My heart belongs to London . . .

Yes, the date is wrong, but I wanted this post to stay at the top because
I LOVE THIS PICTURE ...

(Yes, I know I keep changing the photo ... there have just been so many good ones lately that I can't make up my mind)

For anyone looking for my fanfiction, I've compiled a ( Master FanFic List )

Written for the challenge "Sometimes there is only one way to cure a curse" in LJ's hprwfqf community, I give you "Straight from the Source".

( Read the story here )

A friend of mine recently made a comment that planted an image in my head that just would not go away. The image turned into a plot bunny that hopped up and down incessantly until I finally gave in and wrote it. It’s a Harry/Ginny ficlet (although Ginny’s name is never specifically mentioned) that involves Muggle porn and toys.

( Read the story here . . . )

Back in January, I wrote a fic for 8th Weasley at The Quidditch Pitch's Secret Elf Exchange. It was a "pairing" I've never attempted, so I was a little worried if I was up to the task. I intended to post it here at the time, but realized this morning that I never did. It's actually a trio fic, but not my trio of choice ... it's Ron/Hermione/Pansy!

If that revelation hasn't scared you away, ( read the story here. )

Just a short little Harry/Ginny interlude for your reading enjoyment.

( Read the story here... )

A friend of mine recently challenged me to write a song fic ... which is something that generally does NOT appeal to me. But she said I didn't have to incorporate the song into the fic, just use it for inspiration and write something that seemed to fit the circumstances of the song.

This morning on the way to work, one of my favorite songs came on the radio, and suddenly I was inspired!

Just to be absolutely clear, what I've written is pure fiction. I wanted to emphasize that fact because it is written in first person, and because the only familiar character will be Harry (because he is always going to be my leading man), but there is no mention of him being a wizard and the two other male characters mentioned are not from Potter.

( Read the story here... )

Summary: Harry and Ron are attracted to one another, but it takes a little unexpected help from the twins to finally push them together. (WARNING: This fic does contain a bit of twincest).

On a special note, this fic was written for the lovely "hpuckle" (lj) for the 2008 HP Yule Balls exchange at LJ. I did my best to incorporate as many of the requested items as I possibly could. Many thanks to my friends, Stefanie, Louise and Sheree for beta assistance, helpful comments and general moral support! This year was my first as a fest participant, and I was in two. I hope I did them justice!

( Read Does This Mean You Fancy Blokes Here )

Summary: A party at Harry's house is spiced up by one of Seamus' games and leads to some unexpected (but not unwelcome) results.

On a special note, this fic was written for the lovely "itsbeenvery" (LJ) for the 2008 Bestmates Xmas exchange at LiveJournal. I did my best to incorporate as many of the requested items as I possibly could. Many thanks to my friends, Stefanie, Louise and Sheree for beta assistance, helpful comments and general moral support! This year was my first as a fest participant, and I hope I did them justice!

( Read The Game Here )

Who knew writing a trio drabble could be so difficult? I mean really ... you don't have to have a "story" ... it's just a moment in time ... a taste of porn with no need for plot. Well, if the drabble rule is 500 words or less, just shoot me now. I'm about 100 over, but here's for you queenb23more, who requested smutty trio with "tinsel" as the prompt. I hope you like it!

( Happy Christmas )

Story Summary: I get to watch her sleep, and then tease her awake slowly.

( Read Waking here . . . )

Well, London is safe for the moment from the impending invasion of two American women running loose in the City!

After much agonizing thought, rosepddle and I have postponed our plans to go to London in August.

Ultimately, the decision was financial ... airfares are just so outrageous right now for internatonal travel. rosepddle just didn't feel comfortable with ticket prices over $1,000, and I would have really been stretching my budget more than common sense tells me I should. I do, at least, have the advantage of a two-income household, but with that comes with the disadvantage of someone to rant over how much money I'm spending on the trip, and rosepddle is lucky enough not to have to deal with that. (Not quite sure which of us is really better off).

