Alien Spouse

And Relax...

Perfect Saturday afternoon - Eating chocolate digestives with a freshly brewed pot of tea, whilst re-reading a book I loved as a child, "Over Sea, Under Stone" by Susan Cooper, and listening to a thunderstorm outside.

I might do some knitting in a bit, or I might re-purpose some waffle weave undershirts that I've finally accepted are too big for me and look terrible as they are.

Almost certainly I'll be watching "Battlestar Gallactica" with Doc C.

Little Bit of Politics.

I really wish I'd been registered to vote in this election.  "Prime Minister Cameron" is quite possibly the ugliest arrangement of three words in the English language.

The only good thing that I can anticipate being produced by this is the highly likelihood that there will be plenty of material for some fairly decent satirical comedy.  But as long as "Mock the Week" and "The Thick of It" have something to really sink their teeth into, eh?

PR Finale. And Relax.

My faith in reality TV is restored. Probably only temporarily, but it's nice to have my favourite win for once!

Safely Arrived.

We are in Philadelphia!  It took about 12 hours with stops for food and exercise, but we are here now!

Doc C is ironing his shirt so he'll be ready to present his paper at the conference tomorrow, and I am watching "Project Runway" in my pajamas.  All is well.

Wherein Edith Welcomes Us Home. Loudly.

The cats are really glad to have us home, Edith decided to miaow that at the top of her lungs at 5:45 this morning.  Usually she only does that when she's wreaked some particularly impressive chaos, but this morning all she wanted was some attention and fuss from her humans.  It's really nice to be loved, but it was hard to really appreciate it knowing that Edith would spend the rest of the day snoozing and I had to go to work.

Doc C doesn't remember a thing about any of this now, although at the time he was less than impressed.

So, thanks to the early wake-up call from Edith, and the pint of beer I had with dinner to celebrate Kim being made full professor (Yay!) I am VERY dopey now.  Thankfully the only thing worth watching on TV is the SyFy marathon screening of the original "V".  I think being too attentive might not actually be a good thing when it comes to mid 80's cheesy science fiction.

The Scariest Thing on TV.

One really good thing about having cleaned the house this weekend is that I can watch "Hoarders" without Doc C making jokes about me ending up like that.  I know he's is only teasing, but I much prefer being able to watch it in relative peace. 

...And like he's one to talk!  Hmph!

Have you seen "Hoarders"?  It's just unbelivable!  Every episode has two different cases, and it's always overwhelming to watch so I really cannot imagine what it must be like to live or see someone you care about descending into.

Damn You Fowler!

We just watched the season one finale of "White Collar". USA you had better not keep me waiting long for season two with that cliff hanger waiting to be resolved. Also thanks for bringing Diane back! Yay!

Watching the Academy Awards at Home.

It's Oscar night.

We have pizza. We have beer.  We have a big TV.

Sorted.

The Accidental Snow Day.

I took an accidental snow day today.

The snow started again yesterday, and when I woke up this morning the very first thing I did was look at the University's website to see if there were any delays.  All classes were canceled until 12.30, which based on previous class cancellations meant the snow equivalent of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man was marauding around campus.  I thought the storm must be a lot worse in town than it was around our house at that point, so I simply checked in with my office by e-mail and went back to sleep. 

As it turns out this entirely logical assumption was mistaken.  It's a bit of a mystery why the University canceled the whole morning, because apparently the roads really weren't that bad; so my colleagues made it into the office quite easily.  I did not know that until well into the afternoon however, because we lost power for a few hours, and I wasn't able to access the internet or e-mail. 

It could have been worse.   I had power for long enough this morning to make a huge cup of tea, and watch "Shaun of the Dead".  Then I had a lovely nap, until the power came back on and woke me up by sounding the smoke alarm (which indicates that it's wired directly into the mains, which I hadn't previously realised).  By that point there was nothing more to be done with the afternoon then have another cup of tea, put a load of washing on and watch some police procedurals.  Lovely.

Of course tomorrow I have GOT to get to the office, because I will have a ton of stuff that has GOT to be done for the event of Saturday.

The Journey to the Thirteenth Colony.

This weekend we started watching "Battlestar Galactica" and watched the whole of the initial three hour mini-series in one sitting.  Which was sort of unintentional, but we just couldn't turn in off.  We've got the next disc from Netflix already, and we want no spoilers, thank-you-very-much.  I have tried to avoid paying attention to the trailers for "Caprica" to avoid any canonical information, and I haven't read any reviews or fan forums.

I have a horrible feeling that, despite my best efforts to remain a tabula rasa, I already know a major twist.  I haven't said anything about it to Doc C and I'm trying to sublimate, so it can be a surprise to me too.

