| Christmas card post!!! |
[28 Nov 2009|11:12am] |
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Fire Escape - Fastball |
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Since Thanksgiving is over, I am officially allowed to put out a christmas card post! :) As usual, reply here if you want to receive a christmas card, including your address; replies will be screened. Please leave your address even if I have sent mail to you before; I'm not very good at keeping my address book updated with changes. (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) aging_parents, you're exempt.)
As per usual, you may request a card even if: you are overseas, you do not feel you know me particularly well/have been very close to me lately, you are not particularly religions, or you do not want to send a card in return. If you DO want to send a card in return, of course, here is my address below the cut:
( Address! )
Also, a PSA!
If you are planning to do christmas cards this year but have not yet acquired cards, please consider ordering your cards through www.thehungersite.com or one of their affiliates! They have many lovely cards to choose from, and each purchase gives to charity!
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| Chrestomanci update |
[25 Nov 2009|09:42pm] |
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music |
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break it down again - Kajiura Yuki |
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This thanksgiving, I am thankful for my kitty <3
I've decided that for posterity, I'm going to copy my most recent few facebook status updates to here...
( Cut for TOTAL MUSHINESS ahead. )
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| Yay! |
[22 Nov 2009|09:50pm] |
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happy |
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Every Heart - Minna no Kimmochi (TV size) - BoA |
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Meet Chrestomanci!
He's about 5 months old. So not a baby any more, but still very kittenish -- you can see he still has the chunky kitten belly, but an adolescent's looong tail and legs.
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| this is news! |
[21 Nov 2009|09:37pm] |
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music |
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Diverse Kanons BWV 1087 - On the first eight notes of the Aria ground from the Goldberg Variations - |
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Tomorrow I may have a kitty!!!!
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| Halloween party pictures |
[01 Nov 2009|01:23pm] |
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Grace Cathedral Hill - The Decemberists |
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Happy Day of the Dead, everyone!
We had a Halloween party here last night. Before we end up taking down the decorations and throwing out the pumpkins, I wanted to grab some pictures, and you can see them in this gallery here: This also doubles as pictures of the interior of the house, for p[eople who haven't seen it before. Although it's difficult to get a good picture of a room you are inside of. But this + the pictures of the trees outside ought to give a general picture.
Here are just a few of my favorites... ( Cut for largeness! )
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| Autumn colors |
[24 Oct 2009|10:56am] |
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seasonal |
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It's only the fairy tale - Alissa Sears (Miyamura Yuuko) |
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I had complained that the weather had turned grey and icky before I got any gorgeous autumn leaves shots; so when this morning we had the sun come out for once, I grabbed my camera and took just a few pictures from around the house.
( Warning: cut for largeness! )
I should also take pictures of some of the halloween decorations.
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| Autumn goes on... |
[20 Oct 2009|06:21pm] |
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Psycho Killer - Moxy Früvous |
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My car has been in the shop for the last week, getting repaired
(finally!) and I've been renting a car. It's actually kind of sad, how
much nicer the rental car is than my car. It's an automatic, though.
The trees around here lately have been putting on some absolutely
gorgeous colors. Really wish I'd taken my camera to get a few shots
while it was still sunny and nice, before the clouds rolled in. We
have reds and oranges and yellows, sometimes all on the same tree on
the upper branches while the lower and most inner ones are still
green. I'm sure we'll get a sunny break eventually, but with the way
the rain is stripping the leaves off the trees, it may not be until
it's too late, sigh.
The house is all decorated for Halloween after all. The roommates
turned out to have a whole box full of decorations. I should take
pictures of those too -- can't wait for Christmas, at this rate.
There's actually a place to put a tree!
I've been doing a lot of overtime at work; both staying late to help
with heavy loads and coming in on weekends to work on additional
projects. Hopefully it will all come to something.
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| Terminator Salvation meets Little Big Planet |
[25 Sep 2009|08:46pm] |
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Ohureo - Baka Beyond |
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With a side helping of The Secret Power Is Heart.
