The day after All Saints Day: another typical day. I woke up late, rushed through my morning ablutions, made sure that I had my bus pass & id card as I walked out the door, and turned on my mini-iPod as I headed for the bus stop. I was running late, so I turned my music to the Wake Up playlist (mostly high energy songs) and Eternal Flame came on. I decided that wasn't upbeat enough & hit next. Redneck Woman came on & that got me hustling to the stop. Caught the bus & read on the way into work. My current tatting (until I get beyond the pause in my necklace) is too sensitive to try on the bus. I have to really watch my tension when working with metallic & nylon filaments.

The bus dropped me off very close to work. I waved to the guy in the copy center (we have the same director), actually I made a face at him until he looked up & waved back. Pausing by the paper rack, I picked up 4 of the campus papers; one for me & three for whoever else in the office wants one. Diving into the Pit Stop, I bought my usual 4 Sunbelt granola bars (one Oat N' Honey, one chocolate chip, one fudge dipped coconut & one fudge dipped chocolate chip) & my Diet Pepsi Max (it used to be whatever diet vanilla soda they had but the companies stopped producing them). The lines for the registers in the Pit Stop were long so I went to a register in the main part of the store. The cashier looked mildly bored, so I gave him something to do. I gave exact change, grabbed my receipt & off to my building.

I waved hi to Tabitha as I came in, dodging tables. Down the stairs & swipe my id card to unlock my office door. The lights were already on, so I put down my bag, noting that I had a voice mail message waiting, laid the newspapers out, grabbed the leftover paper from yesterday & headed down the hall to turn on the other lights. I called hi to the other people who'd already arrived & put the old newspapers in the recycling before grabbing a bottle of water from the tiny office refrigerator (we have a water cooler but I'm bad about remembering to drink, so I refill my soda bottles with water & put them in the fridge until I'm ready for them). I hang up my jacket & sweater in the closet & return to my desk to turn on my computer.

That's the start of my day.

Music: Morning commute today started with Redneck Woman, followed by Mony, Mony, at which time the bus came. Over the sound of the engines I could barely hear Backdoor Lover, White Wedding, Hey Good Looking, Everything Hurts, and then I could hear Candyall Beat Remix as I disembarked. Rock Around the Clock took me into my office.

books: I read vol 5 of Fruits Basket this morning. I don't know what I'm going to read next.

gaming: Last night was a meatgrinder. Our characters earned & used Hero Points like mad. It was 9 or 10 rounds of nothing but combat. Okay, very little besides combat. We ended last session with fiery demons emerging from the chest of the villainous, mystically-powered robot. Last night we fought them as we tried to close the gate. Rosemary's character, Lady Celtic, finally figured out how to do it. We have to find the chief bad guy's, Eyekiller's, fetish, where he keeps his soul & destroy it. Among other things, Totem got turned into a pigeon (but still helped by using her acrobatic bluff a couple times to redirect Eyekiller's attack onto his own demons) and Lady Celtic was transformed into a cat. Since she could still think, she continued to work on the gate shut down. Once she figured it out, she used her transform power to become a monkey. Now able to make gestures, she regained her magic and used to heal Momento Mori & wake him up.

When we left off, Totem had figured out that the best person to get the fetish was either Wraith, who's out of duplicates until he can make some more, or her heir, Jason. His patron/totem is Anubis/Coyote so he has an affinity for realms of the dead & trickery. Alas, Totem saw no way to get a message to Jason or to summon him. I may be using a hero point for that.

clothes: black jeans, socks, suede shoes & polo (Geoff); hematite band & earrings (silver hook, silver bead, square hematite? bead, silver bead, larger hematite sphere), braided silver ring & both match bangles, labradorite pendant (mostly hidden by collar) & my hair in a ponytail, using one of the clasps from Bronze Jewellers.

Blood donation: I tried. I ate something and drank a smoothie (anti-nausea calcium & liquid in one dose) beforehand. None of it worked. They couldn't find enough of my veins for me to donate. They stuck me but then lost the vein. Three phlebotomists looked but oh well. Maybe it was too early, the food, etc hadn't reached my veins yet. I'll try again in a couple weeks.

I cooked last night; nothing huge, just mini-calzones. I used a small squash & a jar of sliced mushrooms instead of a small zuccini & half a bell pepper, then forgot to add the left-over chicken into the mix. I ate 2 of the calzones for supper last night & ate one for breakfast this morning. That leaves just one more. It's a quick, only half or so in all, and pretty easy recipe.

tatting: I did get past the halfway point on my necklace while waiting to donate platelets. I debated pendant or not & finally decided on a pendant. I have some of the teardrop beads left, I guess I'll use those on earrings. Thanks to the commute in & an errand for work, I'm now well past 3/4 done. Alas, I'm short about 2 teardrop beads. Somehow I miscounted while I was threading the beads. However, two problems together solve each other. I'm also almost out of thread on the shuttle. Thus, I will have to take some of the thread off the ball & transfer to a 2nd shuttle, giving me the opportunity to add beads, before re-loading the 1st shuttle.

I've already seen a couple students dressed for Halloween. I will probably wear my Colonial outfit to answer the door.

books: Read Truly Yours, as I liked other books the author had written. This one was pretty good, too. Her characters are not perfect, even though this heroine was a little closer. I also bought & read Fruits Basket vol 3 & 4.

clothes: yesterday, black jeans, black suede shoes, purple polo, grey knit sweater, amethyst pendant, purple Czech bead earrings, and silver ~rope band. Today I'm wearing the same shoes, black jeans, black Origins shirt, black & red stone rings, dragon earrings & harp pendant. My hair is braided again for simple convenience.