Thorns

I finally got around to transferring the dates from my pda to iCal (I used to rely on the calender at work). And I realised I FORGOT MY OWN SISTERS BIRTHDAY. Her twenty-first birthday. And it wasn't even like yesterday, it was last week.

So, crap. Stupid brain fuzz stopping me from being able to think clearly. I knew there was something I was forgetting.

(At least all the other people's whose stuff I've missed recently can feel a bit less specifically neglected now. And I remembered Oliver's party in time!)

So, my father in law came over tonight to get distancam do his computer-nerd magic on his laptop. He showed us some photos he'd taken..and there were strangedave and doctor_k_! So, you guys, just so you know, the middle aged indian man you sat opposite at the Tai Chi dinner is my father in law :)

So, the second event I went to was an Introduction to the Landmark Forum" at the request of my brother Michael.

( Into the belly of the beast )

I visited my family yesterday. The main reason was to give them a copy of my thesis (they were all suitably impresed by it's weighty unreadableness) but also to pick up an unlabelled and unexpected package addressed to me at their address (where I haven't lived for over 5 years)

Had lots of fun chatting to people, explained the cold war to my 10 year old brother Theo (who was vaguely aware of it: was it between China and Russia maybe? And what was communism anyway?) Even my 19 year old sister couldn't remember it, I suppose none of you munchkins do. How odd. Poor old grandma is still not the same after her illness, but much better than she was. Also played basketball (!!), thankfully Theo still hasn't hit the "better than Sophie at all things physical" barrier Michael did at around his age. Anyway, just as I was leaving, mum remembered the package, so I opened it. Inside was... a copy of the Lord of the Rings, and nothing else.

Now some of you will have heard me talk about this book. The copy of LOTR my mum got for me for my 17th or so birthday, and wrote a nice little message in. The book I lent to my boyfriend at the time, the boyfriend who the last time I saw him after we broke up, specifically for returning books we had borrowed, "forgot" my book. The book I have mourned with bitterness for seven years(*).

I and mum decided he must have finally finished reading it, he never was a very good reader.

Oh, and I gave it to Theo, since I already have a copy :)

(*)Not that I wasn't bitter about other things too.

Have posted the latest page of ACOS. It's only been *cough* two months*cough* since the last update... I kept putting it off becuase it refused to come out right, but then remembered that if I hold myself to standards that high I'll never get it done :)

Also made a rather injoke-y update to Hapless.

My mum phoned a little while ago, my grandma (the cool one some of you have met) is apparently sufficiently sick with shingles, gastritis due to shingles medication etc that I should visit ASAP :( Poor mum is having to do insane amounts of nursing to look after her as well as her cleaning job. We both agree this does not bode well for Very Sick People who don't have someone to look after them when they get discharged from hospital. Anyway, hopefully she'll be ok but if nothing else it sounds very unpleasant for everyone.

First, to anyone who saw the wedding post I accidentally posted here..heh, just be glad I'm not on any weirder communities :) (Though with me, the worst you'd be likely to get is some technical discussion on right-angle-weave beading or abstract algebra)

Also, Alinta Gas, Australia Post and the Commonwealth Bank are all out to get me. It's all fixed, though now the phone company is refusing to acknowledge a bill as being paid... Man, I was having a bad drawing day. Oh well.

Finally, something that keeps coming up in conversation but I don't want to derail the topic just to settle a minor point of accuracy: I get the feeling some people think I'm really very jewish, which I'm not. Not that this is the worst thing ever, I just like things being categorised correctly. My mothers mother was brought up as a liberal jew and became an atheist, while my mothers father and everyone on my dads side is whitebread anglo/irish/ukranian etc. I was brought up to be an anglican and then became an atheist. I didn't even realise I was of jewish descent till I was about 10, but still feel a disproportionate connection to that side of the family because my dad and mums dad are not the sort to talk about their families, while my mum and mums mum so incredibly are :) By one definition I am 100% jewish (since it carries down the maternal line) but by most others I'm really not. There!

Oh, yeah, and I and Cam are thinking of moving to England in a few years (just for a while, not permanently). You all knew that, right? *cough*

In other news, I have a headache.