I finally got a chance to go see 9, which was a much better movie than the reviews had led me to believe. I mean, yeah, there were some parts of the story that made no sense whatsoever, but to be honest that's par for the course with Hollywood movies these days. It was a visually spectacular movie, with some really disturbing and terrifying monster designs, an amazing sound board, characters I liked a lot, and some edge-of-the-seat action scenes. I would totally recommend it.
The insurance company finally paid up, so I have to find an auto place to fix my fender. I know there are a few around here, I just have to have some way to determine what places are good. I never know how to find places like this, do I just pick one out of a book? I have the same problem with doctors.
I've been staying at home this weekend; my roommates are in Canada and I am feeding their cats, as well as harassing them so that they don't get too lonely. And I am thinking about getting a cat of my own soon, yay!
Summer is definitely over up here; we had hot weather up until about a week ago when there was a cloudy cold day. Since then the sun has come back but it's much cooler. Today was a gorgeous fall day, temps in the low 60s and clear shiny skies. I actually got a lot more done today than I expected. I bought some herbs which I will put in the ground tomorrow, and I have been waffling recently over decorations. Do I want Halloween and/or Fall themed decorations, or no? How extensively can I decorate? Probably I'll end up just not doing much of anything at all, ah well.
Speaking of upcoming October, my sisters need to tell me what they want for their birthdays!
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| Items in my life: |
[25 Aug 2009|12:34pm] |
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mood |
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 bored |
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- The other guy's car insurance agency agreed to pay up! FINALLY! And I only had to call her and leave her pestering voice messages every day for about four months!
- I am moved in to the new house in Lynnwood. No pictures yet, I'm gonna wait for some of the boxes and mess to go away before I do a photo tour.
-This experience of moving actually finally brought home to me what healthier people have known for years: when you are more active, you have more energy. For two weeks I spent hours every day hauling boxes around and rushing up and down stairs, and during that time period I didn't think to find it odd that I was less tired and sleeping fewer hours. Then once the move was over, and I took a relaxing day of not doing anything... I was jittery and full of energy.
- I've been at this job for almost a year now and I'm really getting good at it.
- My roommates are big CLAMP fans. Am now reading Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, somehow. SAVE ME.
- I got to 100 mounts in WoW and got my Red Dragonhawk! SO PRETTY!
- St Louis in three days!
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| Back from the wedding |
[11 Aug 2009|10:21am] |
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 mellow |
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Love Angel - Wedding Peach |
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Feeling kind of sad and let down, but only in the way that you get after something good is over.
I just came back from Boston, attending my sister ayelle's wedding with nick zendzian. (Now Nicholas Paul Bennett-Zendzian, if I understand correctly.) It was about as good as weddings can get. The bride was beautiful, the location was beautiful, the ceremony was beautiful, and the party afterwards was fantastic. All of it helped along, I think, by my sister and brother-in-law's experience in theater, as well as the generous sprinkling of theater friends among the guests.
Also, on the topic of weddings in Massachusetts, you should read this story. It's very tear-inducing.
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| Done painting! |
[02 Aug 2009|07:04pm] |
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music |
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Walk With Me - The Tea Party |
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Please forgive the pic quality, taken with an iphone.
( Before! )
( After! )
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| Painting and painting |
[01 Aug 2009|09:01pm] |
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music |
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Drops of Jupiter - Train |
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So I am painting the room in my new house before I move in, because 1) the room belonged to the previous owner's daughter and they decided to paint two of the walls bright purple and the other two bright blue, and 2) the walls have been beat to shit and are full of dents, gouges, pockmarks, and places where they spackled over dents and gouges but then didn't sand them before painting.
Fortunately cryogenia knows about such things, so under her direction I bought plastic sheeting, paintbrushes, thirty yards of blue tape, a gallon of primer, a pint of spackling, putty knives, and sander blocks. We spent all of yesterday putting down plastic and washing the walls, and all of today sanding, spackling, sanding again, washing again, and finally putting on the first coat of primer. Tomorrow: moar primer, then monday and tuesday I can finally put on new paint.
