Still Alive

But it's been a very busy 6 weeks, or so. Let's see.

IOLA (you know about that), then I went to see my mom for Mother's Day weekend, then off to Tennessee for Diana's graduation party/wedding reception, my birthday weekend and Tri-Tatters meeting, off to Maryland to see a friend and his wife, and this weekend back to see Mom, weekend after is Maker's Fair, play We Be Goblins, Too, and Father's day, the next weekend is prep for Contemporal and finally Contemporal. Don't ask me about July yet. I know I have a small con at the end of the month, but I'm not thinking past Contemporal yet.

Mom loved her Mother's Day present. I found a copy of Best, Exotic Marigold Hotel on DVD, on sale. A movie she loves and I got it on sale. I swear, I think she was in heaven. We both watched the movie and enjoyed it massively. All the actors are quite good, even the four I'd never seen before (the Indian actors, I'd like to see more of them). She bought me my Christmas present, an iPad. I was a little surprised, but I love it. Just in time, too. My newly installed anti-virus software was fighting with something I thought I'd turned off and it crashed my laptop. My friend in Maryland fixed it for me, fyi.

The trip to Diana's graduation was long but it was great to see her and Chris again. They've gone to Canada now where she has a job. Guess it's time I buckle down and get my passport. Since we were uncertain if it were a one-day or two-day party (there was a typo on the invitation), we ended up being at loose ends on Sunday. We went to Gaitlinburg. We went to the Ripley's Aquarium. We saw a baby penguin and found the sea turtle (she was napping, I think).

On Saturday following, my dad, step-mom and brother drove down to take me to lunch. C was able to join us after all. His car repair was going to take long enough that he had time for the courtesy van to drop him off, him to do some shopping (cooking store for the win), and have lunch with us, then catch the van back. They brought a lovely shell disk bead and turquoise chunk necklace and tea accessory kit from Ikea. The set has a lemon squeezer, honey wand, and a combined tea ball and tray. The tray suspends the tea ball over the cup or mug, then gives you a place to put the tea ball when you withdraw it. Very nifty. It was great to see them and I really enjoyed it.

The Tri-tatters meeting was loads of fun, as always. We had a couple new people as well as familiar faces.

Then it was off to Seoul Garden for some Korean barbecue. That was quite tasty and I may have overeaten just a little. The rest of the weekend was quieter and I got some things done.

This past weekend wsa the drive to see M and his wife, B. She is such a good cook. Her blueberry pie with marscapone is incredible. She also made salmon with kolbi marinade. Must look for some of that. We played two Pathfinder modules, Scene It (both teams won once), and Munchkin. We went to see Star Trek: Into Darkness. My expectations were not high, so they were met quite well.

I should try to add some pictures, but they're in my iPad. Maybe my next post will be more picture heavy.

Poem for today
Crunch of frozen ground,
Frost-limned grass snap
Under trudging feet.
Monday workward bound,
Half-moon rising
Shares the sky
With the dawning sun.
Wintry air bites
At open skin
Nipping me awake.


Gaming most of the weekend. We did the next 2 parts of Greyhawk Ruins on Saturday. Then we took Diana out to supper for her birthday. The t-shirt was too small so I'm going to have to return it & order a size larger. Sunday it was Rosemary's home game. We had a short fight & Mike's character really pissed mine off. Note: Mike did not piss me off. Amber is mad at Dratsab.

tatting: I finally started Jane's Tat It & See. I got through Day 7. I don't think that it's an elephant because she's already done one, but it's distinctly elephant-shaped at this point.

I took a load of books to the Used Book Store. I picked up 4 with the store credit plus I bought Season 1 of Lois & Clark (since I didn't get it for Christmas). Now I need to get rid of the books that they didn't buy.

My copy of Witch Hunter still hasn't arrived. It looks like it won't ship until the company puts out their next product, which is supposed to be sometime this month.

books: I finished Accidental Vampire, read The River Knows and re-read Wait Until Midnight. The latter 2 are from the Used Bookstore.

