Dark Side of the Moon

I've had other stuff on my mind than LJ.  But catching up from when I last posted...

( ~ nine days of updates in one easy package ~ )

And that's what's been happening.
  
 

The funeral was today. 

On the way back to the hotel, the four of us (me, husband, 21-yr-old son, 19-yr-old daughter)  talked about the differences between it and what we might want for ourselves.  My daughter wants to be dressed in Master Chief footed pajamas (she still regrets not buying the Halo 3 boxers she once saw) and her ceremony should be non-religious and no more than 30 minutes long.  They should show the video of Thriller and read quotes from Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, and from Star Wars if there's time, and there should be a bag of ground coffee put in the coffin with her.  Given the coffee and Thriller, her brother offered to blow her head off with a shotgun when she came back as a zombie, but she thought her final ending ought to be more epic.  So instead he's going to get up high on a stepladder, or something, and drop down on her with an axe, and that's been deemed acceptably cool. 

It's always nice to plan details beforehand.

(Please don' t think they were being flippant about the actual funeral.  They were, and are, wonderfully understanding of when to be serious for such occasions, and when, afterwards, a touch of humor would be welcome.)
  

My mother died early this morning.  Those who've been reading this journal for a while may remember that she's been and out of hospitals for the past couple of years with congestive heart failure and other problems, that she broke her hip at the beginning of July and that accelerated the decline.  My sister did miracles of care, and there were very good days over these past three months that she was able to enjoy, and in her own home.  Even at the end she wasn't in deep pain, but she'd become so frail that her skin tore easily, there was constant aching, it did hurt greatly when she needed to be moved onto her side or adjusted in bed, the other conditions were getting worse, and there was no hope of turning any of it around.  She went quietly in a sleep that had been increasing troubled lately, but last night wasn't.  She's fully at rest now, at peace.
  

I know it's been a while since I posted, but it's not that I've been absent from LJ.  I've been following other people's journals and that's made it hard to talk about minor problems or pleasures when other people are dealing with matters of life and, unfortunately, death.

There's not a lot to report.  A revitalization of a side interest, the roleplaying site is gearing up for a transformation.  Work, too, looks like a major project that's had various incarnations over the years is finally getting funding to take us past the "this is what we could do, if you let us do it" stage.  Personal creative projects?  I also need to move there, to get past the ideas and on to implementation.

Tomorrow is my son's 21st birthday.  We'll have a bottle of "his" wine with dinner, to celebrate his coming of full legal age.  When my husband and I went together, when it became more serious, he told me that at his wedding he'd be given a case of wine from his birth year that had been set aside by his father, a man very knowledgeable indeed about wine.  Supposedly he and his three siblings each had a case, and they'd joke with each other over the quality of the birth years.   It turned out this wasn't so: no case.   I understand how that works, a passing reference not meant seriously, a good intention never implemented or only partially, fading out over time.   (But I didn't care for the unsympathy of the excuse given, however joking: "Oh we drank a bottle of it whenever you were bad." )   I still thought it was a good idea.  When my son was born, the first of the grandchildren, we asked my father-in-law to pick a case of wine that would last well and so yes, there is one.  There's one for each of the kids born before his death, and that makes it an extra blessing, that in having the wine we'll also be remembering him.   We aren't saving it strictly for weddings, though.   We'll have one bottle tomorrow, at my son's permission and expectation, and the rest will be his, for whatever he considers worth the celebration. 

But next Sunday, he and some friends are going down to King Richard's Faire so that  his first legally purchased drink can be mead. :-)
  

Busy long weekend.

( ~ Saturday, Sunday, Monday... with recipe for beef/pepper stew ~ ) 
  

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

I went with my daughter to get new glasses for her (i.e., to pay for them).  The woman suggested anti-glare coating "for driving at night and in the rain".  I waffled, saying that I had it on my glasses but something seemed to be going wrong.  She looked at them.  "Oh, yes," she said cheerily,  "That's the older sort. They muck up."  "But I've only had them for two years?"  "Yes, that's about the lifespan.  But they have this new protection that's much, much better. It's..."  It's an extra $130.  The old sort, which they're still selling, is $70 extra.  My daughter doesn't drive that much, her eyes are younger and more adaptable, and so, no thanks.  But now I'm pissed.  I thought I'd been too careless about cleaning, but it turns out, no, that extra cost also had a built-in accelerated replacement requirement.

Last night I picked up my son from the last session of his summer classes at Salem State College.  On the way home (driving at night, in the rain, with mucked-up lenses, yeah), I was trying to pass some cars in the center lane.  Unfortunately, the car ahead of me in the passing lane was not cooperating. It was being driven at erratic speeds, sometimes up to 75 mph, then drifting down to nearly 60 for a while, then speeding up again.  Other cars were passing us by dropping into the right-hand lane and swerving around us all, but, eh, that's not the way to do it.  I wasn't being pushy, I wasn't tailgating (which (1) I don't do, and (2) would have been exceptionally stupid given the erratic speeds),  I just waited, and eventually the car did pull enough ahead of the center cars to move into that lane itself.  As we passed, my son looked over and saw that the driver was talking on a cellphone and had a GPS screen lit up on the visor.

