Skye is home!!

She had prepidil (prostaglandin) applied topically but hadn't pasted the egg when I came in to visit her. On my way home from the visit, I got a call saying she had passed the egg! She passed it as they were preparing to put her under anesthesia for ovocentesis. She didn't have to have it done and now my Skye bird is home where she belongs!

I was out back trying to heat up the compost pile so that like a fire it's heat can sustain itself, and... well... oops.

I had a gallon tub of hot tap water and I poured it in the old brick barbecue pit that I'm using as a composter, and out the hole in front runs a opossum. I was worried at first that I injured it. Well, at first I laughed very loudly and then I worried. Either way, I'm pretty sure that the water wasn't hot enough to burn the opossum, and even though the opossum only fled and never squealed (like they did when I hit them with a tomatoe), to ease my mind I held my hand under the faucet for half a minute with the hot water and while the heat was uncomfortable I was uninjured.

purpleglitter just ending a four day weekend and trash day shifted to Wednesday combined to completely addle my internal clock. The trash came and went and I completely missed it. What's worse, this week is recycling pickup. Recycling pickup in Arlington only happens every other week, so missing it causes things to really pile up. Fun fun, I guess I'll move it down to the basement for storage until it can be picked up — which won't be until after New Years.

This has been a wonderful and merry Christmas so far. purpleglitter got me wonderful gifts, including a new birding camera — the same model as the broken one, so that it will work with my telephoto lens.

My parents gave me a brass clock once owned by my great-grandfather. It's an old electric clock and wasn't made with the ability to start up on its own. A knob in the back must be spun just right so that it "catches", then the electric power will take over. The neat thing about the clock is that it will run backwards if the knob is spun backwards. I used to always set it running backward when I was a kid, and it is running backwards in my livingroom now.

I walked around Arlington and Cambridge yesterday without a cane. i'm experimenting to see if I can (at least temporarily) leave them at home. I don't like having to carry one. I almost fell down at a couple points, but I didn't. While not completely inactive, my vertigo issues seem to be at a relatively inactive point. I know that I'll probably need to take a cane with me again in the future — but if I'm not going to be falling every day, I don't need to bring my cane with me every day, eh? I can take the occasional tumble, especially since I'm wearing thick fake fur coats with padding to dampen any falls that do happen.

Yesterday morning, purpleglitter and I got up early to pick up the two cutest English budgies. The rusty cage they were in sucked and there were two cats there were being allowed batting at their tail feathers, but the had each other and to their former owner's credit, they had insisted they not be separated in their craigslist ad. They are so obviously bonded, they are snuggled up against each other more often then they are not. We are calling them Statler and Waldorf.


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Statler and Waldorf home safe and sound, I had to head out to my endocrinology appointment, which went well. It is obvious that my endocrinologist is still not entirely comfortable with me being off psychiatric medication and not in therapy, even though it has been years and I'm doing fine. At least at this point she no longer suggests I go back to either. She did, however, suggest I see my primary care provider. I won't, I don't trust my pcp anymore. However, my endo let slip the name of a primary care doctor popular who is popular with her trannie patients that I'm going to check out switching to.

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After they got done taking my blood, I went over to see Ila. She has been teaching me Telugu script, though the words we've been going over have been Sanskrit. This week I need to practice writing conjunct consonants. I think the script is beautiful and am grateful for the opportunity to attempt to learn it. Ila seems to enjoy showing it to me — which is good, otherwise she probably wouldn't.

Woke up about an hour ago, had a bowl of creamy mushroom soup and went outside to start shoveling. The snow had turned to sleet by the time I got out there. A good 5 inches of the mix, mostly loose snow, was on the ground.

I got some pictures of one of the dark-eyed juncos that have been hanging around yesterday, but the sun had went down too far to get good exposures. I'm going to try again Monday. Without my birding camera, I have to be sneaky to get close enough for a good shot. Sneaky in this case means feeding them on fenceless fenceposts near the window.

traffic is incredibly backed up
purpleglitter can't leave
she can't even get out of the garage
berv is sad.

purleglitter coming home from work early makes berv happy

purpleglitter and I went to Kickass Cupcakes in Davis Square on our way to Haveli (in Inman Square) last night. purpleglitter had a lucky cupcake (a cupcake with a fortune) and I had a very rummy mojito. All I can say is: delicious! Paddington gobbled up the catnip and cheese cupcake we got for her when we got home — and promptly passed out in a drugged haze. She hopes to find more of those magic cupcakes lying about.

Paddington's cupcake even had an unsearchable goldfish cracker on top of hers.

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. merryperseis came over to join purpleglitter and I in the livingroom. She had never seen our new place before and she arrived with perfect timing – just 10 minutes before dinner

I cooked portobello and artichoke stuffing, corn on the cob, baked homemade macaroni and cheese, edamame, and a pumpkin and carrot pie that turned out to be more of a pumpkin and carrot pudding — but still quite good, if I do say so myself. We all stuffed ourselves silly and had a good and mellow evening. Good company and too much food is how Thanksgiving is meant to be.

