Dear Fandom At Large,

All of you boys need different names. I have had enough of your Toms and Mikes and Rays. I find what looks to be a good story, but then like a paragraph or page in I discover you are totally not who I originally thought you were! I keep reading, because I'm slutty like that, but still. It takes me a minute, because I am also slow like that. So, in my best interests, everyone go get a new name, or I will do it for you. And I named my beloved children GOOBER and PUDGE so really, you don't want me doing that. I give you until the beginning of the next TV season, sports season, or your new album drops, depending on your RL profession.

Lots of Love,

Miss Anne.

PS I still hate retail and the fact that no one seems to understand that Christmas is the SAME DAY EVERY YEAR YOU HAD PLENTY OF WARNING STOP YELLING AT ME NOW!

So is it wronger of me to want there to be iCarly slash, or iCarly slash not about Carly and Sam, but about Freddy and Spencer?

Thank you so, SO MUCH for the snowflakes, ninasis, heuradys, entrenous88, flaming_muse, and sprat! You guys are totally awesome!

Now, back to work! (I hate retail.)

1. Today: DNW.

2. Parent - Teacher Conference: Not so bad, actually.

3. Today, seriously. Stop it.

4. My boss: Seriously. Do not be all, "Be proactive! Take charge! You are in control here!: and then insist on babysitting me. If my work is done, and the floor is covered, and everything is moving swimmingly, and all criteria are being met, LEAVE ME ALONE OMG.

4b. Every time, I type it as "boos" rather than "boss". Think I'm trying to tell myself something?

5. Really, enough of today.

6. I'm going to bed now.

Okay, so you respond telling me you want to play, and I will give you five questions on which you will elaborate. You post the answers in your journal and keep the cycle going. That's how these things work, after all.

tempore was kind enough to let me play, so ( here are my answers )

So there was that meme I said I'd do like a week ago, and I think I said I'd post my responses like, Tuesday or something. Clearly, I did not. But I am now! So it wasn't really a lie! It was a misestimation! It's season, I'm allowed!

So the deal was that I'd write a list of 15 characters, and you would pick two numbers and I'd tell you something and pick out a song about them.

( Character List )

for tempore ( 11 (John Sheppard, SGA) and 3 (Gus, Psych )

For fleurdeliser ( 5 (Ray Kowalski, due South) and 9 (Peyton Manning, NFL) )

For heuradys ( 4 (Frank Iero, MCR) and 13 (Carlton Lassiter, Psych) )

For lelaina_c ( 5 (Ray Kowalski, due South) and 12 (Tim McGee, NCIS) )

And then there'sthe writing prompts that the mem had, but I'm not doing those, either. Not really.

( 4&6 )

( 1&8 )

( 3, 6, 9 )

( 5&10 )

( Crackfic 1 )

( 5&9 )

( 4&7 )

( 2&3 )

And no one picked Sheppard and DiNozzo, so I hook them up myself. And then I go to my happy place, because that is a lot of snarky, smirky pretty right there and I am not witty enough to write it. But somebody should.

Today, I made excellent progress on my Thanksgiving feast! I got the cheeseball, sausage balls, mac-n-cheese, macaroni salad, cheesestraws, shortbread, and chocolate chip cookies made, and a list of what needs to be done at what time on Thursday. I still have tomorrow after work and then all day Thursday to cook, so plenty of time to eat by 4.

Also tomorrow, I will post the answers to the OH SO HARD pairings meme thing I did on Sunday. I meant to post it today, but one of them has me STUMPED BEYOND BELIEF, so I'm going to think on it at work tomorrow. Last chance to pick 2 numbers between 1-15!

Those of you who've been around for a while may remember my multiple page menus of years gone by. ( Yeah, nothing's changed. )


Be sure to play my game! Give me two numbers between 1 and 15! I'm getting some crazy cracked out pairings here, and it's awesome.

I bought my Thanksgiving groceries today. I spent about what I usually do on Thanksgiving, which is slightly less than many families spend on a month's worth of groceries. But I figure 1. It's my very most favorite day of the year, by far, and 2. leftovers carry dinners for at least four more days, and 3. what the hell, it's once a year. So while it's (a little more than) double my usual weekly grocery budget, I'm okay with that.

I'll spend most of my free time (hahahahaha, free time.) this week cooking, preparing to cook, or cleaning up after cooking. (This is the only time of year I really miss having a dishwasher.) Until then, though, there's that meme going around where you make a list of characters and people pick random numbers and you write a few sentences about them. I'm not going to promise stories or anything, but I figure if you give me two numbers, 1-15, I will pick a song that I think fits and maybe ramble about it for a while.

And now, to prepare to brine a turkey!