Snow and Glitter.

We got our snow.  And it doesn't look like it intends to stop in the near future.

I slept late, then cleaned the bathroom and now I'm going to curl up with some knitting and "RuPaul's Drag Race".  We don't have Logo, the channel it's on, as part of our cable package, so I was delighted to find complete episodes on-line at the Logo website.

What with that and the cupcake websites I've found today it's turning into quite a shiny afternoon.

Napping in Pasadena.

Today Doc C left the hotel before 9 to go and meet with the Philosophy department of a local college, so I hung out in the hotel.  We've stayed in loads of hotels, but this one definitely goes the extra mile in terms of pampering.  The room has lovely bedding, with complimentary soaps and shampoos in their signature fragrance of white tea and aloe; all of which, and a lot more, is for sale through the hotel's website, which I think is genius. 

I slept until about 2, and then I went to find food.  Pasadena is great for wandering around, and everyone was so nice.  I ended up at a local supermarket, which had a really good deli; so lunch was an antioxidant chopped salad and low-fat rice pudding.  Yum.

My only complaint so far is that Bravo is not one of the channels available to watch.  which means that last night I missed the actual finale of "Launch My Line" and the season opened for "Shear Genius".  And if that's the only problem I can think of, I'm sure you will agree, we really have nothing to complain about.

Miss America 2010.

I'm watching the "Miss America" pageant.  Apparently the swimsuit round showcases "...the girls commitment to health and self confidence".  Well, that's certainly one way of putting it.

Actually so far I'm quite enjoying it, because there is nothing I like more than a co-ordinated dance routine and it's got Clinton Kelly on token-gay-mentor-to-the-contestants duty.  I do like Clinton.  One thing I don't like is that Rush Limbaugh is on the judging committee.  That's like Jabba the Hutt judging a Princess Leia look-a-like contest; incongruous and, frankly, a bit yucky.  I'm just going to ignore that part of the proceedings.

Ooh! Evening Wear is coming up next.  That helps to demonstrate to us the contestants "...poise, taste and confidence..."  Bring it ladies!

***Post Script*** For me one of the most enduring aspects of the Miss America Pageant will be the biographical notes that popped up on the screen occasionally, such as "Grandmother lived to be 103".  My absolute favourite was "Her inspiration is Batman (Adam West)".  I adore how specific that is, and to be fair she is right on that point - West's Batman is a very different beast to Bale or Keaton's interpretations (I choose to forget about Kilmer entirely in the role, and poor George Clooney as well.)

Chocolate for Breakfast.

We have over a foot of snow now, but we still have power; so everything is fine.  As long as I can make tea and have a hot shower I'm quite happy really, oh and internet access is nice too! 

Best of all I impulse bought a loaf of kulacs chocolate bread yesterday.  Would you LOOK at that...  Yes, that is bread swirled with dark chocolate drops.  It's like a very intense chocolate croissant, but with a lovely spongey bread instead of the flaky pastry of the croissant.  Delicious.

Any day that starts off with a couple of slices of chocolate bread is pretty good, but a Saturday with chocolate bread for breakfast? As Stacey London* would say, "Shut Up!"

* For British readers she is one of the presenters of the US version of "What Not To Wear".  I've been avoiding watching it, but I have to say that honestly I far prefer Stacey and her co-host Clinton Kelly to Trini and Susannah.  They are just a lot nicer.

Half-Way Through the Week.

It's Wednesday.  I have a large glass of red wine.  I might go to bed early to watch the season finale of "Launch My Line" (which I care not a jot who wins, but I really want to see what nonsense they send down the runway this evening.) and eat some Ben and Jerry's.

This is pretty good for a Wednesday!

First Ice Storm of 2010.

We got out of work early today because another ice storm has been silently encasing the town.  So now Doc and I are at home, wearing multiple layers, covered in fleece blankets and using the cats to keep our feet warm.

I really hope this storm doesn't knock out our power again.  Thursday night is my weekly Tim Gunn fix.

Belated Rudolph Viewing.

A couple of years ago Doc C was very sad to learn I had never seen "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (1964), which although it is an American TV classic, I'm not aware of ever being shown in the UK.  You can now get the puppets as toys and Christmas decorations, plus it gets referenced in various ad campaigns, Tv shows and pop videos.

We missed it's 2009 TV screening, so he added it to our Netflix queue and it arrived today.  We may have already taken down our tree, but at least the weather is still appropriate.  It was very sweet (although the mid-sixties sexual politics are cringe worthy in places), but I am going to have "We're a Couple of Misfits" stuck in my head for weeks now.

