I need to get something off my chest.

Unlike Paul Stanley, it's not a badger in heat.

Warning: If you are allergic to capital letters and italics, I suggest you get a shot first.

For the past several weeks, I have been trying to get my grubby little mitts on a copy of the final season of Battlestar Galactica. Bear and I spent the last few months watching the entire (AWARD-WINNING, I MIGHT ADD) television series on DVDs we took out at the library, and now all we want to do is see how the dingity-dang story ends.

Is that so much to ask? The cosmos says, "Why yes, Marcheline, I think it is."

The main-line arse-wipe video rental store, by which I mean BLOCKBUSTER, who right this very minute has every single previous episode in the entire series sitting on their shelves, are telling me that they are "most likely not going to get the last season".

Um, sorry...... WHAT?!?!??! You have an amazing, fantastic, AWARD WINNING series - all the episodes, from one to one hundred and one (literary liberties taken) - but somehow you've decided that people are going to rent all of those, but nah, they won't want to watch the SERIES FINALE - where everything ties together and we find out what the hell has been going on the entire time????? What kind of crack are they smoking, anyway?

Okay, see, that's just "Part One" of the story. That's where things start out.

Today, Bear has a couple of hours off in the middle of the day, so he comes home to have lunch with me (as it's my regular day off). He goes to the computer and looks up our library system's website. As it turns out, our local library does not have the last season of Battlestar, but another local library DOES! Whoopie!

Just to be on the safe side, he puts the DVDs on hold via the website, and he says to me hey, why don't we just hop in the car and drive over there and pick them up - that way we don't have to wait for them to be transferred to our library, and we can watch the first new episode when I get home tonight. I say that's a great idea, and we hop in and toodle off to Library #2.

When we arrive at Library #2, we split up. Bear goes to the DVD shelves to see if he can locate the item directly, and I head up to the main desk to ask them for the exact location. The lady at the desk is approximately four hundred years old, and she points to a cobwebby corner of the library and says I can look it up myself on the computer. Well, thank you very much, Ancient Library Lady. Didn't mean to disturb your nap.

Arriving at the computer, I find - of course - that it is not working. I head back over to the main desk to inform them. This time, the mummy points to another far-off room of the library and says I should ask at the desk in there. By the time I get to the other desk, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be asking them about the DVD I need or telling them that the computer is not working. So I tell them the whole story.

Bear has, by this time, realized he's not going to find the DVD on the shelf, and has joined me in Room #2. We stand for a considerable time in limbo, while Library Lady #2 stares at her computer screen and mumbles to herself. Then she suddenly gets up and leaves the room. We stand there, not sure if we should follow her or remain where we are.

In a few minutes, she comes back - with the final series of Battlestar Galactica in her hand! We are overjoyed. We take the DVD to the front desk to check it out. A woman with a face like a barrel of rotten prunes says, "May I help you?". Her mouth says those words, but the expression on her face says, "I would prefer if you could just go away and let me get back to my glass of Metamucil."

We present the DVD, and Bear gets out his library card. After scanning both, Library Lady #3 says, "Oh. This is a new DVD. It's not our policy to sign out new DVDs to members of other libraries." Bear and I look at each other with expressions that fairly scream "you've gotta be frakkin' KIDDING ME". Library Lady #3 senses a situation developing, and quickly grabs hold of Library Lady #4, dumps the whole situation in her lap, then trundles off in search of her laxatives.

Library Lady #4 does not have a withering expression on her face, however she repeats the "policy" of not renting out new DVDs to people from other libraries.

Note: Whenever you hear the word "policy" spoken, you know it's not good news. There has never been a "policy" to give you something good or something extra. Policies are created to keep you from getting things.

Then we inquire politely, teeth gritted, why the library system website allowed us to put THEIR DVD on hold if they had no intention of letting us check it out.

That's when the phone calls started. Library Lady #4 got on the phone with some drone who didn't know where the DVD Checkout Goddess was, or even if she was in the building. Then a call was placed to someone else, who provided a cock-and-bull story about how the website only puts the DVD on hold but doesn't specify which library it will come from.

So basically we wasted nearly the entirety of Bear's lunch break driving around and getting the run-around, and we still don't have a copy of the final season of Battlestar Galactica to show for it. And the video stores don't have any plans of ever getting it in. And if you think I'm going to BUY one season of a show... you may be right. I may have no other choice. But only after the prices on ebay go way down, or the used ones on Amazon finally drop.

The cherry on top:

Just before we left the library in defeat, I asked Library Lady #4 how long it would be before said DVD was no longer considered "new" and was able to be checked out by lepers and worthless people who didn't belong to their library. Her answer?

"Oh, a year or so."

Bastards!

The confusing cosmic rule of the Blogiverse

I've noticed an odd tendency here in the Blogiverse that I can't quite explain. A few months back, I pared down my blogroll list. It had gotten cluttered with sites that I no longer frequented, blogs whose authors had decided to hang up the keyboard in favor of underwater basketweaving, and so I went in and cleaned out the detritus.

What that left me with was a very short list of blogs I really do enjoy reading. The problem with a very short blogroll is a nice long Saturday morning and unlimited coffee. I hadn't even finished my first cuppa, and I was already done reading the blogs on my list. And for some reason, it seemed as though all five blog authors on my list would stop posting all at the same time. Sometimes weeks would go by with nothing new to read, and then suddenly they would all post at the same time.




Even so, during these creative bursts, I couldn't get through one cup of coffee before they were all read, digested, and commented on.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands and go a-searchin' for some new blog fodder. Something to build my blogroll back up into a formidable library, where I could meander and linger and fill myself full of quaint, well-written, educated, quirky, entertaining, and exciting bits of other people's lives.

