Hell of a Night

Well, she did it! The lovely and talented Certifiable Princess not only stayed up through the entire night Saturday night, but as part of Blogathon 2006, gave us a post every 30 minutes. Dayum!

All of this staying up & blogging was in support of Pediatric AIDS research, and was also a loving tribute to her best friend Norman; a beautiful soul who died of AIDS-related complications.

I'm not quite as hardy as Kentucky Girl, who stayed up through the whole thing with her, and Jodi, who stayed up almost the whole time, but I got to be a small part of it, by checking in with CP whenever I could, & chatting (over IM) with her, to help her stay awake. We talked about whatever struck us at the moment, and one of our conversations even became part of a post!

Her efforts raised $1240 for her chosen charity, too - not a bad day & night's work! :-) Yay, CP!

Still Here

I'm still here. Or rather, there. But I'll be back on normal hours very soon.

Gotta tell you about what I saw as I waited at the school gate for the person who was letting me in this weekend. (He gave me a key after that, but we both think I shouldn't have to be there to need to use it. Still, it was a nice gesture).

Okay, so as I'm sitting there, I see flashing lights way down at the other end of the road. (I'm off the road, in the school entrance driveway, so no problem there). I hear the siren, and the funky horn those emergency vehicles have, and as they get closer, I see the EMS truck going as fast as it can & honking the horn like crazy, at the pickup truck in front of it, whose driver apparently thought that it made more sense to try to outrun the paramedics than to pull the fuck over.

Asshat. He finally pulled over, at the other end of the road by the light, and the EMS truck went on its way. I hope they got his tag#, but they were probably a little busy trying to get somewhere to save someone's life. But that guy'll get his. Karma, baby.

Still Kicking

Just wanted to pop in and let you all know that I'm still alive. ;-)
Still working crazy hours, at my lovely office space, but things are slowly coming together.
Only two more weeks to go until I get back to more normal hours, and then maybe a couple
of weeks after that for things to settle down to normal business during those hours. Yay!

So it's a couple more weeks before I can get back to reading my favorite blogs, or playing my beloved Guild Wars - which has a pre-release event for the 3rd "chapter" (Nightfall) coming up, and I didn't know anything about it until a friend mentioned it by e-mail. So now I know I've been away from my alone-time fun for too long! But for now, what free time I can manage is for spending with my girls, and trying to keep the house looking like humans live in it. ;-p

So that's that. I hope all of you are having wonderful fun! :-)

Home Away From Home

For the next two weeks, I'll be spending a lot of time in my office, so I thought I'd show you what my little space looks like. :-)




<<-- This is the view from my desk chair.













This is my Happy Corner ---->>








and below are the bulletin board behind my desk, and the other corner of the room.












So now you know where I am spending WAY too much time for the next few weeks, until we get back to school, and everyone is scheduled & settled in...

Happy Thoughts Needed

The unsinkable Certifiable Princess needs a little help staying afloat just now.
Between the lymphoma scare with her son and the worries about her husband's family, our girl is having a rough time of it. All she asks is that we send whatever good thoughts, prayers, wishes - whatever form of good Karma we have available to us - their way. I'm on it, along with so many of her other blogworld and "real" world friends. Please join us. Thanks.

**EDIT: Hooray! Nick is fine - no cancer whatsoever!!!

Let's Do The Time Warp Again

CP's comment the other day about not dressing up for a movie since the Rocky Horror Picture Show reminded me of my very first RHPS experience. And it was an experience!

I was 16 and well, let's just say I didn't get out much. My girlfriend D invited me to go into Boston to see this show with her and some other friends. She didn't tell me much about it, just that there was music in it, and that people would dance in the theater aisles during the songs, and also that we had to go shopping for some things to bring with us. She explained how these things were mostly for us to throw (in the theater!), during specific lines or scenes. Rice for the wedding scene, toilet paper when the guy said "Great Scott!", bread when they made a toast, & we had water guns for when it rained.

Okay, so I knew this was going to be very different from other movies I'd been to. I just didn't know how different!

So we got there and found some seats, and I was amazed at all the crazy outfits people were wearing, and at just how many people were there. D explained that there were people who knew this show inside out, and came to see it regularly, and so knew all the responses, and the songs & dances that went with it. And yes, they dressed for it.

Oh boy, did they dress for it. And there was a small group of actors, who play out the scenes on the stage under the movie screen, during the same scenes of the movie. So all your lead characters are right there in person. (Not Tim Curry & Co. - local people). Now, you know how the movie starts with the big lips, and the explanation that anyone who has not yet seen the show is a Virgin? The characters also explained that, and asked who in the audience was virgin. Naturally, the group I was with (rowdy gits, the lot of them!) were all pointing to me.

