cleolinda | Entries tagged with conversations with my sister

So I'm over in the den working--it's Saturday, but everyone's running around and there's no one's around to keep an eye on the dogs, so I'm doing the weekday routine instead--and my sister comes in to make a sandwich before she goes to work. I hear her and Mom discussing--cheese? Swiss cheese? I'm not sure? And then I hear my mother say, "Ohhhhhhh--!" The next coherent thing I hear is from my sister: "I think my finger is falling off."

So my mother hustles her off to the MedHelp clinic. From what I was able to gather from the scene of the accident, my sister was trying to slice a rather tough block of cheese, the knife slipped and cut her finger instead, and because she was already bearing down so hard--you get the picture.

Then later I hear from my stepfather, who has talked to Mom, that MedHelp says they can't do anything for her. She's going to have to go to the university hospital. I'm starting to feel a little sick about this now.

Two or three hours into this, I get a call from my sister. She sounds deadpan and very tired.

"Oh my God, is everything okay?"

"Yeah, well... looks like I cut through the tendon. But I still have sensitivity. They made it sound a lot worse than it actually is, even worse than I thought it was. So I'm going to go into surgery... whenever. Stitches. I don't know if they're going to give me anything, though."

"They're not going to give you any anesthesia?"

"I don't know. I'm just afraid--see, you know all the medical shows I watch." She was really into ER back in the day, and now she's into Grey's Anatomy. "I'm probably going to get an intern. It's probably going to be their first stitch--" I hear my mother talking in the background. "NO I'm not afraid it's going to look bad, I'm afraid they're going to mess up my hand!"

" 'Do you have an Izzie? Don't give me Izzie.' "

"Heh, yeah."

(I have no idea if Izzie's a terrible doctor or not. It was just the first Grey's name that came to mind.)

"So anyway, I was calling to see if you could put my clothes in the dryer. Forty minutes on permanent press or whatever."

So today was my grandmother's 86th birthday, and while we're having a family thing for her on Sunday, my mother, Sister Girl and I went over to have lunch with her today, just because. (Speaking of my sister--oh, who had the link to this? The Pattinson Doppelgänger has apparently since been sighted in Texas.) On the way over (my mother was in a separate car, coming over from work), we decided that we are going be in a metal band. As you do. Well, technically, since it's just the two of us, we're doing to be a metal duo.

"All I know is that it all just sounds like ( Read more... )

So last night we finally decorated the tree that we got last weekend--the first thing you have to understand is that Christmas is a BIG THING in my family. Not in a religious sense--in a We Are Going to Decorate the SHIT Out of This House sense, and I love it. Of course, I loved it double-plus verygood when my mother opened a bottle of wine ("@cleolinda: Bottle of wine WOOOOOOOO"). I sucked down two glasses before she'd even made a dent in one ("@cleolinda: Second glass of wine WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"). Y'all, I need to drink every night. For real.

But before we get to the picspam, I will relay unto you a story Sister Girl told while she and her friend J. and I were in the kitchen afterwards: "YOU HAVE TO BLOG ABOUT THIS." (J.: "You haven't told her this yet? Oh, you gotta tell her this.") This past Monday, Sister Girl was minding her own business, working at Panera, you see, walking behind the registers carrying whatever it was wherever she was going-- ( The best book title Robert Ludlum never came up with )

Moving on! A Tannenbaum picspam expanded from LIVE ON THE SCENE Twitter posts last night:

( Read more... )

(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

( that's a really low branch are we sure it's dead )

( Look, I will sell my blood plasma to pay you NOT to bring that home and give it to me )

It's a Pity Party and You're Invited!

STOP BEING DEPRESSED, STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT. YOU'RE DOING IT TO YOURSELF THIS TIME. YOU DO IT TO YOURSELF EVERY YEAR THIS TIME OF YEAR.

Speaking of Never Getting Married

From

audheim: The Anti-Wedding.

How You Know Sister Girl Is an Adult Now:

"I'd really like a mixer for Christmas."

More Tales of Cleo the Quick Study:

"Which color mixer do you like the best? I kind of like the cornflower, the ice blue, the reef blue--" ( Read more... )

HEY IT'S A MEME ( Eight werewolves a-milking )

By the way, I finally broke down and fulfilled my destiny on this earth: ( FINISHING MOVE: LOLPIRE )

Current Music: Killers playlist

And now I sleep.