So this week's installment includes:

Community 1x07; Curb Your Enthusiasm 1x01, 1x02, 1x03; CSI 10x05 Bloodsport; Desperate Housewives 6x06; Medium 6x06; Mad Men 3x08, 3x11; Accidentally on Purpose 1x06; Parks and Recreation 2x07; Heroes 4x08; Grey's Anatomy 6x06, 6x07; Ugly Betty 4x01, 4x02, 4x03, 4x04; Castle 2x07; Numb3rs 6x06; Greek 3x10; Eastwick 1x03; NCIS: Los Angeles 1x06; Gossip Girl 3x07; Vampire Diaries 1x06, 1x07; Supernatural 5x07; Eastwick 1x04; Private Practice 3x02, 3x03; New Adventures of Old Christine 5x06; Gary Unmarried 2x06; Modern Family 1x07; Cougar Town 1x07; Bones 5x06; Supernatural 5x08; Sunny 5x08; The League 1x02; Medium 6x07; Mad Men 3x12

Over at my DW.

Today was my early day at work: 7am-3:30pm. I left work and I was so surprised at how obvious it was that I was looking at late-afternoon sunlight. Which I know is one of those ridiculous things people comment on, like how cold it is in December - OF COURSE it's cold! It's DECEMBER! But it was shocking to me, since I haven't gotten off work at 3:30 in like, 2 years. (I don't even want to think about the light quality if we move at 3:30pm.)

The problem with having a very smart, very creative, functionally illiterate 7 year old is that most of the books at his reading level are, well, boring. Pudge cares not for Dick and Jane (Or Beth and Mr Hall, or My Dad's Big Rig.) And I feel for him, because seriously, it's like making him read bad!fic. FOR HOMEWORK. He wants to get a STORY, he just can't read stories yet. He ends up looking at the pictures and making up FABULOUS stories based on what he sees. He's brilliant at it. It just doesn't make for good grades on comprehension worksheets since he's not, you know, reading the words that are actually on the page. So he's pissed off, and frustrated, and bored. (Heaven save us from bored 7 year olds, seriously. If they could reach the gas pedal and see over the counters, they'd take over the world out of sheer spite.) So he doesn't want to read. But he HAS to, which makes it a chore, and then there's yelling and crying and continued illiteracy.

He is ... well, making progress, but I'm pretty sure there's something going on in his head. He can spell anything. Yesterday he was having trouble with the word help. He has issues with most H words. And W words. (And M, N, P, Q , B, D, and R words. He has trouble with words, is what I'm saying.) So I closed the book and asked him to spell 'help'. "H-E-L-P." I opened the book back up, and pointed to the word help. It took him a good 45 seconds to read it. That sounds like a learning ... thing, to me, because he knows his letters, sounds, phonics, and how they should go to make the sounds he's hearing. He just can't READ them. Or he's a pissy bored 7 year old. It's kind of hard to tell most days.

So my goal this holiday shopping season is to stake out bookstores and find, come hell or high water, a good dozen interesting easy-readers. I know they're out there, especially the holiday special type books. I think if I could find that one book to spark a love of reading, we might at least get the motivation to work at it a little more.

I know a lot of people feel very strongly about the following issue, but honesty is important to me. So tomorrow I'm trying a new recipe for the boys. It's a pumpkin cinnamon filled breakfast roll danish deal. It's mostly assembled from pre-made ingredients, so my lack of baking prowess (all that measuring! And recipe following! And exactitude! Who needs it!) shouldn't be an issue.

The thing is, though, I hate pumpkin. (This is where the defriending may come in. You pumpkin loving types are so harsh!) I really hate pumpkin. Pumpkin pie is nasty. Pumpkin spice lattes are just a damn shameful thing to happen to a good cup of joe. And I'm pretty sure pumpkin Hershey's kisses came out this year specifically to dampen my holiday spirits.

So the question here is, when cooking something you don't like for the first time, how do you determine if the recipe is a success prior to serving it? Also, the recipe only calls for about half the quantity of pumpkin I had to buy - the store was out of small cans of pureed pumpkin, so I got a big one. Any suggestions for how to use the rest up? That's not pie? Or something I'd want to otherwise consume? I'll probably make ravioli out of it if nothing else comes up, but ravioli is so good, and pumpkin is SO BAD.

Hey, so anybody know anything about Liberty Lake/Spokane Washington? Like, job situations, school systems, cost of living, etc? I'm counting unhatched chickens here, but there is some kind of possibility Complicated may relocate. Which would, more than likely, include me relocating. Um. Yeah.

This 37 Item includes

NCIS: Los Angeles 1x04; Law& Order 20x04; Medium 6x04; Psych 4x09; New Adventures of Old Christine 5x04; 30 Rock 4x01; NFL; Sunny 5x04; Community 1x05; The Office 6x06; Mad Men 3x10; Accidentally on Purpose 1x05; Heroes 4x03; Heroes 4x04; Trauma 1x03; Trauma 1x04; 90210 2x06; Vampire Diaries 1x05; Greek 3x07; NCIS: Los Angeles 1x05; the forgotten 1x05; Parks and Recreation 2x06; The Office 6x07; 30 Rock; Sunny 5x06; New Adventures of Old Christine 5x05; Numb3rs 6x04; Sunny 5x05; Community 1x06; Mercy 1x03; Heroes 4x06; Gossip Girl 3x06; 90210 2x07; Castle 2x05; Glee 1x08; Law & Order 20x05; Dollhouse 2x04

Over at my DW.

