Soledad's Journal

... can make military parades so addictive that I'd forget about everything else.

Originally, I planned to have a very, very crafty day. And then Trooping the Colours happened, and I was glued in front of the telly the whole day. Both ZDF and ORF2 showed it live; I watched it on ZDF because I could understand German better on that one. The comments were relatively intelligent, I only switched to BBC when they started on the Duke of Sausages from Monteshitshow for a while. I'm really sick and tired of people bringing that spoiled brat into the conversation every time. If I never heard of him and that wife of his again, it would be too soon. [/end rant]

Other than that, the parade was really impressive. I could watch those soldiers perform all day. And while I'm not a fan of Charles III, the fact that both he and the Princess Royal went through the whole thing on horseback, at their age, deserves respect.

After the parade, I thought I'd finally do some crafting, when my friend and (ex-)colleague, Ilonka, called. She's also retired (a couple of months older than me), and I used to have her twin daughters in my class for a few years. Now one of said daughters has married and borne a child (over 8 months now), and they thought they'd finally bring the kid over. There's a toddlers' playground right next to our building, so we met there. Even Mum came down with us and a good time was had by everyone.

After that I decided that I'll do some crafting, even if it kills me. Fortunately, I already had cut the large felt sheets I had bought yesterday to the right size: 16 page bases, 20cm by 16 cm, for the two songbooks, and 6 page bases, 20cm by 20 cm for some future quiet book. I happened to buy a bit too much felt, but those things never go to waste in our house.

I also cut out 14 clouds (for the two songbooks), 5 trees (for one of the books) and the bases for two ants and two cow. Coming up: the bases for two bears, another 3 trees (for the other book), the crowns for all 8 trees, 14 suns, 10 grassy srtipes, 14 pockets for the finger puppets, 2 ovens, 2 mills, 2 carts, 2 fleas, 2 mosquitoes... and a few other details. And when all that is done, I can finally start sewing.

No progress on the baby book, of course. The deadline starts haunting me in my dreams. Or nightmares. Whatever. When did the days become so short?

Yeah, the American version of Sherlock. God, it was dull. And while they apparently thought that female!Watson was a strike of genius, well, it wasn't. Not to mention that Lucy Liu didn't age gracefully, the fact that neither actor has more than one single expression doesn't make it a captivating programme.

Habe Das Römer-Experiment auf 3sat heute Abend gesehen. Es war sehr interessant. Experimente Archeologie ist etwas das mich schon immer fasziniert hat, obwohl ich es ernsthaft bezweifle ob ich je an solch einem Experiment teilnehmen würde. Ich mag mein Komfort viel zu sehr.

Na jedenfalls, die Sendung war sehr lehrreich. Ich habe mich schon mein ganzes Leben lang - na ja, sagen wir seit dem fünften Schuljahr - mit der römischen Antike beschäftigt, aber mir ist gerade klar geworden welche Wissenslücken ich noch immer habe. Auch wenn sich die Wissenschaft in der Zwischenzeit erheblich weiterentwickelt hat, ich kam mir for als eine blutige Anfängerin. *g*

Über die inhaltlichen Interessen hinaus, es war wirklich schön endlich einmal etwas Handfestes zu sehen, etwas was diese Leute eigenhändig gebaut haben, anstatt der üblichen Filmtricks. Diese zwei Stunden waren sehr gewinnbringend verbracht.

Elvenhome update:

Chapter 18 - The Secret of the Queen has been posted to FF.Net and Stories of Arda... from the school this morning, because the Internet died on me yesterday.

Internet recovery:

Fortunately, service guy was here just ten minutes ago and healed it. Phew! I'm soooo relieved! It shows clearly what a horrible addict I've become! At least the two days offline hindered me to post a very whiny entry I was actually planning to post - so everything has its two sides, right?

More Silmfics:

To my own very gret surprise, I found myself writing a Maedhros-centered one-shot. It's practically done, save for the last couple of paragraphs. Those who know me from the Silmfics list, few as they are in these days, would remember how utterly I despise Fëanor's get - I'd never have thought that I'd ever write anything even remotely sympathetic about either of them... and here I am, doing exactly that. Granted, it's a side product to "Elvenhome", but still... "Maitimo's Awakening" will be posted during this weekend, or so I hope.

Telly news:

The other team of service guys was here and fixed my satellite dish. Now I can watch all the usual channels, unless the current stormy wind breaks the dratted thing again. The tone is a bit low, granted, but that's not so bad. In case anything proves worth recording, I can always turn on the voice level when rewatching it.

Dead Christmas tree:

It decided to go on strike and keeled over five times in a single day. So with sorrowed hearts (it was sooo pretty!) we took it down today. This never happened before; usually we keep the tree well into February, but this one just didn't want to... :(

Other than that, school has restarted and I'm suitably dead. But that's the way things are: if you have a job, it kills you, if you don't, that kills you even more. Having a job at least gets the bills paid.