( Linkspam! )

Current Mood: sleepy

Why does my internet hate me? It takes two or three refreshes for any page to load, so the problem's got to be on my end. And I've run CCleaner and AdAware and all and can't find anything. Fnarr.

Also, Sister Girl wants you to know that Pete now has a lampshade on his head. You know, one of those cones they put around dogs' necks to keep them from chewing at stitches and whatever. "I'm going to have a satellite dog for a week," she moaned. "Well, maybe you'll get better reception now," I said.

Anyway, today's journal flashback: let's do that one time I went to see Derailed.

Linkspam! ( In the 1920s, the French brought the first writers from Asia to Europe )

Current Mood: bouncy

So Pete, Sister Girl's dog, is at the vet overnight on an IV because he can't stop throwing up for some reason (God, I hope he's going to be okay). So when she called to make sure he hadn't thrown up yesterday while I was dogsitting him, she started talking about trying to watch the final Twilight trailer, and I got to play Horrify the Twilight Noob (one of my favoritest games) with her as well. Except that she didn't get to see the whole thing, because Pete started throwing up shortly after she got to the "Kryptonite" line.

"Well, dude! That explains everything. Your dog is allergic to Twilight."

"That line was awful, by the way. Was it supposed to be stupid? Can Kristen Stewart not act?"

"No, trust me. I've read the books. She is doing the best she can with what they're giving her."

And then I read her that bit from the "I'm gay"/"He's impotent" interview and regaled her with excerpts of Growing Up Cullen. ("Oh, he would totally scrapbook." "You haven't even read the books!" "No, but he totally would.") I am slowly converting the people around me to The Dark Side, The Way of Lulz, so that someone will take me to see this movie next month.

Oh, and since we've been having Sherlock Holmes set pics: a flashback to the Case Book of Sherlock Holmes entry, in which I express some frustration with "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane." Also notable for "the zenith of Holmes/Watson slashiness."

Linkspam! ( Slutty baby pirates, zombie pinups, omgwtfpolarbear! *splash* )

After Paul Newman this morning, I think we could all use some cheering up now.

So Sister Girl came over--the plumbing is out at her apartment, so she needed to wash some clothes and dishes, and with her she brought several new stories about Pete the puppy. First of all, here's a picture she sent me a while back of Pete in his new t-shirt:

It says "Wild Man." What you can't see is that on the left side, there is (apparently) "a small or baby werewolf." Apparently Pete is declaring himself to be firmly on Team Fursplode. (Also, keep in mind that this picture was taken from above Pete, so the perspective makes him look like his neck is as long as the rest of his body. Which is not, in fact, the case.) ( And then Pete texted Sister Girl's boyfriend )

So last night, Sister Girl and Sister Girl's boyfriend and I were watching the nightly NBC news, you know, with Brian Williams, and some telethon had pushed it up to 6:30 from 5:30 but Sister Girl was happy that she'd get to see it anyway, because apparently she loves Brian Williams, so we sat there and laughed for a half an hour as he walked down the streets of drizzly, antclimactically un-Gustaved New Orleans, stopping occasionally to put his hands on his hips in a hero pose and intone things like, "But NO ONE... died today... in NEW ORLEANS."

"I'm gonna name my kid Brian Williams," she announces.

"Like, first name and middle name, or like 'Mary Catherine,' all together?"

"No, like Mary Catherine. Brian Williams."

"BRIAN WILLIAMS, YOU GET UP THERE AND CLEAN YOUR ROOM RIGHT NOW!"

So then she tells us this story about how this guy she works with is named Michael, and he's a Michael Jr., so he doesn't want his son to be Michael III. But he still wants him to be named Michael, so he's going to name the kid... JaMichael. (Pronunciation: "Juh-MICHAEL.")

"You need to name your kid JaBrian Williams," I tell her. "You know, so no one gets confused."

So Brian Williams is still striking poses all over Bourbon Street and we start trying to figure out what the next few hurricanes will be called, since we've already got Gustav, Hanna, and Ike in play. I think you know what the answer to this question is.

"JaHurricane, obviously."

"It was upgraded from JaTropical Storm."

I have to tell you, we cried laughing over this. No, we were not high.

Current Mood: giggly

I'm feeling all cramptastic so I'm curled up early in bed when Sister Girl calls: "DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS AT THE END OF INDIANA JONES?" ( Spoilers )

Current Mood: toasty

"HEY..."

"Yeah?"

"I KNOW IT'S LOUD IN HERE [at ComicCon], SORRY... I CAN'T GET IN TO SEE NEIL GAIMAN, SO..."