I did a few more rows of the ribbon yard lattice scarf. It's starting to look like something. I'm still not 100% certain it's like a scarf.

clothes: t-shirts, jeans, tennis shoes & sweatshirts this weekend. Today it's white turtleneck, new dark red corduroy vest, black jeans, black suede shoes, black tatted earrings (the ones that I made), black stone ring, hematite ring, & black plastic bangle bracelet.

Christmas in July Diana remembered, after a call from me, to bring the presents to gaming last night. She bought them on her trip to NYC, back in December/January. Chris & Rosemary got fabulous dragons (his is red with gold & silver horns & spikes while hers is green/white jade). John, Joe & David got good luck knot/charm things (Joe with 12 sides of jade discs lashed together, John with the Chinese Zodiac & I didn't really see David's). She gave me a chest of tea (6 varieties, 2 stacks of each, perhaps 6 bags per stack) and then an embroidered fan for my birthday (black embroidered with a peacock).

Gaming Chris's game was last night & we got a late start. So we began the fight with the kobold scouts, kobold sorcerers & the duergar disguised as trolls, but did not finish. We took care of the first wave and almost all of the kobolds of the second wave. There's one left and he's flanked. But everyone is concentrating on the other 2 troll/duergar (only 1 down so far & one's barely wounded & unseen since the 1st round after he showed up). David says that it's a fabulous fight (only the Delay Death is keeping his character Vertum from really dead at -55 hp). He usually says it's not a decent fight until Vertum loses half his hit points.

website of the day: Quilt of Belonging - each block represents a country or ethnic group

books: stayed up too late after gaming to finish The Silver Ghost. This morning I will start Shooting at Loons by Margaret Maron. It's another of the books that I picked up from the used bookstore.

new drink: tried the Monster M-80 monster energy this morning. It tastes loads better than Red Bull (but then what doesn't, other than pepto bismal). It's still not something that I would drink other than for the energy, though, and not just because it's 180 cal per can.

clothes: black slacks, ~slippers, belt with white textured plaid cotton shirt (3/4 length sleeves & band collar), fem ring, ~rope ring, hematite ring, chainmail earrings, art deco flower maiden plaque/pendant (on black cord), clip watch & hair up in ponytail/bun with brown wood hair comb with mother of pearl star.

Gaming: Nate wasn't at the game either, last night. So only the women were playing. We started with a girls' night out. Totem, my character, is not old enough to drink in the US. But she's from an ancient Egyptian culture, in which beer (I keep typo'ing that as 'bear'; I did that last night while typing the notes), is practically a sacrament. She won't get a fake id, that's illegal but Lady Celtic was tired of drinking canoe beer. Instead, they went back to Totem's home where they had Egyptian beer for her & Lady Celtic had picked up some Killians for herself & Troll.

They ended up getting a call to go help Dr. Atom at The Nucleus. That's the top 5 floors of the Goodman building where he is the house AI, from the digitized personality of the late Dr. Atom. His grandkids, the Atoms, were busy in another dimension so the ladies of Freedom League had to go find out who was attacking & stop them. It was Lady Lunar, convinced that there was an Earth plot to replace the leaders of Farside City (located oddly enough..on the far side of the moon). She was attacking The Nucleus because Dr. Atom's data banks would have the information about it. They (the female Freedom Leaguers) thought that there might be a connection to the duplication situation that they fought in South America but Lady Lunar said that it wasn't, the ones in Farside were a different kind of duplicates. [and yes, when she said Farside City, we all got flashes of a city populated by cows with funky glasses].

We took out most of her guards, the 6 in power armor, the 12 in body armor with guns & 1 of the 6 crater apes. At that point, she decided to get the heck out of dodge. Totem got a couple of hero points. One was for the terrain, she's decidedly non-tech (drawback - unfamiliarity with modern tech) in a high tech building. The other was for failing the save versus Lady Lunar's confusion blast. I used one to try & make the save a couple rounds later. It might have worked if I had rolled higher than a 2! That still left me 5 points shy of making the save.

However, I finally saved up enough character points to move Totem's jump ability out of her magic pool and into its own separate power (so I won't have to choose between movement & healing). I'm substituting paralyze attack, channeling Cobra, so I won't have to play numbers games & re-arrange my powers. I brought the book to work & read up on the stuff that I need on the way to work. At lunch I'll work on a new character sheet, complete with notes on what the powers do.

