One More State Fair picture & wristlet photos

I did not want to post this picture until I talked to Anitra. For me, I don't post pictures of other people, identifiable ones anyway, without hearing from them.

 Here's one of the scarves that I made, both on & off the pocket knitter.

 

And here's the wristlets (see Friday's post), starting, begun and on my hand (I wanted to do this cool, left, center, right thing, but just couldn't figure out how).

They are a little small for me but they'll be perfect for my assistant. Or my niece. Both might get a pair.


More exciting health news. I found the sudafed that I had left from the last cold that I had. Turns out it's 'non-drowsy formula A', that 'A' for 'Awake.' As in, I got 4 hours of sleep & feel completely rested. Since I'm an 8 hour a night type person, you can see why that's a little weird. Although, to be fair, I might not have woken up at 2:30 am if it hadn't been for the migraine.

Early Gifts & Odd Compliment

The drive to see Mom wasn't too bad. It was in the dark, but that's not unexpected. I was a trifle delayed as I stopped to pick up some cold medicine. Turns out I didn't need the stuff that you have to show id to get (thank you very much, meth heads -grrrrr) but I still waited until I got to Mom's house before I took it.

She was glad to get the ironing board cover but the polka cd made her chortle with glee. We listened to it as we packed stuff on Saturday. Mom is working to cut down on her stuff. As she put it, "I'm over 70 years old, when am I going to wear all this?" We sorted clothes & packed them to be given to charity. Polka music did make it easier.

We also hit a really nice yard sale on Saturday. I bought a new rug for the guest bathroom; long enough to go from toilet to sink. That's important because linoleum is cold in the winter. I also got a hooked rung. I'm not sure where I'm going to put it but it was only $5 & I know how much effort goes into that. I watched Sharon Richmond during the State Fair.

I have not started the wristlets, yet. It turns out that I don't have that size loom. I'll pick it up tonight. I need to run a couple errands after work anyway.

I did a lot of sleeping this weekend. I blame the cold & the cold medicine. It started raining again last night. That made the drive home...entertaining. At least it was a frog killer; just kind of damp & chilly.

The odd compliment? Mom & I had breakfast at this diner. They have good food and for a good price. Their pecan waffles are actually waffles with pecans cooked inside, not scattered on top. Anyway, as Mom & I were enjoying our waffles yesterday, a customer came up and asked me who had braided my hair. Unsure of what she expected, I told her that I did (I frequently braid my hair, it's just easier). She called this information back to her friends but I ignored the conversation after that. As I walked by them later, on my way out the door, one of the gents said what a nice braid I had, not a hair out of place, so nice that they were convinced that someone must have braided it for me. Um, okay?

I've been complimented on my hair before. It's long & it's a lovely color (I inherited it, so I don't take credit for that). This is the first time though that I've gotten a compliment on my hair braiding technique.

It's Friday? Finally!

It's been a long week. The symptoms of my cold changed; not unusual for me. My sinuses started draining. I took a day off to rest, again, hoping to kick the cold. Didn't work. Now I have the sniffles and a sore throat. Can I just say 'oh. yay.'

Gaelic: I lost my flash cards earlier this week. I was up to about 50. I have now started over. On the bright side, with what I learned from the 1st start, they'll be better organized this time. Plus, it will help the memorization.

Gaming: Ran an LFR (Living Forgotten Realms adventure at Sci Fi Genre last night. I hope that it went well. I did not manage to bloody anyone at all in the final fight. Of course, they did have 3 leaders (healing out the whazoo). I did manage to bloody the paladin a couple times in the 1st fight. I also managed to run the adventure in 4 hours, so I got home at a semi-regular hour last night, despite the late start. The adventure has a really great roleplay scene and I had to skim it. That's a pity. I gave them a taste, at least.

I think I'm going to try this \/ Wish me luck
 

Tonight I'm driving to Mom's. I'll be spending the weekend with her, taking her presents with me. The only worry I have is about giving her my cold. But I haven't seen her since September, when we went to the family reunion. I canceled my last weekend with her, when my cough started. That's right. That means that my cough started the first full week of October. It has varied from two deep coughs about 5 pm, to coughing so much that sucking on cough drops rubbed my mouth sore.

