Totally Useless Stitch-A-Long and Growth Rings

Well, just for kicks I'm doing something called simply TUSAL (see title for translation).  We just display our ORT jars each New Moon to see the cool stuff we're all doing.  Thread, fabric, beads, yarn, needles and pins are all fair game as long as they are from your stitchy projects.  Here's mine (a bit late) for the March New Moon.

I decided to dress mine up a bit, so I stitched a Celtic knot for the jar lid and a little label for the jar.  Let's see, the major source of Orts right now is Growth Rings, with some threads from the MSAL I'm doing on my Livejournal group.

As for Growth Rings, here's what she looked like on the New Moon.

There's a sort-of new fabric store right next to White's Sewing Center that caters to quilters and I managed to find the perfect fabric to finish Growth Rings into a wall-hanging when I'm done with her.  If things go according to plan, that should be by the end of the month.

Gorgeous Men, Movies, Stitching and Sickness

I've been having a movie marathon today.  I started it and will be ending it with Bruce Greenwood.  Damn, that man is gorgeous.

Star Trek, The Pirate Movie, National Treasure and National Treasure 2

A few more days of prednisone and another week or so of antibiotics and maybe I'll actually feel well enough to go out on the weekend.  The good part is that I managed to stitch enough of Growth Rings to achieve the Bronze medal for our LiveJournal Stitching Olympics.  If I move my ass today and tomorrow I'll get the Silver.  I've even gotten part of the second page done for the Gold medal. 

I'll have to feel well (or at least decent) by Wednesday.  We're going to Celtic Women for Mom's birthday present.

Update

Wow.  Almost two months without a post.  I guess I should update a bit.  I confess to getting addicted to Farmville on facebook and just generally not bothering to get on the computer much in the past few months.

Anyway, for two, brief shining weeks I was a college student again.  My mother mentioned this to my family at Christmas and my brother's girlfriend warned me of something I hadn't thought about.  The college I was going to get my bachelor's degree through turns out not to be accredited by any of the groups accepted by the schools I wanted to go on to afterwards.  So, I disenrolled and am back to square one regarding school.  So much for the affordable option.  I'm back to trying to figure out how to afford Thomas Edison State College and still eat, pay for the bloody car, etc.

My brother is now deployed overseas again.  This time Mom and I got to say goodbye.  In a way I wish I hadn't gone.  He was all sorts of affectionate to his girlfriend (very nice, I like her a lot and hope she sticks) but basically ignored Mom and I.  I mean, he could have at least treated Mom with a bit more love.  I don't expect anything from him in the way of caring for myself, but not to give Mom any real attention was just wrong.  *sigh*  It's him, though.  I shouldn't have expected anything else.

Even being an asshole, he is my brother and if anything happens to the little shit I'll be devastated.  He'd better keep his head down and his butt covered.

I've gotten a new library card and have been using it often.  I'm currently reading The Great Influenza by John Barry.  It's really good.  I like the fact that he seems fair and is talking about both good moves and mistakes made by the government, military and medical people involved, as well as the civilians.  Out of curiosity I looked at some of the Scranton papers for the time and was amazed by the ads for the patent medicines all over the place.  The flu wasn't even the top story, even though Scranton was reporting a ton of deaths.  The war stayed the focus of the media and that's exactly what the government wanted.  They wanted the whole country working as a machine to support the war.  It's really interesting.

I still have to finish my Christmas gifts for a few friends since I just didn't feel like stitching the entire holiday season.  I also have to finish crocheting my Ravenclaw scarf for myself.  I have to restart from scratch my nephew's dragon since it somehow acquired a huge hole in an area I just can't fix.  Once I finish the book, I'll start stitching gifts again.

That's it.  Back to research since I'm at the library doing genealogy right now.

Fandom crocheting

Okay, I've been making myself a scarf for the winter (if it ever gets here!). It's a Ravenclaw scarf of Silver and Blue. Yes, yes, the books call for Bronze and Blue, but I like silver better, so there. I'll stick with the movies' interpretation on this one. Anyway, I figure I should make a hat and gloves to go with the scarf. I found a couple of patterns for gloves that I like. No problems there. The problem is the hat.

I thought I'd just go with a generic skully-type. I just came across this site, with instructions for a crocheted Jayne Cobb hat. I'm tempted. Oh, am I tempted. It's just that doing it in yellow, orange and red would totally clash with the scarf theme I've got going on right now. So, maybe in silver, blue and another color? Maybe a darker blue? Of course, I'm trying to stick with all recycled yarns, so that would limit my selection. Also, this particular pattern calls for chunky yarn and I haven't come across a recycled chunky yet. It really should be a simple hat, so maybe I could work it out myself...

Temptation and fandoms. Now, if I could just find a decent winter crochet pattern to bring in Star Trek, Doctor Who and Stargate, I'd be thrilled.

Fearless Vampire Killers

I'm watching Roman Polanski's Fearless Vampire Killers.  It has some funny moments, but in general this is a very unfunny movie.  I must just not get this humor.

Cake!

I baked a cake.  It's yellow cake with chocolate funfetti frosting.  It's GF and tastes good!  Betty Crocker has come out with yellow and chocolate cake, brownie and chocolate chip cookie mixes.  All GF and made in a dedicated facility.  Awesome!

Of course, me being the crummy (no pun intended) baker I am, I nearly ruined it.  I put the butter in the microwave to soften it and started mixing the ingredients before I remembered it was still in there! 

Next time, I'm thinking Vanilla-Apple Cake.  Mix our homemade apple sauce instead of water, maybe some dried apple bits added to the batter and top it with the cinnamon apple ice cream topping we sell at work.  I think I need to go down and slice myself a small piece of cake before bed.

I just got my iPod back and it has sound coming from both headphones!  Yay!  Oh, and got my phone fixed, too.  So, now back to writing since I didn't at all yesterday.  I still need to crash some day this week.  I'm so exhausted.

8.4%

NaNoWriMo - 8.4% complete, 4195 done, 45,805 more words to go.

One of the shorts is done.  Two others are started.  I think one is going to be longer than a short story, maybe middle range.  I guess it just depends on what trouble Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson get themselves into.  I'm not yet sure what the mark they found on the chest at Anthony Gethryn's house means, other than a plane ride to another continent.  At some point they or another character from Elysia is going to have to encounter flying monkeys and a trebuchet, though.

NaNoWriMo started

Off to a decent start so far. I surpassed the word goal for the day. We'll see how well I can keep it up. However, I have to go do some chores right now. Ugh! I love laundry, don't you?

Heaven and Earth Designs is evil, I tell you. Evil!

HAED is an evil design company. I found a new pattern I really really really want and Mom already has whatever my Christmas present is on layaway somewhere. WAH!

Except for Celtic Cross, this is just the stuff I like from what they've added in the last month. I need to win the Powerball so I can Stash and S.E.X. and then quit my job and do nothing but stitch and read.

Sanctuary of Knowledge - New top of my HAED wishlist
Audobon - I like this one, reminds me of a Klimt painting
My Pretty Blues - I like the smirk on this dragon
Faux Fabulous - What can I say other than, "It's a frog!"
Fablemaker - I want to cover my walls with every single one of James Christensen's designs!
Tinderbox - I have no clue why I like this one, I just do.
Pescatus Mechanicus - Erin, you have to look at this one! Atlantean Steampunk? Here's the artist's site: Ciro Marchetti
Medusa - I've always felt sorry for her and this is an amazing rendition
Dreams of Gaudi - So maybe Marchetti will join Christensen in my "Everything done by them" list


Mom would love this one: Celtic Cross

Anger = exercise

Found a way to inspire me to go to the gym: get me so furious I can't even relax enough to read or stitch to make myself calm down.  It worked yesterday.

cell phone happiness

My brother got my nephew a cell phone for his birthday. We've been swapping text messages lately and now we're swapping voice messages. I love those little buggers so much, even if my nephew's first conversation with me was him pulling a very successful prank on me.

Lists

I've been seeing 101 lists all over the place and some are extremely profound.  I'd like to make one of my own.  I know I make a list of goals for myself each birthday.  I rarely fulfill them.  I've been working on the damned driver's license forever now.  Things are happening right now in my family life that will probably mean I'll have to get it as soon as humanly possible, though.  More on that after the 1st, which is when all of the information will become available to me and decisions will have to be made.

I keep telling myself the gym is important and it is.  Following a strict Gluten-free diet.  Going back to school and actually making something of my life.  Writing a book.  Publishing it might be nice, but the writing of it most important.  Maybe sell some cross-stitch designs.  Learn ASL.  Relearn German. 

I need to sit down and really think about this.  I wonder what it will tell me about myself.

