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  • Silvertree

    Mod post: No wishlist posts in blogs

    By Silvertree

    Please be aware that we do not permit swap-related content on profiles or in blogs. Please post this content only in the For Sale, Swaps, and Wanted forums, or in the Wishlists topic. ~from Swapping 101  Thanks!
    • 5 comments
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Denise's Cool Blog
 

I got another package!

I just got my 3 imps from Caltha:   Annabel Lee New Orleans Yerevan   I love all three! Of course New Orleans totally turned into jasmine, like most others involving it... hehe... so I basically have about 5 oils that smell exactly the same on me! But at least I like it!   Yerevan and Annabel Lee are delicious!
eviltemptressdq

eviltemptressdq

0
This Old Snark
 

Work? (Smirk.)

Given that her attention span is normally comparable to that of a fruit fly on a normal day, Snarky's ability to maintain "workplace workface" today has been a hopelessly lost battle from the get-go.   Not only is her heart and mind still racing through MoveIntoTheHouse scenarios, but their contractor is currently tearing up the subfloor in the main bathroom right now, with no way of being finished until the ordered flooring (Asian Tiger! Rawr!) gets in tomorrow at the earliest.   And tonight is The Great Cat Migration '06. The Snarks' furbabies do not take to their carriers very well. At all. EVER. They could be going to the land of catnip and cheeses and still with the yeowling and bloody murder.   Before TGCM'06 comes The Death Defying Cat Wrangling of Ought Six. Snarky only hopes that they have managed to leave one polypro jacket unpacked in which she can suit up in order to protect her fragile, extremely claw-able hand/arm/chest/neck skin. She has had to have medical attention applied to her body in the past. At the vet's office. Cat Wrangling is that violent, swift, and gory.   Tomorrow is the Official Day of Moving, though the Snarks have been schlepping bits and pieces of their lives over to the house for the last two weeks. Last night Snarky did their first quarterless load of laundry in their very own, new washer and dryer! They also have a shiny new fridge! The Snarks are a bit disconcerted by the new appliance smell coming off of said fridge, but they are confident that a few trips to the Safeway will eliminate the problem.   One more hour left before the bloodletting fun begins. Snarky suspects she will be radio silent after tomorrow morning possibly through Monday. The Cable Guy is supposed to be hooking the Snarks up Saturday morning (between the hours of 10 and 12, of course). Even if all goes well, Snarky might opt for the more alluring prospect of blissful unconsciousness Sunday rather than playing catchup. If Snarky gets too caught up tomorrow, she wishes all of y'all a wonderful weekend in advance.
darkitysnark

darkitysnark

4
What ever happened to Generation X?
 

Fingers crossed

Today Greg (my DH) has a job interview. He's probably being interviewed right now as I type this. Please, please let them make him an offer. He's been out of work since November, and our cash flow situation is not good.   This company told him they were in a "hiring frenzy," so I feel I have reason to be hopeful. If he doesn't get this job, he's probably going to have to look for a job -- any old job, purely to bring in some income -- outside his field (he's in a very competitive field), and that will crush his ego.   I'm tired of worrying about money and health care (we are currently paying $1,000 per month to COBRA). I just want things to be settled.   If he can't get a job here in Chicago, he'd like to try his luck in California, which is a much better market for his kind of work. I don't know, though. I've never been to California. Heck, I'm such a sheltered Midwesterner, I've never been west of Iowa. He's also up for a job in Seattle. I think I might prefer Seattle to L.A., if I had to move, but it's hard to say since I haven't been to either place.   Have any of you ever moved across the country for someone else? If so, was it a good choice or a bad one?
parrot_suspect