Looking Forward to Supper

Does that sound odd? My stepmom has an appointment this afternoon, here in town. She and Dad plan to stick around afterwords to have supper with me. Not dinner. Dinner is eaten at midday, at least by locals. We don't know where we'll be eating yet, Dad made some joke about me cooking.

Friday, I'll be driving down to spend the weekend with my mom. It's going to be a family filled week. I'll take Mom's Christmas presents and give them to her early. Don't tell her, but I found a plain, white ironing board pad. You think that's a mundane present? Believe me, she'll be glad to have it. Have you ever ironed something white on a printed ironing board cover? It always looks like you've gotten a stain on the garment. I also found a polka music cd. I'm not sure if she'll like that as much, but I hope so. She enjoys fast-paced dancing music, of almost any stripe.

I buffed my nails this past weekend. They're all pretty and smooth, except for the length of course. Naturally one has chipped and one tore down to the quick; not into the quick, at least.

It's gotten dark enough on the way home that I'm using my lights again. The one on my bag is still working fine, but the other one is almost dead. I need a new battery in it. At the moment, it kind of, sort of lights up.

I'm gotten through most of the exercises in Chapter 4 of Teach Yourself Gaelic, but I only have my flash cards up to Chapter 1. The main purpose of the flash cards is to fix the vocabulary and rules in my mind. So far, I have not really read through them. I've used more than half the pack of cards already. I am definitely going to have to buy more.

Gaming: Thursday night I'll be running an LFR game at Sci Fi Genre. I guess I should read the module soon. I have played it once, that helps. I'm not exactly stressing about it.

TV: We're almost caught up on Sanctuary, only 1 more episode. The Big Bang Theory last night was hilarious. We're down to only 39% memory of the DVR. We had a problem last week in which it was randomly eating memory. It was up to 95% for no discernible reason. We reset it and it dropped to the 60's.

Books: I'm still having trouble settling to a book. Normally, I'm a book a day person. Recently, I manage half a book, maybe, and then I put it down. This includes books by some of my favorite authors. Except for a couple manga, I only finished one book last week. That's just sad.

1st Spam Comment & Mythic Frustration

I'm been making blog entries for..awhile. And this weekend I got my 1st spam comment. Huh. It's a milestone, of sorts.

Television: This weekend, Chris and I watched the History's channel special "Search for the real Wolfman." It was broadcast before Halloween but it took us awhile to watch. They had a retired police detective & a cryptozoologist examining the case of The Beast of Gévaudan(wikipedia article includes information from show). I was disappointed and frustrated by it. Partly, I blame editing. There was a lot of repetition. How many times do you need to repeat '102 villagers, mostly women and children were killed'? I really don't think that you need to say that more than once every 15 minutes.

The cryptozoologist would say something that made sense, like 'extinction may not be what we thought' or words to that effect (see coelacanth as example of 'extinct' animal). Not two minutes later, although probably taped days apart, he'd say 'it looks like the attack could have been by this animal; but it's extinct.'

The were 2 incidences in the show though that really, really frustrated me. They tested the silver bullet, to see just how deadly one is; as Jean Chastel is credited with finally killing the beast with a silver bullet; the attacks stopped after he killed it. EXCEPT! They tested a silver rifle bullet, not a silver musket ball. That is a tremendous difference that makes their test nigh onto useless.

The other was the way that they stated their conclusion. If they had said 'we are satisfied that we have found the most likely scenario', I'd accept that. I may not agree with it, but I accept it. But they did not. They stated categorically that they had found the solution and frankly, I do not think that is realistic, especially with the History Channel showing a disclaimer in fine print below them. They have a hypothesis which seems to fit all the evidence, but they did not find categorical proof. At this late date, categorical proof would be hard to find indeed. Even the bones of the creature that Chastel took to the French court may not be enough.

Celestial bodies: I would love to catch the Leonid meteor shower, but I'm just not awake at that hour. And definitely not awake & far enough away from light pollution at that hour.

Do you like gargoyles? Then you should see this page of examples, both classic and modern. I did not realize that some of the gargoyles that I had seen so often were from the Notre Dame in Paris.

