girlofprey

Happy birthday to me.

And now I have a Playstation VR. Which is another present I went halves on with my parents, so as per usual I now get to worry about finances as well as enjoy it, but. I am excite. Only difficult thing is knowing where to set it up. I realised at some point now I have a new PC and monitor, I could attach my PS4 to it for VR, and have way more room and be able to stand up. But it does mean bringing my PS4 over to attach it. Which would be a pain. But a nice result. Also I need to figure out where I can keep it. It's a pretty big box.

So. After all of that whinging at the beginning of the week, here's how things actually played out:

• Part of the reason I was freaking out about the Jobcentre appointment was because at the last one, the advisor said this one would be a telephone appointment. So when I got a letter asking me to come in I assumed something must be wrong, or that I'd got a new advisor who might not be so thrilled at my progress as my previous lady was. Well, I got to the Jobcentre about five minutes ahead of time. 15 minutes later I was still sat there. I gave it another five minutes, then got up to ask if there was a problem, and the lady at the desk had a discussion with my advisor. It turns out I was supposed to have a telephone interview, and my advisor had been planning on calling me I guess, but - I didn't get the whole story on this - someone had gone into her diary for some reason, changed her telephone appointments to office interviews, the letters had gone out reflecting that, then those office interviews had been cancelled. I don't understand it, but it sounds like it was nothing to do with her and as much hassle for her as for me, because she had no idea which other telephone interviews had been messed with too. But anyway, she took me over for a brief chat as usual, like five minutes, and let me go again for the next three months. And that was that.



• I did end up going to Leeds on Wednesday. My (cover) service worker was v understanding about that, and also we didn't have much else to talk about. For those of you following the story with my service worker, my regular guy has been off sick for about five weeks now, and I have asked for a new one now, and for a female worker. Unfortunately the only lady who'd be suitable is also off sick, so it's not sorted out yet. But hopefully sometime this week it will be. But anyway, Leeds. I bought Lego and comics and chocolate, and got a free gift (sort of) from the Body Shop. I felt the most grown up I have in weeks.



• My birthday turned out to be super great. My plan was to spend it doing nothing and talking to no-one, playing video games. I have just started one of the DLC for Fallout: New Vegas for the first time, and it's frustrating but I'm really enjoying it. But anyway, those plans went out the window because my YN was down. So we had party poppers and I learned he can sort of say 'happy birthday', and then we went for a long walk to try to get him to fall asleep. We saw a few horses, one of which was way more excited to see us than I'm afraid we lived up to, another one that tried to eat the buttons off my coat, and maybe my nephew? Apparently he wanted to stroke it but mum didn't want to release him from the buggy because he's hard to get back in, so he just reached out, and this massive horse reached its head all the way down and licked his face. Then it realised we didn't have any treats, even buttons, and left. Maybe we should take carrots next time we go on that walk. Also we made friends with a dog, but it was on a farm full of dogs and another of them wasn't so friendly, so we had to leave. It was freezing cold on that walk, but a lot of fun.
  
  Afterwards my nephew still wasn't asleep though, so we had to go for a drive, but we discovered a whole town we didn't know about, so it wasn't so bad. Then I spent the next few hours building a Lego set what I'd bought. Then cake, which my YN managed to sleep through. Then video games. It was a good day.



• I did get the PS4, which is good because I paid £200 towards it. It was no surprise, because after getting through my Jobcentre interview, I ended up meeting my mum in town, and she was at the shop buying it. The dude did nicely put it in a plastic cover though, so no thieves would be tempted to steal it, so it COULD HAVE BEEN ANYTHING. But yes, it's mine. Haven't played on it yet because the game it came with is one I already have for the PS3, and there's been suggestions I could take it back and get money for it. And the other games are still around £50 - between Lego and going to London next week, I don't have that kind of cash to splash around. But my parents have quite nicely tidied the little bedroom where the PS3's set up (something they've been meaning to do for a while), so when I do get it out it'll be a lot easier to see where the wires are and should go and stuff. Thanks, parents.



• Mother's Day today. When we were out on Tuesday we saw a display of azaleas, which I remarked upon because I'd heard some interesting stories about how they were poisonous (fun fact: if bees make honey out of azaleas, the honey will be poisonous too. If you're looking for an extremely labour-intensive murder weapon, consider azalea honey). Anyway, mum said she used to have one in her student house, and it reminded her of her younger days. So I planned to get her one for Mother's Day. Then on my birthday, it turned out she'd gotten me one. She'd also picked up a little tweeting plush bird, so when it turned out the azaleas were all sold out anyway, I ran and got her one of those. Then yesterday she showed me one she'd bought herself. Dear mothers: you are impossible to buy for. Happy freaking Mother's Day.

Which brings us to today, when I am waiting for lunch because my sister has invited us up to her house for it. I really don't know what to expect. I wasn't expecting this. Apparently she's cleaned up the house and has some new, not-yet-broken furniture from my grandma's house, which just got sold this week. And from what I could tell from a phone call earlier this week she's started cooking, because mum had driven off with her shopping and she couldn't start the dinner without beef for the 'bourguignon' (?). So she's invited us up for Mother's Day. Should be interesting at least. Aside from the fact that I haven't been speaking to her for two and a half years, and my mum apparently spent most of Friday unable to deal with her behaviour and fighting with her. It's in an hour and twenty minutes. At least I still have some birthday cake left.

Tony Blair's ministers apparently want(ed) him to go out on "a wave of euphoria". My first reaction was 'AHAHAHA!', but now I'm actually quite looking forward to it. In fact, I'm feeling a bit euphoric right now. It's time, Tony! Go!

My internet is being useless and slow, and taking at least two tries to load any page, and generally irritating me. And the server for work's internet crashes a lot. Which is probably a good thing, because they're being very nice about ignoring that my screen is orange or green more often than it should be. But still. Hmph >:|

( Presents, whee! )

Another problematic gift is my sister's. I was toying with getting her Will and Grace Season 1 (£25 in HMV). After checking she hadn't, like, sold her DVD player or anything. But apparently she's suggested that I could get her some make-up, which doesn't actually narrow the field that much. Mum has suggested Boots vouchers, and, given that I have one lunchtime left for shopping, I'm probably going to go with that. Much as the cop-out hurts my soul. This week has really gone by very quickly.

Anyway. In tonight's Emmerdale Edna called Carl 'Mister Carl', and I almost physically flailed. And then he hid beautifully behind a green door to hear what a charity organising man was saying about not being able to hold a clay shoot on the land of a disgraced family, while Edna begged him to stay at least to talk to Carl, knowing his beauty would be enough to convince anyone. But he wouldn't, and Carl was just calmly, resignedly angsty about it all. And he is great. I love him.

And Urban Decay need to stop making such pretty products. Or else. I'll cry.