Mono: Still Going Strong!

Today I mainly slept, drank tea and watched police procedurals whilst covered in cats.  My current obsessive viewing is the afternoon double bill of "Cold Case" and I'm also reading the archives of "Something Positive".

So yeah, Mono it continues.

The Scratches of Luxury.

There is a television commercial that I've seen several times now for a product I find bizarre, which is a shower gel with diamond dust in it.

As a girl who loves shiny things, of course I like diamonds, so I'll grant you that it sounds good; but isn't diamond one of the hardest materials known to man?  Why would you want that in a shower gel?  Is there a slightly less expensive gel with powdered glass in it?

The commercial perplexes me anew every time I see it.

Full of Glee.

It's ok, I've caught up now. We can discuss the last four episodes of "Glee", without me having to stuff my fingers in my ears to avoid spoilers. Although, I don't know why I was worried, like there was ever any doubt they wouldn't get through Sectionals!

"If You Want to Be A Record Breaker!"

Doc C has to go to the doctor on Monday, and for reasons we needn't go into here, he can't eat anything on Sunday except for blue or yellow jello.  We were talking about that on the way into work this morning, and I said that I quite like jelly (as long as I don't think about the actual gelatin of course).  Doc looked at me and said "Jelly or Jell-O?", and I explained that in England we call Jell-O Jelly.  So Doc asked if that meant we make Jelly moulds, which yes we do; but we'd just call it Jelly, and the shaped mould part would usually be assumed (My Mum had a mould shaped like a rabbit for example.  Or it might have been a cat.  Hmmm).  Actually, a few days ago, a British archaeologist we were watching on a documentary about Pompeii described something as having held it's shape, like "a Jello Mould", and I thought it was really odd because it was so Americanised a way of phrasing it.

The UK Vs US thing still crops up occasionally, not in a confrontational way but sometimes something that was just an ingrained aspect of my childhood will pop into my head and no-one will have the slightest clue what I'm talking about.  For example, when I started singing the theme tune to "Record Breakers", which I know wasn't shown over here, so then I tried explaining what it was to Doc C and he was just bemused by the whole thing.  Possibly my explanation was a little garbled -

"Well, it was a kid's TV show and it was always on.  The presenter was Roy Castle and he sang the theme tune, and played the trumpet on the theme tune, and lead record breaking tap dance routines on that fountain at BBC Television Centre.  Oh, and they had Norris McWhirter, who was a proper adjudicator from the Guiness Book of Records, and people would, um, break records.  Which is why it was called 'Record Breakers'.  Anyway... "Dedication. Ooh Dedication.  Dedication!  That's what you need! If you want to be the best, and if you want to beat the rest, Oo-Oh Dedication's what you need!'"

Doc's used to that sort of thing every now and again, but it's a damn catchy theme tune to inflict on a poor unsuspecting husband.

AND - I found out this week that they don't really do Advent Calendars in the South!  I still can't quite get my head around that one.  No tiny piece of chocolate shaped like an elf?  No little plastic toys that are almost certainly a choking hazard?  No pictures of mangers and stars?  But how did you know when it actually was Christmas?

A Tour de Fource of Sorts.

I'll I've done today is watch a marathon of "America's Next Top Model" (Season Two), knit, brush the cat and successfully stay awake for over 12 hours.

Quite honestly watching "ANTM" which was a bit pointless as I knew full well who won as soon as I worked out which season it was, but it was just animated wallpaper really.  The knitting was more productive as I'm learning how to knit with three colours at once, and using up three balls of merino wool that were taking up space in my stash.

Of course, I am most proud of the staying awake for twelve hours, but brushing Edith without getting kicked is always quite an achievement.  I don't like to show off, but I actually managed to brush her tummy AND the left leg of her fluffy pantaloons.  Unprecedented.

It's Thursday. It's Ten PM.

Can't update blog.  Watching nail-biting finale of "Project Runway".

Well ok, maybe nail-biting is over stating it; but no time spent with Tim Gunn is wasted.

Actually, Mum also sent me a copy of Nina Garcia's book "The One Hundred" for my birthday, which is a style guide which lists 100 items that Nina regards as the cornerstone of personal style.  And do you know what?  It turns out Nina and I have very similar taste, which makes me feel rather good about my wardrobe instincts.  Thanks Nina!

The Prisoner (2009): Six Questions

The mini-series finale of the re-make of "The Prisoner" was on last night.  It wasn't great.  I really tried not to sit through the whole thing making mental comparisons to the original, because that's not really a fair fight.