PCStitch woes

Okay, I'm frustrated.  I wanted to do a new design.  Since I now have my computer, I wanted to put PCStitch Pro 9 on it, which is on Mom's computer since this one was acting up when I got it.  The disc has disappeared so I tried to copy the files from one computer to the other and now not even the old version of PCStitch I had on here will work.  Argh!

Time for major fiddling to figure out what's wrong.

Cross-stitch update

I have some pictures to show off.  I have a teeny little finished piece of a scooter that I'm going to make into a magnet using some old Red Barons fridge magnets.  (Name removed to protect the guilty.)  The scooter was in one of last month's British mags, the name of which escapes me at the moment, except that it was supposed to be stitched in pinks.  Ugh!  So, I converted it to greens.

The next pictures are the WIPs I'm actively working on right now.  Herbs & Spices will be going to my cousin for Christmas and should be finished and framed by Halloween.  It's from a very old Cross Stitch & Country Crafts, October 1988, in fact.

This is Crescent Dragon from Joan Elliott's Bewitching Cross-Stitch for my nephew.

And this is Growth Rings by the designer Ink Circles.  It was in one of the American magazines a few months ago.  I can track it down if someone wants to know.  I'm using DMC 4130 and 4140.

Stargate cross-stitch geekdom

One of my fellow stitchers on the LiveJournal Cross-Stitch community made a gorgeous design based on the stained-glass windows from Stargate: Atlantis.  I am so damned tempted to make a large design of the windows myself.  Not like I don't have a million other things to do, right?

Yippee Skippy!

I have my computer back and running!  She's awesome.  I've already done some research at the library and updated my iPod finally.

Now my goal is to clean all the sundry stuff off it and stash it and iTunes on my external hard-drive so my baby runs faster.  Life is good and it's time for me to get off the computer so I can finish cinnamon on my Herbs & Spices sampler.

Stashing

You know, maybe fixing my computer will be a bad thing. Using Mom's once or twice a week or so cuts down on the time I spend looking for more stash. I just made a wish list on 123 Stitch. Eep! It's huge.

But I'll let my family know about it anyway, just in case one of them wants to buy something on it for me. ;p

Saving change makes me happy...

I have enough saved to fix my computer finally! Yay! And it's all saved out of change, which I'll admit to dipping into on more than one occasion. Now to send the computer off on Monday and hopefully see it back here by the middle of next week.

Okay, time to get off the computer and actually do some chores.

We have a new car.  It's a copper Pontiac Sunfire, stick shift.  It'll be interesting to learn to drive on, if not as easy it would have been on the Civic.  I still don't want to learn how to drive.

Test post from mobile phone.

My Dragon ate my car and I had to kill both.

Well, we've lost the car.  It died last night while we were taking the kids home from another failed attempt to play miniature golf at the Red Barn Village in Clarks Summit.  It feels like everything is going wrong lately.  I can't afford to go to Dragon*Con.  I'm going to use the money saved in my special jar to fix my computer.  As for this PIA computer, I just spent an hour or two cleaning caches and getting rid of unneeded programs and such to clean up its performance.

I have a headache.

Beaker - Ode to Joy

You gotta love Beaker from the Muppets.

And just for fun, it's old, but still very cool.

Six Degrees of Star Trek

I've decided I need some sleep.  For the last two days at work, I have been amusing myself and keeping myself from falling asleep) by playing a Star Trek version of "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon".  Strangely and scarily enough, I haven't failed to match a person with Star Trek yet.  I even managed to connect Bela Lugosi.  Bela played in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, which has Vincent Price as The Invisible Man, who also played the inventor in Edward Scissorhands with Winona Ryder, who played Amanda Grayson in the newest movie.  So, Bela to Vincent Price to Winona Ryder.  Not bad.

Wendy told me I need a new hobby.  I told her I just need a nap.  I'm just too damned tired to sleep.  I watch too much TV.

Crochet fun stuff

Being newly hooked (no pun intended) on crochet, I've been looking at everything I can do with it. Here's something that looks like fun. It's a crocheted coral reef. briging together awareness of the dismal state of the coral reefs in the world, crochet and mathematics. How awesome is that?

Various amigurumi pages:
Flickr amigurumi pool
Star Trek Voyager cast
Spockboy Sackboy
Star Trek Mirror Universe cast
Harry Potter Trio
A dragon I like
Lemmings!

Iranian elections

Those saying our government needs to get involved in the election of Iran need to read this from Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic.

Bull vs. matador: Bull won

Apparently, a Spanish matador was gored during a bullfight on May 27th. AOL filed it under gruesome sports injuries. All I could say was good for the bull and too bad he missed the guy's heart. In the picture you can see blood all over the bull's hide from the swords sticking out of him. Sounds to me like a little payback was in order.

Star Trek Cross Stitch!

I found something online I really have to share: Star Trek cross-stitch!  She even shared the pattern.

Busy days - work, play and Star trek

I really do exist. Besides work, I've been doing a lot of crochet and glue gunning lately. The crochet for a friend's birthday and Mom's incipient Belle's Blankets and the glue gunning and quilting for a friend's wedding accessories.

Here's a picture of the accessories. I used white, blue and brown ribbon with freshwater button pearls as accents. For the pillow and book I quilted one layer with a design all involved seemed to like from the book 1,000 Great Quilting Designs using DMC 938 and 827. Thankfully, for my sanity's sake, they loved everything...and it was a beautiful wedding, full of laughter - perfect for them.

Here's my version of Dave the Barbarian's pet dragon Faffy. I used the pig design from the book Toys to Crochet and just kind of "winged" it for the alterations I had to make to make it a dragon. Thank the gods for felt. The wings are orange felt in a vague wing-shape stitched onto pipe cleaners and sewn like there's no tomorrow into the back of the dragon. The patches are just single crocheted circles sewn onto his back. Horns are rolled up tubes of felt, sewn like crazy and the eyes, tongue and nose are glue-gunned onto him. Ben really liked it and actually recognized it without any prompting.

As for Belle's Blankets (named after Grandma), Mom wants to start a group of people that make afghans and throws for the vets at the VA hospitals around here. I figure I'll do a massive granny square and use up the rest of some of the skeins of yarn I've managed to collect in the past couple of months. Oh, I also have my Grim Reaper nearly finished. He needs his accessories and a face. I'll take a picture of him when he's finished. For an idea of what he should look like, check out the lower left-hand corner of the cover of Creepy Cute Crochet. Now I just need to figure out how I'm going to alter Cthulu to make him into a Ood for Dragon*Con. It shouldn't be too hard. Oh, I also get to try to catch up on my neglected stitching.

Mom broke her ankle and my new camera on Easter. It's healing nicely and I had to buy another new camera, which is regrettably bubble-gum pink but will do what I need it to do. She's healing fine. We got new cell phones and numbers. I've somehow managed to resist killing my co-workers these last two weeks. Did I mention I got my driver's permit on Friday? We'll see how long it takes for Mom to nag me about the lessons. I may have a week's grace. I also saw Star trek on Friday. It was really good. I'm still in a little shock over some things they did with it, but it was really good. Go see it!

Promiscuity and gay rights

Okay, there's a poll out there asking if legal marriage will reduce "gay promiscuity".  Forgive me if I'm asking the wrong question, but when did it ever reduce straight promiscuity?  Some of the straight men I know are bigger sluts than gay men I know.  Seriously, in the case of men, it's still encouraged to have all the lovers you can get away with.  Look at one of the icons of the last century and beyond, James Bond.  How he's walking around without some terrible STD, I'll never know.  Hell, he even got married once.  Of course, we have to assume he would have been faithful to her since she died so quickly after the wedding, but with him, who knows.

Promiscuous people (gay or straight) will be promiscous no matter what laws are enacted.  Separate that issue from that of pure civil rights.  Yeesh.

Costuming Dilemma

I have a dilemma.  I can make one of two costumes for Dragon*Con.    I can either dress as Donna Noble from the the Doctor Who episode "Fires of Pompeii" or Stella Mudd from the original Star Trek episode "I, Mudd."  Donna's costume will be a lot easier to do, especially given the odd fabric I'd need for Stella's costume, but it would be a heck of a lot of fun to randomly point at some poor schmuck and screech out, "Harcourt Fenton Mudd!"  Maybe I can hold off on Stella until next year.  That should give me plenty of time to either find or hand-dye the fabric for the pantsuit and coat.

Anyone have any ideas?

Donna's costume is the one she's wearing when she's about to be sacrified in this trailer.  Stella's costume is on this clip.

Travel snarl

Mom and I got cought in this traffic nightmare yesterday when we tried to take a quick trip down to Bethlehem to visit the Banana Factory.  We drove up 209 after Saylorsburg and tried to get back on 33 too early and ended up traveling 191 down to Bethlehem via Nazareth.  We went home via 22 and then 309.  Oy!

