Sparkly Things

Working hard this week as Mr. Phil is outta town.
Tom’s playing Santa for the library X-mas open house this week. I promised him pizza (or Chinese food) if he’d do it.
Last development session at the public library tomorrow. Should be interesting.
I’ll be glad when Saturday comes.

Ah well, the slacking couldn’t last forever. I spent today catching up on reports I should have written and such like. The boss is gone again for two weeks and he left me in charge (fool!). So I’ve cleared the deck to have time to deal with all of the silly stuff when it comes up.

Gaming and Unevent this weekend. Tom’s feeling relieved he didn’t get tapped for team leader at work. That means we won’t have to be doing a big schedule change.

We’re getting back into the painting groove. (Mini painting, not house painting or anything) It’s a good cool weather activity. I’m going to need to make another figure case to hold all of our finished work.

I want to be home for the holidays. I can’t. Blah. Blah. Blah. Yech!

Found a fun webcomic today.
Loserz

http://www.loserzcomic.com

Cute Anime influenced Slacker kids. Some good humor and well done art. Typical high school drama with some partial nudity.

Also I can’t say enough cool stuff about the Order of the Stick. (www.giantitp.com) Some funny shit, OMG. Especially if you are as big a geek as I am. My favorite joke is the homicidal halfling ranger with absolutely NO Spot skill. I like the slutty rogue and the airhead bard and the mysterious elven wizard is every char. Tom has ever played (with one or two notable exceptions). I’ve decided my new motto for life is W.W.T.D? (What Would Thor Do?)

This is what I do when the boss is out of sight. Surf the web for comix. I love my job!

Some may call you bookish, and mean it in a bad
way…..but we know better! Delighting in
books, and very likely with more tomes than
clothes, you amaze others with your knowledge
of the obscure and the common.

Books alone cannot a life make, but you know this
as well….you love having chats with others
who love words and ideas as much as yourself!

Can I play in your library? Please??

You are The Favourite Poet by Alma~Tadema.

Which Pre~Raphaelite Painting Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

So we’re back. The trip was pretty successful. We got to see almost everyone we wanted to see. Tom’s mom, Geri seems better than I had expected but she is still quite sick. We’re waiting to hear from the doctors about her prognosis. Tom is having a lot of trouble dealing with his mom’s illness. We wants to be there, I know. I really regret coming down here every time I go back to PA, especially when Tom gets all down on his job. He’s working on a big idea to go back up there and live with his mom and take care of her. I don’t know how do-able this is. I would have a lot of trouble finding a job there on short notice and I’m not very comfortable with living apart for a long time.
This is tough to deal with. You never know what choices you will regret later.

Busy couple of weeks, what with elections and big library events and Tom’s inevtiable 10 day week. But I’m back for a while.

Lessee…I voted. Not that it did much good, but I know I’m keeping up my end, civics-wise. Tom did not vote, but as he honestly doesn’t CARE it would have been an exercise in randomness in any case.

Picnic in the Grove went off well. We had a good turn out and the weather was GREAT. Sunny but not hot. I think everyone had a good time. I’m glad to be done. I expect someone’s going to have to submit a follow-up report. I hope it won’t have to be me (but I have a sneaking suspicion it will).

Tom’s mom is back in the hospital for more evaluation and etc. We’re going up there next weekend (after a stop in VA to see sister Anne’s new house). They’re at the point of talking about Hospice, but I can’t get a clear picture of what is really going on. I think we’ll know better when we see her. It’s like waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m not sure what we’re going to be able to do, but I know she’ll be happy to see us.

We have a new guy at work. His name is Mike. He’s a real eager beaver. He’s been hired to do shelving mostly and he’s VERY enthusiastic. I think we’ve got him off to the right start. I just hope he doesn’t burn himself out. He’s one of those people who needs LOTS of positive reinforcement. It’s a refreshing change from some of our slackers, but I don’t know if I can deal with one more needy guy in my life right now. *sigh* Some times it sucks being so friendly and approachable. I feel like I’m everybody’s mom. I guess I can blame being slightly irked about this on “Aunt Flo”. (Or is that TMI *wink* *wink*) But sometimes I wish I was a dignified, frosty goth ice queen and could keep everyone at a distance. (But deep down I love it. I’d feel like I was missing out on things if people didn’t want to talk to me.)

Ho hum. Busy week working. I’m trying to get in some overtime to work on a weeding project this week. Then we’re off to Academie of the Rapier this weekend. A whole weekend of cooking and swishy pokey *hooray*!

Got my mid-year eval. today (yeah, I know it’s almost November). Doing pretty well. The boss seems happy with everything and it looks like he’s going to work out a weekend rotation schedule for next year. Things are looking up!

We had a nice time at the Ren. Fest (and Artisan’s Marketplace *sigh*). I asked Rasheedah from work to join us and she said she had a lot of fun. So it was us, Rasheedah, Brett and Pam. We all fit in one car. The event is quite big. There are about eight stages and shows run on heavy rotation so you can catch them throughout the day.

The good parts: The fest looked nice. The crowds were very civil and laughed at the right places. It was nice to see families and friends all out enjoying the day. The weather stayed cool and dry. It was overcast, but nice for walking around.

The not-so-good parts: Commercialism and historical innaccuracy. Maybe I’m spoiled by my thinking back to the days of my youth and the PA Ren. Faire, but there is no attempt to do anything historical. There is a generic King Edward who seems amiable enough, but everyone is a mishmash of styles, countries and accents. I miss Shakespeare and Raleigh and Queen Bess (I guess we should go to Roanoke for real history). It seems like the whole thing is about shops and begging. Some of the performers went so far as to work the begging right into the show, no longer just a pass the hat at the end, but spend 10 minutes of stage time panhandling the audience.

I noticed that most of the shops are selling stuff I can make for myself, or “Renaissance” tchotkes I don’t want. The nice stuff I would like is SO expensive. Oh, well, I guess that’s just a fact of life.

IRL, Tom’s mom is now staying at the Greensburg Personal Care Center. We hope it’s just temporary while she recuperates. Mike says she’s doing OK and settling in, but getting her to go and picking the right place was really difficult. Poor guy. I wish we could have done more to help.

And I said I would NOT dance the stupid, awful Chicken Dance at my wedding…UNLESS the BareNaked Ladies came and performed it live for me.

We got the BareLaked Nadies video and concert DVD from Netflix and what do I see during the live performance of One Week, but the BareNaked Ladies performing the stupid, awful Chicken Dance live (but not at my wedding, thankfully). Truly a “blue feather” moment as Tom would say (read Illusions by Richard Bach). I am again humbled by the amazingness of the world at large.

SCA meeting tonight. Should be fun and pretty relaxed as we have no big event looming (*sigh*).

Going to the Carolina Ren. Fest this weekend (if everyone doesn’t cop out on us). Looks to be a fun time and it definitely won’t be too hot. I made a partlett to go with my striped linen middle class Elizabethan. I think I’ll finally be respectable enough to go out in public.

Work continues. We’re waiting for the budget to come. Ho Hum.