MarsCon 2014 Report

This is going to be long. I mean, long. With links and pictures and all kinds of stuff. You are warned.

I don't even know where to begin. I always enjoy cons, but I don't think I've ever had such a great time at one before.

And I'm an introvert, but I think last night I was feeling just a tingle of the phenomenon that KT (an extrovert's extrovert) has told me about so often, where a big event like this ends and instead of being tired and ready to recover, she's aching for more, more, more.

I think it has to do with the kind of introvert that I am. I do not make friends easily. I'm not shy, per se. I don't have a problem talking to people, usually. But I am really bad at starting conversations. It's much easier for me to be in a social situation if there's someone else present that I know who can help me break the ice. Get the ball rolling, so to speak.

And this year, aside from about an hour early on Friday evening before people really started to arrive, I don't think I went anywhere that I didn't encounter someone I knew. Seriously. Half the time I got on the damn elevator, there was someone in there I knew, let alone any of the panels or performances or activities.

And not just the usual suspects, either. Of course there was what I think of as my "usual" crew of friends that grew out of school friendships -- KT and Kevin, DJ and Ora, Greg, and T. Elizabeth, Jenn and Brian all came to MarsCon for the first time this year, and I'm pretty sure they're hooked -- Brian, at least, is already planning a costume for next year. And I had family there as well -- John and Sam, and my kids, and Matt (who I suppose is no longer technically family, but I still think of him that way by way of his being, y'know, the father of my children). And there was also the usual collection of the friends I used to see more often but now run into mainly at cons and the like -- Elliot and Marcy and John D. and John H.

And this year, thanks in large part to KT's obsession with music and filk, I had "music friends" like Jonah and Mikey and Chuck and Bert. And thanks partly to my participation as a guest last year, I had "author friends" like Amy and Kat and Michael. Also, I made new friends of both sorts, like Danny and Nobilis.

There were also random other folks -- people who I've worked with, for instance, and with whom I am Facebook friends, some of whom I didn't even know were geeks, like John T. and Caren and Erika.

There was even an occasion where a bunch of us were sitting around a table and I was the only one who knew everyone.

So pretty much the only times I felt like I was on my own were times that I was actually alone. Which weren't many, because I was insanely busy!

It. Was. Wonderful.

So. Ready for the blow-by-blow? (Click on pictures to embiggen.)

Friday

I took a half-day from work. Came home, ate a good lunch, finished packing, fed the cat, and drove the whopping four miles to the hotel. I got checked in, picked up my badge, and spent most of the rest of the afternoon kind of lounging in my room, until I started to see Facebook posts indicating that people were beginning to arrive. So I changed into my Femme Fatale Red Riding Hood outfit and headed down to the lobby.

This was my one slow period; I did a tour of the public areas and said hi to a few people, then sat in the "pit" (a slightly sunken lounge area in the hotel lobby) for maybe forty-five minutes or so until I spotted some friends arriving.

Around 6 or so, I got a text from Matt that he and the kids had arrived, so I wandered up to the kids' meet-and-greet party. The kids' activities this year were mostly Harry Potter/Hogwarts themed -- the meet-and-greet started with a decorate-your-own wand activity. Then the kids got to choose their Patronuses and draw them on wooden pendants. They had a game that involved using their new wands to keep balloons in the air, and then they had ice cream sundaes.

I left that to go catch the already-in-progress Friday night show (a medley of entertainers), where I joined a whole bunch of friends and we had enormous fun until I had to slip out a bit early to make my way to my first two events.

The first was a re-imagining of the old game show Match Guest. The MC would read out a sentence or two with a blank in it, and everyone in the room would write down our answers to fill in the blanks. Audience members whose answers more-or-less matched what panelists answered got points; at the end, the member with the most points won, essentially, a MarsCon gift certificate. (There were actually two winners who split the prize, because even after three tie-breaker rounds, they were still tied.) This was the "adult" version, in which we did not even think about using any answers that were not at least R-rated. It was hilarious and fun, and I very much hope I can do it again next year!

Immediately following that, there was "Erotic Fairy Tale Rewrites". Each panelist selected a fairy tale to rewrite, and the audience supplied us with: an extra character, a sexy situation, a location, and an object that had to be included. While we wrote, the audience played MadLibs, and then we each read our resulting stories. I was very pleased with how mine turned out, and I'll post it over on the writing blog on Wednesday, so if you're interested, be on the lookout.

That wrapped up earlier than expected, so I gleefully skipped down the hall to jump into Filk and Cookies. I arrived just in time to catch Sam singing her parody of "My Favorite Things" (sideways video posted by my brother), and a bit later, she also sang her parody of "The Impossible Dream" (video posted by me).

Filk and Cookies was supposed to end at 1am, but Mikey and Jonah kept goading each other (and the other guests who brought instruments along) and then there was the whole Corn Palace incident (you had to be there) and they didn't kick us out of the room until well after 2. Still giggling, I stumbled back to my room and went to bed.

You may have noticed that I didn't mention dinner in there anywhere. Which would be because I didn't have any. I had some ice cream at the kids' meet-and-greet, and KT brought me a clementine to the fairy tale rewrite panel, and I had a cookie and some soda at Filk and Cookies, though, so I guess that counts. Right?

Saturday

You'd think that after all that, I'd sleep in, but no; I woke up at about 7:15. I did lounge around in bed for a bit, and then I took a shower and made myself some coffee and got dressed. I left the room around 8:45 or so and headed downstairs to see the kids get sorted into their Hogwarts houses for the day's kids' activities.

I ran into some friends in the hallway, so I missed seeing Penny draw Slytherin, but Matt told me she handled her disappointment with aplomb. I did arrive just as Jess was also sorted into Slytherin, though (which Matt "helped" happen, because after all the Sorting Hat does take your preferences into consideration), and Penny seemed pretty pleased that she'd at least have her friend with her. And then I sidled up to her and suggested that maybe she could pretend she was actually a Gryffindor who was in Slytherin as a spy, and that notion also cheered her considerably. Alex got into Gryffindor, which I think he was pleased about mostly because Penny told him that was good.

A gajillion kudos to the volunteer team who put the "Hogwarts" kids' activity room together, because it was amazing. Not for the first time, I wished I was a kid so I could participate! (I did get sorted, along with several other adults, when all the kids were done and they had a ton of leftover badges.)

They had a "library" in the center, at which each kid was given a small, hardcover blank book. They made their own bookplates for the front, and there were crayons and markers for them to use to decorate it with. Each corner of the room had a "class" stationed there, and they rotated the kids around the stations in their houses, to keep any one station from being swamped, which was a great idea. They had Runes, History, Magical Creatures, and Potions.

Later in the day, they had a Triwizard Tournament, which I gather was sort of a scavenger hunt thing. I missed that because I was sitting on a panel at the same time. It sounded like fun, though.

Right around noon, I wandered back up to my room to collect my publicity handouts and stuff, and also to call my mom (my dad had been admitted to the hospital on Thursday night with several small blood clots in one lung and in his leg, and while he had improved enough for me to feel okay about going to the con, I still wanted to check in). I was in the room for maybe fifteen minutes, and then I went back down and joined a few friends to listen to some music -- the Blibbering Humdingers, Danny Birt, and Jonah Knight.

Then I set up in with a bunch of other authors for signings, though mostly no one even came over to my end of the room -- the people who came in for signings were pretty much there just for the guests of honor. But it was still an enjoyable hour that I spent talking with Nobilis Reed, and toward the end, Caren came in and pity-bought a book from me and we talked for a while, too, so it was still fun.

After that, I sat on a panel to talk about the Hunger Games series -- both the movies and the books -- and that turned out to be tons of fun, too, with a very smart and thoughtful panel and a lively-but-polite audience.

Then I went upstairs to the Con Suite, because aside from that cup of coffee I'd had in my room that morning and a cupcake during Jonah's concert, I hadn't eaten anything all day, and it was now 4 in the afternoon. Unfortunately, because it was 4 in the afternoon, the Con Suite didn't have out any "real" food, so I had some chips and some Chex mix and a cookie. And I sat down with Amy Moler and KT and eventually a whole bunch of other folks as well, including Jenn and Brian and Kevin and Nobilis and I'm absolutely certain that I'm forgetting someone (Greg, maybe?) but the point is: a bunch of us. And we talked about writing and other things for an hour, until it was time for Amy to go collect her family and get some dinner, and the rest of us headed off to other assorted entertainments. Primarily, the big Saturday night entertainment, starting with Mikey Mason's concert, and then segueing into the costume contest.