Music: FYE is having a CD sale right now. I don't remember why we went by the mall yesterday, but when we spotted that we stopped in to look. I bought a few. *ahem* Although one of them is a Christmas present.

Convention Preparation

I'm only working a half-day tomorrow, so that we can drive to Mace. It's only about an hour away so we'll have time to get there before the 1st round of games. I'll be playing Witch Hunter all weekend; specifically my French scholar Solange-Marie, aka almost useless in a fight. Nice thing about Witch Hunter, despite her nigh-onto-total lack of combat effectiveness, she's a very useful character. That's because she's very good at what she does, and what she does is know stuff; like what the group is hunting & how to kill it; usually.

I've created a 2nd character, a tier 1 character. That's another word for a beginning character, in this case. Solange-Marie is tier 2 as I have played her that much, although not recently.

My tier 1 character is an Irish guard who, unlike most Witch Hunters, was raised to be one. Chris, Rosemary & Diana are playing relatives. Their characters became aware of 'the Invisible World' on the same night and Rosemary's character hasn't forgiven mine for not telling her about it. Rosemary's Emmaline is bitter because her husband was killed by the unnatural that night.

Other Stuff
The lawn guys blew all the leaves off the grass and sidewalks. Great. Except. They left the leaves in the lot; to the extent that I was reluctant to park my car, with its hot engine, on the leaves. They were that high. And they were obscuring the parking space.

Other than packing, I have no idea what I'm going to do tonight. Knit on the scarf that I'm making (Operation Gratitude)? Fix the cross that I was tatting (I started to close a ring too early, now I have to open it)? Watch a movie on the new DVD player? Watch something that we taped? Play computer games? I won't know until I get home.

Nightmares, ugh
I almost had one last night. I don't remember anything about it, thankfully, and I managed to wake up before it got really frightening. Unfortunately, as I have learned from past experience, I had to stay awake for a few minutes or when I went back to sleep, I would drop right back into the nightmare, as if I had never interrupted it. And it's a lot harder to wake up the 2nd time. As you can imagine, I'm feeling tired this morning.

Movies, tv, etc
We finally put in the new DVD player. We've had it for a couple months, ever since the last one died. Well, not exactly died. But I did not enjoy my 75 minute movie lasting 10 minutes, as the player skipped from one scene to the next. Chris also finally used the Netflix certificate his dad gave him for his birthday. We watched the 1st DVD last night. It goes into the mail this morning. It's not that it's bad, it's just that we see no need to watch it again.

Chris wanted (& so did I) to see some Anime but neither one of us knows many titles so he picked one at random. He looked at the adult section because he doesn't like the shows aimed at the younger kids, like Pokemon or Toturo's Neighbor. He chose one called Mouse. It had its amusing moments. And while there was some nudity & suggestive scenes, it's no worse than some rated R movies. Just with animation, some gravity defying is possible.

I'm going to check the Netflix listings to see if there's any anime that I recognize & want to see. I'll probably have IMDB open at the same time, just so that I can check on titles.

Gaming
I didn't go to gaming last Thursday. I still have that stupid cough & I'm trying to avoid infecting anyone. Plus, I just wanted to rest. I also took Thursday as a sick day from work; since I got home Wednesday & went straight to bed. I only woke up long enough to eat supper and went back to bed.

Since I and another player were both sick, Rosemary canceled her game on Sunday. She & Chris went to play LFR and I stayed home & rested. Some more.

However, this weekend is Mace. Considering the way that this cough is lingering, it's probably best that I'm not running anything. I had an Ironclaw plot in mind, but Greg, the game organizer, got a lot of Witch Hunter mods. I'll be playing that all weekend, instead. I might have still run at least one Ironclaw game but the Witch Hunter games are linked, not all of them but there's 2 trilogies & a special.

Books:
I gathered up a couple small boxes of books, and one bag, and took them to the used book store. As usual, I got store credit. Alas, they took far fewer books than I'd hoped. It was enough that the credit paid for half the books that I bought and since I gave them the remainder of the books for their free shelf, I even brought home fewer books than I took.

