One Half Buddhist, One Half Christian, One Half Pagan

The bad: My friend with the new baby is still in the hospital, and it's looking like she's going to be recovering for a very long time. Her heart, liver, and kidneys are all malfunctioning, and some of the problems are interfering with the treatments for other problems.

The good: I had my annual review at work today, and got a small raise. It's not much, but every little bit helps.

By now everyone who knows purpura has probably heard about her current state of health. (If you haven't, let me know and I'll summerize and point you towards more detail.)

If anyone is on Pinterest and wants to help find Cool Stuff for Katie let me know. I'll add you to the list of folks allowed to add pins to the board.

If you want to help but aren't on Pinterest, ask me for an invite. I'll need an email address, so you'll probably want to message me rather than comment.

uawildcatgirl asked "How do you feel about the supernatural? Has anything supernatural ever happened to you?"

I think the best way to describe my feelings about the supernatural would be "open-mindedly skeptical." I've never directly experienced anything that could be called even a little bit supernatural, but I've seen friends do or experience things that it's hard to explain any other way.

This is the best story I have on the subject:
When I was about 19, a guy going to MSU disappeared from a party. The sister of the guy I was dating at the time freaked out about it. She claimed she was getting images of a cold, wet, dark place, and a horrible headache. She interpreted these images as a sign that somebody had hit him over the head, shoved him in the trunk of a car, and then dumped him on the side of a road outside of town. Somehow she managed to convince her boyfriend, Kevin, and I to help her go look for him. We spent a few hours wandering around back roads with flashlights, looking in ditches and tall grass. Of course all we found was litter and a few frogs. We convinced her that we'd done all we could and to give up.

But a couple days later his body was found in the Red Cedar. He had apparently leaned over too far and fallen in. He was tangled up in some roots and debris, and had drowned after hitting his head on something.

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I'm trying to post more often, and am looking for writing prompts. You can help by asking me a question or giving me a topic. Anything you want as long as it's safe for work. No promises I'll actually be inspired by your idea, but I'll do my best.

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My flist.

A friend of mine posted on Facebook earlier about wanting stuff for his home that would be both useful if the power was out, and beautiful with a Victorian/Steampunk aesthetic.

Because I have fun looking for stuff like this, here are some things I've found:
Victorian Oil Lamp on Stand
Colonial Convenience Lamp
Warming Trivet - this uses tea lights to keep stuff warm
Pudgy Pie Iron

This was just a quick look at one website. I'm going to keep poking around the internet, and I'll add more links (or do another post) as I find them.

This was yet another in a string of really busy weekends.

Saturday
We helped Mark and Kristina move to their new house. It's a very nice place with lots of public space and an inground pool. They were informed that they'll be hosting the gang's parties from now on. :)

Sunday
I took the morning to run a few errands and get a manicure & pedicure, then I headed down to Harmony Drive for the night. Jeff, Katie, and Charlie were out of town; but it was nice spending the day with Matt, Kae, Rachael and the Bester-kids.

Monday
I got up early-ish and went into New York City for the day. It was... not a bad trip, but nothing quite went right. My phone ran through its entire battery overnight (even though I had it plugged in - grr) and I never really managed to get it charged back up enough to be useful. Since I was planning on using the map app on it to figure out where I was in relation to what I wanted to do, this was a minor problem.
My plan for the day was to go to MOMA, and then hit a bunch of shops that I'd heard about. The first thing to go wrong with that part of the plan was that I got to the museum and realized it wasn't the one I wanted. I had it and the Guggenheim confused. I went in and looked around anyway, because it was still a museum I'd never been to before. It was generally interesting, but not really my style. I prefer representational art, or at least stylized, to abstract and conceptual stuff.
After leaving the museum I got onto the subway and headed for the part of town that has most of the stores I wanted to go to. (I'm not really sure what neighborhood that is. When I plot them on a map, it makes sort of a big circle around Washington Square Park.) Unfortunately, I'm still figuring out the subway system, and the train I got onto didn't stop where I thought it did. I ended up getting off at the south end of the area I wanted, almost into Chinatown, instead of at the north end. I managed to find several of the stores on my list, but it turns out that Labor day is not the best day to go shopping in NYC. Most places were either closed for the holiday, or had closed early by the time I got to them. Mostly I just meandered back uptown to Grand Central, stopping into anything that was open and looked interesting. I found a few things that I could have bought, but nothing that I liked enough to want to carry it around for the rest of the day.
Then I got back onto the train and headed north. I was home by 11, and asleep by 11:30.

Saturday I went clothes shopping at Stuyvesent Plaza with sunatrya. We each found a couple of decent things that were actually reasonable prices, and a few things that were wonderful but way to expensive and/or weren't available in our sizes. It was a fun couple of hours.

Saturday evening and Sunday I spent down at Harmony Drive, just hanging out with everybody. During the day purpura and I went out to Michaels, where we found a few good gifts for assorted birthdays and holidays, and Adam's Fairacre Farms. I wish there were one of those closer to Albany than Kingston. So many tasty looking chocolates and cheeses, not to mention all the other groceries. Sunday evening ioldanach made Buffalo wings (from scratch!) which I liked well enough to eat more than one (my usual limit for spicy wings). Even better were the ones with the sweet'n'sour sauce that seorgia came up with based on Alton Brown's recipe. I probably had half a dozen of those. This was on top of the wonderful dinner that 11th_letter had made. Too much food, but so good. After that we watched Airplane, which I had never seen in its entirety before, and then I drove home.

A smallish black leather purse.

I have a feeling I was transporting it between Harmony Drive and Albany, but I don't remember in which direction or on who's behalf.

Does anybody out there happen to know?

Thanks to Laura and Chris for the amazing dinner tonight.

Also thanks to the random LiveJournal person who bought me Stocking Up: The Third Edition of America's Classic Preserving Guide. I wish I knew your LJ name, so I could thank you directly!

Body: I didn't have any foot pain at all yesterday, and none today until I'd been wandering around the apartment barefoot after getting out of the shower. So, I'll be sticking with the stompy boots for another day or two.

Stress Level: 4

Etsy Find: Speakeasy Vanilla Perfume oil. Bourbon vanilla, creamy vanilla, amber, frankincense, white musk, and a tiny bit of bay rum. Doesn't that sound like it would smell amazing?

Project Follow-up: I got the cover for the futon. If anyone local wants to buy a futon, I can't recommend Futon Galleria highly enough. The website is awful, but the store is great. The owner is knowledgeable, and nice. When we went in to look around he answered every question Tom & I asked, and otherwise left us alone to browse. When we went back, he remembered us, and was just as nice after he had our money as before. The other errands mostly didn't happen, but that's OK.

Tonight's Project: The usual Thursday night dinner with the gang, with a twist: tonight we're eating at somebody's house, not a restaurant.

Randomness: If you could take everyone you love on vacation together, where would you go? Assume money and vacation time are all taken care of. I'd take everyone to The Sleeping Bear Dunes. I'd find a good hotel (for the folks who prefer that) near a good campground that could deal with both people camping SCA style and more traditionally. There'd be loads of time at beaches, lots of exploring cute little tourist towns, at least one outing to the wineries on Old Mission Peninsula, and whatever else we could think of that sounded fun.