Alas, technical difficulties in setting up the stage kept us standing in the hall for almost 40 minutes after the concert was supposed to start, and made the concert run well over its planned time. I had to leave as soon as Mikey finished playing in order to get to my evening panels, where I sat at the head of a table with several other romance and erotica professionals to talk about writing and publishing, and the appeal of fairy tale erotica, and sex in roleplaying, and by the time we got to the panel running from 11-midnight, we were so tired that it turned into us just taking questions from the audience and talking about whatever we all felt like talking about. (I'll probably go into a little more detail about these panels over on the writing blog post later this week. And Nobilis recorded some of it for his podcasts, so eventually he will post that, and I will probably put a link over on the writing blog as well, if you're interested.)

I was so tired when that ended that I went back to my room and went straight to bed, without looking around for other activities or parties.

Yes, I missed dinner again. After also missing breakfast and lunch. But I'd had a cupcake, some snacks around four, and I had a drink -- the hotel bar named a delicious fruity concoction after Mikey Mason, and he spent the whole weekend reminding everyone to "put Mikey Mason in your mouth" and that "I'm delicious!" -- during Mikey's concert.

Sunday

Once again with the not sleeping in. I woke up even earlier, not long after six, though I stayed in bed for a good while again.

Sunday is usually a lot slower, programming-wise, than the other days, so I took my time getting dressed and packing up, and I reminded myself to go to the Con Suite for breakfast (whoo, an actual meal for the first time in nearly 48 hours!) where I ran into KT, so I sat down and chatted with her while I ate my eggs and ham. (MarsCon has the best Con Suite ever; I was just too busy to visit it at mealtimes.)

Eventually, I took all my stuff down to the car and plopped down in the lobby to wait for the panel I was interested in actually being an audience member of, but Nobilis came over and talked to me for a while, and just as he was leaving, Matt and the kids came in, and the kids piled on me, so I sat and played with them for a while instead. Eventually, I walked them back down to where Matt was volunteering in the family-oriented games room, and schlepped back across the hotel (it's a huge, sprawling building) to be on the panel of writers for the PG version of Fairy Tale Rewrites. (That one wasn't quite as good -- possibly because I was sleep-deprived -- but I'll include at the end of this post because I thought it was still fairly clever. Though if there had been judging of any sort, I'm pretty certain that Danny Birt would've taken the prize for his extremely dark and grim version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears -- or more precisely, Goldilocks Gets Her Revenge.)

Then I wandered on over to the main programming hall for the closing concert, featuring the Blibbering Humdingers, Jonah Knight, Mikey Mason, and Danny Birt (yeah, the same Danny who'd just kicked my ass at flashfic; he's a talented guy). Everyone was punchy and tired (except Jonah, who had more energy at this show than he'd exhibited all the rest of the con) but that just added to the fun; they were teasing each other and playing around and being silly and it was brilliant.

I took a video of Mikey's trademark 80s Cartoon Theme Songs that, I think, really captures the essence of the whole concert. (That little "ho" contest? Was sort of instigated by me, because I'd been talking to Mikey about it earlier in the day. And that's Sam -- my sister-in-law -- who won it.)

When the con was over, Elizabeth, Jenn, Brian, and Jenn's cousin Chris (who came in just for the one day) and I all went out for a late lunch/early dinner, and that felt pretty con-like, too, even though we weren't in the hotel anymore.

(And after that, I went down to the hospital to visit my dad, who was doing oodles better, and bored enough to be happy to listen to me babble about the con for an hour.)

I'm already looking forward to next year, and I really feel rejuvenated and re-inspired as a writer.

It was the Best Con Ever.

MarsCon 2014 fairy tale rewrite

Original story (chosen by me): Aladdin
Additional elements (chosen by the audience):
A character: Ninja
A setting: Titanic on a good day
A problem: No light
An object: Picture of Mary Todd Lincoln (a callback joke to the erotic rewrites on Friday night)

The story (written in about 20 minutes -- typos are fixed here, but nothing else):

The ninja lurked in a shadowy corner of the Titanic's empty ballroom, and concentrated on his mission -- the theft of a valuable portrait of Mary Todd Lincoln. The gentleman who owned the portrait kept it with him all the time, except during his nightly promenade of the deck. During that time, the ninja would crawl from the ballroom's vents into the gentleman's stateroom, take the portrait, and stash it in the hiding place he had prepared in the second dining room.

The hour was at hand. The ninja crept from his corner and toward the vent... When suddenly, the lights extinguished, all at once.

The ninja was well-acquainted with darkness, being a ninja, but this sudden loss was a bit surprising. Before he could react, though, a brilliant light appeared in the center of the room, brighter than any electric, billowing smoke began the fill the room, and a booming voice declared, "I claim this room for the palace of my master, Aladdin!"

"Wait!" the ninja cried. "At least let me leave first!"

From the smoke, a face emerged, cruel and cold and as tall as the ninja's entire body. "Why should I grant YOUR wish?" the djinn demanded. "You are not my master." The djinn's eyes narrowed. "In fact, my master will require servants for his palace. You will do nicely."

"But I am not a servant," the ninja protested. "I am a thief, a spy, and a sometime assassin!"

"Who am I to question my master's needs?" the djinn said. "My master commanded me to build him a palace, and to that end I have claimed this ballroom and everything in it, and that includes you."

"But why can you not simply create the palace from the ether?" the ninja asked.

The djinn snorted. "Have YOU ever created something from the ether? It's a LOT easier to just steal what's needed."

Well, that was something the ninja could understand, anyway. This Aladdin who commanded the djinn seemed to be someone the ninja could get along with, and to tell the truth, he was tired of running all over the world to steal boring antiquities. "Maybe I could help you with the rest of the palace," he admitted. "What else do we need to steal?"

"A hundred concubines."

The ninja smiled and stepped into the djinn's smoke, and together, they disappeared, along with the Titanic's beautiful ballroom.

End.

There Is Too Much; Let Me Sum Up.

Holidays ate my brain?

Nope. Nope. No good. No excuses. I was just now looking at my posting numbers for the last few years (you know, the ones you can clearly see in the Archives sidebar) and trying to figure out just what, exactly, happened to cut my number of posts to a TENTH of what it was five years ago.

And the answer is, well, quite a lot of things, really. I had a second kid, and that ate up a lot of energy. Then I became published, and about a year later, started proofing and editing, and those ate up a lot of energy (and also siphoned off about a post a week to the writing blog). I started working part-time, technically, and it was very weird, how much that one extra day off every two weeks rattled my schedule. And then my marriage fell apart, and I couldn't talk about that for a while, but I couldn't really think about anything else, and so I was all but silenced. And then once the fallout from that settled...

Well, the habit of writing regularly had kind of fallen apart. I'd gotten used to making short observations on Twitter rather than long reports here. And then I moved to Facebook, and found that I really liked the fact that any given short observation could turn into an actual conversation. Blogging is great and all, but I don't get a lot of feedback.

I'm not ready to give up blogging entirely, but I don't know if I'm ready to jump back in with both feet, either.

But I might as well put up a general life update...

Did I mention that B and I broke up? Yeah, that happened back in August. (I remember because it actually happened on Penny's birthday.) It was entirely drama-free. We'd both pretty much simultaneously come to the conclusion that we'd been each others' rebound relationship, and that we'd done as much rebounding as we were ready for, and therefore the relationship had run its course. No biggie. We're still friends.

I haven't dated anyone else since, though. I got back on OKCupid for a while, got annoyed by how everyone I looked at seemed either shallow or pretentious, and decided that maybe I just wasn't in the right mindframe for dating. I feel a bit lonely from time to time (dammit but I'd wanted an actual date for Christmas Town this year!) but all in all, I'm surprisingly okay with it. At least emotionally.

The divorce is official now; it came through back in October, though my lawyer still has not sent me a hard copy of the court decree/order. I have a PDF scan of it, though.

The kids continue to surprise me with their awesomeness on a regular basis. I was expecting Christmas afternoon and evening to be full of whining -- you know, once the presents have been opened and they realize they're not getting anything else for the rest of the day? But they actually settled down to playing with their new things, and they were great for the whole day after Christmas, as well, which I found really shocking.

Penny got her hair cut to just above shoulder-length recently. It looks fabulous on her, and is much easier to keep neat. I wish she'd agreed to do it years ago.

Alex managed to stay up all the way to midnight on New Year's Eve, for the first time this year. (He was out cold by 12:05, though.)

The house... I'm very pleased with the house right now, actually, as long as I don't allow myself to look at the mess in playroom and kids' rooms. I expect to need a new water heater by the end of this year, though. (My dad told me, when I got my Christmas check from him and Mom, that he'd considered writing "Happy Water Heater" on the bottom of it instead of "Merry Christmas". I laughed, mostly because there's no way my Christmas check will cover a new water heater... Especially if you consider that they have a lifespan of approximately 15 years, which means the new one is going to endure both kids' teenage years, and is therefore going to have to be pretty bronky.)

