( Sherlock Holmes )

In the loot department, I got lots of stuff, and I bought lots of stuff. Just doing my part to stimulate the economy, heh. And I also got a nifty Yuletide story, too. Not Cleopatra-esque, a Slings and Arrows fic. When I listed my preference to avoid fluff, but bring on the crazy, my secret Santa rose to the occasion admirably. I recommend you read the story, though I will warn you that no, this ain't no happy-happy, joy-joy; as the summary says, She'd never planned on being a widow.. It is, however, a great story, and I love it.

Favorite quote: “I think it’s French. Or some kind of space language.”

Mirrored from Twenty Palaces. You can comment here or there.

I don't have pets (we are allowed to have them now in my complex, but really, I'm gone all day). However, my sister has two cats and today I made the most of the opportunity for a little Kitty Entertainment. With wrapping paper and gift bags, they seemed to have fun.

( Kitties below the cut )

Here being my Mom's house in NJ, where The Boy and I are digesting the huge and tasty dinner that Mom and Grandma have fed us.

Back in the San Diego airport, I took advantage of the Google-provided free wifi and read my fantabulous Yuletide story, Fire Dance. It's possibly the only Element of Fire story in existence, and it has Thomas being dashing and supercompetent and slightly sinister, and Ravenna being awesome and scheming, and there's politics and assasination attempts and swashbuckling! I couln't be happier. Thank you, Yuletide author!

And my recipient left me very happy sounding feedback, so I'm all aglow with Yuletide love. Can't wait to read everyone else's stories, yay!

I have not seen "The End of Time, Part One" yet, but under the cut are two spoilery trailers for Part Two and a clip from the opening of Part Two.

( 'A rhythm of four...' )

 The day after I have a drink -- last night, for instance, two glasses of wine and half a shot of eau-de-vie -- I am exhausted and the word-finding problem becomes severe.   I'm pretty sure it's alcohol interacting with the Lyrica.

One more thing to give up.
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• 14:14 RT @ceffyl1 RT @comedyfish Today is about that amazing kind man who helps strangers, died and was reborn. HAPPY DOCTOR WHO DAY EVERYONE! #

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 Dear Organist of King's College,

"A Festival of Nine Lessons And Carols" is both a performance and a church service.  During the portions which the congregation is expected to sing, if they get out of time, you are doing it wrong.  In this particular case, I think you were insisting on playing slower than the congregation considered optimal.  Yes, this is a very annoying habit of congregations everywhere.  However, when this happens, the bass pedals are your friend. 

Dear Musical Director of "A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols",

When the congregation gets out of hand on the shared hymns, you probably should give up and speed it up a bit.  You have total control of the choristers; of the congregation, not so much, and they outnumber you.

::awaits incoming fire from friends who are church musicians::
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Sun never showed.  We went out for a walk, using the street instead of any hypothetical sidewalk, and got a few flakes in our faces as payment.

Sun tomorrow?

My poor, poor cousins. Their 3-year old daughter, Neko, has the exact same dietary habits as me.
As for me, I'm still working out how to deal with kids. Neko wedged herself in between me and my aunt at mass last night, and held my hand and fidgeted with my braids and rings. I let her do this, and later on, showed her how to brush her barbie doll's hair from the ends first. (I hate watching people wrench a brush through their hair. If I can knock this out at a young age, then great.)
I hear she got a doll with long braids for Christmas, and named it after me. :-D

And Shay, their other daughter, still has the Totoro I had kaerfel knit for her. It's named Flower, and is still her favorite toy. My Christmas present from Shay was a shrinkydink ornament with Flower painted on it. I just hope that when Shay's old enough for kaerfel's books, she'll like them and be able to impress her friends with her toy made by everyone's favorite author. Assuming that at adolescence, she wouldn't be embarrassed of toting around a Totoro named Flower. :-)

http://dragovianknight.insanejournal.com/729289.html

But I can't help but be amused that Yuletide broke AO3. Talk about the mother of all beta tests.

::Whew:: I finally have a change to breathe before heading out of town. So naturally, I had to check the email to see what I got for yuletide. I was one of the people stuck in the missing 'my gifts' link limbo, so I'd been expecting only the one present, as I had searched the archive for my pseud in the proper format -- rachael sabotini (wickedwords) -- and only seen the one. Imagine my delight to get two emails this morning, one under the fully attributed pseudonym and one under plain ol' wickedwords. It was a complete surprise, and a big delight. Thank you so much to both of my authors, and {{big hugs}} to go along with it.

My main story is In The Blink of A Thunderbird, Jurassic Park III fandom, Alan/Billy (not to be confused with the AO3 archive's Jurassic Park fandom, which has Alan, but no Billy). There's a little mystery and the beginnings of romance as Alan and Billy track down what is being called a 'Thunderbird' in Arizona. They didn't plan on it, but you know how these things happen around Alan Grant.

Breathe is my treat story, based on the Emelan universe by Tamora Piece (the "Circle of Magic" fandom on the old yuletide site). It's a first meeting story between Lark and Rosethorn, back before the women are both mages--heck, before Lark has figured out she has magic, and Rosethorn has taken her dedicate name. I'm a sucker for this type of story--I love to see my favorite characters meet, which is part of why I think I like AUs--and Rosethorn was just as grumpy I could wish, and just as competent too.