In some ways, I'm really upset that we're waiting until next year ... not the least of which is that I really loved London last year and would happily go back there and just stay permanently. But also because I was really looking foward to seeing nick730 and Janet. We'd made plans to see Avenue Q with nick730, and maybe do some other things with him, and at the very least, to have dinner with Janet somewhere. Now, depending on when we do go (our new dates are still undecided), Avenue Q, may have already ended, and even if it's still going, there could be cast changes and I was really hoping to see Daniel Boys as Princeton/Rod. Maybe we'll get lucky and that will still be an option ... I'm sure nick730 would like that as well!

In other ways, I'm okay with waiting ... I had been genuinely concerned that our choice of dates might mean my favorite Brit (is there anyone who can't guess who that is?) could have already come to the States to settle in before starting his winter job. I was also very worried that a cancellation now might piss off the owner of the B&B where we've planned to stay, and that she wouldn't want to make a reservation for us next year, but I've contacted her and she was quite good about it, so no more worries there. Waiting means more time to save up for the trip, so more options to do/see more things while we're there. And while this may be a mixed blessing, it means I can now schedule to go to a job-related conference that I'd originally decided to skip because I'd have to leave home for that just two days after getting home from London. The conference itself isn't so fascinating that I was disappointed in not going, but going earns points that I need to maintain a certification that is a requirement in my line of work, and while there are other means for earning the required points, summer conference is the quick and easy way to get a bunch of them out of the way.

I'm hoping to reschedule for the earlier half of the year (well, no earlier than March), but since we are waiting, I'll be definitely taking the filming schedule for Deathly Hallows into account. I want to have the best chance of my Brit being in town. No guarantees I'll see him anywhere of course, but it's a fair certainty I won't run into him if he's out of the country.

And at least I do have Equus to tide me over. (I require a Brit-fix every so often to keep me sane). I'll be seeing it in September with rosepddle and a few more times at the end of the run with Vicki and Dee. And nick730 is a real sweetheart and keeps me in DVD's of Brit TV for the in between times.

Well, the big event is finally behind us now. My son got married this weekend!

I took Thursday afternoon and Friday off work to run all the errands necessary for events on Friday evening and Saturday. I drove 45 miles to pick up tuxedos (our town isn’t big enough to even have a shop that rents tuxes) and to visit the party store to get things like table cloths, clear serving plates, etc. (we don’t have a party store in my town either).

The rehearsal was Friday night, and while the girl who was asked to direct the wedding is a real sweetheart (recent bride to one of my son’s best friends), she didn’t appear to have the slightest clue what she was doing, and the best way I know to describe the actual rehearsal is, in the words my hubby whispered to me at one point, a "complete cluster fuck." The only saving grace I can see is that everyone who was in the wedding (except for the flower girl, the ring bearer and the junior groomsman) had been in weddings before, so they at least already had a decent idea of what they were expected to do.

Hubby and I hosted a dinner in the church fellowship hall after the rehearsal, and I think that went very well. Our caterer provided the typical southern buffet-style menu (BBQ pork, fried chicken, potato salad, cole slaw and hush puppies) and I’d made a huge pot of string beans based on a last minute request from my son, then my mother, mother-in-law and I made all the desserts.

We had ENTIRELY too much food, and I’m confident that if spoilage wouldn’t be a problem, hubby and I could eat leftover BBQ and fried chicken for the next two weeks at every meal, including breakfast ... and that is AFTER giving away as much as we could convince people to take home with them! It took me until nearly 1:00 am to get all the food into the refrigerator when we got home after the rehearsal, and I spent most of last night packing food into containers for the freezer for meals later (everyone “tells” me BBQ and fried chicken freeze well, but frankly, I have my doubts).

Anyway, back to the wedding itself.