The burning questions (that may involve spoilers) I had after watching it were:

1. When are sci-fi script writers going to get over "The Matrix"?
2. How is it that, over forty years after the original series, all of the women in the re-make are substantially weaker characters?
3. Why were some of the British actors allowed to keep their normal accents, and others required to mangle an American accent?
4. Were the huge holes in the logic intentional to make things feel more surreal, mirroring the holes appearing in the village, or was it that the writers forgot their own universes' laws of logic?  In particular, given the final revelations about The Village's genesis, purpose and location how on earth did The Village come to have a seedy sex club?
5. Wait, so who actually died? And why did that guy apparently die die, but not that woman?
6. How did Eleven Twelve retrieve the cupboard key that he threw in the middle of a freaking desert and we saw get covered in sand? That was just stupid!

Be Seeing You. The Re-Make.

Humph. Ok re-make of "The Prisoner", I'll concede that naming Number Two's son Eleven Twelve, which would be the American way of saying my birthday, might have softened me up slightly; but you didn't completely suck. Fine, I've said it. But that doesn't mean I don't still have my guard up, if I learnt anything from the original it's not to trust what THEY say or do.

House Work and Horror Movies.

Doc C gets home from Denver this evening! I have been tidying up the house so it all looks nice when he gets back.  I'm putting off the vacuuming until sun has moved round, because right now it's streaming in through the living room windows creating optimum sun-bathing conditions for Nancy and she looks so very sweet. If it were Edith rolling around in sun beams I would just get the hoover out right now, because Edith has worked against my whole plan, by peeing on the bathroom floor just after I'd cleaned it.  This is not as helpful as you might imagine.

When I'm tidying up I like to have a film on TV in the background, to keep me entertained whilst I potter about.  This afternoon the schedulers in their infinite wisdom gave me "The Cell".  Who on earth decided that 1 in the afternoon was the perfect time to screen that?  I wouldn't say it's a particularly good film, but the visuals in the dream world are amazing and Vincent D'Onofrio can be so frightening when he puts his mind to it!  And he seems so nice in "Law and Order: Criminal Intent"... To be fair a nice sunny afternoon is my preferred time to watch a scary film, the TV screen gets washed out a bit so you can't really see what horrible things the bad guy is doing and that then makes it SO much easier for me not to get over-involved and freaked out. Why do I even bother watching scary films then?  I really don't know, but for some reason I seem to actually like being scared in small semi-controllable doses.  Usually whilst I'm watching the film, or reading the story, or riding the ghost train, I'm jumpy but laughing at it all.  It's later when my brain starts analysing the scary stuff that I get myself freaked out. 

Which is all a long winded way of saying that I may possibly have, maybe, watched too many gory murder mysteries and spooky Halloween stuff whilst Doc has been away. And OK, yes, I've been sleeping with the light on in the hall whilst Doc's been away, and I am really looking forward to him getting back.

This Weekend's TV Starring... A Whole Bunch of Really Cool People!

Me and the cats have been catching up on our TV viewing in a big way whilst Doc's away, yesterday was detective shows overload and today has been kid's Halloween movies thank to ABC Family doing back-to-back themed films for the whole damned day.  I was planning to read some Edgar Allan Poe, but no I ended up glued to both proper Addams Family films.  LOVE them, obviously.

The best bit is definitely spotting fantastic actors in bit part roles, as always for me, but the cats never seem that impressed when I point out things out, like  "Look how sweet David Krumholtz is in 'Addams Family Values' who'd have thought he'd grow up to be the essential quirky member of a unconventional detective procedural? And you can barely even see Carol Kane under all that latex, she is such a trooper! Hey! Hey, Look! That drunken sailor in the bar singing 'Macho Man' with Joan Cusack ? That's Tony Shaloub! You know from 'Monk"? Edith, you love 'Monk', come on!"

My absolute favourite spot today was from 'Hocus Pocus'.  Right at the very beginning you see a teenage boy called Thackary Binx, shortly before he's turned into a cat for the duration, the actor playing Thackary?  A sweetly baby faced McGee from 'NCIS'.  Fabulous.

Actually yesterday's pilot episode of 'White Collar' (Stukey - Look out for this, I think you would enjoy it) was a cornucopia of great actors in supporting roles that I really hope are recurring through-out the series and become fleshed out   The lead guys were great too, but I was expecting that from the trailers, it was an unexpected pleasure to see Willie Garson, Dihann Carroll, Sharif Atkins, Mark Sheppard, Tiffani Thiessen and, the mandatory Brit doing a pretty good American accent, Marsha Thomason (who is also fabulous in the repeats of 'Vegas' I've caught over the past few weeks.)