I made taro fries last night and they were good. Simple to make: just cut up a taro root; toss with olive oil, garlic powder, and pepper; place on a cookie sheet; and throw in the oven at 450°F (230°C, 510 K) until crisp.

I haven't made them since I moved out of the house_of_clocks, mostly because I don't make it down to the Super 88 very often since I moved here. That probably won't change, as I cook mainly for purpleglitter now and she doesn't like the food from the Super 88 except Pocky, taro and a very few other items. We only ended up getting the taro because we went with invalid_userid to pick up food for her stay.

Success! For breakfast I had macaroni and cheese laced with broccoli bits, for lunch I had samosa chole chat; for dinner I had linguine in a tomatoed alfredo sauce; for my healthy snack I had 3 mandarins. I got plenty of exercise walking home from merryperseis's place. No junk food.

For breakfast I had creamy parmesan noodles, for lunch I had eggs and hashbrowns, for my healthy snack I had a mandarin and a sugar-free popsicle. I got in well over an hour of exercise walking from my place to merryperseis's place and back.

I would have made, except that my dinner wasn't exactly reasonable. I went to Rudy's with purpleglitter, zarthon, and Jeff. I ended up eating chili con queso, a jalapeño poppers, and a bean & cheese burrito. The popper and burrito would have been fine &ndash but the chips and chili con queso were not only too much, it's hard not to categorize them as junk food.

Prince Henry woke purpleglitter and me up this morning with his best imitation of an alarm. The bedroom is the only room we have that is appropriate for quarantine, so I guess we have a new alarm clock. He's definitely louder than any of the other birds we've had, even Sir Dubbins.

He's gotten plenty of scritches so far today and while the cage he came in is far from toy deprived, we plan to give him a couple of the birdy booty toys from shadowrabbit. I'm sure he misses his old humans, but I think he'll come to like it here.

Prince Henry is in the bedroom after coming down with us from Salem, New Hampshire. purpleglitter found our new tiel friend on craigslist. He's such a cutie and was obviously loved by his humans. He loves scritches, and while he didn't like the ride down, he seemed to accept us rather quickly once in the house.

There were some somewhat shriveled grape tomatoes in the refrigerator. Still technically edible, but too shriveled for purpleglitter to eat and I detest eating tomatoes whole.

I know there are plenty of animals around that would love them, so I went out to the fence at the end of the driveway and threw them into the backyard sometime after 2am. I didn't throw them all at once so as not to make a loud noise.

After one throw that reached the trees near the back fence, I heard high pitched yellings and hissings of complaint. I'm guessing the opossum I've previously seen skulking about was in the brush and got nailed by a tomatoe. Grape tomatoes are small and are unlikely to have actually injured the opossum, so the interaction was simply humorous. Maybe eating the tomatoes will make up for getting nailed.

Haven't given much of an update lately on what I've been up to.

The weekend before last my sister, Madeline, and Christian came up to visit. I met them downtown on Saturday and my sister took me to get my first ever professional manicure. I had a lot of fun and Maddie is a joy. She is so huge, though! I'd swear she was 10 or 11 if I didn't know she was 7.

Last weekend, invalid_userid came down for the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows release. purpleglitter, invalid_userid waited in the long line in Harvard Square. Usually waiting in lines is boring, but with the crowd I had a great time. There were a couple profiteers who got in the front of the line and walked down it trying to sell their books for $50. I didn't see anyone buying, but I'm sure they found someone when they got near the end (which rumor had it was somewhere in Watertown). I was very excited to get merryperseis's register when I finally got my books, I had thought the odds of that rather slim.

zarthon took purpleglitter, invalid_userid and me out to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix the next day. Inevitably a lot of the book was left out, but I think enough critical stuff was missing that someone who hadn't read the books probably wouldn't be able to make much sense of it.

Sunday, we all went to the Museum of Science. The exhibits there have enough range to appeal to any level of scientific knowledge. We saw a demonstration of the still very functional original Van de Graaff generator built by Robert J. Van de Graaff in 1933, but my favorite part of the Museum of Science visit was the butterfly exhibit, where a large owl butterfly landed on my shoulder and sat there for a very long time just looking at me and occasionally stretching its wings. Looking into the butterfly's eyes made me regret all the nasty rhetoric I've spouted about exotherms.

Next weekend, our new landlord is coming to visit from California. She has not seen the building in over a year. I'm excited to meet her, she sounds awesome over the phone. She's trying to rent the unit next door, so if anyone is interested in a two-bedroom in Arlington, let me know.

At the end of next month, I will be heading down to see my sister in the Washington, D.C. area. My mom will be visiting there at the same time, so it should be a great trip.