marymac

Well, probably just drive me mad. But I think we have a nest in the attic. I've been hearing a little droning coo all day.

*hates on pigeons*
*hates on Building Services*

On the upside, it has been confirmed that I am not, as S alleged, imaging it, becasue the girls next door are hearing it too. And I might possibly maybe be able to get teaching next semester, and definitely Support work. And I've done about half my Christmas shopping, to the horror of M, 'Why are you organised? That's just wrong!'

And now I go meet Ruth for tea and come back to actually do some damn work because this yoke is due on Friday and tomorrow, frankly, is a write off, one way or another. Josh Ritter! Orchestra! Vicar Street! Sisterly driving!

'I have a nemesis! Yes! I've never had a nemesis before'

M has declared war on his thesis-topic rival in UCC. Its going to go to pistols at dawn, this one.

People, I will not turn up to note take for you if you don't email me back and give me the requisite information about the damn class and your particular needs. You should know this!

*growl*

For galpalficathon

Title: This Is Where It Starts
Fandom: Middleman
Prompt: Wendy and Lacey, Freshman Year
Rating: G
Spoilers: Um. None, if you've seen the series, its all background stuff. If you haven't, um. You might want to watch episode 5 first. But nothing plot-destroying.

Many thanks to Elaine and doyle_sb4  for beta-reading and valiant attempts to figure out wheres and whens.

( This Is Where It Starts )

The next person on Radio 4 to call Tony Blair a great orator is getting stabbed in the ears with a rusty spork. I SWEAR.

He is not a great orator. He is at best, a barely competent public speaker. Pausing significantly mid-phrase is not oratory. It is poor preparation.

For the first time in about a year and half, there is another person in my office with me.
I'm rediscovering the pleasure of working with another human being in the room. Its nice. Intermittently there's been a third, as Elaine wrestled with the archaic printer network,  and S dived in and out again on his way to lunch. So we've been sitting peaceably working (me writing up my second from last chapter, M ploughing through the reading for his literature review), interspersed with discussion of American politics, what the hell they're doing to Dukes, where the minutes of Newry No 2 Rural Regional Council might have ended up, and the ritual offers to bring things back from the shop.
And I have consumed much coffee, after scrubbing out the mugs under the splutterly, scalding, kitchen tap downstairs, they having been left to develop civilisation over the summer.

The building has the bustle of the start of term, when everyone is determined to be productive this year, definitely. Maybe this time it'll last. I can hear Sean and Aiden from downstairs, and the anthropologists next door are conducting an animated dicussion that makes no sense.

I have to finish typing this up, preferably today (its late, resolution busted already), and then get my room tidy for visitation on Wednesday. And book Giants tickets. Ice hockey with an actual Canadian!

Due to mainlining NCIS all summer, I have now committed quite a lot of NCIS fic.
You wouldn't think I had work to do. *sigh*

Have any of you a) watched this delicious crack and b) want to cast an eye over these? They are teeny-short.

Because I am procrastinating that much, yes.

Take a picture of yourself right now. Don’t change your clothes. Don’t fix your hair. Just take a picture. Post that picture with no editing. (Except maybe to get the image size down to something reasonable. Don’t go posting an eight megapixel image.) Include these instructions.

I cheated somewhat in that I fixed the hood on my cardigan so it no longer looked like it was going for my throat. I'm slightly worried that I answered the door like that. Poor postman. It confirms my suspicion that I either need to grow my hair out two inches or take two inches off it, since the front bit is doing that hovering gently at the edge of the specs thing again.



So far today, I have:

• been bought a Giant Coffee Of Doom,
• in return, tamed Elaine's hair,
• thereby coating both of us in leave-in conditioner and smelling faintly of bubblegum,
• thereby failing to actually get started with work,
• and assured a nice girl who knocked the door to ask about the noise on the street that its quite quiet, really.

I think I should get on with it now. And also fill out the CRB form so that I actually get some work this year. I hate CRB forms with a firey passion. Especially because I already did one this year, and the PSNI now undoubtedly are sick of hte sight of my name. Oh well.

I officially have the BEST BOYFRIEND EVER.
I got brought this back from New York

I watched the Man from UNCLE episode 'The Neptune Affair' this morning. In which Napoleon Solo abandons a yacht to jump overboard and rescue a random bloke from the sea. Very good of him. He does this, however without letting out sail, turning head to wind, or anything else which would enable him to have a boat to get back to. And I know its essential to the plot that he be this completely stupid, and that the show was over before my parents even met, but I shouted at the screen anyway.

You never let your boat sail off without you! Is stupid! REALLY stupid.

