tell me lies

I was on a little streak there, then I missed Tuesday and Wednesday. With good reason, firstly on Tuesday I finally dragged out all my Christmas stuff and put up my tree and lights, and before I knew it it was 1am and I needed to get my corpse to bed as I had an early start.

Wednesday was also a lovely reason to have missed blogging, I'd organised the first face-to-face work catch up we've had since we went into iso in mid March, and it was so great to be with my team again! We held it at one of my team member's homes, she made a gorgeous grazing board and fruit punch, one of the other gals did a coffee run and brought everyone coffee/hot chocolate, and the third made an incredible chocolate raspberry cake. My god, this cake. It's an adaptation of this recipe, using raspberry jam instead of marmalade, and tossing in a few fresh raspberries. I cannot recommend it enough, especially with some freshly whipped cream, my lorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd!

On Monday I have to have an inspection of my property by the rental company which is such a pain in the arse because now I have to tidy up and do things like try to chuck out the ninety billion boxes that are accumulated on the back porch from all my online shopping, and de-cobweb the front porch. This normally means I will upset the spiders who own said webs and then I won't sleep for days wondering if they'll be back for revenge.

My nice thing today is a TV series that I have literally watched and re-watched compulsively all year, Escape to the Chateau. I goddamn love this show, I will recommend it to anyone who will stay still long enough to hear me out, and I successfully hooked another victim this week - this friend has now binge watched five seasons in about 5 days and is ready to die for the stars of the show, as am I. In brief, a quirky couple from the UK (Angel and Dick) buy a run down chateau in France in order to renovate it for their home and a future wedding venue business, and shenanigans ensue. They have two adorable kids, and speak very little French, and there is a LOT of work to do on the property. It hits all my feels, it's got home renovations and adorable children, delicious cooking and couples who are driving each other around the bend in the most loving and supportive way possible. 10/10!

It was a hot one today, normally perfectly tolerable 33C but we had a goddamn power outage at my parents farm from 8.30am to 3pm! Total pain in the arse on a hot day (no air con or fans), plus no opening the fridge or freezer (unless you wanted my mother to get shouty), and the pumps for the plumbing were out too, so there was forty buckets of bore water sitting around the house for flushing loos and washing up. And NO INTERNET OR TV. I was able to get mobile reception if I sat in one corner of the kitchen, so the fam spent most of the morning sitting around the table listening to Status Quo via Spotify on my bluetooth speaker, eating bread and cheese, and then going off for naps when it just got too fricken stuffy to bear it.

Yesterday I brought about 6 packs of solar powered Christmas lights over to the farm and we spent half the arvo stringing them along the pool fence and the posts on the back verandah. Bloody love a Christmas light. The original plan was to put them up at my place, but I haven't had the time and I'm basically mostly afraid of encountering spiders in the trees while alone and defenceless, so instead I took them to the farm. We managed to confuse the sheep though, because we were near the paddock gate without also having treats for them, so they stampeded over and were quite disappointed. Frodo did allow some pats though, so it ended well for two of us at least. Frodo is a now four-year-old sheep that we raised from a lamb when his mum passed, and he's enormous, hilarious, and possesses some dog-like traits.

It was also the day the first tomato of the season was picked. So delicious, we didn't even have a moment to commemorate it with a photo.

I've been thinking about little things that make me feel good, so I thought I might try to share some of those things, whenever I remember to, for as long as I manage to keep my regular posting. Today it's a song by one of my favourite bands (Bent) called Sunday Boy. I love many Bent songs, but this one shuffled on the playlist on my drive back home tonight, and it made me feel GOOD. And it's Sunday here. So, Sunday Boy for you, and you, and you.

I truly regret, at least four times a day, clicking on the comments in social media posts. I just made the mistake of looking at some on a pro-AO3 Tumblr post, and immediately felt drowned in exhaustion from the absolute wankery in the replies.

I remember the heyday of LiveJournal when I was living and breathing fandom and was so engaged, and often feel very nostalgic for those times. Maybe there was less wank then, or maybe I was just more able to ignore things I didn't like, but these days there seems to be so much negativity disguised as discourse and my old carcass can't handle it. It's the lurker life for me!