We got up Saturday morning to horrendous thunder, sharp lightning and pouring rain ... the sort of rain you see in films ... like that Morgan Freeman movie called Hard Rain . It continued that way until well after noon, which was when we all had to be at the church for the pictures that they could take before the ceremony started (all the ones that didn't involve the bride and groom at the same time). Because of the weather, instead of dressing at home, most of us took our clothes with us in plastic bags to dress at the church. This wouldn't have been so bad ... the building itself is huge, but it turns out the only large spaces are the sanctuary and fellowship hall. All the Sunday school rooms, which were the spaces where we could get ready, were fairly small and cramped, so we kept tripping over other people.

The photographer was really nice (and cute, too) and spent a lot of time making sure everything was "just right" before he'd take each picture. (On an interesting side note, his last name was Potter...so he HAS to be good, right?)

The only thing I thought was odd about the whole picture taking thing was that on some of the famly shots, he had us standing midway the aisle instead of at the front of the church. I'll be interested to see how these turn out.

Anyway, at some point while we were doing all this, the rain finally stopped and the sun came out. (God DOES answer prayers!).

Guests were starting to congregate outside the front doors just before the last of the pictures were done, so all of us were hustled into the two little side rooms off the main entry into the sanctuary to wait for time to go in. Once the time came, the girl who was directing the wedding handed my son-in-law a long gold candlelighter (the one the acolytes use to light the candles at the front of the church for services) and "reminded" him that when he escorted me in, he needed to take me up to the front so I could light one side of the unity candle. Of course, she'd neglected to mention that at the actual rehearsal and we hadn't practiced it at all, but thankfully it went okay ... for me at least.

The bride's mom wasn't as lucky. She couldn't get the unity candle to light on her first attempt, then the flame on the gold candlelighter went out. Fortunately the usher who escorted her was a smoker and he had a regular lighter in his pocket, so they were able to relight it ... but it kept going out. After about the fifth time of relighting the gold candlelighter, she finally got her side of the unity candle lit and was able to go to her seat.

I think the guests enjoyed the humor in the situation, but I know she was mortified!

After that, the wedding party marched in, followed by a man in authentic Scottish attire playing the wedding march on bagpipes (one of the bride's surprises for the groom because my son is a firefighter) and then the bride was escorted down the aisle by her dad and the ceremony began. Everything went beautifully after that.

Of course, when the wedding ceremony was over, we had to do all the pictures with bride and groom together, but guests were able to go on to the fellowship hall and could eat and drink while they waited.

There was another surprise for my son at the reception. Although there was the traditional style of wedding cake with the customary floral cake topper, there was also a simple, round groom's cake ... white icing decorated with a maltese cross drawn in red and at its center was a figurine of a bride dragging her groom by the collar, and he was dressed in full firefighter turnout gear.

There should have been two more surprises for my son at the end when they were leaving the church, but only one was actually a surprise. The bride's garter was red (instead of the more traditional light blue or white) and it had a maltese cross charm on it.

Then the big surprise ... which ended up not actually being a surprise ... was that I'd gotten one of our city fire trucks for their departure. I suppose it was still a surprise to him when the assistant chief asked him at the station on Friday what time they needed to have it at the church, but up until then, he didn't know about it.

I do think my son was a little disappointed that the groom’s side of the church wasn’t as full during the ceremony as the bride’s side. I know a few of the guests who were coming from long distances didn’t come because of the weather, and a good many of the guests had connections to both sides of the family (for example, my hubby’s first cousin is the bride’s mom’s best friend) and those all seemed to have been seated on the bride’s side. But I think really the biggest reason was the wording on the invitations. I can’t speak for other parts of the world, but most - if not all - of the wedding invitations I’ve ever seen have the names of both the bride’s parents and the groom’s parents included.

Some are worded so it appears the invitation is coming from both sides of the wedding party (Mr. & Mrs. John Doe and Mr. & Mrs. Tom Smith proudly request the honor of your presence in celebrating the marriage of their children ...) and some tend to adhere to the tradition that the bride’s parents are doing the inviting, since they generally are paying for more of that day’s events (Mr. & Mrs. John Doe request the honor of your presence in celebrating the marriage of their daughter, Sally Sue to Billy Bob Smith, son of Mr. & Mrs. Tom Smith)

...Err, it’s okay to laugh at my fictitious names...