"Oh, I didn't think you'd be able to, you've got to pay like $500 just to get near him..."

"YEAH... SO... THERE'S A MARIE ANTOINETTE FIGURE, IT'S GOT, LIKE, AN EJECTOR HEAD, WOULD YOU WANT THAT? THERE'S A DA VINCI, AND A..."

"Oh, yeah, those. There's like a Jane Austen and a Jesus, isn't there?"

"YEAH, BUT... THERE'S A MARIE ANTOINETTE. DO YOU WANT THAT?"

"Sure."

"OH, AND I MET SETH GREEN. AND IT WAS AWESOME."

"Heh."

"YEAH, APPARENTLY HE'S HERE BECAUSE HE WROTE A GRAPHIC NOVEL, AND THEY WERE LIKE, STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND COME HERE, THIS IS A BUYER AND THIS IS THE BUYER'S GIRLFRIEND, AND HE WAS LIKE, 'HEY....' AND IT WAS AWESOME."

(laughter)

"Hey, you know that part at the end of Cloverfield, where they're under the bridge?"

"Yeah?"

"What's it called? I think I'm there." ( Read more... )

( Linkspam )

Sister Girl wants you to know that she just met Ángel Salazar and someone who at first I thought was named "Shiraz," but upon IMDBing Best Week Ever, must be Sherrod Small, at a Comedy Central taping. (Look, we didn't have a good phone connection.) Thus concludes Her Life Is Cooler Than Mine, New York Edition, Part One of Five.

Sister Girl and I were talking just now, and I was telling her about this History of the Universe show Mom was watching (I think?), and how some of the people on it were, like, the dumbest people ever. ( Lauren, I think you're in the wrong field )

In other news, scrambled eggs for dinner last night laid me out but good, but a six-inch Italian sub and spicy corn chips for lunch today? Totally fine. I guess eggs really are hard to digest.

Oh! Cleoville! Cleoville is having some problems. I need more population so I can get to the point where they'll let me put up a clicky link to improve the environment, but the environment's already getting crapful and I have no way to do anything about it, unlike with the previous two things (transportation and industry), so people are leaving "for some unpolluted clean air." Which means that I can't get enough people to stay to get the population high enough to do anything about the environment. Also? Criminals are blowing up factories (I need more security), which is... kind of awesome, actually. I like to pretend the Joker's behind it all. Again, post your links in the comments and I'll click on them (ah, the joys of tabbed browsing).

L'Affaire Edwards: Cassie Edwards Plagiarism Recap; Romance novelist Edwards' publisher reviewing plagiarism claims; Signet: Cassie Edwards Situation "Deserves Further Review"; Why boycotting isn’t a viable answer to the plagiarism issue; Nora Roberts: 'Seems clear' author plagiarized.

While we're here: Another debacle in which Nora Roberts was totally awesome, or, That Time That Someone Thought Film Clips of the Challenger and Tiannenmen Square, The Latter Set to "Don't Worry, Be Happy," Were Appropriate for a Romance Writing Awards Ceremony.

( Massive linkspam )

Current Mood: cheerful

So. We had breakfast for dinner, with scrambled eggs and bacon and toast (and not toaster toast, oven toast, which is always better because you can toast it with the butter already on) and hash browns (fried! not baked! because we were baking the toast!) and everything was delicious and crispy and wonderful. Except the eggs. They weren't crispy, because that would be gross.

Anyway! It's storytime again, like I promised, only it's not about my mother, it's another Awesome Tale of Awesome TV Awesomeness. I was working the other day and Sister Girl came home and flopped down and turned on the TV and happened across the Lifetime Television Movies for Women and People Staying Home Sick (or Maybe Just Hungover) Channel, which was having a Nora Roberts marathon. "Heh," she said. "I saw this the other night." ( Shoot him! WELL, SHOOT HIM! )

Okay, so I saw two movies of note over the last couple of days--as opposed to all the others on TV floating around in there, I mean--and the first one was Rendition Sunday night--the one about the innocent Egyptian-American man accused of terrorism and spirited away to a secret prison in North Africa. It was okay; I think the smartest thing in the whole movie was the casting. Meryl Streep didn't have very much to do, but when you saw her Ball-Breaker CIA Lady character coming, you instinctively quailed in fear if you'd seen The Devil Wears Prada. Reese Witherspoon didn't get much to do besides camp out pregnantly in a senator's office and scream a hundred variations on "WHERE IS MY HUSBAAAAAND????," but you knew her character would be smart, driven and determined. And Jake Gyllenhaal--the rookie operative in North Africa--got a little to do, but he spent most of the movie staring moistly at torture to indicate that it was Tearing Him Up Inside Omg, and that's exactly what you hire Jake Gyllenhaal for. So the casting shouldered most of the work, although there was a nifty little something I won't spoil that elevated the movie from two stars to maybe two and a half or even three.

