Elaby's LiveJournal - 57 Academics

Can't resist a good meme

2016-03-06T15:45:16Z

All my friends have been doing this meme, so it's made me want to fill it out too :) Unsurprisingly, my answers to several of the questions are the same as Rachel's :)

1. Do you sleep with your closet doors open or closed?
Open. I didn’t have closet doors when I was little, and now, I leave the closet doors open because I’m afraid that if I close them, the cats will be in there and will get stuck XD

2. Do you take the shampoos and conditioner bottles from hotels?
Nope, I never really thought of it.

3. Do you sleep with your sheets tucked in or out?
I sleep with them tucked out now because Rachel’s feet need to be FREE, but I would sleep tucked in otherwise. Confined spaces make me feel safe.

4. Have you stolen a street sign before?
No, why would I do that?

5. Do you like to use post-it notes?
Meh, not really. I use them at work but it’s not a good filing system for me.

6. Do you cut out coupons but then never use them?
I don’t ever remember to cut out coupons, but we practically never remember to use them when we do find them.

7. Would you rather be attacked by a big bear or a swarm of bees?
Bees. Assuming you actually mean physically attacked rather than just chased.

8. Do you have freckles?
Nope. Much to my displeasure.

9. Do you always smile for pictures?
I try to :) Rachel says I don’t smile big enough and end up looking wistful XD

10. What is your biggest pet peeve?
Echoing people before me who have said "people who are inconsiderate". <-- Yep

11. Do you ever count your steps when you walk?
Yeah, sometimes. I count a lot of things.

12. Have you peed in the woods?
Yes. I’m from Maine; there are practically no public restrooms north of Augusta XD

13. Have you ever pooped in the woods?
Nope.

14. Do you ever dance even if there's no music playing?
Yes, all the time!

15. Do you chew your pens and pencils?
No. I click pens and pop chapstick caps off and on (sorry, people seated near me).

16. How many people have you slept with this week?
Only my wifey :)

17. What size is your bed?
It’s a queen. Thanks, Gramma!

18. What is your song of the week?
I’ve had “Shihatsu to Kafka” stuck in my head (it’s a Miku song) because part of the lyrics make up my work password.

19. Is it OK for guys to wear pink?
It’s okay for anyone to wear anything they want.

20. Do you still watch cartoons?
Sometimes I prefer cartoons XD

21. What is your least favorite movie?
Uh… hm. I think I would say “The Mist” because of the “trapped infighting” horror movie trope and people being horrible to each other. Also any movies in which the lesbians end up dead or miserable.

22. Where would you bury hidden treasure if you had some?
Do I need to own the land? There’s this really cool island in Spruce Creek near where I grew up, and you can only get it to it at low tide. I’d bury it there.

23. What do you drink with dinner?
Water. Sometimes lime seltzer. Rarely, Sprite.

24. What do you dip a chicken nugget in?
I dip fake chicken nuggets in ranch and mustard, mostly. Ketchup is good too but I like it more for potato things.

25. What is your favorite food?
POTATO THINGS. French fries forever. Grilled cheese. Nachos.

26. What movies could you watch over and over again and still love?
The Secret of Kells, Fellowship of the Ring, The Hobbit (animated Rankin-Bass version), Hamlet (both Branagh and Tennant versions)

27. Last person you kissed/kissed you?
Rachel! <3

28. Were you ever a boy/girl scout?
I was in girl scouts when I was in elementary school. It was pretty disorganized, but I had fun.

29. Would you ever strip or pose nude in a magazine?
Nnn… don’t think so.

30. When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper?
I wrote Jenn a birthday card the other day :)

31. Can you change the oil on a car?
No, but my wife can XD

32. Ever gotten a speeding ticket?
No. Only pulled over once and he let me off.

33. Ever ran out of gas?
No, luckily.

34. What’s your favorite kind of sandwich?
Grilled cheese and Bridget’s “The Sandwich.”

35. Best thing to eat for breakfast?
Steel-cut oatmeal with frozen berries and maple syrup. Also home fries. The ONLY meat I miss is corned beef hash.

36. What is your usual bedtime?
around 10 - 10:30 PM ish <-- Same. We never go to bed separately unless one of us is sick.

37. Are you lazy?
I don’t know if I believe in “lazy.” Sometimes I don’t want to do things.

38. When you were a kid, what did you dress up as for Halloween?
A cat, a ghost, Alvin the Chipmunk, a Native American (to my shame), a Care Bear, the Man in Black from the Princess Bride.

39. What is your Chinese astrological sign?
Dog.

40. How many languages can you speak?
English and enough Japanese to probably make it around in Japan on vacation with a good vocabulary book. I can pour my heart out to you in Japanese about my feelings, but I’m not so sure I can understand directions to the nearest train station.

41. Do you have any magazine subscriptions?
I’ve gotten Faerie Magazine for the past two years (subscriptions at Spoutwood!) But I haven’t actually gotten around to reading the last two issues… The lack of queerness, even acknowledgement, is constantly disappointing and frustrating. And it’s strange, because my other experiences with faerie culture have been very inclusive.

42. Which are better: legos or lincoln logs?
Legos, probably, but I used to play with an old set of Lincoln logs at my grandmother’s house so I have fond memories of them.

43. Are you stubborn?
No. I’m the opposite of stubborn :\

44. Who is better: Leno or Letterman?
Leno annoyed me and I know practically nothing about Letterman, so…

45. Ever watch soap operas?
Girl/Girl Scene is the only soap-operaish thing I watch right now :) And I haven’t ever watched any daytime soap operas.

46. Are you afraid of heights?
Nope. Not at all.

47. Do you sing in the car?
HELL YES. Loudly.

48. Do you sing in the shower?
Yes :) Mostly to/about the cats.

49. Do you dance in the car?
Pretty much only if Rachel is there XD

50. Ever used a gun?
Yes I have, in a firing range. <-- Same.

51. Last time you got a portrait taken by a photographer?
Laura took our portrait at Blue Moon a few years ago! <3

52. Do you think musicals are cheesy?
Some of them are, and some of them aren’t. I especially like ones that know they’re cheesy and own it :)

53. Is Christmas stressful?
Only money-wise.

54. Ever eat a pierogi?
Yes! The best pierogis in the world are at the Rhinebeck sheep and wool festival. I want some right now *_*

55. Favorite type of fruit pie?
Raspberry or mixed berry with or without peaches.

56. Occupations you wanted to be when you were a kid?
Archaeologist, writer, doctor.

57. Do you believe in ghosts?
Yes.

58. Ever have a deja vu feeling?
Yes, I used to all the time. Not so much lately, though.

59. Do you take a vitamin daily?
Yep :)

60. Do you wear slippers?
When I can find them! I have some lovely slipper-socks from L.L. Beans but they’re always missing.

61. Do you wear a bath robe?
Yeah! It’s black and has white stars all over it.

62. What do you wear to bed?
undies, with lots and lots of blankets <-- Same :)

63. What was your first concert?
Rachel took me to see Yanni in college. I had seriously never been to a concert before!

64. Walmart, Target, or Kmart?
Target please.

65. Nike or Adidas?
Neither? Right now I have Merrill sneakers, I think.

66. Cheetos or Fritos?
Neither, unless the Fritos are underneath a great deal of chili.

67. Peanuts or sunflower seeds?
I like peanuts better, but sunflower seeds are still yummy.

68. Ever hear of the group Tres Bien?
No, and neither have any of my friends! XD

69. Ever take dance lessons?
Yeah, when I was very little I took jazz and tap.

70. Is there a profession you picture your future spouse doing?
Librarian! XD She already is one.

71. Can you curl your tongue?
Yup.

72. Ever won a spelling bee?
I was never even in a spelling bee!

73. Have you ever cried because you were so happy?
Sure :)

74. Own any record albums?
Not personally. My parents had Snoopy and the Red Baron when I was little.

75. Own a record player?
Nope.

76. Do you regularly burn incense?
Not regularly… my finches live in my writing room/altar room and incense would be bad for them.

77. Ever been in love?
All the time n_n

78. Who would you like to see in concert?
Of Monsters and Men omg. Also Jonsi.

79. What was the last concert you saw?
Frenchy and the Punk <-- Haha, same again!

80. Hot tea or cold tea?
Hot tea! I don’t like cold tea very much.

81. Tea or coffee?
Only tea.

82. Sugar cookies or snickerdoodles?
Snickerdoodles! Or, better yet, gingersnaps. Or, better yet, peanut butter cookies!

83. Can you swim well?
Well enough. I don’t know many strokes, but I don’t worry about drowning.

84. Can you hold your breath without holding your nose?
Outside of the water, of course. Underwater, I have to blow air out of my nose in order to not have water go UP my nose :\

85. Are you patient?
I have (sometimes regrettably) endless patience with people. I have very little patience with video games and computers. But I still love them XD

86. DJ or band at a wedding?
DJ, probably.

87. Ever won a contest?
Yeah, a couple over the years.

88. Have you ever had plastic surgery?
Nope.

89. Which are better: black or green olives?
Neither. Not a fan of olives.

90. Can you knit or crochet?
I can, but I have to have someone remind me of the stitches every time.

91. Best room for a fireplace?
Living room, I think, or a nice big bedroom.

92. Do you want to get married?
Over and over :)

93. If married, how long have you been married?
It will be nine years in October <-- Same! Surprise XD

94. Who was your high school crush?
I honestly don’t think I had one.

95. Do you cry and throw a fit until you get your own way?
No, the opposite; I can be kind of a doormat.

96. Do you have kids?
I have kitty children!

97. Do you want kids?
No, child-raising not for me. I could have some nieces/nephews and fairy godchildren, though :)

98. What is your favorite color?
Green-blue-purple.

99. Do you miss anyone right now?
Rachel (but I’ll get to see her soon :) ). Bridget and Jenn.

100. Who are you going to tag to do this next?
Stealing Bridget's answer: Whoever enjoys answering a hundred questions. :) <-- Agree!

Shadowrun sketches

2015-12-08T02:37:35Z

Apologies for being terrible at the livejournals! Rachel is begging me to post these XD And I'm not sorry that she is!

We had the MASSIVE AWESOME FINALE of our Shadowrun game this weekend, and it was incredible. See Rachel's journal for a recap. My character, Mika, is a pop star/part-time thief whose millionaire foster father decided that his next business venture would be to use Mika's music and giant fanbase to summon an ancient horror. Mika had to kill him with an orbital satellite death ray that she hacked with her brain. Fun times! (She's going to need therapy.)

I drew Rachel's character Lindir and his soon-to-no-longer-be-ex-boyfriend, Gil. Gil (an NPC) patiently put up with all of us lunatics invading his bar every few days and using it as our home base. He left Lindir at the altar when he found out that Lindir had been KIDNAPPED AND GIVEN A CYBER LEG. (This is what happens when you use the Big Book of Backgrounds to create characters XD You roll dice and consult tables for random events in your character's history. As you can see, there are some weird ones.) But because Jason is an awesome GM, we learned in the course of the game that Gil has cyber-limb baggage because of his little sister having run off to become part cyborg.

Lindir is FABULOUS.

Gil is skeptical. As he should be, considering who hangs out in his bar.

Another thing Gil is: sorry.