But the ones in this case only had the bit about “Mr. & Mrs. John Doe inviting you to the marriage of their daughter, Sally Sue to Billy Bob Smith” ... and then it went on to list date, time and place. Hubby and I were not mentioned anywhere at all, and I am really concerned that many of the guests invited for our side, particularly some of the elderly aunts and uncles, may not have realized whose wedding they’d been invited to on the strength of our son’s name alone. He is generally known by a nickname abbreviated from his middle name. We had a few people call us to ask if that was our son, just by having made the connection from the last name, but I expect many more just didn’t bother and tossed the invitation in the trash. Oh well ... too late to worry about it now.

At least now life can settle back down to its usual level of chaos. My apologies to anyone whose emails or messages I've ignored for the past week or two. I promise to catch up soon!

Hugs again to my dear friend, rosepddle, who continues to feed my Harry Potter addiction. There was a surprise again today in my mail to add to my ever-growing collection of Harry Potter items. A sweet surprise indeed, but I won't be eating these.

I how have Jelly Slugs



and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans

Hi everyone!

I was going to do a voice post to let you all know I survived my eye surgery, but I can't remember my stupid PIN to access the system, so I figured typing one short message wouldn't kill me if I kept the right eye closed while I do it ... hence, overlook any possible typos.

The surgery went very well according the doctor, but he was running WAY behind schedule and we had to wait nearly 2 hours for him to start. The procedure itself took less than 10 minutes.

I'm home now, on medication to make me sleep and I'm instructed to wear dark glasses anytime I'm awake for the 1st 24 hours whether indoors or outdoors, but he prefers I mostly sleep, so I'll eat supper and take another of the make-me-sleepy pills and hopefully call it a night even though it's still early for bedtime.

I have to go back in the morning at 8:15 for him to be sure the little flap cut on the surface of my eye is still in its proper place, and I expect I'll have to go back in a week or so for a vision test, but otherwise all is well.

I probably won't be online much if any at all this weekend, but I wanted to let everyone know I'm okay and will talk to you all soon.

Thanks to all of you who've emailed me your good wishes. It means alot!

Well, I apparently just can't help myself. I wish I knew how to embed an audio clip (and knew where to find the clip) because this would be a very appropriate post to have Shania Twain's song Love Gets Me Every Time playing in the background because the line that says "I guess I gol' darn gone and done it" certainly fits me today.

Done what you ask? I bet at least a couple of you know without me saying (nick730, rosepddle ... you know I'm talking about you).

I've ordered more Equus tickets!!! That means I get to see this again ...



First rosepddle and I ordered tickets for the first preview night ... we're going on September 5th. We have Center Orchestra, Row O.

Then I ordered tickets for the January 31st show, Center Orchestra, Row B to go with Vicki, Dee and Dave.

And now, I've added tickets for ...
February 1st, Left Mezzanine, Row A
February 4th (matinee), Left Mezzanine, Row A
February 4th (evening show), Left Mezzanine, Row B

That's five times in all (and I saw it four times in London).

Seriously though ... unless they actually DO extend sales through to the originally announced ending date of February 8th, OR unless they open up stage seating ... this is all I plan to buy. That's not to say I don't WANT to go more than that, but I think I'm already pushing the limit on what I can afford to do without my family having me committed for psychiatric evaluation.

Just when you think you've seen it all, someone comes along and does something to surprise you.

I was leaving home after lunch to come back to work today (loud groan fits here nicely) and stopped at the traffic light nearest my house to wait for the light to turn green. A man driving what appeared to be a fairly new model Harley Davidson motorcycle passed by, and surprisingly the motorcycle had a rather old model sidecar attached. Apart from the fact that most Harley owners don't seem the sort to want sidecars attached to their bikes, it seems even more unlikely they'd tolerate an old one - and in this case, one that appeared rather beat up.

