Sweetpea Manor Musings

...is now at Archive Of Our Own:

http://archiveofourown.org/users/tenaya

There you can find both gen and slash...and one lonely het Blake's 7 story.

Blake's 7 (15)
Stargate SG-1 (15)
Highlander: The Series (9)
Alias Smith and Jones (4)
Forever Knight/Highlander (3)

The website at http://www.devinemadness.com/tenaya/ will be shutting down in the future.

Abby is coming up on 4 years old and she finally is growing a winter coat! It's that little powderpuff of long white fur on her belly. She still won't let us hold her, but she is affectionate in her own way.

While driving along the main street of town today, I was approaching the crest of a hill. A police motorcycle crested heading in the opposite direction with its lights flashing so we all pulled over. And then another motorcycle appeared, and then a sheriff's patrol car, and another. And then there were more sheriffs cars, the mountain rescue truck, a couple of fire trucks, unmarked cars with their lights on, the local tow company, a truck that said something Disaster Center (or something like that.) I counted over 50 vehicles, all with the lights flashing. There was a bright yellow van that was labeled something about locksmiths and the people in there were waving like they were in a parade, so of course I waved back...but what the heck was that all about?! Was there a disaster preparedness convention and they just happened to break for dinner? Was it a display of where our tax dollars go? It was impressive in any case.

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And then I went to the CEO's meeting yesterday. Sounds like we'll have 20-50 people laid off but they are offering some small perks for those who are thinking of retiring soon to encourage them, first. I miss that bunch by 3 years. :::heavy sigh::: Anyway, I think the Respiratory dept might be targeted because our director got reamed for poor productivity a couple of weeks ago. But they will be going by seniority so I think my job is safe this time. Mr CEO was doing the big crocodile tears about how tough it is to let go of people. Uh huh. He's been here a year and all he has done is trim, lay off and harp at productivity. He reminds me of that bear in Toy Story 3. He even has the same accent.

It's such a bummer not being able to squee before going anyway now since it could attract misfortune to home and hearth. But now I'm back. Yay!

The con was good. It seems to have stablized at a reduced size. Most of the panels were good, but I've learned to avoid panels that have a certain personality as a moderator. The art show was a tad smaller but had some good pieces. I liked the Sherlock and there was a fab Rumplestiltskin. I bought three zines because I realized this might be the first MWC where I did not buy a zine and that was so sad because I used to dozens.

I did a Merlin door decoration. There's maybe 1 out of 6 doors with something on them, so that's kind of sad, too.

I swear the hotel was being passive aggressive about the con. I had a heck of a time using the masking tape on the door because they had spray waxed the door. The first two nights a notice was slipped under the door stating that if we moved the furniture, we would be charged $150/DAY for the wear and tear on it. Hummingbirds had a reduced menu but better prices and better service than last year. NO decorations were on the walls. They totally screwed up our hotel bill. My roomies checked out at 4am the day before and we were splitting the bill. I was charged close to $400 but thought, oh well, my roomies must have decided that was fair. Then I got an email saying they were charged close to $800 and the total bill should have been only $650ish. They charged us nearly double! My roomie called and said it is straightened out. We'll see.

I did co-mod a Merlin panel because even though there were about 6 suggested panels, non made it to the schedule. There were other shows that were totally shut out even though there were a lot of suggestions. There must have been six Strachey panels, lots of Sherlock and SPN ones, too. I very much enjoyed a Person of Interest panel and a Mentalist panel. The Once Upon a Time panel was okay. There was conflict so I missed a few I wanted to attend.

The flight there was fine, the flight back had delays and I had 13 minutes to make my connection in Atlanta and never would have made it except an airport guy with an electric cart saw me and asked if I needed help. Great, great guy! In contrast, we were in SeaTac a few years ago and I had arrange Mom to have transport to our connection. Not only did they not show up, empty electric carts drove by us and the drivers looked away and ignored us even though I was gesturing and calling to them. Such a difference.

I did not get a Chevy Cruz for a rental like I'd hoped (it was so much fun to drive last year and great milage!) This time it was Nissan Sentra. Yuck.

Buddy did nip my nose when I got back but then immediately licked it to apologize. He is such a sweetie!

Happy Yule. Belated Happy Solstice, Happy Chanukah. And Happy Kwanzaa.

Happy, Happy!!!

He had another bout of vomiting last night so I rushed him off to the vets. No frank blood this time, just some pink tinged, and his heaving wasn't as violent as last time. He stayed overnight and if he can eat something this afternoon, they will let him come home about 8pm. I picked through the vomitus (an act of love, obviously) and found a partial part of a seed shell. It looks a lot like a partial of a castor bean seed. WTF?! That's the ingredient of ricin. There was a plant growing wild behind the neighbor's property. The symptoms fit. I'll go up the hill in a bit and look around.

I think a certain 10 year old cat has just lost his outdoor privileges. He's lucky he didn't die. And that's the third time for him.

He has spent the last three weeks in the kitchen. Week one, he was camped in front of the oven and defended his position with threats to nip us. Week two, he was in front of the fridge so there was no going in the freezer without a confrontation. This last week he had wedged himself between the L in the counter and a cardboard box that is sitting on the floor. We're talking a space about 6" x 12". We'd check him and he'd just look up and purr. Yesterday, Mom decided to make him go outside, hoping that normal cat activity might 'reset' his frame of mind into a more normal behavior. Who knew he'd go out and start eating castor beans. He is such an emotionally damaged cat. He can be so sweet but then he'll just turn. And his mental state is spending more time in BrindleLand than in the normal cat attitudes. Can cats get dementia?

Back on November 9th, Brindle (details hidden for the squimish) ( Read more... )