Arboreal Rainbow

2015-09-29T22:52:24Z

I'm happy to finally unveil something that's been months in the making: Rachel and I have started a blog together!

Arboreal Rainbow

This summer, while we were spending a quiet week dogsitting for our friend Bethany's adorable puppies, Rachel and I decided that we wanted a place to chronicle our story and preserve the some of the precious bits of our lives together. We came up with the blog name Arboreal Rainbow as a meeting of the symbols we both love best: trees for me and rainbows for Rachel. It evokes the image of rainbows living in the treetops.

We only have a few posts so far, but we plan to add all sorts of things, from knitting adventures to tea reviews to the story of how we met. I hope you'll take a look! <3

My new library

2015-08-25T23:26:31Z

This spring, as we drove home from the Fairie Festival, Rachel and I talked about how we could make our lives more like how we felt when we were there. We decided that we wanted to rearrange some of the rooms in our house; one of these plans was to make the guest room on the first floor into my library/office and move the guest room upstairs. Rachel has her studio, and before this, we'd said that the Temple Room upstairs was my space, but I never completely got comfortable there. As lovely as it is, it it's a hassle to keep temperate because it's stifling in the summer and unheated in the winter.

We wrote up how we'd do it, complete with graph-paper models of both rooms and a step-by-step moving plans. Last week, we set the plan in motion.

First, we moved everything out of the downstairs guest room. When we moved into the house, we painted the walls yellow, and I wanted a different color. We taped and primed the walls.

Freija is helping.

I chose a beautiful, calm pale blue-purple called "Garden Fairy" to repaint the room. Over the course of Saturday and Sunday, we did two coats of primer, two coats of paint, and moved everything into the room that I wanted there (including two bookcases and all the books from upstairs).

Here's my completed library. I love it so much <3 Many happy words will be read and written here.

I set up my altar, which used to be in the Temple Room and was pretty neglected, down here.

Whale Watch

2015-08-17T19:05:56Z

Rachel and I went on a whale watch yesterday -- Rachel's first ever and my second, though the first was long enough ago that I don't remember much about it. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

This morning, though, I was going about my business, getting ready for work as normal, when I got suddenly very sick. I'll spare you the gruesome details, but I think it was due to dehydration (it was pretty hot yesterday, even though I tried to drink a lot of water on the boat). So I stayed home and slept until noon. I feel worlds better now but exhausted, so I'm writing up our adventure.

I don't have very many pictures because I was too entranced, too captivated by the whales to try looking at them through a viewfinder. But I do have one or two :)

The whale watch was out of Rye, NH and was organized by Granite State Whale Watch. Rye is one of the prettiest towns in New Hampshire: it's located on our teeny tiny inch of coastline and is home to Odiorne Point State Park, the Seacoast Science Center, rolling dunes, bird-filled estuaries, really nice beaches, and about a hundred eye-popping mansions. The sun was out bright as we drove down the shore road past all of these and made our way to Rye Harbor.

We got there about a half hour before the ship was going to depart, so we got a pretty good seat on the starboard side near the bow. It was HOT waiting for the ship to leave; there was a bit of a breeze but it didn't do much against the sweltering sun. Once we started moving out, though, the wind picked up and it was utterly perfect.

Rachel bought me a hat at the ticket counter, and I was very glad I had it!

I was pretty much exploding with excitement, and as soon as we started moving, Rachel was too <3

We chugged out past the harbor walls and caught a glimpse of some harbor seals on the port side of the ship. As we passed the Isles of Shoals, the captain told us a bit about the islands (although I could scarcely hear him over the sounds of the engine).

It was such a gorgeous day, with the sun blazing above and the horizon swathed in haze, creating a pale shimmering curtain against the blue sky. I always expect the energy of the ocean to be this deep, heavy, mysterious thing, imposing and powerful, and that's how it is with your legs in it on the beach... but out there on the water with the wind and sun and the sparkle of the waves, it just felt free. Light and floaty and untethered.

The first whale we sighted was a fin whale, the second largest creature to ever live on earth. They're the most commonly sighted whale near Jeffery's Ledge, the bountiful feeding area we were exploring. This one was identified as Dingle, a whale they see pretty often. It was so, so huge. Its black back with its small curved fin kept sliding up out of the water and in again as it sent plumes of breath up. The ship turned to keep it in our vision, so we watched it long enough to recognize the extra-arched back that signaled a deep dive. It came up again for several more breaths every five or ten minutes.

After we spent some time with this whale (and a couple of minke whales that we could just see in the distance), we moved along to explore some more.

The next thing we came upon was a surprise: a basking shark. We could see its dorsal fin puttering along (the naturalist narrating the whale watch said that they normally can only see basking sharks on calm days because their fins aren't visible in choppy water). It didn't notice us for a while and so it swam quite close to the boat, and we could see its huge, grey bulk just beneath the surface. Basking sharks are the second largest shark in the world (and they only eat plankton!). It was pretty amazing because the fin whale hadn't gotten close enough to really see any of it except the parts that came out of the water.

Next we encountered another fin whale, Crow. This one came closer and closer, finally close enough that we could see the swoop of paler grey coloring just behind its blowhole. The whale's skin shone a gunmetal color in the sunlight. Then, as we all watched spellbound, it sunk under and resurfaced again right next to the ship. Its fin breaking the surface was incredible to behold. It lifted its head slightly out of the water -- something neither it nor the other fin whale had done -- and the naturalist pointed out its white lower jaw. Fin whales are asymmetrically colored and only the right side of their lower jaw is white. It was so beautiful, so amazing, that it took my breath away. I think it raised its head to get a look at the ship, because it was so close by.

The next whales we saw were both humpbacks <3 And I got a couple of pictures of the first one! This is Patches, a humpback that Granite State Whale Watch sees frequently but hadn't encountered yet this season, so they were really happy to see him.

Here's Patches' back as he started curving for a deep dive.

And here's his beautiful tail!

We got to watch him dive over and over, displaying the unique pattern on his fluke as he went down. When he was at the surface, we could see the most remarkable thing -- his white pectoral fins shone an incandescent green underneath the water. The next one we saw was called Quill, and gave us an equally impressive show. Humpbacks are so lovely -- I would love to see one a little closer <3

Eventually our time was up and we had to turn back. But on the way back, just past the Isles of Shoals, we saw a bunch of harbor porpoises! They were splashing around, feeding, and a flock of gannets were gathered around them. Once or twice we saw their dark silvery backs arch above the water.

Back in Rye Harbor, we talked to the naturalist and some of the interns and adopted a humpback whale, Owl (for Athena).

It was such an experience, full of wonder and amazement. Whales are such beautiful, otherworldly creatures. I want to go on another soon <3

Tarot decks for sale!

2015-06-30T01:31:11Z

I'm starting to work with tarot again, and I think it's time for my less-used decks to move on to other owners. Is anyone interested? All prices have shipping included.

Llewellyn Tarot - $15
This beautiful tarot is sumptuously illustrated with watercolor paintings of figures from Welsh mythology, including Rhiannon, Bran the Blessed, Myrddin, and Ceridwen. See the Amazon listing here. The price includes a full book, The Llewellyn Companion, that explains the cards and associated mythology.

The condition is like new. The cards aren't even out of order -- I don't think I ever used it. There is no box, though, just the sparkly bag shown below.

Winged Spirit Tarot - $15
This was my first tarot deck, and as such it's gently used (no frayed edges or anything). The illustrations are flowing and starkly outlined, reminiscent of stained glass, and the figures are lithe and dancer-like. Here's the Amazon listing. It comes with the box and a little booklet describing the cards and their meanings.

If you're interested, shoot me an e-mail at elabymoon (at) gmail.com or leave me a comment here :) I'm flexible on the prices too. If you're not interested but you have a few minutes, I would love a signal boost!

<3

Black and gold

2015-05-31T00:28:15Z

For the past few weeks, a Baltimore oriole has been visiting me.

The first time I met him, he was chirping his little birdy head off outside a coworker’s window. Sitting about twenty feet away, I wondered what the sound was, but I was engrossed in work and couldn’t see where it was coming from. My coworker leaned out of her cubicle and hissed, “Katie! Katie! There’s this gold bird outside!”

The windows of our office building are reflective on the outside so that people can’t see in. (We must have privacy as we type away on top-secret insurance documents, I suppose!) Because of this, birds are always mistaking our windows for a twin tree to the ones outside and attempting to land in the reflection. Usually they just skitter along the glass; once in a while, they get a little more forceful.

This particular coworker sits near a big evergreen tree that presses up against the window, and when I answered her summons, I saw a bright orange and black oriole sitting in a branch, inches away from us. Because they can’t see us, birds tend to land on the sill or on close branches and allow us to get a really good look at them.

This one was utterly stunning. His black back was shiny, and the feathers on his breast melted deep yellow to the most vibrant orange. He had bright eyes and a smooth, charcoal-gray beak that he opened to sing for us a melody that would become familiar over the next several days.

I got to know that song very well. Every time I heard a clear “chirp chirp-a CHIRP chirp... chirp!” I’d look around for the oriole, and there he’d be: either sitting in the tree outside my window, jumping about in the bushes right below the stone sill, or perched on the sill itself, his little face peering up at the glass and wondering, as my coworker put it, “Why won’t that handsome bird in there play with me?”

I haven’t seen him for a week. I think perhaps he’s moved on. But it was such a blessing to see him here, up close, in all his dappled night-and-day glory <3

Photos from camp

2015-05-29T01:23:14Z

A few weekends ago, we celebrated my dad's birthday at my parents' camp in Roxbury, Maine. It's a beautiful camp -- it's a very small house that someone used to live in all year round, so it has all the amenities like heat and running water :3 And more bathrooms that our house has! XD It's such a cozy, comfy place, and the area is BEAUTIFUL. We drove to a state park one day and I took a whole bunch of pictures.

As we were driving around in the state park, I made my dad stop the car whenever I saw something cool that I wanted to photograph XD The first was this interesting grey and rust-red mushroom.

Next I was like "OMG A WILDFLOWER I'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE" and I made them stop again. My mom said, "Oh, that's a trillium." I've never seen one, but she told me they're protected, like the lady's slippers that used to grow in the woods near our house when I was little.

When we parked to take a walk, my dad showed us these HUGE swathes of bluets. He'd tried to take pictures of them the last time he was there. Seriously, the entire lawn was white with them.

I have a huge fondness for bluets <3 This year, my dad instituted a birthday rule that states that other people get presents on his birthday too (omg, I love him) and he got all of us hiking sticks! So cool. Here's Rachel posing with ours.

And my adorable parents, wandering down a woodland path.

All of the ferns were just starting to uncurl when we were there. I can't get over their tiny, delicate leaflets.

Love of my life <3

There was a great big rock by one of the beaches that she insisted we climb all over.

A hidden Forest Katie!

The woods around the beaches were filled with trilliums. I kept stopping and pointing them out and taking pictures XD This one has four petals! Is that like a four-leafed clover, I wonder?

The next day, we went to Buster's Beach, which is about five minutes from the camp. It was beautiful and peaceful.

Awwwwww they are SO CUTE! I have hardly any pictures of my parents, so I was happy to get this one.

Prettiest person I know.