I'm generally at least somewhat sympathetic to people trying to find their way through the convoluted road system in and around Boston. Especially at night.  Especially in the rain.  But dammit, that's not what the left lane of 128 is for.   
  

I've made plans to see the Cirque du Soleil later this month.  Things sort of came together more quickly than I thought.  We've never been, and I've wanted to see it, and I signed up for the membership notices.  Two days later I got an offer of discounts to the Bridgeport, CT, showings of "Alegria".  A great deal, really.  But, on the other hand, the same weekend as my daughter going back to college in West Haven and she'd need the whole of the day to move in because she's also attending a training session for helping with freshman orientation on the next day.  But, on the third hand, my stay in Richmond got me two free nights at the same chain.  Or, even, one night and two rooms, and a  hotel with the promotion rooms available was near to both school and venue.  Soooo we're going down a day early, all four of us, and stashing her stuff in the hotel rooms while we go to the Cirque performance, then moving her in the next day.   Because, you know, discount performance tickets and free hotel rooms?

I'm hoping it does go well.  The previous attempt at family vacation outing this summer was not so good.  Bad news the first day made me anxious, stressed, and depressed for the rest of the week, and though my mother is feeling better right now (she's out of the hospital, in hospice care at home; she's not getting better but she's feeling better, and that's wonderful enough) there's always now the possibility of worse news.
  

Things I learned driving back and forth to Virginia:

( ~ travel notes ~ )

Things I learned in Virginia, about my mother's condition: 

( ~ medical notes ~ )

Last night was a thrown-together meal, a "what's been sitting in the pantry and never used?" sort of meal, but it turned out pretty good even though it couldn't decide if it was southeast Asian or southwest US.

boneless chicken thighs, cut in chunks
1 jar of habanero-lime salsa, medium hot
1 jar of lime-lemon thin-cut marmalade
1 jar of mandarin orange segments
1 to 2 teaspoons of crushed red pepper

Mix everything and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes to an hour.  You can up the temperature to 375 degrees if it's taking too long.  Stir it up once or twice so that it cooks evently.  Serve over rice pilaf, or plain rice.

It needed to be something unfussy because I found I needed to re-hem a dress.  My daughter and some of her friends had signed up to be extras in a movie being filmed nearby ("The FIghter") and were told to show up around 9 am today, Thursday.  My daughter had also signed up to start working at Dunkin Donuts.  

Yesterday afternoon around 4 pm, she found out that she needed to work the 6-12 shift at Dunkin Donuts for the initial training session.  

Yesterday afternoon around 5 pm, she got a call that they were changing the clothing requirements for extras: instead of regular street clothes ("no logos, no bright colors or patterns" => no problem) they now wanted the extras to show up in upscale cocktail dresses and suits.  Problem: she didn't have that sort of dress.  Problem doubly compounded by the imminent 6-12 shift and the early morning call.  

Now, we're not in a totally dinky town.  We've got 24-hour drugstores and 24-hour supermarkets, but somehow no one saw the need for a 24-hour place to buy a cocktail dress.   Obviously a missed marketing opportunity.  So we decided to hack up an ex-prom dress to shorter length and that's what I did with my evening, measuring and cutting and hemming (both outside and lining) and ironing.   The last part, the ironing, is something I rarely do, and I couldn't find the iron.

Luckily, one of the 24-hour drugstores does carry travel irons, even if they don't carry cocktail dresses.
    

I haven't yet tried the other recipes for bannocks.

I didn't get the cushion cover done, though I may still manage by the Athena's Thimble paneling at GNEW. 

But the polymer clay & beef shank bones art piece is nearly done.  It's a piece that should have been done in something other than polymer clay because it used so much, but the herbal infusion may be worth it.

Pork cut up (cheap fatty pieces are best) and baked at 350-375 F with lots of minced fresh ginger, and some tamari, mirin, brown sugar, and sesame oil, is very good.

My mother made it through surgery even though my sister is still vocally upset that they switched to general anaesthesia instead of an epidural.  I spoke with my mother this evening and she sounds a lot better than before the surgery.  It's just that she can't quite understand why she can't walk out of the hospital already.   (And thank you for the good wishes; it means a lot to me.)
 
Having missed Buttery Birthday, I have to figure out how to get the cordials to those that worked at the Tavern event.   I'm still reluctant to take them to Council tomorrow, because, ya know, college property?  Bah.
  

Kir is a wonderful summertime drink, even for cold, wet summers.  It is less cold today and the wet is more traditional, with passing thunderstorms instead of a stalled grey soaking. Kir also has the advantages of making cheap white wine drinkable, and of simplicity: a glassful of white wine and a few dollops of cassis over ice.

Barley bannocks, on the other hand, suck.  At least, so far.  Two out of four recipes tried, and both went into the trash. They were edible, in that it wouldn't kill you to eat them.  I'm hoping for something a little better while trying not to get too far away from the traditional.

