Two posts in less than a week. Impressed? I sure as fuck am. I'm generally to lazy to sign in. I'm not sure if this is a sign of the end of the world, but I'm certainly not ruling it out.

So I'm going to London in a few days time, (I know, flying again, I have more medication so I should be okay) and I really really really could use any tips for ground travel, getting around, local customs, anything that will keep me from getting stranded somewhere, having to spend an arm and a leg, and/or making an ass out of myself would be appreciated. Things like:

-How much does a cab cost from Heathrow to central London? Are they hard to find? Is a bus easier? The tube would be cheaper but would we be thrown off for bringing on all that luggage? How much do I tip a cab driver?

-Bellhops, do I tip them? How much? And what about restaurants and pubs? Same tipping policies as here?

-If we get to the hotel before check in, will they store our bags til they can get us a room?

-Do Londoners, in general, hate Americans? Don't worry about telling the truth, I don't like most Americans myself, and I'm just wondering if I need to tack on 'eh' to the end of every sentence and tell everyone I meet we're from Canada.

-Has anyone been to the London Dungeons? I'm wondering if it's more scary than fun for a 13 year old kid. He likes spooky stuff, but not I'm-going-to-jump-out-and-scare-the-shit-out-of-you stuff.

Anything else anyone can think of would be great. I need to make the trip as stress free as possible or else I'll be on sedatives the entire time, not just the flight, and I'll miss all the good stuff. The Make a wish foundation is doing this for the kidlet, so it's his trip, and I really want to make it good. Helllllllp!

Eta: What's the weather like there atm???? How the hell do I pack for London??

I got my gift fic over at smutty_claus this morning! Go here and read it. It's Zach/Ginny, there's rain, and kneesocks and snark and attitude and lust and yum, and I feel tongue-tied and inadequate in my ability to express how much I truly enjoyed this fic. And you know I'm hardly ever at a loss for words. So yeah, go read it, leave a review. Tell them thank you for making Anise happy. I needed this today. :D

In other news, how the fuck did xmas get this close? I'm not remotely ready, nothing is wrapped, hell I've not gotten everything yet, and I have zero motivation to go out and purchase anything, even though I know that in order to get everything knitted that I'm hoping to get knitted that it's going to take an act of god. Or at the very least I'll need a time turner. I should be, at this point, freaking out and contemplating various ways to off myself, but I'm surprisingly unpanicked. We'll see if that is still holding next week. <.< On top of that it's gotten cold, and I don't like cold, not at all, and it has flurried a few times and I hate snow, so I've been a bit surly over that. I have, however, been lucky enough to avoid christmas music for the most part thus far this year, so that's something to be thankful for. Bah, humbug, man.

I watched the season finale of Dexter this morning. Sort of disappointed, but I'm not sure what I expected. Things could have only gone one of two ways, and I'd have been unhappy with either. I was grumbling over that when my fic was posted, and that made me happy. *bounces*

Btw, did you ever know that someone knew something, and knew they weren't telling you what it was that they knew? It's driving me nuts. Just sayin.

Hope you guys are doing well. Read my fic. Tell me how you are. Send me money in small unmarked bills. Or big marked bills, I really don't care. <3

I'm long overdue for an update, aren't I? Life sort of gets in the way sometimes, and I'm so easily distracted at the best of times, that time just slips away.

Anyway, ( I'm in Canada. )

In other news, I owe gaycrow a Snarry fic, which I've not forgotten. Bless her for her endless patience. I've signed up for smutty_claus again this year, totally Roz's fault.

AND last but not least... I missed coffee_n_cocoa's birthday! So, happy late birthday, Bry! I adore you, and miss you, and I hope that your day was absolutely brilliant!!!! <3

Reason 539 for me to strongly suspect that my son doesn't listen to a single word his father or I say.

So the kidlet comes into my bedroom this morning. I'm watching Extreme Home Makeover blearily and debating on going back to sleep and he sits on the foot of my bed, his eyes immediately glued to the television. He doesn't actually like the show, but I firmly believe that the inability to look away or, god forbid, to function at the most menial tasks while a TV is within sight is a side effect of testosterone. Something about the wave-length of the television and the already weakened testosterone-laden brain cells just don't mesh.

Anyway, so hubby walks in and stands there, too, staring at the TV, because of the male/TV thing. He doesn't care for the show either. But still, he waits til a commercial to look at our son and speak.

Hubby: How's it going?
Kidlet: The ceiling.
Me: ...

After a moment of silence all around, hubby looks up at me.

Hubby: Well. It makes sense.
Me: How on earth does that make sense?
Hubby: When you ask him 'what's up?' he says 'good'
Me: *goes the fuck back to sleep*

We're going on the assumption that he's not, in fact, hearing impaired due to the fact that he manages to eavesdrop on most conversations I have from three rooms away.

In other news, I am never going to be able to use my driveway again due to the massive amount of snow that accumulated in one night. ( Damn, I'm ready for spring. )

Also, a very happy belated birthday to littlearsonist! Sorry I'm late, hon. Story of my life, but I hope you had a fantastic day!

Thank you pagerd and the lovely anonymous for the virtual gifts!!!! You guys put a smile on my face in the midst of a really horrific few weeks!!!!! *snugs all around*

Congrats (or condolences, depending on your pov and your opinion of me) to gaycrow for having the highest bid in my auction. In return for her assistance in helping the people of Haiti, I'm giving her a fic of at least 1000 words, no restrictions on pairing or rating. I'll do any little twisted thing her heart desires and attempt not to screw it up too badly.