But the truly amazing part was the passenger ... there was a Golden Retriever sitting in the side car! Much to my relief, the dog was wearing some sort of harness to prevent him from jumping out, and he even had on a helmet. His long ears were just flapping in the wind as they rode. The dog looked perfectly at home riding down the highway in a motorcycle sidecar, as if this was something he'd done every day of his life.

I wish I'd had my camera in the car, but I probably still wouldn't have been quick enough to get a shot of it.

Well, I must say, I’m impressed. I had a call at 8:30 this morning from a regional manager with Pizza Inn. He’d read my online complaint and was calling to apologize for my unfortunate experience in one of their restaurants. He said he’d already called and talked to the manager of the local restaurant and she told him the bell for the drive up window had stopped working on Friday. (She was not on duty last night ... apparently an assistant manager was running the place when I was there). But he (the man who called me) also acknowledged that the inoperative bell only explained my initial wait, and did not entirely excuse it since they obviously knew I was coming. He said he was coming to town this afternoon to meet with the manager to try to find a resolution to the problems I encountered so that no one else would have the same disappointing experience.

The conversation went on for several minutes with him explaining some staffing problems they’d experienced recently and further apologizing for my inconvenience. He said he would be sending me something in the mail and hoped that I would give their restaurant another chance. He also apologized for the lack of response to the call I placed to their comment line and said he had no explanation for it because at the time of night I was calling, it was unlikely they were experiencing an unusually high call volume, but assured me he would look into that as well.

I’m still not a happy camper about the whole thing (my tastebuds were really looking forward to pizza last night), but as I said, I am impressed that he called me so quickly. I really didn’t have much confidence that I’d get any reply to an online complaint. I suppose given the prompt apology, and the fact that there just aren’t that many takeout options in my town on a Sunday evening, I will go back there again. They’ve always been a little slow noticing people at the window (never as bad as last night before), but otherwise the experience has generally been decent. I don’t suppose it will hurt to give them one more chance ... I’ll just be sure it’s early enough that I’ll have more options than just fast food if it turns out to be a poor decision.

We went to the beach again this weekend, but came home earlier than we normally would because the wind was blowing so hard we couldn’t take the boat out, and you couldn’t even sit on the back deck to read without having to clamp your pages in place.

Coming home early was both a good thing and a bad thing as we ended up spending the remaining afternoon and the evening up until dark doing yard work ... meaning mowing grass, raking up the clippings, pulling weeds, and dragging little limbs that had fallen as a result of the wind into the woods behind the house. It was good that we got it done, but it was EXHAUSTING as the temperature was well into the nineties the whole time.

After we got done, I took a quick shower and called Pizza Inn for takeout. Honestly they are not my first choice for pizza, but my first choice (along with most other good restaurants in my town) is not open on Sunday. But their pizza is pretty good AND they have a drive up window, which meant I wouldn’t have to go in ... a definite plus.

When I called to place the order, they said it would be ready in 20 minutes, so I drove across town and still had a few minutes to kill. I ran into the grocery store to get milk so I'd have some for my cereal in the morning, and by the time I got to Pizza Inn, it had been 23 minutes since I'd called. I pulled up to the window and waited ... 10 minutes to be exact, before I got frustrated enough to call them from my cell to tell them I was there and had been for 10 minutes.

A girl came to the window and apologized for not seeing me and took my debit card and said she'd be back with my food. It was another 12 minutes before a different girl showed up with my debit card and the receipt they wanted me to sign for the food ... but no food. I almost signed it, but as I was about to write, she said "your food will be up shortly".

I was confused. "You mean it isn't ready yet?" I asked.

She said, "Well, no, not yet, but it will be soon."

I asked how long.

She didn't know, but explained they were really busy tonight.

I couldn’t help myself...my frustration just spilled out.

