And then Bigfoot drop-kicked Alice Cooper....

“If you can spend a  perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.”  —Lin Yutang

Anyone following my Twitter/FB/G+ feeds Ssaturday knows that we abandoned any and all plans to do anything useful that day once I discovered SyFy was running a marathon of their cheesy movies. We grabbed our computers (because you don’t really have to watch the movies constantly) and settled ourselves onto the sofa.

More importantly, it was the one-year anniversary of Ken’s accident. Although we’d talked about doing something to celebrate his being alive (and healthier than he was before the accident!), we never nailed down what to do. What could be better than this?

We started our day with the tail end of Rage of the Yeti, which was just about as awfully good (or wonderfully bad) as the title suggests. We really didn’t have to see the first five-sixths of the movie to follow the plot.

Then it was on to The Lost Tribe, which apparently originally starred Jewel Staite, but then they rewrote/reshot it w/o her, which explains why the movie made little sense. I got a lot of email and online stuff during this one. Near the end, we never bothered unmuting it after a commercial break. Guess you also don’t need to hear these things, either….

The Lost Future appropriately came next. The DVR description promised Intense Sexual Situations (or something like that), but there were NONE, and I was PEEVED. It did have Sean Bean, though, and some other eye candy. During this one, I did some online publishing work.

Partway through Abominable, we mutually agreed that our brains were dribbling out of our ears and it was time to take a break. We made a batch of healthy popsicles (buttermilk, banana, raspberry, and honey), shoved those in the freezer, got out the ground beef and ground turkey to defrost for tonight’s meatloaf, acquired snacks, tidied the kitchen, and resumed our sprawl on the sofa. Ken burned some CDs we’d recently acquired (Amanda Palmer’s Several Attempts to Cover Songs by The Velvet Underground & Lou Reed* for Neil Gaiman as his Birthday Approaches [*and Other Stuff], Sun Domingo’s Songs for End Times [they opened for Marillion and we loved them], and Playing Away, a compilation of songs by members of Marillion with other projects), and then we returned to our orgy of visual media.

Our palate cleanser was The Young Victoria, our latest Netflix disc. Partway through the extras, we paused to make the meatloaf (meatslab, actually, because we had extra meat, so we flattened the whole thing so it would cook in the same amount of time), steamed Brussels sprouts, and salad. We watched an episode of Once Upon a Time with dinner (we’re still catching up on a few series—two more to go to finish out the season on this one).

Then it was on to Bigfoot. Danny Bonaduce! Sherilyn Fenn! Howard Hesseman! Barry Williams! This movie was made of cheesy win even before Bigfoot drop-kicked Alice Cooper. Special effects were awful, acting was dodgy, plot made no sense. But Bigfoot drop-kicked Alice Cooper…!

Wine was involved.

Finally, we also recorded Mega Python Vs. Gateroid, starring Debbie Gibson and Tiffany. I missed this one the first time around and was very sad. As yet, we haven’t had time to watch it, though.

So that was our Saturday. How was yours?

Home, the longer version

So. We are home. Home sweet home…. Since June 7, I have been home 4.5 days. I really don’t want to leave again for a good long time, so it’s a good thing most of this month has been cancelled! We’d been saying we wanted a rainy weekend to curl up and burn through the shows saved on the DVR and even a few movies…well, now we have it.

Anyway. For the IBR, Ken had purchased insurance that would cover transport from an accident site to a hospital, as well as transport from that hospital to one near home. I pinged the insurance folks the day after I arrived in Reno to confirm what coverage Ken had, and on Tuesday (once Ken was stabilized and the holiday weekend was over), I called them. Turned out they contract with folks in London, and I was told I’d get a call from them in about 15 minutes. Didn’t happen. I called back the next day, which finally got the ball in motion. Sloooooowwwwwlllllyyyyy.

So slowly that by the time they got their I’s dotted and T’s crossed, no doctor at the local hospital would admit Ken, because he was well enough to be released. (Ironically, part of the delay was the insurance co’s concern that Ken wouldn’t be stable enough for air travel.) In other words, Epic Insurance Fail.

The hospital had an ICU full of patients recovering from the holiday weekend who really needed beds in the regular ward, and there was nothing else they could do for Ken. When we got the word on Friday that there was nowhere to transport Ken to, we booked a rental car, I picked it up, we packed our stuff and Ken into the car (with the hospital’s stellar help), and off we went.

I want to segue here to say we have nothing but gushing praise for Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno. Every single person who worked with Ken was utterly amazing. From the great surgeons who removed his spleen and put his right hand back together, to the social worker who called to calmly tell me he’d been in an accident, to the nurses and assistants who cheerfully and efficiently cared for him every day, you have our undying gratitude. You rocked the house.

As I mentioned in the last post, what then transpired was a 9.5-hour drive home, with two brief stops for food and gas and whatnot. We debated stopping partway (since my night vision isn’t the best on the less-lit highways) but we really wanted to be home with the kitties, and it was the best decision. We debated the difference between a meadow and a lea and a pasture (not to be confused with the bog/marsh/fen deliberation), listened to various XM radio stations (hair metal, 80s in 8, vinyl classics), and discussed what bands/artists we want to see (both possible and “if I had a time machine/Holodeck”) and where in the world we still want to travel.

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Ken’s dad and his wife visited us today, bringing lunch with them, which was fantastic, because I’d used the last two eggs to make Ken’s breakfast and hadn’t had the chance to shop yet. (The milk was still good, praise the gods, so I was able to have tea. I don’t know if I would have survived on only 4 hours of sleep* without tea.) They brought my car (which had been rescued from the hotel in Ontario CA by our friends Nanci and Lenny—thank you again, awesome friends!) and went with me to return the rental car, at which point I was also able to do a good food shopping. Alas, by supper time I was so exhausted that I ordered pizza. I’ll get an earlier start on food tomorrow—plus a local friend has cooked some meals for us that will be delivered tomorrow.

