I don't like Mondays

This morning my train arrived just as I reached the platform. I ran down as far as I dared before jumping on and was delighted to find an entire end of the car empty. Peace and quiet and nobody kicking the back of my seat! Before I could sit down--before the smell even hit me--I spotted the gigantic piece of human excrement in the centre of the aisle.

It's been that kind of day.

An Domhnach díomhaoin

D'éiríos go luath maidin Dé Domhnaigh. Do bhuaileas le mo stócach, mo dheartháir agus a bhean sa Chaife Meinl agus d'ólamair lán caife. D'ólas an iomarca mar is gnách. Bhí air monshu dul abhaile, ach leis an mbeirt eile acu go dtí a dtigh chun an foirgneamh nua a fheiceáil. Tá sé an-álainn. D'fhanas in éineacht leo ar feadh tamaill agus do bhíomair ag caint. Do chabhraíos leo na brioscaí a phúdráil le siúcra.

[buíochas le fainic_thu_fein as na ceartúcháin]

The advent of Advent

I must not have the plumbing to eat, drink, and be merry like a millionaire because it took seemingly the entire weekend to recover from the excesses of spookyfruit's party. My old enemy GERD kept me up until 3 a.m. Saturday morning, so the rest of the day was basically a wash. monshu was puttering around the house and slow-browning onions for soup in the afternoon so he put on Project Runway to fill the space. At the same time, snow was becoming wintry mix outside, so the urge to trudge up to E-town to watch cheese witch movies at cassielsander's lost out to the abiding desire to watch equally questionable fare on our own TV.

On the other hand, his get-together was probably my last chance this year to return the set of DVDs I'd been meaning to return since the summer. (When I went to get them, monshu said, "How long have you had those, a year?") So out I went into a wind so ferocious that I could only inch across the driveway to the next corner. Even wearing boots, I was slipping incrementally toward the street every time I tried to take a step forward and the possibly of toppling over in a sudden gust seem frighteningly immediate. On the other hand, the ice left the trees incomparably gorgeous, so much so that when Evil generously dropped me off afterwards, I went wandering through the park to take it all in. Looking at the haws frozen in clusters, I could only think of the sugar-encrusted jujubes I'd eaten in Beijing.

In-between, I got sucked into a game of alien possession on what was soon christened the good ship Space Sex Pot. Witch hunt doesn't hold much interest for me at this point, so I was planning to play only one game in order to help compensate for the low attendance, but the challenge of of a variant where your strategy can flip completely halfway through kept me in for two games. Well, that and the off-colour riffing about what the lifestyle must be like on a spaceship with no pretense of privacy.

I should've slept in the next day, but I'd already made plans to meet monshu, bunj, and e. for coffee at Meinl bright and early in the morning. Turned out, it wasn't so bright; in fact, it was raining. But it gave them a chance to get a monkey off their backs in the form of an ostrich egg our parents brought back from Africa for me. Afterwards, I went back with them to see their gorgeously-finished new addition, chat nonstop, and even help out a bit with the annual "galletada". The only downside was feeling dyspeptic basically the entire time and well into the night. I have *got* to make up for that tonight, because I want more than anything to be fit and rested for Die Frau ohne Schatten tomorrow.