This is my dad explaining things and telling some kind of story about wherever he's pointing. Pretty much that's his primary occupation XD

And my mama enjoying the peacefulness of the lake.

We came across some plants that had little bits of rain from the night before caught in their cups. I was fascinated and had to be dragged away XD

We walked down the boat launch. The water was such a vibrant blue.

Favorite subject :3

:D

2015-03-13T01:15:05Z

GUESS WHO HAS TWO THUMBS AND NO MORE STUDENT LOAN DEBT? THIS GIRL!

I paid off my student loan today with our tax return! \o/ I was lucky enough to have gotten a full scholarship for grad school and a partial scholarship for undergrad, so I only had the equivalent of in-state undergrad tuition for debt (granted, UNH has one of the highest in-state tuitions of any state school e_e). BUT NOW IT'S GONE AND THAT'S ONE LESS SUBSTANTIAL BILL A MONTH! I'm so relieved. Education debt is such a horrible trap that society sets for people, and I'm so grateful I was able to get rid of mine at the age I am.

*jumps around and flaps arms with joy*

Plant adventures

2015-03-02T23:21:29Z

Sunday I woke up with a sort of “nothing sounds fun to me today” feeling, until Rachel remembered that she wanted to go buy some plants for our offices, and I perked up immediately. She convinced me to leave the house without showering first (always a hard sell) and we ended up running ALL OVER THE WORLD and having many adventures.

First, we went to breakfast at the Wooden Spoon, a little local place that serves platter-sized pancakes, only takes cash, and always has a line out the door. Pancakes, waffles, and the restaurant’s signature grilled cinnamon roll were ruled out because of my decision not to eat eggs, and I instead had a large serving of home fries and their homemade toast. So delicious! We spent breakfast talking about Majora’s Mask and our current troubles at Snowhead Temple.

After breakfast, we stopped at Salmon Falls Stoneware, a local pottery studio that makes really amazing high-quality stuff. I won a gift certificate a few weeks ago at the movies (just by spinning a wheel!) for an oil lamp, and we decided to pick it up. The store and studio are mingled: the front shop has the “best” pottery stacked on shelf after shelf, and a door leads to a labyrinth of rooms of less expensive “seconds” (perfectly sound but the designs are sometimes a little blurred) that merge with shelves of unglazed, drying pottery. It’s so much fun to wander through.

We chose an oil lamp (number 531) in “Mountain Berry” and got a bottle of lamp oil with the gift certificate. We also picked out a coffee mug (number 311) in Blue Green Vine and a beautiful little dish that’s not listed on their website. It’s about four inches across and has scalloped edges and a raised image of a teapot in the middle. It also has a beautiful crackled glaze of blue-green glass around the teapot. We’re going to use it as a tea bag/tea ball holder <3

Then we moved on to the main event! Wentworth Greenhouse :3 It was such a glorious soul-balm to be there among the plants, in the warm, moist air. It seemed like there was no one there when we arrived (it was probably around eleven by then and they were open since eight) but ten or fifteen minutes later, the place suddenly FILLED with people. The greenhouse is mostly a gardening supply store but it also has a large display area, teaches classes, and hosts (or used to host?) the local winter farmer’s market, so it’s a big place. The display area has some of the most lovely exhibits. My favorites are a huge urn overflowing with succulents, some vertical wall-gardens with moss and teeny blobby plants, and an entire bed made from live flowers complete with a leafy patchwork quilt and branches for a canopy. They also have finches <3

Rachel and I wandered among the houseplants for a while and I dithered over choices until we found someone to advise us. Since my office is climate-controlled and I sit right near a window, I had a lot of options. I had pretty much decided on one of the string-of-pearls plants (a succulent) when the guy who was helping us showed us over to the ferns.

FERNS. My heart delights in ferns. He said they were easy to care for, so I looked through them and one delicate, bushy beauty with tiny lobed leaves caught my eye. I picked her up and she was perfect. I felt the kind of love one usually feels toward a small furry animal. We explored a bit more (and I chose a string-of-pearls as well) and we found someone to help us pick out the right size pots. We told her we’d be keeping them in our offices, and when she saw my fern, she said, “Oh, maidenhair ferns are probably the hardest ferns to take care of... I’m not trying to be negative, but are you sure that’s the best choice?” I felt like somebody wanted to take my kitten away. Imagine, if you will, a kind gardener looking concerned and a little chibi Katie hugging a plant and screaming “MINE! MY BABY!”

In fact, what I said was that I wanted to try, so she told me all about how to take care of it. I think I have a good chance of keeping it alive from what she said about placement and watering. It’s so beautiful <3

The gardener repotted our plants for us (for free!) and gave us all sorts of encouraging advice about how to take care of them. It was wonderful. I was so, so elated when we left. We decided to deliver our plants to our offices right then so we wouldn’t have to mess around with them in the cold Monday morning. It was a really good idea – we helped each other carry our pots in, and after we dropped them off at my office, we went to Street for a late lunch (a nifty restaurant in Portsmouth that serves street food from all over the world). We shared a vegan bibimbap and some amazingly good curry fries :3

A box without hinges, key, or lid

2015-02-25T00:32:03Z

I’m going to talk about food and my dietary choices :D I’ve learned that food is something that touches people on an extremely personal level, so please know that my decisions, my likes and dislikes, are what’s best for me and only me – I would never want anyone to feel belittled or as if I think they should change their own choices because of what I do. Just sayin’ <3

Major changes in food choices tend to happen over long periods of time for me. I had always been picky with meat, and then I would only eat meat we cooked ourselves, and finally I would only eat it on special occasions like Thanksgiving. This developed from a feeling I’ve always had: meat grosses me out. When I examined that, I realized it was the idea of eating the flesh of an animal that disturbed me. When I decided to become completely vegetarian, I was incredibly happy with my decision. Sure, it’s been inconvenient at times, but never as inconvenient as a myriad of other dietary restrictions can be. I’ve never regretted it.

When I had to give up a bunch of different foods last spring in an effort to solve my (ultimately anxiety-related) digestive problems, I stopped eating wheat, soy, nuts, and eggs all at once, cold turkey (so to speak). I was utterly miserable. Giving up food for health reasons feels very different from giving it up for ethical reasons.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with eggs. They’re such a good non-meat breakfast protein that I’d eat them whenever we went out for breakfast, and then I’d just get to feeling terribly sick of them and avoid them for months. I used to bring an egg to work every morning and microwave it in a ramekin to make an Egg McMuffin. Then all of a sudden the egg just grossed me the hell out (even though it was cooked the same every time). No more Egg McMuffins after that. Since I made the decision to be full-time vegetarian, I’ve thought more and more about why I’m doing it. I tell people it’s because I don’t like meat, and that’s true – sort of. I loved the taste of corned beef hash and I loved roast turkey. What I don’t like is the idea of meat. And I’ve come to understand that I don’t like the idea of eggs, either.

I find eggs to be too close to the concept of “animal flesh” that made me not want to eat meat. Most commercially available eggs aren’t fertilized, which comforted me for a while, but that was splitting hairs. Coupled with this are the horrifying practices of factory farming. I can find organic, cage-free eggs that remove the concern that the chickens are treated cruelly (and I did buy those for a while) but why continue when the idea of eating eggs at all is unpleasant to me?

Yesterday I talked about it with Rachel, and I stopped eating eggs or anything with egg in it. We’re going to experiment with baking and see what egg substitutes we can find for things like pancakes and cookies. This may seem like a small change, but it makes me feel really good. I’m in control of what I put in my body and I want my choices to be conscious.

I don’t have any feelings of revulsion towards milk or milk products. I do want to choose my sources carefully, though, because I know that the large-scale dairy industry raises just as many concerns about animal cruelty. There’s a local dairy cooperative called Cabot that operates in New England and New York, and we visit their factory whenever we go to Vermont. The cooperative is made up of 1,200 farming families and 100% of the profits go to the families. They also have a stringent ethical code that supports the comfort and health of their cows. None of their cheese is made with animal rennet, much to my happiness, and they have the appropriate religious authorities certify most of their cheeses as Kosher and Halal. They seem to be really responsible and I’m comfortable buying my milk products from them.

A weekend full of things

2015-02-24T01:16:06Z

We had a pretty busy weekend for one where we didn’t have anything planned!

On Friday, our gaming group got together for L5R – always a fun time :3 There were satisfactorily arranged marriages, drug trafficking, a giant freaking oni who very nearly walloped us (but was vanquished thanks to Kyo-san’s two well-placed knife-to-the-nuts thrusts and Kirito-san’s awesome Matsu badassery, set aflame with divine fire by Satomi-san!), and a plan to reinstate the Hare Clan! Hahaha we’re an ambitious bunch XD

We got up on Saturday morning and immediately set to shoveling off the porch roof, which is flattish and was covered by a 3-4 foot snow drift. Heavy snow/freezing rain was forecasted for Saturday night, so all the local radio channels and so forth were telling everyone to clean off their roofs. There have been a lot of collapses lately. We climbed out the temple room window and shoveled and pushed snow off the edges, carefully keeping close to the house wall. It was done in about 40 minutes, much to our relief!

After that we flopped about in exhaustion and played Majora’s Mask until the afternoon, when we ventured out for lunch/dinner at Popover in Epping. I also discovered that I somehow own only one pair of jeans (where did the others GO? O_o) so we went shopping and I got a nice pair for $10 at Marshall’s. It’s getting hard to find the style of jeans I like (i.e. somewhat baggy) since even the supposed “straight leg” jeans at Dress Barn were skin-tight. I also got some dress pants at Dress Barn and they’re very lovely and comfortable, but I discovered today that they have no pockets >_<

We got groceries after lunch and drove home as the snow started. It kept up into the night but didn’t amount to a lot (haha, in comparison to the snow we’ve gotten lately! It was about 5 inches or so).

On Sunday it was WARM WTF (around 40) and the sky was blue and it was GLORIOUS. When we were out at Target in the morning, we saw an entire flock of cedar waxwings in one of the trees – I’ve never seen so many at once before. They’re my favorite birds and they’re so pretty; they remind me of spring and herald good things. I counted 24 in one tiny tree, scarfing down berries, and there was another tree full of them too.

We’ve been watching Flea Market Flip on Netflix and we fell in love with a dresser that one of the teams had decoupaged with old love letters, and we have a beautiful dark wooden desk that we picked up off the side of the road last summer…

So off we went to antique stores to look for letters :3 We didn’t have a ton of luck, but we did find one nice letter dated May, 1890 from a pastor’s wife to a friend describing how her family was settling into their new parsonage after moving. There was a really cute part about how her husband had just gotten a new cart and all she could see when he took off in it was a cloud of dust and pedestrians staring after him “in wonder” XD

We also found some really beautiful postcards with photographs of pretty ladies (actresses, I assume) and flowers. The messages on the postcards are all in French!