"Excuse me if this sounds rude, but there are seven cars in your parking lot and I've counted at least five employees on duty since I've been sitting at this window. You can't possibly be that busy, and when I called, I was told the pizza would be ready in 20 minutes. That was 45 minutes ago and you can't even tell me now how much longer it will be?"

She said she was sorry, but she just didn't know.

I handed her back the pen and the receipt and asked her to cancel my order.

She said she'd need my card back as "he" would have to do it. I assume "he" was the manager. I had to wait another 10 minutes for her to come back with the void ticket and her only comment was "drive safely."

There was a toll free "comments" number posted on their window, so I dialed that. It "claimed" to be a 24 hour line. It was immediately answered by a recording that said my call was very important and asked that I wait for a representative, who would be with me shortly.

From Pizza Inn, I drove to Wendys and ordered burgers and fries. I got our food and drove home ... at which point I hung up on the comment line because no one had ever answered it. Not counting the stop at Wendy's, the drive from Pizza Inn home takes about 13 minutes, so I figure they'd had time to answer if my call really was "very important" to them.

After supper, I got online and looked up Pizza Inn. They had an online option for leaving comments, so I told them about my experience. We’ll see if I hear from them.

Well, he’s done it again ...

My dear, dear friend , nick730, is just too awesome for words!!!

When I went home for lunch today, I had yet another care package of Brit TV. Seven DVD’s this time, with recordings from Dr. Who*, The Apprentice, Hollyoaks, Gavin & Stacey and Love Soup.

*Err ... I should probably confess here that the Dr. Who episodes are actually replacements that nick730 was kind enough to re-record for me because the ones he’d sent of those originally somehow vanished once the got to my side of the pond. He knows I was somehow careless with them, but I’ve convinced aliens abducted them while I slept ... I just don’t know HOW they could have disappeared! So nick730, you really ARE a sweetheart in my book! You know I love you, right?

And I promise, these are safely stashed on the DVD rack beside my computer, where they will remain except while I’m watching them. I will not allow aliens to get their funny little hands on these! (Do aliens have hands?)

Again nick730, if you see this before I can get back home tonight and send you a proper email, thank you so much for doing all this for me!!! You really are THE BEST!

Since this past weekend included an extra day off for the Memorial Day holiday, I made an impromtu visit with my family to a beach that's about an hour's drive from home.

(Sorry to the several of you who've emailed to see if I'd died ... I should've made an effort to let you know I'd be away so you wouldn't worry. I'll try to do better in the future ... err, which reminds me, I think we're going back this coming weekend, Friday through Sunday).

Anyway, we have a camper just off the intercostal waterway, on what is deemed a waterfront lot (I say "deemed" because the campground owners call it waterfront when they bill us the extra $400 a year for the privilege of being waterfront, but realistically, it's only waterfront on weekdays because on weekends, they rent out the excess space between us and the water (where the County won't allow them to install hookups for permanent campers) and our only "view" is of other campers ... "Weekenders" as we call them.

At any rate, we had a lovely and lazy weekend, which was largely uneventful unless you count that Friday evening they had a DJ at the waterfront, so there was VERY LOUD music going until about 11:00 pm, and then there were equally loud drunks going for at least another hour after that. One guy, who was leaving the waterfront, was apparently unaware (or too drunk to remember) that there are public toilet facilities in that area as he felt compelled to take a pee on Hubby's truck tire. When Hubby yelled at him, he ran down the street (bits still in hand) to the next camper and finished the job in their shrubbery.

We took the boat out yesterday (it was a bit too windy on Sunday, and Saturday it rained until about 2:00 pm). Although it was actually a bit chilly while we were moving, it was still a very nice ride and we even encountered some porpoises in the water. That, in and of itself, isn't an odd occurrence, but it is unusual that we see them when I have my camera with me. I still wasn't able to get a great picture since they only surface briefly and their loation has changed each time they do, but at least I think it's good enough you can tell what it is.



I think there were four in all, and I really tried to get more than one in a shot, but this was the best picture of the lot.