The Mediterranean chicken isn't too bad.  Bake cut-up chicken tenders with olive oil and lemon juice and thyme and garlic powder at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 35 minutes.  Drain some of the liquid off.   Stir in thawed chopped spinach (about 10 oz. pkg.?), diced plum tomatoes (3), and sprinkle with 1/2 lb. crumbled feta chese, return to oven for 10 minutes.   Chopped black & green olives can be served on the side, or mixed in at the same time as the spinach and tomato, depending on how people in your dinner party feel about olives.  Serve over linguine or spaghetti or rice.

Fimo is not as good as Premo!.  But Fimo was on a very good sale and it's not nearly as bad as basic Sculpey.  So now I have more clay for art pieces.

I'm still hoping to get to Readercon.

My mother broke her hip. She's 85 and fragile, just come from a hospital visit for another condition.  They will do surgery tomorrow morning because my sister, who is there, knows (and I agree) that it would kill her to be bedridden with a broken hip, even at home.  So now it's a question of if she will survive the surgery.
  
More Kir.  Kir Royale, btw, is made with champagne instead of white wine.  Just so you know.
  

So it turns out we're not going to be at Buttery Birthday, because the plans for my daughter's massage class went all screwy and we've decided it's best to stay home and catch our breaths.   But I did finally make pound cake with the double-yolk eggs (not so good: I worried about it being just too dense and added baking powder, and it ended up too fluffy) and chocolate cloud cookies (sorry,nineweaving, no preview, but I'll hope that extra cookies at Readercon would stll be acceptable; also, it's been a terrible week to try meringues) and started a new batch of cordial (of blood orange peel and lemon peel in brandy) and I'm currently simmering the apple chutney (thank gods, now those apples are out of the fridge and there's ROOM!).   Maybe some clay play later.  Or tomorrow, before the next life drawing class.
  

My mother was in the hospital again.  The most noticeable symptom was shortness of breath, but that's from heart and lung congestion, too much fluid buildup, and her kidneys are having trouble handling the diuretics.  It was a short term stay, just to get her stabilized again, and she's back home, but when we say "at least it's not serious" we only mean it's no more serious than the general breakdown of systems due to age, which is serious enough.

My daughter got the wireless to work, go her!  I'd bought the thing back the end of last fall, and tried the given steps without success and then gone through several hours of changing settings under the direction of the DSL support people, to no success (since the apparent problem was in their connection to it), and then given up till I got the energy to talk to the wireless support, to look at it from the other end.  I did change the settings back to what seemed appropriate rather than leaving them at what the DSL person said might work (since it hadn't).   With my husband home, I'd also suggested that -he- call the wireless support people, and of course that didn't happen.  Finally my daughter, home from college and wanting more chance at the internet than a shared computer, asked me to tell her what was wrong and she'd call.   So we went through all the same steps but this time got further that I remembered.   Still no internet, though.   And so I went off to work the next day and she looked through the documentation and fiddled with one thing more... and it worked!   For everyone except the house guest's laptop.  So my daughter called up the support line and they helped her get that laptop connected, too.   My daughter is awesome.
  

The perfume that I was given on Sunday was made by L'Occitane en Provence.   My husband, who's an editor and scholar and picky about word use, told me that he'd been very good and not pointed out the odd construction to the clerk, that "l'Occitane" might mean "the woman of Occitania" but that Provence was in Occitania, not the other way around.   Meanwhile I'd been noticing that there was Braille labelling along one side of the box, and my son took the box, ran his finger along the raised dots and said, "hey, but they got in right in Braille."    Quick-witted kid. :-)

I've gotten a Dreamwidth account.  True to my usual pattern of rarely using the same name twice, on it I'm "chanson".   (I'm Kat here, Cimeara on deviantArt, ChansonArts on Blogger & g-mail, carolhanson on Twitter, etc., etc.)   So far I have no intentions of doing anything more with it than possible cross-posting, so there's no need to follow it, but let me know if you'd like an invite code. 
  

 

We have moved my daughter and entirely too much of her stuff into her dorm at college, attended the convocation/welcome, and bid her a fond (and funded) farewell.

The University of New Haven is really pushing to become a player in the non-Ivy League, with lots of new programs, new buildings, expanded study abroad program, million-dollar "smart classrooms", new sports fields and general recreation facilities, etc.  I also like their sense of style.  They hired Catherine Conant to give the keynote address because this time they thought, hey, wouldn't it be cool to have a professional storyteller instead of yet another academician.  And there was a "pinning ceremony" with each student getting a "class of 2012" pin... "which you need to have with you at graduation, or we won't give you the diploma." 

Tonight my husband and son and I went to a movie theatre near the hotel to see "Tropic Thunder."  It rocks.  It's awesomely funny.   The soundtrack is going to be the most bizarre disc around and I want it NOW.

Tomorrow I go home by way of Tissa's Market in Old Saybrook, where I will get a real tangine.