The other letters we found weren’t very long so don’t suit our purpose perfectly, but they were cheap so we bought them anyway. I think they were being sold for the stamps on the envelopes (we saw a TON of empty envelopes at the antique stores for stamp collectors). We also got some Easter post cards and a few pretty Valentines. One of the Valentines is from one man (or boy, perhaps) to another <3

I also discovered an interest in Wedgwood pottery. I went to the Wedgwood museum/factory in England when I was there in 2001, and I thought they were pretty then, but I’m especially drawn to the classical imagery now. Most of the jasperware pieces are covered in beautiful classical ladies with flowing hair and dresses, with little winged babies and trees and things. They’re so beautiful and smooth and cameo-ish, like the figures are emerging from within the porcelain. We saw some green and purple pieces (along with the more popular pale blue) that were really stunning. I didn’t buy any, but they ranged from under $10 to over $100 at different antique shops, so there’s a good variety of prices. I want to learn more about the different designs and maybe find a couple that I really love. I don’t have a collector’s instinct but I long to have something to search for when I go antiquing. Letters are definitely going to become something we always look for :)

We didn’t end up finding enough letters to cover the surfaces on the desk that we wanted to decoupage, but we’ve decided not to decoupage it anyway. Instead, we’re going to lay out the letters and post cards and put a slab of clear acrylic over it (like glass). That way, we can swap out letters and things when we find new ones :3

Valentine's Day

2015-02-15T02:19:22Z

Today has been a perfect Valentine's Day <3

We slept in this morning and I was so excited to give Rachel her gift that I made her put on her glasses and stay in bed and I ran and got it XD I wrote her a poem and inked it on this beautiful brown scrapbook paper with a faded castle in the background, and then I glued it on a border of scrapbook paper covered in faded brown and red embroidered roses. I was rather proud of myself. She loved it <3

Our plan had been to visit Shalimar India for dinner in Portsmouth, but since it was supposed to snow today into tomorrow (TWO MORE FEET WTF) we went for lunch instead. It's our favorite Indian restaurant. We always get the vegetarian dinner for two, which includes the best vegetable soup in the universe, two samosas, two entrees (Rachel had Shalimar Baji and I had Chanaa Masala), rice, raita, naan, and rice pudding with chai for desert. I always bring half home and end up STILL stuffed XD While we ate, we set down in writing our GRAND PLOT for our BJD characters' timeline and the multiple AUs we have going XD We need a freaking flow chart to catalogue everyone's reincarnations/parallel timelines/whatever. We have, let me see -- a Roman incarnation, an Anglo-Saxon incarnation, Council of the Chosen (the circa-2000 vampire-werewolf-paranormal RP monstrosity that started it all, which Rachel and I took part in during college), a secret agent AU (BECAUSE WE SAW KINGSMEN LAST NIGHT AND HOLY CRAP IT WAS MIND-BLOWING), the Pacific Rim AU, Taylan and Dante's recent reboot where they live during an apocalyptic vampire/werewolf war, a post-apocalyptic the-Earth-reclaims-itself world where Aster is from after the end of the vampire/werewolf war, a post-post-apocalyptic scary technology-overrun world where Poppy is from and ultimately where she goes back to become, uh, deified, and finally the mermaid incarnation which takes place AFTER Poppy's final reset of the planet.

HAHAHA BEST VALENTINE'S DAY LUNCH EVER XD

After that, we stopped at Home Goods because Rachel wanted a pretty wooden tray like willow_cabin has to arrange her crystals in, and we ended up getting a couple of really cool things :3 We did find a wooden tray, and we also found two dishes for our altars: Rachel's is silvery-iridescent and kind of shaped like a pyrite sun, and mine looks like greeny-metallic lotus petals. We also got two incredibly awesome teapots: they're both white porcelain, and the body of one is in a basket-weave pattern with a handle like two reeds twined together with a tiny bird on the lid, and the other is shaped like a conch shell. I've never seen a teapot like it. Rachel also got a little sugar dish with a bluebird handle on the lid that she plans to FILL WITH GLITTER. I kid you not. We also got two heart-shaped taper candles that are, as I type, flickering on our dresser-top altars.

We got home just as it started to snow, and I suggested that we swap out some of our less-loved teapots for the new ones. We went through the tea things and set a few items aside for the donation box, and then this led to a whole living-room-wide decluttering. We rearranged three high shelves (one actual shelf and two tops of hutches) and one bookcase. Our collection of lesbian Willow Tree figures got a nice clean space (yeah, I'm sure they're meant to be sisters, but they're ALL LESBIANS IN OUR HOUSE - we have these ones: wifeys, totes girlfriends, not just for sisters, LOL SHE'S MY WIFE NOT MY MOM, and yeah, married).

After a good few hours getting rid of stuff and reorganizing, we took ourselves upstairs and played Fantasy Life all evening :) It's snowing outside and we have nowhere to go tomorrow; it's shaping up to be a great weekend.

Happy Imbolc <3

2015-02-02T15:29:50Z

Happy Imbolc, my beloved friends <3 We got home from Florida and our joy-filled, relaxing visit to sugarmaplelife this morning around 1:00 a.m., with no flight problems whatsoever on our return trip, and today it's blizzarding again. I need to sit today and reflect on all of the wonderful experiences I had this weekend, but I wanted to share with you a letter I received in my e-mail from my city's mayor. I've always generally approved of him for his politics but I didn't know a lot about him personally, and this letter is at the same time beautiful, inspiring, and touches me as a pagan. What he writes about is very appropriate for Imbolc. I was very impressed when I read it, and it's kind of amazing (and new) to feel an affinity with a political figure like this. He was also New Hampshire's first openly gay mayor, which is just extra wonderful to me <3

The Mayor's Corner

In Memory of City Councilor
Marcel Hebert, Ward 3

Winter can be unforgiving for most of us. The lack of warmth, sunlight and forced hibernation begins to take its toll as storms continue to batter us, and temperatures remain low. However, there is a deeper natural meaning hidden in the darkness of winter if one is only willing to look. Winter is nature's way of forcing us to slow down, recharge our energy, re-evaluate our goals and prepare for the coming rebirth of spring.

It reminds us as we look out our windows or observe through our travels throughout New England, that despite being surrounded by death, warmth and rebirth of life will occur. It is with nature's message that we can be inspired to celebrate life and its brief magical moments, to endure all of its joy, pain and sorrow and yet be thankful for the time we were able to walk with friends and family.

The Somersworth City Council Family, City Manager and I, are saddened by the loss of our colleague, Councilor Marcel Hebert. While the emptiness Marcel leaves behind cannot be replaced, we are blessed by the memories of his humor, wit and dedication to the home we all call Somersworth. It was impossible for anyone who had a conversation with Marcel to not walk away with a smile on their face. It is these memories which will continue the legacy of Councilor Marcel Hebert.

The Tao Te Ching, a classic Chinese text written between the 4th and 6th century BCE, is a base of spiritual guidance, celebration of life and daily wisdom. One of the writings of the Tao speaks of morning. "Greet the dawn. This is your miracle to witness. That is the ultimate beauty. That is sacredness. That is your gift from heaven. That is your omen of prophecy. That is knowledge that life is not futile. That is enlightenment. That is your meaning in life. That is your directive. That is your comfort. That is the solemnity of duty. That is inspiration for compassion. That is the light of the ultimate".

With each and every sunrise, let us not only celebrate the blessing of our life, but the lives of each person who have walked with us on our journey. Let the warmth of the morning remind us of the joys they brought us, and of their dedication and sacrifices. With the promise of a new day, let us rededicate ourselves to living life to the fullest and becoming the keeper for our fellow brethren.

Sincerely,
Mayor Dana Hilliard

Christmas happiness

2015-01-10T00:56:00Z

I had a really nice, low-key Christmas. We invited my parents over to our house on Christmas Eve and ate delicious appetizers and desserts. We popped Christmas crackers, played with the little toys inside, looked at nineteenth-century photographs of Kittery Point (where my parents and I grew up, not to mention both sides of my family going wayyyy back), and giggled over a Victorian young woman’s health and hygiene guide I borrowed from Rachel’s library.

On Christmas morning, Rachel and I drove over to my parents’ house with three boxes stuffed full of gifts. We ate bagels for breakfast, opened the stockings (a Rachel tradition! My family always opened stockings last, but we converted when Rachel joined us :3), and spent the next several hours opening presents. We open them one at a time so everybody can watch <3 I was very blessed with goodies this year! Here’s a run-down of my favorites:

- Additional RAM for my laptop. It makes SUCH a difference! My laptop only had 2 MB before, and just opening/closing Text Pad was a nightmare. Heaven help me if I wanted to open more than five tabs in Chrome. Now I have 8 MB and things work so much faster. I can actually load multiple .gifs now without Chrome asking me if I want to kill the page!

- Rachel got me a set of Lord of the Rings sampler teas from Adagio <3 <3 <3 IT IS SO COOL. Teas include White Tea of Kings, Elevenses, Wizard’s Grey, Second Breakfast, Barrels of Tea (the only one I’ve tried so far – DELICIOUS), and Enchanted Tea.

- My parents got both of Rachel and me Fantasy Life, a 3DS game that we absolutely adore. It’s a mixture of questing, crafting, and monster-slaying where you’re able to choose a Life (like a profession – I’m a cook right now) and improve at it until you’re a master. You can switch Lives as often as you want so you can experience all of them, and your progress in previous Lives remains the same. The plot is charming and the dialogue is hilarious. I have yet to become frustrated with any aspect of the game, which is really remarkable. I love it <3

- I got two books on Neolithic tombs and monuments, one that explores the spirituality associated with them and one big coffee-table book full of lush photos. I can’t wait to immerse myself in both of them.

- Aster got some really badass new clothes, which you can see on my Flickr. She also got a gorgeous pink/purple galaxy-patterned sweatshirt which I haven’t taken pictures of yet.

- I got a DVD of AKB48’s documentary, To Be Continued, which follows their career throughout 2011. It’s swoonworthy. They’re all so freaking cute. It had a lot of interviews and discussed how they’re encouraged to put their personality into their performance (when most of them assumed they’d have to conform to a specific “idol” image). I don’t know how much of it is fabricated for the fans, but they seem to really care about each other and consider themselves a family.

- Rachel got me several scarves from Mexicali Blues on sale, and they’re soft and happy <3 I’m wrapped in one right now! I also got some flannel-lined khaki pants (man, should’ve worn those today ¬_¬), a sweater, and some socks at the L.L. Bean’s outlet. Yay for discount Bean’s clothes!

- We took advantage of the Fable Tribe closing sale to get a bunch of gorgeous Glamourkins <3 <3 <3

We had snacks for lunch, as usual (chips and dip, devilled eggs, crackers and cheese, and nuts), and lasagna for dinner with my mother’s apple pie afterwards – she makes the best apple pie known to man.

This year, I took the week after Christmas off, for the first time (when we weren’t traveling to Colorado) since I graduated from college. It was PHENOMENAL XD We spent whole days playing Fantasy Life; we visited bead shops and stocked up on varied and nutritious bird food for the finches; we moved a table my dad had fixed up for us from my parents’ basement and set up a new doll photography area; we went to the movies TWICE IN ONE DAY (something I’ve never done before XD Made possible by a movie gift card I won at work and my manager’s holiday Chipotle gift card); we cleaned and rearranged and flopped around doing nothing. I had to go back to work on Friday, but I was one of three people in the office so it didn’t feel like a “real” work day. I haven’t had such a relaxing holiday in a long time :)

Thranduil sketch

2015-01-04T03:44:21Z

I haven't posted anything in my art tumblr for years, but I was struck with the need to do Tolkien fanart and there seems to be a really nice, thriving Silmarillion fandom over there. So I drew a picture of Thranduil. If you like, have a look!