parrot_suspect

6
Fishnets and Frankincense
 

Haircuts and odd subreferences

Yesterday I went to the hairdresser and she and I contemplated the condition of my hair. I apparently became a little impatient with the hair styling process when I was still really harried at work, and I turned my flattening iron up WAY too high. That, dear readers, can produce nice short-term results and nasty long-term results. I have a thing about fried-looking hair, and here I had it on my own head.   So I had her cut about 3 inches off the bottom. She's also starting to grow out a few of the layers, so what I have today is effectively a longer and wilder version of a Louise Brooks bob. My hair is still at the middle of my neck, so it's hardly as bobbed as LuLu's, but it has that wedge effect.   I thought this was a drastic change, so I walk into my office after getting my hair done and one person noticed. I walked back in this morning and a couple of other people (who would have said something if they'd noticed) didn't notice much of a change. Isn't it weird how we always scrutinize ourselves so intently and expect others to do the same?   I think as long as person is clean and well-groomed and doesn't display pet peeve irritants (such a French manicured toenails or artificial nails with rhinestones that may pop off and land in your lap), people really don't notice the little nuances unless you're a very visually oriented person.   So now I know that someone with a fried hair pet peeve won't be standing around, looking at me, thinking "eeeewww!"   Odd subreference with BPAL elements: I was looking at minilux's BPAL icons and noticed that Louise Brooks was pictured in a couple of icons, one being for the scent Beatrice. There's a town in my state called Beatrice; it's about 35 miles directly south of where I reside. However, it's not pronounced the way the woman's name Beatrice is commonly pronounced, which is "BEE-uh-truss." No, people call this town "Bee-AT-triss." (And put a hard midwestern "r" in the last syllable.) I do not know the source of this trend, but people where I live will jokingly pronounce the name of the town "Beat (as in the beat goes on)-Rice (as in the grain.) I don't recall what was in the scent Beatrice, and I don't think it was something that I would have enjoyed, but even if I had, it would have been terribly difficult to not tell people that I was wearing "Beat-Rice" that day.   Story that was jarred loose in my brain as a result of darkity's story from the other day, about the fake nail popping off the girl's hand on the bus and landing on darkity: A long time ago, I was eating with a then-boyfriend in a Grisante's restaurant. We were at a table that was separated from another table by a divider that was probably 4 feet high. At the other table was a couple with their young son (about 5 or 6 years old) and one set of grandparents. The kid was wired for sound anyway, and Grandpappy was not making matters better, because he kept saying to the tyke: "So are ya all excited it's your birthday? Do you think you're gonna have lots of presents when we get home? Huh? Huh?" The kid was thrashing around, kicking and waving his arms. A waitress, hoping to provide a calming influence, gave the kid some crayons so he could draw on the paper that was put on the tabletop over the tablecloth. Didn't work. Then, I looked down at my plate to take another bite of whatever it was that I was eating, and a crayon suddenly plopped down in the middle of my plate. The kid had lost control of the crayon in his hot little hand as he was waving his arms around and it landed in my pasta. The mother was mortified, grandpappy was unrepentant and the kid was too crazed from being driven into a frenzy by his apparently sadistic grandpaps to even notice. A waiter saw it happen, came over, grabbed my plate and told me he was providing me with a replacement. My boyfriend said that the look on my face, as I handed the crayon back to the mother, should have caused the entire table to turn to salt and crumble away. People! I wasn't really mad at the kid, but his adult entourage needed to have their butts kicked.
valentina

valentina

3
Is Anybody Out There?
 

4 years in a 2 year school

With rabid support from my friends and family, I've sort of discovered that I have potential to learn to be an artist. I don't have technique yet, but I think I could do really well with it eventually. This is hilarious to me, because I've always thought of myself as the least artistic person in the room- can't draw a straight line to save my soul, and my stick figures come out malformed, and nothing looks the way it should- but even more, I had SUCH a horrible experience with my intro to art class I took last fall- My instructor was AWFUL. Like, really mean. Coated in sugar, but just always so negative. I almost wrote a letter to the dean about her, actually. Some of the things she did were highly offensive.   So anyway. Instead of rushing through math and science to prepare for the radiology program, I can take some art classes and other things that interest me- like foreign language, for instance- and see how I'm doing next year at this time.   I'll be married! And with a brand new name! I can't wait to change my name. I'm doing my full name, after we are married.   It's crunch time. I only just mailed off a vast majority of the invitations: Yeah, we're closing in on a month until the day. I'm so unprepared. I'm so very excited. I'm so extremely lucky... and now I'm off to bed.
smallvoice