So yeah, I'm still exhausted from Mono, and perhaps a touch spacey because I've spent the whole day on the sofa watching TV and knitting, but at least my talent for actor spotting hasn't deserted me AND I cobbled together a blog post out of it.  Things could be worse.

Casting Gold.

Naturally I knew "NCIS:LA" starred LLCoolJ and Chris O'Donell, but I did not know their boss was played by Linda Hunt. And she's in full on Edna Mode drag! Love her! I'm only five minutes into the episode, but seeing big burly action hero types being scared of a tiny little lady with a severe bob is very entertaining. Still, the theme tune isn't as good as "NCIS" classic. * * * Post Script: The casting may be golden, but who the hell is writing this show? Doc C was vocally unimpressed.

The Many Many Ways in Which Mono Sucks. And One Silver Lining.

I think I'm going to have to change my Halloween costume plans, because there is just no way that I can see myself making the Bride of Frankenstein wig in time.  It's theoretically possible, but I really think it's just too ambitious at the moment.  Mono sucks all of the energy out of me, and I'm getting really frustrated with the daftest things.  We went to KMart and bought a cheesy wig for Doc's brain slug to nest in, and it took me at least an hour to get the slug sewn on.  It just wouldn't sit in the right place and look in the right direction, I had to keep taking it back off and starting again, and I got SO grumpy about it.  Poor Doc offered to help by wearing the wig whilst I sewed the slug on, and I was extremely sarcastic about that suggestion, which in retrospect was very unfair of me.  Although I still can't quite see how he thought that would work... Anyway...

This Mono thing is just ridiculous. Realistically I'm going to be convalescing for at least another two weeks, I hope that's a pessimistic estimate but let's take that as our working model. This means I have to make some decisions about work, as well as my other commitments and plans.  Work is actually ok-ish, in that my manager is being great about the whole thing and insisting I look after myself, but I want to just have a little chat with HR to see how the land lies on this sort of illness.  I want to know how it's going to affect my annual leave (I will be absolutely bloody furious if I can't go home for Christmas because of this) and if there are any problems I haven't even thought of.

As for my classes the main issue is that they are in the evening, so that's an extra three hours at the end of my working day on Monday and Wednesday and that was tiring even before I had Mono.  I can see myself managing to attend the classes if I rest all day by not going into work, but that seems really cheeky to me; particularly as the tuition is being waived by the University because I'm a staff member.  It's a conundrum.

Finally Doc has a conference in Denver next week, and I am supposed to be going with him.  I've been looking forward to it for ages now, and we've already booked our flight and hotel, but I'm just not sure traveling is the best idea.  Once I get there, I think I'll be fine; I'll send Doc out for food and then just stay in the hotel room watching cartoons and sleeping, the only difference will be I won't have cats walking across my tender spleen at 6 in the morning.  On the one hand, I know the travel itself will be exhausting; but on the other hand Denver has a branch of Lush and I'm fairly sure the retail therapy of stocking up on moisturiser and fabulous smelling soap would be a big help.

I did consider putting another vote up in this post, so that I could canvas for your opinions on these issues because when I'm ill I prefer to abdicate decision making responsibility to someone else, but I know I can't do that.  Apparently I'm an adult now, and that means making my own mind up about these situations.  sigh.

Oh, the one good thing is that I have lost more weight, despite the whole lying around and not going to the gym aspect of the illness.  Don't worry!  I'm not doing it on purpose, and I'm trying to make sure I eat well, but if not having much of an appetite and fighting a virus ends up burning off some fat, well let's not look that gift horse in the mouth.

Some (Channels) You Lose.

This week just gets better; ofcourse I've slept my way through most of it thanks to this stupid bug, fainted at the Doctors and today Doc called Charter to cancel our cable. That's a little dramatic, but it was only because the Charter person was actually helpful this time that we still have at least a basic cable package. The problem is that we have come to realise we are paying a lot more than any of our friends round here. This is because Charter has the monopoly over the particular townhouse complex we live in, so our choice is them or nothing. There is nothing for us to bargain with, apart from all out cancellation. After a lot of thought we decided that we could survive on Hulu and NetFlix, so Doc called to cancel. Last time he called to have this conversation the person he spoke to could really not have cared less, this time they talked Doc through our options until we reached a compromise. We have lost BBC America, Nicktoons and Turner Classic Movies, which is a bit of a blow, but it saves us $30 a month and that money can go towards the ticket-home-for-Christmas fund. Yay!

The Return of Echo. And I Missed It.

Oh Bloody HELL!

How did I completely miss that the second season of "Dollhouse" started on Fox this evening?

OK, this week has officially been no fun at all.  Let's say that the new week starts on Saturday, shall we?