(Side note: "Andrew Appel has some fascinating analysis of the "guilt by association" algorithm that AT&T uses to help the FBI figure out whose life to ruin with baseless accusations of terrorist involvement." So it's nice to know that the government is grabbing people on even shakier evidence than in the movie.)

And then this afternoon there was Hard Candy. Jesus H. Christ, is all I have to say about that. Well, and maybe this [spoilers]: ( AWESOME! IS IT OVER YET NO NO NO IT'S NOT OVER OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! )

So I didn't get a lot of work done today, is what I'm saying. Although I did get a decent hour's worth of hashing out additions to the first three chapters--when we need to do what, and so on. On Friday I wrote an entirely new beginning to the novelly thing--well, not entirely new; if you've read the original, you'll recognize it. But in terms of the actual words on the page, yeah, it's different. More dialogue, for one, and less melodramatic description. That is, there is both less description and the description that is there is also less melodramatic. Just so you know. I think it works pretty well, so, you know: good times.

Speaking of Ellen Page: New 'Juno' poster.

( Linkspam! )

Current Mood: blah

I'm in the kitchen making caramel brownies for the pumpkin-carving party tonight. Sister Girl, a certified pastry chef, is helpfully ("Use a spatula") pointing out ("Stir it like this") everything ("That's too much cooking spray") I'm doing wrong. (Laughing: "Well, am I putting it into the pan wrong?" Also laughing: "I don't know, I haven't seen you do it yet.") In the den, the Charter guys are here to hook up all the tentacly bits of the TV/cable box/DVD player, while my parents assist.

Sister Girl: "Mom's hitting on the tall one."

Me: "Heh."

Sister Girl: [indicates her approval nonverbally]

Me: "So it's worth it, then. But why is he wearing a safety vest? What is it, hunting season?"

Sister Girl: "I have no idea."

Me: "Heh. For cougars."

Lamictal, day 14: Which means that tomorrow is day 15, also known as the Big Jump to 50 Milligrams. And, very likely, a return to being unable to read.

God, the weather is beautiful today--a breezy, gorgeous sixty-six degrees. This is pretty much the warmest I like things to get, so now you know why I like fall and spring so much.

(Okay, the smoke alarm just went off because my sister turned the fireplace on. It's sixty-six degrees. IT'S NOT FIRE TIME YET.

I foresee particularly bitter battles in the Thermostat War this year.)

Remember the Paris in Wonderland story I mentioned a couple of days ago? I told it to Sister Girl over dinner tonight, and she just stared at me for, in all seriousness, about five seconds. I honestly could not figure out what her reaction was. Finally, she said, "I... I don't think I've ever felt this way before."

"What is it--like what?"

"It's like.." Long pause. "Sunshine. And... rainbows. I think... I think I have invented a new feeling."

"Nahhhh, it's called schadenfreude. You just never knew what it was called before."

Astronomers find distant, fluffy planet.

[Bad username or site: lyrical nights @ livejournal.com]: "Dog the Bounty Hunter has been arrested for capturing Andrew Luster (rapist Max Factor heir) in Mexico andbringing him back to the US in 2003. That's some kind of bitter irony right there." More:

TV reality star Duane "Dog" Chapman and two co-stars on his show were arrested Thursday in Hawaii on charges of illegal detention and conspiracy in the bounty hunters' capture three years ago of a cosmetics company heir.

The charges stem from Chapman's capture of Max Factor heir Andrew Luster on June 18, 2003, in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, said Marshals spokeswoman Nikki Credic in Washington.

Chapman's capture of Luster, who had fled the country while on trial on charges he raped three women, catapulted the 53-year-old bounty hunter to fame and led to the reality series on A&E.

Two possible explanations for this story: 1) This woman may have had something to do with the disappearance of her son, or 2) Nancy Grace drove a woman to suicide.

"Survivor" maven's big racial experiment a bust. "At the outset, most players made feeble comments about the ethnic divisions. Some registered pride; others didn't care. Not that any of this is truly indicative of how they felt. The show always has been so slickly produced and edited that, in the end, what comes out of the players' mouths is mostly what the producers want viewers to hear. If you think, for even a nanosecond, that someone might say, 'We're going to show those (insert your favorite racial epithet)!' and it would get on the air, I've got some fabulous UPN stock to offer you."