So on my drive home, I have to come down one side of the river, go across the bridge and then drive back up the other side of the river to get to my house. As I'm driving, singing along to Fall Out Boy, I see lots of flashing red and blue lights. Well, it was 10pm, and there is a bar over there, so I thought maybe sobriety check point.

As I stop on the other side of the river waiting to cross the bridge, I realize, hmm, that's a LOT of lights. More than I think there would be for a check point. Well, there are a lot of kind of hidden roads coming out onto the 50mph highway there, possibly one of the many, many fender-benders that occur over here.

As I come across the bridge, I realize the lots and lots and LOTS of lights, and many many many more police cars I see passing in front of me are all gathered in front of the convenience store.

"This is probably bad," I think to myself, counting at least 12 cop cars.

So, the road is totally blocked off. All four lanes of the highway, by at least 12 cop cars, in front of the convenience store. "Strange things are afoot at the Circle K," I think to myself. (I can't help it! I love that movie!) And I sit there. And I sit there some more. No one knows what's going on. At this point, I'm starting to get a little worried. I can't see how far down the blockage of the road goes, and my kids are at home somewhere beyond the flashing lights.

Finally, after about 15 minutes, the cars clear, and I get home. I see nothing as I pass the Circle K, I see no debris or crashed cars on the side of the road. I come in, check all the locks and windows and my kids are safe and soundly asleep. I turn on the 10pm news - nothing. I search all the local news websites - nothing. Finally, I get the local newspaper site up and get this:

Police briefly blocked off a section of [my street] in both directions Wednesday night, Oct. 21.

The 200-yard section of the roadway was closed around 10:30 p.m. as Hamilton police appeared to be looking for a suspect in the 800 block of [my street] in the area of a building containing a Circle K convenience store.

Police on scene said they have the situation under control.

Um.

THIS IS NOT HELPFUL!

A suspect in WHAT? WHY?

I am currently watching the local news and still NOTHING. WTF, local news! I have concerns!

So, as my twitter followers know, today I saw Everyone's Favorite Doctor. My GYN just so happens to be my GP, because 1 she'll do it, 2 she's pretty good at it, 3 she's covered under my insurance, and 4 that way my full medical history is all together and I don't have to remember things. Turns out I'm relatively A-OK, health wise.

( cut for doctor-talk )

The boys are sick. Well, Goober is mostly over it, enough so that he sounds terrible but isn't really feeling all that bad anymore. Pudge, on the other hand, is ... a baby. He's still little enough that when he's not feeling well he just cries. A lot. And I feel for him, I really do. Being sick sucks, I know. But...

Me: Honey, stop crying.
Pudge: I ca-a-a-a-a-n't!
Me: I know, sweetie, but crying will make you feel worse.
Pudge: I can't feel worse!
Me: I know, honey. The best thing to do is calm down and try to get some sleep.
Pudge: I ca-a-a-a-a-n't!

And so on. Bless his little heart, I love him, but there is nothing worse than your kid being in pain and not being able to do anything about it. At 2am. When you're tired. And he won't shut up.

I pretty much hate everything and everyone and every every ever.

Just so you know.

I have been overrun lately with sheer rage and also panic. For instance, while I'm pretty sure the airplane I saw flying high without a care in the world was not ACTUALLY going to suddenly fall out of the sky and land squarely on my house, it did not stop me from frantically calling home just to be sure.

Doctor on Tuesday to ensure no more exploding and further discuss my ongoing adventures with this whole being crazy thing.

So here it is, mostly a list of the 38 or so things I watched this past week, plus an apology, plus a bit of rambling on the forgotten and why I stopped watching it, even with the otherwise complete lack of Christian Slater in my life.

( Sunny 5x02; The Office 6x04; Mercy 1x02; Eastwick 1x02; Three Rivers 1x01; How I Met Your Mother 5x03; Supernatural 5x04; Supernatural 5x05; Psych; NFL; Nascar; NHL; Gary Unmarried 2x03; Modern Family 1x03; Cougar Town 1x03; Community 1x04; The Simpsons 21x03; Family Guy 8x03; Mad Men 3x09; How I Met Your Mother 5x04; Accidentally on Purpose 1x04; Drop Dead Diva 1x12; Drop Dead Diva 1x13; House 6x03; Greek 3x06; Castle 2x03; Castle 2x04; Fringe 2x04; The Forgotten 1x04; Dollhouse 2x03; CSI 10x04; Gossip Girl 3x05; Lie To Me 2x02; Lie To Me 2x03; Flash Forward 1x01; Flash Forward 1x02; Glee 1x07; NCIS 7x04 )