The Shower and DC

Mom and I had a lot of fun in DC over the weekend.  We got in Friday night and just vegged.  We went to the pool where the chlorine in the water stripped out most of my new hair color.  I tried not to let it get wet at first, but couldn't resist going underwater.  Mom likes it better even if I don't.  I like it bright red!

Saturday we went to the Crime and Punishment Museum.  It was really cool.  There's even a puzzle for you to solve while you're touring it.

Mom stayed at the hotel when I went to the shower.  Her costume for me won the best costume contest!  Everyone kept complimenting me on it.  I even managed to stay in the four inch heels for three full hours before having to take them off.  I had a lot of fun.  I can finally show off the reason I was going so crazy about learning crochet.  Amigurumi Sunni and Brian!

My computer is back for the moment!

I love my computer. I actually managed to get it working for the last few days. I love it as much as I hate my mother's computer! I still have to get the powerport fixed, but if I can keep it working until my friend can find the time to fix it, I'll be okay.

I've gotten into amigurumi and have finally managed to figure out crochet. I've only tried it on and off for the last 20-odd years. Mom has tried to teach me a bunch of times. I guess it just took me really wanting and needing to know how to crochet so I could make my cute little dolls. Once I get better at it, I'm going to try to figure out how to make my own patterns for some Harry Potter, Velgarth and Tammy dolls. I guess making sweaters and such just never appealed enough for me to want to learn it right. Oh, the link I found was of amigurumi lemmings!

Mom has pneumonia and is really being kicked in the ass by it.

I've started going back to the gym so I can lose a little bit of weight by Sunni's wedding. I've resigned myself to looking like a 50's style Blob for her shower. According to the pattern we got for the dress, I've somehow managed to balloon back up to size 26, while still wearing sizes 18-20 normally. Between that and trying to find undergarments that might make me look a little less lumpy, I was actually in tears. I've been mentioning duct tape. I think everyone thinks I'm kidding. I'm not.

Migraines, S.E.X. and obit

I hate migraines.  I really hate migraines.  I ended up calling off work today because of one that started yesterday. 

When it finally got to the low-level pain range Mom and I went out to the bank to set up the tax savings account and Mimi's Attic where we spent $40 at a half-off sale.  I bought a design I might make for Sunni's wedding.  I'm going to ask Sheri if she thinks Sun and Brian will actually like it first, though.  If she does, then I'll play around converting colors to bronze and blue.

I've been staring at the screen for about an hour now and my eyes are starting to go a little buggy, so I'm off in a minute.  I just want to mention one thing.  Julia Guddy died on Wednesday.  She was Grandma's roommate at Allied when she died in November and was always really nice to her and concerned about her.  Julia's daughter made a very nce blog for her mom: http://www.juliaguddy.blogspot.com/  She was a nice lady.

family

I do still exist.  I've just not been on the computer for at least a week.  I just had to wade through 478 emails. 

My niece and nephew have been in since before Christmas.  Mom and I drove out to Missouri (she drove, I rode) to pick them up.  We're doing it again on Friday when they leave.  I know I'm going to miss them.  I love having them here. 

My brother is talking about the possibility of them moving back here in the summer for good.  I hope it happens, the school they're in right now is terrible.  They haven't even been taught cursive writing yet and my niece is not reading at the level she should be or speaking correctly. 

If it does happen, I'll be watching them after school on the days my brother is working.  He's talking about putting them in the school my aunt teaches at.

laptop woes

The power port on my laptop is officially dead.  It simply won't charge.  So I'm using Mom's stinky computer until I can send it away to be repaired. I found a place that will repair it with a lifetime warranty for $125.  I'm thinking this is a good deal. Now to scrounge up $125 right before Christmas?  Yeah, right.  I think my secondary goal for NaNo might have to be pushed back until after the new year, since all my work is on the computer that won't even boot up.  At least I was able to download some songs onto my nephew's new iPod before it died.  He'll be able to listen to it for Christmas.

recovery

We're not getting as much done on the house as I thought we would.  Neither of us has the drive to stick around the house.  It's going to take a while to get to the point where we're not waiting for the other shoe to drop.  That's what it's felt like living here for the last few years, as if something bad was always about to happen. 

We found the will in the most unlikely of places.  After tearing apart any logical place (what were we thinking?) we had pretty much given up on finding the will.  Mom cleaned Grandma's clothing out of the upstairs closet and then ignored the closet becuase as far as we knew, everything on the shelf above was TAFH's, grandpa's flag and some games.  Well. the other day after I tore apart a few illogical places, I happened to look up at just the right angle and saw a tan security box on the shelf.  I figured it couldn't hurt to look, so I got it down and opened it.  It was unlocked and had the keys in the pouch they came in inside! 

This was actually a good thing because the will was in there as well as Grandma's and Grandpa's birth certificates, the deed for the house when it was sold to HER parents and some little bits of paperwork from Grandpa's funeral.  The funniest thing was that the majority of the important paperwork was downstairs in non-fire-proof boxes.  Oh, and the fact that the keys were inside it unlocked.  Nobody even knew she had this box.  I wonder when she bought it.  Actually, my oldest aunt never even knew about the will, though it had been drawn up in 1970.  She didn't know she was the executrix (now they're called administrators) of Grandma's estate.  You'd think Grandma would have told her when she drew it up, wouldn't you?

Anyway, we're cleaning the house and separating her stuff from ours.  Anything of hers that we think is still good or anyone would like we're putting in the front room to be looked at by the relatives later.  We've brought a bunch of bags of clothing to the Salvation Army, the ARC and St. Francis of Assissi.  We gave Aunt L the canned goods that we can't eat for Feed-A-Friend. 

We've already taken down the bathroom "decorations" TAFH made for Grandma and have redone it in greens.  UGH!  Blue and pink.  *shudder*  I've hated that color scheme for years and the dark/light green that's in there now brightens and lightens the room up considerably.  We replaced the heavy curtain with sheers and now light can actually get into the bathroom.  Mom wants to repaint the room to cover the faux marble finish on the paneled walls.

We defrosted the freezer yesterday and put our Thanksgiving turkey in it, then tackled the rest of the pantry.  It's not done, but we cleared out a bunch of stuff and put it in the front room.  Also we cleaned out the mouse droppings from the shelved area.  Grandma wouldn't let us move anything to clean behind there and our house has always been mouse central.  Some of the stuff we just had to throw out, they were covered.  We're probably very lucky the AAA never saw the pantry.

Anyway, we still have the majority of the upstairs to do.  Tomorrow will be a wasted day, so we need to get as much done today as possible.  Unfortunately, we're just getting up and at'em right now.  I read earlier and have been playing on the internet.  We have to go to the store for more garbage bags and to return a video rental, so after that I imagine we'll be going cleaning nuts.  Oh, we have to clean out the little bedroom to bring the bed back upstairs.  I think I'll do that while Mom tackles the rest of the pantry.  Yuck.

Funeral and now

The funeral was beautiful, as much as one of them can be, anyway.  My cousin A sang at the funeral and at the chapel in Cathedral.  She was great.  My brother, a few cousins and uncles were the pallbearers.  Two of my cousins and I did the offerings and my brother and cousins J and K did readings.  Cousin B gave the eulogy.  They all did great.  My uncle played guitar for A when she sang Danny Boy and Carolina Moon at the chapel.  Then we went to the grave and I, of course, wanted to clean off Grandpa's.  But I had to stop.  I did help clean off my aunt and uncle's when we went to it with their children.  I always do.

Stirna's was, of course, where we held the after-funeral brunch.  It's where everyone holds them in North Scranton!  Mrs. Gavin is really cool.  She made sure the food was all GF (except for the lovely pastries and rolls, which I didn't touch).

Now the fun part is cleaning the house, sorting Grandma's things from ours and letting everybody make off with what they want to keep of hers.  I'm currently making a calendar I intend to follow to get all of the cleaning done by Thanksgiving, which is when all the horse-trading is supposed to take place and still TRY to get NaNo and my required stitching done.

The weirdest thing of all was that last weekend there were FOUR deaths among my co-workers.  One of my closer friends there lost his grandmother, as well.  A cashier and one of the pharmacy ladies also lost relatives.  Weird.

Viewing

It's over.  I still and will always hate viewings.  I find them to be pointless and insane.  smiled and nodded and hugged and thank-you'd everyone who came.  I DO appreciate the fact that they came to support us.  I just wish there was another way to do it.  Thankfully, I actually knew a good majority of the people that showed and could laugh with a lot of them.  One of the co-workers that drives me absolutely batty came.  I'm not really surprised, actually.  She can be amazingly sweet at times.  It's the other 90% of the time I want to murder her.  Today, it was sweet.