I also managed to do laundry (but not yet put it away), unpack my suitcase, and sort mail. And Ken and I did watch episodes of Leverage, Covert Affairs, Graham Norton, and Craig Ferguson (the Neil Gaiman interview, which I saved because I thought Ken would be amused by it).

I have a bazillion and one things to do (I haven’t even mentioned the Short Story Workshop, or the latest stories that are available for sale, and I want to talk about my sister, and…) but I’m taking it one day at a time. Tomorrow Ken’s mom is coming to visit, so I’m going to do a Trader Joe’s run and fill our water bottles and maybe get a few other errands done.

And write. I’m sorely in need of the writing….

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*Remember when I said “If anyone wakes me up tomorrow morning (besides Ken) there will be hell to pay”?  ::laughs hollowly::  First one of the neighbors decided to start yipping, then the lawn guys showed up to mow, and then the neighbor kids started shrieking, and Grimmy really wanted attention/breakfast, and….  O.o

Of unbounded domesticity

We’ve been curiously domestic this past week, which I think is less of an anomaly and more of a case of us flipping over to get into our normal groove (which will, of course, change again mid-month when Ken leaves for the IBR).

We did a big meal-planning and food shopping early in the week, which resulted in some nummy home-cooked meals and/or big dinner salads. I also got hit with a craving for chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies, which I never crave. (Chocolate-chip cookies, sure. Oatmeal? Not so much. I freely and cheerfully blame Karen Abrahamson, who brought homemade oatmeal cookies to the OWN workshops, and they were there for me in a time of weakness.). So we went back out one night to pick up the ingredients for those, and I made them last night.

Damn, but I make a fine batch of cookies when I get hit with the urge about every 2.5 years!

(Now I’m craving lemon bars. Hopefully, this too shall pass. After all, I have three tubs of chocolate chip/coconut/oatmeal cookie dough in the fridge now. Because what’s the point of actually baking four dozen cookies for two people? Then again, there’s this lemon tree outside, and lemon bars don’t last very long, and there is a Shire meeting next week…)

We also pootled down to the local Farmer’s Market (a jaunt of all of two block east) to pick up various fresh things, including some corn picked right that morning. We ate it one day later and oh my gods it was good. Om nom nom. Seriously.

Friday we took my car in to Bert, my fabulous Swedish car guy, to eyeball the new engine he put in recently. He then drove us to a movie theatre where we wiled away our time watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Minor car parts are now on order, and then we hit Trader Joe’s for some essentials before heading up to the BMW dealer, whereupon Ken collected his newly tuned-up bike and we headed home.

We have Alias season 3 discs sitting here from Netflix, and now that we’re almost caught up with DVR stuff (less than one thing per night recording, I believe) we’ve been settling in to enjoy those.

And we’ve re-tidied the sewing room (Ken put up a new shelf while I was in Oregon, as well) so we can continue various projects there. Sweet. I did some mending while we acted like slugs and lounged in media room watching Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (movie version) and Being Human and Eureka.

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Currently Reading: Black Hills, Nora Roberts
Lately Listened To: Hallucination, Shaw/Blades
Recently Watched: see above

Rock it, baby

Saturday I went to my 90th Styx show! Only 10 more until my new tattoo! Whoo!

I didn’t know until about 5:48 p.m. Friday night if I was even going, as I was waiting to hear from a friend about tickets (I hadn’t been able to get good ones when they went on sale). She came through, so the next day Ken and I were in the car headed north to Paso Robles. A fun show, but way too short (it was at the Mid-State Fair). My boys knew I was there. :-)

We set the iPod on random during the trip, which was highly amusing. Apparently there are many complaints about the random feature not being really random. (Ken actually said “They’re trying to make it more random,” which is a delightfully nonsensical statement.) So it kind of went Styx, Styx, Gowan, Styx, Gowan (from the same album), Marillion, Styx, Fish, Damn Yankees, Marillion, Robert Plant, Gowan, Marillion, Ultravox, Robert Plant (from the same album), Glen Burtnik, Guns n Roses, Glen Burtnik, Marillion, Fish, Styx. In other words, my iPod thinks it’s full of Styx and Styx-Related Product, and Marillion and Marillion-Related Product, with occasional other things. Which, given the amount of Brit pop and RWA sessions and folk/pagan/medieval music on it, is just wrong.

Sunday was mostly spent on house stuff. We moved a lot of books and magazines in our joint office, and Ken went through all his t-shirts and dresser drawers and purged greatly.

Today we did a massive grocery shopping so we have food for the next week or so (along with hitting the Farmer’s Market two blocks away come Thursday). And, um…yeah, I’ve been kind of lacking in the whole motivation thing, so not much else to report.

Except that we watched two eps of the Torchwood miniseries last night and three eps tonight, and thank goodness we had an ep of Big Bang Theory after that because Torchwood made me depressed and wanting to throw things at the TV. ::pout:: Stupid Torchwood. It didn’t help that I managed to read about a major spoiler not once, but twice beforehand. ::scowl::

In writerly news, today I received my comp copies of Lesbian Cowboys: Erotic Adventures, containing my story “Queens Up” (as Andrea Dale). It’s got a sexy saloon girl and a ranch lost in a poker game, and I had a blast writing it!

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Currently Reading: Black Hills, Nora Roberts
Lately Listened To: random, as interpreted by iPod software
Recently Watched: Torchwood: Children of Earth. Dammit.