Home improvement and the Undead

[resonant]

Feeling very pleased with myself because I successfully replaced a broken windowpane, despite encountering the usual Old House Problem where you begin to take things apart and quickly discover that they weren't put together the way the Reader's Digest Home Improvement Book suggested they would be. I'm not in giglet's league, but I'm still pretty impressed with myself, especially since I also had a breakthrough in novel planning and cooked a really damned good dinner.

Also, last night I dreamed that zombies attacked, but it was OK because we all knew what to do because we'd been having regular zombie drills.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

So. I won't ask how to fix a window, coz who needs that, but I need to know how to fend of zombies, QUICK, tell me!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Apparently the way you do it is that when it becomes apparent that the person on the operating table is a zombie, the medical people yell, "Zombie!" and all the various other unexplained people each grab two children by the hand and hustle them off to predetermined safe rooms with only one entrance, and then wait there for a signal. Not so interesting, really.

Later on there were the walking skeletons of animals the size of buses. This is why I never bothered to do drugs.

[geoviki.livejournal.com]

we'd been having regular zombie drills

Well, thank God for that! Last night I dreamed I was shooting at the enemy in some war and accidentally fragged a bunch of folks on my side. Oops.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Eep.

I don't think I've ever had a war dream. Weird.

Unless you count that end-of-the-world dream that I had as a result of watching Last Night less than a week before September 11.

[jelazakazone.livejournal.com]

So, are you going to share your dinner secrets? I could use some hints for damned good dinners:)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I absolutely swear by Martha Stewart Everyday Food. I think about three-quarters of my recipes come from there.

If you're not a veg(etari)an, you can try tonight's, which was to whack some chicken breasts flat, dredge them in flour, and sautee them, then take them out, deglaze the pan with some water, broth, garlic, and scallions, add artichoke hearts and sun-dried tomatoes, and cook the sauce down. Served it over couscous. Lovely.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Where would we be without the regular zombie drills? I ask you.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It's something we all need to add to our lives, I think. Since 911 is unlikely to be of any help.

[robriki.livejournal.com]

Well, I tell you that every time I burn dinner and the smoke detector goes off, the kids run out of the house and over to the next door neighbor's patio (our designated disaster meet up spot). I shall now also institute zombie drills as well. You can't be too careful these days.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

[laughing about the neighbor's patio] We have the wrong kind of smoke detector to be so close to the kitchen, so it goes off every time we run the oven. Or cook anything on High. We call it the Cooking Detector.

[randomblade.livejournal.com]

and you can do DIY with a zombie drill. Runs on brains?

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

After I wrote that post, I went and looked up "zombie drill," thinking I might be able to stump Google, but apparently there's a song on exactly that theme.

[randomblade.livejournal.com]

and so there should be

[theodosia.livejournal.com]

Heh -- perhaps you saw this article from the Onion:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/41676&rss=1

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

[giggling madly]

[giglet.livejournal.com]

Broken windowpanes are really awful to fix. I take the window apart and bring the sash down to the hardware store and pay them to do it. So it looks like you are out of my league.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Huh -- it had never occurred to me that that was an option.

In this case, what was broken was one pane of one of those doors-made-of-windows, so even if I had known you could do that, I would probably have decided that I was less likely to wreak havoc replacing the pane than removing and replacing the entire door.

The book led me to believe there would be glazier's points and glazing compound and such, but in fact what I discovered was that each pane was held in by nothing but four little pieces of molding. So I had to pry off the four little pieces of molding, put in the pane, and reattach the molding.

Of course, inevitably I wrecked the paint -- and I also broke one piece of molding, but it went back together pretty much invisibly, so I figure I won.

[giglet.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've seen molding used. It's a pain hammering in the nails or brads back in without breaking anything.

[soho-iced.livejournal.com]

We had a door like that in our old house: there was a cracked pane for ages and when a burglar tried to break in through it my gran thought he was a workman and offered him a cup of tea.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. That's a great story.

[soho-iced.livejournal.com]

Yes, she's been dining out on it ever since. My other grandmother was pretty feisty too: the last time I saw her (in South Africa) she was driving and we were pulled over for speeding, so she bribed the policeman to look the other way. Clearly I have a lot to live up to.

a little ot, but...

[noneeca.livejournal.com]

thought you should know - just finished reading your Higher Education, which was rec'd on thefourthvine's site. and i just... wow. um. wow. i think, if you could sell that? that would make a lot of money, that would. seriously. just.
can you tell i have no words to describe how amazing that story was? and i haven't seen Breakfast Club since i was, god, 14? and it just... blew me away.
so. please, take a bow. i applaud, and now i'm off to see what ELSE you've been writing that i've missed since i left the dueSOUTH fandom.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

OH, wow, thanks! I'm so glad you enjoyed it.