Drunken Owls and Other Delights

In preparation for our mini-vacation starting tomorrow, we've spent most of today so far (after a tasty brunch at Joe's Coffee Shop) cleaning the apartment. This would include: using the Uproot Clean rake on the two rugs in the living room, a major scrub-down of the shower, washing of bedsheets and blankets, floor mopping, and vacuuming. [I will be starting in on that final one once I catch my breath.] 

And who, you ask, will be watching over our cats in our absence? One of my coworkers will be cat-sitting! They have experience and have confirmed their work schedule fits perfectly on the days we need. They'll be staying here so we're just making sure everything is clean and in working order.

And in between all that, I am of course also doing my weekly PC cleaning, of which I am about two weeks behind on. I'm not too worried considering I've had this new computer for about a month now, but it doesn't hurt to chase out those pesky bugs and fix those weak spots. Thankfully I have not had any PC issues so far other than the occasional internet drop-out (which I've mentioned here before), so it's always good to ensure it doesn't happen anyway!

Am now all sweaty and a bit tired, but it's worth it.

 The renovation guys are up on the roof this morning again, and though I'm not entirely sure what they're up to, I'm thinking that it might be that they're redoing the drainage on the southern side of the building as it would always pool and not drain properly. I would not be surprised if there was a bit of water damage up there.

Meanwhile, I haven't heard anything about new rear windows as of yet, but I have confirmed with the landlady that we are getting them! All I ask is that they let us know ahead of time when they're going to do ours, so we can corral the cats and keep them from escaping. Oh, and move things out of the way, heh.

In writing news, I hit 1108 words on MU4 yesterday! Yay! That's the most I've done in one sitting for this particular project, and I'm quite happy about it. This is what happens when I have a day off and not distract myself with the internets! Heh.

Last week was a mixed blessing: it was all opening shifts, which I love...but I found myself exhausted by the end of it. Part of it was due to being short-staffed at work (two people calling out sick on certain days, slim schedule on others), and part of it was an uptick of customers. Which is fine, except that quite often it was either one-at-a-time (another appears in line just as I'm finishing up with someone) or dead-dead-dead-NINEATONCE surges. And one of the days I pretty much ran the entire front end on my own with only occasional help. This week's upcoming schedule is a bit odd in that I have three mid-shifts in a row followed by two opens, all in a row. I'm hoping it won't be too overwhelming.

Meanwhile, today was one of those Best Laid Plans days in which we came back from brunch to learn that one of our hot water tanks in the basement broke somehow and a replacement would be coming...maybe tomorrow or Tuesday?...which means getting laundry done was nixed. Which also turned into an afternoon of laziness in which I didn't even get around to vacuuming the apartment. D'OH! Oh well. I have tomorrow off so I'll take our stuff to my favorite laundromat down the street midmorning, then hopefully I can get some of the house cleaning done afterwards!

Oh! And I brought both cats to the vet this past Thursday. Just a general wellness checkup / vaccine update, and I'm quite happy to say that both Cali and Jules received a clean bill of health! The only drama there was getting Cali in the cat carrier, which eventually included me throwing my sweater over her, dropping her in the carrier and then pulling my sweater out. She was NOT happy about that...but they've since forgiven me and are both doing just fine.


Hope everyone has a nice week ahead!

Note to self: ordering the chilaquiles dish at Richmond Republic is a great idea...if I want to feel ridiculously full for the rest of the afternoon. What's essentially a small skillet piled with breakfast nachos is indeed hangover food. The brewpub itself was full of Bay to Breakers leftovers, including a group of Gilligan's Island cosplayers (Gilligan, Skipper and Mary Ann) having nothing but mimosas the entire time. The walk home did help wear down some of the spinny from the two ales I had (one oatmeal stout and one coffee vanilla lager, both from local breweries).

Taking a break from cleaning the two apartment bathrooms for the moment to catch my breath (I need to give the shower a good scrub-down next). And once that's done, then I can do what I wanted to do this weekend, and that's catch up with my writing!

