Lost: A Sense of Proportion

(Started typing this up yesterday, and then got too tired to finish them meme and had to get some sleep. So let's try this again!)

Because I've been sick, I actually ended up not leaving home for the last week. (Aside from walking the dog, that is.) Not actually a big hardship for introvert-me. But then, today, my whole family went out to Applebee's for lunch. Which was lovely. Aside from the reminder of jus why shouldn't leave the house, that is. *g*

Basically - my meal had french fries with it. If I'm gonna have french fries, naturally I'm gonna need to have ketchup. So, I pick up the bottle, and open it to squirt on my plate. Only, it doesn't squirt. Even before I start squeezing, it... explodes. On my plate, over the edge of my plate, on the table, on my skirt, on the front of my jacket, on the sleeve of my jacket... *sighs* So now I'm in the middle of the restaurant, and I've gotta clean the ketchup off myself. Start looking for a napkin, and... manage to catch my hand on my water glass. My very large water glass, which, since it is the beginning of the meal, is also very full. Water goes flying, ice slides across the table, into the walkway... and, since I'm at the back of a circular booth, there's really nothing I can do to mitigate the damage. Or, y'know, flee the scene. I think we had three servers, all told, helping to clean things up. In the middle of the lunch rush. 

Eh, maybe I should just stay home for another week. XD


And now - a couple of memes! First one's a literary one from goldvermilion87. If there are a bunch of typos in my answers, it'd be because things have been glitching oddly. My browser, my computer, LJ in general... I tried to go through and fix them, but I'm not sure if I caught everything. 

( Long meme of longness under the cut! )

And a second meme, this one from hakaisha   -

Name me a character and I will tell you:

- Why I love them or why I wish they'd go die in a fire.
- My OTP for the character
- My favorite gen relationship with this character.
- An unpopular opinion about this character.
- One thing I wish would [have] happen[ed] with this character in canon.
- An idea I have for the character that I haven't written yet/won't ever write for whatever reason

Can be for any of my fandoms. If you don't know/can't remember if I like one that you do, just ask. ;D


ETA: Seriously LJ, what is up with this? It seems to be removing the characters immediately before and after any italicized section, even if I go back and fix it. Whyyyyyy....

*squee* Oh yes, it was worth the sleep deprivation. ;D

Some ramblings under the cut... trying to keep it general and non-spoilery. Also happy. Because yes, there may be nits to pick, but I have been looking forward to this for so long, and now I am happy, and not about to go spoiling my own enjoyment by looking for things to be upset over. ^^

( *flail* - and costume pics ;D )

And a lovely trip it was, too. Well, two trips, really. Wow, going to Nebraska feels like a really long time ago, now. But yeah, we had a good time with our grandma, and our... er, step-cousin, I guess she is? And various other step-relatives-in-law-whatever-you'd-call-them. Wasn't really a long visit, but fun.  

Neffie and I had quite the little "aww" moment when we got to the hotel - I started going through our suitcase to get stuff out and discovered... a toy mouse tucked down among the clothing. Our Ro-kitty has a tendency to sit forlornly inside suitcases and laptop cases whenever packing starts, as if he's hoping that one of these times he won't get forgotten at home. Apparently this time he felt we needed a little memento to bring along. <3

And the cabin was wonderful and relaxing, as always. Hard to believe that we've been going there for 21 years now.... A lot's changed over the years, but one thing hasn't: seems like every year, at least one thing has to break or otherwise Go Very Wrong. This year, we arrived to find that, among other things, the freezer was absolutely covered in nasty mold, the boat wasn't working, the stove wasn't working... and then the grill quit too. So things looked like being a bit of a potential disaster, possibly even one to rival the year when we were trying to clean the place without running water. But we got things sorted out in the end - except for the boat, but that was mostly okay anyway because there was much better fishing right off the dock than usual. So it was good. 