New Casino Royale poster.

You, too, can live in the Shire. But if there aren't any round doors, you guys are just half-assing it.

Costumer's Guide: Tons new Marie Antoinette prettiness, and some excellent hi-hi-res shots of the Pirates 2 wedding dress, where you can see

tecno_fairy's handiwork.

Current Music: David Bowie, "Golden Years"

I pick up the landline in the den when I see my mother's cell number on the caller ID. "I've been trying to call you," my mother says.

"I was outside with the dogs," I say. I actually still have their leashes in my hand, and a paper towel underfoot from trying to soak up another one of Meko's accidents.

"I've been trying to call you for an hour," my mother says. She sounds kind of tired-angry. "Your phone must be dead."

"Yeah, it ran all the way down while Sister Girl had my charger--she gave it back to me last night, though, so it's recharging now."

"She's with me. She wants to tell you something."

This might sound kind of ominous to you, but she does this all the time. "No, give me the phone, I want to tell her." That kind of thing.

"Hey," Sister Girl says. "I'm in the emergency room."

"What?"

"I got hit by a car."

"Ohhhhh my God. Were you in a car?"

"Yeah, yeah." Sister Girl just sounds plain tired. I can't hear what she says because the connection keeps fuzzing in and out, but I can tell that she's laughing. "I know I'm laughing, you [fizz fizz] I'm crazy, that's just how I [fizz fizz] with things." I dunno, I might understand that better than you think. "This seventy-eight-year-old guy with an expired [fizz fizz]--"

"Ohhhhh my God--"

"--was going to the doctor--you can imagine, he shouldn't have been [fizz fizz] in the first place--decided he just wanted to make a left turn all of a sudden [fizz fizz] left side of my car is gone."

"Ohhhhh my God."

"I hit my head--not hard, but you know, the buttons [fizz fizz] cap--" She was driving home from her 5 am-1 pm shift at Panera, I assume, and she has these little buttons they make her wear on her uniform cap to show that she's, like, instrument-rated for paninis or fully trained in the arts of salad or whatever. "I'm pretty sure they've taken his license away [fizz fizz fizzzzzzz fizz]--"

"I can't hear you at all now--"

"I [fizz fizz], we're going to be here for a while. Did you know that Mom works for the police now?"

"Yeah, I did." Sister Girl's got such an I'm a Pastry Chef and I'm Okay schedule (she learns all night and she works all day) that I guess she hasn't been around to hear Mom's many, many stories of the university police department and its benefits-related escapades. (You think I'm being facetious, but I'm really, really not. I can't really get into it because it's not even my confidence to violate, but... "they finally found him in New Orleans" was uttered at one point.) I can't tell what Sister Girl's saying now at all, but if I had to guess, I'd say that it involves how Mom's police connections are going to... something. I don't know. It's pretty clearly Mr. Magoo's fault for making a random (and illegal? I'm not sure of the exact details) left turn and annihilating what sounds like the driver's side of my sister's car. I don't know that we need superelite connections to establish that. I'm more concerned about the insurance and fixing and/or replacing the car and, you know, the possible damage to my sister's brain.

"So what I'm saying is," she concludes, "I'm not gonna be home for a while. You can go lock the door back."

ETA: I should add, she seemed to indicate that the man was driving himself because there wasn't anyone else to take him to the doctor. Also, she said something about "traveler's insurance." I actually feel really bad for the guy--I'm sure he didn't mean to hurt anyone, and he probably feels terrible now. Also, she says she's not bleeding or anything.

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Cleolinda everywhere

Classy dame, sparkle consultant, gothic enthusiast, sporadic recapper.

Entries tagged with conversations with my sister

Uh oh

... Maybe you had to be there

This is your blogger on wine

Two stories

Let's get stuff that takes up lots of room out of the way

flop

Still deskdancing. The shame

Sleepy

Everybody's crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed dog

Early post for the hell of it

Sister Girl just saw Indiana Jones

Sister Girl's Life Is Better Than Mine, Day Three

Sister Girl in New York, Day Two

"Shiraz? Yeah, I've... heard of him..."

After a day of reading Ray Bradbury short stories

She's psychic! She would know!

Monday evening, blah

Sotto voce

Through the looking glass

Phone calls you don't want to get