Quick poll: The color I pick has to be pastel side of the spectrum, which is fine by me. Right now I'm looking at the blue-green range. I like blue better, but I hear cool colors can get depressing during the winter, and green would have a nice meadow-like feel to it. Opinions?
Poll #1438465 colors
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 0 What color?
Anyway, once the walls are finished, THEN I can start looking at moving my actual STUFF into the room. Mostly into the room. It won't all fit in the room; some of it will obviously have to go in the rest of the house.
Things I still need to do:
-Fill out change-of-address forms
-Fix move-out date with current landlady (Current est: August 16th)
-Inform the following parties of address change: Workplace, State Farm, AT&T, Wells Fargo, US and WA gov't.
-Cancel account with Comcast.
-Contact Starving Students Movers to see their rates to move one bed, one mattress, and two desks.
-Visit the container store to get an other half a bookshelf.
-Buy, at Home Depot/Lowe's, more paint trays, and actual paint.
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[27 Jul 2009|07:58pm] |
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Voices Carry - Aimee Mann |
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IT'S HOT
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| The inner life mind of the snail |
[22 Jul 2009|11:17am] |
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 nervous |
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One more week until our lease starts on the new place. Two people are checking out my apartment today, and once we have a taker my landlady will give me a move-out date. I'm very excited and looking forward to the new place, but at the same time I'm also kinda... scared.
The house is unquestionably a huge upgrade from my current place. Much more space, much more amenities for a much lower price, in a much better neighborhood. I'm not scared of my roommates, who are very nice, or of the moving process, which I'll have at least two weeks to complete. It's not even so much that I'm scared of change as I've changed residences pretty much once a year now for all of my adult life. It's something else.
The change is going to be to me, to my lifestyle, and to the way I think. I'm scared because I've spent my entire adult life moving from one temporary, limited shoebox to another. I'm scared because I've spent seven years with a certain set of habits, of thinking patterns, that are going to change now.
For example, whenever I've had to acquire furniture or other domestic devices, I went shopping with the mental metric "can I lift it without assistance, will it fit in the back seat of a sedan?" Anything that didn't meet that metric (with a few obvious exceptions like bed frames) was rejected. Non-furniture items underwent a similar process; if it couldn't fit into a handbag or a backpack, I wouldn't get it. When doing grocery shopping, I never buy more than could fit into a bike basket. And I always look for the smallest package size, even knowing that it's cheaper to buy in bulk, because I simply never had the room to store things.
For the past three years my cooking ability has been severely limited; in Japan I had no oven and few ingredients, and in my current apartment I had no oven, no freezer, and no space whatsoever. The limitations have sharply reduced the menu of things I know how to cook. Now that I'm going to have a full fridge and freezer, stovetop and oven, all manner of cookware and lots and lots of storage space, I'll have to remember everything and get in the habit of cooking again.
Basically, for all of my adult life I've been thinking like a snail. My home and my possessions needed to be something that I could pack up and take with me: in a suitcase, on an airplane, in a car. But that's not necessary any more, and that's what feels strange.
I'm going to get a cat. I've wanted one ever since I've left home, but circumstances have never allowed. Now I can. I'm so excited that I can hardly wait. But at the same time, I'm scared.
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| Book drive! |
[21 Jul 2009|03:11pm] |
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Shine On You Crazy Diamond (2) - Pink Floyd |
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Today at my workplace lobby they were having a "Books and Backpacks" charity drive. They were selling a bunch of books and the proceeds went to the fund. I bought a copy of "The Pinhoe Egg" for myself, and "The Dark Is Rising" and donated it. I feel I'm 2 for 2 on that one.