It's hot here, friends, like 'living three meters from the surface of the sun' hot. And that's okay. I like swimming, and hot is good for that. I like how socially acceptable it is to have alcoholic beverages practically all the time.

I do not like how many feet are exposed. Not at all, nuh-uh, no way.

I'm on the verge of instituting a ban on open toed shoes in the office, because there's one lady with a seriously weird toe and I just can't stop looking at it. It's starting to affect my concentration. I just need that lil piggy back in its barn, you know what I mean? Why is that one toe so messed up? What happened to you? You disgust and fascinate me.

I made this account so long ago that I actually forgot about it. But it seems fandom is migrating this way once again, so time to dust off the keyboard and try and find all the peoples again!

Hi-de-hi. I went to America for five weeks, and I bet you didn't even notice I was gone. Bastards.

But seriously, I went to America for five weeks! I just got home on Sunday. Pretty amazing trip, had some enormously high points (everything about New Orleans, hugging frances_veritas for realsies after like a billion years of internet friendsies) and some pretty fucking shitty points (my nutbag travel buddy basically taking the trip itinerary, bending it over and fucking it it til it fell apart entirely, thereby causing me to miss meeting up with sassy_cissa). But if I start on about it, it's all you're gonna hear about forever so I'm not going to do that.

Instead, I'm here to own up to my hd_smoochfest contribution for 2012: The World of Management (Or, Harry Potter and the Office Romance). I must also own up to the fact that a certain scene in the fic which relates to a certain character becoming turned on from the smell of fresh laundry...is based on real life. In fact, mere moments ago I buried my face in a freshly washed towel which is drying in front of my heater, and whispered "I love you".

I'm not ashamed.

I must also add that I really wanted to comment on and rec another of the fics in the fest that I LOOOOOVED but I didn't want to give away that I hadn't written it, although in reality that was highly unlikely to have been mistakenly attributed to me, and therefore my efforts were pretty much pointless. So! Without further ado, if you have not already read The Consolations of a Summers Day by blamebrampton, you are firstly DEAD TO ME, and secondly must immediately take your eyeballs over to the link provided and read, read, read.

In conclusion, it's fucking cold.

Part of my role as Senior Undersecretary to the Dean of Fire Breathing, is that I generally get to be the mean and bossy one in the office who tells our adorable, sweet pony students unpleasant things, like ‘No, you can’t get credit for that short course you did in Gluing Stuff to Other Stuff’, or ‘Unfortunately the Advanced Flower Pressing class is oversubscribed and you have been placed on a waiting list, in which you are placed 99 of 137’, or even ‘Yes, the fees have increased from one thousand butterfly dollars to three thousand butterfly dollars, and this is because the fee grandfathering arrangements for your Master of Sparkly Rainbow Farts expired last year and you have been too slack in getting your arse to the finish line before that happened’.

Sometimes I get angry ponies, and those are my absolute favourite. Angry ponies often start out as stupid ponies, who become angry once their stupidity has gotten them into a bit of manure. Outraged ponies with nostrils a flare, tails twitching, stomping unhappily, demanding to speak with someone of more authority – nothing makes me happier. I have almost every word of policy memorised, and my communications are as watertight as a mermaid’s arsehole.

Take the stallion who recently missed his exam for Sugar Cube Management; I phoned him up immediately after the exam when the invigilator told me he had not attended, and asked him why he didn’t come. His answer? The exam was scheduled for the 4th, and he did not realise TODAY was the 4th, he was certain tomorrow would be the 4th...but alas, upon consulting a calendar, he conceded that today was in fact the 4th, and tomorrow would be the 5th, and therefore not the 4th. His request for Special Consideration based upon his inability to keep track of the current date was declined, and he subsequently failed Sugar Cube Management. This is where the stupidity gave rise to abject fury, and shouting, and threats to find me and stomp me to death under carefully shod pony hooves. My terrible smile only grew wider and more filled with sharp teeth the more viciously he whinnied, and my voice more calm, and frankly, dangerous, as I reminded him of policy, and recited the dates and times which we had emailed him to advise him of the examination timetable. What angry, and stupid, ponies seem to forget is that if they are not entitled to Special Consideration under formal academic policy, their only option is to lodge an appeal, which is unlikely to go anywhere without the support of, oh, I don’t know...the Senior Undersecretary to the Dean of Fire Breathing? Because if they were entitled, they would have been granted their exemption, or whatever, in the first place. So threatening to trample me to death is not in their best interests, but does make for a great deal of gleeful entertainment on my behalf.