I had to make a break for the statue a few times.  I let myself leave the funeral parlor on the hour, each hour so I could just sit, talk to Her and breathe for a few minutes.  I'm very pleased with myself and how I held up.  The only time I teared up was when I was talking with one of my cousins about how much I hated doing viewings.  Then I sucked it up and went over to greet more relatives like a big girl (with a masochistic streak). 

The worst part was not having anything to do with my hands.  I kept clenching them.  Even if I could have had some crochet or something non-patterned I would have been fine.  *snort*  I'm telling you, this stupid viewing is Grandma's last revenge on me and my ADD.  She's laughing her ass off in heaven (or the other place) and pointing down at me right now.  She damn well better be saying she's proud of me for not having just made a complete break for it and being pretty much entirely sociable, even when I was so jittery my hands were shaking apart.  ;p

So, tomorrow I get to be at the church at 8:30 am.  Mass is at 9:30 and brunch at Stirna's (where else?) is around 11 am.  Getting there.  By 1 pm or so, this should all be over with and I can go home, relax, do laundry and psych myself up for work on Tuesday at the "bright and shining" hour of 4 am.

On a writing positive note, everyone commented on the obit I wrote.  They all loved it.  Oh, and I finished the map for my NaNo this morning before the viewing and have decided my characters are not going to escape the city, they're going to burn down the temple and lead a revolution instead.  Sira's going to have fun getting all flamey when she fights the other dragon.

Pre-Viewing

The viewing starts in a few hours, two and a half to be exact, but apparently I have to be at Knight-O'Donnell by 3:30.  So I have one hour and forty-five minutes to somehow make myself ready to greet mourners for four hours.  I can't bring any stitching, of course.  Mom's already said she'll kill me if I do.  I wonder if a small notebook to work on NaNo will work.  Everybody says it'll go fast.  Maybe for someone who doesn't have a near phobia of the damn places in the first place.  I can't wait for this hell to begin, let me tell you.

In the meantime, I'm listening to Pandora and trying to do a little retconning for my NaNo.  Oh, and trying to avoid the really good-looking hoagies my cousin brought over for us.  Damned Celiac Disease!

Funeral planning 3

How does one get through funeral planning without adding a body to the hole being dug for the deceased?  Any hints?

Funeral planning 2

Not doing the pallbearing thing.  Mom needs me with her.  Will deal with that later.

Funeral planning

Grandma, Mom and her other sisters had done a lot of end-of-life planning before this, so a lot of the stuff a person generally has to do has already been done.  The casket and that type of stuff was already taken care of.  However, things like the music and flowers are things we've needed to do. 

It's so strange.  I am both sad and happy at the same time.  I'm just not sure if it's selfish happiness as in, "Wahoo!  I don't have to be a caregiver anymore" or "She's with Grandpa finally and at peace."  I think it might be a little of both actually.

Anyway, I'm going to be a pallbearer.  I've requested it.  I NEED to do it.  It's the last thing I can do for her.  Hah!  The females in the family who have heard the plan so far are pretty much acting like, "Okay, whatever."  The guys have, if not questioned it, then at least noted the uniqueness of the idea.  I looked up a few things on pallbearing, specifically female pallbearers and I see it's not an old idea at all.  Apparently nuns do it all the time and there was a lady back in the 40's whose friend did it because guys never took her out when she was alive and she didn't want them taking her out when she was dead!  Mom and TAFH want my oldest female cousin to do it, as well, if she can.  This would mean all of the grandchildren are playing an active role in the funeral.

Well, the aunts and my uncle are coming over at 9am to plan the rest of whatever else has to happen.  I'm going to go to Borders around 1pm for the NaNo write-in.  Even if I don't get much accomplished, I need to get away from funeral planning for a while.  Maybe I'll look for a more somber outfit to wear at the funeral while I'm out.  All of my skirts are pretty brightly colored.

RIP Grandma

This morning my mother got a phone call from the nursing home.  Grandma is dead.  She passed away between 1:30 and 3 am.  She looked like she was asleep and a hell of a lot more peaceful than she has for years.  This is what we wanted for her, to just fall asleep and not be in pain anymore.  Mom's pretty sure she stuck around just long enough to vote in one last election because she really couldn't stand McCain.

RIP Grandma.  Say "hi" to Grandpa for me.  I love you.

6506!

Well, I can't get onto the website, so I'll post my first totals here for now.
November 1st - 6506 words

When I can get on the webpage, I'll actually update it, but for now I'll just post them here.  I'm not going to spend all day and night obsessed with it.

Cheers and I'm off to write until about 5pm, then I'll switch over to stitching.

NaNo Yay! and stitching.

It's November 1st and I've already written almost 4000 words. Not to jinx myself, but this story is flowing so far.

I'll try to write 8000-10000 words today, if possible, then take off tomorrow to stitch on the Mermaid. Then I'll try to OD on words again on Monday and stitch on Tuesday or Wednesday. Basically, I'll just try to write as much as possible for one or two days, then take off a day of writing for stitching.

Hopefully this works.

Oh, Mom and the others are going to talk to Grandma about what she wants: to keep fighting or to just give up. She's on the giving up side of the coin right now, I think. If she wants to, they'll let her and not argue about her eating or therapy and such. She's lost 12 pounds in the last three weeks. This is not healthy.

NaNoWriMo

Well, it's official. I'll be doing the NaNoWriMo. Kim, Andrew, Megan and I went to the Kick-Off party today. I even signed a "contract". Oh, and I ended up with a free pen with green ink! I'm blending two of my story ideas together. They seem to have sprung from the same universe but at different times. So, the Rescue story will be the beginning and the Cats story will be the end. I just have to get from one to the other in a somewhat logical fashion.

I've decided that I'm going to split my time up very carefully to ensure that I get my stitching and the writing done. I wish the NaNo was happening in a different month, actually. I have two large projects to finish and whatever ornaments Mom finally decides we're going to make. Yes, she is still undecided. *sigh* I will likely not be playing on the computer very often and my Mirabilia will not be worked on at all. So wish me luck while I play least in sight. If the Gods are generous I'll end up with the Chameleon and Mermaids finished and a book ready to be edited into a decent piece of fantasy literature.

***Fuming***

Some asshole told Grandma there was no hope of coming out of the Rehab facility.  If it was a real person and not her own fears talking and I find out who they are I will simply and utterly destroy them.  Now she doesn't want to eat or do her exercises.  She just wants to give up altogether.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Mom and I have a bad feeling it was my uncle.  He apparently has told TAFH (who is decidedly less Hellish these days but for the sake of consistency she will remain so named) that he doesn't want Grandma to go home.  What is it to him, really?  He wasn't her caregiver.  He barely comes over here.  Jerk.  He supposedly is thinking about Mom and I and how difficult it'll be to care for a much less self-sufficient Grandma, but does he really think he has ANY right to unilaterally make that decision for her and US?  No.  If it was him that planted that poisonous thought in her brain ...  ARGH!  He's her damned son and he should be encouraging her, not tearing her down.

Is it really illegal to kill people?  I could do it in a truly amusing way.  Honestly, I'm creative.  He (or whomever the jerkwad is) could mysteriously slip into a vat of chocolate at Gertrude Hawk's and for some strange reason be pushed under each time he came up for air.  Or how about death by music?  He could be tied to a chair, no, let's make him comfortable, his bed and be forced to listen to Britney Spears music for hours until he goes completely mad.  When released the poor creature would jump out of a twenty story building, plummetting to his death.  Or a really cool bounce, although I'm sure there would still be broken bones.

I'd be amused, anyway.

Long time no post

Wow, it's been over a month since I've posted. A lot has happened, actually.

Grandma broke her hip two weeks ago. She fell in the house going to the bathroom. Unfortunately, her kidney levels were too low for the surgeons to replace her hip right away, so she had to wait for a few days. They finally replaced it and thankfully, only had to do a partial replacement. The socket is still good, it was just the ball they had to replace. However, the day after? her surgery she had a stroke which affected her right side. That is, of course, the side she had to have replaced. Now she doesn't have to rebound from the surgery alone, she has to rebound from both stroke and surgery. She's doing alright, actually. Not well, but not terrible either. She's moving her right arm and starting to talk better. Her leg is moving but not a lot. If we can just get her to the point where she can use the walker she can come home. If she ends up confined to a wheelchair, I just see no way we can actually take care of her.

I've been the evil granddaughter and not visited her much. I'm leaving that to Mom, the aunts and my uncle. Their kids haven't gone out of their ways to visit, so I refuse to feel (too) guilty. I'm going to see her today, though. Then I'm going to a birthday party for one of my co-workers' kids. He's an absolute doll. I got him a Pokemon starter set.