David C stopped by David R's. He had to get something uploaded to someone else for work but the work network connection was down. And he had a problem at home, too, so he came to use David R's internet connection. It took him an hour or two and a few phone calls but finally everything was working and he was done. He was profoundly relieved.

music: on the way home, we plugged my iPod into Diana's car stereo & listened to my music on the way home. I had it on the sing-along playlist. We started with 'Bedlam,' she'd never heard it, and then it was shuffle. Out of the other 9 songs, 4 were by The Donnas. Out of 143 songs on that list, there are about a half-dozen by the Donnas, but 4 of them played in the 1st 10 songs. One note about that song, it's provided the title to Mercedes Lackey's Bedlam's Bard series.

books: I finished Marriage by Design last night. For some reason, I ended up staying up to finish it. That means that I've had about 6 hours of sleep, again. And then about 5 I was dreaming that the alarm clock wasn't waking me up so I woke enough to figure out why..it wasn't on yet!

tatting: I'm still working on that silk Lyn Morton flower. Since I somehow lost a couple picots from the center ring, it's going to be a 5-petal flower instead of 6. I also remembered what I want to do with the perle cotton, I'm making a Nina Libin bracelet. It won't be as firm as hers are because I'm not using metallic thread. Hopefully, that won't be a problem. We (by that I mean I) will find out, I guess.

clothes: With the cold front that came in yesterday & left me chilled, I've dressed a bit warmer today; in gray suede boots, black jeans, purple long-sleeved shirt (iridescent cotton, purple & blue-ish), black belt, Celtic knot ring, hematite ring, Celtic knot star, moon & tree pendant, & chainmail earrings.

Friday night: I made it to the Books-A-Million just fine on Friday. At about 7:30, there was a fire at a substation (found that out later) & the power went out in the entire strip mall. So I left the store. And the power came back on. And went off again. And came back on again. It was still on when Chris found me & we left for the restaurant. There was a delay before we got seated (had to wait for the people ahead of us to leave) but it was a great evening. The conversation (between the 7 of us, Colt, Diana, David R, David C, Chris, Rosemary & me) ranged from children (only David C has offspring but most of us have nieces/nephews); to car accidents; to animals; to movies, 300 & Ghostrider; professional wrestling; Star Wars, is Obi Wan an Orthodox or Reform Jedi; Christianity, Bible as literal or guiding truth; concerts; & theater. We gathered at the restaurant starting at 8 pm & didn't leave until about 11 pm.

TV: Watched the pilot for The Riches on Saturday. Eddie Izzard is a lot shorter than I thought he was. And he looks really good with facial hair. The pilot description isn't quite as the actual show unfolded. It's more interesting than that.

Last night we watched Christopher Titus's 5th Annual End of the World Tour. He is a really good comedian and some of his stories made me leak tears. Because he doesn't always talk about funny stuff. Heck, a lot of his subject matter is decidedly unfunny (9/11/01, anybody?) but he finds the humor.

Radio shows: It was a long bus ride on Friday and I had to watch where I was going, so I listened to Voyage of the Scarlet Queen. I got all the way through episodes 13, Kang's Treasure & the Ghost of Tangolan Bay, & 14, The Beautiful Girl in the Bargain Basement.

Music: I've almost listened to & rated all the purchased music on my iTunes (lots of Free Music Tuesdays). Once I've finished that, I'll burn them onto a cd as back-up. I also bought Pink's CD; Try This while we were at Best Buy yesterday. The new one near us opened up last month but we were waiting for a flyer announcing it (which never came).

books: I finally finished Shelters of Stone. It's historical fiction set in pre-history; about the time Neanderthals & Cro-Magnon men were both extant.

