How to Motivate Your Cleaning
Now, it may seem like a bad idea to have a party only a week after getting the last boxes out of the apartment. As we continued to clean and stack and sort and discard it became clear that indeed, it really really was a bad idea.
Our favorite lifestyle group decided not to hold a December party this year – a month off was the group’s gift to the folk who usually host it. Well, we jumped into the gap, and by Friday, we’d begun to wonder if we’d remembered to don parachutes first. Friends came over Friday evening to move large furniture, but by the time we’d exhausted ourselves that night, the place still wasn’t ready.
Somehow – I have no idea how – we got the house ready by Saturday evening, and if one bedroom was full of re-packed boxes and odd pieces of furniture, well, we were willing to pay that price. The actual party went smooth as silk; we had about 20 people or so, and several of them decided independently to bring housewarming gifts. Conversation was geeky, food was yummy, and the company was awesome. Starr spent much of the evening looking slightly dazed, as if still thinking “Did we really pull this off? I mean, really?” Or maybe that was me.
I had decided earlier that, around 1:30 or 2, we’d politely show people the door; somehow, this didn’t happen, and we still had about six or eight people in the middle of an intense discussion at 5:30, when I collapsed entirely. Starr had to wave the white flag as well; we picked a friend who we could trust not to steal the silverware, and asked him to make sure that everyone got home okay.
When I finally got up yesterday, not only was the place locked up and shutdown nicely, they’d even cleaned both the kitchen and the table where we’d stacked the party food. Talk about a bunch of twisted perverts…
We’ve got to do this again sometime. But not soon.
Brief updates
- 11:13 Experiencing a blast from the past: I have Eve Tokimatsuri songs running through my head now. #
- 11:45 @snidegrrl “The spiders launched to the space station a supply of tasty fruit flies for food” – spiders with orbital capability? Uh-oh. #
- 12:07 Noting that the “post Twitter entries to LJ” script is doing so at wildly varying times of day for some reason. #
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An old message for Operator 7G
I just found the Megazone 23 3-disc DVD set on Barnes and Noble. These movies influenced my imagination strongly, and I set one of the strongest pieces of fanfic I’ve written aboard a similar Megazone.
I got to tell you, though, this Christmas my reptilian “want” reflex is a little muted by the recent move. I can’t forget that everything I might buy, or receive as a gift, is something I may have to pack up and move in a box someday. Right now, I’m not thrilled at the prospect; who knows, perhaps my distaste will fade over coming months.
On the other hand, I still do have a B&N card from my birthday… and a couple hardcovers or a DVD set don’t take up all that much space… right? Right?
Yeah. I think I’ll wait until after the holidays and see if I still want it then 🙂
Dongle is fun to say
The other day, I found the serial port dongle for the Newton, which I figured I’d keep around just in case one of the special keyboards popped up cheap on eBay. Then today, while unpacking… I discovered that I already HAD one of those keyboards, and somehow never even knew it.
trenn and I used to joke that the federal government had hidden the Ark of the Covenant in a cardboard box in his living room, it being less likely to be found there than in Warehouse 23. But now I’m actually finding undiscovered technology in my stuff. Any chance that there’s a brand-new desktop Mac stashed anywhere in there?
(Oh, and of course after I discovered the keyboard, it took me another 45 minutes to re-find the serial port dongle. Working great, though!)
Moving forward, but glancing back
Sunday, I locked the door to the Portsmouth apartment for the last time, and turned the keys in to the main office. It’s weird, looking at the place all empty and echoey. That apartment was home for 18 months; having spent most of the first 30 years of my life in one dwelling, I always find it strange to leave.
We’re having folks over on Saturday night, so the new place has to be presentable. That’s an interesting task, as our five rooms of this ‘n’ that have to be shuffled into a house which still has plenty of Starr’s parents’ stuff in it. Of course, since some of that stuff includes objects such as big flat-panel TVs, I can accept the challenge, but it’s still a lot like trying to work the new expansion cards into your favorite CCG deck without going over the card count.
In other words, I’m still exhausted. There’s a bright side when I pass my old exit every day and remember that I don’t have to stop at the apartment for anything, but with the work we still have before us, I predict that Sunday will be chock full of slacking.
Anyway, let me tell you about the awesome computer I set up in the study this week. 8 MHz processor – 4 megs of RAM – 20 meg hard drive! The 9″ screen will display images in a palette of two colors (black or white), and the entire operating system fits neatly on an 800K floppy.
I love that old Macintosh SE; it was a much-appreciated gift from rattrap back in (I think) 1991 or so, and I got a lot of Starfleet paperwork, creative writing, and Hypercard gaming done on it. Eventually, my dad bought me a Mac LC III which introduced me to the amazing world of color graphics; the LC III is long gone, but the SE booted up happily on my shelf and is right now running MacWrite II, A Mess O’ Trouble, and the Dark Side of the Mac screensaver. Very decorative and retro. (The clock battery inside is long dead, and I’m not sure it’s worth cracking the case just so I don’t have to fix the time on every reboot. Otherwise, it’s humming along nicely.)