Mom, Kim and I went to the Biden-Clinton rally last Saturday. It was really cool. I've never head Bill Clinton speak in person. The man only spoke for about five minutes, but he really is one hell of a speaker. Mrs. Biden (I'm blanking on her first name) introduced him and she was pretty cool in her own right. Then he introduced Hillary, who has a vigorous fanbase in the area, if anybody didn't actually know that already. She introduced Biden after her talk. I voted for her mostly because of her emphasis on education. She is really stumping hard for Obama/Biden. I like that. A little unity in the party is a nice thing for a change.

Biden's speech was amazing. He pulled no punches but at the same time didn't trash McCain's politics, if that makes any sense. He made sure he emphasized that McCain's policies are practically identical to Bush's and that those policies directly contributed to our current crises. Of course, I was thinking about the fact that NAFTA was a Clinton thing, but that mysteriously wasn't mentioned. I wonder why? ;p

I liked the comment Bill Clinton made about Hillary Clinton. She has apparently made more appearances hyping Obama than ANY defeated Presidential candidate. So, in my opinion, it took a woman to show the men in the game what class really looks like. Hopefully, it's an example future defeated candidates will emulate.

Oh, and Mom and I went to the RenFaire the weekend before grandma fell. It was loads of fun, even though it was raining. Also, I got some really really really important data from the marriage licenses I requested held for me in Philly. I found my great-great grandfather's name and my great-great grandmother's maiden name!!!!! How awesome is that? One chink in that family's brick wall, especially since the license indicated that both had been born in the USA which should lead me to more info in the Censuses, hopefully.

I know there's more I'm forgetting about, but that's it for now.

Red herrings at election time

Wow, Governor Palin makes one heck of a red herring. Check out this link.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1840274,00.html?xid=feed-yahoo-full-nation

Dragon*Con Monday

I'm home now and already wishing I was back there. Grandma pretty much told me to go away immediately.

Anyway, here's what happened this morning. We got to the con in time for Kim to do her panel and me to get to the Dragon*Con store for a few things. I also managed to get Susan Kearney's autograph before catching the train to the airport.

When I got to the airport there was a problem. The kiosk kept telling me I had no reservation. So, I got in line and warned Kim to meet me when she got there. She did, literally just as I was talking to the counter agent. Apparently, when the trip was changed about it negated my ability to use the kiosks. I do not recall Expedia warning me of this in their emails to me. Also, the flight WAS the later one. We did get through and everything was fine. The flight was just great. I dozed a little and stitched and read some. I finished Susan Kearney's book I'd won.

Now I just have to finish cleaning my room and tomorrow the Dish Network will be installed.

I talked to Mom about me going next year and she's not quite enthusiastic, to say the least. I think I can convince her, but it'll take a little while, I think. Yes, I realize how pathetic it sounds for a 32 year old woman to need her mother's permission to take a trip like this, but I need to consider Grandma's needs above all. I'll be getting two weeks vacation next year, so I can spend one with her and the kids and one there.

I really need to do this, I think. For my own sanity. I was surrounded by people who made me feel normal, not like a freak.

Dragon*Con Sunday

Today I woke up on time and woke Kim. The guy woke up, thanked us and left. I dressed and took off, getting to the convention in plenty of time to eat a nice breakfast at the diner in the Peachtree Center. Metro Cafe or something to that effect. It has really good omelets.

Then I went to my first panel, Other Worlds, Other Times. It was basically about world-building in SF/F Romance. Before it started I talked to Susan Sizemore about some books we had in common (tastewise). I also let her know when John Scalzi's reading was going to be, so she could go. She had been squeeing over him on Saturday. When we were talking about some of the earlier SF/F Romance writers I mentioned Anne Avery and Sandra Hill told us why she doesn't write anymore. Apparently, when the previous paranormal bubble burst, noone would buy her books. That's a pity since I really liked hers. Anyway, she and CL Wilson signed Creature, both seeming quite delighted. Oh, and I won a Susan Kearney book I don't have yet!

Second panel, Let's Hear It For the Boys. I walked over to the Marriott for another YA panel with Tammy. She's going to think I was stalking her, when I swear I wasn't. I could have gone to EVERY panel and session she had but I didn't. I just went to the interesting ones. This one was, obviously, about boy lit. Boy lit being, in my opinion, anything that will make a boy read. The panel each had slightly differing views of boy lit. We ended up in a discussion about covers and their effect on whether or not a boy wil pick up a book or even be scared away from the YA section thanks to the current overdose of Barbie pink covers. Also, the point was brought up that clerks, not necessarily librarians are conditioned to bring boys to the SF/F section of the store and girls to the YA section. I countered with the fact that I went straight from Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys to SF/F and found my way BACK to YA basically as an adult. I left with an offer by one of the panelists to put my mystery plot on her stumpers board to try to figure it out for me.

Third panel, Dark Secrets, Shadowed Hearts. This time we were putting alpha males on the chopping block. The consensus of the panle was that an alpha male, broody dark hero and an insufferable jerk are different in that there's good reason for what an alpha does. Personally, I disagree with them to a point. Rape is rape no matter what. Abuse is still abuse even if Joe Hero has a tortured past that gives his behavior an explanation. Hence the reason I don't read Christine Feehan's Carpathians anymore. She crossed the line and her so-called heroes are in the insufferable jerk side of the equation now.

Fourth panel, rather than dodging people and standing in line to get to the Don S. Davis tribute, I decided to stay in the room I was in and listen to the Love Bites, Love Bleeds panel about vamps and weres and such in paranormal romance. I now have new authors to try and Lori Handeland is coming out with an urban fantasy that sounds intriguing. I also got her autograph on Creature. Amusement and the idea that it's a good idea seems to be the overwhelming reaction to seeing my poster. I love it.

I hit the Dealer's room and got those poetry books. I bought all six of them since I couldn't decide. Oh, and I found a sterling claddagh to replace my other. I also got a card of someone who might have Greg Pak's 1602.

Fifth panel, A Bloody, Burning Painful Death Is Coming For You! Just what it says. This one was Dr. Cmar talking about things like Dengue Hemhorragic Fever and the plague. He actually managed to find pictures of people with them and I was just fine except for a few pictures. Most of those were of kids dying of them (none survived) and the other was an eye that had literally deflated. Apparently the docs were able to re-inflate it and the patient kept much of his vision. Cool, huh? I asked him my two questions about the 1918 epidemic and our preparedness level and the plant he was talking about in the first lecture. I didn't sound stupid! He seemed pleased by the questions. Yay me!

Sixth panel, Messengers From the Gods. This one was about comets and their historical effect on humans! How cool is that? I've actually been looking for data on comet sightings and their cultural effect and here's a panel on it. I even was able to supply an answer whent he lecturer forgot the name of the Bayeux Tapestry. Of course, I stupidly raised my hand when he asked if anyone had seen a meteorite, but I still felt good about the fact that now I have a lead to do research for my NaNoWriMo.

I ate something after that and checked on the flights, then went back to the hotel. I don't think I can squeeze in any time at the con tomorrow (technically today since it's 1am). I'm all packed but for my sleep clothes, the computer, iPod and a notebook. The computer will be going away as soon as I shut it down, as will the notebook. The iPod and clothes, well, I kind of need them until tomorrow morning. I might get off at Peachtree and wander briefly over the to the Dragon*Con store. I'd kind of like to get that book Jean Marie Ward's been plugging. I'm just as happy getting it online, though, so maybe just to the airport while Kim does her last panel. I'll see. Right now I must go to bed. My eyes are closing on me. It's a good thing I'm going to run a spell-check on this before I actually post it. I'm cringing at the thought of the mistakes I missed while typing.

I really want to keep going to Dragon*Con. I wonder if there's a way I can swing it each year, even if I go alone.

Dragon*Con Saturday

I woke up late Saturday and still had to walk up to Wal*Mart to get a few essentials. I woke Kim up and told her about the late-bus thing then I walked up to Wal*Mart and got a bunch of fruit to eat during the day as well as a calling card to top up my phone. I caught the bus and we sort of went right by Kim standing at the other stop for the other bus. Oops.

So, I got to the con just in time to catch the tail end of the parade. I saw the pirate ship, the Klingon Biker Chicks, the Star Trek people, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Dark-Hunters and the Star Wars people. So, of course, riding high on the euphoria of seeing Sherri and Ash as well as cardboard box Star Wars characters, I realized I'd lost my badge. I hurriedly pushed my way through the crowd, retracing my steps to where I'd had it last. It was gone. Completely gone, as in $90 right down the proverbial drain. Rather than panic, I made my way to the info booth in the Hyatt. The gentleman there was sympathetic when he told me I'd have to buy another one. My heart thudded right around my feet at that point. He then told me to try security first to see if anyone had turned it in.