I’ll admit, this makes me sound sadistic, or at the very least really, really mean. But thems the breaks. The Faculty of Dandelions has a very high reputation to uphold in the Fairyland community, the South Pacific Goblin region in particular, and therefore stupidity on behalf of the ponies we have accepted into our programmes will not be tolerated. If they want to get a Master of Sparkly Rainbow Farts from another university in the South Pacific Goblin region of a lower rank than we are, they are at liberty to go ahead and do so. Perhaps the University of Special Snowflakes will let it slide when you forget to attend an exam. Don’t let the barn door hit you on the flank on the way out.

But this is not the tail (see what I did there?) I intended to tell you when I began this post. Truth be told, I have spent so long on my tangent, that I’ve forgotten what my original point was. Rest assured, I will come back and tell you ALL about it if I remember what it was. For now, I have a New York baked cheesecake in my possession and a powerful desire to eat the entire thing straight from the box using the only implement I have at my disposal, which happens to be an extra spoon I got when I had Thai at lunch today.

First of all, thank you astridfire! I was so pleased with my gift! I felt terrible about my super vague prompt, lol, I’M SORRY D: I hope you were inspired by your own muses, since my prompt was probably nearly useless in terms of inspiration. Once again, my favourite bits were the gorgeous colours, the depth of detail (why am I so fixated on the rug????) and the art deco feel of the poster, along with that classic recruitment theme WE WANT YOU! I couldn’t even get to it quickly enough to have my comment on the first page! Well done, THANK YOU. Totally awesome xoxoxox

Second of all, thank you annafugazzi for the wonderful comments you left on the fic: In Dreams for annafugazzi at hd_holidays. I was TERRIFIED (I hope that's not insulting) to write for you, and was literally ready to throw up at any given moment while waiting for the fic to be posted. I didn't mention this to anyone, but I actually worked out the time differences then set a series of recurring alarms on my iPhone calendar at the times when new posts were scheduled to be made on the comm, and then frantically checked to see whether mine was up yet. I checked in the middle of meetings...while at dinner with friends...once, I was in a cinema which had no connection, and I could hardly concentrate on the film because I was thinking about whether the fic was posted yet or not. Yes, I am a little ashamed of myself for this. Yes, I have pretty much developed a stomach ulcer and a twitch after being on high alert for weeks and weeks. I drafted an email to the mods asking for mercy PLEASE GOD JUST TELL ME WHAT DAY MINE IS SCHEDULED FOR POSTING AND PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY SHIT SHIT SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT… but then I didn’t send it because I felt like a huge puss for being such a wimp.

Anyway. I wasn't sure whether doing this would be a good idea, as it kind of comes out sounding like a series of excuses as to why my fic wasn't better, lol. Also, I totally believe in people experiencing their own version of the same story, rather than being beseiged with 'corrections' about what the author intended by this or that. However, I ultimately decided I wanted to do it anyway. I blame my entrenched desire to confess on my Catholic upbringing. Plus, I was linked by a mate who knew which fic was mine and who had happened upon a discussion of the plot elsewhere on LJ, and I was intrigued by the discussion which some of the plot points had provoked, so I thought I might put this out there to try to answer some of those questions.

( So here we go... )

Last but not least, thank you hd_holidays Mods - you guys are awesome.

The slow and steady catch up continues. Another great read.

Anyone after that cheesy 80's power ballad that Bradley and Colin seem to belt out on a regular basis? If so, tis here. Happy for all comers to nab.