cornerofmadness

After a rough start to the day (Dad naturally) the rest of the day went well. My brother and Sister in Law always come here for Christmas Eve dinner (and we used to do midnight mass but they only do mass here like around noon any more so...)

It was the feast of seven fishes...or in this case the four fishes (ah well) I made a salted anchovy bruschetta

( my recipe under here )

Yesterday was Federico's Italian store, Aldi's and Kroger's. Today was the liquor store and it was supposed to be CVS but shockingly THIS CVS also doesn't stock my insulin. Fan-tast-tic. The only other thing I've done is edit fandomtrees stories (and found I forgot to post one)

OMG I'm doing bad with the advent tea review so let me catch up....again

Day 17 Gingerbread Black Tea - Organic China black tippy tea, organic cinnamon, organic cloves, organic ginger and gingerbread flavoring. It wasn't bad but it was mostly cinnamon forward

Day 18 Tulsi Orange Cranberry Ginger Organic Herbal Tisane - Organic tulsi, organic orange peel, organic rosehips, organic hibiscus, organic ginger, natural blood orange flavor and natural cranberry flavor. Now this was very tasty. I'd recommend it but sadly I can't drink it often because hibiscus and rose hips mess with blood thinners

Day 19 Cozy Comfort Tea black teas, organic cinnamon pieces, orange blossoms and Black Walnut flavor. I found it to be rather weak and unimpressive

Day 20 Holiday Blend Tea Black teas, rooibos, peppermint leaves, organic alfalfa leaves, vanilla flavoring, malva blossoms, erica flowers, and vanilla beans. - Very mint forward

Day 21 - Goldenberry Herbal Tisane Apple pieces, candied papaya pieces (papayas and sugar), strawberry leaf, hibiscus, lemongrass and natural Goldenberry flavor. Also tasty also not good for me

Day 22 Sugar Plum Fairy - Rooibos Herbal Tisane Organic green rooibos, organic whole cloves, rosehips, hibiscus, sweet blackberry leaf, plum flavor, mallow blossoms, raspberry pieces, natural strawberry flavor, and vanilla beans. I bought this one last year (not seeing that it had hibiscus and rose hips) It's actually dull in spite of all the flavoring


It's music monday and let's make it some of your favorite holiday songs

For solstice


I know I share this one every year


Because Dino

1. Why are you asking me for extra credit when you didn't do the REAL credit?
2. Why are you emailing me after the final and asking me what you can do to save your grade?
3. No, you can't have extra extra credit (okay I DO say this one all the time but no one listens)
4. How do you NOT KNOW what chapters are on the test?
5. Why do you think THOSE chapters are on the test? When the hell did we ever touch that chapter?
6. Why do you think you can ask for a pity D (that's 60% btw) when you have a 30% in class
7. Why do you think I'll give you extra anything when you haven't even shown up for exams
8. No I don't care that you're a senior and you won't graduate if you fail. The time to worry about that was weeks ago when I COULD have helped you.
9. How the fuck do you think leg muscles are LUNGS?


At any rate two are done and one to go. Some people are not going to have happy holidays.

At least I busted out a replacement fandomtrees story that I really like as well.


I have forgotten that I got an advent calendar from Simpson and Vail tea and haven't done my yearly tea tasting so buckle up, here comes 8 days at once
1. glacier national park - Black teas, organic juniper berries, birch bark, huckleberry flavor, uva ursi leaf (bearberry), and white cornflowers petals. One of my favorites (I get this one all the time)

2. Cinnamon Chocolate Brownie - Organic Chinese black tea, organic cacao nibs, organic cinnamon pieces and natural chocolate flavoring. - Not as a cinnamon as I would have liked

3. Snowberry Frost - Black teas, organic cacao nibs, cranberries (cranberries, sugar, sunflower oil), cranberry cream flavoring, and white cornflower petals. = I'm not a fan of cranberries but this one is good

4. Herbal Chai Masala- Organic cinnamon pieces, cardamom seeds, organic black peppercorns, organic whole cloves, orange peel, organic ginger pieces, organic anise seed and Indian sarsaparilla. - THANK YOU for no rooibos in this or chamomile

5. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Black Tea Blend - Black teas, lapsang souchong tea, hibiscus flowers, wild cherry flavor, orange blossoms, and bourbon whiskey flavor. - This is one of my go tos and I love it

6. Candy Cane Organic Rooibos Herbal Tisane - Organic green Rooibos, natural candy cane flavor and organic stevia. - As much as I don't like red rooibos I do like green and the peppermint is really nice in this and the stevia doesn't give me a headache like it often does nor tastes bitter

7. Victorian Earl Grey Tea - Rose Congou black tea, lavender petals, rose petals, rosemary and natural bergamot oil. - Another of my favorites from them. I'm not sure what really makes it Victorian, probably the flowers. Rosemary is a strong flavor but here it works

8. Rooibos Pear Herbal Tisane - Rooibos, pear flavor, alfalfa leaf and marigold petals.- Literally the worst of the bunch. Of course I don't like red rooibos and that's all you can taste. Some one should know pear is too delicate to stand up to rooibos


And for Music Monday the prompt today is A Song by someone Who has Passed away. I have two

The sound of my college days

And since I'll be heading back to his hometown soon

It was an easy open study lab today and they were playing music when one of them pipes up, do you like music Doctor Evans?

Yes, I love music. Feel free to play it.

Girl from the back. Did you listen to Jacob Sartorius? (her table had suggested it last week when they were using him to remember the sartorius thigh muscle)

Yes, I liked it.

What did you listen to?

Ladies it's been a week, I don't remember.

Guy from the front - Do you like rap?

Me - it's not my favorite genre but I listen to some of it.

WHO?!?

Me - Oh, they're all old now. Run DMC, Will Smith when he was the Fresh Prince, Sir Mix-a-lot, Tone Loc

Guy from the front - do you like Nas?

Me - I've not really heard his stuff but I like Little Nas X

Them- holding up phone, what's this one? (obviously thinking Doc Dana is trying to be the cool prof who knows music)

two notes

me - Old Town Road, Little Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus

they start giggling. loudly.

The phone goes up. More music.

Me -three seconds in, Get Jiggy with it, Will Smith

More giggling.

Them - Dance

Me - Just play your music.

They weren't sure if it was a dare or not so the phone went away.


We had some of the other testing too. It's week 15 of 16 after all. Can't I have extra extra credit. No.

I NEED to pass this class to graduate. Can't I have a D? I'm desperate. 1. that's not passing 2. You have a 38%. No. I mean you'd have to sacrifice to the elder gods to pass at this point.


Let's hit the fannish fun for fannish 50 For one, sharing this again because Blake and this song hit the Billboard top 100 (at 98 but my god it's less than 3 minutes) Also move over Jessica Rabbit, another animated lounge singer is after your crown




( Finally getting my thoughts out on the last two Hazbin episodes. Spoilers abound and outside of the above song all the clips and songs are NSFW )

the bone-joint-muscle test was awful (class average 55% excluding the two who got 100% and the fact several people didn't show up) This test for whatever reason (I suspect because it's their first real hard core physiology) is always a blood bath. I always make them work for extra credit for the test (by doing short essays on the most missed questions) Took me all night to grade it.

And all day. Had to learn new software for it but that was easy peasy.

My hip is still in horrendous pain. Fun times

And here's the real reason for the post. Music Monday today was best song from High School Years

Here have this

I swear my whole dorm (the next year since this came out in my senior year) would stop and race to our tvs when this video came on MTV


And bonus music because Angel is Italian and Husk is fluent, have Losing Streak in Italian

sung to the tune of I drove all night.



We're not even waiting for winter to get snowy. I do like snow though. I like it IN my mail box less especially since there were 2 gifts in there, well gifts for me but still. An Abney Park CD and the new
Mooncat nail polish I hope the cold didn't change the chemicals because this is the most expensive nail polish I've ever bought and I hope I can figure it out since it requires the use of magnets.

I think the entire class traumatized the poor German young man in there. He probably thinks Americans are insane (sorry sir but you're in Appalachia. You need to understand people here are gonna eat squirrels and rabbits. His eyes bugged out when I asked 'no Hasenpfeffer?')