smallvoice

0
Emain Macha
 

The Fine Art of Map Making

So sooner or later, in the process of writing a fantasy novel, I find that I have to figure out where the hell my hero IS. And I will admit, I can be a bit pedantic about the whole thing. I like my maps. I like to know exactly how long it takes my hero to go from point A to point B to point C. If I don't have maps, I tend to make fairly simple but devestating errors in the geography. It's just easier for me when I have it all laid out.   Over the course of my writing, I have gradually come to the realization that I like it when my maps make sense. They don't have to of course. In a world where magic and gods exist (as they do in mine) "because I want it that way" IS a possible answer to "why is that piece of terrain filled with jungle when it logically receives no rainfall?" But it's not really very satisfying and it feels exactly like the cheat it is. I would much rather have that piece of land be filled with jungle because its near the equator and it DOES receive rainfall, and lots of it, due to the large ocean current offshore that pulls in all the really fun storms.   So last night I sat down with a friend of mine, who is a marine biologist (okay, he has a degree in marine biology...quite naturally he works in IT administration,) and we looked over my maps. *sigh* Quite, quite unworkable. Areas that I want to be warm would in fact be very cold, areas that I want to be stormy would be anything but. Some of it I can live with, but some changes — like the idea that the Capital City would not experience a monsoon season — are simply unacceptable. It's a major plot point!   So there's nothing to be done but redo the maps. Fortunately, other than the relationships between certain countries (the Manol, the Scar, and Khorvesh must all border each other) and geographical features (the Argoná plains should be...well..plains) a lot of it is very flexible.   I'm just thankful I figured this out now, before I'd spent too much time figuring out the identities of the ancient God-Kings, something that is very much tied into geography.
Macha

Macha

7
circe_blue's Blog
 

Campus Visit, BPAL, The Omen etc.