Books-A-Million had a table of buy 2 get a 3rd book free, so I picked up a few. I read A Babe in Ghostland on Friday. It's a paranormal romance. She's an inexperienced psychic who helps the male lead get rid of the ghosts in his house. I finally read Outrageous by Christina Dodd, a medieval romance set just after Richard the 3rd's reign. I don't know how long I've had it. I also read Penelope & Prince Charming (Regency era but at least half the action takes place in Nvengaria) and Just Desserts on Sunday. The latter is a contemporary mystery.

clothes: I forgot to put on green clothes on Saturday (purple turtleneck & jeans), so I wore an emerald necklace & earrings instead. Sunday I wore another turtleneck with jeans, this time with the feather quartz point & feather charm & quartz chip earrings.

Today it's green turtleneck, black slacks, black belt (silver buckle), black suede shoes, silver flower band, black stone ring, silver feather charm & quartz chip earrings, braided hair & quartz point pendant with a carved feather.

Three Blue Roses

Diana, a dear friend, and her BF Colt, have a custom of giving blue roses, made of unusual materials, to Colt's mother. After seeing me tat one of Lyn Morton's flowers, Diana asked if I could do a rose for her. Here are the three, hurriedly photographed before I gave them away. I also plan to do a couple in Lyn Morton's design.

Update: After 2 attempts, the picture is not loading properly. I have hopes & will keep trying. Now I'm off to check the help topics.

Okay, I can the picture to load. It's visible but um, just a little big.

Today's outfit: purple silk blouse, black faux-suede slacks, black loafers, 'silver' earrings with black beads, tri-fem pendant on short chain, onyx ring, thin silver braid ring & hair caught up in a thick, black elastic band. I really need to replace these loafers. The inner sole is not attached at the toes, only at the heels. So they creep as I walk. Sounds like trip to Wal-mart. I'd like to get more expensive ones that wouldn't do that, but only Wal-mart carries the style that I like. Isn't that kind of sad?

Copeland's last night was very good. I love baked sweet potato. The crabcakes were a trifle spicy, but that's no surprise. The steamed vegetables were heavy on the cauliflower. The conversation was a good if a bit heavy on the computer talk. Considering the company of 1 programmer & 2 tech support people, that too was no surprise.

Kathy liked the two crossstitch kits, no surprise, they both have cats. The B&N gift cert from Chris & Rosemary was also well-received. She seemed almost surprised that she got presents. Kind of odd. The card I found was really good & I need to get another one like it for Mike. It was 5 reasons for buying a birthday card: #3 was the voices in my head. Very appropos considering Mike's frequent remarks concerning his 'God told me to do that. Well, the voice says he's God. And why would God lie about a thing like that.' Silly Mike. He's not schizophrenic, just a microbiology grad student.

I found a card for Diana's graduation. It's also pretty funny. I just don't know what to get her for graduation. Maybe a gift cert to B&N or the like? Tonight I go get Joe's birthday present. We're buying him a rail game. Tomorrow night, after Diana's graduation & maybe Artsplosure we're taking him to the seafood place at Southpoint.

I need to finish cleaning off my desk.

Mom came by for her visit on Saturday. We didn't get any sewing done but I did get 1, maybe 2 blouses for the State Fair, at least one vest for same & 1 blouse & a half-dozen vests for work. Whee! I need to go back to that thrift shop. They had some intriguing books.

The Green Regent game went well enough. I had a raging headache & made a couple mistakes but everyone had fun & that's what matters.

Sunday we got some cleaning done, put together some shelves for the VHS tapes, DVD's & games, plus a case to hold the cd's. Made a big difference. I almost have the entryway ready to put together the shelves for my shoes. Whoohoo. I also cut my hair. It's now over a foot shorter, up to my waist. I've got the rest ready to send to Locks of Love, as soon as I get a padded envelope.

Today's outfit: brown half boots, brown belt, navy slack, grey 2002 Carolina Ren Fest polo, agate ring, knot ring, pendant & earrings, silver braid band and braid fastened with grey elastic. In other words, nothing exciting again today.

I've been reading Diana's supplement. I'm editing it again. Plus, that way I'll be ready to help with Tiffany's character. Of course, I'm only on page 63 of 105. I'm also working on my own supplement again. Only 14 pages so far & that includes a page of the summary. I'm printing out a copy to show to Diana.

I have to run, have to get home in time to greet Tiffany & Diana. Oops, almost forgot to call John to tell him not to come tonight.