Domesticity is overrated

Dinner tonight was two promotional miniboxes of Cheerios and Nesquik, served together with milk in a pyrex mixing bowl and followed by a couple of bananas. Something of a low point in meal planning and preparation but tasty and remarkably satisfying. The Boy was a willing accomplice. We discussed it and agreed that the bananas made it acceptable overall. I'll try to be more grownup tomorrow.

Gambling

... when the dog wants to play fetch with the water balloon bomb toy you're trying out for the first time.

Liking the 11th Doctor

Sometimes I get to watch Doctor Who. Not on television, my word no, because idiots put it on at times that seven year olds are still awake. Seven year olds that get scared. Seven year olds that get scared and have nightmares. Seven year olds that can only sleep after nightmares when they are in Mummy's bed. Seven year olds that can only sleep after nightmares when they are in Mummy's bed with a big handful of her hair to pull and twist and....

I guess mummies have their own versions of nightmares.

But, in a move that makes me forgive the BBC and accept that they are not, in fact, idiots, the BBC give me a chance to download the episodes and watch them on my computer with their I-player. It's a big moment in the world of Doctor Who because the Tenth Doctor just exited and a new actor took over to be the Eleventh Doctor.

(For those that have been tragically deprived of the Doctor Who experience, he's a time travelling alien that can regenerate into a new body. Everything you ever needed to know and probably a lot more that you didn't here.)

I was a very big fan of the Tenth Doctor, as played by David Tennant, and when he announced that he was leaving the role I was disappointed. The new actor, Matt Smith, was so young, I just couldn't see him pulling it off.

Wrong, Rosa. Very, very wrong. He is fantastic. His first episode was fantastic. I will be downloading many more episodes to watch in the dead of night when scaredy seven year olds are sleeping.

In their own beds.

The Eleventh Hour
(I think you have to be in the UK to download it though)

You know you've led a sheltered life when...

... you need to keep Urban Dictionary open in a separate window to cross reference and translate the Fairy Song from Legend of Neil. I discovered Legend of Neil when I was casting my vote for The Guild in this year's Audience Choice category at the Streamies. Cracked me up.

Oh, and I should definitely place a parental advisory warning on the Legend of Neil link. Probably both.

When a whisper doesn't get it done

I'm getting rather irritated with Soft Whispers magazine. They accepted a short story, The Scream, months ago with a publication date of January 2010. Start ups being the precarious thing they are, I was disappointed but not surprised when they folded before January and it didn't make publication.

I was pleased on their behalf when they re-launched as a poetry blog with occasional themed fiction anthologies, but they have yet to respond to my polite emails asking about the stories they had already accepted. All I really want is confirmation that they are releasing The Scream so that I can do something else with it. Whether that would be submitting it elsewhere or just posting it on my website I haven't decided, but I don't want to risk breaching a contract.

I do hate having loose ends, and The Scream is loose and waving at me. I might have to stop whispering and start shouting.

To tweet or not to tweet

I'm flirting with the idea of a twitter account to go with this blog. My last encounter with twitter didn't last long because I was worried that people might read my tweets and think, "Who is this idiot and why on earth would we employ her?" Got to at least pretend to be a professional.

I realised the problem when a colleague friended me on facebook, and a few weeks later my feed informed me that he was a fan of rough sex. Kind of hard to see someone the same way after that. That and having my boss, in-laws and teenage nieces and nephews on my friends list rather puts me off posting any silliness myself.

It makes me sore tempted to do some Rosa tweets, or at least post some one liners here now and then. Who knows, I might even start writing again.

Yeah, maybe not.

New layout

Blogger just updated their templates and I decided a change would be nice, since I know no code and rely on others to do it for me. I rather like this one.

Cute moment at about midnight last night. While I was standing in the hallway watching, the Boy got out of bed still largely asleep, picked up a fleece blanket and tried several times to put his arms into non-existent sleeves. I took it off him and put him back into bed, and he went back to sleep without ever properly waking up in the first place. He didn't remember a thing about it this morning.