I've got a lot on my list of crap to do today but I'm not feeling it. Still trying to outmaneuver this cold and it's trying to get a foothold. Tenacious little bug. My eyelids are at halfmast so sleep wouldn't be too hard to coax. But I can't. I need to make a loaf of banana bread today. The bananas are quite frothy and pungent....perfect.

I also picked up a bunch of chocolate chips for baking so I guess I should make some cookies. Otherwise the husband will just open the bag and eat them like M&Ms. I had planned on making a pumpkin cream cheese pie, too. I really don't need this as I have gained a couple of pounds but it is the season and all that. The Grandmother is taking the kidlet Trick or Treating this weekend. I picked up the kidlet's ninja costume yesterday. She wanted to wear it to bed. Everything is ninja now. Anyway, I want to have some cookies baked for Grandmother. She deserves them.
Almost time for NaNoWriMo. I'm starting to panic. My outline is really sketchy. I keep getting bogged down in chemical compounds and gene manipulation and the overall timeline. I think the novel itself should only span 10 to 14 days. A lot of action can take place in that time...Die Hard was only one night. I've got so much to do around here but all I want to do is work on the book. Get in a position to start writing November 1st. I better get to it then.
After I finish this cup of tea....

11:39 pm Thursday night. I just took some Alka-Seltzer Plus. I'm hoping it will stop this headache from getting worse and take care of the sinus pressure. The husband is developing a cold. He coached soccer tonight and must have worn the kids out. The kidlet was zonked out just after 8:00. She barely got through dinner...which was excellent by the way. Chicken stirfry. I'm having a cup of tea and an english muffin. Comfort food. The kidlet was sick last weekend. She hasn't bounced back yet. I just made the mistake of watching the news and saw a story of a 6 year old Amelia County girl who died of Swine Flu. The mother was interviewed and she said she had taken the child to the doctor who sent them packing without a diagnosis.

Then there was the story of a manatee spotted several times in the James River. They usually don't travel much farther north than Georgia because they need warm water.

Other news: A Virginia teen was killed during an exorcism in her home. Apparently her Korean parents wanted to beat the evil out of her.

And a guy is arrested for walking around his house naked. His own home.

I knew there was a reason why I don't watch the news.

I had to break out my little under-the-desk heater this morning. The frost isn't on the pumpkin yet but it soon will be. I need to go up in the attic and pull down all the winter clothes today. The kidlet was asking for flannel sheets last night. I don't see why she needs them. Last night when I went in to check up on her she had company: Orville, Wilbur, and Smudge. Then Toast came in and Wilbur went outside. Those little beasties throw off a lot of heat. It's time to start putting food out in the winter house I guess.
I think I convinced the husband that we can recycle the monster wooden swing set into something useful. I see all sorts of possibilities. His view is rather limited. We could probably rehab it with free building supplies from Craigslist. Someone is always giving away pallets, plywood, old windows... Just the other day someone was giving away four sets of sliding glass doors. That would have been great if I was going to convert the space to a greenhouse. That would be so cool. I'd love to have a greenhouse but I don't see that happening any time soon. Man, that would be cool. We could move the frame down by the garden, use the elevated area where the slide is for a gravity feed watering station. I guess I need to draw up some plans.
But today I need to sew some pants for the kidlet. She is so tall and thin that store bought clothes just don't fit her properly. To get the length she needs she has to keep pulling her pants up all day. My heart bleeds.
2.5 weeks to NaNo. I really need to get my head around that, too. The whole transgenic microbes thing has to be ironed out and more thoughts on chimerism are needed. I'm excited by the possibilities.