So tomorrow I go to visit the campus of my grad school. I have an apartment viewing at 11, advisor meeting at 1, and campus tour at 2. Logic would have dictated that the campus tour should've been scheduled first so I would know where to meet my advisor and see my apartment building but scheduling with this particular tour guide was kinda difficult, since he has stuff going on that day and wants to get home early to take care of his sick daughter. I am kinda excited and aprehensive at the same time.   Apartment Viewing: The campus made a deal with a hotel chain so it is renting out several floors to graduate and international students. Which means that although the apartment is technically off-campus, it very close (across the street) and high speed internet and cable is through campus. Whoo! Also, the price is amazing. It would cost $900-1000 in the area I live now to get either a crappy one bedroom in a sketchy area or a studio. I will be paying much, much, less. I am viewing the "master" bedroom. Rock. And the girl who I talked to who will potentially be my roomate sounded really nice. She's getting her master's in physical therapy, very cool.   Advisor meeting: I'm still kinda scared about this because I have images in my head of the worst case scenario which would be the advisor laughing at me and telling me I wasn't accepted after all. Argh. Though it probably will just involve reiterating the rules of the program (3.0GPA or above to graduate, no C's allowed), and picking out some classes for fall. Ah, it kinda feels good to be picking out classes and buying books again after (only) a year of working out in the "real world". I will miss my lovely steady paychecks and most of the people I work with. Also a friend once said to me, the best part about working vs. School is that after you come home from work, you're technically off the clock and there's no extra work like projects or studying to be done. Ahhhh, that *is* nice.   Campus Tour: Looking forward to this, the campus looked really nice on the website/brochure. I went to a fairly large college for undergrad and that took a lot of getting used to. I'm glad I'm going to a smaller place for grad. ******************* I was going to make an order this month but I didn't really think Lotus Moon would work for me. I'm afraid of Soap!Lotus and Evil!Rose which happens to be one of the scents that my skin amps like crazy. Maybe next month? Is next month Hungry Ghost Moon? Either way, I want new smellies before I go away for fall!   Also, I was heartbroken when O turned to a sweet soapy concoction on my skin. Dammit, I wanted to smell like sex too! I left it for about 2 months and either I'm starting to get used to it, or it has morphed a little, but I don't find it so icky anymore. Death on a Pale Horse, despite the coolest name ever, was too masculine for me. I do love The Hamptons and Swank though. Man, I must smell like a lush! ************** Has anyone ever seen the Japanese trailer for The Omen? I did, and when the priest says "his coming has heralded the Apocalypse" or something similar the trailer goes through a montage of sorts of all these disasters. Fire, flood, etc. Anyways, I thought I saw a flash of, get this, two very tall buildings in a large city with smoke coming out of them. Yep, the Twin Towers. I thought I was seeing things, but then I rewound my downloaded trailer and yep, there they were. WTF?! Are we blaming 9/11 on Damien now?! Ugh. I was disgusted that they even brought it up in that way. I saw another trailer today on TV and for a similar part, they showed a clip of the Asian tsunami. You know, that footage that's taken from the balcony of a hotel in Thailand and then this huge wave comes crashing into the patio/pool area. Again, ugh. ********** On a lighter note, I'm listening to the Firefly soundtrack. It makes me happy, especially theme song which I used to sing as "Take my love, take my land, something something cue the fiddle" Rawr, for Simon Tam.
circe_blue

circe_blue

0
littletingoddess' Blog
 

"You smell like pot...."

I love the observations I get from others when I wear BPAL. Sometimes they are right on with what the intended feeling the scent is supposed to provoke, and other times... not so much.   Today I wore Thanatopsis to work. One of my coworkers, who I adore, as soon as I was smelling distance from her, she said, "you smell like pot". Not in a "ewwww!" kinda way, but in a "hey... got some to share?" kinda way. LOL Now, I've smelled pot burning, and it's no where close. So a bit later, so mentioned it again, so I got asked for other coworkers opinions. Hey, any excuse to thrust my wrist under the nose of an attractive male coworker!! He said "vanilla?" Not sure where he got that from. Another female declared "incensy". So we figured out that the first girl was associating it with the incense she burns to hide the smell of the pot!   Kelly, the same coworker, has observed that Roadhouse smells "like sex"... like parking down a country road. And Lust smells sexy, she's complimented me many times n that one.
littletingoddess

littletingoddess

0
Emain Macha
 

The BPAL art you'll never see

Oh believe me, it exists.   Some of it, you may yet see — one day. There is a t-shirt design that's been hanging out in the wings for about five months now while we sort out color and t-shirt styles and the fact that the company that we usually use for the shirts doesn't make the kind of shirt we really want. Hopefully it will get sorted out fairly soon — I want this shirt to see daylight. Then there are the label designs that were, for one reason or another, rejected — or simply haven't been used yet because the Lab is in too much chaos. Sometimes I know far in advance what will be in an update, and sometimes I don't know until it's up on the web site. There is plenty of artwork that just wasn't quite right, and so wasn't used.   So on to the BPAL art that you hopefully WILL see:   Right now I'm starting to work on the Carnival Diabolique art, because although I don't yet know what the individual scents will be, I can start work on the look and feel (and this time I'm going to do a better job of making sure the posters are made, and that the artwork will make an easy transition to t-shirts and maybe *crossing fingers* some cool hoodies.) Beth has mentioned another artist she knows for making some different poster designs, and I'm very excited about that possibility. (I know my limitations, and although I CAN do twisted freakshow art, this other person is without doubt so much better at it I can only applaud them.) I started some portraits of lab staff before Convergance, and am planning on finishing them in time for the summer. (They are very easy to paint, being an exceptionally pretty group of people.)   Of course, what I am REALLY looking forward to is the Lacuna series. I don't know exactly what Beth has planned, but I wants to do the labels...oh yes...   It should be a very lovely summer.
Macha