The Battle of the Five Armies

2015-01-02T23:39:36Z

We saw The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies on Tuesday! And as I’m suffering somewhat from post-series withdrawal, I wanted to blather on a bit about it.

I can’t believe it’s over ;_; SILMARILLION MOVIE, ANYONE? RIGHT? RIGHT?
T_T

On the whole, I really enjoyed the Hobbit movies a great deal. They were lighter in tone than the LotR movies (but not as light as the book) and they felt like they kept in the spirit of the other films. In the interest of organization, I think I’ll break this up a bit XD

Bilbo
Martin Freeman did a fantastic job. His expressions were about the hobbityest I’ve ever seen, and I think he was the perfect choice as Bilbo. In terms of hobbityness, everybody in the LotR films except Elijah Wood gets high marks from me, but I think it’s especially important that Bilbo be extra hobbity, and Martin Freeman certainly was. (I’m not sure how exactly I define “hobbityness,” by the way, but it includes an important mix of reluctant, exasperated, down-to-earth, tell-it-like-it-is realism, and a courage that’s selective – not brainlessly brave but brave when the situation is right, as a hobbit would deem it.)

That said, the only thing about Bilbo in the movies that disappointed me was that REALLY THERE OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN MORE HUGGING. I mean. It’s already been established that hobbits are huggy people. No farewell group hugpile with the dwarves? None from Gandalf when he discovers that Bilbo made it to the mountain alive, or after Thorin dies? (Fine, that’s all quite true to the original, much to my chagrin. But I confess to a bit of a headcanon that grew out of the book – when Bilbo goes off alone after saying goodbye to Thorin on his deathbed, Gandalf joins him later and they sit in silence until Bilbo comments on how much this all sucks and Gandalf puts his arm around him and Bilbo leans into him and it’s adorable etc. AND IT ALMOST HAPPENED IN THE MOVIE, but then Gandalf just fiddled loudly with his pipe and it was super awkward and I was like WTF PEOPLE, HUG PLS.)

Moving on…

Gandalf
Ian McKellan could not be more perfect. He is my head-Gandalf in human form. I’ve always liked Gandalf the Grey better than Gandalf the White, so these movies were an utter delight to watch. I approve whole-heartedly of the extra bits they added; since Gandalf is MIA for a lot of the book and only mentions in passing where he’d been, it was awesome to see what he was up to during those times. One of the things I love about Ian McKellan’s performance in all the films is that while pretty much everyone else who is accustomed to battle looks fierce and angry while fighting, Gandalf always looks horrified. He’s one of the most badass fighters you could hope for, but you can see on his face that the death-toll is uppermost in his mind. He’s the only one in the majority of these battles who understands the big picture. He’s got a lot on his shoulders for a guy who may or may not remember that he’s a demi-god :\

But my favorite thing, my FAVORITE FAVORITE thing, is the way Gandalf in the movies interacts with Galadriel. *incoherent flailing* When he meets her in Rivendell he’s in awe of her, almost shy. A normal reaction to being in the presence of the oldest elf in Middle-earth (aside from Cirdan, who I assume is still over in the Gray Havens making boats at this point) and the wisest and most powerful of the Noldor to ever be born – but he’s a Maia, for heaven’s sake, even if he may not exactly remember it. On the celestial ladder, he’s certainly higher up than elves. But he treats her with an almost self-conscious reverence, and I adore it, because we never see that side of him.

Which brings me to…

Galadriel
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can’t even.

But I’ll try XD There could be no better choice for Galadriel than Cate Blanchett. Regal and wise and proud and merry and terrifying – her Galadriel is everything I imagined her to be. I think my absolute favorite part of all three Hobbit movies is when Galadriel sweeps in and rescues Gandalf from Dol Guldur, because she does it with such casual grace. That silent white wave of power that she sends out gave me chills. And then, ajfkladjfsa, don’t get me started on the part where she turns back the Necromancer and sends him skittering back to Mordor. *flappyhands* It was PERFECT. (I could have done without the tattered zombie-dress they decided to put her in for the few seconds where she was going full-on not-of-this-earth, but whatever.) And DID YOU SEE, she had the PHIAL, the one she gives Frodo later that Sam uses to get past the gatekeepers at Cirith Ungol, with the LIGHT OF ELBERETH AND OMFGGGG *SWOONS* She is so freaking terrifying and awe-inspiring and I’m SO GLAD that the filmmakers gave her that. She is the most powerful elf existing at the time of the books (and maybe ever?) so I was utterly grateful that they acknowledged that instead of giving the victory to one of the male characters.

I loved how they built up to that scene, too. She so easily rescued Gandalf but it clearly cost her something, and she seemed practically spent by the time Radagast showed up with his rabbit sled (<3333) to take Gandalf off. I almost died when Gandalf asked her to come with them to safety (omg Gandalf you are so adorable and you must have no idea who you’re talking to) and she scared them off with a little lash of glowy elf-power XD

After it was all over and we were watching Elrond support her, Rachel whispered “She’s, like, his mother-in-law, right?” And I said “Yes” and she was all “…That’s not intimidating or anything.” XD

(Side note: For real. And Celebrian, Elrond’s wife, is no longer in Middle-earth because she was kidnapped and tortured by orcs, and although Elladan and Elrohir rescued her, she couldn’t bear to stay and went over the sea to the Undying Lands. Imagine Elrond trying to explain THAT to Galadriel.)

Dwarves
The dwarves were given a lot more individual personality than in the book XD Which was really quite nice. I have this incredibly awesome concept art book of the first movie that I got last year on clearance, and it shows all of the dwarves’ weapons/gear and tells about the personality traits and backgrounds that the actors and writers developed for them. Balin will always be my favorite forever, and I’m not sure when that started, but I think it’s because he’s the nicest to Bilbo. He was wonderful in the movies and I pretty much wanted to hug him all the time. (Also I wanted Bilbo to hug him. There were many points when both of them needed it.)

Next to Thorin, of course, Fili and Kili got the most plotline-boosting. They were charming and I loved them both. (Although I just can’t get over the not-full-bearded dwarves – obviously an attempt to make them hotter, which I think was kind of silly, or maybe to make acting easier? But whatever.) I knew they were probably doomed, since they die in the book, but I was actually expecting one of them to live (probably Fili) and take the throne as Thorin’s heir. So much for that! O_o Poor Fili came to a rather quick and skimmed-over end, which was unfortunate.

Honestly, I thought the romance subplot with Kili and Tauriel was adorable. Kili is the cutest little puppy-dwarf and I thought Tauriel was a really cool character (I’ll get into that later). MOSTLY, though, I loved it because Legolas was all *heart eyes* at her and Tauriel was like “Err, no thanks, bro.” THANK YOU FOR HAVING A FEMALE REJECT LEGOLAS. Nothing against Legolas – he’s always been one of my favorites – but he is undeniably a main object of fannish lust and the fact that they purposefully didn’t throw a girl at him made me really, really happy.

Now, about Thorin ¬_¬ I get it that they needed an Aragorn, and that Thorin in the book is not exactly likable (which makes his dying a whole lot less traumatic, and makes Bilbo’s grief more about how kind he is and less about how close the two of them were). I can see, absolutely, why they’d want to make Bilbo and Thorin better friends rather than stick with the pompous, stubborn, greedy Thorin of the book. It makes perfect sense, and I’m not sure why it doesn’t sit well with me, but it just doesn’t.

I guess I just didn’t like the fact that they felt they needed to make him young and hot :\ They could’ve softened Thorin a bit while still keeping him older. Admittedly, most of my images of characters from The Hobbit are heavily influenced by the Rankin-Bass cartoon from the ‘70s, so for all I know, maybe Thorin isn’t supposed to be that old anyway. [Ten minutes of research later…] No, Thorin was almost 200 when The Hobbit begins. So yeah, he’s old XD

Because they made so many changes to him to make him more likable, but they had to keep the personality traits of his that drove the plot, I felt like it was hard to like him even though we were supposed to. There were wonderful parts where Bilbo being ADORABLE made Thorin all soft smiles and fondness, and I appreciated those. Other than that, I just got fed up with him. The brooding, angsty type is not mine anymore. I kind of laughed at how much the “dragon sickness” was emphasized, because it was obviously an attempt by the filmmakers to cover up Tolkien’s vaguely racist “dwarves are greedy and that’s just how they get around gold” thing.

I was really fine with the whole addition of Azog, since I expected them to do something to address the NEED! MORE! BATTLES! problem. The battles in BotFA were really good, too – varied enough to be interesting, which was good since they took up so much of the movie. And I expected them to, so I wasn’t even a little bored (I like watching good pre-automatic-weapon battles anyway).

Dem Elves
Holy crap, Lee Pace’s Thranduil is FANTASTIC. Nobody else in all the films has quite captured the alien, otherworldly, xenophobic side of Tolkien’s elves like Lee Pace does. I saw a gif on Tumblr a while ago that showed Thranduil and the caption said “Son, I left all my fucks back in the Second Age” and that pretty much sums up my opinion of movie!Thranduil. The way he stared at people, omg XD Like they were objects of mild interest but no actual consequence. He just does not care, and I love it. Also, he rides a battle elk.

The addition of random tidbits about Legolas’s mother made me go “??” but, again, whatever. As far as I know, there’s no mention of her whatsoever in any of Tolkien’s writings, which is a bummer (but not altogether unexpected e_e). It was cool that they said she died at the battle of Gundabad, which gave her some kind of agency. And it was implied that Thranduil is such a frigid jerk because of her death. I guess I’m glad they mentioned her, but it didn’t seem to connect to anything or have very much meaning, even though they tried to cram in a parallel between Thranduil’s coldheartedness and Tauriel’s loss of Kili.

Speaking of Tauriel! I liked her. I was so afraid for her before I saw the first movie because there was such a horrific fan uproar over her existence before it even came out. People online have pointed out that adding a female role could have been done by expanding one of the characters from the legendarium (few though they were) instead of making up a new one, and I agree that that would’ve been awesome too, but I really did like her. [Also, research leads me to understand that Peter Jackson only has rights to The Hobbit and LotR/the Appendixes, so he couldn’t pull from anything else.] I thought Tauriel’s budding relationship with Kili was endearing (especially since, as the elf, she was the older and more experienced and wiser one while Kili was the bright-eyed noob) although – again, as people online have said – it’s unfortunate that to add a female character they also had to add a romance subplot. She could have just been BFFs with Kili and that would have been just as adorable (and more in line with the themes of LotR in general). I liked how she rebelled against the wood-elves’ policy of ignoring turmoil in the outside world. I liked how she didn’t get along with Thranduil and how, when he implied that Legolas had a thing for her, she was both disconcerted and quick to deny any reciprocation XD I liked how she was just as awesome a fighter as any other elf (except Legolas, of course e_e).