I'm doing pretty good with having a backlog for my Walk in Silence posts but I'd like to create a few more so I'm at least a few entries ahead at all times, which would make that at least two weeks ahead. I'd also like to create more backlogged Welcome to Bridgetown posts as well. Using the scheduler on my WordPress blogs has decreased my stress levels considerably, as I don't have to worry about cramming all my writing into one evening and thus getting little editing done.

Speaking of editing...oof. The Balance of Light is coming along, but slowly. I'm nearly done with this chapter, and it's miles better than the original opening, though I've already proven to myself that this book's gonna get at least two, maybe three revisions before I release it by the end of the year. There's a LOT left to go, and I need to ensure that I dedicate the time to it; I can't let it fall by the wayside or get distracted by the blog entries or other things.

In short, I've been doing a lot of thinking about my writing over the last few weeks. Yes, I know...I tend to do that on a daily basis anyway, but this has to deal with multiple things: my output, time dedicated to it, and the level of dedication I give to it. I spent years working on the Trilogy, and donating a crapton of time to it at that. It's hard to describe, but writing the trilogy, while fun, did feel like I was trying to Create A Perfect Work of Art, if you get my meaning. There's a level of ultraseriousness to it that, while it worked for the creation and writing in this universe, I don't believe I need to reach quite so high for my other projects. In fact, I think that's why some of my other projects stalled in the past: I was trying way too hard to recreate that level of perfection. Us writers are our own worst enemies when it comes to that. So once the Trilogy is out and away, you're going to see a change of mindset and habit on my next projects. I'll still be professional, but I doubt I'm going to try to aim for Best Book in the Universe anymore.

I have more thoughts on this, of course, but I'll save it for another day.

Meanwhile, back to cleaning!

First, to get this out of the way:

WOOOOO!!! GO PATS!!! :D :D :D :D :D

*ahem* Carry on...


Been a surprisingly productive weekend here at Casa TC. Yesterday was mostly Errand Day, as our cupboards were emptying out. So, shopping at Westlake Mall! I had a coupon for $5 off a purchase of $25 or more of food at World Market, so we went a bit wild with snacks (various chocolates, Zapp's potato chips with an interestingly vague flavor name of "Voodoo", some maple pecan popcorn, among other things) some pumpkin ale, and some wine. Also, a good portion of regular food was purchased downstairs at Trader Joe's.

We also decided to head over to the DSW shoestore for new footwear specifically for our Paris trip in a few weeks [HOKEY SMOKES, is it coming up that quickly?!??]. As I have been informed that I will apparently be laughed off the continent for wearing New Balance sneakers, I spent the extra money and got some nice and comfy solid black Nikes. Emm got a nice pair of walking shoes as well, along with a pair of pumps which surprised both of us (she normally doesn't wear them).

Spare Oom got another good going-over yesterday as well...I managed to combine all my work-related stuff into one box and shoved that into the closet, magazine piles were thinned out, and things were moved so I can actually use the loveseat behind me again! Now I just need to make a trip to the Fort Mason book drop and the Goodwill up the way, and the floor will be even more open.

Today was Clean All The Things! Day, so I did quite a bit of vacuuming and dusting, arranging, throwing away, and wiping up of said Things. I really should have taken a Claritin, as I am still slightly congested from the Great Dusting of Jon's Corner of the Bedroom. Clearly I should have done this quite some time ago, and it would not surprise me in the least if I find myself NOT snoring from congestion tonight. And lastly, I just kicked off an email to our building maintenance guys (cc'ing our building manager, of course) detailing some plumbing issues. Nothing horrible, but just enough to warrant fixing.

So! It's just past two pm here, I'm kicking back and listening to WAMH online, and wondering what I'm going to do with the rest of the day. Emm is currently in the kitchen making a giant batch of applesauce, but once that's done we'll most likely take a walk up to Land's End and then over to the Quickly on Geary for some bubble tea. So what's next?

I'll be working some more on Chapter 6 of A Division of Souls, and I know that it's going to be a big pain in the ass like Chapter 5 was...but I'll going into that in another post momentarily. In fact, a lot of writing-related thoughts I'd like to touch on in the next post. Stay tuned!