Grrh. Arrgh.

Ugh! What a day.  Nothing major happened, but so many little piddly annoyances bombarded me that by two pm this afternoon I was just weepy with irritation.

I am so glad that Doc recently got a second-hand mini fridge for his office.  It's not a mini bar unfortunately, so no lunch time G&Ts for me, but it does have fresh milk.  So today he made me a proper cup of PG Tips tea with milk in it.  That made everything so much better.

Well that, a mini caramel nut brownie (only 80 calories!) and a Doc C pep-talk.

Actually, and this is completely off topic but it does fall under the category of annoyances and clearly I'm in the mood to vent today, I cannot BELIEVE that there won't be any more "Defying Gravity" screened in the foreseeable future.  I don't mean that they won't be made, because they've already been filmed, it's just they are being shelved mid-run.

What the hell does Ron Livingstone have to do here people?  Why can't we just let him be a star already?  He's a really good actor!  And they just opened Pod Four, but we didn't get to see inside, so what is in Pod Four?  And what was Nadia's back story?  And would Zoe and Donner ever have an actual, you know, conversation about anything?  And who are those kids that are creeping Eve out?  And Fractal Tomato Plants?  I don;t get to see where this is going?  Really?

Suffice to say: Grrrh.

The Brain Slugs Brothers.

I've finished the bigger Brain Slug, he's just as intent on enslaving humans through brain control but I like to think he's got a better sense of humour.

That Sunday Feeling.

Yesterday I intended to finish "The Duchess of Malfi" and start reading "Frankenstein", then make a start on the pile of additional reading I need to do. Totally achievable, right?

So naturally I stayed up until 2 last night, and I watched episodes of "Law and Order: SVU" and made a Brain Slug.  I'm sure I can hand that in instead of one of my research papers and it will be graded appropriately.

Still for me Sundays have always been about that mad scramble to get homework done anyway.  Why should that change, just because I'm 33 and should know by now how to efficiently plan my time?

The important thing is that the Brain Slug turned out quite well, except Doc thinks it needs to be larger.  So I anticipate that I'll be whipping up this one's bigger brother when I should be doing something else entirely.

Ah, crochet!  It's nice to see my wool gathering take a solidly literal form!

Ducks in a Row.

Not only is today Friday, but I spent the day organising an event, which is probably one of my favourite responsibilities at work, then FedEx managed to actually deliver something to me and Doc picked up three of my text books from the PO Box.  Plus my department found like a bunch of money down the back of the sofa, I was able to leave the office early and Monday is a state holiday.

Right now Doc is baking a fresh loaf of bread because I fancied beans-on-toast for tea, there is a double bill of Mandy Patenkin era "Criminal Minds" on TV and I've got a photo lined up already for today's picture post.

All in all a bloody good day.

Nice Quiet Saturday.

Saturdays are particularly nice when you don't really have to be anywhere aren't they?

This morning we slept in late, and then Doc cooked me a lovely breakfast.  Then we took out the recycling, before we did some shopping.  I needed to exchange a skein of silk and buy some beads, whilst I was in the yarn shop I bought "Stitch 'N Bitch Nation" and spent this afternoon in a crochet frenzy, watching "Dead Like Me" on Hulu whilst the cats rolled around in a patch of sun.  Now we're watching the dramatisation of "Grey Gardens", and it's so fabulous.

I love Saturdays!

Normal Alien Spouse Service Will Resume Shortly

But, right now, I am so freaking tired I can barely watch "Top Chef: Vegas" in bed. 

And I can always watch "Top Chef", even when it doesn't have the added pop of Vegas Baby.

Afternoon Horror Festival.

One of the things that I will never quite understand about American television scheduling is why it is completely alright to show both "Saw" and "Saw II" at 3 in the afternoon, and retain all of the gore and nasty people doing horrible things to each other, but bleep all the swearing out.  It's totally bizarre!  I'd be more concerned that an impressionable young mind would accidentally stumble across the gallons of blood, than the perfectly justified bad language.

Well, that and I'd worry that they would think the "Saw" franchise was scary, rather than sort of like watching unpleasant paint dry to not quite the colour you were planning.

All Publicity is Good Publicity.

One of the local car dealerships has had a skip outside, with a car dumped in it, for a couple of weeks now.  I noticed that they changed the car recently for a much larger jeep.

I guessed that it was a promotional stunt, but I was slightly confused by the fact the original car in the skip had a vanity plate with the dealerships name clearly displayed on it.  What are they trying to say?  "Come on in! Our cars are rubbish!"

