arduinna: Cartoon Walter and William Bell from Fringe, with the thought bubble "how wonderful!" (wonderful)
So much for posting every day, oh well. But I have a good reason for the last few days; [personal profile] gwyn was visiting me and [personal profile] therienne and [personal profile] mollyamory, and we were busy and social and eating all the food for days, with barely a chance to check email and things, never mind post. (Then there was the traditional day-of-collapsing after all that socializing...)

The length of this visit seems to have short-circuited our usual routine; it was long enough to get in lots of our favorite places to eat instead of just having to pick one or two, but not long enough to spread them out. So where normally people come visit us and we spend a lot of time just hanging out talking and watching tv to pimp them into shows, this time we spent a lot of time hanging out talking and traveling to various meals. I think the only things we watched were POI, Elementary, and a few videos (not even vids!).

It was fun, though, with lots of good food, and [personal profile] gwyn got to see a fairly decent array of New England-y-ness, from crowded city things to spread-out wealthy suburbs. She traded us one of her favorite restaurants in return, which we stumbled over unexpectedly during our afternoon in Boston, yum.

It was actually kinda like a mini con; gwyn arrived Thursday and left Monday. We deliberately left Thursday pretty mellow, since she'd come in on a redeye flight and was exhausted. So we just spent the day being lazy and relaxed, chatting away and ordering Thai takeout for dinner.

We three locals were all very torn about Thursday evening; we are HUGE Person of Interest fans, and it was the finale, and we were so stressed out by the previous week's ep! But we were going to be very polite and not watch, until [personal profile] gwyn said she was fine with it, she'd just hang with us and be online while we watched. Yay!

(And then she said she'd seen a few eps but mostly watched with it on in the background, and didn't get x, y, and z, and had to listen to us earnestly explaining the entire show for the rest of the day weekend.)

The weather was in and out, rainy cool days interspersed with warm sunny days, but we made it into Boston on Friday, the nicest day of all, which was lovely. I almost never do the local-tourist thing, but [personal profile] therienne and I thought doing a bit of the Freedom Trail and visiting Faneuil Hall at the end of it would make for a good low-key kinda tourist day, and it really did. The day was perfect for walking around in; we saw a few historical sites and a lot of tour guides in period costume wandering around, and finished off with a fabulous lunch, a visit to the Holocaust Memorial (which I'd never been to, and barely held it together while I walked through - dear god, but that's just. very effective, and affecting.), and then a quick trip to Haymarket to soak in a little rejuvenation in the form of fresh fruits and veggies before getting back on the T to home. (Where I played the Kingston Trio's "M.T.A." for gwyn to explain the why the T's payment system is called a "Charlie card", and why the image on the cards always makes me happy.)

We kept the historical theme going that evening, taking her out to the Wayside Inn, where we ate in the Tap Room (much older -- like, 200 years older -- and more charming than the main dining room), and we even saw a horse and buggy driving around, taking passengers to see the grounds (I think).

Horse and buggy! )

Saturday we met up with [personal profile] talking_sock for brunch and then hung out with her for a few hours before she had to head home, then we trooped into the office to poke at vidding tech until it was time to go to dinner. We got to show [personal profile] gwyn Premiere for Mac, and at least a fast look at how it compares to Final Cut, and some tricks we've figured out over the years. It's already all blurring even for me, though, so hm, maybe one of these days we should do screenshots and write up some actual comparisons, while we still at least vaguely remember how to use FCP.

And then there was Mexican food and Doctor Who and more talking.

Sunday was a day of rest. And talking. And food. (When we pick a theme, we stick to it.) We had a lovely long brunch at a local restaurant, then later [personal profile] therienne grilled us some burgers for dinner. We made a determined effort that night to get sundaes to cap off the weekend, but alas the place we usually go changed their hours, and we arrived too late, then had to roam around in quest of regular ice cream instead.

Monday was a short day, with only time for one last good brunch, and a quick tour around to look at some churches, including one that had the best birdhouse ever:

birdhouse! )

Then [personal profile] gwyn left. :( She's off on a fabulous trip to London for a few days, then Cardiff for Vidukon, then back to London, and I'm all jealous.

Me, I'm back to work. This seems unfair!
arduinna: a tarot-card version of Linus from Peanuts, carrying a lamp as The Hermit (Default)
Icon particularly appropriate!

I took some random time off this week, partly just to use up some vacation time, partly to spend some time with my dad, and largely to "hermit out" and get some extended time inside my own head, which I haven't done in... years, it feels like. Since my sleep apnea got diagnosed a few years ago I've been a lot more functional (looking back, I'm horrified at how non-functional I was for years, even decades, without ever knowing it), and less desperate for total alone-time downtime. Plus I've just been busy, with most of my downtime spread out between crises, mourning, and visits from friends.

But after most of a week mostly alone, with very limited interactions with people, my head is in a better space than it's been in ages. I think I could use another week or two of this, but that's never going to happen, alas. Still. This is a good reminder that I really do need to just shut down every now and then, and play with my cats or watch mindless tv for a while, or even just sit quietly in the silence.

It helped a lot that I did what I almost never do on vacations, and actually front-loaded all my errand-y things into the first part of the week. Usually I plan to do that, and then my agoraphobia kicks in silently and I never quite make it out of the house, and the need to run those errands builds up over the week and stresses me out, even as my brain comes up with a million reasons for me not to do them. This week, though, I made advance plans for Monday and Tuesday for the crucial stuff, after which I didn't leave my house again, but that was okay because there was nothing else I had to leave it for, so there was nothing to stress about. \o/

What I did on my spring winter vacation:

Monday:
Spent the whole day day with my dad, getting myself put on his bank accounts and safe deposit box in case of emergencies, and "fixing" his computer by showing him how to forward an email.