Also...I need to install the Rosetta Stone Francais software and get crackin' on it, as we have just a few weeks for me to brush up on a foreign language I haven't actively studied since 1993. Geez, and I call myself French-Canadian...! The packaging is a bit vague as to how many people can use it, and how many computers it can be set up for, so I'm thinking maybe setting it up on the Spare Oom PC here, and then onto the Lenovo, that way we can get it up and running and the both of us can use it. As I've said, I can passably say the little things one needs--y'know, the please, thank you, I'm afraid I've eaten too much cheese, things like that--and I can understand it a lot more than I can speak it...but I should at least try to recapture more of it.

Okay! Time to head outside and enjoy a bit more of this shockingly warm day (I say shocking, considering it's been in the 50s and foggy for the last few weeks) and partake in some tasty bubble tea.

MOre soon!

So my plan at the moment is that I may move Arkham West into Spare Oom later today (or tomorrow, depending on how much time I have) so we can set up Emm's new desk. The only downside to this is that I won't have internet access right away--I need to call our maintenance guy to see if he can wire up that back room (which, if I'm correct, would pretty much involve drilling a hole in the wall to the outside, a wire going up to the roof and connecting to the phone system up there...but I could be wrong). Any internet access will be achieved by commandeering Emm's old laptop for my own, as well as using that for writing as well. WAH days would still be achieved by way of plugging into the router, no change there.

Other than the connection issue, I still need to do some backing up of stuff on B3K here. I may need to hook up the new PC to the internet as well, just so I can download some of the programs I'd need or want to update before temporarily going offline. Mind you, I'm not wiping B3K's memory right away, so any info/programs/files can be moved over at any time. But I'd like to make sure MS Word is updated and I have my precious MediaMonkey mp3 player. :p

And on top of all of that, I still want to make sure I get some writing done. ;)


So yeah...if you don't hear from me right away, that's why.

So for your enjoyment, behold, THE BOXES-O-COUCH:



The two larger ones were about 4' by 2' by 2' (rough estimate), and the smaller one is an additional ottoman that we ordered along with the sofa. So yes...pretty compact and well packed, as the cushions were pretty much shrinkwrapped/spacebagged for minimum taking up of space.

( During and After Pix under the cut! )

So yes, Home Reserve definitely FOR THE WIN! :)

Another early awakening, which meant watching another Holmes on Homes at 6:30 in the morning. :p

Did some big-time shopping early this morning, driving down to Target. Found the best--and nicest!--way down there is to drive over to Great Highway (aka the You Can't Get Any Further West in San Francisco Than This Road) (okay, there's the Farralon Islands, but never mind that, this is where you ask me what kind of car I got) (ANYWAY), head south down the coast for a few miles, cut over on John Daly Blvd (where we found yet another shopping center that has all kinds of neat things!) and catch 280 the rest of the way down to Target. It took about a half hour tops, and as said, it was a VERY nice day for it, especially since the tide was in and the breakers were pretty high and rough! Very pretty watching that...

More stuff bought for the apartment, including cleaning stuff. On the way back we stopped at the Safeway on La Playa (again--it blows my mind that we were buying groceries mere yards from the Pacific Ocean), where we stocked up big time, including a turkey for T-Day! :) We got back home right around noonish, and as soon as we unpacked our purchases, we were out and about again. Took the bus up to 10th Ave to check out our local library, which has just recently been renovated. VERY nice, we'll need to take our cameras next time. They even have a little playground for the little ones on the 10th Street side! [Note: the mini-playground has that recycled-tire spongy surface. Back in my day we had ROCKS! And GRAVEL! And...and BLACKTOP! And WE LOVED IT! And get offa my lawn, ya little snits!)]