When I took this picture Doc told me there is also an accompanying television commercial, and this is supposed to be promoting the "Cash for Clunkers" programme.  Still I'm not sure it's exactly the image I'd want people to remember when they thought of my business frankly, but that's just me.

Emergency Broadcast.

There have been some ridiculously heavy storms today, and it appears to have knocked out our cable tv reception.
Fortunately the Internet is still with me, or who knows how I'd survive the evening.

Update: We have TV back! I had to sit on the phone with an automated help desk for ages to get it done. I have earnt this episode of "Bones".

Squee! Jack, Gwen and Ianto!

Got to go!  I need to concentrate on the complicated political paranoia of really well made sci-fi.

We are half way through the third episode of the five part "Torchwood: Children of Earth" mini-series. It is rocking, and I do not wish to hear any spoilers.

McGee, Fix It!

I enjoy watching the "NCIS" triple bills after work, because I like the internal dynamics of the investigative team and anything with Illya Kuryakin has to be worth watching.  The only problem is that USA, that's the network it's on, likes to keep their audience on their toes by screening things out of sequence.  Characters die, and in the very next episode they are trading quips with their colleagues again. Doc and I have got reasonably good at spotting subtle indicators to help us roughly position episodes into the overall story arc of the show, which, considering we've never seen them in a consecutive order, is quite a challenge.

One of my favourite characters is Abby, and I read an interesting interview with Pauley Perrette who plays her, which had this particularly interesting nugget about the character's evolution:

(Oh, before you read this, it helps to know that the creator of the show is Donald P. Bellisario; who also created one or two other things you may have heard of like "Magnum P.I.", Battlestar Galactica", "Airwolf" and "Quantum Leap.  I know.)

Though many describe Abby as “gothic,” Perrette strongly disagrees with this perception.  In fact, her character has the enthusiasm of a cheerleader, though she appears like the opposite of one.

“[NCIS creator] Don Bellisario told me that when he created Magnum, P.I. he wanted to introduce a Vietnam vet who defied the negative stereotype.  So with Abby, he wanted to take an alternative-style person with tattoos and make her someone who is happy, totally put together and successful.  All the script said about her was: black hair, caffeinated and smart… She's completely unaware that anybody thinks she looks weird.  She thinks she looks pretty and never calls herself anything other than happy.  And I fight for that,” she explained.

My heart is oddly warmed by that, it's sweet that Bellisario is trying to show a perkier side to the Goth lifestyle (Much like "Goths in Hot Weather"), and it adds a dimension to the show that I particularly appreciate.

Smiley Face, New Bike.

Doc announced this morning that he was going to look at bikes today, with a view to purchasing one. When he moved to London he brought his trusty bike, The Beast, with him and I remember sitting on the grass outside the National Portrait Gallery when we first started dating and seeing him come cycling up and thinking what a handsome devil he was, so I was all for him getting another bike.  For the past year or more I have been trying my best to persuade him that it would be a good investment in his health, both physical and mental, because the man needs to burn off energy some how!

There are some really good bike shops in town so Doc didn't have to travel far for his fix.  He was gone for about three hours, I didn't go because I would just have been in the way really and I wanted to watch more episodes of "Fantasy Island", then I got a text announcing Doc C was a very happy man.  The smiley face I super-imposed on this picture looks positively dour in comparison to the expression he had on his face when he got home with his new friend.

It's a Tarmac made by Specialized, with an all carbon fiber frame, so it weighs a whole 17 pounds.  That's slightly less than the cats weigh, and you definitely can't get anywhere at all on them.

The Plane! The Plane!

For some reason I've started watching old episodes of "Fantasy Island" on Hulu. 

It is such a strange show!  It's incredibly predictable how the stories are going to wrap up, but often the detours on the way there are mind boggling.  I also adore the quality of guest stars they were able to get, from Troy Donahue via Michelle Pfeiffer to Lynne Redgrave; not to mention all the stars of classic cinema and, of course, a very young Tori Spelling.  It's also structured in a very odd way, with each episode being around 50 minutes devoted to two main stories with perhaps a glimpse or two of other fantasies that are also in progress.

Doc C is slightly bemused by this interest in classic 70s television, so I think he's very grateful it's something I can watch quietly on-line without bothering him with it.

Some Off Mountain Time.

There's a TV advert for a local pet shop which has become somewhat of standing joke between Doc and I, because of one key line of dialogue "Why leave the mountain when you can get everything you want right here?" Why indeed?  Doc and I are generally agreed that leaving the mountain is occasionally necessary in and of itself for the sake of our sanity, and besides you cannot get everything you need here.  I've tried.

Yesterday I decided that I needed to go to a bookshop, a halfway decent bookshop, as a matter of some urgency.  So we hopped in the car and drove to Winston Salem.

