Catching Fire grumbles

First: "A sweater woven from green and blue an gray strands of kitten-soft wool." Nope, sweaters aren't woven

I don't know why this sentance annoys me so much, but it really does: "I'm also annoyed that no one but Effie and I has shown up." I want to turn the second I into a me, I think, or to turn the has into a have. "I'm annoyed only Effie and I have shown up" or "I'm annoyed that no one has shown up but Effie and me."

And, the one that I thought was just so hilariously bad: "there's a strawberry birthmark over her chocolate brown eyes." Just ridiculous.

I should really just do something else. Read Howl's Moving Castle or restart The Once and Future King, if I'm going to read The Sword and the Stone for book group. (I actually do love T.H. White. He just takes me forever.) _

My friend Lyndsay and I used to read constantly when visiting each other. I used to read her copies of Charmed Life, Witch Week, The Lives of Christopher Chant and A Tale of Time City when I visited her. Charmed Life was always my favorite of hers Lyndsay's. I read a whole bunch of others. I read a bunch of other Diana Wynne Jones later, of what I'm guessing is of varyingly well known books.

Rest in Peace, Diana Wynne Jones. You wrote wonderful books. _

The featured seller on Etsy today is some woman who makes macarons. They are so perfect looking. I am jealous. I have tried twice, once winding up with tasty crubling things (I didn't fill them, they wouldn't have held together) and once with spherical purple-ish grey things that taste kind of like food dye.

I am trying again tomorrow night. We'll see how it goes. _

I have, stacked on my coffee table, West with the Night, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, and Sideways Stories from Wayside School. It is the last, particularly, that amuses me with the pile, and yet it is perfectly within the theme of "things Tori is reading for book group."

Also, I have a stack of library books out. They make me a little nervous, just being in my posession. But while I may have acceeded to Cassie's harassment in order to unbend and read The Hunger Games, I don't have to pay for it. _

Computery people: is there any reason why the totally dead battery in my laptop would affect its ability to stay connected to my wireless network? My brother says no. It doesn't make terribly much sense to me that it would, but I do remember that the last time I had a non-functioning battery I had trouble connecting to wireless networks and staying connected once I was.

(The new battery is on its way. I had no idea how often my power cord would pop out until that shut down my computer. ARG.) _

Conversation with a coworker, sparked by me telling him that I overheard him tell someone on the phone yesterday that Philadelphia and Harrisburg are 45 minute apart, and I said that Philadelphia and Lancaster were 45 minutes apart.

him: "I got them mixed up, I was in Lancaster last summer."

me: "Ah ha. Why?"

him: "We were taking our grandkids to see..." ((he couldn't remember))

me: "Amish country?"

him: "No."

me: ((trying to think of other things one might conceivably do in Lancaster)) "Dutch Wonderland?"

him: "Yes! That!"

me: "Um...why?"

  _

Forgetting how long the walk actually was, I thought it made total and complete sense to walk from Central Square to the Trader Joe's on Mem Drive. It's not actually that bad, until you walk back and the entire reason for going to the Trader Joe's on Mem Drive instead of any of the others that I could have gone to was because they have wine and I am hosting my book group (goddamn Massachusetts. One thing I really particularly miss about my office in Alexandria was the Trader Joe's between my office and my bus stop and the easy ability to buy cheap wine).  And even the walk back, loaded down with groceries wouldn't have been bad if I had any direction sense at all and hadn't thought "I was on this road, clealry this is the one that goes back to Central. Well, it was, when I had gone down a diagonal street and needed to turn. I was on my way home on a different street. Thank you, Sprint, Android, and Google for including GPS with maps on my phone, I have no idea where I eventually would have wound up (Google Maps tells me I would have hit Mass Ave around Harvard Square). Well, sort of thank you. I am incompetant enough that when I got back to the intersection where I should have turned in the first place I turned the wrong direction and didn't realize it until I saw the Trader Joe's again.

My shoulders hurt where my backpack was digging in. _

Coolest yarn bomb ever. _

Just this. _

Does anyone know if whatever is going on with the nuclear plant in Japan is worse than TMI? Or is it just that it's sitting on all this massive potential to be worse than TMI? _

I had no idea earthquakes could change the axis and spin of the earth. That is crazy. _

I had no idea earthquakes could change the axis and spin of the earth. That is crazy. _

The funny part about watching Out of Africa is that I wound up watching it at all because I quite liked Blix in West with the Night. I didn't really care about Denys at all. Funny, that.

(Of Beryl's friends, I looked up Blix and Tom Campbell.) _

I really ought to check the length of movies before starting one. Which is why there's an hour left of Out of Africa which I stopped watching half an hour ago, to do the dishes fold my laundry and put pillow cases on my pillows. ((sigh)) _

Today I continued the macaron experiment. I think I overcooked the cookie part, they are very very dry and taste a little burnt. I don't know if they look burnt because I had it in my head that I wanted them to look like oreos so I made them chocolate and added black food dye. They didn't turn black. They are a sort of steel grey. It's...kind of odd.

I am going to try again for the non-kids lit book group that's meeting this week, but I am also planning back up sweet things in case they fail again. (I am thinking pound cake and coffee-hazelnut toffee.)

And I have pizza dough rising. The yeast went insane when it was proofing, I have never seen such crazy yeast. But pizza dough, it will not fail me. _

Having swept my house and scrubbed my batroom, I am feeling quite pleased with myself. And also, my fit of cleaning productivity might be done for the day. I might just spend the rest of the day trying to finish my sparkly Lleu sweater.

Or maybe I will continue the macaron experiment. Hm.

I had meant to make pizza dough this morning to make pizza for dinner. I wonder if it's too late. _

Reading about what people gave up for Lent makes me feel bemused. I never really got it, even when I vaguely considered myself to be Catholic. I don't really get New Years resolutions either.

(This was almost a Tweet, but then I remembered that my Twitter feeds my Facebook and I try to keep my dad's family out of the loop on my atheism. It just keeps the peace.) _

Ugh ugh ugh...

We had a meeting for the administrative support staff this morning which eventually wound up with people screaming, and I snapped something to someone along the lines of "do you work in this office?" about whether or not admin staff should keep a the front desk up to date about when their people aren't going to be in the office. It was ridiculous. Of course it is assumed that the front desk knows if someone is going to be in the office for the day. I am expected to be the attendance monitor, but no one tells me anything.

I am still grumpy and frustrated. I don't know why people think it's absurd to tell me that someone's travelling for work for a week. _

The hyacinth on my desk at work is having trouble standing up. I keep going to work knitting project-less, and so I have it sort of propped up with the spray bottle one of my coworkers uses on all the other plants and a cheap/crappy ballpoint. Tomorrow I must remember to bring chopsticks and some yarn so I can make it stand up.

It smells so lovely. All spring like and awesome. _

Walking from the subway to my office, I saw someone with a smudge of ash on their forehead. I had completely forgotten it's Ash Wednesday and I almost said "Oh, you have something on your forehead."

I feel ridiculous. I just had to share. _