I was baking today. Yeah, surprising, innit? I tried out the gingerbread cookie recipe I wanted to bake with the kids before Xmas. Guess what? We won't be baking it. I could not get the dough to a consistence that would have enable me to roll it out in the first place. Of course, what can you expect from a recipe that requires 4 tablespoons of butter? Not melted butter, mind you, just regular butter. Now, how on Earth am I supposed to measure butter with a tablespoon? (A colleague of mine suggested using a bomb, but that was too radical for my taste.)

Clearly, I couldn't get the amounts right. The dough fell apart like Hungarian economy, and let me tell you, that's a spectacular fall! So I made little buttons and baked them, and then painted them with eggwhite and rolled them in coloured sugar. Even so, they are slighlty bitter. 3 teaspoons of ginger were too much. I never listen to the recipe again.

OTOH, I also baked the honeycake house from the Dr.Oetker package, and it turned out great. Even the sugar icing from the tube worked. It's a lovely little thing, my Knusperhäuschen, Mum is happy with it.

Other than that, I wrote a lot of Merlin stuff (4 pages of Chapter 11) and watched some TV. "Richterin Barbara Salesch" und "Panda, Gorilla & Co". I need to nurture my German a bit, too.

... has played me a cruel joke. Dratted story started to develop a life of its own, going in a direction where I never intended it to do. So I had to cut four pages from Chapter 3 (still hoping I'll be able to use it in some later adventure, when the boys are already on the Quest) and rewrite the second half of the chapter. Now it is, hopefully, back on the right track.

I've also discovered some continuity errors in the already existing few parts - oh, joy! Fortunately, it only means small modifications. I'm actually glad I've realized the errors right now, before I'd have to go back and rewrite, say, sixteen chapters or so.

Due to the Royal Wedding (TM), the only programme I usually watch in the afternoon (once a week out of five times, as in other times I'm usually at work) were cancelled today. Instead, it was Kate and William all day. Now, I have nothing against them, but I was so looking forward to see my favourite, carrot-headed lady judge... :(

Choir qualification went well yesterday. I hope we get the golden qualification again. We worked so damn hard on those pieces. Now the annual concert on the end of the term will be a piece of cake.

Certain colours have simply vanished from the screen since yesterday, the blues have become greens and all that shit. I hope I won't have to buy a new one - that certainly would spring the family budget for this trimester!

Now I can't watch me shinies... :(

On other news, I'm going to have my neck ultrasound tomorrow. And then will have to go to the neurologist. And then to the rheumatologist. All in order to find out where my tinnitus comes from.

Well, crap, I can tell them half-gods in white lab coats where it comes from. It comes from stress and from working in a *very* noisy environment. Otherwise known as primary school. So there.

I'm willing to do these three things, but when they get other fabulous ideas, I'll just quit. I've had my tinnitus for five years by now, got used to it, don't want their poking around make it any worse. 'Nuff said!

I've decided not to post any work-related stuff for a while, unless I'm in real need of moral support. I'm dealing with that shit all the time in reality, why should I sacrifice cyberlife to it as well?

So, in a sudden attack of squandering I decided to waste quite some money on DVDs today. To waste, because I don't have the time to watch them - my backlog is already as long as Gandalf's beard, and there's little hope to change that before summer holidays.

Anyway, I've bought four of the Sharpe movies - alas, I'm completely uninterested in that historical era, but they have mucho Beany goodness in them. I hope one day makamu will find the time to visit me, and then we can salivate over the movies together. I always take a look when I buy DVDs, to see if they start off at all, and laughed my head off hearing people say "Leftenent" instead of Lieutenant all the time. I know it's historically sound, it just sounds sooo funny to my foreigner's ears.

Also, I bought 5 DVDs with the first 13 episodes of Torchwood on them. As I know Hungarian entertainment industry, I'll never get the rest of the series - it's their little hobby to offer random parts of series out of connection, which is probably the reason why I can't find more than the first 3 episodes of Andromeda, either.

The rest is behind a tag to spare the feelings of the British, because I'm being a bit mean to Torchwood. So, if you think it would bother you, just don't look, okay? ;o))
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Okay, I've been mean enough. I still like Torchwood. My love for British series isn't obsessive enough to spend money on Primeval DVDs, too, but I find it a good sign that we at last do have a certain offer to chose from in the sci-fi/mystery genre. Hey, they even brought out Angel - alas, I already have bought most of Seasons 1 and 2 on VCR, and the further seasons are of no interest for me. In my eyes, Angel ended before they went to Pylea (the stupid demon dimension Lorne is from).

Heh. Enough of the verbal rubbish. Back to the regularly scheduled RL chaos. If I survive until Easter break, I'll try to catch up with flist's journals, honestly.

Well, either I'm getting progressively stupid at my old age, or today's offer in sci-fi and/or fantasy television are utter tripe. Not that the two would be mutually exclusive, mind you. But I find that there's barely anything I could really enjoy.
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Well, I readily admit that I've got genre preferences regular TV-channels don't often take into consideration. Like sci-fi that actually makes *sense* - which I haven't encountered for *years*.

Behind the tag, there be lengthy and ranting review about tonight's TV entertainment.

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