sundries - #ashtag, celiac, doctor who

[rm]

Airports are now shut until 1am tomorrow, at the earliest. The Met office is also working to move to give further ahead closing notice, so we can anticipate better, as opposed to viewing this in six hour chunks.

25% of the particles are apparently falling to ground in much of the UK. Whether this is a health risk depends on which agency is talking. The thing about being in the EU is that there are a lot more authorities than in US, and so there are more contradictions, and, more importantly, a greater sense of when people are lying just to maintain order.

The Met office says conditions are getting worse and that we should expect this to go on for days. Our flight is still listed as Wednesday, but since they expect the ash cloud to go on at least that long, honestly, I'm not sure we'll get out before the weekend.

Today we move to a guest room offered by friends of a friend. And if I told you some of the people involved in getting that sorted: a) you wouldn't believe me and b) fuck the epic Internet drama.

I have, of course, been linked to the HuffPo piece on surviving the apocalypse. I've got that last one down, kids. Although as several people noted, this shit is probably all my fault in the first place.

Despite contradictory information from everyone, it seems Patty and I will be able to get some compensation from the airline when this is over. We could actually apply now, but I don't think we should -- I don't want to look like the problem customer until they get us out of here.

Emotionally, I'm sort of all over the place. On one hand, adventure! and I do love it here. And I can more or less work remotely here, although some things are difficult. On the other hand, I hate not having control, I miss our bed, and this is all very frustrating. And it feels harder to deal with, you know, pretty much anything. Which brings us to some non-#ashtag news.

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Last night I had one of the worst experiences I've ever had with celiac disease in a restaurant, where waiters lied to me about my food. I wound up not getting glutened, because I put my foot down. But when I ask if something has gluten and you tell me it's just stuffed with cheese and then it comes and it looks like it's stuffed with bread so I ask you to double check the correct answers are not:

- to agree to go check and then never return to the table
- to send a different waiter over to point at it and say it's cheese (I'm Sicilian, fuck you)
- to suggest I try it when I say it's not cheese after I've already informed you I have a severe allergy (excuse me, would you like me to need to be hospitalized)
- to leave it on the bill
- to grudgingly take it off the bill and then say it was just chicken and mushrooms -- if that were true (and I really, REALLY don't think it was) why couldn't we have least gotten that answer at the beginning?

Pretty much every meal we've had here has ranged form good to spectacular and I did not need this shit while stranded here because of a volcano. It was extremely upsetting, and made me doubt the legitimacy of my concern. Because they are the restaurant, they must be right. Who am I to not believe them? But there was NO WAY, that food wasn't potentially dangerous, especially after I was lied to whether it was bread or not. It really shook me.

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Everyone is noticing different, seeminly intentional, arc-specific, echoes from past Doctor Who and Torchwood episodes in the Moffat season so far. Add yours in comments below (BEWARE, spoilers through 5.3) -- I'd like to get a full list, and I know I've tweaked to totally different things than others.

Comments

[firefly124.livejournal.com]

Huh. Something prompted me to rewatch TGitF tonight. I'd forgotten that started with the Doctor saving Renette from the monster in her bedroom at age 7, being her imaginary friend for years, then coming back to save the day, inviting her to the TARDIS and telling her to pack and he'd be back in a few minutes, only to arrive just after she'd died. Interesting parallels there as well. Also, she calls him "the lonely angel," which I might not have noticed if not for having watched ToA tonight.

If Moffat isn't deliberately creating something out of these echoes and parallels, then it seems there are stories he's just compelled to keep telling, even if the shape of them shifts a bit.

ETA: Oh! And the S.S. Mme. de Pompadour was in the 51st century, which apparently really is River's home era. What is it about the 51st century?