Purely through serendipity, Snarky was directed to the site of one Walt Lockley (link to his site, here's his Wikipedia user bio). She needs to find out more about this man.
She read about the history of the Garden of Allah in Hollywood and thought of Valentina when she read the following passage:
Snarky doesn't even know if anyone else gets excited about things like this (she has only recently been reminded of her own love affair with the built environment), but she just had to share that tidbit.
Some of her distractions are also things from which she wanted to be distracted in the first place, though they tend to fall solidly on the "stess" side of the stress/eustress delineation.
Still, she feels better knowing that her days are filled with deadlines and potential outcomes.
Thanks to the forum, she's got Spring Switch Witch, Year-Long Deco books, and a brewing craft-for-smellies swappathon to distract her from the ongoing house saga (a frothy mix of one part stress to one part eustress mixed together with the swizzle stick of sticker shock) and upcoming followup mammogram.
Mister Snark has been wondefully calm and supportive on both all-consuming, thought and time-stealing topics. She's a bit frightened to find that she is losing her memory of a time without him. Her vaunted (and often cursed) independence harumphs and settles down on the sidelines.
She's layered LUSH's Skinny Dip buttercreme with Faustus to give herself a violet-tinged boost of assertiveness. They will get that house. And she will be healthy, whole, uncorrupted.