Among the things that did change were the friends and family that we visited, which was tough. One of the family friends we usually visit (who we've known since I was about three) did come to see us, but it may be the last time we see him for a long time because he and his new wife are moving to Florida. We didn't get to see my uncle at all, mostly because he just had cataract surgery and wasn't up for it. But the hardest was not seeing my great-aunt Helen, because she's almost certainly going to die any day now. And I just... will probably post something about that later, because right now I'm still in full-on avoidance mode and just trying not to think about it too much.

But. Happier note: it was a really good trip, and we had mostly great weather, and everyone had plenty of time to do whatever they wanted. So Nef and I swam almost every day, and she wrote a ton, and I read a ton, Mom scrapbooked and wrote, the guys golfed and fished, and we ate junk food and stayed up late and slept in, and all was good. *g*

We also went to see Avengers again while we were there! It was insanely hot on Saturday, the cabin doesn't have any kind of air conditioning (we're lucky to manage a few functioning fans), and we didn't feel like fighting with the Weekend Hordes for the lake (okay, it wasn't as busy as all that, but considering things are pretty much deserted during the week we'd rather do stuff when we had the place to ourselves). So we went to Avengers. And it was just as awesome the second time. \o/

Although I did notice one thing that's now driving me just slightly crazy. It was only on the second viewing that I realized that Hawkeye was shooting left-handed, which surprised me. At first I thought it might be an interesting and subtle way of showing another difference when he's being mind-controlled by Loki. But no, he shoots lefty afterward, during the final battle, as well. But... he shoots with his right hand in Thor. And I don't understaaaand, because if the actor is just left-eye dominant and/or more comfortable using his left hand, then why wouldn't he do it that way for both movies? But if it was a matter of conforming to the comics (no idea if comic-verse!Hawkeye is left- or right-handed)... then again, why not both movies? *flails* Okay, yes, Nef finds it hilarious that I'm bugged by this. But I think that I just need to watch the movie again, to see if the bow's design allows for ambidexterity. 

Ahem.

Anyhow! Now for my traditional commentary on the books I read while I was there!

( Books! Also, new puppy picture. :D )

Oh, and on a final note... Um, I have committed Avengers fanfic. I didn't intend to. I really, really didn't. But then I just happened to stumble across a prompt that went and took my brain hostage. So I had to write it. XD Anyhow, if you care to read it, it's posted here on AO3.

Oh. Oh. 

That was beautiful. Sweet and lovely and all the gorgeous clockwork, and the whole atmosphere of it, just... so much love.

And I adore the way that it took the analogy of the world as a giant machine, and each of us just a part in it, and through the whole feel of the movie successfully turned it from something cold and impersonal and presenting individuals as insignificant into something beautiful and creative and meaningful. 

This movie is my happy place. I am going to be watching it so many times.

Now I wish that I'd seen it in theaters. We'd talked about it... but never got to it. ;_;

Okay, yes, I am officially killed by teh adorableness. *ded*

And speaking of cute... the litter from which we are (if all goes well!) supposed to get a puppy is due in a little less than a week now! *bounces* I can not wait to actually meet the little ones. \o/ 

Of course, this means that The Naming Crisis is rapidly coming to a head. You see, around here, naming a pet is a major undertaking, necessitating multiple earnest family discussions, sometimes lasting till midnight or so, in addition to the day-to-day tossing back and forth of ideas. This is A Big Deal.

And we still have no idea what we're going to go with.

Ideally, really, we'd love to come up with another Lord of the Rings-themed name. Trouble is, we're not really particularly fond of most hobbity or dwarvish names for a dog, but the more dignified human and elvish ones tend to be rather a mouthful, and not have any good nicknames. We we've hit a dead end there for the time being. 