I've seen quite a few movies lately, at least for me -- Thor 2, the second Hobbit movie, Frozen, the second Hunger Games movie... Wow, there's a lot of second movies in there, aren't there?

The editing gig is going pretty well; the writing thing... has stalled nearly as badly as this blog. Though I had a long novella/short novel come out in November have a story in an anthology that's coming out this spring or summer, and I'm trying to get on the ball about writing some more, even if it's just a tiny tiny bit each week. It all adds up, right?

In the meantime, I'll be a guest at MarsCon again this year, with a truly insane (for me) schedule. (And keeping in mind that I'll probably be spending a good chunk of the days shepherding one child or the other around, too.)

And I think that just about sums up my life at the moment.

Dinner Deals and Empathy

As previously mentioned, I'm having the dining room and kitchen floor repaired soon. Which means I've moved all my stuff out of the dining room, and a lot of stuff out of the kitchen, so the contractor can get to the floor. "Stuff" in this case includes the dining room table and all the chairs.

So we're eating in the living room, which for the kids is the biggest treat ever.

Except that the number of meals I can make that we can eat in the living room without making an enormous mess is pretty limited. So I told them last night that we'd have some occasional fast food.

Penny wanted Chick-fil-A. Alex wanted Burger King. (Mind you, both of them were voting based on which playground they favored rather than the food they wanted.)

There was no compromise, so eventually I told them to put a sock in it, and we went to the McDonald's drive-through and brought our dinner home. I asked Penny to please not get french fries, since her blood sugar has been wobbly lately, and as a consolation, I promised to heat up some brussels sprouts for her when we got home.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yes.

You heard that correctly. My daughter is willing to accept brussels sprouts as a fair trade for french fries.

I'm pretty sure it's one of the signs of the Apocalypse.

Anyway, we got home and I started divvying up burgers and sides and microwave-steaming some brussels sprouts, and they said, "Can we watch a movie while we eat? Pleeeeeeeeease?"

I intensely dislike the TV-while-eating phenomenon (largely because I am, myself, highly susceptible to distraction) but... no dining room table anyway. Might as well. "Okay, fine. What are we watching?"

Alex picked out Despicable Me, but Penny whined. Apparently, she doesn't like the minions. I am flabbergasted and sad; the minions are awesome. But it's not like I can force her to like them. Alex then picked out Monsters Inc.

Yeah, that's good. I haven't seen it in a while. So we popped it in and settled down to our dinner. The kids enjoyed it; they laughed riotously and asked me to rewind a scene or two so they could watch again. Then we got to the almost-end, where Sully has to take Boo home and then leave her... forever.

Alex lost it. He crawled into my lap and started sobbing his heart out.

I hugged him tight and promised him that it would be okay, reminded him that at the end, Sully gets to see Boo again, and he calmed down to watch again. But he snuggled up against me instead of returning to his previous seat on the ottoman, and failed to laugh at the wacky antics until they revealed Boo's mostly-repaired door.

I admit I was a little surprised; I wasn't sure, at 5, that he actually understood what was going on, or possessed enough empathy to be sad for others' partings. But apparently I was wrong.

Huhn. We may be in for a slightly rough period, if he's going to be that sensitive to movie mawkishness.

Well, at least he likes the minions.

Long Weekend, Good Weekend

Yay for long weekends! Boo for being back at work! But yay for a short work week with nothing much pressing going on!

I guess that's a net win, right?

So, long weekend. The daycare was closed Friday, so I worked the morning and then picked the kids up from Matt around noon. (But between Friday noon and this morning when I logged in, I'd received only two emails, neither of which required any action on my part, so I feel entirely okay with having missed half a day of work. If I hadn't had a delivery to complete, I probably could've taken the whole day off.)

Friday evening, we met my family at the family favorite restaurant (a hibachi place more or less midpoint between my parents' and brother's houses) to celebrate my mom's and brother's birthdays.

Saturday morning, my dad came over with his pickup truck to help me take the kids shopping for back-to-school clothes and also to get a dresser for Penny's room. She's been using a large-ish nightstand as a dresser since she was four. When she was four, her non-hangable clothes all fit easily in the nightstand. For about the last year, though, it's become a bit of a problem to squeeze everything in. I'd found a dresser I liked the look of, but didn't think I could fit it into my car (and also, it's too heavy for me to lift by myself) -- thus, Dad and the truck. The clothes shopping alone would've been a minor headache without another adult along, but doable.

Dad stuck around to help me assemble the dresser -- which is good, because he figured out one doohickey I was using incorrectly, and also because there were a couple of points of construction that needed a minimum of three hands to get everything lined up correctly. It took us a good two hours to assemble; I shudder to think how long I would've been at it without his help.

(Also, I think it was good for Dad. He and Mom have been sort of flailing since Matt and I separated; I get the impression that they feel like they should be helping, but don't want to intrude on my privacy or insult my independence, and this let Dad feel like he could do something to help me and the kids out without stepping on any toes.)

Saturday afternoon, as a sort of treat for being so good at the store and (mostly) patient while Dad and I put the dresser together, I took the kids out for ice cream. (Also, I had a coupon. Save money by buying things!) And then, it being Saturday and therefore eat-out night, we went to La Tolteca for dinner.

We didn't go anywhere on Sunday, aside from the grocery store, but Jenn came down so I could help her assemble a scrapbook (part of her homework for the adoption process; since they're looking to adopt an older child, they're supposed to make an album to give the prospective adoptee to introduce them to the family and the friends they'll encounter most). I had a lot of fun helping her with the project, and it may have rekindled my desire to start up scrapbooking again, myself. We'll see if it sticks, though. I last left off in the middle of 2010, so there's a long way to go to get caught up.

After dinner on Sunday, Kris brought Emma and Sarah over to have a sleepover with Penny. All three girls were incredibly excited and happy to see each other, and immediately launched into some game that seemed to combine Harry Potter and spies and I don't even know what else. Around 9:30, they rolled out their sleeping bags on the living room floor and picked out a movie (Lady and the Tramp, as a good choice for a not-too-long, not-scary bedtime movie), and I went upstairs to read. When the movie ended (it's not even 80 minutes long) I turned the table lamp down to low and told them they could talk quietly, but that if I could hear them from up in my room, I'd put an end to it. But I never heard a thing (Sarah had already been half-asleep when I turned off the TV). Unfortunately, Penny had a persistent low blood sugar that kept me up until nearly 1am with rechecks and dragging her awake to eat something, so I still didn't get much sleep, but the girls themselves were incredibly well-behaved. They even cleaned up Monday morning when I told them to, with only minimal token whining that I simply ignored.

Alex was really fantastic all weekend -- he played by himself with his toys, or watched Batman videos on YouTube with Penny, or played Sesame Street games by himself. He was good when we went to the stores, and helped me sort through his clothes so I could pack up the ones that don't fit any more (he even put a couple of toys in the box that he doesn't want anymore -- though I waited until he wasn't looking and rescued Hippo for my "baby box"). Through it all, he was generally sunny and easy-going, mostly falling apart only when I cruelly insisted on him cleaning up his messes.

Sunday night, since we were out of his pullups, I asked him if he wanted to go with the transition pullups we'd bought a few months back (but which had turned out to be a bit too big) or if he wanted to try just underwear, since he's woken up dry every morning for the last three weeks. He tried to talk me into nothing at all under his PJ bottoms, but I don't think he's quite ready for that, so he went with underwear, and did great! I think we've finally turned that corner! (Leaving me with two boxes of pullups -- one of which hasn't even been opened -- but I can live with that!)

He did, however, NOT NAP. All four days, I put him down for his nap as usual a little while after lunch. All four days, he popped up within forty-five minutes and told me he wasn't tired. All four days, I made him go back to bed for at least another half-hour, but he never did succumb and go to sleep. Better yet, despite my misgivings, he maintained mostly excellent temper into the evening right up to bedtime. Looks like whatever mental growth spurt made him finally ready to turn the corner on night-time bladder control also made him ready to give up his nap. Unfortunately, the daycare continues to have daily naptime for preschoolers, so I can't just let him give it up entirely without screwing up his sense of routine. I may, however, turn it into "quiet time" instead, and if a nap would make my plans awkward, then it looks like I can skip it with impunity.

After Matt picked the kids up Monday afternoon, I had an hour or two to clean up the lingering clutter and mess, and then Elizabeth and Vicki came over and we all went down to Newport News for a dinner of sushi and then a second-run showing of The Avengers. (I've lost track; was that my fourth viewing, or my fifth?) Doesn't matter; I continued to love it. Can't wait to get my Blu-Ray version later this month and check out all the deleted scenes and special features! (Yup, I'm a dork.)

