Welcome to Gaia! ::

To me, it doesn't feel like christmas..... at all. It's just another day which just happens to be the 25th. Used to be us kids that rushed out and bugged our presents until we could open them.... that doesn't happen anymore.

Hey everyone. First time in a whole week and a half since I've been able to get to a computer.

Things have been fairly uneventful. It's nice visiting with my grandparents and my uncle, who lives with them. It's nice, but it's sad too. My grandfather is a mess; he's got Parkinson's and heart problems and he's rather set in his ways. His day revolves around getting up, sitting in his chair in the living room, eating an occasional piece of food, taking medication, and watching tv until it's time for bed. Granted, he doesn't walk that well anymore, but that's what he does, day in and day out, for God knows how many days. He's been having accidents before he can get to the toilet, and it's really putting a strain on my grandmother, but I can tell she's not mad, merely upset that it happens to someone so wonderful.

I'm at my uncle's for Christmas, and I'm glad for the company of him, his wife, and two children. My uncle (the one who lives with my grandparents, not the one who's house I'm in) is maddening sometimes. My first night in the house I blocked a toilet. He, with a broken shoulderblade and bad leg, hobbled upstairs, against the wishes of my grandmother, and began doggedly trying to unclog it, splashing the floor with water. I actually snapped at him because he was agitating my grandmother, which I think surprised him, as I've never been one to yell at people. We had to get the damn toilet rotorooted; I've never been so embarrassed in all my life. I honestly think he's abusing his pain medication and drinking entirely too much beer; we bought him a 24 pack and it was gone in a day and a half. He has an annoying tendency to be bullheaded and not listen to what my grandmother wants; he's convinced he's the only one who knows what he's doing in the entire house.

I've been texting *shudders* on my phone as a means of communicating to other people on my MSN List. I hate it. I will never do it once I'm back home. I much prefer a computer for that sort of thing. Also, phones which are not designed for internet browsing suck at doing it.

Will be back tomorrow.

Much love, eggnog, and badgers for all,
Fog.

Sucks that most of the good jobs I'm applying to have the nearest office in NYC, but I suppose I could make the commute.

Could probably pay for law school in a year or two, if I make it, and if I wanted to go to law school.

Thing is... to do any intellectual job you need creativity, right? But I feel kind of down if I don't get to be creative for creativity's own sake. You know, writing stories and such.

Half-Life and Half-Life 2 offer examples of reasonably good creative writing, though.

I'm back sooner than I thought. It's about midnight here, and I've been in the kitchen helping my aunt worry and ponder about what to serve her guests for dessert tomorrow. We had nothing sweet on us at all, save for cake mixes, hot cocoa powder, and some marshmallows, and then my aunt found an ad in the paper for a grocery store that's open on Christmas Day. Oh, thank God for that. We were two steps away from serving hot chocolate to all the guests and saying "Hope you enjoy it!".

Their kids were sick with something, though when they saw me it was like bathing in the waters at Lourdes; it picked them right up and they were all over me, laughing, happy. I was happy too, although I fear that I will catch whatever they were ill with (hopefully not the flu or something equally bad) and bring it back with me to Oklahoma to share with everyone.

I'm happy to be here. I don't think I'll be too happy tomorrow, though, because not only will I be awakened far too early by the children shrieking with delight over their new gifts, my other uncle is sure to come. You see, I have an awful lot of them. Four, to be exact. Three will be in the house tomorrow afternoon, and one of them will poke my stomach as though I'm the Pillsbury Doughboy and I'll feel angsty and fat all the day after that.

Oh well. I expect a good amount of gifts tomorrow, most of them cards for books and whatnot. I can't really argue; it was what I asked for.

Welcome back, Shoki. Please take care of yourself. neutral


I don't know how strong you are, or if the sidewalks are your property, but...

...when faced with a thick layer of ice, I used a mattock (a pick blade on one side, an axe blade on the other, both dull), using the pick blade to crack through the ice all the way down to the sidewalk. The shaft's about a yard long and the head's somewhat more than ten pounds, so it very easily slams through the ice (and spreads cracks through it), and also jars the bejesus out of your knuckles when it bounces off the pavement. It shoots sparks, too.

I like shoveling snow and ice, but I have never had more fun until I decided to use the mattock.

Problem is, every time you bring it down like that, you mark up the pavement.

I posted in one of the threads in the Christmas Event forum and someone in response to my siggie said, verbatim, "I smell a furry D-:<". Rawr.

I handed in my resume to a computer store today which had a sign at the front saying "Position Vacant" and I had a mini-interview with some of the staff there (manager had gone for the day apparently). I believe it went well, the girl at the counter asked me a few questions (age, type of times and if I wanted casual work, whether I knew much about computers) and then she got someone else to ask me some computer related questions. According to them, I'm the first person to get the first question right. They said they'd call me tomorrow, and I hope they do...... I would like to finally get a job.

Also tomorrow I go to get my learners permit so I can start to learn how to drive. It's a 45 minute test apparently.




If you get it still and tell them why it's late, I'm sure it will be fine ^-^