I did look around at Pintrest for music challenges and found a couple 30 days things so I'm borrowing from but it'll be weeks. I have to finalize the full list but the one I picked for day is a song from your childhood that you played to death. Okay mine is very weird and then I found this bizarre, disturbing video that went with it (also keep in mind as a child I understood Italian better than I do now as after my great grandma died it was no longer spoken at home until my grandmother got into her 80s and wanted to relearn things). Feel free to share a favorite song from your childhood

It's All Saint's Day. Since time no longer means anything to me I thought it was Il Giorno dei Morti (head desk) You can learn more here.

Since right now with my broke ass fridge I don't have milk/eggs so I couldn't make any of the sweets. Was going to make Frutta Martorana (marizpan shaped like fruit) but Kroger was out of it and I'm WAY too lazy to make it by hand. I did make up a batch of suga di zucca because I am too lazy to make pumpkin gnocchi so I'm putting pumpkin sauce over shelf stable potato gnocchi. You can find the recipe I used here. (unless you read Italian, you will need to hit translate)

Got a letter today. My bank has change my routing number. Remember when my job couldn't pay me and my loans couldn't get paid back in April/May and my bank insisted it wasn't them...bullshit. You see my bank bought out my original bank EIGHTEEN years ago and suddenly now they made it a Wesbanco routing number so now I have to go change ALL my credit card payment sites, paypal, Payroll, my student loans, change my checks and they gave me my new routing number. It's my SAME number. OMFG. did you send this to everyone?!? now I need to call them.

And it's NaDruWriNi right? Well I didn't look at the discounted wine when I grabbed it to make my sauce. It was peach/mango yellowtail (I thought I grabbed the pinot grigio) It was like adult kool-aid. I drank a little...turned out it was half the bottle. Oops. off to write.

It's been a long time but here you go, science saturday (all from one source, lazy lazy me)


Differences in red blood cells may have 'hastened the extinction' of our Neanderthal cousins, new study suggests

Building blocks of life detected in ice outside the Milky Way for first time ever

'Puzzling' object discovered by James Webb telescope may be the earliest known galaxy in the universe

James Webb telescope celebrates Halloween with eerie image of a dying sun — it's what our own might look like one day

Nanotyrannus isn't a 'mini T. Rex' after all — it's a new species, 'dueling dinosaurs' fossil reveals

Halloween dragons click them if you want



( Hazbin Hotel S2 spoilers but what ain't a spoiler is it has 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is now the most viewed animate show. Ever. )

I'm drowning in work and now I'm one of two people doing the whole program accreditation thing which is a LOT of work so every moment of my office hours are taken up meaning I need to come home and do the work I normally do in the office. Sigh. Which means writing deadlines are not going to be made. Sighs Speaking of sigh fandomgiftbasket needs some help (go check it out to see if you can . I can do the owl house one (I had planned on it then forgot it) I do wish there was a way to contact the moderator. There isn't on the site (and I don't feel right barging into their personal DMs because I would love them to ask one of the participants to open the requests to fic as well as art. I could knock one out of the part as fic but my abilities to draw it.... A suggestion for these fandom exchanges, a 3 fandom min. is good but maybe you should put on a two mediums min too... And it's music monday. Since it's spooky season I'm continuing with the spookier music. Here's a collection of symphonic metal and goth. Feel free so share your faves in those genres if you have them. ( music under here )

So I didn't open emails over the weekend because of the con. I open it today and in my two online only classes I have 40 students between two classes. Out of those 40 THREE wrote me to say we can't see the notes for the final unit. I turned that on a week ago sunday and the quizzes were due yesterday. The final on this is due friday.

THREE people out of 40. And they're right. The notes are messed up. I fixed it. I extended the quizzes and the final (the class locks off next week because friday is technically the last day of class) so my question is WHY would you not contact the professor if something was wrong.

And the other stuff isn't working either and IT says it's McGraw Hill who says I'm doing it wrong, you know the same thing I've done for 20 damn years. And btw am doing exactly how they're telling me to do it. screams into the void.

But as for yesterday, I came home to go to Bob Fest vs going to the last day of the con. Honestly I can bump this back to every other year too. I know where all the vendors are and how much more could I use from any of them? Sure the coffee/honey/maple vendors I can always use (as if I can't get it from Kroger, literally in the coffee's case, they're local and carried by Kroger) How much more glass can I get from the glass blower (the answer is a blue bird for mom and a purple one for me) I did skip the jerky (getting too expensive) got the cheese from my cheesemonger.