I picked up a number of Charlaine Harris's books, a couple books about photography, one about art and a couple more books, cheap, that I already own. When I re-read those, I'll release them into the wild.

Gaelic
I'm working on my Scottish again. Now I know a couple people on twitter who speak Gaelic and they can help me, on pronunciation (they spell it out phonetically), vocabulary & word usage. As I get better that will help me speak idiomatically, instead of textbook.

Tatting
And just cause: here's the baby booties that I made 5 years ago & entered in the State Fair (children's clothes) with the ribbon that I won.

More Photos of Fair & some of my own crafts & contest alert
tatting & ~knitting & my HallooBoobies entry [cleavage alert]
Not my contest, someone else's
Fangs, Fur & Fey are having a belated 3rd anniversary contest

Go to their site for instructions. Grand prize is a Kindle. Whoot!

Now to Picture fun

Rebecca/Tatmom03's cross - burgundy DMC perle 8. I start with a chain at the top. I leave a picot (using a large safety pin), so that I can end on a split ring & used the ends in a tassel.

Here's my entry in last week's BoobieWed contest (for Breast Cancer Awareness).


Not tatting, but a gorgeous State Fair Entry. And look, there's a matching hat!

TotusMel complained that she never got to see her pieces 'in the wild'. So I spent some time finding wild places & taking photos. The 1st one is just of me, wearing the pendant.

Then, one of my wearing the pendant on a pin (it's on my c.1812 pinafore that I was wearing on Saturday).

I put it on a tree (the one that the rughooker used to show off her ornaments)

Mum's the word

Do you ever wonder is someone is out of her gourd?

Look, the pendant made a friend!

I loaned it to one of the trolls in the Village of Yesteryear & had the dickens of a time getting it back (those trolls are known pranksters).

Luckily, that's a very patient duck.
I'm keeping my eyes open for other 'wild' places to put the pendant.

Last year, I ordered a basket for my tatting. Janet made a lipped basket with a secure lid and, well, here's a couple pictures.

A tisket, a tasket, a custom tatting basket

As you can see, it has a bar across the handle, so I can put a ball of thread there to either load my shuttle or as the chain thread, without it rolling away or getting tangled. The bar is high enough that I can fit a ball of size 10 knit-cro sheen without it hitting the lid handle. She made three baskets, although with shorted handles and sold two of them by the 1st Saturday of the fair. She started another basket for me, with a longer handle, and the 3rd one sold. If she'd had a 4th one, she would have sold that one, too.

I did a little knitting (Operation Gratitude, care packages for our soldiers in Afghanistan & elsewhere). I made a couple scarves. The first one is about 3' long and 3" wide. The 2nd one is about 2.5' long & 5" wide.

I have a horrid cough and am quite tired (I went home Wednesday & immediately went to sleep, woke up long enough to eat supper & then back to sleep - after 2 nights of full sleep!). I stayed home yesterday & that's when I finished the 2nd scarf. I didn't go to gaming either; I needed the rest & why chance infecting the others.

If you're interested this is the yarn that I used:

Here's a shot of the Fair, not far off the midway. Can you see the oak tree? It's huge.

Another ride photo:

NC State Fair & Tatting goodies
Warning: this post is picture heavy

Actually this is a jacket that I did years ago. It's a man's jacket with calico roses appliques.

Stump of the tree that used to shade my bus stop.

Rides at the fair, reflected in the mill pond


State Fair tatted entries (or entries with tatting) I don't know who made any of these. But I like looking at them.
It's hard to see, but that cloth on the right (pillowcase maybe) has a row of tatting with ribbon running through it.

This one is pretty, but I wish that it was mounted on a darker color.


I think that it's a tatted lady


Sorry about the glare. I think the piece in the back is a skirt with tatting on the front of it. In front of the skirt is, I think, a tatted collar.

The category was 'Angels.' This one has tatted wings, stiffened with wire, with a matching halo & trim on the bottom of her dress.

I made some lace for my pocket; it's pearl size 5 made by the Star company. The thread is older than I am & might be my Mom's age. The pattern is from p 29 of A Tatter's Workbook. She didn't have it as a trim, but more as a single point, so I had to join the 'points'.

