Stand By Me.

Here's something to make you smile on a gloomy, rainy morning.

(h/t to zombie_dog)

Originally posted on giddysinger.vox.com

Gosh it's been a long while since I've updated people on what's been going on over here.  It's actually been really frickin' busy around here, and there's gonna be some very interesting changes coming Real Soon Now.  Specifically, Teh Geek and I are scheduled to close on a new house in two weeks.  The entire process from house search to bid to contract to inspection to closing has just swept by in a blur, but I'm really excited by it all.  The new place is in Wheaton (well, technically Silver Spring -- but never mind that), just a short piece up the road from the mall.  It has a nice yard, a GREAT kitchen, and one of the nicest neighboors I've ever met.

The other piece of news that's been taking up a huge ammount of my time and energy is that my boss at work went on medical leave a month ago, and I've been running things ever since.  I've always said that I never really wanted to go into management, but I've been finding it exhilierating as well as exhausting.

Anyway, the extra hours at work mean that I've had to start getting to bed earlier...  so I'm going to start heading in that direction.  Hopefully I will have more updates for y'all in the weeks ahead.

Originally posted on giddysinger.vox.com

Dinner was a relatively small affair this year with just Teh Wife and Teh Mother.  Still, I'm actually rather pleased with how it turned out:

Roast Turducken.  (Relax...  It was store-bought.  I am nowhere near good enough to make one of those myself.)

Sweet Potatoes:

(recipe from my father)

Boil and peel 4 pounds of sweet potatoes.

Mash the potatoes in a bowl

Add a stick of butter, 1/8 cup of maple syrup, 1.5 oz rum, 8-12 drops of Tobasco, 1/4 - 1/2 tsp salt.

Mash all the ingredients again until everything's smooth.  (It's important to mash the potatoes first BEFORE you add any butter to get the desired smoothness.)

Pour the potatoes into a ceramic bowl, and cover the top with brown sugar and pecans.

Bake until the brown sugar is melted.  (Not long.)

(This recipe theoretically serves 8, although the three of us ate exactly half of it.)

Cinnamon Spinach Salad:

(recipe from flutestory)

For the salad, combine baby spinach, 2 medium apples thinly sliced, walnuts and dried cranberries in the bowl.

For the dressing, combine 1/4 cup honey, 3 Tbsp veg oil, 2 Tbsp cider vinegar, 1/2 tsp dry mustard, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp salt and 1 pressed garlic clove together and mix well.

(recipe serves 6ish)

And to round it out, of course, an Apple Pie and Vanilla Ice Cream from Giffords.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Originally posted on giddysinger.vox.com

This is from a friend's f-locked post on the "Inside the Actor's Studio" meme:

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
"I don't care if you never believed in Me, I always believed in you. And yes, all the crap I put you through was a test. Congratulations, you passed: here's your sword."

Originally posted on giddysinger.vox.com

Two months to the day after I started to tell the tale, the story finally reaches its conclusion.

Originally posted on giddysinger.vox.com

Two of my favorite bloggers have not been producing a lot of material over the last few months.  In addressing their absence, both have decided to forgo the usual "I've been busy"/"I'll write more soon, honest" tropes and have decided to go a more creative route:

slacktivist has a perfectly normal day where absolutely nothing interesting has happened.

AD finds something by the side of the road.

Ambulance Driver's post is certainly the longer of the two, but also the more rewarding.  slacktivist's post is funny as hell.  Enjoy!

Originally posted on giddysinger.vox.com

1)  Last night, I was out having dinner at a brew pub with friends when the table broke out in the song "Still Alive" by Jon Coulton.

2)  I ran into TRM of Aethelmearc on the train home from work today.

I know, random, right?

This post made for the express purpose of making blackpaladin jealous.  ;-)

Customer Service FTW!

Originally posted on giddysinger.vox.com

Teh Geek and I are finally about to take our honeymoon.  We're going to leave for the beach in about half an hour and be back sometime around Friday.  I hope everyone has a great week, and I'll catch up with you all when we get back.

And now for something completely different.

Originally posted on giddysinger.vox.com

...And after pouring my heart out in that last post, I neglected to post the other big piece of news.

When I got home last night, I found out that not only was Ursula already in the hospital, but my dad is going in on Tuesday.  His cardiologist has been concerned about some arrhythmia that was observed after the first surgery.  After some more tests and analysis, the decision was made to put a defibrillator into his heart.  The surgery will be tomorrow morning.

This surgery is not about making my dad better.  This surgery is about keeping him from up and dying. 

I know I haven't been giving you guys a lot of updates about my dad's progress (or lack thereof).  It's been pretty hard for me, and I haven't felt like writing about it.  Even after having the stent put in, my dad's heart volume is now 60% below where it was before the heart attack.  He has not regained much of anything since the first surgery.  His blood pressure has been rather distressingly low, and he has been getting tired very easily.  The ventrical tachycardia is an additional issue, which will hopefully be dealt with once this procedure is done.

Fortunately, I was able to get the day off from work, so I will be spending it at the hospital with my dad.

Originally posted on giddysinger.vox.com

Tonight was the second time in my life that I have had to go to the hospital to say good bye to someone. 

The only other time I have had to say good bye to someone in a hospital bed was for the greatest singer I have ever known.  Aside from my mom, I don't think anyone who reads this ever heard Leroy Campbell sing, and that's a shame.  Still, the only recording of his voice that I have seems very appropriate right now.

Come and Go to That Land

Washington Revels

*This is all true.  Indiana Jones has NOTHING on my godmother.

Originally posted on giddysinger.vox.com

First igasu posted this to LJ, and them my mom emailed the link to me a couple of days later. 

I think that's a sign that I should repost it, don't you? :-)

Kaamelott - The perfect fifth

This is definitely for all of my music geek friends out there.

Originally posted on giddysinger.vox.com

I got to see Artomatic yesterday with Teh Geek, chameleon613 and moosegirl1017.  It is a very interesting show, and worth the time to walk through it.  Added coolness came from the fact that several of the artists were there at their displays talking about their art.

What is Artomatic?  You mean you don't know?  Well that's all right...  I didn't really understand it until I got there myself.  Start with an empty, unused office building one block from the Red Line.  Contact approximately 1,000 local artists and allow them to create displays of their own work, and then spread those displays across 9 floors of the building.  There is an awful LOT of art on display, and it is a bit of a challenge to take it all in.  Still, there is a lot of it that is very, very good and it's definitely worth the trip.  My personal favorites included TinyGhosts and Erica Ricardelli, both on the 11th floor.  Both use photography and a wicked sense of humor to great effect.

As an added incentive, the Peep dioramas from the annual Washington Post Peep Contest are on display.  You can actually see them in person!  (Nightmare in Pink is way, way cooler in person than the picture can really relate.)

PRO TIP:  Take the elevator up to the top floor when you start, and take the stairs down floor by floor.  The elevators get bogged down by too many people taking them one floor at a time.

Pretty much the coolest thing in the exhibit, though, was stopping in front of two different exhibits and saying, "Oh!  I went to high school with her!"  Who new my friends from back then were so talented.

Originally posted on giddysinger.vox.com

How far away from your front door do you have to be before you decide that it's not worth it to go back and get your cell phone?

Really...  I'm curious how many other people out there would go back for it, and how far you would consider going.

Originally posted on giddysinger.vox.com

You read XKCD, right? 

If you don't, you really, really should.

It was introduced to me last summer by the amazingly net-presence-free ML, and Teh Geek and I have enjoyed reading it ever since.

Anyway, you should go check it out.  The Journal Saga has been expanded, and it continues to be one of the most awesome sequences of webcomics ever.  (Here are the links to parts *1*, *2*, *3*, *4* and *5*.)  It is the story of how two people with a strong enough connection to each other... 

Never mind.  Just read it yourself and experience the awesome.  (And don't forget to read the extra bits of text you get whenever you mouse over the comic.)

Over the last weekend, Rylie gave me a new button for my recovered baldrics.  It shows a blown up detail of a stick figure saying, "I LIKE MY HAT."  It is now proudly displayed right on the front of the baldrics where they cross.  It is a gift that I cherish greatly.

Originally posted on giddysinger.vox.com

...went well. 

By the way, someone asked me what my audition piece was, so here it is:

Le Semeur (The Sower)

Brenton Band/David Coffin/Revels Chorus

Originally posted on giddysinger.vox.com

1)  You must sing LOUD!

2)  You must sing with FEELING!  (Or FREERING.  Your pick.)

3)  You must sing with BAD FRENCH CANADIAN ACCENT!

(Allow me a moment to chuckle at my own joke.  As a general rule, the people reading this will either get the reference above or have actually auditioned for Revels before, but not both.  I think flutestory would be the only one who might get it.)

Wish me luck.  I'm auditioning at 8:00 tonight for this years Revels.  (The same time slot as the First Family, by the way.  No pressure there!)  For those of you engaging in the Audition Tradition, I hope you all have fun and I send my regrets that I could not join you this year.  Next time around, I promise.

Originally posted on giddysinger.vox.com