I held on to some hope, as everyone at the con had so far been extremely nice and it seemed like a decent crowd of people. However, the silly thing was a four-day pass. Anyone on the street could save themselves $90 just by keeping it. So, I got to security and much to my delight, I had lost it about fifteen minutes before and someone had JUST turned it in. The lady said this was the fastest one had been picked up that she could recall and gave me some duct tape to secure it to the clip better. I did so immediately, thinking, please let me get to Robert Englund in time!

So, first panel, Robert Englund. Is it only nice guys that can play horror roles? Oh, by the way, Kenneth Johnson just sent him something about V: The Next Generation. Yay!!!!! And I have to pick up his Phantom. It sounds bone-chillingly awesome.

Second panel, Susan Sizemore. Snarky, funny and smart. I like this woman. She mentioned that at some point she might out the Primes and this could be lots of fun. Who knows? She signed Creature and was totally impressed with James Hong's signature on it.

Third panel, Tammy. It was an hour with Tammy and since Sherri was in the room next I figured I could just sit comfy through two of my favorite authors. Tammy talked about some of her characters and herself. She was asked who her favorite character was and she had to pick two: Kel and Tris! Yes, my favorites. Oh, and she talked about the fact that Kel's squire is going to be one of the girls from the book Squire who asked her about being a knight. Of course, this will be a few years off since she has other books she has to write first. I can be patient, especially since I really like Beka Cooper. A few of the people got up and told her how much her books had supported them through really bad school experiences and it choked her up. She said something to the effect that it was the highest praise anyone could give her and she always appreciated hearing it.

Fourth panel, Sherri. Oh, wait, not Sherri because they kicked us out of the damned room and would have made us go to the end of the line even though we had technnically been there at least an hour longer than anyone in line. So, I went to the Magic and Religion in SF/Fantasy panel instead. It was interesting. Nothing spectacular, but not boring either. I did get really hungry in it and started eating my plums, carefully and as quietly as I could.

After I ate, I went to the fifth panel, Gay Themes in the Dr. Whoniverse. Given that I can't really remember the original series very much, I was lost until they talked about Dr. Who and Sarah Jane. Torchwood I'll be getting as soon as we get Dish, but I still have to catch up on the past seasons. Just from his appearances on Dr. Who, I know Jack will do just about anything that is even remotely alive. The panelists and audience seemed to agree that in the past nothing was overtly gay and on rare occasions a tad homophobic, but that the new seasons are much better. I have to admit, I never really latched onto any gay themes in the shows although the one panelist swears Maria is a "budding lesbian" and Sarah Jane is her first girl-crush. Okay.

Sixth panel, Eureka! A panel about the show and unfortunately, Kevin Grazier has worked in the government sector too long and is REALLY good at keeping secrets. He gave NO spoilers, the rat, but he did sign Creature for me. He seemed to get a kick out of it.

Seventh panel, Alternative Sexuality in YA Literature. I hit a lot more book panels than I thought I would. I figured I'd be going Star Trek mad and I never got to one of them. Anyway, the theme is clear from the title and we spent most of the time swapping names of books and authors we thought had decent parts or treatment of GLBTs. I plugged Misty and Tammy. One woman really disagreed about Misty and I can see her point. She points Van through hell. He even gets raped in one of the books. Not that that had anything to do with his sexuality, he was simply convenient to a bunch of raiders at the time. If it had been a female Herald, she'd have been raped too, but she does use the "he's gay, so his father treats him like crap" plot device. Other gays she gets to treat better, but maybe that's because none of them are the ultimate hero and heroine. Firesong is a snippy little bastard in the beginning, but that's because of his inherent magical abilites. He grows up. Anyway, one lady was actually able to remember the name of one of the books I remember the plot of but nothing else! Choosing Time, possibly by Octavia Butler. I'll be checking it out as soon as I get home and finish cleaning my room for the dish installation.

I went back to the hotel after that and fell asleep after listing the panels I wanted to see Sunday and Monday (about 1am!). Kim got there about 3:30 with a friend who needed to crash for the night since he'd had a wee too much to drink to make it as far as he lives. We have a couch in the room. And I've already forgotten his name. Nice guy.

Oh, and just for the fun of it, the entire weekend I was surrounded by seas of orange from the Clemson fans. Apparently, they were losing, badly, on the way back to the hotel.

Dragon*Con Friday

Friday Kim and I left Scranton very early in the morning. Basically, I left the house just ten or fifteen minutes after I would have for work. Ugh! The first day of my vacation and I still had to get up at three in the damned morning. Oh, well. After all my lists and redoing the lists, I forgot something. Thankfully, we'd only gotten a few blocks and were able to turn around easily enough. I really did need the credit cards I'd tucked away so I couldn't touch them until Dragon*Con, though. I guess I did too good a job of dismissing them from temptation.

The flights were easy enough, no drama: Avoca to Cinncinnatti and Cinncinnatti to Atlanta. Since we carried all our bags on, we had no luggage to check and retrieve. No muss, no fuss. Same with getting the train to the convention. We paid for our Breeze 4-day pass and got on the northbound train. Did you know that there's an escalator in the Peachtree Center that is just plain huge? I asked one of the Marta workers and he thinks it's about 120 feet long. I have a picture of it from both ends. Wow! Anyway, we got our badges after getting turned around a bit, and then I went to check us in at the hotel.

Okay, Kim must have packed anvils, because her suitcase weighed a friggin' ton even after she took things out she thought she'd need. So, I went back down the escalator and was told by a Marta gentleman to get off at the Civic Center exit on the Northbound train. Um, no. Not quite. I got off there and realized the bus I needed was not there. So, I asked another gentleman and he said I was actually needing the Midtown station, one back along the rail. Alright. This time I was at the right place. A lovely young woman saw me looking at the map trying to confirm my spot and volunteered the information I needed. We ended up on the same bus and she and I had a conversation the whole way. She told me exactly where to get off and how to walk to get to the Days' Inn.

Checked in and of course, we have a problem. First, the door was being painted so I thought it was a utility room and walked around the building, up a funky flight of stairs to a grassy area and thought I was going completely nuts because I couldn't find the damned room! Went back around and asked the maintenance guy about it and realized it was my room. He was done, so he left and I settled in a bit. The wireless doesn't work. However, according to the clerk I can use the lobby's wireless. Wa-hoo! "Yeah, Kim'll love this", I thought.

So, back to the con. I found Kim's booth and there was a brief panic when I thought I'd have to give up my panels to attend it. I really didn't want to give them up. I guess everything worked out, because I was safe from Girl-Wonder duty all weekend, although I did hype it to some people so I wouldn't feel bad. Well, actually I didn't really feel bad anyway, because I wasn't here to hawk a podcast, I was here to attend panels and stalk people for autographs.

So, first panel, Brad Dourif. For all the creepy, fucked-up characters he plays, he is a genuinely NICE guy. I may not like the Chucky movies but he has a true affection for them. It was interesting to to hear some of the stories he had. He really loved the work he did on LOTR. Too bad I never watched them closely enough to notice him. Of course, his work on X-Files really left him with good memories, too.

I intended to go to the Stargate panel next but quailed when I saw the line looping and wrapping back in on itself, so I ate, then hit the Dealer's Room and Walk of Fame instead. At the Dealer's room I found I poet of really awesome dark and twisted poetry. I promised to go back when I decided which book I wanted. More on that later. I did, however, buy a new signature poster. I found a Creature From the Black Lagoon reproduced movie poster, not just a reproduced lobby card! It's 11x17 and I tagged their business card so I can see if they carry Abbott & Costello, The Giant Gila Monster and Court Jester. I also got a little baseball card-sized cartoon of the Creature. It's really cool.

At the Walk of Fame I got (paid for) autographs by Mickey Dolenz, David Prowse, Robert Englund, Brad Dourif, Matthew Lewis and James Hong. I wanted Adam West, but $50 an autograph was a tad more than even I could justify. Peter Mayhew was very tempting but I wanted the others first. Let me list my impressions of the guys.
Mickey Dolenz: a tad spaced out, but nice.
David Prowse: more bemused by the whole thing, especially when I placed a Creature poster in front of him. He reminded me he had nothing to do with it. I told him I knew that, but I liked having all my signatures on one thing rather than millions of photos to keep track of. He did sign it with "David Prowse, Darth Vader".
Robert Englund: another total sweetie. I had to bring up the fact that I loved him as Willie. When I showed him the poster he reacted great. Apparently, he's always liked it and he even acted with Julia Adams in a movie and the actor who played the scientist was his teacher! What an amazing coincidence. It was just awesome.
Brad Dourif: again, really nice. When I showed him the poster he agreed that it was an awesome movie.
Matthew Lewis: I told him I couldn't wait till the the last movies so Neville could kick ass and he totally agreed with me, of course. His reaction to Creature was that he'd never seen it before. I, of course, told him he absolutely had to and he said he'd look for it. I hope he does. He was neat, even when being embarrassed by another one of his fans who was there.
James Hong: LOL. He played along that he had been in Creature in the make-up. It was cool.

