as I'd like, especially when they're sleeping in my arms.

So there you have it. I do have the baby experience now, doubled. I knew all of this before I had kids, as much as people loved telling me I didn't know or couldn't possibly understand. Maybe I'm saying all of this because I'm bloody tired of hearing it. Maybe I'm sore and annoyed. Maybe I've been inspired by the book I've been reading to just tell it like it is, dammit, Padrone style. Maybe I just felt like it was time to finally put it out there once and for all so that people will stop snickering with me about how I must be handling it and how dumbfounded I should be.

I'm fine. Really. I've got a little peeper-squeaker strapped to my chest and I couldn't be happier. :)

I can now safely say that Cow Foot isn't one of my favorite foods, no matter how deliciously prepared.  The rest of the dinner was fantastic though - the cornbread is dense and flavorful, and the plaintain chips light and cruncy.  Nothing was over-salted.  I've got another order, curried goat, sitting in the fridge for later.

The standout, though, was the savory mango salad.  My god.  Mango and tiny bits of cucumber and onion with some heat and vinegar behind it.  SO GOOD. I will be working to duplicate that one.

Originally published at Vylar Kaftan. You can comment here or there.

Bubbles and minefields do not play well together.

In fact, I think you could craft a variation on the Chicken, Fox, and Grain puzzle with these two things, plus a kitten.

You have a bubble, a kitten, and a minefield. You need to transport all three of them across the river…

Wait, that doesn’t work, because you can’t trust ANY of these things alone together. Maybe add a bag of kibble for the minefield to play with.

Yesterday I bought a ticket to take a floatplane to Victoria tomorrow, avowedly to meet one of last year's workshoppers but in fact because the weather's going to be good. Today I bought dark chocolates with hemp seeds, wasabi, and beets in them. Tomorrow I'm going to wear a scarf with polka dots on it.

Life is pretty strange and cool.