And may I also wish a Happy Birthday to shrewlet, who may well have found the Answer to the Ultimate Question…
Feasting quietly
As I am most years, I’m thankful that I didn’t get up at oh-god-hundred to stand in line for a discount on a piece of merchandise that will be out of stock by the time I get in the door. As it is, I did leave the house before sunrise, but on the other hand, I was treated to quite the spectacle as the sun came up over the Bay. So, hardly all bad.
Last night, I managed to cook a 3-pound turkey breast perfectly, without doing anything but defrosting it in cold water for two hours and then tossing it into the oven on a roasting pan for ninety minutes. The homemade mashed potatoes came out exactly as I wanted them, and even the brown-and-serve rolls browned properly for once. “Unexpected Thanksgiving dinner” went over quite well to a weary R.N. last night 🙂
Sadly, I’m reading that some of my LiveJournal friends have had to return briefly ‘to the closet’ just so they could spend the holiday with family and loved ones. This makes me angry and sad simultaneously. We still live in a world where I still have to filter certain harmless posts to my own journal; but far worse than that, these awesome people have to filter their own lives. I don’t dare to hope that I’ll live to see this burden fade away… I only hope that maybe the next generation will.
Always glad for books
A little thing I am thankful for: My Subterranean Press hardcover omnibus of The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox arrived this week. I can exchange two softcovers in my library now for a single hardcover, and perhaps not lose it this time (I’ve already lost one paperback of Bridge of Birds and one of Eight Skilled Gentlemen). It’s quite a shame that Hughart won’t be writing any more of them, but as he says on the flyleaf, he could feel “formula” creeping up on the tales, and that would be a worse shame.
If only certain other authors had stopped while they were still ahead of their own creation. On the other hand, a check with enough zeros on the right can be a powerful incentive to any writer…
The Obligatory Holiday Post
I can think of several things for which I’m thankful today:
Everything is out of the apartment now except for some random cleaning supplies, and a couple of lamps and a vacuum cleaner that wouldn’t fit in the car last night. This will be taken care of this weekend when I drop off the keys. For this I am very thankful to Starr and, well, me. We’ve both put no small effort into all these boxes.
I am thankful to Starr for many things, in fact; but they’re all mushy and I’ll save that for some other time.
I am thankful to Starr’s parents for allowing us to use their house for the next year or two. We’ll be very comfortable here, and we’ll be able to save up some money which we’ll need to get our own place. (Midori is thankful to them for the gas fireplace, which is one of the best things the furless monkeys have invented since domesticated catnip and the chewy kitty treat.)
I’m thankful to NASA for giving me the opportunity to show me what I could do for them, and to rattrap for encouraging my developing Macintosh skills in the first place. I’m also thankful to the designers of the Apple Newton, whose long-cancelled product inadvertently provided me with some “hardcore Mac expert” cred in the most recent planning meeting.
I am thankful to the grocery store owners and workers who allowed their stores to be open this morning, so I could acquire the remaining bits of a quiet Thanksgiving surprise dinner to serve Starr, who once again works a holiday.
I’m thankful to the creators and operators of LiveJournal, without whom I’d never be able to keep track of what’s going on with all my friends. My peeps are a complicated, intelligent, opinionated, goofy bunch – which is exactly how I like it, and my life would be horribly diminished without them.
I’m thankful to all the people that I like and love that my emo side is awfully disappointed this holiday. I’m supposed to be, and fully expected to be, horribly dissatisfied with my life at this age. Problem with that is, there’s so much good in my life right now… how can I let the few speed bumps slow me down?
Effort and Reward
First, let us get the day’s whining out of the way. I am in very great pain: as in, I’m hoping to avoid standing up until it is time to leave for the day. My legs and back are screaming at me, wanting to know what kind of idiot I am.
The good news is that almost everything is out of the apartment – one more evening’s work, tonight, should do it. We’ve made a deal with a friend to give the place a professional cleaning tomorrow, and this should leave me clear to turn over the keys on Friday or Saturday. I’ll be relieved!
Last night, my gaming group threw me a late surprise birthday party. Two separate awesome cakes, and some excellent clothes from Jesse. (Starr’s reaction to the clothes: “Squeee!”) Everyone did insist on wearing black to this little event, but heck, that’s hardly unusual for my friends anyway! Thank you very much, guys!
Brief updates
- 09:36 Just had to explain who Cthulhu is to a workmate. Must increase geekiness of workplace. (At NASA, yet.) #
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