We've discussed Griffin (or, probably, Gryphon), which I quite like. The guys are kind of "meh" about it, though. They are bound and determined to have a dog named Cooper (they actually wanted to name Strider that). Which Nef and I have declared is Not gonna happen. I'm actually terribly fond of Sherlock as a dog's name, but it, unfortunately, has some rather negative past connotations - some years ago, after our neighbor's kids spent most of a summer listening to our dad read nearly the entire collection of Sherlock Holmes tales aloud to us, they named their new dog Sherlock. Which would've been cool, except he turned out to be a rather nasty, ugly, mean, not especially brilliant little thing that only really liked their (honestly, terrifying) mother, barked incessantly at the most inconvenient times, and was unpredictably nippy. So... hmm, not out of the question, but yeah. Tiro is also a good possibility. (Okay, yes, so maybe Neffie and I are just a teeny little bit obsessed with Roman history. *g*) I honestly thought, given some of the general breed characteristics, Neal would be an awesome possibility, but that one was firmly shot down by certain male members of our household. ;D

There've been other possibilities tossed around with varying degrees of seriousness, but really we don't even have any clear frontrunners at the moment. And yeah, you might say that maybe when we actually see the puppy inspiration will strike... but I kind of doubt that's gonna be a miraculous solution to our dilemma. I foresee much, much more discussion in the upcoming weeks. Um... outside opinions/suggestions are definitely welcome. XD

And speaking of dogs... We're in the midst of minor adventure with one at the moment.

( Puppy! Puppy, puppy, puppy! I am so dog-deprived right now it's not even funny, )

 Went to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader tonight. I have... mixed feelings.

The things they did well tended to be spot-on awesome. The things they did not were... Wait. Whut. Srsly? Unfortunately, the "not" instances kinda outnumbered the "spot-on."

Some of it I'd expected, and been entirely prepared for (the necessity of condensing/combining some incidents). Others... It was kinda like they just didn't get the idea of a sea story, the voyage tale, and got all confused, and therefore had to try to find some way to make it flow more like the previous stories. Problem is - you can't out-Lewis Lewis. And while I wouldn't  (quite) argue that his stories are absolutely perfect and cannot be improved upon in any way... that didn't really do it.
 
So yeah. That's not to say I hated the movie, really. As a fantasy movie, it was not too bad, if occasionally disjointed, and trite at moments. But as Chronicles of Narnia? Er... what? 

The first ten minutes and last ten minutes were pretty much absolutely perfect, though. Seriously, that ending almost made me cry. And Caspian was pretty awesome. And the interaction between him and Edmund turned out much more satisfying than what the last movie did with Peter and Caspian. And I really loved Lucy. And hey, much as it was totally wrong as far as the book goes... (SPOILER ALERT) can I really get all that upset about an epic sea monster/dragon battle? Well yes, I could. But I dunno. Considering all the other things they changed... I think I'll just enjoy getting to see that. /dragon obsession

cirtholien - I'm afraid you're likely to rather hate it, overall. :/ But maybe you'll be able to enjoy it as a fantasy-that-has-nothing-whatsoever-to-do-with-a-certain-awesome-book-except-for-the-first-and-last-ten-minutes anyhow? It's like Narnia fanfiction! Heh.

At any rate, I think that's all I'll say for the moment. Both in an attempt to avoid total spoilerage, and 'cause I think Nef's gonna say more later. 

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Well, I'm home! And very, very tired. So, because I have had a stressful and exhausting day, I decided to do a post of random funnies, and a couple miscellaneous thoughts.

( Many funny pics, and two random ponderings )

Watched Nim's Island tonight. Anyone else seen it? Wasn't really expecting much of it. And yep, it would have been pretty much what I expected: rather too cutesy, silly, with ridiculously anthropomorphic animals in a not-really-entertaining-enough way, basically, clean but... meh.

Yes, I did say would have been.

Except...

BWAHAHAHA! The writer! Just the conversations she had with her character made it So. Totally. Worth. It. Don't want to give away all the fun lines, but... When he gets all sarcastic, and starts giving her advice, trying to talk her into doing things, quoting her own writing at her... just priceless. "You can't do that! I created you! You - you - you HAVE to do what I say!"

Heee. So, not the greatest movie, but - yeah, if you're a writer, for that aspect alone... *giggles madly*

Wow, there has been a lot going on for me in both writing and art over the last year. 

( Writing meme grabbed from kel_candelae's journal. :) )

( Musings on art - with pictures! Hehe.  )

Happy New Year, everyone! *hugs all around* :D