I really struck gold when I found Cait O'Connor's blog. From there, I linked and linked and linked my way through oodles of way cool blogs... all of which you now see added to my blogroll over there on the left side. I more than doubled the length of my blogroll, and now my list is full of artists, writers, mothers, and creative soul-sisters with whom I instantly felt a connection. Hooray!

But. However. Still. I am amazed this morning as I sit with my first cup of coffee... again, the same thing! For weeks now, almost ALL of my blogroll favorites have been busy elsewhere. Only one or two of my blogsistahs have posted new goodies!



Honestly, I have never been good at even the most rudimentary math, so I am not even going to try to figure out percentages of likelihoods of things happening... but wouldn't you think that the following factors:

* a more-than-doubled-in-length blogroll

* authors live all over the world

* authors are, as far as I know, not fitted with remote sensor brain chips (controlled by an alien warlord) which tell them all when to blog and when not to

... when added together, would equal a pretty stable reading base? Wouldn't you think that at least some people would be posting some of the time, while others would post at other times when the first bunch was weeding the garden or taking in the garbage cans? Wouldn't you think that the people living on this side of the world would be inside posting because it's cold out, while the authors on the other side of the world enjoying summer now were out in the sun drinking lemonade?

Well, I'm here to tell you it's not true. It doesn't work that way. And I have no explanation for it.

Just a half-drunk cup of coffee.

Door #2 - a clarification

Door #2 is really too wonderful to leave it with naught but a sideways glance. Here are two photos that show the gorgeous details:





The door itself is the chapel door of La Sacra di San Michele, Torino, Italy.

Doors of Italy. And maybe a window or two.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, a collection of doors, doorways, (and the occasional window) from my recent trip to Torino, Italy.

Enjoy!

Muddles, mistakes, and mumblings

Due to weather and tardy relief personnel at work, I got home well after midnight last night. Wasn't in the least sleepy, so I watched old movies until after 2AM. Slept until eleven this morning, and woke to find a message from Bear (who had gone to work hours before) saying he would bring home half-n-half for coffee. Which meant that there wasn't any in the house.

Being the culinarily adventurous person that I am, I had purchased, some days ago, a carton of the above-pictured "almond milk". Because I am on a diet, I purchased the unsweetened variety. Which, as it turns out, tastes like beaver spit (powdered wood with water added). Which I then tried to remedy with some Truvia - a no calorie sweetener made from the Stevia plant. Which made the stuff taste like very thick, fakely sweet beaver spit.

But, as there was no half-n-half in the house, I decided to make a single cup of drip coffee and use the almond milk as creamer. Huge mistake. Not only did it not "cream up" the color of the coffee, it also made the coffee taste like... you guessed it... hot, caffeinated, fakely sweet beaver spit.

The next thing I did after pouring the noxious potion down the drain was to wander over to my cell phone and find a voicemail notification from work blinking up at me happily. My adrenaline dropped completely... I had agreed to trade shifts with a co-worker on Sunday, and suddenly I couldn't remember what day it was. Was today Sunday? Had I slept through the shift I'd traded for? Was work calling me to ask where the hell I was?

Completely forgetting that the day and date was also available on my cell phone, I stumbled up the stairs to my computer and dragged the cursor across the time display on the lower right corner of the screen. A little tag popped up - "Saturday".....

I should have felt relieved, but instead I just felt wobbly and vaguely nauseated. I think the almond milk disaster in combination with the fear of sleeping through a shift might have been too much for me this morning.

Now Bear is home from work, I've had two great cups of proper coffee, properly creamered, and some breakfast. And I feel about as much like going to work as I do shoving bamboo slivers under my fingernails.

But off I go.

O Autumn!

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stain'd
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou may'st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

'The narrow bud opens her beauties to
The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,
Till clust'ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
And feather'd clouds strew flowers round her head.

'The spirits of the air live in the smells
Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.'
Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat,
Then rose, girded himself, and o'er the bleak
Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.

- William Blake

Hey!

Wanna see?

UPDATE:

I woke up this morning to find I had another SALE! The Steampunk Mother and Child sold.... can I get a WOOOOOOOOT?!?!??! I must get back to the dungeon and create some more! Thanks to Celebrate Odd Etsy for the exposure boost!

These are a few of my favorite things

Spent all day yesterday in a complete funk. Descended into the domain of the doldrums. No particular reason that I could pinpoint, other than that the redcoats were stomping around unnecessarily on my womb (as I don't plan to use it), and the weather was dreary. The most I could bring myself to do was get the grocery shopping done, wash the dishes, and take a few pictures before throwing myself down on the couch, to cry, "Turner Classic Movies - take me away!!"

However, one of the pictures I took yesterday happened to capture several things that make me smile And I need to smile. So here it is. And here they are.

* Our cat, Widdershins. He was the first cat that Bear and I invited to live with us. His sense of humor, his unabashed affection, and his ability to know when you're feeling bad and help make you feel better are only a few of his amazing traits.

* Our silly Samhain tablecloth. Found this swatch of cloth one day while we were shopping at a local fabric store - all the witches' hats, black cats, and punkins have these funny little whiskers sticking off the edges, and it made me laugh.

* Our kitchen - the heart of the home, where Bear and I share the adventures of trying new recipes, making old favorites, and sit with friends to enjoy everything from eating and drinking to playing board games to making mead.

* The coffee maker. 'Nuff said!

* The red cyclamen that I just bought at the local nursery. Not because I went to the nursery to buy a red cyclamen, but because it was sending subatomic messages to the cyclamenoptic-aquirensis node in my brain and I had no choice but to obey. The fury with which it is blooming, the fiery color of the blossoms, the profusion of thick greenery... all of it flies in the face of dreariness, of dullery, of disheartenment. I can't help but smile when I look at it.