Well, win some, lose some.
Last night's Super Bowl party was awesome, and holy shit 4th quarter hi. We were talking about how it's a good thing Pittsburgh won - otherwise Harrison would forever be "That dumbshit that lost the Super Bowl with all those personal fouls" instead of "that DE who ran back a 100 yard interception." But wow, dude, anger management much? Punching the holder while he's kneeling? Classy. Only not.
I made spaghetti, salad, garlic bread, and chocolate cake, and there was plenty of all of it. There were even two jars of sauce left over! They are now in my freezer. Next time I want spaghetti I can have it with almost no effort!!
There were bunches of people, and it was lots of fun. I really enjoy hostessing, although perhaps for a selfish reason - I like making other people happy, so I like having them over and cooking for them.
Today, being a Monday, was a little less win....but the real fail didn't happen until tonight. Yesterday afternoon, my AIM connection suddenly stopped working - I had Gtalk and Yahoo, but no AIM. Tonight that was still true, for both desktop and laptop. After an unproductive and annoying half hour with Comcrap technical support, I eventually discerned that the problem was my router suddenly deciding it hated AIM for no reason. Resetting the router fixed the problem, but then there was yet more Rinafail on the horizon!
And on that note, today's Imbolc ritual was hilarious if only for my epic fail.
Momentary digression: It's fascinating to me how, up north here, Imbolc actually is measurably different in terms of daylight from Winter Solstice - the difference is not nearly so huge in Maryland, where I grew up, but around Yule the sun set at 4:30. Now it doesn't set till almost quarter til 6. Amazing. No wonder they made a holiday this time of year!
So, I realized a week or so ago that hey, today was going to be Imbolc (yes, Rina, because the date totally changes every year when you're not looking--oh wait.) And it occurred to me that maybe I should do some planning and craft a ritual, in the way of not procrastinating as much. I did some Internets hunting, and browsed through my heaps of books, and cobbled together a ritual that I liked. Upon so doing, I realized I needed 3 red candles and 4 white. I have oodles of white tea lights, and ritual candles don't burn long, so I settled on that. But I didn't have red tea lights. And I didn't have time to order them, which is annoying since I was being all responsible and stuff and trying to get this together ahead of time.
I ended up buying a set of Yankee Candle strawberry-scented tea lights - I didn't want scented ones, but I eventually decided that scented was better than none at all, and strawberries make me think of warm weather, so I chose them over apples (which would be fall.)
Well, I got home today and managed to drag the travelling trunk that functions as combination storage locker and altar from my bedroom to my living room, where there's actually enough space to cast a (small) circle. I baked up some cornbread quickly to function as the cakes part of the cakes and wine, and I had a bit of a bottle of Cabernet left over from last night, so that solved the wine issue. I don't have a cauldron (someday I will do the post about my hodgepodge acquisition of ritual items), so I appropriated an 8x8 baking dish from the kitchen and filled it with (clean) cat litter so that I didn't set anything on fire with my tea lights. I rounded up the cat and stuck him in my room so he wouldn't interfere (because Ganon has an unhealthy fascination with the top of my altar, which would not combine well with ritual candles), and started to set up.
At this point I realized that I didn't have my lighter in my altar - not a problem, there's one in the coffee table. Then I realize I don't have my incense burner, which apparently got separated from the rest of the altar gear while I was moving--and is in my bedroom. With the cat. Who is complaining loudly about his solitude.
Fuck.
If I go in there, he'll escape and then I'll have the devil's own time getting him back in, so I start looking around for alternatives. I have some small jars in my altar for spellwork (not that I've ever found a use for them, but I'm a packrat who never throws anything away). I appropriate one of them and fill it with cat litter and it manages to hold a stick of incense upright, so I figure that's good enough. At this point I am hoping the gods have a sense of humour (I'm pretty sure they do, but one never can tell.)
To cap it off, I manage to forget which way is north (here's a hint, dumbass: if your altar is facing EAST, then north is always going to be to your left. Think you can manage to remember that one, genius?) and fuck up my circle casting twice.