I had to wear crusty old contact lenses because the husband was taking my frames in to the optometrist to get the glass replaced. At one point I absently rubbed my eye and pushed the contact back behind my eye. Lovely.
I just got done performing surgery on my face. Lots of blood this time though. We called the husband's dermatologist the other day to get an appt for me to find out what these damn things were cropping up all over the place. Their first opening is April 2nd. There's no telling what I'll look like by that time. I'll have to find a ninja costume somewhere.
Mom called yesterday. Started prattling along about how well her sponging sons were doing. I told her I'd rather not hear about it. Later that evening I called her back to see what kind of limit they were placing on the house they asked me to find them. "No more than $100,000" she said. At least 5 acres with a house, well & septic already installed. It boggles the mind. I asked, "You're still planning on putting this place on the market in January, right?" "Well--we haven't talked about it much lately. We really love it here." She had told me that they were going to have to sell their property and move to someplace smaller so her kids wouldn't follow her. Deep down I knew she was fantasizing aloud. I did waste a few hours looking for them but it occurred to me, if they were going to back out of the "ultimatum", and do a complete 180 on giving Rick money for his Egan road trips, then they weren't thinking lucidly or rationally. I want so much to just be out of it. It disturbs me so much. Anyway, I won't be looking anymore for them. They've done this to me time and time again. Jim was with me on speaker and he asked if everything was going well down there. "Oh yes, everything is great". "I hear that Rick is going on a road trip soon. Why'd you change your mind?"
That question was followed by lots of stuttering and stammering and finally "I have to go. I'm cooking and it's burning. I'll talk to you later."
And that was that.
The husband looked at me and asked, "Did she just blow us off???" I said, "Yep." And now we look like flaming assholes for our part in the "intervention". When we found out that the brother wasn't going to accept a part time job, or collect welfare, or hell, help himself in any way besides helping himself to another piece of chicken at the dinner table, we had an intervention. The husband called my mom to make sure that we were all on the same page. She said NO MORE MONEY! NO MORE ROAD TRIP MONEY! He had just pissed away $500 bucks on a trip to Jersey when he was told to stay out of Jersey since the interview was two hours away in Pennsylvania. He told the husband that he needed to get laid and knew a girl...and that he also owed a buddy about $100 or so and that he'd need him later so... So, a one day trip for a job interview turned into four days and a $75 overdraft on his bank account. Now the bank is calling here. I guess Mom will be paying for the ticket he got while up there, too.
I'm so sick of it.

In other news, the kidlet got out of school 3 hours early. We were supposed to go back to JoAnns to get stuff to start reupholstering the chair. I picked up a few yards of a beautiful green fabric to do the chair....$3/yd. I had a 50% off coupon, too. I just couldn't drag myself out of the house. Dizzy, shaky. Something is wrong with me.
Ambien is beginning to influence my typing here so I think I'll end it on that note.

The kidlet has gone to school. The husband has gone to work. Most of the cats have come and gone to do whatever cats do during the daylight hours. Sleep, most likely. And the brother is no longer here. The husband took Friday off so he could transport the brother back to my parents' house. He said he never heard the F bomb so many times in one day. I didn't go. There's no way in hell I'd subject myself to being trapped in a car with him for two+ hours.
A few quotes from the whole debauched attempt at my good deed:
"No good deed goes unpunished." (Mom) She wasn't kidding.
"He's your headache now." (Dad) More like one continuous migraine.
"He doesn't have a handy bone in his body." (the husband)
"I'll beg, borrow, or steal if that's what it takes." (brother) Apparently he won't work though. I think the appropriate quote would be "lie, cheat, and steal" but that's splitting hairs. Apples/apples. He said that dad abused him as a kid and he's still abusing him now. The brother is nearly 60 years old. He had the opportunity HERE to get away from that "abusive" situation but he decided to beg, borrow, lie and cheat from us instead.
The parents gave him their version of an ultimatum: They'll put tires on his car and get it on the road, rent him a Uhaul, clear his debt with them, and give him a fat check for $10K provided he never darken their doorstep again. That would be his inheritance. End of story.
Or so you'd think.
Who knew ultimatums had options. It was a brilliant move on his part. He had everyone here buffaloed into thinking he was a bit brain-dead but the cunning gears were silently cranking away the whole time he was here. He said, "No." Shut the front door!
He knew full well that he'd run thru the 10 grand in a heartbeat. It will be much more lucrative for him to stay in their home and wait for someone to die...and maybe even help the process along a little bit. Dad, "the abuser", is 86. Mom, 78. They both have high blood pressure. It wouldn't take much. Besides, he couldn't let his brother on the hill get away with what he was doing: living on the parents' property without paying rent, or the electric bill, snuggled down all cozy with his girlfriend, his wife and her 46 year old unemployed son (who was paying the brother rent when he had a job but now spends his days hiding in the woods drinking beer). That brother's extended unemployment is about to run out and yet he has every satellite cable channel imaginable, smokes like a train, drinks beer (although there was a NO ALCOHOL ultimatum in effect...haha), and apparently has had certain illegal substances DELIVERED to him on occasion. That brother has his knickers in a twist because brother #1 is living in the house with the parents and not paying rent or utilities. So, I guess, if brother #1 isn't paying the parents anything, he won't either. The parents complain about it to me. I hear it all. Every excruciating detail.
"We're not funding him (brother #1) for another trip!"........right.
"We're going to tell the electric company to pull the plug!".......right.
"We've sacrificed enough!"........enough is such a subjective term.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. (Albert Einstein)