Watched the pilot ep of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, which I'd heard good things about and had bought on impulse at Costco.

Tuesday:
Brought the cats to the vet for vaccinations.

Brought the car to the mechanic for a new headlight and spiffy buffed lenses over both headlights.

Bought all the cleaning supplies and kitty litter in the world. Or at least in my local grocery store.

Watched a couple more eps of the Lady Detective, checked the Festivids site to see if there'd been any vids made for it. Alas, no.

Wednesday:
"Fixed" my dad's computer remotely, omg yay.

Cleaned the "pantry", really my oversized storage closet and kitty litter space. Cleaned it a LOT, down to washing the walls. Threw out seven giant bags of crap, one normal-sized bag of kitty litter, and one normal-sized bag of regular weekly trash. (This was baffling to me. I had done a massive cleanout on this room out a year or so ago, turning it from a junk dump to a functional room where I could get at everything easily. I had no idea there was still so much crap in it.)

Proof! )

Moved my car to a safe spot on a side street in the face of a rumored storm, even though from the sound of it it was mostly going to fizzle, maybe a couple inches total.

Watched another ep of the Lady Detective.

Thursday:
Rested on my laurels after admiring my awesome clean pantry for a while. Played endless rounds of broken-toy games with Hobbes, with Darien jumping in any chance he could.

(Seriously. Broken toy. Hobbes loves feathers on a string, but they keep chomping the feathers off. Then Dari somehow yanked the remaining feathers out of the little plastic holder thingie, which swung empty at the end of the string and turned itself into the most exciting toy EVER OMG. They've been playing with that broken bit of plastic for days. I don't even.)

Watched tons of Storage Wars, Auction Kings, and Property Wars in a zoned-out haze of relaxation. (Time to give up on Storage Wars and Property Wars, though -- I've seen enough of both to be fed up with the way people jerk each other around and bid things up just to make it harder/more expensive for other people. Bleah. Auction Kings is more fun; it's about cool stuff, not obnoxious jackasses. And since they seem to have given up on the annoying Whatever Brothers from last season, it's back to being pure entertainment for me.)

Admired the pretty weather, with constant snowfall in temps warm enough to keep the roads clear.

Watched POI. \o/ Started writing reaction post.

Friday:
Got woken up by my boss, who had lost power in the storm that had decided to stop fizzling and morph into a heavy wet giant of doom. Covered for him for a couple of hours till his power came back, cranky but resigned - crappy way to end a vacation week, but he's given up vacation days for me when I've had emergencies, too.

Sucked it up and called an insurance company to request a quote for auto and renter's insurance, after years of being vaguely dissatisfied with my existing company. Dithered for a couple of hours, then actually went ahead and did it, go me!

Watched lots of Law & Order: SVU, weirdly; that used to be a go-to mindless show for me but I haven't watched it in a couple of years. Guess the burnout finally wore off. It's perfect for days when I want a storyline to follow but don't want to devote the energy to actual investment in anything that happens.

Watched Grimm, which is finally back, in its most bizarrely-scheduled year ever. (... out of two years.)

Rediscovered my deviantArt account and actually started using it a little. I still don't really get how dA works, but hey, pretty fanart.

"Rediscovered" Tumblr, which for some reason I'd stopped checking -- I think because I was behind and wanted to catch up before I... went back... I don't know, blocks are weird. And turns out Tumblr's still very time-suck-y.

Saturday:
Shoveled. A day behind the rest of the neighborhood, because my landlord's son told me he wasn't shoveling till Saturday morning (which for him meant 4am, apparently - his sleep schedule is even weirder than mine), so the front walk was buried until then. Surprisingly, this turned out to have been a good thing for me; I'd been resigned to having to shovel very heavy, wet snow after a warmup, but instead I got out to my car across the street and discovered that the people parked around me had done a kickass job, and left me barely any work to do. \o/

Finished and posted the POI reaction post, for a miracle. I start so many posts I never finish.

Watched another ep of the Lady Detective.

Spent lots more time on Tumblr and deviantArt.

Sunday:
Completely failed in my attempt to adjust promptly to Daylight Savings. Oh well. It's always a couple weeks of misery and oversleeping for me, soothed by the lingering daylight in the evening. It's going to be light tonight till almost 7pm!!

Planned for the rest of the day: roast a turkey breast, finish a more rambly POI post, finish the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series (short series), write a story, clean the rest of my house.

Hopefully I'll at least manage to roast the turkey breast. The rest is icing.

As always, there are a ton of things I'd planned to do and never did. I was going to organize my bookmarks (and sync Pinboard and AO3 bookmarks), update links on my recs pages, maybe make some new recs for the first time in years, maybe work more on my months-old VVC DVDs review so I could post it, write a story or two. I was totally definitely going to at least spend an hour every day working on things like the bookmarks and the recs pages. I was going to read tons of fanfic, and catch up on books I've been meaning to read for ages, and watch at least one vid every day.

Yeah, not so much. But that's okay. It's as important to be quiet sometimes as it is to be busy. And I forget too easily how much better I feel when I'm quiet.

*contented sigh*
Page generated Jan. 25th, 2026 04:35 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios