[Fic] "Weregild," part 12 -- Inception/Anita Blake

In which I introduce Robert (yay!) and lay some plot and character groundwork. (1,100 words)

( Weregild, part 12 )

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I am debating whether to skim through Narcissus in Chains, Incubus Dreams, and Cerulean Sins solely for the sections with Meng Die. Because hey, she is a canonical female vampire who is the second-in-command to the (unnamed?) Master of San Francisco. And she is apparently plotting a coup. That could be all kinds of interesting.

On the other hand, I'd have to skim through those three books. And by that point, the series is all about the men Anita is having sex with, the women who are jealous of her for all the men she's having sex with, and boring dubcon descriptions of the sex. Plus apparently Meng Die has very little characterization outside of blatant sexuality and jealousy. Do I really want to put myself through that?

Decisions, decisions...

3 things: Susan's (planned) ice cream party; the frustration of banks; sprained toes

1. I have asked PM for a couple days off right around my friend Susan's birthday in August, so I can rent a car and drive down to NJ and attend her party. She is planning to have a homemade ice cream party, where we not only make the ice cream (I have this vague recollection that when her sister got married, she and her husband received something like three ice cream makers -- presumably they gave one to Susan's parents?) but also the various topping sauces. It sounds both fun and delicious. :-)

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2. At the smoke shop, we have special locking deposit bags given to us by our bank -- I believe this is fairly standard practice for local businesses that make frequent deposits. We have seven of them. By Monday morning, we are always down to either one or none, which means that we need to pick up the processed ones from the bank. The person who does morning cash-up picks them up after dropping off the Sunday evening deposit.

Lately, the bank has been falling down on the job. The deposits have not been processed and the bags are not available, which means that the person who does afternoon cash-up has to pick them up, and also often has to drop off the Monday morning deposit in a flimsy plastic bag with a glue seal instead of one of our reusable bags.

Today, when I took over the Monday morning deposit, the bags were still not ready. At 3:30 in the afternoon! When the bank opens at 10am, and the tellers are in at least half an hour before that!

*headdesk*

So I waited around for ten minutes while a teller processed two deposits, and then I said someone would pick up the other bags tomorrow, because I needed to get back to the store so I could go on lunch break.

PM says she's going to call the bank and complain, because this is getting ridiculous. We can start calling in the morning before someone takes the Sunday deposit over, as a reminder that we exist and deserve prompt service, but that really should not be necessary. It never was necessary until recently.

In summary, argh.

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3. While on my lunch break, I opened the door into the Center Ithaca food court and found myself face to face with a large man on crutches. I stepped back, intending to hold the door open for him.

There was, unfortunately, a slight irregularity in the sidewalk, and I landed hard and sideways on the small toes of my right foot, squashing and rolling them inside my shoe -- it was like the vicious nerve twinges I get from high heels, only magnified a hundred times and compressed into three seconds, plus a dull, hot ache that flooded in on the wake of the twinge.

The twinge and pain faded while I ate lunch, so I thought I was okay. As the evening wore on, though, my toes hurt more and more. They are not visibly bruised, but they are sore, very stiff, and a little bit swolen.

I think I sprained them.

The internet tells me this is treatable at home with ice, ibuprofen, elevation, and not walking very much. I am glad for that. I have health insurance, but it is pretty terrible insurance, and in any case, I don't have a doctor.

If my foot still hurts in a few days, though, I may have to find one. :-(

[Fic] "Weregild," part 13 -- Inception/Anita Blake

Let's see if I can write the next part of "Weregild" before I get kicked out of Uris Library. I am starting at 3:15pm.

...And finished at 5:15pm! Arthur tells Dom and Eames about Ariadne's dreamwalking power and they discuss their options. (1,800 words)

( Weregild, part 13 )

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Next section: Eames tells Arthur and Dom about what's going on in San Francisco, thus hopefully letting me explain a bunch of the background situation and what, exactly, the three men are plotting to do. Then maybe one more section until chapter three. Yay progress!

wherein Liz is annoyed at ff.net (what else is new?)

At some point in June, as part of their recent... upgrades? changes, anyway... ff.net killed a bunch of my settings, which I just noticed today. That neatly explains why I haven't received any story or author alert emails for several weeks, nor any review alerts -- the site had unchecked those options. So I have been going through manually trying to identify and respond to newish reviews, because I decided years ago that I would make a point of responding to everyone I could respond to.

Annoyingly, the old automatic review response function I could access via the alert emails no longer exists. I can respond via ff.net's PM function or not at all, and if reviewers have disabled PMs? Tough luck.

...

When I am done dealing with reviews, I must start checking my author and story alert lists and seeing what I've been missing on that front, too.

...

Probably there were notices about this on the site's homepage, but I so rarely go there via that page -- I tend to follow direct links from email alerts or rec lists -- that I don't think it's a very effective way of getting the word out to users. :-(