Second panel, Emerging Infectious Horrors! Alright, with a title like that, I had to go to it. The panelist, Dr. Cmar, works at Johns Hopkins with, you guessed it, infectious diseases. He talked about diseases that the medical world considers current major threats, like the flu and measles. It was interesting, although I chickened out on asking a question because all the others were bringing up medical terms I could JUST decipher. I felt like an absolute stooge in there a few times. His panel on Sunday is A Bloody, Burning Painful Death Is Coming For You! Yes, I will be attending that one.

Third panel, She-Roes. Tammy and strong female characters in books, need I say more? Actually, it was a well-rounded panel with lots of opinions from them and from us. Kim and I both went to this one. The only one we attended together, actually. After that, I went back to the hotel. Had a bit of an adventure when I realized the two buses I KNEW I could take stopped at 10 and 10:30 and it was past 11. Thankfully the bus driver asked me what I was waiting for, else I would have had another hour to wait. I got back to the hotel along with another convention guest who knew just the way to go and crashed.

Women don't actually need any rights, right?

Well, the Shrub's done it again. This time his assault on womens' reproductive rights is a White House Rule through the Health and Human Services department that is meant to "protect the moral and religious objections" of medical workers who object to abortions or sterilization. The major problem is that the wording is so vague it could end up being applied to simple birth control - among other things. Of course, my feeling is that if a doc or even the person sterilizing the instruments (protected under this proposed rule) has such a strong objection to what they're expected to do in their daily jobs, they should be looking for another one, not expecting me to curtail my rights to please theirs to be an ass.

Here's a link to an Adobe Acrobat pdf of the whole rule: http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2008pres/08/20080821reg.pdf

Read it and see if you have a problem with it. If so, contact the White House before September 25, which is the deadline for public commentary. If you want to leave a comment at the main site, use this link: http://www.regulations.gov/search/index.jsp. Of course, I just tried finding the proposed rule using all the search criteria I could think of and didn't, so good luck that way.

There are plenty of online groups that are already circualting petitions like the NARAL, NOW, Planned Parenthood and MoveOn.org. However, a personal letter with specific insights from the proposed rule itself might be more effective.

Now, to read it more thoroughly and figure out what I'll be using for my letters, one to the editors of the Times and one to the Health and Human Services Department.

Ugh! Shall we all be barefoot and pregnant, ladies?

Mom just had to spoon-feed Grandma because she was refusing to eat. I don't know how much of this I can take. I asked Mom if it really was time to look at a nursing home and she said they'd not feed her, just insert a feeding tube, which Grandma has refused to have before. I think I'm reaching the end of my rope. I know she'd never let me spoon-feed her if I have to. She doesn't even speak to me if she can at all avoid it, but for the insults she hurls at my head.

Head hurts...

I really hate my head. I've been alternating between shooting pains behind my left eye to dizziness to just a plain headache all day. I took four pills to get through the workday and somehow managed to stay nice to everyone.

Migraines suck. And I've put up with the computer screen long enough to burn the discs I promised for a friend and I'm getting off. Need to do one more load of laundry then I'm going down for the count.

Wish grandma good luck at her doctor's appointment, everyone. She's going to need it with her health and behavior the last few days on top of this thyroid mass.

Stitching Olympics

I've been trying to keep my stitching and my real life separate, even by having a different blog for stitching, but lately they've entwined so much I can't.

I posted that Grandma hurt herself. She's not doing too hot. Wandering from room to room because she can't get comfortable and refusing to give any position a chance to relax. Well, she turns out to have degenerative disc disease (or some name like that) as well as a mass in her thyroid. They did an ultrasound Friday and she has an appointment with her doctor Wednesday to discuss the results. The Vicodin isn't doing much except make her loopy and crueler than usual. At times she's convinced she's really in the hospital and people are walking through the room. Mom's going to talk to her doc about a low-dose morphine patch.

Anyway, the stitching comes in because it is such a relief for me. Mom and others tell me I should make and sell my jewelry, but the stitching is so much more my art, you know? I'm going to show off what I've been doing lately.


This is a chameleon I'm making for my nephew. It's being stitched on Silkweaver's Jungle Fever, 32 count, with DMC threads. I've made slightly more progress on it since I took this picture on August 7th. If I finish page two of the pattern, I'll get the Silver medal and if I finish the whole thing before the Olympics are over, I'll get the Gold medal.

This is a mystery freebie from Papillon Creations, parts 1 through 8. I finished Part 8 around 1 this morning, hence getting my Bronze medal in my LJ community's Stitching Olympics.

And the bug is for myself. It's from The World of Cross-Stitching, a British magazine. It was supposed to have been done in shades of orange and red, but I like green bugs better, so I converted the colors and added beads and the peace sign to hang from the mirror. After I get back from Dragon*Con, I'll make it into a stretched canvas frame to hang in my room.

Shoot me now, please.

Okay, I'm ready to scream. About a week ago Grandma fell and hurt her back. This was right before my aunt's wedding. She's in pain, a lot of it. So, of course, she deals with this by walking from her bedroom to the living room to the bathroom to the living room to the bed again. AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! She won't believe us that she'll recover better by staying still!

If I end up in jail tonight charged with murder, leave me there. I need the vacation.

Oh, and my aunt (not TAFH) has arranged with her best friend, Grandma's only reliable caregiver, to watch her new granddaughter instead of Grandma. Selfish fucking bitch. So, now we get to try Telespond and their idiotic boss and unrelaible caregivers again.

The wedding was really nice, though.

What a waste of great DNA

Be proud of me. I managed not to hit someone today. On the bus ride home, I ended up talking to two of the more obnoxious of my fellow bus riders today plus an absolutely gorgeous male specimen whom I had briefly spoken to on the ride up to the mall. Well, when my little conversation with the three men was done I went back to perusing my new stitching magazine. Mr. Gorgeous turns to me and my heart went a little pit-a-pat. Then he opened his mouth and uttered these words: "I think Women's Lib has killed the American family."

Let me back this up and tell you how this started. I got on and was reading my magazine. I suddenly realized all three men were staring at me. I asked what was wrong. Obnoxious Rider #1, responded that they had been talking about sewing. I was reading a sewing magazine (sort of). So, I commented that he knew very well that if I'm not stitching on the bus, I'm reading about it. This is mostly accurate. Mr. Gorgeous then turned to me and said, "I'll bet Rumpelstiltskin was your favorite fairy tale." I scoffed at this and said I preferred stories where the princess ended up saving the prince, totally disregarding the fact that Rumpelstiltskin wasn't exactly about sewing, even if spinning is pretty much the most vital step of getting decent thread to use. There was a little more about women in sports and athletes of all genders and types doping, with a little segueway into David Beckham, but the conversation pretty much died a natural death.

I went back to my magazine. That's when Mr. Gorgeous proved that great genes do not necessarily make a great person. I kept my cool through the whole conversation, even when he brought in the Bible and God making women inferior, yadda yadda. I brought up some polyandrous and matriarchal societies in history that did well. He tried the religion card again and I told him I didn't believe in his and to drop any point he wanted to make that hinged on the religious. He then brought up divorce rates in America and I told him that divorces weren't necessarily bad, see the example of abused women getting out of bad relationships. Here's where the restraint came in, people.

Mr. Gorgeous says that women are abused because they mentally and emotionally abuse their men first and that when said "man" strikes back, he's accused of being in the wrong. Women want to be equal to men, but when they are abused they cry foul. So, basically, it's that old argument that women just ask to be abused.

I did agree with him that there are unhealthy relationships out there, but I did not agree with him that anyone deserves to be hit. In fact, I'm even the one that brought up the fact that there are abusive women out there. I brought up my uncle's relationship with his wife. He's completely whipped. They have scream fights, yes, and she's really in control of the relationship, to his detriment, in my opinion, but he does not strike her. He doesn't, as Mr. Gorgeous contends, get back at her for "abusing him first".

Then Mr. Gorgeous brought up "the mother of his child". Apparently, she talks trash about his deceased mother, who was a drug user. He says he's pushed her, but not hit her. She is apparently a nasty piece of work, so in his mind, she deserves this. My comment to that was that I'd just stay away from her as much as possible, interacting only in regards to the child. Personally, it sounds like he shouldn't be throwing any stones. Too much glass around.

