Sorry I haven't been posting...

By now you should know I had a big weekend followed by the requisite crash last night, right? But I'm up now and my blood sugar's all funky from sleeping so long, but it's coming back to normal, so I should be somewhat coherent.

Hmmm...Saturday I visited with my family in Danville. Everyone's doing pretty well, although my grandmother looks a little frailer each time I go home, and that's upsetting. My mom had worked the night before but she wasn't super tired and seemed much healthier and happier. She was so excited about my coming home that she forgot to clock out and had to go back, then forgot to make a delivery on her way home and had to go back for that. :) We don't see each other terribly often (about every 2-3 months) but we're pretty close--not so much as when I was young but healthier, you know? Now we're two independent adults with our own lives, where it used to be we were very enmeshed, followed by a time in my 20s where we barely saw each other. I'm glad to see her happy, and I'm happy to have the relationship we have now. We've been through a lot together, after all.

I love my stepdad, John, by the way. I think that he's part of my mom's happiness, for one. He's got all the good points of my own father (such as 20 years in the Air Force--so we all connect through that and the techie-geekness) but none of the bullshit. Well, a little, but it's not the same. It doesn't belittle, for one, and it's honestly funny. :) We were talking about the new Kentucky licence plates (it's time for my mom to get hers) on the way home and John and I definitely hate it. It looks like this:



It was created as a partnership between the Transportation and Tourism Cabinets. You can check out the info sheet and the governor's office announcement if you're interested. Suffice to say, though, many Kentuckians (and John and I are two!) hate the thing. To me, it looks like it belongs on a cereal box, or maybe in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? when they drive off into the sunset in Toon Town. Apparently there's been a huge increase in people getting alternative plates, like the environmental ones, or ones with horses on them, etc. Granted, I'm glad that if my car were working, I wouldn't have to get one--I had one that supported victims of child abuse, and although it also has a smiley sun on it, it's a crayon drawing that's meant to look like a four-year-old did it, rather than some slick professional advertising billboard. One friend couldn't figure out why they didn't just have a contest for a design with that theme--it's not like we don't have plenty of great artists in the Commonwealth, after all. John had an explanation. He thinks it all goes back to the Transportation Cabinet's computer systems, which were recently hacked and were used for all sorts of porn-related stuff. He thinks this plate was some hacker's joke, and that the state didn't realise it until the announcement was made and decided to go with it. He also suggested that we be issued plain white plates and then given stickers to 'create our own'--sort of like Colorforms (TM). That way my mom, who likes the new plate (she says it's because she's an optimist) can still have her 'insipid smiley sun' and the rest of us can have what we want. Sounds reasonable, I think.

Here's one outsider's take on the plate. Just want the rest of you to know a lot of us agree, and can't figure out what our government was thinking.

The visit home was good. My grandmother's dog tried to steal the show, as always. My mom and I went out and trimmed some bushes and filled up the garbage pails and put them on the kerb. I discovered blank looks when I referred to it as a 'herbie'. See, in Lexington, we have 'Herbie the Kerbie' which is our regular big green container, 'Rosie' which is a smaller blue recycling centre, and 'Lenny' which is for yard waste (as in 'lend a hand'). There's nothing like people looking at you blankly and you're talking and suddenly the words 'I guess...you don't name...your garbage cans here?' comes out of your mouth. Okay, maybe the licence plate is appropriate, after all. But it's bad when you hit a cultural gap with your own family by travelling 35 miles. :)

After the visit I went over for a special game session--a solo adventure where I did not cover myself in glory but at least managed to dispel the giant tentacles that had demolished a house after some ex-frat boys decided to play with a book, masques of various Mythos creatures, and bottles of wine with winged cephalapods in them. Ah, Cthulhu. What other game gives you this sort of fun? My character did go slightly loopy at one point (fortunately after getting everyone out safely) and spend seven rounds screaming 'I told you it was real! I told you it wasn't fun like D&D. But no, you wouldn't listen!' The next day Brenda and I were treated to some down time. One character, who is pregnant, is now engaged and trying to plan a very quick wedding that will satisfy her parents and the team's secretary (a force to be reckoned with in her own right--after all, she's not human, but a technocratic construct who thinks she's human) and just hoping yet another Apocalypse can hold off until after the honeymoon (to be spent in the Florida Everglades. The groom is Australian, and it was his idea. I suspect we'll find some sort of alligator cult to fight there.) The game is so Buffyesque sometimes. Oh, and we found out that we made a small oops that changed the timestream when we went back to the Salem witch trials to save on of our own. Apparently we were a little too flashy and the girls and Tituba, whom we'd inhabited, were then seen as having divinely-inspired gifts for witchfinding. So they've been hanging people and still do at Boston Commons. Oops. (I'm catching a lot of flack, being a historian, of course). So we need to fix it. It's rather ironic, though, since the five people involved trained as witches to get a witch back before she could be hanged as a witch in the past. (And oh, if you're wondering why there's no witchburning, that's because witches in this country were hanged, not burnt, silly. I hate it when TV shows make that mistake. Although I know of one incident in Kentucky history where it was attempted).

Yesterday I continued my job search. I've got an application into EKU. The state job a librarian had told me about was finally posted yesterday, so I'm working on my application there. That requires (typically) much paperwork. Gee. I hope no one holds my licence plate rant against me. :) The librarian had told me not to laugh when I saw the pay, but it's between $200 and $800 more per month than I make now. No laughing, trust me.

I'm getting a little more nervous about the lay-off. T-13 days and counting. I hope the unemployment kicks in without too much trouble. Sigh. In the meantime, it should be easier to get things in as they come up--I have a good cover letter that I can make small changes to, and that's the part I hate the most--even more than the interview. And, Dwana has offered to help me get to interviews outside of Lexington. If I get a job, I can get a car, but until then.... At least initially I should have more time for writing. I also plan to attack my study (with whip in hand)! And, I'm going to spend this semester talking to the folks in history to see about going ahead and finishing my phD, now that my health's back on track. I'm only a year or year-and-a-half away, after all. I can get a reading list together and start studying for qualifyings, too, even if I'm not officially back in school. So, I won't be bored. :)

Well, I've blogged enough for one morning, I think. My hands are falling asleep and I need some caffeine. Take care.