And I was going to get some bougie boozy jam. How much are these? two for 35$. Sure thing. She sees me with jelly jars in hand. I sneak them onto a shelf and scamper off. You can't scamper with a cane. Lordee no.

I did buy a left handed hand carved spoon with a scraper (which is why it's handed, not that I suspect it matters much) It's walnut and he carves the wood type and date into it. 2012. I was sad for my spoon. It's been going to festival after festival for 13 years and no one wanted it. Poor spoon (which yes that is animism right there) I was going to give it to Dad but I think I'll keep this poor unwanted spoon (I stir left handed anyhow)

I pet some long horns (owned by one of my current students) and came home.

( have some con pictures under here )

And it's music monday. Since it's spooky time let's continue with the spooky music


Another full albumn for you. This is my favorite by Midnight Syndicate


I have always loved these house displays (Im not tech savvy enough to do this) here's one that's a tribute to Ozzy (Locally the rock station is calling this Ozztober)


And for the K Pop fans

I was incredibly overwhelmed especially with every online thing still fucking up and then I have three more responsibilities being heaped on me. But...I got the online stuff fixed. I got my story finished (thanks to evil_little_dog for a lightning fast beta read.


Tomorrow I need to see the surgeon. I'm vaguely worried.

I had such a terrible dreams over the last two days Let me tell you about them.

Dream One - I was at a either an all inclusive resort or on a cruise (it seemed to be both). It started with me leaning on a wall, looking out over the surf. It was time to get up to eat. Behind me where two of my flash drives and my inhaler (for reasons, god knows what). I couldn't grab them up so my parents left me there. My friends did too (I couldn't tell who it was).

And the anxiety began. It was all buffet but I couldn't find plates. I got distracted by two cousins of mine who kept talking to me even though it was obvious I wanted to go eat. By the way both of these women are dead (and have been for years) I manage to get away from them and head to the far wall because I see huge crabs and lobster symbols on the wall. But when I get there there is nothing left. It's all smoked fish. Ew.

Then I go into the next room and I see a huge deli case but in it was sausages and other meats but it was all horse meat. and the horse's head was in there, two of them. One was named Kevin with he/him after it (the horse had pronouns, thanks now I can eat them).

Since I didn't want to eat horse I go to the next room that nothing but desserts but before i can have dessert for dinner evil_little_dog and silvrethorn come racing in, in horse costumes and destroy the table in protest over the horse meat (like they couldn't have done that to the horse room!)

I run away and try to get a plate. I am going running from room to room but all the plates are dirty or broken. I even think to go to the gift shop to buy a damn plate but by the time I find a plate ALL the food places are closed up and I have no dinner. I break down crying in the middle of the dinning room (as if you can't get room service at these places) and that's when I wake up.

Dream two (this morning) I'm in a car with Mom and evil_little_dog and we see an open house on a house for sale. ELD insists we stop even though there's no one at this place and I don't like the location. We go in and it's a mid century split level (exactly what I don't want). The two owners give me the creeps. I don't like anything about this place but Mom and ELD do. They keep poking around upstairs but I tell the owners I'm going downstairs to see if it's haunted and you know, to see if there are sins and broken foundations down there.

I am going over and over in my head reasons to get the hell out. The creep factor in the basement is off the charts and then the lights go out. I panic. I'm running everywhere, slamming into walls because it's a maze. I'm screaming I'm downstairs and I need help to get out. I slowly realize no one is coming to help and the owners aren't letting any of us out. I manage to find a room with a window and I climb out. The owners know I've escaped so I race together people on the street (as if I can run) and I'm acting like a threatening maniac hoping they'll call the cops because they didn't believe me I was being kidnapped. I woke up just as the cops got there. Did Mom and ELD live? Who knows.

it's music monday and we're doing music that inspires you. For the next month or so, let's do one song that inspires us to draw or write. If you're not a creative, share one song that's making you happy right now. I offer this one from Three Days Grace. HOW many characters of mine would this fit? Connor telling off Angel. Angel Dust telling off Henroin and Arackniss. Edward Elric giving it to Hohenheim. ANd that's just a few