And that was the only thing that really bothered me about her in the last movie. Her badassery and strength, which she showed through both films she was in, was sacrificed in the end in favor of Legolas’s CGI ninja antics. I really think that the defeat of Azog’s son (Bolg?) should have been given to Tauriel. Why have Legolas do it (Legolas who was really only in the movies as a tie-in to LotR and to make the fans happy, not for any significant plot reasons) when it would have been Tauriel’s right to avenge Kili?

I also feel like the filmmakers have this weird concept of elf-emotions. In one of the cast commentaries of FotR, Orlando Bloom says that he thought of Legolas as completely blindsided by Gandalf’s death because elves don’t die and therefore he’d have no experience with that loss. Similarly, in BotFA, when Kili dies, Tauriel asks why it hurts so much, and says that if this is love, she doesn’t want it. Legolas is by no means young (although I guess he is compared to someone like Galadriel, but she’s certainly not average) and I dunno how old Tauriel is supposed to be [research check: 600 years old], but it seems very silly to me to assume that elves have no conception of loss or love. They may be alien weirdoes who feel things differently than mortals do, but if anything, I’ve gleaned from the books that their emotions are deeper and stronger, and certainly that they understand them better. The whole “What is this feeling?” thing throws me for a loop.

I don’t have a lot to say about Legolas :\ I’d kind of like to forget he’s in these movies. He has long been a favorite in the books, and I adored him in the LotR film trilogy. Here, he just seemed gratuitous. I mean, come on, they get Legolas and the best they could come up with for him is a lackluster unrequited love for Tauriel? It would’ve been better if they’d just been buds. They could’ve done some really cute stuff with their friendship, teasing each other and things (and we know Legolas loves to tease), but if they did, I don’t remember it. Seems like a wasted opportunity.

Other Stuff
This is REALLY getting long, so I’ll give you the other stuff in bullet form XD

- Bard was cool. Using your kid as an aiming device/steadier while shooting a very large arrow = creative but desperate. Rachel’s comment: “That kid is going to have some wicked cuts on his face from the fletching.”
- More Smaug pls XD I would’ve liked a slightly longer death scene, but I suppose nothing can compare to the TIME THERE WAS A GILDED DRAGON in the last movie :3
- I was disappointed that there was no thrush to tell Bard about the hole in Smaug’s scales! Although that would have meant explaining how Bard can speak bird, so I guess I can see why they skipped it.
- I LOVED the ladies of Laketown taking up weapons and fighting alongside their men. YES.
- Alfrid the You’re-No-Grima-Wormtongue was pointless and not funny and a waste of time :\ I really didn’t like the “ha ha he’s evil and cowardly and crossdressing for laughs” thing.
- DAIN IRONFOOT FOR THE WIN. Watching him chatting with Thorin while casually hammering orcs in the face was delightful. And Billy Connolly’s voice never fails to make me happy. I did notice that he was CGI pretty quickly, but from what I’ve read, it allowed them to do more with what they wanted for the character than they could do with the bulky, heavy costuming. Rachel reminded me that the best part was when Dain called Thranduil a "woodland sprite" XD
- WTH sandworms?! Is this Dune all of a sudden?
- Legolas’s unnecessary battle tricks were unnecessary. Okay, you won us over with the shield-surfing in Two Towers – let it go. When he was climbing those falling pieces of masonry, Rachel commented “This is like the scariest video game level ever.”
- The last scene was decent. I was VERY happy to see Lobelia Sackville-Baggins XD Although I’m not sure where Bilbo got all that stuff he was carrying, and the cloak with the big dwarfy brooch, since he didn’t seem to have it when he left the mountain? Oh well! Maybe it was part of the troll-horde they left in the Trollshaws in the first movie.

I am seriously looking forward to the release of the extended editions, as we’ve held off on buying any until we can get all three. I want all of the deleted scenes! And hopefully that means cast commentaries! Needless to say, I’ve been clutching my ragged 1971 paperback of The Hobbit and comforting myself with reading it. I turned to the internet the day we saw it and it was a bad move – the BotFA tumblr tag is full of little else but floods of tears and endless Bagginshield. I remember spending weeks perusing the most exquisite fanart of the first trilogy, and I wish I knew where to find that sort of thing now. I’m sure people are making it; I guess I’m just behind the times in figuring out where they post it. Tumblr is a minefield that I’m growing less and less willing to brave.

When we get the DVDs, I want to have a FULL MARATHON of all six extended movies :3 It’ll take all day, but who cares? XD I’m jonesing to watch FotR anyway – it’s my favorite of the three.

Solstice celebration!

2014-12-24T02:19:46Z

Happy Solstice and Yule! I wish love and warmth and happiness to all of my friends as the days start to lengthen again and midwinter takes hold <3

Rachel and I had a really nice weekend. On Saturday, we visited some friends in Boston and had a really, really happy and fun time. Our friends down there are such awesome, kind people <3 We drove home in the evening to host a Call of Cthulhu gaming session (Cthultide! :D) and the campaign was predictably insanity-inducing. My character died horribly – run over while trying to get into the escape vehicle, then put out of my misery by my friends-turned-brainedwashed-cult-followers – but there was so much hilarity that I didn’t mind in the least. My character was lots of fun to play: she was a published paranormal nonfiction author who’d had some really creepy shit happen to her, and she was also a technophobe, so I had all sorts of fun pretending not to know how to work the digital camera the GM brought (complete with local photographs as clues!). She also had inherited her grandmother’s pendulum and I used it mostly to my advantage, although for the first hour or two I don’t think I ever rolled under a sixty no matter which dice I used XD

The next morning, we slept until 11:30 (!!! That’s what happens when you’re up until half past two gaming with a tableful of awesome friends and load of delicious desserts :3) and then we ventured out to Trader Joe’s to pick up food for Christmas Eve, which we’re hosting at our house. We were happily surprised to find the mall area much less jam-packed than we expected, but we got our couple of groceries and beat a hasty retreat nonetheless.

When we got home, Rachel worked on sewing projects for Christmas presents and I started making our Solstice feast. Our original plan was potato soup, which we changed to corn chowder thickened with Rachel’s famous Best Mashed Potatoes Ever. I started by washing and peeling the potatoes.

I’m really enjoying cooking lately, especially when there’s space and all the right ingredients are to hand. It was fulfilling and relaxing to wash and peel the potatoes with the intent of getting rid of the past year’s grime and unpleasantness.

Then I boiled the hell out of those mofos!

In the middle of mashing them, I noticed all these weird little black fibers that kept showing up in the potato. We finally determined that the non-stick coating is coming off the bottom of our soup pot :\\\\ Rachel researched it and the fibers aren’t toxic (phew). Luckily, we’ve been participating in this “get stickers toward free merchandise for every $10 you spend at the grocery store” promotion thing (the cashiers also give us stickers from people who don’t want them XD) and we’ve got enough by now to get a new stock pot. Woo!

Rachel helped me mash them and I added the requisite half-stick of butter, half-package of cream cheese, cup of whole milk, and seasoning salt. BEST MASHED POTATOES EVER, I tell you.

After that, it was time to make the soup! I was DONE WITH CHOPPING so Rachel volunteered to take a break from sewing to chop carrots, celery, and more potatoes for the soup while I cut up an onion. I made the base with water and “Better than Bullion” veggie stock paste, boiled the potatoes, and then we added the corn and mashed potatoes.

The mashed potatoes really thickened it right up and gave it even more creaminess than we expected. We added some ground pepper and some milk, let it simmer for a while, and then it was done!

We’d bought some take-and-bake ciabatta rolls and Rachel baked those in the oven while I set the table. We used bowls from my grandmother’s house, Spoons of My Childhood, and plates decorated with sunbursts <3 The sparkling clementine juice was delicious and perfect for welcoming back the sun.

Freija sat with us! She wanted to help us celebrate the Solstice.

I don’t have a picture of Beatrix, but she was curled up in her shelf/cubby above the coat rack, watching us.

Afterwards, we cleared the dishes away and set the table for our Solstice ritual. It was very simple and calm: we lit candles for the four directions and their associated elements and I read out loud a few words about the Solstice. Then we lit our central candle and from it we each lit yellow tapers that we had dedicated to a purpose for the new year. Then we sang “Here Comes the Sun” n___n We shared a clementine and popped a gold-wrapped cracker to finish the ritual. There was a plastic noise-maker inside, the kind you blow into and it sounds kind of like a chibi motorcycle XD Freija was not impressed. (She remained in her chair the whole time, sitting up attentively, to help with the ritual.)

Well, maybe not so attentively toward the end :)

elaby @ 2014-12-17T20:01:00

2014-12-18T01:01:55Z

I have the day off tomorrow! :D And that is a wonderful thing, because today I helped finish the biggest case at work that I've ever taken part in. It came down to LITERALLY THE LAST MINUTE. I am a noodle-person now. I surely have fewer brain cells than when I woke up this morning.

Tomorrow, I plan on wrapping presents, doing yoga, having lunch with Rachel on campus, and going to oil painting in the evening. My painting teacher is putting on a student art show in January, and I'm going to be in it! I have one painting to put in so far; I hope to finish another, but I'm behind on it because it was too snowy (and I was too peopled-out) to go last week.

I'm very excited for Yule/the Solstice on Sunday. Rachel and I are planning to make a Solstice feast for dinner and then we'll have a ritual with candles and bells.

I think we have all our gifts bought, or at least the materials to make them. The gifts we'll be sending to friends through the mail may be a little late this year ^^;;

The other night, when we were getting the trash and recycling together to put out, Rachel ran and got me and insisted that I come outside with her. I didn't have any socks on but I put my bare feet in my fleecy Bean boots and bundled into a coat and followed her outside. It was cold and the sky was extremely clear, and Rachel showed me how one particularly bright star on the horizon was twinkling, flickering, and visibly changing colors from white to red to blue like a Christmas light. The stars were so bright that we could see the Milky Way. Rachel showed me Orion's bow, which I honestly had never realized was visible before. The stars were so brilliant and flickery, like you could see what they were made of. As I was looking up at them, I saw a shooting star <3

Life Update

2014-12-10T22:43:26Z

Comings and Goings

Rachel’s parents are visiting us right now, which is really nice <3 Her mum has been out a couple of times this year to handle Gramma stuff, but we haven’t seen her dad for a year and a half, so it’s wonderful to get to spend time with him. He’s currently up north visiting his family and Rachel’s mum is staying with us to visit Gramma, who’s been in the hospital. The poor old lady is just getting more and more confused. She knows who people are (in general) and is fairly calm most of the time, but she’s never quite sure what’s going on or what’s been happening to her at any given moment.

Last night, Rachel’s mum taught us how to make stitched bead stars. It was SO much fun and so easy, and I love how mine came out:

I want to make a million more!