So the actors wander into the audience to play with us, and who comes sauntering up to me? The Tim Curry character - the lead guy, all decked out in drag & makeup. He sat on the back of the seat in front of me, looked at me, and screeched, "Virgin?". Yikes & Egads!!!! I was quite shy, and had never before seen a guy in drag, not even in a movie (cable was new then), and here was one in person, and not just in drag, but in skimpy lingerie, less than a foot away from me! All I could do was stare back at him, probably with my mouth open. Then he shook my hand, & in his normal, deep, man voice, told me "Have a nice time, enjoy the show." Um. Okay.

The show was fun, though the movie storyline is seriously sick and twisted. Still, I think every high school kid (or maybe college kid if they're as "sheltered" as I was), should go see this show at least once in their lives. Not just the movie - 'cause I've seen it that way, and it just isn't the same as the stage show. You've gotta see it with the audience participation. It's quite an experience.

Whoa! Goosebumps...

Okay, remember back in this post, when I went with my girlfriend T to see a psychic?
The only thing in my reading that I really didn't see lining up was a weekend trip:

She asked me if there was anything being planned, and as it happens, my birth family and I have been discussing a quick trip over Thanksgiving. I told her that, but she said that this was before that. She was quite sure of that. Dunno about that, 'cause I hate to travel...

Remember that?

So, last night my sister called me from Massachusetts, and asked what I'm doing that first weekend in August. She's coming to Florida with her daughter, and spending about 5 days at Disney. She wanted to know if I could drive down there & see them that weekend. Now, the Friday of that weekend is the first day of school for my kids, and the Monday is the beginning of their first full week, and my job is heavily involved with putting schedules together for the kids who show up those days who haven't registered yet, so we can't really take any days off.
SO, I agreed to drive down on Saturday morning, and we'll go to a park that day, then stay overnight, and play in the pool Sunday morning, then we'll go home & they'll go to another park.

Then I put her on the phone with my daughter, so they could talk about the trip, & choose which park we'd go to.

And that's when it hit me. A weekend trip, with family, definitely before Thanksgiving. Whoa.

Oh yeah - I'm absolutely going back to see that psychic lady again. 'Cause even if it's all hooey, it's damn good hooey. Word.

Pirates!

Dead Man's Chest is coming out at the theaters - yippee!!!
My girls and I are looking forward to seeing two of our favorite boys in action!
It's not just them making the Pirates movie(s) so great, of course - Keira Knightley is fantastic, as are so many of the other cast members; the stories are fun, and the sets are fabulous.
This is one of the few movies we are willing to go to the theater for - everything else, we wait for the DVD. But as far as we're concerned, Pirates, Star Wars, LOTR, and Harry Potter movies must be watched on the big screen. :-)

**EDIT: Went to see it last night! It was fun! Not as good as the first one, but still fun, and it set up the third one, so you just know there's more coming (even though we already knew).
And now I know why we only go to matinees, and only for our favorites - the theater lobby was insane, and people were cranky and rude. BUT - and this is a new one for me - there were also so many people there to see the movie, dressed up as pirates & wenches. One (grown) person even had her Jack Sparrow doll with her! It was like a Trekkie convention, but with Pirates. Too funny!

Yep, That's About Right...

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A Nasty Surprise

Well, that was fun.

When I got up this morning & turned on the hot water, I discovered that there wasn't any hot water. Looked out the window & saw a stream of water running down my driveway. Uh-oh.
My water heater is in the attic space above my garage. I had visions of water dripping from the ceiling in my garage. Not good.

As it turns out, the water line from the wall to the utility sink had popped, and was running water all over the (concrete) garage floor. Oh joy. But at least it was there and not above.
So I turned off the water & cleaned up the garage as much as I could - the rest will have to air dry - there's a box fan out there, just spinning its little heart out.

I'll have to go back out later & change the plumbing setup, but it was so gross & sticky out this morning that I'll wait until it's either less humid, or cooler. Or just before I'm going to take a shower.

So. How's your Sunday going?

Weekend at the Monastery

HaHa!!
It's not what you're thinking.

This weekend Guild Wars has a Factions only event:

(from guildwars.com)

Dragon Festival Begins!

30 June 2006

The Dragon Festival has begun, and players now are seeing a lantern-bedecked Shing Jea Monastery in a whole new light. NPC's are inviting visitors to participate in a novel form of PvP, to undertake new quests, and to try their hand at various carnival games. There are new wares in the collectors' stores, and a special event memento – a dragon mask – can be obtained from Emperor Kisu himself. You may have read some of the event details a few days ago. But that was really only the tip of the rice cake as to what you will experience now, on Shing Jea Island, during The Dragon Festival. Come join us in the celebration!

So now you know where I'll be when I'm not hanging with friends or watching fireworks this weekend. :-)