That's more than enough for now, right?

I'm Baaaaaack, Did Ya Miss Me?
Or yes, my home internet has gone wonky and unreliable. That means that I am only online while at or near work. Since my employers have expectations, that really cuts down on the amount of time that I can work on my blog or read the blogs of others. I feel dreadfully, dreadfully out of touch.

I have finished tatting two more of Rebecca/Tatmom03's crosses; one burgundy & one off-white. I think I will tat a blue one next. It's my version of having a casserole (it's a Southern thing) in the freezer.

I was hoping to join Anitra at a local park for their heritage day last week. Alas, I spent the time cleaning and making trips to the thrift shops, donating not buying this time.

Gaming has been going pretty well. Met a couple people new to RPGA last night. I hope that we provided a fun game for them. I got to play my very old drow again.

I'm supposed to go see Mom again tomorrow. That is in jeopardy because I really started coughing this morning. It's gotten worse & I feel like three kinds of um, [mild expletive deleted].

Maybe Monday I can post pictures of the crosses that I've made. I want to also take a picture of my cleavage (what there is of it) as part of Breast Cancer Awareness month. Don't worry, I'll put a warning in the header.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month
aka Save The Tatas! Check out this blog; loved today's story. Really made me tear up. I've lost family to cancer, but not to breast cancer. Nonetheless, I check ever month & my mammogram earlier this year came back clear.

Gaming: More jokes last night about my character's inability to use tech. She broke her communicator, hoping that would summon her teammates. In our Mutants & Masterminds game, the GM rarely gives us true villains. For example, the last villain (not last night's, the one from 2 weeks ago), was targeting the Mob for not paying him for the computer security that he installed in their casino. The non-payment was legal; there was a clause about no backdoors in the program, which he didn't catch. Hey, he's an electronics/robotics supergenius, not a lawyer.

Last night's thieves are from another dimension that has been conquered by superpowered folks from yet another dimension. Seeing the way that our characters' world reveres its heroes made them believe that they couldn't trust anyone so they were stealing what they need to throw off their oppressors. Not exactly the Bwahaha School of Evil, huh?

Sunday is R's game. More fighting drow and maybe some undead. We have a Lolth-worshipping ally, much to my character's dismay & disgust (the cleric/holy warrior of the anti-Lolth).

After the game, we take C out for his birthday. His natal anniversary is not until the 15th but I'll be working at the fair over the weekends, so that's out. Maybe I'll get him this book. It's not on his list, but I think that he might like it anyway.

Presents: I ordered this book in mid-September for J's birthday. It was due out in August. The publication date has now been moved to Nov 1st. Maybe I'll give J a card & an IOU.

I have wrapped two children's books for my namesake. I want to mail them to her as Wednesday presents. They are wrapped in a promotional world map. I have more books to wrap & I'll send them in one box if it's not too expensive.

ebooks & hardcopy: Pathfinder had a very good idea. The hardcopy of their core rulebook is about $50. But the PDF of the same is only about $10. What does that mean? That means that I'll buy both. I already bought the PDF and I have the hardcopy on order. Other game companies: take note.

Holidays: It's October & time to break out the decorations. I have a resin witch that someone gave me; she went on some shelves in the corner of the office. I have a little ceramic jack o'lantern with marbles in his eyes, that went on the counter. My Puss in Boots mug has some candy in it now.

Banned Book Week
What book that has been challenged, have you read?

I've read several of them; some because they were required in some class or other and some for pleasure. Some I've liked & re-read, several times. Some I couldn't stand (I still hate Lord of the Flies, partially because of my own expectations before I read it).

Family stuff:
I went to see my mom this past weekend. We had a nice visit & drove to the family reunion on Sunday. We were a little late, but everyone else was still eating. Aunt Lillian was happy to see us, she'd almost given up. This reunion is for my grandfather's family; he was one of 12. There were not as many kinfolk there this time but I did meet a cousin who's also working on genealogy. I need to send him what I've gathered so far.

Tatting:
We have doorprizes at the family reunion and I made one of tatmom03's crosses, in cream perle 8. It's one of my favorite patterns. My uncle Sherwood won it. I've made another one, so that I'll have it on hand when/should I need it.

