Twists of Fate

A candidate I can get behind!!

Er, not that way of course. I love sheep, but I don’t love sheep. Not even Dolores, tempting though she may be. I mean, I don’t have health insurance, and you just never know where her fleece has been.

ANYway, I can totally say I’m a member of the Fibertarian party. At some point, when I’m not totally PMSing and generally wanting to trample my fellow Americans under my stiletto-shod heel while bolting into the Fran’s Chocolate store in an effort to stem my irrational tears.

Um, yes. How you doon?

I don’t care who mocks me for this, but I LOVE the Spice Girls. I nearly bought a ticket for their Vegas concert, but couldn’t get away from work to go. They may not be the best singers in the whole world, and they may have spawned the scary spectacle that is Posh, but I love them liek whoa. When I’m in a truly pissy mood I’ve discovered myself firing up iTunes and finding one of the bouncier ones to be-bop along to.

It’s really hard to take life seriously when listening to the Spice Girls.

Which is why it’s a nice way to mentally flush the cache from a very stressful work week, and get on to dooting around with fiber for the evening. Right?

Right, dammit. GIRL POWER! ;)

In St Distaff Day if I bought a new wheel?

Background: I am a big SciFi geek. I love me some Star Trek and Stargate. I even bought all the MacGyver DVDs so I could extend my enjoyment of Richard Dean Anderson back a few years when he was young, taut and pretty. I also now have two Swiss Army Knives in my possession, but that’s a whole ‘nother issue.

Because my RDA lurv is so strong, I got up at 4:30 AM on a fucking Saturday morning to try to get tickets for Gatecon 2008 in Vancouver. The website launched ticket sales at 5am. There were something like 230 VIP tickets, and they were gone within 90 seconds. I have issues with the navigation on the site, the fact that they allowed people to purchase in blocks of ten for fucks sake, and yes, I am in fact BITTER. I’m even invoking the CAPSLOCK OF EMPAHSIS to tell you how BITTER I am.

Obviously, I wasn’t one of the lucky ticket winners. Included in the ticket price was a photo session with the man himself. I’ve invested a lot of tv crush time on him, and you know, I like Vancouver. Tail end of August, nice hotel, a whole plethora of other geeky people who could debate Goa’uld vs Wraith vs Replicators for hours, with citations of specific eps and character names and all the attendant nerdiness that I really do enjoy reveling in.

However, tickets were also 185 GBP, which = a shit ton of cash in USD these days.

So, the moral of the story? I didn’t get the tickets, but I was so frustrated (and sleep deprived) that I called up Copper Moose and ordered a new wheel to help dry the BITTER tears of my fannish disappointment. It’ll be cheaper in the long run, I think. Price of new wheel vs con ticket, gas and drive time to Vancouver, hotel stay for three nights, meals, slipping and falling in the dealer room and swiping my card on the way down…. It’s probably for the best.

Plus, there’ll be no need for RDA to bust out a restraining order*, so I even save on legal fees! It’s a win all around!

Right?

::crickets chirp::

*Disclaimer: I wouldn’t stalk the man, and in fact in-person celeb meetings make me squirm liek whoa. I’ve been to cons where people go off and stalk the actors while they’re in town, and I’ve asked the car to pull over and found a ride back to my hotel to avoid being part of that behavior. I dig the level of interaction RDA has with his fans, and am ridiculously pleased that he’s dipping his toes back into the great fannish ocean after years and years of avoiding it like the plague (see Simpsons episode 17:17 “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore”). I hope everyone treats him with the respect and courtesy anyone should give someone who’s as skittish about his privacy as a wild mustang who just unexpectedly stumbled into a wolf pack. I look forward to the con reports (BITTER! SO BITTER!), but the second level tickets are still way too expensive for me to justify the whole shebang. Anyway, wouldn’t stalk him, respect him lots, hope he enjoys and makes arrangements for smaller cons/events in the future.

I used to have a ginormous crush on Raychel Ray from the Food Network, but it was back when she was new and fresh. Now that she’s all corporate and, well, married, not crushing quite so much. I like the idea behind her meals, and now and again I watch her show, but she used to be so darn awesome.

I get my perv on with Paula Deen (seriously, have you ever seen Paula’s Party? It’s like a rolling sexual harassment wagon.) and Alton Brown makes me tingly. Good times on the Food Network, yo. Plus, if they make Giada’s shirts any more “scoop” neck, we’re going to be able to see her navel. Not that there’s anything wrong with rack that.

I was musing earlier about crushes. Many of my crushes on men are on older men with wicked, depreciating senses of humor. One in RL who was very kind to me when letting me down (though I still quail in horror at that particular Life Moment), and my massive crushes on a number of television actors. The one in RL was twenty two years older than I was, and an excellent man. Very aloof, hardly anyone at work knew anything about him, but I smiled at him one day and said hello. Next thing I know we were having coffee breaks together and having great talks. He was also nursing a broken heart (divorce) and missed his kids a lot. It wouldn’t have worked, but my youth and stupidity cost me a friend in the end. I feel pretty bad about that, but at least I can think of him now without being completely crushed.