The kids start back to school today (well, Penny starts back to school; Alex just graduates officially to the pre-K class where he spent about half his time this summer). Matt and I are still working out the delicate details for that, but I expect we'll get it straight eventually.

Weekend Blather

That bit where I said, "hey, maybe I'll hit the Target on my lunch break rather than brave the insane crowds sure to be clogging the place during tax-free weekend"? Heh. Hehehe. Heeheeheehee!

Yeah, the place was mobbed. But I'm glad I went, because they were already almost out of some things on Penny's list, like black 2-pocket pronged folders. (Back to school lists are weirdly specific. I was also directed to buy a 1/2" 3-ring binder, preferably red. But the only 1/2" 3-ring binders they had were white, so I'm going to take that "preferably" as literal and they'll just have to cope with white.) Two boxes of kleenex out of the house store, and Penny assures me that she still has her earbuds from last year, so that's the school shopping done. Whoohoo!

After work on Friday, I drove down to Newport News to hit Sam's Club, mostly for pullups for Alex, but I got a few other things while I was there, of course. (Stupid Friday traffic. Forty-five minutes to get down there, for shopping that took about fifteen minutes.) While I was down there, though, I also stopped at Michael's Crafts and got a thing or two for Penny's Harry Potter party.

And then, shopping completed ahead of schedule, I decided to treat myself to the Batman movie. I enjoyed it, though it desperately needed better editing. There was no reason at all for that movie to be three hours long; there were at least three scenes that could've been cut wholesale without affecting the storyline at all -- and I wasn't even really concentrating on it. Most jarring moment in the movie for me: "Hey, who's in this picture?" "My dead girlfriend, the love of my life whose death drove me into loony seclusion for the past several years." "Oh. Wanna make out right here in front of her picture?" "Yeah, sure, let's get naked." (Okay, I'm paraphrasing, but it really was about that quick... and completely pointless, as there's no indication beyond this point that Bruce has any feeling for this woman beyond her role in the plot's political machinations. Both the writing and the film were in desperate need of some editors who were willing to be just a little more ruthless.

I did really, really like their use of, for lack of a better term, audio whitespace. As an audience, we've been conditioned to key our feelings toward a scene off the movie score. If it's any good, the music subconsciously tells us everything we need to know about how the characters are feeling and about how we're supposed to be feeling. So when they get to that first fight scene between Batman and Bane and the music just stops, not so much as a percussion line to echo and underscore the fight, not so much as a sustained violin or oboe note to lead us down to the pit of despair... it's like an extra punch in the gut. It did it again another time or two in the movie, and I loved it. For a movie that relied heavily on internal, psychological issues for its conflict and crisis, using our own subconscious against us was a brilliant and brave stroke.

Anyway, that was Friday. Saturday around lunchtime, Matt brought Alex over so he could get his nap in while Matt took Penny to a birthday party at the Y. I had some kind of loose plan where Alex would nap for an hour and a half or two hours and then I'd take him with me to the post office to pick up stamps and then we could swing by Sweet Frog for a snack... but no, the kid slept a solid three and a half hours, waking up less than fifteen minutes before Matt and Penny got back from the party. So that didn't happen, but it made for a nice, quiet afternoon.

Then Jenn came down from Richmond and we piled in my car and went down to KT's house for a Pure Romance party. The party ran long enough that we didn't make it to see Magic Mike, but that was okay, because the party was a serious blast. I even signed up to have one of my own, in a couple of months. (Possibly near my birthday. I should get some fun toys for my birthday, right?!)

Sunday morning, Matt and the kids came over again so that Matt could mow the lawn and do a load of laundry. The kids were looking for a TV fix, so I put in a DVD of an old Adam West Batman movie that Jenn had loaned me... That was awesome. The kids loved it, and I nearly laughed myself sick with the campy nostalgia.

After they left, I did my grocery shopping, decided to put off the dollar store for later this week, and had a quiet afternoon. Then I went to Vicki's birthday celebration at the Green Leafe. I'm not usually good in crowds of people I don't know well, so I really only planned to stay an hour or so, but besides Vicki, Elizabeth was there, and I actually made myself talk to people, and wound up having quite a good time, even if I wasn't a social butterfly. I gave one girl the link to my writing blog, and she seemed like she might consider checking some of it out, and admired a cute baby (and the baby's mom's absolutely stunning hair), and -- I admit it -- even checked out a couple of the guys. So I was there for a good two and a half hours, and if it had been a Saturday, I'd have stayed even later.

It was an awesome weekend. This week is going to be all about getting ready for Penny's birthday this weekend -- party on Saturday, family celebration on Sunday -- and then getting ready to head out to Cancun next week! It's crazy how fast everything is sneaking up on me. I'm almost (almost) looking forward to getting back home afterward and getting everything to slow the heck down for a few weeks.

Busy Weekend

Well, I have a busy weekend lined up!

Matt has the kids this weekend, but I'll be seeing them anyway. Penny's got a birthday party to go to on Saturday that conflicts directly with Alex's nap, so I told Matt he could drop Alex off at the house after lunch -- I'll put Alex down for his nap while Matt takes Penny shopping for a present for her friend and goes to the party.

Then, shortly after Matt picks Alex back up, I'll be heading down to Chesapeake for a girls-only party with KT -- a Pure Romance party, and then (possibly, hopefully, if the friend I'm riding with can stay up late) a run to the theater for a showing of Magic Mike (which I only want to see if I can see it with at least one girlfriend).

Sunday morning, Matt will bring the kids back over so they can get their TV fix  (Matt doesn't have one yet) while he mows the lawn and does a load or so of laundry. (That's part of the deal we made when he moved out, because I really, really do not want to mow the lawn.) Then I have Sunday afternoon to finish my own chores, after which I'll be heading out for one of Vicki's many birthday celebrations.

Woven in with all that, I also need to do a whole lot of shopping. On my list is:

• school supplies for Penny (this is Virginia's tax-free weekend for school stuff and clothes!)
• a run to Sam's Club for assorted bulk items (most critically, pull-ups for Alex, as I don't quite have enough to get all the way through the Cancun trip)
• the regular grocery shopping
• a stop at the dollar store for stuff I need for Penny's birthday party next weekend -- streamers and craft stuff and cheapie toys for the goodie bags.

The dollar store can maybe wait until Wednesday or so, but everything else is running up against deadlines. I might try to get the bulk of it done today, if my bad knee will maintain its calm. (Actually, if work is going smoothly, I might do the school supply run on my lunch break. The stores supporting that stuff are going to be a madhouse all weekend, I expect.)

And all that's not even considering that I still want to see the Batman movie, and I've been told I should see the Spider-Man movie as well. Those movies I'm willing to see solo, but I might have to wait anyway. The weekend is already crazy busy, and I'm spending a lot of the coming week preparing for Penny's birthday party next Saturday. And then we're going to Cancun for a week and a half. So... Well. We'll see how much I can get done on my lunch hour today and whether my knee feels up to shopping tonight, and maybe I can do my own laundry on Saturday while Alex is napping. Stack the things that can be stacked, you know?

As I said: busy. But most of it should be fun! Yay, fun!

Adventures in Moving Pictures

Saturday, I went to see Snow White and the Huntsman with Adin.

She really badly wanted to see it; I was mildly interested because the trailer looked pretty, but mostly was in it just for the fun of it.

My expectations were largely met -- there were some bothersome holes in the way they crafted the story (the geography was particularly confusing, and whatever rules encompassed the queen's magic, and they raised a significant issue about the magic mirror that they never came back to... but OMG gorgeous). The eye candy was worthy (when the movie was over, Adin looked at me and said, "I get it now. Chris Hemsworth? I get it.") and even if it wasn't the best directing or acting ever, I sure hope the costume and makeup and effects people get some awards somewhere, because dayum. The evil queen's wedding gown, for petesake!

But... okay, spoiler warning...

The part of the movie that kept me on the edge of my seat was trying to figure out how they were going to resolve the romantic triangle between Snow White and the Huntsman and the prince. They built up this relationship between Snow White and the huntsman, and then the prince shows up, and for a while, I was expecting her to regretfully turn him away. But then she kissed the prince? But then she was dead and it was actually the huntsman's kiss that revived her, so did that mean...? At one point I whispered to Adin, "Bet they kill off Prince William to clear the way." But then the climactic big battle scene hit, and I thought sure the huntsman was going to die saving either her or the prince... but he didn't, either. And then we're at the end and Snow White is being crowned queen and there's Prince William in the audience... and the huntsman watching from the back... and then the credits roll.

Whhuh? All that and you're not even going to tell us which guy she picks? But...!

I sulked for a minute, and then realized that left me free to imagine whatever scenario I liked. Up to and including one in which she kept both of them. Because? Yum.

***

"Dammit," said Braz, "I wish I could get HBO just for one day, so we can see the Game of Thrones finale without having to wait."