Prehistoric Monuments

Lately I’ve been having a surge of interest in stone-age monuments like Newgrange and Stonehenge. I’ve always felt a connection/fascination with barrows and passage-tombs (I blame Tolkien for terrifying me with them and Brian Froud for telling me faeries live in them). When I was younger, I had a very vivid dream about being inside one. It seems like the less available information there is about a time period, the more I’m interested in it – my favorite part of Anglo-Saxon England takes place before Christianity arrived to help people write things down, and now I’m very interested in prehistoric Britain. I’m especially interested in the monuments that include stone-carvings (like Newgrange has) and ones that were erected to align with the solstices. Learning about the daily lives and religion of the people who built and used these places excites me. I’ve asked for a couple of books for Christmas :3

Rachel’s brother and sister-in-law currently live in England, and we want so desperately to visit them – both to get to see them (which we hardly ever do) and to sightsee. My dream vacation would be a folklore/history/pagan-themed tour of the U.K. It would include visits to so many Neolithic and Anglo-Saxon sites, and probably a great many locals giving me the side-eye for my epic amounts of squee. Newgrange has a lottery where you can be chosen to enter the barrow (!!!!!!!!!!!!) on the winter solstice, when the rising sun illuminates the passage and falls on the spiral-carved stone at the end. SO. AWESOME.

Reading

Because it’s winter and this time of year always gets me in the mood for some Tolkien, I’ve been reading Unfinished Tales, a compilation with notes of some of Tolkien’s unfinished bits of lore. It’s fascinating because it gives little details about the characters and shows how Tolkien’s conception of them changed over the years. I have the vapors for Galadriel, so it’s especially exciting that there’s so much content about her. My favorite bit of knowledge is this:

So, Fëanor, right? Elf of extremely bad judgment who made the Silmarils, shiniest of the shiny gems, and was so possessive of them that he got a large portion of Elves booted out of Valinor and subsequently triggered generations of tragedy and warfare? In those gems, Fëanor captured the light of both of the Trees (the pre-Sun-and-Moon gold and silver trees that lit the world) and he was inspired to create them because Galadriel’s hair was the color of the light of both Trees mixed together. He begged her three times for a lock of hair, just a single strand – but Galadriel told him to get bent because he and his lust for personal glory creeped her out.

AND SEVERAL THOUSAND YEARS LATER, SHE GIVES NOT ONE STRAND OF HAIR, BUT THREE… TO A DWARF.

I can just see her graciously handing her gift over to Gimli as the Fellowship depart Lothlorien, and Gimli walking off with little hearts popping over his head while Galadriel turns toward the Halls of Mandos to righteously give Fëanor the finger. As Rachel said when I regaled her with this story: “Wow, long game.” XD

I love that lady.

Birthday happies

2014-11-21T17:18:09Z

My birthday was Tuesday, and I’ve had a really wonderful birthday week <3 Rachel gave me one of my presents earlier in November, because I was sad and she wanted to cheer me up. It was an exquisite acorn necklace, made out of a real acorn cap with a droplet of amber-colored glass as the acorn itself. Inside the glass, there’s a beautiful metal oak leaf that’s silver on one side and orange on the other. It’s so lovely, and I cherish it <3

My mum’s birthday was the Friday before (November 14th) so we took her to Dobra Tea in Portland on Sunday for our joint birthdays. They moved to a new location, and while it feels a bit smaller, it’s lighter and more airy because it’s right on the street instead of inside another building with no external windows like it was before. The tea, as always, was perfect. I can’t remember the name of mine, but it was from an island in China with a thousand-year-old tea tradition and a statue of Guan Yin that looks out to sea. I also had warm pitas and goat cheese. Rachel had a spicy Middle Eastern tea with honey and almond milk, with rice Casablanca (rice mixed with fruit, nuts, spices, and honey), and my mum had rose tea and a couscous dish with olives and feta cheese. We perused Mexicali Blues in the Old Port and then headed to Whole Foods (the closest one to us), where we bought some sweets and some things for dinner.

For my birthday, my parents got me some cute tree ornaments and a Blu-ray of the Miku concert I went to in Los Angeles in 2011 (gosh, that long ago!). It’s the Western release so it had English subtitles for the songs, which was beyond wonderful. Along with a really skillful, close-up recording of the concert (*swoons*) it also had a “Making of Mikunopolis” short that had snapshots of Miku doing touristy things in California. ADORABLE. My parents also got me a new pair of black and red plaid pants for Aster <3 She's borrowing Taylan's shirt here.

On my birthday, Rachel woke me up by plomping my gift bag down on the bed beside me and going “Happy birthday, daahling!” like Norma Desmond XD I was still half asleep so I just took one of the wrapped presents out and hugged it and laid back down. But I eventually woke up enough to open them :3 She got me the most wonderful present: recent reprints of Cicely Mary Barker’s Flower Fairies books, where the original watercolors were scanned using cutting-edge technology to show every bit of detail. Unlike one of the more recent collections of the Flower Fairies poems, which doesn’t reproduce every illustration exactly like the original, the books she got me include all the illustrations in their whole, unedited forms. They’re breathtaking – a perfect combination of botanical drawings and fairy artwork. I’ve started to read the poems to Rachel in bed before we go to sleep, because poetry deserves to be read aloud <3 Rachel also sneakily bought me a beautiful amethyst bracelet with a tree charm at Mexicali Blues when I wasn’t looking XD

It was so nice to get so many Facebook wishes on my birthday. My coworkers brought me whoopee pies and a Barnes and Noble gift card, and after work Rachel and I had dinner at the Olive Garden with my parents as another joint birthday celebration. My parents had another present for me: a delicate necklace with a silver Moon Stick pendant (Sailor Moon’s first weapon/purification item). There are tiny clear gems in the pendant, and it’s the perfect size – identifiable but not gaudy. I love it so much!

On Wednesday, we saw _melisande_, and she gave me a gift card to Michaels so I can buy more oil painting supplies <3 I’ve been feeling a little trepidation about the coming winter and how it’ll effect my mood, and this all was a lovely bright spot in the cold November <3

My first oil painting

2014-11-03T01:46:09Z

I started taking an oil painting class in September, and this past Thursday, I signed my first painting! It was thrilling -- everyone clapped for me <3 I enjoy painting with oils so much. I learned to oil paint when I was in elementary school, taking a class in my slightly-crazy painting teacher's breezeway, with the wood stove blazing at all times of the year and unfamiliar junk food piled in bowls. I loved it then, but I don't remember anything I learned, so I found a freestyle painting class about 45 minutes away from our house when I wanted to start again. This class is wonderful, because the students paint whatever they want at their own pace and the teacher walks around the room giving guidance and advice. You come when you can and pay for each session rather than for a series of classes. Mary, my teacher, is a fantastic painter and a very friendly, kind person. The other students are all older than me and are very welcoming. Every night I go is a refreshing, relaxing experience.

I based my first painting on a bunch of different landscape photos I found around the internet. I snapped some cell phone pictures of it every time I made progress, and after I finished, I put them all together to post here!

For some reason, the colors came out very much browner and more orange in these pictures. It had something to do with the angle I held my phone and the light in the room. You can see in the close-up of the stone wall that the grass areas are much greener than in most of these pictures. Regardless, I'm so happy with how my painting turned out. The very last one shows part of my workspace (I laid the canvas down flat to sign it, but I usually use a tabletop easel) :3

The gate is barred

2014-10-28T00:30:49Z

You may remember back in the spring of 2013 how I posted about discovering that a forest I walked through at work had been bulldozed. A happy consequence of this was that because I was forced to find a new walking route, I found another path through the woods that led to a glorious meadow and pond. For a year and a half, I've walked there almost every day when the weather would allow for it. I've watched it move through the seasons and I know it's a place of magic.

On Friday, after a week of rain, I was going stir crazy at work. I went out for a walk in spite of the chill and drizzle.

And I found yellow POSTED signs at the gate and all over the trees lining the path to the meadow.

They state, in no uncertain terms, that trespassing for any reason is strictly forbidden. I called Rachel and cried and she comforted me and on her suggestion I e-mailed the local development authority (who had posted the signs) to ask if walking there, leaving no litter and disturbing none of the plants and animals, could possibly be allowed. I thought it was a nature preserve. I haven't heard back -- I probably won't -- but I'm not giving up my meadow without even inquiring.

Luckily, unlike my other forest that was torn down, I have many pictures of this forest path and the meadow. It's a breathtaking place.

Soon after I discovered the place, I found this perfectly split piece of sheeny rock on the path. It looks like faerie wings.

Boston anniversary weekend

2014-10-20T23:06:38Z

Rachel and my seventh wedding anniversary was October 6, and this past weekend, we took a little vacation to Boston to celebrate <3 Most years, we go to Rhinebeck to the sheep and wool festival on this weekend in October, but this year we didn't manage to plan early enough and when we tried to book a hotel room, they were ALL sold out T_T It all turned out for the best, though, because we had the most wonderful weekend in Boston.

It didn't start out all that smooth XD Our plan had been to park our car at the train station in Dover on Friday, have my parents drive us to an end of the T line, and take the subway in to our hotel. We'd then take the train home on Sunday and our car would be at the station. However, when my parents were waiting to pick us up at the station lot, we discovered that we would have to pay $0.25 per hour all weekend to park there. It's never cost to park there before. I had forgotten my camera, so we had our parents meet us at our house to drive us down. My mother graciously agreed to pick us up from the train on Sunday <3

We arrived in Boston around 11:30. Even though we couldn't check into our hotel until 3:00, they had a luggage storage service, so we went there to drop off our suitcase - and they let us check in early! It was wonderful to be able to settle into the room before going off our adventure. The hotel was a "boutique hotel" (I'm still not sure what that means) and it was very beautiful and fancy. Everything was nautically themed because it was right near the harbor (very close to the New England Aquarium).

Our room looked into the atrium of the hotel, which was surrounded on three sides by other rooms and by the open hallway on the fourth.

There was a HUGE mirror across from the bathroom door:

After unpacking (not a huge task with only two days of clothes), we ventured out into the city! Our plan for the day was to wander the North End, looking for pastries. The first thing we saw as we headed in that direction was an incredible carousel with all sorts of native animals. I've never seen a carousel this beautiful.

The pictures I got of it weren't great because it was moving, but the carousel figures were absolutely stunning.

(Only in New England…)

It was only $3 to ride :3

Good squirrel!

The next place we found was a fountain with a labyrinth beside it. There were adorable sparrows bathing in the fountain.

Of course we had to walk the ~~Pattern~~ labyrinth, because once we got to the middle we would ~~be able to shift Shadow and therefore create our own pocket universe~~ have the satisfaction of victory. We made sure not to step off at any point (to avoid instant death) and I made silly jokes about blue sparks around my feet and the scent of magnolia blossoms. Rachel said she'd be Corwin and drive the car if I'd be Random and shift Shadow for her.

We walked all over the North End in the sunshine and falling yellow leaves. Our stops included a 18th-century chocolate shop and a printing company that printed copies of the Declaration of Independence using the same paper from the same company as the original, the same kind of printing press, and the exact same size type (each letter measured and set in the press by hand). We came across this statue of St. Francis in a courtyard near a war memorial:

We stopped for a late lunch at Cafe Rustico, a tiny family-owned restaurant with a few tables and a take-out counter. The food was absolutely scrumptous. We shared a Caprese salad, mozzarella sticks, and gnocchi. After following the red brick line of the Freedom Trail for a while, we decided to head to one of our planned stops: an art store!

We went to the Blick art supply store right near the Symphony T stop. It was a paradise! There aren't any serious art stores around where we live (only hobby stores like Michaels, which have a very limited selection) so I picked up some oil brushes I'd been missing, and I really lucked out - not only did Rachel sign me up for a free frequent buyer card that gave me 20% off this weekend, but there were a selection of brushes for 70% off! Brushes can be pretty expensive, so I was really grateful to be there at the right time. I also bought two new tubes of paint in colors I didn't have - a turquoise and a purple.