As far as the archive goes, I hear that commenting is an issue, but I found that by opening up a second tab with the 'add comments' link, I was able to leave a note for both authors.

I'm going to screen comments on this entry, in case anyone wants to play the "guess the story" game. Hints I can give you are:

1. I've never written in this fandom before


2. It's a TV based fandoms


3. It's not a new fandom

Jana gave me a copy of the Deirdre Le Faye/Folio Society edition of Jane Austen's letters, bound in old silk, no less. Huge, but gorgeous and much appreciated. She got David Pearson's Books As History, by way of prepping for her various lectures this Spring. We gave other folks a random sampling of things I thought they'd want: a black silk cravat, earrings with a portrait of Louise Brooks on them and so forth. Other things are forthcoming.

The morning here was less than fun. I went out to shovel the backyard path and the area in front of the garage which was packed with ice and snow and frozen plow sludge, and discovered one of our neighbors stuck at the far end of the alley. I slogged down and got his car dug out (VW Bugs, not so much of a heavy duty winter car. Cute though), then slogged back to dig some more. Now my shoulder's killing me again. Bleah. :-(
But we are inside and it is warm and pleasant. I cranked through A.S. Byatt's enjoyable The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye this afternoon while sitting under a quilt and an additional blanket of hot, purring cats and sipping some very pleasant mango green tea. Next up, I'm making goat-cheese and apple quiche with a mixed green salad with blackberries and almonds on the side for dinner. Oh, there's tiramisu. Not a bad life, if you don't weaken. :-)

Sunday, we get to look forward to brunch with friends, followed by a Parisian Bohemian themed tea and foodbank drive, hosted by my friend Julia who just started her own tea business this year. See Bingley's Tea for teas and related items of interest. All assuming that the weather doesn't do anything worse and we can in fact get out of our house. Fingers crossed on that count.

Because Rob was out of town until Monday and I’ve been working a lot, we hadn’t had a chance to get a tree until yesterday. You know… Christmas Eve. We walked to the tree lot that’s two blocks from our apartment but they were gone.

That was okay, because there was another one at the foot of the hill, so we walked down to 42nd where that tree lot was also gone. It turns out that all the tree lots wrap things up so by four o’clock there’s no where to buy a tree.

We figured that Fred Meyer would be open and have leftover trees so we walked down to 30th and on the way passed a tree lot. With Trees! But it was locked and the attendants had gone home.  Although we joked about hopping the fence, I suggested taking the somewhat more legitimate route and going into Freddie’s to actually purchase a tree.

They had five.

Five dry, needle-dropping trees that were free, probably because they were fire hazards.

So we walked back to the abandoned tree lot and Rob hopped the fence. We took a tree and left a note and $20.  Actually, poaching a Christmas tree has a long tradition in my family.  For decades my [unnamed relative] has poached a cedar from [redacted] on the grounds that it is growing in a place where it has to be removed anyway.  It’s nice to have these family traditions.

Comments? -- Link.

For Yuletide I received a Vampire Diaries story called The Great Pretender - it is Damon fic and it is FABULOUS, omg! I love it SO MUCH!!!

And for DSSS I received a fantastic little RayK/Fraser story called Fallen in Love with a Little Time Bomb, which is possibly the best RayK and Stella backstory I've ever read.

I enjoyed these both so much. Thank you!!

I hope everyone is having a lovely day! :D

comment(s) on this post at Dreamwidth

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=164952151&blogId=523525341

Just stopping in for a moment to wish a Merry Christmas and/or winter holiday involving lots of lights of your choice to all the readers here.  May your day be filled with fun, food, and books.I shall...

Happy Christmas!

I got many lovely presents (Happy Together!!! The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp!!!) and I hope you did too.

For Yuletide, someone AMAZING wrote me an entire 10,00 words about Rood of An growing up. Three Gifts. None of you have read the books, though, so you'll never know how perfect the story is. But I do, so I am quite happy.

(based on my flist)
Happy Yuletide Treasure to those who celebrate! 

And to the rest of us, I hope you're happy and are /will soon be well fed, whether it's ma po dou fu, keema, roast beast, or whatever you love the best.
This entry was originally posted at http://jonquil.dreamwidth.org/910941.html. comment(s) on that entry.

Merry Christmas! One of the things I love most about this time of year is that its the one time of the year when fantasy and the real world intersect.  I mean, in households all around the world, people are participating in the world’s largest fairy tale as they open presents under the tree to see what Santa brought them. (St. Nick is, after all, described as a “right jolly old elf.”) Granted Santa is unique in the world of elfdom, but it’s possible that any number of his kin could rise to the occasion. So let’s take a look at some fantasy elves who could carry the mantle, should the big guy ever decide to take a year off.

Check out my complete list at of Six Fantastic Candidates for the Next Santa Claus.

Comments? -- Link.

Still gray outside.  The weather-prophets had said "Sun" -- I remember that.  Now maybe this afternoon?

Hammered dulcimer on the CD player, mix of Appalachian, Celtic, and French Canadian tunes.