I'm still making progress on my edging. I have 1 full side (or 2 half sides) & 1 corner yet to do.

Thanks to the state fair deadline moving up two weeks, I missed the deadline again this year. This time I missed it by 5 minutes, also known as the time spent to check that I had the right category. Not that I'm bitter, much.

Gaming:
I've been reading the Pathfinder rules. It's sort of D&D 3.7, sort of. 4th ed D&D is okay, but it just doesn't grab me the way that the 1st edition (aka AD&D) & 3rd edition did. As a result, I'm looking at other games to play for when I go to conventions; Shadowrun Missions, WitchHunter & now Pathfinder.

Book Meme & Old Movies
'We encourage you to be creative with this! Please choose one or two questions to answer or try to answer all the questions in five words or less. Or choose a picture to answer a question! Brevity is the goal of today!'

1. Do you snack while you read? Only if I'm hungry

2. Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you? Um, bookmarks! Use them!

3. How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open? Does scrap paper count, or


4. Fiction, Non-fiction, or both? 99 out of 100, fiction.

5. Hard copy or audiobooks? Hardcopy but sometimes 'reread' audio.

6. Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point? Usually, end of chapter.

7. If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away? Look it up later.

8. What are you currently reading?


9. What is the last book you bought? Above & 2 manga

10. Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time? I used to only read 1.

11. Do you have a favorite time of day and/or place to read? Whenever I have light.

12. Do you prefer series books or stand alone books? Serial a tad more.

13. Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over? Bujold, Bardsley, Nora Roberts (like she needs it), Shelly Laurenston, Jim Butcher & Terry Pratchett

14. How do you organize your books? (By genre, title, author’s last name, etc.?) Um, do stacks & stacks count?

Meme over.

I watched The Trouble with Harry last night. It's not a rollicking comedy but it's definitely amusing. I suddenly realized, Weekend at Bernie's has a vaguely similar plot. Er, they both involve inconveniently dead men. I guess it's not that similar after all.

Trip to Mom's et al (with pictures)
I should have taken a picture of the succulent, probably a cactus, that I gave Mom for her birthday, but I forgot. Of course, I needed before & after & after photos. I bought the plant at the Flea Market, and it was sort of a rosette, just about the size of my palm, perfect. I left it out overnight, in the rain, figuring what could be better than Mother Nature's watering can. It 'sploded. It filled the little pot that it was in, and doubled in size and also put out additional rosettes. I had planned to repot it anyway, but now it was demanding a larger pot. I bought a ceramic coffee cup pot painted in bright colors. Now, the plant has room to grow. Mom really liked it, too.

I also had a book of NC humor essays for her & some odds & ends that I thought that she'd like.

I read a couple books while there; I finished re-reading Pack Challenge by Shelly Laurenston & a Judge Dee. For some reason, that did not give me mental whiplash.

She found some fabulous children's books for me to give to my namesake. I'll probably mail most of them to her. I think that I'll wrap them individually & tell Namesake's mom to let her have one a week. Mom also found a nice pair of clogs for the child.

I think, though, that cigarette smoke might be one of my migraine triggers. I started getting one Sunday afternoon. I left a little early because of that. Even with two migraine pills & some headache balm, I barely made it home.

Dad's birthday was last weekend. I drove down Sunday afternoon and got there just after my brother and his family arrived. Here's a bad photo of the cake that K (my stepmother) made. She had a hard time transforming a Harley bike cake to look like a Moto Guzzi, but it looks good, doesn't it. The gravel is rock candy.

After supper with the family, the neighbors came by. I finally got to meet some of the neighbors that my dad has talked about. They were nice folks. I had to give my dad an IOU for his present. I'm still working on it.

My edging is coming right along. I managed 5 and a half repeats this morning and it looks like I'm getting near the 3rd corner.

Here's the edging, by itself.


And here's the edging against the hankie that I'll be attaching it to. The color is not a perfect match, but it does go together well.

I think I finally realize why women's hankies are smaller than men's, usually. It's not because women are 'daintier,' it's because women's hankies often have decorative edgings & men's don't. It's just easier to make an edging for a smaller handkerchief.