Walked all the way back home...a good mile or so of walking, but it's easy and quick, and we stopped for lunch at a Chinese restaurant right at the end of our block. Very tasty food, good service, and their Muzak was cracking me up--I wasn't sure if it was Asian easy-listening pop or some sort of Asian gospel music...light pop music played on an organ. :p

And now we're home...I'm taking a break from moving stuff around in the back room library/office room. So far I've consolidated all of the CDs, tapes and videos into four boxes, I've got two boxes of stuff to give to Goodwill, I've created a "stuff" storage tub that may end up in my closet (I currently have nothing on the floor in there), a bag of trash, another bag of stuff to be shredded and/or recycled, and getting all my pictures, cards and etc stuff all in one place. Not sure where I'll put them, but I'll figure something out. Again, this may bleed into tomorrow as well, at least the filing/sorting/recycling part of it, while watching football. ;)

So yeah...just hitting 5pm and we've gotten a LOT done today. Can't complain... :)

EDIT: OH! We saw a Tesla Roadster on the way back from Target--never saw one of those before! Very nice car! :)

Got up pretty early this morning, about 6:15 or so, simply due to not being sleepy anymore. Which is good, because one of the few downfalls to watching Holmes on Homes on Saturdays is that it's on Eastern Time now on the Dish, so it's on at 6am. Had breakfast, hung out a bit, and by 9am we were ready to go.

Headed over to our old neighborhood to do some much-needed shopping at the Marina Safeway and so I could drop off our keys to the old apartment. Made one last swing through the place to make sure I didn't forget anything (which I did--one plastic hook we stuck up on the wall to hang something), then dropped off the keys at the Trinity office.

Once we got back and unpacked the foodstuffs, we went out for what ended up being nearly a three-mile walk around the neighborhood, including checking out some of the REALLY nice houses in Seacliff (which, let's face it, is part of the Richmond district, but the houses are mostly detached and rich and sometimes famous people live there, so they want a separate name. ;) )...as well as heading down a good swath of Clement, which has all sorts of awesome little stores and restaurants. We found a Russian grocery store, a Pho restaurant (PS, head58: click on this one and scroll down--they have a Pho challenge that I think you should join in on when you come out), many produce stores, all types of other restaurants, and whatnot. Finally we swung over to Geary to make our way back, and saw even more really neat stores and restaurants (including a place called Buffalo Burger, where we had an AWESOME lunch), including our local Wells Fargo/Starbucks--yes, they are actually in the same storefront. One more swing back over to Clement, and back home. Google Pedometer says we walked 2.871 miles today.

But that's not all!

Once back, we moved more things around today...yarn was unpacked, boxes broken down, stuff put away in my desk, bookcases moved around, more stuff put away, and piles of stuff created to eventually be filed/put away/thrown away/recycled/donated. Also, many boxes moved and rearranged. Unfortunately we're nowhere near finished, but at least it's a start. We're still sort of trying to figure out where we want everything to go, and of course we're also making a mental list of more furniture to buy in the future once we see what we need. I know on our mental wish list we have a larger couch (our loveseat will probably end up being in the 2nd bedroom), a glass case where we can put our collectibles, and a very small kitchen table to wedge into the corner in the kitchen.

Tomorrow?

More unpacking while football is on! :D

Okay, so I wussed out and only did one trip to the new place today. Brought over the stuff we bought at Target/BB&B today, plus some kitchen stuff plus some of Emm's clothes. I dunno...I should have done another trip, but I'm just dead tired right now. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the fact that I kept waking up last night, every couple of hours or so, mostly due to the yahoos coming out of the bars. I think we ran the gamut last night--drunk frat boys, potential chick fight, bf/gf argument...I think the only thing we didn't have was someone hurling. Yes, that has happened outside our window. O_O

Stopped at Safeway to see if I needed to rent a carpet cleaner, but they suggested just coming in to rent one on the day needed. Hopefully there will be one available that day! And it has to be done on Saturday, as we're going to the Opera on Sunday. Yup, big weekend! :)

Anyhoo...going to spend the rest of the day packing some of my own stuff. I need to pack the stuff on the bookshelf and some of the stuff under the bed. Lord knows where I'll put it...but I'll figure it out. My bureau is now down to a week's worth of stuff to wear, my closet just has clothes for the two days I'll be in-office, everything else is in boxes. If time permits, I may bring some of it over there during the week.

Big move is Friday...we are SO looking forward to it, partly to get it over with, partly to enjoy the OMG ENORMOUS new place. :)