elanya

Yesterday was a lovely day. we headed out to see Monticello inthe afternoon, and it was really neat. I'm not the biggest Jefferson fan politically, but he is still a very interesting person. Afterward, we headed in to Charlottesville, which is a lovely university town with culture, and had a snack of pita, hummus, nuts, dried fruits and tea at a hookah bar in the pedestrian mall, before coming home, making hot buttered rum, roasted duck with raspberry wine for (late) diner, and finishing up the last of I Claudius. Good times, good peeps, etc.

I was *supposed* to come home today, but alas, we didn't properly account for traffic and weather, and, because the flights were so overbooked, they had already re-sold my ticket when I got to the airport at 9 for my 9:31 flight. *sigh*

I am really *really* lucky that they were able to find me a flight out even *tomorrow*. So now I'm not getting home until 7:45 PM tomorrow. Argh. I'm trying to make arrangements for Jola and to get home for Houston, but I can't get ahold of anyone ;_;

Moral of the Story, never fly though North Carolina. Apparently, the lovely Charlotte airport is a curse for me.

ETA: Have found someone (yay Cheryl!) to take care of J. Now I just need to figure how to get back from Houston.

ETA2: Drive secured. Phew!

I finally arrived here yesterday, as noted. Mary got to the airport maybe 15-20 min after I did (my flight was a little early, and I didn't have any luggage to pick up, also it was raining). We chatted on the way back, and I met her kitty, Aurelia, who'd come along for the drive. When we got in, the boys (Dustin and Adam) were still out taking Sansa to the vet, so we sat around and chatted and munched delicious cookies until they returned. It also got a tour of the house, which is a loverly high ceilinged 1930's farmhouse with two floors and a ton of room. The upstairs is all really nice hardwood floors. There is also a half finished attic. There are definitely some thing that need work (new wiring in places, bathrooms need work, standard older house kind of things), but it is really pretty and the property itself is nice also. Also a little in need of furtinture upstairs! but they would like to maybe rent out the rooms, so that makes sense. When the boys came home, there was a puppy! She's a golden retriever/yellow lab-ish sort of mix, probably about 12-15 weeks. Still teeny, very friendly and sweet. Very puppy. She was a little out of it yesterday on account of getting her shots, but awesome nonetheless. Yes there will be pictures :p Her name is Sansa. She makes me miss Jola, who I think would love this place :x We chatted ad caught up some more, and once it stopped being too rainy, Dustin gave me a tour of the property. We also wandered down the road on the property behind us, that apparently belongs to a local hunt club. This area/property used to be an orchard, though now a lot of it is planted trees. If they can eventually buy this place, Dustin would like to see about getting a little bit of the hunt club land and turning it *back* in to some kind of orchard (though Mary was talking vineyard. Fruit fight!).

At some point (I think after we went for a walk but I am not sure :x), Ryan showed up (different Ryan). there was more chatting and catching up, and we watched Picnic at Hanging Hill, which Mary owns. I liked it, but the fact that it is non-plot driven apparently drove Dustin insane :V After that, more hanging out, more cookies, and eventually figuring out what we wanted to do for dinner. We were going to check out a local Italian place, but as they were closed, wound up at the grill/bar. I say 'the' because there is only one :x

last night, we watched the first disc of I, Claudius in preparation for watching the rest of it today while we... bake more cookies! Gingerbread men this time, possibly decorated in I, Claudius themes ^-^

Tomorrow, if the weather holds, we are going to go to Monticello, and a bunch of local wineries. These things excite me, though especially the Monticello bit :D I'm such a dork - I'm not even a personal Jefferson fan :V However, it is apparently all of 20 min away from here. And it is Monticello!

I am unsurprisingly awake relatively early, but I may try for a bit more sleep here in a bit.

In a side note, apparently Adam's dad has connections. Pillow connections. This house is full of really nice memory foam pillows. And when Y say 'full' I mean there's like 20 really nice spare pillows just kicking around, in big tupperware containers. Pillows! Madness.

It’s been a long night. I slept, ish, for about two hours. It’s 4;20 local tme, and the security gates open at five. I did some reading (finished reading ghost unit, meallanmouse, I like it so far, and demand more! Makes me want to write more stuff for Dart. Or harass my theoretical GM to run his theoretical campaign -_-). I thought about ding some writing but I don’t think my concentration is quite up to snuff… we’ll see. I’m kid of gong free form at the moment. I could do some copying of story – I have a big chunk of my BW era Dart story in a notebook that I cold probably type up and call a chapter. Oh if only I hadn’t written myself into a bit of a corner there, I might be able to get something new for it. But it requires more thinking. This is what happens when I try to write something coherent in only 5-10 minute bursts once or twice a week. It’s rather pathetic how little writing I’ve been doing for, say, the past year (Geeksmut not withstanding). Ahh well. I don’t know if I mentioned it in here but I got a rejection from Weird Tales for Soul proprietor. I need to do better market research, I think, but I really don’t have enough time! curtana referred me to a new Lovecraftian mag that might take Cursed Wreck, but I haven’t done anything with it yet either. I should at least check their length limits :p I’ve still yet to submit Shadow of a Place anywhere. Lame!