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| Japan - One year retrospective |
[18 Jul 2009|01:32pm] |
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 nostalgic |
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Marshmallow Yakero - Mahou Tsukai Tai! |
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As I started to get ready to leave Japan, one of the things that they advised us to do, to try to prepare us for the culture shock and the sadness of leaving JET behind, was to make a few lists. Lists of things that we liked about Japan and were sorry to leave behind, and things that we were looking forward to having in the US. (Here's the old post, actually.)
So it's been about a year now, and as I watch people on my facebook and friendslist preparing to come home from Japan too, I feel like it's time to do a retrospective.
Things I miss about Japan in general, Toyama in particular.
( Read more... )
Things I don't miss about Japan.
( Read more... )
Oh Japan, I miss you still. You taught me so much about myself, about the world, about my own culture. I'm not sorry I left. I couldn't have stayed. But I still miss you.
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| New lease |
[05 Jul 2009|10:49pm] |
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Wish I - Jem |
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So, today I met with the landlady to sign the lease on OUR NEW PLACE! For those of you who were curious, since the craigslist listing has (of course) been taken down, the address is here:
824 210th PL SW
Lynnwood, WA 98036
You can google map it and go to street level view for a glimpse of the outside... It's a pretty new house, which is always good, and there should be plenty of room for the four of us. More importantly it has a REAL KITCHEN! and allows CATS!
I'll be moving in sometime during August -- I'll be paying double rent over that month, so I'll have lots of time, and I need to contact my current lady to make arrangements for when my last day here will be.
HOUSE!
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| Happy Fourth, everyone! |
[04 Jul 2009|04:04pm] |
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 cheerful |
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Dios He no Inori - Shoujo Kakumei Utena |
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And for the Americans, happy Independence Day as well!
Today is sunny, clear, and hot in Seattle... and if it's like that in Seattle, imagine what it's like in normal places!
Go out and make the most of it!
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| Unexpected visitor |
[28 Jun 2009|12:31am] |
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music |
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36 Beyond the Gate〜Conqueror of Shamballa - Full Metal Alchemist: Conquerer of Shamballa |
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It has been a pretty good weekend so far. Yesterday I went to look at a house and all signs are pretty go. Today I worked a 7 hour shift in Auburn, which is less fantastic except it means I earned 7 hours of overtime, and money is never bad. After which I had a delicious salmon and asparagus dinner with friends and went to see Transformers, which was enormously fun, despite being a terrible movie.
Now I am home and somewhat perplexed, because there is a cat in my apartment.
She is not my cat. She was hanging around the back door to my apartment, waiting for someone to let her in, and slipped around my feet when I went inside. Then she followed me up the stairs and into my apartment.
She does not have a collar or a chip (that I can tell) but she is very obviously tame, a pet. She immediately started wandering around the apartment exploring, and purring and rubbing up when she is petted. I gave her some water and some warmed up ham and she ate them, but it's hard to tell from that whether she is really starving or not.
In approximate order of probability, she:
-belongs to someone around here and either escaped to explored the outdoors, or goes outdoors regularly and got locked out (I have not seen this cat around before)
-belongs to one of the new tenants who moved in today, and was ditched when they moved out of housing that allowed pets into housing that doesn't;
-belonged to a college student or resident who thought she was cute when she was a kitten, and was ditched when she started to grow up (I'd put her at about six months to a year old.)
She is very charming, and I would very much like to keep her, but I am probably going to have to put her outside before I go to sleep tonight.. Leaving aside the business of her not being my cat, this apartment has a no-pets policy, and even if it didn't have such a policy, I don't have any cat food or a litter pan.
If she continues to hang around my apartment unclaimed for the next few days, I might make inquiries to the local vet and pound, and if nobody claims her, I'll see if I can put her up somewhere until I move into my new pet-friendly home. But I'm probably getting ahead of myself here.
Picture of the cutie.
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| Houses! |
[26 Jun 2009|07:16pm] |
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excited |
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music |
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Biidama (TV SIZE ED) - Atsumi Saori |
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We may be getting a house! This one!
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