And here's the butterfly bookmark that I made for M (my co-worker). She really liked it. I can't remember where I found the pattern, but I found it online (thank you, designer).

Migraine fun - not so much
A cold front moved in last Sunday, at about 11:12 pm. Guess how I know? Yep, steep drop in barometric pressure = I'se has a migraine. It took two hours for my Excedrine migraine to kick enough that I could put my head down on the pillow. Yes, my head hurt so much that the weight of it on a pillow was too much pressure.

Monday, I still had it, as well as less than 5 hours of sleep, but I was able to function. Thank you OTC migraine meds. I was stupid with pain and painblockers, but I was functioning, so I went to work. I woke up with morning, still with the headache. I am really tired of being in pain. But at least, it faded to a mere headache level pain.

After a couple days, I felt like I could pick up my tatting again. And promptly messed up a ring. Which I noticed after I made the subsequent chain. I retro-tatted & *successfully* opened the ring & corrected it. Yay me! I'm not on motif 6 of the 9 to the next corner.

Work was less than a thrill with the pain but I got through it.

Sorry for the interruption but lunch just arrived.

Great Weekend
On Saturday, I was driving down to see Felicia *wave hi* and I was about 15 minutes away when I got hit by rain. Not just any rain; this was a frog strangler.

Ever been in a summer Southern (US) storm? People do pull off to the side of the road to wait for it to weaken or pass. Some just slow down and turn on their hazard lights.

If you've never been in one, you may think, 'how silly, it's just a little rain.' Which just goes to show, you've never experienced one.

The road is a 65mph highway, 4 lanes on my side at the point where I got hit by the rain. Of course, that means that many people drive 75 mph, although you could occasionally find some doing 60 mph in the slow lane.

The sky darkened as the clouds rolled in. You could see the haze of the rain as it advanced toward us.

Then it hit. Soon, I had my wipers going full speed and I had slowed down to 30 mph; felt like I was speeding. I was profoundly thankful for the car in front of me. By following its hazard lights, I was probably still on the road, and in my lane. The sheets of rain on my windshield kept the lights blurry, despite my wipers whipping back and forth.

Sometimes the rain would let up, just a bit, enough to see the highway signs or for the wipers to actually clear my windshield. Then another wall of rain would hit and I'd be hoping that the car in front of me wasn't going to take an exit ramp any time soon. Luckily, those downpours don't last for long. It only seemed like forever.

Visit: Felicia & I had a nice time, talking over lunch. I certainly hope it's not another 23 years before we do it again. I'd forgotten how much I like her.

In the evening, Chris, Rosemary & I went to meet with Irene, et al. She lives on the West Coast, too. She emailed a bunch of people, whom she'd met at different times in her life (1st grade friend to me whom she met in college), to all get together for supper. We ended up going to an Ethiopian restaurant. It's been years since I've been to one. The food was great, although much of it was too spicy for my palate. Of course, that's why the injera (sourdough flatbread - kind of like a cross between a pancake & bread) is so important. You need it to ease the burn of the capsaicin.

Gaming: Sunday was Rosemary's game. We didn't have the technical difficulties this time; that made things a lot smoother. She also felt better about challenging us. She made the arcane in the patrols a warmage, instead of a wizard. That made the fire shields (spell that hurts the attacker who lands a blow on whomever it is cast upon) really, really dangerous for our characters. A wizard's version does X amount of damage, call it an average of 8 pts of damage (vs characters who can take 60 - 100 points). The warmage's version was doing a minimum of 23.

Thursday I'll be in an LFR game. I know which character I'll be playing & where I'll be playing & that's it.

Family: I'm going to see Mom this weekend. The local tatters are getting together on Sunday, so I'll do the Friday/Saturday thing. My dad leaves tomorrow, with his closest cousin, to go 'home' to visit graveyards. I finally found grandmother(his mother)'s grandmother's grave, Henrietta Marshall Sentiff. She's not buried with her husband so she was a little hard to find. I would like to thank the Illinois Genealogy Society for the material that they have posted. I would not have found her without them.

I'm trying to write my letters (to aunts, et al). I've only done 2.5. I just need to sit down & do it.

Weather, health & stuff...
I was originally scheduled to go see my mom this weekend. Chris got some bad (but not dire) health news & wanted me to stick around. An old high school friend (at our age, it's getting to the 'old' friend stage) is in town (60 miles away counts, right) from California & I wanted to see her, too.

Mom forgot that I was coming & was planning to go visit her sister. She went on and we rescheduled our visit.

Aaand I got Chris's cold that he had Tuesday. It wasn't horrid, just tired, felt lousy & mild fever. But, oh the joy, I had a migraine on top of it. Needless to say, the only thing that got done this weekend was napping. And some tv watching. I wonder if all the weather fronts moving through had anything to do with it?

On the bright side, I won some Julia Quinn (who looks younger than I thought) books from a contest & they arrived on Friday. Whee! Much happiness! I've already read 2 of them. Yeah, I've read them before, but I enjoyed them anyway.

And we had a real frog-drowner of a t-storm yesterday. It just pounded the windows. I was glad to be indoors.

Gaming: I'm still reading Starblazers Adventures but it has a group character creation format, which I can't do alone. I borrowed Chris's copy of Victoriana (2nd ed) to read. I'm still in the setting section. It's alternate history Great Britain in 1867. There are elves, dwarves, etc as well as magic and science. The US Civil War has not started and the Crimean War continues.

Thursday is our Mutants & Masterminds game, per usual; and Sunday is Rosemary's game, Forgotten Realms setting of D&D 3.5e.

I hope this is not menopause
It's a little early, but not too early for me to be starting menopause. But frankly, I feel like I am having PMS 28 days a month. I expect menopause may be *ahem* less than fun; but if this is a preview, then it will be hell. For me & for everyone around me.

Tatting: I've been working on my edging, from Big Book of Tatting. I'm only on the 2nd side, with the 1st side being incomplete. At least, with Carol's help, I managed that [expletive deleted] corner. It's the green & white edging on p 10. Except I'm doing it in variegated brown to go with my handkerchief.

I've been hoping & wishing but it's official. I won't be going to Palmetto Tat Days this year. Maybe next year. I even had a potential ride lined up.

Gaming: Sunday's game was delayed due to internet problems. Actually, it was due to laptop problems. Richard got them straightened out enough for Mike to tele-game as usual. We managed to get through one fight & dropped straight into the next one, overlapping a little. Ooops.

Thursday's Mutants & Masterminds went pretty well. We were a little miffed, cause we were defending the mob from an evil, okay amoral, super. I think that we did get some evidence to prosecute the mob guys, at least.

Tonight I'll be playing LFR at Sci Fi Genre. I had almost forgotten that I had signed up. It's my 3rd time playing this adventure. It's okay, I have at least one, maybe 2 characters of the right level who haven't played it.

I bought a new game book on Sunday, Starblazers Adventures. It has no connection to the anime, originally called Battleship Yamato. It's actually based on a British comic. The game book is huge, think biology textbook-sized.

I'm hoping that my copy of Victoriana & Shadowrun 20th anniversary edition both come in soon. Yes, I'm antsy, why do you ask?

Weather was so hot Monday & Tuesday that I wore a skirt. Yes, that is unusual for me.

Temperamental Me
Ever had a day, or a span of time (a second, a minute, an hour, a week, whatever), when what you really wanted to do was throw a full-blown, screaming hissy fit? Or is that just me? Maybe you're asking, 'Arlene, what has put you in such a foul mood?'

To which the answer is, 'I have very little idea.' There have been the usual picayune annoyances (oh, the reports are ready today? Already? Do I have enough of the right kind of paper to print them?/too many late nights/stomach just a little unsettled/etc, etc). However, there has been nothing so major as to bring on that reaction. So, I stifle it. Because I'm an adult and there are certain social expectations regarding 'adult behavior' as well as cultural expectations of appropriate behavior. Ugh.

And I am left with the unfilled urge to scream, stomp my foot and in other ways act like a brat. I am looking for suggestions on what I can do to sublimate this. I'm afraid to pick up my tatting in this mood. I might throw it across the room in frustration, risking a broken shuttle; or at least a dented wall.