Macha

0
Is Anybody Out There?
 

School

I HAVE to apply for financial aid for the '06-'07 school year very soon! Turns out I'm going to be taking a series of two math classes instead of this one I'm failing so miserably right now. It sucks, and I don't want to fail again. It makes my GPA cry. And by fail, I do mean fail. I'm trying to see the positive side, which is that I'll get to take more classes that I really want to try, to prepare for the career path I'm interested in before the pressure really sets in. Since when did 2 year colleges become 4 year schools?   I'm really, really tired.
smallvoice

smallvoice

0
Squash Soup
 

what's that smell?!

It's another dull and rather long day at work but it matters not when I'm wearing teh Underpants. The only thing that I'm sad about is it's quick-fade tendencies. I also don't feel like anyone can even smell it. I haven't gotten one compliment and gosh darn it, it smells fabulous on me! I know that I'm a scent addict but I'm always noting when people smell good and I tell them too. A delicious smell can totally make an otherwise yuckerific day and so I like to appreciate those that brighten my days. Eh...I'm sure it's just me that's weird. I was actually thinking about my obsession with smell the other day. I have the keenest sense of smell and I often associate different smells with moments in my life or places I've been to. I remember things based on their smell more so than what they actually look like. I know that it comes from my childhood. I had a super weak bladder as a kid so essentially I always smelled like pee which isn't all that great for making friends. Once I got over that phase, I became absolutely obsessed with being clean and smelling good. I also think it comes from my mom who is constantly remarking on how things smell. It's kind of interesting how your childhood shapes the rest of your life and how it can have such a huge impact on such seemingly natural things like how we use our senses.   I think that's enough rambling, I just thought that you all would sympathize with my general whinning....or not but what can I do?
jessiesquash

jessiesquash

0
Fishnets and Frankincense
 

Celebrate

Things to celebrate:   It's going to be around 80 degrees here tomorrow! Woot! It's been almost chilly for a month now and I am getting the urge for some semi-hot weather. Remind me I said this when I'm complaining about the weather in July.   I maintained my self-control and ordered a 10 ml of O and one bottle of Lithia. That's all.   I get my hair done tomorrow. It's just entirely too long for me to stand it right now.   I did the trip to my mother's care center, the dinner and my trip home with equanimity. The drive was pleasant. I listened to Shawn Colvin on the way down and she was good preparation.   I'm leaving work now to go to yoga class. I think doing some yoga is going to jar loose a few mental blocks that I've been struggling with all day long. It's worth a try...     Music in my CD player: Bob Schneider, "Lonelyland." Because Baby Bob just rocks my world! And he's always something to celebrate!!!!
valentina

valentina

0
Filling the Periodic Table
 

T-18 hours!

Just 18 hours to go!   So anxious. I think I'm pretty ready, but I won't know for sure until tommorrow morning. Ooof. Unfortunately, there is a lot more on these exams than can be tested in 35 questions, so the tests are *very* different from sitting to sitting. There is a certain element of chance about whether or not the material on the exam overlaps well enough with the stuff I've studied. I could get blindsided.   Anyway, thanks for all of your well wishes!
antimony

antimony

2
Gone Batty
 

::Yawn::

