A quiet night, a stack of books, a tuna melt on rye

I want to post something here because I want to get back into the habit, and yet I'm having a difficult time thinking of anything to say.  Grrr.  I even have a back log of things I could talk about.  Round ups of Gally or the Jane Austen festival in Hammond (no really! who holds a Jane Austen festival in Hammond Louisiana?) but somehow it seems to late or something. So right now:

1. I've been working in the lab, training (and a suppose now working) as a historic analyst.  It is kind of awesome but I spend an ridiculous amount of time going "I know this is something but what is it?"  Such things are usually miscellaneous pieces of rusted metal hardware which are kind of difficult to describe.  
2. Results from classicwho20n20 came in today.  I actually did rather well and the results were pretty well distributed, which I like to see.  Sign ups are now open for round two.  I've already signed up, so next I need to determine which era I'm going to focus on this time.  Do I go with the DVD I'm itching to watch or the person for whom I have the next largest number of DVDs.  So Many Choices. 
3. I'm also well into my swap package for the Doctor Who swap with the Odd Ducks on Ravelry.  I'm centering my package around a specific episode, so my large item isn't obviously Who related.  I'm a little worried that my spoilee will be disappointed with it.  I think it's really pretty though.  Also green and silver --- ish.   I also got a notebook in the mail today that I was going to modify for the swap.  It is much smaller than I expected. 
4. It is also kind of weird to be discussing one of my fandom with people who are fans but are not in fandom.  I'm constantly brought up short by things people on the tread don't know exist.  It kind of makes me feel obsessive, which to be fair, is probably true. 
5. I was asked to play a hand bell solo which is kind of freaking me out.  I can just about keep track of my two bells and which one is in which hand.  I'm not sure how I'm supposed to keep track of an entire melody line.  Also the director keeps say that he is not worried, but we haven't even sight-read through it yet.  I think he might be in for a surprise (and not one of the pleasant sort).
6. I got a text message last night that said "your husband know cuz he going to."  Rather amusing because I have no husband and therefore can be certain that its a wrong number, but it could have been rather upsetting otherwise. 

That went rather better than I hoped. 

This weekend was the New Orleans St. Patrick's Day parade, which is like a mini-Mardi Gras where they throw produce in addition to the general beads and other trinkets.  It's kind of funny, in that you can tell this is a parade attended mostly by local people because they are all "Throw me a cabbage, a cabbage, no. not the beads I already have more of them than I could ever use.  I want a cabbage."  For some reason, this year, cabbage seemed to be the only vegetable they were throwing out, which is unfortunate because I really wanted some carrots.  By the end of the parade you are supposed to have all the makings of stew (well, except your meat of choice since that would be supper icky to throw.) apparently this year you are only allowed to have cabbage in your stew. 

Anyway, the first half of the parade consists of men dressed in tuxes or dress kilts who hand out fake flowers for a kiss.  Now for the most part this involves a kiss on the cheek and a wishing of "Happy St. Pats," occasionally the drunker or more exhibitionist members of the crowd will go further to get more.  So, we were close to the end of the parade route, and most of these men had been drinking since the pre-parade mass let out, so by the time they got to us they were rather smashed.  We had one such Drunky McDrunkerson make his way down the side of the street where my friends and I were standing.  He had long ago either given out or lost all of his flowers.  The first time I noticed him, he was nearly pulling a little girl (probably 7 or so) off the ladder she was standing on to give her a kiss on the cheek.  Her parents didn't seem to mind, and they had a bunch of people coming up to them all through the parade, so I have to believe that they were in someway involved with the organization.  Next, he kissed Jenae and glowwormtu each on the cheek.  Finally he comes at me straight on with his tongue hanging out.  Let me tell you how I was not drunk enough to make out with random drunk guy on the street in the middle of the afternoon -- I don't think there exists a level of drunk that would make me okay with that.  glowwormtu said she had never seen anyone reach that shade of red before (I think I recently shared my propensity for blushing) and Amanda, who was standing behind me, latter told me she could tell the look horror on my face just from the way the back of my head moved. 

After that people were much more pleasant.  There was some dancing with a man old enough to be my grandfather from behind a police barricade.  One guy spent his time near us bragging about his kissing ability and then insisted that cheek kissing was not the way to go.  And one guy decided that the Pipe &Drums corp was not moving fast enough so he elected himself drum major with his flower based baton. 

Rant - Why are people incapable of being on time.  I had two people lined up to look at my apartment tonight.  The first guy was supposed to come at 5:30 and showed up at around 6:30.  The second was supposed to be here at 7:30.  I'm still waiting.  Guess I don't get to go to knitting group tonight.  GRRR! - End Rant

I also figured out why the hospital sheets they give us are never the closest hospitals to the line.  When you're making the sheets they don't bother to give you a map of the line, you just get a list of the closest large towns and tell you to find hospitals in them.  Possibly not the most efficient way.