![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsSaturday, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
omahas and I started out our day after a pancake breakfast by driving over to Kouryou-chan's school. The place looks like it has the wear and tear of winter all over it. The property doesn't seem to have suffered much from the windstorm but pine needles and leaves lie everywhere. The lack of sunlight doesn't help cheer the place up, either.
We were there to clean out the gutters, again. I don't understand why Principal Connie continues to use those crappy "French Grilles" over the drainpipes on the gutters: sure, they keep the big stuff from going down into the drainpipes and clogging them up, but they also gum up the second four pine needles touch the sides. Instant dam, with the resulting overflow and downpour off the gutterruns themselves. Yech.
Omaha and I climbed up a rickety ladder onto the sloped, wet rooftiles, and with buckets in hand and gloves on hand, two layers, one latex one leather, we worked our way along the northwest edge of the Primary and Toddler wing. We both managed to drop at least one bucket over the side, shattering each. I showed Omaha how to climb up and down from the roof using trees and the fence, but she preferred the safety of the ladder. The kids played down in the schoolgrounds, keeping occupied. It didn't rain, a minor blessing considering how cold and wet it felt already. At least two trees overhung where we worked, and we regretted not bringing a tree lop. After hauling about sixty pounds of muck off the roof, we headed home for a shower.
We had promised the girls that we'd attend Oloteas, and so after lunch, we drove up to The Longhouse.
A lot of people I knew were there: I huggedshemayazi and kaelisinger, which means that my life does not suck at all. Kaeli was there with her beloved and her two extremely willful daughters, who are both about Kouryou-chan's age. They all went off to sing Yule carols for an hour, then came back and everyone sank into the heated swimming pool. Kouryou-chan and Yamaraashi-chan are becoming reasonably drown-proof, and Omaha chided me on my constant "count heads" approach to making sure neither one was on the bottom of the pool. There were a lot of lovely people in the pool, but then I happen to like, ahem, women of size. There was a young man walking about with a skirt on-- not a kilt, a skirt-- and I've been writing SF for so long that it wasn't until the fourth or fifth time that I'd seen him that it clicked that his couture was in any way unusual.
The dinner was potluck with the predictable "bought at Whole Paycheck" outlay of last-minute things. Omaha brought something bought at Trader Joe's which is about the same thing anyway. There were some yummy home-made foods, though, especially a batch of scalloped potatoes which everyone who isn't lactose intolerant enjoyed. A lot of Christmas cookies, cakes, and pies for dessert, too: there were leftovers!
Kouryou-chan didn't want to do the ritual, so Yamaraashi-chan and I did it together. It was very nice. We had LED-based "candles" and formed a human chain leading out of the circle to "the cave of the dead," where the Sun God slept in his passing death on Longest Night. Very cool, and very cold, too, but Yamaraashi-chan toughed it out. She's a great kid.
We went home. The kids went straight to bed. I should have done the same, but I wasn't that tired. Omaha was in a writing mood, but I couldn't quite get there myself so I went downstairs and played the most anti-social video game I own, Grand Theft Auto III, for a while before heading to bed.
omahas and I started out our day after a pancake breakfast by driving over to Kouryou-chan's school. The place looks like it has the wear and tear of winter all over it. The property doesn't seem to have suffered much from the windstorm but pine needles and leaves lie everywhere. The lack of sunlight doesn't help cheer the place up, either.We were there to clean out the gutters, again. I don't understand why Principal Connie continues to use those crappy "French Grilles" over the drainpipes on the gutters: sure, they keep the big stuff from going down into the drainpipes and clogging them up, but they also gum up the second four pine needles touch the sides. Instant dam, with the resulting overflow and downpour off the gutterruns themselves. Yech.
Omaha and I climbed up a rickety ladder onto the sloped, wet rooftiles, and with buckets in hand and gloves on hand, two layers, one latex one leather, we worked our way along the northwest edge of the Primary and Toddler wing. We both managed to drop at least one bucket over the side, shattering each. I showed Omaha how to climb up and down from the roof using trees and the fence, but she preferred the safety of the ladder. The kids played down in the schoolgrounds, keeping occupied. It didn't rain, a minor blessing considering how cold and wet it felt already. At least two trees overhung where we worked, and we regretted not bringing a tree lop. After hauling about sixty pounds of muck off the roof, we headed home for a shower.
We had promised the girls that we'd attend Oloteas, and so after lunch, we drove up to The Longhouse.
A lot of people I knew were there: I hugged
shemayazi and kaelisinger, which means that my life does not suck at all. Kaeli was there with her beloved and her two extremely willful daughters, who are both about Kouryou-chan's age. They all went off to sing Yule carols for an hour, then came back and everyone sank into the heated swimming pool. Kouryou-chan and Yamaraashi-chan are becoming reasonably drown-proof, and Omaha chided me on my constant "count heads" approach to making sure neither one was on the bottom of the pool. There were a lot of lovely people in the pool, but then I happen to like, ahem, women of size. There was a young man walking about with a skirt on-- not a kilt, a skirt-- and I've been writing SF for so long that it wasn't until the fourth or fifth time that I'd seen him that it clicked that his couture was in any way unusual.The dinner was potluck with the predictable "bought at Whole Paycheck" outlay of last-minute things. Omaha brought something bought at Trader Joe's which is about the same thing anyway. There were some yummy home-made foods, though, especially a batch of scalloped potatoes which everyone who isn't lactose intolerant enjoyed. A lot of Christmas cookies, cakes, and pies for dessert, too: there were leftovers!
Kouryou-chan didn't want to do the ritual, so Yamaraashi-chan and I did it together. It was very nice. We had LED-based "candles" and formed a human chain leading out of the circle to "the cave of the dead," where the Sun God slept in his passing death on Longest Night. Very cool, and very cold, too, but Yamaraashi-chan toughed it out. She's a great kid.
We went home. The kids went straight to bed. I should have done the same, but I wasn't that tired. Omaha was in a writing mood, but I couldn't quite get there myself so I went downstairs and played the most anti-social video game I own, Grand Theft Auto III, for a while before heading to bed.