Ahh well. That was my mini rant about not writing. I really don’t know if I am awake enough to talk about anything in depth. I’m just sort of…. Letting the brain flow. It doesn’t feel like I have a whole lot to say at the moment though, at least not that I feel like just spilling out to the internets at large. Not clever enough to talk about the thesis, not doing enough non, ahem, specialist writing to wanna chat about that anymore.

I did a little bit of Christmas decorating before I left the house today, I vacuumed the crap out of my living room – moved furniture and everything! And then I re-arranged the little table/chest thing that lives between the futon and the couch, in the corner by the lamp, to hold the presents I have, and my teeny little tree, which I decorated. I hung an angel in my window, and set up some cloth Christmas ornaments that came from my mom (two cats and a goose!). I got a bunch of tiny little wooden ornaments last year, so it works out. I considered getting a real tree, but since I was away all this week, decided against it. I have a bunch of bells and other ornaments that I set up around the presents and tree, and I think it’s pretty. Now if only I’d had a chance to clean up the rest of my house hmm? Well I vacuumed the hall at least, and tidied in my room and put a ton of crap away in the study, so it is really not so bad. Save the bathroom, where there is still an undissolved bath bead in the tub and the sink is looking kind of gross again. Stupid sink, it gets gross so fast ;_; It’s because I comb my hair there, and all the little bits of hair dust get in and around the sink. Bleh.

Oooh, security gate is open, I believe! I’m going to cross over. Mourn not for me, I shall see you o the Other Side!

Something like a month ago, I committed to come visit Mary skjaere and Dustin (and co…. I admit I’m not even sure who is out there atm!) in Virginia to make up for not being able to come up for Thanksgiving. I planned an itinerary, secured dog sitting and transportation to and from the airport, and thought I was all set. On Friday, I went to send Mary my flight information, only to learn that no, in fact, I hadn’t actually *paid* for the tickets. I checked my cards to be sure. I panicked slightly, but managed to find flights that would get me in at the same time, not inconvenience my drive (though we weren’t gonna be on the same flight through Chicago anymore), and were only about $40 more than my original plan. I made sure to paid, sent the info to Mary, and breathed a sigh of relief.

And here I am, at 5:15, sitting in the Houston airport. According to my original planned flight, I’d have gotten in to Chicago about 30 minutes ago.

According to my new schedule, I should be in transit to Charlotte, possibly arriving fairly soon. I forget exactly how long the fight is.

It is cloudy today, which apparently counts as ‘weather’. When I arrived, at 12, my flight was already delayed an hour and a half. I was booked in to a later flight to Richmond that would have gotten me there around 11. However now my flight isn’t supposed to leave until 7:45, and there is absolutely no way I am getting to Richmond tonight. Bah!

So, there are two ways for me to look at this. Okay, more than just two, but these are the ones I like. The first is that when making my original itinerary, I had some subconscious psychic premonition that today would be a bad day to fly, and thus didn’t pay for the tickets. The second is that the reason that today went all to pot, and I’m either going to wind up staying the night in the Charlotte airport, or shelling out for a hotel, is just confirmation that I should never fly through North Carolina, ever. Those of you who’ve been around this blog long enough will recall my spate of travel horror stories – my move out to Texas being the worst of them – that occurred in that period. I haven’t had early as much trouble since I came here (and stopped flying through Dallas).

*sigh*

I seem to recall them having free internet in Charlotte. If you see this post go up tonight, then consider that confirmation! It not, well, I guess you’ll hear from me once I’m in Richmond, eventually. Mary has at least promised me an easy day tomorrow.

Well, at least I didn’t check any bags! And until about half an hour ago, I was hanging out with Ryan, whose flight was also delayed, though he may be able to catch his connection still. Good luck Ryan!

That’s all I’ve got on this topic for the moment. Instead, I’m gong to start a new post about my thesis :V

ETA – still in Houston, but two notes: First, there are no working outlets at the gates (there are outlets, but they don’t work -_-). So I’m sitting on the floor across from a gate full of empty chairs :p Secondly, they just announced that we should probably go get something to eat before the (crappy) terminal A food court closes, because al the (much better) food places at Charlotte will be close by the time we get there. *sigh*

ETA 2 - The first note was a lie. After I got (really gross) dinner, I found some working outlets with actual chairs.