Randomly, that led me to thinking of a girl I knew in high school. I think it’s because both Older!RL man and she have these amazing, piercing blue eyes. She had the most astonishing pale and clear complexion I’ve ever seen on another human being. Pale, milky skin with these rosy lips and cheeks…she was beautiful. She was also a bigger nerd than I was, which if you’d known me then is well nigh impossible, but it’s true. I think the fact she had a mathematically inclined mind tipped the geek scales in her favor. I wonder what happened to her, but my google-fu, it fails me. I’d check the spelling of her name, but that would require pulling out my high school yearbook, and there’s no way in hell THAT’s going to happen tonight.

Strangely enough, the blue of my crushes eyes are reflected in the scarf I’ve been working on because it’s so mindless. I’ve gone four entire days with some knitting, and it’s awesome! Lame? Maybe. But it’s exciting when I haven’t had a chance to do any consistent knitting for months.

So far today I’ve managed to resist buying a Journey Wheel, a book charkha, and ordering either a Columbine or a Majacraft Alpaca. Good thing too, because I’m getting up early tomorrow morning to try to get tickets for a thing in August. More about that later, I hope.

Congrats for surviving the first potential work week of January, to anyone who is reading! :D

I gotta say, today, when I went to the bank and opened a couple of savings accounts and was trying to clear the gigantic backlog of mail from my work inbox, and putting around making coffee? I was SO relieved that the holidays were over. There were only a couple of days this year when I was skirting the giant black pit of depression that I’m prone to, and I’m very thankful for that.

Now, next year at this time, I hope I still feel that way. But instead of being so tired I mostly sleep my way through the season, I’ll be enjoying myself on a beach in Hawaii or something. :D

I have to be at work SUPER early tomorrow, so I probably won’t open the Mystery Box tonight. On the upside, it’s Friday and likely to be a fairly relaxed day.

Viva la Friday!

Oh! I’ve managed to continue to get my knitting done, but I might pull out the scarf I’m working on and start over. I’m not sure yet. The yarn is absolutely lovely, a blend of wool/silk/angora, and in shades of blue, an aqua tinge and light purple. I was using the Harlot’s one row pattern, because I can’t really keep anything else in my head right now, but I may do something that more closely resembles waves. Thoughts, anyone?

Have you ever ordered something that took a while to get to you? And when it did finally arrive, you sort of can’t remember exactly what it is that you ordered? I have this “problem”, and it’s sitting on my couch. I’m pretty sure I know what it is, but haven’t gotten around to opening the box yet.

And now it’s way too late in the evening to play with whatever is in the box, and so my curiosity goes unresolved for another few hours. I’d be vexed at myself for not remembering the box was there, but I’m way too tired to care much tonight.

In other news, I bought a Starmore book but haven’t cracked that one either.

Maybe I was a cat in a former life, and you know how curiosity ends there. :D

Tomorrow, Annie. Tomorrow.

So, most of the time, I absolutely hate the Redmond Farmer’s Market. The parking is absolutely atrocious, there’s A LOT of vendors, and if you are easily overstimulated like moi? It’s nearly too much to deal with.

Happily, on the one Saturday I got my ass over to that market this year (I was picking up four pounds of ground cherries for a friend, and the vendor bailed on my normal market), I did take the time to wander the stalls. And I came across Brown Butterfly Aromatherapy.

You guys, this is *amazing* stuff. I love the fact that the handsome, greying gentleman had been, like, a Marine in years gone by, and the lovely lady in his life lured him into take a soapmaking or candlemaking class, and now? They make fantastically smelling product.

I picked up a lip balm, a couple of soaps and a bottle of oil that day, and I tell you what. Best purchases I’ve made in a long time. These are quality, handmade products, and as a knitter and sometimes spinner, I can appreciate the time and energy that goes into this. The Cinnamon Clove soap is heavenly in the shower - just the perfect amount of exfoliation for me. I love the Rose Lip Service lip balm, though it appears they only sold it at the market, as it’s not on their website. But it’s a lovely, true rose scent and I really like taking a moment to savor the smell of the height of summer and lushness and, well, beauty.

I have to say, though, that their Divine body oil is what I truly love. I went through 3/4 of my bottle in about a month of daily use, fresh out of the shower. It’s definitely an earthier, more grounded scent but I find it so soothing and helpful and it reminds me that there are, in fact, good things in life.

And sometimes you run across them in a farmer’s market after spending 15 min finding a place to park. :D

I picked up just a few items that day, but I loved them so much I picked up the phone and yesterday placed a fairly big (for me) order. And voila! Tonight the Man in Brown showed up with a box full of goodies. How awesome is THAT?

If you are looking for some aromatherapy products for yourself or to give as gifts this holiday season, I’d recommend them. I got one each of the Bath Teas for a friend who absolutely adores baths, and I thought these might be a nice change up from her usual Lush products. I will probably order more for the holiday season for a friend back on the east coast with somewhat sensitive skin, but who ALSO has a great love of baths.

I’m just really, really pleased with their products and if you’re in the area or would like to order products? I’d recommend them wholeheartedly. :)