In other news, the kidlet is doing better, coughing up piles of yuck which makes me happy, and the IVs are going well. However, if anyone wants to come over to my house and run the 6am dose, I won't turn them down, not after being up til midnight to run the nighttime ones. Five hours of sleep a night is really catching up with me. Also, our med insurance is a cunt-faced douchbag shit-eating ass-licking motherfucker and I hope they die. No really. I hope they die twice. Slowly. Goddamnit.

I'm going out with the gals tonight for a few hours, just a hens night, nothing fancy. Dinner and drinks, and I'm going to attempt not to fall asleep on them and/or drink myself into a coma.

How's everyone else? Is the weather as shitty there as it is here? Rain, rain, rain, grey, grey, grey, cold, cold, cold. Great, I've resorted to talking of the weather. I hope the excitement in my lj doesn't do anyone in.

And happy toosh-dagg cause it makes me giggle.

I had a dream about danbi last night. She'd called and left a message and I called back and she answered the phone with 'Sarah Palin lives in your head'.

WTF?

Yeah. So then she proceeds to tell me that I've hurt her because I posted all her secrets on my lj. Hmmmm. I don't really know any good juicy secrets about her, at least none that don't pertain to caramel and water buffalo. But I'd totally share the hotness if I could. ;)

In other not so silly news, the kidlet is sick. He's had a monster respiratory virus the past week and we're on a shitload of drugs at the moment, sleep deprived, and cranky. But he's showing signs of improvement, so that's good, I'm very very very thankful for that.

thimble_kiss spurred me to hop on the bandwagon at help_haiti. She's such a good influence. If anyone wants porn, bid on me over here. I'm cheap and easy, as ever, and it's for a good cause.

I hope everyone out there has a lovely and very safe evening. I'll be staying in and hosting a small family dinner and having a bit of wine afterward while we play some card games and some wii. I'll likely get my ass trampled at everything, but the wine will make it so that I don't mind at all. :D

Resolutions anyone? I think I have a few.

Moderation. I need to learn moderation. If I have a bottle of wine in the fridge, I don't have to finish it. If there are a bag of reeses in the cupboard, I don't have to eat them all right now. If I'm going to make changes in my life, these changes can be subtle and slow, I don't have to do everything all at once. We'll see how this one goes... I obviously do nothing in moderation in my life right now.

I need to get off my ass. I've been out of an excersize routine for about two years now. There's no reason why I can't take thirty minutes out of my day to MOVE. Knitting is not an aerobic activity.

I want to take a trip overseas. This means actually getting passports for the kid and I, and making plans, and not hyperventilating from the time I make a decision until the time the trip is over for fear of something going wrong. Also, I'm going to attempt to stick to the moderation on the wine thing through all of this, because this one sort of makes me want to drink more.

Silly, but I want to learn how to use a sewing machine this year. I will no longer be afraid of the sewing machine. The sewing machine is not attempting to kill me every time I press the little pedal with my foot. I will stop screaming and running from the sewing machine.

That's good enough, right? I never do resolutions, because I generally have forgotten about them by the second day of the new year. But I do feel like making some changes right now, and might as well strike while the iron is hot, I guess. Or something. So, anyway...

Godt Nytt År!!!! (Roz, did I say that right?) Hope you all have a good one. :D

Hope everyone on my flist had an amazing day!

I had the 'bright' idea to make everyone's gifts this year, so the last few weeks I've been in a frenzy to get everything done. They all love their pressies, but I don't think I'm going to be doing this again, unless I can force myself to actually start working on everything in March. *collapses* But the wrapping paper is all cleaned up, the house doesn't look that bad, and we managed, even with all of the family coming here this year, to have a pretty good day. The kidlet woke us up at 5am, (he let us sleep in this year, last year it was 3:30), and he seems to be happy with everything he got, especially the DS that my parents gave him. He's been glued to it to the point that we're having trouble getting him to stop and eat. I'm fairly sure his brains are going to leak out of his ears if he doesn't ease up, but as I told him today, at least it will be a small mess to clean up. :P I got my hubby an ipod touch, and ironically, he got me the same thing. We had no idea til we opened them. I'm honestly amazed at the little gadget and though I'm not as insane over downloading applications as my hubby is, I've found a few that I think are cute. And the worst gift was from hubby's grandparents, who are in their 80's and apparently will wrap up anything. It's a statue of a deer head with huge antlers. He thought it was hysterical and put it on his desk in the living room and hung his keys on it. He'll be out of town tomorrow, so I plan on hiding the ugly thing.

The kidlet has a few lung issues atm, so we're on three additional drugs and hopefully that will take care of things. He certainly seems to feel all right, he was bouncing off the walls tonight before bed. So all in all a pretty good holiday. Still, I'm damn glad it's over.

I got my smutty_claus gift and it's art! Not worksafe, red headed, gorgeous, naughty, incestuous art!!!! I've a thing for Weasleycest, I just can't help myself. It's got to be the red hair thing, but really, they shouldn't all be so enticing. It's their fault, not mine!

Anyway, the artwork is stunning and beautiful and please go check it out and let the artist know that it's wonderful! Thank you secret santa!!!!!!!!

Also, for those keeping up, I caught myself a second time humming an xmas song. In the shower last night. I'm thoroughly disgusted with myself at this point and not really sure what to do about it. Fantastic art only seems to make me more cheerful. *put-upon sigh*