Our first stop was Borders.  Now in the UK Borders would not be my first choice of bookshop, mainly because I worked for Waterstones for three years and there was a friendly rivalry with the branch of Borders around the corner, but in the US it has several advantages.  They have books, DVDs, CDs and quite often a whole section of Paperchase products.  Heaven!

The books I bought today were:

• "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Lynne Truss
• "The Pilates Body" by Brooke Siler
• "Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters"
• "Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Poems"
• "The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book" by Bill Watterson
• "How to Have Style" by Isaac Mizrahi

The first two titles were precisely what I went to buy, so that was very satisfying; all of the others were from the sale section which was a great bonus.

The additional items I purchased were:

• A Gaiam Reformer Resistance Band, with DVD
• A set of badges with multi-coloured skulls
• A set of badges with embroidered roses and polka dots on different shades of pastel
• A roll of wrapping paper decorated with skulls and stars

And then, and then, we went across the road to Krispy Kreme to have doughnuts and coffee for lunch!

Our original plan was to go for a curry for dinner, but first we went for a walk around Old Salem and the campus of Salem College, which is gorgeous.  The doughnuts weren't going anywhere, so we decided to skip the curry and just come home instead. All in all it wasn't even a day trip, it was just six hours off the mountain, but it was psychologically invaluable and we scored a whole bunch of cool stuff. 

Actually, I hope that pet shop is open tomorrow because we do need to pick up a couple of things from there and it is pretty handy.

Friday/Saturday

Friday! Yay! 

I got so much stuff done today, first we went to the gym, and then I did a whole bunch of work obviously; but I also requested my university transcript (which I need to apply for my MA), downloaded the DMV handbook (English translation: The Highway Code), checked with the vet about a change in Nancy's diet, re-connected with a friend from high school and my course director from my BA.  After work I went to Pilates, to dinner with Randy and Laura and then home in time to catch most of the second episode of "Dance Your Ass Off".

Tomorrow we are going to a bookshop.  And we might have a curry too.

I love weekends.  LOVE them.

Commercials Broken.

I'm getting resigned to American commercial breaks showing up every 15 seconds, but I still find the adverts themselves most odd. In particular the campaigns for both Charter (who by the way provide us with both our cable and internet, so I am extremely grateful to them for my sanity) and Carolina West are usually out of sync.  It is so annoying, and once you've noticed it, you can't unnotice it again.  I actually have to look away, or mute the TV when those particular commercials come on; which is ironic, especially since both of them are communication companies and for months now their television ad campaign have been making them look really bad.  Even weirder are the sexual health or birth control products that are advertised at any hour of the day, and go into entirely too much detail in some cases.

When it isn't products being promoted, then it's television itself.  Trailers are TERRIBLE over here, and they go on forever.  This again has the opposite effect, because where the first time I see a trailer for something I might be interested by it's five hundredth repetition I'm either a) sick of the show without having seen an episode or b) surprised to find that it hasn't been on for months.

I hate to say it, but I'm not entirely sure that Americans really get the concept of marketing campaigns.  Generally speaking the idea is to make people want whatever it is you're selling, where as what you are doing is more like aversion therapy.  Different thing entirely.

Avatar Alien Spouse...

...Now with added T.A.R.D.I.S!

Soup, A Sandwich and Some Sculpting Clay.

When I got home Doc C made me a bowl of really nice tomato soup with a cheese toasty, and I soon felt much more like myself.  It is Friday after all, and I have three definite projects for this weekend.

1. Re-purpose a bird house as a mobile for my office window.
2. Clean the house.
3. Watch the "Dr Who" special on BBC America tomorrow at 9.

As you can see I've already made eight birds in different sizes out of sculpting clay, to be the moving parts of the mobile. I also managed to find the fishing wire, so task one is already well under way.

Smores are Tasty.

After dinner this evening I made smores. To an American no further explanation is necessary, but I'd never had one before we moved here so I thought I'd write a brief how to guide.

1. Carefully toast a marshmallow on a skewer.
2. Sandwich the warm melted fluff with a square of chocolate between two halves of a graham cracker (which is sort of like a oblong digestive).
3. Eat it.
4. Repeat.

It's the most fun to make them with a group of friends after a nice meal, but today felt like a particularly long Monday at work so I decided to make a couple. Whilst Doc watched back-to-back episodes of "Star Trek: TNG", I went out to the balcony to make myself two smores.  It was nice to eat a crunchy gooey sweet messy thing, whilst I listened to the frogs bellowing at each other and watched fireflies flitting around the trees.

Lovely.