It only took him a day to talk himself into it, so last night, after I'd kissed Penny good night, I drove over to their place and settled on the couch to watch it.

It was good. Not, I think, quite as good as the previous episode, but there was plenty there to enjoy. And it ended in the middle of a scene, with a hell of a cliffhanger (and for Braz and I, who've read the books and know how the scene ends, maddeningly short of a critical moment).

Better than the episode itself, though, was watching it with friends. There's something that may need to continue.

But now I have to wait most of a year for the next season. Argh.

Priceless

Pretty decent weekend. Penny went to two separate birthday parties and really enjoyed both.

Saturday night was Matt's game at the Hegemony, and that was fun, even if our dice were all on strike and trying to kill us. We didn't get home until late, naturally, so we were good and tired on Sunday.

Sunday morning, Matt said to me, "Hey, let's take the kids to see The Avengers today."

I said, "I'm still not sure they'll sit through it." It's got lots of long talky parts that were going to go over their heads, and I wasn't sure if the PG-13 violence would be just a smidge more than Alex could comfortably take.

But we got the Hegemony into the act, too. So at 3:30, we found ourselves taking over most of a row of seats at the theater, the kids in the middle and the adults anchoring either end. Matt and I kept looking down the row to where Alex and Penny were sitting to see how they were handling things...

And they handled things very well, indeed. All the kids cheered for Black Widow's initial scene of kicking ass, and cheered again for Iron Man's first appearance. They all got more of the jokes than I expected -- Penny even laughed at the "He's adopted" line. I had to take Alex to the bathroom once, and a little while after that, he decided he'd rather sit on my lap than in his chair, but he did seem to be having a great time. When Iron Man was jump-starting the helicarrier's engine, he was urgently chanting, "You can do it! You can do it! You can do it!" under his breath, and he laughed uproariously at the Hulk's scene-stealing moments.

Better still, they were all incredibly enthusiastic about the movie after it had ended. Both of them were still talking about it in the car this morning on the way to school (and asking me for action figures). I've never been so happy to be wrong about whether the kids are ready for something.

As I said on Twitter later: movie tickets: $35. Popcorn and candy: $10. Cementing your kids' destiny as geeks: priceless.

With A Vengeance

I have a Pinterest category for this movie and its predecessors. It's called "Slightly Obsessed", for obvious reasons.

I'm a little bit obsessed now. I saw The Avengers last weekend and loved it, and then on Tuesday, my day off, I went and saw it again, and loved it again.

It feels a little bit like betrayal. I mean, I've never been a hardcore comic book geek. I've collected a few titles, but most of them haven't been superhero books (and the one superhero book I collected was Promethea, which is hardly mainstream). But most of the titles I collected were either independent or they were in the DC universe -- Books of Magic and Sandman and assorted spinoffs, largely. My favorite heroes have always been in the DC universe. Batman and Superman. Green Arrow. John Constantine, for petesake, who more or less single-handedly hooked me on Books of Magic.

You can't walk into a comic book shop regularly and not be aware of the major Marvel characters, but aside from, Spider-Man and a few blips amongst the X-Men, I haven't really ever been all that interested in them. None of the Avengers ever really did anything for me; as a rule, either their premises or their writing struck me as sadly cheesy. I couldn't have told you any of their real names (except for Bruce Banner, but that's because I watched the Hulk TV show when I was a kid, right along with the Batman and Wonder Woman shows).

So when Iron Man came out, I was pretty "meh" about it. Whatever. I certainly didn't make any attempt to see it in the theater. I think I watched it with Matt one afternoon shortly before Iron Man 2's release, just because there wasn't anything else happening, and hey, fun 'splody movie -- why not?

Except it kind of hooked me. And Iron Man 2 drew me further in.

I didn't go see Captain America, but I'd not been opposed to the notion. I wasn't interested in Thor (the stilted language turned me off right in previews) or Hulk (I love the concept of the character, but it's too easy to cross the cheese line), and so even though I was intrigued by the idea of all these movies working toward a common goal, I was pretty lukewarm on the notion of the ensemble film.

But still: Downey's Tony Stark. And also? Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. How could that not be cool? All right.

Sold.

Then I saw my first trailer. "Take [the Iron Man suit] away, and what are you?" "...Genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist?"

Sold x2.

And then someone told me (I don't follow movie news) that Joss Whedon was writing and directing it.

Sold. Sold. Sold x1,000,000.

As I said, it feels a little bit like betrayal, abandoning the Justice League to fall at the Avengers' feet like this. But this movie is so effing good. Part of me wants to sit down with it on my laptop and do a scene-by-scene analysis and discussion, because every scene had something wonderful to bring to the table. (Even if it was just the eye candy.) Matt's put Captain America in his Netflix queue, retroactively, and I'm looking forward to it. I can't wait for Iron Man 3 and the inevitable Avengers 2. I kind of want to hit the store and buy all the toys, too. (I must have the Legos, if nothing else.)

It's not like I'll be skipping the Batman movie, after all. I can be polyamorous in my superhero love, right? Even across universes.

Avenging

I have a case of the grumps today.

Stayed up a smidge too late last night, maybe. Or the allergies are getting to me. (I did finally refill that prescription, though.)

In any case, I'm hoping to just confine myself to my office today and interact with as few people as possible, and then maybe when evening rolls around, I'll be ready to socialize.

I certainly have to hope I'm feeling more chipper tomorrow, because we're going to leave the kids with Braz after lunch and go see The Avengers. I don't know why I'm so excited about this movie, really. I'm not usually a Marvel reader, and I really have trouble getting on board with the Hulk. But I can't wait for this movie. Is it the hotness? (No, wait, hang on... Ahhhh, yeah.) Maybe it's that Joss Whedon directed it. Whatever. Can't wait. May buy tickets tonight online so we don't have to risk a sellout.

(If it wasn't for the kids, I would totally have taken yesterday and today off from work to do the all-day marathon of single-hero movies and the midnight release. TOTALLY. I even did some shuffling to see if we could do it anyway, but I couldn't make the schedule work out.)

Don't let me down, Joss!

Easter'd

Hooray for days off and friends and family and fun!

As it turned out, at the last possible moment, I got to take Friday off altogether. So I drove Penny down to Chesapeake for a sleepover -- I got to hang out with KT for a couple of hours and chat, and we had lunch together, and I got to see the condo they're about to buy before I came back up -- and in the meantime, Matt and Adin went to Busch Gardens, where they got to ride all the rides. All the roller coasters that Matt's had to walk wistfully past because he's been with me (I hate roller coasters) or Penny (who loves roller coasters but has height restrictions), he got to ride with Adin. They had a fantastic time, despite it being just a touch chilly.

I met them there around 2, by which time they'd pretty much done all the rides. I wanted to do Dark Kastle -- they'd already done it, but I wasn't going to name any rides they hadn't already done -- so we went over and did it. We wound up in a car with a trio of pre-teen (or maybe early teen) girls behind us. The girls started screaming the instant our car moved, and right at first, I thought that was going to be annoying, but it actually turned out to be awesome, in fact, adding an element of verve to the ride. As we dismounted, we joked about just following them to whatever they were doing next.

But by that point, the park was getting stupidly crowded and all the lines were crazy long. We got in line for another ride, but just before we got to it, the ride broke. And we were watching the clock to make sure we weren't late picking up the kids, so we got some snacks and meandered slowly and happily back home. (When it's my turn to spend a full day at the park without the kids, I want to do all the shows.)

Since Penny was off at her sleepover, we were free of our usual carb/dessert restraints for dinner, so we had pizza (real pizza, from Papa John's, which I have missed a lot) and Coldstone, and then we got to hang out with Adin (and Braz, once he got back from his trip) until it was time to go home.

Saturday was very busy: I boiled eggs, did the week's grocery shopping so I wouldn't have to do it on Easter morning, and then made peas with pearl onions for Easter dinner and a lemon chess pie for Easter dessert. While Alex was napping and Matt and Penny were off at the library, I put the kids' Easter baskets together.

After Alex woke up, the kids dyed eggs and had a great time doing it.

When that was done, we took the kids over to the Hedge, ate a quick dinner, and then Matt and I went out for a little date night -- we went to see A Separation at the DoG Street theater. As a note, the descriptions of the movie that we'd seen makes it sound like the movie's pivot/plot points turn on the couple's decision whether to leave the country and/or whether to get divorced; in fact, those decisions are made in the first ten minutes of the film, and the rest of it hinges on what falls out because of it. It was still very good, just not the movie we thought we were getting.

Another note: DEPRESSING. I mean, we knew it was a movie about living in Iran, and that it was going to be depressing. But the only -- and I mean only, entirely free of hyperbole -- happy moment in the movie is a brief scene that exists, I'm fairly certain, solely so it can drop you off the highest possible cliff when the next moment of horror strikes.

