girlofprey

It's been 8 days since I last posted, and I'm sure I had a bunch of things to say, but I can't remember them now.

I've received a beautiful card of CHRISTMAS RESCUE from the whatho, thank you whatho. Also my sister came down to our house - that was fun. It's my nephew's first birthday today, but my mum went off on an overnight trip yesterday, so we wouldn't have had time to do anything as family today. So I knew it was going to be a weekend we'd be celebrating it, but I really assumed it would be this weekend. But no, last Saturday, as we were getting ready to go to a Christmas do at a local park with my MN and ON, my mum suddenly told me we were having them all down the next day. I hadn't even got my YN a present, they had to drop me off as we got back from the park at about 5 o'clock at a Poundstretcher so I could get him something. THEN, on Sunday morning, my mum suddenly broke the news that my sister HAD been angry, extremely angry, about the fact I didn't lend her any DVDs last week, and mum just hadn't mentioned it. I'd asked that night if my sister had said anything when they dropped my ON back off at home, and mum just said my dad had taken him, and hadn't said anything about it. But no, apparently the next day she had a massive go at mum about it, and had said she'd been 'livid' when she realised I hadn't sent her any DVDs. But not to worry, mum said. She been talking about coats I might like the day afterward, and probably wouldn't say anything in our house to me. Which was, y'know, lovely.

But in the end it was fine, as soon as my sister came in she looked right at me and smiled. Not in a creepy way. And then we were mostly just focused on my YN and his birthday, which was good for me as I hardly get to see him. He can walk a few steps now, if someone's there to lure him towards them and catch him when he falls on them. And my sister didn't say anything at all, just tried to joke with me randomly as usual. I guess, also as usual, she's okay to just rant at mum about things and not say anything actually to me.

Also, I caught a bit of Coronation Street on Friday. It was only a bit of the last episode, but I learned that surrogacy is a nearly unheard of practice that is one of the worst things you can do. I don't know, did everyone in the Rovers know Owen was paying Tina to do it? Because otherwise attitudes to things in Manchester must just be very different to attitudes everywhere else. Also, a policewoman turned up and Steve's first comment was either an assumption or a joke that she was a stripper. Nice. However, I did learn - as I suspected - that I would really love David and Tina to be friends again, although they probably shouldn't date again. And that David looks beautiful when he cries just slightly.

I went to see Skyfall again with my dad yesterday, while my mum was away. ( Skyfall spoilers )

And I have continued to play Skyrim and Hearthfire, which is buggy as hell. Like - ridiculously buggy for a game that was made professionally and released by a successful game studio, for money. Crash-to-desktop buggy. RIDICULOUSLY buggy. But I still love my houses and my kids. Then I loaded a save from a couple of days ago and gave up on a bunch of progress, all because of my continuing love of hot Orc women. Ahhh.

Also, I have been rewatching old Arrested Development episodes. And it turns out Jane Lynch was in it! As a redwood of a whore! I love Arrested Development.

Also, it is cold as hell. Also, I still don't know what I want for Christmas, aside from one thing I have asked my mum to get me. So it'll probably be money, this year.

I finished Arrested Development. The DVDs came on Wednesday - the day the strike ended, and well done to CD-Wow for that - and I apparently decided to watch it instead of telling anybody about it. But yes. It's finished.

( Spoilers up to end of Season 3 )

Right. I was going to do a picspam over the weekend, but sort of forgot how long screencaping takes. Especially when you decide to just screencap the WHOLE THING. And then yesterday I learned that you're not even safe from Bank Holiday family outings after you've moved out. But it was fine, mum and dad brought my nephew down and we went to a kids theme park thing. I learned his favourite number and colour (4, and pink). And we played in a maze. And saw a monitor lizard. Oh, and they had fallow deer! That was quite good. Generally speaking, a good time was had by all, except when my nephew tried to spit on me.

Anyway. In all that I mostly forgot to post, and probably as a result didn't mention that my job for next week was pulled forward to this week. I had my first day today. It all seems alright. After some kerfuffle with the buses and the internet not telling me where they are it turns out they go from the town centre every ten minutes and only take ten minutes to get there, and because I'm only working 27 hours, I get a day off every week and get to go 45 minutes earlier than my other jobs. I'm working in basically the NHS complaints department, which means we get to order investigations into how wards and clinics are being run. We also look into inquests and homicide reviews, which should be, y'know, fun. And due to the sensitive nature of the information, I'm not allowed to speak to anybody about what I'm dealing with. Not even other NHS staff, who may or may not be being investigated. IT'S A BIT STRANGE. But quite interesting, if sometimes horrible. That's meant to be going on until the end of September, unless they can get someone permanent to start before that. And apparently I'm perfectly welcome to try for the permanent position. Hmm.

The other two days working round the corner were quite good as well. There was an IT crisis, which meant my computer wasn't connected to the network and an IT guy kept asking me to get off it so he could try to fix it, and there was an event they kept asking me to create registration forms for, but mostly it was quiet. It was quite strange really. I've never really been down that road before, even though it's just round the corner - it leads to a bad area - but there's tons of stuff down there. A big supermarket selling fresh fruit and Polish cake mix. Which is nice to know. And it turns out the cleaner from the NHS clinic I was working at before goes to the place I was working at last week quite regularly, where they try to set people up with employment. Apparently he's an expert in renewable energy, and has had dozens of papers published. But according to his contact there he doesn't present himself very well in interviews and they have trouble converting his degree (from Sudan I think) into an English equivalent. Which is apparently an English degree. All of which was suprising, and really quite a shame.

Anyway. A fascinating fact I learned in my last week at the NHS clinic - Mary Mary, Quite Contrary is actually about executions. Mary is Bloody Mary, who was executing quite a few people at the time for religious reasons. "Gardens" is apparently a reference to graveyards, the "silver bells" are thumbscrews (they looked like that it seems), "cockleshells" is supposedly a torture device they attached to your genitals, and the pretty maids were a reference to guillotines. Bet you'll never look at that nursery rhyme in the same way again. And I have the second series of Arrested Development. Hurrah!