I had initially decided to start my blog with a recap of my vacation but I'm feeling pretty tired at the moment so I think I'll do that later. I had to get up at quarter to five this morning to work on some servers during the maintenance window. Unfortunately there's no other time to do this but I don't really mind. It means that I get to leave work early and that means I'll miss rush hour traffic. The only crummy part is that I have to get up early the rest of the week to finish the installs so my sleep schedule is going to be off this week.   The first thing I'm going to do when I get home is crawl into bed with my vampire book. I'm not usually one for vampire stories but I really like Charlaine Harris' take on them. My only complaint is that they aren't long enough and I usually finish them within a day or two. It's a nice change from all the history stuff I've been reading lately.   I almost wish that I didn't have belly dance class today but I know I'll change my mind once I get there. That's how it usually goes with yoga too. I just wish I had the chance to take a longer nap after work but since I have to get up early that's probably a good thing.   Gah! My boss keeps sending me emails about new projects and tasks and my mind is so mushy right now that I just can't process them. I have a feeling it's going to be like that all week.
miss apple

miss apple

0
This Old Snark
 

Floored

Snarky has lost her freaking mind.   Case and Point   This is the flooring she wants for her bathroom. The Mister wanted something more neutral, but this just spoke to her.   Maybe it's because the colorway is called "Asian Tiger". Snarky is just a complete sucker for names of colors that say nothing about the color. (Then again, The Mister's choice was something like "Picasso Splash" or somesuch.)   Send help. Preferrably in the form of beigy, calming tones.
darkitysnark