When the movie was done, we walked across DoG Street to the Trellis for dessert. Which only made me want to have dessert at the Trellis more often, because they had four or five things I really wanted to try.

Then we went back to the Hedge and cheered ourselves up by hanging with Braz and Adin and playing Cards Against Humanity.

We were up early on Easter, of course, because the kids knew the baskets were waiting... They had fun with them, and didn't even whine too much when I told them they'd have to wait until at least 9 before I'd go hide eggs outside for them. We went over to my parents' more or less immediately after lunch, where they hunted more eggs, and then we had an early dinner.

(I'll have Easter pictures later; I'm still sorting them.)

You'd think that a holiday devoted to chocolate and candy (well, okay, it is at our house) would be a nightmare for parents of a diabetic kid, and you'd probably be right, except not this time. We let her have a measured amount of candy at every meal (though for two of those meals, she deliberately chose to have less candy than we were allowing, because she's very much in the "but if I eat it, then I won't have it" camp when it comes to chocolate), and while she coasted on the high side of her range for most of the day, she did, in fact, only have one officially high blood sugar, and no lows. Which is a better record than she's had for most of the last month, to be honest, so we were both pleased and astonished. (Not enough to let her have candy more often, though, which I think was her secret wish.)

We got home around 5, and I was just about ready to go to bed right away, except that Jenn and Brian came down to deliver the new shelves/entertainment unit that Brian had built for us. It looks great, though we still need to sand and stain it before we put it in its final resting place. Which means I need to get my hands on a sander (I'm tempted to just buy one), and run to the hardware store for some brushes, a dropcloth, and a tarp to cover it so it can dry overnight without dew forming on it. (There's my project for this coming weekend, I guess.) Anyway, Jenn and Brian stayed until around 10 or so. By the time they left, I was ready to completely fall over from exhaustion, which is why I've still only got egg-dying pictures and not Easter Day pictures posted.

I've been ignoring my camera too much lately, though -- I wound up taking tons of pictures that were either way too light or way too dark because I'd forgotten to check the settings before I started snapping. Sigh. Well, now that the weather is getting nice, maybe I'll remember to grab the camera more often.

Wait, What?

There was a weekend, right?

I got up this morning and literally could not remember what I'd done on Saturday. At all. I wasn't sure the day had even happened until Matt jogged my memory: "You went to KT's thing."

Oh, right. KT threw a thirty-one show. And it's weird that I forgot it, because I've been looking forward to it. Because I bought way too many things at it. Because I signed up to host a show, myself, come spring (when hopefully the available patterns will be a little less... brown.)

And after that, I went over to Braz and Adin's to find my kids, and it looked for a while like I was going to leave both of them there overnight, but Penny only had 2 glucose test strips left in her kit, and Alex started whining at about 9 that he wanted to go home, so... we went home. (Good thing, too, because Penny had a persistent low blood sugar that kept me up until after midnight, and then Matt stayed up until nearly 2am trying to keep her in range.)

Sunday we met up with them again to take in Happy Feet Two, which turned out to be pretty good, though I'm distinctly disturbed that Mumble is still sporting his chick-feathers like he was at the end of the first movie. But it was funny (oh my goodness, the krill puns! I want a whole movie now that's just Bill and Will!) and the music adaptions were fun, and it kept the kids pretty well entertained.

This week promises to be nice and slow -- not too much to do at work, and I've got all my ingredients in place for the cooking/eating frenzy of Wednesday evening and Thursday. I do need to remember to put the Macy's parade on the TiVo so I can jump the commercials, and get Karen's birthday package to the post poffice. I'm technically working on Friday, but I don't think anyone else is, so I'm planning to work from home and probably just check email every so often to make sure nothing is happening.

So things will be quiet here. Some thankful contemplation, perhaps.

But hey! If you take digital pictures at all, go check out the contest I have running for free digital scrapbooking software! They're releasing the new version of the software next week, and the contest winner will get the new version, which fixes quite a few of my quibbles from the review, so for petesake enter the contest! Right now!

Day Off

I took another "no work to do" day off yesterday. (I've been taking at least one of those every two weeks for the last several months, and sometimes more, and if I have to be honest, a lot of the time that I did work could probably have been compressed. I'm beginning to wonder if I should try to negotiate going part-time. I'd be okay taking a 10% pay cut if I could plan on having a day off every two weeks and still keep my benefits. It's keeping the benefits that makes this a bit of a sticky wicket, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder if I shouldn't at least ask. The worst they could do is tell me it's not allowed.)

Anyway, I'd been planning on taking the afternoon off anyway, to go see the last Harry Potter movie with Matt. So really, the only unexpected time off was in the morning. I'd been assuming I'd spend it loafing around the house until a friend at work suggested I go to a coffee house and write.

I started to laugh at the cliche, but it was a lightbulb moment, to be honest: if I got out of the house to write, then I was less likely to fall prey to all the distractions that make writing at home a problem for me. I didn't go to an actual coffeehouse, but I did wind up in one of the comfy chairs at Panera. I bought a scone and a cup of coffee (the kind where you can refill it for free) and loaded up Pages on my iPad. I'd made sure the story I'm working on was loaded before I left the house. (I swear, Pages would be so much awesomer if it didn't make saving a document back down to your hard drive when you sync a complete headache -- seriously, I've given up trying to really sync and just email myself the document and copy/paste the changes into the master document in my Dropbox folder.)

I sat in that chair from about 8:30 until probably 11:30 or so, and I wrote. I got up a few times to refill my coffee, and once for a bathroom break. I stopped writing for maybe twenty minutes to talk to a lady at a table near mine who had a copy of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book amongst a pile of library books. It was the sort of amazing and spontaneous conversation that I see in movies and wish was real, and it made me wish I could do that every day.

I wrote about 2000 words -- four or five pages -- and at around 11:30, I suddenly thought to check my email (on my iPhone, because I hadn't turned on the iPad's WiFi, in order to minimize distractions) and Matt had sent me the list of times for the movie. We'd agreed to meet at the Barnes and Noble that's across from the movie theater, so I went over there and wrote maybe another hundred words or so while I was waiting for him.

And then we decided that we weren't all that hungry yet, so we went to the earlier showing of Harry Potter and loved it. (When did Neville turn into a badass?! I loved it! LOVED. And all the nods to characters we haven't seen for ages, and -- I could do a whole blog post on the movie, seriously, but it would sum up to: LOVE.) When it was done, it was after three and my stomach was growling, so we went over to the Corner Pocket for a heavy snack/late lunch (I may always and forever order their "grit cakes" which is basically baked grits with butter and cheese and was perfect). And then I went home (strolling slowly through the Barnes and Noble on my way and almost buying a bunch of stuff).

And then after the kids were in bed, I took the iPad upstairs and wrote another 1000 or 1200 words -- which is a good evening's work for me by any measure. Even though I have to two-finger type on the iPad, which is slower. But the distractions are gone. No kitchen to troll for snacks I shouldn't be eating anyway. No little blue twitterbird in the menu bar telling me that someone has said something. No email icon. Not even the temporary distraction of having the online thesaurus to consult when I can't think of the word I want. I just use a word that's close enough and promise to fix it in the edits. And I just. Keep. Writing.

It was a fantastic day. And even though I adored the movie -- I cried at least three separate times and there was only one bit that I thought was possibly just the littlest bit cheesy and over the top -- I think the day still would've been almost as wonderful (or maybe even just as wonderful) if I'd gone back to writing (either at the Panera or in one of the B&N's comfy chairs) once Matt and I had met for lunch.

This is why you hear about writers going to coffee shops, I guess. This is why Lynn does her best writing at the freaking laundromat. Because you do whatever you have to do, whatever works, to force yourself to put away the distractions and Just. Keep. Writing. Because there's nothing like writer's high.

Got Nothin'

Mouth still hurts. Though I'm thinking the spots under my tongue aren't actually blisters, but canker sores taking advantage of less-than-usually-healthy tissue. I arrived at that conclusion when a new one appeared on the underside of my tongue last night. I think I'll stop at the store on my way home and pick up some Chloraseptic to help with the pain, because even talking was sort of painful last night.

I finally put together a hook for a submissions call that I want to write a story for, and wrote about 800 words on it. It's a short story call (maximum 3000 words) so hopefully that one won't take too long to knock out, now that I have my hook in place.

Matt and I watched Everything Is Illuminated after the kids went to bed. We'd tried to watch it the night before, but the DVD turned out to be damaged. Last night, Matt found it on Netflix streaming, so we went ahead and finished it. But I've already forgotten the very funny line I was going to remember to use instead of "go to hell". Dangit. On the other hand, Matt and I may spend a week or so randomly saying "Sammy Davis Junior Junior" to each other in a thick Russian accent.

