Last Hurrah

Got my last paycheque from the old place. This is a good thing -- pays the last month of rent here, gets my travelcard renewed, and generally prevents me from fretting over financial issues and the fact that neither agency has found me a goddamn thing -- at least, it holds the fretting off for awhile. It also means that I can, among other things, break down and purchase a copy of Sims 2 University. Never mind that I can't play it because the HD upon which it's installed is still on the living room floor somewhere -- at least I'll have it for install whenever the Frankenbox does actually get fixed. Besides, it'll restore my faith in Amazon, who have failed me so abysmally in the recent past.

Probably going to buy the Werewolf: The Forsaken (gotta love that acronym, huh, guys?) as well. It's either that or some of these herbalism books that got passed under my nose (and in some cases borrowed on my behalf) on Saturday. Medical Herbalism: Principles and Practices was the particularly droolworthy one: huge hardcover monstrosity filled with Latin binomials and clinical info -- woo-hoo! Of course, there are a few others that are a bit more user-friendly, but there's just something about owning one's own scientific-bent reference material that just soothes the soul. Or something.

But beyond that, not much to report. Had a nice evening in last night, watching A Fish Called Wanda with dodgyhoodoo. The "taking turns with dinner" thing seems to work like a charm. Of course, I will eventually get the hang of how much is too much when it comes to adding crushed chilli peppers to things, and dodgyhoodoo moves like ninja when he puts his mind to it (note to readers: do not sneak up on someone holding a large knife), but otherwise it's just a lot of fun. Now, if I could just get used to his habit of picking up after me, we'd be golden. At this rate, I'm going to have to start ... *shudder* ... being tidier.

Everything's a cat toy...

Now don't get me wrong. I love my Yuki very much. Sweetest, silliest cat on earth, in my opinion, though I suppose most pet owners feel that way about theirs. And if the management company from whom our soon-to-be landlord (that's presuming our references come through okay, and I don't see why they shouldn't) doesn't allow us to keep her, I will be very, very sad. All the same, sometimes she's a right royal pain in the butt.

I have a rather extensive collection of essential oils. Some of them -- the cinnamon leaf, as a for-instance -- are irritants and shouldn't be placed directly on bare skin. Others, like the valerian, have fairly hefty medicinal properties (in the case of the valerian, antispasmodic and sedative) and shouldn't be used undiluted under any circumstances. Of course, valerian is also mentioned in Crafty terms as being a favourite of feline familiars. Either way, the whole collection, from bergamot to ylang ylang, fascinates Yuki. Not only does it all smell really interesting, but the bottles are just about the right size for batting around. And they roll. Funny-smelling cat toys. Whee.

So a little while ago, I'm doing my standard webcomic check and I hear *clatterclinkthump*. Turn around -- there's Yuki on top of the bookshelf and my essential oil bottles, so painstakingly arranged in alphabetical order, are now all over the floor. So I grabbed her off the bookshelf, chucked her out, shut the door and began searching the floor for scattered oil bottles. After all, some of those cost nearly £10 for a 5ml bottle and I'm not going to be happy about having to replace them barely used. In the end, I found 'em all, though the lavender eluded me for quite some time (it had rolled under my desk chair). That wouldn't have been a big deal, anyway -- lavender's fairly common, relatively inexpensive and used in almost everything, so having a second bottle would have presented no problem once I'd found the first one.

Still. NOT CAT TOYS! I need to find a box I can put the bastard things in. Well, there's also the need to find some marjoram and neroli oil. Those two are notoriously useful as cures for insomnia and depression respectively, so good to have in the stockpile. Still, don't know from marjoram but neroli's wicked costly in pure, non-synthetic form. But if it's useful (and, like bergamot, it's one of the ones I like wearing as perfume, so yes), I guess it's worth it.

And to think I was afraid I was going to become one of those people who spent obscene amounts of money on nothing but RPG sourcebooks.