....At least the candles were very pretty, and smelled like warm weather.
Some days, I figure my fail just rises to the level of the merely comical.
I made spaghetti, salad, garlic bread, and chocolate cake, and there was plenty of all of it. There were even two jars of sauce left over! They are now in my freezer. Next time I want spaghetti I can have it with almost no effort!!
There were bunches of people, and it was lots of fun. I really enjoy hostessing, although perhaps for a selfish reason - I like making other people happy, so I like having them over and cooking for them.
Today, being a Monday, was a little less win....but the real fail didn't happen until tonight. Yesterday afternoon, my AIM connection suddenly stopped working - I had Gtalk and Yahoo, but no AIM. Tonight that was still true, for both desktop and laptop. After an unproductive and annoying half hour with Comcrap technical support, I eventually discerned that the problem was my router suddenly deciding it hated AIM for no reason. Resetting the router fixed the problem, but then there was yet more Rinafail on the horizon!
And on that note, today's Imbolc ritual was hilarious if only for my epic fail.
Momentary digression: It's fascinating to me how, up north here, Imbolc actually is measurably different in terms of daylight from Winter Solstice - the difference is not nearly so huge in Maryland, where I grew up, but around Yule the sun set at 4:30. Now it doesn't set till almost quarter til 6. Amazing. No wonder they made a holiday this time of year!
So, I realized a week or so ago that hey, today was going to be Imbolc (yes, Rina, because the date totally changes every year when you're not looking--oh wait.) And it occurred to me that maybe I should do some planning and craft a ritual, in the way of not procrastinating as much. I did some Internets hunting, and browsed through my heaps of books, and cobbled together a ritual that I liked. Upon so doing, I realized I needed 3 red candles and 4 white. I have oodles of white tea lights, and ritual candles don't burn long, so I settled on that. But I didn't have red tea lights. And I didn't have time to order them, which is annoying since I was being all responsible and stuff and trying to get this together ahead of time.
I ended up buying a set of Yankee Candle strawberry-scented tea lights - I didn't want scented ones, but I eventually decided that scented was better than none at all, and strawberries make me think of warm weather, so I chose them over apples (which would be fall.)
Well, I got home today and managed to drag the travelling trunk that functions as combination storage locker and altar from my bedroom to my living room, where there's actually enough space to cast a (small) circle. I baked up some cornbread quickly to function as the cakes part of the cakes and wine, and I had a bit of a bottle of Cabernet left over from last night, so that solved the wine issue. I don't have a cauldron (someday I will do the post about my hodgepodge acquisition of ritual items), so I appropriated an 8x8 baking dish from the kitchen and filled it with (clean) cat litter so that I didn't set anything on fire with my tea lights. I rounded up the cat and stuck him in my room so he wouldn't interfere (because Ganon has an unhealthy fascination with the top of my altar, which would not combine well with ritual candles), and started to set up.
At this point I realized that I didn't have my lighter in my altar - not a problem, there's one in the coffee table. Then I realize I don't have my incense burner, which apparently got separated from the rest of the altar gear while I was moving--and is in my bedroom. With the cat. Who is complaining loudly about his solitude.
Fuck.
If I go in there, he'll escape and then I'll have the devil's own time getting him back in, so I start looking around for alternatives. I have some small jars in my altar for spellwork (not that I've ever found a use for them, but I'm a packrat who never throws anything away). I appropriate one of them and fill it with cat litter and it manages to hold a stick of incense upright, so I figure that's good enough. At this point I am hoping the gods have a sense of humour (I'm pretty sure they do, but one never can tell.)
To cap it off, I manage to forget which way is north (here's a hint, dumbass: if your altar is facing EAST, then north is always going to be to your left. Think you can manage to remember that one, genius?) and fuck up my circle casting twice.
....At least the candles were very pretty, and smelled like warm weather.
Some days, I figure my fail just rises to the level of the merely comical.