darkitysnark

6
Diplomatka
 

One Year On

Today is the one-year anniversary of when it all happened.   At 8:30 pm on Monday, May 16, 2005 I got the call. Mark, a guy who works for me, phoned crying and said, “there’s been a kidnapping. It was C”. C was the manager of a program for vulnerable women and widows at my organization. I didn’t know what to do. I felt helpless and distraught and phoned a friend I’ve had for years who is also living in Kabul. I was screaming and shouting and my friend, and having heard that someone from my organization had been abducted, she thought it was me. I calmed down enough to let her know what was really going on and to let her know the details: C was traveling back from yoga class. Mark and another woman had been dropped off when two white Corollas blocked the road, men with Kalashnikovs broke the passenger side window and dragged her out. They went in the direction of the British Cemetery—that’s all we knew.   Although there had been warnings and at least three prior attempts, we were not sure who had taken her or what they wanted. Was it the Taliban? Was it a gang? I sat on the patio in the Qalala Pushta house and drank wine and smoked cigarettes all night, waiting for the phone to ring. My husband came out and put his arms around me. “It’s going to get worse, so prepare yourself”, he said.   I thought back to the staff meeting we had had that morning. I remember seeing her there, all of us crowded around the table in my cramped office. She looked great; wearing a new black blouse that she got from my favorite shop, Crystal Light. I wondered what would happen to her. Would they rape her or kill her? What did they want? I kept saying to myself that she was such a nice person, how could this happen? The ironic thing was, she was supposed to leave Afghanistan three weeks earlier but had decided to extend her contract. The morning that it happened I went to Chicken Street to buy her a silver bracelet for her birthday party on Wednesday night. We were going to have a cookout for her 33rd birthday.   The next day at work was useless. All of the international staff walked in, zombie-like and feigned being busy. I went out on the back stoop to sit with the guys while they chain smoked. The Director called a staff meeting at 9 to tell everyone what he knew. He had been up all night—in contact with the Embassy, with ISAF (International Security Assistance Force), with C’s family and with our headquarters in the states. No one had any idea what was happening. We filed into the conference room and the Director explained the situation: no demands have been made; we do not know where she is or who has her; two groups are claiming responsibility. While the Afghans in the room were threatening to find the people responsible and do all kinds of nasty things to them the Director’s phone rang. It was the kidnappers. The negotiations began.   I felt like I was in an action movie or a documentary: sitting around the table in the dining room at the office talking about what had happened and what we were going to do. The head of security for our organization came out from the states and took over my office; two people from International Risk arrived to develop a strategy; there were reporters. Different groups started making demands: remove international troops from Afghanistan, shut down Arman Radio (a progressive radio station that plays heathen music such as Britney Spears); but soon we were able to determine that Timur Shah had her. He was calling from her cell phone.   Timur Shah was a murderer. He had killed and been found guilty, but since the police could not find him and put him away they had incarcerated his mother instead, hoping that this measure would force him to turn himself in. However, he did not turn himself in, but decided to kidnap a foreigner instead to secure his mother’s release.   The next few weeks were a nightmare. Timur Shah had said that he had strangled her at one point (which all the media in Afghanistan reported), then took it back. The guys at my work bought time with the local cell phone company to send instant messages to all subscribers asking for information. Stickers and posters were made and distributed. The widows from C’s program rallied. (One funny point was when the widows carried a sign at one of the demonstrations that read, in English, “C made us widows!”) We were on the international news. Consultants came and went. Negotiations dragged on. Two times in the first two weeks we were close to a release and then nothing.   The only reprieve for me was a trip to Bangkok for a conference. I thought that I had gotten away from all of the stress and anxiety until I picked up a Wall Street Journal during a coffee break. There, on the front page, was a short paragraph stating that a video had been released. It was on the news that night, but I refused to watch it. I just couldn’t take it because I knew what the inevitable next step would be. In the video, which I saw later, she was rolled in a carpet with a scarf on her head (which she never wore) and an AK-47 pointed at her. They asked her to state her father’s name and then her brother’s. When she said her brother’s name Timur Shah replied, “I am your brother now”.   After 25 days, she was finally released on June 9. No one called; I saw it on CNN. She was immediately whisked out of the country. We watched Euronews as her plane landed and she was greeted by her Prime Minister. Surrounded by her family as she walked off the plane, she was wearing the black blouse that I had envied at our staff meeting nearly a month before.   Two weeks after her release, we got an email from her telling us what had happened. After being abducted she was taken to a house not far from the spot where the kidnapping took place, in the same neighborhood where many of our staff live. The kidnappers did not hurt her in any way; she had only lost weight and gotten a lot of mosquito bites. There were children in the house who would come and peek at her from time to time and she could hear women’s voices. She tried to time her bathroom visits (the toilet was a latrine across the courtyard) to the sound of passing helicopters, but soon they caught on. Timur Shah would ride his bike far away to use her cell phone so that he could not be tracked. And, most amazingly, she saw on television the rallies the widows were having for her release.   All of us at work signed big banners to be sent to her in Europe wishing her well. Although the worst was over, some of us will always remember what happened on May 16. Mark still feels guilty that he was dropped off first that night (a consultant in Kabul when it happened placed the blame squarely on Mark) and many people from my work feel terrible that it happened and they could not do anything about it. C says she wants to come back to Afghanistan, but her government will not let her, at least in the near term.   Now whenever I go out after dark, I am wary. Kidnappings still happen; one Nepali died in captivity not long ago after being abducted with a colleague at dawn in Kabul, and there have been several kidnappings and murders linked to the Taliban throughout the South since the beginning of the year. There is a fine line between living your life and playing it safe. While you won’t see me at the Coca Cabana [sic], the local “club”, anytime soon, I still have my share of nights getting drunk and playing pool at the Uzbek place or going out for dinner with friends. It’s a risk I have to take.
Confection

Confection

2
pink.owl's Blog
 

My Package Revision

quikslvr reorganized my packages to account for others donating to lighten my donation: Package #1Brisingamen, Dance of Death, Darkness, Hemlock, Les Fleurs du Mal, Nephilim, Wrath Package #2Aeval, Carnal, Hecate, Morocco, O, Red Queen, R'Lyeh Package #3Absinthe, Casanova, Dorian, Has No Hanna, Nocturne, Ra, Santo Domingo Package #4All Night Long, Hades, The Lion, Marquise Du Marteuil, Perversion, Santa Eularia Des Riu, Sin Package #5Belladonna, Delight, Incantation, Lampades, Maiden, Tamora Package #6Black Rose, De Sade, London, Lust, Nyx, Queen Of Sheba Package #7Dana O'Shee, Santa Muerte, Satyr, Thalia, Venice, Wilde
pink.owl

pink.owl

0
Squash Soup
 

bpal makes me do bad things.