We've been mainlining Middleman in this house to the extent that I'm starting to think in Middle-man speak. Which is doing wonders for my language around children but is probably a bit weird for everyone else. On the other hand, If you call the baby Dubbie she looks adorably confused and stops trying to put her soggy biscuit in your pocket and I am thankful for small mercies when around a toddler. She is otherwise wonderful, and helped lay the table and everything. Following people around chirruping 'I help?' appears to be her latest thing. Which is better than her cousin, who is big into 'No' and has developed a habit of exactly copying her mum's pose and tone in doing so, which is hilariously funny, and driving her mother up the wall.

I shouldn't watch M.U.N.C.L.E. on the train. People look at you funny when you giggle hysterically at your laptop on the 9am Enterprise. But unexpected William Shatner! Also unabashed hamming on the part of the two stars. More than usual. And it does help pass the time when we inexplicably stop dead just outside Moira.

I do love this show a ridiculous amount. It has what is possibly my favourite scene on tv ever - Solo being accused of corrupting poor innocent Kuryakin by the irate innocent of the week. McCallum is doing the smug smirk of all younger siblings the world over when their elders are getting in trouble. Indeed, I last saw it on the face of my ten year old cousin on Saturday night as his brother and I got chastised on the chapel steps for letting him talk in Mass. ( Its not possible to prevent him talking, unless you sit on his head, which we thought would upset Fr Declan.) It is AWESOME. I am easily pleased, especially when the alternative is actual work.

Its so much better when you're watching it start to finish and not in a feverish daze on daytime RTE, which is when I saw it before, as a kid.

I am saving the Middleman finale for the end of this chapter though. I have to have something to keep me going. Its driving Gerry mad. Poor boy, I converted him and now I won't watch it so he can't flail about it at me.

_________________________________

And we packed my baby sister off to her third year at university yesterday. That's deeply weird.
Aideen met us at the door with wails of 'I've been on my own! ALL WEEKEND! Nobody loves me!'  Cue dramatic reunion hugs on the step, bemusing their neighbour, who is a sensible young man and clearly unused to the state of high drama in which Em and Aideen function.
They have a new flat, new housemate, and unrealistic expectations of how much space their desk takes up. They're adorable. They're third year medical students. Wurgle.

_________________________________

And I have an interview with Disability Services for Support worker, so I may actually be able to eat this year, go me.

_________________________________

And I have just found a soggy biscuit in my computer bag. Clearly the post-toddler sweep was not quite through enough. Ew.

Amid the old-photo-orgy a few weeks back, many of the photos of me as a baby brought parental cries 'That Book!'
Seriously, capital letters and italics clearly audible.

Apparently, when I was all of six months old, my grandmother dug out an old children's dictionary for me to play with. It was awful, apparently. Made in Romania, circa 1965, ugly and garish, and generally an affront to all right-minded book designers. I loved it. It came home with me. I went everywhere with me. It finally disintegrated when I was about three. I do not remember this at all.

Ruth has Brownie, the bear bought for her when she was one, that she has slept with (on) ever since, to the point that the time my dad and aunt washed it, heaven was stormed to get it dry before she got home and realised what they'd done.
Emma has The Bunny, a rabbit that has been carried around by its neck so much that two weeks ago its head near enough came off completely, and only some seriously creative auntly sewing saved it.

I on the other hand, had That Book.
It explains a lot really.
Like my triple stacked bookcase.
And the several boxes of books in the shed.
And the pronounced dip in the shelving in my room at home.

My mum says she'll make sure any books she gives any grandchildren are somewhat more aesthetically pleasing and less likely to disintegrate under loving. My dad threatens to find another copy of That Book on Ebay and make her read it.

1) I really want to get to play with a Star sometime. They look like a kickass wee boat.
2) They need to get Ben Ainslie to commentate on things more. Anything. Not even just sailing. He shouts at people who can't hear him! I love it!
3) This is why I love sailing. Its perfectly acceptable to throw your boss into the sea. It is still never acceptable to throw me into the sea though, obviously.

I go be productive and finish this damn chapter.
Really.

Music

Saw the Flaming Lips last Monday. Awesome. Completely, totally, utterly awesome.
They're so happy. And it was a good crowd - old enough for concert manners, young and stupid enough to stand in the rain fielding a guy in a giant plastic bubble. And the kind of happy buzz that means you spend Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots crammed into a linear mass hug and singing along. I'm going back. Every time they make it here. Seriously. Its about as high as you can get without actively seeking out illegal substances, really.

ATL recorded it, too. So it should be on BBC NI soon. I hope. It was entertaining watching the cameramen - I discovered many methods of camera protection  which I though waterproofing technology had long made unnecessary. Like wrapping it in your coat. Poor guys. They should ask for better cameras.