Pity, he really is a gorgeous man: high cheekbones; shaved head; yummy, runner-fit body; creamy, cafe-au-lait skin. What a waste of great DNA.

BBC Squee!

Okay, I am officially as happy as a clam. I just figured out (idiot) that I can download the first three Doctor Who seasons, Torchwood and Robin Hood on iTunes. Let's see, $26 as opposed to the dvd price of $80? Yes! I can finally watch Torchwood.

Down, girl, remember Dragon*Con. So, now I get to choose between the three. I can let myself have one of the seasons. I have a feeling it'll be Torchwood.

After that I'll download Dr. Horrible.

I love iTunes.

Colorado "Personhood" Amendment

As much as I would love to be back in Colorado right now, getting my degree, something is happening there that makes me just want to pull a "Hulk Smash!" I wonder how much of this Tancredo pushed for?

In November, Coloradans will vote on an amendment to the state constitution granting "personhood" to "any human being from the moment of fertilization." The ultimate goal being to stop any and all abortions and overturn Roe v. Wade.

Some of my problems with this proposal:
1. A zygote or embryo cannot live outside the womb. Until the third trimester a fetus cannot live outside the womb. Yes, there have been very rare cases of a twenty-week fetus surviving but as I said, they are very rare and most doctors and medical professionals consider the third trimester to be the viable stage. Even early third trimester, premature births need a lot of TLC to make it with reasonable health. My personal opinion is that until viability is reached, said fetus is not a person. Sorry to sound harsh.
2. If a miscarriage (medical term: spontaneous abortion) happens and some yahoo says the pregnant woman did something to cause it like drink or smoke, this could open her up for criminal negligence charges. Please, if she intended to keep the baby and deliver it, she'll already be torn up by the loss. Charging her afterward is like twisting the knife and pouring salt in the wound at the same time. Women are already being charged under child abuse laws if they drink alcohol or do drugs while pregnant, even if nothing bad happens to the child.
3. If there is a medically necessary procedure that will harm the fetus to save the mother, whose rights are paramount?
4. The old stand-by of rape and incest. What do you do? Using the much-to-often-repeated standard "It's not the child's fault" doesn't negate the irreparable harm a pregnancy carried to term could do to the real victim of such crimes, the woman. Again, until viability, not a child. Would this give the rapist a chance to say he demanded the "child" be born, thus compounding and extending his rape for at least nine months. What a power trip. This amendment would hand him the perfect weapon over his victim - one he could wield continuously for at least nine months. Maybe more. As if having to face him in trial isn't bad enough.
5. Who the hell gave some state or government the right to tell me what to do with my own body? Not me. My body, my choice. Stay the hell out of my uterus.
6. I also object to it because it can ultimately be used to halt vital stem cell research into diseases like Parkinson's and spinal cord injuries (to name the most famous). Now, I do think that if using adult stem cells could yield positive results, we should study that, as well. Whatever works the best.
7. What would happen in the case of in vitro fertilized eggs that haven't been implanted and are slated to be destroyed? Do they automatically have to be implanted and given a chance to develop into infants? Who has to carry or pay for them? Honestly, frozen eggs are enough of a pitfall, shall we add more to an already dodgy subject?
8. Do we really want to return (as if we've really left) to the back-alley, coat hanger abortion days? This would simply serve to drive women with no other option to it. Septicemia, bleeding out, permanent injury? Yeah, we really look forward to this type of thing again.

Dianne N. Irving says some interesting things about the proposed amendment, actually. Worth a read.
Also, read this .pdf by JAMA bout fetal pain.

*sigh* There is so much more that's wrong with this asinine attempt to control women's bodies and minds.

*Fume*

A few days ago I posted the link to the Live Long and Marry auction site. I had been trying to figure out if I had time or money to do something for it and had pretty much decided "No". Well, yesterday I was mentioning it to Mom and she had a very annoying reaction to it. I had been thinking of making a GF care basket. Her comment was not to do one for that but for a "good cause" like for children. Well, this got my back up, so I've decided I will MAKE the time somehow to do it. Hey, I'll have my normal bus rides, the plane to and from Atlanta...

I'm going to be offering a set of stitched cards. Here's the link: 8 Cross-stitched cards

Luna Lovegood!

Okay, I just have to pass on this picture of Luna Lovegood from Half-BloodPrince. I found it on The Leaky Cauldron site. I want those specs!

There are a lot of other pictures from the new movie. Check them out.

Not a Grandma day...

Grandma's sugar will not remain stable today. It's bottomed out at least twice. She's currently eating a tomato sandwich that she argued about with Mom. She says the tomatoes are choking her. She argued with Mom about drinking some juice and actually fought with her about the sandwich, saying it was poison.

Today is not a good day for her.

Lincoln ran away!

Well, Scranton has made the news again, this time with a mystery. AOL and other news services are passing on the story of our missing Lincoln monument. It was dedicated with much fanfare in 1909, was still present for part of the 20's and then just disappears. The current theory is that when Lake Lincoln was expanded, it was removed and the bust was either sold or put in storage somewhere.

Maybe with the increased coverage we'll find out what happened to it.

Live Long and Marry

Here's a link to a livejournal community that one of my favorite authors, Tamora Pierce, is offering some goodies for auction in. It's called Live Long and Marry. The community/fundraiser is for groups fighting the marriage amendment in California. Here is info from the site:

"What is this? Live Long And Marry is a fandom auction to benefit marriage equality. Bidding begins on July 1, 12:01 AM one minute after midnight Pacific Time, 2008, and closes on July 15, 12:01 AM one minute after midnight Pacific Time, 2008. Please do not bid until bidding opens.

What's the cause? The auction will raise money for the fight against the California initiative which will legally destroy existing same-sex marriages and ban any further ones. If the initiative passes, it will write discrimination into the state constitution, annull existing marriages, and make Mr. Sulu cry.

How can I help? You can bid on fanfic, original fic, vids, cookies, memorabilia, critique/betas, and much more! Or you can offer your skills and services as a writer, vidder, baker, knitter, or whatever else you'd like."

Obviously, the originator of the community is a Star Trek fan. As most Trekkies know, George Takei, our beloved Sulu, has finally been given the chance to marry the love of his life, Brad Altman. It constantly amazes me that people see no problem in denying other human beings basic rights. Let's fight this amendment in whatever state tries it but first, in California.

Right now I'm trying to figure out what I can stitch to offer for an auction.

R.I.P. Don S. Davis

About six or seven years ago, I finally got into Stargate. One of my favorite characters is always going to be General Hammond. He was just stern enough to call SG1 (usually O'Neill) on the carpet and just mischievous enough to let SG1 get away with what they did.

I'm going to miss Don S. Davis. He died on June 29th of a massive heart attack. He will be missed.

Grandma is going down to TAFH's today. Thank the gods. She's been okay lately, but the idiot aunt of mine made sure she told Grandma before she left two weeks ago that she was coming down. So, Grandma's been asking every day, multiple times when we were leaving. ARGHH!! We had all agreed that Grandma wouldn't be told if she was going down, that it would be a surprise. So, of course my aunt the PhD can't remember this. *sigh*

I was going to go down with them, but when I got to work today and tried to clock in I realized I was four hours early. I'm going to get home after Mom and Grandma leave. Yeah, Mom's thrilled. I just hope it stops raining before I have to leave, because I'm going to be walking home.

I'm off tomorrow and closing Saturday. So, I'll be able to enjoy some of the block party and do mondo research at the library.

Now, if the caregiver could just get here, I may not be late after being four hours early. She's already half an hour late and was woken up by Mom's call fifteen minutes ago. She was supposed to be here at 6:30. I just hope she doesn't do the whole shower and major grooming thing. Just throw some clothes on and get here. I only have 25 minutes to catch the bus.

Highs!

Okay, these have been a good couple of days. Granted, Grandma is a bit pissy that she had to leave TAFH, but it's dealable. Of course, there is also the annoying fact that my oldest brother saw me both Saturday and Sunday and still didn't wish me Happy Birthday. *sigh* I guess I really didn't expect more.

The reasons these have been a good couple of days are:
1. Went out on Thursday night and saw Indiana Jones (loved it) then stayed out really late. We went to Poor Richards for karaoke night. I did not sing, having no desire to witness anyone's ears start bleeding.
2. Went out Saturday and watched Iron man for the third time. We saw the shield and analyzed possibilities for the next Marvel movies. I also managed to mail dad's father's Day card before I got my birthday card! Oh, and I bought Kingdom Come at Comics on the Green.
3. Today I got a birthday card from my little brother! I also got one from my dad, but to be honest I'm totally psyched about the card from L'il Bro.
4. Also, Grandma's starting to become a little more human. One day. This is a record. I just wish she'd stop closing the darned doors. We need the breeze in here.