For a week where we're delivering some twenty-odd documents, things have been very slow for me. What that means is that this afternoon and tomorrow are going to completely suck.

Off-Kilter

I'm feeling a little weird and off-kilter this morning.

It was a good enough weekend, I guess. Alex pretty much flat refused to nap on Saturday -- I'd blame it on the Dr. Pepper I let him drink while we were waiting for Matt and Penny to come out of Penny's swimming lesson, but I really don't see four sips of soda hitting him hard enough to push off his nap for four hours. Eventually, Matt took him for a drive, and he ended up getting a half-hour nap in the car, but that was about it.

My sleep was weird all weekend, too, but I can't put my finger on it. I went to bed around the usual times, I got up around the usual times, but... I don't know. I had a bunch of weird dreams this morning -- I was hunting bad guys with the Teen Titans, for petesake -- and I'm fairly sure that at least one point, Matt was snuggling me in an effort to get me to stop snoring.

But the weather was better than expected -- cloudy but not rainy, and warm. We watched Sky High with Penny, and I think some of it was a little too fast or over her head -- she kept asking me to pause the movie so she could ask questions, until Matt got irritated enough to tell her to stop it and wait until the end, and she was still asking questions and trying to figure it out the next day. But overall she seemed to enjoy it, so we may actually be able to ease her into a few live-action movies, now. And honestly, I'm glad she was asking questions: it shows me that she was actually thinking about what was going on and trying to follow the action instead of just mindlessly watching; and it also gave me a sense of what she did and didn't understand, and what she picked up and what was a little too subtle for her. These are good things to know. (For myself, I didn't like the movie quite as much as I'd hoped to, but it was cute.)

She spent most of the weekend playing with Ray. Between them, they wrecked both houses (we actually had to make Ray come back over to our house after dinner last night to finish cleaning up) and they sprayed each other with the hose while washing Ray's mom's car, and generally had a fantastic time being kids and doing the things that kids do. I always like watching Penny and Ray together.

Had a less-than-optimal drop-off for Alex this morning: they've moved the baby/toddler room, so Alex couldn't find Ms. Gwen at first, and then when he did find her, she didn't have any crackers to give him, so when I finally got him back to the 2-year-old classroom, he broke down not only in tears but screaming and I had to pry him off my arms to walk out of the room. I hate those days. Hate them. I should start carrying an extra package of crackers or something in my car, just in case.

And Mondays are always a little messed up, schedule-wise, anyway. I've got oddly-stacked meetings that make my trip to the gym awkward, and I never can seem to get anything done.

And all I really want to do is go back to sleep and see if I can't manage something a little more restful, this time around.

Guess it's time for some coffee.

Time Flies

I didn't post an entry yesterday morning, because I had a doctor's appointment fairly early that I needed to leave for. I figured I'd slap something together once I got back.

However, it turns out that yesterday was the very first day my doctor's office was using a brand new all-electronic charting system and it was really dragging things down. They didn't call me out of the waiting room until it was an hour past my scheduled appointment time, and then of course I wound up sitting in the exam room for a good while before the doctor came in.

Thank goodness for my iPhone with its Solitaire and PvZ games!

On the plus side, my doctor was really very excited about my weight loss. He actually, literally bounced when he entered, "Morbid obesity: resolved" on his tablet computer for me.

On the down side, my reduced weight enabled him to poke at (excuse me, "palpate") my thyroid glands and feel things much better than ever before, and he says he can feel some sort of bumps ("nodules or cysts"), so he wants me to schedule an ultrasound so they can make sure it's nothing to worry about. Whee. I haven't called to schedule that, yet, though. I think I've pretty well used up all my medical patience for this week. I'd really been looking forward to getting back to the gym yesterday, after taking the better part of two weeks off.

Our trip to Atlanta was pretty good. Alex was bored by the airport and the plane, but thanks to the tubes in his ears, at least the pressure changes didn't bother him unduly. He was pretty patient with all the wandering through the airport we had to do, at least, and we'd carefully packed everything carryon so we didn't have to wait on luggage.

I don't usually get rental car insurance, but this time, on a whim, I went ahead and got it. And it turned out to be a good thing, too -- I missed the very last turn to get to my uncle's house, and when I tried to do a u-turn to get back to it, a college kid on his way to work slammed into us. No one was hurt, thank goodness, and we were close enough to our destination that I got my aunt and uncle to walk down the block and get Matt and the kids to take them back to the house so Alex could get the nap that he was long overdue for, by that point.

I'd been hoping to visit my grandmother that afternoon, but it got lost in waiting for the police and then driving back down to the airport to turn the car in, fill out their paperwork, and get a new car. Aside from the hassle of having to drive back to the airport, though, that went very smoothly. I think I'll be investing in the rental insurance from now on.

I did, however, spend the rest of the day with one line from Soul Coughing's "Circles" stuck in my head: "When the gas runs out just wreck it / you've insured the thing"

The rest of the trip was great, though. Wednesday morning, Matt and I took the kids to the Georgia Aquarium. Between Alex getting tired and Penny's blood sugars bounding all over and the huge crowds of people, it wasn't an ideal visit, but Alex really seemed to enjoy looking at the fish and sticking his arms into the touch tanks. And the beluga whales were back, so Penny enjoyed watching them for a while.

That afternoon, while Alex was napping, Penny and Aunt Sharon made cookies. It was a "secret dessert" the two of them had decided on, and they had fun trying to keep the rest of us from peeking. Eventually, only my Uncle Bill "didn't know" and Matt and I were sworn to keep him from finding out.

Later, Bill took Penny outside to help him fill up their fountain. I think Penny went mostly because I pointed out that it would be a good way to "distract" him from trying to figure out what the dessert was. I took my camera to the window to take some pictures of them -- which is how I happened to be watching when she suddenly turned on him.

Thursday, Bill and Sharon came with us to take the kids to Imagine It! which is a children's museum. It was fantastic. Everything was kid-sized, and there were no rules, no long lines to worry about, no one trying to tell the kids how they had to play with things. It was just play, with some sneaky education scattered here and there, like the play-food area, which demonstrated food originating on a farm, then being shipped to the store, then being taken home to be eaten.

There was no moratorium on messes, either: they had sand tables and a huge water-play area (complete with raincoats you could borrow!) and a long wall that kids could paint directly on.

There was a gigantic mechanical contraption that carried plastic balls up and around and over and through (kids could manipulate the contraption to move the balls or make them get stuck in various places) and eventually dumped them from a 2-story height into a huge bin. There was a separate, walled-off area for kids under 2. There were family eating areas and a whole quiet room for nursing mothers. There were tunnels and playhouses and science experiments and dress-up stations and more things that I didn't even get to see. If Alex hadn't been in desperate need of a nap, we quite probably would have had our lunch there and spent the whole day.

Some day, when the kids are a little more comfortable with Bill and Sharon, or we can time a trip to be there at the same time as my parents or John and Sam, I want to send the kids to Imagine It! with someone else and go to the aquarium with just Matt, so we can go slowly and look at everything we want to see.

That night, we had a big family dinner. We picked Grandmom up from her nursing facility, and two of my three cousins were in town. I got to meet David's fiancee, Alexis, and we all toasted Meghan's engagement to Nic (even though Nic hadn't been able to come to dinner). The kids were great, and it was wonderful to be with family.

Friday was the trip home -- nothing to talk about there, except to be happy that the kids were once again well-behaved.

Saturday afternoon, my parents came over to babysit the kids so Matt and I could go out for our anniversary dinner. (A bit early, but it was the only weekend my parents had free in the whole month, so that's when we did it.) We went to Fat Canary, which was decadent and wonderful, and then wandered the bookstore for a few minutes before heading home.

Sunday we took the kids to see How to Train Your Dragon. Somewhat to my surprise, Alex stayed in the theater for the whole movie, though he got a bit squirmy near the end and kept switching back and forth between Matt's lap and mine. But we all liked the movie, and Penny is looking forward to talking dragons with Jess next weekend.

Getting back to work and school yesterday was a bit of a letdown... but also kind of a relief!

Day Off

I had an absolutely lovely day off.

I had a massage in the morning, and then I stopped off at the mall to see what Old Navy had on the shelves (answer: not much, really, but I picked up a sweater and a couple of shirts to hold in reserve for warmer weather). I finished up there and headed back to Williamsburg with perfect timing to catch Avatar in 3-D. Which was pretty much exactly as it had been billed -- mildly preachy, sort of Ferngully in space, a little thin on plot but so stunningly gorgeous that its flaws didn't matter. I kind of want to buy the DVD when it comes out just so I can pause it every six frames and examine all the detail work on the CG and check out the "making of" features that are sure to come with it.