Roof of Fail

We had EPIC RAIN on Saturday night. Which meant Westlink Of Fail, and Motorways Of Fail, and resulted in the discovery of Roof Of Fail.
This started because Elaine rang in a panic from England, having seen the Westlink Of Fail on the news, and I took a look at the ceiling and discovered two great big damp patches. Cue panicked removal of books from shelving under the leaks.

Upon proper professional inspection, turns out Leak 1 was just the flashing on next door's chimney giving up under the strain of  two foot of rain in 12 hours. Leak 2, on the other hand, was the very rotten wood holding up my dormer window giving up under the strain of two foot of water in 12 hours. So the roofer has gone off to tell the estate agent that it needs fixed, no really, properly, and soon, do you want it to fall apart?

I'd be fine about it except I know from experience that the landlords are deeply opposed to actually spending money on repairs for the house that they spent a fortune on. Having had a four month battle to get a broken window pane replaced, and that only because I said they could fix it or I would, and would withold rent until it was done, I have visions of nothing being done until the window collapses on to my floor. I can do without that, frankly.

History Repeating

We have Bill Hicks on. Its eerie and slightly terrifying to listen to him talk about Bush, and Iraq, and phony Weapons Of Mass Destruction. There's parallels, and then there's not getting the lesson AT ALL. *twitch*

Apologies in advance for the fact that my sisters are about to descend upon you. They don't mean to be weird, its just the way they're made. And you should probably keep the Mounties well out of their line of sight, for fear they try to abduct one.

Love, me.

Sisters dispatched in roughly Canada-wards direction. Amid much head-holding and wailing from my uncle, who was having trouble coping with the idea that Ruth would actually have started packing at six this morning if left to her own devices. Luckily Emma stood over her last night and made sure she packed. You really shouldn't need to be stood over to pack at the age of 23. Really. I'm also fairly sure they've forgotten at least three important things, but they do have passports and sufficient pants, so they'll survive. I'm sure they have passports, because my aunt made them turn out their bags when they got in the car to prove to her that they had them. You do not want to know how I know they have sufficient pants. I bet that was a long, long drive to the airport.

So I've been up since six. They left at half seven. I stupidly did not go back to bed, so I'm running on five hours sleep and a lack of Olympics coverage.

And of course, the sensible reaction to this is to torment the cat by taking flash photographs of him. I  wish I'd been able to get pics of his antics as I tried to feed him, but since feeding him requires at least three hands, it wasn't really practical to involve the camera. He gets up on the counter and sticks his head in the bowl as you put the food in. This regularly results in gravy-head cat. His other party trick is to headbutt the dry food box as you tip it in. He is stupid. He's now sitting on the patio step glaring at me as though its my fault he's outside, when he has a perfectly good catflap he is disdaining to use. *sigh*

Saw Dark Knight last night, in the Odeon. Oh my, the Odeon is pretty. There's legroom! And a Ben&Jerry's that sadly did not have the coffee icecream that the stickers said they did (I got an extra scoop of icecream for my sadface at this news).


We got the X-Files trailer. Oh man. Oh I am so going to see it. Just for Billy Connolly chewing the scenery, seriously. It looks terrible!

No really.
It does.
"Your profile is corrupt."
*scream, flail, demand documents*
"Your thesis? What thesis? What settings? Who? Me?"

I found them again. Longest twenty minutes I've spent all year. I'm reinstalling windows soon as and in between backing up like a crazed backup monkey. Which is what I look like right now, frankly. God.

And because this computer is currently incapable of retaining anything for more than one session, I can't even download the rest of Bones and  Middleman. Woe.

So while I attempt to stop shaking, I shall post pictures and most definitely not scream or anything.

Argh.

The Witch of Endor rang, we're not sure why, probably just out of evil. Cue frantic call to uncle M to get him to check D is ok, because, well, something might have happened that she'd get informed about first, though god knows what, considering that his care team are very aware of his and his brothers' opinions on their aunt. Namely, that she burned all her bridges many years ago and should be left to be evil and ancient by herself. The fact that their sisters are somewhat less realistic about their aunts was what led to the Unholy Rows and Huge Feuds when Granny died. At least there's now only one of them to deal with.

I don't know why she ever phones any of us. D doesn't answer, M is outright rude to her, and my dad says 'Mmm' a lot and then hangs up. And the offspring of the last two actively avoid speaking to her in a way normally associated with severe Anthrophobia...

On the upside, the associated ranting segued into M and Ruth coming up with ever more inventive ways to convince our mother that we've destroyed the house when she gets back from Scotland. I will never stop being amazed that my grandparents, various neighbours, teachers and Scout leaders didn't kill both Daddy and M long before they finished primary school. M's the less inventive one...

Luckily there is no easily accessible joke shop. And while the local fire crews are warped, they are not sufficiently warped to park outside our house at midnight just to freak out my mother. Probably. I hope.

Oh well, pretty pictures: