stillsostrange

Today included dayjobbing and packing and lifting, and poking at a chapter for a proposal I would like to have ready to launch soon. Tomorrow is Agent J's birthday--she will be twelve. This is very strange to me. Things have been rough over the past three years, but we've also seen a lot of progress.

Day 1 - Ten random facts about yourself
Day 2 - Nine things you do every day

Day 3 - Eight things that annoy you

Aggressive or unsafe drivers.
The phone at work. Even when I don't have to answer it, the sound makes me cringe.
People who spill drinks on the dance floor. (No longer people who smoke on the dance floor in these parts--ah, the changing times.)
Security questions whose answers made sense to me ten years ago.
The necessity and vagaries of human communication.
My inability to do 5x5 overhead press at 50 lbs. I have been on this plateau for so very long.
People sneezing loudly. I'm pretty sure I have mild misophonia. (Also the squicking when someone rubs their eyes loudly. Argh!)

Day 4 - Seven fears/phobias
Day 5 - Six songs that you’re addicted to
Day 6 - Five things you can’t live without
Day 7 - Four memories you won’t forget
Day 8 - Three words you can’t go a day without
Day 9 - Two things you wish you could do
Day 10 - One person you can trust

That today was Adoption Day. Jessica Downum is now stuck with us forever and ever (or until she turns eighteen). In addition to receiving a child, we were also given a gift basket, a small cake, and ice cream floats. Not a bad haul, even if I have had way too much sugar today. We will endeavor to not misplace the child over the next nine years.

Today the stork CPS delivered to us a nine-year-old girl. We spent the rest of the day enrolling her in school, buying some furniture, conducting an inventory of her clothes for the adoption agency*, and beginning the long slog toward bedtime.

Agent F, as I will refer to her until I get the foster care privacy rules figured out, spent much of the day trying to speak cat. She seems to be picking it up fairly quickly. Siggy--always glad to have more monkeys to dominate--seems to have taken her under her iron paw.

I already have many OPINIONS about the medications some genius put her on. Luckily, we see her new psychiatrist on Thursday, and perhaps he will join the litany of WTF that has been uttered today.**

I'm also very glad we only have two weeks of school left, because the hour of 6:00 a.m. and I are not friendly, but will be forced to get to know each other very well for those two weeks.

I'll probably keep further posts about this under f-lock, but if anyone has any questions about the process, feel free to email or message me. If I'm not dead of exhaustion, I'll try to answer.

* How many pairs of socks does a nine-year-old need? A lot, apparently.

** Two caseworkers, both of us, and three different people at her new school all looked at her list of meds and made emoticon faces, including o.0, O.O, and >:(.

Writing has been curtailed over the past few day due to frantic housecleaning. We got the house clean in time for the home inspection, only to learn that our smoke detectors are mostly dead. Don't worry, the guys says--just buy new ones and plug them in. Only we learn that the ones we can buy now (same brand and everything) have totally different plugs than the old ones, and rewiring will be needed. This is why none of our projects get finished quickly.

But at least writing happened after the abortive inspection.

Title Redacted
Words today: 1223
Words total: 3028
Mean things: skinny asses on hard chairs, lack of sleep, childhood memories

Today's excitement was writing a lullaby in a conlang. Or, more specifically, translating a lullaby into a conlang. Which isn't very connish as langs go--I'm afraid it shows its pilfered origins a little too much. But still! I made up a lullaby! I feel accomplished.