You tell yourself that you won't do certain things. You draw the line and swear not to cross it. I learned, however, that some scents will cause me to throw all of my principles out the windown and turn me into a raving slobbering maniac bent on obtaining it at all costs. I don't know how else to justify paying 3X what an oil was originally worth. *sigh* Well, at least I will use and enjoy it. I did it all for the Underpants. Would you have done the same?   I'm still waiting patiently for my Dragon Moon order, t-shirt and oil! Well okay, not so patiently but I'm trying to restrain myself from checking my e-mail every 5 seconds. It's difficult but I'm managing.   And now I must do a little cleaning because I'm currently living in a pigsty. And I'm going to have a diet coke and think long and hard about what I've done........
jessiesquash

jessiesquash

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HennaFairy's Blog
 

one more!

i lied. 3 more. (I came back later with these 2)       and one more again...         ok really. done now. i mean it. i'm going to bed!!!     also, i got my underpants today!!! eeeee!   i can't decide what i think about it. it is more foody/sweet than i'd like, but after the drydown, there are times i love it and times i think "eh". i'll wear it one more time, and share with eviltemptress and everyone at the meet & sniff, and i'll reconsider whether i want to keep it or not!   eta: i may keep an imp, but i am going to trade/sell the rest, eviltemptress and people at the meet & sniff have first dibs, and i have a buyer lined up for anything that's left over.
HennaFairy

HennaFairy

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Denise's Cool Blog
 

I got THREE forum orders today!

Woot!! I got THREE packages today with BPAL!   Here is what I got:   from Beatrice33:   5ml Beltane ('05, i think?) neo-tokyo empyreal mist white rabbit tarot: the world FRIMP: ummm... I feel badly, because I opened all my three packs in a hurried excited way, and I'm not sure exactly who gave me what frimps! DUH. I believe this one came with a sample of Tranquilty oil from www.sonomascentstudio.com!   from aidenraine:   fae rosalind black dahlia FRIMP: I *think* this wass the one with a cute perfume sample included   from caramialove:   5ml Dirty (yay!!) FRIMPS: le serpent qui danse, titus andronicus, AND ahathoor!!   Someone of these three also gave me a sample of Lush shower gel, and someone else gave me an official BPAL postcard! I just wish I had thought about it when I opened everything. hehe. Just as long as all three know I appreciated it all, I should be A-Ok   So far, I know that I want a bottle of Empyreal Mist. I also know that White Rabbit made me gag a little. LOL.
eviltemptressdq

eviltemptressdq

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This Old Snark
 

Snarky Screams, You Scream, We all Scream...

... for eye strain?     OK, that didn't work quite as well as Snarky had hoped, nor is it nearly as pleasant as ice cream. Nevertheless, she is suffering from ever compounding eye strain as she moves from eight hours in front of the computer (under fluorescent lights in "The Cracker Cave") to a few poorly light hours throwing things around/together/into boxes at the apartment, to a couple more hours in the waning gloom of evening working up close and personal with various nooks and cranies and surfaces of their soon-to-be kalidescopic domicile.   The peepers are pooped, folks.   Add to that the nocturnal goings on at Flat du Snark (Snarky is an equal opportunity mangler of all languages) in the form of feline gymnastics (Seriously, what is the deal with cardboard and plastic bags and the licking? Does it really taste that good?) and there is just no rest for the wicked winkers in the forseeable future.   While some more painting is on the docket for tonight's Chez Snark visitation, Snarky thinks she'll try to truncate the errand and convince The Mister that a break is in order in the form of the one-two punch of eye candy (24 and Grey's Anatomy season finale) and gelato.
darkitysnark

darkitysnark

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