Ever have one of those days?

[bard_linn]

So, my main Christmas presents from my parents came in the form of clothes. Dress clothes for JPE and student teaching. Stuff I really need. Since they were gifts, we weren't sure if they would fit.

They did. All except for one. Which happened to be my FAVORITE of the bunch! Turned out the bottom of the suit had been switched out for a smaller size too. And there weren't any more left when we took it back (found out later that Mom and Dad had gotten the last one at the time). I'm really, really depressed about this. I shouldn't be, but I am. I really REALLY liked that suit.... We even went to the bookstore after the mall and I just couldn't read anything. Did get the last item for my best friend's (who is studying in JAPAN next year, the lucky duck) presents though.

*sigh* I need like...good fic or something. *wanders off*

Edit: Amazon has KHII being released April 15, 2006. Last day of classes: April 28. Last day of exams: May 5. Damnit, I'm going to have to be good!

Comments

[chibirisuchan.livejournal.com]

hope to have another Soldier-three fic done tonightish, hoping it will be good... something to look forward to maybe? (will write fast...)

[bard-linn.livejournal.com]

HELL YES THIS IS SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO! *is excited now!*

[chibirisuchan.livejournal.com]

heee. ^___^ Trying to decide whether to post the first two tonight or wait until I have all three done... anyway, small evil snip. ETA: Okay, not so small snip. Outran the comment length field anyway. Off to rehack...

Zack's box held a manila file folder with a packing form on top of a mound of foam peanuts. Sephiroth's eyes narrowed; from his position, all Cloud could read on the folder was the headline of the form, but that was more than enough. The form proclaimed itself to be one Form 33976-Z: Equipment List and Procedural Instructions for the Deployment and Operation of One Shinra Military-Grade Party In A Box.

"Zack, you didn't," Cloud muttered.

"Of course I did! Our esteemed General here learns everything best from military manuals anyway; I thought I'd just give him some help he knows how to handle!"

Zack wadded up a ball of paper from the floor and tossed it at Sephiroth's ankle, because the man was rubbing his temples again, eyes closed tightly against the pain of the world. "Come on, General, give us low-ranking grunts the field training version."

Sephiroth said a word Cloud hadn't realized a man like him would know... although, on second thought, the General had spent the vast majority of his life working among soldiers.

The first three items excavated from the box were CDs that proclaimed themselves to be variants of 'funky groove euro dance beat techno house party mix' music, with adjectives more or less scattered at random among the garish neon covers. The next was a plastic lava lamp. With glowing fluorescent purple lava blobs floating in electric green ooze. It looked like a lab experiment gone horribly wrong. Sephiroth's cat-slit pupils were flaring and contracting in an effort to deal with the near-radioactive vibrance of the colors.

"It's fluorescent!" Zack said proudly. "When you turn on the blacklight, it goes weird."

"The blacklight," Sephiroth echoed, with a faint thread of pain in his voice.

"Don't worry, it's in there too; just keep shoveling peanuts out of the road. Want a hand?"

"No, thank you, Lieutenant; my desk has become enough of a casualty of war already."

In addition to the blacklight, the box also contained half a dozen hip-flask-sized bottles of alcohol in colors that were never intended to be considered consumable, including one that roiled liquid silver like mercury.

"That one there matches your eyes," Zack pointed out helpfully. "In case, you know, you want to destroy your liver with something that's color coordinated to your eyeballs."

"You are an idiot," Cloud said helplessly.

"Hey, I didn't go insulting your taste in presents, did I?"

"Yes you did!"

"Oh. Right. Sorry 'bout that. --Anyway, there's some more stuff tucked in the corners, Seph, just dump the peanuts on the floor or something. Or stuff 'em in a drawer for the next party, they make great confetti after you've gotten drunk enough..."

"...I have never been that drunk."

"Which is why you have your party in a box, so we can help fix that! What are friends for, man..."

[chibirisuchan.livejournal.com]

Half a dozen rocks glasses were buried among the peanuts as well. One was etched with a delicate frost pattern, one was etched with a chocobo, and one was etched with a hedgehog, though the rest were plain.

"So we never have to wonder which glass is whose," Zack said, grinning. Sephiroth looked less dismayed by the glasses than by the rest of his desk's contents, so he nudged the man with an elbow to keep him working on the pandora's box of horrors. "Keep digging. You still haven't found the Supplemental Yule Kit."

The Supplemental Yule Kit was a brown corrugated cardboard box containing a highly collapsible fishing rod with an explosion of twigs, berries, and leaves snarled around the end of the line.

Sephiroth and Cloud both blinked at it, one in perplexity, the other in slowly, steadily-growing horror that was manifesting itself as a series of near subvocal whimpers.

"...It's not fluorescent," Sephiroth observed.

"I can fix that!" Zack said, rubbing his hands together in mad-eyed glee. "Give me two minutes and a can of spray paint and--"

"No -- no, that's quite all right; I misspoke, Lieutenant. I should have said 'at least it's not fluorescent.'"

"Well, then," Zack said, still with that wide, manic grin. "Military precision, General. Got to make sure you express things as clearly as possible. Now, then -- you've got a checklist over there; time to make sure all the equipment is functioning!"

"...The Supplemental Yule Kit appears to have been damaged in transit."

Cloud whimpered. Zack slung an arm around Sephiroth's shoulders with the grin of a cat with a full bowl of cream.

"We'll get to that later, Seph. Come on. The easiest way to learn party procedure is to drill it, right? Right. So. Get out section 6.5 alpha in the documentation and let's get to work!"

[bard-linn.livejournal.com]

*rolling on the floor DYING of laughter*

[chibirisuchan.livejournal.com]

^_____^ yay!

Almost full version over here. I'm still fighting with the mistletoe itself, dagnabbit, and it's gone and turned itself into a four-parter instead of a three-parter, but at least here's the first three bits... and yet another spectacular failure on the attempts-to-write-short front...