HP6... and some cat pictures to distract me from HP6

This afternoon I was determined to finish Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. About 40 pages from the end, amidst my sobbing and the climax of the action,



Bishop decided it was time to demonstrate his marvelous cat instincts. He climbed on my chest and curled up, half-leaning on the book and very effectively keeping me from finishing the page I was on. Not only that, but he didn't just sit there for a minute or two, he decided to fall asleep. I was giggling over his sheer cat-ness so much that I didn't really mind. After a bit, he moved so that he was stretched out on my chest with his head against the back of the couch, and slept there for the whole rest of the book (despite my boo-hooing and laughing and page-turning).

As for the book itself: whoa. It's enjoyable as always, but a bit like watching a train wreck... and I'm DYING to read volume 7. I had to call Kim (who finished it on Friday) so we could discuss it extensively. The saddest part is, there's only one more book and then it's over! Now I can pass book 6 on to my mom, who's been waiting fairly patiently. :)

And now, to distract myself from thinking about it and getting all teary again, some other cat pictures:


What's that in the washer, Bishop?


Ripley's found a new favorite hangout.

It's back to work tomorrow, but the trailers are finally gone! Woohoooooo! :D Hopefully I will be somewhat less stressed this week.

Invading a town near you

I wanted to share one more picture from the trip to West Point:



We saw him invading a car dealership during our side trip to try and find Orange County Choppers. I don't really care about the bikes, but the guys on the show entertain me; unfortunately we just missed Mikey doing a signing at the retail store the day before.

I have three more days of insanity at work; then I get to enjoy my weekend, before I start working on all the stuff I have to get done for the big vintage meet the third week in August. You'll probably be able to hear my sigh of relief once THAT's over.

I am still halfway through HP6; unfortunately I forgot to bring it to work and so couldn't take advantage of the 6 hours I spent sitting in the NASA trailer over the past two days. (sigh)

This evening I made banana bread again, but this time I added chocolate chips. I used my mini-loaf pan and it worked out quite well. Happily that used up the last of the bananas we bought; in this weather, they went straight from green to brown. :p

Well, Ozog is on his way over to drop off some movies (and eat banana bread) and I'm going to post in my craft blog.

Harry Potter #6!!

I started book 6. I'm about 200 pages into it. It's already walloped me once, enough to make me gasp out loud at the book multiple times. I have to say I was entertained at Dumbledore's comments about liking to read Muggle knitting patterns. :D I won't say any more though, I know lots of people out there are reading it too.

Nick came over for dinner tonight. I made Cheesy Tuna and Noodles, which also had broccoli and carrots in it. It was... interesting. Not many recipes put tuna, garlic, chicken-flavored ramen and nutmeg together. O_o; It was ok. Not unpleasant, but not the greatest meal ever. I then went on a mini baking spree and made banana bread (to get rid of some of our bananas) and marble brownies.

I don't know what I'm doing the rest of tonight. The girls went to TJ Maxx and apparently are going to Barnes later. I don't know if I will join them or not. I really kinda just want to get back to HP6. Soooo... off I go.

*zombie noises*

I am exhausted. Week 1 of aviation camp is over... one more week to go. We had a big potluck dinner to finish off the week for the girls, and it was a lot of fun, but also a lot of cleanup. Well, I don't have to work tomorrow, so, no more about that for now.

Tonight I called Time Warner to discuss our frustrating RoadRunner issues. We have an "intermittent connection" - basically every time I sit down to do anything computer-related, the connection goes in and out every few minutes. One moment it will go to a site with no problem, and the next it won't go anywhere - even the same site. It's been REALLY ANNOYING, especially when I'm trying to work on a new blog layout, or do updates for work. They are sending a technician out on Monday to check out the line - apparently they saw that there were some potential issues with it, and even when we had it installed in April the guy said the box and line into the street were "old." Hopefully they will find something, fix it, and keep me from wanting to punch something every time I use the computer. (Just a side note - this crappy connection is part of the reason I didn't post for so long... it's hard to post when Blogger will only load every few seconds.)

I am trying to relax at home, but I'm having the old problem I did while working at Verizon: I finally have some free time, and there are so many things I want to do that I don't know what to do with myself.

Sweeeeeeeet.

Or if I was having a Peter Griffin moment.... FREAKIN' SWEET!!! :D

Today is getting a bit better. I started playing .hack//Outbreak... they opened up a new server so now I can frolic all over E (sigma) server as well as the others. Wheee.

I got my Harry Potter book 6 in the mail; it only took this long because it had to get forwarded from my parent's house; back when I ordered it, I still lived there. I love how it SAYS it's Harry Potter book 6 on the packaging, and all over it is "DO NOT OPEN UNTIL JULY 16!!!" Come on. If it arrived before then, who in their right mind is going to be able to hold out? I agree with not TALKING about it until then, but, seriously.

I'm getting some stuff accomplished at work today. Slowwwwly but surely. Also, our volunteer superstars came back today and signed up for a bunch more slots, which means we are mostly covered for the rest of the time the trailers are here. What a relief. I've also got Maggie from next door coming in to fill a couple of spots. :) I'll tell ya, we have some darn nice volunteers out there.

Well, I'm heading home.