When the credits rolled, I checked my phone and found a message from Matt that he'd taken Penny home from school a bit early because she wasn't feeling well, and if I could pick Alex up, that would be great. So I went to the used bookstore, then collected the boy. While I was at daycare, they told us that they'd (finally!) officially moved Alex into the 2-year-old room, whoo!

Anyway, it was a fantastic day, and I enjoyed every moment of it, and I should do it more often.

Alex was a hoot in the car, too. He said something at one point that I responded to with, "I think you're being silly." He said, cheerfully, "Alex weenie!" (which is what we call him when he's being a goofball).

"Yep, you're a weenie, all right."

"Alex greeble!" (which is what we say when he begs/steals food from us).

"Yep, you're a greeble, sometimes."

"Alex greeble o'jas!"

"Yes, you greeble Daddy's oranges."

"O'jas juicy."

"Oranges are very juice. And tasty."

"Daddy o'jas tasty!"

...Did he just admit that other peoples' food tastes better?

At any rate, we repeated that entire exchange about eight times. He seems inordinately proud of himself for being a weenie and a greeble.Yup, he's a boy, all right.

We got home to discover that Penny had taken a nap and was stubbornly clinging to bed rather than work on her homework. Given the appetite with which she ate dinner, however, we felt okay with sending her to school today.

So now I'm back at work -- boo, hiss -- wading through the emails that collected and trying to figure out how to balance the day's assorted meetings, appointments, and tasks. Whee.

Omens

When I left work on Friday, it was raining, very lightly. In the verbena (I found out what they're called!) in front of the office was a hummingbird, brilliantly green despite the overcast sky.

I chose to see it as a good omen for the weekend, and it turned out not altogether inaccurate.

Matt and I made it to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Friday night, and quite enjoyed it, even though my eyes still ached from my eye exam earlier (about which, more later, in another post, eventually). We pondered the rewrites and the stuff that had been cut on the way home and decided we agreed with them. My only complaint was that they stripped out the explanation, in the end, of exactly why Snape was the Half-Blood Prince, and while that's not vital to the plot, it does lend a little insight to his character in the end. And also, I expect it might have been a bit confusing to anyone watching the movie who hadn't read the book -- but then, aside from my dad, I doubt there are many of those.

We didn't get home until after 1am, though, so I was still pretty tired when Penny woke me up at 7:15 Saturday morning.

I spent most of Saturday morning getting things ready and packed for the party. Alex got cranky around 10:30, so I took a chance and put him down for an early nap, in the hopes he'd wake up in time for the party.

He didn't, of course. Matt and I talked about it, and decided that since he's even grouchier when he's been woken than when he hasn't had a nap at all, that I'd take Penny on to the party and Matt would stay home until Alex woke up, and just hope he didn't decide to do one of his occasional four-hour snoozes.

The party itself went splendidly. Only one kid didn't show up, which isn't a bad turnout, really. The kids had a fantastic time, the sandwiches and cake were a hit, and there was rejoicing all around.





When it was all over, we went back home, where Penny and Jess and Ray worked off some of the sugar up in Penny's room while Matt and I chatted with KT and Kevin.

Eventually, we got Penny's bag packed and sent her home with KT and Kevin for a sleepover with Jess, and Matt and I more or less collapsed for a bit. Our freedom was still somewhat limited, since we still had Alex, but it was surprisingly relaxing to only have one kid to keep track of, and Alex made the most of having our attention all to himself.

(I feel bad for KT, though, since apparently Penny was so keyed up that she woke up every half hour or so all night long and kept getting out of bed and waking KT up. It wasn't on purpose -- KT's a light sleeper, so she just woke up whenever Penny got up -- but still, ouch. It may be a while before Penny gets to sleep over at anyone else's house again.)

Sunday morning, after we were up and dressed and had started the laundry, I sent Matt down to pick Penny up. While he was gone, I took Alex to the grocery store with me, fed him lunch, got him down for a nap, and did a couple of loads of laundry. When they got back, Matt took Alex with him to the comic book store (and to get some ice cream, on a whim -- too bad for Penny that she opted out of going!) The rest of the evening was normal and fairly relaxed -- finishing up the laundry, making dinner (I really ought to make that maple-mustard chicken more often) and cleaning up afterward, and so forth.

I managed to get a little writing done after the kids were in bed, and then I went to bed myself a bit early.

And now I'm back to work for the week and trying to figure out what's going on besides the big software delivery on Thursday. As if that's not enough.

Which Way Did It Go?

Did anyone catch the number of that weekend that ran over me like a speeding bus?

Not that it was a bad weekend... On the contrary, it was really fantastic.

The reunion was wonderful. Matt and I were among the first people to arrive ("The few, the proud, the punctual," he quipped) but among the other early birds were people I'd hung out with and been in classes with, so I didn't have any of that awkward, "Do I know these people?" sensation that I'd worried about. Not everyone I'd hoped to see came, but I was excited to see quite a few of those who were there.



Matt was fantastic (and patient). He followed me around and gamely made small talk and fetched food and drinks for me. He joked about the spouses needing a different color name tag, or a sticker, or something, so that no one had to pretend to know who they were. I told him I should just write "arm candy" under his name and be done with it.

Every conversation started with the same three questions, which I found amusing: Where are you living, what are you doing, and do you have kids?

It was also funny to see everyone fall into the same old groups and cliques from school -- though that kind of made sense, since those were the people you were friends with and so most eager to catch up with.

The DJ was too loud, but eventually it didn't matter, and we started dancing. That was like the old high school dances, too, and at one point, I leaned across the space to yell at Carl and Tina (the DJ really was too loud) to wonder whether they'd end the evening with "Stairway to Heaven," which is the song that always, always ended school dances. They laughed hysterically -- but sure enough, someone had made sure to tell the DJ to close with it. Even if our star athlete leaned over the mic and talked the whole time.



I exchanged email addresses with several people, and made plans to meet up with some who still live locally. (Whether those will actually happen or if they were "oh we really must..." plans remains to be seen, but I'm hopeful.)

When Matt and I got home, my parents told us that the kids had been fantastic all evening -- not that they'd admit to it if they hadn't, I'm sure, but they were convincing, at least. Penny managed to drag out her bedtime until an hour later than usual, but I'd pretty well accepted that would happen, so I was amused, not annoyed.

I'd expected Sunday to be quiet and mundane, but that didn't happen, either. Matt mentioned at lunchtime that he was still hopeful about going to see Up. I put Alex down for a nap, and then checked showtimes -- the latest we could go was a 2:30 matinee.

When a movie is scaled back to two matinee shows and none in the evening, you know it's about to get pulled entirely. And if Alex slept a full two hours for his nap, there was no way we'd get to the theater on time. I suggested that Matt take Penny to see the movie, and we'd try Alex on some other movie, eventually. He reluctantly agreed.

So, naturally, Alex woke up at 1:30. We all packed up and headed out to the theater. Alex wasn't too sure about the whole "movie" thing, but then Matt sat down with a huge tub of popcorn, and Alex sat on Matt's lap and dug both little fists into the bucket. It was hysterical, especially since the bucket was nearly as big as Alex. If the light had been better, I'd have taken a picture. I think he was more excited by the novelty than actually hungry -- he fed me as many popcorn kernels as he ate himself, I think.

He actually did pretty well, once the movie started -- he sat on Matt's lap or mine for at least an hour before deciding he was Done with this whole Staying In One Place Thing and demanding to be put down. I took him out to the lobby, where he spent half an hour running around and going back and forth through the front doors, and looking at the big water fountain out front, and climbing up on the benches, and... But he wasn't fussy, just in need of some activity.

So Alex's first movie wasn't a triumph, but it went better than we'd expected.

After all that, I was so exhausted, I planned to go to bed at 9 last night. But that didn't happen. I started reading, and got sucked in, and didn't go to sleep until Matt came to bed and mocked me at 11:30.

And then I woke up again at about 4 -- we'd had some terrific thunderstorms off and on all night, and one of them apparently blew the power. By itself, that wasn't enough to wake me, but then the smoke alarm in our room (or maybe it was the one in the upstairs hallway -- it's hard to tell) started chirping. And by the time that wore off, I'd become aware of a low beeping noise coming from downstairs that I couldn't identify. So I dragged myself out of bed and went to find it (it was the battery-powered baby monitor, complaining that it couldn't find the signal). I turned it off, then got out my phone and programmed in an alarm for the morning, and then went back to bed. But by then I'd been moving around enough to have started my brain going, and it took far too long to get back to sleep.

The power came back on about three minutes before six, just in time for Matt's alarm to go off, and then my phone's alarm... I didn't want to get out of bed. Not even a little.

It's gonna be a coffee day today, for sure. Maybe tonight I'll get to bed early.

...yeah, right.