After that, we went to Rachel's crafty stop: Gather Here, a yarn and fabric store :3

Rachel always asks me first if she can spend our money when it's not her own allotment of fun money (and she had spent that already this month). It gives me so much joy to be able to say yes once in a while.

We were near Mass Ave after visiting Gather Here, so we stopped at Life Alive for dinner. I adore Life Alive - it's all vegetarian/vegan and organic, and eating there is a health-affirming, joyful experience. However, every time we'd been before, I'd ordered something different, and I never really really loved it. This time, though, I ordered an udon dish with tofu, vegetables, and sesame ginger sauce, and it was so delicious.

Back near our hotel, I tried for about ten minutes to get a good picture of the lit clock tower that rose over the buildings. Finally I got one, with the help of a recycling bin to rest my camera on and Rachel's hand to help steady it as I tilted it at the right angle XD

There was a light display near our hotel that kept changing color. I got a shot of it when it was purple. You can also see the top of the recycling bin where I had my camera propped, haha.

Back at the hotel, we lounged about and watched television until we fell asleep :)

On Saturday, our big plan was to visit Mount Auburn Cemetery, a very large cemetery and arboretum that was founded in 1831. It's the resting place of some very famous figures and the landscape and statuary is said to be incredible. It's also a birdwatching hotspot :D We grabbed breakfast at the Starbucks in the hotel and hopped on the T and then the bus to the cemetery.

The place was breathtaking. It was so peaceful and respectful - a garden, park, memorial, and historical site all in one. It reminded me very much of a cemetery that mermaiden and willow_cabin took us to in New York a few falls ago <3 Mount Auburn is incredibly vast - we made it around about a third of it in four or five hours. I'll let my photographs do most of the talking.

This sphinx is a Civil War memorial.

We gasped in awe when we saw the chapel through the trees. Sadly, it wasn't open.

Most older graves usually assume the dominance of the man in a relationship ("wife of", etc.) so whenever we find graves that don't, I like to photograph them.

All the paths were named after things in nature: flowers, trees, birds.

I didn't get close enough to examine it, but it looks like this person's grave marker was a giant hunk of rose quartz!

This one had discolorations that were sort of creepy…

I was fascinated by this three-dimensional sheaf of wheat.

We thought this was interesting for two reasons: It's a grave with the names of two women, apparently unrelated by blood, and also my grandmother's maiden name was Mary Cook :3

Sheep and lambs on monuments have a tendency to get really creepy-looking when they're weathered, but this one was still in pretty good condition.

This reminded me of the Tree of Gondor.

The one grave I wanted very much to find when we visited Mount Auburn Cemetery was Amy Lowell's. Amy Lowell was a poet in the early 1900's, and she wrote beautifully of her adoration of nature and her romantic love for a woman, actress Ada Dwyer Russell. My friend Kate, who was visiting a few weekends ago, told me about a new biography of Amy Lowell by Carl Rollyson, who Kate had interviewed for her magazine. I plan to get it from the library so I can learn more about her away from the ridicule she received during her own time. It sounds very promising, since one editorial reviewer says "Treated as the butt of jokes by her male modernist contemporaries and by hostile biographers, Amy Lowell has been rescued from decades of homophobia, sexism, and anti-fat prejudice by this brilliant new study."

We searched quite a while to find her grave, which was helpfully marked on the map we got from the cemetery's visitors center. It was in a family plot surrounded by a fence, so I despaired of getting close enough to place the acorns I'd brought as an offering until Rachel found an open gate.

Immediately after we left her grave, we were blessed with this incredible sighting:

This Red-tailed Hawk let us get SO CLOSE. It didn't pay us the slightest attention. In fact, as we took about a million pictures and cooed and squealed very quietly about it, Rachel asked me what kind it was, and I said "It might be a Red-tailed Hawk, but I won't be able to tell for sure unless I see its tail-feathers…"

And then it did this.

We were like O.O "Thank you!!" I'm sure that we wouldn't have seen it if we hadn't spent so much time searching around that area looking for Amy Lowell's grave. It was like a gift from her.

One of the main attractions of the cemetery is this huge tower.

It was VERY high, but the stairs were wide and safe and there were sturdy railings all the way up. The view from the top was stunning.

I love being at the height of the treetops <3

There's the chapel near where we came in!

When we came back down, we decided to head off to one of the cemetery's ponds. We saw a lot of amazing statuary on the way.

Rachel took this picture of me watching the tadpoles :)

In LotRO, as you move to higher-level areas, you need more advanced wood for woodworking. One of the higher-level kinds is ilex branches, and I never knew they were real - I always thought they were a Tolkien thing. Imagine our surprise! (Of COURSE the wood you start finding closer to elf-lands is "Sparkleberry").

This grave had a lot of interesting imagery.

The Scots' Charitable Society is the oldest still-active charity in the western hemisphere. The elaborate fence serves as a monument to the hundreds of remains buried inside.

These gorgeous plants, turning yellow in the October weather and spilling across the barrow over this tomb, were lit up by the sunlight and were a perfect last sight for us as we left the cemetery.

At that point, it was around 3:00 and lunch needed to happen. We made our way to Harvard Square where we visited a little three-story mall where there used to be an anime store (the main stop on my high-school trips to Boston). We got lunch at the food court: Rachel had incredibly good fried avocado tacos and I had a delicious chana masala bowl with naan and a samosa. We went to check out the store that replaced the anime store (much to my sorrow), a Japanese-themed home goods store that has, happily, acquired a lot more anime merchandise over the last year or two. I got a couple of very reasonably priced Sailor Moon pendants (one of her Moon Stick and one of Sailor Uranus's Space Sword) and some posters of Miku for our TV room. I also found a Moomintroll cup! I was so happy. After that, we went back to the hotel and tried to find a ghost tour to go on that evening, but they were all sold out. Instead, we walked around Faneuil Hall and looked in the stores until we decided to have dinner at Wagamama, our favorite restaurant in Boston. We stayed up all night watching Ghost Adventures at the hotel, which made up for not getting to go on a ghost tour :3

On Sunday, we spent the morning at the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum. I couldn't take any pictures anywhere they were displaying artwork, though. The museum was really beautiful and very unique: Isabella Stuart Gardner collected the art with her husband, who died before the museum was built. She built it and lived above it for the rest of her life, and everything in the museum is arranged exactly as she organized it herself. It's full to the brim with gorgeous old furniture, tapestries, religious paintings and sculptures, and works of art by some very famous artists. The courtyard in the middle is particularly breathtaking: it's four stories high with an arching glass ceiling that lets in the sunlight, and the mosaic in the middle is surrounded by paths and plants and marble statues of goddesses. I think the website has some pictures of it. The only unfortunate thing was that since Isabella Stuart Gardner's will stipulated that no one could re-arrange anything, there was very little interpretation of the artwork. There were cards in each room that identified the pieces, but it only gave their names and artists, and it was kind of hard to orient yourself using them. There were a couple of interpreters floating around, but they were mostly silent room guards - except one, who told us enthusiastically about everything in the room, and who let me in on the fact that John Singer Sargent, whose art I admire very much, was gay - and I never knew that. I was so delighted and grateful that at least one of the people working there wanted to talk about the artwork.

After we left the museum, Rachel led me to the weekend's mystery stop. It was so exciting to follow her from place to place, not knowing where we were going! Much to our sadness, the event she was taking me to - a four-course desert tasting! - didn't start until 5:00, when our train was leaving. It hadn't said so on the coupon she had, and she was very disappointed. We went to P.F. Chang's for lunch instead and had some of the most delicious vegetarian fried rice we'd ever had.

On the way back from the restaurant, we came upon this incredible sculpture:

Poe! Dramatic in the wind! Look at that sad face.

You can see the tell-tale heart falling out of his briefcase in the back.

Our train ride home was very nice, although quite hot in spite of the chilly weather. We really had such a delightful, relaxing, soul-filling time, and I thank my lucky stars every day that I'm married to the most beautiful, brilliant, loving, perfect woman in the universe <3

The turning wheel

2014-09-24T00:56:41Z

One of the reasons I embraced paganism is that I wanted to feel more in touch with the seasons and the turning of the year. When I was little, I imagined the year to be like a circle or clock: Christmas was at 12:00, Easter at 3:00, the Fourth of July at 6:00, and Halloween at 9:00. I was somewhat off, but that’s pretty close to the pagan wheel of the year. As I grew older, I became more and more irked by the calendar definitions of the changeover from season to season. I mean, anybody who’s lived in New England can tell you that it starts to feel like winter WAY before December 21st. I wanted to celebrate the seasons by how they felt, by the changes in the weather and the earth, which is what the seasons actually are. As I learned more about paganism, I looked to the pagan calendar - the solstices and equinoxes and cross-quarter days - to remedy what I felt was erroneous in our secular calendar.

At first, this simply meant shifting the “wheel” in my head, as if I’d taken a circular 12-month calendar and superimposed a translucent circle with quarters for each season on top of it -- with just a 1/8th counterclockwise shift, the first day of winter now lined up with Samhain, the first day of spring with Imbolc, the first of summer with Beltane, and the first of fall with Lughnassa. This fell into place nicely with the old words for Yule and Litha: midwinter and midsummer. In my mind, the 21st of December felt a lot more like the middle of winter than the first day of it, and it made sense that winter would span the lead-up to the longest night of the year and the weeks after, when the sun was starting to return.

This adjustment made the seasons and dates line up a little better and soothed my literal-minded need to categorize things. However, it wasn’t perfect. In New England, it sure doesn’t start feeling like fall at the end of August, nor does the beginning of February feel like the start of spring. Both fall and spring are shorter and the changes in them more rapid than winter and summer are (much to my regret).

This year, I’ve felt particularly attuned to the change of the seasons. It’s not really anything I’ve done differently… I’ve tried to notice every year, but this year I feel like I had more cause or more opportunity to watch the wheel turn. In the spring when I was sick, being outside was one of the only things that made me feel better. At work, there’s a pond behind my office and a swath of long grasses and reeds between the parking lot and the water. I’ve been going out there almost every day, just to stand and breathe in the air and soak up the sun. It’s amazing what you see when you watch something grow over several seasons. I saw the cattails turn from green pencils to brown sausages and then bubble with fluff, wooly seed motes that floated in the air around me on my walk at lunch today. I saw dark purple spears appear at the tips of the long grasses and then bloom like fireworks into burgundy tufts, which have now mellowed to silver-gold. I saw purple crown-vetch replaced by Queen Anne’s lace replaced by asters. I saw butterflies give way to wasps and bumblebees who then made room for dragonflies.

It strikes me now that trying to delineate the seasons, trying to make the dates line up with the changes I see, is just as silly as trying to cram anything else into a neat, easily describable box. The number on the calendar is meaningless, because the shift between seasons is gradual and awe-inspiring and just as much its own “season” as any other. In fact, the time “between” seasons is always my favorite, because I love to watch the changes: to taste that first scent of crisp, dry grass on the air that signals autumn, to see the monarch butterflies appear.

Happy Mabon <3