.hack//SIGN

We finished watching .hack//SIGN tonight. It's.... well, it's much more fun watching it having played the game myself. I recognize locations and the mechanics of the game, and even a few characters, such as Balmung, Helba and A-20 (who is extremely entertaining...). The series is soooo dragged out though... they accomplish about as much in one episode as they do in Dragonball Z. "Help!! The Saiyans are going to land! AHHHHHHH!!!" *whole episode shows people freaking out that they're going to land... five minutes to go, they land... episode ends* A lot of it is just slow-moving discussion on "what should we do?" and "I don't know what's going on" etc.

There are some really entertaining episodes, but also a lot of loose ends they don't really tie up. What in the heck does Bear do for a living, for example? Auuugh. Fortunately, because I've played the first two games, I knew that some of it wasn't going to be resolved because part of the anime ending carried into the first game. I'm glad I watched it, but it's not really up there with my favorite series, and I enjoy the game a lot more.

We also watched episodes 4 and 5 of Full Metal Panic? FUMOFFU! tonight. That is an entertaining show. We'll have to keep an eye out and see when the next episodes become available (we're watching it through that TV on demand thingie).

Oh boy. Bryon is playing with the cats.... buffing the floor with Ripley, who seems to be enjoying it, or at least it's not bothering him at all. :D I can tell Bryon wants me to start the next .hack game - what was my first clue? The game menu on the TV? The controller placed in my lap? Heh.

I'm just glad tomorrow is Thursday, although we're still short volunteers for this weekend so I'm not even sure I'll get the weekend off. Every day is one day closer to July 31st, when I will get to really relax a bit.

On Pins and Needles...

Okay, this is the official announcement - all crafty content will now be placed on my new craft blog, Pins and Needles. This includes knitting, scrapbooking, sewing, and more. Sooo... if you care to see any of that stuff (including projects I've talked about on here before, such as the One Skein Wonder) please head over there.

Here's a button in case you feel like linking it (also note the new button for this blog at the bottom of the sidebar):



I'm so excited! :D

Several thousand words

This will mostly be a picture-and-caption post to catch up on things:



We bought a cat tree. I thought we were spoiling them something terrible until we ran into Becca Joy and her husband Lance in the store and she exclaimed "We have that cat tree!!!" Of course... they have FIVE cats...



We went to the renaissance faire with Stine and Sara. I've determined that I can only hack it every few years, so we are not allowed to go next year, and possibly not the year after that. I did have some fun although I was not at all impressed by their new sit-down tavern - very few choices, very expensive, they only take cash and the service was terrible. *shrug* Next time I'll just get a turkey leg. I did find a really cute wooden ornament that looked just like Ripley.



The cats have discovered the computer. They are endlessly entertained by the mouse pointer moving around the screen, and they love walking and sometimes sitting on the keyboard. I am reminded of poor Dexter Douglas, whose cat accidentally entered the exact secret sequence of characters into the computer (followed by Delete as he tried to get rid of it) to turn him into Freakazoid. I miss that show.



Saturday Bryon and I attended a wedding here, the Post Chapel at West Point, for one of his Guard buddies who went with him to Iraq. I'd never been down there before.



I was blown away by the scenery. The drive along the Hudson was slightly nerve-wracking; it's a narrow, windy road with a short stone wall along the side - right out of a movie.



The reception was held at the Thayer Hotel - very classy, including appetizers involving raw salmon and endive. Um, maybe a little TOO classy. :/ Unfortunately it didn't agree with me that well.



Happily I was feeling better on Sunday, when we took a mad photo-taking tour through West Point. We saw Michie Stadium, where the big Army-Navy football game is played. We saw much beautiful architecture - the housing is unbelievable there. We saw a few MPs who we were half expecting to pull us over for taking so many pictures.



One really cool thing we saw: along that windy road next to the Hudson, we found this tiny hobbit-house. Don't you have to wonder who built this and how long it's been there?

Anyway... these last three weeks of July have been, and will continue to be, INSANE at work. I really think I'm going to lose my mind. We have the NASA trailer exhibit on the International Space Station up there, and somehow I have become the volunteer coordinator - calling people, keeping track of who's signed up for what times, making sure the handovers go smoothly, and filling in myself when there's no one else to do the job. I spent 4 hours sitting in the trailer today. I'm calling in every personal favor I can think of - I've had my parents, my boyfriend, my boyfriend's parents and even Jesse working in there. It's hectic. Throw in Summer Cohesion tours every day of this week and next week, plus extra tours, plus Aviation Camp going on the same two weeks, and... I'll be lucky if I get out of this with my sanity intact. We have to be open extra hours thanks to the trailers, and that causes other staffing problems that we just don't really have the money to deal with. AAAAAAAAAAAAAACK. To top it off, August isn't going to be that much better, because we are (FINALLY) installing the new gift shop point-of-sale system in the beginning of August, and then we have a big sailplane meet August 20-27 (for which I am doing all flyers, name tags, forms, etc. and a yearbook of all registered pilots). ACK.

So anyway, I'll be posting briefly if at all for the next few weeks. Maybe after that things will settle down a bit. I have one more bit of news, but I think I'll put it in its own post.